well Republicans had quite a shakeup coming off of the Republican National Convention where the party seemed to fully unite behind former president Donald Trump and their focus was on beating Biden only to learn along with the rest of the country that their opponent will now likely be vice president kamla Harris so what happens now to their campaign efforts and how do they switch gears to take on an entirely different candidate here to share some perspective is the chair of the New Jersey Republican state committee Bob Hugin Bob Huginchairman so good to have you with us tonight um obviously huge shakeup in this campaign it doesn't seem that Republicans were necessarily ready for this switch how do you now switch gears to take on vice president Harris I think we were quite ready for it to be honest with you in fact I personally had predicted it would be Sunday when he announced he would step down and at once the Republican convention was so smoothly orchestrated and unified the party so much it was clear after that disastrous debate performance the Scandal to hide President Biden from the public was not going to work and and they had to change and so I don't think we're surprised at all and we're very ready to fight uh to run against uh vice president uh Harris I mean she's clearly the most liberal and most least competent presidential candidate we've ever had in history so we're we're excited about the possibility down ballot across the ballot up and down to to run against vice president Harris is she the harder candidate to beat though considering that a lot of the ads uh kind of hung back against President Biden almost letting him uh F and the Democratic party in that process fall on themselves is Harris now the harder candidate to beat I really don't think so um you know President Biden had a lot of institutional support among Democrats and you think about vice president Harris she was the first to run against Biden and dropped out before she even got to Iowa the bordar that never went to the Border really failed in everything did as vice president really not prepared at all for this responsibility and so we're actually quite optimistic that down ballot will even be more successful than we would have been against uh President Biden so we're prepared and uh she better hang on because her her in adequacies and incompetency is going to be very radically exposed in the next month or two uh you mentioned the smoothness of the Republican National Convention uh Republicans really did seem to unify behind president Trump throughout those four days um but following the RNC some of the polling numbers for the Vice Presidential nominee pick JD Vance have been poor by comparison to other VP picks in the past was he the right choice for uh former president Trump given that Trump needs to reach into Suburban areas in particular in order to win well I have to tell you having I have a relationship with Senator Vance and uh we had him to New Jersey last September September of 23 and he was quite a hit his policies of America First putting Working Families first and foremost resonates with voters all across the country so obviously the Democrats are going to make it look like there's a problem there and there isn't a problem there it's a great team 39y old man going to be 40 in August showing that we have depth we care about young people Millennials I think he's just a incredibly creative and appropriate pick and I'm so proud that he's our going to be our vice presidential candidate become our vice president I couldn't be more supportive of JD Vance uh if we could switch to New Jersey now we've seen Senator Mendez has offered his resignation that'll be effective August 20th and that leaves Governor Murphy with the decision to appoint somebody uh I want to get your take on this who should Governor Murphy appoint to fill that seat for the remaining four months who should he not pick well I I think one of the last people Governor Murphy wants advice from is the chair of the Republican Party New Jersey but uh he he and what he said to me oh not to me but to publicly about the issue is I think the appropriate comments that he's made so far he said it shouldn't be a sitting uh Congress person because one for their there are political reasons that there's such a narrow majority for Republicans they don't want to damage uh Hakeem Jeff's minority leader in the house so he said he's not going to pick a sitting Congress person so it's clearly going to be a caretaker I hope it's someone who can be work together across the party lines demonstrate that New Jersey is a great state we've had failed leadership in Washington for a long time in our Senator senators and so it's a time for an opportunity to demonstrate that New Jersey has great leaders and we can find he can find somebody who'll be appropriate to send there in a caretaker role until we have the election on November the 5th all right Bob Hugin chair of the Republican state committee here in New Jersey thank you so much thank you [Music]