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, conservative activist, Charlie Kirk was killed this week.

How are U of A students reacting?

Also, a former state lawmaker's $8 million lawsuit against Tucson is dismissed.

And Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes, joins me to talk about election privacy and security and his concerns about 2026.

Those stories and more are next on The Press Room.

(upbeat music) Welcome to The Press Room, I'm Steve Goldstein.

On Wednesday afternoon, conservative activist, Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at an event at the campus of Utah Valley University.

Kirk was the founder and head of Turning Point USA, which is headquartered in Phoenix.

Kirk was involved in events across the country, with many of them focused on college campuses.

AZPM News Hannah Cree spoke to some U of A students about Kirk's death and is with me for a few minutes.

Hannah, thanks for being here.

- Thank you.

So I mentioned Kirk's organization, Turning Point USA, based in Arizona.

How did he become so influential over the past few election cycles, even to the point of being a very close ally of Donald Trump?

Yeah, Kirk was very successful in harnessing a rising level of conservatism among Gen Z specifically.

Polling, there's a number of things we can point to for evidence like that.

There was significant polling done after the 2024 election that kind of showed a significant split in the younger cohort of Gen Z and then the older cohort.

So the younger cohort is much more likely to support Republicans over that group that's 25 to 29.

The 18 to 24 demographic is leaning more conservative, and they're also leaning more religious.

And these were both support of Donald Trump, and he was outspoken about his Christian values.

Those were issues that he was very passionate about outward.

He met with young students on college campuses.

He was also in spaces where college students are, which is social media.

And he was also very young himself.

He was 31, and he started Turning Point USA when he was only 18, I believe.

So he had over a decade of connecting with the young conservative block that has felt disenfranchised for a very long time.

The point about social media is an important one.

Obviously, traditional media covered this event as one would expect, but what was the conversation like on social media, whether it's the videos, whether it's people coming at each other, whether it's how people, young people in particular, are getting their news about this story?

I am always taken aback at the amount, the sheer amount of voices when events like this happen on social media.

They prompt this immediate response as to, they're almost like moral posturing about how you should interpret these events.

And I think there's two truths here.

One is that he was a incredibly controversial figure.

He built a platform based on inflammatory remarks.

He's one of the most prevalent ones on his social media is debating left-leaning college students on gender ideology and abortion.

He would ask college students, for example, what is a woman?

And they would produce these fiery clips on social media.

And he built a platform on creating inflammatory rhetoric.

What's also true is the world we live in now, the second that he was mortally wounded is captured in high definition from multiple angles and was able to appear on millions of people's phones within a matter of seconds.

So to answer your question, I think what social media does in these situations is it escalates an already politically charged discourse.

And a lot of questions that I am left with personally, that I don't have the answers to, but it's roaming around in my head when things like this happen is content moderation.

I mean, the fact that that video was able to be seen, it was the first video on the trending hashtag on X, formerly known as Twitter, for an hour, with no content warning.

And I think, I know that's anecdotal evidence on my own perspective, but I'm comfortable saying that the guardrails on social media that are typically there did not work yesterday.

And I think that's, we have yet to grapple with that exposure, what that exposure to violence does to us.

Finally, as we both mentioned, turning point USA, Charlie Kirk, major presence on college campuses, AZPM is on the U of A campus.

You had a chance to talk with some students, but I understand not everyone was really eager to talk to you.

Correct, I think I went up to at least a dozen students and only three were willing to share their opinions on Kirk and two of them were willing to give me their first and last name.

I mean, he was, as I mentioned earlier, incredibly controversial.

And, but I mean, we definitely heard those same values I mentioned earlier, Christianity, a return to conservative values.

And then on the other side, concern about what he was spreading.

Let's hear from those two students in particular, right here in a moment.

I like a lot of what Charlie Kirk has done and the things that he's spoken on about, and I align with a lot of his similar values.

And so, I mean, it's hard to hear, and it's a terrible situation just for what he's trying to promote, and then the violence that comes with that, and the way that he describes it is that it's not, you know, it's not the guns, it's the action, the motive behind the weapon being used.

