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

(bright music) - [Announcer] Coming up right now on WEDU: Authorities investigate a possible video voyeurism charge against the current Chair of the Florida Republican Party; the state's top health official calls for a halt to Covid vaccine usage; local officials are resigning over the state's new financial disclosure law; and with all the talk about illegal immigrants, how many actually live in Florida?

All these news stories and more coming up next on "Florida This Week."

(dramatic orchestral music) (dramatic orchestral music continuing) - Welcome back.

Joining us on the panel this week, Kim Droge is the host of "Connecting with Kim" on the Tampa Bay Arts and Education Network.

She's a Republican.

Barry Edwards is a political commentator and pollster who has worked for both Democrats and Republicans.

Bill Buckley is a Salem radio talk show host, and John Dingfelder's a former Tampa City councilman and a Democrat.

Nice to see you all here.

Happy New Year.

- Happy New Year, thank you.

- Good to be back.

- It's good to be back.

- Good to have you here.

Well, Sarasota Police, who are already investigating a rape allegation against Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler, also are now looking into whether he committed the felony crime of video voyeurism.

- [Reporter] The "Sarasota Herald Tribune" reports a Sarasota police detective wrote in a search warrant affidavit for records from Instagram that she believes probable cause exists to show that Ziegler has utilized Instagram to commit the crime of video voyeurism.

Ziegler allegedly took a video of a sexual encounter with a woman in October who later accused him of rape.

No charges have been filed against Ziegler, and his attorney says the GOP Chair will be exonerated.

According to police records, Ziegler showed detectives the two-and-a-half-minute long video of the sexual encounter, and he stated that the encounter was consensual.

But detectives interviewed the alleged victim and Ziegler's wife, Sarasota County School Board member and Moms for Liberty co-founder, Bridget Ziegler.

According to the search warrant, the victim did not give Ziegler consent to take the video of them having sex, and neither Ziegler's wife, nor the victim, knew anything about the video that had been taken of the sexual encounter.

Florida law states that an individual commits video voyeurism if that person intentionally records someone for his or her own amusement, entertainment, sexual arousal, gratification, or profit, or for the purpose of degrading or abusing another person without that person's knowledge and consent who is dressing, undressing, or privately exposing their body at a place and time when that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The crime is a third degree felony.

The Florida GOP is moving toward ousting Ziegler as Chair.

A meeting is scheduled in Tallahassee on Monday to vote on his removal.

- So, Barry, the Zieglers were leaders in the cultural movement.

- They were.

- What does it do to the credibility of the cultural movement within the Republican Party to have them embroiled in this?

- Well, I think we ought to put this in a broader perspective.

But I think, I love the fact that we have bipartisanship in sexual scandals now.

If you waited before Charlie Crist was the nominee of the Democratic Party, the titular head was Andrew Gillum from the Executive Branch, he had a sexual scandal.

You had the house Democratic leader had to resign, 'cause he had a sexual scandal.

And then the Senate leader had a video that she had made of a sexual encounter leaked.

So the Democrats, the top three Democratic elected officials had it, and I think the difference here is that I didn't hear anybody saying that these people should step down, but the governor immediately called for the resignation of Christian Ziegler as Chairman, a non-elected position, but a Chairman of the Republican Party.

So I think that, as far as the cultural movement, I think this has all been overplayed and done.

Moms for Liberty, from what I understand, is getting back on track, and I think this is a lot of white noise.

- Well, John, I think- - And salaciousness behind it.

- Oh, I can' agree.

- John, go ahead.

- Are you actually defending their hypocrisy?

- I'm not defending their hypocrisy.

I'm defending the hypocrisy of the press for not calling, and for the Democratic elected officials, not for calling for the resignation of Gillum and all that.

- I don't think Andrew, I don't think Andrew Gillum or any of the others examples that you gave of Democrats went running around, you know, attacking gays and, you know, this act of lesbianism by this woman, okay, is a gay act, which is fine, I don't care what she does.

But don't go out in public and attack gays and then turn around and do it yourself.

Totally hypocritical.

They both should step down.

- Andrew Gillum presented himself as the model of the, of a wholesome family with his kids and his wife.

And what hypocrisy was there?

He was lying.

And he was the nominee of the Democratic Party.

- Gillum was not in elected office- - We're talking about Ziegler now.

- when that incident happened.

