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Democratic Candidate Demands Party Accountability on Epstein · Breaking The Meta

• Breaking The Meta: Hello and welcome to a more perfect, oh my gosh, I said my old name. Hello and welcome to Breaking the Meta. My name is Mike Quinson. Today we are sitting down with Robert People who is running for District 15, Congressional District 15 in Florida. Excited to sit down and talk with him and find out what he hopes to do for his district. Hello, Robert, how are you doing? I'm doing great, I'm doing great. The way we always wanna start this because not everyone knows Florida, Robert People: Thank you all for your time. Good good, Michael. How are you? We always learn this. Breaking The Meta: Would you mind letting people know what parts of Florida encompass District 15? Robert People: Well, District 15 includes some areas of Northeast Tampa. Brandon goes as far east as Lakeland, includes Plant City in there, Steffener. And these are the major cities, of course, but we have ⁓ Deffer Hills in there, Wesley Chapel, Temple Terrace, Valrico. And just because of how the district is drawn, some of those may go, some of the district may go, ⁓ more than one district might be in one city. So for example, in Brandon, there's one street where 15 is on one side, 16 on the other side. So that's a street that we use every day. So it's drawn weirdly like that. And then we're talking down here about redistricting too. So the answer to question, yeah, those are the major cities. There's others in there. Some of the smaller areas. It's a lot to list. those are, again, just some of the main ones. Hillsborough, includes Hillsborough County, Polk County, and Pasco County. Again, parts of those go in other districts, but those are the major counties as well. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Would you mind giving us a little background on who you are and then why you decided to run for Congress in the first place? Robert People: Okay, well, I'm a 21 year retired active duty Army veteran and I served from 1997 to 2018. The reason I wanted to run for Congress, especially in this specific seat, is that during the time I served, when I was at about four years and when I joined the Army initially, I was not looking to stay in for any significant time. I was surprised I made it to that second term that I was on. I thought we'd do one and then be finished and go back home to Baltimore where I'm originally from. And we had an assembly, a lot of the junior soldiers had an assembly of some kind, but the command sergeant major, the base command sergeant major came out and spoke with us real quick. Of course we're thinking, ⁓ here we go, lecture time. But one thing he mentioned, he said, you know, as I'm going around your units, he said, a lot of you have some great ideas. And he said, well, okay, well, how about this? Tell me who, raise your hand if you're going to go to the sergeant, you know, the promotion board for sergeant because Breaking The Meta: Ha ha! Robert People: The promotions up to that point were automatic after a certain set amount of time and you had to go to boards after that. So he said, raise your hand and a couple of soldiers raised their hand. I'd said certainly different because I said, Hey, I wasn't supposed to be in for this long. So no, not me. And he said, now you see that? He said, and it's a shame that there's actually some good ideas out there, how y'all can make the army better, how y'all can make, you know, the non-commissioned officers, the sergeants and so forth better. And y'all, you're not willing to step up, you know, and be part of the solution. And when he said that, said, you know, are you going to be part of the problem, part of the solution that stuck with me. And even though I had maybe this was shortly before nine 11 as well. So I had maybe a handful of, had less than a year left on that contract. But then after that, it stuck with me to where I went back to my supervisor and asked him if I could go to the promotion board because I also like challenges. So I didn't expect to stay in the army as long as I did, but. Um, I also like challenges and I like to push myself and that's why I got an army in first place. And the more you accomplish, the more I the more I accomplished, the more I wanted to do. So when he said that said, let me try one term of, know, maybe being a sergeant scene, if you know, there's anything to what he's saying here. Well, long story short, I went from four years to 21 because each time I knew a new term came up, I wanted to do something else. Another challenge came up. So let me do this. So after a in a blink of an eye, feels like 21 years went by. And that said, now what that tie, how that ties into this, this race is because after the presidential election, I felt that come back to mind. felt what he said, come back and say, wait a minute. I've complained over the past probably 10, 15 years about Congress for one reason or another. And it's always been this seat here. Not, not this seat specifically in Florida, but the house of representatives, because I look at, I look back at everything that I've made any complaints about or. I've