This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

[MUSIC] Floridians take to the streets this week to protest the policies of President Donald Trump.

Canada launches a new campaign in Florida.

They hope you'll see while driving on the highway.

A bill to ban fluoride in Florida's drinking water is making its way through the legislature, and the Florida Gators basketball team wins big to claim the national championship, while USF health gets a top ranking as well.

These stories and more are next on Florida This Week.

[MUSIC] Welcome back I'm Lissette Campos.

Joining the panel this week we have Alex Sink, a former chief financial officer for the state of Florida and a Democrat.

Anastasia Dawson is an independent journalist and reporter.

Danny Kushner is a real estate broker and businessman and a Republican.

And Eric Deggans, an author and TV and media analyst for National Public Radio.

Thank you all for joining us this week.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We begin with the demonstrations happening all across the country and Florida This Week.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets to protest the policies of the Trump administration.

In Tampa, people rallied outside City Hall with the message of hands off, referring to Medicare, Social Security, immigration rights and reproductive freedom.

Saturday was called a National Day of Action, organizing the largest series of protests since President Trump began his second term.

People of all ages, from kids to seniors, came out to make their voices heard.

My father survived D-Day in the bulge.

And if he saw the rise of fascism and the level of hate in this country.

I'm grateful that they're they're both gone now.

So they're not witnessing this.

Others came out to support President Trump.

Obviously, I don't agree with a lot of the people here.

I feel like I can still be here.

We're all Americans.

Um, there's more that unites us than what divides us.

Financial markets this week have also been uprooted by President Trump's announcement of across the board tariffs on dozens of countries.

Danny, I'd like to start with you.

How do you see all of this?

For some who are in favor, they say that this is these items are long overdue, and yet others are saying this is not necessary and very could be very devastating to the economy.

What's your take on this?

Well, sure.

And thank you for having me on the show.

Really appreciate this opportunity.

I saw a story, uh, this morning, 24,000 Americans, I believe, over the age of 115 had just claimed unemployment.

Nearly 20 or, I'm sorry, nearly 28,000 8000 between the ages of one and five claimed unemployment.

There's problems.

There's issues out there.

And I think I, I don't quite understand the reticence that the, the anger over trying to get control over government.

And so I wonder if you what is your argument on the Democrat side?

Truly, what is that argument?

Is it just to be against or to offer up something in exchange of that?

And I'm not seeing that.

So you President Trump won in November 5th.

I would have thought the Democratic Party might have changed a position at that point in time, but instead it's hands off.

What?

Hands off illegal immigrants.

Hands off, uh, trendy Aragua, hands off transgender children.

Hands off parents trying to keep their children from being manipulated in school.

What is the hands off version of this?

So I don't understand that.

Alex, how do you see all of this?

Well, I disagree with you.

Unsurprisingly, Because I think what the story is here.

Locally, more than 10,000 people came out to do these protests.

And they're not just all Democrats.

There are many people who voted for Trump who said, this is not what I asked for.

What we were told is day one lower prices, lower inflation rates.

And instead what we're seeing is higher, higher prices, chances of recession and just total chaos out there.

And I think that what people want is government to be responsive to, you know, what what they're feeling.

And right now, what we're feeling here in Tampa Bay is the throes of an insurance crisis.

I can't tell you how many friends I have who are fighting with their insurance companies.

So what we, as Democrats say is let's have government for the people, for the people and by the people.

And when these people come out to protest, to express themselves, I'm struck by the fact that this is not just a Tampa protest or a St. Pete protest, but there were hundreds, if not thousands of people in places like Brooksville, in places like Sarasota, who are coming out to express that they don't like the way things are going in this country.

And we're relying on the Republicans to do what they say they are going to do, which is lower our prices, make it more affordable for us to live so that we're not hurting.

Eric, from your vantage point, you know, covering this for NPR, what would you.

I'm not covering this for NPR because I'm a TV critic.

But but I will say that that what I think we're seeing is people reacting to a failure in the separation of powers.

