A Conversation with Congressman Byron Donalds | Ep. 010

At our Faith & Culture Night at CoastLife Church, Pastor Jason sat down for an In-The-Arena conversation with Byron Donalds. Together, they discussed faith, leadership, and the real policies Congressman Donalds plans to establish if elected Governor of Florida. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to In the Arena Podcast with Jason Warby. Why don't you just stay standing for just a moment? We had these ideas for Faith and Culture Night, and uh a friend that attends our church named Chase was like, Hey, would you ever want to have Congressman Byron Donald's? And I was like, Yeah, but he ain't gonna come. He's like, And he was like, Well, I'll reach out, and I was like, okay. And then I'm just planning every other thing except for this. And uh there's been an incredible kindness, and I'm incredibly like just seriously overwhelmed that that he would come. He's uh a representative of the great state of Florida. He's uh he's a prominent voice in the conservative movement, and we are so excited. And I want you to give great honor and a great big welcome to Congressman Byron Donnelly. Thank you for being here. I'm so so grateful to have you with us. And uh it it really is an honor that you're you're with us for a faith and culture night. And so this is a a room full of Christians, churchgoers, church people. And uh I I would just love to hear your your story of faith, if you don't mind sharing just some context and just let you introduce yourself as a person and kind of your your journey of faith.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Well, well, first I want to thank you for opening up your church home to me. Um I could tell this is a room of faith because uh they don't get this loud in most political meetings. So I I'll we'll start there. Uh I my story uh to becoming a born-again Christian uh started actually with my wife, Erica Donalds, who's over here. She's with us tonight. And when I was in college, I went to I I moved to Florida at 17 to go to college. I went to Famue and Florida State. And from the ages of yeah, go Knowles, that's right. And oh she's a seminole for sure. And uh from the ages of uh 18, 19, and 20, I was having a real rough time. I was arrested twice. Uh one was marijuana possession, the other was theft. I was really um in that valley. I was really in a valley. And I remember very clearly I was sitting in uh the holding facility facility in Leon County, and I'm looking up at the top of the facility, and I said to myself, first, how did you get here? And then the second thing was I'm never gonna be here again. And from that point forward, everything was about making the decisions in my life to be a better man for whoever my wife was gonna be, for my kids, um, and really just for my community. This is before politics, never thought about any of that stuff. Um my girlfriend at the time, Erica Lee, Erica Lees, uh, she was going back to church. She was trying to get her life back in order. And she invited me to go. It was Abundant Life Fellowship in Tallahassee, Florida. And I remember I went into the church, first time I'd ever gone, and the pastor knew my story. And I was mad because I said, Who called my mom? And told the pastor my story. And um, it was very compelling to me, so I just kept going, started getting it into words, started reading. Um, I rate I waited tables at Cracker Barrel in Tallahassee. That was my job, and it was the summer of 2001. And that summer I had three different tables that came to my section. The first table is probably around June-ish sometime. Husband, wife, I come up, I go, hi, I'm Byron. Can I take your order? Would you like some biscuits this morning? And the wife looks up and she goes, Oh, you're Byron. I was praying about a Byron. Oh my gosh. Well, and again, I'm okay. Well, would you like hash brown casserole? Uh, it was interesting. The second table, about a month later, uh, another husband and wife, hello Byron, can I came to take your order? What would you like this morning? And the wife looked at my apron, saw my name, and she goes, you know, I was in a car and I was writing a story about somebody named Byron. And she handed me the story. That one when that stuff happens, you know, it's like you feel the spirit communicating to you. But I'm still super young, just starting to go to church. The third table was a pastor and um 12 ladies, and they were coming back from a revival. And they took up my whole section. Now, when you're waiting tables, when they take up your whole section, you're like, okay, this is great, but I need y'all to go ahead and move on so I can go and make more money. So I brought them all their food, they were very nice, you know, we didn't really talk much. They kind of kept to themselves. I'm on a server line and I'm just rolling silverware. And while I'm rolling silverware, a lot of the people that I was working with were like, Are you okay? And I go, Yeah, I'm fine. But the Lord was dealing with me. And so I'm rolling silverware, but my mind is gone. And as I'm going through it, the Lord said to me, Stop running. Stop running from me. And so I go out to check on the table and they were gone. Now, anybody that's been to Cracker Barrel knows that the whole front of the restaurant is glass. So I see them all getting on their van. And the Lord said, Again, stop running from me. So I go out to the parking lot, the last lady's getting on, I tap her on the shoulder and she goes, Yes, ma'am, what do you need? And I said, Man, the Lord told me, Stop running. And all them ladies poured out of the van. They all poured out, and I gave my life to Christ right there. And so And that's not for me, that's for the Lord. The first person I called was Erica Lees. And I told her what had happened, and she was excited, and that really started a journey where uh we really just putting God first in my life, trying to listen to the Holy Spirit, ignore all the noise that happens in life, and then really just endeavoring to live a life of purpose every single day. And that started a journey where at that time I had no idea any of this was going to happen. But that started a journey in my life that's brought me to where I am today. Man, that's incredible. Thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

