Angie Nixon: People Power

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "The Bulwark Daily." I'm your host Tim Miller, we're in debate season. And so at the end of today's interview, stick around 'cause I wanna talk about some highlights from the Susan Collins Troy Jackson debate up there in Maine, but up first, she's the Buzzie candidate of the moment. She's the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Florida. It's Angie Nixon. Hey Angie, welcome to the show. - Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. - I'm excited to be here too, because my first question is, where did you come from exactly? You know, some of us who watch national politics, you are not really on my radar. Some of my Florida friends told me I was sleeping on you, but give us a little bit of the back story. You kind of came up out of nowhere in the last few weeks of that primary and ended up being the nominee, and now you're all over my social media feed. So what's your back story? - So yeah, so my back story is, I'm born and raised in Florida, Jacksonville, and this draw comes from my parents who were born in Southern Georgia, but I also am a former union organizer. I'm a community organizer. I've been organizing all across the state for nearly two decades here. I actually also ran the largest statewide alignment group that built power within Black and Brown and working families in those communities, and been a state lawmaker for the past six years, a former aide for a state representative. I've just been really embedded in Florida politics and Florida movement work, and just the community overall. And you got into that Senate race. I think, you know, a lot of folks thought, you know, a friend of the program Alex Vindman, you know, had a lot of national attention. Like what was kind of your rationale for jumping in the race, your theory of the case? - Yeah, so I actually traveled across the state of Florida before I made the decision to jump in the race. I asked people what I should do next, and I asked them, do they want me to stay in the state house? See, did they want me to run for governor? Did they want me to run for Senate? Did they want me to run for congressional seat? And so I traveled across the state, and I had really hard conversations with people. And what I learned was that Florida is just, and keep waiting for things to get better someday. And so they asked me, a lot of folks requested that I run for U.S. Senate because they felt the need for us to send someone who is going to do more than send strongly worded emails to Washington DC, and that is why I ran. That is why I made that decision. I believe that right now in this moment, we are boldly being attacked. And so this moment requires a bold, unapologetic fighter for hardworking people and those who have retired, who is not going to sell out to special interest groups or big business and who's really going to center people first. - I like that Florida message. It's not just working people. It's through Tirees too. We got to make sure the retirees are seen, you know? - I got listed here. I was called out about continuing to say that, and they were like, "Uh-uh, no, what about retirees?" And I said, "You were exactly right." - The villages. You were getting some letters from the villages, weren't you? - You know, just a little, just a little. But as you were Tirees-- - Have you been up there? - Have you been up there? - Oh my gosh. I've been to the villages quite a bit. They love me there. And that's because I'm speaking-- - Really? - Yeah, I'm speaking about not ending their social securities. We want to make sure that this social security system remains all that. And Ashley Moody and, well, definitely Rick Scott, they want to cut it. I mean, Rick Scott was talking about people needing to go back to work and just absolutely absurd. And so, they love me in the villages. - Well, there's one place where they don't love you. And that is in the Vice President's residence. And our Vice President has campaigning down there. I guess you've definitely got their attention if they're campaigning in Florida. Like a year ago, they would assume Florida was going to be an easy win for them, but he was campaigning there and I want to play a little video of him. - Now, it's a live fight. I hate to say it right here in the state of Florida. As reasonable and rational and freedom-loving as this state is, you've got some real choice Democrats running in the state of Florida. - Look, no further than Angie Nixon, the self-describe, it's almost too easy to make fun of her. The self-describe socialist that the Democrats put up against Ashley Moody this fall. When Angie Nixon calls herself a socialist, I think the right response is to say, then get the hell out of here. You don't belong in America if those are your views. - Get the hell out of here. What do you think about that? - You know, it's something that, unfortunately, I'm used to living in the South, hearing racist dog whistles and things like that. But look, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the views that I have. Those views are the same views that many Floridians have, which are that they deserve access to quality healthcare. They deserve access to affordable housing. Their children and grandchildren deserve access to fully funded public schools that are going to ensure that they don't get diverted to the School of Prison Pipeline. There's a lot of disinformation that's being spread about me. Folks are saying I want to defund the police and I want to abolish prisons. Why would I want to do that when I want Ashley Moody locked up for stealing $10 million from sick kids from the Medicaid program? Not only did she steal $10 million, they diverted and misappropriated, but really stole money from the Medicaid program and moved that over to a political slush fund that was led by Rhonda Sanchez's Now Attorney General. And they used that to take part in political interference. Like they were breaking the law and interfering in two ballot