The Tucker Carlson Show - Braxton McCoy: Iraq, Opioids, and Defending US Land From Foreign Governments & Corporate Giants

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Imagine a nation filled with men like Braxton McCoy. That’s what America was. The rest of us are still reaping the benefits. (0:00) McCoy’s Military Experience (36:24) McCoy’s Intense Recovery Journey (1:00:35) The American Drug Epidemic (1:11:57) The Fake Environmentalists Secretly Trying to Destroy Nature (1:36:35) Food Security, the Housing Crisis, and Immigration Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So you basically single-handedly stopped the sale of federal lands huge expanse of federal lands You're not a politician. You haven't been a public figure I'm not exactly sure how you did that, but I'd love to know What just give us the two minute back? Who are you? Where are you from? How did you wind up involved in this question? Fundamentally, I'm just an idiot horse trainer. Horse trainer, okay. In Idaho. I'm not anything important or powerful or anything like that.

I'm just a regular guy. I've always been a regular guy. I have no desire, despite how many people have tried to push me, I have no desire to go into politics. That's probably why they're pushing you. I want to write my books and hang out with my kids and ride horses and go fishing and hunting. I mean, that's who I am. I've said this many times elsewhere. I don't think it's just me. I think it worked because there were so many people that were upset. Yes.

To a degree, I guess I ended up kind of spearheading some things. I mean, maybe a way I would look at it is it wouldn't be the first time I've taken point and I'll take point. But it's still a team effort at the end of the day. And it has to be that way. If something this important becomes about one guy versus another guy, we'll lose. It can't be like that. Well, and that's never a reflection of reality anyway. There are always huge forces that get embodied in individuals, but it's not so much about the individual, it's about the huge forces behind him

and the forces that you harnessed, I think, just watching. Fundamentally, we're like the great love of the land by normal people. Like people understand that land is essential. It's connected to identity. It's connected to the definition of America. And so don't treat it lightly. Maybe that's one of the lessons.

I think that's totally right. We talked about this at breakfast, but ultimately it's the love of my people and the land is a part of my people. Those two things are inextricably connected. Yes. I believe that fundamentally, and I don't want to be like overly pious or anything like that, but I believe fundamentally we're called to serve our people. So if it took an idiot horse trainer to, in my view, save a bunch of small family ranches throughout the West, then, you know, so be it.

It worked. Where are you from? I'm originally from Southern Utah. I live in Idaho now, but I grew up down in, well, I guess I probably shouldn't say, but Southern Utah. Big town, small town? We're very small. Not a lot of big towns in Southern Utah.

No. I mean, maybe St. George has gotten a lot bigger, but no, I don't even want to say the size, sub 1000 people by a lot, I guess. Wow. Your hometown is fewer than a thousand people. Yeah, cows outnumbered us probably 12 to 1, you know. Oh, so legit rural. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

We grew up, I grew up on a little horse place. My old man was a horse trainer, but you know, he's an electric electrician. I think he got an electrical engineering degree as well, but that's what he did to kind of make ends meet was the electrical stuff. And then we raised horses and you know, cowboyed a lot of day work and growing up, helping neighbors and family and all that. So you see the struggle from a young age. And right now what's happened-

You've allotted over an interesting chapter in your own life. I just ask you to address it really quickly. You clearly don't want to talk about it, but you joined the military at some point. Yeah. When? I was 17.

I was skipping school as I was wanting to do at the time when I was at my cousin's and we watched 9-11 happen on TV live. Wow. And you know, back then there was that famous, I forget, there was a Pace, some salsa commercial, you know, the New York City. Exactly right. New York City.

Yeah. We didn't have any, there was no love loss between us and New York City, right? I mean, that's kind of the whole point of the commercial. But when that happened, it's like, okay, I don't like them, but that's still my brother. You don't get a punch my brother in the face. Amen. So a lot of rural kids felt the same way and we enlisted and I remember my mom, because when you're that age your parents have to sign for you to you know join and I told her I said yeah I mean you can either sign this now and I'll get a little bit more money you know I'll go in it's like a pv2 and instead of a pv1 or whatever or I'm going the day I turn 18 so I mean you you're just delaying

the inevitable if you don't sign this so she signed it and I went to Benning and then to the war. You joined the army. Yeah. At 17. Yeah. And well, I think by the time I shipped, I had already turned 18, like for boot camp or basic training. But you signed up at 17.

Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to go to war. A lot of us did. You're young and stupid and a lot of cultural forces were telling us that this was the right thing and I believed it. And plus, as wrongfully misguided as I was, I wanted to take a swing back in our mind at the people that had taken a swing at us.

I think everyone every Most Americans felt that way for sure. Yeah Yeah, you get there in about three months in you get a little disillusioned Well, yes So you you join you go to Benning then they ship you overseas to Iraq. Yep Oh, yeah, I got back to my unit and they weren't going to deploy. So I volunteered for this other deployment because I just wanted to get there. And this artillery battalion needed a PSD team.

So they were a personal security detail. So they were looking for guys and we ended up with this kind of hodgepodge of random MOSs of just guys that wanted to do this job. So we did a train up, learn how to do that. And it's funny, like in keynotes, I used to say we're to try to explain it. You know, if you're talking to bankers, they don't really know what PSD is. You know, they certainly know what EP is, but I would say we're kind of like the army's idea of secret service, except for better trained or not as well trained, you know, but now I'm like, yeah, yeah.

A lot of us are rethinking questions like that. Yes. Yeah. And so we go, we end up in Ramadi. You know, the first thing that happened that really changed, I think was important, but really changed my view of the war altogether. We drove up from Kuwait. A lot of our guys airlifted, but we had all this heavy equipment. Well, of course, the PSD team is going to do security for us.

So we took the drive. It's quite a drive, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. I've done it. It's scary. Yeah, you know, you first you cross that border and you know there's oil wells on fire and you know busted up cars and then like you know just poverty like you've never seen before. Busted up cars from the first Iraq war. Correct. Yeah. Yup. The highway of death, they never cleaned it up.

No. It's amazing. And then we get to Scania and that night, well I probably shouldn't tell that story, but we stayed with some Polish SF guys and they were fun. They were like very cool. I just ended at that. And then we go from there, I believe, I don't think we stopped again. We refueled somewhere just south of Baghdad, Scania or something like that.

And then there's this, their highway system is like ours for anybody who doesn't know. I mean, it looks like a Western highway. And there's this turn just past Baghdad where you turn toward Fallujah or Mahdi. And right after that, you know, there's these compounds all over around there. They'll have like these walls around them and all like rich people, poor people, rich, it's almost like Houston. So we, we ended up the lead truck spots an IED and it's dark. It's like two o'clock in the morning or something. And we had a Marine escort because we'd never been there

before, so the Marines were taking point. And then we were just kind of additional security. Well, this Marine comes and knocks on the door of our truck and he says, hey, do you want to go help us clear this complex? And of course I'm like 19, like hell yeah. So that's why I'm here. You know what I'm saying?

So I'm like grabbing and what we were told is there was a prayer rug. They found this prayer rug and that prayer rug had suspiciously an ID and some stuff left there. And then there was debt cord going back toward this compound and The plan was to go in there find whatever was at the end of the deck cord and take care of the problem One version of taking care of the problem was gonna be just blowing up the house and moving on, you know

We got shit to do right? Yeah So I'm pretty excited because I'm thinking I'm gonna get a blow up a building Because I'm thinking, I'm going to get to blow up a building. Like grabbing extra flags and an AT4 or frag grenades, you know, and an AT4. And well, we get to this compound, there's like a brick wall around it. And we're trying to find an ingress route. You know, you don't want to just go over the wall. Yeah. Because who knows what's...

So we end up finding a part of the wall that had been busted by a mortar or, you know, you don't want to just go over the wall. Yeah. Because who knows what's... So we end up finding a part of the wall that had been busted by a mortar or, you know, one of our guns or something, I don't know. And we were able to kind of skirt the side of the building. And I was in my mind the entire time, I kept thinking, I cannot wait to blow this freaking house up. This is going to be so cool. And just like every 19 year old kid, right? Unless you've been a 19 year old boy, like it's hard, probably hard to

understand what that means. We're sorry to say it, but this is not a very safe country. Walk through Oakland or Philadelphia. Yeah, good luck. So most people, when they think about this, want to carry a firearm and a lot of us do. The problem is there can be massive consequences for that. Ask Kyle Rittenhouse. Kyle Rittenhouse got off in the end, but he was innocent from the first moment. It was obvious on video, and he was facing life in prison anyway.

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and we can see this deck cord going through into the home and we're like, let's go all the way around and make sure that it doesn't go through and out just in case they were trying to set somebody up, some innocent people. And as I was looking inside the building, there was a generator running inside and it was sitting on a piece of plywood.

And I remember thinking, that is strange. Why would they do that? Well, we get around the front and there's, right at this stoop, there's a bunch of sandals lined up and it's like oldest to youngest. So it's like dad, mom, kid, and then all the way down to this like two inch pair of pink like flip-flop deals. And I had just left my little sister with my mom

who was roughly the same age. And man, I went from wanting to do that to not wanting to do that really fast. And I think that changed my war for me for the rest of time. I probably could have got sucked into being overly aggressive and uncompassionate, but that really helped right from the jump solidify that these are actual people. Oh yes. Well luckily, we go all the way around and the det cord was running throughout into this

olive orchard. And one of our guys without warning, without warning us, had a pin flare to light up so we could see the olive orchard. And my team leader just dove into the ground because he thought we were taking incoming. So he's like diving into this olive orchard. And it ended up we were able to solve the problem without doing anything to the home. And it had turned out, at least from what we were told, that what they had done is captured that family

and stuffed them into a cellar, and then put that board, that plywood over the hole, and then put the generator so we couldn't hear them down there yelling. Oh. And they were hoping that we would just blow them up. And we didn't. And I think that, as I say, I'm sorry to just blow them up, you know. And we didn't. And I think that, as I say, I'm sorry to just keep rambling, but-

You're not rambling at all. So this was like within days of getting into the country. I think day two, I think. Yeah. Yeah. It really helped understand the war. You know, we were fighting a war in cities, you know, and first of all, I've never even lived in a city. You didn't really have to convince me that cities were bad.

