Guests - Ava Chen, Dave Smith, Gilda Carle
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The War That Doesn't Use Bullets, a Board That Doesn't Use Budgets, and the Men Who Don't Use Integrity
Wednesday on Winn Tucson moved across three very different worlds — the geopolitical chessboard between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, the fiscal ambush playing out in a Pima County meeting room, and the collapse of personal character among the men who purport to lead the nation. Three guests. One through-line: the cost of not paying attention until it's almost too late.
Ava Chen: China Watch Wednesday — Unrestricted Warfare, Crypto Operatives, and the CCP's Long Game
Every Wednesday, Ava Chen — a member of the New Federal State of China — joins Kathleen Winn to make sense of what the mainstream media either can't or won't explain about the conflict between the Chinese Communist Party and the United States. This week's conversation was among the most detail-rich yet.
The Final Showdown Between Two Systems
Chen's opening frame was stark and clarifying. What the world is witnessing — in the Strait of Hormuz, in cryptocurrency markets, in American courtrooms, in the halls of Congress — is not a collection of unrelated events. It is a single conflict between two incompatible systems: the CCP's totalitarian model and the American constitutional republic.
"Think about how the CCP is using all the wedges, all the leverages, all the scenes, all the songs they have to fight against you," she said. "Their best calculation on their end is that Trump only has four years. That's the constraint. And you have to face the fact that the gasoline price, the midterms — the enemy is calculating. They want to use all the pressure points on Trump because they know Trump is not their friend."
That framing is essential to understanding every move the CCP makes in the American political and economic space. They are not reacting chaotically. They are executing a long-planned strategy of what Chen calls unrestricted warfare — conflict conducted without gunpowder or missiles, through media, psychology, law, and finance.
Justin Sun, World Liberty Finance, and the Pattern of CCP Infiltration
One of the week's significant developments — almost entirely absent from mainstream coverage — was a lawsuit filed against World Liberty Finance, the cryptocurrency venture associated with the Trump family. The plaintiff: Justin Sun.
Sun, whose full name translates into a more recognizable spelling, is the founder of the Tron Network, a decentralized blockchain platform, and a well-known figure in the DeFi and cryptocurrency world. He is also, in Chen's assessment, a CCP operative — one of a class of high-profile business figures the party deploys not through force but through seduction.
"The CCP never resort to just to kill you directly," Chen explained. "They always resort to seduce you. They want to deal with you. They want to say: let's do business. I'm going to make you rich. That's how demonic forces present themselves favorably to you. Otherwise you'd see the danger coming from ten miles away. This is exactly how they come at you — they pretend to be something good for you, and that's where they start plotting against you."
Sun had previously invested heavily in World Liberty Finance's cryptocurrency platform, essentially lending credibility to the project in its early stages. Now he is suing, alleging the platform had a backdoor — a claim Chen said serves as a vehicle for CCP-directed legal pressure, not a genuine commercial dispute.
"On the surface it appears to be a commercial dispute. Underneath, the driver is the Chinese Communist Party. You have to link all those together."
She drew the connection directly. The lawyer representing Justin Sun in the WLF case is Edward Moss, of the firm Kahil and Kahil. Moss was previously the opposing legal counsel against Miles Guo — dissident and CCP target — in the very first case the CCP brought against him in the United States, back in 2017. That suit was filed by another CCP operative, Guo Wengui's adversary Weijian Shan. The firm Moss worked for at that time later evolved into relationships with Paul Hastings — the law firm that managed Miles Guo's bankruptcy case.
"Now you really zoom in," Chen said. "This is where it all ties together. Once you saw all the players, once you saw all the law firms, you understand how the CCP actually seized your justice system. And as of today, they're still in your system."
The same network of players. The same legal playbook. Applied to a new target.
The Three Pillars of Political Warfare
Chen outlined the foundational framework the CCP uses for what Congress's House Oversight Committee has formally identified as political warfare. It rests on three pillars:
Media warfare — controlling narrative, suppressing truth, and fabricating stories about targets. Cash Patel's $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic, filed just days before this conversation, is a live example. Coordinated leaking from inside government to sympathetic media outlets is not accidental — it is operational.
Psychological and cognitive warfare — reshaping the reality of the target population so they believe resistance is futile. "They wanted to weaken your psychologically so you think that you don't have a chance to fight against them and you back off," Chen said. "This is what they want. That's how they win a war without firing a shot. They reshape your reality and make you feel like, 'I'm gonna lose, why am I fighting?'"
Lawfare — using the legal system as a weapon. The pattern is consistent: identify a target, fund a proxy plaintiff, hire connected counsel, pursue litigation that bleeds the target of time, money, and public reputation. Miles Guo has experienced this for a decade. The same playbook is now being applied to figures around Trump.
