- [Narrator] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, - [Narrator] Florida This Week is made possible in part by support from the Tampa Bay Times.

- [Rob] Coming up next America's democracy came under assault this week as militant mobs invaded the U.S. Capitol and forced members of Congress to flee.

After the assault, the Electoral College count was eventually held and Joe Biden recognized as the winner of the Presidential election.

But many Florida Congress members descended.

Our panelists are, democratic Congressman Charlie Crist.

Long-time Republican advisor, Mac Stipanovich.

Columnist Diane Roberts and Lawrence Mower of the Tampa Bay Times Capital Bureau.

Right now on a special edition of Florida This Week.

(upbeat music) - Welcome back, the nation's Capitol building, the heart of our democratic institutions was overrun and invaded this week by thousands of people who declared their loyalty to one man, Donald Trump.

- [Narrator] The mob assembled Wednesday morning, and heard from speaker after speaker, who falsely claimed that the Presidential election had been stolen.

They were egged on by the President himself.

- We're gonna walk down to the Capitol, (crowd shouting) and we're gonna cheer on our brave Senators and congressmen and women.

And we'll probably not gonna be cheering so much for some of them.

(crowd laughing) Because you'll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong.

- [Narrator] The crowd then moved toward the U.S. Capitol.

Where a smaller than usual security force was easily overtaken by the extremists who included QAnon supporters, Neo-Nazis and White nationalists, many waving Trump flags.

Multiple nooses appeared near the Capitol on Wednesday including one made out of cables from Associated Press camera equipment that had been stolen by the demonstrators.

Once the Capitol security was breached, Vice President Mike Pence was hustled out by Secret Service and Congress shut down.

The crowd occupied the Capitol, later, they were gently removed.

Congress returned that night to continue the Electoral College vote count that had been interrupted by the invasion.

Florida's US Senators were split with Rick Scott voting to overturn the election results and Marco Rubio voting to certify the election.

All the Democrats in the house certified the results, most Republicans did not.

But in the end after a day like no other in our lifetimes, Joe Biden was finally declared the winner of the Electoral College vote.

- Among those calling for the removal of President Trump this week, Congressman Charlie Crist he represents Florida's 13th congressional district which covers Pinellas County from Clearwater to St. Petersburg.

He was also Florida's 44th Governor, previously served as the State's Attorney General and Education Commissioner and he served in the Florida Senate.

Congressman Crist welcome back to Florida This Week.

Thank you for coming on.

- Rob it's great to be with you, thank you, sir.

- Did members of Congress feel like their lives were in danger on Wednesday?

- No question about it, I mean, my goodness, you know five people have now lost their lives as a result of what happened last Wednesday.

That's a shocking, disappointing to say the least and just unconscionable.

I don't think any of us Rob could have imagined what we witnessed Wednesday and it was horrific.

And I can't wait for the new administration to come into the office with Joe Biden's leadership.

- You've called for the 25th amendment to be implemented.

The President be removed on Monday, as many outlets are reporting.

The house will introduce Articles of Impeachment.

I take it that you're in favor of Articles of Impeachment.

Why do you think that Trump's should be removed?

- I think he's unstable, I think he did incite as you said in your introductory piece, what happened on Wednesday in the United States Capitol.

It's an amazing series of events Rob, and we're at that point where, you know, people say it's only X number of days before he's out of office.

Well, let's remember Wednesday was only one day and it took only one day for what we all witnessed to happen.

Any more one days that he's in office is a danger to the future of America.

- What's the worst, what do you fear if the President were to remain in office for the next week and a half, what's the worst he could do?

- A lot and you know, I almost don't want to speculate on what the worst could be.

But I did see recently the speaker Pelosi communicated with the Head of the Joint Chiefs to try to make sure that he doesn't have the Nuclear Codes.

That all speaks for itself.

- This mob that invaded the Capitol.

How would you describe the ideology that they represent?

- It's hard for me to describe because it's so irrational.

It's hard for me to ever describe something that I don't comprehend or understand.

And when you have people that are trying to overthrow our own government, the most precious government, beacon of freedom on the face of the planet, in the history of the planet, I can't, I can't describe that in any rational way whatsoever.

It's all irrational, unconscionable and deplorable to me.

It's beyond the pale.

- You think our democracy is at risk now that you've got, you know 20 or 40,000 people come to DC on Wednesday doing this, a portion of them going into the Capitol and then you've got 45% of Republicans rank and file Republicans saying they don't believe the election results is our democracy at risk?

- Democracy is always at risk.

I mean, it is something that we always need to be vigilant about protecting, about cherishing about appreciating that we have it in America.

So it's always at risk quote unquote but it's been more at risk this past week than we've seen in probably our country's history.

