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PBD Podcast Episode 162. In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Nikki Fried, Adam Sosnick and Jedediah Bila.
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About:
Nicole Heather Fried is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the 12th Florida commissioner of agriculture since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, Fried graduated from the University of Florida in 2003. She has previously practiced various forms of law, including corporate law, foreclosure defense, and as a public defender.
About Jedediah:
Jedediah Louisa Bila is an American television host and author. She is known for her time as a co-host on the daytime talk show The View and an anchor on the weekend edition of the morning news and talk program Fox & Friends. Follow her channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzmDARnc6yAHdXWRBwQTFpA?sub_confirmation=1
Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
To reach the Valuetainment team you can email: booking@valuetainment.com
0:00 - Start
1:18 - People who agree with DeSantis
6:28 - How to judge whether or not Florida is a 'good state'
13:33 - How Ron DeSantis is fighting for freedom
24:34 - Why are people coming to Florida?
31:50 - Are people unhappy with Florida?
42:47 - The truth about public schools
48:24 - Nikki Fried explains why you should vote for her
54:53 - What moment is America currently facing?
1:05:57 - Announcing Jedediah Bila
You missed the conversation with a very good friend of Adam.
Anyway, mutual friends.
Episode 162 today with governor candidate of Florida.
Florida, yes.
Nikki Freed.
And the 13th, is it the 13th or the 12th?
The 12th Agriculture Commissioner in the state of Florida.
And she's been that since 2019.
And we got a lot of things to get into today.
So thank you so much for making an attempt to come out.
For the sake of timing, I think we got 60 minutes together.
We got one hour.
So let's just get right into it.
One of the questions that's been really weighing on me for a while is there's a lot of people in Florida who are fans of Florida, with what's going on with Florida.
But I haven't met anybody that admires and loves DeSantis as much as you.
What's the reasoning why you love the governor so much?
Like, I'm really curious.
Where should we stand?
We don't have only an hour, right?
I'm actually curious.
Why do you love this man so much?
You know, it's interesting.
You know, when we first got elected, all four of us on the cabinet.
So for those who don't know, the cabinet consists of the governor, the chief financial officer, the attorney general, and the commissioner of agriculture.
And I was actually really hopeful.
You know, all four of us were under the age of 50, all had younger families.
And I really was like, okay, great.
Maybe there's an opportunity for us to show the rest of the country what bipartisan support looks like.
We had a lot of mutual friends.
I had known the attorney general since our time in undergrad and law school, knew the CFO from when he was in the legislature.
Ashley, right?
Ashley, you know?
Is that Jimmy Petronas as well?
CFO.
Okay, good.
So I had known them all for, I was like, okay, we're going to do this.
We're going to do some good stuff together.
And I was really wrong.
I'm not wrong a lot in my life, but this was a big one.
And unfortunately, starting really kind of towards the latter part of 2019, he just was coming in.
There was violations of sunshine.
There was just not working with everybody.
And the biggest thing started really in 2020 when he tried to come in and take my office of energy, which falls underneath the commissioner.
And we had done some really, really great things under there.
And I was like, why?
What's the point?
We're doing good stuff.
And it came down to power.
And that's when I realized this guy is no good, that he cares about one thing and one thing only, and that's how to get more power.
And every decision that he's made since then is how to consolidate power behind the governor.
I mean, look what he did to the legislature this past week, that he made the Senate president and the speaker of the house stand next to him as he vetoed $3.1 billion and laughed at them.
That's not who a governor is supposed to be.
And I've watched him become a dictator and really try to consolidate this power, marginalize people, yell at our kids, all for his goal of power and to get to the White House.
Okay, so now you say that about him, but tell us what are you running on so the audience also knows what you're for.
Yep, absolutely.
And that's more important, more important to know what the people are running for.
So look, I had.
We'll get into both of them, but I just want to make sure they also know what you're for.
So I have been our elected statewide Democrat for three and a half years.
And I have been every single day fighting for the people of our state, making sure that everybody's got to see the table, making sure that people that have been marginalized before know that there's someone fighting for them.
And today, we have a real serious problem in our state that we have seen that Republicans, unfortunately, and my dad's a Republican.
So I want to also be very clear.
I grew up, as you were talking about before on air, that there's a, you know, communism versus imperialism in your household.
My dad is a die-hard Republican.
When I was doing soup kitchens and Habitat for Humanity in Miami growing up, he was getting me NRA t-shirts.
So we are, you know, that's kind of the household that I grew up in.
What was your mom?
She is a die-hard Democrat.
She was a teacher for 25 years.
And they're still together?
No.
No, no, no.
Well, I mean, I'm excited.
That's not a good case example for America there, Nikki.
How long were they married for?
25 years.
25 years.
Wow.
That's a long time.
That's a long time.
A long time.
25 years.
Sometimes that 25 years is simply until the kids turn 18.
That's what they're waiting for.
Okay, there you go.
We can't wait in four more years.
I was 12.
They got divorced twice, my parents, in 20 years.
They married each other, divorced, married each other, divorced in 20 years.
Wow.
So similar story.
Please continue.
So I was watching all of this.
And at the end of the day, that's not what government's supposed to be.
Government is supposed to be able to bring people together, inspire people, making sure that everybody's got economic opportunities, get that American dream of home ownership and living here.
And government staying out of the way.
You know, I've always, again, from my dad, was hot about what Republicans are supposed to be about.
Less government, less taxes, less spending, local control, free market.
The Republicans of today don't stand for any of that.
And seeing, again, the government intrusion every single day.
Well, I'm somebody, I came in, I created the hemp program here in the state of Florida.
So first time we created a new industry in our state and I created an open market that letting anybody who wants to cultivate, to manufacture, to distribute, has an equal opportunity to succeed.
So I look at things of how do I make people's lives better, not how do I go after people, how to make lives better.
And unfortunately, for what the Republicans have been doing for the last couple of years is dividing us.
And so I come to the table and say, look, there's a better way to lead.
There's a way to make sure that the people are the first priority, making sure we're not taking away people's rights to vote and taking away people's rights to protest and going after communities.
And most importantly, we have an economic disaster happening in our state that people can't afford to live here.
We become the number one unaffordability.
We've surpassed California and New York.
That's been underneath these Republican leaders.
And so I say, look, at the end of the day, I want to come in.
I want to give people an opportunity for that American dream and to make sure that we're creating policies that are going to give opportunities.
Awesome.
Have you lived in different states or no?
Born and raised in Florida.
Born and raised here.
Okay.
So do you like good food?
Because I like really good food.
I do like good food.
You like good food.
So how do you judge a good restaurant?
I judge a good restaurant, first of all, by the service.
Okay.
But two, I love spices and I love the ingredients that go into things and having a different flair on, you know, you can go to a Chinese restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, in a Cuban restaurant, but I love when they do like a spin on the traditional types of food because it's a new experience.
What do they call that?
There's a name for that, right?
Is it a fusion or it's like, you know, when they mix the two up?
Exactly.
Yeah, Latin fusion.
Every restaurant.
I mean, one of my favorite restaurants in Vegas is Chino Poblano, and it's like Mexican food plus Chinese.
I was like, I've never been to a Chinese place.
Wait till you see this place.
Wait till you see this place.
So you like spices, you like mix, you like fusion.
What else?
Well, that's, I think that is a big part of it is making sure that you've got this experience because people go out for food.
And if you're going out, it's not just the food.
You're going out for the experience.
Have you ever gone to a restaurant for the first time and then walked out 30 seconds into it?
Have you gone to a restaurant and you walk and you're like, you know, I'm looking at Yelp.
Let's go check this place out.
Okay.
And you go to this place and all of a sudden you're like, guys, we got to get out of here.
So how do we judge it, though?
That's based on what?
That's based on no one's there during lunch.
Yeah.
Right.
So you judge a restaurant many times based on if you're the only customer there at a restaurant during prime time, there is something wrong with this restaurant, right?
Okay.
I feel like you're going somewhere with yourself.
I want to take what you're saying and say, okay, fine.
Let's listen to what Florida is doing wrong and what's going on over here and all this other stuff, how terrible the state has been under DeSantis and all this other stuff.
Okay, sounds good.
From 2020, if you go till 2022 today, I lived in LA 20 some years.
I lived in Dallas five years.
I was in the Army, so I lived all over the place.
And I've been here for a little over a year and a half.
Since the guys taken office, no matter how much they've tried to trash this guy, everybody keeps moving here.
This place is busy.
People are coming here from East Coast, from New York, from Baltimore, from DC, from Chicago, from LA, from all over the place.
They're coming here.
California is losing people.
Their first net negative since 1851.
New York's losing people.
No matter what they say, they're losing people.
This place flipped from purple to red.
So for someone that just may be a data person, they may say, Nikki, it's great that you have those bullet points that you go through with the messaging you're saying, but the data simply doesn't back you up.
The data says they're doing a great job in Florida.
What do you say to those people?
