#213 Braxton McCoy - Why is the US Government Selling Millions of Acres of Public Land?

Make your voice heard by calling your Senator’s office directly to let them know that your public lands are not for sale. Find your Senator's contact information here - https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm Braxton McCoy—veteran, rancher, and public lands advocate—joins us to break down a controversial Senate proposal that could lead to the largest sell-off of public lands in modern U. S. history. Introduced by Senator Mike Lee (R‑UT), the provision initially called for selling 2–3 million acres across 11 Western states, with up to 250 million acres labeled as “eligible” for disposal. Though the Senate parliamentarian recently struck it from the reconciliation bill, Lee plans to reintroduce it in narrower form, targeting BLM lands near growing cities. Braxton explains why this fight matters to hunters, ranchers, local communities, and anyone who cares about public access, habitat, and heritage—and what citizens can do to stop it. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://betterhelp.com/srs This episode is sponsored. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self.https://bruntworkwear.com – USE CODE SRShttps://expressvpn.com/srs https://shawnlikesgold.com https://helixsleep.com/srs https://ketone.com/srs Visit https://ketone.com/srs for 30% OFF your subscription orderhttps://roka.com – USE CODE SRShttps://ziprecruiter.com/srs https://shopify.com/srs Braxton McCoy Links: Website - https://braxtonmccoy.com X - https://x.com/Braxton_McCoy IG - https://www.instagram.com/braxton.mccoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake-up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino Beauty, the iconic fragrance duo. Donna Born in Roma Eau de Parfum is a feminine fragrance featuring juicy black currant, central jasmine, woody cashmerin, and warm vanilla. Its masculine counterpart, Womo Born in Roma Eau de Toilette, has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver, spicy ginger, and mineral salt. Shop at Macy's.com.

• 1:05Shawn Ryan?

  Just want to say congratulations to the American citizens. We had a huge win last night. I just got word this morning about it. And what am I talking about? I'm talking about certain amount of US politicians, people that we elected, were trying to sell in between 2 and 3 million acres of public land. That's land that's ours, the American citizen. That's my land, that's your land, that's land that Theodore Roosevelt set aside for people like us to enjoy and to do as we please on it.

• 1:44Shawn Ryan?

  Now, what was happening is they wanted to sell between 2 and 3 million acres of public land for affordable housing.

• 1:55Shawn Ryan?

  That would have affected a lot of people. And we got loud about it. I'm way late to this party.

• 2:04Shawn Ryan?

  But we got loud about it. And I got word last night that we're gonna pack this into the big, beautiful bill. And it got pushed out. They dropped it.

• 2:15Shawn Ryan?

  But I don't think this is over. From my understanding, this has been going on for the better part of a decade, 10 years. And so I'm sure it's gonna pop up again. Even though the majority of the American people that I know, I've seen poll after poll that says, "We do not want our land sold." And so I want to say thank you to a couple of people that were way ahead of me on this. And I just, I just, I have a tremendous amount of respect for people to get loud on certain issues. Because there's a lot of fear that comes with that. And so I just, I want to say thank you to Cameron Haynes, to the guys over at MeatEater,

• 2:57Shawn Ryan?

  Jaco Willink, Joe Rogan, Senator Tim Sheehy, and most of all, Braxton McCoy, who had the balls to come on my show and talk about this.

• 3:11Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I'm thanking them because when you do this, when you go up against and, and, and speak for the people and talk about what you believe in that isn't in the government's agenda, you carry a ungodly amount of stress, a tremendous amount of fear. I mean, what you're going up against is a corrupt establishment. And it's sad.

• 3:41Shawn Ryan?

  But they pulled it out of the bill. But like I said, it's probably not over.

• 3:49Shawn Ryan?

  Crazy, right? You know, I hate to say this, but the US Capitol and the majority of DC has turned into the world's most elite, expensive brothel. And they're always open for business so long as it benefits them, the ones sitting in office. And it's disgusting. And I hate what our country has turned into with this. It was never supposed to be like this. It's supposed to be you represent the people that elected you. And time and time again, I don't feel like that's happening. It's disgusting. We need a third party.

• 4:33Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, when you speak out, this is why I want to thank these guys. Because when you speak out, you're going up against people who, a couple of years ago, before they were elected, probably didn't have much. The majority of them didn't have much. And time and time again, we see elected officials, and after a couple of years, they're millionaires. And after a couple more years, they're worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on a salary that supposedly only pays about $200,000 a year. Now, how does that happen? Well, that's why I say it's become the most elite, most expensive brothel in the world.

• 5:16Shawn Ryan?

  Not only that, you're going up against a corrupt government that would potentially target you, put you in prison, have the IRS audit you, make up rumors about you, hire PR firms to dig into your background and find every little mistake that you've made, just to push their agenda so that they can get paid off. And it's disgusting. It is disgusting.

• 5:44Shawn Ryan?

  We need a third party. You know, I fell into the trap of, oh, it's Republicans versus Democrats. Man, I know we have a lot of differences. But this is one thing that everybody came together on and looked what happened. We at least postponed it. Like I said, I don't think it's over. We really need to think about putting a third party together because this shit is not working. And I want to leave you with a quote.

• 6:13Shawn Ryan?

  Might not be exact, but for evil to prevail, all that needs to happen is for good men to do nothing.

• 6:24Shawn Ryan?

  And so try to get past the fear, the intimidation, the corruption, and just do what's right, man. Because I've got kids, you've got kids. This is the future of our country. And if people don't speak up, the country's going to look a lot different sooner than later.

• 6:46Shawn Ryan?

  We're still releasing the Braxton McCoy interview. And Braxton, man, kudos to you, man, for having the courage to come on my show and educate us on what's going on. I know there's a tremendous amount of fear. I feel it too, man. But thank you, and thank you to everybody else that I just mentioned. Cheers.

• 7:12Shawn Ryan?

  Braxton McCoy, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me, Sean. You ready to blow the doors off this thing? I mean, I guess.

• 7:22Shawn Ryan?

  I'm overstimulated and wired right now, man. Yeah, good. Uh, yeah, so I found you, I was actually, I was actually, I saw a tweet from Jaco. And I respect a lot of what Jaco has to say. He had retweeted one of your things and he just said, he said, pay attention to this guy. So then I went down the rabbit hole, went through your X feed, saw you, shouted me out, and I think Tucker and Rogan about the sale of public land, which I knew nothing about. So I retweeted it and said, I'll be in touch. And like an hour later, I started getting phone calls and text messages

• 8:05Shawn Ryan?

  from all these powerful people on not to do it. And...

• 8:11Shawn Ryan?

  Generally, that means we're right over the target. So we didn't really text anybody back because I don't like it when people try to influence uh who I bring and do not bring on the show. That really fucking pisses me off. You know, it's this. I thought everybody was about free speech. But um, guess not. But um, but anyway, so just proved to me I was right over the target. We did have a small conversation with with Lee's office, uh, who seems like he's the one kind of leading this charge. And Jeremy, he was supposed to, they were supposed to send something, right?

