Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We have some big breaking news for people in our area just out in the last few minutes. Senator Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat, has been criminally indicted. This just broke a few minutes ago. I'm going to read you most of The New York Times version here. This, I think, will be the first time you're hearing this.

The headline is Senator Robert Menendez is indicted in New York. It says, "Mr. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, was charged six years after his trial in a different corruption case ended in a hung jury." It says he's been charged in a federal corruption indictment. According to authorities this morning, the indictment against Mr. Menendez, a 69-year-old Democrat who leads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, follows a lengthy investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and comes nearly six years, as it said earlier, after his trial on unrelated claims of corruption ended with a hung jury.

The indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court also names the senator's wife of three years, Nadine Menendez, age 56, and a prominent New Jersey real estate developer, Fred Daibes, accusing them of participating in the corrupt scheme. Wael Hana, a longtime friend of Ms. Menendez, who founded a halal meat certification business in New Jersey, was also charged, as was a fifth person, Jose Uribe, a New Jersey businessman.

The Times says it has been known for some time that Mr. Menendez was under federal scrutiny, and he has said he was willing to assist investigators and was confident the matter would be "successfully closed." Representatives for Mr. Menendez and the others could not immediately be reached for comment on the charges, The Times says. The indictment is almost certain to resound in Washington and in New Jersey, yes.

Mr. Menendez is already facing at least one Democratic challenger in his planned run for reelection to a fourth term in the Senate. The Republican mayor of Mendham Borough has also announced that she will compete for the seat. If Mr. Menendez were to step down before the end of his term, New Jersey's Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, would be responsible for appointing a successor.

Mr. Daibes, one of the defendants who pleaded guilty last year to a financial crime and is awaiting sentencing, is among a small group of builders responsible for converting parts of the polluted Hudson River waterfront into a bustling hive of residential and commercial activity. Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James Smith, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York Office, are to announce the charges at a news conference. The charges are not the senator's first encounter with the law.

In 2015, Mr. Menendez was indicted in New Jersey on bribery charges and what federal prosecutors called a scheme between the senator and a wealthy eye doctor to trade political favors for gifts worth close to $1 million, including luxury vacations in the Caribbean and campaign contributions. Mr. Menendez's corruption trial ended in a mistrial in November 2017 after the jury said it was unable to reach a verdict. The judge later acquitted Mr. Menendez of several charges and the Justice Department dismissed the others.

It goes on to say that as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Menendez is one of Washington's most influential Democrats. He climbed there rung by rung quickly, a consummate survivor, it says. The son of Cuban immigrants, he rose to power in Hudson County, a famously rough political proving ground in North Jersey, where he began serving on the school board in Union City as a 20-year-old college student. By 32, he was mayor.

Mr. Menendez won the post after wearing a bulletproof vest to testify against mafia members and a mentor, William Musto, the city's mayor who is convicted of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from a contractor hired to build schools. It goes on to give a little more of Menendez's bio. There's the breaking news. Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey has been indicted on federal corruption charges according to the US attorney in New York. We'll have special coverage or we will have coverage, I should say, later in the show with WNYC's news team as we get more details.

Now, as we head into this weekend, the news is full of stories about the possibility of a federal government shutdown next weekend when the government's fiscal year ends on September 30th. Some House Republicans in the party's most conservative wing want deep spending cuts in general, also no more aid to Ukraine, and tougher border enforcement. There are various scenarios for passing a temporary funding measure known as a continuing resolution as negotiations continue, but there's a big battle taking place in the House over a CR.

The latest PBS headline on this is McCarthy relents to right-flank on spending cuts, but they still deliver a defeat as shutdown looms. The Associated Press builds on that and says, "House Speaker Kevin McCarthy emerged with a spending cut plan to avert a looming federal government shutdown by appeasing his hard right-flank, only to see it quickly collapsed Thursday in a crushing defeat. The next steps uncertain. His latest attempt to move ahead with a traditionally popular defense funding bill as a first step toward keeping the government running was shattered by a core group of Republican colleagues who refuse to vote with the increasingly endangered speaker."

