Mara Macie joined Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM days after qualifying for the ballot in her challenge to Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) in what host Matt Boyle declared “might be the number one race in America.”

Macie, who officially qualified for the race days prior to her appearance on the show, credited her husband’s fight with the Department of Defense over the military vaccine mandate in 2021 with making her aware of Rutherford. “We found ourselves in the situation where we were fighting the DOD and in a lawsuit with the DOD over the shot mandate,” she said. “And the very first thing we found out was we had four other families within his constituency that had reached out to him in order to try to find a way to go at the illegality of what the DOD was doing. And two of those families got no response at all. And the other two were told, ‘Sorry, there’s nothing we can do.’

“So that was the first thing that really put John on my radar.”

The more she dug into Rutherford’s record, the greater her concerns were. “Once I started jumping into politics from there, and I realized that he was just part of the uniparty swamp, so he votes for every single big money package going abroad. He votes against the Constitution. He at one point supported red flag laws. This is coming from a sheriff, a former sheriff. So if you’re having law enforcement that doesn’t really want to follow the Constitution, especially a sheriff which would absolutely not qualify as a constitutional sheriff, then we’ve got problems. So he’s, he has basically voted against everything conservatives, what we stand for.”

 

Boyle detailed Rutherford’s voting record, where just over the last few months, he voted for two massive government funding omnibus bills, warrantless surveillance of American citizens, and tens of billions in foreign aid to Ukraine. The congressman understandably was lambasted on his social media accounts by his constituents, but one man, Charles Wilson, stood out for his steadfast defense of Rutherford.

“Turns out, Charles Wilson is the campaign treasurer for John Rutherford for Congress,” Boyle said. “So the only guy who will defend this guy at all in Facebook comments on the Congressman’s own Facebook page among all of his constituents is his campaign treasurer, who’s literally being paid to support him.”

Macie said Rutherford supporters are out there, but they aren’t who you would expect. “I think I’ve seen a little bit more of a group of people that are supporting him over the last few votes, I should say, but they’re Democrats. They’re legitimately–of course you need someone to come to your defense that’s allegedly a Republican when everybody saying, ‘Hey, I really appreciate that last vote’ turns out to be a liberal.

She continued, “I suppose that’s what he’s doing but it is kind of pathetic, because I know I have supporters online that will comment on people’s posts and try to get support for me. But the difference is, is the people that are supporting me aren’t paid… They’re doing it because the payback they get is someone in office that represents them.”

Macie hammered Rutherford – and Wilson – for their canned talking points justifying Rutherford’s unpopular votes in his northeast Florida district: “Charles Wilson, I’ve seen those comments, he tends to be a little bit cocky as well … he’s saying John’s talking points exactly. Because I’ve heard John say the talking points over the past week about the funding to Ukraine and Israel: ‘What are we going to [do] wait for bodies to pile up?’ No, you know what, buddy? I’ve been to the Darien Gap. I’ve seen who’s coming up here. And I will tell you what, we aren’t closing that border and the bodies are going to be here soon because you’re letting terrorists across that border and your continuing resolution doesn’t do anything to help it. It only hurts it. So the fact that he is sitting there trying to use Israeli and Ukrainian bodies when we’re about to see American bodies is a huge, huge problem.”

Boyle discussed Rutherford’s retreat from the prior Republican position that Congress must secure our border before we deal with Ukraine’s border. “People were very much in support of that, and then all of a sudden things changed for whatever reason, and John Rutherford just goes right along with it. He doesn’t really care about securing our border,” he said.

He also discussed the tragic story from the district where a decorated law enforcement officer was murdered by an illegal alien in St. Augustine. Boyle recounts how charges against the alien were dropped because he did not understand the officer’s instructions in English. “It’s already happening. We’re seeing here, we see the angel families. That’s a huge part of the presidential election, in the national story, we see the Laken Riley story in Georgia. But these stories are happening everywhere, including here in John Rutherford’s district.”

Boyle told Macie, “I think this race is the number one race in the country because I think it represents the best opportunity for conservatives, grassroots conservatives, to take power away from the swamp… I think that if John Rutherford goes down and Mara Macie is elected to Congress … that it’s going to send a massive message to these losers in Washington that they need to start listening to people like us.”

Macie touted her momentum fundraising and recruiting volunteers, which has grown as she campaigns across the district and more constituents learn of Rutherford’s horrendous record.

“Over the past week and a half after these votes, he’s practically fundraising for me. He’s recruiting volunteers. I have them coming so fast that I don’t … organizing them at this point. It’s like, oh, hold on a minute. I need to have a minute because we’ve been doing so much.”

The primary in Florida will be held August 20.

Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.