The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Florida’s Next Governor Declares WAR On AIPAC, Mass Surveillance & AI Data Centers

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback joins The Connect to explain why he believes it’s time for a political revolution at the state level—and why Florida must stand up to Washington, Wall Street, foreign influence, and the growing surveillance state. In this wide-ranging conversation, Fishback lays out his plan to eliminate Flock license-plate cameras, oppose Palantir-style mass surveillance, protect First and Fourth Amendment rights, and repeal Florida laws he believes restrict criticism of foreign governments. He also breaks down his opposition to the H-1B visa system, arguing that major corporations are replacing qualified American workers with cheaper foreign labor. Fishback explains how he would penalize companies that refuse to hire qualified Florida residents, prevent private-equity firms and foreign investors from buying up single-family homes, and stop taxpayer-subsidized AI data centers from spreading across the state. The discussion also covers Florida public schools, student accountability, crime and “teen takeovers,” restoring rights to former nonviolent offenders, gun rights, undeclared foreign wars, the National Guard, AIPAC influence, state sovereignty, and his legal battle to remain on the ballot. Can Florida become a model for a new American liberty movement—or is the political machine too powerful to defeat? Go Support James! Website: https://www.votemyflorida.org/ Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Introduction: The Fight for Freedom 00:42 Why I Support James Fishback 01:30 Fishback's America First Platform 02:44 A Call to Action for Floridians 03:01 The National Significance of Florida's Fight 04:41 A New Experiment in Liberty 06:50 The Easiest Problem: Banning Flock Cameras 08:20 The Fourth Amendment and Mass Surveillance 10:50 The Existential Battle for Privacy 12:10 Repealing Florida's Hate Speech Law 14:40 The Real Test of the First Amendment 15:56 Taking on the Opposition: Byron Donalds 17:00 The Education Crisis in Florida 20:00 Accountability in the Classroom 22:55 The H-1B Visa Scam 26:50 Protecting American Jobs 29:00 Resistance at the State Level 32:10 Banning Private Equity from Buying Homes 34:00 The Unfair Advantage of Private Equity 36:45 Foreign Buyers and the Housing Crisis 38:00 Capitalism vs. America 39:12 The Threat of Data Centers 42:40 The Data Center Invasion in Florida 44:30 Defending State Sovereignty 47:00 Consistency and Truth in Politics 48:00 Existential Issues vs. Cultural Differences 50:00 The Case Against Zero Crime 53:00 Addressing Teen Takeovers and Riots 57:40 The El Salvador Model: Tough on Crime 58:40 Restoring Rights for Former Felons 01:01:00 The Lawfare Battle and Victory 01:03:00 The Un-American Nature of Merging Militaries 01:04:40 The True America First Agenda 01:06:00 Byron Donalds: A Puppet of Foreign Interests 01:08:00 America Comes First 01:10:00 Christian Values and Governance 01:12:00 Teaching Kids What It Means to Be American 01:14:00 Mass Surveillance vs. Freedom 01:18:00 The Unanimous Opposition to Data Centers 01:20:00 The Momentum of the Fishback Campaign 01:22:00 Final Call to Action: Vote for James Fishback Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The real test of the First Amendment is will you defend speech that you hate? The Fourth Amendment protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures. That's data center. That's flock. That's mass surveillance. That's Palantir invading local and state government. Criticism of a foreign government is literally what founded this country. What would a radical campaign look like to say no to APEC, no to foreign influence,

no to mass surveillance, no to palanteer, no to flock, no to experimental, data centers, yes to liberty, yes to small government, yes to low taxes, and yes to empowering people to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. When a system is so rotten to its core, you have to dismantle it, you have to burn it down. The buck stops with me as governor. Hey everybody. I don't normally talk to politicians on this show. I think they're all basically full of shit. But James Fishback, who's currently running for governor of Florida, is doing something different, something special. Whether you're a Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, or maybe you don't care one way or the other, you're disillusioned by the whole system,

we can all agree that we're losing our country and fast. Politicians are robbing us in plain sight. They're covering up for pedophiles in the Epstein class. They've been completely bought and paid for by a hostile foreign government who dragged us into another foreign war that nobody wanted, and now, perhaps most ominously, they're forcing data centers down our throats, in communities all over the country, while at the same time putting up flock cameras and other mass surveillance technology as fast as they can. It's like they're preparing us for the end of freedom as we know it. That's why I like James Fishback. James is running a true America-first campaign. He's promising on day one to use his executive power to ban flock cameras and other unconstitutional

mass surveillance from the state of Florida. He's also going to ban data centers, not regulate them, not reform them, ban them completely from his state. He's also going to stop all of the Florida tax money that currently goes to Israel and overturn the disastrous Florida hate speech law that criminalizes any criticism of the government of Israel. This is what resistance looks like. It starts at the state and local level. No matter where you live or what political party you belong to, moving forward, we should only vote for candidates who speak like James, who tell the truth and then deliver on their promises. This is the most important thing. James has signed a contract that bans him from running for a second term if he reneges on his campaign promises. If you live in Florida, you should consider voting for

James on August 18th. A link to the polling places in your area will be in the description of this episode. But most importantly, you should bring this fight to your own communities and do it now, because in a couple years, it'll be too late. Okay, here's my conversation with James Fishback. This is so unique because like I said, you're a conservative in Florida. I'm a liberal. I'm really a small government guy. I'm a classical liberal. Believe in free markets, free speech, right? It's like American. Yeah. But if I'm excited for you, if I feel hopeful for you, like people, my audience, it's in Florida. I want them to go vote for you, even if they are liberal or many of them don't vote, right? So I want, I want them to understand the gravity of where we are in America. Like,

During the COVID lockdowns, when we really saw the government really push very, very close to tyranny, the likes of which we saw in Australia, Europe, Florida was like the last stand. That was really on a state level, it pushed back against tyranny nationally, right? Do you feel like you're doing that, like part of your campaign? Do you feel that national, not pressure, but do you feel like you've become kind of a figurehead pushing in back against the tyranny of APEC, the tyranny of Benjamin Net and Yahoo was in the White House yesterday? For the eighth time. For the eighth time, a war criminal, a wanted war criminal by all of the international bodies. And you've got the Israeli flag hung up in the Oval Office next to the American flag. So you're, okay, so we're occupied.

So it's like a national emergency. Do you feel like you're running for something bigger? Or are you really just focused on Florida? Something bigger. And the something bigger is if we can successfully show the country what liberty and action looks like in Florida, we're going to inspire governments all over the United States to do the right thing. case and point is what Governor DeSantis did here in 2020 and 2021.

When Fauci and all of those criminals were trying to lock everybody down, wear masks, do this, you can't post, you can't do that. DeSantis was really the only governor amongst even some Republicans who actually stood up and said, no, you are not going to shut down small businesses. You're not going to arrest people for walking on the beach. You're not going to do this, that, and the other. And so if you're living in Michigan, New York or California, and you look to your governor and say, wait, why can't my kids go to school? Wait, why do we have to wear a mask? Wait, what?

DeSantis has opened the entire state up of 23 million people, the third largest state in the country. And you're telling me that we still have to be locked down here. And so it really creates a real-time comparison of what is in fact possible. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Brandeis wrote in the 1920s that the interesting fact about federalism, the idea that each state can do its own thing, it becomes a laboratory of different experiments. California had their way of doing COVID, tyranny. We had our way of doing COVID here in Florida, Liberty. And people saw in real time how those experiments played out. And so what we are embarking on is a new experiment of our own. What would a radical campaign look like? to say no to APAC, no to foreign influence, no to mass surveillance, no to Palantir, no to flock, no to experimental data centers, yes to liberty, yes to small government,

yes to low taxes, and yes to empowering people to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. That's what this is about. And so yes, if we get this right, we'll get it right for 23 million people here, but we'll also inspire a lot of other people to rise up across the country and say, wait, look what they're doing down in Florida. They were able to get rid of the flock cameras. The flat camera, by the way, is the easiest thing to solve. For sure. The easiest thing.

I'm worried about these drones that are coming next. And that's why you have to nip this thing in the bud. Every flock camera that you see is funded by your tax dollars. Every single one that you see, whether you're in California, Texas or right here in Florida, local governments have raised your property taxes over the years, used that money to build out a mass surveillance state. So, you know, I think some people want a black pill And I can understand why given what's happened over the last 12 months.

But if we are funding flock cameras, all we have to do is stop funding flock cameras. A governor can fix that very, very easily. And that's what I'm running to do. This is not some intractable problem. You fix the problem. And the Ben Franklin quote really does stand the test of time. Those who would trade essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither. People say, well, don't you want lower currency?

