Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Defending Consumers

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Defending Consumers · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We are joined by our good friend. He comes in
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: monthly when we're not in legislative session, weekly when we're
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: in session. Salnuzo, Executive director of Consumers Defense. The website
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Consumers Defense dot com.
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  Speaker 2: How are you. I'm doing great. How are you, sir?
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: You you look like you got slits for eyes?
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  Speaker 3: Oh man, well, part busy, busy. I've been on the
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  Speaker 3: road for about I think going on four straight weeks.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: I'm on the road a little bit this week and
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  Speaker 3: then all of next and then get a bit of
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  Speaker 3: a break. But actually the slits for the eyes were
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  Speaker 3: I was clear, and some property, some brush from the
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  Speaker 3: property got stung right in the eyelid. No, so you
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  Speaker 3: should have seen it yesterday.
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  Speaker 1: Let's say, because we're in this kind of odd season,
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  Speaker 1: we'll get ramped up committee weeks and all that come fall.
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  Speaker 1: But let's talk a little bit about Consumers Defense and
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  Speaker 1: some of the things that you focus on that intersects
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  Speaker 1: with Florida but also goes well beyond and spreads nationally.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so there are a number of different policy
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  Speaker 3: buckets that we work in. If you're familiar with our
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  Speaker 3: organization and our nonprofit C three side Consumers Research the mission.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: The last several years has really been combating ESG. And
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: what we have been led to believe in the public
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  Speaker 3: is that as Trump came into his second term, we
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  Speaker 3: had a number of executive orders that were issued combating it.
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  Speaker 3: There has been a lot of a lot of headway
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  Speaker 3: made and state legislatures around the country, led by Florida
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  Speaker 3: and Texas to combat it. There has been this kind
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: of narrative that well, ESG is kind of dead. The
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: left have abandoned it. You saw a lot of articles
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: and announcements from groups like the big asset managers and
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: the large banks that they were either scaling back or
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: abandoning a lot of the climate action.
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  Speaker 2: And zero groups.
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  Speaker 3: And that is put by and large, a lot of
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  Speaker 3: the less savvy public or the folks who just don't
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  Speaker 3: pay attention to it for a living into a place
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  Speaker 3: where it could they could be complacent. And what we're
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  Speaker 3: seeing is that over the last couple of years, mainly
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  Speaker 3: in the last three, is we've gained headway the left.
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  Speaker 3: They are savvy operators. They're not going away, they're not
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  Speaker 3: admitting defeat, they're not kind of repenting of their sensory
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  Speaker 3: They're pivoting they're changing tactic, and what we're seeing is
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  Speaker 3: an end run at the judicial arena. So climate litigation
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  Speaker 3: and climate lawsuits are now a thing that we're having
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  Speaker 3: pop up more and more and more.
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  Speaker 1: How does this intersect then with the judicial activism in
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  Speaker 1: court shopping and how does that then get handled? When
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  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said courts can rule for their district
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  Speaker 1: but not beyond, we've not seen that stop judges yet.
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  Speaker 3: No, and that is a very important piece of this,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: because they have shifted into state courts trying to do
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  Speaker 3: exactly what the Supreme Court said you can't do in
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  Speaker 3: federal courts. So there's a whole lot of machinations between
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: state court jurisdiction and federal court jurisdictions. So over the
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  Speaker 3: last I think it's four years, we've seen about thirty
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  Speaker 3: or so states, localities, and tribes suing a lot of
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  Speaker 3: times the energy producers for the damages that they claim
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  Speaker 3: are being inflicted because of oil development and production, and
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  Speaker 3: they're seeking they're seeking one victory. We have to win
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  Speaker 3: in every single instance of these. The Left has to
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  Speaker 3: win one.
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  Speaker 1: And so boy, it's funny that mirrors the way they
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  Speaker 1: talk about terrorism exactly. No, really, that's exactly the terminology used.
