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

- Coming up next, Ashley Moody will replace Marco Rubio in the US Senate.

Floridians are about to take some major roles in the Trump administration.

The Governor calls for a special session on immigration, and he wants to make it harder to put issues on the ballot.

All this and more, right now on "Florida This Week."

(dramatic music) Welcome back.

More than a dozen Floridians have been named to the cabinet and other top posts in President-elect Trump's new administration.

They include Senator Marco Rubio, who has been nominated for Secretary of State, his choice for Attorney General, Pam Bondi, is from Temple Terrace, former Saint Augustine area Congressman Mike Waltz has been tapped as National Security Advisor, and another former Florida congressman, Dave Weldon from Indialantic, has been selected to head the Food and Drug Administration.

Here's one of those nominees, Florida's former Attorney General Bondi, being questioned on Wednesday by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.

- Most Americans believe that central to the peaceful transition of power in a democracy is the acceptance of the results of an election.

To my knowledge, Donald Trump has never acknowledged the legal results of the 2020 election.

Are you prepared to say today, under oath and without reservation, that Donald Trump lost the presidential contest to Joe Biden in 2020?

- Ranking Member Durbin, President Biden is the President of the United States.

He was duly sworn in, and he is the President of the United States.

There was a peaceful transition of power.

President Trump left office and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024.

- Well, hundreds of reporters from around the world will be attending Monday's inauguration.

That includes political journalist Trimmel Gomes, who joins us now.

Trimmel, welcome back.

- Thanks for having me.

- You're up there in DC.

What's the atmosphere?

What's it like being there right now?

- Well, I just arrived at Union Station and making my way.

It's a Friday, so it's the beginning of what will be a celebratory weekend for those here to support the president-elect and his second term in office.

So, expecting many Floridians to come on up here, and I'll be tracking them and trying to talk to them, and hear their stories, and follow why they are excited about this next term for president-elect Trump.

- You know, we played a soundbite from Pam Bondi there, in which she said that there was a peaceful transition to power from President Trump when he served previously to Joe Biden.

That's not true.

There wasn't a peaceful transition to power.

They had to delay the final approval of the vote count for several hours because the Capitol was stormed by sometimes violent protesters.

What do you make when Bondi seems to deny what happened on January 6th, 2021?

- Talk about a political answer and her preparation for the job.

Her response had a little bit of everything that would sort of affirm and confirm that there was some sort of a transition in that the former president left office.

But as you mentioned, she overlooked and denied the violence that we all saw.

I recall watching it live on TV, seeing all of the acrimony and everything going crazy and people running for their lives.

So, we all witnessed it, and her statement was very much leaving some wondering, like how could you omit what we all saw?

But like I said, it was a very political answer where she gave a little bit of everything while appeasing and appealing to Donald Trump himself by not directly going against what he has continued to do, which was deny and affirm that, like, you know, he still won the election.

- Now, Bondi's gonna have a big challenge ahead of her as the new Attorney General.

A new survey from the Associated Press and NORC finds the public does not believe the new Justice Department will be fair.

Only about two in ten US adults are extremely or very confident that the Department of Justice will act in a fair and nonpartisan manner during Trump's second term.

Only 17% of American adults say they're extremely or very confident that the Justice Department will act fairly under Trump, and only 18% say they are extremely or very confident that the FBI will act fairly.

That's from a new AP report.

So, that's going to be a big challenge for Pam Bondi to get the American public on her side.

- Very much so a big challenge, but with this administration, they seem to move forward and try to ram through those challenges.

Pam Bondi, one of the big things and question marks for the public was, why wasn't she Trump's first choice?

That's adding to the distrust, seeing how former Congressman Matt Gaetz was the top pick for the president.

To have him, Matt Gaetz, who had a troubled past and was going through and is still going through legal issues.

Why did he select Matt Gaetz instead of Pam Bondi?

Another question mark for folks is what the president-elect says himself.

He promises retribution for his adversaries.

So, with all of that and seeing his track record in history, people are like, you know, they don't have a lot of faith in this Justice Department operating fairly according to the law.

- Trimmel, Florida has been a place, a testing ground for a lot of conservative ideas that have gone through, on teaching Black history, on DEI, and all sorts of other issues.

