The following is an AZPM original production.

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

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Coming up on the program, the U of A responds to Trump administration orders by consolidating its cultural centers and the Democratic candidates for CD7 had their first formal debate.

With me to talk about these and other topics are Caitlin Schmidt of the Tucson Spotlight, Paul Ingram of the Tucson Sentinel, Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star and Hannah Cree of AZPM News.

Thank you all for being here.

Caitlin, let's start off with the U of A consolidating these cultural centers.

I think people many have seen this coming based on the reaction to the Trump orders on DEIA.

But let's describe first of all, what's going on here.

There were seven centers that are now one?

Kind of, yes.

So there were seven centers that housed various student groups, the Native American Student Affairs, LGBTQ student affairs, different cultural groups, and six of them will be consolidated into one engagement hub.

And the Native American Student Affairs is going to be rolled into a separate Native American program that already exists within the university.

The timing of this was certainly interesting.

The Monday after all of the graduation festivities had ended and students had left town, there were some protests to the announcement in January that this would happen.

So one way to avoid protest is to do something on campus when no one's here to protest it.

So still, there was a small gathering on Wednesday because on Tuesday, Julian Jaun, the longtime director of Native American Student Affairs, was terminated.

The university gave him a reason, but the timing aligned with the consolidation and previously directors had been told that they wouldn't be able to keep their jobs.

So there's been a small show of force with people who are still on campus and the indigenous student groups and other cultural groups to get the U of A to stop.

But it seemed like that's quite unlikely.

So Hannah, what does this mean for the thousands of students and the centers as far as employment, as far as opportunity to really find themselves comfortable when it comes to these centers?

Yeah, as far as we know, the students are going to keep their jobs for the next upcoming school year.

They haven't spoken on anywhere beyond that.

One thing that's important to note though, is the U of A has a new provost that was, her name is all over this decision, Patricia Prelock.

And I, some people at the U of A really had hope for her incoming tenure as she was interim of University of Vermont where President Garimela came from.

She signed the American Association of Colleges and Universities Call for Constructive Engagement to the Trump administration against what they said is "unprecedented government overreach."

So people say this consolidation as a step, kind of a step backwards from that.

And it disappointed a significant portion of students on campus.

And I think it might be difficult for her to come back.

You can only make a first impression one time.

And to do this two weeks after you start is, it's significant.

I also think that the Student Culture and Engagement Hub is a very intentional name.

It's pretty vague and shies away from the in-your-face DEI stuff that is, has had a chilling effect over the last couple months.

As to what I'm hearing from students, it's kind of a resigned acceptance at this point because Garimela has not had any contact with these student groups and he's been in office since October.

So I think it'll be interesting to see what happens going forward.

Interestingly enough about first impressions, one of the first things that President Garimela did after arriving on October was try to move all of these student groups out of the student union to make room for employees who had been in Old Main.

So it's kind of interestin that we're seeing a second first action that immediately impacts tens of thousands of students that are served by these groups.

So Tim, I think what struck me about what Hannah said is this idea of changing the name of it.

It almost feels like a awkward end around the Trump administration.

No, no, we're trying to comply, but you know, we're also helping this.

Yeah, it's almost like you're designing something that can't be detected by AI.

You know, they ran it through, they ran every department through a search engine, some AI program, then they might not notice the cultural and engagement, our culture and engagement hub.

But I mean, yeah, why, I don't understand why is it okay to have all these services under one hub when it isn't under seven or six, I guess there's six plus one now.

I mean, probably they've been showing all along, they're trying to kind of duck and not get into trouble with the Trump administration.

And to me, that's what this looks like.

Yeah.

And whether the mission has changed or not, people who work at the university higher ups will say it has not.

We know perception is important.

So how does this look from a perception standpoint?

Well, I mean, for a perception standpoint, it shows that I think that the U of A is sort of, you know, kowtowed, they've agreed to do this thing, they've rebranded it, or however, we're going to hub, it's not even clear whether or not that's going to have the same resources or the same number of services.

You know, I think that folks said they, you know, they have helped students 28,000 times last year, if the new hub going to be able to do that with fewer resources, and our students be able to be able to get the help they need.

At the same time, you know, there's, I think, a push and pull between the university about these other things about there's administrative stuff where they're trying to kind of narrow and, and essentially put a lot more stuff under the president and other provost.

So there's also that where they're kind of getting rid of departments, they're getting rid of vice presidents, there's kind of a narrowing and a verticality of their administration that's captaining too.

So there's kind of different parts, but really, when it comes down to it, the U of A agreed to get rid of these centers because they're afraid of the Trump administration.

