Transcript of #BecauseMiami: From Miami With Lev

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I'm with my friends Liv and Igor.

It was like a romance made in heaven.

At some point, almost overnight, Rudy became Liv's, I don't know, work wife or something. Because they spent so much time together, and they had such an intimate relationship. They were almost like father and son.

Four to five days out of the week, four, five, six times a day with phone calls and text messages. And he was the godfather to my son Nathan.

There's a picture of him wiping his mouth. I don't think Lev has ever offered me that service. That was a clip from Russia with Lev, our latest Rackintour pop doc, which premiered last month on MSNBC, from executive producer Rachel Madau, to record-breaking audiences on MSNBC. You can find it now on nbc. Com. Just search from Russia with Lev. Lev Parnis was not just an associate, a friend, a confidante, but a client of America's former mayor. I said the former America's mayor, the former mayor of America, the mayor of 9/11, Rudy Giuliani. His other client at the time was Donald Trump. Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani, according to Lev, sent Lev and his buddy Igor, his business partner, off on a scheme to Ukraine to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden in an effort to effectively collude with a foreign power, in this case, Ukraine, to impact the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in the United States. Lev Parnas is joining us now hot off the press, Lev, this week. Your former buddy, Rudy Giuliani, ordered to turn over his New York apartment worth an estimated $5.7 million in valuables to the former Georgia election workers that he defamed after a $146 million verdict against him.

This is, of course, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shay Moss, who Giuliani repeatedly falsely accused. These were Georgia election workers, volunteers, I believe. He claimed in this doctored video that they were leaking a USB drive to each other in an effort to fix the election in Georgia. You remember when Donald Trump was trying to... Donald Trump tried to shake down two presidents of Ukraine. I know because Lev tried to do it for him. Then he tried to shake down, you remember, in Georgia with the governor and the elections people trying to just find me 11,000 new votes. Well, this was part of this bullshit conspiracy theory about the election in 2020 being stolen. By the way, Roy, that USB drive that they were passing back and forth? Yeah. Ginger mince. Mother and daughter were passing mince to each other because they were sitting there doing their civic as election workers. Irregardless, $146 million. Rudy Giuliani thought he was above the law. He barely even responded to the lawsuit, gets this monstrous judgment. Then he tries to not pay these ladies by filing for bankruptcy. The judge dismisses that shit because once again, he doesn't show up to court.

He doesn't respond to the judge. He doesn't respond to the plaintiff's attorneys. And so now he has to turn over. Check this out. Not only his apartment car, once owned by Lauren Bacal from 1980, But all of his Yankees memorabilia. This includes a signed Joe DiMaggio jersey, a Reggie Jackson photo, his 9/11 watches. These are watches given to him by- The watches is big for him, I can tell you that. By the dignitaries, by European leaders after 9/11 as a sign of respect and hope, including a watch given to him by his grandfather, Lev. So let's start there with the watches. How devastating is that for Rudy Giuliani to give up those watches? You spent way too much time with this guy.

I spent more than too much, yeah. You could say that again. But no, the watches, the most important thing for Rudy out of his collections were the watches and his rings. The Yankee memorabily, the Yankee rings that he wore every day and the watches. He was also a watch collector. Me and Igor have given him several watches as presents and actually have a watch that he gave me as a present. So I got to retain one of those watches out of his collection.

Hey, let You might be able to buy those watches back at some auction here if you like. But hang on, I want to talk. So, Roy, Rudy Giuliani has three New York Yankees World Series rings. That's bullshit. These are prized possessions. Lev, I got to read to you what Rudy has claimed here, because the judge has yet to order him to turn those rings over because his son, Andrew Giuliani, claims that his father gave him those three Yankees rings. He's laughing already. Why are you laughing? Because that's such bullshit.

I can't even tell you. Because first of all, Andrew only wishes that Rudy would leave him the rings. I don't think Rudy would even have left him the rings in his will. I mean, for Rudy, he It's a tell. First of all, you could see every picture Rudy's wearing at least one or two of the rings. He does with his prized possessions. He had them on all the time, and I've never heard of him saying he's giving them to Andrew or anybody else. On the contrary, as As late as prior to my arrest, when we were in Spain, I remember him taking off the rings and my kids were wearing them, and he was talking about that that's his prized possession that he would never give it to anybody. So seeing Andrew come up with this ploy out of all people, I can understand if maybe Caroline, his daughter, came out with this, I would give more benefit that he would leave it. But Andrew, remember, Andrew is like Don Jr. When Trump, Andrew is the same way as Rudy. He's that like a lost child that doesn't belong. So there's no way he would have left those rings to Andrew.

