Politics
Last Call for 10.28.25 – A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida
Last Call – A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida politics.
First Shot
As artificial intelligence continues to transform business and daily life, The Moore Agency is reminding Florida’s business community that the human touch is indispensable.
The Tallahassee-based communications firm unveiled its 2026 M.Cast Trends Report at the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s Future of Florida Forum, which brings together the state’s top business and policy leaders to map Florida’s long-term economic strategy.
The report identifies seven trends shaping how businesses compete and communicate and underscores a paradox: as technology becomes smarter and more pervasive, success increasingly depends on distinctly human qualities such as authenticity, restraint, community, and ethical accountability.
“In times of rapid disruption, anticipating change is essential to staying relevant and ready to lead,” said Terrie Ard, President and COO of Moore. “Organizations that understand these shifts before the market does will turn foresight into measurable competitive advantage.”
The top highlight: AI is “disappearing.” Not failing, the report states, but succeeding so thoroughly it’s “becoming invisible infrastructure” in the same vein as email and the internet itself.
The report also notes that there’s such a thing as being too perfect, and as AI algorithms approach a sort of sterile flawlessness, brands are finding “strategic imperfection” is an asset. Likewise, consumers crave authenticity and community ecosystems with peer validation — something that AI can neither provide nor convincingly fake.
The report, crafted in collaboration with Moore’s partners, fleshes out four other trends expected to shape 2026 and provides businesses with a blueprint for integrating them into their business and marketing plans.
“The 2026 M.Cast Trends Report is a testament to our leaders’ foresight and rigor, and I know it will help organizations turn early signals into clear, actionable strategy,” Moore founder and CEO Karen Moore said. “I’m energized by how these insights will help decision makers move with confidence, not guesswork.”
Evening Reads
—“The 21 cringiest lines from Karine Jean-Pierre’s car-crash New Yorker interview” via Chris Cillizza of So What
—”Donald Trump’s feud with Colombian leader threatens U.S. antidrug efforts” via Edward Wong, Julie Turkewitz and Eric Schmitt of The New York Times
—”These corporations stopped worrying about democracy and bought Trump a ballroom” via Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby of Popular Information
—”In Florida Chamber speech, James Uthmeier says his No. 1 goal is prosecuting child predators” via Gabrielle Russon of Florida Politics
—”Stephen Ross: Florida has the ingredients for greatness, it just needs a game plan” via Drew Wilson of Florida Politics
—”Education leaders weigh in on AI at Future of Florida Forum” via Gabrielle Russon of Florida Politics
—”Florida’s ‘anti-communism’ curriculum criticized as ‘propaganda’ by experts” via Steven Walker of the Orlando Sentinel
—”Private Islamic schools under fire from Florida Cabinet received millions in taxpayer dollars” via Liv Caputo of the Florida Phoenix
—”Seagrass is key to Tampa Bay’s health. It’s getting planted on Tampa Electric property” via Anthony Nicotera of the Tampa Bay Times
—”We spent the night shift with the repo man, who is busier than ever” via Scott Calvert of The Wall Street Journal
Quote of the Day
“We’ve talked a lot about the roadway to 2030, and that roadway is being paved in a distinctly red shade of asphalt.”
— Florida Chamber Director of Data Research & Analytics Alex Coelho, on the state’s Republican shift.
Put it on the Tab
Look to your left, then look to your right. If you see one of these people at your happy hour haunt, flag down the bartender and put one of these on your tab. Recipes included, just in case the Cocktail Codex fell into the well.
Florida taxpayers would be ordering Top Shelf Cocktails if they hadn’t been overpaying for overdose reversal drugs to the tune of $4.5 million.
Poo Drivers haven’t been banned in Palm Beach County yet, but they might be if Donald Trump and Xi Jinping hold a summit at Mar-a-Lago.
Sen. Lori Berman gets a Big Shield Potion for renewing her fight to provide stronger protections for victims of domestic and dating violence.
Breakthrough Insights
Tune In
Panthers host Ducks
The Florida Panthers host the Anaheim Ducks tonight as the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions try to crawl over the .500 mark.
Florida, 5-5, started the season with three consecutive victories before losing the first four games of a five-game road trip. Last time out, the Panthers beat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-0 behind goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky’s 50th career shutout. It was the first loss of the season for the Golden Knights.
Bobrovsky was the 33rd goalie in NHL history to reach the 50 shutout mark.
The Panthers have played well at home, winning four of five at Amerant Bank Arena. Last season, Florida won 27 of 41 home games.
Left winger Brad Marchand leads the Panthers with five goals and six assists this season. The 37-year-old joined the Panthers in March in a trade from the Boston Bruins. In 33 regular and postseason games last season, Marchand scored 12 goals and added 12 assists, helping the Panthers to the championship.
