Weekly Talking Points: Project 2025, Veterans, Abortion, Rick Scott, and More

Every week, talking points are provided to party leaders and membership.

For questions or feedback about talking points, please contact Eden Giagnorio, Communications Director, at eden@floridadems.org.

To request for someone to be added to the mailing list, direct them to press@floridadems.org.

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PROJECT 2025

The following talking points have been provided by the Biden-Harris campaign:

Trump’s Extreme and Dangerous Second Term Agenda: Project 2025

Project 2025 is Donald Trump’s extreme and dangerous blueprint for his second term that would give him virtually limitless power over your daily life and let him use the presidency to enact “revenge” on his enemies.
Trump is willing to tell any lie in his quest for power, but the truth is Project 2025 was written for him, by those closest to him.
Project 2025 should scare every single American. If you don’t know what it is, you should look it up – but here’s a brief overview:
Guts checks and balances to give Trump total power to use the presidency for revenge and retribution and be a dictator on “day one.”
Consolidates power in the Oval Office and defunds government agencies like the Department of Education.
Bans abortion nationwide and punishes women who get an abortion.
Raises taxes for the middle class while giving handouts to billionaire donors.
Trump’s conservative Supreme Court has already given him a blank check to do virtually whatever he wants with no regard for the rule of law. If he wins, there is no question Trump will use it to pass his Project 2025 agenda.

VETERANS AND MILITARY FAMILIES FOR BIDEN-HARRIS

The following talking points have been provided by the Biden-Harris campaign:

Today, Biden-Harris 2024 is launching Veterans and Military Families for Biden-Harris, a national organizing program to engage and mobilize millions of veterans and military families across the country.
First Lady Jill Biden will kick off the coalition launch with events in North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida that highlight the clear contrast voters will face at the ballot box in November between: Joe Biden, who is fighting for our nation’s veterans, and Donald Trump, who only cares about himself and is willing to destroy the democracy that brave American service members put their lives on the line to protect.
As a military father, Joe Biden believes we have a sacred obligation to care for our nation’s service members and their families, and as president, he’s delivered major progress:
Delivered health care to more veterans than ever before and secured the most significant expansion of benefits and services in more than 30 years for veterans impacted by toxic exposures.
Boosted economic security, achieving a record low veteran unemployment rate, helping veterans obtain affordable housing, and fighting to lower costs for military families.
Protected veterans’ rights and freedoms, expanding reproductive services through the VA and supporting LGBTQ+ veterans including by ending Trump’s ban on transgender service members in the military.

Donald Trump repeatedly disrespects our brave men and women in uniform and as president, he failed our nation’s service members:
Called those who made the ultimate sacrifice “suckers” and “losers.”
Tried to cut veterans’ services and benefits, while handing out tax giveaways to billionaires and big corporations.
Let his country club associates run the VA and use their influence to line their own pockets.
His Project 2025 agenda will reduce veterans’ benefits and replace independent civil servants in the VA with extreme MAGA loyalists.
Top military leaders, including all 10 living former Secretaries of Defense, have warned of Trump’s threat to democracy and rebuked his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

TOPLINE: This election isn’t about a 90 minute debate — it’s about the last three years of President Biden’s record and his lifetime of public service.

President Biden’s debate performance is not a reflection of the kind of president that he is or a representation of his record.
According to research conducted during the debate, the more voters heard from Donald Trump, the more they remembered why they dislike him.
More than 3 out of every 4 undecided voters left with deep concerns about Donald Trump’s temperament.
A U nivision focus group of undecided Latino voters left the debate almost 100% behind President Biden.
Trump lost on the issues. Voters said that President Biden better addressed the issues they care about during the debate by a 3-1 margin.
Trump lied 50 times during the debate and spent the night attacking our rights and freedoms:
He refused to answer whether he would accept the results of the election.
He downplayed the January 6th insurrection and his role in inciting it.
He repeatedly attacked veterans.
He defended plans to cut taxes for the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.
He called overturning Roe v. Wade a “great thing.”
President Biden rebounded with a fiery speech at a North Carolina rally on Friday, reminding voters he is the only candidate in the race who “knows how to tell the truth.”
This election provides a clear choice — President Biden, who will protect our democracy, safeguard our fundamental freedoms, and ensure everyone has a fair shot, or Donald Trump, a convicted felon and a clear threat to our democracy.
Florida Democrats will do everything possible to make that choice clear between now and November.