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, we were looking for a readout of his, his time with the Senate parliamentarian yesterday. I haven't gotten it yet.

• 8:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, we haven't gotten it. Weird. But um, or maybe not. But um, it's weird though, because I like a lot of the stuff that Lee has to say, but, but um, but this seems, this seems uh, like somebody's gonna make a lot of money off of national parks and public land. So you seem to be the guy to talk to. So thanks for coming.

• 9:17Speaker 04

  Well, thanks for having me. And, and when I tweeted that, I, I wasn't saying I'm the guy. I was just saying like, let's find the right fucking guy. Uh, and then it kind of turned out people seem to think that I am. So that wasn't me being like, put me on or whatever.

• 9:31Shawn Ryan?

  No, I didn't mean, I didn't mean that. I just mean, you, you seem to be the one that has the balls to get loud on this. And a lot of people in America now, they don't like to speak up. They don't like to say what's on their mind. They don't like to hold people accountable. Accountable and I, I just, I see you doing it and I respect the shit out of that man because I know that takes balls. It's a lot of pressure. And um, I know you're going through a lot um, of

• 9:58Shawn Ryan?

  stress for different reasons, which we'll get into later. But um, but yeah, just thanks for coming and thanks for bringing this to our attention. Because like I said, I knew nothing about it and um, I enjoy our national parks, so.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the sake.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Born in Roma Fragrances by Valentino Beauty, the iconic fragrance duo. Donna Born in Roma Eau de Parfum is a feminine fragrance featuring juicy black currant, central jasmine, woody cashmerin, and warm vanilla. Its masculine counterpart, Womo Born in Roma Eau de Drolette, has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver, spicy ginger, and mineral salt. Shop at Macy's.com.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, in the, so.

• 11:16Speaker 04

  National parks, he's telling the truth when he says national parks are not on the table. Okay. Sort of. But if you look at a place like Yellowstone National Park, just as an example, because that's what he kept saying, no one's trying to sell Yellowstone. Well, the ethos of the park is to preserve this land for the sake of the animals and the American people, right? Well, the park is at like 8,000 feet in the mountains. It's below zero for a significant portion of the year. That park itself is actually just summer range for the most part for these animals. So Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is about the size of Ohio, and that part he's absolutely trying to sell.

• 11:59Speaker 04

  So the animals are going to lose their winter range. I guess Yellowstone, he's not going to pave over a geyser, but the animals themselves are going to be cooked if this were to go through. And for anyone that doubts. You know, he's tried to say that he's only gonna sell off this small percentage of public lands. That's kind of the, the central claim he's making. But note that it always, his language-

• 12:26Shawn Ryan?

  That's in between just, small amount is in between two and three million acres, right? I think, I think it's actually like 225 million to 285 million, if I'm correct.

• 12:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's the way I was reading it too, is the, it looks like he's trying to set a floor, but no real ceiling. So the floor is this must be sold off. And then the ceiling is these other 240 million acres are to be evaluated. At least that's what it looks like, which is setting the table for a sell-off. And I know we'll talk more about this later, but we have processes in place for getting rid, or the disposal of land already.

• 13:06Shawn Ryan?

  What are those? What do you mean, the disposal of land?

• 13:08Speaker 04

  Well, that's kind of the legal term that they use. It's really like transfer to a municipality or an organization for development and growth, things like that. That's covered under FLIPMA, which is the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, nineteen seventy-six. That thing is, is there. It kind of, it wrapped up a bunch of other older laws into one new one that set a multiple use mandate in place. And part of that multiple use allows, or part of that act allows for the disposal of lands, like if a city needs to grow for some reason.

• 13:49Speaker 04

  Like that's, for example, that's how that ground in Las Vegas that they took Trump out of context on, I'm sure if you saw that, that ground got developed, it would have went through FLIPMA. You know? So, we can do this already.

• 14:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. You know, with, with me, it's like, when does this end? Like, you know, Theodore Roosevelt preserved our land for, for the American people to hunt it, enjoy it, hike it, camp it, whatever you, you know, whatever, whatever outdoor activity you want to do. And he did that because of this exact reason, right?

• 14:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 14:25Shawn Ryan?

  Capitalists. People that, you know, the elites will buy up all the land and then there will be no public land left. That's, that's why he did it. And now we're trying to change that. And, you know, and the other reason I brought John Braxton is because, you know, more and more in the country, it seems like the American people, this just keeps happening more and more over time. I don't give a shit which administration it is. It's, it's the, the American citizen is never heard. All we hear is these fucking politicians and it's becoming more and more clear. I mean, you see polls about all the shit that's going on right now and how against people are against what's happening and nobody, none of these politicians care.

• 15:11Shawn Ryan?

  Right. Almost none of them, no matter what the issue is. They just keep going against the people, the people that elected them in. And I'm just fed up, man. I am so fed up with this shit. But anyways, let me read you a quick intro. We'll get into the, into the nuts and bolts of this whole thing here pretty soon. Braxton McCoy, "A son of Southern Utah, raised roping cattle, hunting elk and fishing with your grandfather, with public lands as the backbone of your life. A combat veteran who survived a suicide bomber in Iraq rebuilt your life at Walter Reed and now you fight to keep America's public lands from being sold off. Author of The Glass Factory, writing

• 15:55Shawn Ryan?

  on the mountains, writing on the mountain during hunting season," you wrote it on the mountain during hunting season, "a guide and advocate, leading hunts since 2015 and championing public lands since 2016, declaring not one acre should be lost to privatization. A rancher and a horse trainer in Idaho, a patriot who sees these lands is bought with blood, from Lewis and Clark to Teddy Roosevelt, and you're calling out anyone, even senators, who dares to auction them off." And like I said, the reason, the reason I found you was that, that tweet from Jaco that said, "We need to pay attention to this." So I dug in and now here we are and we've done some research

• 16:39Shawn Ryan?

  on what Lee's doing and some of the other people that are involved that nobody knows about yet, I'm sure. And um, so we'll get into all that, but, but right off the bat, uh, I want to talk about your ties to the land and, and a little bit of your patriotism, what you've done for the country and all that kind of stuff. So why does this mean so much to you?

• 17:05Speaker 04

  Man, I grew up, uh, we were a poor family. We didn't have a lot. It was common for a lot of people down there. I grew up on a small horse place. My old man trained horses and did electrical work to kind of keep it, uh, make ends meet there. My grandpa was a plumber. His dad had been a dairyman and failed at that and ended up having to move to the city. But he was a big time outdoorsman, him and all of his brothers. Uh, every one of his brothers enlisted as well. And so some, since birth, the, the thing that, uh, we got to enjoy the most as a family was public ground.

