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- Next on WEDU, Donald Trump faces new felony charges over the January 6th assault on the capitol.

What does it mean for Governor Ron DeSantis presidential ambitions?

The controversy over Florida's new Black history teaching standards, draws more comment from the vice President and Hillsborough County might make major changes to the way county commissioners are elected.

All this and more right now on Florida this week.

(dramatic music) Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week.

William March is an independent journalist and a columnist for the Tampa Bay Times.

Jeff Brandes is the president of the Florida Policy Project, a former state senator and a Republican.

Darryl Rouson is the state Senator from Pinellas in Hillsborough Counties and a Democrat.

David Ponton is an assistant professor and undergrad director at the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies at the University of South Florida and Kathryn Varn is a Tampa Bay reporter for Axios.

Nice to have all of you here.

Good to see you.

- Thanks for having.

- Nice to be here.

- Well, for the third time this year, former President Donald Trump was arraigned on felony charges, this time in the District of Columbia on Thursday.

He pleaded not guilty to several felony charges related to trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

- [Anchor] The 45-page indictment from Special Counsel Jack Smith accuses Trump of a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one's vote counted in violation of section 241 of Title 18 of the US code.

As the Washington Post reports, the alleged offense under section 241 is among four counts included in the indictment, which argued that Trump, along with six unnamed co-conspirators, eroded trust in the administration of the election and pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.

Those means, according to the indictment, included strong-arming state officials to change electoral votes won by Joe Biden and recruiting fraudulent electors in swing states prepared to override the will of the voters.

The alleged conspiracy included using the authority of the Justice Department to create doubt about the election results and encourage the presentation of those illegitimate electors as alternatives to Biden's valid electors and according to the indictment, it involved pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to delay or thwart the certification of Biden's victory on January 6th, 2021, and capitalizing on the violence unleashed that day to levy false claims of election fraud and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the former president, cast the indictment as an attempt to interfere in the next presidential election, saying why did they wait two and a half years to bring these fake charges right in the middle of President Trump's winning campaign for 2024.

Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis said this about the indictment.

- The reality is a republican, a DC jury would indict a ham sandwich and convict a ham sandwich if it was a Republican ham sandwich.

I think Americans need to be able to remove cases out of DC.

I think the juries are stacked.

I think that they're gonna want to convict people that they disagree with, or at a minimum you should be able to draw a jury pool from across the entire country.

- [Anchor] Trump's attorney John Lauro of Tampa said the indictment was an attack on Trump's right to free speech.

- It attacks his ability to advocate for a political position, which is covered under the First Amendment.

So what we saw after the 2020 election were a number of discrepancies, affidavits, sworn testimony from around the country as to irregularities in the election process.

We also saw instances where, in the middle of an election cycle, the rules changed without the state legislatures weighing in.

So under those circumstances, President Trump was entitled to advocate for a position.

- [Anchor] Trump's own attorney general testified to the January 6th commission that there was no truth to the claim that there was fraud during the 2020 election.

- I had three discussions with the president that I can recall.

One was on November 23rd, one was on December 1st, and one was on December 14th and I've been through sort of the give and take of those discussions and in that context, I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president, I was bold, I observed, I think it was on December 1st, that, you know, how can we, you can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence that the election, that there was fraud in the election.

- [Anchor] And this week Barr said this.

- I have come to believe that he knew well that he had lost the election.

- [Anchor] Trump's vice President, Mike Pence said this week that he no legal right to follow the president's request to overturn the election results.

- And then on that day, President Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution, but I chose the Constitution and I always will.

I mean, I really do believe that anyone who puts themself over the constitution should never be president of the United States.

- So Jeff, let's talk about the Florida politics of this.

Does the Governor DeSantis presidential campaign, is it affected at all either way by the Trump indictment?

- I really don't think it is.

I mean, I think Trump supporters are gonna see this as a witch hunt.

