The Show for June 11, 2026: Concern over public health's future, faith in the Legislature and more

There are multiple disease outbreaks public health officials are trying to contain. Why a former U.S. surgeon general says he’s concerned about public health’s future. And, our series on religion at the Legislature continues with a trauma nurse whose faith inspired her to run for office.

Transcript

UNDERWRITER: 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, 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.

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, a former U.S. surgeon general on his concerns about the future of public health.

LAUREN GILGER: And a look ahead at the big summer movie season and what might be worth a trip to the theater.

MARK BRODIE: ... State lawmakers are expected to debate, vote on and approve a new state budget today. The bills cleared their respective appropriations committees yesterday, teeing up today's action on the $18.3 billion plan. KJZZ's Wayne Schutsky from the Politics Desk has been at the state Capitol following this. He is there now and he is with us at this moment. Good morning, Wayne.

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Good morning.

MARK BRODIE: So, what are some of the key takeaways from this budget? Like, what are lawmakers from both parties saying are sort of their their top lines on this?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah. So, as Rep. David Livingston, one of the chief negotiators of this budget on the Republican side, said, "All that matters is the tax cuts." So, this basically nearly fully conforms with those federal tax cuts that were included last year in the in the so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill." That was something Republicans had fought for for a long time. Uh big takeaway for Arizona voters is it looks like no one will need to re-file their taxes cuz it will be retroactive for this year, obviously.

MARK BRODIE: Right. And that was, of course, a big fight earlier in the session. The Legislature sent the governor a couple of bills with full tax conformity. Is that what is in this budget?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah. This is more or less that that plan they sent. There's a few — after this year, there's a few little, small differences between the federal, you know, like increasing deductions for state and local taxes, that kind of thing, that are removed. But by and large, it is conforming with those those changes. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, all those um headline-making tax cuts we heard about.

MARK BRODIE: OK. So, what are Democrats happy about?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah. Democrats, they didn't get a lot of their big wins on this, something like Prop. 123 renewal, that education funding measure that expired that they've been fighting to include in this. But they did point out that they got money for AHCCCS, which is Arizona's Medicaid agency, and the Department of Economic Security, which runs the food stamp program, to try and mitigate the effects of that "Big, Beautiful Bill."

You know, we've reported that over half of Arizona's food stamp recipients have been booted from the rolls, more or less, since that went into effect. So, what they did is they got $21 million to hire new staff at those agencies because what we're hearing from the agencies is a lot of these people are being removed not maybe because they don't actually comply with these new rules, but because the agencies just can't process these new applications and all the new bureaucratic work that goes along with this in time. And it's resulting in people not being able to meet those new requirements.

MARK BRODIE: So in theory then, by hiring more staff, people who are eligible would be able to stay on the rolls, and only those who are removed are those who who shouldn't have been there to begin with?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Correct. And, you know, we saw, I believe it was last year DES, one of the agencies that runs the SNAP food program, lost 500 staff because of federal cuts. And so, that was what they blamed not only for problems with SNAP, but problems processing unemployment claims and things like that. So, theoretically, getting more of these employees in place to help process all of this stuff, yeah, will help keep those people who otherwise are eligible keep them getting their benefits.

MARK BRODIE: Sure. OK. So, Wayne, yesterday I mentioned that the bills cleared appropriations committees in both the House and Senate pretty easily. There were a few no votes in both chambers. Are you expecting fairly smooth sailing today?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah. It seems like, you know, this is a bipartisan budget. It had to be negotiated between a Democratic governor and a Republican-controlled Legislature. And it seems like this time around, they did a lot of that hard work hashing out their differences behind closed doors.

So, as you mentioned, there's some Republicans who don't like it because they think spending is increasing too fast, and there's some Democrats who don't like it because they think these tax cuts are eating into social services that Arizonans need. But by and large, I think everyone kind of bit their tongue on the things they didn't like, realized they got a few good things out of it and are are looking to pass this budget.

MARK BRODIE: Are you expecting any changes? And I'm specifically curious about something that that you had reported on dealing with some money — a pretty small amount of money in the overall $18.3 billion scheme of things — for oversight. Like, is there a chance that something like that could get added in?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah. I'm not expecting any big changes. You know, Livingston, who's overseeing this process, warned lawmakers that because this was all already negotiated between, you know, three different parties, that getting a big change through might not happen. But yeah, a small change like you mentioned. This has to do with oversight at group homes for Arizonans with developmental disabilities, something that was created after the well-publicized sexual abuse and rape scandal at Hacienda HealthCare years ago.

Something like that, it was left out of the budget for some reason. No one can really tell me why. But like you said, it's only $1.2 million, which for people like you and me, a lot of money, but in the grand scheme of this budget, not really. So, I could see a small change like that, them finding a way to to move money around to get that done.

