Alex Vindman on Flipping Florida Senate Seat Blue

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0:30Alex Vindman:Thanks for dinner. I should get going now.

0:31Ben Meiselas:Not without dessert. Done. Ordered on DoorDash.

0:35Alex Vindman:Delicious, but tomorrow's Juan's graduation.

0:37Ben Meiselas:Then let's bake him a cake. I'll order ingredients. No, no, no, no. For every reason to stay together, I DoorDash in La Casa. I'm R.J. Decker, a private investigator uncovering the sunshine state's darkest secrets. Tuesdays, it's the premiere of ABC's hottest new crime show. R.J. freaking Decker as I live and breathe. He's a private eye. It's not a standard murder. It's someone bigger. And a public mass.

1:03Alex Vindman:Trying to get someone back to prison today?

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1:47Ben Meiselas:Rinse knows that greatness takes time, but so does laundry. So Rinse will take your laundry and hand-deliver it to your door expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions. Time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or that daunting Beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to us. Rinse. It's time to be great. Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are terrified that they may be losing Florida And there are different and new data points that bear this out.

2:26Ben Meiselas:In Larry Sabato's recent crystal brawl predictions, now that Alex Vindman has entered the Senate race there against MAGA Republican Ashley Moody, that Senate seat race is moving closer and closer to being a Democratic seat. I'll talk more about that in a moment. The polling on Friday for Donald Trump was absolutely atrocious nationwide. And it's been pretty bad in Florida too. And I'm not sure attacking bad money in the Hispanic community are raising Donald Trump's popularity in the Hispanic community there. But you take a look right here at the new AP North poll, Trump's overall approval right now, 36%.

3:08Ben Meiselas:It's like the worst ever, like the worst in history. Economy, 34%. Country heading in the right direction, 29%. I guess some saving grace for Donald Trump is that he's more popular than J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance's approval at 32%. You've got headlines like this right now while Donald Trump's bragging about the economy is great, the Dow Jones is this and that. Middle-class Americans are selling their plasma to make ends meet. Last year, people in the U.S. made an estimated$4.7 billion selling their plasma. I guess that's the new American dream. But what's Ashley Moody doing? She was the individual who was picked by DeSantis to hold that Senate seat after Marco Rubio became the worst secretary of state in history.

3:57Ben Meiselas:Well, she's got big plans this week. She's going to the World Liberty Financial Forum. You know, that's the group where Donald Trump gets all of that crypto from the Middle East and they invest in Donald Trump personally and they don't really get anything. They don't get a product. They get Donald Trump and they get the quick pro quo of the White House. They get our semiconductor chips and Donald Trump makes billions of dollars. And that's the company where Trump's kids are on it and Whitcoff's kids are on it while they go and destroy American foreign policy abroad. You look at Trump's overall approval when it comes to some of these red states, Florida, negative 7.5 percent, according to The Economist.

4:38Ben Meiselas:Others have them negative two, negative three. Some have them slightly. But overall, his popularity in Florida is plummeting. And one of the things we're seeing as that Politico headline points out is veterans, people who have devoted their life to service, stepping up. I mean, you've got Lieutenant and Colonel Alex Vindman announcing his run for the United States Senate seat. He was going, he was up for promotion to be a colonel. You all probably remember the story. He told the truth about what Donald, he came forward courageously during the first Trump regime, told the truth about Donald Trump extorting Ukraine.

5:16Ben Meiselas:Then Donald Trump got rid of him. And then he, then he had a fight for his job back. And, and now Alex is running for the Senate. You have people like Phil Err running. I'll just show you. This was pretty cool. This was Phil Err endorsing Alex Vindman. And you just see these incredible veteran Democrats supporting each other in Florida. Let's watch this. Hi, my name is Phil Errman, retired U.S. Navy commander. I want to tell you about my friend Alex Vindman, a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. Alex is running for the Senate of the United States with a sense of integrity and duty to set conditions for all of us to thrive in freedom.

5:52Ben Meiselas:It's so important to do that thinking of children. Children are our future and Alex will be there for them. I should also note that again, Alex Vindman, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, was the Director of European Affairs for the United States, the United Security Council, served 21 years. He was wounded in Iraq, stood up when no one else would, as his brother Eugene Vindman writes. He also has an incredible video when he announced to his run. I just want to show you just to remind you about his background. Let's just play this.

6:25Alex Vindman:Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official who testified against the president during the impeachment hearings, has been fired.

6:33Ben Meiselas:Jim, the president, has been fuming about Vindman, apparently, ever since he testified.

6:38Alex Vindman:The last time you saw me was here, swearing an oath to tell the truth about a president who broke his. See, my family came to America's refugees to escape tyranny. And I sure as hell was not going to bow down to some wannabe tyrant. This president unleashed a reign of terror and retribution not just against me and my family, but against all of us. Today, our country is in chaos. Thug militias attacking citizens. Tariffs pushing prices sky high. Healthcare premiums through the roof. And Florida homeowners are being absolutely screwed because Ashley Moody caved to the big insurance companies. They put Moody in the Senate to be a yes vote for Trump and the billionaires.

