MAGA's Future is in Florida (with Will Sommer)

Let's say there's someone who's racist, pro-Nic Fuentes, whatever, who doesn't have pedophile allegations, who isn't comically in debt, who doesn't have all these credibility issues. I think they could do a lot better in a future primary. Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bull work in this week. We're going to go to Florida, the new center of the MAGA universe. Florida has always been full of many key Republican voting blocks like old people, wealthy people, white people, and old wealthy white people. It used to be a swing state, but Florida's turned beet red in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic. After Ron DeSantis's COVID policy made the state even more of a magnet for migration by Republicans and other red-pilled types. But DeSantis's term limited out this year and there's a Republican primary for governor that's a pretty clear cut example of the schism between the MAGA establishment and America first wings of the Republican Party that I think we're going to see play out more in 2028. My guest today is Will's summer author of the Bullworks False Flag newsletter, which is incredible if you're not reading it. Will, thanks for being here. Hey, thanks for having me. No one knows the MAGAverse like you do. And I mean that, not just at the Bullwork, but basically anywhere. So I'm excited to have you on this week because you wrote last week about the shadow Tucker Carlson presidential campaign going on. Lay that out for me because I'm pretty invested in your thesis here. I think I share it quite a bit, but talk about what you think Tucker is up to because it relates to sort of what is happening in Florida and the schism in general between the MAGA establishment and America first. Tucker Carlson has been discussed as maybe like a surprise or a dark horse candidate for 2028. But I think in just the past few weeks, we've seen him really kind of accelerate that idea. And he has an officially declared yet, but he's meeting with sort of other disaffected people who used to support Trump like Congressman Thomas Massey, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, the former countertaire chief. And then last week he gave essentially a speech on his show, how we're going to fix the country. And so he laid out what to me seem very much kind of like a presidential speech. He almost, he all but said he was running for president. It's like a 10 point plan. My 10 point plan, America must be optimistic. America must be, you know, dignified, beautiful. Yes. And then of course there's there's always a sinister policy that he's hiding in that word. He didn't say he's running. He didn't say he's launching a third party. But I do think that if in 2027, he announces, I think we could see this as sort of the moment. He really started running seriously. I am struck by a the fact that they're not really trying to hide it at all. In fact, what they're doing is they're sort of posting their clubhouse, right? You see these pictures. Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massey, like they're all hanging out somewhere around a table, clearly discussing their future plans, showing that there is a community of America firsters that are coming together to talk about what it means to sort of take on Donald Trump in this moment. He spent a lot of time on Tucker. I've long thought Tucker was going to run or or because I think Tucker's a real student of Trump. And I think that one of the things he understands is that like RFK and like Trump in the beginning, simply by commanding a really fervent 20% of some kind of coalition gives you an enormous amount of leverage as well as the threat of taking that chunk of voters and turning it into a third party run because everybody knows then you're splitting their coalition and so they start to become deferential to you and they look for ways to bring you into coalition. This is why RFK is the HHS secretary after trying to run against Donald Trump is because they're like, this guy commands a real constituency. We've got to do something for him to keep him in. Tucker wants at least that seat at the table if not a leader of a new movement. Who else is out there in the America first wing of the party that you see as ascendant potentially in picking up this mantle? >> It's interesting. I mean, I think someone like Joe Kent potentially could. He's done some kind of savvy moves. I think he's also kind of like Tucker. He has some nuttier sides to him, whether it's you know, Tucker's talking about wrestling with demons in the middle of the night or in Joe Kent's case. I mean, he's very like Charlie Kirk conspiracy pilled. On the other hand, he was in the military. His wife died tragically in an ISIS bombing. I mean, he has sort of a backstory of a presidential candidate. And most importantly, he resigned from the administration over the war with Iran. The war is kind of hot and cold. It hasn't become this quagmire that I think will mar everyone in the administration forever. At least as far as Republicans are concerned. But I think if it gets worse, you could see someone like Joe Kent saying, "I was the one, unlike JD Vance or Mark Rubio. I was the only one with the scruples to resign over this." You know, a lot of these guys hung in with Trump over tariffs and they hung in with Trump when he wasn't lowering prices. He wasn't doing things, but it was the war. That gave the America first guys their off ramp. Do you think that voters or even if not just voters, but like a significant chunk of the coalition is ready to abandon Trump over the Iran war? The Iran war was probably, along with the Epstein files, then they