So let's talk about- - Well, but he was still the face of the Democratic Party.

He came and presented a check here in Tampa that he didn't actually present.

So if we're gonna call people out, we need to call people out.

- Bill, what do you think about this?

- Well, let me tell you, and we could have the debate all day long, Democrat, Republican, Independent.

Let me just say this.

For the folks that are not involved in the system, the people who are hardworking people out there, this is ridiculous.

The hypocrisy is ridiculous.

And I wanna tell you, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, no matter what has happened in the past, we've had sexual scandals forever, we've had hypocrisy in politics, oh my, forever.

But I wanna say this.

It is very despicable, because of the groups that they represent, including myself, to act like this is something, "Well, we're gonna get off legally."

No, there's an ethical question and a legal question.

- Good for you, Bill.

- And they need to go.

They need to go as soon as possible.

And integrity needs to be restored, not just in Republican camps, but in Democrat camps, into this personal conduct situation.

- Does Bridget Ziegler need to step down from the Sarasota School Board?

- Yeah, well, absolutely.

Both of them should have at least stepped aside.

I'm very much concerned because we, in this country, we've gotten away from the fact that we are innocent until proven guilty.

But I think there's a responsibility on both of these individuals.

They should have taken a leave, or stepped aside themselves during the investigation.

That bothers me, because I think that's an integrity question.

So yes, the fact that she's representing parents' rights, which I represent, and also talking about the fact that the Moms for Liberty group, I mean, so hypocritical.

Come on, let's get on and let's worry about the issues our viewers are concerned about, and that's the issues in the classroom, the issues in our governments.

And this is just nonsense that needs to be discarded as soon as possible.

- Hey, Kim, on Monday, the Republican Party of Florida is gonna take the final step to kick Christian Ziegler out of the Party and out of his position.

So does that clear up the problem?

- I'm not sure it clears up the problem, because the litigation is still gonna continue after that.

And I think that, you know, personally, for me, I think they both gotta go.

You cannot hold yourself up as a moral paragon and then engage in behavior that many people will find morally repugnant.

I personally don't care what goes on between two consenting adults, or even more, in the privacy of wherever they are.

But let me go on record that if it's not consensual, I am, you know, totally against that.

It should be prosecuted.

And so far, it's a he said, she said.

And the one thing that I find interesting is that if I was gonna videotape us all at this table, I'm pretty sure you people were all gonna know that I'm videotaping you, because it takes time to set it up and get the right angle and so on and so forth.

So I find it very interesting that he's shown the two-and-a-half minute video, which, you know, right there, he should be... And he is... And she's claiming she didn't know she was being videoed.

I mean, I kinda have a hard time understanding how that could happen.

- Okay, we'll see how it turns out.

Well, on Wednesday, Florida's top health official called for a halt in the use of mRNA Covid vaccines, citing concerns that contaminants in the vaccine can permanently combine with human DNA.

- [Reporter] Dr Joseph Ladapo, the State Surgeon General, said in a statement that, "These vaccines are not appropriate for use in human beings."

According to the "New York Times", federal health officials say that a review of the scientific evidence has found no basis for Ladapo's claims.

One leading expert on vaccine safety called the Florida Surgeon General's claims very irresponsible, and that he has only a tenuous grasp on science.

The Food and Drug Administration said that it had not identified any safety concerns related to the sequence of or amount of residual DNA in the vaccines.

Dr Ladapo was appointed Surgeon General in 2021 by Governor Ron DeSantis, and has increasingly aligned himself with the anti-vax movement.

Covid is once again resurgent across the US, and fewer than one in five American adults has received the latest shots.

Florida's vaccination rates are among the lowest in the country.

- Kim, I want to ask you if this was good advice, and I wanna put up a graph right now.

The "Washington Post" looked at Covid death rates in Florida and around the country, and found that Covid deaths are higher in Trump-supporting counties.

Presumably that's where most of the vaccine skeptics are.

Isn't vaccine skepticism hurting people?

- I think the vaccine should be, any vaccine should be a private matter.

Yeah, I think you should be determining whether or not you want to be vaccinated.

That's traditionally how it's worked in this country, except in a few cases, like polio and so on, where it was in the public interest to vaccinate children across the nation.

I personally know a lot of people that have been vaccinated and unvaccinated.

I can tell you that I had bad reaction to both vaccines that I took.

I was down for three days.