He was very open about the Second Amendment and how he believed in it, and that, like, deaths to gun violence were, like, how do I say it, that they were worth that right.

I hope that the people that believed in those views as well, like, this kind of opens their eyes now, seeing someone that they looked up to so much, being a victim of gun violence, I hope it opens their eyes to, it's not worth it.

Having that right is not worth these deaths.

Okay, well, as you said, Hannah, really interesting, different points of view.

Hannah Creve, AZPM news, thank you for the update.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you, Steve.

Back with more of the press room in a moment.

(upbeat music) Welcome back to the press room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Now we turn to the week's news in Southern Arizona as I'm joined by Jim Nintzel, the Tucson Sentinel and Yana Kunichoff of Arizona Luminaria.

Thanks for being here guys.

So Yana, last week on this program, you were unfortunately not on it, but we talked a lot about NDAs, but Pima County NDAs.

Tucson City Council looked like it was gonna take some similar action and yet it seemed like there was more talk than action at this point.

So what stood out and why wasn't there more action?

Yeah, so we are seeing sort of the continued impact of everything that happened with Project Blue this summer.

And Tucson City Council during its study session talked about moving forward and basically directing staff to start drafting up a policy on NDAs that they'll consider at a formal city council meeting.

But what Pima County put forward is a really strong blueprint for what that's gonna look like.

So elements like having NDAs be only a certain number of days long rather than the years long NDAs that I understand are in place now.

And also having a period after an NDA expires, but before public officials take action where the public can have some understanding of those.

So that's what Tucson City Council will consider when that actually comes to them for a vote probably in a few weeks.

Another angle I wanted to ask you about which is Mayor Romero brought this up, Councilman Dahl brought this up as well.

Related economic development and having companies that share the vision of city leaders in a sense.

I understand what that concept means, but how does that, obviously Project Blue, but how does that fit into the actual NDA concept of what they were discussing?

Obviously with Project Blue it makes total sense.

Did they talk about why that would make sense for future companies as well?

Yeah, I mean, I think what I took away from this was that the city's economic development department is to some degree talking to companies and considering options sort of on its own and maybe separate from the process that we see in the public around city and mayor decisions.

And so what Kevin Dahl and Mayor Romero were saying was that there's not all maybe always a place to review whether the values align that the companies are coming with or that are interested in doing business in Tucson with what elected officials say are how they want Tucson's business environment to operate.

Jim, not sarcastically, I mean, not intentionally sarcastic on this one, but it's interesting to hear about economic development based on values and not just let's bring in some money.

Well, it is a challenging thing because you have this conflict between the public's right to know and companies desire to keep things close to the vest as they consider different communities where they might want to move.

I think that what we're seeing here is the governments now because of Project Blue trying to come up with some kind of way of working that out.

I think in the case of Project Blue, though certainly the mayor's office was aware of what was going on, we've heard from multiple other folks involved with this that the mayor was closely involved in negotiating some of the details of this in terms of the reclaimed water pipelines and the cleaning of wells that was supposed to take place.

So I think there's definitely was more awareness of this project among the high ranking elected officials in this community than there was for the general public.

Yeah, and I think that's an interesting point, right?

That the mayor did say she knew a little bit more, I mean, it's 2023 with the reporting that you and John Washington have done.

It sounded like the city manager is saying, yes, this is something we're going to get on top of, but it almost sounded like it's a little bit of a wait, maybe a 60 day wait at this point.

Yeah, so it's 60 days, it's because the city attorney is retiring, they have to hire a new city attorney, they're gonna be looking at resumes and interviewing candidates, I believe, this month.

So I think what Tucson's NDA policy will look like is up to the new city attorney.

But I would say that it's gonna be happening in a markedly different environment and one where you've had a lot of really vocal people in the public saying there is a cost that is too high for economic development for us and Project Blue was sort of the example of that cost being too high.

Yeah, and Jim, also something that Yana wrote about in her piece is that the city manager, his contract has been renewed, even though there were some people that were not that thrilled with how he handled one of the public meetings, almost felt like he was talking down to some of the people.