initiatives that would have won. They used that money to purchase ads similar to what we're seeing right now with Donald Trump purchasing ads with taxpayer money. And they defeated the ability for a woman to have a right to choose without political interference and they defeated recreational marijuana. And so her reward for doing that was this appointment to the United States Senate seat and it's just very disgusting. - For people who have been followed at that closely, what was her role in that exactly? - She signed off on allowing the money to be moved and diverted. She did not stop them. She did not say this was not illegal or anything like that. But now everyone is saying, oh, we don't know who actually said go ahead and do this and started it. Every, all the lawyers just don't remember anything. - Yeah. - They don't remember anything. - What was her role at that time? - She was the attorney general for the state of Florida. And now she has become, yeah, so. - They're really just kind of pointing at each other. - Exactly how it was this person. It was this person and it's like, absolutely not. Yeah, it's like the Spider-Man, the Spider-Man, me, you know? And so it's just really disturbing. - JD said you were easy to make fun of though. I think that's kind of interesting coming from him. I don't know. I don't know if you have the type of person likes to make fun of people, but he's easy to make fun of. - I don't like to make fun of people. You know, I love to give people their flowers and I do not like any of the policies that he's pushing, but I do want to give the eyeliner recommendation because his eyes are beautiful. They pop with it. But other than that, again, this is not. This is, that was a distraction. They want to distract against their field policies. Ashley Moody voted to end health care for over 440,000 people here in the state of Florida. Ashley Moody has continued to allow insurance companies to deny claims and that type of stuff while she was the attorney general. And even now she's voting against holding insurance companies accountable because she receives campaign donations from insurance executives. She also trades insurance stocks. She's sitting on certain committees where she could possibly have insider stop trading information. And like she's getting richer, her and Donald Trump's net worth continues to grow while they are in office. But they're working less and less and less. And what's frustrating is that everyone else on the outside, the hard working people or the folks that are retired, like working harder than ever, but they're still struggling just to get ahead and people are so frustrated and turned off by that. - The eyes are popping even more with the ozempically, at least from JD. I don't, you know, the thing about that, I'm sorry just to kind of stick about it, but it's like, you should be out of the country. Like we should kick them out of the country. Like obviously at some level, it's just kind of the stupid political rhetoric. But at the other level, they're running mass deportation campaigns. Are people around them say they want to deport 100 million people. They don't have 100 million people on documented immigrants. And it's just like it's just blatant, like white nationals, like that's just what it is, you know? I mean, he was not making that joke about David. with Jolly for a reason, and that's got a grade on you a little bit, no? - Yeah, and you know, I mean, again, I grew up in the South, and so it's not something that I haven't heard before, but what is important to highlight is that, you know, they make claims about me being a communist and supporting communist regimes, but they decide to deport Cubans back to Cuba. Then they talk trash about Venezuela, and they deport Venezuelans back. They removed their TPS status. And then Ashley Moody has said absolutely nothing about Donald Trump causing up to the leader of North Korea, or the leader of Russia. And so it is absolutely absurd. And, you know, it's racist, it's racist, it is misogynistic, a lot of the things that they're saying and how they're attacking me. But look, we knew that was gonna happen, and so we're going to continue to go out to talk to people and spread the message that it doesn't have to be this way. We can actually start electing people who are going to put people over politics, people over profit, and even people over party. And I am that person, and I have a proven track record of doing so. - I mean, they do seem to be the communist to me. I mean, the other ones with this masked police in the streets, secret police going after people, and they replaced one communist with another in Venezuela. - Right, the weaponizing of ICE and agencies, shooting people in the streets without any accountability, no consequence. Then, you know, they're also just, again, stealing our money to run propaganda, going after political opponents. Roderstein just had me arrested because I wanted to have a conversation with him about passing illegal and unconstitutional maps. And that is what we're continually up against here in the state of Florida and this country, but really here in the state of Florida, this is like ground zero of really bad bills and policies and the attack on woke, the anti-DII stuff, that originated here in the state of Florida under Roderstein's and Ashley Moody. And now, what had has happened, I was at a disability form the other day. And those folks are hurting because the attack on DEI, though they wanted it to just seem as though it was attacking black people. It actually harmed a lot of folks who are living with disabilities because now people can, they're not supposed to be able to deny them, but folks are like, can deny certain things to them based on some of the cuts. - Obviously, you know, he's obnoxious and gross in the way that he is doing the attacks. - I wanted to take the kind of criticism of the DSA in Florida about how there are a lot of people that have left the regimes you mentioned, Cuban, Venezuela, who've left socialist