attempt to kind of cover that up. It has been the biggest split certainly in this administration with the base. I think it depends how bad it gets. I mean, I think if there start being more American casualties, people will become more critical of it. Right now, it's in this weird kind of quasi-war phase where it's like, you know, we're attacking boats. Well, maybe there's a discussion towards a ceasefire. If you're looking at it in a way that you really want to be favorable to Trump, you're probably not looking at it that closely and feeling too bad about it. But certainly, among kind of like the intellectuals on the right, people like Tucker Carlson, people who want that kind of broader split with Israel. I think this is definitely like the big issue. All right. Let's get into the focus groups. So we could feed two groups of Florida Republicans who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 and are voting in Florida's primary. We've been asking Republican leaning groups to give Trump letter grades because there are signs his approval rating is dipping with them in my signs. I mean, there's a lot of polls showing that his approval rating is dipping. For instance, in February 2025, his approval rating among Republicans and Republican leaders was 84% according to Pew Research. In August, it is 69%. So that's a real drop. In the groups we conducted for this show, the majority of the grades we heard were in the sea range and below, which is not super atypical of what we're hearing right now. Like he is flagging with a lot of his voters. But I was in Florida. I was surprised actually at how people were receiving Trump. Let's listen to voters talk about the grades that they gave Trump. His first presidency, mostly awesome. That's the last seven months. And then to the vote September six stuff. Nowadays, the older he seems like a spoiled toddler. I was laid off with 13,000 other people of Verizon and the income inequality is not better. And he's even with his insider trading stuff. He's like, nobody cares. But he can do the stuff and do all the insider trading stuff. But so are the Democrats. All of them are doing it. Just he's so open about it. Yeah, I'm doing. I don't think at this point the country still headed in the right direction. The war is going to drag him down. It's going to affect the elections from mid-term. The economic plan he had. Like I said, I'm a strong believer in the kitchen table issues. And the first part of what he did initially was all this stuff on the tariffs, which made the prices of things go up. Now, long term, that benefits the country because they get the tariff money. But that money doesn't go to the people. That money goes to the government. And it takes years to filter down to the people in a way of tax relief. I think the war is the worst thing that could happen. And I really do think he didn't think this was going to happen. I think someone made a really poor decision. Did they even know that Iran was going to be able to take over the the straighter pormos? And did they not know that they weren't going to have enough military, whatever it is that they needed to be able to end it quickly? I remember the day that we started going to war with them. And I could have sworn Trump said we're going to go in and out. It's going to be over with. Two weeks. And it's taken forever. And I think he realizes this is a big mistake. And I seriously think he don't know how he's going to get out of this. This hold on now for F. I think the biggest disappointment for me or this too really when Trump was campaigning when his big platforms was securing the border. I was expecting nasty portations like real nasty portations. That's kind of what I was expecting. I was expecting you know revising who's actually being able to be you know a resident as well. Iran has really bothered me because I feel like for decades we've spent a lot of time in the Middle East for all the wrong reasons not serving our interests but serving Israel's interests. The Iran war thing is really the kind of the sticking point at this juncture. I think I would have graded in A. If he would have just gone in and taken care of the problem from the start instead of letting it drag on as much as it has we really need to be focused more on the economy and getting gas prices down. He keeps saying that's going to happen but it hasn't yet. I would love like Joe was saying if it was nasty portation happening sooner than it is but I do think it's happening in good numbers so I'm pretty happy with that but the war is the stuff that scares me and I feel like every time we've reached a deal and the street is opening and it's just it's just a constant and it's scary because you don't know what these people are capable of. So and you don't know who's in our country already, who's been led in over the years. Does it surprise you to hear two things? One, how negative they are on Donald Trump. Even if it's a little more in sorrow than an anger, they were very, very negative, but also the war in Iran. It is almost like their list. That's why I started with Tucker. It's almost like they're listening. They feel much more fidelity with the Tucker wing and the America first or wing on Iran and with Israel, then they do with the mega establishment who's saying, you know, there's all these reasons we need to do this. You know, imagine in 2028 when there won't be a candidate with Trump's charisma or his like kind of hold on this base, someone like Tucker or his, you know, whatever candidate he backs says, I'm not going to get us in one of these Middle East forever wars for real this time. You know, and you know, JD Vance said the same thing and look