MARK BRODIE: OK. Now, Wayne, the word is that the Legislature might be trying to wrap up the entire session maybe by tomorrow. Other than the budget, which of course they have to do, what else is left?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: A lot of it has to do just with passing bills. You know, this is, you know, as you said, this is end game. So, you know, anything they want to get through has to be done now. So, one thing that could happen — we're already seeing a lot of those bills go through, but one thing is these ballot referrals that we saw clog up the ballot last time around could happen again.

There's been a lot of them floating in the ether, but not many of them have moved through. But we've got dozens and dozens kind of hanging in limbo. Things like changing — making major changes to voting laws, a lot of culture-war stuff on on pronoun usage and who can use what bathrooms and what sports teams people can play on. And then one that would uh, you know, increase legislative pay, and then another one that would stop them from getting paid if they don't pass a budget by the end of April.

So, tons of those ballot referrals and then there's actually a hearing today to confirm a few of Gov. Hobbs' —

MARK BRODIE: Agency nominees, right?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah. So, a few of those have to get done too. So, there's three on the board that will be happening concurrently with some of these budget hearings today.

MARK BRODIE: And safe to say, Wayne, that at least some of those bills or ballot referrals are being used as leverage to get maybe members with a little bit of heartburn on board with the budget?

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yeah. I mean, I can't say that with 100% certainty, but every year we do kind of see, you know — I don't want to say held hostage — but we see ... we say, you know, you like this part of the budget, you don't like this part of the budget. If you can swallow that, then we'll, yeah, we'll get your bill or your ballot referral across the finish line or at least put it up for a vote. At that point, it's up to the individual lawmaker to decide how they want to vote on that.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is KJZZ's Wayne Schutsky from the Politics Desk at the state Capitol, where hopefully he will not be all night. Wayne, thanks as always.

WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Yep. Thank you.

LAUREN GILGER: Well, Arizona may be a landlocked state, but in order to solve our water crisis, we might need to turn to the ocean. Desalination has long been a white whale in Arizona water, but now Arizona water leaders are taking a major step toward making it a reality. But it's more complicated than piping in desalinated ocean water to the desert, and it all says a lot about what the future of water in our region might look like. KJZZ's Alex Hager is covering it and joins us now to tell us more. Good morning.

ALEX HAGER: Good morning, Lauren.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. So, this involves a memorandum of understanding, got to love that phrase, with the San Diego County Water Authority, where there is a large desalination plant kind of in that region. I'm sure you've seen it if lots of folks have been to the ocean there. How would this work?

ALEX HAGER: So, the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere is in Carlsbad, California, right across the street from the beach. You will see it if you know what you're looking for. And right now, it is producing about 10% of the water for the San Diego County area alone. But this deal would make it so San Diego County could lean harder on the water that it takes from that desal plant and take some of the water that it uses from the Colorado River, leave it in the river upstream. And then other users, like ones around Phoenix, could take that water instead, for a price.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, for a price. So, this would look at the Central Arizona Project, the CAP, right? These big canals that bring Colorado River water down to the Valley, to Tucson. They might be able to to get a little extra water out of this?

ALEX HAGER: That's right. I mean, they are potentially facing big cuts. There is less water in the Colorado River than there used to be. The people who are in charge of water agencies around here generally acknowledge that we are not going to see, you know, the nation's largest reservoirs fill back up with water. So, they're looking where else can we go to get water? And this kind of exchange is one of the ways that you can get more water in the systems that bring the Colorado River to Arizona without actually having to build new pipes or pumps.

LAUREN GILGER: And this is interesting, too, Alex, because desalination is like notoriously expensive, right? And that desal plant that you're talking about there, the biggest in the Western Hemisphere in Carlsbad ... it costs a lot of money to to make that water, to make that water clean enough to drink, right?

ALEX HAGER: That's right. This plant cost $1 billion to build. It costs tens of millions to operate every year. And like I said earlier, for all that money, it produces relatively little water. So, that high cost means that the water that comes out of that plant is pretty expensive. So, you know, today the water costs about $3,500 per acre-foot. For comparison, the CAP currently sells water from its canal for about $365 per acre-foot. So, it is not going to be cheap. But in a world where there is just realistically not going to be more water coming into the Colorado River, the amount that we pay for the water we can get from that system might be going up in the future.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So, that's the inevitable question. This is expensive, desalinated water is expensive. What would a deal like this mean potentially for, you know, how much we all pay for water? Are we looking at inevitably higher prices going forward?

ALEX HAGER: It stands to reason that down the road, we will probably be paying for more water as there is less of it to go around. However, I think on balance, when you look at how much water costs now, you know — if you look at the amount that it costs to run this desalination plant, well, I'll put it this way, the amount that we pay for water now has been relatively immune to changes in how much is actually available because of the way that our system works. ... It is only in the future that we are going to start to see the drought and the lack of availability of water start to catch up.

