Booker rival who ‘shoots from the hip’ hopes viral debate moment can break GOP’s Senate drought

Justin Murphy, the Republican nominee challenging Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, has drawn national notice after a debate answer about the war with Iran caught the incumbent off guard. Asked about strategy, Murphy, a Navy veteran, attorney and former deputy mayor of Tabernacle, said President Donald Trump should "finish it." Clips spread widely online, and Murphy now hopes his off-the-cuff manner can help him end a Republican shutout in New Jersey's Senate contests that has lasted more than five decades. The last GOP winner there was Clifford Case, whose final victory came in 1972, according to Fox News.

Murphy told Fox News Digital that he uses no speechwriter or teleprompter and wants voters to see an authentic candidate. He said he never expected the moment to go viral, and that he meant what he said rather than staging it for social media.

At 60, he says, he cannot recall a period when Iran's backing of terrorism, assassination plots and killing of its own citizens was absent from the nightly news. He credits Trump with abandoning the habit of postponing hard decisions, and he wants young Americans spared from having to learn what the Strait of Hormuz means.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Fox News’s reporting. Read the full story at Fox News →