Guests - Ava Chen, Betsy Smith, Alex Kolodin
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A Texas Victory, a World War Warning, and the Man Who Built a Nuclear Weapon Pointed at Arizona Voters
Wednesday on Winn Tucson opened with a Texas Senate runoff result that landed like fresh oxygen and closed with the most direct case yet for why the Arizona secretary of state race is the single most consequential race in the state. In between: China Watch Wednesday delivered some of its most urgent intelligence yet — the Putin-Xi pact, Pakistan and Serbia as captured vessels, Cuba as a CCP military base 90 miles from Key West, and the philosophical argument for why America is weakening from within. Then Betsy Brantner Smith weighed in from Iowa on teen takeovers, Maryland's Glock ban, Tim Walz honoring George Floyd on Memorial Day, and the anti-ICE theater at Delaney Hall.
Ava Chen: The CCP's War Block Is Operating, Pakistan Is a Colony, and Cuba Is Already Gone
Ava Chen, co-host and member of the New Federal State of China, opened China Watch Wednesday with a geopolitical assessment that deserved two hours and got one — and still managed to cover the most critical ground.
The Putin-Xi Pact: Not Subtle, Not Ambiguous
The visit was 23 hours. The joint statements — two of them — did not name America, but every word pointed at America. Anti-hegemony. Global governance rewritten. Expansion of the NATO alliance prevented. The Indo-Pacific shield crippled.
"They don't have to say America is my enemy," Chen said. "They already said it in the two joint declarations."
She tracked what followed immediately after Putin's departure: Ukraine intensification (Russia launched more drones and bombs the same week the joint statements were signed); Pakistan's prime minister arriving in Hangzhou — headquarters of Alibaba — rather than Beijing; and Serbia's president arriving for a five-day state visit, which in CCP diplomatic protocol signals the depth of the relationship.
"Putin and Xi are preparing for war. And look what's happening right after the joint statements — Ukraine picked up."
Putin left quickly. Not from a lack of interest but from a fear familiar to every dictator: when you leave the country, internal rivals move. His deepest fear is not the West — it is a coup while he is abroad.
Pakistan: The Colony
Chen did not use the word "ally" for Pakistan. She used the word "colony."
Shahbaz Sharif — Pakistan's prime minister — landed not in Beijing but in Hangzhou, signing MOUs with Alibaba on AI, cloud computing, digital skill training for 50,000 Pakistanis, e-payments, and digital financial services. The Chinese renminbi is already accepted as currency in Pakistan.
"So that tells you Pakistan is a colony and this political clone is captive to the CCP."
The deeper significance: Alibaba is not a tech company. It is a military intelligence platform.
"Miles Guo held Americans many, many years ago: Alibaba is a military intelligence platform. It is profound, profound implication on the world security and safety. And who still invests in Alibaba? Powerful American families."
The MOUs look like economic cooperation. What they actually do is replace the U.S. dollar with the Chinese BRICS gold-backed system, one country at a time. Pakistan was chosen first because it is already captured and because it is the slowest, easiest foothold in a region where the BRICS dollar replacement strategy needs to establish proof of concept.
"They are trying to bind all those states on the BRICS system. They always start with the people, the slowest first. That's why Pakistan."
Serbia: A Military Base Without Being Called One
Serbia's leader Vučić — whom Miles Guo identified in April 2022 as already captured through the CCP's BGY compromise operation (surveillance, money, and sex) — arrived in Beijing the same week as Pakistan's prime minister. His family speaks Chinese. They have properties in Hainan and Shanghai. They vacation in Hong Kong.
The strategic significance of Serbia is not cultural. It is geographic. Serbia sits at the intersection of Western Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East. Whoever controls Serbia's infrastructure controls the land corridor connecting those regions.
Alibaba, Huawei, and WeChat have already been deployed throughout Serbia's communication, railway, and infrastructure systems. The Hongqi missile system was gifted to Serbia for free — not sold, gifted — as Miles Guo reported in 2022, with Moscow confirming it was a war deployment, not a commercial transaction.
"CCP put the military base there without even calling it a military base, because they control everything. The communication. The financial. The president at the top. There's no sovereignty, nothing anymore."
And Serbia was not only geopolitically significant in 2022. It was also operationally relevant in 2020, when it played a role in the American presidential election — something Chen flagged explicitly and said deserves its own segment.
