Dave and Betsy Smith: A Week After the Wave, the Republican Party Needs to Fight Back
With Kathleen Winn out for the day, retired law enforcement trainers Dave Smith and Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith (Ret.), spokesperson for the National Police Association, spent Tuesday morning in the studio, with Remy, the show's Republican dog, underfoot. A week after what they had expected to be a red wave and what turned out, in Dave's words, to be "a blue tsunami," the couple used the morning to take stock. Their conclusion: Arizona Democrats have told voters exactly what they plan to do, and Republicans have to start acting like a party that wants to win.
What Arizona Democrats Say They'll Do
Dave Smith said the "affordability" message that carried Democrats to victory has already disappeared from their talking points. In its place, he said, are three priorities that Arizona Democrats are now stating openly: gun control, an end to school choice and Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, and what he called decarceration. "Anytime you hear data from a Democrat, look to see what the Republicans are saying about it," he said.
On guns, Betsy Smith said Arizona's constitutional carry law is the target. Dave said Democrats will frame the push as safety and suicide prevention, not confiscation, and that more than half of firearm deaths are suicides, a statistic he said gets used to justify restrictions that make lawful ownership harder. Betsy said the day after the election, Democratic House Assistant Minority Leader Nancy Gutierrez told the Arizona Mirror that Democrats intend to prioritize what she called gun safety legislation, along with affordability and reproductive health care protections.
Betsy also pointed to Joanna Mendoza, the Democrat who ran against Congressman Juan Ciscomani in Congressional District 6. Voters were told Mendoza was a moderate Marine veteran, Betsy said, but she has spent the last four years working with Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety, which Betsy called extreme anti-gun groups. The hosts added that the Giffords organization is part of the same push in Arizona. "If you voted for her thinking she was just a moderate veteran who'd help things be more affordable, nope," Betsy said.
Decarceration and a Fallen Officer
The Smiths' second subject was the case against releasing offenders early. Betsy traced the movement to Cori Bush's 2014-15 calls to close jails and said it gained force after George Floyd's death in 2020. "What Democrats want is really no punishment for criminals," she said. In their view, prosecutors in Democratic jurisdictions, including Pima County, treat criminals as victims of circumstance and put the offender ahead of the crime victim, a pattern she said Republicans will need to reverse when the county attorney's seat is next on the ballot in two years.
Betsy offered the Lakewood, Colorado, shooting as her example. Police Agent Nicholas Graham, a young husband and father, was killed on November 5 and three other officers were wounded when the suspect, Gabriel Garcia, opened fire on them aboard a transit bus. Betsy said Garcia had a 20-year criminal history, including a guilty plea for attempting to strangle a county deputy, and had been released to parole on September 23, despite repeated parole violations. "Most people don't commit crime," she said. "If we properly incarcerate them, then the rest of us are going to be safe."
Dave said he sides with what criminologists call rational choice theory. People choose to commit crimes and punishment deters them, he said. He traced the opposing view to social conflict theory, which he called a Marxist idea that blames crime on class and racism. In his telling, the push to release offenders began in the 1960s, crime peaked in 1991, and the 1994 crime bill reversed it. "Incarceration is meant to be punishment," he said. "Punishment diminishes a behavior. Reward a behavior, you enhance it."
Hegseth, the Military and Veterans Day
The Smiths turned from crime to national defense after hearing that Rep. Thomas Massie had reintroduced articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, on the grounds that the war in Iran has run for 256 days without congressional authorization. Dave called the timing "tone-deaf" a week after a defeat and defended Hegseth. He said the secretary has ended DEI programs in the military and restored what he called the warrior ethos, and cited the case of a 2023 Naval Academy graduate who told them in a San Diego bar how demoralizing the earlier approach had been. Betsy said all active-duty branches have met or exceeded their 2025 recruiting goals, averaging 103 percent. Dave, who spent a year and a half at the Naval Academy before being injured, said the people who led the military's decline had all been command trained.
They said they expect the war with Iran to be over before the new Congress is seated in January, and that Democrats, including Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, who the hosts said had posted a video cheering the impeachment effort, will treat the issue as a priority. The Smiths also marked the Marine Corps' 251st birthday and thanked veterans a day ahead of Veterans Day. Dave's father served as a Navy corpsman with the Marines in Korea, and both hosts said they grew up in military families.