regimes, come to America, immigrated here. They don't want to bring that style of politics here. Like what do you say to somebody like that who has a good faith, concerned about that, maybe somebody in the Cuban community there in Florida? - What I would say is that, you know, they should look at who I am and what I stand for. And also, they should know that the reason I joined DSA is because they are fighting to ensure people have access to quality healthcare. They want massive immigration reform though we don't always agree in the way in which we want that. They also want people to have access to affordable housing, fully funded public schools, pushing for early childhood education, to be free, free college. And so what they want to do is make sure that regular people like those folks who are concerned with rising dictators, they want them to have the power. And they want them to be making the decisions. They want the policies to come from them, not just these oligarchs, these rich people, these billionaires and these corrupt corporations. They want regular everyday people to get to decide what their communities look like and what their economies look like. And so that is the reason that I joined the organization. Now, do I agree with 100% of what they agree with and the national platform that they rolled out after I actually had joined? No, but I don't agree with everything that the Democrats rolled out and they, you know, with their platforms all the time either. No one is 100% in agreement with any organization that they joined. - So you're not a big Fidel Castro fan, like you're not, you don't have a, do you have a child poster in Europe? - No, and also like, that wasn't all of them, right? Absolutely not, definitely not. - This segment is sponsored by The New York Times. You might have cut me and JBL last week on the show, discussing the delicious New York Times story from Jody Cantor who's been on the show, front of the show, where she traveled up to Maine. We'll be talking about the Maine debate later. I'm just gonna see what was happening on the ground there. There's a little Hamlet Little Island off the coast of Maine where John Roberts likes to summer. And, you know, it was a tough story 'cause back in the day, people really, really liked doing whatever Maine people do in the summer. I don't know, lobster ring and crabbing and hanging out with John Roberts. And it was peaceful. But in the ensuing years when, you know, John Roberts made decisions like giving Donald Trump total immunity from the law. Some of his neighbors started to not kind of enjoy the hangs so much. And so there was a group of people, which I loved this term. They called them some kay activists that get their kayaks and hold up signs outside John Roberts House and protest them and he ended up suffering some social consequences, which, you know, JBL loves so much. It was a really delightful story. If you missed it, you go check it out. It's just the kind of thing that you need, you go to reporting to do. You need people on the ground. You need people that are able to go to places and do sourcing, talk to folks. And obviously, this one is a little kind of fun and cheeky and silly. There are serious versions of this. The New York Times is doing it with reporters all over the world. And obviously here at home. The Jodi Kiana story is just one example of fact-based reporting. We're doing some fact-based reporting here. If you're not getting the newsletters from Jonathan Cohnlaw and Egan, Adrian Karskio, et cetera, et cetera. This is how we get the-- I'm out here, just yapping, you know? We need fact-based reporting. So I got stuff to yap about. So wherever you seek it out nationally locally, support fact-based reporting. Thanks to the New York Times. I want to talk about the coalition. You have with David Jalik. It's kind of interesting with you being progressive and him being one of the never-trumpers. And in the campaign against Orban in Hungary, for example, there's this big United for Hungary coalition that took people that were really conservative and really far more conservative than David and more left than you. And joined together against Orban. And I'm just going to wonder how you sort of think about that big coalition and running with David. First of all, again, as the former executive director of the largest statewide progressive coalition and movement organization, I understand the need to be a real big tent and to build diverse coalitions. And I understand the power in that. And that's what I'm doing here with David. And yes, we're going to, we are, we've campaigned in places together, and we're going to continue to do so. But we're also, Florida is a really big state town. It's 67 counties in this state. Shout out to the Gen Z that may be watching the show. You know, got up. Yeah. Got to get that Gen Z vote. Got up, yeah. But no, it's a huge state. And so we need to spread out and spread the good news about this cool, diverse ticket that is representative of everyone here in the state of Florida and that is going to, again, put people first. And so I'm excited about it. I don't know if you know this about me, but back in the before times, you know, before Donald Trump changed everything. And I worked for Jeb Bush. And, you know, Jeb always was like more conservative than me. And, you know, does not like Donald Trump. Does not like some of the things we've been talking about from the corruption from the authoritarianism standpoint, but he's still a conservative guy. And, you know, to win a state like Florida, you're going to have to figure out how to win Trump voters, not saying that he was, but you're going to have to win conservative voters. And so I'm kind of like wondering what is your message to somebody like Jeb? Somebody that's conservative has concerns about the way Donald Trump's running the country, but also maybe it feels like you're going to be too far left for them. And yeah, what I tell folks is that they should want a U.S. Senator who's going to