And I'm wondering, with so many Floridians going up to Washington, DC now, I'm wondering what's in it for Floridians.

Does this mark, you know, Florida's ideology taking over up there in DC?

- Sort of.

You sort of see Florida's ideology takeover, but one of the things that we're also seeing is Florida officials being willing to do whatever the federal government wants, whatever Trump wants.

We are seeing them going forward with trying to implement Trump's policies, even though they're not really clear and defined just yet.

For instance, when we were talking about immigration, Governor DeSantis has instructed all state agency heads, and you saw in committee meetings where they were basically repeating the same talking points with regards to immigration.

So, Florida will be in the spotlight more so, and it's good to have an ear to the most important person, the president of the United States, with all of the officials basically heading up to Washington, DC.

So, Florida is gonna play a key role with regard to other states, and they are having really good proximity to having whatever happens here be a blueprint for the rest of the country.

- Well, Trimmel Gomes, thanks for speaking with us.

Stay warm up there and have a good inauguration.

- Thank you so much.

Take care.

(dramatic music) - Joining us now on the panel: Carmen Edmonds is the chair of the Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee; Mitch Perry is the senior reporter for the Florida Phoenix; and Patrick Manteiga is the editor and publisher of the "La Gaceta" newspaper and a Democrat.

Thank you all for being here.

Nice to see you.

- Hi.

Good seeing you.

- Well, Governor Ron DeSantis has selected State Attorney General Ashley Moody to become the next US Senator from Florida.

- [Reporter] Moody will take the Senate seat once Senator Marco Rubio resigns to become the next Secretary of State.

Moody is a close ally of DeSantis' and was one of the few Florida officials who endorsed the governor as he challenged Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.

She is a fifth-generation Plant City resident and former Strawberry Festival queen.

She's been the state's Attorney General since 2019, a former federal prosecutor who in 2006 became the youngest state circuit court judge when she was appointed to the 13th Circuit in Hillsborough County.

In making the announcement, the governor praised Moody for her record on supporting the values we all share, including on illegal immigration, the opioid crisis, and human trafficking.

The governor added she's also rejected DEI, ESG, gender ideology, and supported our efforts to ensure Florida's education is free from the impositions of the radical left.

- Carmen, what do you make of the selection of Ashley Moody?

- I think it's great.

I think it's a great pick for the state and to replace Marco Rubio.

- And this idea that the governor mentioned, that she's against DEI and the kind of woke ideology that he's been fighting, she'll take that to the US Senate too, I would imagine.

- Yes.

I believe she will.

- And, you know, in that split between Trump and DeSantis, which side did she come down on?

- I think it's okay to come down on both sides.

I mean, she is a Trump loyalist, but she also obviously has the support of President Trump.

And I think you can be both in this political climate.

- Yeah, Rob, I would say there's not much of an ideological division these days between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.

- They made up.

- Yeah.

I think they went golfing the other day, actually, in South Florida.

I think it was inevitable.

And when you look at it, she was by far, to me, like the front runner.

And when you saw the press conference yesterday and you could saw those comments that the governor made, you know, they're like ideological twins.

And, you know, she is absolutely in lockstep with Ron DeSantis on all these issues.

On immigration, we'll go immigration, standing with her when she's filed lawsuits against the Biden administration on that, on COVID restrictions, what have you.

So it does seem like that is by... You know, he says he's so into it, and, you know, he was very supportive of it.

And she'll definitely do what the DeSantis folks and Trump want in Washington.

- Okay, the Democrats were not happy with this, Patrick.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried issued a statement about the selection of Moody by DeSantis, saying that "Ashley Moody has been Ron's personal lapdog from day one.

Despite her role as an independent constitutional officer, she's insisted on calling him boss and defended his extreme agenda at every turn."

As Attorney General, Ashley ignored the growing property insurance crisis and let wealthy corporations rip off Floridians.

Instead, she spent her time chasing political attention and currying favor with the far right.

As a senator, Ashley will no doubt take her marching orders exclusively from Donald Trump with no regard for what's best for the people of Florida.

She may even just keep the seat warm until Ron DeSantis runs in 2026.

Pretty tough words from the Democrats, Patrick.

- Well, I mean, they weren't gonna like anybody Ron DeSantis picked for US Senator, for good reason.

