Dawn Grove on the Border, Election Integrity, and Rising Crime
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Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren.

Joining us in the studio today, and we are very glad to have her here, Dawn Grove. Dawn is running for Attorney General in Arizona. She is a third-generation Arizonan, which makes her incredibly rare. Almost a pioneer. Yeah, absolutely, because I think 70% of our state now comes from somewhere else. So if you're here listening in Florida, you know the deal. We've all moved from somewhere except Dawn, who has been here forever. And I saw this morning 14% foreign-born.

I had to look it up for a client. That's unbelievable. Unbelievable. Her grandfather began making ping golf clubs in his garage. I think we want to hear that story at some point today. And her family has been passionately making custom engineered golf equipment in Phoenix since the 1960s. She attended law school to advocate for people, find solution to their problems, and stand up for unborn children, which obviously hot button issue at the moment. And thank you for doing that.

So, Dawn, tell us a little bit more about yourself. Tell us about your background. We're going to play a couple of your ads here coming up in a minute. But real quick, first, I want to get people a sketch of who you are. Sam and Chuck, thank you so much. It is such a privilege for me to be with you and to be on your show. You are making a difference getting your voice out there. I appreciate you.

So my background is pretty straightforward. My family's been here since the early 1960s, making ping golf clubs. We love Arizona. We have invested here for a long time. We truly believe in the wonderfulness of this state.

I went to law school knowing that I wanted to help people solve their problems and I had the incredible privilege to have as my constitutional law professor, US Supreme Court Justice Scalia. - Oh, that is awesome. - I am a constitutional conservative. I am a made in America manufacturing champion. I really believe in the importance of us doing these things, making things here in the US that provide for our people, that we can export to the rest of the world and be a blessing.

I was a litigator for about seven years. Well, first in law school, I worked for the National Right to Life Committee in D.C. Wow. And then I was a litigator for about seven years defending Made in America manufacturers and then came in-house with the family's company two and a half decades ago and have been legal counsel there.

leading our manufacturing community in Arizona. And this has been a very new path that I did not anticipate initially, but I feel so strongly about the need to guard our border, guard our elections, stand up for our constitutional rights and liberties, push back on some of this federal government overreach into our families, faith, freedom, and free enterprise. And the Attorney General's Office is the most impactful office for doing that.

And one of the things Chuck and I have talked about is how critical it is to have an AG who's willing to push back on those issues and stand up for the state. Because if you don't,

You're really left with no defense against the federal government. And let's talk about that in this race, because if the Democrat candidate, Chris Mays, gets in there, she has made it her platform to have abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy, solar and wind for everyone, and let's have climate change be driven from the AG's office, that that's the number one agenda. It would be a very different type of office. Plus, she wants to end the investigations into abortion.

election fraud, any of those issues that may have happened, wants to end even researching to see whether this new information that's come out that was shown on 2000 Mules or anything else just wants to end that and just put it behind. It would be a very different way of running that office. And from my understanding, she pretty much follows the George Gascon model, George Soros non-prosecutor model, soft on crime model.

When we're in the middle of a crime spree across this country, we had an incident that blew up here in Phoenix. It was on news all over the country. It was a street party, wasn't it? Well, you had a street party that turned into a shooting and then you had a random beating of a clerk at a convenience store. You know, the guy just went crazy on him and darn near beat him to death. Violent crime is up in Phoenix nearly 100%.

had their highest murder rate ever last year. We are seeing the effects of what happens when our border gets overrun. We're seeing the effects of what happens when we turn out people and we're not as strict on giving people accountability when they have...

wrongful actions that harm victims. We need to be very strict on that and make sure that we keep Arizona safe. And it's really the reason that I'm running. I want to restore our safety and these freedoms and opportunities that have meant so much to me and to my family and building Ping Golf and make sure that we preserve those for us and for the next generation. Jeremy, why don't you play the commercials for us that Dawn has running right now? Oh, thank you. They just keep trying to divide us. They say you have no right to speak if you didn't vote like the media told you to.

or if big tech threatens to cancel you, or if, like me, you trust in God and try to live it out every day. But I say, let's not forget who we are, where we came from, and why our rights matter.

My grandfather came to the U.S. as a child with next to nothing. He was bullied because he couldn't speak English. But grandpa kept his faith, led the team that developed the tricycle landing gear for landing jets on aircraft carriers during World War II. He helped develop adjustable rabbit ears antenna for getting a clear signal on televisions. Then began making ping golf clubs in his garage in Arizona in 1961. We grew roots with our first building in Phoenix.

And all these decades later, we're still in the same place with over 800 employees here. I want the next generation of Arizona children and grandchildren to retain their liberties and opportunities. I want America back as the land of the free and the home of the brave. I'll defend Arizona's border.

Violent crime is surging. Literally a murder for every single day of the year. Human trafficking, drug rings, organized crime. I'll go on offense and put them on the run. I'll oppose government overreach into our families' faith and freedoms. Vaccine mandates, being forced to show your personal medical records? No way.

And I'll fight to stop big tech silencing of conservatives. I'll support the rule of law and the Constitution. Having studied constitutional law under Justice Scalia, I know the Constitution must be defended as written. I'm Dawn Grove, and I'm ready to protect and serve you as Arizona's Attorney General. Dawn, I got to say, I love the ad. I mean, I think that's fantastic. What made you decide, I'm going to leave the corporate world?

