December 17, 2024 • 62 mins
Nikki Fried, the vibrant chair of the Florida Democratic Party, joins me, Jack Hopkins, to discuss her trailblazing journey through politics. With a unique upbringing of parents from opposing political parties, Nikki stands out with her independent approach to universal issues like reproductive healthcare and cannabis legalization. Together, we navigate her insights into these critical topics, delving into her personal stories and bipartisan experiences that emphasize solutions over party lines.
Our conversation takes a deep dive into the cross-section of cannabis advocacy and criminal justice reform. I reflect on my own transition from a lucrative commercial litigation career to serving as a public defender, driven by a commitment to addressing social justice and economic disparities. Nikki and I explore the systemic challenges faced by minority groups, especially concerning drug-related offenses, and the potential of normalizing cannabis to create broader economic opportunities and reform within the justice system.
The episode further examines Nikki’s groundbreaking role as the first female Commissioner of Agriculture in the South, her advocacy for mental health support, and critical assessments of political figures like Governor Ron DeSantis. We discuss the ongoing political climate, touching on electoral results, the importance of vigilance in governance, and the impact of leadership on societal resilience. Join us for a thought-provoking discussion that challenges conventional norms and advocates for meaningful change, transcending partisan politics and aiming for the greater good.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, where
stories about the power of focusand resilience are revealed by
the people who live thosestories.
And now the host of the JackHopkins Show podcast, Jack
Hopkins, Hello and welcome tothe Jack Hopkins Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm your host, Jack Hopkins.
The Jack Hopkins Show podcast.
I'm your host, Jack Hopkins.
Today, I am fortunate, veryfortunate indeed, to have with
me chair of the FloridaDemocratic Party, Nikki Freed.
Welcome, Nikki.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Thanks, Jack, for having me on.
I'm looking forward to thisconversation.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, as am I.
I will say for you and anybodythat's listening, first of all
anybody that's listening't doeverything like maybe the system
expects you to do it.
And that's one thing I respectand admire so much about you,
because you've demonstrated youare not hindered by those lines,
are not hindered by those lines.
You are not afraid to make somewaves and to address matters
that need to be addressed, evenif they are uncomfortable and
(01:32):
not particularly helpful to yourpolitical career.
To bring up.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, yeah, you know I've always been an independent
thinker, that's.
You know, when I was, I lobbiedbefore I was elected in 2018.
And I had my dad is a diehardRepublican, my mom's a diehard
Democrat I was a lobbyist.
Most of my friends during thetime as a lobbyist I was a
Republican.
They were Republican, but yet,you know, I'm still a Democrat.
(01:58):
So I just always kind of just,even when I was Commissioner of
Agriculture, you know my teamused to say to me like when we
find solutions to things theyused to say it's not, you know,
left, right, like it's outsidethe box.
We need to find the Nikki Freedsolution to this problem.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And you know, just kind of like looking at it from
a different perspective and nottaking necessarily the
democratic lane of this, butlet's figure out a solution
that's going to work foreverybody, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I got a little bit of rebellion streak.
I got myself arrested last yearand I was like, yeah, and
here's the thing, you werearrested supporting a rock-solid
cause, right, and I thinkthat's what's so important to
point out and to contrast.
That's what's so important topoint out and to contrast.
(02:48):
You know, we've seen plenty ofoutspoken people who aren't
afraid to get out of the linesfrom the Republican Party, right
, but what's not always and infact I would argue is seldom
there, it's not in support of acause that is best for the
greater good, right.
It's not for everybody.
(03:09):
It tends to be fairly political, party specific, right.
So I'm looking after you, myRepublican constituents or
supporters.
This is going to hurt thepeople in the other party, but
that's okay because we don'tcare about them.
All of the issues that I lookat that you've gotten behind,
(03:34):
they are issues that matter toeverybody.
People in both parties benefit.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That's right and I've always, and it's one of my
greatest pet peeves, especiallywhen it comes to politics, that
it unfortunately attracts someof the worst people on both
sides of the aisle.
But some of the worst peoplebecause they're doing it for
their own ego or they like towear the lapel pin to be able to
get into office spaces andreserve seats at events and the
(04:02):
handshaking of things, and notreally for the actual public
service part of it.
And I get on my Democrats allthe time.
You've got to come home and dothe constituency services.
You got to come home and lookat ways to help people,
regardless of Democrat,republican.
You know, when I was elected in2018, I represent all 22 million
people, not just you know thatthis eight million, the 6, 4
(04:24):
million people that voted for me, and not just the Democrats.
You know my job was for all 22million Floridians and it's
really important that whenyou're fighting for causes and
you're fighting for things, it'sbecause it's benefiting
everybody.
And you're right, access toreproductive health care is
across the board.
It's not only for Democrats,you know it's for everybody and
that's what I got arrested for.
But I'm also, you know, as ifanybody has ever followed me and
(04:50):
how I started my career andreally in politics, was the
advocacy of legalization ofcannabis, again not a democratic
issue.
It is a people person issue.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Indeed.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
And medical marijuana and access to that, and so,
yeah, I try to make sure thatI'm not just advocating for
things because they have a Dnext to their name or that's the
issue that only impacts, youknow, a small group of people.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Right, and that's important to point out.
About the medical marijuana Iwas about to say I am a medical
marijuana card holder.
I was, but now Missouri passeda law where you don't have to
have the card anymore.
As a veteran, as somebody whohad a traumatic brain injury and
(05:31):
has dealt with chronic pain for30 years, I have found, in my
case, particularly gummies helpme sleep and get better rest,
and therefore it helps with mypain.
Now I bring this up not onlybecause you've been such a
powerful advocate for this, butI live in a county where eight
(05:56):
out of ten people who voted inthis last election and the
election prior in 2020 voted forDonald Trump.
It's a very red area.
Well, guess what?
The medical marijuanadispensaries around here are
busy, busy, busy, which tells methere are a hell of a lot of
Republicans who are usingmedical marijuana.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
A hundred percent Like.
First of all, like this is oneof those issues that truly cross
crosses over political parties.
You had Donald Trump endorsingthe amendment here in the state
of Florida for legalization, andKamala Harris.
That shows that this is one ofthose last issues that people
across the board can get behind,because everybody's got stories
(06:40):
like yours.
Everybody's got a family member, including my own.
My dad currently is goingthrough cancer and he's on the
medical marijuana registry.
My mother went through chemoshe's on it.
My grandmother, who just wantsher gummies to play Mahjong,
like she just you know.
So it's really everybody's gotthese stories, and you know.
And when I was commissioner ofagriculture, when I was
(07:02):
crisscrossing the state, I wouldbe talking to generational
farmers and ranchers andsometimes it would be three
generations that were actuallytaking me around on their tours
and it would be the oldestgeneration and these are
definitely not Democrats, butit's the older generation that
would come to me and whisper inmy ear when they had time with
me Be like, so when can I startgrowing?
You know, it's just one ofthose things that that is just
(07:30):
you know.
Like it's.
It's kind of like just mindyour own damn business if you
want to smoke, if you want tohave, you know, gummies.
If you want to, you takewhatever um instead of alcohol.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Have at it, it's your life, it's your choice you bet
that we're doing safely yeah,and I, I had a little help with
this and you'll know in a moment.
You'll know who I had help fromand it's probably blush-worthy,
but I've got to do it.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
(07:56):
Happy birthday, dear Nikki.
Happy birthday to you.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Thank you, I think you know who that, who might
have, I would imagine, I wouldimagine.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Hey, you know what, as far as I know, I am now the
only podcaster who has sanghappy birthday to you on.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Absolutely, but you get to compete with Kamala
Harris last year.
Absolutely, but you get tocompete with Kamala Harris last
year.
So so last year, you know,during the holiday season, you
know, there's, you know, holidayparties at the White House and
at the VPs for residents, and sohappened to be the one at her
residence was on my birthdaylast year, and so when I saw her
(08:40):
she has really great staff, asI do too, and her staff had let
them know that it was mybirthday and so she had a
present waiting for me and so Igot to say she got to sing happy
birthday to me.
But this is the first podcastthat somebody sang happy
birthday, so yes, Well, how cool, though, to say Kamala Harris
got me a birthday present.
She did.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Well, and I'm going to kind of hop, hop around here,
I, I like, I kind of like to doI'm not much of a linear, you
know with the progressionthrough the, the episode, uh, I
think that's probably my adhd,right, but it also makes for a
kind of a more spontaneous uhepisode, I think right,
(09:23):
something I I know about you youleft I think this was around
2006, maybe you left the lawfirm you were with to become a
public defender yep now just aguess, but I'm saying you didn't
, that wasn't uh to increaseyour income no.
No.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
It was a fantastic law firm, that I was the first
job that I had after graduatingfrom law school and it was a
great firm to commerciallitigation, good, good people.
But I kind of was sitting theredoing a lot of research and
writing and said this is not howI want to spend the rest of my
life.
This is not why I went to lawschool.
(10:05):
It was to be pushing you knowpapers for for partners and
doing all this.
And so, yeah, I took a morethan 50% pay cut um to to go
into the public defender'soffice, moved out of
Jacksonville back to AlachuaCounty, which is where
Gainesville is.
University of Florida is whereI had gone to undergrad law
school and my master's and yeah,so it was back in a college
(10:28):
town but, yeah, it was a prettysubstantial pay cut.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well, I've always kind of thought this and you can
correct me if I'm wrong or tellme if this is a poor analogy or
even comparison I've alwaysfelt like anybody that's in
politics that has been a publicdefender from the outside
looking in.
A lot of the people that you'redefending as a public defender
(10:59):
are probably a betterrepresentation of the public at
large than people in Washington.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Oh, for sure.
You know, and I think thatthat's you know.
I've always been somebody who Icome from the Jewish faith, and
inside of the Jewish faith wehave a phrase called tikkun olam
to heal the world and that wasreally ingrained in me when I
was a child.
In fact, now I have it tattooedon my arm.
But it really was ingrained thatyou had a responsibility to
(11:32):
give back and to do good.
And so when I had theopportunity to go into the
public defender's office, I did.
I saw all walks of life, allbackgrounds, all socioeconomic
backgrounds.
I mean.
Granted, if they're coming tothe public defender's office and
the PD is representing them,they obviously don't have the
financial means to hire theirown private attorneys, but it
was all walks of life and, youknow, sometimes there were kids
(11:53):
that parents weren't willing tospend, you know, money for their
attorneys.
But it really was reallyeyeopening too of how people get
into the system and they stayin the system, because once you
have a criminal record, once youhave been exposed to a certain
lifestyle, it's hard to break itand that's really ultimately.
You know, I always said thatwhen I got frustrated enough
(12:15):
that I had to leave because Ineeded every one of my clients
to have every ounce of my energy, from the first client that I
ever had to my last.
And what I found along the wayis, you know, that this new kind
of mission for me, that I hadto find a way to fix things
before people got into thesystem.
You know, making sure that?
(12:36):
And a lot of them are minoritycommunities.
How do we go into communitiesand and and build them up and to
make sure that they're smallbusinesses and there's roads and
there's quality of life and andthey're build them up and to
make sure that they're smallbusinesses and there's roads and
there's quality of life and andthey're not going into food
banks but actual food stores andself-esteem aspects?
And and that's also what got meinto the cannabis world, you
know too, is I saw the just thedisparity between you know, when
(13:00):
one of my clients was arrestedfor some other charge, but it
started off with, the odor ofcannabis was detected and that
was the probable cause forwhatever came next.
And I just saw like, all right,I went to UF undergrad masters
Like I just said, law school.
I know what my friends weredoing and you know and and that
(13:22):
we weren't targeted.
You know and so saw that theracial divide and saw now that
it was my client's word versusthe law enforcement officer's
word and sometimes you had badcops.
You know that would be intothese communities that were
using cannabis as a way to findreasons to arrest that person
for whatever the other issue is.
(13:42):
And I just knew that that's notright and that has to be fixed.
And that's always when I comeinto these spaces talking about
cannabis or criminal justicereform or economic opportunities
for minority communities.
It really is my livedexperiences in the public
defender's office.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, I haven't ever looked at the statistics on this
, but I'm going to say therewere probably a lot more arrests
for crack than there werecocaine.
Yeah.
Cocaine.
You know cocaine was kind of anelitist not an elitist, but you
know what I mean the disparitybetween the people who were
using crack and were usingcocaine In fact that was.
