PBD Podcast - Florida Gubernatorial Candidate - Nikki Fried| PBD Podcast | Ep. 162

Episode Date: June 5, 2022

In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Nikki Freid, Adam Sosnick and Jedediah Bila to discuss Ron Desantis, Florida, Nikki Fried running for office, and much more... as well as welcoming Jedediah Bila to the team. 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. TOPICS 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 Follow Nikki on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3Mhr0Gw Donate to Nikki's campaign: https://bit.ly/3aqFiHj Follow Jedediah's channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzmDARnc6yAHdXWRBwQTFpA?sub_confirmation=1 Download the podcasts on all your favorite platforms https://bit.ly/3sFAW4N Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list 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: [e-mail] --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

And are you out of your mind? Here's the debate. You're upset. They're saying we believe. This is it. I thought that. Conversation's not going very well. She wants to wait more. Explain. Anyways, folks, I believe we're live or no. You missed the conversation with a very good friend of Adam. Anyway, episode 162 today with Governor Candidate of Florida, Nicky Fried 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 the time 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, you know, weighing on me for a while is, there's a lot of people in Florida who are, you know, fans of Florida with what's going on with Florida. But I haven't met anybody that admires and loves the centrist as much as you. Why is that? What's the reasoning why you love the governor so much? Like I'm really curious.

We don't have, we don't have, we don't lay an hour. I'm actually curious. Why do you love this man so much? You know, it's interesting. 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 commission of agriculture. And I was actually really hopeful. 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 the legislator.

Ashley, right. Ashley, you know, was that Jimmy Patronis as well? A CFO. Okay, guys. So I had known them all for, I was like, okay, we're gonna do this. We're gonna 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 a lot of part of 2019, he just was coming in. There was violations of sunshine, there was just not working with everybody. And the biggest things 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? 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, offer 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 will get into both 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, you know, people that have been marginalized before know that they're 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 in, as you were talking about before on air, that this, you know, communism versus imperialism in your household, my dad is a Republican. So I want to also be very clear. I grew up and as you were talking about before on air that this, you know, communism versus imperialism in your household, my dad is a diehard Republican.

When I was doing soup kitchens and have a taffy humanity and Miami grown up, he was getting me NRA T-shirts. So we are, you know, that's kind of the household that I grew up. What was your mom? She is a diehard Democrat. She was a teacher for 25 years. And they're still together?

Oh, no, no. That's not a good case example for America. They're Nikki. How long were they married for? 25 years. Wow. A long time. A long time. Sometimes that 25 years is simply until the kids turn 18. That's what they're waiting for. So but go ahead. For you. Okay. There you go. We can't wait in four more years. I was 12. They got divorced twice. My parents in in 20 years They married each other divorce married each other divorce in 20 years. Well, so similar storybook Please continue. So so I was watching all of this and at the end of the day

That's not what government 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, for 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 on the state of Florida. So first time we created a new industry in our state,

and I created an open market that leading 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 do I 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 tables to 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 wanna come in, I wanna give people an opportunity for that American dream, and to make sure that we're creating policies that are gonna 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. 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 in Mexican restaurant and a Cuban restaurant, but I love, even they do like a spin on the traditional types of food because it's a new experience. What did they call that? There's a name for that, right? Is it a fusion or is it like, you know, when they mix the two up?

Exactly. Yeah. That's not every restaurant, right? I mean, one of my favorite restaurants in Vegas is Chinopoblano and it's like Mexican food plus Chinese food. I was like, I've never been to a Chinese Mexican place. Why do you see this place? Why do you see this place?

So you like spices, you like mix, you like fusion. Yeah. What else? Well, that's, I think that is a big part of it. It's 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, you're walking, you're like, you know, I'm looking at you, let's go check this place, okay? You go to this place and I'll be like Guys, we gotta 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 you know

Prime time there is something wrong with this restaurant, right? Okay. I feel like you're going somewhere. What's the flow? I want to, I want to, I want to, 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, you know, all this other stuff, how terrible the state has been under the santa's and all this other stuff. Okay, sounds good. From 2020, if you go to 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 taking 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 that come in here, California is losing people. They're first in 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 person, they may say, Niki, 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, you kind of look at Florida for a couple of reasons. People don't come here because of DeSantis.

