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

00:00:00.000 So you basically single-handedly stopped the sale of federal lands, a huge expanse of federal lands.

00:00:11.680 You're not a politician.

00:00:14.180 You haven't been a public figure.

00:00:17.220 I'm not exactly sure how you did that, but I'd love to know.

00:00:21.660 Just give us the two-minute background.

00:00:24.360 Who are you?

00:00:24.980 Where are you from?

00:00:25.860 How did you wind up involved in this question? 1.00

00:00:29.460 Fundamentally, I'm just an idiot horse trainer in Idaho. 0.99

00:00:34.380 I'm not anything important or powerful or anything like that. 0.99

00:00:40.080 I'm just a regular guy.

00:00:42.060 I've always been a regular guy.

00:00:43.920 I have no desire, despite how many people have tried to push me, I have no desire to go into politics.

00:00:49.820 That's probably why they're pushing you.

00:00:58.560 I want to write my books and hang out with my kids and ride horses and go fishing and hunting.

00:01:20.660 I mean, that's who I am.

00:01:23.940 I've said this many times elsewhere.

00:01:26.880 I don't think it's just me.

00:01:28.580 I think it worked because there were so many people that were upset.

00:01:31.720 But to a degree, I guess I ended up kind of spearheading some things.

00:01:38.720 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.

00:01:43.440 But it's still a team effort at the end of the day.

00:01:46.620 And it has to be that way.

00:01:49.160 If something this important becomes about one guy versus another guy, we'll lose.

00:01:55.480 It can't be like that.

00:01:56.720 And that's never a reflection of reality anyway.

00:01:59.120 There are always huge forces that get embodied in individuals.

00:02:03.640 But it's not so much about the individual.

00:02:06.000 It's about the huge forces behind him and the forces that you harnessed, I think, just watching.

00:02:12.980 Fundamentally, we're like the great love of the land by normal people.

00:02:17.880 Like people understand that land is essential.

00:02:21.460 It's connected to identity.

00:02:22.580 It's connected to the definition of America.

00:02:25.040 And so don't treat it lightly.

00:02:28.100 Maybe that's one of the lessons.

00:02:30.120 I think that's totally right.

00:02:32.500 We talked about this at breakfast, but ultimately it's the love of my people.

00:02:38.020 And the land is a part of my people.

00:02:40.760 Those two things are inextricably connected.

00:02:44.080 Yes.

00:02:44.600 I believe that fundamentally, and I don't want to be like overly pious or anything like that,

00:02:49.600 but I believe fundamentally we're called to serve our people.

00:02:53.040 Yes. 0.99

00:02:54.380 So if it took an idiot horse trainer to, you know, in my view, save a bunch of small family 1.00

00:03:03.400 ranches throughout the West, then, you know, so be it. 1.00

00:03:06.460 It worked.

00:03:07.480 Where are you from?

00:03:08.480 I'm originally from Southern Utah.

00:03:10.120 I live in Idaho now.

00:03:11.140 But I grew up down in, well, I guess I probably shouldn't say, but Southern Utah.

00:03:15.940 Big town, small town?

00:03:17.100 Very small.

00:03:18.380 Not a lot of big towns in Southern Utah.

00:03:19.900 No.

00:03:20.560 I mean, maybe St. George has gotten a lot bigger.

00:03:23.380 But no, I don't even want to say the size.

00:03:26.960 Sub 1,000 people by a lot, I guess.

00:03:29.520 Wow.

00:03:30.200 Yeah.

00:03:30.700 Your hometown is fewer than 1,000 people.

00:03:32.400 Yeah.

00:03:32.820 Cow's outnumbered us probably 12 to 1, you know.

00:03:35.640 Oh, so legit rural.

00:03:37.260 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:03:38.300 I grew up on a little horse place.

00:03:40.860 My old man was a horse trainer, but, you know, he's an electrician.

00:03:46.540 I think he got an electrical engineering degree as well.

00:03:49.140 But that's what he did to kind of make ends meet was the electrical stuff.

00:03:53.060 And then we raced horses and, you know, cowboyed.

00:03:55.940 A lot of day working growing up, helping neighbors and family and all that.

00:04:00.260 So you see the struggle from a young age.

00:04:03.160 And right now what's happening.

00:04:05.680 And you've allotted over an interesting chapter in your own life.

00:04:08.800 I just ask you to address it really quickly.

00:04:10.360 Yes, sir.

00:04:10.600 You clearly don't want to talk about it.

00:04:11.800 But you joined the military at some point.

00:04:14.760 Yeah.

00:04:15.720 When?

00:04:16.760 I was 17.

00:04:20.080 We, I was skipping school, as I was wont to do, at the time when I was at my cousin's.

00:04:26.020 And we watched 9-11 happen on TV live.

00:04:32.780 Wow.

00:04:33.400 And, you know, back then there was that famous, I forget, was it Pace?

00:04:37.260 Some salsa commercial.

00:04:39.260 You know, the New York City.

00:04:40.780 Exactly right.

00:04:42.320 New York City.

00:04:43.640 Yeah.

00:04:43.920 We didn't have any, there was no love lost between us and New York City, right?

00:04:48.760 I mean, that's kind of the whole point of the commercial.

00:04:51.280 But when that happened, it's like, okay, I don't like them, but that's still my brother.

00:04:55.860 You don't get to punch my brother in the face. 0.69

00:04:57.580 Amen.

00:04:58.120 So, a lot of rural kids felt the same way and we enlisted.

00:05:01.960 And I remember my mom, because when you're that age, your parents have to sign for you to, you know, join.

00:05:08.680 And I told her, I said, yeah, I mean, you can either sign this now and I'll get a little bit more money.

00:05:12.780 You know, I'll go in as like a PV2 instead of a PV1 or whatever.

00:05:17.540 Or I'm going the day I turn 18.

00:05:19.740 So, I mean, you're just delaying the inevitable if you don't sign this.

00:05:23.180 So, she signed it and I went to Benning and then to the war.

00:05:28.980 You joined the Army.

00:05:29.720 Yeah.

00:05:30.020 At 17.

00:05:30.880 Yeah.

00:05:31.420 And, well, I think by the time I shipped, I had already turned 18, like for boot camp or basic training.

00:05:36.180 But you signed up at 17.

00:05:38.060 Yeah.

00:05:38.820 Yeah, I wanted to go to war.

00:05:40.200 A lot of us did. 1.00

00:05:42.180 You're young and stupid and a lot of cultural forces were telling us this was the right thing. 1.00

00:05:48.620 And I believed it, you know. 1.00

00:05:50.480 And plus, as wrongfully, as misguided as I was, I wanted to get, you know, take a swing back at the person, in our mind, at the people that had taken a swing at us.

00:06:03.860 I get it.

00:06:04.060 You know.

00:06:04.520 I think everyone, every American, most Americans felt that way for sure.

00:06:08.520 Yeah.

00:06:09.760 Yeah, you get there and about three months in, you get a little disillusioned.

00:06:13.100 Right.

00:06:14.500 Well, yes.

00:06:15.320 So, you join, you go to Benning, then they ship you overseas to Iraq.

00:06:21.120 Yep.

00:06:21.540 Well, yeah, I got back to my unit and they weren't going to deploy.

00:06:26.000 So, I volunteered for this other deployment because I just wanted to get there.

00:06:30.480 And this artillery battalion needed a PSD team.

00:06:36.280 So, they were a personal security detail.

00:06:38.700 So, they were, you know, looking for guys.

00:06:40.480 And we ended up with this kind of hodgepodge of random MOSs of just guys that wanted to do this job.

00:06:46.500 So, we did a train up, learn how to do that.

00:06:49.180 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.

00:06:56.460 You know, they certainly know what EP is.

00:06:58.460 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.

00:07:05.600 But now, I'm like.

00:07:11.480 Yeah.

00:07:12.320 Yeah.

00:07:12.820 A lot of us are rethinking questions like that.

00:07:15.780 Yes.

00:07:16.880 Yeah.

00:07:17.180 And so, we go, we end up in Ramadi.

00:07:21.120 You know, the first thing that happened that really changed, I think was important, but really changed my view of the war altogether.

00:07:33.120 We drove up from Kuwait.

00:07:35.740 A lot of our guys airlifted, but we had all this heavy equipment.

00:07:39.260 Well, of course, the PSD team is going to do security for.

00:07:41.880 So, we took the drive.

00:07:44.120 It's quite a drive, isn't it?

00:07:45.140 Yeah.

00:07:45.540 Yeah.

00:07:45.800 Oh, man.

00:07:47.180 I've done it.

00:07:47.820 It's scary.

00:07:49.620 Yeah.

00:07:50.140 You know, 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.

00:08:01.900 Busted up cars from the first Iraq war. 0.82

00:08:03.820 Correct.

00:08:04.560 Yeah.

00:08:04.960 Yep.

00:08:05.740 Yeah.

00:08:06.200 I mean, just.

00:08:06.820 The highway of death.

00:08:07.760 They never cleaned it up.

00:08:09.100 No.

00:08:09.680 Yeah.

00:08:09.860 It's amazing.

00:08:11.820 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.

00:08:18.680 They were, like, very cool.

00:08:19.920 You know, I just ended at that.

00:08:21.760 And then we go from there, I believe, I don't think we stopped again.

00:08:27.140 We refueled somewhere just south of Baghdad, Scania or something like that.

00:08:31.260 And then there's this, their highway system is like ours for anybody who doesn't know.

00:08:37.100 I mean, it looks like a Western highway.

00:08:39.260 And there's this turn just past Baghdad where you turn toward Fallujah or Mahdi.

00:08:45.520 And right after that, you know, there's these compounds all over around there.

00:08:50.720 They'll have, like, these walls around them and all, like, rich people, poor people, rich.

00:08:54.540 It's almost like Houston.

00:08:55.840 Yeah.

00:08:56.040 You know what I mean?

00:08:57.380 Yes.

00:08:57.820 So, we end up, the lead truck spots an IED.

00:09:05.500 And it's dark.

00:09:06.920 It's, like, 2 o'clock in the morning or something.

00:09:09.260 And we had a Marine escort because we'd never been there before.

00:09:12.280 So, the Marines were taking point.

00:09:13.640 And then we were just kind of additional security.

00:09:16.040 Well, this Marine comes and knocks on the door of our truck.

00:09:18.800 And he says, hey, do you want to go help us clear this complex?

00:09:22.960 And, of course, I'm, like, 19.

00:09:25.060 I'm, like, hell, yeah.

00:09:26.400 So, that's why I'm here.

00:09:27.140 You know what I mean?

00:09:28.180 So, I'm, like, grabbing.

00:09:30.280 And what we were told is we're going to try.

00:09:33.700 There was a prayer rug.

00:09:35.740 You know, they found this prayer rug.

00:09:37.940 And that prayer rug had suspiciously an ID and some stuff left there.

00:09:42.740 And then there was debt cord going back toward this compound.

00:09:46.360 And the plan was to go in there, find whatever was at the end of the debt cord,

00:09:50.400 and take care of the problem.

00:09:52.240 One version of taking care of the problem was going to be just blowing up the house and moving on. 0.99

00:09:56.600 You know, we got shit to do, right? 0.99

00:09:57.800 Yeah. 0.99

00:09:58.040 So, I'm pretty excited because I'm thinking, oh, my, I'm going to get to blow up a building.

00:10:06.140 Like, grabbing extra flags and an AT4 and, like, or frag grenades, you know, and an AT4.

00:10:10.800 And while we get to this compound, there's, like, a brick wall around it.

00:10:16.260 And we're trying to find an ingress route.

00:10:20.040 You know, you don't want to just go over the wall.

00:10:22.100 Yeah.

00:10:22.340 Because who knows what's.

00:10:23.080 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.

00:10:29.940 I don't know.

00:10:30.480 And we were able to kind of skirt the side of the building.

00:10:34.360 And I was in my mind the entire time. 0.99

00:10:37.140 I kept thinking, I cannot wait to blow this freaking house up. 0.96

00:10:39.660 This is going to be so cool. 0.98

00:10:41.460 It's just like every 19-year-old kid, right?

00:10:43.500 I was about to say, unless you've been a 19-year-old boy, like, it's hard, probably hard to understand what that means.

00:10:50.260 We're sorry to say it, but this is not a very safe country.

00:10:53.040 Walk through Oakland or Philadelphia.

00:10:54.840 Yeah, good luck.

00:10:56.640 So, most people, when they think about this, want to carry a firearm.

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00:11:04.540 Ask Kyle Rittenhouse.

00:11:05.780 Kyle Rittenhouse got off in the end, but he was innocent from the first moment.

00:11:08.420 It was obvious on video, and he was facing life in prison anyway.

00:11:13.260 That's what the anti-gun movement will do.

00:11:15.780 They'll throw you in prison for defending yourself with a firearm.

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00:12:27.820 That changed pretty quick.

00:12:32.300 We get around the front of the house, and we can see this deck cord going through into the home.

00:12:40.040 And we're like, let's go all the way around and make sure that it doesn't go through and out,

00:12:44.880 just in case they were trying to set somebody up, you know, some innocent people.

00:12:48.720 And as I was looking inside the building, there was a generator running inside, and it was sitting on a piece of plywood.

00:12:57.260 And I remember thinking, that is strange.

00:13:00.320 Why would they do that, you know?

00:13:02.620 Well, we get around the front, and there's, right at this stoop, there's a bunch of sandals lined up.

00:13:09.300 And it's like, oldest to youngest.

00:13:11.800 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.

00:13:20.220 And I just left my little sister with my mom, who was roughly the same age.

00:13:27.200 And man, I went from wanting to do that to not wanting to do that really fast.

00:13:32.180 And I think that changed my war for me for the rest of the time.

00:13:39.580 I probably could have got sucked into being overly aggressive and uncompassionate,

00:13:45.420 but that really helped right from the jump solidify that these are actual people.

00:13:50.980 Oh, yes.

00:13:52.240 Well, luckily, we go all the way around, and the deck cord was running through out into this olive orchard.

00:13:59.880 And one of our guys, without warning us, had a pin flare to light up so we could see the olive orchard.

00:14:07.220 And my team leader just dove into the ground because he thought we were taking incoming.

00:14:11.320 So he's like diving into this olive orchard.

00:14:14.640 And it ended up we were able to solve the problem without doing anything to the home.

00:14:18.860 And it had turned out, at least from what we were told,

00:14:22.020 that what they had done is captured that family and stuffed them into a cellar

00:14:25.900 and then put that board, that plywood, over the hole and then put the generator

00:14:31.960 so we couldn't hear them down there yelling.

00:14:35.000 And they were hoping that we would just blow them up, you know.

00:14:39.400 And we didn't.

00:14:41.700 And I think that, as I say, I'm sorry to just keep rambling, but...

00:14:44.680 You're not rambling at all.

00:14:45.700 So this was like within days of getting into the country.

00:14:48.060 I think day two, I think.

00:14:50.180 Yeah.

00:14:51.980 Yeah.

00:14:52.600 It really helped understand the war.

00:14:56.640 You know, we were fighting a war in cities, you know.

00:15:00.560 And first of all, I've never even lived in a city.

00:15:04.380 You didn't really have to convince me that cities were bad.

00:15:11.060 So Baghdad was really the first big city you saw.

00:15:13.640 Well, I mean, I had family in the suburbs of Salt Lake and stuff like that,

00:15:18.020 but we would go eat at Lamb's Cafe when I was a kid.

00:15:21.840 Salt Lake used to be a fundamentally different place than it is right now.

00:15:25.780 Thank you, immigration.

00:15:29.420 So I had been to Salt Lake, but you remember Salt Lake in the 80s and 90s.

00:15:33.340 It was totally different.

00:15:34.980 Nothing like it is now.

00:15:38.880 So this was the first city I'd ever lived in was Ramadi when we got there.

