The Florida Roundup - Free speech and consequences, new data on Alligator Alcatraz, PolitiFact and more

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

This week on The Florida Roundup, we spoke with Jacksonville Today education reporter Megan Mallicoat about a lawsuit against Duval Schools over teachers’ right to free speech (00:00). Then, we were joined by Allison Matulli, lawyer, children’s author and educator, for a conversation about free speech and consequences (07:44). Plus, we spoke with NBC 6 investigative reporter Tony Pipitone about what newly released I.C.E. data tells us about who has been detained at Alligator Alcatraz (21:16). And PolitiFact’s Samantha Putterman helped us check some claims from President Trump about affordability (32:48). Later, we checked in with stories from across the state (37:30), including a state-funded pilot facility to treat reclaimed water, or wastewater, for drinking (40:32).

Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Terrific to have your company. Now, today, let's talk about speech and consequences. Florida is on the front lines of the ongoing debate over the First Amendment. The state is allowed to ban. social media sites from allowing some children from signing up, that law has

withstood a First Amendment challenge so far. There are lawsuits centered on public school districts removing certain books from school libraries. And then there are cases of government workers fired or put on leave over social media posts. Governor Ron DeSantis defended the state investigating teachers over their social media posts after the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. No one's saying the government's going to put you in jail for doing that, But I do think it's a problem, is that someone you want teaching your kids when they say that this is something this assassination should be celebrated? Of course not. In September, Florida's Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamutsas spoke with Florida's voice, which describes itself

as Florida's number one conservative news source. As these statements go viral through social media, that is inevitable. These children are going to see that their teacher has these opinions. and when those personal views insert a public educational institution, that's a problem. Where do you find that line between freedom of speech, but not freedom from consequences of that speech? And who should decide? Call us now 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. How do we talk about free expression? Radio at the Florida Roundup.org.

at the Florida Roundup.org is our email address. Send us a note now. Two teachers in Duval County filed lawsuits this week against some school board members and others after they were assigned out of their classrooms over what's thought to be their social media messages. Megan Malacott covers education for our partner station, WJCT in Jacksonville. Megan, tell us about these two teachers at the heart of this lawsuit. So the first teacher is Hope McMath. She is a part-time teacher at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. I believe she started last school year. She teaches AP art history. She's a local artist. She's also a local activist. She makes no attempt to hide that side of herself. She has said again and again, she teaches from this very straightforward state curriculum standards and does not bring her activism. into her classroom. The second teacher is Haley Bartlett.

She is actually a paraprofessional at a local public school that is a school for kids on the autism spectrum, basically. And so what did these two teachers post on social media? So let's start with Ms. McMath. She posted a statement

that was basically karma is a b***. And after Charlie Kirk was killed, and she said that she was not trying to celebrate his death. It was simply that she recognizes the controversy that surrounds Charlie Kirk and her phrase is, when you put bad things out into the world, it has a way of coming back and finding you. So that was her hot take after the after the murder. Haley's case is a little bit different because

she still hasn't been told in a straightforward way why she was pulled. She's assuming it was related to a shared TikTok post I think it was a couple weeks after the murder that said basically there's better things to be worried about or there's other issues in the world so in the first instance the post was written by the AP art history teacher in the second instance the paraprofessional essentially reposted someone else's opinion is that accurate right okay that's right and that's been a thing that her lawyer has come back to is that it wasn't even her speech It was shared speech in the second case.

So how did the school district learn about these posts that led to them taking action against these two educators, taking them out of the classroom? We're still investigating it because the school district has not directly answered that question. Our latest research shows that it looks like Moms for Liberty actually complained about Hope McMath. They sent an email to a distribution list that I did include some school board members, the commissioner of education at the state level and other higher-ups along those lines. And they sent a relatively long email detailing out what she had said in this one

objectional post about karma and actually said in the email that they didn't feel that that post itself warranted a letter complaining about her, but they had, I guess, done a deep dive on her social media presence. Many of the posts from before she was actually employed by the district and found her supposed to be rather objectionable and activist-oriented. So the Education Commissioner here, Anastasios Kamutsas, sent a memo to Florida public school superintendents after Charlie Kirk's murder. And this memo was to remind superintendents that certified teachers are, according to the memo,

quote, held to a higher standard as public officials. It mentioned a professional code of conduct stating that if an educator's conduct causes a student or his or her family to feel unwelcome or unwilling to participate in the learning environment, it may be a violation of the Code of Conduct. So there's lots of qualifiers in there, Megan. Do we know what the teachers are explicitly accused of? Not really, because we've not seen, well, at least from the district level, we've not seen the exact complaint from the state level.

