The World Cup has begun and the first match will be played right here in New Jersey on Saturday.

It's been years of preparation in the works.

Will it pay off?

Hi everyone, I'm Joanna Gagas.

This is Reporters Roundtable.

We've got a panel of journalists here with us to break down everything that's happened in this last week of New Jersey news.

Let's meet our panel.

We have first up John Wright Meyer, budget and finance writer for us here at NJ Spotlight News.

We have Daniel Han, reporter for Politico NJ, and Brent Johnson, politics reporter with NJ advanced media.

Well, we've seen and heard from the administration everything they're doing to ensure that there's a singular flow of traffic, folks going from New York Penn Station into Metife Stadium.

New Jersey residents who are going to the games will also follow some of that same path.

They'll start at Caucus and then get to the stadium.

But it's the redundancy, the contingency plans that have been added on top of that that the states had to put in place to make sure all goes according to plan.

Brent, I want to start with you.

Do we have a sense right now in terms of where NJ Transit stands with numbers of folks who plan on taking the trains to get to the games?

Yeah, we're talking tens of thousands of people.

The stadium sits 82,000 people and most are considered to be to get to the game.

It's expected they'll get there via train mostly from New York City.

We're looking at the majority the vast majority of people.

So that is a lot of people from a lot of different parts of the world meaning you have visitors coming from all over the globe for this.

So this is going to be a very big challenge for uh the state and NJ Transit and Amtrak who runs the the train tracks.

Let me ask you this Brent.

Um, when it comes to concerns around Amtrak and patinary wires and fires that we've seen there, Chris Kori, CEO of NJ Transit, said this week, "We're going to need a bigger boat."

And so, that's what they're doing.

Tell us what's happening with the fairies and and the backups that they've put in place.

Yeah, literally.

Well, they have buses that are going to be back up at the stadium in case anything goes wrong.

And if anyone remembers the 2014 Super Bowl, there was a transit debacle.

people waiting for trains after the game and and and all kinds of uh worry and concern and wondering what was going on.

So, the the the idea is to avoid that here.

So, but one backup plan is they have two feries, two boats that literally would take people from Manhattan's Penn Station over to the stadium if uh if all things go ary.

So, there are backup plans, but it it's uh it's kind of heady to think about what may happen if things do go wrong.

So, this is really the million-dollar question heading into this.

How is transit going to, you know, run for the world's biggest sporting event?

Yeah.

And just to stay on this, you know, the governor said that she didn't want any of this to fall on the the backs of taxpayers, but when we think about all the contingency that's been put in place, if they don't hit the numbers of ridership that they need, does this end up being a cost that taxpayers pay?

That's the question.

Right now, uh, numbers have lagged in terms of ticket sales.

So the big concern is what what does happen if if they don't reach that number.

There's still more time left.

There's eight games over the next six weeks.

So there's time to make up this money.

But that that'll be a big question because that's the other million-dollar question going into this event.

Who uh how much is the state going to be paying for this and spending on this?

Yeah, we're going to be of course diving into those numbers as soon as they become clear.

Uh Daniel, games start on Saturday.

Brazil takes on Morocco.

We've seen some of these tickets sell for hundreds of thousands up to I think $2.3 million a seat.

It's just wild.

Um there have been some efforts though in the legislature to reform the ticketing process.

There's a a bill called the ticket fairness and transparency act.

What can you tell us about that?

Yeah.

So, there has been a lot of controversy around the World Cup ticketing prices.

And that ranges from everything on what's called dynamic pricing, which is when the price of a ticket fluctuates real time based off its uh perceived demand.

You know, you've had 15% fees on resales from uh FIFA is charging a 15% fee for resale tickets, both on the buyer end and on the seller end.

Uh and you see these really high resale prices.

As you just mentioned, there are some tickets that have been posted for as much as $2 million.

So, uh, right now in the legislature, there's been a little bit of a debate over how should New Jersey address the ticketing industry really in response to the World Cup, but which would apply to entertainment tickets for all kinds of events, you know, from spring scene to football.

And as you mentioned, this week there was a uh a bill that was introduced by freshman Assemblyman Kenyatta Stewart.