I mean, there's a lot of things that Ashley Moody has done that have not been popular things, but they've been Republican things.

And she does have an independent job as Attorney General, but she has not really acted independently with the governor.

She's, in some cases, been the governor's attorney.

I find what most interesting is the last comment.

You know, everybody knows that DeSantis wants to be president one day, And he really needs to stay in public office.

And so you really wonder if two years from now they're gonna switch, and he runs for U.S. Senate, and she runs for governor.

And you would need somebody, if you're gonna make that deal, who's really loyal to you.

But one thing I also want to mention is that I think she's the first US Senator Florida's had that's a Hillsborough County resident.

- Yeah.

- And that is kind of neat.

We endorsed Ashley when she ran for judge and have known her for a long time.

And the family is a good family, so she was raised right, and she's a smart person.

And so, you know, while it isn't what the Democrats want, at least there's a capable person in the office.

- Carmen, what about this idea that Ashley Moody is a placeholder until Ron DeSantis wants to run for US Senate in 2026?

- I think there could be some validity to that.

And I mean, I was writing and looking at statistics.

If you look at it in 2022, when she and DeSantis ran again and were at the top of the ticket for the state, Ashley Moody actually got more votes than Ron DeSantis.

She got 61% of the statewide votes, and DeSantis got about 59% of the votes.

So she's obviously very popular among Floridians.

There's a reason why people moved here during COVID and helped turn our state even more red.

So, I think for Nikki Fried to say she's a DeSantis lapdog, Ashley Moody was elected by the people, and 61% of Floridians voted for her.

And so she's doing the will of the people, not so much the will of DeSantis.

I mean, we elected both of them to do the job and to carry the mantle for what Republicans wanted to happen.

- What do you think about this idea that she's just gonna hold the seat for DeSantis?

- Well, I hadn't really thought of that, and it is novel because to get there and then a year later, 'cause the campaign is gonna be in for governor pretty darn soon, actually.

So I don't know about that.

But I do think that there will be a challenge from the right to Ashley Moody in 2026.

Quinn Mills, a congressman who wanted to get appointed by DeSantis, said, "I don't want to select a Congress member because of the close division in Washington between Republicans and Democrats.

I don't want to give away another seat there."

He has already indicated, I think, that he may run.

There may be others too, and of course, the seat comes back up in 2028.

So there's gonna be a lot of activity here.

But the question I got, about what Ron DeSantis does ultimately is hangs out there, and he was asked this week, though, right?

I think it was yesterday, actually, about that, and he said for the first time really definitively, like, and it's true, we've got two more years of Ron DeSantis here.

And what he's done with this governor's job is really take it to a different level in terms of how much influence he's had, and you know, power that he's wielded here.

And if you're not gonna be president, being the governor of Florida is almost as, you know, it's not the same thing, obviously, but it's a very powerful job.

There were thoughts that he might have had set failed in his confirmation hearing, you know, that he'd be a backup for Trump to select as defense secretary.

And I think that does interest Ron DeSantis, but I don't think that's gonna happen now.

So, all eyes on DeSantis, knowing what he will do coming up after he reaches 2026.

- Alright, Governor DeSantis has called for a special session on the legislative session to address immigration issues, hurricane recovery, condominium insurance problems, and the ballot initiative process.

The regular session begins soon in early March, but DeSantis says he wants to help incoming President Trump carry out his agenda, especially on immigration.

So, the additional session is slated to start on January 27th, a week after the inauguration.

Trump is preparing more than 100 executive orders starting Monday, in what amounts to a shock and awe campaign on border security, undocumented immigrant deportations, and other policy priorities.

- So, Mitch, let me just quote from House Speaker Daniel Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton.

They don't like the idea of a special session.

Here's a letter they put out this week, saying in part: "Calling a special session at this time is premature, in particular when it comes to immigration.

We're strong supporters of President Trump and stand ready to follow his lead.

It's completely irresponsible to get out ahead of any announcements President Trump will make, especially when uninformed or ill-timed state action could potentially impair or impede the success of President Trump's forthcoming efforts to end illegal immigration, close our borders, and protect the sovereignty of our nation."

So, it's pretty unprecedented for the Senate president and the House speaker to say, "Hey, we don't need the special session."

- Well, certainly, in the DeSantis era, it is the first time we've really gotten some significant pushback.

