The Show for June 17, 2026: Update from 'The Zone,' Rep. Yassamin Ansari and more

It’s been three years since the City of Phoenix was ordered to clear out the sprawling homeless encampment dubbed “The Zone.” Now, is it back? Plus, Rep. Yassamin Ansari on her view of the war and a potential peace deal as the only Iranian-American Democrat in Congress.

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 into community health and charity care. Banner Health: Nonprofit for Arizona. bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz

LAUREN GILGER: Hi, I’m Lauren Gilger, 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.

Good morning and welcome to The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger. Coming up is the homeless encampment known as “The Zone” back in downtown Phoenix? And, the impact of work requirements for Medicaid.

But first, Arizona Rep. Yassamin Ansari is the only Iranian-American Democrat in Congress. Her parents, like many from Iran, immigrated here to escape the regime after the revolution in 1979. But today, watching President Trump join Israel to launch a war there and take out the regime’s supreme leader, she says it’s only been destructive for everyone involved.

The congresswoman came into our studios yesterday to talk more about the nuances of the war in Iran for Iranian-Americans and her attempts to help Iranian nationals in the U.S. who are facing an uncertain future.

YASSAMIN ANSARI: Look, I will say I want to see an end to this war. I was against the war from the very beginning for a number of reasons. From the president, we heard early days, you know, back in January, when there were major massacres happening in Iran and the regime there that has a horrific human rights track record was killing protesters. And the president would tweet things like “Help is on the way for Iranians,” and built a lot of hope for Iranian people that there was some outside savior coming to help.

And then that really changed over time. Every senior administration official would say a different reason for the war. They’d say it’s about the nuclear program. They’d say it’s about missiles. They’d say it’s about the Strait of Hormuz. Whatever it is, it was obviously never about the people, and I think that was clear.

And ultimately now, I think everyone is worse off. I mean, I think obviously our economy here in the United States has suffered tremendously. Thirteen American servicemembers were killed for what? And thousands of Iranians were killed — innocent people. There was a war crime committed on the first day when a school was bombed, and 160 schoolchildren were killed. And of course, the regional implications.

So, do I hope that this will end and that this agreement will come to be? Absolutely, because this can only get worse.

LAUREN GILGER: You’ve also recognized the kind of, I guess, the nuances in this, especially for Iranian-Americans. Like you talked about how your parents were were joyful or happy to see the the fall of Iran’s supreme leader. Tell us about them, their story, the kind of perspective that lots of Iranian-Americans like them are are coming from in this.

YASSAMIN ANSARI: So most Iranian-Americans here in the United States have, many have been here since the Revolution in the ’70s. That’s my parents’ story. They came before and after the Revolution, fleeing the regime, you know, searching for a better future like all immigrants here in this country.

And many of our family members were impacted by the regime. I’ve quite literally had family members who were beheaded by this brutal, brutal government. My own grandfather was imprisoned back right after the Revolution. So, that is the sentiment of the majority of Iranians — that they want to see this regime fall and end.

It is the how that has been the main distinction between where people’s perspectives fall. I would say there were many in the diaspora in the United States who — especially in the early days of this war, the first days when the supreme leader was killed — were very joyful, were very supportive, and truly felt optimistic that the United States had some grand plan to change the regime and and bring about a democratic government.

LAUREN GILGER: Mhm.

YASSAMIN ANSARI: Now, I was always skeptical. We had a classified briefing very early on where I directly asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio if a democratic transition — I mean, this is like the second week into the war — if that’s part of the plan, and he said, “No, that’s not part of the objectives.”

So, that was very clear, and I think that became more clear to Iranians, and a lot of people feel very betrayed now because now, you know, one, the president says things like “This is a new regime,” when it’s not. It’s actually a more hardline, killed out the old supreme leader who was in his 80s, and now his son is the supreme leader.

So, you know what? I truly hope for the best for Iranians. I do think change will have to come from the inside and from a strengthened civil society. I just, I don’t think that foreign intervention is going to be successful, especially with a Donald Trump leading the charge.

LAUREN GILGER: I mean, you’ve heard from those in support of this war that — and I’m sure your parents would agree — like, we cannot see Iran with a nuclear weapon.

YASSAMIN ANSARI: Of course.

LAUREN GILGER: That being the major objective here. Do you think that’s been achieved?

YASSAMIN ANSARI: Not yet. Not that we’ve seen. One, we haven’t even seen what this alleged deal is, and the nuclear component in particular hasn’t taken place yet. They’ve been pretty clear that that is sort of the the next phase of the negotiations.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. There was this really interesting cultural moment this week that I want to ask you about, when we watched this kind of international conflict play out at a soccer match, right? Like, when the World Cup came to America, there were protesters outside this week at the stadium in Los Angeles when the Iranian national team played New Zealand.

But there were also many Iranian-American fans inside cheering their team. And I wonder what you make of that. Like, that’s got to be a very interesting conversation within that community right now.