offered, oh, you know what, if that's me or if I'm in that, I do this and this. And I said, that's the reason I wanted to run for the House of Representatives seat. Not anything local, not anything past this, because this is what I've said the most about. And once that presidential election happened, that's when I said, you know what? I need to be part of the solution here. I've talked enough. I need to do something else. I need to, I mean, I enjoyed public service. That's another reason. The longer I stayed in the army, I had the public service. part of it I really felt and enjoyed and felt a strong responsibility to keep it going. I feel that responsibility again now. So that's why I wanted to run for this to, you again, give the American people, especially those in the district, but also, you know, everywhere a feeling of what it's like to have a representative truly represent them. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. It's, it's amazing. I've interviewed a lot of people already who are running and the amount of veterans that have felt something very similar to what you're talking about. I felt the need to Robert People: Amazing. So, you need to. Breaking The Meta: to run because they felt that calling to serve and now they feel a calling to run because of it. It's actually pretty amazing ⁓ what's going on in that. As you've been walking around District 15 and talking to people, if you wouldn't mind giving everyone an idea of what kind of things are the pain points of your district, what people are talking to you about most that... ⁓ Robert People: run because they felt like calling to serve. Yeah. Breaking The Meta: that you hope to be able to help them with ⁓ if you become a representative of that district. Robert People: Well, affordability and other than it being just a buzzword because I want to give more to it than that. I want to give more respect to it than to just say affordability in general. It means something different from one person to another. So whenever I'm at an event where I'm speaking at a forum, I always ask, well, what does affordability mean? And I, you know, to you, you know, and go around the room and kind of ask a few and say, you know, for one person, they may say groceries that may be their pain point regarding affordability. Someone else wants to be able to, you know, be able to afford a house. And when you're talking about different demographics, different ages and things like that, of course they're going to be in different areas. Like, you know, maybe I would say maybe an older crowd may have had a bit of an, you know, a ⁓ simpler time, an easier time purchasing a house than you know, a younger person would. of course the younger person may be focused on that. So affordability cannot, I feel like it cannot be just one standard across the board measure to say, okay, we're going to do this. And we hit some average. No, we have to address every, you know, every day as many demographics as we can, as basically all of, need to address all the demographics, not just focused on, you know, certain ones. We need to look at the marginalized communities, especially too, because often, you know, dead ones neglected the most. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Robert People: And people are concerned, especially since Florida is the top, I'm going to say the top either one or two percent, or I'm sorry, not one, two percent, number one or number two regarding percentage of seniors in the state. So social security is still an issue. And I always address that as much as I can, because we talked about a lot early last year. We've stopped. But the problem has not. We didn't stop because the problem went away. It has been fixed. Breaking The Meta: Hmm. Robert People: it were exactly where we were before. As a matter of fact, we might be a little bit worse because we're further along and more has been spent. So that's a big issue across the board, but especially here with the number of seniors we have in this state and district. And also I want to say a big one is homeowners insurance. Because we see so many hurricanes and so forth here, people struggle and they've had to move out of the state in order to Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Robert People: because of the fact that they can't afford the insurance anymore. when I've made calls, I'll have the old addresses in there and they will tell me, thanks, but I'm sorry, I don't live in Florida anymore. And they'll say good luck, but I had to move away because of it. And then they'll tell me and insurance is pretty much up there with it. So what I would propose in that case, just real quick with that. is infrastructure. want to look at infrastructure so that ⁓ residents don't have to rely on the insurance aspect of it so much. even if it goes, most of us, feel like, have dealt with insurance companies that are doing something with insurance. And even when it goes exactly the way you want, it can still be time consuming. It can still be, in some cases, costly. You're OK paying the cost, you're more, of course, you're happy if you don't have to. