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(gentle music) "Florida This Week" is made possible in part by support from the "Tampa Bay Times."

- Coming up next, Joe Biden takes office as the nation's new president.

He faces a mountain of problems, including the COVID crisis.

Former President Trump takes up residence in South Florida.

And what's to become of his political party?

And a Polk County Sheriff's deputy faces charges for making inflammatory statements about the January 6th Capitol assault.

Our guests are Alex Sink, former Democratic candidate for governor.

Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project.

And Attorney C.J.

Czaia, founder of UnidosNow.

Next on "Florida This Week."

(newsy orchestral music) Welcome back.

President Joe Biden took the oath of office on Wednesday on a bright January day in D.C., surrounded by his family and three ex-presidents, Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama.

Ceremony included the historic induction of the first person of color, Kamala Harris, to be sworn into the office of vice president.

The scene was a far cry from the mayhem two weeks before at the Capitol, when a large mob stormed inside the same building bent on stopping the electoral vote count and doing harm to members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence.

Biden acknowledged the nation was divided but he used his address to call for unity.

- On this January day, my whole soul is in this, bringing America together, uniting our nation.

And I ask every American to join me in this cause.

- [Rob] The former vice president inherits an economy brought down by the COVID outbreak, but recovering.

The national unemployment rate now stands at 6.7%, higher than what Donald Trump was handed, but lower than during the recession that Barack Obama inherited.

In addition to a poor employment picture, Biden is facing the COVID crisis, which is still not under control.

The nation's death rate is now over 400,000.

Florida's stands at 25,000.

There've been many problems in Florida with the vaccine rollout.

A high demand and, in many areas, a shortage of the vaccine.

In addition, people from out of state and Canada have jumped in line before full-time residents can get vaccinated.

And the fallout from the assault on the U.S. Capitol is not over.

At least eight people have been arrested here for participating in the January 6th invasion.

And this week, a Polk County deputy was arrested for making threats against federal officials following the riot at the Capitol.

- But the First Amendment allows us to rant and rave about anything we want.

It does not allow us to issue a written threat to injure, to hurt, to kill.

And that's what Heneen did.

So that's why he got locked up.

- Alex Sink is the former chief financial officer for the state of Florida.

She was the Democratic candidate for governor in 2010.

And she's active in promoting Florida in financial and business circles.

And she joins us now, Alex Sink, welcome back.

Great to see you.

- Hi, Rob, great to see you.

- So how optimistic are you that there'll be some unity after the inauguration of Joe Biden?

- Well, let me start out by saying, I think for many people, myself included, this week was a very cathartic experience starting on Tuesday night, when for the first time, our president acknowledged the death of 400,000 fellow Americans.

And to see even newscasters crying on screen, I was certainly at home crying.

It was just a moving moment.

I have a 30-year history, Rob, with Joe Biden.

And I truly think that he's the right person, at the right time, for this job.

And if anybody can try to bring our country together, and restore integrity, and dignity, and grace back to the office of the presidency, I think it's Joe Biden.

And the fact that Kamala Harris made history as the first woman, Black, Asian American to be vice president, I'm full of hope and optimism.

- So Alex, you have a lot of experience in business circles.

And I wanna ask you about the story that's out there that says that because of the invasion of the Capitol, and the refusal by some members of Congress in the Republican Party to distance themselves from that invasion, and distance themselves from the false story that the election was stolen, that corporations are gonna back away from the Republican Party and not donate at the level that they've been donating for the last 30 or 40 years.

You've been there.

Tell us what you think.

- I have.

I sat on the corporate side for 25 years making decisions about where PAC money was going to be spent.

And I have to applaud the corporations of this country for taking a step back.

The best I can say is they've hit the pause button and they're in a wait and see mode.

But, Rob, by the time we get a year from now, or maybe even less, corporations are always acting in their best interests and they're going to put their money where the power is.

And we'll have to see.

I doubt that it will last a very long time.

I think, you know, Rick Scott is heading up the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.

He might be impacted by no fundraising for the next couple of months, but I'm a little cynical when it comes to corporate donations in politics.

- Let's talk about the rollout of the vaccine here in Florida.

There've been some problems at the local level.

The phone lines are jammed.

Computers are crashing as people try to sign up for the COVID vaccine.

How would you rate the governor's response to the COVID crisis in getting the vaccines where they need to be?

- Well, I think it's mixed.

You know, he's put a stake in the ground that his priority for this state was going to be people 65 and older are going to be first in line.

Well, the fact that the rollout initially was open up the phone lines and everybody over the age of 65, which there are millions of us, I'm included, I predicted within 30 seconds the system would crash.

And sure enough, that's what it did.

So what we're looking for is more improvement, more streamlining.

And I agree with the governor, the problem is not necessarily the distribution at this point, but it's access to having sufficient vaccines.

