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

- Next on WEDU, in a big Newsweek that included an attempt on Donald Trump's life, the Republican National Convention and growing pressure for President Biden to drop out of the race, we'll talk with a Florida Republican delegate at the convention.

We'll get fact checks on some of the significant claims made this week from PolitiFact, and we'll get analysis of the former President's speech at the convention and where the Democratic Party goes from here.

All coming up right now on "Florida This Week."

(inspiring music continues) Welcome back.

The Republicans wrapped up their presidential convention this week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with a speech by former President, Donald Trump, recovering from the shocking assassination attempt last Saturday.

He started his speech with a more kinder, gentler tone than we are used to.

- I stand before you this evening with a message of confidence, strength, and hope.

Four months from now, we will have an incredible victory and we will begin (crowd cheers) the four greatest years in the history of our country.

I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.

- We're joined now by Amilee Stuckey, the Polk County Republican State Committeewoman who's in Milwaukee at the convention.

And Amilee, good to see you again.

Thanks for coming on the program.

- Hi, thank you for having me.

I appreciate that.

- So what's your feeling coming out of the convention?

Tell us how do you feel now that you've completed the convention?

- Well, I'm a little tired, but other than that, we're all exhilarated by all the speeches, the patriotism.

It's just been a very wonderful experience.

- [Rob] What's the biggest theme that's come out for you?

What your biggest takeaway?

- (clear throat) I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?

- Sure, what's your biggest takeaway from the convention?

Is there one issue that stands out that the Republicans are gonna take all over the country and say, "This is what we stand for"?

- Well, we stand for unity, everyone from all over the country.

We had people from every state of the Union there obviously, and the speakers represented a cross section of Americana.

We brought in mothers and teachers and everybody was here, firefighters, policemen.

And it's just, I think the theme of the whole week is unity.

- So tell me about JD Vance, the selection for Vice President.

Who do you think he appeals to?

What do you think about the selection?

- Well, having been a Marine myself, of course, I love it.

I think it's the greatest decision he could have made.

You can't go wrong with a Marine.

Prior to that, I didn't know that much about him.

I wasn't even sure he was in the running.

He wasn't on my short list when people were asking me.

So it was quite a surprise, but a pleasant and a wonderful surprise.

- So somewhere between 5% and 7% or 8% of the country is up for grabs.

The rest of the country is pretty much decided.

Who do you think JD Vance appeals to?

- Veterans for sure, family men, possibly Yale law graduates?

(both laugh) You know, I just think he's every man, coming from humble roots.

So he'll appeal to the people who are pursuing the American dream, which is most of us, isn't it?

So I think he has a broad appeal.

A cross section of America is gonna love him if they don't already.

- President Trump started off his speech in a pretty somber tone.

He was pretty reflective.

He talked about unity, but then he changed tone after about 30 minutes.

And I wanna play some of the soundbites when it comes to immigration.

This is what he said about immigration.

- It's a massive invasion at our southern border that has spread misery, crime, poverty, disease, and destruction.

We have to stop the invasion into our country that's killing hundreds of thousands of people a year.

No hope or dream we have for America can succeed unless we stop the illegal immigrant invasion.

They're coming from prisons, they're coming from jails, they're coming from mental institutions and insane asylums.

The Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.

(crowd cheers) I will not let these killers and criminals into our country.

- Is the party united behind that message?

- I believe so.

Reports are varying, but upwards of 10 or 11 million people have crossed the border in the last several years.

And we don't know who they are.

We don't know where they are.

They're not vetted.

They're obviously illegal, so they've already broken the law.

Many of them are from gangs and they're from countries that hate us.

So, everything he said is true, and I think most of the American people would agree with it.

- Do you believe that number, that immigrants have killed a hundred thousand people?

- Well, I think he includes in those deaths, the deaths from Fentanyl that's pouring across the border, and of course, gang-related violence.

And of course, people dying in the desert trying to get here.

So, you know, those totals are very legitimate, I would imagine based on if you... You know, if you add up all of the different ways that this mass invasion has caused people to lose their life.

- And we know fentanyl is smuggled in usually by smugglers.

It's not brought in by people who are just crossing the border.

They don't carry it in their backpacks.

But I wanna ask you.

The President also brought up Hannibal Lecter and suggested that everybody who's coming in who's an immigrant, is insane and left out of an insane asylum.

Is that something you think the party agrees with?

- No, I don't... And everybody knows that was a little bit tongue and cheek.

You know, it wasn't literal, but the fact remains that prisons and mental asylums are being emptied in other countries and they are being sent here.