That that kind of gets me into the next question I wanted to ask. Like, I'm gonna ask a question I think a lot of people would this one I just want to know from me. That's all right. Like I've been I've been reading a little bit about your journey, and as I understand it, I read this on the internet. I don't know if you know this, but you can't really believe everything on the internet. You know, it's like almost it's almost like you can't believe everything on the internet. But it from what I understand, there was a there was also a shift in in your political ideology that kind of gravitated you toward the political world. You can correct me if I'm wrong. I just your journey into politics, like your shift into where you're at today, like what was that journey like?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Well, I was apolitical. I didn't care about politics. In college, I wasn't in student government or any of that stuff. I thought those guys were weird. Didn't understand them. I'm serious. I didn't understand them at all. Um they were like, I'm running for I'm running for uh for student body president. I'm like, why, dude? We could go hang out. Like we got other types to do. Um so I didn't care about that. When I was um early on in my career, I never watched the news. My wife would tell you the news was never on in the house. ESPN was on. I would watch sports, I would watch movies. That's what I cared about. Uh pro wrestling, still a pro wrestling junkie to this day. Love, I love the stuff. Um that's what I would watch. That's what I would do. I would spend time with my kids, my wife. I was a youth leader in our in our church. Um, so those are the things that I cared about. It was the financial collapse of 2008. The company that I worked for was an insurance firm, and our investors were gonna pull the investment, unless I went and did research because I had worked in break in banking before insurance. So they were like, Byron, go do the research and get back to us because we have to save the investment because you know, if there's no investment, you don't have a job. So I was like, oh, no pressure. No, let's let's go do this thing. And so I just started doing a lot of economic research on the economy at the time. The last um thing I did was I turned on the House Financial Services Committee on this channel called C-SPAN, which I never watched. And I watched this committee and I was dumbfounded because I was just like, Who are these people? They don't know what they're talking about. I'm working in the real world, I know what I'm I know what I'm talking about, and what they're saying makes no sense. And it really upset me. And so I started watching news for the first time and trying to pay attention. I remember my wife came home and she was like, What are you doing? And I said, Well, I'm watching the news. And she goes, You never watch the news. And I go, Yeah, I'm trying to figure this politics thing out. I'm trying to figure out what this is. And I again I started a whole nother journey. Never expected it. 2000 uh 2000, late uh 2009 came around. The Tea Party rallies were starting all across the country. And I remember on the news, they were saying that they were racist because uh because you know, President Obama had just gotten elected. And me being curious, I always like to find out things for myself. I don't like I don't like listening to what other people say, I'll go research it for myself. And uh that came from my mother, by the way. That's who she is. And so I will go out to these Tea Party rallies early on in 09, and there were people who cared about the Constitution like I cared about it. There were people who cared about balanced budgets like I cared about them. People who didn't believe in bailouts, like I didn't believe in bailouts, my wife didn't believe in bailouts. And that's how I got into the political conservative movement. It wasn't until 2010, after being in the conservative movement for about a year and a half, that I realized why are you a registered Democrat? Like you don't agree with Democrats at all. And so I changed party, it changed parties in 2010 and became registered as a Republican. And I became and why and then when I changed party registration, it was really because the the Republican Party, as I had saw it, was the most in line with conservative values and conservative principles. And I realized that through a lot of my own personal research, I had become quite conservative. Um, I just saw her face, but there's a lady who I met at the Tea Party rally a long, long, long time ago. Her name is Diane Harris. She's sitting right there. I can always pick out her face in the crowd. Oh, wow. It's good to see you, Diane. Wow. Oh, shoot, your husband's with you. Hey man, how you doing? It's good seeing you. And Diane is one of the first people that ever talked to me at a tea party rally. She's one of the first. And um at the time, I don't even know if you remember this, she recommended I read this book called The Law by Frederick Bastiat. And I decided to go find it and I read it. And it was an amazing book because it wasn't about Republicans and Democrats, it was about the purpose of law. And that and that really spoke to me. And then from there I started reading the frame, reading stuff that the framers uh were were reading. Um, read the Federalist papers, read a lot of different books, got really engaged in policy and philosophy, and the rest is history.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Now you're a Congressman of the United States of America. So Congressman Byron Donald is is uh obviously a representative of our our state, and uh we have these we had planned these faith and culture nights, and so he's our he's our special guest here tonight to have this conversation. And it also happens that he's running for running to become the governor of the state of Florida. Sounds like they're excited about the excitement about the sounds like it. And then uh like the question we got are like are you guys gonna have other candidates?

