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

Florida This Week is made possible in part by support from the Tampa Bay Times.

- Coming up next, hurricane Elsa brushes Florida, the state comes out largely unscathed.

Former president Trump holds a big rally in Sarasota.

After the assault on Congress, the Capitol police will set up an office in Tampa.

The more aggressive variant of COVID is taking hold here in Florida, and the Lightning extend the winning streak of professional sports teams in the Bay Area.

All this and more, next on Florida This Week.

(bright music) Welcome back, an unusual early season hurricane, hurricane Elsa brushed Florida with strong winds and some local flooding and at least one death this week, but it was not as bad as some had feared.

The fast moving storm hit north of the bay area and swiftly moved on up the east coast.

The storm temporarily halted the search and rescue effort at the side of the collapsed Surfside, Florida condominium.

Before the storm hit, city officials there ordered the rest of the building to be demolished so as not to endanger first responders.

On Thursday, the rescue effort was changed to a recovery effort after it was determined the likelihood of finding survivors was very low.

This week, president Moise of Haiti was assassinated at his home and his wife was wounded.

Several of the suspected gunman were killed.

The motive for the execution is still unclear.

According to census figures, more than a million Haitian immigrants live here in the U.S. and more than 400,000 of those live in Florida.

Former president Trump held a rally in Sarasota last weekend, as he's been doing for months, he made the false claim, the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and he told the audience, he was looking at a run again in 2024.

More on that in a moment.

Six months after supporters of the former president storm the U.S. Capitol, the U.S. Capitol police will open a field office in Tampa to investigate threats to members of Congress.

The Capitol police identified Florida and California as the two states where the majority of potential threats are.

And the Tampa Bay Lightning won their second straight Stanley cup this week defeating the Montreal Canadians one to nothing.

Lightning won the cup last year in the bubble in Edmonton during the COVID lockdown.

This year celebration was quite different with the arena almost at full capacity.

The lightning became the first team since the 2017 Pittsburgh Penguins to have a repeat win for the cup.

Well, the highly contagious Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus is spreading rapidly in the U.S. and around Florida.

CDC data released this week shows the Delta variant accounted for 13.2% of new cases in the state, and that number is rising.

Joining us now to look at the numbers is Dr. Michael Teng.

An associate professor of medicine at USF health, and Dr. Teng, welcome back.

Good to see you.

- Yeah, good to see you again too, Rob.

- Let me start with the news about Pfizer.

Pfizer announced this week that it is seeking emergency, making an emergency application to distribute booster versions of its vaccine, and I'm wondering, does that mean that the Pfizer vaccine is less effective and the folks who have taken the Pfizer vaccine have something to worry about?

- You know, Rob, quite the contrary, for all the evidence that is coming out, the Pfizer vaccines, as well as the Moderna vaccines seem to be very effective, producing long-term immunity to the virus.

So it's not really clear what data that Pfizer is looking at, but I think it's really telling that the CDC and FDA produce a joint statement within hours of the Pfizer announcement of looking for booster shots, trying to get emergency use authorization to say basically that they're going to follow the science and that currently no boosters are necessary.

- Well, I can imagine some people are tempted just to go down to their local drug store when they hear this news about Pfizer and don't hear the CDC follow-up, they might go down to their local drug store.

If they've already had two vaccines, might go for a third just because they know there's no lines there at the local drug store for vaccinations.

Is that a good idea.

- At this time, you know, I wouldn't recommend going there.

We do know that the two dose regimen for the Pfizer vaccine is very effective.

We don't know what will happen with a third dose.

As for the people who have taken the Pfizer vaccine, know that sometimes the second dose, you get a little bit more reactions, local and systemic reactions from the vaccine.

So it's not something that's been tested yet.

And I think it's worth waiting to see actual data come out on a test of the booster regimen rather than go out and get it yourself.

- Let's go back to the Delta variant.

How dangerous is it especially for people who've not been vaccinated?

- Yeah, the Delta variant is actually pretty dangerous for people who have not been vaccinated.

This is a very highly transmissible virus.

It's even more transmissible than any of the variants that we've seen previously.

And we were starting to get some information on why it's so transmissible, replicate faster, and to higher extents in people that are infected.

So you're more likely to both get infected as well as to transmit the virus.

- And Dr. Teng, we know a lot of people are skeptical about getting the vaccination, and especially I was looking at the statistics this week, especially low-income counties, low-income zip codes.

The higher incomes zip codes all seem to be pretty well vaccinated, but folks that live in low and moderate income neighborhoods sometimes, they are really low to get vaccinated.

What would you say to folks who haven't been vaccinated about the rise of this new variant?

