The following is an AZPM original production.

From the radio studios of AZPM, welcome to the latest edition of The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Coming up, the Trump administration wants the U of A to agree to certain conditions in order to receive federal funding advantages.

Plus, the federal government shutdown continues and Congressman Ciscomani is calling out Senators Kelly and Gallego.

A group of journalists joins me to discuss those stories and more, next on The Press Room.

(upbeat music) Welcome to The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein, panel of journalists joining me today are Paul Ingram of the Tucson Sentinel, Prerana Sannappanavar of the Arizona Daily Star, Alisa Reznick of KJZZ Radio and Hannah Cree of AZPM News.

Thank you all for being here today.

Prerana, we're gonna start with you.

So we learned late last week, U of A was among nine universities across the country approached by the Trump administration with something called the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.

Before we get to some of what has progressed, what's at the core of what this is?

So basically the Compact and a letter from the White House was sent to nine universities on October 1st and it's a list of ideological, political, and financial demands in exchange for favorable access to federal money.

So these nine universities were given like the first chance to sign on to the Compact.

And one of the things that is being talked about is why the U of A is a part of this list.

There's Dartmouth, there's Brown, why is the U of A a part of it?

And one of the things which was said by the White House itself was that these nine universities were seen as good actors.

And even in the letter, which was sent by the White House to President Garimella, it was painting a picture of him and the University of Arizona having this kind of forward-looking vision for higher education and seeing them as reformative and basically believing them to be good actors.

And a lot of the faculty reaction which has come out of this is talking about how this could be a heart to the first six months of this administration until very recently where the University of Arizona seems to be complying and in some cases pre-complying or over-complying are some of the phrases which are being used.

Yeah, we'll dig into the faculty senate in a moment.

But yes, the idea that good acting means anti-DEI perhaps?

Yes, yes, so some of the things which President Garimella did was centralizing the cultural and resource centers at the end of the spring and scrubbing the words diversity and inclusion from the land acknowledgement statement of the university which was done in collaboration with Native American partners.

And it was also the letter which he sent to Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen talking about how he's taking so many steps to remove diversit and inclusion, removing the words from job postings, from websites, and basically just showing that they're creating more diverse kind of university and not favoring DEI as much as they used to before maybe.

Yeah, I'll come back to you in a moment.

Paul, what do you make of the reaction to this?

Well, I think it's very clear that there's lots of people who are upset about this idea that the University of Arizona has been given this.

And I think simultaneously that the university administration has not made it clear about what they're going to do.

I talked to folks at Arizona Board of Regents, they're saying, "Hey, we're still looking at it."

And the university has said, "We're still looking at it."

There doesn't seem to be a sense of what are we going to do in reaction to it, which is I think very different from the University of Virginia, which already put out a statemen Friday saying, "We are not signing this thing."

One of the things I think is interesting is that there's sort of this ask for feedback, but it's saying we would ask for feedback, but this is documented in its final form.

So it's interesting to think about what this means that they have a deadline of October 20th to respond, but it's not clear the University of Arizona can say, "We like these things, we don't like these things.

Can we work on this?"

It's very much like this is what you're signing up for.

And I think the other question is, what are we actually getting in terms of finances?

It's not clear.

And there's some big questions about how the Department of Justice is going to be involved in this.

So Hannah, AZPM is on the U of A campus.

We bring that up every once in a while.

So have you picked up on anything, any vibe that's going on here?

I mean, definitely what stood out to me the most was the Monday Faculty Senate vote.

It was full of drama, full of emotions.

I mean, Leila Hudson is the voice of the Faculty Senate pretty much, she's chair.

And what really stood out to me was how much she approached the compact with nuance, because in the same breath, she's saying, compliance with federal, with political ideas, in relation to how much federal funding you get, that is problematic.

But in the same breath, she's saying, there are a lot of things in this compact that many, many people in higher education do agree with, like making education more financially accessible.

It asks universities to freeze tuition and promoting a diverse opinion, conservative ideas on campus, promoting a dialogue essentially, what things she said a lot of people in higher education would agree with.

So I mean, there's a lot of ways to think about this compact and I think it's a hard decision.