00:15:43.160 I mean, to the extent that you're living in it, right?

00:15:47.700 They, I mean, like.

00:15:49.340 Kind of hilarious.

00:15:50.540 The first big city I've ever lived in was Ramadi, Iraq.

00:15:53.100 Yeah, it's true.

00:15:55.320 Yeah, I've only ever lived in two.

00:15:57.100 Salt Lake when I was going to school for a minute and Ramadi, that's it.

00:16:01.540 And it'd be, at this point, I don't even know which one I hated worse.

00:16:04.360 Yeah.

00:16:04.600 You know.

00:16:05.040 Ramadi's probably pretty nice right now, actually.

00:16:07.960 Relatively.

00:16:09.940 Yeah.

00:16:10.300 And then after that is just pretty typical war.

00:16:12.560 We, you know, one story, we were there for about a week or two.

00:16:19.120 And this guy, he's driving a truck, like a big truck.

00:16:23.440 And we were on an OPE out in front of Fabramati on Route Mobile.

00:16:27.880 And we were kind of running a blocking position up there.

00:16:31.480 And this guy comes winging in, like he's just going to drive by us.

00:16:35.860 Because he's got a cross hung on his radiator, like a lit up cross.

00:16:41.020 And we shot, just warning shots, into the ground.

00:16:43.400 Like, hey, you got to stop. 0.82

00:16:44.480 What the heck are you doing, you know?

00:16:45.560 And he jumps out waving his arms, I'm a Christian, I'm a Christian, you know? 0.98

00:16:50.300 And we're like, you're an Iraqi, dude.

00:16:53.020 I mean, we're happy that you're a Christian, you know?

00:16:55.600 But you're an Iraqi.

00:16:57.540 And that's, I think for the average American, it's really hard to process just how tribal those regions really are.

00:17:04.700 Like, he genuinely believed, you guys are Christians, I'm a Christian, we're just same team without any.

00:17:12.000 We need no more justification than that, is kind of his worldview.

00:17:16.680 And looking back at that, I wish, you know, he was kind of right.

00:17:21.240 I totally agree.

00:17:22.340 I mean.

00:17:22.900 He was right.

00:17:23.680 He was right.

00:17:24.340 We should have just trusted him, probably.

00:17:25.940 Of course, yeah.

00:17:26.480 But so, like, we had some things like that, and then, you know, typical Wolverstuff beyond that.

00:17:34.960 How long were you there?

00:17:36.260 I think about seven months before I got wounded.

00:17:39.300 It's six, seven months, something.

00:17:40.440 How'd that happen?

00:17:41.600 I got hit by a suicide bomber at a glass factory on a security mission.

00:17:47.480 And, yeah, we were providing, just to tell briefly, we were providing security for...

00:17:56.480 A Marine element that was recruiting Iraq, Sunni Iraqis to become IP, Iraqi police officers.

00:18:03.960 What we, you know, Bremer and others had decided that we couldn't hire any Baathists. 1.00

00:18:08.680 And they also seemed to think that it would be a good idea to have Sunnis police Shia and Shia police Sunnis. 0.94

00:18:15.640 And that's just, I mean, talk about ancient tribal conflict.

00:18:20.660 You'd have to be... 1.00

00:18:23.560 How could you be that dumb? 1.00

00:18:25.460 I don't know. 1.00

00:18:26.260 You're conducting a war. 0.59

00:18:28.600 This is basic level stuff.

00:18:31.760 You have to understand the people, you know?

00:18:34.420 Or people in general.

00:18:37.100 Yeah.

00:18:38.380 So we're...

00:18:39.320 Why make it a humiliation ritual?

00:18:41.400 You know, it does feel like that.

00:18:44.540 Of course.

00:18:45.640 It's the oldest.

00:18:46.560 It's...

00:18:46.820 Right.

00:18:48.200 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. 0.80

00:19:00.120 And, you know, how'd that work out?

00:19:02.820 Right.

00:19:03.340 How did the Iraq experiment work out?

00:19:06.140 I mean, I don't understand.

00:19:07.400 Right.

00:19:07.680 So, anyway, sorry.

00:19:08.800 No, no, you're right.

00:19:09.820 And that sort of Bremer era...

00:19:15.160 And I try not to criticize people with the benefit of hindsight.

00:19:20.820 Yes. 0.99

00:19:21.080 But some of this was so dumb. 0.98

00:19:24.060 So we had to... 0.98

00:19:25.820 We were recruiting Sunnis to, you know, be shipped over to a allied country for training. 1.00

00:19:35.960 An allied Muslim country.

00:19:37.780 I just don't know if you're supposed to say.

00:19:39.260 Yeah.

00:19:39.360 It's not hard to figure out who was...

00:19:40.620 Yeah.

00:19:40.980 Is there...

00:19:41.400 Yeah.

00:19:42.160 And they were training them and then, you know, going to send them back.

00:19:45.600 And so we were just...

00:19:47.300 The security element is all.

00:19:49.500 And it was day four of what was supposed to be a three-day mission, typical Iraq thing. 1.00

00:19:55.480 And I was out there and my interpreter was with me and we were just kind of asking questions

00:20:02.380 to the people like, why are you here?

00:20:03.920 And stuff like that.

00:20:04.720 Because there was a lot of people there and they were there early.

00:20:07.780 And as I've said elsewhere, these are not a punctual people, you know?

00:20:12.660 Yeah.

00:20:13.260 So we knew something was wrong.

00:20:15.380 And this guy comes up and he's frantically yelling at me.

00:20:20.000 And of course, I barely know any words in Arabic at all.

00:20:24.080 And it ends up being translated to me as, I saw a grenade with wires.

00:20:29.820 He was genuinely trying to tell us what he had seen and help us.

00:20:34.280 But we thought tripwire because he was saying grenade.

00:20:36.360 Well, then it ends up a couple of minutes later, we end up in a scramble and this semi-truck

00:20:45.160 crashes through this eastern perimeter that we had set up.

00:20:48.100 And that morning we had been told to look out, be on the look for V-beds. 1.00

00:20:51.980 So he crashes through...

00:20:53.360 What's a V-bed? 0.96

00:20:53.960 Vehicle-borne explosive device.

00:20:56.760 Improvised explosive device.

00:20:58.400 But so he crashes through and of course we, everybody lights up the truck.

00:21:03.800 You have to.

00:21:04.300 And then, you know, now there's Iraqis scattered all over the place.

00:21:08.380 Well, in the...

00:21:09.420 I don't know if they changed this after my time, but in those years you were not allowed

00:21:13.020 to hire any Baathists for any reason into any government position. 0.99

00:21:17.960 So now we have...

00:21:20.540 So what did they do their time?

00:21:22.860 Well...

00:21:23.520 Yeah. 1.00

00:21:23.800 You know, it's so much of that war, even as a young idiot kid, you look back and just 1.00

00:21:32.160 think, how? 1.00

00:21:33.620 Yeah. 1.00

00:21:34.580 Strategically, just so dumb. 0.99

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00:22:57.440 For Americans.

00:22:59.780 So the result of that was now we have Iraqis running all over the place. 1.00

00:23:05.120 And we've got to get them back into lines and, you know, get this mission done.

00:23:09.260 And the lines had to be person with no ID, person with a government ID, person with a government ID that says Bathus on it.

00:23:17.340 And we were separating them that way.

00:23:19.480 And then eventually a really high-speed guy, Lieutenant Colonel McLaughlin, Colonel Mack, we called him.

00:23:27.560 He came out there to help us and some dog handlers.

00:23:30.800 And we were getting these guys in line.

00:23:32.300 And the next thing you know, a suicide bomber goes off.

00:23:35.200 And this killed or wounded like 106 people or something like that.

00:23:40.020 It killed two Americans, our friend and dog handler, Sergeant Kan, and then Lieutenant Colonel McLaughlin.

00:23:47.220 And I try to say this as often as I can now.

00:23:54.240 He was like 30, he was like 33 years old or something at the time and a Lieutenant Colonel.

00:24:00.760 And I was a 20-year-old kid.

00:24:02.320 I turned 20 over there.

00:24:04.220 And he was out genuinely in harm's way.

00:24:08.820 Everyone knew that it was a dangerous situation.

00:24:11.220 And certainly Colonel Mack knew.

00:24:12.940 And he put himself out there and died.

00:24:16.200 And they don't make many officers like that.

00:24:19.340 He was a very, very brave man.

00:24:21.500 He did not need to be there.

00:24:22.580 No, not even at all.

00:24:24.480 He was the highest-ranking guy there by, I mean, the other highest-ranking guy would be like an E7, you know.

00:24:31.680 So he died and I got wounded.

00:24:34.560 Basically everything that did that.

00:24:35.440 In the same explosion?

00:24:36.520 Yeah.

00:24:36.940 Do you remember it?

00:24:38.000 Oh, yeah.

00:24:39.260 Yeah, it's...

00:24:42.940 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.

00:24:50.680 But do you remember the truck went off?

00:24:53.640 No, a suicide bomber with a vest.

00:24:56.780 So what had happened is our dog handler or one of the dog handlers that was helping us, Sergeant Kan,

00:25:01.860 his dog detected the bomb and grabbed this dude by the arm and was trying to pull him to the ground.

00:25:09.680 And then it went off.

00:25:12.160 And amazingly, Bruno, the dog that had done that, lived through the explosion.

00:25:16.760 Seriously?

00:25:17.300 Yeah.

00:25:17.760 He later deployed again to Afghanistan.

00:25:20.300 I mean, just an incredible dog.

00:25:22.420 What kind of dog?

00:25:24.720 Malinois.

00:25:25.440 Malinois?

00:25:26.080 Malinois, yeah.

00:25:26.840 Malinois.

00:25:27.200 Malinois, really neat dog.

00:25:30.460 It was funny.

00:25:31.220 Right before they came out there, he was sleeping on my truck, like the hood of my truck.

00:25:35.880 And Sergeant Kan's like, you know, do you want us to come out and help?

00:25:39.240 And in my mind, I'm thinking, yeah, put that thing to work.

00:25:41.040 He's just napping, you know?

00:25:44.380 And he was a cool dog.

00:25:45.540 We all liked him.

00:25:47.360 But he lived and Sergeant Kan didn't, unfortunately.

00:25:49.760 And he was an incredibly brave man, too.

00:25:52.900 He had, I think this was his third tour.

00:25:55.680 I think he'd been to Iraq once and Afghanistan once before this.

00:26:00.000 It might have even been his fourth tour.

00:26:02.120 But he had been out at FOB Hit on the Syrian border.

00:26:05.700 And he requested to be, this is my understanding of it.

00:26:08.820 He requested to be moved to Ramadi because they were, he was bored.

00:26:12.920 And he wanted to, like, fight.

00:26:14.660 So he was an incredibly brave guy.

00:26:17.600 He also did not have to be out there.

00:26:19.620 And he made that choice and deserves, you know, admiration for his courage.

00:26:25.160 He was profoundly brave.

00:26:28.060 And he died.

00:26:29.880 And then me and a couple other guys got wounded.

00:26:34.700 And for me, it was multiple bilateral femur fractures.

00:26:38.140 My tibia was broken, both my hips, all the bones in my right hands.

00:26:42.500 My right hand doesn't work very good.

00:26:44.100 And my radius and ulnar and my right median nerve was transected at my wrist.

00:26:51.120 So I don't really have much feeling through that part of my hand.

00:26:55.640 And, like, my fingers fused, you know.

00:26:58.780 My little sister calls me Captain Hook.

00:27:01.260 Because of that.

00:27:03.800 I had brain injuries and some broken ribs and broken back.

00:27:07.360 And I was pretty busted up.

00:27:09.040 Do you remember it going off, the noise?

00:27:12.320 Yeah, it's funny.

00:27:13.520 I remember the flash and the sound.

00:27:16.660 And then waking up on the ground.

00:27:19.340 And there were bodies on top of me.

00:27:21.960 I talked about this a little bit on Sean's.

00:27:23.940 I should have done a better job describing it.

00:27:25.680 But I could hear my first line leader, Johnny, yelling.

00:27:30.480 You know, just like every other Mick kid.

00:27:32.540 They just call you Mac, you know.

00:27:34.580 So it's like, Mac, Mac, I can hear him.

00:27:36.740 And I'm, like, trying to yell back at him.

00:27:38.880 And I'd had myself propped up on this elbow.

00:27:43.340 I had, like, my left hand worked.

00:27:45.020 But my left humerus was busted.

00:27:47.540 And my right humerus worked.

00:27:49.460 But then everything down here didn't work.

00:27:50.980 So I was, like, kind of in this.

00:27:52.960 And I had myself propped up.

00:27:54.860 And there was this pile of guts underneath me.

00:27:59.440 And when I was looking at that, I was thinking that I'd been blown in half.

00:28:02.000 I mean, who else's guts would they be?

00:28:05.980 And so I was, like, running an organ through my fingers trying to see if I could feel it.

00:28:11.700 Sitting there thinking I'd been blown in half.

00:28:13.980 I mean, we'd seen people get hurt really badly.

00:28:17.980 But I had never seen that.

00:28:19.600 So I wasn't sure exactly what that would look like.

00:28:22.520 And I was trying to figure out if it was, like, a pancreas or something.

00:28:26.360 You know?

00:28:26.740 And, you know, I felt anatomy.

00:28:29.880 So I'm just, like, winging it.

00:28:32.020 You thought it was your pancreas.

00:28:33.500 I did, yeah.

00:28:34.720 And I also didn't even know if you could feel your organs in that way.

00:28:38.020 You know?

00:28:38.440 So, like, I didn't know if you really had external feeling on them.

00:28:42.740 Most people have never had this experience.

00:28:44.640 Yeah.

00:28:44.880 Well, I was one of those.

00:28:45.920 And eventually, Johnny gets there.

00:28:52.740 And, like I say, I'm kind of propped up.

00:28:54.560 And he started, what I didn't know was that there were, like, three bodies on top of me.

00:28:59.880 And these organs belong to a different person, an Iraqi person. 0.97

00:29:04.960 And he started removing the bodies.

00:29:06.680 And I could feel, like, a little bit of weight go off and then a little bit more.

00:29:09.900 And then I was pulled out and then I could see my hip bones or the top of my hips, not the actual bones, but, like, my uniform.

00:29:20.120 And then they rolled me over and my legs were cooked, as the kids would say.

00:29:26.200 And you could tell because they were not, it was like jello, you know, moving around.

00:29:31.300 And your femurs, you know, your glutes and quads are so strong that if your femurs break bad enough, they just contract.

00:29:39.320 So, my femur was, like, as both of them were, like, the leg was now, like, as wide almost as it was long.

00:29:46.340 Like, it just retracted like a slinky.

00:29:50.280 Oh.

00:29:50.980 Which might have been the only thing that kept me alive.

00:29:54.180 Because I have, I mean, I can't even remember exactly how many holes it is, but between knee to hip on both quads is, like, 30 holes, something.

00:30:04.700 So, had I not had that, it sort of acted like an internal tourniquet and kept me from bleeding out, probably.

00:30:11.900 Because when they got my uniform cut off, you could, every time my heart would beat, you could see the blood kind of ooze out.

00:30:18.820 But, um, 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.

00:30:32.280 You could see this?

00:30:33.280 Oh, yeah.

00:30:34.060 Yeah.

00:30:35.320 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.

00:30:44.260 You know, morphine will kill you if you don't have enough blood pressure.

00:30:46.960 Oh, yeah.

00:30:46.980 Um, so, they started working on me, and then life led me, or, excuse me, medevaced me to, uh, uh, Favramati.

00:30:55.800 What made the holes?

00:30:56.980 What was the projectile?

00:30:58.380 Uh, ball bearings.

00:30:59.760 Oh, wow.

00:31:00.400 Yeah, and probably came from Iran, you know, probably.

00:31:04.740 I mean, we don't know that.

