The Daily - The Field: A Divided Latino Vote in Arizona

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

This episode contains strong language. In the last decade, elections have tightened in Arizona, a traditionally Republican stronghold, as Democrats gain ground.According to polls, Joe Biden is leading in the state — partly because of white suburban women moving away from President Trump, but also because of efforts to activate the Latino vote.Will that turn states like Arizona blue? And do enough Hispanic voters actually want Mr. Biden as president?To gauge the atmosphere, Jennifer Medina, a national politics reporter for The New York Times, spoke to Democratic activists and Trump supporters in Arizona.Guests: Jennifer Medina, a national politics reporter for The Times.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: Though a majority of Latino voters favors Democrats, Hispanic men are a small but enduring part of Trump’s base. Those supporters see him as forceful, unapologetic and a symbol of economic success.If Joe Biden wins Arizona, he would be only the second Democratic presidential candidate to have done so since 1952. But the state has been trending more friendly to the party for years.

Hello, hello. What do you think about this heat, Jenny? Dry heat, dry heat. Let's see. It's 103. I sort of underappreciate how it is nearly October and it is still 100 degrees every single day. From the New York Times, this is The Field. I'm Jenny Medina in Phoenix, Arizona. So we are in Estevan Park, predominantly Latino, predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood, pretty working class. So we are seeing canvassers with Lucha.

Lucha is a progressive social justice organization in Arizona that really in the last few years helped get many local Democrats elected to office. Hey, guys. Hi. Hey, how are you? to office. Hey, guys. Hi. Hey, how are you?

So we walk up to a group of about half a dozen young Latino canvassers standing under the shade of a tree. Can I ask how old you are? Me? I'm 15. 15. Like, really young canvassers. I'm 22. I'm 17.

I'm also 17. Most of them can't even vote, but they're preparing to go door-knocking in support of Joe Biden. Lucha on three! One, two, three! Lucha! Hi. Do you mind if we tag along with you?

Yeah. We shadowed a 17-year-old named Nancy Roldan. Nancy, are your parents immigrants? Yeah. Where are they from? Mexico. Okay. She heads off into the neighborhood

with a clipboard and a stack of flyers. An app on her phone tells her which houses to go to. That's where they give us our list and our people. Lucha has already identified what they call occasional voters. They try to get the people that haven't voted in a really long time. Those voters are the target.

Hello. Hi, does Renee live here? Hi, does Evita live here? Hi, does Daisy live here? Nancy has her script memorized. Hi, my name's Nancy and I'm part of Lucha. And we're just going around the community asking what has been your guys' biggest concern of 2020 and who you guys are planning to vote

on. We canvassed with Nancy for two hours and the most common concern? Right now, probably why you're all wearing the mask. Like overall health of like the community. My main concern was the virus. And as you might expect... Do you plan to vote this year? I voted.

You voted? What's your name? Porchon. No, Porchon. Porchon Biden? The majority of people... Do you know who you're voting for this year? Probably Biden.

Probably Biden? So basically you already know who you're voting for this year? Probably Biden. Probably Biden? So basically you already know who I'm voting for, Biden. Already support Biden. Progressive groups like Lucha know that Latino communities and other communities of color in the Phoenix area lean Democratic. Their goal is not really to convince undecided voters or Trump supporters to go for Biden. For them, sending these teenagers out in 100-degree heat for hours every day, it's part of a years-long effort tightening in the traditionally Republican stronghold of Arizona. Obama lost by about nine points there, both in 2008 and 2012. But Clinton lost only by three and a half

points in 2016. And in the 2018 midterms, Democrats won a Senate seat for the first time in three decades and also flipped a House seat. This year, President Trump has visited the state five times. And we are going to win Arizona in a landslide. We've paid too high a price already for Donald Trump's chaotic, divisive leadership. Biden has only visited once, and that was just a few weeks ago. We're going to get this virus under control. Yet polls show Biden with the lead. Part of that is the trend that we're seeing nationally of white suburban women moving away from Trump. And part of it is this

activation of the Latino vote. But will it be enough? And do enough Latino voters actually want Biden as their president? So where are we right now? So we're in sort of central Phoenix on a kind of main drag. And we're about to meet Tomas Robles, who is the co-executive director of Lucha. In late September, I went with producers Austin Mitchell and Robert Jimison to Lucha's headquarters in Phoenix. There's Tomas. The 38-year-old co-executive director of the group, Tomas Robles Jr., pulls in. Hey, Tomas.

