 Hi, folks. I'm here with another fantastic guest today. I have with me Elijah Manley, who is running to represent House District 94 of the state of Florida. He's just 21 years old and he may pull off a huge upset in his race. Elijah, thank you so much for coming on the program. Thanks for inviting me on. I am really excited to talk to you because when I was 21 years old, I was like starting to get involved in politics, but nowhere near ready to actually like run for any elected office. So what influenced you to run at such a young age? Absolutely. You know, I like nothing more than to, you know, just party, go to the club and enjoy the college experience. But we're being left with a planet that's not going to be habitable for my generation in a few years. We're being left with a healthcare system that is broken. We're being left with a housing crisis that is out of control here in South Florida. And I think right now in these times that we're facing these parallel times in our history, we need people who are going to be fighting a right fight progressives like myself. We're going to go to Tallahassee and get things done for our district. So I'm running because I don't like what I'm seeing. I'm not happy with the representation that we currently have in Tallahassee. And I want to change that. And I love your answer. Like to me, it's a really encouraging and inspiring answer. But on the other side of the coin, it's a little bit sad because like when you're 21, like you shouldn't have to be fighting, you know, these existential threats. It's sad. But at the same time, you know, it's nice to see zoomers get involved in politics to this extent. I really credit, you know, as a millennial, I credit zoomers because I think that your generation is already much cooler than us. So I'm really excited to see what you guys are bringing to the table. So one thing that I'm assuming kind of catalyzed your interest in politics and your run and your ambitions is something that your kindergarten teacher told you. You have a pinned tweet on your Twitter profile and your kindergarten teacher said that by the age of 21, which you're 21 now, you'd either be dead or in jail. First of all, I hope that that person is no longer teaching. What a terrible thing to say to someone in kindergarten. Like I have a nephew starting kindergarten. And at that age, they're very impressionable. But I mean, that's something that you said has kind of stood with you throughout your entire life. Like how did that really, you know, guide you in terms of like what you're choosing to do, because that to me is it's just it's awful. Right. The first thing I say is, I mean, that followed me my entire life for, you know, up until high school, I actually believe that. I believe that, you know, before I turn 21, it seemed long ways away that I just be another statistic, another statistic of police violence or not a statistic in the prison industrial complex that preys on children through the school to prison pipeline. I actually believe that for most of my life. And I just remember those words so vividly, you know, a lot of people ask me, how do you remember that? Like, how do you remember what was said to you in kindergarten? You'd be surprised how much the children remember from their, you know, their great school years. So that followed me. And I think it really helped me to be a not just a better person personally, but to really care about other people, including young people who are facing so many issues, especially students of color who are dealing with and grappling with the school to prison pipeline, which is snatching us out of the schools early. But it's part of the reason why, like when I decided to run, I put such an emphasis on education, specifically early childhood education, the science says that the ages zero to three years are the most important years in a child's life, getting that, that early childhood education, getting that care that they need, whether that's universal childcare for them or having access to excellent kind of teachers. I didn't have that. I'm not sure if he's still working in the education system, but you know, I came out today and I said, I do forgive that teacher. I don't forgive her for what she, for what she did or what she said and how many other children she might have influenced in a negative way. But I forgive her because I know that's what's in my heart as a person. Yeah. And that's commendable. I mean, like a lot of people would hear that and be really discouraged, but I mean, it seems like you kind of took it as a challenge. And you know, for her to see you now, I think that she would be embarrassed in eating her own words because look at what you're doing. So this is basically anyone who's watching who isn't familiar with you. I think that viewers of the Humanist Report, they're going to like your policies. Like you check all of the boxes, you know, you support Medicare for all free education and whatnot. But this is a different race because you're running for to be a state representative, you know, in the state legislature. So the issues are going to be a little bit different. It's a more localized race. So in terms of what you think would be needed, something that you'd push for as a member of the state house of Florida, what would be on your agenda? Let's say you're elected and you get sworn in 2021, you have a lot of things to address. What would be some of the things that you prioritize? That's a big question. That is a big question. And Florida legislators actually, we only get six slots to introduce bills every legislative session. So we can only introduce six bills every single legislative session. So we