And so I think people take this extremely seriously as we all should, that's why I've called for the President to be removed from office.

That's why I think we are entering Articles of Impeachment as well, if not through the 25th amendment being able to do this.

And I think there's never been a more serious juncture in our lives and nor a greater threat to democracy than what we've witnessed this week from, you know I take an oath, the President took an oath that we would protect the United States Constitution from all enemies foreign or domestic.

Well, we saw a lot of domestic terrorism this week and that's very sad.

- What charges would you like brought against those people that did enter the Capitol illegally?

- Well, I don't know what the specific ones would be but clearly, you know, there was an assault on the seat of democracy on the planet and in our nation's Capitol and damage done, vandalism, lives were lost.

So there's a whole array of different offenses that could be brought to bear here and need to be.

- There's some chatter on Right Wing websites right now saying that the same group of people that was there on Wednesday plan to return for the inauguration.

I don't know if you've seen some of that reporting but do you think that right now from what we know is the inauguration gonna be a safe event?

- Well, who knows?

I mean, how can you establish that or state that without question?

That's all kind of been thrown out.

That's of course what we hope and we pray for by the grace of God, that it's a safe event.

Hopefully after last week a more peaceful transition of power.

But, you know, I hope for that Rob, I pray for that.

That's what America deserves, that's what the world should see.

And it should be a peaceful solemn event of a new administration, thank God coming into office.

- Well, Charlie Crist I'm glad you're safe.

Thanks for coming on Florida This Week.

- A pleasure sir, great to be with you.

Thank you so much.

(upbeat music) - For 30 years, Attorney Mac Stipanovich has been a major figure in the Republican Party of Florida.

He practiced law in Tallahassee, advocated for clients before the legislature, the Governor and the cabinet.

He was the Florida Executive Director for the Reagan Bush campaign in 1984 Chief of staff for Governor Bob Martinez and Senior Advisor to Jeb Bush in 1994.

And he joins us right now.

Mac Stipanovich great to see you, thank you for coming on.

- Well, thank you for having me on.

- Mac I wanna ask you about the future of the Republican Party right now, after the events of this week, I wonder what John McCain or even Jeb Bush who is still alive or Ronald Reagan would think about what happened this week.

What do you think the future of the party is?

- Well, you don't have to guess what Jeb would think he had a tweet this week I saw that it was a pretty direct and fairly harsh with respect to the President's behavior.

I think I can guess pretty well with President Reagan and Senator McCain's reactions would be, you know all of those actual Republicans who are still around some of them are Democrats now, some of them are Independents like me currently.

Some of them are still in the party, but I'm going to argue that we are the folks that represent the tradition of the Republican Party beginning after World War II.

Right up until Donald Trump was elected president.

And I would argue that the man who a dozen years ago was a Democrat is the actual rhino here.

- So President Trump is moving to Florida and I think he would like to see his family stay in politics.

He, I think he's talked about running again in four years.

What do you think of that - Well, I think that Florida, you know we had a dozen Congress people who objected to the Pennsylvania votes the other night after the insurrection, just solely to show obedience and loyalty to Donald Trump because he asked for it.

Rick Scott did the same thing, the Governor is totally a projection of Trump's tweets, the Attorney General disgraced herself signing onto the lawsuit.

So if Trump is gonna slink away and go into exile somewhere and he's not going go to in exile in Alabama Florida is as good as any place else.

But I'll tell you down at Mar-a-Lago, with Steve Miller and Donald Trump and Ivanka and Sidney Powell its gonna be like a Star Wars bar.

(laughing) - Let me read a quote that Marco Rubio put out at the end of the week regarding the outcome of the election and regarding the violence in the Capitol.

He did vote to certify the election on Wednesday night but then he went on on Friday to say this.

State officials mutilated election integrity laws around the country to help Democrats.

And the result is that you had millions of people who are convinced that the election wasn't fair and the outcome was not legitimate.

Millions of people and they wanted something done about it.

In that statement, it seems like he's justifying what happened on Wednesday.

- Well, first place, the statement is a lie.

There was no significant voter fraud in the Presidential Election.

There's more than 60 lawsuits with more than 90 judges some of them were appointed by Trump has proven.

So that is a big lie and it is disingenuous to promote a lie and then cite your lie for doing something that's wrong, which is undermining the public's confidence in election integrity in the United States of America.

This is all part of a plan on Trump's plan and Rubio is assisting him in this.

After World War I, the German fascists created the stab in the back myth.

And it was that the soldiers hadn't failed at the front they'd been betrayed by socialists and Jews.

This lie about the election, the lie that Marco Rubio promotes in that statement is very much a fascist stab in the back narrative to preserve Trump's dignity and try to preserve his power and the Republican party in American politics.

