Rebekah Jones Discusses COVID-19 Activism

Intro 0:01

Welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast , where stories about the power of focus and resilience are revealed by the people who live those stories and now the host of the Jack Hopkins Show podcast , jack Hopkins .

Jack Hopkins 0:20

Okay , and welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast . I am your host , jack Hopkins , and today I am so happy to have Rebecca Jones , and you probably remember Rebecc Jones . If you don't let me remind you . She's a geographer , a data scientist . She's also an activist , perhaps best known for her COVID-19 activism in Florida , which includes her allegations against the Florida Department of Health and Ron DeSantis , and then finally , her whistleblower complaint after being fired , blower complaint after being signed .

Jack Hopkins 1:04

And with that , welcome , rebecc Jones . It's good to be here . I'm so glad to have you here and I know life has not been easy for you after having taken a stand . So I had to put myself in your shoes when I asked you to be a guest and I thought , you know , if that were me and I've dealt with all of that would I want to go on somebody's podcast not only and talk about it all again , but kind of put myself out there when part of me just kind of wants to dissociate from that and go on with my life . So the fact that you agreed , I had a big smile on my face and as we had talked offline , I think right now people need to hear from you for many reasons , but for the reason that in this election year , we may very possibly and in fact I think I could almost say we'll almost certainly face situations regarding the election and democracy where we're probably going to have to be more vocal than we've been willing to be in the past , and while , from the outside , looking in at a Rebecca Jones , it may appear that it's just a piece of cake for you to do that , and we're going to find out , because I'm going to ask you in a minute if it's a piece of cake .

Jack Hopkins 2:46

But one thing I'm certain of is that the other side , the consequential end of it , is never a piece of cake and it comes with it . It's part of the deal . So let's first just dive into the thing people know the most about you . Just kind of start within the period of time that you were recognizing hey , something's askew here with what they are asking me to do and tell me what your initial response is .

Rebekah Jones 3:24

So the beginning of COVID-19 was a first for everyone . The last major pandemic that hit the United States that hard was 100 years , and so we were all kind of at first navigating , improv-ing data systems and building them from scratch and patching them as we went , and nothing stood out to me as being intentionally misleading .

Rebekah Jones 3:56

We knew we had problems , but they were ones that we were transparent about or couldn't fix . But nothing had seemed intentionally misleading until the weekend before the state was supposed to open . And how it went down was offensive to a lot of us in the scientific department because none of us were consulted . If you look at the board of people who were part of the safe , smart , step-by-step plan , there was one scientist .

Rebekah Jones 4:23

The rest were the , the ceo of publics and the cfo of disney and wow they didn't even consider that the state might not be ready , but wanted it to be ready at the same time . So it was a friday afternoon in april it was supposed to be my first weekend off that year and I get a call in the afternoon or the evening right after I get home saying hey , the state's going to reopen next week and they want to say they want us to base it on data , so we're going to need you to come up with a model and aggregate data and analyze it and post it by Sunday which is an insane thing to ask , and post it by Sunday , which is an insane thing to ask . But somehow we managed to do it . But you know , I had help , obviously , from people in epidemiology , but Sunday , for some reason , when the time came to show them everything , they sent me instead of the normal like figurehead person of our department that they would to go explain this , which should have been my first sign that something was off . Um , because apparently they had spoken to somebody else in epidemiology and it was not a positive conversation , or at least it didn't go the way that they wanted it . So then I got called in because at the end of the day , I was the person who posted the data . Um , you know how we managed our internal systems and the process for pushing things out to the public were two different things , and if I wanted to go and start changing numbers , they would immediately appear different on the dashboard , and so I get called in to show them this .

Rebekah Jones 6:01

And there was , I think , an element of genuine shock that most of the state I believe it was two or three counties were ready . The rest of it were not , um , well , many of them nowhere near it , and then one of the the women that the lawsuit is against left the room , called to santis , and they came back and started giving me instructions and that the first few things you know by themselves that I was asked to do didn't seem particularly egregious , but what it was building up to was a picture of what was happening that was completely departed from reality , and I didn't even try to make too firm of a stand because I thought these are policy decisions . If you want to decide to exempt rural counties , which is like half of the state using the definition that they use , that is your policy decision , and I'm not a policy person here . I'm just the person telling you what's happening , and so I didn't say much um , until it came down to , after all the massaging , the data , that there were still too many counties that weren't ready , and she asked me to do exactly what I just explained open it up , start changing numbers and I said no , and it wasn't even with like a second thought , because I'd never imagined I'd get fired for adhering to ethics .

Rebekah Jones 7:21

That was not my experience at DOH at all to that point , and I was manager of , you know , my department and I had never been in a situation where I was asked to do something that I shouldn't have ever . And so I've been told that I can't do things I wanted to do Like I really wanted to . You know , collaborate with the homeless consortiums to do better . What we call point in time counts . So how we count the number of people who are homeless . I had a great pitch for it and everything , and they were like , eh , there's just not an interest in it , but I've never been told to do something bad . I might have laughed a little bit in her face because the question was absurd .

Rebekah Jones 8:05

I studied climate , you know like if you found that you changed , even rounded something inappropriately in climate science . Your career is over , and so a couple days later I was pulled off the project . And then , um , I stayed on for two weeks because they crashed everything and destroyed it pretty easily . With people who had they couldn't basically recreate all my coding languages that I knew and the process that I had done with the staff they had . So , like some of them , one person knew HTML , another one knew you know C plus , and there was just no single person to replace me , right , and so they all ended up screwing each other up , and so for a week I helped them fix it because I cared about the project and it was important to me and I spent a lot of time building it .

Rebekah Jones 8:54

And then there was a Friday afternoon I think it was May 15th or 16th when I told my boss at the end of the day that I wanted to file a whistleblower complaint and I considered quitting . He asked me not to , and I said I was taking the first day off then because I was supposed to have weeks before and I , you know I'd spend some time to think about it because my parents had lost their house in a tornado the month before and I hadn't seen them since it happened , and so I was like I'm gonna go see my parents . Finally , you know , I stayed here to work when my parents whole house was destroyed by an ea four mile wide tornado . So I'm if I'm off this and I don't need to be here , I'm going to take a vacation before hurricane season starts and I got the call monday that that I was being let go . Technically it was a no-fault termination , so there's not a reason listed . It's under the Right to Work Act statute , it's on my letter and it blew up immediately . And it blew up immediately and , unfortunately , all of the models that we had designed in external models as well .

Rebekah Jones 10:13

There's one guy in MIT who was very , very good with it that predicted that if we open the state up to phase one prematurely , there'd be about 4000 deaths over the summer . And there are actual tweets and statements where people like helen fier fear a I'm not sure to say how her last name , um , said it was propaganda and alarmist and ridiculous to say that 4 000 people are going to die in florida over the summer . Well , they skipped right to phases two and then full open and more than 8 000 people died that summer and so , wow , it's one of those things I'm used to wanting to be wrong in climate science , like you don't want a hurricane to blow up from a one to five overnight and then hurt people . You don't want the world to be doomed , you know , and and to have mass migration of a billion people because the land is no longer inhabitable . You don't want those things to happen . And that was one of those things that I really didn't want to be right about and I was wrong in the worst way , and that it was way worse Because I never imagined that we'd just go from one , two , three , right after another .

Rebekah Jones 11:25

There were supposed to be steps .

Jack Hopkins 11:29

What did it feel like after having alerted people that , look , hey , if you do this , people are unnecessarily going to die , and it's at least this many people In this case ? I believe you said it was 4,000 .

Rebekah Jones 11:50

Yeah 4,000 .

Jack Hopkins 11:51

To watch that number be double of what you had projected , that had to be a gut punch to know in your mind .

Rebekah Jones 12:10

Had they have listened to me a lot of these people may very well still be alive . We've become almost resigned to that now because it didn't just happen in Florida , I mean , it happened everywhere eventually . You know , Peter Hotez wrote an entire book about how many people died unnecessarily because of this . You know anti-vaccine sentiment , the anti-mask , you know debacle , and so experiencing it then was terrible . And you know I have like a lot of my media interviews on my website and stuff . But there's one that I don't and it was because I was so depressed I think it was like a Tampa affiliate that I was doing . It was , I think , two weeks after July 4th , when the whole country was basically climbing to the free state of Florida because it was open and the number of people who were getting sick and dying every day was just . It was . It was God awful . I think the first teacher died that that time too . It's actually a coach from Santa Rosa County where I ended up living , and , and the weird thing too is is , you know we think of these things as abstract numbers , but I don't .

Rebekah Jones 13:23

I remember that specific story . I think he was from Milton , Florida . He had gone out for a barbecue on July 4th , hung out with people gotten sick with COVID , was in the hospital but was better . He was better . He was getting into his car in the hospital parking lot when he collapsed and died . Just story after story like that , you know .

Rebekah Jones 13:51

And then kids really started getting sick and dying , like carson lee davis um , whose mom took her to a church infection party , like they used to have chicken pox parties and , uh , her mom gave her hydroxychloroquine because her husband was like a nurse practitioner or something . And you know this kid , she was 16 years old . It was right after her 16th birthday . She had beaten leukemia as a child and she spent her 16th birthday on a ventilator While her mom was posting on Facebook how mad she was that they were going to have mass mandates at her school . When they reopened , her daughter died the next day , and so it's just then that all sticks with you , and I wish I had capacity to not just see them , to just , you know , to see sure people sure but , um , I remember that one made me so mad , that one in particular .

