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

- Coming up next, we'll analyze Thursday's presidential debate from a Florida perspective with a top panel of political experts.

Our guests, Kevin Cate, a Democratic Political Consultant, Carmen Edmonds, Chair of the Hillsborough County Republican Party, Ciarra Torres Spelliscy, a law professor at the Stetson University College of Law, and Tara Newsom, an attorney and professor at St. Petersburg College, right now on "Florida This Week."

(exciting music) Hey, thanks everybody for joining us.

Well, the first of two presidential debates took place on Thursday.

The next one is being hosted by ABC on Tuesday, September 10th.

During the first debate, President Biden's voice was raspy and at times he lost his train of thought.

- He had the largest national debt of any president four-year period, number one.

Number two, that $2 trillion tax cut benefited the very wealthy.

What I'm gonna do is fix the tax system.

For example, we have 1,000 trillionaires in America, I mean, billionaires in America, and what's happening?

They're in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2% in taxes.

If they just paid 24% or 25%, either one of those numbers, they'd raise $500 million, billion dollars I should say, in a 10-year period, we'd be able to wipe out his debt, we'd be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do, childcare, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system, making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare.

- Carmen, the president seemed really confused at that moment, and he certainly lost his train of thought.

He really was not able to finish his sentence.

What'd you think about his performance on Thursday?

- Well, first and foremost, I come from a healthcare background 20 years as a physical therapist assistant, so my first remark to my husband was, I feel really sorry for him.

I feel really bad.

You can definitely see the cognitive decline.

And I just feel, I do feel bad for him but it just goes to show, that's not the only soundbite where he's frozen up, where he has done that, he's lost his train of thought, he starts mumbling.

At times we see him walking away from the camera, he needs be let around.

So I find that concerning, even from a healthcare perspective, when we see patients like that.

Those are concerning things as people get older that lead to cognitive decline.

- Do you think this disqualifies him from being president?

- I'm probably not an expert in that area, but it is concerning as a private citizen, it's concerning to see the cognitive decline that's been happening over the past several years, yes.

- Kevin, what'd you think of the President's performance and how afraid now are Democrats of him continuing this campaign for another four months?

- Well, I mean, it's his decision to make, and let me begin by saying that Donald Trump is unfit, unqualified, he's a felon.

He has no business being anywhere close to the presidency.

But the debate performance by President Biden was disappointing, it was concerning.

I think a lot of Democrats are having a very tough conversation today about whether Joe Biden will make good on his promise in 2020 to be a bridge to a future generation of leaders.

I would encourage him to strongly consider that, given that elections are not about the past, it's not about how President Biden clawed us back from the tragedy, humiliation and chaos of Donald Trump in 2020.

This election is about 2024 and the four years following that.

So it was a tough performance for sure.

It is a tough day to be a Democrat, but we will defeat Donald Trump.

We will rally behind either President Biden or whomever is the eventual ticket.

- Kevin, let's just be clear, would you advise Democrats to tell the president to step aside and make room for a younger candidate?

- Rob, I mean, I've been in these conversations.

I've done presidential debate prep.

The most important thing that you can do as a consultant is to be honest with your candidate.

Certainly if I was in the room, I would tell President Biden that this is an opportunity to be, to make a historical sacrifice and a historical act of courage.

And yes, allow another candidate, perhaps the vice president, to step forward, and be a new generation of leadership because there's so much at stake in this election for the next four years, whether it's climate, the economy, everything that we hold dear, democracy.

- Let's go to another soundbite.

During another segment of the debate, former President Trump was asked about his vow to go after his political opponents.

- [Jake] Can you clarify exactly what it means about you feeling you have every right to go after your political opponents?

- Well, I said my retribution is going to be success.

We're gonna make this country successful again 'cause right now it's a failing nation.

My retribution is going to be a success.

But when he talks about a convicted felon, his son is a convicted felon at a very high level.

His son is convicted, gonna be convicted probably numerous other times, should have been convicted before.

But his Justice Department let the statute of limitations lapse on the most important things.

But he could be a convicted felon as soon as he gets out of office.