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Like no Pastor, you are on fire tonight. I'll tell you what, you are on fire.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

This is uh our guest, and uh we're a church, and this is our event, and he's our he's our guest. I'm sure other candidates get opportunities that other candidates don't get, and we just need to teach this generation something, and uh it's a phrase I grew up on, and that's the way the cookie crumbles. Uh I grew up with two older brothers. If we were splitting a little Debbie snack cake, there was no way I was getting 50% of that snack cake, like I had to learn to deal with this. So I I do want to ask, because we you are in a campaign to become governor, and uh I wanted to ask just you know, why why you're moving from the federal to the state, and what what I know you got a lot of things that you're looking at. There's so many things to talk about, but just some of your top agenda things that that you're wanting to do as the governor of our state.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Before I get to it, let me I'll make a brief comment on what you just said. Campaigns are not charity, they're competitions. And everybody has the right to run, they do what they gotta do, you find ways to get uh um attention, recognition, support, and you really have to build that for yourself. There's there's no grand uh body that operates in the background. It's really each candidate that just has to do what they have to do to get to the winner circle, which is not too dissimilar from life. So um that's all I gotta say about that. That was a funny way of putting it, but um let's let's talk about Florida. Look, Governor DeSantis has been a tremendous governor for our state. Yeah, he really has. He really, really has. And but we believe in term limits in Florida. I would have never had the opportunity to be a state representative if it wasn't for term limits in Florida. And so we we're we need a new governor. Where Florida is today, we are the pinnacle of every state in the United States of America. The next governor of Florida doesn't just have the responsibility of maintaining the principles and the policies of Governor DeSantis, and also before him, the policies and the principles of Governor Scott. It's about the trajectory of Florida moving forward. Yes. And so my career was 17 years in finance, banking, and insurance. I've spent four years in the state legislature, six years in Congress. Uh I'm the only person in this campaign for governor who has private sector experience, who understands budgets, who understands markets, who understands economies, and just doesn't understand them. I underwrote businesses when I was in business. I financed and invested in businesses when I was in business. And so the next governor has to have a very keen economic mind where you're not relying on people to brief you and tell you what something means. You have to be able to go in and understand it. And I will add, when you're running for an office like this, everybody comes and tells you it's the best idea ever. You have to be astute enough to understand what is real and what is not. In short, you have to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. The second piece is um my time in elective office, I have one of the most conservative voting records in all of America. I can go through the list, but CPAC, uh Numbers USA, uh Club for Growth. You go through them all. There's so many of them. And I can I'm consistently A-rated by them all. I've been a conservative when I was in the state house, I'm a conservative in the U.S. House. I'm gonna be a conservative as governor of Florida. The third thing everybody in our state is concerned about growth. Everybody. But we have to have a plan for how you manage that growth. You can't just put your head in the sand and ignore it. Or if you do that, you're gonna actually be choked by that growth. So we have to have a plan for growth. We have to have a plan for the future economies and businesses and industries that are gonna come to our state, and for the young people who are sprinkled through the crowd, we have to be concerned about how they're gonna be economically viable when it's third hand at the wheel to build the Florida dream for themselves, the way so many of us have built the Florida dream for ourselves. How are we gonna build new homes? Where are the new roads going to be? How do we push down insurance costs? How do we eliminate homestead property taxes or provide real relief as much as we can? These are all the decisions in front of the next governor. And so I would tell you that of all the people who are running, I'm the one that's most uniquely positioned, not only to manage all these issues, but also do it from a conservative worldview and from a business worldview, so that not just the next four years of Florida, but the next 30 years of Florida, we laid a foundation so the Florida dream is alive and well for the next generation that's going to call Florida home.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yeah, come on. That's fantastic. And I I mean, obviously, we're in a church, and I uh I'm a pastor, uh, and I'm I'm thankful, you know, Governor DeSantis has run the business of the state well. Yes. And I'm really grateful for that. But also Florida has been on the front lines of pushing back some ideologies that really matter to Christians. And uh in 2021, we passed the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, which protected girls from having boys play in sports and share the locker rooms. And I I don't remember what year it was, but the Parental Rights Act and Education Act restricted classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation. The the media tried to label it the don't say gay bill or whatever, but I'm really grateful. And I I don't know that people fully realize that there is an entire party that is determined to force this ideology in every place they can. And so uh I just wanted your thoughts on how we protect education, how we make sure it stays academic instead of ideological, and how do we continue to protect the rights of parents, and then primarily how do we protect these girls to be able to play girls' sports in our state?