Prerana, did anyone in the Faculty Senate cite this idea that this is a slippery slope, that maybe even if there are some decent ideas in there, they're afraid to actually commit to this, because it might put them at a corner that maybe the university doesn't quite wanna get into.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think, in addition to Leila, like Hannah said, she's the voice of Faculty Senate, also the Secretary of Faculty Katie Zeiders or Senator Ted Downing, who seems to be outspoken on these kinds of issues, everyone's approaching it with a lot of nuance and saying that there are certain things in the compact which they agree with, but at the core of it, it's an infringement on higher education, it's an infringement on academic freedom, because one of the demands is that universities bar employees from talking about any societal or political events, unless it directly impacts the university.

And creating a more welcoming environment for conservative ideology, which on the surface sounds fine, but it's also talking about abolishing groups, which may be criticizing conservative ideology.

And I think it's coming from the place of looking at universities as the breeding ground for liberal thought and wanting to create diverse perspectives.

So while everyone is saying that there are things which could be reconciled with, the ultimate thing is the freedom of speech and the academic freedom, which is going to be let go of.

But interestingly, one of the faculty senators did talk about how she thought that it's Senator Joellen Russell, and she was, I think, one of the people who was voicing the other side.

And she talked about how this is a very tricky decision, it's a very difficult decision.

And she also doesn't think that the University of Arizona has the same kind of backing as a more well-endowed university like Harvard, for example, even though Harvard isn't one of the nine universities.

And she was like, if we do make a decision and it's opposite to some of the more well-endowed universities, the University of Arizona is gonna be in a tough position and it's gonna be tough to fight that battle alone.

So I think there's lots of voices and lots of different concerns coming up.

And Paul, I'll let you follow up with this question too, the idea that there's a lot of money at stake.

We've already seen so much research grant money go away for all these universities.

I mean, does it feel in some way like U of A might have to play ball because they need this funding?

I think that's exactly true.

I mean, one thing I think is interesting about the compact is how many of the strictures that are sort of built in feel like they're aimed at not at the University of Arizona but aimed at one of the Ivy Leagues.

You know, one of the things was about the, you know, whether or not you had a $2 million endowment per student, which there's only like five universities that have an endowment that large and-- U of A doesn't have that?

No.

U of A has roughly like $30,000 per student based on the endowments.

That gets tricky about how you count an endowment, because we're a land grant university, but regardless.

This feels like it was aimed at Harvard.

It is built this way.

And the other thing too is like, I mean, they focused on foreign entanglements.

They're asking the universities not to have more than 15% of their students be from, to be foreign nationals.

The U of A is not anywhere close to that, but I'll give you some guesses about which universities are close to that.

And that makes it such a strange document.

So it seems aimed at Harvard.

It's a shot across the bow at Harvard, but it doesn't include Harvard.

So it becomes kind of a strange document in this way where it's really built to get U of A to sign on.

And maybe I think in some ways put pressure on the other universities to sign on.

I think we look at, and I think what this was mentioned, Columbia was put in the same position and really sort of agreed to do what the Trump administration did, including actually giving money.

Harvard is not doing that.

It's in the middle of a fight.

But Harvard has the money and guns, so to speak, of lawyers to do that.

U of A doesn't.

All right, Alisa, let's bring you in on this.

If you want to talk about the university, that's fine, but I also want to get some specifics on the action of the Tucson City Council this week.

Because they, unlike President Garimella and the Board of Regents that are still considering it, council didn't need too much time to consider this.

That's right.

It was a pretty quick decision about the last 10 minutes of the meeting yesterday, the regular meeting at 5:30.

This was a resolution brought by Rocque Perez and Vice Mayor Lane Santa Cruz that basically asks this mayor and council to consider formally opposing this document and kind of asking that the university do the same.

I think the argument that was made by several council members and Mayor Romero was just that this is not just a University of Arizona issue, but a Tucson issue as well.

Just because of how deeply embedded the university is in Tucson, how many people's jobs are tied to the university, and also in regard to the specific section within, this compact that looks at international student enrollment and looks to cap that student enrollment.

I mean, we don't have, the numbers may be of student enrollment, foreign student enrollment that are at other Ivy League schools, for example, but at Ivy League schools.

But it's still a part of the Tucson economy.

It still contributes to a lot of research here, and that's kind of the points that a lot of the council made last night.

And also pointed out that, Rocque Perez pointed out that basically this didn't really come out of thin air.

Part of it potentially is because of the way that the university may have capitulated already to some of the demands that the Trump administration has made.

And University of Arizona was also the site where international students were having their visas revoked.

ASU had that happen as well.

Some of what, 6,000 across the country or so, according to the State Department.

So this isn't the first time we're kind of discussing certain aspects of what's in the compact.

Hannah, what are your thoughts on it?