LAUREN GILGER: So, we haven't paid more yet, but it's coming. ... OK. So, Alex, what strikes me here is that this kind of exchange is like a jigsaw puzzle, right? Like, it's like moving around water and who pays for what and where the water goes. Is this kind of what the future of water might look like here, because we're not going to have more in the river and, you know, we're looking at a drier future in general?

ALEX HAGER: Yeah. Nature is making less available to us, so it's forced the people in charge to get creative, and this is what getting creative looks like. It means that, you know, because it's so expensive to build a new desal plant, it means going to the one that we already have and, you know, creating a a legal mechanism to get that water here instead of creating a big pipe. It means investing in other technologies that can sort of create more water with, you know, with an acknowledgment that we are not going to get more naturally.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK. Let's talk about some of those other technologies before I let you go. Right. Like, we hear a lot about advanced water purification, what has sometimes been called toilet to tap. Will the future of water in the Southwest also look like things like that — other ways of purifying water so that we can drink it?

ALEX HAGER: It will, and in the relatively near future as well. The city of Phoenix itself is is working and is physically building a new facility that can take sewage, can take wastewater, treat it to drinkable standards, and put it right back into the system. I have visited this facility in Phoenix. I have visited similar ones in California, and the science checks out. There are a lot of very smart people who know that this is safe and have and say that it is a useful way to stretch out the water that we already have.

Like I said, you know, scientists say it would take three, four, five epic snowy years in a row to refill these reservoirs, and based on the way that things have been looking, that is not likely to happen. And the people in charge recognize that they are going to have to kind of do it themselves. And doing it yourself, if you're a city or a water agency in the arid Southwest, looks like creating a sort of complicated legal deal that might be expensive to get water from a place that has a desalination facility or building an advanced water purification facility to stretch out the water you already have and get more use out of it.

LAUREN GILGER: Are there other technologies, other things that you're looking at, Alex, as we look at kind of that jigsaw puzzle and the way that this all might piece together in the future?

ALEX HAGER: I think advanced water water purification is going to be the big one. When we look at where the money is being spent right now, it's that treating wastewater and making it drinkable again that I think is going to be the first big thing that we see helping cities in the arid Southwest weather the drought crisis.

LAUREN GILGER: OK. We'll leave it there. KJZZ's Alex Hager covers water for us and is here to tell us more about all of this now. Desalination, all of these technologies all on the horizon. Alex, thank you very much for coming on. Appreciate it, as always.

ALEX HAGER: Always good to be here.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It's The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I'm Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: And I'm Mark Brodie. Coming up, a look at some of the most highly anticipated films of the summer blockbuster season.

LAUREN GILGER: And now let's turn to the next edition of our series, Ditat Deus, where we're exploring the role of religion at the Arizona State Capitol. Ditat Deus, by the way, is Arizona's state motto. It means "God enriches," and it points to a theme among Arizona's lawmakers that religion often plays a central role in their politics, their decision-making, and sometimes why they're there to begin with. And that is true for the next lawmaker in our series, Chandler Republican Julie Willoughby.

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: I'm actually like a second-generation PK or a pastor's kid, right? So, my grandfather was a pastor, my father was a pastor. So, I was born on a Monday, and my parents said very clearly on the next Sunday I was in church.

LAUREN GILGER: In fact, Willoughby's grandfather and father both pastored the same small Christian church in Michigan where she was raised.

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: I remember very clearly the songs that we would sing and being in children's church and the nervousness I would get to have to sing in front of the church, 'cause sometimes they would have the kids come up and we would all sing together and just being nervous.

And then as I became a teenager and my father became the pastor, he would call me out to pray over the the congregation or the opening of the sermon.

LAUREN GILGER: When she's not serving at the state Legislature, Rep. Willoughby is nurse Willoughby, a trauma nurse who's worked in emergency departments for many years in the Valley.

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: I remember being a small child and asking like we would learn the gifts of the spirit and I would always want the gift of healing. I thought that was the coolest.

LAUREN GILGER: She was first appointed to the state Legislature after the ouster of controversial lawmaker Liz Harris in 2023. But she ran for office twice before that, the second time losing by just 275 votes.

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: I had lost, I'm like I'm not going to publicly lose like this ever again. I— it's a lot, and it's a lot of strain on my family to be doing all of that.

And I actually enrolled in my master's program and I did all these things because I was moving my life in a completely different direction, and then a hard right came and the opportunity for me to be appointed, and I, I absolutely accepted that because that's where I really wanted to be.

LAUREN GILGER: As far as her politics, Willoughby is a staunch conservative but has said she is not an election denier. She supports abortion restrictions, school choice and parental rights.

She was a key player in negotiating a deal last year between GOP lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, when the Department of Developmental Disabilities faced a budget crisis.

And she told me her faith is at the root of her work as both a lawmaker and a nurse. But that's not where she thought her life would take her.

