KJZZ’s Friday NewsCap revisits some of the biggest stories of the week from Arizona and beyond.
Former state schools Superintendent Jaime Molera of Molera Alvarez and former state House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding joined The Show to talk about the continuing saga over a congressional swearing-in, controversy over a leaked group chat and more.
Conversation highlights
MARK BRODIE: Jaime, let me start with you. We keep hearing about Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva not becoming officially Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva. What do you make of this continuing saga, the fact that she keeps saying, and Democrats keep saying, “OK, she won, now the election has actually been certified, she should be sworn in.” And House Speaker Mike Johnson saying, “Ah, not quite yet”?
JAIME MOLERA: Well, first off, I’m always surprised that you ask a question that doesn’t get at the fact that politics actually happens in Washington, D.C.
BRODIE: I know, I know.
MOLERA: But, you know, the speaker’s retort has been that, well, wait a minute. You know, we’re facing a little thing called a government shutdown. None of the Democrats are engaged to try and get it open. Every Republican has voted for that.
So that’s what the line is, and he’s sticking to it. Whether or not, you know, Adelita’s ability to become a congresswoman officially makes any difference in all that travails, I think the speaker’s just saying, look, if the Democrats are gonna be doing this to us, then why should I go back and do something for the Democrats?
And I think a lot of his caucus members probably like the fact that he’s doing that.
BRODIE: Reginald, now that the election has been certified, Attorney General Kris Mayes said this week that she might sue Mike Johnson if he doesn’t swear her in or come up with a plan to swear her in in the not too distant future.
As Jaime said, I’m shocked — shocked! — that there’s politics happening here.
REGINALD BOLDING: This is actually, I think, a pretty dangerous situation that we have here. Rep.-elect Grijalva, she was certified, the people spoke, she won over 70% of the votes in the race. And her duly-elected constitutional right is to be sworn in and represent the people of her district. You have over 800,000 people who don’t have a congresswoman.
So at any time when you have, if political games have the ability to override the will of the people, that’s an issue. Speaker Johnson, his job is temporary. The Constitution, that’s long lasting, that’s history, that’s forever. He doesn’t get to decide whether or not the people of Arizona have the ability to have a representative.
And it’s also putting a lot of people’s livelihoods in jeopardy. If you’re a staffer, you’re ready to get the work, you’re not getting a paycheck. Do you have a place to stay? I mean this is really difficult.
BRODIE: Jaime, do you buy into the narrative that a lot of the Democrats are saying, including Congresswoman-elect Grijalva, that the real reason that Mike Johnson is not swearing her in is because she would be the final vote on the discharge petition to release the Epstein files?
MOLERA: The signature on the petition to get that moving. Well, the Epstein issue, I’m not so sure if it resonates as much anymore, but again, there’s politics going on here, and that’s a great talking point that Democrats are throwing out there, and they’re scoring political points with it. So they continue to really push that narrative.
But again, you have all these lawsuits that are going on. Attorney General Mayes — and the question is also asked, who hasn’t she sued? She’s had more lawsuits, I think she’s up to like 27 now or something. So these kinds of things always get played out in the court of public opinion.
At the end of the day, I would agree that constitutionally, that’s the thing that people should focus on, that we should try and honor our democratic structures as much as possible.
But again, hopefully we can get it through this budget mess, too. Even if she was able to bring on staff, they still couldn’t get paid because of the government shutdown. So we just gotta get through that.
BRODIE: So, Reginald, obviously the reason that Mike Johnson is saying, as Jaime alluded, that he’s not swearing her in is that the government is shut down and Democrats in the Senate need to vote to reopen the government.
Do you see an end to this shutdown? I mean, it doesn’t really seem like there’s a whole lot of discussion happening, negotiations happening on a way to potentially get the sides together to reopen the federal government.
BOLDING: Yeah, I mean, I think the reason that Speaker Johnson gave is just not the reality. He has the ability to bring the House into session and to swear in Grijalva. And that has absolutely nothing to do with what the United States Senate — which is a whole separate body — is negotiating on.