You know, and I'm going to run for this office and deal with a bunch of crazy people because voters by nature are crazy and everybody's so intense and angry right now. What's one day you just said, you know, I'm doing this? I've seen that division and it really did concern me. It's bad, isn't it? To see our state being torn apart, to see our country being torn apart. Yeah.

I just could not sit back any longer, especially when you see the ruling class openly turning citizens into subjects. And I'm a wife and mom. I couldn't stand to see government policy strip away parental rights and mandate masks and medical treatments and isolation that harms our kids and teens. And as a, you know, counsel for a thriving family business, I just can't sit back when I see the federal government try to turn private businesses into their enforcement arm to carry out mandates they didn't even have legal authority for.

And then to see the spiraling of debt, printing money, empowering our enemies and causing this inflation that's spiking prices at the gas pump and the grocery store and everywhere all while the federal government's refusing to do their constitutionally mandated job to guard our border. I just couldn't sit back any longer. And I really felt this absolute calling that this is what I need to do. This is the time and the place. And I couldn't wait any longer.

You talk about inflation, and I want to throw you a little bit of a curveball. I hope you don't mind here. But Arizona, obviously, we're not an oil-producing state, but we have uranium, right? And the federal government has gotten in the way of mining that, and we have stopped building nuclear plants in this country, essentially. And here we have Palo Verde Nuclear Plant, the largest plant in the United States. It provides the majority of power for the state of Arizona, essentially.

It is the cleanest source of energy we have. If you're green and you're against nuclear, you're just all about propaganda. Yeah, you're full of it at that point. Absolutely. And for that matter, even with oil and gas in America, our oil and gas is cleaner than you get from Russia or anywhere else. So if we care about the environment, we would be having American oil and gas, which would naturally power us for hundreds of years. And mining copper, all the minerals here.

super important. Renium, we have a number of really important minerals that are mined here. We absolutely need to do that because otherwise another country can shut us off from a component that we need for our cell phones, for our cars, for our national security. You've got to have things made here, things grown here, our national security protected here. All of that depends on a thriving economy and not having the federal government

get in the way of the things we make and mine and build here in Arizona. Let's talk about what you can do as Attorney General regarding the border. So you have an ad that will play here today about the border, but it was announced this morning by Customs, Custom Border Patrol, that in Nogales, they did back-to-back seizures, one of 208,000, the other of 184,000 fentanyl pills and separate smuggling busts

and then agents also sees 22 pounds of fentanyl in a car coming from Mexico. I mean, it's enough to kill millions. What, as an AG...

can you do to stop this? There's just this onslaught. And, you know, it gets it. We have talked about this on the show. Fentanyl is killing more daily than any of the gun violence. And that does not dismiss the gun violence, which we have to do something about and whatever we can do. But that being said, what can we do to stop this? It's an onslaught. It's an invasion. Arizona has become the capital of the U.S. for fentanyl seizures. And fentanyl has been one of those

poison drugs that can kill someone the first time they use it. So when you look at the number of deaths from fentanyl and other, other drugs, we have way more than doubled car accident deaths in the U S with these drug overdoses. So an absolute, uh,

epidemic among our young people and for that matter even just you know young adults and our military age population that we want to be keeping strong uh... so a very big concern and there's a whole lot that the attorney general could do on this for one

the Attorney General is tasked with bringing down drug trafficking rings, human trafficking rings, wherever there are actual groups that are coordinating these efforts and bringing this illegal activity in. That's exactly the sort of thing the Attorney General goes after. And on the border, we could be taking way more bold action. We should

declare a declare an invasion according to our u.s constitution it gives states a state self-defense clause where states can guard that border ourselves and not have to wait for congress not have to wait for president biden not have to wait for anyone in the federal government we could do that ourselves we should do that we can sue the federal government to pay us back for what we spend all those extra patrolling costs processing costs health care costs detention costs

Why should Arizona and Texas have to bear the brunt of that, you know? You know, I agree, Chuck. And one of the reasons I agree, and I think that would have been a hard argument to make if Mexico was a whole country. And what I mean by that is northern Mexico is essentially now a failed state where the north of that country is controlled by the cartels. They are the governing entity there.

of northern Mexico in many, many ways. And you can see it when you go down to the border. They literally have a couple of cartel lookouts on the other side of our languishing wall, which the Biden administration doesn't allow us to fix and repair and make sure is solid. The cartels have these lookouts and they can signal people when to cross and they see where the Border Patrol is stationed and their stationary spots where they're allowed to sit.

They are in control of that. And I look at the misery that they're bringing into Arizona and it angers me to think of us allowing that to happen to our beautiful state. Fantastic. When we come back, more with Dawn Grove, candidate for attorney general here in the great state of Arizona. Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds, back in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone in studio with us today. And thank you for being here. Dawn Grove, candidate for attorney general for the state of Arizona.

When we went to break, we were talking a little bit about the crisis that's going on on our border, the fentanyl crisis that is tearing lives apart, families apart here in the United States. And what you can do about it is, A.G., you have another ad out. We want to play that for our listeners and then talk about that a little bit because I think, to be quite honest, you've done really good work with those ads expressing your position there.