That from the AP. I know this can be as confusing as it is political with various scenarios in play for keeping the government running, items known as single-subject spending bills like that Defense Department one that failed yesterday, or full-budget continuing resolutions that are temporary in nature don't cover the whole fiscal year. Whatever eventually gets done is going to have to be some kind of compromise because the House is controlled by Republicans and the Senate and White House are controlled by Democrats.

NBC is reporting this morning that two House Republicans say they might work with Democrats to fund the government. It says freshmen Marc Molinaro and Mike Lawler of New York's Hudson Valley, north of the city, opened the door to end running Speaker McCarthy and partnering with Democrats if the GOP stalemate persists. It's rare, I'll say by way of background, for the majority of party to need support from the other party to pass bills. It can be considered a kind of disloyalty to team up with the other party for that, so it's politically fraught.

As NBC notes, both Lawler and Molinaro are Republican freshmen who represent swing districts key to controlling Congress in next year's elections, districts that elected them to Congress but voted in the majority for Biden for president. Now, earlier this week, Politico reported that another suburban New York Republican, Andrew Garbarino of Long Island, also might work with Democrats to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open, and he joins us now.

Congressman Garbarino represents New York's 2nd congressional district, the South Shore District from roughly East Massapequa and Nassau County out to East Moriches and Suffolk County, that is it's mostly southern Suffolk County, but not as far out as the Hamptons or Montauk. Andrew Garbarino is in his second term. He's also a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus that also includes Lawler and Molinaro and is co-chaired on the Democratic side by local Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey. Democrat Tom Suozzi, you may remember, was also a member when he represented Long Island's North Shore in the House. Congressman Garbarino, thanks a lot for coming on. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to WNYC.

Congressman Andrew Garbarino: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Brian. Great to be here.

Brian Lehrer: If I can start on the breaking news, is it too far from your portfolio to comment on the indictment of Senator Menendez?

Congressman Garbarino: Well, I did just listen to your reading of The New York Times article. I think I'm going to wait to see what-- I think the US attorney in Manhattan is going to have a press conference later, I believe, going into a little more detail. As we've always said, you're innocent until proven guilty. I know Senator Menendez. I know his son. I just hope if everything just can move smoothly for them and, hopefully, if there was wrongdoing by the Senator, that'll all come out in the court of law. I'm going to hold all judgment until that happens. Everybody is allowed to defend themselves and you are innocent until proven guilty in this country.

Brian Lehrer: Fair enough. Would you do some House vocabulary for our listeners? Because people's eyes can glaze over from some of these terms. I tried to unpack them a little in the intro. What's the difference between a budget to fund the government and a continuing resolution to fund the government as you see it from a seat in the House?

Congressman Garbarino: The Appropriations Committee is where appropriations bills come from. When I say "appropriations," we pass laws all the time. We have the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA, that comes out of the House Armed Services Committee and a couple of other committees. Congress has the power of the purse, so we have to pass bills to authorize something, and then we have to pass appropriation bills to fund those programs that we've authorized.

We could authorize six different programs, but unless the Appropriations Committee passes an appropriations bill appropriating funds to those programs, they'll never actually start. To fund the government, there are supposed to be 12 separate bills dealing with 12 different aspects of the government. There's the agriculture, there's the defense, there's homeland security, and so on and so forth. State and foreign ops, which deals with all of our foreign affairs and our embassies. Each one of those appropriations bills are supposed to pass individually, pass the House, pass the Senate, and be signed into law by the President, and that's how we fund the government for a year.

Brian Lehrer: How did you go--

Congressman Garbarino: A lot of--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. You want to finish the thought? Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Congressman Garbarino: Then a lot of times, that doesn't happen. In order to keep the government funded, either a continuing resolution, a short term or a long term is passed. What that continuing resolution does is it keeps the government funded using the last passed budget numbers. Last year, there was an omnibus budget passed in December by Schumer, Pelosi, and President Biden. To keep the government funded past September 30th, you would need to pass a CR that would use those numbers from last December and everything would continue as if nothing changed.