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: Growing up, I wanted to be a a female CEO that took over the world. Like, that's what I wanted. I wanted to dominate the business world. And in 11th grade, I had a teacher that assigned us all going and finding the person that you want to shadow, that the career that you want to be in.

Well, I was in a small town and there was no women CEOs for me to shadow, so I did the next best thing, which was my brother's girlfriend's mom at the time, she was a labor and delivery nurse, and they let me shadow her. That was the epitome of when I knew I was going to be a nurse. I watched all of that. I was there helping her and they, we delivered a baby and, just watching all that happen, I'm like, "Okay. CEO, I don't care. This is what I'm going to do." So, at that point, my entire career changed based off of that one assignment.

LAUREN GILGER: That's amazing. You got to help deliver a baby? What a shadow day. I mean, so, your decision to become a nurse and and and enter the Legislature seems that they come from this kind of internal drive that you have.

Let me bring the conversation back to religion and ask you if that's all connected for you in some way.

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: Yes. I believe that it was all definitely God-driven because I wanted to dominate the world and be a female CEO, and and one day, one experience changed that for me completely. It was just a moment in a snap that brought me into healthcare.

And then from being in healthcare, it brought me to this political ideology of helping people and looking at the the Legislature as a way to achieve that. So, I do believe that it was guided for me, 'cause these things were so like just automatic that it wasn't even something that I questioned or like worried about or concerned about or, you know, sometimes you are like, "What if I do this, then that?"

It was just, "No. I know that this is it. This is what I'm doing." So, there was just a certainty there that goes beyond just my decision-making.

LAUREN GILGER: So, I've heard lawmakers of various stripes say they felt called by God to be in the position that they're in. Is that what you're describing here?

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: Yes, absolutely. I believe I was called by God and I like to say even further than that, I was appointed. I wasn't just elected. I've been elected since, but I was appointed.

And when you go through the Bible, there's a lot of strong individuals that were appointed and anointed to their positions. So, I tie that all back together, yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: So then let's talk about how this applies in the work that you do and the laws that you support, and the issues you tackle here as a lawmaker.

I mean, any bills, any issues, any moments in your service at the ledge so far that have really felt driven by that? Where you've said, "This is why I'm here. Now I know why."

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: I don't know if there is any one decision. I think all of it kind of encompasses together. I, you know, I pray every morning for God to give me discernment, right? To make the right judgment call. To give me the wisdom to understand what I'm looking at and to make the right decision.

And there's just a such a clarity when those decisions do come that it's easy for me to stand on that, for me to know that this is where I should be and this is what I'm going to do. And I've never really had to question that thereafter. So, my my religious relationship with God has really brought me to the ability to make those decisions and to stand on them.

And I think, honestly, my nursing background has done that for me as well, because in a trauma situation, you have to make a decision, you have to make it now, and you have to go with that and run it down until it doesn't work, and then you make another decision and run it down until it doesn't work.

So, I think both my professional life and my religious life together have got me to where I know how to make decisions morally and ethically and physically to to my best ability to help other.

LAUREN GILGER: You were a big force behind the scenes, I think mostly, in the big debate last year about disability funding and caregiver funding, funding the Department of Developmental Disabilities. This was one of those instances it seems like you were the one to break the logjam, maybe not go against your party, but but be willing to negotiate with the other side.

Was that a moment when you felt like your religion came into play for you?

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: Yes, absolutely. I believe very strongly that life is is created by God and is important through the entire spectrum. I think politically sometimes we want to argue that just in in the womb. We forget that there's a lot more life outside of the womb that we should be protecting just the same.

And those that are, you know, disabled, are unable to care for themselves, it talks about it all the time in the Bible, the widows and the orphaned. And, you know, these individuals may not be orphaned, but they are still in need of care and love and and being concerned for and over. And I think that's where I started moving in the direction uh during the the DDD stuff last session.

LAUREN GILGER: So, that's a moment when it kind of intersected for you. Have there been other moments when it's been challenging for you? When you feel like in order to represent the people of your district, right, which is sort of the the oath you take, you've had to do something that felt like it was in conflict with your religion?

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: No, I honestly, I have not had that experience. And I'm very grateful that I haven't. Anywhere that I have campaigned, I've campaigned very solidly that I am a Christian first.

I try to describe myself, we all have quantifiers on our lives, right? Like, I'm a a woman, I'm a mom, I'm a nurse, I'm a sister, I'm a daughter, quantifiers. My quantifier always starts with I'm a Christian. So, on my website, when I campaign, anywhere I go, I'm very clear about that's where I'm at, and I was elected based off of that campaigning. So, I feel that if the individuals didn't want me to represent them in that way, I wouldn't have been elected to office.

LAUREN GILGER: Do you think that there is a a line where your religion shouldn't cross into public life?