So let me back up just a little bit, that there's two processes going on for Hope McMath right now. The first is a district-level investigation, and the second is a state-level investigation that's the point of which is to revoke her license. In this case, the state actually came locally to Jacksonville and set up shop at her school. And one morning and interviewed, as far as we know, it was at least 15 people, including students and her colleagues and things like that, which is, I've never seen a case like that where they come and locally set up an investigation. So these two educators have filed a civil lawsuit against several members of the Duval County Public School District

against some moms of liberty leaders and others. And among their claims are that their First Amendment rights were violated. How do the teachers claim their free speech rights, their First Amendment rights, were somehow abridged or violated, given that they said what they said? People have questions about, you know, you do have free speech, but you don't have protection from the consequences of free speech. What's important to remember is that it's a government job in this case. And so the lawyer in the lawsuit is citing several court precedents, including a Supreme Court case, to say that government jobs are a little bit different. And the school board doesn't have the right to micromanage what a person says outside of school on their own time with their own resources. Megan Malacott covering education with our partner station, WJCT in Jacksonville. Thanks, Megan.

Sure. Andrew and Jacksonville sent us this email. The old maxim concerning the First Amendment was that you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Andrew continues. Now we are mired in this contemptible new reality in which only right-wing speech is protected. America must throw off this yoke of repression and return to freedom of speech for all. Now, just a couple of side notes here about that fire in a crowded theater phrase. It's very popular, of course, whenever we're talking about free speech, you can't do it if there is no fire, and you can't get in trouble for saying it if there is no action, if there's no panic.

So it's about falsely claiming there's a fire in a crowded theater, and then that leading to action, because yelling fire in a crowded theater is not a test of the First Amendment rights here in the United States. Instead, the test is, according to a Supreme Court ruling, quote, directed to inciting or producing. eminent, lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. That's the Supreme Court standard for free speech. Ed is on line 5 in Jacksonville. Go ahead, Ed, you're on the radio. Yeah, great timing here, responding to the prior color. You know, we forget that during the BLM demonstrations,

there were people who were fired and penalized for criticizing BLM or to mention George Floyd criminal records. And that was against the conservative or the right. Now I guess it's the other way around. So the point is you cannot have two standards. Either anybody can say anything or we need to have a list of what's approved so we don't get into trouble or something like that. Fair enough, Ed.

I'm not sure a lot of folks want a list of what's pre-approved speech. I think we may be running into some trouble with that particular idea, but understand your broader point there. Alison Matuli is with us now, a lawyer, an adjunct professor at Florida International University. She's written a book entitled Your Freedom, Your Power, a Kids Guide to the First Amendment. Alison, welcome to the Florida Rondup. Nice to have you. Thank you for having me. Excited to have this conversation. Very important conversation. We like to talk about speech here on the Florida Rondup a lot.

How do you think we should think about the consequences of free speech? Well, I think we need to really get our arms around what free speech actually means and what it means in the context of the law. It's two different things, right? People often, and especially I deal with, you know, the children's education, people really kind of focus on the moral aspect of speech and the, you know, the American tradition of having that free speech wrapped around their arm. But what it actually means in the legal context, as you were clearly saying when you reference the Supreme Court is very different. Yeah. Yeah, it is very different. Our idea of free speech versus how it winds up being adjudicated

and kind of what the legal standards are of the limits of free speech. But how does that encounter where the consequences come into play as we're talking about this here in Florida about how the First Amendment has been practiced? Well, absolutely. You know, when I walk into my classroom

and I'm at a public university, correct? So there are, that's where free speech exists, right? That's where you're talking First Amendment. And there has to be a careful outline and understanding in the public realm that, you know, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, exist between private entity and public entity. So I think that gets blurred quite a bit. And, and, and I, I tell my students, you know, any case you attack, it's really about marrying of set of facts to the law and understanding how you can persuade within a courtroom, um, the outcome. Which is different than in the

public forum, right, in trying to persuade, because as you and I both know, right, there is no First Amendment right, I think we agree on this, to post something on Facebook or on Twitter, right? If you or I get banned from those social media platforms, there's not a First Amendment case to be had. That is correct. So the online speech is messy, all right? I'm not going to kid around. That is a term of art, I think, is how a lawyer would describe that, right? I will just get right to it. It's messy. for lawyers, it's messy for the courts. It's messy for human understanding. It's messy for how we exist within our households because it's not, it's something that's constantly evolving. So there has