So, so Baghdad was one of the first big cities you saw? Well, I mean, I had family in the suburbs of Salt Lake and stuff like that, but we would go eat at Lamb's Cafe when I was a kid. Salt Lake used to be a fundamentally different place than it is right now. Thank you, immigration. So I had been to Salt Lake, but you remember Salt Lake in the 80s and 90s. It was totally different. Nothing like it is now. This was the first city I'd ever lived in was Ramadi when we got there. I mean to the extent that you're living in it, right?

They... Kind of hilarious. The first big city I ever lived in was Ramadi, Iraq. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, I've only ever lived in two. Salt Lake when I was going to school for a minute and Ramadi, that's it. And at this point, I don't even know which one I hated worse. Yeah. Ramadi's probably pretty nice right now. Relatively.

Yeah. And then after that is just pretty typical war. We, you know, one story, we were there for about a week or two and this guy He's driving on a truck like a big truck and we were on an Opie out in front of Fahbarmati on route mobile And we were kind of running a blocking position up there and this guy comes winging in like he's just gonna drive by us Because he's got a cross hung on his radiator, like a lit up cross. And we shot just warning shots into the ground like, hey, you got to stop. What the heck are you doing?

You know, and he jumps out waving his arms. I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian, you know, and you're an Iraqi dude. I mean, we're happy that you're a Christian, you know, you're an Iraqi. And that that's there. I think for the average American, it's really hard to process just how tribal those regions really are. Yes. He genuinely believed you guys are Christians. I'm a Christian. We're just same team without any. We need no more justification than that is kind of his worldview.

And looking back at that, I wish you know, he was kind of right. I totally agree. He was right. He was right. We should have just trusted him. Probably. Yeah. But so like we had some things like that and then, you know, typical Wolverstuff beyond

that. How long were you there? I think about seven months before I got wounded. It's six, seven months before I got wounded. Six, seven months something. How did that happen? I got hit by a suicide bomber at a glass factory on a security mission. And yeah, we were providing, just to tell you briefly, we were providing security for a Marine element that was recruiting Sunni Iraqis to become Iraqi police officers.

Bremer and others had decided that we couldn't hire any Baathists. And they also seemed to think that it would be a good idea to have Sunnis police Shia and Shia police Sunnis. And that's just, I mean, talk about ancient tribal conflict. You'd have to be... How could you be that dumb? I don't know. You know, you're conducting a war.

This is basic level stuff. You have to understand the people, you know. We're people in general. Yeah. So we're... Why make it a humiliation ritual? You know, it does feel like that. Of course.

It's the oldest, it's... It's why the peace settlement after the first world war, you know, the Western nations wound up sending African peacekeepers to Germany to humiliate the Germans. And you know how that worked out. Right? What? How did the Iraq experiment work out? I mean, I don't understand.

Right. So anyway, sorry. No, no, you're right. And that sort of Bremer era, and I try not to criticize people with the benefit of hindsight. Yes. But some of this was so dumb. So we had to, we were recruiting Sunnis to, you know, be shipped over to a allied country for training.

An allied Muslim country. I just don't know if you're supposed to say. It's not hard to figure out who was helping. Yeah, is there, yeah. And they were training them and then, you know, gonna send them back. And so we were just the security element is all. And it was day four of what was supposed to be

a three day mission, typical Iraq thing. And I was out there and my interpreter was with me and we were just kind of asking questions to the people like, why are you here and stuff like that? Because there's a lot of people there and they were there early. And as I've said elsewhere, these are not a punctual people, you know? Yeah. So we knew something was wrong. And this guy comes up and he's frantically yelling at me and of course I barely know

any words in Arabic at all and it ends up being translated to me as I saw a grenade with wires. He was genuinely trying to tell us what he had seen and help us but we thought tripwire because he was saying grenade. Well then it ends up a couple minutes later we end up in a scramble and this semi truck crashes through this eastern perimeter that we had set up and that morning we had been told to look out beyond the look for V beds. So he crashes through a of course we, everybody lights up the truck, you have to, and then, you know, now there's Iraqis scattered all

over the place. Well, in the, I don't know if they changed this after my time, but in those years you were not allowed to hire any bathys for any reason into any government position. So now we have that. So what did they do with their time? Well, yeah, you know, it's so much of that war. Even as a young idiot kid, you look back and just think how strategically just so dumb. If you use Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile,

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This is not in stores just on that page for people who listen to this podcast only. They're encouraging you to be weak. Don't let them go to shopbeam.com slash Tucker for 30% off for Americans. So the result of that was now we have Iraqis running all over the place and we've got to get them back into lines and get this mission done. The lines had to be person with no ID, person with a government ID, person with a government ID that says BATHIS on it. We were separating them that way.

Then eventually a really high speed guy, Lieutenant Colonel McLaughlin we'd come back we called him He came out there to help us and some dog handlers and we were getting these guys in line and the next thing You know suicide bomber goes off and this killed or wounded like a hundred and six people or something like that and killed two Americans our our friend and dog handler sergeant can and then Lieutenant Colonel Muglofflin. And I try to say this as often as I can now. He was like 30, he was like 33 years old or something at the time and a lieutenant colonel. And I was a 20 year old kid, I turned 20 over there. And he was out genuinely in harm's way.

Everyone knew that it was a dangerous situation. And certainly Colonel Mack knew. And he put himself out there and died. And they don't make many officers like that. He was a very, very brave man. He did not need to be there. No, not even at all. He was the highest ranking guy there by

I mean the other highest ranking guy be like an e7, you know So he died and I got wounded basically everything in the same explosion. Yeah, do you remember it? Oh, yeah Yeah, it's um, I Don't know if the concussion knocked me out and then I woke up on the ground, but I was awake on the ground. But do you remember the truck went off? No, a suicide bomber with a vest. So what had happened is our dog handler, or one of the dog handlers that was helping us,

Sergeant Can, his dog detected the bomb and grabbed this dude by the arm and was trying to pull him to the ground and then it went off and amazingly Bruno the dog that had done that lived through the explosion. Seriously? Yep. He later deployed again to Afghanistan. I mean just incredible dog. What kind of dog?

Malinois. Malinois. Malinois, yeah. Malinois. Malinois, yeah. Malinois. Really neat dog. It was funny, right before they came out there, he was sleeping on my truck, like the hood of my truck.

And Sgt. Kahn's like, you know, do you want us to come out and help? And in my mind, I'm thinking, yeah, put that thing to work. He's just napping, you know? And he was a cool dog. We all liked him. But he lived in Sardinian Candidate, unfortunately, and he was an incredibly brave man too. He had, I think this was his third tour.

I think he'd been to Iraq once and Afghanistan once before this. It might have even been his fourth tour, but he had been out at Fahb Hit on the Syrian border and he requested to be, this is my understanding of it, he requested to be moved to Ramadi because they were he's bored and he wanted to fight. So he was an incredibly brave guy. He also did not have to be out there and he made that choice and deserves, you know, admiration for his courage. He was profoundly brave. And he died. And then me and a couple other guys, he got wounded.

For me, it was multiple bilateral femur fractures, and my tibia was broken, both my hips, all the bones in my right hand. My right hand doesn't work very good. My radius and ulnar, and my right hand. My right hand doesn't work very good. My radius and ulnar and my right median nerve was transected at my wrist so I don't really have much feeling through that part of my hand and like this my fingers fused. My little sister calls me Captain Hook. I had brain injuries and some broken ribs and broken back and I was pretty busted up.

Do you remember going off the noise? Yeah, it's funny. I remember the flash and the sound and then waking up on the ground and there were bodies on top of me. I talked about this a little bit on Sean's. I should have done a better job describing it, but I could hear my first line leader, Johnny, yelling, just like every other Mick kid, they just call you Mack.

So it's like Mack, Mack, I can hear him. And I'm like trying to yell back at him. And I'd had myself propped up on this elbow. I had like my left hand worked, but my left humerus was busted and my right humerus worked, but then everything down here didn't work. So I was like kind of in this and I had myself propped up and there was this pile of guts underneath me.

And when I was looking at that, I was thinking that I'd been blown in half. I mean, who else's guts would they be? And so I was like running an organ through my fingers trying to see if I could feel it. Sitting there thinking I'd been blown in half. I mean, we'd seen people get hurt really badly, but I had never seen that. So I wasn't sure exactly what that would look like. And I was trying to figure out if it was like a pancreas or something. And I felt anatomy, so I'm just like winging it. You thought it was your pancreas.

I did, yeah. And I also didn't even know if you could feel your organs in that way. So I didn't know if you really had external feeling on them. Most people have never had this experience. Yeah, well, I was one of those. And eventually Johnny gets there and like I say I'm kind of propped up and he he started what I didn't know was that there were like three bodies on top of me and these organs belong to a different person, an Iraqi person and he started removing the bodies

and I could feel like a little bit of weight go off and then a little bit more and then those pulled out and then I could see my hip bones or the top of my hips, not the actual bones, but like my uniform. And then they rolled me over and my legs were cooked as the kids would say. And you could tell, cause they were not, and my legs were cooked as the kids would say. You could tell because they were not,

it was like jello moving around. And your femurs, your glutes and quads are so strong that if your femurs break bad enough, they just contract. So my femur was like, both of them were like, the leg was now like as wide almost as it was long. I could have just retracted like a slinky. Which might have been the only thing that kept me alive because I have, I can't even remember exactly how many holes it is, but between knee to hip on both quads is like 30 holes or something. So had I not had that sort of acted

like an internal tourniquet and kept me from bleeding out probably. Cause when they got my uniform cut off, you could, every time my heart would be, you could see the blood kind of ooze out of the through and throughs. I have some through and throughs and you could just, it was like, I always describe it as like squeezing a water bottle,

but with rhythm, you know, and it just kind of pour out like that. You could see this? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I had no, my, my blood pressure was so low. They weren't, weren't giving me any, and it was good that they didn't, but they weren't giving me any pain meds or anything.

