ProPublica's Pamela Colloff discusses death row ahead of 'Catch The Devil' book talk in St. Pete

>> And good morning and welcome to the skinny for Friday July 17th. I'm Mitch Perry, the senior political reporter for the Ford Afinics. Joining by as always my colleague, creative loafing editor-in-chief Ray Roa, good morning, Ray. >> Good morning, Mitch, how's it going today? >> It's going well and we've got a really great show looking forward to also programming, no coming up a couple weeks from today. Of course, we've been doing a lot of focus on the St. Pete mayoral race. We're going to have mayor Ken Welch on the show on July 31st. So, what was just make sure to tune in for that. Charlie Chris is doing very well in the polls right now. If he gets 50% plus one, this election's over actually. So, you know, it really the focus is on this on the August 18th election. >> Okay, but let's get to the show because we've got a guest and I know we don't have her for a lot, you know, until the end of half hour here. By the way, so part of the show, we're going to have later in the program. We're going to have Angie Nixon, Democratic State Representative from Jacksonville, who of course is running for the Democratic nomination for US Senate here in Florida. She'll of course be there tomorrow at Disney where the Democrats have their leadership blue event. That's where mayor Pete, Pete Buttigieg, she'll be giving the keynote speech and I'll be there. So, I hope for Phoenix readers we'll be able to check out my coverage on that on Sunday. Okay, but first we're going to talk about crime and punishment here in the state of Florida. And we need to discuss this because Governor Ron DeSantis is closing out his group in a toil career in Florida with a flourish when it comes to executing individuals on the state's death row list. This past week we saw the 29th public execution in Florida since January of 2025. No other say is can close to that. Many that was the execution of Dennis Soaker who at 74. I guess it was actually the oldest individual ever executed in the state of Florida, although there's an 80 year old who was scheduled to be executed later in the month. And to read right now to discuss that as well as her new book is Pamela Kowoff. She's a reporter with ProPublica in the New York Times magazine. Good morning Pamela. Hi, thank you so much for having me. Great to have you here with this. Yeah, so and so Pam has got again, she's got this new book, Catch the Devil, a true story of murder deception in justice on the Gulf Coast. And the book is a lot of it set in Pinellas County. And she will be appearing in conversation about the book a week from this Monday, July 27th at Coastal Creative in St. Petersburg. That's right across the street from Tombolo Books. And we'll talk about the book in a minute, but Pamela, we want to have you on initially because of your great piece and the New York Times Sunday magazine, which was actually the cover story last Sunday. It was online of earlier in the month. And that is, you know, this story, it's kind of a phenomenon in a kind of a dark way of Rodgers, and in terms of the executing people on death row at a furious clip. So like, well, first question is when did you get this on your radar to the point where you told your editor of the New York Times magazine, I want to go to Florida and I want to report about this. Well, thank you so much. I think this is such an important issue to be talking about. And I don't see a lot of people talking about it just a quick note before we go forward to give listeners a sense of things. Florida this year has executed more condemned prisoners than all other states combined. So that's just a shocking statistic. This came on my radar because of my book research. And we can talk about the book later, but because there was a death penalty case at the center of the book, I had been tracking this through the years and was really just stunned by the numbers that I started seeing last year. Florida executed 19 men last year, 10 so far this year. And a week from Tuesday, I think it's July 28. There will be two executions taking place on the same day at Florida State Prison, one at noon and one at 6 p.m. That's how quickly things are moving. Yeah, and I don't know if that's ever happened. I mean, it's a bizarre statistic to know if any state has ever done that actually. You know, one of the things that you wrote in this piece and the New York Times magazine piece is how frankly, it's not like there's a lot of rhyme and reason in about in terms of who was actually, Ron the Sanctus of the Sign of the Death Warns for. He is not really publicly provided much rationale for his choices and certainly not filed any chronological order of legal judgments or length of time on death row. Instead, as you write, he has appeared to sign warrants on the request of victims families and in retaliation for public records requests about the state's execution protocol. Tell us more about that. So it's been such a mystery to people who follow this, for example, the lawyers who represent many of the condemned prisoners. In other states, the way this is done is a defendant, you know, appeals. They're a conviction typically and then it works its way through the courts. And once they've exhausted their appeals, then a judge moves to have an execution date said it comes through the courts. Florida is unique in that of states that are actively carrying out the death penalty now. It is unique in that its governor is the person who has the sole discretion to set not just execution dates, but who will be executed among the current prisoners. They're about roughly 250 men on death row right now and about half of them have exhausted their appeals. So people have looked for patterns. For example, there are a number of men who are on death row who committed their crimes all the way back in the 1970s. Hard to believe, but true, they're still there. Those are not the folks who are having their dates set. It's often people who have committed more recent crimes. There's no real pattern. And because of that, people have have looked for reasons within it. When you referred to the public records request issue, there was a prisoner earlier this year who his lawyers sought to get more information about why an execution that occurred in February had taken twice as long as usual. They were trying to figure out if something was going on with the execution protocol or the drugs that was unusual. The