Of course I want lower crime. You want to solve lower crime. Don't let people shoplift and get away with it. Don't slap people on the wrist for assaulting people in public. Actually crack down on the homeless problem, which is, yes, out of control in California, but it's also out of control here in Tampa. I saw at least three of them on the drive over here. That's why as governor I proposed using the National Guard to relocate a lot of the homeless to where they need to be long term. Some of them need to be in psychiatric institutes, let's be honest. A lot of them have outstanding bench warrants or actively committing felonies. And a lot of them are people who just need a home to get back on their feet. And so let's use a massive statewide force, not an armed force, but a massive statewide force that's trained with disaster relief because this is actually a disaster. But zooming out for a moment, that's what this is all about. We have to nip-flot cameras in the bud now because the next thing they're going to do is they're going to have drones.

And what they're going to say is, Palantir flagged you for being critical of A-PAC. Now they're going to have a flock drone outside of your house 200 feet monitoring whether you're coming in and out. Well, this is public. Nothing's public. Okay. Fourth Amendment, the police don't have a right to stop you on a public right away and search your car. You don't have a right.

The police don't have a right to put a wiretap on a public phone, on a phone booth in public. The Fourth Amendment protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures. whether those searches come at the hands of government or a private company. And so people say, well, you're going to change the law? No, I'm going to enforce the law as written. Well, which law is that? The United States Constitution Fourth Amendment. Yeah.

Yeah. And flock is just the brand. I want to point that out. Axum. Yeah. Axum. And I say that just because it's a lot easier to message. It's a good brand.

It's fun to say. It's flak. It's fun to say. It's black, flock. Go flock yourself. Exactly. Flack off. Yeah.

Right. And I say that. I need to flock. It's been a, Been a couple of weeks. No, it's their license plate readers. Correct. Is essentially what they are.

And it's license plate readers that have now become really supercharged by artificial intelligence in the worst way possible. Because now you have all this data. You store it for weeks, even months. And now it's putting together the pieces to the point where a woman in Colorado, it's arrested and charged for being a porch band. There's actually no video of her stealing stuff from a porch. but there is flock footage of her driving around her neighborhood, in the words of the police officer who charged her because she drove around her neighborhood too much.

So now AI sets a baseline. How much are you actually allowed to drive around your neighborhood? And anything that diverges, anything that dislocates above that baseline, you're a criminal. And she had to go prove her innocence. And that is a spit in the face of what our founding fathers fought for with the Fifth Amendment.

And so this is an existential battle, quite literally happening at 250 years our nation's founding. And I tell people that might kind of be in defense of flock or say, that's not that big of a deal. If you thought the tyranny under COVID was bad and the control, just wait until there's another pandemic, another national emergency, right? Whatever it may be. Right. Well, the war in Iran, we might have an energy crisis, right? He wasn't going to start a forever war. It's looking like it's becoming a forever war. So, okay, now we don't have enough fuel for everybody to drive every day.

But don't worry because we have flock cameras and we can track where you've been if we see that you've been driving on your not-a-lot-d-d-days, well, we find you or we take it to jail. That's right. Yeah, so I think that is like, to me, that is like number one.

Like before you do anything else, this is just my opinion, like we have to extricate the cancer before we can start rehabilitating the body. Correct. DeSantis did a really good thing. with COVID. Unfortunately, six years later, five years later, he helped pass a law that effectively made

speaking out against the nation state of Israel illegal in the state of Florida. The most anti-freedom, anti-Florida law that I've ever seen in my life. Like true, true treason, which I was disappointed by, but unfortunately not. shocked by when you know the power of these people and these organizations. He even flew to Israel to present Benjamin Netanyahu with a pen, like a golden pen that he signed the bill with. So do you plan on, and I know that you've spoken highly of DeSantis, and I get it. It's okay. I'm not here to, I'm not going to ask you to trash him because you still got to get votes. You know what I mean? There are boomers out there and you want their votes, even though you're trending on polymarket.

my generation is going to vote for you. Are you going to get rid of that bill like day one? Yeah. Clean repeal. Clean repeal. How do you do that as a governor? What's the mechanism? So there's really two mechanisms. The first of which is I would suspend its enforcement on day one.

Before the sun sets on my first day in office, which will, Lord willing, be on January 5th, 2027, I will direct all state's attorneys and sheriffs across the state to no longer enforce the so-called anti-Semitism law. You're referring to state statute 101-5. that identifies anti-Semitism as criticism of the Israeli government. This is already played out in real time. This is not theoretical.

In December of last year, a woman heard a loud bang at the door. It was two Miami Beach police officers who confronted her over an anti-Semitic Facebook post. And then two months ago, a undergrad, a college student at Florida International University in Miami, was arrested and charged for making a joke about Benjamin Netanyahu in a group chat. These are real cases. And I went and I said, oh, this can't be it. There's something more to the story. No, there is nothing more to the story.

And that's a real problem. And I've said from the beginning, hatred of any religious group, discrimination against any religious group is wrong and has no place in our country. But criticism of a foreign government is literally what founded this country. We're going to criticize the, taxation without representation, that whole thing. And so we can criticize our own government more than we can criticize that tiny nation's government. Correct. And the way I say it is even to those who might be sympathetic for whatever reason to the Israeli government or the cause out there, I keep it real simple. You want to criticize Ukraine, be my guest. You want to criticize Russia, be my guest. And yes, if you want to criticize Israel, be my guest. That's your right under the First Amendment. The real test of the First Amendment is will you defend speech that you hate? Real full stop.

You're the man. 1978, 79, Skokie, Illinois. Great, great case. Jewish, Jewish ACLU lawyers defended the Ku Klux Klan, or like, neo-Nazis, from having their march through Skokie. The rally in Skokie, Illinois, which was a place where a lot of survivors of the Holocaust had actually relocated. And so that is the real dilemma at hand is, okay, you believe in free speech, but only when conservatives exhibit free speech. I don't want a conservative mom getting dragged out of a school board meeting for saying something that didn't like, but I also don't want a progressive getting their daughter arrested or getting their door banged on because they said something critical of the Israeli government. And so I'm a free speech absoluteist.

I think there's one direction you can take, which is if there's speech that you don't like, you can censor it or you can promote speech that you do like. And if there is speech that I don't like in society, I'll speak my own. Yeah. That's what open debate is. It's a free speech is. But the idea of censoring and punishing people that can never be allowed, not least because it's unconstitutional. So again, to your question, how do you actually go about it?

One, I'm the only candidate pledging to repeal it, first and foremost. My other opponents have taken A-PAC money. Oh, happily. Happily. And I've taken zero. I'll never take a penny from any foreign interest group. What's that guy, Brian Donald's? What's his name?

Byron, oh, Byron. Oh, Byron. Okay. You know what's so funny is, actually, no one really knows what his name is, which is quite fitting because he really is an empty suit. And we get a, our campaign does a lot of texting to Florida voters and polls and stuff like that. And people will respond back when they say, they're supportive of Byron. They'll say, Brian Daniels, like actually B-R-I-A-N, Daniels, Byron Donaldson, Byron Daniels, the rest of it.

And so I say we would win the selection by 30 points if voters just had to spell out the candidate Maybe that's a good test, right? I think so. You got to go in there. Everybody's a write in. Everybody's a right in. You got to go in there and say, fish back, Donald's. Oh, if it's Donald's sin, you're out.

Yeah. But in all seriousness. Well, look, I don't want me to cut you off here. 60% of Americans, you saw that stat? And I think I looked it up on chat, and it was true. 60% of Americans read at a sixth grade reading level or less. And I can't imagine Florida public schools, you know, are, are shining, exception to that. They aren't. And I think we've got to be honest about that, when you've literally

changed the definition of what it means to be in a school, now down to 60%, you've changed what you want to measure, you're going to get a different outcome. And so before anybody says, we are number one in this or this as an A school, here's what I want to do. I want to go to any public school in this state. I was a public school kid in the state my entire life. Three questions. To any public school kid, take him out of class, walk him to the yard, and say, which way is the Pacific Ocean? Just point. Okay. Number two, what does the first and second amendment do? Number three, take him over to Duncan where you went this morning, Starbucks where I went, and say, get behind the counter. Someone's going to walk and hand you 100. They're going to buy three things. You've got to make change in under 30 seconds. Tell me how many kids, even in the top 10% of a public school could actually correctly answer all three of those questions. That's the real test. And so before anybody says, well, we need to keep it going. We have all these great A schools. No, I'll be the judge of where the A schools are.