Rebekah Jones 14:47

Just , it was hard , it was really hard . So I did this interview with the CBS Tampa people and I remember said something along the lines of because the reporter asked me a question about you know if I thought my activism was making a difference and I said it wasn't enough of a difference for these people . And you know it's like climate change you can tell people that turning off the faucet when they brush your teeth is going to save the world , but until you know big time coal plants are phased out or some kind of innovation happens , it's really not going to make a difference . Sure , there might have been some people who canceled vacations to florida because of what was going on , and that is fantastic , but it wasn't enough for the ones who didn't survive it right , you , you know how , how much further it would have had to have gone to make a significant difference and they weren't willing to do that .

Jack Hopkins 15:45

You said something that I found it caught my ear . You said this board that only included one scientist . I believe you said on that board was the CEO of Publix , and I think you named another one .

Rebekah Jones 16:03

Disney and ship people like the tourism ships . Okay yeah , that type of stuff .

DeSantis COVID-19 Response Criticism

Jack Hopkins 16:10

So I hear that and I immediately see a conflict of interest . The CEO of Publix , who has grocery stores all over Florida , gosh , I wonder whether he's going to want to reopen . And do you know ? It's just absurd to me that you're going to have people who have a position , a clear position . You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know how the CEO of Publix is going to be thinking about his bottom line , and I'm guessing maybe we can't say for sure , but I'd say it's safe to say that that one scientist that was on the board with the CEOs of companies was there just kind of as a figurehead to say , oh , but we have a scientist .

Rebekah Jones 17:07

Yeah , as a representative of the department of health .

Jack Hopkins 17:08

That was why they were included right and clearly they didn't have a whole lot of input . Or either that or they were .

Rebekah Jones 17:18

We had none , because the decision had been made to reopen before I even developed the metrics by which we were supposed to gauge whether we were ready to open .

Jack Hopkins 17:28

Interesting , so the timeline .

Rebekah Jones 17:29

I mean , they had the plan . When I was there Sunday and I was getting all these directions , they were stapling the printing out and stapling the packets together for the press that were already done , that were laying out the plan that they didn't even know . You know , safe , smart , step by step , yeah , no . So instead of going back and I guess reprinting things they just cause that would have been too much work Decided that this , this was going to happen no matter what , and they still wanted to say that it was based on the science . So they just decided to change the science .

Jack Hopkins 18:05

Question Did you you already kind of touched on this , but let's go a little deeper Did you anticipate or even dream of the kind of aggressive pushback and attack that came your way for using your expertise as a public safety safeguard ?

Rebekah Jones 18:33

never . So this is actually the first time I've ever told anybody this um , and I was very careful to be quiet . My plan at the time was I had a six-figure job offer , um , from haggerty consulting , and they're a disaster focused research group that consults mostly with governments , and I was going to stay through to the start of hurricane season because there's a lot of prep work as far as data goes for emergency evacuations . We had to update all of our heliport pad locations , our capacity . You know all of that in the COVID sense . So I agreed to stay on through then and then I was going to leave .

Rebekah Jones 19:18

But I had already reached out to a reporter at the Miami Herald as soon as this started to happen and I still have copies of emails where I had them agree that I would be anonymous . No one would ever find out who I was . None of the information that I sent to them to prove what I was saying could ever be publicized . It was only for them to verify that what I was saying was true and that no information would be released that could lead to any identification of anyone or put anybody in danger . I had them in writing , agree to those terms .

Jack Hopkins 19:51

I was going to ask let me pause you for just a second , because when I hear these types of agreements with a newspaper or somebody in the media , that was my question . Is this stuff in writing ? Yes , oh yeah . No , that was my question . Is this stuff in writing ? Yes , oh yeah .

Rebekah Jones 20:06

No , I started heavily documenting every interaction that I was having when the very first kind of small red flag popped up , and really that was when they moved my office from the windowless cube next to the elevator to the corner sunshine office upstairs so that I would be in the epi department . So we didn't have to email so much , so that set off a flag to me . It says they're trying to make sure there's no paper trail for whatever we're doing and I'm going to make sure that there is . So anytime someone would come in my office and ask me to do something , um , I would email them as soon as they walked out and say hey , I just wanted to confirm that you want me to do X , y , Z , that you were just in my office . So I had a copy that that interaction happened .

Jack Hopkins 20:55

So your spidey senses were telling you hey , I need to be covering myself here .

Rebekah Jones 21:00

Yes , and I mean I wasn't even really personally thinking about myself . I was thinking if I needed to go to the press if something started to get that , because that was my plan . So I was going to be anonymous . No one was ever going to know who I was , although I knew the state would figure it out because I was the only person who touched that data . It was just me . So as soon as it became public they'd know , but I'd already be gone , I'd be at a different place with my job , so it wouldn't matter .

Rebekah Jones 21:28

No one was shocked more than me when DeSantis , in front of the vice president no matter how much of a boob Pence was , he's still the vice president unleashed this series of false and personal attacks to the national press . Because I didn't want to be public , I didn't do any interviews . When everything blew up that Monday I was getting calls from people like Anderson Cooper , who I've admired my whole life , and you know , don Lemon and Rachel Maddow , and I was literally just emailing them back saying I'm not commenting at this time , thank you . And then Wednesday he did that and my Hagerty offer disappeared and um , yeah , it was rough , it was a rough few days , but um , it wasn't until they uh released this hit piece in the Daily Mail that um still makes the rounds , as today , as like it's supposed to be an attack or something , that I decided you know what um ?

Rebekah Jones 22:28

My , my primary concern about being public was that a I didn't want anybody to use anything I've ever said or done to damage the importance of what I'm trying to say , um and b I don't want to be a public figure . I had had never been on TV before . I went to school for print journalism writing , not ever camera . Everyone was like , oh , you should do cameras . No , these people are bimbos and they're idiots and they don't do any of their own original research . They just get handed the talking point . I want to be the person doing research .

Jack Hopkins 22:59

Right .

Rebekah Jones 23:00

But after the whole Daily Mail thing , Right , but after after the whole Daily Mail thing I was like , well , I guess there's no point anymore and I did Chris Cuomo live in prime time for my first interview ever in front of my bed , because no one told me any better , and you know it was during the beginning of the zoom kind of news period .

Rebekah Jones 23:30

There's a lot of oddity yeah , yeah , right , and I didn't have like a room set up where I could just do it . I had lived in a tiny ass townhouse in tallahassee . That was like 1100 bucks a month , because that was all my family could afford with having two people working full-time as scientists for the state government . Um , so , yeah , it was , it was . I watched it once and I just I'll never watch it again . My hair was like . I tried to straighten it , which was a big mistake to begin with , because my hair is very curly and it was like in my face and I was like I was like the bella from twilight , like yeah , no , no , no , and it was such a dorky thing and then I tried to go away after that .

Rebekah Jones 24:09

I spent a few weeks after that happened because I think that was the 22nd or 23rd of May following up on all these job offers I was getting calls for , like the Broad Institute at MIT , although I just frankly told them I was like that is out of my depth . The work that you're doing is cutting edge of genetics , and I realized that people didn't understand when they were trying to summarize what I do in the media that that's not what I do . But thank you . I kind of want to just be like you know what you just hired me for , like a placeholder job and and any menial things you need done I can do for you . It's a pretty prestigious stuff . There was a governor whose office directly reached out to me about getting a job with them , but after and I had a couple conversations with them I would have obviously had to move , which I wasn't planning on at that time . I had like a little little kid and um , I I realized that the job that they wanted me to do was basically I was going to be touted as look , we're the most transparent state in the country . We even hired you know florida's whistleblower , the queen of transparency , and never have actual access or means to know whether or not any of that was true .

Rebekah Jones 25:25

And I had a problem with that . I didn't want to be a prop now . I would totally be a prop , I would totally sell out and be like you just sit me there , I'm gonna weigh into the data , like I totally would . But um , that's also why no one will hire me . Um , yeah , it's kind of a double-edged sword , but it was actually a really bad fight with my husband . We were already living payday loan to payday loan every week and $500,000 in student loan debt between the two of us , some of which has now been forgiven . He yelled at me and he said you know , you blew up our lives . We can't afford rent your futures . Everything you worked for is gone . And he said you know , what did it matter ? What difference did it actually make ? And that hit hard .

Jack Hopkins 26:24

That was rough . That's an interesting point . If you don't mind if we just pause right here . No , of course , when it comes to taking a stand on an issue , on a principle , even something as important as saving people's lives because of the expertise and the knowledge and the education that you have , no matter how big and important it is , there's always what impact that has on real life , on relationships , on marriages , on the tension between parent and child , on finances . So you know , we , so often we . I think that's one thing that gets left out so often , and so it's so easy to just think , yeah , yeah , it's easy to do . All you have to do is speak up . But on something as big and that involves as many people , and especially that was woven through politics , it might be as easy as just speaking up , but it's not easy the fall out dealing with the fallout .

Jack Hopkins 27:36

So I just wanted to to make sure that , uh , and if you want to talk more about that , you can or we can

Struggles and Resilience

Jack Hopkins 27:42

go on .

