- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Next on WEDU, President Biden campaigns for abortion rights in Tampa.

Governor DeSantis criticizes the pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses.

Democrats are crowding into the race to challenge Pinellas Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, and Alan Grayson is running for the US Senate again.

Political insights next on "Florida This Week."

(compelling music) Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week, Jennifer Griffith is the chair of the Pinellas County Democratic Party.

Janelle Irwin Taylor is a journalist and publisher for "Southeast Politics."

Mitch Perry is the political reporter for the "Florida Phoenix," and Danny Kushner is a real estate broker, businessman, and a Republican.

Nice to have you all here.

Thank you for coming.

- Thank you.

- Good to see you.

Well, President Joe Biden campaign briefly in Tampa on Tuesday, where he criticized Florida's new six week ban on abortion, which becomes law this coming week.

He linked former President Trump and his appointments to the US Supreme Court to the overturning of Roe v. Wade that led to decisions here in Florida and around the country severely limiting access to abortion.

- Next week, one of the nation's most extreme anti-abortion laws will take effect here in Florida.

It's criminalizing reproductive healthcare before women even know whether they're pregnant.

I mean, this is bizarre.

You can put a doctor in prison if she takes care of a patient.

You know, this extreme Florida law is gonna impact 4 million, 4 million women in the state of Florida.

Florida is one of the 21 states in America where in America you can't get access you need for care.

This adds up to one in three women throughout the United States of America having this limitation.

For 50 years, the court ruled that there was a fundamental constitutional right to privacy, (participants agreeing and clapping) but two years ago, that was taken away.

Let's be real clear, there's one person responsible for this nightmare, and he's acknowledged and he brags about it, Donald Trump.

(participants booing) In fact, Trump's bragged about overturning Roe v. Wade, which meant there's no federal right, no decision can be made, and all those decisions made at the state level.

A lot of people don't even know that and don't focus on it.

Every state can make a decision.

Well, you know, now Trump says the law is, "working the way it's supposed to."

(participants groaning) Trump goes on to say, "Individual state laws are working," his words, "brilliantly," (participants groaning) brilliantly.

It's a six week ban in Florida.

It's really brilliant, isn't it?

Even before women know they're pregnant, is that brilliant?

- So Mitch, you were there, right?

- Yeah.

- So President Biden's campaign opened a field office, is opening a field office here in Hillsborough County, so does that mean that with Biden's appearance here and that the field offices opening, that Florida is in play?

- I don't think so.

This field office thing, they're really blowing it up.

Look, they have a field office every four years in office.

They usually have more than one.

I mean, so I saw they were doing this, oh, what, two days after the president was here.

Look, the president's appearance was interesting on a couple levels, the politics and the policy.

Let's talk about the policy for a moment.

It's good timing for them to talk when abortion rights works for them.

There's a lot of issues where former President Trump pulls much higher on immigration, the economy, but abortion rights works for Biden coming down here days before the six week law goes into effect.

This is a major law, as we all know.

This is gonna affect women throughout the southeast, not just Florida.

I read 7,000 women came from outta state last year to get abortions here because Alabama, Louisiana have complete bans on abortion, Georgia has a six week bill.

So it made sense for the president to make this a national issue and come down here.

So it's nice for the Florida Democrats.

I'm sure Jennifer loved it.

You know, I saw her there.

You know, it was a good feel, good moment for them, but in play is a bit of an exaggeration.

- Danny, how important do you think abortion will be as people go to the polls this November, and will it be a motivator also for Republicans to go out and preserve what Republicans have achieved so far when it comes to abortion?

- Well, I sure hope it is a motivator for the Republicans, but I suppose it will be a motivator for the Democrats.

Roe v. Wade being overturned is exactly what needed to happen.

There is no federal legislation for abortion.

There's no laws congress has passed.

There's no laws the President has signed any of them.

So the rules are abortion needs to be decided state by state, we're doing that.