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Robert People: But it's still a process, and that's when it goes well. So rather than forcing people to go down that route, let's maybe see if we can have developers build homes, build buildings so that way when these disasters hit, we don't have to worry so much about leaning on the insurance or the costs are relatively minimal that it doesn't bankrupt someone. or forced businesses to have to close down or people to have to move out of the state. So I would say the top three, quite a few, but the top three would be those. Breaking The Meta: One of the other issues that has become a nonpartisan issue, think, that I think all governments, whether you're talking local, state or federal at this point, is the problem of accountability or the lack thereof when it comes to our politicians. So my question to you is, does affordability look like to you? Robert People: Thanks. Yes. So my question to you. Breaking The Meta: How do you want to be held accountable by your constituents? then ⁓ these are three separate. then how do you see affordability, accountability, said affordability, accountability going forth ⁓ and being a thing in Congress, which obviously Congress isn't holding anybody, let alone themselves accountable as well. Robert People: or accountability. As far as I'm concerned, as far as holding me accountable, whenever I start at this level, I will ask anyone, if I'm at an event, if I'm for them or what have you, and there's a question, and I don't answer to your liking. No, not to your liking, because it may not be a good answer, but that's the answer. We'll have to at this point. ⁓ live with until we get to a better solution. if it's something as far as just me answering the question, if you're not satisfied with just how I provided that answer, get back with me. Definitely call me back later. We will get back together again because I want to come back and let you know, hey, I care about your question and we're going to get to a solution. If I can't tell you right then and there, then we will get something back. There is a we had a form earlier this week on Tuesday, actually, and there's two people I want to go back to that meeting. ⁓ the next month they have and Answer those questions one was more involving a state issue, but I still want to go back and let him know Hey, this is where you would want to go. You want to talk to Tallahassee and Speak to them about those by property taxes. So I want to make sure I follow up so long story short around there's ⁓ a proper follow-up make sure we're doing that and also I want to hold when I'm in Congress hold quarterly town hall at least quarterly if some major issue comes up like was for example going back to Social Security last year That was a big issue This big ugly bill that came up. Those are big issues. These would be town halls I would hold outside of the quarter, know, in addition to the quarterly that we usually do. Just like with anything, those will be my times to find out. will send out ⁓ surveys. Those will be the times also that I find out, okay, well, what's my grade? Just like with anything, ⁓ your performance evaluation at your job, it would be the same as that. I'm working for the people, so the people who wants to evaluate the job that I'm doing. ⁓ It's largely, it would largely be about the areas I'm able to control. And I make sure I explain that to people as well, because we come out as candidates and often we are quick to say, promise to do this and promise to do that. But there are certain areas we can't really control. One thing I say is, I mean, after the proposal is done or after the, let's say the house, in this case, the house votes on it, it's out of our hands. But I want people to understand, you can still check to make sure I held up. you know, I did what I said I was going to do. I'm going to propose that we do this. You can check to make sure that I did that. And if you question, well, hey, you said you were going to do this. If it's something I can control, then I owe you an answer. So as far as accountability for me, those are some of the ways I want people. want my constituents to hold me accountable. I say I'm to do it, make sure I do it. As far as for Congress in general, we have to do a better job of calling out exactly what we see going wrong. I'll use this for example, I'll use the files for an example, the Epstein files. And it's a bit alarming that we don't hear more or from more of our representatives about that, especially on the Democratic side. I'm not expecting it from the Republican side. I'm running as a Democrat. At this point, can kind of understand why, not understand, but we can not be surprised that they're not. