>>This week on NewsNight, the race for the White House and Florida reaction to a historic week following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

And concerns over the future of SunRail funding as local responsibility for the commuter rail nears.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mor and welcome to NewsNight where we take a dee dive into the stories and issue that matter to central Florida and how they shap our community.

First tonight, the Republican National Convention wrapped up this week in Milwaukee.

We've been carrying the PBS News Hour's live coverage of the evenin sessions all week here on WUCF.

Donald Trump on Monday picked Senator J.D.

Vance to be his running mate, deciding against Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who had been on the shortlist of favorites for the job.

The convention came just days after the assassination attempt against the former president in Pennsylvania.

Reactio to that from Florida was swift.

Senator Rubio tweeted God protected President Trump while chair of the Republican Party of Florida, Evan Power, spoke with me this week from Milwaukee.

He says Democrat are responsible for the heated rhetoric in politics.

>>I think the rhetoric has heated up to a point where this was inevitable.

When you referred to the Republican nominee as a threat to democracy, you have to expect some people are going to take things into their own hands.

And so I think at this point, you know, we can all condemn the actions, but the rhetoric that got us here is unacceptable.

And I think that's unifying the American people behind President Trump so that we can make America great once again.

>>But some Democrats say that it's President Trump himself that's ratcheted up the rhetoric.

What's your response to that criticism?

>>Well, I think President Trump, under his four years of leadership, we had a more prosperous country.

We had a safer country, and we're respected around the world.

We've seen none of that for the last three years.

And they call him a threat to democracy.

So I think they've ratcheted up the rhetori in a way that harms Americans, and that's what' really starting to take effect.

>>The polling does show, however, that people of al political stripes are concerned about the tone of politics, that they're concerned that things are getting out of hand.

Do you think that in the coming months, as we get closer to November, that it's incumbent upon everybody that's running for elected office to try to tamp this down?

Is this a learning moment as far as you're concerned?

>>Well I think this incident makes us focus on what we need to sell.

The ideas that will make will make the country bette and can bring people together.

And I think what you're seeing in the aftermath of this incident is a uniting of Americans around the belief that the President Trump i is the person who can lead this country forward.

And I think that we're going to see that result on November 5th.

The American people are going to send a strong message that they want to make America great once again.

>>The Secret Service has received a lot of attention since this happened.

Presumably, you welcome a call from House Republicans for an investigation into the response.

>>No, I think the Secret Service needs to be investigated by Congress.

The one job that they have is to protect our leaders.

And obviously they failed in doing that.

So they need to be looked at and see what went wrong and where we can improve.

And if someone failed particularly and let something happen when it shouldn't have happened, they should be held accountable for that.

>>Evan Power, the chair of the Republican Party of Florida.

Next, let's turn to th reaction of Florida Democrats.

I spoke this week with Congressman Darren Soto, who's a member of the Congressional Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.

He and other members of Congress received a briefing Wednesday night on the Secret Service operation at the rally before the shooting.

>>I believe there were gaps in security.

There was 86 seconds that transpired from when local police, the folks who are responsible for the area outsid the perimeter, were informed of a potential shooter on the roof before the shots were fired.

So we know there was a delay in response time.

They agreed on a perimeter that did not include the building that the shooter took, took refuge in.

And so w we know all the communication.

Who knew what and when.

All very important.

And we need to make sure that if there are local law enforcement who are working now with Secret Service, that they are well-trained.

So there's a host of issue that Congress would delve into.

And we know we're taking this very seriously.

>>President Biden and former President Trump have both called for unity.

Do you think there needs to be a calming in the political rhetoric on all sides?

>>So I've always felt like the rhetoric is way too violent in American politics.

I was in the chamber on January six.

I saw how bad violence can get.

And so I personally have tried to use rhetoric that wasn't aggressive but more focused on policy.

There are passions, but words of violence.

Sometimes people heed those calls.

So we ought to be very careful about that.

And look, we need to see it from both the presiden and the former president in the upcoming presidential race.

>>How do you respond to Republican concerns that efforts by Democrats to portray President Trump as a danger and a threat to democracy is what's to blame for the heightened tensions leading up to the shooting?

>>Look, the reality is former President Trump has said he'd be dictator on day one so we know he's said statements regarding the fate of our democracy.

He's powered around with dictators.

And we had a whole impeachment on his relationship with Ukraine and Putin.

