The Show for Aug. 5, 2026: Rep. Stanton on FEMA and ICE; an artist who draws you as a bug and more

FEMA is supposed to help people after disasters like fires of floods — but the Trump administration used the agency to help ICE arrest and detain people. Plus, a local artist who will draw you as a bug.

Transcript

ANNOUNCER: KJZZ’s original production The Show is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona.bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz.

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.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning and welcome to The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger. Coming up, if you’re sitting in traffic right now, you probably know traffic congestion in Phoenix is up, and we’ll talk about why. And a YouTube journalist who’s traveled the world turns his gaze on America.

But first, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is supposed to help people during disasters like floods and fires. But a new report finds the Trump administration diverted FEMA staff at key times to do something very different: help ICE in immigration enforcement. The report was prepared by House Democrats led by Arizona Congressman Greg Stanton, and he is in our studios now to tell us more. Good morning, Congressman, thanks for coming in.

GREG STANTON: Good morning.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so how many FEMA employees are we talking about here that were diverted to work for DHS, or the Department of Homeland Security, on essentially immigration enforcement?

GREG STANTON: It is hundreds of FEMA employees, and that is on top of the fact that since Trump has gotten back into office, 5,000 FEMA employees have left the agency or been fired. So almost 30% of the workforce is gone. And then on top of that, hundreds are being diverted for non-FEMA actions.

LAUREN GILGER: And this was something that came to your attention via whistleblowers, right?

GREG STANTON: Yeah, thank God there are courageous whistleblowers inside of FEMA, people who are passionate about helping people on their worst day. People that are trained and ready to help people when there is a forest fire, or a hurricane or a flood. They believe so passionately in emergency management, and they’re pretty angry about the fact that ICE is coming in and taking those employees and utilizing those employees, the skills that they have to help emergency management, like setting up emergency centers within 24 hours. That’s a really important skill to have.

They’re taking those employees, and instead of using them for emergency management, they’re using them to help plan and execute ICE raids around the country and to stand up some of these detention centers, which is both wrong and illegal.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. So it sounds like they were playing a pretty key role in this kind of mass deportation campaign that we’ve seen playing out around the country. Could they have done this without these, you know, very many FEMA employees?

GREG STANTON: I think they could have done it, but they wouldn’t have done it nearly as well, quote-unquote, as they did. But, you know, you and I have talked offline, there is a law specifically banning this from happening. It’s called the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Act, because after Katrina, we learned that when employees aren’t ready to go at a moment’s notice, that delays response, and that can cost lives.

So the law specifically says that these key FEMA employees are there in case of emergency, of natural disaster. They are not to be moved for other purposes, despite how well-trained they are. And I think a big part of the problem is that, you know, FEMA is lost in this massive bureaucracy inside of the Department of Homeland Security. So Kristi Noem, the former secretary, just didn’t think twice about moving employees around because ICE raids were her highest priority, unfortunately.

But under the law, those employees should be prepared for an emergency at a moment’s notice, not used for another purpose. So I believe that this has had a tremendous negative impact. There was a terrible flood in Texas in July of 2025. FEMA’s response was horrific and totally unacceptable. In light of that, they could have been on the ground much sooner, and the fact that they were taking some of their most talented employees and using them for a non-FEMA purpose is immoral, it’s wrong, and it’s illegal.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. You mentioned that law that came post-Katrina, the disaster in New Orleans. I mean, the idea, right, is to try to keep emergency management and these sort of essential functions out of politics. Do you feel like this is doing the opposite?

GREG STANTON: It is doing the exact opposite. But it’s also as a fact that the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem thought that she had the authority just to move employees around, didn’t really care about emergency management. Obviously, her main focus, and unfortunately the department’s main focus continues to be, this mass deportation effort and these ICE raids. The American people don’t believe in that, don’t support that, but that is still the high priority for this department.

And so to just move people around without regard to what risk that would be to the American people. Look, this agency should be a standalone agency. We need to get back the employee numbers so that it can really fully respond to emergencies. If there were multiple natural disasters at the same time, we are not prepared right now in America for a significant natural disaster. I pray that we don’t have one, but if we do, or we have more than one in particular, we would not be in a position to adequately respond. That’s unacceptable to the American people.

The whole point of FEMA is Americans saying, "We want to support our fellow Americans." We don’t care if you’re in a red state or a blue state, but we need those employees highly trained, and we need them ready to go at a moment’s notice. And that unfortunately has been undermined by Department of Homeland Security and the Trump administration.

LAUREN GILGER: So you’re calling for FEMA to essentially be made an independent agency. Do you think it also needs to be bulked up in light of — I mean, we’re seeing many more natural disasters now in light of climate change.

