The BlueWater Podcast
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The BlueWater Podcast
James Fishback Makes His Case for Florida Governor
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WHY IS EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT JAMES FISHBACK?!? 👀
From national headlines to The BlueWater Podcast - James Fishback sat down with us for a conversation you do not want to miss.
He’s running for Governor of Florida, but this episode goes beyond the campaign signs and political soundbites.
We talked about his story, his faith, what led him to enter one of the biggest races in Florida, why he believes the state is at a turning point, and what he wants voters to understand before they make up their minds.
Whether you support him, disagree with him, or are just hearing his name for the first time - this is your chance to hear the full conversation and decide for yourself.
The BlueWater Podcast is a place for conversation, not endorsement - giving our community the opportunity to listen, learn, and decide for themselves.
FOLLOW BlueWater for more conversations with the people shaping Florida’s future!
Every aspect of life in America has to be inspected, preserved. The Constitution is not a living document.
SPEAKER_02What's the biggest problem facing Florida right now, in your opinion?
SPEAKER_03I fear that we are losing the Florida that we love. Farmland is disappearing all over the state. Data centers that we never voted for are now being forced on us. Private equity is buying up over a hundred thousand homes right here in Florida. That's locking out the next generation from home ownership.
SPEAKER_02You've said in order to make America first, Christ has to be first.
SPEAKER_03Abortion is murder. The correct number of abortions is zero. Life begins at conception. There is no excuse for a woman to murder her child in the state of Florida.
SPEAKER_00Do you have a particular scripture verse that kind of shaped how you look at leadership or that you try and implement in your everyday life?
SPEAKER_03I do. I think Luke Luke's 646 is one of them, which of course is why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do as I say? I think Proverbs 9.10 as well. Beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord. The single biggest issue facing the state is the cost of living crisis. It affects everybody. If you can't get a job, you don't have an income. If you don't have an income, everything is unaffordable.
SPEAKER_02You have created some enemies from the other side and how the big money's flowing. And are you in the crosshairs? Because they know. They know where you stand and you're bold about it.
SPEAKER_00Pick up your phone, turn on your television, and chances are you'll see this man somewhere in the national spotlight. From Fox News to CNN, from Tucker Carlson to Pierce Morgan, James Fishback has quickly become one of the most talked-about voices in American politics. He's a candidate for governor of Florida. He's unapologetic in his convictions. And whether you agree with him or disagree with him, there's no denying he's captured the attention of the nation.
SPEAKER_02At the Blue Water Podcast, our goal has always been simple: bring important conversations and influential leaders directly to the people of Waukala County and North Florida. We believe communities like ours deserve a seat at the table. And we commend leaders who are willing to leave the campaign trail, come to our community, and answer questions directly.
SPEAKER_00Regardless of your political views, you have to respect the fact that James Fishback personally came to Wakulla County to engage with this community. Something not every candidate is willing to do.
SPEAKER_02This is one of the most fascinating conversations we've ever had on the Blue Water Podcast. And trust me, you're going to want to listen to every word.
SPEAKER_00Here's our conversation with James Fishback.
SPEAKER_02James, thank you. Thank you so much. I know you're wide open uh right now. So you took the time to come to Little Waukala County to speak to us here locally, and I tell you that means a lot. And um, not everybody can say that, but you can now. So thank you for coming. But today's a little a little different because around the same table, you're going to be talking to two generations of Floridians.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I'm 22, uh, newly married. I also saw you're also newly married, so congratulations.
SPEAKER_03Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, I'm voting a career and I'm asking a lot of questions that a lot of people my age are asking nowadays. Like, will I ever be able to afford a home? Um, how am I going to be able to afford to raise a family? And just how will Florida look in 20 years?
SPEAKER_02So 22, I'm 52. So I've already done all of those things. I've started businesses. I've already, you know, I'm established. Uh I am teaching high school, believe it or not. I stepped into the high school to do teach some classes there. But the phase that I'm at uh is more so than ever. I'm concerned about the next generation. I'm concerned about the future of Florida and really concerned about the future of our nation. So thank you, thank you for coming in here today.
SPEAKER_00I think it'll be kind of cool because there's two different uh the older generation and the younger, both generations matter. Um, but welcome to the Blue Water Podcast.
SPEAKER_03My pleasure. And not to carbon date myself, but I'm smacked in between your two generations. And so I have a unique perspective myself on that.
SPEAKER_02So before, okay, before we get into the politics, I know we got a lot to talk, a lot to talk about, which I am super excited about. Tell us a little bit about James Fishback. Tell us about your history, your family, where you where you where you grew up. Just let us tell us a little more about you.
SPEAKER_03I grew up in South Florida, suburb of Fort Lauderdale called Davy, fourth generation Floridian. My dad drove the city bus when I was a kid. My mom worked at the county jail. And I love our state. Public schools my entire life, from kindergarten all the way to graduation, went off to Washington, D.C. to do college at Georgetown, studied undergrad economics, and then went and started business. That's what I've been doing for the last 10 years. I gotta be up front with both of you. I have zero political experience. None. So my when my opponent comes out and says that Fishback has zero I'm he's right, I'm guilty as charged. What I have is business experience. What I have is the experience of knowing what it's like to hire people, and then sadly to have that conversation of letting them go. I have the experience of investing $40 million just last year in companies all over this country in this idea of meritocracy. We built a meritocracy investment fund instead of a DEI investment fund. We should hire Americans not on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character, their skills, their abilities, their God-given talents. That's what I built. And I'm running for governor because I fear that we are losing the Florida that we love. Farmland is disappearing all over the state. Data centers that we never voted for are now being forced on us. Private equity is buying up over a hundred thousand homes right here in Florida. That's locking out the next generation from home ownership. And everything is getting too expensive. It's making life extremely difficult here in our state. And I'm running to change that.
SPEAKER_00Well, one thing that um I admire about you, and I actually caught my eye and made me become aware of your campaign, is uh online I kept seeing clip after clip after clip of you publicly professing the name of Jesus. And uh I really admired that and I looked up to that. So I wanted to ask just about kind of your faith journey and um when Jesus became real to you. If that makes sense.