And this is critical for the entire country. If you're listening in Florida, if you're listening as a podcast downloader anywhere, this is affecting you.

It doesn't matter where you are. This crisis is national. It's coming from Arizona. Thank you, Sam. But it's going everywhere. And thank you, Chuck. It's absolutely true. It affects the entire nation. And again, why Arizona shouldn't have to pay the cost of that. We should have the help that we need. And if we're not getting it, which we're not, we should be able to do it ourselves. And the attorney general is the legal counsel for elected officials. So we can go and give the legislature reason to declare this invasion, give them that opportunity

that they can move forward with this and that we can do this to protect our state. And we have to do something because the numbers coming across are absolutely unsustainable and the victims that are experiencing

experiencing the pain of this every day, both Arizonans and migrants. It's wrong. We had, what was it, Chuck, a college or high school football team in Florida, a number of fatalities from accidental fentanyl overdose. West Point. It was West Point. We had five cadets. Right. Oh, geez. I mean, it's unbelievable. So let's play that ad and then talk about it because AGs have an enormous impact across this country on what they can do taking on the federal government.

It's an invasion. Single military-aged men. Record numbers storming Arizona. The media ignores it. President Biden's making it worse. Dawn Grove will stop the invasion. She'll sue, making the feds pay for the damage caused by illegal invaders, forcing the wall to be finished. The woke left, they'll try to cancel it. But Dawn Grove won't stop until Arizona's border is secure. I'm Dawn Grove. I'm Dawn Grove.

And I'm ready to protect and serve you as Arizona's Attorney General. Fantastic. And people don't realize the clause that allows...

to step up to declare this. An invasion has been around, obviously, since the Constitution was written. No one has had the courage to go out and stand behind that to this point. I'm not sure it was really needed before. Well, it has been used. If you look back at the legislative history with James Madison, one of the founding fathers, he talked about smugglers from Virginia who were bothering Virginians. And it was not the federal government that put that down. It was the Virginia militia, empowered citizens who did that. Interesting.

Oh, very interesting.

And there are some even in my race who are saying, oh, don't pay any attention to that constitutional right. Who knows whether that would work? We have to guard all our constitutional rights and stand on them. And we can't be afraid to do that. We use every tool possible to shut down this crisis at the border. And I have to be, you know, obviously I'm not taking a side in this AG fight. I think we've got some good candidates. But I want to compare your ad really quick to one of the other ones that just came out.

We're one of the leading contenders along with you and a couple others. It's a very crowded field. His approach was, well, we're going to put up no trespassing signs. And that was tried in Texas. And when you get a county attorney, because the Attorney General's Office doesn't have people with badges out there to arrest people. You've got to work with the county attorneys who spend 90 percent of their time prosecuting cases. And if you have a county attorney who wants to just turn people back out,

what can they do? I mean, that was what was happening in Texas. They were bringing them in. They were elected representatives. And they were sending them right back out of the jails. So you've got to do more than that. You're also talking about a misdemeanor, right? Or a felony misdemeanor, but it's a pretty minor... It's a slap on the wrist. Yeah. Well, if you make a criminal trespass zone, you could up some of those penalties. So there is some teeth to that. And it's

a piece of a much bigger plan that's needed to guard that border. I was just disappointed when I saw that individual's ad because that was really the entirety of their approach. And I'm sitting there going, oh, come on.

There's so much more that we need to do. We could even establish some sort of border courts to expedite prosecutions because right now they're dumping them off at gas stations. So let's talk about border courts. We're lacking judges to do this role. What can the Attorney General's Office do on this? Anything? Well, again, if the Attorney General's Office, if the Attorney General advises the legislature that, hey, we could set this up once we've declared an invasion, once we are exercising that constitutional right, yes, I expect that there will be pushback from the federal government. They won't like that.

But it's absolutely something that we need to do, and we can look at how do we do those deportations because we cannot afford this many people coming over. You look at in Arizona, there's about 80,000 people a year that are born and about 60,000 people a year that naturally die. So we would grow naturally by about 20,000 people in a year. And instead, we've got way more than 20,000 coming over every single month and a huge percentage of those deportations.

Down in Cochise County, they'll tell you about two-thirds of those we know aren't even being apprehended. There's an additional amount that are coming across, and they're 90% to 95% military-aged men. That is an invasion. It is provable. Well, and I think most people, Chuck, don't realize that we allow the equivalent of about 1% of our entire population in the United States in legally each year. We do. We are better than other countries in that way. 1.2 million annually. That has not decreased. Right.

When you add all the other visas. And you don't hear many people who are even animated about stopping illegal immigration. You don't hear many of those people say, well, no, I want to stop the 1.2 as well. I mean, I just rarely hear that. I've heard it like from three people maybe. And I'm the grandchild of a legal immigrant. I believe in legal immigration. Wow.

But we need a border. We need a door where we can vet who's coming in because the people who are coming in right now, so many of them are intent on harming us and on making money off the backs of youth who die from fentanyl and other drugs and are bringing terrorism. Did you see even this morning, there's a huge caravan coming through Yuma and they're from...

