She founded the group Lauren's Kids to educate children and adults about preventing sexual abuse. This week, she kicked off her 11th annual walk across Florida, starting in the Florida Keys.

"This is all about awareness," Book told CBS News Miami during a stop in the Keys. "We want people sharing their stories. This is the Raising Our Voices Tour, and we're going to have a special recording studio with us [on the bus] so people can share their stories. They can do so online or come out and share in person."

"We want those voices to be elevated, because in doing so, we know people will pay attention to this issue," she continued. "We don't want survivors to feel invisible. We want them to be heard. We want them to be seen."

Book said this year's walk comes amid renewed attention on the Epstein files, which she says is prompting more survivors to come forward.

"There are elements and forces out there every single day that seek to silence the voices of survivors," she said. "And we want to stop that from happening."

Watch the full edition of Facing South Florida: 

"They've slowed it down for several years already, and it's time to cut bait and fish," Wenski said during an interview on Facing South Florida. "It's time to approve it."

The facility, known as the Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery, was designed to divert people with mental illnesses from county jail, where they often go without treatment, and instead provide care in a dedicated facility.

Long-promised mental health facility remains unopened

The center was first promised to voters in 2004 as part of the Building Better Communities bond program.

Using bond funds, Miami-Dade County spent more than $50 million renovating a building at 2200 NW 7th Avenue. Two years ago, following a competitive process, a pair of nonprofit organizations were selected to operate the facility and provide treatment.

The seven-story, 181,000-square-foot building includes a crisis stabilization unit, residential treatment, transitional housing, outpatient services and health care. It is also equipped with a courtroom.

Funding for the first two years has already been secured.

Yet for more than a year, the building has sat empty as commissioners have repeatedly delayed final approval.

Wenski said the delay is troubling, criticizing what he described as the county "warehousing" people with mental illnesses in jail instead of providing treatment.

"It will save lives because this will allow people to get the treatment that they really need, treatment that can help stabilize them," he said.

Political delays and competing proposals raise questions

Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Anthony Rodriguez has so far declined to place the item on the full commission agenda, instead routing it through committees.

Last month, the commission's Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee deferred the proposal indefinitely. The committee is co-chaired by Vicki Lopez and Natalie Milian Orbis and includes commissioners Danielle Cohen Higgins, Roberto Gonzalez and Rene Garcia.

Some commissioners have raised concerns about long-term funding, questioning whether the center will ultimately save money and how it would be financed beyond the first few years.

But other factors may also be at play.

As previously reported by The Miami Herald and CBS Miami, a for-profit company submitted a proposal last fall to take over the building. The company, Recovery Solutions, formerly part of the GEO Group, proposed a model that would cost more and serve fewer people than the plan developed by Judge Steve Leifman.

Leifman, who has worked on mental health reform for more than two decades, has been the driving force behind the center and Miami-Dade's jail diversion program. He frequently gives tours of the empty building to officials from around the country looking to replicate the model.

Despite national interest, the project has yet to receive final approval in its home county.

Jail cycle highlights urgency for reform

Currently, many people with mental illnesses in Miami-Dade are arrested for low-level offenses such as homelessness or minor drug charges. They often spend weeks or months in jail, are released without adequate treatment, and then quickly cycle back into the system.

The pattern repeats itself so often that Leifman has identified about 1,000 individuals who are repeatedly arrested and jailed.

The five most frequently arrested individuals alone were taken into custody 142 times over the past five years, spending nearly 4,000 combined days in jail.

Advocates say the system is not only inefficient but inhumane.

"This is not just an insane system, it is a cruel one," critics argue.

Wenski said the proposed center would not only reduce costs but also restore dignity and serve what he called "the common good."

"If somebody has a heart attack walking down the street, they call an ambulance and take them to a hospital," Wenski said. "But if you have a mental health crisis, they call the cops and take you to jail, which is not a very efficient way of treating a health crisis."

Watch the full edition of Facing South Florida:

They voted to raise their own taxes to help people with mental illnesses by building a facility that would divert them from the county jail, where they often languished without treatment, and instead sent them to a place where they could get the help they needed.

The measure passed overwhelmingly.

That was more than 23 years ago. 

The center had yet to be opened 

For many years, the project was stalled. But two years ago, the promise made to voters appeared to be on the verge of being kept. The county completed restoration of a building using $50 million of the bond money voters approved in 2004. 

The Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery, located at 2200 NW 7th Avenue, would be a first-of-its-kind facility that could make a difference in the lives of countless people.

The seven-story, 181,000 square-foot building will include a crisis stabilization unit, residential treatment, transitional housing, outpatient services and health care services. It will even include a courtroom.

In 2024, after a competitive process, two non-profit groups were selected to operate the facility and provide treatment and care.

Numerous local groups and agencies have pledged their support, including the Homeless Trust and Camillus House. Funding for the first two years of the project was secured.

Everything was ready. Everything was set.

And yet, the center is still waiting to be opened.

Judge Steve Leifman, who has been working on mental health issues for more than two decades and has been the driving force behind the center and the jail diversion program, often gives tours of the empty building to government officials from around the country who want to emulate his plan to help those with mental illnesses.

He tells those visitors he hopes to have it open soon.

Soon. It always seems to be just a few months away. And yet, the center at the heart of his plan is still waiting to be opened.

The story of the Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery reveals just how broken the Miami-Dade County government is.

And while the mayor and the county commission delay, and delay, and delay some more, the center remains closed and the folks who this center was designed to help continue to suffer.

So, what is happening?

Well, last fall, even though the county went through a competitive process two years ago and selected two non-profit groups to run the center, a for-profit company out of Nashville – Recovery Solutions – secretly sent a proposal to Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, saying they wanted to take over the building.

They even hired a big-time lobbying firm, the Southern Group, and lobbyist Oscar Braynon.

After Recovery Solutions and Brayonon went to work behind the scenes at the county commission, the final approval Leifman needed to open the center started getting bogged down in one commission committee after another.

The only reason the public learned about this secret proposal from Recovery Solutions was thanks to reporting by the Miami Herald. 

The mayor never informed Leifman or County Commissioner Raquel Regalado, who was working with Leifman to get the center open, that there was another proposal floating around.

A proposal that would cost the county more money and help fewer people.

"It's pretty disheartening, and it's very disappointing," Leifman told CBS Miami's Jim DeFede. "And it was very unexpected because all of this happened right after we had finished everything, and we were ready to open. And so, if there were true concerns and true issues, they should have been raised years in advance. This went through so much vetting, so much analysis, and everything that we are doing with this building; it's not hypothetical or theoretical. We know exactly who needs to come in the building. We have a list of the individuals. We know who is costing the county so much money. And we know that they're not getting better and they're cycling through crime, homelessness, hospitalization, again and again and again."

Right now, there's a system where people with mental illnesses are arrested for homelessness or minor drug charges. They then sit in jail for weeks or months at a time, before getting released and then re-arrested a short time later.

It is a cycle that happens again and again. It's so bad that Leifman has even been able to identify, by name, 1,000 mentally ill individuals who keep getting arrested, and released, and arrested again.

If you look at just the top five people on that list, in the last five years, those five individuals alone were arrested 142 times and spent nearly 4,000 days in jail. And again, that's not involving serious offenses. The reality is, their crime is being mentally ill.

The center looks to break the cycle 

This is not just an insane system; it is a cruel one.

This center could break that cycle by getting them the specialized treatment that the jail cannot and does not provide. It would also save the county millions of dollars in the process.

In an interview with CBS News Miami for Facing South Florida, Cava admitted that last fall she received the proposal from the for-profit company, Recovery Solutions, and she had one of her department directors meet with representatives from the company. She also admitted speaking to the company's lobbyist, Braynon, about the proposal.

Asked why she kept it a secret and never informed Leifman or Regalado, Cava claimed she did not think the proposal was complete or worth discussing.

"I think you might not realize this, but we get contacted by hundreds of vendors every day for all sorts of things," Cava said. "We provided a courtesy meeting with our director. It was not appropriate to proceed at that time. It wasn't complete, and we already were well underway with the non-profit groups, which had been selected to run the facility." 

Cava said she remains committed to getting the center open. And urged the county commission to move quickly on it.

Whether they do move forward remains to be seen.

It is not clear how many county commissioners were given the secret proposal from Recovery Solutions or if they have been lobbied to slow down the opening so that this for-profit company – or perhaps some other group we don't know about – can come along and take control of this building.

But while the county commission, under the leadership of Chairman Anthony Rodriguez, continues to drag its feet, the building will remain empty. And because of that, there are people across our community with mental illnesses who will continue to suffer. 

Gregory flipped a heavily red Florida House seat blue. But the reason she garnered so much national attention for her victory is that her opponent not only received the endorsement of President Donald Trump, but the president voted for him, because that district includes Mar-a-Lago. 

After her win, she has received congratulatory phone calls from Democrats across the country, including former President Joe Biden.

She explained what drove her to get involved: "I felt that the leadership in Tallahassee and the legislature was not listening to us. I felt they were very distracted on culture war issues and not solving the very real affordability issues that us average Floridians are struggling with, like property insurance and health care and education. And that is the only reason that I'm interested in running, is trying to find solutions to these big, big affordability issues."

Even though she was running in Trump's district, she decided not to make Trump the issue in her campaign. Rather than focus on the most famous resident of her district she said she stayed focused on the 180,000 other people who live there.

"All constituents are equal and I want to serve the greatest number of the greatest good with good policy," she said.

It was a race that few gave her a chance of winning, but Gregory said she decided to run anyway. In a conversation for Facing South Florida, she had this advice for anyone thinking about getting into politics.

"I think you have to do some soul searching, knowing that this will probably be the hardest thing you ever do," she said. "I can't undersell that. It was all-consuming. And then you just believe in yourself. It started with me, my husband, and a couple of friends sitting around a kitchen table being like, `What if we just try? What if you just do it? If we don't like what we're seeing out of the state house, what if we just give it our best shot?' And I think that's the only way the world's ever changed is a small group of people. Who were dedicated and passionate. It's one of my favorite quotes from Margaret Mead. And that's the only thing that's ever changed the world. So, we just, we just did the thing."