That that I did. Did you? I did. And I'll tell you why in a little bit. I won't even 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 that 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. It's a Saturday. But I was talking to the mayor earlier today, and it's been our city and county commissioners, and there's flooding everywhere. There's 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, so that to me then becomes step three, but step one is, 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 set something like, people are not moving the floor to the front desk, 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 an LA last week, the weather is sick. There's so many reasons to stay in California. People left California because of Nusom and many people came to Florida because of the Sanctus. The NBA, I remember one NBA for it when the COVID first started. Everybody was talking about Florida. I cannot believe what the we were 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? Orlando 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 back one, 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 a 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, 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 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 on the state early because I knew that if we closed on the state early, that we would be able to get open earlier and that we'd able to save lives. No, he sat down and didn't do that.

No, that one 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 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 a Republican,

I'm an independent, and I'm not someone who has a loyalty to politicians. If DeSantis does something, I don't like, I'll be the first person to call them 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 freedom. 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 disney because he was fighting against those policies you want to talk to an authoritarian talk to build a blasio talk to gavin new some talk to people who were telling people you need to do this or else

disantis wasn't doing that, he's not doing that. He's doing it on every other policy. Every other. Where is it that you see that? 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, 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 school. How was he going after the school board members? Like, well, saying what? Well, first of all, he was gonna remove superintendents if they had actually done mass mandates. he was gonna withhold dollars from each of the school boards who actually had a mass mandates in place. He actually was holding back money from our school districts that were doing it. But was he preventing people who wanted to wear a mask in those schools from wearing masks?

What he was doing was- No, it was either. 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 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 first time 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 yell to them take that that damn thing off your face. That is not what a governor is supposed to do. A governor, if you really truly cared about freedom,

he should have let those kids be them, whoever they want, because then that was going, they're 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 had talked about, you shouldn't be getting between a doctor and a personal freedom decision. He just went after a little bit different.

But it, well, that's in your perspective. That's a little bit different because it involves a third person, though. They have to acknowledge that, right? No. I mean, where have you said, listen, I support exceptions for rape, incest, life, or 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's why that's not an individual decision between a woman and her doctor in my view.

That's a decision between a woman, her doctor, and there's a person. Can I just ask both of you guys a question? That's a fact in the debate. Because what I get tired of is whether you're on the left and you're calling a desantis or a Trump and 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. Oh, I mean, listen, how many people get compared to freaking eight off Hitler in America today?

No, Hitler is, no. That's different though. But both sides make that case, and to me, it's so hyperbolic. Okay, first of all, you know, when you look at me it's so I For fall, you know when you look at the conversation and I have studied you know some of these these you know countries And I have studied the rise of 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 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? Where? Where? Where? He's banning people from protesting in Florida. You're not allowed to protest in Florida?

Do you watch that, 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. And what happened? 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 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 woman. But they're going to rest. If I showed up at a peaceful protest, and violence 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 protest. I mean, really? Yes. I do. With a clear, because, 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 in 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 cart 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 the focus is. That's where these dinner table conversations where if you want to be someone like the Santa's and I assume you do, you're gonna have to come in and say these are the issues where I'm going to do better

than you and that's gonna 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. And 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 wanna know, how are you gonna do that? How are you gonna say all these things going well? I'm gonna 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 up today are not talking about any of those things. They're doing none of it. Ron DeSantis put into 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 months 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 it was something that could have been productive, that could have actually helped people.

