The Daily Signal - ‘Stand Firm Against That Regime,’ Florida Lawmaker Says of Cuba Amid Revolt There

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

Rep. Byron Donalds has signed onto a resolution from fellow Florida Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart condemning the current situation in Cuba. Donalds says it’s critical that the United States stand in strong opposition to the violent suppression of mass public protests happening there. "They said to me, 'Man, it's so bad.' Not only did they shut down the internet, but they were like, 'There was a 12-year-old kid who was in the crowd at the protests. The police, the military police threw him on the ground, hit him with the butt of their gun in the back of his neck, broke his neck. He's now paralyzed from the neck down,'" Donalds said. "They talked about how people are being told, when the [Cuban] military comes to their door, 'You either come with us, or we'll kill you right now.' These are the things that are occurring on Cuba right now today," the freshman Florida lawmaker said. "And so we as a country, as being the beacon for liberty and freedom on the globe, we have, in my view, a moral obligation to stand firm against that regime." We also cover these stories: President Biden is accusing China of hacking Microsoft as the Justice Department indicts four Chinese nationals in connection with a global computer intrusion campaign targeting intellectual property and confidential business information. Biden walks back comments he made Friday that social media giant Facebook was “killing people” in reference to alleged COVID-19 misinformation.  Paul Hodgkins, of Tampa, Florida, is handed an eight-month sentence in connection with his role in the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, July 20th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Rachel Del Judas. Today on the Daily Signal podcast, I talk to Florida Senator Rick Scott and Representative Barron Donald's. We discussed the crisis in Cuba, the worsening situation at the U.S.-Mexico border and more. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Today's interview was recorded at Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit, so please excuse any background. noise or music. And now on to today's top news. President Joe Biden is blaming China for hacking Microsoft as the Department of Justice is indicting four Chinese nationals with a global computer intrusion campaign targeting intellectual property and confidential business information. In a Monday statement, Attorney General Lisa

Manaco said, these criminal charges once again highlight that China continues to use cyber-enabled attacks to steal what other countries make and flagrant disregard of its bilateral and multilateral commitments. Monaco added, the breath and duration of China's hacking campaign, including these efforts targeting a dozen countries across sectors ranging from healthcare and biomedical research to aviation and defense remind us that no country or industry is safe. Today's international condemnation shows that the world wants fair rules where countries invest in innovation, not theft. On Monday, President Joe Biden walked back comments he made last Friday that social media giant Facebook was, quote, killing people, in reference to alleged.

COVID-19 misinformation. Here's Biden speaking on the subject to reporters via CBS News. Let me precisely what I said. I'm glad you asked me that question. One, I had just read that on the Facebook, Facebook pointed out, it was pointed out to Facebook of all the misinformation, 60% of the misinformation came from 12 individuals. That's what the article said.

So I was asked that question about what do I think is happening? Facebook isn't killing people. These 12 people are out there giving misinformation. Anyone listening to it is getting hurt by it. It's killing people. It's bad information. My hope is that Facebook, instead of taking it personally, that somehow I'm saying Facebook is killing people,

that they would do something about the misinformation. Biden quickly came under fire after his comments. In Friday statements, Facebook asserted that the White House, was, quote, looking for scapegoats for missing their vaccine goals, as well as arguing that, quote, the facts show that Facebook is helping save lives, period. The Biden administration had set a goal to have at least 70 percent of the U.S. adult population, at least partially vaccinated by July 4th, a goal which it was unable to achieve. Paul Hodgkins, a man from Florida who is at the Capitol on January 6th, is the first felon

to be sentenced in litigation over January 6th. 38-year-old Hodgkins was sentenced to eight months in prison in order to pay $2,000 in restitution for a portion of the damage to the building per USA Today. Ice cream maker Ben and Jerry's announced Monday that they would no longer be selling their ice cream in the Israeli territories of Judea and Samaria, as well as East Jerusalem, citing the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Judea and Samaria are both located in the West Bank, territory that is contested between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. East Jerusalem is also considered by some to be contested territory, though former President Trump moved the American embassy to Jerusalem in 2018. We believe it is inconsistent with our values for Ben and Jerry's ice cream to be sold in the occupied Palestinian territory, said the company in a public statement.

