Welcome to this latest edition of The Press Room from the radio studios of AZPM.

I'm your host Steve Goldstein coming up we'll discuss President Trump delaying tariffs on Mexico again and some protests at Tesla in Tucson.

Our panelists our Caitlin Schmidt of the Tucson Spotlight, Paul Ingram of the Tucson Sentinel, Paula Rodriguez of AZPM Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star guys.

Thanks all of you for being here.

Caitlin it's really early in the program I apologize, but I have to ask you about Sheriff Nanos and to set a little bit of context for this Governor Hobbs introduced Operation Desert Guardian as a way to increase border security and a lot of people would say, you know not upset President Trump a whole lot.

Sheriff Nanos has already pulled himself out of it.

It's not a surprise based on some of the things he said about federal policy, but a Democratic Sheriff, a Democratic Governor.

How does this all look?

I mean, yeah, it looks like there's some discord there definitely and he's not the only Sheriff to have withdrawn from it.

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff did as well After the conference call about the program I mean this tracks with what Sheriff Nanos has been telling us that they don't have the staffing for this that he's not interested in doing border security.

But it sounds like they both were also a little miffed that they were not approached by the Governor's office to provide input before she laid out the plan for them.

And I think both of these Sheriffs were in campaign ads with Governor Hobbs.

That's right.

Yeah.

Okay Paul What do you make of this?

I mean obviously it's not a stunner, but the fact is the politics though.

Well, there's I mean, of course, there's the politics to it I mean Nanos has really said he does not want to be involved in border stuff and this really kind of happens during the Trump administration.

Last time we went around to the Trump administration This was the end of Operation Stone Garden which was a federal grant that put money into the county and was used to send deputies out in the border regions especially out towards Ajo and that program ended because there was so much public outcry against it that the supervisors decided that they'd got rid of it.

Now one thing to keep in mind about these border things is that this actually costs the county money You know, especially when you're paying officers or deputies to be out in a field they sometimes get time and a half and then one of the things about like the Operation Stone Garden is that they were deputies who were going out to Ajo and we're doing their kind of last few years out there.

Which is a great way to buttress their salaries, which of course really dramatically increase their pensions.

And so for the county this is expensive Nanos has said this because he just doesn't have the deputies.

He doesn't have the deputy to send out and he really sees that the Tucson sector Border Patrol has 3,000 people at least and that those the ones who can do border stuff.

Yeah, Paula.

It seems like a practical decision at the same time again I keep pressing the politics, the headlines of this are really interesting as as Sheriff Nanos is we've talked about some of the controversies before.

What do you make of this?

I mean, yeah, they come from the same party but I think at the end of the day sheriff Nanos has always stood on this idea that you know Border Security is a federal issue.

And so federal dollars should be used for a federal issue.

I mean, we're seeing this kind of narrative in other areas as well I know last week the Tohono O'odham Vice Chairwoman was up in Congress saying to the federal government like hey 'We need more money.

We're spending tribal dollars on border security.'

And so it's not just like a state issue, it's also a tribal issue in that room and and it's a little bit different with this being a task force put forward by a Democratic Governor and you know a Democratic Sheriff stepping aside.

But you know, he's always maintained the stance of it being a federal issue Yeah, it is consistent Tim But the fact is that Nanos is such a I think a larger-than-life personality for Pima County and I was wonder sometimes if he's trying to generate headlines or if he is just trying to make a practical point.

Oh, well, you know what?

What I find interesting about it is that he basically fed into this idea what he did the ads.

He and Sheriff Hathaway did the border wall walk, the very traditional politician border wall walk with Katie Hobbs and you know, they said they were gonna you know, she she was good on border security and then, you know, for him not to do that now it kind of to me looks like a contradiction but Contradiction from the ad not from his general take politically as these guys have said, you know his take has been the feds should do it.

The other thing I found interesting about it is David Hathaway And he's made this point repeatedly said, 'you know this this task force perpetuates the myth that we are a crime ridden border community.'