First of all, kind of look at Florida for a couple of reasons.
People don't come here because of DeSantis.
I did.
Did you?
I did.
And I'll tell you why in a little bit.
I want you to finish, but I did.
So, but they come here because the beautiful weather, because of our beaches, because of the diversity of our state.
They come here because there's no income tax.
And so all those things.
And during the pandemic, there was an influx here to the state.
Absolutely.
But the problem is now that the people are here, we have no infrastructure.
There was no planning of exactly how we're going to expand out our state.
I mean, look, look at today.
We have tremendous amount of rain.
Now, born and raised here in Miami, this is not a storm.
This is a rain.
We're used to this.
This is a rain event.
This is a Saturday.
But I was talking to the mayor earlier today.
It's one of our city and county commissioners.
And there's flooding everywhere.
There's flooding everywhere.
And there's cars being abandoned.
And there's no infrastructure.
There's no money.
There's been no conversation about how to make sure when all these people are moving into our state, how we're taking care of the people that are actually living in our state.
I get that.
But so that to me then becomes step three.
But step one is, you know, hey, we're attracting all this talent.
If you have a company that you're recruiting a lot of high best engineers that want to come to, you're doing something right.
Then all of a sudden you get 3,000 new employees that are coming to your company.
Now you're like, listen, guys, we need 16 HR people.
We need software.
We need this.
We need that.
We need coaching.
We need, you know, we need all this up.
But step number one is, why do we get 3,000 engineers?
Because when you said something like, people are not moving to Florida for DeSantis.
Well, then perfect.
So let me flip it on you.
Why are people leaving a beautiful state like California?
Are they leaving because of the weather is so bad?
Are they leaving because the beach is so bad?
I was just in LA last week.
The weather is sick.
There's so many reasons to stay in California.
People left California because of Newsom.
And many people came to Florida because of DeSantis.
The NBA, I remember when NBA, when the COVID first started, everybody was talking about Florida.
I cannot believe what at the Breakers, we weren't living here yet.
They're not doing this.
They're not doing that.
And then the NBA, Black Lives Matter, awesome.
Where are you guys doing your playoffs?
Florida.
Wait, what?
Horrandos.
The state you bashed.
You can only do your playoffs in one state.
So again, going back to it, I know you're saying infrastructure, but wouldn't you agree like at a time like this when you're running, the guy has done so many things right where a lot of people across the country or families, they have kids, they're sitting there saying, at least this guy's got backbone.
Because if his policies were bad, why would people move to Florida?
It wouldn't just be the weather.
The guy's done a lot of good policies.
And I feel like, I feel whether you guys have some areas you agree with or not.
Of course, he's going to say some stuff that he says about you when somebody asked him on a, what was it, when he was doing the town hall meeting.
She's just doing what she's doing on social media.
He made the comments about you.
I'm sure you saw that.
And you make comments about him.
And I know you know the comments because you've talked about it, we'll get into that here in a minute as well.
But wouldn't you give him a little bit of credit of what he's done in Florida the last couple of years?
Look, you know, I have said very clearly, you know, when COVID hit, it is COVID hit, and I had actually called on him to close down the state early because I knew that if we closed down the state early, that we would be able to get open earlier and that we'd be able to save lives.
Nope.
He sat down and didn't do it.
Nope, that wouldn't have happened though, Nikki.
I got to just jump in on that.
Let me just, let me just jump in on this for one second because I very much appreciate your perspective, but I am that person that fled New York City.
I love my city.
I love New York City.
I was there my whole life the last 20 years.
I did come here for because of DeSantis.
I was looking at different states.
I was looking at states that were fighting for people's individual freedoms.
I have a two-year-old.
I was very, very bogged down in New York City by not just the crime, by the fact that the police force felt unsupported, but by the mandates and by the restrictions and the lockdowns.
And I felt like so much of that stuff was being thrown out there to try to control people.
And there wasn't science that backed any of those policies.
And what you saw here, at first, I looked from afar, but what you saw here was a guy who, and I'm not a Republican, I'm an Independent, and I'm not someone who has a loyalty to politicians.
If DeSantis says something I don't like, I'll be the first person to call him out on that.
But I saw a guy who kept the state open.
And he wasn't, when the masks came down, he was asking questions like, do we want to enforce these policies?
Where is the data to back this up?
When the vaccine mandates came down, he wasn't afraid to say, hold on a second, I'm not getting in the way of people's individual relationships with their doctors.
That's not my job.
If you want to get vaccinated, great.
If you don't want to get vaccinated, that's up to you.
So I saw a guy that wasn't afraid at a very difficult moment in history to say, I'm going to stand up for people's individual freedoms.
So when I hear things like, you know, you said he was an authoritarian, and it sounded to me truthfully like you had a lot of personality issues with him.
Maybe you guys just don't get along.
And the same way that a lot of people had personality issues with Donald Trump and felt like, you know, character-wise, maybe he wasn't the guy for the job or the way he approached the public wasn't the right guy for the job.
But honestly, authoritarian or dictator, that's the furthest thing I think of when I think of DeSantis because he was fighting against those policies.
You want to talk to an authoritarian?
Talk to Bill de Blasio.
Talk to Gavin Newsome.
Talk to people who were telling people, you need to do this or else.
DeSantis wasn't doing that.
He's not doing that.
He's doing it on every other policy.
Every other policy.
Where?
Where is it that you see that?
I'm curious.
I'm curious.
Everything else from taking power away from the legislature, every single step of the way, what he did with the maps.
That was taking power away from the legislature, trying to take power away from the cabinet, from my own position, everything he's done to really strip a lot of power going after the school boards.
You know, when you talk about individual freedoms, every individual school board was trying to make up the decisions of what was best for their own communities.
And not only did he go after the school board members, he then threatened to.
How was he going after the school board members?
Like, well, saying what?
Well, first of all, he was going to remove superintendents if they had actually done mask mandates.
He was going to withhold dollars from each of the school boards who actually had a mask mandate in place.
He actually was holding back money from our school districts that were doing that.
Was he preventing people who wanted to wear masks in those schools from wearing masks?
What he was doing was...
No, was he though?
Was he?
If you wanted to wear a mask till kingdom come for the next, was he saying don't wear a mask?
Or was he saying if you don't want to wear a mask, you shouldn't be mandated to because this is not that fair?
First of all, that's not what he did.
That's not what he did.
What he did was he shamed people for wearing masks.
He made them feel you're stupid.
He actually yelled at our kids who did wear masks and yelled to them, take that damn thing off your face.
That is not what a governor is supposed to do.
A governor, if he really truly cared about freedom, he should have let those kids be them whoever they want because then that was going their kids.
Their parents asked them to do that, or they had a conversation.
Look what he's doing on abortion rights, talking about you just talked about you shouldn't be getting in between between a doctor and a personal freedom decision.
He just went after it.
Well, that's a little bit different, though.
But it, well, that's in your life.
Abortion's a little bit different because it involves a third person, though.
We have to acknowledge that, right?
No.
I mean, where are you saying?
Listen, I support exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother.
We can have that debate all day long about abortion, but the reality is that there is another person involved that's living inside a woman.
So that's why he, that, that's why that's not an individual decision between a woman and her doctor, in my view.
That's that's a decision between a woman, her doctor, and there's a person.
Can I just ask both of you guys a question?
Because what I get tired of is whether you're on the left and you're calling a DeSantis or a Trump an authoritarian dictator, or whether you're on the right, you do the same thing for Obama or de Blasio.
Aren't we being a little hyperbolic when we're calling anyone in America today a dictator authoritarian?
No.
No, not at all.
No, I mean, listen, if how many people get compared to freaking Adolf Hitler in America?
No, that's not.
But both sides make that case.
And to me, it's so hyperbolic.
First of all, you know, when you look at the conversation, and I have studied, you know, some of these countries, and I have studied the rise of the Nazis.
What do they do?
They went in and they tried to make it more difficult for people to vote.
They went in and they made it more difficult for people to protest.
They then went in and they segregated parts and blamed people for things.
And then they started banning books.
This is what is happening in Florida.
We have a list of books.
Where?
Where?
Where are you?
Are you banning people from protesting in Florida?
You're not allowed to protest in Florida?
Did you watch the law that passed two years ago where he's made it more difficult for people to protest in Florida peacefully all the time?
Peacefully, yes.
You shouldn't be protesting violently.
Well, you should never be violently doing that.
But what he's done is said, if you are protesting, like somebody who's in a car, if there's a protest, you can run through them.
And if you happen to, if a violence happens or if something happens and breaks out in some of these protests, somebody, everybody around there can be arrested.
What it's doing is deterring people from showing up and actually protesting.
I don't see that at all.
And I don't, if there's violence, I mean, you have to shut down a protest as a government.
If I showed up at a peaceful protest and violence turned, it turned violent in some capacity.
Everybody there gets you think Ron DeSantis has on his agenda right now to stop, to try to inhibit people from peacefully protesting.