SPEAKER_03Gradually and then suddenly. The for me, I had an awakening in my mid-20s, and it was really encapsulated by Luke 646. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do as I say? I, like many Christians, professed my faith, went to church, read my Bible, but my Christian experience was confined to those activities, not into the way I was living out our Christian commandments every single day. And so there's two paths, I think, for Christians. There's the path of profession of faith, and then there's the path, a much more narrow path, a much more difficult path. But when we are called to, which is obedience to faith, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do as I say? And so grew up going to church, grew up Catholic, grew up as a Christian, but it wasn't until my mid-20s that I really struggled, I wrestled with this idea of what it means to truly carry that cross, to truly live the precepts of Christianity. Paul writes in Ephesians 6 that this is a battle not between flesh and blood, this is a spiritual battle. And not just in the world of politics, as I'm finding out, but in every aspect of our life. We are distracted by the secular, the hedonistic, but we are always called to remember, as Paul reminds us, that our citizenship is not here, our citizenship is in heaven. And so we need to keep our eyes laser focused on the eternal. For me, I was asked the other day by CNN of all people, well, you're a Christian, but you if you became governor, you would separate, you would separate that from your role as governor. And I said, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Oh, I love I love that. Because we are not supposed to just be Christians for an hour and a half on Sunday, not for just an hour on Wednesday night. We are called to be Christians in everything that we do, especially in politics. I'll let my Democrat friends debate the issue of abortion until they're blue in the face, but more appropriately, blue in the hair.
SPEAKER_00That was funny.
SPEAKER_03But for me, the abortion debate is settled. Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 5. Before you were born, I set you apart. Before I formed you, I knew you. Abortion is murder, and as governor, I will treat it as such.
SPEAKER_02And we're going to get on that's I tell you, I can't wait. We're going to hit on each of these uh topics and let you explain a little more. Um things that struck me, and I want you to speak about it, you are uh you are an America first champion, not just uh a champion for Florida, you're an American first champion for all of America. And that's why you have so much, I mean, all eyes are on you and you're influencing people in that direction. But you have said, I believe, I may be paraphrasing this, but you have basically you've said in order to make America first, Christ has to be first. Can you talk about that for a second?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. We are a Christian nation, full stop. I have respect for people of all different faiths, but none of our founding fathers were Jewish, none of our founding fathers were Muslim, and sure as heck, none of our founding fathers were Hindu. And it's so it's just a fact that this nation was built by Christians based on Christian principles. And I don't think that we can revive America in all years, by the way, our 250th birthday in one month from now, unless we are willing to revive those founding ideals. And one of those founding ideals, as articulated by Benjamin Franklin, was that this Constitution was of and by a moral man. A moral man is defined by those who set their sights on Christ, on eternity, on holy scripture. Nowadays, anyone running for office will tell you that they are a principled conservative. Next time someone says that, turn to them and ask them, where do you draw your principles from? I don't draw my principles from a think tank in Washington, D.C. or a Republican guidebook. I draw my principles from two places and two places alone: the United States Constitution and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That needs to be our North Star. And we have to have our elected leaders remember that, that if we are going to revive what it means to be an American, we have to revisit the founding, revisit those founding debates, understand that the laws that are given to us, that the rights that are given to us, are not given to us by the government. They're given to us by God and they're protected by the government. And we must always cherish that fact.
SPEAKER_02Wow. So let me ask you this. Um you're talking about reviving. Do you think which I'm in agreement with, we need to revive, but do you feel like that that some circles are trying to rewrite our foundation? You're trying to revive, but I think there's an effort to rewrite what we're based on, too, and uh an abandonment, a stepping away from from Christ and those principles that we were established on. Do you agree?
SPEAKER_03I agree. I agree 100%. And America was not founded in 1619. It's founded in 1776. To the colleges that spend more time talking about microaggressions than microbiology, to the professor who tells her students, you know, no, no, Cardi B is a role model, Thomas Jefferson is a racist. Yeah. To the schools that would dare spend more time on drag queen story hour than the middle school science fair. Every aspect of life in America has to be inspected, preserved. The Constitution is not a living document. We live around the Constitution, but those laws are clear as day. Can it be ratified? Sure. Has it been? Absolutely. But to your point, rewriting is not something that we can entertain with respect to U.S. history. We need to revive the history and the founding principles that set this country into motion. And this race, I think this race is one way for us to do that. That's why, for better or worse, our race for governor, a Republican primary, has not just attracted statewide and national attention, but we get messages every day from people all over the world saying we are putting this race on the map because there's so much at stake. And so many people are going to look to Florida as they did during the pandemic for leadership.
SPEAKER_02And you know, I'll tell you, few politicians, few politicians feel, I think, the way you feel. And even fewer are bold enough, even if they feel that way, to to say it. And I admire your I admire your your courage.
SPEAKER_00So I have a quick question if you'd be comfortable sharing. Do you have a um particular scripture verse that uh kind of shaped how you look at leadership or that you try and implement in your everyday life?
SPEAKER_03I do. I think Luke Luke's 646 is one of them, which of course is why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do as I say? I think Proverbs 9.10 as well, the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord. I always go back to I think the essence of our Christian faith, which is Matthew chapter 22, the two most important commandments, love of God and love of neighbor. And we can't forget that. Now think of the issue of abortion, for example. Abortion should never be the answer for a mom who's struggling to find out how is she going to cover the cost of childbirth? Where is she going to get childcare? Prenatal, postpartum, vitamins, this, that, or the other. That loving your neighbor means, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, not letting your neighbor go kill her child because she can't afford the cost of childbirth. And so, as governor, I believe the correct number of abortions in the state of Florida is precisely zero. Zero, zero, zero elective abortions. The only exception I support is for the life of the mother because two wrongs do not make a right. Every baby is a gift, a blessing directly from our Lord. And so those are my guideposts. That's my North Star on how I would lead to use scripture not just as an inspiration, but as an operating manual. We are called to do that in everything that we do.
SPEAKER_02You know, they it is powerful. And you know, I was thinking as you were talking, which by the way, everything you just said could be preached from a pulpit. By the way, there's a lot of pastors that can't preach a sermon as well as what you just preached. So I appreciate that. I was thinking, you know, we've got um we got a lot of uh of I've heard it said before, are you a fan of Christ or are you a follower of Christ? And the two are distinctly different. Very. And uh so this is this is refreshing. Okay, so let's move on. So you're uh you're in your early 30s, 31, 32, and I'll tell you, uh looking at what you've accomplished is truly remarkable. It is uh very rare for someone at a young age to have accomplished what you've accomplished. So I know you've been asked this before at uh at such a young age, early 30s, uh what prepares you? What do you why why do you think you're you're you're ready to be to run such a complex state as Florida?