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Robert People: But on our side, there should be more. what that, and the concern that brings up is how many Democrats in Congress are somehow tied to this. And that's why they're wanting to be quiet. So things like that, we need to make sure stay on the table because we cannot allow, can't come, we can't present ourselves. We should not present ourselves as, you know, we're the party that cares about everyone and, you know, we're going to hold everyone accountable. But with something like this going on, we're going to be quiet about it. and expect people to just let it be. Folks are waking up now. And when it comes to things like this, as far as accountability, that means to ourselves too, to our party, not get into office and say, yes, I support Democrats and every single thing they do, we're going to support. No, can't be okay with that. The people are who we work for, not others within our own party. So there's no question at all of which party I support because my ideas line up most with them as far as Democrats go. But... Again, when it's accountability, we made a promise to the American people we need to uphold that. Breaking The Meta: Obviously, division is an issue as well. Now, obviously, now we can have a discussion whether or not the division is manufactured, especially for talking, you know, top down division, things like that. In the end, think conservatives and progressives actually probably agree on a lot more things than we are willing to accept. And we focus on things that we don't need to focus on. But I wanted to ask Robert People: Obviously, the vision. Thanks. One thing I've received is that there are those who will not bend obviously. Breaking The Meta: When you have gone out and started and talked to people in your district, when you have interacted with people that consider themselves Republicans or conservatives, how has that how has that experience been, especially when they realize you have a D next to your name? Robert People: And those are the more extreme, obviously, Republicans, the ones we call MAGA and so forth. They're not bending. There's always going to be an excuse for everything that's happening. Those are the folks that we're not going to change their minds at all. And often, I can figure that out pretty quickly because, again, there's once the lies that we're hearing, the lies that we hear get passed around all the time, that's what they go with. And I always, don't mind speaking and debunking a lie and saying, hey, that's not what happened. This is how it is or what have you. Or when they say something, say, hey, you know, let's see some evidence of that. Where are you getting that from? Let me know. And the conversation just goes in the direction that's expected, especially when you start there. One example is I protest folks accusing people of being, those of us showing up as being paid protesters. I say, well, simply just tell me who's getting paid because I'm sure not. And if we're all supposed to get paid here, where is my check? That's what there wouldn't be the for. Yeah, there you go. So so I say, hey, if everybody's getting paid, but me, I got a problem with that. Right. So but, you know, things like that. And it's like, you know, that's not helpful because you know, you haven't seen anybody. You haven't seen any evidence of this yourself. You're just passing along a lie that others have told you. So when it comes to folks like that, they're there to kind of disrupt. Breaking The Meta: then there wouldn't be an affordability crisis anymore, probably would there? Robert People: and distract and so forth. there's less. It makes less sense, I suppose, or it's less productive to continue back and forth with them. Now I have come across some who are tired of what they're seeing. They're upset, the anger about what's going on, but they're not quite ready to make that leap and jump to our other side to, know, to our side or even to go independent if we're talking about that. And those folks, those are ones you can, I think, speak to a little bit more because they want to know, hey, I can I'm okay with listening to, for example, I'll say when I've done lives on Tick tock, there'll be someone who will come in and say, hey, I'm a conservative, but I like to hear what you have to say. Something like that. Just that just that sentence there tells me that's what they've come up as. I'm ready to hear something different. And that's enough for me to say, OK, let me give you something different. Let me let you know that number one, it's OK to have. been fooled. It's okay. I'm not going to come down on you with that because we've all been fooled at some point for one thing or another. So I'm not going to, it's not productive to just keep giving you that while you should have known, ⁓ this is what you voted for it to a degree. Yeah, it is. But it's not something that if you, if you get it in my book, that's good enough for me. You get it now you're trying to move because that's the only way we can get out of this. Not the only one. I'm sorry. That's probably the easiest and fastest way we get out of this is the ones who voted this way realizing it. and turning around. In any case, that's the ones who are largely, know, largely contributed to the issue. That's the ones, you know, if they decide they realized that was wrong, they were wrong for it. That's the best way to get out of it. So when it comes to that, especially understanding them a Democrat, I make that clear up front. Not the first thing I say, but I don't want them to believe one thing or another, you know, something different than was there. And that's when You know, we'll have and maybe they don't decide to go my way. They may say, OK, cool. Thanks