to be consciousness about, you know, these are private entities. So their ability to remove your speech, delete you, cancel you, that has been stretched in different ways within the court system. Yeah. Brian and Jacksonville writes, free speech does not protect incite, threats fighting words defamation or false advertising in other words the core principles of the current conservative party brian says it has always protected the right to criticize the government exactly what the current administration is trying to undo he writes patrick has been patient in jack's beach go ahead patrick here on the radio yeah i just want to make a comment on this um i'm a retired teacher i spent 38 and a half years in the classroom 36 of those years in dubal county

and for many years i wrote letters to the editor of the local newspaper the florida Times Union and they were often critical of politicians, critical of the district, you know, its policies, things of that nature. Never did I ever get any to blowback. Nobody ever called me up and said, hey, you can't say that because you're a teacher in the classroom. I never shared my political opinions with my students. And I taught history and I can't tell you how many times my students said, who you're supporting in the election or was your political party? And I was like, no, that's off limit. You know, I don't talk about that kind of stuff with my kids. But that didn't mean that I was reluctant to share my opinion, you know, in a public forum about things like

policy or things that I disagreed with. And I think what we're seeing right now is this is just like an effort to silence people with a different opinion. If you don't like it, then counter it. Write another letter to the editor or make a comment and say, hey, maybe that was off base or I disagree with you. But to say, you know, you don't get to have an opinion simply because you have a position where, you know, your, and I agree that teachers have are held to a must, higher standard and should be very careful about what they say in their classroom and certainly what they say publicly yeah but there seems to me to be this concerted effort to just shut people right down and i think that's dangerous ground that's just a scary direction yeah patrick

and jacksonville beach thank you for being a public school teacher a history teacher for so many years in the classroom patrick alison how about that distinction in patrick's case as a government employee as a public school teacher as someone who teaches as an adjunct at a public University versus someone posting something on social media who works for a private company and maybe facing consequences from coworkers or a boss who may see something and perhaps dislike what they what they happen to be writing well first of all i'd also like to thank patrick i mean you know being in the classroom for that many years kudos to you and thank you for also sharing that your historical experience that has happened personally to you with the ability

to speak out publicly. I mean, that's where we're constantly engaging in these conversations right now because you're literally talking about what's called the chilling effect, right? The fear that, yes, you can disagree publicly. You're not in, for example, you're not posting something as yourself as a teacher for your district. That's very different, correct? But if you are engaging personally as your own person on your own social media space, you know, sometimes those lines, as I said, they're messy because people do also tend to post both things.

They might post their classroom content on their personal social media and tell kids to look there. So that's where I often talk to teachers and I have conversations about making those spaces very, very, very separate, crystal clear. So there is no ambiguity. Right. When Patrick's writing letters to the editor, he can't control who opens up that op-ed page of the Times Union and reads it at the kitchen counter. It could be the third grader. It could be the parent. Absolutely.

Same for social media, of course. Someone can say, oh, I block certain people from following me on social media, but of course it's rife with fake accounts and kind of other anonymous accounts that is just difficult if not impossible to police. Bud in Lake Worth has been patient. Go ahead. Bud, you are on the radio now. Yeah, I just want to say, if they're telling the truth about the guy, which if it's calling him bad, it's the truth. So why should they be in trouble? If they're lying, they need to be talked to. But what gets me is that the people that are messing with these people are using our tax dollars as a hammer to go after these people. And there's no recourse to get back at them for doing what

they're doing to those people. Yeah, I appreciate that context, bud. Thanks so much. Joe in Polk County online too. Joe, thanks for your patience. We want to get you on the radio. Your time. Yeah, thank you. So we have a diverse situation in my household. My wife's a school teacher, Republican, for 24 years here in Polk County. I'm a Democrat, military, and business owner here. When the murder happened with Charlie Kurt, my wife was going to get on to her personal Facebook page and make a comment. And, you know, me being the Democrat in the household, normally I would have been encouraging that. I actually stopped her.

I stopped her because of the fact that where we're at in America today, and especially in the red states like Florida and Hope County, she could have taken all kinds of flash either way and been stuck in a situation where she would have been defending or opposing or whatever just on that post. And I actually stopped her,

Here I am, you know, we defend the Constitution. Our parents are military, and I, normally I'm that guy. Yeah, yeah, you took an oath to defend the Constitution as an act of duty military. Well, thank you for your service to the country, Joe, and thanks to your wife for her service to education as well. Allison, there's that prior restraint, that chilling effect that you just spoke about. Yes, and, you know, I have to tell you, we are all very conscious of whether or not you're just an, average American trying to navigate all these different spaces, or you are just someone who has taken an oath to the Constitution. We all understand the importance. There's a reason why the

First Amendment is first, correct? That's right. So, you know, our founders didn't say, oh, this is an afterthought. There was a consciousness, and the fact that we are engaging in these moments, that moment you stopped your wife from having that, that exposure, if you will, in a social space, that is, that is the, that is the premise of that chilling effect. Yeah, yeah, the prior restraint. Alison Matouli, lawyer, adjunct professor at Florida International University. The book is Your Freedom, Your Power, a kid's guide to the First Amendment. Allison, thank you for sharing your expertise.

