A popular New Jersey Democrat has announced plans to challenge Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, just days after Menendez was indicted on bribery charges. 

Rep. Andy Kim of New Jersey’s 3rd District posted his primary challenge to Menendez on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, saying that the Garden State “deserves better” and that re-electing Menendez in 2024 would be a mistake. The move comes as several top Democrats, including New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, have said the senator should step down. 

“After calls to resign, Senator Menendez said ‘I am not going anywhere.’ As a result, I feel compelled to run against him,” Kim posted to X. “Not something I expected to do, but NJ deserves better. We cannot jeopardize the Senate or compromise our integrity.” 

After calls to resign, Senator Menendez said “I am not going anywhere.” As a result, I feel compelled to run against him. Not something I expected to do, but NJ deserves better. We cannot jeopardize the Senate or compromise our integrity. Please join me:https://t.co/QFIaMsgJc9

— Andy Kim (@AndyKimNJ) September 23, 2023

On Friday, Menendez and his wife, Nadine, were indicted on bribery charges after U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams opened a corruption investigation in October 2022. He faces charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services fraud, and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right. 

The indictment alleges that Menendez and his wife took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes intended to benefit the New Jersey senator and the Egyptian government, The Washington Post reports. Some of the alleged bribes were in the form of gold bars. Menendez had previously been indicted on federal corruption charges, but that case ended in a mistrial. 

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“Those who believe in justice believe in innocence until proven guilty. I intend to continue to fight for the people of New Jersey with the same success I’ve had for the past five decades,” Menendez said in a statement Friday, rejecting resignation calls. “This is the same record of success these very same leaders have lauded all along. It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat. I am not going anywhere.”

Kim was first elected to Congress in 2018, flipping the third congressional district seat, and easily won re-election in 2020 in the district former President Donald Trump took in 2016 and 2020, POLITICO reports. 

Several Democrats have called for Menendez to resign, including Governor Murphy, Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), and Democratic New Jersey Reps. Josh Gottheimer, Bill Pascrell, and Donald Norcross. 

“The people of New Jersey absolutely need to know the truth of what happened, and I hope the judicial system works thoroughly and quickly to bring this truth to light,” Kim said before announcing his campaign. “In the meantime, I don’t have confidence that the Senator has the ability to properly focus on our state and its people while addressing such a significant legal matter. He should step down.”

Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro sat down with author and entrepreneur Patrick Bet-David to discuss a wide range of topics, including the infiltration of woke ideology into the business world, on the latest episode of “The Sunday Special.”

During the episode, Shapiro asked Bet-David, an Iranian-American and the founder and CEO of Valuetainment, about how much the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) movement had ingrained itself into large corporations. Bet-David told Shapiro that the adoption of woke policies by corporations was very widespread, but that he believed corporations would be forced to abandon such policies in the long-term as more people became aware of the situation.

“They’re not going to win long-term because people are starting to get exposed to it and they’re learning more about it. And even they’re saying, ‘Hey, let me back off a little bit,'” he said, later adding that “common sense” would win.

He pointed to recent news that McDonald’s would be removing ESG components from its website, and billionaire Elon Musk’s criticism of ESG, to show that momentum was starting to build against woke corporatism.

Shapiro and Bet-David also discussed why social media personality Andrew Tate had amassed such a large following, especially with young men. Bet-David said that there was valid criticism of Tate’s personal life, but that the message he was presenting was attractive to boys looking for a male role model.

“But a lot of the values and what he’s presenting, you can’t argue young men are looking for that, especially nowadays. There’s a lot of boys that are looking for an older brother or a father figure and his messaging keeps resonating with them,” he said.

Shapiro said that, while he believed that Tate diagnosed many of the problems with modern society, his answers were usually wrong. Shapiro said the way to build society was by getting married and having a family, not through a purely materialistic approach of focusing solely on money and attracting a lot of women.

Bet-David, who spoke with Tate on his YouTube, has interviewed a broad host of public figures on his podcast including Rod Blagojevich, Anthony Weiner, Shaquille O’Neal, Magic Johnson, and Kobe Bryant.

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Bet-David also discussed his new book, “Choose Your Enemies Wisely: Business Planning for the Audacious Few,” which is coming out in December.

“Everybody has an enemy. You got an enemy. I got an enemy. He has an enemy. Trump has an enemy. Biden has an enemy. The average voter has an enemy. … Everybody’s got an enemy, right?” he said, adding that people needed to be strategic in choosing their enemies.

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