The following is an AZPM original production.

♪ UPBEAT RHYTHMIC BRASS MUSIC ♪ Hello and welcome to this latest edition of The Press Room from the radio studios of AZPM.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Coming up on the program, we'll talk about a visit to Tucson by U.S.

Senator Cory Booker and discuss the ongoing legal battle between Attorney General Kris Mays and Fondamonte over Arizona's water supply.

With me to talk about these and many other issues are John Washington of AZ Luminaria, Natalie Robbins of the Tucson Sentinel, Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star and Zac Ziegler of AZPM News.

Thank you all for being here.

Tim, we have a new member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

No big surprise, but what do you make of this election?

- Well yeah, so Andres Cano was selected by a unanimous vote.

I think what was surprising about it was that it came so quickly.

It was prepared in advance.

We all kind of thought that he was gonna be the guy, but yes, the chair, Rex Scott, even had a speech prepared to explain.

And this is obviously before he was supposed to have discussed it with his colleagues.

So they all knew who they're gonna vote for one way or the other.

And he came in Andres and immediately acted like a supervisor.

- Yeah, John, what do you make of the choice?

- I mean, yeah, I think, you know, you had a pretty astute column, I think, a couple weeks ago, Tim, about that we shouldn't just see it as inevitable.

But you know, I think it sort of was.

And you know, he really comes very well trained, mentored, seasoned to fill a role such as this.

He was in the state legislature.

He went to Harvard for further government studies.

Then he was a liaison between Tucson and the federal government.

So I mean, really, he has the, you know, experience to fill this role.

- And Tim, a more recent column, you talked about how you think he may behave as a supervisor based on who his mentor was.

You said the first day seemed to indicate he was gonna follow him the same way.

Talk about that a little bit.

- Yeah, well, this, I mean, I think he would have said this in advance, too.

But Richard Elias is who he grew up under at the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

And he still has close, very close to Richard Elias then died in 2020 unexpectedly.

That's what led to Adelita Grijalva eventually getting the seat.

So yeah, I mean, I talked to Richard's brother, Albert Elias, who's a well known guy here in town.

And he said he sees what three things in them that the sense that they know where they're from, that each of these two Andres and Richard share, they know where they're from, they respect their elders and they listen.

I think he is Andres, a bit of a young old man, or maybe, yeah, I guess it's a young old man.

And it'll be interesting to see if he how he adapts and shows if he shows that youth as well.

- Yeah.

Natalie, what are your thoughts on this?

Because he is someone who was sort of rubber stamped, and yet he does bring his own character to the place.

Right.

I mean, I know that sometimes they want to appoint someone that doesn't plan on running.

But I imagine that he'll probably run for the seat.

You know, I'm sure it'll give him a leg up.

And, you know, I was just looking at his list of endorsements that he sent out the 250 people.

And it's like every single major Democrat in Tucson and Pima County is on there.

So certainly seems inevitable.

- Yeah.

- And you really didn't see see him geting challenged by establishment candidates for this.

You had one person on of the whole group, Karla Morales, who's been on the Pima Community College Board for a handful of months now.

Other than that, no one else had actually held office, at least as far as I saw during doing some backgrounding on them.

- I think there's also there's not really a clear political shift with this replacement here.

But what will be interesting and maybe a lot of people are hoping for is that there's be a little bit more of a spark in a very youthful candidate with seemingly a lot of ambition, too.

So it'll be interesting to see how he plays it.

- Well, to all of you, the fact that he has decided he is going to run, it seems.

So I don't know if there's anything official, but it definitely feels like he's going to run.

Should we expect much competition or no?

- I mean, I doubt it.

It feels like he can write his own ticket.

I'm sure he might be challenged one time or another by either a Democrat or Republican.

But yeah, he's in a firm position as long as he handles the seat well.

- OK, let's move on to eight candidates officially making the C.D.

seven ballot to succeed.

Raul Grijalva, we know officially five Democrats, three Republicans.

