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

- [Narrator] Next on WEDU, Joe Biden vows in Tampa that her husband will not drop out of the presidential race despite declining support among Democrats.

In South Florida, Former President Trump outlined some of his agenda for a second term.

Trump disavows, the controversial project 2025, which was written by his former staffers.

And new signs go up at the state's border, welcoming drivers to The Free State of Florida.

Political insights next on Florida this week.

(theme music) - Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week, Brittany Jean is the President of the Tampa Bay Young Republicans.

Shelley Reback is a retired attorney, the host of WMNF radio's, MidPoint Wednesday Show, and a Democrat.

William March is a columnist, a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times.

And Kimberly Leonard is the politics reporter for Politico and the author of the "Florida Playbook."

Great to see all of you.

Thanks for doing the program.

Well, first Lady Jill Biden traveled to Tampa Monday where she said her husband, president Joe Biden was all in for another four years in office.

- Joe has made it clear that he's all in.

The Supreme Court, ruled that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.

(crowd booing) Our democracy cannot withstand a Trump presidency with virtually no limits.

- [Narrator] Speaking at an American Legion Post, she also said her husband considers support of the military and veterans, a sacred obligation that she contended contrasts with former President Donald Trump's views about veterans.

The visit came as President Biden tries to convince voters that he can beat former President Trump in November.

Biden has faced a mountain of criticism after his poor debate performance last month.

An increasing number of democratic politicians and donors have called for the 81-year-old to drop out of the race.

- And President Biden held a press conference at the end of the NATO Summit on Thursday, and he gave some detailed answers, but he also got confused about his Vice President's name.

- Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, do I think she was not qualified to be president?

So let's start there.

- So Shelly, what are local Democrats in Tampa that you talked to saying about whether or not President Biden should stay in the race?

- There are some who are calling for him to step aside in favor of a younger, more energetic candidate, but for the most part, I think local Democrats are like me, which is to say agnostic about who the candidate is because when you elect a president, you elect more than the candidate themselves.

You elect their administration, their platform, their privilege of nominating Supreme Court justices.

And right now we have a choice between a civil pluralistic society or an authoritarian fascist platform.

So as far as I'm concerned, I really, it doesn't matter to me whether Biden stays in or whether another candidate takes over.

I think to the extent that there are calls for another candidate to take over, it's because people do believe that there may be more energy in terms of getting out the vote for a new candidate.

But I don't think anybody feels that Biden can't do the job because he's supported by a great administration.

- Kimberly, have there been any defections from the congressional ranks, the Democratic congressional ranks in Florida?

- Not at all.

In fact, those who have said things about it have said that they are very much behind Biden.

There are others I'll admit, who are remaining quiet.

And so maybe they're just kind of keeping their powder dry.

You know, there was a sense that if the NATO press conference had gone poorly yesterday, that several Democrats, not just from Florida, but from, you know, many, many states, and we don't even know who they are, would have written a letter saying it was time to step down.

But there was nothing really, you know, obviously there was some switching of names, but there was nothing in the performance of President Biden last night that really to a lot of people drew like an okay, it's time to push him out of the race or anything like that.

It was more of a status quo.

A lot of people are relieved, but mostly the state party is standing by him.

And then congressional democrats are either gung-ho about supporting him or just staying silent for now.

- Yeah, Brittany, what about young Republicans that you talked to?

What are they saying about the Joe Biden campaign?

- Yes, well, the fact that we're even here discussing how, oh, he did okay.

He didn't screw up that bad.

I mean, it's extremely disappointing to a young person who's looking forward to the next generation of leadership.

We shouldn't have a president that we're waiting for the next shoe to drop or we're waiting for him to say something wrong on an international stage every single day, right?

That's not portraying leadership, that's not portraying the strength of the United States anywhere in the world.

And that's what we are seeing as young people.

Our futures are on the line.

I mean, if something happens in Russia or in the Middle East or something like that, like we are the ones that are gonna have to go and fight for that.

So we need a younger president who one can trust is not going to make the United States look weak and look feeble.

And we need someone, like you said, you're voting for the administration.

