Guests - Drew Allen, Rick Shafton, Dave Smith, John Gordon, Cheryl Caswell
May Day, Accountability, and the Fight That Can't Wait Until November
Friday on Winn Tucson came loaded with irony — the show aired on May 1st, historically the day communist and socialist movements march through city squares around the world, while on the ground in Pima County, conservatives were organizing to recall a sheriff, push a voting integrity law through a resistant Senate, and prepare a lawsuit against Arizona's own secretary of state. Five guests, one full morning, and a recurring challenge to a single question: when do Republicans actually follow through?
Drew Allen: Political Violence, the Left's Accelerating Radicalism, and California on the Brink
Drew Allen — author of Clinton Hoax and Obama Coup, columnist at the Daily Signal, and host of the Drew Allen Show — opened the morning with a framework for understanding the third assassination attempt on President Trump that goes back not to Saturday night but to a decade of deliberate political escalation.
The Escalation That Started with Russia Collusion
"The Trump-Russia collusion hoax was the moment a political party — the Democrat Party — decided on this tactic of demonization and dehumanization," Allen said. "And we have had escalated issues ever since they embarked on that journey. Every assassination attempt, you'd think there'd be some self-reflection. There's not. They just continue to gaslight the country."
The pattern is not new. The Bernie Sanders supporter who opened fire on Republicans during baseball practice in 2017. Steve Scalise taking a bullet on that field. Charlie Kirk. And now a mechanical engineering graduate with a manifesto and a hotel room with sightlines to a ballroom. What Allen calls left-wing political violence has been specific and targeted in each case — not random, not diffuse, but aimed at conservatives, at the president, at his movement.
The normalization of it is what Allen finds most alarming. By Wednesday of the week the third attempt occurred, it had cycled out of the news. No self-reflection. No accountability. Just the next headline.
"People on the left don't want to talk about it because this is a big problem that they know they have. And they continue to give their dog whistles to continue these attacks against us."
The Republican Path: Follow Through on Promises
Allen's prescription is not complicated. "We have to follow through with our promises. The SAVE Act is a perfect example. Eighty-plus percent of Americans — including Democrats, Republicans, and independents — support requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. And the Republican Party won't even pass that legislation."
The best argument for conservatism, he argued, is not rhetoric. It is governance. DeSantis turned Florida bright red not by talking about Florida values but by governing toward them and making the results visible in daily life. Trump's situation is harder because he's operating against RINOs in the Senate. But the principle holds: run on it, promise it, do it. When Americans feel their lives have improved in contrast to what Democrats predicted, that's how you convert voters.
California: Parallel to 2016?
Allen writes the California column for the Daily Signal, which puts him at ground level in a state that has been functionally socialist for more than 16 years. His assessment of the current governor's race surprised even him.
"I see a lot of parallels between California right now in 2026 and the country in 2016. People are fed up. The question is, can Steve Hilton or Chad Bianco put the magic together in their own way that Trump did and bring these voters over?"
The candidate most clearly positioning to do this is Spencer Pratt — who is running for Los Angeles mayor from an RV parked on the side of his own burnt-down property. He's doing campaign ads standing in front of the ruins of his home, then driving to the coastal enclaves of the other candidates to show voters the contrast. "That was a pretty powerful ad," Allen acknowledged. "The coastal elite bubble they inhabit — they're so detached from the experience of the average Californian."
The deeper dynamic, Allen warned, is that the education system's ideological capture is what makes socialist candidates viable in the first place. "These people can run outright as democratic socialists — as Mamdani did — and the fact that that is not disqualifying, that you can win an election in this country running as a socialist, tells you just how far we've fallen."
Allen's Substack is Drew Allen, podcast available on Apple and Spotify.
Rick Shafton: May Day Marxists, NGO Money, and How to Win Without Appeasing the Left
Rick Shafton — one of the sharpest political strategists on the right, calling in from what he called "the afternoon part of the United States" — arrived with sharp observations about the calendar, the Democrats' structural collapse, and what he calls the most important and overlooked problem in conservative politics: funding the other side.
May Day and the Communists Who Aren't Kidding
The date mattered. "May Day — that was a communist celebration. A hundred years ago, real communists would march in Union Square in New York City. Real communists." Shafton's assessment of today's Democratic Party is that the word "socialist" is not hyperbole.
