Republican Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) is an establishment darling who supports unlimited spending, including funding to Ukraine, and was part of the Democrats who ousted former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from the Senate without due process and took his seat, said Mara Massie, a conservative candidate in Florida’s 5th Congressional District. Breitbart News Saturday Just days before the primary election.
“Trillions of dollars really shouldn’t be spent. The funding to Ukraine, in particular, was a big issue for me,” Massie said of his issues with Rutherford, his primary opponent.
“Even back in ’22, I pointed that out to people and said, ‘This guy is going to continue to spend money.’ … We’ll see next month, he’ll obviously vote for the continuing resolution again, but this time it’ll be a little different. But that aside,” Massie said, explaining that Rutherford also voted to oust Santos without due process, which resulted in Democrats winning the seat.
Flashback: 105 Republicans vote with Democrats to expel George Santos without conviction
U.S. House of Representatives
“I voted for the NDAA,” Rutherford continued. [National Defense Authorization Act]”It has a lot of flaws, especially since some in the military community were opposed to mandatory vaccinations.”
“The last few NDAAs have had major problems because they included provisions that would have made it harder for service members to fight COVID vaccination mandates that were illegally put in place in the first place,” she said, explaining that Rutherford continued working on them despite hearing from families that they were problematic.
Massie said voters were also particularly upset about Rutherford’s vote for speaker.
“And the biggest thing I’ve noticed in talking to people is that people are still very upset about the speaker election, first when I asked them not to vote for McCarthy, but especially with the Jim Jordan thing,” she said. “People still bring that up. It’s probably just on my list. It’s not the biggest issue for me, but it’s what people remember. And they said that’s when McCarthy lost support.”
“He lost the vote for the speakership. To me, it’s about money,” she said, blaming Rutherford for his choice of unlimited spending.
“He’s on the Appropriations Committee, so he has a really big stake, but if we keep doing the same thing, we can’t expect things to change,” she said, expressing frustration that some people are more skeptical of her than the incumbent.
“People are more critical of the opponent than the incumbent. They ask me questions that no one would ask John. So I can’t believe that anyone is expecting anything different when we’re going to keep sending the same people to Congress,” she noted, urging voters to make a real difference by letting their friends and family “know what’s on the ballot and get them to vote.” Otherwise, Florida’s 5th Congressional District could be represented for another two years by a “total RINO” who doesn’t vote as a conservative.
In contrast, Massie said if elected, he would run his office much like he would run a campaign.
“If I were there, I would run it like I run my own campaign, because I’m in charge of the entire campaign. I’m my own treasurer. I do all the work myself. I go door-to-door. I don’t think John Rutherford has ever had to go door-to-door. He’s always had people who were managing all of this stuff. When you’re not actually in control of these situations, you don’t have to budget it yourself. You don’t have to make sure you don’t have to cut where you don’t want to cut. Someone else will do it for you. So, I’ve had to do all these things for my campaign, but he gets other people to do it,” she said, explaining that she is “very direct” in contrast to Rutherford, who delegates and therefore is disconnected.
listen:
“I’m very hands-on and I try to cut back on what’s not necessary and keep what’s necessary. … You can see from his voting behavior that he’s not committed. He … doesn’t seem to understand what’s at stake,” she said, adding that Rutherford “just votes how he’s told in his caucus.”
“He’s voting that way because he knows that if he continues to put so much money into it, money from special interests and lobbyists, they’re just going to try to overwhelm whoever his opponent is,” she added, urging voters this is a golden opportunity to get rid of Republican Incumbents (RINOs).
“If I lose this year, I won’t have an opportunity to get rid of a Republican Congressman in two years. It’ll be the same thing all over again. Now is my chance to get rid of a Republican Congressman,” she explained, noting that because this is a Republican district, the general election shouldn’t be an issue.
“General elections are different from primaries, which are where the winners and losers are decided,” she said.
So the real battle will take place on Tuesday.
Breitbart News Saturday airs from 10am-1pm ET on SiriusXM Patriot 125.