- So the CDC just came out with some new data today that are really striking.

So they've compared on a countywide basis, vaccination rates and people who are getting infected with the Delta variant.

They're basically, exactly correlated.

So you can see in large swaths of Southwestern Missouri and Northern Arkansas, where the vaccination rates are extremely low, they are hotspots for the Delta variant.

We see the same thing happening, you know, within our state.

We have kind of a gradient of vaccination where the Southern part of the state has greater percentage of vaccination rates compared to the Northern counties.

And in some places in the Northern counties are now starting to see greater infection with Delta variant.

- And is it more deadly?

- So far the data that we have doesn't suggest that it's more deadly, but if the virus transmits better and replicates to higher extent, you're going to get a lot more people sick, and so more cases equals more hospitalizations.

- So Dr. Teng, let's talk about masks.

I noticed when I go into the grocery store, people are mixed.

Some people are still wearing masks, others are not.

What's the best advice about mask wearing at this point, at this stage of the COVID epidemic?

- Yeah, so this is a really interesting question.

And just to put it on a little bit more personal level, you know, the CDC did come out with the guidance that if you're fully vaccinated, you could, you know, not wear masks outside and then inferior in low-risk situations, not wear it indoors.

Just the Delta variant came out and understanding that this is more transmissible, I started wearing my mask again.

I used to not wear the mask outside, but now it's getting to a point where, you know, we can still, even though you've been vaccinated, you can still be infected with the virus and still transmit it.

You're likely protected from severe disease and hospitalization, but the problem is not for us.

It's really for the people that can't get vaccinated.

I have a young child at home that has not been vaccinated.

I could certainly pass it to her.

And I really don't wanna do that.

- And just one quick question.

What's the youngest the person can be to get vaccinated?

What do we know it's safe?

What age is it completely safe to get vaccinated?

- So currently, the Pfizer vaccine is authorized for use in down to 12 year olds.

Moderna has filed paperwork down to 12 year olds as well.

And I know they have pediatric studies looking at kids younger than that.

So maybe those data will come out later.

- Dr. Teng, thanks a lot for coming back on the program.

- Thanks for having me again, Rob, it's been a pleasure.

(bright music) - Well, this week, we're returning to our discussion of the week's events.

Our panelists are Rosemary Goudreau O'Hara, is an award-winning journalist and a longtime observer of Florida politics.

During her career, she was the editorial page editor for both the Tampa Tribune and the south Florida Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.

Stanley Gray is a businessman with a long history with the Republican party.

He's active in the Tampa Hillsborough county branch of the urban league now.

He's also a Marine and has served to protect presidents, Reagan and Bush.

He's currently not affiliated with a political party.

And Colin Wolf is a 15 year award-winning reporter and the digital content editor for Creative Loafing, Tampa bay.

He also oversees digital content for the Euclid media group.

And Roger Stone has called Colin a pinko scribe.

Well, Colin, Stanley and Rosemary, welcome to Florida This Week.

Great to have you.

- Great to be here.

- Thanks for having me.

- President Trump, former president Trump was in Sarasota this past weekend, held a big rally.

I wanna play a sound bite from that rally right now.

- We have a deep state too in this country.

And the deep state, they work with the Democrats and the Republicans.

And those are the Republicans I don't like.

In fact, those are Republicans that in many ways are worse than the Democrats, okay?

They're worse (crowd applauding) If Mitch McConnell had the courage and the guts, and if he was a real leader, he would have wanted to look into all the corruption that took place.

- So Rosemary, the former President held that rally.

He's still claiming the election was stolen.

Now, he's even blaming Republicans for the stolen election.

What'd you think of the rally?

- Well, first, I think that former President Trump continues to violate the norms of past Presidents.

You know, the presidency is a difficult job with a lot of slings and arrows coming your way, and that's why past Presidents usually give their counsel in private, not in public, and that this President continues to violate the norms is wrong.

My second observation is that he chose to have this rally when he did, when they were still digging moms and dads and little kids out of the rubble, less than two hours away, but he wanted the focus on him.

He wants the relevance on him.

His time, he should have delayed the rally as governor DeSantis allegedly requested.

And the governor was absolutely right not to go.

So he was wrong to have the rally.

And then to the substance of the rally that he said, you know, that the indictments for tax evasion, when he had said that he knows the tax laws better than anybody.

And yet he's expected to know the tax laws on corporate, excessive, corporate perks.

He, yeah, we do expect it.

And that he continues to say this lie about the election being stolen and the deep state when courts and reports, and most recently the Michigan G, just this week, the Michigan GOP says, not true.

And yet everybody in that audience, they waited hours in the rain to see him and applaud him and just, you know, welcome him back like the Messiah.