"I want to make sure our military has the resources they need when they're trying to keep us safe, but I also need to understand what the objectives are, what's the plan for execution, what are they using those resources for?" she told CBS News Miami. 

Appearing on Facing South Florida, Wasserman Schultz said Trump made a mistake by not coming to Congress before the war started. 

"I am someone who said they were really off the mark and off base, not to come to Congress with an authorization for use of military force," she said. "I believe that Iran is the worst terrorist threat and the most dangerous country on the planet. Had I heard a rational explanation, it is quite possible that I would vote for [the use of force.] But they have chaotically executed this war. Gas prices in Florida are nearing $4, and diesel being $5 [per gallon] is economically impactful in a very negative way."

Wasserman Schultz pushed back against the suggestion that the United States was led into this war by Israel and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.

"It is so incredibly dangerous to lay this at the feet of the leader of another country," she said. "Israel is the United States' closest ally in the region. We closely coordinate on intelligence and military activity. It is dangerous, particularly for Jews around the world. Any concern or blame for the reason that we launched an attack against Iran lies at the feet of our president. He is making these decisions. The fact that the administration, and our secretary of state and the president tried to blame Israel is outrageous, cowardly and dangerous. Any military action that we take as a country, the president is the commander-in-chief, the blame and the responsibility and the accountability lies at his feet."

And so, where will Marco Rubio be Tuesday morning?

Well, the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor will be in a federal courtroom in downtown Miami, testifying against his longtime friend, former Congressman David Rivera.

A little background

In 2017, Rivera was given a secret, $50 million contract by the US subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA. Supposedly, the contract was to help the company expand business in the United States, but federal prosecutors claim it was really a payoff by Venezuela's government to try to negotiate an end to US sanctions against the country.

And why would Venezuela hire a middling, one-term former congressman with a history of scandal?

Well, one possible answer is that Rivera helped them gain access to Rubio.

Rubio and Rivera have been close friends for decades. They owned a house together in Tallahassee and were roommates when they served in the Florida Legislature. And in terms of gaining access, it worked.

Rivera arranged two meetings with Rubio and others in 2017 to discuss the future of Venezuela.

Ultimately, nothing came of the meetings, but in December 2022, prosecutors charged Rivera with failing to register as a foreign agent and money laundering.

Rivera denies he did anything wrong, and Rubio has never been accused of wrongdoing. After Rivera was indicted and the meetings with Rubio were revealed, Rubio said he did not know about the contract Rivera had with Venezuela.

Rubio to appeal in Miami federal court

In advance of the trial, CBS News Miami spoke to Miami Herald federal courts reporter Jay Weaver about what Rubio is expected to say when he takes the stand.

"Well, I think he's going to have to come clean, and he's going to have to be very straightforward, and he is going to stick to what he told the FBI," Weaver said. "And what he told the FBI, that he did meet with David Rivera, his old friend. He's going to tell them that they met twice in Washington DC in 2017 and they did talk about Venezuela. But what he's going to probably say is, look, we talked about Venezuela, but we talked about an exit strategy. We both wanted Maduro out. We both want to change the regime. And we both wanted him to hold fair, free and fair elections. And clearly, [Maduro] was opposed to it."

They didn't even pass a budget, which is the one thing they are required to do by law. 

Instead, the governor and the legislature pushed more culture wars, passing a new anti-DEI bill and a bill granting DeSantis the ability to target certain individuals and groups as terrorist organizations. Legislators also forced through a measure that will make it harder for some people to vote.

What is Senate Bill 1296?

They also passed what is widely viewed as their latest union-busting bill.

On March 1, Facing South Florida took an in-depth look at Senate Bill 1296, which targeted public sector unions. The bill was sponsored by State Senator Jonathan Martin, a Republican from Fort Myers, and was pushed by the right-wing, billionaire-financed Freedom Foundation. 

During a committee hearing, the Freedom Foundation's Southern Director, Rusty Brown, testified that the foundation does not believe Florida workers should have the right to organize – even though that right is guaranteed in Florida's Constitution.

The Freedom Foundation has never been shy about what its real intention is – which is to eliminate public sector unions. On their website – under a banner that reads "Why We Fight" – they argue that "government unions are a root cause of every growing national dysfunction in America."

SB 1296 was introduced three years after the Freedom Foundation's original union-busting bill, SB 256, passed the Florida Legislature. That bill, signed into law in 2023, made it harder for public sector unions to collect dues, while simultaneously forcing them to show that at least 60 percent of their members were paying their dues. Any union that failed to meet that 60 percent threshold faced a decertification vote.

Following the passage of SB256, the Freedom Foundation went after the state's largest teachers' union, the United Teachers of Dade, and financed a multi-million-dollar campaign to decertify the union and replace it with one that would be more friendly to their interests.

That campaign failed, and the teachers in Miami-Dade voted to keep their union, with 83% voting for UTD, 14% voting for the Freedom Foundation-backed alternative, and 3% voting to have no union at all.

In the three years since SB 256 passed, there have been 209 decertification votes against teacher unions across the state, and in all 209 cases, the teachers voted overwhelmingly to keep their union.

In response to these repeated losses, DeSantis and the Freedom Foundation moved this year to push SB 1296, which rewrites the rules for those union elections. Under the original version of the bill, the union doesn't just have to win a majority of the people who decide to vote – they would now be required to have a majority of every employee in the collective bargaining unit.

Supporters say similar laws are in effect in Wisconsin and Iowa, although the Wisconsin measure was recently ruled unconstitutional.

During a heated and prolonged debate, the bill was watered down slightly on the floor of the Senate. It was amended to require 50% participation in the union election and then a majority of those who voted.

The bill passed, but three Republican senators from Miami – Senators Ana Maria Rodriguez, Alexis Calatayud and Ileana Garcia – defied the governor and voted against the bill because they said it would hurt working people who are already struggling to survive.

Despite the changes, the bill will still make it easier to do away with government unions in Florida – especially teacher unions. The only unions excluded from the new law are the ones representing police and firefighters – the very unions that supported DeSantis and other Republicans.

DeSantis determined to rid state of unions 

Republican lawmakers who spoke to CBS Miami said this bill targeting teacher unions was the governor's highest priority this session.

Andrew Spar, the president of the Florida Education Association, which represents teacher unions across the state, decried the bill's passing.

"I think it's unfortunate that lawmakers in the state of Florida have decided to stand with out-of-state billionaire-backed organizations rather than the people of the state of Florida, the workers of the State of Florida," Spar told CBS Miami. "Every day, workers in this state are struggling to pay their bills, to pay increasing rent costs and housing costs, and now soaring gas prices. And all we ask for is a fair shot at the American dream. It seems like this bill's main goal is to take away the protections that we have at work and our ability, our constitutional right and freedom to come together and advocate through a union and have a contract that protects our families and us."

Critics of the bill argue that the attacks on the teacher unions are part of a broader education strategy that has slowly been unfolding for the past 30 years.

And when you look at those efforts, critics argue, there has been a methodical march toward one goal – privatizing education and eliminating most, if not all, traditional public schools.

It started under Jeb Bush, who launched the first charter schools in the late 1990s, and included so-called opportunity scholarships for poor minority students in failing schools.

But those efforts have now metastasized into what we see today – an explosion of poorly regulated charter schools across the state, coupled with the massive, for-profit businesses that manage those schools.

And then of course there are the vouchers themselves.

In 2003, the spending on various forms of vouchers was approximately $86 million, according to state records.

Today, the state spends more than $4 billion of taxpayer money every year on vouchers, money that is given to families regardless of their economic need, money that now helps subsidize private and even religious schools.

"I would say that the ultimate goal of education policy in Florida is to eliminate public schools," Diane Ravitch, an education historian, said. "Not completely, but to use them as a dumping ground for the kids who are not taking vouchers or going to charters."

Ravitch was the under secretary of education in the George H W Bush Administration. A one-time conservative Republican, she initially supported vouchers and charter schools but now sees them as part of a larger effort to undermine traditional public education. 

"What has happened over the years and as a result of the expansion of charters and now the expansion of vouchers is that it's perfectly obvious that all the things that I hoped would come true didn't come true," she told CBS Miami. "Charters are not better than public schools. Many of them are worse. Many of them open and then close. Florida has the highest rate of charter school closures of any state in the country. I think there are now about 700 to 800 charters in Florida, but 400 charters have opened and closed or got the money to open and never did open. They're fly-by-night, many of them.

"As for vouchers," she continued. "They have been something of a disaster because instead of saving poor kids from failing schools, they're now being offered as a subsidy for the upper middle class and the upper class so that instead of paying $30,000 a year in tuition [for a private school], the state is subsidizing them, giving them $9,000 to help pay for their tuition. It's a huge drain from the public schools because the public schools are losing money that they can ill afford.

She claimed 70% of the kids now receiving vouchers never attended public schools.

"They're going to the kids who are already enrolled in religious and private schools," she said.

Ravitch said the reason DeSantis and others are targeting the teacher unions is that they are often the last line of defense in supporting traditional public schools.

"Teacher unions are the only organized force that fights for public schools," she said. "If they can eliminate teacher unions, if they can cripple the teacher union so that they have no voice, that will help them the next time they want to pass more legislation that is even more harmful to public schools. This is simple politics. They just want to knock out the teacher unions because they fight for public schools."

"My entire adult career, I've always fought for hard-working people, and I feel like now is the time that we need to see proven fighters who are going to fight all of the corporate greed that's coming out of Washington DC," the Jacksonville Democrat told CBS News Miami for Sunday's edition of Facing South Florida.

She is in the Democratic primary against Alex Vindman, the retired lieutenant colonel who was instrumental in causing President Donald Trump's first impeachment. After retiring from the military, Vindman moved to Florida about three years ago.

Nixon said while she honors Vindman's service to the country, she said she has been in the trenches in Florida her entire adult life.

"I am a community organizer," she said. "I led organizing efforts in 2018 to help expand the minimum wage here in our state, and so I know what it takes to build complex coalitions of folks. I know what it takes to motivate and galvanize people who are apathetic; people who have been marginalized and told that they don't matter. And I know that I am the one who can actually win in August as well as win in November."