Brian Lehrer: The issue for some of the House Republicans holding this up is, "No, we're not going to continue even for a 30-day temporary stopgap measure with the level of spendings that the Schumer and Pelosi Congress along with Biden agreed to last year." Is that part of the point?

Congressman Garbarino: For some of them. Part of the point is we don't want to use Pelosi and Schumer and Biden's budget because it has policies in it that we don't agree with. They're right. I agree with them. There are policies in those budgets that we would like to replace with more conservative policies, Republican policies. One of them specifically dealing with border, but that's not the only issue.

They say, "We don't want to do a CR. We should pass individual appropriations bills," but three of the people who voted against the defense appropriations bill yesterday also don't want to pass a CR. It's at a point where some of these members, they just want to watch the place burn. They're voting against every different possibility to keep the government funded. Talks are continuing today to try to get moving.

I know the Rules Committee is trying to pass a rule this afternoon that would allow the state/foreign ops, the Homeland Security appropriations bill, the defense appropriations bill, and the agricultural bill, all to possibly be voted on next week. Even if we pass those bills next week, we're still running up to the time frame where the government will shut down on October 1st.

Our service members won't be paid. People won't be able to get passports. There'll be cuts in funding to all sorts of departments. Federal parks will be closed. Everything that the federal government does-- There's a few things that will stay open. Air traffic control will stay open, but everything that the federal government does will shut down if we don't fund the government by October 1st.

Brian Lehrer: I guess I can assume from part of the answer you gave just now that you voted yes yesterday on the single-topic spending bill to fund the Pentagon as a first step to a budget?

Congressman Garbarino: Yes. Again, the whole discussion that we've had as a Republican Congress was we were never cutting defense spend. Actually, the bill that we have now, the members who are against it, most of them, one member is opposing it because she doesn't want to see Ukraine funding in the bill, but the other four, I believe, are opposing it. I don't know why because they don't want to see more cuts here because we were never cutting this bill to begin with. This should have been a layup. If they were honest about the reasons they want to do this, this bill should have passed--

Brian Lehrer: They should have at least funded the Pentagon because they want to fund it anyway. Was the Politico report that I cited about you accurate? It says you told Speaker McCarthy and company that you and your fellow centrist Republicans could work with Democrats to pass a continuing resolution if other GOP plans fail. Is that accurate?

Congressman Garbarino: Yes. Well, so I am the representative-- Speaker McCarthy has what's called an elected leadership council. He has a representative. He has all the leadership team as well as a representative from each one of what he calls the Five Families, which are the different caucuses, Freedom Caucus, Main Street Republican Caucus, Republican Governance Group, Republican Study Committee, and Problem Solvers. I'm the representative on that commission from the Problem Solvers. One thing that the Problem Solvers-- it was endorsed this week by the caucus.

We came up with a framework to say, "Okay, if the deal that was negotiated between Byron Donalds and Dusty Johnson falls through, we're starting discussions with regional members of the Democratic caucus to say, "Hey, how do we move us forward, not have a shutdown, make sure our troops are paid, make sure people are not negatively affected by a shutdown?" We've been having those discussions. Like I said, a framework was passed this week laying out what we'd like to see, what we'd like to have done. We're now putting pen to paper to get that framework into legislative text.

Brian Lehrer: One of the reports that I read, it was either the NBC one or the Politico one. I have too many notes, but one of them says a potential option is a new proposal released late Wednesday by the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus of which you're a member, which would fund the government through January 11th at levels agreed to in the recent two-year budget deal alongside unspecified border enforcement policies, Ukraine aid, and disaster relief. Is that part right?

Congressman Garbarino: Yes, that was what was in the framework. We would fund the government at current levels through January if there's no actual budget deal. This comes from the debt deal that President Biden and Speaker McCarthy negotiated. If they do not come up with a budget deal, there's an automatic 1% cut across the board of the federal budget.

