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

- [Rob] Next on Florida This Week, major politicians travel to Tampa in preparation for the November election.

Conservative groups bring their national conventions to Tampa.

And the January 6th Committee holds its last scheduled public hearing.

All this, and more, coming up right now on WEDU.

Here in the last half of July could be said that Tampa has been at the center of the political universe, with former President Trump's appearance this weekend in Tampa at the influential conservative group, Turning Point USA's convention.

And last week, a new group, Moms for Liberty, which backs parental rights, held its national convention in Tampa and heard from many prominent Republican politicians, including former Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, Governor Ron DeSantis, and his wife, Casey.

- Somebody was talking about it being political.

It's not about political.

It's about principal.

- To make sure these school districts couldn't force mask the kids for eight hours a day.

But we also have enacted this year curriculum transparency legislation.

- [Rob] The Moms for Liberty group also drew some critics, including this school board member from Brevard County.

- Right now, our governor is across the street with a self-described grassroots organization who claimed to speak for the majority.

An organization whose very existence only originates from the founders themselves being voted out of office by a majority of voices.

DeSantis' solution, vouchers to increase the amount of taxpayer money directly into private schools and charter schools with no accountability.

Since the Republican state legislator and governor won't adequately fund education, school districts are now forced to go to the voters through tax referendums.

- [Rob] President Joe Biden was scheduled to speak in Tampa on Monday until he tested positive for COVID.

Two prominent Democrats who may have higher ambitions did visit Tampa last week.

Vice President Kamala Harris got a briefing at MacDill Air Force Base after a stop in Orlando.

And Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker attended a Florida Democratic Party fundraiser where he said this about the culture wars.

- And here is where the Republican game plan is the most audacious, they want to distract you into believing that gay marriage, Black History, Disney World and library books are more of a threat to our children than an AR-15.

And if we can't call bull on that, well, then Democrats, we don't deserve to win elections.

- Well, let me make a quick correction.

There will be several more public hearings of the January 6th Committee.

They will take place this September.

Well, one of the attendees at the Moms for Liberty event in Tampa was Alexis Spiegelman.

She's the Florida legislative chair for the group, as well as being the chair of the Sarasota County chapter, and she joins us now.

And, Alexis, welcome to Florida this Week.

- Thank you for having me.

- Tell us, what do you think the biggest accomplishment of the convention was that you held in Tampa this past week?

- Well, I do believe it's just gathering together with all of the people involved in this fight for parental rights in education.

And I think just gathering everybody together and equipping them with the skills that they'll need to move the ball forward as we continue our fight to call for accountability from those that we elect to office.

To improve our academic achievement in our schools, what we pay our taxes for.

And to have our school boards realize that their role ends where the parental role begins.

And so I think that overall everyone left encouraged, inspired, and ready to take the next step in this worthy cause.

- What do you think the biggest roadblocks have been to parental rights?

Are you saying that right now parents don't have any rights in public schools?

- That's not what I'm saying.

Our rights are God given and they're inherent.

So nobody gives us our rights.

We're born with them.

Our country was established on that principal.

The problem is our school boards aren't respecting our rights.

And so that is where the problem lies.

So one of our missions is to defend those rights and to make sure that our government understands where their role ends and where ours begins.

- What's the biggest transgression you think the government has made towards parental rights?

- Well, I do believe we saw evidence of it with the forced masking.

You know, that's a medical decision.

It belongs to the parent.

Some of what we're seeing with the mental health push that's going on in our schools.

Of course, mental health is important, but like so often with those on the far left, they take something good and they use it for ill motives.

So, for example, we have several members within Mom's for Liberty whose children were taken and talked to in private about changing their gender.

We've seen what happens when that occurs.

It divides families.

There was one child who tried to commit suicide twice after the school met privately with them to encourage them to change their gender without their parents' knowledge.

And then the school actually didn't tell the parents about it until after the second suicide attempt.

So, you know, that is the outcome of what happens when people try to interfere with and step into a role where they just don't belong.

You know, that's a parental role to raise children according to the family values, and to direct their upbringing, and their educational choices and their medical decisions.

So it's really just common sense.

- And which schools did this attempted suicide and this discussion about gender change?

Which school did this take place?

- Well, if you look at the signing of HB 1557 parental rights and education, one of the speakers, January Littlejohn she's one of our members, she was actually also a speaker at our summit.

Her daughter was affected by this.

And then the school, I believe it might have been Clay County, but if you just Google child tries to commit suicide after school meets with her privately to convinced her to change her gender, I think it will be easy for your viewers to find.

- All right.

And we only have a minute left.

But one last question, is your group political?

Because several people said your group is not political.

Yet Christian Ziegler, who's married to a school board member there in Sarasota, says that you're gonna be help the ground game for Governor Ron DeSantis.