YASSAMIN ANSARI: It is, and it’s one that causes some, you know, there are again mixed feelings. Some people — and I will say I fall into this — see the team and the players as as human beings who can’t control where they were born or who their government is.

But there are others who do criticize the players for not doing more to protest and not doing more to show their opposition to the regime, which I think I understand. But at the same time, this is a brutal regime that could put their family members at risk, that could put their own lives at risk.

But I think largely from what we saw yesterday and the videos I saw from the games, it was overwhelmingly enthusiasm and excitement and pride. Obviously, the the circumstances have just been so awful, and the country’s been through so much. Again, thousands dead, infrastructure destroyed, the economy — I mean, people can’t afford anything in Iran. And so the 2-2 outcome brought a lot of joy to people.

LAUREN GILGER: Hmm. You also introduced a measure that would provide Temporary Protected Status and work authorizations to Iranian nationals who are in the, in the U.S. legally, who are now kind of facing the the possibility of having to leave, having to go back. What, first of all, would that mean for someone who’s a Ph.D. student here to have to go back to Iran right now, especially given what’s happening there with this war?

YASSAMIN ANSARI: So I’m really hopeful, and really working actively on this bill to get more support because there are more than 12,000 Iranian students around the United States — many at Arizona State University, actually — getting their Ph.D.s. They’re becoming doctors, working on artificial intelligence, clean energy, and they are all in limbo because there’s been a pause in USCIS processing.

And so, as graduation is coming up, as their student visa status will expire, they’re very concerned about what comes next. Many of them have applied and already secured jobs here. But because of that pause, they don’t have that guarantee and and are terrified.

So I’ve met with a lot of the ASU students. And so what this bill would do is give them 18 months of TPS, Temporary Protected Status, so they have some time until we kind of figure out a more permanent solution or USCIS gets back up and running.

We saw success in a similar bill that had to do with Haitian immigrants recently through a discharge petition. It passed the House and will be going to the Senate. My own dad came here as a student all these years ago, and in one generation, his daughter became a congresswoman.

So we’ve already invested in these people. They’ve gone to our universities, they’ve been working here. Like, it would be such a shame to let that talent be lost.

LAUREN GILGER: This comes, though, at such a difficult time in terms of the rhetoric around immigration in general. And as we’ve seen TPS, this Temporary Protected Status, removed for many nationalities. I wonder like are you getting some bipartisan agreement here? You mentioned Haiti and and the deal there, but this is this is a tough time in terms of the immigration crackdown being ongoing and the mood in the country being relatively anti-immigrant.

YASSAMIN ANSARI: Yeah, I don’t want to sugarcoat it. It’s very difficult. I think, unfortunately, given decades of hostile relations between the U.S. and Iran, I do think there’s racism against Iranians in particular as well, and just a lack of knowledge of the contributions and and maybe sometimes an inability to differentiate between the people and the government. So it’s very difficult, but I do think overall the tide is changing on immigration, for sure.

I mean, just look at the numbers. Donald Trump always used to be so popular on issues pertaining to immigration. He’s been underwater for months now — from the moment he his administration illegally deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to now, the murder of U.S. citizens by ICE and all of the work that we’ve done to expose what’s happening inside detention centers.

I think that American sentiment is no longer there, but the administration and people like Stephen Miller in the White House are absolutely still doing everything that they can to go after immigrants and go after legal pathways to immigration, such as with the pause in USCIS processing.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s my conversation with Arizona Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari. I also spoke with her more about what she’s seen inside detention centers in Arizona, and what she thinks Democrats need to do heading into this year’s midterm elections. We’ll bring you that and more next week on The Show.

GILGER: The Federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services this month released new rules for work requirements for recipients of Medicaid coverage. They generally require non-pregnant adults between the ages of 19 and 64 to work at least 80 hours per month. The rules start on January 1st of 2027. My next guest says the requirements go farther than many states had expected and may result in more Medicaid recipients losing their healthcare coverage. It also means states are working to figure out how to implement the new rules before the end of the year. Julia Métraux is Mother Jones’ disability reporter. She spoke with my co-host, Mark Brodie, more about this, and they started with how we got here in terms of these new rules and potential cuts in Medicaid enrollment.

JULIA MÉTRAUX: As part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, states, which is a majority of states, including Arizona, that have expanded Medicaid to people who are low income, they would have to implement work requirements.

And so, this is part of nearly a trillion dollars’ worth of Medicaid cuts that are going to happen over the following decade, well including the decade we’re in, and essentially, because there’s so much of a paperwork burden, people are going to be kicked off, and the states are in federal government are going to save money just out of people losing Medicaid.

MARK BRODIE: OK, so when you talk about paperwork requirements, what kinds of things will enrollees have to do that maybe they haven’t had to do up until now?

JULIA MÉTRAUX: Yeah, so there was a big surprise on June 1 that Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services dropped, and it’s definitely not painting like hardworking staffers at that agency in a bad light, but there were essentially, what we were expecting is that there might be some exemptions for people on Medicaid with certain conditions to be able to qualify more easily but for Medicaid work requirement exemption.

