Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and Democrats hold a ten point advantage on the generic ballot. According to Emerson, we have such a great show for you today. MS. Now step Rule talks about our record low consumer confidence and what it's going to do to Donald Trump's economy. Then we'll talk to Bail Dalton about his run against Congressman Cory Mills. But first the news.
You know, Molly, as you know, I really hate these predictive betting markets. But you want to know the safest bet that you could have made that the Supreme Court would overturn voting rights.
Yeah, so this is the Supreme Court's voting rights law. This is sort of the death now of the voting rights law the Conservatives. It was a six to three decision, and what it means is that there are an additional nineteen House seats that were created as a minority majority seat to make it so the people of color would have safe seats in Congress. Now, what happens, well, what happens now is that these Republican governors in the South
get together and start taking those seats away. We already have seen the Tate Reeves, the governor of Mississippi, who you may remember from doing all sorts of really really sketchy stuff with the sports center right building the sports center. That guy is already called a special session to try and take away any of the majority minority seats. This
is going to be more redistricting wars. Now, Republicans are happy because they think they'll pick up a lot of seats, because it says that they could pick up as many
as nineteen additional seats. Here's the thing, and I think that this is a problem that Republicans have with the jerry mandering, is that when you do this, when you jerrymander like this, when you cut up the districts like this, what happens is that if Donald Trump performs at the same ratios he performed in twenty twenty four, then maybe you keep a seat, right like he made huge inroads with Latino voters, et cetera, et cetera. But here's what could happen. We're seeing a generic with a D plus
ten on the generics. So it could mean that all of these seats that are now you know that went from Republican plus twenty to Republican plus eight.
If it's a.
Generic ten, then Democrats pick up some of those seats. And that's what's called the dummy mander, is where you jerrymander yourself so much that you ultimately you flip those seats to Dems. Again, remember it still votes that determine this, right, There's going to be a lot of movement behind the scenes now, a lot of state House movement, a lot of fights, a lot of people losing seats. You know, a lot of these seats can't be changed before the election,
but some will be. And again, this is a Supreme Court getting involved in our elections.
Yep. You know those judicial activists we always heard about through the Bush and Obama years really really are showing their heads these days. But so Pete Haiksith is in Congress set of hearing today and one of the things we've learned is how much this Iranian war has cost us so far, which is twenty five billion dollars. I have a really amazing statistic from front of the show, Spencer Ackerman here, Malli, that's how much the surge cost, right.
Well, and we knew this was true because we had been seeing that they were using these very expensive munitions as opposed to the cheaper munitions. And by the way, they could have learned a lot of stuff from the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainians offered to show us how to do this cheaper drone warfare, and they didn't want to, which I think is really important to point out, which is that like, there were many ways in which Republicans who pretended to care about the budget could have made this
all cheaper, but they really didn't. They chose not to do that. They've just spent so much money and they want more money. And these are your tax dollars which could go, which could have gone to like expanding Medicaid or working on the Obamacare subsidies so that people didn't lose their healthcare so that healthcare didn't get more expensive. But instead it's going to just more money for the Pentagon.
And I want to read this statistic. Trump chose to spend it on weapons, all while telling Americans there wasn enough money for childcare, Medicare, or Medicaid. But the amount of money the Pentagon has spent on this war, the government could have provided one point seven million children with free childcare for a year.
It's so stupid. Yeah, And the thing that really does put the icing on the cake is like they ran on knowing that no one wanted this, and it's just as we spell this out more and more, it's so damning, and we keep seeing that the Republicans just keep on supporting it. Yep, speaking of the Senate, Republicans have blocked the measure to stop Trump from attacking Cuba, since we don't need to spend money doing that.
Yeah, I think it's also this is a pretty interesting resolution because we have Ruben who is was an infantry man, Ruben Diego, Tim Kay, and Adam Schiff. And you know, I think it's good to see Adam Schiff out there like doing this kind of thing because he just won his Senate seed. And that's what we want to see, is we want to see democratic senators really pushing hard on stuff like this. And so this would block Trump
from using military force to topple Cuba's regime. There's a number of reasons why you want this, Because Donald Trump is a person who will do whatever you let him do, So the only way to get any kind of checks on him is to push hard and be aggressive. So Susan Collins, who typically votes to give Congress more authority. She and Ran Paul voted for the Democratic War Powers Act, and John Fetterman, who is basically a blank canvas, voted against it.
Yeah, so federal Appeals Court won't rehear Trump's appeal of Eugene Carroll's eighty three million dollar jury award.