be accessible at the coin someone that they can trust. Ashley Moody is someone who won't even have in-person town hall meetings. She won't even take, you know, respond to phone calls or emails from constituents unless they are like, you know, maybe have donated on her campaign, or they have a huge group to be behind them. And so we need someone who is going to not only push policies, but who's also going to have a good constituency services and connect people to the resources and agencies and departments that they need when times are hard if they like oftentimes people reach out to our offices because we're their last resort. And you want an elected official whose office is able to kind of navigate their bureaucratic mess and cut through the minutiae and like get people what they need. But also in terms of policies, look, I want people, all people to be able to have the opportunity to be healthy, prosperous and safe. I want small business owners to be able to stay in business because there's a lot more people with disposable income that can go shop with them. I want people to be healthy, people who have worked their entire lives to have social security and not have to worry about going back to work, even though they are retired and you know, they're living out their last days. No one should go bankrupt simply because they can't afford a doctor or they can't afford life-saving medical treatment. And that's what's happening in this moment. And so I can promise folks I'll have an open door. There have been times where I was the only Democrat voting with Republicans and that is because in the stayhouse and that is because I really, it's not about party for what? It's not about party for me. There was a bill about drones or something, going over, being allowed to go over people's properties for surveillance and that type of stuff. And I think it was just me and a few other Republicans that voted in opposition event. And it's different things like that. I have broken away from my party a time or two, actually more than a time or two. And that is because again, like I put people first, I think about what it is that my community needs and I want folks to know that I'm not this extremist. I just want people to be good and have what they need to live a good, good life. I don't want any drones flying over my house either. I don't know. This is where I start to get, you know, I get a little Alex Jones at some time like, why are you all watching me? I don't know. Where are you out on the cameras? No, like I don't think you knew. I'm not sure if you knew Tim, but I think it was, I don't know if it was Palm Beach somewhere south Florida. It may be St. Lucie County. There was a, they voted to take the, the, the, the flock cameras down. They took them down and they found 11 more that no one authorized. And so people don't know who owned those. Where that data went. I'm a millennial Tim, an older millennial. What, what are you Tim? What are you saying? Okay. We grew up on Terminator Minority Report in the year of the state. And I'm like, I'm watching in real time. Some of the stuff that we saw in those movies. And it's like, I don't like it. I don't like how this ends. And so I am going to work diligently. I mean, the state's a good poll. That was a sleeper. Right. That was a sleeper. They were taping Will Smith. They had cameras in his house. I don't, I don't know. I don't like any of that. I might have to rewatch it. I mean, the state. Was there any, this is going to, this is a hard one. Okay. You just got to bear down. But you are up there in the state house. You know, meet Paul Ron DeSantis. Like he had to have a point on something. Were there any things? Were there any policies where you're like, all right. I can work with him on this one. Not really. You know, possibly, but it was, he was just so bad. Yeah, it wasn't good. He was so bad. I know I agree with him on one thing recently. He slammed Palm Beach County Republicans for endorsing a pedophile by the name of Mike Caruso. Mike Caruso had gotten arrested for allegations that he has sexually assaulted a child within his family. But this was not like the first allegations. And so I agree with Ron DeSantis on that. What about the permanent daylight savings time down there? I know. Are you and Trump on the same side of that one? The permanent daylight savings time? I don't know. Is whatever the late sun sets? I don't know. I'm worried about people being able to have food on their table in a roof over the head. That's like, that's what I care about. I don't know. You're a mother. You're a mother. I get, I get, I get shit on the permanent daylight savings time because people are like, well, the kids waiting for the bus stop. It's going to be dark. And I was like, I guess, but I'm a dad. My daughter is eight. And I don't know. I like it when she comes home from school that we have time to go shoot hoops or go to the park or go for a bike ride outside. I want that extra hour after school. That's okay. That's a parents concern. You know, DVD, DVD. I'm worried about food and medicine and, you know, life saving medical procedures. I hear you. Have you ever thought I should be doing more to protect myself from stalkers, scammers, hackers? But you're not sure what to do. Well, here's the first step. Go to joindeleteme.com size with bulwark and enter code bulwark. You'll get 20% off. Delete me. Delete me removes your personal information that's being sold online. From the age of AI, we're all especially vulnerable to scammers. Sure, you guys have been noticing this would be the tech scams. The tech scammers are getting a little better too. You know, I get a lot of texts from people. People as numbers, I've never saved thought I had didn't have. And now the scammers are kind of doing the thing where it's like, Hey, buddy, you busy today? It's just, it sounded a little more human. 