The Show for May 18, 2026: F-bombs in politics, tensions over Taiwan and more

Politicians are embracing a certain four-letter word - and Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego tops the list. Where is the thin line between shock value and authenticity? Plus, how tensions over Taiwan could impact Arizona.

Transcript

MARK BRODIE: Hi, I’m Mark Brodie, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode.

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LAUREN GILGER: Good morning and welcome to The Show here on KJZZ, 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, ICE agents pepper-sprayed 47 detainees at a Mesa holding facility as use-of-force incidents mount.

LAUREN GILGER: And why Arizona should be paying attention to geopolitical conversations about China and Taiwan.

MARK BRODIE: But first, it appears there’s some progress being made in budget talks between Republican legislative leaders and Governor Katie Hobbs. But a recent court ruling could add another wrinkle into those negotiations. That ruling ordered the state to hire a receiver to oversee healthcare provided by the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry, and the judge wants that person in place quickly, which would require funding in the new state budget. With me now to talk more about this is Howard Fischer of Capital Media Services. Good morning, Howard.

HOWARD FISCHER: Good morning. Yes, we are moving somewhat slowly, but hopefully inevitably toward a budget.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, I mean, certainly by the end of June, you’d hope there’s one. So, this is a really interesting issue, because a federal judge has issued an order that says the state has to hire somebody to oversee the prison healthcare system in the state. And that obviously costs money, and this is a time when the state doesn’t have a whole lot of extra money hanging around.

HOWARD FISCHER: Well, it isn’t even so much the cost of the receiver. Remember that the receiver would have the same powers as the director, and more to the point, be able to order the treasurer to do certain things.

You have to remember the history in this case. This case goes back 14 years. Finally in 2022, the judge said that the healthcare, mental and physical, at the prisons was "plainly, grossly inadequate" and that the state officials were acting "with deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of harm to the inmates."

Judge issued an injunction requiring the state to bring things up to constitutional standards, and now, since she said there hasn’t been progress — I mean, maybe a little here, a little there — she said very clearly: "The only thing to do is have judicial oversight of the prison system."

Now, the question is how much will it cost to bring healthcare up to standards. The governor had included about $100 million in her budget to start the process; there was nothing in the legislative budget. In fact, as legislators say, "Well, we’re just going to appeal it."

But federal judges don’t like their orders being ignored. Particularly when people are literally dying in prisons. They’re having problems with mental health, physical health. And again, this case has been going on for 14 years, and Judge Roslyn Silver is not about to sit around and say, "Well, sure, we’ll give you a little bit more time because the state is in a budget problem situation."

MARK BRODIE: Well, Howie, does — you mentioned the Republican budget that the governor vetoed did not have any money for this. Is that a realistic option here? Can the state just not spend money on this and wait to see whatever happens on appeal?

HOWARD FISCHER: Well, obviously, some of the Republican lawmakers say, "Well, we’ll just appeal it because we think the judge got it wrong." Now, remember, the state has paid millions and millions of dollars in fines over the years and promised to do better.

Now, is it possible the 9th Circuit Court will issue a stay and say, "We want more time to look at this"? Sure. But I think there are enough judges on the 9th Circuit who say, "Judge Silver has been more than patient with you guys. You know, it’s about time to do something."

Now, if the Legislature doesn’t appropriate, now we’re down to an interesting question. Can a federal judge simply order the treasury to go ahead and provide the money that the receiver says is necessary to hire enough people to do the job to ensure that inmates aren’t dying?

MARK BRODIE: Well, and that’s interesting because you mentioned that the governor’s budget did have money in this, but the governor also was not super thrilled, right, with this ruling and had kind of indicated that an appeal might also be coming?

HOWARD FISCHER: Oh, I’m sure she wants to appeal because remember, this is now her prison system. And she points out that there have been improvements, and that’s true. But again, this is a 14-year-old lawsuit, and they’re saying, "Well, what’s it going to take to do things right?"

You know, when you have people behind bars, it’s easy to say, "Well, they belong there." But there are certain constitutional rights against, whether you want to call it Eighth Amendment, cruel and unusual punishments, to say you shouldn’t — the fact that you’re sentenced to a prison should not be a death sentence. Should not mean that because of the fact that you have a toothache and nobody wants to treat you, that you end up dying, and that kind of stuff does happen.

