The MeidasTouch Podcast - Adelita Grijalva on Protecting Arizona from Trump

Episode Date: July 27, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump screwing Arizona and getting a rude awakening that Arizona hates him and Meiselas interviews progressive super star Adelita Grijalva. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at NoFrills.ca. On August 1st, May I speak freely? I prefer English. The Naked Gun is the most fun you can have in theaters.

Yeah! Let's go! Without getting arrested. Is he serious? Is he serious? No. for English? The Naked Gun is the most fun you can have in theaters without getting arrested. Is he serious? He's serious. No. The Naked Gun only in theaters August 1st. The new BMO VI Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO VI Porter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months.

Terms and conditions apply. Visit bmo.com slash VI Porter to learn more. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with a TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to $2,700 when you open select small business banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business. Visit td.com slash small business match to learn more.

Conditions apply. Discover the magic of BedMGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck. Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer. From roulette to blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts your table game and live chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino.

The excitement doesn't stop there. With over 3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, and more, make deposits instantly to jump in on the fun and make same-day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. Visit betmgm.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. We know that Donald Trump's approval is tanking nationally the latest Gallup poll as Donald Trump's overall approval at 37% amongst independents. It's 29% on issues like immigration.

It's 38%, but he's also tanking in critical swing states that he won if you look at Arizona He's underwater there by about 12 points And if you take a look at the various dynamics of what's happening in Arizona You know, Donald Trump is screwing over that state in every single way I mean if you just take a look at the recent Dragon Bravo fires there, for example We're seeing the Arizona senators pressing Donald Trump's Interior Secretary. Why were you treating this thing as like a controlled burn? This was under the federal supervision. You did nothing and critical areas have now been burned down. Just want to tell you that story in case

you haven't heard about it that Arizona senators are demanding answers from the Department of Interior over its handling of these devastating wildfires that are still burning out of control in the Grand Canyon's North Rim. In a letter sent Monday to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Democratic Senators Gallego and Kelly questioned the department's initial response to the Dragon Bravo fire. The blaze spread quickly over the weekend and destroyed dozens of structures, including the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, a visitor center, and a wastewater treatment plant. And it's been reported that the National Park Service initially decided to monitor the fire as a controlled burn, but changed their approach as strong winds allowed the fire to jump multiple containment features.

I mean, this is something that we're seeing over and over again when it comes to emergency response with this Trump regime. It's frankly non-existence, whether we're talking about Arizona, whether we're talking about in Texas, right? And speaking about in Arizona and Texas as well, I mean, these tomato tariffs and other tariffs abroad are going to cost tens of thousands of jobs. This is from Arizona Central. Tomato tariffs and public media cuts,

how Trump is impacting Arizona six months into the term. Talks about how Trump's recent moves, whether they're being felt in the Grand Canyon State, including his new tariff on Mexican grown tomatoes will increase the price at the grocery store. It's gonna disrupt Arizona's tomato import industry, a billion dollar industry, immigration raids on popular businesses.

The, you know, Mexico was Arizona's largest trading partner according to the University of Arizona. Last year, the state's top import from Mexico was tomatoes worth $1 billion. You have Arizona now suing the Trump regime over education freezes, over health care freezes, over disaster prevention fund freezes, and more. I mean, it's a complete and total disaster right now.

I want to get the take of somebody who's on the ground, Adelita Grijalva. Adelita running in that special election that I'm sure everybody known about, she just won the Democratic primary in Arizona's seventh. Adelide, it's great to see you here. That's what the data is showing. What are you seeing in the seventh? And look, we know the seventh is a traditionally

more left-leaning congressional district, but Arizona is a purple state, and you speak to people across the state as well. What are you seeing in your district and abroad? Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. I think that one of the biggest concerns is CD7, which is the district that I'm hopefully going to represent in Congress has the three ports of entry. And so we have a lot of communities that are border communities have been there,

um, really well established and what this fight that Trump is picking with Mexico on an up and down basis, there's gonna be tariffs, there's not gonna be tariffs. What it's doing is it's having this really chilling effect on the neighboring businesses. I mean, cause we don't know what's gonna happen. And it also because of these raids that are happening more and more frequently,

