Bulwark Takes - This Democrat Smells Blood in Deep Red Florida (w/ Bale Dalton)

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

Tim Miller talks with Navy veteran and former NASA Chief of Staff Bail Dalton, who’s running for Congress in a deep red Florida district Democrats usually ignore—but may now be in play. They dig into his opponent, Rep. Cory Mills' the mountain of scandals and lies, and why Trump-era chaos could open the door for an upset.For a limited time, listeners can get an exclusive $25 off AuraFrame's best-selling Carver Matframe at https://on.auraframes.com/BULWARKTAKES with code BULWARKTAKES.Tickets for our Bulwark Live shows in San Diego and Los Angeles in May: https://thebulwark.com/events

Hey, everybody, welcome to the ballwork. I'm Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome a Democrat running for Congress in Florida against Corey Mills. He's also a Navy veteran and former NASA chief of staff. It's Bail Dalton. What's up, bro? Hey, Tim, how's it going? Thanks for having me on. It's going well. We had, I guess, a couple weeks ago, Roger Sullenberger on to talk about all of the various crimes and misdemeanors and offenses and bigotries of Corey Mills. So we've covered that a little bit.

That's what we're going to get to that. but I wanted to have you on in part because this district really encapsulates something that I've been talking a lot about, which is I think the Democrats have a big opportunity to win in places that haven't traditionally been targeted. You know, Corey won this district by 13 points. It's not a traditional swing district. But because of the year, because of how bad Trump's screwing things up, because of the bad candidate on the other side in particular, I think this is the type of race that needs more attention. So before we get to like the Corey drama, I just want people to hear a little bit about you and give us your little kind of, you know, I don't know, first date pitch for the Dale Dalton, candidacy.

Absolutely. Well, yeah, as you noted, I've been now in the Navy and Navy Reserve for over 23 years. It'll be my 24th anniversary here in about a month in May. helicopter pilots supporting special operations throughout Iraq, Afghanistan on the ground with the SEAL teams as a forward air controller and then commanded the helicopter squadron, supporting special operations in the Horn of Africa and throughout the Pacific. So those have been some really good adventures, some good, some bads there, but really the honor of a life to take care of, you know, 450 of my opinion, the best sailors in the Navy. I did some work for Florida's former senator, Bill Nelson, doing national defense form policy work for him, and of course near and dear to my heart veteran services, making sure our veterans are getting the benefits that they earned and the care that they need in their own transition.

And then, yeah, even maybe more exciting, I got the chance to help lead NASA as Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief of Staff. 14 centers across America, over 16,000 researchers, scientists, engineers, and astronauts, showing the world what America can accomplish every day when we actually work together. So it's been a life of public service that has been quite rewarding and many times quite frustrating. Now I'm running for Congress here in my home district in central Florida because, as you mentioned, we have a representative right now who seems quite uninterested, maybe because he can't be because he's so distracted with what's going on with himself, but it's

uninterested in, you know, serving the needs of central Floridians. And they deserve somebody better up in Congress. We're going to give them that option. So given that military history, I'm wondering what you make of what's happening right now. And the are, I guess, we don't, we don't really know what to call it. We're working on things. A listener nominated Decrease Fire, which is what we're in now. We're not really in a war, not war. And we're not in the ceasefire, but we might be in a decreased fire. Trump said today that we're still, I think the plan is we're just going to blockade the Strait of Hormuz for a while longer. So that, you know, we need to close the straight to get it open. And I'm just wondering like what you made of, you know, this war,

of how the Defense Department, the Department of War has handled it. Any other thoughts on the foreign policy side of things? There is a part of yourself that has to remove your, your, yourself a bit to just see how ridiculous this is because the real emotion that I have is just one of just absolute fury, you know, that we have service members. I mean, people I know, people I served with that are in harm's way for an operation that seems to have no strategic direction from the top whatsoever. I've been getting about a million texts today about the Armed Services Committee hearing. I've been on the phones talking to voters trying to address their actual needs, so I haven't seen a lot of it, but considering the volume of text I have,

I probably need to go back and watch them. But, you know, look, you know, as a veteran and as a student of military history, you know, we're told that, you know, war is an extension of politics by other means. But in order for that to be successful, you have to have, like, a real strategic end state. And, you know, I don't see us having that. And it certainly hasn't been presented to the American people or their representatives in Congress. So, you know, once again, we've, We've led ourselves into a war with no discernible end and put our service members in harm's way and left their families with questions about are they truly being taken care of or not. Borg takes a sponsor by Aura Frames.