It would address a lot of the issues I just mentioned.

Um, one provision that I found particularly interesting is that it would it would cap dynamic pricing at 20% of how much a ticket costs or in some cases if it's a public if it's a publicly funded venue like Metife Stadium, there would be no dynamic pricing.

So, I think that this is a really comprehensive bill and sometimes lawmakers will introduce a bill to get a conversation to get a conversation started around an issue and I think that that's what we're seeing here.

I don't expect any quick fixes to ticket pricing regulations and rules in New Jersey um you know within the next two weeks by any means.

Yeah, it doesn't feel like anything that could be a quick fix.

I mean this is an issue that's been a national issue right around ticket master and the pricing with Live Nation.

Um is this something where legislators here in New Jersey, one there could be bipartisan support for this and two can you legislate how it happens just here in New Jersey?

These are global ticket sales, right?

I think there could be an opportunity for some bipartisanship.

I think that sometimes what you see in Trenton when you're talking about regulating business industry is that traditionally Republicans will be like a little bit more handsoff.

They'll side maybe with business groups a little bit more.

And then I think that for a lot of pieces of legislation, you see a little bit of a of a of a divide between Democrats who think that the hand of government should step in to remedy what they see as a problem versus, you know, Republicans who sometimes think that the free market can solve the issues and will of course correct on its own.

Yeah.

Um John, we've got FanFests happening all around the state.

Some in some areas we have what's called Flag City events.

We spoke with Jersey City Mayor James Solomon who's hosting the first one here in New Jersey uh on Friday night.

Um there's going to be watch parties beyond those Flag Cities parties and the question I guess on a lot of folks minds is what impact does this have on New Jersey's economy?

Is this a boom?

Is it a bust?

If you're a betting man or if you're studying the numbers, is there any indication right now if this is a net positive?

Well, I I think some of the early returns suggest some concern.

Right.

You've heard um you know um Brent made some references to soft NJ Transit ticket sales at this point and whether that picks up or not.

You know whether people are buying their tickets last minute, whether they even know how to buy an NJ Transit ticket at this point, you know, we'll have to wait and see if those uh ticket sales pick up.

We've heard reports of soft hotel occupancy um not just in and around the Meadowlands, but also in other uh parts of the state.

We have to remember there are also games being played in Philadelphia which is um right across the Delbury River from South Jersey and it's a big deal in South Jersey.

However, on the other side of that, you do see uh and for all of those people, myself included, who can't afford World Cup tickets, um you you see local businesses, bars and restaurants uh uh hosting different watch parties.

There was some a recent policy change where they're allowed to remain open longer in some cases.

And so this has whether you know um the the really lofty numbers that we heard at different times about the type of economic development that this could generate.

You know those are usually put out by people who are also marketing the event itself.

So you always have to take those with a grain of salt.

But that's not to say that that neighborhood bar that might have a sleepy June picks up business because they're hosting watch parties.

I mean, with uh the New York Knicks playing in the NBA finals recently, you've seen a lot of bars and restaurants picking up business this time of the year in North Jersey because there are a lot of Knicks fans going out to experience this finals um as a group.

And so um you know, there we're there's there's some to be concerned about for sure.

And there's also a real potential for, you know, smaller restaurants and and bars to do pretty well.

Um, and that can all mean, you know, state tax revenue as well because when people are spending their money, inflation's talked about Yeah, John, I want to jump in there because you talked about soft numbers and we did speak with Jim Kirkos who's the head of the Meadowlands Chamber.

um he was helping to coordinate these Flag Cities events and he told us that hotels and hotel occupancy is not at all where they thought it would be where they hoped it would be.

They were hoping to do a lastm minute push but um like you said, you know, how are they getting this information out to folks around the world as to what's available?

Um but I guess my question to you is is it possible to gauge how much of this ends up being just folks in the region, right?

New Jersey residents who come out to watch the games versus international tourists coming to our area.

Can we even measure that?

Well, I think that's a really good point and that's one of the reasons why this loca this area was probably chosen.

I mean, we're in a huge population center and New Jersey is an incredibly diverse state.