You know, the federal government was designed so that Congress would be a check and the judiciary would be a check on presidential power.

And what we've seen is several politicians allowing the president to do whatever he wants and and not stand up and say, hey, my constituents don't like this, or, hey, you know, this might be illegal.

You know, you talked about undocumented immigrants.

They need due process.

You can't deport somebody because they have a tattoo.

You talk about transgender children.

Well, they have rights and and and there's nothing wrong with being transgender.

Why do we have these policies that say that there is, you know, and people are saying that their Congress people and some judges are not standing up in the way they need to stand up.

And so you have these public protests to try and force them to live up to the oath that they took to be a check on presidential power.

You know, when Joe Biden was in office, we had politicians like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who constantly checked his policies.

Where are there analogs in the Republican Party?

We're not seeing it.

Anastasia, when you're when you're covering this, you're interviewing so many different people.

Very diverse groups are attending these demonstrations.

A very diverse group.

Um, you know, a lot of older people.

Younger people.

Um, the issues are all over the board.

There's a lot of animosity that it becomes a little bit more difficult to determine whether those issues are hangover from Trump's first term or if it's, you know, anger at his new policies.

Um, but, you know, this was, uh, this week, we've seen protests that are bigger than than we've seen in his second term.

I mean, the only thing that's come close to what we saw in the Women's March, um, yet, you know, we had special elections not that long ago.

And, uh, the Democrats threw money, uh, outraised, uh, Republicans almost 10 to 1 and still failed.

District one and district six.

Still failed to kind of take those seats.

So will this, uh, groundswell of, um, you know, Democratic support or Democratic outrage, will it ever coalesce to, um, see, see some political movement?

Yeah, we it's something that we're following.

The other big story that we're following, of course, are the tariffs.

Canada is reacting to this.

Canada Canada taking its fight against President Trump to the Florida highways.

Take a look.

Billboards paid for by the Canadian government are popping up across the Sunshine State.

Their message.

Tariffs are a tax on hard working Americans.

John Babcock, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, says the campaign was launched to heighten the American public's understanding of tariffs.

Meanwhile, President Trump is promising to usher Americans into a golden age while admitting to some short term discomfort.

The billboards have been placed in a dozen states.

Alex, how do you feel about all of this?

Good on Canada.

Seriously.

To go out in this way and make a statement that reminds us that tariffs are a tax and especially, I mean, the Canadians are our friends.

They're our neighbors.

And especially if we want to get local here in Florida.

I'm reading that almost 20% decline in the airline seats because the Canadians, you know, the Canadians, they want to fight back.

And the way they're fighting back is with their dollars and their feet.

And so it's a serious problem for Florida.

If Canadians are not coming here and spending, they're spending their money, which reverts into sales tax for for Floridians.

And I'm just glad to see that we're thinking and rethinking about and realizing that the Canadians should be our neighbors and our friends and, um, worrying a lot about, uh, these car imports and steel imports and understanding how interconnected we are.

We understand those northern states that where trade is going back and forth, but those tourists coming to Florida are going to be a serious problem for our state revenues.

Danny, you know, what's your take on this?

I mean, so many people say, well, Canada has tariffs and import taxes that protect them as well.

absolutely, and the whole world does.

So, you know, Canada and the modern world truly has gotten rich off of us and has gotten rich off of us at an unequal and unfair advantage.

In 1990, us was we we were an exporter to 175 countries.

Today we're an exporter to 35.

The tariffs that are out there are far are many.

So what the president who ran on this said he was going to impose tariffs, is imposing tariffs in a way that is making these countries come to us and say, look, we'll lower our tariffs if you lower yours.

We weren't doing that before.

It was completely, completely unfair.

What I will say today, though, I'm glad Canada is doing this because they're spending money with American media.

So why not spend that money, put billboards on the sign, buy buy ads.

We were watching ads on TV.

I always love seeing the ads.

It's like, wow, they're buying money spending ads in America.

It's only a topic, a.

Topic that's not going away.

It has to be fair trade.

