TalkingPoints: One-on-one with Ag. Commissioner Nikki Fried, candidate for governor

Is there a candidate who can unseat Governor Ron DeSantis? The two leading Democrats—U.S. Congressman Charlie Crist and Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried—running against him say yes. We ask them how they plan to do it. In our special election series, “Talking Points,” WINK News Investigative Reporter Céline McArthur interviews both candidates to see how they say they’ll make your lives better in the Sunshine State.

Nikki Fried is the Commissioner of Agriculture. She’s now in year three of the job, which is her first elected position. Before her win, she was a private practice attorney and public defender. I met her on her purple and gold “hashtag something new” campaign bus to learn more about what those words mean to her. She explains why her experience makes her the right choice in the primary over Congressman Charlie Crist, and in the general election against Governor Ron DeSantis.

McArthur: “You’re the Commissioner of Agriculture. What do you do?”

Fried: “First of all, agriculture is our second largest economic driver for our state. It’s a $1.9 billion agency, I oversee 4,600 employees, 19 divisions. So it’s not just agriculture. It’s Agriculture and Consumer Services. So I oversee everything from fair rides to fraud of the gas pumps, nonprofit organizations, security guards at the Office of Energy, of course, the concealed weapons permitting program, food nutrition program, that’s all of our feeding programs, including that in our school. We’ve got forestry, it’s a mini governor’s office and a lot of responsibilities.”

If elected governor, Fried says she’ll declare a housing emergency on her first day in office.

“So when we declare a housing emergency, we’re able to go and go after the predatory landlords, because anything over inflation is predatory. It’s greed. It’s all out cruelty,” says Fried. “And so to be able to use the state attorneys and the attorney general to start going after those landlords. And then we’ve got to be building more homes and more affordable homes. Over the last 28 years, we have been gutting the Affordable Trust Fund to the tune of $2.4 billion.”

Fried also wants to recruit and retain teachers by putting a lot more money in their paychecks.

“We’re going to be doubling that per pupil funding that gives more money to the education system and hopefully be able to pay our teachers double of what they’re making now.”

Fried did not explain how the state would pay for these record-level raises. She also tells me she would address the political theater and divisiveness in public education that’s driving teachers out.

“We’ve created a war zone that we are seeing teachers having to be the parents or their guardians, the mental health counselors,” says Fried. “Teachers asked to bring guns into the classroom. And now they’re being told that they can’t teach history. And they’re concerned about whether or not what they say and what they don’t say, they get sued.”

She also wants to protect women and medical providers from getting prosecuted if they have or provide abortions.

“That means I’m doing the exact opposite of what Ron DeSantis did coming into it and removing Andrew Warren from his office because he refused to prosecute. We would do just the opposite,” says Fried. “Second, I would make sure that we’ve already started to work on a new constitutional amendment, because unfortunately, this Florida Supreme Court is going to uphold the 15-week abortion ban, which means that they are not fulfilling that right to privacy that’s in our Florida constitution.”

Fried questions her opponent Congressman Charlie Crist’s record, claiming the former pro-life Republican governor of Florida may not be all in on the fight to restore a woman’s right to choose. She points to his appointments of conservatives to the state Supreme Court more than a decade ago.

“He put one of the most conservative extremists onto that bench in our Supreme Court who is now the Chief Judge. That Chief Judge is going to take away my rights,” says Fried. “Who’s to say that when he gets that governor’s office, he says, ‘Oh, it’s just too hard. I’m gonna go back and do nothing.'”

McArthur: “You feel Charlie Crist can’t be trusted. He says the first thing he’ll do in office is issue an executive order. He published it online and it says he will protect women’s reproductive rights. You don’t seem to think that’s the case. Why? What has come to your attention that you look at and go, ‘No, he’s not telling the truth.”

Commissioner Fried: “Because he’s not.”

Like Crist, Fried is banking on your frustration and fatigue with the current state of politics in Florida, what she describes as Governor DeSantis’ punishing and divisive leadership style.

“That’s exactly how we’re going to beat him, because people are tired of that. People are tired of walk turning on their TV, and seeing the Governor yelling at somebody else, creating these culture wars that are dividing our state,” says Fried. “He wants to talk about freedom. And let’s talk about freedom for this and freedom for that. I’m sorry, he’s taking away women’s freedoms to choose for herself. He’s taking away a professor’s freedom from teaching in the higher ed system. We’re banning books. We’re making it harder for us to vote and to protest. That’s not freedom.”

Fried is behind in most polls; however, she beat out Crist by 4-points in the latest poll from the University of North Florida. That’s a pretty big swing from the university’s last poll in February, which had her down by 8 points.

You can watch Céline McArthur’s interview with Crist by clicking here.

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More TalkingPoints:

• Understanding the Lee County court judge race
• One-on-one with Lindsay Scott Garza, Lee County judge candidate
• One-on-one with Lee County Court Judge Archie B. Hayward, running for reelection
• US Senate race in Florida
• One-on-one with Sen. Marco Rubio, running for reelection
• One-on-one with Congresswoman Val Demings, candidate for US Senate

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If you have a story you want us to cover on TalkingPoints, email us at talkingpoints@winknews.com.

Connect with Céline McArthur on Twitter or on Facebook. You can also reach Céline via email at celine.mcarthur@winknews.com.