WASHINGTON TWP. – State Senator Mike Doherty (R-23) sat down this week in his home town with InsiderNJ to consider President Donald J. Trump, the Helsinki Press Conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the U.S. Senate and House contests, and the state budget process and his own political future.

Doherty is the former state director for the 2016 Trump for President campaign and regarded as the most conservative member of the New Jersey State Senate.

INSIDERNJ: How about that press conference this week?

DOHERTY: I think Trump is correct in taking on the military industrial complex, which has essentially seized control of our country. He has two major themes that he worked on as a candidate and now as president. One is the endless foreign wars that the U.S. has been involved in have been a tremendous waste of lives and money and the United States has gotten nothing out of this except $21 trillion dollars in debt and a crappy infrastructure. He talked about how the deindustrialization of the United States and sending our factories overseas has not benefited our people. So I remain optimistic that he is working on those issues. I think major nuclear powers should be talking to each other. The idea that we’re not, that’s crazy. I don’t know that it matters what Donald Trump says. It’s his actions of trying to deconstruct the military industrial complex and trying to take down the banker oligarchy that is trying to seize control of the U.S. that has garnered him the wrath of the insiders. We were sold out. We were sold out by the Bushes, by the Clintons and by Obama entering into these globalist economic networks that have resulted in Americans’ wages being less now than they were 20-30 years ago and these wars that do nothing but enrich the military industrial complex. Trump’s taking all of that on, and those folks who have made a lot of money for the last 70 years. They have their mouthpieces in Washington, D.C., both in office and in the media, and so you can bet your bottom dollar they’re going to be attacking Trump every step of the way. I think he remains the best option at this point for real Americans in the middle class, main street Americans. The United States has become Wall Street America, run by Wall Street for the benefit of Wall Street, and it’s been to the detriment of Main Street and the Middle class and so Trump continues to be a champion for those people and I support him.

INSIDERNJ: What about him appearing to accept the perspective of Putin over that of the U.S. Intelligence community?

DOHERTY: He’s not a career politician or a career diplomat and maybe he didn’t say things as clearly as he intended to. I do think he has a healthy skepticism about the intelligence community. You have to remember: this is the intelligence community that stated that the Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred back in the 1960s that led to the ramp up of Vietnam when in retrospect it never occurred. It led to 58,000 Americans dying. This is the intelligence community that said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which led to the Iraq war. So the intelligence community needs to be challenged. And perhaps he’s passionate about this issue because he feels he’s on the dirty end of the stick regarding the Russian dossier that was advanced by U.S. Intelligence. There does seem to be a permanment group of folks who do run Washington, D.C., regardless of who gets elected to control Congress or who gets elected as president, and I think he’s frustrated with that. He’s trying to get things done and these folks are standing in his way. So I think what you saw was a little bit of frustration, maybe a little of his humanity coming out – but his overall policy of speaking to Russia – that’s a really good thing. We spoke to the Soviet Union and I viewed the Soviet Union as a lot more dangerous for the U.S. than Russia, a country with about 140 million people and a GDP the size of Italy. Nobody is threatened by Italy but apparently the military industrial complex needs a bogeyman. Trump has an accurate historical perspective that it takes two to tango and that although Russia is doing certain things we don’t like and not totally appropriate, does the U.S. have a Central Intelligence Agency with a goal of gatheruing intelligence on other countries, of spying on other countries, of interfering in elections, of funding non-governmental entites in other countries to affect the policy of those countries? Is that true or false? The U.S. has been very aggressive in trying to influence events in other countries so the idea that we’re shocked that China, North Korea and Russia would return the favor and find out what’s going on in the U.S., I’m a little incredulous that people are shocked. If the U.S. does it, why wouldn’t we expect other countries to do it? The other thing is all through 2016, Barack Obama said Russia was having no influence, so why the sudden change when Donald Trump was suddenly elected? Now we have all this moral outrage. I think a lot of it is sour grapes from the Hillary Clinton gang, people who can’t accept that they were outsmarted, outhustled and outworked and defeated by Donald Trump. Now they have to have some kind of face-saving justification. I also think the best defense is a good offense and so the Russian narrative of the Russian dossier, they’re sort of covering their tracks because there’s some evidence the DNC, Hillary Clinton and John McCain were all involved in paying for this Russian dossier and putting it in the hands of media and intelligence actors.

