Panhandle Pulse
“Real issues. Real people. No filters.”
Welcome to Panhandle Pulse — the podcast that gives North Florida a voice.
Hosted by Chuck Asbury, Panhandle Pulse dives into the real challenges and real conversations shaping our communities. From small business owners, farmers to veterans, healthcare workers, and defense professionals, we talk with the people who keep our region moving.
Every week, we bring you candid interviews, frontline stories, and unfiltered insight on the issues that matter most — including agriculture, national defense, healthcare access, deregulation, and the fight to keep rural America strong.
Panhandle Pulse
Inside Florida’s Future: GOP candidate for governor Paul Renner on Taxes, Insurance, AI & vision for the state.
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What does the future of Florida look like? In this episode of Panhandle Pulse, Chuck Asbury sits down with Paul Renner—former Speaker of the Florida House, Navy veteran, and current GOP candidate for governor—to break it all down.
Renner shares his background growing up in Jacksonville, his 20-year military career, and the leadership lessons he learned serving in both the Gulf War and Afghanistan. From there, we dive into his run for governor and what sets him apart from other candidates.
We cover major issues facing Florida today, including:
- His plan to eliminate property taxes for most homeowners
- Solutions to rising insurance costs
- Fixing housing affordability and out-of-state investment pressures
- Infrastructure challenges across the Panhandle
- The role of AI, data centers, and protecting kids online
Renner also discusses his “Florida First” approach, focusing on economic growth, small businesses, and keeping the state affordable while managing rapid population growth.
Whether you're a Florida resident, business owner, or just following the governor’s race, this episode gives you a clear look at the policies and priorities shaping the state’s future.
https://voterenner.com/
https://www.instagram.com/paulmrenner/
https://www.facebook.com/RepPaulRenner
https://x.com/Paul_Renner
Welcome to the Pain Handle Pulse, the show that dives into real challenges and honest conversations shaping the Florida pain handle. I'm your host, Chuck Asbury. Each week we sit down with the people who make our community strong, sharing real issues, real conversations, and no filters.
SPEAKER_02Paul, welcome to the show. Great to be with you. Yes. So for our listeners that don't know and uh are full of politics now in the election, tell us your backstory. How did you get into it? Where did you grow up?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I grew up in uh Northeast Florida and Jacksonville. Well, I lived all over. Uh my dad was a pastor, so we lived up and down the East Coast really. But home was Jacksonville growing up through high school and uh joined the Navy. So 20 years in the military, I served in Operation Desert Storm in 91, leading a team uh uh that did some mine destruction operations, an EOD team as a small boat officer, also navigated through those mines as an officer of the deck, uh kind of old saltwater Navy stuff uh during 1991, that conflict. And then 20 years later in Afghanistan, leading a team of men and women to stop foreign fighters from coming in to kill Americans. And so uh 20 plus years of leadership under pressure in between. I those active duty and then a mobilized reservist to Afghanistan, went to law school, became a prosecutor, and so I've also had the experience of leadership under pressure, prosecuting habitual offenders, violent habitual offenders, and making sure that I convinced that jury beyond a reasonable doubt to put that bad guy away so he won't create a new victim. And then started my own business, a partner in a small business, uh, and became speaker of the house. And so, those that don't know, it's the leader of the legislature on the on the House of Representatives side pushing uh those two years. The governor said those were unequal. There's never been two years when I led the house of any state in the nation that's done more from a conservative and consequential reform standpoint than we did. And I can click through all of that stuff, but it was all the stuff that you associate with the free state of Florida. A lot of that was during that very productive two years when I took my veteran background and said, focus on the mission. That's the problem we see in today's legislature, is they're not, they're all over the place, you know, caught up in their own ego and arrogance and uh not really putting their focus on we the people. And we have to have uh men and women uh at the local level, state level, federal level who are not there to self-promote, get rich, have fun. We have to have people focused on the mission. And so that's what I did when I was leading the House. Uh and if you like the free state of Florida, you'll like me as governor because I helped build it.
