KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about a pair of debates, a special counsel being hired in a legislative investigation and more, The Show sat down with Chip Scutari of S+C Communications and Stacy Pearson of Lumen Strategies.
Transcript
ANNOUNCER: KJZZ’s original production The Show is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona. bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz.
MARK BRODIE: Hi, I’m Mark Brodie, and this is the Friday NewsCap podcast. Each week, we review the biggest stories week with experts, reporters and commentators to put the news in perspective.
Here’s this week’s episode:
ANDY BIGGS: We will support development of new nuclear power in Arizona. We will end state incentives for data centers and establish standards that will protect Arizona water and energy.
KRIS MAYES: Being a lawyer for all of the people of Arizona means taking on big fights, and that is what I have done.
WARREN PETERSEN: Those that are paying attention to what Kris Mayes has been doing for the last four years know that her top two priorities are political lawfare and environmental radicalism.
NICK MANSOUR: We have lost out on $3.6 billion over the last 13 years. Instead of being $11 billion, this could be $15 billion fund today.
ELIJAH NORTON: You have to be safe first, and he is continuing to espouse policies that could really hurt our state and cut funding to education or taxes if the investments go the wrong way. I don’t want to see that happen.
MARK KELLY: I’m not going to decide until after this election because I do really believe we need to be focused on this, but I’m thinking about it. Gabby gets a big say in this. So do my kids.
YASSAMIN ANSARI: This type of AI, frontier AI that is becoming so advanced, is essentially becoming a new species. And as it develops and it continues to teach itself, I think that we need to take it very seriously...
MARK BRODIE: And with me to talk about a pair of debates, a special counsel being hired in a legislative investigation, and more, are Chip Scutari of S+C Communications. Chip, good morning.
CHIP SCUTARI: Good morning. Happy Friday.
MARK BRODIE: Happy Friday. And Stacy Pearson of Lumen Strategies. Stacy, good morning to you.
STACY PEARSON: Good morning.
MARK BRODIE: So, Chip, we saw this week that state Sen. Jake Hoffman, who last week, I believe it was, announced that he was launching an investigation into the Sunshine Residential case, the so-called pay-to-play scheme — he’s alleging there’s some improprieties there with Gov. Katie Hobbs.
He says that he’s now moving it to a different committee. His committee is not going to handle it, and he’s hiring a special counsel, former State Supreme Court Justice and Attorney General candidate Andrew Gould, to run that. Are you surprised that he stepped aside from it? Because it seems like kind of not his MO to like to back away from things.
CHIP SCUTARI: No, as a former Capitol reporter who covered governors’ races and issues like this, the optics were just so bad. It didn’t pass the smell test. His company, I think it’s called 110 LLC, had received more than $1 million, I think in total $2.7 million from Turning Point USA, to go after Gov. Hobbs and also her attorney general, Kris Mayes. So this really didn’t pass the smell test. I think they were forced to shift it from his committee to the Appropriations Committee.
And the other thing, the hiring of Andrew Gould, the former Arizona Supreme Court Justice — what I haven’t seen is, you know, follow the money. I haven’t seen if the State Senate, if they must be using public money to hire Andrew Gould, who’s probably not going to do this for free. So if there’s been a story I haven’t seen, but if there’s taxpayer dollars going into this so-called investigation, let’s put the cards on the table.
The other thing is, because this is the state Senate, what is Senate President Warren Petersen’s role in this, if any, who’s running for Attorney General against Kris Mayes?
So the context being, the landscape, we’re going to have early ballots in our mailboxes in probably about two weeks, a little more than two weeks. So this, they were hoping for the Republicans, this is a twofer. You can go after AG Kris Mayes, you can go after Gov. Katie Hobbs. So they were hoping this would be their October surprise, but I don’t think it’s panning out that way.
MARK BRODIE: Well, and Stacy, when Sen. Hoffman announced this, he was very adamant that, you know, “It is not political theater,” I think was the question, and his response for him to be doing this, and that it was not inappropriate for him to be leading this investigation given, as Chip said, the amount of money that he’s been getting on behalf of Andy Biggs. What changed?