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  Speaker 3: So you have, in the case of like the City
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  Speaker 3: of Charleston, South Carolina, red state, but a blue jurisdiction
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  Speaker 3: going after energy producers for causing climate change by drilling
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  Speaker 3: for oil. Luckily that one was tossed. City of Baltimore,
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  Speaker 3: same deal, went after a whole group of energy producers,
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  Speaker 3: gets tossed. But I'm going to introduce you to a
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  Speaker 3: small parish in Louisiana called Plaquemin Parish, Louisiana. It's a county,
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  Speaker 3: and they sued Chevron and its prior company, Iteration for
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  Speaker 3: damages to the coastland. But the damages were inflicted in
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  Speaker 3: the nineteen forties because the federal government, under the Defense
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  Speaker 3: Production Act, instructed them to get some oil for tanks
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  Speaker 3: and planes and jeeps and everything. A jury awarded Plaquemin
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  Speaker 3: Parish seven hundred and forty million dollars for the damages
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  Speaker 3: inflicted eighty years ago, thankfully, and this is why presidential
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  Speaker 3: elections matter. The Supreme Court remanded it back to the
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  Speaker 3: Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. But to my point in yours,
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  Speaker 3: we've got to win every time, because all they need
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  Speaker 3: is one of these to stand and the floodgates will open.
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  Speaker 1: Talking with sal Newso of consumer's defense and areas of concern,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, these really are areas of concern, but they
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  Speaker 1: are areas of policy focus for you.
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  Speaker 2: Sure.
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  Speaker 3: And before we jump into another topic, I do want
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  Speaker 3: to make one final point on the whole litigation piece,
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  Speaker 3: and it relates back to the fact that I mentioned
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  Speaker 3: a case in South Carolina. South Carolina is a deep
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  Speaker 3: red state generally speaking, not maybe maybe not as deep
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  Speaker 3: bread as Florida, but that climate litigation occurred by a
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  Speaker 3: local blue jurisdiction, the city of Charleston. The same would
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  Speaker 3: hold in the state of Florida if one one of
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  Speaker 3: those Domino's falls. I want our listeners to think about
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  Speaker 3: the city of Tallahassee with a deeply left city commission
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  Speaker 3: considering jumping onto one of those litigation efforts in the
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  Speaker 3: near future, and what it might portend for gas prices
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  Speaker 3: at the pump and everything else that happens. Does the
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  Speaker 3: red blue thing play out with the fiscal oversight component here, because,
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  Speaker 3: for example, we've seen in Florida Blaze and Goalie has
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  Speaker 3: been on the program multiple times pointing out red counties
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  Speaker 3: and blue counties. They're all just spending like crazy.
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  Speaker 2: He is spot on.
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  Speaker 3: I would contend, and I do work with state financial
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  Speaker 3: officers from around the country. Blaze is arguably the single
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  Speaker 3: best chief financial officer in any state in the United States.
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  Speaker 3: With that being said, oh, just the daw nature with
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  Speaker 3: which he goes to your point, after any jurisdiction that
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  Speaker 3: is wasting taxpayer dollars, he does not care if it's red, blue, purple, whatever.
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  Speaker 3: And that is really the tale of not necessarily conservative
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  Speaker 3: jurisdiction or Republican jurisdictions versus Democrat jurisdictions. It's really this
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  Speaker 3: tale of fiscally principled jurisdictions versus unprincipled, fiscally fiscally unprincipled jurisdictions,
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  Speaker 3: and in Florida we have a lot of the latter.
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  Speaker 3: And regardless of how Amendment three washes out, I think
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  Speaker 3: there is a window of opportunity that our new legislature,
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  Speaker 3: our new governor, whoever he might be, would have to
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  Speaker 3: really begin the process by which not just we cut
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: property taxes, but really how should local governments be raising
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  Speaker 3: revenue and what is their overall mission and how do
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  Speaker 3: they fund those essential services?
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  Speaker 1: It sort of goes back to the classic question what
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  Speaker 1: is the purpose of government exactly?
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  Speaker 3: So look at I don't know if it's Leon County
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  Speaker 3: or the City of Tallahassee, and that shows you how
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  Speaker 3: opaque it is. But the fire services fee, we would state,
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  Speaker 3: and just about any reasonable person would state, one of
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  Speaker 3: the main missions of a local government should be to
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  Speaker 3: protect its citizens fire services. Among that are fire services
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  Speaker 3: in the general revenue portion. No, they put some additional
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  Speaker 3: fee on there because many years ago they decided they
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  Speaker 3: didn't want to raise a tax rate or a millage rate,
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  Speaker 3: and so they were just going to shift and play
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  Speaker 3: a shell game with government or taxpayer dollars. And this
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  Speaker 3: is part parcel the problem that we are seeing across
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  Speaker 3: the board.
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  Speaker 2: Can things like that be fixed with the legislative measure?