Politics

Hobbs lifts bill signing moratorium as Arizona budget talks progress

Camryn Sanchez

Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs lifted a bill signing moratorium on Thursday in light of productive budget talks with Republican lawmakers.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah. So, Howie, in the universe of sort of issues that the Legislature and the governor are negotiating over, where do you get the sense that this one falls in terms of, like, is this a big issue between them? Is this something that could really hold things up, is it not?

HOWARD FISCHER: Well, I don’t know it’s a big issue between them because as you point out, I think the governor — even though she put some money in — would just as soon the issue goes away or get, get kicked down the road perhaps to what she believes will be her second term.

You know, there are so many other things that are going on. I mean, on one hand, I think the governor has finally given up on the idea that there’s going to be more revenues, that she’s going to be able to raise taxes and fees.

On the other side of the equation, I think the Republican lawmakers have given up on the idea that we’ll just simply be able to cut most state agencies by 5% across the board and everything will be fine. So, this is a piece of the puzzle. It’s a complicating piece of the puzzle because now you really have a, a three-sided negotiation here because the third side is, once the receiver is appointed, and the judge wants that receiver appointed soon, that receiver should have a role and will be telling lawmakers, "If you do not appropriate these sums of money, I’m going to go back to the judge, and then, then we’ll really start to dance."

MARK BRODIE: Well, and what’s interesting, Howie, is that it would seem it would be difficult to really have a sense of even how much money to set aside, right? Because this receiver has not yet been hired, although it sounds as though they, both sides have a human in mind to do this. But you know, the budget’s got to be done probably sooner than that receiver would know how much money it’s going to take to fix things.

HOWARD FISCHER: Oh, obviously ... that’s key. But we also know that the record is that the private company that the state has hired has not even met its obligations in terms of the number of doctors, the number of nurses, the number of psychotherapists that are needed.

Now, some of this goes back to the fact that state lawmakers decided, and previous governors decided, "We’re just going to contract out the health services." And perhaps what the receiver will say, "That hasn’t worked. I want — we’re going to hire these people, they’re going to be state employees, and you will pay them."

Now ... this is one of those constitutional crises that can occur. You know, what happens at the 9th Circuit? Hard to know. We have a totally new Supreme Court since this case started. How much latitude are they willing to give the judge to say that you are required to do basic minimum things to keep prisoners healthy and safe?

MARK BRODIE: Right. It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. That is Howard Fischer with Capital Media Services. Howard, thank you as always.

HOWARD FISCHER: You’re welcome.

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LAUREN GILGER: The federal government has moved to buy up warehouses and turn them into ICE holding facilities around the country, and in a lot of those cases, they’ve been met with local animosity — even in some conservative strongholds.

But one ICE facility is already operating right here in the Valley, and reports of abuse there are mounting. In fact, our next guest found use-of-force incidents at an Arizona ICE facility like this are up 333%.

The latest incident has three members of Congress demanding answers. It involved ICE officers using pepper spray on a group of 47 detainees in an enclosed room. One man ended up having a seizure, according to a 911 call made by Officer Gene Rivero in the early hours in late February.

GENE RIVERO: Um, yeah, we had a uh, officer safety issue here, and uh, pepper spray was used, and we have a couple subjects that need to be looked at, and one subject specifically that appears to be seizing.

LAUREN GILGER: Jerod MacDonald-Evoy has been reporting the story for the Arizona Mirror, and he obtained that 911 audio we just heard through a public records request. He’s on the line now to tell us more. Good morning, Jerod.

JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY: Good morning.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so tell us more about this pepper spray incident at this Mesa facility. Do we know why it happened?

JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY: Well, ICE itself says that what happened was that, that inmates were kicking the doors and the windows and, and it — they had to use the pepper spray on these detainees because they were exhibiting aggressive behavior towards officers at approximately 2:15 a.m.

And they ended up transporting one person to an ER due to "an asthma episode," and this person was released an hour later. They also say that that that their asthma episode, they claim that there was no evidence that the spray, you know, caused this kind of episode.

Now we don’t know any more than that. The, the other kind of information we have is from other ICE databases and reporting. And it really isn’t entirely clear as to what may have led up to causing, you know, detainees to, you know, have this kind of attitude towards officers, or if there was any sort of de-escalation or any other kind of narrative around the event.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Your reporting, Jerod, that this is one of many it sounds like use-of-force incidents at this specific facility in particular. And at ICE facilities around the state, you found they’re up 333% so far this year. Looks like the rates, if they continue at this rate, will be much higher than they have been in past years.

JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY: Correct. When the Washington Post obtained a database of ICE use-of-force incidents across the country, and they found that use of force is up significantly across the country.

And when I looked at specifically Arizona data, you know, when you look at 2024, there were 23 reports for that entire year for detention centers; 2025, that rose to 34, and just this year we’re already at 13 and on pace to be using use of force around 78 times.

So we’re seeing a significant increase of use of force against ICE detainees in all of the detention facilities that are run by ICE in the state.

LAUREN GILGER: But that of course is not happening in a vacuum. Like, there’s been a lot of attention on this ICE facility in Mesa in particular because of reports of overcrowding. People are only supposed to be held there 12 hours, they appear to be being held there much longer in some circumstances. What did you find?

JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY: Correct, this facility, the Arizona Removal Operations Coordination Center, which is based out of Mesa Gateway [Airport], it is meant to be kind of a staging facility, an area where detainees are brought and, and sent to another facility, whether that be long-term detention or deportation.

It’s meant kind of act as kind of almost like a — ICE has described it as an airport terminal. And people are meant to stay there for like 12 hours or so. When you look at data, there are people who are sometimes there for only a few hours.

But when you look at this data as well, you find people who are there for 18 days. I found someone there last year who was there for 44 days, and this is a facility that has no onsite medical according to previous audits of the facility. There is no showers. They’re just singular rooms that hold around 24 to 22 people with a singular toilet and no beds. And people are being held on there on average around 36 hours.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow. Democratic members of Congress that you’ve spoken with about this have conducted several visits there from Arizona here. I mean, you’ve included one you’ve reported on where it was sort of a surprise visit, right, from [Reps. Greg Stanton, Adelita Grijalva and Yassamin Ansari]. They said that afterward, they saw holding rooms with twice the number of people in them than they were supposed to have.

JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY: Correct, they’ve, they’ve conducted two oversight visits. The first one was in February, actually, a week before the pepper-spray incident. And, and then at that time, there was no overcrowding, but ICE had appeared to move the detainees around prior to that, because the facility had the lowest numbers it had seen prior in its history of this year.

And then afterward, the numbers went back up. And so, they made this surprise visit a few months later, and on that surprise visit, they, they walked in to the facility, they went in and saw these rooms that the max occupancy was listed as 21 or 24, and saw around 40 to 50 people in there. And Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva told me that she saw people who couldn’t even really lay down. They were kind of just standing, packed like you said like sardines in these rooms.

And many of them were, were pleading for help. And there were some people in there who said they had fevers and were sick, and were kind of crowded in this facility.

LAUREN GILGER: So, those representatives are now demanding answers from ICE about this latest incident as well. They tell you what do they want to know?

JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY: Yeah, they have six main questions that they’re kind of hoping to get answered about this incident and the facility. They’re asking for incident reports and medical assessments and surveillance footage, you know, witness statements about this pepper-spray incident.

They’re also asking for the number of detainees that were present in the room when that happened. ICE’s own internal report that was obtained by the Washington Post that I analyzed said that they used use of force on 47 people. We don’t know if that’s the ... entirety of the amount of people that were in the room or the area when that was used.

They’re asking for the total number of detainees at the time of the incident. ICE records say that there were 332 people at that facility that day. They’re asking, you know, what the ventilation, evacuation and decontamination procedures are following the use of pepper spray; what specific conduct .. promoted the use of the pepper spray; and if there are any de-escalation techniques used prior to the deployment.

And they’re also asking for what policies ICE has for, for using pepper spray in a place uh, that is enclosed and small like that.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. I mean, what does oversight look like at these ICE facilities, Jerod? I mean, it seems like the only way, you know, the public is getting information about what’s happening in facilities like this are, you know, when Congress members make a surprise visit or you dig things up.

JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY: Oversight exists in theory, but oversight generally is done by, internally by the Office of the Inspector General or internal units at DHS like, you know, auditor groups.

But those groups have been gutted by the Trump administration. One of the first moves the Trump administration did on their second term when coming into office was start kind of gutting the ability for the Office of the Inspector General and these authorities to do oversight. Just last month an office that was actually created during Trump’s first term to provide oversight of detention center abuses specifically was actually closed.

So, these, these oversight mechanisms that are internal specifically to the federal government are kind of handicapped currently, and so some of the only proper oversight that we have is members of Congress or through public records or things like that. Especially because when it comes to localities, the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution doesn’t really allow for local control on federally run facilities.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. All right, well, that is Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reporting this story for the Arizona Mirror. Jerod, thank you so much for coming on, appreciate it.

JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY: Thank you.

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LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, it is The Show here on KJZZ, 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie. Coming up, a tragic event involving a circle of 200 horses inspired a poet.

JAKE SKEETS: There’s definitely a recursive nature that sort of exists when you’re thinking about just circles in general. … I felt like horses could also maybe act as a metaphor, and the repetition that sort of is employed throughout the book is the way in which I was maybe echoing that circular formation of these horses.

MARK BRODIE: We’ll hear about a new book of poetry from a Navajo Nation Poet Laureate.

LAUREN GILGER: But first, if you follow politics today, you might notice a certain four-letter word being thrown around a lot more than it used to be. We won’t say it here, but it starts with an F. Now, there was a time in politics when using any kind of even mild profanity was taboo. But today, the F-bomb is everywhere. In fact, The New York Times did an analysis of this and found on social media and in speeches, politicians of all stripes are embracing profanity. And one politician tops their list: Arizona’s own Junior Senator, Ruben Gallego.

RUBEN GALLEGO: Hey, this is Ruben Gallego. I’m traveling through Arizona right now and I just seen the news that Department of Defense is starting a investigation against uh, my seatmate, uh, Mark Kelly. This is f--king insane. We should all point out how f-cking insane this is. Secretary Hexseth, all these guys, f-ck you guys. You’re not going to be able to scare us.

LAUREN GILGER: I spoke more about what swearing signals to voters and the thin line between authenticity and shock value with Tucson-based linguist Megan Figueroa. She hosts the Vocal Fries podcast, and she told me this is all part of the Trump-era trend of rejecting politician-speak and decorum in politics. And a warning: this conversation may not be appropriate for all listeners.

MEGAN FIGUEROA: We’ve heard him say plenty of vulgarities along the way over this past decade. I think we really started to see this like decorum shift within politicians with Trump, especially lately, because there seems to be this urgency around politics, around what our politicians can do for our country, what’s happening to our country. It’s a very emotive situation, and you know, profanity is emotive.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, yeah. So, it kind of does seem to be of the era of Trump politics, right? But if you look at this New York Times analysis, one of the things that I think is surprising in there is that they find that Democratic politicians are using it more often than folks on the right. And it’s in particular this embrace of the F-word, right? Do you think that has to do with, particularly Democratic politicians, kind of outrage right now?

MEGAN FIGUEROA: Absolutely, it’s 100% that. If there’s one thing about profanity, about swearing, it’s that it’s emotive. It is a way to express strong emotions, to show that you disagree with something, that something is upsetting.

And if you are a Democrat, if you are on the left, it’s a very upsetting time in our country. And for the Democrats to be embracing this language, specifically the F-bomb, it’s just a way of them trying to strategically align with you and me over what’s happening in this country and a way to signal that they see us.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s interesting. It also comes as Democrats in particular, I think, are trying to sort of fight against this notion in politics today that they are out of touch with “real people.” That they’re like all sitting in ivory towers somewhere, right?

MEGAN FIGUEROA: Oh, yes. ... Stephen Colbert did an interview with former President Barack Obama last week, and President Obama is saying, “You know, we really need to learn how to talk to people. We don’t need to be giving college seminars” type of thing.

And there is this idea on the left that we are embracing language that is not used by the everyday person. So, a lot of, like, advocate speak. So, I can’t help but think that this is kind of a way to push back on the idea that Democrats are in the ivory tower, that they don’t know what’s happening with the boots on the ground, this use of profanity.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Are there particular moments you think, Megan, when this is really effective and has been for folks?

MEGAN FIGUEROA: Absolutely. So, when I think about when it really registered to me that there was some sort of shift that was more recent than just 10 years ago when Trump came into the scene, was when Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, when ICE was in Minneapolis, he held a press conference which of course is this very — if you think about the context of a press conference — what is the decorum here? It’s that you’re very professional, you have cameras on you, like, this is going to go out to a wide audience, and you’re a politician, right?

So, you have a certain way that people expect you to speak. And, he said to ICE, “Get the f-ck out of Minneapolis.”

JACOB FREY: To ICE, get the f-ck out of Minneapolis. We do not want you here. Your stated reason for being in this city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing exactly the opposite.

MEGAN FIGUEROA: And that was just — for me, I don’t find the F-bomb jarring. But for me I was like, this is something that I’m noting because we have a politician who is like, you know, fed up. He is seeing people die in the streets of the city that he is the mayor of.