(14:23):
You know, it was a show ofstatus at one time.
You want to do a line of coke?
You know nobody ever showedtheir status by doing crack.
(14:49):
You know, it was in a lot ofpeople, a lot of people who get
off work and go home and willdrink a highball or something to
kind of wind down and relax.
I know my grandfather, everyday, every day, and he would
only have one, but he would comehome and in fact this is crazy
(15:12):
his doctor because he had highblood pressure now at the time.
We know things are a littledifferent now, but at the time
his doctor suggested that he dothat, that he come home after
because he had a prettystressful job come home, drink
one highball, just kind of windup, and so that's what he did.
My point is and it will take awhile to get there it's no
(15:34):
different for somebody to comehome and eat a gummy or you know
.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
For sure.
And that's exactly it.
I mean, like I'm not a bigdrinker, you know, but when I do
drink I'm a bourbon girl,bourbon whiskey girl, it's like
I like my scotch, I like mybourbons, but but it's the same
thing, I don't.
You know, we, we all.
You know life is stressful.
Let's, let's take that Liferight now is stressful, whether
you're in politics or you'rejust trying to make ends meet.
(16:06):
You know, yes, you shouldalways find healthy avenues to
relieve that stress, whetherit's at the gym or going to the
boxing or going out withgirlfriends or whatever it is.
But but if you find that inorder for you to be able to be
able to wake up the next day andtake back on the world and go
to your work, if it means cominghome and rolling a joint, who
(16:27):
the hell cares?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Like, literally, who cares?
I too, I have not been able tosleep for a majority of my life.
You know, I've just always havehad some sleep conditions, and
my brain doesn't turn off atnight after.
I just keep going.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I get that.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
You know, and so the only thing that allows me to
fall asleep at night and stayasleep and wake up as a
functional human being is I takeedibles at night.
You know, I'm a chocolate girl,so I don't do the, I do gummies
, and I'm a store of thechocolates too.
So I know which dispensaries.
Now some of the dispensariesare putting RSO in their stuff,
(17:07):
and you know, and are upping itevery once in a while.
I'll do my own chocolates orcookies and do my own stuff.
You bet, and definitely in thenext 15, 20 years, whenever I
retire.
Y'all are welcome to my ScandalBar down in Key West that I
will be opening.
That will be a combination of adispensary and smoke.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Nice, nice, nice.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
That's the last chapter, and you're involved in
politics enough.
You have enough friends thathave been in scandals, and so
the entire, the entire bar willbe surrounded by like news
clippings of all the Floridapoliticians.
And there will be lots more,but there has been, and we'll be
all over the paper.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
I love that.
I love that.
I love that.
Yeah, I'll definitely come toyour store.
I want to ask you, since we'retalking about marijuana, a plant
, uh when you were with adepartment of agriculture?
It's funny because, living herein the Midwest, I think corn
(18:09):
beans, you know.
Of course, citrus fruits cometo mind when I think about
Florida, but I got to thinking.
I thought, other than citrusfruits, I'm not sure I know
anything else that's grown inFlorida.
So what are some of the other?
Speaker 3 (18:27):
So.
So agriculture in the state offlorida, um, is the second
largest economic driver for ourstate and again, most people
wouldn't know that.
You think of disney, you thinkof our beaches, you think of
citrus, but you don't thinkabout agriculture.
We've got two million peoplethat work inside of agriculture
in florida.
It is literally a 137 billiondollar industry in the state of
(18:48):
florida.
So we grow.
We are the specialty crop uhcapital of the of the country,
Um, so we grow everything I meanfrom timber.
Timber is actually the numberone commodity in the state of
Florida.
So it's all over the pan handle.
We're number two in the nationwhen it comes to our ranches for
cows.
Um, so we only second to Texas.
Uh, we have, yeah, uh, we.
(19:10):
We also, um, talking aboutKamala Harris earlier, uh, that
we are the only state, uh, inthe continental United States
that grows coconuts.
Um, so we have coconut trees.
Um, in Florida, we've got, uh,sugar cane, we've got sweet corn
, we've got cotton, um, I meanwe've got green beans, we've got
tomatoes, strawberries,blueberries I mean we really
(19:33):
have it all here.
And now we've got hemp, whichis the sixth largest now as our
ag commodities go.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Is it really?
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Interesting and revenue wise.
Any approximate figures on whatthat's bringing in to the state
?
Speaker 3 (19:50):
well, I guess it's 137 billion dollar industry.
So that is, that is yeah, Iguess you did.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, like I said, it is the second largest economic
driver for the state.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Um, I mean, we've got 46 000 working farms and
ranches, everything from smalluh to to the big guys.
It's all over the map.
And it's actually when I waselected, people kept saying what
is a good Jewish girl fromMiami who's a lawyer lobbyist in
the cannabis space doingrunning for commissioner of
(20:21):
agriculture?
And so the answer was first ofall, it is a large department,
it is commissioner ofAgriculture and Consumer
Services, so I got to use myattorney advocacy arm for the
consumer side of things.
I typically got left behind inthe job, but you know, being
from the cannabis space, it isan agricultural commodity.
But I really did not have anyreal working knowledge of
(20:46):
agriculture when I got elected.
Working knowledge ofagriculture when I got elected
and it took me some time for thepeople inside of agriculture to
understand that.
First and foremost, I am anadvocate, and that is what you
need here in the Department ofAgriculture somebody to be an
advocate for agriculture.
And shortly I was having drinkswith the Farm Bureau presidents
(21:06):
and getting invited to everyassociation keynote speech.
You know everywhere, but it wasone of the most fascinating
jobs and loved every singlemoment of it.
I mean being able to protectwhat is the fabric of the state
of Florida, which is agriculture.
I mean it's on our licenseplates.
The citrus oranges are on ourlicense plates.
(21:27):
It's the bedrock of our state.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
The citrus oranges are on our license plates.
It's the bedrock of our state.
Well, like you said, that's ifyou didn't have any real ag
experience or knowledge.
Look, politics is full ofpeople who have a wealth of
knowledge about subjects, butthey don't have any passion.
You know, yep.
(21:54):
It's the knowledge you can.
You can pick up.
Yep, I've found passion is oneof those things you've.
For the most part, you'veeither got it or you don't.
You, you don't go out and learnpassion, and so, uh, it's cool
when somebody comes in with thepassion and and that what you
were pointing out to them.
Look, the important thing hereis I'm a huge advocate yep
(22:16):
that's what.
For this to get off the ground,for this to go, for this to grow
, there's got to be energy.
Yep, I mean, obviously, peoplebefore me have had the knowledge
, but they, they haven't gottenthis you know this off the
ground, so maybe it's passion.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
And the other thing is, too, is, yes, passion, but
it's also the willingness, as wewere talking about before we
got on to this is also thewillingness to change things and
to be able to walk intosomething, especially
agriculture which is still avery old boy network, especially
agriculture, which is still avery old boy network.
They're still very dominated bywhite men and, to go first,
(22:53):
female ever elected tocommissioner of agriculture, not
just the state of Florida butthe entire South.
And so to walk in with fresheyes, new perspective, to be
looking at things from adifferent direction and coming
up with solutions that may bedifferent than my predecessors
had had, because they're lookingat it from a different
perspective, and so we reallywere able to come in and we put
(23:14):
a list together Like, forinstance, like we knew, and
still today, that peopleinvolved in agriculture is
actually number one suiciderates is in agriculture.
I did not know that Because, ifyou think about it, most people
inside of agriculture are alittle bit further away from
their neighbors.
You know, mostly living incommunities that are smaller
(23:35):
have less access to, you know,to the internet because of
broadband access, to qualityroads, to hospitals, and so
there's a lot of seclusion andthey're barely making ends meet.
Yeah, the big guys, the bigguys out there are making hand
over fist, and that's part ofthe reason why our you know, our
food costs are so high, becausethey're making a lot of money,
(23:58):
but it's the mid to small, youknow, farms and ranches that
they are just barely making endsmeet, and so it is really so.
Anyhow, long story short.
Um, I came in and I was like,what do we do about this?
And so we talked about a lot ofdoing like tele-mental health,
you know, being able to get inthere, and then my team was like
, wait a second, these guysdon't have broadband.
(24:18):
How are we getting thetele-health to them?
So we were coming up withdifferent ideas and strategies
and working then with the Bidenadministration to get a lot of
broadband into these communitiesand to form a mental health
advocacy inside the Departmentof Agriculture.
But again, it took a differenttype of leader to walk in and
want to solve problems thatmaybe my predecessors either
(24:42):
knew and didn't think through it, or it just wasn't on their
radars.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, I'm going to, I'll make this assumption about
you and then you can tell mewhether I'm right or wrong.
Just because of somesimilarities we have that I do
know about, I'm guessing you,like me, kind of sometimes
thrive on the resistance, thepushback against your right,
(25:11):
whereas I know a lot of peoplewho go through life not speaking
out or not introducingsomething new or new idea, new
thought, that cuts against great, because they have kind of thin
skin right and the first timesomebody criticizes them they're
, they're deflated right.
That that's when my brainreally functions at its best.
(25:37):
I, I need it.
In fact I need it.
Um, I can't do my best workunless I've got somebody saying,
oh yeah, that's dumb, orpushing against me.
Are you kind of like that?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, and so much so like one, if you're trying to
make progress, you're trying todo good and everybody's agreeing
with you, then you're doingsomething wrong.
You know, you're trying becauseotherwise it would have been
done before, and one of thoseexamples.
Going back to the cannabisconversation, I'm also a gun
owner.
I have a concealed weaponspermit and I have inherited a
(26:13):
firearm from my grandfather, butI've always wanted to purchase
a new firearm to be able tocarry more frequently.
And, recognizing that, as acannabis user, that we are not
allowed to purchase a firearm,it is against the laws and it's
on the ATF form I think it'squestion 10, echo, that
(26:34):
specifically states that.
And so I walked in into thecommissioner's job and I turned
to my team and I said we'regoing to fix this, we're going
to sue the federal government.
And they're like what?
Because one of the things thatis also underneath the
Commissioner of Agriculture wasthe concealed weapons program
for the state of Florida, one ofthe largest in the entire
(26:56):
nation, and so we found a nexuson because of the advocacy I was
doing on cannabis and the factthat I was, you know, overseeing
the gun purchasing.
We worked for years.
The goal was to have it filedin 2020, this lawsuit, but of
course the pandemic hit and sopriorities shifted and we filed
(27:17):
the lawsuit April 20th of 2022.
And we filed a federal lawsuiton the discrimination of medical
cannabis users being able topurchase a firearm and at the
time April 2022, theadministration is Democrat.
(27:40):
And so here you have the onlystatewide elected Democrat who
was running for governor of thestate of Florida, filing a
lawsuit against the Bidenadministration, and so the
conversations, of course,in-house, were like you are
going to get slammed.
I mean, granted, we called theDepartment of Justice first.
(28:01):
We talked to Merrick Garland'soffice.
We told the White House we weredoing this, that this is
obviously a policy that was putin place way before they got
there and to make sure that theyknew that this was going on.
But fellow Democrats lit me up.
Oh I bet Suing the Democraticpresident of the United States,
(28:27):
and I kind of was like but it'sthe right thing to do and I will
take whatever is coming at mebecause we have to make progress
on this issue and this is oneof those things that just needs
to happen.
And that case is still going on.
It's in the 11th Circuit herein Florida, but it's also,
interestingly enough, was thesame exact issue that Hunter
Biden was convicted on.
(28:47):
So everything kind of has youknow, a way of you know making
progress.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Certainly.
Yeah of um you know makingprogress, but certainly, yeah,
yeah, and that's again like it'sin the beginning.
That's the kind of thing I Ilike about you, because you said
something and that to me that'sreally the only thing that
matters.
You said but it was the rightthing yeah that for the most of
the time, that should pusheverything else out to the
(29:18):
periphery.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
If it's the right thing to do, then it's the right
thing to do that's right, nomatter, no matter the
consequences personally, nomatter the consequences
politically and no matter whoyou're having to challenge.
You know, and and again at thattime, you know, everybody just
saw it, as you know, nikki Freedsuing Joe Biden, and you know,
(29:40):
but it was hard, but it was even.