"The media warfare goes hand-in-hand with the courts," Chen explained, "because prosecutors or government people within the system have information they leak to media. So this is really a campaign and operations against the target — arranged behind the scenes without you acknowledging it."
Iran, China's Oil, and the Corrected Numbers
Chen also took time to correct figures she had cited in a previous segment about China's reliance on Iranian oil — and the correction is strategically significant.
The public-facing data, available anywhere online, shows China claiming to import roughly 70 to 75 percent of its oil from overseas. Of that, Iran supplies approximately two million barrels per day — roughly 20 percent of China's total external oil imports. But Chen emphasized that only about half of that import number gets officially recorded; the other half moves through black-market intermediaries, shadow fleets, and middlemen.
More importantly, the 70-to-75-percent import dependency figure itself is fabricated. "Based on our data collected, China only basically roughly relies on external imported oil less than roughly 50 percent — around 50 percent of their oil is imported," Chen said. "On book they say it's 70 to 75. They don't want the Middle East nations to know the truth. They want to give the Eastern Middle nations a reason to continue working with the CCP."
Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012-2013, China has aggressively expanded domestic alternative energy production — hydropower, wind, solar, and nuclear — specifically to reduce dependence on imported oil and, by extension, reduce the leverage other nations could use against them. They inflate their reported import dependence to maintain the appearance of being a lucrative market for Middle Eastern oil exporters.
This matters strategically. Xi Jinping still has skin in the Iran conflict — Iran supplies roughly 20 percent of China's external oil imports — but he has been quietly building the infrastructure to make that dependence optional. The same way the CCP fakes its population numbers (Chen estimated China's real population at around 800 million to 1 billion, not the claimed 1.4 billion) to attract foreign investment, it fakes its energy dependence numbers to maintain geopolitical leverage.
The USSR Parallel and Why the CCP Will Fall
Chen drew a direct and deliberate parallel between the conditions that preceded the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the conditions facing the CCP today.
Three preconditions defined the Soviet collapse: ideological competition with capitalism, a military arms race, and proxy wars in regions like Afghanistan. All three are present today, with the CCP filling the USSR's role.
"This is a question we've seen again and again," Chen said. "Totalitarian regimes built on oppression, on slavery, on slaughtering their own people are not going to last. Just look at the very recent lesson we learned from the USSR. The same conditions are emerging almost identically."
The ideological competition now plays out in AI development, semiconductors, and the contest between individual liberty and state control. The arms race has extended into space — which is precisely why Trump established the Space Force in his first term. The proxy wars are ongoing in the Middle East, with the CCP preferring not to see peace because instability ties down American resources and attention.
"The CCP's best thing is to not have peace in the Middle East," Chen said. "They want you to be in the Middle East so they can diverge your attention and resources. Meanwhile, they can use that as an excuse to attack President Trump."
Venezuela — largely absent from the current news cycle — offers a template for what strategic de-escalation looks like. Oil sales there have reached a six-year high. The people of the country are recovering wealth that had been seized by their government. The lesson for Iran is visible if they choose to see it: surrender the regime's grip, and the people prosper.
Truth vs. Feelings: The Central Question for Every Voter
In what became one of the most pointed exchanges of the segment, Chen turned to the fundamental question she wants every American — not just voters — to sit with.
"Would you prefer someone tell you the truth even though it's going to make you mad? Or would you rather keep being lied to?" she asked. "The law doesn't have any feelings. The Constitution has no feelings. Law and order and right and wrong — there's not feelings. The structure for a free America and a free world is not based on feelings."
Trump, she argued, is uniquely valuable precisely because he is not a politician — meaning he has no incentive to shade the truth for political gain. "Once in a lifetime you have a president that's not a politician and he doesn't care. He just tells you the truth. Me — it's hard. He can be more considerate. But he said he doesn't care. He's very honest."
Politicians, by contrast, are rewarded for lying. "You bought their book, you study them, you adore them — and then they lie because they don't tell you the truth. And that's why you're happy. You're so blessed because you don't know the truth." The reward system voters have created — punishing honesty and tolerating deception — produces exactly the quality of leadership the country is now trying to repair.
Dave Smith: The Board of Supervisors' Billion-Dollar Ambush
Dave Smith came on Winn Tucson directly from the Pima County Board of Supervisors meeting — having sat through nearly three hours of it — and what he reported was a masterclass in how local government uses procedure as a weapon against the people it supposedly serves.
How They Rammed It Through
The meeting opened with twelve proclamations. Standing room only — not because of the spending limit item, but because the proclamations drew supporters and activists who had no idea what was coming later on the agenda. Smith watched it unfold.
"I gotta tell you, I can't believe there were only eight of us who spoke yesterday at that meeting," he said. "Eight of us. When I walked in there was standing room only — because there were twelve proclamations. Proclamations do nothing, but they make all those people feel good, and that's how you get votes."