It would fund up until then and if, all of a sudden, there's no agreement on appropriations bill because the Problem Solvers Caucus, Democrats and Republicans all alike, the CR is always the last choice. We don't want the government to shut down, but we don't want to just do a CR. We want to do individual appropriations bills because things change every year. If you continue a program, there might not be a point in continuing a program from a year and a half ago without certain updates that are in the new appropriations bills.

Republicans, Democrats, they always want to pass appropriations bills because there are certain updates in those bills that are needed. Again, if it comes down to shutting down the government, which helps no one, and a CR, it's better to do the CR. The idea under the framework was let's do the CR for three months and move to get these appropriations bills done. That's all part of the framework.

Brian Lehrer: How rare would the Problem Solvers Caucus plan be for members of both parties to team up on a bill where you have enough Democrats, enough Republicans to make a majority, but where the majority party is not unified enough to pass something on its own, which is the more customary way that things pass?

Congressman Garbarino: Well, you don't have to look much further than the bipartisan infrastructure bill that President Biden signed into law. That bill was actually born out of the Problem Solvers Caucus and a couple of Republican and Democratic governors and a couple of Republican and Democratic senators. That bill would not have passed if it wasn't for Republicans and Democrats teaming together.

There were not enough Democrats. The progressive Democrats voted against the bill and Republicans voted against the bill. A lot of Republicans voted against the bill. Republicans and Democrats teamed up there and got that bill passed through the House. It's usually on big bills like this that you need to have bipartisan action. You made this point before. The Senate and the White House are now both controlled by Democrats, so there has to be a compromise.

I can guarantee you one thing. Whatever we pass out of the House next week, if we pass any appropriations bills, that's not going to be what will become law because the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, he will reject things. President Biden will reject things. The focus should be, move the ball forward. Our biggest issue is the border, is fixing the huge, huge, huge problem that's going on at the border. I sit on the Homeland Security Committee and that's what we've been focusing on.

We should be pushing that issue and that issue alone right now to get that fixed because you're seeing what's happening in New York City. You're seeing what's happening all over the country. The mayor is going to cut services to help cover this cost. He wants to pull back the rule where it requires them to house the migrants. You got the governor saying we're full. Governor Hochul said that yesterday. This is an issue that we should be taking the ball and running with. When you throw several other things into the mix, everything gets lost in the weeds. We lose our strength on the issue that is the most important to us. Sorry. Go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: No, I was just going to say, we'll come back to the border in a little more detail because I know some kind of unspecified border measure is in your Problem Solvers proposal for moving forward in a bipartisan way. I'll be curious if you can tell the listeners some of the details of that. I do want to invite listeners to call in for Congressman Andrew Garbarino on the immediate budget and government shutdown questions or anything else relevant.

Anyone from the district on the South Shore listening right now, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Give us a call. You can text a question to that number or tweet @BrianLehrer. In fact, why don't we take a break right here, then we're going to come back and play a clip of what Congressman Matt Gaetz, a leader of the rebels, said yesterday, I think, about people like you who are willing to work with the other party. We'll get into the border question in a little more detail as we continue with Congressman Andrew Garbarino, Republican from the South Shore of Long Island. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Stay with us.

[MUSIC - Marden Hill: Hijack]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we continue with Republican Congressman Andrew Garbarino from the South Shore of Long Island, a member of the Problem Solvers Bipartisan Caucus working to avoid a government shutdown, which would happen a week from Sunday morning as the calendar turns to October 1st, which is the beginning of the new federal fiscal year if they don't have at least a temporary stopgap budget in place by then for the next month or so, which is what Garbarino and some others are working on with some Democrats apparently.

Here's a clip as promised, as threatened, from Florida Representative Matt Gaetz yesterday. This was on the Timcast IRL podcast. 20 seconds. We did have to bleep a word in here that we're not allowed to say on the radio. Even Matt Gaetz isn't allowed to say it on the radio, but he can say it on a podcast. I think he's referring to people like Congressman Garbarino. Listen.

