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

- Coming up right now in WEDU, Donald Trump taps Florida elected officials for high profile roles in his new administration, but some of his picks are already running into trouble.

And Tropicana Field was badly damaged by Hurricane Milton.

Should it be repaired, and what impact will this have on the plans to build a new stadium?

All this and more next on "Florida This Week."

(production music) Welcome back.

Joining me on the panel this week, Barbara Haselden, is the president of the St. Petersburg Republican Club, Richie Floyd is a St. Petersburg City councilman and a democrat.

Michael Van Sickler is the managing editor for news and engagement, rather, at the Tampa Bay Times.

And Ray Arsenault is an author, historian and the John Hope Franklin professor of History Emeritus at USF St. Petersburg.

Nice to have all of you here.

Great to see you.

Well, just days after winning the presidential election, Florida resident, Donald Trump is announcing his choices for his new administration.

- [Narrator] He's the first Sunshine State resident to win the White House, and since then he's elevated a growing number of his home state allies to some of the top posts in his new government, his chief of staff, the first woman to hold that job, Susie Wiles was born in Lake City and spent much of her career as a lobbyist or political operative in Jacksonville in Tallahassee.

Mike Waltz, a North Florida congressman, an Army veteran, has been named as Trump's National Security Advisor.

US Senator Marco Rubio, a Miami native, and the son of Cuban immigrants is likely to be named Secretary of State.

US Senator Rick Scott tried but failed this week to win the powerful position of Senate Majority Leader.

He had the backing of big names in the MAGA movement, but he lost out to John Thune of North Dakota in a secret vote of Republican senators.

And for perhaps the most important job in the administration, Trump has selected Congressman Matt Gaetz from the western panhandle as his new attorney general.

Gaetz has little experience practicing law.

After graduating from law school in 2007, Gaetz was admitted to the Florida Bar in 2008 and worked for the law firm Keith Anchors and Gordon in Fort Walton Beach.

Just two years later, he ran for State House and won.

He successfully ran for the US House in 2016.

Gaetz resigned from Congress this week, meaning that the House Ethics committee's ongoing probe into allegations against Gaetz for child sex trafficking ends and no report is likely to be issued.

- And according to the House Ethics Committee, "Gaetz was being investigated for sexual misconduct and or illicit drug use, sharing inappropriate images or videos on the house floor, is using state ID records, converting campaign funds to personal use and or accepting a bribe, gratuity, or gift in violation of house rules, laws or standards of conduct."

And Ray and Michael, I'd like to ask you, first of all the mechanics of this.

I mean, I think a lot of people are interested in this final report.

We don't know what it is.

The House Ethics Committee canceled the meeting on Friday to possibly discuss releasing the report.

What are the mechanics of releasing it?

How likely is it that somebody will be able to get this report released?

- Well, the initial stage is through the ethics committee and they were supposed to meet this morning, Friday morning.

And for some reason the meeting was canceled.

So I'm not sure what's happening there, but I know the information in the report is, I'm pretty sure we'll be generally known whether it'll be published or not, I'm not sure.

But I think Matt Gaetz' background is very well known of course in Congress and he's probably one of the least respected congressmen in the house because of that.

- Michael, you covered Gaetz in the house.

I mean, is that true, that Gaetz was one of the least respected members up there?

- It's kind of complicated because he's not easy to characterize.

He does have a reputation for being kind of radical on a lot of issues.

And his personal foibles are well known, but he is a skilled debater.

I remember when he would be given bills right before they would be debated on the floor, he had never seen it before, and he would be brilliant on the floor, and Democrats would just be wowed by the guy.

So he is a sharp legal mind and he's a very skilled politician.

He was one of the key loyalists for Trump, and that's why he's in the position that he's in right now.

- Barbara, should the report be released?

- No, I don't think so.

I think that Trump should get his administration just like Biden did, that he won, overwhelming Trump did, by a complete mandate across in the aisle across the country, unseen before popular vote, of course we know that.

And now he wants to put in his loyalists and he wants to put in his administration, his cabinet.

And I think people are tired of all this bickering, everybody.

I think we just saw that in the election.

Everyone wants to come together in America, and it's time for us to turn the page and quit this witch hunting.