STACY PEARSON: He had to have had worms in his brain when he said this wasn’t an issue, that he was not conflicted. To Chip’s point, he was running a campaign against the seated governor, against the incumbent.
And the hypocrisy is not lost on voters of Arizona that this is a Donald Trump worshiper talking about potential impropriety? I mean, we’ve got a guy whose son had a wedding reception paid for by the Russians. I mean, this is absolutely insane, and it’s certainly not sticking to the governor and it’s not an issue in front of voters.
MARK BRODIE: Well, so Chip, the hearing that Sen. Hoffman was going to hold was originally scheduled, I think, for next week. You mentioned maybe this isn’t the October surprise Republicans think it might be, like, it seems unlikely, maybe, given the amount of testimony that they want to take and how long it took the attorney general to get through this, and the auditor general is still working on this, on their investigation with the help of the Maricopa County attorney. Like, are you expecting anything to come of this before Election Day?
CHIP SCUTARI: No, I think they just want to get more headlines out of it. As of yesterday, as far as I was told, I don’t think Sunshine Residential had been subpoenaed. I don’t know if the Governor’s Office or anyone else has been subpoenaed. So to do this type of investigation would take, to do it the right way, would take way more time than just two or three weeks.
So I don’t know if it’s going to proceed or not. So we’ll be paying attention to see what the next turn of the screw is. But it’s a very short timeline, and I don’t know if this is going to help Andy Biggs out in the long run.
MARK BRODIE: Well, Stacy, I guess to the extent that, you know, we’re still talking about it today, we talked about it last week, that’s probably not a horrible thing for someone like Andy Biggs.
STACY PEARSON: Well, it’s also not a horrible thing for the governor. I mean, this is, the fundamental premise, the original story that broke this news was wrong. The accusation was that a contribution made to the Arizona Democratic Party was in trade for something that Sunshine Residential needed. It was an increase in their rates.
The state party and the governor are so far apart that the entire operation, the coordinated campaign, is going through the Navajo County party. So the fundamental premise that a contribution to Organization A helps the governor over here is wrong!
MARK BRODIE: Optically, though. I mean, when you talk about the optics of Jake Hoffman, the optics of this were not good for the governor.
STACY PEARSON: There is nothing there there. Fundamentally, there is nothing there. And that’s that’s the issue. And voters are aware of that. They can see it. There is nothing there.
CHIP SCUTARI: You know, Mark, I think we’ll know if this is really resonating, if it’s hitting a chord, if we see the RGA, the Republican Governors Association, or other Republican-aligned PACs start pumping money and doing ads on this. If they see an opening where, you know, Andy Biggs, who’s down almost every poll you’ve seen —
STACY PEARSON: His internals, even.
CHIP SCUTARI: Yeah, yeah. So if he starts closing the gap because of this issue, or if the RGA or other powerful PACs see this working, you’ll see ads, and that’s the telltale sign if this is working.
MARK BRODIE: That could be an interesting metric.
So Chip, let me stick with you. Andy Biggs outlined some of his priorities for the beginning of his term should he win in November. Among them was something that Republican governors have talked about for probably as long as you’ve been at the State Capitol, in terms of getting rid of the state income tax. We heard him just a few moments ago talking about ending tax incentives for data centers, expanding more nuclear power, things like that. What did you make of the priorities that he laid out?
CHIP SCUTARI: Well, first of all, I hate to go sound so superficial, but politics is all about the art of showmanship. And after covering a ton of Capitol press conferences — including during gubernatorial races — I was kind of disappointed. If you’re a Biggs fan or you’re in his campaign. That crowd there was pretty sparse. So you take that first, it didn’t look like a winning campaign. So that’s one thing. I know that’s superficial, but it matters.
And then the other thing about eliminating the state income tax, that was pulled right out of the Doug Ducey playbook from 2014 when he ran. And it’s a very pre-Trump kind of a maneuver by Republicans. Trump has not talked really about a lot about public policy, it’s more about culture wars and grievances. So that is one from the kind of 1980s Reagan playbook.
