Broomhead Show (KTAR News Radio): “We can’t undermine our election system.”

KTAR Radio | June 21, 2024

“The Mike Broomhead Show”

Former Arizona Governor and RightCount State Co-Chair Jan Brewer joined “The Mike Broomhead Show on KTAR News Talk Radio to explain why she feels that Republicans need to move past election denialism and focus on drawing contrast by advancing conservative solutions.

What follows is a rush transcript of the interview:

Mike Broomhead: All right, happy Friday. Thanks for being here. Former Governor Jan Brewer wrote an op-ed piece just the other day and at the beginning of this, she says “as a former governor, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing Arizona’s proud history of robust civic engagement and elections in action. Our continued population growth, increased competitiveness in state and federal elections illustrate our standing as leaders as a leading laboratory of democracy.” She goes on to talking about misinformation and this is about election integrity and election denialism. And so she joins us now, Governor, it’s great to talk to you again.

Governor Brewer: Mike, it’s great to be with you this morning.

Mike Broomhead: I was just talking this morning about how long we’ve known each other, and it’s been over. It’s been over 20 years now and when you were secretary of state, so you and I have been kind of doing this for quite a while together.

Governor Brewer: We have. We’ve watched each other grow old. Me older than you, haha.

Mike Broomhead: I’m interested in this and why you decided now was the time to write this. Why is this still such an important issue to you? I know inside the party, it’s difficult because it kind of seems at times like it’s tearing our party apart.

Governor Brewer: Well not only seems, it has thrown our party apart. And it’s unfortunate, because I think we all want to believe and restore the democracy that we have. But we have to restore the public trust because there was so much misinformation out there. I thought it might kindly just go away slowly. But it’s not. It just keeps getting stuck, resurging, resurging. And when we don’t take a stand, we’re gonna have a problem. We know that there are issues out there that a lot of people believe because of all the commotion and all the conversation about it that people do have concerns about it. But we have a responsibility to verify. You know it’s like Ronald Reagan, “trust but verify.” So much misinformation out there. We can’t stand it. We can’t tolerate it.

Mike Broomhead: So do…Is it difficult for you, when you find yourself on opposite sides of an issue from people that have been standing shoulder to shoulder with you forever? I know that you have been such a well-respected member of the Republican Party in Arizona and across the country. But is it difficult now that you find yourself at odds with people that you’ve been on the same side?

Governor Brewer: It is, and what makes it really tough is the fact that, you know, you want them to listen to you. And you could agree on so much of everything that’s going on. But everything that they say so much of it, what they have done has been misinformation, and it keeps getting repeated and repeated and repeated. And the public, they follow that and then pretty soon, if everything is wrong with the elections. All of this, most of it, all the, all the court hearings, all of that, have been debunked. There is no proof. There is no proof. There are issues that need to be addressed. There’s always going to be issues, but we address those and move forward. We can’t undermine our election system. It’s just awful. And for those sort of losers that lose elections, unfortunately, they need to work harder and win their elections.

Mike Broomhead: When you look at the issue of election integrity, and a lot of us have dug into this and done homework on it, are you confident that the election in 2020 the results were fair and that the results were correct? And the same with 2022 and you believe that will be fair in 2024?

Governor Brewer: Absolutely, absolutely. I think they were probably hiccups. I acknowledged the hiccup, but it wasn’t to the amount of problems that’s going to change the election. I mean, you know, votes here, a little votes there, there was a paper problem. We understand that. We need to work in that direction to see that it doesn’t happen again. Over all the years that I’ve been in politics, we’ve had a little hiccup, but it’s never big enough to change the numbers. And they can have a recount. We verify you’re the chief election officer. I wrote the election procedure manual. We did the L&A testing and all the equipment. None of the equipments hooked up online. I mean, it’s just I don’t understand why people want to do this, to us, to the, to the people.

Mike Broomhead: Joining us now is former Governor Jan Brewer, but equally as important, especially for this discussion, is former secretary of state and in charge of elections. And as you just said, writing that elections manual for years in Arizona, but how do we and this is my difficulty as being respectful in this that I know that there are people in our party that adamantly disagree with the stance I share with you, but I don’t want to alienate them because I know when it comes to elections, we still are going to need each other to win elections. How do you maintain those relationships while disagreeing?

Governor Brewer: Absolutely, we need to maintain them. And you know, the bottom line is we agree on so many other issues. I hope we can keep a dialogue going and come together and present their concerns and come together with solutions that can satisfy their, their interest in all of this. You know some of these people I’ve known for 40-50 years, and they disagree with me and they get very volatile about it. We have got to reclaim our party or we’re gonna lose the Republican presence in the state of Arizona. And they’re doing it to themselves.

