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

- [Announcer] Florida This Week" is made possible in part by support from the Tampa Bay Times.

(upbeat music) [Rob] Coming up next, the search for victims.

And answers continues after that sudden condo collapsed last week in Surfside.

The legislature passed a lot of new laws this year, but some are being blocked by the governor and by the courts.

And former President Trump holds a rally in Sarasota.

What many of his supporters hope, is the beginning of another presidential run.

All of this and more, next on "Florida This Week."

(bright upbeat music) - Welcome back.

The tragedy of the collapse of the condominium towers in Surfside brought grief to the families and friends of the victims and raise the question.

How and what are the most developed nations in the world did such a catastrophe happen?

- [Rob] As hope for finding more survivors dim this week, questions were raised about who was responsible?

And whether the disaster could have been averted?

There were signs of problems for years, cracks in the building and water leaks.

The condo association told residents, expensive repairs were necessary, but that work had not been started by the time of the collapse.

Meantime, this was a busy year for the state legislature, which passed many bills.

The new laws were supposed to all go into effect July 1st.

The controversial Transgender Athlete Ban did go into effect, but it is being challenged in the courts.

And a bill mandating intellectual surveys of university students and professors also became law.

The sponsors say the intent is to see whether competing ideas are presented in classrooms, and if students are free to express their beliefs.

Opponents say it's a case of Tallahassee acting like big brother.

To the surprise of some, Governor DeSantis used his veto pen to block some bipartisan legislation.

He blocked a bill that would offer a civics literacy class in high school.

He blocked another bipartisan bill that would pave the way for tens of thousands of juveniles to have their arrest records expunged after completing a behavioral program, Andy blocked a rewrite of the state's auto insurance laws.

Legislators had wanted to hold down the skyrocketing premiums, so they did away with Florida's 50-year-old No Fault Insurance laws and required every motorist to get a new policy next year, but the governor said no.

Another new Florida law was blocked at least temporarily by a federal judge.

That law would give the state the power to fine social media companies that ban political candidates.

The judge issued a preliminary injunction saying the law's likely unconstitutional.

And Donald Trump scheduled his first local post-presidency rally in Sarasota on Saturday.

That's the city that gave him a huge boost in 2015 as he prepared his first presidential run.

Trump is scheduled to speak at 8:00 pm, followed by a firework show at 9,00.

- Well, former President Trump is scheduled to hold that rally in Saturday... On Saturday in Sarasota.

The event comes as the former president has begun a series of rallies and public appearances around the country, leading to speculation that he's planning another run for president.

Both Trump and Florida's Governor may be contenders for the Republican nomination in 2024.

According to the Washington Examiner website, Governor DeSantis' office asked to postpone the Sarasota event in light of the tragic condominium collapse in Surfside.

However, the current executive director of the Republican party of Florida called the report completely false.

Senator Joe Gruters represents Florida's District 23 in Sarasota.

He's also the chair of the Florida Republican Party, and is one of former President Trump's strongest supporters.

And, Senator Joe Gruters welcome back to "Florida This week."

- Hey, thanks so much, Rob.

I really appreciate the opportunity to be on here today.

- So, Joe, is there any tension between Governor DeSantis' camp and former President Trump's camp?

And was that Washington Examiner report right earlier in the week that said that DeSantis asked Trump not to come at this point?

- No, false news.

You know, Helen had it right.

You know, it's that's incorrect.

I think the governor, you know, I think he's very sensitive about what's happening in Miami, but this is, you know, obviously the July 4th program.

I think he's happy that the president has chosen Florida as the rally spot.

And listen, and it's...

These guys are both freedom and Liberty loving individuals.

They both believe in the American first policy.

The president obviously, helped give Governor DeSantis that boost.

And I know for sure, that the governor's focus on one thing right now, and that's his reelection campaign in 2022, and we're a long ways off from any presidential race.

But yeah, all that is speculation.

And these guys are working very closely together on a lot of items.

- President Trump said last week outside of Cleveland that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

He said he won in a landslide.

And that kinda talk as you know, spurred thousands of people to storm The Capitol on January 6th.

New York Times is out with new video about that this week.

Is President Trump right?

Did he win in a landslide in 2020?

- Yeah.

I will tell you, there's a lot of unanswered questions from that 2020 race.

And I'm glad that some of these states have decided to look at and actually go forward with different audits.

I'm a CPA, we have...

When we do audits, sometimes we uncover fraud, sometimes we don't.

But what's good about it is it helps establish a certainty.

And what you've also seen across the country is even here in Florida, we pass an election integrity bill.

And I think there's probably 25 bills that are probably moving forward in different legislative bodies around the country that are meant to address some of these issues.