And if you really dig down and do a deep dive, if we eliminate our state income tax, that’s like a third of our budget. So where is that money going to come from? So that’s a big deal. Maybe it still will bring back the loyal Republicans to him, but it’s kind of an empty promise that sounds good, but there’s not a lot of meat and potatoes behind it.
MARK BRODIE: Well, it’s kind of interesting, Stacy, as Chip said, that was kind of like a — I hate to call it old school — but like a pre-Trump Republican promise. But then he also talked about getting rid of, for example, tax incentives for data centers, which is something that Democrats —
STACY PEARSON: Has already been done.
MARK BRODIE: Well, they paused it for a few years.
STACY PEARSON: Yeah, there’s a moratorium, right.
MARK BRODIE: There’s a moratorium, but the governor wanted to eliminate it, a lot of legislative Democrats wanted to eliminate it, but legislative Republicans did not. So it’s a little bit of an interesting mix here.
STACY PEARSON: Yeah, look, at this point Andy Biggs doesn’t have a single poll that shows him ahead, not internal, not external. The RGA is not investing in his race, so clearly national groups do not deem him a potential threat to the incumbent, to unseat the incumbent in Katie Hobbs. So this guy’s blowing in the wind. I mean, he’s trying to find something to say or do that shows proof of life for his campaign, and this isn’t it. It’s just, it’s just not it.
MARK BRODIE: Do you get the sense that eliminating the income tax was in any way a response to all of the ads that we’ve been seeing on TV about how he supports tax hikes?
STACY PEARSON: Well, the fact that he is talking about tariffs and tax hikes out of two sides of his mouth, absolutely. Eliminating a state income tax, to Chip’s point, is devastating to the state’s economy. It’s devastating to DPS. You want to defund the police? Eliminate the state’s income tax.
I mean, people understand that you pull this thread and other things come down, too. And so we’re talking about, we have an underfunded education system, and an underfunded university system, underfunded — we’ve got DPS facilities that are crumbling that haven’t been renovated in half a century. And we need tax money to pay for these things, and certainly voters understand that, too.
CHIP SCUTARI: And it’s got to be frustrating for the Republicans. Katie Hobbs pulled something out of the Bill Clinton playbook with her ads saying she’s cut taxes every year, when people know who follow the Capitol, she vetoed a lot of those tax cut bills. But when push comes to shove, she did it. So she’s doing the game of triangulation where she’s taking the Republicans’ best talking point, tax cuts, and using it for herself, which is brilliant, but I’m sure it’s very frustrating for Republicans who deem themselves the real tax cutters.
MARK BRODIE: Chip, do you think that the proposals that Andy Biggs laid out this week, will those help? Will those resonate with voters who maybe were on the fence?
CHIP SCUTARI: I don’t think so. I just don’t think. And the other thing that was not good for him, and again going back to campaign style, is when he kind of got snippy with reporters and didn’t want to answer questions towards the end of the press conference. It’s like, if you’re losing, you have to take every chance, every opportunity to engage with the media and the Republic to just show your personality, to show why people should vote for you. And that to me just was not good form.
MARK BRODIE: Stacy, let me ask you about the candidates for Attorney General. They had their Clean Elections debate this week: Kris Mayes on the Democratic side, and Warren Petersen on the Republican side. I was going to maybe use a few adjectives to describe it, but I’d much rather hear yours.
STACY PEARSON: That was wild. So, it was a masterclass by Attorney General Mayes in how to exploit your opponent’s weaknesses. I mean, he was, I think the best way to describe him was ill-prepared. I mean, the fumbling through his notes and the bizarre obsession on the timer, and him describing a woman as being too emotional for the job.
I can’t. I wish I was watching a focus group watching that debate, particularly Republican women, because his approach was so strange that I think it cost him.
MARK BRODIE: All right, Chip. Stacy described it as wild. How would you describe it?
CHIP SCUTARI: You know, I’m going to sound like a political nerd here and take a little bit of a different tack. I thought it was, you know, at times it was contentious and snarky, but there is good newsy exchanges between both candidates. And I know they got into some raw political stuff, but as a voter, I enjoyed the debate. I thought the debate moderators did a fantastic job.