Congressman Matt Gaetz: What the threat is, is that five liberal or moderate Republicans could just say, "We don't want to do the single-subject bills. We don't want to go through the pain of doing the cuts to foreign aid or to food stamps or anything like that, so we're just going to go sign what's called a discharge petition and then just move that thing like [bleep] through a goose."

Brian Lehrer: Move that thing like, bleep, through a goose. It's not a metaphor I've heard before. Congressman Garbarino, is he talking about you there?

Congressman Garbarino: There are several members he's talking about, Matt. Matt's actually not the one who's voted against the appropriations bills. He supported the defense bill yesterday. He truly wants to move appropriations bills through. The problem is we have a week left and we don't have the timing. I'll speak for my New York colleagues because those are the ones I believe he's really addressing that towards because several of my New York colleagues have said that they would be willing to sign a discharge petition to keep the government from shutting down.

Brian Lehrer: That's Congressman Lawler and Congressman Molinaro, Republicans from the Hudson Valley?

Congressman Garbarino: Yes, they both publicly have said it. I've spoken to other members who are willing to do it as well. I'm not going to publicly out them right now. It's not about not doing the bills. They just don't want us see the government shut down. They'll do a short-term one. If we think we can get it done and get these appropriations bills passing out of the caucus in a month, then let's do it for a month. The problem is they're not giving us many options. If the choice is pass a CR or let the government shut down, we don't want to let the government shut down.

Republicans have never won the argument after a shutdown. Once people start worrying about, "Well, am I going to get my social security?" or "Is this going to be covered or is this going to be covered? Are the troops going to be paid?" I'm really afraid that the credit agencies have been watching us so much so closely. If we shut down, I'm afraid Moody's or one of the other credit rating firms is going to downgrade us. You know what that does for our budget deficit when we have to pay more for debt? It's not good.

The last thing we should want to do is actually shut down because if we shut down, again, it's a disaster. The only option that they're giving us is shut down or there are people that are going to side with the CR. If the option is short-term CR and a probes bills, I think that's something where we could all get together and get done. Unfortunately, you have five or six or seven members saying absolutely nothing on CR. We don't care if we shut down. Like I said, you have members, three or four, who I think just want to watch the place burn.

Brian Lehrer: What kinds of border enforcement measures are in your compromised proposal?

Congressman Garbarino: I can't get into much detail, but they are border provisions that would make Republicans happy. I think it would satisfy a lot of what we've been pushing. I can say some of it goes to increasing pay for the Border Patrol agents and helping them, making sure that there are enough that can be hired to do the job. There's also a provision that's being discussed. Again, there's no legislative text yet, but similar to something like Title 42 that both President Biden and President Trump used during the COVID emergency to keep people in Mexico.

That language is being worked on because you're going to have to have buy-in from both sides. The Republicans in the caucus said to the Democrats, "There's no point discussing everything else if we can't get some sort of border fix." Democrats in the caucus agreed. There are border state Democrats in the caucus that want to fix this issue. There are Democrats in states like New York, New Jersey, and others that are in the caucus that want to fix the issue as well. Illinois as well.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Frank in Locust Valley, you're on WNYC with Congressman Andrew Garbarino. Hi, Frank.

Frank: Hey, Brian. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Hearing government shutdown here in our own soil, it really upsets me to think that our community can't get paid to do their job. We've sent over $110 billion with a B, billion dollars over to Ukraine for a war or a military exercise, whatever you want to call it, far from our soil. This doesn't help our children. I want to just understand the justification for spending that kind of money on someone else who needs help. It reminds me of Matthews 3-5, "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

Brian Lehrer: All right.

Frank: Basically, we have to clean ourselves up first before we can help anybody else.

Brian Lehrer: Frank bringing the Biblical quote along with the political ones. Frank is obviously from the wing of your party, Congressman, who does not want to continue to fund Ukraine. I presume you're on the other side of that.