It's sad, it's sad to me and the, you know, our country needs a functioning Republican party.

- Let me play another sound bite from the rally where the former President said, of the protest that took place in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and others last year.

He said that no one paid a price for the violence that occurred after some of those protests.

93% of the protests were completely peaceful.

There was some violence.

This is what President Trump said in Sarasota.

- And how come so many people are still in jail over January 6th when nobody paid a price for the fire and carnage and death that took place in Democrat run cities throughout our country, including Antifa and BLM?

How come?

- Well, I looked this up, Stanley, and we can see it on the screen.

52 people were arrested in the 24 hours after January 6 in Washington, DC.

But over the course of the BLM and Antifa protests, those of which had some elements of violence, 14,000 people were arrested in 2020.

So clearly, the President was wrong.

I don't know where he gets his information from, but now after six months, 535 people have been arrested for the Capitol violence, but they're still looking for hundreds more, and it dwarfs the number of people who were arrested last summer during the protest against police violence.

What do you make of what the President said?

- Well, first off, it's another continuous false claim that has no basis.

But I think the numbers that you just spoke to really need to be looked at and even a little bit more different.

I think that the black lives matter protests, there've been people who have been sentenced for years.

And when you have someone who was arrested in the sixth and they get probation, that's a travesty.

There's not equality with that.

And I think what's going on is that I think that people are kinda like tiptoeing around the issue, okay?

We had people actually went to the Capitol United States and committed an act of treason.

Now, I'm not asking them to treat them like, you know, private Slovak, who was the last person who we executed in this country for treason in the second world war, which Eisenhower was the one who commanded the death, but there's no accountability.

There's just no accountability.

And I think that it's sad that when they stopped the insurrection, and I understand that people were in danger, but when they came out of the Capitol, they should have been arresting people then.

- Colin, let me ask you, what do you make of the President saying this and the crowd, apparently going along with him, not knowing that 14,000 people had been arrested during the 2020 protest?

- Yeah, I mean, Trump lies.

We know that, right?

Every time he's in front of the microphone, the truth is not something he's interested in.

I mean, it's such an easy fact for anyone to Google.

And here in Tampa bay, I have Andrew Warren's office contacting our newspaper, trying to get us to name protesters that were involved.

So, I mean, law enforcement's actively still making arrests from the initial BLM thing.

We all know that.

Look, the Sarasota rally, we knew what it was going to be.

We knew Trump was gonna say falsehoods.

You know, as a reporter, I was more interested that day on the people that showed up.

I was more interested in the groups that were there.

I was more interested in how the Florida establishment Republican party reacted to it.

Like, we sent a reporter there, and to me, it blew my mind that there's still QAnon on supporters out there, that they're still proud boys walking around those fairgrounds.

You know what I mean?

You'd think after January 6, the Florida GOP would be running from the Hills from those groups.

But you know, if you look at sales coverage from that thing, you're gonna see QAnon guys, oath keepers, all those guys still there.

So to me, it's Trump's foothold on the far right and the fringe and how it's affecting Florida politics is really a story here.

- Colin, let follow up with you on that, because speaking of the January 6th, the Capitol insurrection, the Capitol police, the U.S. Capitol police announced this week that they're setting up an office in Tampa because of the number of threats, death threats against members of Congress emanating from this area and all of Florida.

It's one of two states that have the most death threats against members of Congress, Florida, and the other state is California.

What do you make of that?

- Yeah, I mean, you know, personally, why wouldn't they open an office here?

I mean, DeSantis hasn't said anything yet about the insurrection or even he hasn't even recognized Joe Biden's legitimacy as a president yet either, or the outcome of that election.

He hasn't publicly said it.

I mean, Charlie Chris has been pushing for him to do that for the past two months.

But yeah, I mean, why wouldn't they open it here?

I mean, look, Florida had over 60 members, our residents from Florida arrested on January 6th.

We have the most extremist groups tied to January 6th.

I mean, if anything, it makes total sense that you would have the Capitol police here because in all essence, Florida helped lead the insurrection on January 6th.

- Stanley, you were involved in presidential security when the U.S Capitol police moves down to Tampa to set up an office.

What does that tell you as somebody who's worked in security in the past?

- Let me kinda explain my role.

My role was to take him from where he was to the helicopter to get to where he was going.

So let's kinda paint that picture.

I think that this is really a real bad issue.

The fact that the people who were assigned to protect the Capitol and the members of Congress are coming here, one can only speculate that they have a lead that there's information to be gained here.

I also think that it's pretty sad that, and I know it's old news that we're not investigating this with a bipartisan commission.

I think that that's pretty sad.