And so there are political threats of democracy that are out there.

But the solution is voting.

It's not violence.

And so no one's calling upo there to be a violent response.

The only time we saw violent response is, sadly, when the former president summoned thousands of people on January six.

So I think we all now see that rhetoric can sometimes unfortunately, lead to actions.

>>You can see my full lengt interview with Congressman Soto on our website, wucf.org/newsnigh on the bottom of your screen.

So let's bring in our panel now to talk about these issue in depth.

Joining us for the first time, Ashe Wildman from Spectrum News 13.

>>Thank you for having me.

>>Good to see you today.

Alexa Lorenzo coming back to the show from WFTV Channel 9.

Thanks for being here, Alexa.

Good to see you.

And also returning to the program, Ryan Lynch from the Orlando Business Journal, thanks for being here Ryan.

Asher we'll start with you as you're new to the show.

Spectrum New 13 has been gathering reaction, of course, to the events all week as well.

What has your newsroom been hearing from Florida leader about the assassination attempt and the temperature of the campaign?

Does it broadly mirror what we just heard?

>>Well, I think for starters, I think it's totally chang from the day of what happened to no the days after it's happened.

Right.

So first off I think when it happened, I think the message from the Republican side of Republican leaders was this seal the deal for Trump to win the presidency.

Right.

I mean, that's what it was.

Now, granted, there was a lot of reaction from folks about how horrible this was.

And we need to get more information.

We need to be unified.

What you're hearing.

But then in the days later now we're starting to see more.

We won't go as far as accusations.

But again, the rhetoric that seems to be the key word for the past two and a half weeks.

Now, the rhetoric.

>>And WFTV, of course, has been gathering reaction through the week as well, Alexa.

And backers of the former presidents in Florida have been showing their support for him throughout the week.

>>Yeah, it was swift.

On Saturday night we saw dozens of people gathering at Mar a Lago for a show of suppor in West Palm Beach.

They honke their horns had their flags, their Trump shirts.

A caravan came up from Miami.

Here at home in Palm Coast, we saw about give or take, 30 people on the Matanzas Wood Parkway overpass there on I-95 in Palm Coast.

And it was a similar scene.

The flags, the shirts.

Clearwater, they called it an emergency call to arms, but it mirrored what we had seen in Palm Coast and down in south Florida.

That show of just being there for him and showing support and disgust of what happened.

From a financial side, we had a huge GOP fundraiser on the national finance director for Trump's campaign, put out a Go Fund me almost immediately to raise funds for the victims of the shooting.

The goal was $1,000,000 and quickly jumped.

Right now it's over 5 million.

Dan Newlin said he would pledge $1,000,000 to the family-- >>The Orlando attorney.

>>The Orlando attorney, of the family of the man killed.

So we're seeing physical support from people here in Florida and financial as well.

>>Dan Newlin, of course, has come out as a big supporter of the former president.

There are, as we mentioned with Congressman Soto there, congressional and independent inquiries into the Secret Service.

Now, Governor DeSantis he addressed the RNC this week.

He's talked about that security issue right Ryan?

>>Definitely.

And he's kind of monitored and seen those calls and called on them his own.

He's kind of wanted to see how somebody could get on top of that building with a rifle and be able to see.

So he's kind of calle for a full accounting of that.

You know, that there's been bureaucratic failures tied to that.

So I think, you know, you're kind of seeing him talk on the same line as many other high profile GOP leaders, just in terms of calling for tha full independent investigation into how this might have happened.

>>Senator J.D.

Vance, of course, got the V.P.

nod from President Trump over Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

Do we know what might have counted against Senator Rubio from the reporting that's out there?

>>The chatter for some time since he had been put on that short list was the fact that he's a Florida resident and former president Donald Trump is a Florida resident.

And under the 12th Amendment, there's language that says the president and vice president shall not be inhabitant of the same state.

So it really came down to that and the what ifs.

There was chatter that Rubio would be willing to move.

But what if then President Donald Trump did not win?

And then there goes his Senator seat.

So it just came down to the legality of that.

And they want it to be 100% confident that they wouldn't be in legal challenges for months on end.

Can you imagine winning and then going through this court battle of whether or not you're able to keep that seat?

>>Have you guys in your coverage been seeing any of that unity that Trump and Biden have called for since the shooting?

It sounds like not.

>>I don't think so.