Persia and Venezuela and Cuba and all these other places. These are not just Mexican families looking for a better life. These are people all over the world. It's really changed the last five, six years. It's truly been. Haitian. Yes. I mean, it's amazing. And the Texas Attorney General has endorsed me in this campaign. Very nice.

He wants me to work arm in arm with Texas to make sure that we guard that border. In fact, I have endorsements from attorneys general from across the U.S. So tell us more about the attorney general endorsements you have. Todd Rokita from Indiana, Doug Peterson from Nebraska, Ken Paxton from Texas, former Florida attorney general, Pam Bondi, a number of other attorneys general. And there's not a single one who's endorsed anyone else in my race. Well, and I think that's something people don't realize.

Well, I know they don't realize. I mean, if Sam and I don't know, people don't know. We're pretty close political observers. And I was not aware of that. And I think that's a really big statement. Yeah, because they're the ones who are fighting back against this onslaught of the Biden administration, their abdication of duty at the border. And they want me to fight alongside them. They know that I'm going to have the tenacity to guard our border, guard our elections, stand up for our constitutional rights.

And I won't take no for a federal government answer. Before we take our next break here, which is coming up shortly, why don't you tell our audience where can they find you on social media and so forth? Oh, bless you. Thank you. It's Dawn Grove for Arizona, for F-O-R, Arizona spelled out. DawnGroveForArizona.com. Would love for folks to join our team. We have a number of incredible volunteers. I've been so blessed.

But if you go on there, you can follow us on social media. You can ask to get our updates. And we would love to have you join our team because this will be a group effort to secure our rights and liberties and keep these freedoms and opportunities for years to come. So, folks, go to Dawn Grove for Arizona. Check her out there because I think she would make an excellent attorney general for this state or any state, quite frankly, right now.

And attorney generals have had an enormous impact across this country when they banded together conservative attorney generals pushing back against the federal government. That's what we need more of. Coming right back with Don Grove, Breaking Battlegrounds, back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. In studio with us today, Dawn Grove, candidate for attorney general. You can follow her at dawngroveforarizona.com. Dawn, what is your Twitter handle? Because I know a lot of folks out there want to know that.

She's looking suspiciously at her campaign manager. Which actually makes me feel really good. Who's now pulling it up. I was never a social media gal before this, so this has all been new to me. It is Dawn Grove for AZ. Absolutely.

At Dawn Grove for AZ. Thank you. What would I do without my team? That's why you always need a team around you. We like to put our guests on the spot, you know, occasionally. But I got to tell you, I love it that you're not a social media person because that is a toxic, toxic world. But I review every single post that goes out. Good. All right. Let's talk about inflation. So the Washington Post came out this morning with a survey. It was done over three weeks.

on inflation. And they asked the question, how much, if at all, have recent price increases been a financial stress on your household? 37% said major financial stress, 50% minor financial stress. We were talking to our crew this morning, and they are actually making conscientious decisions where to drive or not to drive, how much gas to leave in the car in case there's a gas shortage.

What can Arizona's Attorney General do to help on this, if anything? It is affecting the great majority of Americans and Arizonans in particular. We have very high inflation here. When you have tons of people coming across the border,

Where are you going to put all those tens of thousands of people? That's driving up rents here. You have gas prices being driven up and grocery store prices and traveling prices. All these things are taking a chunk out of people's pocketbooks. And I've spoken to restaurant owners who've just thrown in the towel. It is so sad to see these people who have put their lives into a business that they've run with their family and others and just had to close up shop because of the expense of all this. And you know what's causing it?

It is the unconstitutional mandates that the Biden administration is putting on businesses. It is the printing of money that's devaluing our dollar. It's the continuing to pay people to not work.

And it's attacks on American energy that are driving up the costs of energy. So really, the attorney general's office is supposed to be guarding consumers from wrongful activity that drives up consumer prices. And even if it's the federal government that's doing that, the attorney general can step in and play a role in that. And I think one thing, Chuck, that most people don't know is that by EPA mandate, the gas that we get here in Maricopa County is

Central and Southern Arizona comes from California. It has to be made and produced in California refineries. And the cost of doing that, just the taxes they pay and everything else. I paid $6.01 in North Phoenix this morning. Right. Wow. How wrong. That's just terrible. It's hideous. And you could go, if you go to Flagstaff or you go to the eastern part of the state, they get their gasoline from refineries in New Mexico, and it's about $0.30 to $0.50 cheaper there.

Let's change course here for a minute. So being involved as a corporate attorney, you've been involved in the chamber and various institutions like that, work close with the business community. What has surprised you about running for office when you meet people? I mean, we always like to ask this question and it's amazing. So for example, we asked Senator Michael Lee when he was on, what surprised him about being in the Senate? He said, the fact that no one reads the bills, like ever.

And he was talking about when they got Build Back Better, it was 2,700 pages. You have 24 hours. No one's reading that. And Sam's probably the quickest reader I know. And I asked him how long it would take. He goes, eight hours a day, about a week. And they have other things to do. So what has surprised you running for office? What's been a pleasant surprise and what's been a negative surprise?

So maybe two parts of that question. The first on what surprised me, I will say unequivocally, the biggest surprise has been how much I have absolutely delighted in this. Again, not thinking this would ever be my path, and yet I have had so much fun meeting people all around the state. It is inspirational to me when I hear their stories and the things they've gone through. It makes me want to do this more and more. So I've been just so surprised at how much it has been a delight to do this.