I mean, really, can you say I do with a clear with a clear because look at what he's also done.
He has not said a single word about January 6th.
He has not said a single word about any of the Nazis that have been coming and protesting on our streets in Orlando on three separate occasions.
He said nothing about the fact that there is anti-Semitism flyers that are being passed out in Miami.
He said nothing about any of these.
But yet when Black Lives Matter was out in the streets, that's when those pieces of legislation came through.
Were they destroying property?
No, they were not.
They were very peaceful protests here in the state of Florida.
And the fact of the matter is that is not when the piece of legislation was filed after January 6th.
It was done prior to it and it is deemed unconstitutional and it is going to get to the Supreme Court.
I'm going to be honest with you.
When people look at issues, I mean, I understand what you're saying.
I hear your perspective.
I appreciate your perspective and where you're coming from.
But when people look at issues right now, we're in a time where people can't get baby formula on the shelves.
People can't fill up their car tanks with gas.
People can't, you know, people can't make a decision in some places.
You know, what went on in New York City.
Now the mandates have been lifted.
But people were worried about being able to make a health decision for themselves and their families without government or big corporate hands strangling them every couple of seconds or forcing them out of their jobs.
People are worried about crime.
I mean, New York City is destroyed.
Los Angeles is destroyed right now.
That's where the focus is.
That's where these dinner table conversations, if you want to beat someone like DeSantis, and I assume you do, you're going to have to come in and say, these are the issues where I'm going to do better than you.
And that's going to be really hard because on those issues, Florida is rising above all of these liberal-led states, all of them.
And people are flooding here for it for their businesses, for their families, for the safety, all of those bullet points.
Florida, check, check, check.
That's hard.
That's a hard job.
And I want to know, like, how are you going to do that?
How are you going to say all these things going well?
I'm going to do it better.
And here's why.
Well, first of all, the people of our state that are living here, the people that are actually every single day living and working here, when I'm on the campaign trail, I don't talk about these culture issues because at the end of the day, that is not what people are talking about.
People are talking about the fact that they can't afford food and they can't afford gas and they can't afford their rent and they can't afford even to pay property insurance and their taxes.
And so the Republicans of today are not talking about any of those things.
They're doing none of it.
Ron DeSantis put in place a tax holiday for gas in October, October, the month before elections.
Not today, not yesterday, not next month.
Whereas every other state, Republican states, including Virginia, has a three-month waiver on taxes.
I asked for a state of emergency for gas.
That would have given me the flexibility, because I oversee some portions of this, to waive some of the parameters when it comes to fuels that would have allowed some of our bigger guys to go below cost of selling of gas because they don't make their money in the gas stations.
They make their money in the convenience stores or if it's a Walmart inside the actual stores.
And that is something that could have been productive, that could have actually helped people.
And instead, he says no.
He says no, for whatever reason, wants to blame President Biden.
Instead of realizing that we have solutions here in the state of Florida that can be done, we've got rent increasing all across the state.
But why, though?
Because people want to be here and people are like, I get up the rents because it's supply, basic supply and demand.
And you know why we have a supply problem?
Because Republicans, for four Republicans in a row, have gutted the Sadowski Fund, which is the Affordable Trust Fund, which would have put $2.3 billion back into the state to build more homes.
And so what's happened is that now we have a supply problem.
And what's also happened is that people from these other states are coming in with high, with cash values.
And let's also get really real about why we're also in this situation.
Donald Trump printed $6 trillion that they gave out during 2020.
And that, and they gave the money to a lot of top one percenters, the corporations who then did their own rebates and cash buybacks to some of their stockholders and to their vice presidents.
And so all this money is into the ethos, which is what has contributed, if not caused, the inflation.
Are you talking about the tax cuts of 2018 or during COVID 2020?
During COVID, during COVID, during the Trump administration, they gave out $6 trillion.
Oh, some of that was Biden, though.
No, no, no, no.
This is just the $6 trillion that was done during Trump.
I'm not talking about the infrastructure money.
$6 trillion was printed and given out during 2020.
That was just the CARES Act was $2.1 trillion.
We're getting six, though, because Biden came in and he started printing money, though.
I remember Trump did $2.1 trillion.
So Trump gave out $6 trillion.
$3 trillion went to, which most people are not watching this, $3 trillion of that went to all of the programs that we all know about.
Correct.
Another $3 trillion went to our top corporations that no one paid attention to.
No one saw that our Treasury Secretary literally had blank checks that he was giving out these programs.
Manufacturer at the time, you're saying?
Correct.
And he gave out $3 trillion to these corporations who were supposed to keep people on their books, keep their employees employed.
Instead, they were then doing stock buybacks for their shareholders, were giving salary increases to themselves and to their vice presidents.
So you want to know.
So all these people had extra cash and they came down to Florida for all these reasons for that we've been discussing.
And so that bought at the high end of the market.
That's why they came down?
No.
Oh my God.
I said, that's why you're thinking they're coming down here because of that.
No, no, no, no.
But they came down and they have all of this cash.
Yeah.
And now they're buying at the top of the market.
And that's done is squeeze the rest of the market.
And no one's talking about that.
No one's talking about the fact that we should have been putting more money into affordable homes, building more homes.
And instead.
Nikki, but the question goes back to, so, okay, so maybe let me ask a different.
I got two questions for you.
One, do you have any kids?
I do not.
Okay.
So two, how do you think New York, Illinois, and California's policies did during COVID?
How do you think they did?
I'm actually really curious what you're going to say here.
Which states?
Go one at them.
Go just do New York and California.
How do you think their leaders handled COVID?
Listen, I don't agree with how they handled it either.
Tell me what you don't agree with.
But I'm actually really curious.
What do you think they didn't do right?
So here's what I would have done.
Okay.
Okay.
Because I can't, I don't like, I can't tell you every single decision that any of the other states, I was solely focused on my.
But you have to realize, if you're going to sit down and get the votes of people here who moved from another state and you can't explain why they left and you don't know their pressure points, you're going to have a hard time getting them to listen to you.
So here's mine.
Sure.
Okay.
So first and foremost, I did ask for him to close down because we could have saved lives.
And you may not disagree, but I'm telling you.
There's lots of science to back that up.
There is lots of signs back that are not.
A lot of things didn't work.
The mask mandates didn't work and the vaccine didn't work.
I have plenty of science to back that up.
And I completely disagree that if we had shut down earlier.
If that were true, though, Nikki, New York wouldn't have had the surges that it did and California wouldn't have had the surges that it did despite those policies.
In fact, New York and California oftentimes looked a lot worse than Florida.
Well, not for very long.
But the point was to have closed down earlier because if we had closed down earlier, we would have stopped the spread earlier.
People are getting COVID like crazy even now.
It's also important.
It's a totally different strain.
There's 70%.
It works, though.
You know that.
I mean, everybody got COVID.
People who were vaccinated, people who were unvaccinated.
Different streams waved.
Some of it was seasonal.
We know that.
Come on now.
We know.
Come on.
We also all know that people get vaccinated.
They're not going to get into the hospital.
That's not true either.
I know plenty of people who got vaccinated who landed in the hospital.
That is not true.
Yes.
And someone died.
That is not true, though.
That's not.
That's not to say that people shouldn't get the vaccine if they want to get the vaccine or people should have access to do whatever they want to do for their health.
But to argue that shutting down Florida would have prevented the spread of COVID, that's just not that clear.
Let's also realize this.
DeSantis did shut down the state.
The state was shut down.
Let's not forget that he did shut down the state.
Okay.
He also, when I said it, close it down earlier so we could open it back earlier.
That has always been my position.
So every time that Ron wants to say, you know, the liberals would have shot down the state and we'd still be shut down, it's absolutely a flat out.
So you would have shut it down earlier.
But open that open.
And then did you support the mandates of the vaccine mandates?
No, no, no.
You didn't.
I did not.
I came out and said, personal choice.
Everybody has to make the decisions.
I went against the White House and said, look, at this point, you know what you need to do to protect yourself.
You know what you need to be doing in order to get your family safe.
I did go on to every single day and ask people to get the vaccine, but certainly I did not ever agree with mandates.
And the same thing with masks.
I clearly said every community needs to make the decisions of what is best for them.
Nikki, wait a minute.
My question's not answered.
I'm sorry.
I'm asking the question.
If you're California and New York, the way they, if you're saying he did such a shitty job, then you're saying others did a good job.
So I'm asking you, California and New York, what do you think they did right that worked so effectively?
And what do you think they did wrong that didn't work so effectively?
I have never done an analysis of what New York and California did.
I was solely focused on that.
Well, I think you need to because people from those states are moving to you.
And you want to be the governor of this state?
If you want to be the governor of the state, I'm a guy that lived in Texas and California.
I need you to know why I left California.
But I'm telling you what I would have done as governor of our state.
Okay.
I came out every single day when Ron was not giving information.
And that has been, his decisions aren't always necessarily what my point of issue is.
My point of issue is the fact that he made sure that his opinion was the only opinion.