And I have to say, most people on Medicaid do work, but there’s now, no matter what your condition is and you’re on Medicaid, you have to prove you’re not able to work. The first year they’re going to allow for self-attestation, but the year after, there is going to be paperwork required by doctors to fill out.

MARK BRODIE: So is the fear then then that folks who legitimately have conditions that preclude them from working will lose Medicaid, or people who already are working, who are on Medicaid, might also lose their coverage?

JULIA MÉTRAUX: It’s both. And also, a lot of people with health conditions might not identify as being disabled. Many do work, and so they can very well be working 40 hours a week at a minimum wage job or 20 hours per week, depending on their experience, and have Medicaid as their means of healthcare.

And because of, yeah, this paperwork burden, they could potentially risk losing it. And also, because not everyone has easy access to a doctor, whether or not they have clear health issues, and that means that not everyone has as someone to fill out the forms.

MARK BRODIE: And for enrollees who do work, and you mentioned most of them do already, what kind of new requirements will they have in terms of trying to keep their coverage?

JULIA MÉTRAUX: It’s just going to be a lot of paperwork burden. And when people are met with the need to just fill out this paperwork every six months, people are going to drop off.

MARK BRODIE: So how are states trying to prepare for this?

JULIA MÉTRAUX: Yeah, so as I mentioned, there were surprise rules on June 1. Essentially, there was already a mad dash.

I would also like to highlight that Nebraska did voluntarily start their Medicaid work requirement rules on May 1. They have to go back to the drawing board because they had a list of conditions where people can more easily qualify for exemptions, but now they’re not allowed to do that because CMS came down with the final rule on June 1, which was literally the last day that they could implement the, introduce the final rule based on their timeline.

There’s still time for open comment, so there’s a chance that this won’t be as strict in the finalized rule, but it’s a wait-and-see game.

MARK BRODIE: Is there a sense as to why these rules were a surprise, why they seemed to maybe be a little more strict than what the the bill that Congress passed and the president signed actually required?

JULIA MÉTRAUX: Yeah, so Jennifer Wagner, as mentioned in my article, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told me that she’s heard that this came from the White House as a last-minute adjustment to what was being introduced.

States did not see this coming. This was a huge surprise, and there’s already, there’s no way to implement Medicaid work requirements without being cruel. There’s just not enough time between now and January 1 for states who are trying, I guess, their best to not kick people off Medicaid to really go back to the drawing board and create new systems.

MARK BRODIE: Are there estimates as to how many people might lose their coverage once these rules go into effect?

JULIA MÉTRAUX: Yeah, so the Urban Institute came out with an estimate earlier this year that they’re predicting between 4.9 and 10.1 million fewer people would be enrolled in Medicaid by 2028 as a result of work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks. So, it’s a huge range, but it’s likely because they made this more strict, it’s likely going to be on the higher end.

MARK BRODIE: And what kind of impact are providers saying that this might have on them, you know, the the doctors and nurses and PAs who treat Medicaid patients?

JULIA MÉTRAUX: Yeah, of course, I think we all know if you have a health issue and like, for example, dealt with prior authorization or something like that, you know paperwork takes time. And so, it’s also very much an administrative burden on healthcare workers to be able to keep up. And of course, healthcare providers don’t want their patients to be losing health insurance.

MARK BRODIE: Well so, as you mentioned, there’s a a comment period, and, you know, these don’t go into effect till the beginning of the new year. What will you be watching for and looking at between now and then to maybe try to get a sense of of what’s going on and what the ultimate impact might be?

JULIA MÉTRAUX: Yeah, it’s hard to tell exactly what the impact will be in each state before we know, just like with the Affordable Care Act enhanced tax credits expiring, we just didn’t know until people signed up for that.

One thing that I’m looking for is how states individually respond, and we don’t know if they’re going to be able to create new verification systems because they really were not planning for CMS to drop a rule that like, for example, let’s just say what Nebraska had in place, someone with sickle cell disease. If they had sickle cell disease and they are already on Medicaid via the work expansion, then they can more easily qualify for uh work exemptions. But now, there’s a much harder process, and that’s going to just kick sick people off Medicaid.

A year and a half is not a lot of time to implement Medicaid work requirements. Experts were already saying this, and now there’s like around six months to implement a new system.

MARK BRODIE: All right, that is Julia Métraux, a reporter at Mother Jones covering disability. Julia, thanks so much, I appreciate it.

JULIA MÉTRAUX: Thank you.

GILGER: Good morning, it is The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger. Coming up, an Arizona travel writer shares his favorite swimming spots in the state.

But first, it’s been nearly three years since the city of Phoenix was ordered by a judge to clear the so-called "Zone" in downtown Phoenix. The 1,000-person-plus homeless encampment was at the center of a lawsuit from nearby business owners and media attention as the problem of homelessness grew across the Valley. Well now, concerns are rising that The Zone is back, or maybe that it never really went anywhere. So, I went down there on a recent Friday morning to find out.

LAUREN GILGER: I’m walking around down here about 7:30 a.m. and people are getting cleared out. Police officers asking folks to leave.