prisoner who filed that public record request had his execution date set a week later. Perhaps coincidence, perhaps not. We just don't have any transparency about why these dates are being set. Again, if you're just tuning in right now, you listen to Skinny here. We're speaking with journalist Pam Kowoff with ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine about her cover story last week's magazine on the rate of execution second place here in the state of Florida. The last two people executed here in Florida were the oldest ever at the age of 74. And now we've got a Dominic Oceone, I believe the Sagittarius name, who is 80 years old, has spent nearly four decades on death row after being sentenced in the murders of his ex-girlfriend's parents. As you mentioned, I mean, he is, we talked to the July 28th that he has scheduled to die on July 28th. He would become the second oldest prisoner if he's in fact executed ever in the United States after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr., who was executed in Alabama in 2018. And so, right, and we get again, we're still we're setting these records in terms of the oldest people on death row. Pam, I don't know if you thought about this about, but in terms of how I guess again, it's unique that we're having these people who have been in death row for decades, and they're very, you know, they're in their 70s, they're in their 80s now. We're setting these records here. I guess that is unique here as well. It is. And there's so many things here that are unusual. You know, people listening may say, well, you know, these crimes were terrible. Why should I care? I think another way in which Florida is unique and it's something important for us to think about. Florida holds the record for the most death row exonerees. So, in other words, there are 30 men in Florida who have been sent to death row who now walk free because those cases fell apart. For anyone who follows these kinds of cases, you know just how difficult it is to win an exoneration. So that suggests that there are other people who are wrongly convicted, who are sitting on Florida's death row. So when we have a punishment that is irreversible combined with a high error rate, I would consider 30 people, the highest in the nation, we have a high error rate. I would hope that people would want more transparency about why certain people are selected and when one of the other remarkable things is the Sunshine State is known in all other realms for its transparency, for its open government laws, for its open record laws. It's a wonderful place to report on because information is readily accessible. That is not true about this one particular thing. When it comes to who is being selected and why these dates are being selected, that is shrouded in secrecy. There is no transparency. We can't get a hold of those public records laws. Yes, yes, indeed. Also, we should note, Florida is one of only two states that still allow non-unanimous jury verdicts state law now. And this was, we've gone back and forth on this in Florida for the last decade and a half or so. Right now, state law requires only eight of 12 jurors to agree to impose a sentence of death. This came under pressure. Well, Florida's death penalty statue came under pressure in 2016. There was a series of decisions by the Florida Supreme Court, resulting in new sentencing hearings for 145 of that time, 386 prisoners then on death row. The majority, which ended in life sentences. And I believe, actually, for a while there, we had, did go back to like being with everybody else and have unanimous jury verdicts. And then there was the uproar in 2018 after the Nicholas Cruz, the killer in Parkland, where he did not receive the death penalty because they're not all the jurors voted for that. >> I think right now it's 1117, so we've got you to 1130 Pam, so I want to pivot and talk about the new book, of course, which just was published, I believe this week and is definitely getting a lot of attention right now. So let's talk about the book, Catch the Devil. And it documents how Florida prosecutors relied on a con man as a star witness to secure a conviction in death sentence for a Vietnam veteran, but the name of Jim daily who's speaking about older people on death row. He is on death row as we speak right now at the age of 80. So let's get into this. I believe the story, you weren't about the story, this whole saga in 2018. Can you tell us how this got on your radar of that time? >> Yeah, thank you. >> Thank you. >> I'm so sorry, are you all hearing that? >> Yeah, we're hearing that. >> Okay. I think maybe there's a microphone on your end Pamela. >> Okay, we are definitely having issues there. >> Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I'll mention that Pamela will be in St. Petersburg next Monday, July 27th. Tom Blow book is always doing these great book talks. This one I believe is happening at coastal creative at 7 p.m. or she'll be discussing the book with local readers. And I think we have the sound figured out now. >> Sorry. >> Can you still there? >> Okay. >> I think she's trying to figure that out. One thing that was fascinating to me, Mitch, about this work is the word snitch. It is used. >> Hi everyone. >> Hi everyone. >> Hey Pam, I wanted to see it. We're still have a problem there. If you could do this, if you can give us a call, we can do the range of this interview by a phone. If you can give us a call at 813-239-9663, we have somebody who can pick up that phone immediately and get you on here. Yeah, Anthony will get you on the phone there. >> Because I don't know if we're going to be able to fix that. We want to definitely keep on talking to you. >> Yeah, like the word snitch. You hear about it, right? It's used in slang, but this is really what this guy was. And it was fascinating. We were at the history talk for Drunk Tampa History the other day, Mitch. >> Yeah. >> And we talked about some of the mobsters in Tampa. And there were some who never snitched and some who did. And it's fascinating that who do we believe and then who do prosecutors believe when they're trying to get convictions on people? And that was a really interesting facet of this book and this story. And also the injustice that she points out that's happening here in the Gulf Coast, really, really fascinating. I'd be curious to know when Pamela comes back, how deeper connections here to Penelope's Go. And how much time she actually got to spend