But it's gonna happen.

The Constitution says either the leaders can call it or the governor can.

You know, he called this actually a week and a half ago in Tampa.

When he first threw out the idea, we contacted Perez and Albritton, and they didn't get back to me at all.

They were staying silent.

And then last Monday in Tallahassee, he goes out and says this is gonna happen.

And he got specific about it, though.

I think one of the reasons why the legislative leaders did not want to do this yet is because these are big, complicated issues, and there was no legislation.

And when you do these things, you kind of want to have it pre-orchestrated to an extent.

And they didn't have that.

They didn't have any bills.

to say this came out the other day, though, and has a litany of specifics when it comes to immigration.

They're pretty far-reaching, including actually, you know, we made a big deal when he moved immigrants to Martha's Vineyard, went down to Texas to get them.

Now he's talking about moving them out of the country.

This is like a federal thing he's talking about doing at the state level.

Also, interestingly, and he's really pounding this down, he really wants to get rid of in-state tuition for Dreamers.

This is something that he proposed a couple of years ago, but it never made it into law.

He was very disappointed by this.

This is something that Rick Scott signed into law in 2014.

Two years ago, I asked Rick Scott about the day DeSantis announced this, and he said, "I'm against this.

I support, you know, like the law back then."

Interestingly, Rick Scott is not responding to inquiries right now about where he stands with this.

You know, immigration has really become the biggest issue, or, you know, arguably, in the election, and DeSantis is leaning so hard on it right now.

Yeah, what is it in an elected Washington?

Of course, he's at the present Monday, but he's really acting in concert with Trump on this particular issue.

- So, Carmen, with an issue as, I mean, Mitch talked about immigration, but another complicated issue is what to do about condo insurance and requiring condo associations to spend all that money on building maintenance and repairs.

Some condo associations are deeply in financial trouble.

I'm wondering, can you solve that problem without a series of hearings and kind of, deep thought on what to do about condo insurance?

- I don't know.

Like you said, it is tricky.

I think the whole insurance thing, whether it's single homeowners or the condo situations, but in reading some of the articles, the condo situation seems to be a little more convoluted because of what they're requiring the condos to insure.

And then when they need it, they're not getting the payment out for it.

So, I do think probably having hearings and digging a little deeper into it is probably a wise thing to do to make sure that it's best practices moving forward, but also that it's saving the taxpayers money.

- What do you think about this?

- This is a propaganda tool for the governor just to keep the governor out there on the issue of immigration.

You know, generally, if you have a special session, it should be kind of single-issued.

You should know what you wanna do because you got a few days, you get in, you get out.

In this case, he's got a whole list of things he wants to do.

And the things could have waited a period of time.

Fifty days is not that long.

You know, and on the immigration issue, I would tell you that a lot of it isn't just deporting people.

A lot of it is just making life miserable for undocumented people.

The tuition thing doesn't deport people.

Heck, if he knows that they're illegal, why is he enrolling them at all in school?

You know, if the governor really is serious about this and he really wants to get rid of undocumented people, all he has to do is bring his bus down, bring his Florida guard down, and drive through Hillsborough County to every strawberry field during harvest, and he can pick up a lot of illegals.

He doesn't wanna do that because that would hurt industry.

So instead, they're gonna pick at the issue, they're gonna make it worse for illegals.

They're gonna try and punish a sheriff or two who doesn't want to round up a rape victim and deport her because they now find out she's illegally here.

And it's just gonna be a miserable issue.

And like I said, if Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis want to cure this problem, they certainly have the ability to do it.

I just don't think they really want to cure it.

Alright, well, in a related issue, in last November's election, a majority of voters, 57%, said yes to an amendment that would legalize recreational marijuana.

But under Florida law, the measure did not pass because it failed to get 60% approval.

Now, the state's largest medical marijuana company has launched a new effort to okay recreational cannabis in Florida.

If backers gather enough signatures, the question would appear on the ballot next year.

They revised the ballot language to address concerns raised by opponents during the last election.

However, getting a proposed amendment on the ballot could become harder if Governor DeSantis has his way.

That's because in the special session that begins on January 27th, the governor wants changes in how an amendment gets on the ballot.

He wants to curb fraudulent activities in petition collection and reduce special interest influence over constitutional amendments.