Yeah, another win for Robbie Kaplan Yeah right, I mean, luckily Trump has kleptoed so much money that he can just pay for it with some of his klepto ballroom money or something. But the majority of judges of the US Court of Appeals for the Second District denied Trump's motion to have his appeal hurt en blanc by a full bench of judges. This decision is the eight is turned in a six year battle between Carol and Trump that has resulted in two Sybil trials, one where Trump
briefly took the witness stand. Look, man, I think Trump will, they'll take this up to the Supreme Court. But I love to see Robbie kapwan when that is really a delight. Yeah, and I believe very soon we will have another case.
She took on on this podcast that is a very interesting one.
Yeah. Steph Rule is the host of the Eleventh Hour with Stephanie Rule, airing weeknights at eleven pm EST on ms now. She is also the co host of the ms now YouTube series It's Happening with Belshian Rule. Welcome, Welcome, Stephanie Rale.
Thank you. I dressed up for you.
As long as it's fleece, that's all that matten.
It's fleece, slide, I tell you for this sweatsuit was in a Salvation army bag that my daughter left outside her room and it turned out to fit me.
So yes, whoever thought they.
Were getting it, they're not.
I'm wearing a seventh grade girls two small sweatsuit today.
I'm wearing it every day for a week. Right, it is.
And you know, spring is the worst season because it's just it's it's like the guy that like never actually follows through and proposes to you. It's like warm and cold and warm and cold, like, just just call me when the summer starts. I can't take it.
I'm colder in the spring than I am in the winter.
I too, am freezing. So let's talk about the American people though, who are any which way unhappy. There's this Gallop survey that you had wanted to talk about. I want to talk about that, but then I want to pull out and talk about all of the surveys on the economy that we see that all of a sudden, for the first time in a very long time, Democrats have the edge on the economy.
Democrats of the edge because Republicans are failing at it. And the thing that's extraordinary about this Gallop pole is people feel worse about the economy today than they did during COVID than they did during the Great Recession. And so we have to pull apart why that is because usually, like a president gets blamed for the economy that he's
presiding over, but it's usually not the president's fault. In this case, almost all of the negative things happening to us from an economic perspective are direct policy decisions made by Donald Trump.
So you can say to me, seventy, why are people feeling worse than they were during.
The recession when we saw scores of people lose their homes.
When we saw people lose their jobs.
Obviously during COVID, America was home massive layoffs, massive unemployment, But why do people feel so bad. Now, well, look what the president has done right. The trade war made people lose job, It hurt manufacturing, It hurts small businesses, it hurt big businesses, it hurt farming. Now we find ourselves with a president who is going to focus on the cost of living. He has launched a war that
as of today we've learned has already cost thirty billion dollars. Okay, Pete Agseth is asking for one point five trillion dollars for a war that they have not sold to the American people.
Is a good idea.
And now our gas is four dollars and eighteen cents a gallon. And remember, people were really unhappy with the Biden administration for what they felt like Biden administration was insensitive about economic realities for the American people and saying that it was short lived.
Trump is that times ten.
When you bring up affordability, he says, is an old fashioned term and not even real.
Affordability is a real issue for the American people.
Not to mention the quiet storm, which is on one level, corporate earnings are very strong and companies are very excited about AI because it's going to optimize their businesses and improve productivity, but it's going to be devastating for the workforce. So when you talk about the gallup pole, the gallup pole is measuring how people feel, and people have genuine fear and anxiety over what the future holds for their jobs because AI is.
Unknown and it is coming for a lot of jobs.
I don't know that there's a historical president for a president who has actually caused gas prices to go up, like they're up a dollar in the last month.
Who've caused gas prices to go up. And here's the thing.
So, like I cover investors and even some investors, you know, some investors in the way beginning of the war were like, great, he got Venezuela. Iran's a horrible actor, which they are, let's do this. But every big investor I spoke to, some who used to be closely tied to the president, said we're going to be done with this thing in five days. It's now week nine. Even if the war ended tomorrow, which it's not going to. We're in an energy crisis and we're not even feeling the impact like
countries are around the world. We're just coming off our government bailing out Spirit Airlines, which was already an airlines heading to bankruptcy right and now here we are bailing them out, and there could be more airlines knocking on the door next.
Yeah, no, I definitely think there will be. I want you to talk more about the investors, because you and I both know we spent a lot of time, like about two years ago with you hearing from everybody in the world who was an investor or CEO except trap being like, you know, we don't love Trump, but this is going to be good for us, right, or some of them.
