This is the eleventh in a series of in-person, in-depth New Jersey Globe interviews with New Jersey’s members of Congress. The interviews will be published as-is, with editing for length and clarity.
This week, the Globe spoke with interim Senator George Helmy, a Democrat who was appointed earlier this year to replace former Senator Bob Menendez. The Globe sat down with Helmy, who is expected to leave office in the coming weeks and allow Senator-elect Andy Kim to take his place, to talk about his brief tenure in the Senate, his work on youth mental health and the war in Gaza, and his hopes for the future.
Previous interviews: Rep. Andy Kim, Rep. Chris Smith, the late Rep. Bill Pascrell, Rep. Rob Menendez, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, Sue Altman (in place of Rep. Tom Kean Jr.), Rep. Donald Norcross
New Jersey Globe: People were surprised to see the results that came out of New Jersey this year in the presidential election. Why do you think New Jersey voters this year, more than any previous year – more than 2020, more than 2016 – were amenable to Trump and swung towards Republicans?
George Helmy: I’d say a few things. One is, I think the party of the working class is the Democratic Party – it is the party that does the work on behalf of the middle class. We had a hearing yesterday with Elizabeth Warren where she and I asked a series of questions about economic policy, and the differences between the tax proposal plans of various Democratic administrations versus what Trump and Republicans proposed back in 2017. The Joint Committee on Taxation and the Federal Reserve both have said that 90% of workers saw zero impact from the Trump tax cuts. But I think the party of the working class has done a poor job of messaging what we’re doing.
As the governor’s chief of staff back in 2021 – we had done so much, and we had tried to talk to specific groups about what we were trying to do, but the more individually we were trying to target our message, the more everybody else felt like, “You’re not talking to me.” I feel like our economic empowerment message didn’t resonate, because we didn’t broaden the message. I think Republicans do a better job of broadening the message and zooming out and making more people feel like they are fighting for the working class, even though when you actually look at their policies, they benefit higher earners and corporations and large partnerships.
The other piece of it is, we’ve had a number of challenging years. We’re not that far removed from the pandemic. People are still feeling the pains of what the country and the world went through during Covid, the cost impacts of that, the mental health pressures of that. Then you have massive inflationary pressures, some of which are related to the pandemic and government intervention after the pandemic. I have a focus group of friends that I see every other Sunday who are apolitical – it’s my way of being in touch with the real world – and they’ll say, “We used to go out for a family dinner at our favorite restaurant every Friday. But that’s not affordable because the prices at that restaurant have gone up 30%, so now we go every second Friday.” That tells you how people really feel about the economy: they’re doing well, their wages are going up, they’re professionals, but they’ve been much more cost-conscious because their costs have gone up. You’ve seen around the globe, there’s been a lot of pushback on incumbents. I think a lot of that is economic pressures, and it’s been a very challenging environment for four or five years coming out of the pandemic.
Do you think that, to a certain extent, the cake was baked even before voters went to the polls? Was there not much Democrats could do to overcome some of those trends against them – based on economic issues, based on frustration with incumbent parties?
No, I don’t. I think there was a lot we could have done. Look, every loss is an opportunity, and there’s real opportunity for learning here. I would say this about the vice president’s candidacy. One is, I’m a huge Joe Biden fan, but given where his numbers were for the last two years, I think the decision for the vice president to be the candidate in August just didn’t allow her the time to run a full-fledged campaign. That, and there is no doubt that racism and sexism are alive and well in this country. There’s no doubt that played a role in the election. You have a president who has done a great deal for this nation over decades of service, and I think history will reflect on him as one of the great presidents of our time. You had a vice president who was challenged with a constrained timeframe and racism and sexism.
But in terms of the message, things were working. We were investing in the innovation economy. There are semiconductor plants going up in the South and the Midwest – who would have thought we’d be competing with Taiwan and China on the innovation economy? Joe Biden and Democrats made that a reality. President Trump seems intent on rolling back our renewable energy and our competitiveness in the energy space; we were at the forefront of developing wind energy, onshore and offshore. Those turbines that were going to go up and create energy in New Jersey were going to be built in New Jersey. And so that kind of innovation economy, which President Biden and the Democrats helped deliver, now is under threat.
I think there were real opportunities to home in on an economic message. To say, “We are investing in the economy of the future, we are investing in making things more affordable for you” – whether that be through child tax credits, expanded income tax credits, more Pell Grants. This Congress made significant investments into working families, but I think we broadened the message and got lost in too many issues. That’s a failure of driving good news.