You know, morphine will kill you if you don't have enough blood pressure. Oh, yeah. So they started working on me and then life flooded me, or excuse me, medivac me to Fahbarmadi. What made the holes? What was the projectile? Ball bearings. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And probably came from Iran, you know, probably. I mean, we don't know that. This was a Sunni person, but a lot of the materials for that stuff was coming from. Ball bearings, do you have any of them? Yeah, I've got, I think I pack around like 12 of them in my body still.

And then I've had like three more cut out since I got home that have kind of like surfaced in different. Ball bearings. Yeah, straight up. Do you have them? With me? No, no. Did you keep them? Yeah, yeah.

Well, not all of them that they cut out with. I didn't get a choice in my Felucia when they were cutting stuff out there, but at home, yeah, I think I have three or four that I've had cut out of like my forearms and my rear end and stuff like that. So I like a little jar. How big are the ball bearings? Like like about the size of a P is what they'd be. Wow. Yeah.

I think we counted one time. I don't want to lie. Like a mega buckshot. That's what it was. Yeah. It's like getting hit with exactly. Yeah. It's exactly like that. And then there was one spot on my one quad where my right side, where you could about put your fist in the hole. And there's been confusion since day one about whether that was a gunshot from an AK or just more ball bearings could have really been either. Were there rifles going off too? Yeah.

Our IPs started just firing. I bet. So, and it's- Iraqi policemen. Yes, I'm sorry. So sometimes when people sell products on TV, and I love this product, I use this product, there's the question in the mind of the viewer,

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I don't want to say his name for fear of, he died, but his family, he died out there with us. He was extremely brave, really good kid. He was like six, four, 120 pounds. A rocky. Yeah. He's the weirdest looking a rocky you've ever seen. It's like, it's like running into Yao Ming, but then it's like, why your brain's trying to compute. Wait a second. He was a great guy. I really liked him. I remember one time we were,

I don't even remember where we were at, on an OP or something, and we tried to teach each other the languages, you know? And he points to the tire on their truck, and he says, tire. And I was like, yeah, good job. And he's like, no tire. I was like, wait, is that,

that's how you say it in Arabic? It was like this bonding moment. I can't. We were just all kids, arm wrestling and screwing off and punctuated every once in a while by war stuff. you know, and punctuated every once in a while by war stuff, you know, and I think it's, I think that experience really matters.

It's so easy to dehumanize people that you're fighting with at that level. And I think I was really blessed to have multiple experiences to remind me that they're all people, you know. How long did it take you to recover from all that? They retired me about a year and a half later and then it took probably another eight years to get to where I could run.

I didn't think I was ever going to be able to run again. In the hospital... Wait, so it took till you're almost 30? Yeah. Took like a decade to get better? Yeah, it did. I think I was 28 when I ran the first time or seven maybe. Something like that.

Might've been 29, whatever that year was. 2012 maybe? I can't be right. Whatever year it was. Yeah, I mean, I could get around but I you know, I couldn't really walk or anything. I mean I could walk but not well, certainly not well for a 25 year old, you know. And then I finally got to get up on the mountain again. I packed a cane on my back because I thought who knows what going down is going

to be like, you know, and that felt really good to get up to a mountain lake and be like, holy shit, we did it, you know, after all this time, you know, and then I was coaching a little kid's baseball program as this girl that I was with, it was her son's team. So I was just helping and I was throwing BP to him. And this kid hit a ball batting practice and this kid hit a ball to my glove hand side. And this is like eight years later or however many. And I took a couple of steps that just felt different. Like they felt almost athletic, if that makes sense. And I dropped my glove and I just jogged.

I was like, I think I can run, you know? And I ran around the bases and then I called some of my buddies from the war and Casey and Johnny and a couple others. And Casey's like wears his emotion on his sleeve, so he starts crying, you know, and, you know, I was like over here feeling like sea biscuit or something.

You know. I should have asked, did you go immediately back to the West when you got out of the hospital? Oh yeah. Yeah. They moved me back to my hometown and I got really lucky in that my civilian physical therapist and my civilian doctor were really great. I did that in Central Utah.

The one guy, my civilian doctor, he was an MDDO. So he leaned away from drugs really hard, which was a blessing. Cause I was leaving Walter Reed, they had me on some ridiculous amount of opioids like 380 milligrams a day or something. How long were you there? Four months. You were on opioids for four months? Oh, yeah, longer than that. Well, so in the in Walter Reed, take a step back,

we, basically everybody who gets wounded over there was contracting this infection and they weren't sure, it was some bug that does not exist here. So they had us in quarantine. So I was in a nice, a quarantined ICU unit for three or four weeks because I couldn't leave ICU until one, I was stable and two two I could be in a wheelchair of some kind and they couldn't do that without putting rods in my legs because I had external

fixators on those big cage deals and you can't get the rods until you clear the infection you know so they were trying to clear this infection and there was some question about whether they were even gonna be able to do that. I mean, who knew? And they finally got that cleared and then I developed gangrene. Oh, come on. Yeah, they were, I don't wanna crap on Walter Reed,

but they were doing some, some guys were doing their best and other guys were changing through and through wounds with the packing, with a number two pencil and shit like that. This is in the United States, at Walter Reed. Yeah, in DC. But a lot of them were really great people and I don't want to crap on them. I mean, they helped put me back together and they did a pretty good job.

So then I got that infection so I couldn't get rods then, you know, I'm just kind of stuck. So you got gangrene at Walter Reed. Yeah, it was horrific. And then I finally, they finally get rods in me. Just picture David Frum's face when you're saying this, you know, just casually, Axis of Evil, we're bringing democracy, no care at all for what it means for men from Southern Utah

and like destroying their lives. It just makes me upset. And I was lucky. I mean, I could have lost my legs really easily. Really easily. Did you get, I mean, how are your spirits? Did you get down? Oh yeah.

Yeah, I wrote a lot about that. You know, it was like a roller coaster experience at Walter Reed. Did you get down? Oh yeah. Yeah, I wrote a lot about that. You know, it was like a roller coaster experience at Walter Reed. To back up even one more step, just to kind of give an idea of how fragile everything was at the time. I first went to Landstuhl and my understanding, and this could be wrong- They're based in Germany. Yes.

They have a big medical hospital there. And my understanding, and this could be wrong, but base in Germany. Yes. They have a big medical hospital there. And my understanding, and this could be wrong, but what they would try to do in Landstuhl is really get somebody very stable and do preliminary surgeries and then send them to Walter Reed. But they did not do that with me. They were like, we got to get you to Walter Reed. So I was only in Landstuhl for less than a week, I think is what it was. And so I was in tough shape is the only reason I'm saying that.

And you know, you're waiting. All I want to do is be able to go take a piss by myself, man. You know, you're a couple of days ago, you'd been a proud young former athlete and soldier. And now you're this, you basically in hospice care, you know And so yeah It starts to weigh on you and I wanted to get rods in my legs so I could get a wheelchair and have some sense of independence But I couldn't do that without clearing these infections and then I finally get the rods in and

They moved me up to a neural ward next to some other guys that had had like the same bug before and then they put like a label on your door. I think that's all necessary. I'm not, you know, you should say, hey this guy had this weird bug we don't want to spread it, you know, but I'm up there next to this other guy and things are now it's better because I can talk to a guy, you know, at least room to room, you know, we're kind of hollering at each other through the wall or, you know, the doorway and stuff. And then I had a pulmonary embolism and it collapsed, I think it was my left lung, and

then right back into surgery, emergency, you you know, they had to decide whether to put one of those IVC filter deals inferior and your inferior vena cava I think is what it is. I guess I'm not going to anatomy largest vein in your body. And if it's like if you think of like an umbrella without a skirt on it, and then some extra wiring to work as a filter. That's what it is. But they would deploy it like this and then it had some kind of legs that would then open

up and stick into the vessel to hold it there and it would break up blood clots. What they were trying to figure out is if I had had, because I had deep vein thrombosis already which is like blood clots in your legs essentially, but they weren't sure if I had had a claw originate in my lung or if it had traveled to my lung from my legs. So that's why they had to put that in. And then, you know, that was another, I can't even remember how long before I finally got

into a position where they could even think about walking. And one day my, I'm pretty sure I wrote about this too, so I'm sorry if I'm retelling stories, but an uncle of mine came out and he was really close to me and we used to bow hunt and fish together and then he got drafted by the Royals out of high school. So he's kind of a neat guy and I always looked up to him, you know. And he came out to visit and I told him, I was like, they don't think I'm going to be able to walk, you know.

And he said, bullshit. And I got a new young surgeon assigned to our team because at that stage stage, you've got multiple trauma going on. There's an actual surgical team that's planning out what to work on next and triaging. Well, this guy got assigned on the ortho side and he was like 27 and right out of med school and really smart and just kind of a go-getter type guy. And he said, I think you can do it, but you're going to have to get on your feet like now.

We don't want to risk atrophying your muscles anymore. And you know, you're just going to have to start trying. So my physical therapist at Walter Reed, his name was Solomon. And he was like this giant black guy. He played defensive end or something with Phil Simms on the New York Giants and then he just did this as a job I think mostly to be a charitable guy he was a really neat guy so we go down there to PT and he said you can walk today and I said yeah let's do it

you know so he helped me up and my bones, I'm like, my right hand is all in this cast thing. And then I've got a, like a soft cast. They put on my humerus because they were trying to let me have at least one ambulatory limb. So I just put up my arms on those parallel bars and however long those are, 10 feet or whatever, and walked down and then back and I was like shaking, you know? I mean, it hurt like hell. And anyway,

I got to the end and then Solomon helped me to, in my wheelchair, and he got my arms draped around him like a prom date or something. He sat me down and that was my first time I walked. Yeah, and so it's like the peaks and valleys. At that point, you're riding really high, feeling like I'm going to make it kind of thing, you know? What's it like to be in a hospital for four months? Oh my gosh, it was the worst. And I was just thinking, I think the blood clot might have been right after that.

Anyway, it's terrible. And I'm from a cow town, you know? And so I look outside and it's drab. And that area of DC is like Soviet block architecture. With those two, Maryland. Yeah. It's the government built it all. Right after, during and after the Second World War.

And they did a terrible job. It's funny, even we couldn't learn the lesson of Potemkin villages. No. We just did it unashamedly. We copied it. Yeah. Just made Walter Gropius in charge of America's architecture. No, I know it's in all that war is what did it.

