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(soft music) - [Eric] Coming up next, the battle between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Two politicians with presidential ambitions go after each other on how well they manage their states.

There's an investigation into the activities of the chair of the Florida Republican Party, and the mysterious death of Florida's top election fraud officer.

All coming up right now on "Florida This Week".

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) Welcome back.

I'm Eric Deggans, TV critic and media analyst for NPR, a former "Tampa Bay Times" staffer, and a near 30-year resident of the area, filling in as guest host for Rob Lorei.

Joining me on our panel this week: Kimberly Leonard is the politics reporter and author of the "Florida Playbook" for Politico; Patrick Manteiga is the editor and publisher for "La Gaceta" in Tampa; and Trimmel Gomes is a journalist and President of Gomes Media Strategies.

We've got an excellent panel of journalists here for a big news week, so let's get started with the rumble in Georgia.

(chuckles) Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis debated California's Governor Gavin Newsom in a prime time debate on Fox News Thursday night.

For more than 90 minutes, DeSantis, a Republican presidential contender for 2024, faced Newsom, a Democrat who's widely believed to want to run for president in four years.

It was a fiery event, with moderator Sean Hannity losing control early on.

The two governors traded personal insults and frequently talked over each other.

While Hannity promised to serve as an impartial moderator, he framed most of the questions by highlighting something that he believed was wrong with California, high taxes, high gas prices, high crime rates, and asked Newsom to defend it.

- Who does he tax?

He taxes low-income workers more than we tax millionaires and billionaires in the state of California.

The question is a simple one: Who, Ron, are you for?

It's a factual lie that the state of California's high tax, has the highest tax rate, but for whom?

- How many people leave Florida to go to California 'cause they'd pay less taxes?

I've not seen that.

Are people going from Florida to New York 'cause they'd pay less taxes?

Of course not!

They come to Florida because they pay lower taxes.

We don't even have an income tax.

- So Patrick, I'm thinking maybe we should just start with the most basic question: Like, who won this debate?

(laughs) I mean, did either of these guys convince someone who didn't support them going into this to support them coming out of it?

- No, I don't think so.

Although coming in, I think DeSantis had the most to lose here, since he's on the ballot at the moment, and Newsom isn't.

And both of them played to their bases.

Both of them talked to what their bases wanted to hear about.

DeSantis talked to white men, and Newsom talked to everybody else out there.

So, you know, I don't think there was a winner or loser.

I think that, you know, it was a little bit hard to watch.

Them talking over each other made it difficult, and there was a lot of time that was just wasted there.

I also think that in this case, Newsom was debating two people.

He was debating DeSantis; he was also debating Hannity.

- Right.

- Hannity set these questions up in a negative way towards California most of the time.

And anytime you want to talk about statistics, you can have those statistics go any way.

On the crime statistic, he wanted to use a group in the statistics that made California look worse than Florida.

- [Eric] Right.

- Newsom pointed out that if you would've just used the murder rate, then Florida would've looked worse than California.

- It would be very different.

Yeah, the whole time I watched it, I was wondering, can you call it a debate if both guys are talking over each other?

- Sure.

- But Kimberly, I wanted to ask you, why did each of these guys even agree to do this?

I mean, you know, Newsom even said during the event, neither one of them is likely to be their party's nominee for president.

What's the point of doing this?

- Well, I actually interviewed Governor Newsom last year, and at the time, he wanted to sit down with me to talk about Governor DeSantis.

I mean, he was just sort of itching to get out in front of him, and address some of the things that he thought were offensive that the Governor had said or done.

And similarly, we had seen Governor DeSantis really try to contrast Florida with a lot of more blue states.

And so for him, it really provided an opportunity to show this foil and to give his vision of America.

And I think that one thing that we kind of saw him do continuously last night was not just to say, "Well, you know, this is what California does," but to use California as almost, or his version of California and Hannity's version of California, that, "Oh, this is the version of America that we're gonna be headed toward if Biden is reelected."