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: You know, that's actually a really good question because we want to talk about not being able to legislate morality. But we do. We we already have. We've done it with, you know, homicide laws, we've done it with child protection laws, we've we've already legislated morality. So, I think the big misnomer of having to separate these two is is not truly there. I feel like it's it's more of a a stance or a principle that we like to argue about.

But I do believe that we have the obligation to care for people in the best way that we can, and I take that from a very personal, religious perspective because, you know, God says my role is to go out and spread the good news and to share it with everyone that I can, and I believe that I can do that through legislation, and that's the the route I'll take. I think everybody down here has their opinion that is typically based in their own version of morality.

LAUREN GILGER: So, do you feel like it's a value to have a diversity of religion in that way in the Legislature and also, you know, in the country?

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: I believe that having different perspectives only makes somebody wiser and smarter, to be able to take time and hear other people, but to be able to then disagree respectfully, I think is even more of a value thereafter.

I mean, I say this all the time, I love my husband dearly. I don't agree with him all the time, right? So, having other people's perspective doesn't mean that you automatically accept their their perception or their opinion, but it does mean that you take it into account when making final decisions.

LAUREN GILGER: Do you feel like you can and do represent people of all various faiths and religions, even though you are pretty staunchly, you know, representing your own faith?

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: Yes, I do because I do take the time to listen to other individuals' sides. When emails come in, I try to always understand the perspective that they are bringing forward to me. I take it very seriously when constituents email me because they are my constituents and I do want to know what they're hearing and what they're saying.

But I also want them to be able to hear and see what I have to say too, right? It's a back and forth on, you know, because, like, as a mom, sometimes I tell my kid, "No, don't touch something" because I know it could hurt them, not because I want to regulate them, right? And sometimes when we're making rules and laws down here, constituents might not know the whole picture. So, I do believe regardless of my religion or the religion of somebody that lives in my district, that I am representing them properly.

LAUREN GILGER: Rep. Julie Willoughby, thank you so much.

JULIE WILLOUGHBY: Thank you.

MARK BRODIE: There are more than 2,000 confirmed cases of measles in the U.S. as of last week. That's according to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is only a couple of hundred cases away from the total from all of last year. That is part of the context in which former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona says he's concerned. Carmona served in the George W. Bush administration and is affiliated with the College of Public Health at the University of Arizona. Carmona recently said, "We are living in one of the most consequential inflection points in modern history." And when I spoke with him earlier, I asked what he means by that through the lens of public health.

DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Well, as I viewed the state of our nation and the world, and the challenges before us, many of them self-imposed, politically driven, that's where my thoughts started. And I actually reflected back and I thought, what are what are periods in history where we've struggled as a nation? And I thought back at the Civil War where we were divided, North and South, and where a single leader stepped up and united us, Abraham Lincoln.

And then I fast forward to today, once again, we're a disunited states, mostly tribal in our camps, fueled by mis- and disinformation. And I thought, you know, this is a plague in sorts. And, you know, that's what I was referring to, and then the subtext within that is: what's happened to public health? And so, as we have struggled with maintaining our democracy and have eliminated what I consider to have been essential public health, global public health programs that put the world at risk and put our nation at risk. Because after the Second World War, we had the United Nations, we got NATO, we got the World Health Organization, we got the World Bank. All of those organizations created global stability and improved public health.

So now, we start seeing some of these programs unraveling, and we see more instability, and we see disease spreading, we see mass migration of people, that all have public health implications.

MARK BRODIE: Well, so you mentioned the World Health Organization, and that of course is an entity from which President Trump has withdrawn the United States. What kind of practical implications do you see that action having — both for us and for other countries around the world?

DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Well, the ramifications are significant. The World Health Organization came to be after the Second World War. It was one of those things that the United States helped to put together to be able to create global health and global stability because without global health, you have global instability.

Canyon Ranch
Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona

And so, now, we are less ready to be able to identify any emerging threats in infectious disease around the world, especially in those countries that don't have the ability to stop the spread. We had teams that would go in there, a U.S. public health service deployed all over the world to do those things, our epidemiological intelligence service. We provided intellectual property to our allies, and then in some cases even adversaries, because we recognized if we cannot stop the spread of disease ... it will affect all of us. And we we've seen that happen.

MARK BRODIE: So, when you look at some of the public health challenges that we're dealing with sort of globally right now, you think of things like Ebola, you think of closer to home maybe the measles. Are these diseases that you think — or might these outbreaks be different had different decisions been made by American leadership?

DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Most definitely. Well, starting right at home, the mis- and disinformation about vaccines. You know, up until uh recently, young doctors and nurses going through medical training had never seen a case of measles because it's a vaccinable disease. But yet, when we have leaders at the highest level preaching ideology and misinformation and disinformation that has the public pause and not sure if they should vaccinate their children or vaccinate the adults for disease, you see what happens, disease spreads.