In December, there will be a ballot initiative to pass to allow basically abortion on demand up until birth.

And I will tell you, the six week bill, we understand that abortion, a baby's heart is discernible at six weeks.

Humans have one heart, one heart.

If the heart's gone, you die.

So if you have another heart in your body that's beating, that means there's another human being in your body.

So I hope the Republicans understand that or hope that we defeat the bill in November, but I suppose it will be a big issue.

- Jennifer, that's, I think the Republican attack.

Governor DeSantis has used that same phrase, abortion on demand right up until birth.

That's the way the governor's attacking this proposal on the ballot.

What's your take on that?

- Well, even when that was the case, when we had that access in certain states, there was not a line of women at nine months pregnant waiting for an abortion.

It's only if there's a medical emergency and something very, very wrong, and it's in a pregnancy that somebody wanted.

So that to me is kind of a fallacy and something that's pulling people away from seeing that this is healthcare, period, and end of story, and it's private healthcare between a woman and her doctor, for whatever reason it could be.

It could be personal, it could be medical, it could be life or death.

There are women who are dying, going septic in other states that have enacted these bans.

That's inhumane.

You wanna talk about, I mean, no offense.

Yes, I've been pregnant twice.

I saw the fetus, I saw the heartbeat in the little bean when I was very early pregnant.

I know that, but if something were to happen and I became septic, and I lived in a state where I went and explained what was going on and got turned away, I mean, what's more inhumane, killing the woman or the embryo?

And it's not even killing.

It's taking care of what is medically necessary to be taken care of.

- Janelle, the polls show that the abortion question on the ballot is mostly popular, but does it have enough support here in Florida to get to that 60%?

And do those voters that vote to approve the petition, the amendment, the proposed amendment on the ballot, does that help the Democrats in the fall?

- Well, I think that you will definitely see an impact on voter turnout for sure.

On whether it is just Democrats or a combination of Democrats and Republicans, that's something that we're gonna be watching, obviously.

60% is a big threshold, so that's a hard bar to reach.

It's definitely an uphill climb, but because this is an issue that has broad support, it's not necessarily just that Democrats want it, Republicans don't, there is some nuance in the moderate middle, you know, it does definitely stand a chance.

But I think the bigger question is what is it going to do, you know, on the ballot for Democrats versus Republicans?

- Yeah, what do you think?

- Is it going to hurt Rick Scott?

Is it going to help candidates in CD 13 where, you know, they're in an R+ 6 district?

That's what I think is going to be, you know, the bigger impact, the broader impact, because if you make those changes down ballot, you can legislate from Tallahassee eventually, so obviously, people like Jennifer want this to pass, but, you know.

- Right.

(Janelle laughs) - Yeah, and that is the big 64,000 question is will it help the Democrats?

And we've seen in other states, this is, you know, abortion measures have been in several states, right?

Since 2022.

The data really shows Republicans will vote for these measures, but not necessarily they're gonna switch and then vote for, say, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell over Rick Scott.

That's a lot more questionable.

Democrats are really putting a lot on that.

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell herself, this is like the single issue she's basically running against Rick Scott on because again, it pulls well for Democrats.

Other issues don't pull so well for them, so they're really emphasizing this.

I think interestingly, there's a couple polls that have come out since the measure we know is going in the ballot.

It shows 30% or roughly third of the voters don't know how to vote on this.

So there's a public education campaign on both sides that'll be going for the next six months to really find it, but yeah, 60% is very hard to get.

- Okay.

When President Biden spoke this week on the campus of Hillsborough Community College, he was met by more than 100 pro-Palestinian protestors.

The activists called for an immediate cease fire in the war in Gaza.

One participant told the USF "Oracle" that President Biden has facilitated and funded the genocide of over 40,000 Gazans, and he is complicit in their genocide.

He added, "We don't want him as our president anymore."