The House, they’ve already passed their continuing resolution, which Democrats rightfully, I feel like they have a great case to fight back. You have families who are going to have their insurance premiums tripled. When you look at insurance costs right now, that is a significant deal.
And to tell everyday voters your insurance costs could potentially triple, I think that’s something that people want Democrats to fight for, and that is totally separate from Rep. Grijalva being sworn in. The negotiation is with the U.S. Senate and the parties that be, and it has nothing to do with her being able to be sworn in.
BRODIE: Jaime, we know that the Trump administration and many Republicans in Congress and beyond are blaming Democrats, especially in the Senate, for the shutdown. We heard that specifically from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem this week. There was a video.
If you walk through at Sky Harbor, when you get to TSA, usually the DHS secretary is on there explaining, like, “Here’s what TSA is doing, here’s why you can’t have a giant water bottle coming through TSA full of liquid with you.”
But this video specifically blames Democrats for the shutdown and any inconvenience that travelers might have. Sky Harbor says we’re not playing that. A number of other airports ...
MOLERA: (Mesa) Gateway also.
BRODIE: Gateway, yeah. Tucson. We heard somebody from Tucson airport saying, “We don’t have screens at TSA, but even if we did, we wouldn’t play this.”
I’m curious what you make of the fact that they recorded this whole new video specifically blaming Democrats in what is normally just sort of an informational kind of video.
MOLERA: Well, again ...
BRODIE: I know. Politics at play here.
MOLERA: You got to understand that both sides are trying to create a narrative that at the end of the day gets the American public to be very aggressive against either political party, the other side.
And so right now, the Democrats are talking about health care. They’re saying, this is our number one issue. We will not do a continuing resolution, even when in the past, as we all know, Chuck Schumer has said we should do these continuing resolutions and not deal with these other issues until that gets done. So it’s kind of hypocritical of what’s being talked about now versus what they’ve talked about in the past.
Trump administration, yeah, doing a video saying, well, play this in every airport, and I’m going to be there telling you that the Democrats are the problem for this whole thing. That’s a little silly. I wouldn’t argue that. And I can see why a lot of airports, especially Sky Harbor, saying, “Well, wait a minute, this is not about the politics. We just don’t want any politics involved.”
And I think if you were to do that, I can imagine what kinds of things in the future might be done. It’s crazy. If that were the precedent, when Democrats come back in power, a lot of people aren’t going to want to hear what they have to say, too.
BRODIE: Do you think it’s good politics for the Trump administration to be trying to do this?
MOLERA: I don’t know if it’s good politics, Mark, but it’s politics. And I think that they’re just hammering that message home that we have every single Republican that’s voted for this, to continue government, to get people back into work, make sure that everybody’s getting what they need to get as far as their pay.
So they’re just continuing to pound that narrative. And I think it’s starting to have some, at least in polling that I’ve seen, starting to have some resonance. But they’re not going to get off that message anytime soon.
BRODIE: At least not at Sky Harbor. Reginald, do you see it as good politics from the Trump administration to continue to try to hammer this narrative in literally any way they possibly can, any venue they can?
BOLDING: Yeah, I used the word dangerous before, and I would argue it is dangerous again, Obviously, we know that there is an intersection between politics and government, but just imagine that anytime you walked into the Department of Transportation or you walk into any state agency, you have playing in that state agency political advertisements for whatever party is in control, whether it’s at the state level, the local level, the federal level.
I mean, if we want to tone down the partisanship that we see in our country, the last thing that everyday voters want to do is walk into any government institution and have a video that’s saying, hooray for Republicans or hooray for Democrats.
I wouldn’t say it’s censorship, them not playing it. I think it’s common sense that they shouldn’t do it. And the reality is that the public, I think this could actually come back to hurt the Trump administration or any administration that is trying to use the government resources to play political games.