He wasn't listening to any other advice.
He wasn't listening to any other experts besides the ones that he brought to the table.
And you still, you have a purple state.
He won by 33,000.
You had half of the state that was scared.
You had half the state that saw people that are dying in hospitals that didn't know what information to be given.
And then you have somebody who comes on and yells at anybody who doesn't agree with him.
He didn't create a calmness.
He created chaos.
He didn't bring people to the table that may have different opinions and talk through it.
It was his way or the highway.
He changed the way that we were looking at data.
He brought down the dashboard with all this information.
People were going through this blind without information.
So do you think all these people who are educated people who have families, kids from New York, California, D.C., East Coast, who moved to Florida are not paying attention to these numbers?
Like, do you think they came down here because they're oblivious?
Why do you think these families moved down here?
Look, I don't know what.
Are they the oblivious crowd that moved to Florida?
Listen, he sold this picture of what was happening in the state of Florida, that we are the free state of Florida, that we are open.
But then if you go down to the policies, he was picking and choosing winners and losers.
He was saying, okay, WWE and Jackson, well, you can open up, but the rest of the state, you can't.
And then he was choosing which types of different types of businesses were able to have a seat at the table.
And even with the vaccines, look at how he distributed the vaccines.
He first had pop-up locations that were in affluent communities.
He then put the vaccines into public sites.
And as Commissioner of Agriculture, I know how many food deserts are across the state of Florida.
And minority communities could not get access to these vaccines.
Those were the issues that I had a problem with.
You know, whether or not to have closed down when he did, I asked to be on the reopening task force that because at this point, again, not bringing people to the table, kept me off of the reopening task force.
I enforced, when he came out with the reopening task force and the recommendations, I actually supported them.
I said, these are methodical.
These are well thought out.
And then he completely scrapped it and just reopened.
But I think we got to get back to this issue.
Regardless of what happened with the pandemic, we got to go and move past it.
I don't think we can, though.
When it comes down to if you're talking about specific to this topic, I know what you're doing, but I'm talking in this style.
We're not past this topic yet.
Why did so many educated people who care about their kids and their wives and their families and their husbands, why did they move to Florida?
Should they all leave now?
No.
Should they go back to California, Texas?
Of course.
Should they go back to New York?
They should go back, right?
If you're saying they made a mistake coming down here because DeSantis did such a terrible job.
I got three people here that did a super chat.
I just want to read it real quick because one of them said in regards to why he didn't let you guys make the decisions for yourself, I don't know.
This one super chat said, DeSantis stripped the power because you all failed.
This is not rocket science.
This is what one, you'll respond to him.
Daniel Rivera said the Democrats banned Dr. Sue's books.
The Democrats silenced the conservatives over the 2020 election.
Disney fired Gina Carano and canceled the woman.
There are people locked up over peaceful protests on January 6th.
Democrats don't care about America.
Now, this is protest.
This is the comments.
And then this other guy, COVID 12X, said, any New Yorker, the dinner table conversation is when we are moving to Florida because of DeSantis.
We never consider Florida move.
That's your context.
So that's what they're saying.
But going back to it, all these people that moved to Florida, they're very happy.
I'd love to see a few interviews about people that moved to Florida that are miserable today.
I do.
I speak to people all the time.
And they say they made a mistake moving here.
I'd love to see them.
I'd love to interview them.
Yeah, I have to say something.
I don't really care about the people who just moved here.
I care about the people who have been living here.
No, no, but.
No, but there's a point here.
No, there's not.
That's great.
They can move here.
That's awesome.
We can address that.
But there's a lot of people in Florida who are pissed off.
No.
Their rents have skyrocketed 30-something percentage.
Hang on.
That's a different thing.
That's a real thing, though.
But that's called supply and demand.
You're in business.
You should know that.
That's called capitalism.
That's supply and demand.
But if you're in the middle of the year, wanted to address your constituents, not to be able to do that.
One of the guys that was interviewed on the MSNBC hit show that they did on DeSantis, which Nikki was on.
They interviewed a guy, husband and wife.
They said, we came in, we're paying $1,000 rent for a year and a half ago.
You remember this?
And he said, and they increased my rent by 30%.
And he says, so how'd you handle that?
He says, well, the landlord told me you can go elsewhere, but that's the market right.
And he's like, I went everywhere else.
It was more than 30%.
So I had to pay the $1,300.
That's called capitalism.
But you called it a rate hike.
But to address, let me finish this.
Then you can push back on me.
Let's change the topics to people that live here.
You have a point.
We'll get to that here in a minute.
All I'm asking for is the people that moved here.
I don't know anybody who's unhappy to move here, which means just like a lot of immigrants who come to America who love America and Americans bitch about America, they don't know what it is to live in a different place.
So you lived in Texas and you lived here.
You've not lived in California.
You've not lived in New York and she's not lived in New York and California.
You guys don't know what it was to live at these places.
That's why people are leaving.
So as much as we want to say, wow, this, wow, this, well, that, totally get it.
We're coming to you because all your stuff you're bitching about, we are very happy about.
We are very happy about the stuff that this guy has done.
So that's all I'm saying with the argument.
So if people you're meeting who have moved here who are not happy, tell me why they say they're not happy.
You know what?
They're coming down here.
People have come here and I have, and I speak to people all day long, all walks of life.
And when I hear, they say they come down here, they've moved down here, and they didn't realize how bad the culture wars were, that they have a kid who potentially is a member of the LGBTQ community.
No one's saying that.
I haven't heard that.
No one's saying that.
Well, I don't know who you're all talking to.
We have kids.
We have kids.
I get it.
We are around people with kids.
And I'm around people with kids all day long.
And we have, like, I have four kids.
Like, I know what happens in schools.
I'm the guy that's talking to these people with other parents.
I haven't heard anybody saying, oh, they're not letting my kids choose what they want to be.
I'm saying that they are, because of some of these policies.
Yeah.
Which ones?
Which policies?
The one with LGBT, which is Disney.
Go ahead, please continue.
That's kind of where you're going.
So, and that was just one example.
Yeah.
But what I'm hearing across the board is we didn't realize how contentious this was and how much tension there is on the ground.
You can't talk to your neighbors that now we're dealing with things that are inside the education system.
Can you please interview these guys and put a video out?
Absolutely.
Can you please interview these guys and allow us as well to speak to them?
I'll be happy.
I'm telling you, I talk to people all the time that have moved to Florida.
We do too, though.
But we do as well.
Okay, but here's what I'm going to push back on.
Please do so.
Okay, you're attacking me on.
I'm not attacking you.
What I'm saying is what I'm saying is I'm saying your governor's done a good job on why so many are moving.
You can go to the areas that have, he's not done a good job.
Fine.
You can bring those up.
But in this area, when it comes down to stuff that she talked about, she made a very good point.
When it comes down to families with kids, no taxes, leaving me be who I am, let me be free.
The things that matter to us that has to do with fundamentals that America offers, this has been the best state the last two years.
There's not been a better state than this state the last two years.
Well, and obviously I disagree.
And that's and that's.
And that's fine.
That's why you're here to push back.
You have to say, what's a better state than Florida these days?
Because let me just weigh in.
I ask, I have tons of friends that have moved here from New York specifically.
I want them to leave.
They're my friends.
I'm like, please guys, go back to New York.
They're like, we're not leaving.
Like, almost like Jordan Belford, like, we're not leaving.
All of them, Nikki.
I want them to leave.
I was paying rent this much.
It skyrocketed.
That's, I'll be okay.
I've got some money in the bank.
But there's a lot of friends out there that do not.
And as much as you're saying, no, there's a lot of people unhappy.
I talk to these people.
My job is to talk to people for a living.
They're all staying.
And I want them to leave and they're my friends.
So you can't say that you're running into a lot of people who are unhappy moving here.
They wouldn't move here if they were unhappy here.
Well, a lot of them don't understand what some of the culture issues when they get to the ground, especially if they're a minority community.
There's a lot more culture issues in LA or New York.
Florida has been purple forever.
I don't fight with anybody.
If I go to California, I'm fighting with the Republican.
I'm even fighting with Democrats.
Same thing in Brooklyn, New York.
There's not that much fighting here in Florida.
And that's why I love Florida.
I haven't debated this much people since I've been around more people from LA and New York.
Florida, I got Cuban friends, Haitian friends, this person, that person, Jewish friends.
It's more of a melting pot than all these other states.
You know, I'm wondering if the issue is like anywhere you move is not going to be perfect for you.
There's going to be something about it, the energy, the vibe, you're talking about cultural issues.
You're going to find something that doesn't work for you.
But the challenge is, is that if you compare like a New York to a Florida or a Los Angeles, I mean, there are places, these cities are sinking around the country.
Many of them are sinking.
What people are saying to themselves is maybe Florida's not perfect, but on these issues that really matter, like you're not talking about anything if you can't feed your family.
That comes number one.
There are priority issues for people.
If you can't put gas in your tank, it doesn't matter.