7:18Alex Vindman:She's not Florida Senator. She's theirs. I'm Alex Vindman, and I'm running to be your voice in the Senate. I served 21 years in the Army, was rooted in Iraq. I served presidents of both parties, and I've seen corruption in Washington up close. Over a million dollars in Moody's corporate stock was traded last year, while she had access to insider information only Congress gets. That should be outlawed. They gutted disaster assistance for people trying to rebuild their lives. But she's okay with$40 billion bailouts for Argentina? Where's the bailout for Florida's families? I stepped up when my country needed a soldier.

7:56Alex Vindman:I stood up when someone had to say no one is above the law. I'm asking you, stand with me now to put a check on Donald Trump and the corrupt politicians who think your tax dollars are their personal piggy bank. The billionaires in the special interest will throw everything they've got to try to stop us. But in the infantry, we can back down from a fight. In a democracy, you decide who's going to stand for you, the patriot or the politician. Join us.

8:23Ben Meiselas:Now let's bring in Alex Vindman. Alex, it's great to see you. It's no surprise that people are going to say, but isn't Florida a red state? Isn't this a safe, solid red state? You know, I think if anybody has the ability to flip that Senate seat, it's you. And that's why I think so many people are encouraged that you are running. But talk to us about, you know, the plan to flip the seat.

8:49Alex Vindman:Hey, thanks for having me back on, Ben, in a different role this time. Look, I stepped in, I've been in Florida for more than three years. We came here as the first place we got a chance to choose to live after the military, sending me across different parts of the world and just telling me where to go. We planted our roots here. My daughter's thriving. I moved my dad down about six months after us. So this is where this is home for us. And in the military, we have this expression. You go to someplace and you leave it better than you found it. This state is headed in the wrong direction. We have a economy that's unaffordable.

9:27Alex Vindman:We have the highest insurance rates in the country. And my opponent, Ashley Moody, is a part of the reason that we are here, because she came to the big insurance companies. We have insecurity in our streets. Large swaths of our community feel unsafe to go out of their homes. That is a product of Trump's abuse of power, setting in what looked like militias, the kinds of folks that we saw patrolling the street. In the military, when I was in combat, We had well-trained troops that were respectful to the civilians, even in combat zones and war zones. That's not what Trump is doing. He's sending out a militia with a signal that they could do whatever they want.

10:09Alex Vindman:They could be heavy-handed. They're armed to the teeth. They look like a military to be able to abuse a population. This kind of chaos that we're seeing here and overseas, Trump embracing our enemies and casting aside our allies, that the corruption is, you know, gold-plated toilets and planes from Qatar, all these types of, we've never seen this level of corruption before. And the costs being shifted from the billionaires, you know, they're getting the tax breaks, we're losing healthcare, they're getting all sorts of benefits, and the powerful that are in their pocket are getting the benefits, and the burden is shifting to ordinary Americans.

10:49Alex Vindman:That is not something I'm going to sit back and watch unfold. And we have a clear path. Trump's margins across the country and in the state have shrunk because people are rejecting his policies. That's why you see him increasingly thinking about how he's going to steal an election because he doesn't have any good ideas. And now Florida has a fighter in their corner. And that's how we're going to win the seat. You know, if you're you're with me for this fight, please go to Alex Vindman dot com and support me and support this effort. And we're going to take back the state in Trump's own backyard, regardless of what he throws at us.

11:21Ben Meiselas:You know, people probably are saying, you know, Senator Ashley who? Ashley Moody? You know, she was appointed by DeSantis. So this was a relatively recent appointment after Rubio became secretary of state or whatever his job is. And I think, you know, she does she does two things. You know, she she stock trades, you know, and she really loves she really loves that. She's like a day trader. And then the other thing she does is, you know, whatever Trump orders her to do, she does. I mean, and that's why I showed, you know, I guess the confluence of those factors is her, you know, being like a keynote speaker at this World Liberty Financial Conference, you know, which is the Trump-Wick cough.

12:04Ben Meiselas:You know, hey, United Arab Emirates, we need half a billion dollars. Just give it to us. Like, you want our stable coin? We're not even going to give you that. Just give us half a billion and we'll give you the United States semiconductor chips. And then we give them the most highly classified semiconductor chip, which no one would give them before because they're just going to give it to China. And they probably already have given it to China. So it's interesting because you are primed to take, you know, to take her on. I'm just giving your background also as you were calling all of this out, you know, when he was threatening to withhold the military equipment to Ukraine, which he's doing right now.

12:43Ben Meiselas:Obviously, you know, again, whether it's the Patriot missiles, you know, and she's the kind of person who joins Trump in doing those things. And you're the kind of person who says, no, we're not we're not going to do that. We're going to focus on America.

12:56Alex Vindman:the reason we're going to win the seat is because the contrast between me as a non-political somebody that's running for office for the first time a career public servant somebody that's reported corruption at the highest level regardless of the cost and my opponent who is a career politician an automatic yes vote for all of the chaos all of the corruption uh in in the trump regime uh that couldn't be starker and i think the fact is that floridians know this they know that they will for for the first time in a long time, have a fighter in their corner. We're seeing wins in the special elections here.