what he did. It's striking I think that the average Republican voter is starting to think much more like war in the Middle East equals Israel. Like that is being done for Israel, not kind of like other ally. They have some benefit here, but like that is being directed by Israel. You know, I think that's very bad for the traditional like very pro-Israel, you know, mega establishment. They're pretty downbeat, you know, I mean, I, you know, you talk about the sea grade is pretty awful for Republicans to be giving Trump. Obviously, I've been a little bit focused on the Democrats as we go through a lot of these primaries, but whenever I dig into a mega group these days, they are really down on Trump and the war is a big part of it and the economy is the other big part of it. And you the guy that started with Trump's first term, the economy was so good. I hear this all the time and I heard it as a justification for voting for Trump when a lot of the double haters who were like, I don't like Trump and I don't like Biden, but you know, Trump's first term, the economy was really good and I want that economy back. The other thing is that he owns the tariffs and people do not think that the tariffs are working in their thing like that. This group encompassed all of the things that I generally hear from Trump voters and I'm obsessed obviously with the Bush line. And the reason that I'm obsessed with getting Trump to 32% is that when George W Bush left office at 32%, that left kind of the party wide open for getting hijacked and change because people are so disillusioned with Bush's war, the handling of the economy, the increased debt, all of those things. So in my head, right, why want people to think that mega is a failure? On the other hand, there's always the like, hey, it could get worse guys. I do wonder to your point about Tucker, you know, no, for real this time. I look, I am under no illusions and I'm pretty clear about this in the book. Like there's no going back. Like I don't have any illusions that are going back to the Romney party or anything like that. I guess I do think that there's maybe a slightly healthier version of the Republican party that could emerge, but it seems to me that the Tucker wing that is currently ascendant and is being elevated by this war gets us actually further to a place where actually what he's trying to do is build a bottom of the horseshoe coalition that is bound together by being conspiracy theorists, anti-Israel, anti-war and probably much more populist on economic things than even Trump was because Trump ran as an economic populist but governed as an establishment. We're probably going to like just tax cuts for people because it is notable that Tucker is against Trump now. There are more and more of them. There are against Trump. Is the last part of Trump's hold going to be eroded by that America first outflanking Trump on some of these issues? As you said, I mean, Tucker often talks in ways that I think, particularly for people who are not that like politically, you know, you could say engaged or maybe indoctrinated, like people who have not been taught what their party's line is supposed to be, whether from Fox News or wherever, that kind of makes sense to people. He says, well, the economy shouldn't run on debt and almost suggests that there'd be some kind of death forgiveness in the Tucker administration or I think you're looking at stuff that appeals to people and I think kind of like ways of like, yes, that's how it should work. But in reality, when he says, you know, America should be sovereign. I mean, that I think suggests to me, you know, the deportations aren't ending, you know, the people in the folks group were saying, you know, Trump did not deliver on what we were promised, things like deportations or, you know, no war. So I think there could be a way in the same way that the Republican Party suddenly acted like, well, who was that George W. Bush guy? Who's fault was that? Not us. I think we could see possibly that happened with Trump. It's hard to imagine just because the kind of the hold of his personality is still so tight on the party. But, you know, we're starting to see some of his primary candidates lose in big ways. I feel like that grip is loosening in some ways we can see. A lot of people in this group had moved to Florida from somewhere else, which is very common for Florida. A subset of those had moved to Florida because of their politics, because they see it as a red havin. But an even smaller subset had moved there after the pandemic. Listen to people talk about what drew them to Florida in the first place. I moved down to Florida in 2022 after I graduated college. I've always wanted to live in warmer weather. So it's why I came down here. I also struggled with being mass-tuced with the political aspect of it. And COVID has kind of got me into politics because I really didn't agree with what they were doing. And I couldn't stand living there anymore with all the restrictions. Basically, through a dark and ended up in Florida, about three years ago from the state of Maryland. And I would say the great state of Maryland, but it's no longer a great state, unfortunately. With their politics, it's one of the reasons I wanted to move. I live in Fort Lauderdale. I was born in the US and raised in Brazil. We moved back to the US in 2018. We moved to Connecticut. We decided to move down to Florida in 2021. I was pregnant with my first baby and we were not happy with the politics there and the way things were during COVID. I guess this idea started swirling around on my mind ever since I moved to New Jersey. When all the COVID lockdowns were starting to happen, I