It was very emotive, it was very real and authentic. And I just felt like, finally. Like my thought was finally, that language is so appropriate for the situation, even if it’s a politician.

GILGER: So when we’re talking about the effectiveness here, there is actual research on this, right? Like, on when it’s salient. Sometimes when the F-word is used, it can be more memorable to people, or it creates social bonding. Like, there are, it seems, real linguistic tools at work here.

MEGAN FIGUEROA: Yeah, so some of my colleagues have done this work. I’ve talked to them through my podcast, and I’ve read their research when I was in my Ph.D. program, because swearing is such an interesting thing linguistically.

But it is the case that it like relieves pain, it shows solidarity with people of certain groups. It can even signal to people that, “Hey, we both had a really bad day at work, and using this word means that we’re in it together.”

Like, there’s just so many different uses of it, and not only does it relieve pain, it like helps you tolerate pain longer. There’s research on this, so it’s just like this very interesting set of words that defines whatever profanity is in a certain language that it’s doing a lot of work. And, you know, I don’t think politicians are unaware of like the rhetorical benefits of, you know, attempting to put this into their politician-speak.

GILGER: Let’s talk about Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego for a moment because the New York Times analysis did find that he is by far and away the politician who uses this F-word the most. Do you think it works for him?

MEGAN FIGUEROA: This is really interesting because given the context — and I’ve heard him speak to this. He made a comment about something like, “Oh, you know, I was in the Marines for too long,” so that’s why he swears so much, right?

You know, we also have the fact that he is Latino, so there might be some sort of idea that Latino men are more likely to be kind of crude and use this kind of language. So, they’re like, oh, of course he’s doing that. So that can’t be ruled out.

There are these like intersecting identities for him where it’s like, oh, I can see why people are like, oh, this is authentic because X, Y and Z about his identities. But at the same time, he uses it so much, it gets to the point where you’re wondering, you’re just thinking about the strategy that he’s playing, and I think that there is room there for some people to find it inauthentic because it does seem to be so strategic.

GILGER: That brings me to my next question, Megan: Who gets to swear? Like, who are we OK with swearing in this country? Are you as likely to see women, for example, using profanity like this?

MEGAN FIGUEROA: Right? No, and going back to um, Gallego, I think there is some like leeway for him because of the military component that yeah, of course it makes sense that he’s swearing. Also, the number one thing, he’s a man.

So women are going to struggle in this area because there’s the idea that — I’ve been in situations where a man has like apologized to me for using profanity in front of me, as if I can’t handle it, right? And so, like, I don’t think I’m the only woman that is heard that. Definitely not, right?

And so the idea of women actually using it themselves, there’s this idea that this is a vulgar woman. This is not a woman that knows how to act and play in society, like she has no decorum. For some women, especially women of color, it may seem like they are very aggressive.

And we just don’t see it as much as we see like Ruben Gallego or (California Gov. ) Gavin Newsom or (U.S. Sen.) John Fetterman using profanity. We’re just not seeing women at the same rate, and it’s because of this bind that we are in that we will be assumed to not be fit for the office.

But it’s funny, just this weekend, (U.S. Sen.) Tina Smith of Minnesota on BlueSky swore. I just want to quote that. And this is um, regarding (Health and Human Services Secretary) RFK Jr.’s trying to ban some widely used antidepressants or exploring how that can be done.

She said, “People like care a whole lot about relying on SSRIs to make their lives work. I don’t know where I would be without SSRIs. Get your f-cking hands and your crazy conspiracy theories out of our medicine cabinets.”

GILGER: Mm, so it is crossing those boundaries, too. So, as you watch this become more normalized in the political sphere, Megan, like, do you think that says something about, I guess, the state of the country? Like, we talk so much about this divisive moment and all of this heated rhetoric, is this just all hand-in-hand with vulgarity in our language?

MEGAN FIGUEROA: Absolutely. It is really indicative of what’s happening in our country, and something that I’ve been considering when it comes to profanity and this idea that some people —I mean, some people are never going to be OK with politicians swearing.

But we are in this moment where it seems like it’s really important to be emotive because it’s scary out there. Institutions are changing at a rapid pace and not for the better ... depending on who you ask.

And so the idea of saying the F-bomb seems so innocent to me and so OK compared to when I think of what also could be considered profane is something like um, this past week Trump called a Black reporter stupid. And so, it’s like that question of what really is profane at this moment.

