KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
To talk about a pair of Trump Administration officials visiting the Valley, a potential solution to a budget shortfall in a program for Arizonans with developmental disabilities and more, The Show sat down with Barrett Marson of Marson Media and Stacy Pearson of Lumen Strategies.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: So, Barrett, lots immigration talk. It’s like we’re back in 2010.
BARRETT MARSON: Yeah. I’d rather talk about puppet shows for adults, but OK.
BRODIE: Coming up later. Stay tuned, Barrett.
MARSON: I want to hear that.
BRODIE: So we started the week with the president’s a border czar coming to Phoenix and addressing a joint session of the Legislature. He said a lot of things, among them making a comparison of deportees to Amazon Prime deliveries.
MARSON: Well, nothing says humanely dealing with people like shoving them in a tight box and making the driver go 80 mph to to keep on time. No, but seriously I will say that Trump promised to get the border under control. That was the big thing. Two big things: inflation and border.
And, you know, he’s done a good job. I think you have to give him credit for reducing that stream of people coming across the border.
STACY PEARSON: That was put in place under the Biden administration. It should have been done earlier, but this was a Biden policy.
MARSON: Under Biden, they were still streaming in the tens of thousands a day.
BRODIE: Before like November.
MARSON: I heard literally that some Border Patrol agents actually are bored now because there’s not nearly the amount of people coming across. They are not having to do as many chases. And so you got to give Trump credit for reducing the illegal border crossings to a trickle.
PEARSON: And eliminating due process. And sending folks to —
MARSON: Hey, due process on the roundups. That we can complain about a lot.
PEARSON: Inhumane treatment does deserves no credit.
BRODIE: Well, Stacy, what did you make of what Tom Homan had to say? I mean, we got a little preview of it just there.
PEARSON: Right. Look, it was a blatant headline grab, and it was effective. But the policy that’s following that up — including forcing local law enforcement, which just in the Valley is 1,000 officers short — to enforce immigration law is insane.
To Barrett’s point, if Border Patrol agents are bored, send them to Phoenix. Phoenix PD is short hundreds of officers. There aren’t enough officers to patrol our streets to respond to accidents quickly, to take property crime reports. And now we’re going to redirect that effort, that energy, that manpower to this, to this pet project?
MARSON: Well, I’m not really seeing a lot of the local law enforcement, you know, I don’t know if that occurring as much as just on the border, the people coming in that slow to a trickle. And I think people wanted that. And that’s what they are getting with Trump. We’ve got to keep that up.
And probably as he moves into his “round them up phase,” that’s when you’re going to hear a lot of people complaining. We’ve already seen “I’m arresting and deporting people who should not have been deported.” And I understand the whole, “Whoops, we made a mistake.”
But then to not correct the mistake, throw up your arms and go, “Sorry” — or for them “Sorry not sorry” — I think that’s a problem. And I think Americans don’t want that part to happen.
BRODIE: Well so Barrett, Stacy alluded to what has been known as the Arizona ICE Act that the Legislature approved this week and sent up to the governor, that requires local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
MARSON: Sure. Cooperate.
BRODIE: Right. But this is sort of a tool that the Legislature has used in bills relative to cities for a few years now in terms of threatening their state-shared revenue. Which is interesting because to Stacy’s point, cities are already struggling to have enough money to hire police officers. And if they lose that, if they lose state revenue, what does that do to police departments?
MARSON: All they have to do is cooperate, right? They don’t have to go out and “round up people.” But for instance, in the jails —
PEARSON: No. Actually, that’s blatantly untrue. Cooperate is follow the direction of the federal government, which could be whatever they decide. It’s going to be that day.
MARSON: For the jails, it’s just work with ICE to like, “OK, this person arrested” —
PEARSON: Already happening. ICE was never removed from Maricopa County jail. Even under Penzone’s administration.
MARSON: This is for all counties now. Some have 287(g)s. Only a handful of agencies have 287(g)s, which is an official cooperation with ICE. So now this mandates that everyone has to cooperate. But I don’t see a big change in procedures.
PEARSON: Well, there’s a reason that the local law enforcement unions are not on this bill. The definition of “cooperate: is extraordinarily loose. They don’t have the resources to do the jobs these guys applied to do —
MARSON: Stacy, what will Gov. Hobbs do with this bill?
PEARSON: That’s a Gov. Hobbs question.
MARSON: OK, what do you think? You’re close to the Hobbs administration. What do you think Gov. Hobbs will do with this bill?
PEARSON: So I think Gov. Hobbs is going to follow local law enforcement’s lead.
