Inside Florida’s Political Firestorm with Nikki Fried

[SPEAKER_01]: today on misunderstood with Rachel, you could tell.
[SPEAKER_01]: Early a dozen protesters were arrested outside of Tallahassee City Hall, including Florida Democrat leaders, Nicki Freed and State Senator Warren Book.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are arrested, protesting the six week abortion ban.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened there?
[SPEAKER_00]: The intent was to sleep outside and tense and sleeping bags.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are seeing, you know, SWAT teams, you got maybe thirty women.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, we're not talking about mobs here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that you've clashed publicly with Ron DeSantis.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is something people would not believe about your political battles behind the scenes?
[SPEAKER_00]: We joined forces on environmental issues, so really tried to prevent what was inevitably the breakdown of our relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your thoughts on Elon Musk and his push for a new American political party?
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a problem with the party system.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most Americans think the party system instruction is broken.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't just agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to talk about alligator alcatraz.
[SPEAKER_01]: Clare five for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: This just doesn't open.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the worst grift and corruption that we have seen actually in the state of Florida.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to Misunderstood.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Rachel, you could tell.
[SPEAKER_01]: What happens when you are the lone voice of opposition in a room full of power?
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're the only one standing on principle in a state that feels like it's slipping further away from the people who need help the most.
[SPEAKER_01]: Today's guest knows exactly what that feels like.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nikki Fried has made a career out of showing up where she's not supposed to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: First is a young public defender fighting for the forgotten, and then its floor does only statewide elected Democrat, and now as chair of a party, many have written off as dead in a state run by some of the most extreme conservative policies in the country.
[SPEAKER_01]: But she's not going anywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, she's doubling down.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's been called radical, loud, difficult, unorthodox, and yet what she really is is relentless.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's shown up in places most politicians wouldn't dare.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's protested in the streets, challenged power from the inside and built platforms for women who refuse to be silenced.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's even turned one of the least sexy sounding jobs in politics, agriculture commissioner, into a launching pad for progress, from marijuana reform to gun safety to clean water.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this episode, we'll talk about what it means to stay in the fight when you're outnumbered, about why down ballot races matter more than people think, about alligator alcatraz.
[SPEAKER_01]: about the so-called big beautiful bill about abortion bands and why she chose not to run for governor in twenty twenty six and what she's building instead because sometimes the most dangerous thing a woman can do is tell the truth and refuse to sit down.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Nikki Fried on Miss Understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nicky, thank you so much for joining me today on Miss understood.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you doing all the way from Tallahassee?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, besides the humidity, that is outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Florida swamp.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a great day in July and we keep moving forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: So today is a good day here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm in Palm Beach, Florida as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I understand the humidity.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, listen, Florida is always in the news for its politics and the policies and the people running it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I thought it would be a great guest.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll be honest, it's been hard to get a lot of Democrats on.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do have a lot of people on the other side that
[SPEAKER_01]: Often like to come on, pitch to come on, want to come on and I don't hear from a love Democrats that want to come on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I love that I have you and I get to hear the message from you guys and your party.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's start with how you got into politics.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've had a really amazing arc of a career and I want to hear from you how you got into it because you've done so many things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how I got into politics, my, my, like, a train is a little bit, um, not straight.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you know, I got actually involved in politics first in growing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, my dad is a die-hard Republican.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom is a die-hard Democrat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, he is an attorney.
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom is a teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I kind of just fell into, into my youth group in high school, was vice president, my middle school, ran for president of my youth group.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and really always had this, just like passion inside of me into, to want to do good.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the Jewish faith, he's called it to Kunalum, to heal the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even when I was nine years old, asked my parents for my tenth birthday to take me to the White House.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's always kind of been in my DNA for some aspects.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I went to University of Florida where I was, got my undergrad, my master's, my law degree, where I was student body president, my last hearing, while in law school.
[SPEAKER_00]: and for anybody who knows the University of Florida student government, it is a very old guard, old boys network, not a lot of females student body presidents.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was actually the third elected at the University of Florida.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, old boy network that I kind of made my way through into the Florida blue key world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I always had this bug and then I kind of graduated and practiced law for traditional law for like eight years, everything from public defenders office, to corporate litigation, to foreclosure work,
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really missed the politics, the policy, the ability to move the needle on some of these issues that I saw on the private side.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I, in twenty eighteen, decided in a time when we were going through a pink wave, a blue wave, and I was very involved at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a lobbyist.
