Guests - Betsy Smith, Jerry Sheridan, Micheal Letts, Charles Heller
The Sheriff Who Does the Job Right, the Vests That Keep Officers Alive, and a Declaration Worth Reading Aloud
The Friday before a full election season launched on Winn Tucson with a show that had a consistent theme running through every segment: what does it look like when people actually do the job they said they'd do? A sheriff who puts ICE agents in his intake. A nonprofit founder who puts vests on officers who can't afford them. An advocate who is building comic books and charter schools to put more people in uniform. And a man who has spent years gathering his neighbors around a tree at Udall Park to read the Declaration of Independence out loud, because he believes the country's spirit is won and lost one recitation at a time.
Betsy Brantner Smith: A Lawsuit Won, Arizonans on the Road, Spencer Pratt, and the Left Coming for Marana
Betsy Brantner Smith — National Police Association spokeswoman, currently barreling down Interstate 70 in a 38-foot motor home with Dave Smith at the wheel and three rescue dogs in the back — opened the morning with the kind of cross-country political intelligence that only comes from meeting real voters at motor home parks in Iowa, Michigan, and Illinois.
What Arizonans on the Road Are Saying
In the previous few days, Brantner Smith and Dave had met a couple from Minnesota with a home in Scottsdale — heading north for the summer but voting in Arizona — who were frustrated in a way she found representative of the broader sentiment she was encountering.
"They moved to Arizona thinking they'd have lower taxes and free and fair elections and things like that. And yet we're dealing with the likes of Chris Mays and Katie Hobbs."
The frustration was not hypothetical. It was financial, practical, and personal. And it was compounded by what the couple described as recycled character attacks against good candidates. Brantner Smith's counsel was consistent: caution when evaluating attacks. AI can generate believable content. Ten-year-old screenshots from unverified accounts are not journalism. Meet candidates in person.
The Pima County Lawsuit Closed
Winn recapped the news she had broken the previous day: the lawsuit filed against her by LD-19's chair — attempting to prevent LD-19 Pima from having representation on the Pima County Republican Party Executive Committee — had been dismissed by Pima County Superior Court Judge Kyle Bryson, who found the court lacked jurisdiction over internal party organizational matters.
Brantner Smith gave the straightforward summary: "You allowed an incredibly active group of precinct committeemen in LD-19 — a lot of it's Green Valley, just some phenomenal people — and all they wanted was a voice on the board. And a bunch of people, primarily not from Pima County, decided to stick their nose in, file a lawsuit, and you fought back and won."
The harder thing Winn said that deserved to be said: the man listed as plaintiff was fighting stage four cancer from Texas. She cannot imagine that filing a lawsuit over precinct representation was what he would have chosen in the last months of his life — which means someone used him as a shield.
"I don't know what kind of person that is. I feel bad for them that their life is so empty that that's what they would do."
The party fought it professionally, won it legally, and is moving on. The chapter is closed.
Spencer Pratt: Raising $2.72 Million While Democrats Implode
In the period from April 19th to May 16th: Karen Bass raised $283,000. The other Democrat on the LA mayoral ballot raised $400,000. Spencer Pratt raised $2.72 million.
"I don't care. That's a poll to me. That's people. And it wasn't Republicans only that gave him money. It was across the board."
The fundraising trajectory tracked precisely with the ideological composition of his support: most of the people voting for Pratt in LA are Democrats. The fact that Dennis Quaid came out in his favor — and that Pratt publicly said he appreciated the celebrity support but would rather be endorsed by the moms stepping over bodies and needles to get their kids to school — captures exactly why he's working.
Karen Bass's history is worth unpacking, Brantner Smith argued. She spent her twenties in Cuba learning resistance techniques. She was involved in the Capitol bombing in the seventies, convicted, and pardoned by Bill Clinton. She is, in Brantner Smith's words, an actual convicted insurrectionist who became mayor of Los Angeles and let it burn down.
If Pratt clears 50% in Tuesday's vote, he becomes mayor outright. If he doesn't, there's a runoff. With two Democrats splitting the opposition vote, his path gets cleaner every week.
The local parallel was drawn explicitly: everything happening in LA is happening in Tucson. Mark Griffith running for Tucson mayor — owner of Griffith Automotive, a man Betsy and Dave Smith have known for years — is the same model. A successful, ethical business owner with no political experience who knows exactly what is broken and exactly who has been breaking it.