MARSON: And veto the bill.
PEARSON: She’s met with PLEA. Or fix it. Define what “cooperate” means. Define who’s going to pay for it. Define, not only are they —
MARSON: Well, she only has a couple of options. Sign, veto or let it become law.
PEARSON: Or fix. Or encourage fix.
MARSON: Well, she can’t fix.
BRODIE: I mean, in theory she can work with the Legislature and have them start over. But that’s a valid point. We’re talking about what this bill does and who likes it and who doesn’t, but it could all be moot, right? Once it gets to the governor, if she vetoes it, it just goes away.
Although we know that it’s always a possibility — and the Republicans in the Legislature have done this before — of just sending it to the ballot. Do you think that’s a possibility here, Stacy?
PEARSON: Oh, I of course. I mean, it’s always a possibility with this Legislature that they’re going to go right around her and send it. What’s interesting, though, is local law enforcement is not in support of this issue. I mean, there’s lots of things they just let through the goalpost and see how it shakes out.
This is extraordinarily dangerous to let federal organizations based on political whim — on each side of the aisle — to dictate what the guys who clocked in this morning have to do that day. And “cooperate” could be “send me 20 patrol units to whatever neighborhood this is,” and they physically don’t have them. It will compromise public safety and other places in Phoenix and really the state.
BRODIE: Barrett, I want to ask you about another Trump administration official coming to town: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., of course the secretary of Health and Human Services, talking about some bills, one dealing with requiring that people who are on SNAP — what used to be called food stamps — not allowed to use those benefits to buy soda. That does not have bipartisan support, generally.
A bill that does have bipartisan support is taking a bunch of ingredients out of school lunches to try to make school food healthier. I think a far cry from what the three of us ate when we were in grade school.
He did not, though, apparently want to talk about the measles outbreak and how it could impact Arizona.
MARSON: You can have my Coke Zero when you present my cold, dead hands.
BRODIE: You’re not in elementary school anymore, though, are you? This is not a “Billy Madison” situation.
MARSON: No. You know, look, there are so many positive things to MAHA, and then there are so many negative things. This whole measles outbreak, of course you want to talk about it because kids are dying. Unvaccinated kids are dying.
He sort of came out for the MMR vaccine — which I have, and I turned out perfectly fine. I don’t understand this whole negative view and that he has held for decades of being against this vaccine. And there’s no evidence to show that it leads to autism and all that.
But he is incredibly popular here. I mean, he gets crowds. People have glommed on to this movement. And again, there are some positive things. Getting rid of red dye or whatever — some of these very unhealthy things in our food — is a really great goal. Getting rid of vaccines not so much.
BRODIE: Well Stacy, some of the processed foods provisions or things that Democrats have been talking about for a very long time.
PEARSON: Absolutely. And I find the irony here that it was the worst idea Michelle Obama ever had to put vegetables in school lunches. My daughter was in elementary school, and Michelle Obama came on the TV. She’s probably in fourth grade, maybe. She said, “I don’t like that lady.”
Like, Michelle Obama?! She was like, “We had green beans.” My daughter, that was the first time I saw her tune into — it was very funny.
MARSON: I revolt against green beans as well.
PEARSON: I know. Who has green beans with lunch? But anyway, this is certainly something that the Democrats have been very concerned about is poison in our food supply. And if it wasn’t coming from a guy that legitimately had worms in his brain, I think we would be seeing —
BRODIE: Does that hurt the message, though, the fact that like this is coming from someone like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while, as you say, Democrats have been on board with this for a long time? Does it hurt the cause, the messenger in this case?
PEARSON: Oh, it absolutely hurts the cause. I mean, some of those profiles of him I thought were hilarious going into this last election cycle where he’s got pet vultures that attack his wife. I mean, the guy’s not quite right.
MARSON: But I do wish that the movement — I mean, let’s take away RFK Jr. I do wish that Democrats and Republicans would work together because there is common ground on making our food healthier.
BRODIE: And that bill has been bipartisan. That has had bipartisan support.
MARSON: And I do think that this is a place both locally and nationally, Democrats and Republicans can indeed work together. But if you’re just going to bring up worms and dropping off dead animals in Central Park —
PEARSON: Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.
BRODIE: She didn’t mention the bear.
PEARSON: No, I forgot the bear. There’s so much.
MARSON: What about the dead whale or shark or whatever? So many things.
BRODIE: There’s a lot.
MARSON: I think that’s the problem is that people are so tainted, Democrats are so tainted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the person that it’s hard for them to work where they actually do find common ground. I think you sometimes need to get over that personality.