DEVONTEA CHANDLER: Some people prepare early in the morning, so some people get up 3, 4 in the morning just to get their stuff together and then start moving about 5 in the morning, 6 in the morning.

GILGER: That’s Devontea Chandler. I met him sitting with his girlfriend and a few other folks along a red, white and blue painted building on West Madison Street that morning.

People move out at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. because they’re going to have to?

CHANDLER: Yeah. And if, if you don’t, then, I mean, you get arrested, ticket, cited, arrested.

GILGER: Do you know a lot of people down here who have those tickets piling up?

CHANDLER: No, they all in jail.

GILGER: Chandler and the people with him were certainly not the only people on the streets surrounding the Human Services Campus in downtown Phoenix that morning. Though, as he said, they were mostly packing up and moving out. Police cars were driving slowly up and down the streets telling people to move on over their loudspeakers. Cleanup crews were picking up trash and power washing the sidewalks.

So where do you guys go when they clear you out?

CHANDLER: I mean, parks, like anywhere. Right when they get done, like people will walk to the front, and by that time, they’ll get done, and people will go back over there slowly.

GILGER: Are there encampments set up here most of the time now, tents and stuff?

CHANDLER: No, you don’t see a lot of tents. Can’t have tents up. Can’t have tarps.

GILGER: Chandler told me he’s been homeless for four years, but lately he’s been living in the city’s new Safe Outdoor Space, where you can set up a tent in the shade and keep your things safely.

You like it in there?

CHANDLER: I mean, it’s better than having to wake up every time to stuff getting stolen, to on the streets. It’s it’s better than nothing.

GILGER: The city just announced it wants to continue operating the so-called SOS for another four years, but Chandler told me he can’t be with his significant other there, so he spends his days elsewhere.

So, would you say The Zone is back?

CHANDLER: No, I, I the Zone’s, The Zone’s getting smaller and smaller. Yeah, I would say that. The Zone’s getting smaller and smaller, clearer and clearer. I mean, the policy of Phoenix is just going to have homeless people everywhere. Once they clear this out, everyone’s just stretching back out to farther and farther. They clear out the parks, people are going to go farther and farther. There’s there’s only there’s only so much that that they can do and so much we can do, you know what I mean?

Because there’s lists. You have to call 211, get on a list. You go here, get on a list. You go to the heat relief, you get on a list. No matter what, people are going to wait. And the people who are waiting who don’t have housing, where are they going to go to wait? What are they going to do waiting? What what help are they getting waiting? Right.

No one’s getting any help waiting.

GILGER: So there’s one view from someone on the street in the so-called Zone. It’s getting smaller, but it’s just spreading around the homeless population.

So I also took the question to Scott Hall, deputy director of Phoenix’s Office of Homeless Solutions: Is The Zone back?

SCOTT HALL: Yeah, well, first I’d say, you know, do people understand what that area is?

GILGER: The Zone surrounds the Key Campus, the city’s sprawling, centralized homeless services campus where folks can get three meals a day, shelter beds, medical and dental care, case management and more.

HALL: So, you’re always going to have walk-up traffic or people coming up to receive those services.

GILGER: According to a June 3 count from the Keys to Change outreach team, there were 283 people unsheltered on the street outside of the campus that morning. And in the shelter inside, 900 people slept each night. So, while Scott Hall doesn’t like calling it The Zone, he says no, it’s not back.

HALL: By no means are big encampments back or the 1,000-person encampment back that was there three years ago. We’re out there seven days a week doing outreach. My team’s out there five days a week with them engaging with people, trying to get people into services, into heat relief, and to accept those services, and PD’s out there on a daily basis enforcing any kind of criminal activity.

GILGER: Hall said they’ve actually upped the number of days their cleanup crews are out there in the mornings, and they’re steadily seeing a decrease in the number of people staying around the campus. But as long as all of the services are right there, they’re still coming.

Is this something that, you know, is, has ever stopped in that area since, you know, the lawsuit happened and The Zone was quote-unquote cleared out?

HALL: Yeah, it has not stopped.

GILGER: Hi, excuse me, do you live here? Hi, I’m Lauren Gilger and with KJZZ News. What’s your name?

JOEL COPLIN: Joel Coplin.

GILGER: Joel Coplin owns an art gallery right in the middle of The Zone. He and his wife live above it. I ran into him as he was going to roll his trash can inside the fence that surrounds his property that morning.

So, about 7:30 a.m. or so, everyone’s about cleared out right now?

COPLIN: Yeah, it was kind of late. I thought that there were but I think they’re just taking it a little — it’s Friday. Yeah, yeah.

GILGER: Copeland was one of the business owners who filed the lawsuit against the city of Phoenix that forced the cleanup of The Zone. But he’s also driven folks who live there to doctor’s appointments and packed up their belongings in the back of his pickup truck to help them move in when they finally get housing.

COPLIN: We become friends. I, I know their families, I know their children. I know, you know, we’re part of — they’re our neighbors.