INSIDERNJ: How do you see all this playing out in New Jersey elections?

DOHERTY: I think all elections are about demographics. The demographics obviously favor Bob Menendez in this year’s senate race. I think Bob Hugin is smart to talk about some of Menendez’s corruption. I think Hugin is smart to play up his Marine/military background. I think the fact that he was a businessman and cereated jobs, I think that can inure to his benefit. I think he needs to define his foreign policy views. I haven’t seen a lot of that. I think if he went along with Donald Trump’s foreign policy views, I think that could be successful. I think Democrats and Republicans alike don’t like all these foreign wars. They don’t see the point of them. He needs to be attentive to his base on some of the social issues, though. He needs to be careful trending on that ground.

INSIDERNJ: Safe to say you’d look at backing him if he backed Trump’s foreign policy agenda as ardently as he has shied away from the conservative social agenda?

DOHERTY: For me the jury’s still out. I need to see a little bit more. You mention [independent Senate candidate] Murray Sabrin. He has reached out, Murray is pro-life and Murray is strong government libertarian. I’m hoping Bob Hugin comes around. My constituents tend to be somewhat conservative on guns and on the pro -life issue. So for me to support Bob Hugin, it wouldn’t be good if he comes out and does a major bash on Donald Trump and totally disagrees with his foreign policy. That would be problematic. He’s already on my radar screen regarding the social issues and walking away from those. I think you need to be careful.

INSIDERNJ: What happens in CD7?

DOHERTY: Anybody who follows Leonard Lance knows there’s not a harder-working congressman out there. He’s at every event. People have a personal conection with Leonard Lance. Kim Guadagno won the district by 14 percentage points last year. Leonard will do much better than that. His personal connections will inoculate him from any attacks. People know him and see him. I think Leonard is in very good shape.

INSIDERNJ: The budget contained some school funding revamps. You’ve been on that issue for years.

DOHERTY: It’s interesting. Steve Sweeney’s district is very much like mine. It’s a rural district that was left behind economically. I’ve spoken with Steve Sweeney many times about these great disparities in school funding and he agrees with me. This stuff needs to be reconciled. The last two budgets are moving in the right direction. No school aid for schools with 30% rising population, that trend is starting to end.

INSIDERNJ: Did the Democrats overreach on this budget?

DOHERTY: Yeah, it sort of feels like the McGreevey era all over again, where there’s no tax they can’t raise. [Former Governor Jim] Florio famously trotted out the toilet paper tax and now we have – I don’t think it’s been signed into law – but we have the plastic bag tax. What tax can we raise and get away with it? That’s the mindset. If [Governor Phil] Murphy had his way he would have raised the income tax. Nobody said we have to save money. That needs to be part of the discussion.

INSIDERNJ: What about your own political future? Do you see a statewide run anytime soon?

DOHERTY: I haven’t really thought about it a lot. If I had to do it again I would try to get a mentor. My Irish Catholic heritage leads me to be an independent, cantankerous go-it-alone kind of guy. To step up to the next level you sort of need a team of supporters around you. Mentors. Perhaps I’ll have a mentor I’ll develop to help me. That would be nice at this time. I think I have the requisite ability. Any primary race I would be involved with multiple candidates, if I had the backing of pro-life and pro-gun groups, I think I could win. Then in the general election, on blue collar issues I could be more for the working guy than the Democrats.

INSIDERNJ: What’s your morale as a conservative Republican in New Jersey right now?

DOHERTY: Look, Gerald Ford won in ’76, Reagan won in ’80 and ’84 and Bush won in 1988. That was it. No matter what Donald Trump does he’s going to be attacked. Yeah, the SALT deduction elimination, but they never commented on how the standard deduction doubled.

INSIDERNJ: Anything else on your mind?

DOHERTY: I would say one thing about Phil Murphy that I’ve recognized is he has given a lot of opportunity to legislators to be part of his government and I think that is a good trend. That is a marked divergence from the last administration. Murphy giving opportunities to elected officials deepens the bench. The last governor ran very much a closed shop, limiting people because he didn’t want anyone getting statewide exposure. So our bench was not made strong.

INSIDERNJ: Do you plan to read Chris Christie’s book?

DOHERTY: Yeah, I’ll read it.