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell Well, in essence, no one's truly ready to be governor of the state. No one running has ever been governor before. And I've said that if Ron DeSantis could run for a third term, I wouldn't even be in this race because Ron DeSantis has been the greatest governor in Florida history. What gives me the confidence that we are running a good campaign and running it in the right way is I've spent my last 10 years in the private sector. I think what makes Florida successful is not treating it like another government agency, but treating it like a well-oiled machine, a good business that respects taxpayer dollars, respects individual liberty, unleashes free market capitalism to bring down prices, and defends the Constitution and our rights at every single turn. There's this theory, I think, nowadays, which is gosh, James, you're young and I am. But youth is not the exception. Youth is the norm. Thomas Jefferson was thirty-one at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
SPEAKER_00Really?
SPEAKER_03James Madison was twenty-five. Alexander Hamilton was but twenty-one. And so what what this country was built by was young men, and I believe this country can be saved by young men. Certainly I've had my fair share of track record over the last decade building businesses, scaling them up. When the fentanyl crisis hit rural Florida communities, as kids were being sold these counterfeit pills that were laced with fentanyl, I went to Governor DeSantis's Florida Department of Health and secured a grant to launch a statewide fentanyl awareness assembly for every public high school in our state. And I, in many cases, actually gave that assembly myself as I did in Nassau County, as I did in Broward County, speaking directly to student auditoriums full of 700 to 800 kids. When high school debate changed my life way back when, and I came back and I said, how can we bring the power of high school debate, the power of learning an argument, being able to defend that argument, eating your slice of humble pie when you're wrong, essentially, in essence, unleashing the power of what Charlie Kirk stood for for high schools all across the state? I started a free debate league called Incubate Debate that in the last seven years has now reached over 56 counties, 10,000 students all over Florida, little counties like Glades, big clownies like Duvall, Broward, and Orange to bring the power of debate. And so my view has always been show your track record. Your track record could be one that's successful in politics, standing up, but it could also be one that is successful in business. And I am proud of the work that I have done at Incubate Debate, the nonprofit that I started with the NEO initiative, which got a direct grant from Governor DeSantis's Department of Health, and then of course with my investment firm, Azoria, which built the only meritocracy fund in the country to channel investment capital to firms that were rejecting DEI and embracing the idea that you should hire people on their merit.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Debates. Since you brought that up, what's going on with the are there are are they scheduled yet? So who all is going to be participating in those debates? Can you speak to that?
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell Sure. I'm a big fan of debate. I think this country was set in motion by debate from the Constitutional Convention to the civil rights debates and everything in between. Voters deserve candidates who are going to debate, not just for the sake of good ratings, but you deserve to have your vision tested. If you can't sit on a debate stage with your other competitors, then it's hard to imagine you're going to fend off the fake news media as they try to push another scandal to divide the state. There are two debates scheduled right now, one on CBS on July 15th, the other on Fox on July 21st. All four candidates have been invited. I have accepted. Who knows who will show up? Perhaps we won't even know until an hour before when we're all sitting in the green room. But I think debate is the way forward. And as we've seen with debates in our presidential elections, even in our state elections, debates often are what decides a large portion of the electorate to vote one way or the other. Because you can sit high and mighty, you can be a beautiful speaker. But unless you're able to go up there and defend your vision to compare what you view for Florida and what your competitors do and take questions, hard questions, and have the voters tune in, a lot of people are going to use that as their final test to who to vote for.
SPEAKER_02All right. A leader steps up and they deal with the issues no matter how difficult or uncomfortable they are. And that's what you're doing. The second thing that leaders do is they go to the they go to where the battle is. They go to where the battle is. And here in Waukala County, we're a small county. You could be on any stage you wanted to be right now, but you took the time to come to Walkala County to speak to this small community and the surrounding counties. And to me, um that means so much. And it's gonna mean a lot to everybody in this county and the surrounding surrounding counties. All right, I'm gonna be quiet now, Molly.
SPEAKER_00I'll have to be quiet. Um, so what made you decide to run for governor? Was there like a moment where you're like, I gotta do this?
SPEAKER_03If there were a single moment, it would have been when I had dinner with my chief opponent, Congressman Donalds. He's in first place in the polls, I'm in second. We had dinner in August of 2025, and we had a long conversation about his vision for Florida. I shared a little bit of my vision. And his vision, which is so radically different from me as a fourth-generation Floridian, from me as someone who's born and raised here, who's lived it there their entire life. I I I want to defend old Florida. I want to stop farmland from being taken. I want to stop the irresponsible and reckless development. I want to judge economic prosperity by how well can we get 30-year-olds to buy a home, to get married. Is it easier or is it harder for working couples to raise a family on a single income? And how are we doing it, making sure that our seniors can retire comfortably? Those are my guideposts. And so after that dinner, after that three-hour conversation, I walked away saying, well, Congressman Donald is a good man, he's a Christian, he's a father of three young boys, his wife, I've met them all. That I don't believe that his vision is the right vision for our state. And that's why I jumped into this race.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell All right, I'm gonna give you an unfair question. Please. What's the biggest problem facing Florida right now, in your opinion? And I say that's an unfair question because there there may not be it may not be singular, but uh what do you what do you uh what do you see as one of the biggest issues right now?