Mike Broomhead: There is, there’s a group of people that believe that the county recorder in Maricopa County has, I’m going to read from a text I got, “used election security money to spy and censor citizenships, the media and legislators.” Do you have any idea where that comes from? And is there any validity to those statements?

Governor Brewer: Just blows me away. That just blows me away. Where’s the evidence? Where’s the evidence in something like that? There is none. There is none.

Mike Broomhead: I will, there’s irony here. And, and this is what I’ve tried to explain to people in private settings. If you look at from, from our perspective, from a partisan perspective, the Maricopa County Recorder lost his job to Adrian Fontes and then because of the election integrity argument, I believe it catapulted him into being elected statewide as secretary of state. [inaudible] The secretary of state and the secretary of state at the time, Katie Hobbs, and the threats against her catapulted her into national fame. And it catapulted her to being governor. That those two races specifically, were started by the election integrity argument. And those two offices are held by the two people that were hated most by the election deniers.

Governor Brewer: Exactly. Absolutely. And I don’t understand why they don’t understand what they’re doing. I mean, they’re undermining the Republican winners. I mean, we’re, we should be a red state, we believe that, all of us believe that. But they’re going at it backwards. They’re going at it backwards. We can’t continue down that path. So I hope that maybe, you know, knowing these people, and they know me, that we can talk and try to come up with solutions. I don’t want fraud going on in the election. I don’t want, I don’t want people undermining the public trust either. Because that just undermines the rule of law and our democracy.

Mike Broomhead: The other added factor in all this now is the addition we have seen the massive surge in Independent registered or not party non-declared voters in Arizona. And I believe they’re leaving both parties and they haven’t left their beliefs but they’ve left the party system. How do Republicans reach out to those independent voters, especially when it comes to this issue? To bring them on to the I like I say, our side of the aisle, but bring them on to the ideals that we believe in? How do we get past this election integrity to talk about those issues?

Governor Brewer: You know, I wish I knew the answer to that, Mike. I think trying to be logical and calm about the whole situation, and being able to speak out to them and, and welcome them to the debate. But let’s do it. Let’s do it calmly. Let’s do it with facts. You read the internet, you hear people speaking out loud at assemblies and stuff, saying things that are absolutely lies, misinformation. I’ll say it’s misinformation. Some of them don’t even know that they’re lying, but they are lying. That’s not the truth. They’ve gone to all these courts. And nothing’s been held up. Nothing’s been upheld, because they didn’t have the evidence. No one has the evidence of all these claims they make and why they can’t understand that it takes people like myself and other people to stand up and say, “hey, let’s come together, let’s get back to our philosophy, and get the people with our values elected. Let’s don’t kill our people that they were working for.” I mean, that’s what’s happening. They’re working for certain candidates and then they say, oh, there’s all this misinformation stuff and people blow it off, and they vote for the other person.

Mike Broomhead: Well, next week, I’m going to be a part of a kind of a virtual tour on social media. I’m going to take people on a virtual tour of the, you know, the election center in the county with the county recorder’s office to show people what they’re saying about the security, the elections. The fact that the machines aren’t connected to the internet, I’m gonna do something to kind of give people information. I don’t want to be one sided or the other. I just want people to see it for themselves. And I think that once people put their eyes on it, they can make their own logical decision.

Governor Brewer: I agree. That’s wonderful that you’re doing that because it is amazing to go down there and I’m sure that they’ll be impressed. And they’ll understand more about how elections are run, you know, because now they’re getting all their information just from hearsay. And to be actually go on a virtual tour, that’s amazing. That’s wonderful. Good for you.

Mike Broomhead: Well, Governor, listen, I love talking to you. I appreciate you doing my podcast earlier this year. It’s always great when we get to catch up. I miss talking with you more often and I hope you’ll come back on the show this election season and we can talk through some of the important issues.

Governor Brewer: Let’s do it.

Mike Broomhead: Alright, thanks. That is a former Governor Jan Brewer spending a few minutes with us. This is a huge issue. It is within the Republican Party. I’ve never discounted other people’s opinions. I’ve never been sarcastic or nasty with people that disagreed with me. I just want this to be a process where we come back together as all voters not just as a partisan group and let’s just vote and make sure things are done the right way.

***

To learn more about RightCount’s operations in Arizona, visit www.RightCount.org/arizona.