So, um it is very, very significant now that especially at quite frankly at HHS [Health & Human Services], where the good scientists that are still there, the good practitioners that are still there, struggle to be able to drive policy by the best science when ideology is substituting and mis- and disinformation is dividing the public who don't know who to believe anymore. There are ... significant consequences from that, both in health and cost of care.

MARK BRODIE: How much of all of this do you draw back to COVID and sort of the distrust that some folks had for public health officials? I mean, is there something else either before or after that you think had a a similar kind of impact on what's going on right now?

DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Let's put in perspective. COVID was the first pandemic in a century, 100 years. The institutional memory was lost. Unless you read books on the history of public health, most people didn't know how to deal with a pandemic, and you know, a rapidly spreading infection like that. So, there were some missteps. There were plenty of health professionals who didn't get to speak publicly because politicians spoke publicly, and often they gave out poor information that was more driven by ideology.

On the other hand, there were some of our senior scientists who were castigated because they told the truth about what needed to be done. Now, you can argue in retrospect, did we really need to have everybody put a mask on? Did we really need to have people stay home? Those are reasonable things that in an after-action report, we should think through and say, "You know what? We may have overreacted, but the reason was we hadn't done this for 100 years."

And so, the key message that and information that I look at, retrospectively, people reacted very forcefully to prevent the spread of infection with masks. So, many argued that the mask doesn't do anything. Well, in fact, the mask does prevent spread of infection. On the other hand, if you have a healthy population, is it important that they were masked? Is it important that they stay home? Is it important that we shut down businesses? No. We probably overreacted.

But I think it's because of the complicating factor that there wasn't the institutional memory on how to best deal with this, and then the mis- and disinformation where ... people are telling telling you to take certain drugs that were had no validity in dealing with a virus, swaying you not to get vaccines because they didn't work. All of that created the divisiveness which ultimately had people, many people, revert to their tribes, either left or right of center, and that didn't help the nation.

MARK BRODIE: What is your level of optimism that if another pandemic should come our way, that we will heed those lessons and and do better as you suggest that we could have?

DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Unfortunately, I think it depends on who is in office at the time at the highest levels, and who are the scientific and health leaders who will be given the opportunity and authority to speak to the American public. So, I'm cautiously optimistic that when and if this happens again, we come together as Americans.

MARK BRODIE: I wonder if you think that there is a way for public health to, I don't want to say work around, but maybe work independently from government at this point. Like, if leadership is not doing the things that someone thinks they ought to be doing in the realm of public health, is it possible for, you know, experts and doctors and other folks in in the public health world to still operate sort of independently from that?

DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Well ... I think it's a good question, and it's what what we actually did. The information that was being provided by many elected and appointed officials was not correct. So, rather than get into a battle, we traded our credibility and basically addressed the public to provide good scientific information. So, we've already done that. But isn't it a shame in a democracy that we have to figure out covert ways to be able to get information to the public that is scientifically valid?

MARK BRODIE: All right. We'll have to leave it there. That is Dr. Richard Carmona, former U.S. surgeon general. Dr. Carmona, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity.

LAUREN GILGER: And I'm Lauren Gilger.

MARK BRODIE: We are still a few months away from the start of the new college football season, but a ruling from a judge in Texas has led to a lot of consternation over one school in the Big 12. That's the conference in which both ASU and U of A play. That judge ruled Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby can play this upcoming season, after serving a two-game suspension. The NCAA had previously ruled Sorsby ineligible after he acknowledged gambling, including on his own team, when he played for Indiana. The possibility of Sorsby playing this coming season is not sitting well with the other schools in the Big 12, and joining me now to talk about what that looks like and what might happen is Chris Karpman, publisher of Sun Devil Source for 247Sports. Chris, good morning.

CHRIS KARPMAN: Good morning, glad to be with you.

MARK BRODIE: Thank you for being here. So, let's start off with what Sorsby basically acknowledged doing, and this is like this is sort of seen as a a real no-no for athletes betting on your own team, right?

CHRIS KARPMAN: Yeah, so he was a prolific gambler on sports, including European sports and non-football, but the real challenging thing as it pertains to perception over his ability to be eligible to play was, in fact, his acknowledging betting on his own team's games at prior schools.

So this has now caused a a huge amount of consternation across the country. There's never been a player who has acknowledged to to have bet on his own team or been found to have bet on his own team through any sort of a league to be able to continue playing that sport.

MARK BRODIE: So, there's been some talk of, you know, Big 12 teams not wanting to play against Texas Tech or other kinds of like ways that they can say look we we don't want this, we, you know, we're nervous about the perception, we're nervous about, you know, what if what if he's still gambling, for example? Like, does that impact our games?

What what are some of the options for Big 12 schools, assuming that Sorsby is on the field?