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell I would say the single biggest issue facing the state is the cost of living crisis. And I say that because it it affects everybody. If you're a young kid graduating from Florida State and you can't get a job because of the H1B program that's taken away great jobs from Floridians and giving them to foreign workers from India, if you can't get a job, you don't have an income. If you don't have an income, everything is unaffordable. It also matters for a working family that's paying the highest property tax rates in history, paying the highest property insurance and auto insurance in the country, and is getting no relief, especially with the war with Iran, where gas prices are now at the highest in five years. And then, of course, if you are a senior citizen, your social security check is not keeping up to pace with the inflation that we're seeing on the ground, your cost of living adjustments. That's something I want to fight for as well, is make sure that every single person on Social Security in our state gets the accurate benefits that reflect the cost of living in Florida, not some abstract national number that's going to shortchange them. And so if I could sum it up in one issue that affects the vast majority of us, black, white, rural, urban, rich, poor, old, young, it is going to be the cost of living crisis. And that is the number one thing that I have to solve if I if I get this job is how can we one bring down prices? How can we, two, bring up wages and increase jobs for young people? And then three, how can we make it easier to afford everyday life? If you're a Korea war vet, making sure those Social Security payments can be stretched to the fullest, make sure your VA is working for you. And if you're a working family, making sure that access to childcare, whether you want to send your kids to public school or take those dollars and send them off to a private school or even do the homeschool route, I want to support all of that. So I if I could sum it up in one major issue that affects Floridians, it's cost of living.
SPEAKER_00So there seems to be, and I might not even say this question right, but like a disconnect almost between like everyday people, my age group, and career politicians. Because I mean, you just hit on a lot of things that I hear talked about often within my age group and and stuff, the cost of living and how everything costs so much money. But why do you think there's that disconnect there between everyday people and politicians?
SPEAKER_03Probably two things. The first is the age. The average elected official in the U.S. is somewhere between 55 and 65. And so they're not the ones who are struggling to get a job, first and foremost. They're not the ones struggling to buy a home. I'm obviously different because I just got home a couple years ago, and I know what it's like to struggle to find a job and find opportunity. And the second is we have run this campaign very intentionally about showing up where voters least expect us. You'll remember that we had a statewide Waffle House tour. So we were at small towns like Bonifay and Holmes County, we were in Jacksonville, we were in Marianne at the Waffle House, and we had 250 people show up. You know, if you're just running for governor and you're going to the White Tablecroth dinners, the fancy luncheons, you're going to miss a big part of the electorate who quite literally doesn't even have the money to attend those events. And so when you sit across from a young FSU student who has a 4.0 GPA, who is the top of his class but can't get a job because some of the largest companies in our state are using cheap foreign labor and outsourcing it instead, you understand where he's coming from and you want to fix that for him. Same thing when we travel to rural communities, when we go to old citrus country in Florida, whether it's frostproof or Sebring or Avon Park, and you see the 20, 30 acres on the horizon that have been willowed away by citrus screening, and you talk to farmers, you talk to families, fifth and sixth generation citrus growers. This is the perspective that I have now. And, you know, growing up, I got to see the state in one view, going up to Ichenatuckney to swim and traveling to see family in Bradenton and Tampa, even though we grew up in South Florida. But in the last five months, I've seen my state in a whole new way and have met people and crossed paths with so many different unique stories that I think that this election has to be someone who can fight for everyone with equal vigor. And that's what I'm running to do.
SPEAKER_02Is it true that you uh in a good way? I don't mean this in a negative way, is it true you were overrunning the Waffle Houses? I heard some rumors that you were packing out the Waffle House to the point.
SPEAKER_00Is it 250 people were in one Waffle House?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Can 250 people? No, that's and they and they were they were outside, they were listening in, you know, we live stream all of our events. And so people were outside, huddled around iPhones listening to me while I was inside. And, you know, I say it with humility. There's never been a movement like this in Florida politics where young, old, black, white, rich, poor have come together and descended on a Waffle House or a Taco Bell and seen a candidate and stood across from a candidate, and I am running to be the people's candidate. People say, well, everyone wants to be the people's candidate. Okay. If you're running to be the people's candidate and you only speak at country clubs and at white linen brunches, then you are not speaking to the average person in our state.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's also hard to get the the the younger demographic to care. Correct. They typically won't vote. Uh what you've done is you you you've you've struck a chord with a demographic that typically doesn't even pay attention because they feel like it doesn't even even matter. And that I think that could that could be the that could be the great equalizer in in this this election that's going to shock some people, I I think. Um so okay, one of the things I want to wanna to talk with you about, I'm excited to hear you go through these. You're let's go through the executive order. So so day one of governor fishback, what is your let's walk us through what day one would look back look like. And I'd like to know I'd like to hear kind of what your thoughts are on, say, your first three to five executive orders. And you're you're big on executive orders. I've heard you talk about some of that. So walk us through some some of that. I I think our our viewers would really like to hear that.
SPEAKER_03I'm a big fan of executive orders when they uphold the Constitution. You know, Barack Obama used executive orders to run roughshod on our Constitution. I'm a big fan of executive orders when they right the wrongs of constitutional infringement. In the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Marbury v. Madison, it was written that any law that is repugnant to the Constitution is null and void. And I regret to inform you that there are several laws on the books right now in Florida that are repugnant and therefore are null and void, and I will, in fact, nullify them. Three things I'll do in my first day. The first of which is I will declare a state emergency over the homeless crisis in our state. 2,300 disabled vets will sleep on the streets of Florida tonight. There are 50,000 homeless people all over the state. They have overtaken beautiful downtowns in Orlando, Jacksonville, Fort Lauderdale, St. Pete, Miami. They're a threat to themselves because when you shoot up dirty needles of heroin and sleep in urine, you're going to die unless someone intervenes. But you're also a threat to others because the very sort of psychosis that sets in when you live on the street makes you prone to violence. And you can look no further than the case of Rita Lawnric, a 74-year-old woman who was killed by a homeless man inside of a Barnes in Noble in Palm Beach County. If you're not safe inside of a bookstore in the wealthiest county in our state, you are safe nowhere. So executive order number one is declare a state emergency, activate the Florida National Guard to relocate the homeless away from the streets, out of our city parks, off of the downtowns, and into real housing, real psychiatric care. And for many of them, they're going to need to have a very honest conversation because you got drugs, there's a warrant out for your arrest, et cetera, et cetera. Do you want to get care in a psychiatric hospital or do you want to go away for 15 years? Your choice. We're not negotiating. You have three seconds to decide. Go, and that's it. And it that's not, you know, people will say, well, where's the compassion? Well, where's the compassion for the person named Rita Lonric who was stabbed to death by a homeless man? Where's the compassion for our neighbors in Christ who are living on the street shooting up fentanyl? If if homelessness stopped being understood as a political issue, what are we going to do? Here we and understood instead as an interpersonal issue. If your own brother or sister were living on the street and you came across them, there is nothing that they could say, nothing that they could do that would want to stop you from grabbing them and bringing them out of that situation. But they have a choice. No, you don't have a choice in America to shoot up illegal narcotics in broad daylight on church steps. And so, number one, Florida National Guard. Number two, there is a gun control bill in Florida, but it's been on the book now for eight years. It's the Parkland School Safety Act. Of course, it has a great name and it's a terrible idea. And what it did was it enacted collective punishment. Because the Parkland shooter was an 18-year-old. The bill decided to disarm every 18, 19, and 20-year-old from being able to purchase a firearm. And that is unconstitutional. That is un-American. I'll sign an executive order ending the enforcement of that law. So if you're 18, 19, or 20, you can buy a gun to defend yourself, your family, and your property. And then number three is I am going to call a special session of the legislature to immediately implement legislation, a new law to ban AI data centers in the state of Florida. You're not going to build data centers that are two million square feet large, that drive up our electric bills, that drain our water supply, that are a nuisance with both air and noise pollution, that take land that could be reserved for farmland or conservation. And worst of all, we're not going to build a skynet in our own backyard that, mark my words, will one day be used against us, will be used against us, much like the big data centers in China are now building up a surveillance state against its own people. 2020 was the harbinger, the warning, the canary in the coal mine for what a surveillance state can do. You complain about vaccines, you get taken off the internet. You say 2020 wasn't a perfect election, you get censored and canceled. We cannot let them build a Skynet on our watch.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell And the AI data centers, I think we're I don't even know that we fully even know the ramifications of those fully yet, do we? Aren't there aren't there communities where the drinking water and everything is just impacted? Uh uh aren't there more and more examples of the harmful effects of these types of centers still still coming out?