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 could be done. We've got rent increasing all across the state. But why though? Because people want to be here and people are talking

up the rents because it's supply and 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 a 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 the 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 cause, the inflation. Are you talking about the tax cuts of 2018 or during COVID? No, 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 a six trillion dollars that was done during the during Trump I'm not talking about the infrastructure right six trillion dollars was printed and given out during 2020 Three I was just the cares act was 2.1 trillion. Where are you getting six though because Biden came in and he started printing money though I remember Trump did 2.1 trillion. So Trump gave out six trillion dollars three trillion Went to which most people are not watching this three trillion dollars of that went to all the programs that we all know about

that the pp correct all those another three 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 when we're not at the time you're saying correct and he gave out three trillion dollars 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 their shareholders were giving salary increases to themselves into their vice president 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 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. 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 instead. 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. Just to New York and California. How do you think they're leaders handled COVID?

Listen, I don't agree with how they handled it either. Tell me what you don't agree with. What I'm actually really curious. What do you think they didn't do right? So here's what I would have done. Okay. Because I can't tell you every single decision that any of the other states I was solely focused on. Would 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 my here's my sure. Okay. So first and foremost, I did ask for him to close down because we could have saved lives and you made it disagree, but I'm saying you have science to be there. There is lots of science. Not that. I and you and I were locked down. The law didn't work. The mask mandates didn't work and the Vax Mandakes didn't work. We have plenty of science to back that. And I completely disagree that if we had shut down, if that were true, though, Nikki, New York wouldn't have had the surges that it did in

California wouldn't have had the surges that it did in california wouldn't have had the surges that it did despite those policies in fact the york in california oftentimes looked a lot worse than florida well not very long but that the point the point was to have closed out earlier because if we had closed out earlier we would have stopped the spread earlier not people are getting coven like crazy even now but this is a point is this fully different string there ever there's not not works though you know that i. I mean, everybody got COVID.

People who were Vax people were on Vax. But there's different streams. Waves, some of it was seasonal. We know that 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 got vaccinated to land it in the hospital. That's not true. Yes, and some of them died. That is not true though. 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 help. But to argue that shutting down Florida would have prevented the spread of COVID. Let's not back in the process. Let's not realize this. The state just 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, at every time that wrong was to say, you know, the liberals would have shut down the same, we'd still be shut down. It's absolutely a flat out. So you would have shut it down earlier. But open it up and then did you support the mandates of the vaccine mandates? No, you didn't. I did not. I came out and said, personal choice. That's correct. Everybody has to make the decisions. I went against the White House and said, look, you know, 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 niki uh... but wait a minute my questions that answered i'm sorry i'm asking a question if you're california 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 in new york what do you think they did right that worked so effectively and 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 it. I think you need to because people from those states are moving to you.

But I would be happy. And you want to be the governor of this state. If you want to be the governor of this state, I'm a guy that lived in Texas in California. I need you to know why I live California. But I'm telling you what I would have done in the state 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 went one 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, DC 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?

Like, he sold, 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 Jacksonville, you can open up, but the rest of the state you can't. And then he was choosing which types of,

of different types of businesses were able to have a seat at the table. And even with the vaccines, look at how we distributed the vaccines. He first had pop-up locations that were in affluent communities. He then put the vaccines into publics 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 it 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 can please scrap it and just reopen. But I think we gotta get back to this issue. Regardless of what happened with the pandemic, we gotta 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 stuff.

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? 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 the cent is did a 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 uh... in regards to wide the hidden let you guys make the decisions for yourself i don't know this one super chats a dissentist trip the power because you all failed this is not rocket science this is what one you'll respond to them uh... deniel re Democrats banned Dr. Sus 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. This is hard. This is the

comments. And then this other guy, very peaceful. Kov'a 12X said, any New Yorker, the dinner table conversation is when we are moving to Florida because of the sentence, 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 move to Florida,

they're very happy. I'd love to see a few interviews about people that move 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. What, what, I have been here. I'd love to see that what what I have been here. I love to interview them

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, but but there's a point here. No, there's not a great They can move her. That's awesome. We can address that there's not but there's a lot of people in Florida who are pissed off No rents have skyrocketed 30 something percent. That's a that's a real thing. But that's that's called supply and demand. You're in business. You should know that. That's called capitalism. I agree. That's supply and demand. But if you're in Florida, you need to address your constituents. One of the guys that was interviewed on the MSNBC hit show that they did on the census, which Nikki was on. They

interviewed a guy husband and wife. They said, we came in with 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 it 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 a I went every world It was more than 30% so I had to pay the 1300 bucks. That's called capitalism But you called it a rate hike but you called it rest. Let me finish this. Then you can push back on me and let's change the topics to people that live here. You have a point. We'll get to that 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 in these places.