Hey, how's it going? Good, how are you? He's decked out in Lucha swag. Blue Lucha t-shirt, blue Lucha hat on backwards, even thick rimmed glasses in a matching shade of blue. Right now we're in the Alhambra neighborhood, densely Latino and Latinx populated. Tomas often uses the gender neutral term Latinx. One, one of the highest concentrations of Latinx voters. Two, one of the highest infection rates of COVID-19.

In the state? Yeah, in the state. This is one of those districts where it's a Democratic district, but if people don't participate in this district, we could lose the state or the presidency as a whole. Do you want to take us inside? Yeah, let's go inside. Tomas takes us inside the office, which no one is working out of these days because of COVID. And we sit down in an empty meeting room on socially distanced chairs.

And he starts to tell us the story of how he got into activism. Yeah, so I'm the oldest of four kids. I was born in Tucson, Arizona, the second largest city, and then immediately moved back to a small town called Naco, Arizona. It's on the border of Arizona and Mexico. And my family, for generations, went back and forth. Some were miners, some were construction workers, others were farmers. So Tomas' parents were born in Mexico, but growing up, first in rural Arizona.

Those schools were predominantly white. So I wore Wrangler jeans and tucked in polo. I looked like a cowboy. And then you move to Phoenix. And then in Phoenix. So I changed my name to Tommy in high school so I could avoid the Spanish part of it. Tomas did not see himself as Mexican. Because I didn't know what to identify as. I just knew I did not identify as a Mexican or even a Mexican-American in some people's eyes. And

obviously, I still had to figure out who I was going to be. Ironically, it was the Marines when I joined the Marines. It wasn't until 2001, when Tomas joined the Marines, that he started to feel connected to some kind of larger identity. I was stationed with a ton of Latinx Marines from different backgrounds, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Venezuelan, Ecuadorian, and they immersed me in Latinx culture. Not necessarily Mexican culture, but Latinx culture. And so I started listening to the music. I started to read about the history. I started to read about US relations with Latin American countries. And I started to learn how many bad, horrific things the US

has done to countries of color. There's been so much colonialism that you start to see just what exactly it is. And so I started really getting acquainted about the political structures, the systemic racism, and understanding even in the military how that seeps through. And then... Senate Bill 1070 happens.

Comes this moment that was huge for Tomas's political awakening. It was also probably the single most important catalyst for the political shift that we've seen in Arizona, the passage of Senate Bill 1070. This is one of the toughest immigration reform bills on the books in U.S. history. Senate Bill 1070 is a bill that was passed

in the 2010 Arizona state legislature. The new law allows police to question a person's immigration status if they have... So the original law basically stated that if you see somebody that could be undocumented, any person living in the state had an obligation to question that individual's citizenship. And that police officers would be forced to do that anytime they came in contact with anybody,

whether it be a victim of a crime or a perpetrator of a crime. Teachers would be encouraged to ask their kids of their documentation status. of their documentation status. Some of the most fervent backers of the bill were politicians in Maricopa County, where Phoenix sits, including the county sheriff. I'm not going to turn them over to ICE. Joe Arpaio. I'm gonna turn them over to me.

Yes! Or they're going to jail. Yes! Arpaio had been the sheriff since 1992. I'm going to turn them over to me. And they're going to jail. Arpaio had been the sheriff since 1992. In 1993, I put up Korean War tents. And he is probably most famous for setting up an outdoor tent city, a sort of extension of the county jail, where inmates were given pink underwear and forced to work on chain gangs. We now have room for 2,500.

And we'll put tents up from here to Mexico. Arpaio and other supporters of 1070 claimed that it was simply meant to support existing federal immigration laws. But to Tomas and many others, Clearly that was a racial profiling law. It was nothing more than a legal mandate for racial profiling. And that passage of that policy brought me right back to childhood. And it felt personal. For me, it resonated so much. And although it had moved to the back of my memory bank...

