State Rep. Angie Nixon

Well, please welcome State Representative Angie Nixon serving the Jacksonville area, now running as a candidate for US Senate as a Democrat. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. Thank you for having me. You may be best known outside of the Jacksonville area for a protest on the House floor going back to April when you were protesting the new congressional maps. You were reprimanded for breaking decorum. In hindsight, do you regret breaking the quorum? Are you proud to have done it and might do it again on the US Senate? So I think it's important to note that a government works best when it is fully representative of the people and a government should work for us and not against us. And right now in Tallahassee and Washington, DC, including folks like Ashley Moody, they're not working in the best interest of hardworking Floridians and Americans. And in Tallahassee, they decided to make it so that voters and people wouldn't be able to decide who would represent them and instead they wanted to choose their voters. They were doing illegal and unconstitutional things. And what good is the quorum when democracy is actively being destroyed? And well, on that point, what good is decorum? Two points there. Number one, a true test of our Republican democracy is whether we can respect its rules when we think the other side is wrong. Two, you had a couple of your Democratic colleagues who said they voted the wrong way, voted for it by mistake. One of them, Representative Woodson, said she did so because she was confused in the disruption. So by definition, was that not that display not counterproductive? So I think it's really important to highlight what is happening right now in our country. Donald Trump and Ashley Moody are looking out for greedy billionaires and corrupt corporations. And they are harming our hardworking Floridians and Americans. I think it's also good to point out that Donald Trump is it's a lot of corruption and chaos that's happening right now. They aren't listening to voters. And strongly worded emails and strongly worded letters are not breaking through. We have a president who is propped up as well by Ashley Moody, who is weaponizing agencies, you know, weaponizing investigative agencies as well. And he's going after people who simply are pushing back against the fact that he is not doing what he said he was going to do. He's defying the courts and all those things. Well, here's one of the problems that I think both sides will say they have with politics is there is a flood of misinformation online, bad information, disinformation, conspiracy theories. How do you tackle that if you're elected to the US Senate? And would you vote to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act? Are you familiar with Section 230? Explain it to the viewers as well. Yes, sure, sure, sure. Absolutely. There's a Good Samaritan Clause in it that states that media, social media operators have to regulate content online and remove stuff they deem harmful. And as long as they make that good faith effort, they can't be sued for stuff that they take off their sites, or for stuff they leave on their sites. Do you think that those social media operators should have those legal protections? So I think it's really important to highlight that I am someone that has added added, I think it's important to highlight that I am someone that is actively advocated against disinformation, and I think it's important to call it out. And right now, a lot of elected officials, including folks that are in the US Senate aren't calling out the disinformation, they aren't pushing back against the lies, and the harmful rhetoric that is coming out of the mouths of Donald Trump, Ashley Moody, and Governor Ron DeSantis. I don't believe that we need to be protecting the social media companies. I believe they need to be held liable. They are not putting checks and balances in place to ensure that harmful rhetoric is not in disinformation, blatant disinformation is being removed, they're not. One of the key points of your platform is to pass a federal law that bans corporations from inflating prices on gasoline, and on groceries. Now the FTC and Department of Justice already have price fixing authority, antitrust authority, what would your legislation specifically do that the federal government currently cannot? The problem is there's a lot of laws in place in the federal government, and there's no enforcement behind it. And so we're going to make sure that there is some actual teeth and enforcement of it. Look, people need to be fined and penalized. And at times if they are doing things that are blatantly causing harm to Floridians, hardworking Floridians, some people need to go to jail, some executives need to go to jail. Do you have specific examples of companies that are illegally in your mind inflating prices? So there was a big box store. I'm happy to let you know that I was able to stop some price gouging from happening. There was a big box chain store that was inflating prices in the state, in certain areas, in certain communities, hardworking communities, and low income communities. Which store was it? And I will let you file the records request because I don't necessarily want to say. Well I'm asking you, you don't want to tell us? It was BJ's, among some other companies that I have dealt with as well. And how were they inflating and how did you stop them? And so they were inflating, they were charging two, three, four and five dollars more for certain products, only in certain communities. And I used my platform as a state lawmaker to get them to stop. Was that through legislation? It wasn't through legislation, but it was through the platform and calling them and having conversations with their general counsel and people like that. And look, the United States Senate seat, that's a bigger platform, a bigger megaphone, so to speak. And so I'm going to use that platform to push and to ensure that we are working to address the issues and concerns of hardworking Floridians. Through the bully pulpit, as you say you did with BJ's, or through