"The Democratic Party has gone so far to the left that even what you would call your rational, Arizona Democrats don't exist anymore. Even if they exist, they have to pretend to be Marxist because they have to run in a Democratic primary. Everybody with an IQ is gone. It's just a bunch of crazies voting."
The redistricting ruling from the Supreme Court will accelerate this. The gerrymandered safe districts that are about to be redrawn were the breeding grounds for moderate-sounding Democrats. With those districts restructured, the only Democrats winning elections going forward will be those running in deep blue plus-70 Kamala Harris districts. "The party is just going to keep moving left, left, left, left, left."
The Danger of Funding Your Opponents
The most actionable argument Shafton made was the one that tends to be dismissed as too blunt: conservatives are funding the organizations working to destroy them, and they are doing it in broad daylight, often from explicitly Republican-controlled governments.
"I just read through my county budget. It's all-Republican — seven-nothing Republican board of commissioners. In the budget, they have a thousand dollars for the League of Women Voters. The sponsors of the No Kings rallies. Getting tax money from a seven-nothing Republican board."
This is not an isolated local example. It is a system. Left-wing nonprofits provide services that feel neighborly and useful — debate sponsorships, civic programs, community events — while their real function is partisan organization. Because conservative boards and elected officials don't want to appear mean or divisive by cutting them off, they keep the checks going. "We just don't want to say no. She's such a nice lady. She only encouraged the next three assassins that will come forward to kill the president."
"We need to cut the other side off. They need to get no money. I learned politics from Democrats. Democrats told me: you give your opponents nothing. Nothing at all. Zero."
The one exception to the rule, in Shafton's political model: buy one of them off, make it visible, and show your opponents their own ally betrayed them. "You hold them up to the whole world to see. Here's one of your people. They just came to our side. You're losers."
The Winning Electoral Math
On Arizona specifically, Shafton reframed the "purple district" excuse that many Republican candidates use to justify moving toward the center.
"You need to get the Republicans all for you. And then outgun the Democrats — pull a higher percentage off a smaller registration advantage. If any Republican candidate got all the votes Trump got in 2024, they would bury the Democrats. It's just a question of how much of that 2024 Trump vote our candidates can bring out."
The calculation is not: find 4% of Biden voters and persuade them. The calculation is: maximize the existing Republican vote and let the registration numbers do the work. In every competitive Arizona district, the math supports that approach.
He called the CD-1 race as the most interesting primary — Trump-endorsed Jay Feely against Representative Joseph Chaplik, who left his House seat to run full-time. Most other candidates have dropped out. Andy Biggs leads significantly in the polls in the governor's race. Katie Hobbs has disappeared from public view, "like she did the last time when she was running."
Dave Smith: Comey's Charges, the Seashells, and Lawfare Returned
Dave Smith called in from Iowa, where he was awaiting the arrival of a grandchild, and took a break from grandparenting duties to offer a quick legal and political analysis of James Comey's federal arrest.
A Slippery Fellow in a Different Jurisdiction
The charges against Comey have been filed, and proceedings are expected to move to North Carolina — which means, as Smith noted with pointed satisfaction, he will not be protected by the "DC canopy of leftism" that has historically shielded figures like him from accountability.
"He is slick. He's a slippery, slimy fellow ever since that day years ago when he read all the elements of a crime against Hillary Clinton and then said there's no prosecutor in the country who would prosecute it. And then, of course, all these prosecutors said, yeah, we'll take it."
The "seashell" incident — Comey's Instagram post showing "86-47" spelled out in rocks on a beach, which he claimed he and his wife stumbled upon while strolling — unraveled when a YouTuber matched the tread pattern of the tennis shoes visible in Comey's photos to tracks found directly in front of the message. The same shoes. The same beach. The same man.
His attempt to claim the post was satire or innocent observation runs into a problem: it is his subsequent statements and actions that form the evidentiary foundation of the charges, not the photograph itself.
"What's your intent? And I think that's what they got a grand jury to buy into. And he could be a ham sandwich, as we all know. Except in D.C."
Smith's larger point was one of proportionality and symmetry. "Let's play a little lawfare on them since they played it on us. Anybody can Google the list of Republicans arrested during the Biden administration. And nobody was arrested for anything they actually did. Finally, we arrest Comey, who we all suspect of at least, if not treasonous, unlawful behavior and disgrace to the American system."