I felt like I had Covid, and I have since had Covid, actually.

And I know a lot of folks that have suffered side-effects from taking the vaccine, side-effects that they can't get rid of, and no matter what they do, such as ringing in the ears.

And a lot of people have suffered some heart issues from taking the vaccine.

So I'm not sure that I believe everything coming out of the CDC and the government at this point about the vaccines, given some of the work that's been published.

But I do believe it should be a private matter.

I'm not so sure I agree with someone in the government saying, "Don't take the vaccine."

You should be allowed to take it if you want to.

- So, Barry, where do you come down this?

Are the side-effects worse, or are the death rates worse?

- The death rates are clearly worse.

And I'm all about personal freedom, but we've had, in this country, we've determined that you have a right, but you don't have the right to go to school and infect my child, or go to the, to a public library, infect me.

And so we've had measles, mumps.

We've eradicated these diseases, and now that we haven't been taking the mumps and measles, we're getting cases again.

There is no science.

We've had, what, three or four billion of these mRNA vaccines given in the world.

They've been out there for three years.

He said that there's been no studies that showed that they don't do this.

Well, that's always, you can't ever disprove a negative.

I mean, as a scientist, you just wonder how he can come up with these things.

So he's not following the science, he's just making things up, and he is an anti-vaxxer anyway.

So I think he's very irresponsible, and people need to go to their own healthcare provider and ask them what to do.

'Cause the bulk of doctors are gonna follow what the CDC and the FDA... And did they get things wrong initially, like Fauci?

Absolutely.

Were they well-intentioned?

We don't know.

But they're getting it right now.

And the science is, everything says that these are much safer.

And on the heart things, they can identify who's at risk and they can, they can correct that.

- His degrees are in public health and internal medicine.

So, Bill, where'd you come down on this issue?

- Well, first of all, as an AML leukemia survivor and a very compromised immune system, I have lived this for years, and I want to give a shout out to my team at Moffitt, because I tell you what, they are, they're our family.

But I will tell you this, that since I went through my ordeal, you have a very compromised immune system, so I made it my job to figure out exactly what does the science say to the best I can determine.

Well, I would tell you this, I got the vaccines on the advice of my team at Moffitt.

But I can tell you that my heart, I ended up just about a year ago, my heart was only, my infraction rate was already down to 20%, critical.

We got that back up.

I also, now as I'm talking to you, I have severe ringing in my ear because of tinnitus.

And again, there's been no, my family usually lives in their eighties or nineties, and anything with cancer is even usually far beyond that.

I will say this, the Surgeon General of Florida, he's right, because there's trace elements of the DNA, and they're talking about the DNA in the RNA foundation.

But I will tell you that I have never, on my radio program, have ever advised somebody to get or not to get the vaccine.

And it's something that I think they ought to talk to specialists about themselves.

I can tell you that I think the reason is a lot of conservatives, when we look at the absolute corruption on the federal level, in so many agencies, including big pharma, along with the FDA, who wouldn't be skeptical about anything coming out of Washington?

I think that's more concentrated in Christian world view groups and conservative groups.

But at the same time, my concern has always been the idea that we're gonna vaccinate children when nothing shows if children get Covid.

It's kinda like a cold; they get over it, their immune systems are there.

I think there's a reason to have a loyal professional opposition.

But it gets back to what Kim said, it's a individual journey for you to check with your healthcare provider, providers, and you decide what's best for you, based on your age and your medical conditions.

- Alright.

John, take it away.

What, what's your take?

- Well, Rob, I think the point you made at the end of your piece there is critical, is Governor DeSantis appointed this gentleman, okay.

I'm not critical.

He's got some good credentials.

Wake Forest and two degrees from Harvard, it's very impressive.

But as you mentioned earlier, his degrees are not in genetics, they're not in immunology or anything like that.

He gives advice on, I don't know, internal medicine and heart stuff, and he's basically a university professor.

But you know, the bottom line is, is we have five million seniors over the age of 65 in the State of Florida.

And between the governor, and now this gentleman, over the last, what, three or four years, they've been responsible for killing thousands of Floridians by giving this bad advice.

Bill, you are totally right on, okay.

They have no business giving this advice, Kim.

This is between the individual and their doctor.

Go to your doctor, see what your doctor says, because I'm pretty sure most doctors would agree with the CDC and other federal agencies that getting the Covid shot is the right thing to do.