That's why people are leaving. So as much as we want to say, well, this, well, this, well, that, totally get it. We're coming to you because all your stuff, your bitch and about, we are very happy about. We are very happy about the stuff that this guy's done. So that's all I'm saying with the argument. So if people you're meeting who have moved you, who are not happy, tell me why they say they're not happy.

You know, they're coming down here. If people have come here 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, 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 for no one's saying that. Well, I don't know who you're all talking to.

But I have kids. We have kids. I get it. We are run people with kids. And I'm around people with kids all day long too. 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 let my kid choose what they want to be I'm saying that that they because they some of these policies Yeah, which ones which policies the one with LGBT which is Disney good Please continue us kind of where you go. So and that is 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. 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'm happy. I'm telling you, I talk to people all the time that have moved here. We do too though, but we do as well. Okay, but here's one I'm gonna 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. But 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 on to stuff that she talked about, and she made a very good point, when it comes on to families with kids, no and she made a very good point when it comes on to families with kids no taxes leave them maybe 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

in the state the last two years obviously i disagree and that's and that's fine that's why you're here to put push a book you have to say what's a better state than flor Florida these days. Because let me just weigh in. 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. We're not leaving. All of them, Nicky. I want them to leave. I was paying rent this much. It's 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 say that you're running into a lot of people are unhappy moving here they wouldn't move here if they were unhappy here well i don't understand what some of the culture issues when they get to the ground and specially if they are minority community so i'm a culture issues in l a or new york and i'm and florida's been purple forever i don't fight with anybody

by going to california i'm fighting with the republican army been 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 in New York. Florida, I got Cuban friends, Haitian friends,

this person, that person, Jewish friends. It's more of a melting pot in a these other states. You know, I'm wondering if the issue is like, anywhere you move, it's not gonna be perfect for you. There's gonna 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 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 is not perfect, but on these issues that really matter, like you're not talking about anything if you can't feed your family. Correct. 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 buy in 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. Wait till the summer there, Jenna. Alright. I'm dying to eat. It's so joe. 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 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 moving the other way. They're not moving the other way. 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 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% or 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.

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 gonna have no choice but to leave the state because I can't afford to live here anymore. But in Miami, the number one city in the state,

that's not on the Santas, isn't that on Mayor Suarez? I mean, what do you have to say, but what he's done? Whole other thing. I think it was back to the same fundamental issue. Okay, look, and this is why I'm running for governor. It 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? The Santas 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 reporters? Do you say other states? Other states.

Like this doesn't happen in another state. I'm just, I am talking about Florida. Okay. My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my to do with rent and that is happening. But I have offices and 49, I have 150 offices of my insurance company all across the country and we have these conversations about rent and I gotta 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, wow, let me tell you, if you knew Plano 15 years ago this place was a desert, right? I'm like okay, and they would show me pictures right? Well, I bet when Plano was a desert rent was probably 20 bucks a month and our rent and Plano's two grand a month Is that a mistake? Does that mean people are moving there? That's a good side that means Economy's going there, but the problem shows up afterwards, right? Then you have to come up with policies that you got to address and that it's 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 an L.A. Give you an idea in L.A. there's a city called Palmdale Lancaster. Palmdale is an hour away from LA, okay? When rent in LA is going to $3,000,000, tens of thousands of families move to Palmdale and Lancaster. Same things that happen here as well.

