Arizona Republicans are weighing in against an ongoing effort from the outgoing presidential administration to offload materials at the border ahead of the transfer of power in January.
Last week, The Daily Wire revealed that “Biden is racing to auction off unused border wall materials weeks before Trump takes office.” These materials were left over from the first Trump administration, when President Biden halted construction on the wall spanning parts of the southern border in various border states as one of his earliest actions in the White House in early 2021.
According to President-elect Donald Trump at a recent press conference, “The (Biden) administration is trying to sell it for five cents on the dollar – knowing that we’re getting ready to put it up.” Trump added that “what they’re doing is really an act – it’s almost a criminal act.”
Former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey responded to the news, saying, “Right here in AZ, Joe Biden is attempting a last-ditch effort to keep America’s borders open by selling off materials the Trump Admin will use to finish the wall. This decision from President Biden is reckless, will make Arizonans less safe, and should be reversed – immediately.”
Right here in AZ, @JoeBiden is attempting a last ditch effort to keep America’s borders open by selling off materials the Trump Admin will use to finish the wall. This decision from President Biden is reckless, will make Arizonans less safe, and should be reversed — immediately. https://t.co/GRmVAvvEGc
In an interview with The Daily Wire, U.S. Congressman Eli Crane said, “The Biden Administration is well aware they shouldn’t have reversed construction of the border wall. If it’s true, they’re purposefully hamstringing an incoming president, it wouldn’t be shocking. Why would they want to see President Trump succeed with policies they aggressively sabotaged?”
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen told AZ Free News, “This brazen behavior from Biden is a slap in the face to the law-abiding citizens who voted for a secure border. It’s because of his reckless policies and his administration’s evasion of the law that countless Americans have suffered the dire consequences of criminals pouring across the border into our communities. I’m hopeful the courts will take action against this sale.”
As Petersen mentioned, Republicans around the country are searching for a legal theory to try to stop the Biden administration from continuing with these actions. President Donald Trump takes the oath of office one month from this week on January 20.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
On Tuesday, the Arizona Republican Party cast its votes for President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance.
“With a decisive victory, Arizonans delivered a clear mandate: return to common sense, security, prosperity and liberty,” said the Arizona GOP. “God bless America and let the Golden Age begin!”
Today, the @AZGOP and Chair @GinaSwoboda proudly cast their votes for President Trump and J.D. Vance!
With a decisive victory, Arizonans delivered a clear mandate: return to common sense, security, prosperity and liberty.
Trump won Arizona with over 52 percent of the vote (over 1.7 million votes) to Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’s 46.7 percent (over 1.5 million votes).
As a swing state once again this election, Arizona delivered 11 electoral votes for Republicans. The flip from the 2020 election marked a key victory in an overall decisive comeback for Trump.
The president-elect not only secured but swept all seven battleground states: Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump won 312 electoral votes over the 226 pulled by Harris.
Trump won with a greater margin than Joe Biden did in 2020. In the last presidential election, Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232. Democrats flipped the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump matched Trump’s 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton (both securing 306 electoral votes), meaning Trump outdid his 2016 performance in addition to his comeback from his 2020 election loss.
Trump’s victory didn’t translate to flipped congressional seats in Arizona. Incumbents held their seats within their parties. However, Republicans did expand their slim majority in the state legislature.
The open Senate seat vacated by independent Kyrsten Sinema was nabbed by Democratic candidate Ruben Gallego, who emerged victorious with 50 percent of the vote (an 80,600-vote lead) to Republican candidate Kari Lake’s 47 percent.
Lake’s loss didn’t take her out of the political arena, however. Lake secured a spot within Trump’s administration as the director of the federally funded Voice of America (VOA), an entity within the U.S. Agency for Global Media. VOA’s current director is Michael Abramowitz, formerly the president of the DC-based nonprofit Freedom House and longtime reporter with The Washington Post.
Incumbent Democratic Reps. Raúl Grijalva and Greg Stanton defended their seats from Republican challengers. Likewise, incumbent Republican Reps. David Schweikert, Eli Crane, Andy Biggs, Juan Ciscomani, and Paul Gosar defended their seats from Democratic challengers.
Although his seat was hotly contested, Ciscomani fended off a challenge from repeat Democratic candidate Kirsten Engel.
Abe Hamadeh, a Republican, secured the open District 8 seat left by Debbie Lesko. Unlike Lake, Hamadeh successfully navigated the loss of a statewide seat in 2022 to nab a higher seat this year.
In the state legislature, Arizona Republicans flipped a net total of three seats: one in the state senate, and three in the state house (another seat in the house flipped blue). Republicans expanded their majority from 16-14 to 17-13 in the senate and from 31-29 to 33-27 in the house.