was starting to get a little bit more of a sense of how things were ran there. I was looking towards some place where cost of living was better and that my values were shared a little more broadly. I have family down here too. I think the politics has something to do with cost of living. And how things are run here helps the perspective on the second amendment. Definitely helps for me personally. New Jersey is very prohibitive in that sense. I came from Michigan and it's a way different politics over there and a lot of things that just did not agree with. And Lord, I thought it was just, you know, to save Haven. I agree with a lot of the things that politicians, you know, pushed over here and as other people mentioned, you know, the different, you know, the genders in the bathrooms, the schooling, all that. I can't stand behind a lot of those things. My first, you know, a couple of years here, I had a lot of issues with racism over here, especially because I'm Muslim and I have those issues because back on the Lamaire Muslims over here, I was just getting just, you know, a lot of racial remarks and things that I just don't think anybody should go through. I actually moved here in 2017. It just seems like the place to be. I lived in Texas in North Carolina for a while. They were great, but Florida seems more middle road conservatives. We still have weed here, you know, we're not necessarily banning abortion. We're not hard-lining stuff here. There's still a lot of middle ground stuff going on here and I'm okay with that. I don't like this hard-line stuff that Texas is doing. I respect it, but I think it's okay to have a little leeway. I should note that Florida has roughly the same abortion law as Texas, but okay. He's just the, you know, the beach vibes. He thinks it's a lot more relaxed, you know. Hey, they got weed down there. All right. Listen, since Florida has become such a magnet for mega voters and mega influencers, what role does it play in your reporting compared to other red states like Tennessee and Texas? Like you, you look at Florida, all right? I mean, I would say like Tennessee and Texas, but really most importantly, Florida, really kind of like the hubs of mega activity. From my perspective, it's really useful because Florida has awesome open records laws and it's great that all my characters are down there getting sued, getting arrested, and I can just call up the county clerk and say, I need this, I need this file now. So, you know, just selfishly, I'm glad they moved down there. But, you know, overall, it really has, you know, you've got Michael Flynn down there. You've got kind of these different like hubs. They're creating kind of the clubhouses and having all these activities. I think even more so than national and Texas or Tennessee and Texas, it's become maybe the hub for the mega boop. We're going to get into the governor's race in one second. But, you know, there's definitely hope. I would say that a Democrat could once again win in Florida. Is that possible though? Like, is it gotten so red that the idea that a Democrat could win in the state is pretty far fetched? It seems pretty impossible to me. I mean, I, you know, it went red before it became known as kind of like Ron DeSantis' COVID Haven. Since then, I mean, I think the immigration has been like, if you're moving to Florida, I think there's a pretty good chance you're attracted to those politics. I think it's really only become redder. So, I feel like by the time Florida flips at this point, you know, a whole lot of other, certainly Texas probably would have gone before it. I hate to like give up on any state. But, I do think the fact that DeSantis held out a shingle saying the free state of Florida and that it became synonymous because of Mar-a-Lago and everybody being down there became really synonymous with Maga. It is a, it is a Maga state. Yeah, it seems, it seems like a tough, tough hill to climb to get Florida back. But let's talk about this governor's race because there are four major candidates. And we're going to spend most of our time on two of them, probably the two you've heard of, and the other two, I'd be surprised if you have. First is Byron Donalds, a congressman from Southwest Florida who has Donald Trump's endorsement. Then there's James Fishback, a racist former venture capitalist whose life is a complete train wreck who you've spent some time on. She's the other guy, Jake Collins, the current Lieutenant Governor of Florida who still can't seem to pull Rhonda Santas' endorsement, which seems like a bummer for him. And Paul Renner, the former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. We're really going to just talk about Donalds and Fishback because Byron Donalds has a pretty wide lead in the polls. Although I got to say, after watching a couple of these races, the dem primary races and how bad the polling has been, I do think everybody should just be remains circumspect about internal polls. But I still think that Donalds is expected to win next week and I think it was kind of reflected in the groups, but it doesn't mean everyone in our groups were super jazzed to vote for him. Let's listen to how folks talked about Byron Donalds. - My biggest issue is home insurance rates. Byron is the one I hear most about. I moved here in 2019 and my home insurance was 870 a year and now it's 4,000 a year and I've never had a claim. I think he's probably going to end up winning it. There are certain things about him. He did, he missed a fairly significant amount of votes during the sessions that have been going on. You know, there's some questionable personal financial things that he and his life have been involved