So even though it was a state debate, we did see him continuously bring it back to that national conversation.

- Well, that's interesting, because another issue that they discussed last night was each state's violent crime rate.

- Seven of the top 10 murder rates in the United States of America are red states.

He has a 66% higher gun death rate than the state of California; he has a higher murder rate.

Go to places like Jacksonville, go to places like Orlando, go to places like Tampa.

The murder rate's off the charts compared to cities like San Francisco.

- They have chosen in California to put the interests of the criminals over public safety.

They treat... they're easier on sex offenders, they're easier on all these crimes that are leading to a collapse in the quality of life.

- Now, Trimmel, we saw a lot of figures flying around about a lot of different things, but I wonder if there was enough talk about how governors actually affect these things and what each of these guys would do to change some of the numbers that they were criticizing?

What did you think about how they used these figures?

- Well, they are at the head, they're the leader, they're the bully pulpit.

Like, you know, they affect change.

They can say things and influence those who, on the local ground level, to make things happen.

And as far as coming out of this debate who I think is the winner, I would say it's Newsom.

He's not on the ballot, he's not running, and his epic line in the opening that neither of them (laughs) are gonna be the nominee, that was a epic burn to see that.

And he is just there, representing his state.

Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis is running for president, and it was an unusual scene.

So the winner here, to me, is Newsom, considering everything that he's going for, and he's being picked as a high-profile effective surrogate for the Biden administration.

So I would give him the points for just being able to stand there and go toe-to-toe with DeSantis, when he doesn't even have to.

- Now Patrick, I wanted to ask you, there's been a lot of criticism of DeSantis's debate style in these debates among the GOP nominees.

Do you think he did himself any favors in this presentation?

Did he manage to sort of push back against this idea that he's stiff and overly mannered, and isn't forceful enough during debates?

- You know, he certainly stood toe-to-toe with Newsom.

But you know, on the Democratic side, they keep calling him a bully, and in this debate he looked like a bully.

He was quicker to talk over Newsom, quicker to use names, or went after Newsom's family.

And so, you know, I think he does look like a bully when he comes across, at least to me.

But, you know, he smiled a little bit, tried to; it's a little bit awkward for him some days.

- Yeah, smiling is a little bit of a challenge for him.

- It's hard for him to do.

- For DeSantis sometimes.

- But did he gain style points here?

I don't know if he gained style points.

I mean, he just continues to fall down in the numbers.

And you know, when he stood on certain issues like Florida's population growth.

You know, I've lived in Florida all my life.

Every year, Florida's had population growth, under Democrats, under Republicans.

If we had no government, we'd get population growth in the state of Florida.

I mean, getting a bunch of people here to come for cheap taxes isn't really what you hope to get.

You hope they come here because you've got a great education system, because, you know, we have great infrastructure, because it's a great place to live.

You know, the sun shines beautifully here all the time and the beaches are here.

DeSantis didn't invent it.

- Yeah, exactly.

That's why I was wondering if there, you know, how much can you blame a chief executive for some things that might even be beyond their control?

- Yeah, I mean- - But Kimberly, I wanted to ask you real quickly, you had mentioned before we started taping that, you know, you guys have done some reporting on the sort of the behind-the-scenes, and how things went away from the cameras during this event.

Can you talk a little bit about what you might have heard about how things went, in ways that people couldn't see?

- Yeah, well there's always drama behind the scenes at these events.

And we had a reporter at Politico who was on the ground in Georgia, you know, obviously doing some asking around.

And from what I've read on Politico, is that the spouses of each governor were coming into the room during some of the commercial breaks.

And that it was Governor Newsom's wife who asked to end the debate.

Now, the Newsom team disputes this.

They say that Governor DeSantis was ready to leave.

And then there were also apparently some arguments about the debate rules.

Apparently the Newsom team was not pleased that Governor DeSantis had props with him on stage.