GREG STANTON: Bulk up, I mean, it just needs to get back to where it was. I mean, they have, as you know, when the Trump administration came in, they suggested that they wanted to completely eliminate FEMA and have states go it alone when they have a natural disaster. That’s so un-American.

Like, we want to support our fellow Americans when there’s a natural disaster. We want to help them, and the most efficient way is to have the federal government be in charge of preparing for and responding to natural disasters. We need to get the employee numbers up to the levels that it was before Trump came back into office so that we are fully ready to respond to natural disasters. It could affect us here in Arizona. We know that forest fires can ravage communities, loss of life, loss of property, etc.

And the Department of Homeland Security had a policy when Kristi Noem was there that any contract above $100,000 had to be personally signed off by her. That had disastrous results. After the Texas floods, people were calling in for help. They lost their homes, they had lost other property, they may have missing family members. They were calling the emergency call center asking for support. Because Kristi Noem had not authorized emergency call center support, those phone calls went unanswered in people’s worst day. We owe our fellow Americans so much more.

So we need to get the department fully funded, get the employee count up to where it is, those highly trained employees should be brought back to the department. FEMA needs to be reimbursed for the time of those employees because that goes into the disaster fund that helps us prepare for natural disasters. And FEMA should be an independent agency outside of the purview of the Department of Homeland Security with an administrator reporting directly to the president. Those are the reforms needed to support our fellow Americans in their time of need.

LAUREN GILGER: Last minute here for you before I let you go, congressman. I want to ask you about something different, about the potential details coming down on the Colorado River deal and how states are going to share pretty significant cuts to that. It’s looking like Arizona is going to take the brunt of those cuts in some ways. You’ve called this a failure of leadership from the federal government. How do you think it could impact Arizonans?

GREG STANTON: It’s going to impact us in very negative ways. Look, the action, the direct order about what needs to happen is going to come down any day now, but we know what the outline is. Arizona has already offered up additional cuts. The lower basin has come up with a short-term plan. It appears that the Department of Interior is going to accept that plan. That’s responsible leadership.

I think our Governor Katie Hobbs has done a really good job on this most critical issue for the future of our state, battling, advocating for Arizona. But we keep offering more cuts, the upper basin ain’t.

And it is up to this administration to force both sides to a fair compromise, shared sacrifice. Just like the original agreement from 100 years ago, half the water for the Upper Basin, half the water for Lower Basin, any future cuts should be also shared equally. But right now it’s only Arizona and the Lower Basin showing real leadership, offering up additional cuts to get us through the short-term period, but long-term, the Upper Basin needs to share equally in the pain, otherwise, it could be a great disaster for our state.

LAUREN GILGER: All right, well, we’ll have to leave it there. Arizona Congressman Greg Stanton joining us. Thank you very much for coming in, congressman, appreciate it.

GREG STANTON: Thanks for having me.

LAUREN GILGER: If it feels like you’re spending more time sitting in traffic on Valley roads and highways, you’re right. We probably are.

New data from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute finds the average Phoenix commuter spends 76 hours sitting in traffic in 2024. That’s 13 hours more than the national average. Phoenix also ranked 11th among the top 101 American urban areas for total delay in 2024.

To help explain why, my co-host Mark Brodie spoke with Kartik Jha, research engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and one of the authors of the Urban Mobility Report. And they started with summarizing what the report found for the Phoenix area, because it seems like things are maybe getting more congested here than they’ve been in the past.

KARTIK JHA: Yeah, you’re right, Mark. And we have seen that, and that’s what we’ve seen all over the nation. Travel congestion is coming back. Reliability is getting impacted because of construction projects coming back in and all that. So that’s a nationwide trend. For Phoenix, what we have seen is that there is a slight worsening of congestion and traffic.

I mean, not all of it is a bad indicator. I mean, if an area is growing in population as well as economic activity, that is natural. So sometimes congestion can be seen as a positive indicator. But if you tell that to someone who is stuck in traffic for a couple of hours daily, or an hour daily, and it ruins their day, that’s not good news to them.

MARK BRODIE: Did you see that there were shifting traffic patterns in the Phoenix area? Is it just more cars on the road? To What do you attribute this increase in congestion?

KARTIK JHA: Yeah, so we see a mix of things. Obviously, the total travel itself, which we measure as a metric called the vehicle miles traveled, VMT, so that has increased for Arizona as a whole, but Phoenix in particular, for sure.

The national average delay per auto commuter, so that’s basically the delay that an average auto commuter all over the nation — it’s a nationwide metric — that comes out to be 63 for 2024. For Phoenix, that number is 76.

So it’s above the national average, which is to be expected because we divide areas all over the nation in four population categories, and Phoenix happens to be in the very large, which is the largest of our four categories. So Phoenix is above the national average, but the silver lining is it is still below the category average of the very large areas.