SPEAKER_02Great. Uh it's that's perfect. And I followed you through that rise. But what made you want to get into politics after all your years of leadership in the in the military and your self business?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, you know, I I was retiring from the military in 2013, so I ran for office in 2014 uh because I care a lot, you know, as veterans, we all understand service above self. Right. And uh, you know, don't want to sit on the couch and watch our country or our state go down the tubes. And and I'd fought, you know, my entire time uh as a veteran for all the the things that we hold dear as Americans, and I did not want to see us go backwards uh in any way, shape, or form. And that's why I'm running for governor because that nobody wants the governor's been such a good governor in terms of leaning into things, stopping some of these outside amendments, these outsiders that wanted to make us a pot state or an abortion state, these kinds of things that that uh, you know, uh he's very been very proactive about. I have been as well at school board races, and so uh that's why I'm running. Uh that's why I ran to begin with, to make sure we built something special, and I want to defend that and expand that as governor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's great. And so one of the true things that you have versus some of our other candidates in the GOP side and the primary here is you've built your base here and forward, you've built through the House through leadership, and now looking to continue to expand that. So you have a proven track record of doing so in the House. How did that experience go from winning in the House and then going to a speaker of the House?
SPEAKER_00Well, you uh have to basically it's the second election. You get the voters elect you out of your district, but then the whole Republican majority, whoever's in the majority, selects that leader to lead the chamber and decide what bills go and don't go, what happens in the budget. It's really next to the governor, they say it's the number two position statewide because you got a lot of authority and power to do the do good or not do good for that matter. But so you you compete with your other colleagues for who will put the best interest of the state uh at front and center and look out for them and be honest with them and someone they can trust. And so again, leadership under pressure, positions of trust is what really separates me from some of the other candidates who just don't have that depth of experience, who have not, you know, gone out and just really swung hard for the fences and getting big reforms done like we did when I was in the legislature. And uh and so uh that led me into leadership as uh speaker of the house.
SPEAKER_02So that shows that you've had confidence within your own party and your own members to vote you as leader and speaker of the house to get stuff done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and I think another big difference, uh contrasting with you know Congressman Donald's, who's been in DC, is that my whole experience has been as a state leader, uh our motto or agenda really is a Florida first agenda, making sure that Florida uh works and stays what we love about it uh for people who make their living and make their home here. And so whether it's our property tax relief plan, where we're gonna eliminate homestead property taxes and give help to small mom and pop businesses, also to renters and first-time home buyers, we are focused on the people who, again, make their living, who work here, who live here, who have loved Florida for a long, long time and want to make it their home, and ask uh, you know, shift that tax burden a little bit over to people who are coming in, you know, buying up second homes or whatever, you know, and and and they'll continue to pay, they won't pay more. But we have a lot of people that are coming in and buying up single family homes that don't live here. They're from out-of-state private equity, out-of-state investors who buy up over 100,000 single-family homes that Floridians don't have available to them. And that's why housing prices in part are going up so fast. It's because they bought them up, they're turning them into rentals, and then all that money is being sent back, not to Florida, it's being sent back to Massachusetts or Chicago or some private equity firm and not being spent in our local economy. And we're here obviously on 30A, you know, having the conversation today here in the panhandle, that money needs to stay here. And if it's not staying here, we're gonna bump their taxes up a little bit on those properties where it's a single family home for rental, out-of-state ownership, that kind of thing. So that's an example, maybe harnessing a little bit more from tourists, not too much, but shifting that burden away from people who make their home, make their living here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And so for the people, it's big, big topic right now today is property tax. So DeSantis is trying to eliminate it completely. They're worried about how it's going to affect the schools and your local fire departments and police departments. So your policy looks to adjust the tax burden off the people that live here in the small businesses and transition that to people that's buying into second homes and investment properties.