[SPEAKER_00]: but at that time in the cannabis legalization world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to go run for in twenty eighteen as commissioner of agriculture, it's not been all full full feet in and to the deep end and here I am, you know, six and a half years later.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: At was there a point when you realize people listen to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I feel like there's a lot of people that want to get into politics or like it, but it's hard to be heard in that, you know, big of a world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, when I first was in the lobbying space, and I after spending eight years in traditional law, scrub my resume and said, again, I miss politics and decided to go into government consulting and did that for roughly ten years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a lobbyist, it depends on your clients.
[SPEAKER_00]: It depends on which firm you've joined.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I found as a female was even more difficult, you know, that it was harder to get the doors open, harder to be listened to.
[SPEAKER_00]: But having that eight years of being an attorney of actually being in the courtroom of actually practicing law gave me a little bit of credibility when I want in, I understood what the issues were understood.
[SPEAKER_00]: what impact legislation would actually have on the save affairs for my client or others.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I got into a point, and then I fell into this cannabis world in twenty-fifteen, where I spent a lot of time, both from a practical experience regarding being a past public defender, so from the criminal justice perspective, representing private clients now that commercialization and economic impacts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it gave me an opportunity to really find a lane
[SPEAKER_00]: that I had credibility and that I had expertise in and was able to put together issues that people seem to gravitate towards and for me coalitions that weren't just democratic lanes for public and lanes independent lanes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is one of those last cannabis is one of those last crossover issues that is more libertarian than anything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got my lane and got my credibility from issue specific stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, most people don't know what the agricultural, agriculture commissioner actually does.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I heard that, I was like, you know, when I always hear that term or that role, what did you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Rachel, you know, when I ran in twenty eighteen that was one of the issues that I had to address more than anything else because your point people don't know especially in democratic lanes were not as much invested into agriculture.
[SPEAKER_00]: So explaining to South Florida why the Commission of Agriculture position mattered was half of the battle when I ran in twenty eighteen and then a female who had never been elected not only in Florida but the entire South
[SPEAKER_00]: how I would have been able to have been qualified for this position to begin with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so first of all, the position is Commission of Agriculture and Consumer Services is a pretty wide ranging cabinet position.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, it sounds very intimidating and very smart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm really big job.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we were the second largest cabinet outside of the governor's office.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have nineteen divisions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything from your traditional citrus, uh, to aqua culture, to farming, to fruits and vegetables, to sugar cane, um, to timber to ranchers with about forty six thousand working farms and ranchers in the state of Florida.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the other parts that really got people excited and engaged in this position was the consumer side of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was right after Parkland when having that time lived in Broward County guns and more
[SPEAKER_00]: regulations behind fire arms was hot topic issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the commission of agriculture oversaw the you can see a weapons program and so gave me again a lane to net people educated of what the commissioner just then it's all the other consumer stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is making sure that's why you see our little sticker on the gas pumps making sure that your gas is the correct, you know, level number ninety seven versus ninety three ninety four eighty seven
[SPEAKER_00]: making sure that the weights and scales at your food stores are not ripping up consumers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same thing at airports, the weights and scales.
[SPEAKER_00]: We also oversaw all the feeding programs in our state from the school programs to the summer feeding programs, all of the food banks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I created the hemp industry in the state of Florida, so that's a huge national topic right now, but after the twenty-eighteen farm bill passed
[SPEAKER_00]: It was signed to law in eighteen and nineteen when I first was elected.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the first piece of legislation that I pushed was for legalization of hemp and the state of Florida that we then saw.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we did everything from nonprofit organizations to truckers to, I mean, basically, if it didn't fail, fall underneath the governor's office, it was under the Commission of Agriculture.
[SPEAKER_00]: and member the cabinet and clemency board and border trustees for the state for land buying and selling pretty pretty intense position that unfortunately most of flirty and stone know what it does and never seem to care about until the twenty eighteen election.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it sounds like it holds a huge weight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, did you learn as you went along?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's not necessarily something you can study for and come up and know that that's what you want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I spent a lot of time when I was running, you know, making sure that before I went into a meeting, whether it was the cattleman association or the fruits and vegetables association, like, I don't come from agriculture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that that's pretty obvious from my hearing of my background.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but, you know, when I sent to agriculture on the first few days of after I was elected to look, I'm going to turn you my trait.
[SPEAKER_00]: My job is to represent endlessly my clients.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the agriculture industry, which is second largest economic driver for Florida, is my client and my job is to advocate for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I spent a lot of time listening to those who've been in the agriculture industry for four or five, six, seven generations.