- Rob, if I could real quickly, let's just clarify to our viewers.

The Surgeon General in Florida has not called for it to be outlawed.

He's recommending doctors not to prescribe it.

So I don't want our, especially our seniors, to think, "Oh, they're not gonna allow it now."

They are, but he's recommending that you really need to get with your doctor.

Your doctor may tell you yes or no, but it has not been outlawed in Florida.

- But he's got a dangerous bully pulpit there, and, unfortunately, they're using it.

- Well, I would agree with that.

And you know, yeah.

- Alright.

Well, in Pinellas County and in smaller cities and counties across the state, local officials such as mayors and city council members are resigning because of a new state financial disclosure law.

- [Reporter] As of January 1st, state and county officials have to fill out something called Form 6, which requires personal financial disclosure of all property owned of a thousand dollars or more.

It's been required of the governor, Florida cabinet, school board members, sheriffs, and the entire Florida legislature for years.

The new law is intended to add transparency to local offices who make spending decisions involving millions or billions of taxpayer dollars.

But the local officials who are resigning say their public jobs are only part-time and the pay is often low.

Some local officials are unpaid, and those opposed to the law say it's expensive to hire accountants and appraisers to itemize all their assets completely.

- So, John, is this law a good one?

Is it necessary?

Does it increase transparency?

Or is it too much of a burden?

- I think that folks who're objecting to this are making much ado about nothing.

As you know, Rob, I was in various parts of city government for 20 years.

- [Rob] Long-time city council member.

- Ten years on city council.

I also, when you serve on the variance review board and other boards like that, you have to fill out those types of disclosure forms.

There's nothing wrong with it, okay.

When you get into those types of position, whether or not it's a volunteer position on the variance review board, or an elected position on city council, you should expect that transparency and disclosure is gonna be part of it.

Otherwise, don't even think about getting into it.

I think it's really fine.

I think it's fine.

The more transparency we have, the better.

If I own a piece of property somewhere and then I'm voting on an adjacent property, people have a right to know that, and maybe they have a right to question why I'm voting that way.

- Barry, do you agree?

And do you think that the governor now has the ability to appoint people to replace all these people who are resigning?

- Okay, first of all, I totally agree with this.

Confidence in government is at lowest levels ever in our country's history.

And one of the ways you can restore that is by taking away conspiracy or possible conspiracies; and by having transparence and having these disclosures, you do that.

Second question, the governor, no.

Okay, like in St Pete Beach, if you resign, then the city council fills.

Now, if they don't fill them before a certain date, then you'd have to have a special election, and then you can't do any city business for seven or eight months.

But most of the cities are set up so that the city council's replaced, not the governor.

- Okay.

Bill, does this dissuade people from becoming part of their local city council or county commission, especially in those smaller counties where the pay isn't so great?

- If it does, fine, because I'm gonna tell you, I, unlike my good friend John, he served, I ran for the legislature at one point in my ancient history.

Don't know all about the financial disclosures because God spared me from serving.

And I've had a great life, probably more effective in other ways.

But I will tell you that, today, that the conflict of interest, and even our first topic that we talked about today, about hypocrisy, there has to be total transparency, because now even minor decisions on a minor board, you never know what a conflict of interest is going to bring to the table.

And there is a trust to the taxpayers that has to be maintained.

I believe that in the population of Florida, in all of these offices, there are people who will say, "Yes, I'm called to serve.

I don't mind laying what I've got on the table because I want to be able to serve effectively."

I also respect the fact that some of these folks, the game's been changed, and they were not required to do this.

I have no problem if they say, "You know what?

This is not for me."

I don't, I don't render any judgment toward them.

But yes, we need to move forward.

And, of course, my work has primarily been with the legislature, so I deal in a world where everybody's watching everybody's finances, and they're still doing, you know, funky things.

But yes, I think it's long overdue.

- Kim, we just have a few seconds left.

What's your take on this?

- I agree totally.

Transparency is, is paramount.

- Okay.

Well, we hear many reports about the immigration crisis in this country.

Our state is spending tens of millions of dollars on anti-illegal immigrant programs devised by the governor.

But how many illegal or undocumented immigrants actually live here?

- [Reporter] Axios reports the latest numbers from the Pew Research Center show that, as of 2021, they only accounted for 4.1% of Florida's population.