00:31:06.220 Uh, this was a Sunni person, but a lot of the materials for that stuff was coming from.

00:31:10.940 Ball bearings, do you have any of them?

00:31:12.620 Yeah, I've got, I think I pack around like 12 of them, uh, in my body still.

00:31:17.700 And then, I've had, like, three more cut out since I got home that have kind of, like, surfaced in different.

00:31:23.720 Ball bearings.

00:31:24.460 Yeah, straight up.

00:31:26.260 Do you have them?

00:31:27.980 With me?

00:31:28.700 No, no, but did you keep them?

00:31:30.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:31:30.560 Well, not all of them that they cut out with.

00:31:32.400 I didn't get a choice in, like, Fallujah when they were cutting stuff out there.

00:31:35.700 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.

00:31:43.520 So, I, like, a little jar.

00:31:46.440 How big are the ball bearings?

00:31:48.640 Uh, like, like, about the size of a pea is what they'd be.

00:31:54.760 Wow.

00:31:55.320 Yeah, I think we counted one time.

00:31:58.260 I don't want to lie.

00:31:59.120 Like, mega buckshot.

00:32:00.360 That's what it was, yeah.

00:32:01.380 It was, like, getting hit with, exactly.

00:32:03.300 Yeah.

00:32:04.080 It was exactly like that.

00:32:05.260 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.

00:32:22.060 Could have really been either.

00:32:23.460 Were there rifles going off, too?

00:32:24.700 Yeah, our IPs started just firing.

00:32:27.040 I bet.

00:32:27.760 So, and it's...

00:32:29.200 Iraqi policemen.

00:32:30.000 Yes, I'm sorry.

00:32:30.660 So, sometimes when people sell products on TV, you know, I love this product, I use this product, there's the question in the mind of the viewer, does this guy really use the product?

00:32:39.780 Does he really love the product?

00:32:41.200 Would he keep the product at home?

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00:32:43.960 Yes!

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00:32:53.620 And this is a part of my stockpile of ready hour.

00:32:57.160 Completely real!

00:32:58.180 Well, the second I put it here, the second ready hour sent it to me, I felt peace of mind.

00:33:03.880 Because no matter what happens, we're not going hungry in my house.

00:33:07.300 I moved a lot of fishing gear out of the way to keep it in my garage.

00:33:10.900 And ever since it's been here, I have felt the peace of mind that comes from knowing my family's not going hungry no matter what.

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00:33:52.580 With the peace of mind that comes with having it.

00:33:54.380 And when that kind of thing happens, it's hard.

00:33:58.340 Are they doing that intentionally or not?

00:34:00.080 I don't know.

00:34:01.180 You know.

00:34:02.440 But the best IP we had, I don't want to say his name for fear of, he died, but his family.

00:34:11.580 He died out there with us.

00:34:12.960 He was extremely brave.

00:34:14.040 Really good kid.

00:34:14.840 He was like 6'4", like 120 pounds.

00:34:17.680 Iraqi?

00:34:18.180 Yeah. 0.96

00:34:18.880 He's the weirdest looking Iraqi you've ever seen. 1.00

00:34:20.440 It's like running into Yao Ming, but in, you know, it's like your brain's trying to compute.

00:34:26.220 Like, wait a second.

00:34:28.480 He was a great guy.

00:34:30.800 I really liked him.

00:34:31.760 I remember one time we were, I don't remember where we were at, on an OP or something.

00:34:38.280 And we'd try to teach each other the languages, you know.

00:34:41.540 And he points to the tire on their truck.

00:34:45.620 And he says, tire.

00:34:46.960 And I was like, yeah, good job.

00:34:48.460 You know?

00:34:49.060 And he's like, no, tire.

00:34:50.580 I was like, wait, is that, that's how you say it in Arabic?

00:34:52.980 You know?

00:34:53.680 It was like this bonding moment, you know?

00:34:55.580 We're like, yeah, dude.

00:34:59.420 We were just all kids, you know, arm wrestling and screwing off and, you know, and punctuated every once in a while by war stuff, you know?

00:35:09.920 And I think it's, I think that experience really matters.

00:35:15.180 It's so easy to dehumanize people that you're fighting with at that level.

00:35:19.860 And I think I was really blessed to have multiple experiences to remind me that they're all people, you know?

00:35:26.840 How long did it take you to recover from all that?

00:35:32.020 They retired me about a year and a half later.

00:35:37.020 And then it took probably another eight years to get to where I could run.

00:35:42.200 I didn't think I was ever going to be able to run again.

00:35:45.060 And in the hospital.

00:35:47.440 Wait, so it took until you were almost 30?

00:35:49.860 Yeah.

00:35:50.220 It took like a decade to get better?

00:35:51.980 Yeah, it did.

00:35:52.840 I think I was 28 when I ran the first time or seven, maybe.

00:35:56.500 Something like that.

00:35:58.500 Might have been 29, whatever that year was.

00:36:03.480 2012, maybe.

00:36:05.220 I can't be right.

00:36:05.960 Whatever year it was.

00:36:10.000 Yeah, I mean, I could get around, but I, you know, I couldn't really walk or anything.

00:36:14.660 I mean, I could walk, but not well, certainly not well for a 25-year-old, you know?

00:36:19.860 Uh, and then I finally got to get up on the mountain again.

00:36:24.820 I packed a cane on my back because I thought, who knows what coming down is going to be like,

00:36:29.980 you know? 0.97

00:36:30.420 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? 0.96

00:36:38.640 And then I was coaching a little kid's baseball, uh, program. 0.96

00:36:43.420 It was this girl that I was with.

00:36:45.080 It was her son's, uh, team.

00:36:47.180 So I was just helping.

00:36:47.800 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.

00:36:56.420 And this was like eight years later or however many.

00:36:59.580 And I took a couple of steps that just felt different.

00:37:05.520 Like they felt almost athletic, if that makes sense.

00:37:08.400 And I dropped my glove and I just jogged.

00:37:12.340 I was like, I think I can run, you know?

00:37:14.680 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.

00:37:24.100 And Casey's like, wears his emotion on his sleeve.

00:37:27.100 So he starts crying, you know?

00:37:28.700 And, uh, you know, I was like over here feeling like Seabiscuit or something, you know?

00:37:38.760 Did you, I should have asked, did you go immediately back to the West when you got out of the hospital?

00:37:43.920 Oh, yeah.

00:37:44.620 Yeah, they moved me back to my hometown.

00:37:47.040 And I got really lucky in that my civilian physical therapist and my civilian doctor were really great.

00:37:54.180 I did that in, uh, in central Utah.

00:37:59.440 The one guy, my civilian doctor, he was an MDDO.

00:38:03.840 So he leaned away from drugs really hard, which was a blessing.

00:38:07.820 Because I was, you know, leaving Walter Reed, they had me on some ridiculous amount of opioids, like 380 milligrams a day or something like that.

00:38:15.560 How long were you there?

00:38:17.680 Four months.

00:38:19.440 So you were on opioids for four months?

00:38:22.040 Oh, yeah.

00:38:22.680 Longer than that.

00:38:24.000 Well, so in the, in Walter Reed, take a step back.

00:38:27.220 So we, basically everybody who gets wounded over there was contracting this infection and they weren't sure.

00:38:34.760 It was some bug that does not exist here.

00:38:37.080 So they had us in quarantine.

00:38:38.640 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, I could be in a wheelchair of some kind.

00:38:51.380 And they couldn't do that without putting rods in my legs because I had external fixators on those big cage deals. 0.92

00:39:00.520 And you can't get the rods until you clear the infection, you know?

00:39:03.760 So they were trying to clear this infection and there was some question about whether they were even going to be able to do that.

00:39:10.740 I mean, who knew?

00:39:12.180 And they finally got that cleared and then I developed gangrene.

00:39:17.280 Oh, come on. 0.87

00:39:18.520 Yeah, they were, I don't want to crap on Walter Reed, but they were doing some, some guys were doing their best and other guys were, like, changing through and through wounds with, like, the packing with, like, a number two pencil and shit like that, you know? 0.76

00:39:35.820 It's in the United States at Walter Reed.

00:39:37.500 Yeah, in D.C.

00:39:38.320 But a lot of them were really great people and I don't want to crap on them.

00:39:42.760 I mean, they helped me, put me back together and they did a pretty good job.

00:39:46.860 But so then I got that infection so I couldn't get rods then, you know, I'm just kind of stuck.

00:39:51.320 So you got gangrene at Walter Reed?

00:39:55.900 Yeah, it was horrific.

00:39:57.560 And then I finally, they finally get rods in me.

00:40:00.460 Just picture David Frum's face when you're saying this, you know, just casually, axis of evil.

00:40:05.780 We're bringing democracy, no care at all for what it means for men from Southern Utah and, like, destroying their lives. 1.00

00:40:14.600 It just, ugh, makes me upset.

00:40:16.480 And I was lucky.

00:40:17.660 I mean, I could have lost my legs really easily, really easily.

00:40:22.340 Did you get, I mean, how are your spirits?

00:40:24.480 Did you get down?

00:40:25.560 Oh, yeah.

00:40:26.540 Yeah, I wrote a lot about that.

00:40:28.880 You know, it was like a roller coaster experience at Walter Reed.

00:40:31.980 But they, to back up even one more step, just to kind of give an idea of how fragile everything was at the time, they, I first went to Landstuhl.

00:40:42.780 And my understanding, and this could be wrong.

00:40:45.840 Based in Germany.

00:40:46.460 Yes.

00:40:47.080 They're, they have a big medical hospital there.

00:40:49.680 And my understanding, and this could be wrong, but what was, what they would try to do in Landstuhl is really get somebody very stable and do preliminary surgeries.

00:40:57.440 And then send them to Walter Reed.

00:41:01.040 Uh, but they did not do that with me.

00:41:03.320 They were like, we, you, we gotta get you to Walter Reed.

00:41:07.480 So I was only in Landstuhl for, I, uh, less than a week, I think is what it was.

00:41:13.000 And so I was in tough shape is the only reason I'm saying that.

00:41:17.160 And, you know, you're waiting.

00:41:18.420 All I want to do is be able to go take a piss by myself, man.

00:41:21.960 You know, you're a couple of days ago, you'd been a proud, young, former athlete and soldier.

00:41:27.280 And now you're this, you're basically in a hospice care, you know?

00:41:32.840 Uh, and so, yeah, it starts to weigh on you.

00:41:36.120 And I, I wanted to get rods in my legs so I could get a wheelchair and have some sense of independence.

00:41:41.900 Uh, but I couldn't do that without clearing these infections.

00:41:46.220 And then I finally get the rods in and they moved me up to a neural ward next to some other guys, uh, that had had like the same bug before.

00:41:56.540 And then they put like a label on your door.

00:41:58.200 I, I think that's all necessary.

00:41:59.800 I'm not, you know, you should say, Hey, this guy had this weird bug.

00:42:02.940 We don't want to spread it, you know?

00:42:04.200 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, uh, you know, we're kind of hollering at each other through the wall or, you know, the doorway and stuff.

00:42:18.340 And, uh, then I had a pulmonary embolism and it collapsed, I think it was my left lung.

00:42:24.360 And then right back into surgery emergency, you know, and they had to decide whether to put one of those IVC filter deals, uh, inferior and your inferior vena cava, I think is what it is.

00:42:37.900 Like I say, I'm not good at anatomy, largest vein in your body.

00:42:40.700 And if, uh, it's like, if you think of like a, an umbrella without a skirt on it and then some extra wiring to work as a filter, that's what it is.

00:42:52.040 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.

00:42:59.740 And it would break up blood clots because 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.

00:43:11.380 But they didn't, 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.

00:43:18.260 So that's why they had to put that in.

00:43:20.420 Uh, 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.

00:43:32.540 Uh, and one day my, I'm pretty sure I wrote about this too, but I, so I'm sorry if I'm retelling stories, but, uh,

00:43:39.140 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.

00:43:48.420 And so he's kind of a neat guy and I always looked up to him, you know, and he came out to visit and he, I told him, I was like, they, they don't think I'm going to be able to walk, you know? 0.98

00:43:58.980 Uh, and he said, bullshit.

00:44:01.380 Uh, and I got a new young surgeon assigned to our team because at that stage you've, you know, you've got like multiple trauma going on. 0.99

00:44:13.280 That's like an actual surgical team.

00:44:14.960 That's like planning out what to work on next and triaging.

00:44:17.840 And well, this guy got assigned, uh, 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.

00:44:28.320 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.

00:44:36.900 And, you know, you're just going to have to start trying.

00:44:40.240 So my physical, uh, therapist at Walter Reed, his name was, uh, Solomon and he was like, this giant black guy. 0.99

00:44:47.620 He played defensive end or something with Phil Sims on the New York Giants.

00:44:51.960 And then he just did this as a job, I think mostly to be a charitable guy.

00:44:57.520 He was a really neat guy.

00:45:00.400 Uh, so we go down there to PT and he said, you're going to walk today.

00:45:05.180 And I said, yeah, let's do it.

00:45:06.200 You know?

00:45:06.760 So he helped me up and my bones, I'm like, my right hand is all in this cast thing.

00:45:12.940 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.

00:45:21.400 Um, 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.

00:45:33.700 And I was like shaking, you know, I mean, it hurt like hell.

00:45:37.140 And anyway, I got to the end and then Solomon helped me to my wheelchair and he got my arms draped around him like a prom date or something.

00:45:47.920 You know, he sat me down and that was my first time I walked and yeah.

00:45:55.480 And so it's like the peaks and valleys at that point.

00:45:57.800 You're, you know, you're riding really high feeling like I'm going to make it kind of thing.

00:46:02.720 You know, what's it like to be in a hospital for four months?

00:46:06.160 Oh my gosh, it was the worst.

00:46:08.000 And I was just thinking, I think the blood clot might've been right after that.

00:46:13.260 Anyway, uh, it's terrible.

00:46:16.660 And I'm from a cow town, you know?

00:46:19.000 And so I look outside and it's drab.

00:46:22.800 And that area of DC is like Soviet block architecture.

00:46:27.200 Bethesda, Maryland.

00:46:27.420 Yeah.

00:46:27.800 It's the government built it all.

00:46:29.720 Right.

00:46:30.380 Right after, during and after the second world war.

00:46:32.920 And they did a terrible job.

00:46:35.060 It's funny that like, even we couldn't learn the lesson of Potomkin villages. 0.90

00:46:41.340 No.

00:46:41.660 We just did it unashamedly.

00:46:42.840 We copied it.

00:46:43.980 Yeah.

00:46:44.220 Just made Walter Gropius in charge of America's architecture.

00:46:48.140 No, I know it's, it's in all that war is what did it. 0.83

00:46:52.380 And you're not invited to think about what that means, but I'm not fully aware of what

00:46:57.440 it means, but there's something, something about that war totally destroyed the spirit

00:47:02.280 of the country.

00:47:03.160 The good war that is. 0.68

00:47:04.700 But anyway, sorry.

00:47:05.300 So, but you're stuck there for four months.

00:47:07.720 That's a, what do you do?

00:47:10.260 Like, what's your day like?

00:47:12.300 PT, occupational therapy, watch Dukes of Hazards and King of the Hill.

00:47:19.940 You know, one time Brian Dennehy came and.

00:47:24.640 The actor.

00:47:25.020 Yeah, really genuinely great guy.

00:47:28.020 He sat with me for hours.

00:47:29.520 We were talking about the civil war and he said, have you ever read Shelby Foote's trilogy?

00:47:34.220 And I said, no.

00:47:35.600 And he said, I'll be right back.

00:47:37.100 And he went to a bookstore and brought me the trilogy, which was really neat.

00:47:41.920 Brian Dennehy, the actor shows up at your bedside and then buys you Shelby Foote's civil

00:47:45.220 war trilogy.

00:47:46.260 Yeah, it was, it was really great.