Although the brand's ice cream will no longer be available in Judea or Samaria, it will still be available in other regions of Israel. Israeli foreign minister Yair Lepid called the decision, quote, a shameful capitulation to anti-Semitism, BDS, and everything bad in the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish discourse. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Senator Rick Scott and Representative Byron Donalds. Are you looking for an easy and entertaining way to keep up with the news you care about? The Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation YouTube channels offer interviews with policy experts

on the most critical issues and debates America is facing today, as well as short explainer videos, that break down complex issues and documentaries that dive deep into the way its policy actually impacts people. Go ahead and subscribe to both the Daily Signal and Heritage Foundation YouTube channels today. You can search for either on your YouTube app or visit YouTube.com slash heritage foundation and YouTube.com slash daily signal. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Senator Rick Scott. Afforda. Senator Scott, it's great to have you with us. It's always great to be with y'all. Well, you've been talking on Twitter a lot about how President Biden's and the Democrats' raging inflation crisis is really causing problems.

We've called it a spending spree. Can you bring us up to speed on what's happening? It's staggering. They're spending us to oblivion. I mean, they've already done $1.9 trillion, and now the next bill is at least $4 trillion. And it could be as much as $6 plus trillion. I mean, they, I mean, that's all. One trillion is staggering, right?

Four, five, six, seven, trillion is staggering. And what it's doing is it's causing inflation. But first off, they're bankrupt in this country. I think now per family, our federal debt's now a little over $250,000. We have almost $30 trillion with a debt. And so I guess, oh, you got to pay for it, right? Not me. I don't know.

All that. So I guess they're expecting your generation to pay for it. So we've got to stop it. I'm going to do everything I can to stop it. It's causing inflation. You saw, you've seen the numbers. Gas prices are up a buck in the year. Food prices are up.

You know, just, I mean, they're not up a little bit. I mean, overall, CPI is up 5%. Producer price index is up 7%. But all your daily stuff is up. And what that's doing is, it's a tax on the poor. If you're on fixed income, if you're, if you, you're a poor family, then your wages are not going to go up that fast. So if you, if something cost you a dollar last year, okay,

or 95 cents last year, it's going to put, cost you a buck this year. Did your wages go up that fast? I grew up in a very poor family. I remember I'm a single mom and eventually I hadn't adopted dad, but she would take an ironing to make ends meet. And whatever she made, either my older brother and I will go to the grocery store because her five kids. And she said, you've got to check all the prices because it's changing every day. And so whatever we had, whatever money I had, that's all. And, you know, I had to go try to buy enough to feed, you know, two adults and five kids with very little money. When there's inflation, it hurts the four families. That's why it hurt my mom a lot, and that's

what they're doing. So, I mean, if you look at, just take gas as an example, I think the, if you fill up your gas tank once a week for an average car, that'd be another $600. And if you have a truck, it's another $1,000 a year. People don't realize, half of Americans make less than $35,000 a year. Half. That's a lot of money. I want to talk a little bit more about the little personal story you mentioned about your mom and, you know, standing in the gap with that, I think some people, especially people inside the Beltway, they have no idea of what normal Americans go through that don't have just a lot of money at their fingertips. And from a personal standpoint, when you see reckless spending, what do you think internally when you

or someone who did come from not a wealthy family and had to really pinch pennies and budget and make ends meet? what thoughts by the way you see things like this happening? Well, first of all, I still read menus right to left. If I think it's too much money for something, I don't buy it. And I think that's how most Americans are. They have to make decisions about what they can buy. And I think, unfortunately, politicians in D.C. have forgotten that. They've forgotten that, you know, $25 here, $50 there, it all adds up.

And so, you know, they raise fees, they raise taxes. I mean, they've already, you know, Democrats have already raised taxes this year on Uber drivers and DoorDash drivers. They say, oh, we're not going to reach taxes except for the rich. It's a complete lie. Well, you talked about how this debt is impacting families across the country. I think you mentioned $250,000 for family, how that's impacting the debt is impacting these families. What other practical ways we talked about gas prices? We talked about Uber drivers.

