Democrat Angie Nixon, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member running for Florida Sen. Ashley Moody’s (R) seat, is denying that she wants to abolish prisons, using her desire for her opponent to be “locked up and punished” as proof of this position.

“The fact remains that Ashley Moody is a lying, cheating, thieving, scamming person who basically took $10 million from sick kids for the Medicaid program,” Nixon said, referring to the Hope Florida Foundation controversy during an appearance on CNN with host Kasie Hunt.

“And she rerouted that into two political slush funds for Ron DeSantis to defeat two citizen-led ballot initiatives,” Nixon continued. “She also voted to end healthcare for over 440,000 people here in the state of Florida. And they are spreading, like, a lot of disinformation and lies on commercials about me, of saying things like, I want to abolish prisons and I want to defund the police.”

She added, “Why would I want to do that when I want her locked up and punished in jail for what she has done?”

When pressed by Hunt, who asked, “You want your Republican opponent locked up?” Nixon affirmed her answer.

“Basically, yes. Because of what she did, yes. I absolutely would want that to happen. Yes,” Nixon concluded.

Notably, Nixon has continued to accuse Moody of lying, primarily pointing to what she describes as the misappropriation of funds to the Hope Florida Foundation that were reportedly used to oppose the marijuana ballot measure, Amendment 3, in 2024. The DeSantis administration has strongly opposed any wrongdoing.

“The 1st DCA [District Courts of Appeal] eviscerated the phony narratives re: AHCA’s [Agency for Health Care Administration] pre-suit settlement and the private donation to DCF’s [Department of Children and Families] direct support organization, the Hope foundation,” DeSantis wrote:

1. No “misappropriation”
2. No tax dollars were used at all
3. No Medicaid money was involved with the donation

Moody, who served as Florida’s attorney general, has continued to deny any wrongdoing and claims she did not know where the funds would end up. Further, the grand jury report was later expunged. As it stands, there is not enough evidence for charges.

“There have been numerous reports that misrepresent the facts surrounding an AHCA settlement agreement that has been available to the public for two years. Understanding this is political season and there may be a tendency to misrepresent the facts, it is important to clarify three points,” Moody said in a social media post in August:

1. The Centene [Corporation] settlement agreement was negotiated by AHCA, a Florida healthcare agency. The AHCA negotiated agreement made clear how settlement money would be dispersed, to include funds going to Hope Florida.

2. As is standard practice, and would be expected, the AG’s Office was one of multiple agencies that signed the final agreement for execution and release of claims.

She added that the attorney general’s office “had no knowledge of how funds would be spent or played any role in how Hope Florida, AHCA, or the legislature would spend the settlement money.

“Attempts to characterize this any other way are disingenuous,” she added.

However, Nixon went on to say that she would call for an investigation into Moody, despite the current lack of evidence to jail her.

“What we have seen, right, what we have seen is that the DCA, the first DCA here, has decided to wipe out the release of the grand jury report, and that first DCA judge was actually appointed by Ron DeSantis. And what we are seeing is corruption through and through,” Nixon claimed.

“And so, I would definitely call for an investigation as a federal lawmaker when I become a U.S. senator to actively go in to see what happened. People are pissed off. We don’t know how many children are potentially going to die because that $10 million did not go to where it was supposed to go to,” Nixon claimed.

It remains unclear how Nixon would be able to focus on calling for an investigation should she win her race, given her past claims of sensitivity, including getting nosebleeds from the “trauma” of simply working with Republicans.

Notably, while she insists she could not possibly be against abolishing prisons given her desire to see Moody jailed, the DSA — the organization she is a member of — calls to abolish the prison system altogether.