Guests - Sheriff Richard Mack, Rachel Keshel, Jack Dona
Sheriff Richard Mack: "The Democrat Murder of America"
Sheriff Richard Mack, founder and president of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, returned to the show to discuss his new book, The Democrat Murder of America, co-written with Daniel Perkins. The collaboration began almost by accident: Perkins, a podcast acquaintance who had never heard of Mack's landmark Supreme Court case before they met, became fascinated by the story of a sheriff who sued the federal government and won. "It's one of the most remarkable Supreme Court cases in the history of our country," Mack said. "It's the only time in the 250 years of American history where a sheriff sued the federal government, took it all the way to the Supreme Court, and won." Perkins approached Mack about writing a book together with a specific goal in mind: "I want to have an impact on the 2026 midterms," Mack recalled him saying. "I'm really scared as to what might happen. And I want to tell the truth about the Democrat Party."
The title itself was a point of creative tension. Mack's editor, Kelly Ben Sharer — a Tucson-area resident, as it happens — initially leaned toward something softer. Mack overruled that instinct. "Milk toast isn't going to work right now for our country," he said. "It's not going to get anybody's attention." The result is deliberately provocative: a cover depicting an exploding background, a knife-wielding Democrat donkey in a patriotic hat stabbing the Statue of Liberty in the back, and the subtitle "Demagoguery in the First Degree." Mack defined the term for listeners unfamiliar with it: "Demagoguery is a politician doing and saying whatever he has to do to play on people's fears and emotions." He argued that the rhetoric coming out of the Democratic Party has directly contributed to violence, including, he believes, attempts on President Trump's life — a point that connected directly to the foiled drone-and-sniper plot targeting last week's UFC event in Washington, D.C.
Despite the deliberately incendiary packaging, Mack was careful to draw a distinction between the party's current direction and the rank-and-file Democrats he knows personally. "I know you have Democrats who listen to your show," he told Winn. "There's good Democrats in Tucson and in Arizona and in this country. But the party's been hijacked. And some of them have been brainwashed." His pitch to any Democrat willing to listen: read the book's three-and-a-half-page epilogue first. It tells the story of a self-described staunch socialist progressive Democrat legislator in California who broke with her own party, joined Republicans to pass child-protection legislation unanimously, and publicly rebuked her colleagues. "She shook her finger at the Democrat Party and said, I can't believe that you've been allowing pedophiles to buy and sell children and you're protecting them," Mack said. The bill passed unanimously — but only after she quit her party affiliation to make it happen.
Mack also addressed his own designation by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of the nation's top 40 domestic terrorists, a label he finds darkly ironic given his record. "In 20 years of law enforcement, I never beat anybody up. I never slugged anybody, never hit anybody with a nightstick, mace, shot — never committed an act of violence," he said. "And yet the Southern Poverty Law Center has me on their top 40 American domestic terrorists." He said he has been trying, without success, to reach the Department of Justice to testify against the organization, which he accused of using his name as a fundraising tool. "I told their reporter, this is why you're coming after me — so you can get more donations. How dare you use me like that and lie about me."
He closed by citing one of the book's central arguments: that the Democratic Party's "only authentic achievement" in recent years has been "a new level of degeneracy," and by citing an example from Bangor, Maine, where a woman convicted of fatally choking a man with sand later served a prison sentence, was released, and was subsequently elected to city council. Mack's broader appeal was for unity through curiosity rather than dismissal. "All I'm asking is that you be curious about whether this could be true," he said, while clarifying that the corruption he describes runs across party lines, not just within Democratic politics. The Democrat Murder of America is available at MurderOfAmerica.com as an e-book or paperback, with an audiobook version following shortly.