DeSantis pointed to a recent investigation by the Secretary of State, which he said uncovered widespread fraud in gathering petition signatures.

The proposed changes in the law would focus on stricter verification of signatures, requiring IDs similar to the ID needed for absentee ballots, and potentially mandating that signatures be notarized.

So, Patrick, the big question is, was there widespread fraud in gathering signatures for Amendment Four, the abortion rights amendment, last year?

- There were a few people who got signatures fraudulently; they just wrote out documents.

But what is missing in this is that they were caught.

The signatures were caught.

We didn't accept these signatures.

We did not accept these petitions.

These petitions went to the supervisor of elections, and they rejected.

The system works as it's designed to.

There is big money in these petition gatherings nowadays because there's a whole lot of rules with it.

And so, he's increased the cost of the legislature, increased the cost of doing these drives.

And so, they've created really their own problem.

But there was no widespread fraud in actually these items getting on the ballot.

Now, marijuana also, they've tried to adjust this wording to make it more likely to get to the 60% they need.

But one thing they are not doing is, is they're doing homegrown marijuana.

Allowing that.

And a lot of people had a problem with this being big farm now just becoming big marijuana.

- So, they're not solving the problem.

- It is addressed.

- It is addressed?

In new what language?

- That they put it home grown.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- I did not catch it.

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

And that was one of the things that was interesting because DeSantis, I think, knew his strategy in trying to bring down Amendment Three was that it was gonna be popular, and it got over 50%.

But like, so they were after people who supported marijuana and talked about being big marijuana.

It doesn't allow homegrown, which, by the way, they could pass themselves.

And they never cared about that before.

You know, Joe Redner went to court about that, but this has been addressed.

But look, this is gonna make it, if these bills, these measures get through, it's gonna be tougher to get constitutional amendments on the ballot.

- Carmen, let me ask you quickly, do we need to tighten the regulations around signature gathering for constitutional amendment petitions?

We did it with voter registration.

I see some wisdom in it.

I think it would be, 'cause again, I mentioned on one show I was on previously, I did have a few people come to me and say they signed the petitions last time around.

And I just think that there needs to be a tightening up of that.

But two, I have a problem as a Republican.

Some of this stuff needs to be legislated and not codified into our constitution.

So I wish our legislators would do more to put it into legislation and solve some of these problems instead of it being codified into our constitution forever.

- Well, why does the legislature do that?

If most of the public is in favor of abortion rights or marijuana, why does the legislature take it on?

- That's a great question.

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

And Carmen, let's start with you, you are big story of the week.

- Well, I'm excited for the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump, so I'm looking forward to Monday and seeing him sworn in.

Okay.

Should be a big event.

Patrick, your other big story?

It's not a big story, but it's interesting.

There's a viral social media about an Eagles fan just really being nasty to a Packers fan in Philadelphia.

And the guy got fired from his job because he was in charge of DEI stuff for his company.

And it's just so odd that, you know people, number one, don't believe that somebody has a camera and it's gonna get out there.

And number two, you should practice what you preach.

- Exactly.

Alright, Mitch, your big story?

- Yeah.

On marijuana.

So, medical marijuana, we have almost 900,000 patients in Florida, the most in the country in any state.

Now, right now, if you are a medical marijuana patient and you're at your job, they, you know, drug test you, and you test positive, you lose your job.

There are other states that have protections.

We don't have that here in Florida, but last month in Hillsborough County, a judge ruled in favor of an EMT who was suspended when his urine was dirty, as it were.

And he contested that, said, you know, I've never come to work stoned, I never had a problem.

And he didn't have a problem like that.

And so a judge ruled in his favor, said Hillsborough County discriminated against him.

The county this week has appealed that to the Second DCA.

So we'll see where that comes out.

- And we'll see what the Florida Supreme Court says about it eventually, I guess.

- I guess so, yeah.

- Hey, thank you all for a wonderful conversation.

Nice to see you.

Alright.

Thanks to our panelists, Carmen Edmonds, Patrick Manteiga, and Mitch Perry.

If you have comments about this program, please send them to ftw@wedu.org and please become our friend on Facebook.

Our show is available at wedu.org or on YouTube, and we're also available as a podcast.

And from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend and Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday.

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