Rebekah Jones 27:42

Well , I mean , I grew up without much . My mom was raped when she was 13 , and she had my sister when she was 14 . And , I think , resigned herself to certain ideas about what she was capable of in life , what limitations existed for her , which you know was not fair in the household that she grew up , or anything . But she had all four of us me and my other siblings by the time she was 21 . So we were always struggling when I was a kid , pretty badly at times , and so being without money for me and this is not true of most people , especially very highly educated people in advanced fields , but for me being without money was just life .

Rebekah Jones 28:38

You know , my husband had a good job . We I knew we wouldn't lose health insurance , so that was not something I had to worry about . But I didn't really think of any of that when it all happened , to be honest , but even afterwards , you know , my husband grew up very comfortable in New York . I grew up dirt poor in South Mississippi , so our capability of coping with that situation was very different . Sure .

Rebekah Jones 29:05

And he was mad . He was upset because , as he saw it , I did all of that and it didn't change anything . And I took that to mean , well , if I'd changed things , that it would have somehow been worth it . Um , but I also , when he said that , I was very hurt because in a way I knew he was right . And , you know it , things started getting really bad right after they started reopening um , which is what we thought was going to happen . So I said you know what ? I created this thing , this amazing , incredible , you know , internationally hailed project that's now being used as a propaganda tool to get people killed . The least I could do is build a better one . And since , you know , I built the house , I knew where all the back doors were and it wasn't terribly difficult for me to improve upon a replication that I had built in a day of the whole system and decided that you know what ? I don't know if anybody cares , I don't care if anybody's going to listen . I'm going to do this because it's important .

Rebekah Jones 30:10

And I remember a reporter I had gotten close to while I was working in the state , chris Persaud . He's at the Palm beach post data reporter , brilliant guy , nice person . I told him . I was like , hey , I'm going to launch this thing in two days , I think . So you know , let's see if it takes off , if you want to write about it . And so he wrote a piece in the Palm Beach Post .

Rebekah Jones 30:30

I had raised like $6,000 a GoFundMe to pay for our bills and new computers and everything , and when I woke up the next day it had $67,000 in it . When the story came out I thought I was being frank . At first there was more money than I made in a year at DOH More money than I made in a year as a manager , mid-level manager . It really impressed upon me how badly people needed a source of information that was trustworthy . I picked up that mantle and I did that for a year until the state stopped reporting all data . They were the first to stop . They were the first of many terrible things , and that was right before Delta took off . And , of course , florida has the worst death rate in America post-vaccine compared to any other state .

Rebekah Jones 31:27

And , yeah , I decided to run for Congress . I was like , well , if I can't do this anymore . It was like they cut off all data pipelines . It doesn't even exist . Eventually they got sued and the courts decided that . No , you actually do have to publish this data , but that was like years later , so it didn't make a difference then . Um , I wasn't going to just sit home twirl my thumbs . I had a personal dislike for matt gates . I grew up or lived in the area my whole life , but I knew .

Rebekah Jones 31:52

I knew who he was and what a personal dislike yeah he's done , and um , and I wanted to be back in florida .

Rebekah Jones 32:02

I missed it and so so I went back and it was actually a really great experience running for Congress . I realized how much I like working with people Again , you know COVID kind of , because we followed the guidelines . So I was like locked down in my house just coding all day Right , Just probably won my eyesight shut , yeah . But yeah , so I was like like I just really want to help people and when I was running for congress I ended up giving pretty much all my money away to help people , everything from like power bills when ford of power and light jacked up their rates almost doubling them in some cases to , uh , you know , local organizations , veterans organizations , things like that and I made myself broke . But again , I'm used to living like that , so it's not that big of a deal that my husband would . He definitely does not think it was such a great idea . But I also never thought that four years out it would still be this difficult for someone with my pedigree to find a job .

Jack Hopkins 33:05

Right , it's interesting that you've mentioned that a couple of times . In my youth , meaning 20s , there were a couple of times I was that far away from homelessness . I was that far away from homelessness Now due to my own choices . I want to make that clear . But when , sometimes , when I'm speaking out or I'm kind of going out beyond the envelope on something and people are kind of doing oh boy , jack , you know , look , it's not that I want to experience that again , but if somebody took everything I had today I've existed like that in my life at one point . I don't want to , but I know I can and I can build from there and start again . Again , I have no desire to do that .

Rebekah Jones 34:07

It's not that it doesn't suck , but when you've been there you know how to survive it .

Jack Hopkins 34:11

You do . You do so . That's unlike with many people and I understand , like your husband , for example , that grew up in a totally different situation . That's an incredibly scary thing to think about if you've never been there before , and so it can determine why one person goes this way and the other goes that way . So , yeah , I understand .

Rebekah Jones 34:35

Yeah , it is a different perspective , for sure . Like I actually said to him once , you know earlier , when we met in our 20s , sometimes I wished he would have known just for a moment what it was like to go hungry , so that he would appreciate more how that was never a threat that we had to face because of how hard we were working . But yeah , it is different . It changes your perspective on life . Uh , I still remember the one time it was really really bad and how much pain my stomach was and it starts to feel like somebody's . Like put like a what is the thing they use in the garden to the hoe a hoe , when your stomach can just turn it right now I mean it's .

Rebekah Jones 35:16

I didn't think hunger would feel like that . I was probably 12 or 13 at the time , but it is so painful when you go without eating for so long that you don't forget it . You just do not forget it .

Jack Hopkins 35:30

And that's I mean . That is an indicator . If there is an indicator , that's one thing that I mean , that is an indicator . If there is an indicator , that's one thing that I just it's painful to even think about for children , or anybody for that matter , particularly children who are not experiencing it through any choice of their own . You know , it's just the circumstances .

Rebekah Jones 35:53

And it wasn't really my parents' fault either . They both worked . You know , my mom didn't even get a high school diploma , she had to get a GED and she worked full-time at a hotel . She ended up becoming general manager years later . Like I said , some of those limitations were really of her own invention , or from her household , because she's one of the smartest people I've ever met , and me and my siblings , my dad , from her household , because she's one of the smartest people I've ever met . And , uh , you know , me and my siblings , my dad none of us did anything to , you know , create that situation right , but that wasn't ever anything we really thought about when we were in it either . You know , we weren't thinking , we were just existing and like this really sucks I was going to say , when you're in it , you're just living it .

Jack Hopkins 36:38

There's not a lot of analysis going on about why and how .

Rebekah Jones 36:42

Yeah , and especially as kids like you're not thinking about . You know the institutions and structural systems of poverty in South Mississippi . You know why food stamps and they were back then like that's how old I am , they were actual stamps , right , you know why it wasn't enough and you know I talked about this before . But I think one of the most defining moments in my life was when I was in fourth or fifth grade and my town , because so many kids were poor , did this thing called like the gold card . So if you got straight A's you got . It's not really a card , it was a sheet of coupons , discounts like ten dollars . If you open a bank account . You know piggly , wiggly banking . Or you know free chips with a drink purchase and , um , we needed that to eat and so all four of us had to get straight a's so that you know , for that little period we period we could eat . We'd open the bank account and close it and catch out every nine weeks . We would do that and I mean the bank , like knew in the nine weeks coming up , you know the Jones kids were coming up to open and close their accounts and get that $10 , but I remember I asked my mom because I was not .

Rebekah Jones 37:54

I was struggling in Mississippi . I was born in Pennsylvania . The first year that I moved down there I could not understand half of what people were telling me . It's not like in Virginia , accent or Carolina , it's like this . I could not actually understand what people were saying . I got really frustrated and I asked her do we have to get straight A's again so we can get the gold card this time ? And I remember she almost cried and she looked at me and we were . We were actually in the picket wig like little checkout line and she said no , you have to get it this time and every other time so that you never know what this is like ever again .

Rebekah Jones 38:34

And um , you know my mom for her very scant resources in education poured everything she had into making sure all four of her kids were college educated . And , um , we all work . Two of us hold advanced degrees , so that that the importance of education you know from a very , very young age . And if you had and she also told me too that it was the only thing that nobody could ever take away from you A house , a car , a person can leave you , but your education is yours . No one can take knowledge or a degree away from you ever . Right .

Rebekah Jones 39:09

And so those things were very , very important .

Jack Hopkins 39:13

Your experience , just the financial aspect of your childhood and the experiences that you have as a result of that . I think you'd probably have to say that's just incredibly foundational in your ability to make bold decisions as an adult .

Rebekah Jones 39:36

And a lot of people don't , don't have that , don't want that . It certainly hasn't made my life any easier being that way , but yeah , when money is not something that matters to you , you cannot be bought or threatened by it , right , so , and yeah , that's . That's pretty important .

Jack Hopkins 39:54

Yeah , correct me if I'm wrong here , but I just want to clear this up for people Of all of the attacks that came at you from the state , they never even I don't think they even asserted that your numbers were wrong .

DeSantis Controversy and Whistleblower Retaliation

Rebekah Jones 40:13

No , they certainly didn't , nobody accused me of not showing up to work , right , not doing my job . I mean , it would have been really difficult because I had all the emails and all the praise and and everything else . I mean they even got the white house to do a round of press tour about it , so it would have been hard to do at that time . Um , no , their first excuse was insubordination . But I wasn't doing what I was told to do , which , while not actually on my termination letter , is true . I was asked to do something that is unethical and illegal and I refused to do it . So , you know , I I took that , you know , to the heart . Um , but yeah , there was nothing ever substantially from the state defending them from what I was saying . They never came out and be like oh no , we didn't change anything , everything's the same . And they didn't even try to do that . It just was immediately personal attacks .