Representative Rachel Keshel: A Record Legislative Session and a District Democrats Want Badly
State Representative Rachel Keshel, who serves Legislative District 17, joined the show to recap what she described as an unusually combative final stretch of the legislative session. LD17, she noted, is the most heavily targeted Republican-held district in the state from the Democrats' perspective — she said the opposing party is threatening to spend $4.5 million against the seat, even as her own campaign remains funded almost entirely through small grassroots donations totaling around $120,000 so far.
The session's final 24 to 36 hours, by her account, were unlike anything she'd experienced. The chamber ran from 9:30 a.m. Friday to nearly 5 a.m. Saturday. "I have never seen a more massive Democrat temper tantrum than I saw on the floor that night," Keshel said. "They were completely losing control — no decorum, dropping F-bombs in their floor speeches." She framed the outburst as a reaction to Republicans finally operating as a unified bloc on election integrity legislation that had previously been vetoed under Governor Katie Hobbs.
Two pieces of legislation stood out to her. The first was what she called the Arizona Secure Elections Act — modeled on Florida's voter-list-maintenance approach and informally dubbed the "Save Act." Keshel credited State Senator Alex Kolodin with pushing the bill through after it died in committee the previous session, an effort she said was actively undermined at the time by then-Senate staffer Gina Swoboda. "That is a straight-up fact," she said. The bill addresses what Keshel called an absurdity in current Arizona law — ballots counted for ten to fourteen days after election day — explicitly aiming to avoid what she described as California's drawn-out counting process while adopting Florida's faster model.
The second was full state tax conformity with the federal "big, beautiful bill," which Keshel voted for specifically because of its no-tax-on-tips and no-tax-on-Social-Security provisions. "For the first time in forever, I voted yes on all of the budgets that went up," she said, noting that Arizona was the first state to adopt full conformity and that Governor Hobbs ultimately signed it after Republicans forced the issue. Keshel and Winn both noted Hobbs' veto count now exceeds 450 — making the tax conformity signature a rare exception. "She's finally found a nut," Keshel said. "It's like a blind squirrel."
On her own seat, Keshel addressed both the political map and the personal stakes. She has no primary opponent this cycle and is running alongside John Winchester for LD17's two House seats, while a Democrat is also fielding two candidates — a strategy she said worked against Republicans previously when a single-shot strategy by a Democrat candidate took a seat in a district that doesn't lean that way. She pointed to Republicans now running their own single-shot strategies in LD9 and LD12, two districts she described as more competitive than commonly assumed.
Keshel was candid about generational shifts she's observing, particularly the radicalization of younger candidates on the left who grew up steeped in school-system messaging favorable to socialism. But she also sees a countervailing trend among young men, including young Hispanic and Black men, whom she described as swinging back toward conservative positions after watching the left "take it too far." She drew a sharp contrast between her current seatmate, Kevin Volk, and herself — describing him as a follower rather than a leader within his own party, someone whose voting record contradicts his self-presentation as a moderate, and whose claimed residency in the district she disputed outright. "I'll call BS on that," she said, adding that mainstream media fact-checking efforts aimed at her own residency had simply confirmed she lives exactly where she says she does.
Keshel closed by promoting a June 28th event at the 49ers Club supporting fellow candidate Anthony Dunham, a veteran, former law enforcement officer, and chaplain whom she described as facing unfair character attacks. She and her husband, Seth Keshel — author of a recently released book on American elections and election integrity that President Trump personally presented at an event in Florida — plan to attend in support. She directed listeners interested in donating to her own campaign to KeshelForArizona.com or DonateToRachel.com.
Retired Master Sergeant Jack Dona: Disabled Veterans, Election Manuals, and the Attorney General's Race
Retired Master Sergeant Jack Dona, based in Cochise County, joined the show for an extended conversation spanning veterans' tax issues, the Arizona Attorney General's race, and ongoing election-law litigation. On the veterans' tax front, Dona reported that a bill addressing a loophole created by a recent law — one that several county attorneys, including Maricopa, Pinal, and Cochise, have used to argue that disabled veterans' full exemption status doesn't apply under older statutory pay-adjustment requirements — failed to clear the House Ways and Means Committee in time for a floor vote this session. The options now: revisit the issue next session and potentially apply it retroactively, or leave disabled veterans facing what Dona called an avoidable tax burden caused by bureaucratic inertia. He singled out Cochise County Attorney Lori Zucco's own public letter on the issue, which he said characterized the dispute candidly as being about revenue rather than veterans' welfare. "It's about money," Dona said, contrasting that motive with the sacrifice made by the disabled veterans the law was meant to protect.