And you're not invited to think about what that means, but I'm not fully aware of what it means, but there's something, something about that war totally destroyed the spirit of the country. The good war that is. But anyway, sorry. Yeah. So, but you're stuck there for four months. That's a, what do you do? Like, what's your day like?

PT, occupational therapy, watch Dukes of Hazards and King of the Hill. You know, one time, Brian Dennehy came and- The actor. Yeah, really genuinely great guy. He sat with me for hours. We were talking about the Civil War and he said, have you ever read Shelby Foote's trilogy? And I said, no. And he said, I'll be right back.

And he went to a bookstore and brought me the trilogy, which was really neat. Brian Denney, the actor shows up at your bedside and then buys you the Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy. Yeah, it was really great. So I had something to read. So that was helpful. But you had to wait for Brian Tenney to bring it to you. Yeah, he was great. And I don't want to crap on too many people. Orrin Hatch was very helpful,

despite our political disagreements. He was a very kind man to me. He's a nice man. He was. And very connected. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He was able to get things done and a good guy. Yeah, so there were people that were coming around trying to boost the spirits. Brad Paisley, his stepfather came one day and just sat with us for hours just because it's nice to talk to a normal person. He was a wonderful man. Yeah, so it wasn't all bad, but I didn't sure as shit did not want to be there. I wanted to go home. I missed my grandpa, and I just missed home. I enjoy, God blessed us with tremendous beauty out there and I try to appreciate it. And I wanted to see it again.

So what'd you do when you got home? So at this point you're in your 21 or 22? Yeah. And the army severs your term? I mean, they discharge you, I guess? Not yet. Oh, eventually. Yeah, they retired me. Before I retired, I was basically just doing outpatient care at the civilian hospital. And I was lucky. My PT guy, he used to be the PT guy for like the Olympic wrestling team. And I loved wrestling growing up. So

it was a good connection. And, and of course, he's good at what he's doing. And it's seen a lot of young guys hurt pretty bad. So that's as well. So it's just like that and being depressed as hell every day. Because you're a professional patient at this point. You're still a soldier technically. But your job is to go to PT and... Yeah, it was not good. It was not good. Yeah, and in retrospect, that program was not a good idea. As much as I wanted to get out of there, it would have been, I think this bore out in

the data. I don't think it was just me, but I would have been a lot more mentally healthy if they would have just forced me to stay doing outpatient stuff at Walter Reed, because then at least I'm around guys who get it instead of like my family. How could they possibly? It's not their fault. I think that would have been better, but certainly I was happy to be out of there. How long did it take you to get right mentally? Shit. A long time. Quitting pain meds was the biggest thing.

What was that like? Realizing how bad it was fucking my, sorry for cursing. Realizing it's warranted in this case. You're allowed. Yeah, there's a certain family I'm not too thrilled with either. Realizing that it was a problem, like really messing my mental health up was motivation enough and then my doctor was really great. What was it doing to your mental health? The opioids and the family you're referring to has got to be the Sacklers.

Yeah, I mean enough people are mad at me right now that I don't know how many more fights I want to pick. But if you can't criticize America's richest drug merchants, then like what, I mean, at a certain point you have to be like, I'm sorry, it's just true, right? I had two friends die from opioids while we were recovering. You know, they drink some alcohol and die because, you know, it represses your ability to breathe. Of course.

Suppresses rather, and then drink and pass out and die. So I was lucky that didn't happen. But so yeah, I don't care. But what does it do to your spirit? That's the one thing. I don't think we talk about that very often. I was on opioids for one day for back surgery a few years ago, and not enough to get dependent. But the first thing I noticed is it transformed me inside.

Like it crushes your spirit. That's one day of it. And you were on it for how long? Years. You're definitely not the same person. You know, it's linked. I have read, I don't allegedly also link to this suicide epidemic. Of course.

It makes you a different person. And I, I try to be very careful about not pretending to be more pious than I am, but I do believe in spiritual war and I do think that there's really something to ingesting stuff like that. Like I mean something real, not just some chemical changes in your head. I couldn't agree more. Can you flesh that out a little bit? Well, yeah, I think you should be very careful tempering with like allowing things into your body. You know, the term spirits, that originated because of my understanding of this is that that term came from people thought you were putting spirits into your body.

Of course. And you probably are. Now why? You're speaking of liquor, alcohol. Right. Yeah. Well, there's absolutely no question. So opioids are just that in a different form is what I would think.

And you know, people get mad at me for this, but I think the same thing about other drugs. Like if you're communicating with some entity because of something you've taken, I would take that pretty seriously because you probably are. People hate it when you say that. I've done those drugs, so I feel like I have as a child, so I feel like I have some authority on it. And I was talking to a friend of mine, someone I really, really, really like the other day about it. And he was talking about, you know, whatever trip, taking hallucinogens for good reasons by the way. But he said I was visited by demons and I said, do you think that they were real? And he goes, oh no, no, they're real.

You know, I try not to be a judge, a judger, because I have no basis for judging other people, period. However, I want to say, if you think they're real, then maybe don't fuck with them at all. That's not good. That's scary. It's really scary It's terrifying. Yeah, I mean even I went through an atheistic period I'm Deeply genuinely deeply ashamed of that period of my life. I think I was mad at God more than not believing Seraphim Rose writes some stuff about this.

I can't remember where, but he says, it's not that the atheist disbelieves in God. It's that he believes in God and doesn't understand him and is sort of, therefore, angry. Of course. Certainly described me. Kind of prefer. I feel like the atheists have a better shot than people who just don't think

about it. Sarah from Rose said, not that I want to speak for anybody here, but he says in a follow-up to that, he says something to the effect of those people are actually more your brother than the people whose Christ is only on their lips. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what do I know? But that sounds right to me. Yeah. So, what was the effect of the opioids on your spirit?

I'm sorry, you keep trying to get me to answer that. No, no, no, not at all. I just think it's interesting and I rarely hear people talk about it. There's a lot of talk about the effect of opioids on your respiratory system. You know, it just dark can work. I think it's all important and I'm not mocking it. However, the condition of your spirit may be more important than anything and I never hear that discussed.

Yeah, well, you're not the same person. And I mean, that's what I mean with like bringing things into yourself. We use euphemisms like that. Like, well, I wasn't the same guy at that period of my life. Well, think about what that actually means. Like, what do you mean you weren't the same guy? You know, if you believe in body, soul, spirit, or body, soul, mind, however you want to think of it,

what do you mean when you say you were not the same person? Because, like, did your soul leave and go somewhere else? What do you actually mean? And I think what you mean is that you have given the control of you over to someone or something else. I mean, that's the way I view it. And that can be wrong, and I would sound like an idiot or whatever, but that is the way that I view it.

You don't sound like an idiot at all and you're clearly not wrong and that's like a central piece of Christian theology. I mean, Paul says at great length in Romans, this is Paul, this is like the hero of the early church. This is like one of the, after Jesus, the founder of Christianity. And he's like, I do all these terrible things that I don't want to do. And that's because the sin, which he described as sin, is like taking control of me. Something from outside came into me and is making the decisions.

He says that. And I don't think that's far from the experience of every person who pays attention to his own behavior. Like you do kind of like, what is this? Exactly. Yeah. You always want to figure out what's animating you. And if you don't think about that, you're probably being driven by something.

There's probably a reason you're not taking a step back to think about it. So when you say, what does it do to your spirit? I really believe that you've given control over to something else. And so it changes you in every way. You know, you become dishonest, angry, bitter, deeply depressed. And when I say angry, I mean at God. You know, there's a line in there somewhere where he says, even the devil's pray.

I think that's kind of like that. It's like, why would, what are the devils praying to God for? Because if we believe in a redemptive God, surely, and again, I don't want to get things wrong and God forgive me if I am, but if we believe in a redemptive God, then they're not praying to ask for forgiveness, or else maybe they would be able to get it. I don't know. So what are they

saying in their prayers? Well, probably, they're probably bitter, you know, saying, I cannot believe you did this to me, or whatever it may be. I don't want to speak for them either and I want to be careful here, but I think the source of the bitterness, the root of it, is being angry at God and I think opioids do that. And the minute I got on... Opioids make you angry at God. I do think that. I do.

And drinking too much, I think, does it. Definitely. And, you know, anything that makes you not you is going to lead to that eventually. In fact, like all sin, they say, again, I'm not, I don't want to pretend to know things because I don't. But I think that the end result of all sin is ultimately anger at God and what you're mad about is knowing what you have done, you know. So getting off of those... Let me just add a VM and amen to that I totally agree

Thank you, and I don't understand anything either. That's for sure and May I be punished for pretending I do because I don't but what you're saying is I believe that's true Yeah, so you get off opioids what happens then it was crazy what about Mmm, I don't want to misremember here, 10 days to two weeks later, it was so weird. Genuinely felt like a cloud had been lifted from my vision. Like the world felt and looked different to me two weeks later. And I don't know how to describe it beyond it just everything felt to some degree pretty

again and like that my mind actually worked again rather than just thought negative things all the time. I could like think about the things I cared about. How long were you on them do you think Probably like five years. Oh gosh, you know What's the first half of your 20s? Yeah when you're the dumbest person you're ever gonna be on top of that I had gotten to where I was taking way way less, but I still half of your 20s. Yeah. When you're the dumbest person you're ever going to be on top of that. I had gotten to where I was taking way, way less, but I still like had, you know, I had

those hooks. And then just getting rid of them all together was totally life changing. And within like two years, all of a sudden I felt like the same person again. And I usually connect that. It's funny we're having this conversation because I had never thought about it in these terms. I usually connect that to being able to run and hike again and go on bow hunting. And I wonder if it wasn't actually like the time away from that thing.

I'm sure it mattered. Yeah, so it transforms you into a different person, totally different person. You said that you lost two friends from OD, accidental, I guess, OD. But you must have known a lot of other people who were also on opioids for years. Did they recover? No. Oh gosh. I know one person and I don't want to give too much information because I don't want

to hurt his feelings or something, but he looks like a different human being now. I mean, it's been so long. I saw a picture of him recently and I hadn't seen him for a couple of years. And I had to look at it for like five minutes because it just didn't even look like the same guy. you know? I have another family member that went through the same experience, looks like a totally different human being now. The one friend who did.

