Florida Republican denies QAnon views: 'I don’t like conspiracy theories whatsoever'

A Florida Democrat is refusing to debate his Republican opponent in a congressional race because, he claims, his rival is a QAnon conspiracy theorist and 2020 election denier.

Jared Moskowitz is running for the open 23rd Congressional District seat in South Florida against Joe Budd, who denies believing in conspiracy theories and conceded Thursday at an event that President Joe Biden won the election, but the Democrat refused his invitation to debate, reported the Sun-Sentinel.

“The answer’s no,” Moskowitz said.

“I’ll debate my opponents with substantive ideas," he continued, "but I’m not gonna debate an election denier and a QAnon conspiracy theorist. The world is not flat and I’m not going to debate people who believe ideas that are outrageous. We should not be rewarding inflammatory rhetoric and dangerous disinformation and giving platforms to legitimize them in any way, and so at the end of the day, I’m just not going to debate anybody who thinks Donald Trump won the election."

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The pair appeared Thursday on the same stage at a 90-minute candidate forum in Fort Lauderdale, where shared time with independent candidates Mark Napier and Christine Scott, who has posted QAnon content on her social media accounts, in their race to replace former Rep. Ted Deutsch (D-FL), who resigned last month to serve as CEO of the American Jewish Committee.

Budd, who founded the Palm Beach County-based Club 45 USA and twice ran successfully for the same seat a decade ago, insisted that he believes Biden's election was legitimate and denied a belief in the right-wing QAnon conspiracy.

“Absolutely not, I don’t like conspiracy theories whatsoever," Budd said. "Every time I see something stated, I don’t care where it stated, I try to find the resource for that to find the truth of it. I don’t repeat things unless I can verify them."