Well, you're also voting for the man.

He's the one that has to sit in the room with those other leaders.

And we have to know and be confident that he's capable of doing that.

And right now, not just young Republicans, young people in general don't feel confident that Joe Biden can do that.

- Trump is three years younger.

- He acts a lot younger though.

- Did young Republicans have a debate, have a NATO Summit press conference watch party?

- So not for the press conference, but we did have a debate watch party and it got very rowdy because as we know that Joe Biden made a lot of gaffes and a lot of things just were very comical and entertaining for us.

So we had a great time.

You know, Donald Trump was as expected and Joe Biden came out.

You know, we expected him to act that way, but a lot of people didn't.

So, you know, we had a great time that night.

- Whitney, President Biden has been here already.

Joe Biden was here on Monday.

This is the I-4 Corridor back when Florida was competitive, this was the area that you had to win in order to turn the state.

Why do you think the Biden campaign even spends any time in Tampa?

- Well, that's sort of one of the things that I noticed about Joe Biden's appearance here.

This was a tour of battleground states, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tampa, which as you noted has been in the past the epicenter of the swing state of Florida.

The Biden campaign is paying some, at least some attention to Florida, a significant amount.

- Does mean that they think there's a chance that they could do some damage to Trump in Florida?

- I'm not going to engage in reading their minds, but they're acting like they think they can.

Maybe it's just because they want to force Trump to play here, to work here.

Maybe it's because they wanna force Trump to spend money here, I don't know.

But they are showing signs that they think it's worth their while to send their people here.

One thing I wanted to say about the reporting on Biden's gaffes or slips or whatever, to me, this is a really good example of one of the problems of national political reporting.

Reporters are always extremely reluctant to break a touchy topic.

John Kennedy's sexual escapades, Franklin Roosevelt's incapacity.

But once it's broken, they leap all over it.

And anything that suggests that falls into the narrative suddenly becomes a big story.

You use the wrong word for somebody and suddenly it's a big international story.

And to me, that's at least part of what is happening here.

And you've seen this in the past, the false narrative that Gerald Ford was clumsy, that meant every time he stubbed his toe, it was a national story.

- And other things, other important issues get shoved aside.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

Alright.

Well the campaign rally at his Doral Resort in South Florida this week, former President Trump made multiple references to Florida's US Senator Marco Rubio, acknowledging the speculation that Rubio may be chosen as his vice presidential running mate.

- I think they probably think I'm gonna be announcing that Marco's gonna be vice president.

- I've been seeing it for three years.

- But Trump never revealed who his choice is for VP.

Later, he outlined some of the policies he would enact if he was elected.

- We will close up our border and we want people to come in, but they have to come in legally.

They have to come in legally.

And on day one, we will begin the largest domestic deportation operation in the history of our country.

You have no choice.

(crowd cheering) And on day one, we will throw out omics and replace it with a thing called the meganomics.

We will quickly build the greatest economy in the history of the world.

I will repeal every disastrous Biden regulation of which there are many cancel crooked Joe's insane electric vehicle mandate.

How stupid.

And we will drill, baby drill.

We're gonna drill like we never drilled before.

- Kimberly, you were there.

What was it like?

How big was it?

What was your biggest takeaway from that rally in Doral?

- Whew.

Well it was really, really hot.

So I came prepared, you know, with a hat and one of those little electronic fans, but it was very crowded.

Former President Trump does bring in really big crowds and he's very popular in the Hispanic community down here.

And one of the things that was written and I would say the biggest takeaway was that when Senator Rubio got to the stage and was speaking, he definitely got the biggest applause.

And he gave us a little bit of a preview into what it might look like if he were to be selected to be Trump's running mate.

Because he was up there, first of all, he was going after Vice President Harris.

So that sort of gave us a sense that he was almost auditioning for the job and then he was going back and forth between Spanish and English.

So it was easy to picture what it might look like for him to campaign across the US and be able to do that.

And then on top of that, then as was mentioned in this segment, Trump got on stage and he just teased Senator Rubio and the crowd all night long about his vice presidential pick saying things like, well, Marco knows what it's like or what do you think, Marco?