Physically. Physically, like face, you know, like a different guy. What are, pardon my ignorance, like what are the changes like for long-term opioid use? I don't know, the look on them is, they're like shrunken, you know, their eyes look different, like deeply sad. So it's not just a weight loss or gain, it's like deeper than that. I think so, like this, like the spark is gone, you know? Yes. It's a, they're horrible drugs. I made my daughter when she was like 13, I made her

sign a contract. We notarized it and everything. So typically, you know, you clean your rifles when the boyfriend comes over. This is the next level beyond that. The no-rise contract. And it's in my gun safe, actually. But I made her sign this contract that said she will not do any drugs, drink any alcohol, or have any pre-marital sex until 21. And if she's able to do that, then I'll just give her $5,000 in cash. But if she's able to take that same thing I'll just give her $5,000 in cash. But if she's able to take that same thing

till she's, I cannot remember whether I put 23 or 25, then I'll just give her $10,000 cash. You know, to a 13 year old, I mean, that's a lot of money to me, but to a 13 year old, that's like your offering them. Yeah. You know? And the reason for that is I've seen how dark that world is

and how many people... When it gets those hooks in you at a young age, it just ruins kids. I mean, ruins them. Some of them never, ever recover and they're good people at root and they were otherwise going to be great productive members of society and And now they're just not, you know. Just the anguish, the suffering that it causes. You've talked about this before, but I mean, this stuff is born out in data. You can see the deaths of despair across rural America.

Yeah. You know, you drive through rural America. We both live in rural places and you see in people's houses, there are certain houses that are just tidy, squared away, the cordwood is at right angles and you can tell these are happy, productive people. But there are as many homes with broken children's toys on the front lawn and that are just a disaster. And everyone's poor, it's not a matter of, but like those, that's like depression, the disorganization, the chaos. I think that comes from drugs.

Yeah. Yeah. Although my heart is a wreck right now. I'm ashamed of it, but I have three young boys and I've been Caught up in some other BS from it well, but there's a difference between like the happy chaos of small children and The kind of you know multi-year just like I just don't give a shit at all Do you know what I mean? I know exactly. you mean. Yeah, the not caring is a sign of drugs. I've always thought. Yeah, deep depression for sure. So what'd you do after, so by this point, I mean, you said it was two years before your head fully cleared. No. Oh yeah. After you got off, dope. So that's, I'm just trying to do the simple math here. So you're 20 when you get wounded, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

That's 27. I know yeah, and I had a divorce scattered in there and you know a string and broken relationships and and then I finally started feeling really good and Life was going well and then I met a new girl and she's wonderful and my entire life changed by everything. I mean it was already on the path or else it wouldn't have worked with her because she's like a well put together person. And then I was like back to living the life of my youth.

When I first started dating her I went, my old man has back problems. It's like every person that's road colds their whole life. He needed help. And I remember when he called me, he had this buckskin horse and he needed a road and he's like, well, you're younger. And I was like, well, it's not like my body's in better shape than yours. But I wanted to do it. So I go down there and, and this is now I'm doing good in life and at least mentally. And I get on this colt and we're doing good.

And what my old man didn't tell me was that he had a, he would get scared when you'd go to get off. But my old man didn't want me to know that because he wanted me to kind of solve the problem for him. So I go to swing off and he starts bucking and it twists my knee pretty good. And anyway, that was my first time back on a colt like that. And then we go sit in the bunkhouse and have like a couple beers and you're just feeling really good, you know, like, wow.

I'm like back to my real life. And so then I started riding Colts again and back to normal. And that's where I'm at now. And I was guiding hunts for a while, elk and deer and help with some lions in Utah a little bit and occasional bear hunt and just, you know, back being a normal kid from the mountain west. And, and it's great. It's like really...

So how did you go... So that's an amazing... Thank you for taking the time to tell that story. How did you go from there to like being on Sean Ryan's show and like becoming a figure of, you know, public adulation and, you know, attacks as well. Like you become this like polarizing figure. How'd that happen? I, there's two pieces to it. I got involved in public lands advocacy around 2015 or 16.

There was this, there had been this push, the public lands initiative, which was like a different version of the same thing, like Rob Bishop, who I think is otherwise a good guy and some other names were involved in that. And I just got involved with some organizations and learned more about it. The more I've learned, the more my opinions have shifted, more into the direction of conservation, not less. So that's kind of the root of that. And then I spent the last five years on Twitter arguing with people. I mean, they would write me horrible emails over the public lands thing. And these are right-wing people.

You're pretty liberal, I assume. Yeah. It's just incredible. It's like my own side very angry at me over this issue. Oh, I've been there, yeah. And then something flipped this time. Oh, but I should tell you how the Twitter platform, I had been doing keynotes for a long time, a source of income, and I enjoy doing them,

depending on the group. But it made up about 25% of our annual at the time. And I had guided this guy from a big construction company in California. Really good guy. I guided him on a hunt in southern Utah. I got to be friends with them. And then he wanted me to speak as a keynote at this construction conference in Las Vegas, this is a real big one. So I'd been booked for that. And then this freaking COVID thing starts happening. And it's evolving in the news in real time. And I'm supposed to leave on like Saturday morning to go speak on Monday.

And he texts me at like 5pm West Coast time on Friday and says, bro, they canceled the whole thing. Like not just speeches, but like the entire conference. And it's hard to blame anybody for doing that at the time, given the way the machines were, or the mechanisms were turning. So I had been very careful with my right wing opinions publicly for years, because I wanted these people to still hire me to,

I mean, you know how the, you know, that, you know, bankers and things like this, they don't like people with opinions like me. So they don't hire people like me. Speak to a lot of tech organizations and you can about imagine how that would go if you're a right wing. In fact, one time, I'm sorry, I'm doing the Trump weave. One time a gal had hired me and she's really wonderful person.

She comes up to me after a speech and says, this is really great. Everybody's really happy. Could you lean less on the like, you have to learn how to pull yourself up message because that sounds too much like bootstrapping and that's a right wing thing. I'm serious. So that made me paranoid about sharing my actual opinions on anything. So I would never talk publicly. And then this COVID thing happens.

And I had created a Twitter account while we were night, we were night cabin in the fall on the fall herd. And we, this friend's ranch, they have like a Frito truck that they built into like a cabin. Like they took the lid or the top off and like made a cabin cabin out of it. So we're in the Frito truck. And I create a Twitter and I get on there

and I say something to a left-wing politician and it kind of got some traction. I was like, oh crap, I deleted it, you know, because I had made it with my real name and I thought I could just like slide in there slowly, but that was in, you know, like September. So I deleted all my tweets and then just didn't even use it anymore because I was scared that I wasn't going to get hired. Well, when this COVID thing happened, that one got canceled and then the next one and the next one and then you start getting emails. It's like all seven or eight that we had scheduled for the year got canceled like within a week's

time. And so I just got on Twitter. I told my wife, I said, you know what? Fuck it. I'm just going to tell people what I really think about things. And somehow that grew into, it's not a large platform, but a platform. And then you end up on Sean Ryan, you know? Interesting.

So this, one of the, I would just say on the outside, I'm completely 100% on your side, probably for the same reasons on this question, but it is one of those rare issues where it doesn't break down along left and right at all. And I probably should have asked you to explain what the issue is. Since we were an hour and a half into this or whatever.

I haven't even asked you. What is the public land? What's the divide on public lands? What are public lands? What does some people seek to do with public lands? And what's your view of that? So, hmm. This one organization I was with for a while, I implored them to not let this become a liberals who hunt kind of thing or else we're going to lose.

It made, we were, they were trying to evangelize the left on public land protection measures, which is just dumb because at the the time, there was zero aggression coming from the left, it was all from the right. And I said, just let me message this. I understand right-wing people, I am one. Like let me do this, and they wouldn't. So I think a sizable portion of blame belongs on the left for the way they've treated public lands over the years.

What they have done is, first of all, their central ethos is just they don't like you. Oh, a hundred percent. So they don't want you on the land. Exactly. Where your dogs on the land. They don't, they don't. Oh, I have dealt with it. They want to build like a Truman show and you can get on like a electric train and look at it or something. And then the right wants to sell it. And so that's kind of the crux. That's nice. That's so good.

The left wants to turn nature into a Truman Show experience where you get an electric train and view it and the right just wants to sell it. That is just perfect. Well, and we, when I say we, I mean better men from older times figured out the correct compromise to this problem and it's basically what we have as a status quo right now. The multiple use mandate. And what is that? That got established in 76 under FLIPMO, which is the Federal Land Policy and Management

Act of 76. But that had rolled lots of older conservation laws into one, into kind of one thing and established a very clear multiple use mandate. In fact, I think it's the very first paragraph of the bill. And the multiple use mandate says these lands are held in trust for the American people for hunting, recreating, grazing, and extraction of all forms, just whenever it makes sense. I mean, we can't go clear cut the redwoods. I don't think anyone would even, well, people would advocate, certain people would advocate for that, but I don't think anyone's doing that right now. But there are other places that we should be logging and we can, you know, figure this out.

You can manage the forest. Yes. And by the way, you should. It's a better forest when it's managed sense. I mean, I have a lot of experiences It's like it's great. Yes, if it's done wisely Prudently like it's good. Exactly. Maybe the best example of what you're talking about here is the whole spotted owl stuff. Yep They label They label this spot. So there's the Endangered Species Act of I think 73, Nixon signed it. We basically put into effect some of the most forward thinking in this kind of way.

I hate how the left has ruined useful words. Oh, I know. But we instantiated very powerful protections on the main goal is we don't let species die here because we as a people think that that would be a sin because God made them. That's the way I view it. And I think that's what that's how Nixon thought. Well, the spotted owl comes in and the claim, so they made it threatened and the claim was that this owl needed old growth in order to survive. It couldn't survive in second growth or new growth.

And second growth is like something that's been cut down, replanted and then started up. Right. After you whack the forest, this is what comes up. It's very thick and- Yep. Yep. And they had said that they can't survive that way on and on.