I have here an article where Matt Gaetz, the Department of Justice dropped their investigation because they didn't have the evidence.

And this was in 2023.

So now it just keeps going, it keeps going.

And I feel that Trump had got the mandate from the American people, and he needs to be able to put in his administration.

- Richie, is it in the public interest to have this report released?

- Absolutely.

I mean, I understand where Barbara's coming from, but the truth is, is that Democrats and Republicans are going to argue over whether or not to appoint people.

They're going to argue over whether or not someone's qualified for the job.

It's the same thing that happened to President Obama when Merrick Garland wasn't appointed.

Actually, I'd say that was much more egregious.

So yeah, we need to hear the information.

And really what I'd say to this is that the appointment of Matt Gaetz is not a surprise at all.

Look, Donald Trump is a person who has been on the record praising Jeffrey Epstein.

He's a convicted sexual abuser, and he appointed someone who is an alleged sexual abuser.

So this is exactly what you would expect from these kind of people that we put in power here.

And so I don't think anybody should be surprised by the choice.

- Ray, I want ask you this question about mandate.

I mean, you and I have lived through many elections, 1972, 1980- - Yeah.

- 1984.

I mean, this was not an historic triumph by- - No, it wasn't.

- Donald Trump.

- I think there's been a lot of misinformation about that.

I mean, if it's a mandate, it's a very light one.

I mean, the country split basically 51/49, if you believe the figures, and this is not like 1972, it's not like 1936, you know, when Alpha Landon won one state.

It's not like McGovern, it's- - [Rob] Or the Jimmy Carter loss in 1980.

- Yeah, I mean, the country is deeply split, there's no real mandate.

A few hundred thousand votes in the swing states gave the election to Trump, but nearly half the house is Democratic, nearly half the Senate is democratic.

It's not an imbalance as it was after the 64 election, for example, when LBJ controlled everything.

And I think the advising consent as part of the Congressional Authority over appointments is important to keep.

I mean, if we want an end to bickering, you don't appoint someone like Matt Gaetz.

I mean, Michelle Goldberg at The Times yesterday said, "It's like when Roman Emperor Caligula appointed his horse a console," Matt Gaetz is Donald Trump's horse in a sense.

- Barbara, one of the allegations is that Matt Gaetz sex trafficked or engaged in inappropriate sexual activity with a 17-year-old.

Should the Attorney General be under that clout?

Shouldn't that be dissipated?

And shouldn't we get to the bottom of that before he's appointed to be the top law enforcement officer?

- I think it would be great for him to be the Attorney General, because those are the same department that is continues to come after him even when the charges were not pursued.

- [Rob] But what do you make of these charges?

- Innocent until proven guilty in the United States.

- Absolutely.

Shouldn't all the evidence be put out?

- Innocent until proven guilty.

- Right.

Shouldn't the evidence be put out?

- There's not enough evidence to prosecute.

- Okay.

We don't know what the evidence is though, because the report right now is still secret.

- They're not prosecuting.

- Yeah.

Okay.

Michael- - And I do wanna go back to what was just said.

I mean, I printed off the percentages, we're 2%, it's 48% to 50%, so it was 2%.

And we have the house, we have the Senate.

And so I don't... and I'm talking about the Republicans won the House and the Senate through all kinds of people voting.

- Yeah.

Michael, I wanna ask you about Marco Rubio being appointed as Secretary of State.

And now we've got Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, a congressman from the East coast.

- Right.

- Possibly being admitted to the administration.

So that leaves three seats open and the governor's called for a special election in the case of the two house seats, the Gaetz seat and the Waltz seat.

Those elections are gonna come up pretty quickly because the governor wants them to happen quickly.

- Yeah, because there's still that narrow margin in the chambers so that if Trump does want a very ambitious agenda to kick off, he doesn't want the close margins, he wants as big of a margin as he can get.

So DeSantis, the wheels are already in motion to get that going, to get those special elections going.

So for a lot of people who have observed Florida politics for a while, especially with DeSantis as governor, it is interesting because he dragged his feet when Elsie Hastings left the Congress.

- [Rob] And that special election did not happen right away.

- It didn't happen for months.