Cuba: 90 Miles Away and Already Gone
With two minutes left, Chen delivered what she and Winn agreed would become its own full segment next week: Cuba.
The island has rolling blackouts. The economy is collapsing. The population is fleeing. The regime is failing by every material measure.
And the CCP is already there.
"CCP has underwater military facilities and naval command operations in Cuba. On paper, CCP only has one military base overseas — that's Djibouti — but that's a lie. They have so many."
Cuba sits 90 miles from Key West. It is a surveillance position, a base for monitoring American military and communication activity, and an intelligence platform that has been in place for years. Russia is there too. The island is not asking for help from the United States. It is already bound to the enemies of the United States.
"United States chose to coexist with communists. And they're using it as a wiretap island to basically watch everything America is doing."
America Is Weak Because It Forgot God, Not Because of Foreign Influence
In one of the show's most pointed exchanges, Chen gently pushed back on Winn's framing that America's weakness stems primarily from foreign infiltration.
"I feel America's weakness is because something fundamental that you lost. Because if you're strong, nothing, nothing, nothing will be able to touch you."
Her argument: foreign adversaries can only exploit weaknesses that already exist. The real cause of American vulnerability is the abandonment of the intellectual and spiritual foundation that made it strong — Western philosophy, logic, faith, history, and the reasoning capacity developed through classical education.
"How many people today in schools are really learning what Plato is saying, what Aristotle is saying? They're learning the wrong thing because you forgot about God. You forgot about faith. You forgot the very beginning of where we come from and why we're different and our purpose. And this is why you're no longer strong."
She connected this directly to the brain's cognitive shortcuts — the evolutionary tendency to avoid the hard work of reasoning, which makes every population susceptible to manipulation by those who understand how to short-circuit analysis with emotion.
"Our brain is hardwired to take shortcuts. And when we take shortcuts, that's where the manipulator has a lot of room to work around."
The CCP, she noted, has murdered more than 500 million Chinese people — more than all deaths from all wars and invasions across thousands of years of Chinese dynastic history combined. This is the system seeking to extend its model to the world.
"That number tells you alone that the CCP is the enemy not just of Chinese people but of all of mankind and the enemy of God, because they don't have any regard for human life at all."
Betsy Brantner Smith: Paxton Wins, Tim Walz Dances on Memorial Day, and Teen Takeovers Escalate
Betsy Brantner Smith — National Police Association spokeswoman, retired 29-year law enforcement professional — joined from the Menards parking lot in Des Moines, Iowa, where she and Dave had pulled in to find a panting dog in a car that both of them immediately clocked. The dog had a running car, so they moved on. Betsy went back to work.
Ken Paxton and the Lesson for Every Primary Candidate in America
The Texas Senate runoff result — Ken Paxton defeating four-term incumbent John Cornyn — was the morning's first major topic, and Brantner Smith's reaction was unambiguous.
"Shame on the U.S. Senate. Shame on the National Republican Senate Committee for doing that. John Cornyn was there for two decades. You didn't have enough accomplishments in two decades to promote who you were."
Scott Pressler's research uncovered Cornyn's own words over the years — videos of him supporting amnesty, supporting Black Lives Matter — directly contradicting his late-campaign pitch as a conservative. The $80 million spent against Paxton did not change the fact that Paxton showed up for President Trump during the prosecutions, stood by him in courtrooms, and built a record of fighting the CCP in court that Ava Chen had praised at the top of the show.
"You know who was there for Trump? Ken Paxton. Not Thune. Not Cornyn. Paxton."
Her reading of the broader lesson: when you run on attacking your opponent's character rather than your own record and vision, you had better be spotless. Cornyn was not spotless. And even if he had been, the voters of Texas were sending a message that the grassroots would not be ignored.
Memorial Day: The Democrats Honored George Floyd
The Democratic Party's official Memorial Day post — acknowledging service members killed in Iran — became a flashpoint when it also, in the same post or surrounding messaging, honored George Floyd.
"George Floyd. They recognize George Floyd. Because that scam got them votes. The people bought into that nonsense that he didn't die of fentanyl poisoning."
Tim Walz — selected as Kamala Harris's running mate partly on the premise of his military and "man's man" image — spent Memorial Day in a dance honoring George Floyd rather than fallen service members.
"The day that we honor our fallen military members, he's in a dance honoring George Floyd. Extraordinary."