have to be really cautious what we introduce and when and what it is we're going to target for that session and also balancing what our district needs. But I say there are two areas I think are the most important or three actually. The first to me is going to be climate change in the environment. We're in South Florida and we're facing a catastrophe just waiting to happen with sea level rise due to climate change. And it's not getting talked about nearly enough as it should be. We still have oil companies fracking in Florida trying to frack in the Everglades. We still have them trying to poison like utility companies like FPL trying to poison our freshwater aquifers. We have so much going on, but we do not have the funding or we're not prioritizing funding to restore the Everglades to deal with hurricanes in to protect the environment at all. So that's definitely something especially living in a coastal community and having a coastal district that I think is most important because we're ground zero for climate change. But outside of climate change, one other thing which we all understand and we all know is one of the most important things to people, including my constituents, is healthcare. I'm a proud supporter of Medicare for All. I think we shouldn't even be having this discussion anymore about Medicare for All. We should have been at Medicare for All a long time ago instead of spending so much money on wars. On a state level, what I've said I will do is I will expand Medicaid. I will expand Medicaid as much as I possibly could through a program I call Medicare for Florida, which will guarantee healthcare to all people in Florida. Because it's a state level, we can actually force people into the program because of of course the federal government. So what we'll be able to do is we'll be able to expand Medicaid because what we have right now is a system where there are income limits. So if you make just a dollar more than that income limit, then you're you're kicked out of the program, you don't have access to it anymore. And that's the situation I found myself in now where I don't no longer have healthcare anymore. So I don't have healthcare. And I know there are millions of Floridians who are facing this current situation. So I've made several proposals. The first thing we need to do is to expand Medicaid. We're one of the only states in a country that doesn't take federal dollars to spend Medicaid, federal dollars from Obama's time, including during the Trump administration, Florida just won't take the Medicaid dollars. The second thing I said is we need to have community health clinics and every single zip code. So what this would do is bring down the wait times in emergency rooms. A lot of people go and they sit in the ER for four or five, six hours just to get a doctor telling them, hey, you need to take this medicine or, you know, everything's fine. And they get the $11,000 hospital bill. If we had nonprofit community health centers in every single zip code, this would not only bring down wait times in the ER, but it will also do another important thing is it will provide access to basic healthcare to people who live in rural communities of Florida who don't have a hospital within 50 miles of them. And if there's an emergency, they have to be airlifted or they have to hope that the for-profit private hospitals that are somewhat nearby would take them in. So healthcare is definitely the biggest one, especially with what we're seeing now with the pandemic. But that's something I'm definitely looking to tackle if I'm going to let them. Yeah. And the things that you're describing here, they're really complex. And it took me a while to learn about the differences between like state and federal healthcare, because, you know, what I think people should do is exactly what you're proposing. Like if you're running for state office, like you pay fealty to single payer, you say this is a goal. But at the state level, it's really complicated. You can't actually do a single payer system at the state level because, you know, the federal government is inextricably linked. Like you have people on federal programs. So it's really difficult to do that. So what you're doing is incredibly easy. Like you're expanding Medicaid and you're making it so that way basically 100% of Floridians are covered by doing a number of things. And I think it's brilliant. It's a really easy way to ameliorate the suffering just right away, full stop. And I think that that's really important that you understand that because it's complicated. Like healthcare policy is so, so tough to like really grasp. And I'm still in the process of doing that myself after, you know, having been a passionate advocate of Medicare for all four years. So it's nice that you really have a solid plan to extend healthcare to literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people in Florida. I didn't want to ask you about because you're in a coastal community. What's the sentiment been there? Because for me, I'm in the Pacific Northwest. So it's a little bit different. Like is there a sense of urgency, more urgency in your opinion? Because you live in a coastal community, like is it just among young people? Or do people really fear that they may lose their land because of climate change? Like can you give me a little bit of a sense of that based on the people who you've spoken to? Right. So it really does depend on who we're talking to. A lot of people who live out near the beach and beach houses and mansions, they should care a little bit more. And not soon they don't care because they have the insurance. But the insurance can't pay for every single home, which