And what we can't have is people not getting their second vaccine when they need to.

And people in my group, they just wanna know how do I sign up?

Make it efficient.

And it's definitely not efficient yet.

But let's wait and see whether or not they can, over the course of the next two or three weeks, can make the sign up more efficient for sure.

- One last question, we just have about 45 seconds.

Your party, the Democrats, have hired a new Executive Director, Manny Diaz.

And outside of Hillsborough County and the Tampa Bay area, there were some real problems for Democrats, especially in South Florida, where they didn't do as well as they thought they were gonna do.

What would be job one that you would tell Manny Diaz he should tackle?

- Well, to me, and I've told him this, because I know Manny pretty well.

What we need to do as Democrats is build from the grassroots up, we need to build county by county.

We need to have more counties like Hillsborough, in which, over course of the past four years, we've been able to flip to a majority on our County Commission.

So it's working the grassroots but it's also The most important thing, Rob, is to work on how we explain who we are as Democrats and what we stand for in a very positive way.

We are for working people, we're supporting families.

And all these labels that the Republicans have tried to put on us, like this ridiculous socialist label, we've gotta figure out a way to explain to Florida voters that that is not who we are.

That we are the party that is gonna support working families.

So that's my challenge to Manny Diaz.

- Alex Sink, thank you for coming back on "Florida This Week."

- Thanks, Rob.

(newsy music) - C.J.

Czaia has been a longtime advocate for comprehensive immigration reform.

He's the founder of UnidosNow, that's a group that advocates on behalf of Latinos in Manatee and Sarasota counties.

And C.J.

Czaia, welcome back to "Florida This Week."

Great to have you here.

- Always an honor.

Great show, great to be out there with the people.

- So President Biden is proposing an extensive immigration reform bill that includes an eight-year pathway to citizenship.

And for those living in the U.S. without legal status as of January 1st, Biden's planned pathway would allow for five years of temporary status and the opportunity to earn a Green Card upon meeting requirements, such as paying taxes and passing a background check.

Eligibility to apply for citizenship would follow three years later.

C.J., I know you're in favor of this, why?

- Well, let me tell you it's...

I wanna first say Biden's the right man for the times.

He has, you know, so much experience in Washington.

He was part of the Obama administration where the Democrats had two years of control of the House and Senate and they did nothing for immigration.

Obama was called, you know, a deporter in chief.

I mean, we have that struggle.

The Dems didn't do what they needed to.

Obama got on board later.

Biden understands he needs to do something now, day one, and he's done it.

We have a broken immigration system.

Great Republican leaders, like Ronald Reagan, understood that.

'86 was the last time we had comprehensive immigration reform.

We need comprehensive immigration reform, not by executive order.

That's why Barack took a while to actually sign it in.

There's a debate whether, you know, the president has that kind of authority.

In fact, he probably doesn't, but the Republicans acquiesced to it with what Trump did.

And what Biden's trying to do is get things back on track to make sure that Congress debates the issue and comes with a formal, comprehensive immigration reform.

That's how it has to be.

- So the National Senate Campaign Committee, headed by Rick Scott, put out a statement this week saying that, "The new Administration, Senate Democrats, are already embracing a radical immigration agenda of amnesty and open borders.

The proposal by President Biden would give amnesty to 11 million illegal immigrants with no effort whatsoever to secure the border.

The result, as anyone with a brain knows," says this Committee, "would be open borders and permanent cycle of illegal immigration and amnesty that would hurt hard-working Americans and the millions of legal immigrants working their way through the legal immigration process.

No Senate Democrat can claim to be a moderate with a straight face while embracing the amnesty and open borders agenda of the Far Left."

C.J., what do you say to that?

- You know, Hitler came to power by attacking and killing Jews.

This right wing conservative mantra we have.

I used to be a Republican.

There were really decent Republicans.

But to take a group, like immigrants, and to try to destroy them and use them for your own political gain, as Mr. Scott is the one who voted recently, with Cruz and the rest, to say that our democracy wasn't valid, our elections weren't valid, I think he's walking on eggs, he should not.

The system is broken.

When you're a United States Senator you represent all people, all our folks in this country, in our state.

And he has to remember that.

Don't start treading on something, start leading.

We have an immigration system that's broken.

No Democrat is saying open the borders.

Matter of fact, if you read what President Biden is suggesting, they're not doing that, they're just using common sense approach.

I mean, right now, if you say you come from a communist country, you just walk in here, like Cubans do, and they get billions of aid.

But if you seek asylum and you're really gonna get killed by say gangs in El Salvador, we send them back to their death.

A country that separates children from their mothers and fathers, shame on them.

I didn't realize that, you know, Jesus Christ was a U.S. citizen.

I don't know any person with a moral compass would ever be against immigration reform.

It is not opening the borders.

Democrats aren't communists.