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  Speaker 3: It starts there. It starts with efforts that folks like
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  Speaker 3: Blazer doing along with legislatively put on the ballot amendments
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  Speaker 3: things that I think the legislature through their policy analysis
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  Speaker 3: divisions can be articulating and shining a light on. But
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  Speaker 3: the conversation has begun in Florida. And like I said,
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  Speaker 3: regardless of how Amendment three goes, I want to maintain
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  Speaker 3: a glimmer of hope there.
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  Speaker 1: Back with Salnuzo Consumers Defense. You and I talked before
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  Speaker 1: we even started the show this morning about some legislative
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  Speaker 1: chess being played as it relates to mineral rights and
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  Speaker 1: kind of the lay of the land. First explain the
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  Speaker 1: importance of mineral rights to consumers defense.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is this is one where I'm glad
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  Speaker 3: I have an opportunity to kind of kind of unpack
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  Speaker 3: this because it is probably one of the issues that
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  Speaker 3: folks are paying the least amount of attention to over
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  Speaker 3: the last ten and some would argue thirty years, and
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  Speaker 3: yet is probably the most significant issue globally and from
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  Speaker 3: a geopolitical standpoint issue that we are facing in the
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  Speaker 3: United States. Why because every single thing we use every
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  Speaker 3: single day, from the phone and computer right in front
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  Speaker 3: of me right now to the microphones that we're using
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  Speaker 3: in everything require rare earth minerals. And what those are
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  Speaker 3: are lithium, cobalt, nickel, all of these things that have
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  Speaker 3: to be mind that then go into the functional component
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  Speaker 3: parts of just about everything. And as I'm going to
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  Speaker 3: give you a statistic and then show you why it's
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  Speaker 3: so scary, an F thirty five the Fighter Jet thirty
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  Speaker 3: five requires seven hundred and twenty pounds of rare earth minerals.
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  Speaker 3: So where those minerals come from matters. And over the
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  Speaker 3: last thirty years, the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, the
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  Speaker 3: state apparatus has been on a journey of acquiring global
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  Speaker 3: mineral rights around the world to be able to control
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  Speaker 3: that market and ultimately control the fates of the economies
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  Speaker 3: of major global powers. The US has been just sidetracked,
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  Speaker 3: and now we are in a catchup mode. And the challenger,
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  Speaker 3: or the concern is, we have access to these minerals
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  Speaker 3: right here domestically, but notably in the Obama and then
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  Speaker 3: in the Biden administration, they closed off rights and basically
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  Speaker 3: gave way to the Green New Deal folks and the
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  Speaker 3: agenda of we cannot, you know, destroy any lands. And
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  Speaker 3: because the United States government, through the Bureau of Land Management,
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  Speaker 3: owns so much of that land, those are that's a
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  Speaker 3: challenge from a policy framework, and China can, for lack
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  Speaker 3: of a better way of putting it, just play the
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  Speaker 3: waiting game. To whatever extent we acquire rare earth minerals,
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  Speaker 3: we don't acquire them at a level to offset their
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  Speaker 3: cornering of the rest of the market. And there is
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  Speaker 3: a book called Unrestricted Warfare, and it was written by
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  Speaker 3: two Chinese generals in the nineties and they mapped out
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  Speaker 3: this strategy. Now, remember the United States is two hundred
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  Speaker 3: and fifty years old and the China, China is thousands
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  Speaker 3: of years old. They have no problem waiting out and
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  Speaker 3: playing the long game, where while we're stuck doing kind
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  Speaker 3: of this day to day management of our growth. And
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  Speaker 3: to that point, there is a week, I believe it
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  Speaker 3: was in twenty twenty three. I have two articles from
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  Speaker 3: major publications and it's I call it a one billion
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  Speaker 3: dollar lesson in priorities. The Chinese state government invested one
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  Speaker 3: billion dollars in a mineral mine in Brazil. In the
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  Speaker 3: same week, I think it was a day or two
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  Speaker 3: later in article, the Biden administration announced investing one billion
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  Speaker 3: dollars in dei in the US Department of Education. And
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  Speaker 3: I would argue the former is the more important of
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  Speaker 3: those two and one we should be doing a whole
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  Speaker 3: lot more of one was playing chess and the other
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  Speaker 3: was playing a board game like operation.
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  Speaker 2: Getting stung on the sides.