And then at one point he even said that he hoped that Senator Rubio would support his policy not to tax tips.

And then he said something along the lines of, but I don't know if you'll be there to vote for it, but you'll be involved.

So it definitely was a big drag on Senator Rubio if he is not picking him to be vice president.

Very teasing, very toying.

But it was something that we were obviously all sort of watching for, even though the campaign had said, you know, wait until closer to the convention.

- What do you think the biggest reason to pick Rubio is, and what's the biggest reason against picking Rubio as VP?

- The biggest con is that he's from the same state as Trump.

He would have to move to another state, which shouldn't be too hard 'cause he works out of Washington a lot.

So he could do his main residency in the DMV area as it's known.

And then the pros for him is that he would help expand, you know, the appeal to Hispanic voters, where Trump has already made a lot of inroads and he's very strong on foreign policy, which could give him an edge in a time, you know, when there's war in the Middle East and in Russia.

And so that gives him an edge to talk fluently about those issues at a time where the public is very worried and you know, sort of watching everything going on.

So those are the plus signs.

But you know, let's not forget they ran against each other in 2016 and Democrats are not likely to let them forget it.

- There were some pretty harsh words back then, Brittany, when the president or the former president says, we're gonna do the largest deportations, we're gonna drill baby drill, we're gonna reverse the Biden economic policies.

What's your take on that?

- So to me, I mean, as a young conservative, as a Republican, those are all things that I'm looking for.

Those are things that I would like to happen.

I mean, I have a young child and I'm having another one, and things are expensive in today's world, and we are just seeing them get more and more expensive.

I just graduated from law school, I have student loans with interest rates that are through the roof.

So things are just getting more expensive and we need to bring back, right?

And energy independence, bring down gas prices, bring down the price at the grocery store, and we do need to deport all of those people who came here illegally.

I am a daughter of immigrants.

My dad came over here legally with my grandparents like almost 40 years ago.

And we have family that are still in Pakistan that can't get green cards and they can't get their visas to come here.

So it's so frustrating to see all of these people just walking across the border and then talking about giving them amnesty and letting them stay here.

No, we need, we have laws for a reason and we need to send them back.

So everything that President Trump is saying, I agree with, and I would love to see Marco Rubio as vice president.

He's a young Republican.

You know, the Republicans in Florida have a very deep bench of young conservative leaders and elevating one of them, like that would be huge for our party.

- Shelley, what'd you think of the president's agenda the outline that we played there?

- Well, you know, I know Brittany was there.

Kimberly was there, but half of his speech was a challenge to President Biden to play golf against him at Augusta.

And so he said he would make a special call to allow Kamala to come too.

I mean, it was incredibly disrespectful to the moment, really, when you think about it, the teasing of Rubio, it's unserious, he's a clown.

And I think that's the main takeaway from all of his speeches.

He's a performer, he is not a serious person and he has never been capable of governing, and I'm frankly more worried about the people that he put around him and wants to continue to put around him, the authors of Project 2025, for example.

- Which we're gonna get to in a second.

- I'm more concerned about them than I am about him.

He's a clown.

- Well, Wendy, it used to be that both democratic and Republican politicians in the state of Florida would be against expanded drilling, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, given the problems that we've had with oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

The former president says, we're gonna drill baby drill.

What's your take on that?

- Well, again, exactly as you said, are we gonna drill baby drill off the coast of Pinellas County or are we gonna drill baby drill off the East Coast in the Atlantic?

Are we gonna drill in the Everglades?

Where are we gonna drill?

The United States is already the world's largest oil producer, the world's largest energy producer, I believe.

- Yeah, I think that's true.

We are energy independent right now.

- But in any case, on the vice presidential subject, pretty clearly Donald Trump is an attention seeker.

He always has been.

He's been using his vice presidential choice, teasing his vice presidential choice for months to get attention.

I mean, in May, Doug Burgum was the flavor of the month.

Not long after that, he said he liked J.D.

Vance's beard looks good on TV, obviously qualifies him to be vice president.