SPEAKER_00Where we have replacement taxes. So it's three chunks. I mean, the people that are in major corporations, they're beachfront, you know, they're multi-million dollar homes, they'll continue to pay taxes. If you're over a million dollars of value, so that's where we started with the homestead, million dollars. And if you're under a million dollars in your home, you pay no taxes forever, property taxes. And so uh, and those that are in very expensive homes will get the million dollar benefit, but they'll still pay on the on the balance. So we'll keep about if you think $60 billion of property taxes statewide, everything. About $20 plus billion will keep paying property taxes. No more, no more, no less. I mean, they're gonna raise their taxes, but they'll keep paying taxes. We're gonna have $10 to $20 billion of savings. So think about state, local local government, universities, everybody everybody that touches taxpayer money, it's well over, you know, $250 billion every year. Can we not save 5%, 10% of that all across the board, you know, over the next three to five years? Absolutely we can. And so $10 to $20 billion would be in savings. And it we're we're doing our replacement taxes based on that $10 billion, the lower number, but I think we can save $20 or $25 billion statewide over the coming years. Um, doing better on procurement, waste, fraud, and abuse. There's all kinds of places where we can go to save that money. And then whatever's left over, we would have a one-time transaction fee. So you buy a home or you buy a business, you have a dock stamp, right? You pay that now. We would up that number so that people moving in from out of state that are coming in, buying up homes and all this stuff, they would help support that. It's about a half a trillion dollars a year in transactions in Florida. As those transactions happen, people will pay a one-time fee. They can finance it if they want, but it won't be onerous, but it'll be a one-time fee that help pay for police, fire, schools, this kind of thing. And with that, adding a little bit on tourism, uh, a little bit of corporate loophole closures for those larger businesses that are maybe shifting money and not really paying taxes on money that they're earning here, we generate, you know, $25 plus billion dollars of taxes to cover a tax relief plan that's a $34 billion savings to Floridians. And again, if that $10 billion in savings goes to $20 billion, we can bring some of those taxes down or get rid of them. We also, for first-time home buyers, do not have that one-time transaction fee. We want young people who are listening, 20s, 30s. At the average age now is 44 years of age. That's not okay. We want an America where you can buy a home in your 20s, in your 30s at least. And so we're really gonna take care of first-time home buyers with that 0% transaction fee. You walk in, you don't pay taxes. It'll really help a lot of your listeners who want to buy that first home. Not their first home when they own three up in New York, but you're you'd have to sign an affidavit, live here for a couple of years. You know, you've got to make Florida your home. Right. And you're a first-time home buyer, we're gonna make sure you can get home ownership. And obviously, with no property taxes going in, we're taking care of our people on fixed income and other people, working families that are really struggling with insurance. They're struggling with electric bills, and we have plans to bring those down as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, that's great. And so are is there in your same plan a way to cap what each county and district start to raise for property taxes? Because you can see some of the okay, today's your house is worth $500,000 and inflation goes up. Now it's a million dollar home, and now you don't get that exemption anymore.
SPEAKER_00No, a great question. No, the exemption will go up with inflation. So a million will become 1.2, 1.5. It'll it'll grow as as the inflation unfortunately happens, your exemption will not erode. Like right now, we got a $50,000 exemption. It should be with inflation about $130,000. Yeah. Just to get the even. And so we're we've already put, and actually, when I was speaker, we put on the ballot a proposal that everybody voted for to now inflation adjust. Unfortunately, it didn't go retroactive, it went uh uh, you know, prospective. And so that million dollar exemption will continue to go up every year. You will not lose any ground with that. So as your home goes up, you know, that exemption is gonna kind of follow it. Right.
SPEAKER_02No, it sounds like uh a great plan for all of our listeners and people in the area in the state of Florida. How would you push that through with our current leaders and the House and the Senate of Florida right now as governor?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, you you win an election on on this kind of platform, and that gives you a lot of political momentum. And so we'll go in day one uh and and start advocating for this. You know, hopefully it can be done on this year's ballot. And my plan could be picked up by the legislature when they come into special session and put it on this year's ballot. That's my preference. I've also been calling, if they can't get that done because it's got to go up for a constitutional vote, they can do some things legislatively to roll back millage rates that happened 20 years ago. So I if I I'm elected, when I'm elected in uh January of 2027, we're gonna start with that immediate rollback to get people relief in like days and then work towards work with the local governments and the and the small businesses and renters and homeowners and make sure everybody wins here. We can't have a county or a community that really gets hurt by this. It's got to work for everybody. And so there's some details that we'll work through. But the bottom line is we're eliminating homestead property taxes for 95% of Floridians, period. They pay no taxes ever. That's a big, big deal. We also say mom and pop businesses, your smaller businesses, you're gonna have an exemption now that you didn't have before to eliminate your taxes or at least dramatically lower those. That means you can hire more people, you can buy more equipment to make your company profitable, you can pay your people a little bit more. That's a great way to get out of the affordability challenges, make more money. And so we want to do things. I will do things as governor to one, obviously lower taxes, squeeze government down a little bit, lower taxes, and make sure that Floridians are doing well, that it's affordable again to live here. We love the state, but we become a victim of our success with all the people pouring in. We want to make sure that we uh give them some relief right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that's a great plan and a good way to start. And hopefully they do. The legislative now gets that moving forward on the ballot before election day, and then you can just implement that across the policies. With talking about some of the budgets and the cuts, are you gonna continue sort of what's going on right now with the Doge of Florida going around in the counties and tightening budgets and tightening the strengths and spending that's happening within counties?