Any surprise to you that he's gonna be staying in the job?

No, he's fairly new in this position, but he's been working for the city for some time.

I think that he was certainly following the direction of the mayor in working out the details of this Project Blue.

Yeah, Yana, that was pretty smooth, unanimous vote.

Yeah, yeah, it was unanimous, but the whole conversation happened in executive session, which went on for over four hours.

So I don't know what was discussed, but Council Member Lane Santa Cruz put forward kind of more of a streamlined process, or maybe not streamlined, but an effort to have there be more of a clear process when reviewing positions like city attorney, city manager, city clerk that are unelected, but do have a really important role in city government.

Jim, another topic we haven't discussed quite as much as Project Blue, but it's getting there.

Former State Senator, Justine Wonsack, had filed an $8 million suit against the city of Tucson.

The words got muddled to some extent.

There was conflict about whether she said she was politically persecuted, or whether there was a political prosecution, prosecution, persecution.

The Sentinel, Dylan was all over the story, your publication's been all over the story.

So now finally, after all this fighting back and forth, it's been dismissed.

How did it ultimately get dismissed?

First of all, there were attorney issues for Justine Wonsack and whatnot.

What ultimately made this happen?

At the, the most recent developments was the attorney representing Justine Wonsack said he wanted out of the case, and didn't reveal what those reasons were, but there's a limited number, and that would be the client not cooperating with you, or the client not paying their bills, and maybe a few other options.

So there's much to, you know, if it was gonna require them to act in an ethical manner, or something like that.

And there were several hearings set up for this request for the attorney to withdraw.

The Senator Wonsack, former Senator Wonsack, Justine Wonsack did not appear at the most recent one, even though she had asked for several continuances and settled on this date.

Turns out she was at a political event in Phoenix, tweeting about her activity there.

The judge then said, "We want you back in this courtroom," and rather than face the potential of sanctions, having to shell out even more money for this project, Justine Wonsack decided she would withdraw the case.

So considering how much effort this took on the part of the city of Tucson, can the city of Tucson sue her to try to get money back for having to go to these different court hearings, and having to put together some sort of contrary case?

No, I don't believe the city can turn around and sue her for $8 million.

Maybe even less than that.

I think everyone probably is happy to just see this finally go away, including the judge who said, "Yes, the case is dismissed.

That's it, no sanctions."

And I think probably Justine Wonsack got off easy in terms of what might have otherwise happened had she actually shown up in court.

This might seem odd to have you put your psychologist hat on.

Jim, you've covered politicians for a long time, so I'm gonna ask you to do this in kind of a brief answer.

It's been such a lengthy process from the speeding ticket that former Senator Wonsack got to the legislative immunity argument to now an $8 million suit, now it's dismissed.

Any idea what the motivation was here?

It didn't help her politically.

Well, yeah, it clearly didn't help her politically because she lost a primary race, which doesn't happen that often, and it knocked her out of office.

But I can't even think of a way to-- It's just too, it's such strange territory to try to understand what happens in the mind of Justine Wonsack that I think it's better not to go there.

Well, I'm gonna have to go through our old tapes and see how many episodes we actually featured this story because I was not glad for it, but it was interesting to discuss.

I would say the lesson here is if you get a speeding ticket, just pay it and face the music instead of-- Especially when they have you going at least 40 miles an hour over the speed limit.

It wasn't a close call.

That's what it showed, yes.

Yeah, in our last couple minutes left, so Councilman Kevin Dahl wrote a column for the Arizona Daily Star, talking about what his plans are as he expects to be reelected, he won the primary.

He says he will ask my council colleagues and the public to support letting Tucson voters decide two separate sales tax initiatives, November of 2026, one a quarter cent for transit and housing, number two a quarter cent for public safety.

I thought this was somewhat bold to actually come out in the public and say that.

What did you make of the column and what do you have to say there?

I thought it was really interesting.

I think before all the intensity around Project Blue, I think Prop 414 was the issue that I think everyone felt the council had stepped wrong on or that they disagreed with.

