Angela Rye Presses Byron Donalds Over FAMU's Reported $2 Billion Funding Gap: 'You're Not Committing to It'

"Which means that you are going to look into it, but you're not committing to it." That was Angela Rye cutting in on Byron Donalds on The Breakfast Club on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, after he would not give her a straight yes on closing a reported $2 billion funding gap at Florida A&M University. The show posted the exchange to X, saying Rye "came through with her receipts."

Rye put it plainly. "Are you saying as governor, you will work to ensure that that funding gap of $2 billion at the state level is repaired?" she asked. Donalds, the Republican running for Florida governor, said that is what he had just said: he wants to "read that study and fully understand it." Rye fired back, "That's not the same thing."

Donalds: "I've not reviewed it"

Donalds said he had heard about the study but had not reviewed it, and that he has a "fiduciary responsibility" to look at it before making adjustments. "Anybody can just say things from the stump," he said. He also pointed to his time in the Florida House, saying he worked with Democrats to get FAMU $25 million for a student building, and said he shares FAMU president Marva Johnson's goal of making the school an R1 research institution. On the gap itself, he said he did not vote on it and did not know how it occurred.

It got personal

The FAMU question came after an already heated back-and-forth over Black voter turnout and voting laws in Georgia and Florida. Rye accused Donalds of opposing reparations, affirmative action and DEI, and said he went to FAMU "to make a social media post." Donalds said "none of what you just said is true," and at one point told her, "Angela, two years ago, I bodied you on the facts." Rye also accused him of paying a firm to boost his posts with spam accounts, a claim Rich Motion could not verify and Donalds did not address in the clip.

The $2 billion figure refers to a reported funding disparity Rye cited on air. Rich Motion has not independently reviewed the study. Rich Motion is not reporting any election result here.

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Sources: The Breakfast Club on X