Some people that can't live in a market there and right now, they're probably gonna be moving. That's very normal across the board, every day, that's not a Florida issue. That's very normal across the board every day. That's not a Florida issue. That's in every state issue that's growing. But here's the problem. 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 it. 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 it. 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 in the 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 baristas? Who's making who's going to be picking our our 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. You will talk about New York and California and other states that have where 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 mentioned education, that's a topic near and dear to me. I was a teacher for many years. So what is your, 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 the 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 are all 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 got it. And so what we have to be doing is putting more money back into our education system.

Okay, so I'm gonna tell you though, money's not gonna 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 an educational system is the way that you fix every system,

as 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 necessarily agree with all of that, you know, but- She makes a good point though, and I don't have kids just like you, I don't, 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 go into 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 are talking about our private schools, our 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 come in as substitute teachers. They're making nothing, they're making nothing in disante. 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 Her the stories of our teachers buying school supplies for their kids because there's not enough school supplies in the classrooms And and what we have done is is money enough? No

Absolutely, but that has to start somewhere that we have schools and if you want to look at something interesting that at a third grade reading somewhere that we have schools and if you 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 built based on that third grade reading third grade reading but you can't blame First of all you're gonna have to look at family structures for that You're gonna have to go back to the dinner table You're gonna have to look at is that does that child's had the support of family and 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 family and all? We can go into that hole.

You have to talk about community. You have to talk about church. I mean, there are layers deep of this. Of course, but you're not going to throw money at that school and fix that kid. 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 would money help, though, if like if you're saying teachers got to come out of pocket to buy it? Because you know why they waste a ton of money. Like every other government institution, they waste a ton of money. You don't see it. And then you have teachers unions. You don't agree with that, Nicky. You don't think government waste money.

Oh, government waste loss money. Governor just did $109 billion budget. I can find a whole lot more. He'd only be to a 3.1 billion. I could have vetoed a whole heck of a lot more in there. There you go. And educate, 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 and look I have put forth my I oversee a 1.3 billion dollar budget and inside the Department of Agriculture. Every single 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 our 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's 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, you know,

what I'm trying to speak to you is people, people who came here came here because they care about freedom. When someone likes to santa's and I don't, I don't know to santa's, 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. And 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 and schools, everybody talked about,

don't say gay, don't say gay, wasn't in the bill, and it wasn't about that. It was about parental rights and schools. Everybody talked about the Don't Say Gable. Don't Say Gale 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 and somebody who believes in opportunity and 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 trying to persuade you to feel this way or that way, that's not what schools supposed to be. And that's not what they're doing either. Like, let's all say this

happening across the country, and it happened in schools I taught in a New York City, and it does have. There's a lot of misinformation about all of this, and it's gotten so out of control and the fact, but do you, do you want, what, that message that, do you believe that someone like you could speak to somebody like me? Of course. And get me to vote for you. Of course. So then right that, do you believe that someone like you could speak to somebody like me? Of course. 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. She a girl of work. So it's a boy, hardly. Okay. I want to make sure that they're safe in school.

And they've got 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? Of course. We've got to get there.

I mean, look what's happened. I mean, look what's happened. I mean, look what's happened. Do you support drilling? Do 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 biofuel. It's going to be a biofuel.

It is all biodegradable products that we made with, instead of these little... I love hemp. I love hemp. We can agree on that. And we can also agree on of these little. I love hemp. We can agree on that. And we can also agree on marijuana legalization. I know you can feel that way. And talk about 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 legalized. Look at you two finding common ground on marijuana. There was. But I'm saying that on that, that's a libertarian approach. Right.

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 to sit to conversation. Because I may 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, like, let's just talk about yesterday, okay? Yesterday, the governor threatened to hold back 27 million dollars 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 but that you supported Taking money away from the special Olympics. Well, he about the mandate the vaccine But especially a little bit of 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 the fact down because they needed the money.

