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

- [Rob Lorei] Coming up next, Donald Trump starts his third bid for President, setting up a likely conflict with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Florida's Rick Scott fails to topple Mitch McConnell.

Republicans won decisively in last week's statewide elections.

Can the Democrats ever be competitive again?

And there's an effort in Tallahassee to further clamp down on abortion.

Political insights next on "Florida This Week".

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week, Natalie King is a political consultant with RSA Consulting and a Republican.

Maya Brown is a political consultant and a Democrat.

Eric Deggans is the TV critic for National Public Radio, and Mitch Perry is a senior reporter for the Florida Phoenix.

Nice to have you all on the set.

Nice to see you.

- Thank you.

- Good to be here.

- Well, in South Florida this week, Former President Donald Trump, who was twice impeached, and who still falsely claims the 2020 election was stolen, and who stood by while violent protestors invaded the US Capitol, announced he's running again for President in 2024.

- In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for President of the United States.

(crowd cheers) - [Rob] Trump made the announcement at his mansion near Palm Beach, in a room full of advisors and conservative influencers.

It was a rather subdued speech, in which he tried to stir nostalgia in the crowd for his time in office.

He decried President Biden's handling of the economy and promised, as he did in 2016, to make America better.

- I am running because I believe the world has not yet seen the true glory of what this nation can be.

- [Rob] Of the three major cable networks, MSNBC did not carry the speech at all, CNN carried it up until Trump announced, and Fox News, the network which has been most reliably pro-Trump, temporarily broke away.

- Let's get some quick snap reaction.

- [Rob] Fox then interrupted Trump's remarks for about 12 minutes.

And despite recent news stories that the Murdoch family empire, which owns Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post, was backing away from Trump, the on-air commentators during the speech were still in the Trump camp.

- Sean, the construct of the speech is pitch-perfect.

If he keeps on like this tonight, he is unbeatable in 2024.

- [Rob] The Murdoch family has reportedly told Trump that it will not support him this time and is leaning towards supporting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for President in 2024.

Trump has taken aim at the conservative cable TV outlet and he's begun criticizing DeSantis.

DeSantis was asked this week about Trump.

- Now one of the things I've learned, like learned in this job, is when you're leading, when you're getting things done, yeah, you take incoming fire.

That's just the nature of it.

- Eric, you pay close attention to TV.

How important is it that whoever is the Republican nominee have the full support of the Fox Network?

- Well, I think you have to be careful in how you look at this.

Certainly, it's notable the way some of the arms of News Corp, which owns Fox, seem to have turned on Trump.

But you've got to remember that in 2015 and 2016, Rupert Murdoch wasn't a Trump fan, and those news outlets weren't on board with him then, either.

I think if he shows that he can retain control of the Republican Party and he remains the front-runner, they're gonna get in line.

And there are people, big stars at Fox, who remain Trump supporters, as you noted, like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

If we see those guys turn on him, then I think we're gonna see something really significant.

What's interesting to me about all of this though, is that this is Democrats' sort of dream, you know, (laughs) to have someone as disruptive as Trump, who scares independent voters, who even may scare some moderate Republicans.

As long as he stays in the race, I think, you know, Democrats are going to be happy.

- Natalie, I want to ask you about that point, but I want to play some video.

This happened in New York City just on the same day that President Trump was announcing his renewed candidacy.

This was an anti-DeSantis protest by Trump supporters.

Let's play the video.

- [Crowd Chanting] U-S-A!

U-S-A!

U-S-A!

U-S-A!

U-S-A!

U-S-A!

U-S-A!

U-S-A!

- This is very disrespectful in the Arab states.

Ron has gotten too big for his britches.

- He's out.

- He has plenty of time to gain wisdom.

- Trump or death!

- Let let him stay in Florida for a while.

- Natalie, that word, "Trump or death," that was a small protest, but those were Trump supporters in New York City, right across from Trump Tower.

How does the Republican Party keep it together?

How do you prevent an all-out internal party war?

- Well, I think, one, we step back and we take a deep breath, right?

I think that we've still got a lot of things going on here in Florida that our governor's focused on.

I think that whether it is, you know, coming off of our election here, the fact that we still have elections ongoing within the Senate, the fact that we've had hurricanes back-to-back that we're contending with, session starts, in effect, next week for us, I think that it's about being paced and being patient and having that, you know, really what the governor has already done.

I mean, in all honesty, he said, "Let's chill out, guys."

