It’s safe to say that 2026 has come out of the gate hot, with seismic upheavals from Venezuela to Minneapolis.
So last Friday, The Show invited Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) to stop by the studio and offer his perspective on some of the year’s major storylines thus far — starting with health care.
Federal subsidies to help Obamacare subscribers pay their premiums expired Dec. 31. And for millions of Americans, costs are about to skyrocket. As Gallego told The Show, the implications of that are about to become very real.
Full conversation
SEN. RUBEN GALLEGO: At this point, everyday Americans are going to be hurting. And the people that get hurt the most by this are actually a population that tends to be — they're not Medicare yet eligible. They tend to have their own job or business. You know, a realtor, for example, is a good example. Their premiums now are probably, jumped, you know, we've heard some horrific stories, like 100%, 200%.
You know, we've heard of families just saying, like, "I'm pretty young, my family's young. Like, I'll just, you know, hopefully just go to the emergency rooms. That happens." That's not the situation we want people to be in. We want people to have coverage.
Now, it doesn't mean that, by the way, that this premiums and the Obamacare is the best thing we could be doing, but what we do need is time to fix this. And we need time to fix this so that we could have a good program and to have lower premiums. So that could be a lot of things.
We could be dropping the age of Medicare to 60, allowing employers to buy into Medicare for older employees, you know, a lot of things. But the last thing you want to do is pull the rug on people.
DINGMAN: Right. So if I'm hearing you right, you see that there are a number of levers of potential compromise.
GALLEGO: Absolutely. We are willing, as Democrats, you know, we know we're not in charge. So we're willing to compromise, we're willing to negotiate, we're willing to put caps, whatever it takes. But as long as at the base level, people are covered, people have insurance, and they're not dropping insurance because of costs. And then let's use that time to negotiate a new plan so that way we don't find ourselves dealing with this every two to three years.
DINGMAN: But let me ask you, Senator, in a lot of the reporting about this, it has been said that one of the key sticking points here is abortion, and the question of whether or not restrictions on abortion need to be part of some sort of compromise. Is that on the table for you? Is that on the table for any of your colleagues?
GALLEGO: The ACA, when it initially passed, had what's called the Hyde Amendment already on it. And this bill would also have, again, the Hyde Amendment on it. What Republicans are talking about isn't just the normal, you cannot use your, your government subsidy for a elective abortion.
What they're saying is that if you take any amount of money from the ACA, you cannot provide abortion services. So this goes beyond the norm, and it's not supported by the public. And so I would not go down that road, because it's unnecessary. We've had a very good agreement that it's worked when it comes to abortion restrictions, using federal funds for the last 15 years. We'll just — when it comes to ACA, and we'll continue to use that.
DINGMAN: Right. All right, If I could, I would like to ask you about Venezuela. I want to play a clip of what you said in a recent interview about this on MS NOW.
[GALLEGO SPEAKING IN CLIP: "Let's be clear. The American public does not want this. The American public does not want another forever war. They want prices to be lower, they want to buy a house, they want to be able to have their kids get a job. Right now, what's happening with this president is he's using everything he can, because he can't control the things that people really care about."]
DINGMAN: So do I hear that right? That you say —
GALLEGO: I really hate the sound of my own voice, to be honest. Is that normal? [LAUGHS] Does everyone else hate the sound of their own voice? ...
DINGMAN: I have devastating news for you. This interview is being recorded. [LAUGHS]
GALLEGO: Yeah, I know. [LAUGHS]
DINGMAN: Do I hear that right though, Senator, that you see things like the arrest of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela as a distraction campaign on the part of the president?
GALLEGO: Not just a distraction campaign on the part of the president, but it actually is the focus of the president. The president knows that his campaign promises — which were to bring prices down, to make life for everyday Americans a little better. The same thing that I ran on — are not happening because his actions are causing the downturn of the economy.