But the truth is a lot of them still feel that way. Okay, you and I just came from the White House Correspondence weekend, and let's be clear, if you're a CEO going to the White House Correspondence weekend, you're down with this president. But I'll tell you business people I speak to are still like it's working for me. They don't like him, they don't like lots and lots of policies, they see all the risks involved, but they cantort themselves into pretzels to make excuses.
For him because they love the access they have.
Again, pick your CEO can pick up the phone and can either call the President, can call Scott Bessen can call Howard Lutnik.
And I'm not saying that.
It's just they can manipulate this White House to get people they want, to get policies they want, and it's totally short termism.
Right, this is what happened in Russia.
Look what happened to all the oligarchs, Right, They chummed up to Putin, They made lots of money, and then he turned around and stabbed them in the back.
Right, actually literally stabbed them.
They literally stab them. You know.
The one CEO that even sticks out in my mind as it relates to the ballroom. It was weeks ago, months ago now that Jamie Diamond said, we are not japing Morgan is not writing a check for this ballroom because next administration or when and if Democrats gain power, they're going to come after all of us for corruption. Now here are all of these companies and big downers wrote giant checks for the ballroom that was supposed that Trump had told us over and over and the administration
said some complaining about the ballroom. Yeah, this is not coming from taxpayer dollars. Now, all these companies wrote big checks, and now Lindsey Graham's proposing a bill that says, yes, now Congress is going to appropriate four hundred million dollars.
For this thing.
And the reason I bring it up is for two reasons. When Jamie Diamond came out and said, no, we're not writing a check, what did he get sued by the administration?
Right?
And so businesses are trying to figure out how to navigate Trump in that way. And then as it really the ballroom number takes you right back to sentiment and people feeling bad about the economy. People cannot afford the gas they're putting in their tank, They are not getting raises at work. Many many companies are in this frozen mode where they don't know what they're going to do next, and they can't afford their healthcare.
And now they're saying, why in God's name are you now asking for four hundred million dollars of taxpayer dollars for a ballroom for what parties? The voters I'm talking about, they're not getting letted to any parties in that ballroom. And many of those voters are directly Donald Trump's original base, that same base that listened to no new wars in America. First, I eat America alone, which is not where we are.
Yeah, I mean, if you wanted a losing midterm message, it might be four dollars gas and we need this four hundred million dollar ballroom paid for by tax bill. But that was Lindsey Graham. I mean, that was just an incredible I want to talk about that moment because there was a moment where Donald Trump had a lot of political capital yet again, right, he had just had another attempt on him. You know, it was like a moment where he could have really gotten a bump from that.
Ay you mean Saturday night, Yeah, Saturday night. And he even like his rhetoric around it was pretty sane, you know, like it wasn't like the last time. It was sort of more no more bipartisan, and he could have asked for something else that might have been I.
Don't know that he could have asked for something else.
However, there are these moments, right the country is desperate for humanity, We're desperate for messages of decency, and the incident on Saturday did give the president, right, it gives one a president. I don't want to say wipe the slate clean, but it actually gives you a moment to reset to say, I know, terrible things have been said and done, blah blah blah. Yeah, let's let's let this horrible moment force us to take a breath, come together
and and and care about one another. And he had that opportunity where I think many many people's hearts and minds to an extent would have been open, and he immediately politicized it into give me the money for a ballroom. We need a ballroom. And by the morning the entire MAGA influencer industrial complex had their messaging out there saying we must have a ballroom, we must have a ballroom.
Yeah, I agree. I also wonder if yeah, I mean, I definitely think that we wanted presidential you know, like that sort of moment where a president says we're all together. We don't he never really does that.
I may or may not have told you this story.
Right after the president won, I called someone very very very close to him and I said, look, America just showed us the pendulum has swung to an extent. You know that this is an opportunity for the president to say, let's come together, right like the current president painted Kamala Harris or painted Democrats in such a super woke way. And that helped them in the election. So I saved
this person very close to the president. This is Trump's opportunities in his early days, in his inauguration speech really to say let's come together. And when I tell you, this person screamed, yelled, and cackled at me like come together, come to the middle. I mean, this person spiked a ball in my face, you know, punched me in the teeth, lapped their head off, and basically said absolutely not. Every single naysayer out there should get on their knees and beg him for mercy and forgiveness.
And I was like, oh my goodness, I'm so sorry.
I had a rational thought for you for a second, and then I realized, like the president is grievance and spiite have driven him into power, and everyone who thinks he's going to pivot is fooling themselves.
