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I'm heading back across the Atlantic soon, expecting a barrage of questions on America's bizarre flight into cloud cuckoo land — especially from those who know my deep attachment to what is probably the looniest of its 50 states.

Two words capture the short version of long conversations. Juan Ciscomani.

Our congressman now boasts in a TV commercial that he helped 26 million people survive AIDS in Africa. And now, he adds, he supports generous American aid to help poverty-stricken parts of the world, preventing countless more deaths.

I nearly fell out of my chair. George W. Bush launched PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) in 2003. By late 2024, it had spent $140 billion, the largest grant ever by any nation for a single disease, to save 26 million lives.

In 2003, Ciscomani was an intern for Democratic Rep. Ed Pastor, a Hispanic American who cofounded the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He wasn't elected until 2022, as a Republican, defeating Democrat Kirsten Engel by a hair's breadth.

When Donald Trump won, he promised to continue some PEPFAR funding. But then Elon Musk tossed that into his woodchipper along with nearly all foreign aid. The first of incalculable millions are already dying from preventable disease, hunger and neglect.

During his two terms, Ciscomani has voted in lockstep with Republicans.

Recent letters to the Star reflect a wave of complaints about him. His approach is simple; he ignores them. One detailed his repeated calls to an answering machine at his representative's Tucson office. None received a response.

At the Book Festival author's dinner in 2025, Ciscomani was seated behind me. He smiled warmly when I shook his hand. Then I told him I was a reporter. "Oh," he said, narrowing his eyes. "The media."

Politely, I noted that five-letter word took in all manner of people from journalists who deal in facts and fairness to an ex-Fox "News" weekend host until he became "Secretary of War" and now demands reporters parrot twisted truth and cheer at his war crimes.

I asked if he could spare me a half-hour to hear him out, correct facts he thought the "media" got wrong and outline his view on a legislator's duty to engage with all constituents. "Sure," he said, and I gave him my card. I'm still waiting.

The other day, I lunched with a savvy Tucsonan, generous with support for the community, who knows Ciscomani and likes him. He must support Trump, he said, or he would lose his seat in Congress.

True, but that's the problem. "Primaried" is an American term I'll be explaining to foreign friends. When voters let a president pick sycophant legislators and judges, democracy dies in dumbness.

Party members whose only interest is to keep their place at the public trough need to step aside. Integrity matters.

Ciscomani is hardly alone. During Joe Biden's term, Arizona Republicans voted against his post-COVID infrastructure projects across the state. At ribbon-cutting time, they showed up to tell voters about the wonderful job they had done.

But he encapsulates the problem. One letter writer said he gets frequent emails from Ciscomani. "I don't need to leave the comfort of my La-Z-Boy to find out what he's doing," he wrote. "It's a lot more informative than listening in person to people yelling at each other..." 

The key here is La-Z. Why are so many people yelling?

Educated voters need more than a candidate's slanted self-praise. Trustworthy reporters and political research sites shed light on all contenders.

Michael Chihak, who writes on this page, recently skewered Ciscomani's doublespeak. After a notable career at the Associated Press, USA Today and elsewhere, he was editor and publisher of the Tucson Citizen until Gannett closed it in 2009. Now on advisory boards, he helps students learn honest journalism.

His piece began:

"Ciscomani’s parents brought him as a child from Mexico, wanting better for their family, like millions whom the congressman has sold out with his politics. He supports the border wall, expanded immigrant detention, the “remain in Mexico” policy and strictly limited amnesty."

Until only recently, Mike continued, "he was mute on the administration’s cruel anti-immigrant campaign ... as thuggish officers chase people down, assault them and drag them to inhumane detention facilities." And he concluded:

"Ciscomani’s lack of support for them as a former child immigrant himself and his tepid acknowledgement of the ruthlessness directed at fellow immigrants make him, in vernacular he knows, un vendido." The word means sold, or more aptly, sellout.

There are similar cases of Texas Republicans. In Florida, this is a different but equally contemptible phenomenon among Cuban Americans, who national polls and perceptions lump together under a misleading catchall: Latinos.

As Fidel Castro began taking over Cuba in the late 1950s, hordes of families fled north, many of them with wealth amassed under the corrupt Batista regime. Many who stayed labeled them gusanos. Worms.

Marco Rubio's parents left just before the revolution, but his power base is among new generations who want a new version of the old Cuba. This is too complex for brevity. Castro was a despot. At the outset, his rebels shot thousands by firing squads.

But much has changed since. Barack Obama tried to normalize relations on an island 90 miles from Florida. I loved visiting Cuba, with its 11 million hard-working people who crowded its beaches, made joyous music and managed to survive on next to nothing.

Today, Rubio stands by Trump as he blockades the island, cutting off fuel and food the way medieval invaders besieged walled cities until starvation determined the outcome.

A later column will look at the world reaction to Trump's foreign non-policy. Other democracies are rebuilding alliances and altering trading patterns to move away from a superpower they trusted and respected for 80 years.

NATO members, stinging from grossly unfair insults, still defend Ukraine. They see the threat Vladimir Putin poses to Europe and ex-Soviet Asia. China girds for a potential showdown with America.

Polls show China is seen as a more stable partner for action against climate collapse and for commerce. But people have few illusions about its approach to human rights, political opposition, individual freedoms and trustworthy news media.

In what is left of the "free world," many watch an unraveling United States with growing alarm as faithless legislators in Congress and statehouses cling to power for their own personal benefit.

As for Ciscomani, I'm still waiting for that interview if he ever gets back to me.