Governor Phil Murphy this afternoon criticized Republican members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-2), who he said are “unabashedly working to undermine our constitutional norms.”

Kicking off his COVID-19 briefing at the War Memorial, Murphy lingered on Van Drew, who last year changed parties and won reelection as a President Donald J. Trump-backing Republican.

“Throwing his fate in with crackpot theories,” Murphy said of the South Jersey GOP congressman. “If that’s the legacy Jeff wants, it is what it is.”

The Democratic governor upbraided Van Drew and those other members of congress standing by  President Trump, who over the weekend placed a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger pressuring the official to “find” the votes he would need to reverse the election outcome in the state.

“An American president sitting in the Oval Office working the phones to subvert democracy for his personal benefit,” Murphy said. “Congress meets this Wednesday to accept the vote of the electoral college and thankfully there are enough Republicans to prevent the fevered dreams of a small band of right-wing extremists from succeeding. The voters have spoken. The courts have spoken.

“They just can’t except that their guy lost decisively,” the governor added. “It pains me in particular to see one of our own representatives cynically siding with conspiracy theorists.”

He praised former Governor Christie Todd Whitman and Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick (R-21) for speaking out against Trump’s excesses and ongoing routine subversion of the democratic process.

“But we’ve lost something greater when simply acknowledging the will of the people is considered courageous and shame on those who have not found any semblance of courage,” Murphy said.

A Van Drew ally issued a response.

“It’s good to see Phil Murphy taking a break from killing seniors in nursing homes and destroying our friends and neighbors’ livelihoods long enough to refer to hundreds of thousands of his constituents as crackpot conspiracy theorists simply because they want to have the confidence he continues to deny them in the outcome of our elections,” said Van Drew’s Campaign Manager Ron Filan. “As stated in his recent Save Jersey Op-Ed, Congressman Van Drew has been clear from day one that his opposition to certifying the results of the Electoral College isn’t about who won or lost the Presidency, but rather a rejection of the status quo and a no confidence vote in politicians like Phil Murphy who rather dismiss Americans as naive, stupid, or conspiracy theorists in comments exactly like the one he gave today rather than doing the job they were elected and continually fail to do.”

Trump’s bullying, hour-long call has sparked a firestorm of debate within the legal community about the implications of a president trying to steal an election by prodding an official to change what for Trump was an unfavorable outcome.

Check out with InsiderNJ legal analyst Joe Hayden has to say about it here.

“We won the state,” Trump said on the phone call to Raffensberger, in reference to the state he lost in the Nov. 3rd presidential election. “Flipping the state is a testament to our country. You know, it’s a testament that they can admit to a mistake or whatever you want to call it. A lot of people think it wasn’t a mistake.”

At his COVID-19 press conference today, Murphy said he did not listen to the entirety of the hour-long phone call the President placed to the Georgia Secretary of State. Regarding that part of the mostly one-sided conversation he did hear, “I was appalled,” said the governor. “It literally takes your breath away.”