Meantime, Governor Ron DeSantis said during a press conference this week that pro-Palestinian student protestors should be expelled from their universities, and that those who are international students should have their visas canceled.

His comments came after police arrested pro-Palestine student protestors at Ivy League schools Columbia and Yale who refused to leave their encampments on the campuses.

Similar protests were held this week at Harvard, MIT, and the University of Texas at Austin.

Governor DeSantis said, "Right now in higher education, particularly in those schools up there, the inmates run the asylum."

And we're gonna put up a list of all the campuses that we've been able to find out where there have been these kind of pro-Palestinian protests.

Many were peaceful, some got into confrontations between the police and the protestors.

There was a peaceful protest at USF here in Tampa a few weeks ago, a hunger strike, no one was arrested.

Danny, want to ask you, is Governor DeSantis right?

Should there be harsher treatment of these protestors?

- You know, the First Amendment is the First Amendment for a reason, it's for free speech, but when that free speech gets in the way of me or my child or any children, or any students attending college, it needs to be stopped.

You know, imagine the KKK standing in front of the school, stopping the Black students from going to school.

We really don't have to imagine that.

It happened in 1957, and President Eisenhower said no, and sent in the National Guard.

He stopped that.

Now think about this.

You know, Karl Marx once said, "You cut off the people from their history, then they can be easily persuaded."

Do we not remember 1938 when the Nazis in University of Vienna stopped the Jewish people from going to school?

How'd that turn out for the folks?

Not so well.

So look, I say personally, we arrest all those that say, "I am Hamas."

We hold them in a cell, and we issue a, we tell Hamas, "Look, we have your people.

We will trade them for our hostages."

- So if somebody says they are Hamas, they should be arrested?

- They're terrorists.

- And what if somebody says, "I am a Nazi?"

Because there have been Nazi demonstrations around Florida, especially the last few years.

If somebody says, "I'm a Nazi," should they be arrested?

- Why not?

You know, I know it's taking it to extreme, but we know October 7th happened, we know what Hamas did.

The Palestinian people voted for Hamas to be their leaders.

So you can support Palestine, that's fine, but you're supporting a known terrorist organization.

Nazis today are not necessarily terrorists.

Yeah, arrest them if they're stopping people from going to school.

- You think the Palestinian protestors on campus are terrorists?

- If they are supporting Hamas, I believe they're part of the problem.

- I mean- - I know, can I say something?

I'm sorry.

(overlapping speech) I live on St. Pete Beach.

I live on Pass-A-Grille, and year before last, the Nazis started on Pass-A-Grille and marched all the way across Pinellas County, and they put their Nazi signs all the way across on bridge over passes, they were everywhere, and nothing happened to them, not a thing.

But because there's people practicing their First Amendment right, and they're passionate about things, they're supposed to be arrested.

And on top of it, I saw that DeSantis said that any immigrant children and any immigrant students should be sent back.

- [Rob] Lose our visa.

- That's quite nationalistic, and I'm not, no, we are the melting pot as far as I'm concerned.

We welcome the, you know, I fully believe in the words that are written on the bottom of the Statue of Liberty, send us your poor, your huddled masses.

We're here to become one- - [Danny] To assimilate.

- Of all different cultures, yes.

- To assimilate into American history.

- So the protestors that were at the Biden event were marching down the street.

They did not interfere or interject with anyone.

They were very, very respectful.

The protesters at USF Tampa, they had a starvation protest.

They did not interfere with anyone.

They were taken away by ambulance after 20 days from starving themselves because of their passion and their belief that they want people dead, or to stop being killed.

- The Nazis have marched at the University of Central Florida outside of Disney.

- Yes.

- They marched in Tampa.

The governor never said anything about arresting Nazis during those protests, but now he's against these Palestinian protestors.

- It's because this has turned into a conversation where you have this side or this side, and it's polar opposites, and everybody ignores the fact that there's a middle here that we can all agree on.

