Rep. Jared Moskowitz and Marc Caputo: The Least Productive Congress

Hello, and welcome to the Secret Podcast. I’m your host Tim Miller. I’m pumped to be here today with the star of the Republican House impeachment hearings. Congressman Jared Moskawetz Democrat from Parkland, Florida. Congressman, I watched this clip.

The other day when you were actually offering to impeach Joe Biden yourself, and I was like, we need to get that guy on the podcast immediately. So let’s just take a listen to that.

Look, chairman, we got we got like three and a half minutes here. I mean, let’s just do the impeachment. I mean, why continue to waste millions of dollars of the taxpayers money? If we’re gonna impeach because you believe you’ve shown he’s committed a high crime and misdemeanor, let what are you waiting on? Look, you know, the chairman knows me.

Well, I mean, I’m just here to help him. Right? And so I just think we should do it today. Let’s just call for it. I’ll I’ll make the motion, mister chairman.

I wanna help you out. You can second it. Right? Like, make the motion to impeach president Biden. Go ahead.

To your turn. You second it. No. Nothing. Okay.

We got nothing. So I want it with my last couple of minutes showing American people that they’re never gonna impeach Joe Biden. It’s never gonna happen because they don’t have the evidence. Okay. This is a show.

It’s all fake. They’re lying to their base on newsmax and Fox, leading these people to believe that they’re going to eventually impeach the president. It’s not gonna happen.

Garksman explained to the listeners that gambit and your life on these so called impeachment hearings.

Well, look. I mean, you know, James Comer’s been the chairman of oversight in the hundred and eighteenth Congress, and it’s this is why we shouldn’t pick our chairman based on how much money they raise. I mean, it has been a complete shit side show. It’s been literally a circus. They’ve brought all sorts of interesting people to the committee.

They brought, a Chinese foreign agent who was selling Iranian oil to the Libyan. They’ve brought people in jail that literally appeared by Zoom from jail. And, you know, they’ve worked with people giving them Russian disinformation, literally coming from Russian intelligence. In fact, that’s how this whole investigation started with this ten twenty three form, which they were like, oh, look, we have direct evidence that Joe Biden took ten million dollars. The only problem is that guy’s now been indicted and has admitted that he got that information from the Russians.

But no. No. That didn’t dissuade my dear friend, James Comer. He was like, no. Let’s press on.

And so at that point, I said to myself, okay, it’s clear they have no evidence on Joe Biden. They’ve spent a year and a half and millions of taxpayer dollars trying to tell everyone that, you know, Hunter Biden had some issues. It’s time to call their bluff and prove to the American people that they’re not actually interested in teaching Joe Biden. They don’t have the evidence. They don’t have the votes.

And so, you know, that was why I called it. And I thought to myself that I’m gonna catch them so off guard that he’s not gonna second it and we’re not gonna go right to a vote And I bet he stumbles. And by the way, that’s exactly what happened. Right? He kinda was caught off guard.

Jim Jordan was literally giggling next to him. And that is now the end. That is now the end of the fake foe frivolous Biden impeachment. They’ve now come out after that hearing been like, well, you’re right. We don’t have the votes.

You know, we’re not maybe impeachment’s not the right route. Maybe it’s okay. Great. If I had known that, I would have done it six months ago.

Yeah. The, Kiggling face of Jim Jordan. It was just like the hand in the cookie jar. Like, it was just a you got me face. Like, we don’t have this.

Like, this is all a charade. To me, I I think that there’s been a little bit of soft bigotry of low expectations for these guys. I mean, it’s just such a clown show. It is a disaster There’s been nothing of substance that they’ve put forth. They’ve put forth lies and Russian disinformation as you’ve said.

For some reason, I feel like it’s so clownish that, like, it doesn’t leave the nightly news. Right? When when if it was like the inverse was happening and the Democrats were just running a totally sham hearings. I feel like there’d be more outrage about it. What is your sense?

That? Why have they not gotten calls to the map a little more?