What other practical things can you show Americans about how this is impacting families day-to-day? Well, think about a young person. You know, you got married, right? And let's say you have a kid. You know, in the beginning, you're fine living in an apartment. You have a little kid and you say, oh, gosh, I really want them to be able to have a yard and things like that. Look at houseplaces. There's Skyrocket.

How do you get started? And so then you find a neighborhood, oh, I wouldn't live in that neighborhood. I'm going to save up my money for the down payment. Oh, gosh. I did save up my money for the down payment, but now I can't afford the house. That's what's going on all across. Then look at, let's say, let's say, 16 years old, you got your job, and you want to get a car because you're sick and tired of being at home.

You want to have some freedom. I think used car prices are at 45%. 45% in one year. One year. So if you look at, if you look at, you can't buy a house, you can't get a car. Right? Your groceries are up. Right? So, I mean, they're just, you know, they're impacted every American. You mentioned gas prices. I want to ask about that again, given the fact that they've gone up so much. I think you mentioned a dollar in the past couple months, which is unbelievable. Where do you see this going? And how is this going to impact the economy if gas prices continue to rise? If you look historically, when the government spends too much money, the prices go out.

And it's staggering what was fed. I mean, there's some amount of money we should spend, right? When we go through a crisis like COVID, but to pay people more not to work than to work, how does that make any sense? Where in the world would you do that? And that's what the Democrats have done. I tried to block it a year ago in the past the first COVID bill.

See, that doesn't make any sense. A lot of people quit their job and get unemployment. I mean, weird, does that make any sense? given stimulus checks to felons. Like, you know, the young man that killed the 17 people at Parkland School, you got a check. It's just unbelievable. So, but that, the government spending and the fact that the Federal Reserve is basically thrown money everywhere. I mean, the Federal Reserve has increased, I think the amount of money by 25% of the

percent out in the market. It's always a definite inflation. But Jay Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said, an increase of money supply, that's not going to cause inflation. Now, it always has in the past, but somehow was history changed? You can't make this stuff up. I can't. I wanted to ask you about one of the recent projects they've been doing in a company with the Heritage Foundation, one of our producers working with you, which is a really awesome series called Rochrafant on a Budget. Can you tell us about what Rochipan Budget is? Well, first time I want to thank the Heritage Foundation, because I'll tell you what, you know, you talk to a lot of people, but the people who work at the Heritage Foundation,

they really care about this country. They know how to get a message out. They're fiscal responsible. They know they have a long-term view of what's good for this country. And with regard to this reckless government spending, they know it's going to end up in inflation. So they put together a great series. They put out two portions of it.

They put out two portions of it so far. So it's fun to, it's fun to, Team up with the Heritage Foundation because they just have great people working there and they have great projects. I want to ask you, too, about what President Biden is doing in the White House. We have the American Rescue Plan, the American Jobs Plan, American Families Plan, all of the different plans that President Biden is passing to law. How is that impacting the economy as well as Americans in general? He's building that says, oh, we're going to bring people out of poverty, we're going to help the economy.

Is that what's going on here? No, he's back corrupt in the country. I mean, so it's not like there's free money out there. It's not like, oh, gosh, over the last 50 years we've saved a whole, but a bunch of money. I mean, we have almost $30, $30, $30,000 in the debt. So it's not like it's money we save. It's money we haven't saved, and then somebody's going to pay for it. They say, oh, Biden says, oh, it's just going to be the rich.

Well, unfortunately, the rich don't make enough money to pay for all this stuff. I mean, so everybody's taxes have to go up. So, I mean, he's just throwing money for everything. This is socialism. It's what, it's, you know, we're here. Here's what happens with socialism. You can look at Cuba, right? And in Cuba, what's happening?

