The Democratic New Jersey congresswoman seemed like a shoo-in to succeed Phil Murphy as her state’s governor, an office that trended blue in recent years. Yet she is now neck-and-neck with Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a successful businessman before entering politics. Her problem: disclosures that she spent some considerable time day-trading stocks while she was in office, possibly — if her critics are right — profiting off nonpublic information to make profitable trades. 

Rising public disgust over her alleged insider trading could cost her the Nov. 4 election. 

Yes, to hear critics tell it, Sherrill’s acumen at timing the market — buying and selling stock armed with nonpublic information during the COVID pandemic a few years back — puts her in league with some of the best insider traders in the business. 

Ivan Boesky watch out! 

The truth is that Sherrill’s stock trades might look bad, but they’re not illegal or unusual. In fact, they are in line with other lawmakers who have gotten caught in this ­periodic scandal, which amounts to allegations that they used their access to nonpublic information to profit on stock trades. 

More From Charles Gasparino

Based on my reporting, much of that information wasn’t even nonpublic, which is why no one ever went to jail over this stuff or has even been charged despite all the hoopla. Insider trading is notoriously difficult to prove because information is so fungible; warnings about the spread of COVID were all over the internet while Congress was being “privately” briefed in the matter. 

New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mikie Sherrill tours the USS Battleship New Jersey as part of a campaign stop on October 11, 2025 in Camden, New Jersey. Getty Images

Charlie Gasparino has his finger on the pulse of where business, politics and finance meet

Sign up to receive On The Money by Charlie Gasparino in your inbox every Thursday.

Thanks for signing up!

A ‘something’ burger? 

Which makes this “scandal” seem like a nothing burger for Sherrill, right? 

Not quite. On the campaign trail, Sherrill has been oddly dissembling when asked for the details of the timing of her trades — particularly when the markets were freaking out over COVID back in 2020 — other than to point out she no longer trades stocks after being called out a few years ago. 

That’s why I did a deeper dive in the controversy by reviewing the timing of her trades, disclosed through various publicly available sources such as a website that tracks this stuff, known as “Quiver Quantitative.” 

I came across something odd: In April 2020, the New Jersey Globe ran a story stating that Sherrill and her husband “decided to convert to ETFs last December and instructed a financial adviser to begin the process during the first week of January, before receiving any briefings on COVID-19.” 

Odd, because her congressional disclosures show she bought lots of stocks in January 2020, the same month President Trump first downplayed the severity of the virus. Unless I’m missing something, she really didn’t start unloading shares until Feb. 20, 2020, when “Trump 1” began warning about COVID and the stock markets began crashing. 

Significant trading 

Another oddity; Sherrill was hardly a piker at trading stocks in 2019 and 2020 when she first got to Congress. True, she’s no Nancy Pelosi; Sherrill’s trading activity reached a high of around $2.4 million in 2020, dwarfed by the $39 million in trades for the former House speaker last year. 

Republican candidate for governor of New Jersey Jack Ciattarelli (L) and Democrat Mikie Sherrill (R) during a debate at New Brunswick Performing Arts Center on October 08, 2025. Leonardo Munoz

But what she did was not nothing. So the question remains: Why even go there when you have so much else on your plate? 

Sherrill and her husband, Jason Hedberg, are hardly the fattest cats in government, though they are comfortably well off. Disclosure forms show they’re worth as much as $14 million. They own homes and property. 

Hedberg, whom she met at the Naval Academy, is a Wall Street banker who pulls in an estimated $3 million a year. (It was his late filing of stock trades that led to a small disclosure fine for Sherrill back in 2021. Through a rep he declined to comment.) 

Sherrill herself is no slouch; she was a helicopter pilot in the Navy, went on to become an accomplished private attorney at the firm Kirkland & Ellis before working as an assistant US attorney and then entering Congress. 

A spokesman for Sherrill’s campaign says “Mikie does not own or trade individual stocks, and has gone ‘above and beyond’ releasing the exact values of her finances to the dollar and while New Jerseyans have zero insight into Jack Ciattarelli’s net worth.” 