I think the American people got tired of it. They’ve been called to the map now so many times of having no evidence, no evidence, no evidence, and not having anything against Joe Biden. I think the American people started to tune it out. I think the Republicans were successful early on. On Hunter Biden, you know, getting the American people to sour on Hunter Biden and then trying to make that leap to Joe Biden But because they never had any evidence and because the hearings were such a disaster, I think the American people came to a verdict, which is why we look at the polling, the American people don’t support the impeachment of Joe Biden.

In fact, it’s why Republicans in the house don’t support impeachment of Joe Biden. Some of them are resigning and literally saying I’m getting out of here the speaker is not gonna make me take an unconstitutional impeachment vote. And so look, the hearings have been a complete failure. That’s something that, you know, James Comer should own because his failure. They should have figured out how to pivot from this early on.

And again, as soon as it came out that they started this inquiry, based on Russian disinformation, they should have figured out how to get themselves out of it. But it’s been a complete embarrassment, but it’s not unique. The hundred and eighteen Congress has been a complete embarrassment. Let’s see. What done for the American people.

Oh, we removed the speaker. That’s his store. That’s never happened before. We expelled a member in George Santos. I miss him a little bit, by the way.

That hadn’t happened in twenty years. And then we decided to impeach a cabinet secretary with absolutely no evidence. That hadn’t happened a hundred and fifty years. So these are historic achievements, by speaker Johnson in the hundred eighteen Congress, and they’re helping the American people every day. The more they you know, remove a member, you know, or remove a speaker.

They’re just they’re just crushing it for the American people. Right? The least productive Congress in the modern areas, we should have passed about three hundred and four hundred pieces of legislation now resolutions. I think we’ve done fifty. So we’re we’re way behind what’s acceptable and make no mistake about it without the Democrats.

In the minority. In fact, I’d argue, leader Jefferies is the most powerful minority leader we’ve seen because without our votes, We would have gone off the dead cliff.

They can’t do anything. We

would have closed the government three or four times by now. In fact, who knows if the government would he could even be reopened just on Republican votes. It would probably take Democrats to reopen it. So they have a weekend. The but there’s a bunch of them that can’t wait to get back to the minority, and they’re gonna get their wish, because I think we’re looking at speaker Jefferies in the next eight, nine, ten months.

I I’m not that sympathetic. To the Ken Bucks and my Galgars of the world. I’m just gonna say that. Like, you mentioned, the fact that these guys are resigning because it’s such a clown shell. But I do you talk to any of these Republicans?

Like, you know, this whole woe is me. Oh, it’s so hard to be a Republican congressman. Every everybody’s so unserious around me. What do they you say to those folks in those converse Are any of them willing to play ball with you to actually resolve some of these problems? Like, how do you assess the the small number of Normandy Republicans and their plight

Well, I mean, here’s what I would say. Right? They always find religion when they’re leaving.

Right.

Okay. And that’s the constant thread we see. Which is as soon as they realize they’re not gonna be on the ballot again, right, they don’t have to play Kate to the right. And worry about their primary voter. And, you know, they become, you know, what I would say, the person that they really are, the performance stuff goes away.

And so, look, I I would say this. There are actually a lot more normal Republicans than you think. You just don’t know their names or hear from them because they don’t get any airtime. Right? And they have to hide.

Like who?

Oh, look. You’re talking. There’s two hundred, right, and fifteen Republican I would tell you right off the bat. There’s there’s seventy or eighty Republicans, okay, that wanna make a deal that, you know, are happy to figure out how to get the train moving. The problem is they gotta hide.

They gotta pretend because they have a primary election every two years. Right? So what they gotta do is they gotta placate to their base in order to get reelected or what happens? They’re gonna get primary from the right. In fact, you’re gonna see that.

You’re gonna see Donald Trump primary Republicans put up candidates, right, who he believes are not manga enough or are rhinos. Right? That right now is what they’re battling. I mean, Trump has really destroyed them in a way that is hard to explain. They’re afraid of it, tweet of his, they’re afraid of his, of him, they’re afraid of his base, they’re afraid of him recruiting a candidate, because without placating Donald and Margo Republicans, in almost ninety nine percent of the Republican seats, they can’t win.

And they’ll lose. And so, you know, they’re in a very weird spot. And, by the way, that’s not good for Democrats because we need a functioning Republican Party. We can’t solve all these problems just on our own because we have divided government. And so, you know, the more they become dysfunctional, the more government itself is gonna become dysfunctional.