[SPEAKER_00]: of their eight needs of their interest, hearing from the people on the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we spent a lot of time learning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a policy walk.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wanted to make sure that I was creating decisions that were the best interest of everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I might have been elected as a Democrat, but I really truly believe that if you want to be a public servant, you got to take your party label aside when you're first elected and make sure that you're truly representing your entire constituency base, which is twenty two million people of Florida.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, right, and speaking of Florida specifically, Florida has become a national symbol for conservative culture wars.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think the voters here are misunderstood?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that the problem in Florida is a couple of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think one is that we've had thirty years of one party control of our state.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so all you are hearing is from one side of the conversation where the Democrats have not done a great job of communicating, of listening, of making sure that our party platform is representative of the collective Democrat Republican Independent, which is now one third of our state.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, and then when you have one party controlling a state for so long,
[SPEAKER_00]: lines get gerrymandered.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have right now in our state, thirty plus are thirty plus do you see, that's not how a state's supposed to be drawn.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is supposed to be more purple, more purple district, so you'll get more voices and more hearing of what is going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you have a Republican conservative legislature that truly doesn't reflect the vast majority of Floridians because you don't have, when seven, I'll give you an example, when seventy percent of Floridians did not want a six week abortion ban, we still have one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is because we have such a gerrymandered legislature that is not providing for equal balance on policies like even abortion, like cannabis.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like some of those issues that are really, you know, hit hard hitting to everyday flirting, there is a really hard way to get to your elected officials to do what's right for the vast majority of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You brought up the abortion ban.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are arrested.
[SPEAKER_01]: protesting the six week abortion ban.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you think that that was something that was necessary?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was that the plan?
[SPEAKER_01]: What what happened there?
[SPEAKER_00]: That was not the plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: If anybody who liked things otherwise, like I continued to tell people that was not the plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had dinner dinner that night with my fiance.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was not the plan of the evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I had known that there was going to be, um, over the course of the week.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was, let's call the Occupy Tallahassee was coming to Tallahassee to protest a six week abortion ban.
[SPEAKER_00]: The intent was to sleep outside and tense and sleeping bags.
[SPEAKER_00]: The local government here in Florida and Tallahassee, unfortunately, can play games of changing permits and locations and whatnot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get the frantic call Monday around four, four, thirty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Chair, can you come down to City Hall?
[SPEAKER_00]: We are seeing, you know, SWAT teams and when I'm telling, like, you got maybe thirty women.
[SPEAKER_00]: like we're not talking about mobs here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about a select group of people that are out there that are protesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I get there having a nice conversation with law enforcement.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk about the situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I call it ridiculous that they're talking people to leave by eight o'clock.
[SPEAKER_00]: Session isn't as happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: People are constantly walking around.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's bars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there's no reason to kick people off of this like little like area outside of city hall.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: eight seven forty five comes uh... the minority leader in the senate more in book and so some other senators and legislators come out they put out a podium i didn't even know that was happening i get up to the podium i'm the third speaker i say my two cents no script no nothing i turn around and i see on the other side of the barricades um... our minority leader as well as some of the other protests are sitting on the ground
[SPEAKER_00]: Sitting no violence, no nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So being holding hands, singing lean on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I crossed over the barricade lines.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, well, there's no way that I'm going to, you know, be okay with our minority leader who's in a dress and heels being arrested.
[SPEAKER_00]: and sitting in this protest and I don't join her.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I crossed over and started saying we're actually taking off her jewelry, giving it to her legislative affairs director.
[SPEAKER_00]: I started taking off mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: My fiance calls and says, babe, where are we going for dinner?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, you may have to be meeting us at the court and at the jailhouse.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, okay, I'm glad you're not meeting me this time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I connect him to Lawrence, a legislative affairs director, and now the rest is history.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've always wondered, when you're arrested for protesting like that, what actually happens?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you get put in a jail cell?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you potentially stay there in the twenty four hours?
[SPEAKER_01]: What happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so we get arrested and I felt so bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like eight or five.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got these like men and like swat gear coming down and arresting eleven of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the poor kid that was arresting me, he was shaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I turned to him and like I said, hey,
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a past public defender, I'm an attorney, past member of the Florida Cabinet.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to have any issues here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that this is not what you want to be doing tonight, so, but it's going to be okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like trying to like, sue with him through the situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then they tend to take us to a parking lot, a parking garage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they started asking us name, all of our ID stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said,
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, if you have a question, I said Google my name.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that ended that, but it was starting to come in a little contentious.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they took us, they took ten of us, and they are middle, a legislative session.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they kind of separate it out more and to make sure that she could be arrested during session at the minority leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: She can, that happens for Republicans all the time for DUIs and other types of criminal issues in Tallahassee.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they took a level, at ten of us down, Lauren came right afterwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: They then took Lauren and I kind of in first as quote unquote VIPs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is kind of insane so they took the two of us in and they started to you know do the typical check in information They said have you ever been arrested before I said no, I'm normally on the other side of this conversation So then we then went in and they took our fingerprints took our mug shots
[SPEAKER_00]: And because I'm a past PD, I have an exemption of not disclosing my location of my personal home for my own personal safety purposes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So check that box.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the woman who was fingerprinting me, leaned in and says I voted for you, which is may get super awkward.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Lauren and I were put in a separate kind of holding cell until the paperwork got taken care of.