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How old are they all now? 19. One is going to be 18 at the end of this month, two 13 year olds that are twins and then a six year year old. A heckler, a tracker came into my business yesterday or the day before and attempted to catch me up or about a wall that had people from the civil rights movement that had gotten arrested. And some that had gotten acquitted and that type of thing and some that maintained their innocence even after arrest. And a tracker came and tried to disrupt. And I was calming him down, but then he got a little rowdy between him and some other people in the shop. And you can hear the six year old in the background saying, everyone stop arguing. And it was my baby. She said it twice. She's like, but you know, this is so random. But you know, I believe that when we name our children, like we should be really cognizant of what we named them. I was very intentional about naming her. Her name is Ashanti Jace. Ashanti is like warrior strong, you know, as the Ashanti tribe in Africa. But I was intentional about Jace, which is I pulled it from Jason. And Jason means healer. And I always say that I wanted my daughter to heal the world. And here she is already starting out at an event where Republicans are coming to crash my event, even though I'm trying to help Republicans, right? And she's just like everyone stop arguing and like bring in peace and trying to heal heal the issues that are happening in the moment. So while you're healer, I like that. That's a good, that's good balance. Kids are fun. It's it's people. I mean, it's gross that you have to subject people to this. But sometimes it's like, I don't know. Some lady yelled at me at the airport the other day. And she said the F word at me. And my daughter was just like, are you sad, Papa? No. She's like, why? She's like, she said such mean things about you. And I was like, it's okay. People can say mean things about you. And you can just be tough. But you know, it's sometimes kind of hard to, I guess I just wonder like how you kind of think about like how, you know, that kind of range of 19 year old to sexual how that's sort of informing how you're thinking about the challenges we're facing right now. It is informing everything because my daughter, the 19-year-old, like she missed. very critical moments for socialization during COVID, right? Yeah. And so I see that impact on her and a lot of her friends or whatever, they are so, they have highs and lows and I see like they're kind of standoffish at times and they don't know how to socialize. And then I'm also concerned with just like their outlook on life right now. A lot of them are feeling depressed and as though I asked on the other day, they say the scenes as though the gap just keeps getting bigger and they don't know if they'll ever be able to catch up and to just breathe and not have to like just continue to work so hard and just never just get a break. Like those are the Gen Zers, right? Some of the younger Gen Zers. But then I see Generation Alpha like my baby and she's like, yeah, like we're going to do this. It's fearless like all the things and it's like, I don't know if that was because I had COVID at the time when I was pregnant and all the things, but it informs everything that I do with regards to how I show up, the type of policies that I'm pushing because I don't want them to be so straddled with like student loan debt. I want them to be able to afford a home, the average age for people to purchase their first home is between 40 and 42, I want parents to be able to not have to stress out about having kids because they can't afford child care. So that's like why I want to have things like universal child care. And so it informs everything, everything. You said about that Gen Z, John Asuf, it was interesting to create a little controversy the other day. I don't know why it was controversial, but he said, he's talking to a group of Gen Zs and said that he's telling them that despair is a luxury. And like that we don't have the luxury to just be despairing like we have agency and we have to act. How do you talk to young people who do feel this kind of despair that things just haven't gotten better? You know, I tell them that it sucks, like, let's be real, it does. The moment that we're in right now, it sucks, however, like, let's not just sit in that, right? Like, use that rage and despair as a motivator to fix our situations. And I talk about how the elders, they experienced hardships too and some, some worse, some to the point where they were literally like going die for trying to have some of the things that we had. And so not negating anything that folks feel right now in this moment because there is a lot of despair, but it's like, this is our future, this is, and we got to figure out what we want our legacy to be for our kids and grandkids and ourselves. And so like, let's lean in, right? You know, hope, hope, hope and shut hope and faith is, you got to put it in action, right? Like faith without works as a day, I grew up in a church. And so this is our country. This is our country too. We need to decide what we wanted to look like and stop allowing people who are made way more money than us to decide what it is. Like we're living in their dream. Like now is time for us to live in ours. 100% agree with you on that. 