Latest / Palafox Media Network / Meet the Candidate: Aaron Baker on Local Issues and Congressional Accountability
Transcript
- speaker-0: Hello folks and welcome back to the political matrix news. We are here with the meet the candidate session here. And once again, we have a, the wonderful congressional candidate, Aaron Baker. I think we talked to him back last in October and it's been a little while since we've had him back on the show. But, uh, I think there's been a lot going on since the holidays here, Aaron. I think, uh, your opponent has been extremely active. I think you've been more active and explaining how active he is not being. Go ahead and tell us a little bit about what's going on. Keep us up to date here. speaker-1: Well, you know, I mean, I entered this race because I really wanted to focus on local issues instead of foreign issues. There's so much that needs to be done here locally. We need help with infrastructure. It's fair to say that our infrastructure is between 15 and 20 years behind. You know, I signed up for the email alerts for just the city of Palm Coast for water main breaks. And just in the month of January, there were six. Just in the city of Palm Coast. That's one city in the congressional district. At some point, when is enough enough? When are we going to start taking care of ourselves before taking care of the rest of the world? Um, you know, I see my opponent out there, you know, cable news just about every day. And it's just nonsense. Last night, I pulled a record of all the bills that he's filed since he's been in Congress. And I believe it's 24 that he's filed so far. Not one has gone anywhere. So. You can have the most divisive rhetoric on the planet, but what does that get you in return? That gets the people of the sixth congressional district absolutely zero help on the ground. And we need help. We need somebody that's gonna go back to, for example, when Congressman Walz was in office, he wrote the Life Saving Gear for Police Act. I knew ⁓ that, of course, as soon as President Trump came into office, that he would undo the executive order that Biden had signed that barred police and firefighters from buying military surplus equipment, which he did, but that needs to be codified into law. Until that's codified into law, know, heaven forbid that the next administration could come in and simply, you know, sign an executive order the other way. So, you know, we're really at that point of a Congress that does nothing, that's done the least in 40 years, and the most hated Republican representative in Washington, DC. ⁓ And not just that, but his voting record, if you look at the Republican Liberty Caucus on the federal level, puts out a scorecard every year, all the different Republicans, and, you know, his score's 36. That's tied for the seventh worst in the U.S. House. the things that he's proposing, the things that he's talking about, 90 % of the time, well, let me rephrase that. 4 % of the time, they're unconstitutional. Only 36 % of the time is he actually following the Constitution. When you take the oath of office, you're sworn to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Well, how do you do that if you're voting unconstitutional 64 % of the time? That math doesn't...that math up. speaker-0: And so today is a February 22nd. I should have brought the date up in the beginning of the talk here. And so, but you were saying basically as of today, February 22nd, he's only filed 24 bills and none of them had gone anywhere. speaker-1: Not one, not one has gone since April of last year. So it'll be a year, a year on April the first. So I would have hoped that in a year you would have been able to make enough, you know, make enough friends to be able to get something done, something. speaker-0: Hellos rename a post office or something. speaker-1: I mean, to your point, mean, you know, even one of our congressmen that's running for governor now, he was able to get a post office renamed. So I don't, not saying that, you know, I'm going to go and work on renaming post offices, but we need to work on our infrastructure. We need to work on having clean water in the sixth district, specifically in Volusia and Flagler County. If you test the water, there are all of these forever chemicals in our water supply. speaker-0: Exactly. yellow. I live in Palm Coast. have a yellow one. speaker-1: And I mean, if you look at the only municipality in the sixth congressional district that has figured out how to get the forever chemicals out, that's Ormond Beach. And what have they done? They use reverse osmosis, which, you know, there's certainly an opportunity to write federal legislation to provide support for clean water. I mean, what do we want? What do we really want in Florida's sixth congressional district? We want clean water, we want clean air, and we want the best beaches possible. And we need to work on infrastructure. Those four things are really, you know, what's, what should be at the heart of any campaign, not trying to see how much money we can give away to a foreign government or, ⁓ you know, how much, how much divisive rhetoric that, you know, that you can spew. It's great that you want to introduce things like banning Wall Street Journal subscriptions. I'm just not sure how that helps the residents of the sixth congressional district. speaker-0: I mean, you recently have come out with a commercial at beginning of the month here, beginning of February, I guess. And it was a very aggressive commercial, which I think I put, mean, compared to your other opponents who are doing more of a passive campaign. think you're the only one here who is, mean, some people might say is divisive. I think it's aggressive. I think the whole idea here is that you're actually laying out the plan where it is and you're showing, you're showing the cards of your opponent. So you want to tell us about how you came about with that commercial? speaker-1: Well, I mean, you just look at everything that Congressman Fine has done. And that's not what he represents is not who we are in the sixth congressional district. You know, I was born in Lakeland. grew up in Western Kentucky, but my great