And let's all collectively come up with the measurement. Because I see Gen Z is really plugged in politically. But I think the system in many respects is failing them and setting them up for failure. Yeah, academically, they're stupid as fuck. And it's not really their fault either. But it's not their fault because they're being told, you guys are doing great. They've been pampered. They've been pandered too.

And the consolation prizes in our public schools, they have to end. they have to end. I'm all for reading, writing, arithmetic. I want to bring debate back to the class. I started a free debate league here in Florida back in 2019. I was a high school debate kid. Had a lot of fun with it. It was a national champion.

It just totally changed my life. And one thing that we did is we built out of debate league with 10,000 active students, but we also created an in-class toolkit that any teacher in Florida could use for free where she could teach World War II. And then after, instead of assigning an essay, the kids could debate whether or not it was necessary

for the U.S. to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And so now you had kids learning, studying up on these issues to a point where they were debating their classmates about such an important historical issue. That's what we need to do. If you can't debate the Civil War, the World War II, in class, understand the mechanisms of government and be able to go up there and actually speak about it, we still have work to do. And so that's the approach that I would take.

so you're not like yeah you're right the problem and I hate to I don't like to get into the culture war things I think it's a sciop I think it is too but if you look at states where I'm from like California kids are just moved through and you know if you try to push a black kid if you say no no no he can't read he's never gonna have a job like he's he's not prepared he's a 12th grader and he reads at a fifth grade level that's racism that has to end because it's actually more racist it's way more racist because you're lying to somebody. Yeah.

Right. And it's, sorry to interrupt. It's, uh, you're putting different standards for different people based off of their skin color. Which is literally a definition of racism. Yeah. Treating people differently on the basis of their race. That is what the system is in effect doing right now.

And you see with California doing away with advanced placement courses, well, everybody, everybody needs to feel welcome. So we got to put everybody in remedial algebra. Because it turns out the white and the Asian kids are doing better than the black kids. There's very structural reasons for that. There's a fatherlessness crisis in the black community that actually in many respects is being emboldened by the government because a single mom can get more on welfare than a married mom. And that's a totally separate story. But here's how you really know the education system is failing people.

There's no accountability. When's the last time you heard of a kid being held back from public school? It's a big thing when I was a kid growing up. Sure. Yeah. It's like you didn't want to get held back. I knew a kid in third grade who got held back. and that kid, he never made a mistake ever again.

Right. And so in the same thing, if I've run companies, I'm a business guy, I've had to fire people when they screw up. It's called accountability. I've had to adjust people's compensation after they screw up. In the real world, when you exceed, you're held accountable. You get promoted. You get benefits.

When you don't and you fall below expectations, there's accountability not to punish you, but to be able to create a system that rewards, good behavior and disincentivizes that kind of bad behavior. And so if you're, if you're not reading at third grade level by the time you're out of third grade, when I'm governor, you are going to be held back. You have an opportunity to catch back up of summer school. And you can do that as governor. As governor, Florida. Okay. Work with the legislature. Work with the Department of Education. We have to do that because if I walk into a middle school right now, you're going to have half the

kids who are not reading at their grade level. And that's a crisis. And so we can point. And so we can point fingers and we can say, well, it's this, well, it's that. Let's look to the last possible thing in the chain that caused this problem. This kid, you tested him at the end of last year, and he was not rooting a grade level. Why did you pass him and let him move on to the next grade? That is who is ultimately responsible in that moment. We got public schools that will sit empty all summer. I propose doing summer education for parents and students who either want to opt in for additional time, but also to those students who are below their grade level and otherwise would be held back a full grade, you have to have them come in a couple days a week.

By the way, that can be pretty individualized, especially with a lot of the cool stuff that's happening here in Florida, where separate kids, say, look, we need you to do math, we need you to do reading, et cetera. That's an accountability crisis. The reason I ask about education is that is because one of your big running points, one of your big platforms in your campaign is getting rid of the H1B visa, H1B visas. Right. Can you explain? So basically you're, you know, you're saying that companies like Amazon want to bring in

foreign workers because they're cheaper. However, are they also smarter because we do have a literacy crisis in the country? So I'm fascinated by this. Can you explain the problem with H1B visas specifically in Florida? and which companies are the worst offenders and what you're going to do about it? Yes. I met a student a couple months ago at Florida State University.

4.0 GPA, computer science major, top of his class, he applies to 100 different positions at Amazon, only to get an email back, not that he wasn't qualified. And these are white collar positions at Amazon. Okay. Not that he wasn't qualified, but that they were only hiring H-1Bs. 72% of all H-1B positions are for entry-level jobs.

If you need a nuclear physicist, the smartest one in the world to build a nuclear reactor, by all means, bring them over here so we can all get cheaper energy, more reliable energy. But if you have entry-level accounting jobs or IT tech support jobs, why are they turning to India, China, and the Philippines? Because those people are cheaper. They're more exploitable. They can't union. All the rest.

And so there's a real abuse happening in the H-1B system. I call it the H-1B scam for a reason. And when you've got young people in our state here in Florida, but also even in California, some of the brightest kids who go to Berkeley, go to Stanford, go to Cal State, they can't get jobs at Google, at Microsoft, at Apple, not because they're not smart, but because they're not Indians on the H-1B program. And that's a real problem. It's only driven by a cost advantage.

The only reason why you would hire someone on an H-1B over an equally qualified person here, maybe even more qualified, is because either you can pay them less in outright terms, or you can pay them the same salary and work the H-1B twice as hard, knowing full well that they can't quit because if they quit, they have to leave the country. So it creates this almost second-class indentured servitude, and that's where the disparity really lies. And I believe in a labor market that works for American citizens first and foremost. Like I said, if you're Elon Musk and the best engineer for this new Tesla that you're trying to sell this best electrical engineer you can only find in India and you've tried and you've recruited, that by all means, go hire them.

But massively replacing the U.S. labor force with foreign workers is wrong. It was wrong when it was done with illegal immigration. It's also wrong when it's done with legal immigration. The H-1B system is legal immigration. It was blessed and created by Congress in 1990. But just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right. Slavery was legal for 150. Right?

It doesn't mean it's right. And so we have to create a system that says reward employers that are hiring good, qualified, local labor, and disincentivize and deter employers that are doing the wrong things. So how do you fix it? Well, one, it's a federal issue. I don't throw up my hands and say, well, that's a federal issue. I can't do anything about. It's pretty simple. As Florida governor, I'll work with the legislature to fine any company that is refusing to hire local qualified labor and instead hiring cheap foreign labor. You got 50,000 people in the United States graduate with an accounting major every single year.

50,000 people. And accounting is one of those things where we got great accounting programs here in Florida. out why would you need to hire KPMG, Deloitte, Accenture? Why would you need to hire H-1Bs from India at 20 years old when you've got 50,000, 20-year-olds every year graduating with an accounting degree? Right. And it's purely because of a cost advantage. And the ripple effects are massive because now you're a 20-year-old.

You got the college degree. You did what you were told. You didn't study woke. You studied accounting, IT, whatever. Now you have the degree. You took on the debt. You did what you were supposed to do. now you can't get a job.

Yeah. Now you're living on the couch. Now you can't buy home. You can't buy a home. You do drugs. All the rest. All of these social effects. That are downstream of a labor market policy.

And so I'm fighting for affordability, but the precondition of affordability is do you have a job? Because if you don't have a job, quite literally everything is unaffordable. If you don't have a great paying job, you don't have an income. If you don't have an income, where's a down payment going to come from for your house? If you don't have a house, how are you going to get married?

If you can't get married, how are you going to have kids? If you can't have kids, then what's the point? And so go to the root cause, the singular root cause for a lot of the angst in this generation, which I've seen up close, solve that. And I think you're going to solve a lot of these other secondary tertiary causes. And so all you can do is governor is sue these companies, but they have all the money in the world. Find them. But they have all the money in the world.

Well, so all you do is you take away the individual cost advantage. So if you're hiring an American at $80,000, and you don't want to hire them, and I'm going to hire, and you say you're going to hire the H-1B for $60,000, great, we're going to find you $20,000 for every employee you do that every single year. So now what the company has to contend with

is now you've eliminated the cost advantage. The Florida State grad is the same price as the Indian, because you've now applied the $20,000 cost difference fine to it. You've eliminated the cost advantage, and now the whole jig is up. So you've got to get creative. You have to get creative. And because a lot of people, even Republicans will say the H-1B was created by Congress.