Yeah, everyone agree with that?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

All right, let's move on to the first formal gathering of the CD seven democratic candidates.

Pretty interesting.

Now, Hannah, I'm not going to put you on the spot as a person of a certain generation, but you're a little younger than the rest of us.

And there is a candidate running who is, it's not that much younger, I guess, than Daniel Hernandez or Adelita Grijalva, but it's a different generation, certainly.

And that's Deja Fox.

Can I get your observations as to what stood out about her first?

So we're going to get into some of the fighting, but how about that first?

As the resident young person.

It was hard for me to say that, but I take it as a compliment.

I think that Deja Fox on that stage was very symbolic of the Democratic Party tensions on a national level right now.

We did see young people swing for the Republicans much more than anyone anticipate for her to say, here are several career politicians to my left and right, and what they're doing isn't working.

And here's why it's time for someone really fresh and new like me to come in.

She definitely made a strong case.

I don't know if young people were specifically watching this debate, but I think she really hit hard on those young voter issues, especially reproductive rights and abortion.

So yeah, I think it speaks to a bigger national conversation that the Democrats are having right now.

That's interesting.

Caitlin, what do you think about the idea of a candidate like that?

If she is trying to appeal a different generation, a different generation, we're not even sure they're high efficacy voters at this point.

In fact, they're not yet.

So what do you think about that approach?

And will it actually attract voters?

I mean, I think she's very intentional in her approach.

So yes, I will with her base.

I think it's going to work.

So I don't think many of her of her base tuned into the debate, but they are following her on social media.

And her Instagram has been very active the past few days.

A couple times on video has rolled across my feed with the headline, Deja Foxx decimates a Democratic establishment in 52 seconds.

So I mean, she is, she is in your face.

She's doing the same thing that she's been doing.

And she's capitalizing on the fact that she was on those on that stage with those people who have been in this space for a long time.

And she took them to task a little bit and said the things that a lot of young people are thinking.

So maybe they're not watching the debate on TV or listening to it on the radio, but if they're following her on Instagram and she can get them fired up and up, hopefully they can hit the polls.

You know, young people might say Instagram blew up.

I mean, I don't know.

Anyway, Tim, let's talk about Grijalva versus Hernandez, because that we expected that to get most of the attention.

And that was where most of the energy was.

Were you surprised at how on the attack they both seemed, particularly Hernandez?

Yeah.

I mean, he, you know, all you have to do to know who's leading in the polls is to see who's getting attacked.

And so Daniel Hernandez was prepared with some lines of attack on Adelita Grijalva, as was Deja Foxx.

And I wasn't surprised to see that blow up.

What was really interesting and helpful, I think, to voters was to see that some of the areas where it blew up, which was especially on this issue of mining.

I mean, he set himself up as the pro-mining candidate.

Now that may or may not have many electoral benefits.

I somewhat question whether there's enough primary, democratic primary voters who want the South 32 mine near Patagonia or the Copper World mine here in the Santa Ritas.

However, at minimum, it brings in some money from the interests who support these, you know, they've already held the HudBay executives have already held a fundraiser for him.

So there's a gamble that he's taking that at least he'll distinguish himself if nothing else.

Yeah.

Well, and Paul, let's play off that the idea that yes, he's put himself in that, that lane, I guess we'll say, but at the same time, it's a special election.

Yes, it's congressional, but it's an off year election.

So in essence, we're expecting, may not happen, we're expecting turnout to be even lower than it would be in a regular year.

So does that strategy potentially work for Hernandez?

Because maybe the people who are going to vote are the so-called moderates and maybe they're less loyal to the left, the environmental protection sort.

Well, fundamentally, he's got to carve out some differences between Adelita Grijalva.

He's got to show that he's different, that he's not the same.

If you if you're if he's standing up in a stage, and they're basically just agreeing with each other the entire time, then it's Adelita's race.

He has to show that he can attack her, he has to show why he's different.

And they agree on a lot of big issues.

So for him to be able to carve this out.

And it's also, of course, Adelita Grijalva is the one who she has her father's, you know, she's part of her father's legacy when it comes to environmental stuff.

He was on the Natural Resources Committee.

He was an important part of protecting the environment.

And or so she is going to follow on that.

So for him to be able to kind of try to cleave that off.

And I think Tim's right, talking about mining interests, and maybe the importance of mines, A, gives him some money, and it also maybe shows to moderates, this is something that we need in the future, because he can talk about jobs.

And he can also talk about how we're going, we do need to have copper.

So for part of the, you know, future economy, now, whether that's electric cars, or I don't know, AI, you know, that that's going to be somethin that's going to be important.

So that's been that balance argument for a long time, commerce versus environment.