And you did invite a lot of Republicans to the convention last week, but you say your group is non-political.

It seems very political.

- Well, I think that when you make American principles a political issue, okay, then sure.

But we are non-political.

And the reason we align with many that just so happened to be on the right, if they were Democrats and they, like, were supporting our constitution, our individual liberties, our God given rights, then we would be happy to support them, you know?

The reason that it seems that we are so in step with, for example, our governor, is our governor understands our constitutional rights and he advocates for them.

So we just align on principles.

- All right.

Alexis Spiegelman Thanks a lot for coming on Florida this Week.

- It's been my pleasure.

Thank you.

- Maurice Cunningham is a retired associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.

He has done research into dark money in education, and is the author of the book, Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization.

And Maurice, thanks for joining us.

- It's a pleasure to be with you, Rob.

- So how did Moms for Liberty go from being a grassroots movement based in Brevard County here in Florida, a couple of moms, to a national organization, 33 states, in 33 states, have a national convention featuring some of the top Republicans in the country, how did it go from in one year, go from small to big?

- Well, it didn't start out as grassroots.

That is a story they like to tell about themselves, but all the evidence points to them being very well funded from the beginning, very well organized from the beginning, tied into established Republican politics from the beginning, and tied in with conservative advocacy organizations, including the extremist right Council for National Policy, which has money, has bodies and has a whole infrastructure.

So they didn't go from 0 to 60 in no time at all.

They were established, they were full born birth.

- So tell us about the Council for National Policy.

Are they funding Moms for Liberty?

- Well, it's hard to say, but they clearly are very closely tied in and Council for National Policy has a lot of money and they have a lot of affiliates that have money.

For example, the last convention, Betsy DeVos funds Council for National Policy, she spoke.

There was a $50,000 sponsorship from the Leadership Institute and training by the Leadership Institute, their Council for National Policy.

Turning point USA was there, their Council for National Policy.

Heritage Foundation was there, their Council for National Policy.

So it's apparent, I think, that they're very tied in with established conservative activist organizations.

- So the Southern Poverty Law Center says that the CNP, the Council for National Policy has members who are White supremacists, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, they're racist, they're prejudiced.

But, you know, I've met some of the moms.

They don't seem that way.

- No and I don't think you try and present yourself that way if you're presenting yourself as concerned moms from Florida or other states.

But if you look at the kind of growth they've had, that just doesn't happen.

You know, I think most parents with kids in schools have taken tickets at the football game and, you know, done baked goods for the play to be sold and so forth.

But most parents don't form four PACS of political action committees, including a federal Super PAC.

I checked Moms for Liberty today with the IRS page, there are 77 affiliates now incorporated across the country.

That just doesn't happen from bake sales at all.

- Okay, so the group says it's not political.

They did have a lot of prominent Republicans at their convention here in Tampa.

When they say they're non-political, what do you say?

- They're political.

That's the bottom line.

Of course they're political.

They're very much tied in.

You know, one of the three founders, I think they're really agents of CNP rather than founders.

But one of the three founders is Bridget Ziegler wife of Republican Party Co-chair.

- [Rob] Christian, yeah.

- And so they're very tight.

And Christian Zeigler said, you know, back in October 2021, well, we're gonna fold this Moms for Liberty organization right into the DeSantis reelection campaign.

And so I think that's what you see, you know, Rick Scott is there, DeVos is there, Governor DeSantis is there, Mrs. DeSantis is there.

You have a lineup like that, it's pretty hard to deny your not in politics.

- So Mom's for Liberty is I think a 501(c)(4) which is an IRS position, but it's hard to trace the money for a 501(c)(4).

Is that right?

And do we know anything about where they're getting their money from?

- It's extremely difficult to trace for a 501(c)(4).

It takes a long time and oftentimes it's futile.

So you sort of have to use other means and see who their contractors are.

One interesting thing is I mentioned a Super PAC of that Moms for Liberty has.

Just recently, $50,000 was put into that by, I think it's Julie Fancelli who's the Publix heiress, probably most well known now for putting a lot of money funding thousands and thousands of dollars into the big lie rally on January 6th.

And so they've already gotten $50,000 from her, as I say.

The other ties are all there.

It's hard to look, you're not gonna find a check with somebody's name on it, but you can begin to look at all the evidence and make judgments about who's really behind them.

- So the funders, I mean, you mentioned one of the funders that we do know Betsy DeVos.

People like her, what is their attitude towards public education?

What's their goal when it comes to public education?

- Well, Betsy DeVos, I think said it very clearly at the national summit the other day, she would like to end public education.

And, in fact, Mom's for Liberty is part of number of groups, similar groups, Parents Defending Education, No Left Turn in Education, that came upon the scene at the exact same time, all with great funding, all pushing the same issues.