President Clinton signed NAFTA back in 1994.

I was I think it was and I was farming at that point in time.

And it was not a favorable deal for the American farmer for some, but not many.

President Trump came in and did Usmca, Usmca, even the field a little bit in the farmer world and other areas.

But it didn't go far enough.

Tariffs were still there.

Mexico was importing unabated.

We can't get our product into Mexico without tariffs.

That had to change.

And the president today said we're going to change that.

Put those tariffs out there, threaten them.

Hey, if it works, if they lower their tariffs we lower us.

He already proven he's going to he is dropping tariffs on countries that said they're going to do zero.

But we've also had experts say that this blanket increase of tariffs doesn't make any sense.

It crashed the economy.

We saw billions of dollars in value wiped out in days.

And to try to pretend that this was some kind of strategy that they planned in advance, I think is doesn't fit the facts.

And one of the things we need to bring to the public space is being honest about what happened.

Donald Trump had been saying, right up until he changed his mind about the tariffs, that he wasn't going to change his mind about the tariffs.

His his Treasury secretary was on TV 15 minutes before the announcement was made, saying the president was not going to change his strategy.

And, you know, it may make negotiating with these other countries a little easier.

But what it also does is it makes it impossible for American businesses to plan their strategies because they don't know what the president's going to do.

They don't know how it's going to affect the economy, and they don't know how it's going to affect the incomes of their customers.

The strategies like this don't make any sense and try to pretend that they do, I think is a real problem in our public discourse.

It was a big gamble.

I mean, just looking at the the tariffs on China in the past week, it went from 20% to 54% to 104%.

Now it's 125%.

And you know, when you look at tariffs everywhere else, you know, they're at 10% currently.

But if I if I own a clothing store and I'm ordering clothes five months out, how can I tell whether I'm on the on the right track five months from now, let alone five minutes, 10%.

Across the board for.

The next 90.

Days, across.

The path for tariffs.

For Canada and Mexico, which went up.

And then they were rescinded.

And then there was a they were put in abeyance for a while, and then they came back.

and you know 75 countries have put in notice that they are interested in communicating with the US.

And renegotiating.

And renegotiating.

But but what will that renegotiation involve?

Will they really be better terms when we're at the end of it.

One of the things that we saw with Canada was that Trump insisted on terms that the Canadians were already doing.

He insisted that they that they get tough on on drug smuggling across the border, which they were already doing.

So, so, so not only do we have to make sure that we're getting the true facts about what's happening with these tariffs, we have to make sure that we're getting the true facts about whatever deals get cut.

Will the will the administration be honest about the terms and whether they're any better than what they had before the negotiation?

Or is this about saving face and saying, well, we had negotiations and now we have a better deal.

We'll prove it.

Prove that we had a better deal.

Cannot.

Businesses cannot plan around chaos and uncertainty.

And so regardless of what he says today, we know within 15 minutes he might change his mind again.

That's the art of the deal.

And we just didn't know all along.

Terms for who.

So better terms for who.

Better terms for the world or better terms for American business?

Yes, there may be some short term pain that we go through as a country, but we've been under pain for many years.

So let's go through that short term pain and let's see what, three months from now, six months from now dictates and brings to this country.

Our American business is going to be better off.

I would suggest they will be.

We have the highest standard of living of any country in the whole world already be better.

Well, of course we can be better.

But it's not to say that that we are hurting that bad compared to everybody else in the whole world.

I'd still rather live here than any.

Other reputable.

Economist who says that this policy makes sense.

If there was, if, if, if there was any indication that there was a plan that would actually work, people might be willing to go along with it.

There is no reputable economist and there are.

What just happened over the past week makes any sense.

And there are experts that.

Would disagree with you that would say, these are the reasons why you support it.

We're going to move on to the next topic, I want to make sure we take advantage of the fact that two of our panelists have a background in agriculture, are very interested.

Um, there's a new bill banning fluoride from Florida's public water.

It's making its way through the state legislature.