And then on the side of working with the businesses and the manufacturing community, both in Arizona and nationally, you know, I saw the writing on the wall some years ago where this left-wing social agenda was being put on the backs of the business and manufacturing community, even though it wasn't their issues.

And that's one of the reasons I was so heavily involved. And in Arizona, we now have a wonderful CEO and a wonderful group of people who are watchful of making sure they stay on point with the business and manufacturing issues and don't get caught up in this left-wing social agenda. And when my family and I were trying to navigate the whole supply chain crisis, I was out on the manufacturing line working.

next to our manufacturing workers building clubs on Saturday mornings at 5.30 a.m., as was most everyone in my family. And there's no woke executive in an international mega corporation who understands what it means to do that. And everyone else in my race has either spent their entire career in government or they've run for office many times. It is very different when you look at your rights and liberties that can be taken away from you as a private business and private person. There's no amount of government experience that can compare to that experience.

firsthand experience of the heavy hand of government on private businesses. We talk about that all the time on this program. We need people who have signed the front of checks in office more. Breaking Battlegrounds coming back with more from Don Grove, candidate for attorney general for the state of Arizona in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. In studio with us today, Don Grove, candidate for attorney general for the state of Arizona. Don, when we went to break, you are from the family that founded Ping Golf Clubs.

obviously very relevant to people both here in Arizona and in Florida. I think those might be... Are those your two biggest markets in the United States? Golf is big all over the U.S. And it is one of the biggest tourism draws in Arizona. We've got more than 300 courses here. It is one of the main reasons people come to visit Arizona. Did it grow during COVID? Because that's the one thing that didn't get shut down. You know...

Golf did grow because people discovered that, hey, this is a safe sport. Even in a pandemic, you only touch your own golf equipment. You don't have to be, you know, changing saliva or, you know, sweat everywhere. It's a beautiful, wonderful thing to play in a gorgeous place with people you love. So it did grow during the... How's your golf game?

I could be better, but I do love the game. I really do. I mean, with all your activities, do you get to play much still or do you go out? I have not played since I declared my candidacy. This is the crime of running for office. You don't get to actually golf until you win the seat.

And then you get to go play. And then everybody complains that you're playing golf and not working. So we have that to go with. You know what? There have been so many deals that have been done on the golf course with different presidents over the years. It can be a great, relaxed place to have a four-hour uninterrupted conversation with other people and resolve things. So tell us the family history of the business. So my grandfather started making the Ping Golf Clubs in his garage, and he and my grandma moved to Arizona in 1961. How did he come up with the name?

Well, when he first made the club and it had a little bit of a tuning fork sort of aspect to it, it, you know, struck the ball and it made a pitch.

sound and he said the clubs named themselves. So obvious. So obvious. And President Reagan personally handed my grandfather the Export Excellence Award and I feel like my family proved with their lives and work that anyone regardless of your circumstances at birth or your social class can rise to become a blessing to the world when you have hard work, individual responsibility, faith in the help of others.

Fantastic. So we have been here all those years and continue to make clubs here in Arizona. Which is, you are one of the legacy businesses for Arizona, one of the early founder manufacturers that are still operating, frankly, a lot of businesses that started...

before during that time period are no longer here. - We were told that we could not make money in the golf industry by making it in the U.S., that we had to move to China if we ever wanted to stay in this business. And we are patriots and we believe in making things in the U.S. and especially in Arizona where we, is our home and family and where we love.

And we have watched lots of other golf companies come and go. Now, do you have trouble getting workers who are skilled to be able to work the manufacturing end of the operation? We have been much more fortunate than others in having a huge number of people that stay with us decade after decade. We have 35-year, 40-year workers working.

So we haven't had as much trouble as others. But that's a credit to your company's leadership. I mean, they just don't stay to stay. I mean, that means you treat them well. You treat them as partners and teammates. I hope they do feel like family because they are to us. And we would still hire 18 more today, though, if we found the right people and could do that. What type of jobs would those 18 people fill? Especially in the factory itself. So manufacturing skills. The clubs. And, yeah, it pays really well, and it's good work. And, yeah.

We also have been hiring a number of researchers and engineers and customer service people. So there's a wide variety of jobs, but especially making sure that we can keep meeting the growing demand because our clubs have been doing so well that we've had to continue to hire more and more people. What do people not understand about owning a business? I'm always amazed that people just think corporations have just this unlimited market.

money and you know they're responsible for all price increase what do you think people don't understand about running a business I think they don't understand how many challenges there are federal state and local red tape hurdles to overcome while you're innovating new products and trying to keep your customers and trying to keep your employees

I was a litigator for about seven years, and during that time, as I represented these other manufacturers, I totally grew in my respect for what my family had accomplished. And I was like, wow, I had no idea there were all these crazy challenges and lawsuits that would go on for years and years that you couldn't even enter into a settlement discussion with because your part was so small, according to the Environmental Protection Agency or whatever else. Just so many difficulties that they had to overcome. And I was happy to come and help the family then at that point. It's amazing.

to me that any business in the United States can survive our legal and regulatory environment at this point. But entrepreneurs are like that. They take risks. They are willing to work night and day. I think that's another thing people don't realize is just how hard these people who run these businesses work. They think about it night and day. It's 24-7. It is. Yeah. They're not just out there taking vacation. Let's talk about what can Arizona's Attorney General do about water?

