What A Day - Trump Opens Utah For Mining

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

Last week, President Trump dramatically reduced the size of two national monuments that aren't only beloved by everyday Utahns but contain priceless archeological treasures. But Utah is fighting back – against Trump, and against the Republican legislators letting private industries and a Shark Tank host run roughshod over what most people in the state actually want. To learn more, we spoke to Caroline Gleich. She’s an environmental activist and a professional ski mountaineer based in Park City.And in headlines, the Trump Administration announces a deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to provide the country with a civilian nuclear program, Arizona Republican Representative Andy Biggs overwhelmingly wins the GOP nomination for Arizona governor, and the power of the US passport has reportedly declined over the past 20 years.Show Notes: Check out Caroline's work – carolinegleich.com Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail]

71% of Utahans want these monuments protected. They want them intact. And that includes the vast majority of Republicans. And so this was really a blatant disregard for the will of the people. And people are really outraged. I'm Jane Koston, and this is Waddey. The show saying, cheerio! Two Manosphere influencers and incredibly accused abusers of women and girls,

Andrew and Tristan Tate. Despite the most fervent, hopes of these terrible two, the New York Post reported today that the Trump administration will not prevent the United Kingdom from extraditing the pair after they were arrested in Miami on Saturday on charges of rape and sex trafficking. Bye! On today's show, we talk about how Utahans are uniting to fight back against President Donald Trump and private business interests with environmental activist Caroline Gleck.

Before we get into Trump's no-good, very bad environment destruction adventure, here's what we're following today. Wednesday, July 22nd. Some of you are going with us to honor our heroes, and they are indeed great heroes, actually. They said, and all of them said very strongly, we can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. They won't have a nuclear weapon. So we're going to honor them. There's no evidence that they, in fact, said that.

President Trump traveled to Dover Air Force Base today for the dignified transfer of four U.S. service members killed in the Middle East. It's the third dignified transfer Trump has attended since the start of his war of choice with Iran. Yet, despite the fact that 18 service members have been killed, and according to government data, more than 400 others have been injured, Trump continues to add fuel to the fire. He issued a new threat today. The U.S. will destroy one bridge or power plant each time Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump's warning comes as the U.S. carried out another wave of strikes on Iran overnight. And the costs of the war are mounting.

During a Senate hearing Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Higseff estimated that the U.S. has spent $37.5 billion on the war so far. And he wants more. Republicans are currently preparing a $95 billion package to fund the military, along with other White House priorities. So that's more than $120 billion on a war of choice. Fiscal conservatism. The Trump administration has announced to deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

to provide the country with a civilian nuclear program, a deal that could bring in billions of dollars to American companies' tasks to help. According to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, Trump approved of the arrangement last week, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright is expected to sign the deal this week. The Washington Post reported today that the deal requires any enrichment taking place in Saudi Arabia be controlled by U.S. companies with technology that is not shared with the Saudis.

But Congress still has to approve the arrangement, which could prove controversial for many reasons, like Israel's intense objections to the deal. While a similar arrangement was proposed under President Joe Biden, that arrangement would have required Saudi Arabia to formally recognize the state of Israel. This deal doesn't have that provision. Arizona Republican Representative Andy Biggs overwhelmingly won

the GOP nomination for Arizona governor in the state's Tuesday primary. Biggs will face Democratic governor Katie Hobbs and what could be one of the closest governor races in November. Now, you may be asking, Who is Andy Bakes? Well, let's rattle off some details. One, he is a fierce ally of President Trump. Two, he's a former head of the House Freedom Caucus. Three, he supported Trump's failed attempt to block certification of his 2020 election laws. It's worth noting here that according to the Washington Post, two other Republicans who had doubts about the 2020 presidential contest, also, quote, won nominations for offices with influence over certifying 2008 election results in the pivotal swing state. So what does Biggs' victory really mean? Well, by choosing Biggs, Republican voters risk nominating another conservative warrior who excites the party base but fails to win a general election by turning off independence.

He can't forget about independence, people. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. America is respected like we have never been respected before. Maybe hot in like temperature terms, but not in the ways that are good. Over the last 20 years, the power of the U.S. passport has declined, according to Henley and Partners. The residence and citizenship planning firm measures the travel freedom of passports based on how many destinations their holders can access without applying for a visa in advance. As of 2006, the U.S. passport, along with Iceland, is ranked 10th on the firm's Global Passport Index. Both countries have access to 180 visa-free destinations.

A slew of countries, including Japan, South Korea, Denmark, the U.K. and Poland. are ranked higher than the U.S. And ranked first, Singapore, with access to 192 visa-free destinations. But that might not make up for average temperatures of 81 degrees. And that's the news. Let's talk about Utah, the Beehive State. I used to live in Salt Lake City. It's a beautiful city and a gorgeous state full of natural beauty, from Moab to Park City to Zion National Park. But Utah is also subject to some of the harshest ramifications of pollution and climate change. Like inversions, which happened when a layer of warm air and pollution gets trapped near the ground in a mountain valley. And guess where Salt Lake City is? The result, a layer of gross polluted air that puts the health of everyday Utahans at risk.