The latest tea leaf reading is that it's gonna be Vance because Don Jr gets the speaking slot immediately before whoever the pick is.

And Don Jr. is good friends with Vance, but Don Jr. insiders deny that that's an accurate reading.

So what Trump is doing is, is letting out little teases, dropping little baits for attention.

- Okay, well, speaking of policies, if Trump wins the election, the Heritage Foundation, a think tank, which is worked closely with every Republican president since Ronald Reagan has a blueprint for what Trump should do in his first six months in office.

It's called Project 2025, a 900 page Playbook for a second Trump term.

According to Steve Contorno at CNN, at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a hand in coming up with Project 2025.

They include six former Trump cabinet secretaries, four people that Trump nominated as ambassadors appointees to commissions such as the FCC and his first deputy chief of staff.

Some of the goals of Project 2025 include to fire as many as 50,000 current federal employees who may not be considered conservative enough.

Place The Justice Department squarely under Donald Trump's authority, doing away with any traditional independence, dismantle workers' rights to organize unions.

It calls for a complete gutting of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, or DEI programs in the workplace allow employers to eviscerate overtime regulations and potentially withhold overtime pay, ban pornography, reverse federal approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, make it harder for transgender adults to transition and eliminate the federal agency that oversees the National Weather Service.

On Thursday, former President Trump called attempts to link him to Project 2025 pure disinformation.

On Truth Social, he posted, "I know nothing about Project 2025, I've not seen it, have no idea who's in charge of it.

And unlike our very well received Republican platform, had nothing to do with it."

But just two years ago, Trump praised the Project 2025 source, the Heritage Foundation for coming up with plans for him to carry out if he wins another term.

- This is a great group and they're gonna lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.

And that's coming.

That's coming.

- Wendy, the Heritage Foundation is an important ally of the Republican Party.

Why is former President Trump trying to distance himself from Project 2025?

- Well, I got a pretty strong sense here, Rob, that we're being told to ignore that man behind the curtain.

Donald Trump in the past has told us that he is the world's ranking expert on almost everything from aircraft carriers to renewable energy to epidemiology.

He knows more than anyone else he has said that in those words about many of those subjects.

Now suddenly we have a subject that's been heavily covered in the national press for weeks and months, followed by this great story by Steve Contorno.

It's about something that's being done by dozen scores of his former aides and he's never heard anything about it, knows nothing.

That's a little hard to believe.

It's pretty clearly the problem is that a lot of what you just heard as to what's involved in Project 2025 would contribute to the attack, the criticism that Trump is an authoritarian.

- Kimberly, what's your take on this?

Why do you think that Trump is distancing himself from Project 2025?

- Well, I think he's seeing that a lot of Democrats are using it against him heading into the election.

And I would say that's been the case, even here in Florida, they had a press conference about it, Florida Democrats in Doral to talk specifically about Project 2025.

And then they were a little bit annoyed when a lot of us were asking questions about President Biden and their support instead.

So it is something that they are trying to use.

It's something that I hear about from regular Floridians who don't follow the news very closely.

So I think it's definitely sticking.

But one thing to keep in mind is that, you know, yes they might, it's not coming directly from the Trump campaign.

However, groups like the Heritage Foundation do act as almost campaigns and, or excuse me, administrations in waiting, if you know what I mean.

Where then if you become president, you'll have a lot of people who are from these groups who will be incorporated into your administration.

It's very similar to how the Democrats will pull from the Center for American Progress.

So if you look at some of the proposals from the Center for American Progress, they probably would, you know, help to give a little of a preview into what another Biden term might look like, for instance.

- Shelley, what do you think of Project 2025?

- Well, first of all, let me just point out that a moment ago on this show, I mixed up the names of Kimberly and Brittany, so I'm not sure I'm qualified to comment by the, you know, on politics anymore.

I mean it's just so ridiculous that that's the standard that we use.

But as to project 2025, one of the problems with Project 2025 is it's a recipe for a Christian theocracy that is the theme that is woven through the entire 900 pages of the document itself.

It is a recipe for an authoritarian fascistic dictatorship.