Well, the loggers were saying, we see these things in second growth all the time. What the hell are you talking about? And so then we end up with, I believe it's called the Northwest Forest Plan. And that was in the early 80s, if I'm remembering correctly, or late 80s when that happened, if I'm remembering correctly. And that locked up something like 56 million acres

and just killed timber towns all through Washington and Oregon and had an effect on northern Idaho and destroyed. Yeah, Western Montana. And then it turned out down the road that the loggers were right. That spotted owl was living in the second growth stuff and It actually was not the harvest that was killing off. It was the Some other kind of owl whose name escapes me was out competing it. Yeah, it was intra owl competition Yeah, and it was an invasive owl. It's so they're probably a Chinese owl. Yeah, right. I

know there are some loggers who think they did that on purpose and knowing the way, seeing the way, I don't want to be too conspiratorial, but it would not shock me if one day we learn that people were doing that on purpose because what they actually hated was loggers. Oh, I know. They don't even love trees. They just hate loggers. Oh, I know. They don't even love trees. They just hate loggers. Oh, they don't love trees. No.

They'll cut down the trees to put a solar farm in, in a second. Yeah. In places where the sun doesn't shine very much. No, they hate trees because they hate God and they hate God's creation, of course. It's never about saving nature. They're destroying nature.

They're spraying chemicals into the atmosphere to manage the weather and poisoning the climate. These are the enemies of nature. These are the offshore wind farm people. Which, yeah, those wreak havoc. Oh my gosh, on the fishery, of course. They don't care. So they're not for nature and don't ever allow a professional environmentalist to tell you he loves nature. I mean, I'm sure there are some who do, but in general, the environmental lobby is opposed to the environment. Yeah, totally. Exceptions and rules, right? And the exception doesn't make the rule. Well, so that's kind of where we where we're at. But then if you look at what happened here more recently, and this is important for understanding how

we got to this new push for sell offs around 2016 or so a lot was happening right then because PLI and some other things but around then Some environmental groups really born out of Scientists at universities who actually do care regardless of what people try to tell you a lot of those people actually do care I mean they've recovered all kinds of species because of these people, you know Heala trout and black-footed ferret and the greater sage grouse. You know, these people do care. Well, they come up with a science-based management plan for this because the environmental groups were pushing and saying, you can't do any oil and gas, oil and gas extraction in sage grouse country. You'll kill off the sage grouse. Well, these scientists come up with this plan and say,

don't list these things as threatened. What if you, Mr. Oil and Gas Company, work with us on this plan? We think if you do it this way, it can be done without just killing off the sage-grouse. So the oil and gas companies give some concessions and then they do and what do you know? They worked. And oil and gas is still being extracted and the sage grass have recovered. Yeah, there's really good sage grass hunting, yeah, for sure.

So we now, we have people who can solve these problems. But if you look at the way the right wing and the tools that they use or the levers that they use to kind of pry on the right to get them behind sell-offs is like, well, you're going to get locked out of it by this thing or that thing. They're going to come spotted out you, you know? Well, we figured out a solution to that. And as long as we keep doing that, there's just absolutely no reason to give up our birthright. So what is the idea about selling federal lands? Like what, I mean, there was a recent

proposal which I think more than any other person you killed by bringing attention to it, really hated by some people for that. But just leaving the people out of it, like what was the idea? What was the proposal? It changed a bunch of times, but the proposal was, the way it was being sold was, hey, we're just trying to get rid of 0.5% of this land. But that's not how it was originally written.

Originally it was like a mandatory sell off of 0.5% of the land and then like 249 million other acres to be evaluated something like that. Which means that's a floor with no ceiling. Now why do they want to sell it off? My gut tells me minerals, but I don't know. Sell it off to whom? Well, I don't know. They're not telling you. And we do a lot of oil and gas and mineral extraction on public lands right now.

But a thing that I think viewers need to understand is when they do it on public land, there's a royalty paid back to both state and federal government. But if you own the mineral rights or the subsurface rights altogether of your property, you're not paying a royalty. I'm sure you're paying taxes, but you're not paying a royalty whatsoever. How does that work? Well, it's if you own the rights. I mean, this is like... Wait, private land you're talking about?

Private land, I'm sorry, yes. Okay, right. Of course, right. If you own the mineral rights, you own the minerals. Well, and so if you're... the original thing was we're trying to balance... I mean, that's how they got it in a budget reconciliation bill, right? As we're trying to balance this budget, we need a little cash flow here. That's what this is for. Well, why would you sell the mineral rights then? Wait, wouldn't you keep the mineral rights if what you were trying to do is solve the debt problem?

Wouldn't you keep that asset on your portfolio? Well, yeah. And they didn't. So I think that the, I think there are large... They didn't? So they were gonna sell the land with the mineral rights. So that means the state and federal governments would never benefit from the extraction past the sale. That is how the final iteration read to me and I think to everybody else. Plus it's a 900 page bill so you're feeding it to chat GPT, you know, and trying to figure out where the stuff is. And I think the most of the public land stuff was on like page 202 or something.

What would, well, that's interesting. So that, I mean, that kind of proves that it's not about solving the debt with sale of public resources. No. And they used a term fair market value in there. Mm-hmm Well on a lot of these I mean you've been to southern Utah On a lot of these chunks that they were trying to sell off the fair market value is like 500 an acre I mean you're not gonna 500 an acre

Yeah, I mean it's alkalized soil with like almost nothing as far as a bunch grass as it supports an ecosystem. But it, you know, to run, to make it produce, if you're thinking in terms of GDP, which I sometimes I feel like this is all those people are capable of, this is unproductive and right, unless you're a lizard farmer. Yeah, right. Yeah. So fair market, so that establishes that it's definitely not about the debt because you're either pulling money out of the coffers or selling it off for next to nothing. So this is not about

the debt. It's about something else. And this is why I think minerals at one level or another. Was it in a, was there any restriction on who could buy it? rolls at one level or another. Was there any restriction on who could buy it? They had said, I'm trying, you know, there was like seven iterations of that and I'm trying to remember what the last one said about that, but I don't think so. I don't think there was any kind of guard rail. And I think Utah has like 34,000 acres owned by the CCP already. I read that.

Seriously? Yeah. I mean, I don't know if that's true, but I read it on Twitter, so it has to be. But there is foreign ownership of land in Utah. Yeah. Well, in Canada, I think they own, I think they're the largest foreign owner of agricultural land, like tillable in the US. And then, you know, Saudi owns a freaking ton of stuff down in Arizona. And they're putting all kinds of guys out of business down there. Like they'll punch a deep

well because they've got money, lower the aquifer, and then the rancher guy, he can't afford a thousand foot well, so then they're able to buy up his stuff because now it's dry. So there's all kinds of conflicts spread out across this region. I just can't see why you wouldn't want to limit having more of that problem, but it doesn't- Why wouldn't Congress pass a lawsuit? We can't have foreign ownership of land in the United States? You can't sell the country to other countries.

That's I think the primary question. I don't understand that at all. So far as I'm aware, I can't buy property in Canada, right? Unless I become a Canadian citizen. Yeah, a lot of Americans, I own property in Canada. I sold it because I was worried about all this kind of thing. But certainly you can't buy Mexico. There you go.

Right? So, no, I don't understand why. I mean, that just seems like a really easy fix. Foreigners don't get to own our country. So pretty happy to have you can do whatever, come on vacation here. You're great. We love you, but you can't own our country. Right? Right. Yeah. you're great, we love you, but you can't own our country, right?

Right. Yeah. Recreation, the last number I read was $1.2 trillion contributed to our economy through outdoor recreation. That's extraction by another means. It might not be pulling oil and gas out of the ground, but that's still a form of extraction. You're extracting wealth off of the thing. I mean, right. And with the multiple use mandate, now you're doing both. It's like best of both worlds. You're maximizing value in that way,

you know. So why should, I mean, this has been, as we both acknowledge, kind of a partisan issue. You referred to liberals who hunt. I think there can't be more than eight of those. But there was this effort in the last 15, 20 years to like create these astroturf groups, you know, hunters for Kamala. But also, they're always hilarious. Loading the shotgun through the muzzle kind of groups. Yeah. But, but there are also more serious efforts to do that where these are clearly fake groups

and they're trying to subvert something here. So that's, it's all real, but it's kind of axiomatic. I think that like hunters some fishermen Ranchers People who train horses like these are not Kamala Harris voters. These are almost all conservatives so why why would you as You know products of that world somebody shares the values of that world Why would you be all of a sudden on the side of like not selling public lands? Why is this a can why do you have a conservative position on public lands?

I fundamentally, I think I've said this before, I'm not sure, so forgive me, but it's, I love my people. Yep. I mean, that's why. I mean, I love the land, but my people don't exist without the land and small ranches. Wait a a second if the country's an idea Hmm as long as you have that idea You're part of it. No Sorry, I think we probably agree on this one I've said this elsewhere too, but

Some people on Twitter will say it's not magic dirt, you know? And I understand what they mean when they're saying that, but it is magic dirt. It's 100% magic dirt. I completely agree. Yeah. I keep some in my travel bag so I can sniff it when I'm out of the country. No, I mean for real. That's cool. Well, yeah.

But why do you... Oh, I'm sorry. Why do you... So flesh that out if you don't mind. I think you have to start at that. I believe America as a people I believe the ethnogenesis of that happened on our frontiers like if you At least you know history is a thing that's interpreted so people get mad when I talk about history sometimes

I'm like okay. Well, this is my interpretation of it fuck off. You know like this is the way I see it sometimes and I'm like, okay, well, this is my interpretation of it. Fuck off. You know, like this is the way I see it. The Revolutionary War was in some ways a very European war. I mean, we, you know, we kind of did some guerrilla stuff. So that was a new invention in terms of European people doing stuff to a degree. But it was kind of a civil war between Anglo peoples. Yes. But then something happened as we, you know, from Manassas, Cutler and the Ohio River Valley to the 49ers where we developed as a people out here. You know, if you stop somebody on the street in New York City and you said, well, maybe not there now because it's like 60% foreign born. Pick an actual American city where you're not traveling internationally and stop Americans

on the street and ask them what it means to be an American. They're going to say things like hard work, perseverance, grit, love of country and county and all of that. They're going to use all of these ideas that actually tie back to knowing what our people went through crossing those planes. Fighting Indians and fighting Mexicans and then the Brits again, and you know, the Spanish and all of this, you know, all of that stuff fed into where we finally, somewhere, I don't know exactly when, I don't think I could put a pin in it,

but at some point we became a people that are Americans. We never describe ourselves in the same way as it seems like Europeans do to me. So I think that's a very important piece of this. And I also think it's somewhat ironic that the area where the frontier closed is now like the primary source of the people trying to kill the country off. And then another thing- Why do you think that is?