It's obviously one of the big long-term things we have to plan for. Governor Ducey is pushing a billion dollars and I think that's just a start. That's the tip of the iceberg of what it's going to take for us. The one thing I appreciate about Ducey from the Rainy Day Fund, I mean he does seem to say, "Okay, look, we got these problems. We got to start attacking now." Whatever you want to say about Doug Ducey, his management of the budget has been outstanding. The state's finances under his guidance have been outstanding.

Absolutely. Because he has encouraged private business to be able to grow and thrive here. Having a low tax structure, having less burdensome regulations encourages more businesses to grow and more businesses to come here, which in turn supports our first responders, our schools.

uh... although health care all those different things need to be funded from a thriving uh... business economy one of the things i never understand democrats constantly want to raise taxes here but if you look by cutting taxes we have increased government revenues substantially we have it does work that way and they just they're never going to believe just don't want to believe it you know it's the old it's the old george costanza line in seinfeld where jerry asked him how do you tell why

And George says, "Well, if you believe it's true, it's not a lie." And I really do believe they think if you just keep raising taxes, it doesn't hurt anything. They have absolutely sold themselves on that position. And they don't realize how many businesses go out of business because of that or leave the state or leave the country. You've got to keep them here and keep them thriving. Especially manufacturing. That's what they don't understand. I mean, because we do have a higher standard of living. We're not going to pay our people $2.50 an hour.

Right. Well, more than that, when you have manufacturers here, you are making products for your people. We learned tough lessons during COVID. If you can't get personal protective equipment or antibiotics or tests or food, baby food, whatever else, you've got to be able to make it here locally for the good of your people so that somebody else doesn't cut you off from it.

And if you are making things here, those manufacturers attract other suppliers around them who go ahead and support all the retailers and banks and every other business around that. They are the magnet. And Arizona has a bunch of them. Literally 70% of the jobs coming into Arizona right now are manufacturing jobs. And that bodes very well for us for years to come. Which means you need water. Exactly.

And I was just going to get back to that on the water. Like when we make extra money, when we have a surplus and we're able to then invest in infrastructure such as with a desalinization plant or find other new sources of water, it helps us be able to grow and grow smart.

Arizona and Israel have done a better job than most any other nation or state in the world on water preservation. I have leaders who are friends in other states, even Oregon and Utah and other states that have lots of water, but who are jealous of what Arizona has done because we have preserved it so well. We are using less water now than we did in 1957, despite the fact that we have six times the population and 16 times the economy. You can use water well. You can take care of the virus.

environment and grow and secure your people. And I look forward to preserving those things. And I know there are plans underway to expand reservoirs and basins, storage capacity on the Salton and Verde rivers. Those things are likely to run into legal opposition from environmental groups who stopped California from expanding their capacity and created a crisis.

And you're going to be on the front line if you win this race. You're going to be on the front line defending us against that. And let me tell you one thing that we did in the business community with the forests. We just saw that forest health was super important to our watershed and that we weren't managing our forests well. And it was causing these forest fires and other things. And so we worked together with environmentalists at the table, with government leaders at the table, with business leaders at the table and said, what can we do about this?

and came up with a plan that required changes in Congress and other things to be able to bring back these businesses for use of wood in our forests and do it in a way that was good for everyone all around. It can be done. - I'll ask a question. Sam and I have talked about this. So it seems to me all great leaders have, outside of family, have a good friend or two who can just say, "You know, that's a pretty dumb decision."

Do you have people like that around you that you just trust and they just feel like they can have this blunt conversation with you?

Leadership is relational. It is servanthood. It is being willing to listen to other people and take their advice and hear how it affects others. You know, even with any bill in the legislature, you might think this is a great idea until you hear from other people as to how it would actually play out and affect on the ground. It makes a difference when you get that insight. And yes, I welcome people. I love that authenticity when they are willing to tell me both the good and the bad. I want to hear it straight.

That's fantastic. Where do you stand on capital punishment? It's my favorite subject. And Sam would be depressive if I didn't ask the question today. Yeah, no, absolutely. We call him Fry-Em-Chuck. My list gets longer by the week. But where are your stands on capital punishment? We just had two within the last month. Both were just egregious murders. One being an 8-year-old girl.

And that reportedly was not the first incident. That's just the one that he was convicted on. Right, right. These victims have waited for justice for a long time. And sometimes it is the only appropriate response when someone has committed a great deal of verifiable heinous acts, especially against children and innocent people. There needs to be accountability for that. And I do support the death penalty. It's a tragedy every time, and yet it's a necessary one to have justice for.