Tomas says he was reminded about an experience he had had as a kid when his family was in the car together. It was June, and we were driving back from Naco to Phoenix. My parents in the front. There's me, my brother, and my sister. My sister is 4, my brother's eight. I'm 12. And they get a couple flat tires. So it was 1994.

As you can imagine, there's no cell phones. There's no way for us to contact anybody. And so we're literally stuck waiting for about an hour and a half. All of a sudden, a cop pulls up behind us. And to this day, I remember he was a redhead. He had those aviator ray-banned on, the copper ones with the black. As soon as he comes out, my dad said, I'm glad you're here. We're stuck. And the second he starts to try and talk, the officer says, I'm going to need you to back up.

Puts his hand on his holster and the gun and says, I need to know if you have drugs or weapons in the car. My dad's like, no, we were a family of four. Like, no, we're stuck. We've been stuck here for an hour and a half. And then the guy then pulls out his gun. He doesn't point it at him, but says, I need you to put your hands on the hood.

And my dad doesn't want to, it's 160 degrees out. He finally says, if you don't put the hands on the hood, I'm gonna have to arrest you. So he puts his hands on the hood and my dad doesn't want to is 160 degrees out he finally says if you don't put the hands on the hood i'm gonna have to arrest you so he puts his hands on the hood it's hot as hell he searches my dad and then he opens the trunk of our car without permission and starts to search through our whole stuff so i'm witnessing this whole thing right and i'm a 12 year old and this guy's looking he's throwing shit on the ground. He's throwing clothes, toys, diapers, everything is moving.

Finally, my dad is yelling. He's like, why the hell are you doing this? Would you be doing this if I was white? And the cop ignored him. He glances at me once, looks back down. He's like, all right, you guys are good. Gets back in his car and drives off. He didn't ask if we needed help.

He didn't ask if we needed water. He made my dad feel like a criminal, threatened to arrest him, threatened to shoot him, basically, all because we were stuck on the road. And so SB 1070 made those racial profiling moments a necessity under the eyes of the law because my dark ass might be undocumented. And so the same day the governor signed the bill into law,

Tomas went to the Capitol and signed up to do voter registration. I finally found the type of service that I wanted to do. And a couple years later, Sheriff Arpaio was up for re-election. And so I took a job as organizing director of Lucha. At the time, the organization had three total employees, including myself. And I was charged to build up an organizing program to vote out Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It didn't work. Arpaio won re-election. But his margin of victory was the lowest it had ever been.

And Tomas saw other encouraging signs. We won a couple campaigns that year, some very small local campaigns. But we were expected to lose and we won. In 2015, Tomas was promoted to help lead Lucha. And the next year, in the midst of a presidential election, they went after Arpaio again. Demos talked about race back here in the valley. And this time, on November 8th, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio loses his seat to Democrat Paul Penzel.

It worked. For about 10 minutes on election night, we were on cloud nine. Arpaio had just been voted out. We had just one more seat in the state legislature. And we had an outside chance of winning the presidency for the state. ...and Arizona are still too close to call. And then I remember when I saw Virginia's numbers come out. ...relatively large, rather large, lead for Donald Trump right now.

I knew we were going to lose the presidency. And it was the weirdest feeling of joy coupled with fear, anxiety. It's this weird cocktail of mixed emotions that you just ended up numb by the end of the night. Donald Trump wins the presidency. The business tycoon, a TV personality... For Tomas and Lucha, the only thing to do was to keep working. The elections aren't the finish line.

The elections are simply a marker, and we need to keep going and keep organizing, and that's why we created Lucha Lobby Day. In the 2018 midterms, Democrats saw big gains in Arizona, including the first senator elected in the state since 1988. And so your, the strategy then was voter registration, get these people out, and then we can change the laws. Yeah.