I don't think that this infighting and this war has to be something that we, you know, continue to feed energy to.

I think we continue to govern as a state and we make sure that we're getting the job done for Floridians first, and then we wait to see what the governor's gonna do.

Because, quite frankly, if he goes to run for President, he still has some hurdles he has to get over.

Right now we have a law here in the state of Florida that prevents him from quitting, or he would have to quit in order to run for higher office.

So if, you know, the Resign-to-Run bill is in place and that's not adjusted in the legislature, you know, we've got other things we have to look at as the state of Florida.

- Mm-hmm, and DeSantis is very smart by not really jumping into the fray right away.

He's not really answered Trump directly.

- Right, and I think you're gonna see that being his strategic plan on the messaging.

This is not a fight he needs to engage in.

He's going to continue to stay his course.

He's gonna continue to lead as he has done.

And he's gonna continue to deliver for the Florida constituents that he serves.

- Mitch, I want to play something that happened way back in 2018.

When Adam Putnam was the leading candidate for Florida governor on the Republican side, President Trump got involved in the race and endorsed Ron DeSantis.

And let's look at an ad that Ron DeSantis put out in 2018 as he was running for election.

This is what he said about Donald Trump.

- Everyone knows my husband Ron DeSantis is endorsed by President Trump, but he's also an amazing Dad.

Ron loves playing with the kids.

- Build the wall!

- He reads stories.

- Then Mr. Trump said, "You're fired."

I love that part.

- He's teaching Madison to talk.

- Make America great again.

- So that was an ad from just four years ago.

How does DeSantis divide himself from Trump now?

How does he take him on, without hurting his chances in the party?

- Well, that's a great question because we're all looking to see how that plays out.

As Natalie said, he's really staying out of the fray right now, smartly, but he will have to engage at some point.

And the presidential race has started right now.

Trump, for his different reasons, started, you know, came out November 15th and the race is on.

So Ron DeSantis, you know, he's balancing it out right now.

He's trying to stay above the fray.

He can only do that for so long.

You know, let's face it, I think the reason, one of the reasons Trump got in so early also is the fact that, forget about his legal issues, is that he can kind of freeze out some of the other candidates who have discussed running, but they, some of 'em have said, "I won't run if Trump runs," though Ron DeSantis has never said that.

And Ron DeSantis has proven with his raising over $200 million, the most in United States history for a gubernatorial candidate, that he can raise big money nationally.

He's got $60 million sitting in his PAC right now.

He's got to try to figure out a way to put into a federal PAC and run for President that way.

So he can wait, you know, a while before getting into this.

But we're all, we don't know how he's going to, how he's gonna play out with this because you're right, he's got to be concerned about not alienating the MAGA base that is part of Ron DeSantis's base.

And I did a story this past week for the Phoenix, talking to a lot of Republicans here who are so divided, Florida Republicans, because they love them both.

And some were like, you know, "I wish Ron would stay in and be governor and then he can run in four or six years, whatever, and Trump can be our guy now."

But this is Ron DeSantis's time and he's not gonna wait four more years.

- Maya, Eric said that this is kind of the dream of Republicans.

I talked to one Democrat this week, or this is the dream of Democrats, and I talked to one Democrat this week who said this is gonna be a bloodbath between DeSantis and Trump.

Do you think that's what's going to happen?

Is the party going to be really divided?

- Yeah, listen, one thing I think I learned from this whole thing is that there's no permanent enemies or friends in politics.

And particularly looking at this situation between Trump and DeSantis, we see that primary voters, folks who are Super Voters, are the ones driving these polls relative to Trump's name ID and his affinity right now.

But that certainly is not the reflection of the general electorate.

And I think across the country, we saw last Tuesday that Democrats made big wins across the board in states that I think were off the board for us.

And so I think if Trump comes out of this as their primary, the presidential preference primary, it's gonna be good for Democrats for sure to come back.

- One thing I wanted to point out is that if Ron DeSantis does hesitate to engage, the danger is that Trump will define him before he starts talking.

And that's what Trump did back in 2016, when he faced this field of 16 or 17 other contenders for the nomination.

He defined many of them before they even got a chance to open their mouths, especially Jeb Bush, "low-energy Jeb Bush."

That's the danger for Ron DeSantis, right?

- But right now, though, you're right, Eric, but DeSantis is really, although he is not as famous as Donald Trump, he's become this national star and is pretty well-known.