We only have two parties here. Right? They’re half of the deal.

I’d like to see some of them try. I guess that’s what I’m saying. A lot of them just are quiet and they don’t try and they do the secret stuff, but I I don’t know. You don’t have to be Tim Miller. You don’t have to be trolling.

Here’s why they don’t try. They know if the cameras are on. Right? Or if they’re being recorded and they try, they’re finished.

Is that really true though? Mike Gallagher survived. Mike Gallagher’s been in there for six years. I he’s surviving. Now he’s quitting.

Why not cut a deal with you guys in Ukraine? Do your effing job. And then let the chips fall. Let them try to primary you. Maybe they’ll win.

Maybe they won’t win. I don’t, you know, I don’t know, but why not try rather than quit? That’s my frustration.

I think they’re exhausted, Tim. I I think they’re just exhausted. The idea of having to defend that you’re a good Republican and you’ve been a good Republican The idea of having to do that, spending time away from your family, getting on the phone every day, raising millions of dollars to defend who you’ve been your entire life I think they’re just exhausted with that.

I guess lots of people have hard jobs now. Yeah.

But this is an optional job.

It’d be, you mentioned the Russian disinformation. I’m obsessed with this. Been obsessed with it on the podcast. Once that came out, the smirnoff stuff came out, just talk to us about that. You guys finding that out.

And when did you think the ten million was before? This whole process, like, tell us a little bit more about what it’s been like on the committee seeing these reveals come to life about Alexander Smereenoff who gave the false information about Biden’s millions.

Well, first of all, when you read the ten twenty three form Yeah. Which by the way was originally in Russian, so it had to be translated. Okay. It was double hearsay. Okay?

And it was six years old, and it it had traveled its way. Okay? And there was only one line in this whole thing. Okay. And it wasn’t a smoking gun.

And it didn’t say Joe Biden. Okay. And so they were taking the little pieces that were in there. And and trying to bring this big picture that Joe Biden himself got direct money in this whole Burisma, you know, nonsense. And so it was a thread, but by the way, it was a thread that they never found any corroborating evidence.

Right? It was a thread that they never found any paper trail. Okay? But for weeks and months, we heard about this ten twenty three, ten twenty three, ten twenty three up. Ten twenty three form.

And then it kinda went away. We stopped hearing about the ten twenty three form. And then it came out obviously that Alexander smirnoff okay, was getting Russian, disinformation literally from Russian intelligence and has plead guilty. What I’d wanna know and I don’t know that we have an answer to this. When did Comer know the information was bad?

When did he know? Did he get would he get any tips that they were investigating smirnoff? Did he get any tips that Smynoff was about to be indicted? Did he get any information from the FBI or Intel that, hey, you know, that information may have come from Russia, or did he find out, like, the rest of us when the indictment came down. I’m curious about that.

That’s something I’ve always I’ve always wondered. And again, what we surprising to me is when that came out, because that was the house of cards that this whole thing was built on. It was built on ten twenty three. Right? That was the the foundation that that was, you know, the concrete, that was the rebar.

Right? That was how this all started, this ten twenty three form. And when they realized and it was all fake. Why didn’t they come out and figure out how to land the plane? In fact, they still haven’t figured out how to land this plane.

Now we’re gonna do criminal referrals. Is what is what Comer is suggesting. He sent Joe Biden the letter so that Joe Biden can come to a committee. I mean, it it it’s just an utter embarrassment. And I actually think the reason Jim Jordan was laughing that day.

Okay? Is that because Jim has kinda let Comer take the lead on this. Right? And and that’s not very Jim Jordan esque. Right?

He’s judiciary chairman. Right? He’s the investigation guy, and he’s kinda left Comer run with this whole thing. And I think that myself deep down has Jim Jordan known or or thought to himself or had conversations with his other Republican members that that Comer has has boggled this whole thing.

I want to ask you about the news out Florida with the abortion ban. And now, like, it looks like there’s gonna be a ballot initiative. There’s a political article this morning saying some Florida Democrats are are kind of warning the president not to overly politicize this. They see there’s a potential opportunity. They don’t wanna fumble the ball.