"I am not a corporate Democrat," she said. "I am a common-sense public servant who puts people over profit, people over politics, and people over party. I know what it's like to have my heat break down in my home and grow up with my mom, and having to open the oven to make sure we have some type of heat in our home. I know what it's like to walk outside and look in my driveway, and my vehicle is gone because my car has gotten repossessed. I understand what it is like to struggle.

"But I also understand what it is like to deserve so much more," she said. "And that is what hard-working Floridians and Americans deserve here in this country. We need to do things a lot differently than what's been happening. And right now, these corrupt billionaires, these greedy corporations, are determining all avenues of our life, all types of policies. And if we start getting more people who come from hard-working families to be our elected officials in Tallahassee as well as in Washington, D.C., we'll see massive amounts of change here in our country."

The interview also covers his thoughts on possibly being the first black, Republican governor of a Southern state, his strained relationship to Governor Ron DeSantis, and his thoughts on a variety of issues including eliminating homesteaded property taxes, Everglades restoration, and his support for AI data centers as well as his position that private companies should be allowed to build small nuclear reactors to power those centers.

The following is a complete transcript of that conversation.

Jim DeFede: 

Alright, let's turn to you running for governor and let's talk about those issues. There's a lot I want to cover in this interview in terms of some of the policy issues, but I want start by talking about your background, because it's a very interesting background that I'm not sure a lot of people in South Florida necessarily understand. I'm sure they know it in your home district, but a little less so here. First off, we're both from Brooklyn. I grew up in Bay Ridge, you grew up at Crown Heights, to a single mom with you and two other kids. Talk to me about what those early days were like for you and what you remember, and basically the beginning of your life and what your story is.

Byron Donalds: 

Well, I mean, look, I wouldn't be here without my mother. My mother did so much for me. She sacrificed a lot to help me get the best education I could. My mom was a school choice mom before school choice was a thing. She moved me out of public school very early, and it made a ton of sacrifices to put me in private school so I could get the education possible. She was a tough lady. She's tough, she was strict, she did the very best job she could do for me and for my sisters. And so I wouldn't be in the position I am today without my mother. Leaving New York was a decision, as a young kid, was basically like, I'm going to go somewhere else, I'm going to go far away. I kind of looked at Florida, looked at a couple other states that I figured I was going to go to get my college education. But I can't stress enough, growing up in New York was hard. Hard upbring but my mother did everything she could.

Jim DeFede: 

But when you say it was hard, what was hard about it?

Byron Donalds:

 Well, we grew up poor, number one, in my neighborhood in Crown Heights, Brooklyn at the time. That was during the crack epidemic. I remember sometimes I was going to baseball practice in the morning and you would be walking down the street to go to the train station. You see crack vials all over the street corners in the early mornings before people would come out and clean them up from the night before. My mayors in New York were Ed Koch, David Dinkins, and Rudy Giuliani. So I remember when Rudy took over because the streets became so much safer because Rudy made sure their officers were on the streets every single day, as opposed to what was happening in previous administrations, where the cops were basically in their precincts and not actually walking the beat and holding low-level crime accountable.

Jim DeFede: 

Can I ask you what happened to your father?

Byron Donalds: 

My parents just never married, you know, they just the… things just didn't work out. That's life.

Jim DeFede: 

Do you have a relationship with him at all?

Byron Donalds: 

We do have a relationship. We talk periodically, but I just didn't grow up with my dad.

Jim DeFede: 

Obviously, when you came to Florida as a young man, you did have some troubles with the law yourself.

Byron Donalds: 

Yeah.

Jim DeFede: 

You were arrested, I think when you were 18, on a marijuana charge. What can you tell me about that?

Byron Donalds: 

Stupid decision. Honestly, I was walking down the street. Officers, I was leaving a party, officers came up, asked me if I would empty my pockets. I said, yes, of course. I had a dime bag of marijuana in my pocket. That's the story. And so, you know, it's tough because there's a lot of decisions that I wish I could go back and redo from those early years. Like 18, 19, and 20 were really tough years for me. Made a lot of bad decisions that I regret. But in life, you don't just, you're not who you are at the lowest point in your life. What you do is you decide to just push forward and try to make sure you make better decisions in the future. And I would tell people, if you examine my life since 20 years old, my life has really been a story of redemption.

Jim DeFede: 

I want to talk about that redemption arc, but before I get there, I just want to be clear on a couple of things with regard to your arrest.

Byron Donalds: 

Sure.

Jim DeFede: 

The charge itself that was listed in court documents was possession with intent to distribute. Your ex-wife or your first wife at the time gave an interview recently in which she said we had this neighbor who sold drugs and they, meaning you and the neighbor, got close. Byron thought that that was his path to fix his money situation. He was making bad choices. It was never a sense of why he did it. I had a level of concern, I had to worry, what if he got arrested? Your ex-wife says that you were actually not just possessing drugs, but you were selling small amounts of drugs.

Byron Donalds: 

Yeah, it was bad decisions.

Jim DeFede: 

So you were...

Byron Donalds: 

I can't undo that decision.

Jim DeFede: 

So you were selling?

Byron Donalds: 

Ah, yeah, for a period of time, low level amounts. Terrible decisions. Jim, like I told you, those years of my life, there are a lot of things I wish I could undo. I wish could, but I can't do that. You know, I was a youth leader for 12 years in my community in Southwest Florida. And what we always told the young kids is that when you mess up, you make up, but you never give up. And I messed up early on. It's one of the reasons why I spent so much of my other years in Southwest, Florida mentoring young kids serving in my church helping them make sure they don't make the decisions that I made when I was 18.

Jim DeFede: 

And you had another incident with a fraud charge that related to a bank debit card.

Byron Donalds: 

Yes.

Jim DeFede: 

And again, it was something that happened when I think you were 20. When you were 18, the case ended up going through a diversion program. You stayed good for a year. I think if you paid a fine, the charges were ultimately dropped. With the fraud charge, I think it's not clear because the records were sealed and then expunged.

Byron Donalds: 

Right.

Jim DeFede: 

In both those cases, it seemed that you received some mercy from the courts, either through a pre-trial diversion program or by recognizing that you were a youthful offender, having your record sealed and eventually expunged. There has been some concern raised that, for instance, you're the sponsor of the DC Crimes Bill, which would overhaul some of the criminal justice for youthful offenders in the District of Columbia area, and there are those who believe that the stance you're taking now is hypocritical given that some of the very grace that you were shown in cases in Florida, you would deny to people in similar situations in the District of Columbia.

Byron Donalds: 

Well, listen, first, let me talk to the D.C. Crimes Act. I'm a proud sponsor of it. The problem in the District of Columbia is that they were treating 24-year-olds as if they were juveniles. And look, I will never say that the decisions I made when I was very young were right decisions or smart decisions. They were terrible decisions, desperate decisions. But in Florida, I had to face the music as an adult. In D. C., they were letting 24- year-olds be tried as juveniles, that's not right, Jim. It's one of the reasons why juvenile crime in D.C. is shooting through the roof. So let me be clear with you on this one. So what we did in D.C. is we said, if you're 24 years old, if you are 20 years old. If you're 19 years old you're going to be tried as an adult in the D. C. juvenile, in the DC system, not as a child.

Jim DeFede: 

Except I'm not sure your description of what the impact of the law is accurate. From what I understand, it doesn't necessarily mean that 18- to 24-year-olds will be tried as juveniles. It would allow people in that range in certain cases to have their convictions sealed and receive more flexible sentencing options at a judge's discretion.

Byron Donalds: 

I'm just telling you that's not true. What we did in a DC crimes act is we made sure that people who were of that age, people who are the age of maturity the age, of adulthood.

Jim DeFede: 

The age that you were.

Byron Donalds: 

Exactly.

Jim DeFede: 

The age that you were.

Byron Donalds: 

And in Florida, I had to face the music as an adult, not as a juvenile. Now Florida does have laws around diversion, being able to seal records, and yes, those are things that were afforded to me. And I look back on those days and I say, you know what, that helped me restart my life, so be it. But in DC, it was very different. In DC, they were trying 23-year-olds as juveniles, Jim, and you can't do that because what ends up happening…

Jim DeFede: 

Not all 23-year-olds were being tried as juveniles.

Byron Donalds: 

But enough of them were. And that's what was happening in Washington, D.C. That's why I authored the D. C. Crimes Act, because the truth of the matter is you gotta have a standard when it comes to criminal justice. And if you have that standard and you back law enforcement with that standard, that's how you have safe streets and safe communities. I wouldn't argue today, and neither would you, that the Florida system of law, which has been in place since I moved to this state 30 years ago, has allowed for juvenile crime to run rampant. But in Washington D.C., it is running rampant. And furthermore, not just with juvenile crime, with people between the ages of 18 and 25 years old, it's running rampant. That's why we authored the D.C. Crimes Bill, passed out of committee in the Oversight Committee, passed on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington, D. C. And I would argue my critics who want to talk about that bill and want to have this false claim of hypocrisy, they say that because they want soft-on-crime policies in D. C. They do not like the fact that President Trump has actually put in the policies that has made the nation's capital safe once again.

Jim DeFede:

 I want you to talk for a second about, you know, when you faced, because I want to talk about your redemption arc, because when you, when faced that time when you were 18, 19, 20 years old, it almost seems that the first two decades of your life are very different from the second two decades. So I want your to sort of say, what do you think was the critical moment in that? And I know that from looking at some interviews, you talk about meeting and the influence that your current wife, Erika, has on you. Talk to me about why, how that change came about.

Byron Donalds: 

Well, look at 20, I was at a real depth in my life. I was a the bottom. And I remember very clearly, I was sitting in the room one day looking up and I said, I don't know how I got here, but I'm going to make sure that I'm never here again. And so, after that point, every decision I made was about being a better man than I was before. It was about a father to the kids that I knew I would have in the future and being a quality husband to my wife and a leader in my community. All things that have occurred. At 21, I gave my life to Christ. It's a story out there, I've talked about it before. I actually gave my my life to Christ at a Cracker Barrel when I was at work. But before giving my life to Christ, the person who got me going to church was my wife now, my girlfriend at the time, Erika Lees, now Erika Donalds. And so the redemption story first was acknowledging that I was making a lot of terrible decisions as a young man, as a young kid, and that I had to do better for myself. The second was acknowledging that God is there for us every step of the way if you trust them. And so I started going to church and the rest is history.