And I do think that there's a time and a place for it, and especially when victims have waited as long as they have. We have to do that. The most important thing, though, is that we make sure that this is really the defendant who committed this. We want that double injustice. And we all want that. We all want that. But when you know that, when there's been this terrible effect on people, I know of someone else on death row who, you know,

came into a house and tied up the parents and raped the daughter and bludgeoned the mother. You cannot let that go. You've got to have a consequence for that. And sometimes the ultimate consequence is the right one. Well, and Chuck and I have talked about it. I think with the death penalty, the standard needs to be more beyond a shadow of a doubt than beyond a reasonable doubt, right? You have to

be very certain with that individual that they're the guilty party. And with all the due process that we have and all the appeals that they are allowed over years and years and years, there really is that certainty with the ones that have been executed.

Yeah, absolutely. Don, among other things, you are in a huge field for this race. I mean, it has got to be tough right now to separate yourself. I'm kind of, as folks know, I'm running for office and I have the same kind of thing where I have 11 people in the field with me. And how do you ever hold a forum or a debate or that kind of thing and have it mean anything? And I think that makes it tougher to talk to voters now.

Well, and we've talked about this. Of all the various statewide offices people are running for, we believe the attorney general candidates are the best ones as a group. I mean, you have some fine people and they're smart. We do have some fine people in this race. And I can't say that about every candidate for every statewide office. And my fellow competitors in this race are not my enemies. These are people we're going to need beside me in the fights that are going forward, the true fights.

So I have great relationships with them, but I really am the only candidate who truly comes from the private sector who hasn't spent her whole career in government or run for office lots of times. This is something very specific that I want to do to retain our safety and our freedom. And I would say if you win or someone else, and obviously, you know, we're going to root for you here today. Thank you.

If you win, you might be well advised to bring some of those people into that office with you. Oh, I may or may not have already talked about that possibility. So there are some good people that I would enjoy having on my team. There's a great Doors Goodwin book on Lincoln. Yes. Ah, yes. I know what you're talking about. Yes. And it's important to build those relationships and to bring all the ideas together. You know, think about it, the border.

Each of us has come up with something more helpful in what we could do. I think there's a lot of pooling a lot of those ideas together, making sure we use every possible tool. Wouldn't it be a shame to waste all the talent that's in that race? There would be a good path forward with the other candidates, I do believe. Absolutely. So, Dawn, as our time is running out, we have about a minute left. This is the time to give the one-minute sales pitch to everybody in the audience. Why should they vote for you? Bless you. I appreciate that.

I really do want to serve our state. I will listen to all the different constituents. Some of them, some of the other candidates who have only had prosecutorial experience or things like that, it's an important part of the Attorney General's office, but it's about 10%. The other 90%, the consumer protection laws, overseeing the environmental laws, giving great advice to all the different legal elected officials and 220 boards and commissions, these things matter, and they're things that I have

experience in and can bring to that. I really do believe that America is worth it. Arizona is worth it. We the people are worth it. And I'm anxious to get out there and make sure we keep Arizona wonderful. I love that. Dawn Grove, thank you for joining us today, folks, at dawngroveforarizona.com. Check her out. She would make a fantastic attorney general for the state. Breaking Battlegrounds coming back next week. Thank you, Sam.

Welcome back to the podcast-only segment of Breaking Battlegrounds. As always, you can download us on just about every podcast platform out there. Thank you to Jamie and Kylie for their effort, tireless efforts to make that happen. It was a great interview. Yeah, it was a fantastic interview. I do say this again. The attorney general candidates for the state are just superior candidates overall to other groups of office. It doesn't mean there's not great candidates for each thing we're in office, but overall as a group...

I don't think there's anybody there that could go wrong for Arizona. There's not a bad candidate in that field. They're just all different skill sets. Just different degrees of better. Yeah. You know, just different skill sets. Yeah, absolutely true. And whoever does win would be wise to go sit down with some of their competitors and say, I need you. Yeah. I need you to X, Y, Z and take it real seriously. Right. So if I was her competitor.

Because of her experiences, boy, I put Tiffany Shedd on border. Well, you know, the AG, as far as I know, I know they have an office in Tucson. I believe they have one in Yuma and Flagstaff. And you need leaders in each of those positions to run those offices. And you have people from those diverse geographic areas.

I would be really happy to see whoever wins take those other competitors and put them in those roles because that is a really strong field. And they're all potentially very, very valuable. Yeah, it's a team of rivals approach, which Lincoln did, and something that I think we need more of in this day and age. Let's talk here. So Nate Silver.

this morning, who runs the website FiveThirtyEight. Betty markets say that there's a 28 percent chance that Trump gets elected in 2024 as compared to 22 percent for Biden. There's also a 28 percent chance for Ron DeSantis, 9 percent for Kamala Harris. I cannot see Kamala Harris winning

Boy, can I take the under? Kylie, you probably know this. Kylie is our resident. Over-under. Yeah, she is our resident degenerate gambler. Yeah, that's what I'm here for. But can I take the under on the line on Kamala Harris? Because I definitely want to take the under. You can. You can. I would, too. But this site that it's on, I kind of feel like is a little bit skewed.

Because the only people doing it are probably me.

I can't imagine a lot of people are going on and betting on these politics. I don't know. I think people will bet on anything you give them the opportunity to bet on. That's true. I was thrilled, actually, when I learned about this site. And I was like, this is fun. You can turn your inside knowledge into cash. Uh-huh. Yeah. But it's a little different. You bet on cents, and then it's up to a dollar. And then you get paid out up to the dollar if that thing wins. So you can bet if... Okay.

people are going to stay in their seat until the end of this year or if they'll drop out. So how does that work with Congress, though? Because aren't you betting they'll be there until the end of times? Well, that's stuff like you're not going to get bet, like you're not going to win on. It's just going to happen. So you could bet 99 cents and then you'd get paid out. So 47 years from now when Ocasio-Cortez finally gets tossed out of office.