How big of an opportunity politically do you think the Florida abortion ballot initiative is for this year? And what what’s your advice to the White House about about campaigning in the state that frankly has sort of fallen off of the map a little bit.

But I think there’s a multi faceted approach to this. First, let’s talk about the actual case. So, right, a four three decision to let voters decide whether a woman’s right to choose belongs in the constitution. Okay? But at the same time, the same court said the six week abortion ban is now legal.

There is no right to privacy in the constitution that applies to a woman’s right to choose, which the voters put into the constitution in nineteen eighty. So they invalidated that law and then said, but we’re gonna let the voters weigh in one last time. So this is it for Florida. Right? This is the seminal moment.

In twenty twenty two, right, we had a governor win his reelection by nineteen points. Right? I mean, that quite frankly may have been the death of the modern Democratic party here in Florida, but this gives a little revival. If this can pass, Right? And this can get voters out, then maybe the Democratic party has some life.

But if this doesn’t hit sixty percent and we now have a six week abortion ban here, as the law of the land in Florida. Then the democratic party here is the Titanic. It has hit the iceberg and it’s on its way to the sea floor for a very long time in Florida. Let’s talk about the data. Right?

Talk about Joe Biden as we look up at the data. Republicans now outnumber Democrats in the state by over eight hundred thousand registered voters. Just five years ago, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by almost a hundred thousand registered voters. So we’ve had this huge change since COVID. So that data matters.

Before this change, Donald Trump won the state by three and a half points. So now that we have even more Republicans here, you think that would favor Donald Trump even more. But now we have both marijuana and a woman’s right to choose on the ballot simultaneously. Who is that gonna bring out? From both sides, pro and con So look, I think the issue is really a jump ball.

What it may require is it may require Donald Trump to spend more time in Florida and it may require Donald Trump to spend some money in Florida that he would otherwise not have to defend because this is gonna be so predictable. Well, that helps Joe Biden in Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada. So Florida isn’t just about Florida. I think Florida helps expand the map for Joe Biden everywhere.

Let me ask you also about Israel. There’s the killing of the aid workers, the world central kitchen. Just a tragic story. I you’ve obviously been a big supporter of of the presidents. I think he’d greater him a ten out of ten on Israel.

Even those of us who are sympathetic to Israel, I I think you’re starting to have some concerns about BB’s prosecution of the war. What’s your sense of the state of play right now?

Well, listen, I’ve always been an and and, when it comes to this war, not an andor. And what I mean is, is that I’ve always believed that as a result of the Haynes tax on October seventh, Israel has a right to eliminate Hamas. Right? That is part of Israel’s right to defend itself. Is to get rid of Hamas terrorist organization aggressor that has said, and by the way, we’re gonna do multiple October seventh if we get, another opportunity.

And at the same time, they have to make sure that they’re following international laws of war and making sure they’re getting humanitarian aid into Gaza for the innocent Palestinian. That’s my end to end. It’s not eliminate Hamas or it’s eliminate Hamas and make sure where we’re taking care of the innocent Palestinians, but we have to be honest. Right? It’s an open war zone.

Right? And so what happened with the World Food Kitchen, and I know Jose Andreas is is unacceptable. No no doubt about that. It’s unacceptable. But it’s also war Right?

And, yeah, mistakes are going to be made. I mean, are you telling me when we did the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan that we didn’t accidentally kill a lot of people. I mean, go back and

Yeah.

Research that.

Well, a lot of us the

wrecked world was entire was entire was a mistake, obviously, though, from the start.

And so And also, we targeted things that were wrong. I mean, it’s a horrific it’s horrific. Horrific. And those families that are affected are now broken forever. And so Israel needs to go back and they need to look and double and triple and quadruple their efforts to make sure that something like that never happens again.

And if they’re unsure before they target something, they need to pause. Okay? Because, yeah, the world is watching. But this is not a genocide. Right?

All of that gobbling book is garbage. Okay? It is a horrific war where a lot of innocent people have been caught in the middle between Hamas and Israel because let’s be clear Hamas will sacrifice every innocent Palestinian to win the PR war, which is why the leader of Hamas is worth five billion dollars. I mean, what product did he develop? That he’s on the fourth.

I know.

