LEE COUNTY, Fla. (WINK) — The president did not hold back. After taking the stage at Alico Arena on Friday, he unloaded on several Florida Democratic candidates.
That includes former Republican Rep. David Jolly, who is now running for governor. He 2018, selecting no party affiliation. He in April 2025.
“He was thrown out of the party like a dog,” President Donald Trump said. “We threw him the hell out. He was terrible.”
He continued. Trump said that Jolly is a bad guy with “no heart, no soul.” The president then referenced two high-profile Fort Myers murder cases that got national attention.
Prosecutors charged Rolbert Joachin with strangling in January and beating Fort Myers gas station clerk, , to death with a mallet in April.
During a news conference, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) referenced Joachin’s immigration status, stating that he first entered the United States in 2022 near Key West, Florida.
He was arrested by border patrol and was placed in front of an immigration judge that same year. According to ICE, Joachin was granted a Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The Trump administration stripped that protective status after he was arrested.
The president claimed Jolly wants to make Florida a ‘sanctuary state’ that impedes federal immigration enforcement. On Thursday, the Democrat responded to Trump’s comments in an interview with WINK News.
“We should be a state that is tough on crime. That means if you are born here, if you immigrate here, or if you’re a politician who steals money from the Medicaid program, if you commit a crime, you should be held accountable,” Jolly said, referencing the “As governor, I will make sure that we are tough on crime. But what we’re not going to do is profile people and fight communities based on the color of their skin, where they were born, or the language they speak.”
Jolly said he is focused on the cost of housing, access to healthcare, and blocking data centers. He pledged to issue a moratorium on hyperscale data centers, arguing development is moving too quickly. This comes after two marathon meetings in DeSoto County where commissioners deadlocked on a massive data center proposal, effectively killing the project.
As for the personal comments, Jolly said it’s not his style.
“I go into rallies talking about bringing people together around basic economic opportunity for the most number of people,” Jolly said. “The president and Byron Donalds jump on stage and try to divide us and ask us to hate each other just a little bit more. The president calls me a dog. A dog. What adult does that?”
WINK News reached out to Byron Donalds campaign for comment, but did not immediately hear back. Donalds previously told CBS Miami that he believes more undecided voters are flocking to his campaign.
“Undecided voters who are now coming to this election saying, okay, do I want to continue the same vision that we’ve seen from Governor DeSantis, or do we want to go a new way, similar to what’s happening in Virginia, or New York, or New Jersey.”