The Gaggle: An Arizona politics podcast

Debates over Flock cameras, license plate readers that use artificial intelligence, are riling up citizens in Chandler and South Tucson who argue that the tech is invading their privacy. But proponents say that Flock is helping local police, the U.S. Border Patrol and agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This week on The Gaggle, we are joined by two reporters who have been...

Two longtime Congressmen want to leave Washington, D.C., to instead lead Arizona as its next governor. Congressman Andy Biggs and Congressman David Schweikert both have decades worth of experience in politics and both want to the chance to take on incumbent Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs in November. First they'll need to win the Republican nomination in the July 21 primary election. In this bonu...

This week, Americans across the country will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. While it should be a time for reflection and patriotism, research shows that Americans have complicated feelings about the country ahead of this milestone. This week on The Gaggle, we turn the microphone over to Arizonans to find out how they're feeling about the country as the c...

Walk into the Museum of African American History on Boston’s Beacon Hill right now and the Revolution looks different from the one most of us learned in school. The museum’s new exhibition, "Black Voices of the Revolution: Liberty, Emancipation, and the Struggle for Independence," asks what independence meant to people who were themselves enslaved or only tenuously free. In this Outspoken conversa...

It's something we can all feel right now at the gas pump, the aisles of the grocery store and just about anywhere you spend money: prices are high. President Donald Trump's foreign tariffs and the war in Iran have put pressure on American consumers In addition, the administration's immigration crackdown and higher fees for foreign travelers have turned off tourists from other countries. This week...

As we move toward another Fourth of July, it feels especially urgent to revisit the American Revolution through the lives of people who rarely make it into our textbooks or monuments. Art historian Zara Anishanslin does exactly that by recasting the founding era through the artists — many of them women, enslaved people, and immigrants — who used art, espionage and activism to shape a new nation fr...

In my home, the founding era has long been a family affair — something talked through on early‑morning walks to school, road trips to historic sites, and debates about what the nation’s promises actually mean in practice for each new generation. That personal history is the backdrop for this Outspoken conversation with my son, Blake Burton, a financial crimes analyst and deeply read student of his...

As president of Arizona State University since 2002 and the architect of what he calls a New American University, President Dr. Michael Crow has spent 2 decades trying to design a public institution that aligns itself with the country’s founding promise of government by and for the people — not by and for the already‑privileged few.  In this Outspoken conversation, Crow argues that if America was...

Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Arizona Legislature worked across the aisle for an $18 billion state budget. It includes the end of tax exemptions for data centers, nearly across the board cutbacks on state agencies, and implementing a historic tax cut that makes Arizona the first state to put President Donald Trump's tax cuts into action. This week on The Gaggle, we are joined by two state politics repo...

At the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix, the word "liberty" has a very specific meaning: the individual’s right to make the key choices in his or her own life without interference from the state. Timothy Sandefur, the institute’s vice president for legal affairs, is one of the clearest contemporary defenders of that vision. In this Outspoken conversation, we asked him how that understanding of liber...

Democratic incumbent Kris Mayes is seeking reelection as Arizona's attorney general this fall, but the Arizona Republican Party is searching for the right candidate to win them back the office in November. On their primary ballot, Republican voters have their choice between two contenders: current Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen and private attorney Rodney Glassman. In this bonus episode...

In grievance 27 of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson denounces “the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is the undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” For Native nations, those words were more than rhetoric; they helped license a policy of removal and erasure that would define the next century of U.S. expansion. In this Outspoken conversati...

Former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb is running for Congress with the coveted endorsement from President Donald Trump. Generally, this is a sure fire way to win the election. But Lamb is facing an uphill battle after an Arizona Republic investigation found him at the center of multiple controversies. This previously low-suspense race to replace Congressman Andy Biggs, who vacated his seat to run...

Few of us ask what the words of the Declaration of Independence actually meant to the men who wrote them — or how much help they had from places like Havana and Madrid.  Renowned author and historian Felipe Fernández‑Armesto has spent his career studying colonialism, empire and the Hispanic roots of the Americas. In this Outspoken conversation, he helps us see the Declaration through 18th‑century...

Despite its contradictions, Historian and author Joseph Ellis calls the Declaration's phrase "all men are created equal" the most important sentence in American history. In this Outspoken conversation, Ellis argues that the American Revolution really was a revolution, a “total reversal of the tectonic plates of Western political thought,” in which power flowed upward from the people instead of dow...

Most of us picture the Declaration of Independence as a faded parchment under glass, guarded in the National Archives and summoned for big speeches every Fourth of July. how the news of its signing actually reached the people it was meant to redefine.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

50 years ago, a bomb exploded underneath the car of Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles outside the Clarendon Hotel, where he was set to meet a source. He was mostly known during his life for exploring and excavating corruption in Arizona through his reporting on the state's ties to the mob. This week on The Gaggle, we are joined by author and journalist Jeremy Duda and Republic rep...

The words removed from the Declaration of Independence show just as much as the ones left in. Historian Holly Brewer argues that the deleted clauses in Thomas Jefferson’s draft are essential to understanding how the revolutionaries thought about slavery, equality and the reach of human rights.  In this Outspoken conversation, we discuss how the British Empire used slavery to fund its power, and ho...

Republican Congressman David Schweikert has held his seat in Congressional District 1 since 2010, but this year, he's leaving the seat open to run for Governor. Republicans are desperate to keep it for their party. A few Republicans are in the running to represent the right in the 2026 CD1 election. In this bonus episode of The Gaggle, we walk you through the similarities and differences between t...

For some, the words on the Declaration of Independence can only be described as "radical." Rev. Byron Williams argues that the promise of a sovereign government is still reshaping global politics and moral imagination 250 years later. In this Outspoken conversation, we talked about why he believes the Declaration remains a revolutionary document, what it demands of us now, and why he calls himself...

Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes are supposed to be on the same team. They're both Democrats in Arizona seeking reelection this November, trying to not only keep their seats but also keep Arizona's purple-state status alive. But a look into Hobbs' connection to a state contractor has placed them at odds yet again. This week on The Gaggle, we are joined by the Republic's state polit...

Editor's Note: Since this podcast was recorded, candidates Victor Weintraub and Mark Robert Gordon have withdrawn from the race. Arizona Democrats have spent much of the past 16 years plotting how to oust Republican Congressman David Schweikert from Congressional District 1. 2026 is their best opportunity with Schweikert leaving to run for governor. Six Democrats are in the running to represent th...

The first page of the Declaration of Independence gave the world a vocabulary for liberty that Americans still identify with. Near the end, though, he denounced "merciless Indian savages" whose undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions” supposedly justified colonial fears and violence. In this Outspoken conversation, we sit down with Arizona State University Professor David Mar...

Sen. Mark Kelly isn't just an Arizona name. He's a NASA astronaut, a veteran, a gun rights activist after the assassination attempt on his wife Gabrielle Giffords, and as recent as 2024, a vice presidential option. He's always been a critic of Trump and his allies, but eye-catching fundraising and avoiding questions about his future have politicos wondering if Kelly is interested in the White Hous...

More than a decade after Arizonans voted to legalize medical marijuana, the Trump administration is loosing federal rules around it. While the final moves of rescheduling are still to come by the DEA, some Arizona Republicans are going in the opposite direction of the Trump administration by trying to put stricter rules around marijuana for the state. This week on The Gaggle, a politics podcast by...