SPEAKER_03There are. And what you're seeing on the ground where they build them in Tennessee, in Georgia, and Pennsylvania, is the water gets contaminated. There's water shortages. We're living through the worst water shortage right now in 26 years in Florida. So terrible time to be building something that sucks up 500,000 gallons of water every day. The biggest thing, though, is electricity. When you build something that massive with that many servers running 24 hours a day, you need a lot of power. And when you are building a data center, that is the equivalent of building 1 million new homes. Imagine if you built 1 million new homes right here, what that would do to the power grid, what it would do to energy prices. When there's that much demand and there's no increase in supply, price goes through the roof. And as constitutional principled conservatives, we say no to handouts, we say no to welfare to illegal aliens, but we should also say no to the welfare of Mark Zuckerberg. We should not be paying his electric bill.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And let me ask you, so with the with the data centers, is that also an indicator of who's controlling our country? Is that is if you if you is that the direction that we're, you know, that we're moving? You see what I'm saying there? I mean, with these data centers and big tech and and that, it's a matter of control as well, isn't it? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_03It is. And all you need to know that the two largest financiers of data centers are Mark Zuckerberg and George Soros. Really? Those guys have never been in our best interest, and they're not all of a sudden having a Damascus conversion and an epiphany to fight for the greater good. Mark Zuckerberg does not let his own kids use AI.
SPEAKER_00Wow. That's ironic.
SPEAKER_03That's all you need to know about AI. Now, is it transformational? Sure. So is fire, but we don't let nine-year-olds light matches in the school bathroom. And so anything that happens with artificial intelligence in our state needs to have clear parental consent. There needs to be a bill of rights. There needs to be an audited track record. And there can never be an artificial intelligence that tries to act like a parent. There are two parents. I believe that I had the greatest privilege growing up. Not that white privilege nonsense, but the privilege of having mom and dad at home. And as a Christian, I believe, whether it's politically incorrect, I could not care less. I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Well, and so the data centers are a huge issue. Which of those issues do you um predict that you're you're gonna get the most opposition from? I know they're all very polarizing to some extent. Uh which one do which one do you think is gonna be the hardest battle?
SPEAKER_03The hardest will probably be the homeless. Because you're gonna have activists out there trying to stop our Florida National Guardsmen from effectuating my orders. But you know, these issues are actually pretty 80-20. Obviously the fake news media is going to get riled up over everything that we do. But that issue in particular is one where ev nobody wants to see homeless people chase them down on International Drive or on Monroe in Tennessee in downtown Tallahassee. Nobody wants to step over a lifeless body that's overdosed on fentanyl. Nobody wants to see their neighbors sleep in urine or our parks be overtaken by homeless encampments. And so these three, while they're very motivating for me and they're very conservatively aligned, they're actually pretty broad tent views. If you're old enough to be drafted to war, you should be old enough to buy a gun. If they build an AI data center in your backyard, you shouldn't pay for it. And then lastly and most importantly, you shouldn't be living in the squalor and filth of a homeless encampment in your own town. And so I suspect the most pushback will come on the homeless, but it's also my job and any job of an elected official to be a good communicator. Because you gotta sell your message. You know, if we do this, if we do something big and bold, and then it's communicated poorly, we may have to fold. And so having a good communicator, be on the front lines, be proactive. Yes, I go on Fox News, yes, I do Steve Bannon, all that great conservative media. But are you willing to walk into the lion's den on CNN, on NBC, and on CBS? Because even if you're a Democrat or independent, I still think if you hear me on your network of choice, you still have some respect that I went on and directly communicated with you.
SPEAKER_02And spoke your convictions. Have you picked any enemies in taking this position? And you uh do you feel like you have you have created some enemies from the other side and how the big money's flowing and and are you in the crosshairs? Uh because they know. They know where you stand and you're bold about it.
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell They do. We have, but there's nothing like being on the right side of the most important issues. You know, I think about it this way. You could you could spend $100,000 on every single person from Citrus County who showed up to that latest board meeting to protest an AI data center. You could spend $100,000 a person on every single person in that town, and you couldn't change a single mind on data centers. And so there's propaganda, but when you're paying people to say things that are not true, it's never going to work. And I think this election is going to show that the days of trying to raise tens of millions of dollars to win over voters, those days are over. We need candidates who are going to show up, small towns, big towns, every little part of our state, and meet directly with voters.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell I may be incorrect on this. I thought I saw something, um, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Byron Donald is in support of the AI data centers.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he says that AI data centers are our future in Florida, and I couldn't disagree more. Is that a view that he holds personally? Uh probably not, but it's a view that he's being paid to hold. And that's even worse than having a personal conviction, is that someone has bribed you to hold that view. Right. And I I love our state too much to see Cattle Land and Citrus Land and wild and free Florida be squandered and handed over to out-of-state property developers to build something that Mark Zuckerberg will use to likely indoctrinate your kids. That that is not what we mean by the Florida dream.
