KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about the threat and then pause of tariffs against Arizona’s two biggest trading partners, a proposal to allow guns in schools and more, The Show sat down with former state school superintendent Jaime Molera with the firm Molera Alvarez and Matt Grodsky with Matters of State Strategies.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Jaime, let me start with you on the proposed and then paused tariffs against Arizona — against Mexico and Canada, Arizona’s two biggest trading partners. It seems as though this was one that maybe people of all political stripes, there’s just general, it seemed like confusion was the biggest reaction to all this.
JAIME MOLERA: Well you had a Freudian slip about this being against Arizona because it kind of would have been against Arizona. This would have been a really big hit to our economy. But I guess the Trump administration — and it’s interesting how this played out.
It didn’t surprise me in a lot of ways because I’ve always seen President Trump really as a developer. I mean, that’s his mentality. And developers I’ve worked with, time and time again, are very aggressive. They really want to come into negotiations with a lot of dynamite and blow things up.
BRODIE: Move fast and break stuff, right?
MOLERA: But I got to tell you that his rhetoric in the campaign turned out to be accurate. I mean, that’s one of the things that I think a lot of the folks on the Republican side of the aisle are very pleased with is that, “See? Finally, we have somebody who’s a politician who is willing to go out and say, and do what he said on the campaign trail.”
And so I think it’s going to be interesting how this plays out. I don’t think it’s over. I certainly believe that they’re going to use this stick against Canada and Mexico as well as the EU too. I think that’s the next one that’s going to be coming down the pike.
BRODIE: Matt, politically we’ve seen obviously a lot of Democrats coming out and saying, “This is terrible. This is bad for the economy.” A lot of Republicans are saying it would probably hurt the economy as well. But is this the kind of issue that the Democrats might be able — to assuming that the tariffs go into effect at some point — is this something Democrats can take and run with maybe?
MATT GRODSKY: Absolutely. I mean, not that you want bad things to happen to the population and the economy, but talking about economic issues are going to be the key for Democrats in the coming months. I think that the president, obviously he’s out there claiming he got these concessions, even though there was some conversation that this was things they were already planning to do anyway.
But I think he saw the stock market. And he saw the reaction from the business community, even some folks that thought he might have just been saber rattling during the campaign. And I think he pivoted because of that. And so I think if he continues to do that — I agree, I don’t think it’s over yet.
So his honeymoon period could go away faster than a Mark Finchem speeding ticket if he’s not careful. So we’ll see.
BRODIE: Insider political reference right there. So let me ask both of you if you think that this episode says anything or is a harbinger of the way that the Trump administration, of its relationship with Mexico for the next four years, and what kind of impact that might have for Arizona.
MOLERA: Well, I believe we’ve been doing quite a bit. My firm’s been doing quite a bit with, Mexico and Mexico trade issues. And certainly there’s a lot of angst within not just the Mexican government but also within the Mexican business community. A lot of investment that’s been going on there. You know, people feel not at ease. I’ll just put it that way.
The one thing that concerns me, though, is that over the last several years, you’ve seen a lot more penetration of the Mexican business market by China. And I think there’s a legitimate fear that if we continue to be very aggressive and seen as anti-Mexican, then I think China becomes more of a threat in our own hemisphere.
And that’s something, it’s disconcerting. Because if you look at the amount of investments and Chinese corporations that are coming into Mexico, I think that’s something that should give us pause. And that’s certainly one of the things that we’re going to be talking about over the next few months as we engage with Mexican business leaders as well as Arizona’s political leaders.
BRODIE: Sure. So Matt, do you think that this episode says anything about the Trump administration’s future relationship with Mexico and maybe that what that might mean for Arizona?
GRODSKY: Yeah, I think it’s instability. And I completely agree. I think the common thread that we’re seeing, not just with these tariffs but with things like USAID and kind of ceding our ground as a leader in the world, that vacuum is going to be filled by China and other adversaries. And I think as Democrats, we’ve struggled to articulate that to swing voters and individuals that may maybe don’t pay attention to the news cycle every day.
There’s a cost for not being the leader of the free world. There’s a cost for not having these relationships overseas. And when you see China encroach in our Southern Hemisphere, that’s going to have ramifications long term. So I think the common threat is instability. And we’ll see what happens with that.