But at least 14 cities have already banned the compound.

Miami-Dade County on Tuesday became the latest local government to vote against fluoride if the county mayor doesn't veto the bill.

2.4 million water customers would join nearly a million other Floridians to lose access to fluoridated water.

Fluoride has been used across the country for nearly 80 years to fight tooth decay.

But Florida's Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr have both come out against it.

And Alex, this is part, as we know, of a widespread Florida farm bill.

Um, based on your on your background, how do you feel about all of this?

I think when it comes to fluoride, you know who I'm going to trust.

I'm going to trust what the dentists.

Say.

And what the professionals say.

Not a bunch of politicians in Tallahassee.

And while they're spending their time on this man, they need to be spending their time on dealing with property insurance and property insurance claims.

People in our area are still hurting and fighting with their insurance companies.

And who is up there addressing these issues that our CFO takes tens of thousands of complaints from consumers who are desperate for help, and only 5% of them are referred on to the insurance commissioner, and everybody else is left hanging dry.

All my friends are frustrated as hell, and I want to see this legislature paying attention to property insurance, the rising utility rates, the highest car insurance rates in the country, and also the other expenses affordable housing.

There are people in Pinellas County who are homeless right now.

Faculty members at St. Pete College are or homeless because these issues are not being addressed.

Tallahassee ought to get to work on things that we that really matter and leave fluoride up to the dentist.

And there are dentists who are saying that they are concerned, and doctors who are saying they are concerned about the effects of a higher level of fluoride on the IQ of children.

And so that's the argument that's being made in favor of this.

Danny, how do you feel about that?

Well, no, absolutely.

And I really don't have a dog in the fight in the sense that, you know, I'm older now.

I you know, hopefully my teeth are fine, but we've had fluoride in, in this area.

I think City of Tampa passed it in 1988, the county did too.

Took a few more years for the county to start implementing it.

Um, you know what?

The surgeon general in Tallahassee is a doctor.

So it's not just politicians, and he's come out against this.

Other cities have as well.

What I would say to it, I like consistency within the state of Florida.

And I think when when the issue crosses county or city lines, we need consistency.

Well, the state of Florida and the state of Florida.

Water belongs to the people.

So when you drink water that is coming out of the ground, the state of Florida, the people own that water.

Meaning the legislature and the governor has the ability to pass rules and laws to govern that water.

We elected them.

We put them up there.

If that's not what you want, let's find somebody else to run the show up there.

But the state of the water belongs to the people.

The people are speaking.

Let's get rid of the fluoride.

I love the difference of opinion.

The Surgeon General is a politician who is also a doctor.

So let's be honest about that.

But again, I think one of the problems that we're having in a wider sense is that we are being pushed to reconsider things that have been settled science and settled law for a long time.

And again, I'm not aware of any serious studies that indicate that there were serious problems with the with children who drank, who were exposed to fluoride because they drank it out of their drinking water.

Now you can have brain damage in children if you get elevated levels of fluoride exposure, but that is not going to come from drinking water.

Drinking fluoridated water.

And that's why we've had it for decades in many American cities.

But getting people to question basic institutions is good for authoritarians, and it's good for people who want to centralize executive power because they come in and they say the legislature is not protecting you.

The local people are not protecting you.

Give me the power and I will do it.

I agree with Alex.

This is a debate that we don't need to be wasting our time on, because it's already been settled and people's teeth are better because of it already.

So why don't.

So why don't we?

So why don't we focus on things that are crises right now that we know we have to deal with?

But we've already given the power to the government, to the state when it comes to water.

The water belongs to the people.

When we talk about settled science, we can go back.

Is it really settled?

Is science settled your man?

I am a man, these are ladies around here.

But science today would say no.

We can be other than a male or a man.

So transgender science has always said that gender can be fluid.

I think I think average.

People.

Are just I think average people are just learning that gender has always been fluid.

You could go back to the ancient Romans and find historical figures who were gender fluid.

So this is not a new thing.

And there are so.

Many different topics that are like that.