I would sa there's probably gaining unity if you're on each party side.

And what I mean b that is as Trump support grows, I think support behin closed doors with the Democrats trying to get Biden to back out, that support is growing on the Democratic side.

I think there finally is now.

We always talk about this boiling point, right?

It was between Biden.

Trump.

I think the boiling pot of water right now is the pressure on Biden coming from his own side, saying you need to come out.

And I'll tell you, there are committees here in central Florida that are nervous.

They don't know what to do because they all think Bide does need to back out of this.

And if that's what you're saying here in Florida, imagine what they are sayin in those crucial swing states.

I mean, this is a problem that the blue needs to get unified on before they can talk about even trying to get along with the red.

I mean this is an inner party problem.

>>So what about the dynamics of the campaign that has shown Trump and Biden in a close contest up until now?

I asked political scientist Frank Orlando from Florida's St. Leo University about whether the assassination attempt might change the race.

>>What I do think Steve could redimension the race is if the candidates act differently after this event.

But if it's just a situation where after one week they both go back up with their attack ad and were it business as usual, I'm not sure how this will affect the race beyond a fundraising boost for Presiden to President Biden's benefit.

Less people talking about removing him in the short term.

>>Frank Orlando there.

Okay, Alexa, there has been a lot of speculation, obviously, as as as Asher mentioned, about the status of the race itself.

What are you guys been hearing?

>>We've been seeing that picture that you had in headlines over and over again.

People are saying that image is indelible and it's giving people who are on the fence, those undecided voters a clear path like we just heard in your interview.

We have now for a few days stop talking about President Joe Biden's debate performance and concerns of his age.

Now, of course, he has COVID.

So we're talking a little bit more about his health.

But for a few days now, it went from okay, now we're talking about how strong president former President Donald Trump is.

So that's the chatter.

So at this point, whether you're talking to consultants, people in the community, everybody's saying this while horrific what happened is a good thing for the Trump campaign.

>>I just want to add, there's two different storylines right now with Trump and Biden.

With Trump it's e survived the bullet.

With Bide we constantly say it's one week since his poor performance at the debate.

It's two weeks since his poor performance at debate.

And now we analyze if he can get through a scripted speech on a teleprompter and people make notes of how many words he misses or stumbles or miss name somebody with a prompter he's looking at.

Two completely different tones right now on both sides.

>>Even getting into and out of the car when he flew.

>>Everything's under a microscope over.

>>Everything.

>>Again, a reminder, we are taping this progra on Thursday morning so things can and probabl will change by air time.

And if you missed the PB news coverage of the Republica National Convention, you can stream it now any time through the PBS app.

Meanwhile, we wanted to remind you about Meet the Helpers, a WUCF initiative designed to support the well-being of young children by introducing them to community helpers.

There, you'll find information on ways to hel children understand emergencies and explain the news using age appropriate words.

It's all Meetthehelpers.org.

Okay.

Next tonight, uncertainty over the future of a SunRail Station in Maitland.

In 2014, SunRail began serving the Greater Orlando area with 16 stations connecting Volusia, Osceola and downtown Orlando.

Now, after ten years, the state is preparing to hand over control to local municipalities, which are set to pick up the cost and operations of the commute rail system to be run by Lynx, assuming responsibility for an annual deficit of between 50 and $65 million.

But leaders in Maitland are hesitant over their share of the cost, which is about 280,000 annually.

That number could double in the future.

City council members say the Maitland station is one of the least busy on the network, with about 30,000 riders last year.

The council recently voted to opt out of its agreement with Orange County.

The council decision gave staff a 180 days to renegotiate an agreement with Orange County.

What have you been hearing, Ryan, about the pla discussions between the county and the city?

I mean, what are the stakes if if the city doesn't pick up that portion of the bill?

>>Yeah, just in terms of the discussions, they've kind of been keeping the cards close to their chest in terms of what they're figuring out.

Obviously, you know, as they meet county staff and city staff, they're going to try to figure out the cost structures, what that might be.

Winter Park, who also pays Orange County for their station, they wholeheartedly approve there.

So it's kind of a different dynamic here.

And what's at stake is obviously the potential closing.

Obviously, it wouldn't be an immediate thing should they decide it would be like a wind up.

There's questions of who might have to pa for the closing of the station or whether the city would bear the cost.