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, so let’s talk about some of those numbers. I’m curious about this total delay in Phoenix in 2024. You found more than 203 million hours, which is a 6% increase over the year before. Obviously, that is a large number for a large number of people, but it’s still a really, really big number.

KARTIK JHA: It is, yeah. And it has been growing. You can see, heading into the COVID pandemic, it was about 163 million hours in 2017. Heading into the COVID pandemic, it was about 170, 168 million hours, and now it is above 200 million hours. So it has been consistently increasing since COVID.

And even the ranks — so absolute numbers is one thing, but then the relative ranks is another indicator of telling you how that area, a particular area, is doing compared to its peers in the same population bracket. And there we see that the rank was, for Phoenix, for example, the rank was 14 all over the nation. That’s total delay rank was 14 for Phoenix. Now it has come up to 11, so it has kind of worsened in rankings.

MARK BRODIE: Is it surprising at all that the numbers are going up to the extent they are, given that there’s still a good number of people who are working remotely, working hybrid schedules where they’re in the office a couple days a week and not in the office a couple days a week?

KARTIK JHA: True. So assuming if we didn’t have the kind of work flexibility or remote working opportunities that we have now — although, I mean, it is changing. We see that on a monthly and a daily basis, how those things are still kind of in a flux, although things have stabilized a little bit. What we see immediately after COVID was that Mondays and Fridays dropped quite a bit. Even Tuesdays were not bad. But now we see over the last couple of years, in 2023 and 2024 data, what we see is basically the middle of the week, Tuesday through Thursday, it is actually carrying a lot of the traffic, not just in terms of number of cars, but also the delay.

The delay is, for example, if I talk about Phoenix, it has changed quite a bit from 2019 heading right after the pandemic. So now we see that the middle of the week has actually quite a bit of congestion, delay, a lot of cars. Friday still is close, but it has dropped. And Mondays are definitely lower than what they used to be before.

MARK BRODIE: Do the numbers you just cited, though, indicate that some large percentage of the congestion we’re seeing in Phoenix is work-commute related? It’s not like a situation like in parts of L.A. or New York City where no matter what time of day you get on the roads, you’re going to be stuck in traffic. It sounds like what you’re saying is, in Phoenix anyway, it’s still concentrated during the weekday, sort of during rush hour, people going to and from work.

KARTIK JHA: That is true, yeah. Still, commutes still kind of contribute to the majority of the delay. But then, especially for Phoenix, what I noticed was even the truck traffic contributes quite a bit of the delay.

We talked about rankings for the total delay, which includes all vehicles. Actually, even the ranks for the truck delay for Phoenix have worsened. It was at rank 14 all over the nation for total truck delay in 2017. Now it is at number seven. So that’s quite a jump in relative rankings.

So I’m suspecting that a lot of this delay is also being contributed by freight, trucks, people order more online deliveries, Instacarts, online shopping, delivery at home and all that. So that contributes to more truck traffic, plus the truck traffic now is also kind of peeking into the regular commute hours. We see some more, relatively speaking, some more truck traffic during those commute peak periods as well.

MARK BRODIE: Do you believe that increased congestion is just sort of a fact of life in a growing city? Is there anything that Phoenix or any other city can be doing to try to mitigate this?

KARTIK JHA: Absolutely, you’re right. Bang on. Congestion is kind of a fact of life in thriving areas, especially in regions with strong economies and steady population growth. Frankly, in terms of policymaking, you even want to see that sometimes because, you know, it is an indicator of growth.

But there are ways that agencies obviously use to counter that as much as possible. Even though you will see growth in congestion and traffic, but you can reduce that pace of growth and pace of deterioration.

So what opportunities agencies are seeing more now from now on is that, instead of just keep adding additional capacity, because the same traffic or a little higher traffic in terms of number of cars is spread across the week and spread across the day, state agencies, MPOs (metropolitan planning organizations), cities are looking at more and more TSMO, what we call TSMO, Transportation Systems Management and Operations.

So basically using the same system, but more efficiently in terms of signal timing, auxiliary lanes for trucks, any kind of variable message signs, dynamic speed messaging and all that. So people are trying to look at operational strategies in conjunction with adding capacity to make the best use of their funds in order for the existing system to be able to absorb more traffic demand.

LAUREN GILGER: Kartik Jha is a research engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and one of the authors of the Urban Mobility Report.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I am Lauren Gilger.

Coming up, have you ever wondered what you would look like as a bug? We’ll hear from the Phoenix-based artist behind the Bug-a-fier.

But first, childcare is notoriously expensive. The market value in our state for it is $10,764 a year. That’s nearly as much as a year of in-state tuition at ASU. And aid for low-income families to pay for preschool is drying up. More than 13,000 kids are now on the Arizona Department of Economic Security’s waitlist, the Capital Times reports, a 575% jump since it was reinstated in 2024.