And I love the fact that we have such wonderful diversity in the voices on the panel.

And that's why, you know, Florida This Week has been the longest running.

Public.

Affairs show, right?

Because it's a home.

To all of these.

Different opinions.

We do have some good news that we can share.

You know, two Florida universities have made wonderful headlines for all the right reasons.

Um, in a late game comeback, the Florida Gators basketball team won the NCAA national title in San Antonio this week.

They defeated the Houston Cougars 65 to 63, in a game they were trailing most of the night.

It was the third national title for the University of Florida, following their back to back victories in 2006 and 2007, and the USF Morsani College of Medicine has been named the top ranked medical school in Florida this by U.S. News and World Report.

The 2025 Best Medical Schools list places the college as one of only 16 medical schools nationally, and the only one in Florida to receive a tier one ranking.

That's the highest designation available.

What a huge honor.

Right to the Bulls nation and the Gator nation.

Danny came in with his pin.

[LAUGHTER] Go, Gators!

Absolutely.

The University of Florida becomes, what?

The first team in history to have three national champions in basketball and football.

What an incredible accomplishment, which I don't think.

I don't think the Gators get enough respect on a national scene when it comes to football and basketball.

So this is huge.

And of course USF.

Medical School is such a great story.

My daughter, my daughter graduated from USF, and I'm just so proud that this school is just coming to its own and is an incredible asset.

So I don't want to run out of time, but I do want to get to each of you and ask you, what are the other big stories that we should be following this week?

Alex, I'd like to start with you.

Well, I gave you a preview earlier today, but one of my big stories has to do with Sarasota and USF.

Speaking of USF, because it seems that in the dark of night, there is a deal being done in Tallahassee to have a new college take over the USF, Sarasota, manatee campus.

Yes, Well, campus students programing leaving Sarasota, Manatee County with no USF presence, and the people of Sarasota have really have found have stepped up.

Former chancellors, all the business people.

A lot of the donors are really concerned about this.

And as the former CFO, this is a bad deal financially.

It's going to cost the taxpayers money to do this, to take new College, which has 800 students.

USF has 2000 students.

Those 2000 students are not going to trade in a USF degree.

Sorry for a new college degree.

and it leaves what are they supposed to do, start driving to Tampa and St. Petersburg?

It is a terrible concept and I think it's something to follow.

Before.

We run out of time.

Danny, what would you say is the big story?

Well, sure.

Yesterday if we heard the Department of Justice, FBI, the Florida Attorney General, US Coast Guard and other local law enforcement seized 48,000 pounds of illicit drugs worth over $500 million.

Wow, Anastasia.

I would just keep an eye on the stock market.

Stock market is swinging wildly.

It's gone up.

It's some of the highest gains that we've seen since World War two.

Um, but we're still about only two thirds made up of what we've lost due to the Trump tariffs and some of that confusion and uncertainty.

So keep your eye on the stock market.

Let's cross our fingers.

Eric, what are you keeping your.

Eye on care about in Florida is great journalism and the environment.

And the Tampa Bay times has a wonderful series that they've just started to roll out this week, looking at how pollution in local waterways has killed off what the manatees feed on.

And they're starving.

And so I would highly recommend that folks go to the Tampa Bay times website, check out the stories, support the journalism, and then take action to so that we can reduce some of these pollutants and and hopefully the health of our manatees.

They've done a deep dive on what exactly is causing that pollution in the water.

Exactly.

It's they've just started to roll it out, but really compelling stories and and some, some guidelines on maybe what people can do to help.

Thank you so much for the diverse and spicy conversation.

I'm so happy to have you on the panel again.

Thank you to our panel members this week, Alex Sink, Anastasia Dawson, Danny Kushner, and Eric Deggans.

Send your comments about this program to FTW at wedu.org.

The show is on every Friday night at 8:30 and Sunday afternoon at 12:30 and online, and you can watch past shows on YouTube.

Don't forget to friend us on Facebook.

On behalf of our entire team here at WEDU, have a great weekend!

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