Joe could be a convicted fellow with all of the things that he's done.

He's done horrible things.

All of the death caused at the border, telling the Ukrainian people that we're gonna want a billion dollars or you change the prosecutor, otherwise you're not getting a billion dollars.

Have I ever said that?

That's quid pro quo.

- Tara, what'd you think of that, saying that President Biden could be a convicted felon, could be put on trial, brought up on charges after he leaves office.

What'd you make of that?

- I think this is all continued misdirection and misrepresentation from Donald Trump.

You know, restoring a Trump presidency brings more of this chaos.

It puts more of democracy and the justice system at risk.

And that's why so many of us, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat or no party affiliate is so worried about both of these choices.

And I think it's very worrisome that we're allowing oxygen for former President Trump to make these accusations that are unfounded and continue this misinformation tour.

There's a lot of people who are watching that debate who didn't watch the after, and they're really following him like a pied piper.

And so this is why many of us are worried about the integrity of our institutions and really are hoping that both of these choices can be tempered by a potential change in the candidates.

Certainly the Democratic Party has that opportunity in their convention, their convention rules allows for that.

And it would also allow to honor Joe Biden's statesmanship, whether you're Republican or not, he has served our country for many, many years.

And although he might be in this decline and might be isn't even the right thing, he clearly is, we should honor the sacrifices that he's done and then open up a pathway for new Democrats.

- [Rob] So you're aligned with Kevin on this one.

You want him to step aside?

- I do.

And it's not because I don't believe and respect and honor the work that he's done, but I think that you can't come back from that debate.

And I think it's okay to go ahead and be nimble and to pivot to the very deep bench of democratic leaders that are across the country.

There's six states with 6% of the electorate that are gonna decide this election, and then they're in states like my home state of Michigan, Governor Whitmer, Pennsylvania, you've got Shapiro, you've got lots of governors that are ready and practiced and could take the baton from Joe Biden.

And of course that is Joe Biden's decision.

But I also think that the Democratic National Committee rules allow for delegates to participate in that.

So we can either see that Joe Biden could resign, we could see that he sees his way through the end of the term, but doesn't go for reelection or the delegates at the convention say, hey, we in good conscience can't necessarily nominate you.

- Ciarra, I wanna ask you about the format of the debate.

What did you think of the format?

I'm asking you because you're an expert on trials and moot court, and you're also a political expert too, but what'd you think of the format?

- I didn't like this format at all because there were not real-time fact-checks of Trump.

And he is a known fabulous.

So as I discussed in my new book, "Corporatocracy," Trump, the candidate does Trump, the criminal defendant no favors.

Trump is being sentenced on July 11th for 34 felonies in New York.

And during this debate, Trump showed no remorse for his crime and he attacked the judge and the trial, he was waving a red flag that says he doesn't take responsibility for the 34 felonies right before the time when a judge is going to have to decide his fate.

It was a very strange choice by CNN to do it this way.

- Alright, well, Moderator Jake Tapper asked about an issue important to many Floridians, how to shore up Social Security.

- For many older Americans, Social Security provides a critical lifeline.

President Biden, if nothing is done to Social Security, seniors will see their benefits cut in just over 10 years.

Will you name tonight one specific step that you're willing to take to keep Social Security solvent?

- Yes, make them very wealthy begin to pay their fair share.

- But Social Security, he's destroying it because millions of people are pouring into our country and they're putting them onto Social Security, they're putting them onto Medicare, Medicaid, they're putting them in our hospitals, they're taking the place of our citizens there.

What they're doing to the VA, to our veterans is unbelievable.

Our veterans are living in the street and these people are living in luxury hotels.

- Carmen, Social Security is a really important issue, especially here in Florida.

It's solvent for the next nine years, but then the benefits are gonna have to be cut.

What did you think of the answers of the candidates about Social Security?

- Well, I think President Biden got a little confused.

He tried to do a three-point thing and three-tiered, and it didn't make sense to me.

I was really trying to pay attention to that and it just didn't make sense to what was going on.

And it's no secret, Social Security, Medicare have been abused for years, so it's not just under Trump or under President Biden.