We'll have to have you back here on the Florida Rondo. Much appreciate you for having me. It's been great. We've got more to come on the Florida Rondup from your Florida Public Radio Station. Stick around. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's one trillion dollar asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians.

Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Next week on our program, speech and consequences. A University of Florida law student recently won a lawsuit against the school after he was kicked out over anti-Semitic social media posts. And a Florida Atlantic University professor was reinstated after being out on leave for comments after the Charlie Kirk murder. The limits of the First Amendment have been

tested this year in Florida. So where do you find the line between freedom of speech, but not freedom from consequences of that speech? Email us now, radio at the florida roundup.org. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. That'll be next week. We want to hear your thoughts on that right now. Radio at W. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org about speech and consequences. We check that inbox each and every week. And maybe every month or so, we kind of do a big dump with your comments. And that will be coming up on a future program. Next week here, we'll introduce you to a man who's witnessed hundreds of detention hearings in a Florida immigration court. Because it's been six months now since Alligator Alcatraz opened to hold people detained for alleged migration violations. the alligator alcatraz has been opened and the officials from Department of Homeland Security to Governor Ron DeSantis have talked about that facility holding the quote worst of the worst violent criminals

except an investigation by NBC6 television in Miami finds only about one in three people who've been sent to alligator alcatraz have no criminal record and more than 1,000 people have not had a final deportation order issued against them despite what the Florida Department of Emergency Management

Administrator Kevin Guthrie said in July outside the facility with Governor Ron DeSantis by his side. NBC 6 Miami investigative reporter Tony Pipitone is with us now behind this investigation. Tony, thanks so much for coming in. Let's start with, first of all, just how many people have been sent to alligator

Alcatraz over the last six months or so. The state and federal government, remember, as it was putting this up, standing this up in a matter of days and weeks, talked about 5,000 beds, up to 5,000 detainees could be held there. How many people have passed through that facility. Well, from July 3rd, when it opened to October 15th, which is when our data ends, we found 6,700 men have been housed there. Total, as opposed to up to 5,000 at one time.

Well, at one time, we saw the peak around 1,400 back at the end of July, right around the day that the governor was giving his statements out there that later the data says, we're not born out. It says much different than that. The governor and the Department of Emergency Management said in July that everyone there had final deportation orders issued against them. Is that true? Not even close. The data we have has a field for whether a final order has been issued. It gives the date of that order. So we were able to find that about 31% of the more than 1,200 men that were held there on that day, July 25th, had a final order of removal. Not every one of them, as the governor and his emergency management director said. Not even a majority, right. In fact, most of the 1,239 still don't have a final order

as of October 15. And so what's the explanation of the gap between the claim and what the data show? We get no comment from the governor's office except talk to ICE. We go to ICE. We get no comment from ICE. Well, we're taking your comments on our email inbox, radio at the Florida Roundup.org, or 305-955-1800. We're talking about migration enforcement, immigration enforcement, and alligator alcatraz. Tony Pipitone is investigative reporter at NBC6 in Miami who has participated with reporters and gotten a trove of data about who exactly has been detained at that facility in the Everglades since it opened back in July. So the detainees themselves, the governor and Department of Homeland Security has talked about these facilities, including Alligator

Alcatraz being for the worst of the worst criminals. That's the phrase that's been used. How many detainees in this data that you've looked at, Tony, have been convicted criminals? We found 26% of them of the 6,700, are listed as convicted criminals in the ICE database. But 4% of those, 4% of the total are for traffic offenses that do not include DUI or hit and run or vehicular homicide, vehicle of manslaughter. So really 22% for non-DUI traffic offenses are convicted. But there's another 43% who have pending criminal charges, but 31% have neither. So one out of three have no criminal charge, either conviction or pending against them.

That's according to the data, the way they classified. And this criminal traffic offense, what might that include? Well, traffic crimes could include such things as driving without a license, driving with an expired tag, not having a tag. So these are the sorts of offenses that do tend to be overrepresented among the immigrant community because they have trouble getting documentation and getting that. So that makes sense that that would be the number one most serious criminal offense is traffic offenses, and that makes total sense. And what about the worst of the worst criminals? When the governor, when the president have talked about this, when supporters of this immigration

enforcement plan have talked about rapists and murderers and whatnot, what kind of data show those types of convicts are being held or have been passed through Alligator Alcatraz. Well, it's true that there have been, as Department of Homeland Security said, in the press release in September, there have been people convicted of murder, pedophiles, weapons, traffickers, drug dealers. But what we did was we went into the data up to that day of that press release and found that 4% of the men who'd been through there by that time had convictions for the crimes that they mentioned in that press release.