And that does make sense when you look at the war for a minute, like his complete what people are always like, why doesn't he try to sell the war? Why doesn't he try to you know, he why isn't he ever sort of trying to sell stuff? But it makes sense if he's just so angry and just like this, you know, the sort of imperial president say, but.
Babe, here's why they can't sell the war because it's unsellable because the argument that they make isn't true. I don't know how many weeks ago, it was probably five weeks ago now. I had a conversation with the President and the message he aggressively wanted to get out to me was they were two weeks away from building a nuclear weapon and when it was complete, they were going to they.
Were going to use it. That's just not true, right, It's simply not true.
And the arguments he wants to make about NATO and not being supportive, he had support when he would argue about our NATO ally is not paying enough. There was a lot of people out there who felt like, I'm tired of the US being a lender of last resort. I'm tired of everybody just assuming that we're going to be the cleanup batter and fix things.
And there was a big appetite and there were people who supported that. He sort of.
Shook the cage and said pay up, guys. But then to take it to this level where he's constantly attacking Europe, right where he's constantly calling him paper Tiger when the president defied intelligence and did not speak to any of those other countries before he decided to strike it on. So it makes sense that all those other countries are going to say no, no, no, no, no, yeah you and Israel decided you want to do this, so you do you.
Right, And we saw the Italian defense minister was stuck in Dubai. They were literally no, there were no heads off to anyone, correct, and even European allies that he's historically liked. The other thing, though, I do think that the europe situation really started with his foreign Yeah, I mean that those guys were so I mean that was the moment Anne Applebaum said they were just that was sort of the official beginning of the end of his war, you know, or the end of NATO in a way, or.
None of these.
Countries want to go at it alone. Right, Like everyone has a relatively fragile economy, right, our economy is doing well, Like it's hard because there are many positives, like corporate earnings are very strong. It's not like there's other parts. It's not like our European allies are kicking it.
They're not.
And so the fact that like we are now seeing China, we're closely aligned with Russia. Russia now applauding Iran while we are not working with our allies. We've all got somewhat fragile economies. This is no bueno. And like, remember the highlight for us and the people I cover is like, well, the market, the market, the market is so strong and the market is so strong, Well, what happens if somebody bursts.
That balloon and the market falls out of bed? Then what are we standing on?
And I think that seems like certainly a possibility. The Straits. It does not feel like Trump is going to get those traits open. And you see him sort of mack on it. You know, we don't even get anything through the streets, but quite a lot of oil and gas twenty five percent, you know, a third of whatever or a fourth, and then the fertilizer. So what do you think happens? What's the economic every day? It's closed as problematic. So let's be clear.
We are not as energy dependent on the Middle East as we were in the seventies and eighties.
That's true.
But but Iran now having complete control of the Strait, now charging massive tolls, this is a giant win for them.
Like, as we look at.
This war, as long as Iran still is kicking in any way, as long as they can still have you know, as long as they're still in the ring, even if they're almost knocked out, that's a win for them. Remember what Trump was immediately demanding, right, no nuclear capabilities, You're gonna hand off all of your uranium. We want a regime change.
What are we going to get, like at this point, what are our ultimate goals?
Because while yes, this has been devastating for Iran, remember the Irian regime doesn't mind if they're devastated, right, they don't mind if their people are suffering. They've made their own people suffer. And remember it was two plus weeks ago Trump said, oh, we're talking about you know, maybe we're gonna co control the street. We're gonna co get this. You know, we'll both be getting this toll. It's simply not true. And listen, think about the reporting that's been
coming out this week that JD. Vance is basically saying he doesn't believe how what the Pentagon is saying when it comes to how they're presenting this war.
Right, it seems like a lot of people are trying to not get blamed for a thing that's going great.
Correct, And I will say like just like a shout out in terms of incredible journalism and the First Amendment. It wasn't that long ago that Pete Haig Seth kicked the entire Pentagon press corps out. He wanted them all to sign a document that basically said, the only thing we are going to report are press releases that the Pentagon hands us every day, and they're going to walk to our cameras and read them to the American people.
That's state run media.
And not only did basically the entire press corps tell him to go fish. The reporting that is coming out of the Pentagon is amazing. And remember those people who are leaking, aren't some there's different kind of leaks. When you and I covered Trump in the first administration, that White House was filled with senior advisors and administration officials who couldn't wait to have some crazy meeting with the president.