And in Pima County, a scholarship program that sent hundreds of preschoolers to school is running out of funding. Becky Pallack has the story for Arizona Luminaria, and she’s on the line now to tell us more. Good morning, Becky. Thank you for coming on The Show.

BECKY PALLACK: Thank you for having me.

LAUREN GILGER: So tell us first about this program. The acronym for it is PEEPS, right?

BECKY PALLACK: Right, Pima Early Education Program. We call it PEEPS, and it is a scholarship program that helps low-income families cover the cost of a high-quality preschool.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. And this program is now seeing a long waitlist of its own, more than 600 kids?

BECKY PALLACK: Yeah, the county said at the end of May there were already 630 preschool kids on waitlists for this program. And there could be more kids who need it. DES says there’s 2,300 kids in Pima County that are on their waitlists. So, yeah, there’s a lot of kids who need this program and the county’s not able to serve all of them.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. And so let’s talk about what’s behind that: funding cuts, etc. Like as I mentioned at the top, and you just mentioned there, the Department of Economic Security has this massive and growing waitlist for subsidies for early childhood education, and we’re seeing other early childhood programs taking hits, right? Quality First, First Things First, right? Outline some of that for us.

BECKY PALLACK: Right. First Things First is funded by basically cigarette taxes. And with fewer people smoking and more people vaping, that funding pool is just drying up, so there are fewer scholarships available. At the same time, the number of licensed childcare providers is shrinking. So we’ve got kind of this perfect storm of revenue streams drying up and like a childcare shortage in general all happening at the same time.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. And this is a program, right, Becky, that was built on pandemic relief funds, right? And those are gone for the most part as well.

BECKY PALLACK: That’s right. So Pima County launched PEEPS as this really bold experiment in 2021 where they wanted to track this preschool cohort to show the benefits of early education. And it was built on one-time federal funds, which were those pandemic relief dollars.

And that money lasted four years, but now in years five and six, different money is needed. So they’re looking for different ways to keep this program going.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, so let’s talk about what those could be, because local officials there have tried to fill the gap. They’ve used override money in the past. What else are they looking at?

BECKY PALLACK: Right. It would cost millions to place all of the kids who are on the waitlist. So they’re trying to decide what money they can come up with. And right now, officials in Pima County are considering other one-time moneys.

They just started talking about a possible tax through the library district. And right now, some library district funds are benefiting this preschool program.

And they’re also just talking about fundraising, like how can they raise charitable contributions from businesses and foundations to help preschool kids get into programs.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. You reported the city of Tucson dropped its funding for PEEPS, so did Oro Valley. It’s kind of left to the county here, it sounds like.

BECKY PALLACK: Right. The county is filling in gaps that otherwise would have been filled by our local cities and towns, and also by these state contributions. So they’re really trying to figure out how they can put pieces together to make it work.

And meanwhile, childcare costs are up almost 40% from before the pandemic, so families are paying more and getting on these waitlists.

LAUREN GILGER: The county also added a fee for some families who use this program, is that right?

BECKY PALLACK: That’s right. So some families are going to start paying on a sliding scale now. And these are low-income families, so some of the families will still be able to access these programs for free, but others will pay what they can. And that’s going to help open up a few more seats over time in the PEEPS program.

LAUREN GILGER: But it sounds like in the end, the future of this program, which has been pretty impactful there, is still pretty unclear.

BECKY PALLACK: Right. So it’s hard for families to find care that is quality and affordable right now. It’s often the biggest expense in the family budget right after housing and utilities.

And do you remember that game we used to play when we were kids, like musical chairs? It’s kind of now the situation where there are two preschool seats and three kids who need to get in those spots. So it’s kind of creating disparities in real time, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid here in Pima County by finding the funds to open up a number of scholarships for preschool kids.

LAUREN GILGER: All right, we’ll leave it there for now. Becky Pallack with Arizona Luminaria joining us. Becky, thank you very much for coming on The Show, appreciate it.

BECKY PALLACK: Thank you.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It’s The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

Pima County is looking for a new operator to run Old Tucson Studios. That’s because the current one, Colorado-based American Heritage Railways, says it will not extend its current lease, which runs through April 2027. The facility is more than 300 acres, some of which is developed, some of which is not. Several hundred productions have been filmed there over the decades.

To talk about the park’s future, my co-host Mark Brodie spoke with Diane Frisch, director of Attractions and Tourism for Pima County. And they started with some of the options for what the county might do come next spring when the current lease ends.

