Good evening and welcome to “Arizona Horizon.

I'm Ted Simons.

We begin tonights show with our “AZ Votes” Candidates in Conversation as we hear from Daniel Keenan who is running in the Republican primary for Arizona's fifth Congressional district.

We welcome small business owner and Valley native Daniel Keenan to “Arizona Horizon,” and we should note tha the other candidate in the CD5 Republican primary, Mark Lamb, was invited to participate tonight, but he did not accept an of the dates that were offered.

Daniel Keenan, good to have you here.

Thanks for joining us.

Yeah, thanks, Ted, for having me.

You're running against a Republican who has been endorsed by Donald Trump in a heavily Republican district.

Why are you doing it?

Listen, I'm born and raised in the fifth district.

It means everything to me.

And, yeah, Presiden Trump, did endorse my opponent.

But I'm looking forward to the next, three months of the electio meeting with with all the voters and really hearing my message.

Ultimately, they're going to decide this election.

And I believe when they hear my message.

And I also believe that whether it's a week before the primary or after the primary, we'll get President Trump's endorsement as well.

Interesting.

Because as far as the voters, Republican voters, again, and this is a Republican primary here.

So the Republican voters what we're talking about here.

What are they looking for in CD5?

Well, they're looking someone who's a staunch conservative Republican, someone who's going to, carry on with the legacy of Andy Biggs and what he's done.

And I will do just that.

I' born and raised in the district.

I've lived here my whole life.

I know exactly what the people of the fifth district want and deserve.

On your website, you call yourself a constitutional conservative.

What does that mean?

Well, it means many things, bu I think at the end of the day, freedom and liberty and that's it.

That overrides everything else.

Well, there's many things, but I think, you know, the Constitution is clear.

You know, the government, the United States has, a duty to protect us from, you know, threats, foreign and domestic, and to let us, carry out our God given rights.

And speaking of that, your opponent refused Covid stay at home orders.

And that's one of the things that I think that, his supporters point to i something that they're proud of.

Was was that a good thing for Arizona, what he did?

You know, I, I have to give it to Mark Lamb on that.

That's something I agree with.

I don't want the government or anyone telling me, or business to, to shut down or to put something in our body that we don't agree with that you don't agree with.

But, I mean, at what point does we're we're getting t the constitutional aspect here, but at what point is a societal good supersede that agreeing or disagreeing?

Well, look, I think a societal good is to have people free to be able to make their own choices.

And I think there was a lot of flawed data out there that showed, you know, it wasn't needed.

They told us to wear masks, all different kind of masks six feet away.

Bring your mask down when you're eating.

When you're not eating, who knows?

I mean, I think the data was flawed and and, I don't think, it did any societal good.

So did it do any good?

It didn't do any good at all.

Then.

Look I mean, the data, if you really dive into the data, I don't think that it did any any good.

I want to talk about the border here.

You say you have a results driven approach to the border on your website.

Again, what does that mean?

Well, exactly what, President Trump has done, you know, for four years, Joe Bide and the Democrats did nothing.

They sat on their hands.

Let our border be overrun by everyone from all over the chrome.

The world, South America, Asia, Africa, you name it.

President Trump shut our border down within a month of, being elected.

And he's continuing to keep that border closed, continuing the deportations getting criminal, illegal aliens out of our country.

And that's results driven.

So basically, you would not change anything that's going on right now.

I would not no, I would I would look to to go further and help President Trump.

Let's talk about the economy here.

Inflation's up from this time last year.

Core prices are up from this time last year.

GDP is expanding at about 2%.

So that's not so bad.

But again you don't want to go too much because of inflation and because the Fed's not going to do anything with interest rates.

Yeah.

What do you do about people in CD5 who are sick and tired of going to the gas station and seeing monumental numbers, and sick and tired of going to the grocery store and seeing higher prices?

Yeah.

Well, I think the gas prices are, haven't been is going on as long as where you would say it's been very recent, but yeah, cost of living.

So we're going to nee to continue to grow the economy.

We're not going to be able to tax our way out of this.

We need to have our GDP, outgrow inflation and, and and that'll get rid of inflation, you know, continuing a pro-growth tax policy.

A the big beautiful bill addresses a lot of that.

So I would look to continue on the big, beautiful bill, and, and go further with President Trump.

But the gas prices may not have been going on as long as sick and tired would suggest, but maybe tire of the gas prices as they are.

I mean, it started with the Iran war, and it's not getting any better out there in Congress.

What would you do to hol the country, the administration and everyone responsible for this?