in. - I had actually written down a few things that I read about him that I thought was interesting and the two that caught my eye is that he is promising to lower taxes and hopefully we are gonna see the end of the property taxes here very soon. And I also agree with the parental control at the schools, the fact that here in Florida we have more control over it makes me very happy. We came from a state that did not have that. So yeah, I'll probably go with Byron Donalds as well. - I'm still on the Byron and Train. I was all in previously and now I'm at the point where I'm really, I know it's only a week left but I'm really doing my homework to make sure that it's still who I wanna go for. I think there's been a few situations where he could have stood up and said his own peace versus just climbing into bed with others. And I don't wanna get specific in it because some of it becomes someone would consider racially strafing. - I am leaning towards Donalds because I think he has a lot more that he can do for us even though I don't know how he's gonna do all that he's saying he can do. I did write a couple things down too. Lowering the property taxes is insurance cost of living and then he also wants money for medical law enforcement, public safety, fire services and emergency of medical. The guy is the former felon. He's got all kinds of corruption swirling around him. I don't even know about the charter school business and his wife went on and it just doesn't smell right. So it seems like it's another one of these people who's probably gonna have dirt that could be held over their head and get them to do what they want. And I don't like that. So for that part, I'm kinda looking towards an outsider or somebody who's probably not well liked within their own party. - I realize that Trump has endorsed Byron Donalds but I keep reading a lot of bad things about Byron Donalds. I know he's all about Washington and hasn't been in Florida a lot to deal with a lot of the issues that Jay and Ron have been working with. I know that he had issues before he became part of the Senate or the House that he had done when he was younger and I realize we've all done stupid things when we were younger but I think he is pro data center and I know that a lot of people are kind of against data centers. - He's APEC funded and I don't think there should be any influence from any other countries within our American politics. - Honestly, because Byron Donalds has been endorsed by Trump, it honestly turns me off a little bit. Simply just because I feel like his political career took off when he was really kind of aligned with Trump on a lot of things, I feel like that focus is more on national than it does our federal than it does on Florida where I feel like, you know, to St. Antis and Trump have had their alignment sometimes. - We're taping this on Wednesday morning. This will come out on Saturday. We're taping it Wednesday morning after the Wisconsin primary. One of the things that struck me when we did focus groups of Democrats in Wisconsin, we did it a few weeks before the primary. And so a lot of the voters talked about Hong for Anchesa Hong who just lost despite having all this polling that showed that she was way ahead. And all these polls came out much like Abdul Al-Sahead had polling that showed him way ahead and ultimately it was very, very close. And in Michigan, I said, guys, I think people like Kaley Stevens a lot more than Twitter and sort of the pundits think because the voters think she's good. I think it's gonna be closer. And it was like tight as a dick, although Siad pulled it out. Same thing I said with Francesca Hong as I was like, you know, the voters were like, yeah, I guess her, but they also didn't know very much about her. Right? She had the outsider kind of, and what happened in the intervening three weeks was all of her comments started to be elevated and people got more skeptical of her and ultimately, Crowley, who was the more, well, call him for a lack of a better term, the establishment candidate, actually won despite all of this polling showing that she was up like 19 points, 14 points. Do you think at all that listening to the skepticism that we just heard from these voters about Byron Donalds, despite all the polls showing him currently quite a bit ahead, is it possible there's a late breaking insurgency because people are kind of like, yeah, I mean, I guess Donalds, but I don't know, I could use somebody more, some better and I'm uncertain about some of these things he's done. What is Fishback attacking Byron Donalds with in order to try to pull something out of the last minute? - The voters in the focus group were very kind of like grudging about voting for it. There was really, I don't think anyone was like, yes, I love Byron Donalds. I love that he was endorsed by Trump. You could tell that it was like, I guess I'm supposed to vote for him. And the sort of desantis power base has really failed to coalesce around anyone in particular. As you said, disney just has an endorsed Jay Collins. There's this sense that like Jay Collins and Paul Renner, despite being high ranking state officials, at least from the focus group that they're kind of like, I don't know if that guy knows how to run the government. So that was weird. And so James Fishback really had a surge in part because Jay Collins and Paul Renner were kind of like, also ran. It was a weird thing when I was like, who's this guy third behind Fishback and Donalds? Oh, that's the lieutenant governor. As a result, James Fishback has stepped into that. And this is a guy who is a Charlottes who has like five or six things in his past that should be absolutely