We had to build a foundation of voters. We had to build a foundation. For Tomas, the frustrating series of losses from 2010 to 2016, it was a time of crucial foundation building that has led to this moment. In those six years, we added around 600,000 people to the early voting list, so people got to go out and vote. In those same six years, we registered about 350,000 people. Since that year, since 2016, we've put a total of 800,000 people on the permanent early vote list and registered almost 600,000 people. So without that, you don't have the makeup we have in the state right now.

That's an enormous amount of people. I didn't realize it was that much. You know, May is what you can do in 16 hours with no sleep. And now it looks like Arizona has the kind of mobilized, registered Latino vote that could make a real difference. Ten years ago, Latinos made up 18% of eligible voters in the state. And now that number has grown to 25%. How do you feel now, today, in this moment that we're in?

Nervous. I feel a sense of urgency. I feel a sense of urgency. I feel a sense of worry. Tomas is worried about how effective all this work will have been in getting people to turn out in the middle of a pandemic. Is there excitement about Biden? I think in the beginning of the year there was not. I definitely think in terms of exciting candidates, that would have been Bernie Sanders. It's who we endorse.

And for us, it's talking about why Biden, from his ties to military, to his ties to family, health care being a major issue, him coming from a working class background, we hope resonates well. But he's also got another concern. But Biden needs to get better at talking up an economic message with Latinx voters, especially Latinx men, and worry that Latino men and men of color in general are starting to be peeled off. Men of color will majority support Biden, much higher ratio than white males. But any peeling off of any constituencies that could vote for Biden could spell victory for Trump, especially in states like ours. He's worried about Latino men voting for Trump. Are you able to kind of articulate how you're seeing that happening?

The way that my personal relationships I'm seeing that getting peeled off is through conspiracy theories through social media. So you're like the Q media. So QAnon's theories, especially around pedophilia, has been major. Most of my friends are parents. All of them come to me concerned that there is literal pedophilia happening around liberal circles. He's talking about QAnon's central conspiracy, that a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles is running a global child sex trafficking ring, and that Trump is trying to stop them.

Misinformation and conspiracy theories have been spreading beyond fringe groups and into the Latino community this year. So that's one major way that's peeled them off. Second is Trump almost comes off as the last person to be proud of masculinity to some of these men. He's loud. He's obnoxious. He quote unquote takes what he wants. He doesn't succumb to political correctness. And in a way, it's almost like being in high school and liking the cool kid again. If you really unpack the layers, there's still this belief that there is a economic and color caste system that if you keep moving up in terms of socioeconomic, you will be able to classify yourself as white.

you will be able to classify yourself as white. And they do believe that as an American, as long as you pull yourself up by the bootstraps, that you can be successful in this country. This is a phenomenon that I started hearing about more than a year ago. And honestly, at first I was skeptical of how meaningful a number of Latino men were feeling this way. Latinos had turned out for Trump in a surprisingly high number in 2016, about one in four voters. But the thinking had been that after all the rhetoric and policies of the past four years, and with Biden rather than Clinton as the nominee, that the Latino vote would solidify into a solid Democratic voting bloc, more like the black vote. But this view of Trump, that he is a symbol of economic

success, I've now heard it again and again from Latino men I've spoken to covering the election this year. I've heard it in Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Nevada, and in Arizona. Biden has not been able to put out a message that makes Latinx men who are feeling insecure about their economic realities, his message is not resonating with them to the point where they can believe that he can lead them into economic prosperity at a level higher than Trump could. And for a lot of male Latinx voters who aren't directly impacted by his policies, the economics is what matters most. The latest polling suggests that something like 30% of Latino voters plan to support Trump this year. And that same polling suggests that their primary motivation is this economic promise.