Only Congress can eliminate it. Any problem in Florida, whether it's caused by the federal government, the state government, or the local government, any problem in Florida, the buck stops with me as governor. And I am not going to let the creations, the machinations, the flaws of the federal government persist in my state. I have to step up and stop these things. And when you have an entire generation who's staring down the possibility of never being in a lot of, able to hold down a job, never being able to own a home, that is a crisis that we have to step up and fight for, and that's what I'm fighting to do. Yeah, it's resistance. It's resistance at a local level. That's how I see what you're doing. And I know you don't consider yourself a

revolutionary, but that is kind of, to me, if you're going to fix these endemic problems, like DC's kind of hopelessly corrupt. You know, we put our hope in a populist, right? I voted for a Republican for the first time of my life, voted for Donald Trump. Like he had, he crossed the, what do you call it? Like, he united the both political parties. And it's all just the biggest betrayal that I've seen in my lifetime. And so that's why it's important at a state level. You know, we take, it's kind of like taking matters in your own hands.

It's the most American thing you can do. It's the most American thing you can do. And it's through legal process. We're not saying we're just going to go. find these companies, we're going to go work with the legislature, draft of a bill, and create a system that makes it very clear to companies. And it's not just, and when I say H1B, I'm obviously referring to the H1B program itself, but it's also things like H2B. We've got young people in the state who are unemployed, and we've got foreigners who are being brought over from the Philippines and Thailand to work our hotels, to work the check-in counter. And there are kids that maybe that's not their dream job. But that's something for them to do in the meantime in between time. Yeah, that's what high school kids have all did when I was growing up. They always worked at movie theaters and worked behind the scenes doing something.

One, that creates a source of income for people to build a life on, even if it's small. But it also creates a culture of responsibility and a work ethic that the system is not giving young people an opportunity to get today. And we have to change the very governmental benefits. and that's what small government is. Small government doesn't create a visa program for the largest companies in the world to import foreign labor. Big government does that.

People say, well, I think it's this very simpleton way of thinking about government, which is, oh, fishback wants to create a new law. No, I want to get rid of the law that was created in 1990 to let the companies import cheap foreign labor to replace you, me, and our kids. That's what I want to do.

So I'm a small government guy. The H-1B program was a new law. It was a bailout for some of the largest companies in the country to be able to pad their profit margins and bring in cheap foreign labor. I want to disband that. If I could do it at the congressional level, I would. But I'm running to be governor. And so I've got to resist that at the state level. And that's what we're going to get done in our first year.

Okay. So that is a perfect segue into one of your more interesting campaign promises. it's to ban private equity from buying up these single-family homes. Do you know who Peter Schiff is? I do. Okay, he's a gold bug, right? Kind of annoying, but good guy. And it teaches a lot, like taught me a lot about fiat currency versus, you know, hard money, gold-backed money.

But he's not a fan of this. He's like, look, they have the right. It's capitalism. They have the companies, Wall Street firms have the right to come into any state they want and offer a price, even if they're buying a thousand homes at a time. Or $117,000 here in Florida. 117,000 homes. And these are single-family homes?

Single-family homes. So what is the pushback to that? Because you're right. On its face, it's like a company has a right to do business. It's America. I can understand that. How do you push back on that? It's a great question.

Zoom out for a moment. If you've got a teacher, a cop, small business owner, who's been trying to buy a house for years. and the people who keep outbidding them, even by a couple hundred dollars is the same private equity firm Black Rock, Blackstone, they can't buy that house, they can't start a family,

they can't live out the American dream. That's where this issue, so let's discuss the problem. The problem is that we are facing down a homeownership crisis where young people are resigned to the fact that they may never be able to buy a home and start the family and make those new chapters of their life. That's where the problem.

problem is, now, where does private equity come in? Well, my parents bought their first home in 1996 in Broward County, the home that my sister and I grew up in, they were bidding against two other families to buy that home. Now they're going to bid against 15 people if they're going to go bid on that home today, private equity firms, et cetera. So the first thing is they have a right. Rights are not given by government. They're not given by economic systems. Rights are given by God. That's what our entire founding fathers based this country on, is that rights are given to people, first and foremost. What is capitalistic about letting a company take foreign money, which is what Blackstone and BlackRock

have done, their largest foreign investor is China, take foreign money, use a lower tax rate than you and I pay. If you and I were to make a million dollars a year, we would pay about 40% tax, just federal income tax. When a private equity firm makes a million dollars a year, they pay 20% tax. Right. And they also have a cheaper interest rate. So they borrow much cheaper. Yeah. And so people say, and, you know, Peter Schiff's a nice enough guy, but this is where we would disagree is it's not a level playing field because the private equity firm is once again getting a government handout. They pay half the tax rate. I'm not even talking about progressive taxation tax, which I don't believe in that. What I believe in is everybody should pay the same tax rate at the same level of income, that if you run a plumbing company or a coffee shop or a bookstore and you make $10 million a year, you should not. pay a 40% tax rate while a private equity firm that's buying up homes is paying a 20% tax rate.

And so where do you draw the line? Where does this go? So why don't you why don't go one step further? They have the right to buy and sell whatever they want. Okay. Do they have the right to buy admission spots at our public universities and auction them off? Do they have the right to say, we are going to have 100 kids apply to Florida State or the university? University of Florida. And then when they get in, we're able to auction those seats off to other people. You have a selective magnet school in Miami or Orlando or where we are in Tampa. Do they have a right to go in there and say, well, we're going to be able to buy these seats and then sell them to other kids from foreign countries? Where does that right come from? Where does a private equity firm

get that right? And so this is, I've always had a libertarian tinge. But if you're a libertarian or you're a liberty-minded conservative. Liberty. For whom? Who gets this liberty? Anybody who wants it? Anybody who claims it? So the same liberty we give to an American citizen

who's lived here their entire life, we're going to give to a Russian national to buy your home, Black Rock to buy your home. Right now, 52% of new home sales in South Florida are going to foreign nationals. That's fucking crazy. If you or I were to go to Canada right now and try to buy a single family home as American citizens,

we would not be legally allowed to. They can't. They ban us. Smart, by the way. When you have a shortage of housing, when you have a literal housing shortage, you don't let foreign nationals get in front of the line of your own people to buy those homes. So what you're saying is protecting the United States and protecting its citizens is more important than upholding some economic theory. Correct. And I'm a capitalist. I'm a free market guy.

So am I. it's the best economic system, but no one said it's perfect. I would also challenge the premise that it's capitalism to be able to use a lower tax rate and take foreign money and all of these things. But if I have to choose between capitalism and Americans, I'm going to choose Americans every day of the week, even though I would dispute this is even a capitalist system. I completely agree. Boomers need to hear that.

You need to get that message out loud and clear because they're still glued to mainstream media and all they're hearing is communism, communism, communism, communism, like we're in, it's 1963. So anything that Wall Street wants to do is capitalism and any resistance to that is immediately this evil communism. Correct. It's complete bullshit.

It's nonsense. The same Wall Street that got $4 trillion in bailouts in 0.8, that's capitalism. Well, we had to. It's actually socialism. It's actually socialism. And so I'm actually against socialism in all forms. I'm against taking from productive taxpayers who work hard and giving that money to unproductive taxpayers who sit on the couch. I'm also against taking money from productive taxpayers and using it to bail out hedge funds or investment banks.

Or even, as is the case now, taking money from taxpayers to pay for these massive hyperscale data centers. They're getting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to build these data centers, not just in Florida, but all over the, the country. That is welfare. Welfare is bad. And so we should stand up to that. And so that's why you have to go out and communicate and you got to break through a lot of the mainstream media, because Fox News will say something. CNN will say something. But if you go out there and effectively communicate these ideas, you can actually win people over. You're doing that and you're a great communicator. Let's talk about the data centers. That to me is up there with flock and mass surveillance as at APEC

as the most urgent national threat to liberty. Like really, and I think they're all connected. I think these data centers, like China's ahead of us in AI, and they have hundreds of data centers

in that big ass country, literally less than 1,000. They're telling us they need thousands of data centers because of AI. Yet the other day, I don't know if you saw it, Donald Trump just declared like military sovereignty

like co-opting of the data centers. Like, look, open your eyes, people. That's capitalism, though, right? That's capitalism. But it's anything that people want that fits their prior, they'll just find a way to rationalize it. And first off, the common argument that I hear is, well, we've got to build these data centers

because if we don't, China will win the AI arms race. Okay, first of up, what does that even mean? Right, thank you. Here's how you know we've won the AI arms race for whatever that means. Can you name some American AI companies that just kind of start off? Chad GPT, Claude. Claude. Grock.