Yeah. It’s four hundred list.

Disgusting.

Okay. But, but, look, there are elements within the hard line Israeli government, right, that say things all the time. That don’t line up with American values. I’m for a two state solution. Right?

I don’t think Gaza should be, you know, have to leave Gaza. Right? And so we have to figure out how Hamaskets eliminated and how we bring this war to an end and then start the rebuilding process. What Hamas has brought on the people of Gaza? It is so unbelievable that, quite frankly, where we are today, the Hamas in the press and in the PR has gotten away with what they’ve brought on the innocent Palestinians.

Right? And all the blame goes towards Israel. And we we gotta remember that Hamas gambled with Palestinian lives when they went and killed twelve hundred Israelis, innocent Israelis, not military. Right? The largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust.

That was a huge gamble to go and commit a mission like that. They’re now realizing that as a result of that, Gaza has only mostly destroyed, and it’s horrible and horrific, and it should never have happened. But this is where we are, and we gotta figure out, obviously, how we bring it to an end. Thank you

for that. Clear. I do apologize, Steven. I wish you more time. I wanna talk about semitism stuff, there’s one thing you’re working on, though, that I just don’t think it’s enough attention.

You have a bill up, when it comes to the insurance crisis. This country is facing. I live in New Orleans. You’re in Florida. Insurance rates are skyrocketing, California, lots of places due to climate change.

What is the bill? What are you guys looking at doing?

Right? So what it does is it is the reason rates are rising is reinsurance. And these insurance companies are buying reinsurance for the one and one thousand year event. Right? In addition to the one and one fifty year event, like a hurricane or a one and one hundred year event, and the reinsurance for a one and one thousand year event is very expensive, and they’re passing that cost off to the consumer.

So what this bill would do is it would allow of states to opt in and get bonds to float bonds to pay for the one in one thousand year event so that insurance companies don’t have to buy reinsurance for the one in one thousand year event. And it doesn’t add anything to the deficit. It’s not gonna cost taxpayers any money. And I think this will bring rates down by about twenty five percent. We need to do in the property insurance market what we’ve done in the health insurance market.

I just wanna do it in a way that we’re not adding to the deficit. Do you

have any Republicans with you? Are there any Republicans with you on this?

Well, right now, no bills are moving in Congress at all. Right.

Just generally speaking, though, is there anybody that’s with you on this?

Well, I think what’s happening is that this is a Florida issue that’s now moved to New Orleans to Louisiana that’s now moved into California. And once this starts becoming the seminal issue in governor’s races, in those states. This is gonna become a bipartisan issue. I’m not someone who believes all the government has to solve anything here. But if we keep doing what we’re doing, people are not gonna be able to afford to live in the same home they’ve lived in, and you’re gonna make people leave.

That is where we the American dream starts to no longer become a reality if we allow this insurance market like what happened in health where people were losing their houses to pay health insurance. If people start losing their homes because they can’t afford to live there, then we’re failing the American people.

Totally agree with that. Congress and Moscow, you’re doing a wonderful job. Thank you for your work in the oversight here, I wanna get you back. We’re gonna talk about parkland, gun violence, anti Semitism, a lot of stuff. You’re doing great work in Congress.

Thanks for being on the board podcast.

Thanks, and appreciate it.

Florida man attempts to sell baby to home for throwing an alligator through

Alright. We are back with another floor demand. Mark Caputo, first time on the board podcast. Right?

I believe so. I did one other podcast.

Yeah, not the Bulwark one, not the main one, not the daily. The Bulwark podcast. We have a whole network of podcasts, which we’re grateful for you to be on Vargo is a new newsletter, Magaville, which is phenomenal. If you wanna know what’s really happening in Magaville, some of you might not wanna know what’s really happening. It might be, you know, wanna be blissfully unaware.

And and I’m sympathetic to that. But if you are interested and one is happening in the warped mind of Donald Trump and his advisors, Mark Caputo can get inside their minds. He writes about it for us weekly. And I wanna talk about his latest newsletter, but first, as a fellow Florida man, somebody’s covered Jared Moscoats for a while. He’s an interesting guy.

He’s not your run average run of the congress person. Okay? So, tell us about him and what you think is creating this kind of wheels off Democrat, no bullshit persona.