I remember just last night, I got into a Facebook debate with my friend. He's Lennox. He's a real estate guy here. And when it came to Trump's taxes, he laughed and said, man, I need to get his accountant. So like he saw it as a, they see themselves as future billionaires who are just stuck in a non-billionaire situation right now. Would you be willing to read a couple of those exchanges with your friend? You don't have to say who it is or anything, but. I want to preface that this is a Facebook debate. And so these aren't going to have like deep dive stuff, but I can read a couple. Tomas pulls out his phone and starts scrolling. Oh my goodness. He picks out another exchange

with a friend named Jesse. And I think his dad was an immigrant, but they're business people. And so he posted this, wearing this tonight during a debate, LOL Trump 2020. And so you can see. It's a shirt that has Biden and Trump's faces photoshopped onto the bodies of two wrestlers. Trump is basically behind a kneeling Joe Biden, in which he has him in a headlock. On top of that image,

it says, night, night, sleepy Joe. And at the bottom, it says, four more years, Trump 2020. His cousin then responds, funny cousin, what about all the women who were violated? Then Jesse responds by saying, cousin, Joe likes touching kids. I'll pass on the pedo Biden. And cousin Joe likes touching kids. I'll pass on the pedo Biden. So then I responded. I said, you just stay believing lies. How about you show a reference that this is actually true?

A reference of Biden and pedophilia. But you're in a cult. So I can see why you can't. Clearly, he sees you as sheep. So as you can tell, I'm not nice to some of these people. Clearly, he sees you as sheep. So as you can tell, I'm not nice to some of these people. And then Jesse responds by, Tomas, keep drinking the communist lies of free stuff and social justice BS.

Be American. Be proud. Get paid and get rich. It's the only way. So that was kind of like the economic message that you're talking about. It's like get rich, get paid. And forget everybody else. Thank you. No, thank you all for taking the time. I know two hours is long for anybody.

With Tomas' friends in mind, we set off to find these voters. Can you either text me or messenger me if him or anybody else is willing to talk? I'm going to reach out to him today and see if I can connect you over Facebook. And then I'll let y'all figure it out. I'll walk y'all out and then I can close up shop. So before we left Tomas, he agreed to reach out to two of his Trump-supporting Facebook friends and ask if they'd be willing to talk with me for this story. Just a few hours later, he texted me their responses. One friend said, Would love to talk, but not in this environment and with the way things are.

A simple comment, mistaken or written out of context would not be good for me or my family. The other simply wrote, LMAO. Nah, bro. But that's okay. Are you guys ready? I had gone to an event in Phoenix hosted by a campaign group called Latinos for Trump. Featuring an appearance by Eric Trump.

And there I met a charming guy. Named Paul. Who agreed to meet up with me again. But when I reached out, reached out many, many times, I might add. You have reached the voicemail box of 6-0-2-1. So, should we go in? Yeah. Austin, Robert, and I decided to just go to the Latinos for Trump office and ask them directly if they had anyone in mind who they thought would be great for us to talk with. Hi, how are you? I'm sorry, if you're not invited, you cannot come in. Oh, we're reporters. We're just here to talk to people. Yes, if you're not invited, you cannot come in. Oh, we're reporters. We're just here to talk to people.

Yes, if you are not invited, you cannot come in. Is there anybody here I can speak with? No. There's nobody here who would be willing to talk to a reporter? No. So it's press in general that they're... It seems like it was press in general that she was averse to. I've gotten used to this kind of thing, this election season.

As we were standing outside the Latinos for Trump office, though, we noticed people pulling up and heading inside. Hi, I'm a reporter with the New York Times. So we started talking to them. About what brought you out here today and what you're coming for? About what? About what brought you out here today. I am a Latina and I am for Trump.

Why? Because I am for God, for life, and for family. That's it. Luz is a Catholic shelter worker in Phoenix. I'll tell you one thing. My father was one of the founders of the Democratic Party in Chile. And when he came here, he said to me, unfortunately, the Democrats have dropped God. And believe me, that was a long time ago. So anyway.

How has the pandemic impacted you or people you know? Yeah, we have to be cautious. I think it has been exploited for the leftist reasons. You know, I know churches that are open and we don't have any extra COVID. I think it's a pandemic in many ways. You know? I think it's a plandemic in many ways. You know? She's referring to misinformation that circulated on social media a couple of months back, that the pandemic was orchestrated as a power grab by global elites.

Do you know anybody who's gotten sick? No, I don't. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I did meet a worker. And this man decided to go back home and start using all the natural remedies of his mom. Meaning boiling vapor and breathing and, you know, did all the teas and all the things that the mom and the grandma used to use at home in Mexico. And they're all fine. They were all healed.