So what do you make of the lanes here, Tim?

Oh, yeah, I mean, well, there's basically two lanes, and there's four candidates in one of them.

Because the other four candidate are largely opposed, I didn't notice any nuances there.

And then there's Daniel Hernandez, who's who's supportive.

The question is, there's a lot of important questions here.

I mean, for example, Adelita Grijalva has brought up the fact of automation.

It's true.

I've looked into this back in time, mines used to employ thousands and thousands of people, but they don't employ the number of people they used to employ.

It's fractions of what they used to employ.

There's a lot in the construction, but not so much in the persistence of the mine.

Yeah, you think about South 32, how much that mine is one that's going to be remotely operated, it's going to rely on a command center that's going to be in Rio Rico and in Nogales, but there's not going to be like an army of people digging out this stuff.

And then it's also true with the resolution mine, too.

I mean, that one's going to be done with tunnels and explosives.

So these are really fundamentally different minds.

They're not going to be huge, huge job makers.

Yeah, Caitlin, let me stand out to you about this.

I mean, it was a little more hostile than I thought we would get on the first run out.

I thought maybe they'd save that until we got a little closer to the primary.

But it made for an interesting debate, certainly you know, any other time Hernandez would probably have the benefit of name recognition, except that Adelita is a Grijalva and is so closely aligned with her father and running on the same campaign that, I mean, he really does have to carve out a difference.

And mining is a, I mean, it's a fairly safe place to do it.

It's environmentally, it's a charged area.

But I mean, the other issue is the pro-Israel crowd.

And I don't think that's a minefield that he wants to step in right now because it's just so politically charged.

So mining is the safe bet in this case, if you're going to appeal to a different base.

Right.

And Israel in a democratic primary probably does not help too much.

Hannah, anything else stand out about the way they related to each other, at least to the issues?

Yeah, well, the moderator really tried to get them to answer that question on the national level, which is like, how are the Democrats going to fix what went wrong?

And that's where they really butted heads to me is they had different answers to that question.

And I think Grijalva's answer is that she has a proven track record of forming coalitions, I think is the direct quote that she said.

I'm not sure if that's going to work out.

I don't know what the voters will think of that versus investing in jobs and wages.

And Hernandez went after her for the prop 414 tax, which was a significant portion in the midst of inflation.

And that actually matters to the district.

That is not a national issue in any way.

That is, you were on the wrong side of this is what- Yeah, yeah.

And that's a fair critique She said that we needed this because of the City of Tucson needed this tax increase because of decreased state funding.

But that's a kind of wonky nuanced argument.

And those things are, of course, hard to sell to voters.

Yeah.

So one of the narratives was that it was a sleepy race, which was, as Caitlin indicated, sort of livened up with this debate.

Paul, do you think that's really the case?

I mean, was it a- I never got the impression it was a sleepy race.

I think we just hadn't quite, we hadn't gotten everybody to the starting gun yet.

Now it's time.

I mean, the election is really moving.

It's time for real primary.

They're really going to have to, and they have very little time.

We don't have a long summer where people get to kind of set their poles and do ads and stuff.

I mean, this is all kind of happening at once.

So I'm actually not surprised that they came out of both, came out of their corners in the ring and went after each other.

And a lot of ways that makes sense to me.

They're also kind of a little bit dipole in the Democratic politic them to already be now opposed to each other in an election.

Yeah.

They're going to come after each other.

Tim, let me ask you about this.

So sometimes candidates, and I think this, I didn't expect this to apply to Deja Fox, but I kind of did.

When you have front runners, they also seem a little bit too coached.

Can I put it that way?

Did that feel the way at all to you?

Yeah.

So this is the time to sort of, this is how you're going to respond if the attack comes.

That's not how I perceived it.

I perceived it as her knowing a lot of details of policy.

She's been in government for a long time and that that didn't translate into politics.

I would say Deja Foxx is the opposite.

She has all these very cleanly delivered lines always returning to, I am a young woman who grew up poor in Tucson.

I personally question, I want to go talk to her about, okay, so what do you got beyond that?

You're very good at delivering clean lines, but I don't know.

I don't know what you've been doing really to deserve to be a member of Congress.

Whereas in Grijalva's case, she had maybe poorly delivered lines, but she's got a very deep background and Hernandez has a pretty solid one too in politics.

Yeah.

And so, let me ask the question about Daniel Hernandez and did it seem like his attacks were time-descripted, that kind of thing.

Like this is where consultants are saying, hey, this is the time for you to jump in with this.

I mean, no, I didn't feel that way.

No, I don't think so.

No.

And I actually thought that going after her prop 14 was a smart move.

