Donald Trump and MAGA are getting a massive rude awakening in Florida, where the latest polls show that Donald Trump is underwater and underwater big. Multiple red states show that Donald Trump is underwater like he's negative 17. 2 in Texas. But let's check out Florida right now where Donald Trump is negative 7. 5. Folks, what was once thought of as a ruby red state, Florida, no longer looks to be that way. You know we've been covering the state 8 House races in Florida, the mayor's races, where there have been major democratic upsets. As we head to the midterms, I think the voters in Florida are absolutely pissed at this regime. We can go across all demographics and see people pissed at this despicable Trump regime. I mean, take a look. The Cuban population deported at the highest rate ever when Donald Trump and the MAGA said, Oh, we're not going to go after you. We're just going to go after the criminals. The pro-opposition, pro-democracy Venezuelan population that thought that Maria Karina Machado would become the leader of Venezuela. They are dismayed and disenchanted as Donald Trump is having the oppressor, Delce Rodriguez, run things so Donald Trump can take the oil from Venezuela and use that proceed money to transfer it to a Qatari bank account to help Donald Trump.
You talk about tourism in Florida is getting absolutely crushed based on the Canadian and European boycott, which only seems like it's going to expand after the horrific behavior by Donald Trump against Europe and Canada, which is only accelerating and escalating. You look at recent plans by the Trump regime to propose new offshore oil drilling off the Coast of Florida, which if you look at the oil spread models, could be just a complete and utter disaster in Florida. You take a look at the utility costs, the insurance prices, affordability. Florida is getting absolutely crushed. It's got a completely out of touch governor, DeSantis, who is locking the East Coast right now, which is about to suffer a massive winter storm that is suffering a massive winter storm, a deadly winter storm. Desantis is like, Well, at least it's 80 degrees here in Florida. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. It's not funny. We should all be Americans, DeSantis, not rooting against areas to die. You realize that it's fortunate that there weren't any hurricanes by Florida this time around this past hurricane season. But FEMA is so woefully underprepared. Every time Florida is hit with serious hurricanes, the country rallies around Florida.
We're all Americans. This behavior right here is absolutely despicable, and he's run Florida into the ground. Take a look at what DeSantis just said. It's so disgusting. Play this clip.
That was a great night. Yeah, well, first, just let me say on the weather, because you provided the adequate warnings for people across country. Just for the record, in Florida this weekend, the average is going to be about 80 degrees. It's a great time to be in the free state of Florida, not just for low taxes and low crime, but also for that.
Now, when you have these MAGA Republican Congress members, like Congress member Mast, go to town halls, they frequently get booed. When you see this guy, for example, it seems that all of these MAGA Republican Congress members from Florida actually hate their constituents. Like Congress member Mast right here. He says, Doge has been so great to the people of Florida. We should have Doge everywhere. This is what he said early on in the Doge process. Doge was a absolute disaster where federal spending actually increased. It gutded our federal government. It destroyed the ability for the government to function. But look at this MAGA Republican from Florida. This is why I believe that there's a chance and a good chance for Florida to turn purple or possibly even blue. Watch Brian Mast here, this MAGA Republican. What I want to say here, play this clip. Is DOGE working?
Is it successful so far?
Doge has been beyond successful. Every American should be thanking President Trump. They should be thanking Elon Musk the team that they work to put in place and be begging them to go not just to every federal agency, but say, please come to a hometown near me and start digging into my state government, my local government, my towns, my municipalities, because who knows what you'll And we will all be more efficient. We will waste less dollars. There'll be less inflation. This is the goal of all of this, to say, hey, you're the American taxpayer. You deserve to keep that money in your pocket, not have your government wasting it, sending it abroad on these 15 million in condoms for the Taliban, who is our enemy, not wasting money on things like this, but you keep it and you enjoy your life. It's the work of your hands. Thank you to the President for doing it.
Congressman Brian- And here, Brian Mast was getting booed at a recent town hall that he or town hall he held several months ago, rather. Here, play this clip. Us theory, going in the air. So this is wrong. This is a very specific example.
That's not a Godlike thing to say in a church. And what we're going to get to is free training for the United States.
So now I want to bring in the lead Democratic candidate who's running against Brian Brian Mast, someone who has set all types of fundraising records over this past year. Her name is Pia Dondeya. She was a teacher for years, launched a high school that she was the founder of, graduating 100% of its class at Harlem, New York. She's a White House Fellow. She then went into the public policy realm, and she grew up in Jupiter, Florida, in this Congressional district area, where she is now going to be running against Brian Mast. She's someone who has always She's one against all odds, and people think that, and I think that, she has a real big chance of flipping this Brian Mast seat. She raised a million dollars, folks, in the past year.