Yeah, exactly. Let's talk about inflation before we close out today. So the Washington Post had a great article this morning asking about inflation. Three in four Americans say it would be difficult to afford rent in their neighborhood if they had to move.

Well, one of three or four. One thing I would say, and I saw the article and saw those numbers, Chuck. But one thing you're running into in every bit of polling right now is no Democrat. There's 33, 34 percent who get polled who will not criticize any Democrat policy.

No, and we have it on the Republican side too. I mean, you know, it's – But my point is those numbers are underselling how big a problem it is, I think. I mean, they have here, as a result of increases in prices on many goods and services in recent months, have you done each of the following? One, made more of an effort to find the cheapest price for products you buy, 87%.

Cut back on spending on entertainment and eating out, 77%. How many small, how many restaurants do we have in Phoenix? A ton. I don't know. I mean, that really affects the bottom line. You're going to see, you know, not only did they deal with COVID, now the ones that survived are going to have to deal with this, right? And I'm one of those folks. I'm cutting back on eating out. I mean, you just can't do it. Put off purchases you were otherwise planning on, 74%. Minimize use of electricity.

And that's more than just turning off lights. That's some plugging stuff, right? I mean, that's things like drove less, 59%. We talked about this this morning with Kip and Jamie. I know a lot of people who are just simply making that decision. And Jamie can attest that I like my living environment to be about three degrees above zero. And I've had to turn up the thermostat to 79 degrees. And I just sweat to death every night.

I mean, that is the cost of inflation for me right now is I sweat my way through every bloody night. And then here's another one. Taking a second job or work more hours, 27%. And then 27% definitely have on that. And 70% say no, but...

That's probably increasing. Probably in two months you'll probably see that at 35, 40. And will the jobs be there? Well, there's 11 million unfilled jobs. So, I mean, if you want to side hustle, you can find something, I'm sure. You can, but I'm wondering as people start to cut back, I think you're going to start to see not within the next month or two, but within the next year you're going to start to see businesses going under.

That's why Kylie's going to start lifeguarding. Exactly. There's a shortage of lifeguards. And they get paid a lot. Yeah, I was going to say move to California. What was that, $500,000 a year? It's amazing how many stores. As you know, I'm subscription poor of newspapers. It's amazing how many lifeguards I'm seeing because these rec centers can't fill them. No, no, no. We have that problem here in Phoenix. We have half our pools closed this summer because we can't fill the lifeguard positions for them. Our lifeguards don't make $500,000 a year, though.

I think we could fill in that. So before we close, I do want to ask one question. The sign wars of Arizona. Florida, you have them as well. But in Arizona, we have Maricopa County in particular. It's our biggest county, one of the fifth largest county in the country, I think, size-wise.

Population-wise, size-wise, I think it's number one or two. I mean, and you have people basically terrorizing Carrie Lake's Donald Trump signs, you know. And the thing about it is we laugh, but they're expensive. I mean, so they're about $50 a sign. Once you put them up, get the rebar, put them up, it's $50. I mean, there's nothing cheap about this. No, I'm laughing a little bit because the—

Well, two things, Chuck. One, you know, signs do name ID. Yes, they do. And here in Arizona, everyone expects you to have signs. And so everyone does. But the fact of the matter is they don't do anything else at all. No, but what they do is they stop the chirping. But then when they get stolen or taken down, the candidates have sort of a meltdown, right? Yeah. You know, a lot of people, folks that know I'm working with Carrie Lake, they're

A lot of people who are vandalizing her signs, I actually suspect, are her supporters. Because they're cutting Trump out of it? They're cutting Trump's face out of the sign and leaving the sign and her face up.

And I kind of assume if they were Democrats, they would just take the whole sign and trash it. Well, if they want that, I'll print out Trump's face. Make their lives a lot easier, and we'll figure that out. I mean, you know, people are really petty about this, but it is a big impact on candidates. It's a lot of money. It's happened forever, but it is really expensive. And I don't think people realize how expensive it is. But it is. It's roughly—I talked to a sign guy last week, and—

And he says it's 50 bucks. Printing them the rebar, which is really expensive. Right. And putting them up and stuff in the desert. It's 50 bucks. So, Chuck, you want to know my brilliant strategy for my signs? What's that? I'm going to wait till after because our race is later. We actually have a November primary. I'm waiting as soon as this primary is over. And I'm going to call all the losing candidates and offer to take down their signs if I can keep their rebar. Oh, I would do it.

Yeah, that's a good idea. It's like $10 a rebar per sign. Actually, we still have a bunch of rebar at Marcus Huey's house from responsible budgets. He's put it in the storage shed. We've got to call him up and get that rebar. Maybe Marcus is selling it on the side, and I don't know it now. But nonetheless. He's got a side rebar hustle. Well, great show, Sam. We appreciate it. Jamie, Kip, thanks a million. Everybody, have a great weekend.

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