Where I think we didn’t have a competent answer is, we have to secure the border. We have to be able to say that as Democrats: we need a secure border. If you have a nation, you need a nation with borders. If you have a porous border, how do you have a nation? I think we struggled in saying, “We need to secure the border,” and then deliver on a plan of how to do that – a plan that included a competent, humane way to screen immigrants and a path to citizenship for those who are here.
It’s been two months since you were sworn in, and you’ve got another couple of weeks left to go. What are the lessons that you’ve learned from your brief tenure in the Senate?
The building is still filled with really good people on both sides of the aisle. I’ve had a great opportunity to talk with the staffers as a former staffer. I ride in the regular elevators and go to the regular bathrooms – I don’t like those “Senators Only” things, I find those ridiculous. I had a chance to sit with so many Republican members, and chat with them on the floor, and see them after committee meetings where I hear them say something really interesting. I was talking to Senator [Todd] Young from Indiana just yesterday, a long conversation about something he said that really interested me in a [Senate Foreign Relations Committee] hearing.
The thing to take away, for New Jerseyans and Americans, is that the people that are here really care about the country. Most of them are here to still try to do the big things and drive the country in a positive direction. In many ways, they disagree strongly on policy issues – that doesn’t make them bad people. Rational minds can disagree. I think there’s hope and room for this body to do some really significant things. And I’m very lucky to have been a part of some of those really significant pieces of conversation and built relationships.
The Senate is a unique institution in a lot of ways, both within America and the world. It’s got very specific rules and norms like the filibuster, its structure is unusual in that every state gets two senators regardless of population, things like that. Having now seen this side of it – having literally been a part of it – do you think the Senate is in need of reform? Or do you think that the way it works right now, in spite of its critics, is a good thing?
All institutions can always grow, evolve, and reform. Yeah, there are things like a reform to the filibuster – like, if you’re going to hold things up, it should be a requirement that you have to do some work. Just to randomly hold something up, whether it be a promotion for a military general or a bill, you should have to come and defend why you’re doing that. I think there could be reforms.
But with all of the prestige that comes from these halls, the reality is, it’s just a group of one hundred people. And you can be the person who’s going to try to work it, and do the job and do it really well, and do it with a little bit of humility and meet people where they are, and respect the fact that they disagree with you and that doesn’t make them a bad person. What has actually been very encouraging is, it’s just a hundred men and women who are trying to come to work and represent their constituency. I will leave here knowing in my heart that the Senate can still do good and big things.
I think one thing that more doctrinaire liberals and conservatives both sometimes say is, “The collegiality of the Senate leads to not enough getting done, all these senators are friends with each other instead of for the causes that they fight for.” You’re talking about this as 100 people who are doing their best. Do you think that’s a valid critique – that these are 100 very, very powerful people and maybe it shouldn’t be as friendly as it is?
I wouldn’t say that the collegiality of the Senate in any way is the same as saying that we don’t fight vigorously. We are in many closed hearings, including in one with SFRC yesterday – I’m a very junior member, but I was not shying away from talking about the [Joint Resolutions of Disapproval] issues that we took up yesterday, or some of the issues when folks say things about the Middle East, and we debate that very assertively. There’s fight in every dog here. But you try to maintain that collegiality, because while I may fight with you on what’s happening on one issue, I also want to maintain a relationship where I can get stuff done. And I think, when too many folks go too hard one way, you tear up a relationship and can’t get anything done.
So yes, you can be collegial and be a pit bull. I would say my reputation in Trenton is sort of that. I left with a ton of respect about how I did the job and the civility I brought to it, but that wasn’t how I got everything done. I got everything done sometimes just by sheer force and blunt force trauma. That being said, there are things I wish we could do faster. We have so many career appointees – foreign service workers, they spent their careers serving this country, many of them started in the military and are now foreign service workers – waiting to be ambassadors to countries where we don’t have political appointees, and they’re being held up. It’s important for us to have ambassadors in these posts, because the role of the ambassador is so important in meeting with heads of state and actually making decisions within that country. These things get held up. I may not have the silver bullet of, how do you respect the rights of the minority and still force things through. But that’s one instance in which that doesn’t make sense. We have to have a process and a timeframe for which, when it’s not a political position and it’s really important to the representation of the nation, that these things get done.
You mentioned the Foreign Relations Committee before. There was a triple vote yesterday on blocking arms sales to Israel, and you gave a floor speech earlier this week on the suffering in Gaza. That speech you gave pointedly declined to make specific criticisms of current U.S. policy; do you think that the U.S. is failing in Israel and Palestine?