Pew estimates that about 10-and-a-half million undocumented people live nationwide.

For years, Florida has seen its Republican officials take a tough public stance against undocumented immigrants, while the state's economy is reliant on and benefits from the labor of this same group.

Some industries in Florida, like agriculture and construction, employ a large percentage of non-citizens.

Over a third of the state's agricultural workers and nearly a quarter of its construction workers are not US citizens.

- So, Bill, 4% of a state the size of Florida, about 20 or 25 million, it's still a large number.

But are these folks who are here illegally or undocumented, are they a net negative or a net positive for the state?

- Well, it's a net negative, because, well, we just saw an article from the "Sun Sentinel" talking about the fact that several states, including Washington DC, are now taking taxpayer money to give 100% full coverage insurance to those that are here illegally.

Anybody that knows anything about insurance actuaries, or just numbers, that is unsustainable because of the porous border.

And in answer to the more specific question, interesting that, just before Christmas, I was going to the International Mall.

So I pulled up next to the traffic light coming off of Boy Scout Boulevard.

There's a gentleman with a sign.

He says, "I've just arrived from Nigeria.

I need some help."

Now, I don't know for sure, but I thought in my mind there's a pretty good chance this gentleman is here illegally.

Why?

Because under sound immigration policy, you never came to America unless you fit a certain criteria and you could sustain yourself when you got here.

And so it doesn't matter whether it's four or 20%, it's growing.

Just look at the Southwest border.

It's gonna cost you and I big bucks if we continue to go in the direction to take care of all these social services when many people who are getting older and paid into the system...

There's only so much money, and they talk about shrinking social security in the future.

No, I'm for the citizens of the state of Florida and the citizen of the United States, we must do what we can, but let's not get into painting this picture that it's not an issue.

- Well, I wish we had more time, but we're out of time.

John, 20 seconds.

What would you say to Bill?

- Well, Bill, I'm sorry, we agreed on three out of four topics.

But really, on the issue, as they showed in the video, agriculture and construction, okay, if you paid people adequately to pick our crops and process our foods and build our homes, then maybe they wouldn't need government assistance.

But they do need it because we pay them poorly.

Twenty seconds are up.

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

And, Kim, let's start with you, your other big story of the week.

- I think the increasing crime in Hillsborough County is a concern to me, and guns in the hands of young men and young folks.

You can't scroll your newsfeed without seeing something every day.

And it's not just here in our county, it's nationwide.

So, for me, it's an issue.

- Do you think the state attorney in Hillsborough County needs to go?

- Oh, I'm not prepared to say that.

- Okay.

Barry, your other big story.

- Kudos to the "Tampa Bay Times".

They did two great articles, one that he's gonna talk about on Jane Castor and housing, but they, Tom Mullins wrote an article in "The Times" that did a thorough analysis.

He was a former Raymond Jane's analyst that did this for a living for 30 years, about the raise deal.

And it exposed that the finances are nowhere near what we thought.

It's probably over $2 billion.

And I'd like to see the mayor respond to this, but maybe we ought to put a pause before we spend $2 billion.

- And, Bill, your other big story of the week.

- Very quickly, I would say it's kind of looking forward.

Folks, pay attention, the legislature is back in sessions.

We got 60 days to keep an eye on what's going on.

So tune in, because there's a lot of issues that are gonna be very controversial once again.

It's good for everyone viewing in to pay attention, 'cause I know your viewers do.

- Yeah.

Starts on Tuesday.

Alright.

- And, John, your other big story of the week.

- Olivia George, a reporter with "Tampa Bay Times", did a great job researching for several months about Mayor Castor's claim that the city, under her four or five year tenure, has built and constructed and opened 6,000 affordable, new, affordable homes.

It turned out to be total nonsense.

The numbers that we crunched and that Olivia crunched show that it's probably 10% of that, somewhere in the neighborhood of about 600 new homes instead of the 6,000 that Mayor Castor has claimed.

- And what did the mayor promise when she was elected?

- The mayor promised 10,000 new homes.

If they get to, you know, a thousand or 2,000 after eight years, it'll be a miracle.

- Alright.

John Dingfelder, Barry Edwards, Kim Droge, Bill Buckley, thank you.

What a great show.

It's nice to have you here.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for joining us.

Send us your comments at FTW@wedu.org, and like us on Facebook.

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

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