00:47:47.580 So then I had something to read.

00:47:48.680 So that was, you know, helpful.

00:47:50.560 But you had to wait for Brian Dennehy to bring it to you.

00:47:52.160 Yeah, he was great.

00:47:54.880 And I don't want to crap on too many people.

00:47:56.960 Orrin Hatch was very helpful despite our political disagreements.

00:48:00.500 He was a very kind man to me.

00:48:02.780 He's a nice man.

00:48:03.640 He was.

00:48:04.200 And very connected.

00:48:05.420 Oh yeah.

00:48:06.380 Yeah.

00:48:06.820 Oh yeah.

00:48:07.480 He was able to get things done and a good guy.

00:48:11.140 Yeah.

00:48:11.620 So there, you know, there were people that were coming around trying to boost the spirits.

00:48:17.600 Brad Paisley, you know, his stepfather came one day and just.

00:48:22.160 Sat with us for, you know, hours just because it's nice to talk to a normal person.

00:48:27.380 Yes.

00:48:27.620 You know, he was a wonderful man.

00:48:30.980 Yeah. 0.98

00:48:31.440 So it wasn't all bad, but I didn't, sure as shit did not want to be there. 0.96

00:48:35.980 You know, I wanted to go home. 0.94

00:48:38.180 I missed my grandpa, you know, and I just missed home.

00:48:44.660 And I don't, I enjoy, God blessed us with tremendous beauty out there and I try to appreciate it.

00:48:51.680 Amen.

00:48:52.560 And I wanted to see it again.

00:48:54.340 So what'd you do when you got home?

00:48:56.500 So at this point you're in your 21 or 22?

00:48:59.520 Yeah.

00:49:00.560 Yeah.

00:49:00.800 I, uh, and the army severs your term.

00:49:06.360 I mean, they discharge you, I guess.

00:49:07.860 Not yet.

00:49:08.720 Oh, uh, eventually.

00:49:10.080 Yeah.

00:49:10.220 They retired me before I retired.

00:49:11.700 I was basically just doing outpatient care at the civilian hospital.

00:49:16.180 And I was lucky, my PT guy, he used to be the PT guy for like the Olympic wrestling team.

00:49:21.880 And I loved wrestling growing up.

00:49:23.320 So it was a good connection.

00:49:24.860 And, and of course he's good at what he's doing and has seen a lot of young guys hurt pretty bad.

00:49:29.320 So that's helpful as well.

00:49:30.720 And, uh, so it was just like that and being depressed as hell every day.

00:49:37.880 Because you're a professional patient at this point.

00:49:39.600 You're still a soldier technically.

00:49:41.640 Mm-hmm.

00:49:42.080 But your job is to go to PT and, oh.

00:49:47.260 Yeah, it was not good.

00:49:48.940 It was not good.

00:49:50.540 Yeah.

00:49:50.940 And in, in, in, in retrospect, that program was not a good idea.

00:49:56.060 As much as I wanted to get out of there, it would have been, um, I think this bore out in the data.

00:50:04.420 Like, 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.

00:50:10.460 Uh, you know, doing out, uh, outpatient stuff at Walter Reed.

00:50:17.700 Because then at least I'm around guys who get it instead of like my family that's, how could they possibly?

00:50:23.260 It's not their fault.

00:50:24.440 Um, I think that would have been better, but, but certainly I was happy to be out of there.

00:50:29.900 So, yeah.

00:50:31.960 How long did it take you to get right mentally? 1.00

00:50:35.280 Shit. 1.00

00:50:40.160 A long time. 1.00

00:50:41.940 Quitting pain meds was the biggest thing.

00:50:44.080 What was that like? 0.99

00:50:48.860 Uh, realizing how bad it was fucking my, sorry for cursing. 0.99

00:50:52.740 Um, realizing. 0.98

00:50:54.320 It's warranted in this case.

00:50:55.280 You're allowed.

00:50:57.060 Yeah.

00:50:57.440 There's a certain family I'm not too thrilled with either.

00:51:00.060 Um, realizing that it was a problem, like really messing my mental health up was motivation enough.

00:51:08.480 And then my doctor was really great.

00:51:11.800 He.

00:51:11.960 What was it, what was it doing to your mental health?

00:51:14.580 The opioids.

00:51:15.680 And the family you're referring to has got to be the Sacklers.

00:51:18.240 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.

00:51:24.480 Well, 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.

00:51:32.120 It's just true, right?

00:51:33.680 I had two friends die from opioids while we were recovering.

00:51:37.940 You know, they drink some alcohol and die because, you know, you're, it represses your ability to breathe.

00:51:43.900 Of course.

00:51:44.140 Or suppresses rather, and then drink and pass out and die.

00:51:48.100 So, um, I was lucky that didn't happen.

00:51:55.000 But, so yeah, I don't, I don't care.

00:51:56.880 But what does it do to your spirit?

00:51:58.700 That's the one thing I don't think we talk about that very often.

00:52:03.180 I, I had, I was on opioids for one day for back surgery a few years ago and not enough to get dependent.

00:52:10.160 But the first thing I noticed was it, it just, it, it transformed me inside.

00:52:15.700 Mm-hmm.

00:52:16.120 Like it crushes your spirit.

00:52:17.680 Mm-hmm.

00:52:18.440 That's one day of it.

00:52:19.880 And you were on it for how long?

00:52:22.640 Years.

00:52:26.100 You're not, you're definitely not the same person.

00:52:29.620 You know, it's linked.

00:52:30.900 It's, I, I have read, I don't allegedly also link to this suicide epidemic.

00:52:37.480 Of course.

00:52:39.100 It makes you a different person.

00:52:41.100 And I, I try to be very careful about not pretending to be more pious than I am.

00:52:48.120 But I, I do believe in spiritual war.

00:52:50.020 And I do think that there is really something to ingesting stuff like that.

00:52:57.140 Like, like, I mean something real, not just some chemical changes in your head.

00:53:02.300 You know, I couldn't agree more.

00:53:07.200 Can you flesh that out a little bit?

00:53:09.260 Well, yeah, I think you should be very careful tempering with, like, allowing things into your body.

00:53:22.780 You know, the, the term spirits, that originated because it was, my understanding of this is that that term came from, people thought you were putting spirits into your body.

00:53:34.040 Of course.

00:53:35.100 And you probably are.

00:53:37.560 Now, why?

00:53:38.140 You're speaking of liquor, alcohol.

00:53:40.060 Yeah.

00:53:40.400 Well, there's absolutely no question.

00:53:41.620 So, opioids are just that in a different form is what I would think.

00:53:47.020 And, you know, people get mad at me for this, but I think the same thing about other drugs.

00:53:51.220 Like, if you're communicating with some entity because of something you've taken, I would, I think, I would take that pretty seriously because you, you probably are.

00:54:01.400 People hate it when you say that.

00:54:02.640 But, um, I've done those drugs, so I feel like I have, as a child, so I feel like I, I have some authority on it.

00:54:09.340 And, uh, I was talking to a friend of mine, someone I really, really, really like the other day about it.

00:54:15.400 And he was talking about, you know, whatever, a trip, taking hallucinogens, for good reasons, by the way.

00:54:24.660 But, um, I, he said, I was visited by demons, and, and I said, do you think that they were real?

00:54:31.760 And he goes, oh, no, no, they're real.

00:54:35.820 You know, I'm not a, I try not to be a judge, judger, um, because I have no basis for judging other people, period. 0.99

00:54:42.880 However, I want to say, if you think they're real, then, you know, maybe don't fuck with them at all. 0.99

00:54:48.600 Like, that's not good. 0.99

00:54:49.540 That's scary.

00:54:50.420 It's really scary.

00:54:51.980 It's terrifying, yeah.

00:54:53.100 Um, I mean, even, I went through an atheistic period, uh, I'm, I'm deeply, genuinely, deeply ashamed of that period of my life.

00:55:03.740 I think I was mad at God more than not believing.

00:55:07.640 Um, Sarah from Rose writes some stuff about this.

00:55:10.960 Um, I can't remember where, but he says the, the, it's not that the atheist disbelieves in God.

00:55:18.640 It's that he believes in God and doesn't understand him and is sort of, therefore, angry.

00:55:24.100 Of course.

00:55:25.920 Certainly described me.

00:55:27.480 Kind of prefer, I feel like the atheists have a better shot than the, than people who just don't think about it.

00:55:35.120 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,

00:55:42.700 those people are actually more your brother than the people whose Christ is only on their lips.

00:55:48.720 Yeah, yeah.

00:55:49.920 I, I mean, that, what do I know?

00:55:51.840 But that sounds right to me.

00:55:53.160 Yeah.

00:55:54.660 So, what was the effect of the opioids on your spirit?

00:55:58.820 Oh, I'm sorry.

00:55:59.360 You keep trying to get me to answer that.

00:56:00.160 No, no, no, not at all.

00:56:00.780 I just think it's interesting, and I rarely hear people talk about it.

00:56:03.140 I, there's a lot of talk about the effect of opioids on your respiratory system.

00:56:07.340 You know, does Narcan work?

00:56:08.760 I think it's all important, and I'm not mocking it.

00:56:11.520 However, the condition of your spirit may be more important than anything, and I never hear that discussed.

00:56:17.620 Yeah, well, I, you're not the same person.

00:56:20.380 And I mean, that's what I mean with, like, bringing things into yourself.

00:56:24.100 We, we use euphemisms like that.

00:56:26.380 Like, well, I, I wasn't the same guy at that period of my life.

00:56:30.860 Well, think about what that actually means.

00:56:33.160 Like, what do you mean you weren't the same guy?

00:56:36.000 You know, if you believe in body, soul, spirit, or, or body, soul, mind, however you want to think of it, what do you mean when you say you were not the same person?

00:56:46.300 Because, like, did your soul leave and go somewhere else?

00:56:50.020 What do you actually mean?

00:56:51.320 And I think what you mean is that you have, you have given controls, the control of you over to someone or something else.

00:57:02.680 I mean, that's the way I view it. 0.90

00:57:05.760 And that, you know, can be wrong, and I would sound like an idiot or whatever, but that is the way that I view it. 0.95

00:57:10.940 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. 0.96

00:57:15.980 I mean, Paul says at great length in Romans, this is Paul, this is, like, the hero of the early church. 0.99

00:57:21.520 This is, like, one of the, after Jesus, the founder of Christianity.

00:57:24.220 And he's like, I do all these terrible things that I don't, I don't want to do, and that's because the sin, which he described as sin, is, like, taking control of me.

00:57:32.520 Like, something from outside came into me and is making the decisions.

00:57:35.760 He says that.

00:57:37.100 And I don't think that's far from the experience of every person who pays attention to his own behavior.

00:57:40.960 Like, you do kind of, like, what is this?

00:57:42.800 Exactly.

00:57:43.880 Yeah.

00:57:44.400 You always want to figure out what's animating you.

00:57:47.140 Yeah.

00:57:47.380 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, you know?

00:57:57.920 So, when you say, what does it do to your spirit?

00:58:00.000 I really believe that it's, you've given control over to something else, and so it changes you in every way.

00:58:06.340 You know, you become dishonest, angry, bitter, deeply depressed.

00:58:13.760 And when I say angry, I mean at God.

00:58:17.740 You know, there's a line in there somewhere where he says, even the devils pray.

00:58:22.780 I think that's kind of like that.

00:58:24.740 It's like, why would, what is the, what are the devils praying to God for?

00:58:31.260 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,

00:58:39.240 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.

00:58:47.100 I don't know.

00:58:48.660 So, what are they saying in their prayers?

00:58:50.700 Well, probably, they're probably bitter, you know, saying, can I believe you did this to me, or whatever it may be.

00:58:57.820 I don't want to speak for them either, and I want to be careful here.

00:59:00.180 But I think the source of the bitterness, the root of it, is being angry at God, and I think opioids do that.

00:59:10.740 And the minute I got off.

00:59:11.640 Opioids make you angry at God. 1.00

00:59:13.480 I do think that.

00:59:15.000 I do.

00:59:15.900 And drinking too much, I think, does it.

00:59:18.180 Definitely.

00:59:18.620 You know, anything that makes you not you is going to lead to that eventually.

00:59:27.280 In fact, like all sin, they say, again, I'm not, I don't want to pretend to know things, because I don't.

00:59:34.200 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.

00:59:44.920 So, getting off of those.

00:59:47.980 Let me just add a vehement amen to that.

00:59:50.040 I totally agree.

00:59:51.800 Thank you.

00:59:52.240 And I don't understand anything either, that's for sure.

00:59:54.720 And may I be punished for pretending I do, because I don't.

00:59:58.480 But what you're saying is, I believe that's true.

01:00:01.800 Yeah.

01:00:02.160 So, you get off opioids, what happens then?

01:00:04.780 It was crazy.

01:00:07.880 What, about, I don't want to misremember here.

01:00:12.980 Like, 10 days to two weeks later, it was so weird.

01:00:19.620 It genuinely felt like a cloud had been lifted from my vision.

01:00:24.140 Like, the world felt and looked different to me two weeks later.

01:00:29.680 And I don't know how to describe it beyond, it just, everything felt to some degree pretty again.

01:00:36.100 And, like, that my mind actually worked again.

01:00:40.520 Rather than just thought negative things all the time, I could, like, think about the things I cared about.

01:00:47.800 How long were you on them, do you think?

01:00:49.820 Like, hmm, boy, probably, probably, like, five years.

01:01:01.380 Oh, gosh.

01:01:02.120 Yeah.

01:01:03.260 Well, it's the first half of your 20s.

01:01:05.060 Yeah. 1.00

01:01:05.560 When you're the dumbest person you're ever going to be, on top of that. 0.98

01:01:08.520 But I had gotten to where I was taking way, way less, but I still, like, had, you know, I had those hooks. 0.99

01:01:17.740 Yes.

01:01:19.020 And then just getting rid of them all together was totally life-changing.

01:01:23.300 And within, like, two years, all of a sudden, I felt like the same person again.

01:01:27.960 And I usually connect that.

01:01:30.200 It's funny we're having this conversation because I had never thought about it in these terms.

01:01:33.400 I usually connect that to being able to run and hike again and go and bow hunting.

01:01:38.500 And I wonder if it wasn't actually, like, the time away from that thing.

01:01:44.800 I'm sure it mattered.

01:01:47.600 Yeah.

01:01:48.000 So, it transforms you into a different person.

01:01:50.760 Totally different person.

01:01:51.660 You said that you lost two friends from OD, accidental, I guess, OD.

01:01:58.440 But you must have known a lot of other people who were also on opioids for years.

01:02:03.520 Did they recover?

01:02:04.860 No.

01:02:05.700 Oh, gosh.

01:02:06.560 I know one person, and I don't want to give too much information because I don't want to, like, hurt his feelings or something,

01:02:14.060 but he looks like a different human being now.

01:02:17.720 I mean, it's been so long.

01:02:19.840 I saw a picture of him recently and I hadn't seen him for a couple of years.

01:02:24.120 And I had to look at it for, like, five minutes because it just didn't even look like the same guy, you know?

01:02:31.300 I have another family member that went through the same experience.

01:02:37.480 Looks like a totally different human being now.

01:02:41.260 The one friend who...

01:02:42.620 Physically.

01:02:43.060 Physically.

01:02:43.580 Like, face, you know, like a different guy.

01:02:46.680 What are the, pardon my ignorance, like, what are the changes like for long-term opioid use?

01:02:53.040 I don't know.

01:02:53.640 The look on them is, like, shrunken, you know?

01:02:58.840 Their eyes look different, like, deeply set.

01:03:02.480 So it's not just a weight loss or gain.

01:03:04.540 It's, like, deeper than that.

01:03:05.580 I think so.

01:03:06.660 Like, the spark is gone, you know?

01:03:09.580 Yes.

01:03:09.900 They're horrible drugs.