You know, because I was electedwith a lot of support from the
Parkland families and from someof the families that have been
involved with gun senseregulations and victim families
and had to have a separateconversation with them all and
say, listen, this is actuallyproviding more safety for, you
know, people are having to getthe background checks when they
(30:00):
purchase a firearm and if you'regoing into using cannabis, you
know that you're doing it safelyand going through the regulated
market, which means that weneed both of those to be able to
coexist.
But it had to have thoseconversations to work through it
because, again, it's the rightthing to have done.
It provides safety on bothsides of that conversation.
And again, what is thedifference between somebody
(30:21):
having alcohol and somebodysmoking weed when it comes to
gun ownership?
Going back to my PD days, therewas never a time in my entire
four years as being a publicdefender did my client come in
and say Ms Freed, I was just toohigh when I shot up the liquor
store?
Like.
(30:42):
I was too high on crack or, oryou know, meth or alcohol, but
but never weed, and and so itreally is just kind of getting a
cultural change that has tohappen.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, and those last, in that last hour, 30 minutes
before I go to bed, after I'vetaken a gummy, I don't find
myself sitting around looking atmy wife and saying there's no
one.
I feel like going robbingsomeplace.
That's just not happening.
(31:14):
That's not happening, you know.
So let's talk about RonDeSantis for a moment, because
one thing I know is again andreally I think that's really
where you really jumped onto myradar, right, because you were
(31:39):
not afraid of Ron DeSantis youcriticized Ron DeSantis like few
other people were willing to.
And while I didn't say his nameearlier when I mentioned that,
(32:00):
yeah, we've got outspokenRepublicans, but they aren't
necessarily behind somethingthat's good for everyone, as
opposed to the examples I gavewith you Look, rhonda Sanders is
outspoken, but he's also ahateful man.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Right, he's also a hateful man, yep Right.
He makes no bones about.
If you don't fit into thiscategory, I don't care about you
.
In fact, I will work againstyou.
Yep.
What do you think his politicalfuture is, and how does your
political future, where does itfit in with what his might be?
Speaker 3 (32:38):
My hope is that he has no political future.
Where does it fit in with whathis might be?
My hope is that he has nopolitical future.
This is not a good person, youknow.
I spent four years on thecabinet with him.
You know the cabinet.
We took a retreat, a trademission, to Israel, so we have
spent a lot of time together.
And I always talk about thefact that you know, for those
four years, twice did he makeeye contact with me Twice.
(33:03):
That tells you that underneathit all, that there's nothing
there, you know, and when youmake eye contact and eye contact
is so important to humaninteraction- you bet it is To
look into somebody's soul to seethat they're interacting with
you, that they're listening tothe conversation, they're not
distracted by whatever else isaround them, and but when you do
, look that there's nothingbehind those eyes.
(33:24):
And I and I had told everybodywhen whether it's during debates
or whether he's on TV, turn offthe volume and just watch his,
his facial expressions, watchhow he doesn't his eyes like it,
just you could tell that he'sjust mean spirited and there's
not a heart behind him, and andso I hope that.
(33:45):
And then he's weird.
I mean he is just like, don'tever try eating with him.
He stuffs his mouth.
Whether that's a distraction tonot have to interact with
people, but he's just weird,socially awkward.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
That's awkward, fits him too.
Every time I watched that man,it's like my God.
He looks so uncomfortable inhis own skin.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Yeah.
So I think what happened alongthe way, first of all like he's
always been that way, and Ithink that when he ran for
governor and won that, theHeritage Foundation which we
know is what's controllingProject 2025 and a lot of the
Republican stuff that'shappening today got a hold of
him and said we're going to makeyou president, just follow this
(34:26):
playbook.
And for six years, that'sexactly what he did.
He followed this playbook fromthe don't say gay bill to
removing of state attorneys fromoffice, to a six-week abortion
ban, going after immigrants, thelawsuits with Disney and the
cruise ship industry andeverything in between that he
has done book banning, you know,going after higher education
(34:51):
and so he didn't do it becausethat was what was in the best
interest of the people of thestate.
I mean trying to take our stateparks and put them into
pickleball courts.
I mean just crazy stuff.
And so I'm hoping that theAmerican people saw his
awkwardness, saw that hispolicies weren't in the best
interest of the people of thestate.
We have property insurance inFlorida is crippling our state.
(35:13):
We are the number one propertyinsurance in the entire country.
And, yes, we've got hit byhurricanes, but there's ways to
moderate this, but they've givenblank checks.
In the insurance industrythere's been a 400% increase of
premiums since he becamegovernor and we are the number
one inflation in the countrybecause he refused to bring down
some of the Biden dollars forinfrastructure, for the IRA, for
(35:35):
the Inflation Reduction Act,and I mean even now we're
fighting on kids care, which wasapproved by, which is a
Medicare expansion program,which he's refusing to bring
down the money for our kids, tofeed our kids.
I mean he's just not a goodperson and so I'm hoping that
the American people saw enoughof him during the presidential
run.
That it's over, that it's overover.
(35:58):
I mean I know that in his heart, which whatever is there, um,
that he wants that he wants tobe president of the united
states and he's certainly goingto try to position himself.
He has term limited out in 26and so my hope is that he fades
into into the darkness, goes onto.
He can have a fox news show, hecan write some books, he can be
a you know, whatever else hisis, but hopefully it's not in
(36:20):
politics, and so I don't knowhow that interacts necessarily
with mine per se, but he hasdone some significant
destruction to the state,changing the name of the game
when it comes to even voterregistration citizens
initiatives.
This year we had both cannabislegalization Amendment 3, and
abortion access Amendment 4 onthe ballot.
(36:41):
He not only used the fullweight of him, but he also used
the full weight of his office.
We had six government agenciesthat basically put out false
information, using governmentdollars to go after these
amendments and spent roughly $50million of taxpayer dollars to
go after constitutionalamendments.
So you know he needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, I guess if there were any two things I can
think of that I would say toGovernor DeSantis one, I hope he
has already found a pair ofcowboy boots that fit.
And two, when you are going todo some press, some campaign
photos of you doing physicallabor, you know, tucking your
(37:28):
pants into your white boots,don't ditch the sweater.
Ditch the sweater, they don'tgo together.
Right, it makes it look likethe prop that it is.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
so my last day in office.
Um, I had, for a couple of dayswe had we had been setting up
like videos of just you know,all the things that we had done,
because it's very easy for youknow, the republicans attacked
me for all the time that I wascommissioner.
Then, when I ran for governor,to to lose the, to lose the
accomplishments that we wascommissioner, and then, when I
ran for governor, to lose theaccomplishments that we had
(37:59):
inside the department, to thepolitical noise, and so we
really wanted to make sure thatwe set the record straight on
all of the amazing things thatwe did in those four years.
I mean most movement on energyefficiency, of helping the
citrus industry to helpingagriculture, new commodities.
I mean we just really did atremendous amount of work in my
(38:21):
department and the team members.
But the other last 15 minutes ofmy whole speeches was directed
to Ron and it was an outgoingstatement that basically said
(38:42):
all right, you just pulled off19.1.
And my primary opponent,charlie Crist.
It was a disaster for Democratsin 2022.
And 19 point loss.
We are now in a super minorityin both the House and the Senate
and first time sincereconstruction that we did not
have a statewide Democrat in thestate of Florida, and so I said
to Ron what are you going to dowith this?
Are you going to recognize thatyou have an opportunity to
(39:04):
govern for all 22 million people, or are you going to take your
ambitions and you're going toonly govern for the 4.5 million
Floridians that voted for youand leaving the other 15 million
apart to seek higher office?
(39:26):
And I said, history is going tojudge you by the decisions that
you are going to make in thenext six months.
And I was right.
He did not follow my lead,because if he had come in,
imagine this if Ron DeSantis hadcome in in 2022, excuse me,
2023, and had an agenda thatbrought people together, that
lifted people up, that trulyshowed what a conservative
(39:48):
Republican used to be, he mightmore dividing and conquering and
divisive politics and went tosuch an extreme direction that
he's never going to be electedpresident of the United States.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
No no.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
You know, but it is what it is.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I'm glad you brought that up, because I don't know
whether this will be popular ornot Probably not.
But then again, I don't care IfDonald Trump would come into
office which we know he's notgoing to, but if he would come
into office taking basically thesame thing you laid out for
(40:31):
DeSantis, because I love thiscountry so much and because I
want to see everyone prosper andI don't just mean financially
with their health, in all areasof life.
As anti-Trump as I am, I wouldlove to see him succeed in
(40:54):
governing for everyone.
That's right and I wouldacknowledge him when he did.
But I much like desantis, I, I,it's not in him it's, it's not.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
It's not in him.
And not only is it not in him,but it's who he's also circling
around him.
You know, at least in the firstadministration there was good
people, there was smart people,right people who could be those
guardrails that says let's notgo there.
But unfortunately, you'reseeing what he's unleashing onto
(41:26):
the country already.
The picks are very intentionalpicks and they're outside the
box, which, again, talking toyou and I.
Outside the box is good, that'sokay.
Sometimes politics have to bebreaking is good, that's okay.
Sometimes politics have to bebreaking things down, that's
okay.
But to have unqualified peoplethat are going to make a mockery
of the United States that canput us in, not only national
(41:50):
security issues are standing onthe world stage the economics of
this country, an oligarchy.
I mean the fact that Elon Muskhasn't left his side.
This is somebody who I don'teven know if he's a US citizen.
You know if he was even able?
to vote in our elections and gotto this country illegally, you
(42:11):
know, is the ones who arerunning the show and it is not
for the best interests of thepeople of this country.
But, yeah, I would welcome that.
I would welcome any Republicanwho says, look, I may have
campaigned on these things and Iwon on these things, but the
reality is I'm now president forall Americans and to take those
steps to create policies.
(42:31):
You know, we've got 4.2 millionpeople in the state of Florida
that are on the ACA, Obamacare.
If they dismantle the ACA,those are real lives and real
people who are going to be in areal financial situation where
they may not have access tohealthcare and they could be
going through chemo, they couldbe on a wait list, you know, for
a liver transplant, I mean allof these things that people are
(42:52):
going through.
So it is, it is a shame, but,yeah, I would absolutely welcome
that if, if Donald Trump hadthat in him to do.
But it's um, and the otherthing.
I'll say this, and I'llprobably be slammed for this
that if they were to actually dothat, it will be a long time
before Democrats come back intopower.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Oh, it would, there's no question about it.
Yeah, it really would correctme if I'm wrong, but you, you
are jewish, correct?
Yes, okay, here's I.
I especially with, with israeland gaza.
I, especially on x, shortlyafter october 7th, I?
(43:31):
I with unreservedly showsupport for Israel and, more
widespread, the Jewish people asa whole.
Right, my thing has been formost of my adult life the Jewish
people have had their asskicked enough.
(43:52):
That's my take.
That's my take.
My grandfather fought in WorldWar II and when I was I don't
know if I was even old enough toread yet when he was showing me
pictures and talking to meabout the Holocaust.
And so I only ask you that askind of a lead-in to this
(44:14):
question.
Kind of a lead-in to thisquestion, because I can only
imagine that someone of Jewishfaith or someone who's Jewish,
when they hear this talk aboutdetention centers, that, going
(44:35):
back, in your case, to yourparents' generation and the
generation before, that has toresonate with you in a way that
it can't for me, am I correct?
Speaker 3 (44:50):
You're 100% correct, and especially somebody like me
who, when I was growing up, as Ijust saw, I've got Takuna Lum
tattooed on my wrist and yes,that is anti-Jewish.
In the grand scheme of things,we're not supposed to put
tattoos on our body.
But I think God will forgive mefor this one.
But I've also spent a lot of mytime growing up in Miami going
(45:12):
to Jewish school.
I went to day school, was veryinvolved in my international
youth organization, went towhat's called the March to the
Living, which is one week inPoland, one week in Israel.
My junior year of high schoolactually walked through the
gates of Auschwitz and Birkenauand Majdanek and to know and to
(45:33):
hear the history of how thatcame to be, that it wasn't just
all of a sudden there'sconcentration camps and all of a
sudden, and it wasn't just 6million Jews, and I think that
the people of this country andthe world need to remember that
it was 6 million Jews, but itwas 6 million others too.
That's a good point In society.
There was politicians, there wasgypsies, there was those that
(45:57):
had disabilities, you know,there was all types of other
people that were also killedduring the Holocaust.