The one thing that comes out, whether this objective, just looking at it, is Attorney General Kris Mayes is the incumbent, but she’s not playing the prevent defense or afraid to lose. Like, one thing I think Republicans even admit behind closed doors is she’s a fighter and she’ll attack. And she never let up on Warren Petersen.
I think Petersen probably did better than most people thought he would. But I thought it was a very good debate. But one thing, you know, Attorney General Mayes comes out as very confident, very assertive, and she’s not, you know, the one thing you’ll say about her, she will not back down from a fight.
MARK BRODIE: I wonder, in that office specifically, is that more of an asset than it would be maybe if she was running for something else?
CHIP SCUTARI: Totally, because you want to be, you know, the state’s top cop, chief law enforcement officer. You have to have a little bit of that swag whether you’re a man or a woman, and she has that in droves. And I think that probably plays well with a lot of independents, with probably a lot of moderate Republicans.
MARK BRODIE: Stacy, do you think that this debate will sway anybody? Like, anybody who was like tuning in to maybe figure out who they wanted to vote for, does it change anybody’s mind one way or the other?
STACY PEARSON: Oh, I think it solidifies people’s opinions, right? I think if folks were unsure or looking just to make sure things don’t change, this actually gives them a reason to vote for her. I mean she really performed well. She won by a couple hundred votes, so she actually needs to pick up votes given the Republican registration advantage, and that performance certainly did. The moderate Republicans have a place to support, a person to support, someone to support.
And the lawsuits, there were lots of criticisms of how many lawsuits she’s filed against the administration. She wins 85%, what was the number? Eighty-plus percent of those.
And we’re really talking about some fundamental democracy issues. I mean, she filed suit against the Trump administration when they wanted access to our voter records. My husband’s are redacted. Like, they were trying to turn over my husband’s information, which is redacted by way of a law enforcement protection. She was fighting for that. These things matter. Those details matter.
CHIP SCUTARI: You know, the other tidbit that was interesting was Warren Petersen, for the first time as far as I know, admitted that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, which is, sounds weird to say, but him and now Jay Feely, they’ve clearly — it’s a telltale sign that they’re not afraid that they’re going to upset President Trump. So people are trying to, Republicans are trying to distance themselves from the election denialism because it must not be polling well.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah, that is interesting. So Chip, let me stick with you moving down the ballot just a tiny bit. The candidates for State Treasurer also had their Clean Elections debate this week. And I wonder, moving beyond sort of like the difference, because there were some substantive differences about investment strategies and, you know, there’s some questions about who’s been sued for what and how that matters.
There’s been so much talk about this being a good year for Democrats. I wonder, like, is treasurer too downballot for that to reach? Or do you think there’s a chance that, let’s say the Democrats at the top of the ticket do well, does that reach down to treasurer?
CHIP SCUTARI: Well, I’ll let Stacy give us a tutorial on investment strategies. What I can say is —
STACY PEARSON: Bet on black.
CHIP SCUTARI: We’ll see how strong this supposed blue wave is. And if the generic ballot for Democrats is that much stronger against Republicans, it could pick up a treasurer’s race, which would be incredible. I do have to say, the “Pick Nick” campaign signs for the Democratic candidate is pretty good. But this will be, this is a test, this and the state superintendent race. If they win, this is going to be a big blue wave for the Democrats. I mean, it’s a telltale sign.
MARK BRODIE: All right Stacy, stocks and bonds, what do you think? No, I’m just kidding. How far do you —
STACY PEARSON: Also cover the greens. These are, yeah, these are sound investment strategies. But what I find most fascinating about this treasurer’s race is, for the first time in my lifetime, Democrats in polling are considered stronger on the economy than the Republicans. This has never—
MARK BRODIE: Nationally.
STACY PEARSON: Nationally. Has never happened in my lifetime in politics. So that correlation with the treasurer’s race certainly gives Nick Mansour a leg up. I mean, folks are extremely frustrated. We’re talking about a Teamsters strike on the horizon potentially. I mean, they were the first to endorse Trump. So it is the over $7 a gallon diesel prices. I mean, this, the economy right now was always a nice, big checkmark in the Republican box, and it’s not anymore.