The fact that as a result of that, that's the reason why they're coming down here because they don't want anybody to get in between, you know, their investigation.

I just think that we're really in a sad state, and I'm not trying to sound like a defeatist and the sky is falling, but the word accountability has gone from our government.

- Rosemary, let me toss the next question to you.

And that is, governor DeSantis signed a measure into law this week that would require, or two weeks ago, that would require all public universities to survey students, professors, and staff on their political beliefs.

The law also says that students must be shown diverse ideas on college campuses in Florida, and they must be shown opinions, including opinions that they may find uncomfortable.

So that's the new law in Florida.

- Yeah.

- [Rob] What do you think?

- Yeah, I think it's all part of the culture war that is being stoked in advanced of the midterms.

And it's part of, and I know it encourage Democrats not to play the game.

You know, the issue of transgender sports wasn't an issue in Florida.

The issue of critical race theory wasn't being taught in Florida.

The issue of our college campuses, liberal.

I think all the men who are running Florida went to college and here they are conservatives.

So Democrats don't play this game.

Focus on the cost of insurance, auto insurance, health insurance, a cause of affordable housing.

Talk about the things that people care about.

Don't play the game republicans want you to play, which is what this bill is about.

- And Stanley, at the same time, Republicans are saying you can't teach critical race theory.

So there are ideas they want to impose on college students, and there are ideas that they wanna protect K through 12 students from.

- I know that some people, even the ACLU said that they're gonna have a wait and see on this bill.

I think that that's not a good philosophy.

A couple of reasons.

One is that what you just mentioned, the critical race theory.

You're not gonna be able to talk about race.

So like, how are you gonna be able really validate or test what they're saying?

And the second part is that when you look at the population who's going to be queried, okay?

With the exception of historically black universities, colleges, and universities, they're mostly white males and some females.

So the data is gonna be skewed.

Any way you look at it, it's gonna be skewed.

- Okay, so let's revive one of our old segments right now.

We always wrap up these panel discussions by asking our panelists about another big story that happened this week, or something that's about to happen in the future that we should be paying attention to.

And Stanley, let me start with you.

- I think they kinda, to turn it back is we really need to be talking about appropriations, the tax process.

Right now, I'm presently reading a book called "The Whiteness of Wealth".

I know that that title will scare a lot of people off, but it really does break down the unfairness of our tax code and how it's executed.

I really do believe that the Democrats should make this an issue for this coming election 'cause the tax system right now is unfair.

- And you think that there's a structure in place that keeps income for African-Americans down?

- Well for African-Americans specifically, but also I think that everyone, regardless, you have this feeling that well, if you're married, that you should file jointly married.

Not so true.

- All right, Colin, your other big story of the week.

- Biggest story of the week besides the Bolts winning the cup, has to be that cause light is gonna sell a beer made from the ice that they want on.

And we all know those guys are spitting and sweating on that thing and people are gonna buy it.

So to me, that's the, it's not worth choosing about to me, but-- - [Rob] You think there's gonna be a big market for that beer?

(Colin laughs) - Oh yeah.

I mean, if I was a bigger Bolts fan, which I'm not, but if I was, I would buy it.

- And Rosemary, you get the last word.

What's your other big story of the week?

- Well, you know, it's great to live in Champa Bay, and it's great that the storm didn't hit here very strong, but just from my neck of the woods, my new neck of the woods in Dunedin, there's been this effort to preserve and memorialize this historic Kellogg mansion that was built by the Kellogg's cereal founder.

And after the city discovered how much it would cost to move it, they said, well, let us just go in and take a 3D film of it so everybody can remember it.

Well, don't you know, two days after it's sold, the former owner who said, "Can I have a little more time to get my stuff out?"

Let salvage companies go in there, strip the fixtures, strip the statues, even strip the disco ball from the disc room.

They're in court trying to get this stuff back, but it was a real slap in the face for those who care about historic preservation.

- And would there have been a better way to try to preserve the Kellogg mansion?

- Well, they were going to take some of those artifacts, like the disco ball, and put in like, Dunedin has this wonderful history museum, so they were trying to preserve some of the things that made the place an over the top house.

- Mm hmm, all right.

Well, thank you panelists.

- Yap.

- Thank you, Rosemary, thank you, Colin, thank you, Stanley.

And thanks for joining us.

You can view this and past shows online @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 podcast.

Finally, Tampa resident Sheil Blenda is a Ghanaian American rapper and a writer who uses language and music to share his perspective.

He was profiled on our program WEDU arts plus.

He's recently collaborated with a Tampa area rapper named Roselle Koffee on this song, PBS.

Enjoy, we'll see you next week.

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