GILGER: Oh, how the times have changed. OK, Megan Figueroa, a linguist based in Tucson, host of the Vocal Fries podcast. Thank you so much, Megan, for coming back on The Show. I really appreciate the conversation.

MEGAN FIGUEROA: I appreciate it, Lauren.

(The Show theme music plays)

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, it is The Show here on KJZZ, 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie.

President Trump wrapped up his visit to China late last week. Among the issues the two presidents discussed was Taiwan. China’s leader warned Trump that if Taiwan’s independence was mishandled by the two global powers, it could lead to conflicts.

And those potential conflicts could impact Arizona. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, finished construction on its second fabrication facility in Phoenix earlier this spring. Company officials expect to have it up and running next year. TSMC in January bought more land in North Phoenix and says it plans to increase its investment in Arizona.

The company’s presence has led to even more development in that part of the Valley. A mixed-use community called Halo Vista is expected to include more than 2,000 acres. Banner Health recently bought nearly 19 acres near TSMC.

Economic development officials in the Valley and state have praised these projects as important for the region, but my next guest says TSMC’s investments here also have geopolitical implications.

Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University and author of the book, Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China. He joins me.

MARK BRODIE: And Eyck, you write that TSMC makes Taiwan strategically indispensable. What do you mean by that?

EYCK FREYMANN: Taiwan produces 90% of the world’s advanced semiconductors, 99% of the true cutting-edge semiconductors that are training the next generation of advanced AI models. And the world has no strategic reserve of these chips.

If somehow Taiwan’s supply or TSMC’s supply of these chips is taken offline, we are set back by basically a generation in anything high-tech. The stock market collapses, the U.S. and the global economy go into recession, and the world becomes a very different place because then we’re sprinting with China for who can rebuild faster.

That’s why depending on Taiwan exclusively for chips is sort of a national security concern for the United States. But as we’re discovering making these chips and keeping up with TSMC, which is improving its quality at blazing speed, is just no easy task.

MARK BRODIE: Well, is it helpful at all that TSMC has expanded outside of Taiwan? For example, they have a huge presence now here in the Phoenix area, does that help sort of geopolitically, or does it not matter so much because it’s still the Taiwanese company?

EYCK FREYMANN: It’s a major geopolitical bet that the United States has taken to try to break its dependence for semiconductors, and it’s a big bet that the Taiwanese government and TSMC are making in the United States. Deploying huge amounts of capital, building these facilities, recruiting and training local workers in the Phoenix area.

The challenge, as we’re discovering, is that because these are just some of the hardest devices to make in the world, it requires an incredibly specialized workforce. Training these workers isn’t easy, and also, let’s face it, the company doesn’t want all of its operations to move from Taiwan, so they have sort of an incentive to move step-by-step and keep Arizona from the cutting edge.

MARK BRODIE: Does it worry China that TSMC is making inroads in other Western countries?

EYCK FREYMANN: I think China isn’t happy about it because China depends on Taiwan’s advanced chips, too. But China is making an all-out effort using basically every instrument of, of its national power, leveraging hundreds of billions of dollars of investment, anything that they can do to break their dependence on Taiwan for these chips.

And what’s concerning is that as China breaks its dependence on Taiwan, if the U.S. doesn’t reduce its dependence on Taiwan either, maybe China begins to think it’s not so bad if Taiwan’s fabs get destroyed and the U.S. economy is thrown in recession because actually China will, relatively speaking, be better off.

So, as China diversifies away from Taiwan in chips, it’s really national security essence for the U.S. to do the same in a proportionate way.

MARK BRODIE: Does that mean having American companies like Intel step up, or is it looking elsewhere, you know, outside the U.S. but maybe not specifically in Taiwan?

EYCK FREYMANN: It would be terrific if American companies like Intel could step up. I mean, the problem is making these things is just really, really hard. And TSMC is at the cutting edge, and TSMC alone is investing tens of billions of dollars — I think the number is like $60 billion this year alone.

So, the amount that you have to keep investing into factories and equipment and training and retraining your workers, it just — it costs so much money that if you’re not competitive at the cutting edge, it’s like why bother? You’re flushing money down the drain.

MARK BRODIE: How did it come to be that Taiwan was such a leader in this industry?

EYCK FREYMANN: It’s an amazing story that my friend Chris Miller describes in a book called "Chip War." But basically, the technology was developed in the United States in the 1950s, realizing that you could carve grooves in a semiconductor wafer and use that as a relatively cheap, super-super microscopic way of doing computing.