"Don't you want a guy who runs an ethical, successful business running your city as an ethical, successful government?"
The Left Is Coming for Marana
A warning to anyone who thought Marana was too conservative to be targeted: three far-left women — all outsiders who have since moved to Marana — are running for town council. They are personally attacking Mayor John Post, who is a nonpartisan lifelong Marana farmer who has managed the city's growth responsibly. They have outside money behind them.
"What happens in Tucson affects all of us. It's like COVID — it's spreading. And the vaccine for that is voting."
An event at the Bridge Christian Church — details to be confirmed in the following week — will give Marana residents the opportunity to meet their town council and their mayor before these races are decided.
Sheriff Jerry Sheridan: Two Sheriffs in Arizona Who Don't Communicate, ICE Integration, and Rachel Mitchell
Jerry Sheridan, Maricopa County Sheriff, called in directly — in the middle of his own annual awards ceremony the previous evening, during which he was informed he'd been mentioned (unfavorably) in the attorney general debate, despite not being a candidate in any race.
The Attack That Revealed the Desperation
Sheridan's endorsement of Rodney Glassman for Arizona Attorney General was apparently enough to prompt the Peterson campaign to go after him personally at the debate.
The charge was that Sheridan had endorsed Glassman because of money Glassman had previously raised for Sheridan's own campaign.
"To say that I endorsed Rodney because of $400,000 — that's crap."
The actual story: Sheridan and Glassman have been friends for 15 years. When Sheridan was preparing for his own campaign and struggling with the fundraising side of it, Glassman sat with him, taught him how to make the calls, and connected him with his own fundraiser. One friend helped another.
"Rodney and I are friends. We've traveled different places in the country with our wives. I've gone to his daughter's events."
His read on why the attack was made at all: when the only thing you have is personal attacks on the other side's endorsers, you don't have a campaign.
The Arizona Sheriffs Association Has 13, Not 15
Sheridan delivered a piece of information that deserves to be heard clearly. Arizona has 15 counties. The Arizona Sheriffs Association has 13 members.
"There are two sheriffs down south that do not communicate with us. Don't do business with us. Don't attend any of the meetings."
One of those is the Pima County Sheriff, Chris Nanos. The Cochise County Sheriff, Mark Daniels, reached out directly to Nanos when Nancy Guthrie disappeared — offering help, on the theory that she might have been taken across the border. The offer went unacknowledged.
The Maricopa Model: ICE in Intake
Sheridan explained the operational structure he has built in Maricopa County that he believes every county in America should replicate.
When someone is booked into the Maricopa County jail — by any of the 30-plus law enforcement agencies that use the facility — the sequence is: search, then nurse evaluation, then ICE agent.
"The third person they see is an ICE agent. An ICE agent will check their computers and see if they are in the country legally or not. And if they're not, they put a detainer on them."
That detainer means that when the person completes their sentence and the county would otherwise release them — they go to ICE instead.
"I think if every agency in this country and there's over 3,000 of them did that, our communities would be a lot safer. You wouldn't have all the shenanigans that went on in Minnesota and LA and New York."
Rachel Mitchell: The Prosecutor Who Actually Prosecutes
Sheridan spoke warmly about his working relationship with Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell — framing it as the model for how a law enforcement partnership should function.
When Sheridan described older population fraud cases — complex, hard to prosecute — Mitchell assigned dedicated attorneys to work with his detectives on exactly those cases. For animal cruelty, she assigned three deputy county attorneys specifically to support the sheriff's investigators.
"I just love working with Rachel."
He confirmed that the animal cruelty work — which Brantner Smith noted has been epic — is active prosecution, not just investigation. With Tucson heading into extreme heat, his concern about animals in those conditions is not performative.
Sheridan's closing summary for Pima County listeners: a county can choose whether or not to engage with federal law enforcement partners, but choosing not to comes at a direct cost to public safety that the residents — not the supervisors — pay.
Michael Letts: Ghost Detainees, a Vest for Every Officer, a Comic Book for Every Kid, and Pennies in a Barrel
Michael Letts — founder, president, and CEO of InVest USA, the national grassroots nonprofit that provides active shooter bulletproof vests to law enforcement agencies that can't afford them — joined with a briefing from the weekend just prior, an announcement of a new initiative, and a prescription for what ails American law enforcement that went far deeper than funding.