But the backed down because he's fighting for people's individual freedoms. We're talking about the special limits. Amanda, 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 farm of funds, a ton of these means. You want to change things, but. And you have somebody like Aronta Sances 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 farmers take that right away from my side. I'm telling you, it will be a losing argument to go against the Santos on mandates. The whole country flocked here to back him on that. But I disagree because you guys, you're talking about Republicans, it's about free market. And it's supposed to be about businesses doing their own thing. To if the special Olympics, just like an organization, that decided that it was trying to protect

the people that are participating, they should protect them. You can get in past the virus if you've vaccinated. This is politics. This is politics. It's a science. The politics is that he did that. Instead of allowed 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 else? The fact 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 I 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 it 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. I don't know anything. I can't comment on that because I don't find them. But this is a thing that I see every single day. It seems to me like you have a reversal. I don't know anything. I can't comment on that because I don't find out all that story. But 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 the Sanctus is that you feel that people with dissenting views don't have a seed of the day. That is 100% correct. Okay, 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 and 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. Help me doesn't win again. But regardless, somebody does win. You hope he doesn't win again. But regardless, somebody does win. You hope he doesn't win again.

Of course. The Santas. Joe Biden. Oh, Biden. Yeah. No, the Santas. I mean, listen. But, but, but, but, but here's the thing. He won my 33,000. Yeah, I was just going to say that. Can I, can I just give you like a little layup here?

But Nikki at one point said, this is a purple state that there's half the state agrees with him. It's still purple. 100% by the way. 100%. Okay, we'll say. And by the way, the I4 corridor is basically what splits the state. Yes or no? Yes. Okay. You got a lot of red in the state right now. Yeah, that's the I4 corridor. I mean, I think you have a red. You know, it's a purple state. Do your research. Got you. However, to avoid it flipped out, 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 continue with the proposal. And we can go into a whole to happen. Yeah, no, that's just a, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

It's not as perfect as the one that's the one that's the best. But that's what's happened with the right. Trending more may not like. No, that's just a, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, 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 Gillam. So my question to you is, all right, DeSantis won. Clearly, there's some ad 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 Gillim 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 interests of our state. What it doesn't happen in any state. I'm gonna be honest with you. But that's not what you never happen in New York. I mean, I got a vote in New York with you.

But that's how you just got here. This is how Florida used to be. This Florida used to be that way. I used to be able to Charlie Chris. I mean, I talked to Jeb Bob Graham all the time. She does have a point here, Jeb. We all used to. I talked to Jeb all the time.

I was student body president there in time of Jeb's. And I talked to Jeb all the time. I still talked 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, DC last week and I was talking to my federal affairs director and Marco calls our office to work with us all the time. Rubia. 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. There's different. There's how many total people voted 8.3 million didn't 8 million people vote free and you only won by 6753 votes. And that's why I talked to Republicans all day long. 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 commission of agriculture in over 20 years. No female has ever won commission of agriculture. I recognized that I didn't win by 100,000, 500,000. And so you know what 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 for me, it flipped for me when the mandates happened, and I realized that there were people on the other side of the aisle 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 every issue. It's two different worlds, two different ways of thinking. It's gonna 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 Rhonda Santos' 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 not public. 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 through two years of hell in some places. They don't want to 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 in a degree in politics, and every time, every time I have been involved besides when this went south with DeSantis, I told you that, I'll be started this conversation. I walked into a cabinet that I have been friends with Ashley Moody since undergrad in 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 it's support for the state of Israel, whatever it is that we tried to work on compromise. And the first legislative session, all of my bills were sponsored by Republicans. And that they're what kind of Republicans though, the Mitch McConnell's of the world, that drive me crazy, the people who don't dig in their heels and fight This is what I'm saying you and I sat down right now and we say we were trying to work together on something We might maybe the medical marijuana or their marijuana legalization. We would be you guys probably go smoke a joint

I'm just throwing that out. We can join. I've never smoked a joint Well, it's starting now. We're gonna make it some change I'm not browning after the job, but no, really, I'm sure that issue, but we would have a really hard time because we wouldn't. Yeah, trying to go out tonight, guys, he's thinking Miami. It might get close to 420. That's all I think. That's the point. Watch this finish. I don't know what is that mean. I've never heard of it. Yeah, my it. Yeah, you'll find it. Absolutely. But 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 the politics. What would you be? I'm tired of the politics. Sounds like you're making a campaign promise right here. 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 you fight? Did you dig it on a day? But jet policy wise, what are you saying that you're wholeheartedly different from her? No, I'm saying that I would be fighting for school choice and I would be rallying. I'm going to pay for the role.