Well, I mean, he is a Florida man. And in addition to that, you know, he cut his teeth politically speaking in the Florida House as a Democrat. Where they’re just vastly outnumbered by Republicans, and they are sort of trained in the arts of being good bond throwers. And he’s been an excellent bond thrower. And now he has a sort of national stage.

And one of the things that’s really not talked about a lot in relation to Jared Moskowitz is that one of his friends from Tallahassee is one of the ultimate bomb throwers on the other side. It’s Matt Gates.

Weird world, baby.

Strange bedfellows, and I’m gonna get in trouble for saying this because he he probably doesn’t want me to say, but my favorite quote from Jared Moskowitz about Matt Gates is, I tell my wife that Matt Gates is my daytime friend, not my nighttime. But Moskiewicz is just kind of very sharp, very funny. He’s always been that way. Another Florida man, my grunwald, who I used to work with, had said that Mosskut’s inherited the Barney Frank, you know, mantle of, you know, sort of the the funny Jewish guy in Congress. And so there you go.

And now, of course, Moscowitz replied that when I I mentioned this to him that that he was actually didn’t wanna be remembered that way because he didn’t wanna be known as just a short Jewish

Well, I think he’s being known by more than that. And he has been by far the Democrats best, you know, counter puncher, if you Will Saletan during these impeachment hearings. We got into that a lot. He also said January. The one thing we didn’t have a chance to to talk about, but I hope that, you know, I’m gonna put this in the show notes.

People should go listen to interview I did with Fred Guttenberg. His daughter died in the parkland shooting, and Fred and Jared are longtime press personal friends, and the way that Fred talked about him was really really moving, honestly. And and so folks can go listen to that. But, you know, Jared is passionate, you know, he’s funny but passionate, right? And he’s been a big advocate on this sort on on the on gun issues and and and related issues.

Well, Parkland was was his district. I think he might have even gone to marjory Stone and Douglas High, Moskowitz, that is. I’m not quite sure of that, but that is his district. And he was closely involved with you know, the first ever gun control legislation passing in Florida by a Republican controlled Florida legislature. And that was in part because of Moscow’s involvement.

Because despite being a partisan bomb thrower and kind of acid tongue when he wants to be, also knows how to get things done and work with people on the other side again. He he is personal friends with Matt Gates. And you saw him not only do that with gun control legislation in Florida, but also one of the rarities for Ron DeSantis who doesn’t get more reactionary Republican in Florida politics than DeSantis. Mosquitz was his emergency management director for two years, which is he was the only Democrat that was Ron DeSantis administration at that level, and he had headed up of all things COVID response. So go figure.

You can see why he tickles my back a little bit. A bomb thrower who also is a compromiser. Okay. These are these are very tim Millery traits. Last thing on Musquets, I noticed it’s hard not to notice during our interview.

Unapologetic. On the pro is real advocacy. And, you know, at a time where, obviously, there’s a lot of agitation about that on the left from the progressive base No mealy mouth, no weasel, you know, nothing. Like, he has a strong position, that Israel should be able to defend itself after that horrific terrorist attack and, you know, did not seem to show any, you know, interest in any sort of political pandering on that.

Well, one of the things that you can say about Florida and Florida politics is this is not a very progressive state. He comes from a very Jewish district And one of the realities of a lot of the different communities that we have here is that there are communities that have their own, heritage of trauma. You have the commute community that’s here that has that. But you also have the Jewish community here that’s like grew up in South Florida. I grew up in Key West, which is not Miami.

But I remember as a kid, when you would go to the mall here, when you, you know, you’d sometimes, like, have to pack up and drive the number of hours to the mall. You would see people with the tattoos of the concentration cans.

Yeah.

Still on their on their forearms. This travels with that community, and Jared Moscow is a son, a grandson of this community. And if they are attacked, if Israel is attacked, they’re gonna be a hundred and ten percent with Israel. So while it might surprise people in other states doesn’t surprise me, given his district, given his dad, Mike Moskowitz, made this memory be a blessing. He’s he’s calling now, was a major Democratic donor, but was also known as a major APAC donor.