150 Ghosts in Rural Florida — In One Day
During a multi-agency ICE operation in five rural Florida counties, more than 150 of the people encountered had no documentation and could not be traced to any immigration record. They were, in official terminology, ghosts — people who entered the country entirely outside any tracking system.
"If I've got that many of them there — and Florida is known as a red state with strong law enforcement — think about how many are in New York, LA, Chicago, Detroit."
He connected the ghost problem to the geopolitical situation: with Iran under sustained pressure, with Russia-China tensions running high, and with the known presence of foreign intelligence assets in the United States, the population of untracked individuals represents a potential activation network that is unquantified and essentially unmonitorable.
"If I'm Iran and I'm trying to stay relevant right now — I would activate those people that are in our country. That's the thing that keeps me up at night."
His practical instruction: when people say they're opposed to ICE, they need to understand who actually operates alongside ICE.
"ICE always brings in either state or local law enforcement to assist in their operations. Why? Because I may be going in after you and find out you just robbed a bank — that's local jurisdiction, not federal. So we have to make sure we have people there that can handle any other crimes that may have been committed."
When states and cities pass laws refusing to cooperate with ICE, they are by extension refusing to cooperate with all the local and state agencies that partner with ICE. "When you say that you're against ICE, let's be honest — you are against law enforcement, period."
The Disaster Cake: How Bad Law Enforcement Morale Gets Baked
Letts offered a comprehensive, analytical indictment of what has been done to American law enforcement — framed as a recipe.
The base ingredients: highest suicide rate in recorded history. Lowest morale in recorded history. Highest number of line-of-duty deaths in recorded history.
The seasonings: defund the police movement, eliminating equipment funding. Media framing law enforcement as thugs with badges. Salaries so low that officers work second jobs to make ends meet.
"What do we have now? We've got a cake called a disaster. It's called anarchy."
The latest example he was briefed on: a mentally deranged man approached the White House over the weekend, screamed at Secret Service agents that he was going to kill every one of them and the president, and was allowed to walk away.
"I asked, what were you thinking? They said: he didn't actually assault us. He didn't actually go through with the threat. I said: the law doesn't say you have to go through with the threat. It says if you make a threat, that's it."
The consequence of Secret Service agents hesitating to act on an explicit death threat against the president is not a legal technicality. It is the logical downstream product of four years of Derek Chauvin prosecutions and a media environment that treated any use of force by any officer as presumptive evidence of criminal conduct.
"Because elected officials seem to be validating what is happening, they're causing confusion among law enforcement. We are bending over backwards to be accommodating, to be politically correct, to try not to be offensive. And it is causing harm — physical harm — and will cause death to our agents."
The Solutions: Vests, a Graphic Novel, Charter Schools, and Pennies in a Barrel
Letts came with more than a diagnosis. He came with a blueprint.
Vests first. InVest USA provides active shooter vests to agencies that cannot afford them. Every dollar donated goes toward equipping officers who need it.
The graphic novel. Letts announced that InVest USA has just completed a 70-page graphic novel — a comic book, in plain language — featuring three first responders: Michael Stone (law enforcement), Karen Hart (paramedic), and Jimmy Flane (fire). The stories are built around current events that appear in the news. Each page includes a vocabulary section for educational reinforcement. The goal: get it into every classroom in America, particularly as an SRO engagement tool. It will be available on the InVest USA website within days.
First Responder Charter Schools. A template is being developed for charter schools — in every state — dedicated to a first responder pipeline. Students enter by 9th grade. When they graduate, they hold a diploma, a two-year associate degree, and certification in one of three tracks: Class 3 law enforcement officer, certified firefighter, or certified paramedic. They can walk across the graduation stage and directly into a career.
Volunteer programs. Every fire department, every law enforcement agency, and every state has either a militia, a sheriff's posse, or a police reserve program. Letts's call: flood these programs with American adults willing to volunteer a few hours a month. The downstream effect on crime rates, community trust, and national pride would be dramatic.
Bless the Best. InVest USA is asking every house of worship in America to adopt an officer. Bring the officer into the congregation. Present a vest. Pray with it. Tell the officer: we can protect you physically. If you ever need anything spiritually, the door is open. "You'll help change the direction of morale."