John Gordon: The Comey Case, the Supreme Court's Redistricting Ruling, and the Truth About Race in America
John Gordon — syndicated host of The Truth with John Gordon, former candidate for Georgia attorney general, and Florida resident who describes himself as living right across the water from Mar-a-Lago — picked up precisely where Dave Smith left off and took the conversation further.
Comey, Clapper, Brennan: The Deep State Is Being Deconstructed
Gordon was unequivocal on Comey's significance and his own personal reaction.
"That guy put our country through a three-year nightmare and it was a lie. I knew it was a lie and he kept doubling down on the lie. And it resulted in an impeachment proceeding against President Trump that fortunately failed. It all tracks back to Comey, Clapper, Brennan."
He noted that Brennan is currently under investigation by a grand jury in Florida — an hour north of where Gordon sits. "The deep state is being deconstructed one brick at a time. And it's high time."
His expectation on charges: lying to Congress, on the same model as the Martha Stewart and Leona Helmsley prosecutions — neither convicted of the underlying crime, both convicted of perjury and obstruction during the investigation. He also gave legs to a second charge: the terroristic threat count, citing that Comey's own shoe treads were photographed in front of the 86-47 display.
"The American people are more than ready for accountability. They want equal justice — not against one party or another, but against those who are breaking the law."
The Supreme Court and the Redistricting Revolution
Gordon called the week's Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Galvez — which struck down racial gerrymandering under the Voting Rights Act — the most promising development in years that the mainstream media was almost entirely ignoring.
"It has been a stranglehold on our country for 60 years. It was enacted in 1964. The Supreme Court just struck it down this week. It is going to rebalance the makeup of Congress."
The numbers he cited were striking. New England is approximately 40% Republican geographically — and has essentially zero Republican representation in Congress. California is 40% Republican — and had whittled its Republican congressional representation down to 3 or 4% of its delegation. Both are direct products of racial gerrymandering masquerading as voting rights protection.
"Everybody's going to have to learn now that you're going to have to succeed or fail on a competition for ideas. Not on DEI and not on the color of your skin when it comes to having a disproportionate say in the way this country is run."
The irony he identified in the Jim Crow framing Democrats used to attack the ruling: the Voting Rights Act that was just struck down addressed conditions from 1964. The only people who were adults casting ballots before its passage are 83 or older. "They're acting like this is last week. That's what people do."
Friends of English Avenue and the Truth About Race in America
Gordon spent 20 years working in inner-city Atlanta through a charity he founded in 2006 called Friends of English Avenue — a 60-square-block area adjacent to where Martin Luther King lived when he was assassinated. It is the worst zip code in America by almost every measure: highest concentration of HIV per capita, obesity, diabetes, hunger, homelessness, illiteracy, joblessness. Ninety-nine percent African-American.
"They are the most gentle, loving, God-fearing people you can imagine. And it just opened my eyes to what we are told versus what I experienced. I walked those streets. I never was in fear. I never received any hostility or aggression."
The disruption came from the political class, not the community. A state representative shook him down for a consulting fee as the price of operating in the neighborhood — and when he refused, she stirred up opposition against him. He arrived at a fundraising lunch to find protesters with signs reading "Rich Buckhead man, go home."
He walked into the church dejectedly and asked Dr. Dorsey, one of the community's most respected figures, why they didn't like him. Her response: "John, don't you know dogs don't chase parked cars?"
"It's not blacks that don't like whites. It's not whites that don't like blacks. It's the leadership that keeps us stirred up. As we just discovered with the Southern Poverty Law Center — which was supposed to be working against the KKK — damned if they didn't pay millions to keep the pot stirred."
The 2020 Ballots at Quantico
Gordon closed with information that has been almost entirely absent from major media coverage: Arizona's 2020 ballots — along with Georgia's — are currently at Quantico under FBI examination.
"It's eerily quiet. But I think we will get revelations about what happened in 2020. I think the American people will be outraged by it, because we've been lied to by our leaders and by the media. And I think the whole house of cards might come tumbling down once we get the truth."
Winn added her own ground-level perspective: "Having been boots on the ground back then and worked very hard in that election — President Trump probably was elected here in Arizona. But we can't go back. We can only go forward. And fix this for each and every voter."