So you think he's not even going to leave them to Andrew? You think he's going to get buried. Rudy Giuliani is going to get buried with those World Series rings, probably.

It's going to be a skeleton with those rings.

It reminds me of when Warren Sapp filed for bankruptcy protection, he miraculously, Roy, lost all of his rings. National Championships, Bowl games, Super Bowl, couldn't find his rings. You're not going to believe what happened, though, Roy. After he survived bankruptcy protection, you're not going to believe what he found. He found his rings. Every single one of those.

I can't believe it. Wow.

I should have made sure you were sitting down, Roy, before I asked you about that. It's a lumbo over here. Unbelievable. So, Lev.

Billy, I'd like to see in court, the judge or somebody ask Andrew anything else his father has given him? Why the rings. Show me one other thing. He's giving him nothing. I remember he wouldn't even go buy him clothes. I remember on a weekend, it was on a Sunday, and Andrew came up and Giuliani took him shopping to buy him some And that was a big thing because that was a very rare thing. When I saw that filing by Andrew, I was like, Oh, my God. That's such bullshit.

Lev, you famously were indicted originally for a scheme that involved pressuring the President of the United States, Donald Trump, with whom you had a pretty close relationship with, pressuring him to fire Marie Yovanovitch, who was a career State Department employee, a public servant. She at the time the ambassador to Ukraine during a very sensitive time, obviously, in the history of that country and tensions with Russia and the United States. Of course, later, they rescinded all that. They superseded your indictment and just said, Oh, no, he's a fraudster, and you were convicted and went to federal prison for fraud. On that initial scheme, you were very involved in helping... I'm guessing that wasn't your idea, but in helping Rudy Giuliani working as the private counsel to the then President of the United States Donald Trump, to basically extort, a quid pro quo, as it was called. Oh, 100%. Not one, but two successive Ukrainian presidents, Poroshenko and Zelenskyy. Tell me what that scheme was all about.

Well, Basically, it started from a conversation that we had at dinner with Trump. This was in 2018. That was a private dinner we had at the Trump International Hotel. At that time, the subject of Ukraine came up. At At that time, we were just basically donors. It had nothing to do with Ukraine. I just started talking about nonsense and different information that I heard from Igor and people around town that were saying that the ambassador in Ukraine was not friendly to Trump, that she wouldn't hang up his picture on the wall, that she was talking about him getting impeached. I went ahead and I said that. When he heard that, that was the first initial interaction that we really saw that he basically stopped, turned around and said, Get rid of her. And you saw that in the movie that you put together, which is an incredible It's a terrible movie, by the way. I know you gave Rachel Maddow credit, but Billy, you deserve all the credit on that one. When you put together, that's incredible. So I'm just going to send it right here to Billy Corpman and Alfred Spellman. But with that said, that was the beginning because there was other fractions at the time that was also working, trying to get information in Ukraine, because at that time, there was a whole big misinformation campaign being spread that it wasn't the Russians that meddled in the 2016 election.

It was the Ukrainians. So there was different fractions in the Trump world that were looking into it. And at that time, one of those fractions was Pete Sessions, because after the dinner that I had with Trump, and literally the next day, I had a meeting with Congressman Pete Sessions at the time. And We were sitting there just discussing about what happened at the dinner, and I told Trump about the ambassador, and he said, Get rid of her. All of a sudden, he stopped and turned around and said, I'm dictating a letter to Pompeo because I have constituents that have been coming to me telling me the same exact thing. That's the infamous letter that he gave me to hand over to Donald Trump, which I handed over to him.

