this is Facing South Florida
with Jim DeFede.
Good morning and welcome
to Facing South Florida.
As more and more of the
state and country reopens,
we'll discuss what still needs
to be done here in south Florida
with Miami Beach Mayor Dan
Gelber and later I will talk to
the ALCU attorney who led the
arguments in federal court last
week to force the state of
Florida to abide by Amendment IV
and restore voting rights of
felons who have completed
their sentences.
But first, I asked Congressman
Ted Deutch about whether
we are ready to reopen.
We don't want to
just leave the house,
we want to do it safely and we
want to do it in a way that's
going to allow a lot more
opportunity for people who have
been decimated economically
as a result of this pandemic.
And so, that's my
focus right now,
as things start
to slowly reopen,
that we don't let up,
that we continue to monitor,
that if there is an outbreak,
that we continue to ratchet
things down and that there is
planning in place to help keep
everyone safe.
The public health officials
really need to have their voices
heard in all of this and that's
-- that's what I've been really
trying to do.
It's interesting, we've seen
in the last few days a lot of
attention being refocused on
Dr. Fauci criticizing him.
Last night I believe
it was the trifecta.
Tucker Carlson, Hanity,
and then Nora Ingram,
back-to-back-to-back, just
attacked Fauci all with the same
line, we're now
being led by a dictator,
nobody elected Dr. Fauci, why
is he in charge of deciding?
It's like a new,
concerted attack on him?
I don't understand.
I mean, I do, I suppose.
It's like if we stop to look at
some of the decisions that were
made by the administration all
through January and February,
downplaying the
severity of this Coronavirus,
telling us that it would just
go away when the spring came,
that it's just like the flu,
and then even more recently,
that if we can just consider
injecting ourselves with some
sort of disinfectant,
we can make it go away.
I understand that there maybe
some desire to take attention
away from that, but there is
nothing political about wanting
to be sure that everyone
in our state and in our
country is safe.
And it's not one or the other.
We can't actually start to
reopen the economy and do all
the things that Dr. Fauci talked
about to help keep us safe.
He's not in charge.
We know that that's the case.
Dr. Fauci isn't the person who's
making decisions about when
things reopen.
He's offering his expert opinion
based on science to go about
this in a way that doesn't
lead to another outbreak.
We only want this to succeed.
Everyone -- there is no one
who wants another outbreak.
There is no one who wants the
economy to have to shut down
completely as it did
for all of these weeks.
But let's keep both in mind.
Let's talk about the real
economic challenges that we have
to meet that Congress is -- it's
the reason that we're moving
forward on the HEROES Act.
Let's talk about meeting the
needs of people who have been
so impacted, and at the same
time talk about the importance
of moving forward with public
health decisions coming first.
I do not understand the attacks
on science and the attacks on
public health officials.
It is only done out
of an attempt to try
to divert attention.
We'll have plenty of time to try
to figure that out all of the
mistakes that were made
at the beginning of this.
Right now we are
all in this together.
That's the way
that I've operated,
it's the way that we need
to continue to operate.
Ron DeSantes says that he's
actually got an oversupply of
tests, that there are actually
more tests available than people
who want to take them.
I will tell you as well.
I've had conversations with
Jared Moscowitz who's made
a similar claim to me.
He says that his testing sites
that he set up are able to do,
you know, X thousand a
day, and they're doing
less than they can.
So, they're saying that they're
-- the ability for people to be
tested is there, they're just
not coming out to be tested.
And they've ramped up testing.
And there's a lot of sites now.
And I give Director
Moscowitz credit,
I give the administration in
Tallahassee credit for focusing
on getting more testing, because
that's what we need to do.
And they understand that.
The question is,
what's the plan?
It's no surprise, I
don't think, Jim,
that if you've been at home for
six or eight weeks and you feel
okay, there's no
urgency to get a test,
just like contrast that with the
very beginning of this middle of
March when we went on
stay-at-home orders,
and everyone wanted
to get tested because
we were also afraid.
It's not just a
matter of having a test,
there has to be a plan.
Who gets tested, when
do they get tested?
How do we make sure that when
we know that asymptomatic people
can spread the disease, how do
we makes sure that employees who
are forward facing and talking
to customers actually get tested
so that we're certain that
they're not going to spread it.
It's, again, I'm not --
this isn't -- it's not hard.
We know it has to be done.
And I'm not saying this in any
sort of confrontational way.
It just puzzles me
we're going forward,
we don't have this
plan in place yet.
Everyone -- everyone knows,
every scientist you talk to,
every public health
official you talk to says,
yes, we need testing
and we need tracing,
we need a plan to isolate
people if they test positive.
Let's just figure it out.
We've been asking these
questions of the state of
Florida for weeks and
received no answers at all.
And the thing that's been so
puzzling to me throughout all of
this is the unwillingness on the
part of some in Tallahassee to
engage and to deal
with those of us,
and it's most of us, who only
want to work to work together
to help the economy to move
forward and help save lives.
And that's the goal here.
And the last thing I'll say is
we have this whole conversation,
the most important part, the
most important issue by far is
that we take care of
the heroes in all this,
the front line workers, the
doctors and nurses and hospital
workers and all of the
people who too often -- people
who work in long term
are facilities who still,
still today are being asked to
wear N95 masks for -- sometimes
for a while day, sometimes the
same masks for a whole week.
I talked to someone the other
day at a longterm care facility
who was told to wear a plastic
bag because they didn't have
enough gowns.
That's not acceptable.
I just want to explain that
when we raise this issue,
the answer that
will get back is,
well, we're doing everything
pursuant to CDC guidelines,
that's what you want.
The problem is they're using
the crisis guidelines for CDC,
the ones that say, yes, when the
emergency rooms are overwhelmed,
then you have to do that.
Well, we can't, on
the one hand, say,
everything's great,
there's plenty of PPE,
and then tun around and say, but
we're going to continue to use
these crisis guidelines that
requires doctors and nurses
who are putting their lives at
risk to wear the same mask
day after day after day.
That's what we're trying
to get our arms around.
When we come back, Miami