You can't get where you need to go.
You can't worry about all of this other stuff.
That's secondary.
So on those priority issues, people by and large, and I say this as somebody who wasn't, like, I don't love the climate in Florida.
That would not have been my first choice.
I would have been in Los Angeles.
It was a lot of fun.
I'm dying of heat.
It's no joke.
This would not have been my first choice.
I always wanted to move to Los Angeles, and I'm deeply heartbroken that I can't move there because it's being buried right now.
And I don't feel safe raising my two-year-old there.
But I think the issue is like there are core issues that people feel Florida's doing those right.
And if Florida wasn't doing those right, you would see a mass exodus of people from Florida to New York City, to Los Angeles.
You know, if the cultural issues on the ground in Florida were so horrible and people who had, you know, if LGBTQ, whatever it is, whatever your issue is, if that was the priority issue, you would see those numbers moving the other way.
They're not.
But here's the problem.
You know, because at the end of the day, which is why I don't talk about cultural wars on a normal basis, I talk about the economics, economics 101.
That's why people vote.
But the people that are suffering here in our state, and I'm glad that you can afford a 30%, a 40%, or 60% increase in your rent.
But the people that I talk to every day, I had a call yesterday with somebody going, I'm getting evicted.
I can't afford an extra seven.
No, that's what I'm saying is the majority of my friends are struggling like that.
I'm not disagreeing with you.
They're struggling and there's been no conversations about how to fix it.
And so people are sitting here and I am talking to people saying, I'm going to have no choice but to leave this state because I can't afford to live here anymore.
But in Miami, the number one city in the state, that's not on DeSantis.
Isn't that on Mayor Suarez?
I mean, what do you have to say about what he's done?
Whole other thing.
I think it goes back to the same fundamental issue.
Okay.
Look, and this is why I'm running for governor, is to make sure that there are differences of opinions.
Obviously, you hear that in this room.
It's great.
And that's fantastic.
But what has happened in our state is that those differences of opinions and those different conversations don't see the light of day because they're shut down.
DeSantis does not, how many cabinet meetings has he canceled on me because he refuses to listen to what I have to say?
How many times has he not listened to the people in the room that he's yelled at at reporters?
Did you say other states?
Other states.
Like, like, this doesn't happen in other states.
I'm just, I am talking about Florida.
Okay.
My favorite.
So listen, I think you guys, you got to, something happened between the two of you guys that you guys got, you know, that's, that's.
You guys got to go have some lunch one day.
But, but, but, by the way, by the way, let's talk about rent because that is an issue that comes up.
I just had a meeting with HR this week having to do with rent, and that is happening.
But I have offices in 49, I have 150 offices, my insurance company, all across the country.
And we have these conversations about rent.
And I got to tell you, rent is increasing in the markets that attracted the most people that moved there.
For example, when I first moved to Plano, Texas, you know, everybody would say, well, let me tell you, if you knew Plano 15 years ago, this place was a desert, right?
I'm like, okay, then they would show me pictures, right?
Well, I bet when Plano was a desert, rent was probably 20 bucks a month.
And now rent in Plano is two grand a month.
Is that a mistake?
Does that mean people are moving there?
That's a good sign.
That means economy is going there.
But the problem shows up afterwards, right?
Then you have to come up with policies that you got to address.
And that is true.
That's something you have to do.
So we're going to see how that's going to be handled now amongst the company or amongst the state or amongst the capitalists, the job creators.
And some people may not be able to afford it.
Some people may say, I just can't afford to live here.
And like in LA, give you an idea in LA.
There's a city called Palmdale, Lancaster.
Palmdale is an hour away from LA.
Okay.
When rent in LA is going to $3,000, $4,000, tens of thousands of families move to Palmdale and Lancaster.
Same thing's going to happen here as well.
Some people that can't live in a market they're in right now, they're probably going to be moving.
That's very normal across the board.
Every day, that's not a Florida issue.
That's an every state issue that's growing.
But here's the problem, okay?
This is the fundamental problem.
There's twofold.
One is because we have been gutting our affordable trust fund, $2.3 billion over the last 25 years.
Jeb did it.
Charlie did it.
Rick did it.
And Ron's done.
So you now have less homes that have been built for the lower level.
What I was just saying beforehand, all these people have come to the state that have bought the top of the market and have crushed the bottom of the market.
The people that are hurting are the bottom of the market, and they don't have anywhere else to go.
And these are the people that are literally number one economic driver for our state is tourism.
Number two is agriculture.
Both of those industries are the lowest paying industries in the country.
And so when you have individuals that are literally making up our economy, the tourist industry and agriculture industry, what happens when everybody in the tourist industry can't afford to live here?
Who's making our baristos?
Who's going to be picking our fruits and vegetables?
Who's going out to the movie theaters and working the movie stands?
Where is our teachers living?
They can't afford to live here.
We are funding education 49th in the nation.
Do you want to talk about New York and California and other states that have, we're the third largest GDP in the nation, third after those two states, but yet we're funding education 49th in the nation.
That tells you that our priorities are backwards and our education system is falling apart.
Healthcare, we're funding healthcare 50th in the nation.
We haven't expanded Medicaid.
So I'm curious, though, because you had mentioned education.
That's a topic near and dear to me.
I was a teacher for many years.
So what is your fix to that?
Because I know that DeSantis has been out there talking about school choice, and that's a topic many parents are passionate about because they're concerned about their ability, whether they have money or not.
Some don't have money, but they want to be able to send their kids to the schools that they want to send them to.
What is your fix to an educational system that's broken in Florida?
Well, first of all, we as Floridians voted for the lottery to make sure that lottery money was to go towards education.
And that was supposed to be in addition to.
So back in 2006, we had per-pupil funding at around 6,400.
We're at 6,900 today.
Between 2006 and 2022, if you look at inflation, it should be over $10,000 just to keep up with inflation.
So what we have done is we have gutted our traditional public schools.
And I'm a proud, proud product of our public education system in Miami-Dade County, as is my parents.
They all were also from the Miami-Dade.
And what we've done is we have gutted our traditional public schools.
And so we've taken money out of our traditional public schools and we have allocated into any other place, not even just general other education.
We've gutted it.
And so what we have to be doing is putting more money back into our education system.
Okay, so I'm going to tell you though, money's not going to fix the educational system because New York, places like that have been funneling money into education for decades and decades.
It doesn't work.
The way that you fix an educational system is the way that you fix every system is you put competition into that system and you force those schools to fire bad teachers, to pay good teachers higher.
You force those parents to have the option to choose where they send their kids to school.
Every single district you look at, everywhere in the country that allows for school choice, sees a rise in educational opportunities for families and a rise in standard of education for kids.
So if you want to fix the educational system, truly, and I believe that you do based on what you're saying, that's how you fix it.
Well, and I don't disagree with all of that.
She makes a good point, though.
And I don't have kids just like you.
I mean, but school choice seems like capitalism at its finest.
What's wrong with that?
Because everybody is entitled to a quality education system.
And when you take money out of our traditional public schools, which are still the bedrock, most, if you talk about people wanting to choice, if you look at the statistics, still 75 plus percent of our parents are still making the choice to put their kids into public, traditional public schools.
And they're failing them.
Those schools are failing them.
But that's also because the fact is that if you're talking about our private schools or charter schools that are paying more money for their teachers, that we're losing, we have 6,500 shortage of teachers, that we are asking parents to come in as substitute teachers.
They're making nothing.
They're making nothing in Disney.
I was on those salaries.
I know what they look like.
And so was my mom.
You know, she taught for 25 years.
I heard those stories, heard the stories of our teachers buying school supplies for their kids because there's not enough school supplies in the classrooms.
And what we have done is, is money enough?
No, absolutely.
But that has to start somewhere.
That we have schools.
And we want to look at something interesting that at a third grade reading, that 90% of our black kids at third grade reading are reading below poverty line.
And we are, we base where, how many jails and prisons we build based on that third grade read third grade reading.
But you can't blame, first of all, you're going to have to look at family structures for that.
You're going to have to go back to the dinner table.
You're going to have to look at, is that, does that child have the support of the parents?
Well, we can't go into that whole thing.
You have to talk about community.
You have to talk about church.
I mean, there are layers deep of course.
But you're not going to throw money at that school and fix that kid.
The way that you're going to give that kid an opportunity, let that parent or that guardian pick where that kid goes to school.
And if that school is failing that kid, shut her down.
Shut her down.
Why wouldn't money help, though?
If like if you're saying teachers got to come out of pocket to buy because you know why they waste a ton of money.
Like every other government institution, they waste a ton of money.
Obviously, you don't see it.
And then you have teachers' unions.
You don't agree with that, Nikki?
You don't think government wastes money?
Oh, government waste lots of money.
Governor just did a $109 billion budget.
I can find a whole lot more.
He'd only betook $3.1 billion.
I could have vetoed a whole heck of a lot more in there.
There you go.
So an education, no, no, military.