But to know that it didn'thappen overnight, that Hitler
was democratically elected.
The Nazi party was the powerthat was elected.
And then, watching everythingfrom history of, you know, first
(46:17):
was the consolidation of thepower underneath under Hitler,
then it was banning of books,then it was arresting of
political operatives, then itwas, you know, the military,
became part of the actualoperations of the government,
and then it came the putting,you know, the Jewish community
and ghettos.
And then it was the putting,the Jewish community and ghettos
(46:38):
, and then it was rounding themup.
And so, and to be watching someof this rhetoric and some of
(47:00):
the crematoriums were landing onpeople's homes and house and
their cars.
They knew what was going on andthey kept silent.
And you so you're seeing somebehavioral similarities between
what was during the I mean,we're not talking thousands of
years ago.
We still have Holocaustsurvivors today.
(47:20):
I mean, granted, they're dyingoff and they're far and few
between at this point.
But you know, and so to know,the rhetoric that is coming from
the extremes on the right isdangerous.
And yes, and that is one of whyI fight the way I fight to know
that it is still possible thateven in our democratic society,
(47:43):
watching how easy people can bemanipulated, especially because
trusted news sources are nolonger there, people are going
in and are kind of going tribalagain and going kind of inside
only talking to the people thatare in their inner circles.
Yes that is dangerous.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
It's very dangerous.
It's very dangerous.
I've I've been leaning moreheavily into that, both on
social media and I have anewsletter called the Jack
Hopkins Now newsletter, which isabout building resilience and
dealing with and managing yourfears and in my social media
(48:22):
posts.
One thing I've been doingthat's been ruffling some
feathers, but that's okaybecause for the people whose
feathers it's not ruffling, whoare actually going, hmm,
interesting, I think it's beinghelpful.
I'm calling people out on this.
I'm saying, hey look, this isnot a game, this is not a joke,
(48:43):
this is not a paragraph in thenewspaper.
This is happening right now andwe know exactly how it will
unfold if we do what I seealready happening.
And you are right, people arethe very thing people have long
said.
How could that happen?
How could they do that?
I'm watching people do thething they could never
(49:06):
understand.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
Yeah, and it's the same thing that I you know, I'm
looking at it from.
You know when DeSantis' namehas been floated for Secretary
of Defense and that isterrifying.
Terrifying because one he'salready used.
He created a militia inside ofthe state of Florida that he's
now used against the people ofthe state Again.
(49:30):
We talked about $50 millionthat was used to suppress voters
.
This is somebody who would notthink twice if Donald Trump
calls him up and says againenemies within you know that
that's using you know it'sSecretary of Defense you're
defending the country.
And if their mind is made upthat Democrats are the enemies
(49:51):
within, we are on a verydangerous slippery slope.
And if you've got somebody whois so as diabolical as ron
desantis to use the militaryagainst operatives inside of the
democratic party and people say, oh my god, nikki, how can you
say that again?
You know that this is nevergoing to happen.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
I'd like to not take that chance right, yeah, and
case in point, for for about thelast year and a half leading up
to the election, in a way thatalways offered a solution or a
direction to go, I was hammeringthe point home that it's going
to get bad in the lead up tothis election.
If you think it's bad now, justwait.
(50:35):
And of course, it did get worseand worse and worse.
So initially, you know, a yearand a half ago, when I was
saying that, I know there were alot of people rolling there oh,
you know, here you go.
What's he selling?
You know trying to introducefear to us.
Well, I've had a lot of thosepeople message me and say you
(50:58):
know what, a year and a half agoI thought you'd maybe gone off
the rails a little bit, butpretty much what you said was
going to happen happened.
And that's when I remind them.
I'm telling you the same thingagain Now, after he comes into
office.
The things that sound too nuttyto actually be real, they are
real too nutty to actually bereal.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
They are real.
Yeah, and and again, I hope,like I hope, that better angels,
you know, are going to prevailhere and that it's he gets there
.
And you know, for him, this wasabout an ego, this was about
getting this.
This was about ego.
This is about hey, I won in2020 and I'm going to prove
everybody again and be able tokind of go out of this chapter
on a high.
This is to get rid of all thoselawsuits and this is to help
(51:48):
financially.
I mean, he's selling perfume.
The president-elect of theUnited States is selling perfume
.
It is beyond, like beyond, andso I hope that, like he gets
there and he says missionaccomplished, I'm here and it
doesn't actually pursue some ofthese things, that that has been
(52:09):
discussed, or allowing thesepeople that have really dark
visions of the world to be ableto truly take over Again.
I do think and it's part of myjob as chair of the Democratic
Party is to not every single daybe yelling and screaming.
That will drive everybody crazy, that doesn't get us any good
footing, that doesn't change thenarrative, but it's making sure
(52:31):
, like, look, if Trump doessomething good that benefits the
people of this country, I'mgoing to be the first one.
And, mark, this is at the timethat we're on my birthday on
2024, before he gets in, I willbe happy to say that was a good
move.
You come in and look not asingle person in this country
(52:51):
believes that government isefficient, that there isn't
bureaucratic waste andbureaucratic spending.
Not a single person in thiscountry.
So I am all in favor of cuttingred tape, of getting rid of
unnecessary spending, gettingour our you know, our our
deficit down.
The question is, how does thatget done?
At what cost?
You know, do some of it?
(53:12):
Sure, absolutely, but you can'tcut social security, medicare,
medicaid you know you can't.
You can't do things like that.
Figure out other ways.
And so we will be verywatchdog-like, looking to see
that, yes, praising things thatget done, but also, in the same
respect, making sure that whenthey've gone too far, you know
okay, sure, you want to goreview the COVID vaccines, fine,
(53:35):
but don't go back and look atpolio.
The COVID vaccine's fine, butdon't go back and look at polio.
Don't go back and look at mumpsand measles and some of these
other you know vaccines thathave truly saved this country
from tremendous healthcareoutbreaks.
So I think that as long asthere's moderation and how his
policies get implemented, thecountry's going to be okay and
we'll get through it.
But if he takes the extremethat he and surrounds himself by
(53:59):
those type of extremists, holdon tight.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
I've got a question for you that maybe you have an
answer for me.
As somebody not directlyinvolved in politics, I can't
get my thumb on it.
Um, usually in politics or alot of time anyway I should say,
if, if somebody's reallydriving something hard, uh, you
(54:24):
think okay, who are the peoplelobbying right behind for this?
Who's the, for example, likethe, the pharmaceutical
companies.
You know if, if there's a bigpush for something, you go, okay
, well, you know it's Pfizer orwhoever they're they're pushing.
The thing with RFK Jr, that'skind of baffling to me.
It would seem that most of whathe's promoting and his ideology
(54:48):
about this whole thing would becounterproductive for the
pharmaceutical industry, thatmaybe they would be losing money
.
So my question then would bewho's throwing more money at
this, then, than the?
Speaker 3 (55:06):
pharmaceutical companies to go the other way.
I think that I do think thepharmaceutical companies have
the most to lose here and I'mdown for that.
I mean, I think as a nation weall are down for that.
Sure I'm down for that.
I mean, we, I think as a nation, we all are down for that Sure
Um.
So I don't know if in fact RFKis kind of just a drifter and
(55:28):
and just kind of like goesthrough.
I think he in some ways, Ithink he believes some of this
stuff, like I think, I think soI think that he's a believer.
And again we go back to thispassion thing.
I guess having passion forsomething you believe in, right.
Um, it doesn't mean I'm makingyou secretary of health, but, um
, but I I think that you knowsome of this stuff and which is
(55:51):
why I think, ultimately, at theend of the day, a lot of the
things that RFK wants to doisn't going to happen.
Do I think that, like when thatRFK wants to do isn't going to
happen?
Do I think that, like when itcomes to the FDA?
Yeah, the FDA has a lot ofproblems.
I'm going back to theircannabis space.
They don't know how to regulatecannabis.
I will never forget in 2019,when I went up to Washington DC
and I was working onlegalization of hemp for Florida
(56:12):
and I was talking to the USDAand to the FDA and I walked into
the FDA.
They obviously had not donetheir research and they spent
the first few minutes of ourmeeting talking to me about
cannabis and giving me thehistory of cannabis, and so I
had to stop them and say let mereintroduce myself.
But I said to them look, youknow, these states across the
(56:36):
country, after the Farm Bill of2018, are legalizing hemp and
are utilizing new products thatare coming out for human and
animal consumption, and we'regoing to need direction.
And they gave me all of theselike long hoops and well, what
about this and what about that?
And I said you know what, guys,I'm going to do it in Florida
(56:57):
and you're just going to followmy lead, because you sound like
you're 10 years away from havingany type of ability to put out
directives to any of us.
And we did, and they still arenot there.
And this is now six years later.
So there are real significantproblems when it comes to these
government agencies, agencies.
(57:18):
Do I think rfk is the right oneto have a solution?
Speaker 2 (57:22):
no, he's going to blow shit up yeah, yeah, and I
like your answer because it itit mirrors it to a degree what I
was thinking.
It's like look, you know, I Ithink, as as crazy as it may
sound in this era that we're in,because everybody, everybody
thinks everything that happensis just because of money, right.
(57:42):
But when I look at RFK Jr, Ithink you know this guy was born
into money, he's always hadmoney.
I don't know that money's a bigmotivator for him at this point
in life, I think he's so.
He believes, he believes thesethings and so it's not
necessarily somebody throwingmoney at him to get him to go.
This is just what he believesand this is what he wants to do.
Speaker 3 (58:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:05):
So, as we start to close out here because again it
is your birthday and I'm sureyou've got other things you
would like to do that that willbe fun.
How can people listening tothis or watching this podcast,
how can they support you and thedirection that you are going,
(58:26):
whether they live in florida ornot?
Speaker 3 (58:28):
yeah, first of all, follow me on my social platforms
.
Um, I'm on everything from bluesky.
Now it's a, I'm staying on x,so I'm definitely keeping
encouraging people to stay on xwe.
We can't concede an entire space, and there's a lot of other new
platforms and ones that areminority owned.
You know everybody get on there.
That you know and be on there.
That's one.
(58:49):
Follow us Also.
Follow what we're doing here inFlorida when it comes to
Democrats.
Don't give up on us.
Please don't give up on us.
You know there's 22 plus millionpeople here in the state of
Florida that need balance backin government, that need people
to have leadership that is goingto protect everybody in the
state.
You know, and I always say thisto you you know, born and
(59:10):
raised here in Miami and Florida, and so were my parents the
state used to be so libertarian.
If you wanted to go down to KeyWest and you want to hang out
on Duval Street, have at it.
You want to go to Tampa, hasGasparilla, which is like Mardi
Gras throw bees.
You want to go to the 30K,which is the panhandle Redneck
Riviera area.
(59:30):
People just left you alone.
You found your community, youfound your places and people
left you alone.
What Ron DeSantis has done tothis state in six years is try
to force everybody to be in hisimage, and so we've got to get
back to balance here in ourstate.
So really encouraging.
First of all, everybody, don'tgive up on Florida.
There's a lot of really reallygood people here that are
(59:51):
fighting back every single day.
Two, always, we'll put a plugin Go to floridademsorg, even if
it's $2, $3, $5, whatever youcan afford.
Be a monthly subscriber to us.
We are doing the really hardwork.
But, most importantly, justdon't give up on us.
We're going to fight back.
We've been 30 years in thedesert wandering and 30 years
(01:00:11):
there's only been threeDemocrats elected statewide,
myself included, and my goal inlife is to make sure not in life
, but my goal is to make surethat I'm not the last statewide
elected Democrat and we'll getback there.
But it's going to take sometime and patience and people not
giving up on us.
Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Well, I want to say that on behalf of at least my
followers.
Right, I've got a couple ofhundred thousand followers.
I say for them thank you forbeing you right, we like you and
who you are and how you operate, and we need more people like
(01:00:51):
you.
Second, hey, thanks for takingsome time out for me on your
birthday.
I mean, that means a lot thatyou lot that you didn't have to
do that and I'm sure you getplenty of calls.
So, thank you.
Will we see you run forgovernor again?
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
You know I love my state and you can't hear that I
love every aspect of my state.
There will be a time where Iwill run again statewide.
We've got work to do first, andso you know I am rerunning for
chair of the Florida DemocraticParty to continue rebuilding.
