In her rejoinder to President Donald J Trump’s State of the Union, Michigan Governor Gretchen

Whitmer gave a shout out to New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.

Allotted ten minutes to speak following Trump’s address, Whitmer identified those areas where Democrats are making strides on behalf of real people.

As part of a litany of examples, she cited Murphy, who was hit last year with the Newark water crisis.

“Phil Murphy is replacing lead pipes in New Jersey,” Whitmer declared.

In 2019, InsiderNJ columnist Alan Steinberg cited Whitmer as a possible running mate for former Vice President Joe Biden, who appears to have suffered a stinging loss last night in Iowa.

Steinberg wrote the following about Whitmer:

She has received national acclaim over the past 24 hours for her announcement that she will, by executive action, ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes in Michigan. Vaping has become a national youth health crisis, severely affecting teen-agers, and Governor Whitmer will become the first governor in the nation to issue such a ban.

Her action displayed admirable decisiveness, and her statement in announcing the ban will resonate nationally: ““Companies selling vaping products are using candy flavors to hook children on nicotine and misleading claims to promote the belief that these products are safe, That ends today.”

There is something about Gretchen Whitmer that I find, at least on the surface, extremely endearing. She is married to her dentist, Marc Mallory, and the joke was that she wasn’t under anesthesia when she accepted his marriage proposal. It is the second marriage for both, and they strongly emphasize their blended family of her two daughters and his three sons.

Earlier in the evening, New Jersey’s senior and junior senator sat by side in the House chamber as they listed to the president’s speech.

Menendez – who last year conquered a retired Republican big pharma executive – could be seen incredulously shaking his head when Trump talked about lowering drug prices.

The senior senator later released a full response to the State of the Union.

Menendez’s full statement:

“Tonight, President Trump had an opportunity to show the American people that he understands right from wrong, and he failed.  He failed to display any contrition for what even some Republicans have called “inappropriate” actions — soliciting foreign interference in our election, subverting our national security interests and undermining our democracy.  He failed to demonstrate that he’s learned anything about the rule of law, our system of checks and balances, and what it means to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

“Having sat through three of this president’s State of the Union addresses, I know that even the most divisive and dangerous President in American history can deliver a State of the Union address that talks about unity, bipartisanship, and problem-solving.

“More importantly, having lived through the last three years under this president, American families understand that the words Donald Trump reads from the teleprompter rarely reflect their reality. Instead, they’ve endured three long years of Twitter rages, broken promises, and all-out assault on their economic and health security.

“So, the President can pretend he’s fighting to make sure Americans have the ‘best’ health care, even as his administration does everything it can to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, argues in federal court to eliminate protections for patients with pre-existing conditions, pushes to gut Medicare and Medicaid, and cut funding to the CDC in the face of a coronavirus outbreak.

“President Trump can talk about a soaring stock market and massive tax breaks, even as working families struggle under the weight of rising housing, health care and child care costs, and crushing student loan debt.

“President Trump can say he wants to make strong investments in our aging infrastructure, even as he single-handedly stands in the way of completing the nation’s most critical transportation project—Gateway.

“President Trump can talk about putting America first, even as he emboldens our enemies and alienates our allies, sends farmers into bankruptcy with his trade war, and leaves us flat-footed in the face of unprecedented challenges like climate change.

“President Trump can talk about a great American comeback, yet it is up us — the American people – to bring our nation back from the damage he has wrought to our constitutional system of checks and balances and to secure a brighter future.”