The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) claimed in a statement on the legislative expansion that Arizona Republicans outperformed Democrats despite leftwing groups having spent over $9 million.
The inauguration is scheduled to take place on Jan. 20, 2025.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
One of the highest priorities for the incoming Trump administration should be to end the Democrats’ weaponization of powerful government agencies against taxpayers and businesses they don’t like. Nowhere has this mission been more pernicious than the party-line vote to fund the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with nearly $80 billion and hire tens of thousands of new tax snoops.
By the way, according to the IRS press office, the additional audits have so far raised less than $2 billion, far less than the additional expenditures. So how is this program “paying for itself”?
This was never about seeking tax fairness as liberals claimed. It was about unleashing an aggressive, permanent and unchecked enforcement assault on U.S. taxpayers to rake in more tax dollars to pay for liberals’ political agenda. The American people voted to end such madness, and the IRS should now act accordingly and immediately by ignoring the Biden administration’s 11th-hour efforts to ram through a slew of costly new rules and regulations as they now head toward the exit.
Progressive leaders made wildly erroneous claims that a supersized IRS would raise nearly $1 trillion over 10 years from stepped-up enforcement against higher-income earners and businesses. And they attempted to justify their proposals by broadly portraying entrepreneurs, small businesses, family-owned private enterprises and the wealthy as tax cheats.
The entire exercise was designed to harass lawful taxpayers and threaten them as guilty parties until they could prove themselves innocent.
Fortunately, most voters saw their efforts for what they were: a liberal fantasy grab of other peoples’ money and an attempt to assert greater control over their livelihoods. Democrat leaders did not help themselves by immediately oversteering the car. This included efforts to have the IRS spy on personal bank accounts and require income reporting for basic Venmo payments among friends, as well as punitive measures on those whose incomes are derived from tips or numerous other types of transactions.
Another target for IRS harassment has been business partnerships. Such businesses are one of the most common and practical ways to structure private enterprises of all sizes. A simple analogy might be when one party owns an available tractor and another has available land, and they go into business together to farm the land.
All told, there are an estimated 4.5 million business partnerships in America. Collectively, these partnerships generate more than $12 trillion in revenue and employ millions of U.S. workers.
Yet the IRS, before President-elect Donald Trump returns to office, is now stealthily attempting to implement new rules that threaten the future viability of such partnerships. These proposed changes to the tax code impact what is known as “basis shifting” — a routine and legal practice that business partners use to adjust the tax basis of their respective assets. In short, the proposed rules would deliberately embed uncertainty and subjective IRS interpretations of how taxable assets are treated when one transfers or sells their interest in a business partnership. Basically, the opposite of tax fairness.
Meanwhile, the multibillion-dollar bounty the Biden administration claimed their newly armed IRS would secure through added enforcement and new tax rules has completely failed to materialize. The IRS recently disclosed that just $1 billion had been recovered since their aggressive campaign went into effect two years ago, and there is no way of knowing if that would have occurred with or without it.
How ironic and sad is it for taxpayers to learn that the vast amount of the $80 billion Democrats awarded to the IRS to recover or find new “savings” is instead on pace to serve as a massive cost to the U.S. Treasury?
The last thing voters now want is for the IRS to impose any more costly last-minute tax changes that will make problems even worse for taxpayers, workers and employers. Accordingly, the Biden team and the IRS should put down their pencils.
And if they persist with these fourth-quarter rule changes, the Trump team should be prepared to immediately repeal them in January.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. His new book, coauthored with Arthur Laffer, is “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
The Fountain Hills Democratic Club’s feud with local Republicans on the topic of celebrating Christmas at the town community center continues to evolve. What started as an effort to have the center’s Christmas tree removed in May of this year has moved in a whole other direction. Answering the tree’s installation, which is now replete with festive Trump flags, the Democrats added a grotesque mask of a decapitated President Trump to a wreath. The Democratic Club’s members have also called for more sexualized displays to be added, in a holiday that emphasizes family and children, with sex toys, a “Drag queen tree, LGBTQ tree, Trans tree, Banned books tree,” and “All families matter tree.”
One commenter, Libby Settle, described the effort saying, “Fountain Hills Democrats are up to no good again. They want to groom children and desecrate the Ftn Hills Community Ctr with sex toys, LGBQTIA, Trans Christmas trees. Democrats are too extreme for our children.”
Posts in the Fountain Hills Democratic Club Facebook group included a picture of the wreath and a response to the Fountain Hills Town Council’s defense of the GOP Christmas tree as protected speech.