01:03:13.340 I made my daughter, when she was, like, 13, I made her sign a contract.

01:03:18.940 We notarized it and everything.

01:03:23.300 So typically, you know, you clean your rifles when the boyfriend comes over.

01:03:27.260 This is the next level beyond that.

01:03:29.120 The notarized contract.

01:03:31.320 And it's in my gun safe, actually.

01:03:32.740 But I made her sign this contract that said she will not do any drugs, drink any alcohol, 0.76

01:03:41.340 or have any premarital sex till 21.

01:03:43.740 And if she's able to do that, then I'll just give her $5,000 in cash.

01:03:47.520 But if she's able to take that same thing till she's... 0.86

01:03:51.260 I cannot remember whether I put 23 or 25, then I'll just give her $10,000 cash.

01:03:55.400 You know, to a 13-year-old that...

01:03:57.380 I mean, that's a lot of money to me.

01:03:58.380 But to a 13-year-old, that's like you're offering them, you know?

01:04:03.380 And the reason for that is I've seen how dark that world is and how many people...

01:04:09.000 When it gets those hooks in you at a young age, it just ruins kids.

01:04:14.940 I mean, it ruins them.

01:04:16.020 Some of them never, ever recover.

01:04:18.400 And they were otherwise going to be...

01:04:20.700 They're good people at root.

01:04:23.140 And they were otherwise going to be great, productive members of society.

01:04:27.300 And now they're just not, you know?

01:04:30.460 Just the anguish, the suffering that it causes.

01:04:33.820 And you've talked about this before, but I mean, this stuff is borne out in data.

01:04:38.820 You can see the deaths of despair across rural America.

01:04:43.040 Yeah.

01:04:44.420 Yeah.

01:04:45.400 You know, you drive through rural America.

01:04:48.960 We both live in rural places.

01:04:50.220 And you see in people's houses, you know, there are certain houses that are just tidy, squared away.

01:04:56.360 The cordwood is at right angles.

01:04:58.360 And like you can tell, these are happy, productive people.

01:05:02.520 But there are as many homes with, you know, broken children's toys on the front lawn that are just a disaster.

01:05:09.980 And, you know, everyone's poor.

01:05:12.940 It's not a matter of...

01:05:14.140 But like those, you know, that's like depression, the disorganization, the chaos.

01:05:20.220 I think that comes from drugs.

01:05:22.700 Yeah.

01:05:23.600 Yeah.

01:05:24.360 Although my yard is a wreck right now.

01:05:26.360 I'm ashamed of it.

01:05:27.840 But I have three young boys and I've been caught up in some other BS for a minute. 0.98

01:05:34.560 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. 0.98

01:05:45.880 Do you know what I mean? 0.98

01:05:47.440 I know exactly what you mean.

01:05:48.420 Yeah.

01:05:48.620 The not caring is a sign of drugs.

01:05:50.560 I've always thought.

01:05:52.000 Yeah.

01:05:52.500 Deep depression for sure.

01:05:54.620 So what'd you do after?

01:05:56.100 So by this point, I mean, you said it was two years before your head fully cleared.

01:06:01.720 No.

01:06:02.540 Oh, yeah.

01:06:03.140 After you got off, dope.

01:06:05.500 So that's, I'm just trying to do the simple math here.

01:06:07.800 So you're 20 when you get wounded, right?

01:06:09.660 Mm-hmm.

01:06:10.260 Mm-hmm.

01:06:10.880 That's 27.

01:06:12.220 I know.

01:06:13.860 Yeah.

01:06:14.260 And I had a divorce scattered in there and, you know, a string and broken relationships.

01:06:19.180 And then I finally started feeling really good and life was going well.

01:06:27.900 And then I met a new girl and she's wonderful.

01:06:31.680 And my entire life changed.

01:06:33.560 I, everything.

01:06:34.760 I mean, it was already on that path or else it wouldn't have worked with her.

01:06:39.940 Because she's like a well-put-together person.

01:06:42.560 And then I was like back to living the life of my youth, you know.

01:06:46.920 When I first started dating her, I went down.

01:06:48.940 My old man has back problems.

01:06:50.640 It's like every person that's rode colts their whole life.

01:06:54.700 He needed help.

01:06:56.460 And I remember when he called me, he had this buckskin horse and he needed rode.

01:07:00.000 And he's like, well, you're younger.

01:07:01.920 And I was like, well, it's not like my body's in better shape than yours.

01:07:07.160 But I wanted to do it.

01:07:08.440 So I go down there and, and this is now I'm doing good in life and at least mentally.

01:07:14.620 And I get on this colt and we're doing good.

01:07:18.820 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.

01:07:23.200 But my old man didn't want me to know that because he wanted me to kind of solve the problem for him.

01:07:28.640 So I go to swing off and he starts bucking and it twists my knee pretty good.

01:07:34.640 And anyway, that was my first time back on a colt like that.

01:07:39.360 And then we go sit in the bunkhouse and have like a couple beers and you're just feeling really good, you know.

01:07:46.240 Like, wow, I'm like back to my real life.

01:07:48.680 And so then I started riding colts again and back to normal.

01:07:54.160 And that's where I'm at now.

01:07:56.280 And I was guiding hunts for a while and elk and deer and help with some lions in Utah a little bit and occasional bear hunt.

01:08:04.160 And just, you know, back being a normal kid from the Mountain West.

01:08:08.960 And, and it's great.

01:08:12.440 It's like really.

01:08:13.400 So how did you go?

01:08:14.560 So, so that's, and I thank you for taking the time to tell that story.

01:08:18.400 How'd 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.

01:08:29.460 Like you become this like polarizing figure.

01:08:33.140 How'd that happen?

01:08:35.400 I, there's two pieces to it.

01:08:38.220 I got involved in public lands advocacy around 2015 or 16.

01:08:43.800 There was this, there had been this push, the public lands initiative, which was like a different version of the same thing.

01:08:51.980 Like Rob Bishop, who I think is otherwise a good guy.

01:08:55.500 And, you know, some other names were involved in that.

01:08:57.640 And I, I just got involved with some organizations and learn more about it.

01:09:01.260 And the more, the more I've learned, the, the more my opinions have shifted, you know, more into the direction of conservation, not less.

01:09:12.160 So I, that, so that's kind of the root of that.

01:09:14.460 And then I've spent like the last five years on Twitter arguing with people.

01:09:20.540 I mean, they will write, they would write me like horrible emails over the public lands thing.

01:09:28.320 And these are right-wing people.

01:09:30.780 You're pretty liberal, I assume.

01:09:32.240 Yeah.

01:09:34.060 It's just incredible.

01:09:35.320 It's like my own side, very angry at me over this issue.

01:09:38.000 Oh, I've been there.

01:09:38.400 Yeah.

01:09:39.120 And then something flipped this time.

01:09:41.900 Oh, but I should tell you how the Twitter platform, I had been doing keynotes for a long time, a source of income.

01:09:49.440 And I, I enjoy doing it depending on the group.

01:09:53.920 But it made up about 25% of our annual at the time.

01:09:58.480 And I had guided this guy from a big construction company in California.

01:10:05.240 Really good guy.

01:10:06.060 I guided him on a hunt in Southern Utah.

01:10:07.980 Got to be friends with them.

01:10:09.560 And then he wanted me to speak as a keynote at this construction conference in Las Vegas.

01:10:15.340 It's a real big one.

01:10:17.100 So I'd been booked for that.

01:10:18.840 And then this freaking COVID thing starts happening.

01:10:21.260 And it's evolving in the news in real time.

01:10:24.560 And I'm supposed to leave on like Saturday morning to go speak on Monday.

01:10:30.700 And he texts me at like 5 p.m. West Coast time on Friday and says, bro, they canceled the whole thing.

01:10:42.000 Like not just speeches, but like the entire conference.

01:10:45.340 And it's hard to blame anybody for doing that at the time, given the way the machines were or the mechanisms were turning.

01:10:52.020 And so I had been very careful with my right wing opinions publicly for years because I wanted these people to still hire me.

01:11:03.040 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.

01:11:13.420 So they don't hire people like me.

01:11:15.200 Speak to a lot of tech organizations and you can about imagine how that would go if you're a right wing.

01:11:19.940 In fact, one time, I'm sorry, I'm doing the Trump weave.

01:11:25.480 One time a gal had hired me and she's a really wonderful person.

01:11:30.920 She comes up to me after a speech and says, this is really great.

01:11:35.060 Everybody's really happy.

01:11:36.780 But could you lean less on the like, you have to learn how to pull yourself up message because that sounds too much like bootstrapping.

01:11:44.700 And that's a right wing thing.

01:11:47.240 I'm serious.

01:11:48.040 And so that made me paranoid about sharing my actual opinions on anything.

01:11:55.540 So I would never talk publicly.

01:11:57.340 And then this COVID thing happens.

01:11:59.180 And I had created a Twitter account while we were night, we were night cabin in the fall on the fall herd.

01:12:06.640 And we, this friend's ranch, they have like a Frito truck that they built into like a cabin.

01:12:12.980 Like they took the lid or the top off and like made a calving cabin out of it.

01:12:16.960 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.

01:12:25.740 And it kind of got some traction.

01:12:28.340 I was like, oh crap, I deleted it, you know, because I'd made it with my real name.

01:12:32.080 And I did, I thought I could just like slide in there slowly.

01:12:35.240 But that was in, you know, like September.

01:12:36.940 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.

01:12:44.780 Well, when this COVID thing happened, that one got canceled and then the next one and the next one.

01:12:48.540 And then, you know, you start getting emails.

01:12:50.800 It's like all seven or eight that we had scheduled for the year got canceled like within a week's time.

01:12:56.160 And so I just got on Twitter. 1.00

01:12:58.100 I told my wife, I said, you know what, fuck it. 0.99

01:12:59.980 I'm just going to tell people what I really think about things. 0.99

01:13:02.780 And somehow that grew into, it's not a large platform, but a platform.

01:13:08.460 And then you end up on Sean Ryan, you know, like.

01:13:12.320 Interesting.

01:13:12.940 So this, one of the, I would just say on the outset, I'm completely 100% on your side,

01:13:18.380 probably for the same reasons on this question.

01:13:20.180 But it is one of those rare issues where it doesn't break down along left and right at all.

01:13:28.140 And I probably should have asked you to explain what the issue is.

01:13:32.780 An hour and a half into this or whatever.

01:13:34.720 I haven't even asked you.

01:13:35.760 What is the public land?

01:13:36.920 What's the divide on public lands?

01:13:38.840 What are public lands?

01:13:40.340 What do some people seek to do with public lands?

01:13:43.180 And what's your view of that?

01:13:45.320 We, so.

01:13:46.360 Hmm.

01:13:50.180 This one organization I was with for a while, I implored them to not let this become a liberals

01:13:57.420 who hunt kind of thing or else we're going to lose.

01:14:00.240 It made, we were, they were trying to evangelize the left on public land protection measures, 0.98

01:14:06.060 which is just dumb. 0.58

01:14:07.500 Because at the time there was zero aggression coming from the left. 0.97

01:14:11.440 It was all from the right.

01:14:12.720 And I said, just let me message this.

01:14:14.680 I understand right-wing people.

01:14:16.380 What's, I am one.

01:14:17.880 Like, let me do this.

01:14:18.740 And they wouldn't.

01:14:19.220 So I think a, a sizable portion of blame belongs on the left for the way they've treated public

01:14:25.880 lands over the years.

01:14:27.040 What they have done is they, first of all, their central ethos is just, they don't like

01:14:32.920 you.

01:14:33.740 Oh, a hundred percent.

01:14:34.940 So.

01:14:35.480 And they don't want you on the land.

01:14:37.020 Exactly.

01:14:37.440 Or your dog's on the land.

01:14:38.800 They don't, they don't.

01:14:39.520 Oh, I have dealt with it.

01:14:40.840 Yeah.

01:14:41.140 They want to build like a Truman show and you can get on like a electric train and look

01:14:46.080 at it or something.

01:14:46.860 And then the right wants to sell it.

01:14:53.740 And so that's kind of the crux.

01:14:59.400 That's nice.

01:15:00.560 That's so, oh, that's so good.

01:15:04.500 The left wants to turn nature into a Truman show experience where you get an electric train

01:15:10.340 and view it.

01:15:11.080 And the right just wants to sell it.

01:15:12.640 That is like the most, that's just perfect.

01:15:14.900 Well, and we, when I say we, I mean, better men from older times figured out the correct

01:15:21.200 compromise to this problem.

01:15:22.780 And it's basically what we have as a status quo right now.

01:15:26.280 Yeah.

01:15:26.660 The multiple use mandate, you know.

01:15:28.820 And what is that?

01:15:30.940 That got established in 76 under FLIPMA, which is the Federal Land Policy and Management Act

01:15:39.260 of 76, but that had rolled lots of older conservation laws into one, into kind of one thing and established

01:15:47.240 a very clear multiple use mandate.

01:15:49.580 In fact, I think it's the very first paragraph of the bill.

01:15:52.500 So, and the multiple use mandate says these lands are held in trust for the American people

01:15:57.380 for hunting, recreating, grazing, and extraction of all forms, just whenever it makes sense.

01:16:06.640 I mean, we can't go clear cut the redwoods.

01:16:09.580 I don't think anyone would even, well, people would advocate, certain people would advocate

01:16:13.500 for that, but I don't think anyone's doing that right now.

01:16:16.180 But there are other places that we should be logging and we can, you know, figure this out.

01:16:20.300 Yeah, you can manage the forest.

01:16:23.700 Yes.

01:16:24.380 And by the way, you should, it's a better forest when it's managed since, I mean, I have a lot

01:16:29.320 of experience with this.

01:16:29.900 It's like, it's great.

01:16:31.200 Yes.

01:16:31.680 If it's done wisely, prudently, like it's good.

01:16:35.040 Exactly.

01:16:36.020 And maybe the best example of what you're talking about here is the whole spotted owl stuff.

01:16:41.180 Yep.

01:16:41.380 They label, they label the spot.

01:16:47.180 So there's the Endangered Species Act of, I think, 73.

01:16:50.920 Nixon signed it.

01:16:53.080 And we basically put into, we put into effect some of the most forward thinking in this kind

01:17:02.700 of way.

01:17:03.120 I hate how the left has ruined useful words.

01:17:05.980 Oh, I know.

01:17:06.680 But we instantiated very powerful protections on, the main goal is we don't let species die

01:17:15.760 here because we, as a people, think that that would be a sin because God made them.

01:17:19.840 That's the way I view it.

01:17:21.380 And I think that's what, that's how Nixon thought.

01:17:23.780 Well, the spotted owl comes in and the claim, so they made it threatened.

01:17:32.620 And the claim was that this owl needed old growth in order to survive.

01:17:38.480 It couldn't survive in second growth or new growth.

01:17:41.820 And second growth is like something that's been cut down, replanted, and then started off.

01:17:45.640 Right.

01:17:45.940 After you whack the forest, this is what comes up.

01:17:47.840 It's very thick.

01:17:48.920 Yep.

01:17:49.320 Yep.

01:17:49.480 And they had said that they can't survive that way, on and on.

01:17:54.080 Well, the loggers were saying, we see these things in second growth all the time.

01:17:58.600 What the hell are you talking about?

01:18:00.560 And so then we end up with, I believe it's called the Northwest Forest Plan.

01:18:04.820 And that was in the early 80s, if I'm remembering correctly, or late 80s when that happened, if

01:18:08.780 I'm remembering correctly.

01:18:09.560 And that locked up something like 56 million acres and just killed timber towns all through

01:18:15.700 Washington and Oregon and had an effect on northern Idaho and destroyed.

01:18:20.240 Yeah.

01:18:20.560 Western Montana.

01:18:21.420 Yeah.

01:18:21.880 And then it turned out down the road that the loggers were right.