I wouldn’t use the word “failing.” I think both the Israeli government and the U.S. government know that we can be doing significantly better to alleviate the suffering of innocent civilians during conflict. I think we have to respect the nature of the conflict, which is that Israel is surrounded by folks who scream for its demise and level targeted weapons in civilian areas. These are folks determined on the death of innocents. Obviously, in light of the October 7 terrorist attacks, Israel is well within its rights to pursue Hamas, pursue Hezbollah, and pursue the sponsor of that, which is Iran.
But in a dense area like Gaza, you have to do everything possible to create secure networks and channels for the delivery of aid, which includes – as I saw with my own eyes – food, medication, winterized tents. Eighty-something percent of the housing structures in Gaza have been decimated, so many folks are in shelters that are also under live fire, and many folks are living in makeshift facilities. The UN is trying to get winterized tents in there, they can’t get them in. They’re trying to get bathrooms in there, they can’t get them in. We know that we can do better.
And I was cautious about that, because I’m not just here to make a political show of, “I’m going to talk about Bibi Netanyahu” or “I’m going to say that the Secretary of State’s not doing enough.” To me, that’s not useful. What’s useful is to show the data about how many women and children are being killed. They had nothing to do with the slaughter on October 7, and they’re not Hamas combatants. How do we both pursue those who seek to terrorize Israel, while at the same time holding a state accountable – and ourselves accountable for the rules that we have in our arms control deals – to say we should be doing better?
You voted for one of the three resolutions to block arms sales to Israel yesterday –
I voted to block the sale of mortars, and voted not to block the [Joint Direct Attack Munitions] and the tank shells.
Did you decide that the mortars in particular were a bridge too far in terms of protecting human life?
We knew, going in, that none of these resolutions were going to pass. But I still think, as a United States Senator, sending a message is important. I was always going to be a yes on one of them. JDAMs take dumb bombs and make them smart bombs, so if you are dropping a 2,000-pound munition in a dense area like Gaza, or frankly anywhere, I would prefer that you be able to precisely target where you’re trying to drop it, hopefully limiting civilian casualties, than keeping it a dumb bomb. The tank shells were two years out, so that wasn’t in line with my strong position that it is our obligation to support our strong ally in its continued pursuit of defense.
The mortars, which have been some of the causes of civilian casualties in Gaza, made the most sense for me to add my voice to those saying, “Hey, we’re really concerned here” – but also show the nuance of being supportive of Israel and being supportive of shipping weapons.
The policy area that you’ve focused on the most here is youth mental health, which was what you devoted a lot of your maiden speech to. It’s famously a bit of a tricky issue to tackle, because there’s not an obvious policy fix to a problem that is contained within millions of kids. Long-term, what are the solutions that are reasonable to pursue on an issue that you can’t just legislate away?
Watching my kids grow and trying to be a half-decent dad, the challenges that kids face today are significantly greater than what we faced. The world is a more chaotic world, and they are more exposed to the chaos of the world than I was exposed to at their age, because they see it all on their devices. They wake up in the morning, and there’s war, there’s famine, there’s disease, there’s a pandemic, there’s political turmoil.
Then there’s what I believe to be the targeting of young minds by social media companies and big tech. They’re able to take how long your eyeballs are on certain things to continue to update the algorithm, so that you have young kids who are scrolling three hours or more a day through YouTube and TikTok and Instagram stories. You see what the Surgeon General has issued about the impact of that on sleep and on well-being.
That’s where our focus has been: on attention. I know that parents don’t have a great handle on the harm that this is causing their children. Their lives are so busy that sometimes the phone becomes something that’s just easy to keep the kid on. And I think we need to do a better job as policymakers to say, we want to make sure you know the data around this. Stop the Scroll, a Fetterman-Britt act which I got on, comes out of the Surgeon General’s historic notification. Just like we said about cigarettes, when we didn’t know the ills of cigarettes, we are making it very well known that social media also has significant, real health impacts. And, you know, big tech is not doing this and targeting kids if it’s not driving revenues. So our latest bill, the Revenue Transparency Act, says that they need to disclose – because any company that has to disclose anything then has to start paying attention to it, because it’s going to be in a report, and that usually drives better accountability.
The next level of that, and we’re talking to a number of young people about this, is the access issue. We have identified that this has caused a problem. The way I’ve experienced it with people close to me is like a body dysmorphia type of thing, where young men and women in high schools are watching these influencers, and they’re like, “God, I don’t look like this guy. Look how much he’s lifting.” And the guy pretends he’s seventeen years old, when he’s actually 27 years old on steroids under perfect lighting. These kids are always looking at somebody else’s life and thinking, “Why aren’t I that? Because I’m not that, something is wrong with me.” That leads to negative thoughts.
