Guests - Dan Butierez, Steve Mundt, Nills Grevillius, Douglas Floto, Juan Ciscomani

Butierez for Congress: Securing CD7 and Addressing Tucson's Challenges

Daniel Butierez Makes His Case for Congressional District 7

Congressional candidate Daniel Butierez is working hard in the final weeks before the special election for Arizona's Congressional District 7 on September 23rd. As a businessman rather than a career politician, Butierez offers a distinct alternative to his Democratic opponent, Adelita Grajalva.

"We're both native born to Tucson, we both care about Tucson, but we are two totally opposite people," Butierez explained. While his opponent has emphasized her Hispanic heritage, Butierez noted that he too is Latino, though he quipped that "she looks more Mexican than I do."

The conversation quickly turned to substantive policy differences, particularly regarding border security. CD7 encompasses every port of entry into Arizona, making border policy especially significant for the district.

"We want to know who's coming through and what they're bringing through. We need to save our people," Butierez stated. He highlighted a fundamental difference between himself and his opponent on drug trafficking: "I actually put a lot of blame on the drug writers that are bringing the drugs across the border, and she wants to blame Americans that are hooked on the drugs."

Butierez criticized his opponent's time on the board of supervisors, where he claims she used "millions of dollars that were provided by the Biden administration to facilitate the movement of illegal immigration into the country." When asked if he would have done something similar, he responded emphatically: "No, absolutely not. I actually went down to the board of supervisors and spoke to her about that because I was not happy that she was spending all this money to incentivize the homeless from all over the world to come here and live, put them up in motels, while our homeless are dying in the streets."

Tackling Tucson's Homeless Crisis

When asked about voters' greatest concerns, Butierez identified the homeless crisis as the top issue facing Tucson residents.

"The homeless crisis is everybody in Tucson's greatest concern right at the moment. It has gotten so out of control. Our kids are riding the buses with these addicts, the free buses that we're paying for, and people aren't happy about that."

He recounted how his son recently confronted a police officer about homeless individuals smoking fentanyl near a bus stop where a nine-year-old boy was standing apart from the group. "I don't blame the police officers, I blame our leadership," Butierez clarified.

On the topic of addressing homelessness, Butierez emphasized the need for community involvement rather than government handouts. "I think it's a really bad idea because they're not trying to get people off of the drugs first. As a matter of fact, they're putting a lot of people on methadone. So they're just tax-funded drugs while they live in tax-funded housing."

Instead, Butierez advocates for a comprehensive approach: "We need to come together as a community and address this. I'll lay out the plan and I will go to Washington to get the funds to start working on this, but ultimately it's gonna take us contractors to give people jobs. The city may have to create jobs, but these people have gotta be put to work so they can get their self-esteem back once we get them off the drugs."

Economic Development and Water Solutions

When asked about bringing jobs to CD7, which is among the poorest districts in the state, Butierez emphasized the need for infrastructure, particularly water resources.

"Right now I believe there's gonna be a lot of building, but what we're gonna have to get first before we do all this building and construction is we need to get water here," he explained. He outlined two solutions: "One is we need to start desalination. The other one is running water from back east to here. You know how they flood up there? Run that water, have drainage to us."

While acknowledging the significant cost of such projects, Butierez argued, "They spend a lot of money on a lot of wasted things, and I think that would benefit the western half of the United States. We could create jobs which would eventually tax and pay back into what we spend to build it."

Elijah Norton: Making the Case for State Treasurer

Later in the program, Elijah Norton, Republican candidate for Arizona State Treasurer, joined the conversation. Norton explained the importance of the treasurer's role in managing Arizona's $32 billion in assets.

"The treasurer's job is to determine where those monies are going to be invested, in what capacity, and trying to get the highest yield on those investments while making sure we're still following the statutory guidelines and investing in conservative assets that aren't going to put the state's asset mix at risk," Norton explained.

Norton highlighted his qualifications: "I currently own an insurance organization, a global insurance organization. We write over $500 million a year in premiums, and I manage over $100 million worth of insurance reserves." He also noted his experience as Republican Party Treasurer, where he managed over $20 million in funds, including $10 million for President Trump's reelection campaign.

Regarding his opponent, Norton stated: "He's trying to act like he's a moderate, the classic Democrat move, and he's anything but. He's been endorsed by Yasmin Ansari, Kathy Hoffman, some of the most far left."

Norton commended current Treasurer Kimberly Yee's performance but believes his investment experience would bring additional value: "I think she did a good job, but I think I can do even more because I have that unique experience."