for letting me know that. Have a good day. And that's it. And we don't know. I mean, they may go home and decide, you know what? This guy is OK. Maybe I'll listen to him a few more times. Maybe I'll give him a little bit more. Who knows? But we had a good conversation at least. So ⁓ it just again, it just depends. But often I find out pretty quickly to answer that. ⁓ As far as what the response, what that immediate response is, I found out pretty quickly based on how they come at me. And if it's a, I'm a conservative, but I like to hear what you have to say as opposed to immediately going into, what about this? Well, what happened to this? Or if Obama's name comes up, which come on 10 years ago, he was in office. So if that starts, it's like, okay, I'm probably, I may try one or two questions with this one, but I'm probably not going to get too far. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. For the last 80 years, this country has been at the head of the table when it's come to our foreign policies, ⁓ trade deals, et cetera, et cetera. We're obviously one of the wealthiest countries in the world, if not the wealthiest country. In the last year, this president has destroyed that, ⁓ whether you're talking Robert People: In Breaking The Meta: the tariffs and the trade deals that have been destroyed ⁓ with allies, Venezuela, Greenland, pulling out of the WHO, the World Health Organization, ⁓ threatening to leave NATO, et cetera, et cetera. We could probably spend an entire podcast talking about all the things he's done to endanger us at the world stage alone. Regardless of what this administration and its supporters think, our place at the table has been changed. Robert People: Yeah. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: There is a lack of trust by countries that used to be considered some of our strongest allies. So my question is, how do you see our place going forward in regards to foreign policies and our allies, et cetera? Robert People: Well, the start would be impeaching, convicting, and removing this administration. Our allies are not going to feel comfortable with us as long as this administration is in place. And there needs to be swift action as far as getting them out of there. And I'm talking from top to bottom. We have to do that to start with. We can't get in place. And even if we flip, let's say we flip the house, that's the least, that's the, you know, the smallest part of it is flipping the house. Even if we don't flip the center, do anything else, they still will need to see, okay, well, what does this mean as far as the administration goes? And, you know, the more we, we have to make sure we are conveying that message that we're not, we're not accept, we're not, this is not acceptable. how you've been treated, how we've come at you. This is not what we are about. This is not what we ⁓ want to let you know of. So we want to make sure they get, you we need that trust back from our allies, especially because when you're going after our allies to who do we hate, you're going after our, it's one thing to go after our enemies, which ironically we're actually not because you've seen how we've seen how this administration has treated, you know, North Korea, Russia, right? Our adversaries. So when you're going after our allies, why you are also gutting the military, talking about, you kicking out transgender soldiers and finding ways to really, you know, get rid of other, you know, all our, these great leaders who have served for 30, in some cases, 40 years, you're also, yeah, yeah. And you're talking about women. Yeah, especially women, other marginalized communities. When you are doing all that, in addition to, Breaking The Meta: Women even. Robert People: losing trust with our allies, how are we, you're weakening our military. How do we, know, how, how can we win that way? How can we still feel like we're a strong military and we will serve our allies best? So that has to happen. can't, if this country for a lot of people feels like it's on fire right now. And I'm not, I don't feel that's an exaggeration. is. And we can't say, Hey, the house is on fire, but let's go over here and wash the dishes. Well, that's not going to make any sense because it's like, what good is this is going to be if the house burns down? We got to make sure we put this fire out. So for our allies to feel comfortable, that's the reassurance I want to give them is I want to do my part and hopefully get support from other members of Congress that we get rid of this administration. doesn't have to, we have to look at also what's going on too, Mike, because, you know, this isn't about left and right. We see the people who are being attacked. We see the people who this administration is coming down on, and it's not just Democrats. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, after this, the president just posted on his true social last night, it was taken down recently, obviously, but Republicans are starting to kind of speak up against that. And we see the wrath that comes back on them when this happens. So it's not just us being attacked on this, understanding that, we can be ideally on opposite sides of other issues, but let's look at what's going on here. There's a clear, there's, it's clear that there's no concern on which side you're on. If you're against it, if you buck him in any way, you're against him. You're his enemy now. So that's what we have to, in order to help our allies feel more comfortable, we have to make sure we are coming together to say, Hey, we see what's happening. We can go back to our battle stations later on, but this is a common enemy at this point right now. And we need to go with him. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Is it even a larger thing? And I only say that because ⁓ if you look at, say, Canada, who we had a trade agreement with, and that this current president was a part of negotiating in his first term, and he tried to get rid of it, or the trade agreements we've had with the EU that Robert People: to get our allies back on track. Mm. Yeah. Breaking The Meta: He got rid of basically with the tariffs and then created a new trade agreement. And then when the EU wasn't saying what he wanted to about him taking Greenland, he threatened to put more tariffs on. The reason I say that is there is a supreme lack of trust. And I think the trust is farther than that in the sense of, let's say, 2028 comes around and we get a Democratic president who's to say in 2032 when we get a Republican president that everything that the Democrat Robert People: So. Breaking The Meta: Democratic president and the Democrats did in office won't get flipped with a switch. for me, I think the problem is systemic is how do we give them a long-term trust? if a trade agreement can't make it past the next president, then what's the point of the trade agreement in the first place? Robert People: Okay. ⁓ okay. Breaking The Meta: So, yeah. Robert People: Makes sense. That makes sense. No, I say what you mean something more long term and I and I and I agree. Yeah, if it's something that and we've seen it matter of fact in recent administrations from we can go back to let see when did this really start after Obama. I guess what we can say is yeah, as soon as one's out, then everything is undone. And yeah, they want to feel more. And when it comes to trust, yeah, trust is not easy to earn. That's a point because yeah, once you, when you're trying to earn it back, takes you a long time to get it back. So yeah, a democratic president is not going to be enough. So I would say in that case to add to, you know, one other, one other part of my platform. One thing I would like to definitely explore is a bipartisan or I would say let's say nonpartisan independent agency that adds to, you know, give support and adds to holding. this administration, any administration accountable to basically where the idea is number one, that these, members of this agency are not tied to one democratic party to where basically the administration can do whatever they want. And the people who voted for them are the ones who supposed to, like the way we have it now where the ones who voted for him or whoever's in the administration to decide whether they should be held accountable for it. That makes no sense because If you're going to do that, of course they're going to say, well, hey, we vote that he stays in whatever he or she stays in. We don't want that. need someone to say that if you just like, we're just like with anything, if you check these boxes, any of these boxes, you should be removed from office. Just that simple. ⁓ and we're not, and we've seen what this administration is doing. Latent violations of the constitution, blatant disregard for Supreme court orders, federal court orders. When those things happen, those would be examples of what I would consider to be those boxes that are checked to say, hey, this is how it's supposed to go. You're not doing it this way. Like with any other job, you get fired. And I know that there's a, there's a tie to the pushback on that could be what people say. Well, wait a minute. We elect, this isn't like a regular job. We elected these individuals. Well, there has to, in order to hold really any, any person any ⁓ position accountable, there needs to be a feeling that that person cannot just, they're not just, you know, free to do whatever they choose. So there has to be that feeling, okay, well, if you want to preserve as, know, especially us as voters, if you want to preserve your selection and if they want you to feel, you know, they want to feel like they're doing the best job for you, well, they need to feel that, hey, if you do A, B, and C, It doesn't matter if the people elected you because you're already going against what you told them. You're already going against what you promised to do. You're going against what the office, you know, the ethics and so forth of the office. So you don't deserve that seat anymore. So to answer that question. more of us for more of us with more of a summary. ⁓ It would something other than what we're seeing now, because yeah, the trust as far as whether anybody would be held accountable is gone. So there needs to be someone else to step in and say, we're not going to have discussions of this. You do this, you're out. And it's going to, you know, of course it's going to take a little bit, but that will hopefully give a sense. If nothing else, it may give our allies a sense of that. We're serious about what we're doing, but also give the people in these positions that wait a minute. being in Congress doesn't mean I can do whatever now. I gotta kind of, you know, the line a little bit or else I can be removed. don't, I'm not safe until the next election, basically. So that's where I want to go with that. ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do a little future casting. So get through the primaries, get through general election. Robert People has voted wins, wins the election. January 2nd comes around. You get sworn in. What's the first thing you do? Robert People: Okay. Woo. I would have to... I definitely want to have some discussions with fellow Democrats as far as who else has gotten into office, who's there already. Obviously, if Hakeem Jeffries is still in place, I'd like to obviously speak with him. Get a good lay. What's the word? I can't remember the expression. Get a lay of the field of the lay of the land or yeah, get an idea of where because of course I you know, I want to go in and just do everything but I want to understand where things are to understand where I need if I need to push back if I need to maintain here or there ⁓ also those who because a lot of us are ⁓ Together, you know a lot of us candidates throughout the country. We're kind of working together We have some of the same goals some of the same ideas in mind. I'm going to speak to them as well Breaking The Meta: Lay of the land. Robert People: see which of us got in and start there to get an understanding of where we can proceed, where the hurdles may be. There may be some areas we may want to propose that may already be in place. Like for example, minimum wage is something I want to go after and improve on. And I understand that Bernie Sanders in 2023 already put something out there ⁓ or already has a bill, but it's in the... ⁓ The next step, the step past introductory phase, it's in the committee, think. Yeah. And I don't believe it's gone further than that. So something like for something like that, put it back on the table. Let's why is that sitting in committee? When are we going to bring that to the table? People are way overdue for an increase in minimum wage. So to support things like that and know that I don't need to propose something different on top of that ⁓ would be something I'd want to do. So going through, you know, going through those steps and so forth. Now, once we get to that stage where Breaking The Meta: committee. Robert People: that's been established, then it's going after the administration, impeaching, convicting, removing. Breaking The Meta: For the people that have listened this far and heard everything that we've talked about, ⁓ what are one or two things that no matter what, that you hope that they come away with about you and about your campaign? Robert People: Well, number one, I want people to understand that I get who I work for. We have not shown that. And I'm saying we because I'm speaking, I'm manifesting being in office already. have not, ⁓ one of the biggest issues I hear is that people feel their representatives aren't there for them, especially Laura Lee, who's in this seat right now. And that's not if our main job is to be representatives. We exist because of the people. You know, they can exist without us. We can't exist without them. So there's no reason that representatives are not showing up to town halls, not answering, ⁓ you know, messages, things like that. Yes, people are busy. Obviously makes sense. You know, I'm not, I would never hold miss Lee accountable for that, but, ⁓ well, I that against her, but the responses that come back show that she's just for this administration. She's not caring about. you know, the people, what their concerns are, especially when you're talking about, again, we go to social security, the amount of seniors we have in this, ⁓ in the district, when we have, you know, the issues with, you know, public education, things like that. So that would be, I would love for them to understand that not only am I present in words, but in actions, I'm around the dish, I'm around the district and each county is off as much as I can be anywhere as possible. And it's encouraging to see the same, you know, some of the same faces because then they see, Hey, This guy's been here more, you know, multiple times. You know, he's for real about this and that's what we have to do. This isn't for show. There's a lot. This district is huge. So this definitely is not for show. ⁓ but that's, that's what I want them to understand. You want to feel like I'm one of you. It's not, you know, me running should not, I shouldn't look so different or you have a feel that I'm so different or so far away that you can't reach out and touch me if need be. That's what I want them to feel is I'm there. When you get tired of seeing me, then it's like, OK, all right, he's here. So OK, that's the idea, because I work for you. And I would say the second thing would be accountability. A lot of the problems we're faced, we see right now would be fixed with accountability. And there's a