I don't care what department you're talking about.
Every single institution of government, there is waste, there's fraud, there's abuse.
Education is part of that.
Of course.
And look, I have put forth my, I oversee a $1.3 billion budget inside the Department of Agriculture.
Every single session, I've put forth a more conservative budget than my Republican predecessors did because I didn't want to waste money.
I made sure that we had the exact money that we needed to run the department and the programs that we needed to do to whether it's increasing the amount of money that's coming in for agriculture to making sure our water quality is in there.
I asked for 83 new positions for concealed weapons programming because, again, we have the largest concealed weapons program in the entire country here in the state of Florida that I regulate.
I asked for 83 more positions because we are overwhelmed.
And the governor vetoed those 83 positions because he has his own agenda of what he wants to do with guns.
I guess what my struggle is, is you're running in Florida.
And what I guess what I'm trying to speak to you is people who came here came here because they care about freedom.
When someone like DeSantis, and I don't know DeSantis, I don't have any personal, like, I don't know him.
He's a stranger to me.
But when he speaks words like school choice, when he speaks words like, you know, freedom and autonomy over your own health and healthcare decisions, when he talks about abortion, abortion is a very complex topic.
We could have a whole hour on that, which we don't have right now.
But when he talks about schools and parental rights in schools, everybody talked about the don't say gay bill, don't say gay wasn't in the bill.
And it wasn't about that.
It was about parental rights.
Those are issues that for me, I'm a mom.
You know, I'm somebody who did not grow up with money.
I'm somebody who believes in opportunity.
I'm somebody who wants to keep more of my hard-earned cash because that's going to be my kids' money one day.
These are things that speak to me.
Freedom, opportunity, choice.
You spoke about opportunity in the beginning.
And I guess what I want you to sort of walk away from this is just understanding.
I don't care, liberal, Democrat, Republican.
These labels mean nothing to me.
What I want is somebody who's going to fight for individuals and who's going to fight for real opportunity.
And that looks like low taxes.
That looks like schools to teach reading, writing, and math, and not, you know, trying to persuade you to feel this way or that way.
That's not what school's supposed to be.
And that's not what they're doing either.
Well, it is happening across the country and it happened in schools I taught in in New York City and it does happen.
There's a lot of misinformation about all of this and it's gotten so out of control.
And the fact that that message that I do you believe that someone like you could speak to somebody like me and get me to vote for you.
Of course.
So then right now, can you tell me why I should vote for you?
Absolutely.
Because at the end of the day, I want to make sure that you've got a Florida that is safe for your children in school.
You've got a two-year-old.
Is she a girl or a boy?
It's a boy, Hartley.
Okay.
Want to make sure that they're safe in school, that they've got a good educational environment, that you have an opportunity to succeed in the state of Florida.
That makes also that you have affordability on housing.
And there are things that have come into place.
I asked also for that tax for the gas emergency because the fact not only was it going to help people at the gas pump.
Do you support energy independence for the country?
Do you support we've got to get there?
I mean, look, what's happened?
I mean, we, I mean, look what's happened.
Do you support drilling?
You support whatever needs to happen in order to make that happen.
I support us.
Look, this is why I legalized hemp in the state of Florida because hemp is going to be an alternative to bio.
It's going to be a biofuel.
It is all biodegradable products that can be made with, instead of these little.
I love hemp.
Listen, I love hemp.
We can agree on that.
And we can also agree on marijuana legalization.
I know you feel that way.
Which is interesting.
I've never smoked weed in my life.
I can't stand the smell of it, but I'm such a freedom fighter.
I'm like legalize it.
Look at you two finding common ground in marijuana.
But I'm saying, but like on that, that's a libertarian approach.
Right.
You know, and I'm, and that's where, and the truth of the matter is this.
All the things you're talking about, freedom, that is a one-sided freedom decision conversation.
Because let me tell you, the conversations that I have are, I feel like my freedom is being taken away.
Every single day, I'm hearing that.
That's how I felt in New York.
That's why I'm here.
But then that's fine.
But the fact of the matter is, let's just talk about yesterday.
Okay.
Yesterday, the governor threatened to hold back $27 million from the Special Olympics.
Yeah, we actually have that article.
I don't know.
That was a real thing.
It was a real thing.
I supported that though.
But that's.
You supported taking money away from the Special Olympics?
Well, about the mandate, the vaccine.
The Special Olympics?
The mandate?
And what happened?
I don't know.
I want to see what this article says.
They backed down because they needed the money.
But they backed down because he's fighting for people's individual freedoms.
We're talking about the Special Olympics.
A mandate to get a vaccine.
This should be the decision of that organization.
No, and I'll tell you why, because that's a great point you bring up.
People say to me all the time, oh, but that's private business.
That's the free market.
You have to let private.
That's not what's happening here in the country.
You're having big corporations hold hands with big government, exchange favors, get this, get that.
You have big pharma funds, a ton of these people.
And you have somebody like Aron DeSantis coming in and saying, oh, no, hold on a second.
I want to enable individuals in my state to make these decisions for themselves.
And I'm not going to let big corporations holding hands with big government, holding hands with big pharma take that rights away from myself.
Because I'm telling you, it will be a losing argument to go against DeSantis on mandates.
The whole country flocked here to back him on that.
But I disagree because, yes, you talk about Republicans supposed to be about free market and it's supposed to be about businesses doing their own thing.
If the Special Olympics, which is an organization that decided that it was trying to protect the people that are participating, they should protect them.
You can get and pass the virus if you're vaccinated.
This is politics.
This isn't science.
Politics is that he did that.
Instead of allowing it, okay, do you want to talk about something else?
The facts matters.
Look at what he did in Key West.
You want to talk about something in Key West?
The Key West people, the people of Key West, who had done a market study, who went out and saw campaigns, decided, the people of Key West decided that they did not want the big cruise ships coming into the port because they felt that it was only a $5.34 of the average person spends when they're coming into the Key West.
And the amount of money that is spent on cleaning, on policing, and the fact that it was also hurting the coral reefs, the people of Key West said no.
Governor got a $1 million campaign contribution and forced a reversal of the government.
I don't know anything.
I can't comment on that because I don't feel like it's a good idea.
But this is the thing that I see.
This is the thing that I see every single day.
It seems to me like you have a problem.
You feel like, I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but it seems to me that your main issue with DeSantis is that you feel that people with dissenting views don't have a seat at the table.
That is 100% correct.
Okay, that's what I'm saying.
And that's something that, you know, I mean, listen, we're all sitting here right now and we're all talking this out and we all disagree.
But I will say this: when somebody wins an election, he sees the world and the country and the state very differently from you.
You would handle things very differently.
Somebody does win.
And like I always say, elections have consequences.
Joe Biden is president, and I don't agree with most of what he does, but he won.
He won that election.
Hope he doesn't win again.
But regardless, somebody does win again.
You hope he doesn't win again?
Of course.
DeSantis?
Joe Biden.
Oh, Biden.
Biden.
Yeah, no, DeSantis.
I mean, listen.
But here's the thing.
He won by 33,000.
Yeah, I was just going to say that.
Can I just give you a little layup here?
But Nikki at one point said this is a purple state, that there's half the state that agrees with him.
It's a little purple state.
It's still purple.
100%, by the way.
100%.
Okay, we'll see.
And by the way, the I-4 corridor is basically what splits the state.
Yes or no?
Yes.
Okay.
You got a lot of red in this state right now.
Yeah, that's the I-4 corridor.
I mean, I think you have to.
I'm letting you know it's a purple state.
Do your research.
Got you.
However, during COVID, it flipped though.
You guys got two more on the Republican side.
It's trending the different way.
No, no, no.
It's historic.
Say it correctly, though, because that's what happened.
Based on data, Republicans picked up two more, so it flipped.
That's what happened to Florida.
But continuing to do that.
And we can go into a whole thing that happened in the middle of the morning.
That's just the data.
No, no, but that's what's happened.
Yeah, with the right trending more.
You may not like it, but that's what's happening.
But it's trending more because of DeSantis.
Continue.
But she does have a point that half the state thought certain way, half the state.
Now, if you want to say, no, it's 55, 45, cool, whatever.
But even 60, 40, cool, whatever.
But my question to you is, though, the race that DeSantis won in 2018, I believe, very close, neck and neck with Andrew Gillum.
Yep.
So my question to you is, all right, DeSantis won.
Clearly, there's some advocacy for him.
What would be different if Andrew Gillam won?
Like DeSantis came in, people are flocking.
Could a case be made that that wouldn't have been the case with Gillam?
Like give DeSantis maybe a little bit of credit here.
Like what would be different if Gillum was the governor versus DeSantis?
Yeah, I think that what would have happened differently is that you would not have had this cultural division, that you wouldn't have had a governor who only thought that he was only right and did not listen to other viewpoints.
And that is what democracy is supposed to be about.
That you're supposed to have people on both sides of the aisle that are supposed to come together and make decisions that are for the best interest of our state.