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checkout. In terms and conditions do apply. How do you see yourself in where you would fit in the Democratic Congress? Like, is there somebody out there you think is doing a good job? You know, there's a lot of pretty negative feelings about people on the Hill these days. Are there one or two examples of somebody thinks doing well? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, the overall negative view is warranted. Right. We've just seen certainly in my lifetime a greater percentage of people who seem to be, you know, addicted to power or addicted to being on TV or addicted to have this information that we now see them trading on for monetary value. And that's not what the American people need. And but yeah, I think there's some, I mean, first of all, working for Senator Nelson, I think I worked for one of the consummate public servants, you know, used to tell us public services of public trust. And the main thing that we were focused, on no matter what part of the staff we were was constituent services and making sure that the people who are represented are actually getting somebody that cares about them and cares about trying to solve their problem. So certainly grew up with that as, you know, part of my ilk and part of my value structure. And, you know, look, I think we see some veterans who happen to be in Congress right now who are trying to, you know, hold our government as a whole accountable for these decisions we're making and where we're, you know, you know, exhibiting our values in terms of where we're putting our money and where we're putting our, you know, service members in harm's way or not. So I think we're seeing a lot of

good leadership from, you know, folks like Jason Crow and Pat Ryan and Chris DeLusio. You know, I'm sort of the same vintage with some of the same experiences. I'm Oz the mentalist right now. You can't see this. I wrote down, well, I was like, who's he going to say? I wrote down Pat Ryan. That's what I wrote down. Okay. I knew it. I felt it coming. Well, look, I think the. those guys have done a good job of using their prior service and their experiences and trying to hold, you know, accountable folks that too often speak flippantly about where we are spending this huge amount of our taxpayer money and treasure and more importantly, where we're putting our service

members' lives at risk. I mean, absolutely the goal of the federal government is to provide for our national defense. But we have to be doing so in a much more responsible way. And it's way too expensive monetarily and it's way too expensive with the lives of our service people to be going it alone. I think that that's right. I don't know if I want to compare myself to as a mentalist because I do think it was kind of a big, big miss for him to not be able to predict what's going to happen. A little bit of a miss. A little miss for us the mentalists. You know, you got to give it to him though because he came straight out and admitted it. And you know, in today's day and age when somebody is able to admit a weakness or admit, you know, missing something, that's a pretty

rare thing in Washington, D.C. Accountability is important. Yeah. Let's get your part. Let's just talk about the district really quick so people can get in their head. I said Daytona, but like where is it going like along the beach there? Does it make it over to Orlando? Like what does the district look like? Yeah, it's just slightly northeast of the bottom southwest corner is just northeast of Orlando. We've got the I4 corridor, Maitland, Outaumont Springs, Sanford-de-Berry. And then if you just take that sort of line up by four where it goes north-south and take it all the way to the east coast. We're in Port Orange, which is just south of

Daytona, down to New Smyrna. And this is a district that's, you know, filled with, you know, health service industry, aerospace workers. We've got incredible partnerships with the federal government and the Department of Defense and NASA with folks out of our, you know, Embry Riddle and UCF, which is just to the south of this district. And also this district has been represented by both Republicans and Democrats before. Of course, you know, Florida has changes its lines quite often, which happens to be in the news today as well. Florida 7, where I'm running, would not be affected. No change at all.