Who here disagrees that 30 plus thousand people, including mostly children, should not be killed?

They've done nothing wrong.

I can't imagine a person on this planet that would say those people deserve to die, so that's the conversation in the middle where we find consensus, and that's how progress gets made.

We know that as a nation founded on finding that type of consensus, and you know, this idea that we should arrest people if they say they're Hamas, these are college campuses.

Why don't we educate these kids?

Maybe they don't know that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

- But they are in college and they're not being educated.

- Well, we live in a state where history is something that's, you know, we play fast and loose with how it's taught, so.

- I think, you know, these protests have gone on for six months, roughly since the October 7th tragedy.

I think what's different and why DeSantis is weighing in is because you've seen in Columbia University in New York City, some acts of antisemitism, right?

- [Participant] Yes.

- And some violence against Jewish students, and that is unacceptable.

- [Participant] Yes.

- And I think I saw the governor on Wednesday, and he was basically, he was delineating the two in terms of like the anti-Semitic acts are not, you know, that's what he's talking about cracking down on, but protesting, you know, for Palestinians, I don't believe he's, you know, that he's saying anything should happen with that as long as they are, you know, peaceful when people aren't doing, you know, really negative things, violent things.

- Okay.

All right, well, Democrats are crowding into the Pinellas Congressional District 13 race.

The seat is held by first term Republican Congress member Anna Paulina Luna.

Seven Democrats want to replace her.

So far, the Democrat who has raised the most money and picked up the most significant endorsements is Whitney Fox, the former communications director for the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority.

She's raised more than $420,000 since launching her campaign last year.

As our guest, Janelle Irwin Taylor reports Fox has accumulated more than 30 endorsements, including US representatives Kathy Castor and Lois Frankel, as well as former US representative and now US Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

State representative Lindsey Cross, the National Women's Political Caucus, and several major unions have also endorsed her.

Democrat Mark Weinkrantz, an Air Force veteran and former airline pilot has raised the second most at 188,000.

Republican Anna Paulina Luna, the incumbent, has raised 1.3 million, far more than any of the Democrats.

Jennifer, this district was redrawn to favor the Republicans, but what does it say?

The race is really crowded.

Why so many Democrats in the race?

Do they think they've got a chance?

- That's exactly why I think there's so many Democrats in the race is they know that it's flippable, the D triple "C" or Democratic Congressional Committee has picked it as one of the two congressional seats in Florida that they're going to invest in.

And "Cook Political" actually dropped it from an R+ 7 to an R+ 6 within the last six months.

It's moving, and I do believe that everybody knows that there's an avenue to, a path to victory, especially against somebody as extreme as Anna Paulina Luna.

So yeah, we've got a lot of candidates.

We have a bunch of 'em.

- Janelle, Luna is way ahead in fundraising, though.

- She is, and you mentioned in kind of the intro to this conversation that Mark Weinkrantz had raised 188,000.

He hasn't raised 188,000, he's raised like 40,000.

The rest of it, he cut a check, so that's an important distinction, I think.

I think what should trouble Democrats about this race is that this is an R+ 6 district.

It is going to be a very uphill climb, money not withstanding, so you know, when you've got one candidate who's already raised $420,000, and others are, you know, 100, 200, $300,000 behind that, you know, why are you not rallying around one candidate?

And you see that with other races throughout the state as well, where you have Democrats that are not solidifying their support, and you're forcing a competitive primary, you're forcing them to waste resources, when those resources, if they want to be successful in that district, need to go towards Anna Paulina Luna.

- I mean, I've talked to some of the campaigns, and they say that these Democrats say they have more experience than Fox does, and that that's why they're in the race.

- Well, and that may very well be true.

Liz Dahan has an incredible record, and she has been aggressively fundraising, to her credit.

She entered pretty late, though.

- [Rob] Okay, Danny, what do you think?

- You know, as a former congressional candidate myself, I can honestly tell you the establishment does not like free thinkers on both sides.