Again, she certainly isn’t the worst — or the first — lawmaker to be caught flat-footed trying to explain weirdness involving stock trading and whether they used the perks of their office to make money. 

Yet she does provide a cautionary tale; if you enter Congress, try focusing your time on working for the people back home and not being a day-trader. Put your dough in a simple mutual fund like the one that tracks the S&P 500. It’s been up around 168% since 2019, and it won’t cost you an election.

The post Mikie Sherrill isn’t the first politician to face insider trading charges — but it may cost her the NJ election appeared first on Our Story Insight.

Canada chooses a leader to take on Trump

Canadians vote on Monday to determine which political party forms their next government.

But President Trump’s tariff assault on Canada and his vow to annex the country and make it the 51st state have turned the federal election into a referendum on which of the two contenders — Prime Minister Mark Carney of the Liberal Party or Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservatives — can best handle the American president, Ian Austen writes for DealBook.

The only English-language election debate last week opened with the moderator asking Carney, who has been the prime minister for just over a month, what the “starting point” would be for talks with the Trump White House.

“The starting point has to be one of strength,” Carney responded.

Both candidates have promised a tough response. Trump’s belittling of Canada’s sovereignty and his tariffs, which have already led to layoffs and concerns about factory closings, have prompted a surge of patriotism among Canadians and open hostility toward the United States — the country’s largest trading partner. In sharp contrast with Mexico’s approach of dealing with Trump, both Carney and Poilievre have vowed to fight back.

Here are the strategies they’ve campaigned on:

• Hit back: Carney has emphasized his commitment to retaliatory tariffs. Poilievre has said that they are necessary to “deter” Trump’s trade attacks. Canada has imposed tariffs on imports from the United States that are expected to generate about 38 billion Canadian dollars annually, or about $27 billion.

  Trump has imposed tariffs against key sectors of Canada’s industrial economy: 25 percent levies on autos, aluminum and steel, and a similar levy on goods that are outside the scope of the trade agreement among the United States, Canada and Mexico. A tariff on auto parts is scheduled to take effect on Saturday.

  Autos and auto parts are Canada’s largest exports to the United States outside of oil and gas.

• Diversify: A former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, Carney conspicuously made his first trip as prime minister to meet with leaders in Britain and Europe. Canada has a free-trade agreement with Europe, but it is unclear how much potential Canada has to significantly raise exports to that market.

  Poilievre, a lifelong politician, has vigorously pushed to build a pipeline across Canada to ship oil and liquefied natural gas to Europe. Canada currently exports more than 80 percent of its energy to the United States. Carney has also suggested finding new energy markets and building pipelines.

• Canadianize: To end the current process of auto parts crossing the border several times, Carney has suggested the creation of “all-in-Canada” parts manufacturing network. He has offered no details on how he would persuade manufacturers to adjust their supply chains to suit Canada’s goals.

Neither candidate has gotten specific. Carney says his experience as a central banker and in private investment (he has a doctorate in economics, worked at Goldman Sachs and was chairman at Brookfield Asset Management and at Bloomberg) makes him the ideal negotiator and economic crisis manager.

Poilievre, who was campaigning on crime, taxes and high prices for food and housing before the tariffs and before the election was called, has not focused as directly on the trade war. Polls show the Liberals slightly ahead of the Conservatives in the popular vote, but the Liberals are likely to have a strong majority of the seats in the House of Commons to form the next government.

DEALBOOK WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU

We’d like to know how the tariffs are affecting your business. Have you changed suppliers? Negotiated lower prices? Paused investments or hiring? Made plans to move manufacturing to the U.S.? Or have the tariffs helped your business? Please let us know what you’re doing.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

China’s Huawei reportedly develops a new A.I. chip to take on Nvidia. It’s meant to compete with Nvidia’s most advanced semiconductor; TikTok parent Bytedance is among those in discussions to place orders, The Wall Street Journal reported. It’s the latest example of Beijing’s push to move away from U.S. technology in the face of export controls.