One thing that I haven't seen anyone bring up yet is the fact that Garimella himself is kind of in an interesting position because he went to school in both India and the United States.

He did, so he's someone that's had a very successful career and benefited from the ability to go to school in both places.

And I think asking someone who is in that position to make, to sign off on a compact that basically caps foreign enrollment, I think, I don't know.

I think it'll be interesting to see how he handles it because it does come down to him.

He also has some sort of political ties kind of in the sense that he had served sort of in the Biden administration, sort of in the Trump administration related to some, I mean, so without characterizing him entirely, does he have some political savvy, do you think?

I'm not sure.

He doesn't say too much publicly, even about this, like he put out a statement today, saying that he's considering the decision with shared governance, with faculty, with ABOR.

But I think going back to what Rocque Perez was saying about how this is related to some kind of the compliance, which has happened, the most recent decision which everyone's talking about is the closure of the China micro campuses.

And again, so many students and faculty, Chinese students and faculty who were in the micro campuses have also said that this was a reaction to a US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party report.

It's not a legislation, it's not the law.

And to kind of buckle down within 11 days, the report came out September 11th and September 22nd was when they announced the closures.

And it's still a decision which everyone is really angry about, I think.

And it's just interesting to see the kind of, like, political decisions which are kind of being made, although like nothing is obviously being said publicly by the president.

Well, 'small p' political on this, the fact that, and this goes to Alisa's point about the council, Tucson is a very left of center community and it's represented on the council.

Is this in some way, when we see the politics of all of this, would the Trump administration perhaps be considering it would be really, I mean, maybe a quiver, an arrow in their quiver or whatever about going after a community that maybe there has been some compliance and it's a left of center community.

Does that in some way, I don't know, I'm grasping a bit, but maybe if we make an example of a place like Tucson, maybe other communities might be willing to comply.

I mean, I'm not sure the Trump administration is necessarily that strategic in some ways.

I mean, for all we know, this is just like they just threw a dart at a map or they did it because they liked what Garimella had done.

We don't really know.

And I think that's a good question.

I mean, would they aim something at Tucson?

Certainly, I could see that.

But I don't know, I don't get the sense in some ways that Tucson is even really on the radar.

I mean, they're very focused on, well, right now they're very focused on Chicago and Portland.

So picking fights with those places.

So maybe eventually, but I think right now, it's probably really tuned to how they think of the University of Arizona and not focused on Tucson.

Okay, go ahead, Alisa.

I think it'll be interesting to see how much, if any, sway, this resolution from the city has.

I mean, we've seen resolutions from Pima County Board of Supervisors and the city about various federal actions, thinking of the military zones that were established in New Mexico and now parts of Arizona.

They had like a formal resolution, Pima County Board of Supervisors opposing that.

But I think it's always interesting to see, is it mostly symbolic when something like that happens?

Because at the end of the day, this is not a decision that lies with Tucson's leaders, but rather with the university.

And as you've mentioned, we have not heard anything definitive from leadership there.

So I don't think there's a risk in saying this, but I will say it, as time of recording, the government shutdown continues.

It will probably still be the case once the program is released.

Hannah, I just wanna start with you briefly on this, because you and some of your AZPM colleagues reported that Senator Mark Kelly, Representative Juan Ciscomani agree on the importance of extending healthcare tax credits, which at this point, Democrats are focused on, from their point of view, why the government is closed.

Is there actually, because they both agree on that, does there feel like there might be common ground?

And if so, is this related to the fact that so many people are gonna see their premiums just go way up in 2026?

That's what the Democrats are making their argument on.

I attended Senator Kelly's press call earlier this week, and he brought out three people that shared very intimate details about the health struggles that they have had success paying for with the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are in the center of this argument.

I mean, and over 100,000 Arizonans are gonna see higher healthcare premiums from this.

And I asked him about the pain of a federal shutdown, and what is your message to the people that are being impacted by this in Arizona?

And he says, basically his answer was, this is about healthcare and preventing future pain.

So that's how they're justifying it.

And in terms of when it's gonna end, I have no idea.

I was definitely not gonna ask you that.

Definitely not.

No, so Paul, I feel like I do this every two weeks in this program, regardless of what great panelists we have.

What is Representative Ciscomani doing in the sense of saying that he supports certain things?

Obviously he didn't wanna make Medicaid cuts, and then he ended up voting for, Medicaid cuts were perhaps slightly smaller than were initially proposed.