They're not taking over this country.

If there was anybody, it's the right wing and Senator Scott.

He needs to be careful.

He's gonna be called to the carpet for what he did.

Un-American.

- What happens if we don't get immigration reform?

What happens to these 11 million people?

And do they pay taxes right now?

- Yeah, of course, they do.

And, I mean, just think about it in the state of Florida.

I was very involved to make sure E-Verify failed here.

And the reason is not just that I'm in love with undocumented people.

They're not breaking the law by being here, by the way.

They're not illegals.

I really hate that term.

There have no right to an attorney if they go through the immigration process.

But the biggest industry that would be affected is agriculture.

Billions of dollars.

We would lose our tomatoes and our oranges, because the people that pick and work in the fields are undocumented.

It would destroy Florida's agricultural economy.

We need the workers to come and go home.

And a lot of them would.

Not everybody is seeking the United States to stay and live on the American dream.

They wanna work and make money.

So we need immigration reform for farm workers.

We need immigration reform for the DACA kids.

I go around with this picture of a two-year old.

And it says, you know, "Citizen or criminal?"

What crime did this child do to be considered illegal?

I mean, they've been here all their life.

These are the dreamers, the DACA kids.

We need comprehensive immigration reform.

It needs to come from Congress or else we're gonna have one executive order after another, after another.

And we give so much power to the presidency and taking it away from Congress.

Senator Scott needs to grow up and be a leader of our state, because he is going to destroy agriculture to business.

He's gonna destroy the immigrant population here that contributes so much in taxes and construction in all areas.

And that's the truth.

We need immigrants in Florida.

- C.J., thanks a lot for coming on "Florida This Week."

An important conversation, we'll do it again.

Thank you for coming on.

- It's an honor, sir.

Thank you, sir.

(newsy music) - Rick Wilson is an author, commentator, political consultant, and editor-at-large at the Daily Beast.

He's also a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a group of Republicans who have challenged what they see as the extreme behavior of former President Trump.

Rick Wilson, great to see you, welcome back.

- Thanks for having me back.

- All right, so there's a lot of politicians here in Florida who would like to be president, Rick Scott, Ron DeSantis, Marco Rubio.

What's your take on what they're thinking about the upcoming impeachment trial?

- Well, look, I think all of them in their secret heart of hearts, they wanna have it both ways.

They would love to have Donald Trump impeached.

They would love it, love it, love it.

Marco Rubio would love it.

Rick Scott would love it.

Ron DeSantis would love it.

Because then they could steal all of the momentum of Trumpism, in their heads.

They could say, "I'm the real inheritor of the MAGA base.

And Donald Trump was done bad.

He was done wrong by those evil liberals in Washington."

And at the same time, clearing away a tremendous obstacle to their futures.

Because Donald Trump is going to say that he's running in 2024.

He's gonna hold the line and say, "I'm running, I'm running, I'm running."

He's gonna raise hundreds of millions of dollars from his supporters because he's gonna claim that he's gonna run in '24.

These guys won't have that money.

Trump will be there like an eclipse over the political sun that they want shining on them, until that moment.

So they would love to see Donald Trump impeached.

They would love it, privately in their heart of hearts.

- But could Rick Scott and Marco Rubio vote to convict President Trump and not lose that Trump base?

- Absolutely not.

Neither one of them will vote to convict Trump no matter how clear the evidence, no matter how much they should.

They have completely collapsed, in terms of their own moral landscape, on whether or not Trump is a candidate they can support publicly or whether they can take the political heat of standing up for what's right.

They can't, they will not.

Neither one of those men will vote to convict Donald Trump.

It will not happen, no matter how clear the evidence is.

Look, we're just learning today that the Trump campaign paid the organizers of the rally $2.7 million.

We're learning today that this is not just a conspiracy against the United States of America and an attempted seditious act of insurgency, but that it was paid for by the Trump campaign.

These people will look at the evidence.

They will stare it straight in the eye and they will go, "Eh, can't help you."

- All right, so let's talk about the future of the Republican Party, especially as it affects Florida.

Ex-president Trump now is saying that he might wanna form a Patriot Party.

What happens to the Republican Party nationwide and here in Florida?

Does it divide, does it split?

- Well, the party has already fundamentally split.

The party had an awful lot of voters from the suburbs, an awful lot of voters who are more educated, and an awful lot of voters who are younger, already decide they can't be a part of a Trumpian-style Republican Party, which is definitionally authoritarian, which is definitionally driven by things that aren't about the traditional Republican principles, like limited government, the rule of law, the Constitution, strong foreign policy, you know, economic liberty.

They can't be for those things because Trumpism is not those things.

So if it's split, if Trump split the Republican Party into his Patriot Party, or his Trump Party, whatever you wanna call it, Make America Great Party, whatever you wanna call it, he will immediately take 50 to 60% of the current Republican base with him.