SPEAKER_02No. No. All right, home ownership, Molly. I know this is something important. Do you talk to you?
SPEAKER_00So many people my age oh, I know I feel this way, and I I I've talked to others my age that feel this way as well. They feel like home ownership's like the ability to obtain that's moving farther away. Um why do you think that is?
SPEAKER_03Two things. Housing has gotten expensive and there's a lot of demand there. And the second thing is if you don't have a job, quite literally everything is expensive. And so if if housing prices doubled tomorrow, but everybody who wanted a house had a job and their salary tripled, they wouldn't be complaining. It's the fact that home prices have gone up so much, but wages have not kept up the pace. Where the average home in Florida has gone from $100,000 in 20 years to half a million dollars, but the average person is not making five times more. And that's a real problem. The solution, though, is not to build more houses. It's not. There are going to be some communities, some parts of the state where there is a genuine supply shortage that's going to be addressed with construction. But if you go build a thousand new houses and 900 of them are bought up immediately by Blackstone or BlackRock, these institutional investors, then you've done nothing to make it easier for young people to buy a home. If you build, you have to set aside housing that is explicitly for Florida residents, single family housing, not to be scooped up by institutional investors who are not buying that home as you know to fix it up or to lay down some new tile, but are buying that home to permanently take it off the market and then rent it back to you.
SPEAKER_02So let me let me ask you this, and I'd like for you to explain to us the severity of this, because if we're not careful, we miss what's happening right underneath our nose, uh, especially in these rural communities. Um And we have a lot of lot of homes being built in this area. But when you talk about to talk about the significance of Black Rock, Blackstone, what they're doing, what their what their agenda is. And what I've noticed since I've been listening to you is if you're not careful, it's veiled what they're doing. They've got, they've got um companies, it's it's it's it's sometimes Sometimes it's it's hard to actually identify who they are, but then when you follow it all the way up the line, you see that it's Blackstone, BlackRock, these companies. So explain to us, explain to us what they're doing, why it's so detrimental to this area. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_03What they're doing is they are putting in place their own vision, which they laid out. The year is 2030, you own nothing, and you're happy. That is the Davos mindset. And so what BlackRock and Blackstone are doing is they're going into every last little neighborhood in Florida and buying up 50 to 100 homes at a time. They're not buying them up to refurbish them, to renovate them. They're buying them up so they can turn around two months later and rent them back to us. Now, why would they want to do that? Because in their mind, they can have 30, 40, 50 years of rental revenue from a home instead of selling it once. When my parents bought their first home in Broward County in 1996, they paid $104,000. They only bid against two other families. Nowadays, you buy a home in Broward County, anywhere in the state, you're going to bid against 10, 15, or 20, not families, but different institutional investors, different Wall Street entities like Blackstone and BlackRock. And that is unfair competition for our young couples. It's unfair because these companies have billions of dollars. A lot of it actually comes from foreign countries. The number one foreign country that funds companies like Blackstone is China. So now you have an investment firm with overseas dollars from our number one adversary, China, outbidding your daughter on buying a home. That is a massive problem. It is un-American. It has to end. And fortunately, a governor can change that. We can and we will ban institutional investors, private equity from buying up our homes. We do that for one reason. The next generation needs to be able to buy a home, start a family, have kids, and live out the American dream.
SPEAKER_02Well, we're also giving away the keys to the kingdom, too. We're making if we don't stop it, we're going to be subservient to foreign to the to the to the e large equity firms or the big institutional type investors.
SPEAKER_03And these companies, they may be based in America, but they are not American companies. They worship Davos, they worship Dubai, they are multinational global citizens. So I could not agree with you more. The people who are owning our homes are one degree separated from the communists in China, and we cannot hand over the keys for our children and grandchildren to people who have utter contempt for us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So I saw on um the Tucker Carlson podcast. Loved the episode. I watched the whole thing, I think, twice. But um H1B visas. Yeah. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that. Um I saw you talked about it on there. Um can you kind of explain I know what it is, but I know there's some aspects that I don't know about H1B visas. So I just wanted you to explain that and really what it is.
SPEAKER_03Well, once upon a time, when you went and applied for a job and you were qualified, you got the job. Now, when you apply for a job and you're qualified, they say, hold on a second, we can import somebody from India to do the job for $10,000 cheaper. Someone who gets a special immigration visa. They are not citizens. They've never been to the United States before. Molly, you go to apply for a job, you're perfectly qualified. And then they say, you know what, we're not going to hire you. Or worse yet, you already have a job and you get fired because your CEO can replace you by using an immigration visa given to H1Bs from India, China, the Philippines. That is destroying the labor market. Youth unemployment is now double that of the national average. When I was at UCF, UF, USF earlier this year, the number one concern I heard from students was am I going to be able to get a job when this is all said and done? And these are not kids who studied gender studies or critical race theory. They went and did exactly what they were told to do: science, tech, engineering, and math. And those jobs, it turns out, are being handed over to foreign nationals in their place. How do we end it? Well, you might say, James, that's a federal issue. That is for the federal government to decide. And well, first off, any issue that affects the people of my state is an issue for me to solve, whether it's the federal, state, or local. Number two, when companies are doing this, they are doing it not because the Indians are smarter, not because they're more qualified. They're doing it for one reason. The Indians are cheaper. So how do we get rid of their cost advantage? We fine any company every year that they use an H1B visa instead of hiring a qualified American citizen in our state. When we say to you, hey, you were making $70,000 a year, but you just got fired to be replaced by somebody who's making $50,000 a year, all we have to do is fine the company that's hiring the person at $50,000 a year, fine them $20,000 every year. Now they're going to pay $70,000 for that H1B, or they could just keep you and pay $70,000. In that moment, when we've eliminated the cost advantage, what are they going to do? They're going to keep you. You're going to keep your job.