And obviously, with the proposed sunshine corridor, if that's to come to light, that would cut off the city of Maitland potentially from a connectio to the airport to a connection to some of the other thing like the Convention Center and South International Drive.

But that's a big "if," if that actually comes to fruition.

>>Very, very big if.

WFTV has obviously covered this story closely too.

Maitland had hoped tha Orange County's transportation sales tax would pass in 2022.

And of course, it didn't.

We heard on the program recently Winter Park is, as Ryan mentioned, is backin that move to pass it this year.

I wonder what impact leaders think the passage of a sales tax might have on SunRail's future, whether it makes a big difference?

>>If it passes, it would make a huge difference.

They need money and that's how they would get it.

But right now, even withi if you if this is brought u in a commission meeting, if you're sitting in Orang County chambers, those commissioners themselve don't know if it's a good time to bring it back up.

It failed in 2022, 58% voted no.

It comes down to money.

Right now, Orange County saying that its transportation needs roughly are about $21 billion.

What they have right now for funding is 100 million.

So it's a simple answer.

It would make tremendous impact if it passes.

And then it would, as Ryan was mentioning, give you that line for the Sunshine corridor, which in turn would increase ridership studies from FDOT have shown.

Right now ridership is about a million people a year.

Just taking it to the airport would take i to 3.7 million people per year.

Throw in I-Drive, Universal, Convention Center, you're up 6.4 million commuters a year.

>>Yeah, the stakes are really high when it comes to that airport extension.

>>Another "what if?"

right?

>>But what's the plan?

All right.

We can throw money at a lot of things.

I think one city that does it right is Sanford.

You take that, you take the SunRail into Sanford, they give you a bus that takes you to downtow Sanford.

Why?

Because that' where people want to go.

If they're going to Sanford you're not going to the Wayne Dench beer distric distribution off state road 46.

So we talk about last mile.

We talk about the purpose of this.

But the SunRail stops go to places that are not really conducive to what is needed for the SunRail to be effective.

Altamonte, it's not even near the mall.

I mean, these are issues that when we did SunRail it was great in theory, but now the realization is people are saying, I'd rather just drive than have to deal with this.

>>Some of these issues, o course, not unique to our area.

A lot of large postwar cities that don't have transportation systems, legacy transportation systems do deal with these issue that we're talking about here.

I mean, Mayor Demings has said transportation writ large needs billions of dollars, right.

Whether it's roads, rail, the airport.

Do you get a sense from leaders of what might they might do if that sales tax does not pass?

I mean, obviously, in the short term, Orange County, for example, had passed their $100 million package to kind of meet some of the short term needs.

But that obviously doesn't cover the balance of those billions of dollars worth of needs in terms of, you know different folks have suggested, you know, changing the legislative laws to allow the tourist tax to go through to >>TDT.

>>Yeah, exactly.

And that would provide a dedicated fund.

Obviously, there's been some pushback from the tourism industr in terms of changing those uses and maybe taking them away from some of the tourist uses in the past that we've kind of seen.

But most leaders, I think, believe we need some sort of dedicated fund to cover that.

Obviously, if you're a smaller municipality, it's a little bit harder to, you know, cover versus if you're a Orlando and your tax base is much bigger.

But I think a lot of it is potentially sales tax or bust if you're not going to change the TDT.

>>Yeah, And Mayor Demings told me last year that Orange County is talking with the state, with the legislature to try to get some flexibility in the diversity of the funds that it can use.

Meanwhile we always want to hear from you on your thoughts on the news of the week.

Be sure to visit us on social media.

We're at WUC TV, on Facebook and Instagram, and you'll find us on X, @NewsNightWUCF.

Okay.

Finally tonight, what do the issues facing the Boeing Starliner mean for low-Earth orbit mission launching from the space Coast?

Helium leaks and thruster failures have turned what was supposed to be an eight day mission for two NASA's two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams, into an indefinite stay at the International Space Station.

Boeing has a $4.2 billion NASA contract to transport crews to the ISS.

I sat down this week to talk about it all with Brendan Byrne, host of the podcast "Are We There Yet?"

for Central Florida Public Media.

>>This particular flight is a test flight.

It was designed to take two human passengers on a roughly week long sta to really test out the vehicle, bring it back safely.

And then engineers down here both at Boeing and NASA would pass through all of that data, give it to NASA and then NASA with certify it for the six operational missions tha it has on the docket right now.

The issues that it's facing now put that in jeopardy.