SPEAKER_00100 percent. That's a great transition because that spending savings I mentioned, that 10 to 20 billion statewide, you know, over is gonna be in part by taking what the CFO's done and expanding that to every corner, universities, the state. Right. Everybody's gotta look. I guarantee you there's Medicaid fraud in our system. Yeah. It's tens of billions of dollars. Don't tell me there's not a billion or two billion dollars of savings of people cheating the system, people that are not getting care, they're pretending to submitting things that don't even exist. Um so we're gonna find those people, put them in jail, but we're gonna recapture that money for taxpayers. That is part of what helps us get to that elimination of property taxes. And so it's like I say on the campaign trail, you pick weeds and you go outside your door two weeks later, and what do you see? More weeds. So you have to make Doge permanent and comprehensive across the board. The other way we make those savings is in procurement. So we're gonna help cities and counties and partner with them as a state government, as governor, to say, hey, everybody's buying vehicles. We're all we have IT systems that are, you know, it, and we're gonna figure out toilet paper. I mean, something as simple as all the money, that $250, $300 billion that's being spent. Let's figure out a way procurement-wise to lower those costs as any good business would do, and we can squeeze out billions of dollars in savings there as well.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah. I mean, you order more in bulk, you use and share that. Simplify the chain, the supply chain of it in the ordering system, we'll definitely reduce cost across the system. Yeah. So with affordability of the other things that's big in our heart, probably because hurricane season is about to upon us shortly is insurance in the area. So how can you help regulate right now the state-run insurance citizen and bring in more insurance companies to help reduce insurance costs?
SPEAKER_00Well, when I led the house, um, we did that. A big initiative of mine was that litigation reform to get the abuse out of the system, hold insurers accountable, and also hold the lawyers accountable and focus on consumers. Lowest cost, while if they get a claim, they have recourse. And we we're it's a continual process, right? It's a checks and balances because both of those two special interests want to, in one case, they're they're they're getting rich in a couple of cases and driving up our costs, which was causing companies to go out of business. And on the other side, we got to have insurers that do as good a job of paying claims as they do taking your premiums. Right. And so we'll focus on that. And if they get step out of line, I'll hammer them. If these guys step out of line, we're gonna hammer them. And so we got some of that uh waste and fraud and frivolous litigation out of it, held insurers accountable. And we see automobile rates now going down in one state only, this state, because of those reforms. I think uh state pharma is down 20%, progressive down 15%. So that's really, really good news. Property is a little bit more, you know, it's gone up, up, up, up, up, and maybe it's going like this, but it's not sort of going like this yet for most people, certainly on the coast. Some people have seen reductions. I haven't, but uh, but we we're gonna get after that in a couple different ways. One, continue home hardening programs. My safe Florida home. If your home's built, you know, before the 90s when we had the Andrea Building Code, you could save, they say, $1,000 a year, you know, off your premiums by uh hardening your home, doors, windows, roof ties, and the state will come in and match up to $10,000 for that. That's a great program we're gonna lean into. Um, we're gonna make to do some regulatory reforms that I believe we can use what we have now without any cost to taxpayers or ratepayers to lower their rates five to ten percent out of the gate. So I've got some ideas legislatively to lower those property insurance. And then the other thing that's a guarantee is we have a tax. You pay your premiums, your homeowners insurance, there's a tax on that. Yeah. I want to see a temporary or permanent elimination of that tax. There's some things I have in mind to cover that uh through a different, you know, revenue source at the state level and get rid of that so we can get some benefit uh right away to people. That's not going to be thousands of dollars, but it could be hundreds of dollars that would come right off your bill. Why wouldn't we do that? So I want to look at doing that as well to lower insurance rates right out of the gate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And have you thought about in regionalizing insurance companies across the state to help minimize their risk as well? Because right now we have a certain set of insurers that we can buy. It's limited for the number of companies that sell insurance in the state of Florida, specifically for the hurricane sections, coastal sections, like open up more competition with the way I understand Florida rule is you have to meet a bunch of criteria to be able to sell insurance in Florida. So is there a way to reduce that or reform that to allow other bigger companies to come in and diversify insurance to help reduce rates?