The spending limit measure was buried deep in the agenda. The one person present who understood what it meant — Cori Stevens — stepped out briefly after the first two-plus hours of proclamations and emotional resolutions. As if on cue, the board moved to the special meeting item. When Stevens returned and attempted to speak, it was too late. The vote was already done: four to one, along party lines, with Steve Christie as the lone dissent.
They did not wait for meaningful public comment. They had what they needed.
"Any comment? Public comment? No? Okay. Let's vote," Smith recounted. "Steve's like no, no — and they're like, it passes four to one."
What They Actually Voted For
The agenda description was deliberately vague — just a few words referencing a 1980 spending limitation. Smith broke down what the board actually did.
In 1980, Arizona voters approved a constitutional amendment setting expenditure limits for counties, with a base formula tied to population growth and inflation. Pima County's base was set at approximately $93.7 million — a figure that, through the built-in annual adjustment formula, has grown to nearly $700-800 million today.
The board voted to add $70 million to that original 1980 base figure — not to total spending, but to the foundation from which all subsequent calculations are made. Run the math forward and the result is a new spending cap of approximately $1.333 billion: nearly double the current limit.
The board's messaging is that there will be "no new taxes." Smith was unequivocal about what that framing conceals.
"What they're saying is they want to go all the way back to 1980 and change that referendum that we voted for — and they gave themselves like 75 million or whatever for their budget maximum, and they're saying, 'Well, we'll change that then, and then we'll just accrue the interest and the cost of living over the decades.' So that means they're increasing their ability to tax you — it's just obscene."
The deeper problem, Smith explained, is what the spending limit was designed to prevent and is now revealing. Pima County has been collecting more in taxes than the formula allows them to spend — because the formula is tied to population, and Tucson's population is declining. They have a surplus that the cap won't let them touch.
"They're taxing us, they've got extra money, and because of this cap — that the legislature was wise enough and the people were wise enough to vote for back in the 80s — it doesn't allow them to spend the money that they're stealing from us," Smith said. "What you're hearing right now is the suck of the money that was coming through blue cities like Tucson from the last administration. They beefed up their organizations, hired more people — and they don't want to say no, they don't want to cut jobs, they don't want to do what fiscally responsible cities and states do."
Rather than cut their NGO network, reduce spending to match their actual tax base, and return the surplus to citizens — they want to change the rules so they can spend it all.
The Legal Argument: When Taxation Becomes a Taking
Smith invoked constitutional scholar Richard Epstein's book Takings, which argues that taxation crosses into unconstitutional territory when the government stops providing the services that justify the tax. Under the Fifth Amendment, a taking requires just compensation. When government taxes your property and delivers nothing in return — no safe streets, no fire coverage, no roads — Epstein argues that the tax itself becomes a taking.
"I'm telling you what Tucson is taking — they are not providing the basic services the government should provide," Smith said. "Don't become a slave to this government. It means you've got to stand up, you've got to viscerally fight back."
Andres Cano — the recently appointed supervisor who has never faced a contested election — was singled out as emblematic of the problem. "Nobody voted for Andres Cano. He's just their local activist," Smith said. "When you allow a body of leftists to appoint another person in a representative democracy, this guy has never actually stood before the crucible of the people to explain his positions. He's a radical activist."
Sheriff Nanos and the Recall
After nearly three hours, Smith had to leave the meeting before the executive session concluded. Later word came that Sheriff Chris Nanos had lawyered up, with his attorney sending a letter to the Board of Supervisors effectively telling them to back off his client. The Democratic Party has still not formally sanctioned Nanos.
"He is the face of the Democrat Party here in Pima County right now," Smith noted. "He's got to be considered a bit of an albatross around their neck. But there are so many this week — Eric Swalwell, Ruben Gallego. And all of it evaporates again."
He compared the erasure of Swalwell to the erasure of César Chávez — both men now subjects of active historical revision by the same political movement that once elevated them. "Swalwell is like César Chávez. He never was. They're not accountable for him and his affiliation."
The Board of Supervisors item will be referred to the November ballot. The effort to defeat it must begin now.
Dr. Gilda Carle: Real Men, Real Women, and the Collapse of Character in High Places
Dr. Gilda Carle — relationship expert, author, and motivational speaker from Scottsdale — brought a different but equally urgent lens to the same parade of political scandals. Her analysis was built on decades of studying human behavior, the psychology of intimacy, and the patterns men use to hide from real relationships. What she sees in Washington looks familiar.
The Political Scandal as Intimacy Disorder
The behavior of figures like Eric Swalwell and Ruben Gallego — the sexual misconduct allegations, the use of power for personal gratification, the inability to maintain honest relationships — is not, in Dr. Carle's analysis, just moral failure. It is a specific pattern she documents in her book Real Men Don't Go Woke.