GILGER: He’s seen it all outside his window here, from deadly fights to deadly overdoses to incredible acts of compassion. And he doesn’t really blame the city for the people who are still here since the cleanup.

COPLIN: They’re trying as hard as they can. It’s just that the situation’s so desperate.

GILGER: But, he told me, he still thinks more needs to be done.

COPLIN: They shouldn’t be sitting here on the street. There should be adequate shelter for them. There needs to be supervised shelter for them. There needs to be mental health care. There needs to be all kinds of things that they’re doing, just not enough.

GILGER: Just not enough.

COPLIN: The flood is too big. Yeah. And and it needs to be spread out because every, everybody can’t come down here to one big dinosaur of a of shelter and help. I mean, there should be several shelters all throughout the metropolitan area that that should be triaged and have specific things for people to go to. And nobody should be pooping in a bucket and, and pouring it down the storm drains.

GILGER: I’m sure you know that is a long and ongoing battle in the in the city and in the Valley to get, you know, to spread the wealth a little bit when it comes to homeless services, right?

COPLIN: Absolutely. And, you know, I mean here we sit six blocks from the state capitol and six blocks from City Hall. And why this happened here, I just can’t believe that it was even allowed to to become right here in the in the heart of downtown.

GILGER: Coplin is a painter, classically trained, and sometimes he asks the folks outside his gallery to sit for him. He listens to their stories, he tells them his.

COPLIN: I try to paint them beautifully. You know, so it’s a gritty subject, but it’s painted beautifully. So it’s kind of, you know, pretty gritty.

GILGER: Could you show me one? Would that be OK? Thank you.

Wow, yeah, this is quite a studio space. There are paintings on the wall in gold frames everywhere, piles of canvases up. This is huge. They look like scenes out of like a like an old kind of Renaissance painting or something, but they’re of these folks right outside here in The Zone.

COPLIN: I have studied the the methods and materials of the old masters, and I try to put it to a contemporary use.

GILGER: What’s this one? She’s got a puppy here, and there are some empty bottles lying on the ground under a palm tree.

COPLIN: It’s the shade of one palm. You know, it’s, it can be hilarious when there’s a palm tree and it gives about 16 inches of shade and everybody’s standing in the shade. You know? Or sitting underneath one palm tree. Yeah.

And here’s Sterling. He’s from San Carlos. I’ve taken him up to the reservation several times, met his family. And to me, it’s just, you know, it’s interesting as a white guy to be up there and be accepted by everybody. Yeah. And to, you know, go to the the center of town and buy stuff and it’s just it’s it’s remarkable for me to, to have the opportunity to have met Sterling, to be able to go up to San Carlos and become involved with, with their community.

GILGER: The San Carlos Apache Reservation’s what, like three and a half hours from here?

COPLIN: Oh, not that far. You know, maybe two.

GILGER: So that’s — it’s a long drive.

COPLIN: Yeah, that’s all right.

GILGER: So you’re willing to — it sounds like really go out of your way to get to know these people, to help them, to bring them home.

COPLIN: You should just talk to my wife. Yeah, I’m the guy that helps, and people come all the time, and it’s — it can be exhausting because there’s only so much of you. And you give a piece away, and then you got to try and rebalance.

GILGER: Do you ever feel like you rebalance?

COPLIN: You just keep going. Whatever presents itself to you, you have to deal with in whatever way you can. Yeah. You know, and sometimes you have to say no. Sometimes you just say, "I can’t, I can’t deal with that."

GILGER: Are there moments when people have really broken your heart?

COPLIN: Oh, all the time. All the time, it keeps keeps slipping back. You know, they’d come forward, forward, forward, and then, oh, all of a sudden, there’s a big slip. Yeah. And it’s just human nature, you know, it’s just it’s, it’s hard. It’s difficult to be us.

GILGER: You mean people?

COPLIN: Yes. Human beings.

GILGER: But it sounds like you are kind of positive about it. Like, it sounds like you have not stopped, you haven’t quit, you haven’t left, you still know all those folks.

COPLIN: I mean, how do you stop? I don’t know how you, you can’t, I mean, I just feel for it.

GILGER: I mean, I wonder, like if you could talk to, you know, the people who drive past people who are experiencing homelessness on the street and, you know, are holding up a sign and they drive by, or people who are outraged by what’s happening at The Zone, or the lawmakers and policymakers down the streets both ways, right, at City Hall and the state capitol right here, like what do you want them to know about this place?

COPLIN: Well, that these people need help, and not just, you know, housing. You know, they need to have specialty care for individuals that need it so bad, and are receiving it, but it’s, everything takes so long and there’s so many the long lines.

You know, even just to to do your laundry, you stand in line forever, you know, to to see the doctor, to see the dentist, to see anybody. You know, just and it needs to be more efficient, and it needs to be more triaged.

Lauren Gilger
The downtown Phoenix area formerly known as “The Zone” on June 5, 2026.

GILGER: Do you ever think that’ll happen?

COPLIN: I’m hoping. There’s always hope. As long as there’s hope, it can happen.