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You should turn to it as well if you need shutters or just, I don't know, maybe if you live in a different state, you might not need shutters. We need shutters. Right now, get quality window treatments and fit your budget with three day blinds. Find the three day blinds.com slash the bulwark for their by one get one 50% off deal on custom blinds, shades, and drapery for a free, no charge, no obligation, consultation, just head to three day blinds.com slash the bulwark one last time that's by one get one 50% off and you head to the number three d a y blinds.com slash the bulwark. I don't know 10 about your foreign policy and so I just wanted to touch on that briefly. Just at the biggest picture, you know, what's your kind of world view when it comes to as a senator what roles should be an unformed policy aggressive diplomacy and all in all areas. Never give a blank check to any ally. We need to make sure that we are working to get aggressive diplomacy. And so that is that is when we're looking at Cuba that's when we're looking at Venezuela. That's when we're thinking about the Middle East. That's when we're thinking about Sudan and Congo and all the things, right? Aggressive diplomacy. We're on the three year anniversary. It's October 7th of the October 7th attack on Israel, obviously just like unimaginable, you know, to think it's not, I guess, kind of comparable to state of Florida, like just if you thought about like the scale of how many people died and hostages in one place. So I'm just wondering, you know, obviously three years now, there's a lot that's happened there between Gaza and the West Bank, the people are upset about, but I'm just kind of wondering how you think about the situation and what our role is, you know, vis-a-vis Israel on this anniversary. Again, you know, what happened was horrible. It was major atrocities committed by Hamas, but also the response right now is bad as well. And so again, it is all about aggressive diplomacy. I want folks to know that like Israelis have a right to live healthy, prosperous and safe. And so do Palestinians. They have the right to live healthy, prosperous and safe. And so we need to be here trying to push for aggressive diplomacy in all areas and what's happening right now with it is making it unsafe for everyone that is involved and even also folks who are Jewish and Muslim in America as well. And we need to work too in bigotry anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in all forms, rooted out. But again, like we have to tone rhetoric down as lawmakers and we have to like again just work to find diplomacy in all avenues. I just don't, as a black person, you know, I understand how Jewish members feel, Jewish community members feel. And I also understand how members of the Arab and Muslim community feel. And I just don't want people fighting. I just want us all to just work together in harmony. I was surprised I was watching the clip of the debate last time between Troy Jackson and Susan Collins. And I was pleasantly surprised. My card's on the table that Jackson said that he thinks we should be writing more aid to Ukraine, military aid. Where are you on that? If you were in the Senate, what do you think our posture should be when it comes to military aid for Ukraine? Again, we should not just, we need to scrutinize all aid outside of the U.S. with the fine to comb. And again, we need to try to work for aggressive diplomacy. And so again, I'm just scrutinizing all the money that's going out. And we should not be cozying up to Putin, which is what Donald Trump has continually done. But we need to, we need to work to de-escalate what's happening over there as well. So it's like, baby, no, I mean, I assume there's no corruption, would you be for more military funding? I'm not saying it, listen, I'm not saying yes, I'm not saying yes, I'm not saying no. I have to actually get, you know, more intel. I only know what I know from new sites and that type of stuff. But I know that when I become a U.S. Senator, I'll have more information, and I'll also be leaning on some of the experts that are over there that have been dealing with what's happening. And then I can make that decision. But right now, there's not a decision that I'm comfortable sharing in this moment. If you got in there, one of the first things that might have been happening is impeachment of p-texas, Thomas Massey, put that on the table on the house. - Where you at on that, let's go. - Get 'em out of there. - Remove 'em. - I'd like to hear a little more about that. - I look forward to doing, honestly, this is a special election. And so I'll have the opportunity to actually push back against any picks for if they decide to allow, if they force out Alito and Tommy's, which is what we're hearing. I'll be able to, to interview and have conversations and to grill the folks that come before us for appointments. - Anybody else you wanna teach while we're at it? Or just, or we'll just start to take stuff and see where it goes. - The whole damn, the whole damn cabinet and the president, let's go. They've all committed impeachable offenses. - There's no doubt about that. - But I also want to make sure that we are actively doing the business of the people. And so, yes, we need to do that. And when simultaneously, we need to make sure that we are addressing this issue of healthcare, extending the ACA subsidies. We need to repeal the big BS bill, which gave tax breaks to only the ultra wealthy. We need to remove the working family taxes, which are these tariffs. And so we can shoe gum and walk at the same time. I know elected officials try to act as though they can, but they can, they need to stop with the BS. They need to cut through the BS. And let's get to work for the American people. - You're a Florida Gator. Tough loss for the football team last weekend. One in six in the last seven against LSU. So I'm just wondering how you're dealing with all that. - You know, I am a Florida Gator. I have a Gator on my arm. Actually, this is not why I have the Gator on my arm. It's because the Gator is synonymous with Florida in general. But, you know, I'm more of a Jaguar fan than I am a Florida Gator fan football fan. - Can I see the Gator one more time? I couldn't see that. I couldn't see that. Let me see the Gator on the arm. That's cool. You got guns there too. What you're, are you doing, are you doing some bicep curls? - I'm operating off reserves, Tim. They used to, I used to be more cut, but I've been so busy. I haven't had the time to go to the gym. I'm operating off reserves. So we got to work on that. - Okay, you're not down there in the hotel, in the hotel gym in the morning before the podcast. - Absolutely not. I'm trying to get sleepy, brother. I'm trying to get sleepy, sleep, day