America’s academic leaders make a stand against President Trump. After the White House froze billions in federal funding for leading universities, a group has formed to counter the president’s broad attacks, with more than 400 college leaders signing a letter opposing Trump’s moves to audit curriculums and oversee hirings. Meanwhile, a private collective of top universities has banded together to plot strategy, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Gordon Brown lodges a criminal complaint against Rupert Murdoch’s papers. The former British prime minister alleges he has been a “victim of the obstruction of the course of justice” by Murdoch’s U.K. papers, as the phone hacking scandal that forced the closure of one of the media mogul’s tabloids and led to a split of his empire, continues. His U.K. company has denied the accusations.

A game of telephone

There’s more confusion on Monday about the state of U.S.-China tariff talks, as new data shows that global trade has begun to falter and jittery investors brace for a huge earnings week.

The latest: Beijing on Monday outright denied President Trump’s claim that Xi Jinping, China’s leader, called him to discuss their tit-for-tat trade clash. Trump told Time last week that they had in fact spoken, and that talks were progressing. Beijing’s statement comes after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has become a point person on trade negotiations, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that he wasn’t aware of whether the two leaders had spoken.

Who to believe? Companies are focusing their attention on Wall Street and Washington. Several business leaders have used the earnings-call spotlight to warn about tariffs. The hope is that the message may reach Trump administration officials, adding to pressure on the White House to find an off-ramp with trading partners.

That said, Trump pushed back on the notion that he was swayed by restive bond holders in deciding earlier this month to pause implementation of reciprocal tariffs. “​​The bond market was getting the yips, but I wasn’t,” Trump told Time.

Meanwhile, the trade fallout worsens. Cargo shipments between the two countries have plummeted, and Temu, the popular Chinese retailing app that’s been hit especially hard by Trump’s tariffs, has jacked up costs for U.S. customers, Bloomberg reports. Economists have forecast that the levies could reignite inflation and ding economic growth, while retailers have begun to warn it could lead to empty store shelves.

That puts extra focus on a big week for earnings and economic data. What’s in store:

• Personal Consumption Expenditures, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, and first-quarter G.D.P., are set for release on Wednesday with recession fears on the rise.

• Friday is jobs day. Some economists expect to see a tariff-driven drop-off in hiring for the April payrolls report.

• There’s also an earnings-palooza, with four of the Magnificent 7 stalwarts set to report. First up in that grouping are Microsoft and Meta (on Wednesday); Apple and Amazon follow on Thursday.

Big Tech earnings have fueled a slew of market rallies over the past two years, and Google’s Alphabet and Tesla helped give stocks a boost last week. Can the tech giants keep the streak alive, or will trade-war tensions prevail?

The latest in the content wars: Spotify vs. YouTube

Spotify has paid more than $100 million to podcast publishers and creators since January, Jessica Testa is first to report for DealBook.

The payout is the result of a program introduced this year that opened up new revenue streams to eligible hosts. But it is also an attempt to draw more creators (and their audiences) to Spotify, as the rise of video podcasting has driven many of them to YouTube.

Video has come to dominate podcasting. More than half of Americans over the age of 12 have watched a video podcast — but primarily on YouTube, according to an Edison Research report from January. The service claims to reach 1 billion podcast consumers every month, making it the dominant platform for podcasts — a media king and kingmaker — and leaving onetime audio-only platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts in the dust. (Spotify introduced video podcasts in 2019.)

Compared with YouTube, Spotify has become a podcast underdog, with about 170 million monthly podcast listeners among its total audience of 675 million. One indication of how far Spotify has to go to catch up to the top player: YouTube paid out more than $70 billion to creators and media companies from 2021 to 2024.

The company reports earnings tomorrow and is expected to make about 540 million euros in pretax income on 4.2 billion euros in sales, according to S&P Capital IQ.

But Spotify remains a major player in the industry thanks in part to its talent roster — it distributes and sells advertising for the biggest podcast in the world, “The Joe Rogan Experience.” And it achieved its first full year of profitability in 2024. (Rogan’s podcasts are also available on YouTube.)