I mean, just walking into restaurants and looking around and saying, you know, are you a citizen? I mean, that's the kind of stuff that's happening here in our communities that people are not going out. Whether you are a citizen or not, nobody wants to be harassed like that. And we're a community that has a lot of mixed status families. And so when we're living in fear on a regular basis, when I mean, we never used to see Border Patrol or ICE in our community here, and now it's an everyday occurrence, which is very frightening for a lot of people because if

you don't have the proper documentation, they're taking people into custody, whether you're a citizen or not. Natalie, to tell people about the Seventh Congressional District, I mean, specifically where it borders, you mentioned the three points of entry. So when we think about border communities, and we think about how Trump demonizing border communities,

it is, I think a noteworthy thing about what's really going on there and how people have felt about it before, how they're feeling about it now versus, you know, look, no offense to people in Kentucky or New York or Michigan or other states, well, you know, or other states telling us about it, but you're literally, you're literally

on the border with Mexico. Yeah. One of the things that is really frustrating to a lot of our community members in Nogales and San Luis and, you know, we live in these areas. Douglas, they're the safest communities. I mean, statistically, the crime rates are so low. And what happens is we are dependent on Mexico. A lot of the businesses on the United States side

depend on people coming back and forth for commerce, for compras, they're buying things and that's not happening anymore. And so you'll see more and more businesses closing. Douglas has a lot of businesses that are closed, right? And others that are really struggling. And there's a fear there that is just, you can sense it when you walk around.

And what we're really sick of is having, you know, congressmen come from other parts of the nation and sort of scapegoat our communities. That's not who we are or what we represent. And so it is incredibly difficult. We have so many opportunities to really work together with Mexico and they are our greatest partner. And so when you have Trump sort of picking on Mexico,

it really impacts us. And many, I mean, we hear it very often in our community, the border crossed us. We didn't cross the border. And so a lot of communities, especially a lot of families, they have people on both sides of the border. And when you talk about that impact to like nations, like the Anah Atam Nation,

that is significant in cells where, you know, you see a lot of destruction of sacred areas. We see like mining in Oak Flat. I mean, those are impacts that this administration is having. And then the fact that Trump continues to have this narrative that he'll sort of spew things out that are completely untrue but because he said it other people will repeat it and that's

really scary and I feel like I'm really appreciative of programs like yours where we're just going to talk about what the real issues are because I am really sick of having to dispel a lot of myths that are out there just because someone in this administration has said something. You know, and I think one of the things that made your campaign very successful, and I think you see this nationwide, are politicians, but really human beings, you're a human being first who speaks to other human beings about the issues impacting them.

So many, I think, of those issues that are really affecting the people are not being discussed in favor of kind of broader narratives that are really abstractions on the things that people wake up fearing. Am I going to be able to do this? Am I going to be able to make it through the day? To me, your campaign was all about, here's what we're gonna do for you. I hear you and really talking about all specific issues.

So speak to that, because I think that's a template, frankly, for how people need to run campaigns versus all the flashy stuff out there. Yeah, I think that we're not relating to people. And that's one of the problems that we had in our election last go round is that we're not talking to people directly.

We're not talking to a cross section of people. I mean, I think that that was one of the things that was very different about our campaign. We focused very much on policy and how it impacts people directly, not about personality. Talked about very progressive values. This community has elected my dad 11 times,

22 years in office, because he was an unapologetic progressive, as am I. And so when we did old fashioned, like door knocking, talking to people, hit 39,000 doors, 320,000 phone calls, had 1,400 volunteers in a special election in the middle of Tucson, it's 107 degrees, we had 100 people here, average, on a Saturday, willing to go and talk to people door to door. And that is, it's the real conversations.