And even go for control. I want people to, I want that second amendment up held and protected. I feel very strongly about that. Let's talk about those two issues. Let's talk about what you just talked about choice. I'm not opposed to choice. I'm not opposed to choice at all. 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 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 agree, okay. 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 money going in there. And I know there's, I mean, we can talk for other hours about what we have. Yeah, we would. And I think that this presents itself as, you know, I hear what you're saying. You want people to come together more, you want politics to be more palatable, you know, in terms of it being, I understand that. That's not the moment we're in.

I'm going to be honest with you. Which is why Charlie Chris won't win this election. Okay. Because he's not the moment we're in. I'm gonna be honest with you. It's just not which is why Charlie Chris won't win this election. Okay, because he's not a fight. Well, you and I can probably agree a lot on him to be Frank, you know, but and and so yes, and I am a fighter for what I believe in and for the things that I I want to do this. You got one minute. I got to get you out of here because you know, no, I'm just I'm responding to text. I'm getting. So give us your final thoughts here. First of all, you know, whatever you can say, whether you agreed with or disagreed with you,

or disagreed 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 wanna go sit with people

that's gonna be what? Here's the stuff, hey, you know, just go say whatever you wanna say and everyone's gonna 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 this. 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, might be elected and Rhonda Santis in the same exact election.

The people of our state want, don't want this divisiveness. They don't want that this spewing of hatred. And it's on both sides. 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 gonna fight for issues, not for party. And I think that at the end of the day, people want somebody who's gonna show up, who's gonna be true, who's gonna be real, who 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, what's the website? If people want to follow your website? It's nikkifreed.com. Can you put that in the chat and put in the comments section so people can find her? Nikki, we're going to continue, but they're going to come and open the door here too. Let you make it to your meeting. But this is the website and put that below as well Appreciate you so much for coming on Thank you so much. This was fantastic. Nikki, what's your what's your YouTube? We'll send a link to the YouTube I don't know if you're trying to increase your YouTube

Everything's on the website. If you look at the bottom of the website itself. It's all the link. There. We'll do that Awesome. Thank you appreciate you. Yes. And whoever's texted me, Rob, was that you texted me? Somebody texted P.V. Pog. Yes. Eight, four, three. Is it possible to shake hands? Chris, Chris text me or now? Okay, folks, stick around because I got an announcement. Are you coming over here? Yeah, if you can sit over here. Nikki, that was great. I'll put John in touch on all that. Truly enjoyed it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yes

Okay, awesome. Okay guys. Yeah, 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 oh Are you kidding me understatement? How much fun? 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 Weeger, whoever you have a lot of respect for. Those are my favorite conversations. Those are my favorite. But I tell you, but I tell you this folks,

if you enjoyed like this entire time, I'm sitting there watching her and jettison, I have a conversation and I'm enjoying that conversation. That was my favorite part of conversation. And I have to be enjoying that too. Yeah, I'm really, but by the way, you know, poise, you know, respectful, all of that, I mean, you know, jettison has gone against Hillary Clinton. So when you go on against heavyweight, anybody else you have to tell you, I was very impressed by her. I'm not saying that we agreed or disagreed on everybody. Keats far as a person and hearing herself. I think she's pretty I enjoyed the debate

Hi caliber this was grand by the way we're gonna do many many more of these so folks to crumble We got to make an announcement yesterday. Yeah, we got no I'm gonna let you do it. Yeah, so let me Let me take what happened. So I think Some of the audience know some of you don know, some of you guys that are members here that are signing up to become members, I'm excited for you because you'll see why there's gonna be other benefits of being members. If you haven't yet, you may wanna consider being a member.