grandparents lived in Winterhaven and my grandparents lived in Lake Wells. So anytime growing up, we wanted to go to the beach. We went to Daytona beach, but we went to the Daytona 500. So this, you know, and I live in the congressional district from Mr. Fine's front door. to the closest place in the congressional district, is South Daytona Beach, is 80 miles. So I don't know how you can live 80 miles away from the congressional district and think that that's correct. I mean, when he was speaking in the special election, he said, you know, there are no local issues here in the sixth congressional district. That's complete nonsense. I mean, some of the stuff that he says, you know, you can't make it up. You know, even to the point where the Volusia County Sheriff has now rescinded his endorsement of Mr. Fine because of, you know, his just over the top divisive rhetoric. know, you can't say to the women and children in Gaza, bombs away, starve away, may the streets of Gaza overflow with their blood. You know, we nuke Japan twice. Maybe we need to do the same thing here. That's not the kind of rhetoric that... helps us in the congressional district. It's the kind of rhetoric that gets you on Newsmax and Fox News, but it doesn't help us. know, when I have residents in Ormond Beach who are having an issue right now in one manufactured neighborhood, manufactured home neighborhood, there's 599 residents there. And myself and one of the candidates running for governor met with them a week and a half ago to discuss, you know, what's going on there. And One of the ladies said, Aaron, my social security is $2,300 a month. A lot rent and fees, pay $1,870 a month. That leaves me $430 a month to live on. Some days I have to decide if I'm going to eat or if the dog is going to eat. And I'm sorry, that is not the America that I grew up in. And that is not acceptable to me. We have to do better. We have to tamp down the divisive rhetoric. We have to be able to work as a Congress together with, you know, people from across the aisle, ⁓ and get things done for our district and stop giving our money to every other country on the planet. You know, if you look at the mini spending bill that, that just passed, two point whatever billion dollars to Egypt, two point whatever billion dollars to Jordan, two point whatever billion dollars to Israel. You know, we're giving money to every other country on the planet. And I have a lady in Ormond beach and it's, it's not just an isolated incident. No, because you know, what I do is when I go to the gas, when I go to the gas station and there's a circle K right, right on the corner for me, I look at how much the person in front of me put in their gas tank. You know, every time I fill up. You see $5, $7, $10. That's hardworking Americans that are trying to get back and forth to work every single day. But what does the federal government do? They just continue to print endless, endless hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars to dilute the value of the U.S. dollar to the... that, you know, we can't afford to live. speaker-0: Exactly. I mean, I guess the solution people, whenever I bring that up, people will say, well, do you want the federal government to give you back more money? I'm like, no, that's not really the point. The point is they are taking so much already and they're funding these other nations. And then maybe if they weren't funding all the other nations, there'd be a lot more left in the reserves where they wouldn't have to be taking as much out of our pockets. speaker-1: But also, let's take a specific example that you and I face because we're both in the congressional district. The rising cost of power in this congressional district, you know, over the next... I mean, it's projected to go up about 40 % over the next four years. So if we had congressional leadership on the federal level that stepped up and said, okay, in the medium term here, we're going to use natural gas powered turbines and clean coal powered turbines. speaker-0: The source part for me. speaker-1: to be able to reduce ⁓ the load on the system. You know, we could have cheaper power. The reason that our power bills are so expensive is because of the green new scam. We have invested so much in all of the solar energy and the solar energy never, never pays for itself. It's the worst idea ever. If you take the most pristine day in Florida and the sun is bright shining, not today where it's overcast, but the sun is shining bright, you're going to get performance from about 9 a.m. until about 4 p.m. as far as the direction of the sun peak performance. Well, that's great. Do you only keep your lights on from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.? No. I mean, you turn your air conditioner on, you you turn it down when you get home from work at 5 p.m. Well, guess what? All that energy is gone. You know, this idea of, you know, putting solar panels in it. and investing all of this in solar farms. What that's done is the Florida Power and Light, and the state has allowed this, ⁓ I really, really don't like the fact that the state has allowed this, they buy up these huge swaths of land, know, thousands of acres, and they put all of these solar panels on it. And what that does is the solar panels are then, and the land, and the land, are paid for by the end consumer. So at most, you know, we're going to get what? 15, 20 years out of these solar farms. You know, the idea needs to be completely scrapped, go to clean coal, natural gas in the short term and nuclear energy in the long term. And, you know, I certainly don't hear our congressmen talking about that, you know. speaker-0: No, I mean, like, I mean, if you don't talk about the water bills here, the water bills here in Palm coast are outrageous. mean, right now we're paying right around four or 500 a month. speaker-1: Well, and in Lake County where we don't have reclaimed water. So if we want to, you know, water the lawn and you know, my house sets on, ⁓ about 0.3 acres. So, you know, it's a good size lot and a really big yard. If I want to turn on the sprinklers to your point, you know, my water bill is going to be $400 a