is what I'm talking about here. If you live in a $17 million mansion, you know, the insurance companies aren't going to come in and bail out every single one of those people and make payments. So I've been, you know, trying to open up dialogue with those communities. They're not paying attention to this. You know, every time there's a hurricane and there's another one expected to hit us this weekend, hopefully that doesn't happen. But every time hurricane hits, the people who get hurt the most in my district and my community in South Florida are going to be those working class poor people who don't live in mansions, who are renters. So what happens to those people who live in rented property that gets destroyed? What happened to them? They become homeless. They become refugees, climate refugees, in my opinion. So I think there is a lot of urgency, especially in the young people, is starting to become more urgent among younger people. But I don't think up among older people, but I don't think it's happening fast enough. Given what we're seeing now with sea level rise with the hurricanes, every single hurricane season, you know, every single hurricane season, the first thing I do is I pray and I pray to God and say, I hope it doesn't hit us. Maybe it'll hit another island and that's something that don't ever want to hope on any other island. But we're like, maybe it'll turn away, maybe it'll go away because we haven't had a really big hurricane hit Broward County and Miami-Dade County set for a while. And the last time it did, it leveled a lot of communities. So it's a disaster waiting to happen, but there's not a lot of urgency happening. But the one silver lining I'll say is, you know, we have a governor, Ron DeSantis, who, you know, although he's a Republican, he's no environmentalist, but he has proposed a lot of environmental policies that I will be exploiting if I'm elected, such as he wants to ban fracking, he wants to restore the Everglades, he wants to end offshore oil drilling, so far that the Trump administration is opposed to him on it. So we have a Republican governor finally saying we need to do something about the environment, something about fracking, and the Democrats in the state house are not doing as much as they should do to make this a priority. There's a lot of bipartisan potential. He's a popular governor, believe it or not. So he can just tell his party, hey, I want the fracking ban and we'll need the Democrats to go along and we can get this done. So that's one of the first bills I'll actually introduce is a bill that banned fracking in the state of Florida, and I do believe that if it gets to the governor's desk, he'll be able to sign that bill. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because, you know, you would be working with Ron DeSantis. I mean, he would be the governor if you made it to the house. I wanted to ask you just broadly speaking, because you mentioned that he's popular, which is actually, it is surprising to me because I'm not necessarily familiar with the polls there. What do you think he's done wrong in terms of like COVID-19? Because Florida is one of the states that's really seeing a spike and there's a health care crisis and a new CNBC report shows that there's a looming eviction crisis. And in Florida, more than 50% of people may face eviction. So I mean, you can, you can attack this from multiple angles. I think that he's failed from the standpoint of like just general public health and delivering on that promise to people of Florida. But also economically speaking, he hasn't done enough as a governor to make sure that he's stopping people from really suffering economically. What do you, if you had a magic wand and you could do anything right now and, you know, political obstacles were in a consideration, what do you think Florida needs the most in terms of addressing COVID-19? Not just the health issue, but the economic issue as well. And this is another loaded question. But I know that you have a lot of ideas about this. Definitely. I mean, I'll start by saying, well, he's going to start seeing his popularity fall, which is starting to, because he's doing whatever the Trump administration says when Trump says, Governor Ron, do this, including holding the RNC in Jacksonville. Luckily, they canceled that. He was okay with it. So he's just doing everything the president says. And he doesn't really care about the he's not paying attention to the science. And this is a guy who has repeatedly said, we don't need to wear masks. We don't need to shut everything down. We don't need none of this. We don't care. Everything is good. Everything is great. While the cases continue to spike, we become an epicenter nearly over a quarter million cases in Florida. We continue to rise. We're going to, we, we have more cases than several countries in the world. And why? That's because not just Donald Trump, but Ron DeSantis, deciding that everything was okay and everything was fine. And everything was under control and starting to open things up so quickly. But what he forgot is we needed to take care of the people the most. And one of the things I said is we need to get people money. Until we were able to get people money, we need to make people's life as easy as possible. One of those things is extending the eviction moratorium. And we, that is set to aspire at the end of this month. And he still has not extended it. So he, I don't know what's going on. He's just playing edge with people's lives or whatever's going on within the governor's office. But 51% of Floridians, according to a study that was done recently, cannot afford to pay their rent this month. And if there