VOTER REGISTRATION

TOPLINE: Republicans have used every dirty trick in the book to suppress votes in Florida.

To prop up their unpopular policies, Desantis and his cronies have targeted the tools and methods most critical to engaging voters:
Republicans created enhanced criminal penalties and fines for those who assist Floridians in registering to vote — resulting in many organizations across Florida ending their voter registration operations.
Republicans canceled millions of vote-by-mail requests and created extra restrictions on drop boxes — knowing that Black voters utilize dropboxes at a higher rate.
After Florida voters restored voting rights to felons who completed their sentences, Republicans created a modern-day poll tax to keep them from voting.
Republicans created an elections police force and used it to target people who were mistakenly registered to vote but still owed their poll tax.
Republicans changed the way elections officials maintain the voting rolls, throwing millions of voters into inactive status and threatening to cancel their voter registration — tactics that disproportionately affected Democrats.
Florida Republicans know that they can’t win elections when all voters have equal access to the ballot box, so they shove these voter suppression tactics through a gerrymandered supermajority legislature.
Instead of actually addressing the needs of Floridians, Florida Republicans are silencing voters and passing laws that only benefit themselves and their friends.

TOPLINE: The GOP’s focus on the voter registration gap is a smokescreen to cover for their blatant voter suppression tactics.

Republicans are hellbent on dismantling voting rights, and their attempts to hype the voter registration gap shows how happy they are about the work they’ve done to disenfranchise voters.
Republicans want to push the narrative about a voter registration gap, but one third of registered voters in Florida have no party affiliation — and 65-70% of those voters lean Democrat.
Ultimately, Republicans can’t win on the issues — they’ll take any distraction they can manufacture to avoid explaining their unpopular policies to Floridians.

ABORTION

Floridians are now living under one of the most extreme abortion bans in the country. The six-week ban signed into law by Ron DeSantis went into effect on May 1st.

TOPLINE: Florida’s extreme six-week abortion ban has virtually no exceptions and puts women’s lives at risk.

The near-total abortion ban is even more extreme because of Florida’s mandatory 24-hour waiting period — signed into law by Rick Scott — and a requirement to have two in-person doctors appointments before accessing abortion care.
Polling shows that 65% of Florida voters — including nearly half of Florida Republicans — support the right to safe, legal abortion.
Donald Trump has made it clear that he’s not satisfied with overturning Roe v. Wade and unleashing extreme abortion bans across the country —he’s even signaled that he would even be open to restricting access to birth control.
Florida voters can reverse this extreme ban and restore reproductive freedom in our state by voting yes on Amendment 4 and re-electing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

RICK SCOTT

June marked two years since Rick Scott celebrated the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, which ripped away women’s right to make their own personal medical decisions.

TOPLINE: Rick Scott celebrated Roe’s downfall and says the dangerous state-level abortion laws enacted in its wake are “exactly what ought to happen.”

Rick Scott is fully behind Florida’s abortion ban: “If I was the sitting governor, and the six-week abortion ban came in front of me, I would sign it. I’ve always said I would sign it.”
On the day Florida’s ban took effect, Scott said he would sign “any” anti-abortion legislation.
Now Scott wants to enact a national abortion ban and has blocked federal protections for contraception and IVF.
Scott’s extreme anti-abortion record is deeply unpopular — nearly 70 percent of whom support reproductive freedom.

TOPLINE: Rick Scott’s self-serving agenda would be a disaster for working families.

Scott’s disastrous Plan to Rescue America would put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block and raise taxes on 40 percent of Floridians, including working families and active duty military personnel.
Scott’s plan to end Social Security and Medicare is so toxic, even Mitch McConnell calls it a “bad idea.”
Scott is corrupt and out-of-touch — he made millions defrauding Medicare and now wants to take away seniors’ hard-earned benefits and raise taxes on everyday Floridians.