And when you started to see the progressive movement adopt more pro Palestinian leanings. In Florida, you started to see Mosquets. Mike Mosquets, was much more of a leading and active voice in fighting against that in his own party.

Indeed. Okay. I wanna get into your newsletter. You’re on the front end of this. Obviously, we have the Florida, you know, the ruling now.

There’ll be a ballot in We talked about that with congressman Moscow. What I wanna hear from you about is how Trump world is thinking about this. You wrote about this earlier this week how trump calls abortion the a word. He won’t really doesn’t have an opinion about this. How they wouldn’t weigh in with you with a statement.

He said since your newsletters come out, he said that, you know, he does the thing. We’re like, We’ll have a statement about this next week. I think we’re still waiting for the health care plan that he’s been promising next week for, like, seven years now. So what’s the state of play over there? Talk to us about what your reporting showed in the newsletter, whether there’s been any developments in the intervening days.

No real developments in the inter intervening days, but I think the best way to describe Trump’s posture and abortion is don’t ask, don’t tell. It’s not something he wants to deal with. Like, when you look at the polling, Joe Biden wins on the issue of abortion. Donald Trump wins on the issue of inflation the economy or immigration. So, obviously, that’s Trump’s gonna talk about.

I think one of the things I didn’t get into that story, and maybe I’ll get myself in trouble here

Alright.

By just speculating is that when I interviewed Donald Trump in May of last year. I tried to pin him down on abortion. It was sort of like nailing jello to a wall. Very difficult. But I thought what was interesting is that the one bit of news I got out of Trump at the time was that he said that the abortion ban, the six week abortion ban that DeSantis had signed in the law was, quote, too harsh.

And of course, the far right, Ron DeSantis jumped all over. Trevor about this and said, see, he’s a liberal and abortion and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. But Trump has never backed off of saying that a six week abortion man is too harsh. When Florida Supreme Court greenlit this abortion amendment to go on the ballot, They also green lit because of a series of legal challenges. Ron DeSantis, a six week abortion ban will eventually go into effect.

So I wonder If Donald Trump, the guy who used to consider himself pro choice in his own words, who’s called the six week abortion ban too harsh, Does he go into the voting booth and secretly vote for the abortion amendment, which would legalize abortion in Florida up to the point of viability? I think it’s a possibility.

It’s a great question now.

It is.

And when he should have to answer, he literally will have to vote for it. He’s a resident. It’s not a hypothetical.

Right. That’s why I was the first one to write about it because I realized like, look, you know, the New York Times have done that story about how privately trouble sort of floating a trial balloon although other people describe it differently with this idea of like, oh, maybe he’ll support fifteen weeks or sixteen weeks, because he said, quote, it’s a nice even number. People like that. But it it occurred to me that once the Supreme Court, the floor Supreme Court was putting this measure on the ballot, Trump no longer had the ability to say, oh, it’s up to the states. You know, I don’t have to weigh in.

Like, no, you and the thirteen point six million other Floridians who are registered voters now. Are actually gonna get to weigh in by bubbling in the yes or no or who knows under voting it? How do you vote? And so far, no answer. It’s just, oh, well, it’s up to the state’s decidable.

Yeah, dude. We know that. But you’re in one of the states that will decide it. So how are you gonna decide? But again, thinking about how Trump thinks about things it wouldn’t surprise me if he wound up privately voting.

Yes. Now the real question is is, does Nixon go to China, right? Does Donald Trump actually come out and say, Yeah. I’m gonna vote for the amendment. I totally doubt that, but it wouldn’t surprise you to find out after the fact that he actually filled in the yes because the reality is a six week abortion ban is pretty harsh.

Like a lot of people, a lot of women don’t even know they’re pregnant.

Yeah. So this takes us to the politics of the Florida. I’ve been skeptical that this will help Democrats that much and on the margins. I I think, obviously, it would turn out in all this. I think there are a lot of Donald Trump voters.

A lot of people don’t understand that there are a lot of Donald Trump voters out there that are pro choice and pro Donald Trump and that they will see no conflict in voting for this ballot initiative and for Donald Trump. On the ballot. Is there an opening though at all for Dems in a state where they’ve just tanked in the past half decade to try to you know, pin this on Trump to try to to peel off some of those voters that have been in his coalition because of the threat. I could the a very real threat that if the Donald Trump is president, and Mike Johnson is a speaker of the house, and depending on what happens in his ballot initiative, either it could be a massive curtailing of abortion rights Florida. Is that an opportunity for Democrats at all?