was no eviction moratorium, they would be thrown out on the street. So the governor needs to extend it. He has two days to do it before people began to face issues with their landlords. But he fell short on a lot of other things. We made national news to our unemployment system a few weeks ago with the state of Florida, with a system that was designed to fail from the start. This is not something that just was magically broken. It was designed by governors before him, including Governor Rick Scott, who is now our senator, unfortunately, to fail. It was designed to ensure that people who would not be able to fill up the application. And if they did, they would not hear back from the state for several, several weeks, including, you know, there are people still months later waiting for their unemployment benefits that they have not received yet. So he has an opportunity still ahead of him to do what's right. I hope he would do that. It looks like he's going down the wrong path, but people really need money. They need resources. They need help. They're not getting that the best way to get those people that money is to is standing unemployment benefits, get those people their money and do it the best. That's the best possible way I can see that working out. Yeah, I'm going to kind of ask you to cycle analyze politicians, which you never should do. But I'm curious to know like your thoughts on this, because I mean, it just seems like we're headed towards catastrophe, like just looking at your estate. I mean, with possibly 51% of people facing eviction with a hurricane, hopefully not hitting, but, you know, possibly headed towards Florida, you know, with COVID-19 spiking, how is there not a sense of urgency? You know, I mean, there's a number of reasons, but I mean, like, why do the people in power in your estate not feel the urgency that you feel? Like, what do you think it is? Like, I'm sure that there's a plethora of factors, but like in your opinion, what's stopping them from just doing what's common sense to all of us? A lot of things. I'll say that first, there's two that come to my mind. The first is that they're not connected to, you know, regular people. They are not really connected to us. These are people who grew up in our little ivory towers. They have the little mansions that are closed off from their people. Half of the Florida legislature, I think 60% of the Florida legislature are millionaires, so you don't really actually never had to deal with poverty in their lives or any of the issues facing poor people. But the other thing is the money in politics, the amount of big money contributions being made from the pharmaceutical industry, from landlords and slumlords who contribute lots of money to campaigns in the state of Florida. These people get to do whatever they want because no one's going to hold them accountable and their donors tell them what to say. So I don't think that, I mean, there's a sense of urgency on when it comes to whether it's working people, there's a sense of urgency because we know we're going to get evicted. We're going to be facing the storm. Nobody's here to fight for us, but the politicians, there's no sense of urgency for them because they're well connected. They're taken care of and their donors told them what to do. So I think that's really what it is in the end. It's just a corruption. I wish I could say, I'll say the closest I can say if I'm analyzing them is, to me, it's just sociopathic in my opinion to not care about people to the point where you're willing to let them die, you're willing to let them suffer because of politics, because of some ideology you have. Yeah. And it's getting to the point where even if you're sociopathic and you don't care about others, you at least expect politicians on some level to have some type of rational self-interest in making sure that things don't get too bad for their own self-interest. I mean, if we truly see 40 million Americans across the country evicted, I mean, if that actually comes to fruition, I mean, politicians aren't just going to lose their election. I mean, people will be taking to the streets in every single city. It'll be mass civil unrest. So you think that they wouldn't want that, you know? So it honestly is shocking to me the response that we've seen. I mean, the sad part is I wish that a lot of them would lose re-election, but so many voters unfortunately are, I don't know what it is. A lot of voters are brainwashed to think that these people have their best interests. Like they're still Republicans when I'm campaigning. Republicans can vote in my primary because it's essentially an universal primary contest. So it's an open primary. And a lot of them are just saying some of the who's weird and crazy things I've ever heard, like, you know, the mass or this melon voting is a scam. And then they go from talking about how Governor Ron and is doing everything he could and Trump is doing everything he could. And I'm like, these people can't don't care about you at all. And you see it right in your face. And people still are willing to vote for these people. So I hope all hope is not lost. But I do have a lot of hope in our generation of millennials and Zoomers and everything we're trying to accomplish. So I do think in the future, a lot of we'll start seeing a lot of changes happen. But, you know, I just hope it's not too late. Yeah, I agree with that. Like I think that eventually people don't have a choice. Like they have to wake up. And I think that they're, you know, they love people like there's this cult of personality around Donald Trump. And, you know, they really they carry everything that he says, like whatever