If elected, Norton plans to conduct a comprehensive audit of state finances: "I think there's a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse, specifically in the education sector, that needs to be looked at." His ultimate goal is to increase treasury yields to potentially enable tax cuts: "I think I'm always, one day I would hope that we get to a point where we're like Texas and Florida, we have no income tax."

School Safety: A Priority After Minneapolis Tragedy

Following the recent school shooting in Minneapolis, Doug Floto, Vice President of Gracia Security, discussed his company's initiative to offer free vulnerability assessments to all 23 Catholic schools in Southern Arizona.

"The impact is felt nationwide," Floto noted. "What I've decided to do with my company is reach out to the Catholic Church here in Tucson and offer no-cost free vulnerability assessments of all their 23 schools throughout Southern Arizona to identify and use my background and talents to assist with enhancing security."

Floto highlighted the need for standardized security across schools: "One of the issues is that statewide and across the country, school safety and school security programs are pretty much individualized at the district level between superintendent, board of directors. Each school is kind of making it up, what they think would be appropriate to protect kids."

He advocated for an integrated approach to school security: "It has to be an integrated concept. We've got phenomenal technology available, so that needs to be integrated with human resources." Floto pointed to the near-miss at Legacy Traditional School in Tucson in January, where a potential shooter was intercepted but not before he was "sitting on a floor in the gym with kids around him contemplating shooting them."

Floto suggested that security standards should be established at the state level rather than district by district: "I think the first step is that the legislative and/or Department of Education was having an ability to bring in the resources and the expertise to define the best school safety program we can develop."

Congressman Juan Ciscomani on Border Security and Tax Cuts

Congressman Juan Ciscomani called in to discuss his work in Congress, particularly regarding border security and tax cuts. He addressed the negative campaign materials being distributed about him, noting that CD2 was recently ranked "the second tightest district in the whole country."

On achievements, Ciscomani highlighted the "One Big Beautiful Bill" that made permanent the tax cuts passed under President Trump in 2017 and added new provisions: "No tax on tips up to $25,000, no tax on overtime up to $12,500, no tax on social security, $6,000 a person. All these things, they're real dollars back in real people's pockets."

Regarding border security, Ciscomani noted the significant progress made: "Even Vice President Vance said, 'If you would have told me that the border was gonna get locked down this quickly, I would have thought there was an aggressive goal.'" However, he emphasized the need to codify these changes into law: "We can't live off this executive order world where another president can come in later and open up the border again the way Biden did. So we need to codify a lot of this into law."

Looking ahead to the 2026 election, Ciscomani expressed confidence that voters will recognize the benefits of Republican policies: "When people do their taxes in April of next year, they're gonna see this kick in. So it won't be theory, it won't be a promise anymore. It's gonna be a reality for them."

The Psychology Behind Mass Shootings

Nills Grevillus, a Los Angeles-based private detective, discussed the psychology behind mass shootings in light of the recent tragedy in Minneapolis.

"Every single mass shooter has a couple of things in common: metastatic self-pity and a unique sense of personal grievance, and the tendency to take up public events beyond their control—even things like sports and weather and politics—as a personal affront to them," Grevillus explained.

He identified characteristics of psychopathy present in mass shooters: "Not every psychopath becomes a mass shooter, but every mass shooter is a psychopath. First and foremost among them is pathological egocentricity, wherein the psychopath needs to be treated specially just to feel normal."

Grevillus criticized parents who affirm gender dysphoria in children: "If I say yes, you are a son, yes, you really are a girl, and let's go down to the county courthouse and change your name to Lucinda or something like that, I am aiding and abetting my son's psychopathy."

Regarding the Minneapolis shooter, who had previously identified as transgender, Grevillus noted: "The parents ratified the psychopathy of their son and they created the negative home environment, the random reward process that rewired his brain from normal to psychopath." He defined a psychopath as "somebody who has no conscience, no ability to identify with the pain that they cause in others."

Grevillus also pointed to the shooter's employment at a cannabis dispensary, suggesting high-concentrate cannabis "seems to be inducing a lot of disorder in young people, particularly schizoaffective disorder and paranoid schizophrenia."

He criticized the psychiatric profession: "One of the problems that we have with psychiatric medicine in general is there is no metric for malpractice in psychiatry and psychology, none." Grevillus noted that approaches to gender dysphoria have changed: "It used to be when a man came in and said, 'I think I'm a woman,' that they would treat them for neuroses, a problem. Now they are forbidden to do so by this manual called the DSM."

Regarding the distinction between mental illness and responsibility, Grevillus emphasized: "We fall into their trap when we say, 'Okay, he was just crazy.' Psychopaths know right from wrong. And he expressed the knowledge that he knew right from wrong. And he put punctuation on it by taking his own life."