DIANE FRISCH: Well, that’s the thing. We’re hearing some interesting pitches from people. Everybody loves Old Tucson. It’s located in Tucson Mountain Park. There are some things that would be appropriate for that property. We’d love to retain the Western history of Old Tucson. Since 1939, it’s been a filming site. We love that history and the filming opportunities.

But there are also some opportunities to do some Sonoran Desert education, to build on how we might put together a new partner for Pima County. So it may be one leaseholder, it might be a collection of leaseholders. We’re really just taking this time to think about it in a new way and what’s best for the property and what’s best for the residents and the tourists that come to Tucson to see it.

At one time, Old Tucson was the number two attraction in the state of Arizona, right behind the Grand Canyon.

MARK BRODIE: Is there still filming that goes on there?

DIANE FRISCH: There is. There is filming that goes on there, and a lot of people think it’s just Westerns. But the site also has that beautiful Sonoran Desert background to it that is so fantastic. So we have documentaries, we have student films, we have portions of major films done. It’s a variety of things. And we also shoot some catalogs out there. We shoot some photographs. People don’t understand or realize that, oh, there are a lot of things that that desert and those views are used for.

MARK BRODIE: Is it possible that it could just become a county asset, that you wouldn’t have some other enterprise that is a leaseholder here?

DIANE FRISCH: We do own it. We own the property and the buildings. I think we always look at it as we like to have a partner and make it accessible to people. As selfishly we might say it’s ours and we’re going to just keep it for ourselves, if there are ways we can use it that will bring people to Tucson or southern Arizona, if there are ways to use it for conservation and education for people, we certainly want to do that.

So we’re getting some interesting proposals and ideas. We haven’t even opened it up. These are just people that are saying, "Oh my god, I love Old Tucson. I have an idea." And I’m talking to all of them.

MARK BRODIE: Are you hearing ideas of things that maybe you hadn’t thought about before?

DIANE FRISCH: Oh, yes. I’m hearing a lot of ideas. And there are some ideas simply because of where it’s located that wouldn’t be appropriate. Someone said that’s an ideal location for a water park. I said, "Hmm, OK, no." A water park would not be appropriate in that location, and the amount of water you would need, so we probably wouldn’t do that.

I’ve heard proposals for entertainment, for a hotel or a casino. It’s in the middle of Tucson Mountain Park. Again, there are some things we want it to mesh with what’s in the area. So we won’t be building a 16-story hotel. I don’t think a water park would work. We appreciate and love that Dark Skies is also there, so there might be an opportunity for astronomy. Tucson is the city of gastronomy, the first in the nation. That could be an opportunity. We’re hearing some very interesting things.

MARK BRODIE: What is the financial component to this? Like if you’re going to build something, some kind of observatory or restaurant or something like that, do you need to have an outside company come in to do that so the county is not on the hook for all that?

DIANE FRISCH: We don’t need to, but I think we’re looking at it as good partners are probably the best way to go. And some people may have experience in an area. I’d love to think that the county and Attractions and Tourism knows everything. I’ve found that if you have some good partners, that may be the way to go.

Our end goal is really to make sure that we make the best decision for the property and people keep coming and using it. So we’ll have to talk about financially what that would look like and how people would go about that. But we certainly are listening right now. We’re in a listening phase.

MARK BRODIE: Have you heard any ideas that you’re thinking, "That’s a really good idea, we should do that"?

DIANE FRISCH: I have.

MARK BRODIE: Can you share what some of those are?

DIANE FRISCH: No, I can’t. Thanks so much for asking.

MARK BRODIE: Fair enough. You know I had to ask. I kind of figured that was going to be the answer. I kind of had to ask.

DIANE FRISCH: You had to ask. No, there are some interesting things where we’ve said, "Huh, that could work. Let’s think about that." And there are other ideas where people have come to us with partnerships where we’ve said, "OK, that’s interesting. Let me think about that."

And then we’ll look at it in terms of, is it appropriate for the property, what statutes or jurisdictional things do we have to think about, and then ultimately, we'll take, the staff will take ideas to the Board of Supervisors in Pima County and they’ll give us input and direction and say, "Yes, that’s something we think we want to move," and then we would move into a vetting phase.

MARK BRODIE: What to you is the importance of Old Tucson Studios to Tucson and southern Arizona?

DIANE FRISCH: Oh, there’s so many things. The importance to the community, I mean the calls and the social media and the outpouring of people. We love Old Tucson. It’s been here since 1939. They were destroyed when there was the fire in 1995. It’s part of our culture, it’s part of our history. And moving forward, we’d love to be able to keep those things, plus add in educational elements.

And everyone will bring to me pictures of them with their mom and dad and their grandma and grandpa at Old Tucson. They just can’t imagine it not being here. So I think there’s a way we can come up with a plan and a partner or partners that we would respect all of that and continue on.

