MAGA's Worst Nightmare: Bernard Taylor on Healthcare, Israel & America's Future

By Mike Dean, October 13, 2026

He lost his Democratic congressional primary by just over 360 votes. But Bernard Taylor isn't backing down, and he has plenty to say about where America is headed.

In this episode of Daily Rumble Network, Mike Dean sits down with Florida congressional candidate Bernard Taylor for an unapologetic conversation about the future of the Democratic Party, the growing threat of white nationalism, and what it will take to stop America from sliding into authoritarianism.

We tackle some of the most controversial issues facing the country today: universal healthcare as a fundamental human right, ending U.S. military aid to Israel, the influence of special interests in American politics, and whether the Democratic Party has the courage to stand up for the people it claims to represent.

Taylor came within a few hundred votes of winning his primary. His campaign raises a bigger question: Are Americans ready for leaders willing to challenge the political establishment rather than answer to it?

This isn't just a conversation about one election. It's about the fight for America's future, who controls it, and whether ordinary Americans can take their country back before it's too late.

Watch the full conversation, share your thoughts in the comments, and subscribe to Daily Rumble Network for independent journalism and conversations the establishment would rather avoid.

DailyRumbleNetwork.com

#BernardTaylor #MAGA #DailyRumble #MikeDean #UniversalHealthcare #Israel #AmericanPolitics #DemocraticParty #WhiteNationalism #PoliticalPodcast