So in two different instances, he pulled out images, one of which was from a book called "Gender Queer" that depicted oral sex, and he accused, you know, California of endorsing those kinds of curriculum in their public schools.

And the other was a picture of where human feces had been deposited throughout San Francisco.

And he was trying to again say that, you know, San Francisco is where Newsom's originally from, that Newsom was trying to turn San Francisco into California, turn it into America, et cetera.

And apparently from what the Newsom team had understood, they did not think that props had been permitted on stage.

- Right, right.

Well, so much more, we could probably talk about this for the whole program, but we will have to move on to a really important story.

The "Sarasota Herald-Tribune" reports that the Sarasota Police Department is investigating a sexual battery allegation against current Florida GOP Chair, Christian Ziegler.

According to police department records, a detective's report states that the alleged victim reported being sexually battered at home in Sarasota on October 2nd.

The responding officer's report is almost entirely redacted.

Only five words remain.

They are: "stated, raped, stated that, raped."

The Florida Center for Government Accountability first reported on the allegations against Ziegler.

Citing anonymous sources close to the investigation, the government watchdog group says police seized Ziegler's cell phone and investigators continue to conduct a forensic examination of the electronic device.

Ziegler is married to Sarasota County School Board Member and Moms for Liberty founder, Bridget Ziegler.

They have emerged as one of the most prominent political couples in the state in recent years.

Sources told the Florida Center for Government Accountability that the woman accusing Christian Ziegler of sexual battery alleged that she and both Zieglers have been involved in a longstanding, consensual, three-way sexual relationship prior to the incident.

The Republican Party of Sarasota County, where the Zieglers have been active for years, issued a statement saying the party is "shocked and disappointed" by the reports about the Zieglers.

WEDU received this response from Derek Byrd, attorney for Christian Ziegler.

Quote, "We acknowledge the reports that there is an investigation being conducted by the Sarasota Police Department regarding Mr. Ziegler.

Mr. Ziegler has been fully cooperative with every request made by the Sarasota Police Department.

We are confident that once the police investigation is concluded, that no charges will be filed and Mr. Ziegler will be completely exonerated.

Unfortunately, public figures are often accused of acts that they did not commit, whether it be for political purposes or financial gain.

I would caution anyone to rush to judgment until the investigation is concluded."

So Kimberly, this is an incident that has drawn national headlines.

I saw at all over the national news this morning.

This has just become public.

But what's your early reaction to the political impact of this, and, you know, how will this complicate a situation where we already have two men from Florida, leading candidates for the GOP nomination for the presidency, at a time when the Florida GOP might be expected to sort of help with that situation?

- No, exactly.

And there had already been a lot of infighting within the party over sort of taking sides between DeSantis and Trump.

And so, it had sort of caused a lot of bad PR for the party that had been trying to remain neutral.

And, you know, Trump hosted members of the Florida GOP, had got an appreciation reception at Mar-a-Lago a few weeks ago.

But this is also potentially bad for Governor DeSantis.

I mean, Bridget Ziegler is head of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.

She's one of the board members there, and that's the district that controls the area around Walt Disney World.

So that's another scandal to kind of come after this.

And then it's also coming at a time when the, you know, there are so many disputes about school curriculum and things like that, and Moms for Liberty pushing a lot of those changes.

And what does it say when there's, you know, some of these allegations being made that, you know, could then reflect poorly on what these groups are doing and some of the things going on behind the scenes.

So this is, everyone that I talked to was shocked.

This was not some big, open secret that people were not aware of.

It happened apparently, according to the complaint, on October 2nd.

And the party had a big event in Kissimmee since then.

So, nobody I talked to knew.

It wasn't something that was... Everyone is just kind of in shock and they don't really know what's gonna happen next.

Will there be calls for Kevin Ziegler to resign?

Governor DeSantis did say last night that he thought that he should.

- Yeah, I was gonna point out, yeah, the Governor's already said that he should step aside.