So does he actually, when he talks about, or he's a member of a swing state coalition of Republicans, to whatever extent, loose coalition, what dynamic does it have here in any way when he says certain things, but then Democrats, Senator Kelly had said this, and Senator Gallego as well, can we really trust that if we vote to reopen government that some Republicans, and Juan Ciscomani's one, will actually want to go along with helping to fix some of these healthcare situations?

Well, and I think that's why we have a shutdown.

The Republicans are asking for a continuous resolution.

They don't actually wanna build a budget.

What they wanted is, pass a resolution saying, we can keep spending money based on previous budgets.

So the Democrats are saying, we can't keep kicking this can down the road.

We can't just keep doing continuing resolutions.

We have to have a budget.

And we have a specific deadline, which is gonna happen in November, which is that healthcare subsidies are gonna go away, and everybody who is on a subsidy is gonna see their healthcare payments double or more, which means a whole lot of people are suddenly gonna not be able to afford healthcare, which affects them through the year.

And so Ciscomani, during his press call, he said, essentially, we need to do the CR, and then we're gonna talk about it.

And I think for Democrats at this point, talking about it and not actually having legislation that's gonna do this for this deadline that's coming is not enough.

This is their lever.

This is their way of getting the Republicans to make a deal.

And of course, I think one of the things that's interesting is like, Juan Ciscomani is here.

He's here in Tucson.

He did a thing in Marana this afternoon, or yesterday.

And then you have Mark Kelly who says, he's in DC.

He's in DC with Ruben Gallego.

So there's this very clear thing where you have lots of Democrats who are in DC who are ready to make negotiations, ready to get the government going.

And Johnson, the speaker of the House, he sent everybody home because he declared this to be a work week.

So most of our representatives are not in DC.

So there isn't this structure to talk or negotiate or build something to move forward.

Yeah, Alisa and Hannah, I wanna go to you on this.

Alisa, let me start with you.

And Hannah has a point she wants to make.

So please don't steal the point from her.

But what's the dynamic here in terms of how a place like Tucson, an area like Pima County is gonna be affected because this in many ways is a very low income area that really counts on some of these subsidies.

Is this an issue that needs to have someone like Mark Kelly who's from Tucson, someone like Juan Ciscomani representing Southern Arizona to really get in the mix of this to solve it?

I mean, sure, I think that the nature of this healthcare issue is that it's gonna affect people nationwide as we're finding out all week since the shutdown began.

But yeah, I mean, as Hannah mentioned, we heard really personal stories from people here who will be directly affected, definitely, when or if these cuts move forward.

So I do think to Paul's point, it's just a hard sell to say, well, we're just gonna go ahead and believe the best from Republicans and trust that this process will begin just as soon as we reopen the government.

And of course, there's the larger issue of other asks for this district.

I mean, as I'm sure you're about to get to Councilwoman-ele Congresswoman-elect.

Adelita Grijalva has yet to be sworn in.

I mean, I believe this is maybe the longest anyone's ever gone without being sworn in.

I mean, don't quote me on that, I'm not positive, but at her victory party, she said, well, hopefully in September and then if not, at least by October 1st.

We're way past that deadline and there is no swearing in date on the books as of yet.

What Speaker Johnson, late last week, even said, oh, no, we don't even have to reopen the government for this.

So Hannah, not only on the night of her victory, but also on this program, there was one particular issue that she was very strong about that she thinks may be the reason she hasn't been sworn in yet.

Yeah, she wants to be the final signature to prompt a floor vote for the Epstein file release.

And I think, but also besides that point, because the government shutdown and her swearing in kind of intersect in a very interesting way that I think is very unique to Southern Arizona right now, the people down here have certainly been without representation in Congress since Raul Grijalva died in March, but he was consistently missing votes since early 2024.

And I think the other side, the Republicans use that very, depending on how you feel kind of disrespectfully throughout the campaign about raising concerns even into last year about this, he's missing votes, he's not representing our people, no matter how you feel about him, he's not there.

So I think that's a valid frustration that people aren't seeing representation.

And it's a tough spot for all parties.

Such a, yeah, I mean, I think Grijalva at this point has made a couple of different videos on Instagram, saying, "Hey, well, I'm at my dad's condo in DC "waiting to be sworn in hopefully this week.

"Nope, I'm not getting sworn in."

And it's like just really this cycle.

And Johnson has been asked about whether the Epstein file petition and the vote is playing a role here, which of course he denies, but at her watch party and victory, which happened like moments after the first count, earlier in September, that was one of her, the core promises that she made during her victory speech.