We are not most most aren't most communities on the border are not crime-ridden and in that sense don't need this task force.

Yeah, I think that's an interesting point.

The fact is that there is the perception and obviously this is predicated on the Trump administration and talking about everyone's a thief or a rapist and etc, etc So that's an interesting point by Nanos.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, and it does perpetuate this narrative that we as journalists here work really hard to contradict and and dispel, because that's just not the case.

I mean we talked to countless, Paul's out there all the time, talking to people.

It's it's not a violent horrible place to be and by making such a strong statement by sending federal and state officers to partner up with deputies and hit out in the desert I mean it feeds right into that.

Yeah, we're gonna get some other stuff related to immigration, but I want to have all of you weigh in a little bit again.

I'm a political junkie I apologize in advance.

This is one of the things I enjoy talking about but so Governor Hobbs.

She is someone who I wouldn't think people would call her necessarily a traditional progressive, but she's certainly left of center maybe a traditional Democrat.

She was very much against proposition 314 which obviously passed by 20 points And if in fact the Texas law goes into effect Prop 314 will go into effect and that'll affect immigration policy in Arizona.

Does this seem like, I know she's running for reelection, this seemed like dangerous waters though for Katie Hobbs to be kind of inconsistent on this issue?

'I want a border task force, but I was against 314 I'm vetoing most of the things that the legislature sends me.'

I know she's a politician, but it seems like this could put her in some dangerous waters.

I mean it's always a problem for for someone like Katie Hobbs to you know to run against some of the aspects of the border.

And also want to do strike forces sort of a border strike force I mean a lot of ways Katie Hobbs' new administration has gone through and created a lot of the same ideas of Doug Ducey.

It's if they're using his playbook.

They sent the National Guard to the border to work at the ports.

They're doing a new border task force.

They're sending money down to all the different law enforcement agencies.

I mean for one thing to keep in mind is like Cochise County, which we kind of sometimes think of as an afterthought is actually probably has gotten the biggest boon from all these border security things and even got the most money from from Katie Hobbs who sent millions of dollars specifically to the Cochise County Sheriff to do border to deal with border issues.

Now their border issues of course are different than Pima County's there's been a lot more people driving through Pima County or Cochise County than for Pima County so the dynamic is really different, but still like, for Katie Hobbs, this is I think is a huge risk because she once she falls into the idea that the borders unsecured and that the border is dangerous, tt makes much easier for Republican to come and say you're not doing enough.

We need to secure the border which is something we hear again and again and again from politicians even though we've spent, we spend more money than ever on working on border issues.

Yeah, I do want to add to that, I think a lot of what we're seeing too is maybe a reflection of what happened with this past election.

I think the Democratic Party is really looking inwardly about how can we refocus some of our issue of some of the issues that we're seeing nationwide and border security was a big issue in this past election.

And so I think that might be playing down into state politics about how certain Politicians might be looking inwardly about how they should navigate, you know, these contentious issues and maybe they should be harder on the border.

Yeah, Tim that's a good point, because obviously Senator Gallego I think many of us were surprised not that he tried to to go to the center.

But the center on this issue as well and we saw with the Laken Riley Act I mean he kind of enthusiastically voted in favor of that.

So I think Paula's point is good, but where does this put Katie Hobbs though?

Right, it is tacking to the center.

I think that's what we're talking about on border issues help her in a general election.

There's I think there's risks, you know, she's she's set out a more an effort to push herself more toward the center politically.

Whereas others and I would mention here the Attorney General Kris Mayes also Senator Mark Kelly have kind of staked themselves out as opponents to the Trump regime and Hobbs has acted more conciliatory or at least willing to work especially on border issues.

I don't know.

It's a decision.

I don't know whether it's a good decision Kayla, yeah I mean I I think it's very likely she will not be running unopposed for a second term and this will probably come back and haunt her especially if we see her challenged by a Republican if she's gone soft, you know, said the borders unsecured like Paul said that's an easy point to attack her on but yeah.

She, I mean, we didn't see her campaigning a whole lot for the Harris campaign.