I want to bring in Pia Dondeja, who's one of those great Democratic candidates who's been breaking fundraising records in Florida's 21st for a Democrat. You've raised the most money in Florida's 21st, and it's still in a primary stage since 2018. I know Pia is humble, so I'll give some of her background. She founded a high school when you were still in your 20s, and basically everybody from that high school in Harlem, New York, went on to go to college, and you started off as a teacher for four years or so, founded your own school, you were a White House Fellow, then you went on to be involved in public policy later, and you were born and raised in Jupiter, so it's a natural spot for you to take your leadership and to represent the place you're from. And lots of big endorsements that you've gotten from Florida's 21st, from Patrick Murphy, who used to represent the area, to Roe Kana. I could go down the list. And you really galvanize people. And some would say you come out of nowhere. But those who know you know, know that's been Pia her entire life. And so I do want to focus on your background because it's a real compelling story.
But I just want to start off with this Florida's 21st Congressional district and Brian Mast. So I It showed videos at the beginning. There's this incongruency, would be putting it nicely. There's an attack on the district by the guy who's supposed to represent him. So can you talk through just that aspect of it? Then we'll go into why you decided to run.
Yes, absolutely. So my district, where I was born and raised, district 21, has had Brian Mass in the seat since 2016. I think that there has been a quiet opportunity building here in Florida for a while. And that became very obvious to me, especially Especially as we got into early last year. I went to Brian Mass town hall. I was really taken aback by how angry it was and how many people were there. And Brian Mass's total inability to address people's concerns. For the last many years, there's been a real growing disconnect with his leadership and the people who elected him to serve who he should be working for. And I think that we find ourselves now in a political moment where mast with Trump is not saying, When I want you to jump, how high? It's, is it high enough. And I think that folks in our district are beginning to take wind of this and say, this is not what we signed up for, and you're not here to represent us. And so that is really what I want to take on in this election cycle. We have an elected official who even just a few weeks ago was voting to raise health care premiums for constituents in our district, which would have affected 70,000 voters that he himself serves.
He's also been silent while ICE has been tearing through our communities without Without regard for human life. And the list goes on and on. I think he represents the perfect archetype of a Trump-supported candidate who has been phoning it in for the last few years and having it pretty easy. And I want to give him a hard, hard run for his money.
Florida's 21st is along what's called the Treasure Coast. And I guess when it comes to Congress member, Mast and Donald Trump, it's basically taking away people's money and wealth and opportunities and hoarding the treasure tour themselves in Washington, DC, or Donald Trump's Golden Ball rooms, or Qatari Bank accounts. That seems to be what their priorities. I just wonder, as you tour the district and you say to people, go, Okay, here's what the priority is going to be. Here's what Donald Trump's doing. They're like, What? Is it like what they promised? Like affordability? No, no, no. Hear me out. Golden ballrooms, and they're going to invade places. Take the money. Are they going to give us the money? No, no, no. Qatari bank accounts to help build golden ballrooms for Donald Trump. And they're going to do great Gatsby parties right in your backyard at Mar-a-Lago. They're going to rub it in your face, and that's basically it. It's ridiculous. Talk to us about your background, being a teacher, founding a school, Getting the gangs to go away, fighting for yourself. It's an incredible story. I'll talk more about your district, but people have to hear that.
Thank you.
Yes, of course. Well, I studied government in college, and I knew that I wanted to commit my life to public service, especially because my family has been in this district for 40 years. It's where I was born and raised. My dad has been a doctor here for 40 years. My mom started a school for me 30 years ago that my son now attends. Our family has really lived the American dream, and it's a dream that I can see has been slipping through our fingers, especially for Americans who have been here for generations. I started having that realization when I went to college, so I knew that I wanted to commit my life to public service, to pay forward what I'm so proud that this district in this country has given me. So I became a teacher, and I wanted to focus on teaching in high poverty schools to really understand the challenges that those communities face and figure out how to be a part of the solution. And I just deeply fell in love with the work on the ground. I felt like there was truly no better place for me to be to understand the problems of poverty and public education than in the trenches.
So initially, I thought maybe I'd go to law school or get involved in policy work, but I scrapped those plans because I knew I was exactly where I needed to be. So I taught for a few more years, and then I got the fire under my belly to say, what if I didn't just lead a classroom? What if I led an entire school? Could I actually change life traject for kids living below the poverty line on the public dollar? So at the And at the age of 28, I became a high school principal in Harlem. And I started a high school there with just one hallway, 100 kids, 10 teachers. And every year we got 100 more kids, 10 more teachers, one more hallway, until we became a fully grown school. And we told families that if they came to this school that they had never heard of, their child would earn admission to college. Now, this was a very big promise to make at the time, knowing that the high school down the street was graduating students from high school, forget college, at a 60 % rate. Eighty-six % of my students live below the poverty line, and we succeeded in getting 100 % of them off to college on the public dollar with a million dollars in scholarships.