But I've got I'm a policy wonkat heart and have lots of ideas
(01:01:31):
of how to make the state betterand to create balance back.
So don't count me out for notrunning for governor one time
again.
But certainly we've got work todo to get us back into a better
position and that's so coolabout you you're not chasing the
title.
Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
You you've got stuff you actually want to get done
and you'll do it wherever youcan most adequately get it done.
That's awesome.
All right, thank you listen.
Happy birthday, go have a drinkor something and enjoy the rest
of the day.
Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Thank, you, nikki.
I appreciate it.
Thanks, jack, and thanks to allof your listeners.
Take care, we'll see you nexttime.
Welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast, where
stories about the power of focusand resilience are revealed by
the people who live thosestories.
And now the host of the JackHopkins Show podcast, Jack
Hopkins, Hello and welcome tothe Jack Hopkins Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I'm your host, Jack Hopkins.
The Jack Hopkins Show podcast.
I'm your host, Jack Hopkins.
Today, I am fortunate, veryfortunate indeed, to have with
me chair of the FloridaDemocratic Party, Nikki Freed.
Welcome, Nikki.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Thanks, Jack, for having me on.
I'm looking forward to thisconversation.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, as am I.
I will say for you and anybodythat's listening, first of all
anybody that's listening't doeverything like maybe the system
expects you to do it.
And that's one thing I respectand admire so much about you,
because you've demonstrated youare not hindered by those lines,
are not hindered by those lines.
You are not afraid to make somewaves and to address matters
that need to be addressed, evenif they are uncomfortable and
(01:32):
not particularly helpful to yourpolitical career.
To bring up.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, yeah, you know I've always been an independent
thinker, that's.
You know, when I was, I lobbiedbefore I was elected in 2018.
And I had my dad is a diehardRepublican, my mom's a diehard
Democrat I was a lobbyist.
Most of my friends during thetime as a lobbyist I was a
Republican.
They were Republican, but yet,you know, I'm still a Democrat.
(01:58):
So I just always kind of just,even when I was Commissioner of
Agriculture, you know my teamused to say to me like when we
find solutions to things theyused to say it's not, you know,
left, right, like it's outsidethe box.
We need to find the Nikki Freedsolution to this problem.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And you know, just kind of like looking at it from
a different perspective and nottaking necessarily the
democratic lane of this, butlet's figure out a solution
that's going to work foreverybody, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I got a little bit of rebellion streak.
I got myself arrested last yearand I was like, yeah, and
here's the thing, you werearrested supporting a rock-solid
cause, right, and I thinkthat's what's so important to
point out and to contrast.
That's what's so important topoint out and to contrast.
(02:48):
You know, we've seen plenty ofoutspoken people who aren't
afraid to get out of the linesfrom the Republican Party, right
, but what's not always and infact I would argue is seldom
there, it's not in support of acause that is best for the
greater good, right.
It's not for everybody.
(03:09):
It tends to be fairly political, party specific, right.
So I'm looking after you, myRepublican constituents or
supporters.
This is going to hurt thepeople in the other party, but
that's okay because we don'tcare about them.
All of the issues that I lookat that you've gotten behind,
(03:34):
they are issues that matter toeverybody.
People in both parties benefit.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
That's right and I've always, and it's one of my
greatest pet peeves, especiallywhen it comes to politics, that
it unfortunately attracts someof the worst people on both
sides of the aisle.
But some of the worst peoplebecause they're doing it for
their own ego or they like towear the lapel pin to be able to
get into office spaces andreserve seats at events and the
(04:02):
handshaking of things, and notreally for the actual public
service part of it.
And I get on my Democrats allthe time.
You've got to come home and dothe constituency services.
You got to come home and lookat ways to help people,
regardless of Democrat,republican.
You know, when I was elected in2018, I represent all 22 million
people, not just you know thatthis eight million, the 6, 4
(04:24):
million people that voted for me, and not just the Democrats.
You know my job was for all 22million Floridians and it's
really important that whenyou're fighting for causes and
you're fighting for things, it'sbecause it's benefiting
everybody.
And you're right, access toreproductive health care is
across the board.
It's not only for Democrats,you know it's for everybody and
that's what I got arrested for.
But I'm also, you know, as ifanybody has ever followed me and
(04:50):
how I started my career andreally in politics, was the
advocacy of legalization ofcannabis, again not a democratic
issue.
It is a people person issue.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Indeed.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
And medical marijuana and access to that, and so,
yeah, I try to make sure thatI'm not just advocating for
things because they have a Dnext to their name or that's the
issue that only impacts, youknow, a small group of people.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Right, and that's important to point out.
About the medical marijuana Iwas about to say I am a medical
marijuana card holder.
I was, but now Missouri passeda law where you don't have to
have the card anymore.
As a veteran, as somebody whohad a traumatic brain injury and
(05:31):
has dealt with chronic pain for30 years, I have found, in my
case, particularly gummies helpme sleep and get better rest,
and therefore it helps with mypain.
Now I bring this up not onlybecause you've been such a
powerful advocate for this, butI live in a county where eight
(05:56):
out of ten people who voted inthis last election and the
election prior in 2020 voted forDonald Trump.
It's a very red area.
Well, guess what?
The medical marijuanadispensaries around here are
busy, busy, busy, which tells methere are a hell of a lot of
Republicans who are usingmedical marijuana.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
A hundred percent Like.
First of all, like this is oneof those issues that truly cross
crosses over political parties.
You had Donald Trump endorsingthe amendment here in the state
of Florida for legalization, andKamala Harris.
That shows that this is one ofthose last issues that people
across the board can get behind,because everybody's got stories
(06:40):
like yours.
Everybody's got a family member, including my own.
My dad currently is goingthrough cancer and he's on the
medical marijuana registry.
My mother went through chemoshe's on it.
My grandmother, who just wantsher gummies to play Mahjong,
like she just you know.
So it's really everybody's gotthese stories, and you know.
And when I was commissioner ofagriculture, when I was
(07:02):
crisscrossing the state, I wouldbe talking to generational
farmers and ranchers andsometimes it would be three
generations that were actuallytaking me around on their tours
and it would be the oldestgeneration and these are
definitely not Democrats, butit's the older generation that
would come to me and whisper inmy ear when they had time with
me Be like, so when can I startgrowing?
You know, it's just one ofthose things that that is just
(07:30):
you know.
Like it's.
It's kind of like just mindyour own damn business if you
want to smoke, if you want tohave, you know, gummies.
If you want to, you takewhatever um instead of alcohol.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Have at it, it's your life, it's your choice you bet
that we're doing safely yeah,and I, I had a little help with
this and you'll know in a moment.
You'll know who I had help fromand it's probably blush-worthy,
but I've got to do it.
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
(07:56):
Happy birthday, dear Nikki.
Happy birthday to you.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Thank you, I think you know who that, who might
have, I would imagine, I wouldimagine.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Hey, you know what, as far as I know, I am now the
only podcaster who has sanghappy birthday to you on.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Absolutely, but you get to compete with Kamala
Harris last year.
Absolutely, but you get tocompete with Kamala Harris last
year.
So so last year, you know,during the holiday season, you
know, there's, you know, holidayparties at the White House and
at the VPs for residents, and sohappened to be the one at her
residence was on my birthdaylast year, and so when I saw her
(08:40):
she has really great staff, asI do too, and her staff had let
them know that it was mybirthday and so she had a
present waiting for me and so Igot to say she got to sing happy
birthday to me.
But this is the first podcastthat somebody sang happy
birthday, so yes, Well, how cool, though, to say Kamala Harris
got me a birthday present.
She did.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Well, and I'm going to kind of hop, hop around here,
I, I like, I kind of like to doI'm not much of a linear, you
know with the progressionthrough the, the episode, uh, I
think that's probably my adhd,right, but it also makes for a
kind of a more spontaneous uhepisode, I think right,
(09:23):
something I I know about you youleft I think this was around
2006, maybe you left the lawfirm you were with to become a
public defender yep now just aguess, but I'm saying you didn't
, that wasn't uh to increaseyour income no.
No.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
It was a fantastic law firm, that I was the first
job that I had after graduatingfrom law school and it was a
great firm to commerciallitigation, good, good people.
But I kind of was sitting theredoing a lot of research and
writing and said this is not howI want to spend the rest of my
life.
This is not why I went to lawschool.
(10:05):
It was to be pushing you knowpapers for for partners and
doing all this.
And so, yeah, I took a morethan 50% pay cut um to to go
into the public defender'soffice, moved out of
Jacksonville back to AlachuaCounty, which is where
Gainesville is.
University of Florida is whereI had gone to undergrad law
school and my master's and yeah,so it was back in a college
(10:28):
town but, yeah, it was a prettysubstantial pay cut.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well, I've always kind of thought this and you can
correct me if I'm wrong or tellme if this is a poor analogy or
even comparison I've alwaysfelt like anybody that's in
politics that has been a publicdefender from the outside
looking in.
A lot of the people that you'redefending as a public defender
(10:59):
are probably a betterrepresentation of the public at
large than people in Washington.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Oh, for sure.
You know, and I think thatthat's you know.
I've always been somebody who Icome from the Jewish faith, and
inside of the Jewish faith wehave a phrase called tikkun olam
to heal the world and that wasreally ingrained in me when I
was a child.
In fact, now I have it tattooedon my arm.
But it really was ingrained thatyou had a responsibility to
(11:32):
give back and to do good.
And so when I had theopportunity to go into the
public defender's office, I did.
I saw all walks of life, allbackgrounds, all socioeconomic
backgrounds.
I mean.
Granted, if they're coming tothe public defender's office and
the PD is representing them,they obviously don't have the
financial means to hire theirown private attorneys, but it
was all walks of life and, youknow, sometimes there were kids
(11:53):
that parents weren't willing tospend, you know, money for their
attorneys.
But it really was reallyeyeopening too of how people get
into the system and they stayin the system, because once you
have a criminal record, once youhave been exposed to a certain
lifestyle, it's hard to break itand that's really ultimately.
You know, I always said thatwhen I got frustrated enough
(12:15):
that I had to leave because Ineeded every one of my clients
to have every ounce of my energy, from the first client that I
ever had to my last.
And what I found along the wayis, you know, that this new kind
of mission for me, that I hadto find a way to fix things
before people got into thesystem.
You know, making sure that?
(12:36):
And a lot of them are minoritycommunities.
How do we go into communitiesand and and build them up and to
make sure that they're smallbusinesses and there's roads and
there's quality of life and andthey're build them up and to
make sure that they're smallbusinesses and there's roads and
there's quality of life and andthey're not going into food
banks but actual food stores andself-esteem aspects?
And and that's also what got meinto the cannabis world, you
know too, is I saw the just thedisparity between you know, when
(13:00):
one of my clients was arrestedfor some other charge, but it
started off with, the odor ofcannabis was detected and that
was the probable cause forwhatever came next.
And I just saw like, all right,I went to UF undergrad masters
Like I just said, law school.
I know what my friends weredoing and you know and and that
(13:22):
we weren't targeted.
You know and so saw that theracial divide and saw now that
it was my client's word versusthe law enforcement officer's
word and sometimes you had badcops.
You know that would be intothese communities that were
using cannabis as a way to findreasons to arrest that person
for whatever the other issue is.
(13:42):
And I just knew that that's notright and that has to be fixed.
And that's always when I comeinto these spaces talking about
cannabis or criminal justicereform or economic opportunities
for minority communities.
It really is my livedexperiences in the public
defender's office.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yeah, I haven't ever looked at the statistics on this
, but I'm going to say therewere probably a lot more arrests
for crack than there werecocaine.
Yeah.
Cocaine.
You know cocaine was kind of anelitist not an elitist, but you
know what I mean the disparitybetween the people who were
using crack and were usingcocaine In fact that was.
(14:23):
You know, it was a show ofstatus at one time.
You want to do a line of coke?
You know nobody ever showedtheir status by doing crack.
(14:49):
You know, it was in a lot ofpeople, a lot of people who get
off work and go home and willdrink a highball or something to
kind of wind down and relax.
I know my grandfather, everyday, every day, and he would
only have one, but he would comehome and in fact this is crazy
(15:12):
his doctor because he had highblood pressure now at the time.
We know things are a littledifferent now, but at the time
his doctor suggested that he dothat, that he come home after
because he had a prettystressful job come home, drink
one highball, just kind of windup, and so that's what he did.