So she definitely took a backseat there so I I'm not super surprised by a move to the center at this point.

Yeah, so Paula, no surprise.

We're gonna talk more about Trump administration policies.

Let's talk about this whiplash on tariffs we're seeing, 'okay now I'm going to give breaks to Mexico because the big three automakers in the US asked me to and now maybe I'll just give them another month or so.

I had this great great conversation,' because I guess all of these conversations are great with President Shine Bomb.

So what do you make of all the whiplash right now?

I mean what it's looking like is that you know, President Trump is wanting to see automakers move more their productions towards the United States so that way, you know come a month when those tariffs start to hit, tt's not as bad of a hit You know, I have heard from reporting from New York Times, NPR, that you know one month is not enough time to you know, move all those productions, because we're talking more than just people right?

We're talking about facilities too and so well, it'll be interesting to see what comes of it in this next month.

Yeah, so Paul I think again I-whiplash I keep saying like what?

We know that President Trump is non-traditional.

Is that fair to say at this point?

That's fair.

But but it just it just seems strange for someone who and then he looks at the stock market goes down really horribly for a couple days.

Okay.

Well, maybe I'll give the tariffs a little bit of a break It just seems like this is gonna be very difficult for anyone on the ground in Pima County, in Mexico trying to figure out what are we supposed to do, because the economy is going to affect every single person.

So what do you make of what's going on?

Well, one thing I mean, yeah it's gonna keep what, it's gonna do is it's gonna stall investments and relationships in Mexico and in the United States, because no one's gonna know what to do.

Where should you build your factory right now?

Where should you build facilitie Where should your workers if your Ford Motor Company?

I mean there's products from Ford Motor that might cross the border of US Mexico border four or five times before it's finally built in an F-150 that's finished in Mexico.

So how do you how do you manipulate?

How do you deal with that situation and then you see something like in Nogales?

I mean, there's been a lot of investments toward doing the big produce warehouses and Jaime- Jaime Chamberlain you know, he did a big warehouse actually with with Juan Ciscomani and Doug Ducey and that was something that was a huge investment and the idea was is that products from Mexico would come to the United States be repacked?

And that was an investment.

So somebody like that how do you invest if you're not sure if something, there's gonna be a huge tariff and that means that products may not be coming in?

The same way everyone stalls that investment and I think for businesses all throughout southern Arizona, this is a huge problem because the uncertainty means they're just they're not going to do it.

Well, yeah, and when Paula references Doug Ducey, one of the things that do see would say even as Donald Trump was criticizing Mexico, is Mexico's Arizona's most important trade partner.

Yep.

So- Yeah, it's difficult I mean I was talking to people Tuesday and they were trying to figure out this is the first day that the 25% tariff was imposed and there was just, they weren't sure what they were supposed to do that day that there were various fees and stuff.

They were trying to work out, it has to be paid within a certain number of days and so that was Tuesday then Wednesday came and then then we were still under 25% tariffs and Thursday, you know, there was whispers something was gonna change.

Well, then he reverts to the USMCA terms of the US's this is the craziest thing which he renegotiated.

So he didn't renegotiate NAFTA as the USMCA and he is essentially violating its terms by imposing these tariffs.

So now he is retreated after having this wonderful conversation that you talked about with President Sheinbaum to the terms of USMCA and he's saying that we will put tariffs on anything that isn't covered by the USMCA.

So I mean who knows where we're stopping.

I can't believe it and that's just for a month, you know, there's another deadline.

It's just this continual uncertainty that he's perpetuating.

Well, Tim, I want to stick with you a little bit because I want to talk a little bit about your trip to Mexico.

So obviously some of this is quite anecdotal.

There are many many many many millions of people in the country so you can get a chance to talk to them, but what was the vibe you were picking up from the folks you did speak with?

Oh, well, okay So I was in Sonoita last week across from Lukeville and I was in Nogales and my colleague Emily was in Sasabe and honestly it is a picture of relative calm.