It's been a misused system for a long time.

And coming from healthcare, I can say that they're very misused and I agree with Donald Trump that- - When you say misused, people are- - I feel like they're abused systems by a little bit.

And I feel like the government hasn't stepped in to shore some of that up and to make sure that that money continues to remain there for the people that have paid into this system.

And I agree with President Trump that it's being handed out to people who haven't paid into this system.

You have the illegal immigrants coming over, they're getting portions of that, they're getting access to healthcare.

And that to me, that money belongs to the American people that paid into those systems over the course of their lifetime working.

And I feel like it's an abused system and it needs to be changed.

- You know, I checked the Social Security website just before we went on the air and it says undocumented immigrants are not legally permitted to receive Social Security benefits.

Okay.

- Right, well, and I think it's the healthcare Medicaid and to me, it's more of the healthcare side of it, not the Social Security.

So they are allowed access to healthcare and it's draining our medical systems.

- Kevin, so many people here in Florida receive Social Security.

It's a huge issue, especially for the super voters, for the senior citizens who are the super voters.

What'd you make of the candidate's answers to that question last night?

- Well, I mean, this is the easiest layup in politics that you wanna protect Social Security.

Obviously, older people vote, but I think thanks to Donald Trump, there clearly is a misunderstanding of how that works.

The last person that you should put in charge of Social Security is a proven fraud, I think our Senator Marco Rubio called him a con man.

There's a lot of Republicans that just kind of repeat what he says and that kind of torrent of lies that he likes to portray which is similar to other kind of fascist leaders.

But that's just not the case.

I mean, President Biden has a great record on this.

Unfortunately, his answer wasn't phenomenal.

Again, this is a layup, it should have been very easy.

But the fact of the matter is that Donald Trump, it's shocking that he still doesn't even know how government works.

I think it's willful ignorance.

It looks stupid, it sounds stupid.

It is stupid for anyone to assume that Social Security is not gonna be protected by a Democrat because it will be, it has been historically.

It's our program, we will protect it.

- When former President Trump said that these waves of illegal immigrants are getting Social Security and Medicaid, Medicare.

- He's just making it up, just making it up.

- Okay, well there were many falsehoods uttered during Thursday night's debate and fact-checkers were overwhelmed.

Here's just a small sample from PolitiFact.

On abortion, former President Trump said, "The problem Democrats have is that they're radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth."

PolitiFact rated that false and said willfully terminating a newborn's life is infanticide and is illegal in every US state.

On inflation and the economy, Trump said, "You look at the cost of food where it's double, triple, and quadruple."

PolitiFact rated that false, Fact-checkers said food costs have risen faster under President Biden than under any of his five most recent predecessors.

However, the 21% increase in food prices on Biden's watch is well below what Trump claimed.

And going back to the soundbite we played earlier, former President Trump said, "Social Security, he's destroying it, because millions of people are pouring into our country and they're putting them on Social Security.

They're putting them onto Medicare, Medicaid."

PolitiFact rated that false and said it's wrong to say that immigration will destroy Social Security.

Social Security's fiscal challenges stem from a shortage of workers compared with the number of beneficiaries.

And on immigration, Trump said, "Biden allowed millions of people to come in here from prisons, jails, and mental institutions."

PolitiFact gave that a pants on fire rating saying that immigration experts said there's no evidence to support Trump's statement.

Now I gotta say, I left out some of Biden's inaccuracies.

He said some too.

But Tara, what did you think?

I mean, the fact that there was no real-time fact-checking let a lot of things fly through that debate on Thursday night.

- Rob, I think this is really a great example of a campaign of either hope or fear.

And we know that Donald Trump is very good at amplifying and misdirecting and misrepresenting, and that's what he did on the debate stage.

And this is where I agree with Ciarra, that the procedures of the actual debate interfered with the viewers really getting the information they needed, because if they had fact-checkers and the mic would actually be muted when that mistruth was stated, that would've really changed the optics of this debate.

You know, this is not just a debate on issues and policies, but also the way it looks.

