Byron Donalds | Florida Congressman & Gubernatorial Candidate Speaks on His Campaign a Week Out of Primary Election Day

We have the tech to get food delivered in 15 minutes, but we all have horror stories about buying tickets. The GameTime app gives fans the advantage. Get amazing tickets in just a few taps. Fees are included, so what you see is what you pay. And the Game Time guarantee means authentic tickets at the best price every time. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets to concerts, sports, comedy, and more with Game Time. Download the Game Time app and create an account for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. We have the tech to get food delivered in 15 minutes, but we all have horror stories about buying tickets. The GameTime app gives fans the advantage. Get amazing tickets in just a few taps. Fees are included, so what you see is what you pay. And the game time guarantee means authentic tickets at the best price every time. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets to concerts, sports, comedy, and more with GameTime. Download the GameTime app and create an account for $20 off your first purchase. Term supply. Get Ready, Staten Island. The Fairy Hawks are back at SIUH Community Park next weekend for a four-game series against the Long Island Ducks. Friday, August 7th, first pitches at 7 p.m. Plus, it's kids glow around the bases. Saturday, August 8th, it's a single-admission doubleheader with first pitch at 4 p.m. It's Italian Heritage Night with post-game fireworks. And Sunday, August 9th, first pitches at 1.30 p.m. Plus, kids run the bases. Visit fairy hawks.com now to lock in your seats. Five states in play today, primaries. We've got Wisconsin, that maniac hung, running for governor. You've got Minnesota, our friend Mike Lindell running for governor there today, part of a three-person primary, South Carolina, Vermont, and Connecticut. But a week from today down in the great state of Florida, where I live for 16 years in Boca Raton until I got bored and came back home to New York. Now I can't wait to get the hell out of here. I'm kidding. We got the big primary in Florida a week from today, and all eyes are on my man. I love this guy in Congress. Had the chance to campaign with them once, very late three days before the election for President Trump, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and that is the great Byron Donalds's. Byron, welcome back to Sid and Friends in the morning. How are you, my friend? It's good to be back with you. You remember that date in King and Prussia? I do, man. It was fun. You were great. You came out with your sunglasses on, and you were actually really, really funny that night. You know, one thing on that night that is kind of sad, though, Byron, you remember this, is one of the folks that spoke, I think he spoke in between you and I, no longer with us as we get set to commemorate 25 years of 9-11 in a couple of weeks here in New York. Bernard Carrick was there that night. You remember that? Yeah. Yeah.

And actually it was the first time I got a chance to meet him and, you know, being a former New Yorker to really thank him for his service. Great man. He was a great man and he did a great job back then, him and Rudy and Pataki and all of them. Now he got a bunch of... you know, Jew haters and America haters and retards in charge here. It's terrible. That's why people like you are so important to us, Byron, because we need great leaders. Now, Florida's been pretty good. They've been, you know, Governor Rick Scott, when I live there, Ron DeSantis, the last eight years. But you got a pretty crowded field, Byron. I know you're the favorite, but you got, what, 12 people running in that primary next Tuesday? Yeah, that's the number. But it's fine. Look, there's primary elections. They happen every time you have an open seat, especially for a seat as important as governor. But we've been doing incredibly well. Obviously, having the full endorsement of President Trump, former governor, our current Senator Rick Scott, 43 of our sheriffs in the state of Florida have backed our campaign, not to mention the congressional delegation, the vast majority of the state legislature. We've been able to really crisscross the state. And the message has been clear. It's been about tackling affordability issues, insurance, and housing costs in our state and taxes and having real plans to fix that for the people of our state. But the other side of it is keeping the Florida dream alive and well, making sure we defend that from the radical left. You know, people come here. It's for a way of life. It's not just the beaches and the taxes. It's a way of life. It's common sense, conservative living, and we're going to protect that here in Florida. Oh, God, you're such a great choice, Byron. Seriously, I'm so enthusiastic for you. And I lived there for a long time, as I stated, when you were on hold. And my son, Gabriel, my only son, my second child, he's about to go to college next year, somewhere in Florida, maybe Gainesville, maybe Tallahasse, but more likely, maybe someplace of South is Boca, one of those schools, or Tampa, I don't know. But we're going to get a place in Florida again, my wife and I and spend a lot of time there. So Florida, where I lived for 16 years, is back in play in the Rosenberg household in a couple of months. And, you know, there are some issues. You talked about, for example, do we get a condo? Do we get a house? I know insurance down there is brutal. As great as Florida is, insurance is brutal. Is that a Ron DeSantis problem or a Florida problem? No, it's much more of a market problem overall. I mean, insurance in our state had been relatively cheap, really for a long time. When Rick Scott was governor, the first term of Ron DeSantis, it was relatively cheap. What's happened is we had some major lawsuit abuses going on in our state, coupled with the fact that replacement costs really shot up and the price that people were paying in premiums was going up. So Ron DeSantis did tort reform a couple of years ago. It's already starting to show its effects of stabilizing the insurance costs in our state. We think we're going to get some premium reductions this year from the insurance carriers. The other piece we have to do is reform the regulatory side. That's what I'm going to do in year one. There's some structural changes that need to occur in Florida's insurance market.