Pennies for Police. Ask every school child to bring change from home — no bills, just coins — to a school assembly. Dump it all in a barrel. Count it. InVest USA makes up the difference and presents a vest at a school assembly, with the children themselves presenting the vest to their school resource officer.
"Guess what? Now they have ownership. That's their officer. Don't mess with their officer."
He ended with the same line he has used before — and it carries the same weight every time.
"The cavalry is on the way. America believes in you."
investusa.org (capital I, capital V in InVest)
Charles Heller: Udall Park, the Tree of Liberty, and Chanting the Declaration Into the Fourth of July
Charles Heller is a Tucson radio veteran, Second Amendment advocate, and the man responsible for gathering his neighbors at Udall Park every July 4th to read the Declaration of Independence out loud. It is, in his framing, not ceremony. It is warfare.
Why Reading the Declaration Aloud Matters
Heller has been organizing the annual reading for years. The format: the Declaration is broken into 27 parts, and voices from different places in the crowd read different sections. Not one person at a podium — many voices from many directions. At the end, everyone reads together the commitment to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
"I just cannot think of anything that better unites a body politic together than reaffirming the principles of the declaration upon which the Constitution was based."
He made the case for why, this particular year, this particular exercise matters more than it has in a long time.
"America was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the notion that we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights. So the question is: how do we keep them? How do we preserve liberty and peace?"
His answer is not legislation, not litigation, and not social media. It is the act of saying the words — out loud, in company, with your voice joined to other voices — until they are not just remembered but felt.
"The way people make war against us is not through physical attrition. That's too expensive. What's cheap and easy is to ruin our spirit. You cannot ruin the spirit of somebody who is reciting, more or less at the top of their voice, that they're pledging their life, their fortune, and their sacred honor to this endeavor we call America."
This is, as he put it, warfare without the guns. And for a man with a well-documented passion for the right to keep and bear arms, the point carries weight: the goal is to never need them. The way to not need them is to remain so clear, so steady, and so publicly committed to what this country is that no adversary — foreign or domestic — believes that eroding it is possible.
"You stay so strong in your course about what you want — not only for you, but for your progeny — that you're willing to take a little bit of time, a little bit of energy, and drive across town to join together with your voice in chorus with other people to chant the principles of our country in unison with other patriots."
The Personal Connection
Winn noted what she has mentioned before: her husband Al Winn descends from James Wilson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. She sees Wilson's name on her copy every year. Her husband writes "Albert Wynn" next to it. The W's look the same.
"Every family has a connection to when they came to this country. It may not have been at the founding, but we all have a responsibility as citizens to uphold the foundation that was laid at the beginning of this country."
Heller is also reaching out nationally — to multiple media outlets — to see if the July 4th Declaration reading can be replicated in communities across the country, not just in Tucson.
Event Details
Date: July 4th, 2026 Time: 8:30 a.m. Location: Udall Park, 7300 or 7400 East Vancouver Avenue, Tucson — right in front of the Recreation Center. Enter from the main entrance and look for the large tree in the circle. Heller calls it the Tree of Liberty.
Hazelnut coffee will be waiting for early arrivers. Printed copies of the Declaration — 250 of them, in honor of the anniversary — will be available.
As Winn noted on her way out: she has been invited to the White House on June 9th for a civics contest where young students from across the country are presenting what America means to them.
"I'm going so I can be reminded. We get old. We get jaded. We get cynical. These kids still see it clearly."
Heller's closing thought was the one worth keeping:
"You and I need to dip the teabag of liberty into the waters every single time — every single opportunity we get — so that we refresh the drink of tea and we don't have to throw it overboard again."
Winn Tucson airs Monday through Friday, 9 to 11 a.m., on KVOI 1030 The Voice. Starting Monday, June 2nd: candidate interviews begin. Tune in to meet the people asking for your vote.
InVest USA: investusa.org
July 4th Declaration Reading at Udall Park: 8:30 a.m., 7300/7400 East Vancouver Avenue, in front of the Rec Center. Look for the Tree of Liberty.
Sparkle for Freedom Gala — July 4th, 7–10 p.m., JW Marriott Starpass: pimagop.org
Primary voter registration deadline: June 22nd. Primary: July 21st.