Jim DeFede: 

I don't want to make too much of this, but it's a fact. You would be the first black Republican governor of a Southern state.

Byron Donalds: 

Yes.

Jim DeFede: 

Where does race come, where does that notion that you would be the first Black Republican of a southern state, does that enter into your thinking at all? Do you think, I mean, obviously you've lived your entire life as being black. So, you know...

Byron Donalds: 

Yeah, it's a thing, it's a thing.

Jim DeFede: 

...I get that answer, but do you recognize that this would be significant?

Byron Donalds: 

I'm aware of it, but I don't really focus on it. Actually, in this entire time in politics, I'm not really focused on race as a marker. You know, in Florida, southwest Florida in particular, but Florida overall, we're a meritocracy. We're one of the great meritocracies in not just America, but in the world. And so I think it's not so much about my race. I think is more about the policies I support, the principles I stand for, common sense conservative policies that have made Florida the envy of the other 49 states in the union.

Jim DeFede: 

Do you think that you had an advantage of moving up in the Republican party because you're black, because that you're someone who the Republican Party would want to champion to show their diversity?

Byron Donalds: 

And I'll tell you actually, this race has been a little different for governor, but in any of the other campaigns I've been a part of, I was always the underdog. That's why this one's a little bit different. I was the underdog. Never really the choice of donors, never really the choice of a lot of the traditional segments of the Republican party. I came up through the Tea Party movement, I was a Tea Party activist, a frontline conservative, so the Tea party movement was my first strong political base still is to this day, and I think what really happened, whether it was my race for state house or a race for Congress, it was that people would hear me talk about the issues of the day, my focus on conservative principles and not just the principles today, but also the philosophy of why conservatism is the policy set that has freed so many people from bondage. It's the things that has led to economic liberty, economic growth for so many Floridians, so many Americans and people who choose to make America their home legally and why it's the best principle set for the future of our country.

Jim DeFede:

 I'm not going to ask you if you've experienced incidents of racism because I think that'd be a dumb question. I'm more curious as to how you deal with incidents of racism and are there any that stand out since you've been, you know, as an adult here in Florida?

Byron Donalds: 

Yeah, there's a couple that stand out, but but let me be very clear the vast majority of our people respect people based upon who they are, how hard they work what they stand for and do they have alignment with those values and those beliefs. And at that point people don't really care about your color They just want to know if I do I agree with you, but you are you going to stand for the things that I stand for.

Jim DeFede: 

But is there an incident that sticks in your mind that will always be in your mind?

Byron Donalds: 

I mean, yes. I was getting petition signed, but I was running for a state representative. And I remember I was at a local fair and I walked up to two gentlemen and I said, hey, would you sign a petition for me? And one of the gentlemen just looked at the petition and wouldn't even look me in the eye. The other one glanced at me and looked off and said, No, I'm not interested in doing any of that. And at that point, I could pretty much tell, like, okay. This isn't about being a Republican. This isn't about anything else. But I would also tell you, Jim, that that is one thing that just remained in my mind. But as I crisscross the state today, I've been in 54 of the 67 counties already. The people of Florida are awesome. I was in Suwannee County two nights ago. I was at Monroe County yesterday. I'm here in Miami today. People of Florida, what they want to make sure is that Florida remains on the trajectory it's going. They love the free state of Florida.

Jim DeFede:

 And last question about this, only because your wife is white, have you experienced any backlash as a result of that, marrying a white woman, or has your wife experienced any of it from marrying an African American?

Byron Donalds: 

No, I think people, especially in today's America, people just want to make sure that you're just going to be a good family, good husband and raise good kids.

Jim DeFede: 

You know, there are some in the black community who will make criticize you for marrying a white woman. Have you dealt with that?

Byron Donalds: 

I mean, they don't criticize Kamala Harris.

Jim DeFede: 

All right, I'm going to get to issues, but you're running to replace Ron DeSantis. I'm fascinated by the dynamic between you and the current governor. It seemed like for a long time you and he were strong allies, and then something happened. And I think it basically comes down to you endorsing President Trump and not him when he was running for the White House. How would you describe your relationship to Ron De Santis?

Byron Donalds: 

It's been better, but I think it's something where you know you can find ways to come back together and work a work You know work about how what we're going to do for the future of our state.

Jim DeFede:

 What do you think his biggest mistake has been as governor?

Byron Donalds: 

He's actually done a great job, to be honest with you, Jim. I think he's done a good job, and I think being in leadership is tough when you're the person that has to make the decisions is hard, and it's really about just making sure I think you get as much information and input as you can, but you can't really second-guess somebody who's been in that position because you've not been in that position.

Jim DeFede: 

Does it bother you that so many of his senior advisors, or several of his senior aides have been, were found to have actually be giving advice to and helping your opponent, James Fishback, someone who has been using a virulent and basically a racist attack against you, and yet there are the governor's aides who have been seen helping him and who they admit were helping him for a time.

Byron Donalds: 

One thing people need to understand is that the internal politics inside of political parties is probably far more vicious than the things that happen between Republicans and Democrats and independents. Look, when you get into this business, you better have Kevlar skin. Not thick skin, Kev-lar skin, and so I think that's something where if the governor chooses to deal with that, he will with his people and his team. We stay focused on just campaigning, working hard, earning the votes of the people of Florida, because at the end of the day, that's what matters.

Jim DeFede: 

What do you think of James Fishback's attacks on you?

Byron Donalds: 

Honestly, I just think it's somebody trying to get more attention than anything else. So I really don't pay much attention to him. I don't much pay attention to anybody else who's running. How I've always done my campaigns, Jim, is I stay focused on what I'm doing. I go meet the people that I'm asking for their vote for. We talk about the issues that are important to them. You can't get caught up in the distractions. You can get caught in what other campaigns are doing. Half the time, other campaigns just want to get you distracted. So you lose focus on what you're doing. And I would argue. If people are looking at polling, looking at other metrics of campaigns, I think the strategy of just ignoring the noise and ignoring other people who just want attention has actually worked out to my benefit.

Jim DeFede: 

So let's talk about some of those issues. What do you think is the number one issue facing Floridians?

Byron Donalds: 

Well, there's two big ones. The number one doesn't really show up in polling, and that's where the people of Florida want our state to remain on the trajectory that it's been going. Governor DeSantis has done a tremendous job leading our state, and so our voters are saying, we like where it's going, can we keep it going in that direction? They have my 100% commitment. The same policies, the same common sense conservatism that Governor Desantis brings to the job is something I bring to the job, and here's why. I'm a member of the House Freedom Caucus in Washington, similar to Governor DeSantis. If you look at my voting record, I have one of the most conservative voting records in America, not just at the federal level, but also at the state level. And so when you take, when that's your baseline philosophy, I think that's an indicator of that Florida's going to continue in the same common sense conservative way. But the other big issue obviously is affordability. We have young people who are trying to figure out how they're going to afford a home of their own. We have seniors on fixed income trying to figure out how they are going to deal with insurance. And so what we're going to look at is tackling insurance, making sure that we continue to lower property, property insurance rates in our state, working off of the reforms that Governor DeSantis put into place a couple of years ago. And then obviously with property taxes, we'll see what the governor and the legislature get to. Well, I want to get…

Jim DeFede: 

Well, and I want to get to that, but I just want to use the word affordability. I seem to remember the president saying that affordability was a hoax and that affordability wasn't really an issue, that he had beaten and won affordability, but you still acknowledge that affordability is an issue for people in Florida.

Byron Donalds:

 Affordability has been an issue across the country, but let's be clear about what President Trump was saying. What President Trump was seeing is that the Democrats caring about affordability is a hoax because Democrat policy created this, Jim. I was in the Budget Committee when Joe Biden was bringing his plans for budget reconciliation, and you could clearly read their bills and know what was going to happen is you were going to create a labor shortage in the United States that was going lead to significantly higher prices. That's exactly what happened. You had Larry Summers, who was President Obama's chief economist at the time, was saying that this is policy that's not needed. It was going to create inflation in the United States. So what President Trump is talking about is that Democrats all of a sudden who care about affordability are lying to the American people. That's like the arsonist trying to be the firefighter. It just doesn't work.

Jim DeFede: 

I want to go back to property taxes. You sort of said a second ago that you'll see what comes out of the legislature. You're going to inherit this. Whatever the legislature decides and voters approve in November is going to be affecting how you run the next four years if you're elected governor. Do you have a plan for what you would like to see done on property taxes?

Byron Donalds:

 Well, I agree with the governor that we need to repeal Homestead property taxes. Property taxes in our state, especially for Floridians, has doubled in the last decade. In the last five years, local government budgets have grown massively out of control. The Dogeing efforts that the CFO and the governor are doing right now are critical for the future of our state. We're going to continue those Dogeing effort and it's going to be for every form of government in the state of Florida, including the state Florida and state agencies. Everybody has to be examined. Everybody's got to tighten their belts. Because the people in our state, those who are working hard every single day, our seniors who are trying to find ways to keep their Florida dream alive, and our young people who are trying to get into the Florida dream, they don't have the cash. So we have to do this. And then the key thing is, how do you cut these budgets while making sure that sheriffs still get paid, that deputies still get paid, that firefighters still get paid, you take care of roads, you take of land management issues. That's the balance that we're going to have to strike.

Jim DeFede: 

I just want to be clear because when you make a statement like you want to end property to all homesteaded property taxes. Does that include the property homested of property taxes that go to school districts?