I got to want to say I'll be there because these are very high-level communications. This is some serious, intense shadow diplomacy happening outside of the State Department happening outside of the normal channels of government. Who the hell are you? Why are you involved in any of this shit, dude? I mean, with all due respect, you're a New York hustler, Russian mobbed up kid from Brighton Beach, from little Odesa, and you're running, you're like a Florida man, subsisting from hustle to hustle. Why are you in rooms with the President of the United States, with his private counsel, Rudy Giuliani, with congressman Pete Sessions, talking about the highest levels of diplomacy with a nation, with an ally at war at that point? Of course, Russia had already invaded Ukraine in 2014, and their desperate for aid, for assistance from the United States. And all due respect, what do you have anything to do with this, Liv?

How? Why? Well, that's the whole thing, Billy. And that's what people need to understand about who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump cannot have conversations on foreign policy with people that know foreign policy because Donald Trump himself has no idea. If you see in the movie, in his own words, he had no idea that Ukraine even had oil. He had no idea how they could defend themselves against Russia. And this is the President of the United States because it just shows you he wasn't even reading his own information that his own State Department and his own sources were giving him because he relied more on conversations that he would have with people like me that were donors. The other thing you have to understand is me and him are the same thing. We're both hustlers. We're both New York hustlers, just that he was on a different level. He had millions of dollars, and I came from the streets, but we all came from that same mentality. And that's why, like you say, Florida. But Florida was the beginning of when had that first dinner with him, where me and him had that interaction where we spoke for almost 40 minutes, and that bond interacted that grew the relationship because that was a very low time in his candidacy in his life because he thought he was going to lose.

We all thought he was going to lose. It was when the video came out of him saying, Grab her by the post. It was when he was completely down. His ratings were like a 30%, I think, at that time. So that small group of people and me having to be the one that came out of that group where we bonded. Remember, we spent every day together for a month from traveling to debates. I was with him in front row with the Hillary debate, the third debate he had with her. We were together in New York when he won. I mean, all of that transpired to basically having a relationship where he had more of a trust in me because he knew I had more of a loyalty to him than any of his people that were there because the people that were surrounding him that were working in the positions of power had a loyalty to the Constitution, had a loyalty to the people of the United States. They didn't have a loyalty to Donald Trump. And that's why he relied on people like myself that had more of a loyalty to him than a loyalty to our Constitution, the people.

And that's why it's so dangerous to even think about. If he could get away with these things, and when you say there were no guardrails, there were guardrails because there were people in power like General Kelly, the Mattises. You could on and on. There were still people around. They were trying to keep some way control the Boltons. You might not like these people. You might not agree with their politics. But these are career people that were in there to try to, say, keep some normality in our democracy. And Trump chose to go away from all of that and deal with people like myself because he knew that we had loyalty to him and nobody else. And that's the danger, because if he gets elected today, None of those people are around. There's nobody around, not even his own daughter, who was the biggest force of having him come back to Normality, Emanca. The only people around him are you have the crazy nuts like the General Flynn, the Cash Patels, the Matt Getz's of the world. These are the people that are going to be in power, loyal to him. And that's why it's even more dangerous to think of what he could do next time around because of what he did this time, because of what you're saying, Billy.

The guardrails are off. No matter what you think- Yeah, completely. No matter what we may think of John Bolton or Mike Pompeo or any of his goals that were around the first administration, they at least, like you said, had a loyalty somewhat to the Constitution, to the United States, and served as guardrails to Trump's worst instincts. Those are all gone now. Now everybody's fueling not only his worst instincts, but their own.

And not only that, but don't forget what the Supreme Court, the immunity clause that they gave him.

He could do whatever the fuck he was.

Exactly. Now, just think about that.

That wasn't there. Imagine how excited Trump is. They're coming all over the place. So, Lev, you were there in the White House around the administration. Trump is a idiot. During this era. And also there was General John Kelly, retired four-star general. He served as Trump's Chief of Staff for a year and a half, from 2017 to December of 2018.

I sent you a picture of me and John Kelly. I think we met at the inauguration, actually.

Yeah, absolutely. Here's what John Kelly recently said this week.

Do you think he's a fascist?

Well, I'm looking at the definition of fascism. It's a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized hypocrisy, militarism, possible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy.

So certainly, in my experience, those are the types of things that he thinks we work better in terms of running America. He's certainly an authoritarian, that admirers people who are dictators. He has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of a fascist, for sure.