legislation? And if through legislation, what would it be? So we would definitely do it through both if we have to, right? If people are unjustly overcharging, then we need to make sure that we are fining them. And how do you decide if they're being overcharged? Well, you do the research and if they are only overcharging in certain communities, which we have known and we have seen before, then we go after them. Now stuff costs more in some communities more than others. Stuff costs maybe less in Alachua County than it would in Dade and Broward County. There's just disparities in cost of living. How do you sort that out? You sort that out by doing the research, right? These the issues that I saw and that I was able to address, actually, they were in some of the same cities and they we saw mass amounts of disparities because of it. Would you be open to instating price controls as we did under President Nixon? Look, at the end of the day, I am looking at all options to ensure that we help lower these costs. I want to be clear, though, one of the things that we need to do is we need to remove the tax that Donald Trump put on hardworking, everyday Floridians, the tariffs, right? It's insane that Donald Trump passed the big BS bill that actually gave tax breaks to his billionaire friends and family. And meanwhile, those tariffs are basically taxes on our grocery prices. So you would be open to price controls? They didn't work in President Nixon's era. What would be different this time? That's not what I said. What I said was I would be open to repealing the tariffs that are open to all options. I was asking about the price controls. As I stated, I would be open to repealing taxes, repealing the tariffs, the taxes that Donald Trump put on hardworking Americans recently. What's the most important thing you could do as a member of the U.S. Senate to make homes more affordable? The most important things that we can do is we can actually work to provide rent stabilization right now, as well as stop allowing these private equity firms to purchase single family homes. But rent stabilization is something that we need to do in the state of Florida. It is the least affordable place to live right now as it relates to rent. We are over 18 percent of the national average. Would you support on a federal level, therefore, rent control? I mean, I definitely would support rent stabilization in certain areas. And how would that differ from rent control? And whatever, tomato tomato, at the end of the day, there are companies that are inflating rent simply because of corporate greed. And right now it is harming people. And so we need to cap the rent cost up to about 10 percent. I think we can look at a 10 percent cap right now. You also support down payment assistance. How much and how would it work? My gosh, thank you for asking me that question, because I am someone who was a previous single mom for 12 years and the federal government offered down payment assistance in the form of community development block grants, which trickled down to the state and which trickled down to the local level. And so I was able to afford a home on a twenty eight thousand dollar a year income because I worked for the state of Florida at the time. And so unfortunately, with Trump's big BS bill, he cut back funding for programs like that. And so we need to repeal the big BS bill. Right. And to ensure that we are actually taking care of hard working Floridians and Americans. And I support really investing and infusing more money into HUD and things like that to allow people to purchase their homes and put down payments. The challenge there is that if you increase down payment assistance, what's to stop the sellers from just absorbing the subsidy by raising prices when you can't spike the supply, largely because that's controlled by local governments and local zoning ordinances. And so, you know, we have to look at doing some type of partnership with the state and local levels in regards to zoning ordinances and things like that. Look, I believe that we need to put in more affordable housing options and not just these expensive condos. And so I would be looking forward to working with the state and local governments to pass those type of measures. At the end of the day, the problem is corporate greed. And you just basically said it yourself. And so we need to get things like big money out of politics as well. When we have politicians like Ashley Moody and Donald Trump who are getting richer and who are only helping out and passing legislation that helps their their campaign donors, we have Floridians that are struggling right now to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head. As you very well know, Ashley Moody failed. She voted against extending the ACA subsidies. And because of it, nearly 200,000 Floridians dropped off the rolls and they no longer have medical. Well, the Republican argument on that is that money is no gift from heaven and that those ACA enhanced subsidies were passed to get us through a national health emergency and that national health emergency passed. And maybe you look at core reasons for health care inflation and try to tackle that. You know, the core reason for health care inflation, again, is corporate greed. Consolidation is part of it. Yeah, it is definitely corporate greed. And I'm talking to too many Floridians across the state of Florida who are rationing out their prescription medication, too many Floridians who are going without the procedures that would potentially save their lives because they can't afford health care. Well, on the other side, I would say it's not greed, but there is a factor with consolidation and negotiation rates, therefore change. You also have an increase in drugs. GLP one weight loss drugs in particular that are driving up costs. How do you get to the root causes of health care inflation, specifically in the form of legislation? Again, the root causes happen to be corporate greed. And so what we do is what I propose is trying to push towards Medicare for all. And what we do is we do that incrementally. I'm practical. We extend the