I think Republicans generally kind of see this as just adding on, this is what three or four other indictments now going on, that have all occurred in the last, you know, six months and so I don't think that this changes really the trajectory at all.

- Kathryn, how about you?

Do you think it changes DeSantis trajectory?

- No, I pretty much agree with Jeff.

I mean, he's been indicted twice already and it hasn't really made much of a difference in the polls and, you know, DeSantis has been trying to connect with Trump voters and you know, get them on his side and it just hasn't really had much traction.

So I don't think there's a lot of reason to believe that this is gonna be his linchpin.

- And- - I'm not worried about the effect on a DeSantis candidacy or on the candidacy of any other person running for president.

What I'm worried about is the effect on the nation, the effect on the health of the electoral process, the effect on people and undermining government.

What we should be concerned about is the rule of law.

- So, Darryl, do you think that, if the shoe were on the other foot and a Democratic president had done what President Trump did and allegedly did, how do you think the country would respond?

And especially how do you think Republicans would respond?

- The same way.

The same way.

- You mean?

- They would seek to indict, they would seek to punish and prosecute and it wouldn't be any different.

- Alright.

Dave, what do you think about the?

- Yeah, I think to the senator's point about this being about the rule of law, just a few weeks ago, Ron DeSantis answered a question from a student in Vermont about how he felt about January 6th, then the idea that the peaceful transfer of power is foundational to American democracy and the governor just kind of threw the ball away.

It was an opportunity, I think, for him to go on the offensive, to chart a different path for his campaign.

So in addition to failing to be offensive, he's also gonna be on the defense.

His top competition is Donald Trump, but he also has to look behind his back at people like Chris Christie, who are going to be calling out the governor's record in the State of Florida, who's gonna be talking about climate change.

He's gonna be talking about the home insurance crisis.

He's gonna be talking about the six week abortion ban.

I think he's setting himself up to be in a position where he's operating from weakness.

- And Wendy, the Governor DeSantis has been pretty supportive, I think of President Trump.

He's sometimes called Trump without the baggage, but he hasn't really separated himself from Trump's behavior on January 6th.

- Well, I would disagree a little bit with some of the things that have been said.

I think this creates an even greater problem for DeSantis.

The joke is that DeSantis supporters are frantically looking around for something to get him indicted for so he can get some attention.

What this does is, it makes the race more and more about Donald Trump, less and less about anybody else.

It could turn the race into a referendum on whether Trump should go to jail.

I can see the candidates being asked, will you or will you not pardon Donald Trump?

And one problem for the DeSantis is it puts pressure on him in effect, to defend his opponent, to defend Donald Trump and he's been reluctant to do that, but he's also extremely reluctant to attack him, which is what I think David was talking about a minute ago.

Instead you have him making snide little passive aggressive comments like, "I don't know anything about January 6th.

I wasn't in Washington on January 6th, and I don't know anything about making payoffs to porn stars, so I can't comment on that" and the same thing a minute ago where he blamed the whole situation on Washington juries for heaven's sake.

I just think it puts, it takes a lot of the oxygen away from DeSantis, puts him in a very difficult position as to how to move, how to get attention.

- And Jeff, does this strengthen President Trump's position in the Republican field?

- Well, I think it definitely increases the media attention placed on Donald Trump and I think definitely, I agree with William.

I think DeSantis is gonna have to thread a very fine needle to be able to kind of maneuver his conversations through what's gonna happen here.

- I wanna get your comments about this next soundbite and Kathryn, I wanna start with you.

Ron DeSantis seemed to threaten violence against government employees this week.

Let's play the soundbite.

- And then on bureaucracy, you know, we're gonna have all these deep state people, you know, we're gonna start slitting throats on day one and be ready to go.

- So Katherine, the governor seemed to say that he was gonna slit the throats of government employees who are part of the bureaucracy in Washington DC.

Where do, I mean that's a pretty strong statement.

What do you make of that?

- I mean, I think he's trying to look tough and, you know, sort of get at that drain, the swamp type of mentality, but yeah, I mean, it hasn't played super well.