Ruben Gallego, meanwhile, doubled down on defending Graham Platner's Memorial Day behavior — including Platner's public sexual deviancy and his attack on Taya Kyle, widow of Chris Kyle — calling Platner "relatable" and suggesting the behavior was typical of military culture. Brantner Smith's response was pointed.
"Ruben Gallego and the Democrat Party don't give a damn about veterans. And I don't think every veteran is a sexual deviant. Just saying."
She connected Gallego's defense directly to his own documented associations — specifically his longstanding friendship with Eric Swalwell.
Teen Takeovers Are Coming to Pima County
Teen takeovers — coordinated, smartphone-organized mob events that descend on public spaces, often violently — are spreading. Chicago had one. New Jersey had one. Rutland, Massachusetts just cancelled its entire Fourth of July weekend because of the threat of one.
In Chicago, an 18-year-old at a teen takeover hit five police officers with his car — hitting the first, continuing, hitting more, continuing, until he crashed into a squad car and a telephone pole. He had a gun tucked in his waistband.
The Chicago mayor does not call them teen takeovers. He calls them "unauthorized gatherings."
The governor of Maryland — Wes Moore, who Brantner Smith named as a likely 2028 presidential contender — just signed legislation further restricting juvenile prosecution and making it harder to charge young offenders with felonies. The same governor is pursuing a ban on Glock handguns, including confiscation from current owners. Since almost all law enforcement officers carry Glocks, Brantner Smith predicted this lands before the Supreme Court.
"This is the kind of stuff our county board of supervisors would love to see happen in Arizona."
She also flagged that Maryland's new law mandates non-cooperation with ICE by local law enforcement — mirroring exactly what the Pima County Board of Supervisors is pursuing through their posted signs.
"That's exactly what our Board of Supervisors would love to see."
Delaney Hall and the Adelita Sideshow
The Delaney Hall detention facility in New Jersey became a three-day flashpoint, with Democratic members of Congress — including Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva — generating photo opportunities and claims of inhumane conditions.
Cory Booker cited a hunger strike among detainees. Brantner Smith's response was clinical: a hunger strike is a choice made by people who refuse to eat. It is not starvation imposed by the administration.
"A hunger strike is people who choose not to eat. It is not something that the Trump administration is making people do."
On Adelita Grijalva specifically: her constituents in Tucson who have tried to schedule meetings in Washington come back with photo ops, not conversations.
"She won't have meetings with anybody in D.C. Business people went up to talk to her, but they got their photo op and then she just disappeared."
The local extension of the anti-ICE theater: opponents of the Marana private ICE holding facility are now personally attacking Mayor John Post of Marana — who has no authority over a private facility.
Alex Kolodin: A Federal Judge Called It a Nuclear Weapon, Hobbs Protects CCP Land Ownership, and the Polls Are Moving
Alex Kolodin, LD-3 Representative and candidate for Arizona Secretary of State, joined with fresh polling news, a federal judge quote that should be on billboards, and a revealing account of what Katie Hobbs actually did on CCP land ownership in Arizona.
The Polls: Winning Every Congressional District
Kolodin's campaign has the numbers, and he delivered them without hedging.
"We are winning our primary in every single congressional district in the state. We have a statistically significant polling advantage."
He was equally direct that polls don't win general elections — money does, and Adrian Fontes has dark money pouring in from California, New York, and Massachusetts. The May 28th fundraiser at Union House at 5:30 p.m. is the mechanism for closing that gap.
What a Federal Judge Actually Said
A federal judge — in a judicial ruling — described Adrian Fontes's conduct with language that Kolodin said deserves maximum distribution.
"He tried to fashion the elections equivalent of a nuclear weapon pointed at the voters of Arizona in order to disenfranchise potentially millions."
This is not a campaign attack. It is the language of a federal court order.
The EPM Lawsuit: Briefs Due This Week
The Oversight Project and Pima County Republican Party lawsuit against the Elections Procedures Manual — challenging the provisions that ban uniformed law enforcement from voting, restrict audible electioneering (effectively banning election-day protest in urban cores), and allow removal of observers for "frivolous" challenges — has briefs due this week.
"I can't wait to see him. We will continue to keep you posted."
Kolodin connected the EPM's uniform provision to the irony he has deployed publicly: the same people who three years ago demanded law enforcement wear their uniforms everywhere are now trying to prevent them from voting in those uniforms.