Transcript

Guys, welcome back to the daily rumble. I'm your host Mike Dean. And today we have congressional candidate Bernard Taylor, who was taken on Brian mast down there in Florida's 21st district. Is that right? No, unfortunately, I did not make it through my primary. So you were running for Democrat. Yes. In your primary, you, he had told me that you had barely lost by a couple of hundred votes or so. Yeah. So I was running for the democratic nomination here for Florida congressional district 21, which covers the treasure coast area of Florida, Which is St. Lucie County, Martin County and Northern Palm Beach County. We had a primary between myself and another, another candidate, and he won the primary by about 362 votes. Man. So that's a really close call though. I had come across some of your content on social media and your political ads. And what I really was impressed by is that you wanted to take on Brian Mast, who's the Republican incumbent, a guy who right now has a war chest of over $4 million, most of that being from pro-Israel money. corporate money etc and you are running this grass roots campaign and talking about what everyday americans really need to expect the district which is affordable prices health care all that. Do you think that your opponent in the democratic primary, do you that they're going to live up to the standard that you had set? Even though you didn't win, were you able to push your candidate further into those fields that people want to want, basically want their representatives to. I would say in some areas there are. The focus is on affordability, the focus on trying to make lives better for not just the people here in Florida, but for people all along the treasure coast and all across this country. I cannot personally attest to my opponent having some of the same beliefs and values that I have as far as, you know, grassroots movement, money out of politics, really putting the People First. campaign as far as some of the things that he's running on some other platforms that He's taken Prime example is I'm a Ima proponent of a universal health care system He is a proponents of public option So those types of things where he still kind of lead into the corporatism a little bit more than I do I am fully like let's just focus on people especially the people here in our country I think if we can spend a trillion dollars on wars, why not spend $1 trillion on public health care? That kind of makes sense to me. I don't know. It makes, it makes it make sense. To a lot of Americans, I What happens is the things that make sense to a lot of us don't necessarily get put into the forefront and they get pushed to the side to keep us divided with stuff that at the end of the day doesn't really affect the everyday average American in terms of being able to pay their bills, being to put food on the table, and being unable to go to doctor and not go into bankruptcy. Those things really drive the stress levels of American citizens up each and every day. I think if we had more representatives and more people in legislature that was focused on those things, I'd think we could have a better country. But as long as we have this corporatism and corporate money that funds a lot of the legislation that gets passed, it'll feel as though the people here in our country are going to continue to be used and thrown to the wayside. You're a firefighter, right? Yes, sir. So what made you want to get into politics? Cause that's a, that that like running into a burning building without any protection, oxygen mask, et cetera. And then just standing there while the building falls down on you, which is kind of contrary to your training as a firefighter. I think my, my career as a firefighter and EMT and paramedic is the thing that actually drove me into wanting to do more for the community. You know, going on some of these calls and going to see how our healthcare system works, you know get to, see, how actually broken it really is, You now going in certain people's homes and seeing how they're living, knowing that they are working two jobs and can barely afford to live in optimal living conditions, let alone suboptimal living condition. The things that are driving, you know, people to kill themselves, the things to drive people, to commit murders. Things that drive to suffer from mental health disorders. I see all of that. And I that the government, whether that's state, local, or federal, is not necessarily prioritizing these things, each and every day American people. And I got tired of just taking people to the hospital and, you know, that being all I can do for them. So I decided to jump into this race and see if I could affect even more change in the community. You barely lost. I know that we were talking online before that you plan on running it back. If you do run it back, depending on let's say your Democrat opponent that won the primary actually defeats Brian Mast, which is anything is better than Brian mast. In my opinion, he is a horrible trader to this country who should not be in government whatsoever. He's also a bit of a psychopath. If the Democrat wins, would you still consider running it? Because now you're trying to unseat a fellow Democrat. For me, it would be going to see what the people would want. I'm not one of those people that are looking for a position for position's sake. If there's someone that is doing a good job and doing the things that they need to do to put the community first and put Americans first, then I'll put my work and my effort towards perhaps something on the state level, something locally. Again, I want to do what's going to be the best thing for the people here on the Treasure Coast. And if that's running for that seat again, if Brian wins, or if it's for a local elected seat or a state elected office, but doing something to make sure I can impact as many people as I possibly can. And I think you did your campaign again. Yes, you technically lost, but barely. I thank your, your. Did have a big movement behind it. somewhere that you raised over 550,000. And then another place I read that it was actually over a million in small contributions. Is that correct? 