Betsy Brantner Smith: A Death-Row Mass Commutation, a Deadly Washington Morning and a Congress That Can't Get to Work
Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith (Ret.), spokesperson for the National Police Association, joined Kathleen Winn by phone from Interstate 10 for the regular Smith & Winn segment. Winn opened with a challenge: pick between California's governor emptying out death row and a shooting that was unfolding as they spoke in Washington, D.C.
Newsom and the 548
Brantner Smith started with Governor Gavin Newsom, who announced last week that he is commuting the death sentences of all 548 inmates on California's death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She called it an end run around California voters, who have repeatedly kept the death penalty on the books. "This is the real fascism," she said, a charge she said Democrats level at Republicans. She noted that the condemned include men who murdered children and entire families, and she said she believes the move is aimed at a presidential run. Winn found the timing revealing. "I am so flabbergasted that at a time when California is such a mess," she said, "this is the thing that he thinks is the most important thing he needs to do as he goes out the door."
The Logan Circle Shooting
While the two women spoke, an attack was unfolding at a Vida Fitness gym in Washington's Logan Circle neighborhood. Brantner Smith, a former hostage negotiator, followed the developing reports on her phone and said it appeared the suspect had been taken into custody. Later reporting showed that one person was killed and four others wounded, and that the suspect died after an hour-long barricade in an apartment above the gym. Authorities have not announced a motive, though some reports said the gunman targeted a building manager. Both women cautioned against guessing. "We don't know," Brantner Smith said, and she noted that the first instinct in the press, as it so often is, was to call for taking guns away. She pointed out that Washington, D.C., has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. "It's illegal to shoot someone, Kathleen," she said.
What Arizona Democrats Will Do With the Trifecta
Brantner Smith said the same pattern would play out in Arizona, now that Democrats hold the governor's office and, she said, both legislative chambers. In her telling, Democrats ran on affordability but have already announced gun control as a top priority, and she pointed to Joanna Mendoza, the Democrat who won Congressional District 6, who she said has spent four years working with gun-control groups despite being a Marine veteran. She said the Giffords organization is helping and that its social media is also hostile to police. Winn said she would not prejudge the new congresswoman and wanted to see how she votes. She voiced more concern about Congressional District 7 and said she worries about two border-district members working with a governor who, in her view, will face few checks. "I don't believe the people voted for crazy," Winn said. "They voted for affordability, and none of this has anything to do with affordability."
Brantner Smith said Democrats are already talking about returning deported immigrants to the U.S. and restoring food-assistance eligibility. Winn said Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva cares only about that issue. "Buckle up," Brantner Smith said.
Hegseth, Absent Democrats and the Senate
The women moved to Washington's agenda. Winn said that in this week's House vote on impeaching Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, about nine to 11 Democrats failed to show up, a development that helped Republicans because it spared them the process. Brantner Smith said she believes most politicians are lazy, but pointed out that Democrats have a long list of officials they want to impeach and will spend two years on investigations and impeachments, which have nothing to do with affordability. She said gas prices have already dropped about a dollar a gallon since the election.
She and Winn were harsher on Republican leadership. Brantner Smith said Senate Majority Leader John Thune could redeem himself in the six weeks left but won't, and that Republicans in Washington are most comfortable as the underdog on Fox News, saying they will fight. She predicted that, absent a change of course, it could be "the death of the Republican Party as we know it." She said that Jim Jordan, who is expected to replace Speaker Mike Johnson, is a good man but that Republicans need someone who produces results and not strongly worded memos. "Thank God for President Trump," she said, "but he's kind of on his own."
Seattle, Education and Homeschooling
Brantner Smith said Washington state is a warning about what happens when officials ignore voters. She said that Washington voters approved restrictions on boys playing on girls' teams and that, in her telling, the Seattle mayor has said the city will not follow the law. She and Winn expect Arizona Democrats to try the same approach with the state's Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, which Winn said more than 120,000 families use. Winn said Arizona ranks 51st in education and that homeschooling is surging, citing Maricopa County School Superintendent Shelley Boggs, who told her the county is expanding support for homeschoolers. "I guarantee you that's one of the first things they're going to try to undo," Winn said of the ESAs.