CHRIS KARPMAN: Yeah, so all of the athletic directors participated in conference calls with Brett Yormark, the Big 12 commissioner. My understanding is that many of them expressed a very strong disapproval and question whether or not they would have to participate in games against Texas Tech as a matter of the league's rules and and bylaws and if there's any actions that could be taken by the conference.

They've been told, my understanding is, that they have to play in the games that are that are scheduled. It doesn't mean that it's not possible for the Big 12 to take some sort of an action unilaterally to invalidate any games in which Sorsby participates, but the Texas legal process has made it clear via the attorney general that any such action will be met with additional lawsuits that could result in injunctions.

And the initial trial for Sorsby against the NCAA was very interestingly set to to begin two weeks following the conclusion of this coming football season in the National Championship Game.

MARK BRODIE: Do we know what Arizona's schools are saying about this and maybe the concerns that they are raising?

CHRIS KARPMAN: No official comment. I reached out to Graham Rossini, ASU's athletic director, a couple of days ago to to see if he would comment on the record about this, and he elected not to.

He said that he wants to have additional private conversations within the conference to understand the situation a little bit better and try to work within the process before he makes any sort of public comments.

I think that privately, my understanding is, there's been an expression from leadership at both of ASU — both ASU and Arizona and the Board of Regents, which oversees the schools, that there's serious concern about the integrity of the game when they, it would feature players who are making large amounts of money.

Sorsby's one of the highest-paid players in college football, to be participating in gambling on games in which they have participated, and the impact of that as it, as it pertains to the fan base, other people who would be betting on games, and the the confidence that the outcomes are legitimate.

MARK BRODIE: Well, and I guess to the point of Sorsby being one of the highest-paid athletes, that would sort of lead to my next question, which is like couldn't Texas Tech just not play him? Even though he has been ruled eligible, like they could elect to play somebody else at quarterback.

It sounds like that's probably not going to happen though.

CHRIS KARPMAN: Well, that's the one of the things that has led to the most outrage from fans and people at other schools — because Texas Tech's athletic director put out a statement that seemed to remove any agency from the university itself and suggested that it was simply along the the ride, along for the ride with Sorsby. And that he was the, it was his lawsuit and and they're just honoring the legal process.

When in reality, Texas Tech, as is the case with all schools, they have their own set of rules and guidelines and, and what what will enable players to be able to participate in games for those teams, including punishment in the current landscape for things as, as simple as being late to a team meeting or to a practice.

These players can be punished pretty significantly in some cases or even be kicked off the team for things that a lot of people would perceive to be much less than having bet on your own team.

MARK BRODIE: That's interesting. All right, we'll have to leave it there. That is Chris Karpman, publisher of Sun Devil Source for 247Sports. Chris, thanks so much.

CHRIS KARPMAN: My pleasure.

MARK BRODIE: Good morning. It's The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I'm Mark Brodie.

LAUREN GILGER: And I'm Lauren Gilger. Well, it's summer, and that means it is blockbuster season for Hollywood. And it looks like this year, they're bringing in the heavyweights. We've got a new Christopher Nolan film, the fifth edition of Toy Story, even a new Spielberg flick to feast your eyes on. And here to tell us what to expect is M.V. Moorhead, film critic for Phoenix Magazine. Good morning. Thanks for coming in.

M.V. MOORHEAD: Thank you. Always great to see you, Lauren.

LAUREN GILGER: All right. So, we got to start with "The Odyssey," right? Like, this is the big film, it's like breaking movie ticketing platforms. We've got Matt Damon as Odysseus. Let's just take a quick listen.

[MOVIE CLIP PLAYS]

MATT DAMON: No one can stand between me and home. Not even the gods.

CHORUS: Keep us straight!

CHARACTER 1: I think it's asleep.

LAUREN GILGER: So, you can just hear there how how intense and big this film is. Are you excited to see this?

M.V. MOORHEAD: I'm tremendously excited to see this. This ... is the essential platform of the Western narrative tradition, you know, and I mean, you said we're calling in the heavyweights like Christopher Nolan. How about Homer? ... You know, we got Homer in the summer. And I think it, it sounds like it's, you know, Nolan is always interesting and sometimes stuff works better than others.

But, you know, you kind of also can't go wrong with this story. It is, it's that basic, you know, archetypical story of just wanting to go home and of everything that happens while you're trying to go home. And I don't think there's been an American version of the — I think there was maybe a TV movie version. I don't think there's been a big feature version of "The Odyssey."

There was an Italian one that I loved when I was a kid with Kirk Douglas as Ulysses, as they called him there. ... It's just one of the all-time great stories and one of the great storytellers that we have, so it'll be very interesting to see what he does with it.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, even, I don't get to the movies much, but even I want to go see this one on the on the big screen. ... All right, let's take a hard turn here and talk about "Toy Story 5," which, I mean, it's a lot of Toy Stories, but this tackles the a very important issue today, right? Technology for kids versus, you know, toys for kids.