The Ducks have opened the season with four wins in eight games. Tonight’s game will be their fifth straight on the road. They lost at Tampa Bay on Saturday, 4-3. Troy Terry, Jacob Trouba, and Ryan Poehling scored for Anaheim.
After tonight’s game, the Panthers welcome the Dallas Stars to town on Sunday before traveling across the country for a rematch with the Ducks on Nov. 4.
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Last Call is published by Peter Schorsch, assembled and edited by Phil Ammann and Drew Wilson, with contributions from the staff of Florida Politics.
Mills was a day-one Byron Donalds backer in the gubernatorial race.
A former House Speaker and current candidate for Governor is leading the charge for Republicans as scandal swirls around a Congressman.
Saying the “evidence is mounting” against Rep. Cory Mills, Paul Renner says other candidates for Governor should “stand up and be counted” and join him in the call for Mills to leave Congress.
Renner made the call earlier this week.
But on Friday, the Palm Coast Republican doubled down.
He spotlighted fresh reporting from Roger Sollenberger alleging that Mills’ company “appears to have illegally exported weapons while he serves in Congress, including to Ukraine,” that Mills failed to disclose conflicts of interest, “tried to fistfight other Republican members of Congress, and lied about his party stature to bully other GOP candidates out of primaries that an alleged romantic interest was running in,” and lied about his conversion to Islam.
The House Ethics Committee is already probing Mills, a New Smyrna Beach Republican, over allegations of profiting from federal defense contracts while in Congress. More recently, the Committee expanded its work to review allegations that he assaulted one ex-girlfriend and threatened to share intimate photos of another.
Other candidates have been more reticent in addressing the issue, including Rep. Byron Donalds.
“When any other members have been involved and stuff like this, my advice is the same,” said Donalds, a Naples Republican. “They need to actually spend a lot more time in the district and take stock of what’s going on at home, and make that decision with their voters.”
The response came less than a year after Mills, a New Smyrna Beach Republican, spoke at the launch of Donalds’ gubernatorial campaign.
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Staff writer Jacob Ogles contributed reporting.
The cold war between Florida’s Governor and his predecessor is nearly seven years old and tensions show no signs of thawing.
On Friday, Sen. Rick Scott weighed in on Florida Politics’ reporting on the Agency for Health Care Administration’s apparent repayment of $10 million of Medicaid money from a settlement last year, which allegedly had been diverted to the Hope Florida Foundation, summarily filtered through non-profits through political committees, and spent on political purposes.
“I appreciate the efforts by the Florida legislature to hold Hope Florida accountable. Millions in tax dollars for poor kids have no business funding political ads. If any money was misspent, then it should be paid back by the entities responsible, not the taxpayers,” Scott posted to X.
While AHCA Deputy Chief of Staff Mallory McManus says that is an “incorrect” interpretation, she did not respond to a follow-up question asking for further detail this week.
The $10 million under scrutiny was part of a $67 million settlement from state Medicaid contractor Centene, which DeSantis said was “a cherry on top” in the settlement, arguing it wasn’t truly from Medicaid money.
But in terms of the Scott-DeSantis contretemps, it’s the latest example of tensions that seemed to start even before DeSantis was sworn in when Scott left the inauguration of his successor, and which continue in the race to succeed DeSantis, with Scott enthusiastic about current front runner Byron Donalds.
Earlier this year, Scott criticized DeSantis’ call to repeal so-called vaccine mandates for school kids, saying parents could already opt out according to state law.
While running for re-election to the Senate in 2024, Scott critiqued the Heartbeat Protection Act, a law signed by DeSantis that banned abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy with some exceptions, saying the 15 week ban was “where the state’s at.”
In 2023 after Scott endorsed Donald Trump for President while DeSantis was still a candidate, DeSantis said it was an attempt to “short circuit” the voters.
That same year amid DeSantis’ conflict over parental rights legislation with The Walt Disney Co., Scott said it was important for Governors to “work with” major companies in their states.
The critiques went both ways.
When running for office, DeSantis distanced himself from Scott amid controversy about the Senator’s blind trust for his assets as Governor.
“I basically made decisions to serve in uniform, as a prosecutor, and in Congress to my financial detriment,” DeSantis said in October 2018. “I’m not entering (office) with a big trust fund or anything like that, so I’m not going to be entering office with those issues.”
In 2020, when the state’s creaky unemployment website couldn’t handle the surge of applicants for reemployment assistance as the pandemic shut down businesses, DeSantis likened it to a “jalopy in the Daytona 500” and Scott urged him to “quit blaming others” for the website his administration inherited.
The chill between the former and current Governors didn’t abate in time for 2022’s hurricane season, when Scott said DeSantis didn’t talk to him after the fearsome Hurricane Ian ravaged the state.
Paul Renner doubles down on Cory Mills critique, urges more Republicans to join him
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