SPEAKER_02I love that. I love that. That is so neat. I know it's not related to the H1B visas, but I've noticed, I know education is close to your heart. And I've noticed that having qualified teachers has become an issue. And there's probably a whole lot of reasons for that. But uh now what we're seeing happening in the public school systems are we're having to import in, you know, foreigners to teach our children in the classroom. That's a concern. That's a concern of mine. What do you think and why do you think that is? Do you think it is um I know teacher pay and some things like that. What why why is it why is it so hard to retain and to keep good teachers in the classroom?
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell The same reason it's hard to retain and to keep good employees in any company. They're demoralized, they're underpaid, and for a minority of them, they actually don't love teaching. And if you don't love teaching in Florida, that's okay. I'm gonna help you as governor, I'm gonna help you transition to another role, whether it's in that county or with the state, if you're qualified. But if you want to retain and recruit the best qualified teachers, you have to pay them more, full stop. You have to pay people more. I wrestled with this for years. I said, gosh, how can we hire more employees? We were only offering $45,000 for a role, and we upped the pay to $50,000, upped the benefits, gave them more of a stake in what we were building in the company. And wouldn't you know, all of these great qualified employees ended up joining my company? It's no different in education. What I want to do is I want to put Florida on the map again for education. Here's how you do it. Number one, every teacher in the state, and I am serious as a heart attack, every teacher in the state has to re-qualify as a teacher. If you're unwilling to do that, that's gonna say a lot about you, and we're gonna transition you out. If you re-qualify, you're automatically going to get a 25% pay raise. And that requalification, that is not going to be a walk in the park. The same exams that our students are expected to pass in order to graduate, those are the exams that our teachers are going to be given. Any teacher who thinks that they are above that, that that is beneath them, then I'm sorry, teaching is not for you. Number two, we have to get parents more involved in education. The number one and most influential teacher in a child's life will be mom and dad. If a student goes to school for 180 days a year, but the other 180 days, they're just sitting on the couch, parents aren't talking to them about math or reading or science, they're not watching a documentary every week with mom or dad, they're not doing their division over brunch, then they're losing out. Their education will weaken and decay over time. We got to get parents more involved. I meet a lot of parents who genuinely are want to be involved, but don't know where to start. Every single school under my leadership will have an active and vibrant PTA, the Parent Teacher Association. And for many, it's going to be required because parental involvement is not a nice to have. It is an absolute necessity for our kids to thrive. You need good role models at school and you need good role models at home, and that's how we improve education. And number three, students want learning to be fun. They want learning to be fun. How can we make school fun again? Guaranteed recess. Spend time outside, not just for the fun and the social benefit, but for the physiological benefit of having 30 to 40 minutes of sunlight. Number two, let's bring in food trucks every other week for the top kids who are excelling in class. Number three, let's bring in great guest speakers. Let's bring in local entrepreneurs. Let's bring in motivational speakers. Every single school should have one guest speaker a month where the kids pour into the auditorium and they hear from a race car driver, they hear from a small business owner, they hear from a pastry chef, they hear from an elected official on both sides of the aisle. That's what we need to do. And so as a public school kid, I want our public schools to succeed. I think the best way for them to succeed is to compete. Competition is always going to bring the best out in each of us. And it's no different in education as it would be in leisure or hospitality or in any other part of business.
SPEAKER_02I love that. I love that. We could actually spend the whole time talking about that. You're getting close to my heart there. Okay. Uh let's let's kind of hit the hot button, some of the hot button issues right now, give you a chance to kind of restate your you've already hit on some of this. Um abortion. Abortion. That's that's close to your heart, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Abortion is murder. The correct number of abortions is zero. Life begins at conception. There is no excuse for a woman to murder her child in the state of Florida. As governor, I will shut down and defund every planned parenthood in our state. There are 53 left, but those 53 locations, they will not be vacant because we, Molly, we will build a crisis pregnancy center that takes in a young expecting mom who is anxious, who is stressed out, and says, We as Christians, we as Americans, we will pull for you. We will make sure that you need everything that you and your baby need to have a successful life.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing. I love that. And I love it too.
SPEAKER_01Okay, this is what I really wanted to get to here. This I'm excited about this.
SPEAKER_00So the syntax. I saw on Pierce Morgan, uh, you went on there. Is it a show or a podcast? The show. Um, and I really liked what you um what you had to say about everything. Uh, but the it got national attention because of your proposal involving attacks on pornography and only fans. Um and as a woman, I want to say like when you explained your why, I really liked it. It meant a lot. And also the way you dealt with the OnlyFans star Sophie Rain, I thought you were so respectful and you weren't abrasive, you weren't rude to her, um, but you stuck to your guns about it. And I was just hoping you could maybe explain that.
SPEAKER_02And let me let me add on before you talk. So my dad's a minister of over 50 years. Uh, that's all he's he's done. He and when I mentioned to him your syntax, that's the one of the few times I actually saw him really take into that got his attention. He liked that. So explain what the syntax is and maybe talk about uh kind of how you address that, which I I agree, Molly. I I thought you did that absolutely brilliantly, not just and he was attacking you. He was coming after you.
SPEAKER_00He was trying to catch it.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna have my opponent over here and the moderators both coming after me.
SPEAKER_02He was coming after you, and you were just uh steady. Steady and the way you handle. And then I thought when he when you had the chance to address her, I noticed how your your tone changed. And you dealt with her not with a superficial sincerity. I thought you dealt with her with a genuine sincerity, not just for her, but all uh women and all of the people that are wrapped up, men and women, in this porn, you know, the the you know, everything surrounding pornography and that. So speak, talk about your syntax, your your views on pornography, damages, and uh impacts to us when it comes to that.
SPEAKER_03Well, my view on pornography is that it is a creation straight from the devil. It is a creation to separate us from our Lord, to separate us from our current or future partner to be. And it objectifies women and it turns men into these lustful, lustful creatures. And what I think we need to do is we need to stop pornography. If I could ban it, I would. Sadly, the way that our judicial system interprets the First Amendment, they somehow think that pornography is protected speech. I don't think it is, but I'm not gonna wait for the courts to get their act together. What I will do is have a very high fine, a very high fee, a very high tax on pornography that will be paid by both the producer of the pornography and the consumer of it, 50%. Now, what that does is if you're someone who's thinking about creating porn and you're now realized you're going to pay half, half of what you earn in revenue to the government in tax, you might think twice about that. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02Because you're you're proposing a 50% sin tax on the that those and I guess a lot of them are flocking to the state because of no state income tax. So we're attracting a lot of young people.