• 17:48Speaker 04

  You know, we'd go out fishing and, uh, just, you know, just to look at is nice too. At one time, I think I was about 12. We were up on the mountain and there were some moose down in this pond and my grandma wanted to get footage of it. So I got on the back of the four wheeler and she drove down there and I'm holding on, trying to watch and these, it was a cow calf and they started chasing us. So I got like this, took this video of a cow calf chasing us when I'm like 12 bouncing on the back of this, you know? So just even little, little memories like that, man. My grandpa, he was real good at tying flies. He's the best fisherman I've ever seen. All of his brothers really, but he, he was a real good fisherman. We'd, uh, we'd go down to

• 18:33Speaker 04

  the cricks and he'd get me set up and say, "Okay, I'm gonna go, you know, we'll see who catches the first fish." And I'd be out there casting away and then he'd go sit down and wait for a bug to land on him and catch and make sure it was the right bug that looked like they were eating and then he'd get his fly box out, tie on and he'd start whacking fish. I think trying to maybe teach me a lesson that took forty years to learn.

• 19:02Speaker 04

  But yeah, so it's like, it's been my whole life and uh, you know, I got family in the cattle industry and a lot of friends, you know, so a lot of time day working as a kid, day working, go out and help, move cows around or rope or doctor or whatever you need to do. Mostly for us, it was just helping neighbors and then trying to get horses worked because that was an income source.

• 19:26Shawn Ryan?

  Do ranchers use public land?

• 19:28Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, a ton of them do. And that's, I was gonna say, I always, I get uncomfortable with the word rancher. My buddy and I have a beef operator, a meat selling business. I don't consider myself a rancher. I cowboy, I guess, uh, horseman. I'm not, I think in order to be a rancher, it's gotta be your full-time gig, what makes all your money. And it's really not that for me, but I do love it and I love cattle. And as far as ranchers using land, yeah, man. Uh, in fact, a lot of small family ranches, which are already struggling, they'll be broken by this. They're running, some of them, not all, but some of them are running like ninety-ten deeded to undeeded acreage.

• 20:14Speaker 04

  So like ten percent of their operation is on deeded acres and ninety percent is on public ground.

• 20:22Shawn Ryan?

  Man, you know, I want, I want to move into some of your patriotism too. I mean, you would die for this, you almost did die for this country.

• 20:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:31Shawn Ryan?

  And I mean, You know, the funny thing is, is you get you're getting attacked. I see you've been called a communist. You've been called all kinds of things and you know, you are a typical American who served your country, got blown up by an IED. You have nothing to win. You have nothing personally to win for taking a stand against this. Now, on the other side, I don't know for a fact, but I mean, there's a lot to lose, a lot of money to lose by selling this off. I mean, what developers are going to develop this land and all this stuff. So, and we'll get into all that in a little bit, but I it's just, I want to bring that out like,

• 21:11Shawn Ryan?

  you personally have nothing to gain. No financial incentive. You're not getting any land. You're not, you're not, you don't, I don't, you don't strike me as a person that wants to get famous or, you know, be be having Twitter wars. I mean, none of that, and you're just getting attacked for just protecting American people's interest in public land. And so I want to just, I want you to go through a little bit of your service. If you don't mind to show people, you know, you did fight for this country.

• 21:43Shawn Ryan?

  Did the people coming after you fight for the country?

• 21:45Speaker 04

  Isn't that interesting?

• 21:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. It's always the way, right?

• 21:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:49Shawn Ryan?

  Always the way.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  Man, I, I was, as a kid, I didn't, I hated school, man. I wanted to be outside.

• 21:59Speaker 04

  I liked reading books. Other than that, I pretty much hated the rest of it. I liked science stuff. But I didn't really care for school that much. I liked riding bulls and chasing girls and riding dirt bikes and kind of the typical American thing. And then nine 11 happened. And even though we all hated New York City, those are still our people. You know, it's more of a brotherly piss on you kind of thing, but if somebody else takes a swing, you want to take a swing back. So, I enlisted and I ended up over in Ramadi in oh, five, oh, six timeframe.

• 22:32Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 22:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:33Shawn Ryan?

  The hot time.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  It was. Yeah, it was busy, man, for sure. That

• 22:41Speaker 04

  and typical kind of war. Tons of guys have way more combat experience than me, you know, a few gunfights here and there, some sniper fire. We, we crashed a CH forty six one time. The pilots called it a hard landing, but it felt like a damn crash to me.

• 23:01Speaker 04

  We were like two minutes off this objective and the forty six, those things are like Vietnam War or Korean Warrior or something. And it got like an electrical fire or some kind of thing and we ended up back and we made it all the way back to FOB Ramadi and hit the PLZ, that big concrete one there. And then of course got right back on a bird and flew back and did the stupid mission. Yeah, so that was kind of a lot of log pack security type bullshit too, you know, a handful of actual PSD stuff, but for the most part, they just tasked us out into, we were very generalized, you know. EOD needs a lift somewhere, someone's in a tick, you know, just kind of that sort of stuff.

• 23:46Speaker 04

  And then on the fifth of January, we were providing security for this marine element that was to, that was recruiting Iraqis in order to send them over to a different country to be trained up to be police officers. And my understanding as just an absolute idiot on the ground was that they were having a problem because they, they were trying to use Shia to police Sunni neighborhoods in Ramadi and that was just not working out. So they said, okay, well, let's recruit some Sunnis and see if that might be a better gig. So that was kind of the idea. And on the third day, so the fifth would have been the fourth day, but on the third day was, it was supposed to be the end. The recruitment drive was supposed to be done and over with.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  But there were so many people that had showed up that we were out until like midnight and then we finally had to just send people home. And the catch is there were, there were not even any slots left. We were doing this for show at this point and everybody knew it, but they were trying, you know, hearts and minds, all that shit. So they said, okay, we got to go out one more day. Well, they'd only promised us three peaceful days and it's Ramadi in the beginning of oh six. You could just about guarantee that you're going to have an issue. And the day before, either the day, either the day before or the day before that, we had watched guys sit at a bus stop and never get on anything, just watch us all day. Yeah, and we passed that up.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  So we, we knew what was going on. And then, so on the fifth, that morning, we go to S2 and get the brief. And the brief is like, hey, you need to be on the look for V beds. Because they're going to attack you with a V bed. And he said, alright. And I even made the joke, we get in the trucks and I was like, well, let's go get fucking blown up, dude. Because everybody knew. We get there to the, this place called the Glass Factory and it's just like what you would imagine. It's a factory, you've probably been there. And I haven't. Okay.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  There's, so it's just a, a kind of a, it looks like all the other factories over there, which are not all that different than ours, except for some architectural differences. But it has this wall around the sort of compound and that wall has a big gate to let trucks in and then a man gate to let people in. And we were using the man gate to let the dudes through, the Iraqi dudes through and then wand them and then send them in to be, go through the recruitment process. Jumping jacks and all that fun stuff. I still, I still got videos of that.

• 26:25Speaker 04

  And, well, we get there that morning to the man gate, dude, and there is like a thousand Iraqis lined up at the door already. And these people, these are not a punctual people. So we, we called up and we're like, hey, this is a bad, really bad idea. And they said, basically, Roger, continue mission, you know? I go, alright. So I, I went and talked, I was Bravo team leader at this time. And I went and talked to my first line leader, his name is Johnny. And I was like, John, I, I don't want to put guys out there. This is stupid. And so he and I decided we would go out with our interpreter.