[SPEAKER_00]: We knew we were getting released on our own recognizants and either us have any criminal history with us in the violence or something.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we knew we were getting released a couple of a few hours that we were in there and so you weren't scared.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I knew that we were getting out.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time we got into the jail, we had another leader in the Senate who had already talked to the judge.
[SPEAKER_00]: My fiance is out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was that the last time you weren't jail?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, every time my executive director like travels outside of Florida, I always have to reassure her that I won't get arrested when she's when she's not in the state.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that you've clashed publicly with Ron DeSantis.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is something people would not believe about your political battles behind the scenes with him?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we, I tried to prevent it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's what most people need to understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really spent the better part of a year and three months trying to work together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We, you know, joined forces on environmental issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: So really tried to, behind closed doors, prevent
[SPEAKER_00]: What was inevitably the breakdown of our relationship and the public seeing the clashing of the two of us on a pretty consistent basis.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the last like real was was in twenty twenty, you know, people kept saying, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: In his ear, the people keep chattering, Nicky's going to run against you for governor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so at some point that the better, his better angels went away and really shut me out from communication inside of the administration.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, in February of twenty twenty three, a twenty twenty excuse me, that I reached out to him and called him personally and said, hey, there was at that time some legislation that was running through.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was trying to strip some power away from the commission of agriculture's office that was being directed by his people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I calls and I said, Hey, why don't you and I spend some time together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think that a lot of this is miscommunication, you know, I had not made any decisions about what I was doing next.
[SPEAKER_00]: in fact, was really focusing on my current job as Commissioner of Agriculture.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I called him, he said, yeah, just to have my team, you have your staff call my staff and let's get a meeting set up together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so my staff did do that, reached out and asked, hey, can the two of them sit down and his team said, for what purpose?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they said, don't you remember to the Florida Cabinet?
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't need an actual purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was the last time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And staff never put an meeting on the books.
[SPEAKER_00]: During the beginning part of COVID, I reached out to him on three separate occasions.
[SPEAKER_00]: His cheapest staff on three separate occasions trying to again say, look, we are in this together.
[SPEAKER_00]: We might be diverse as are on policy, but we're about to have a health care crisis.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't know what's coming next.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should govern together like this is only important that half of the state, you know, trust me and the other half trust you and having another opinion in the conversations and us coming out as a united front and I couldn't get anybody on the phone.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, and he's just surrounded by by tough people that just don't get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, do you what do you think of him as a person, I guess?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, as a person, I think he's, who, I've said a lot of public things that have bad of a person he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I truly, I truly believe in his heart that he has none.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw that up close in person all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really thought at the beginning, I started seeing him come to positions that I had advocated for in the campaign.
[SPEAKER_00]: The partying of the Groben IV, which was four black men who, seventy years ago, had been wrongfully accused of raping a young woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I had pushed for them to be exonerated, to be pardoned, and he came to me on the first clemency meeting and made that happen, talked about smokeable flour that had been through lawsuits, he came to my position, dropped the lawsuit with John Morgan and Matt Gaetz on camera together, you know, strained belt cellos, on cannabis again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I really thought that there was an opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then as I started spending more and more time with him and watching him,
[SPEAKER_00]: I realized very quickly that this has nothing to do with the best interest of the people of our state.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was, I think that the Heritage Foundation, I got a hold of him pretty quickly in his career and pushed him into a direction of, hey, we're going to make you present in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the blueprint.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that he's so ambitious to want to become president that everything else, whatever potential human decency was there was gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I moved to Florida to, I guess it was two years ago now, but as I was, you know, I lived in New York at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the first time like politics and in Florida really became something I paid attention to was the don't say gay bill or whatever that's called.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have called.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, don't say gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was part of that, correct?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes, it was push.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and I was always like, that is why, like, why are we talking about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that a bill?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why, you know, and I feel like it gave Florida such a, um, there was so many misconceptions with that, but it gave it such a bad name, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But then like, you know, while here, I'm really into animals.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I hear that he passed this law.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's called Tucker's law about no dog can be left behind or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then all of a sudden people recently, I saw it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were like, Oh, Desantis, we love you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so there's things on opposite sides.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, what kind of a guy is this?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like that's that's what I just couldn't understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think that interesting, like the animal bill, he didn't push you, you just signed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of great things that he has signed, because the legislature passed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they don't say gay bill, the attacks, the cultural war attacks,
[SPEAKER_00]: came solely from Ron DeSantis and I do believe if you see even see in Project twenty twenty five a lot of that is the dehumanization of of groups of people that I just can't wrap my brain around you know and and the anger that goes associated with it didn't make any sense you know sure there's going to be bad actors in every industry whether it is teachers construction development you name the industry they're going to be bad actors but you don't
[SPEAKER_00]: laws into place that harm everybody because of certain bad actors.