But as the technology advanced, American companies realized that they were actually doing it all. They were designing these chips, which is actually a really complicated thing, and then they were making them, and the making of the chips was kind of expensive and difficult and had very low margins. And if they could move it to Asia, a place where workers were willing to work for lower wages but also be super capable and well-trained, they could do it more profitably and drive down costs.

So, basically, there was this one guy named Morris Chang, who is — came to MIT, got his PhD, uh, was like one of the big honchos in the US chip business, and he was Taiwanese-American and realized that he could go back and start this company and just say, "Why don’t you just focus on the design, Americans, and let me and my Taiwanese friends do the actual fabrication, the actual making of the chips?"

And that is basically the division of labor we’ve had. But unfortunately, as we’ve discovered, it turns out to be really important to be able to make them at all, and now that we’re 99% dependent on Taiwan, which is a bit of a problem as tensions rise over there.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, well, it sounds like this is kind of a problem of our own making.

EYCK FREYMANN: Yeah, well, that’s, that’s the story of the last 40 years and globalization. We made decisions for, for profit alone, without thinking about the geopolitical implications, and we became dependent on supply chains from all over the world. And you know, for the most part, that has helped to produce, you know, decades of growth and American prosperity, and so there’s been good stuff, and the stock market has gone up.

But it’s come at a cost, and part of it is that, you know, our supply chains for things that we need — you know, everything that has an on switch and an off switch pretty much relies on chips — and now those supply chains depend on components from Asia. And you know, we’re never going to fully break our dependence on trade with Asia, and we shouldn’t try. But diversifying, I think, is healthy and it’s necessary.

MARK BRODIE: Well, and it’s interesting because when you talk about economic security as we’ve discussed, national security as well, these chips seem to be a pretty big component of that for us here.

EYCK FREYMANN: Oh, I mean, chips are essential to everything. And as AI takes over, chips are only going to become more important. Like, I’m a historian, and have been looking for examples, but there’s never been an example in history of a time when there’s been a technological revolution that’s so dependent on products from or a resource from just one country. That is how dependent we are on Taiwan.

MARK BRODIE: Is there a strategic advantage for Taiwan to be investing in places like Arizona?

EYCK FREYMANN: It is because I think they need to show the United States that they’re willing to play ball and that they’re not using the chips just to sort of coerce us and force us to back them.

Also, we gave TSMC a pretty sweet deal with the CHIPS Act; we, we gave them real incentives to do this production in Arizona. But, you know, the, the same reasons that America — or that these supply chains moved to Taiwan decades ago still apply, so it’s a, it’s a question in the long term how these factories in Arizona will be commercially sustainable. And I don’t think that we will be able to compete with Taiwan on price alone.

But maybe, and I think we should have this conversation, maybe it’s a national security imperative that we be able to make at least some of our chips in the United States and that we should be willing to pay a little more to make that happen.

And if, if that’s the conclusion that we reach, and I think it’s what we should, then there is a very important place for these Phoenix TSMC facilities and potentially others. Because that is how we will protect our economic security if, God forbid, we have a conflict with China. Or for for whatever reason we can’t buy from Taiwan anymore.

MARK BRODIE: Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University and author of the book, “Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China.”

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LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, it is The Show here on KJZZ, 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I’m Mark Brodie.

A photo from a few years ago is the inspiration for a new collection of poems. Jake Skeets says the image, which showed a number of horses who had died, got him thinking about climate change and its impacts on the Navajo Nation. That led to his latest collection called Horses. He’ll be talking about it tonight at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix. Skeets is the Navajo Nation’s third Poet Laureate, he joins me to talk about his newest project.

MARK BRODIE: Jake, tell me about the inspiration here. It sounds like it was something meaningful that happened on the Navajo Nation, is that right?

JAKE SKEETS: That’s right. The book itself really began during the pandemic, and I — and the book itself opens with a poem that’s in response to a rather tragic event that happened on the Navajo Nation in 2018. Nearly 200 feral horses were found dead in a dried-up stock pond. And I was really sort of captivated by that story, so I began this book with that image in mind as I was writing it. Thinking through things like climate change and the ways in which it can be measured by ordinary people like you and me.

MARK BRODIE: What captivated you so much about that situation that led you not only to write about it but to kind of base your new collection on it?