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  Speaker 3: I'm glad you didn't even say checkers, because it's not
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  Speaker 3: even checkers, that's what I mean, just a regular playing
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  Speaker 3: fits or something. So there are legislative policy initiatives that
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  Speaker 3: you know, states like Florida would be ripe to take
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  Speaker 3: on in order to begin pushing back against this. And
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  Speaker 3: so in rights states there are we push a bill
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  Speaker 3: called a piece of legislation called the Energy Freedom Act,
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  Speaker 3: which is also combating the litigation part that I mentioned
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  Speaker 3: in the first segment. But another fun one is there's
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  Speaker 3: a piece of legislation on our site called the Electric
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  Speaker 3: Vehicle Act, and it would state that the state is
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  Speaker 3: prohibited from purchasing any electric vehicle that cannot guarantee that
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  Speaker 3: the supply chain is free of child slave slave labor.
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  Speaker 3: Because if you think about it, China's acquiring these mines
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  Speaker 3: in Africa, in South America, and in Asia, and it
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  Speaker 3: is well documented that they are using child slave labor
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  Speaker 3: to acquire and extract these minerals. So if the state
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  Speaker 3: is going to use taxpayer dollars to purchase an electric vehicle,
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  Speaker 3: they should guarantee that that entire supply chain isn't using
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  Speaker 3: an eight year old child slave in the Congo to
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  Speaker 3: get the lithium ount for the battery.
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  Speaker 2: Still got to find other sources though, of we're earth minerals.
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  Speaker 3: We have them right here in the continental United States.
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  Speaker 3: All we need is the environmental the abundance we need,
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  Speaker 3: absolutely in the abundance we need. Wyoming has them, parts
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  Speaker 3: of Montana have them. Idaho and Utah the challenges. A
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: lot of that land is owned by the federal government,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: the Bureau of Land Management, and those states. I've been
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: working on projects in those states to try and get
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: those lands turned back over to state controls so that
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: those processes can then be put in a faster mode.
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  Speaker 3: Before we get to talking about the primary, which is
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: tomorrow and all of the different wrinkles to it, I
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  Speaker 3: want to just remind all of you in the capital
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  Speaker 3: city you have to vote. If you're a city a
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: city resident, you cannot sit out the primary because it
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: is absolutely possible for disaster to happen and for a
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: socialist lover to get into the mayor's office. And trust me,
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  Speaker 3: the voters, those that follow these people are gonna go vote.
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  Speaker 3: They they are gonna vote the socialist sick of fans.
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  Speaker 3: They pick areas and they pick races where they're suppressed.
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  Speaker 3: Voter turnout, and they count on suppressed voter turnout. You've
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: got to vote. And to that point, one of the
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: quirks of Tallahassee, the city in particular, as you have
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: pointed out and others have pointed out over the years,
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  Speaker 3: is that we do not have any member districts. Everything
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: is at large and so you're not just voting on
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: one specific city commissioner. You're voting on the mayor and
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: every other commissioner that's up for re election. So it's
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: super important.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to change that. We also need to
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  Speaker 1: change the legislature. Sell needs to change it so that
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  Speaker 1: no race can be settled in a primary period.
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  Speaker 3: I'd love to figure out what the legislation, native or
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: policy fix might be to that. I know that there's
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of quirks between things like what is a
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: charter city versus another type of city and how they
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: all function constitutionally under Florida's constitution, but it's one I
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: would love to be able to have some time to
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: do a deep dive in research. How that way, when
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: you look at voter turnout between primary in general in
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: any election cycle, whether it's presidential or not, the difference
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: is so dramatic. There is no way that fifteen thousand
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: citizens out of say all one hundred and fifty or
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: two hundred thousand should settle a race. And we have
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: highlighted an issue in another state where it was a
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: bond referendum that they purposely put on a local primary
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: election ballot and the vote was nine to one, not
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: ninety percent to ten percent. It was nine votes to
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  Speaker 3: one vote on a bond referendum that impacted thousands of people.
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  Speaker 3: And so it is super important.
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  Speaker 1: Before we'll talk talk about the governor's race in the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: next segment, but let's talk about some of the congressional
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: races that are worth noting. Obviously, District two here in
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  Speaker 1: our area.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and by and large, it seems as though the
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: congressional district has gotten a little bit more solidly read
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: over the last maybe three or four sets, despite Leon
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: County in Gaston County and Jefferson County. Yeah, and and
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: to that point, I believe in the last election we
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: only had five counties in the state that were blue
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: in the vote tallies, and two of them are here,
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  Speaker 3: Leon and Gadsden County, and no Jefferson went red. Interesting, Okay,
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  Speaker 3: And so You've got the district and the vast majority
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: of the red part of it is west of here.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: And so while you might not be seeing a whole
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: lot of action or activity from the Republican candidates for
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: the congressional district here, there is a whole lot more
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: out there. And so in that race, you've got my prediction,
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: and this is solely based on what I'm seeing and
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: reading and polls and activity. My guess is I think
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Austin Rodgers is going to pull it out. It's not
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: because he gets a majority of fifty plus one percent. No,
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: no one's going to get that. No one's going to
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: get that. But because we don't have runoffs, you could
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: win that race conceivably with twenty to thirty percent of
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: the vote.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: What about other races in the state that have your attention?