I mean, I've often thought that the the chaos at the border has been exaggerated, most of the time that it takes place episodically in certain places.

But right now, I mean it's it is really it was calmed down before Trump took office and it's more calmed down now.

Now what I was there for was to look at with the National Guard, the Mexican Guardia National is doing the reason is that they ten thousand showed up at the Mexican border with the United States as a result of the initial back and forth with Claudia Sheinbaum about 1500 on the Sonoran border and, you know what I found was a lot of make work.

Honestly, they, it's more of a show than anything They were checking cars coming across the border very little coming to the US port of entry.

I should say going northbound and very little to show for that in terms of seizures or anything, but it's just a presence They're also there to help deported people and other migrants and there's big setup in Nogales to help these people as there is across the border in Mexican cities.

On an initiative of the president and they're very lightly used.

There's a lot of social service people, ambulance drivers, medics, etc.

Just sitting around on their phones.

Yeah, and so was this some of this?

An image to project to our President, President Trump to show that 'hey, we're trying to cooperate, we're doing this.'

Yeah.

No, so like on the border there to me is most it has mostly been a demonstration, a show of force.

Emphasis on the show.

I should say there has been some reporting from further south.

I was getting it from the New York Times that there has been a real crackdown on manufacturing of fentanyl in in Sinaloa.

It doesn't, it's unclear as to as yet as to whether there's any impact up here as far as I know and I've checked a little bit the price of fentanyl is more or less the same on the streets of Tucson as it was before.

If we see start to see that price change or if we start to see you know a lack of of supply, then we'll know there's actually an effect interesting.

Paul, let me ask you about a story you were writing about ICE arrest and removal numbers, right?

So I know that president Trump's only been in office for a short amount of time, though so much has been going on and some of the numbers I think that you have or only maybe the first few weeks he was in office.

But right, what are some of the numbers showing?

I mean, are they way down, way up from the Biden administration?

What are we seeing with ICE?

Well, one thing that's really tricky is that we're just not seeing the these sort of big push of arrests.

That despite there the President, sort of shock and awe, where he's really wanted to push lots and lots of arrests throughout the United States that just hasn't happened.

And there's probably good constraints for it.

There's just not enough ICE officers even when they use US Marshals and other folks.

They're just, they can't do it and they don't have the detention space.

Of course, they've made a big show of this.

This is something Trump Administration is really good at of course.

They did the big military flights.

They even had a military flight here in Tucson that put about 80 people to Central and flew them to Central America.

Those flights of course are egregiously expensive And they already had programs to do that through ICE air.

So, you know, it was there to show we were using the military to do those things but right now, so far the data shows which is a little bit a little bit late, because it's data from ICE that then gets sent, compiled, and then sent to sent to track these folks who actually keep track of it.

And they really shows that arrests are just not what they would you would expect them to be and there's just the efforts in some ways, like the efforts, just aren't as good as they were under the Biden administration.

Biden administration was in some ways more effective at arresting people and deportin people than the Trump administration has been and so we'll see if that holds up if that situation changes, but right now that hasn't happened.

The other thing that's really important though is that the Trump administration has really gone after people who don't really have criminal histories.

They're sort of gobbling up people who are maybe as someone put it, they're low-hanging fruit.

They're the easiest people to arrest and they can make arrests so they can show that they're trying to do well.

Even though they're getting people who really aren't the sort of super criminals that you would expect from the rhetoric from the Trump administration and how it seems like a lot of this is intimidation.

Frankly just to scare people many of whom are not necessarily falling under this umbrella of the Trump administration wants to label them under.

Yeah, I think going back to what Paul was saying.

I think maybe a lot of it is Trying to make sure like, we're trying to make these steps and maybe the best way to do that right now for the Trump administration, is going for that like low-hanging fruit to maybe build confidence within the American public about us the US securing the border.

But you know from what it's sounding like within the Tucson area a lot of families that come from immigrant backgrounds are very intimidated by what's going on?

Caitlin do you find that as well?

Yes.