The CCP Land Ownership Veto — and What Hobbs Actually Did
The China connection arrived via a weekend news report that Hobbs faces scrutiny over China-related bills. Kolodin provided the most revealing account of exactly what happened.
The legislature ran a bill supposedly banning the CCP from buying land in Arizona. The problem: as written, it violated the Arizona Constitution and also inadvertently banned other non-Chinese entities from buying land, while — critically — not actually banning the CCP.
"So I forced an amendment onto the bill that just said: no, the Chinese government, the CCP, and 100 percent Chinese state-owned enterprises can't buy land in Arizona. Doesn't apply to anybody else. Just those three."
Hobbs vetoed it, calling it "weak and spineless." She then ran her own version through the Senate via a proxy — a version she called stronger, except it didn't require the CCP to divest any property it currently owns in Arizona. It grandfathered in all existing CCP holdings.
"The strong bill she calls weak and vetoes. The bill that does nothing — and lets the CCP keep their properties — she signs."
Among the CCP holdings she protected: apparently several large resorts in Scottsdale.
The Fontes Voter Roll Fight: Still Ongoing
On the question of cleaning Arizona's voter rolls — something 22 years of Arizona voters have voted for and that Fontes has been obstructing for years — Kolodin described the litigation pattern with precision.
"As is typically the case with the Trump DOJ, they lose in the trial court, then they appeal. They're probably losing the Court of Appeals. Then they'll go to the Supreme Court and then they'll win. But now it's been a year where nobody is checking the voter rolls in a lot of our counties to make sure that only lawful U.S. citizens are on those voter rolls."
This is what Fontes's obstruction actually costs: not a legal setback but a year of unchecked enrollment in which non-citizens can register and potentially vote without any verification process challenging their eligibility.
On Budget Negotiations and the Florida-Style Elections Referral
Budget negotiations are moving. Kolodin expressed cautious optimism that a deal could be reached as soon as the following week.
His non-negotiable: no unrestricted funds for Fontes, who has documented a practice of using taxpayer money for partisan voter registration activities.
His priority legislation: the Florida-style elections ballot referral — a constitutional amendment allowing Arizona voters to weigh in directly on election security measures, requiring faster results, government-issued ID for all ballots, and reaffirming the citizenship-only voting principle Arizona enacted 22 years ago.
"I want to give voters the opportunity to take election security into their own hands. If people choose something for themselves, they're going to have a lot more confidence in than just something the legislature does."
The SAVE Act's Senate failure — coming immediately after Texas voters threw out the senator who blocked it — generated one of the sharpest observations of the segment.
"I was really frustrated to see that the Senate did not get it across the line. We've seen how voters of Texas reacted to that sort of Senate leadership. And I'm hoping that there's a little bit better behavior now that such a clear message has been sent by the voters."
Winn's instruction was equally direct: if John Cornyn wants to go out on a high note — and he now knows what his alternative was — get the SAVE Act done before the door closes.
The Approach That Works With Katie Hobbs
On negotiating with a governor who has vetoed every significant Republican priority: Kolodin offered a framework that is fundamentally different from how most of his colleagues approach it.
"I don't view a bipartisan win as: Katie Hobbs gets half of what she wants and I don't get anything. I view a bipartisan win as: you find the leverage to get her to give you some of what you want, and you don't give her anything that's bad."
The result: he has actually gotten some things signed. Not by trading away conservative principles, but by negotiating from a position of genuine strength rather than hoping good faith will be reciprocated.
"She is not used to seeing it from a lot of Republicans and they don't really know what to do with it."
Fundraiser: May 28th at Union House, 5:30 p.m.
Kolodin's closing message was simple. Adrian Fontes has dark money. Alex Kolodin has Arizona conservatives who understand what's at stake.
"If we don't have free and fair elections, nothing else in politics matters. The road to the White House runs directly through the Arizona Secretary of State's office."
Winn Tucson airs Monday through Friday, 9 to 11 a.m., on KVOI 1030 The Voice.
China Watch Wednesday continues next week with a deep dive into Cuba's role as a CCP military platform 90 miles from Key West.
Alex Kolodin fundraiser: Thursday, May 28th, 5:30 p.m., Union House on Grant Road, Tucson. alexforaz.com.
Jeff Rhodes for Pima County Supervisor District 5 needs 143 write-in votes. Spread the word. Jeff Rhodes: R-H-O-D-E-S.
Primary voter registration deadline: June 22nd. Primary: July 21st.