And so, had Donald Trump been silenced every time he said a mistruth, that would've made this possibly a little bit more of a equal kind of debate, not discounting Joe Biden's poor performance.

But I think that now that we're starting to unpack the 30 to nine mistruths.

Biden did misspeak nine times, but to 30 mistruths of Donald Trump, I mean that's just inequitable and it's more of the same with the fear-mongering.

- Ciarra, there's gonna be another debate in September.

You think this might be fixed before then?

And how would you fix it if it needs to be addressed?

- Well, CNN had its own fact-checker doing fact-checks live on Twitter, but the viewers couldn't see that unless they had their own phone and they were watching along.

So I think in a future debate, it would be better if there were some fact-checks that the audience could see without two devices.

- And Carmen, what do you think, when somebody says something that's untrue during a debate, what do you think the role of the moderator should be?

What should be the role of the network that carries the debate?

How should they handle it?

- I agree.

There should be some fact-checking for sure.

And I hear all three of them saying, Donald Trump was full of all these inaccuracies, but coming from the other side of the aisle, I felt like Joe Biden had plenty of things that needed to be fact-checked.

And, just, I think it was true on both sides.

I think people need the truth.

I think most people go about their day, they're busy with jobs and keeping food on the table.

And especially in this economy, people are just more worried about kitchen table things and we're kind of the unicorns in the room here.

We pay attention to this kind of stuff.

So I feel like when people take the time to watch these, there should be elements to it where people can see whether it's true or not.

But I do think it's dependent on who's doing the fact-checking too that's not biased either.

- Okay, you don't trust all fact-checkers?

- Oh, no way.

(laughs) Not at all.

- So going back to what Biden said that was wrong, if there was one fact-check that you would like to see of what Biden said on Thursday night, what would you fact-check?

- Well, one thing I wrote down when I was watching it last night was the whole, I think it was the Charlottesville thing with the great people talking about the white supremacist and all that stuff.

That's even been fact-chekced by Snopes, and that's false.

If you listen to the whole clip, I don't even know why they had Biden use that last night because it's even been fact-checked by Snopes as being false that he didn't say those words.

He wasn't calling white supremacists good and great people.

And that's been out there for several years now, that that was a completely false statement.

And I don't, that one shocked me that they had Biden use that as one of his talking points because it's been so fact-checked, and even by something as liberal as Snopes coming out and saying that that wasn't true.

- And so you're saying that if you look at the entire Trump statement in context after Charlottesville, he wasn't really taking the side of the white supremacists?

- Correct.

- Okay.

- Correct.

- Kevin, let me ask you about that.

I mean, what do you think the President, the former President's statement on Charlottesville add up to in this?

- I mean, look at who the white supremacists and radical right wing people support it's Donald Trump.

There's a reason why, whether it's the proud boys with his stand back and stand ready, whether it's the insurrection that he helped lead, whether it's his multiple felonies, I mean, it's almost like comical sometimes when I sit here and listen to people, with all due respect to your guest, it's almost laughable to even comprehend that anybody could support somebody like this to somebody and also say that they want fact-checks.

I mean, how about a jury of your peers?

How about CNN?

How about the host that just fact-checked your candidate right there?

I mean, it is undeniable that Donald Trump lies and he says he lies.

He says he can get away with these things because there are sheep obviously on the Republican side that are gonna support him no matter what he says, he has no moral compass.

It is difficult to debate somebody like that.

And just to defend Jake Tapper, Mark Preston, the folks at CNN, these were rules that the campaigns negotiated.

And Joe Biden's team and Donald Trump both agreed to this.

And so it wasn't like Joe Biden didn't understand that all of these lies were just going to spew out of Donald Trump's mouth because that's the only thing that comes out of his mouth.

And so he was prepared, or should have been prepared to negate and talk about the fact that this is literally the worst president, the worst candidate, the most dangerous person, the most dangerous person in relation to democracy in the world right now.

- Carmen, you're shaking your head, you want to add or you wanna challenge what Kevin said?

- Well, I think a lot of Republicans take offense when we hear that President Trump is just this huge racist person.

You know, he did more for, I mean, he purposely met with Senator Tim Scott of what can we do to help raise every Black and Brown American in the United States?

