Gov. Phil Murphy has three things he was to discuss with President Donald Trump when he meets with him at the White House Thursday amid the coronavirus pandemic that has killed at least 6,770 residents, the governor said this morning ahead of the meeting.
Murphy said he first wants to thank Trump for being a partner in battling the outbreak in the state, which has the second most cases and deaths in the nation behind New York.
“We’ve done a lot together in this awful pandemic of the past couple of months. Jersey’s been hit incredibly hard,” Murphy said in a morning interview on “Fox & Friends.”
“The president knows New Jersey well, his team knows it well (and he’s) got a lot of New Jersey blood on his team,” Murphy said.
CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage
The governor has said New Jersey — one of the nation’s coronavirus hotspots — needs to at least double testing as one of the conditions to gradually lift the unprecedented stay-at-home and business-closing orders he placed on the state last month to help slow the virus’ spread. The governor has repeatedly said the state needs help from the federal government to expand testing.
“Secondly, talk about furthering the testing partnership that we’ve been we’ve been endeavoring to get to, and that’s that holds a lot of promise, he said. “Thirdly, we got to talk about financial assistance.”
The governor insisted the federal aid wouldn’t be for “legacy issues,” such as the state’s pension fund, which has taken an additional beating amid the outbreak. He said stabilizing the state budget would assure those battling the coronavirus outbreak can continue to receive paychecks. Murphy has warned that without aid, there could be “historic” state worker layoffs.
“This is to allow us to keep the frontline workers, educators, firefighters, police, EMS in their seats to their jobs,” Murphy said.
Murphy will return to Trenton later in the day to give his regular briefing on the outbreak, though the briefing will be later than normal at 3:30 p.m.
The meeting with Trump is scheduled for 11 a.m. and Murphy said the goal is planning for the future.
“But a lot of thanks and a lot to look into the crystal ball and figuring out where we can continue to work together,” Murphy said.
Murphy will then travel back to Trenton to hold his daily coronavirus press briefing, according to his public schedule.
On Wednesday, he announced there were at least 6,770 total deaths and at least 116,264 total cases of COVID-19 in the state.
Murphy said the 6,770 total deaths is more than the combined number of New Jersey residents who died in World War I, the Korean War, Vietnam War, both Gulf Wars, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hurricane Sandy, and Sept. 11.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
Matt Arco may be reached at [email protected].
Note to readers: if you purchase something through one of our affiliate links we may earn a commission.