Kathleen Winn: The Nvidia Question
The morning's other headline was the resignation of Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang after the disclosure of his affair with a woman the press describes as a suspected Chinese spy, followed by reports of a second affair with an employee who reports to him. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO. Winn, who had discussed the story with Ava Chen the day before, said she did not want listeners to dismiss it as a personal matter.
"It's his personal life," she said, describing the argument she keeps hearing, "but when you have a role or a function that you're performing, you have responsibilities and you have certain authorities." The head of the world's most important chipmaker, she said, has a duty to protect information that could end up in the hands of adversaries, and ignorance of who someone is does not excuse the risk. "This isn't about the affair," she said. "It's about his role in a position." She said she hoped the company had a succession plan and that Congress would investigate before the year ends, though she expects the Democrats to decide whether to pursue it. "Who benefits? I think it's pretty obvious," she said. "Right now it's China."
Joel Strabala: The Final Numbers
Joel Strabala, chair of Legislative District 17 and a member of the Pima County Election Integrity Commission, joined Winn to report on the finished count. Winn thanked him for two years of work on the commission, including testing the equipment. "It's great to be back and done with the elections for 2026," Strabala said.
The Totals
Strabala said Pima County finished tabulating Tuesday afternoon with 413,253 votes cast, which the county calls its "Upload 10," the unofficial final results. Of those, 61,827 were in-person votes and 349,242 were early ballots, along with 2,194 provisional ballots that were counted. Roughly 1,000 more provisional ballots were not counted, he said, because the voter did not provide valid ID or was not a valid resident of Pima County at the time of the election.
In LD17, 45,771 Republicans voted, slightly more than 70 percent of the county's registered Republicans, which Strabala said is not something Pima County has done in a midterm before. "You and I can hold our heads up high even though we lost," Winn said. The district carries a 9.1-point Republican advantage and the party still lost it, she noted, which she said points to independent voters. Strabala used the Senate race as a baseline. State Senate candidate Chris King received about 54,000 votes, of which roughly 46,000 came from Republicans, with about 10,000 or 11,000 from independents. He estimated that independents voted for the Democrat at about two to one. He added that many of those independents were once Republicans, and that precinct-level analysis in the coming weeks will provide a clearer picture.
In Congressional District 6, Strabala said that within Pima County, Joanna Mendoza received 157,572 votes to Congressman Juan Ciscomani's 113,068, a difference of about 44,000. Winn said she wanted to compare those totals with the 2024 presidential-year numbers, and noted that no Republicans won a statewide office, which she said had not happened since 1967. She said Republicans lost a seat in LD16, where Teresa Martinez was elected, and that the party holds no seats in LD17. "Color me suspicious, but not psychotic," she said.
Certification
The Board of Supervisors was told Tuesday that tabulation was done but could not certify the results because the canvass, the paperwork and certifications from the recorder and the elections department, had not been submitted, Strabala said. Certification should happen in about two weeks. On Wednesday, the elections department ran a post-election logic and accuracy test, putting about 10,000 ballots through the machines and getting the same results as before the election. Strabala said that shows the software had not changed. "They've done what they can at a service level to make sure that the election software in Pima County and central tabulation was not compromised," he said. He said the party had logged 42 reports on Election Day, most of them printer and e-poll-book problems that were fixed within an hour of the elections department being notified. Winn said she wanted to be clear with skeptical listeners that she had chased every report. Strabala said he is running again for LD17 chair, with the party vote on Saturday.
Staying Effective in the Minority
Asked what the party can do as a minority in Arizona, Strabala said Republicans should monitor legislation closely, since Democrats now hold a trifecta, and noted that what Democrats are focusing on has nothing to do with affordability, the issue they ran on. Winn said gas prices have dropped since the election and that some cabinet members are now living on military bases. Strabala said the left's rhetoric toward elected and appointed leaders is dangerous and should stop. He said the parole and pardon systems are broken, and that officials who release a person early should be held accountable for what that person does afterward. Winn, who has been arguing the same case about Newsom, agreed. "When we normalize crime and we show hatred toward those who have a certain set of principles, to me, that is messed up," she said. Winn closed the segment by congratulating Strabala on his daughter's recent wedding.
Steve Mundt: Nvidia, the Commerce Department and the Cost of Casual Security
Retired Brigadier General Steven D. Mundt, who spent his career in Army aviation and the Pentagon and now lives in Virginia, joined Winn for the second hour to discuss what the Nvidia scandal means for national security.
