Guests - Ava Chen, Jeff Rhodes

Guests - Seth Keshel, Joel Strabala, Jay Tolkoff

Guests - Seth Keshel, Joel Strabala, Jay Tolkoff Seth Keshel breaks down the midterm map with data instead of doom, arguing Arizona's two competitive congressional seats and LD17's legislative races are winnable if Republicans avoid the ballot-splitting mistakes of past cycles. Joel Strabala explains why poll observers and early ballot returns matter more than most voters realize. And Jay Tolkoff digs into Tucson's budget sleight-of-hand — a "balanced budget" that's actually draining $61 million from reserves — plus TUSD's staggering staff-to-student ratio and a critical write-in campaign for a Pima County supervisor seat that hinges on just 146 signatures.

Guests - Sheriff Richard Mack, Rachel Keshel, Jack Dona

Guests - Sheriff Richard Mack, Rachel Keshel, Jack Dona Sheriff Richard Mack returns with a provocative new book co-written to influence the midterms, Representative Rachel Keshel recaps a legislative session that ended in an all-night Democrat meltdown over election integrity wins, and retired Master Sergeant Jack Dona digs into the fight over disabled veterans' tax exemptions and a contentious Attorney General primary that's already turning into a legal brawl.

Guests - Betsy Smith, Steve Mundt

Guests - Betsy Smith, Steve Mundt The thwarted attack planned around last week's UFC fight at the White House held the day's first and most urgent thread. What was publicly described as a drone threat was, in Betsy Brantner Smith's telling, far more calculated and far more sinister than initial headlines suggested. Retired Brigadier General Steven D. Mundt joined the second hour to provide the military context the first hour had been building toward. He worked in Army aviation for decades, specifically on the Apache attack helicopter platform, alongside Winn's husband — which gave the conversation a particular texture of personal investment in the outcomes being discussed.

Guests - Ava Chen, Kenneth Abramowitz, Yvette Serino

Guests - Ava Chen, Kenneth Abramowitz, Yvette Serino The week's conversation opened with a chilling near-miss: a plot involving drones and snipers, allegedly timed around a UFC fight and reportedly intended to target an area where members of Arizona's congressional delegation and their families were in attendance. Host Kathleen Winn described learning that people she knew personally were on-site when the scheme was uncovered. "It doesn't look like it was well conceived," she said, noting that investigators had not yet tied it to a sponsoring terrorist organization or foreign government. "We're still in the but those kinds of things," she added, crediting the FBI's vigilance for the fact that nothing happened. For Ava Chen, a commentator with the New Federal State of China who joins the show weekly for its China Watch Wednesday segment, the episode's significance ran deeper than the immediate danger. She pointed to the age of those involved — some as young as 19 — as the real warning sign.

Guest Host Lisa Von Geldern with Susan Ellsworth & Ron Desouza

Guest Host Lisa Von Geldern with Susan Ellsworth & Ron Desouza While Kathleen Winn was in federal court arguing that the Elections Procedures Manual violates the First Amendment, her guest host for the morning had her own court to hold. Lisa Von Geldern — Arizona state coordinator for the John Birch Society, organizer of the Salt Lake City conference that had just wrapped, and a woman who moved from California to Arizona to escape overreach only to find it arriving close behind — spent two hours making the case that constitutional self-education is not a hobby. It is the only mechanism that actually works. Two guests joined to reinforce it: Susan Ellsworth, the Arizona coordinator for the John Birch Society, who walked listeners live through the Freedom Index scorecards for every Arizona congressman; and Ron DeSouza, a young Tucson entrepreneur whose grandfather was a John Birch Society chapter chairman decades ago, who drove to Salt Lake City and came back convinced that the right is finally starting to organize like it means it.