Alex Andrade has served in the Florida legislature for seven years. He is an accomplished and respected attorney in his hometown of Pensacola, Florida. He passed the bill to ban forced vaccinations in Florida, and the bill banning all carve-outs and sweetheart deals in higher education in Florida. Andrade is also the chairman of the House Healthcare Budget Subcommittee in Florida's House of Representatives.
00:01:16.720I watched you yesterday on Matt Gaetz's show on OAN.
00:01:21.980I thought it was an excellent presentation.
00:01:24.600I learned a lot more about this burgeoning scandal.
00:01:28.720I found it interesting that while you were conducting a very effective public hearing that I think informed the public about what's going on here,
00:01:37.840the governor was in your home district attacking you and insisting that there's nothing to see here.
00:01:59.680And it's all in response to simple questions we're asking about how much he knew, how much Attorney General James Uthmeyer knew when James Uthmeyer steered $10 million of Medicaid money into his own PAC.
00:02:13.780Yeah, I mean, is there any doubt in your mind that the former DeSantis Chief of Staff and now Attorney General of the State of Florida illegally transferred these funds from Hope Florida into a political video that he controlled called Keep Florida Clean?
00:02:32.200There's no doubt in my mind that he did that.
00:02:35.000And I believe, again, I'm not a prosecutor, but I believe that he committed money laundering and wire fraud and potentially Medicaid fraud by steering this Medicaid money, $10 million of it, into his own PAC.
00:02:49.900So what should the money received by Hope Florida, what was it supposed to be used for, or what would have been an appropriate use for it, or should they never have had it at all?
00:03:03.260It should have gone back to the state for proper accounting so that we can avoid future fines from the federal government and CMS.
00:03:10.560Unfortunately, the Governor of the Sands' administration is somewhat incompetent in the management of our funds.
00:03:17.180It's resulted in almost a billion dollars in fines in recent years.
00:03:21.080And this is just another example of his incompetence as a manager.
00:03:25.260As I understand it, the Hope Florida operation hasn't filed a number of required disclosures and has not met a number of additional legal requirements.
00:03:41.240So the Hope Florida Foundation, they're a 501c3 charity, so they're supposed to file reports with the IRS called 990s showing their income and expenses, and they're supposed to provide documents about conflicts of interest with board members, their policies on how they award grants.
00:03:59.940They're supposed to keep minutes of their meetings, and they're supposed to comply with Florida sunshine laws related to their meetings, and they haven't done any of that.
00:04:08.080They haven't even reported their financial assets to the state, and they're technically an arm of the state.
00:04:15.880They're a DSO, a direct support organization, for a Florida agency called the Department of Children and Families.
00:04:24.920The whole thing is really kind of shocking.
00:04:27.280During a speech yesterday, a dissentist was adamant that his wife was responsible for Hope Florida, said he had no ownership of it, didn't devise it.
00:04:43.840You know, I don't think he likes, you know, being implicated in a money laundering and a wire fraud scheme.
00:04:53.260But unfortunately, his chief of staff absolutely is.
00:04:58.100So, no, I'm sure that he's embarrassed.
00:05:00.680But at the same time, if you know Governor DeSantis, he does not believe the rules apply to him, and this circumstance is no different.
00:05:08.740He doesn't, he's mad that anyone's questioning this money laundering and wire fraud, and he believes the rules don't apply to him.
00:05:16.820And unfortunately for him, he's learning the hard way that that's not the case.
00:05:20.920Yeah, it looks to me like the Hope Florida Foundation dodged legally required audits, financial plans, and ethics close.
00:05:28.120When you and your colleagues simply ask for records, the first lady and her husband's team have just stonewalled them.
00:05:35.700State law says that settlement funds should go to a state trust or a general fund for lawmakers to allocate.
00:05:41.980Instead, the governor and his team diverted a huge chunk of this money to Casey's nonprofit.
00:05:49.160As I say again, the Hope Florida Foundation hasn't filed required audits, tax returns, or the ethics disclosures.
00:05:56.560I think this is all about setting up a platform for Casey DeSantis' putative run for governor to keep the DeSantis' in power as some kind of a dynasty.
00:06:08.640I really think it's interesting that while Governor and Mrs. DeSantis were flying to Washington to meet President Trump to try to persuade him to be neutral in the upcoming contest for governor,
00:06:24.280President Donald Trump issued a warm and strong endorsement of Naples area Congressman Byron Donalds.
00:06:31.620If anybody doesn't see everything that's playing out here within the backdrop of this upcoming gubernatorial campaign, I'm not sure they really understand, do they?
00:06:44.200And in full disclosure, I haven't endorsed Byron Donalds yet.
00:06:48.260I think that there might be other good candidates.
00:06:50.240I haven't, you know, it's still almost two years out.
00:06:53.300I can tell you definitively that Floridians don't like dynasties, and they don't support the idea of Casey DeSantis running for governor, especially as we're seeing all these revelations about the mismanagement, misuse, and misappropriation of funds.
00:07:07.940You know, I live in Florida, and I find that when I'm critical on social media, because on X, I'm at Roger J. Stone Jr., Roger J. Stone Jr., pretty outspoken.
00:07:20.900And people tell me that Governor DeSantis is the best governor in the country, is one of the most conservative governors in the country.
00:07:28.400In all honesty, I then look and I find out that these people don't live in Florida.
00:07:31.720Since Governor DeSantis took office, homeowner insurance premiums have tripled, averaging $6,000 a year, the highest in the nation.
00:07:41.560His reforms handed insurers $2 billion in taxpayer-funded bailouts while letting the big insurance companies dodge lawsuits.
00:07:50.440I think this leaves Floridians with soaring rates and no recourse when companies deny their claims.