SPEAKER_03Sadly, the top porn stars are based here in Florida. They're attracted by our zero income tax, but it's going to be a 50% sin tax when I get a hold of them. And the reason why is, well, why do you hate women? No, of course not we don't hate women. We actually love women. We love them enough to think of them highly that they don't have to resort to this dehumanizing objectification of their bodies and they can actually do something meaningful. Teacher, doctor, journalist, real estate agent, they could even be a devoted stay-at-home mom. And so when you think of Economics 101, it's all about setting a price to encourage a behavior or to discourage a behavior. And when pornography is taxed at such a high price, at a 50% syntax for both the producer and the consumer of it, you are going to discourage tens of thousands of people from producing it and hundreds of thousands of people from consuming it. And if we do that, we can really begin to right the wrong that pornography has wretched on our society.
SPEAKER_00So some critics will say that government shouldn't legislate morality. What do you have to say about that?
SPEAKER_03I would disagree with them entirely. I think government's whole point is to legislate morality. If we're not tasked with legislating morality, then why on earth is murder illegal? Right? Our job, as laid out in the Declaration of Independence, is to secure the blessings of liberty, to promote a general welfare, to defend the innocent. And what is more important than one, defending innocent life in the womb, but also defending a 16, 17-year-old girl from either seeing or feeling compelled to produce pornography. For any woman in the state who genuinely is on OnlyFans selling porn because she can't afford her rent. She can't afford to raise her child. She can't afford her groceries. She should know that I'm not going to shame her. I'm going to meet her where she is and make sure that government can work for her. Under my administration, welfare is not going to be a parking lot. It's going to be a bridge, a bridge to a new tomorrow where you write a chapter of your life based on self-sufficiency and financial independence. But you cannot make money at the expense of your body, your future, and the millions of men who might see your content who are going to be totally warped in the head as a result.
SPEAKER_02No, I I agree with that. Okay. This man, this has been so good. Um All right. So your opinion. Are America's biggest problems, is it spiritual? Is it political? Is it economic? Or is it something, something else? What's the problem beyond just Florida, but within in our nation?
SPEAKER_03It's spiritual. It really is spiritual. Everything is downstream of that because our priorities are out of whack. Give you one example. Paul writes in 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 8, and for those who don't care for their own, especially members of their family, they are they have denied the faith. They are worse than a non-believer. That says everything about a nation that would give $3,000 in cash to illegal immigrants, would give them free hotel rooms, Obama phones, and food stamps, but would deny our own who need help, disabled vets, folks go into the VA, a single mom who needs health care. And so I think there are obviously economic and political issues, but everything is downstream of our faith. And for there to truly be a revival of America, there has to be a revival of Christianity. Not of faith. I'm not playing that vague, interdisciplinary, interfaith nonsense card. There needs to be a revival of one faith and one faith alone. And that is the faith that says in John 14, 6 that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Yeah, I just got chill bumps. I just got chill bumps when you said that. So uh no, I agree, I agree whole wholeheartedly with that. By the way, and I think it's important to remind everyone here, you have no idea what we're gonna you it's not like we're we're prepping you with these questions. So so sorry for everybody listening, uh that was that's totally uh um natural with no prep. And uh and that's you speaking from from your heart. So I appreciate you answering answering that way.
SPEAKER_00So if you could speak directly to Floridians my age, what would you tell them?
SPEAKER_03I would tell them to hang on. I I'm typically a big big person that says you gotta take personal responsibility, but I think that the generation that you're in, it's not a question of personal responsibility. I think it's a question of the responsibility of government to fix these problems for them. Because if you go to college and you get good grades, as that young man from FSU did, and you get the 4.0 and you get a job and it was taken and given to somebody from India, that's not a personal responsibility thing. If if you save up for a decade and you get married and you go to buy a three-bed, two-bath in Crawfordville, and you get outbid by private equity, that is not an issue of personal responsibility. And so I I I'll be the first to say pull yourself up by the bootstraps. I'll be the first to preach personal responsibility. But I think right now the crisis that's facing your generation and not to date myself, but my generation as well, is one that personally they're mainly doing what's right, doing what they need to. We just need government to get the heck out of the way. Remember, we don't need new regulations or new policies. We need to destroy the existing regulation that tells a young kid from Tallahassee or Jacksonville or Orlando that no, the job that he the job that he is not perfectly qualified for, it's not really his. We're gonna give it to someone from another country instead. So it's not a lack of regulation, it is a surplus of bad laws and bad regulation that say, no, we're not gonna put Americans first. We have to put Americans first.
SPEAKER_02I love that. All right, last question. Um imagine January 2031. January 2031, you're leaving office. What would you as you're le if you're leaving office in in 2031, what would you want the Florida family? How would you want to leave that office and how would you want to be be viewed when you leave?
SPEAKER_03There are 15% of 30-year-olds who are married and own homes. I would want that to be much higher. I would want it to be commonplace again for people to be able to raise a family on a single income. My parents did it, their parents did it. Almost everybody I knew growing up in South Florida was able to do it. And so I'd want to get to a country and a state where we could both bring down cost but bring up incomes so you could, in fact, have a single breadwinner raise the family. And then number three, I would want our seniors to not have to sacrifice it every turn for a state that they help build and put on the map. I would want them to be able to live and retire comfortably. And then on my most personal issue, the issue of abortion, I would truly want there to be as few abortions as possible in the state of Florida, and I would want a state that celebrates every life, that defends every life in our state.
SPEAKER_02Well said.
SPEAKER_01Well said.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure.
SPEAKER_02This has been amazing. I do have one thing uh for you. And we've got um we've got one of these. So this is a handmade cross. Wow. They are made right here in uh Waucula County. I'm gonna give you and your entire team uh this but we want to give you this. I think Molly may have a few other items for you. But I want to thank you so much. And I think it would be safe to say um I wanna, I'm speaking for for Waucula County. Thank you. Whether they agree with you or disagree with you, what's undeniable is you took the time off of a rigorous campaign trail when you could be in much more higher profile settings, but you took the time to come to Waukala County to look us in the eye to talk to us. And I think I speak for Waukala County in saying thank you for that. Uh so thank you so much. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thank you.