So you will have people locally coming out to uh either celebrate their team or or to go to the game or try to go to the game to watch the the team that they root for.

But you also just have you know soccer's popular in New Jersey and you know kids play soccer all over the the state and so there's there have been efforts to kind of grab on to that.

So yeah, I mean I think that's another one of the big questions we're we're waiting to see how this plays out is do we get a lot of international tourism.

You know, it's not been the most hospitable time right now, whether it's for uh visas or just immigration policy in general.

So that's, you know, sort of an undertone to this.

So, you know, lots for us to pay attention to as the next few weeks play out.

That's for sure.

Brent, uh, the state has this new health hub that they launched.

I spoke with the commissioner of the department of health, Rainard Washington, earlier this week.

Um, something maybe, you know, the layman's not thinking about, but are hospitals ready for this influx of people if there are issues around heat or any type of disease that could spread, right?

These are things that we're not thinking of, but the state's got to be ready for it all.

Yeah.

I mean, it's one of the many other things that uh go into this.

It's a very complex, fastmoving, you know, uh, really sprawling tournament.

It goes across North America and we're one of the sites.

We're the central site because we're hosting the final.

So, there's lots of logistics that go into this that people might not be thinking about it.

Hospitals are one of them.

You know, will hospitals be have enough capacity if there if there's a need uh with all the fans coming here.

So, you know, again, the state says it's ready.

Everybody I talked to says that they feel like everything's ready.

You know, there's intangibles that you can't really control, but transit cost, hospitals, those are all things that people are thinking about as we head into this six-week tournament because the thing the finals is not till July 19th.

So, that's another I've also Paul Sarlo told me that the state senator that he thinks there's a little bit of time to get things right because they have few pool play games early on and maybe by the time we get to the final they'll have this all figured out.

Except that the public is not too gracious as we saw with the Super Bowl, right?

when things don't go well, uh I remember the chance of New Jersey, I won't I won't finish it, but um the the public is much less forgiving maybe than legislators are of themselves or or of the administration.

Um Daniel, sticking with the Department of Health, the commissioner visited Delaney Hall recently.

They they issued a report.

Um what can you tell us about their partial oversight visit that they were allowed in Delaney Hall and what they found there?

Yeah, I think it's really important to take a step back here in terms of what we're talking about.

So, Delaney Hall is a 10,00 bed immigration detention center located in Newark, the largest of its kind in New Jersey right now.

And there have been a lot of really disturbing reports around the conditions inside.

You've heard reports of detainees having to eat food with with uh you know, some reports say that there are worms and maggots on the inside.

People are having access to medical care.

And the facility itself has been a little bit of a black box because obviously it's not open to members of the public just to walk in and members of the press have not been able to visit.

And what we've seen is uh members of Congress are able to conduct oversight visits.

Some congressional Democrats walk in and they walk out saying that it's the worst facility they ever seen.

It's disturbing.

They want to shut it down.

And then you see some Republicans who have walked in like Republican Congressman Jeff Andrew.

He walks out and says, "This is a great facility.

everything on everything everything going on in there is a-ok okay and right now the administration is fighting in court to have its health inspectors inspect the entirety of the facility and the health inspectors the state health inspectors were able to do a partial tour inside Delaney hall which really looked at the kitchen and the food service areas and it actually found that the place was satisfactory at least as it relates to those food service areas now the commissioner the commissioner of health is cautioning everybody that it's hard to make any final determinations as to the facility as a whole until state inspectors are are allowed unfettered access to all of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um Brent, I want to bring you back in because you've been on this Delini Hall story for a while now.

We did see earlier this week Miss Rachel came by.

She was singing with kids outside.

Um she was did that in partnership with US Senator Andy Kim.

But can you give us a sense of what it has felt like outside in terms of protest?

Has anything kind of heated up throughout the week?

I feel like the heat was was hotter uh last week when when you had the state police came in and there was questions about whether they used too much force and then Newark police took over and there have been all kinds of clashes between protesters and uh and uh law enforcement.

At one point at the end of last week, um employees of the the private company that runs the facility were trying to get out and protesters were trying to block them.