01:18:27.400 That spotted owl was living in the second growth stuff.

01:18:31.460 And it actually was not the harvest that was killing off.

01:18:35.460 It was the, some other kind of owl whose name escapes me, was out competing it.

01:18:41.440 Yeah.

01:18:41.680 It was intra-owl competition.

01:18:43.700 Yeah.

01:18:43.940 And it was an invasive owl.

01:18:45.440 Of course.

01:18:46.500 Probably a Chinese owl.

01:18:48.060 Yeah, right.

01:18:49.420 I know there are some loggers who think they did that on purpose.

01:18:53.320 And knowing the way, seeing the way, I don't want to be too conspiratorial, but it would

01:19:00.420 not shock me if one day we learned that people were doing that on purpose because what they

01:19:04.480 actually hated was loggers.

01:19:06.540 Oh, I know.

01:19:07.100 They don't even love trees.

01:19:08.580 They just hate loggers.

01:19:09.760 Oh, they don't love trees.

01:19:11.080 No.

01:19:11.340 They'll cut down the trees to put a solar farm in, in a second.

01:19:15.740 Yeah.

01:19:16.240 In places where the sun doesn't shine very much.

01:19:18.500 No, they hate trees because they hate God and they hate God's creation.

01:19:21.500 Of course.

01:19:22.340 It's never about saving nature.

01:19:25.160 They're destroying nature.

01:19:26.160 They're spraying chemicals into the atmosphere to manage the weather and poisoning the, you

01:19:32.280 know what I mean?

01:19:32.880 It's like, these are the enemies of nature.

01:19:36.040 Yeah.

01:19:36.520 To the offshore wind farm people.

01:19:38.780 Which, yeah, those wreak havoc.

01:19:40.280 Oh my gosh.

01:19:41.000 On the fishery.

01:19:41.700 Of course.

01:19:42.400 Yeah.

01:19:42.500 They don't care.

01:19:43.260 So they're not for nature and don't ever allow a professional environmentalist to tell

01:19:47.820 you he loves nature.

01:19:49.460 You know?

01:19:49.960 I mean, I'm sure there are some who do, but, but in general, the environmental lobby is

01:19:56.360 opposed to the environment, you know?

01:19:58.580 Yeah.

01:19:58.900 Yeah, totally.

01:20:00.460 Exceptions and rules, right?

01:20:02.680 And the exception doesn't make the rule.

01:20:06.100 Well, so that's kind of where we, where we're at.

01:20:11.280 But then if you look at what happened here more recently, and this is important for understanding

01:20:17.520 how we got to this new push for sell-offs, around 2016 or so, a lot was happening right

01:20:26.080 then because PLI and some other things.

01:20:27.920 But around then, some environmental groups really born out of scientists at universities

01:20:38.360 who actually do care, regardless of what people try to tell you, a lot of those people actually

01:20:42.420 do care.

01:20:43.000 I mean, they've recovered all kinds of species because of these people, you know, Gila trout

01:20:46.840 and black-footed ferret and the greater sage-grouse.

01:20:50.900 You know, these people do care.

01:20:52.200 Well, they come up with a science-based management plan for this because the environmental groups

01:20:56.520 were pushing and saying, you can't do any oil and gas, oil and gas extraction in sage-grouse

01:21:04.120 country.

01:21:04.520 You'll kill off the sage-grouse.

01:21:05.600 Well, these scientists come up with this plan and say, don't list the, don't list these

01:21:12.780 things as threatened.

01:21:14.460 What if you, Mr. Oil and Gas Company, give us, you know, work with us on this plan.

01:21:21.000 We think if you do it this way, it can be done without just killing off the sage-grouse.

01:21:25.880 So, the oil and gas companies give some concessions and then they do.

01:21:30.780 And what do you know?

01:21:31.640 Like, they worked.

01:21:33.560 Yeah.

01:21:34.060 And oil and gas is still being extracted and the sage-grouse have recovered.

01:21:38.260 Yeah, there's really good sage-grouse hunting.

01:21:39.880 Yeah, for sure.

01:21:40.380 So, we now, we have people who can solve these problems.

01:21:45.600 But if you look at the way the right wing, the tools that they use or the levers that

01:21:53.460 they use to kind of pry on the right to get them behind sell-offs is like, well, you're

01:21:59.820 going to get locked out of it by this thing or that thing.

01:22:03.000 They're going to come spot it out with you, you know?

01:22:05.140 Well, we figured out a solution to that.

01:22:07.140 And as long as we keep doing that, there's just absolutely no reason to give up our birthright.

01:22:12.340 So, what is the idea about selling federal lands?

01:22:16.140 Like, what, I mean, there was a recent proposal, which I think more than any other person, you

01:22:20.540 killed by bringing attention to it.

01:22:23.000 You're really hated by some people for that.

01:22:26.540 But just leaving the people out of it, like, what was the idea?

01:22:29.460 What was the proposal?

01:22:31.580 It changed a bunch of times.

01:22:33.140 But the proposal was, the way it was being sold was, hey, we're just trying to get rid

01:22:40.300 of 0.5% of this land.

01:22:42.620 But that's not how it was originally written.

01:22:44.700 Originally, it was like a mandatory sell-off of 0.5% of the land and then like 249 million

01:22:52.080 other acres to be evaluated, something like that.

01:22:54.480 Which means that's a floor with no ceiling.

01:22:59.600 Now, why do they want to sell it off?

01:23:05.940 My gut tells me minerals, but I don't know.

01:23:10.040 Sell it off to whom?

01:23:11.200 Well, I don't know.

01:23:14.680 They're not telling you.

01:23:15.760 And we do a lot of oil and gas and mineral extraction on public lands right now.

01:23:22.060 But a thing that I think viewers need to understand is when they do it on public land, there's

01:23:27.760 a royalty paid back to both state and federal government.

01:23:31.200 But if you own the mineral rights or the subsurface rights altogether of your property, you're not

01:23:38.840 paying a royalty.

01:23:39.920 I'm sure you're paying taxes, but you're not paying a royalty whatsoever.

01:23:44.300 Well, how does that work?

01:23:46.480 Well, it's if you own the rights.

01:23:47.640 I mean, this is like...

01:23:49.760 Wait, private land you're talking about?

01:23:52.140 Private land, I'm sorry, yes.

01:23:53.220 Okay, right.

01:23:53.880 So this is why you would...

01:23:54.320 Of course, right.

01:23:54.840 If you own the mineral rights, you own the minerals.

01:23:57.860 Well, and so if you're...

01:24:00.400 The original thing was we're trying to balance...

01:24:02.780 I mean, that's how they got it in a budget reconciliation bill, right?

01:24:05.400 As we're trying to balance this budget, we need a little cash flow here.

01:24:09.040 That's what this is for.

01:24:10.680 Well, why would you sell the mineral rights then?

01:24:12.780 Wait, wouldn't you keep the mineral rights?

01:24:14.100 If what you were trying to do is solve the debt problem, wouldn't you keep that asset

01:24:18.140 on your portfolio if...

01:24:20.060 Well, yeah.

01:24:21.600 And they didn't.

01:24:22.620 So I think that the...

01:24:24.700 I think there are large...

01:24:25.560 They didn't?

01:24:25.960 So they were going to sell the land with the mineral rights.

01:24:29.180 So that means the state and federal governments would never benefit from the extraction past 1.00

01:24:35.220 the sale.

01:24:37.120 That was what the...

01:24:37.900 That is how the final iteration read to me and I think to everybody else that, you know...

01:24:43.660 Plus, it's a 900-page bill.

01:24:45.340 So you're feeding it to chat GPT, you know, and trying to figure out where the stuff is.

01:24:49.820 And I think the most of the public land stuff was on like page 202 or something.

01:24:55.020 So what would...

01:24:55.660 Well, that's interesting.

01:24:56.460 So that, I mean, that kind of proves that it's not about solving the debt with sale of

01:25:04.860 public resources.

01:25:05.980 No, and they used the term fair market value in there.

01:25:11.900 Well, on a lot of these...

01:25:14.700 I mean, you've been to Southern Utah.

01:25:16.360 On a lot of these chunks that they were trying to sell off, the fair market value is like 500

01:25:20.920 an acre.

01:25:22.380 I mean, you're not going to...

01:25:23.660 500 an acre?

01:25:25.200 Yeah.

01:25:25.500 I mean, it's alkalized soil with like almost nothing as far as bunch grasses.

01:25:31.180 It supports an ecosystem, but it, you know, to run, to make it produce, if you're thinking

01:25:38.980 in terms of GDP, which sometimes I feel like this is all those people are capable of, this

01:25:43.720 is unproductive and...

01:25:45.380 Right, unless you're a lizard farmer.

01:25:47.120 Right, yeah, right, yeah.

01:25:51.540 So fair market...

01:25:52.820 So that establishes that it's definitely not about the debt because you're either pulling

01:25:57.300 money out of the coffers or selling it off for next to nothing.

01:25:59.900 So this is not about the debt.

01:26:01.180 It's about something else.

01:26:02.360 And this is why I think minerals at one level or another...

01:26:06.000 Was there any restriction on who could buy it?

01:26:11.720 They had said...

01:26:13.080 I'm trying...

01:26:13.480 You know, there was like seven iterations of that, and I'm trying to remember what the

01:26:17.240 last one said about that, but I don't think so.

01:26:21.300 I don't think there was any kind of guardrail.

01:26:23.580 And I think Utah has like 34,000 acres owned by the CCP already.

01:26:31.980 I read that somewhere.

01:26:33.320 Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's true, but I read it on Twitter, so it has to be.

01:26:38.540 But there is foreign ownership of land in Utah.

01:26:41.580 Mm-hmm.

01:26:41.940 Yeah, well, in Canada, I think they own...

01:26:47.120 I think they're the largest foreign owner of agricultural land, like tillable in the

01:26:53.500 U.S.

01:26:53.920 And then, you know, Saudi owns a freaking ton of stuff down in Arizona, and they're putting 0.99

01:27:00.640 all kinds of guys out of business down there.

01:27:03.580 Like they'll punch a deep well because they've got money, lower the aquifer, and then the

01:27:08.800 rancher guy, he can't afford a thousand foot well, so then they're able to buy up his stuff

01:27:12.760 because now it's dry.

01:27:13.820 So there's all kinds of conflicts spread out across this region.

01:27:20.300 I just can't see why you wouldn't want to limit having more of that problem, but it doesn't...

01:27:25.680 Why wouldn't Congress pass a lawsuit?

01:27:27.000 We can't have foreign ownership of land in the United States.

01:27:29.280 You can't sell the country to other countries.

01:27:32.940 That's, I think, the primary question.

01:27:35.680 I don't understand that at all.

01:27:37.080 So far as I'm aware, I can't buy property in Canada, right?

01:27:40.700 Unless I become a Canadian citizen.

01:27:42.220 Yeah, a lot of Americans, I own property in Canada, I sold it because I was worried about

01:27:47.480 all this kind of thing.

01:27:49.160 But certainly you can't buy Mexico.

01:27:50.980 You can't, right?

01:27:52.380 So, no, I don't understand why.

01:27:56.720 I mean, that just seems like a really easy fix.

01:27:58.500 Foreigners don't get to own our country. 1.00

01:28:00.100 So pretty happy to have you.

01:28:01.860 You can do whatever, come on vacation here.

01:28:04.180 You're great.

01:28:04.800 We love you.

01:28:05.380 But you can't own our country, right?

01:28:08.840 Right.

01:28:10.200 Yeah.

01:28:10.560 Recreation, the last number I read was $1.2 trillion contributed to our economy through

01:28:21.200 outdoor recreation.

01:28:22.520 Yeah.

01:28:22.960 That's extraction by another means.

01:28:24.980 It might not be pulling oil and gas out of the ground, but that's still a form of extraction.

01:28:30.600 You're extracting wealth off of the thing.

01:28:32.840 I mean...

01:28:33.500 Right.

01:28:33.720 And with the multiple-use mandate, now you're doing both.

01:28:37.340 It's like best of both worlds.

01:28:39.120 You're maximizing value in that way, you know?

01:28:42.400 So why should...

01:28:44.360 I mean, this has been, as we both acknowledge, kind of a partisan issue.

01:28:50.020 You referred to liberals who hunt.

01:28:52.480 I think there can't be more than eight of those.

01:28:54.200 Yeah.

01:28:54.740 But there was this effort in the last 15, 20 years to, like, create these AstroTurf groups,

01:29:01.440 you know, Hunters for Kamala.

01:29:03.960 But also, it's always hilarious.

01:29:06.420 It's like, you know, loading the shotgun through the muzzle kind of groups.

01:29:12.580 Yeah.

01:29:13.740 But there are also more serious efforts to do that where these are clearly fake groups

01:29:19.560 and they're trying to subvert something here.

01:29:23.560 So that's...

01:29:24.520 It's all real.

01:29:25.240 But it's kind of axiomatic, I think, that, like, hunters, some fishermen, ranchers, people

01:29:33.300 who train horses, like, these are not Kamala Harris voters.

01:29:35.560 These are almost all conservatives.

01:29:38.260 So why would you, as, you know, a product of that world, somebody who shares the values

01:29:44.400 of that world, why would you be all of a sudden on the side of, like, not selling public lands?

01:29:48.400 Why is this a...

01:29:49.120 Why do you have a conservative position on public lands?

01:29:53.580 Fundamentally, I think I've said this before, I'm not sure, so forgive me, but it's, I love

01:29:57.500 my people.

01:29:58.640 Yep.

01:29:59.140 I mean, that's why.

01:30:00.420 I mean, I love the land, but my people don't exist without the land.

01:30:06.100 And small ranches...

01:30:07.400 Wait a second.

01:30:08.600 If the country's an idea, as long as you have that idea, you're part of it, no?

01:30:16.620 Sorry.

01:30:17.320 I think we probably agree on this one.

01:30:18.980 I've said this elsewhere, too, but some people on Twitter will say it's not magic dirt, you

01:30:27.900 know?

01:30:28.240 Yeah.

01:30:28.680 And I understand what they mean when they're saying that, but it is magic dirt.

01:30:32.860 It's 100% magic dirt.

01:30:34.080 I completely agree.

01:30:35.080 Yeah.

01:30:35.300 I keep some in my travel bag so I can sniff it when I'm out of the country.

01:30:39.340 No, I mean, for real.

01:30:40.400 That's cool.

01:30:41.220 Well, yeah.

01:30:42.160 But why do you...

01:30:43.660 Oh, I'm sorry.

01:30:44.260 Why do you...

01:30:44.740 So flesh that out, if you don't mind.

01:30:46.320 I think you have to start at the...

01:30:49.640 I believe America as a people, I believe the ethnogenesis of that happened on our frontiers.

01:30:58.280 If you...

01:30:58.860 At least, you know, history is a thing that's interpreted.

01:31:02.700 So people get mad when I talk about history sometimes and I'm like, okay, well, this is

01:31:05.540 my interpretation of it. 1.00

01:31:06.420 Fuck off. 1.00

01:31:07.000 You know, like, this is the way I see it. 1.00

01:31:08.260 But the Revolutionary War was in some ways a very European war.

01:31:15.140 I mean, we, you know, we kind of did some guerrilla stuff.

01:31:18.700 So that was a new invention in terms of European people doing stuff to a degree.

01:31:24.020 But it was kind of a civil war between Anglo peoples.

01:31:28.380 But then something happened as we, you know, from Manasseh Cutler in the Ohio River Valley

01:31:34.560 to the 49ers where we developed as a people out here.

01:31:40.940 You know, if you stop somebody on the street in New York City and you said, well, maybe

01:31:46.420 not there now because it's like 60% foreign born, pick an actual American city where you're

01:31:50.960 not traveling internationally and stop Americans on the street and ask them what it means to

01:32:00.220 be an American.