It's just disgusting.

- In the early 1960s, William F. Buckley took on the John Birch society, which was kind of today's equivalent of Donald Trump.

And in a series of editorials in the national review he was able to convince I think the majority of the Republican Party, that the John Birch society was too extreme.

Where is our William F. Buckley today?

- Well, I think people are going to emerge.

Florida is going to be an outlier because of the reasons I cited earlier.

But you know, Trump can't take down John Thune in 2022 in South Dakota and Rob Portman in Ohio and Governor DeWine in Ohio and Larry Hogan in Maryland.

He's gonna break his peak on those folks.

And to some extent, his power is an illusion based on fear and if facts come out that dispel the illusion that could cause him his death, then the illusion will further dissipate and eventually the air is gonna come out of that balloon.

- Mac Stipanovich great to see you, hope you come back.

Thanks for coming on Florida This Week.

- Anytime, just let me know.

(upbeat music) - Our next guest is Diane Roberts'.

She's an eighth generation Floridian born and raised in Tallahassee, educated at Florida State and Oxford University in England.

Her work has appeared in the New York times, The Times of London, The Washington Post The St Petersburg Times, and now for the Florida Phoenix.

She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years.

Diane Roberts, welcome back to Florida This Week.

- Great to see you.

- Good to see you and your cat Hugo too, by the way - I have my cat Hugo he'll probably start yelling.

- So just on Friday, Common Cause of Florida has called on Governor Rick Scott and other members of the Florida Congressional Delegation, who voted on Wednesday, not to certify the results of the election.

Common Cause says they should resign immediately.

What do you make of that?

- I think that's entirely appropriate, but given that they are not people who are characterized by the feeling of shame, I doubt it will happen.

These are people who essentially have tried to undermine United States democracy.

They've tried to undermine an election and tell us that it is basically a flawed, bad, illegitimate election when it's anything but.

They are insurrectionists, they are the genteel version of those geniuses that invaded the Capitol the United States Capitol on Wednesday and they should resign.

Rick Scott should resign just on grounds of good taste.

He just should resign, he's not done anything for Florida in all the years that he's been leeching off of us.

But they won't resign because that's not who they are.

They're not even Republicans, they're Trumpists.

There are a few Republicans left and a few of them said, this is wrong and bad, and please don't do it.

But these people are complete serfs, you know, in Trump's fiefdom.

- President Trump on Wednesday expressed admiration for the people that invaded the Capitol.

It's turns out that at least a few Neo-Nazis, White Nationalists, members of far right groups that want to overthrow the government were in there taking over the Capitol.

When the president expresses admiration for those people and he says, he understands them, what do you make of that?

- The president is a White Supremacist and he's always been a White Supremacist.

These guys are White Supremacists, too.

What they're really upset about is that Black people, Brown people, non-Christian people people who weren't white men had the temerity to go out and vote and have their voices be heard.

And they can't believe that Trump who is their leader that's the right word is going to leave office.

And I'm not surprised that Trump thought it was great because all Trump cares about is Trump.

These people are all in for Trump.

He doesn't seem to care that there was one woman who was shot, who died, that a policeman died, that three other people died, as one wit put it on the inter-webs.

That's more people than died at Benghazi think about it.

That's our Capitol, that is the symbol of our democracy.

And these thugs, these looters were in there trashing it gleefully.

And so of course Trump liked that because Trump would love for there to be basically a White Supremacist dictatorship with him at the helm.

Happily, I don't think that's gonna happen.

No, thanks to certain members of Congress.

- Diane Roberts, thank you for coming on Florida This Week.

Great to see you and your cat Hugo.

- Great to see you too and Hugo thanks you.

(upbeat music) - Governor Ron DeSantis is a strong supporter of President Trump and has largely followed his lead as he's campaigned and served in office.

He strongly condemned the violence in Washington this week.

Here to talk more about the Governor's actions this week is Lawrence Mower, the Tallahassee reporter for the Tampa Bay Times at the Miami Herald Capital Bureau.

Lawrence, great to have you back, thank you for coming on.

- Hey, thanks for having me Rob.

- Tell us a little bit more about Governor Ron DeSantis reaction to the violence this week at the Capitol.

- Well, he did come out with a statement.

He said that he does not condone what happened and you know kinda had echoed the same rhetoric as a lot of Republicans have, but however he did use what happened this week to introduce legislation, to crack down on what do you call these kinds of, you know mobs and which was highly controversial.

This was legislation that he had talked about last year and was really targeted at the Black Lives Matter protests that we saw this summer.

And you know, he saw this as an opportunity basically to introduce this legislation.