They would like to, among their goals, would be to destroy teacher's unions, to take down public education and to privatize the education system.

And ultimately, that's awful for democracy.

- Maurice, where do you think this is headed?

I mean, with all these groups all over the country and Moms for Liberty having established you said 77 chapters now across the country, where do you think this is headed?

- Well, I think, think we'll see more of this.

I think it's been very effective.

I think there's a belief in it on the right wing side that it's going their way and so I think you'll see this.

And with the issue, one of the things they need to do with issues, whether it be critical race theory, or, you know, a recent one was grooming and this transgendered things, is to keep these things pumped up and to keep their base continually riled up.

So I think, unfortunately, it's an ugly politics, I think, but I think we're gonna see more of it.

- It's culture war politics.

- There's no question about it.

That's that's the basis of it.

- Maurice Cunningham, thank you very much for being on Florida this Week.

- My pleasure.

Thank you.

- Rick Wilson is an author, commentator, political consultant and Co-Founder of the Lincoln Project.

He's been keeping a close watch on the January 6th hearings.

And Rick, welcome back to the show.

- Great to be back with you.

- I want to ask you about the promise made at the beginning of the January 6th hearings, that was Liz Cheney said that the hearings would prove that President Trump oversaw a seven part plan to overturn the presidential election.

Did the committee measure up?

Has it proved that?

- I think it's far excelled and exceeded that goal.

This committee has shown a very clear set, a clear fact pattern, a clear set of facts drawn by interviews of people at the most senior levels of the White House that demonstrated that the president encouraged the lie that he had won the election when he in fact lost it.

He encouraged the whipping up of a mob that attacked the capital.

He, once that mob was there attacking the capital, he tweeted essentially Mike Pence's death warrant, knowing that that angry mob would seek him out.

He endangered the lives of thousands and thousands of people inside the capital as his mob continued the attack.

He sat passively while it was happening.

And we know now that this was entirely based on the lie, that's been exposed by the committee's work.

And, in fact, what we've discovered as the committee has gone further and further into this rabbit hole, is that there's more to tell.

They've made a very compelling case.

I think that the DOJ now has a tremendous amount of material to use to prosecute people that were involved in trying to overthrow a free and fair small D democratic election.

And what the committee has done and will continue to do has been enormously valuable to the country.

- So do you think the DOJ does not bring charges against Donald Trump, what will that say if Merrick Garland doesn't do it?

- Yeah, I think it's a terrible signal.

There are, and look, I'm not an attorney, but there are enough, very, very smart former federal prosecutors who have said this conspiracy is rife with charges, and it doesn't matter that Donald Trump was the president.

It doesn't matter that he sat in the Oval Office when he came up with a criminal conspiracy and engaged in criminal behavior.

It's the criminal behavior that matters.

And I think that there's an old phrase that any coup that goes unpunished, isn't a coup, it's a training exercise.

And this is something that unless we have a clear understanding that the rule of law in this country matters, as particularly around elections, you will end up having people who justify trying to overturn elections through violence.

And it's unacceptable for one of the most robust, constitutional democracies in the world to engage in that kind of behavior.

And I think it's vital that the DOJ takes steps in that regard.

- Do you think any minds in the public were changed, any independents or maybe moderate Republicans were watching these hearings and said, oh, my god, I see the world differently now that I've heard the committee?

- Well, the thing that Fox and a lot of hardcore Republicans didn't want was America paying attention to these hearings, and they have paid attention to these hearings in droves.

The, you know, Donald Trump's always obsessed with the ratings.

Well, the ratings for these hearings was through the roof.

Both the opening and closing in prime time, drew enormous audiences and has engaged a lot of folks around the country.

And there is a clear demonstration in the Republican voter intent right now that they've been embarrassed and shamed by this.

They've been frustrated by this.

They have seen Trump's, you know, erratic character playing out in a way that they had never seen it before.

Now, does that mean he will not still command a large part of the Republican base?

It does not.

He will still have that command of the Republican base.

But it has hurt him.

It has caused harm to Republicans running for office in 2022 in a lot of places.

And it has caused a tremendous amount of, you know, unspinably bad news, even Fox couldn't ignore these hearings after a time.

And they had to show the fact that Donald Trump's behavior led to the violence of January 6th.

- On Fox news the other day they went out to Arizona and interviewed a bunch of Republican voters and asked them whether they thought President Trump should run again in 2024.

And there was a lot of Trump fatigue out there in Arizona among these voters that Fox talked with.

And I'm wondering, is there Trump fatigue among the GOP, the likely voters in the GOP, and is Ron DeSantis the next choice?

- Well, I will say this, my organization has targeted for the last two and a half years a fairly narrow slice of Republicans in close states and close races.

And those tended to be more educated, tended to be women, tended to be in affluent suburbs, tended to have a graduate degree.