It doesn't happen in any state.
I'm going to be honest with you.
That has never happened in New York.
I mean, I got a vote in New York.
But that used to be.
That's how you just caught here.
This is how Florida used to be.
Florida used to be that way.
I used to be.
Who?
Charlie Christ?
Jeb Bush.
Jeb.
Charlie Chris.
I talked to Jeb Grant all the time.
She does have a point here, Jeff.
We all used to.
I talked to Jeb all the time.
I was student body president during time of Jeb's, and I talk to Jeb all the time.
I still talk to Rick Scott all the time during some of this pandemic stuff.
Rick was calling me, and I was calling him.
That's what it's supposed to be about.
In fact, I was in Washington, D.C. last week, and I was talking to my federal affairs director.
And Marco calls our office to work with us all the time.
Rubio?
Yeah.
That is what it's supposed to be about.
And I was duly elected, flipping a seat by a million votes.
I hear what you're saying.
And there's no coming together in the recognition.
You won by 33,000.
How many total people voted?
8.3 million.
Didn't 8 million people vote for you and you only won by 6,753 votes?
And that's why I talked to Republicans all day long.
Yeah, but you also barely won.
That is correct.
Okay, so what's the point?
The point is that I flipped a seat by almost a million votes.
A Democrat hasn't won commissioner of agriculture in over 20 years.
No female has ever won commissioner of agriculture.
I recognized that I didn't win by 100,000, 500,000.
And so, you know, when I did my first legislative session, all of my pieces of legislation were sponsored by Republicans.
I'm going to tell you, though, that, and I hear what you're saying about wanting people to come together.
And I lived in that head for a very long time.
And I'll tell you when it flipped from me.
It flipped from me when the mandates happened.
And I realized that there were people on the other side of the aisle that wanted, that would take, that would bury me in five seconds if they had the chance.
That is not, regardless, that is not what's happening in this moment because there's a big segment of the country.
There's two big segments of the country on both sides of the aisle who feel very differently.
I mean, you talk about gun control.
You can talk about crime.
You can talk about the police.
You can talk about every issue.
It's two different worlds, two different ways of thinking.
It's going to be very hard.
And those people you're talking about, I mean, Jeb Bush, he doesn't appeal to me as a conservative.
Marco Rubio right now doesn't appeal to me a conservative.
I'm looking at the Rand Pauls of the world.
I'm looking at the Ron DeSantises of the world.
Conservatives, people on the right, and people who are center-right are very drawn to these fighters, people who aren't going to sit down and say, well, I'll give a little and you give a little because that little that they give away is damaging.
But that's what democracy is supposed to be.
We're a republic.
We're not even a democracy, truthfully.
But great.
That sounds great.
That sounds beautiful on paper.
But when it comes down to it, people right now are in a moment where they're like, I need to take care of my family, my kids.
They've just gone down to 20 years in some place.
You've just started a compromise.
But that's what you're describing as what's wrong with America right now.
Okay.
That right now, because that's not how it used to be.
I have a master's in political campaigning.
I have a master's from, you know, I have a degree in politics.
And every time, every time I have been involved, besides when this went south with DeSantis, I told you we started this conversation.
I walked into a cabinet that I had been friends with Ashley Moody since undergrad and law school.
I've known Jimmy Petronas since his time in the legislature.
I walked in as the head of the Democratic Party saying, let's find things that we can work together on, whether it's the environment, whether support for the state of Israel, whatever it is that we tried to work on compromise.
In the first legislative session, all of my bills were sponsored by Republicans.
And that they're what kind of Republicans, though?
The Mitch McConnells of the world that drive me crazy, the people who don't dig in their heels and fight.
This is what I'm saying.
If you and I sat down right now and we say we were trying to work together on something, we might find maybe the medical marijuana or the marijuana legalization, we would be able to do that.
I'm just throwing that out.
That we can join.
I've never smoked a joints before.
Well, it's starting now.
We're going to make some change, Jenny Diet.
I'll pot brownie after the show.
But no, really, I'm sure that issue, but we would have a really hard time because we wouldn't.
Trying to go out tonight, guys.
He's thinking Miami.
It might get close to 420.
That's all he's thinking about.
Watch us finish it.
I don't know.
What does that mean?
I've never heard of that.
I can definitely talk about that.
But you know, my point is just we would have a really hard time working together in the sense of we may like each other, we may get along, but I want very different things for this country.
And if I were running, my platform would look very different from yours.
I'm tired of that.
Where would yours be?
I'm tired of that.
Sounds like you're making a campaign.
Maybe I'll run for something.
No.
But I'm tired of politics as usual.
It seems like politicians get into a room and they all shake hands and they come out.
And it's like, do any of any of you fight?
Did you dig into it?
Policy-wise, what are you saying that you're wholeheartedly different from her?
I'm saying that I would be fighting for school choice and I would be rallying and even gun control.
I want people to, I want that Second Amendment upheld and protected.
I want, I feel very strongly about that.
So let's talk about those two issues.
Okay.
Let's talk about what you just talked about: choice.
I'm not opposed to choice.
I'm not opposed to choice at all.
You know, in fact, like I said, I have said this also very publicly.
I had a learning disability when I was growing up.
And luckily, I was in a school that it was recognized and that I got special attention to make sure that that happened.
And so not every child fits into the traditional school setting.
That's right.
That is, see, we're agreeing.
Okay.
But, but I don't agree with taking money away from our traditional schools to put them in choice.
So you increase the amount of education and money going in there.
And I know there's other, there, I mean, we can talk for other hours about what yeah, and we would.
And I think that I think that this presents itself as, you know, I hear what you're saying.
You want people to come together more.
You want, you want, you want politics to be more palatable, you know, in terms of it being, I understand that.
But that's not the moment we're in.
I'm going to be honest with you.
It's just not.
Which is why Charlie Chris won't win this election, okay?
Because he's not a fighter.
Well, he's, you and I can probably agree a lot on him, to be frank.
You know, but and so, yes, and I am a fighter for what I believe in and for the things that I fancy.
I want to do this.
You got one minute.
I got to get you out of here.
No, no.
I'm just, I'm responding to a text I'm getting.
So give us your final thoughts here.
First of all, you know, whatever you can say, whether you agreed with her or disagreed with you or disagree with me or whoever it is, I've said this always.
I have so much respect for anybody who's willing to come and sit here and have this kind of a conversation.
You have no idea how much respect you get from me just to be able to handle a conversation like this and take it because we know both sides of the aisle.
People only want to go sit with people.
That's going to be a what?
Here's a South.
Hey, you know, just go say whatever you want to say and everyone's going to support you.
You're so awesome.
You're so great.
Why don't you do this?
And I think that's a problem.
I applaud you for doing that.
So final thoughts, audience listening to this.
If you had the final message here to say why somebody ought to consider voting for you, why would that be?
Look, I'm somebody who wants to reach across the aisle and to work together.
That is what the people of our state.
That's why we got me elected and Ron DeSantis in the same exact election.
The people of our state want don't want this divisiveness.
They don't want the spewing of hatred.
And it's on both sides.
It's on both sides.
The extremes on both sides of the aisle.
I'm not the extreme.
I am the center of the road.
I'm outside the box.
I'm not a traditional Democrat.
I'm somebody who's going to fight for issues, not for a party.
And I think that at the end of the day, people want somebody who's going to show up, who's going to be true, who's going to be real.
We might not always agree on things.
But the fact of the matter is, like you just said, that we're going to have a conversation.
I respect that.
And that's who I am.
That's who I have always been.
Nikki, can we put the what's the website?
If people want to follow your website, it's nikkifree.com.
Can you put that in the chat and put in the comment section so people can find her?
Nikki, we're going to continue, but they're going to come and open the door here to let you make it to your meeting.
But this is the website and put that below as well.
Appreciate you so much for coming out.
Thank you.
Truly.
Thank you so much.
This was fantastic.
Nikki, what's your YouTube?
We'll send a link to the YouTube.
I don't know if you're trying to increase your YouTube channel.
We'll put all that link below.
Everything's on the website.
If you look at the bottom of the website, we'll do that.
Awesome.
Well, thanks for your time.
Thank you.
Appreciate you.
Yes.
And whoever's texting me, Rob, was that you texting me?
No.
Somebody texted the PVD podcast.
840.
Is it possible to shake hands or have a lot of people?
Chris, text me or no?
Okay, folks, stick around because I got an announcement to you.
Are you coming over here?
Yeah, if you can sit over here.
Nikki, it was great.
I'll put John in touch and all that.
Truly enjoyed it.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
Yes.
Okay.
Awesome.
Okay, guys.
We typically don't do a Saturday podcast, but we had Nikki who agreed to do this.
And when she said yes, I'd love to have a conversation with her.
Even though we got an understatement how much fun I have.
By the way, when you're telling her to her face how much you respect her, you're not BSing.
I know how much respect you have for someone with opposing views that comes and sit here.