"This is all ways that these men have been hiding from intimacy with real women," she said. "They have been cheating on their wives, their partners, thinking they can get away with it as we subsidize all their frolicking. They are dropping out with women who want them for their power. If they think for a moment that those women even care for them like their wives have done, they are really under a rock."
Chapter 9 of her book is titled "Sex Possessed" — and it addresses the specific dynamic of men who, unable to sustain real intimacy, seek power-based encounters instead. "These are males hiding from intimacy with a real woman. They can only perform with the quickies because then they're bigger than life. But real women know who they are."
The political environment has effectively subsidized this behavior for years. Santos — expelled from Congress and representing a district neighboring Gallego's office — has already confirmed publicly that Swalwell's office had a revolving door of women. He has nothing left to lose and is, as Carle put it, singing like a bird.
"I want to live long enough to see every single one of them buried through what they have done — to their wives, to their families, to themselves, and most importantly to this country," she said.
The Capital-I Principle
Dr. Carle's prescriptive framework centers on what she calls the Capital-I identity — the foundation of every healthy relationship, professional or personal.
"Are you a capital I?" she asks. "You can't say 'I love you' if you're operating from the stance of a lowercase i. A lowercase i — because here's a guiltogram for you: we attract not who we want, but who we are. If you are a lowercase i, what kind of person do you think you're going to attract? A lowercase loser just like yourself."
The inverse is equally powerful. When you invest in becoming a capital I — clear in your identity, tall in your spine, explicit in your standards — you begin teaching everyone around you how to treat you, simply by how you carry yourself.
"Without you even knowing it, you are teaching them how to treat you," she said. "When you go into a marriage with a lowercase i, you're telling your guy, 'Treat me like trash, it's okay.' You attracted the lowercase i just like yourself. That's how it all begins. Women have more power than we even know we have. It's about time we said no when we really mean no."
People Pleasing as Its Own Form of Hiding
One of the lesser-discussed ways men avoid genuine intimacy, Carle noted, is through people-pleasing — a behavior she sees migrating rapidly into corporate America.
"We're seeing men filter into corporate America saying yes when they really mean no — they're doing this as a people pleaser," she said. "That's one of the ways men hide from intimacy. It's all in my book. Men have said, 'Thanks to this book, I decided not to commit suicide.' Mothers are saying, 'Thank you for writing this book.' I have been seeing so much success with men's lives now because they are not taking no when they really mean no."
The book's reach has surprised her. She wrote it without knowing whether anyone would read it — and it has found an audience of men in genuine pain, men who had absorbed cultural messages that discouraged authenticity, commitment, and vulnerability with real partners.
Women Who Have Lost Their Way
Carle did not limit her critique to men. Teachers who have been sexually molesting young male students — a pattern she noted is becoming more visible — represent, in her analysis, the same dysfunction in a different form.
"These women are hiding from intimacy. These women think that they are entitled because they're in a control situation. Young boys of course are driven by testosterone — they don't know anything better. It's out of hand."
The legislature, she noted with measured credit, has passed meaningful new laws addressing this issue. Even Governor Katie Hobbs signed some of them — a rare point of cross-aisle agreement that Carle acknowledged.
Women's Responsibility in the Larger Picture
Carle was careful not to place the entire burden on men. Her book's closing chapter turns explicitly to women, and what she calls women's partial responsibility for allowing these dynamics to calcify.
"Ladies, we are in part responsible for having allowed this mess to get so out of hand," she said. "We thought we needed security, we thought we needed the guys for the children, for the family life, for the lifestyle. And as soon as some of our women can't take it anymore and find themselves on their own, they find that they're very capable of living a life that is free, unencumbered, and able to love again with somebody that can love them back."
The message for women: expect, not accept.
"I say expect rather than accept, because you're better than that. Don't lie on your back for a guy who doesn't have yours. You have other women, other people who will support you. You don't have to be lonely. It's okay to be alone. Because you have to discover your own strengths."
That last point connected back to the political conversation that had run through the entire show. "Since we're in election season, we're 90 days away from a primary — demand that of the people you want to serve you," Winn added. "Treat it like that. We're choosing substandard candidates. We only need to go back to the beginning of our conversation with Swalwell and Gallego to notice that. We have to be smarter."
Carle agreed completely. "We have more power than we even know we have. Make sure that capital I is pretty evident. Make sure your spine is tall when you say it. And most people have not understood the deserve level in their lives. We have been taught that if we dare say we deserve something, we are being selfish. And you have privilege — especially if you're white, you have privilege. This has gotten so out of hand. We are in charge."
Dr. Gilda Carle's book Real Men Don't Go Woke is available on Amazon and on her website.
Winn Tucson airs Monday through Friday, 9 to 11 a.m., on KVOI 1030 The Voice.
China Watch Wednesday returns next week with Ava Chen from the New Federal State of China.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors spending limit measure has been referred to the November ballot. Vote no.