GILGER: Thank you so much for talking to me. I appreciate it.

COPLIN: Well, thank you for all you do.

GILGER: The city of Phoenix says it is home to about 35% of the region’s homeless population and 82% of the region’s shelter beds. Since 2022, they’ve added more than 1,200 shelter beds and 300 spaces at their SOS, the city’s outdoor campground. Because of that, the latest point-in-time homeless count showed while homelessness overall barely changed from last year, unsheltered homelessness dropped 12% Valley-wide.

The Federal Environmental Protection Agency this month submitted a handful of air pollution waivers from California to Congress, according to Politico. The body can vote to nullify them under the Congressional Review Act. If that happens, it’ll mean carmakers wouldn’t be subject to those rules from California. Other states, including New York, also generally follow California’s standards. The Trump administration has moved to scale back some environmental regulations nationwide. In Arizona, the Republican-controlled Corporation Commission this spring repealed the state’s renewable energy standard. But our next guest says the GOP should pay more attention to the natural environment. David Jenkins is president of the group Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship. My co-host, Mark Brodie, spoke with him earlier and asked what to him are the biggest environmental issues that conservatives should be talking about, but aren’t.

DAVID JENKINS: Well, I’ve always argued since way back, gosh, you know, during John McCain’s first campaign back in 2000, that Republicans should be leading on the issue of climate. When I speak to Republican groups, I say, “Look, this is an important issue. It’s real. We know. There’s plenty of evidence. But why on earth would conservatives want to punt the issue to the left and let them come up with all the solutions?”

Republicans have come up with solutions before. Conservatives have come up with solutions before. You can go all the way back to Theodore Roosevelt. It seems like it’s a bit of a knee-jerk reaction that anything that the left is interested in, we’re just going to back away from and not engage, when actually our solutions would be better.

MARK BRODIE: What kind of responses and reactions do you get from when you talk to Republican groups, groups of conservatives, and you say we should be talking about the climate and that climate change is real?

JENKINS: Yeah, I get zero pushback. And if I go speak to like a local conservative group, you know, this is the base of the base. And they understand it. It’s funny that so many groups seem to feel like you can’t talk about climate with conservatives. You can. You’ve just got to talk about it in a way that makes sense to people.

BRODIE: Well so, I’m curious then where you think the disconnect is, because as you say, the folks who show up to these group meetings tend to be sort of the base, the folks who in theory would show up to vote in a primary.

So, why is it then that these people believe that, you know, they seem to agree with you and agree that these are issues that need to be addressed and that the solutions that conservatives have might be the better ones, why is it then that the people who are elected from those primaries and those general elections aren’t talking about these issues in that way, if at all, and certainly don’t seem to be trying to solve the problems in the way that you’d like them to?

JENKINS: Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do sort of the way we stovepipe our information sources. I don’t get pushback on that we need to take the lead and find solutions on climate and not leave it up to the left, but I do get pushback sometimes on basic facts.

Like, over the past four years, we’ve produced more oil and natural gas than any country on earth. We’ve broken all records. And yet, because of the talking points that were put out during campaign season and so forth, when I said that simple fact — which you can verify so many different ways — people didn’t believe it. And I had to jump through a lot of hoops to show them how much oil we were actually producing.

But they believed that we stopped producing oil during the last administration, and we didn’t. So there’s a difference in where people get their information and what they think is real.

BRODIE: What do you make of the effort to go back in some cases to, for example, coal-fired power plants, and moving away from things like wind and solar? That seems to be the goal of the Trump administration?

JENKINS: Yeah, it makes no sense whatsoever. It’s actually contrary to the market, the free market. You know, our motto is you follow the market. And that wasn’t very popular back when Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House and it cost $60 per watt. You know, it didn’t make any sense, so the market wouldn’t support it.

But now the price of solar and wind and geothermal — even nuclear in a lot of cases — is cheaper than keeping open those old, ancient coal-fired power plants.

BRODIE: Well so, how do you try to make that case, given that, as you say, people sometimes don’t agree on what the facts are, and that is certainly not the the position of the current Republican administration — either in the White House or, for example, in Arizona with the the utility regulators, the Corporation Commission?

JENKINS: Yeah, the Corporation Commission has went from being a utility watchdog to utility lapdog.

But in terms of speaking to folks about energy, I’m like, “There is no red or blue or right or left energy, and what makes sense at any given point in time depends on the cost, depends on what you’re trying to do in terms of preventing pollution and and and availability and so forth.”

And what’s happened is that some people on the political right — and I won’t say “conservatives,” because I don’t believe they are. Some people on the political right seem to think that coal is a red source of energy, that just because the left doesn’t like it, because they’re worried about climate, then it’s great.

Well, the market says no. The utilities are trying to close these plants for a reason, and they want to make a profit. So, for any president or politician to come in and say, “I know better than the market, that I want to keep these open,” just to troll somebody or something like that, what they’re actually doing is raising the electricity cost and the energy cost for every single American.