I don't know. Well, resentment, leftism. I think leftism is animated by dark things. I don't think every leftist is a bad person, but I think that that belief system is fundamentally animated by envy. And that's like the earliest story in the book and hate. Yeah So I think it's that I don't think it's too much more complex than that

Look at think about the Civil War the Reconstruction the period of reconstruction it had there not been the pressure relief valve of the frontier, we would have fought it again. Because that boot on the neck of those proud Southern people is not going to last forever if they don't have somewhere to go. And we have towns in Idaho that were established by Confederates. And they had had enough of that shit.

So I think it's an important part of our identity, a very important part of our identity. So I think in many ways this entire, I'm sorry, I'm doing such a bad job addressing your actual questions. I'm like pontificating over here. Well, I think to describe what you're saying requires what you're saying, which is it's part of like a multi-hundred year story and evolution. Yes. And it's also one of the reasons that the country was able to assimilate people from

different parts of Europe, hadn't always been friends. I mean, the Irish and the English, you know what I mean? Totally. And like the true melting pot was Europeans from like non-friendly countries. Didn't have that much in common actually. I know now they're all just white people, but the English and the Irish didn't feel that way. No.

Right. But they were able to come together and build this amazing country. But I think it's through the process that you're describing. Like that really is America. Absolutely. And then now as a modern people, there is absolutely no way, like small ranches, a lot of them are running like 90% of their ground on public allotments

and 10% on deeded. And it's been this way for a very long time. Like basically since the Taylor Grazing Act, which was I think 1936, another one of these things that rolled lots of laws into one, but it essentially protects the right for Americans to graze on these public grounds to protect the cattle industry, small family farms.

And on that 10% of deeded acreage, at least where I'm from, much of that is going to be like their alfalfa, their hay production for the winter. And then of course, a pasture to feed on in the winter. So my people from just won't exist anymore without this. And some people will say, oh, well then F them, this is welfare for rich people. It's like, no, this is welfare for people who are scraping by.

If you want to call it welfare, I don't at all view it that way, but these people are scraping by the margins on cattle are thin. And if you kill grazing, it is over. And we are already... By the way, everyone in the country is on welfare at this point. And people who are paying half the tax rate that you are through the carried interest loophole, that's not welfare. I think it is. People who are taking their income as dividend, as interest income, and peg half the rate of people who work for a wage.

I don't know. I mean, what? All of these things are aimed at the same group which is Legacy Americans. From the short end of everything, I don't think that's an accident. No. No. My family went out there in like the 30s. You know, the 1830s. Not the 1930s, you know. What are30s, not the 1930s, you know. What are the 1830s? Yeah, I think I think 36 somewhere around 1836. Yeah, they were. Yeah, they moved out. Well, a lot of more Mormons and so pre-Doordash.

Yeah. Yeah. So 47 is when the Mormons got to Utah. But a lot of them started that journey west, you know, back around that time, like from Connecticut, New England area. Yeah. Started, you know, upstate that time, like from Connecticut, New England area started, you know, upstate New York.

Yep. Yeah. A lot. Most of my family's been here since, you know, the late 1600s, but they were over here, Yankee type people. And then they, you know, moved away. I don't mean that as a pejorative, like that's where they were at, like kind of, you know, in New England.

And so yeah, it means a lot to me in that sense. But another thing that the people who are not connected to this industry should think about, we have less than 90 million beef cattle in America right now. Our herds, our beef herd is smaller than it was in like 91, like 1991. How? Killing off small operations. Like almost a hundred million more people, maybe a hundred million, I mean, because there's so much lying about population. Right.

Because there's so many illegal aliens here, but we have a much larger population than we had in 91. Yeah. I mean, what is it? Like 330 million or something? I mean, I'd say 360, but like go outside. I know. It's insanely crowded.

So there's just, as with GDP and inflation and every other relevant number from which we make decisions about how to run the country, it's a lie. Population is, I think, the biggest of all lies. Now we're saying, I mean, three years ago, we've got 10 million illegal aliens. We've had 10 million illegal aliens for 30 years. And now, since Trump got in, they're admitting, I think it's more like 60 or 65 million illegal aliens, foreign nationals living here in violation of our law.

Mm-hmm. So, anyway, sorry. No, no. Pardon the lecture, but like, I agree with you. We've got more than 330 million people in the United States. Yeah, and that ties into this whole idea of a housing shortage. Someone said, well, illegals are not impacting housing.

Who said that? The leftists were saying this and one of my buddies had such a good way of countering that. He said, I don't know, I assume these motherfuckers live inside. Yeah. So I'm sorry. That's yeah. So food security is a national security risk. I think Hegseth even endorsed this idea recently that food security is national security to a degree. Of course, food, water, energy, those are the building blocks of any society slash civilization, food, water, energy. And if those, you don't have those, I mean, that's why people go to war.

That's why populations, that's what migration is about. I mean, everything is about those three things. But only in America that's been rich for so long people know it's really about self-esteem or you know, or whatever No, it's about food water and energy Right and you think so our beef herd is smaller than it was 35 years ago. Yeah So why is it? Is it Brazil? Oh, it's a lot of it is yeah So why is it Zeprazel? Oh, it's a lot of it is. Yeah, imported beef and the artificial deflation of prices due to illegal immigrant labor.

Every time they go to one of these packers, it's like 1600 arrests. The whole plant is illegal. Yeah. And you're not going to tell me that these people don't know they're doing that. And then I think there's about, I think 30 plants in the US process 80% of the beef in this country. So now you've got, you're also sort of as a byproduct putting your old local butcher out of business.

He can't compete anymore with like $6 hamburger in a tube from Walmart that's got 70 animals packed into it. He can't compete with that either. The local guy can't. Uh, yeah, it's a huge problem. And then if you add on the sell off of public lands and squeeze the last of these guys, they're hanging on with their small family ranch, it ain't going to get better. What role does immigration play in the story?

I mean, it's fundamental and both legal and illegal. A thing I would say to right wingers is to really try to think about these are low population states. They're high landmass, but the density, population densities is extremely low. I think Wyoming, I've said this elsewhere, but I think Wyoming has around 300,000 voters, but that was 300,000 people voting for Trump, which means we don't know what the next turnout will be because he has a once in a lifetime figure. There's only one of that guy. So presumably there's going to be less

in the next election cycle, who knows? Well, 50,000 new votes if you sell us off and fill it up with illegal or legal immigration, whether it's H1B, H2B, whatever. I guess those people aren't voting, but aren't voting. And then illegals or just imports of whatever variety, you flip these. There's not a ton of electoral votes there, but it is. Wait, so the idea was to take public lands and like build housing for immigrants on them?

Well, they say not, but there's a crap load of money going into immigrant resettlement in the West. I say this everywhere, but Rando land on Twitter, go look at that and you can see these grants for yourself. It's like four million, fifteen million, you know, fifty million, whatever, going to all these different NGOs and state governments to bring, to put refugees. Like I see burkas in Idaho Falls now. What? Mm-hmm. Idaho Falls was in Southeastern Idaho.

It's always, I think it was the most Mormon town in the United States, surely the most Mormon city in the United States. I had to be up there, yeah. Yeah. Had to be. Like that in Provo or whatever, old Provo, not new Provo, but you see Burkas there? Yeah, and this is another thing thing I always get called a racist.

And I don't have to hate someone to not want to be replaced by them or have my children replaced by them. I don't hate people still calling you racist. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Still. Oh, it's just incredible. Boy, that's 2000.

So 2021. I know. Yeah. That word's over. Oh, shut up. I know. But I don't. And also here's an important thing to this.

That person in a burka did not choose to live in Idaho Falls, where it's 40 below for a week a year. They moved here from whatever desert, and now they're living in some of the harshest climate in the US. They didn't choose that. Someone put them there. And then you have to ask yourself why someone would put them there. I've seen a lot of it.

Yeah, let's empty the refugee camps of Somali refugees in Kenya and fly them to Lewiston, Maine. An impoverished, dying mill town full of French Canadians. Just see how that works. Yeah, didn't work. No, of course not. And I love my people and I don't want them to be replaced, but from just a basic, in terms of politics, practical level, if you flip these states in the West, you're done. You're not winning another,

you're not beating the left with the Electoral College, not without Wyoming, Utah, to some degree, Nevada. Like, if you lose all of those, if they all go the way Colorado did, it's going to be over. Yeah. And Colorado's not just a Democrat, it's like affirmatively evil. We'll take your kids away unless you let them become trannies kind of thing. It's just like, it's a place that Christians are having trouble living. It's so anti-Christian in Colorado. And some of the best people on earth live there.

Oh, I couldn't agree more. But I'm just saying it has ramifications. It's not just that like, oh, they had a sort of conservative senator, now they have a sort of liberal senator. It's like, when the revolution comes, they're not joking at all. It's not like what we're going through now where it's like, do a Fox News hit and we're fighting the liberals. Okay.

No, it's like, you can't live there anymore if you believe in God. Are you familiar with the wolf reintroduction out there? Very familiar. Yeah. And you know who's driving that and it's not working and look at where they put them. They did it via referendum that won by 1% So the front range voted to dump Wolves on ranching communities is what they did because they hate them I mean, that's why why do they hate them because the ranchers are just so mean or just hate the idea of them

man, I you know, sometimes the left is just hysterical by nature. So it's hard to know if they've just been propagandized into- Independent minded white Christians are the enemy. It's why they hate Russia. It's why they hate the ranchers. I mean, let's just be honest. Let's stop lying. Yeah, I think that's probably it. And then they also think the cows are destroying the climate and

So beef production is a great evil despite the fact that beef have largely reoccupied the ecological niche that bison used to so You have to replace those with something. I think you're actually giving them too much credit by trying to be rational. It's like they don't think that, you know, Jeff Bezos' G4 fleet is wrecking the environment, but they do think that Cal Flatchlands is. They pick the group they hate and then they backfill the justification for crushing them. So, oh, it's climate. We hate the ranchers because of climate. No, they hate the ranchers because of who they are. I agree. I mean, obviously.