Those people were Republicans, but they were not Trumpists.

That number has improved and expanded somewhat as we have gone forth in the last few months and weeks of the hearings.

And I think it's important to understand that there is a degree to which those people are a very dangerous cohort for Donald Trump to lose.

But, once again, there is still a large majority of the Republican base that will vote for Donald Trump.

They will walk over hot coals, they will crawl over broken glass.

And while Ron DeSantis is the hot flavor with what we call the Gentry Republican set, the more traditional DC types, National Review, and Mitch McConnell, and Kevin McCarthy types, those people do not control the Republican base.

Those people do not have a singular connection to the Republican base in the same way Donald Trump did and does have.

And I think it's important to realize that that this does not, again, you know, Trump being taken down a peg is necessary, but not necessarily sufficient to see him cast out of the Republican Party going forward.

- A few days ago, the Washington Post carried this story in which it suggested talking to several aids to Trump who were unidentified in the story, that he is going to announce sometime in the next few months that he wants to run again.

Do you think he's gonna run?

- There are several reasons for it.

The first is he needs the legal protection that being a candidate will provide him.

It will give him a way to say, oh, well, the Department of Justice is prosecuting me because it's political.

They're trying to stop me.

They don't want me in this job.

The second thing is that Donald Trump genuinely wants to be in power again.

And he is surrounded by people now who are promising, there's an article in Axios today that's rather chilling.

They're promising to replace, not just appointments in the government, but other government officials with America First MAGA appointees in order to put Donald Trump's personal stamp on the American government.

Not for any reason other than ideological and political affinity.

And, you know, the third reason is he wants to keep raising that sweet money.

This is Donald Trump's business now.

His lifeline financially is raising money off of his small dollar donors.

So those are the three reasons he will almost certainly announce.

And again, you know, look, Ron DeSantis has had a ton of buzz right now among Republican donors and the elite class of the Republican Party.

And I can remember in several prior election cycles, that buzz would go to some candidate that, you know, we did not have a president Jeb Bush, or a president Scott Walker, or a president Tim Pawlenty or a president Ted Cruz.

You know, the early buzz is not a powerful indicator of where the party ends up at the end of the day.

And, you know, if you've got a race where Donald Trump is in it, Ron DeSantis is in it, and three or four other Republican candidates decide to get in.

'Cause if DeSantis breaks the ice, there will be others who enter the race.

You're still gonna end up with Donald Trump having the majority of primary voters in some of these early states.

And so there's many a slip between the cup and the lip, but Ron DeSantis is very popular right now with elite Republicans.

He is very popular with Mitch McConnell class Republicans, with Kevin McCarthy class Republicans, with the guys at National Review.

They love him dearly right now.

But the base, I think behaviorally, is still gonna be drawn back to Donald Trump.

- Ron DeSantis has been coy about whether or not he thinks the 2020 election was fairly decided.

And he's been asked directly several times and he really hasn't given the straight answer to reporters that have asked the question over and over again.

Can a candidate who's running in the Republican primary other than Donald Trump, can they say that the 2020 election was fair and get a sizable number of Republican voters?

- Ron DeSantis recognizes one thing, and that's a real big tell by the way, he can act like he can win this thing, and he can swagger around with the donor class and say, I can take him, I can take him.

But if he won't cross that red line with Donald Trump, he still recognizes the power Trump has over his base.

And, you know, Ron DeSantis can raise a hundred million dollars.

And when it goes toe-to-toe in a national debate in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina, and the moderator says to Ron DeSantis, was the election of 2020 fairly decided?

Is Joe Biden a legitimate president?

If he says, yes, then Donald Trump will eviscerate him and the base, which beyond the Trump base, many, many Republicans have been convinced by Trump that the election was stolen, then he will lose that passionate part of the debates.

And if he says no, then he's illegitimate, then what's the difference?

Then pick Trump.

If you're gonna pick the guy that's crazy and lying about the election, pick the genuine article, not diet Trump.

- One last question.

We only have 45 seconds.

Viktor Orban is coming to Dallas next month to speak at the CPAC convention.

Ron DeSantis is gonna be there.

Is Orban a model for Republicans now in the U.S. for an authoritarian type of government?

- Shamefully, and sadly and horrifically he is.

This would be like inviting Hitler to the 1936 Republican Convention.

This is not a man you want to represent your movement, your party, your country, or anything.

He is an authoritarian.

He is a sweeping authoritarian.

And he's a model for them, but it is a very terrible model to follow.

- Rick Wilson, thanks a lot for coming on Florida this Week.

- Anytime.

- Thanks for joining us.

We want to remind you that Floridians who wan to vote in the upcoming primary elections must be registered by next Monday, July 25th.

Primary election day is August 23rd.

You can register online at registertovoteflorida.gov.

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

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

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