• 27:07Speaker 04

  We called, we called him Carlos because we thought he looked like he was from Juarez rather than Iraq. So we go out with Carlos and just start asking questions. And pretty soon this guy, and you know, just the typical stuff like, why are you here on time? You know, why'd you get here early? The guys, they'd say, "Well, I just want a good opportunity at the job." Or, "A sheik cleric told me to be here." And that is usually a tip off. And, so I'm in the middle of talking to this dude, and another guy comes up, and he's like frantic. And he's yelling, and I know like thirteen words in Arabic or whatever, and none of them are like very kind.

• 27:50Speaker 04

  So, I'm try- I can't tell what he's saying, and I'm asking Carlos, "Man, tell me, help me out here, I have no idea." And he says he sees a bomb. And I said, "Okay, what kind of bomb?" And he says, "A bomb with wires." So my brain immediately went to tripwire. No, he said grenade, I'm sorry, grenade, that's what it was, grenade. That's how Carlos translated it to me, anyway. And so I'm thinking tripwire. So I radio up, we had internal comms and then external, so I radioed our team. And was like, "Hey, don't come out here, there's a tripwire somewhere." You know, there's like a thousand Iraqis wandering around, you can barely keep these people. So, I say, "Don't come out here, we're gonna try to figure this out."

• 28:32Speaker 04

  And then, within what feels like moments, a semi truck crashes through our concertina wire on the eastern perimeter. And then, of course, everybody lights it up. You know, we've told the V bed, everyone's thinking, "That's a big ass V bed." You know. Uh, so we take, this guy gets taken out, and now there's Iraqis running all over the place. You know, they think they're stuck between literally a rock wall and a gunfight. So they're going fucking ape shit. And we've got this truck and driver to deal with. And, uh, so now we actually need help. And, not too long after that, Lieutenant Colonel McLaughlin shows up and a couple of dog handlers.

• 29:17Speaker 04

  So Lieutenant Colonel Mac comes out with his PSD team to start trying to help us get people organized. This is a fucking lieutenant colonel out there with a bunch of fives and sixes and fours, you know. He's a very, very brave man. And these dog handlers were Marines, and we'd done a few like joint stuff with those guys. And they, they said, "Hey, do you want us to go get our dog?" And Sergeant Can's dog was sleeping on the hood of my truck. I was like, "Yeah, go get that sucker up, dude." So he comes out and- Now we're getting these people back in lines and we needed them in like three different lines. One, do you have a government ID? Do you have no government ID? Do you have a government ID, but you worked for the Bath Party?

• 29:58Speaker 04

  Cause we can't employ, you know, Bremer made it so we couldn't employ Bath people. So we needed to kind of filter them through quickly, once they went in. And right as we start to get everything pretty stabilized, I hear, and I'm on the radio actually with my medic. And I hear Bruno start growling. And I remember I just looked up under my K pot and he's got this dude's arm in his mouth, this Iraqi dude. And then next thing is just two bright white flashes like boom, boom. And I wake up face down, I feel like I'm not even, I don't even know if I was fully conscious, conscious really. Face down and I know I am really fucked up.

• 30:43Speaker 04

  And I, I can see organs and stuff right here, like kind of under me. But my arm, the only thing I could really move very well was my right elbow. And I got myself propped up on my right elbow and was looking. And I thought, holy shit, I got blown in half, you know? So I, my left humerus had been broken, but my left hand worked. So I was like rubbing this organ through my fingers, trying to see if I could feel it. And I don't know, dude, I felt an ad me. I don't know if you can even feel organs like that, right? But I'm sitting here.

• 31:25Speaker 04

  And then I hear Johnny screaming my name, just like everybody, everybody else, anybody with a McCoy or Mac, whatever. It's just Mac, right? And so I'm hearing Mac, Mac. And then next thing I know, I can feel like a little weight off of my back. And then a little more weight. And then these organs kind of pulled out and I could see the top of my hips. Yeah, so I was like, fuck, at least, you know, at least I got hips, right? But I couldn't really see much more. And then they rolled me over and when they rolled me over, that's when I knew my legs were totally screwed. That they didn't, like, they were rolling like this, you know, wobbling.

• 32:09Speaker 04

  And what had happened is I, essentially, everything that didn't have armor on, I got hit by ball bearings. And my right femur was busted in two places, my left in three. My left tibia, my left hip was broken in two spots, my right hip in one. My radius and ulnar were broken, the, all the bones in my right hand. My right median nerve was transected right here at my wrist. My left humerus was broken, I had brain injury, busted ribs, broken back.

• 32:44Speaker 04

  And I was laying there bleeding. And you know, the first thought you have is after seeing stuff, you think there's just absolutely no fucking way I'm gonna live. You know, so then you start doing that stupid shit like, you know, tell my mother I love her and, and that kind of stuff.

• 33:05Speaker 04

  And then my medic gets there and he starts cutting my pants off to try to assess, right? And pretty soon he goes, dude, you're not wearing any underwear, you know?

• 33:17Speaker 04

  And I was like, fuck you, dude, it's cold, okay?

• 33:23Speaker 04

  So we're trying to have as much fun as we can about it.

• 33:28Speaker 04

  But I think pretty much everybody thought I was gonna die, including me. And every time, so your femurs, your, your glutes are so strong that when your femurs break that bad, they contract, they pull together. So my femurs are like as long as they were wide, which in the end might have saved my life really from bleeding out, but I could see every time I would, my heart would beat, water would, or blood and kind of pus and stuff would come out of all these different holes. Like if you had a water bottle and squeeze it rhythmically. And so they were trying to get that stuff patched up and they pretty, you know, I think they realized pretty quickly that they just had to get me on a medevac or I wasn't gonna

• 34:13Speaker 04

  make it. And the medevac they had available was a five ton. So they threw me on a litter and then put me on this five ton. And some sort of major in his infinite wisdom had put speed bumps on the road all the way from Ogden Gate to Charlie Med. So you know, those five tons, it's like riding on a brick already. Yeah. And so just bouncing back there, rattling, I feel my bones inside, you know, in my book, I think I described it as like a bag of wrenches, you know? Damn.

• 34:53Speaker 04

  And they get me to Charlie Med and that's where they established, you know, started getting blood transfusions going in my arms. And then they put me on a bird to try to medevac me to Bullard, you know, which is where you want to go. You want to get to an air force base instead of an army one, right? But we got in the air and then I was bleeding out too much. So we had to stop in TQ to Quatum. We stopped there to get more blood. And then again, we had to stop in Fallujah. Holy shit, man. Yeah. And they had a trauma med center there. And so they started, that's where

• 35:36Speaker 04

  they put the pick line in my neck, I think. So at one point I had like eight quarts of blood going in. But I, I was developing compartment syndrome in my legs. So they're swelling internally and they're doing everything they could to try to save my legs, you know? So to,

• 35:54Speaker 04

  Uh, Fallujah. They got me in traction splints and I hadn't had any pain meds yet because my blood pressure was so low. They couldn't hit me with morphine, you know? So they grabbed my legs and they gave me like a rag to bite on and, and man, the, the pain was intense enough that I was in and out. Anyway, I think. But I bit down on that and they got my leg on those traction splints and stretched them out and then they took a, a knife and cut. Obviously a surgical knife, not like a buck knife or something, but they split me from knee to hip on both sides all the way up and then put wound vax in. To try to peel that swelling and infection and that kind of shit out.

