The MeidasTouch Podcast - The Florida Special Election That Has MAGA Terrified (Josh Weil Interview)

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the special election in Florida’s 6th Congressional District where a Democrat named Josh Weil could potentially flip a +30 Trump district and turn it blue. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge bet mgm operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming ontario could a ruby red congressional district in florida turn blue momentum seems to be gathering for the Democratic candidate in this special election. His name is Josh Wheel. This from, of all places, Florida Voice. Democrats putting up a fight in Florida Congressional District 6 early voting data shows where Republican, a very unpopular ultra MAGA doge extremist by the name of Randy Fine is facing Democrat Josh Weill, who is a public school teacher. A massive cash disparity we're seeing as well as people are really going to Josh Weill's side here. People are very nervous that uh this uh randy fine is going to dojify uh florida six congressional district we're seeing even people like steve bannon terrified this is what steve bannon said on his podcast the war room the other day let's play it was it florida six

waltz's district trump won that district by 30 points in november i'm old enough to remember when he won in november by 30 points we have a candidate that i don't think is winning that's an issue that issue he's talking about is again randy fine is a state senator in florida the seat being held by waltz who he was referring to, is Mike Waltz, the national security advisor, who you probably know best right now for the individual doing the fist bump emoji, American flag emoji, flame emoji when leaking our war secrets and war information on a group text thread with others in the Department of Defense and within the Department of National Security.

Now, let me show you over here just some videos of Randy Fine so you can see who he is. Randy Fine is someone at a hearing. Why is also so unpopular? There's a lot of reasons. At a hearing over women's reproductive health he looked at the women and he said if you dare even breathe i'm gonna have you arrested here play this clip the sergeant's staff has been pre-authorized to remove people um there will not be warnings um you'll be removed if i can hear you breathe from my seat that will be the standard

so i would encourage people to keep that in mind. We're going to have a hearing. We're going to hear from these folks. It's going to go for as long as it goes. And then we are going to be done. And don't test me. I'm sure you won't like the outcome. All right, members.

Don't test me. I'm sure you won't like the outcome. I'm a big, tough guy who hides under my desk when process servers try to serve me with paperwork. This is a guy, he got like a public records act, like deposition. It's like, okay, you're a public official. You're going to get those from time to time. The dude was hiding under his desk from the process server. Here, watch this. Is he really hiding behind the desk under the desk wow come out come out wherever you are randy fine let's bring in the democratic candidate for that

seat in this special election probably have heard about this guy josh wheel josh wheel you're making news in florida and across the nation right now in this race. What are you seeing on the ground, my man? Yeah, people are excited. We have a real race here. We've known from the beginning that this is a district that has been neglected by the state and national party for a long time. And if we were able to handle our business, get our fundraising right, you know, build the right campaign, that we'd be able to get a real response from people. And, you know, then January 20th happened. Then, you know, we've got all of the executive orders,

the fast and furious barrage against, you know, the infrastructure of our nation, public services that residents here rely on. It's a district that's 25 percent, age 65 plus. You know, they're not happy about massive cuts to the Social Security Administration. They're not happy about cuts to veterans benefits, you know, Medicaid, Medicare. They're they're feeling the impact immediately. And, you know, we've been here Randy, we love you, Randy. Because, you know, he's a he's a doge rubber stamp. He's a get rid of the Social Security, Medicaid, screw over the older people in your district kind of guy, destroy people's lives the way Trump and Elon wants to do. But even DeSantis doesn't like this guy. Like DeSantis. They hate each other. DeSantis hates this guy. He goes,

tell us about the hatred that's there as well. Oh, yeah. So when DeSantis was running for president, Randy Fine was the first Republican to jump off and, you know, support Trump instead. And they've had this just furious relationship ever since. We've seen it. He called like three special legislative sessions earlier this year, right leading up to the main legislative session that started earlier this month. A big part of it was just he wanted an excuse to not be in this district campaigning, which is great for us. But, you. But he spent most of the time, they were fighting over which immigration, which horrible immigration bill that they wanted, the one that Trump recommended or the one that DeSantis was putting forward. And he's been the

most outspoken critic of Ron DeSantis. He calls him Ronda Rhino. And a lot of people, a lot of Republicans here like Ron DeSantis, so they don't take that Rhino. And a lot of people, a lot of Republicans here like Rhonda Santus, so they don't take that kindly. There's two types of people here in District 6. There's people who don't like Randy Fine, and there's people who haven't heard of Randy Fine. So that's pretty much everybody. Randy Fine is one of these guys who is like, he just wants to party at Mar-a-Lago with the pink Birkin bags for $450,000. This is a guy trying to, I don't know, live the high school years he didn't have as a member of Congress. It's a total weird MAGA mutation for this guy, Randy Fine.

