We love it when Republicans smack down the media, and Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds did just that to Margaret Brennan over the weekend.
Brennan tried to alarm Floridians by saying Haitian workers under temporary protected status were the "backbone" of Florida's workforce. Donalds was having none of that.
🚨 WOW! Governor candidate Byron Donalds MIC DROPPED Margaret Brennan who's fearmongering that Florida will suffer from deporting temporary Haitian workers
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 23, 2026
BRENNAN: Some Republicans say Haitian TPS are a backbone of the workforce like healthcare
DONALDS: Let's be VERY… pic.twitter.com/OZYdUN6JxU
"The reason you would want temporary refuge, shouldn't there be some protection?" Brennan asked.
"I've actually had meetings with the transitional government and the ambassador for the transitional government. They're working on security forces right now as we speak, to begin to stabilize Haiti," Donalds replied. "They've gotten about a quarter to half of the country under control from the gangs that basically took over Haiti."
"That's number one. Number two, you just said at the top TPS is a temporary program. The Biden administration, through enforcement, took the T off the program. They turned that into a permanent program," he continued. "Not to mention catch and release, not to mention how they bastardized asylum and didn't allow for true asylum cases to come to the United States. They blew up the borders. Almost 10 million people came into our country. And so, yes, there has to be a standard when it comes to immigration."
"What you can't do with immigration is just say that every program just runs into perpetuity with no end because once you do that, you have the wrong incentives to make sure that people can return to their home country," Donalds added.
"I hear you," Brennan said. "Congressman Jimenez, your fellow Floridian, said deporting Haitians under TPS would be a huge mistake for Florida. Another Florida Republican, Maria Elvira Salazar, says those TPS holders are part of the backbone of our workforce in critical sectors like healthcare. So do you have a plan to replace the loss of 100,000 Haitians who work in healthcare in Florida if they are deported?"
"Let's just be very clear. You're talking about the labor force in Florida. What we want to do is, number one, we want to make sure that our kids coming out of high school are having internships and apprenticeships and the necessary workforce training to be able to work whether it's healthcare or any other job field," Donalds said.
"Right now, a third to a half of our kids are going into the college university system," he continued, "the other half, quite frankly, there's no strategy or plan for them to be successful. This is why I have a Launchpad Initiative in Florida, where if you're a junior or senior in high school, you can actually have those apprenticeships and internships."
Then Brennan interrupted him. "But this is an immediate shortage of healthcare workers."
"Hold on, Margaret. Number two, there are jobs available in Florida. We want to change adult education, career source, have that really be supercharged so people can change from one job going into those fields. That's number two," Donalds said. "Number three, this is a broader American issue. You cannot let the borders of our country be blown wide open and then talk about that we people in this field or that. field and not actually have a consistent immigration policy. And so a lot of what you're talking about really stems from terrible decisions when it comes to immigration from the Biden administration and Democrats like Angie Nixon, like David Jolly."
The country only benefits from removing illegals, undue burdens from this country
— Alpha-Bravo (@aburk203) August 23, 2026
Democrats brought them in and put them in jobs precisely so they could play the "backbone of the workforce" card.
How did those healthcare workers initially get those jobs?
— RellaBella (@Birdsong1064) August 24, 2026
The same way America young people can. On the job training and courses they can attend.
They will find people for those jobs. There are roughly 500,000 unemployed Floridians right now. More than enough to fill the healthcare jobs.
The argument that we need open borders for healthcare workers falls apart immediately when you ask why we stopped training Americans for those jobs in the first place.
— Vic Aurelia Rae™️ (@VicAureliaRae) August 23, 2026
Bingo.
There seems to be a lot of Byron Donalds hate out there, but this is a good answer to the hostile press. There are millions of unemployed Americans. Haitians should not get those jobs. Americans should retrained if necessary. Yes, it will take time, but that's the solution. https://t.co/JnVqMtSmU2
— El Jefe de Colorado Tweets (@jefe_tweets) August 24, 2026
And Donalds is also correct that the pain of correcting course is on the Democrats who fostered and facilitated unfettered illegal immigration and refused to enforce our immigration laws, including on TPS immigrants like these Haitians.
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