I mean, maybe, but I would think that most people swayed by that are already voting Democrats anyway. I just I I just I find it hard to believe that there are sort of, like, hardcore pro choice voters so to speak and hardcore Donald Trump voters. I think they exist on the margins, but I mean, it’s we’re talking handfuls of people. That would be hard to find. I mean, by and large, you know, the the Biden campaign had put out This memo is saying Florida is winnable.

That’s a statement of possibility, not probability, you know, technically, Utah is winnable, for Joe Biden.

Kansas.

Right. Yeah. Exactly. Who knows Kansas? It’s more of a swing state right now than Florida because I think they have a they have a democratic governor.

Right? We don’t. But I just don’t see it. Florida has had a history of voting for left leaning constitutional amendments and right wing politicians. Like, we did minimum wage in two thousand four, and we elected or reelected short w Bulwark.

Like as president. And then in twenty sixteen, there was a constitutional amendment about minimum wage and medical marijuana. Those passed twenty ten when when Donald Trump won and worker rubio won reelection twenty ten. There was an anti gerrymandering amendment that passed and Rick Scott or Carrubio were elected office. So, yeah, so basically, if you’re a concern in the state, With more libertarian views or even some sort of left leaning social policy, you get the best of both worlds.

I get my right wing politician, and I get my more progressive policy at the same time. It is not inconsistent to say, but, like, that people are not gonna dim sum this and take a little bit of that, a little bit of this.

Alright. You don’t need to give us candy just for no reason at the end. You don’t need to give any Democrats listening, any false hope. But just is there any green shoot here? Donald Trump might having to spend some money here, maybe some certain districts where this issue being at the forefront might help Democrats or are they staring it down just another kind of Florida morphing into Alabama type election here in front of us.

Ryan Tyson, who was Rhonda Sanchez Polster whose polling has consistently been the most excellent in Florida and accurate. I mean, he’s predicted and shown me things that everyone said was ridiculous and a lot of being true. Right now his models have trump plus ten. And and that is that is just hard to see Now, maybe Ryan’s wrong. Maybe the trend lines are wrong.

Maybe things are gonna change. I mean, the main problem that Democrats have had in the Biden years especially, but it’s not just Biden. It’s even done the fucking work. Like Florida naturally imports Republican super voters. Who comes here?

Like, rich, white people who don’t wanna pay taxes. Those people, like, The second to get here, they’re registering to vote and they’re voting early and off.

This is why Texas is gonna flip before Florida.

White.

In my opinion, because who moves to Texas young families looking for jobs in Dallas Austin, Houston, that’s who’s moving to that’s who’s moving to Texas, and those folks are gonna be gettable democrats, and that’s different than retirees.

Okay. That’s true. We have that too though. Like, I mean, we’re a fast

Not as much.

Not as much. That is true. We’re a fast growing state. Well, my point was that you have to do, especially on the left, the work to get that working class coalition to turn out, you have to do the work to get those poor voters not only to register to vote but to cast their ballots. And the Democrats haven’t done that.

They they haven’t invested the money. And that’s in part because consultants don’t make money off of voter registration drives. And it’s also been difficult to organize around Joe Biden He hasn’t been that inspirational, but a figure, Charlie Sykes speaking, to get people to be like, yeah. I I wanna I wanna sign up with the Democrats. You had that with Obama.

Steve Shale.

You know, getting that

Duval man, Steve Shell wrote a great bulwark piece about exactly this topic. We’ll also put that in the show notes if people wanna really dive deep on why democrats have struggled in Florida by not doing the work. That is wonderful. Mark Caputo. Brother, thank you for the insight.

And, you know, for putting me on a text with Jared Moskowitz so we could have his fiery takes on the podcast today, and, we’ll be talking to you again soon. Thank

you, man. I appreciate it.

Florida demand, Mark Caputo. Thanks very much. We’ll be back here tomorrow with, you know, just a little light a light podcast about authoritarianism. We’ll see you

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