JAKE SKEETS: I’m not sure exactly. I think it was definitely the image of the horses. If you Google it, you can find the images, they’re quite, you know, breathtaking a bit. Not in a good way, of course. ... And, the interesting thing about the these horses is that they were found in a circle, which I thought was such an interesting detail about this particular event. And yeah, I’m not sure exactly why it sort of stayed with me, but ... I meditated on that particular image for quite some time.

MARK BRODIE: How did you try to take the image that you saw and the images that came to you in your mind and put them into words?

JAKE SKEETS: Well, there’s definitely a recursive nature that sort of exists when you’re thinking about just circles in general, the kind of like a cyclical way in which time might move. And when you pair that with a sort of specific Native identity and tradition and history, I felt like horses could also maybe act as a metaphor, and the repetition that sort of is employed throughout the book is the way in which I was maybe echoing, you know, that circular formation of these horses.

MARK BRODIE: How significant of a story was that on the Navajo Nation? Like, was that a big deal for folks living there?

JAKE SKEETS: I don’t think so, honestly. Because the — I didn’t know about the event until 2020, so that was, you know, two years later. So I didn’t even hear about it, I didn’t notice any other type of press around just a few news articles that I found online about it.

In fact, you know, in response, the Navajo Nation, you know, just sprayed the horses in a hydrated lime in order to speed up decomposition and buried the horses on site. So, it’s kind of the, you know, sweeping under the rug in a way. But I feel like that moment or that event really was a kind of stark reminder that there’s climate change is a real thing and that we are — we can see it, we can measure it.

MARK BRODIE: Well so, thinking about that, did that sort of lead you to the rest of the poems in this collection, thinking about climate change and maybe what might have led to these horses’ deaths?

JAKE SKEETS: Yes, yes. So, it was a lot of research in the kind of things or phenomena that are happening specifically in and around the Navajo Nation. And they very much is connected, kind of like in a circle, right? So, these feral horses are, you know, a huge factor in climate change in these Western states that are dealing with drought, right?

Because horses overgraze a lot, and when they graze, they take the plant from the root up. So, what’s left is just, you know, the soil itself, but, you know, wind and flash floods carry away that topsoil, so you’re left with just sand, right, in these Western states. And then sand dune migration is a real thing that’s happening on the Navajo Nation that’s beginning to overtake roads and houses and fences. Again, it’s all connected, in a way.

MARK BRODIE: I wonder if you were thinking of sort of the role of horses not just in climate change as you’re describing, but also kind of like in the role or the image of the West as a whole. Like, horses seem to have kind of this status in this part of the world.

JAKE SKEETS: Definitely. I was thinking of that kind of Western frontier image as I was writing this particular book. I knew that horses carried so much meaning for just the American West in general, but also just for Native people in general as well. The horse as a symbol, the horse as an image is kind of like the symbol for, you know, freedom or strength or, you know, some type of resilience. But in this case, I was really interested in trying to play around with with that idea, and it did inform a lot of my work in the book.

MARK BRODIE: How much do you try to put yourself in poems versus the, the rest of the subject matter you might be writing about?

JAKE SKEETS: I’m really interested in speakers that can be mobile, that sort of can basically travel or traverse large spaces or time zones or ... timetables. And for me specifically, I think in my first two books, there’s sort of like a hint of myself in there, some of it is definitely biographical — autobiographical, I mean. But ... I think there is a distance between the speakers in this book and myself.

MARK BRODIE: Is that a conscious choice?

JAKE SKEETS: Yes, yes, I try to keep myself as the speaker or myself kind of maybe at the periphery as opposed to the center. And yeah, it’s definitely a choice, just to — because I do sort of tend to write about these darker tones or these darker themes. So, I think it’s just also a way of protection for myself, right, of making sure that this — I see this as a sort of a separate thing as opposed to part of my life.

MARK BRODIE: Oh, that’s interesting. So, almost like you’re trying not to — for example, a lot of these poems deal with climate change and things that, you know, are kind of unpleasant, trying not to bring yourself into those kinds of things?

JAKE SKEETS: Yes, so not to put myself at the center, I think. But, of course, what ends up happening is that I always sort of come up and show up in the collections. But I think what readers will generally find out is that there’s no way I can separate them, right?

I might go in wanting to have this sort of clean separation or division, but when I’m throughout the book, the thing that I discover is that I can’t, and I’m hoping that the reader also discovers that, that they also can’t separate themselves. So, that’s why I really put myself as on the periphery because of the journey sort of inward into the collection.

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LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban and our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram at @kjzztheshow.

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