ACA subsidies and we demand that these health insurance companies drive down those premiums. And then we look towards reforming the ACA and then we push towards Medicare for all. And for people that are going to say we don't have the money, we actually do have the money because we're spending a billion dollars on a ballroom that many people won't be able to dance in. We're spending $14 million on a reflection pool that turned green. A lot of this money that we're spending is going towards people. And those money should not be spent, but a lot of what is the current national debt in this country? It is very high. It is too, too high, right? And what is the national debt? It's too high. And the reason it's too high is because people like Ashley Moody and people like Donald Trump are only looking out for their campaign donors, and they're pushing to allow them to have no big contracts instead of and bailing out their companies instead of ensuring we're bailing out hard working Floridians. Well, it's pushing $40 trillion. How much more, by your estimates, would universal child care plus Medicare for all both things that you support? You're also saying no cuts at all to Medicare or Social Security. Do you also support Republic College? I'm guessing. So I think it's important to know that we should definitely work to scrap the cap. Did you know that billionaires stopped paying into Social Security just the first few hours of the year? Well, I do. Okay, but we'll get to that in a moment. How much more would your proposals for Medicare for all plus universal child care plus no cuts to social insurance programs? How much more would that increase our federal budget deficit and the national debt? It would actually lower it, because if you look at the research and I don't have the exact numbers right now right off hand, but it is cheaper to have a Medicare for all program because we will be able to ensure that folks aren't using emergency rooms as their primary care. You can negotiate drug prices. There's other things you can do to increase efficiencies. You would also have lower reimbursement rates for hospitals. And could that not therefore drive some of them out of business in rural parts of the state? So let's be clear. Donald Trump's big BS bill, which Ashley Moody supported, actually is already driving out hospitals. I spoke with someone the other day, and in Taylor County, they're about to lose their last pediatrician. I spoke to another woman the other day in Alachua County who has to go and get women from neighboring counties because their obstetricians and gynecologists are leaving and they have to bring them back to Alachua County. There are rural hospitals that are closing right now. There are doctors that are leaving our state right now because of this big BS bill that Donald Trump rammed through. On the challenge of cost insurance, property insurance is a big one here in Florida. You're calling for a federal backstop to, I'm assuming, guarantee storm losses so insurance companies wouldn't have to buy as much free insurance. Is that correct? So I think it's really important to note that property insurance is out of control and is out of control, again, due to corporate greed as well as these politicians that are only looking out for them. Because, I mean, Ashley Moody received money. Tons of politicians here in the state received a ton of money from these insurance companies, right? And so think about it. If we had a fully funded public option, right now when it comes to insurance, those profits are passed on to those shareholders. If we had a public option, we could actually lower the premium rate. So you're talking about federal insurance directly like we have with the National Flood Insurance Program but property insurance? So I would love that to happen at a state level. And so- Well, federal level rather than Senate. I understand, but I'm just saying that is my suggestion. And so having a fully funded public option, which would actually lower premiums and that money could actually, those profits would be invested into a fund in times of a natural disaster or a catastrophe, right? And think about it. Already, there's huge natural disasters of epic proportion and they're already tapping into funds from the feds and funds from the state. And so if there was a fully funded public option as it relates to that, we'd already have that money. So that would make us have even more money. Well, you have subsidized flood insurance that's coming up for reauthorization later this year. If you were a member of the Senate, what changes would you demand to reauthorize National Flood Insurance Program? So we definitely just, I have to do more research on it. But again, as I stated earlier, we definitely have to ensure that there's public options. And again, I am totally against, totally against this corporate greed that is running rapid. And I really think we need to get big money out of politics as well. What about the risk rating 2.0 system that the Biden administration implemented for flood insurance coverage? Do you agree with that and support it? Totally have to just look into that more, more, do more research on that. But I definitely am against us putting money into, putting public money into the hands of private companies. Should you means test flood insurance so you pay flood insurance premiums based on your income? So again, I wanna make sure that it's important for us to talk about the fact that hardworking Floridians are struggling right now because these insurance companies are coming in, they're jacking up rates, they're leaving the state, all the things. And meanwhile, Ashley Moody and Donald Trump and many of the Republicans in the state are taking campaign donors and only propping them up. And so I'm interested in looking at and doing more research as it relates to that, whatever we need to do to lower the cost. Well, the cost to taxpayers, the flood insurance program is more than $22 billion in debt. And that's after a lot of debt forgiveness a few years ago. How do you get that under control and could part of the solution be not insuring properties