1.2 million and grassroots efforts. Wow. I won't say we did that in about four and a half months. Man. Because when you look at a lot of political con candidates and I've talked to several of them on my show, I mean, they don't get anywhere near that type of grassroots. So I think that. That to me, that would say that you have a strong support behind you because that wasn't APAC money. That wasn' corporate money that this is small donations. This is grassroots. I think that that's the people telling you, yeah, we believe in your message. Unfortunately, you know, there's maybe some baby boomers that went and voted and they voted for the more corporatist because they're used to voting for, but I The generation that's paying the bills today, the ones that are having to work those two jobs, like you said, they want to see some real change. And I think they believed in your message and they put their money where their mouth was. That's huge because if you look at it, Brian Mass right now, when I was doing my research, he's sitting at $4.1 million in just corporate and APAC and PAC donations, which is insane for a congressional district to have that much money. dumped into their campaign. So yeah, I would highly recommend that you look at what are some other needs that the community has. Maybe it's not this congressional district this time, maybe it is next time. But maybe there's something there locally. I mean, if you can get that much support in such a short amount of time is there a Bernard Taylor 2028? Possibility going on in the back of your mind, maybe make a bid. You never know what's going to happen. Oh, there's absolutely, like I'm saying, this, I don't close the door on anything. I know the path forward. No one needs to be done, especially here in Florida where the infrastructure isn't necessarily what it needs. For grassroots campaign. Not to my liking anyway. I definitely need to put more effort into my next run and to making sure we're building that infrastructure where we have community organizers, where have precinct captains, genuine young people who got the energy to be out here. This sun is no joke in Florida. So you're asking people to come out in canvas and knock doors and be at these different events. When I would campaign this last cycle, it's a lot of the older generation that are still handling these tasks. A lot my generation and younger, we're not picking up the baton. So I think what's going to strengthen whatever I decide to do once these midterms get passed is actually building that network, that infrastructure, or that coalition of new energy to be able to hit the ground running and not necessarily wait till 2028. Once January 2027 gets here, we get past the holidays and everybody's back from Thanksgiving and Christmas. The work starts then, because as we know, there's going to work around people trying to figure out who's gonna be the next president of the United States. And that work is going be started in 20 27. So those dollars that were made available to us now, or we're going to have to try to get those very early because there are going be so many people seeking dollars from not just small dollar donations, but corporate donors for that 20-28 election cycle. So I'm not going wait till 2028 to start on that. We're starting in 2027 to build what we need. Like you said, the people here, they had an option. They made their voices heard. If we had had a little bit more than a 25% turnout, I don't believe my race would have been close. And that's something that I need to work on. It's making sure that we don' have a 25% voting turnout in this area, even if it was just a primary election. You know, we have to make sure we get people, someone that they can believe in and someone who gets them off the couch to go vote. Yeah. So we talked a little bit about universal healthcare, which I think is paramount. I agree with it. Even though I lean a bit more on the conservative spectrum, I'm not a Democrat or a Republican or independent. Socially I am more conservative, but I just think it makes sense. Like if I have to pay taxes. And I am a commodity because I work and I pay taxes. Then shouldn't it be incumbent upon my employer, which is basically the federal government, because that's, I'm paying taxes to them. then shouldn it it'd be their responsibility to make sure that if I get sick, my family doesn't go into bankruptcy or have to decide between paying a medical bill and me dying or, you know, something were to happen to my wife or my kids or any of that. I agree. We need that, that universal healthcare. Almost all modern countries have some form of it and it tends to work out pretty well. Foreign policy is very big right now, especially with the war in Iran, which was in my opinion, just the dumbest thing in the world. That's why we're all paying astronomical amounts for our gas and our food. I mean, we just went shopping yesterday and my wife was like, But this last week, this was half the price and look at this. This is double the pricing. Look at that. That last we got, we paid $2 for that and now it's $4. My fuel, my truck was costing me 70 something dollars to fill up. Now it cost me $165 to. All that's because of this Iran war. Are you in favor of the Iran War or are you opposed to it? Where's your stance on that form of policy? When I'm opposed to this war, of course, there's no reason why we should be over there. There's not reason we have done what we did to start this conflict. You know, everybody has a reason why we started this conflict, but I believe all the people who have, you know. Two plus two equals four common sense can figure out why. We're the only, this is the own administration that actually ever tried to start a conflict with Iran. And we're seeing the consequences now, whether that is fuel prices, what did that. gas and groceries growing. That's, you know, the impact to our farming community because of the high price of diesel, whether that's the impacts to the transportation industry because the price is diesel. Like all these things are negatively affecting people who are already struggling to get by before this conflict even took place. Prices were still high before the crisis took places. So I am fully opposed to any foreign conflicts. I was one of those ones that, No new wars meant no new Wars. And, you know, to see that, it's more of the same that we've been dealing with for my entire life on this planet. It's unfortunate because again, if we spend as much