Because what we wanna do, is restore the full faith and confidence of the election system itself with the voters.

There has been numerous polls that have come out that said, "Up to 42% of the people think their vote doesn't matter."

Even in New York City, they just voided an election, on 132,000 ballots.

We have to get this right.

Think about what a great job Florida did with 21.5 million people being able to deliver those results on election night.

And obviously, with 67 independent supervisor of elections around the state, all working together, implementing the laws that this legislature has passed over the last couple of cycles.

We got it right.

There's no reason why other states can't follow our lead just like everything else that we're seeing.

- All right.

Joe in Arizona, where there's a third audit going on, there were two audits right after the election that showed that President Biden, or incoming President Biden won that election.

Now, there's a third one going on being held by a private party.

But there have been audits in Pennsylvania, there have been checks.

Michigan did its own check this week and found that there was nothing wrong with the election.

I mean, is President Trump kind of stirring up unrest by saying this?

- No.

Listen, I think there's those unanswered questions are still there.

And I will tell you from being a CPA, there's a... You could do essentially a financial statement audit, which is not meant to uncover fraud, especially, if there's deceit by multiple individuals at the same time.

Basically, what you're seeing in Arizona and some of these other states, is they're almost doing like a forensic audit, forensic accounting and where they're going in and looking at every single thing to make sure, you know, it's okay.

And at the end of the day, that's what you want, because if everything is okay, they're gonna come back and say, "Listen, clean bill of health.

We sign off on it."

Everybody should be happy.

And then all this rhetoric you're hearing out there we'll end.

If it's not right, and there was mistakes, and there was purposeful deceit by multiple parties, we're gonna be able to see that.

And so, I'm always a big believer.

And just like with any type of investigation, let it play out because we want justice to be blind.

We wanna make sure we have integrity in the system.

And it doesn't matter what it is.

You know, if it's, you have nothing to hide, then show your cards and let's go ahead and get to the bottom of it.

So, we don't have that uncertainty going into the 2022 cycle.

- Joe, I gotta ask you.

You're in Sarasota, the Ninja Company that's doing the third audit in Arizona is based in Sarasota.

Do you know this company?

And do you have confidence that they can do the job correctly?

- Well, it's interesting.

What I've heard is the reason why cite...

The Cyber Ninjas was hired, was because almost no company wanted to touch it.

Because it's such a toxic type deal because you can see Cyber Ninjas has been ridiculed and everything else.

The interesting thing, I'm glad you asked that question.

I was... People had been visiting me and calling me up for a long time.

This is where conspiracy theories are made.

If you could believe it, my office location for my Senate office is the exact same opposite Cyber Ninjas had, probably 10, 15 years ago.

Unfortunately, I have no idea who the company is, who the principal is.

If I met him, it was a in passing, so I have no clue on their overall ability.

But based on the fact that Arizona Senate has hired them and they've placed their trust, and may have people that are they're monitoring the situation, I'm interested to see the results.

And I'm hearing that they're doing a very, very thorough job, and that you can count what they're testing and auditing, and be confident in the results that they're producing.

- Joe, just have 10 seconds.

Could you give me a yes or no?

Is former President Trump the best nominee for the party in 2024?

- I've always been a fan of the President.

He's certainly the leader of the country.

And if he wants to be the nominee, yes, then he is going to be the nominee.

- Joe Gruters, thanks a lot for coming on "Florida This Week."

- Thanks so much, Rob.

(bright upbeat music) - Alan Cohn was the democratic nominee for the 15th congressional seat in 2020 and 2014.

He's also a Peabody Award winning investigative journalist, and was the anchor at ABC7 in Sarasota.

Alan Cohn, welcome back to "Florida This week."

- It's great to be here.

It's great to be in studio.

- Now, you're one of the few so far.

So, I wanna ask you about former President Trump's trip to Sarasota Joe Gruters, who was just on our airwaves, said off air, "That he thinks 20,000 people are gonna see former President Trump this weekend."

Sarasota has been a good place for President Trump.

He got a lot of votes there, he's had big rallies there.

What do you think?

Why do you think Sarasota is such a good place for President Trump?

- Well.

You know, Joe is correct.

And Joe brought Trump to Sarasota very early on.

And you have a lot of folks in Manatee, Sarasota, and south there, who liked the fact, that what Trump is about is giving the middle finger to Democrats, and to people who, you know, believe in that lifestyle.

I believe, it is a matter of self identification and lifestyle choice.

I don't think it's about any political position or issue in particular.

- So, President Trump, when he was outside of Cleveland last week, said to the crowd, as he said numerous times, he won in a landslide.