There was sort of a broad coalition of people who usually don't agree on things that were against Prop 414.

It didn't pass or lost, I think, quite a high rate.

I think it's interesting for him to say, okay, we do still need money for these things, but I understand that there is a divide in values and I'm gonna just be realistic about that and give voters the option.

Yeah, Jim, I'll get your thoughts on that.

I'm gonna understand.

Yeah, I think what they've done in the past is with 414 where they combined the question of aiding the homeless and supporting public safety.

You've seen past voter propositions pass when they were public safety and roads, but public safety and helping the homeless got shot down pretty hard.

I think if you do separate them, it will definitely settle the argument.

Are people that concerned about the homeless in transit that they're willing to pay more in taxes and are they that concerned about police and fire that they're willing to pay that much more in taxes and it would be interesting to see how those go, but I suspect you would see the business community strongly supporting one of those and not the other and you'd see folks in the social services supporting one and not the other and you wouldn't have the sort of collaborative nature that the council hoped would carry prop 414 over the finish line.

- Very brief final thoughts?

Yeah, I just, I don't know if we're gonna be able to see this when, if this goes forward and if there are election results, but I think there'll be a group of people who maybe don't want to pay for anything and I don't, I think it was clear to see who some of those folks were in the other vote than this one.

Yeah, Yada Kunichoff, Arizona Luminaria, Jim Ninsul, Tucson Sentinel.

Guys, thanks for being on the press room.

Press room continues right after this with Secretary of State, Avery Infantas.

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Welcome back to the press room.

I'm Steve Goldstand.

2026 promises to be an intense election year in Arizona with members of Congress and the state's top elected leaders running for reelection.

With me to talk about continuing efforts to help the state's elections run as smoothly as possible and concerns specifically related to President Trump's views on elections is Arizona Secretary of State, Avery Infantas.

Secretary Infantas, thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me, Steve.

Let's start with where President Trump has been critical about mail-in ballots because that has traditionally been a successful piece for Republicans in Arizona.

In fact, they were the ones who got it started.

When you hear that sort of political talk, what's your reaction?

Well, I think it's confusing.

Frankly, it was Republican Governor 5 Simington back in 1992 who signed it into law and the GOP here in Arizona was very successful for a couple of decades utilizing it as a way to get their voters to vote easily, make sure they could chase those ballots down and rack up lots of wins for a long time.

Now to hear Republicans saying that it's not a system that they want to use, particularly one out of the White House, is a little bit confusing for me.

I think it ignores the history and security, the accountability, the ease of access that Arizonans have come to know and love.

And let's not forget, over 75% of our voters in the last general election voted by mail.

And in the 2020 election, you had more than that.

So it's something that Arizonans like.

And when you try to take something away from voters that they like, you could meet with some not so great political ends.

So I think this is not only ill-advised, but frankly, it's unconstitutional because the states get to decide what they do with the manner of conducting their elections.

When we hear the criticism that the administration has had generally with elections on a state-by-state basis, do you think President Trump's administration is really trying to have a federal takeover of elections?

Well, it appears as though they're moving in that direction, unfortunately, but that is clearly unconstitutional.

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the Constitution gives the time, place, and manner of running elections clearly to the states.

Now, the federal government, through Congress, can make some changes pertaining there to, like the National Voter Registration Act, the Motor Voter Law, the Help America Vote Act, things of this nature.

But those are generally broad policy concerns.

But they don't come down to the nitty-gritty, the specifics that are traditionally within the purview of states.

So I think the idea of the White House taking over the administration of elections is not only unconstitutional, it just doesn't make any sense.

We are 50 independent states, and we are sovereigns as part of this federal republic.

And we're gonna do it our way in Arizona, let Nevada or Washington or Maine or Mississippi do their own thing.

As long as we can all report accurate numbers and do it securely, which all of the states, as far as I can tell, do, I think the White House and the federal government should mind their own business.

And what are you hearing from other secretaries of state around the country?

Is it divided based on party that Democratic secretaries of state are unhappy with the administration, where Republican secretaries of state are defending the administration?