money on, the military industrial complex and causing conflicts around the world, If we spent all as money as citizens as we did on that. Maybe this might be the greatest country in the World like we proclaim it to be. Yeah. So with that also comes our funding of foreign countries, militaries, and obviously the main one being Israel, but they're not the only ones. We fund Egypt's military as well with $3 billion. Would you, let's say, you know, it was 2028, we're talking about President Bernard Taylor. What would you do if you had presidential power? Would cut off all military aid? particularly to a country like Israel that is being accused of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, etc. Absolutely. And again, I'm not in favor of sending any aid or financial support to anyone who would be committing the atrocities that the country of Israel is committing. Any of the atrocities happening in Congo or Sudan or any of these places that are experiencing just inhumane treatment of people. I am not favoring sending military aid, or funds to those things. Again, it all goes back to sending billions of dollars to these different entities. When I got people in my own backyard who can't have job care, who cant eat, you know, can have, meals in their schools that we're requiring our children to go to that again, going back to healthcare, like all these things that We could have if we just stop, sending our money overseas, whether that's to Israel, or whether it has to Egypt, even when you go towards the Ukraine Russia conflict, a lot of that, A lot of the reason we're financially obligated to that is because we were sticking our nose where it didn't belong. And we made Ukraine give up their nuclear program and their weapons. In return, you promised to always protect them and be there for them financially. Would it just stayed out of that whole conflict and let them just have possession of a way to defend themselves? Will we still be sending them billions of dollars a day in military aid? I believe the more we get involved in stuff overseas, the most it takes away from us as a country. Yeah, it doesn't even make any sense. The United States is in no threat or danger of invasion. We have two oceans on either side of our coastlines. we have the biggest Navy, biggest air force in the world, and we had the largest nuclear stockpile. So we're not going to be invaded. Why are we involved in all of these wars? It makes absolutely no sense the United state should, in my opinion. And I see if you agree with this, I think we should be like Switzerland where we are just neutral with everybody and were just willing to do business with people. If it's fair, equitable business, you're not committing human rights abuses and stuff. You're. Using slave labor in the Congo to get gold and rare minerals or whatever, but you are paying people fair wages and. Stuff like that. Then we want to do business with you because nobody's going to invade us. Right. So America should be like the business capital of the world where everybody can know. Yeah. America is the safe place to invest because they they're never going be at war. Absolutely. Again, I wholeheartedly agree with that because you gotta think, like you talked about, we have two oceans. Ain't nobody just gonna invade us. We were relatively friendly with everybody close by. That would ally with anybody when you talk about Canada and Mexico. There is no reason other than, you know, enriching the military industrial complex enrich in the oil and gas companies by invading these countries where we think they're oil, there is oil. All this stuff is for profit and for greed. If we, actually just operate it, like you say, as a neutral party, As a Switzerland, we could be a much better country for the people here instead of, again, just trying to fatten the pockets of everybody in these different organizations and different You know, whether that's the military industrial complex, what that is, you know the oil and gas companies, where that has to help insurance companies. We're so focused on enriching the top 1% instead of actually, benefiting not just us, but the world by focusing on our, our country as a whole. Yeah. So lastly, one thing I wanted to ask you is obviously ice been in the news for the past couple of years. We've seen a lot of atrocities. A lot of people are calling for abolishing ICE. ICE is actually a relatively new federal agency in the history of America. We dealt with immigration just fine before ICE, are you for, abolish ICE or do you think ICE just needs to be reformed? No, we need to get rid of ICE and build something new. One of the things I thought about on my campaign trail, again, ICE is, like you just talked about, ice is a relatively new organization. Before it was ICE, it I was INS, Immigration Naturalization Services. I believe, and my wife has a marketing degree and she's always like, when a brand is so toxic, sometimes you've just got to rebrand something to make it more appealing. And I think right now ICE No matter what reforms you try to put in place, it's still ice. You can't remove that stink. So I think we need to abolish it, start it over, rebuild our immigration program. Not just our enforcement program, but how we do immigration as a whole. Going back to the bill that was put on place by Senator Lankford, the bipartisan bill back in 2024 that actually increased funding to federal immigration courts that shortened the asylum process that would have streamlined our immigration process and actually fix some of the loopholes and fix the problems with it. I think if we actually pass that legislation and have humane enforcement, we can do immigration right in this country instead of having to see some things that we've been seeing. That's awesome. Yeah, I totally agree, man. Well, listen, Bernard, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're spending time with the family right now and you made time to come on the daily rumble. Big shout out to you. Look forward to staying in politics because we need fighters like you that are going to go against the swamp. And I want to suggest your, your campaign slogan. It's always been drain the Swamp, right? Well you are a firefighter. So let's get Bernard Taylor in Washington DC to put out the fire. There it is. I like it. Thank you for having me.