Arizona GOP congressional candidates back Trump on L.A.; go after each other

The three Republican candidates running for Tucson’s vacant U.S. congressional seat all said Monday night that they support President Donald Trump’s order to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles in response to protests.

But they tried to separate themselves from each other — including through some personal attacks — despite sharing similar positions and ardent support for the Trump administration on federal issues.

Daniel Butierez, Jorge Rivas and Jimmy Rodriguez squared off in Monday night’s debate. It was the second debate held in the lead-up to the special July 15 primary election to fill the seat in Congressional District 7, which has been a Democratic stronghold for over 20 years.

Voters elected Democrat Raúl Grijalva to 12 terms in the U.S. House, a post held until he died in March at age 77 while in office. Along with the three Republicans running, five Democrats are seeking the seat and were set to debate Tuesday night.

But before the political questions were even posed Monday night by debate moderators, familiar digs made by two candidates in a previous debate arose once again.

Butierez, who lost to Grijalva in the 2024 general election, said in his opening statement that this election is about “integrity.”

“My daughter, at 17, joined the Air Force. She was sent to Afghanistan and served several years, fighting for our country and for our freedoms. She heard her country’s call and she answered,” he said.

“My opponent, on the other hand,” Butierez said, nodding to Jorge Rivas, “was 17 and abandoned his country when his country called.”

Rivas fled to the United States from El Salvador in the 1980s in the midst of a civil war and was granted political asylum. Later in the debate Rivas said he left his country as a child and “children do not fight in wars,” to which Butierez said “it doesn’t matter” as, according to Butierez, Rivas told him he was 17 years old when he fled.

Rivas later told reporters he was 16 years old when he fled to the United States. But he got in his own dig during closing statements.

“I have never done drugs or been convicted of any crime, (unlike) my partner here to the side,” Rivas said.

Butierez has been candid about spending roughly four years in jail on a marijuana offense, a charge he said he was wrongfully convicted of in the 1990s. After being released on probation he became addicted to crystal meth and crack, which led him to become homeless, he has said.

Butierez told reporters shortly after the debate it was a “nasty comment” for Rivas to make.

“I absolutely overcame a lot of hardships, which makes me the perfect candidate to run,” he said. “Where our community is right now, with the homelessness, nobody has a plan to fix it. I do have a plan to fix it because I’ve overcame that.”

Aside from personal critiques, Monday night’s debate primarily centered on federal actions taken since Trump’s inauguration in January, including the candidates’ support of deploying guard troops in response to protests that began late last week in L.A. against deportations and immigration raids.

About 1,000 National Guard members were in the city under federal orders by midday Monday, the Associated Press reported, with an additional 2,000 heading to the city by the end of day. About 700 Marines were to be deployed to Los Angeles Monday to help National Guard members respond to immigration protests, the Associated Press reported.

Rodriguez said the events in Los Angeles look less like a protest and more like “complete chaos” to him, and that California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom should be blamed “for not being strong enough and getting the illegals out when he should’ve.”

“I support Trump in federalizing the National Guard, I think the National Guard needs to have a presence there, especially (with) how we’ve seen it escalate throughout the last three days in California alone,” Rodriguez said.

When asked if California has the right to protect its state’s rights as opposed to Trump sending in National Guard members without being requested to do so, Rodriguez said federal property is at risk of damage so “I find that that’s acceptable.”

Butierez likened the protests in Los Angeles over the weekend to “taking the bottle from the baby” and said the city’s residents are in turn throwing a temper tantrum.

“This was caused because we ignored our laws, everybody ignored the laws that were on the books and they opened up the border, everybody got spoiled and now I believe something needs to be done, they need to be held accountable,” Butierez said. “It’s not a peaceful protest, it’s a very violent protest.”

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Rivas also said what Trump is attempting to do is enforce the laws “on the books,” and like Butierez, blamed it on the previous administration’s handling of immigration.

“I put everything that is happening right now, the chaos that we see, I blame it 100% on (former President Joe Biden) and his administration,” Rivas said.

Rivas also placed blame at the feet of the Democratic Party, saying it’s a group of people “who lie” and “an organization that destroys the nuclear families (and) destroys our cities.”

When asked how they would limit drug trafficking across the border, Rodriguez said he would push for more technology investments like drones and additional Border Patrol agents to the southern border.

Butierez said he would also push for more agents but first the border wall has to be finished.

Rivas said he would support sentencing drug traffickers and drug dealers to the death penalty.

The federal budget bill was the other big topic of discussion during Monday night’s debate.

House Republicans have already approved the legislative package, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which combines multiple priorities pushed by the Trump administration. It’s over 1,000 pages that include tax cuts passed in the first Trump presidential term, work requirements for food assistance and Medicaid, defunding Planned Parenthood, and spending $45.6 billion for the U.S.-Mexico border wall and an additional $4 billion in Border Patrol funding, among other priorities.

As it presently stands, the tax bill would add about $2.4 trillion to the deficit and leave 10.9 million more people uninsured, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Butierez said he will always support protecting Medicaid and Medicare, but fraud is occurring, something he said Trump and his tax plan will get rid of.

“Our whole country is getting ready to go bankrupt, we need to do something (but) we just keep kicking the can down the road,” he said. “I am absolutely amazed we got this president in there that’s actually doing it, doesn’t care if everybody’s mad at him and everybody’s attacking him. Everybody always talks about doing this but nobody ever does it. He’s doing it. Let’s let him do it.”

Rivas said Trump is a good man who “cares for the people of the United States.”

“(Trump’s) looking in the long-term, how this country’s going to be five, 10, 20 years into the future,” Rivas said. “It might sound a little rough or tough at this moment, but I think he is doing the right thing. ... I do feel that every single person that needs (Medicare or Medicaid) and is being honest about it, they should get it and I will fight for them to get it.”

Rodriguez said during the debate that, had he been in Congress, he would have voted in support of the budget bill. But after the debate, he told reporters there are some things in the bill he would want to see changed.

“The Big Beautiful Bill gives me a little bit of pause, particularly with the no tax on tips. The amount of no tax on tips is capped ... and we don’t even know how the IRS is going to designate how to write that off,” he said. “(It’s) an increasing budget ... I feel like was necessary to pass all the other cuts that are in the bill, and the Senate still has the opportunity to edit that, so hopefully we get some edits there and it goes back to the House. I don’t really care for that raise in the (debt) ceiling.”

The debate, moderated by Steve Goldstein and Nohelani Graf, was held in the Arizona Public Media studio in Tucson.

Butierez, Rivas and Rodriguez will face off in the July 15 primary. Whoever wins the GOP contest will run in the Sept. 23 general election against whichever of the Democratic candidates wins their party’s primary.

The Democratic candidates are Adelita Grijalva, Deja Foxx, Patrick Harris, Daniel Hernandez and Jose Malvido.

The Republican to come out of the three-candidate primary next month will face an uphill battle. The district has about 176,000 registered Democrats, compared with fewer than 93,000 Republicans. It stretches from Douglas through Nogales into parts of Pinal and Maricopa counties and west to Yuma.

The registration deadline to vote in the July 15 primary is next Monday, June 16. Early voting begins next week on June 18.