month. And then the summer, when it's a hundred degrees outside, you have two choices. You either water the lawn or you might as well just. cover it with rocks because grass doesn't survive in 100 degree heat and Florida sunshine. speaker-0: No, doesn't. Exactly. I mean, I think, you know, that in this one thing I was talking to a lot of people, but they're wanting to know how come, you know, I know utilities are all local issues, but they're also all approved by people in the state and the federal government who are approving them to raise the rate. They don't raise the rates without approval. They don't raise the rates unless they give permission to raise them. And so why is the federal and the state and everything, you know, why is our representative, why, I guess, why are our representatives allowing them? just keep raising it up on the people. speaker-1: Florida Power and Light and Duke Energy and the suppliers in Florida have a monopoly on the market. what the state of Florida allows them to do is get energy wherever they get it, like solar farms, and mark it up. And they're guaranteed about 11 or 12 % rate of return on however they get it. So they don't care where they get it. I mean, they can run an extension cord to the moon and try to plug the moon in, but they would still make us pay for it. You know, I mean, it's, just not efficient ways of getting electricity and you know, who's left holding the bag at the end of the day. It's all of the consumers here in Florida. speaker-0: Exactly. Yeah. And so, mean, but besides this other issue, what, mean, since you've on the campaign trail here for the last four or five months, what other big ⁓ red herrings are you seeing that have been totally ignored here by the congressman? speaker-1: Well, mean, examples with the VA. had one homeowner, or not a homeowner, but one constituent reach out to me. He's retired. I think he's about 80 years old, lives in Daytona Beach, had an issue with the VA, and just keeps getting the run around. That's not what constituent services are supposed to be. If you look at where Mr. Fine has offices, most of the offices are located in police stations or government buildings and area offices by appointment only. When Congressman Walz held the seat, everyone, appointment only, look at any press release that he puts out, anything that he puts out or his website, and everyone specifically lists by appointment only. When Congressman Walz was a congressman, mean, his office in Flagler County was right off of Palm Coast Parkway. And I remember one day, I needed help with something. I just walked in his office. He had a great staff. speaker-0: I suppose we like speaker-1: You know, we really need to get back to a point where this isn't about religion because it seems like, you know, if you say anything at all about Mr. Fine, you're immediately labeled anti-Semitic simply because, you know, he's the Jewish member of Congress. I don't care what religion you are. If you're Christian, if you're Hindu, if you're Muslim, if you're Jewish, you're elected to represent every single person there. Full stop. It doesn't matter if you're a Republican, Democrat, NPA, if you've donated $10,000 or if you haven't ever made a political donation in your life, you still deserve exactly the same representation on the federal level as everyone else. And that's simply just not what we're getting. speaker-0: And so, and real quick closing here, what do you want to leave people with here as far as, know, where they can find out more about you and see your ads and see your next event coming up and everything. speaker-1: Sure. So I keep my schedule pretty well updated. Just go to my website, FLARON.com. A-A-R-O-N. F-L-A-A-R-O-N.com. Pretty easy to remember. My schedule is right there. It has all the links to social media, X, ⁓ Instagram, Facebook. All of that's right there. But in closing, you know, the most important thing to me is that if we go back to my Christian values, what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to take care of your family. You're supposed to take care of your neighbors. You're supposed to take care of your community and then focus on everything else. But we have so far forgotten neighbors, our family neighbors and sense of community. We really, really, really have to do much better. But yeah, we can do better. We have a huge opportunity to make a huge difference and just go back to like a time when I grew up where we had a sense of community. where we had a sense of purpose and not the divisive rhetoric that we all hear every single day coming out of Washington. And Mr. Fine just happens to be the worst at the rhetoric. I mean, I don't know of any other congressman that's managed to offend 2 billion people in one single day, but he's good at it. Yes. Yes. speaker-0: And he's your opponent. That's the race that you're in. so I mean, ends up whenever they talk about, know, picking the right card for the right opponent, for the right race. And you're the one that lives in the district. speaker-1: And I mean, there couldn't be two more polar opposite people. mean, it's just, I don't know. You know, I walk into a room and, I want to greet everyone and, you know, shake hands with everyone. Mr. Fine walks in, like he, owns the place and, know, damn you if you do. But before we close, we're going to talk about the lawsuit that I filed. speaker-0: Oh yes. Yeah. Go ahead and bring that lawsuit. Oh yeah. There's a lawsuit. It wasn't there. Oh, go ahead and talk about that. speaker-1: The Lost Yeah. So in 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that elected officials could not block constituents on their official pages, whether that's Facebook, Instagram, X, or whatever they're using their official account for. So Mr. Finley blocked me a long time ago back in, I think, December of 24 when we ran the special election on his personal page. I don't care. But you can't block me on your professional page because, you know, I have the first amendment right to say what I think. And guess what? He has the same first amendment right to say what he thinks. So I think that the most blatant example is when you block a known political