And that the 2020 Election was unfair.

And the New York Times just this week did a kind of TikTok video that takeover the U.S Capitol.

Do these folks really believe President Trump, that the election was stolen and that he won in a landslide?

How dangerous do you think that is for the country, for the president conceivably, to come to Sarasota and make that statement?

- Well, two things.

Number one, it represents a clear and present danger to the United States of America.

And if you believe that, you are insane.

And I've said this for a long time.

I have a clearer understanding of history now than I ever have in my life.

If you believe that, and if you can beat police officers with the American flag, then you can believe and do anything.

And that makes me and makes a lot of us concerned about this country.

- Do you think the country was almost taken over on January 6th by that mob that storm the Capitol?

- I don't know if taken over is the right word.

I, you know, what would have happened if that mob did reach Mike Pence?

Did reach Nancy Pelosi?

To this day, and I make a mistake sometime, I read too many viewer comments on postings on local news sites.

And there are people in the Sarasota area who claimed that, that was not an insurrection.

If you don't believe that, then there is something wrong with you.

And frankly, that leads to a lot of questions in terms of what Democrats and normal people should do to react to these things.

- Joe Gruters says, "look, it's just a question of asking questions."

Is asking for an audit."

He says, as an accountant, you do numerous audits to find out what the truth is.

And that's all that he, he says, Republicans are asking for?

- Well, if Joe ran his accounting business like this, asking these types of questions, he won't be in business very long.

The questions are based upon a fabrication from the former president who has made this stuff up.

You have Republican election officials from Georgia to Arizona who say that the vote was legitimate and there was no fraud.

So, this whole thing is based upon a lie.

And if you don't understand that, then frankly, you are out of touch with reality.

- So, poll after poll shows somewhere around 55 to 60% of Republicans think the election was stolen.

How do Democrats counter that if that's the belief of the core of the Republican party?

How do you as a Democrat, how does your party fight back?

- It's as I just said, I think you have to say that if that's what you believe, then you are out of touch with reality.

You should be wearing a tinfoil hat.

And I think that every Republican who tries to convey that insanity should be depicted with a tinfoil hat on their head.

You know, in a couple of weeks here in Tampa, we're gonna have Marjorie Taylor Greene come here.

And I think every Republican who attends that event should then be depicted, as I said, with a tinfoil hat on their head and from another planet.

The reality is, if you are able to do that, if you are able to label those people who subscribe to that, as out of their mind, you know, nobody likes to be depicted like that.

And nobody likes to be depicted as insane in that fashion.

And I think that's the best chance that Democrats would have in terms of the elections that are to come, as to show that these people are, first thing, they're not patriotic, and they are out of their mind.

And, you know, unfortunately our elections today are less about issues and more about identity, and a frame of reference.

And I think that that's, the Democrats have got to start taking it to the Republicans the way the Republicans have to often taken it to Democrats.

- So, Alan, we only have 45 seconds left.

You were an anchor in Sarasota and a reporter in Sarasota.

One of the top TV guys there on the ABC affiliate.

Have you ever heard of this firm Cyber Ninjas?

- No.

- That's doing the audit in Arizona that so many Republicans have placed their hopes on?

- Never.

There was no credibility of that, there was no track record of this company.

If you look at the owner of the company, there's some questionable backgrounds there.

So come on, give me a break here.

There are no questions.

There are no ambiguities about the election.

This is just been a fantasy made up by a president who lost the election, and that somehow tried to convince other Republicans that he did not win.

He did not win folks.

- Alan Cohn, thanks a lot.

- All right.

(bright upbeat music) - The former president of the board of the Surfside Florida condominium that collapsed last week resigned in 2019, partly, out of frustration over what she saw as a sluggish response to an engineer's report that identified major structural problems at the condo at that time.

Even as the search for victims continues, investigators are trying to determine the cause of the collapse.

Dr. Timothy Dixon is a geologist and a distinguished professor and director at the USF School of Geo-sciences.

And, Dr. Dixon thanks for joining us.

- Welcome, and I'm glad to be here.

Thank you.

- It's great to have you here.

So, with all these examples of global warming, sea level rise, saltwater intrusion, the aquifers being invaded by saltwater.

There are more sunny day floods in Miami, and even in the Tampa Bay area, especially during high tides.

Do you think that climate change might have been a factor at all in the collapse of the condo in Surfside?

- Well, let me start off by saying I'm not a structural engineer.

And there are those folks that are doing a...

I'm sure they're doing a great job of investigating the causes of this tragedy.

It is a fair question of the possible role of climate change or sea level rise.

I suspect it's not the major cause or not the immediate cause, but it may be a factor, certainly in terms of saltwater contributing to corrosion.