And she also went on to make, to kind of bring forth further examples of how she was going to do that with reporters later on.

So yeah, it's hard not to see the connection there.

And I do think just the idea that there's absolutely no vote going on, or no plans for swearing in going on that are on the books, but there are still, there's still congressional activities going on here and there.

So it's not as if DC is empty as we saw from the confrontation with Johnson.

Mike Johnson has said, he said last week, he would do it on Tuesday, he said two weeks ago, he would do it last Tuesday.

That hasn't happened.

It could be done under a pro forma session.

There's been a couple of pro forma sessions.

There's been some opportunities.

During his discussion with our senators, he sort of said, "Well, I seated two guys "who were from Florida who were under similar circumstances, "a little different, but close.

"And I seated them because their families were here."

Which is sort of like, well, if she brings her family, then we're gonna do it.

I mean, so it seems like, I mean, part, and the other thing, of course, is he said, "Well, we'll do this when the government opens."

So it feels like now he's saying, if CD7 wants representation, then we need the shutdown to end, pass a continuing resolution, and then I promise that I'll seat her.

But I mean, the problem is, I mean, fortunately, if you keep breaking promises that you're going to do a thing, then why, you know, does this mean that CD7 is eventually gonna get seated, or are we gonna wait for four or five more new reasons?

Well, then there's that one technicality that the votes have not been officially canvassed as of the time we're taping right now.

I think October 11th is the date that's supposed to take place.

If, in fact, Speaker Johnson does not follow through after that, then that's another excuse that goes away.

Very true.

Yeah.

That's a good point.

Yeah, I guess they're just waiting for her family to get to DC.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Alright Paul, let's spend our last couple of minutes talking about safety when it comes to transit in Tucson.

There's been discussion about, should a misdemeanor Tucson crime be added to a drug possession crime so that Tucson doesn't have to wait for Pima County to decide to prosecute or not?

But let's discuss, again, only a couple of minutes left, but what actions were attempted to be taken this week in terms of making it so more people feel safe at bus stops in particular?

There's concern about drug-relat violence, but there's also the feeling of, do we protect the unhoused?

Do we still have free fares?

How did all this play out, at least a little bit, this week?

I mean, I think what it really comes down to is there's been this continuous discussion, really since 2020, about the bus, and whether or not there should be fares.

And first during COVID, it was really the idea that people just needed a chance to move around, so they made fares free.

And there's been this continuous discussion now whether that there's a connectio between people who are homeless, people who are drug users who are just using the bus and kind of using the bus to transport themselves around.

There's been some even talk about people using that as a shoplifting, quickly shoplifting, then jumping on the bus and kind of timing this out.

Well, and then of course, there's another big issue now too with The Loop, which is the sort of big bicycle pathway around us in Tucson.

There was a gentleman who was stabbed and he died from his wounds two weeks ago.

And that has also become, and I think these things have become really linked.

And it's very clear that TPD is trying, Tucson Police are trying to do more things to react to this, but they're sort of shifting now, I think, between being reactive to touring and trying to go be proactive.

I think the best example is Wednesday.

They did an operation, they involved about 100 officers.

Oh, they went out actually into the wash and actually started, they arrested 50 people.

These people were on, because the drug possession, criminal possession warrants, one guy had a gun, he was a prohibited possessor, so he threw the gun, but they still arrested him.

So it's very clear that TPD is trying to sort of figure out how to do these things at the same time, not working with homeless, working with homeless advocacies at the same time and trying to balance these two things as they do one operation or the other.

And it's very complicated, I think, when it comes down to it, because there's this political move, there's increasing anger about crime in Tucson, and that's really linked to the bus, but also to The Loop.

Just a very few seconds, maybe 10 or 15 seconds.

Do you think this complicated effort can actually bring people together to say, yes, we did not wanna harass the unhoused, we also want people to feel safe?

I think it can, it just really depends on how well they're able to work it.

And the other thing, too, is there's this anger at the city council.

The city council has to show that they're actively doing something about it, that they're trying to make things work, that they're putting money and effort into doing these things.

Terrific, thank you.

Paul Ingram, Tucson Sentinel, Prerana Sannappanavar, the Arizona Daily Star, thank you.

Alisa Reznick, KJZZ, Hannah Cree of AZPM News, thank you all for being here.

And thank you very much for joining us for this edition of The Press Room.

We are back next week.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

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