Jack Hopkins 41:11

So , in layperson terms , the insubordination is essentially , as I see it , and as I think millions of Americans probably see it , since they didn't attack the numbers and the data , but that you went forward with this . They were just mad that you shared it , not that the numbers were wrong . Mad that you shared it , yeah , not not that the numbers were wrong but that you shared , told people that it was misleading , right , yeah .

Rebekah Jones 41:44

And I mean , they didn't fire me . I stayed on for two weeks after being taken off the dashboard for not doing it . Um , they didn't fire me until the day after I said I was filing a complaint , which would have made the whole situation public . And the worst I think , insult in all of this is that I was supposed to get you know a human resources determination in 90 days . They took over two years .

Rebekah Jones 42:08

What it ended up saying and they didn't give us any of the supporting documentation or anything either was that I engaged in protected activity activity . I think I actually have it framed somewhere in here . Um , but um , I engaged in protected activity but because I filed my whistleblower complaint after I was fired , I could not have been fired for filing the complaint . Therefore it's not a whistleblower complaint . But I mean , the different agency came up with the opposite description and was like yes , this is a whistleblower complaint , you're protected , blah , blah , blah . But the idea that they fired me as soon as I let on that I had to ask my boss I'd never done something like that before . That I was going to file it means , technically , I was not fired for filing it .

Jack Hopkins 43:04

Right , and that was my question . I was going to back up . I was pretty sure I was right on that , but you did suggest to a co-worker that you were considering filing a whistleblower complaint .

Rebekah Jones 43:18

Suggest to a co-worker that you were considering filing a whistleblower complaint . While I asked my boss um how to file one and even detailed him what I was going to put in it , and , uh , that was friday afternoon .

Jack Hopkins 43:28

I got the call firing me monday , which was supposed to be my day off , so and so you essentially , from a legal standpoint , as far as the whistleblower complaint goes , then you didn't have the legal footing .

Rebekah Jones 43:43

Not by the Human Resources Commission's definition , because you can't fire somebody after filing a complaint , for that it's illegal . There was a lot of back and forth about whether or not my disclosure that I was going to file it was enough . The inspector general's office said yes . Obviously our lawsuit says yes , but FCHR , instead of having to turn over hundreds of pages of interviews and documents , was like well , you did a thing that's protected , like there was a protective disclosure it showed . You know that there was going to create a specific and unique danger to the public health , safety and welfare floridians blah , blah . But you hadn't technically fired it yet filed it . So you can't have been fired for filing it , even though you're allowed to file a complaint up to , I think , like 60 days after you're fired . So what's the ?

Rebekah Jones 44:32

right and it does sense , but um , having the document that actually says yeah , you reported some , some shady shit . Well , fifth and sorry , I don't know if we're not allowed to curse on leave me um , yeah , but uh , it doesn't matter , because you didn't actually tell us about it before . They fired you for wanting to tell us about it .

Jack Hopkins 44:53

So did you ever have any , not only when this was all going on , but even prior to that ? Was there ever any one-on-one or or personal interaction with ronda santos ?

Rebekah Jones 45:10

no , not not one-on-one . I mean , the only time that I would have ever encountered him was during , like disaster response periods , um , which , during michael , he was in there a bit because that was during the transition from rick scott to him , because it hit , um , the very end of september of 2018 and he took office in january , but that was a long recovery . And then , you know , occasionally during covid , he'd come in and give a pep talk , like in the morning , and then leave . But other than that , group phone calls , like when I was explaining things about the dashboard , how it worked , smaller meetings where there was like 15 or 20 of us , but that was about it . Yeah , so I , as far as I knew this guy didn't even know I existed , even if you want . Oh , yeah , she's the , because back then I was blonde . She's the blonde young one who does the data . He would have no idea who you were talking about , even though I was in his room all the time .

Jack Hopkins 46:01

Now in retrospect , when you look back on how things went down , is it pretty clear to you that you had been on his radar and he did know who you were at some point .

Rebekah Jones 46:16

Well , I think I don't think . No , I don't think he did know who you were at some point . Well , I think I don't think . No , I don't think he did . Obviously , the dashboard was kind of the face of the response , so he knew that existed . He probably had no idea who was working on it . He gives orders and they get you know . They trickle down to me . But no , he didn't , and that was that was why it was so shocking , I think . Like it's like his little team of you know horrible people went and were like well , these are the talking points for this girl . He didn't even care . I was someone who was causing him a problem . Right .

Jack Hopkins 46:47

The first like actual knowledge of me as a human being was someone who was hurting his reputation and there , by proximity , his chances to be president so it likely , then it didn't matter to him who you were as a person , just that you were a person who was hurting his bottom line I mean , I don't whoever I was , it was .

Rebekah Jones 47:12

Maybe if I had been there for like 30 years and and you was a man I would have been treated a little differently by the public . But for DeSantis , no , I was a problem . Right . Big problem Go away . Crush problem . We won't deal with it anymore . Tell me about really just the Streisand effect is , is what ended up happening to me . I'm Ron DeSantis' Streisand effect . That , ron ?

Jack Hopkins 47:34

DeSantis' choice had effect . I like that . That kind of captures it really . Yeah .

Rebekah Jones 47:44

Tell us about the raid . Just how did that ?

Jack Hopkins 47:47

impact your life . I guess for one .

Rebekah Jones 47:52

That was almost six months after I was fired , and which is weird because people like , when you get this far away in time , people kind combine all the things . But yeah , it was six months after I was fired . I got tipped off the night before that . Something was happening and I later found out why this person was being so vague , but it was enough that it alerted me to the point where I contacted my lawyers . I'm very , very close with Chris Cuomo less so recently for other reasons but I told him that I had a feeling something bad was going to happen very soon , involving the police . We tried to even come up with possibilities of what it was . Everything from like well , if you wanted to hurt my reputation , you would call me like a liar , but you can't like you wouldn't charge somebody with lying about it . I don't know . Never in a million years would I have imagined that they would show up the next morning or early in the morning , before we were even awake , come with a sledgehammer and guns and accuse me of hacking . And the first , I think , few minutes of that is what sticks with me . I mean the video's out there so anybody can look up what happened . I licensed the full video of the whole time . They were there for the film that's coming out .

Raid on Home, Threats, Intimidation

Rebekah Jones 49:15

Opening the door , having guns pointed in my face , I put my my hands up . I knew they were there for me , like that , that much was very clear . Like I , they hadn't said anything , they just started banging on the door . Um , they didn't even say they had a warrant , which they didn't um until like 30 seconds before I ran downstairs and opened the door . But I , there was no way I was to be for anybody other than me .

Rebekah Jones 49:37

And so , yeah , I put my hands up , I was ready to go and I was like I was trying to find pants and I remember I was like panicking in my room . For some reason I had no pants around and so I put on my husband's pants that were super baggy and I had no socks . But I was like , if they do not have a warrant , do not open the door . Once you open the door , they can come in , but if they do not have a warrant , do not open that door . And so , as soon as he said that , I ran downstairs , opened it up , was like all right , let's go . And I , I still feel sometimes in that moment watching them walk past me and to me that was . Everything had changed , every assumption that I had made about what was going to go down right um , the or that it was even for me .

Rebekah Jones 50:24

Um was when they walked . All of them started walking past me into the house and pulling out their guns . There was one officer who didn't even pull out his gun until he got inside the house , so like you can see him unholstering it when he's inside and , um , I started like almost panicking . It took honest to god when I watched that video . I can see that I'm a nervous wreck . But other people like how did you keep your cool ? And I was like keep my cool , I was ready to punch that guy in the fucking face right like I .

Rebekah Jones 50:54

I was like raging inside um , but I also knew that there's this , this incredible feeling of an invasion of your space .

Rebekah Jones 51:06

It's like I I've never maybe wanted to punch the guy was when they were going inside and they were pointing the guns at my kids and the only thing I could do I knew I couldn't move . I kept my arms up the whole fucking time and there's a guy very clearly groping me in the video up and down my chest , like there was no need for that whatsoever . I was so focused on what was happening I didn't even really realize it until I saw the video . Um , all I could think was to do is say please don't , please , don't do that , please don't hurt my family .

Rebekah Jones 51:39

And then this asshole comes up and he's like hey , you need to look at me because you're making all the wrong choices . And blah , blah , blah . And I was like motherfucker , you just came storming into my house pointing guns at my children , are forcing them out here outside . I'm standing here getting felt up by this , this pig over here , and you're gonna have the nerve to tell me I'm making the wrong choices . I , I , literally . I think you can see the video . My grip like my hands get closed fists and I'm just like , oh boy , if I didn't think I'd die , I'd put a slug to this the breaking point huh yes , and I just stared at him .

Rebekah Jones 52:14

I remember thinking I'm staring farther than I've ever like . If eyes actually could bore a hole . That's what I was doing at that time . But yeah , and then they . You know , I asked to see the warrant four times . I am on video over the next hour asking to see a warrant . Every single time I am told the same thing . It's on the way .