Or because carrying out elections is such a sacred duty here in our country that secretaries of state have come together on this and they're really sharing in together in some ways frustration with the administration, in other ways maybe just keeping quiet about it.

Republicans and Democrats are pretty united in the idea that we wanna do our own jobs.

And we like the idea that our states will maintain their appropriate sovereignty in this federal republic.

Now, there is a political reason why you don't hear some secretaries protesting as much as you hear others protesting, but the reality is that through our associations, through our collegial relationships, we come to a lot of agreements on a lot of stuff across the entire country.

I have conversations with secretaries on both sides of the aisle.

In fact, we talk about all kinds of things from data security to the way we run our elections.

We help each other out when it comes to business services or some secretaries run their motor vehicle divisions, things of this nature.

And that's one of the reasons why I think this office is not only so important to the administration of our governance, but to the maintenance of collegiality across the country.

Again, not every secretary is comfortable coming out with their opinions publicly.

That's up to the individuals, but we do get along, we do communicate, and the general consensus is that states ought to be able to run their own elections.

Okay, now I've asked you about domestic concerns.

So let's move to the foreign bad actors who've tried to intrude on our elections for many election cycles.

We certainly know Russia has tried to do that.

Other countries as well.

Is that your biggest concern when it comes to election security or is there something else, whether it's on the macro or the micro level?

Well, the greatest threat to American elections, I've said it before and I'll say it again, is the fact that the president of the United States keeps lying about how they're not secure or they're not dependable.

That is the number one most significant problem as against the administration of our elections, because it's just not true.

And leadership matters.

It's important to his followers that they get the truth.

It's important to the entire nation that the leader, the duly elected leader of this country, tell the truth about our elections, not just because of the function and the process, but because of the hundreds of thousands of American people who actually run our elections, from polling places to folks who work in the warehouses, to the truck drivers and technicians.

When you say there's a problem with American elections, what you're saying is that these Americans are not doing their jobs right.

And that's just a, it's not just a bad look, it's not true.

American elections run 50 different ways, but we have generally the same processes.

We've got solid ways of upkeeping and maintaining our voter registration lists, deploying and collecting our ballots in a variety of different ways across the country, and then tabulating those ballots and coming out with the final results and auditing those results.

Those three main buckets of how we run elections are consistent across the country, but we each do them a little bit differently.

So, I just think it's a bad look, and mostly it's not true.

I think the president's rhetoric is dangerous to our democracy, and I hope he starts taking a different path soon.

So as we're taping this, obviously earlier this week was the killing of activist Charlie Kirk, and people are blaming that in political rhetoric, whether it's from things he has said or others, and whenever a tragic episode like this happens politically, the discussion of rhetoric comes up.

You've been involved in public life for a long time during some very, very testy times.

How difficult is it to deal with the political rhetoric, and does it give you a pause at all to jump in and criticize the administration, considering the situation we're sort of all in, we're sort of on pins and needles when it comes to this rhetoric?

Well, look, when you are a person of principle, and those principles are based on our founding ethos as a nation, you're in pretty good shape, and I like to think that not only my time in the Marine Corps, but serving as a person who represents the accused, serving as a prosecutor, serving as the Maricopa County Recorder.

You know, I've seen the way government works, and I've seen the way public officials are expected to work.

Our constituents want a couple of things.

Number one, they want us to just do our job, and that's something that I've prided myself on, but that doesn't mean I can't have my opinion also, and I have exercised that liberally because that is what this country is about.

We should separate the two, and I think that's what's critically important.

Now, I can't help it if some people take this too far, and I hope to bring it in.

We're very excited about, I'm very excited, frankly, about where we're going as a nation, not because it seems like it's falling apart, but because people are figuring it out.

People are starting to pay attention to what they've taken for granted for a long time, and I think that's a very positive thing, and I'm hoping that we'll all figure out a way to do this together instead of just being divided.

Okay.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, thanks so much for joining us.

Good to talk with you as always.

Thank you.

And that's all for this edition of The Press Room.

Back with another episode next week.

I'm Steve Goldstein.