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: A few that have my attention. The primary in Corey
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: Mills District. Ryan Elijah has surged on some of the
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: baggage that Corey Mills has and I think he may
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: actually pull that out Ryan Elijah in that congressional district.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: The other one to pay attention to is a really
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: quirky one down in southwest Florida Byron Donald's old congressional district.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: The majority deep read the majority of the candidates that
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: actually run for office in other states and are now
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: duking it out. And last week the President endorsed one
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: of the lower ranked in the polls candidates, Catalina Loft,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: And that's raising some eyebrows because the front runner, the
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: two of them were blindsided by that. And I was
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: actually down there. I moderated a debate for another district
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: down there. A lot of fun, but that one has
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: my kind of antenna up. Next month, the visit's gonna
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: be very different because the primaries will be in the
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: rearview mirror and we're gonna be edging closer to committee weeks,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: and so the conversations will be will be slightly different.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: I gotta say this is this has been one of
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: the most fun hours we've done in a while ever,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: not I don't know about ever. We say ever, we
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: have had a lot of fun over the years. This
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: one's been a lot of fun simply because you know,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: it's just kind of wax and philosophical all lot.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: But those conversations were over lunch. This is true.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: We've basically taken some of our lunch conversations and just
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: put them on the air.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Governor's race. Governor's race David Jolly and Gwen Graham. I'm
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: shocked at the polling that shows David Jolly getting any
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: measure of Republican support. Well, is it because there are
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: just Republicans that are ridiculously foolish?
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: He's alone.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: He is attempting in the early stages to define himself
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: against the challenges that Florida is facing as a state,
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: not necessarily against the person responsible yet, because I still
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: argue that our governor is one of the most popular
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: politicians statewide that Florida has ever had and still is.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: David Jolly is trying to position himself against some of
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: the problems or issues that the status faces, a victim
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: of its own success. The affordability issues, well, yeah, we're
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: going to have supply and demand issues. When Florida's might
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: gration comes in at two million people over a period
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: of five years, why because we were the free and
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: are the free state of Florida. Millions of people came in.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Local governments in particular, weren't adept enough to handle the influx.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Prices have gone up the Biden administration and Biden inflation
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: kind of wreaked havoc, and so he's doing what he can.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: So I'm not shocked. I'm a little surprised at the
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: degree to which he's gotten traction. But that's gonna be politics.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: What about the GOP primary? Is it really even a
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: primary with and I'm gonna preface this, I have worked
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: with every with the exception of James Fishback, I have
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: worked with every single one of the three immensely over
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: my years with JMI and beyond. I have untold amounts
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: of respect for all three of them, and I think
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: any three of them, any of the three, would make
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: a far better governor than David Jolly ever would. With
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: that being said, I think it is going to be
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: an early night for Byron Donalds.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's done what you said he was going to do,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: which I've used the term ropidope. Anyone that remembers the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: days of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman know that Muhammad
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Ali just curled up, let George Foreman punch himself out.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: And there was no reason for Byron Donalds to campaign.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: He had Trump's endorsement.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: And I will attack this from a different angle, and
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: that angle being historically Florida has not had either Speakers
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: of the House or lieutenant governors with successful gubernatorial runs
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: post their time. And so Paul Renner, I mean this
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: happened back with Richard Corkran and others. Paul Renner came
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: in inside the bubble. Paul Renner was immensely popular. He
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: is a wonderful guy. He is a combat veteran. He's
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: one of the very few people that would get me
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: to go to work in state government if he had
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: ever asked me, and not that anybody's asking me. But
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: he never really got above that five six seven percent.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Jay Collins, he struggled because the governor was in a
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: bit of a pinch in terms of whether or not
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: he felt comfortable endorsing. And then what that said about
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: the lieutenant governor's campaign. You know, like I said, they
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: are all magnificent public servants. We are blessed in Florida
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: to have these three guys as the as the choice
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: for the Republican nominee. But I think I think this
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: primary race is going to get called fairly early.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Thanks for coming in. Always a pleasure to be with you.