Jack Hopkins 52:33

And it came on the way hours later as they were walking out with all my stuff so I'm not a lawyer , so it I am sure you to your lawyer on on this legally can . Can they ? Can they come in if it's , if it's on the way , or do okay ?

Rebekah Jones 52:56

that's ? Um , I guess you know bad education in the law and order , but I mean , I have been told the same things by my attorney if they don't have a warrant . But I went downstairs to ask to see the warrant . I pull open the little because I had a tiny little window right next to the door . Um , pull open the blinds because I'm going to ask them to hand it to me through the window and there's a gun pointed at my face . That's the first thing I saw was a gun pointed directly at my face from like six inches away . And if they were going to come in like that , I was like what , am I going to really have a standoff here with the fucking police ? But there's a gun pointed at my face . So I'm right sure

Jack Hopkins 53:29

but um , yeah , so it's and then they they essentially take every electronic device in the house , or how did that go down ?

Rebekah Jones 53:39

oh , yeah , they took flash drives , like because , you know , I I don't just have data backed up , you know in one place , it's in many places . So they took all of them . Um , some of that stuff had , like my graduate thesis research on it and , um , I asked them too . I said , what is it exactly you're expecting to find on some drives ? And uh , the guy came up this bullshit excuse . He said , oh , you might have typed something up . You know that you were gonna send before you . And I was like , or so I thought it was a hacking thing , um , like taking something , not putting something out . And he was like you know , well , we're , it's in the warrant that I wasn't able to see , so I couldn't really object . Um , but yeah , they took flash drives . You know , um , my , my very beastly computer that cost me a small fortune to run everything from home , and old laptops that I , I guess I'm a hoarder with and I just feel bad throwing things away , electronics away .

Rebekah Jones 54:38

So there were a couple old laptops from like my Syracuse days that were like 10 years old , didn't even turn on anymore . They took those . Yeah , pretty much anything that could plug in they took , Except for the router . Except for the router , which was insane because they were alleging that the message had been transmitted through this router and they didn't take it , and that was the only thing they left . But yeah , they took all of it . Who ?

Jack Hopkins 55:05

ordered this raid .

Rebekah Jones 55:08

So apparently the month before this , somebody had sent text messages to some people from doh to other people in doh telling them to speak out . Um , and one of them was to scott rifke's , who was then the surgeon general . It said a lot of things , but it had something in saying that you know , you can get this to the public , just contact rebecca j Jones . And so I got on their radar and then , when they called the police , instead of doing an actual forensic analysis , they wrote down my IP address and gave it to the cops and said this is the IP address that it came from . I had worked from home quite a bit while I was at DOH , because it's a job that doesn't require you to be in the office all the time .

Rebekah Jones 56:00

Um , one of my employees was in stuck in india . He flew out there right before the pandemic started , could not get back . The other one , frankly , didn't show up half the time . I wanted to fire him but I couldn't , um , and so there was no need for me to be there while doing COVID data for 12 hours a day . So they already had it . And then they found out who that IP address belonged to and they raided my house . The judge who signed the warrant was DeSantis' most recent appointment of judges in Florida . He had been on the bench for less than a month and it was the first warrant he ever signed .

Jack Hopkins 56:38

Is that right ?

Rebekah Jones 56:39

Yeah .

Jack Hopkins 56:40

Lucky you .

Rebekah Jones 56:41

And yeah , he was like a circuit family judge from like the Tampa or Brevard County somewhere else in the state , but that was the first one .

Jack Hopkins 56:50

Now , was this once again ? Was this part of discrediting you and what you had done and the position you had taken regarding their withholding ?

Rebekah Jones 57:08

I see I don't . I've learned things about that incident since then that have made me question what I thought that was . Um , I still think it was largely just intimidation . What person in their right mind would have that happen to them and keep running their mouth ? I mean just but realistically thinking . I guess that means I'm not in my right mind , but whatever um , who would be able to have their children threatened a gunpoint because one of the cops was yelling in there ? We don't want any accidents . And you know very thinly veiled threats , right ?

Rebekah Jones 57:44

Um , trying to shoot my dog , which was really fucked up . Um , you know I had never seen her ready to attack somebody before my life . They had a corner in the kitchen with three guys pointing guns at her and she's siberian husky . She's gonna kick into into survival mode . But who would go through that and then continue to do the thing that caused them to go through that ? That's what I thought initially . I learned from Jared Moskowitz who , to my regret , was a close friend of mine for about a year . He was one of my confident sources at the state for an open seat . That's how he got his second job .

Jack Hopkins 58:20

Is it safe to say and I think based on your own experience you certainly feel that if you cross DeSantis that there's going to be pushback . Have you seen other examples of that in state politically ?

Rebekah Jones 58:40

unfortunately , um , not only one employee that I can remember . I think there was a um , whoever was in charge of the doh in orange county , I want to say maybe it was off the starting to really know sent out an email about how abysmal their vaccination rates were among their staff two staff and encouraged them to get vaccinated . They fired him for that , for saying , hey guys , our vaccine participation within our own staff isn't great , please do get vaccinated . You know info ? Yeah , so he's the only other state employee that has come forward and spoken about it , but there was I think his name's Brian Covey , the substitute teacher from Duval who filmed the empty bookshelves when they started passing you know all these restrictive laws that required the manual review of every book . All he did was just film the shelves and share it .

Rebekah Jones 59:40

He got it bad . They put the whole Poo Shaw smear campaign on him . They made a propaganda video about how it wasn't true and it was all staged . He was just a regular fucking guy . He was like holy crap , all the books are gone . Why are the books gone ? It was insane the amount of resources that they used to target this guy and you know , I've spoken to him and he's just a school teacher .

Rebekah Jones 1:00:02

Yeah , yeah , just a school teacher . Um , then there was , uh , thomas kennedy , who's a friend of mine . He's a huge activist in florida . I think he was like the youngest ever elected state delegate .

Jack Hopkins 1:00:16

And , by the way , I want to clarify when I said just a schoolteacher , I was in no way diminishing that job . I meant he was not in politics .

Rebekah Jones 1:00:24

Yes , exactly Like he had no connections or affiliations . He was just a teacher who showed up at school and was like the bookshelves are empty . What is happening ? Yeah , no diminishing of that whatsoever . My sister's a public school teacher in mississippi . God bless her . But um , yeah , so it's him . He went after thomas kennedy was on his black list , so even to public events and open to press events , the status apparently had made a black list of people who are not allowed to attend , and um th and Thomas Kennedy was labeled a known agitator on this list and he had a . There was . It was almost all redacted when they finally turned it over . But they had , like , known affiliates and stuff . And Grant Stern was on there . They broke his ankle dragging him out of a press conference . He's a reporter , yes , yeah .

Rebekah Jones 1:01:16

So I mean , there's a shockingly large number of people that they've made hell for . Uh , I I was most taken aback by how far they took it with the teacher . That seemed , I mean , there was a whole they built a whole web page for it and propaganda video and it was that was overkill . I mean , I know everybody looks at me as like that was a lot , but I eventually chose to go into politics , you know , for a reason . And uh , this guy was just like he had no idea what was happening and so we kind of it's that sad . Now it's like if people are being targeted by desangies , they know to come to me for emotional support .

Rebekah Jones 1:01:51

Um , then there was a kid from new hampshire who he was a teenager he's like interviewed every candidate since like 2016 or something , and DeSantis , I guess , didn't like a question , and so they started blocking him from events . His private security was actually assaulting him . In one of the videos , christina Pushaw started attacking this kid all on the Internet again and again , and you know it's just a lot of these became news stories . Christina Pushaw started attacking this kid all on the internet again and again , and you know it's just a lot of . These became news stories . A lot of them didn't stay around for very long , though .

Rebekah Jones 1:02:25

They seem to just kind of go out , and that doesn't lessen the problem of being targeted , but mine just , you couldn't just fucking let it go Like for some reason . I still piss him off .

Rebekah Jones and Documentary Film

Rebekah Jones 1:02:40

We were in fundraising last year for the documentary in July or August , and this is 2023 , more than three years later , middle of fundraising for a documentary film about how I took this whole power structure on and out of nowhere , the Miami Herald tweets a screenshot of desantis's campaign filings for his presidential committee and my name is on it and they post it with the comment of that's not a name I expected to see on desantis's . You know payroll . I spent four days on the phone with the people who were supporting the film . You know major financial investors , studios , everybody trying to convince them that there's no way in hell I would take any amount of money , much less the $2,300 every two weeks that they were paying this supposedly totally real other , rebecca Jones , who spells her name the same way as me and lived in Tallahassee the same way that I did .

Rebekah Jones 1:03:36

And it turns out the payment address actually goes directly to the campaign office , which is a whole other shady thing , absolute hell . And they would not deny it publicly . That's how I knew that they did it on fucking purpose . They're either so psychotic that they went out and found somebody who's got the same name as me , who's in politics in Florida and is a DeSantis supporter , on their payroll , just to fuck with me , or they created a fake person to funnel money with , just to fuck with me . There's like no alternative scenario to this . I've spent days trying to convince people that that wouldn't happen , and they were asked about it and not once publicly denied it when they . They should have just easily been said of course we didn't hire her . She's crazy , blah , blah , blah wouldn't do it . And that was just last summer so tell me about this documentary .