A car windshield got broken.

So, there's been all kinds of tension there.

I've heard that reports that it's kind of calmed down, but I mean, you know, this is this is a national issue.

You see headlines all over the place about what's going on there.

And uh yeah, it's very tense.

It's tense inside because you have the conflicting reports of what the conditions of the facility are and tense outside because the protests uh have been uh confrontational with law enforcement and vice versa.

So, it's a real it's a real flash point in the ongoing national debate over immigration in this country.

Let me let me ask you this though, Brent.

Um, there was some fallout that we saw from folks, former supporters of of Governor Cheryl, who uh were outraged that she sent in the state police a week out from that, more than a week out from that.

Did that have legs?

Do you think that's going to carry over where where people are still frustrated with how the administration responded?

It was, it's was interesting.

All during her campaign last year, she had social media influencers be a major part of who was covering the campaign.

they uh they would go to events and interview her and now a lot of those who tend to be progressiveleaning uh people and advocates are really upset with her and and and a few advocates have said they feel betrayed they they won't support her anymore.

Uh she said she sent in the state police because um there was a fear ICE was going to surge in the area and that she had to get in front of that.

And also, you know, some officials have said that protesters got went too far ahead and started um uh attacking police officers and you needed some sort of push back.

But yeah, that was a a made one of the biggest controversies so far in her four months as governor.

And I don't know if it has legs.

Curious.

I had one Democrat tell me, you know, where are they going to go?

Where are those people who are those people going to vote for?

Republican next time.

But yeah, there certainly is anger from the left on uh toward her.

She also signed a bill or sorry not signed a bill but appropriated money uh $20 million total to uh legal defense fund for detainees.

Some people saw that as a way for her to to give something back.

Although they though people close to Cheryl say that would have happened anyway.

And Republicans aren't happy about it because they say we're in a budget crunch and we shouldn't be putting money toward those things.

So all kinds of drama when it comes to Delaney Hall.

I I do think that Go ahead.

just talking about the backlash from influencers, which is very real because the Cheryl campaign really tried to platform those influencers.

They were a key part of her campaign communication strategy.

She grants them uh special access and spe special interviews.

But I feel like a lot of the push back that we've seen so far has been limited to influencers and some forces that are definitely on the more progressive or you know further on the further to the left side of these issues.

And we haven't seen any what I would say establishment Democrats, elected Democrats uh really weigh in on this against Cheryl.

I think to the extent we've seen that was New York Mayor Raz Baraka who tried to walk the fine line of saying, "Well, I think Governor Cheryl stepped in and she had to, but I don't I don't like the way the state police handled it."

So, he was he, you know, Mayor Ros Baraka, he's really the most prominent progressive figure in the state or definitely among them.

and he was trying to walk the line of not quite criticizing the governor herself, but criticizing her administration and the state police.

And yeah, he definitely directed that at state police.

That that is for sure.

And he had the New York police take over.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Um John, we're we're talking, you know, ICE immigration really at the heart of all of this.

This is what what started it was we saw the clashes between ICE and protesters outside of Delaney Hall.

It's something we've talked about for a long time now.

Will we see ramped up ramped up ICE efforts around the World Cup?

That time is here.

Uh and it comes just as Congress sent a bill to President Trump's desk that funds ICE and Customs and Border Patrol.

What can you tell us about what was in that bill?

Yeah.

Well, I'm really fortunate to have a our good colleague Ben Hulac down in Washington who's been covering this issue really closely and has done a lot of good reporting.

And so, just, you know, looking at at Ben's re most recent story, you're looking at another $70 billion in fusion for the Department of Homeland Security, which of course um one of the agencies that is part of that is ICE.

And just to put that into context, the entire state budget for New Jersey for the current fiscal year is a little less than 60 billion dollars.

So, um, you're talking about big big money.

Again, just looking at EP's reporting.

Um, this includes over 30 billion for ICE.

Um, another 13 billion for customs and border protection.

And then there's billions more for equipment and training and some other things across the agencies.

So certainly a win for Republicans in terms of in a tight Congress getting this big funding bill finally to the finish line.