BRODIE: Interesting. All right. So guys, at the risk of putting the cart — I don’t know — two years before the horse here, let me ask you about the Cook Political Report. It’s a prognostication service and has listed two Arizona congressional districts as toss-ups among 18 nationwide.
For people who are paying attention to congressional politics, this will not be a surprise. It’s CD1, the David Schweikert district, CD6, the (Juan) Ciscomani district. Matt, there is a lot of talk just a few months ago that Democrats might be able to pull off one or both of those, and they didn’t. What has to change for Democrats to be successful in those swing swing type districts?
GRODSKY: Yeah, I’ll be blunt. We have to really take voter registration seriously. It has plummeted for us statewide since 2020. We were fairly stable in 2022, but it’s really gone down. You saw how competitive CD1 was back in 2022. It’s gone less competitive given the voter registration disadvantage for Democrats. Thousands of voters have gone to independent or switched parties altogether.
So if we want to actually consider these as swing toss-up districts, we need to worry about getting more voters into our tent. And until we do that, I’m concerned we’re going to have the same issue over and over again.
BRODIE: Jaime, we’ve seen Congressman Schweikert listed as vulnerable for I don’t know how many election cycles in a row at this point. And every two years, he pulls it out and wins. What I guess is a reason to think that that might be different for both he and and Congressman Ciscomani in southern Arizona?
MOLERA: I think the best chance the Democrats had of unseating them is during the presidential election year. You tend to see much more higher turnout with Democrats. And in 2026, it’s going to be a gubernatorial election. You’re gonna have a lot of interest, but I just don’t think you get the kind of turnout that can beat them at this point.
And then the other thing I think Democrats should be concerned about — and certainly I think this has been helpful to the Republican Party — you see a lot more, dissatisfaction, particularly amongst minority groups. You saw the Latino men vote was considered for President Trump, but it was also very helpful to Ciscomani and Schweikert, particularly Juan Ciscomani.
And I think a lot of the policies and the attitudes of the wokeness, the social policies have been very damaging to the Democrat brand. And so that’s one of the things, in my opinion, they’re gonna have to deal with. But certainly the Republicans are in a good position if they take that momentum.
And hopefully they’ll do that. I’ve always been disappointed in Republicans’ ability to outreach to these minority groups, but there’s there’s an opening there that I think if they are smart about it and aggressive about it and put their money where their mouths are, that could pay off long term.
BRODIE: Obviously, two years is an eternity. Two weeks is an eternity in politics. Two years is even more than that. But at this point, where we stand at the beginning of February in 2025, is it fair to say that at least to some extent, we don’t know to what extent, but that even downballot congressional races in two years will be in some way a referendum on President Trump?
MOLERA: Yeah, it could be. I mean, and that’s always a big issue. I mean, presidents usually have a tough time in the midterm elections after the first term. So that’s where I think a lot of the opportunity that the Democrats see, and certainly I believe the Hobbs administration is hoping that that happens because they can piggyback on that.
But as I mentioned, those other issues I think are very deep, and I think they could penetrate the psyche of a lot of voters to say, “Look, we don’t want to go back to that. And as crazy as the Trump administration might be, we just want that stability and we want that notion that we’re not going to get that kind of DEI policies that are going to affect our ability to raise our families” or things like that.
BRODIE: Matt, as Democrats are thinking about sort of regrouping after after November, how much of the conversation is about their policies and maybe trying to talk more about the economy. You’ve heard a lot about that. And how much is sort of anti-Trump?
GRODSKY: It’s interesting. I think we recognize as a whole that we have a perception issue. Individual campaigns and state parties think that they’re talking about economic issues and that they’re appealing to the middle of the road. But the right wing ecosystem has been able to convince a large swath of voters that our primary issues are the wokeness factor.
So we have to fix that and address it. Luckily, we have a playbook for that. We saw that in the backlash to 2016. We had big success in 2018, but we didn’t get that by being passive and just dependent purely on outrage. You had to message and show that you were the common sense party, and we need to get back to that. So that’s going to be a key component of our strategy.
