SOMERSET, NJ – Until Monday, Phil Murphy was the favored winner of the 2021 campaign for governor in New Jersey. At 8 p.m. on Monday night, all of that changed after James O’Keefe, head of Project Veritas dropped a bombshell hidden video from within Phil Murphy’s campaign.
O’Keefe’s video showed Phil Murphy campaign consultant Wendy Martinez admitting in a hidden video interview that Governor Murphy intends to roll out a statewide vaccine mandate after he defeats Ciattarelli next Tuesday. To make matters worse for Murphy, his campaign team has not denied the claim made by Martinez.
From our earlier report, a Phil Murphy campaign staffer who was caught, allegedly on a hidden video by Project Veritas saying Governor Phil Murphy will roll out a mandatory vaccination order after next Tuesday’s election was paid $60,000 by the Murphy campaign according to New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission records.
Wendy Martinez is a paid vendor of the Phil Murphy for Governor campaign, with her L.L.C. (Atabey Consulting) having received more than $60,000 dollars in payment from the campaign thus far. She also serves on a subcommittee of the “Restart and Recovery Advisory Council,” which advises Murphy on COVID policy, state Republicans said today.
That video might be the smoking gun needed to turn around Jack Ciattarelli’s lackluster performance during the 2021 campaign and give him the boost he needs to further narrow the gap between himself and Phil Murphy.
When asked if Phil Murphy would implement vaccination mandates like the ones rolled out by California Governor Gavin Newsom, Martinez said, yes, right after the election.
“He [Murphy] is going to do it [COVID vaccine mandate], but he couldn’t do it before the elections. Because of the independents and the undecided.”
Martinez noted that independent and undecided voters would not pull the lever for Murphy if he rolled out the mandate before the election.
“Because they’re into all that shit,” Martinez added. “My rights. My shit. And they don’t care if they kill everybody.”
When asked again if Murphy will mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for all New Jerseyans after the election, Martinez confirmed, “He will. But right now is about him winning. It will be fine.”
Shortly after the release of the Project Veritas video, the Murphy campaign, instead of addressing the allegation reported an alleged harassment incident with O’Keefe and Murphy campaign staffers in a parking garage.
This morning, Ciattarelli’s campaign responded, not by the candidate himself, but through his campaign spokeswoman Stami Williams.
“If true, this is the ultimate hypocrisy and an appalling lack of transparency,” Williams said. “If this tape is verified, Governor Murphy has a lot of explaining to do.”
The Ciattarelli team has had the ultimate campaign closer fall into their lap just seven days ahead of an election. If Jack and his team can’t capitalize on such a devastating change of events and pull out a win, perhaps he doesn’t deserve to govern New Jersey.
So far, after being given the ball on Murphy’s 5-yard line at the two-minute warning down by six points, Ciattarelli’s team already blew their first down by having a campaign spokesperson instead of the candidate address the issue.
If Ciattarelli’s publicly funded campaign team can’t convert this turnover, they all should consider a career as Uber drivers after the election. We will update this story if Ciattarelli responds personally.
Phil Stilton contributed parts of this report.