Jack Hopkins 1:04:33

What can you tell me ?

Rebekah Jones 1:04:34

so the weirdest thing in the world is when people approach you to buy your life .

Rebekah Jones 1:04:38

That is so bizarre .

Rebekah Jones 1:04:40

I , after the raid , in the month afterwards I got approached by so many people ben crumb , um , approached me about it , a couple different studios , uh , george soros's nephew , jeff , who's actually an amazing person at LA , something , something I knew a director of documentaries from back when I was in Syracuse . We had met in 2010-ish when he was touring this documentary called Gasland that ended up being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary and won the Emmy for it or Golden Globe , whichever one that is , and his name was Josh Fox and he was the only famous person I had ever known before I became famous and we had caught up sporadically throughout the year because he bought a place in New Orleans and I was in Baton Rouge at the same time and just caught up and I said that if I was going to do documentary I'd be with him . I'm not going to do it with anybody but him because he knew me before all this and that is important to me right and so I have this huge , you know big time Hollywood documentary director with lots of awards .

Rebekah Jones 1:05:54

Um , delirio studios signed us on , which you know they made honey boy . They've made a lot of other really , really great films um , big , like award types of studio , and we started shooting in april of 2021 and so this has been in production for a long time and things just kept happening that made no sense and that were crazy , and so we just kept filming it all . Uh , the film is essentially completed and it's in like the selling to our distributor . I'm not involved with the business stuff , um the distributor phase or whatever that is , and I haven't seen it . Um , although it's been screened to critics and you know people that are in that circle to give feedback and stuff . So a lot of people have seen it , but not me . Josh insists that , you know , the first time I see it needs to be a real , like I'm not just going to stream it from my computer , like he wants me to have that experience .

Rebekah Jones 1:06:53

So , yeah , the whole set up of the red carpet and stuff was just going to be . I'm so awkward and I kind of have a slight limp because of a leg injury , so it's just I'm going to look weird on a red carpet . So , yeah , it's in the distributor phase , so once they sell it to a distributor and they blast it out and then it'll be available for everybody to see .

Jack Hopkins 1:07:14

And so is this . It's essentially your story , am I correct ?

Rebekah Jones 1:07:20

yes okay um , it's , I imagine , knowing josh and the types of things that happened , it's going to be kind of a window into the dangers of fascism that were rising all around the country during this time . And you know what it's like , not just in these broad terms of policies , but for like , for an actual person , a human being , to take on these power structures and really how soul crushing and depressing and horrible it can get . And you know there have been really really bad times , um , the worst of which was only just a few months ago , and so it's . It's not been pretty or fun . Um , the last few months is actually the the happiest I've been since before all this happened , but it took getting to the literal , literal bottom or inside joke the top , I guess to bring me there . And a week of detoxing from social media and twitter and all that stuff , and then trip to Greece , you know , paid for by people who are lobbying the UN to create whistleblower protections internationally , was not something I was going to pass up on .

Rebekah Jones 1:08:36

So , yeah , so I'm getting involved in trip to greece yes , there was , and I didn't even have enough money to like pay for like food and stuff during that . So I actually asked people to help me and I got . I spent 200 dollars um , us dollars , and I had to , of course , get euros , which is less the whole trip and um for everything . I mean , I went to the parthenon three times . There's no way in hell , I wasn't gonna do that . I actually only spent four full days there , and three of them I was a person uh took the the 12 euro ferry out to one of the islands , which is , uh , not something I'd ever expected to experience in my life .

Rebekah Jones 1:09:17

I've been obsessed with Greece since I was a child . I started teaching myself Greek when I was nine or ten years old , thinking that poor people don't go to places like that . All I would ever be able to do is dream it , and I would really sometimes like to talk to a psychologist about the self-imposed limitations of poverty in international travel , because it was so easy to do . Yet for people who don't , they think you need way much more money than what you do . Um , that you'll , you know , be completely out of your element , like my greek's , not good enough that I could actually read all the signs and know where I was going on the subway . I did get lost once . Um , it's not that great , but you know it's . There's some kind of barrier that we put up as people who struggle financially , thinking that only like super rich people go and travel to europe .

Rebekah Jones 1:10:07

Um it , because once I was there , I was just I had left sunday and because it's six or seven hours ahead , you know it was overnight I didn't get to sleep and when I got there it was like late , it was like 2 pm and even though it was supposed to be like 1 am for me and got to the hotel and it had this little balcony and I stepped out and I was like I need to sleep before this meeting at 7 . And I got there at like 2 o'clock . Uh , because I haven't slept in like a day and a half . I wasn't even sure how long , but I was exhausted and from the balcony I could see the person on and it was about a kilometer or so away .

Rebekah Jones 1:10:46

I just looked at it and suddenly I wasn't tired anymore . I was like there's no way I am going to go to sleep when that shit is right outside my window and I have been dreaming about being in this place my whole life and never thought I'd be here . So my exhausted ass not having eaten a thing because the in-flight meal was meat and they didn't , I guess , stock enough vegetarian meals , so I hadn't eaten anything . I should have been like a zombie . I almost ran up to that mountain and let me just say there aren't a lot of heavyset people or small children up there , because there are not , like escalators , elevators . You can't sleep .

Rebekah Jones 1:11:22

You can't climb a mountain . I don't even remember the walk up there , it just happened . I was just there and it was one of the most emotional experiences I've ever had in my life . Does it really put into perspective just how young , different your worldview would be ? And America really does not have those kinds of deep roots , Not compared to having a 3,000-year-old city right next to your office . Like roots , but we could , but we destroyed most of it , which is my research with Louisiana tribes and who have been here for much longer than that . That's , trust me , another discussion . That's my PhD work . But uh , I just uh to think that that was the real first place where , like , democracy was tested In that these great thinkers , like Socrates' prison is in the park across from where the Parthenon , from Apropolis . It's not fenced off , you could just walk right into it .

Rebekah Jones 1:12:43

See , that's just too cool yeah and remember I just sat on the bench and stared at it for like three hours thinking .

Jack Hopkins 1:12:50

I've got to ask at the Parthenon because I know I would . Did you look out and just imagine the things that have taken place ?

Rebekah Jones 1:13:00

You can see the Aegean , you can see every mountain in Greece .

Jack Hopkins 1:13:05

Yeah .

Rebekah Jones 1:13:06

And I mean it's all housed very densely packed like buildings now , but just to imagine , like when they would see , you know , an armada rising from the the Persians came in , what it must have looked like , um and uh , I've always been a very hard for , yes , um , I don't know which is far left or far right , uh , opponent of prosecuting to the maximum extent possible people who destroy cultural landmarks and artifacts during war , and that really just kind of drove that in for me , like seeing how much , how many times they burned it .

The Future of Democracy and America

Rebekah Jones 1:13:41

I mean the part that I wasn't even fully pleaded when the persians came in and destroyed a lot of the statues and because those are seen as the symbols of their culture right and which is why it's so important not to destroy those things .

Rebekah Jones 1:13:54

Um , you know , you're never going to have ancient structures if you just keep destroying everyone that's ever built . They'll never get old enough to be like that . But yeah , it just blew my mind to think they were all right here where I'm standing . Every person that I read about in Plato and Aristotle's works and the you know interpretations or readings of socrates was , of course , he didn't ever want to put anything in writing , he was an orator . Um , they were all here , right there .

Jack Hopkins 1:14:25

Let me ask you marble crazy I've never been to greece , but I've traveled a fair part of the world and every time I've gone abroad I'm able to see with fresh eyes . At that moment , at that during that week , while I'm there , it's like that distance literally gives me a different set of eyes to view what's happening in the United States at that same moment . Did you have that experience while you were there , or or were you just so detached ?

Rebekah Jones 1:15:01

and Well , I did go there like three times . I'm so angry , like the experiences um , each time I you know , two times at night , one time in the morning I might've actually been there , for I was so tired . I don't remember one time when it was really really hot . I'm reminded of kind of the volatility of Socrates' time . So the way that kind of Athens was under siege and rose and fell just while Socrates was alive is crazy . It was a very , very volatile time . There was a very bad bout of plague during that time too , and so it's think about like that period of time right and greece .

Rebekah Jones 1:15:45

You know , now it's everything seems in retrospect like it was long stretches of thousand year peace , and it really wasn't . It was always like you're one random army away from being erased from the history of the earth . But uh , that period of time reminded me so much of where we are now and Socrates particularly , because you know they sentenced him to death Principally for not recognizing the pagan gods at the time and for corrupting the youth by teaching them to challenge authority and institutions and to engage in kind of contrarian but you know , experimental thought Like is this a thing that we really should be doing , if it's a thing that's like accepted and , you know , just common practice and it's insane to think that anybody would be sentenced to death for that . But you know it's also an ancient time and we see some of that now I mean is .

Jack Hopkins 1:16:51

I think there's like a tiktok influencer in iran or maybe saudi arabia , who's been sentenced to death .

Rebekah Jones 1:16:53

I did read about that , yes , yeah , and so it's , um , maybe not all that dissimilar , but it just . I think one of the things I came away accepting was that america will fall . I think one of the things I came away accepting was that America will fall Eventually . It will fall , it will split up . Parts of it may remain intact . Greece , you know , modern borders are nothing like what it was during Alexander's time . It wasn't even Greek , it was Macedonian . You know , and so it will . It's just what it's going to experience A country of this size . Really , it's kind of phenomenal that at this point it hasn't broken up .