Call us on their way out, treat us for lunch somewhere, stab each other in the back, like I mean, next level that are coming out of the Pentagon. These are career department officials. Yes, okay, these are people from the military, and the reason they're blowing a whistle is because they're panicked about our national security. That's a different kind of leaking, and the reporting that we're getting is extraordinary. When those people are sounding the alarm, that's a lot more than
Jared versus Bannon, versus Minuchin versus John Kelly. That's a totally different game.
Yeah.
I think that's a really good point. And that's what we're seeing it from government at large too, is people who are worried about you know, hsas or I mean it is so I have a lot.
Less reporting this time because those career civil servants who work in the government who are saying this is a crisis, are different from people in the last administration, Like I can't stand him.
Let me tell you what he said today.
Well, and I think and I think we see that in the reporting right that there's is least but I do think that you know, we saw Hegseth today today hess on the hell trying to explain what's going on with the war, and the clips are are pretty amazing, and he does seem.
You what if you were a military parent, Okay, so what has Pete Hegseth done this week, made some videos, spent some time with Kid Rock.
With Kid Rock what is he doing today?
Sending out a funny a cartoon of him as Franklin, you know, with Franklin the Turtle before he goes into this hearing we've got men and women serving our country. How would you feel if you were a military parent watching this.
I have a kid who is ro OTC or about to be ROTC. I do not like it. I mean, it's just it's very isn't that super sad?
Like you, I just want to take a moment to have a child who wants to pursue ro OTC should be such an incredible point of pride, pride as a patriot, pride. And now you're sitting here going I don't feel good about this.
That's terrible. It's really scary. I mean, and I think what we've seen from this war is there a military is incredible. Our politicians are deeply flawed at best. Yes, yes, you know, Steph Rule, Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
For having mere.
That's great. Bail Dalton is a candidate for Congress in Florida's seventh district. Welcome, Welcome to Fast Politics. Bail Molly.
Great to be here. I'm a long time listener, so it's awesome to be on the podcast.
Well, it's exciting might be the wrong word, but it's cool. But we get to interview members. I feel like I'm one of the few places where I can interview members of Congress who are running for seeds and really get to know them, which is really cool.
Well, hopefully I'll do my part to make it exciting and.
Cool because we know them to talk about it exciting. And there was a year when we interviewed all the members of the House of Delegates in Virginia and boy, let me tell you so, but you are running in the great state of Florida, which is wild. You're running against someone who I have long had very very mixed feelings about. So talk us through what the story is here?
Well, sure thing, and I would ask, where are your feelings mixed or are you pretty sold on the fact that.
Aim that he needs to be out of office? So tell us who you're running against and what the story is.
My name's Baal Dalton. I'm a longtime Navy veteran twenty three years in the Navy and Navy Reserve as a helicopter pilot, supporting special operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and throughout the Pacific. I worked for Florida's farmer, Senator Bill Nelson on his DC staff, doing national defense, foreign policy, and of course veteran services near and dear to my heart. And then I also got the chance to help lead NASA as the deputy chief of Staff
and chief of staff. There over ten thousand researchers, scientists, engineers, astronauts, you know, showing the world what America can accomplish every day when we actually work together.
All of this is to say that you're way too qualified observing Congress, Yes.
You know, I think we can. You know, I think that's part of what we need to be looking at long term here is that our politics have gotten into this performative dance of you know, who can stay close to power, who's got the information, you know, who's more willing to tell stories, you know, inventive stories to divide us in order to serve this addiction to power or addiction to the limelight that that folks seem to have. And it's incredibly disappointing. And that's one of the reasons
why I'm in the race. Like, look, Florida seven. Here in central Florida, it's just north and east of Orlando out to Port Orange versus just south of Daytona Beach down to New Smyrna Beach on the East coast, and then basically take that line over to I four, where we've got Maitland, Altamont, Sanford, DeBerry and others. I don't want to leave anybody out, but that's sort of the rectangle there. And you know, for the last two terms
we've had Congressman Corey Mills be air representative. I mean, first of all, this is a guy, guy who's barely a Floridian, lives in Washington, d C. In a twenty five hundred dollars a month penthouse apartment that he also doesn't pay rent on in some cases, which was in
the news there for a while. But you know, as we talked about at the top of the show, Molly, you know, this guy with a long history of corruption and fraud and just an inability to tell the truth about a lot of things, just and very interesting relationship he has with facts. The show's not long enough to do the whole thing, but you know, he's got a problem with his treatment of women and domestic violence allegation.
That's the thing that I am not a fan of.
