WATCH: Navy Vet GOP Senate Candidate Justin Murphy Stuns Cory Booker in NJ Debate — Tells Trump to “Finish” Iran War, Put on Cowboy Hat and “Kick Some Ass” as Crowd Erupts
By Jim Hᴏft Oct. 12, 2026 9:30 am
New Jersey Republican Senate nominee Justin Murphy delivered a blistering, no-nonsense response on the war against the Iranian regime during his only debate against longtime Democrat incumbent Cory Booker, bringing the house down at Rider University and leaving the usually verbose Booker looking stunned.
Asked by New Jersey Globe moderator David Wildstein what he would advise President Trump if the president called and said he would do whatever Murphy wanted on Iran, the Navy veteran didn’t hesitate.
“Finish it,” Murphy declared.
“Finish that war in a positive manner. We can’t wait halfway through and decide we don’t want to do this anymore. The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a radical terrorist organization that has deprived the Iranian people and the Persian people of their history and of a decent life. They have murdered, raped, tortured, assassinated, promoted, and promoted terrorism all throughout the world, especially in the region of the Middle East. They are a cancer on human existence.”
Murphy then reached back to the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage crisis that many Americans still remember vividly.
“I remember as a young boy watching those walls of our— November of 1979, watching the radical Islamic terrorists storm over the walls of our embassy and 52 Americans held for 444 days. And ever since November of ’79, the IRGC in Iran has done nothing but export terror, murder, rape, oppression, and assassination to the region and to the world. And it’s time it stops. Four decades is enough. The Iranian people have suffered enough.”
He closed with the line that has since gone viral: “And I would say, Mr. President, put your cowboy hat on and get out there and kick some ass and get this done and done right.”
The crowd’s reaction was immediate and enthusiastic. Booker’s expression, by contrast, told the story of a Democrat who has rarely faced this kind of direct, unapologetic pushback from a Republican challenger on the stage.
Booker had just finished attacking Trump’s decision to confront the regime, calling it “one of the most colossally stupid things the president has ever done” and claiming the United States is now stuck in “another Middle East quagmire.” He later dismissed Murphy’s stance as “yahoo cowboy foreign policy” and “false bravado,” insisting military force should only be a last resort after diplomacy.
Murphy, who served four years in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Comte De Grasse (including time in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War) and previously served as Tabernacle Deputy Mayor, rejected the quagmire framing outright.
He has argued the regime’s nuclear ambitions make delay catastrophic and that the IRGC’s decades-long export of terrorism must end.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/10/watch-navy-vet-gop-senate-candidate-justin-murphy/