down here. I think I hear. >> Okay. >> Pamela, are you there? >> All right, so again, we're going to try to see if we can get her going up. But yeah, so basically, again, this is a story, this con man is the name of Paul Scalnic. And it's not a novel. When you read this book, it's like really somebody has like, got away with all this in terms of how much trouble he was in. I mean, they're classic con man. He passed himself off as a criminal defense attorney and under kind of agent. In this situation, he was able to forge checks and bezel money. And he was married nine times, okay? So people were buying his BS. Okay, it's one thing in your own personal life, but it's another thing when you're getting prosecutors and what have you to buy this. And in the case of the situation, why this book matters is because again, there is a person on death row right now. This goes back to a case in 1985, but man by the name of Jim Daley, who was a, it was a Vietnam veteran. And he was in bouquet the murder of a 14 year old girl and went in a county jail, a panels county jail with Scalnic. And ultimately, again, Scalnic supposedly heard that Daley confessed to this crime. And here we are now in 2026. And the person is still on death row because and it's really well documented in this book that this did not happen that this man should be able to not commit this crime. So the tragedy is and I would hope that there's a tension on this case now. It's one thing for these attorneys to keep on going back and pursuing this because definitely death row person. >> Can you hear me? >> I'm back, yes, I don't know what happens. I apologize, but you just did a terrific summary of the case. >> Okay. >> I'll just say that I learned about the case in 2018 when a law scholar at Yale Law School contacted me. And she said that she had become so concerned about the case you're speaking of, Jim Daley, that she had reactivated her law license. And she went on to say in this email that she sent me that one of the key witnesses against her client was this man named Paul Scalnic. This former police officer turned, con artist turned, jail house informant. And I began digging and came to discover that he got his start in Texas where I'm based. But that in Pinellas County alone, he played a role in upwards of 37 cases, perhaps more. And his testimony was so powerful that it was often used to help prosecutors secure convictions or very, very long punishments. >> Yeah, and the thing is again, so 37K, that's amazing. And obviously I can see, you know, reading this book about how prosecutors, right, you know, they're trying to win cases. They're not, you know, necessarily trying to do justice. They're trying to convict people. They'll hopefully they would have a higher aspiration here to find justice. But nevertheless, I guess there's so many terrible things that come out of reading your book that makes you sad about the criminal justice system. And I guess the judicial system, the judges in some of these cases, right? I mean, I think in some of these times when it seems that something, you know, they, the final arbiters in these cases, that they can see what's going on. And yet to get to where, you know, where we're out right now, where Jim daily is still on death row, I mean, I guess, you know, where do you see the breakdowns here? I mean, there's a lot of them obviously. >> Sure. So I think what's hard for people to understand, they might say, well, why would jurors believe a jailhouse informant? Why would they believe someone like Paul Scalnek? So it's important to understand when prosecutors put someone like him on the stand. Typically, let's say the first witness they might have might be the first police officer who arrives on the scene, a very credible person. Maybe the second person is a paramedic, another very credible person. When someone like Paul Scalnek gets on the stand, he's a state-sponsored witness. It's prosecutors putting him up there and saying, this is someone you can trust. This is someone we've vetted. This is someone who's telling you an account that's accurate. Scalnek was using things like details from newspaper articles or court filings to weave together stories that were both highly credible sounding. And we're also very incendiary enough to really inflame the passions of a jury and to get a conviction or a death sentence. To be clear, many of the men he testified against committed the crimes they committed. But when you have testimony like that, the difference between a 15 or 20 year sentence versus a life or a death sentence is enormous. And in the case of Daly's case, there are very, very legitimate questions about his innocence. >> You, again, we're speaking with Pam Kowoff. She's the author of Catch the Devil. She'll be in St. Petersburg a week from Monday. We'll talk about that later. Pam, you met Paul Scalnek twice. Talk to us about that. >> Yes, so the first time I met him was in federal prison in 2018. And he was very proud of the work that he had done with Pinellas County prosecutors. And he spoke about them collectively. He said, we never lost a case, which I thought was a very interesting way of freezing things. And then I went to see him again toward the end of his life. At the time, Jim Daly was under a death warrant. He later got a stay of execution. But there was less than a month leading up to the date of his execution. And I went to Scalnek and at that point had done a year of reporting. I've now done six. years of reporting that only backed this up in which it was very clear to me that the testimony he gave on the stand at Jim Daly's trial was false. And I said to him, given that the stealth date is looming, I'm wanting to know whether you still stand by your testimony. And he just would not go there to admit that he had lied on the stand. This is someone who had a rap sheet, you know, 10 pages long, who had been in and out of jail since the 1970s had committed fraud, had molested a young girl. This was not an upstanding character. And I should say molested more than one girl. So that he just would not go back on that testimony. And one surgery hears that kind of testimony. And again, they're being told this is credible testimony. And they you know, vote for someone's guilt. It's a very, very hard thing to undo. A pellet quartz defer to juries who heard live testimony. And so sometimes errors like this can be compounded as they move through the courts. >> Do you think, again, this book is just coming