And when you have that, there’s a disparity in whether you have access to a health care provider. If you have influence and access, you’re more likely to have access to a health care provider. And there are stigmas around talking about mental health.
Right, I imagine a lot of people don’t even see it as something where they would contact a medical provider.
One of the proudest moments I’ve had is when a young person came up and was able to have a conversation with me and say, I’m not feeling good about this. Because I know that would have probably been a very conversation for me to have with my father. My father is a great man, but there’s a stigma in our community about mental health. What we’re doing, too – even in the slowness of advancing anything – what we’re doing is drawing attention to it and making it okay for people to have conversations in schools and at home about it, and that’s a win.
You’ll be succeeded in a couple of weeks by Senator-elect Andy Kim. He’s going to have a very different time in this office than you have; he might be here for 30 years instead of three months. I know that you’ve had conversations – what have those conversations been about? What are you hopeful for from Senator Andy Kim?
Andy and I have had a number of conversations, and I would say that I’m really excited about the prospect of him coming to the Senate, specifically at this time when we’re looking at an administration that’s putting forward folks like Matt Gaetz [who had withdrawn his nomination shortly before this interview] to run really important departments. I think Andy, and my senior senator, approach these conversations without the shock and drama that sometimes comes from D.C. They just have a way to talk to America in a very disciplined, simple-to-understand way. I think they’re going to be great messengers for the Democratic Party as we juxtapose ourselves against the Trump administration and Republican policy. Andy, just who he is, will be a great messenger for the Democratic Party at a time when we need more messengers who can really resonate with both the middle class and the next generation of voters to come.
And I’m really excited about the ability to have two senators who are going to be here for a while. It takes a long time to build seniority here – the whole seniority conversation about Andy is an interesting one, because he’s got to be here for a long time to get that. But being that he’s a very young senator; Cory [Booker]’s already getting seniority and he’s also, for this institution, fairly young.
I wonder if New Jersey’s Senate delegation will be the youngest on average of any state’s.
I would bet that. You’re looking at a Senate delegation, and a House delegation too, that in ten years could have really important seats. Of course, every senator, thanks to things like the filibuster, is wildly important, but I’m excited about having this young, dynamic guy coming in who could achieve gavels pretty quickly.
We’ve talked about access to health care, our aging population, the innovation economy, and he’s really focused on some of the things we’re working on, whether it be the monopiles in Gloucester or the wind port in Salem – really trying to drive innovative, high-paying jobs to South Jersey, which needs a new industry. And he is a brilliant, brilliant foreign policy mind, and I’m very hopeful that he’ll take my seat on SFRC.
Looking at your own couple of months in the Senate, what are you hoping your legacy will be? When people look at your Wikipedia page in 20 years, what are you hoping that will say?
I don’t know that I would qualify it by anything that’s online. I’d say we have achieved every one of the goals that we had set out when we had our first team meeting even before I was appointed – we achieved those goals probably in the first 30 days. Were people able to call our offices and get help with federal agencies? The answer to that was unequivocally yes. Did we go out of our way to find projects in New Jersey where we could use our voice to advance with federal agencies – look what we’re doing with FAFSA on behalf of institutions of higher education, look what we’re doing with the Atlantic City Housing Authority – the answer is unequivocally yes. Can I accomplish things in D.C. that will help New Jersey that will never carry my name and no one knew that I advanced them? The answer to that question is yes. You mentioned youth mental health; there’s going to be stuff in the appropriations bill that without question is mine that nobody may ever know. I’ve been talking to [Senate Appropriations Chair] Patty Murray about that stuff since before I was senator.
So the big policy issues on youth mental health and my foreign policy concerns – a lot of that stuff’s going to get done, no one will ever remember it, so it won’t be on my Wikipedia page. But I don’t care. I have never cared what goes on some Wikipedia page – I am just about the work. This sounds morbid, but it’s just the truth of life: at some point, I’m no longer here, and in my last breaths, I will not be reflecting on my Wikipedia page; I’ll be reflecting on, did my life matter? And I can tell you that my hundred days in the Senate mattered.
You said at the beginning of this process that becoming a politician or becoming an elected official was never in your life plan for yourself. Now that you’ve had this experience, could you ever see yourself running for office in the future?
I still don’t see it. I always reserve the right to change my mind in life, but I still don’t see it. I’ve been so lucky in life to make a great impact being the “guy behind the guy.” I enjoy that role. This has been a great learning experience, but I still see myself being in a support role. I always enjoyed being a staffer.