Personally, I believe that.

So we talk about Anna Paulina Luna being an extreme.

I just think she's a free thinker.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the party in Washington is not a big, big fan of hers either, so possibly the Democrats see that as well.

Now, I believe she will win, but I think that's an issue.

- She said last year that President Biden should be impeached, essentially.

- Does that make her extreme?

- A lot of Republicans feel that way.

- Right.

- This is gonna be tough, okay?

I looked at the stats recently.

50,000 more Republicans than Democrats in the district, 40%, 30% roughly Independents around 27, 30%.

You gotta hope for these Independents NPAs to switch over in the fall, and I'm curious too.

Your question to Jennifer was like why so many?

Everybody thinks they have this chance.

This is not the district of a few years ago, so I know she's only been there for two years.

- [Rob] Represented by Charlie Christ.

- Right, after they registered it from what it was previously with Bill Young and David Jolly.

- Yes, well, you know, and knowing most of these candidates and pretty well, I can say from my perspective is we have different candidates that I do believe will enthuse different segments of our voting population.

We have an amazing young Gen Z candidate who's been endorsed, Sabrina Bousbar has been endorsed by Latinos for Victory, so she has a different segment, and we have Whitney Fox, who you introduced, who has nice, strong roots and amazing endorsements from local electeds, and we have Liz who has a great, amazing experience, and we have Mark Weinkrantz, who's also been around for a long time and has some really nice, local in Pinellas support and endorsements from those folks.

So I think it's gonna be a pretty interesting primary.

- To their credit, none of them have attacked each other yet.

- Yes.

- And if they continue that, and they all focus their efforts throughout the primary on Anna Paulina Luna and not each other, they might be okay, but it is, you know, it's hard when you're wasting resources in a primary.

- All right, well, it looks like former congressman and progressive firebrand Alan Grayson is running for the US Senate.

According to "Florida Politics," the Orlando Democrat has paid a qualifying fee to appear on the ballot to challenge Republican US Senator Rick Scott.

He joins nine others in the Democratic primary this August.

They include Congress member Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

Grayson served twice in Congress from 2009 to 2011, and from 2013 to 2017.

So Janelle, does Grayson have any chance?

- I mean, he's got as much of a chance as Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, I suppose.

You know, he- - [Rob] In the primary?

- Yeah, I mean, she's been in it longer.

She is certainly more of an establishment choice.

She's probably going to get more of the money, she's going to get more of the endorsements, but he's got his own money he can throw at this race, and he's well known in central Florida as sort of a larger than life character.

He's a little controversial.

Some people have even compared him to maybe a slightly more articulate Donald Trump because he says it like it is.

So you know, that type of gravitas might play well in a statewide election, and if he were to win a primary in a general, could play well with more moderate candidates who maybe, you know, don't love Rick Scott, but don't want to vote for somebody like Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, so we'll see.

- Danny, I was looking at this race.

There are nine Independents running for the seat, 10 Democrats.

Rick Scott is being challenged by six fellow Republicans.

What does that say?

So many people in the race, but even Rick Scott has challengers in the primary.

- You know, I'll go back to effective leadership.

Sometimes we gotta get beat down, but personally, I like to see a bunch of people in the primary.

You know, let the top, let the cream of the crop rise to the top.

As far as Grayson goes, you know, since leaving the office, he has lost every single primary he's been in.

And I worked with Darren Soto a couple times in some agricultural issues, and Darren said- - [Rob] Who's a Democrat?

- Yes, who sat on the House Ag Committee and very supportive of ag issues that I hold dear in Florida.

So you know, he was a better choice than Grayson to be in that seat, and I don't see Grayson moving forward, but again, let 'em all come out.

Let's see who wins.

- Mitch, Rick Scott is spending an enormous amount of money right now, $700,000 a week, mostly aimed towards Hispanic voters.

He's gonna do that for the next several weeks.