And I'm so proud of what that means for them because year Year over year, we built that school with blood, sweat, and tears. And as the principal, I did everything from hiring teachers to breaking up fights if gangs were waiting for my kids. And four years later, all of them were off to college. The school lives beyond me now, too. So we're on to our sixth graduating class, still serving the same demographic and still getting 100 % of them off to college. I feel so strongly that we can do better, and I want to do so much better for kids and families across the entire country because of what I learned in serving the communities that I served in places like Brooklyn and Harlem.
That's really just rolling up your sleeves, getting it done, creating generational change and the amount of lives you've impacted. That's why I said, for some people, it's like, Where did Pia come from? This is raising a million dollars in four months, essentially in this race, breaking these fundraising records. And it's like, well, let's take a look at her background. This is what she's been doing the whole time. Let's zoom in, though. Let's zoom in on Florida's 21st Congressional district because Trump won that district by 58% in 2024. Brian Mast, who you're running against in his re-election, won it with 62% of the vote. And so lots of people, including the Democratic Party, until your surge, viewed that as one of these seats that are like, safe seat. Do we devote our resources to this area? Similar to people saying, should we devote resources to trying to graduate 100% of people in an area in Harlem like that. But how are you going to overcome that gap? And what are you hearing in the district as you tour it now and you're speaking to, not just Democrats, you're speaking to Independence, by the way, where Trump's approval among Independence is 27 to 29%, and you're speaking with Republicans.
So how's that going?
So I think there has been a quiet opportunity building here in Florida for a while. Let me tell you some stats about my district. My district is 40% Republican. We're about 30% Democrat, and we're 30% independent. Brian Mass has been in this seat since 2016, and he has had a real challenge in terms of a campaign that was supported by Democrats in DC in 2018. This district on the Cook County report is R+7, and it surprises most people to know that while we live 20 minutes away from Mar-a-Lago, which is not in my district, Mar-a-Lago is in a blue district. And so I think a lot of the feeling around Brian Mass and the permanence of his seat is the sense of permanence you get when anyone has been in their seat for a few years. We see a real path to victory here. And like I mentioned, that town hall was the first indicator of that. I am seeing a persistent continuation in this last year of Florida showing that we are not deep red without any other options. In April, we won a Congressional seat that closed the gap by 23% having a swing to the left.
In September, we won another state Senate seat with a 22% swing. And just in December, we earned a third state Senate. We won a third race, a state Senate seat with another 22% swing. So my view is that it has to be my mission to build a campaign that is ready to meet the moment in November. And I think that we have to do that in two ways. The first way is that I think we have to keep hitting the milestones we have been, like you mentioned, with fundraising, with national endorsements endorsements and local endorsements that are on par with the Democratic candidates who are running in the most competitive seats across the country. We've been doing that so far, and we've got to keep it up. And secondly, I think we need to have a real human touch to this campaign. We have been building deep coalition across the district with elected officials, with business leaders, with nonprofit leaders, with public defenders, and we are on track to having 100 house parties by the time that we get to November. We need to make this campaign one that people see and feel and can touch.
I want to bring back that human feel to Congressional races, especially with a message that is going to meet voters. The more voters that I meet on the trail, the more I hear that nowadays, they don't see themselves as staunch Democrats or Republicans. They see themselves as an observer about this political process, and they just want candidates who are going to meet their everyday needs, which for us here includes things like lives we can afford, healthcare we can rely on, social security we can depend on, and clean water for us all, which is a big issue here in Florida. So we need to be ready to meet the moment with the right coalition and with the right message. So in my view, it's not a one, two punch. It's a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 punch. And We are ready to roll up our sleeves and do the work to make that happen with 41 weeks to go.
Where can people learn more about your campaign and learn more about you?
A great question, Ben. You can go to my website, which is piaforconverse. Com. You can also check out our Instagram, our Facebook. Send us a message. We would love to talk with you more as we keep building this campaign. We are building a real coalition that is local, that is statewide, and national to flip this red seat blue, and we would love to be in conversation with you.
Pia Dundee, high school principal, founder of an incredible school, White House Fellow, running for Florida's 21st Congressional district. Great to have you on.
Thank you so much, Ben.
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MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the latest shock poll from Florida showing Trump’s approval tanking and Meiselas interviews Democratic candidate Pia Dandiya who is running against MAGA Republican Brian Mast in Florida’s 21st Congressional District.
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