They went out of other people's money to spend, right? And so you have a shortage of food, you have a shortage of water, you have a shortage of electricity, you have a shortage of medicine. And what's happening to our country? We have shortages because we're telling people, don't go to work, okay? And so now what's happening is you can't open up a lot of restaurants. There's shortages, there's shortage of a lot of things in this country now. I was talking to a lady the other day, she said she was at,

I can't remember the type of store, but she said there was so much stuff that wasn't, the shelves were empty. Because, I mean, just all the foolish things the government's doing. But what they're doing is it's socialism. And then they want to raise your taxes. And they say, they're not raised taxes to get revenue for the government to do something good. It's to make it fair. Right? That's called redistribution wealth.

They don't like people that are successful. I grew up in a poor family. I know my goal was not to be broke. Right? And so I was able to build business. And now what they say is somehow that's bad that we go build business. Because what happens when somebody builds a business. Actually, they pay taxes and they hire a lot of people. I had a company $285,000 employees.

We hired a lot of people. That's jobs for people. That's wages for people. It's getting people live their dream. Everybody's got a different dream. But what the Democrats are doing, they want to control everything. What a time to be alive. No, no.

This is when you can have an impact. That's the way you have to look at. I like that. You can have an impact. You know, put me in the game. This is when you can have the impact. This is when everybody's got to show up. That's why.

What Heritage is doing right now is so important. Because they're giving people a way to explain things to show up and win. So how do we fix this, practically speaking? Governed. But you know what? You'll get to govern if you don't win elections. You have got to win elections. So show up.

So I'm here at the Turning Point, USA. event and to be speeches. I'm here at the 30 point USA event. There's 2,000 people here. So every person could probably impact at least 1,000 votes.

That's what, 2 million votes, right? So that means we will win the school board races. We'll win the sheriff's races. We'll win the mayor's races. We'll win the city council, the county commission races. We'll win the governor's races. We'll win the Senate races. And guess what? In 24, we're going to

have we're going to have a president that cares about, you know, good things for this country instead of bankrupt in this country. Well, Orrinos, Scott, you were mentioning Cuba and what's happening there. What is your perspective on what's going on? Don't you feel sorry for him? It's hard. You just hear the stories. You know, I'm from Florida, so there's a lot of Cubans here, and so you talk to them.

And so they all still have family there. And, you know, the protest. are getting beat up. You can see all the pictures. I know a lot of distance in Cuba, they're arrested and we don't know where they are. A guy like Guzotania Paray. These 18-year-old son, they're gone.

There's a group of ladies in white that dress up in white and march around after church to protest the government. They're getting arrested. And we don't know where they are. So we know they're they've been doing that. So here's what we've got to do. We've got to do three things.

the first thing Joe Biden's got to stand out. Now there's hashtag that we ought to use Doniastod Joe. Where's Joe? Joe's not aware. You know, remember he did want to be in all those international clubs like you, you know, work with Macron and Merkel and Boris Johnson. Well, maybe he should call all of his buddies and say, you know what? We actually do believe in democracy.

We do believe in freedom. We're going to go help the people of Cuba and stop this dictatorship down there. But he has to so far? No. And that's number one. That's he needs to do that. We ought to need to call him out for that. Number two, we got to get the internet back on.

We've got to figure out whether government does it or private sector goes, we've got to get the internet back on so the people of Cuba can share where they're going, how to deal with their government. The government of Cuba is scared of death of it, and they should be. And number three is we've got to talk about what's going on. We've got to talk about what's happening in Jose Daniel Farray.

We've got to talk about what's happening in Ladies' White. We've got to show the pictures of the protest. And whether the mainstream media will do it, we can do it. We can put it up on Instagram and Facebook. Twitter and all that stuff. We can get the message out. If we do, we're supporting them and we're going to see new government. If we get a new government in Cuba, we'll get a new government in Nicaragua, we'll get a new government in Venezuela and we'll stop the protest in Colombia. Speaking of telling the story, getting the message out, are there any personal stories from

Cubans that have moved to Florida that you've heard or maybe they've told you themselves about what they've had to undergo or just made things that stayed in your mind? There are so many stories. I've talked to so many Cubans that took a treacherous. boat wide from Cuba, it's 90 miles, as you know, to Key West. So it's up more to, uh, to get to one of the coast. The, uh, I live in Naples, Florida on the coast. And one morning I was, I was, uh, heading to the airport. And there were 24 Cubans that had gotten on a fast boat and got him to the shore.