just qualifying to be in any elected office. I mean, he says he's allegations of having a relationship with sexual relationship with a high school student. You know, she later, you know, try to get a restraining order against him. He is like, comically in debt to his former hedge fund employer as a result of various schemes he ran against them. He had people like posing as a grieved investor as to journalists. I mean, really bad stuff. Now he owes him something like $1.5 million. He's getting his cars repossessed thereafter. His campaigns have thought they might repossess the couch. I mean, this is a guy who like can't put two nickels together. He's being hunted by his creditors. And yet for a little while there, it looks like he was going to have like a real run. Now what he did was he was really racist against Byron Donalds. I mean, he was calling him a slave. He was saying, you know, if you're really black, why don't you roll up and shoot me? Like, I mean, really crazy stuff. But I think we're starting to see kind of the air get out of the James Fishback balloon. He seems to be throwing anything at the wall. He had this whole press conference where he said, I found out Byron Donalds is under investigation for human trafficking by the Justice Department. This is a guy who's notorious for making stuff up. James is just totally lying. And this time, again, the Justice Department came out and said, this is not true. And I think that's sunken with some people that this guy just seems really incredible. >> Do you think that that means that somebody could reach down for one of these also rands at all? If they're kind of like about Byron and like, they were interested in this outsider Fishback, although we're going to get into the sound on Fishback. They were interested in him, but then they're like, man, maybe he's too crazy. After all, do you think any of the other two make any surge? Or do you think people just kind of throw up their hands and say, Donalds is fine, I guess. >> You know, again, as you said, this is one of these races that we're seeing pull at like, the front runner is up 20, 30 points. No one's going to come anywhere near them. And then maybe it ends up being three or four points. A lot of disantis people have coalesced around J Collins despite this kind of like rift with him. I think a lot of like what we might see is the America First People, some conspiracy theorists, people who don't like Donalds, don't like J Collins for whatever reason. But aren't they don't like James Fishback because he's a Pipsqueak because he's racist, whatever, are going around. I've seen some pizza-gate people back in Paul Renter. Given that there's two of them, those sort of splitting up, that anti-donalds and not for James Fishback vote. It's hard to know really who's going to surge in the end if anyone does. But I do think, you know, Fishback nonetheless, like he shows these events. It's all out the door at the eye hop or whatever. I mean, people are, there is like a real audience for him, particularly among young Republicans. And I think as we look forward, let's say there's someone who's racist, pro-Nicf wentace, whatever, who doesn't have pedophile allegations, who isn't comically in debt, who doesn't have all these credibility issues. Despite the fact that we're going to spend a little more time on him than his polling should warrant, I do want to talk about him because I think that he is like a telling artifact of the 2026 Republican primary and probably a harbinger of some things to come. And so you outlined pretty well all of his personal weirdness. It won't surprise longtime listeners of this show that most of the group hadn't heard much about Fishback at all. Much less all of that stuff that some are just outlined to like the debt, the 17 year old, the calling Byron Donalds a slave to his donors, Byron Donalds is black. If anybody didn't know that, he called him a chimp and told another black man at a campaign event that he should be lynched. This stuff's not on the bubble. Yeah, these are not dog whistles or yes. But he doesn't insist he's not a racist. So sure, bro. So a lot of these voters that didn't know about that stuff. But for those who did, let's listen to how our groups talked about him in broad strokes. I don't like him. Period. Don't like him. He's just slimy. He said some very, very inappropriate things. The last thing I've read and I'm not going to give any specifics. But the last thing I read is he's made some very racially motivated comments towards Byron Donalds. And that bothers me. That bothers me a lot. I just don't think that he really needs to be in politics that at all. I'm just not comfortable with them. I don't like him. And maybe it was just a a bad day for him. But I didn't like the things that he had said. I don't think fishback is good. Either I think he's just a talker. I just like Susan Big Words and I don't I don't I just don't trust him. And then Collins, what he did to try to get him off the ballot. I think that it's shady. That's insane. If he didn't learn that from the Democrats, I don't know where he learned that problem. James Fishback said Florida first, America first, and Byron Donalds has not said that once in order for you to say that. And that worries me. It worries me a lot because that should be a very easy thing to say. And there's no issue with that. I'm pretty firmly for James Fishback. He seems to be like the only guy. Maybe it's I from, who's a Paul Renner that's really speaking my language or speaking to my interests. He's around my age. He kind of understands the plight of people around my age and younger. It puts that the forefront of his campaign. You