And then there are wildfires, like the one that burned thousands of acres in southern Utah last month. Here's KPVI News. Utah Governor Spencer Cox tore the damage yesterday as the Cottonwood Fire continued burning east of Beaver. The fast-moving wildfire has already destroyed. parts of Eagle Point Resort and damaged structures in the area filled with mountain cabins and condominiums. The fire started Monday night and exploded to nearly 60,000 acres by yesterday morning. And those famous federal lands? Last week, President Trump dramatically reduced the size of two national monuments that aren't only beloved by everyday Utahans, but contain priceless

archaeological treasures. But Utah is fighting back, against Trump, and against the Republican legislators letting private industries and a shark tank, hoping, run roughshod over what most people in the state actually want. To learn more, I spoke to Caroline Gleke. She's an environmental activist and a professional ski mountaineer based in Park City. Caroline, welcome to what a day? Thanks so much for having me. Last week, President Trump shrunk the size of two Utah national monuments,

bears ears and grand staircase Escalante by about 90% each. He said he was giving the land back to the people of Utah. And I wanted to talk to you because something he said, was, quote, you can virtually not even walk on it. And on Instagram, you pointed out, yes, you can. You obviously can. So what is this really about? What is this curtailing of these two national monuments actually about? Yeah. So for those folks that are listening that don't necessarily know, a lot of Utah is federally protected public land. So we have national parks. We have land that's managed by the BLM or the Bureau of Land Management. And national monuments fall in between

a national park and BLM lands that are for multiple uses. And so what the National Monument protection did is it protected these lands, 3 million acres from mining, drilling, and extractive industries. That's it. They were always open to hunting, fishing, hiking, climbing, grazing, dark sky viewing. They're home to some of the most beautiful dark skies in the nation. And what Trump's executive orders did last week is it opened them to mining. That's It, that's the change. If you also think reducing two national monuments in size to help mining companies is stupid and evil, stick around.

We'll get back to my conversation with Carolyn Glyke in a moment. In the meantime, make sure to subscribe. They have a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. We talk about mental health more openly now, but asking for help can still feel hard, and BetterHelp's latest research confirms it.

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they might not get what this loss, what this loss of protections actually means. You know, because this isn't even the first time Trump has tried to do this. So I want to know, first, what happened the last time Trump did this during his first term? And what does this mean for these lands and for Utah? Well, I think one of the ways to view this is in 2016, five tribal nations came together and asked President Obama to designate the bears ears in particular as a national monument, because Bears' ears is home to over 100,000 archaeological sites.

Rock art, there's this place called House on Fire, this old site where indigenous people lived. And in the morning when the sun hits the red rock, there's this old dwelling and the rock above lights up on fire. And it's hard to put into words just the depth of archaeological sites in Bears' ears. And so the tribes came and asked the federal government to protect this land. And that National Monument Proclamation had the tribes as co-managers with the federal government, which was something unprecedented. Bear's ears is about tribal sovereignty.

And it's about recognizing the people that have been stewards of the land since time immoral. And in the first Trump administration, when he undid these monument protections, within 60 days, they were open to mining claims. And I think there were about 14 different claims on the land. And there's uranium and bears ears that companies and the extractive industry would like to go after and in Grand Staircase Escalante, which is really significant for the scientific community because of its dinosaur fossils and other resources. There's a lot of minerals that they want to extract and coal. Utah has a long history of mining and drilling where these companies do these boom and bust and then they leave Utahans. to pay the price of the cleanup. Yeah, that's the thing that gets me,

is that pretty much no one in Utah wanted this, not Democrats, not Republicans, not independents. Pretty much everybody I knew when I lived there, no matter of your politics, everybody loves these natural resources. It's just a part of your daily life. So what have you been hearing from people about Trump's decision to shrink these national monuments?

Yeah, well, on Monday, a thousand utons across the state came together for a monumental day of action. So people are taking to the streets to protest these unlawful actions by the Trump administration. And it was really led on by our federally elected officials. And so let's be clear that Mike Lee, John Curtis, Celeste Maloy, Blake Moore, Burgess Owens, Mike Kennedy, our Governor Cox and Utah Speaker of the House, Mike Schultz. This was at the bequest of our elected officials, and they're not representing the will of the people. 71% of Utahans want these monuments protected. They want them intact, and that includes the vast majority of Republicans.