from the state side, which haven't been done, quite frankly, because it used to be insurance wasn't a big problem here. Right. But it is now. So we have to go in and make those changes and said, I spent 17 years of my career in the financial industry before politics. And I also chaired the insurance and banking subcommittee in Tallahassee when I was a member of the state legislature. So these are issues that are not foreign to me. I know what needs to be done. We're just going to go ahead and execute that. And we think we could push insurance costs down 20 to 25% in Florida. Oh, that'll be huge. Byron Donalds's right here, who will be the next governor of Florida, trust me. He's got a 12-person primary next week. I will tell you that one of the people are running against you, Byron, I really want to punch him across the face. That's how much I hate him. I really do. And you can probably guess. His name is James Fishback. I know he's have a chance of winning, and he's got legal issues in his past, I believe. I think that's true. And he's a Jew who hates Jews, which... You know, thank God down in Florida. You guys don't do that. I know you're a pro-Israel guy, Byron. But this guy, James Fishback, what a horrible person. I don't talk about him. I just choose to ignore him. Look, in politics, every now and again, you get a clown and a side show. That's what disappears to be. But, you know, polling has been consistent in this race for months. If you go to New York Times or real clear politics or 270 to win, our polling average is somewhere around 47, 48% of the vote. Everybody else has been in single digits. So, you know, typically, you know, if you're dealing with somebody who just wants attention for attention's sake. The best thing you could ever do is ignore that person. And that's what I've done the entire campaign. Good for you. That'll be punching down for you. So how do you feel, Byron, you know, like you mentioned, you're a former New Yorker, and I did come back here. I was the only moron going north or 95. Millions are going south. How do you feel about a lot of the folks from here, especially big money folks moving down to Florida? Or a guy, for example, like Griffin, who had a $6 billion project here in New York, and now he's taking a lot of his business and his money, Byron, down to Miami. Are you happy to see an influx of all these people from other states? Or are you like, hey, hey, hey, hey, take it easy. We kind of like it the way it is down here right now. What I'm happy about is you're having people who are leaving these crazy blue states, and they're leaving for a reason. You know, people down here, obviously in Florida, will be a concern. We don't want somebody coming down with California, so voting the same way they voted out there, still voting the same way they did in Illinois or New York. But what we're seeing is that they're running from these places. They're running from Zohran Mamdani. They're running from Kathy Hochul. And when people have to run from a crazy city or a crazy state, When they get to Florida, they're like, I like this place. I want to make sure it stays that way. And so that's one of the reasons why our advantage over the Democrats under the leadership of Ron DeSantis has grown from. We used to be like negative 300,000 voters, Republicans to Democrats. Democrats had a 300,000 voter advantage in our state. We now have a 1.5 million voter advantage over the Democrats here in Florida. 1.5 million because people have come here and said,

I left crazy. I don't want it in Florida. And so when people like a Ken Griffin, when other people say, you know what, I've had enough, I'm leaving. It's not because of a different deal they're trying to get done for their business or for their future. It's because they're sick of the crazy. So we've found that that's made new Floridians be just as committed to conservative principles as the people who've called Florida home for many generations. Are you so right? Are there any other major issues outside of insurance, Byron, because for the most part, Florida's really a terrific place. Let's be honest, it's clean, it's safe. You don't have pro-Hamas rallies up and down the street every single day. All that nonsense. Like you talked about, you nailed it, Byron, that take place in blue sanctuary cities and sanctuary states. You guys don't have that. So outside of insurance, any other major issues that you'd be basing on day one? Yeah, growth. And look, I'm in Tampa right now. I'm looking at 275. And right as I'm talking to you, that's what I'm looking at right now. We've got to manage growth in our state. Obviously, people keep coming and there's a reason for that because we're a great state and people want to live in a great place. People have the ability to live, have a great way of life. They're choosing Florida for that. But we're going to have to manage our growth. As people continue to come, we've got to make sure we have the road systems built. We got to make sure that our public safety officials, our emergency response people are still getting paid what they need so that they can make ends meet. We've got to figure out how we're going to help young people get into the housing market. So there's reforms that we've got to do on the government side again. Permitting and planning, we've got to reform that, make that more streamlined. So we're not having government raised the cost of construction because government delaying projects and government having all these different checks. What that also does, it raises the cost of building out that apartment building or building out that single family home or even building out that new road system, increases costs. So we got to be mindful of that in our state. That's a big one. But by and large, people just want Florida to continue to be Florida. They want it to continue to be the free state of Florida. And so this November, that's what Floridians are going to have to go back to the polls and choose once again. And the Democrats. They're just, they're crazy, man. And so they have a guy down here named David Jolly, a former Republican now running as a Democrat who's trying to seem moderate. And so we're having to educate Floridians that this guy's a Trojan horse for the Democrat Socialists of America. Yep. He will bend the knee to the DSA. So we have to make sure the Democrats do not get a foothold in Florida. God, that's true. One more for you. By the way, my boss owns the tallest building. in South Florida. He's in St. Petersburg, that whole area, Clearwater, Tampa, and San Pete Hegseth's got these beautiful new building about to open up. I believe it'll be full by October. So check that place out, Byron, Katzumetis. He's got a beautiful building there. Last one, you know, we're all nervous about losing the House in Senate come November. So I like Marsha Blackburn, and she's leaving the Senate in Tennessee to run for governor. I love you. You leaving Congress in Florida to run for governor. A lot of you guys running for governor.