My point is and it will take awhile to get there it's no
(15:34):
different for somebody to comehome and eat a gummy or you know
.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
For sure.
And that's exactly it.
I mean, like I'm not a bigdrinker, you know, but when I do
drink I'm a bourbon girl,bourbon whiskey girl, it's like
I like my scotch, I like mybourbons, but but it's the same
thing, I don't.
You know, we, we all.
You know life is stressful.
Let's, let's take that Liferight now is stressful, whether
you're in politics or you'rejust trying to make ends meet.
(16:06):
You know, yes, you shouldalways find healthy avenues to
relieve that stress, whetherit's at the gym or going to the
boxing or going out withgirlfriends or whatever it is.
But but if you find that inorder for you to be able to be
able to wake up the next day andtake back on the world and go
to your work, if it means cominghome and rolling a joint, who
(16:27):
the hell cares?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Like, literally, who cares?
I too, I have not been able tosleep for a majority of my life.
You know, I've just always havehad some sleep conditions, and
my brain doesn't turn off atnight after.
I just keep going.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I get that.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
You know, and so the only thing that allows me to
fall asleep at night and stayasleep and wake up as a
functional human being is I takeedibles at night.
You know, I'm a chocolate girl,so I don't do the, I do gummies
, and I'm a store of thechocolates too.
So I know which dispensaries.
Now some of the dispensariesare putting RSO in their stuff,
(17:07):
and you know, and are upping itevery once in a while.
I'll do my own chocolates orcookies and do my own stuff.
You bet, and definitely in thenext 15, 20 years, whenever I
retire.
Y'all are welcome to my ScandalBar down in Key West that I
will be opening.
That will be a combination of adispensary and smoke.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Nice, nice, nice.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
That's the last chapter, and you're involved in
politics enough.
You have enough friends thathave been in scandals, and so
the entire, the entire bar willbe surrounded by like news
clippings of all the Floridapoliticians.
And there will be lots more,but there has been, and we'll be
all over the paper.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
I love that.
I love that.
I love that.
Yeah, I'll definitely come toyour store.
I want to ask you, since we'retalking about marijuana, a plant
, uh when you were with adepartment of agriculture?
It's funny because, living herein the Midwest, I think corn
(18:09):
beans, you know.
Of course, citrus fruits cometo mind when I think about
Florida, but I got to thinking.
I thought, other than citrusfruits, I'm not sure I know
anything else that's grown inFlorida.
So what are some of the other?
Speaker 3 (18:27):
So.
So agriculture in the state offlorida, um, is the second
largest economic driver for ourstate and again, most people
wouldn't know that.
You think of disney, you thinkof our beaches, you think of
citrus, but you don't thinkabout agriculture.
We've got two million peoplethat work inside of agriculture
in florida.
It is literally a 137 billiondollar industry in the state of
(18:48):
florida.
So we grow.
We are the specialty crop uhcapital of the of the country,
Um, so we grow everything I meanfrom timber.
Timber is actually the numberone commodity in the state of
Florida.
So it's all over the pan handle.
We're number two in the nationwhen it comes to our ranches for
cows.
Um, so we only second to Texas.
Uh, we have, yeah, uh, we.
(19:10):
We also, um, talking aboutKamala Harris earlier, uh, that
we are the only state, uh, inthe continental United States
that grows coconuts.
Um, so we have coconut trees.
Um, in Florida, we've got, uh,sugar cane, we've got sweet corn
, we've got cotton, um, I meanwe've got green beans, we've got
tomatoes, strawberries,blueberries I mean we really
(19:33):
have it all here.
And now we've got hemp, whichis the sixth largest now as our
ag commodities go.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Is it really?
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Interesting and revenue wise.
Any approximate figures on whatthat's bringing in to the state
?
Speaker 3 (19:50):
well, I guess it's 137 billion dollar industry.
So that is, that is yeah, Iguess you did.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, like I said, it is the second largest economic
driver for the state.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Um, I mean, we've got 46 000 working farms and
ranches, everything from smalluh to to the big guys.
It's all over the map.
And it's actually when I waselected, people kept saying what
is a good Jewish girl fromMiami who's a lawyer lobbyist in
the cannabis space doingrunning for commissioner of
(20:21):
agriculture?
And so the answer was first ofall, it is a large department,
it is commissioner ofAgriculture and Consumer
Services, so I got to use myattorney advocacy arm for the
consumer side of things.
I typically got left behind inthe job, but you know, being
from the cannabis space, it isan agricultural commodity.
But I really did not have anyreal working knowledge of
(20:46):
agriculture when I got elected.
Working knowledge ofagriculture when I got elected
and it took me some time for thepeople inside of agriculture to
understand that.
First and foremost, I am anadvocate, and that is what you
need here in the Department ofAgriculture somebody to be an
advocate for agriculture.
And shortly I was having drinkswith the Farm Bureau presidents
(21:06):
and getting invited to everyassociation keynote speech.
You know everywhere, but it wasone of the most fascinating
jobs and loved every singlemoment of it.
I mean being able to protectwhat is the fabric of the state
of Florida, which is agriculture.
I mean it's on our licenseplates.
The citrus oranges are on ourlicense plates.
(21:27):
It's the bedrock of our state.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
The citrus oranges are on our license plates.
It's the bedrock of our state.
Well, like you said, that's ifyou didn't have any real ag
experience or knowledge.
Look, politics is full ofpeople who have a wealth of
knowledge about subjects, butthey don't have any passion.
You know, yep.
(21:54):
It's the knowledge you can.
You can pick up.
Yep, I've found passion is oneof those things you've.
For the most part, you'veeither got it or you don't.
You, you don't go out and learnpassion, and so, uh, it's cool
when somebody comes in with thepassion and and that what you
were pointing out to them.
Look, the important thing hereis I'm a huge advocate yep
(22:16):
that's what.
For this to get off the ground,for this to go, for this to grow
, there's got to be energy.
Yep, I mean, obviously, peoplebefore me have had the knowledge
, but they, they haven't gottenthis you know this off the
ground, so maybe it's passion.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
And the other thing is, too, is, yes, passion, but
it's also the willingness, as wewere talking about before we
got on to this is also thewillingness to change things and
to be able to walk intosomething, especially
agriculture which is still avery old boy network, especially
agriculture, which is still avery old boy network.
They're still very dominated bywhite men and, to go first,
(22:53):
female ever elected tocommissioner of agriculture, not
just the state of Florida butthe entire South.
And so to walk in with fresheyes, new perspective, to be
looking at things from adifferent direction and coming
up with solutions that may bedifferent than my predecessors
had had, because they're lookingat it from a different
perspective, and so we reallywere able to come in and we put
(23:14):
a list together Like, forinstance, like we knew, and
still today, that peopleinvolved in agriculture is
actually number one suiciderates is in agriculture.
I did not know that Because, ifyou think about it, most people
inside of agriculture are alittle bit further away from
their neighbors.
You know, mostly living incommunities that are smaller
(23:35):
have less access to, you know,to the internet because of
broadband access, to qualityroads, to hospitals, and so
there's a lot of seclusion andthey're barely making ends meet.
Yeah, the big guys, the bigguys out there are making hand
over fist, and that's part ofthe reason why our you know, our
food costs are so high, becausethey're making a lot of money,
(23:58):
but it's the mid to small, youknow, farms and ranches that
they are just barely making endsmeet, and so it is really so.
Anyhow, long story short.
Um, I came in and I was like,what do we do about this?
And so we talked about a lot ofdoing like tele-mental health,
you know, being able to get inthere, and then my team was like
, wait a second, these guysdon't have broadband.
(24:18):
How are we getting thetele-health to them?
So we were coming up withdifferent ideas and strategies
and working then with the Bidenadministration to get a lot of
broadband into these communitiesand to form a mental health
advocacy inside the Departmentof Agriculture.
But again, it took a differenttype of leader to walk in and
want to solve problems thatmaybe my predecessors either
(24:42):
knew and didn't think through it, or it just wasn't on their
radars.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, I'm going to, I'll make this assumption about
you and then you can tell mewhether I'm right or wrong.
Just because of somesimilarities we have that I do
know about, I'm guessing you,like me, kind of sometimes
thrive on the resistance, thepushback against your right,
(25:11):
whereas I know a lot of peoplewho go through life not speaking
out or not introducingsomething new or new idea, new
thought, that cuts against great, because they have kind of thin
skin right and the first timesomebody criticizes them they're
, they're deflated right.
That that's when my brainreally functions at its best.
(25:37):
I, I need it.
In fact I need it.
Um, I can't do my best workunless I've got somebody saying,
oh yeah, that's dumb, orpushing against me.
Are you kind of like that?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, and so much so like one, if you're trying to
make progress, you're trying todo good and everybody's agreeing
with you, then you're doingsomething wrong.
You know, you're trying becauseotherwise it would have been
done before, and one of thoseexamples.
Going back to the cannabisconversation, I'm also a gun
owner.
I have a concealed weaponspermit and I have inherited a
(26:13):
firearm from my grandfather, butI've always wanted to purchase
a new firearm to be able tocarry more frequently.
And, recognizing that, as acannabis user, that we are not
allowed to purchase a firearm,it is against the laws and it's
on the ATF form I think it'squestion 10, echo, that
(26:34):
specifically states that.
And so I walked in into thecommissioner's job and I turned
to my team and I said we'regoing to fix this, we're going
to sue the federal government.
And they're like what?
Because one of the things thatis also underneath the
Commissioner of Agriculture wasthe concealed weapons program
for the state of Florida, one ofthe largest in the entire
(26:56):
nation, and so we found a nexuson because of the advocacy I was
doing on cannabis and the factthat I was, you know, overseeing
the gun purchasing.
We worked for years.
The goal was to have it filedin 2020, this lawsuit, but of
course the pandemic hit and sopriorities shifted and we filed
(27:17):
the lawsuit April 20th of 2022.
And we filed a federal lawsuiton the discrimination of medical
cannabis users being able topurchase a firearm and at the
time April 2022, theadministration is Democrat.
(27:40):
And so here you have the onlystatewide elected Democrat who
was running for governor of thestate of Florida, filing a
lawsuit against the Bidenadministration, and so the
conversations, of course,in-house, were like you are
going to get slammed.
I mean, granted, we called theDepartment of Justice first.
(28:01):
We talked to Merrick Garland'soffice.
We told the White House we weredoing this, that this is
obviously a policy that was putin place way before they got
there and to make sure that theyknew that this was going on.
But fellow Democrats lit me up.
Oh I bet Suing the Democraticpresident of the United States,
(28:27):
and I kind of was like but it'sthe right thing to do and I will
take whatever is coming at mebecause we have to make progress
on this issue and this is oneof those things that just needs
to happen.
And that case is still going on.
It's in the 11th Circuit herein Florida, but it's also,
interestingly enough, was thesame exact issue that Hunter
Biden was convicted on.
(28:47):
So everything kind of has youknow, a way of you know making
progress.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Certainly.
Yeah of um you know makingprogress, but certainly, yeah,
yeah, and that's again like it'sin the beginning.
That's the kind of thing I Ilike about you, because you said
something and that to me that'sreally the only thing that
matters.
You said but it was the rightthing yeah that for the most of
the time, that should pusheverything else out to the
(29:18):
periphery.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
If it's the right thing to do, then it's the right
thing to do that's right, nomatter, no matter the
consequences personally, nomatter the consequences
politically and no matter whoyou're having to challenge.
You know, and and again at thattime, you know, everybody just
saw it, as you know, nikki Freedsuing Joe Biden, and you know,
(29:40):
but it was hard, but it was even.
You know, because I was electedwith a lot of support from the
Parkland families and from someof the families that have been
involved with gun senseregulations and victim families
and had to have a separateconversation with them all and
say, listen, this is actuallyproviding more safety for, you
know, people are having to getthe background checks when they
(30:00):
purchase a firearm and if you'regoing into using cannabis, you
know that you're doing it safelyand going through the regulated
market, which means that weneed both of those to be able to
coexist.
But it had to have thoseconversations to work through it
because, again, it's the rightthing to have done.
It provides safety on bothsides of that conversation.
And again, what is thedifference between somebody
(30:21):
having alcohol and somebodysmoking weed when it comes to
gun ownership?