Pretty violent language.

I also think it's interesting thinking about kind of the state of Florida right now, and a lot of staff positions in state government are open and have remained open during Governor DeSantis time in office and so it's just interesting to look at that, you know, look at how he's run his state compared to now what he's saying he'll do, you know, with federal staffers, if he were to be president.

- Darryl, it seems like a line has been crossed.

Most politicians, at least in the modern era, don't use that kind of language.

Slitting the throats.

- They don't and he's trying to project strength, but he projects violence and I think it backfires on it.

- David, what do you think of that?

- I think it's a remarkable statement, especially for someone who is gonna have to defend his record here in the state.

I think it's also a kind of wild thing to say at a moment when we're talking about the integrity of democracy itself and he's taken such a hard line in Florida with his electoral police.

We've seen it happen here in Tampa with people being arrested for voting illegally, despite that they were told they had the right to do so.

It just, it smacks of a person who lacks a genuine connection with people.

- And Jeff, do voters out there really feel that way about the bureaucracy?

That they want to kill the bureaucrats?

- Well, I think if you're looking at Republican primary voters, first of all, let's not think anybody takes him seriously that he's gonna slit anybody's throat, but if you're talking about Republican primary voters, what they want to hear is, listen, we've gotta shrink the size of government and we've gotta hold bureaucrats accountable and I think that's what that statement really says.

- Wendy, what's your take on it?

- I gotta agree with what Kathryn said.

He has, DeSantis has a tendency to use aggressive violent language.

I think it's excessive and it causes him problems.

His campaign has done other similar things, the videos that they've put out with some violent imagery in them and it's like, I think, was it Senator Rouson said he's trying to sound tough.

I think instead it just makes him sound angry and mean.

- Okay.

Well it's never backed down, right?

- That's part of the, part of his slogan.

Alright, well, on Tuesday in Orlando, Vice President Kamala Harris rejected Governor DeSantis offer to debate the state's new guidelines on teaching African American history, including a section that says that some enslaved people develop skills, which in some instances could be applied for their personal benefit.

- [Anchor] Harris said the governor's trying to rewrite the ugly parts of US history.

- And now they attempt to legitimize these unnecessary debates with a proposal that most recently came in of a politically motivated round table.

Well, I'm here in Florida.

- [Audience] Come on.

Come on.

- And I'll tell you, there is no round table, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact.

- [Attendee] Yeah, yeah.

- There were no redeeming qualities of slavery.

- [Anchor] According to the investigative website, popular information, the main people who develop Florida's Black history standards are themselves controversial and have a partisan ideology.

One member had a previous charge of kidnapping a 14 year old girl.

Another was not a scholar, but did have a history as a Republican party activist.

When it came to the claim that Blacks benefited from slavery the two members came up with a list that included several who did not gain skills while enslaved.

Among the examples were Lewis Latimer, who helped develop the telephone and the incandescent light bulb, but he was never enslaved.

Another supposed example was the great Inventor, Booker T Washington, who was held in slavery until the age of nine.

He emerged illiterate from captivity and developed his skills only after he was free.

- David the governor has seen some opposition from within his own party on this issue, especially Black Republicans have spoken out.

Why do you think the governor's not backing down?

- I'll start here.

I think one of the great things about the conversation that's happening now is that it's reminding us all that history is political and there's no such thing as just objective facts that you write down that tell us the truth about the past.

The purpose of history as a historian is not just to learn about the past, but the ways that we write about the past teach us about who we are in the present.

So the ways that these commissioners have created these benchmarks and clarifications and the governor's defense of them is revealing something about where we are right now and where we are right now is a place where we don't wanna acknowledge not just the depravity of slavery, but that it has these ongoing consequences that we are still dealing with slavery's after lives and we want to avoid those questions because in order to be good people, we would have to address racism, which is something that the governor doesn't want to do and that's why I think he's not backing down.