know, sometimes you're just having a bad day. And so you say some insanely racist things. Well, it is funny. It's like to be clear. This is a bad seven months. You build your campaign around insane racism. And then you go, well, it's like, fake. Is there anything else you want to talk about with Fishback? Because you've done kind of a deep dive on him. I mean, he had like this really quick wedding this year. And there's been other drama, but he is pulling in these sort of younger. I mean, you heard that guy specifically saying he's talking about things that matter to us. I think a lot of that is, although somebody's saying A-PAC funded, were they talking about Donalds? Could you tell? I think they must have been talking about Donalds. I mean, as you know, these A-PAC accusations can be very like vaporous in terms of like qualifies as A-PAC money. But watching the focus group, you know, I could usually tell like, oh, this guy's going to be pro fishback because he kind of looks like a guy who's maybe listening to a lot of podcasts is like a younger voter, typically, is talking about, you know, not liking American support for Israel. I wonder if maybe the fishback news just got so weird for people, you know, you mentioned the quickie marriage, all these things. It was striking to me that like, how much of it did manage to sink in that they knew about the racism and they cared about it, you know, for Republicans, I was interesting. You know, this talk about like Byron Donalds being vaguely scandal tied in ways people that this is, it couldn't necessarily explain or maybe they just didn't get into it in the format. But I think James Fishback honestly has been responsible for a lot of that because he's just hammering Byron Donalds. He's calling when it Byron's on a radio show, Byron Donalds, like he calls in and gives essentially a fake name, gives his middle name and he's like, hey, why would you answer these questions? You know, he showed up with a chicken and said, why didn't you, you know, chickened out of our debate? And so I think if in the end someone like Jay Collins or Paul Renner ends up getting closer, in some weird ways, I think James Fishback's kind of been responsible for it for being the one who's most directly willing to just hammer Byron Donalds. We had a couple pro fishback people in the groups and you heard them there, but we asked them if perhaps they had missed some of the like parade of disqualifying things that Fishback had said. So these comments that you're about to hear are responding to Fishback's comments calling Donalds a slave to his donors. Let's listen. I don't think that was okay at all. I don't agree with that. Anything along those lines, not okay. But I think what he was getting at is not the racial way, which is, as I said, I don't think that's okay. I just think he's going with who responding his pockets. He's a yes man towards which a lot of other politicians, that's what happens. It could have been mean spirited. I don't really care. It's insults. And however charged they might be, it's describing something that's accurate, isn't it? That kind of bothers me more than, you know, modern sensibilities about how we should be with each other because he's a, you know, he's of a different race and the history of all that. I mean, doesn't he have to make in parents? Did he actually have ancestors who were slaves? Is that something that he held steep within? I don't really think it really matters. Do you have something you want to say on that? Yeah. I mean, I think we're seeing a little bit of this kind of very Trump era, you know, people really want to make excuses for their candidates if they like them. And, you know, to be clear, this was not like one time James Fishback said slave. And then he was like, oh, I gosh, you know what? Oh, sorry. I mean, you know, I think one of the like that guy, one of the first times he said it was like in a statement to me for an article. This has been sort of a theme of his campaign. And as you mentioned, these other racist incidents, you know, and ultimately though, I think because Trump has lowered the bar so much, you're hearing people say basically like, look, I don't care. He doesn't like Israel and I like that or he's, you know, trying to get rid of H1V visas. And I like that. I mean, these things that there's a sense that he's tapped into. I think particularly young people, just this sense of like grievance and resentment that I think is, you know, however he does on Tuesday, I think that'll explain that. Now let's listen to these same two guys respond to the allegations that Fishback had a relationship with the 17 year old. I've heard that there are some allegations about him being in a relationship with somebody that was underage. I think we're talking about maybe a couple years difference. And this is like adult and a 16 year old, 18 and 16, that sort of thing. I might have those statistics, not quite right. But when I write over it, it was just like, this is what people were making a fuss over. And I think the allegations were thrown out or never really came up to any charges. So I'm not really sure, I don't know, five, 10 years ago, it was all the rage to make accusations. You seem to be, if anything, you know, moving well past that, they'd attention a little bit more about his personal life, you know, he's expecting a child now. He's happily married. So I don't know. I mean, a lot of politicians get allegations just like with the human trafficking. So same things. Obviously, if there was something a lot, I think you'd be imprisoned. I don't think any of that is okay. But there was a couple of age difference. And you know, it's a big deal at the