And so this was really a blatant disregard for the will of the people. And people are really outraged. And there's a lot of concern, especially within the bigger backdrop of Utah's land management right now, we're seeing the disappearance of our Great Salt Lake, which is an environmental catastrophe because this exposed lake bed is leaving behind toxic dust that threatens the air quality of 2 million people. We're already seeing these big dust events that are coating our cars, our produce, everything with this toxic dust. That's remnants from the mining and extractive history. And in Moab, there's an EPA Superfund site that's still being cleaned up from their uranium boom. of the 50s, and it's costing an estimated billion dollars, and it won't be cleaned up until

2029. So Utahans are pretty sick and tired of seeing how extractive industries come in. They take what they want. It benefits a few people in Wall Street while the average Utah pays the price with our health and the cost to clean up the natural environment. I'm really glad you mentioned the Great Salt Lake. A couple of years ago, I spoke with former Utah Senator Mitt Romney. And he talked about how important it is to protect the Great Salt Lake, which has been shrinking for nearly 200 years. And so I'd love to hear just a little bit more about what the Great Salt Lake means. But also, it's shrinking is terrifying, like genuinely a extinction level event for the people of the Great Salt Lake area. Yeah, I mean, it's really this experiment in public health on a broad scale that we're living in real time.

and children and the elderly and vulnerable populations are especially susceptible to the health impacts when we have these dust events. But it's also how we get the water that sustains the snow. So when the weather patterns come in, the storms pick up moisture over the Great Salt Lake, and that's what causes us to have the greatest snow on Earth, some of the most abundant snowfall in the nation. And when we don't have the lake volume, we don't get the same kind of lake effect snow. So it further compounds the situation of drought and low water going back to the lake.

So it's our water. It's our capital city's namesake. It's the whole identity of a people who came here and settled there. And it's a real tragedy for environment, for public health to see how far it shrank and what the future could hold. And these are decisions that our elected officials are making that they could reverse. They could decide to prioritize getting the water to the lake. and finding ways to subsidize the farmers that are currently diverting, 71% of the water approximately, it diverted from the Great Salt Lake goes to agriculture.

And a lot of that is for alfalfa farming, and a lot of that alfalfa is sold to China. So this is not a decision of industry versus public health. There's a way to do both. And it involves funding our public lands so people can enjoy them for generations to come and getting enough water to our Great Salt Lake. Yeah, and it also comes at the same time as there's been this giant controversy, which I don't think Governor Cox expected at all. So Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful, allegedly, he wants to build a data center in Box Elder County right next to the Great Salt Lake. And you've talked about this. Utahans are not happy about this.

And the outcry has already forced O'Leary to reduce the size of his plans. it's gotten some Republicans basically pushed out of office. How was the fight against this data center project scrambling political allegiances in Utah in kind of the same way as this bears yours decision? I think with both of these decisions, we're seeing that our elected officials are prioritizing, strengthening the oligarchy. I mean, they're providing enrichment to a small select group of people at the expense of everyday Utahans and working families. And so with the Shark Tank project, with Mr. I call him Mr. Terrible, because from the minute that they came in and announced this project, they did it through this quasi-governmental agency and it didn't go through a single public comment period or environmental review. And it has been one of the most unifying issues that I've seen. I'm working with Republicans, ranchers, farmers, people across the state who are outraged that our government, rubber stamped and greenlit, a project that is so destructive on. such a large scale. The gas power plant that will power the data center is estimated to increase Utah's carbon emissions by 55% in a state that struggles with some of the worst air quality in the

nation. The inversions. The inversions, they're so bad. And scientists have shown during these periods of poor air quality a 16% increased rate of miscarriage on top of so many other harmful public health events. And you couldn't really pick a more perfect villain than Mr. Terrible. And he's been going on TV and he was accusing the resistance of being paid protesters. But now he's getting sued. Fox is getting sued. The state legislature and all of these agencies are all getting sued. And I'm confident that the will of the people will be greater than the people in power and that we will be able to get better representation and accountability. Caroline, thank you so much for taking the time to join me.

Thank you so much for having me. That was my conversation with Caroline Gleke, environmental activist, and professional ski mountaineer. Before we go, if you haven't listened to Keep It recently, you should. Every Wednesday, Louis Virtel, a new co-host, Nina Parker, will bring you an inside look at all of the pop culture drama with the hottest takes you can handle. They'll guide you through the gorgeous wreckage of pop culture, unpacking the biggest stories in TV, film, and entertainment news. This week, they're talking about The Odyssey and Andy Circus's comments on the new Lord of the Rings movie casting.

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I'm Jane Koston. And fun fact, not only did FIFA make up a peace prize for Trump, but the organization has been leasing an empty office space in Trump Tower, the right for which goes to Trump's family. Weird. What a day is a production of Cricket Media. Our show was produced by Caitlin Plummer, Emily Four, Erica Morrison, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Haley Jones, Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Joseph Dutra, Johanna Case, and Desmond Taylor. Our music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Cantor. We had helped today from the Associated Press.

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