And so in order for him to actually change course, he'd have to admit that he is wrong. So he's not doing that. Where he thinks he sees success is in the international realm. So he's just doubling down on that. Certainly in the best interest of his friends. 'Cause he's trying to negotiate with oil companies. But it's not certainly in the best interest of this country. And certainly that's not where the voter wants right now. The American people are sick of wars — certainly wars that are going to only benefit oil companies.
DINGMAN: And what about the president's argument that through U.S. control of Venezuelan oil reserves, there will be some sort of trickle-down economic benefit to the American people?
GALLEGO: Well, right now gas is as low as it gets, right. The average barrel right now is below $57. And also the gas that comes out of Venezuela is hard to refine and put into U.S. system. So this is not something that happens overnight. No. 2 —
DINGMAN: And to be clear, that's, but that's primarily crude, right? That's coming out of Venezuela, which is much more difficult to refine.
GALLEGO: Exactly, yes. The other thing, it's like, are we listening to ourselves? What country are we becoming, where we're going and using our military to grab oil to bring down the cost of living for Americans? That's not what we do.
You have people around the world that are now questioning American morals about whether or not we're going to back them or who we are backing. That does not help the American people. That does not make us safer, and certainly does not make the world safer.
DINGMAN: So finally, Senator, speaking of safety, earlier this week an ICE agent named Jonathan Ross shot and killed an American citizen named Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. Since then, we have seen outrage. We have seen questions about the federal government's jurisdiction, both in terms of the ICE raids that led to the shooting and in terms of who should investigate the killing.
At the end of last week, the news website the Bulwark reported that Phoenix is likely to be the target of the next round of ICE raids. I think a lot of people here are scared.
GALLEGO: Well, this is all designed to scare us. And I think it's very important for Phoenicians, for Arizonans to understand that they will violate people's rights. And we have to make sure that we're here to protect each other. What we saw in Minnesota shows that whether you're undocumented or whether you're a citizen, ICE is rogue. They don't care.
If you look at the video, the woman is clearly trying to get out of the situation. The ICE officer puts himself in danger. And, you know, from what I understand, he has training. But, you know, talking to people that have been involved in law enforcement that actually are trained by ICE and someone like me who actually had to do vehicle inspections and stops in Iraq, you never purposely put yourself in the front of a vehicle.
And the fact that he didn't cease to stop shooting even after he — the vehicle kept going, tells you that this person should not be an ICE agent. This needs to be investigated. And in general, the reason we're finding ourselves in a situation is because ICE is being used incorrectly. If you want to do this in a professional manner, you get warrants, you target criminals, you work in a manner that does not create the community to be your enemy.
DINGMAN: I'm glad you brought this up, Senator, because I wanted to ask, you were, of course, a co-sponsor of the Laken Riley Act, which expanded ICE's authority. That bill passed almost exactly a year ago.
Given what we've seen over the last year, culminating in the killing of Renee Nicole Good, do you still support ICE's mission? Do you think they can still operate with credibility in American cities?
GALLEGO: I think ICE has to be reformed. You know, we can all pass laws that are designed to go after criminals, and that's what, you know, Laken Riley was designed to do. But if you have an abusive law enforcement force that's being essentially covered by Stephen Miller and the president, where they feel that they have no accountability, this is what we're at.
And by the way, we need to move towards immigration reform.
DINGMAN: Are you having any conversations with your colleagues across the aisle —
GALLEGO: Yes.
DINGMAN: — that indicate that that might be something that could happen under a Trump administration?
GALLEGO: I've been having conversations with Republican senators regarding this. The problem is this administration doesn't know which way to go. You have the Stephen Miller kind of, JD Vance sector of the White House, who just believe that all immigration is bad, even legal immigration. And then there are some people within the White House because, again, pressure from hotel owners, from farms, from everything else like that — business community — that, you know, they don't have the labor workforce to do that.
But there's lots of ways to compromise where we have safety. And we could have, you know, good, sane legislation that allows families to stay together while getting rid of the criminals that exist in this country.
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