MARK BRODIE: All right, that is Diane Frisch, director of Attractions and Tourism for Pima County. Diane, thanks so much, I appreciate it.

DIANE FRISCH: You bet. Thank you, Mark.

LAUREN GILGER: YouTuber Peter Santenello has traveled to 85 countries and lived in five of them. But for his first book, he turned his lens on his own country, the United States. In “Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches from Across the Country We Call Home,” Santenello goes to some of the country’s lesser-known corners and documents the people we call neighbors. And he found a lot more unites us than divides us. He’ll be at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe next week, and I spoke with him recently more about the book and what he learned writing it.

PETER SANTENELLO: We have such a massive country with so many cultures and ways of living and geographies, and doing the work that I do out in the country, it didn’t really hit home until I got out there. I’m at this full time. I’m constantly coming into new corners of the country, new culture, things I never knew existed. And this book just ties it all together.

LAUREN GILGER: You come at this from an interesting perspective as well, because you spent a lot of your life traveling the world, right? Living in other countries. You went to, is it 85 countries really that you’ve been to in your life?

PETER SANTENELLO: Yeah.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s wild. So, I mean, you had that kind of very broad experience, international experience, and then sort of turned your eye to your own country. How do you decide where to go in America?

PETER SANTENELLO: It’s just what interests me the most. What do people not know about? We can talk about Arizona because you’re in Arizona. Done a lot of videos there. Love Arizona. But what do they not know so well? And that’s what I dive into. So for an example, it might be, what’s it like, not from the outside of the Amish world, but actually getting in with Amish and getting into their lifestyles. Or the Siberian Yupik people up in St. Lawrence Island who still hunt a whale and are just as American as you and I, but living in a totally different world. They can actually see Russia from their island. Their island’s three times the size of Maui.

LAUREN GILGER: Right.

PETER SANTENELLO: So what are things that most Americans wouldn’t think of? And that’s where I find myself.

LAUREN GILGER: Tell us about visiting the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Reservation. I think a great example of almost going to a different country, somewhat literally, in our own country, right?

PETER SANTENELLO: 100%. I’ve done a lot of Native videos. There are 576 federally recognized tribes in the country, and once you start digging in, like most things, it becomes more complicated and nuanced. And so, for example, Navajo Nation, the size of New Jersey, and let me say Cherokee in North Carolina are two different universes. It would be culture shock for each tribe to go to one another. So they all have a different identity. There’s a lot of feeling in these places, right? When you, I don’t know if you’ve been to Navajo Nation, is you detach a little bit from the country. In a way, it is a separate nation.

LAUREN GILGER: Is there something like a thread you think ties together the places you’ve been? Because you’ve been also on ride-alongs in Yuma County, you went and did a piece on Clarkdale and the kind of history of that place, been in Glendale in the Valley here, looked at Arizonans off the grid. What stands out to you about this place?

PETER SANTENELLO: Well, Arizona is great for filming. The scenery is beautiful, right? Also I’m pretty much guaranteed I’m going to get sun. But I’d say a thread that connects, it doesn’t matter where in the country, but most people, most Americans are proud of where they’re from. They want to share their story. They’re open. They let me in. You go in curious to any one of these places, of course, some people want to have nothing to do with you, but the vast majority are very open. That’s a beautiful thing about America. After traveling a lot of the world, people are open all over the world, but our culture does have an easy, "Hey, how are you doing?" You say that to a stranger, and they’re like, "Yeah, I’m good. What’s going on?" You know, that sort of casual talk where it’s not like that everywhere.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s interesting. So, I mean, you talk about this in the book, this idea that we talk all the time in our politics and our government, our policy that we’re like this incredibly divided country, and everyone is at odds. But you found something it sounds like very different in terms of not just people being open, but people feeling like we are all still united in some way.

PETER SANTENELLO: 100%. Nobody cares. I’ve never been asked once, "Who did you vote for?" And I could care less who someone voted for, right? I look at them as an individual. Is this a good person I want to spend time with or not? That’s how most people look at their fellow Americans. I don’t feel any deep hatred when you get on a personal level at all.

But what I’m seeing, what I try to get in my channel and in this book, is there’s the on-the-ground reality and there’s the online reality. And most people are living in their bubbles, they’re in their worlds, doesn’t matter where you live. I really don’t step into politics much. That’s not my angle. This is a place I want everyone to feel like they can watch my channel or read my book and get excited about it. And while most of media right now, I mean, it’s just what’s interesting, and it’s usually trauma and dopamine-driven stories, that’s just the reality of how humans work. If nine stories are negative on America, here I’m offering one. You want a little break from the noise? Here, I’ll show you a little break. And both are true. There’s problems, there’s all sorts of conflict, but also the stories I’m showing are just as true. So I think it’s good to break up the news cycle with something like I’m offering now.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, something a little positive. Last question for you, Peter. This is interesting, I think, to folks from the outside because you’re going to these places, and so many places, and talking to so many people. What kind of reactions do you get? Like you walk up to somebody, are you filming? Do you say, "Hey, will you talk to me about this thing?" Or do you just start conversations? How are you received around the country?

