Republican U.S. Senate frontrunner Rik Mehta strongly condemns Democrat Senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez for cutting four New Jersey counties out of critical financial relief during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“Cory Booker and Bob Menendez’s complete indifference for our public health pandemic continues to sicken New Jersey,” Mehta said. Their decision to leave four New Jersey Counties (Sussex, Warren, Hunterdon, and Salem) off of the $2 trillion-dollar federal emergency stimulus package is immoral and unacceptable. This money would provide a lifeline to these struggling communities where COVID-19 infections continue to rise and economic hardships plague future recoveries.”

New Jersey has 21 counties and by excluding these four counties, emergency stimulus funding will only reach 17 of them.

“Not ironically, these four counties are Republican strongholds. The Democrat Party of New Jersey has once again betrayed the trust of the people and left them with nothing to save them from the bite of bankruptcy so many of them are facing,” Mehta said.

“Their claim that the over $82 million in grants are meant to ‘assist communities on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak’ neglects the fact that the four Republican-majority counties they excluded from aid have so far recorded 614 positive COVID-19 cases and 18 deaths as of Sunday morning.”

For context, New Mexico has 589 cases and 11 deaths, Arkansas has 743 cases and 14 deaths, Kansas has 698 cases and 21 deaths, Montana has 281 cases and 6 deaths, and Minnesota has 865 cases and 24 deaths. All five states received millions in recovery dollars whereas northwest New Jersey received none.

Booker and Menendez, who is a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, were involved in negotiating the deal which will deliver life-saving financial aid to ailing workers, small businesses, and healthcare facilities that have been serving our public on the frontlines during this devastating pandemic.

“Instead of making sure these vital four communities were taken care of back home, Booker and his fellow liberal elitist cronies were busy lobbying for funding for the Kennedy Center in D.C.,” Mehta said. “This is par for the course for Booker who has earned a reputation for his extensive absence from his own home state.”

During his time as Mayor of Newark, Booker was nowhere to be found while the city infected millions with contaminated lead water and endangered tens of thousands of children.

“It’s clear that Booker’s Democrat Party will stop at nothing to achieve its selfish vainglorious aims; this time politicizing a public health pandemic. New Jersey needs checks and balances among its two U.S. Senators. It’s time for New Jerseyeans to put policy over politics and fire Cory Booker for all our sakes,” said Mehta.