Byron Donalds: 

Yes and let me talk about school districts now. The biggest people who've actually increased property taxes on the hardworking men and women of our state are school districts. But let's also acknowledge the reality, Jim. Miami-Dade public schools, their populations are decreasing. Same in Broward County, same in Hillsborough County, same in Collier County where I live, Lee County, Florida, et cetera. And the reason why their populations are decreasing is because of universal school choice. Which the legislature finally passed a couple years ago, which is something I fully support. I've been a school choice champion and advocate my entire time in politics. That's not going to change. But the fiscal reality is, is that the school districts have less students today than they did when we passed universal school choice. Yet at the same time, their budgets have expanded because they're collecting far more property taxes than they ever have.

Jim DeFede: 

I want to drill down on this a little bit more just because you you made a statement talking about the CFO and the governor's doge Efforts part of what has never been really understood during that is that the state, Tallahassee has a real habit of transferring burdens onto local governments cities and counties and telling them, okay now you pay for this. That's one of the reasons why those state budgets or why those county and city budgets municipal budgets have gone up. There's also was no analysis that the Doge folks did in Florida as to where that money was spent or how it was being spent, rather than I was being sent to provide new services. I'm just curious, it sounds great to tell people we want to do away with your property taxes and we're not going to affect sheriffs or police officers. I don't know how you can do that without affecting a lot of services, including police and fire, but how do you pay for roads? How do you play for parks, libraries, aren't all those issues that are important for people.

Byron Donalds: 

They are all important and they're all critical, but let's talk about DOGE first and I'll come to the key services you're talking about. When it comes to DOGE, they are starting this process of examining all these budgets. I'm aware of the Governor and the CFO's formula. It's a good formula to start with. What we want to do is say, let's take that formula as a baseline and then do a five-year running analysis of every budget in our state, examining line items, and making sure that the public is aware of where to find all this information so they can examine it in real time and talk to their local officials. Jim, this was what I did for my career. I spent 17 years in banking, insurance, and financial services. So if you're going to talk about long run financial analysis, which is what Doge essentially is, then this is one of the reasons why I'm uniquely suited to be Florida's next governor.

Jim DeFede: 

So a lot of smaller counties could not survive without those property taxes. The governor has talked about creating a plan where he would establish a pool of money to basically have state tax dollars supplement some of the smaller counties. Is that something you would want to do?

Byron Donalds: 

It remains to be seen, there's a lot of details in that that have to be broken out. One of the things I'm excited for in this proposal from the Governor DeSantis is when he releases his full plan of how this is all going to come together.

Jim DeFede: 

But that's the problem he hasn't...

Byron Donalds: 

But hold on Jim, Jim, but Jim hold on a second, but Jim, hold on second. In a couple of weeks, the legislature's going to be back in special session to deal with this question. What I fully anticipate is that at that point the governor's going to release his plan with the details of how all this is going to come to together. And hold on, Jim.

Jim DeFede: 

He's been talking for a year.

Byron Donalds: 

But Jim, you got to give the governor the opportunity to release his plan before you render judgment. Here's what I'm telling the people of Florida. If they're not successful in Tallahassee, I don't anticipate that, but if they are not successful, we are going to pick up the ball in my first year of governor and get that done. And the other thing that we're going to do is we're going to make sure we're talking through the details for the fiscally constrained counties, a lot of them in North Florida, trying to figure out how this is going to work. For the counties like Miami-Dade, for Hillsborough County, Broward County and Palm Beach. So that we understand where the revenues are going to come from, or quite frankly, how much we actually need to pay for the essential services that we were talking about in your previous question. We want to make sure that the plan that gets put in place is going to actually end homestead property taxes in a way while we keep the services we need for the state of Florida. And by the way, Jim, even if the math doesn't get there, we still have seniors who are struggling to make ends meet. They bought their house or their condo in the 80s moving to Florida and their property tax bills have gone through the roof. We have young people in our state trying to get started with their dream here in Florida and even to get to the closing table, the property tax bill are too high. Even just get to pay the escrow to actually close on the home. So there's a way to do this. I would tell you the two populations we definitely want to make sure are getting the most relief possible, seniors who are on fixed income, young people trying to get started.

Jim DeFede: 

You mentioned charter schools before. I'm going to jump ahead to my question on charter school. There's a policy now in Florida to where if a school district school is, because of declining population, has free space that charter schools can lay claim to some of those classroom spaces and operate in them. I think people think that that's generally a good idea. One area though that I'm curious to see your view on is, should the, a lot of the times they're being run by management companies that are for-profit, the charter schools I understand themselves are non-profit but there's plenty of money going here. Should those charter schools or the management companies who operate them, pay the school districts since they're using classrooms, since they are using libraries, cafeterias, using their janitorial services to help clean up the school, should the charter schools have to pay something, some negotiated fee to the school districts for the use of those classrooms.

Byron Donalds: 

I think something can be negotiated, but let's acknowledge that when school districts collect property taxes, that is for the education of children, the facilities for these children in the community that they're in. Miami-Dade collects property taxes from every resident for public school buildings and facilities. So, this isn't money that the school districts just have of their own volition. They didn't create this money out of thin air. They taxed the people of Florida in order to have money to house students for the purpose of education. And to pay for the physical plant and the maintenance of these facilities. So could something be negotiated? Sure, of course.

Jim DeFede: 

Should something be negotiate?

Byron Donalds: 

I think something should be negotiated and I think it could be negotiated. But let's be also very clear. I don't think it's right for school districts to go to charter schools and say, you have to pay market rents. Because let's honest, the school district isn't paying market rent. They're taxing citizens to get that money to pay for education. That's what we want to do as a society, but that is taxpayer money. It is not school district money.

Jim DeFede: 

You said, obviously, you've been a major proponent for charter schools for a long time, school choice. Your wife is also very involved in it, has been for a very long time. Used to serve on the school board, has operated certain management companies and is involved. I think in one of your disclosure forms, you had said in recent years, she has made more than a million dollars in salary and other benefits from her time working for companies related to charter schools. If you're elected governor, will your wife continue to operate businesses related to charter schools and schools in general, do you see that as a potential conflict of interest?

Byron Donalds: 

Well, let's address the last part of your question. My wife is actually not really managing those schools anymore. She started those schools. Those management contracts have been turned over to other entities. My wife, who's a businesswoman, not just education, my wife was a CFO, Chief Financial Officer and a Chief Compliance Officer for an investment management firm out of New York. She did that job, worked her way up from the bottom like a lot of people did. She's a professional. She's businesswoman. We are going to make sure number one that she's not going to have any businesses with the state of Florida. That's not going to happen. Number two, we will comply with all laws and we will make sure that there are clear boundaries for what my wife's businesses are versus my responsibility of governing the state of Florida.

Jim DeFede: 

So you envision that she will continue to have some role in the business community. She's not just going to be first lady. She's actually going to continue to have a career in which she's working for companies. And you're saying that those companies will not have business with the state of Florida?

Byron Donalds: 

Yeah, those businesses will not have that my her businesses will not work with the state of Florida. I want to be very clear on that. That is not going to happen. Because obviously, that just doesn't look good, Jim, and we're not going to do that. The second thing is my wife is a professional. She's an accountant by trade, like I said, she's the chief financial officer for an investment firm. She's a very accomplished woman. I mean, honestly, I'm lucky, you know, I kind of hit the jackpot in the game of life with my wife, Erika, she is awesome. Also, I will tell you this is this might be the first time in Florida history where the first lady is a professional who owns businesses and I think that's a good thing. I think it's something to be celebrated.

Jim DeFede: 

I want to talk about data centers for a second. That's become an issue that two years ago, if you'd asked about data center, nobody would know what you were talking about. Now it's suddenly become a major topic here in Florida and I think it's going to be an increasing topic here in this race. You were recently supported by a PAC, the Leading the Future PAC, that has promised five million dollars to support your governor's campaign because they want more data centers being built. There are obviously issues related to those data centers in terms of electricity and their use of water. And the DeSantis administration is right now trying to push for having a lot of regulation on those data center. Talk to me about your vision for how data centers fit into the future of Florida.

Byron Donalds: 

Well, two things. I want to make sure we talk data centers, but then I also want to talk AI, because I think a lot of times the two get confused and conflated. With data centers in particular, my position is similar to President Trump's position. He announced it the other day. Data centers need to be able to generate their own power on site. I think that's important. We don't want to see electricity bills for the people of Florida go up because of new AI data centers, hyperscale data centers. In the state of Florida. Number two, with water. The new designs for a lot of these centers are actually significantly better with water usage. We want to make sure that we're protecting Florida's environment. When I was in a state house and also in the U.S. House, I've always supported the funding necessary for the Central Everglades Restoration Plan and also for protecting Florida environment. We want to make sure that if these centers are built in Florida, that they're still protecting Florida's environment. So that's data centers. Is there a pathway to do it in our state? Yeah, but there are two lines that have to meet. We got to make sure our handle.

Jim DeFede: 

Before you move to AI, before you move AI, I just want to drill down on one of the points you said. Producing electricity.

Byron Donalds: 

Yes.

Jim DeFede: 

I think that you've talked about before about increasing the use of small modular nuclear reactors.

Byron Donalds: Yes

.

Jim DeFede: 

So you envision a scenario in which the state of Florida will get more aggressive in terms of building new nuclear facilities in the state?

Byron Donalds: 

I think so. It's without question. The future of any economy always is based on power. If you have baseload power, you can grow an economy. If you don't have baseload power, your economy shrinks. We were talking about affordability earlier. Well, if Florida doesn't address its future power needs, how are we going to have the jobs for the young people who want to build their dream in Florida? It just doesn't come together, Jim. So, we are going to address baseload power. And let me be also clear. Solar plants and wind farms do not address baseload power. That's intermittent at best. It's far more expensive. It doesn't decrease the per kilowatt hour that every Floridian's going to have to pay. So we do need small modular reactors. We need them.

Jim DeFede: 

When you talk about building nuclear facilities, it can scare some people. It can also concern some people as to what regulations are going to be surrounding them and all those sorts of things. Talk to me about what protections are there going to be when you start talking about building small nuclear reactors around the state?

Byron Donalds: 

Jim, these are the same.

Jim DeFede: 

Being built by private companies, by the way, for their data center.