Yeah. What we're seeing right now that is being debated is there's, you know, it's an R plus 5 district. We'll stay in R plus 5 district. It doesn't look like the borders are changed, you know. But on that point, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but it's just another. crazy thing that we have, you know, representatives, whether they're in the statehouse in Tallahassee or in Washington, D.C. think that they are able to just completely flaunt the will of the people. I mean, Floridians have spoken on this in 2010 with an amendment, voter approved

amendment to our state constitution that said that redistricting can't be done in the way that they are doing it. And, you know, I think they're seeing in Tallahassee right now, again, a bunch of texts coming in from the crowds in Tallahassee that are telling people, Republican or Democrat, like, look, our system is not for politicians to pick their districts. Our system is for people to vote who they think will best represent their area. And, you know, this, this, what's going on in Tallahassee has been going on for almost 20 years now in terms of, you know, people are elected representatives just not holding themselves accountable to the will of people. And that's something that's got to change.

Yeah, I don't know. I looked at that map and I'm not, you know, I know enough to be dangerous about Florida politics, you know, and they probably end up still picking up a seat or two. But I think that there's some backfire potential in there. Like a couple of those seats that, you know, Republicans won by 16, 17, 17, 18. Now they move the district down to 8, 9, 10. And, you know, depending on how bad things get with the economy, with the war, people being upset about exactly the type of thing you're talking about. I think they might be putting a couple of their folks at risk. So let's talk about Corey Mills in particular.

You said you're focused on constituent services. I assume he's not doing well on that count unless you're counting on kind of like cyber-stalking people in the district or if there are any arms dealers in the district. He's probably treated him pretty well. But give us some of the hits on your opponent. Well, I mean, he's certainly putting the judicial system to work, you know, in terms of, you know, as a federal judge had to issue a restraining order against them on behalf of a woman here in Florida. who he was, as you said, cybersocking, blackmailing, attempting revenge porn against. I mean, it's just crazy. I mean, this woman had to tell Corey Mills over 11 times to stop contacting her,

and he refused to listen. You know, at some point you got to give it up, and you don't want that point to be when a judge tells you you're a danger to a woman. And then, you know, who was in the news last week, I think, again, this domestic violence dispute up in Washington, D.C., on behalf of another woman, also not his wife, there in his $20,000 a month penthouse, which he didn't pay rent on for a while either. So, I mean, this guy's just got a host of things. And, you know, that's just one silo of his problems, how he treats people as specifically women. You know, he's a foreign arms dealer that has refused to disclose what

countries he sells weapons to while sitting on the House Armed Services Committee and overseeing, in fact, in one of the subcommittees he's on, you know, these export licenses for weapons. So it's an incredible conflict of interest that Congress has allowed to go on since 24. I mean, he likes to say he's only been under investigation and that he referred himself a couple months ago in November. These, these, and this investigation has been going on since 24. And, you know, we've also seen that, I mean, I guess, you know, when somebody tells you who they are, you know, believe them. He's also telling stories that have about his military

service that have been refuted by people who have actually served with them. And so, you know, whether that constitutes stolen valor by law or not, that's up for the judiciary to decide, but certainly as a veteran, I'm not interested in having anybody near, you know, my people are making decisions on their behalf that can't get their own story straight about their own military time. Is there anything else out there you're watching? You're out among the people. Sometimes I feel I've got a great job, but I do feel a little bit like we have to go

to our live events. And, you know, I've got to go to Jazz Fest. And, you know, I've got to go, you know, talk to the guys at the bars that I frequent. I've got to go to Miss Mays to hear what's happening out there because I'm in my fucking hole all the time. I love that Tim said he had to go to Jazz Fest. I have to go just to hear what's happening out there among the masses. In the Gulf Coast there.

But yeah, you know, the best part of, you know, this adventure is getting out and talking, you know, look, this is I'm from this district. I'm from Central Florida. I grew up here talking to friends and families and neighbors who are fed up. And, you know, we've focused mostly on the corruption and grift that they're experiencing and their representatives in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C. and that's a big part of it. But also, you know, talking to folks who are like, look, I don't have time to care about that stuff because this cost of living crisis that I'm in takes up all of my time. You know, people are unable to even think aspirationally anymore, which is what our country was founded on, right?