All these big companies. Can you name a single Chinese AI company? No. Okay. We won. We won. The three biggest AI companies in the world are OpenAI, based in California. Anthropic, based in California.

and X-A-I. So we won. Furthermore, the United States has 4,200 data centers. China has 470. So we've also won. And third, since when is a mystical, geopolitical, we must beat the enemies of afar. That's how we got into the Middle East, by the way.

When does that become a predicate to now go out and pave over farmland? to build the data center across from our neighborhoods that will drive up our electric bills, jeopardize our water supply. There's never been a long-term health study on having a data center so close to a residential population. And they're trying to build one

right across from an elementary school in Palm Beach County. They're trying to build one here in Hillsborough County, all up and down the state. And so I've said from the very beginning of my campaign that I am not fighting to regulate data centers. I'm not fighting to reform data centers. I am fighting to stop the data center invasion that we're having here in Florida.

Now, to the extent that we need to build out additional capacity to train and infer the next generation of AI models to help with health care, national security, to that extent, I have a grand compromise. Very simple, and it will uniquely benefit Florida. We'll manufacture, we'll build the data center, and we will launch it into space. That's what Elon Musk is talking about, by the way,

is let's put these data centers into orbit. By the way, it's a lot colder in space, so you actually solve the heat issue. so you don't need all of this water to cool. And it uniquely benefits Florida because we are a space capital, Cape Canaveral. Yeah. This is where so much of American space history has been written.

And so that's kind of my approach, is a very pragmatic one. One, let me just challenge the premise. Because before we even agree to debate the issue, let's agree what the issue actually is. And people are so visceral and they'll say, well, we need it. we need, why do we need it? Well, because China. What about China?

Well, it's because Iraq has this, well, look, look with that, look what mess. That got us into. Right. So challenge the assumption, be respectful. Assume people are coming from a place of good faith is how I've. Oh, you can't. Not everybody. Not everybody.

Do you see what the, what's that guy, Sam Hallman? Did you see what he said the other day? No. A video leaked of him in some stadium in Silicon Valley. And he's just casually saying like, yeah, no, in 10 years. you're not going to own anything, you're going to have zero privacy, but like you'll, you know, you'll be taken care of. Like you'll have all this wealth.

But yeah, there's not going to be any privacy. It's not going to be any privacy. And you're like, somebody's got to shoot that guy. At a certain point, like, you have to use force. This may or may not end up because I don't want to get you in trouble. But like, at what point do you use the power of the state to drive this out of your community? Because if they're going to, I'm going to ask you this, I'm going to ask you this. I'm going to ask you this.

And then we'll get back on track. Would you ever be willing to use the National Guard to drive out federal encroachment? Like if they implemented draft like we're hearing rumors of, right? And they start snatching people off the street like they're doing in Ukraine to send them the front line. Would you ever use the National Guard to drive out the feds if they really were, if it looked like democracy and, law and order was breaking down. Yes. Because my job is to defend the sovereign state of Florida. The states created the federal government not the other way around.

We don't answer to D.C. We answer to the people of this state and this state alone. And what you're talking about is not hypothetical. It's literally how the country started. Building up a local force and challenging an authoritarian tyranny. That is the very essence, the DNA of our country. And so that's not something I say lightly. not something I would, I would obviously hesitate to do it. We don't hope for that. We don't hope for

that. But I'll give you one example. I've said that as governor, we're going to pass something called defend the guard. It's a state law that says that you cannot federalize the Florida National Guard and send them to a foreign war if that war is not authorized by Congress. If Congress is so convinced that this war is absolutely necessary, then pass a bill authorizing it like you're supposed. supposed to, as opposed to waving your magic wand and trying to send our troops overseas to once again die for the Middle East. And so I'm going to do my part here at the state level to protect our people from that. But if and when a federal government, and I don't just mean at the hands of a Democrat, but even at the hands of a Republican, were to try to crush a liberty

movement here in Florida. I would not hesitate to defend our state. God damn it, James. You're making me a Republican, dude. My fucking, the hair is standing on my arm. Standing up on my arm. And that's the thing is that let's just reject the labels for just a I was kidding. What you're doing is actually, I don't know who could disagree with this. What like normal American could disagree with this? That if they were coming to lock you up for being critical of a foreign government, yes, we would defend ourselves.

If they were trying to illegally start a war and draft you into it without congressional authorization, yes, we would defend ourselves. That's the essence of who it is to be an American. American. I think nowadays, the knee-jerk response is anything that you don't like is unconstitutional. Anything that you don't support is un-American. Let's just look at things on their merits. I'm unapologetically pro-life. I believe that life begins a conception. The view that I take is that you and I might not agree on that issue, and you might not always agree with me. That's okay. you're going to always know where I stand on an issue.

And people have accused me of a lot of things. No, I don't think anyone's ever accused me of being inconsistent on these issues. No one's ever said, well, you said something in Tampa four months ago. Now you're saying something different. I've been consistent because what we, what Americans crave right now more than anything, is somebody who will tell them the truth and stick to that. And the way that you deliver your speeches, there's some anger behind it. You have a sense of humor.

You have a great sense of humor, but there's some snap to it. Americans need that because we're fucking furious, you know? Like, furious. It's rage. It's like pre-French Revolution type anger. And you're right. Like, again, the culture issues, gun control, right?

Like, I believe in the Second Amendment, but I do think there's a lot of people that should probably be prohibited for owning firearms for mental reasons, whatever. abortion. I think life begins a conception. I know abortion is killing a life. If you're going to make it illegal,

I mean, we did that for a long time. There's problems with it. Whatever, whatever. But you have the right to, these are the small cultural differences that make America great because we do things a little differently out there in California. You do things differently here in Florida. Like, we respect that. But the the existential issues

the subversion of our government by Israel, just call it what it is. It's not A-PAC. There's a ton of Israeli lobbies, foreign lobbies. The data centers and now mass surveillance, that's existential. That is going to affect all of us. So no data centers.

It's not like you're going to, oh, we're going to make these data centers better. No. No data centers. No flock cameras, no digital license play readers. It's not like we're going to make them better. No. We're not going to say,

well, there's going to be an audit trail and we're going to crack. No, it is a corrupt system. We didn't try to regulate slavery. We didn't try to reform slavery. We abolish slavery. When a system is so rotten to its core, you have to dismantle it. You have to burn it down. That's data center.

That's flock. That's mass surveillance. That's palanteer invading local and state government. Can you imagine if flock had been around during COVID? That's what I'm saying. Half of us would be in prison, still serving, our sentences right now for going to church, walking in the park, walking on the beach, not wearing two masks outside in our own front yard. They want to create a mass surveillance state. And to the people

who look at that in good faith and say, well, we want lower crime, let's just unpack that for a moment. First and foremost, there is exactly one society who has pretty much zero crime in the world. I genuinely mean it. There is one country where you're not going to get carjacked, you're not going to get mugged, your bike's not going to get stolen. North Korea. Thank you. Truly. You want to live like that? Yeah. You are not going to get jumped, carjacked in North Korea. If you look at Kim Jong-un the wrong way, you're going to get shot in the back of the head. Right. And your family's never going to see you again. So that's the difference. Let's dispel with this Orwellian idea of zero crime. First and foremost. Thank you. You know who said that's the other day brilliantly?

Tucker. Tucker Carlson goes, what is this like demand for safety? Safety, safety, safety. That is not what this country is built on. It's built on freedom. Built on freedom. And by the way, by the way, I just want to point out, violent crime has been trending down for the last 20, 25 years. Correct. There's already a fuckload of cameras. Correct. You know what I mean? There's already DNA evidence. By the way, we know who the criminals are. The, the individual who I won't name who killed Arena in Charlotte, we knew who he was. No amount of flock cameras

would have stopped that. No. None. So to the extent that violent crime is still an issue, and it is, obviously it's better today, but not better for Arena.

Right. No, I mean, if there's murder... Right. It's a problem. But statistically, obviously, lower. So much of the crime problem is habitual offenders to get out

and get to reaffirm. defend. Simple as not. And the new phenomenon is these team takeovers, which are really just riots. Oh, dude. It looks like Spirit Airlines. It looks like Spirit Airlines. It looks like a Carnival cruise line. Yeah, for sure. And it's wild. And there was one here in Tampa a couple months ago. Okay. So can I ask you about that? Sure. So you can't allow that. I get that. Is it you want to give people that participate in it like third degree felonies, right? Yeah. Here's the thing, though. I'm up. I'm just, I'm curious.

Like, now they got felonies. There's these are teenagers mostly. Now they're in the system. They're felons. They're black. Like, what do you expect them to? Now you're already putting them two steps behind. You're creating criminals.