Jack Hopkins 1:17:27

That's an interesting take because , historically , when we , if we use history as a gauge , a model to predict so we are fighting so vigorously right now to preserve what we have . But I think the fact that we are having to dig in so deeply at this moment to try and do that says a lot about the trajectory we are on , a lot about the trajectory we are on .

Rebekah Jones 1:18:03

And we do see . I mean , the rise of fascism is not all that distant from you know . Empire's falling . It's basically a forced correction of society challenging accepted structures . It's what happens , you know , when you have a dissentist who wants the world to only know his version of things , and then some person who grew up dirt poor , has no connections from family or friends to anybody important whatsoever , manages to withstand years of expensive , calculated , cruel attacks , not just on me but on my family . That's a sign that things are not going well for the powers that be .

Jack Hopkins 1:18:51

Right .

Rebekah Jones 1:18:52

I have very strong feelings about what's going to happen in November that are data-informed and they're not good . But you know , I think , even if the United States doesn't survive , democracy still will . You know , whenever it does break up , which I'm sure will be violent at first , probably in more places than some , more places than others . But whatever comes out of it , there's there's no reason to think that there won't be democracy from it .

Jack Hopkins 1:19:21

That's a fascinating point and I'd like to pause there for a moment . It's such an important thing to think about because most of the thinking about democracy is very black and white , that it either exists coast to coast , top to bottom , bottom to top , inside , out , outside in , or it doesn't . But , as you mentioned , when we again we look at things historically , sometimes things fracture , and when they do , that's where it's not so black and white . You have pieces . Black and white , you have pieces , and there is no reason to think that some of those pieces will not still be flourishing democracy .

Rebekah Jones 1:20:12

I mean California can easily break off as its own state .

Rebekah Jones 1:20:15

It would have one of the highest GDPs in the world , it could institute all of these progressive policies and assuming it doesn't go to war with anybody else would be a thriving progressive Western state . I wouldn't have high hopes for the US South , but I would strongly advocate for the southern Mississippi , southern Louisiana area to be its own state , so they don't get caught whatever the rest of them are doing . But yeah , I find that the failure of the American experience as a gauge for the failure of democracy to be false equivalency . I mean , europe's still going to have democracy if the United States falls , and you know lots of other places in the world will too , and there's no reason to think that whatever pieces break up here , some of them will be better than others or that democracy won't still exist across all of them .

Rebekah Jones 1:21:08

We do force ourselves into these very black and white situations because it makes it easier for us to force ourselves forward , I think in a lot of ways , like if we don't do everything right now , everything ends , and we do need that kind of power and fight behind us to stave off bad things . Um , and it makes the picture less complicated , but , as we've you know , the events of the world have unfolded over the last few years . There is a place for nuance , and locking it out is not going to help you achieve anything other than maybe maintaining the status quo , which is deeply flawed .

Jack Hopkins 1:21:47

That is and I just I have to say , I just realized it during this episode of this podcast episode talking about this subject my whole thrust on social media outside of podcast is working tirelessly to help people stay resilient and buoyed to .

Jack Hopkins 1:22:19

I can take another step and with each event that's coming for example this week with with the verdict on Trump's New York trial , right , I've been , I've been posting a lot to prepare people , as I do , for everything like this that yes , there's an outcome that we would like to see and we can celebrate if we get that outcome . However , allow for the possibility that we don't get that outcome . Go ahead and embrace it now , wrap your arms around it and decide that it's not going to put you in fetal position , that we still can step forward from there , and so when we take it to the concept of democracy , then as a whole and I've never stated it in these words , but through this conversation I've just realized that's kind of where I'm headed with everything it's not necessarily win or lose , fail or thrive we would like ideally to . You know , we all want what we've always had or are used to , but what we've always had and are used to is not the only conditions in which we can live meaningful lives .

Rebekah Jones 1:23:47

Yeah , that's true , and it it is really hard . I mean , like I said , I think that that fall would be violent . Um , sure . It's not going to happen without it . A rebellion against the United States is going to cause violence , um , and that that will probably affect , you know , the most vulnerable in the worst ways , as most of these things always do yes um , but what comes out of it may even be better that yeah and that's a possibility most people don't talk about .

Rebekah Jones 1:24:17

They're like oh my god , we have an election in , like you know , five months . Why are we talking about the collapse of america , you know , and again I go back to the . So it's like let yourself think about the different ways that the world can be , so that you're fully grasping the breadth of what humanity is capable of .

Jack Hopkins 1:24:33

And , Rebecca , here's the thing you said , aspects of it . In the unfortunate event that something like that happens , some aspects of it may be even better . And the catch with that is or it's not a catch , it's just some aspect of it that in order for that to be true , we have to not reject the whole thing ahead of time , because that's part of what would keep it from having the possibility of being better well , some places would probably be better sure sure .

Rebekah Jones 1:25:08

Oh yeah , I'm not gonna be an equal no , no no , I'm not testing the no it's .

Jack Hopkins 1:25:14

Some places are most definitely in that scenario going to be much , much worse . But in terms of of being able to have that mindfulness and confidence that you know what change radical change may come during my lifetime , and I'm open to the possibility that even something radically different than what's happening right now and different from what I want to happen right now and different from what I want to happen , may doesn't have to mean we're all doomed right it . It may still allow for those of us who want this life that that we're fighting for to still have it . We just won't have it in the same locations perhaps , or you know what I mean

Navigating Political Tribalismin America

Jack Hopkins 1:26:03

.

Rebekah Jones 1:26:03

So but I mean we , as you know , as political people , it's hard for people like us , with big platforms , to have those conversations openly because it's seen as helping Trump . Oh my God , all the time Helping Trump was like . Every time I mentioned the fact that banning Tik TOK was a terrible , terrible mistake and miscalculation for an administration that sorely needs young people and it's a front to free speech . There's a whole bunch of problems that I have with it , and not just entirely based on the fact that I get income from it . You know it's it's a bad decision . But if you , you're not allowed to do that anymore and that kind of tribalism within the democratic party is , I think , suffocating a lot of people and pushing them out . If you're constantly being at like people are like , oh , but you're for trump . Now I was like I never fucking said that . I never said I was for trump . I would never vote for trump .

Jack Hopkins 1:26:58

I mean , I literally went on the news and called this person like a moron for like six months , you know right just because I think that biden is fucking up does not mean I want two people to vote for trump and and that's such a critical point and I'm glad that you feel comfortable in in saying this I this labor day weekend and I posted a short video about it , so I won't go through the whole thing . Long story short , a cousin of mine , a decorated Vietnam Marine , a retired federal agent , hired for Second Amendment , republican for most of his life . We had a little family get-together and after a couple of hours I'd hoped that it wouldn't come up and he said to me so what was it that turned you against trump ? And I I laid out the two or three things that that I was willing to talk about because I didn't want to go , I didn't want this family event come about , that .

Jack Hopkins 1:28:01

But he said to me . He said there's no way . And it shocked me . He said there's no way I can vote for donald trump . He said I I might vote for biden or I just might not vote for president , but there's no way I can vote for trump . And these people count , these people count . Now , so quickly people come running out and say a vote or a no vote is a vote , for you know , if you don't vote for biden , it's vote for trump . We can't afford to look at it like that . I don't think it's called neutralizing right .

Rebekah Jones 1:28:44

That was one of my like overt strategies . The reason why every democrat lost like six points across the state of florida in 2022 is because they were hardcore blue . I took a huge chunk of independents republicans away just from neutralizing them , making them maybe not comfortable enough to vote for me but so disgusted that they wouldn't vote for him . Right .

Rebekah Jones 1:29:07

And you know I outperformed every Democrat statewide candidate by six points in my district . So you know it's their neutralization is a political tool , but it certainly can't come at the expense of alienating the people that you really need . I mean , we're talking about a razor's edge election . Oh boy , yeah , you know under 35 is not doing well for Biden right now , and I'm still in that category for another two months , so I wouldn't speak on my behalf .

Rebekah Jones 1:29:39

Winging right , yeah , I know right , oh God , I'm getting so old . I like had a comparison of a pitch set of pictures I did yesterday with when I was first started all this , and to me other people like I don't see a difference . Those are not two , four years apart like , yeah , they are . The first one , the look that I have in my eyes , um , because this was right when I was starting to do all the , the new dashboard and everything else was fierce , fearless determination . And the second one , and the best way I could think of it is she's gone through some shit . The second one because I don't , I don't have that look about me anymore .

Rebekah Jones 1:30:16

But , um , yeah , there are lessons to be learned in politics , um , or lessons that have should have been learned already that are not being adhered to , and it's scary . It is scary . You know , like we can say that . You know it's possible that when things hit the fan , that there are places that eventually will be better , that doesn't make it any less terrifying to have to go through that transition . I don't want to go through that transition oh my god .

Rebekah Jones 1:30:41

No , I don't want people to die . I don't want the american soldiers to be killing each other . I don't want cities to be bombed . You know it . None of that is good no um , but to me it's become very , very clear that trump will turn this country into something almost unrecognizable um he kind of already has in a way , and that even with biden we're just going to be limping along the same path towards the cliff .