All of the power of the three branches of government are intended to now be consolidated into the presidency, into the executive branch.

And all power will be within the president's purview.

So that there are a number of goals like getting rid of some 50,000 civil servants who may not, they're investigating that right now.

It's very masochistic.

They're looking at 50,000 civil servants to determine if they are loyal enough to Trump, to stay in their jobs.

- Brittany, we're almost out of time, but what's your take on Project 2025?

- So I think that everyone's kind of making a story out of it when there's not necessarily something there to distract from everything going on with President Joe Biden, right?

That's where we kind of saw it creep up a couple weeks ago after the debate.

And that's what they're really pushing now.

And just because a lot of former President Trump's staff works for the Heritage Foundation, if you read it, it says it's a suggestion for conservative leadership, right?

And it doesn't parallel what Donald Trump has put out as a platform.

There are clear differences as we see with Donald Trump on abortion.

He is saying, you know, it should be left to the states and the project 2025 wants to like almost completely ban abortion.

So you are seeing the differences and the contradictions just in the platforms themselves.

- Okay, well there are new signs greeting drivers coming into Florida along major roadways.

The signs say, welcome to the Free State of Florida.

It's a slogan that Governor DeSantis has long been using to describe the policies of his administration, including his opposition to what he calls woke ideologies and his opposition to federal healthcare mandates during the height of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Brittany, I wanna go to both you and I wanna go to Shelley, too.

30 seconds.

Are we more free under Governor DeSantis today than we were six years ago?

- I think so, especially living through Covid and being able to make all those decisions.

I was in law school and being able to have in-person classes and then going through the birth of having my child in the hospital with you know, family and friends and everyone being there to visit, it was the best experience.

I have friends in other states who didn't get that and the signs are fun.

The Free State of Florida, when you go somewhere else in the country and you say, oh, I'm from Florida.

A lot of people will say that back and they'll say, oh my gosh, we love your governor.

We love what he's doing.

- Okay, Shelley, are we free of today?

- We are not free.

We are not at all free.

And I hope to God that you have a healthy pregnancy because women's reproductive freedom and autonomy over their own bodies is now threatened in Florida.

You know, we are less free as women in Florida because of that.

We are less free in terms of our schools and our education in Florida.

- How are we less free with our schools?

We have school choice.

You can now get money.

It's not book banning.

If you can go to the library or purchase the book, it's not being banned.

- Before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

Brittany, quickly, what's your other big story?

- So, well everyone's talking about President Joe Biden and former President Trump.

There are Haitian immigrants who are coming to the Keys almost every week.

Last week on July 6th, there were 118 Haitian immigrants who came over on sailboats who then have to be treated in Key West, which has a teeny tiny hospital.

And so they are overwhelming Florida's resources and that is something that everyone needs to be aware of.

- Okay, William, you're out the big story.

- Well, I wanna get local.

The race between Republican Susie Lopez and Andrew Warren for state attorney is turning into exactly the partisan grudge match that everybody thought it was gonna be.

Andrew Warren is accusing Lopez of prosecutorial mistakes.

She's throwing it back there and it's going to be the highest spending local race in the county, - Shelley, quickly?

- Well, right now we have lay people invited to be counselors and chaplains in our public schools.

Naturally, the Satanists are challenging that law because they are certified as a religion by the IRS, but anybody coming in as a lay chaplain is completely unvetted and untrained.

- Kimberly, we have 20 seconds.

- Yeah, I'm headed to Milwaukee tomorrow because I'll be covering the convention and I'll be watching Governor Ron DeSantis, who was not initially slated to be on the schedule, but then there was a change in plans and now he will be on the main stage, will be very interesting to see what he says about former President Trump.

- And we look forward to your coverage.

Thanks to our guests this week, Brittany Jean, William March, Shelley Reback, and Kimberly Leonard.

If you have comments about this program, please send them to us at FTW@wedu.org.

The show is available at wedu.org or on YouTube and the show is now also available as a podcast.

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

Remember, the Republican National Convention starts on Monday.

We'll start our coverage at 8:00 PM.

(theme music)