out now, and Jim Dele is on death row, that people, you know, like myself, I didn't know his story. Obviously, at all, I know it now. It seems to me that this is an innocent man that there could be a public pressure put on on to Sanchez to back off here. I mean, how does this worker, is that too direct and still needs to go through the courts? >> Well, I think, you know, Jim Dele's case really exemplifies what one legal scholar called a zombie case. What that means is it's from the past. It's from the mid 1980s when cases were tried in a very particular way. There's no forensic evidence against Mr. Dele. There's no physical evidence. There's no motive. There are three jailhouse informants in this case. Usually if you have one, that's a red flag that something's wrong with your case. But the appellate courts have just not been open to reevaluating this case. And so it leaves him in this limbo where he, you know, all the way going all the way back to 1987, trial, the standards that he was tried by, I don't think would be upheld today, but he's stuck in this sort of legal limbo and left on death row. >> Can you talk to us about, I mean, it's obviously voluminous research that you had to conduct to basically tell this as almost like a novel, right? Because the narrative is so set up like where you have the facts behind you to, you know, paint these scenes of how it all kind of evolves going back to the 1980s here. >> That's correct. I really wrote this book for people who, you know, they don't have to be fans of true crime or have thought a lot about the criminal justice system. I wrote it in a deeply narrative and immersive and character driven way. That said, every sentence of this book is backed up by documents and interviews and has been thoroughly fact checked. It's all true. And to me, that's what draws me to nonfiction is nonfiction is crazier than anything we could make up in fiction. And this story certainly is. >> Okay. I think we need to leave it there because we need to let you go here. Pam Kovov, she is the author of Catch the Devil. She's going to be in conversation about the book with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gilbert King at Coastal Creative on July 27th. The Coastal Creative is a wider cross the street from Tom Below books. You can learn more about that at Tom Below Books.com. Pam Kovov, great, great book, great to talk to you this morning. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. >> All right. Again, that is Pam Kovov. She, again, the author of Catch the Devil, a true story of murder, deception and justice on the Gulf Coast. And Ray, like I said, this is really, this is set in Pinellas County. This is the legal world of Pinellas County. I mean, again, there's a lot of, you know, she said there about the juries, right? Who don't know, you know, 12 people or ever, you know, in the jury here. And they hear these, these, like the Paul Scound頂 to come on, who apparently are, you know, vetted and are, you know, powerful witnesses. So you can see in their case because those jurors are usually, they're only going to be that case for one. They don't know this guy's done like 20 other cases and, and appeared in all these different court situations. It just, it just boggles a mind and she, and as Jesus said, she's saying some of this could not happen today. This tells you our criminal justice system is still evolving and it's got a lot of problems, obviously, like a lot of our, our big institutions and systems in our country. But it's just really profound. And this man, like I said, okay, one more thing I want to say before I'm, >> Yeah, it is fascinating to talk to reporters who covered death row and talk to people connected to people sentenced to die because you're talking about the end of someone's life. You know, we talk about the exoneries and things like that. You just did it last week. Mitch, you talked with Liaison, the death row inmate who said he would like the governor to watch his- >> Yeah, Dennis Soker, he wanted to stand in this show up there. I mean, it's, you're pretty easy to sit back and, and sign these things. And, you know, whether you, whether, and we know, I'll know the death penalty is a very controversial issue. Look, most states aren't doing it anymore. And the ones that still do it, like California legally still does it. They haven't done 20 years. So for, it's like four to ten taxes. And the book does say by the way that back in the 80s, it was four, four to was also doing out, it was four to ten taxes. They've kind of always been known as the two states that, you know, just do this more often, feel, you know, support their public to do this. What do you think I want to say about James daily? I went to a different website. Nothing to do with this book that is like, it was, it talks about death row people. And it says, since this conviction in 87, James daily has maintained his innocence. There's no eyewitness physical or forensic evidence to convict him. Daily sentence to the death solely based on the testimony of Paul Scalnick, a known jailhouse informant. Scalnick served as a witness in 35 cases and dozens of people to prison and three to death row. His defendant, co-defendant, daily's co-defendant, Jack Piersie, signed a declaration in December of 2019 declaring that he alone had committed the murder. He wrote James daily, I definitely do with the murder, Shelley Bajillo. I committed the crime alone. James daily was back at the house when I drove Shelley Bajillo to the place where I ultimately killed her. However, when it came time to testify in March of 2019, he refused to. That's why daily is still in death row. Daily received a stay of execution, but any date now, run to San Jose, consign them. Okay, we are going to move on now. I believe we've got on the line right now. Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon, is that correct? Angie, are you there? I'd be on mute. Okay, we think she's there, but we're not hearing from Angie. Well, as we wait to hear from her right now, we should say Angie Nixon, of course, a state representative from the Jacksonville area since 2020. And she wasn't we on county this week, were she face and still faces two misdemeanor charges for trespassing and resisting arrest. This came after she was arrested in May during a sit-in at Governor DeSantis's office as part of a protest against the redistricting congressional map that was drawn up by the governor's office and approved by the GOP-controlled legislature. And she was arrested for that. And also, I guess the same day, she was also reprimanded by incoming House Speaker Sam Garrison for breaking to quorum when I think some of our view listeners might have seen this where she pulled out a bullhorn on the House for during the redistricting vote protesting about that. Okay, and it is interesting because Angie Nixon does get a lot of attention for that, but when you talk with folks on the street, they want somebody to speak up for them. And Angie Nixon is the one who has made herself kind of known and seen as she is doing that. She had a jury trial scheduled for the week of September 21st. And if our listeners don't remember, these new maps could help Republicans pick up seats in Florida. Ultimately, I retained control of the U.S. House in the midterm election. So she's running to be the Democratic nominee for Senate. She had her sit-in was arrested as you mentioned, Mitch, and reprimanded by the rules and ethics committee for that protest. So it'll be interesting to see what happens with Representative Nixon and how she's feeling about this race. I think she's going to pop back on here. >> Yeah, by the way, let's talk about that for a second as we wait for again. And if you're just reading right now, you listen to Skinny here on WMNF, 88.5 FM, I'm Mitch Perri Ray-Roa. We're just, we're waiting to talk to Angie Nixon, Democratic State rep from Jacksonville, who's running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. And I want to talk about it for a moment though about the protests about the congressional redistricting and talk about that. Interesting, there was a poll this week from St. Pete Poles, which, you know, I love Matt Ferell. Sometimes the polling has been great in recent years on some elections, but nevertheless, on this, okay. And so, but anyway, the Paul, Kathy Kasser seat right here in Tampa, right? >> Yes. >> We know has been, you know, has been drawn up in a way that makes her an underdog. I mean, on paper, I think it's a plus, plus ten seat now, Trump seat. And so, but the poll showed Ray that she's leading against the proposed Republicans. >> That's right. And I'll just mention if Angie Nixon is there, she'll need to log back in to the Zoom there. If we can hear her and she is going to be, she is running against US Army Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman, who obviously became famous because of his role. And President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial. So Representative Nixon, if you're there logging in, please let us know or waiting to get you in. Yeah, this has been a crazy show today. Crazy show. It was interesting because Nixon, and I think I'm sure we'll talk about some of you because she comes on, Mitch. She's pretty proud of the fact that she hasn't found backing from the mainstream national party here. She had a pretty forceful quote. I'm not an establishment pig. I'm a pig for the people in the hardworking families here. I did not hear that comment. I want to be even more clear. Republicans are a problem. Corporate Democrats are a problem. Okay. Angie, do we have you now? Don't have her yet. Not yet. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. There we go. Here we go. Rob Nixon. How are you? I'm sorry. I'm on the road and traveling. And that's what you do when you're running for US Senate and you're representing people in Florida. Okay. So Angie, let's get to this because we don't want to ask you about here. And we mentioned the fact that you were in court this week. Now, this also comes and you also got reprimanded by incoming speaker Garrison about breaking up that bullhorn. But we learned this week about another member of the Florida House. That was Miami-Dade County Republican Fabian Bissabi, who was found guilty this week by Leon County jury of sexual harassment, battery, and defamation in a case brought against him by his former legislative aide, the AIDS mother and a former legislative intern. So far, we have not heard anything from Sam Garrison on this. What's your thoughts? You know, it just shows you that there has been a concerted attack on going to find a game that people who challenge them at all cost. They want me to be quiet. I mean, I remember the first year I came in office. I got to office. I talked to health leadership. And I asked them how I could be successful. They told me I need to be an advocate or I can bring money home. And I didn't understand what they meant at the time. But he told me, you know, I need to shut up. One of their leadership members of their leadership told me I need to shut up and bring money home. Or if I keep talking and advocating and calling them out on the house for that they would, you know, basically black coffee. And that's what they do. So you are, as Ray mentioned, you're running against Alex Vidman for the US Senate seat here to run against Ashley Moody in November. You know, I believe, and I think I wrote this in my story yesterday when Vidman held a Zoom call about his fundraising numbers. I mean, he's considered more centrist-weening. I think you would fairly say you're definitely a progressive. Now, you're not a so member of the Democratic Socialists of America, right? You're not a DSA member, but we're, are you support Socialists? That's a lot of talk about Socialists in the Democratic Party these days. I support any person who was actually doing the business of working. I support people who say, "What's the law cost?" Make sure that billionaires and corrupt corporations pay their fair share. And unfortunately, there's a lot of corporate Democrats that are in our party, that are leadership, and that is the way in which they are operating. And they're not pushing back like, "They're not, they're not fired enough." But you are taking some of the time to money from these Republicans are taking. And so, we need to make sure that we can push the dyslactic ban at the care. We're kind of losing you the energy back and forth there. Yeah, no, I know. I'm sorry. But yeah, we're trying to push to make sure that we have things like universal child care, Medicare for all. These are issues that power-working Floridians care about, and unfortunately, the Democrats can complete control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, they didn't do that. And that's because a lot of them are. I wish we had that one, huh? What are they? We do not know. We are okay. All right, Angie, I'm going to, I'm going to