And they included 10 mugshots of 10 people who obviously have some serious problems. But that's the amount. Overall, we looked at violent crimes overall and found about 7% of the 60s. 700 men who passed through there had been convicted of what are considered violent crimes. We don't know what the people who have pending criminal charges are. That field is blank in the data. So we don't know what those charges are related to. There's just no data at all on the pending criminal charges.

As far as the most serious conviction, because they haven't been convicted. They have been convicted. And so again, explanation of this gap between the claim of the worst of the worst and what the data show. Well, you can always say that it is how some of the worst of the worst, even if it's for percent or seven percent or ten percent i mean they have some people in there who've been deported mostly those people with serious crimes like that so it's true that some of them are the worst of the worst but the clear majority to a you know to a degree but it doesn't it's not as menacing

as they make it sound yeah one of the features of alligator alcatraz that the state promoted as it was standing it up in a matter of a few days this past summer was as an immigration detention center kind of soup to nuts because of the runway there. This, after all, was, is a working airport still, the jet port there in the middle of the Everglades. Have detainees been deported directly from Alligator Alcatraz from the tarmac out to the United States? Well, I'll go back to July 25th when the governor said that 100 people had been taken

directly out of there and that hundreds of others had been flown to ice hubs from which they were deported. Well, we checked and found a record from ICE saying that by that date, July 25th, in fact, by August 4th, none had been directly deported from there. Now, since then, we were able to go into the data and see that according to the data, there had been several deportations directly from that airstrip. But as the time, the governor said 100, we don't know where he got that number, but it's not supported by the data or by ICE. And to be clear here, Tony, we're almost up on the six-month anniversary of opening this facility. And it sounds like it's a handful of detainees who've been deported directly from out of the jet port

out of Florida. Well, I'd have to go through the data to get the exact number. I mean, clearly they have been deporting, but there have been many deported after a day or two in Texas or Louisiana. So, yeah, I mean, they are. And really, you know, the average stay here is only 12 days, we found. So this is sort of a stopping point on the way. The ice caused the stay of people, like it's the four seasons, but it's the stay from when

the moment they're placed into detention to the time that they're released, whether they're returned to some other country or deported. And then they have stints in between, which is how long you stay at each facility. We have all that data. So that's how I was able to search to see whose last stay and stint matched. You know, if they were released from alligator alcatraz, and then we could find that departed date is the same. Then we know that they were deported from there, at least according to the data. Now, you know, I'd like to talk to ICE data people. about what exactly all this means. But I want to give a shout out

to the University of California, Berkeley's deportation data project because they're the ones who sued under the Freedom of Information Act to get this stuff released. And again, this only goes to October 15th. So the data we have is almost two months old.

Yeah, I want to ask you about that timing here. Why only October 15th? Why is that the end date of this information? That is what ICE chose to release as of last week. I mean, we got an email from the project last Monday saying that this latest data dump had occurred. The previous one ended, I think, July 25th or so around there.

So it's been a while, and we don't know what's been happening out there since. We know that as of that last date, October 15th, there were, I think it was about 800 or so people who were, yeah, 894 that were in custody at Alligator Alcatraz on that day, but since then it might have gone up. We don't know. We just don't know how many folks are there being detained today, as you and I are speaking. Correct. Tony Pivotone is with us, investigative reporter at NBC6 in Miami,

who's been looking at a trove of data that has come in due to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by an investigative body, essentially, of reporters at the University of California and shared with Tony, has been going through it. Do we know much about where the people who were sent to Alcatraz, sent to Alligator Alcatraz, where they were detained originally? Is it safe to assume that these are folks that have been arrested here in Florida? It does. I did look at that. They do have their first, what they call their first detention, and many of them are sheriff's offices, some are DOC. Department of Corrections.