And he said that this was an example of why he's pushing for this kind of legislation cause we can't tolerate this kind of destruction and mob mentality.

- And has the Black Lives Matter movement commented to your paper about the latest iteration of this potential law?

- Well, a lot of people are against it.

Democrats have come out strongly against it calling it, you know, draconian and obviously trying to target people who might disagree with the Governor.

- Let me play a clip of the Governor earlier this week an interaction he had with a reporter who was questioning Governor DeSantis about the rollout of the vaccine program here in the state.

- We distributed vaccine to hospitals and the hospital said, first come, first serve.

If you show up, we'll do it.

So they didn't use a registration system, there wasn't anything that was done and there's a lot of demand for it.

So people are gonna wanna go ahead and get it.

- So are you saying there was no plan from the state to make sure that senior citizens didn't wait outside overnight.

- So the state is not dictating the hospitals how, we're not dictating to Carlos Mongolia how he runs his operations here, that would be a total disaster.

These guys are much more competent to be able to deliver healthcare services than a state government could ever be.

- So Lawrence, The Times Herald Bureau up there you and your fellow reporters have been reporting about the problems with the vaccine rollout here in Florida.

What are the problems that you're reporting about?

- Well, there's probably one main problem.

And that's, that the people who are administering these vaccines, the health officials, department officials and hospitals and staff don't really know what's going on.

The governor has been extremely secretive about his plan.

He released a draft plan in October that said, you know these groups will get the vaccine in this order but he abandoned that plan immediately.

And he's not released another plan.

So there's been a lot of confusion about, okay what can we expect?

Where are the vaccines gonna be available?

When he made the announcement the week before, the week of Christmas that hey, on Monday we're gonna have the Monday after Christmas we're gonna have the vaccines available.

He didn't tell anyone how to, where the vaccines would be available.

He didn't say, you know how people could sign up for them.

There were no details at all and so, I mean even health departments didn't even know how many vaccines there were gonna be getting if they were gonna be getting any at all.

- There were a lot of complaints this week of the websites crashing as people signed up for vaccinations.

That there weren't enough vaccines to go around.

Some seniors had to be in their car in line overnight.

I mean, it just sounds like a disaster.

Can you place that at the Governor's feet?

Or is that because as the Governor said it's the local people that are in charge of distributing the vaccine?

- Well, it's probably a little bit of both.

I mean, the County Health Departments do report to the State Department of Health, they're the ones ultimately responsible for this.

And so we've talked to a number of health officials who have just asked for more information, you need information to the public and you need preparation.

And those are the two things that seem to have fallen short here.

And it's not just health officials.

I mean, we just heard a story this week about the Department of Corrections who does report to the Governor and the Head of the Department of Corrections has asked the Governor for more information, you know, to vaccinate people 65 and older in prisons, they don't know what the plan is.

And these are basic things that have been basic issues of communication and transparency that have been an issue since the pandemic started.

This is certainly not a new revelation for the DeSantis administration.

They have been extremely secretive about how they've handled the pandemic, the decisions they've made.

And as you played earlier a clip of that CNN reporter, most of the people are gaining information on the vaccine rollout through these press conferences as opposed to things in writing.

You know, usually you'll see clear directions written directions sent to the press, sent to, you know the public that we've not seen here.

You know, he'll say something in a press conference that's the news of the day when people are left wondering okay, is that it?

What else do I need to know?

AARP was out this week, you know, of course the association that represents retired people and they've asked for more information from the Governor.

I mean, this is not something that's new, a lot of people are confused about what to expect, where to go to get these vaccines, where to sign up.

And it's just been, you know, confusion all around - Well, Lawrence Mower we all hope it gets better.

Thank you for coming on Florida This Week.

- Thank you for having me, Rob.

(upbeat music) - We'll finally, we're all feeling tension during this post-election unrest.

So musician, Eliza Gilkyson is here.

She's written a song trying to restore our spirits stay safe, we'll see you next week.

♪ We're gonna stare in the face of a hateful mind ♪ ♪ Cause all we gotta do is let our love light shine ♪ ♪ And we know we've got peace in our hearts ♪ ♪ We're gonna walk together arm in arm ♪ ♪ With peace in our hearts ♪ ♪ We're gonna walk together arm in arm ♪ ♪ With peace in our hearts ♪ ♪ We're gonna walk together arm in arm ♪ ♪ So our sisters and brothers won't come to any harm ♪ ♪ And we know we've got peace in our hearts ♪ ♪ We got so much love, so much peace ♪ ♪ We know we got peace in our hearts ♪ ♪ In our hearts.

♪ - [Narrator 1] Florida This Week is a production of WEDU who are solely responsible for its content.