And he's a very dangerous guy. I mean, when he takes to the floor of the state legislature, the types of things that he talks about is like, he goes, we need to erase. He said, what the entire LGBTQ community or words to that effect. He goes, because he connected the community to drag shows. And even if it means getting rid of drag shows, if I have to erase all the gay people, I said something, I think we have all the gay people. I said something. I think we have the clip here. Play that clip, Salty. And they're the ones that are saying this definition applies to them.

Well, if it means erasing a community because you have to target children, when damn right we ought to do it. I just don't think you have to inherently say because you're lesbian or gay that you want to target children. I find that statement to be offensive to them. I mean, dangerous, weird dude. But here's the thing, Josh, you know, we cover before some of these movements in Florida where there seems to be hope. And look, the early voting data is very good for you, leading in the first two days, if you factor in some independence,

I don't want to get people overconfident. So I'm not even going to go through necessarily what the data is reflecting other than people need to go out and learn about you. But how are you really feeling? There are some people who go, we always get our hopes up thinking about a red district. I'm sure you get asked this before. What do you say to those people who were like, yeah, but it's still Florida. It was a plus 30 Trump area. It's not possible. What do you say to them, Josh? Yeah. I mean, look, it was a plus 30 Trump area because we had no real democratic campaign here. In the last three cycles, one of them, there was no democratic nominee for this seat. And the other two, the congressional candidate was unable to raise more than $35,000 over the entire two-year

stretch. So, you know, it's really, it's like more like an R plus 14 when you look at the current voter registration data, which is a lot more winnable. You know, it's not that our message has been rejected in the past. It's that there was no one here getting the message out. Messaging isn't free. You've got to be able to build a real campaign to get out and talk to people. And, you know, not only have we been able to do that, but in his arrogance, Randy Fine felt that he didn't have to. He spent months not campaigning. Last month, he was interviewed by a newspaper and they asked him, you know,

what are the issues most important in the district? And he's like, I don't know. He goes, it doesn't matter. He goes, because I'm here to serve Donald Trump. I don't need to know what issues are important to the people there. You know, he took two months off, raised no money, which I mean, honestly, we were surprised by. We knew we were going to have outraised him because we were handling our business and getting our work done, but he didn't even try raising money for a future war chest for 2026. I mean, he did absolutely nothing. No outreach, no messaging, no building of a campaign, just hiding out in Tallahassee from the voters. And now he's scared. Now he's struggling. And we feel really good about it.

I mean, look, there's a lot of Republican voters in this district, right? There's definitely enough that if they overturn out, they can take this thing back from us in seven days. But right now, we feel really good about where we're at. Yeah, Randy Fine has a pattern and practice of hiding under his desk like a little dogey coward, hoping that his daddy, Elon, and Donald Trump will bail him out. And they're trying, but I think the people in your district are seeing what doge means to the services that literally keep them alive. I see back there it says April 1st is the day of the election. Early voting is taking place right now, right? What else do people need to know? Where could they find out more? When's the voting period? What do you tell them? Early voting goes through this Saturday, the 29th. You can learn more about the campaign at joshwheel.us, J-O-S-H-W-E-I-L.us.

We have links to sign up. We have volunteers from all over the country who've been doing phone banking for us, reaching out to voters. We have, if anyone's local or nearby, canvassing. Right now, it's just about getting out there, knocking on doors, driving out the vote. And all the money that we raise going forward

is gonna help increase what we're on TV because the Republicans poured like $3 million into the final eight days for television. So, you know, we're making sure that we're keeping pace on TV, that we're scaling up our campaign team as much as possible to make sure we drive out the vote. You can donate, you can sign up to volunteer, you can learn more about me all at our website. There you have it. Josh Wheel running for Florida's sixth congressional district in the special election April 1st. We'll be following it closely. Thanks, Josh. Appreciate you. Thank you. Everybody hit subscribe and let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports, 5 million subscribers.