Gordon's challenge to anyone who wants to argue against the SAVE Act: email him at JohnGordonTruth at gmail.com with an intellectual argument for why requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections should not be enacted. His answer to the voter suppression argument was direct: only 3% of Americans lack a government-issued ID. Of that 3%, most are homeless, institutionalized, or disengaged from civic life entirely. Free IDs are available at any government agency. "If someone does not care enough to go to the trouble to get a government ID, they shouldn't have the right to vote."
Term limits, in his assessment, are the structural fix that none of the other problems can be solved without. "They get up there, they get powerful, they become subject to the special interests who they become beholden to. And there is an ecosystem that operates in Washington."
Cheryl Caswell: The SAVE Act, the Oversight Project Lawsuit, and What's on the Line in LD-19
Cheryl Caswell — candidate for state House in LD-19, former Pima County Election Integrity Commissioner, and one of the most consistently active voices on election integrity in Southern Arizona — joined for the final segment to close the week on a forward-looking note.
The Lawsuit That Filed That Afternoon
Winn opened with breaking news she was not yet fully at liberty to disclose: the Pima County Republican Party was going to be named as plaintiff in a lawsuit filed that day by the Oversight Project against Arizona's attorney general and secretary of state. The grounds involve provisions in the state's election procedures manual that are designed to exclude people in uniform from polling places — framed as preventing voter intimidation, but functioning as an attack on law enforcement presence at elections.
"These are things that have been put into the manual that would curtail fair and free elections and that discriminate against those who wear uniforms," Winn said. "This is the continual rhetoric about hating law enforcement."
The suit is not filed by partisans working around the edges. The Oversight Project is a serious legal organization, and the challenge targets the statewide election procedures manual — which means the outcome affects all 15 Arizona counties, not just Pima.
The SAVE Act as the Last Line
Caswell's argument for why the SAVE Act specifically matters to her was not abstract.
"We have been watching our borders being infiltrated. We have a community now that has many illegal citizens voting in our elections. They are called Federal Only Voters. They have not shown qualifications of their citizenship at the time of voter registration. We have thousands of them in this state. All of our recorders need to be working on getting those people cleaned off our rolls. And the SAVE Act will help that."
She connected the SAVE Act fight directly to the budget fight: both require Arizona — and the federal government — to come into full conformity with the principles that are supposed to govern citizenship, representation, and taxation. You cannot have one without the other.
Her instruction was clear and direct: contact the senators. Not just Kelly and Gallego, who have declared their opposition openly. Contact Thune. Contact Murkowski. Contact every Republican senator whose vote is not yet locked. "All power is inherent in we the people. And we must use our voice. A silent minority is not helpful. When we are quiet, we are actually accepting it."
The Primary Stakes and What Silence in 2026 Costs
Caswell made the long-term argument in language that should motivate anyone who thinks the 2026 midterms are just a routine election cycle.
"My fear is that as Republicans, if we do not fight to get the SAVE Act done, we may be looking like past elections where we've lost things in the midterms. We haven't kept our majorities. And if we lose them — on day one in 2027, we will see our president impeached daily."
Arizona's primary is July 21st. Early ballots will be in mailboxes beginning June 23rd. The last day to register is June 21st. This is not a drill.
The Democrats just shut down the federal government for maximum political effect, got zero concessions, and left TSA agents, Border Patrol, and Secret Service personnel working without paychecks — including the agent who took a shotgun blast to the chest at the Correspondents' Dinner. They accomplished nothing and will now watch Republicans fund border security through reconciliation. But if the Senate flips in November because Republican voters stayed home, or because non-citizens were allowed to water down the vote, the entire premise changes.
Caswell's meet-and-greet is Saturday at the United Republicans at Continental Shopping Plaza in Green Valley, 4 to 6 p.m. Yard signs available. Her campaign website is caswell4arizona19.com.
Winn Tucson airs Monday through Friday, 9 to 11 a.m., on KVOI 1030 The Voice.
Drew Allen: Daily Signal California column and the Drew Allen Show on Apple and Spotify.
John Gordon: JohnGordonTruth at gmail.com | Syndicated radio: The Truth with John Gordon.
Cheryl Caswell for LD-19: caswell4arizona19.com | Saturday meet-and-greet, Green Valley, Continental Shopping Plaza, 4–6 p.m.
Primary voter registration deadline: June 21st. Early ballots: June 23rd. Primary: July 21st.