And you just feel sorry for them. You just, you know, um, so thank God we have this country where, you know, if you, um, if you come here and you, uh, are you a, uh, is eventually U.S. citizen, you can live the dream of this country. But, you know, there's so many people in Cuba that have family that they don't have water, they don't have food, and they don't have electricity, they don't have medicine. And the only way we're going to solve this is by holding the Castro regime accountable. They're the ones doing this. It's nobody else doing it. They're doing it to themselves. We're not relying on some other country, right? It's their,

government has made these decisions. And so, but I'll tell you one story. Remember how Obama did the appeasement because he was going to, you know, get them to change. Now, let me get your story. There's a lady by the name of Surly Avia Leone. Surly ofia Leone. A wonderful lady, I gave her a freedom ward. She had her left hand chopped off. Chopped off, stuck in the mud, so she would get infection and die.

That was after Obama's appeasement. Remember when he went and played in the stolen baseball stadium? It took the Major League Baseball down there, had that nice baseball game, stuff like that. Castro, you know, the murderous dictator that killed thousands of people, maybe at firing squads and stuff like that. Well, that's what Obama did. And so you know what, you know what Sirley's atrocity was? What's your dad? She complained that they were in close school in her neighborhood. So they chopped up her hand and stuck it in the mud so she would die. That's disgusting.

And that's what we're up against. I have one follow-up because it's so appropriate, I have to ask it. So very recently, if we used to go, Black Lives Matter said that the United States is at fault for the situation of Cuba. Have to get a reaction on that. That's disgusting. It's ridiculous. First off, you know, if Black Lives Matter to think that form of government is so good, I mean, I'm sure there's a whole bunch of people with boats that will take them down there and drop them off. All right?

Let them move. You know, have you ever heard of anybody immigrating? except oh yeah there's some people that immigrate to Cuba that means mass murders do people who kill police in America do people like that terrorists do oh yeah they go down there but normal people that want to live a normal life with kids and grandkids and have the dream to be anything do you think they're moving to Cuba no no they're not well Senator Scott thank you so much for joining us on the daily signal podcast it's great having you with us thanks heritage for what you guys do you guys do a great job Thank you.

On the Daily Signal podcast by Congressman Byron Donald's in Florida. Congressman Donald's, it's great to have you back on the Daily Signal podcast. Anytime. Glad to be back. Glad to be here. Well, it's great to have you with us. I wanted to start off talking about legislation that you joined on to some Congressman Mario Diaz, Ballard, condemning what's happening right now in Cuba.

Can you tell us about that industry perspective on what's happening there right now? The entire voice, and frankly, the entire United States government is to sing up from one voice, and we'll see what happens with this resolution. but we must stand against the totalitarianism that it's happened not just now in Cuba but it's been happening in Cuba for 62 years. The Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro is one of the most murderous regimes

on the face of the planet. Unfortunately, this is what happens when nations fall into the hands of Marxism, Marxism, communism, socialism, because in order for the, quote-unquote, government to thrive, they have to take everything from the people. They have to take away thought.

They have to take away. mobility and take away innovation. All that's happened on the island of Cuba. And so the least we could do was sign on to our religion, completely condemning not just what's happened, but the regime as a whole. As a lawmaker who is in Florida, you have constituents here that probably work with people who have fled Cuba. You may have talked to some of those people. Are there any personal stories you can share with us about people who have fled Cuba, what they've told you, what they've told maybe people who work with you about the situation there, why they came here? Oh yeah. One of my good friends, Max Alvarez. He actually lives in Miami.

Max spoke at the convention last year at the RNC. And Max tells a story vividly all the time about how everybody had to leave their possessions. We need to leave everything. In order to leave the country, you'd leave your possessions. I think about that for a moment. If that even happened anywhere in the world today, we'd be like, what's going on in this country? That's what they had to do. I was actually at the barbershop a week ago.