Rebekah Jones 1:31:07

Uh and you know it could be something that we supposedly were supposed to wait until after this election to really press biden on these key issues , which is , you know , not helpful . It's like , well , maybe if you fix those issues , you know , more people will know from , but whatever , running on promises instead of accomplishments . But uh , you know it's uh , it's not gonna

Women's Safety and Political Submissions

Rebekah Jones 1:31:26

last . You know , I kind of made this point the other day on twitter and got again heat from democrats saying , look , we'll get him back in .

Rebekah Jones 1:31:36

But when that happens , there need to be some real fucking changes and not just oh , this is not a good time . It's never the right time for the people who don't want change . You know , it's like when they tell you to wait your turn when you enter politics as a young woman , it's like , oh , you need to wait your turn . Pay your dues , wait your turn . Nobody who tells you to wait your turn is ever planning on giving you one . This is not how the world works , and maybe if some more people went hungry , they'd know a thing or two about this , right right , I wish you could make everybody starve for a day .

Jack Hopkins 1:32:09

Take a week and starve . Yeah , you can come back .

Rebekah Jones 1:32:12

For me , yeah , but .

Jack Hopkins 1:32:14

We said something about Trump . You said I'm convinced that he would make everything unrecognizable . And then you said and in some ways , he already has . I just had this conversation with a friend of mine this weekend and we were looking at , let's say , 2014 . And the discussions that we were having in 2014 , the things going on in our lives , the way we were thinking about our futures never going to feel the same again . That doesn't mean that it can't be good , that it can't evolve .

Jack Hopkins 1:33:17

It will be something else Right , but that carefree , we're safe , we're always going to have our freedom because you know , I'm an American citizen , I live in the United States .

Rebekah Jones 1:33:51

That that was not on as stable footing as millions and millions of people chose to believe that it was Even the Bush years were quieter than this .

Rebekah Jones 1:33:55

Oh my God , yeah , I mean , I always joke that . Can we just have Obama back ? I just want to make Obama king . And then you know the drone policy . I'm pro-drone , which shocks a lot of liberals , but there are human , human lives calculations . You know , that's my whole thing is not letting people die , um , but yeah , it's the bush years . As much as I like , I get kicked out of band for disagreeing .

Rebekah Jones 1:34:18

I racked war in 2003 , but you know , and I grew up in a state that didn't have abortion clinics , you know like we had one , and that's the case that just cut abortion protections federally overturned right the jackson , you know , abortion clinic , and so I grew up being a lesser citizen , as an atheist , as a female , you know , like I had less in that state where I grew up yeah and yet , for some reason , I feel and even outside of what I've been personally going through like from 2016 to 2020 , less safe than I've ever felt as a person or a woman before and and that was the question I had for you .

Jack Hopkins 1:34:57

so you expand on that , not only in the in the context of just being a woman at this period of time in the United States , but also your safety as it relates to post With the blog .

Rebekah Jones 1:35:11

Yes , there was this violent , aggressive movement by men to inflict more widespread abuse of women , to be honest , as a response to it , and that's horrible , it's almost natural , but it's also horrible and my experience is and I can't stay for too much longer because I have to pick up my kids from school , but we were talking about this before what it's like being a woman in the in this position and how maybe the way that I look has influenced it . What I've dealt with as far as safety goes from the desantis camp has been violent , threatening um I mean getting death threats left on your voicemail , kind of things . Psychological torture by the people , his gang online . That has been obviously a new thing for me . But over on top of all that is this running theme for the last eight years of pushing women into submission . I'm not a good person to push into any submission , political submission . You know that's not good for me , but I see it playing out across the country with women of all backgrounds and you know education levels and experiences with hunger and poverty .

Rebekah Jones 1:36:44

And that is so deeply disturbing for me that while I was aware that things happened in the you know like , don't you know , be a little aware when you're walking to your car in the parking lot at night stuff , I I am fearful of almost every single man I see out . If I'm running in the woods , I will look over my shoulder for the rest of the time and make sure somebody's not following me . And then I wonder you know , if somebody actually did do something to me , that person would probably be celebrated by the right online . If one of these wackos actually did hurt me , there would be an immediate response on Twitter from DeSantis' people accusing me of bringing it on myself or , you know , instigating it or somehow . You know , if one of my children got hurt or it's my fault , no matter what it's going to be my fault , no matter what is done to me , it will forever be my fault .

Jack Hopkins 1:37:41

It pains me to agree with you . It will forever be my fault .

Rebekah Jones 1:37:44

It pains me to agree with you , but I think you are spot on that's depravity , that is , a lack of just any moral grounding whatsoever , and that he was the anointed one post-Trump , which luckily , thank God and not without a lot of effort , um did not happen right well , we got that shit shut down pretty fast .

Rebekah Jones 1:38:10

Um , that is terrifying . That is absolutely , and that's not just true for me , that's true for , like , any woman now that that happens to , or any person who's killed by police excuse me , police or um . Any interaction where someone is a victim now and it's politically expedient to make them out to be deserving of it will be emotionally and psychologically destroyed I .

Jack Hopkins 1:38:38

I believe you are correct and that's it's .

Rebekah Jones 1:38:42

It's horrible . I mean , it happens even on our side too . Um , a lot of conspiracy theories popped up right after one of my friends killed himself in march . Um , the boeing whistleblower , john barnett . Um , you know , then boeing killed him and blah , blah and you know that's always a possibility , like I had a good friend ask me . He's like do you , do you think they killed him ? And I was like you know ? Uh , from what I've seen over the years , yeah , it's possible . But I also knew john and I know what this is like . And I believe he killed himself . You know , now they have the suicide letter and everything .

Rebekah Jones 1:39:17

But to this day , when the suicide letter came out , people were like , oh yeah , sure , we believe he was . Like , he's a person , he was a fucking person . He's not a joke , he's not a punchline , he's not here to be politically expedient for you . Yes , bring boeing down , but you can bring them down just as hard for pushing this man to do this as you should if they had pulled the trigger themselves . I mean , they didn't just kill him right away , they tortured him for years to the point where he took his own life , and there has to be accountability for that . But we don't look at issues like that anymore . It's just how does this favor my , my political agenda , and at the expense of human lives , and it's just . That is something that , no matter . You know what optimism I have about any potential collapse of america worries me because when that kind of it's almost like cultural cannibalism or societal cannibalism spreads like a virus , it's going to be very hard to root out .

Jack Hopkins 1:40:19

Rebecca , I know you have to go . Do you want to plug the documentary ?

Rebekah Jones 1:40:26

Yeah , I mean , we don't have a distributor yet , so I'm not sure where it's going to end up . The working title is Whistleblower . It's directed by Academy Award-nominated Dr Josh Fox . It's about me and taking on corruption and fascism in Florida . And when it does come out , you're totally going to see a blast all over my page . But there is a preview online .

Rebekah Jones 1:40:48

Love to have you back on when that yeah , there's a preview online that you can get if you go to like my Twitter profile or TikTok or whatever . I have the link in bio . You'll see it right there . This is Whistleblower movie . You can watch the trailer for it . It's going to be . Is whistleblower movie . You can watch the trailer for it . Um , it's , it's gonna be . It's gonna be really emotional . I feel some crazy . A lot of stuff that people have no idea that happened because of licensing issues and be selling those life roommates you're gonna find out about . Um , we're talking about a shooting and attempted murder charge . All kinds of crazy shit .

Rebekah Jones 1:41:23

I've had to keep bottled up , um , but it's an important story and it's important because it reaches much further , beyond just me so , if I hear you right , there will be things included in this documentary that we don't know about right now , or that is not widely and I'm not talking about , like small things , significant big things , things that some liberals are going to hold against me for the rest of my life , but concern things I felt like I had to do to keep DeSantis from ever getting or reaching higher power , and then horrible things that happened to people who supported me and including a shooting . Higher power , and then horrible things that happened to people who supported me and including a shooting . So there's a lot of stuff that happened that I was banned on Twitter for 18 months , so you probably never heard about it .

Jack Hopkins 1:42:16

Yeah , Well , I'm looking forward to it . You are a fascinating and interesting person . We talked a little bit about that before we started the podcast about some of the personality similarities that we have . I had a great time .

Rebekah Jones 1:42:43

I hope you'll come back absolutely , yeah , we're supposed to have a discussion about , you know , the um , the double-edged sword of being young and pretty and smart at some point , because we were going to talk about that absolutely I'll give .

Jack Hopkins 1:42:58

I'll give people just so we can lead back into the next episode . The question question that I had for Rebekah was that does she think that if she were not an attractive young woman as she is , would this same thing have happened to her ? And she's not told me the answer . We had talked about it but she said , okay , we can talk about that in the podcast episode and we didn't . So now you have to come back so that we can answer that question . Rebekah , thank you so much for joining me and everybody write it down Whistleblowers the working title . It'll be coming out at some point . Be watching her twitter page . I'll be watching the podcast because as soon as she lets me know , I'll be telling everybody . And also , if you get a chance , hop on over to jackhopkinsnowcom and check out my newsletter . Rebekah , I'm gonna cut you loose . You go . It's been a pleasure .

Rebekah Jones 1:44:05

All right . Thank you for having me . It was a blast .

Jack Hopkins 1:44:07

You're welcome . Bye-bye , bye We'll see you next time .