he says is gold, it's gospel. And I think that eventually they have to realize that they've been misled. But like you're saying, you know, it's a matter of like, when like, will it be too late? I wanted to ask you about the State Democratic Party, because what I often see is when I talk to progressives running for Congress nationally speaking, they don't get much support from the State Democratic Party, but you're working directly with them running with them. Have they embraced you like has the State Democratic Party apparatus been welcoming to your campaign? Because we often hear that they they want young people to get involved in politics and they're encouraging young people to to to run. So what has the response from the Floridian Democratic Party been to your campaign? Amidst overwhelmingly not supporters, because I'm running against the incoming House Democratic leader in Florida. So I'm running, if I win this election, I'll unseat someone who was set to be the most powerful Democrat in the state legislature come 2021. So you can imagine a lot of them are, you know, going a little bit crazy and they're trying to do everything possible, not to make sure to make sure I don't win, including endorsements. You know, just recently, they were so scared that several members of Congress, including Demi Roger Mitchell, a statewide Democrat, and others, including local politicians all endorsed my opponent just a week ago, because they're afraid that I might win. So the party itself hasn't been supportive at all, but there are a lot of people in the party, even some establishment people in the party who really want me to win because, you know, it's like just throw the rag in the bucket. You know, we had enough of this. We're fighting against progress. So there's a lot of people waking up finally, including people who I never thought would and there are people who are in a party who are supportive. But overall, the party's been, you know, everything you respect them to be. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. It's funny that you say that everyone is kind of coming out, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz to endorse your opponent, because they just tried that in New York with Jamal Bowman and Jamal Bowman beat Elliott Engel anyway. So that's a really good sign because you know that they're not afraid if they're just ignoring you. But once they start bringing out the big guns, like the party leaders and people who are known, you know, across the States to endorse your opponent, you're close. You're really close. That's why I tell people all the time now to really pay attention to these like local races, because the congressional races are important. But these state legislatures are so powerful, they have so much control over our everyday lives. People can't even believe it. It makes Congress look like the children's table of the stuff they're able to do and how winnable these races are. Like this is a really winnable race. The person I got more votes in my last race and the guy I'm running against in Florida really does need a shift. Wherever Florida goes, the country goes. I really believe that and it's just, it ends up being true whether that's a presidential election, the recounts and our voting scandals every few years to, you know, the issues we start talking about. We're not just a swing state where we go to the entire country go. So if we go progressive, the entire country in my opinion will start to see that show too. That's so true. That's so true. And also this race is so important because imagine the headlines. Like I feel like this race would definitely make national headlines. Like a Zoomer defeating a leader in Florida. That would be incredible. And not just any Zoomer. Like we're not talking about Madison Cawthorne. We're talking about a true left wing candidate who knows about policy, who knows it like the back of his hand. Like it would be incredible. So anyone who's watching, I think they're going to already be sold on you. What can we do to make this a reality? How can we get you elected? And especially if we live in this district, what's the way that we can make ourselves the most useful to you? The several things that, I mean, the first thing is obviously going to be the money side of things because, you know, as much as I wish money didn't have any influence on politics, it does take a lot of money to win a race, to send those millers, to get out the vote, to reach people, to run a really powerful campaign. It does take a lot of money. So I tell people to donate as much as you can so we can knock this guy out. I say if we raise $20,000 before election day, we knock them out. That's how much we need to really win. But outside of that, spreading the message. There are a lot of people in the district. We're accepting people to sign up to volunteer, whether that's phone banking, test banking, anything they can do to help. And if you're in the district, to get out the vote, whether you're voting by mail or you go into the actual polls and voting starting next weekend through early voting to get out that vote, don't sit on the sidelines. Don't wait this election out. Don't say, I'll vote next time because it really does matter this time. And it really will be a game changer in this state. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, we'll be following closely because I think that if you are able to pull this off, like this is this is a game changer, not just in Florida, but nationally, as you said, because Florida really it has been steering where America goes. So yeah, we'll be watching. Good luck. Absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you.