And when I left, a couple of the guys were sitting outside and they called me over. And they were like, hey, man, we saw you on TV. Can you tell us what's going on? What's the government doing? And I said, honestly, I don't think the government's going to do anything because, you know, unfortunately, Joe Biden's the commander in chief. And so, you know, you have to, he has to be the one to lead the charge about doing something constructive about Cuba. They said to me, like, man, it's so bad. Not only did they shut down the internet, but they were like, there was a 12-year-old kid who was in the crowd at the protest.

The police, the military police, threw him on the ground, hit him with the butt of their gun, and the back of his neck broke his neck. He's now paralyzed from the neck down. They talked about how people are being pulled, up being told when the military comes to their door, you either come with us or we'll kill you right now. These are the things that are occurring on Cuba right now today. And so we as a country as being the beacon for liberty and freedom on the globe, we have, in my view, a moral obligation to stand firm against that regime. On that note, what do you think should be done to combat what's happening in Cuba?

What should the United States do? What would you encourage the Biden administration to do? At a minimum, we need to keep this anxious in place and actually improve on them, make them stiffer, make them harder. The number two thing we should do is we should make sure that the Cuban people are never shut out by their government from things like the internet. We can do that. We have the technology to do that to basically place a net on that island. Number three, we need to make sure that we are being in full support of every dissident movement that's happening on the island. the reality is that the people have nothing.

So how are you going to stand up against your government, voice your opinion against your government if you have nothing? And so they have nothing. They don't have guns. They don't have anything. So whenever they decide to make a stance, what happens is what happened a couple days ago. The military comes out, they crack down,

they throw people in jail, they kill people, and they restore order as quickly as possible by force, by the force of the gun. So those are a couple of things I think we should be doing. The last part is, and I love, you know, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, that I always talk about how we need to work with our coalition partners. But where are the coalition partners when it comes to Cuba?

We need to go find them right now. We have lawmakers in Congress, Bernie Sanders, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Representative Alessandro Castro-Cortez of New York, who are very favorable to the ideas of socialism and communism. Given what's happening right now in Cuba, what would you tell them or even students who want to think about these ideas, what would you tell them about what's happening in Cuba right now

and how that illustrates down the road, if a country like ours were to embrace communism? This is the manifestation of your ideas. That's what I say. Your ideas take us to this point, take us to this place. That's not a country or a nation that allows people to thrive and succeed. Our country is not perfect, but we're the most perfect. It's without question.

I don't care what they say, because the truth of the matter is that in our country, you can succeed or fail. In Cuba, you can only fail. Or better get the way sometimes they would like to look at it. Well, everybody has the same. But what that means is they have nothing. So I would rather people have the ability

to succeed or fail than have nothing. That's the beginning and the end of that arc. And I think that young kids in our country, when they look at ideas like communism or fascism or socialism or Marxism in general, because it's all based in Marxism at its core, they need to understand the natural outgrowth of that political ideology is a destitute country with even more destitute people.

Well, dissidents in Cuba have been waving American flags in the streets and you had commented on Twitter and talked about, I think the New York Times that said something disparaging about the flag. And you said that they have a warped view of the American flag that fuels divisiveness in this country. Can you talk more about that tweet and that attitude of divisiveness that we see right now against the flag and against the country. Oh, that's because at times in the political media left,

and I've noticed what I said, the political media left, they have no problem being in support of people who are disrespectful to the flag that don't want to stand for the anthem and so on and so forth. And they take these issues of police violence that have occurred in instances in our country. They take that as an ability to whitewash the entire country. No. The flag is bigger than any of us.

The flag is bigger than repulsions. Republican Democrat. The flag is bigger than white and black. The flag is bigger than rich and poor. The flag represents the true beacon of freedom and liberty in the world. And not just today, but in the history of the world. That's what the flag represents. And so for them to constantly allow for the flag to be demeaned, yes, it's politically divisive. And that's why I tweeted what I tweeted. Well, you gave a shout out recently on Twitter to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. And you talked about how Florida is the 15th largest economy in the world and number two in the nation. Can you talk about how the governor, I mean, your help and how you did this and how Florida is leading in this way?