Congressman Garbarino: I think a lot of people don't understand how the funding's actually happened. Most of the money, if not close to all of it, has been spent in the US. We've sent ammunitions and we've sent weapons over. We've also sent humanitarian aid, but we're not sending cash. I remember people remember the story. They're like, "Oh, there were truckloads of cash sitting in Iraq and people just giving out cash."

We haven't done that. It's all supplies. All of that money is being spent here with US manufacturers, US contractors, and then just the aid in the form of weapons, bullets, some food, some medical supplies is being sent over. We're not just sending boatloads of cash, but you want to make sure that all of that is being spent properly. Everybody agrees with that. We want to make sure that there is proper oversight.

There have been questions if there has been proper oversight. Part of the framework that the Problem Solvers came up with is oversight of the money that has been sent and any additional aid that will be sent if it's sent. We heard. We saw some possible issues there. Everybody saw them. We're all working to address those concerns. We didn't send boatloads of cash over there. I do have to disagree. I can't go into it in the radio, but I've sat in classified briefings. I have been briefed on the situation.

I've been briefed on what's been going on. I have visited neighboring countries. I, 100%, believe that we did what we had to do in Ukraine. It's unfortunate that you have people like Putin who just invades and just murders civilians, which has been the case in Ukraine. If we and other countries did not assist, it would've been a bigger massacre than we've already seen. I think we did the right thing. I do continue to support funding for Ukraine, but I do support what we were trying to do with additional oversight.

Brian Lehrer: Joel in Union on the asylum seekers, Union, New Jersey. Joel, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Joel: Thanks for taking my call. I'm so glad to be able to speak to this gentleman. We know that 75% of the migrants going into that very dangerous jungle in the north of Colombia are from Venezuela. Why the hell don't we lift our embargoes on Venezuela and stop the thing at its cause? Why do we have to continue to meddle in this country's internal politics and to our detriment? Same thing could be said for Nicaragua when we overthrew Zelaya.

Brian Lehrer: Joel, I'm going to leave it there because we're running out of time. He wants the US to be softer on Venezuela to help stop the flow of migrants from there. We could come at it from the other way too and be pro-migrant, which is to see Venezuelans as the kind of constituency that Republicans would traditionally support because they're fleeing a left-wing dictator like the Cubans who fled Castro and are largely Republican constituents now after they became US citizens. I know we're out of time in a minute. Respond to Joel and/or respond to my question. Why wouldn't Venezuelans fleeing the Maduro regime be of particular sympathy to you or to your party as presumably an enemy of that left-wing dictatorship and, yes, open the border to them?

Congressman Garbarino: I've been to Colombia. I've seen the Venezuelans crossing over. They are facing terrible, terrible hardships in that country. I don't think we should stop the embargoes because if we did, the money still wouldn't go to helping the Venezuelans, the Venezuelan citizens that are fleeing. The leader, the president, is a corrupt leader. As we've seen before and we're still seeing in Cuba after so many years, there has been nothing done to really help the residents of those countries.

Actually, what we used to do, and it has stopped, was we focused on helping countries get better from the inside so people didn't want to leave, and then a lot of that money and assistance and just-- It's not even just monetary assistance. We'd go down. We'd show them how to run businesses. We'd have businesses invest in those countries. We'd teach the countries how to do different things.

A lot of that aid has stopped, which has caused those countries to stop developing. I think that's something we should possibly look into, get back down there in Central America and South America, and help them help themselves. It's something that has worked in the past and I think could be a good way to stop the massive flow from everyone coming up from South America and Central.

By the way, it's not just South and Central America. The southern border has people coming from, I think, over 140 different countries from the Middle East to Asia, Africa. They're just coming through the southern border because that's the easiest way to get in. It's a worldwide problem and everybody's trying to come here. It's been a huge strain on our system, but we've been able to help in the past. I think we should continue to help these countries better themselves.

Brian Lehrer: Republican Congressman Andrew Garbarino from the South Shore of Long Island. Thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

Congressman Garbarino: Thank you.

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