And Zac that includes a couple of big names who we've addressed before, obviously, Adelita Grijalva and Daniel Hernandez.

What do you make of it?

Do you think it's probably going to be a two person race there or could Deja Fox make a difference there?

- I am curious about that one.

Deja Fox might get in because of her experience working on the national level.

But by the way, if Wikipedia is to be to be believed, happy birthday to her today.

She just turned 25.

Oh, yeah.

- I was going to refer to 24 year old Deja Fox.

- So thank you for that.

- Well there you go.

- Yeah.

- You got to get that updated.

But then again, once again, relying on Wikipedia.

But that's the one that I see.

And then that see you kind of have a few of the routine sacrificial lambs on the Republican side, once again, including Daniel Butierez who was the first to jump in on this race.

- I want to get to that in a moment.

But Natalie, you were with us in the week after Congressman Grijalva passed.

So now that we know what the names are, does it feel like Adelita is the front runner by far or no?

- You know, I'm not sure.

I think, you know, Tucson politics kind of operates in dynasties a lot of the time.

I mean, you look at, you know, after Gabby Giffords resigned, it was Ron Barber who took over for her.

I think a lot of the time, maybe when somebody leaves kind of tragically, the next person, you know, the person that's kind of rubber stamped by them has a has a huge advantage.

So I think she does.

But I also think, I mean, I wouldn't count the other two out.

- OK. John, what do you think?

- Yeah, you know, in Mexican politics, there's the phrase "el dedazo," which is like finger tapping who's who's going to get to get the seat.

And again, I guess lean again on Tim's former column about the inevitability of potentially Grijalva taking the seat.

I think it behooves us here and the press to really make this a race about the issues.

You know, it's hard to find daylight between the leading Democratic candidates right now, but, you know, right now it's, you know, maybe a little bit more of a personality test than a political test.

How do we differentiate between them?

And I think we need to dig into the issues.

It's not about just the money and the politics, the endorsements, but actually where they stand on the issues.

And that's up to us to play it out.

(Steve) Well, Tim, the daylight part of it to me is interesting, though, because I think from from 30,000 feet, certainly, but all you guys have covered these folks, I still think about Grijalva representing the furthest left part of the Democratic Party.

And Daniel Hernandez, at least by virtue of his siblings, who make a little bit different kind of noise in the state legislature, maybe a little bit more to the center of the party.

Is there daylight there potentially?

- Oh, yeah.

For sure.

- OK. (Steve) What issues would come to mind?

- Yeah, I mean, I would say some of the I would call him more of a chamber of commerce Democrat.

Not not totally.

That's a little.

But it's a little closer to where he is.

And although I wouldn't put the Grijalva on the farthest left, either.

I know the people on the farthest left would say they've compromised too much on some things.

So I would say business issues would be one thing.

You know, the Grijalva, um, faction tends to be very much going towards social justice and all that.

It could be Israel will be a big issue.

Daniel Hernandez and his sisters are big defenders of Israel.

And it's probable, I think, that we'll see a different point of view from Adelita Grijalva and some of the others.

- And a district like this, you know, obviously a left of center district.

Does that matter?

- I don't really know if it matters honestly.

(Steve) OK. - Zac, what are your thoughts on this going forward with this with this group?

We've mentioned Deja Fox, but the other two.

Do you see daylight there or no?

- You know, there's always a little and you have seen the Hernandez family kind of breaking with a lot of the the institutional Democrats in Pima County than some of what they've done.

So, you know, we we saw them coming out against the sales tax in Tucson.

And so maybe that's going to be a bit of what we'll see here is kind of trying to be the the anti establishment part of the party.

- Yeah, ironically, the anti establishment part of the party is the centrist part, whereas you just you think of it as the leftist or the rightist.

(Steve) Absolutely.

So Natalie, I think it was one of your colleagues of the Sentinel wrote about this could be a very expensive race, not asking for specific numbers, but it feels that way, doesn't it?

- Yeah.