There is a four-star general, the United States military, calling the former Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump, a fascist. And speaking of his admiration for dictators, here's another headline also from Kelly this week. Trump said Hitler, did some good things, and wanted generals like Nazis, people who would be loyal to him and do whatever the hell he says. Lev, what is your reaction?

I'm in shock, but In reality, that's exactly what it was. Just like going back to dealing with Trump wants, is he wants people. He doesn't want anybody to have any loyalty but to him. And that's why he references Hitler and references the general to Hitler because It's his way or the highway. If Donald Trump wants to go to war, he doesn't want to be able to talk to Congress or Senator or have anybody tell him no.

Or if he wants to use the military against his own citizens.

Yeah, or arrest anybody he wants, or have his attorney general start arresting everybody that speaks up against him or stops. He talks about the First Amendment and the right to speak, but he's the first one talking about that once he becomes President, he's going to go after all the journalists. So just think about what he's saying. And the crazy part, Billy, to think about that, we have people in our country that are going out and are doubting what General Kelly is saying. I mean, really? He has nothing better to this as a man that served our country his whole life, and now we're doubting what he's saying compared to a criminal, a fraudster, or somebody that's lied over 100,000 times. It's just incredible.

But it's not just a he said, he said. What Kelly is saying, Trump has said most of that publicly. That's what I'm saying. He said he admires these dictators. He admires Vladimir Putin. He admires the dictator of North Korea, Viktor Orbán, et cetera. Let me ask you that, Lev, you were born in Soviet Ukraine. It was the Soviet Union at the time you were born and fled and escaped effectively. You are not unfamiliar with that way of life, with that mentality, with Vladimir Putin, who you have actually met before. What do you want to tell people about? What is your closing argument, so to speak, about the possibility we are a coin toss away from a second Trump presidency? What do they need to know about his fascist tendencies, about his affection and relationship with Vladimir Putin? What do people need to know, do you think, Liv?

Well, it's very simple. It's not as complicated as you think. I mean, we live in a country where you could literally Google and take a look and take a look at how people live in the Soviet Union, how people live in North Korea, how people live in China, and take a look at this is exactly what Donald Trump is trying to achieve for America. But the problem is it's not only the way of life, even if you might agree and say, Okay, well, America first, and all of that. Think of it, the reason we haven't had all these nuclear or bad wars in all of this time is because we've had a strong alliances with countries, NATO. We have strong alliances around the world. We've been able to be the leader in the world of democracy. You might not agree with our policy. You might not agree like America's policies, but that's why we live in America. That's why we have all of that. That's why nobody here wants to go live in Russia. Nobody wants to go live in North Korea. But a vote for Donald Trump is basically wanting to go move to live in North Korea or live in China or live in Russia.

And that's what I don't understand why people are looking at and not understanding that he's telling you exactly what he wants to do. He wants to destroy NATO. He wants to destroy all of these relationships that have taken decades and centuries to achieve. He wants to destroy them in one day. So what's going to happen 20 years from now, 10 years from now, 30 years from now, when America is not the leader in the free world, where Russia now is not the Russia that we're seeing that can't defeat Ukraine in three days, but when Russia is back to the Soviet Union, when it had control of all of these countries, like Ukraine, like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and I could go on and on. And then it's not Russia, it's the Soviet Union. And it's not like travel is not the same. Trade is not the same. When Trump talks about that we're going to be a better camp, when he destroys these relationships all over the world, just think about how expensive it's going to be here to try to get other products that are not made in the USA. You're not going to be able to then travel as freely as you want.

Life will not be the same way as it was. It's all and the biggest thing that what fascism is about and what you could see is Donald Trump tells you what you want to hear. Here. He doesn't tell you how he's going to achieve it. He doesn't tell you if he could achieve it. He just tells you what you want to hear, and that's all. And he repeats it nonstop. It's the same spiel. It's what Stalin did. It's what Hitler did. If you keep repeating the same thing long enough, eventually people start to believe it. And the biggest problem also is that his cohorts, like the Matt Gates' out there that are out there that are out there that have the presence of being congressmen and going out there and supporting him and repeating the same thing. And that is problem. So my message to the people out there, unless you want to live in Russia, unless you want to live in North Korea, get out and vote for Kamala Harris's Walls campaign because Donald Trump needs to go where he belongs, and that's prison. And that's what has to happen. I think it's November 27th.