He poured more money into historically Black colleges and universities than any president since being in office.

He had the- - Since Joe Biden.

- No, President Trump put millions and millions of dollars into historically Black colleges and universities while he was in office, he worked with Senator Scott to do economic reform in inner cities to help Black businesses thrive.

Those are facts.

And he had multiple people in office working alongside of him that were women and Black and Brown people.

So for him to be touted as this huge racist, I think is so unfair and untrue.

And you look at what's going on now with how President Biden is handling all this pro-Palestinian stuff, these protests, I mean, Jewish students are afraid to go to college campuses.

We had just the other day on the news they had out in California, Jews were being attacked, trying to go in and out of their synagogue by pro-Palestinian protestors, nothing is being done.

These people are being arrested and released.

These kids that were destroying college campuses, protesting Jews being on campuses, nothing was done.

They were arrested or not arrested and released.

So to sit there and say that President Trump is this racist, and you have Joe Biden doing nothing to help protect Jewish students on campuses and Jewish people across America is just egregious.

- Kevin, what would your response be to that?

- I mean, it sounds like I'm watching Fox News 'cause that's what they say.

I mean, I'm glad that you believe that and I know that you're betting democracy on it for partisan reasons.

I mean, frankly, I would support anybody over Donald Trump given his history, given that he encouraged people to attack our Capitol.

You saw Republicans running for their lives on January 6th.

There is no doubt that this man is dangerous at every single level.

And when it comes to Israel, Joe Biden has taken a lot of flack almost from the far left for being so supportive of Israel.

Obviously, Israel has a right to protect itself.

These protests that you see on any side, none of them are being encouraged the way that Donald Trump encourages his people to protest, the violence against police officers, against our democracy, against our Constitution.

Again, it's difficult to debate anybody that doesn't want to admit the truth.

So, we'll just have to let your viewers decide.

- Okay.

And this could go on for a while, but let me pivot a little bit and ask Tara.

Tara, Florida's largely considered to be a red state by now, but do you think the debate on Thursday night changed anything here in Florida?

And do you think that with maybe 5% of the population undecided about the presidential election, do you think it changed anything among those undecided?

- Remember that the largest growth of voters in the state of Florida are no party affiliate.

And we really don't know who those people are.

In Florida, we've aligned, we've either aligned with the Republican party or the Democratic Party and we have excessive gerrymandering.

So to say that the state is a deep red state isn't necessarily fair.

DeSantis' last election was not this landside that he made out to be.

He ran against Charlie Crist, who is an under-resourced candidate who was really a tired candidate.

And so he had sort of a freebie on that one.

And of course we've seen all the voter registration, third-party organization fines and obstacles that have reduced the number of Democrats that have been registered.

So I don't think it's fair to say we're a deep red state, but I do think it's interesting to say, hey, we need to wait to see who is part of that large swath of voters that are no party affiliate because we haven't seen that kind of growth before.

If we haven't seen them align with the Democrats or the Republicans, we're really gonna see this November, how did they vote?

Did they vote with amendment number four?

Did they support the marijuana amendment?

Did they go down to get completely or did they skip around or did they vote, you know, a straight ticket.

So I think that we are waiting to really see it in this election, who those people are and how they're gonna vote.

- And Ciarra, the same question to you.

We have about 30 seconds left.

Do you think it made any difference whether on the statewide vote or on the undecided?

- It's very, it's a long time until November.

One thing that may have a huge impact is Florida changed its voting rules and it canceled everyone's mail-in ballot.

You have to now request a new mail-in ballot and your super voters, those senior citizens who've been voting by mail for years may not realize this and they could realize it too late.

So I think Florida is still up for grabs.

- Alright, well, thank you, everybody for a quality discussion.

It's nice to have you on the program.

Thanks to our panelists, Tara Newsom, Ciarra Torres Spelliscy, Carmen Edmonds, and Kevin Cate.

And thank you for watching.

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

We have a Facebook page, please like us, the show is available at wedu.org or on YouTube.

And from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend and happy 4th of July.

(exciting music)