But you know, Brent alluded to some of the politics um of this.

And I think as we look ahead to the midterm elections, you know, the president's driving these hardline immigration policies and by all accounts, his popularity is plummeting, including on the issue of im immigration, which is very interesting.

And so if this is going to sustain immigration policies now for the remainder of Trump's term, you know, they may have won this funding battle, but the political consequences could result uh in the Congress shifting, which would have a lot of uh implications for uh the president and and Republicans.

So um sort of an interesting backstory as we watch that issue play out as well.

Yeah, for sure.

And of course we are in midterm season.

Uh I want to pivot for just a minute though and explain something to our audience.

Our audience may or may not know that uh the operation of the NJPBS license will will transfer to a new entity this summer.

It's something we're very aware of here.

There was a request for proposal and the treasurer's office uh confirmed by the governor selected Montlair State University to carry over to take over the operations of the license.

The legislature has until June 22nd to vote to block this if they choose to do so.

Um, and yesterday our former colleague Brenda Flanigan sent in a challenge to Monontlair State University being the bid that was selected to take over the license.

Brent, I want to ask you, what can you tell us about Brenda Flanigan's challenge there?

Yeah, well, long story short, there were there were two competing bids for this.

One was Monontlair State University, which proponents say is cheaper and has uh facilities that that could be used and and and student help and resources from the university.

And then there was a co a coalition of uh of public broadcasters and public media led by former uh NJTV producer Phil Longi.

And the proponents of that plan say it was more robust.

There were more uh staffers who would be on board.

then they'd have more independence since the school uh is appointed by the the school's board is appointed by the governor and the question is which is better.

The thought is that uh the state went with NJPBS in large part because it was the cheaper option.

Uh the school says it ends up MSU.

Yeah.

MSU.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

M. Yeah.

MSU.

Uh because it was the cheaper option.

And so Brenda stepped in and said, you know, this is not the the correct way that there's not going to be independence because it's a public school.

There there might be undue influence from the state.

And she said she called on lawmakers to stop this.

The clock is ticking.

Um but yeah, this determines who will be able to who will run public television for the next five maybe to 15 years.

The school is saying that they will have guard rails in place and that they will do the best that uh to to bring a a good product to people who deserve it.

So, we'll see how this plays out in the coming days.

Yeah, we will.

And it's like you said, the clock is ticking on that.

So, legislators have just a short amount of time to review and act if that is how they choose.

Um, Daniel, you covered a really wild story about fishing, catfishing I should say.

Who thinks of dating and politics as converging in a political report, but they did for you.

Tell us what you found.

Yeah, online dating can be tough these days.

So, basically uh I reported on a story on um in uh in December 2024, then a senior aid to Governor Phil Murphy met a woman on Bumble.

Over the course of five months, they would text, call, go on dates.

He had told me that he thought he met his forever person.

But in a federal lawsuit filed this month, it was revealed that the woman was actually not at all who she said she was.

Uh she's actually a married woman from Florida and she was secretly recording and taping all of their conversations which were eventually posted online by conservative influencer Steven Crowder in what the aid Rob Field says was an attempt to influence the 2025 primary for governor.

That's about as Jersey as it gets, right?

Yeah.

Well, you know, I can't say it happens every day, but there are a lot more details to the story, so I recommend you go to politico.com and check it all out.

Yes.

John, I'm going to give you like 10 seconds to answer this question.

Do you think we'll have a balanced budget in the just over two weeks that it's going to take to get the legislature and the governor to sit down?

Well, the state constitution requires the budget to be balanced.

So, um, unless they, uh, want to run a foul of that, um, I would expect we we would.

And with the pressure of this soccer tournament, I I think they recognize that they need to pass a budget by the deadline.

Yeah.

All right.

We're going to leave it there.

John, Daniel, Brent, thank you so much for being with us today.

You can follow me on Instagram, Joanna Gagasenj, and go ahead and scan that QR code on your screen to see more episodes of Round Table.

On behalf of the entire crew working behind the scenes to put this show together, I'm Joanna Gagas.

Thank you for being with us.

Have a great weekend.