• 36:39Speaker 04

  And then I went from there to Balad. And then from Balad to Landstuhl and then from Landstuhl to Walter Reed.

• 36:50Speaker 04

  Holy shit, man. Yeah, it was.

• 36:54Speaker 04

  Pretty intense. How long were you at Walter Reed? The, let's see, like four, three or four months, the, the army put together a program at that time called CBHCO, which was like community based. Healthcare organization or something like that, one of these army acronyms and there was, what was really happening is there were so many dudes. They were wounded at the time that they had, they were running out of beds, you know? So they were trying to get guys, once they were eligible for outpatient care, they were trying to get them back to their hometowns for civilian hospitals, just as offload. You know, they said it was because they thought dudes would heal better and maybe they really did think that, but I think it was probably because they were running out of space.

• 37:37Speaker 04

  So I was there for like three months and then I did outpatient in Utah for. Another year and a half or so, I think, something like that. Another few surgeries and rehab like four times a week, you know, physical rehab. And then they retired me in August of.

• 38:00Speaker 04

  I think it was August of oh seven. It was oh seven, but I think August of oh seven.

• 38:04Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 38:06Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 38:08Shawn Ryan?

  You go through all that to be called a communist.

• 38:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:11Shawn Ryan?

  From politicians. Nice.

• 38:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, man, another.

• 38:16Shawn Ryan?

  It's real classy.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  I try to not say this too much because it's such a heated thing, but another thing is, man, I I volunteer as a sheriff's deputy now. I got in a gunfight last year for my community.

• 38:29Shawn Ryan?

  I heard that. I heard that.

• 38:31Speaker 04

  You're gonna call me a fucking communist, dude?

• 38:34Speaker 00

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• 39:05Speaker 01

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• 39:39Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's get into, let's get into, let's get into the history of this. I read something about Lewis and Clark, so give us a history of preservation of, of land.

• 39:55Speaker 04

  When somebody asked me, "How did we end up with public land?" My answer is conquest. War, treaties, purchase. That's how we did it. If you go all the way back to the Articles of Confederation, you can see this idea emerge that the people of the United States who just fought this war to free themselves of a king, own this land. Now, they were... So at the time, Georgia, uh, let's see, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, those states had made claims on land that went all the way to the Mississippi River.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  Which, what, so that means that South Carolina, Maryland, places like that are now landlocked. So they're debating these issues, trying to put together a government, you know, while we're winning this war over here. And those seven states who were landlocked were saying, "Hey, wait a minute. This is our blood and treasure on the line too. You don't get to just claim all of this extra territory and lock us out of the potential for growth and development and all of that." So the agreement they come to is that we will design state borders and put the rest that will cede, these other states, colonies at the time, will cede that land to the federal government in the public trust

• 41:21Speaker 04

  for the betterment of this nation moving forward. So that concession was made at the birth of this nation. So that's the first war. Then you go from there to stuff like the Louisiana Purchase. Uh, you know, I don't know if you heard, but Napoleon was fighting a whole bunch of people over there, needed some money. And he finally said, "You know what? How about I just sell you this whole thing for $15 million?" So we buy that. And then you've got other pieces like Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, uh, the War of 1812, which eventually ended up with land being ceded to us, the whole 49th parallel stuff from the British government, and both Spanish and Mexico.

• 42:05Speaker 04

  So basically, war and conquest from that point is how we won this, this land back. I think that's a really important point to start. So it's not me that's doing the blood and soil thing. It's the people who founded this country.

• 42:19Speaker 04

  So if you're gonna call me a communist, I guess you're gonna have to go back to the founding generation and call them communists, cuz that's what they thought.

• 42:27Speaker 04

  Lewis and Clark, no one really knew what we had bought in this Louisiana purchase. We just knew that it was a good deal and we had just doubled the size of our country, which seems like a pretty good thing. And they did it for fifteen million dollars. It's not like it was a huge expense. Now, we were pretty broke at the time, but either way.

• 42:48Speaker 04

  So Jefferson establishes this Corps of Discovery to put them out on a grand expedition and he trusts his friend Meriwether Lewis with this. Meriwether Lewis then recruits his friend from the army, William Clark, and they put together a team and go out and what they're looking for is a Northwest Passage. They wanted to find a water source that would run from the Pacific to the Atlantic. So basically, kind of in a way, trying to solve the problem that we later solved with railroads, right?

• 43:25Speaker 04

  So these guys go out. In my opinion, it's one of the bravest things anyone's ever done. I mean, you have, some people thought there might be freaking dinosaurs out there. They had no idea what was still extant in the wilderness. And so they go out and get on this boat, about fifty people or so, I can't remember the exact number of people, and they start pulling this boat up this Missouri River, having no clue what's gonna be, you know, at the end of it. The first winter, they winter in Mandan, North Dakota, and they're learning, they're, you know, meeting natives and learning some things from them, making trades with them, scaring the shit out of them with our technology, you know,

• 44:08Speaker 04

  stuff like that, trying to make peace where they can, see who they can make peace with and who they're gonna have to fight as we institute this whole manifest destiny idea. And then the next year, they go from there to essentially the Rocky Mountains.

• 44:27Speaker 04

  In fact, so on the way through there, what in what is now modern day Montana, they find themselves up against their very first grizzly bear. And I just kind of love this story because Meriwether Lewis, if you read his journals, he's like bragging in there at different points about how he's killed 300 bears. Like I ain't afraid no damn bear, you know, all this.

• 44:53Speaker 04

  And then he's out with a few other guys and they run into this bear that he describes as a white bear. You know, sometimes grizz can look kind of silvery backed. And there's two and they're watching him and they sneak up to about 100 yards. And him and this private both shoot these two bears. And anyone who's black bear hunted before knows like what you would expect for the most part is that bear to run away. Well, grizzly is a whole different animal and the Indians have been trying to tell them this. You know, they called it like the great white bear and stuff like be careful of the great white bear. And well, they shoot these things and they immediately charge at them. So they, you know, these are they're shooting foot locks. So it's not like they can just empty a mag into them.

• 45:38Speaker 04

  So they turn and run. And it gets to the point where Lewis has to jump into the Missouri River to try to get away from this bear. Chased him for like 80 yards before it had, uh, you know, and again, that one that chased him gets all the way to the river. And then finally starts to tire and doesn't come in the water after him anymore. The other one had ran toward them and then died. It was hit more in the heart. But then they go back and do like examine these bears and he realizes how big they are. And then he writes about how different this place is and how wild and difficult it's going to be to tame. You know, if the bears are this much harder out here, then what else are we gonna find?