I mean, this has been proven.

Of course, I don't have any paperwork in front of me to give to you on that, but we know for a fact that there are countries that have released prisoners, released those mentally ill people and they have been sent here.

They've been directed toward the border.

- Well, Amilee, it was an exciting week.

Thank you so much for coming on with us from Milwaukee.

It's great to see you and have a safe trip back.

- Thank you so much for having me.

I always enjoy it.

And yeah, hopefully the flights won't be too delayed.

(laughs) - I hope so too.

- Thank you.

- Bye-Bye.

- Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

(gentle music) - It was a busy week for the fact-checkers at PolitiFact based at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg.

And joining us now, is one of the reporters with PolitiFact, Marta Campabadal Graus.

Marta, welcome to "Florida This Week".

- Hi, thank you for having me.

- Thank you for coming on.

Well, let's go through some of the claims made during the Republican convention.

There were a whole lot on Tuesday.

Florida's US Senator, Rick Scott said, "Under Donald Trump, we were not at war," referring to Trump's four years in the White House.

Is that true?

Were we not at war?

- [Marta] Well, we rated this as false.

The truth is that the US remained... (audio cuts out) - Marta, did I pronounce your name even close to right?

Spencer, let me talk to Marta- - [Marta] Yeah, yeah.

- Okay, so I did, okay.

Thank you.

I just wanted to check.

- [Marta] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was really good.

I know, it's a hard one.

(laughs) Thank you for checking.

No problem.

- Okay.

Take two.

Three, two.

It was a busy week for the fact-checkers at PolitiFact based at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg.

Joining us now is one of the reporters with PolitiFact, Marta Campabadal Graus.

And Marta, welcome to "Florida This Week".

- Hi, thank you for having me.

- Good to see you.

Let's go through some of the claims made during the convention.

There were a whole lot of them.

On Tuesday, Florida's US Senator, Rick Scott said, "Under Donald Trump, we were not at war," referring to Trump's four years in the White House.

Is that true?

Were we not at war during those four years?

- Well, we rated Scott's claim as false.

The truth is that the US remained at war in Afghanistan throughout Trump's presidency.

There were about 2,500 service members left in Afghanistan and Iraq at the end of his term, in January, 2021.

Trump didn't enter the US into a new sustained armed conflict with another country.

Or for example, he didn't seek new congressional authorization to use military force.

He frequently criticized American involvement in the Middle East and took steps to withdraw certain troops from Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

But he used military force in other countries.

For example, his administration ordered airstrikes, drone attacks, and supplemented allied militaries with US troops.

Trump also sent more resources to Iraq and Syria to fight the Islamic State Group, which included also sending additional service members.

During Trump's presidency, about 65 active duty service members died in hostile action.

So that's why we rated this false.

- Okay, Republican Congressman, Steve Scalise of Louisiana said during the convention that, "On the border, Biden and Harris opened it up to the entire world.

Prisons are being emptied."

How did PolitiFact rate that?

- We rated that claim as false.

It's something we've been seeing many politicians repeating this claim and the US southern border is not open.

There are hundreds of physical barriers such as fences, surveillance technology, drones, and also about 10,000... 20,000 sorry, US border patrol agents that help limit who and what comes into the US.

Additionally, immigration officials at the border continue to enforce immigration law.

And US immigration officials have arrested people with criminal convictions at the border, that's true.

But there is no evidence that prisons are being emptied or that foreign countries are sending prisoners to the US.

In fact, immigrations officials have arrested 110,000 non-citizens with criminal convictions from fiscal years from 2021 to 2024.

This data includes four months of Trump's administration.

Not everyone was let in.

The term non-citizens includes people who may have had legal immigration status in the US but were not US citizens.

Immigration experts have told us that despite data's limitations, there's no evidence to support that statement.

- [Rob] Marta, thanks a lot.

Well, the next question is about the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, JD Vance.

He said, "Donald Trump created the greatest economy in history for workers."

Marta, what about that?

- We rated this as false.

The unemployment rate, which is the strongest evidence for this assertion, shows us that during Trump's presidency, the unemployment rate fell to levels untouched in five decades, yeah.

But his successor, Biden, matched or exceeded those levels.

Another thing to look at is the gross domestic product, which is the sum of the country's economic activity.

And these were broadly similar under Trump to what they were, for example, during the final six years under his predecessor, Obama.

And GDP growth under Trump was well below that of previous presidents.

Wage growth also didn't set records under Trump.

And another metric to look at, which is the growth rate in personal consumption per person, which it determines for many families how much they can spend on food, clothing, housing, healthcare, and travel.