Natural. No vaccines with babies in it. I'm an old man. I'm 67 years old. Been around a long time. And it makes my heart feel good to see Hispanics and Blacks representing the Republican Party. Myron is a Baptist minister who's doing security work right now. Myron is a Baptist minister who's doing security work right now. Myron Williams, Baptist minister, U.S. President of the United States, Trump sees things in the real world, the reality of what's really going on. He knows there's a difference between blacks and whites.

But rather than harp on it and do nothing about it, Trump says, I'm not going to harp on it. I'm going to do for you what Democrats said they would do and never done. I'm going to give you opportunity to do something for yourself. Republicans say, I'm not going to give you a fish. I'm going to teach you how to fish, and you can go catch whatever damn fish you want. If you want a minnow, catch the minnow. If you want a shark, take your ass out there and catch your shark.

Or go get in your boat and catch your sea bass. But the limit is yours. The Democrats say, we're going to give you a can of tuna and some crackers and be satisfied with that. They've been eating tuna and crackers so long, that's all they want.

And then, a large pickup truck with several Trump bumper stickers on it pulls up, and a man hops out. My name's Cruz. Cruz, and what's your last name? Zepeda. Cruz Zepeda, dressed in full Trump supporter gear. Okay, I'm wearing a MAGA hat that I got online.

Everything I bought from Trump made in America. This one's actually Bangladesh, kind of pisses me off. He's got a bright red MAGA hat, a mask that reads Keep America Great, and a Trump keychain. He's also wearing a t-shirt repping his local gun store. Do you mind if I just ask you real quickly what brought you out here today? I need more bumper stickers. What? You need more bumper stickers? Yeah, another yard sign because they keep getting stolen.

How many yard signs have you had stolen? Several. I don't count them. There's Biden signs in my neighborhood neighborhood they don't get stolen what do you consider yourself what's your ethnicity i'm i'm mexican i don't say hispanic i'm gonna i'm an american first i know that's not ethnicity but yeah are you from here from here meaning pho Phoenix. Phoenix? My family's been here since before. It was a territory. Yeah, yeah. My grandmother was born in a year before Arizona became a state. Where did you grow up? All over. I was a military brat, Air Force brat. My father was born here. My grandfather was born in Mexico.

Part of what I'm curious about is, like, being Mexican, is that important to you? Does that feel important to you, that identity? The identity? Yes. Yes, it does. So clearly I'm fishing to understand how Cruz reconciles his Mexican-American identity with his support for the president. What do I like about Trump? He gets getting stuff done. He's getting stuff done. He's getting stuff done.

He's pragmatic and a results-oriented person. He has to be. This man who could be sitting, he's a billionaire. He doesn't need a job. He has enough money to influence people, if that's what he wanted to do in politics. He's not taking a salary. I think he takes $1 a year

right now. Here again is this idea that Donald Trump is a man who knows how to get rich and wants you to have the chance to get rich too. What do you want? What do I want? Well, I want

the American dream. I mean, I want to pursue life, liberty, pursue happiness. I mean, that's it, basically, the American dream. I mean, I want to pursue life, liberty, pursue happiness. I mean, that's it, basically. In a nutshell, I don't get complicated with it. Do you feel like you've attained your American dream? That's an unfair question. I think that I've been given... I was going to say it was an unfair question.

Have I attained it? The question should be, do I have the opportunity to? First and foremost, the American dream is the opportunity to pursue, the opportunity to go for what you want, fiscal, financial, security, you know, home, two kids, white picket fence, all that jazz. Regardless if yours is the mansion on the hill or yours is just that, you know, home, two kids, white picket fence, all that jazz, regardless of yours is the mansion on the hill or yours is just that, you know, that double wide, it's some point where you're comfortable and secure in your government, for instance, your rights. I've thought a lot about this now, and I think ultimately it's about two very different views of the American dream within the Latino community.