Dona was sharply critical of Attorney General Chris Mays's failure to weigh in. He noted that previous attorneys general — citing Mark Brnovich, Doug Ducey-era officials, and Tom Horne — have historically issued legal opinions directing county attorneys on how to interpret ambiguous statutes, with counties typically following the AG's guidance. Mayes, he said, never issued any such clarification on the veterans' tax dispute, leaving counties to interpret the law independently and, in his view, punitively. "We have too many damn attorneys in too many of these elected and appointed positions who have never worn the uniform," Dona said, "have never spent even fifteen minutes inside the halls of the VA hospital."
The conversation turned to a broader indictment of Mayes's tenure, particularly her record of litigation against the Trump administration — Dona and Winn cited a figure of 42 lawsuits against the president — and her continued pursuit of the so-called fake electors case, including an active case against Tom Crosby that Dona said was still proceeding in court even as they spoke. Dona framed the electors litigation as a three-pronged "lawfare" strategy: deter future participation through fear, financially exhaust defendants through prolonged litigation, and pressure at least one defendant into flipping and testifying against co-defendants and former President Trump. "This is right out of the Marc Elias lawfare playbook," he said.
On the Republican primary to challenge Mayes, Dona was adamant that voters set aside personal loyalty to either candidate — Warren Peterson or Rodney Glassman — and focus strictly on qualifications. He noted that an opinion piece published in the Arizona Capitol Times by attorney Adam Trenk, a member of the Rose Law Group and former vice mayor of Cave Creek, argued that Peterson does not meet the five-year legal-practice requirement — in place since the 1970s — for assuming the Attorney General's office. Dona reported that the Peterson campaign responded by filing a bar complaint against Trenk over the article. "Your First Amendment be damned," Dona said, characterizing the move as part of a broader pattern of using bar complaints and reputational threats against attorneys who represented figures like Mark Finchem and Tom Crosby, including the case of attorney Dennis McCauley, who Dona said was effectively forced into retirement. "The process is the punishment," he said, calling the Arizona State Bar overdue for structural reform given what he described as its disproportionate targeting of conservative attorneys.
Winn, who worked in the Attorney General's office for four years, offered her own framework for evaluating the race: take personalities out of the equation entirely and focus on who can actually win and competently execute the job — prosecuting real corruption and fraud rather than pursuing politically motivated litigation. She noted Mayes has not pursued legal action against fellow Democrats, including Governor Hobbs, despite ample opportunity, attributing the pattern to ideological alignment rather than personal friendship between the two officials. "They march lockstep," Winn said, paraphrasing a frequent Trump observation about Democratic unity even amid personal friction.
The conversation also touched on an ongoing federal lawsuit — the same one referenced by Sheriff Mack earlier in the show — challenging eight provisions in Arizona's Elections Procedures Manual, brought against Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and Attorney General Mays. Dona connected the case to a broader argument that three statewide offices — governor, secretary of state, and attorney general — were specifically targeted by Democratic strategists around 2017 and 2018 because controlling those three positions gave them effective control over the mechanics of the state's election system. He cited Pima County's historic lack of partisan observers as one consequence, a problem he said took four years of litigation to begin correcting, with roughly 800 observer slots now open to be filled. He noted the case is being litigated by the Oversight Project, a national organization based in Washington, D.C., specifically in Pima County — "because we have conceded land," in his words, rather than in Maricopa County, despite Maricopa's own well-documented election controversies.
