New Jersey, United States’ Senator Andy Kim granted an interview on Monday, October 13, 2025, in which he discussed several burning issues, including the current government shut down, the freedom to protest peacefully, immigration concerns, federal funding of critical infrastructure, students’ loans issues, healthcare matters, and students’ loans and financial aid concerns.
The interview was put together for local media organizations by the Center for Cooperative Media at the College of Communication and Media, Montclair State University. The Center was represented by, among others, its Director, Stefanie Murray, Joe Amditis, the Assistant Director of Operations, and Oni Advincula, Director of Ethnic and Community Media Initiatives, who moderated the virtual interface.
Senator Kim, a Democrat, was unequivocal in blaming the President Donald Trump administration and the Republican Party-controlled Congress for the ongoing government shutdown, insisting that they have shut the door to meaningful negotiations, and instead, “want to have their way 100%.”
He stressed that the Trump government has also been cutting funding to the critical Gateway Tunnel Project as political vendetta because of the position of Democrats to the administration and its policies.
Below are excerpts from the interview:
Senator Andy Kim (SAK):
I’m the son of immigrants. I’m married to an immigrant. My father came to the United States a little over 50 years ago as a foreign student to try to build more opportunities and a family here. For me to, last year, about 10 months ago, be sworn in as the first Korean American ever in the US Senate, but also the first Asian American ever in the Senate from the entire East Coast of America. Senator Booker and I are the only all-minority Senate delegation in America right now, and I think it reflects the diversity of New Jersey.
There’s no doubt these have been challenging times in the United States, and challenging times in terms of what comes next. I feel ready for this and been stepping up to be able to represent my state and be able to protect people in this time of need. Whether that’s from the challenges we’re seeing facing so many people in this state when it comes to immigration, when it comes to healthcare challenges, as so many are facing in terms of potentially not being able to afford their healthcare. And right now, during a government shutdown, our federal workers, our service members at the joint base and Picatinny and other military facilities that are working without getting a paycheck. I’m hearing from them and trying to do my best to be able to bring this shutdown to a close and be able to offer the kind of support to the American people that this country deserves.
Government Shutdown
Q: The government shutdown has broader impact on vulnerable communities, particularly the low income earners, by disrupting essential services and stalling local economies. Does the cost for which you are willing to shut down the government worth the economic harm it is causing these communities you represent in New Jersey?
Senator Kim: Well, first and foremost, it’s the Republicans and the White House that are shutting down the government. They control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives; they have the congressional majorities and the gavels. They are the ones that chose not to engage in negotiations. Donald Trump said not to deal with the Democrats. We’ve been asking since the summer for negotiations. We did not get a single sit-down meeting until the day before the shutdown.
And while Democrats are showing up in Congress and the Senate has been in session, Speaker Johnson has given the House of Representatives a paid vacation. They are not showing up to work. They’re continuing to get paid even though our military troops are not. He is preventing negotiations from happening. I’m showing up at the Capitol. We’re ready to negotiate and we’ve been talking in the Senate, but we don’t have anyone in the House. I just want that to really hit home to people that there needs to be a negotiation, that’s how it’s always been; and that there has been a lack of effort by this administration (to negotiate), in part because they just want to have it 100% their way. They are unwilling to engage in any conversation, and we’re seeing that.
Yes, I understand the concerns about government services during a shutdown. I worked in government before as a civil servant in several shutdowns. I know how hard this is for federal employees as well as others. But what we’ve already seen is that this is an administration and a Republican Congress that has been systematically gutting programs already. The budget that they are trying to ram through without any Democratic input is a budget that would dramatically cut back on programs that are needed. I’m hopeful that we can get back to the negotiating table and be able to come up with an agreed-upon budget, just as we have in
past years; that tries to help provide healthcare to millions of Americans rather than taking it away.
Peaceful Protest and Political Rhetoric
Q: On October 18th, millions of people will be joining the peaceful ‘No Kings Day protest,’ including New Jerseyans. House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as other Republicans, are calling this the Hate America Protest. They say it’s part of a terrorist network and hell-bent on destroying America. So, how dangerous is this false talking point about a known peaceful protest, and what should New Jerseyans or New Jersey protesters and media covering the event keep in mind as they attend the No Kings Day?