One is about making this country a better, more just version of itself. As Tomás came of age, and as many young Latino voters have come of age, they've been activated in part around their identity as Latinos. They are voting on behalf of a community that they see themselves as a part of, and that they believe is marginalized and subject to systemic racism in the form of policies like the one Sheriff Arpaio supported in Arizona. Through that lens, it's very difficult to understand a vote for Donald Trump. But if you're like Cruz, and you see your primary identity as an American, that the American dream is about any individual being able to go after what they want and to get it, then you can see how Trump might be an attractive candidate.

But these are such fundamentally different ways of viewing the world that it can be very difficult for the first group to see the actions of the second as anything other than a betrayal. Do you have kids? Do I have children? Do you have children? Yes. She's a Democrat, my daughter. Yes.

Yeah. She's a Democrat. How old is she? 36. What are the conversations like with you and your daughter like are you able to go back and forth with her the other day actually i texted her about having a conversation about several different topics and i stuck one in there on her she was i think yeah yeah yeah yeah i just. So no, that topic's off limits.

Love you, Dad. Bye. Well, that's not fair. And we went back and forth. Cruz says when he tries to talk with his Democratic daughter about politics, she won't even go there. No, she and I remain civil. I'm disappointed that she doesn't have enough. I think that anybody that doesn't want to have an open discussion about it disrespects to a person on any level. That's disrespectful. You tell me stories that you would tell nobody else in the world about your personal life at this time, and I do too.

I share deep stuff. But when it comes to this, turn the light off. I find that that's horrible. That you can have that kind of relationship and then all of a sudden if it becomes politics you shut it down. I mean at one point in my life people had pretty much the same goals.

There might be different stuff like Roe vs. Wade abortion. There's a couple of division bells that ring real loudly. But for the most part we all wanted the same thing. We just had different ideas on how to get there. And now it doesn't seem like anybody wants the same thing.

I'm guessing that your daughter has said some version of this to you before, but like, Dad, the president's racist, and he's racist against Latinos. I was shopping for my daughter. I took my grandson to go shopping because it was Mother's Day. And we sneak out. He called me.

Grandpa. Abuelo, he calls me. So we go shopping. And we're talking this, that, and the other. And I was on the radio. I saw a sticker. It was Trump. Yeah, yeah, Trump.

We're over Trump. And he's racist. And I said, I beg your pardon? And my grandson's half black. And he's going to have to grow up in that environment, being a black American. I looked at him. and said, what? Why? I didn't have an answer, much more than being indoctrinated somehow in that belief.

So I said, well, before you start saying that, and I didn't tell him how to think. I didn't say, listen, you're going to do it this way. My grandfather said, hold on now. Do me a favor. Let's think about it. Go find out why first. I want to think for myself. I'm a Republican with a gay daughter, a black grandson.

I mean, you could have picked a better guy to talk to, right? Do you believe that there is such a thing as systemic racism? Overall, no. I believe that there's a certain part of our population, okay, that, black, white, or whatever, that needs to be a victim. Yeah, I mean, people do racist things all the time. I mean, I've experienced racism. I grew up in military bases when I was younger. And as soon as we went off base and I'm in a particularly white neighborhood, I got my ass kicked all the way home sometimes by people that, because I'm Mexican. As he's talking, I'm starting to think of Tomas and how he came to think about events like this in his own childhood. When was the last time you experienced racism against yourself personally?

Against myself? A lot of times you don't know if you experienced it or not. You don't know if you didn't get a job because of it. So a lot of times racism is inexperienced. It's implied but not inferred. It's funny you said that. Because the first thing that popped in my head was a police officer. But that was 30 years ago.

I was asking for his help. Told me he'd arrest me if I didn't get away from him. One of those things. Do I hit all cops because of that? No, that guy's a jerk. That guy's an idiot. He's showboating for somebody. And I felt it, though.

And it really, ugh. It really hurt deeply. Like when a parent scolds you for something, just like you're not... Thank you so much. Thank you. I forgot what you're doing here. You're picking up yard signs?

Because they were stolen, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, they get stolen. Text her if your sign gets stolen. After I left Phoenix, I got a message from Cruz. After I left Phoenix, I got a message from Cruz. His yard signs only lasted four days before they were ripped up and thrown in the street. Thank you.