00:07:56.080And then under Governor DeSantis, he essentially, because the Public Service Commission is stacked with his loyalists, rubber-stamped the largest single utility rate hike in Florida history, that by Florida Power and Light, increasing our bills by 20 percent.
00:08:16.680Meanwhile, medium home prices have jumped 65 percent under Governor DeSantis, from $254,000 in 2018 to $420,000 in 2024.
00:08:29.020His inaction on affordability and his very cozy ties with developers seem to me to prioritize profits over people, and they're pricing out retirees and young Floridians.
00:08:40.260My daughter is looking for someplace to live, and she's finding the prices.
00:08:44.580It's impossible to buy, but it's virtually also impossible to rent.
00:08:51.760And then lastly, I'm particularly unhappy about the way that the governor has gutted our sunshine laws.
00:08:58.540Florida used to be a state where any taxpayer could, upon filing, find out what any government entity or agency was doing.
00:09:10.860They won't even tell us not where the governor's airplane is going to go, but they won't even tell us where it has been, saying that that's a security issue.
00:09:30.960And again, the whole refusal to comply with the public records laws or the sunshine laws here in Florida, just another instance of Governor DeSantis thinking the rules don't apply to him, and that he gets some kind of special privilege not to follow the same rules regular Floridians have to follow.
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00:10:18.820You know, he bragged about Florida's freedom from COVID, but then he quietly signed a law which shielded Big Pharma from vaccination lawsuits.
00:10:26.880So all of his tough talk, in my view, hit a sellout to corporate interests, betraying the folks who trusted him to fight the system.
00:10:35.080Additionally, I'd say that he signed off on $1.5 billion in new taxes and fees since 2019, including higher vehicle registrations and online sales taxes, hitting small businesses and families.
00:10:49.020He calls it no new taxes, but Floridians feel a pinch while he takes credit for cuts.
00:10:55.300His administration also pushed $1.3 billion, the purchase of $1.4 million of conservation acres through the Florida Forever program.
00:11:05.560But key parcels went to developers who had close ties to the governor or were his donors.
00:11:11.260It's a bait and switch that I think has betrayed taxpayers and paves over Florida's future.
00:11:17.560I know that you're not a prosecutor, but you are a respected attorney.
00:11:23.300With the current Attorney General of Florida, James Uthmeyer, being a chief suspect in this case,
00:11:30.800do you think the U.S. federal attorney should prosecute Uthmeyer or the governor and his wife?
00:11:36.980I absolutely believe the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Florida should be investigating this as wire fraud and money laundering.
00:11:45.140Well, that's the question that they have to answer.
00:11:47.660But from my perspective, based on the information that's public, the information that I'm aware of,
00:11:52.420I believe that there's no excuse if the U.S. attorney for the Northern District does not investigate this as Medicaid fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
00:12:10.840No, I plan to have another hearing on Monday where the two dark money groups that funneled this $10 million to James Uthmeyer's PAC have been invited to come and explain themselves.
00:12:22.400And I've also invited Governor DeSantis' personal attorney, Jeff Aaron, to come and explain himself and his role in this wire fraud and money laundering scheme.
00:12:30.380Do you think that you have the authority to bring both the governor and his wife and the attorney general in front of your committee?
00:13:38.880I don't believe that she'll be able to run on a platform bragging about Hope Florida, given all the revelations we've discovered in the past few weeks.
00:13:48.240I am of the opinion that those who believe that Florida is now a reliably red state may be mistaken.
00:13:59.660It is certainly true that Governor DeSantis carried it by almost 20 points in his last re-election.
00:14:05.780But I also think that the hurricane was a major factor in that, that it allowed him to dominate all free media for the closing weeks of that campaign.
00:14:14.800His opponent, former Governor Charlie Crist, you may remember him.
00:14:19.840He was a Republican, then an Independent, then a Democrat.
00:14:23.460Reminds me of that old joke, a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent walked into a bar and the bartender said,
00:14:29.860Anyway, he was counting very heavily on free media coverage since he couldn't raise nearly as much as the DeSantis juggernaut, and he got no coverage.
00:14:42.060So I think, yes, Governor DeSantis would have won in the off-year election, but not by 20 points.
00:14:48.380And, of course, Donald Trump is a phenomena unto himself.
00:14:52.080Nobody else could do what he has done, and he scored very heavily in the Sunshine State, seemingly different than any other Republican.
00:15:03.640Spent not, for example, a penny on Spanish language radio, which I think has been utilized very, very effectively by Republican candidates here in the Sunshine State.
00:15:13.640But the Trump campaign did not spend money on that, yet he won very solidly.
00:15:19.280In fact, Democrat State Chairwoman Nikki Freed is going to be in the Stone Zone tomorrow to talk about this issue, the HOPE issue, and others.
00:15:29.880She and others of my friends in the other party still believe this is a purple state, that it can go either way.
00:15:44.800You know, Governor DeSantis was very popular coming out of COVID just because as a state, as a large state, we were better than most of the large states.
00:15:54.480I don't think Governor DeSantis was perfect on COVID.
00:15:56.680I recall having to push him, beg and plead for him to open up certain things like vacation rentals back in my home area and Panhandle.
00:16:05.180You know, so there's been some whitewashing, some astroturfing of his record on COVID.
00:16:10.860He certainly wasn't perfect, but he enjoyed a lot of popularity from that.
00:16:16.700The problem for him at this point is you can only get so much bandwidth out of one instance from four or five years ago,
00:16:24.720and he's been beating that dead horse for years and disregarding kind of a record of failure as a manager of the state.
00:16:34.620I mean, as the governor, he's the chief executive officer.
00:16:38.000He's supposed to be managing the executive branch of the state, and he's just terrible at it.