Going back to my PD days, therewas never a time in my entire
four years as being a publicdefender did my client come in
and say Ms Freed, I was just toohigh when I shot up the liquor
store?
Like.
(30:42):
I was too high on crack or, oryou know, meth or alcohol, but
but never weed, and and so itreally is just kind of getting a
cultural change that has tohappen.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, and those last, in that last hour, 30 minutes
before I go to bed, after I'vetaken a gummy, I don't find
myself sitting around looking atmy wife and saying there's no
one.
I feel like going robbingsomeplace.
That's just not happening.
(31:14):
That's not happening, you know.
So let's talk about RonDeSantis for a moment, because
one thing I know is again andreally I think that's really
where you really jumped onto myradar, right, because you were
(31:39):
not afraid of Ron DeSantis youcriticized Ron DeSantis like few
other people were willing to.
And while I didn't say his nameearlier when I mentioned that,
(32:00):
yeah, we've got outspokenRepublicans, but they aren't
necessarily behind somethingthat's good for everyone, as
opposed to the examples I gavewith you Look, rhonda Sanders is
outspoken, but he's also ahateful man.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Right, he's also a hateful man, yep Right.
He makes no bones about.
If you don't fit into thiscategory, I don't care about you
.
In fact, I will work againstyou.
Yep.
What do you think his politicalfuture is, and how does your
political future, where does itfit in with what his might be?
Speaker 3 (32:38):
My hope is that he has no political future.
Where does it fit in with whathis might be?
My hope is that he has nopolitical future.
This is not a good person, youknow.
I spent four years on thecabinet with him.
You know the cabinet.
We took a retreat, a trademission, to Israel, so we have
spent a lot of time together.
And I always talk about thefact that you know, for those
four years, twice did he makeeye contact with me Twice.
(33:03):
That tells you that underneathit all, that there's nothing
there, you know, and when youmake eye contact and eye contact
is so important to humaninteraction- you bet it is To
look into somebody's soul to seethat they're interacting with
you, that they're listening tothe conversation, they're not
distracted by whatever else isaround them, and but when you do
, look that there's nothingbehind those eyes.
(33:24):
And I and I had told everybodywhen whether it's during debates
or whether he's on TV, turn offthe volume and just watch his,
his facial expressions, watchhow he doesn't his eyes like it,
just you could tell that he'sjust mean spirited and there's
not a heart behind him, and andso I hope that.
(33:45):
And then he's weird.
I mean he is just like, don'tever try eating with him.
He stuffs his mouth.
Whether that's a distraction tonot have to interact with
people, but he's just weird,socially awkward.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
That's awkward, fits him too.
Every time I watched that man,it's like my God.
He looks so uncomfortable inhis own skin.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Yeah.
So I think what happened alongthe way, first of all like he's
always been that way, and Ithink that when he ran for
governor and won that, theHeritage Foundation which we
know is what's controllingProject 2025 and a lot of the
Republican stuff that'shappening today got a hold of
him and said we're going to makeyou president, just follow this
(34:26):
playbook.
And for six years, that'sexactly what he did.
He followed this playbook fromthe don't say gay bill to
removing of state attorneys fromoffice, to a six-week abortion
ban, going after immigrants, thelawsuits with Disney and the
cruise ship industry andeverything in between that he
has done book banning, you know,going after higher education
(34:51):
and so he didn't do it becausethat was what was in the best
interest of the people of thestate.
I mean trying to take our stateparks and put them into
pickleball courts.
I mean just crazy stuff.
And so I'm hoping that theAmerican people saw his
awkwardness, saw that hispolicies weren't in the best
interest of the people of thestate.
We have property insurance inFlorida is crippling our state.
(35:13):
We are the number one propertyinsurance in the entire country.
And, yes, we've got hit byhurricanes, but there's ways to
moderate this, but they've givenblank checks.
In the insurance industrythere's been a 400% increase of
premiums since he becamegovernor and we are the number
one inflation in the countrybecause he refused to bring down
some of the Biden dollars forinfrastructure, for the IRA, for
(35:35):
the Inflation Reduction Act,and I mean even now we're
fighting on kids care, which wasapproved by, which is a
Medicare expansion program,which he's refusing to bring
down the money for our kids, tofeed our kids.
I mean he's just not a goodperson and so I'm hoping that
the American people saw enoughof him during the presidential
run.
That it's over, that it's overover.
(35:58):
I mean I know that in his heart, which whatever is there, um,
that he wants that he wants tobe president of the united
states and he's certainly goingto try to position himself.
He has term limited out in 26and so my hope is that he fades
into into the darkness, goes onto.
He can have a fox news show, hecan write some books, he can be
a you know, whatever else hisis, but hopefully it's not in
(36:20):
politics, and so I don't knowhow that interacts necessarily
with mine per se, but he hasdone some significant
destruction to the state,changing the name of the game
when it comes to even voterregistration citizens
initiatives.
This year we had both cannabislegalization Amendment 3, and
abortion access Amendment 4 onthe ballot.
(36:41):
He not only used the fullweight of him, but he also used
the full weight of his office.
We had six government agenciesthat basically put out false
information, using governmentdollars to go after these
amendments and spent roughly $50million of taxpayer dollars to
go after constitutionalamendments.
So you know he needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, I guess if there were any two things I can
think of that I would say toGovernor DeSantis one, I hope he
has already found a pair ofcowboy boots that fit.
And two, when you are going todo some press, some campaign
photos of you doing physicallabor, you know, tucking your
(37:28):
pants into your white boots,don't ditch the sweater.
Ditch the sweater, they don'tgo together.
Right, it makes it look likethe prop that it is.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
so my last day in office.
Um, I had, for a couple of dayswe had we had been setting up
like videos of just you know,all the things that we had done,
because it's very easy for youknow, the republicans attacked
me for all the time that I wascommissioner.
Then, when I ran for governor,to to lose the, to lose the
accomplishments that we wascommissioner, and then, when I
ran for governor, to lose theaccomplishments that we had
(37:59):
inside the department, to thepolitical noise, and so we
really wanted to make sure thatwe set the record straight on
all of the amazing things thatwe did in those four years.
I mean most movement on energyefficiency, of helping the
citrus industry to helpingagriculture, new commodities.
I mean we just really did atremendous amount of work in my
(38:21):
department and the team members.
But the other last 15 minutes ofmy whole speeches was directed
to Ron and it was an outgoingstatement that basically said
(38:42):
all right, you just pulled off19.1.
And my primary opponent,charlie Crist.
It was a disaster for Democratsin 2022.
And 19 point loss.
We are now in a super minorityin both the House and the Senate
and first time sincereconstruction that we did not
have a statewide Democrat in thestate of Florida, and so I said
to Ron what are you going to dowith this?
Are you going to recognize thatyou have an opportunity to
(39:04):
govern for all 22 million people, or are you going to take your
ambitions and you're going toonly govern for the 4.5 million
Floridians that voted for youand leaving the other 15 million
apart to seek higher office?
(39:26):
And I said, history is going tojudge you by the decisions that
you are going to make in thenext six months.
And I was right.
He did not follow my lead,because if he had come in,
imagine this if Ron DeSantis hadcome in in 2022, excuse me,
2023, and had an agenda thatbrought people together, that
lifted people up, that trulyshowed what a conservative
(39:48):
Republican used to be, he mightmore dividing and conquering and
divisive politics and went tosuch an extreme direction that
he's never going to be electedpresident of the United States.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
No no.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
You know, but it is what it is.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I'm glad you brought that up, because I don't know
whether this will be popular ornot Probably not.
But then again, I don't care IfDonald Trump would come into
office which we know he's notgoing to, but if he would come
into office taking basically thesame thing you laid out for
(40:31):
DeSantis, because I love thiscountry so much and because I
want to see everyone prosper andI don't just mean financially
with their health, in all areasof life.
As anti-Trump as I am, I wouldlove to see him succeed in
(40:54):
governing for everyone.
That's right and I wouldacknowledge him when he did.
But I much like desantis, I, I,it's not in him it's, it's not.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
It's not in him.
And not only is it not in him,but it's who he's also circling
around him.
You know, at least in the firstadministration there was good
people, there was smart people,right people who could be those
guardrails that says let's notgo there.
But unfortunately, you'reseeing what he's unleashing onto
(41:26):
the country already.
The picks are very intentionalpicks and they're outside the
box, which, again, talking toyou and I.
Outside the box is good, that'sokay.
Sometimes politics have to bebreaking is good, that's okay.
Sometimes politics have to bebreaking things down, that's
okay.
But to have unqualified peoplethat are going to make a mockery
of the United States that canput us in, not only national
(41:50):
security issues are standing onthe world stage the economics of
this country, an oligarchy.
I mean the fact that Elon Muskhasn't left his side.
This is somebody who I don'teven know if he's a US citizen.
You know if he was even able?
to vote in our elections and gotto this country illegally, you
(42:11):
know, is the ones who arerunning the show and it is not
for the best interests of thepeople of this country.
But, yeah, I would welcome that.
I would welcome any Republicanwho says, look, I may have
campaigned on these things and Iwon on these things, but the
reality is I'm now president forall Americans and to take those
steps to create policies.
(42:31):
You know, we've got 4.2 millionpeople in the state of Florida
that are on the ACA, Obamacare.
If they dismantle the ACA,those are real lives and real
people who are going to be in areal financial situation where
they may not have access tohealthcare and they could be
going through chemo, they couldbe on a wait list, you know, for
a liver transplant, I mean allof these things that people are
(42:52):
going through.
So it is, it is a shame, but,yeah, I would absolutely welcome
that if, if Donald Trump hadthat in him to do.
But it's um, and the otherthing.
I'll say this, and I'llprobably be slammed for this
that if they were to actually dothat, it will be a long time
before Democrats come back intopower.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Oh, it would, there's no question about it.
Yeah, it really would correctme if I'm wrong, but you, you
are jewish, correct?
Yes, okay, here's I.
I especially with, with israeland gaza.
I, especially on x, shortlyafter october 7th, I?
(43:31):
I with unreservedly showsupport for Israel and, more
widespread, the Jewish people asa whole.
Right, my thing has been formost of my adult life the Jewish
people have had their asskicked enough.
(43:52):
That's my take.
That's my take.
My grandfather fought in WorldWar II and when I was I don't
know if I was even old enough toread yet when he was showing me
pictures and talking to meabout the Holocaust.
And so I only ask you that askind of a lead-in to this
(44:14):
question.
Kind of a lead-in to thisquestion, because I can only
imagine that someone of Jewishfaith or someone who's Jewish,
when they hear this talk aboutdetention centers, that, going
(44:35):
back, in your case, to yourparents' generation and the
generation before, that has toresonate with you in a way that
it can't for me, am I correct?
Speaker 3 (44:50):
You're 100% correct, and especially somebody like me
who, when I was growing up, as Ijust saw, I've got Takuna Lum
tattooed on my wrist and yes,that is anti-Jewish.
In the grand scheme of things,we're not supposed to put
tattoos on our body.
But I think God will forgive mefor this one.
But I've also spent a lot of mytime growing up in Miami going
(45:12):
to Jewish school.
I went to day school, was veryinvolved in my international
youth organization, went towhat's called the March to the
Living, which is one week inPoland, one week in Israel.
My junior year of high schoolactually walked through the
gates of Auschwitz and Birkenauand Majdanek and to know and to
(45:33):
hear the history of how thatcame to be, that it wasn't just
all of a sudden there'sconcentration camps and all of a
sudden, and it wasn't just 6million Jews, and I think that
the people of this country andthe world need to remember that
it was 6 million Jews, but itwas 6 million others too.
That's a good point In society.
There was politicians, there wasgypsies, there was those that
(45:57):
had disabilities, you know,there was all types of other
people that were also killedduring the Holocaust.
But to know that it didn'thappen overnight, that Hitler
was democratically elected.
The Nazi party was the powerthat was elected.
And then, watching everythingfrom history of, you know, first
(46:17):
was the consolidation of thepower underneath under Hitler,
then it was banning of books,then it was arresting of
political operatives, then itwas, you know, the military,
became part of the actualoperations of the government,
and then it came the putting,you know, the Jewish community
and ghettos.
And then it was the putting,the Jewish community and ghettos
(46:38):
, and then it was rounding themup.
And so, and to be watching someof this rhetoric and some of
(47:00):
the crematoriums were landing onpeople's homes and house and
their cars.