- I mean, this is going to be competition.

People are really gonna-John what are your thoughts on that?

Could be a lot of money.

- I mean, what we have the numbers from Hernandez only so far.

So we'll see.

I mean, there's a a machine, maybe a national machine behind Grijalva, as we've already seen.

So, yeah, we'll find out very soon.

(Steve) Well, and one would think, Tim, once you get into that seat, you've got it for a while.

So you would like to get it and you spend as much as you can to get it the first time.

- Oh, yeah.

For sure.

- To be a little cynical politically.

But yeah.

- Totally, yeah.

I mean, the first time is key.

And then the second time you're golden.

This is, I think the general understanding after that it's supposed to be smooth sailing.

- Yeah.

I mean, you could really see in the past, there was not a lot of fundraising on the part of Raul Grijalva often done.

And I think those same campaign signs were used for at least four or five cycles.

[ LAUGHS ] - The mustache.

Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And before we move off this and, Zac, thank you for mentioning Mr. Butierez.

John, I'm going to toss this to you.

The fact that we are seeing such a changing of the guard.

Obviously, the district does not change.

But the fact we had someone who was an incumbent, very successful, beloved incumbent who has passed away.

Does that give Butierez any daylight in the general election if he were to win the primary in the Republican side?

- I think that would be a big surprise if he, you know, even gained a few points from from last time he ran.

I mean, we'll see, but I'm not expecting it.

(Tim) No, I agree.

It's a very long shot for Republican in that district, no matter who the Democrat is.

- Not sure there's much to talk about with Senator Cory Booker coming to Tucson, because this is just sort of another drop in by a well-known name.

We saw so much of that last fall.

But, Zac, let me just ask you the significance of someone who is who is just obviously just did that amazing speech.

Broke Strom Thurmond's record in the Senate.

He is he has run for president before.

Who knows if he'll do it again.

Significance of him being there with Senator Mark Kelly, etc.

- Yeah.

And I think that is a bit of an appeal.

Kelly, very known as a centrist.

Booker known similarly in Arizona.

He's probably pretty well known from 2019.

Him and Jeff Flake's friendship and their snowball fights they were having in D.C. And I kind of wonder about that now.

What will get interesting is he his term is up as a senator in 2026.

That comes before.

So, OK, we might see a little bit going on there as to how he handles it.

There is I found out a website that I couldn't figure out who has it registered Cory Booker dot org that is urging him to run for president.

And the who is listing on it has been anonymized.

- OK. All right.

Natalie, let me ask you because it follows just a couple of weeks before of Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Ocasio-Cortez Tucson is a hotspot again.

What do you make of these big names being here?

- You know, to me, I think that the left is really trying to drum up a certain kind of energy right now.

I think especially, you know, with Bernie Sanders and AOC, I feel maybe kind of trying to to rebuild the Democratic Party a little bit.

They've seen that, you know, clearly it's not working the way it is.

- So, John, comparing Booker to Sanders and AOC.

(John) I mean, 25 hours.

Could Sanders manage that?

I don't know.

[ LAUGHS ] (Tim) He's done pretty well.

One thing on these town halls, it's kind of been bothering me, which is that like this town hall was called as a kind of challenge to make fun of Juan Ciscomani for not holding a town hall.

Ciscomani did have a telephone town hall, but that was like announced late.

It was kind of not really a town hall.

But on the other hand, this one wasn't really either in some ways, because the way you got tickets was through some specific Democratic Party channels.

You had to be kind of an insider on a given mailing list in order to know to RSVP.

And then by the time any broader public knew how to RSVP, it was too late because the tickets were sold out.

So it wasn't like they announced to anyone that you can come to this town hall.

It was a very selective group of people.

- More rally than town hall.

And what do the constituents want?

I mean, I think they are receiving criticism.

Both parties are receiving criticism.

One, obviously the Republicans, we've seen these videos of them being lambasted by their constituents.

And the Democrats, I mean, what is there?

