Jack Ciattarelli met with President Trump at Bedminster on Friday, Save Jerseyans, and the photographs are already spinning wheels in the world of New Jersey Republican politics.
“Tonight, my great honor and pleasure to share time with @POTUS at Trump National in Bedminster,” Ciattarelli announced on his X page, sharing two photographs of his meeting with the recently returned Commander in Chief.
Tonight, my great honor and pleasure to share time with @POTUS at Trump National in Bedminster. pic.twitter.com/STERLESX4Z
— Jack Ciattarelli (@Jack4NJ) March 22, 2025
POTUS has yet to weigh in on the 2025 gubernatorial primary contest and there’s been intense speculation as to whether he will.
The two leading contenders for the GOP nomination – Ciattarelli, out ahead in every public and private-but-shared poll, and ex-NJ 101.5 host Bill Spadea, a distant second in most of the same surveys – have battled back-and-forth over who is the true MAGA-friendly option for primary voters. Both men share a track record of past comments critical of the president. Super pacs supportive of each respective candidates (the pro-Ciattarelli Kitchen Table Conservatives is backed by Kellyanne Conway while operative and former DeSantis booster Ed Rollins is quaterbacking a pro-Spadea group) are spending big money to make the case that the other guy is inauthentically America First.
For example, Trump offered a glowing review of Spadea during a radio interview in the lead up to last May’s historic Wildwood beach rally. “You’ve had my back from the beginning. I know all about it. That’s why I’m talking to you. I turn, I turn down plenty of requests, I will tell you. But you’ve had my back, and I really appreciate it,” Trump told Spadea. “You are fantastic.”
Trump also ribbed Ciattarelli during the same exchange for being insufficiently supportive of him during the 2021 gubernatorial campaign when Ciattarelli lost by only 3-points to Phil Murphy.
However, in November 2023, Spadea told his former Central Jersey radio audience that then-former Trump had “failed” in challenging the Deep State and declared that it was time to move on to a new candidate. Insiders have speculated that Trump may not have been aware of Spadea’s less favorable prior commentary at the time of the spring 2024 interview.
The latest Kitchen Table ad unearths footage of Spadea appearing to dismiss the efficacy of a Southern Border Wall. “I think they could do just as much with drones as they could with cement… this is really about enforcement, it’s not about a physical wall,” Spadea explained at the time.
“President Trump deserves a partner in New Jersey who will work with him to build the wall and secure the border. That’s just not Bill Spadea – who has spent 20 years calling for amnesty,” said Carlos Cruz, a veteran New Jersey Republican strategist and the spokesman for Kitchen Table Conservatives. “Bill Spadea wanted to trade Trump’s big, beautiful border wall to secure amnesty and a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. We just can’t trust Bill Spadea to fight for conservative values in Trenton.”
Most observers agree that a Trump endorsement for Ciattarelli would likely effectively end the GOP primary while a formal Trump message of support for Spadea could upend the race at a time when Ciattarelli appears to be decisively if not unassailably in the lead.
Neither the Trump White House nor the Ciattarelli campaign is commenting (for now) on substance of the pair’s face-to-face meeting at the President’s “Summer White House” in Central Jersey where he’s expected to remain throughout the weekend, his first visit there since returning to the presidency.