Department of Corrections, people who were taken from prison or jail straight to there. Others, you know, Florida has this 287G agreements that the governor has required, and the legislature's required all sheriffs to be part of. And since that went into effect, we found a big increase in the number of people being arrested under 287G. Previously there were mostly people released from jails and prisons. Now there are people being picked up off the street as we've seen this week in Davy. And as I saw this morning

in Little Havana, you know, ICE and FHP are teaming up to stop vehicles with workers in them. There was landscapers in Broward. Today it was an events truck people who set up for events. A Nicaragua man in there they say didn't have proper documentation. They took him away. There's a man from El Salis who was picked up in Davy, whose worst defense we could find were like two traffic tickets

that were dismissed, and you'll see more about that tonight on NBC 6 News. Where are the home countries of the individuals who have been passed through Alligator Alcatraz on their immigration enforcement journey here? Well, citizenship is one of the fields listed, and Guatemala and Mexico lead the way. Then you have Honduras. Cuba is fourth, but we've noticed a trend where more and more Cubans are being caught up in not just an alligator alcatraz but in all ice apprehensions especially in south florida we'll have more coming up on that and does the country of origin tell us anything about

where uh immigration enforcement has been happening in florida well i mean if guatemolans and mexicans are definitely highly represented in the agricultural community and we know in palm beach county in west palm beach county there's been a lot going on there i noticed collier county had a lot And I'm not totally sure on why, but there were a lot in Collier County. And then Cubans who've been here for decades, some of them, and report every year to ICE just for a check-in, many of them have final deportation orders, but Cuba wouldn't take them back. So what we're finding is that some of them, it appears in July, August, some of them who were showing up there were being taken into detention. And many of them deported to Mexico.

fascinating stuff you've got a whole file full of papers there in front of you so lots more to come I'm sure in this investigation thank you so much for sharing the results as far with us Tony thank you appreciate him Tony Pippetone investigative reporter at mbc 6 based in miami here with us on the florida roundup i'm tom hudson you're listening to the roundup from your florida public radio station time for some politifact here every other week we connect with our partner politic fact to put some claims by public officials to the test of truth and if you have have a claim that you want us to fact check, you can always email it to us, radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Could be something that you heard in a news conference, in a news report,

something you saw from a public official on social media. Just send us that note, radio at the Florida Roundup.org. And we'll put it to the test of the truth with Sam Putterman, our reporter with Politifact Florida. Sam, welcome back to the program. Hi, thanks for having me. So the midterm elections, less than a year away now, and President Donald Trump has been talking about what is the key issue for the campaign affordability. The president was in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, kind of a meandering speech that was designed to draw differences on the economy between his first year back in office and Democrats. Trump made this claim during that speech. They used the word affordability, and that's their only word. They say, affordability. And everyone

says, oh, that must mean Trump has high prices. No, our prices are coming down. tremendously from the highest prices in the history of our country. So Sam, what about that claim that the prices are coming down tremendously? Yeah, so this is misleading. Overall, inflation is where it started when Trump's second term began. According to BLS's consumer price index, year-over-year inflation in January was 3%. And in the most recent month available, which was September, it was also 3%. And when taking out food and energy, which are considered volatile measures, the rate declined

modestly, going from 3.3% in January down to that 3% in September. Yeah. And I'll note that, you know, inflation is an increase in prices, a steady increase in prices. Otherwise, it's called deflation if it actually is a negative number. Right. The president also spoke about something, well, that he calls the Big Beautiful Bill and several of the changes that that piece of legislation, that law now makes to taxes, including this. No tax on Social Security for our great seniors, our seniors. No tax.

No tax on Social Security benefits. Zero income tax. True or false, Sam? Yeah, we found this one to be mostly false. So Republicans were unable to include a complete elimination of Social Security taxes in that law. The legislation included significant, but not full overlap between people who benefit from the tax break and people who receive Social Security. And the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that 24 million Americans could still pay some amount of tax on their Social Security benefits. Yeah, this is essentially a math.

question here, Sam, the way I look at it, right? Because Social Security benefits are still taxed. When they're winding up in a recipient's bank account, they're still withholding tax likely. But there's the special deduction that was part of the big, beautiful bill that is aimed to make up for most of that tax, but that deduction phases out at certain income levels. Exactly. Yes. President Trump then went on to combine claims about immigration and the job market on Tuesday. Before I entered office, 100% of all new net jobs were going to migrant workers. See that 100% of new jobs.

Now, the president said this data was not Trump data. He said instead it was from the federal government. Since I took office, 100% of all net job creation has gone to American citizens. How about that? So, Sam, the balance here between foreign-born workers getting new jobs and workers born in the United States getting new jobs. Right. So what he said needs context. The number of native-born Americans working since Trump took office has risen by about 2.5 million, which is a 2% increase. During the same time period, the number of foreign-born workers decreased by 1 million, a 3.1% decline. But the problem with Trump's statement is attributing the foreign-born data only to, quote, unquote, migrant workers and illegal aliens.

because there's no statistical category for migrant or illegal alien employment. So statistics for foreign-born workers, those include naturalized U.S. citizens, permanent residents, people in U.S. illegally. Yeah, definitions matter in all this with the statistics and the data. Sam, thanks for walking through with us. Sam Putterman with PolitiFact, Florida. If you have something you want us to fact check, send it to us. Email is radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's one trillion dollar asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at

Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Great to have you along. Stories related to water now and stick with us here. We'll start with artificial intelligence. It's the rush to power AI that's set off a push to build new data centers, including here in Florida. These data centers require a lot of electricity and can use a lot of water to help cool down the technology powering AI. What effort to build a data center in Palm Beach County is called Project Tango, but it's on pause after a tense County Commission meeting this week.