Byron Donalds: 

Understood, Jim. Listen, this is the same technology that has been sitting on our nuclear subs for the last 80 years in the United States of America. And our Navy men weren't coming home with green eyes and yellow hair, except that they were blonde. They probably had yellow hair. But nobody was coming home with green eyes. The same nuclear reactors that are in the belly of every nuclear sub in our fleet is the same technology around small modular reactors and micro nuclear reactors. The Department of War is looking at this right now in terms of trying to figure out how to facilitate power needs if there's a forward operating base or for national emergencies. This is energy quite frankly that the United States - we were the pioneers of this through it through the Manhattan project. We should be leveraging this for the future of our state. So if you want to talk about data centers and making sure people don't have to pay come out of pocket for more in their electricity bills. I think small modular nuclear reactors are an answer to that question. Real quick I do want to touch AI because there's there's two.

Jim DeFede: 

But I want to get to the Everglades as well.

Byron Donalds: 

Of course. Now, when we talk AI, the key thing that we also have to acknowledge is we want to make sure that young kids are protected. We don't want to have large language models that are just open to children with impunity. We've already seen some of the tragedies associated with that. I think the governor had a roundtable discussion with parents who lost their child to suicide because of AI. But at the same time, we cannot hide from the next wave of innovation in our economy. We are now It's stepping into the next wave of innovation, the same way we stepped into it with the internet, the same we stepped in to it with email, the same when we stepped it to it with fax machines, word processors, or even the internal combustion engine. These next waves in our economy happen periodically in a growing economy. And I believe if we leverage AI, it's not going to be the same pie economically. I think leverage AI increases productivity, and what that does is expands the economic pie.

Jim DeFede: 

I want to turn to the Everglades and the restoration that you're going to inherit. There was a major reset eight years ago when Governor DeSantis ran in the primary against Adam Putnam, and one of the things that he did in addition to getting Donald Trump's endorsement was rail against Adam Putnm for being in the pocket of Big Sugar and attacking Sugar. And for the past eight years, we've seen Big Sugar, Florida Crystals and U.S. Really sort of sidelined in a way that that they've never really been before. Do you think that Governor DeSantis went too far in his attacks on big sugar? And what would your relationship be? Understanding you do take some sugar money, but not necessarily, you know, I know it's not a lot, but you do you take sugar.

Byron Donalds: 

Well, listen, Jim, actually, I have people who are in the environmentalist community who support me in my race for governor. I have people in the agriculture community who support me and my race for governor. My commitments are the same. I had when I'm in Congress like I was in the state house when Governor DeSantis when Congressman DeSantis became Governor DeSantis. I fully support central everglades restoration. We're going to get that work done in my time as Florida's next governor. We are going to finish that once and for all. I think it's important when we look at water. We talked powerless talk water. When we look out water, there are many constituencies. The Agriculture Committee community and also people who live in Florida who want fresh drinking water. And so what we're gonna do is make sure that we finish that plan but then we're also going to do an evaluation of freshwater needs in the future of our state, how we're going to manage wastewater going forward in the future of ours. I know most people don't like talking about wastewater treatment. It's a big deal you know kind of a smelly topic but you got to deal with it.

Jim DeFede: 

What are we going to do about the discharges going into Lake Okeechobee from the north? Because we're focused on cleaning the water that comes out of Lake Okeechobee as a head south for the drinking water that we're going to use here right now. But what about the discharge that's coming from the agriculture communities and from everything south of Disney?

Byron Donalds: 

Well, let's be clear. Central Everglades restoration deals with the entire system from the headquarters in Orlando all the way through the Kissimmee River Basin where a lot of our cattle farmers and ranchers are and then into Lake Okeechobee. So it's all a comprehensive plan. We're going to finish all that work. When we finish that work, what the studies are demonstrated already is that you're going to see lower phosphorus content, lower nitrogen content moving through the system and that you actually have the storm water treatment areas south of Lake Okeechobee. Part of it is the new reservoir that's going to be finished very, very shortly, where then you have clean water, fresh water, actually moving through the Everglades system into Florida Bay and throughout South Florida.

Jim DeFede: 

I'm very appreciative of your time, and I know I'm pushing it, but there's just two things I want to get to very quickly. Of course, of course, go ahead. Vaccinations.

Byron Donalds: 

Yes.

Jim DeFede: 

You know, Florida law currently requires immunizations for polio, diphtheria, measles, rubella, whooping cough, and mumps for entry and attendance in Florida schools. The DeSantis administration has been advocating, doing away with those requirements. What is your position when it comes to vaccinations for school kids?

Byron Donalds: 

Well, there's two sets of vaccinations. One are the vaccines that have come in through rulemaking that have not gone through a legislative process. I agree with the governor and the surgeon general that that list of vaccines and the rulemaking process should be informed consent for parents. The core vaccines that you listed, the biggest ones among them, polio and MMR. I still believe that those should be requirements to attend schools, I do. I think the bigger issue for a lot of mothers in particular who are concerned about vaccines is how the vaccine schedule. Has just been overloaded on infants the second they come into the world. I have three sons, so this is something that my wife and I have looked at personally. The vaccination schedule for my 22-year-old son was not as not as impactful as the vaccine schedule for my 14-year-old son. So, I think in part we should spread out that vaccination schedule. There are some core vaccines like polio and MMR that I think are important. Frankly, in southwest Florida, there's a measles outbreak right now. There's one happening right now, so I think MMR is important to continue. These are things that myself and the legislature will go through, and it will be based upon the information and the data, not just historically, but the stuff today as well.

Jim DeFede: 

You wouldn't keep Ladapo as your surgeon general, would you?

Byron Donalds: 

It's possible. I mean, look, I know Dr. Ladapo, he's done a very good job for the state of Florida, but you know, let's actually be focused on the campaign and win first and then we'll talk about it.

Jim DeFede: 

Last question I'm going to ask, I promise, because I'm getting...

Byron Donalds: 

I know, it's fine.

Jim DeFede: 

We are sitting in Congressional District 27, which has the highest number of Obamacare recipients in the United States. Healthcare in Florida, basically, my understanding is currently there's about two and a half million people with more than one in ten Floridians are without health insurance. You voted in the big, beautiful bill to end the subsidies, and I don't want to debate about the Obamacare subsidies. But you're going to inherit 2.5 million people who do not have insurance, including hundreds of thousands of children. What do you think you could do as governor to help?

Byron Donalds: 

A number of things. One, we're going to have to look at how we deliver health care in the state of Florida. The truth is, is that the federal government's not going to be able to fund this long-term because the amount of debt the nation is carrying is getting too high, and interest on the debt is crowding out everything else. So Florida is going to have the redevelop health care delivery. We're going have to be far more efficient. The things that the president is talking about now with Trump Rx getting lower prescription drugs for the people of America, which includes Florida, is a major step forward. Most favor nation status, going along those lines, a major step forward. We want to continue the work that Governor DeSantis has done on that in Florida. The other key thing is going to be about efficiencies in health care. We have to make sure that we have a system of wellness, and I believe Florida can create that. But specific to subsidies, and don't want to get into the subsidies fight, we have to acknowledge that the unaffordable care act that was passed by Congressional Democrats and then President Obama was designed for premiums and deductibles to continue to in private markets so you would funnel people into a public system. And public universal health care has never worked in any country in the world because it takes far too long to get the care that you need and the services are limited. And the services are limited.

Jim DeFede: 

There's some countries that would disagree with you.

Byron Donalds: 

Those countries would disagree with me, but their people come to the United States to get their health care, and that's a fact.

Jim DeFede:

 I really should end it here, because otherwise I'm going to get in trouble with your folks. But I hope we can continue this conversation another time.

Byron Donalds: 

Anytime, Jim. Anytime.

But with those advantages comes new scrutiny of his past, including an arrest for marijuana possession when he was 18-years-old.

Donalds, now 47, has often told the story of what occurred in 1997 when he was a student at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee.

"I was walking down the street," he recalled recently. "I was leaving a party, officers came up, asked me if I would empty my pockets. I said, 'Yes, of course.' I had a dime bag of marijuana in my pocket. That's the story."

Byron Donalds acknowledges that he didn't just possess marijuana – he sold it

We now know there was more to the story.

For the first time, Donalds acknowledges that he didn't just possess marijuana, but that he was also dealing at the time.

In an interview with CBS News Miami, Donalds confirmed an account first given by his ex-wife, Bisa Hall, nearly two years ago.

"We had this neighbor who sold drugs and they got close," Hall told the online publication, Florida Trident, in July 2024. "Byron thought that was his path to fix his money situation. He was making bad choices. It never made sense to me why he did it. I had a level of concern. I had to worry, 'What if he got arrested?'"

That arrest came in October 1997.

At the time of the Florida Trident story, Donalds did not respond publicly to questions about Hall's statements. But during a lengthy interview this week with CBS Miami covering his life and his campaign for governor, Donalds said she was correct and that he dealt drugs "for a period of time, low level amounts."

He was also arrested in 2000, when he was 20, on a fraud charge.

During the CBS Miami interview, he repeatedly referred to his actions during that period of his life as being based on "stupid decisions," "bad decisions," and "terrible decisions."

"There is a lot of decision I wish I could redo from those early years," he said. "Eighteen, 19, and 20 were really tough years for me. Made a lot bad decisions that I regret. But in life, you're not who you are at the lowest point in your life. What you do is you decide to just push forward and try to make sure you make better decisions in the future. And I would tell people, if you examine my life since 20 years old, my life has really been a story of redemption."

He credits his current wife Erika for that change. "At 21, I gave my life to Christ," he said. "It's a story out there, I've talked about it before, I actually gave my life to Christ at a Cracker Barrel when I was at work. But before giving my life to Christ, the person who got me going to church was my wife now, my girlfriend at the time, Erika."

After his arrest on the drug charge, Donalds was allowed to enter a pre-trial diversion program, paid $150 fine and the charges were ultimately dropped. On the fraud charges, he pled no contest and later had his record sealed and then expunged.

And yet while in Congress, Donalds is sponsoring a crime bill that critics say would deny young adults in the District of Columbia the same opportunity for a second chance he received.

Donalds defends the D.C. CRIMES bill, arguing prosecutors and judges were trying 18- to 24-year-olds as juveniles.