Well, as you saw today, crude oil dropped.

And, you know, nobody likes high gas prices, right?

I believe this is going to be a short term problem.

You see, the UAE is potentially leaving OPEC and going to triple their production.

You see what President Trump did in Venezuela.

They're now back on line producing up to 1.2 million barrels a day.

And so I think this is a long term strategy with President Trum getting rid of the bad actors.

We don't need to rely on oil from Iran.

We can produce all the oil in, in America right here.

So hang on, pay the price.

Because that's what the president says.

He says, don't complain about this because it's going to get better.

You say the same thing.

Well I'm not saying don't complain.

I do trust our president that it will get better.

And if you listen to the white House, epic fury has has close and they're looking to wrap that that situation up, rather quickly.

And I trust in the president, his administration.

And do you agree with the way the war has been processed over there, the Iran war?

Look, I trust President Trump time after time, he's proven that he can carry out a targeted operation o strategic strikes to precision.

Again, I think this is a win for the entire world, taking out a terrorist regime that has killed thousands and thousands of people all over the world, the number on sponsor of terror in the world.

And it helps our allies in the region and makes the world safer.

Absolutely.

I support our president.

So you think the country, the US right now is in better shape?

It's.

Yeah, we're in better shape than we were before the war started.

Well, any time you have the world's largest leader in terror on their knees and having to come to the negotiating table and them recently saying they're not going to produce nukes, I would say, yes, we're in a better position.

Tariffs.

Do you agree wit the president's tariff policies?

I do agree with them.

And here's why.

You know, I hear many, skeptics say tariffs are bad.

You can't tariff the rest of the world.

Well, if that's the case why are they giving us tariffs?

Sometimes to the tune of double or triple of of what we charge them.

So look, recently, a couple of weeks ago, the white House announced that manufacturing jobs are coming back into America.

Thousands of thousands of manufacturing jobs are coming back into America.

And yeah, I do agree with the tariffs.

And I see the long term vision on that.

So you you think you would agree Congress is supposed to b in charge of some of this stuff was approved, these kinds of things.

If you were in Congress you would okay.

The president's tariffs policy as we have seen it so far.

Well, you can say that Congress is supposed to be taking care of this.

But for the last 20, 30 years, they've allowed us to get ripped off.

And so, yeah, I'm thankful President Trump has taken the bold stance to end the rest of the world from ripping us off.

I'm a businessman and I ca respect that as a businessman.

Have tariffs affect your business?

If they affected what you do, what I do is I build homes all across the East Valley, hundreds of homes for the people of Arizona.

It has not impacted me.

Has the immigration policy impacted you?

It has not.

So you found the workers.

You don't.

You're not a shortage of workers, shortage of supplies, these sorts of things.

No, that's another lie.

I think that's gone on for so long, saying that Americans won't d the job that immigrants will do.

You know the problem is you got companies that are, hiring illegal aliens and undercutting Americans to do to do the job.

Americans will do the job.

They just got to be given a fair wage and not get undercut by illegal aliens.

I, I so far it sounds like they're very supportive of Donald Trump, President Trump.

Congress right now to a great degree, Republican majorities in Congress are basically just letting the president, the executive in this case, have his way that is that a good balance, do you think?

Well, I think Congress is there to represent their constituents.

And I would say 77 million plus Americans voted for President Trump because they trust him and I support him.

And carrying out, his administration and his policies that he's doing.

Last question before you go.

And we appreciate your time and we appreciate you being here.

You're basically asking Congressional District five voters to vote for you and not your opponent.

Yeah.

Why?

Well I can tell you right now, Mark.

Mark Lamb cannot be trusted.

As you see, he's not here tonight.

He's at his ranch in Tennessee where he just bought his ranch and move that his entire family out there.

And if you look at his website right now, it says he's planting roots in Tennessee.

Well, I know where my roots are, where they've always been and where they always will be.

And that' the fifth district of Arizona.

So I'm not going to Washington to make any friends.

I'm going to Washington to fight for our families, bring down the cost of living, make home affordability a reality again for working class families.

Daniel Keenan, again Republican candidate in congressional District five, the Republican primary.

Good to have your.

Thank you.

And our next “AZ Votes” Candidates in Conversation is set for Tuesday as we hear from candidates running in the Democratic primary for Arizona' eighth Congressional District.

That's Tuesday, May 12th, 5 p.m., and again at 10 p.m.

here on “Arizona Horizon.” And a reminde that all episodes of Candidates in Conversation are live streamed on YouTube at AZPBS Now, and ca be viewed as well at azpbs.org.