“The Republican Club put up a Trump tree and they are allowed because of the First Amendment,” said the Fountain Hills Democratic Club. “Well, Democrats have those same rights, so we added some free speech to our Wreath. UPDATE: We have removed this from the wreath. It was on display for only a few hours.”
The grotesque representation of Trump had discredited allegations against the President-elect crudely scrawled across the face such as “fraud,” “sexual assault,” “defamation,” “37 felonies,” and “obstruction of justice.” As reported by the Arizona Daily Independent, Fountain Hills Democratic Club Precinct Committee member for Saguaro, Dianne Price, suggested on the club’s Facebook group that the Democrats band together and decorate Christmas trees with lewd objects in 2025.
“I say next year we decorate a tree with sex toys,” said Price.
Jennifer Ferrell Heim, director of early childhood education at Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center, suggested Democrats go beyond sex toys for decorations with “inclusive trees” of all kinds: sexualities, transgenderism, explicit books, and multiculturalism.
“Who wants to do these trees with me next year? Drag queen tree, LGBTQ tree, trans tree, banned books tree, All Families matter tree,” said Ferrell Heim.
For proper context: in May, a press release from Fountain Hills Councilman Allen Skillicorn explained that the Christmas tree is one of a setup of many from various organizations that all have themes. “The Fountain Hills Community Center invited community organizations to set up Christmas trees in the lobby of the community center. An animal rescue has a rescue theme, the Maricopa Sheriff’s Department has a tree with sheriff badges, the Town’s Public Works Staff has a tree with hard hats, and the Fountain Hills Republican Club has Trump flags celebrating the 45th & 47th President of the U.S.A. on their tree.”
Responding to the outcry from the Fountain Hills Democrats, Skillicorn said in a statement, “While I defend the Fountain Hills Democratic Club’s free speech, I am shocked by the inappropriate and out of touch behavior by FH Dem Club members. The Grinch appears to reside in their hearts. The people of Arizona and Fountain Hills have rejected their sex toy ideology and devotion to confusing children. I defend their right to not believe in Christianity and the Holiday of Christ’s birth, but does that mean they should mock the faith of others? I invite the FH Dems to enjoy some eggnog and twinkly lights, but leave the Bah Humbug at home, behind closed doors.”
Since the addition of the Trump mask to the wreath, and its subsequent removal by the group, the display appears to have caused significant division among the Fountain Hills Democrats with some calling it “beyond rude.” Another said the “display shows petty retaliation.” Another commenter added, “Just because something is protected by the First Amendment, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s appropriate.”
The Fountain Hills Democratic Club said in a comment: “We have removed the offensive mask out of respect for all Democrats. A statement was made, if only for a few hours.”
Arizonans appear to be in a slightly better mood following the results of the 2024 General Election.
This past week, Noble Predictive Insights released the results of a recent survey in Arizona, showing “voters expressing a mix of hope and ongoing concerns about key state issues.”
Forty-four percent of respondents indicated that Arizona was on the “right track,” while fifty-six percent believed that their state was moving in the “wrong direction.”
Although those numbers show Arizona has much work to do to flip the outlook of its direction among voters, the numbers were improved from the last survey in August, when sixty percent of respondents thought their state was headed ‘south’ compared to forty percent who indicated that their state was tracking “northward.”
The survey – the Arizona Public Opinion Pulse (AZPOP) – took place between November 20-25 – approximately two weeks after the election.
“Republicans are optimistic and energized after Trump’s win while Democrats are discouraged – Gallego’s win was a victory for Democrats, but it wasn’t enough to improve their outlook,” said Mike Noble, NPI Founder & CEO. “But Arizona voters are pragmatic. They know that there is still work to be done in the state, and there is fertile ground for positive change – if leaders can rise to the occasion.”
The shift in the numbers comes largely courtesy of the two major political parties responding to the results of the election in November. From August to November, Republicans who believed that the state was headed in the right direction increased by twenty-two percent, while Democrats who thought Arizona was tracking in the wrong direction grew by seventeen percent.
While Republicans and Democrats had largely diametric reactions in the aftermath of the election, Independents were much more cautious in their opinions. From August to November, Independents’ optimism grew by three percent, while their pessimism decreased by three percent, according to the AZPOP.
Arizona Republicans are still reveling in many of their election victories from last month – chief among those being the overwhelming performance from President-elect Donald J. Trump in the Grand Canyon State, as he captured the state’s eleven electoral votes on his way to a commanding lead in the Electoral College over Democrat Kamala Harris. Republicans also expanded their narrow majorities in the state House and Senate, increased and retained control of key Maricopa County positions, swept the Arizona Corporation Commission races, and managed to pass a handful of ballot propositions, including one on border security to give local communities more resources and tools to better protect citizens.
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