Wilkin Brutus with our partner station WLRN in South Florida reports. After hours of contentious public comment from over 50 concerned residents, the Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously to postpone the Project Tango AI Data Center application. Loxahatchee resident Corey Cantoman is among a group of

residents who protested the project with a petition that reached more than 4,000 signatures. No good comes of having an AI data center near you. Put them in the location of least impact to the environment and people. This location is not it. Another resident, Ben Brown, opposed AI data centers near homes and schools, citing Governor DeSantis' proposed Florida AI Bill of Rights that could restrict such projects. paused until the recommended and appropriate studies are done, I think would be a very important step in the right direction. Because again, those studies will then just further highlight, you know, how they cannot mitigate this. For now, Project Tango remains in limbo as county staff prepare additional studies before a zoning meeting scheduled for April 23rd of next year.

I'm Wilkin Brutis in Palm Beach County. Across the country, new data centers are being built to handle the growing use of artificial intelligence. data centers consume a lot of electricity and that can drive up costs. The nonprofit group Food and Water Watch is leading the push for a national moratorium on new data centers. Brooke Ward is the group's senior organizer here in Florida. She says because Florida is still just starting to build out data centers, the state has a chance to do it differently. We need to make sure that Florida families are involved in these decisions, that utilities are allowed to charge massive increases to customer bills to pad the pockets of shareholders.

Now, Governor Ron DeSantis is also raising environmental concerns about data centers. He says he does not want to subsidize the growth of AI and pass higher energy costs onto Floridians. The incentives of big tech are not the same as what's in the interest of the people and the public. The incentives of big tech is to maximize profits off of this. DeSantis wants Florida lawmakers to pass his artificial intelligence. Bill of Rights, which includes allowing local governments to reject data centers and protect water and the environment. But the ability for the state to set rules for AI may disappear. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday night that aims to ban states from coming up with

their own AI regulations. Now, speaking of Florida water, rules instituted this year allow for reclaimed water, recycled wastewater, to be treated and distributed for drinking. Now, no, facilities in the state are actually doing this yet, but with a water shortage projected in the next 20 years, that day will likely be coming. Environment reporter Molly Dureg from our partner Central Florida Public Media explains. I'm in Altamont Springs at Pure Alta, the first dual water wastewater system in the southeastern United States. The facility uses technology like ultraviolet radiation to treat reclaimed water, recycled wastewater and stormwater until it's safe to drink. and I'm about to try some.

There's no sink here, so city manager Frank Martz turns a knob on one of the pipes and outflows the water, clear and odorless. This water, I'm about to drink. Yeah, taste completely normal. If you hadn't told me this was recycled wastewater, I wouldn't have known. Since I do know where this water ultimately comes from, drinking it still feels a little strange. But Martz, plus many water engineers and scientists say it's perfectly safe. It is chemically clean.

It is biologically clean. But me being able to drink this recycled water that used to be wastewater didn't happen overnight. It's like everything else. When you have plenty of water, you never worry about not having it. That's Orlando Public Works Director Corey Knight. Knight knows Central Florida's water supply isn't unlimited. That's despite millions of gallons of freshwater flowing naturally every day in this region through an underground aquifer system.

The groundwater from that aquifer is the main source of drinking water for most of. Central Floridians. But as the region grows, it's tapping out that source. In 20 years, Central Florida's population will likely be about 40% larger, and so will the region's water demand. We're about 30 miles away from Pure Alta in Christmas at the Orlando Wetlands Park. This is the world's first large-scale constructed wetland treatment system to treat kind of municipal reclaimed water. That's Orlando Wetlands manager, Mark Seas. He says the reclaimed water here flows in after being treated at a wastewater plant in nearby Seminole County. Here, the water gets a second round of treatment as it moves slowly through the wetlands,

what sees calls the kidneys of Earth. An average of 15 and a half million gallons of reclaimed water flow into the wetlands every day. The water flows out into the St. John's River, cleaner than when it came in. As it's passing through all of these submerged aquatic plants, they're using the nitrogen and phosphorus that's in the water. and cleaning it. And I will tell you that when we finish with the water, we meet all of the drinking water standards except for color.