under my eyes, lower. - Same. I'm glad you brought it up because my bags are horrible. So we can do, we can be there together right now. All right, anything else I didn't ask you? Anything else you want to tell the ball work people? - Like, this is a winnable race, folks, and we'd love people to join our people power campaign at anginixin.com. They can sign up to volunteer, make phone calls, knock on doors, make phone calls, even if you are outside of the state, but then we would love for folks to donate as well. anginixin.com, let's do it, let's go. We're gonna shock the country and the world. - So nice to meet you and good luck on the campaign trail. All right. - Nice to meet you. - All right, everybody, sit around. - Thank you, tell, Jeff, the hollet. - I will, I will, I'll email them. (upbeat music) - All right, thanks so much to anginixin. I just want to play a little some highlight reels from the Jackson Collins debate last night. We're monitoring everything, we're covering everything. I'm here in New Hampshire, giving some feedback from our New Hampshire ball work fans that I'm not giving enough attention to Chris Pappas and the New Hampshire Senate race against John Sununu. And part of this is, we're not, we're knocking on the wood table here. Can you hear me knocking? Given the national environment, I think that in blue and purpleish blue states, like New Hampshire, the Democrats are gonna be fine. And Minnesota, I mean, many of you, some of you might have heard a few less from the next level podcast. So if Michelle Tavoya, the former NFL sideline reporter, is a MAGA conspiracy theorist wins the Minnesota Senate race. Like some people on the internet think might happen in the MAGA side. I said, I will fly to Duluth, stripped down to boxers. I'm really usually more of a brief sman, but in this case, I think boxers would be appropriate. And I'll hold up a sign that says Tampa on Tim with an arrow pointed down to me. So I'm just, I'm pretty confident about Minnesota and New Hampshire and some of these other races. But Maine, you know, Susan Collins is just a different beast. And she's, she's had some deafness in the past. She surprised people and way up performing the polls six years ago against Sarah Gideon. And so it's the one out of kind of that blue, purpleish blue kind of part of the map that I still really do have my eye on. And I can tell you, my expectations were pretty low. Life's all about expectations. My expectations were pretty low for Troy Jackson. And seems like he performed pretty well last night. So I want to play a couple of clips for you. The first one is Susan Collins, trying to do the Susan Collins thing that has worked for her up in Maine, which is say, well, you know, the national party that might be crazy, but I'm serving Maine. I'm bringing home the bacon for Maine. I'm bringing home the road salt for Maine. In this case, let's watch that. - I have been strongly voting against the tariffs with Canada, but I've also been working behind the scenes. Troy mocked it, but I was successful in getting concrete, pulp, and road salt removed from the tariff list. And if you ask towns in northern Maine and eastern Maine, they get all of their road salt from Canada. The small town of Frenchville with 900 people would have to pay $10,000 more this winter had I not been successful. A businessman in Waldo County who's in the concrete business would have phased $150,000 more a month. And I'm not finished. I'm still fighting for more of a reduction in the tariffs. - Thank you. Senator Jackson, same question to you. - Well, what mayors can afford to pay their bills for the press release or a strongly worded letter like Senator Collins keeps talking about. I didn't mock the fact that she got road salt back. I mocked the fact that what about everything else? I mean, we can't eat road salt. And the thing about it is is that everything that she's doing with iron, war and stuff like that, there's gonna be so many less people that'll be able for to drive that I'm not even sure the road salt's gonna be worth anything either. We have a country right now all across northern border that are having trade wars with Canada for absolutely no reason than Donald Trump. Senator Collins put Lutnik on knowing full well that he wanted blanket tariffs. And that's what we have now. And she won't use her authority as chair of appropriations to actually push, I mean, there is ways. I've appointed appropriations chairs. There are ways to get your leverage things to make this happen. I'm not gonna give her credit for getting one thing back when we have thousands of things that people are having to pay more money for because she won't let Donald Trump, she won't talk back against Donald Trump. And tariffs are a function of Congress, not the function of the president. - I like Troy on the, off the cuff there, we can't eat road salt, I think that is definitely true. I mean, I don't know, some dogs, maybe. The pitch is tough for her right now, right? Like this idea that, oh, I've been strong, I've been strongly, very strongly voting against the tariffs, but they've all went through. But also I have all this influence of Trump and you need me there because I have this influence. That's like, well, why? That's like, okay, well, would you actually do? That's like, well, the one thing I did is we got, we got the pulp and the road salt removed from the tariff list. Like, I guess that's nice, but, you know, when you're freezing through the winter 'cause you're heating costs so much, having cheaper road salt isn't really doing you a lot of good. And I think that kind of that back and forth just showed that Troy is arguing from a stronger position because he's able to undercut the central message that has allowed Susan Collins to survive as somebody who has a brand for bucking the party even though, you know, people listen to this show know, a lot of that is performative, more than actual results. So anyway, this small town of Frenchville, if we have any of the 900 people