And you see this in the polls even right now, not just in Florida, but nationally, especially after last Tuesday, how the "Sanctimonious" label doesn't seem to have affected him too much.

And people are mocking Trump for it in many ways.

He's incredibly insecure right now.

And you protest too much, Mr. President.

- Natalie, there is a super PAC running ads in Iowa right now on behalf of Ron DeSantis.

Is there any doubt that Ron DeSantis is intent on running this year, as opposed to waiting four years?

- I don't have any doubt personally, and I do hope that he considers running.

I think that he has demonstrated significant leadership.

I think that, you know, he may by waiting, have, you know, given or may give to the Trump campaign opportunity to try to define him.

But I think that, quite frankly, his work that he'll be actually doing as governor, I think that he will be telling his story through his actions.

And I don't know that he needs to worry about being the candidate DeSantis, because he's Governor DeSantis.

- And Maya, Democrats have their own problem.

There's a move to get Joe Biden not to run for reelection.

- Listen, I think it was very clear, especially in Florida, kind of, that we need something different, right?

Four years ago we had a candidate, Andrew Gillum, his personal issues aside, that really motivated people.

And our party likes to be inspired.

We like to be motivated and have some sort of personal connection to our candidates.

And I think that's what we lost this time around.

And I think that, you know, President Biden is going to have to think about his surrogate program if he intends to run for reelection.

- Okay, well, Florida US Senator Rick Scott failed in his attempt this week to oust Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell as the Republican leader in the US Senate.

The vote was not close, 37 to 10, with one senator voting "Present".

Before the vote, Scott, who is a former Florida governor, told reporters that he was not satisfied with the status quo.

Scott is pushing an 11-point plan to "Rescue America", as he calls it, which includes sun-setting all federal laws every five years, including Social Security and Medicare.

In 2000, Scott's hospital company was fined $1.7 billion for defrauding Medicare, the largest such fine in US history.

Scott also headed the National Republican Senate Campaign Committee this year, where he was unsuccessful in overturning Democratic control of the upper body.

Mitch, that was a controversial move by Rick Scott.

If you're going to go for the king, you've got to kill him, you can't just miss.

And he missed.

- Yeah, it was weird, right?

I mean, we hadn't heard anything about him really trying to do this until after the election, where Republicans lost.

And it was his job, as the leader of the Republican Senate Campaign Committee, to get the Republicans the lead over the Democrats.

And that didn't happen.

They're gonna be minus one or maybe minus two.

So then he fails that one job, and then he is gonna go take down the king, as you said, who's been there for decades, Mitch McConnell, in terms of leading the Senate Republicans.

Rick Scott is an incredibly ambitious guy.

And you know, I think Florida Democrats, at their peril, have underestimated him over the years, right?

He's a guy who nobody, he was never in politics until 2010, he knocks out Bill McCollum, wins by one point over Alex Sink, comes back in four years, beats Charlie Crist by one point, and then four years ago, beats out Bill Nelson by a half a point, or less than that even.

He's had a lot of money, he's clearly ambitious.

People say he wants to be President.

That's probably not gonna happen, 'cause there's two other Florida guys ahead of him right now for this next cycle.

So this is another thing he can try to be, but there was no really work done here.

I think that he wanted to push, and other senators, including Marco Rubio, wanted to delay this vote a month to maybe try to build up some momentum.

There may be, because you know, Mitch McConnell was 80 years old.

We saw Nancy Pelosi step down the other day.

There's a lot of these leaders that are, maybe they need to move on.

And Rick Scott sensed that, but maybe he's not the vehicle for that.

But there was really no way possible in such a short time that he was able to supersede Mitch McConnell.

- Natalie, there was controversy behind Scott, John Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire, said this week that Rick Scott was partially responsible for the Republican problems nationwide because he did advocate sunsetting Social Security and Medicare.

You know, is that the wrong move, especially for somebody who's elected from Florida, to say Social Security and Medicare ought to be sunsetted every five years?

- Well, I don't think that the sunset is inherently the problem, because you can, it's a renewal.

It's, you know, it depends on how you frame it, right?

So I think that having that accountability where you are looking at our policies, we do it here in the state of Florida often, you know, we have policies that are sunset, but it's really just a reauthorization.

So I don't know, I think that the messaging did kind of get astray for them.

I don't know that inherently that the actual looking at policy on a regular basis is a bad thing.

We do it here often.

But I think that the challenge that we have is that, to your point Mitch, is that we've got some folks who've been around a long time.

I mean, when we're starting to count decades on top of decades, maybe new blood is important.