And it actually, I think a lawsuit was filed to get it going to compel the governor to order the special election because the more that that seat was open, which was a strong democratic seat, the more advantages the Republicans would have.

So here we are in a opposite situation and he's just gonna make the machinery go a lot faster than he did before.

- I think a lot of people are wondering who is gonna be replacing Marco Rubio?

And Richie, one of the ideas that came up this week is that Senator Rick Scott said that, "Ron DeSantis should appoint Laura Trump, president Trump's daughter-in-law, to be the new US Senator from Florida."

What do you make of that?

- Yeah, that's not a surprise.

I think one of the things you've seen go on in Florida politics recently is sort of a battle between DeSantis and Donald Trump.

And I think a lot of people who have been in the Trump camp across the state are pushing for Laura Trump.

And I think that the speculation is people on the DeSantis side, DeSantis himself, are more interested in having one of his loyalists in the job.

keeping it open for himself possibly.

You know, this is just a continuation of the battle we've had.

I don't know much about Laura Trump, I seriously doubt she's qualified for the job.

But we're in a place politically right now where qualifications don't matter so much when you have an R next year name.

And so we'll just have to see how that battle plays out.

- And Barbara, there is some tension between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis.

Should Ron DeSantis appoint himself?

Would that be a good idea?

- Well, I think it's a possibility, but I think Laura Trump has proven herself through the turnaround of the Republican National Committee.

So we've had a lot of problems with Republican National Committee over the last few years.

There's been a huge, once again, it's another organization that had been infiltrated by lobbyists and had seats by the lobbyists, and Laura Trump and we won.

They came in, they changed so much so quickly, they had very little time and put together a machine and it worked.

- Go ahead.

- I mean, if I could just say something- - Did we win?

- to that real quick.

- Did the Republicans win?

- Yes, they won the election.

I'm not an election denier so I can easily say that.

- Okay.

No, I know that.

- The truth is, is that you mentioned that, it not bought by lobbyists and whatnot, Trump's appointing his chief of staff, a former lobbyist for a tobacco company and a radioactive waste company to be one of the head people in charge of the White House.

Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor, I believe he's appointing, the only thing that I know about him was that he advocated for continuing the Afghanistan war while he was previously a manager and a founder of a defense contractor that made nearly a billion dollars off of contracts in the Afghanistan war.

This is not some organization that's above the fray, these people are lobbyists, they're swamp creatures just like Donald Trump says he's gonna avoid.

- Barbara, swamp creatures, what would you say back?

- Swamp creatures?

- Yeah.

- I would just say that so many of the donors, the money that run both parties, and including St. Petersburg, is a lot of lobbyists and they're putting forth their own interests, there's no question about that, but they also represent big factions that the politicians they need those factions to get behind them.

- Yeah.

Well, Ray, final word.

- I'd just like to say that Laura Trump has maybe in an organizational sense turned that around, but at an incredible expense.

I mean the Republican Party as we knew it was when I was growing up, my family was Republican, is unrecognizable today.

I would say the Republican Party is really a name only, it's a Trump cult, it's not the Republican party.

- Alright.

- And the daughter-in-law is part of that.

- Okay, we're gonna have to continue this discussion in the next show.

The Tampa Bay race baseball team will play their 2025 home games at the New York Yankee Spring training ballpark in Tampa, as the city of St. Petersburg decides what to do about Tropicana Field.

The Tropicana Field dome was heavily damaged last month by Hurricane Milton.

A damage assessment presented to city council this week estimates that it will take $56 million to repair the stadium in time for the 2026 season.

The city owns the stadium and is responsible for repairs.

Mayor Ken Welch said in the statement this week, "We anticipate that the majority of the repair costs incurred by the city will be covered by insurance and FEMAm, making this approach both beneficial for community spirit and fiscally responsible for our community."

The decision on whether or not to move ahead with the repairs rests with the city council.

Still up in the air is the future of the plan to build a new baseball stadium and redevelop the surrounding gas plant area.

Last week's elections changed the makeup of the Pinellas County Commission and now it appears stadium deal opponents make up a majority on the commission.

Both the city and the county have until the end of March next year to issue bonds for the stadium project.

If the county commission votes not to do so, the current deal approved in July could fall apart and a vote could come as early as this Tuesday.