On a lighter but emotionally resonant note, Dona and Winn discussed a Marine Medal of Honor ceremony from the previous day, in which a major's commanding officer had completed the necessary paperwork before being killed in action, leaving the recommendation unsubmitted for years until the major's family and surviving fellow servicemembers fought to see it finally recognized. "I cried," Dona admitted. "I had little tears." He used the moment to pivot back to his broader frustration about disabled veterans' tax treatment, contrasting the country's willingness to recognize military sacrifice symbolically with what he sees as bureaucratic stinginess in following through materially.
Dona closed by flagging an unusual political dynamic in Cochise County, where a Republican-majority board of supervisors — four Republicans and one Democrat — has nonetheless aligned against the elected Republican county recorder in a dispute Dona described as deliberately tying up election preparations in court ahead of the midterms. "I've never seen an election cycle where there's so many mismatched alliances," he said, characterizing the underlying motive as continued protection of irregularities tied back to the 2020 election cycle.
The Attorney General's Race: Trump's Endorsement, Qualifications, and Two Imperfect Candidates
In the show's closing segment, Winn — speaking in her capacity as chairman of the Pima County Republican Party — worked through the muddled question of presidential involvement in the Arizona Attorney General primary. She clarified that President Trump has not formally endorsed Warren Peterson, despite campaign messaging suggesting otherwise; what actually happened was a shout-out acknowledging Peterson's role as Senate president during a presidential visit, which Peterson's campaign has since presented in advertising as an endorsement. On the other side, Trump retweeted a post from Sunny Borrelli — a retired Marine, former Arizona state senator, and current Mohave County supervisor, and a personal friend of both Trump and Winn — endorsing Rodney Glassman, generating what Winn estimated at several million views. "It's not the same if Donald himself endorses you," she said, treating both campaigns' characterizations with equal skepticism.
On substance, Winn laid out the candidates' professional records side by side. Glassman has served 17 years in the military, including as a JAG officer, judge, and prosecutor, alongside roughly two decades as a practicing attorney and law firm member. Peterson obtained his law license in December 2023 — 28 months prior to the broadcast — and has never litigated a civil, misdemeanor, or felony case, nor represented a client in court. Winn was careful to note that a legal challenge to Peterson's eligibility, based on Arizona's five-year practice requirement for the office, has already been raised and dismissed once on unrelated procedural grounds, leaving the underlying question of his eligibility untested. "If we are delusional and think that Chris Mays — who has sued the president 42 times for frivolous nonsense — won't sue her opponent, we're idiots," Winn said, announcing that she has invited Peterson on the show the following week specifically to address the eligibility question directly.
Winn was emphatic that voters approach the race as a qualifications contest rather than a popularity contest, invoking Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's litigation record as a model for how the office should function: aggressive, but grounded in legitimate legal standing rather than political theater. "You have to be willing to have the legal background to step into the fray," she said, "and you have to be able to use the law as it was intended and not as a political weapon."
She extended the same qualifications-first framework to two other statewide races. In the Secretary of State contest, she endorsed Alex Kolodin over Gina Swoboda, citing his record of litigation against Fontes predating his own candidacy and a personal phone call he made to her regarding a stolen valor bill — a gesture she said reflected genuine character even though Kolodin ultimately voted against the bill on the grounds that it had been weakened in the legislative process. She contrasted that directness with what she described as Swoboda's record of actively undermining Republican election-integrity efforts in Pima County during her tenure as state party chair. "Genuinely Swoboda has tried to hurt Pima County," Winn said, "and it is why a national organization is standing up — because we were done in by our own state chairman."
Winn closed the show, and the week, with a broader appeal that ran through nearly every segment: evaluate candidates on policy and record, not character attacks or rumor. "If someone is doing something covert, lying about someone, disparaging their record — then either run on what you're great at and why you're the best choice, or disparage your opponent. But if you're doing that, you're not a leader. You're a liar."