CHIP SCUTARI: And I think the Democrats were fortunate once again that Elijah Norton won the primary. I think he ran against a much more competent —
STACY PEARSON: The GOP primary.
CHIP SCUTARI: The GOP primary. He ran against a much more competent candidate who I liked, I thought should do a good job. So that’s playing in the Democrats’ favor, too, because he had some negative, some kind of nasty stuff at the end of his GOP primary.
MARK BRODIE: All right. So we’ve been talking a lot about the election coming up this year, but let's talk for just a couple minutes as we wrap up about the election coming up in two years, which will be a presidential race. It seems like Mark Kelly can’t go 30 seconds without somebody asking him if he’s going to run for president.
He was asked again this week, and basically he said, “You know, I’m still thinking about it, but I will make a decision after the midterms,” which is, you know, what you’d kind of expect. He said his wife, Gabby Giffords, will have a say, his kids — we just heard him say this — his kids will have a say in it.
Stacy, I mean, let's talk, you talked about playing, you know, betting on black, playing the odds here. Where do you put the odds of him running for president in two years?
STACY PEARSON: Oh, I certainly hope he does. It’s good for Arizona. He was thoroughly vetted as a vice presidential candidate.
MARK BRODIE: Even in that compressed window, you think?
STACY PEARSON: Correct. I mean, the name ID is impressive, certainly his career is extraordinary. We really, really need someone in the White House who has served next to figure out how to get us out of this quagmire that is Iran. I mean, there are so many things that Mark Kelly has going for him, that Sen. Kelly has going for him. I certainly hope he’s on the shortlist.
MARK BRODIE: What do you think, Chip?
CHIP SCUTARI: Yeah, I think there’s no downside for him to keep his name out there. He’s in the top echelon of all the candidates, if not, he could be a heck of a VP candidate with his national security credentials. And President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, Secretary of Defense Hegseth going after him for the video he did along with some of his Democratic colleagues, really raised his profile. They did him a big favor. And he’s a fundraising machine.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah, I mean, people have talked about him having presidential-level fundraising in the past. I mean, do you get the sense that that is what the Democratic Party is looking for right now, though, Stacy? Because we keep seeing, you know, sort of the left wing, the more progressive wing of the party — he’s not that.
STACY PEARSON: He’s not. But neither is the country, right? We see progressive candidates winning in progressive places, and that’s fantastic. We’re talking about New York City, right? That doesn’t make any sense in Iowa. …
MARK BRODIE: But he’s got to get through a primary.
STACY PEARSON: He does, and that’s OK. Look at the Arizona candidates. Half of them were former Republicans on a statewide ticket in a red state. The beauty of our party right now is we’re actually building bigger tents, and lots of independents and moderate Republicans are coming in.
CHIP SCUTARI: Yeah, his biggest test will be the primary, because if he’s not progressive enough, he’s not a socialist-DSA candidate, that will be his biggest struggle. But I believe that in 2028, 2032, America’s not going to elect a progressive president.
MARK BRODIE: If it’s a Democrat, you think it has to be a more moderate type.
CHIP SCUTARI: If it’s a Democrat, I think it has to be the centrist Bill Clinton-type Democrat to retake the White House.
MARK BRODIE: OK, so very quickly before we wrap up, Chip, I’m going to put you on the spot. Do you think Kelly runs?
CHIP SCUTARI: I do.
MARK BRODIE: Do you think he runs?
STACY PEARSON: I hope so.
MARK BRODIE: OK, that’s not a yes or no, but I’ll let you have that. All right. Stacy Pearson, Chip Scutari, thanks to you both. I really appreciate it.
STACY PEARSON: Thank you.
CHIP SCUTARI: Thank you.
MARK BRODIE: You’ve been listening to the Friday NewsCap from KJZZ’s The Show. It’s an original podcast recapping the week's biggest stories with experts, commentators and reporters. You can get the full Show podcast at podcast.kjzz.org. I'm Mark Brodie, thanks for listening.