Are you not? Well, I think they are criminals. Right. But if you're 17, if you're 16, 17, you never knew your dad because of the crack laws. And he's away forever. You've been, this is a sixth grade reading. level state. You're raised on sugar, screens. Food stamps. Food stamps. It's like, how can you call a 16-year-old a criminal? They're not socialized because they've been given bad inputs by their

home life and by their environment. So you think it's a good idea? I mean, it's tricky. I just, it's tricky. We got to get tough. Okay. I think we can agree that what's happening now is not okay. Because when you don't hold somebody accountable for their bad behavior, you celebrate, you emboldened, you encourage that behavior again and again. So I think you and I can agree that when 500 people show up, block the road, riot, fight, all of this, this is not kids hanging out. This is actually a riot.

And you got kids who are getting shot at these teen takeovers. Two kids got shot in Clearwater Beach at a teen takeover two months ago. There was a July 4th Teen Takeover in downtown Pensacola. Two people got shot as well there. And so let's just call it what it is first and foremost. These are not just kids who are hanging out on the beach listening to music.

The issue is, well, James, you're being too tough. Yeah, that's the point, is that if you set a very clear example of what will happen when you riot in the streets and block traffic and do all of this,

that you will tell people we're not screwing around anymore. And that if, I'm going to make it very clear, I'm not just going to do this and say, all right, I'm going to tour to the state, I will sit down with black community leaders,

church leaders, we will have the biggest public awareness campaign. We will text every single household of every race in this state. In 30 days, we will begin enforcing, by the way, a law that's already on the books. Rieting is already a felony in Florida. And so I don't care if you're rioting for a conservative cause or a progressive cause. Now, be clear, we're not talking about protected speech. I'm always going to protect protected speech. I don't care if it's progressives who are protesting ICE and doing so peacefully or if it's conservatives who are pushing down on a maximum vaccine mandate. But in this case, I think you set up a very clear thing.

Here's what's going to happen in 30 days when we start enforcing this law. And here's what the consequences are of this. And I think if you very clearly set what those standards are, people will recognize, oh, crap. You know, it's probably the best thing for a kid who's screwing around in the kitchen and messing with the stove and the appliance. is let him get burned. Well, James, aren't they going to have a scar?

That was me screwing around with the tabletop oven as a kid. Right. And I'll never screw around with the tabletop oven again. And I'm very cautious now. And so I do think, now, do I want to lock somebody out for the rest of their lives? No. But if you're pulling a gun at 17 years old at a teen takeover, you don't get the benefit of the doubt.

Can we do more? Can we do more to address fatherlessness? Yes. And will we absolutely? Can we do more to invest in alternative education programs? Yes, and we will. I was a Boys and Girls Club kid growing up. Fuck yeah.

Right? I was playing pool. We had a lot of fun. Pick up basketball. I think there need be more opportunities like that. But also, there is a fatherlessness crisis that is really at the heart of this. And I don't just mean for the black community, I mean really for any community. Every child in America deserves to have a mom and a dad growing up.

That's the best form of government is the nuclear family raising your kids. Because the government can't raise your kids. We can provide activities. We can provide that. But you got to have mom and dad who are actually going to have some real accountability. And so just to come all the way back to what we were talking about, which is the flock cameras don't solve teen takeovers. They don't give a shit. They're filming themselves.

Right. They, yeah, they're literally filming themselves. They... It's good content, though, to watch. It's really, yeah, well, it's good unless you get caught up in the middle of it, and you're on your family vacation, you're going out with your kids and... Oh, yeah, I just meant from a, I'm scrolling through TikTok. Yeah, I mean, it's like the world star. You're happening to World Star, by the way.

Yeah, they're not as, they kind of went mainstream. They kind of tried to get, like, serious, and nobody cared. Yeah. Like, because that was my... We want weaves being pulled out. Yeah. But... So basically, you're talking, like, it's like the Buckelly model in El Salvador.

Like, okay. We're getting tough on crime, really tough, but you have to offer alternatives. You have to build out the society. By the way, he's done it brilliantly. Right. I don't think he gets enough credit. Because I think what the left looks at him and says, look at these massive prisons and harsh prisons and so on. Look at what he's done to public parks and libraries.

Right. Look at what he's done to hospitals. If there's free health care, they just finished building this gorgeous hospital and it's free for all Salvin Warrens. It's incredible. It's incredible. And so that's the kind of model that I have. Singapore, I think, is a great model. I think El Salvador in the last couple of years has been a great model.

Now, by the way, I've always said that if you go do the time for your crime and you get out, you've got to have your rights fully restored. Good. Right. Voting rights. Rights to defend yourself. Right to employment, to not be unfairly discriminated. I say this because my dad in the 1980s made a dumb mistake and served a year and a deal.

a year and a day in prison, he was labeled as a convicted felon all the way to say, my own dad can't vote for me. Still? Still? That's crazy. So you're able to do all that as governor? Are these executive orders?

No, it's a mix of executive, but it's also legislative stuff that needs to get done. Okay, so is the legislation going to be behind you? Yeah, it will be. Because you've got to communicate with these guys. And what I like about Tallahassee, our state capital here, as opposed to D.C., is there aren't as many cameras in Tallahassee.

So if a Republican were to cross the aisle in D.C. would be the biggest scandal. Right, right. Here, it's just part of everyday life. And even the Democrats in Florida, for the most part, are actually pretty reasonable because they represent reasonable populations. Right. And it's going to be pretty easy to work with them on this stuff.

And these are 80, 20 issues. Right. Why should somebody who committed a crime in the 1980s or 1990s, a nonviolent, formerly incarcerated American, why should they be unable to vote in 2026? Yeah. Why should they be unable to buy a gun to defend themselves as a nonviolent, formerly. Former felon. And so these are common sense things that we have to do.

Now, I will say, if you cross the line with throwing the book at you and you're going to prison, when you get out, though, as a Christian and as an American, I believe in the path to redemption. And once you've redeemed yourself and paid your debt to society, get back out there and do your thing. Yeah. Do it the right way, though. Okay. So what, you beat your lawsuit. You had lawfare thrown at you by an opponent.

Right. My opponent, who's polling in third, tried to sue me to. get me off the ballot. Because apparently that's his great strategy. While we're out here having conversations, we have five events today. The last event that we have starts at 1130 at night. We have over 300 RSVPs instead of talkeria.

Dude, we're the only campaign, not just in this race, but in the history of Florida running for governor, that's held town halls in all 67 counties. So that's what we are doing to win the election. My opponent hired, no offense. California lawyers. No, the scum of the earth.

Right. That'll be the first to tell you. California lawyers. He himself is from Montana. He moved here in 2019. To try to sue a fourth generation Floridian who was born and raised here and lived here entire life off the ballot, off of some technicality because I own an apartment in Washington, D.C. So what's up with that? That's called lawfare. I even think a lot of Democrats that I know in 2023, 2024, they said, look, I don't particularly like Trump, they said, but this attempt to remove him from the ballot because of January 6th, that's wrong. If you don't want to vote for Trump because you didn't like what happened on J6, that's your right

in our constitutional republic. You decide, but people decide elections, not politicians trying to go to the courts to rig the system and remove people from the ballot. I can't think of a legitimate reason to ever remove someone from the ballot. Remove somebody from office? Absolutely. By not voting for them. and rallying against them

and building a coalition of people to throw them out or not vote for them in the first place. But what is more un-American than saying, you don't get a right to vote for that person? Because it's not just against me or my campaign. It's against the hundreds of thousands of people who are being disenfranchised.

And so what did a judge find? He struck this thing down so fast, 25-page scathing order. Quote, the plaintiff, my opponent, presented no direct evidence to support his claims against defendant fishback. End of story. And so the same lawfare that the Democrats try to drag Trump through, trying to take him off the ballot in 2024, they try to do it to us.

Why? Because we are a threat. That was a Republican that did that to us. Now, you have other enemies, I'm sure. Randy Fine is a great example. He's a traitor that should be in prison. I agree. He's a senator.

I mean, this is why you've got to improve education in Florida. So people don't vote for a guy like that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Have you received any kind of... Now, you tow the line. You're not like Dan Bolzarian. You know what I mean?

You've... You deliver a strong anti-Apaq message, but you do it a little more palitably, but it doesn't matter these people. If you don't show complete fealty towards their cause in that country, you're an enemy to them. You're goy. You're subhuman.