My colleague Susan was at a home last week with a visit Venezuelan family who had a scheduled visit from ICE.

They had stopped by the day before said they were there to check up on their children and make sure they weren't being trafficked.

The husband was the only one home.

So they told them they'd be back the next day at 4 p.m This family quickly got an attorney the attorney called a lot of press.

There was a big showing out there when ICE arrived, but they I mean it made a lot of headlines, too.

So I mean giving someone notice that you're gonna show up with agents is a pretty good way to make sure that there will be photographers and reporters there too.

So not saying they're not genuine efforts, but they certainly are demonstrative in a way.

Another thing that has people upset related to the Trump administration has to do with DOGE.

Nearly a thousand people protest last weekend at Tucson's Tesla dealership, a third week in a row for protests there.

Other protests took place downtown.

Paul what message is being sent and also you got to tell the quick Tesla Tesla owner story Oh sure a few people out there with Teslas.

Yeah, so so so I showed up and there were a thousand people protesting at River and Oracle over by the Tesla dealership there and there were three people who actually had Tesla cars.

They were part of the protest so they had signs on their cars, but one thing they were sort of particular is each one of them have a bumper sticker Which essentially said 'we bought this before we realized Elon was crazy' and and that's sort of the...

It's a tricky thing because lots of people who own Tesla's of course are maybe not staunched conservatives, they bought this because they wanted to save the environment and now they're sort of stuck with this car that really I think a lot of people really start starting to really hate.

And and for the people at the Tesla dealership I mean there's there's there's sort of this kind of somebody would walk out into her look at the crowd and go oh no and then walk back in.

So but this is the third time that people have protested this dealership And they're really showing their their fury at Elon Musk their finish during their failure yet at DOGE.

And that the Trump administration and one of things are interesting is course then I went to Saguaro National Park.

And there was another protest about the cuts there.

So you see there's people who are actually I think really invigorated and angry about the things that are happening.

The I think the hard question is whether this turns into actually like movement and electoral movement whether or not they can actually turn this new movement to win elections.

But right now there are lots of people who are very angry and really want to hear their voices heard about the things that they don't like what's happening in our government.

Yeah, and Caitlin and that's the thing I'm especially curious about is you know we've talked about this on the program a lot, you guys have been journalists here for a long time.

That this is a left-of-center community for the most part so do we have to see and are we seeing Tesla person?

I don't know for seeing Tesla protests across the country in places that may be less traditionally Blue and whether that is some of the impact.

And one of the things that came to mind for me is the crowd size and Paul, thanks for having the number, because we know how much president Trump loves crowd sizes.

So he can kind of measure where the impact of these kinds of things, but I don't know what sort of impact you think this can have?

Um yeah, I mean I think we're gonna see continued protests in Tucson For the foreseeable future, there's one today at the U of A here, stand for science.

And we had one on Monday for a day without immigrants, and we saw those in a lot of cities.

This is the second one of those protests, largely in cities in California and Texas that have large immigrant populations, but I think this is just gonna grow in steam.

I mean I will be shocked if we don't have another protest at Tesla this weekend, and if it's not a bigger crowd I mean as these efforts continue and as people are impacted and as they get upset I think we're gonna see them join forces.

And I mean my Instagram feed this week was full of pictures of people replacing their Tesla logos with other car logos So I mean there there seems to be some shame there now.

Yeah, Tim.

What did you see downtown?

Oh, I wasn't downtown But yes there were two protests downtown on Tuesday one that went to the city hall and another one at the federal building I'm not sure where so yeah, and they're not we should say coordinated with each other in most cases, so they're just kind of cropping up here and there.

I would say on the, and the Tesla thing, one thing I found interesting is reading more about it and reading about Elon Musk.

You know, so the idea is to be you know people who are upset with Musk and his role in the administration are trying to demonstrate it at Tesla it actually, I've learned, can have an impact because I didn't understand how much of his wealth is tied up in Tesla and tt is a lot and he also has leveraged that wealth to get loans.