Well, first of all, we have the best governor in the country. I mean, let's just be very clear. Sorry to the other 49. Ron DeSantis is the best governor in the country. You know, Christy Noam, she's pulling there right now. She's number two. I love Christy, but Ron is the best governor in the country. Sorry, Christy, but that's how I feel. I also live in Florida, so he's the best governor. But that being said, I think he's done a fantastic job. What he has done, is he actually looked at data and didn't make political decisions. It's allowed our state to thrive. What he's done is make sure that state government, which actually has far more powers than the federal government, but that state government's approach to how they deal in the affairs of the people here of Florida

is the right balance between governmental authority, which does exist, but the freedom of people. And what we've seen is the vote of feet that Milton Friedman has talked so much about. People have fleed in New York, New Jersey, the Midwest, Michigan, whatever. They've come here. as opposed to our people going there. They ain't going up there. They're coming here.

So that's proof positive, number one. Number two, I would tell you about Florida in general. We've had 27 years of consistent Republican, conservative governance. I mean, Charlie Chris was governor. I mean, Charlie was a Republican. I don't know what Charlie is. I mean, Charlie's trying to be governor again is now as a Democrat. So let the voters of Florida.

Let that sink in. Charlie is for Charlie. Charlie does not have a political ideology. He's about whatever Charlie wants to do to be in power. But that's a whole other story for another day. Our state has had consistent Republican governance for 27 years. This is not an accident what Florida has become. And Florida, in my view, is what California used to be.

We are the state that is now the beacon for the country. Ron is done a fantastic job, but it's bigger than Ron. It's bigger than Rick Scott. It's definitely bigger than Charlie Chris. It's bigger than Jeff Bush. It has been their leadership the last 27 years in our state collectively. the leadership of Republican legislatures, both House and Senate, consistently for 27 years, that has made Florida the beacon of freedom, opportunity, liberty, commerce.

It's Freedom Town, USA. Speaking of Freedom Town, USA, you all decided, Governor DeSanis made the decision to stay open. He opened the beaches. He opened the economy, essentially, during the height of COVID. And so many people, especially in the media, said this is a wrong decision. People are going to die. This is not smart. what were people in Florida saying as they watch the rest of the country go deeper and deeper,

basically into recession in terms of what was happening in the economy? We were saying, thank God, Andrew Gillum's not our governor. That's what we were saying. Because, you know, if 18,000 votes go the other way, Florida story is a very different story altogether. You know, the governor, he looked at the data, like I said. He looked at that the people who have the real issues with COVID-19 are plus 65. that school children actually have little to no issues with COVID, so we need to reopen schools. That actually being out, running your business, being at our beaches, going to restaurants,

was not going to be a death now to our state. Did we have COVID cases and deaths in our state? Yes, but so did every state. So did every country face every point of the planet. But if you look at our data per capita, per thousand, however you want to view, the right way to view it, by the way, not just counting cases and counting death, the way the news media likes to do this, fear mongering, scare everybody. If you do it the appropriate way, our numbers are in the middle of the country.

We are the middle of the road in the country. Our economy has been able to get back on its feet. Business owners have been able to get started far earlier than other states. People were able to go live their lives. Families were able to go to the beach and enjoy themselves. It's actually a real success story of what happens when you don't follow politics, and you actually follow signs. Well, before you wrap up, I want to talk about critical race theory.

we see this infiltrating schools across this country. Part of what we saw in the pandemic was a lot of families and parents saw what their children were learning in school because they were at home and they heard these things and they were very bothered by them. What is your perspective on this that we're seeing in schools and how do we, how do parents address it if they're concerned by it? I mean, the first thing was, first one, I want to be very descriptive of the issue. Critical race theory is pervasive through a lot of institutions in our country. It's actually been on the move for more than a decade now, the way it's been going. About a decade, give a two. What happens is our teachers go through their diversity and inclusion training and

training is run by these organizations that subscribe to critical race theory. That's the only entire purpose of the nonprofit is critical race theory or anti-racism or whatever you want to call. That is what has gotten into our faculty, into our administrators. That is now being distilled down into our kids. either through what the teacher says in class or through graphics that show up in class or the triangle of white supremacy, which has shown up in a lot of classes. It's a children's book, which is now beginning to permeate. There are children's books that have this kind of ideology within the book itself.