[SPEAKER_00]: But his, his, um, he didn't care.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he just, this is Florida where woke went to die.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and I, and I think that has created such divisiveness that also put Florida Democrats in a really weird uncomfortable spot because our human nature is to defend everybody around us.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is just our human nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why we chose to become Democrats in a lot of respects.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're put into a position and award that we didn't start.
[SPEAKER_00]: But of course, when you attack one of us, you attack all of us, and that has always been like at least my living motto.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you force us into a position to defend a large marginalized communities, and then we were attacked for doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And pretending that we couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, we can protect our LGBTQ plus community at the same time and we're fighting for
[SPEAKER_00]: economics opportunities and property insurance reductions and cost of living.
[SPEAKER_00]: And unfortunately Republicans pushed us into a corner and didn't let us have any breathing room to talk about the other issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're now the chair of the Florida Democratic Party.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that role really look like day to day and what are some of the challenges you're facing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Every day is a little bit different.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it starts off really early taking probably the first film calls as we have no statewide elected Democrat in the state of Florida.
[SPEAKER_00]: Super minority and both chambers, a lot comes to us as the party.
[SPEAKER_00]: For messaging, for strategy, for fundraising, for recruiting of candidates, for dealing with issues between our local party chapters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because the Democratic Party has always been this tremendously large tent, which means that Democrats underneath the tent are going to be all types of spectrums and so on and there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And trying to make sure that there's respect under the tent is definitely one of the greatest challenges that, you know, somebody who may be more left leaning on policy
[SPEAKER_00]: being able to be in the same room in the same conversation as some of our more moderate Democrats on the spectrum.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, one other big aspect of things that is a challenge here in Florida is that people have written us off, you know, that the, you know, national donor is national conversation is, you know, Florida's too red and too gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is just not, that's just not reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, there's there's twenty-two million people here.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's only fifteen million that are registered, which means eight million people that call Florida
[SPEAKER_00]: home are not registered to vote here.
[SPEAKER_00]: One third is Republican.
[SPEAKER_00]: One third is Democrat.
[SPEAKER_00]: One third is independent.
[SPEAKER_00]: But without the resources into infrastructure, I don't want to talk about the twenty six campaigns.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to talk about the presidential campaign.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't put money into infrastructure in political parties,
[SPEAKER_00]: no candidate can be successful in the general election.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so trying to tell the Florida story that we might be down, we might be considered underdogs, but the fight is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: The communities that we are building into this coalition is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we need people to understand that if we want democracy to be stabilized for generations to come, Florida can't be written off.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're too large, too diverse, too many issues come from Florida.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to make sure that we're truly invested in organizing our state.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now that you brought that out, what are your thoughts on Elon Musk and his push for a new American political party?
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, I want to take two kind of lanes on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, it's Elon having a temper tantrum.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of his money and just got stripped out of all of his tax rebates in electric vehicles and solar and all the things that he was moving forward from the federal government.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the largest recipient of federal dollars than any other corporation or individual in the federal government.
[SPEAKER_00]: between is is grants for if for Tesla to SpaceX and every other business enterprise he's undergone.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one is having a temper tantrum.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two, I think there's also step take a step back.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a problem with the party system.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of Americans and actually was reading an article today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most Americans think the party system instruction is broken and I don't just agree, you know, that that we have we can't just be listening to the people that are devout in one party.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care if it's just Democrat or career Republican that we've got that the party structure is not allowing
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, those that are independent, which is now a growing population, not just here in Florida, but the entire United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: Younger generations are becoming independent.