And so as a result when the stock price falls which it has been steeply lately at a certain point there let their margin calls from his lenders who need either more stock, more commitments, and so that then also has a depressing effect on the share value.

Yeah, all right.

Let's spend our last few minutes, Caitlin let me start with you on prop 414 which we've been talking about for weeks a very important election to see if the sales tax is gonna be increased there are folks who say it's regressive shouldn't be done.

They're also fix it.

Well, we need this money to pay for police, fire, help the unhoused.

It's been a discussion as well, a lot more 'No' signs on corners than 'Yes' signs and I think when the campaign started maybe that would have surprised people.

So what are you hearing right now, kind of numbers, if we've seen so far in terms of ballots that have been returned?

Yes, so Paul's colleague Jim Nintzel reported that 55,000 ballots had been reported returned, which is about 18% 305,000 went out.

I know my bail ballot is still sitting at home.

So I think that there are a lot of people that intend to vote that just haven't done that yet.

So I think we'll see those go up But that's pretty good turnout for a city election.

And I think that this touches on a lot of hot-button issues that people really care about.

How affordable housing, homelessness, police surveillance, police technology, all of those things it's hard to find a person that doesn't feel strongly about those issues.

So, I mean, I think they have some voter appeal there.

There's been a lot of spending.

We've seen about three hundred thousand dollars spent in this race kind of evenly on both sides, a little more by the no side, but that's that's a lot of money for an off-year city election.

Have you feel that's valid yet?

I it's one question.

So it's, so it you how are you gonna vote?

Hello, what are you what are you seeing?

I mean you were out of town for a couple weeks, what are you feeling when it comes to you know, I'm seeing a lot of people on both sides I'm perpetually online and you know I get notifications on my phone, reddit threads of people being like, 'vote no for prop 414' and people saying 'vote yes.'

I think you know what Caitlin was saying with there being hot-button issues like policing and you know, the housing crisis, a lot of people are put off by the fact that you know, the police department would possibly get a new helicopter and they don't see a need for that, right?

And maybe other people are saying that there needs to be more resources put towards housing initiatives.

And you know depending where you sit on those issues that might sit well with you, that might not, and so yeah.

So turn now to Paul and Tim.

Tim let me start with you, turn out is important, as Caitlin says 18% so far, off year election just a few months after a massive election.

People needed to take a little break from and yet this is a really important issue being decided.

Is this just sort of politics as usual lets we want to have turnout low on this?

Yeah, right So the idea I mean the common wisdom locally is that if you want that you try to pick your electorate on these sorts of issues where you can choose when to have the election, so the idea is that if you hold an election in March, then you can motivate the people who take your side now as it turns out.

There's just a lot of motivated people on both sides for this issue and as stated, you more energy, I would say certainly more money on the side of the the no, because partly because there is opposition on the right and on the left.

Yeah, Paul just a few seconds left if it doesn't pass am I gonna say hey you're a consultant, what's the next step?

But what kind of impact could this have if it goes down?

Well, I mean it's gonna have a huge impact.

I mean one thing to keep in mind is a lot of the things that the city is doing for homeless and homeless sheltering And things that money's, that money's gone there, the federal money of course is cutting getting cut back.

They're probably gonna be less state money.

So those things are gonna go away.

And then of course like the police I mean the police want new vehicles there, they have lots of aging vehicles that are increasingly unsafe and worn.

You know, I don't know how the police department is going to cover that.

You know, there's been a lot of talk about the airplane, the surveillance airplane.

Of course police want one thing we could mine is like that's replacing their helicopters, which are aging and old too and also maybe lets them do some things that people actually want them to do.

And our next edition of The Press Room we will be discussing the outcome, we hope, hope we'll have the numbers by then.

Thanks to a great panel, Caitlin Schmidt of the Tucson Spotlight, Paul Ingram the Tucson Sentinel, Paula Rodriguez AZPM, Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star.

Thank you all and thank you very much for watching this edition of The Press Room I'm Steve Goldstein.

Enjoy the rest of your night Great guys, thank you.

Thanks.