for that small town of Frenchville listening, I hope that you have cheaper road salt. But I saw like, this is kind of a bigger picture out there as well, but shout out Frenchville. Okay, let's listen to one more on this that I think really drives this home even more. - Also, Iran war, I mean, Senator Collins would not push back against that five times she voted for it. I mean, the reason why our fuel prices going through the roof and the reason why our electricity costs are going through the roof is because of the cost of fuel, cost of oil is so high because she wouldn't stop President Trump with the Iran war. Tariffs, another thing that, as a chair of appropriation, she could have done more to stop, but now we have prices all across the state. Fuel prices would go into Canada. Everything that we're buying, tourism, all because of the tariffs. - And this is it, and Troy is doing here what I've been pushing, you know, Democratic candidates to do and strategist when I talk to them on the show off the show, which is, you know, going right at the Iran war side of this. And with your Susan Collins, you were for the war. You were for it. You voted for it five times. People are suffering the consequences. And then he. can kind of tie it back to the tariffs there. So, you know, whether these two fundamental issues that the people have made or against that are causing them tangible harm, Susan Collins hasn't done anything to prevent it. And on the war in particular, she was all in. You know, on the tariffs, at least you can kind of say, well, I was strongly voting against it and not doing anything. I mean, you're the appropriations chair. There you could have tried to take back the power of the purse, but like, you know, she at least has that talking point. That's not true on the war. Like, these guys were all in. And, you know, some of them were trying to tip toe back away now, but there was not pushback from Republican senders besides Ray and Paul at the beginning of this war. Susan Collins, you know, my favorite Susan Collins story of all time is that on January 6, she said that she thought the people strumming the Capitol were Iranians. Like, that's that's where her head is. She's such an Iran war hawk that like, she was confused into thinking that there was like a band of, I don't know, MAGA, I told us storming the Capitol on January 6. She could not like, it was not aware enough of what was happening within her party to recognize what was really happening. And so, you know, I mean, like, this is her war. And I think fundamentally, that's an issue that Troy Jackson has good credibility on. And I think if he's able to kind of continue to drive the point you made in that clip, you know, here through the last month, I'm feeling a lot better about that main race. One other one just for a little chuckle. Well, I mean, Senator Collins has been a government employee or entire life. She's always had health care. She's always had, you know, a steady income coming in. That's not the way it is for most of us. I mean, health care is a real challenge. And she's made it worse by advancing the big, beautiful bill. First of all, I have not been insured my health life. I spent a year when I was running for governor in 1994, where I could not afford health insurance. So, Troy, you're just out and have wrong on that. But that's not really the issue here. So, Collins didn't have health care for one year, when she was running for governor, 32 years ago. She's been running for office for 32 years. Not a ton of experience as somebody, you know, trying to pay the rent, trying to, you know, insure their bills were paid. It was like the one time that she decided to run for governor. She had a gap in her health care coverage. Didn't seem to want to do any, after that, it wasn't like, well, and I think that that was some mistake. We should have addressed that. We should have had a more universal coverage for governor candidates, nothing like that. So, I do think that, you know, Susan Collins has been out of touch for a while. But she has offset that by being very president of the community and being, you know, and so while, you know, she might live in kind of a bubble of disreality where she thought Iranians were attacking the capital in January 6th. And, you know, she hasn't had any financial worries and security all this for a long time. I think that the people of Maine saw in her, like somebody that, you know, whatever, cared about what was happening in Frenchville. And the second Trump term makes that case really hard. And you end up with a person that is out of touch that feels like people should sympathize with her because 32 years ago, when she was running for governor, she had a gap in her health care, who seems almost over the course of the debate, just a couple of scripts she saw, almost kind of like annoyed that she has to campaign, that she has to defend herself, just to explain, you know, why Donald Trump was able to run roughshod over her. Like, there is just, you know, a real sense of that this is like a seat that is owed to her and that she doesn't have to make any sacrifices in order to make people's lives better in Maine. And I just don't think that's just going to be the year for that. So, Troy Jackson, performing above expectations last night, the debate, wanted to share that with you all. Appreciate Angie Nixon for her time this morning from Hotel in Orlando. She's out there on the campaign trail. I'm coming at you from Hanover, a little rocky mug back there. I'll be back home tomorrow with the regular setup and hopefully better under eye care. Appreciate you all very much and we'll be seeing you tomorrow. Peace. [Music] You can see it, you're running as I can go back on the street. I've been here when we both going to see it. I'm going to try and hear killing your own goal, means I can be good. [Music] The Borek Daily is brought to you thanks for the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzaly Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.