That's how pervasive it is. Parents have to be very active about their child's education at their local school board. I'll tell you about school board members or frankly any elected official. A school board member or an elected official will not, doesn't really care if three people call. If 30 people call, they kind of love it. If 300 people call, they say, oh, wait a minute. If 3,000 people call, oh, we got a problem. And this is the way people need to organize themselves.

You have to understand that we have more numbers than they do. There are more of us than there are of them. And politically speaking, we have to be far more engaged, far more active, far more organized, than unfortunately conservatives and frankly regular Americans have been in the country. That's why the left has taken so much ground. We need to make sure we remove CRT from these diversity and inclusion seminars. I understand. Moving critical race theory out of them.

Still have diversity and inclusion seminars. I'm a black man. Okay? Diversity and inclusion is a good thing, okay? But the insipid nature of the ideology of critical race theory needs to be reserves for academic theorists at the high, at the masters and doctoral degree level, to be, to be quite frank, be at frank and honest with you know at that level when you've had a chance to learn our history in full depth and you can sit down and take different Supreme court cases different laws that were

passed in different states at different times and sit there and theorize and construct all that into a worldview save that for master's level doctoral level work you want to bring that into a third grade classroom are you kidding me you're trying to teach kids two and three digit math in the third grade how are you going to distill the nuance of race in America in the third grade you can't and so the is that because you can't do that, you drop these nuggets of oppression versus oppressed. Because that's simple to drop into the minds of young people. You drop that into the minds of our young people. You are going to destroy the greatest nation man to be known. It takes parents and it takes community members to be active and engaged and to not be afraid of their stance on

use. As someone who is a black conservative, would you say critical race theory furthers racism in this country? It does. It furthers division in this country. If you want to talk about having a post-racial society, then what you really have to do is just embrace people for who they are, not the color of their skin. As a black Republican, you know, all the stuff I get called on social media, Uncle Tom Ness, Sambo that. I got the receipts. I got the receipts to prove it. And the funny thing is that comes from the political left. Go figure. I know. I think what happens as a black republic, where it doesn't matter. Black and white, it doesn't matter.

In our country, if we're going to be post-racian, a black man is allowed to be conservative. A white man's allowed to be liberal. You know, a white woman, she could be a libertarian. The first label doesn't even matter. A man is allowed to be conservative.

A man is allowed to be liberal. A woman can be libertarian or she can't. Everybody's free to do this for themselves. Your race does not matter. And if we continue that for a third generation from the civil rights movement, do you know how far ahead, how far along of a country we're going to be? Look at all the beauty around us after two generations since the 64 Civil Rights Act and the 65 voting rights act.

Two generations. Look how far we've progressed. If you try to bring that into our country now, you're going to unwind some of that progress. But now what you're going to do is the worst. You're going to say, oh, well, because it happened to us, now it can happen to you. No. Two wrongs don't make it right. You don't battle hate with hate. You battle hate with love. These sounds like things that the left always used to talk about.

I'm looking for them. I'm looking for the liberals. Where have they gone? Because you actually challenge hate with love. You deal with racism, with tolerance and openness, not exclusion. We couldn't end on a better note. Congressman Donald's, thank you so much for joining us on the Daily Signal podcast. It's always great to have you with us. I mean, Tom. Thanks for having. The Heritage Foundation has a new website to combat critical race theory.

CRT, as it's known, makes race the centerpiece of all aspects of American life. It categorizes individuals into groups of oppressors and victims. The idea is infiltrating everything from our politics and education to the workplace and even our military. Heritage has pulled together the resources that you need to identify CRT in your community and the ways to fight it. also have a legislation tracker so you can see what's happening in your state. Visit heritage.org slash CRT to learn more. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast.

You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeart Radio. Please be sure to leave us a review in a five-star radio on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.