They're maybe getting spurred on a little bit to do a bit more.

But there hasn't really been much of substance that I've seen at least coming from these.

(Steve) That seems fair.

Absolutely.

All right.

Earlier this week, two Senate attorney Matthew Green filed two suits in federal court on behalf of a pair of students where their visas terminated.

John, let me start with you.

There's been obviously a concern on a number of campuses, including where we are at the U of A.

This lawsuit seems at least like some way to try to fight back, which a lot of people we just mentioned, town halls, et cetera.

A lot of people at least on the left want there to be more fighting back against what's going on with the Trump administration and the policies.

So without delving into the wording of the lawsuit, which I don't think anyone else has actually studied, what do you make of the concept of this?

- I mean, we're in a situation where we're just trying to understand exactly what's going on here.

We've been reporting about ASU for a while.

U of A was not giving up numbers.

They are still not giving up numbers.

And yet we're getting them.

And I think this is a private law firm that is taking a stance that we haven't seen the public universities or really clearly public officials here actually stand up to take.

You know, I've actually received messages from students asking me what they should do who have had their student visas revoked.

And I think this this opens up the obvious problem that like the U of A or the or ASU really hasn't been clear enough.

There is obvious fear on this campus.

There's befuddlement about what's going on.

There's just we don't have enough idea of how many students are having their visa revoked.

We don't really really understanding why or what the next steps are.

And when people when students are coming to me as a reporter to ask what they should do, you know, put them in touch with some attorneys.

But I think that points to a bigger issue.

- Natalie, we've seen the indication that the U of A, for example, will be more forthcoming with information or that they really can help these students or will help these students.

- Well, you know, they've been pretty cagey.

They're not they're not going public with numbers, which, you know, is certainly a choice.

I don't know.

I don't know why.

But I think, you know, it's important to note that these are students who are getting their visas revoked for traffic infractions, you know, speeding tickets, things like that.

So these are not these are not criminals.

(Tim) There's something interesting that seems to have happened over this period of during this kind of campaign of revoking visas, which started with as far as we know, people at Columbia University or other East Coast Ivy League universities being targeted apparently for their political activities.

And then in more recent weeks, it's turned almost completely to people with some sort of criminal involvement, even if it's small or been taken care of or what have you.

I don't know.

Maybe you know, John, but I don't know of anyone who's been targeted around here specifically for their or where it's evident that it's because of their political involvement.

- No, I haven't heard that either.

I mean, in fact, ASU has said that it's not because of their any protest related activities.

And it has been like the criminal involvement.

Some of them actually were just misdemeanors and some of the criminal involvement happened years in the past and they applied for the visa and obtained the visa after they were had gone through the criminal process already.

So this is actually going deep into history here to try to target these individuals.

- And it's contradicting previous decisions by the same state department, right?

So the same state department previously didn't care, but now does care.

- One other point.

I mean, going back to the question about the lawsuit.

I mean, what they're claiming is that it's actually unlawful that they're targeting these students.

There is part of the SEVIS program, Student Exchange Visitor Information System, I think, and they're revoking their status as students.

And the attorneys here at Green Evans Schroeder and a number of doesn't have lawsuits throughout the country saying that's actually not legal to revoke that status without due cause.

- Well, there was one part of a paragraph that I pulled out here that the students whose names were not disclosed fear retaliation by the Trump administration for, quote, asserting their rights through this lawsuit and harassment or blacklisting by third parties.

I don't know how many times in the course of this program, the last few weeks, I've said chilling effect.

But I mean, Zac, that's what makes me think of it.

- Yeah.

And that's you know, you can look on both sides of this issue and see that because that's probably why the universities aren't saying anything either is they're looking at what's going on with Harvard and they're thinking about the federal dollars.

I mean, yeah, granted each of these students, that's forty thousand dollars a year ish intuition.

But man, those federal grants worth millions are a way bigger deal.

And not to mention any sort of nonprofit statuses and things like that.

That's a big concern on the universities.