Yeah, and we've seen more reporting on that particular incidenty in Washington, d C. Where you know, one woman who's not his wife that was apparently living with him in his penthouse in DC called the police and made domestic violence allegations. And we've seen reporting just last week that you know, there's a lot more to that. You know, Apparently Congressman Mills, you know, told her that she should
change her her story. Apparently, you know, some favors might have been full pulled in the AUSA office to prevent an arrest warrant being issued against Congressman Mills. So you know, that just got you know, we're twofold here, right, we got a problem with the treatment of a fellow human being, and also just such an addiction to keep you know, away from any kind of allegations that they're willing to, you know, use these corrupt means to stay out of trouble. Right.
They don't play by the same rules that that we're expected to play as average you know, everyday citizens. And you know that's only one of the things that's been in the news. Of course. Aflorida judge issued a restraining order on behalf of a Florida woman, another woman not also not his wife, because Corey Mills was deemed to be a danger to her and had blackmailed her with revenge porn, basically trying to share you know, pictures and videos of intimate moments that they had had with people
that she wanted to go on and date. And she had to ask Congressman Mills eleven different times to stop contacting her, and he refused to listen, and that's what landed him in court and got the got the restraining
order against them. So, you know, I can't imagine. I can't imagine what she must have felt like with that kind of intrusion into her personal life and her trying to, you know, carry on with what she's trying to do, you know, with this person who thinks the rules don't apply to him, and Corey Mills just just bashing her via text all the time. So you know, we got a problem with treatment and women like we again, Molly, we don't have enough time because you know, he's also
got a problem with his company. He's a foreign arms dealer. That refuses to disclose which countries he sold weapons to. He's got a factory where he's furloughed his workers right before Thanksgiving of last year. He's got a business that's in debt to a foreign firm, while he sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Armed Services Committee. So we got a lot of problems with conflict adventures there.
And you know, last but not least, since this is near and dear to my heart as a veteran, you know, there's a lot of questions about the stories that he tells about his own personal service in the Army. And then right after the Army, when he tried to be employed by Diyne Corp. He told them that he had all these different qualifications which were not true, and when they called him out on it, he walked off the job. So, anyway, long story long on Corey Mills. This is a guy
that you don't want anywhere near your family. You don't want anywhere near making decisions for you or representing you in any capacity, much less being in Congress. And so we're going to give the folks of Central Florida, you know where I grew up, my friend's family neighbors a better choice than November.
Yeah, the Corey mil stuff is really scary. You know, he's in ethics investigation. We've seen him in and out core. Like the structural problems of Corey Mils come from a Congress it does not have the kind of ethics committee that it should, that does not have the teeth that it needs. I wonder if you would commit to trying. Nobody likes to police itself, but don't you think that when you get to Congress, if you get to Congress, that that should be something that you're focused on.
Yeah. Absolutely, I would say that one of the big reasons why you know, I decided to run for Congress is because of this you know, blatant corruption that we've seen, in fact, just more and more of the body, right. We could certainly, we certainly know that there are some good people there that are trying their best to do whatever they can for their constituents. But the percentage of people who just doesn't, that's not anywhere close to their
mind has grown and grown in my lifetime. And so yes, absolutely, you know, committed to trying to solve some of these problems which either can lead good people astray or let bad people just play by a different set of rules
than we do. I mean this trading on insider information to enrich yourself, trading on insider information to make yourself more important than you may be, which is, you know, possibly you know, against operational security and putting troops and operations in danger just to show people how important you are and brag. It's such a shameful indication of what drives people there in DC, you know. And I mean you asked you specifically about the Ethics Committee. I mean again,
everybody should have some ability to police itself. I mean Congressman Mills, though he's been under investigation since twenty twenty four. You know, he likes to talk about referring himself to the committee in November of last year. Well we all know that that was a body taken by the you know, a vote taken by the entire body of the House. You don't refer yourself, and that was just for the
domestic violence allegations. He's been under investigation for these ethics problems, these fraud and corruption, you know, since twenty twenty four. So it's obviously not working and the way that folks would would intend it to because it's not working fast enough. Now we could we could say maybe the committee just hasn't had enough time because of Corey's body of work. He's got an amazing drunch of problems that probably takes
a long time to investigate. But you know, when you see these the other three members who have taken it upon themselves the resign when some allegations came to light, you know, none of those problems happened anywhere as far back as Corey's had, So I don't know why he's still there. But you know, again, I think there's a lot of people in central Florida who will like to send the message to Congressman Mills themselves with their vote in November, saying we're not going to have it anymore.