It is an attempt to rewrite the past in order to create a different vision of the present, where we don't have to address the inequality that we all see before us every day.

- Jeff what do you- - And this idea that people don't want to be made to feel uncomfortable about the truth of history is just ridiculous.

How do you, the purpose for history like the professor says is to tell us a little bit about who we are today and where we're headed in the future.

How do you tell the story of the German uprising on the Louisiana shores where 90 slaves were beheaded and their heads placed on poles along the roadway as a deterrent to those yearning to be free?

How do you tell that without making someone feel uncomfortable, either as an African American or as a Caucasian?

You know, history is to make us feel uncomfortable, hopefully for a greater good.

- Jeff, what do you think?

- Well, I think, listen, you know, anyone who describes slavery as anything but a scourge upon America and upon our history, but is also a lesson that we can learn from and move forward on, is something that to me is something that the state needs to go back and, you know, revise its revisions.

I think that this is part of a conversation, I think it's important conversation and I think, you know, we're gonna have a lot of different views as we move forward here.

- Kathryn, the NBA Players Association is complaining this week that the Orlando Magic Basketball team made a significant contribution to a pro DeSantis super PAC and they say, you know, this doesn't speak for those of us who help create the sport and they're pretty angry, the NBA players association is pretty angry at what the, at the donation given by the magic to Governor DeSantis PAC.

- Yeah, I mean I think that kind of underscores some of the fallout from taking stances like this and the governor's, you know, move to eradicate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, for example, or the, you know, commonly known, don't say gay law and of course the latest being the Black history standards.

You know, there's a lot of pushback that's come up.

I mean two professional Black organizations also moved their conferences from Orlando, citing the hostile environment toward African Americans that the DeSantis administration has created.

So I think it just, it underscores kind of, you know, the impact this is having not just in Florida but ar around the country now, which is now DeSantis playing field.

- And Wendy, the decisions to make these new standards, it's a 200 page document, not all of it is controversial, I think many people on, especially African Americans would say, some of this content is good, but why does the governor not say, "You know, we've made a few mistakes, let's go back and revisit it."

- Never backed down.

- Yeah.

- That's his motto and that's what he does.

He is absolutely not going to be seen as conceding that Democrats like Kamala Harris have a legitimate point.

He simply can't accept that.

If you read these standards, I've read them and the effect of my reading them was to make me wish I knew a lot more about African American history and particularly the history of slavery.

The section just on African American history is about 19 pages and most of the attention has been drawn to these two sentences.

One that slaves used skills they learned in slavery for a later benefit and the other that there was violence by and against African Americans.

That second sentence is simply not explained.

There's no indication of what they're talking about.

On the first sentence that these people acquired skills for their benefit, there's no perspective given there.

I mean it probably did happen to a tiny handful of people out of the millions, if you follow what I'm saying and there's no perspective, no indication of the significance of this given in those standards.

Like I said, it makes me wish I knew more about the hundreds of individuals and incidents that are mentioned in these standards.

- Okay.

- And just to add one more point to this, I think that there is a substantial opportunity here for educators.

A lot of educators are feeling very pressured right now, but for someone like me, when I see these laws in place and when I see these benchmarks and clarifications, what I've done is I've brought them into the classroom.

So this is a part of African American history.

The conversation around this legislation and around these benchmarks is a part of an ongoing story and what educators can do is really teach students how to think about how education works, what accepted knowledge looks like, and then to ask the kinds of questions that we would want them to ask as young historians or other scholars in training.

- Yeah, history doesn't stop.

It's very dynamic.

Alright, well the Republican majority on the Hillsborough County Commission is taking steps towards a new districting plan, that could give them a long-term advantage in commission races.

The idea is to switch from a mix of county-wide and single member districts to a commission consisting solely of nine single member districts.

Democrats fear that the current Republican majority will gerrymander the districts.