Whether it's Andrew Yang or Jank Uyghur, whoever, you have a lot of respect for what you're doing.
Those are my favorite conversations.
Those are my favorite conversations.
But I tell you, but I tell you this, folks, if you enjoyed like this entire time, I'm sitting there watching her and Jedi have a conversation.
And I'm enjoying that conversation.
That was my favorite part of it.
Jeddah Daya seems to be enjoying that too.
Yeah, I really, by the way, you know, poise, you know, respectful, all of that.
I mean, you know, Jeddada has gone against Hillary Clinton.
So when he's going against everyone, anybody else here.
I was very impressed by her.
I'm not saying that we agreed or disagreed on every as far as a person and carrying herself, I think she's pretty high.
This was grand.
By the way, we're going to do many, many more of these.
So folks, stick around, but we got to make an announcement.
Yes or no?
Yeah.
We got an announcement.
I'm going to let you do it.
Yeah.
So let me tell you what happened.
So I think some of the audience knows, some of you don't know.
Some of you guys that are members here that are signing up to become members, you know, I'm excited for you because you'll see why there's going to be other benefits of being members.
If you haven't yet, you may want to consider being a member.
So first time Jededai was on a podcast, how many months ago was that?
Was that like six, seven months?
About six or seven.
Yeah.
Was it that long?
No, it was not because it was in this.
Let's say four months ago.
Okay, four or five months ago.
So we sat down, we spoke right afterwards.
I'm like, man, I love this, the way she talks.
I love the way energy.
Was it the three of us?
Yes.
Okay.
Would you admit what you said to me?
You're like, I got to go, but go recruit her.
Would you?
I was like, hey, Jedi, which is exactly what happened.
What are you up to after this?
100%.
Good to know that we're making things happen right now.
That's right.
So then we had conversations and one thing led to another and then multiple conversations with Jeremy.
And then I said, what would this look like?
And then you were kind of sharing this.
And anyways, we're here to announce to everybody that's watching this that Jedediah has officially joined the Valutainment team.
And I got to tell you, we're ecstatic.
That's an understatement to say how ecstatic we are to have yourself, Jeremy Hardley, now being down here in Florida and getting more of you and Valutainment.
The audience loved you when he had you on.
So matter of fact, are you okay if we show the videos?
Let's show the promo video.
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
Go ahead.
Play the promo video.
I'm Jedediah Biela.
I've hosted and co-hosted cable news shows, network TV shows, all of it.
I hated the filters, and there were many.
I struggled with the time constraints that stifled conversation.
I sometimes felt like I was drowning in producer direction.
What I wanted was to get to the heart of big issues, to be real, and to have an honest conversation with people who agreed with me and disagreed with me.
People who would make us think and help fix what's broken.
I couldn't do what I wanted to do, what I needed to do in the spaces I was in.
So I was ready to find a new space.
I believe so strongly in individual freedom.
I love this country, but it's a mess right now.
And I'm not going to sugarcoat that with fake giggles and rainbows.
I want to talk about why things are so fucked up, not just in politics, but everywhere.
Health, fitness, dating, culture.
It all needs a good, hard look.
Welcome to my new zone.
This is Jedediah Beela live on Valutainment.
I'm excited about that, Jedediah.
I know.
I'm so excited.
When you watch that promo video, you're just like, you kind of like want to work out.
You want to do something.
I got to give a shout out to the editing team that's that production team.
They're amazing.
And let me tell you, we had such a fun day shooting that.
It was amazing.
It's a great team here all around.
Was that a real workout you were doing on the video?
It was a piece of a workout.
I work out like crazy.
And we're going to do some fun stuff on the show related to that.
We're going to have some amazing guests.
It's going to be a lot of me ranting.
It's going to be everything's on the table.
So it's not just politics.
People know me from politics.
I'm big into health and wellness, fitness, pop culture, dating.
We're going to cover it all.
We're going to be real and we're going to dig.
You know, I really want to do some deep dives.
I want to have a real conversation.
And if we have a guest, it's going to be someone that I really want to talk to.
My goal here is to make people feel powerful over their own lives again.
I feel like there's a lot of sentiments out there of negativity.
People feel powerless.
They feel like they're kind of like shrinking in their seats.
It's been a tough two years.
I want to remind people that a lot is possible and it's right within their reach.
So it's going to be, it's going to be fun and it's going to be crazy.
We saw the amazing promo again.
Shout out to the production team.
Yeah.
You were on Fox.
You were on The View.
You've been around.
And even when you were independent, you were talking to other networks and other outlets.
Eventually, we're very grateful that you chose and came to Valutainment.
What was the biggest piece of the puzzle?
You said, all right, Pat, let's do this.
Why Value Tainment?
You know, I had a few conversations with Pat and I just really felt like, and I was talking to people who, you know, are super respected in the industry, all great people, amazing.
I feel incredibly lucky that, you know, any of you guys, you know, were excited to work with me.
But Pat just had something really interesting.
I felt like there was a real commitment to a free speech zone.
I felt like he wanted to really talk to people who he agreed with and disagreed with.
It didn't feel like it was ideologically just one way.
I felt like I could really go into my own space and be myself, dress like I wanted to dress, talk the way I wanted to talk, feel very unfiltered in that space.
And honestly, I have a lot of respect for you and your, I'm not good with money and you're amazing with money and you're an entrepreneur and I have so many ideas of things I want to do, but I could use like someone in my life in a business sense that could I could shoot ideas off of that I have that kind of respect for.
And I just, I have a lot of respect for people who, you know, come from very little and financially and work their way up and build something.
And it was just a vibe too.
I was here with you guys.
I just felt like we kind of all meshed together well.
It was a lot of just gut feeling, you know, like I think, I think DeSantis being in Florida kind of was a push for me as well.
And it just felt right.
You know, I know people say that and it's cheesy, but it just felt like the right move.
And Pat, I know you've been talking to other people.
What was it about Jedediah that you were like, all right, cool.
Let's try to get her.
Are you kidding me?
Today was the best commercial.
I could have listened to them for hours.
I'm not even kidding with you.
I could have listened to her for hours.
And the stuff that was coming back where it's like, yeah, but you got to say this.
And it wasn't disrespectful.
It was proper.
It was pushback.
I mean, yeah, look, I'm a big believer.
When I see talent, and I say, I told you 10 years ago and I said, I'm like, this guy's got something.
I said, you got to just keep him, right?
I told you 10 years ago.
Thank you.
But when I saw Jedediah and I'm like researching all the other stuff she did, I'm like, she's got something.
She's got a message.
The world's got to hear it.
I think there's so many other men and women who want to hear from an alpha female.
So this is a woman who's a mother, married, husband who's a stud.
You know, he's a winner.
But at the same time, she's got a message that other women are sitting there saying, I relate to you.
I'm somebody that's going through this.
I have these concerns.
I have these fears.
I want to hear that.
I think millions are going to flock to listen to her message.
And I think she's going to make a major impact in a lot of people's lives.
And that's what I'm most excited about with Jedediah.
So exciting times.
And future.
So tell us, how many times a week can people find you?
You're going to be able to.
So we're going to start next Wednesday as the first show at 1 p.m.
I'm super excited.
Jedediah Beale alive.
And then we're going to be three times a week after that.
So you're going to get to hear from me Monday to Wednesday.
Kai, who's in the room right now with us, is going to be with me on Wednesday.
That was the biggest mistake we made.
Everything in advance.
I want to apologize on behalf of the team.
You know, it is what it is.
Just know he's going to bring a lot of value.
The entertainment side of things isn't exactly his deal.
I'm not easy to put up with.
I have a lot of personality.
I'm from Brooklyn.
I'm not easy.
So we'll see if Kai can handle the heat that's going to be.
Well, according to the production team, you're completely easy to work with.
They love it.
No, forget about the production team.
According to the complex, the cleaning, it's just freaking awesome stuff.
Y'all going to hear it.
Y'all going to hear it.
Senator has a great major issue.
This is all going to make sense once my podcast takes off.
You're going to know what we're talking about.
You're watching this.
Listen, we put the link below.
A bunch of you guys have already subscribed.
Go subscribe.
This clip's going to be on Twitter.
We're going to put it all over the place.
Wednesday, put it in your calendar.
What time is it, by the way?
Do we know the time?
It's 1 p.m.
Wednesday, 1 p.m., put it in your calendar.
Wednesday, 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
That's 10 a.m. Pacific.
Put it in your calendar.
Next Wednesday, Jedediah Beale Alive.
Share this content today as well to understand the perspective of what Jedediah is going to be doing.
Because the moment people see how Jedediah and Nikki Freed had the wonderful conversation today, more people are going to want to tune into this podcast as well as we continue.
Anyways, having said that, thank you so much, Jedediah.
We're excited about you being part of the team.
That's it, production.
Let's go.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
It's Saturday.
By the way, no podcast for us for nine days.
I'm not doing podcasts next week.
So I'll be out for nine days and I'll start afterwards.