I mean, saying that you're attacking taxpayers' wallets at a time where they're already hurting is a solid argument reminding voters that the city of Tucson just asked them to make up for the state and federal cuts that have come their way.

So no, I don't think so.

I think it was not rehearsed on his part.

Okay.

So we're not going to hold you to this.

Of course, we don't record these at all.

Sorry.

Yes, we do.

So I'm a fan of debates because I've moderated a lot of them, so it keeps me employed.

So I enjoy that.

But, but let, Caitlin, let me start with you.

Do you think that this debate impacted, let's say, people who watched or people who were just political junkies, they're going to vote every time.

Do you think it would have influenced, let's say they were on the fence among any of the five, maybe the top three.

Do you think this debate would have influenced them in any way?

I mean, no, I think it gave them something to think about, but I think with, as with most debates, I walk away with more questions than I walk in with.

So if they were really paying attention, they probably walked away with a lot of questions.

Okay.

Hannah, what about you?

I think I would agree.

It definitely gave them a lot to think about.

This is, I'm just very curious to see how it will turn out over the summer.

Tim, what do you think?

I mean, I would say that, you know, I really think Grijalva probably has a big lead in the polls.

I would think that she and her team would be a bit worried about Deja Foxx after this because, you know, as much as I just criticized her to some extent, she delivers cleanly, she presents cleanly, and they're in, they're in the same positions politically.

So yeah, that's, that's the biggest thing I took out.

One thing too is that like for social media, I mean, you can kind of take parts of the debate and you can use that.

So for Deja Foxx, this is actually going to be really important.

She can use these little segments and put theirs in like, look what I did.

I was on the stage, as you said, with these other people.

And here's this little segment that I delivered and be able to show that she's really in the race.

So probably for her, it might be the most powerful that she can kind of use this.

Right.

Okay.

So let's move from that part of politics to the Supreme Court.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled six to five that Oak Flat could be swapped to Resolution Copper related to a mine that was briefly mentioned before.

Supreme Court decided to not even take up the case.

And that led to an interesting dissent, which we can get into in a moment.

But let's briefly remind people of this land swap and what, what is probably going to happen now that Supreme Court has decided not to hear the case and that the Trump administration wants to move forward.

Briefly put, Congress agreed to do a land swap where they take some forest service land and swap it with this area called Oak Flat.

Oak Flat is important to the Apache who live there.

It's considered a sacred site.

It's really, really important.

And, but this was done under John McCain and Jeff Flake in part, who really pushed this forward, which is this, to this swap.

And since then the Apache Stronghold, which is the name of the group that is the Apache tribe, they have sued really trying to stop the federal government from doing this land swap and from giving that so that they can build Resolution Copper.

Resolution Copper is going to be an enormous copper mine.

It's going to basically be a giant pit mine.

And they're going to just dig out a lot of the land that these folks find sacred.

So there's been a series of lawsuits that's been wrong going for the last several years.

And that's been the concern mostly has been from a religious standpoint, right?

That has been the Apache Stronghold push.

That's been the main push.

I mean, of course, there's also water rights, there's the environmental stuff, but really the main push has been religious rights.

That's been at the center of their argument.

And so, you know, the Ninth Circuit went and looked at this and said, no, because of the way that the religious freedom restoration act is the idea that there's substantial burden.

And that's sort of the test.

Are you burdened by this?

And the Ninth Circuit said, you don't have to do this.

You're not being made to do this.

Therefore, you're not you're not being getting a burden.

And so this went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case, which is sort of means that this Ninth Circuit decision is now the last decision made.

Yeah.

Hannah, let me give you a moment on that.

The dissent did state out to most of us how it was just sort of and maybe strange bedfellows to some extent, too.

Yeah, we have a lot of newsroom legal nerds in the AZPM newsroom.

So when this I know it's surprising.

So when that decision came down, a lot of people were really surprised at how striking the language was that Gorsuch used.

You don't see a dissent like that very often.

And I'm just going to read this one quote that really stood out to everyone at our newsroom is just imagine if the government sought to demolish a historic cathedral on so questionable a chain of legal reasoning.

I have no doubt that we would find that case worth our time.

So our and our newsroom was also really confused that the liberal justices did not join in on this dissent because that just seems like a very easy normal path for them to take.

I think the Apache people, they do have one avenue left, which is Congress essentially trying to petition their representatives.

That's interesting, too.

But I was going to ask.

So June 16th, Tim, is when the Trump administration can move forward as soon as after the final environmental impact statement to see if it goes forward.

But, you know, we've seen physical protests before.

Is there any chance something like that happens in this case because it just OK, we're just not going to let you do this mind.

