Their 'math never works': Former Republican rips Trump for 'blowing up the deficit'
David Jolly
Conservative ex-Republican David Jolly recently made a bombshell announcement: He is running for governor of Florida as a Democrat.
Jolly was still a Republican when he was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives via Florida's 13th Congressional District from 2014-2017, but he was known for being a moderate conservative — not a far-right culture warrior. And he expressed his disdain for President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement by leaving the GOP in 2018 and becoming an independent. After joining the Forward Party in 2022, Jolly switched to Democrat in April 2025.
During a Saturday morning, June 7 appearance on MSNBC's "The Weekend," Jolly cited Trump's "big, beautiful bill" as a prime example of why he is no longer a Republican.
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Jolly told the Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart and Politico's Eugene Daniels — now hosting "The Weekend" — "You know what I love about being a Democrat now? We get to accept math and science and data. Republican math never works. Republican math never works. It was my lived experience in Congress. You know, I would co-sponsor tax bills and actually vote against them because at the end of the day on the floor, the math never worked."
The former GOP congressman turned Democratic gubernatorial hopeful lamented that Trump's "big, beautiful bill" will increase the United States' federal deficit while butchering Medicaid.
Jolly told Capehart and Daniels, "I think we're also seeing what we already know, which is the Republican Party is not a party of fiscal responsibility. It simply is not. I mean, the Republican Party here is prepared to blow up the debt and deficit. And then on the question of values, how are they looking to cut money out of Medicaid? And look, generationally, I think a lot of people of a certain age think of Medicaid as, oh, that was only for certain socioeconomic communities. Now, in many states, like Florida, over 40 percent of childbirth care is provided by Medicaid."
Jolly continued, "Long-term care facilities — if you have a family member with dementia or in some type of long-term care facility, you know what happens is when you run out of resources, Medicaid starts picking up the tab. And the special needs community, unique abilities community (is) largely supported by Medicaid — and Republicans can say it's not going to cut that, but that's not true. That's absolutely not true…. I think we're seeing the perfect display of Republican values: We're going to explode the debt and deficit, we're going to use math that doesn't work, and we're going to take away health care from people who need it."
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