They knew what was going on andthey kept silent.
And you so you're seeing somebehavioral similarities between
what was during the I mean,we're not talking thousands of
years ago.
We still have Holocaustsurvivors today.
(47:20):
I mean, granted, they're dyingoff and they're far and few
between at this point.
But you know, and so to know,the rhetoric that is coming from
the extremes on the right isdangerous.
And yes, and that is one of whyI fight the way I fight to know
that it is still possible thateven in our democratic society,
(47:43):
watching how easy people can bemanipulated, especially because
trusted news sources are nolonger there, people are going
in and are kind of going tribalagain and going kind of inside
only talking to the people thatare in their inner circles.
Yes that is dangerous.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
It's very dangerous.
It's very dangerous.
I've I've been leaning moreheavily into that, both on
social media and I have anewsletter called the Jack
Hopkins Now newsletter, which isabout building resilience and
dealing with and managing yourfears and in my social media
(48:22):
posts.
One thing I've been doingthat's been ruffling some
feathers, but that's okaybecause for the people whose
feathers it's not ruffling, whoare actually going, hmm,
interesting, I think it's beinghelpful.
I'm calling people out on this.
I'm saying, hey look, this isnot a game, this is not a joke,
(48:43):
this is not a paragraph in thenewspaper.
This is happening right now andwe know exactly how it will
unfold if we do what I seealready happening.
And you are right, people arethe very thing people have long
said.
How could that happen?
How could they do that?
I'm watching people do thething they could never
(49:06):
understand.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
Yeah, and it's the same thing that I you know, I'm
looking at it from.
You know when DeSantis' namehas been floated for Secretary
of Defense and that isterrifying.
Terrifying because one he'salready used.
He created a militia inside ofthe state of Florida that he's
now used against the people ofthe state Again.
(49:30):
We talked about $50 millionthat was used to suppress voters
.
This is somebody who would notthink twice if Donald Trump
calls him up and says againenemies within you know that
that's using you know it'sSecretary of Defense you're
defending the country.
And if their mind is made upthat Democrats are the enemies
(49:51):
within, we are on a verydangerous slippery slope.
And if you've got somebody whois so as diabolical as ron
desantis to use the militaryagainst operatives inside of the
democratic party and people say, oh my god, nikki, how can you
say that again?
You know that this is nevergoing to happen.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
I'd like to not take that chance right, yeah, and
case in point, for for about thelast year and a half leading up
to the election, in a way thatalways offered a solution or a
direction to go, I was hammeringthe point home that it's going
to get bad in the lead up tothis election.
If you think it's bad now, justwait.
(50:35):
And of course, it did get worseand worse and worse.
So initially, you know, a yearand a half ago, when I was
saying that, I know there were alot of people rolling there oh,
you know, here you go.
What's he selling?
You know trying to introducefear to us.
Well, I've had a lot of thosepeople message me and say you
(50:58):
know what, a year and a half agoI thought you'd maybe gone off
the rails a little bit, butpretty much what you said was
going to happen happened.
And that's when I remind them.
I'm telling you the same thingagain Now, after he comes into
office.
The things that sound too nuttyto actually be real, they are
real too nutty to actually bereal.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
They are real.
Yeah, and and again, I hope,like I hope, that better angels,
you know, are going to prevailhere and that it's he gets there
.
And you know, for him, this wasabout an ego, this was about
getting this.
This was about ego.
This is about hey, I won in2020 and I'm going to prove
everybody again and be able tokind of go out of this chapter
on a high.
This is to get rid of all thoselawsuits and this is to help
(51:48):
financially.
I mean, he's selling perfume.
The president-elect of theUnited States is selling perfume
.
It is beyond, like beyond, andso I hope that, like he gets
there and he says missionaccomplished, I'm here and it
doesn't actually pursue some ofthese things, that that has been
(52:09):
discussed, or allowing thesepeople that have really dark
visions of the world to be ableto truly take over Again.
I do think and it's part of myjob as chair of the Democratic
Party is to not every single daybe yelling and screaming.
That will drive everybody crazy, that doesn't get us any good
footing, that doesn't change thenarrative, but it's making sure
(52:31):
, like, look, if Trump doessomething good that benefits the
people of this country, I'mgoing to be the first one.
And, mark, this is at the timethat we're on my birthday on
2024, before he gets in, I willbe happy to say that was a good
move.
You come in and look not asingle person in this country
(52:51):
believes that government isefficient, that there isn't
bureaucratic waste andbureaucratic spending.
Not a single person in thiscountry.
So I am all in favor of cuttingred tape, of getting rid of
unnecessary spending, gettingour our you know, our our
deficit down.
The question is, how does thatget done?
At what cost?
You know, do some of it?
(53:12):
Sure, absolutely, but you can'tcut social security, medicare,
medicaid you know you can't.
You can't do things like that.
Figure out other ways.
And so we will be verywatchdog-like, looking to see
that, yes, praising things thatget done, but also, in the same
respect, making sure that whenthey've gone too far, you know
okay, sure, you want to goreview the COVID vaccines, fine,
(53:35):
but don't go back and look atpolio.
The COVID vaccine's fine, butdon't go back and look at polio.
Don't go back and look at mumpsand measles and some of these
other you know vaccines thathave truly saved this country
from tremendous healthcareoutbreaks.
So I think that as long asthere's moderation and how his
policies get implemented, thecountry's going to be okay and
we'll get through it.
But if he takes the extremethat he and surrounds himself by
(53:59):
those type of extremists, holdon tight.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
I've got a question for you that maybe you have an
answer for me.
As somebody not directlyinvolved in politics, I can't
get my thumb on it.
Um, usually in politics or alot of time anyway I should say,
if, if somebody's reallydriving something hard, uh, you
(54:24):
think okay, who are the peoplelobbying right behind for this?
Who's the, for example, likethe, the pharmaceutical
companies.
You know if, if there's a bigpush for something, you go, okay
, well, you know it's Pfizer orwhoever they're they're pushing.
The thing with RFK Jr, that'skind of baffling to me.
It would seem that most of whathe's promoting and his ideology
(54:48):
about this whole thing would becounterproductive for the
pharmaceutical industry, thatmaybe they would be losing money
.
So my question then would bewho's throwing more money at
this, then, than the?
Speaker 3 (55:06):
pharmaceutical companies to go the other way.
I think that I do think thepharmaceutical companies have
the most to lose here and I'mdown for that.
I mean, I think as a nation weall are down for that.
Sure I'm down for that.
I mean, we, I think as a nation, we all are down for that Sure
Um.
So I don't know if in fact RFKis kind of just a drifter and
(55:28):
and just kind of like goesthrough.
I think he in some ways, Ithink he believes some of this
stuff, like I think, I think soI think that he's a believer.
And again we go back to thispassion thing.
I guess having passion forsomething you believe in, right.
Um, it doesn't mean I'm makingyou secretary of health, but, um
, but I I think that you knowsome of this stuff and which is
(55:51):
why I think, ultimately, at theend of the day, a lot of the
things that RFK wants to doisn't going to happen.
Do I think that, like when thatRFK wants to do isn't going to
happen?
Do I think that, like when itcomes to the FDA?
Yeah, the FDA has a lot ofproblems.
I'm going back to theircannabis space.
They don't know how to regulatecannabis.
I will never forget in 2019,when I went up to Washington DC
and I was working onlegalization of hemp for Florida
(56:12):
and I was talking to the USDAand to the FDA and I walked into
the FDA.
They obviously had not donetheir research and they spent
the first few minutes of ourmeeting talking to me about
cannabis and giving me thehistory of cannabis, and so I
had to stop them and say let mereintroduce myself.
But I said to them look, youknow, these states across the
(56:36):
country, after the Farm Bill of2018, are legalizing hemp and
are utilizing new products thatare coming out for human and
animal consumption, and we'regoing to need direction.
And they gave me all of theselike long hoops and well, what
about this and what about that?
And I said you know what, guys,I'm going to do it in Florida
(56:57):
and you're just going to followmy lead, because you sound like
you're 10 years away from havingany type of ability to put out
directives to any of us.
And we did, and they still arenot there.
And this is now six years later.
So there are real significantproblems when it comes to these
government agencies, agencies.
(57:18):
Do I think rfk is the right oneto have a solution?
Speaker 2 (57:22):
no, he's going to blow shit up yeah, yeah, and I
like your answer because it itit mirrors it to a degree what I
was thinking.
It's like look, you know, I Ithink, as as crazy as it may
sound in this era that we're in,because everybody, everybody
thinks everything that happensis just because of money, right.
(57:42):
But when I look at RFK Jr, Ithink you know this guy was born
into money, he's always hadmoney.
I don't know that money's a bigmotivator for him at this point
in life, I think he's so.
He believes, he believes thesethings and so it's not
necessarily somebody throwingmoney at him to get him to go.
This is just what he believesand this is what he wants to do.
Speaker 3 (58:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:05):
So, as we start to close out here because again it
is your birthday and I'm sureyou've got other things you
would like to do that that willbe fun.
How can people listening tothis or watching this podcast,
how can they support you and thedirection that you are going,
(58:26):
whether they live in florida ornot?
Speaker 3 (58:28):
yeah, first of all, follow me on my social platforms
.
Um, I'm on everything from bluesky.
Now it's a, I'm staying on x,so I'm definitely keeping
encouraging people to stay on xwe.
We can't concede an entire space, and there's a lot of other new
platforms and ones that areminority owned.
You know everybody get on there.
That you know and be on there.
That's one.
(58:49):
Follow us Also.
Follow what we're doing here inFlorida when it comes to
Democrats.
Don't give up on us.
Please don't give up on us.
You know there's 22 plus millionpeople here in the state of
Florida that need balance backin government, that need people
to have leadership that is goingto protect everybody in the
state.
You know, and I always say thisto you you know, born and
(59:10):
raised here in Miami and Florida, and so were my parents the
state used to be so libertarian.
If you wanted to go down to KeyWest and you want to hang out
on Duval Street, have at it.
You want to go to Tampa, hasGasparilla, which is like Mardi
Gras throw bees.
You want to go to the 30K,which is the panhandle Redneck
Riviera area.
(59:30):
People just left you alone.
You found your community, youfound your places and people
left you alone.
What Ron DeSantis has done tothis state in six years is try
to force everybody to be in hisimage, and so we've got to get
back to balance here in ourstate.
So really encouraging.
First of all, everybody, don'tgive up on Florida.
There's a lot of really reallygood people here that are
(59:51):
fighting back every single day.
Two, always, we'll put a plugin Go to floridademsorg, even if
it's $2, $3, $5, whatever youcan afford.
Be a monthly subscriber to us.
We are doing the really hardwork.
But, most importantly, justdon't give up on us.
We're going to fight back.
We've been 30 years in thedesert wandering and 30 years
(01:00:11):
there's only been threeDemocrats elected statewide,
myself included, and my goal inlife is to make sure not in life
, but my goal is to make surethat I'm not the last statewide
elected Democrat and we'll getback there.
But it's going to take sometime and patience and people not
giving up on us.
Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Well, I want to say that on behalf of at least my
followers.
Right, I've got a couple ofhundred thousand followers.
I say for them thank you forbeing you right, we like you and
who you are and how you operate, and we need more people like
(01:00:51):
you.
Second, hey, thanks for takingsome time out for me on your
birthday.
I mean, that means a lot thatyou lot that you didn't have to
do that and I'm sure you getplenty of calls.
So, thank you.
Will we see you run forgovernor again?
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
You know I love my state and you can't hear that I
love every aspect of my state.
There will be a time where Iwill run again statewide.
We've got work to do first, andso you know I am rerunning for
chair of the Florida DemocraticParty to continue rebuilding.
But I've got I'm a policy wonkat heart and have lots of ideas
(01:01:31):
of how to make the state betterand to create balance back.
So don't count me out for notrunning for governor one time
again.
But certainly we've got work todo to get us back into a better
position and that's so coolabout you you're not chasing the
title.
Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
You you've got stuff you actually want to get done
and you'll do it wherever youcan most adequately get it done.
That's awesome.
All right, thank you listen.
Happy birthday, go have a drinkor something and enjoy the rest
of the day.
Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
Thank, you, nikki.
I appreciate it.
Thanks, jack, and thanks to allof your listeners.
Take care, we'll see you nexttime.
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