This wasn't higher under Trump than previous presidents.

In Trump's three years in office through January, 2020, real consumption per person grew by 2% a year.

So we rated this claim false.

- Okay, about the jobs that are created under Joe Biden, "107% of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens," said the President.

What about that?

- Yeah, we rated this as mostly false.

This republican talking point paints the Biden years as being better for foreign born workers than native born Americans.

But this is wrong.

Since Biden took office in early 2021, the number of foreign born Americans who are employed has risen by about 5.6 million.

But these numbers, first of all, include both non-citizens who are in the country illegally and legally.

And over the same period, the number of native foreign Americans employed has increased 7.4 million.

So 5.6 million and 7.4 million.

So the unemployment rate for native born workers under Biden is comparable to what it was during the final two prepandemic years of Trump's presidency.

That's why it's been better for foreign born Americans during Biden, but also foreign born Americans.

- Okay, one more question.

I wanna quickly ask about this post on social media, which shows Donald Trump playing golf or riding his golf cart the day after getting shot.

Is that true?

Did Trump go golfing the day after the assassination attempt?

- Well, that's not true.

You know, this picture is from 2022, from September, 2022.

The former President, after what happened in Pennsylvania, he returned to his home at the Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey.

But the photo of Trump driving a golf cart was not taken in Bedminster.

The picture is again, from September, 2022, when Trump visited the National Golf Course in Sterling, Virginia.

So, no, this picture is not from the day after the assassination attempt.

- Marta, we gotta be very careful about what we post on the internet.

You have a lot of footnotes when you do these PolitiFact checks.

Where can people find the PolitiFact checks that we just talked about?

- Yeah, so you can find them on our website or on our social media, PolitiFact.

You know, we publish every day and in situations like the Republican National Convention, there's live fact checking.

So we fact check live what people are saying.

So yeah, go check our website.

- Marta, it's great to have you here.

Thank you for coming on the program.

- Thank you.

(gentle music) - Well, we're gonna get the perspective of two top party activists right now.

Travis Horn is the founder and CEO of Bullhorn Communications and a republican.

And Alan Cohn is a former candidate for the US House, a journalist and a democrat.

And nice to see you both.

- [Alan] Nice to be here.

- Thank you for coming on.

I wanna ask you about the Washington Post, which reported this week that, "Former president Barack Obama has told allies in recent days that President Biden's path to victory has greatly diminished and he thinks the president needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy, according to multiple people briefed on his thinking."

On Friday, four democrats came out and said that President Biden should drop out.

And it's been reported that members of Biden's family have discussed what an exit from his campaign might look like.

So Alan, should the President drop out and do you think he's on the verge of dropping out?

- Well, it seems like the story is moving in that direction.

I know talking to Florida democrats, they are prepared one way or the other to either support the President or support the Vice President or whoever would take that position and work hard for them.

I think that there is a good chance by the time Democrats meet in Chicago in three or four weeks, it will be a different situation... We'll be talking about a different storyline.

And we will not be talking about issues of age and energy.

I think that especially after what we witnessed last night with the former President, I think that there will be added motivation to win this fall.

- Do you think Florida Democrats are fired up about Kamala Harris?

- Yes, I think that the Vice President has come to Florida.

I think that Democrats are so motivated to make sure that when voters make their decision, once again, that they reject Donald Trump again, that they would support the Vice President or whoever emerges as the general election candidate, if it's not the President.

- Yeah, Travis, the Democratic party's in disarray?

What do you think about it?

- Yeah.

I've got a significantly different view.

I think if Joe Biden was gonna get out, they should have gotten him out earlier on.

It's not like we knew he didn't have a problem cognitively.

There was some decline, obviously right?

Especially over the last four years.

He wasn't that sharp in the first election.

He just was the guy who wasn't Trump and he lost that little bit of the middle or he gained that little bit of the middle.

So, I think Harris probably has super high negatives that she's never been discussed as a very serious replacement.

I mean, she was a VP, but she was never... No one really wanted her, it sounds like, even in Democrat quarters, wanted her to lead.

So I think it could be, the bloodbath that could have been at the Republican convention, had Donald Trump been actually killed in Pennsylvania... You know, I had this nightmare scenario for a few minutes when he went down on the stage that could be the case.

A convention of old, as it were, you know, could be the case for Democrats and I think that the rank and file are gonna have a problem with, "Hey, you sold us Joe Biden.

He was a great guy a month ago or two, and now you're telling us you're gonna pick at the convention?"