01:32:00.900 They're going to say things like hard work, perseverance, you know, grit, love of country

01:32:09.320 and county and all of that.

01:32:11.900 They're going to use all of these ideas that actually tie back to knowing what our people

01:32:19.600 went through crossing those plains, you know, fighting Indians and fighting, you know, Mexicans 1.00

01:32:25.660 and then the Brits again and, you know, the Spanish and all of this, you know, all of

01:32:31.720 that stuff fed into where we finally somewhere, I don't know exactly when, I don't think I could

01:32:38.640 put a pin in it.

01:32:40.380 But at some point we became a people that are Americans.

01:32:44.460 We never describe ourselves in the same way as it seems like Europeans do to me. 1.00

01:32:51.400 And so I think that's a very important piece of this.

01:32:55.700 And I also think it's somewhat ironic that the area where the frontier closed is now like

01:33:04.940 the primary source of the people trying to kill the country off.

01:33:08.480 Why do you think that is?

01:33:12.240 I don't know.

01:33:12.880 Well, resentment, leftism.

01:33:14.860 I think leftism is animated by dark things.

01:33:18.160 I don't think every leftist is a bad person, but I think that that belief system is fundamentally

01:33:24.360 animated by envy.

01:33:27.020 And that's like the earliest story in the book.

01:33:29.440 And hate.

01:33:30.220 Yeah.

01:33:30.480 So I think it's that.

01:33:32.940 I don't think it's too much more complex than that.

01:33:38.560 If we think about the Civil War, the reconstruction, the period of reconstruction, had there not

01:33:45.260 been the pressure relief valve of the frontier, we would have fought it again.

01:33:50.400 Because that boot on the neck of those proud Southern people was not going to last forever

01:33:54.980 if they don't have somewhere to go.

01:33:56.460 And we have towns in Idaho that were established by Confederates. 1.00

01:34:00.700 And they, you know, they had had enough of that shit. 0.99

01:34:03.640 And so I think it's an important part of our identity, a very important part of our identity. 0.98

01:34:12.160 So I think in many ways this entire, I'm sorry, I'm doing such a bad job addressing your actual

01:34:17.460 questions.

01:34:18.260 I'm like pontificating over here.

01:34:20.640 Well, I think to describe what you're saying requires what you're saying, which is it's part

01:34:26.280 of like a multi-hundred year story, an evolution.

01:34:30.120 Yes.

01:34:31.160 And it's also one of the reasons that the country was able to assimilate people from different

01:34:36.020 parts of Europe, hadn't always been friends.

01:34:38.860 I mean, the Irish and the English.

01:34:40.540 You know what I mean?

01:34:41.480 Totally.

01:34:42.180 And like the true melting pot was Europeans from like non-friendly countries. 1.00

01:34:48.260 It didn't have that much in common, actually.

01:34:49.900 I know now they're all just white people, but the English and the Irish didn't feel that

01:34:54.580 way.

01:34:54.760 No.

01:34:55.500 Right.

01:34:56.180 But they were able to come together and build this amazing country.

01:34:59.560 And, but I think it's through the process that you're describing.

01:35:03.140 Like that, that really is America.

01:35:05.800 Absolutely.

01:35:06.840 And then now as a modern people, we, there's no, there is absolutely no way.

01:35:15.580 Like small ranches.

01:35:19.460 A lot of them are running like 90% of their ground on public allotments and 10% on deeded.

01:35:28.980 And it's been this way for a very long time.

01:35:30.900 Like basically since the TG, the Taylor grazing act, which was, I think 36, 1936.

01:35:35.820 Another one of these things that rolled lots of laws into one, but it essentially protects

01:35:40.960 the right for Americans to graze on these public grounds to protect the cattle industry,

01:35:46.780 small family farms.

01:35:47.860 And that, on that 10% of deeded acreage, at least where I'm from, much of that is going

01:35:55.700 to be like their alfalfa, their hay production for the winter.

01:35:59.320 Yeah.

01:35:59.600 And then of course, a pasture to feed on in the winter.

01:36:03.300 So my people from, just won't exist anymore without this.

01:36:08.680 And some people will say, oh, well, then F them, this is welfare for rich people.

01:36:12.880 It's like, no, this is welfare for people who are scraping by.

01:36:15.560 If you want to call it welfare, I don't, I don't at all view it that way, but these people

01:36:23.400 are scraping by, the margins on cattle are thin.

01:36:25.780 And if, you know, if you kill grazing, it is over.

01:36:30.240 And we are already-

01:36:31.160 By the way, everyone in the country is on welfare at this point.

01:36:33.160 And people who are paying, you know, half the tax rate that you are through the carried

01:36:38.280 interest loophole, that's not welfare.

01:36:40.900 I think it is.

01:36:41.900 People who are, you know, taking their income as dividend and as interest income and paying

01:36:47.020 half the rate of people who work for a wage.

01:36:51.560 I don't know.

01:36:52.400 I mean, what, all of these things are aimed at the same group, which is legacy Americans.

01:36:57.400 So in the short end of everything, I don't think that's an accident.

01:37:00.560 No, no, my, my family went out there in like the thirties, you know, the 1830s, not the

01:37:07.280 1930s, you know.

01:37:09.620 What are the 1830s?

01:37:10.920 Yeah, I think, I think 36, somewhere around that.

01:37:13.680 1836?

01:37:14.220 Yeah, they were, yeah, they moved out.

01:37:15.780 Well, a lot of more Mormons and-

01:37:17.240 So pre-Doordash.

01:37:18.240 Yeah, yeah.

01:37:19.360 So 47 is when the Mormons got to Utah, but a lot of them started that journey west, you

01:37:25.500 know, back around that time, like from Connecticut, New England area.

01:37:28.340 Yeah.

01:37:28.720 Started, you know.

01:37:29.860 Upstate New York.

01:37:30.620 Mm-hmm.

01:37:31.100 Yeah.

01:37:32.060 Yeah.

01:37:32.520 A lot, like most of my family's been here since, you know, the late 1600s, but they were

01:37:37.000 over here, Yankee type people. 0.76

01:37:39.200 And then they, you know, moved west.

01:37:40.900 I don't mean that as a pejorative, like that's where they were at.

01:37:43.520 Like kind of, you know, in New England.

01:37:48.180 And so, yeah, it means a lot to me in that sense.

01:37:51.080 But another thing that the, the people who are not connected to this industry should think

01:37:55.560 about, we have less than 90 million beef cattle in America right now.

01:38:00.640 Our herds, our beef herd is smaller than it was in like 91, like 1991.

01:38:07.180 How?

01:38:08.820 Killing off small- 0.99

01:38:10.360 We've got like almost a hundred million more people, maybe a hundred million.

01:38:13.780 I mean, because there's so much lying about population.

01:38:15.900 Right.

01:38:16.640 Because there's so many illegal aliens here, but we have a much larger population than 0.71

01:38:20.640 we had in 91.

01:38:22.300 Yeah.

01:38:22.880 Well, I mean, what is it?

01:38:23.640 Like 330 million or something?

01:38:25.760 I mean, I'd say 360, but like go outside.

01:38:30.780 I know.

01:38:31.200 It's insanely crowded.

01:38:33.560 So there's just, as with GDP and inflation and every other relevant number from which we

01:38:37.920 make decisions about how to run the country, it's a lie.

01:38:40.980 Population is, I think, the biggest of all lies.

01:38:43.200 Now we're saying, I mean, three years ago is we've got 10 million illegal aliens.

01:38:47.040 We've had 10 million illegal aliens for 30 years.

01:38:49.500 And now since Trump got in, they're like admitting, I think it's more like 60 or 65 million

01:38:54.740 illegal aliens, foreign nationals living here in violation of our law. 0.86

01:38:58.440 So anyway, sorry.

01:39:00.620 No, no.

01:39:01.240 Pardon the lecture, but like-

01:39:03.160 I agree with you.

01:39:03.660 We've got more than 330 million people in the United States.

01:39:06.740 Yeah.

01:39:07.280 And that ties into this whole idea of a housing shortage.

01:39:10.940 Which, someone said, well, illegals are not impacting housing.

01:39:16.660 And-

01:39:16.980 Who said that?

01:39:19.720 I mean, the leftists were saying this.

01:39:21.620 And one of my buddies had such a good way of countering that.

01:39:26.400 He said, I don't know. 1.00

01:39:28.180 I assume these motherfuckers live inside. 1.00

01:39:30.680 You know? 1.00

01:39:32.860 Yeah.

01:39:33.960 So, I'm sorry.

01:39:37.020 That's, yeah.

01:39:39.300 So, food security is a national security risk.

01:39:44.300 I think Hegseth even endorsed this idea recently that food security is national security to

01:39:50.360 a degree.

01:39:52.000 Of course.

01:39:53.100 Food, water, energy.

01:39:55.320 Those are the building blocks of any society slash civilization.

01:39:58.660 Food, water, energy.

01:39:59.740 And if those, if you don't have those, I mean, that's why people go to war. 0.65

01:40:03.100 That's why populations, that's what, you know, migration is about.

01:40:06.380 I mean, everything is about those three things.

01:40:08.420 And, but only in America that's been rich for so long can people be like, no, it's really

01:40:12.200 about self-esteem or, you know, or whatever.

01:40:15.280 No, it's about food, water, and energy.

01:40:17.740 Right.

01:40:18.080 And you think, so our beef herd is smaller than it was 35 years ago.

01:40:24.280 So, why is it?

01:40:25.440 Is that Brazil?

01:40:26.700 Oh, it's a lot of it is.

01:40:28.320 Yeah.

01:40:29.720 Imported beef and the artificial deflation of prices due to illegal immigrant labor. 0.99

01:40:38.840 You know, every time they go to one of these packers, it's like 1600 arrests.

01:40:43.960 You know, those.

01:40:44.740 Well, the whole plant is illegal.

01:40:46.580 Yeah.

01:40:46.960 And you're not going to tell me that these people don't know they're doing that.

01:40:49.820 And then I think there's about, I think 30 plants in the U.S. process 80% of the beef

01:40:58.480 in this country.

01:40:59.300 So, now you've got, you're also sort of as a by-product putting your old local butcher

01:41:07.840 out of business.

01:41:08.660 He can't compete anymore with like $6 hamburger in a tube from Walmart that's got 70 animals

01:41:14.020 packed into it.

01:41:15.040 He can't compete with that either.

01:41:17.020 The local guy can't.

01:41:19.320 Yeah.

01:41:19.680 It's a huge problem.

01:41:20.840 And then if you add on the sell-off of public lands and squeeze the last of these guys

01:41:25.360 they're hanging on with their small family ranch, it ain't going to get better.

01:41:30.640 What role does immigration play in this story?

01:41:35.140 I mean, it's fundamental and both legal and illegal.

01:41:41.140 A thing I would say to right-wingers to like really try to think about, these are low population

01:41:48.800 states, they're high landmass, but the density, population density is extremely low.

01:41:54.760 I think Wyoming, I've said this elsewhere, but I think Wyoming has around 300,000 voters,

01:42:00.200 but that was 300,000 people voting for Trump, which means we don't know what the next turnout

01:42:04.080 will be because he is a once in a lifetime figure.

01:42:06.740 There's only one of that guy.

01:42:08.900 So, presumably there's going to be less in the next election cycle.

01:42:12.860 Who knows?

01:42:13.320 Because, well, 50,000 new votes, if you sell this off and fill it up with illegal or legal

01:42:20.000 immigration, whether it's H-1B, H-2B, whatever, I guess those people aren't voting, but, you

01:42:26.320 know, aren't voting.

01:42:27.260 Yeah.

01:42:28.560 And then, you know, illegals or just imports of whatever variety, you flip these, there's

01:42:34.160 not a ton of electoral votes there, but it is.

01:42:36.640 Wait, so the idea was to take public lands and like build housing for immigrants on them?

01:42:40.840 Well, they say not, but there's a crap load of money going into immigrant resettlement 0.84

01:42:47.540 in the West.

01:42:49.480 I say this everywhere, but Rando Land on Twitter, go look at that and you can see these grants

01:42:55.680 for yourself.

01:42:56.320 It's like 4 million, 15 million, you know, 50 million, whatever, going to all these different

01:43:00.920 NGOs and state governments to bring, to put refugees.

01:43:04.980 Like I see burkas in Idaho Falls now. 1.00

01:43:08.800 What?

01:43:09.440 Mm-hmm.

01:43:09.780 Idaho Falls was in southeastern Idaho.

01:43:12.940 It's always, I think it was the most Mormon town in the United States, certainly the most 1.00

01:43:16.940 Mormon city in the United States.

01:43:18.340 It had to be up there, yeah.

01:43:19.680 Yeah.

01:43:19.920 It had to be.

01:43:20.780 Like that in Provo or whatever, old Provo, not new Provo, but you see burkas there? 1.00

01:43:27.180 Yeah.

01:43:27.760 And this is another thing, I always get called a racist and I don't have to hate someone

01:43:32.540 to not want to be replaced by them or have my children replaced by them.

01:43:36.160 I don't hate them.

01:43:36.600 People are still calling you racist?

01:43:37.740 Oh my gosh, yeah.

01:43:38.680 Still?

01:43:39.660 Oh, it's just incredible.

01:43:41.360 Boy, that's so 2021.

01:43:43.640 I know, yeah.

01:43:44.560 That word's over. 1.00

01:43:45.280 Oh, shut up. 1.00

01:43:46.360 I know. 1.00

01:43:46.780 Exactly.

01:43:47.900 But I don't.

01:43:49.540 And also, here's an important thing to this.

01:43:51.880 That person in a burka did not choose to live in Idaho Falls where it's 40 below for a week 0.99

01:43:59.840 a year.

01:44:00.660 You know, they moved here from whatever desert and now they're living in some of the harshest

01:44:05.960 climate in the U.S.

01:44:07.020 They didn't choose that.

01:44:08.280 Someone put them there.

01:44:09.440 And then you have to ask yourself why someone would put them there.

01:44:12.980 I've seen a lot of it.

01:44:14.840 Yeah.

01:44:15.200 Let's empty the refugee camps of Somali refugees in Kenya and fly them to Lewiston, Maine. 1.00

01:44:20.620 An impoverished, dying mill town full of French Canadians. 1.00

01:44:23.900 And just see how that works.

01:44:26.520 Yeah.

01:44:27.120 Didn't work.

01:44:28.540 No, of course not.

01:44:29.840 And I love my people and I don't want them to be replaced.

01:44:33.180 But from just a basic, in terms of politics, practical level, if you flip these states

01:44:39.760 in the West, you're done.

01:44:41.740 You're not winning another.

01:44:43.120 You're not beating the left with the electoral college.

01:44:46.560 Not without Wyoming, Utah, to some degree, Nevada.

01:44:50.020 Like if you lose all of those, if they all go the way Colorado did, it's going to be over.

01:44:55.820 Yeah.

01:44:56.400 And Colorado's not just a Democrat.

01:44:57.800 It's like affirmatively evil. 0.97

01:45:00.500 We'll take your kids away unless you let them become trannies kind of thing. 1.00

01:45:04.100 It's just like, it's a place that Christians are having trouble living. 0.97

01:45:08.460 It's so anti-Christian in Colorado.

01:45:11.360 And some of the best people on earth live there.

01:45:13.540 Oh, I couldn't agree more.

01:45:14.200 But I'm just saying it has ramifications.

01:45:17.220 It's not just like, oh, they get, you know, they had a sort of conservative senator.

01:45:22.080 Now they have a sort of liberal senator.

01:45:23.660 It's like, you know, when the revolution comes, they're not joking at all.

01:45:27.360 They're not, it's not like what we're going through now where it's like, do a Fox News

01:45:31.380 hit and, you know, we're fighting the liberals.

01:45:33.560 Okay.

01:45:34.260 No, it's like, can't live there anymore if you believe in God.

01:45:39.360 So they, are you familiar with the wolf reintroduction out there in Colorado?