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Boys are not allowed to play in female sports in the state of Florida, and that's not gonna change. It's not gonna change. Go ahead, stand up. He has no business playing sports against girls. I won't stand for it. Young girls need to be protected, and we're gonna make sure we do that in Florida. When I was in the state house, I authored a small business, uh, a h a home based business bill, and I had Equality Florida and some of the radicals who came to uh my office and said, your bill allows for uh um uh uh businesses or therapies that would stop gender affirming care. And this is back in 2018. I was like, what is what are you talking about, gender affirming care? Because you know, I'm a normal, realistic person who believes in biology and the natural order of things. So I'm like, what are you talking about? And they, this, this is when I first started seeing how crazy these people are. And they were saying, no, you could potentially have a business in your house where you would provide therapy and counseling to young people to stop them from changing their gender. And I go, good. That's a good thing. They go, Well, we're gonna oppose your bill. And I said, I don't care. And they went to the leadership. The leadership came to me. They said, Hey, what's going on with this bill? Why are they so upset? I said, I don't know, but I don't care. I'm not changing the bill. We're passing a bill that is, as is because they're nuts. That was 2018. In 2017, I passed the first bill of its kind in America that allowed parents and community members to examine the instructional materials in your classrooms. So before the entire battle of getting woke out of schools and battling DEI and battling ESG, back in 2017, 2016, we didn't even know what was in our classrooms. My legislation, which I passed into law, which Rick Scott signed, that is what allowed community members in our state to examine the woke indoctrination in our schools and begin to work that stuff out. So I just want you to understand the history. This is long before Fox News and Congress. Before any of that, I have been committed to making sure that we protect our children, we protect their puberty, especially young girls. And we're gonna continue to do that in Florida. Thank you. They think they're helping our kids. They're not, they're stealing their futures. You're not helping a young boy thinking that he's supposed to grow up to be an adult woman. That is a lie from the pit of hell. And so on these things. So quote President Reagan, but on these principles, there will be no compromise. Now, to parents, uh, we believe that you are at the head of the table. Ever since I've been in politics, I've been an avid supporter of school choice and parental empowerment. The bill you referenced, the parental bill of rights, was authored by my colleague when I was in the Florida House, then State Representative Aaron Grawl, who is now State Senator Aaron Graw. She wrote that entire section of Florida statutes. I fully supported it then. Governor DeSantis was able to get that across the line. He signed that into law. That will remain the law in the state of Florida. Now let's talk about what comes next. What comes next for our young people is one being committed to history and civics, but we also have to make sure that our young kids are mastering math, reading, and writing as by the time they graduate high school. Today in Florida, which is not too dissimilar from the rest of the of America, but today in Florida, around 26% of our students graduate mastering course subject matter. Only 26%. Our goal is that every child will master course subject matter. And then we also want to make sure that our young kids have a launch pad to success. We have an we announced an initiative last week. We're gonna partner with businesses using tax credits in the state of Florida to create apprenticeships, on-the-job training, credentialing for our young people in Florida. If you want to go to college, great. FSU is the best one of them all. If you want to go to the state college system, oh you did the gator chomp. Oh my god. Bless your heart. Play with you. I'm running for governor. I love all our universities now. I love them all. I love them all. But if you're gonna go to the college system, you're gonna get your a degree or a credential to be a nurse, fantastic. Please go do that. But if you're in our high schools and you're on your way to mastering core subject matter, but you're not quite sure what you're gonna do in life, we wanna make sure those young kids have a pathway to success as well. Because the I was listening to you other earlier, Pastor, you were on fire, by the way. But what continues this grand experiment of self-governance in Western civilization is yes, having a moral foundation based in God. But you also gotta be able to put food on the table. And young men have to be able to have a job, earn money, put food on the table, put a roof over their head, so they meet a young girl who says, you know what, I'm gonna bet my lot and life on this one. They get married, have kids, and perpetuate our culture into the future. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