This is sentencing day.

Led Parnis, before we go, Donald Trump is a Florida man. He's going to be voting here in Florida if he hasn't already. Where do you think he stands on Amendment 4 on abortion?

I I think now, Trump is... That's the whole problem. If we take a look at Donald Trump's history, and I think he's probably paid for more abortions or had one, then he's vote. So I mean, Donald Trump is a flip flopper liar. He's going to vote yes, obviously, and he's going to also vote yes for cannabis also. So that's one for Ron DeSantis. I think the real problem in this situation is he's a felon. Why is he able to vote? Well, thank you. I can't vote. I'm I can't vote. How is he able to vote? Thank you. That's a great analogy.

Wait, Lev. Who has been convicted of more felonies? You or Donald Trump?

You know what, Billy? Shit, he wins again. Donald Trump's the winner. He has more convictions than me. Oh, that's BS.

No, totally BS.

The next time Lev comes on the show, we are going to talk about cannabis because Lev got in a little bit of trouble. Part of the illegal campaign contributions he was making that he was ultimately convicted for and went to federal prison for involved a marijuana business that he was trying to push and curry favor with Republican lawmakers by donating to them in an effort to hopefully get grow licenses. As you know, Amendment 3 is on the ballot. Shouldn't be controversial, but it is. It's the adult personal use of Marijuana Legalization. We're going to find out how lev not only helped Donald Trump get elected in 2016, in a year when lev himself was not even registered to vote and had never voted before, by the way, in his life, but was a major financial supporter of Trump. But lev also helped make the love connection between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis during the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary and may have very well helped Ron DeSantis get elected governor all over marijuana. This all had to do with marijuana. I'm very excited to hear about that story the next time you join us. Listen, I just...

What can I say? It's always a blast. I hope everybody sees He's from Russia with Lev, you've been making a mea-culpator here. You said you were cultanized and you have since escaped and snapped out of it. I appreciate you trying to be a better man, be a better husband, be a better father, and make amends to not only your family, but to both of your countries that you betrayed, Ukraine and the United States. And thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me, Billy, and thank you for the great work you do and continue doing. Thank you guys for having me.

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Gambling problem? Call 1-800 Gambler. In New York, call 877-8 Hope & Why or text Hope & Why 467-369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg. Org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort in Kansas, 21 and over. Agent eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Voiden, Ontario. Bonus, bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng. Co/beball. The former lead attorney for Florida's Department of Health is now revealing how state letters demanding TV stations stop airing a pro-choice political ad is what ultimately led him to abruptly resigned earlier this month. In this sworn affidavit filed Monday morning as part of an ongoing federal court case over the state's TV station threats, former Health Department attorney, John Wilson, said he was directed by Governor DeSantis's General Counsel to, Send them under my name and on the on behalf of the Florida Department of Health. Last week, a federal judge ruled the ad was political free speech, and the state's threatening letters needed to stop. He stated, To keep it simple for the state of Florida, it's the first amendment, stupid. Lauren Brenzel is the campaign director for Yes on 4 Florida.

You can find them at yesforfl florida. Com. That's yes, the number4florida. Com. Amendment 4 is on the ballot this year, well, really this week. It's to limit government interference with abortion and overturn the state of Florida's, I can't even say onerous, but Draconian six-week abortion ban, which I've said it once on this show, and I'll say it every time. Six-week abortion ban is an abortion ban. It's not six weeks. It's not a real number. It's simply an abortion ban. Regardless of what restrictions, I should say exemptions, they claim they have, those rights are being violated and women are dying. Babies are dying. Women are being allowed to bleed to death and give birth to stillborn babies in public toilets because doctors are afraid to treat them and offer them potentially life-saving health care because they think they might lose their license or worse, get arrested. That, my friends, is the free state of Florida. Lauren is part of the organization that was the plaintiff in that federal lawsuit that was just being referred to. I don't really know where to start here, Lauren, because this is so fucking crazy. I'm sorry. I got a little excited there.