ask for a call. Yeah, that's for the Democrats. You're going to begin representing Nixon. So, you might be coming back. Oh, there you are. No, we're just saying about the Democrats. Yeah, you were saying about the Democrats. Yeah, the Democrats, the Democrats, the Democrats, those establishment Democrats, they, when they control the House, the Senate, as well as the White House, unfortunately, they have had Medicare for all. They didn't press universal child care. They didn't do a lot of things, and that's because they are beholden to the same Republican interests. Right? They take money from the same people, and it's not all Democrats, but a lot of them are in leadership. And right now, people are sick and scared of me. They want someone they know is going to fight for them and actually look out for hardworking people. Game, we're talking right now that Angie Nixon, Democratic Rep. Jacksonville, running for the Democratic nomination for you, a Senate here in the state of Florida. Going back on this for one moment before we go forward, you know, what Joe Biden was president, you know, like it thinks it changed in the Democratic Party in terms of maybe over this country was at where I heard some people, Democrats criticized Barack Obama, and they said that he should have gone further on certain things. How do you look back at the Obama presidency? Yes, he did good, but again, like we have to stop acting as those some of these Republicans and leadership are good adversaries. They're not a good adversary with me, they're acting in good faith. And right now, we have like Republicans in leadership that have been in leadership for a while that are actually trying to destroy our communities. They never compromise with us. And so Democrats need to realize that when we are in power, when we control everything, like we don't need to be compromising. And the Okay, we're again losing. Angie, I'm going to suggest that I know you might come back here a second. I'm going to suggest that the phone number here because that one, yeah, Mitch is going to touch you the phone number if you can. Yeah, because we keep on going in and out. It's just really kind of frustrating, I think, for listeners. So maybe we can do that. I wanted, you know, when we, Oh, sorry. But yes, back to more Obama. What I was saying was we need to realize that when we're in leadership, we need to not be compromising. When we control everything, we need to make sure that we push things through because we're looking out like the Democratic Party, like our values are the party of working families. And unfortunately, again, some of the corporations, right? Like they, they, the people of the hold is some of these corporate Democrats of the hold in these corporations. But I feel like for President Obama's administration, even Joe Biden, when we had the opportunity to push things through, we should have. And that was just, it was just the wasted opportunity. So one of the things I want to ask you about is the current, I think it separates you from Alex Vidman is the issue of Israel, right? Which has really become a flashpoint in the Democratic Party this year. There was a big vote in the House of Representatives a couple days ago to end funding for Israel. That vote lost, but more than 100 Democrats in the House voted for it. I think all the Democrats, other than Maxwell Frost and Ford, voted against it. I believe you, what was your, what were you have done if you weren't Congress for that vote? So actually, before they even have that vote, I let people know and I posted an on social media that I would have voted in support of it because I just believe that we cannot continue to send money to countries that are violating international law that are violating human rights that are actively destroying communities of people. And that, you know, throughout my entire adult career, I have fought for the safety and the well-being and the humanity of all people. And me stating this does not make me anti-Semitic at all. I'm sorry Angie, I don't mean to interrupt, but yes, because I'm glad you just brought that up because I think some of our listeners might know that some of them might not, that there was a very controversial vote in the Ford House of Representatives three years ago. Right after, I guess about a month after the October 7th, the Hamas attack on Israel and that House's in session, and you propose a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, de-escalation, Israeli, Israeli hostages, and humanitarian assistance to Gaza. And this is when, you know, feelings are pretty raw because again, the incident had just happened a month earlier. And the resolution went down to feet 104 to 2. And it was a really rough moment for you in the four. And some of your fellow Democrats, I think, turned their back to you. I know at that time you were at, there's accusations of anti-Semitism going on there. Tell us about that moment if you could and how you dealt with that. >> Yeah, I mean, that was a very hard moment for me. I received death, you know, death threats. People were upset. And it was very lonely for me, only one person voted in support of that resolution. And it was tough, but, you know, again, as I stated earlier, I've always been with continue to advocate for the safety and well-being and humanity of all people. And Palestinians were losing their lives at record high rates. And to have people turn their backs on me to be called terrorists on the house floor, ignorant, anti-Semitic, that was very hurtful. But I will always fight to stand on the right side of history. And I believe that I was on the right side of history then, just like I'm on the right side of history now. And if you look at the polling, the majority of the Americans feel what's happening over in the Middle East right now is absolutely wrong. And so again, I was on the right side of history. I was a little bit before everyone else. But I am happy that I stood up when I did. Representative Nixon, I want to go back to your opponent, the Lieutenant Colonel. You've talked about these corporate Democrats where they take money from. I know you're running a campaign. You're really busy talking to the voters yourself, figuring out what they want and not focusing too much on your opponent. But how are you drawing the distinction between yourself and him? And do you view him as one of those corporate Democrats? Yeah, for sure. So thank you for that question. So the distinction between me and