So what one of the key issues for me, just my my story, is when I when I turned 18, I made a promise to God. When I got my right to vote, I made a promise to God that I would use my vote to speak up for the unborn and uh for the protection of the unborn. And you have a strong pro-life record. And first of all, I just wanted to say thank you for that. I am so grateful for that. Thank you. And obviously, I'm not alone. There's a lot of people here that that it's important to them. And and our our state, again, uh it has made so much progress. 2024, you know, the amendment four narrowly failed, and we thank God for that. Um we've made progress, but I was just curious what are some of the steps that you think we can take in Florida to continue to protect the rights of the unborn?

SPEAKER_00 28:24

This is a great question. So much has happened over the last couple of years. Roe v. Wade, it fell. It is no longer the law of the land. In Florida, in Florida, the governor after Roe fell pushed forward with uh the Heartbeat Protection Act. Tremendous piece of legislation protecting life in our state, but we still have a lot of work to do. I think the path forward now for Christians, for people of faith, for people who are pro-life, is that there are young girls who get pregnant in our communities, and they need to know that we're standing behind them and we have their, and they have the support that they need. As a state, we're gonna invest in pregnancy resource centers. Come on. We're gonna invest in them and help them. What Planned Parenthood likes to do is they want to stop a young girl from even getting an ultrasound. Why is that? Because they know that the second they see life in the womb, whatever decision they were gonna make, they change. And a lot of times what happens is these young girls are on their own, they're feeling despair, they're in, they're in a lurch, they don't know what to do. Uh, my pastor, when my wife and I um uh attended Liverword Family Church down in Naples, he always said, everybody is 15 seconds away from stupid. But when you're desperate, you're three seconds away from stupid. And a lot of us in life, myself included, that desperation led to a decision that you regret. We have to, as a community, not just of believers, but as Americans, we need to help these young girls, stand behind them, help them get on their feet so they can bring their child into the world. Because you have no idea the magic God has has put into that child. You have no idea. And this is this is a new step for government. Government typically does not do this. And I believe the next step of eliminating abortion fully in our country is you have to demonstrate that there is support for young women when they make a decision that is does not coincide with God's design, but that they have the love and the support of people of faith, of Christians and of their community, in order to pick up from where they are right now and live their lives and bring that child into the world. That's what I think the next step is.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

I can't speak for everybody, but you can use my tax money to help those girls, man. We support that 100%. Thank you for that. All right, I gotta figure out what I want to go to. Let's do this. Go ahead. And I know immigration is a is primarily a federal issue, but after I'll just say it, like four years of a disastrous Biden administration, it's affected every state. Like the it's an absolute disaster. And you know, we have states fighting the fighting ICE agents, and everybody's blaming the Trump administration, which I can't reconcile in my mind how no one understood that this that there was a disaster created, and it's a a bit of a mess trying to create trying to clean up what's been happening with open borders. And obviously I'm a pastor, I want to see you know, people who immigrate here legally, I want to see them make it and and and and find the American dream. But the the problem with illegal immigration is it it erodes the sovereignty of the rule of law, it takes away jobs from citizens, it creates housing shortages, drives up prices, creates tax burdens. That's not even mentioning like the criminal aspects that we're dealing with in our nation through these open borders ideas. And my my question, I'm genuine in this, is what what at the state level can be done to protect our taxpayers, to support our law enforcement, our local communities from the effects of illegal immigration?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

