POLITICO Nightly: New Jersey’s wild, relentless, out of control year

BY DUSTIN RACIOPPI ON IMMUNITY — The Supreme Court ruled today that former President Donald Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution for some actions he took as president while fighting to subvert the 2020 election, further complicating efforts to put Trump on trial in Washington on criminal charges. President Joe Biden plans to deliver remarks on the ruling at 7:45 p.m. ET. Read about the decision , and the details of what it will mean for Trump’s outstanding criminal cases . New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy delivers his State of the State address in Trenton, N.J. on Jan. 9. | Matt Rourke/AP ‘NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT’ — New Jersey politics is having a banner year for crazy. Even for a place known for political bossism and nicknamed “the Soprano State” thanks to its public corruption rap sheet, New Jersey has seen enough insanity in the first half of 2024 to make it the wildest year in politics in memory. For months, it’s been piling up relentlessly like traffic to the Jersey Shore on the Garden State Parkway. New Jersey’s senior senator, Bob Menendez, is on his second bribery trial and planning to run for reelection as an independent. New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy flamed out in her bid to replace Menendez earlier this year after a grassroots uprising against the state’s one-of-a-kind ballot design system known as the county line. That came after a betrayal by the Democratic state attorney general — a close friend of Tammy and Gov. Phil Murphy — who opposed “the line” that the first lady was relying on to deliver her to Washington. Rep. Andy Kim rode the wave of angst against the Murphys to become the Democratic nominee and likely next senator. Now influential county party chairs face a reckoning in the courts that could alter the fate of future elections by diminishing New Jersey’s famed Democratic machines. And next week, the unelected leader of one of the state’s most vaunted political machines, George Norcross — brother of Rep. Donald Norcross — is set to be arraigned along with another of his brothers and other associates on racketeering charges . George Norcross, until recently a card-carrying member of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, so embodies a bygone style of political aggression that he showed up to the press conference announcing the indictment against him and glowered at the state attorney general from the first row. It might be symbolically fitting amid all this upheaval that one of the nation’s largest transportation networks, NJ Transit, seems to have kicked off “Summer of Hell 2” by stranding riders in extreme heat just before jacking up fares on them by double digits. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Hetty Rosenstein, a 40-year veteran of New Jersey politics and former head of the state chapter of Communications Workers of America. “I’m thinking, what else is next? Every day [is] something new.” The intensity of political news has been so strong that the indictment last week of a former state lawmaker in a federal kickback scheme seemed relatively vanilla but appropriate for a year that’s also seen a mayor and his wife charged with child abuse and a political operative charged with voter fraud . “NJ needs one slow news day pls,” Terrence T. McDonald, a former colleague and editor of the nonprofit newsroom New Jersey Monitor, posted on X once that indictment reached inboxes . What’s remarkable about this moment is not just the volume of events, but the players involved and the potential ramifications. The county line system stands alone in American politics: It gives a couple dozen county chairs of both parties inordinate influence because they can effectively choose which candidates get favorable ballot treatment. Critics argue “the line” is precisely what’s helped keep people like Menendez and Norcross in power despite their alleged misdeeds over the years. Rosenstein has been fighting for decades to do away with the county line system, and now, finally, sees a possible end to it. “Certain power structures really are now threatened,” Rosenstein said, even as she added that more needs to be done. “We can make change in the state, but we have to demand more ethical behavior.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at dracioppi@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @dracioppi .   Understand 2024’s big impacts with Pro’s extensive Campaign Races Dashboard, exclusive insights, and key coverage of federal- and state-level debates. Focus on policy. Learn more.     WHAT'D I MISS? — Supreme Court opens door to ‘tsunami’ of regulatory challenges: The Supreme Court today opened the door for more companies to challenge years-old regulations on procedural grounds , with a 6-3 majority ruling that a North Dakota truck stop could sue the Federal Reserve for a 2011 rule governing debit card swipe fees. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the process by which new regulations must be adopted, there is a six-year statute of limitations. But the store in question in this case, Corner Post, did not open for business until 2018, raising the question of when the clock starts.  Have MAGA GOP done ANYTHING ELSE for Americans?  — House GOP sues Garland over Biden-Hur audio: House Republicans are suing Attorney General Merrick Garland for audio of former special counsel Robert Hur’s 2023 interview with President Joe Biden. The lawsuit, filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is a dramatic, but unsurprising, escalation of Republicans’ weekslong standoff with the administration over the recordings. Top GOP investigators and Speaker Mike Johnson had signaled they would take the battle to court. MANY of the JAN 6 DOMESTIC TERRORISTS had reduced sentences that ignored their violence and their previous criminal records  ..... — Justice Department eyeing ways to sustain obstruction cases against Jan. 6 defendants: Federal prosecutors began signaling today that they may attempt to salvage dozens of felony cases they’ve leveled against Jan. 6 defendants, even after a Supreme Court ruling seemed poised to upend them. It’s a sign the Justice Department does not view last week’s ruling from the high court as a blanket rejection of their efforts to apply a 20-year-old obstruction law — a vestige of the Enron financial crisis — against hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol in 2021 in Donald Trump’s name. NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024 OVERSEAS ANGST — The United States’ chief diplomat defended Biden’s standing on the world stage today, saying that his shaky performance at last week’s debate does not erase three and a half years of diplomatic achievements and that the U.S. president is very much fit to lead. The comments by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, one of Biden’s closest aides, echoed a line that has been frequently used by Biden allies since Thursday night as they have sought to dismiss the president’s disastrous debate performance: It was just one bad night. “If you look at surveys around the world — for what they’re worth — you see again and again and again that confidence in American leadership has gone up dramatically over the last three and a half years,” Blinken said. “That doesn’t just happen. It’s the product of choices, it’s the product of policies that we pursue, it’s the product of our engagement.” Blinken’s comments during a Brookings Institution event seemed aimed at foreign leaders who are concerned about Biden’s ability to serve as a global leader for the next four years. ASK THE EXPERTS — With Democratic strategists gaming out whether Biden should withdraw from the race — or if there’s a way he can get back on track and still beat Trump — POLITICO Magazine reached out to a group of top political thinkers with a question. After Biden’s debate performance, what advice would you give to the president, his inner circle or the Democratic Party about what to do next? Read their answers here . AROUND THE WORLD Demonstrators in Paris take part in a rally against the far-right after the announcement of the results of the first round of parliamentary elections on Sunday. | Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images PAST AND FUTURE — France is one step away from electing a far-right government for the first time in the modern republic’s history. The first round of voting on Sunday put Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party in the lead, ahead of the left-wing alliance, with President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist coalition lagging behind in third place. On Sunday July 7, voters will go back to the polls to make their final decisions. At stake is not just the future make-up of the French parliament, but the stability of the EU’s second biggest economy and the political strength of NATO and the European Union. The French electoral process is complex and party leaders are urgently trying to work out how to game the system to deliver their preferred outcome. With many races going to the July 7 runoff — which can include any candidates from round 1 who got over 12.5 percent of the vote — there’s pressure among left or center-left candidates who are lagging to drop out in order to consolidate their voting blocs. For Macron and his allies, the choice is particularly painful: cling to the hope that voters might back his liberal offer, or bow to reality and throw his party’s support behind left-wingers in an attempt to stop the far right taking power. Read what will happen next in France here .   SUBSCRIBE TO GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Don’t miss out on POLITICO’s Global Playbook, our newsletter taking you inside pivotal discussions at the most influential gatherings in the world. Suzanne Lynch delivers the world's elite and influential moments directly to you. Stay in the global loop. SUBSCRIBE NOW .     NIGHTLY NUMBER $4.7 billion The amount of money that Boeing — on the verge of facing criminal charges — will pay to buy Spirit Aerosystems , in a move the company argues will increase safety on planes. Boeing previously owned Spirit. RADAR SWEEP GAME OF CLICKS — In the midst of the Game of Thrones craze, in which people would wait with baited breath for every new episode and then run to the internet to consume more content about the show, huge swaths of the media leapt at the topic. Anything tagged or titled “Game of Thrones” or something adjacent would get a remarkable number of readers . It didn’t really matter if it was well written, argued or produced. So as the show went on, and an increasingly more diverse array of outlets chased those Game of Thrones clicks, the content suffered. It was a monocultural show crashing into a dying online media ecosystem desperate to survive. For The Verge, Kevin Nguyen looks back at the era, what it did to the media and why we might never find such a traffic driver again. PARTING IMAGE On this date in 1958: Alaskans celebrate news that the Senate voted to admit the territory as the 49th state with a bonfire in Anchorage. Alaska officially became a state on Jan. 3, 1959. | AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   FOLLOW US

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