PETER SANTENELLO: Yeah, that’s the challenge of it. I’m received very well, overwhelmingly people are open and want to share their stories. Now I always say, "Look, I’m making a YouTube video, is it cool if I ask you a question?" I would say eight out of 10 are like, "Cool. Yeah, sure, no problem." Two out of 10 are going to be like, "No, I’m not interested." And of course I respect that. So I always ask first. But that’s why shooting in the United States is fantastic. Like you said, I’ve been in 85 countries, shot videos all over the world. People are open here. They want to speak. They want to share their stories if they feel you’re coming in with good intention.

LAUREN GILGER: Peter Santenello, YouTuber, independent journalist, and author of the new book “Your Fellow Americans: Dispatches from Across the Country We Call Home.” Peter, thank you very much for coming on The Show. I appreciate it.

PETER SANTENELLO: Thank you, Lauren. Take care.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It is The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I am Lauren Gilger.

Our next guest this morning loves two things: art and bugs. And so she combined them into her career. Maddie French, aka "The Bug Girl," just graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in illustration and launched the Bug-a-fier, a walk-up booth where she’ll draw you on the spot as a bug. So we obviously had to try it out. So we invited Maddie to our studios to draw me. She came in dressed in a bug-print dress, and that’s where we begin our conversation.

Let’s actually start with that. Tell us about your dress. What’s on there?

MADDIE FRENCH: Oh my gosh, there’s so many — this dress is called like "Worst Bugs Bug Dress." And it’s just like literally every bug you could imagine under the sun. We got some centipedes on here, we got some beetles, we got some spiders, some like slug-looking things. Like honestly, everything is on this dress, it seems like.

LAUREN GILGER: And you wore it for your graduation?

MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so underneath the, you know, the cap and gown was my bug dress.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s awesome. So, OK, this whole bug girl thing is not just like a cute gimmick that you thought of to sell your art. Like this is deep for you. You’ve always loved bugs? Tell us about it.

MADDIE FRENCH: Oh yeah. Yeah, no, totally. I mean, I was always that kid who was like lifting up rocks and like picking up rollie pollies and stuff. Me and my mom found out recently, we were looking at some old pictures, and we realized that my nursery was even bug-themed. I mean, I had like there was like bug stamps on the wall, so, yeah, this is something that goes back since like probably infancy, honestly.

LAUREN GILGER: Apparently. That’s amazing. But at the same time, you’ve also always kind of wanted to be an artist, right? You’ve always been drawing.

MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah, definitely. That was always kind of like the thing that I would write down on the, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is an artist.

LAUREN GILGER: And you recently graduated college with a degree in art, right?

MADDIE FRENCH: Yes, yes. I got my BFA in Illustration from the University of Arizona, just graduated in December.

LAUREN GILGER: Congratulations.

MADDIE FRENCH: Thank you. Thank you.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so talk about combining these two loves, this kind of lifelong love of bugs and, you know, the fact that you are an artist.

MADDIE FRENCH: I think like I started really combining them in college. Like one of my very first drawing classes, which I was at Phoenix College, I did this still life of a beetle and it was just like so fascinating and interesting to me. And I feel like ever since that one project, I’ve just been drawing bugs for everything.

LAUREN GILGER: What do you love about them? Most people kind of don’t like bugs, right?

MADDIE FRENCH: I feel like that’s kind of what I like about them. It’s kind of fun that they’re like an underdog, sort of to speak, you know?

LAUREN GILGER: You like them because no one likes them?

MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah, exactly.

LAUREN GILGER: What’s your favorite bug?

MADDIE FRENCH: Ooh, I mean, I have a lot of favorite bugs. I always draw myself as a praying mantis, so got to wrap the praying mantis. My favorite type of mantis specifically is the iridescent bark mantis.

LAUREN GILGER: Ooh.

MADDIE FRENCH: They’re like sparkly and rainbow praying mantises. Like you got to love that.

LAUREN GILGER: That’s really cool. Yeah. Your final project even in college was of like bug girls, right?

MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah, I did like a blind box line of like these characters that were, yeah, they were bug girls. So we had like, you know, a cute bedbug girl, she was in PJs, there was a fly who was like a pilot, kind of like Amelia Earhart-esque, you know? So, yeah, I thought it would be fun to kind of combine something, like you said, kind of gross and scary you don’t usually think of with like, "Oh, these cute girls," you know, in this weird way.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, I can see that. OK, so talk about the Bug-a-fire, because you’ve kind of turned this into something that you do on the spot as a real job here, right, at markets. Talk about how you came up with this.