Senator Kim: Well, look, first and foremost, everybody has the right to peaceful protest. It is part of their First Amendment rights, and that’s something that we have to protect. And we’ve seen a lot of attacks and assaults upon those rights. We’ve seen that in the media in terms of how this (Trump) administration is trying to crack down on journalists and others, to stop them from being able to speak out. And with regards to the protest, we see it right now across this country where this administration has deployed federal agents and national guards, trying to say that they are trying to step up against a rebellion or insurrection, but it’s actually just people trying to express their right and to be able to say and express what they want to see in this country, and they have the freedom to do so. Trying to stop them is really dangerous.
People in New Jersey, if they want to participate, they should, and that they should do so peacefully. And certainly, I’ll do everything I can to try to ensure that that continues peacefully, and that any type of law enforcement or other presence respect people’s right to be able to protest. The efforts by Speaker Johnson and others to try to shamefully call these protests un-American and filled with hate, is the kind of divisiveness and the kind of performative politics that honestly I just can’t stand. I can’t stand how they are trying to divide this country in this way. I remember reading a survey that said that the majority of Americans would say and call people in the other political party the enemy. And I just think that that’s such a dangerous place to be as a country. We should never use the word “enemy” to describe our fellow Americans.
Immigration Enforcement and ICE Tactics
Q: Is the Senate doing something to stop ICE continuing to terrorize immigrant communities? Or is it assumed that you can do nothing to stop the detention of workers and parents and the separation of families?”
Senator Kim: I hope people see what this administration has done and what the Congressional Republicans have done. The Senate Democrats are standing up for the rights of people in this country, standing up against the lawlessness that we’re seeing left and right, whether that’s ICE agents out in the street disappearing people or whether that’s the efforts to just overturn TPS status (Temporary Protected Status) on a whim and potentially put people in harm’s way by having them go back to communities and places that are dangerous. We have been trying to step up and take actions, whether legislatively, oversight or judicial.
I’m on the Homeland Security Committee. This is the Committee that oversees the immigration process. We have been trying to step up and have transparency about the actions and the tactics of ICE, trying to have a deeper understanding of how we can know where detainees are located, as families have been concerned and are making sure that they’re getting the legal representation that they need. And the challenge is, again, the Republicans have, through the Reconciliation Bill, given billions of dollars to ICE, turned it into one of the largest armed forces in the world. I have a very different view of what the role of Congress should be in terms of
being able to protect people. I’m going to continue to push in that direction, and I hope that soon we can have the majorities in Congress to be able to have even greater leverage to do so.
Youth Anxiety and Political Change
Q: Many students feel anxious about the future, whether it’s job security, the economy, or global instability. What would you say to young people who are losing faith in the political system’s ability to create real change?
Senator Kim: I would first say to younger people, and I’ve had this conversation and I hear that anxiety, it doesn’t have to be this way. I hope people feel empowered that things can change. I’m a father of an eight-year-old and a 10-year-old, so I worry immensely about what kind of America my kids are going to grow up in, and I don’t want to see this chaos and this instability that we see now to just become the new normal in this country.
When I hear from this college grad saying that he doesn’t think he can ever afford to buy a home, because of just how expensive they are and how concerned he is about being able to get a good-paying job, (I hear that from a lot of people) I just urge people to please lean in and see that we can try to move things in a different direction. A lot of them feel like our politics has become this exclusive club for the well-off and the well-connected and that special interests and billionaires are dominating, where the government focuses on. Yes, we need to change things. The status quo is untenable, both economically and politically in this country.
I hope young people stay engaged. I’ve been saying this line a lot over the last couple of years, that I believe that the opposite of democracy is apathy. It’s when we feel a sense of helplessness. I understand where people are coming from. It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of such significant challenge, but I hope that people channel it into real change, whether in the governor’s race that’s just a couple of weeks away. That’s a chance for us to make real change here in New Jersey.
Protecting Checks and Balances
Q: I know the Democrats are outnumbered in the Senate, but still, Filipinos are very concerned about the unfolding of dictatorship because we have seen this not so long ago in our home country, the Philippines. So, what is the Senate doing to effectively protect checks and balances in government now?
Senator Kim: In this day and age, you can’t talk about the Senate as a whole in terms of how it’s engaged with the Trump administration. I have real concerns about the lawlessness. I just gave remarks on the floor of the Senate talking about how we’re seeing mob boss tactics right now by the Trump administration. Look at the Gateway Tunnel Project and the Portal Bridge. The efforts that they’ve taken to hold off and stop the money flowing to this project just because they’re angry at Democrats for standing up against this lawlessness, is very dangerous.