• 46:20Speaker 04

  And then the one that he that chased him, he'd hit it through both lungs. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, man. Their grizz are no bullshit for sure.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I, and even in my own life, I enjoy, I like just looking at grizz, but I take them pretty seriously. Yeah, yeah. So that's, that's kind of where this stuff starts. And then, you know, of course, eventually they make it back. Plenty of adventures along the way and report back to Jefferson like, hey, this is what we found. There is no Northwest Passage, but there's all this other stuff. And in the meantime, that land that had been ceded to the federal government, they were using some of it to pay off soldiers. If you were a private, I think you could get 100 acres, you know, if you were an enlistment, you could get like 100 acres.

• 47:17Speaker 04

  And then if you were, I think a colonel or above, you could do as many as 500 acres. And they were kind of starting to expand in that way. Another thing Jefferson realized, I think, was one of the, one of the most intelligent or wise parts of the idea of manifest destiny is he understood that we did not have a military that could conquer the amount of terrain that we had. He knew it was not going to be possible. So the next best resource is your American people. You know, the, the average person's pretty brave and durable, too. So we're trying to move them out west and establish new states, provinces, towns, villages, all this kind of thing, farms.

• 48:05Speaker 04

  And that, so that happens for, you know, another little while and then just to kind of give a really broad overview of how the lands ended up in the situations they're in. Then we do things like homestead acts and timber acts and mineral acts and these kinds of things. And we put them in place and say, go out and conquer more. We've got more ground to take care of and.

• 48:29Speaker 04

  What happens really quickly with the Homestead Act type stuff is the further west you get, the more arid and austere the ground gets. So now we've got to go from 160 acre Homestead Acts to, you know, 300 or 380 or whatever it was. And then all the way up to like sections of land, because it takes more land to be able to make a living on. Then we end up, again, I'm just giving you a very broad, then we end up with a timber baron problem. And it wasn't just, you know, the robber baron concept. It wasn't just timber barons. There was, you know, people that were overgrazing and things like that, too. But to speak straight to the timber baron thing,

• 49:12Speaker 04

  the, they were going out and just clear cutting entire forests. You know, they were trying to make money, man. And there was this idea in America, you see it with stuff like the buffalo, too, where this was a totally endless resource that you could never actually extinguish. So I don't even think they were that terrible of people. I really think that they thought there was going to be another timber section and another. And, you know, by the time they got to the end, perhaps this other stuff would have been grown back. I think is kind of their mindset. But that was not what was happening. And then enter a guy called Penosch, and I could be saying his name wrong, but he was friends with Teddy and they're part of the Boone and Crockett Club

• 49:54Speaker 04

  that Teddy put together. And his dad was a timber baron. And instead of passing that business down to his son to go do the same thing, he kind of had this ethos of you're going to fix the stuff that I screwed up because I overdid this. So he sends him off to forestry school in like Flor- or not Florida, I'm sorry, France, Germany. And he goes and learns about forestry management. And then he comes back and ends up working with Teddy on the preservation of these forests. And this is after, of course, the Forest Act was put in place, I think in 1891. So we'd had a couple of presidents who'd made some national forests before Teddy. But Teddy's the one that,

• 50:36Speaker 04

  Teddy and Penosch come in and they're the ones that really get after. I think they established like 100 national forests to be preserved. And another thing I love about those two is they-

• 50:49Speaker 04

  They both were like men's men. They loved the box. They would go down in the basement and fight each other all the time and then they go back up and just like work on policy. It's like a barracks. You know what I mean?

• 51:02Speaker 04

  So like this guy's not a pussy, you know, and I guess I would say he's not a communist either. And this is kind of where the ethos of uh preservation and protection starts. In my opinion, and that's again a broad overview.

• 51:17Shawn Ryan?

  That's good. That's good. How how much US land in acres is is is public? Do you know?

• 51:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, it depends on how. So a thing they like to do is use the term federal land. Now, that's that is a team certain thing certain politicians really like to do is use terms that have a colloquial meaning and a more legalistic meaning. So they'll use terms like federal land because that is how it's written in a lot of these acts. But when he's specifically him and some others, when they use it, what they're trying to do is get the American mind to conflate military bases, Indian reservations, things like that with public accessible ground. So that you kind of think of it all as one thing and it's really not.

• 52:10Speaker 04

  What you see this in that red map that everybody likes to post. Have you seen that one? It's white and then it's just all this red. Well, they've got national parks and Indian reservations and military bases wrapped up in that red map. I think that's the, you know, the the main takeaway there. So I got myself distracted. What was the actual question?

• 52:30Shawn Ryan?

  How much? How much?

• 52:31Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 52:31Shawn Ryan?

  Public land is there in acres in the US?

• 52:34Speaker 04

  BLM's got about 250. Uh, I think I think 245 million acres. Forest is like uh 130 or 150. National parks is like 90. Uh, US sports or USF, the fish and wildlife stuff is right around 120, I think.

• 52:57Speaker 04

  All millions. Millions, yes. Yeah, and those are the ones, and then you've you've got monuments, but monuments are wrapped up in forest or, you know, they're wrapped up in other agencies for the most part. So tha- that's kind of the basic layout of the total acreage. I think it ends up around 600 million. Wow. Yeah. But don't let them conflate military bases and Indian reservations. Is that, is that what they're converting? Military bases and Indian reservations? No, they can't touch, they know they can't touch Indian reservations. That's what I've thought. But I didn't think they could touch any of it, to be honest with you. Well, we do have processes for that.

• 53:39Speaker 04

  This is conspiracy stuff in my brain. This is not anything, this is just an opinion and a thing to think about here, though.

• 53:48Speaker 04

  If a full rollback, to use a term, were to be made on public lands, I think reservations would sue the government.

• 54:01Speaker 04

  A fear there is, I don't know if you know this, but we broke a lot of treaties with these people. And if you look at the ruling in Oklahoma, I think it was last year or the year before, the Supreme Court essentially ruled that 40% of Oklahoma now belongs to the tribes, and now they're trying to work out exactly what to do with that. You know, if you've got a farm there, do you, do you pay your taxes to the tribes now, or how does that work? So that's being fought, and I think that you could see, you could see stuff like that happen in the West easily. Now, the conspiracy side would be, well, if you're a developer, that sounds great. A lot of these reses need money.

• 54:45Speaker 04

  So you're just gonna buy it from the res now. Who cares, right? And again, that's conspiracy. Mm-hmm. Makes sense.

• 54:55Shawn Ryan?

  So how long, how long has this been, how long has this push been?

• 55:00Speaker 04

  Mike Lee's 2010 campaign was already talking about this kind of stuff. But it's been going for before that. It's not just him. There's lots of other people. So it's, none of this is new. I think they've already lost three lawsuits trying to push for essentially the same thing in different ways.

• 55:21Shawn Ryan?