[SPEAKER_00]: More black and brown men are becoming more independent.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we as party leaders have to listen to
[SPEAKER_00]: something's happening in American politics and and more and more people are are distrusting of the party system.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the first party to hear that and to move more into the center and I don't mean center policy wise but center as far as like taking more of the coalition with us is going to be the party that is going to survive whatever this moment in American history is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I want to talk about alligator alcatraz.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's talking about it right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Clare five for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: This just don't open, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll just open last week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you explain to people that are listening that may maybe live in Florida?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe don't live in Florida if they are not clear what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you explain what it is and what's happening with it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the worst
[SPEAKER_00]: grift and corruption that we have seen actually in the state of Florida.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in twenty twenty three, Ron DeSantis signed an executive order that gave him complete power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Executive orders, emergency executive orders is because there's an emergency, which means nine one one at that moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: He signed in a regards to at that point, both of Haitians and Cubans that were leaving Haiti and Cuba,
[SPEAKER_00]: because of uprisings in gang violence and in Haiti, and because of revolutionary activities that were happening in Cuba.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he created an emergency order that has now been extended, fifteen times.
[SPEAKER_00]: So state of Florida still underneath an emergency order.
[SPEAKER_00]: This gave him complete power.
[SPEAKER_00]: to take land from the Miami-Dade County as well as call your county to create a detention center in the middle of the Florida Everglades.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he did this without legislative approval, without environmental impacts, which now we have both the Mikasuki as well as the Seminals, who are the Native Americans here in the state of Florida.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is their tribal land.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where their ancestors are buried.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is their land.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it had been coming out and talking about the environmental disaster.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then, he allocated four hundred and fifty million dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, because he doesn't have to go to legislature, because he's operating under emergency order.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he has now given out no big contracts to all of his Republican donors in the state of Florida with no oversight and is building this attention center in the middle of the Florida ever gates, which already we have seen five of our Florida legislators who a Democratic legislator show up refused to been refused to get an actual
[SPEAKER_00]: a tour of the location saying it was unsafe even though the president was there literally the day before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you have already reports coming out of the first detainees are there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That are showing huge insects and bugs and as past mission and agriculture is also one of my responsibilities.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, obviously the media will be like, well, these are lies.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't know what it's really like in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how are we getting the reports of what the conditions are?
[SPEAKER_01]: If no one's really allowed to go in there and see what it looks like.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what we're already seeing is, you know, one, you know, again, our legislators were not allowed in there to inspect the conditions of of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We already saw that a very small South Florida summer thunderstorm leaking happening on on the floor of of of this building.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then now we're getting reports.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's self reporting reports because we can't get people access inside of the detention center.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have no eyeballs in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no cameras.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: As an attorney, you can walk into a jail.
[SPEAKER_00]: As an elected official, you can walk into our jails and our prisons.
[SPEAKER_00]: As members of Congress, you can walk into detention, you know, federally regulated detention centers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have any of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: All we're gaining is reports from the people that are living that are inside of there, saying that there are huge bugs, that the showers aren't working.
[SPEAKER_00]: The toilets aren't working.
[SPEAKER_00]: The air conditioning isn't working.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, within the last twenty four hours, we're even hearing ambulances showing up that people are having to be taken out of there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know the condition of the individual.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know any of that that Miami-Dade mayor who happens to be a Democrat wrote a letter both to the feds, which is a whole nother situation, because now the feds who the people of a great state of Florida thought that they are getting reimbursed from FEMA dollars are now being told that that's not the case, that the Trump administration never promised those dollars and they may not be coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Florida and the Florida citizens are on the hook for this four hundred and fifty million dollars right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: With no
[SPEAKER_00]: no ability to make sure that people that are inside of there are at least being treated in human conditions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And their public and party of Florida are selling merch about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's part of Homeland Security are making cute little memes with alligators with ice hats on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Talk about human beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a vast majority of these human beings that are being put there are
[SPEAKER_00]: People that have been living here for ten twenty thirty years that were on temporary protection status or parole least that is that had paperwork that's going to the court hearings not criminals not gang members not the these people that were described
[SPEAKER_00]: divide Trump during the campaign or first part of this administration.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have enough people on their three thousand a day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Miller, you know, is quotas.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they're going after every day people that are showing up to work, whether it is in the tourism industry, the agriculture industry, the construction industry, and it will eventually decimate Florida's economy, even greater.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just curious though, if they're getting reports from people inside, are those people still allowed to have their phones, are they allowed a phone call, like what's the, they're worth getting that information.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't really know, and that's part of the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it is that what we are being told is that the area at least, again, you are in prison, due process requires you've access to your attorney.
[SPEAKER_00]: Attorneys can't get access to the location.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so even where the phone calls are happening, it then attorney client privilege is supposed to be
[SPEAKER_00]: attorney client privilege.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no confidentiality area.
[SPEAKER_00]: The phone calls are sparse at best.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, but that's not only here, but we're hearing that from all the detention centers across the country.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That people go there and they can't find their relatives and their family members and can't get access to their attorneys.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how many, I think we've seen some pictures of what it looks like.