that flood over and over and over again? I think we need to look at everything and really a budget is a moral document, number one. And I know that the Department of Defense, the Pentagon has failed every audit recently. And so we need to open it up for everything to really reassess where we're spending our money. And we need to prioritize working families. On immigration policy, would you vote to decriminalize undocumented migrants who cross our Southern border, making it a civil infraction instead of a criminal? You know, I think it's really important for us to work to modernize and reform the immigration system. I fully support compassionate and comprehensive reform to the immigration system. I definitely believe that we need to allow these mixed status families to have a clear pathway to citizenship. I also believe that many of the TPS recipients, we need to create a clear pathway for them to gain citizenship as well. And we really got to calm down the rhetoric and the demonization of our immigrant brothers and sisters. Do you think it should be a crime for an undocumented migrant to cross or should it be a civil infraction? You know, again, I think we need to make sure that we are fully working towards reforming the immigration system. I think what the crime is also like the real crime, I haven't seen or heard from companies, these corporations that are hiring undocumented immigrants. Why is the onus always just on that undocumented person? We need to put some enforcement and some teeth behind it. And we need to also go after these companies that are exploiting undocumented people and exploiting their workers. Let's shift to foreign policy. If China were to enact a blockade of Taiwan and therefore cut off the global supply, including the US supply of advanced microchips, would you vote to authorize military use of force for the United States to break the blockade? I think it's really important that we, before we take any type of military action, we really need to scrutinize things and we need to work to exhaust all diplomatic alternatives and efforts. Would the same hold true if there was a direct invasion of Taiwan by China? Again, I think we need to rely on our advisors. It is very common knowledge that Donald Trump and Ashley Moody don't really listen to the advisors. And so again, we need to scrutinize everything before we green light or write a blank check to go into another war. Big week for NATO. Do you think that the United States should guarantee our NATO allies at the current existing troop and funding levels, or should we decrease and expect our partners to pick up more of the tap and more of the troops, or would you increase our support? You know, I think that we need to look at everything, but if we are wanting to be a major ally in the world and a strong and powerful force, we need to act like it. We need to stop picking fights. We need to be more diplomatic and we need to look out for our neighbors as well. There's debate over what percentage of GDP our NATO allies should commit to core defense and defense in general. What should that percentage of GDP in your mind be? You know, it needs to be whatever the experts say it needs to be, right? Well, you'd be the expert in the Senate. And actually, we have folks who have more foreign affairs experience as well, but it is great to have diversity in the Senate as well, because I am someone who knows what Floridians are facing and what they're up against, and I've been helping them every step of the way. But, you know, I am okay with us staying at the levels that we are and even possibly increasing, especially as there are more attacks happening from some of our adversaries. Well, that takes us back to the national debt approaching $40 trillion and more soon. What then would you cut if you're looking at increases in national debt? Yeah, so it's not even necessarily what we need to cut. We need to make sure the billionaires and these corrupt corporations are paying their fair share. Did you know that 88 billion, I'm sorry, did you know that 88 companies made over $105 billion last year and they paid absolutely nothing in federal taxes? Meanwhile, we have hardworking Floridians who are going into payment plans with the IRS and they make nowhere near $100,000 or $50,000. And so we need to make sure that these billionaires and these ultra wealthy millionaires and these corporations pay their fair share. And as I stated earlier, it's going to be important for us to look at all of the different agencies. As I stated as well earlier, the Department of Defense and the Pentagon, they have continually failed their audits. Meanwhile, we have veterans that are living homeless on the street. Meanwhile, we have our military servicemen and women and their families that are on SNAP benefits. Again, a budget is a moral document, right? And so our budget tells us what our values are and our values need to be the American people, not campaign donors, not building Donald Trump's network to $4 billion, not padding the campaign coffers of folks, like all the things. And so we need to make sure that we are looking out for hardworking Floridians. We have about a minute left. Let's close on Cuba. Would you support restoring Obama era policy with Cuba, meaning relaxing banking and travel restrictions and more? You know, I think it's really important to note that these decade long cruel embargoes have failed to change the regime. And we need to really be looking at humanitarian efforts and not blocking humanitarian efforts over in Cuba. And I do support the Obama. And by that line of thinking, do you also support lifting the trade embargo? And so I think we need to be strategic, right? If we are going to have sanctions on anything, it needs to be sanctions on the dictators and the authoritarianism, the authoritarians. It should not be keeping people from having access to hospitals or access to food. Which would mean lifting the trade embargo. That would be your vote at least. That's something that I'm open to. Representative Angie Nixon, thank you so much for taking time for us today. Thank you. Thank you for having me.