So, Richie, is it a mistake?

The mayor says the money's gonna come from FEMA and from insurance, but is it a mistake to spend 56 million on a stadium that's gonna be torn down in just a few years?

- So, I've been on this show previously stating my opposition to subsidies for sports teams and all those reasons why.

And we're kind of in a similar situation here, but I think one thing that's different is that the city is the landlord here, the city has responsibilities to maintain this stadium and the team can take action if we don't maintain those responsibilities.

And so that's kind of the pickle that we're stuck in right here, even though it's going to be torn down soon.

I think one thing that really needs to be put upfront into the public is that, there has to be some sort of trade off or negotiation with the team if we were not to rebuild it.

And I think we need to publicly have that negotiation, find out what it would really cost us to not rebuild it, 'cause we don't have that information right now.

And then decide does it make sense to rebuild?

Does it make sense to let them play somewhere else for a few years and settle over it?

'Cause we have obligations to them right now.

And that's one of the reasons I'm opposed to these stadium agreements is because it puts obligations on us to maintain an asset that, while maybe important to our community, takes a couple of steps back and takes a backseat right now to repairing people's homes and all of the small businesses that are having issues right now.

And so it's unfortunate that we're spending so much time on this, but it really is a big thing that we're gonna have to overcome and we're gonna have to make sure that we do it in a public process.

- Will a hundred percent of the cost of fixing it, if they decide to fix it, will a hundred percent of the cost be covered by insurance and FEMA?

- No.

The first, around $25 million, the first 25 million will have to be paid by the city and then after that insurance will cover about the next 25 million, and then FEMA help will kick in for a large portion of anything after that.

And so we are gonna be sitting with a bill of at least like $25 million as of right now.

- That's a lot of money.

Barbara, I know some on the Pinellas County Commission are upset that the Rays are gonna play in Tampa because they want the team to stay in Pinellas for whatever period they're forced out of the Tropicana Dome.

What do you think about the move to play in Tampa?

- Well, I think that it is not gonna play well with the county commission, because the tourist development money that is used for this, for the county's portion of this, it doesn't come outta Tampa.

And so moving the team over to Tampa, who knows, maybe they haven't even talked to the county commissionm maybe they won't come back.

It could be that this... you know, there was so much talk about them going to Tampa.

So I think that sending the team over to Tampa and not having discussions prior, I know the county commission has been trying to talk to them.

Kathleen Peters has called them to try to find out if they would play over where the Phillies play, and they haven't been conversant.

- Chris, I saw a quote from him saying that, "Taxpayers in Pinellas County are being asked to spend a billion dollars."

- Yeah.

- For the team.

- Yes.

- In the next few years.

- Yes.

And I think too that the priorities of so many of the residents have completely changed.

And we've just seen the infrastructure for what it is, the infrastructure in Pinellas County in St. Petersburg, we have so much work to do that is gonna take so much untold millions, billions.

We don't know how much money it it's gonna take to try to get our community healthy from an infrastructure standpoint.

And people are not worried about going to the game.

- Yeah.

Michael, I've seen so much on social media.

People in St. Petersburg say, look, my home was destroyed by this hurricane and the city is talking about spending- - Right.

- Millions on the stadium.

- Well, as Richie pointed out, they're in an agreement so they have to meet the obligations of that agreement.

And if that agreement says, 56 million needs to be spent to get it in shape, I think the city is probably looking at it from a legal standpoint.

So is there a fairness issue?

Maybe, but they do have to meet their obligations.

But I would say keep an eye out for the reaction of the Rays.

So far we haven't really heard from the Rays.

- Yeah.

- And where do they stand?

So if Tuesday rolls around and the county commission meets and they even delay this vote, that is gonna be detrimental to a deal getting done.

It doesn't take a no vote.

If they delay it until December or mid-December, that's going to be a huge problem for this deal.

- Could the stadium be built a year later than what's being envisioned now?

- Well if that were to happen, you're asking the Rays to pick up more of the cost and that's something that, where are they on this right now?

- Yeah.

Ray, you're a seasoned ticket holder.

- Yeah.

- I gotta ask you, what do you think about the move to Tampa, first of all?