opponent. And I, you know, I've never said anything derogatory. I simply point out facts and I usually, you know, if he says something completely bombastic, then I'll, you know, post some news article of him. you know, maybe threatening to burn down a synagogue or, you know, something like that. believe someone will have to correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that he's the only sitting member of Congress that has publicly threatened to burn down a house of worship. I filed a lawsuit in the middle district of Florida, which is the Ocala district, which of course is the district that covers the sixth congressional district. And we'll see where it goes. You know, I believe speaker-0: Wow. speaker-1: At the end of the day, what do we all want? We all want more freedom and we want less government. Well, if you encroach on my freedom every single day, ⁓ I don't appreciate that. And that's not what our country was founded on. It was founded on, you know, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Well, the very first, very first amendment says freedom of speech. Nothing that I have ever said or said about Mr. Fine could ever be classified as hate speech. So that means that anything else that I say is 100 % on the table. speaker-0: I think, I think what he's not grasping obviously with his appointment only thing at his office combined now with him blocking people on extra social media or Facebook or whatever platform it might be is that he's forgetting the whole concept here. That's the people seat. It's a people's house. Correct. And people who want to start saying that we're just like, you know, just picking fights or picking on people. No, it's all taxpayer funded building. It's the taxpayer funded. ⁓ platforms, this is all belongs to us. And so the whole idea that we have to basically have an appointment, which is basically a litmus test, whether or not we are worthy or not. meeting that the reason why we want to go visit him at where his staff at the congressional office is, is worthy or not to, to get an appointment. That's BS. And then the whole idea that here that you can't even reach him on a social media platform, whether you're his opponent or whether you're just somebody that he does, does not like. And then what the way he's blocking you. And that's basically him refusing the people to their own house and their own rhetoric and their own ability to practice their first amendment. So I think, you know, that whole, you know, articulation there. mean, I think it's great that you filed this lawsuit. I think more people should file lawsuits against other members of Congress who actually do do this. And we've actually encouraged people to do it in the past, but always people were always hesitant to, or worried about the negative ramifications of it. I'm like, there's no negative ramifications. ramification about you encouraging the elected official to do their job period. speaker-1: Correct. And, I mean, I've had people reach out to me and they're like, ⁓ you're such a crybaby. You know, why, why, why aren't you focus on something that means something? Well, if our first amendment doesn't mean anything to you, then okay. You need to go live in Cuba where you're not allowed to say anything that you think. speaker-0: Exactly. That's a whole reason why we have an immigration problem is because everybody's trying to die and come here to live here because of the freedoms that we have. if you don't have to protect those freedoms, exactly. If you want to enjoy those freedoms, want to protect those freedoms, then why the heck are you in Congress? speaker-1: Right. You're a hundred percent correct. I mean, why? It doesn't, I don't get it. I mean, I think that our freedom should be protected at every cost or at every turn. Our freedom just has to be protected because if, if I don't step up and do it, then who is going to step up and do it? And I know that there are other residents and specifically in the sixth congressional district that he's blocked from speaking also. That's a violation of their first amendment rights. So we need a government that works for the people. And right now. We don't have the right person in place. speaker-0: Well, Aaron, congratulations with everything you're doing here in this race. You're definitely bringing out a lot of information that nobody else is willing to talk about. Your opponents are not talking about any of this. so, speaker-1: Well, it's already dropped out, so... speaker-0: Exactly. That's kind of the whole point here is that nobody else is bringing all this up here to the table. And so I think it's great. You know, it's very refreshing to see a campaign that's aggressive against the incumbent, which is always really risky to do to run against somebody in your own party in a primary because they have that whole, you know, incumbent protection issue to where the party likes to stick with their own guy. But, know, hopefully everybody's going to have their eyes wide open here to the fact that, you know, the incumbent is not the best choice here. in all situations and, uh, you know, look at the issues and look at the facts. speaker-1: I mean, for the people of Flagler County, you know, what's the first thing I would do? I would have an office that's open that you could walk into at any time, you know, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. And, you know, I think half of the constituents already have my personal cell phone number. And for those that don't, you know, I mean, it's right on my website. So I'm about the easiest person on the planet to find. We just have get back to taking care of the community. speaker-0: Right. That's best way to do it. Exactly. Well, thanks for joining us here today and we look forward to having you again on the show here as the campaign keeps rolling along. We're going to try to reach out to Randy Fine to see if he wants to respond on anything or even talk to us, but we doubt we're going to get any kind of response whatsoever. speaker-1: I can't even get a response from a federal lawsuit. speaker-0: That's ironic. That's crazy. It is. Well, you have a good day. speaker-1: Thank you. God bless you.