SPEAKER_00Well, that's exactly what we did in the reforms I did while I was um leading that the legislature. And so what we've seen to answer your earlier question as well is we ha saw many companies exiting Florida. There was even a company that was headquartered here and wrote in uh policies in 49 states, but not Florida. Right. That's how bad it was for an insurer to uh because of all the frivolous litigation and everything. So now we have 18 or 19, I don't know where the last count is, of new insurance companies that have come into the state to write policies since those reforms. We've seen citizens, which is 1.4 million policies going down to the 300,000 range, lowest level, uh, I believe in Florida history, which means our exposure when there's a hurricane in Miami here in the panhandle, you pay for that. If there's if those citizens' policies get wiped out, we get an assessment. You can see it on your bill. And so we've got to get, we've gotten success with that too, getting the citizens' policies down, new insurers in. You're absolutely right. The whole secret of this is competition because if you're charging me an arm and a leg and there's the new guy over here who wants to get some money and wants to get some market share, they're gonna lower offer me a little bit lower price. That's how it all works. And so we're seeing that positive effect. The good news is those reforms are still a lot of those old cases that are going through the system, those litigation cases, which are still pushing pressure up on. And as that kind of release, we're gonna see some continued downward pressure with the reforms we did. You add that to the reforms I'm gonna do when I'm governor to build on to what I already did, we're gonna see those property insurance uh rates come down.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think with that, with the property tax elimination, that's gonna make the state more affordable for listeners in the area. How and can you help in the panhandle specifically and for the entire state we'll s we'll shift into tech and industry to bring more jobs into the area than just tourism?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, one thing is continuing to be a leader, hold the line on taxes, and you've seen I'm gonna be reducing those taxes. That's a big driver for people, especially the small business component, which will allow a lot of job growth, new businesses to form and survive and prosper. So that's really a core piece of the economic development, if you will, piece of what I would do. I'm not somebody who believes in taxpayer incentives. We're gonna pay Amazon money to come and build a warehouse in Florida. Or worse, you know, we were doing these incentives, these I call it corporate welfare, where we would pay some company to come in and you're competing against a company in Walton County that's been here for 30 years. That's not fair. And you're paying them taxpayer money so that their cost structure is lower and they outcompete a company that's a mom and pop brick and mortar company that's been here forever. And so we want to make Florida a permanent incentive where every small business, every man or woman who wants to start a business or run a business can do so and prosper. And so that's what I'll be focused on as governor, making sure that this is the best place for businesses to grow, to make a living, to, to, to find a place where you can make a good living and afford to live in what is frankly one of the most beautiful states in America.
SPEAKER_02Right. Now, that's a that's a good point. I didn't think about that. The incentives that we we pay all these big industries to come in, the states usually dole those out. They build these massive warehouses, they're here for the time period of the incentive, and then they leave.
SPEAKER_00And then Georgia offers them a better deal and they pick up and they leave after five years.
SPEAKER_02So is there any ideas of transitioning some of those incentives to small businesses? Because to my knowledge today, I don't know that as a small business owner that I want to have gotten let's say get a 10,000 square foot warehouse to start my own manufacturing business. Uh you can get an FBA loans, you can get some help from some Florida loans and grant programs, but are there any incentives that you can think of ideas to put into small business owners to get for the state to help them?
SPEAKER_00Well, what we left in place, so while I was leaving that house, we eliminated a lot of those enterprise Florida taxpayer, you know, funding welfare and to bring people from out of state into our state. And and we shifted that over to the job growth grant fund, which is what it's called. And so the governor, you know, gets we we fund something, and the governor has that opportunity to come into a community like this and say, hey, it can't be for one company. It's got to be infrastructure, education, but you could do a new program at your local state college or university that's focused on a tech issue or you know, whatever that industry is that would benefit multiple companies in that area where the community says, hey, we want to attract this kind of business, but we don't have anybody teaching over here at the state college to to to allow our kids to graduate and come in to work for those companies. It can be used for that. It can be used for infrastructure, build a new road, expand a road, you know, do a bridge, read whatever it is to to allow for that business to find it attractive to come here to pay and handle.
