U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill said Jack Ciattarelli is "acting like a total baby" for threatening legal action after she blamed him for tens of thousands of deaths in the opioid crisis in a wide-ranging 30-minute interview with The Inquirer's editorial board.

She also reaffirmed her decision to keep her Naval Academy disciplinary records private when pressed on the matter, and elaborated on her legislative priority after a clip of her stumbling over that topic has been widely circulated.

Sherrill said Democratic voters chose her resoundingly after a competitive primary with "a lot of credible candidates," which she said has helped consolidate support within the party.

"The thing on the table for voters, from the thousands of people I've been speaking to across New Jersey, is affordability," she said. "It's housing, it's healthcare, it's electricity prices, and then on top of that, it's the fact that [President Donald] Trump, who basically ran a campaign on driving down prices and promising affordability for people, has actually raised costs on everyone."

She joined Tuesday's Zoom call with members of the editorial board and a reporter with a yawn and compared the rigors of running a statewide campaign to childbirth.

"I ran a campaign like this in 2018, and when I started doing it again, I was like, 'Oh, ah, OK,'" she said. "But if I had been sort of told, 'OK, you're gonna be doing 14-hour days regularly,' I might have been like, 'Wait, what?'"

Sherrill doesn't back down on fiery accusation against Ciattarelli

In their second and final debate, Sherrill repeatedly said on live television that Ciattarelli "killed tens of thousands of people" by publishing material that reportedly downplayed the risks of opioids through his former company Galen Publishing, which he sold for millions in 2017.

It is not entirely clear if the attack line went as planned in the debate, as she started off accusing him of making millions on "propaganda" as people died and — as their fighting went on — escalated to accusing him of going on to "kill tens of thousands of people in New Jersey, including children."

In response to whether she regrets her wording, Sherrill said in the interview that "everybody that watched that debate knows the context of which I was talking," and she derided Ciattarelli's threat of a lawsuit.

"I am just flummoxed that here is a guy who has, you know, as a perennial candidate, continued to run on the fact he's a small businessman, and the minute I bring up what was going on with his small business, he hires lawyers to try to shut the conversation down," she said. Ciattarelli, a former Assembly member, ran for governor in 2017 and 2021.

"He's acting like a total baby right now, if you ask me," she added.

Sherrill repeated her accusation that Ciattarelli was contracted to build an app that taught people how to convince their doctor to give them more opioids as a new opioid product was being rolled out.

She was referencing a former online program called Living With Pain, which Ciattarelli's company created with another company called ProPatient through a grant from Teva Pharmaceuticals. The program was advertised as helping people "take control" of their pain when speaking to their doctors, including when their "care team" is "reluctant to help."

Ciattarelli has not addressed the details of Sherrill's accusations but said they are lies. He announced last week that he intends to sue Sherrill for defamation, and on Wednesday, his campaign lawyer sought out an advisory opinion from the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission on whether he can fund the lawsuit with his own cash and not cut into his campaign's budget.

Ciattarelli's campaign manager, Eric Arpert, said in a text Wednesday that the request was "the first step" in Ciattarelli's effort to sue Sherrill.

"In her desperation, Mikie Sherrill crossed a line and sunk to dangerous levels of unhinged rhetoric," Arpert added.

Sherrill won't release her naval disciplinary record amid GOP pressure

Ciattarelli has repeatedly called on Sherrill to release her disciplinary records from the Naval Academy to show any involvement in a widespread cheating scandal in 1994, the year she graduated.

Sherrill has made her Navy service a hallmark of her political identity. But after it was reported that her name was not on the Naval Academy commencement program, she said she did not walk at graduation because she had not turned in her classmates who were involved in the scandal.

She has resisted calls to show evidence of that.

Ciattarelli has repeatedly suggested that Sherrill is hiding wrongdoing and that her story must not line up with her disciplinary records because she won't permit their release.

Sherrill argued in their final debate last week that doing so would involve hundreds of her classmates' records. It is unclear how releasing her own records would do so, and Sherrill has touted the importance of transparency in her campaign.

When asked in the interview to clarify why she doesn't want to release her own disciplinary records, Sherrill said she was "not even sure what that would look like."

"This was a big thing that took place at the school, and so there's hundreds of files and hundreds of interviews and stuff like that," she said.

Sherrill accused Ciattarelli of "trying to go on a witch hunt throughout a bunch of military files" and said she was "in no way going to help him do something like that when he's already shown he's inappropriately using files and releasing unredacted military files."

Sherrill has repeatedly accused Ciattarelli of foul play after her unredacted military records were provided to an ally of his. These records are separate from her school disciplinary records and could lawfully be provided in response to a public information request, but should have redacted her personal information like her Social Security number.

The National Archives said the unredacted records were released in error and instructed Ciattarelli's allies not to circulate the papers further after a reporter inquired about them. The National Archives inspector general opened an investigation into the matter.

Ciattarelli's ally specifically requested "publicly releasable information" from Sherrill's file and was "unaware" that the documents contained anything they shouldn't, according to Ciattarelli's campaign lawyer.

She takes another shot at answering what her legislative priority is

Ciattarelli and his allies have been enthusiastically circulating a clip of Sherrill stumbling to answer when CBS New York host Marcia Kramer asked her if she could pass one piece of legislation, what would it be.

After stammering, Sherrill responded that she would like to send a federal block grant to New Jersey "to run some really key programs and innovate on them, specifically in the healthcare area."

The editorial board noted GOP commercials highlighting her initial hesitation and garbled response and offered her another chance to answer the question.

"I am going to make sure that we are building out the energy plan for the state," she quickly responded.

She said that following a state-of-emergency executive order on day one, she wants to develop legislation that would include permitting and regulatory policies to build the state's energy infrastructure. She would want to include how solar projects can cut through red tape and permitting processes, define how much energy can be connected to the grid, how to build out nuclear energy in the state, and how to develop existing natural gas facilities.

In the interview, Sherrill also spoke about her support for building more housing and her desire to "take on the landlords who are colluding to raise prices."

When asked about differing herself from Gov. Phil Murphy, she cited her desire to freeze energy rates, permitting reforms, and "a culture shift in Trenton." She acknowledged that it's been "nearly impossible" to get a third term with the same political party in New Jersey, but argued that Ciattarelli "really feels like the status quo" since he has already run for governor twice.

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