Yeah, for sure. For sure Florida, there's like a redistricting battle that DeSantis has gotten involved in. He would like to draw with less seats for Democrats. It seems as if that goes against the Florida Constitution. What you're sent to.
That, absolutely it goes against the Florida Constitution. You know, we do have a part of our constitution from back in twenty ten where you know, the people spoke to add this to our Constitution and the fair Fair Districts are Fair re Districting Act. And you know, unfortunately, I think what we've seen in Tallahassee has been a microcosm of what's going on in Washington, d d C. Where you've got politicians who are uninterested in actually listening to
their constituents. I mean, this is a perfect case of you know, Republicans have been in power in Florida for for almost twenty years. There's a supermajority in the House and in the Senate, and obviously the governor's mansion has been you know, Republican for now going on sixteen years. These problems that people are facing incredible cost of living emergency, whether we're talking about groceries and cost of goods or
we're talking about housing. I mean, even if you can get to the point where you can afford a mortgage here in Florida, you've got exponentially rising utility costs, home insurance costs with very little coverage, and property tech. So the Republicans here in Tallahassee are truly breaking our constitutional requirement to not jerymander districts because they're unable to create the policies to keep in office, so they have to pick their districts in a way that the voters get disenfranchise.
You are like the expert of your district because you're around leading constituents. What are they saying?
Yeah, I mean the folks of Central Florida are mad as hell. So a lot of what I've said, and the tenor of which i've said it here to you, Molly, is what I'm hearing in the district as well. You know, we were promised a government that would be working more efficiently. That's not happening. We were promised an economy that would
be headed in the right direction. That's not happening. We were promised, you know, a focus on what's going on here in America, you know, the safety of our neighborhoods and communities, reinvesting in our businesses and industries, and we're not seeing that happen either, with you know, a billion dollars a day being spent in our latest that you know overseas adventure that's got no long term goal, that's
been espoused by you know, this administration. You know those things, you know, whether Republican, Democrat, Independent, those are what people voted for and expected they're getting zero returned on that right now. And so I say that is the leading
cause of frustration there. And the second is what we've been talking about for the most part of this conversation, which is just completely fed up with the corruption and grift that they see, especially in our district with Congressman Mills, and they just they're just not going to have it anymore. And the good news is is they don't have to take it anymore. You know, it's like the you know the old movie, right, We're mad as hell, we're not
going to take it anymore. Well, a lot of people are out shouting out their windows right now.
Yeah, and the things that they're the most worried about are inflation. Will you talk to us about the insurance problem in Florida?
Yeah, So, you know, I think people are scared. People are worried to the point of fear and angst that something's going to happen in their life. Right They're one thing away, one sickness away, one injury away, one health emergency away from a catastrophic result to themselves of their family.
You know, people are with the health insurance. I mean, look like the ACA subsidies expiring that is a crisis of Congress's own making that could be fixed tomorrow if enough people could get the backbone to say, okay, fine, we can have a conversation what a different long term solution may be, but we can't leave people suffering in
the interim. I mean, in District seven, forty five thousand people are now without health insurance period because of the ACA subsidies expiring, and over one hundred and fifty thousand people just in this district, we'll see their premiums go two times, three times, or even four times. So a family of four that was paying you know, twenty five hundred dollars a month is now paying upwards of you know, fifty five hundred and six thousand dollars a month. That's
not sustainable. And as I kind of talked about before, right, you've got all these buckets at the end of the month, right, all these checks you've got to write out, whether it's you know, your utility bill, you know, the groceries, your insurance, whether it's you know, property insurance or health insurance, and your mortgage. All of those buckets here in Florida are overflowing.
And that's for everybody that's not a political comment. That is, people forced to make decisions with their money at the end of the day which they ought not have to be made if they are, you know, playing by the rules and working hard and trying to do better for their families. There's no hope right now of that having
a long term effect to make the future better. And so people aren't even able to have the moment in time to think aspirationally because we've got policies in our economy right now which are driving the cost of everything up, whether it's you know, like I said already gas or groceries.
And sorry to be on a rant here, but it makes me mad because you know, these small businesses, they're getting squeezed from both ends, right They've got raw goods that are more expensive because of this chaotic you know, tariff program, and so now they've got to you know, raised menu prices or raise you know, the prices of their items. So they're losing customers. When they lose customers, they can't keep employees on. Employees if they don't have
a job, are unable to get health insurance. I mean, it's just a spiral of a cost of living emergency here that it's been you know, created by the chaos that we see coming out of Washington.
Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely so shocking. So tell us what your primary is and what you need and what it looks like.
Yeah, sure they I mean, it's Florida. So with the redistricting ballot qualification, usually what happened in April, it doesn't happen now until June. And you know, the redistricting effort has not yet been voted on in Tallahassee, though we expect that this week, and we expect there to be a judicial challenge if the districts will go through, for the reasons that we spoke about before on the unconstitutionality of it. So we've got, you know, a few more
things here. But look, we're running strong, and we're running hard for November, and you know, against Corey Mills or whomever else might come out of the woodwork, because right now, you know, again and people are fed up with the status quo, which they see, as you know, addicted to power and addicted to this corruption and grift. And I can't argue with them. I agree, I'm in the same boat. So you know, primaries and in Florida are late, they're in August, but we were We're blessed to have an
incredible amount of support here. Vote Vets has endorsed, New Politics has endorsed. We have the endorsements of probably ten or twelve sitting members of Congress now, and I think more specifically, you know here in Florida, you know my old boss, Senator Nelson has endorsed the race. And then former Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy, who represented much of this district previously, remember her, Yeah, yeah, so she she has endorsed the race as well.
What a fuck up? I mean, this really was a d seed.
Yeah, it was very it was neutral. It was really more neutral before the twenty twenty census. And by the way, you're gonna hear some ridiculous comments out of you know, some of the Republicans in Tallahatsee about this census. I mean they're calling it the Biden census.
Which Biden was president.
Biden wasn't president. I mean, I actually, my let me just hammer on this point for a second, because it's
one of the things that infuriates me. Right, we're in in the arena now, we're in area of our country's history where apparently our elected officials have such disdain for the people that they're supposed to represent that they just blatantly lie and blatantly, you know, talk about things that they think enough time has passed that we would forget that, right, Like twenty twenty is a date, like the census was
in twenty twenty. And the other thing that's interesting about that, right is that you know Florida, you know a lot of Florida politicians no matter what party, talk about, Hey, there may have been an undercount in Florida. All right, yeah,
got it. Maybe there was an undercount in Florida. Well you need to go back in time and figure out why that might have happened, because there might have been some people who were not interested in answering the census because there were restrictions on it, or you know, things that were coming out of the administration that might cause people to not want to fill out a census. That's
why you're going to get an undercount. And second, undercounting the people and our districts has nothing to do with why you should redistrict now. But again, we're just getting fed this poor shit, and you know, I think people are tired of eating it. It is infuriating that we're continued, you know, to be you know, like we used to say as junior officers in the navy, right, you know, kept in the dark and fed shit like voters aren't going to take that anymore.
Bail, thank you, thank you, thank you for joining me.
Well, thank you so much for having me. Like I said a long time listener, so this is especially exciting for me, but also thanks for giving us the opportunity to talk about, you know, this race, and it's important regardless of redistorting. Right, this Florida seven doesn't look like it's going to change, whether the maps are upheld or new maps come. So we know what's in front of us. By the numbers, this is the most flippable seed in Florida. So you know, check us out at Bail Dalton dot
com and give us some support if you got it. Yeah, pay attention because we are on track to get one of the most corrupt members of Congress out of there.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Bail, thank.
You, Molly. You have a great rest of your day.
No moment secret. Jesse Kadden Smillie.
We saw a very predictive Supreme Court decision on voting rights today, but there is another one that you could always predict, which is them siding with crisis pregnancy centers.
Yes, so faith based pregnancy center. Why do you need church in your uterism? Well, you know it's always so.
Where they say faith based, the faith you're putting in it is when they lie to you to your face, They trick you into going these things, they tell you all these laws, but faith.
Yes, yes, what is a faith based pregnancy center? It's First Amendment concerned about our investigation whether it must lide people to discourage abortions. If you are a faith based pregnancy center, you're misleading people into discouraging abortions. That's why they exist. So the High Court's unanimous ruling is a procedural victory for First Choice women's resource Centers, which is
challenging a New Jersey investigation into his practices. The conservative majority court has given abortion opponents high profile wins in recent years, including overturning Rugby Wade. Because these guys are very religious. The Supreme Court's decision let's First Choice sue over a state issued subpoena in federal court, though the
ruling does not resolve the underlying case. So again, you know this is just this Supreme Court, which like this administration, is filled with partisan acs, is quite anti choice and gives lots of wins to the anti choice world. So as much as this is extremely annoying and disconcerting and problematic in every which way, it should not be surprising. And here we are. That's it for this episode of
Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.