Have you received any kind of threats from guys like fine? Oh, he called me, actually, before I got into this race. He yelled me for four to two minutes on the phone. Wow. Mary Madelson came out in December and said, we're raising a war chest against fishback. And an A-Pack-Line Super PAC led by a Ted Cruz staff or spent $10 million in attack ads against us during the World Cup.

It's very validating. For sure. It's a huge white pill. That's got to make you feel good. It's a huge white pill. We do all these massive events, draw hundreds of people. And then we turn on the TV and I was actually at a restaurant and I saw the ad and the guys on the other side of the bar like, God, that's fish back.

Yeah, that's our guy. Because people are done with the si-up. They're done with the you're a racist. You're an anti-euro. Whatever. Yeah. No, we are Americans. And I think the left-right divide is really an illusion right now.

Are you America first? Yes or no. Because there's Democrats who aren't America first, but I'll be the first to admit there's a lot of Republicans in power right now. who are not America first. What do you mean? The entire Republican Senate, or maybe it was the House,

voted to merge our militaries. They did. And I called it out. Byron Donald's my opponent, voted, yes, to merge. And by the way, I'm against what's happening right now with all this money that we're giving Israel.

Let's just back out and make it pretty universal approach. The U.S. military should never merge in part or in full with any military. If you pulled that, just pulled that nationally amongst all age groups,

all races, all religious, all political affiliations, how many Americans would agree with the following statement, the American military should not merge in full or in part with any other foreign countries military. That would get a 90% support,

that statement. So when people say, well, that's anti-Semitic, no, we're just trying to defend our sovereignty. And when you say something is anti-Semitic. It's the same thing we heard for years. You're racist. You're anti-Semitic. You're racist. It's just saying shut up. It's exactly. It's just wokeism. It's just wokeism.

It's wokeism now on the part of so-called Republicans. They're so-called Republicans. These are not real Republicans. No. These are fascists. These are big government totalitarians. And that's what we're going up against. And that's why I've said from from the start of my campaign, I am not loyal to the Republican Party. I'm loyal to the Constitution. When the Republican Party, violates the Constitution, I call them out for it. When the Democrats violate the Constitution, I call them out for it. I'm loyal to one thing and one thing only, and that is to our country and what is in the best interest of our country. And when any party violates that principle, you've got to fight back. So all of this money, Mary Madelson, just for a refresher, she gave Trump

$200 million. She is, you know, the kind of the leading financial finance, of all things Israel lobby. They're putting their money behind Byron Donald's? Yes, and against us. Okay. $10 million in attack guys during the World Cup alone. Okay. So why Byron Donald's?

Because he's dumb enough? Yes. Okay. He's dumb enough. He's an empty suit. He'll do exactly what they've said because he's done exactly what they've said for years. Yeah.

And that's what this is about. Byron is a vessel. He's a guy who can be bought, not just influence, told exactly what to do and what to say. And I'm not that person. Do you think they pick a black guy specifically?

Yes. Because then it's like, well, he can't be, he's black. So what he says, even though he defends everything, APEC and Israel and genocide, he's black. So it's okay.

It's okay. There's no hate coming out of that mouth. Yeah. And that's what they've done. I mean, they've called me, everything that I say about Byron, they'll say that was a racial dog whistle. I said he is a slave to A-PAC.

Well, don't you know the connotation of that? I said, well, what? Slave according to the Miriam-Webster Dictionary means you're controlled by someone else. Unless I'm misunderstood and Byron Donald's himself was enslaved or his parents were or his grandpa. No, he's actually from Panama.

His mom's from Jamaica. His dad's from Panama. He is a so-called first-generation American. So I'm not going to apologize for calling anybody anything when it's true. If he wants me to stop him, stop using that world, he can just give the money back to AIPAC. It's really simple. So he took how much?

He's taken about $12 million from the APAC lobby, and it's a connected donors. And you got to assume some of that's just going straight to his pocket. Yeah, of course. Of course. And that's legal. It's crazy. That is crazy. Um, he's, I saw a clip, you, by the way, whoever you have on your team, your social team is brilliant. You're not paying him enough. I saw, uh, you're, you're, you're, debating him. He refuses to debate you, by the way. Refuses. Refuses. You had to make a video the other day.

The interview. The Byron interview. Yeah, Ryan and Kingston and our team did a great job with that. And it was really fun. We wanted to poke fun at it, but also this one part of the interview where we say, well, Byron, I'm just curious. What's your top priority right now for America?

And what does he say? Israel. He says Israel. But he doesn't just say Israel. He goes, the top priority. He says, it like emphatically. Emphatically. In America. The top priority in America is Israel.

Full stop. Byron Donald's words from his own mouth. That is wrong. That is un-American. The top priority for me is making it easier for my generation to buy a home, working families to be able to afford everyday life,

and my parents and grandparents to be able to retire comfortably. That is our focus. And I'm sorry, I can't worry about any foreign country. Period. Israel included, until we get everything right under our roof. You don't feed the neighbor's kids when your own kids having eaten in three days.

413 Floridians will be evicted from their homes today. 2,300 vets are going to sleep on Florida streets tonight. There is a crisis happening. And it's America first until we figure it all out. And it's going to take some time. So for years. Honestly, it's America only until we get this shit figured out. At this point, pretty much.

Because if you say America First, you leave open... The possibility of having a second or third priority. Yeah. Now, I say that because the resonance of that term and the political movement behind it, which I really do identify with as being an America First conservative. But in effect, it is America only. Well, what about... What about all these people abroad?

What about them? Germany can give them money. Australia can give them job. What about them? Last thing I checked, we bomb and kill a lot of people. people abroad. We do. And we make them kind of a slave to our dollar that we're inflating away all the time. Maybe they don't want us. Maybe they could do better on their own by just trading and having their own culture and their own sovereignty. That's right.

And I'm sorry, I'm not really concerned if some Middle Eastern country is a democracy or not. Right. Because in many respects, the very democracy, the very democratic principles that we are trying to install in foreign countries, we are sorely lacking at this moment in time in our constitutional republic. And so before you point out the splinter in someone else's eye, look at the log in your own. For sure. I like how you, Christianity kind of drives, everything you do is kind of driven by Christian values. You know what I mean? That's cool. It's been my, I mean, as a Christian, I look at really two documents to guide my own life, which is in government, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, my own personal life, but also in government, the Bible.

You know, people can say, well, I'm Jewish, I'm Hindu, I don't agree. That's okay. You're entitled, First Amendment allows you to practice your faith. I'm also entitled to draw on my own faith to make good decisions. And loving your neighbor, looking out for your own, calling out hypocrisy, flipping tables when that hypocrisy is palpable, these are things that aren't just Christian principles, but I think universally Americans, accept and want in our society. Do you think it's important? Because we talked about education earlier, we should be teaching kids from a young age,

like what it means to be an American. Because if people have to ask, well, why is it a problem that the government's always spying on me? Oh, you don't know the privilege. Yeah, the history of that. Well, I'm not doing anything wrong, so what do I got to worry about? we got to talk about the 20th century.

Yeah. We got to talk about communism. We got to talk about Cuba. We got to talk about a lot. And so that's my fear is that as, as Reagan said, we are one generation away from losing this all. Yeah. And if this generation isn't told,

you don't have to dig deep into the analysis of history. You don't have to go into a time machine to see what communism does to good people. And I mean real communism, not the knee jerk. Everything is communism, communism. Right. Let's make the bottom. bus is free. That's not communism.

No. And I've said, I support free transit here in Florida, but on the condition that we make it more reliable and we eliminate any semblance of a crime problem or a nuisance problem. Communism is when the state controls virtually everything. Everything in your life, from the economy down to how much food you can buy at the store. And that manifests itself with, you know, 50 million people being killed under Joseph Stalin. And yeah, it doesn't matter. Like, if flock saves one person from being human traffic, sorry, I don't care. My privacy, my right to privacy and freedom is more important than somebody's absolute safety.

That's right. And that's what we have to just come out and say. And I'll say it on flock just right here, right now. if one person gets saved in Florida a year, it's still not worth it. Not even close to being worth it. What is the tradeoff? Thomas Sol, my favorite economist, says,

politics is not about solutions, it's about tradeoffs. What are you willing to trade off? Because right now, there are people who are getting wrongly accused, charged, indicted with crimes, and they never committed because flock said they were guilty. Also, there's a ton of scummy cops.

that have been caught, like, you know, stalking women on flock. And women stalking men. That's true. And so it just creates something that's so ripe for abuse. Yeah. And that's why you have to nip this thing in the bud, or it's going to be a runaway train. You know, Charlie Kirk got a lot of flack for saying this, especially after he was killed. But it just happens to be true that we accept the possibility of there being a mass shooting to be able to defend ourselves.

