- Welcome back.
As you know by now,
Republican State Representative Fabian Basabe
has been accused of sexual harassing
two members of his staff,
a charge he vehemently denies I might add.
These allegations, however, have brought a new spotlight
on Basabe and his past conduct,
including his alleged use of racial epithets
and repeated acts of drunken buffoonery.
And this week, I spoke to the state representative
who is the democratic leader in the Florida House,
Fentrice Driskell.
- Well, I'll start with the allegations, Jim,
and I'll say that those are shocking and disturbing.
When you read in detail,
the graphic detail of these allegations,
your heart goes out to this legislative aide
and to his intern who's just a college student.
And you know, I started thinking
about the power differential between an elected official
and a young person
who really is just trying to get a start in life
or in their career,
and part of the allegations
that they were required to sign NDAs,
which caused confusion over whether or not
they could bring these allegations forward.
So for me, the main focus is making sure
that we have a safe workplace
and environment for state employees,
and especially for our legislative staff and interns
who oftentimes are young people,
and like I mentioned
they're just trying to get their start in their career.
You know, as for Representative Basabe,
what I would say is when you really look
over the course of his life
and the different allegations
that have surfaced against him at various points in time,
there seems to be a pattern of evading responsibility.
You know, these recent allegations have come to the surface
and I've seen no indication from him
that he intends to take responsibility for any of this.
If anything,
it seems that he's trying to gaslight the public
and gaslight his district
and try to put the responsibility on his legislative aide,
who, again, is a young person just starting his career.
So all of this has been very troubling to me
and very disturbing.
I'll tell you another thing
is that it is absolutely a distraction
from the important work that we need to do
in the legislature.
And it seems that his constituents
are not being served to the highest investability
because of these distractions.
- Do you believe Fabian Basabe should resign?
- Well, yes, I do think he should resign,
but I don't think he actually will,
because again, what I've seen over the course of his life
is that he doesn't take responsibility for his bad actions.
I'll tell you that the community
has already started organizing against him
because when Fabian campaigned,
he promised to be an ally to the LGBTQ community
and then no sooner than he was elected
did he start aligning himself with Governor DeSantis
and voting for Governor DeSantis' anti-LGBTQ agenda.
So he's already worn out his welcome with his own community
and his constituents down in South Florida
and they want to see him go
and ultimately they will probably be the ones
to decide to vote him out next year on November 5th.
- You mentioned earlier
the issue of the non-disclosure agreements
that he required his staff to sign.
He acknowledges that he requires them to sign it now
after initially sort of hedging about whether or not
it was him asking them to sign,
we now know that it was him and he acknowledges that.
Are you aware of any other legislator who has ever asked,
do you ask employees to sign NDAs,
and what's the danger of having a public official
require their staff who work for the taxpayers
to sign non-disclosure agreements?
I mean, there's a lot of layers to that it seems.
- Right.
And that is absolutely not the standard procedure
for hiring state employees
and bringing someone into your legislative office
that you have them sign an NDA,
so I was very surprised when Representative Basabe
initially said he just went with whatever
was in the hiring package.
I can tell you that that's not a part of the hiring package.
And so to me, the danger and concern
is what we've seen here, right?
It caused confusion with these two young men
about what their rights were,
what their opportunities were to disclose this bad behavior.
They were confused by that NDA and they didn't even know
if they could bring these allegations forward.
And I'll tell you
that it should not take having to bring a lawsuit
and going public to have issues of sexual harassment
and just general harassment in the workplace addressed.
That's not the type of work environment
that we want to have in the Florida legislature.
- Obviously, a lot of attention is being cast
on the allegations that he sexually harassed his staff,
but just as troubling, if not in some ways more troubling,
to me are some of the allegations
and some of the incidents
that have been ascribed to him dealing with race,
and his views,
and his language as it relates to African Americans,
he admits to using the word negro
in referring to security guards at the Hamptons
a number of years ago when he was angry with them.
He admits that he used it in a derogatory manner,
as if there would be any debate about that,
but he admits that referring to them as negroes.
And then in 2019, during Art Basel,
he was denied admittance into a party
and there was a woman publicist working the door,
an African-American woman,
and he allegedly referred to her using the N-word,
along with also calling her a peasant,
which is apparently a favorite phrase of his
to describe people.
I realize he denies using the N-word,
but your reaction when you hear things like that
in terms of the standard that that sets
and just your overall reaction.
- Well, when there's so much smoke,
you start to think that there's probably fire.
And again, like I mentioned at the top of our interview,
this seems to be a pattern with Representative Basabe
of engaging in bad behavior and then denying it
and taking no responsibility for it,
or then perhaps coming out strongly initially saying,
"Oh, I never did that."
And then later on you get a little bit
of backpedaling and backtracking
and the truth starts to come out
and we start to learn and hear that no,
he actually does use those words, right?
We know that his staffers have come forward
and shared information
about some of the awful abhorrent language
that Representative Basabe has used
to refer to other people
and particularly to African-Americans.
So it's all very problematic.
You know, the other thing
is that it's hard to believe Representative Basabe
when there's been so much undermining
of public trust, right?
He won this district by only 242 votes.
That's nothing, right?
That is a razor-thin margin.
So he acts as though he has a mandate in this seat,
and the reality is that he doesn't,
he has betrayed his constituents.
He will say one thing and then do another.
So it becomes very difficult
to even believe that he's telling the truth
about these allegations of the usage of racial slurs.
- I know the focus is on what Representative Basabe did,
that's where my investigation has been.
But also looking at the larger picture,
which is, this goes to a larger question
about house leadership to me.
The initial investigation into the slapping incident
in which Representative Basabe was accused
of slapping one of his aides
and telling him to stand in a corner
in a obviously another derisive, condescending way.
The Speaker of the House Paul Renner
appointed or hired an outside law firm
to investigate the claims,
the attorneys for that young man
as well as a second young man
say they told those investigators
that there was also claims of sexual harassment,
that there were more serious allegations
in addition to the slapping incident.
And none of that ended up showing up in the report.
And there seems to be a question
as to whether or not they inform the speaker's office
about these new allegations
during the course of the investigation.
We've requested all of the records from that
that have either been sent to the speaker
or by the law firm hired by the speaker,
and so far have not received those records.
How important is it from your perspective
that those records should be released
and that there should be a full accounting
of what House Speaker Renner knew and when he knew it?
- I think that's very important,
and I do hope that you get those records
because I want to know
and the way that protocol typically works in the House
I'm the democratic leader
so I tend to take care of issues
involving Democratic members,
and then the majority leader and the speaker
tend to take care of issues involving members
from the Republican party.
But to me, again, as I mentioned,
it's so important to have a good, safe workplace
for our state employees,
many of whom do such hard work
for not the pay that they deserve,
particularly our legislative aides,
they do not get paid nearly enough,
especially with the rising cost of living
and the cost of housing and transportation
and utilities and all of these things.
So they tend to be in these jobs for the right reason,
like I said, trying to serve the community,
just trying to get their start in their career.
And we absolutely must protect them.
So I read those allegations that you mentioned
about the intern and the legislative aide
for Representative Basabe
raising the concerns of sexual harassment.
And so if those concerns were raised to that law firm,
and then that law firm shared that
with the speaker's office,
this is a huge problem
and we need to know really what happened.
- We'll be right back.