BRODIE: I’m curious if you have found over the last number of years that when it comes to enacting policy, that you are perhaps more in line with those on the political left than those on the political right.

JENKINS: Well, I’m consistent with genuine conservatism and looking out for future generations. Ronald Reagan said when he talked about our natural resources, he said, “This is our patrimony. This is what we leave to our children, and our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it.”

Now that’s conservatism. Margaret Thatcher, his good friend, she articulated the same kind of thing. And so the fact that someone on the political right decided to try to be a populist and follow the talking points of the oil and gas industry or the coal industry and be captured by special interest and might try to put a conservative cloak around that doesn’t make it conservative.

BRODIE: I guess so like when you talk about, you know, you mentioned earlier that when you go and talk to Republican groups or conservative groups, you don’t necessarily get a lot of pushback on what you’re saying about dealing with the climate and the fact that climate needs to be dealt with.

But then you look at sort of the national debate or even, you know, on the state level, we just talked about the Arizona Corporation Commission, how the the solutions coming from from Republicans, from from conservatives or people who consider themselves conservatives don’t seem to be in line with the kinds of solutions you’re talking about.

JENKINS: Yeah, and there’s some solutions, proposed solutions from the left that I don’t think make a lot of sense. For example, one thing that does make a lot of sense — and actually Arizona was on track to do this, but they seem to be backsliding now. When you set a clean energy standard, so what you’re doing, you’re saying to the utilities is that, “OK, as you plan, as as old plants retire, you replace them with energy-generating capability that help you meet that standard in 2050 so that you don’t have to shut down a plant early because it’s blowing you up past that limit.”

And so, you’re allowing them to plan and to just change in the normal course of business. That is a conservative thing to do.

BRODIE: All right, that is David Jenkins, president of the group Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship. David, thanks for the conversation, I appreciate it.

JENKINS: Yeah, thank you for having me.

GILGER: Good morning, it is The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger. Roger Naylor is a longtime Arizona travel writer and has probably hiked just about every trail in the state. So, now that we’ve officially hit summer temperatures, we are revisiting a conversation with Naylor about some of his favorite swimming spots where you can cool off in the great outdoors this summer.

ROGER NAYLOR: Air conditioning keeps us alive during the summer, but water and shade set us free. This is what summer is all about, the idea that you can get out and have a little adventure at one of our swimming holes. And Arizona has legendary swimming holes, you know, which a lot of people may not think about. Again, it’s all desert and stuff, but no, we’ve got swimming holes all over the state that are just amazing.

GILGER: And lakes, all of this. OK, so let’s get into a few of them, and I think the obvious one we have to start with because it’s the first one that comes to almost everyone’s mind is going to be Slide Rock in Sedona.

NAYLOR: Slide Rock is beautiful, it’s gorgeous. Don’t even try to go on a weekend. You know, it’s just it’s just going to be insane. It’s a state park, and they just don’t have the capacity to handle people, so they will just kind of wave you by. It fills up very quickly.

Go during the week, if you can, and it’s certainly worth it if you’ve never been, you absolutely have to go. If you have kids or grandkids, they’ll love it. It’s a natural slide through the rock, so it’s a really a joy.

But again, it is packed on the weekends all summer long. Go during the week, or go in the off-season and just enjoy the beauty of it. Here’s a great one. If you’re if you feel like you still want to be in Oak Creek Canyon, you want to have that experience, you want to be in water, stop at Grasshopper Point.

GILGER: I’ve never heard of this one, so this is also right there?

NAYLOR: Yeah, it’s right there in the canyon. It’s 2 miles north of Sedona. So as you’re coming out of Sedona, you get to it before you get to Slide Rock. Just pull down. It’s a pay site, I think it’s about 12 bucks to get in, but it’s a nice little picnic area.

And what it is, it doesn’t have the slide, but Oak Creek makes a kind of a curve, a sweeping curve there uh against a big rock cliff and forms this huge pool, so it’s just really crystal clear and and gorgeous. You got some nice little shallows, but you’ve also got some little ledges up on the cliffs, so people like to jump into these deeper pools and stuff, which, you know, again, always be very careful.

You’re on your own, these places don’t have lifeguards. But it is a very popular for jumping in. You can jump 5 feet off, 8 feet off, you know, whatever, it’s really nice pools, so it’s just a really terrific spot. And since it is a a pay side, there’s a restroom, there’s some picnic tables, nice little hiking trail, the Allen’s Bend Trail, that goes along the path. Be careful of poison ivy if you’re hiking that trail though along the creek. But very gorgeous.

GILGER: OK, watch out for poison ivy and jumping too far. OK.

Another two I wanted to talk about, I’ve been to one of these, but not both of them. These are a little bit closer to the Valley up in Camp Verde — the Bull Pen and then you’ve got the Crack, right? Tell us about these.

NAYLOR: Well, the Bull Pen is up off of there’s a Bull Pen Ranch, I don’t know how it got that name, but uh so it’s a on West Clear Creek. You drive down at a dirt road, you park, you walk it’s about a mile walk and then you start it’s a really beautiful spot, there’s some nice rocks to jump off of. There’s a nice sandy beach. Gets very crowded.