Obviously, the certification process is going to take longer than they expect because of all these problems that have popped up.

Will we see a launch that was supposed to happen maybe at the end of this year, an operational mission carrying four astronauts?

Probably not.

That's probably going to get pushed back a little bit.

But we still don't know because we don't know what the root cause of this issue is to begin with.

>>NASA's says we shouldn't be describing the astronauts as stuck at the International Space Station.

If they're not able to leave, why can we not say they're stuck?

>>Well, they are able to leave.

NASA's had said that if there is an emergency, the crew can get inside the Boeing Starliner.

They can undock safely and they can come back to Earth, but thei return is delayed indefinitely.

We don't know when they're coming back.

So it's kind of semantics, right?

Are they stuck up there They don't have a return date.

So I would say they are stuck up there until NASA can approve them to come back home.

>>What does NASA say about whether there are enough resources for these extra astronauts on the ISS it obviously wasn't planned.

Are there a surplus of supplies?

>>There are.

NASA said that they're there.

Ther hasn't been an issue with that.

They'll continue to to receive, you know, robotic uncrewed shipment missions from from multiple different providers up there.

And there is slated to be another astronaut rotation that is coming to the station via SpaceX, but a little complexity in that schedule now.

Recently SpaceX launched an uncrewed mission of some of their StarLink satellites, developed an issue wit the upper stage of that rocket.

Those satellite didn't get-- >>The Falcon Nine.

>>The Falcon Nine rocket.

Yes.

Thank you.

The satellites didn't get into into orbit, but that upper stage is what they used to push the Space crew Dragon capsule into orbit.

So NASA's going to be looking into the the investigation of that.

The FAA has grounded the fleet until they can get into to that, get that investigation going so that the delay may be a little bit more to get to get humans back up there again.

So Butch and Sunny could stay up there a bit longer.

>>What are NASA and Boeing specifically working on right now and what will make them comfortable in allowing the astronauts to come back to Earth on board the Starliner?

>>The issue is, is within just a handful of thrusters that are on the service module of Boeing's Starliner.

So we can see behind us we've got Boeing's Starliner there.

The kind of the pointy end is is the capsule.

And that cylinder underneath it is the the service module.

There's a big engine on there that will get them out of orbit.

But these thrusters that they notice some issues with upon docking, there are some issues there.

They at first thought it was a software issue.

Seems to be it's a heating issue.

So what they're doing is they're testing those same thrusters on the ground to see if they can mimic what happened in space and come to a root cause.

The reaso why they're taking so much time is that service module, that cylinder where these thrusters are, these five thrusters that are giving them problems that will burn up in the atmosphere upon their return home.

So they're not going to hav access to the physical hardware once this mission ends, so they're doing whatever they can to test on the ground, confirm with what they have up in orbit, and then make the call.

They don't need those thrusters to get them out of orbit, but they need those thrusters to drive them and steer them in the right place when they do come smashing through the atmosphere.

>>Crewe launches are such an important part of what happens now on the Space Coast.

And I wonder what these issues and those of SpaceX that you just mentioned mean for future crewed flights from the space coast.

Just the US to the low-Earth orbit missions look a bit different now.

How does it affect that?

>>Yeah, without access to low-Earth orbit then.

Yeah we do stall what happen here at Florida's space coast.

What's really important fo NASA is to have what they call dissimilar redundancy, and that is to have two operators with two different types of vehicles working in case something pops up.

In an ideal world, the issue that SpaceX is facing with its upper stage of the Falcon nine rocket wouldn't be an issue because they would have Boeing in operation as well.

So Boeing could take over those missions should there be a delay with one vehicle, the other.

For the majority of this commercial crew, for the entiret of this commercial crew mission or a commercial crew program?

Up to now, there has only been one operator.

And NASA's does not want to put all of their eggs in that one particular baske in case something does happen.

We do have limited access to the International Space Station.

>>An you can find links to Starliner test flight updates and a copy of the Interlocal agreements between the governments in Central Florida on SunRail on our website.

You can visit us online at wucf.org/newsnight alon the bottom of your screen.

But that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Ashe Wildman from Spectrum News 13.

Thanks for coming in and good to see you.

Alexa Lorenzo from WFTV Channel 9 and Ryan Lynch from the Orlando Business Journal.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

In the meantime for all of us here at NewsNight take care and have a great week.