'Cause you go to all the St. Peterburg games.

- Well, I think it's better than the suggestions that they move to Nashville temporarily or Miami.

It's within driving distance at least.

But I think it's creating complications really.

I think the Rays just announced that they're gonna be playing at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa.

I think that was really not... probably not a very smart move that they should have talked to the city commission, I mean the county commission, to see how much they preferred them to play either at the Philies or at Al Lang.

I mean, they chose Steinnbrenner, I think 'cause it's the largest, it's 11,000 seats as opposed to 7,500 I think at Al Lang.

But you could easily put in temporary seats to build Al Lang up to 10 or 11,000.

You have the same situation and you wouldn't have this appearance of the kind of betrayal of Pinellas County.

And sort of a lack of respect really for the fan base and for the people who are footing the bill for the new stadium.

- I'm wondering if people will come out of the heat and the thunderstorms and the lack of air conditioning in any open stadium, open air stadium?

- You know, it's gonna be a shock.

Yeah, we're very spoiled, there's no question about that.

- So Richard, what final word on this, do you think the Rays will step up?

Is there any indication that they would come forward and maybe offer something to help the city?

- I think right now we are still in a world of unknowns.

We're starting to learn a lot more.

But I think when it comes to this deal going forward, the gas plant agreement, you still have three people, three groups that have to approve it.

You have to have the bonds issued by the city, which I'm not too worried about.

I mean I don't support them but my colleagues do so that's the direction we'll probably head in.

And then the county commission at this point, I just can't say, and the Rays themselves as well and I just can't say what they're gonna do.

They're going to lose revenue from not playing in their stadium for at least one season.

And I'm sure that revenue was going to be relied upon to build the new stadium from their end as well.

So I think we're still kind of up in the air right now.

- Okay.

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

And Barbara, let's start with you.

The other big story of the week.

- Well I think the big story is going to be the majority of the county commission being Republicans, that being flipped over the last couple of years.

In 2022 we got Brian Scott and now we have Chris Scherer and Vince Nowicki to give a six outta seven, completely flipping the composition of the county commission.

And I think I know these people and I think we're going to see a real change in direction of the county commission as far as the priorities for our county.

- And if you were to name one item on their agenda beyond the deal with the stadium.

- Well I think start promoting home ownership instead of apartments.

- Okay.

Alright.

Richie, you're on the big story.

- My big story is tied to the election as well, as results come out, get finalized, exit polls, information gets finalized.

We're gonna see that what happened in this past election is that a large portion of democratic base voters did not turn out.

It's the same thing that happened in Florida in 2022.

Personally I believe it's because Democrats have not spent enough time talking to the economic and pocketbook issues of the American people.

Things like healthcare, things like the cost of housing.

That's what I propose they do going forward.

But I think we're gonna have a huge conversation in the party about what it means to actually get our base back out to vote.

- All right.

Ray, your other big story of the week.

- Well I guess for me it's the whole situation with the hurricanes, that the storm surge from Milton did not hit us as it was predicted.

We didn't get a 15 foot surge, we got a two foot surge and survived.

And of course then there's the new storm coming in, but apparently it has turned and it's gonna go towards Honduras and it's very sad for Honduras, they have enough problems to deal with, but at least we've got a temporary respite from this terrible situation we found ourselves in with our infrastructure being vulnerable to hurricanes.

- All right.

And Michael, you have a big story of the week?

- We're still, we've had two seismic events happen, the election, total changing of an era and the hurricanes.

So we're in cleanup mode, we're just trying to catch up.

The hurricanes are gonna have a huge... we're still seeing businesses talking about struggling to make ends meet and they still haven't turned the lights on.

So we're gonna be keeping attention on that.

All the thousands of homes that were destroyed, what the insurance situation's gonna be, the debris piles that are everywhere, how long will it take to collect them and take them away?

So there's a lot going on.

- Lot of homeowners in pain too.

- Yeah.

- Alright.

Hey, thank you all for a great show.

Great to see you.

Thank you for coming to the set.

That's it for us.

Thanks to our guest, Barbara Haselden, Richie Floyd, Michael Van Sickler, and Ray Arsenault.

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

Our show's now available as a podcast and from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

(production music)