You can continue up West Clear Creek, you can keep going and get to some different pools above the main one and stuff and find some other spots as well if it is a little too crowded. So, that’s a really good one.

The Crack is another one that’s great. I love this spot. It’s off the Bell Trail, it’s kind of in the Rimrock area between Camp Verde and and Sedona. It’s off the down a dirt road, you hike in on the Bell Trail, not the Bell Rock Trail, don’t get that confused, it’s the Bell Trail, which parallels Wet Beaver Creek, so it’s kind of stays on a sandy little bench above the creek.

So The Crack is 3 miles back, so it’s a 3-mile hike to get there, but it is this gorgeous channel flowing through these sandstone rocks and some good diving, good swimming. Terrific.

If you don’t want to hike that far, or if you’ve got little kids and don’t want to face that, keep an eye out, there are beaches all along the way all along that hike, you’ll see little social trails that lead down to the stream, and that puts you down at some a more personalized little smaller beach.

You know, there’s one spot there, and I’m trying it’s right before you even get on the trail, you see over in the stream. I heard all this splashing and laughing stuff and I wandered over there, and it was just a whole bunch of moms with these little kids, I mean just you know, 1- and 2-year-olds and stuff because it’s a nice this little shallow clear thing, and they’re all just sitting splashing, having a wonderful time. So, you know, swimming holes mean different things to different ages and different sizes, so you can always find something for those.

GILGER: You don’t have to go cliff jumping?

NAYLOR: Yeah, you don’t. Exactly.

GILGER: All right, so those are some sort of north-central spots. Let’s go down south. You also have on your list here Patagonia Lake, which I have never been to and I’ve always wanted to because I love this part of the state. What’s it like?

NAYLOR: It’s absolutely beautiful, and you think somebody’s pulling your leg, because you’re driving south, you’re south of Patagonia, you’re heading to to Nogales, and you see the sign to Patagonia Lake, and you turn and it’s just these dusty hills covered with ocotillo and you’re driving back about 4 miles and you go, "This cannot possibly be."

And sure enough, here in this valley is this beautiful sparkling lake of 2,265 acres, I think. Wow. And it’s a hot birding spot during the winter. In the summer, it’s more for fishing stuff, but they got a campground right there.

They’ve got four or five more air-conditioned cabins, they rent boats and kayaks, and they’ve got this beautiful little beach, Boulder Beach. And it’s great, it’s soft sand, and they’ve got it roped off for the kids, and it’s a nice gentle slope down, so you’ve got this real fun swimming beach, and the picnic tables and picnic areas are right outside that.

So, again, just another really good one for kids, and older folks can swim in the lake as well at different spots, I think you can swim anywhere except around at the docks or things, but this is just a really good friendly beach to meta a lot of people from Tucson like to get out to this one and stuff. This is sort of one of their getaways.

GILGER: It sounds beautiful.

NAYLOR: It is. It’s a really gorgeous little spot. I love Patagonia Lake.

GILGER: All right, let’s head up north then lastly, up to Lake Havasu City, which obviously is a lake, and there’s the real London Bridge there. But I don’t think of this as like a swimming spot, is it?

NAYLOR: Well, exactly, but these are great spots. In fact, even before you get up there, there’s several state parks, Cattail Cove just a little south of Lake Havasu is a white sandy beach, they’ve even got a dog beach as well, which is very fun.

And then you get into the Lake Havasu City and there’s they’ve got a few beaches on their own, the biggest, I think, is the London Bridge Beach right there along the channel. You’ve got beach volleyball, you’ve got a roped-off beach area, you’ve got a dog park, you’ve got picnic tables, you’ve got white sand, you’ve got palm trees swaying in the breeze, the seagulls are circling overhead, the sun’s glinting off their wings, you can lay out on the sand, you got little waves lapping in, you have to remind yourself, I’m still in Arizona, I never left the state! It feels like you’re out on the West Coast, but you only had to drive two or three hours to get there and and enjoying it.

So, yeah, it’s a kind of that’s kind of an old-fashioned "I want to read a book on the beach" kind of day.

GILGER: It sounds great. So, it sounds like not all of these like take a big hike to get to. Some of these are pretty accessible.

NAYLOR: Exactly, yeah, if you if you have mobility issues, then definitely head for the parks, head for Cattail Cove State Park, River Island State Park, Patagonia Lake.

Lyman Lake up in the White Mountains has a beautiful little beach, and it’s a huge lake and stuff, and again, you drive right up to it practically and and so it is, you don’t have to hike to them.

But, yeah, some of the others like the Crack and the Bull Pen and some of those, yeah, that’s going to involve a little hiking. So, what do you what kind of day do you want? Do you want an adventure? Do you want to make it easy on yourself?

GILGER: Yeah, all right. Longtime Arizona travel writer Roger Naylor joining us to talk about swimming holes as we head into the depths of summer. Roger, thank you so much, as always.

NAYLOR: My pleasure.

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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.