end of the day. But I mean, compared to other allegations, other politicians are getting, I think that's just stretching out a little bit too much. You know, I'm always grateful for the voters inside here. But yeah, in this case, you know, it is worth noting. I mean, I think we can see this mechanism where by people sort of say, oh, who's to say what it is and they kind of fuzz it up. And yes, I agree. If you had been 18 and the Galas 17, you know, obviously a lot of days, that is legal. However, that's not what happened here. I mean, James Stischback was in his mid-20s. He allegedly had this relationship with a girl who was a high school student who was in his anti-woke debate program. So there's also a position of authority there. They later got engaged when she was, you know, of age and this allegation surface because she wanted a restraining order against him after the engagement ended. Now the judge did not grant the restraining order said, I don't think his kind of qualifies, although he is a very weird guy, essentially, is what the judge said. I agree, the allegations you bring are weird, but it has, having seen him in the courtroom, I agree, he's a weird guy, but I'm not going to give you the restraining order. And so that's when Fischback and his fellow followers say, well, these allegations were unfounded. Really, the underage relationship was not sort of what the judge was deciding on. One more thing about the anti-woke debate program, he was sued last week by another young woman who basically said he ripped her off for $11,000 in scholarship money. This high school student who suddenly like, hey, can you pay me the money you promised me? So it, overall, this is a guy who, you know, I don't think she'd become their Florida and it seems like the voters are realizing that. On one hand, Fischback is only pulling 10% of the vote right now. On the other hand, Will, he's pulling 10% of the vote. Yeah. It shouldn't be a little bit worried. And like, who knows where it lands. I'll be really interested to see where he lands on this. I hope he lands it 2%, but that a guy like this, you know, is getting traction. And more importantly, he's getting a lot of national traction. Like, if you assume that the 10% of Floridians that Our enthusiastic about him is like 10% of the Republican party. It's actually like quite a lot of people interested in him. Should we be freaked out? Or should we just be morbidly curious about the phenomenon of James Fishback? Again, this is a guy, this is not like a member of Congress, a state representative who had this racist kind of gruiper turn. This is a guy with, you know, he's been on Fox Business and it, you know, is kind of like a, you know, like a prognosticate or but, you know, this is a guy who's kind of failed that a lot of things he's done, you know, he did a terrible, he got fired from the hedge fund according to them. You know, he has all these debts. It's sort of like every time he's just like a whole room full of rocks and you turn to, oh, there's more bugs under here. It's just constant skeletons in the closet that keep emerging. And yeah, as you said, I mean, this is a guy who I think in a normal political climate, a pre-Trump world would be like 0.2% in the end. People just, oh, I don't know who to vote for. I'll pick this guy. You know, the fact that he's able to establish some following, despite, I think, essentially, really having a shoestring campaign as his lieutenant governor, he just picked one of his campaign staffers who sort of a cop who got fired for, you know, various abuses. So, I mean, this is a guy who's not really running a traditional campaign to get votes in any way. And yet, you know, we're talking about him in terms of like, you know, one of the more credible challenges to Byron Donald's. There was a lot in the focus groups about the property tax stuff. That just like was coming up a lot in a way that in other states, I've heard data centers come up a lot, but this, the property taxes seems to be the big one here. What's going on there? >> Yeah, I mean, you know, Rhonda Sances is on this campaign to eliminate property taxes in Florida. What was striking to me, and I think this is something we're seeing nationwide, in part driven by social media, this idea, this kind of like property tax revolt, this idea that like property taxes are fundamentally illegitimate because you should be able to pay off your house and then never pay any property taxes. There's kind of a logical leap they're making. But I think with certainly some voters, there's this sense of like justice when property taxes are eliminated. And I was hurt and by some of the people in the focus group who said, well, okay, but like you kind of got to pay the money somehow, you know, and this is going to come out somewhere. But I think, you know, as someone who likes a functioning society, I'm getting concerned about this broader kind of like anti property tax movement. >> They've made it such a big issue in Florida in the way that other states haven't, but you could see that becoming sort of a right wing governance pledge at a time when people are really upset about affordability. They are looking for somebody to say some way in which they are going to ease the financial burden for people. And it seems like this might be one from Republicans. Will Summer, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group podcast. We'll be back next week. But in the meantime, remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the book on YouTube and become a more plus member at themorec.com so that you can jump in the comments, which is where we read them. We'll see you guys next week. Bye, Will.