The new partner program aims to chip away at YouTube’s dominance. Spotify previously paid creators only by sharing advertising revenue with them, much like YouTube. Now it also gives them incentives to upload videos, with eligible creators earning additional money based on how much premium subscribers engage with their videos.

The company is trying to attract more viewers. At the same time that Spotify announced the partnership program in November, it announced that paid subscribers in certain markets wouldn’t have to watch dynamic ads in video podcasts. Video consumption has already increased by more than 40 percent since January, according to Spotify.

Can Spotify persuade creators to shift priorities? David Coles, host of the horror fiction podcast “Just Creepy: Scary Stories,” said he is re-evaluating his “home platform” after his Spotify revenue recently surpassed his YouTube revenue. Last quarter, Coles said he received about $45,500 from Spotify. After joining the company’s new partner program, his quarterly Spotify income rose to about $81,600.

This increase can be even more dramatic for larger shows and podcast companies, like YMH Studios, a comedy network with 2.1 million YouTube subscribers that produces popular podcasts including “2 Bears, 1 Cave.” While declining to share exact figures, YMH Studios said its quarterly Spotify revenue more than tripled after joining the partner program.

Although creators emphasized that these are still early days, Alan Abdine, the head of advertising revenue at YMH Studios, called the new payment program “a game-changer” and “a very happy surprise.”

“Our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires. No one here is happy about it.”

— Scott Pelley, the “60 Minutes” correspondent. He delivered an extraordinary on-air rebuke last night during the news program’s first episode since the resignation of Bill Owens, who had led the award-winning CBS program since 2019. Paramount, which owns CBS and is led by Shari Redstone, is now in mediation with President Trump over his $20 billion lawsuit against CBS News. It comes as Redstone is seeking government approval for her company’s merger with Hollywood studio Skydance.

THE SPEED READ

Artificial Intelligence

• Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence business xAI is looking to raise $20 billion at a valuation of $120 billion. (Bloomberg)

• Google’s A.I. staff in the U.K. plan to unionize to fight against the company’s plans to sell its services to defense contractors. (FT)

Politics, policy and regulation

• President Trump’s son, Don Jr., and tech entrepreneur Omeed Malik started a private Georgetown club for the ultra rich who want to get even closer to the president. (Politico)

• Some Republican lawmakers could sink President Trump’s tax bill over key issues such as the SALT deduction and the Inflation Reduction Act. (WSJ)

Best of the rest

• Behind the private group chats on Signal and WhatsApp that are shaping tomorrow’s conversations on podcasts, X, and Substack. (Semafor)

• Five years after Carlos Ghosn escaped in a crate, the fugitive and former head of Nissan is now teaching business strategy at a university in Lebanon. (WSJ)

We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.

The post Canada Election: It’ll Be Carney or Poilievre Against Trump’s Tariffs appeared first on Our Story Insight.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a meagdonor and adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, is now seeking to influence Germany’s election, posting an endorsement on X of the country’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

In a post Thursday night, Musk wrote, “Only the AfD can save Germany.”

Musk, who has over 200 million listed followers on the site that he owns, made the comment while sharing a post from far-right influencer, Naomi Seibt, who claimed that Germany’s “presumptive next chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is horrified by the idea that Germany should follow Elon Musk’s and Javier Milei’s example,” referring to the president of Argentina.

Seibt has a history of promoting white nationalist ideology, The Guardian previously reported, and has denied the validity of scientific consensus around climate change, namely that it’s driven by fossil fuel emissions.

In a post on X, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called Musk an “out of touch billionaire running the incoming Trump Administration” who “enthusiastically supports the neo-Nazi party in Germany.”

“The AfD’s mission is to rehabilitate the image of the Nazi movement,” Murphy wrote. He added that one of the party’s leaders has a license plate that’s “an open tribute to Hitler,” and another “described Judaism as the ‘inner enemy’ in Germany.”

Musk and Tesla’s investor relations team didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

On Friday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a center-left Social Democrat, dismissed Musk’s claim that only the far-right party can “save Germany.”