  2010, was it the same? What I understand is they want to build affordable housing on public land because of the housing crisis. But if I remember right, 2010 land housing was

• 55:35Shawn Ryan?

  it's like a fire sale.

• 55:36Speaker 04

  Especially around Utah, it took a little longer for the 2008, 2009 thing to hit southern Utah, the more rural areas. So yeah, it's never really been about affordable housing, in my opinion. Also, this is another one of those terms that seems to be being used in kind of a legalistic way and also a colloquial way like, uh, my understanding as a layperson is that affordable housing, section eight kind of stuff comes with other stipulations. Like there has to be amenities for this stuff, mental health centers, roads, bridges, infrastructure, food, they have to have easy, ready access to food. Kind of in a sense, the 15 minute walkable city thing applies to that in a sense.

• 56:22Speaker 04

  Uh, and then affordable, that sounds like, hey, my kid can't afford a house right now. Build a house that he can afford.

• 56:29Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 56:29Speaker 04

  And that's the part they're trying to sell people on. And I don't see, I don't see how that's actually gonna come out of any of this.

• 56:37Shawn Ryan?

  Where, where is the?

• 56:42Shawn Ryan?

  Like, how many different states are involved in this? How many different?

• 56:46Speaker 04

  In the push?

• 56:47Shawn Ryan?

  In the push. It's between two and three million acres.

• 56:52Speaker 04

  Well, it would affect, for the most part, it would affect the 11, the 11 western states that have the most public land in them. As far as who's pushing it hardest, it's usually Utah, has been since forever.

• 57:06Shawn Ryan?

  What do the people think?

• 57:07Speaker 04

  The people hate it. I mean, depending on where you source your numbers, this is either a 75, 25 issue or a 80, 20 issue. I mean, the people hate it. They've never wanted it.

• 57:22Shawn Ryan?

  Where, what, where is the land located that they wanna build all this stuff?

• 57:29Speaker 04

  I haven't seen an actual map.

• 57:32Shawn Ryan?

  It's like right outside of the city, or is it far away?

• 57:37Speaker 04

  Well, that's the claim that's being made, but we, we already have a process in place for land that's near cities or needs to be developed, so I don't.

• 57:50Speaker 04

  I would like to see the map. You know, one, a person could speculate.

• 57:58Speaker 04

  There's this whole corner crossing fight happening in the West right now. And are you familiar with the concept of corner crossing?

• 58:04Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 58:07Speaker 04

  As we were developing the West, one of the ways we paid for the railroads was to give them land.

• 58:15Speaker 04

  What that ended up with is land that looks like an actual checkerboard. So there'll be a chunk of land here that is privately owned, and then a chunk of public, and so on and so forth, and it builds this checkerboard looking pattern.

• 58:31Speaker 04

  Some states were trying to block sportsmen and others from crossing over the corner between those two chunks of land. And the landowner was saying, essentially, you're violating my airspace by doing that. In some states, I think you own about 200 feet of the air above your house, which is probably a good thing. It should be illegal to fly a drone over my house, right? But that's, that's not really what you're doing. You're crossing, you know, I guess half of your body or something is crossing it. So that fight is going on, and it looks like sportsmen are gonna have a big win on this thing. And I imagine that the landowners who own those sections that have been trying to keep people out

• 59:15Speaker 04

  are not very happy about this potential win for the common man. So that's one person who, or one group type of people that I would say stands to benefit from this a lot.

• 59:28Speaker 04

  Then they can just swoop up those sections that are locked in between their land. Is that, are those the sections that are going up for sale? Supposedly going up for sale? Man, the language seems to have changed so many times that I don't. It's really, it's getting hard to argue with because it keeps, the goalposts keep getting moved. But I would say, yeah, for sure. A, another weird thing about that is we've done land swaps with those kind of people before. In fact, I know of one in a different state I, I can't and don't want to out the person in, uh, the group involved in it. But it would probably benefit both sportsmen and, uh, this wealthy landowner if this were to happen because it,

• 1:00:12Speaker 04

  their, their place is giant. It would be cut in half. And now there would just be two contiguous tracts of land because they would swap with each other across the board. It would have to be approved during a public comment period, like public input has to be involved. And if the public says, yeah, let's make that swap. That's better for us both, then good. So things like this can already happen.

• 1:00:38Speaker 04

  Interesting, interesting. What are some of the, what, what are the, what is this public land being used for right now?

• 1:00:47Speaker 04

  Hunting, fishing, recreating. Uh, I think the word scenic is actually used too. So just for looking at, which is a value, uh, in my opinion unto itself. Uh, hiking, camping, looking at the freaking stars, you know, it's one of the least light polluted areas in the world. It, it's a place where the everyday American can go live like a king used to essentially. Like we're all little petty kings out there. We can kind of do whatever we want. And some people will say, well, it costs you money to get on. That's okay at national parks or developed campgrounds. But on undeveloped ground, it doesn't cost you anything. You can just go out and use it whenever you want, even if you live in Hoboken, New Jersey, you know?

• 1:01:31Speaker 04

  So that's what it's being used for. And, uh, a, there is, uh, that is some of the stuff that it's being used for. There's a multiple mandate, multiple use mandate in place right now under FLIPMA, which is the Federal Land and Policy Management Act.

• 1:01:48Speaker 04

  What that multiple use mandate guarantees is the preservation of the land for the use, for its own value, and also for the use of the American people. So for recreating, grazing, extraction.

• 1:02:06Speaker 04

  In the past,

• 1:02:09Speaker 04

  I would argue from a conservative, right-wing perspective that a lot of the managers within these agencies have stood in the way of parts of that multiple use. You can just imagine someone saying, "Well, I want to bid on this piece of timber. Here's our reason why we think this will fit within FLIPMA, and I want to go through that process." And then it gets stalled by bureaucrats within an agency. So I can understand the frustration because I think FLIPMA gets abused in a lot of ways under like NEPA and others. What is FLIPMA? Federal Land and Policy Management Act.

• 1:02:54Speaker 04

  But it's a...

• 1:02:57Speaker 04

  It has been abused, for sure. But it's also been used well. I mean, guys are still out grazing. You know, some of them maybe not as long as they want to, and there's probably strong arguments in some of these cases for being able to graze a little more than they're grazing now, but it's, they're at least out there grazing. Guys are still out there hunting. They're still out there fishing. You know, they're still out there with their family. Timber extraction, mining,

• 1:03:24Speaker 04

  oil extraction, all of that is still happening on public lands. Perhaps not the scale that everybody wants, but it is happening. Another thing that we have in place that a lot of people don't know about that I actually think is terrible in a lot of ways is you can hard mineral claims. My understanding is that, that old law that goes clear back to like 1871 is still in place. And I think it was the Hard Minerals Act. I can't remember the exact name. But it, within that act, it establishes that anyone, including a foreigner, can come here, and if they find hard minerals and get a claim approved, they can mine it. And under that system, the federal government gets nothing from it. Whereas in other extractionary processes, they get a percentage.