It's stop. I'm not, if you said right now to every gun owner in America, if you hand over your guns, there will never be a mass shooting again. No one would sign up for that. And nor should they. Right. Nor should they.

Because how many mass shootings have been stopped by guns? First and foremost, we see it happen almost every month that someone tries to go out, harm people, and someone else has a gun and shoots them right then and there. And also, Americans have owned tons of,

guns for decades. Mass shootings didn't really start until the late 90s. Correct. So there's something far deeper going on. That's going on. And it's a cultural rot. I think it's a rejection of God. I think it's this push for a new religion, which is secularism, a culture that celebrates pornography, the commodification of women, the lust of men, all of these things. And there's something really, really rotten about that. And we have to solve that before we ever try to dispossess someone of a constitutional right. Yeah, that seems to be the politician's solution is just band-aid. Take all guns away.

You know, do this. Make, you know, all right, we're going to, it's just sweeping reactionary. Reactionaryism. That's not a word. Reactionism. That's actually a political belief. It seems like in American today's reactionaryism. Yeah.

Really, it's what it is. I mean, look at what a Republican governor did here in Florida, Rick Scott, after the tragedy that was Parkland is he said, we're going to pass a massive gun control that did three things. Number one, 18, 19, and 20-year-olds who had previously been able to buy a gun could no longer buy a gun. Same people you could draft into war

can now not buy a gun. He instituted red flag laws that said that your neighbor could call the police on you without any due process, any court hearing, any court-appointed, lawyer, they could take away your guns for up to a year. These are a threat to the constitutional rights of everyone. And even commons, people say, well, you're for common sense gun control. Well, what does that really mean? I'll give you an example of what is well understood as common sense

gun control that's actually really bad, waiting periods, so-called cooling off periods. what do you say to a woman who fears her abuser lives in an under-policed area, fears he's going to come back tonight and harm her like he did last night. She wants to go buy a gun right now. Why does she have to wait three days to be able to defend herself? That could be the difference between life and death for her. You care about women. You give women the ability to protect her.

protect themselves. And yes, we're going to fully fund police. And yes, we're going to crack down on assault against women and prosecute these crimes to the fullest extent of the law. At the same time, it's a lot easier to reach for the gun in the nightstand and use it than it is to call 911, explain your situation, and wait five, ten minutes for them to show up. Totally. And domestic situations, that's where most people get murdered, I think. That's right. But you're right. That is the best comparison. And that's what I use now. when people try to argue mass surveillance is okay because it saves.

By the way, there's no proof. They couldn't have done it without what. Well, they'll say, they say, well, the silver, flock found this guy who was on a silver alert who was missing. 98% of silver alerts resolve within 24 hours. For sure. So just because you got him 15 minutes sooner,

well, this guy's stolen bike, first off, no one cares. Second off, you could have found the stolen bike. But how are you going to say you're going to go wrongly accuse a woman of stealing stuff from people's porch, charge her with that crime. She has to go spend weeks

coming up with her own exculpatory evidence to prove her innocence because you want to solve a bike theft? So anybody who knows any history at all should see that video of that woman and be horrified. That is the beginning, middle end of flock right there. And that's why they're coming out

and lashing out. That's why they're paying for this good press. That's why they're calling people like DeFlock terroristic because this may be the very end of a multi-billion dollar company and it should be. Because the multi-billion dollar company that is flock is built up with taxpayer money. Of course. If there is no taxpayer money for flock, there is no flock. And the CEO of flock, who is a arrogant scumbag, he goes bankrupt. He loses everything and he should. Yeah. Oh, capitalism. Capitalism. Oh, oh, capitalism means that taxpayer money without consent can be used to spy on us without consent and then charge us for crimes we've never committed and totally flip the script on due process and the burden of proof.

That's what's happening right now in real time. And so, oh, it's capitalism to build a data center. What part of it is capitalism? The part where they take taxpayer subsidies to build the data center, the part where they force you to pay for your electric, their electric bills, the part where your property values go down by 30% when they build the data center next to your neighbor. What part of that is actually capitalism? And that's the approach that I take

when talking about these things. And nobody wants it. Like that is, I've never seen an issue. I'm 40. I've never seen an issue on the left and the right that is so unanimous as we don't want mass surveillance and we don't want data centers.

So I assume this message, and you're a great orator, you're a great communicator. Is this getting out to the people when you go to the talk of, It's good, no. There's, there's, I'm humbled by it. Someone, what Miami Herald said it the other day, there's never been the kind of energy for a campaign in Florida history like there was ours. No. I mean, when's, you don't live here. When's the last time

you had heard of a, we're not even in the general yet. Once's the last time you heard of a Republican primary candidate in another state, just period. I can't. I can't, because they're all irrelevant. They're all, they all have the same sanitized bullshit that we'd be. hearing since the 90s. And our campaign's ability to step up and speak the truth is why everyone is watching Florida over the next 20 days. August 18th is the election day. If you're a registered Republican, you got to not just show up. You got to show up with your friends, your family, and you got to vote like your life depends on it because it does. 100%. So you go up against Byron Donald's, he's your primary. He's like the closest thing. Yeah, it's just you too.

I mean, pretty much. I mean, you had the opponent who tried to sue me off the ballot. That really disqualified him effectively in the eyes of the public because his lawfare failed. Right. It's a Byron race right now between me and Byron. And Pauli Market has you up last time I checked. A massive spike after the lawfare was defeated because a lot of people looked at that and said, I want to wait to see what's going to happen with this lawfare because you never know what a judge might rule in that moment. But he made the right decision and we are on the ballot.

And in 20 days, we are going to stun, stun the establishment and send a shockwave through the, this entire country. I am so excited and I'm just impressed beyond comprehension with your energy and your patriotism and like your love of people. You know what I mean? So I want you to keep that going and whatever happens, I don't want you to stop. You know what I mean? Like figure it out because God, I hate putting my faith in leaders, you know what I mean? But like this is, you're my only hope. I don't have any other fucking choice, James Fishback. So tell people, I mean, obviously, find you on all socials, but like August 18th, you've got to go find the polling booth in your area.

Correct. Early voting in Florida across the state starts on August 8th, so you can vote as early as August 8th. And August 18th, of course, is the election day. But wherever you normally vote for a presidential election is where you're able to vote for us. And we need people to show up. For sure. And that's what we're seeing is people across the state be activated, getting their parents, having a plan to vote on August 18th.

That's how we win this election. This election could come down to a couple thousand votes. And we need every single person to show up. And think about it. You want to triple your impact? Show up with two more people. You want to quadruple your impact. Text three people and say, hey, you got to vote.

Remember, voting's on two. Tuesday. Vote fishback. Vote fish back to stop data centers, block, flock, preserve the state that we love, and fight, fight for the Constitution. That's what this is about. The First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, states rights, pushing back on federal overreach with the Tenth Amendment. That's what this entire campaign has been about. This is why you got to let felons vote. Because you get the black vote. I know that. Black people fuck with you. They do. And that means a lot. So, and we have a pretty heavy black fan base. So I'm telling you, if you don't have a felony or use somebody else's ID, go out and vote James Fishback. Now, is this just the Republican primary? And then in November... And then we have the general.

Now, this is a red state. So pretty much when we win on August 18th, it's not a foregone conclusion, but we're in a really good spot to win the general. We got to win the primary first. Otherwise, there's no general. There's no governorship for this view that we have. So what we've pushed over the last couple of months is you've got to be a registered Republican to be able to vote on August 18th. And when you are, you show up to vote for our campaign.

That's it. You don't want to vote for the Republicans? I'm not going to either. Let's be honest. I'm not going to either. I'm pretty much, there's about three people I want to vote for in my ballot, and I'm walking out of there because I'm not choosing between the lesser of two evils because both of those options are evil.

and now it's time to fight for a vision, a campaign, a platform that actually doesn't just oppose everything the left does, but stands on its own two feet and says, let's do something good. Amen. August 8th is when the early voting starts. And then you've got to vote by August 18th. Wherever you normally vote, that's where you can show up and vote for James Fishback in the Republican primary for Florida governor. Great. And this will be out next week. So just in time, we're going to put the links into the description.

If it's out next week, then our site's definitely going to be fully up and running because the early voting data will be in. Go to vote my Florida.org to find out exactly where you're polling places, either for early or for day of voting. Show up with your ID. This is not California. Show up with your ID to vote. And let's win this thing. That's it. And that link will be in the comment and the description of this episode. VoteMyflora.org. James Fishback. It's been an honor.

Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it. All right, guys. See you next time. Peace.