01:45:44.100 Very familiar.

01:45:45.100 Yeah.

01:45:45.580 And you know, who's driving that and it's not working and look at where they put them.

01:45:52.720 They did it via referendum that won by 1%.

01:45:55.320 So the front range voted to dump wolves on ranching communities is what they did because

01:46:02.560 they hate them.

01:46:03.500 I mean, that's why.

01:46:04.980 Why do they hate them?

01:46:05.680 Because the ranchers are just so mean or just hate the idea of them?

01:46:09.420 Man, I, you know, some, sometimes the left is just hysterical by nature.

01:46:16.780 So it's hard to know if they've just been propagandized into. 0.99

01:46:20.720 Independent minded white Christians are the, are the enemy. 0.99

01:46:24.140 It's why they hate Russia. 1.00

01:46:25.260 It's why they hate the ranchers. 0.99

01:46:26.340 I mean, let's just be honest.

01:46:27.300 Let's stop lying.

01:46:28.060 Yeah, I think that's probably it.

01:46:29.640 And then they also think the cows are destroying the climate.

01:46:31.880 And so beef production is a great evil, despite the fact that beef have largely reoccupied the

01:46:38.560 ecological niche that bison used to.

01:46:41.000 So you're going to have to replace those with something.

01:46:44.920 I think you're actually giving them too much credit by trying to be rational.

01:46:50.140 It's like, they don't think that, you know, Jeff Bezos's G4 fleet is wrecking the environment,

01:46:56.580 but they do think that cow flatulence is. 1.00

01:46:59.200 They, they pick the group they hate and then they backfill the justification for crushing 0.70

01:47:05.260 them.

01:47:05.660 So, oh, it's climate.

01:47:06.540 We hate the ranchers because of climate.

01:47:07.840 No, they hate the ranchers because of who they are.

01:47:09.780 I agree.

01:47:10.860 I mean, obviously.

01:47:13.940 Um, so is, so the idea was that this land was going to be used for housing.

01:47:19.020 I mean, that's what they told us, but if you.

01:47:21.240 Why wouldn't you just kick out the 60 million people here illegally? 1.00

01:47:25.000 Between that and. 0.84

01:47:26.200 It's too hard.

01:47:26.920 Something like 16 to 18% of homes in Utah are owned by investors.

01:47:33.100 It's like, well, the state could pass a law that would solve this problem real fast.

01:47:36.760 You know, like I don't, I'm not against anyone making money.

01:47:40.140 And I'm not one of these hate people because they're rich.

01:47:43.080 I've got a friend of mine who's a billionaire is the nicest guy in the world.

01:47:46.020 He does all kinds of good for people.

01:47:48.320 One of the best people I've ever met.

01:47:50.840 Uh, so it's not that, but also, I mean, I'm not going to fellate the people who are trying

01:47:58.140 to ruin me for greed, greedy reasons.

01:48:00.860 You know, I'm not going to, they are not my friend clearly.

01:48:03.760 And they feel the same way right now.

01:48:06.000 Um, sorry for being fidgety.

01:48:08.320 My back is stiff, but, uh, so it's not about housing.

01:48:12.940 If it were about housing, there are solutions to that.

01:48:16.780 And they're not doing that where they're trying to, you know, I don't want to impugn motives,

01:48:24.320 but it ain't housing.

01:48:25.400 It's not.

01:48:26.440 And they're trying to do something else.

01:48:27.460 Oh, and then from a legal perspective, I'm nearly certain of this.

01:48:33.240 Please correct me if this is not right.

01:48:34.920 But when you are building affordable housing, like apartments and condos or whatever, uh,

01:48:42.700 that comes with stipulations.

01:48:45.320 And I think part of that is that land has to be sold for very cheap to the developer.

01:48:50.020 And it's like 50 acres, not, you know, 3 million.

01:48:55.220 I mean, how many acres do you need?

01:48:57.480 What kind of apartment complex are we building over here?

01:48:59.680 You know, 3 million acres?

01:49:03.380 It's very clearly not about affordable housing or your kid and his ability to buy a house.

01:49:08.680 So here's the problem that I have with it and why I'm so grateful that you have done what

01:49:12.300 you've done and why I want to talk to you is I'm worried about what the end stage of

01:49:18.020 our debt crisis looks like.

01:49:19.520 So when you're in debt to a lender, that debt is secured with assets.

01:49:24.820 So you take a car loan, your loan is secured by your car.

01:49:28.220 Same with a home mortgage.

01:49:29.660 They can take your house. 0.98

01:49:31.220 The United States is trillions in debt to a bunch of different countries, investors all

01:49:35.100 over the world, but Japan, China, South Korea, et cetera, Europe.

01:49:40.840 What?

01:49:41.340 And we can't pay it, obviously.

01:49:43.540 And so how do we make good on that debt?

01:49:47.580 Well, what is the United States?

01:49:48.740 The United States is a continental sized landmass that has some of the most valuable resources

01:49:52.700 in the world, which would include the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, the Great

01:49:56.120 Lakes, which would include some of the biggest oil and gas deposits, energy, and which would

01:50:01.540 include some of the most productive farmland in the world. 0.71

01:50:05.100 So I'm really concerned that at some point, it sounds stupid now, but at some point, not

01:50:10.800 so far in the future, we're going to be like, well, actually the Chinese own Lake Superior. 0.94

01:50:15.220 No, I'm serious.

01:50:16.300 I know, me too.

01:50:17.660 And there are oil and gas fields and the nation itself.

01:50:23.700 And so if you said, I don't think that's crazy at all.

01:50:26.760 Like in the end, the US dollar is a joke and everyone knows that it's backed by nothing.

01:50:31.640 Full faith and credit.

01:50:32.640 But so like, what do we have?

01:50:35.160 Well, we have federal lands, actually land, minerals, water.

01:50:41.580 And I just don't think you want to set up, set the precedent in motion where you could

01:50:45.780 just sell those if you needed to, because they don't belong to the current occupants of the

01:50:51.400 White House or Congress.

01:50:52.300 They just don't.

01:50:53.060 They belong to the people.

01:50:54.040 Correct.

01:50:56.060 And I, another thing they lie about is the actual numerical value of that land.

01:51:01.840 Oh yeah.

01:51:02.600 There was a number floating around a hundred trillion, they were saying.

01:51:06.560 And I kept thinking, how on earth did you get to a hundred trillion?

01:51:12.420 That just does not make sense.

01:51:13.760 It's just a round number.

01:51:14.740 So I started plugging in to the, you know, calculator, like, let's see what this would

01:51:19.940 actually work out to.

01:51:22.280 And if you sold at fair market value, every piece of federal land in Idaho, it'd be like

01:51:29.280 110 billion.

01:51:31.340 That is not going to touch the national debt in any serious way.

01:51:35.420 Not to mention now you're losing all the other revenue streams that come from that.

01:51:40.800 Of course.

01:51:41.860 So I just, it's not, I don't believe it's about debt.

01:51:45.060 I think if you did it all by, if you did it all, let's say you could get to 6.2 trillion

01:51:51.880 if you did 10,000 an acre or something like that. 0.95

01:51:54.600 It's, I'm having a hard time remembering what I came up with, but 6 trillion is a crap load

01:51:58.440 of money, but we spent 2.2 or whatever it was in the CARES Act a couple of years ago.

01:52:04.320 I mean, that's in the grand scheme of the way we spend, that's not a lot of money.

01:52:08.980 And now the everyday guy is just losing.

01:52:14.420 What are you doing?

01:52:15.420 I mean, are you going to retreat from public life having achieved your goal?

01:52:19.720 Well, I don't know.

01:52:20.360 I don't think it's over.

01:52:21.380 In fact, they're already pushing for it again.

01:52:24.540 I started, my friends and I started a thing called the Sagebrush Institute.

01:52:29.540 And it's just kind of a small brain trust of people that are much more qualified than me.

01:52:37.160 And we're, we're just going to do the best that we can to message and get these ideas

01:52:43.980 out in front of people.

01:52:44.920 I take no money from it.

01:52:46.080 We don't even have a bank account right now.

01:52:48.240 It's absolutely in no way.

01:52:49.800 It's my kind of foundation.

01:52:51.100 Yeah.

01:52:51.580 We, in no way is it about money.

01:52:54.000 We, we collected emails and we're just trying to disseminate information because I think we

01:52:58.280 need a lot more than one voice out on this stuff.

01:53:01.160 Because here, like, here's an example, the everyday American hears, well, why don't we

01:53:06.120 just do a new homesteading act?

01:53:07.800 And that sounds good.

01:53:09.160 You're like, oh, that'll take care of our kids. 0.99

01:53:11.980 No, it won't.

01:53:13.500 All that, first of all, the, the very last iteration of homestead acts, I think the average,

01:53:19.480 more than 50% of the people that claimed land on that left it after two years.

01:53:24.660 Yeah.

01:53:25.060 So, you're just doing a sell-off with a slight delay if you do that.

01:53:29.160 I think they did this in Zimbabwe.

01:53:32.120 Yeah.

01:53:32.560 How about we homestead act Rhodesia, you know?

01:53:37.680 Sorry.

01:53:39.880 So, we're just going to try to pass information as best as we can and also help.

01:53:44.000 I think we have a golden opportunity right now to do two really important things.

01:53:48.680 One, reshape the narrative and make conservation cool on the right wing again.

01:53:56.640 I think Zoomers have been let down by everyone their whole life.

01:54:01.080 They just, like, constantly getting screwed by someone.

01:54:04.280 And we got a win here and we cannot let them down.

01:54:07.920 We want to help them keep stacking wins here.

01:54:14.380 Like, we want to be something that doesn't end up screwing them in the end.

01:54:19.220 So, the next time they push, you know, we can help Zoomers. 0.99

01:54:21.840 And if we can shift this narrative with Zoomers and tell them, like, this is yours, man. 0.96

01:54:27.740 This belongs to you.

01:54:29.320 Regardless of what people tell you, this is yours right now.

01:54:32.400 You can go to Birch Creek Valley in Idaho right now and go camp and fish and do whatever you want. 1.00

01:54:40.280 Get off your ass and go do it. 0.99

01:54:41.520 It'll be fun, you know? 1.00

01:54:42.660 And it's yours.

01:54:43.420 Experience it.

01:54:44.040 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.

01:54:55.340 And that'll give us at least until they have grandchildren, which would be great. 0.86

01:54:59.020 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.

01:55:10.800 I think COVID, for righteous reasons, made a lot of people very skeptical of any expert class.

01:55:20.620 And that, I mean, I am one of those people.

01:55:22.420 But there are scientists out there who genuinely really want to save this stuff.

01:55:29.800 That's the guy that's trying to save the Gila trout or whatever.

01:55:33.120 So I think we can help them establish some more credibility.

01:55:36.900 Like, no, we actually, we as scientists, not me, but them as scientists don't actually want to pave over the Mojave Desert.

01:55:45.880 No.

01:55:46.400 So, you know, so we have an opportunity to shift two narratives that are really important.

01:55:51.720 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.

01:55:59.360 And that's what I care about.

01:56:01.220 So that's what we want to do.

01:56:01.900 It's not an accident that the most articulate voice in this debate is you and you spend the most amount of time outside.

01:56:09.440 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.

01:56:18.360 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.

01:56:30.520 I do think that's ominous, right?

01:56:33.360 Oh, yeah.

01:56:34.440 It's terrifying.

01:56:36.460 Yeah.

01:56:36.980 People don't even know what public lands look like, right?

01:56:42.140 I mean, it's hugely important.

01:56:45.120 Yeah.

01:56:45.700 That one is, there's a lot of advocacy groups that are trying to get people into bow hunting and stuff like that.

01:56:51.900 I think that's great.

01:56:53.780 And we should try to do more of that.

01:56:55.900 And then just think of like shooting.

01:56:57.580 How many kids are going out shooting on public land?

01:57:00.000 And I see 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.

01:57:07.040 The leader of a huge gun rights organization tried to tell me this a couple of days ago.

01:57:12.480 And I was like, first of all, why the hell are you trying to fight with an ally?

01:57:15.420 And then secondly, what are you talking about?

01:57:18.160 That's everyone shoots on that stuff all the time.

01:57:20.540 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.

01:57:26.980 At a distance, though, because ricochets the rail thing.

01:57:28.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:57:29.860 Yeah, don't shoot one four feet away.

01:57:31.520 Don't Adam Kinzinger, your buddy.

01:57:34.540 Whatever happened to him?

01:57:38.080 I don't know.

01:57:38.960 Does he still exist?

01:57:40.140 Adam Kinzinger.

01:57:41.260 Oh, I hope he, I hope he's happy.

01:57:44.080 Sad guy.

01:57:44.540 There was a funny, my brain is doing a squirrel thing, but one of the funniest tweets I ever saw.

01:57:50.600 I don't, you know, me and 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.

01:58:02.240 I laughed for like an hour about that.

01:58:06.400 But yeah, we need to get those kids engaged. 1.00

01:58:08.720 And there are some college programs that do this kind of thing.

01:58:11.220 And 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, you know, shoot.

01:58:19.860 And so we need to do much, much more of that.

01:58:23.300 And that's important as well.

01:58:25.160 And then one other thing, I guess if I could say, and I apologize, I'm so bad at answering your questions directly.

01:58:30.720 No, I love it.

01:58:31.360 I can understand why someone from Maine would be thinking right now, well, I'm never going to see that.

01:58:40.720 Why do I care?

01:58:43.400 There's one answer I think I would give to that that no one else does is we are a union.

01:58:47.560 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.

01:59:03.560 And we are a union.

01:59:04.760 So, you know, we help you.

01:59:06.500 Please help us back.

01:59:07.520 That kind of thing.

01:59:08.580 Same thing with like, I've heard other people say this and it's true with like the farm bill, which is, although it was like 60% snap now.

01:59:14.800 But the farm bill helps, you know, a guy in Iowa or whatever, you know, and that's-

01:59:19.040 The farm bill is 60% food stamps?

01:59:20.620 Oh, I think it might even be more than that.

01:59:22.980 It might even be more.

01:59:23.940 Yeah.

01:59:25.140 I don't think the real threat is Iran.

01:59:27.640 I'm just saying.

01:59:28.660 I mean, that's, wow, that's sad.

01:59:30.740 It's horrible.

01:59:31.220 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.

01:59:43.200 So where do they, where can they find, I mean, because some of this stuff is complex.

01:59:48.340 So like, where's a trusted source for learning more?

01:59:51.020 Very.

01:59:53.000 Sagebrushinstitute.org is where we're disseminating everything.

01:59:56.180 And there's an email sign up.

01:59:58.860 And that's it.

01:59:59.700 We're just going to keep pushing.

02:00:02.840 That's it.

02:00:03.420 Eventually, it's possible that we could try to bring in small funds for like leaflets and stuff, but I'm not getting paid.

02:00:09.040 Nobody on the board is getting paid.

02:00:10.620 That's not happening.

02:00:11.340 And we'll be straight up.

02:00:13.340 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.

02:00:19.000 And you will see that I believe that charity should be for the sake of charity.

02:00:22.260 So no one's paying me to do it.

02:00:23.740 I can promise you that.

02:00:25.060 I agree with that.

02:00:25.780 And we'll live by that as best as we can.

02:00:28.480 And that's where you can go to just sign up and we'll start emailing you.

02:00:31.840 And, you know, this is what's happening with wolves or whatever.

02:00:35.500 Keep you informed.

02:00:36.660 Thank you.

02:00:37.240 That was amazing.

02:00:38.720 Thank you, sir.

02:00:39.160 We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day.

02:00:47.540 We know the people who run it.

02:00:48.440 Good people.

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The Tucker Carlson Show - July 16, 2025

Braxton McCoy： Iraq, Opioids, and Defending US Land From Foreign Governments & Corporate Giants

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