"In Florida, I had to face the music as an adult," Donalds said. "In D. C., they were letting 24- year-olds be tried as juveniles, that's not right."

Critics say Donalds is misstating the current law in the District of Columbia. The current statutes in the District of Columbia refer to people under 25 as "youthful" offenders and would allow judges, in certain cases, to take the age of the defendant into consideration.

Donalds bill would change the provision allowing for lighter sentences for someone younger than 25 – lowering the threshold to 18. It would also prevent the D.C. city council from enacting any new sentencing measures.

Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett took aim at Donalds

During the House floor debate on Donalds bill last year, Texas Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett took aim at Donalds.

"Imagine being a young man born to Jamaican and Panamanian parents who messed up not once but twice," she said. "Imagine standing in front of a judge with your whole future hanging in the balance, and instead of prison, you are given a promise of mercy. Your record gets wiped clean; you get a second chance at life. Now, imagine taking that promise and turning it into a promotion. You go to college; you get a job and even become a member of Congress."

"That's what redemption looks like," she continued. "That's what America is supposed to be about, and that is exactly the story of the next wannabe governor from Florida as a young man."

"Now, he's the face of a bill that would not afford young people in Washington, D.C. the same opportunities afforded to him," she said. "Let me be real, if he had grown up under Donald Trump's America, or under the very D.C. Crimes Bill he's pushing he wouldn't be standing here as a member of Congress."

The bill passed by a vote of 240 to 179 with 31 Democrats crossing party lines to vote in support and only one Republican voting against it. The bill has stalled in the Senate and is unlikely to be passed.

Donalds said the bill received bipartisan support in the House because crime in the District of Columbia was out of control before President Trump deployed the National Guard to the district.

Addressing the charge of hypocrisy, Donalds told CBS Miami: "Florida does have laws around diversion, being able to seal records, and yes, those are things that were afforded to me. And I look back on those days, and I say, you know what, that helped me restart my life, so be it. But in D.C., it was very different."

"And I would argue my critics – who want to talk about that bill and want to have this false claim of hypocrisy – they say that because they want soft-on-crime policies in D. C.," he said. "They do not like the fact that President Trump has actually put in the policies that has made the nation's capital safe once again."

The measure was pushed by the Freedom Foundation, a right-wing think tank funded by billionaires. In fact, in an interview with CBS Miami in 2023, the southern director for the Freedom Foundation, Rusty Brown, took credit for writing the bill.

The Freedom Foundation has never been shy about what its real intention is – which is to eliminate public sector unions. On their website – under a banner that reads "Why We Fight" – they argue that "government unions are a root cause of every growing national dysfunction in America."

Following the passage of SB256, the Freedom Foundation went after the state's largest teachers union, the United Teachers of Dade, and financed a multi-million-dollar campaign to decertify the union and replace it with one that would be more friendly to their interests.

That campaign failed, and the teachers in Miami-Dade voted to keep their union, with 83% voting for UTD, 14% voting for the Freedom Foundation-backed alternative, and 3% voting to have no union at all.

In the three years since SB 256 passed, there have been 209 decertification votes against teacher unions across the state, and in all 209 cases, the teachers voted overwhelmingly to keep their union.

And yet, while the campaign failed to decertify any of the teacher unions in Florida, SB 256 was able to eliminate many municipal and county unions that had represented hundreds of thousands of workers. Those workers now have no one to negotiate their salaries and benefits or represent them in grievances against their employers. 

Teacher unions targeted in new bill 

But the clear goal of the Freedom Foundation and Gov. Ron DeSantis was to wipe out the teacher unions. And so, after losing 209 union elections, the Freedom Foundation and DeSantis are pushing a new bill – Senate Bill 1296 – through the legislature this year. And this bill rewrites the rules for those union elections. 

Under this bill, the union doesn't just have to win with a majority of the people who decide to vote, they would now be required to have a majority of every employee in the collective bargaining unit.

CBS Miami could not find this same rule anywhere else in the country.

To understand the significance of this change, imagine if it were applied to all elections. A candidate wouldn't have to just get a majority of the people who vote; they would have to get a majority of everyone registered to vote.

For instance, in 2022, DeSantis celebrated what he called was an historic 19-point victory over Charlie Crist, winning almost 60% of the people who voted.

But applying the proposed standard to DeSantis' election, he only received 4.6 million of the 14.5 million registered voters. This means he only received 32% of all registered voters.

Under the proposed standard, DeSantis would have lost, and no one would be in the governor's mansion to represent the needs of the people of Florida.

The Freedom Foundation consulted and helped draft this latest bill, which is reportedly the governor's number one priority for this legislative session.

Senate Bill 1296 is being carried by Sen. Jonathan Martin, a Republican from Lee County. During a recent committee hearing, Martin had trouble answering basic questions about the bill or its impact. He also made it clear he did not discuss the bill with any labor leaders or union officials to try to address the concerns the bill allegedly tries to address.

Democratic Sen. Tina Polsky noted one reason why every teacher doesn't vote is that sometimes the elections are held during the summer, when teachers might be away. In response, Martin appeared to accuse those teacher unions of doing it deliberately.

"I kind of know where teachers are during the school year; they are in school," Martin said. "So, if they want more turnout, why would they do the election in the summertime, unless of course the people in charge of the unions don't want the input and they want to keep their friends in power and they want to keep pushing their agenda while they pretend to speak for the majority of schoolteachers."

Polsky responded, "It's pretty clear you have a bias against the union leadership, which I don't appreciate."

And in fact, Martin was wrong. The unions do not set the dates for the elections. The dates are set by the state's Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC), which is made up of individuals appointed by DeSantis.

Polsky then asked Martin, "Do you know what percentage of the electorate voted for you in the last election? Not the percentage that you won by, but the percent of the people registered to vote?"

Before Martin could answer, the Republican chair of the committee interrupted him and said, "You don't have to answer the question."

CBS News Miami reviewed the results of Martin's last election, and he, in fact, did receive less than 50% of the registered voters in his district in 2024.

Martin did not respond to a request for an interview for this story.

How does this bill impact voters?

While the bill now requires a new, unprecedented standard for unions to win elections in the future, it also makes it harder for individuals to vote. 

Until now, employees would receive a ballot in the mail from PERC that would include a self-addressed envelope with pre-paid postage. 

Under the Florida Administrative Code, the cost of postage was paid by the union. But under this new senate bill, PERC is no longer permitted to include an envelope with pre-paid postage, meaning if a worker wants to mail their ballot, they have to provide their own stamp – an annoyance that is likely to limit the number of returned ballots. (And under the proposed law, anyone whose vote isn't returned is automatically considered a vote against the union in their effort to get to 50%.)

Another aspect of the bill that is raising concerns of political bias is that it does not apply to the unions representing first responders, primarily police and fire unions – two groups who supported DeSantis in his previous elections and have a long history of supporting Republican candidates, including those in the legislature today.

And the ones now being targeted tend to support Democrats.

Last month, dozens of public sector workers – teachers, nurses, bus drivers, utility workers – testified about how this bill would hurt them.

One worker said, "I'm asking you, please do not vote for this bill, it hurts those who work hard." 

Another added, "It's hard to pay for groceries. It's tough these days."

"Not all people affected by this are teachers," another worker added. "I'm a utility worker for my entire career. I may not be considered a first responder, but when your water goes out, I'm the one you call to get it back on. And this affects my whole family."

While most people spoke against the bill, some were in favor – including Brown from the Freedom Foundation. Following the hearing, CBS News Miami spoke to Brown about the intentions of this bill. 

Here's a transcript of that interview: 

Rusty Brown: 

First of all, if they have over 60% membership, they're not even subject to the elections process, which a lot of unions do.

Jim DeFede: 

But you made it harder to get to that 60% threshold of union dues-paying members in the last bill by making it harder for them to contribute their dues. You took away the ability to do automatic [payroll] deduction. And so now each individual has to figure out [how to pay their dues] through Venmo or writing a check each month. So, you made it harder at the same time you raised that standard from 50 to 60%. You see what I'm saying. It seems like a very deliberate part on you and certain legislators to make unions virtually impossible to exist.

Rusty Brown: 

I don't think that's a fair characterization. And I think when you compare it to other elections, you have to look at what a union does. They are the sole bargaining agent for a group of employees. That group of employees could be tens, hundreds, thousands, or five. It doesn't matter. And when they're the sole voice, it should be a high threshold. It should be the highest possible threshold that it could be to make sure that they really, truly represent the voice of the people that they represent. When you try to compare that to a legislator, you're talking about one voice in a legislative body of, you know, in the case of Congress, you've got many, many hundreds, and in the cases of Florida, you got many dozens. And no legislator has anywhere near the power over somebody's day-to-day life that a union does that's bargaining on your behalf.

Jim DeFede: 

Well, let's just take the governor, for instance. Using your standard that to be legitimate, you should be able to get 50% of those who are registered with the union. If you look at that, in 2022, there were 14.5 million registered voters. Ron DeSantis received 4.6 million votes. That means he only got 32 percent of registered voters. By your logic, Ron De Santis wouldn't be a legitimate leader of the state of Florida.

Rusty Brown: 

If he were subject to the same rules as what would be on unions. But I think the comparison is not fair. I think that a union that has a direct influence over somebody's livelihood, over the working conditions that you go to every day…

Jim DeFede: 

You don't think the governor has a direct impact on people's livelihoods and the conditions that they go to work every day? He appoints the PERC Board, gets them ratified. I mean, clearly the governor has extensive authority and power, and yet you don't apply the same standard to him. Donald Trump, for that matter, received six million votes in 2024 out of 14 million registered voters. By your standard, he wasn't really legitimately winning the state of Florida.

Rusty Brown: 

I disagree with the comparison of political candidates, regardless of the office, as a union that is the sole and only, the sole only bargaining representative. I mean, when you're in a union and you, when your represented by a union, you don't even have the right to go speak for yourself. You know, I mean if you think you're doing a better job, you cannot go down to your boss and say, hey, I deserve a raise. Like, oh, sorry, we have a salary schedule. The union bargains for that.