But you have the governor of the Free State of Florida who is an attorney, a well-trained attorney. Where did he go? Went to Harvard? I went to Harvard law school, and you have a judge saying it's the First Amendment It's the first amendment, stupid. That's a direct quote from this temporary restraining order that you successfully got in this lawsuit. Let's start here. You get these threatening letters, or I should say, the TV stations that you are running these ads on get threatening letters, not just with civil penalties, but with criminal prosecution the governor is threatening them with. If they continue to run these ads, did anybody stop running them as a result of this obvious threat to freedom of speech?

We did see that. We saw Wink TV in Fort Myers, Florida, stop running an advertisement for us. It happened while Hurricane Milton was barreling towards them. They actually called us and let us know they were currently boarding up their windows, but they believed that they had to pull the Carolina an ad because of the criminal threats that they were receiving. After that temporary restraining order, they are now back up on the air. But we were so worried about the spread of that. Once one station decides to pull an ad, it gives everybody else a permission structure to do that, especially when they're being threatened with criminal charges. We were incredibly happy to see the court's decision come down.

Let's talk about that. You sued Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the quack that is somehow the... It's just unbelievable. With the so-called Surgeon General of the State of Florida also has a no-show job at the University of Florida that he gets paid for. I mean, it's such a hustle, man, too. That's the frightening thing. Through all of this demagogory and through all of this, just the threats to people's health and lives. This is ultimately just like a heist movie, Roy. They're just out here just stealing all the things about school choice and Christian nationalism and all this. They're just out here stealing from our schools and stealing from our treasury. This guy, this governor, is paying attorneys millions of dollars in taxpayer money to defend lawsuits against laws that he knows are unconstitutional. He's an attorney. He knows before they pass them, before he signs them into law, that they're going to lose. But what's the difference? His Biddies are getting billing $700, $800, $800 an hour to defend this absolute bile. In the meantime, let's talk about this lawyer here. One of the other defendants in this lawsuit who you were suing was an attorney, John Wilson, who used to work for the Florida Department of Health under Ladapo and no longer does.

We have a little bit of a better understanding as a result of an affidavit he filed, I guess, in response to your lawsuit. Tell us a little bit about who this guy is, what happened, how he was put up to this, and then I guess how he becomes a conscientious objector or something here. Who's John Wilson?

Yeah, it was a wild ride. I never know week from week at this point what to expect with government interference with this campaign. We received those cease and desist letters. John Wilson had signed off on them. One of the things that I want to note that I think was particularly egregious about these letters is that we received them in regards to an advertisement where a woman named Caroline shared her abortion experience after receiving a terminal brain cancer diagnosis. The letter referred to our advertisements as being a public nuisance. They actually couldn't even state in the letter that Caroline would have been able to access an abortion under Florida's current abortion ban because she wouldn't have. There wasn't a workable exception for her in her case. We then sued the state and found out that John Wilson had quit his position at the Department Health, and it later became revealed to us that he actually did not draft the letter that we received. It came from the governor's office. It was written for him in his name, and he was forced to sign off on it. He left because he did not want to send additional criminal threats to other TV stations or different entities throughout the course of this campaign.

So what we are seeing is people who should be neutral bureaucrats in charge of things like our public health being forced to send unconstituted institutional and potentially criminal threats to television stations. It's just absolutely unbelievable what we're encountering in this campaign as far as state interference is concerned. We're talking a lot about abortion bans and how we need to make sure that we are protecting abortion care. One of the things that is really disturbing when it comes to any fight around abortion is that there are extremists who are willing to push the absolute limits of democracy because they are so hell-bent on keeping their abortion bans in place. We're seeing genuinely authoritarian attacks. We're seeing a dismantling of Florida's democratic process. It really gives me pause as somebody who believes in our fundamental rights as citizens to petition our government and to have our voices heard that we're seeing this much interference from our state.

Let me say that, too, because no matter where you stand on this issue, the way that the governor and the state is comporting itself in this matter is antithetical to our values as Americans. We have the We have the ability to disagree. We have the ability to place these issues on our ballot in an effort to garner 60%, which is the threshold you have to meet in order to amend the state Constitution. You have the ability to get this on the ballot, to campaign for it, to run ads for it. What is happening here is beyond dictatorial and also is hypocritical in a lie in the face of what everyone said when Roe was overturned, which is, Well, now it's going back to the states. Now we'll let the states decide. It's like, Okay, well, this is a good thing, right? That the federal government, the President of the United States, doesn't get to tell women what to do with their bodies and their health care. No. Now Ron DeSantis gets to do it? No, of course not. The people of the state of Florida should vote on it, and they should vote on it in a fair and democratic process.