- I mean, in other words, are they protecting the students or are they protecting themselves?

I mean, understandably, maybe I mean, with millions of dollars on the line or more.

But I mean, I think that is clear.

It is important to make that point.

(Tim) If you take Harvard's case into consideration, it really becomes a situation where you have to protect the students to protect yourself as a university.

Because as I understand it, the Trump administration is now questioning Harvard's right to have international students.

Well, if any of these universities doesn't have international students, that's maybe as not quite as big a hit, but it's almost as big a hit as losing research dollars.

- Absolutely.

Tim, let me stick with you on this.

A couple hundred people protested in Tucson in front of the Salvadoran consulate for a vigil for the Salvador National Maryland resident who was deported.

We've seen all sorts of headlines.

I guess a U.S.

Senator Chris Van Hollen actually sat down with him so we know he's still alive.

Give me an idea of what you saw when you went from where you were taking some pictures there.

What was the vibe like there?

- Well, the interesting thing to me is that I have seen this consulate dozens and dozens of times over the years and never identified it as a consulate.

I saw the Salvadoran flag.

I didn't really identify it.

But there it is near Craycroft and Fifth, the Salvadoran consulate.

And so a lot of people learned that this week.

And yeah, I mean, there's a general I guess this individual gives a focal point for a broader concern, which is a concern over due process and shipping people abroad without giving them due process.

So yes, it was all about this one guy, Kilmar Garcia, I believe his name is, or Abrego Garcia.

But yeah, I think we'll probably be seeing more of these because I think there's a general frustration on the part of, again, people on the political left with the government of El Salvador.

And lo and behold, we have a government of El Salvador office here in Tucson.

- John, I want to ask you to follow up.

Let me ask you Natalie first.

What struck me is that I don't know if you saw this, but El Salvador's president was in the White House with Donald Trump and said that he didn't have the power to do anything.

And now Donald Trump says, even the Supreme Court says he should do it.

All of that again, I'm going to say chilling again.

That was something that was a little strange to see, wasn't it?

- Yes, I think.

Yeah, I did see that.

It's you know, it's important to note that he wasn't deported because deportation is a legal process, you know.

And when you are deported, you are sent to your home country to live.

And he is in prison and he's never been charged with a criminal offense.

And he didn't have his day in court.

Those are the facts, you know, and no one.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that it was a mistake and the administration admitted that it was an administrative error and still nothing is being done.

You know, that's just the objective facts of the situation.

- John, you worked for a Salvadoran media outlet.

Can you give us some insight there?

- Yeah, El Faro know, I think there are compounding issues.

Of lack of due process here.

One is obviously the questions you're just raising, Natalie, about, you know, not truly a deportation, but also you have to look at what's happening in Salvador.

There are, I think, over 30 extensions of a state of emergency have been put in place by Nayib Bukele, the president, since 2022.

If you go back a little bit further, Bukele, you know, sort of like a preview of the capital invasion, he actually ordered armed guards to take over the House of Congress briefly.

And where these people are being sent, the Venezuelans, in this case, the Salvadoran, are being sent into a center for confinement of terrorists supposedly.

And they have been denied basic due process.

Some of them aren't charged, aren't charged for a very long time.

They are basically held incommunicado from lawyers, from family.

And people are effectively disappeared into this prison.

And this is the model that the Trump administration is willing to use to send back people not yet even charged with crimes, I think is really alarming.

- And the compounding, the alarming nature of this is the fact that the first Donald Trump has said he wants to send American citizens there.

And second, the logic that sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia there, the same logic could leave any of us vulnerable because if they say they made a mistake and they can't do anything about it, well, they can make a mistake with you or me or any of us and not do anything about it.

And we end up in this prison in El Salvador.

(Steve) I mean, and that's one of the things, too, even if I suppose there are people who even agree with some of the administration policies who are still a little bit put off by seeing people in dark masks and dark vans just automatically coming up and pulling someone off the street.

I would think most people would be a little bit concerned about that.

- Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, it has echoes of every authoritarian dictatorship of the past.

- Zac, what are your thoughts on this?

I mean, what if the Trump administration continues to defy the courts?

- Yeah, I mean, that is the question.

And we have seen a couple of times like, oh, we don't have the ability to get back here.

It's like, well, you could have very easily put him on a couple of different planes by now where there was flights going direct from Washington to El Salvador that I'm guessing weren't full based on the fact that these were high ranking government officials flying on them.

So that that is there's a lot of performance to this and a lot of kind of willful pushing back on legal decisions.

- Natalie, briefly, this is a little bit of a leap, but I thought your story this week was very interesting about folks who are still going down to Mexico to get their dental care.

And the timing of it, I thought, was perfect in the sense that I guess these are people who aren't necessarily concerned about border policy or changing policy.

Are they still going to go get their cheap dental care?

- Yeah, I think a lot of them are.

Some of the dentists I spoke with said that they are seeing a lot less fewer patients than in the past.

People expressing fears about getting back across because I know in Los Albedones, which is a huge dentist town on the border with Yuma, they've started requiring permits for Americans to get across, which creates huge lines.

So people are sort of worried about that in Nogales.

But I mean, I cross back without any type of permit.

But I think you have any (Steve) Did you have any work done or no?

- I did not.

Maybe I should have double.

(Steve) Double dip.

- No, but I think it's interesting if it will the number will go down because people are afraid to cross or if it will go up because inflation is making dental care so expensive in this country that people have to go to Mexico.

- You know, that's a fair point.

- I mean, I think it's also just important to remember our history here.

I mean, these aren't even quite sister cities.

This used to be a single city and until the border cleaved it in two and, you know, researching some about the history of Nogales there.

When they first implemented the border patrol and first started actually drawing the border line, citizens of Ambos Nogales petitioned that they would put the checkpoint actually north of the city because they wanted to continue to live together.

And so this is, you know, a further interruption of, I think, what we're seeing there.

- OK, Zac, we're putting you in the spotlight.

I promised you more than this.

I'm giving you 90 seconds, though.

You did so much great reporting on Fondamonte and water and whatnot.

Now Fondamonte is trying to get a suit brought by Attorney General Kris Mayes dropped.

Give us some of the details as briefly as you can.

- Yeah, I mean, this is a nuisance lawsuit claiming that Fondamonte is causing problems for people who live in the area around this farm in La Paz County.

This week, there was a response from Fondamonte to this requesting that be dropped.

They're saying that basically pointing to Arizona statute where it says, "hey if you're not in an AMA, you can pump as much water as you want so long as you're using it constructively."

You're not just letting it run down the road.

And growing alfalfa certainly counts as a constructive use.

So that's their argument.

We don't have anything as far as a hearing for when that will be heard.

- So 30 seconds, which is totally unfair to you.

The Fondamonte thing got started by Doug Ducey saying, yes, Saudi Arabia pay for some of our water.

- I mean, it just started years back when I guess they figured out, I mean, you can really go back in Tapped and we traced the Arizona-Saudi relations to before statehood and before the kingdom was there.

You know, they were sending people over here to the U of A to learn agriculture and having people from the U of A go over there to teach them agriculture.

- Wow.

I presume-now you're moving to Oregon.

I presume you guys keep following this story.

- Hopefully there's plenty of good people I can hand it off to here, though.

- Okay.

Zac Ziegler, thank you for spending your swan song with us on The Press Room.

We apprecaite it.

- Oh yeah, happy to.

Natalie Robbins, thank you, Tucson Sentinel, good to have you here.

- Thank you.

John Washington, of AZ Luminaria.

Thank you for getting back from Mexico City in time for the program.

We appreciate it.

And Tim Steller, the Arizona Daily Star.

Good to see all of you.

Thanks very much for being here.

And thank you very much for joining us for this edition of The Press Room.

We'll be back next week with another episode.

I'm Steve Goldstein.