MADDIE FRENCH: So, yeah, I had been, you know, vending and selling art on and off, and after graduating, you know, I didn’t really know what I was doing exactly, but I knew that I wanted to try to do some more markets, so I had applied to Scraps Market, which is this really cool event that goes on here in Phoenix that each booth has a sort of interactive element. And so since I didn’t have something interactive, I was trying to think of like, "OK, what is the most easy way that I could do something that is interactive?" And I’ve seen like those live portrait booths, but I thought maybe I could do people as a bug, kind of similar to the like style that I had drawn those bug girls in for that final project.

And I had honestly had no idea that it would be a success. I thought that people might think it was kind of weird and not really get it, be like, "What? Me as a bug? I don’t understand." But much to my surprise, it seems to be very popular and people seem to like it.

LAUREN GILGER: That first market was like a big hit, right?

MADDIE FRENCH: It was. It was. And it was super surprising to me. I definitely was not expecting it. That first market I just had like a little cardboard, you know, booth that I had made really quickly kind of a couple nights before, and, yeah, it was a massive success, so it was super exciting to me.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so talk about how you do this. You’re going to draw me. OK, let me — so let me see how you do this. You draw this on the spot. You meet someone and you look at them and then you decide what kind of bug they might be? How do you decide?

MADDIE FRENCH: It’s hard to say, it’s really about a vibe. I mean, obviously like their outfit, the, you know, the way that they hold themselves, like this all has to do with how I decide what bug I choose to draw them as.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so what am I going to be?

MADDIE FRENCH: Hm, let’s see here. I’m thinking maybe — OK.

LAUREN GILGER: OK.

MADDIE FRENCH: I’ll draw your headphones.

LAUREN GILGER: Any bugs that have a mic?

MADDIE FRENCH: OK, I drew you as a green lacewing.

LAUREN GILGER: Ah, it’s so cool! I have headphones and mic, and I’m wearing a blazer like I am right now.

MADDIE FRENCH: Yep. And some wings, yep.

LAUREN GILGER: So appropriate. Amazing. Thank you so much.

MADDIE FRENCH: Of course.

LAUREN GILGER: OK, so how do you do this? Like when you look at someone, you’re looking at vibe, like you said, to try to figure out what kind of bug they might be. But like how do you get someone’s likeness down pretty quickly and in front of them? Like this is not low pressure.

MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah, totally. I mean, that’s part of the reason why I think I like doing the bug portraits as opposed to like a more accurate caricature, because, you know, I am drawing their face as a bug face. I don’t need to worry so much about like, is their nose the right shape? And, you know, bugs don’t have noses, they don’t really have the same mouths as us. There’s a lot of less pressure. I mean, the main things that I am trying to get down is hair and outfit and sort of like general demeanor. And I think that that goes a long way in creating a likeness of someone rather than having to get any specific details down.

LAUREN GILGER: Green lacewings obviously probably ask a lot of questions. You said you draw yourself as a mantis. Why?

MADDIE FRENCH: I do, yeah. I don’t know, I just I really like mantises. They’re my favorite. It just like made the most sense.

LAUREN GILGER: I want to talk about another project you came out with recently where you did a drawing of arthropods, right, for Trans Pride, and it was sort of a — is it you call it a riso print?

MADDIE FRENCH: Yeah, yeah, it’s like a specific type of printing process. It’s the best way I can describe it is that it’s similar to like traditional screen print, but it is through a printer, so you’re doing like one layer at a time. And it’s super fun because the colors that you get with riso are just so vibrant, like you’re not going to get those with a regular printer. So, yeah, I did like this design recently in pink and blue and white for Trans Pride. So it’s different arthropods that have a unique sort of reproductive system just, you know, to showcase that biology is weird and it’s not always just as black and white as male and female. There’s a kind of all sorts of weird things that happen in the world, so humans can be weird, too.

LAUREN GILGER: So I wonder, as you it sounds like can expand this idea of art and loving bugs all into one thing, and in lots of new and cool ways, how far do you think you can take this? Do you want this to be your thing forever?

MADDIE FRENCH: Hopefully, yeah. I mean, that’s the goal definitely to just, you know, continue bugging.

LAUREN GILGER: Lots to come for The Bug Girl. Maddie French, thank you so much for coming in. I really appreciate it. Thank you for drawing me. This is so cool.

MADDIE FRENCH: Thank you, yeah, of course. Anytime.

LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Kaely 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 @kjzztheshow.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created for audience accessibility. Transcripts are created on deadline with the assistance of AI tools and then edited, and may not be in their final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio segment.