But again, maybe Rick wasn't the path and he didn't have the time to kind of do the alignment, to kind of build the coalescence of the membership.

I think that a delay would've been smart just on other fronts, as far as not having a senate, you know, complete house or you know, chamber, set.

But I think that that whole new blood thing is an important conversation to be having.

So with Nancy Pelosi stepping away, looking at seeing if Hakeem Jeffries can step in.

You know, we also had, you know, some other Florida talent who was looking to make some moves.

I mean, Byron Donalds out of Florida stepped in to look at the potential of putting himself forward for leadership.

He, too, failed.

But I will tell you, I am so proud that he attempted.

Because I think that we're seeing these dynamic young leaders coming into Congress, and they're really willing to work hard and to help move forward, maybe some stale energy that we've had in place for many decades.

- Okay, well, the Miami Herald reports that Hispanic support for Republicans in last week's election, and for Governor Ron DeSantis, in particular, was crucial to the GOP's decisive and crushing victory over Democrats this year.

The margin of victory for DeSantis by nearly 20 percentage points has launched him onto the national political stage and the potential 2024 presidential run.

DeSantis won the Democratic stronghold of Miami-Dade County, which is majority Hispanic, by 11 points this year.

The newspaper reports that in Hillsborough County, DeSantis won 54% of votes in majority Hispanic precincts.

And in Broward County, a deeply Democratic area where the Hispanic population has grown quickly in recent years, DeSantis won slightly more than half the votes in majority Hispanic precincts.

So Maya, this trend has been happening the last few years in the Democratic Party.

Some people have said this week that Manny Diaz, the chair of the state party, ought to resign, ought to be replaced.

What's your fix?

How do you fix this?

- Well, listen, I think that one huge kind of glaring remark that I got out of last Tuesday is that Latino voters aren't a monolith, one, and we can't assume what party that they're gonna go for.

And I think, you know, one of the issues in terms of messaging, that Natalie was talking about earlier, is that we should have hit home more directly and hit it over the head over and over again about the economy, folks who are struggling at the pumps, folks who are struggling trying to pay their property insurance premiums that we're hiking up.

And I don't think we did a good job as a party messaging that, and we certainly didn't have the best messengers to do so.

So I think our path forward is narrowing the map, right?

Like, define success early, let's get really strategic and get really specific on some house races that we can win back.

Let's try to flip back the County Commission in Hillsborough, right?

Like, and define those things and say, "Hey guys, this is what we delivered for you in terms of solutions, and trust us to bring this thing home."

- Eric, the demographic trends would indicate that if you want to win, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, you've got to reach out to people of color, including the Latino community here in Florida.

- Well, I would say the thing that concerns me about what we're hearing about what happened in South Florida is that the Hispanic voters are being referred to as a monolith.

And Hispanic voters in South Florida are very different than the Hispanic voters in California or New York.

And I think what we've seen in this state is that Republicans have done a great job of courting that vote.

But, you know, you have Cubans and you have types of Hispanic voters who are all really friendly towards the Republican Party because of how they came to the country, the way that they were received officially, the government opened their arms to them.

That's different than the experience that other groups that are considered Hispanic voters had.

And so they have a different relationship to the Republican Party.

Some Hispanic voters feel demonized by the Republican Party, especially somebody like Trump, who announced his candidacy in 2016 taking aim at undocumented immigrants.

So I think it's gonna be hard for DeSantis to translate the strategy that's working in Florida nationally, because Hispanic groups in New York and California are very different than the groups that we're seeing in the state that turned for him in this election.

- And I think, you know, what's very interesting is like when we saw the issue with DeSantis flying migrants up to Martha's Vineyard, that was going to move Hispanic voters in the election, and it really didn't.

And I'm curious if you all, and we'll talk after this on maybe why or why that didn't happen.

- Okay, well now that Republicans have won super-majorities in both houses of the state legislature, the State Senate is considering stricter abortion limits during the upcoming legislative session.

Politico reports that incoming Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo of Naples says she would support restricting abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, as long as there are exceptions for victims of rape and incest.

Florida currently bans the procedure at 15 weeks, but allows no exceptions except to save a mother's life, prevent serious injury, or if the fetus has a fatal physical irregularity.

Natalie, you're up in Tallahassee a lot.

How serious do you think Republicans are about further limiting abortion?

- I definitely think that it's gonna be on the table this legislative session, and I don't know that that is necessarily inherent to the fact they have a super-majority.