They will move, they will go.

It will kill the GOP.

As I have predicted, everything Trump touches dies, it does.

And the Republican Party may soon be the next victim of that curse.

- So just getting back to the impeachment trial.

Does Mitch McConnell wanna see Trump out of the way for 2024?

Is he trying to clear the deck?

- Yes.

- Tell me, how would that work?

- Sure, Mitch McConnell, what he wants for 2022, when he's gonna try to recapture the Senate, is to be able to reposition the party and say, "Last four years never happened.

Ignore it, look the other way.

What?

That was crazy.

That was a drunk weekend in Tijuana."

And say, "This is the responsible, grown up Republican Party.

We're about taxes, and spending, and limited government," bu-tu-di-tu-du.

It's not true.

He knows it, we know it, the American people know it.

But he's gonna try very, very strenuously to frame the Republican (internet latency distorts Rick's voice) a post-Trump fashion as soon as he can.

- Hmm, so, all right.

Let's talk about a potential matchup between Ivanka Trump and Marco Rubio in 2022.

Does she get in the race, do you think, against Marco Rubio?

- Well, she is certainly doing a lot of the groundwork.

There's a very senior Republican leader in the state of Florida who is offering and making plans to take her around to meet county chairmen, to meet Republican activists, to talk to folks around the state.

So if they're not planning to run, they're sure fooling me.

Because she is clearly in a position where she sees that if she got in a primary with Marco Rubio she would win the Republican primary.

Because, you know, no matter how much Marco was good to Trump, and no matter how many times Marco kissed up to Trump, or no matter how many times Marco, you know, who I used to admire tremendously, no matter how many times Marco looked away from Trump's excesses, and crimes, and constitutional affronts, and tweeted elliptical Bible verses, Marco knows that if Donald Trump says to his supporters one time, "Little Marco was was never with me.

Ivanka should represent Florida," he'll lose the Republican primary to her.

Absolutely.

It won't even be a blink.

In fact, Marco may run for president because he can't run for Senate if she gets in that race.

- All right, so what role will the Lincoln Project play in 2022 here in Florida?

- Well, look, we've got a lot of work to do ahead.

We said we were gonna go after Trump and eliminate the threat of... (dog barks) I'm sorry, my dog is barking in the other room.

We're gonna eliminate the threat of Donald Trump.

We were gonna go after Trumpism, which is an ongoing project.

And we were gonna target Trump's enablers.

We'll see how that race shapes up.

We want a lot of people in Florida who violated their oath of office.

Who said that they swore to uphold the Constitution.

And yet, were part of the sedition caucus in the House.

Rick Scott was a part of the sedition caucus in the Senate.

And as the chairman of the NRSC, he's gonna have to answer to a lot of corporate donors he would like to have money from.

When they ask him, "What was it you backed?"

Overturning the votes of tens of millions of African American voters in this country.

Because that is... Let's not fool ourselves.

What they wanted to do in the Senate by delaying the Electoral College result, they wanted to do what the Trump lawsuit sought, which was to disqualify and to erase the votes of tens of millions of African American voters.

And Rick Scott was one of the few U.S. senators who was in favor of erasing the votes in the new Jim Crow caucus, of which he is now the finance chairman of the new Jim Crow caucus, to erase the votes of tens of millions of African Americans.

That is something that I think Americans find outrageous.

I know that corporate America, we've been talking to them the last couple of weeks about this, they are running away from Rick Scott, and the Republicans in the Senate, like crazy, because they don't want their brands attached to a group of people, like Rick Scott, and Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, and Tommy Tuberville, and Marsha Blackburn, and Cindy Hyde-Smith, who set out explicitly to disqualify the votes of tens of millions of African Americans.

- Rick Wilson, thank you for coming back on "Florida This Week."

Great to have you here.

- Great being with you.

See you again soon.

(newsy music) - Finally, it was a socially distanced, but enthusiastic, finale on the evening of the inauguration of Joe Biden.

Here's the way the evening ended with Katy Perry's song "Firework."

Thank you for watching.

Please stay safe, we'll see you next week.

♪ Baby you're a "Firework" ♪ ♪ Come on, show 'em what you're worth ♪ ♪ Make them go ah, ah, ah ♪ ♪ As you shoot across the sky ♪ ♪ Baby you're a "Firework" ♪ ♪ Come on, let your colors burst ♪ ♪ Make them go ah, ah, ah ♪ ♪ You're gonna leave 'em going awe, awe, awe ♪ ♪ Oh, boom, boom, boom ♪ ♪ Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon ♪ ♪ Oh, boom, boom, boom ♪ ♪ Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ (soaring orchestral music) (fireworks exploding) - [Announcer] "Florida This Week" is a production of WEDU, who is solely responsible for its content.

(newsy orchestral music)