$700,000 a week is enormous.

- Yeah, he's doing a low key, a general election campaign right now.

Yes, he has some competitors.

He's gonna obviously win this primary, and it's a battle.

You know, you mentioned this whole issue about Grayson, though, I talked to Grayson yesterday.

He's like, "Yeah, Mucarsel-Powell, they're talking about her, but like have you seen any polls for the Democrats?"

And there hasn't been any Democratic polls.

She is the establishment favorite.

She spoke at the Joe Biden event.

There's no question the party's behind her.

Grayson has lost his last three elections in a row.

He also said he wants to put money in voter registration, says there's a lot of Democrats that aren't part, you know, aren't registered right now, and that's why it would narrow the gap in the state.

How's he do it is the question, so but you know, let 'em all go for it.

I agree with you, I like competitive primaries as a reporter.

- Jennifer?

- That's hysterical.

No, I love competitive primaries.

I mean, that's why I'm good with CD 13 having a bunch of candidates in it.

Let the cream rise to the top, and I do believe voters like to have choices like that, so I'm there, but yes, I do believe the establishment is all behind DMP, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

And it's interesting that he got in and it might even bring some more attention to this race in general, so it could honestly, there could be a shiny side to that coin.

- [Rob] Okay.

- And again if they both focus on Rick Scott, (laughs) that helps them.

- Before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

And Jennifer, let's start with you, your other big story of the week.

- Well, it's not really a story.

I'm gonna go back to voter registration.

Last year in 2023, 77,000 voters, and that's Democrats, Republicans, Independents in Pinellas County received a final notice.

That means that the supervisor of elections was trying to get ahold of you and validate you as a voter.

That's 77,000 people who might have lost their ability to vote, so check your voter registration in Florida.

Whatever county you're in, go to your county supervisor of elections, check that registration, and make sure you're ready to vote.

- All right, Mitch, you're other big story.

- Short term vacation rentals, it's a huge issue, big in Pinellas County.

I spoke with Nick DiCeglie this week.

He's the bill sponsor in the senate.

The bill's not been officially sent to Governor DeSantis yet, but there was so much pressure on either side.

This could be a bill that the governor might veto because he's getting so much opposition to it.

Nick said he's gonna meet along with senate president Kathleen Pasidomo in a few weeks to talk to DeSantis to lobby to support it, so we'll see what happens there.

- Lots of neighbors are mad- - Absolutely.

- Yes.

- About these showing up in their community.

All right, Janelle, your other big story.

- This seems really strange, considering this is a show about Florida, but I'm gonna talk about North Carolina because it impacts Florida.

So in North Carolina, their legislative session is just now getting underway.

They have a veto-proof majority in both chambers, but a Democratic governor who can't veto anything.

So it'll be interesting to watch what they do on the abortion issue, because with Florida having an abortion amendment on the ballot, if they start seeing some extreme things, the only state now in the deep South that has access to abortion past six weeks, that could have some major impacts on Florida, so I'm watching to see what happens there throughout the legislative session.

- All right, and Danny, your other big story.

- Well, last week, President Biden directed the Department of Education to change its rulings or change the way they managed Title IX.

So what he suggested was to allow men to play and participate in women's sports.

So this week, Governor DeSantis says, "That will not fly in the state of Florida."

- [Rob] You mean transgender people?

- Transgender - Well, I say men.

- [Rob] Women.

- I say men who say they are women.

So we can call 'em whatever you want, but you are biological male, and when it's proven that biological males are superior to women in sports.

So the governor said, "No, that's not gonna happen."

So he directed his Department of Education to say "No, and we are not gonna let that happen in the state of Florida," so.

- And that may be a topic for a future show.

Thank you all for a great program.

Thanks to our panelists, Jennifer Griffith, Janelle Irwin Taylor, Mitch Perry, and Danny Kushner.

If you have comments about this program, please send them to FTW@WEDU.org.

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And from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

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