Jim DeFede: 

I'm trying to understand what is the ultimate goal here because I heard Senator Martin talk about this as well during the committee hearing recently. Do you think that the best scenario would be for each individual teacher, for instance, or each individual nurse at a hospital – because this affects not just teachers, we talk a lot about teachers, but it affects nurses and school bus drivers and sanitation workers, any city or county employee who's represented by a union. Do you want each of them to individually go to the city or county manager or the superintendent of the school district and negotiate individual salaries and benefits?

Rusty Brown:

 So that's a complicated answer to that. So, number one, all you, all that this bill would do is make unions accountable to their members. Like, do what your members ask. Do the best that you can for them, and you should have no problem showing the support. Now, you step outside of that, you say it like it's an unrealistic possibility. There are several states around the country, including my home state of Texas, that don't have collective bargaining rights for public employees. And yet, we have teachers.

Jim DeFede: 

Is that really the goal here in Florida, to get to a point where public employees don't really have collective bargaining rights?

Rusty Brown: 

No, I've never said that.

Jim DeFede: 

But you were talking about how you have that in Texas, you have it in other states, it seems that that's the goal here, even though Florida's constitution allows for the ability for collective bargaining.

Rusty Brown: 

It allows you to have the right for collective bargaining, but at the same time, the way that exclusive representation is added into that equation, it also forces people to be subject to collective bargaining. It's a two-way street.

Jim DeFede: 

Well, except in Florida, which is a right-to-work state, nobody is required to pay dues to the union. It's a right to work state, which means you can get all the benefits of having the union represent you, negotiate your salary, negotiate your benefits. And you seem to suggest that the benefits and salaries would be better without the union, I'm not sure there's any evidence of that, but nobody has to pay into the union that doesn't want to.

Rusty Brown: 

Absolutely correct, but membership and representation are not the same thing. You can be a teacher or a sanitation worker, nurse, whatever the case may be, and you cannot want to be part of the union, but yet the union still bargains for you, even if you don't like it. And so why shouldn't the majority of employees in a bargaining unit have to show support and prove support for what the union is doing. I mean, I would argue that that's the most important function of the union.

Brown asks the question what if a teacher or a nurse or a sanitation worker doesn't like the contract and benefits the union negotiates on their behalf? He makes it seem the employee is stuck. But what he fails to remember, is that any contract the union negotiates still must be voted on and ratified by all the workers – including those who do not pay union dues.

Last year, for instance, the contract negotiated by the teacher's union in Miami Dade was approved with a vote of 83 percent.

And so, it is not accurate to say, non-union members don't have a voice or an opportunity to vote on what the union does.

The interview with Brown concluded with a discussion on why police and fire unions are exempted from the new union election rules.

Jim DeFede: 

If this is such a good idea, why doesn't it apply to first responders? Why doesn't apply to the unions that represent police officers and firefighters and correction officers.

Rusty Brown: 

So as far as the carve out for public safety, look, that's a decision that was made through the political process. That's not something that we advocate for or against. I have no stance on that whatsoever.

Jim DeFede: 

So, you think it's political?

Rusty Brown: 

I can tell you that it matches the statute in a variety of different areas. I mean, there's all kinds of different carve outs for public safety throughout Florida law. And this is just another example of it.

Jim DeFede: 

Do you think it could have anything to do with the fact that those unions – police, fire, corrections – all endorsed and supported the governor, Ron DeSantis?

Rusty Brown: 

Ron DeSantis is not the only vote in the legislature, and this is how they decided they wanted to introduce the bill.

Jim DeFede: 

It's his administration that's pushing this bill.

Rusty Brown: 

Yes, but it has to make it through the House, the Senate and three committees stop on each side. And, you know, it's been supported every time it's being heard. So just to say that it's Ron DeSantis that decided, I think, would be a misrepresentation of the bill and the support that is there for these measures.

Jim DeFede: 

Tell me honestly, Rusty, you think Floridians would be better off if there were no unions representing public sector workers?

Rusty Brown: 

I think the unions that will survive this process will be the ones that best represent the people that they represent.

Jim DeFede: 

Who do you think those are? Can you cite me one of those unions?

Rusty Brown: 

No. That's not for me to decide, I'm not a Florida public employee.

Jim DeFede: 

Other than the first responders, do you think any other union survives this bill?

Rusty Brown: 

Absolutely. I mean, there's a number of unions that have maintained over 60%. And as long as they continue to maintain over 60%, they won't be subject to these new election requirements.

Jim DeFede: 

I'll wrap up with this. You believe that nurses, sanitation workers, bus drivers, and teachers would do better without a union than with one.

Rusty Brown: 

I would say that slightly differently. I would say if they have a union that doesn't have their support, then they feel they would do better without one.

Frank Mora, the former U.S Ambassador to the Organization of American States under the Biden administration, cautions that dramatic change is unlikely to happen quickly. 

"This is a very complex and uncertain moment," Mora told CBS Miami's Jim DeFede. "We really haven't seen this in a while, a situation like this where the regime is so weak and so vulnerable. But I keep arguing that in a sense, the idea that you can strangle an economy and contribute to the humanitarian disaster, which let's admit was started by the Cuban regime itself, that that somehow would lead to change is unprecedented."

"Now, I think it's clear from [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio's statements that he's not seeking regime change in the short term, that what he is seeking is concessions from the regime to embark on a process of economic reform that could ultimately lead to a political change," Mora said. 

Mora noted that the Trump administration does not want the total collapse of the Cuban government because it could prompt an exodus of refugees from the island to the United States. He said it was telling that the Trump administration, after placing a complete embargo preventing oil from being sent to the island, is now letting some oil shipments in.

"That tells me that the Administration is concerned that if there is really no oil or no way in which people can move and do their business on the island, that that could create a humanitarian disaster," he said. "So, they're creating those conditions to avoid humanitarian disaster. And on the Cuban side, I think they're looking at Venezuela and trying to take lessons from that. That is to say, what concessions can we give Washington, perhaps in the economic realm, that will satisfy, please the administration, maybe allow Donald Trump to declare victory, while remaining in power. That might be what they're learning in Cuba about how to proceed with the United States."

Mora said he understands why people in Miami believe the end of the Cuban regime is coming within a matter of days or weeks, but he would caution that this is not likely.

"We have to be humble in our analysis because this is really quite a volatile and uncertain moment, and things can go awry," he said. "And I think the administration recognizes that. This is not something that's going to happen overnight. This is going to be a long process. There's going to be a lot of frustrations and unmet expectations from folks in South Florida. So, we have be a little patient, and be ready to navigate in uncertainty."

"The property tax issue as a whole is not simple math," he told CBS Miami's Jim DeFede in an interview for Facing South Florida. "It is trigonometry at a minimum. So, it is a very, very challenging topic to try to find what is fair across the board."

Any change to the property tax system would have to be approved by voters in November, and it seemed unlikely the House plan was going to be approved by the Senate. 

Governor Ron DeSantis has also dismissed the House plan, saying he wanted to wait and take up the issue in a few weeks during a separate special session of the legislature.

House leaders, led by House Speaker Danny Perez, have expressed frustration that neither DeSantis nor Albritton has actually put forward a proposal on property taxes, even though DeSantis has been talking about reducing or eliminating property taxes for more than a year.

In many ways, it appeared the House plan, which passed along party lines, with Republicans voting in favor of it, and Democrats voting against it, was never intended to make it to the ballot. Instead, it appeared intended to call the governor's bluff on the issue and challenge the Senate to do something.

But Albritton refuses to put forward his own plan. 

In his interview with CBS Miami, Albritton did say one idea he did like in the House proposal was the idea of slowly phasing in the property tax cuts over several years as a way of giving cities and counties, which stand to lose tens of millions of dollars, "to give the local communities a chance to adapt" to the eventual hit.

Democrats, however, argue that no matter how it is phased in, eliminating all homesteaded property taxes would force local communities to dramatically cut many core services, including police and fire. 

Watch more from the interview below: 

"I mean, for me, this idea that we have a 10-point plan, but we're not asking for leadership change, that doesn't work," Moskowitz told CBS New Miami. "I think Kristi Noem needs to resign or be removed. By the president's metrics, tell me what her successes are? She's built no border wall; 200 miles of that wall is being held up by her. These are the president's metrics, not mine. Okay. She's got the largest backlog of FEMA money. She's not sending out any money even to red states, okay. She's deporting less people than Barack Obama did – again, the president's metrics, not mine. I mean, what success does she have? I mean, if the president had her on The Apprentice, his old show, she would be the weakest link, and he would have fired her by now.

"You know, as far as policy changes are concerned, I think the idea that we have masked men running around American streets is ridiculous," Moskowitz continued. "So, for me, body cameras is a must, should have always been there. And the masks, the masks have to go. I think the masks are totally ridiculous and un-American. If our police officers don't have to wear them, okay, and our FBI agents don't to wear them, there's no excuse that ICE gets to wear them."

Speaking to CBS Miami's Jim DeFede for Sunday's edition of Facing South Florida, Moskowitz said Noem had crippled FEMA's ability to respond to a natural emergency.

"She's gotten rid of all sorts of staff," he said. "The regional offices are half empty. And so, I'm deeply worried about FEMA's response capabilities. The president said FEMA needed reform, and there were things that FEMA needed to reform, no question about that. But what Kristi Noem has done is she has destroyed that agency, the agency that is responsible for the continuity of government. God forbid we had a major catastrophe."

Moskowitz, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said Attorney General Pam Bondi embarrassed herself during her appearance before the committee last week by refusing to answer any questions about how the Justice Department handled the release of the Epstein files. Bondi refused to answer the most basic questions and instead repeatedly launched into prepared insults of various House members from a binder that her staff had prepared.

"Sometimes one can be their own worst enemy, I don't know that that strategy works for her," Moskowitz said. "To keep asking Republican members, `Can I have twenty seconds to respond,' and you don't respond, you just read from the burn that your staff provided for you, it was too much."

"[Her] answers on Epstein were just totally unsatisfactory for the American people," he said. "There should be justice for these victims. That's what the American want to see. And to pretend that the administration didn't try to stop the release of these documents for a whole year, and they're the most transparent administration in history, I mean that's just bull****."