- Okay.

So, one of the other questions I have, is this condo has been sinking since the 1990s, about two millimeters a year.

Is that typical for buildings that are built here in Florida over the geology that we have?

Should we expect that all high rises might sink a little bit?

Or is two millimeters a year kind of a fast pace?

- It's not typical.

Two millimeters a year, our coast is quite stable, frankly.

But there are a few areas in most cities, most coastal cities are built on what's called reclaimed land, where developers have pulled up mud or silt from the adjacent bay to expand the land and built on it.

That soil tends to be compacted by a mechanical compactor before they build, but it is more susceptible to subsidence or compaction as time goes on.

And so, there are certain areas in coastal cities like Miami Beach, parts of St. Pete, and Tampa, where you do expect to see some of this low subsidence due to compaction of the reclaimed bay silts and muds.

- At what rate would be alarming to you?

I mean, is two millimeters a year alarming, or is that just to be expected?

- It's not alarming.

And in fact, it's not necessarily anything to worry about.

What really matters is differential subsidence.

So if one side of the building is going down or the other side's not, you're gonna get tilting and possible cracking, that could be a concern.

If the whole region is settling at a constant rate, it's much less of a concern.

Except in the long run, of course, if you're settling at two millimeters a year over a few decades, that builds up and you're a little bit lower, and sea level comes up a little bit higher.

So, you do have a longer-term chance of a saltwater intrusion because of the sea level rise effect.

- All right.

So, it is salt water intrusion a possible problem throughout Florida in that we're sucking more muddy... More water rather from the aquifer, and we're allowing more seawater to invade the aquifer.

Is that a problem statewide?

- It is.

And it is the nice thing about it, is it's something we can do something about.

There's basically two contributors, sea level arise, which is pretty slow really, a few millimeters a year.

And as you point out, the pumping a freshwater that lowers the hydraulic head of the freshwater, and then it gives you space for the saltwater to come in.

We can't do too much about sea level rise in the short term, we can do a lot about making sure that we're not pumping too much out of our coastal aquifers.

- So, what advice would you give to people who are living in a high rise condo and they're near either the brackish water, the inland waterways, or they're on the coast and they're maybe living along the Gulf of Mexico.

What advice would you give to them about what to look for in their structure to make sure that something similar to what happened in Surfside is not gonna happen to their structure?

- Well, it's definitely something for qualified structural engineers and architects to be doing, not for people like myself or the average condo owner.

Those folks, most of these large buildings do get inspected once every 5 to 10 years.

So, my advice is listened to the experts.

If they say, you know, we gotta to do some remedial work on this section of the building, or the structure, then let's do it.

- Dr. Dixon, I wonder, you talked about some buildings being on compacted soil.

That to me seems like a possible danger.

We have a lot of limestone in Florida.

Is a limestone a safer base for a big structure like a condo or even a, you know, a highway system, an interstate highway system?

Is that a better place to put your pilings into?

- Not necessarily.

Remember that most of these large buildings, they have large pilings that go well down into solid material.

Again, structural engineers determine their size and the style of those pilings that give the buildings stability.

Any large structure is gonna... That reclaim material is probably only a few feet thick, and so the pylons go right through that and are anchored into solid rock.

So, just because you're on reclaimed land does not necessarily mean that you have a problem.

- All right.

Well, Dr. Dixon, thanks a lot for joining us.

Great to see you.

- All right.

Thank you.

(bright upbeat music) - Thanks for joining us.

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.

You can subscribe to it on our website or wherever you get your podcasts.

Finally, in 1981, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel performed in New York Central Park.

In honor of the 4th of July, here's Paul's song, "American Tune" from that historic concert.

Stay safe, look out for Elsa.

We'll see you next week, and have a happy 4th of July.

(soft rock music) ♪ And high up above ♪ ♪ My eyes could clearly see ♪ ♪ The Statue of Liberty ♪ ♪ Sailing away to sea ♪ ♪ And I dreamed I was flying ♪ ♪ Oh, we come on the ship they call The Mayflower ♪ ♪ We come on the ship that sailed the moon ♪ ♪ We come in the age's most uncertain hours ♪ ♪ And sing an "American Tune" ♪ ♪ Oh, and it's all right ♪ ♪ Oh, it's all right, it's all right ♪ ♪ You can't be forever blessed ♪ ♪ Still, tomorrow's gonna be another working day ♪ ♪ And I'm trying to get some rest ♪ ♪ That's all I'm trying ♪ ♪ To get some rest ♪ (bright upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Florida This Week" is a production of WEDU, who is solely responsible for its content.

(bright upbeat music continues)