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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host David Axelrod.

One of the quiet heroes of the 2020 post-election cycle was a folksy, colorful Arizona politician named Rusty Bowers,

a rock ribbed conservative Republican Bowers resisted enormous pressure from the President of the United States and his agents to overturn the state's results and send a pro-Trump slave electors to Washington. It cost him his political career.

I sat down with Bowers, one of the most interesting and engaging people I've met in politics, just days before this week's election, in which the battle over election denial continued to rage in Arizona. Here's that conversation.

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Speaker Bowers, it's great to see you again. Thank you for being here. We got a chance to meet at the Profiles Encouraged Dinner a while back.

But I want to start with why you happen to be at the Profiles Encouraged Dinner and what turn in life took you there.

I first of all want to talk about your life from the beginning. Your family was part of the pioneer families that made their way to Arizona, probably from Utah, huh? Mormon families.

Correct. Yeah. Right. And settled in Mesa. No, they settled in their white mountains and almost into New Mexico over St. John's was the first place then down to, they settled a tiny little hamlet called Nutrioso.

And a brother, two brothers, one was in Nutrioso, the other one is an alpine. And my great grandfather lost three of his kids that winter.

And we occasionally get to sneak up and see their graves and remember how tough life really was for a lot of people.

And then they moved down here then to the Valley and got a half section down here near Mesa under the hill. And that's where grandma really has a child began to flourish, etc.

But it was a different time for a lot of people. That's for sure. Yeah. And Mesa was a different place.

Well, at first it was where they settled was called Lehigh. And he's a, that's the name of a figure in the book of Mormon. But up on the Mesa, up above them, was where they ultimately found that the long ago indigenous people had dug canals and a diverted water from the salt river out onto that Mesa to grow crops.

They followed the same canal pathways and were able to start irrigating. And that's where Mesa really took off. As far as taking off, it really didn't start till 1945. But it was irritable land and they did an awesome work.

I'm interested in your folks. Your dad was an athlete.

My dad was the Iron Man of California, all CIS. He ran track and mostly track and football in LA. And he lived kind of close. His neighbor has talked to us that they lived through the block from Jackie Robinson.

Yes.

And Jackie Robinson would fight their way to school and fight their way home. One being American, the other being Mormon and since both on the outs with most other people. And they finally figured out they better fight their way, you know, or just outrun everybody.

So they ran, but they, they really knew each other later. Pasadena, junior college, where they both played football.

Yeah. Yeah. What did did your dad share Jackie Robinson stories with you? He did. Usually in connection with a racial point in the day, you know, 60s, a lot of stuff going on nationally.

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