SPEAKER_02No, yeah, it's great. And especially infrastructure in our area is always a a big Key concern. So we are constantly building and constantly developing this beautiful area, which is great. But some of the times infrastructure is the last thing that's thought about when you when you build an area, especially from the state level and then from the county level as well. So how can you help make sure in all of Florida when new developments are being planned and developed that it's going to be a good impact for the community and not just good for selling the homes?
SPEAKER_00Well, it starts with I think I think we need to come back to more local control. So it's a balance. It depends on what the issue is, but but I want to make sure that people, you know, whether what whatever county in your listening area you're in, is is that you know better than I will ever know in my time in the legislature, in eight years as governor about your community than I will. I want to know about it, but you're gonna know better. And so that means you're elected officials locally and you be have an opportunity to chat with them about what you want your community to look like is pretty important. I think that's a good conservative principle to support that. So we'll do that as well so that you guys can do can craft a development that works for your county. And uh, and like I said, those infrastructure dollars, I want to make sure we we also send down uh with the Seminole Compact when I was leading the house. We also said, let's let's capture that's about a billion dollars a year coming flowing into the state. Let's capture half of that for water grants to local governments. Now, my successor took that away. Right. He put it back in general revenue. I want to get that back in there so that local governments have money to fund water treatment facilities, you know, wastewater, stormwater. You don't want that to get away from your dear question. You gotta make sure that we don't turn it into the third world as we're growing. And so having that support coming down from the state to help make sure that we keep our water clean, we uh, you know, we process this, we have good, you know, road construction. We're gonna focus on infrastructure that will see benefits long after I'm governor. I'm not running for anything else. And I think that's important to note. I don't want to run for national office. I want to be the best governor you've ever had. And that means I can focus on things that maybe aren't sexy like infrastructure, but they're important. Yeah. And if you don't spend money today, you're not gonna be where you need to be 10, 20 years, and you're gonna look back, who who was in charge when this happened? Right. Now we can't drive anywhere without you know spending an hour sitting in traffic. This has to happen, or we have to say no to that. Whatever, whatever it is, we have to be able to manage that growth in a way that is not gonna cause us to look back and say, man, what do we do?
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah. Uh going from the infrastructure point of view, transition over to data centers. It's a hot topic for Florida, it's a hot topic across the world. Uh, same with AI is what is your stance on building data centers in here to worry about the power bills of the local communities where these things are being built?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've taken a strong stand to say I want a moratorium and I don't want to build first and ask questions later. We talked before we got on a little bit about it, um, several concerns. One is on the cost side is there can't be a situation where an AI data center is on the grid with everybody else, or I'm convinced that our proper or uh electric bills will go up. They're gonna have to figure out a way to provide their own electricity. So I need answers to that before we allow that. Um same thing with water. We can't have them put a pipe in the aquifer and suck it dry. I know there's some new technology to try to have a closed loop and and then try to provide their own water. That has to happen, and that's gotta be the case for any AI data center. But right now, my position is full stop. Let's ask some questions, let's figure out what we're doing before we just go crazy and put them all over the state and realize we have a problem because we have somebody with technology that is costing us money or is damaging our environment. And then the other concern I have that's coming into the special session has nothing to do with the data centers per se, but with AI specifically, I was a big proponent of protecting our kids online from online harms, addictive social media platforms, online pornography, this kind of thing. And with AI, you're talking about an order of magnitude. The bad guys coming against our kids. We've got to protect them. The governors put that on the special session because the legislature failed to pass it. We need some state regulations around uh AI that protects our kids and makes sure that parents are in control of that process and some bad actor can't use AI to try to groom your kid or exploit your kid into trafficking or something horrible horrible that is happening, unfortunately, across our state.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think how do you implement that across the state level uh for protecting that? Because that's absolutely needs to be protected across all AI that you get, social media platforms, age restricting to some degree does help. But again, kids nowadays, everyone nowadays in tech, you can you can change that. You can cheat the system, you can adjust that. So what kind of policies or systems do you plan on putting in place? Let's say consequences for the companies that allow that.