So, the idea was that this land was going to be used for housing. I mean, that's what they told us. But if you- Why wouldn't you just kick out the 60 million people who hear illegally? Between that and- It's too hard. Something like 16 to 18% of homes in Utah are owned by investors. It's like, well, the state could pass a law that would solve this problem real fast. I'm not against anyone making money. And I'm not one of these hate people because they're rich.

I've got a friend of mine who's a billionaire, he's the nicest guy in the world. He does all kinds of good for people. One of the best people I've ever met. So it's not that, but also, I mean, I'm not going to fillate the people who are trying to ruin me for greed, greedy reasons. You know, I'm not going to, they are not my friend, clearly. And they feel the same way right now. I'm sorry for being fidgety.

My back is stiff. But so it's not about housing. If it were about housing, there are solutions to that. And they're not doing that. They're trying to, I don't wanna impugn motives, but it ain't housing. It's not. They're trying to do something else.

Oh, and then from a legal perspective, I'm nearly certain of this. Please correct me if this is not right. But when you are building affordable housing, like apartments and condos or whatever, that comes with stipulations. And I think part of that is that land has to be sold for very cheap to the developer. it's like 50 acres not you know 3 million I

mean how many acres do you need what kind of apartment complex are we building over here you know 3 million acres it's very clearly not about affordable housing or your kid and his ability to buy a house. So here's the problem that I have with it and why I'm so grateful that you have done what you've done and why I want to talk to you is I'm worried about what the end stage of our debt crisis looks like. So when you're in debt to a lender, that debt is secured with assets. So you take a car loan, your loan is secured by your car. Same with a home mortgage.

They can take your house. The United States is trillions in debt to a bunch of different countries, investors all over the world, but Japan, China, South Korea, et cetera, Europe. And we can't pay it, obviously. And so how do we make good on that debt? Well, what is the United States? The United States is a continental sized landmass that has some of the most valuable resources in the world,

which would include the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, the Great Lakes, which would include some of the biggest oil and gas deposits, energy, and which would include some of those productive farmland in the world. So I'm really concerned that at some point, it sounds stupid now, but at some point not so far in the world. So I'm really concerned that at some point it sounds stupid now, but at some point,

not so far in the future, I'm gonna be like, well, actually the Chinese own Lake Superior. I'm serious. I know, me too. And the oil and gas fields and the nation itself. And so if you set up, I don't think that's crazy at all. Like in the end, the US dollar is a joke and everyone knows that. It's backed by nothing. Full faith and credit. So like, what do we have? Well, we have federal lands, actually land, minerals, water. And I just don't think you want to set up, set the precedent in motion where you

could just sell those if you needed to, because they don't belong to the current occupants of The White House or Congress. They just don't they belong to the people Correct. And I another thing they lie about is the actual numerical value of that land Oh, yeah, there was a number floating around a hundred trillion they were saying and I around a hundred trillion they were saying. And I kept thinking, how on earth did you get to a hundred trillion? That just does not make sense. It's just a round number.

So I started plugging in to the calculator like, let's see what this would actually work out to. And if you sold it fair market value, every piece of federal land in Idaho, it'd be like 110 billion. That is not going to touch the national debt in any serious way. Not to mention now you're losing all the other revenue streams that come from that. Of course.

So I just, it's not, I don't believe it's about debt. If you did it all by, if you did it all, let's say you could get to 6.2 trillion if you did 10,000 an acre or something like that. I'm having a hard time remembering what I came up with, but 6 trillion is a crap load of money, but we spent 2.2 or whatever it was in the CARES Act a couple of years ago. I mean, that's in the grand scheme of the way we spend, that not a lot of money and now the everyday guy is just losing What are you doing? I mean are you gonna retreat from public life having achieved your goal? Well, I know I don't think it's over. In fact, they're already pushing for it again. I

started My friends and I started thing called the Sage Rush Institute. And it's just kind of a small brain trust of people that are much more qualified than me. And we're, we're just going to do the best that we can to message and get these ideas out in front of people. I take no money from it. We don't even have a bank account right now.

It's absolutely in no way. It's my kind of foundation. Yeah, we, in no way is it about money. We collected emails and we're just trying to disseminate information because I think we need a lot more than one voice out on this stuff. Because here, like here's an example. The everyday American hears, well, why don't we just do

a new homesteading act? And that sounds good. You're like, oh, that'll take care of our kids. well, why don't we just do a new homesteading act? And that sounds good. You're like, oh, that'll take care of our kids. No, it won't. All that. First of all, the very last iteration of homestead acts, I think the average, more than 50% of the people that claimed land on that left it after two years. So you're just doing a sell off with a slight delay if you do that. I think they do this in Zimbabwe.

Yeah, how about we Homestead Act Rhodesia? So we're just going to try to pass information as best as we can and also help. I think we have a golden opportunity right now to do two really important things. One, reshape the narrative and make conservation cool on the right wing again. I think Zoomers have been let down by everyone their whole life. They're just like constantly getting screwed by someone. And we got a win here and we cannot let them down. We want to help them keep stacking wins here. Like we want to be something that doesn't end up screwing them in the end.

So the next time they push, you know, we can help Zoomers. And if we can shift this narrative with Zoomers and tell them like, this is yours, man. This belongs to you. Regardless of what people tell you, this is yours, man. This belongs to you. Regardless of what people tell you, this is yours. Right now, you can go to the Berks Creek Valley in Idaho right now and go camping fish and do whatever you want. Get off your ass and go do it. It'll be fun, you know?

And it's yours, experience it. If we can get them to understand that, then that is a huge accomplishment for posterity in the future because then they'll want to protect it forever. And that'll give us at least until they have grandchildren, which would be great. And then the second thing I think we have a real opportunity to do is shift the narrative in science back to people who actually want to do real science. I think COVID, for righteous reasons, made a lot of people very skeptical of any expert class.

And that, I mean, I am one of those people. But there are scientists out there who genuinely really want to save this stuff. That's the guy that's trying to save the Gila trout or whatever. Exactly. So I think we can help them establish some more credibility. Like, no, we actually, we as scientists, not me, but them as scientists don't actually want to pave over the Mojave Desert. No.

You know? So we have an opportunity to shift two narratives that are really important. If we can do that, then I think we've got another couple generations of security. You know, from my children and your children and grandchildren. That's what I care about.

It's not an accident that the most articulate voice in this debate is you and you spend the most amount of time outside. And maybe part of it is convincing people that nature is more compelling than porn or video games or anything that's happening on your phone. And I mean, the decline in hunting and fishing licenses nationally, as much as I so enjoy being alone, you don't have to compete for a spot because there's nobody there.

I do think that's ominous, right? Oh yeah. It's terrifying. Yeah. People don't even know what public lands look like. Right? I mean, it's hugely important. Yeah.

That one is, there's a lot of advocacy groups that are trying to get people into bow and like get into bow hunting and stuff like that. I think that's great. And we should try to do more of that. And then just think of like shooting, how many kids are going out shooting on public land? I've seen this weird narrative every once in a while where guys will be like, they won't even, they won't even let you out there to shoot.

The leader of a huge gun rights organization tried to tell me this a couple of days ago. And I was like, first of all, why the hell are you trying to fight with an ally? And then secondly, what are you talking about? Everyone shoots on that stuff all the time. So even things like that matter. Like go out and take your AR-15 and go shoot a bunch of rocks. You know, have a good time. At a distance though, because ricochets are real things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't shoot one four feet away. Don't Adam Kinzinger your buddy. That guy. Whatever happened to him? I don't know. Does he still exist? Adam Kinzinger.

I hope he's happy. Sad guy. That was so funny. My brain is doing a squirrel thing, but one of the funniest tweets I ever saw, I don't mean this guy disagree at times, but right after that happened, first thing in the morning, Josh Hawley tweeted, I wonder who Loomis will shoot today. I laughed for like an hour about that. But yeah, we need to get those kids engaged.

And there are some college programs that do this kind of thing. A friend of mine runs one of these at a university in the West, takes kids out and teaches them how to hunt ducks and eat and shoot. So we need to do much, much more of that. And that's important as well.

And then one other thing, I guess, if I could say, and I apologize, I'm so bad at answering your questions directly. No, I love it. I can understand why someone from Maine would be thinking right now, well I'm never going to see that. Why do I care? There's one answer I think I would give to that that no one else does is we are a union and Even if you don't want to come out and enjoy the land that is yours Help support us because we support you with various Policies that help protect your fisheries and your way of life up here and we are a union

So, you know we help you please help us back that kind of thing Same thing with like I've heard other people say this and it's true with like the farm bill, which is although it's like 60% snap now, but the farm bill helps, you know, a guy in Iowa or whatever, you know, and that's- The farm bill is 60% food stamps? Oh, I think it might even be more than that. It might even be more. Yeah. I don't think the real threat is Iran. I'm just saying. I mean, that's, wow, that's sad. It's horrible.

So if people want to learn more about you and about these debates, and I think anyone who's made it two hours into this trusts you, I do. Where do they, where can they find, I mean, because some of this stuff is complex. So like where's a trusted source for learning more very? Sage brush Institute org is where we're disseminating everything and there's an email sign up And that's it. We're just gonna keep pushing That's it eventually It's possible that we could try to bring in small funds for like leaflets and stuff, but I'm not getting paid

Nobody on the board is getting paid. That's not happening and we'll be Straight up if that ever like if if there ever becomes a point where we're asking for money We will always be straight up about it and you will see that I believe that charity Should be for the sake of charity. So no one's paying me to do it. I can promise you that I agree with that and we'll live by that as best as we can and That's where you can go to just sign up and we'll start emailing you. And you know, this is what's happening with wolves or whatever. Keep you informed.

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