[SPEAKER_01]: How many beds are there?
[SPEAKER_01]: How many people do they say are there now?
[SPEAKER_01]: How long do they stay there before they go elsewhere?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what are the logistics?
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know a lot of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's part of the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know how long they're going to stay there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, I think it was Donald Trump who was asked that question during his press conference.
[SPEAKER_00]: How long are you into spending these people to stay here?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he rambled off about him being in Florida.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and not answering the question at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Either he didn't hear the question or truly doesn't know the answer to the question, but regardless, we don't know that answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, the Santa's is even talking about deputizing immigration judges from our national guard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, talk about lack of due process and democracy just out the window.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You slammed what's being called the big beautiful bill in Congress.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it?
[SPEAKER_01]: And why how is it going to affect Floridians?
[SPEAKER_01]: I call it the big bullshit bill.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is one of the greatest transfer of wealth that this country has ever experienced from the middle and poor and
[SPEAKER_00]: and low income families to the billionaires.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what this was all about.
[SPEAKER_00]: You saw in this bullshit bill, two billion dollars worth of tax breaks for gun manufacturers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You saw in here tax breaks for all these big corporations at the same time here in Florida.
[SPEAKER_00]: almost two million individuals are going to lose their healthcare access.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are children, these are seniors, these are single moms who are working in two jobs and neither of their employers are providing healthcare and they can't afford it on their own.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the families that we're talking about and not only the healthcare access, but you're also because they stripped away a lot of the solar energy and renewable and progress that we were all making for
[SPEAKER_00]: for a better, you know, is cost saving electricity.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you're not only going to see those tax rebates going away, all of that progress and research done, that our own tax or own electric bills are going to be increased.
[SPEAKER_00]: Feeding programs are being slashed, snap benefits.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're talking about families that are, and I saw it firsthand as commissioner of the types of families that we are feeding in our feeding programs.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are not people who wanted to be in line getting food.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are people who may have missed a bill last month and are trying to catch up and have some extra, don't have some extra dollars this month for meals and are coming and waiting in line.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the families that are being harmed so that our billionaires of our country can get tax rebates and our corporations.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole Reagan triple down economy has been proven to not work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when you're giving billionaires these tax breaks, it's at the backs of the working class here in the middle class and in our country and those are ones who are going to be suffering the most here in our state.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've said you're not running for governor in twenty twenty six.
[SPEAKER_01]: What made you decide to stay focused on rebuilding the party instead of running again?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same conversation that I had in twenty twenty three.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember having the conversation in Jamie Harrison who is the previous DNC chair.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I call to miss and I want to run for chair and he says, don't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please, we need you to run for governor again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said to him, Jamie, I said, no one can win our state if we can't fix the party.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I still hold true to that that if I was to walk away right now and run for governor of our state.
[SPEAKER_00]: we are not ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: And really believe that it's going to take resources both human and financial to be out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We launched last month.
[SPEAKER_00]: We launched our what's called Pendulum Project, which is a year round statewide field program to do the work on the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if I know that I can leave a legacy behind in our state,
[SPEAKER_00]: to create better balance, to get a Democrat elected to governor, and to make sure that we got balance in Tallahassee, and I've accomplished everything that I needed to accomplish, and that's making sure that all, twenty-two million people of our state have representation in Tallahassee.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it means that I have to stay back and do the hard work and get there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be mission accomplished.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your message to young women?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you are such a leader, a powerful woman.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do want to hear what you have to say about women who feel disillusioned or powerless when it comes to politics or when it comes to finding their place and their purpose in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, nothing ever happens with people sitting on their couch, whether it was the first suffrage movement or it was access to reproductive health care.
[SPEAKER_00]: It took women organizing to share our stories to be there in this moment and and women are
[SPEAKER_00]: are, you know, we are uniquely a qualified to be handling politics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Better than the boys do for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we have to balance our home budget.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to balance our work with our family life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to be the ones who are at the office from, you know, eight a.m.