SPEAKER_00Well, we'd have uh private cause of action. So a parent that you know is his is, you know, you saw and the governor spotlighted a a mom who lost her son who said, I'm thinking about killing myself. And instead of saying, stop, go talk to your parents or your pastor, um, said, Here, you know, the ways to do it, and then kind of almost encouraged him in an accommodating way to kill himself and ultimately he took his own life. And so um, you know, we want to make sure parents have opt-in, you know, before AI is used in schools and that type of thing. Anonymity, you're not gonna collect uh data on my five-year-old. I've got a I've got a five and a four-year-old, you're not gonna collect data on her and then monetize it and sell it back. Um, you're not gonna bring it home, you know, if it's in the education space. It's not gonna be your your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your mom or dad, or your God or your oracle. AI is a tool, and it can help be helpful, but it can't be a replacement for human relationships. If I said anything today, it would be that. We have to be very careful as we move into this, you know, exciting in some respects technology. It's also frightening if it's being used against us or stripping away our humanity. So I'm always going to stand up for humans and humanity and people over anything else, and and Floridians over anything else. We're a Florida first campaign. And so fundamentally, I'm always looking at it through that lens is what's good for the person who's made their home here, made their living here, and and with their children, how are we protecting childhood and defending uh children uh along the way?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, that's great. I think we teach my son, he's now 18 the same way. Like diversify your information, ChatGPT, the LEA technologies, Gemini, they start learning a trend and a pattern. So they start providing you the information that you want. It may not be the valid information, but it starts shaping the form that you're getting the information in. So we need to filter that. I've told my stuff multiple times, diversify where you're getting your information from, because if you don't do that uh as a teenager, as a kid, as an adult, you're gonna be stuck in a single bubble and not know the difference. Yeah, I think that's hurt part of our nation today and part of Florida today, where you're so divided. You're talking about one set of group this way and one set this way because they're all circling one information pipeline feed. So any kind of help that we can put on AI to help our kids be more protected is extremely beneficial.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the algorithm, as you well know, and being in tech, you know, sends you over here. It just kind of it kind of amplifies and just you know sends you out. It doesn't give you kind of the full picture sometimes. And so it is very important that we manage this technology for our own purposes. The technology is there for us, we're not there for the technology, is my point.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So for the entire panhandle that's listening for us, what are some of the key things that separate you from any of the candidates, uh, any party that's running that you think is important for listeners to hear?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, when the hurricanes come, uh when crisis come, another COVID, God forbid, but all those things, you want somebody who's ready to lead on day one. And with all respect to the other candidates, no one in this race comes close to having the leadership under pressure, positions of trust, 20 years in the military, serving in two wars, leading men and women, actually leading, starting a business, being a partner in a business, having prosecuted the worst of the worst, having all that leadership under pressure, being the number two guy in the state under with DeSantis in the legislature in this, and getting results, positive results, actually showing up and trying to fix the insurance issue, fixing protecting our children, uh, getting rid of some of the things that we needed to get rid of, adding things we needed to add to make sure uh the wildlife quarter, preserving our environment, clean water, clean springs is important to me. So we're gonna have a strong environmental uh we did that. You don't everybody tells you I'm gonna make your wildest dreams come true if you elect me. Nobody, nobody in this race has the stack of receipts, and the governor said as much than I do. And so if you want to continue and you like the free state of Florida, you will like Governor Renner. And I'm the logical, really the only one in this race to logically follow him and and has the proven leadership to look back and say, that guy can do it because he's already done it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and all of your time that you've been here has been within the state. Almost you haven't went outside for anything else. It's all been promoted to you.
SPEAKER_00I'm Florida first. And so I know the other piece of this that I sometimes forget to mention is I've got great relationships with the incoming presiding officers. There will be a new set for two the next two years and a new set for I know all of them. And we have great relationships. And so the reason I was successful is that focus on the mission as a veteran and saying, look, we're gonna criticize in private, praise in public, we're gonna solve these problems for people. If we we can't agree on everything, that's okay. We're gonna agree on 80% of things and fix people's problems. Do your job. We need less talk and more action from our politicians. Uh, if you like that kind of no-nonsense, get it done leadership, you're looking at them. And so that's why um, with all respect to the other candidates, there's just not anybody in this race that comes close to that. And again, I can lean in on day one and uh you don't have to worry about when the hurricanes or the the unexpected things like COVID come, I'll be ready.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And so you've had uh experience doing that as Speaker of the House. How do you plan on doing that now with new leadership coming in? Because we're gonna have people go in and out of the Senate and the House, and then we have the two-system party. How do you plan on working with both party lines to make Florida great and get your agenda passed? Because every politician, like you said, yeah, they seem to have their own agenda. They have a platform or a stepping stone that they're going to the next, which will t will finish up with you not wanting to run anywhere else, which is great because in our view of politics, everyone takes a stepping stone at the end of this level.