That is the type of action that I saw when I was in diplomacy working abroad as a State Department officer. I saw that kind of action in authoritarian states. I never thought that I would see it here at home. And what we see right now is that we don’t have three functioning branches of government right now because the Congressional Republican leadership has abdicated their responsibility. The Constitution is what I swore my oath to protect. That’s not to a political party or an individual president.
The President of the United States has been engaged in efforts to rescind parts of the budget that we passed through the Congress by law. These types of actions are undermining Congress’s authority to be able to set the national budget. It’s part of why we don’t trust this president right now in terms of the agreements that we can come up with in this government shutdown. We have been taking actions as Senate Democrats against the lawlessness, standing up and trying to vote against these rescissions. We’re going to keep trying and also let the American people know that this is not something that can continue to go on.
Gateway Tunnel Funding
Q: The cuts to funding for the Gateway Tunnel have been a huge issue here in North Jersey, especially in Montclair. What are your thoughts on that? You mentioned it before. And what can either local communities do or what can you do about that?
Senator Kim: Well, first and foremost, I hope everyone across New Jersey and New York can jointly come together and condemn this action. I’m very disappointed at some of my Republican colleagues in Congress from New Jersey that have refused to condemn this administration’s actions for doing so. They know how important this is for our state, and we need to stand together and say, “Look, regardless of our differences when it comes to the government funding and the budget, we should not be stopping funds to this vitally important national infrastructure project.”
I’m on the Commerce Committee which oversees the Department of Transportation. I had before our committee, Secretary (Sean Patrick) Duffy when he was coming up for a confirmation hearing. Secretary Duffy is a constituent of mine. He is from New Jersey. He understands the importance of this, and in fact in the hearing, I asked Secretary Duffy, “Is the Gateway Tunnel Project of national importance?” And he said, “Yes, absolutely. This is a critical infrastructure project, not just for New York and New Jersey but the entire nation.”
The fact that they’re using it as a political chip for political revenge is irresponsible and reckless. I’ve gathered support in the US Senate to try to push back on this. We’ve called for investigations into this type of action through the committees that I’m on. I’ve engaged closely with the governor and others in the state to try to look at what actions we can take, including legal actions. I think this is gonna backfire immensely on the Trump administration. People don’t like this, especially here in New Jersey.
Optimism in the Current Administration
Q: What are the things that we can be optimistic about in this (Trump) administration and in the near future?
Senator Kim: There are goals that I would have been supportive of if it was done in the right way, but the way in which they’ve gone about these had been enormously damaging. For instance, I worked in the federal government before. I know there are ways that we can make our government more efficient, and I would have supported working in bipartisan ways to be able to try to engage. But what they did with the DOGE campaign and Elon Musk, and what they’re continuing to do with Russell Vought in OMB (Office of Management and Budget), is absolutely wrong. It’s something that is just trying to, literally, punish federal workers.
I’ve tried to engage this administration on things that I see as potential common grounds. For instance, on innovation. I’ve been wanting to push on this. We helped get the CHIPS and Science Act through the last administration in a bipartisan way. And we’ve been trying to make some investments when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. This administration has taken some actions there that I find noteworthy and positive.
I support the efforts, for instance, on shipbuilding that the Trump administration has been pushing. I’m trying to find some bipartisan ways there to be able to engage. Yes, there are some actions there on shipbuilding that I think this administration is taking some good moves on and I will try to support that. But we also have to be mindful that it’s not gonna happen overnight, and these tariffs are gonna actually make it harder for us to get the materials here to actually do the shipbuilding.
Shutdown’s Disproportionate Impact on Vulnerable Communities
Q: Is this shutdown being used by the administration as a continuation of the campaign against minority communities, particularly the Black and Latino communities?
Senator Kim: Yeah, look, I think that it’s important to point out that, again, this isn’t just about the shutdown as this has been a long-standing effort by this administration to go after and try to gut programs and support to some of the most vulnerable communities in this country. And especially support, for instance, for the Women’s Infants and Children’s Program, WIC, something that has helped a lot of people across New Jersey, including those in the Black and Latino communities, the AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community, and others. We see that attack upon it through the Reconciliation Bill.