Trimmel, I wanted to ask you, one charge that critics make about conservatives who take strong moral stands is that perhaps they hold other people to standards that they themselves don't follow.

And you know, as Kimberly mentioned, you know, this is a couple that's been involved with the drive to bring values from religion into schools, and they've taken a lot of moral stands in public.

How do you think an investigation like this might affect those efforts, or affect their image?

- Well, it's all about, and people are criticizing them for the massive hypocrisy around everything.

Demonizing LGBTQ individuals and rights while partaking and being part of like, you know, an alleged bisexual ménage à trois, as it's being reported.

So all of that is being called into question.

Their positions are being called into question.

As you mentioned, Governor DeSantis is calling for Ziegler to step aside.

I imagine it would be the same calls for the wife and the organizations she's a part of.

One of the things that I'm also curious about is the information and what's being reported out.

That redacted report; it's heavily redacted.

But when it comes to doing those redactions, I would like to see these offices at least put a footnote as to answering why, put citations as to why this particular information is being redacted.

'Cause right now, we don't know.

We need to know what's the reason for certain redactions.

That what you read out, words like "rape" and that and everything else, there's a lot we don't know in that report.

- Yeah, you make an interesting point.

There's a tension in this situation between what the public might want to know and what people might want to keep private, given the nature of these allegations.

Patrick, I wanted to ask you, Ziegler, of course, has denied these accusations through his attorney, but as we've said a couple times now already, the Governor has already said he should step aside.

- He's toast.

- People have said, "You're innocent..."- - He's out.

(laughs) - Well, but people say you're innocent until proven guilty.

And even, you know, another chair of a county GOP organization said that.

How do we judge how much we should expect him to do, given that he hasn't been even charged with anything yet?

- You know, once the Governor doesn't give you support in this state, and the way the Governor acts in this state, like he runs it from top to bottom, this guy can't stay.

I mean, he just is not gonna be able to maintain his position.

He is going to lose this job.

And his wife also is going to be politically compromised from this point forward.

They've compromised Moms for Liberty now.

It looks like a organization of lesbians who attack lesbians, or gays who attack gays.

And so, you know, all I can tell you is there's a lot of Democrats smiling when they read this story.

Because it is, it's sex and politics, and it'll make national news, and DeSantis can't afford this baggage at all.

He's already slipping in the state, he's slipping nationally.

And so he is going to jettison this baggage immediately, if he can.

- Well, and I can certainly understand there might be some Democrats who, you know, would see an advantage here.

But we also, I think have to acknowledge that there is an allegation of a sexual assault at the center of this.

And this may be a very difficult situation for the person who's making the allegations.

But you know, Kimberly, I wanted to ask you real quickly, there's also a tension here, a concern over whether things are being redacted or held back from the public for those sensitivity concerns, or whether they're being held back because someone's being protected politically.

What do you think about that question, and how do we judge whether it's fair to redact so much of a report that involves such a public couple?

- Well, first of all, it's only a complaint at this point, so no charges have been brought.

So typically in such cases, there is a lot that's redacted.

I actually spoke to the state attorney last night about the case.

He was not even aware of it until he got a call from the "Trident" a few days ago, right before the story came out.

So again, this was not something that was widely known within the department, within the Sarasota circles, or politically.

You know, I'm not even sure how the journalists got it.

But, you know, we have our ways.

And, I do think that what they've done is pretty standard just because to protect the victim in this case, the alleged victim.

And so, you know, until the investigation is complete, and I don't know how long that'll take, they don't know how long it'll take, at that point, then they'll decide do the charges, you know, do they close the investigation?

Do they bring charges?

Do they refer it to the state attorney?

There's a lot of different ways that this could go.

So I, from my reporting, I haven't found any instance that it's because of who is the alleged perpetrator in this case.

- Well, thank you for that context.

And we're gonna have to move on to our final subject.

The website, the Florida Bulldog, reports that Governor DeSantis's top election fraud officer, Peter Antonacci, collapsed and died in a hallway in the Governor's office moments after abruptly leaving a contentious meeting in September of last year.