13:31Alex Vindman:We won consistently really since Trump took office and we're going to be able to overcome some of the historical baggage with regard to the state. And it's not just going to be this, my seat, we're going to win. We're going to win a whole slate of democratic seats down the line and make sure that we take the state in a different direction. And when we do this, we will have one control of the Senate and we will be, we will offer america and the world a different future one that's vastly different in the first year the second year of his term one that in which he's he's constrained from taking on his his absurd agenda for chaos self-enrichment and chaos you know it's interesting i saw desantis

14:12Ben Meiselas:recent post that he's reflected that he was worried about some of these special election results, what we saw in Texas Senate District nine, where there was a massive flip, a 31 point swing to a Democratic candidate there. You know, I also saw DeSantis, you know, saying that he disagrees with Donald Trump when it comes to putting data centers, you know, in in in Florida, you have Byron Donalds, who's running for governor of Florida, talking about, you know, we what do we on the one hand, Donald Trump wants to put data centers everywhere. On the other hand, Byron Donald wants to please Trump, but then maybe not in my backyard when it comes to when it comes to Florida, you know, and so, you know, and even the alligator Alcatraz, which costs billions of dollars, you know, that's that's not, you know, it's from a human rights standpoint.

15:02Ben Meiselas:I mean, I believe it's a crime against humanity. And I think people in Florida just don't just don't want that happening. And they see it happening out there. They don't want it happening in Florida. So they don't want this stuff there. And then you add on top of it, the energy costs rising, the insurance costs rising and just the day-to-day issues that are not being addressed in Florida while you have this MAGA cheer you have this Trump MAGA cheerleading without dealing with

15:26Alex Vindman:the day-to-day issues of Florida yeah you know it's interesting yesterday I went out and I went to what what for most folks in Florida and certainly in Miami is a well-known spot it's Freedom Tower it's the portal for entry and processing for hundreds of thousands of Cubans that came to this country very similar to my own story coming as a refugee from the Soviet Union. And this is going to be, this building is going to be in the shadow of where Trump is planning to build his library. It's not going to be a typical library like the presidents build when they're out of office. This thing is going to be a hotel and a revenue generator for them.

16:03Alex Vindman:And it's going to tower over this iconic building that it's the Ellis Island of Miami that's supposed to be sending the message that everybody could come to this idea of this country and and you know have this idea of fairness and access to the american dream so uh that and then i visited a college campus the miami dade uh college campus there uh just a couple blocks away talking to students the things that were on their mind were all costs this was it was the fact that the tax burden is being shifted off the ultra wealthy and we're getting our services cut and with regards to health care folks were talking about affordability for housing they're concerned about the fact that you know that the highest insurance rates in this country don't just affect homeowners they affect the property owners that rent their properties that's that was on their mind health insurance you know you don't usually expect a 20 something to our late team to talk about health insurance but they recognize that you know one health crisis could could crush somebody's life and i talked to faculty there it was a beautiful thing to do you know what wasn't on their mind it wasn't self-enrichment schemes.

17:08Alex Vindman:It wasn't private jets. It wasn't crypto scams. It wasn't embracing our adversaries and casting aside our allies. It wasn't any of the priorities that you see Trump talk about here. Certainly, Ashley Moody, my opponent, her focus is on bringing in the Save Act or the Save America Act, this newest version out of the Senate, which is when you don't have any ideas that could win and get you votes in an election, what do you do? You try to steal it. So what is she trying to do? She's trying to make sure that we reduce the number of folks voting, that we make it harder for folks to vote by mail, because now you can't just submit a ballot.

17:48Alex Vindman:You have to submit a scanned document. Imagine your parents or grandparents kind of trying to figure out how to do that when they do their vote by mail. It's women that have been married, that have changed their names, are going to have a heart. They're going to have to provide additional documentation american citizens that may still be struggling with uh with the english language uh will have a harder time with regards to uh voting that's what they're focused on making sure that you lose your access to uh your right to vote this fundamental right that every american citizen is granted and i think that their priorities are completely wrong and the floridians and americans know this and we will see decisive outcomes both in this state and across the country

18:34Ben Meiselas:Alex, where can people learn more about the campaign?

18:37Alex Vindman:Look, you heard me talk about this. I'm going to be the fighter in the corner of Americans, like I have been, like my track record says. I'm going to be the fighter for Floridians on ending the chaos, crushing corruption, and cutting costs. And if you're with me in this fight, please join me at alexfittman.com. We need to get your support in order to be able to allow me to get my message out to folks that are just mainly focused on their lives. They're not paying attention into the politics. So please sign up as a volunteer and contribute to this campaign. And we're going to win this thing.

19:10Ben Meiselas:Alex was on the Midas Touch Network probably four or five years ago when this was just an idea, not a network. And so it's great to have you here five years later watching you run for the United States Senate and for all you've done for our country. Thanks, Alex. Thanks, Ben. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to six million subscribers. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com. You'll get daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, add free episodes of our podcast, and more exclusive content only available at MidasPlus.com.

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