But that's not what this is. I was complaining, Lauren, about the amount of money we spend, our money, taxpayer money, that Ron DeSantis spends to spending unconstitutional horseshit and laws. But how much money are we spending, the state, to fight against a citizen-led initiative that is on our ballot?

We know of 20 million. I feel confident saying that in post-election investigation, we're going to find out it's potentially tens of millions of dollars more. I think that opposition is struggling to raise from individual donors because historically, this is losing issue. People don't want to see abortion bans in place. You're having to treat the taxpayers as campaigners. I know as a Floridian, I certainly don't want to be paying to stop Florida's abortion ban. To me, one of the most disturbing uses of taxpayer dollars within this absolutely unbelievable drawing of public resources is from the Agency of Health Care Administration, which is in charge of our Medicaid program. Since 2020, we have enrolled almost half a million... No, more than half a million children from Medicaid in the state of Florida. Children who have been taken off Medicaid in the state of Florida because we refused federal funding to extend their ability to stay on the program after COVID. And now we are running millions of dollars out of that state agency that could be used to get those kids back on Medicaid enrollment to fight an abortion ban.

I'm sorry, but these kids don't even pay taxes. What do these freeloaders expect? Health care? What are we doing about these? Hold it up by the bootstraps, please. Do you honestly believe that's credible? Yeah, I mean, come on now. Pick yourself up by your high-healed bootstraps as Ron DeSantis does. Now, let me ask you this. Last two things before you go. Cheating works. That's why people cheat.

Oh, that's BS. No, totally BS.

I understand that several weeks ago or months ago, Amendment 4, which, as you say, is good policy, it's bipartisan, it was polling well above the 60% threshold required for passage. More recently, in light of these attacks mounted against it by unconstitutional attacks, no less, and possibly illegal in terms of how the state is financing them, it's polling now closer to 60, which is right at the threshold, which is a little bit more concerning when you consider this is very much the will of the people. Abortion polls higher, as does marijuana, than any of our elected officials. Whatever margin they were elected by, marijuana and abortion are far more popular than they are. And yet 60%, are you concerned at all?

The 60% threshold in the state of Florida has always been one of our biggest hurdles. But we also were told that we weren't going to collect the number of petitions that we needed to collect to get on the ballot. We did it in record time. We also were told we wouldn't make it past the Florida Supreme Court. We made it past the Florida Supreme Court. Every hurdle we've been given, we've been told we weren't going to make it. And fundamentally, I believe that we're not fortune telling when we to say how an election is going to turn out. We are working every single day to earn a vote. I have to believe that Floridians understand that we have to stop this abortion ban, that they don't want to see an abortion ban in effect. And at the campaign and with all of our partners across the state, we are going to do everything that we can to make sure that we meet that 60% threshold.

Before we go, let's do closing argument here. You got about 30, 40 seconds. You want to combat some of the misinformation or just make the best case for yes on Florida Amendment 4.

This isn't an extremist initiative. If we keep believing politicians who are lying about abortion access, we're never going to have abortion access back in this country. We can't believe people about it's about undoing parental consent. It's about providing late term abortions. It's about people who are tattoo artists providing abortions. These are the same people who told us they wouldn't overturn Roe v Wade. They're the same people that told us they wouldn't pass a six week abortion ban. And look at where we are. There is only There's only one way to end Florida's abortion ban, and it is to vote yes on for this November. But we need everybody to get out there and vote. Right now, the turnout is not where it needs to be. We have a really exciting election with a lot on the ballot, and we need people to get to the polls by November fifth and vote yes on for because this is our one shot. It is a generational shot to end Florida's abortion ban.

Lauren Buzell, Campaign Director, Yes on For Florida. Find them at yesforflorida. Com. That is yes numberfourflorida. Com. Lauren, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck.

Thank you. Take care.

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