Under the proposal by Commissioner Mike Owen, a referendum on the plan would be held on March 19th next year, the day of the 2024 Presidential primary, an election likely to draw a large Republican turnout and Wendy, what's the status of this proposal?

- Well the status of the proposal is that the county staff is supposed to report back to the county commissioners on the 16th, August 16th as to what kind of, whether this is feasible, what kind of plan could be put together and what it might look like.

The commissioners will then decide whether to put it on a referendum ballot for the county to vote on.

The Republicans who are pushing this idea and it's been pushed for years before and rejected repeatedly by county Charter Review commissions.

They're saying that the county is simply too big for three at large commissioners, countywide commissioners and four district commissioners to represent.

Hillsborough County is the same size as two congressional districts.

That's just too big.

Democrats respond that this is nothing but a naked Republican power grab.

The commissioners, the Republican majority with one Democratic commissioner voting along with them, Gwen Meyers voted to consider whether to put this on, this referendum on the ballot, on the presidential primary day.

Well who's going to vote in this year's presidential primary?

Republicans who have a hot primary contest.

Democrats will have very little reason to go to the polls.

No party voters will have almost no reason to go to the polls.

Democrats also say that they're trying, that the Republicans are trying to rush this into effect so that they can draw new districts in time for the 2024 County commission election and that those districts are certain to be gerrymandered to benefit the Republican candidates.

- And the issue comes up before the County Commission in a few weeks.

- Right.

- Right, well before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

And William let's start with you, one one more time the other big story of the week.

- Well, I'm gonna go with some local races, local legislative and county and local government races that apparently are being affected by Republican confidence because of the Republican wins, unexpected Republican wins in the 22 red wave election.

Those, that better than expected Republican performance has inspired a couple of State House candidates in Hillsborough to challenge seemingly well-established Democrats, Susan Valdez and Fentrice Driskell.

It's inspired at least one Pinellas Republican to run for a countywide commissioner seat and at least one Hillsborough Republican to run for a countywide county commission seat and I think you're seeing the statewide, the 2022 outcome is encouraging Republicans to make challenges that they wouldn't normally make.

- All right, Jeff, your on the big story.

- I think the big story for us is we just started the Florida Policy project, so after 12 years in the legislature, my big takeaway was everything in Tallahassee is tactical.

There isn't a strategy and so we designed the Florida Policy Project to look at best practices across the country and criminal justice, property insurance, transportation and housing and we're excited about launching this new project.

- And you'll be speaking at St. Petersburg at the Palladium in just a few weeks?

- I will be.

- Alright Darryl, your other big story.

- I think we're watching Jim Large, the fire chief in City of St. Petersburg and the mayor to see what happens with the assessment survey that they did with employee satisfaction.

The fact that the fire department only has five African Americans out of the 78 top officers and has failed to integrate according to what people feel should be fair and I think we should watch what happens with that.

- Alright.

David, your other big story.

- I think a huge story right now is not super sensational, but it's rural hospital closures all across the country.

Since 2005, we've seen a huge number of those closures.

We're looking at the possibility of 30% of rural hospitals closing, Florida's number two on that list.

I think we need to be paying attention to what's happening in healthcare for all of our communities.

- All right, Kathryn, your other big story.

- Yeah, I think there's still a lot of fallout from the gender affirming care restrictions that were instated by the legislature and the Florida Board of Medicine and the Tampa Bay Times just put out a very in-depth story looking into the Medicaid coverage ban on gender affirming care for transgender Medicaid recipients and found that Florida paid thousands of dollars to consultants with pre-existing anti-trans views and some of those consultants also support conversion therapy and that Jason Weida who's now the Ahca secretary, tried to recruit Floridians who regretted their transitions to speak against gender affirming care and so I think that, that's a really big story that we should all really be paying attention to.

It's how these laws came to be based on experts with preexisting biases.

- Hey, thank you all for taking part in this week's show.

Thanks for informing us and great to see you and thank you for joining us.

Send us your comments at ftwwedu.org and like us on Facebook.

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

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