The details of the 74 year-old Antonacci's death were kept secret at the time.

Previously, authorities have only said he died while at work in the Capitol Building.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement records newly released to the Florida Bulldog also say Antonacci lay dead or dying in the hallway floor of the Governor's office for more than 20 minutes before anyone apparently noticed he was down.

The hallway was under video surveillance.

By the time a Capitol Police Officer arrived, Antonacci had no pulse.

The Florida Bulldog requested the FDLE's public records after receiving a tip that Antonacci had died in the Governor's office following an argument with DeSantis.

There was a meeting of some of the Governor's top elections and law enforcement officials that day in the Governor's office.

But according to records made public, DeSantis was not present at the meeting.

So Trimmel, I wanted to ask you, this sounds like an awful circumstance.

But one major question which surfaces here is whether this indicates there's some sort of failure in security or staffing, to have someone suffer a medical emergency that major, that close to the Governor's office, for that long.

What's your thoughts about that?

- Exactly.

In a highly secured area, a place where most people would feel safe, they know they're being watched, and if there's a chance of a medical emergency, that someone would see it immediately, with all the cameras and people around.

To have this very important official lay there, suffering, for the 20-plus minutes before being identified or seen or catered to, it's horrific.

And a lot more needs to be known as to what occurred and those involved.

And for us to be talking about this months, many months later, why was this kept so secret?

And we need to have more access to information with particularly to what happened, who was involved in the meeting.

And again, to the point earlier, if there are things that are being redacted, our officials need to cite why they are being redacted.

We need to know.

- Yes, exactly.

And Patrick, we don't have a lot of time, but you know, as a publisher of a news outlet, I wanted to ask you, this story came to light because of an article published by a watchdog group.

And it's similar to the Ziegler story, which also came to light because that was published by a watchdog group.

What does it say about our current climate, that these explosive stories are coming to the public's attention because of these watchdog groups, and outside of major newspapers or major TV stations or major media outlets?

- Well, I mean, the newspaper industry's pretty gutted right now.

TV is, you know, talking about the weather and traffic, and I think we all know that there's just not as much journalism going on as we would like it.

You know, luckily, as major newspapers have reduced their focus on these stories, you have these sites popping up here that got it.

And obviously there's a lot of people who want to pass on this information and they're gonna leak it to somebody, and so eventually it will percolate.

- All right, we have to move quickly, so I'm gonna put you guys on a timer.

(chuckles) But before we go, we want to ask everybody what news story should we be paying attention to this week that we haven't already talked about?

Kimberly, what's your story?

- Sure, well, we are expecting the Governor to unveil his budget next week.

And the reason is that under Florida law, it's due 30 days before the session starts, so clock is ticking.

I think what'll be interesting to see is whether we can view his budget as another campaign document, will the elements in the budget be aimed at sort of getting attention from those Iowa voters?

So that's what I'll be watching closely next week.

- All right, she did pretty good.

Patrick, can you do a bit faster?

What's your story of the week?

- Congress voted to get rid of Congressman George Santos.

About time.

You know, thousands of pages of testimony against him and documents against him, and obviously some Republicans had to vote against him for it to be that way.

I hear in our delegation, it was a 14-14 vote from Florida delegation.

So, good riddance.

- All right.

And Trimmel, what's your story of the week?

- And breaking this week, the Florida Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Marsy's Law does not guarantee anonymity for law enforcement officers involved in lethal force incidents.

So that is really big.

The court clarified that Marsy's Law does not provide a categorical right for victims, including police officers, to withhold their names from disclosure.

So that's really big, and we'll see that play out going forward.

- All right, Trimmel, thank you, and thank all our panelists, and thank you, the viewer, for joining us.

Send us your comments at FTW@wedu.org and like us on Facebook.

You can view this and past shows online at WEDU.org or on the PBS app.

And "Florida This Week" is now available as a podcast.

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

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