There are about eight to nine million people that benefit from the WIC program and the cuts that they made through the Reconciliation Bill to Medicaid could very well remove about three million people from support to WIC. This is devastating in terms of the actions that are there. We’re seeing efforts right now to try to dismantle and abolish the Department of Education. They just fired a bunch of workers at the Department of Education who work on programs that support children with disabilities. And these are programs that are so depended on by so many communities in New Jersey, and especially some of the schools that have the hardest time funding programs for students with disabilities. I hope the American people see through so much of the lies put forth by Speaker Johnson.
Joint Base Immigration Detention Center
Q: The Trump administration’s plans to turn Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey into a temporary immigration detention center, though in July, you opposed the plans, the administration continues to withhold information about its plans. How can the state’s residents prepare themselves should this detention center ramp up ICE activity in New Jersey?
Senator Kim: First of all, I think it would just be such a dangerous move. First and foremost, our military can and always should be seen as there to protect and defend our communities, not be a place where people within our community are then taken away and detained. I think that this is something that could cause real backlash in New Jersey and could very well tarnish the reputation of our military and military facilities. The Joint Base in particular is one that I grew up right by.
I represented it every single year in my time in Congress so far. The idea that that’s now going to be used to potentially detain and capture people from our state, I think is wrong. I hope people in New Jersey will demand transparency. I’ve been asking and demanding that the Trump administration come forward with these plans. I’ve been pressing the Joint Base to be able to share, same with ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. We’re getting some details that we’re gonna try to make public and try to get some more pressure on the Trump administration to bring this out into the light.
They’re not doing so because they know that it’s not supported. They know how damaging this would be. And also, it just makes no sense to do this and to move forward with this kind of effort in this state that’s one of the most diverse in the entire country. When we see how this has been done elsewhere in the United States, it gives me no confidence that it can be done here. We already saw the debacle at Delaney Hall where a rushed effort to get that up and running has led to real systemic problems when it comes to the treatment of people there. All of that happening in the dark is dangerous and I’m gonna continue to push for the answers for the people of New Jersey.
Student Loan Debt and Financial Aid
Q: What is your plan to address student loan debt relief, especially for graduates in New Jersey? And how will you support federal actions in terms of financial aid for low-income students in the state?
Senator Kim: For me, education is paramount. Education is literally what brought my family to the United States. It’s so important that we give people that chance, but it’s difficult. I was a Pell Grant kid. My family got support through the Pell Grant. I was also work-study. This administration has been gutting that, has been gutting Pell Grant, has been gutting work-study support. I’ve tried to put forward legislation that would actually dramatically increase the number of Pell Grants that we give as a country, as well as raise the amount that one can get per grant because that’s remained stagnant for so many years.
I’ve also supported efforts to try to dramatically reduce, for instance, the interest rates on student loans. I supported the efforts that would have the student loan repayment tied to the income that somebody has so that they’re not having to choose between paying back their student loans and being able to buy food or pay their rent. This administration has been, again, gutting that. This effort is gonna dramatically make it difficult for people to be able to afford education. And that’s gonna just, not only affect them individually, but it’s gonna give us a much weaker workforce as a country.
Healthcare and NJ Family Care
Q: If the Trump administration doesn’t improve the healthcare budget, what plans are there specifically for New Jersey to ensure that the more than 350,000 New Jersey Family Care enrollees who would potentially lose their services are not left without health coverage? Is there any alternative on your part or through collaborative efforts with the state to prevent this from happening?
Senator Kim: The first and foremost thing we need to do is to be able to elect a governor that actually wants to protect our healthcare, protect Medicaid in our state. We have challenges in the state of New Jersey in terms of our budget, in terms of our resources. We cannot offset all of the cuts that the federal government has made when it comes to Medicaid. Whoever is the next governor will play a critical role in trying to figure out how we can mitigate the harm and the damage to as many as humanly possible.
This is also why I am fighting so hard when it comes to continuing the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act marketplace. A lot of people who are losing their healthcare through other means are gonna have to turn to the marketplace as well as those that are on the marketplace.
I’ve been going to federally qualified health centers, to hospitals and others, trying to figure out what needs they have to be able to continue to operate. Everyone’s really scrounging right now, trying to be creative to come up with solutions. I’ll try to help them every way I can.