We're going to we're going to do whatever we can.

And then maybe that delays things long enough for Congress to act.

I mean, I don't have any particular insight that that's going to happen, but it wouldn't be surprising.

It is, you know, it's a big deal, obviously, for the Apache people.

Maybe there's not power given to them, but the Gorsuch thing is is has been roundly applauded and by people who support the Apache people's rights here.

And I don't know, I feel like there's a there's still a strong core of opposition that could announce itself and continue delays, as you say, until they can find a leg to stand on legally.

Yeah.

Caitlin, what are your thoughts on this overall?

I mean, it's it's been waiting for a while.

Yeah, we've been waiting for a while.

I mean, it's another hit to mining rights and to land protection and to native and indigenous communities that I think have taken hit after hit after hit since January.

So but it was interesting that with the liberal judges, they didn't even want to hear the case.

That was the surprising part to me.

And again, we'll see if Congress decides to pull any final thoughts on that one.

I mean, I think that's really important.

I think when you talk about is there going to be a protest or is there going to be a movement against it?

I would say there.

Yes, I think there will be.

I think there will be a very serious movement.

And one thing to keep in mind is that we haven't seen that with the other copper mines.

We see something with Copper World where you can spend enough time keeping it out of keeping it from happening by legal arguments, by continuing that you can actually kind of stymie the company from doing that.

And the question is whether they can do this here.

I would not be surprised if we see significant protests over this one in particular.

Tim, let's move on to a topic you actually wrote a column that we got to like the last 30 seconds of last week's press room.

And that is Mayor Romero and Qatar.

She was at an economic conference and there were some concerns about secrecy related to it.

And of course, there are some people as well concerned about Qatar, maybe quote unquote, bribing the Trump administration with a $40 million plan.

How is that?

How does this look for Mayor Romero when you wrote your column?

What were your thoughts?

Oh, well, so she took off, let me see, it's going to be about almost two weeks ago now and headed to Qatar or Qatar as it's probably correctly pronounced, but I probably won't do that.

For the Qatar Economic Forum, which is kind of like a Davos type of event, it's sponsored by Bloomberg.

I looked through the list of speakers, there's a whole lot of Qatari ministers and such.

It's not unusual that American elected officials might end up at something like this.

I personally took a negative view of it for a couple of reasons.

One is, the secrecy apparently is a typical thing.

They try not to say when she's traveling in advance.

The mayor still, it kind of stinks when it relates to this in part because secrecy has clung to the American mayors who have gone to this event in the past.

So it's like for some reason, nobody wants to be seen going to this event.

And then separately, just perhaps by accident, we initially got false information about who was paying for it.

Initially, the city said it was Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Later, they corrected that after we did some digging and said it was the Qatari embassy.

I mean, my negative reaction comes in part just from the fact that when I what I associate that country with, that Emirate in the Persian Gulf is bribery.

Because they bribe people to get to the World Cup, they bribe Senator Robert Menendez, they had a big bribery scandal at the European Parliament.

And another example I mentioned is they accepted bribes or some of Qatari officials from the Raytheon company to get contracts there.

So it makes me feel uncomfortable with our mayor accepting anything from them.

Oh, and of course, lately, the latest example is the $400 million jet, which we should say is a beautiful jet as it is, but will require one to $2 billion of repairs in order to make it or renovations, I should say, in order to make it an Air Force One.

This whole thing got brought out in public because one of the small unions that represents a few Tucson police officers started questioning whether she had she Mayor Romero had traveled to Phoenix with a police escort in order to fly out.

She says and she talked to the Bill Buckmaster Show Tuesday.

In fact, she flew out of Tucson.

So the whole reason for us starting to talk about this is probably not valid.

But the issues it raised, I think, are.

Yeah.

So, Caitlin, we've got like 30 seconds, but you were an investigator.

You've been an investigative reporter for a long time.

So I presume your antenna went up on this.

Yeah.

I mean, I think it is likely Andy Squire has been doing this for a long time for the city.

I think it is likely that he misspoke when he said Bloomberg.

But I also think it's a much better look to have Bloomberg paying for a trip for you right now when Qatar is trying to buy a jet for President Trump.

So while I'm sure it was a mistake, it was a better look as a mistake than this is.

And then of course, it's never good when something else comes out.

So no.

And like you said, with our first topic, timing is very important and perception is very important.

All right, guys, thanks for being here Caitlin Schmidt of the Tucson Spotlight.

Paul Ingram with the Tucson Sentinel.

Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star.

Hannah Cree of AZPM news Thank you for the great conversation and thank you for joining us for this edition of the Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

We'll be back next week.

Enjoy the rest of your day.