Why the Huang Resignation Matters
Mundt said the affair was only the surface of a larger story. When the board learned of the second affair, he said, "all of a sudden, magically, they get concerned." But the real issue, he said, is what the company's chips ended up doing. Winn read reporting from Reuters that China's Northwest Polytechnical University, which has deep ties to the Chinese military and is on a U.S. blacklist, was able to buy Nvidia's H200 chips last month, and rented more at a banned data center in Southeast Asia. She read a Bloomberg report that Moonshot, one of China's most advanced AI companies, has also been renting and buying the company's most advanced chips despite the administration's ban. "You wonder how they were able to close the gap the way they did," Mundt said. "They stole our technology."
Mundt said Huang's claim that he did not know the woman was a spy is not a defense. He noted that others reportedly knew and warned him. "You have a man who is absolutely brilliant in this part of the world," he said, "and he got himself into a situation where the CCP does not want us to survive."
The Commerce Department
The part Mundt said troubles him most is what happened in Washington. Winn read a CNN report that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent challenged Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in a Situation Room confrontation last week over his department's reluctance to designate an Nvidia customer called Megaspeed as a possible national security threat. Mundt said the president had told Lutnick more than once to shut off the flow, and that Lutnick's department kept saying it would look into it. "This needs to be truly investigated," Mundt said, and he argued that the president should do more than replace him. He said it matters that the chips are used in military systems and homeland defense. He said Lutnick and his deputy, whom he said also resisted, will need to answer for the results.
Mundt and Winn also discussed the president's reaction. Mundt said Trump made a misstep by saying he likes Huang and by accepting that he did not know. "This isn't about a casual affair," he said. "It's about getting in bed literally and figuratively with somebody who is taking your intellectual property and giving it to the enemy." He said that a defense industry background taught him that the lines between business and government are real and strict. Winn, whose husband worked for years in aerospace, agreed. "We've gotten so casual and careless," Mundt said.
Security Concerns in Washington
Mundt said Bessent has moved from his Georgetown home to a military base after a news photo revealed its location and after intelligence about Iranian threats. He noted that the secretary of war, the secretary of state and others have taken similar steps. He pointed out that the Chinese government is supporting Iran. Winn said that five members of the cabinet are living on military bases, which she said was troubling by itself.
Wiles, Lobbyists and the Swamp
The two also discussed the departure of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who left on Friday and was replaced by deputy Stephen Miller. Mundt said the party lost the midterms and that the president has a problem because he said he'd drain the swamp, and the swamp includes the lobbying firms that dominate Washington. "It's become part of the fabric of Washington, D.C.," he said, and he called a congressman who goes in with $100,000 and comes out with $20 million absurd. He said there is a coming round of Democratic investigations and that Republicans should ask, each time, how it affects affordability.
The Party and Its Leaders
Mundt said that with five or six weeks left, Thune could do something responsible but that he has no hope, and that he had been disappointed by Thune telling colleagues he was right and that everything was perfect. He said Speaker Johnson stepped down respectfully, and that either Jim Jordan or Steve Scalise would be a good leader, though Jordan is more legalistic and not a fireball. Winn criticized the Republican National Committee, saying it operates too detached from state parties and sells her data. "I am livid with the RNC," she said, adding that its constant fundraising pitches disguised as surveys have taught her to delete them. Mundt said the party needs to recast its vision rather than make the MAGA label sinister.
The Democrats' Plans
Winn said Democrats have their own infighting, with some on the left calling on Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to step aside. She read a Breitbart report that Jeffries told PBS anyone treated unfairly by the Trump administration, including deported immigrants, should receive remedial assistance. She said Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said the House will consider impeaching Supreme Court justices. Mundt said he finds it frustrating that members of Congress swear an oath to the Constitution and then talk this way. Winn said her friends in the Border Patrol arrested five people in southern Arizona the day after the election.
A Final Message
Mundt closed with a call to responsibility. He said consequences must follow for people who violate their oaths, that people take jobs because of ego, and that the stock market will correct after the Nvidia news, with the chief financial officer a good choice as interim CEO. "We are where we are," he said. "Two years from now we have another opportunity to correct." He said the 2028 election will probably be the most consequential in American history. Winn thanked him and reminded listeners that the show returns tomorrow.