Tannic acid from all the vegetation here turns the water a brown, tea-like color. C says drinking it wouldn't hurt you. But perception is key, and brown water isn't exactly something most people want to drink. Florida Atlantic University engineering professor Fred Bletcher knows that's true. Bletcher has worked on some of the very first studies examining the risks with using reclaimed water in different ways, including for drinking. And he says reclaimed water in Florida is definitely headed in that direction. It absolutely is going to conversion to drinking water.

Bletcher says recycling wastewater and turning it into drinking water is safe and efficient. It's kind of the continuous pie. The pie is always there. It's the same pie we're using over and over and over again, right? So it's not like you need more water. And Bletcher says as central Florida grows, the region needs to maximize its water supply. People are not going to stop moving down here. But not everyone is sold on drinking recycling.

water. Daytona Beach resident Greg Gimbert says he'd rather see more efforts to control growth and development. If the goal is continued and unrestrained development, they're doing the cheapest thing they can. Gimbert is opposed to drinking recycled water, what critics call toilet to tap, and he doesn't buy the argument that it's inevitable for Central Florida. They're already framing it as though we have an obligation to take all comers, that we have an obligation. We have an option, but we don't have the obligation to limit our own reasonable water supply to make room for one more. Earlier this year, Gimbert says he tried working with some local political candidates to mobilize a campaign against so-called toilet to tap. Although some candidates were initially interested, Gimbert says, the movement ultimately fizzled out.

What I came away with is that it's too early right now. Everybody's too happy to be patted on the head and told it's going to be okay. It's not in your lifetime. I'm hoping people will come to accept the inevitability of this coming to them, not just in their lifetime, but in their near-term future, if they don't mobilize to stop it now. Back at Pure Alta in Altamont Springs, Frank Mart says the technology here is the way of the future. All Florida needs to do is say when. The decision about when this type of water is integrated with drinking water systems, that's a decision for the folks in Tallahassee.

The water itself is ready. The question is, are the users ready? In Orlando, I'm Molly During. And I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Rondup from your Florida Public Radio Station. We are officially in the dry season now, but the wet season was plenty dry throughout much of the state. Meteorologist Megan Browski is with the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network.

We desperately need rain across the Panhandle in North Florida, where drought conditions persist. It's dry enough now in the Tampa area for the regional, Water Management District to put some water restrictions in place. Warren Hogg is the chief science officer for Tampa Bay Water. This isn't a crisis, but what we're asking people to do is to conserve water. Only use what you need to use in your home and outdoors. The area received less than two inches of rain in September compared to the more than eight inches

expected, and October and November were also drier than usual. Now, the National Weather Service predicts the entire peninsula in about half of the panhandle will have drought conditions this dry season. Finally, on the round-up this week, there's the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, the Bak Tower in Lake Wales, the Dali Museum, and St. Petersburg. Even the Capitol Complex in Tallahassee.

Florida has plenty of buildings to admire or in the case of the Capitol Complex to criticize. But few have the style and innovation, like the New World Center. It's home to the New World Symphony in Miami Beach and sits in architectural contracts, and complement to buildings designed a century earlier in Miami's more famous Art Deco District

just a few blocks away. The building itself is a classroom, rehearsal spaces, and a concert hall all carved out of curves of steel and glass and stretched across the front, a 7,000 square foot blank wall where performances are projected onto it for the crowd gathered in a park outside.

From a audience standpoint, having it so big in the screen, and it'll make it a very compelling place to go. People will want to go and hear that. That's Frank Gary. He designed the building. Gary died late last week. Now, even if you've never seen a Gary designed building in person,

you probably would recognize one. His sweeping use of ribbons and flourishes of odd shapes, shapes that you would not think should be standing up as a building. But Gary believed it and designed it. There is a sense of what can be accomplished and what can't. And I've learned to just work from building to building and make the best out of what I'm given rather than to yearn for something else

because you're always disappointed. I'm happy with this, very happy. That was Gary in 2011 when the New World Center opened. He also designed the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. But the New World Center is the only building Gary designed that's here in Florida.

Gary was 96. That is our program for today. It is produced by WLR Public Media in Miami and WSF in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Denise Royal. WLRN's Vice President of Radio is Peter Merritt. Our program's technical director is M.J. Smith. Engineering help each and every week from Doug Peterson, Harvey Brassard, and Ernesto J. Our theme music is provided by Miami Jazz guitarist, Aaron Leibos, at Aaron Leibos.com. Thanks for calling, emailing, listening, and above all, supporting public media in your slice of Florida.

I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org.