Colonel Vimin is the fact that I am experienced. I know what it's like to work in a hostile, that is laid in body where there's extremely conservative, mega-republicans that are in leadership. And I've been able to actually deliver during that time there. So I've been able to expand access to early childhood education. Republicans like to take my bills and make them their own. And you know what? It's not even about the credit. It's about making sure that the policy gets done. And so I've also been able to stop price-guidying from happening. There was some big box chain stores that were overcharging and working family communities and low income communities. And so I called them and I pressured them and told them like they don't want to do this. They need to implement their pricing. They were resistant at first, but I threatened them and guess what? The next weekend, the prices were fair. And so I am someone who would continually show up when we have been facing all of these countless attacks. They bold attacked by Ryan DeSantis, by Donald Trump, by the Ashling Moody's. I've shown up all the time. And I continue to show up right now. I will go visit a community. Folks do not have to make massive amounts of donations to come see me. I know that I spoke to someone today about the Colonel going to the Panhandle recently. He told people he was only allowing them to see him. But his campaign, if they donated $200, at the end of the day, working families can't afford a can't just donate $200 all the time. They want to make sure that there is someone who is going to be accessible to them, someone that they can trust. And I am that candidate. That is what makes me different in this race. I show up when it's hard. I show up even when I'm not at the time because it's the right thing to do. And in regards to Colonel Vemman being a corporate Democrat, I know he said he's not taking corporate PAC money, but he is taking money from some of the Democrats in the Senate who are from their PACs who have taken corporate money. And I am not doing that. I'm only taking PAC money from folks who don't take corporate PAC money. I only took money from one elected officials PAC and that was Rashida Salim. She doesn't take corporate money at all. The rest of my money comes from hardworking people. My average donation is around $30 or so. And I'm excited to let folks know that people were so pissed off that I got arrested and I'm now facing two years that I was able to raise over $100,000 from small dollar donors all across this state and this country because people are fed up with Donald Trump and Ashley Moody. Well, so you raised $100,000? How recent was that? I mean, how quickly that happened? Within the past 48 hours. >> My gosh, really interesting. Again, if you're just tuning in right now, we're speaking to Angie Nixon. She's a Democrat represented from Jacksonville State Rep, running for US Senate here in Florida. Angie Nixon, what about the minimum wage? You know, in Florida we passed a constitutional amendment, I think it was in 2020. Ultimately it's raised to $15,000, which will be later this year and that's going to be it. It's not going any further than that. Other people, Democrats running around the country are talking about raising that. Of course, we know the federal government hasn't raised it since I think 2007 or something like that. It's at 7.25 an hour. So, it would be a good rate to raise a minimum wage to right now. >> Yeah, but before I even say what a good rate will be, Mitch, I think it's important to highlight. That's another difference between me and Alexander Vemme. So, I've been here on the state of Florida on the ground. I was one of the statewide organizers helping lead that minimum wage campaign back in 2020. And so, I want to be perfectly clear about that. Raising it to $15,000 an hour here. And so, I believe at a minimum, we need a $25, $26 minimum wage. And we can get there by taking incremental self as it relates to small business owners if they are worried about taking on that cost really fast. But there's ways in which we can do that. And so, I believe it needs to be $25, $26 an hour to look in the state of Florida. We are 18% over the national average for renters. 18% over the national average. I spoke with wine, who is a Cuban American down in Miami, who had Cuban immigrant rampans. They still have to live with even though he's 21 years old. He's working a full time job. And he's in school. He cannot afford to live on his own in Miami. And so, we need to increase the minimum wage here. And then, thinking about property insurance, the fact remains that we have over 300% over the national average for property insurance. So, we need to make sure that we are increasing the wages here so people can afford to live in its state. >> You know, if you get the chance to run against Ashley Moody, one of the issues that I actually wrote a story about recently in the Florida Phoenix and that is her records Attorney General. As you may know, Attorney General, Attorney General, have the ability and they've done another state to challenge the rate hikes of our public utilities. And in fact, in Florida, we've had Republican Attorney General, Charlie Christen, Bill McCullum, and do that. Ashley Moody, never acted on that, even though we've seen really high energy rates in the last six years or so. Do you have any thoughts about that? >> Of course. I mean, she didn't act on it because all you got to do is take a look at her campaign donors. Again, the people in Florida, the people in this country, they are fed up with the politicians, the corrupt politicians are watching to DC, the establishment politicians are watching to DC not doing anything for Floridians, for hardworking people. This is ridiculous. And so when I go to Washington DC, I am definitely going to shake things up and really try, not try. I'm actually going to put the power back in the hands of the people. But Ashley Moody is someone who is bought and paid for by these corporations. She's bought and paid for. She is a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. Everything he has done and it's absolutely ridiculous. >> Another issue I want to bring up with you Angie, if I could, and that is another really flash point right now is immigration. And of course, that's been an issue for years here. Right now, the focus is on ICE, of course, and some of the excesses, what's this put that way, what they've been doing. In fact, I saw, I believe