There's gonna be a problem with some rank and file democrats.

- If you were to match the negatives of Kamala Harris and the negatives of JD Vance, who's negatives are worse, do you think?

- Hmm, I don't know.

But I know the calculus for JD Vance being the hope though, at least the hope...

There's not a lot of science when it comes to VP picks and their influence on races.

Political scientists will tell you that.

But the hunch is that JD's gonna resonate with some of those Rust Belt folks and I think so too.

And if you've seen "Hillbilly Elegy" and you look at that story, it's such an amazing story.

He's got a leg up her from that perspective.

- Alan, what do you think of JD Vance as a vice presidential pick?

- Well, first thing, historically vice presidential picks don't determine elections.

Having said that, JD Vance is an extremist.

You know, I heard him say just the other day or a quote from him that when it comes to abortions in terms of rape victims that, "We should not determine whether a child is born or not by the inconvenience of their inception."

And I think that given the way that Americans feel about a woman's right to choose, 67% of Americans believe that a woman should make her own healthcare decisions up to three months of pregnancy, that JD Vance and republicans in general are out of step with how Americans feel.

And that's just going to come out in the next few weeks and months.

- I think JD made those statements a couple years ago, and then he's changing.

He said, "There should be some exceptions," because the American public agrees with that, so I guess it depends on which version of JD Vance- - Exactly.

- you wanna pay attention to.

- Well, and the party just removed, literally I was amazed, removed abortion from the platform.

So I think that's an acquiescence to the idea that state's rights- - Is that anger right-to-life activists?

- I'm sure it's got some of them unsettled.

I haven't spoken to any of them lately, but I believe there were some protestors up at the convention and certainly there's some that do take the view that there is no exception, more of a Reagan approach to that too.

I think, in cases of rape and incest, I couldn't see where we force a woman to carry a child to term.

- Let's talk about Trump's speech.

There seemed to be two speeches.

One was kind of a warm and fuzzy speech, very emotional at the beginning for the first half hour.

And then, he veered back to attacking democrats, Nancy Pelosi, the use of the legal system against Republicans, and immigration.

Immigration was a big topic in that last hour of the President's speech.

- I must have nodded off a little bit through that.

(laughs) I felt like it was, I think on the bulk, a unity speech.

You know, I think he said Biden's name one time.

But definitely, politics is about laying out the differences in us and them.

And I think he did that.

- It was absolutely a unity speech.

It reminded all Americans how bizarre his everyday of his presidency was.

It was one of the most bizarre speeches in American political history.

And it is a snapshot.

And that moment of the convention is now over.

And Americans were once again introduced to what would happen if Donald Trump ever returned to the White House, which is why I believe that voters will reject him once again.

- Do you think that the Republicans this time are going after the base only?

Well, if you look at the other speeches at that convention, absolutely.

I saw very little that would reach out to those few Americans who don't have an opinion at this point.

But, the thing is, I think both sides would agree that this election is gonna come down to a pretty narrow set of voters who I don't know stayed up there, like all of us, and watched all four days of this convention.

I think people make their decisions based upon sometimes vague impressions of the candidates.

And so, I don't know if the conventions in and on themselves if you watch every single speech, is really affecting the polls or how Americans vote.

- We'll see what the bump is.

There's typically a post... (coughs) Excuse me.

Excuse me.

- Sorry.

Sorry about that.

- Oh, we can edit that.

(Travis coughing) - I was gonna ask you one more question.

And then, we only have about 30 seconds left.

But during the assassination attempt last week in Butler, in Pennsylvania, the building from which the shooter was shooting was unstaffed.

There was no security on top of that building and nobody to prevent that shooter from taking a shot.

And Travis, we just have a few seconds left, but what do you think about that?

- Yeah, that was amazing to me that it was unstaffed.

I've been to other rallies and it just never has been the case.

- Yeah, and Alan, I've been to presidential rallies.

I see snipers all over tall buildings surrounding the presidential space.

- Right, but I've also been to rallies where especially ones that are outside that, you can look around and you could easily understand how something can happen.

And it looks like that this young man was another lost soul with easy access to a weapon.

And that's a problem.

- And he was looking online, not just at the former President's schedule, but also a Democrats- - Yeah, the Democratic - He was looking online.

- National Convention.

- Yeah, so it looked like he was looking for somebody to kill.

- [Alan] It appears that this was not... And we don't know everything yet, but it does not appear to be a politically, a motivated attack.

It again, it looks like another lost soul with an easy access to a weapon.

- Alan Cohn, Travis Horn, thanks a lot.

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