Under Scholz’s leadership, Germany’s left-wing coalition collapsed in November, and AfD is currently polling in second place ahead of February elections. Throughout Germany, where the AfD has placed highly in state elections, the other parties have generally refused to form coalitions with it. 

According to Pew Research, “AfD has campaigned against weapon deliveries to Ukraine and called for an end to sanctions on Russia,” a view shared by Musk.

Far right parties have also gained ground in the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and elsewhere. Many cheered Trump’s election, which Musk helped finance through $277 million in contributions to the campaign and related Republican causes.

Tesla’s stock is up about 75% since Trump’s victory, surpassing its prior all-time high from 2021 last week.

AfD has reportedly criticized Tesla and its factory outside of Berlin. The party claimed many of Tesla’s thousands of workers there commute in from Poland or Berlin, limiting the economic benefits to the local community in Brandenburg.

The AfD generally views electric vehicles as part of an ideological climate movement, and not good for Germany’s auto industry.

Europe has been a tough market for Tesla this year. According to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, sales of Tesla cars declined 40.9% in November, exceeding the overall 9.5% dip in sales of battery electric vehicles.

Elsewhere in Euopre, Musk endorsed right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and has voiced support for Nigel Farage in the U.K, a populist politician and head of Reform UK. In South America, Musk endorsed and has a friendship with Argentina’s President Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist.

In Magdeburg, Germany, on Friday, a driver veered his car into crowds of people at a Christmas market, resulting in fatalities and dozens of injuries.

In response to a post on X showing Chancellor Scholz in a press conference after the incident, Musk wrote, “Scholz should resign immediately. Incompetent fool.”

WATCH: Musk’s early influence on government

The post Elon Musk endorses far-right Alternative for Germany party in election appeared first on Our Story Insight.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) — which consists of board members appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democrat-controlled legislature — is scheduled to vote just days after the election on a new proposal that would lower carbon emissions faster, but increase the cost of petroleum refineries.

CARB has the authority to impose regulations without legislative oversight.

Twenty-five Republicans are sounding the alarm and urging the board to delay the vote after an independent finding showed it could increase the cost at the pump per gallon by 47 cents.

“It’s a big, big deal, and so people deserve to know and have full transparency by these boards, what it is that they’re doing and the impact that it will have on their daily life,” state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, R-Yucaipa, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

“So, we talk about the cost of living in California. We talk about the top concerns in California is the cost of living, and when it comes to the impact of fuels, this would be a direct ripple effect on increasing the cost of living in California. People need a break.”

In a letter to CARB chair Liane Randolph, Ochoa Bogh and Assemblymember Greg Wallis noted that Californians currently pay $1.50 more per gallon than the national average, and CARB’s proposed changes could add 65 to 85 cents next year, potentially reaching $1.50 by 2035.

Californians may see another tax hike after they are already paying the highest tax prices in the U.S. AFP via Getty Images

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) — which consists of board members appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, plan to vote on a new proposal that would lower carbon emissions faster, but increase the cost of petroleum refineries. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

CARB has the power to put those regulations into effect without legislative oversight, which has GOP lawmakers sounding the alarm and wanting the board to delay the vote. REUTERS

“What we’re asking is that before you take a vote on new standards that are going to obviously have an impact on fuel prices, give us full disclosure as to what exactly it is that you’re imposing and what the financial impact will be on Californians,” Ochoa Bogh said.

CARB initially estimated a 47-cent-per-gallon increase in gas prices for public comment, but retracted the estimate after receiving massive backlash.

The CARB report foresaw gasoline prices increasing due to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard reforms that were created in 2007, likely rising by 47 cents next year and 52 cents by 2026.

Diesel prices could climb by 59 cents this year and 66 cents in two years. Long-term projections suggest gasoline could surge by $1.15 and diesel by $1.50 per gallon from 2031 to 2046, with jet fuel increasing by $1.21.

The air board staff later called the gas price hike projections “incomplete” in a December report, focusing instead on the cost savings to drivers as more people transition to electric vehicles.

The post Blue state regulators could hike price at pump just days after election, GOP lawmakers warn appeared first on Our Story Insight.