So first time Jada Dye was on a podcast, how many months ago was that? Was that like six, seven months ago? How many about six or so? Yeah, it was at that long? No, it was not, because it was in this, it was in just five months ago. Let's say four months ago. Okay, four, five months ago. yeah, was it that long? No, it was not because it was in this and this

Four five months ago, so we sat down we spoke right afterwards. I'm like, man, I love this the way she talks Yes, okay, would you admit what you said to me? You're like I gotta go but go recruit her. Would you? I was like, hey, Jen, you're just exactly what happened. Well, you have to have to this 100%. Good to know that we're making things happen around me. So, yeah, that's right. So, then we have conversations and one thing led to another and then multiple conversation 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 Jedadai has officially joined the value team and team And I got to tell you we're ecstatic That's an understatement to see how ecstatic we are to have yourself Jeremy Hardley now being down here on board and getting more of you and in value team in the audience I loved you when he had john so matter of fact are you okay if we showed a video? Let's show the promo video Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, go ahead, play the promo video. I'm Jetta Diabila.

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, as 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 gonna sugarcoat that with fake giggles and rainbows.

I wanna talk about why things are so fucked up, not just in politics, but everywhere. Health, fitness, dating, culture, all needs a good, hard look. Welcome to my new zone. This is Jedadaya Bila Live on Value Taiment. I'm excited to fuck that Jedadaya. I know, I'm so excited. We watched 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 the 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 a good production team, man. 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 view?

Something you were doing on the Tuesday. 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 fun stuff on the show related to that. We're gonna have some amazing guests. It's gonna be a lot of me ranting. It's gonna 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 gonna cover it all. We're gonna be real. And we're gonna dig. I really wanna do some deep dives. I wanna have a real conversation. And if we have a guest,

it's gonna be someone that I really wanna 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. Let me ask you to get it out. You,'s going to be fun and it's going to be crazy. We saw the amazing promo again shout out to the production team. 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 value-tainment. What was the biggest piece of the puzzle? You said, all right, Pat, let's do this. Why value entertainment? I had a few conversations with Pat, and I just really felt like, and I was talking to people who are super respected in the industry, all great people.

Amazing. I feel incredibly lucky that any of you guys 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 dressed 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 you're, 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 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 Jedadaya 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 gotta 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 gotta do something, right? I told you, yeah, thank you. But when I saw Jedadai and I'm like researching all the other steps 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 a 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 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, which is it? So exciting times and futures.

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 is the first show at 1 p.m. I'm super excited. Jenna's I have you alive and then we're gonna be three times a week after that. So you're gonna get to hear from me Monday to Wednesday. Kai who's in the room right now with us is gonna be with me on Wednesday. I was the biggest mistake we made.

Everything can advance. I want to apologize on behalf of the team. You know, it is what it is. No, he's gonna bring a lot of value. I say That things isn't exactly ideal. 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 I According to the production team, you're completely easy to work with. They love never know forget about the production team according to the Now forget about the production team. According to the, to the, to the complex, the cleaning team. It's pretty awesome.

Y'all get here. Y'all get here now. This is all going to make sense. Once my podcast takes off, you're going to know what we're talking about. If 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 at this time? It's 1 p.m. Wednesday, one p.m. Put it in your calendar, Wednesday, one p.m. Eastern Standard Time, that's 10 a.m. Pacific, put it in your calendar.

Next Wednesday, Jedadaya Biel alive, shared this content today as well to understand the perspective of what Jedadaya is gonna be doing because the moment people see how Jedadaya, Nikki Fried had the wonderful conversation today, more people going to want to tune into this podcast as well as we continue. Anyways, having said that, thank you so much, Jedadai. We're glad about you being part of the team. That's it.

We're done. Have a great week and everybody. Take care. By the way, no podcast for us for nine days. I'm not doing podcast next week, so I'll be out for nine days and I'll start afterwards, but Jedadai will be on next week, so will you. Take care everyone. Have a great weekend. Bye bye bye bye bye.