The Fight Over the Party
Much of the morning was devoted to a pointed critique of Republican leadership, especially Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Dave said Thune did "more to stymie Republican votes or to create new independents than any man I know," that he blocked recess appointments by using pro forma sessions, and that he failed to pass the SAVE Act. He said that if Thune is chosen as minority leader, "I will have to rethink everything." Betsy agreed that the leadership is comfortable in the minority. "They're more comfortable being the leader in the minority so they can go to the microphone on Fox News at five o'clock and talk about how we're fighting the left," she said.
Dave also criticized House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, whom he said talks tough and does nothing. Both pointed to a post by Arizona Congressman Abe Hamadeh saying the House had passed nearly 700 America First bills that the Senate let sit. The Smiths said Republicans have until January to move whatever they can. A caller named Donna agreed, saying senators should ask what Thune accomplished as majority leader before making him minority leader. Betsy's answer was blunter. "I think he wants to make sure that not just President Trump is destroyed, but that MAGA is destroyed," she said.
Betsy said the party also has a problem closer to home, a faction in Southern Arizona she described as more interested in a small amount of power than in conservative principles. "We need to continue to root out that corruption in our own party," she said. Dave said the party should return to its constitutional roots and to Goldwater, and that Republicans should stop attacking each other. "Don't shoot each other," he said, "and start fresh."
Using the Boycott
The Smiths were pleased to report one concrete win. Betsy said that after the election, a progressive podcaster named Jennifer Welch, host of I've Had It, laughed with her co-host about a joke involving digging up Charlie Kirk's body. Conservatives responded by writing to the show's advertisers, and Betsy said more than 20 sponsors, including Cash App, have since left. She estimated the lost revenue at up to $8 million. "Conservatives are learning that when we speak up, there's a lot of power in your dollar," she said, citing Bud Light as an earlier example. Dave said he has heard for years that Republicans do not boycott. "I like being thought of as a gentleman," he said, "but I don't like to lose all the time either."
Media, AM Radio and the Information War
Dave said the larger problem is that conservatives lack a media machine to match the left's, and urged listeners to support conservative print and broadcast outlets. He and Betsy noted that Newsmax has acquired a pair of Miami AM stations, and that AM radio remains a stronghold for conservative voices. Betsy recalled that car makers floated dropping AM radios from vehicles a few years ago, and said outrage ultimately kept them in. Dave urged listeners to teach themselves to recognize propaganda and to use free AI tools while telling them what perspective they want, since he believes they lean left by default.
Why Tucson Is Failing
The Smiths said Tucson shows what a Democratic-run government looks like. Dave argued that the party now selects activists over managers, and that Tucson is one of the worst-led cities in America. He said the police department lacks the staff to answer 911 calls quickly, much less enforce traffic laws, and he blamed the city's broken parking meters, which still generate tickets, for hurting Fourth Avenue businesses. Betsy said that on the way to the studio they heard a homeless man screaming in a public green space a half block away. "These aren't parks anymore," she said. "They're campgrounds."
They credited Supervisor Steve Christy as the lone Republican voice on the Board of Supervisors, and said he needs allies. Dave said Tucson will head toward New York's path if rent controls, regulation and bureaucracy grow. He quoted Thomas Sowell's idea of "the anointed," people who believe they know how everyone else should live, and argued that Democrats want to regulate vehicles, homeschooling and other personal choices. Betsy defended the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, noting that she and Dave pay property taxes into a school system they do not use and that school choice does not remove funding from public schools. Arizona, she said, lags even Mississippi in education outcomes.
Abortion and the Personhood Question
On abortion, Dave argued that Arizona now has some of the least restricted abortion law in the country, and that the ballot measure that created it succeeded because voters were told it would apply only until viability. He said he would like to see a personhood case reach the Supreme Court, because a ruling that an unborn child is a person would bring the child under the Fourteenth Amendment's due process protections. "That's what Roe v. Wade was afraid of," he said. Betsy said the party should stop being "supine" and choose fighters. "I want swashbucklers," Dave said.
A Closing Call to Fight
The morning closed with both hosts encouraging listeners to stay informed and engaged. Dave said the Second Amendment's operative clause, the right of the people, is what matters, and pointed to Heller. He said Christianity, along with Plato and Aristotle, is part of the root of American freedom and should be defended. He also urged listeners who voted for Democrats on the strength of their affordability pitch to hold them to it. "You might be waking up this morning and finding out they lied to you," he said. Betsy added that Kathleen Winn would return Wednesday for China Watch, and that Kathleen, a Marine's daughter, will have plenty to say about Veterans Day.