I think that was going to be true, regardless.

But I do know that Senate President Passidomo has been consistent in that she cares very much in regards to this policy that there be an exception for incest and rape.

And so she's been very clear that she is not necessarily, she's open to the 12 weeks, but she also is very clear that she wants those two exceptions to be included.

And I think that that's an important differentiator because she has said, "if there is a bill".

She has not made a commitment to that.

I think that we will see a bill.

We have Senator Grall who came over and was the House sponsor previously, and she's now a Senator.

You have Senator Baxley, who was just this week named as the pro tempore, who is the second-in-charge in the Senate.

So I think that there's gonna be some effort there.

But I think you also have to recognize there has to be a dance partner, and you know, Representative Renner, who is taking over the speakership, has been very clear as well.

He's not gone on record since the election, but he's been on record in the past and he's been very clear that he will do what the will of his body is, and he will let his members make those decisions for themselves.

And we know that the governor's gonna be looking for certain issues that, especially if he is running for president, right, that he's going to use as part of the package of policy that he's gonna use to elevate that conversation around his leadership.

But I think that the most important thing is to understand that, you know, this is not a foregone conclusion, and there still will be the negotiations that always happen in Tallahassee.

- Yeah, Mitch, we just have 20 seconds, but this was part of the problem for Republicans nationally.

- Absolutely, and I think it's gonna be a problem a little bit for Governor DeSantis this session, because I think there's gonna be pressure to go beyond 12 weeks.

You're hearing about six weeks, maybe even going all the way with no abortion, which I don't think will happen here.

But look, an analysis last year of the 15-week ban showed that 90% of abortions in Florida in 2021 were done in the first 12 weeks anyway.

So if you're somebody who believes we should not have any abortions at all in Florida, I don't see how you're gonna be okay with a 15-week ban or even a 12-week ban.

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

And Natalie, let's start with you.

Your other big story of the week.

- Well, we will be up in Tallahassee next week.

And so that, of course, will consume many of us right before Thanksgiving.

So thank you very much for that.

(panel laughs) But I think the big story, and it's not just next week or this week, I think it's going to be over the next several months, years, is that we have youth that are struggling with behavioral health and mental health issues.

Whether that is distinctly because of COVID impacts or other things that are going on in their world, we are seeing impacts in our educational environments that is significant.

And as you start to couple that with things like an Adderall shortage, I think that we are gonna have to, as a community, start to really pay attention to that.

- Okay.

Maya, your other big story.

- Yeah, listen, I know that all of us are probably reminiscing on Twitter these days, but certainly the Twitter potentially going away is a concern.

I think that that has been a tool for political, digital organizing for years.

And especially as we're thinking about such a polarizing election cycle coming up, what does that mean for the impact for especially young people and Gen Z-ers too across the country to be together and try to organize and push back on interesting policy?

- Eric, your other big story.

- Well, you know, I said I was gonna talk about something else before we started, but I actually think people should keep an eye on their local media.

Because now that we're past the election cycle, these TV stations will lose a lot of the revenue that they've gotten from all of these attack ads that ran.

And what I'm hearing from people in local media is that they're really concerned that cuts are gonna come, because they're concerned about an advertising slowdown if there's a recession.

And you know, we already have situations where there's news deserts, local news deserts, where people have a hard time getting local news.

And local television news is a shadow of what it was, say 5 or 10 years ago, when I was working at the Tampa Bay Times.

So I would say people should keep an eye on seeing their local TV news and their local news diminished, because they don't have that revenue coming from political ads anymore.

- Who knew there was an upside to political ads?

(panel laughs) All right, Mitch, your other big story.

- Yeah, in the US Senate this week, on a procedural vote, the US Senate voted to enshrine same-sex marriage into federal law, and they got 12 senators to cross the aisle, as it were.

And this is definitely gonna happen now in the lame duck session.

Two of the senators who voted against it were our two Republican senators, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott.

Rick Scott said in a statement afterwards, he says quote, "I proudly support the gay community of Florida and will fight for a stronger bill that protects all Americans."

He said there needed to be more religious liberty, you know, provisions in there.

There was one put in there for Republicans to support it.

It wasn't good enough for Senator Scott.

- All right, well thank you all for a great show.

It's so nice to see you in person, too.

And thank you for joining us.

Send us your comments at FTW@wedu.org.

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

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

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

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] "Florida This Week" is a production of WEDU, who is solely responsible for its content.