I saw the statistic that nearly 500,000 people have been arrested by ICE during Donald Trump's second term in office around 60,000 of them are currently being held in detention facilities, including I guess deportation depot. We've heard all this information about alligator alcatraz being shut down recently, which it has been. But we do have at least one other big immigration detention facility here in Florida. But I guess bigger than that Angie is, and I'm going to get your thoughts about ICE. But about the bigger picture about immigration, which has been, I think everybody would agree broken in this country for years, if not decades. That would be your, you know, if you only have one vote if you get there, you know, it's a Senate. But what would you like to see happen on this issue to try to get some control over it all? You know, because it's obviously so contentious. >> Yeah, for sure. So number one, I am fully supportive of abolishing. I believe that they have weaponized the agency and they have used it as a big grift thinking about Christine Ohms and how her friends and family were able to process it off of it by shooting videos and making her look like this really tough person on immigration. Number two, like that $70 billion that they moved over to DHS, we need to use that to actually modernize the immigration system. I am supportive of compassionate, comprehensive immigration form. What that looks like is making sure that border patrol does their job, you know, in regards to being at the border, making sure that DEA handles the juror trafficking and the FBI handles the sexual and the child's and the human trafficking, right? It also means that we bring in more people into the agency so that they can work and help like get somebody's backlog. People are tied up because there's no one. The courts are tied up and everything. We need to make sure that we are helping these mixed status families have a clear pathway to citizenship, right? They don't have one. I believe that these doctor recipients as well as the dreamers, they need to have a clear pathway. citizenship, they should be U.S. citizenship. And then like even with TPS, why do we keep having to exceed TPS? And now, you know, they want to remove it for Venezuela. They did, they're removing it for Haitians and Syrians. These people's home countries are in turmoil and in conflict and it is not a good place for them to go. There's many of them if they go back, they'll face persecution. And so they deserve clear pathways to citizenship, right? And so we make sure that we keep violates and come over here, the wrong way so to speak, like that needs to be a civil matter. It shouldn't be a criminal matter. And you know, I think it's also important, like they want to always go after the undocumented, the undocumented immigrants. Why aren't we saying anything about these companies that are hiring undocumented immigrants, right? Like I remember that one of the Georgia candidates, I think it was the Georgia Congressional candidate a few months ago, they tipped off the fed in regards to undocumented people working at one of the car factories I believe there. And like why weren't those corporate executives arrested, right? Like why are we only going out there the undocumented people? These corporations are the problem. Like they're the problem for a lot of our issues here in our country. They're trying to exploit undocumented immigrants, right? And they, because they don't want to pay American citizens living wages. And so we shouldn't give them a free pass to exploit undocumented people either. They need to be held held by them. - Rep Nixon, I want to ask you, this election as of tomorrow will be one month away. Has there been any traction on you possibly debating the Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vindman? I know you're pretty upset with him not wanting to do this right now, his campaign has said that they're still thinking about it, we'll make a decision. I feel like a lot of people have come to and just accept politics as they are and be like, oh, well, if you don't have to debate, why would you debate? - Can you talk about how that makes you feel that you don't have a debate set up here in the primary? - You know, it's not just how I feel. It's actually how the voters and Floridian feel. They feel just respected. The audacity to fill us though he doesn't need to debate it. Me is wild to me, but it just shows you that he does not know Florida. He has no clue in regards to the issues that we face here in this state. I mean, he's a millionaire. He doesn't understand working class issues. I'm someone, I pride myself on being the top, bottom seven in regards to lawmakers, state lawmakers and our net worth, right? Like I'm still paying off too long dead. I was a single farm for 12 years. And so I know who it is like to struggle and he doesn't understand that. He only really understands his campaign donors because frankly, that's the only people he's really having conversations with and is willing to answer questions for. If you look at the videos all across the state of Florida, Alexander Vimit is afraid to answer questions from Floridian. He runs out of back doors. He enters into room through back doors so he can't be questioned. And it's just ridiculous. But I am here publicly letting folks know that I am calling for a debate on July 30th. And I'm going to, Alexander Vimit, we are going to host a debate where working with organizations in Broward County to host the debate in his own backyard. I don't want him to be scared. Like if he's not afraid, he should be willing to debate me. I'm coming to him. It's on his home court and let the voters decide. He deserves the voters deserve to hear where he's fans on the issues. >> Okay, representative Angie Nixon. If you can't tell by how she's talking from Duval County, everybody running in the August 18th Democratic Senate primary against Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vimit, Rep Nixon, thank you so much for coming on the show today. >> And in the top half of the show, we want to thank New York Times Magazine, Staff Rider and Pro Public Us. Pamela Kolaugh will be in town next Monday to talk about her new book, Catch the Devil Details on that on our blog at wmnf.org. We want to thank you for listening to WMNF Tampa today. And the skinny thank you, Skipsassi on the boards. Alex Madur on the phones and stay tuned for Joelle and Shilke the Hostess, who loves you the most.