[SPEAKER_00]: until five p.m.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then come home and expect to be made, you know, dinner and take care of the household.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so these are the times as why I stepped up in twenty eighteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the times that women need to take their personal experiences and things that they fight for the things that they care about.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going into the PTA rooms and going into classrooms and saying that that's not acceptable in the running for school board.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're seeing these atrocious pieces of legislation that are coming from Talahasi and are running for the state legislature.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're seeing what's happening in Washington, D.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we need more women representation up in Talahasi and D.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm always going to encourage women, but also the recognition that we're still having to work harder.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that the ultimate last ceilings have not been broken.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have our first female president of the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have our first female governor on the state of Florida.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are still tremendously large glass ceilings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do have somebody that always uses a lot of ceilings as a concrete marble slab that we keep chipping away at.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're going to have to keep chipping away at it and have to keep showing up and keep balancing and making sure that we're demanding things like equal pay, that we're demanding things
[SPEAKER_00]: like maternal leaves at time frames and we're providing these resources to our male colleagues of why that isn't important for the workforce and why it's important for women to be involved in the workforce.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've made so much progress and we have to make sure that this period of American history doesn't put us behind fifteen years that it's going to take us another fifty years to get to where we were
[SPEAKER_00]: two years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what we're all gonna have to do and roll up our sleeves and it's gonna be the women who are gonna once again get us through this moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I'm confident that we will get there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you I'm sure have had plenty of difficult times what has been something that you think is misunderstood about you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh God, there's so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think it's a combination of like people want to put me in a box.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that I was the only Democrat elected in twenty-eighteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fought with Ron DeSantis for four years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm now chair of this party and they want to put me in a box of you must be AOC or Nancy Pelosi and this like very left-wing ideology.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reality is it's like,
[SPEAKER_00]: I show up every day, and I look to find solutions that are neither left nor right, but really come into a perspective that is just different, that looks to try to bring everybody together to find solutions to problems that are impacting people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think that what's one aspect that I own a gun.
[SPEAKER_00]: I also, I'm very involved in the cannabis space, or was, that I own my own business.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm a capitalist.
[SPEAKER_00]: a definitely in favor of, you know, a, I'm both socially liberal, but also fiscally responsible and finding that which I think most people in America truly are.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why we're talking about a party realignment because people are lost of where they find that spectrum.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the other thing that people, you know, misunderstand a little bit too is, is how, and it's not just me, but it's women, is how we balance.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that balancing personal life and family life and political life is not easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes it's near too impossible, you know, how you have to spend all this time doing work and politics and politics doesn't sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm on my phone's twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: That provides very little flexibility for for loved ones into your family.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there is a balancing act and I have historically not done well at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that that's also something that as time grows on as people mature.
[SPEAKER_00]: that you find and hopefully find that that that that that weight of balance it that I'm not just work all day long and I just don't sit and or smoke all day long.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the other thing that gets me frustrated on social media.
[SPEAKER_00]: And people don't like a tweet that I get off the bomb, Nikki.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and start trying to like demoralize like my comments by thinking that I'm high.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that that obviously is very misunderstood about my my understanding and appreciation for the cannabis industry.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's your big hope for the future?
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that there is an American future.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't say that lightly, that we are seeing the demise of our democracy every single day, whether it is the consolidation of power into one individual that is not how our government was set up.
[SPEAKER_00]: that, you know, removing of people from office here in the state of Florida, the silencing of voters.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my hope for the future is that we get through this moment, that we come out on the other side, a better United States that we are United.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we understand that we do have a role not only here in this country but across the world to be that beacon of hope and light, of goodness and that we get back there that people stop yelling at each other, people stop screaming at each other whether it's on social media or just driving down the road or at the food store.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to go back to a country that is made up of hope and inspiration and opportunities for all and I fear that we are
[SPEAKER_00]: in a moment of time that anger and distrust and ugliness is acceptable.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know that that's not who we are as human beings and certainly never who we are as Americans.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nikki, if people want to follow you, get more information on you, join you.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can they, how can they find you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Every social media outlet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm on Blue Sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm on, I refuse to call it X. I'm on Twitter.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm on Instagram.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm on Substack.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm on Facebook.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nikki Freed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not hard to find me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I Republican opponents do all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, come reach out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Want to hear from you all.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are on a statewide tour called Frontport Swing.
[SPEAKER_00]: where we are going to the rule and red parts of our state to listen to the voters.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care if you're a Democrat Republican independent, you deserve to be heard and respected.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're coming to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you are one of those communities and want me to come, come and drop me a message in any of those platforms and you know, we'll add you to a list.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nikki, thank you so much for joining me.
[SPEAKER_01]: This has been enlightening.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will continue to follow your career journey and I wish you the best of luck.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for what you're doing to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that these diverse conversations on different platforms really is going to make what I said my future promise.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for listening to Ms.
[SPEAKER_01]: Understood.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Rachel, you could tell.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please be sure to subscribe to the show and give us a five-star rating and review.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can support the show by joining our Patreon at Patreon.com slash Ms.
[SPEAKER_01]: Understood with Rachel, you could tell.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have ideas for the show or want to reach out email us at info, Ms.
[SPEAKER_01]: Understood podcast at gmail.com that's spelled MISS.
[SPEAKER_01]: Understood.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much and I'll see you next time.