M.V. MOORHEAD: Yeah, I mean, you got to, the thing about those movies is that they're — I can confess there's a couple of them, I think 3 and 4, that I have not yet I have yet to see. ... But the first and second were both great, and they were both very focused on the importance of play, but a play of a specific kind, of play in the real three-dimensional world, I guess kind of ironically for a computer-generated animated movie, but play with toys and like physical toys and doing stuff with them.

And that second one had to do with the idea that toys are to be played with, they're not to be collected and left in the package. And those, I think, are, you know, kind of good, healthy themes at a time when we really need them. And that's, from the look of this fifth one, and again, haven't seen it, but from the look of this fifth one, it has to do with playing on a screen.

You know, not nobody's saying there's no place for that. It's just that that really is it's like the Dutch elm disease of kids' play. It muscles everything else out, you know.

LAUREN GILGER: Right, and it kind of hits on another theme we're seeing among the big summer blockbusters this summer, which is like this kind of hint of nostalgia, lots of remakes.

M.V. MOORHEAD: Very much so. Summer movies have really become about that, I think, in the last few years. And you see it this year with "Star Wars" and "The Masters of the Universe," which I was too old for Masters of the Universe, theoretically at least. I was in college when the toys came out. Both of my nephews were fanatics for it, so I got some kind of second-hand exposure to them, and I knew a little something about them.

And this movie is for you to take your kids to, sure, but it's really also for you to go to, as a person in your 40s or 50s who fondly remembers those toys and the the Filmation cartoon from the '80s and '90s. It's hard to overstate how huge those toys were and what a big deal they were.

And there was an earlier movie that was kind of funny with Frank Langella as Skeletor, but this movie is played heavily for laughs. And I think it's a little bit of fun, actually.

LAUREN GILGER: That's awesome. OK, we even have a new Steven Spielberg movie this summer. This is in an alien movie at that. Talk about "Disclosure Day."

M.V. MOORHEAD: Well, I saw this movie, I just saw this movie and I'm still trying to sort my thoughts on it. It's clearly the work of just an American master. It's classic Spielberg doing kind of Spielberg-y things, the kind of things he loves to do. You know, the stormy Midwestern skies and the fleets of scary-looking black vehicles hurtling down the street together in almost choreographically. He loves that stuff and he's really good at it.

And so, it's a very, it's a very absorbing, very entertaining movie, and also, there's some very good acting in it. Emily Blunt is terrific as TV weather lady who suddenly finds that she can empathize perfectly with people and starts spewing alien language in front of the weather map.

LAUREN GILGER: Oh! [LAUGHS]

M.V. MOORHEAD: And, yeah, it's a little bit of a problem. And, so there there is, you know, Colin Firth is this satanic military-industrial complex guy. So, there's a lot of interesting things in this movie, but it's also a very, it's a movie of very old-fashioned thinking, befitting a guy like Spielberg. And for a guy like me, you know, old guys, old people.

It has to do with the desire that this — the good guys are struggling to release all this video information detailing the government's long-suppressed history of and abuse of extraterrestrial aliens. And it's really well done, but it's in the tradition of that journalistic thriller of the idea that if we can just get the information out, the public will see.

And I remember thinking like, yeah, they'll think it's all a bunch of deepfakes. And even if they don't, it'll take about 10 minutes, even if they believe it, it'll be about 10 minutes before everybody decides whether this is bad for the Republicans or bad for the Democrats or, you know, they're squabbling over what it means and who owns who and all this sort of thing.

LAUREN GILGER: A true film critic take there, OK. [LAUGHS]

M.V. MOORHEAD: I mean, it's just it's just like it's an old-fashioned, it's not a — it's a magnificently made film, but it's an old-fashioned way of thinking about how we process information anymore.

LAUREN GILGER: Interesting. All right, last minute here. Let's talk about a horror film that's been really big right now, "Obsession," and it's from, you know, interestingly, a very young director, first-time filmmaker. And it's one of a couple of films like this that are kind of hitting big.

M.V. MOORHEAD: Yes. "Obsession" is this kind of classic dramatization of the old saw: "Be careful what you wish for." It's the guy who's in love with his best friend's girlfriend, kind of a Jessie's Girl kind of situation, and he gets to make a wish that she would fall in love with him, and of course, this turns out to be not exactly what he was hoping for, in the least.

LAUREN GILGER: Careful what you wish for, exactly.

M.V. MOORHEAD: Yeah, and and the young actress who plays the role, it's a juicy, juicy part. She's, her name is escaping me, she's very beautiful, she is very, very committed to the role and so it's something kind of eerie.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, all right, we'll leave it there. Lots to watch for. M.V. Moorhead, film critic for Phoenix Magazine, thank you so much.

M.V. MOORHEAD: Thank you.

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 John Hoban. 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 @kjzztheshow. Thanks for listening.