SPEAKER_00Everybody is it's we've gotten to a place, and this is Republicans and Democrats, but I'll just criticize my own party and and and some people in this race, is they get into office and it's all about self-promotion, getting rich, using it as a political, being coming a grifter and making money off of politics, and then having fun out there doing things they shouldn't be doing and misbehaving, and they forget about we the people. Uh again, my whole life has not been, I've been haven't been about making money, I've been about service, military service to the country, service to the community as a prosecutor, service as speaker of the house, with this big bold agenda to get things done. I'm there to actually do things. Too many politicians today are really just there. And unfortunately, they succeed because they're spending all their time building their social media following while I'm actually getting the job done. And so that is, if we have any challenges, is people need to realize that you want somebody who's actually gonna get in there and care about you and get the job done. And again, we are Florida first. My time in office has been right here as a state leader on the easiest transition, and I know all these guys all the way out who are gonna be coming in as the current the future um leadership in the House and Senate. I'll have a great relationship where we're on day one, we can start fixing all these problems of affordability, keeping Florida free, uh, keeping it safe, doing all the things that people want us to work on right now, protecting our environment, the infrastructure. Uh, we did it when I was leading the House, and we'll step right in to keep doing it as governor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, your vision as we wrap up the day, I usually end with the biggest challenge that's facing the panhandle. We'll transition that a little bit here since you're generally focused on the entire state. Is what is your plan and your future outlook for Florida over the next four to eight years as governor?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's making it affordable for people and making sure that in it with a that we don't become victims of our success. Part of the affordability problem is all the people rushing in here. I want to, I want to, we need to hopefully that's gonna pause and and my part of my tax structure is gonna help pause that a little bit and kind of put some of the burden over on people that are coming in and buying up large swaths of farmland or homes and turning them into rentals, have them start, you know, taxing them a little bit more so that those of us that are here can afford to live here and protecting our way of life, protecting what's all great about Florida and not letting our success cause damage to our state, whether that's environmental damage or or getting behind on infrastructure, I will stay laser focused, not wanting to run for anything else, on what do we need to do in eight years to set us up for success, not just for the next eight years, but for the next 18, 20, 30, and beyond.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And so to close out for today, speaking, everyone that's listened for every voter uh potentially in the primary, we're in uh in a midseason during a governor's race, so primary turnouts are usually low. What can you say to the voters today to get out and ver verify the information and pick the right choice? Yep.
SPEAKER_00If I'll say this if you do your research, I'll be your next governor. My only concern is the voter that doesn't pay any attention. It says, Oh, that guy looks nice, he's got more TV commercials than the other guy. Is so do your research, go to voterenter.com. That's our website. You can read a lot more about what I uh I'm actually I have written agendas, I've written policies and a vision that the other candidates, again, really don't have. They're just sniping and doing their thing. But um, if you do your research, check us out there, follow us on social media. If you like something, share it. Um, if you if you like the campaign and want to help a campaign, we absolutely have to raise the money. We've raised six and a half million dollars, but we need to continue raising millions and millions more as we approach August. Help us out and uh join our grassroots team. Let us know and go onto that site and say, hey, I'm in Walton County or Okaloosa or Gulf or Bay or what have you and say, let's jump in and we want to help in our county, and what can we do? We'd love to have your support.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well definitely thank you for being on the show today. Uh, and thanks for the conversation and time. And uh, you are playing on the right things, and let's hope uh when election time comes that people do their research and pick the right choice.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER_01Great to be with you. All right, thank you. Thanks for listening today's episode. If you liked it, be sure to follow and subscribe. I'll leave you with this what's the biggest issue you see in the pain handle right now? Join the conversation with me at Chuck Asberry iI on X. I'd love to hear your thoughts.