sense from a lot of candidates who will come to the, basically walk to the edge about regarding accountability. let's throw taxing the rich, billionaires, not taking money from corporate tax, from other corporations and so forth. They'll come to the edge, but they'll be particular about what they say because they know, hey, all I'm doing is once I get the support, I'm going to do it anyway. But they're kind of like, and what I would like for them to understand is for accountability, that means we have to do differently than that. We have to make sure we're We're unafraid of going against those who may look better, for example. Laura Lee has, she's obviously raised the most money out of all of us who are in this race, but not being afraid to still want to hold her accountable for being complicit to what this administration is doing. Right now she is a rubber stamp, a bullhorn for the Trump administration and the DeSantis administration, the governor of this state. working for him. Breaking The Meta: Mm. Robert People: Yeah, we kind of get it, but he's harmful too. He's corrupted. It feels like there's another story coming out every day where he's stolen money from the state for whatever reason. So when there's that going on, not being afraid, hey, well, you can't speak because she has money. I'm going to speak and I'm going to hold her feet to the fire and saying, you have to justify this. She was a judge. She was a lawyer in this state. that's, you it's unacceptable for anyone, but you expect even more from someone who really has a lot of lives in her hands. as far as the decision she's made. So that's what I would love people to understand is ⁓ presence and accountability. If you're talking two things. Breaking The Meta: If someone wants to learn more about you or support you in any way, where can they find you? Robert People: someone wants to My website is peopleforcongress.com, easy to remember. And people is my birth name. So that is actually my, ⁓ that's my real name. That's peopleforcongress.com. You have, if you would like to volunteer, definitely please do so. There's buttons to volunteer at the top. There's several buttons at the top that you can take a look at. And for donations, you know, I appreciate any donations you can give. People are struggling at the moment. So. Breaking The Meta: There you go. Robert People: I understand if you can't do that as well. I don't want to you know make this an entirely, you know, we have to raise money obviously, but you know understand too that money doesn't vote people do and I want to make sure you know if you if you're able and people have been generous people that there have been some generous donors and I definitely appreciate you all but please don't feel that that's the only way you can make a difference or that you should feel guilty because you can't because there's all kinds of ways you can help you can even You know, my social media, Robert People for Congress, you can see that that's across all my sites. Sharing my posts, those work too. But on top of it, you know, as far as, let me see, donations, website, I think that's it, yeah. And social sites. So there's a lot of ways to get involved. And, you know, we want to make sure that everyone feels, again, connected. If you don't feel connected with me here, you're not going to feel it when I'm in Washington. Breaking The Meta: Yep. Absolutely. ⁓ Robert, thank you so much for spending some time with us. Let us get to know you. I appreciate it very much. Robert People: those will be the start. All right. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate it. Breaking The Meta: Yeah, just so everyone who is new or doesn't know anything about this podcast, first off, thank you for listening this far. I appreciate it. Please hit all the likes and shares and everything down below. Helps makes possible for me to do what I'm doing. This podcast is all about having hard conversations when necessary, breaking the status quo and fighting for the idea that all people, no matter your race, religion, gender or identity, deserve rights, respect, dignity and safety. Robert People: So. Breaking The Meta: So one thing you can do that also helps, so the reason that I'm doing this whole thing here is to give visibility to people that want to do these things that Robert talked about and all these progressives are talking about, getting visibility, having name recognition. Those are the kind of things that are harder for people that don't raise millions of dollars from places like PACs and corporate donations and stuff like that. if you've listened this far, thank you. Please interact with it. share it with people, especially if they're in Florida and in the 15th district, but sharing just broadly also helps too, because the more views this video gets, the more chance that people in Robert's district will get to hear about it and will get to see him and understand what he stands for. And that goes with everybody that we're interviewing. So please help out how you can. Obviously every little bit helps. So ⁓ Robert, again, thank you so much for being here and for everyone else, we'll see you next time on Breaking the Meta. Bye guys. Robert People: .