It's like, why don't you want to vote in this election? Well, it doesn't matter. Well, let me tell you why it does matter. And I think that if we do more of that, all politics are local, all of them. And so when we have people that people trust, then it's difficult to come after them. And I think that that was one of the benefits

of being in this community is that, you know, I was sort of captioned as this establishment Democrat, but I'm established here. I'm not establishment anything, but people know me because I've been here. And I think that that's where the Democratic Party needs to move towards is getting people that are part of communities that people can trust

and then supporting them in getting across the finish line. And I think that that's one of the things that was very different about our campaign is we really talked a lot about policy and how Trump's, this administration is hurting us when it comes to public education, when it comes to comprehensive immigration reform. I mean, it's a serious all-out assault on our democracy. And that's where I think is really critical. The other thing is, is like, you know, I know social media, I'm not great at it,

but we had my daughter started Youth for Adelita and put together her friends, and it just was this infusion of a really positive energy that really helps. And so we had a cross section of people that were part of this campaign. And it was, our support was district wide across all demographics, but especially young people.

And so I'm really proud of that. And I think that that's sort of the template that we need to work from moving forward, that it can't be all, you know, just getting this, the national media actually made it seem as if our race was so tight, which it did encourage a lot of volunteers to come out and encourage a lot of people to come out to vote.

We had more people vote in this election in a special primary than we did in the primary for the presidential. You know, I think one of the things that Donald Trump was able to do in the 2024 election is he spoke to and saw people's vulnerabilities because he's a con artist and he's a fraud and he's known how to prey on human beings his entire life, that's what he's done.

But he spoke to those issues and he would go to different communities and make all sorts of conflicting promises. I'm gonna make you rich, I'm gonna make you rich. I mean, earlier today, Donald Trump, now that all this Epstein news is coming out about him, his new thing is, we've made so much money on tariffs, I'm going to give you all a rebate. Low-income families,

you're about to get a massive. And I'm like, wait a minute, didn't you say that with Doge? You're going to make all this money from Doge that you were going to get the Doge rebates. Now it's the tariff rebates. And it's a Ponzi scheme over and over and over again. But he spoke to the people suffering. He just made him suffer more. And you know I think we have to listen the way your campaign did and hear people and speak to here's how we empower you. Here's the solution. So on that I'll give you I'll give you the final word. And where can people find out more about you. You know and obviously obviously, you know, the campaign's still happening. I mean, there's still an election in September. So what do you need people to do? But I'd love for you to just have the final word in general with the audience.

Well, thank you so much. I think that what we really need to do as a party is focus back on our working families, focus on the issues that make sense to people, and make them make sense in the way that everyone understands this is why politics are important because it impacts every part of your life. Whether you are a senior, a veteran, a student, a mom,

those are things that are important. And that's what we need to talk to people about and make them tangible. Because that's what we're not doing right now as a party. We have another, we have a general election. We do have a Republican opponent who is very much a Trump supporter. And so what we have to do again is go door to door

and remind people it is all about who takes part in this democracy. And we won the primary because we focused on issues and values that we're consistently fighting for. And that's what we're gonna continue to do here. September 23rd is our general election. It is the only election happening in the nation, which is why I think we got so much attention.

If you'd like more information about this campaign, how to get involved, you can be anywhere in the nation and get involved. It's Adelita for congress.com, F-O-R. And, you know, what we're doing here is talking about the issues that are important, environmental justice, fighting for working families, standing up for tribal sovereignty, and demanding accountability for our community. And I would be honored and privileged to represent this community in Congress. Adelita Grijalva, anytime you want to come back on the Midas Touch Network, just let me know. Thanks for all you do.

Thank you so much. And thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to six million subscribers. The truth is more important than ever. Check out our new Truth Over Lies collection at store.mitustouch.com.

All 100% USA Union made.