So the first thing is we're gonna continue to work with the federal government and ICE uh to deport criminal illegal aliens and illegal aliens in the state of Florida. That's what we're gonna do. Here's how this works. Here's how this works. When there is an ICE detainer, whether it's in Sarasota County, Manatee County, Hillsborough County, Collier County, down where I live, et cetera, local law enforcement actually can communicate with ICE at the federal level and they can prepare to have that illegal alien picked up from our local jurisdiction and then deported out of the country. Uh Governor DeSantis signed legislation into law where every law enforcement uh unit in the state of Florida will comply with 287G. That's the program under federal law. We are going to maintain that commitment. We're gonna continue to work with the federal government with respect to 287G. The reason why you do not see these crazy protests in Florida is because we will not tolerate that. And our leadership, our leadership. Let me tell you the truth of many of Minnesota of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Democrat officials in that state were coordinating with these radical protests. They were telling local law enforcement not to assist federal law enforcement. They were telling local law enforcement that they could not uphold the law and protect federal officers when they were doing their job. Those two Americans that lost their lives, my heart goes out to their families because it's a tragedy. But let's also be clear. I grew up in New York City. My mom taught me right. You do not engage law enforcement, you get out of the way. You get out of the way. Under Florida law, we have a HALO Act. I believe it's 25 feet. If law enforcement is engaged in executing their duties in the state of Florida, you are not allowed under law to get within that officer within 25 feet. If you do, you're breaking the law. And you're gonna be face down with cuffs on your back, just like the other person you thought you were gonna be cute with. There's gotta be a standard. And that's the standard in Florida. I think nationally, this is important. You are correct what Joe Biden did. I went to the border five times. I saw exactly the garbage that they were doing in that administration. Most of it starts with the fact that people believe, some people, not you fine, folks, I could tell, but some people do believe that it's okay. It's not. And it's important for the American people to understand that you cannot support any candidate, I don't care what their party is, who thinks it's okay to have wide open borders and no internal enforcement of immigration. The number one victim actually, there's two major victims of this. They're the young girls in the United States who were killed by illegal aliens. In Fort Myers, we just had a lady, gas station clerk, bludgeoned to death by an illegal alien who had been released by the Biden administration. Terrible tragedy. She's never coming home. She can't be a mother to her kids that are now left behind. The other tragedy are the young girls who were raped by the drug cartels being trafficked into the United States. The young boys and young girls who were sold into sex slavery, because that is the reality of what happens in that journey to our southern border. It's sick. And so this is not a partisan statement. I don't care what party you're in. We have a responsibility to secure the border. We have a responsibility to make sure we're enforcing immigration laws. We have a responsibility where if you overstage your visas, thank you, but you need to go home too. And we have to have sound legal immigration policies that are consistent and followed in our country. That's how you do this work.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

I'm just blunt. I'm very interested in this. Like the idea has been uh floated to eliminate property taxes in the state of Florida. Yes. And yeah. As I understand it, I'm not in the political world, but I think it's working through a legislative process right now, or potentially is. But uh and I know I know taxes are important to fund public services, but what what are your thoughts on how we do that and eliminate a lifetime of taxes for a one-time purchase?

SPEAKER_00 37:51

Uh this is a great question. One, I support the governor and what he's trying to do. Um, I think it's definitely possible for them to do this. Uh, as I understand it, the governor is uh very shortly is gonna be releasing his plan of how this is all going to come together. Because what if pro because a part of what homestead properties pays for is this deputy's salary right here in the front row. That's what it pays for, amongst other things. We are gonna make sure. Well, let me be clear. The legislature goes back into special session in a couple of weeks. One of the things that they are gonna tackle is homestead property taxes. Um, we'll see what they actually come up with. If they fall short and they're not able to get something constructive done, in my first year as governor, we are going to pick up that ball and we're either gonna do a full repeal of homestead property taxes, and if we can't make the math work, because the math has to work, if we can't make the math work, we are gonna make sure we're providing real relief to seniors on fixed income who are, by the way, uh taxes and insurance is now more than principal and interest for some of these seniors, and that's a real problem in our state, or for our young families who are working hard, trying to make ends meet as they build their dream for themselves and young people on their way into the housing market. We have to reform our property tax system. The property taxes in Florida have doubled over the last five years, and truth be told, you're not a piggy bank for local government. And so we have a responsibility to modernize that system. If it's full elimination, full elimination it is. But we also are gonna make sure, and I want to make sure we're we're very clear on this, our deputies, our police officers, our firefighters, road construction, road maintenance, those are things that do get paid for by local governments. We are gonna make sure that the revenue is there to continue uh those items. Last thing, real quick, I want to make sure I make this point before we're out of time. The doge efforts that are happening in Florida right now, they are going to continue. We are going to audit all governments in Florida. All of them. And I want to be clear, not just local governments, state government as well. Every agency in our government will be audited routinely. You will be notified when those audits are complete. You know how you get the amber alert on your phone? You should get an alert that the audits are ready for you to review. And that way the power is in the hands of the citizens. If you choose to look at the budgets, that's your right as a citizen. If you choose to ignore it, and you go, there goes Byron again, send me another text about the audits. I don't want to look at it today. I'm busy. That's up to you as well. But we want to empower you with the information on your government so that you can be an informed citizen because, to quote Benjamin Franklin, it's a republic if you can keep it.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Come on, would you give it up the Congressman violence?