Create a better life for your kids and for those that are coming behind you. You know, folks are heads down every day making crisis decisions at the kitchen table about, you know, how they're going to put food on the table. I mean, small business owners that are getting squeezed on both sides, right, by this chaotic tariff implementation where their cost of goods is going up. They've got to raise their prices. They lose customers. They can't keep employees on. Employees are, you know, dependent on a job for health care and, you know, that ACA subsidies expiring as a crisis of Congress's own making, leaving, you know, tens of thousands and, you know, over 45,000 people in this district alone without health care at all, and over 100,000 people will see their premiums, have already seen their

premiums go up two, three, and four times. So, you know, if you're paying $2,500 for your family afford to try to take care of your health, you know, now you're looking at $5,000, $6,000. I mean, people cannot do that right now. And they certainly can't do that with the future that they see as only getting worse. You know, we were promised an economy that would be getting better. It's getting worse. We were promised the government that would be working more efficient. it's getting worse. So people are fed up and I'm right there with them. Right. Last thing. Democrats have lost a bunch of ground in Florida. And I do think sometimes there's a, you know, sense of, you know, blaming other forces out there, right? Like, it's not

actually the Democrats, the Democrats campaign or their platform and their policy problems. It's the voters are dumb or there's cheating, you know, whatever. There's always a lot of excuse making. But like the reality is Florida was a real swing state, not that. that long ago. I mean, Ron DeSantis barely won against Andrew Gillum in 2018. Like, you know, we're all old enough to remember that. And so, like, when you look at just how ugly it's got between 2018 and 2024 for the Democrats in Florida, like, how do you assess why that was and like what the party can do to write the ship? Yeah, I think ugly is the right word. I mean, there's just so much ugliness now. And what I referenced before is once people are getting in power, it seems like

the only thing they care about is staying in power. They don't care about creating good policy. They don't care about serving the people of which they represent. They only care about staying in their seat. And I think that has just, you know, that's been a negative momentum, right? A snowball effect, which has just created a real ugliness issue. You know, when you call everything a war, then people become war yours. And in order to have a war, you have to have an enemy. So we've had communities in Florida just pit against each other by this divisiveness that's been thrust upon them by bad actors and our elected representatives. And so, you know, the other thing that happens when I talk to people are like, look, I'm tired of being told I have to hate my neighbor, right? I grew up in central

Florida when it was the purplest of purple, right? I think my right door and left door next door neighbors were both registered Republicans. They are both supporting my campaign, by the way, because they are interested in somebody that is going to choose some of this partisan politics and actually do what's right for the people. And so, yeah, I think where we are in Florida today is we've watched, you know, things sort of happen surreptitiously over time,

sort of that, you know, drip, drip, drip, you know, torture of politics. And I think people are now awakened to the fact that, you know, their rights and their representation have been taken away from them slowly over time. And I think we're going to see a big groundswell against that. Again, Republican, Democrat, independent, you know, government is not working for them. And they're being tired of being told they have to hate their neighbor because the communities and neighborhoods are where we live, as you reference. Like, you know, that is no way to live in a place where you're either, you know, scared to go

outside because of policies or scared to go outside because, you know, your neighborhood has become, you know, such a visceral, you know, hatred. And so people are tired of that. Well, I hope you're right. I'm a little skeptical. I think maybe some people like spewing hate. You know, some people like the hate fire. But there are definitely, definitely a lot of keyboard warriors out there, as you well know. And I think one of these things is we need to have, you know, people being willing to put themselves out there and, you know, here are the hard questions and respond to them in ways that they, you know, may not agree with right at that moment, but at least they're having a conversation with somebody who's grounded in rational thought and is grounded

in the idea that, you know, public service is a public trust. And they just don't have that right now. And, you know, we're finding lots of support from folks of all stripes. And so, you know, I think that is indicative of, you know, maybe some positive momentum in the other direction. All right. He's bail Dalton. He's running in Florida 7, baildalton.com, if you want to, you know, get the texts or whatever. Yeah, check us out. There's even an area where you can sign up to get news where you don't necessarily have to get text and emails.

But, yeah, baildalton. com, check us out. We're running a campaign laser focused on Florida 7 and given the people there. again, my friends, families and neighbors, what they need. I appreciate you, brother. Thanks for coming on the Bullock. We'll talk to you soon. Keep us posted. All right. Sam, thanks for having me. We'll stay in touch.