• 1:04:10Speaker 04

  So I think on minerals like lithium, I think the federal government gets a sub 10% as far as revenue sharing goes. I think the states on those same things get something like 4%. I don't quote me on all these numbers, but it's something like that. The revenue sharing process. And a lot of these mines are foreign people, you know? I think that's a real problem that should be addressed, but nobody seems to want to address that.

• 1:04:36Shawn Ryan?

  You mentioned something about putting refugee camps on the land, too.

• 1:04:40Speaker 04

  Well, the there's a whole shitload of money going into refugee resettlement in the West. If you go to rando land on Twitter, you can see, look at these grants yourself. I mean, it's like 10 million, 4 million, 12 million, all for different refugee resettlement. So when I hear affordable housing, I'm sorry, I guess I'm a conspiracy theorist, but my alarm bells start triggering.

• 1:05:06Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm. I mean, there's something to it, right? I mean, you're getting attacked for speaking out. I mean, how are you? How are you getting attacked?

• 1:05:17Speaker 04

  Why is it?

• 1:05:18Shawn Ryan?

  Are they coming after you?

• 1:05:19Speaker 04

  In some ways, I don't know. I was told that they hired a firm to dig into me, dig dirt up on me or whatever.

• 1:05:28Shawn Ryan?

  Who's they?

• 1:05:29Speaker 04

  Uh, I was told specifically it was, I don't want to get sued over here, but I was told specifically, so allegedly here, that it was Michael's camp that did that. You know, whether that's true or not, I don't know. How am I going to confirm that? If you're any good at digging into somebody, you probably don't call them and tell them you're doing it, you know? Uh, so that's one way. And then, I don't know, it sounds like you got some calls.

• 1:05:55Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, we got, we got some, we got some calls, that's for sure. Like I said, that's how I was like, oh, man, this is, we must be over the target here because a lot of people are telling me, don't do this interview. Don't do it. But.

• 1:06:14Shawn Ryan?

  But like I said now, then when that happens, I feel like I have to do it. But I feel like it's my duty to do it. And but what are what are some of the, I mean, so it's affordable housing, potential refugee camps, section eight housing, what else, anything else?

• 1:06:33Speaker 04

  Well, they're trying to say the section eight thing might not be in play, but the director of HUD said as much just a few months ago. You know, he straight up said, we want to build seven million homes. That's what he said.

• 1:06:48Shawn Ryan?

  Seven million?

• 1:06:49Speaker 04

  That was the term. And if you look at numbers, man, let's say seven million and call it three people to a home. So 21 million people. Well, there's 500,000 or 600,000 people in Wyoming. Montana's got about a million. Idaho's got like 1.8. Utah's got like 3.5. So you you're going to put 21 million people in there? I think there's something like around 200,000 voters in Wyoming. How many do you think it would take to flip? That state 50,000?

• 1:07:28Speaker 04

  It should the number sure as hell is not a million. I know that. You put a million people even in a state like Utah, Utah, they voted this last one quote me on these hard numbers, but they voted something like 55, 45. And that's what Trump, who is a once in a lifetime figure politician, he's extremely popular. So how red versus blue are they now with all these this growth? And these states have already doubled in population since the year 2000. I think Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Arizona have all doubled. Nevada as well have all doubled since like the year 2000. And if you went to an old, an old local, ask them if they think things have gotten better.

• 1:08:12Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, oh yeah, I hear it all the time, especially after COVID. Every time I go out west, that's what that's what they're bitching about. The California people, every single time.

• 1:08:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:25Shawn Ryan?

  But Montana, Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee, literally Texas, everywhere I go, that's what they bitch about. No, is we're being abated by California. But um, but.

• 1:08:42Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I want to talk about... Actually, let's take a quick break. Okay. And then we'll pick up.

• 1:08:51Shawn Ryan?

  Join me for our first ever livestream debrief hosted exclusively on Vigilance Elite Patreon. We'll unpack the China-Taiwan conflict, reveal insights from our Dubai trip with GBRS Group's J Cal, and break down the Iran-Israel conflict's impact on everyday citizens. Stream it for free on July 1st, 6pm Central Time, on Vigilance Elite Patreon.

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• 1:11:06Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Braxton, we're back from the break. Uh, I forgot to give you something at the beginning. Everybody gets a gift. Yeah. I was getting, I was pissing myself off by going through all this. Thank you. Vigilance lead gummy bears legal in all 50 states. Just candy. Cool. Not gonna feel weird after you. Thank you. A little sugar high. But, um, yeah, so, you know,

• 1:11:33Shawn Ryan?

  I saw this, uh,

• 1:11:36Shawn Ryan?

  everything seems to be like very vague on this and, and like it, I just watched this thing on, uh, Charlie Kirk's where Lee was on, he called in and they were talking about map 444, which actually 444 is a big number to me. I think that, uh, that's, I think that that's how God speaks to me. Okay. Is the number 444. And, uh, just saw this clip this morning, but it was, it was saying that the fear mongers are using map 444. But the reality is it's map 443. And, you know, and, and, and,

• 1:12:18Shawn Ryan?

  but it doesn't seem like there's any clear clarification on what exact land. Now, he did say it was adjacent to basically

• 1:12:31Shawn Ryan?

  adjacent to, to, to towns or places that are occupied with people and, and that it's, it made it seem that it was right outside of town. But I mean, my fear is,

• 1:12:45Shawn Ryan?

  when does this end? Like the minute we do that, then it goes on and then it goes on and then we do start getting into the national parks.

• 1:12:54Shawn Ryan?

  I want to know what the, what the financial incentives are here because the people seem to be clearly speaking up saying, no, this isn't what we want to do. And, you know, another thing that came to my mind just on the break is I just interviewed, um, really good guy. His name's Augustus Dorico. He's doing cloud seeding, which is another super controversial topic, right? But he had said in his interview that, I believe he said within 10 years, all the aquifers out west.

• 1:13:24Shawn Ryan?

  will be run dry. There's not enough water out there. So where are they going to get the water to bring in seven million homes when all the aquifers there are going to be depleted within 10 years? But how are they gonna, how are they gonna do the water?

• 1:13:42Speaker 04

  They, I have asked this question multiple times and I don't get an answer. So I guess let me know if you get one. There isn't water. I mean, clear back to when John Wesley Powell first surveyed it. They knew there was no water. He was writing back saying, look, man, this is that much of the territory out west is just not suitable for agriculture and things like that. It just isn't. It's too dry. Utah's the second driest state in the union. I think their average annual precept is around precipitation rate is around 12 inches. The only one drier than that is Nevada. If you look at the Colorado River system, I think Lake Mead's down 150 feet right now.

• 1:14:24Speaker 04

  They're getting to a point from what I've heard, they're getting to a point where they're now starting to worry about issues with drawing power from the hydroelectric dams if they keep. I think in 2026, the Colorado River Compact is supposed to have an update. So percentages will change. Percentages are drawn from each will change. Well, I was at my in-laws a couple of weeks ago and I was watching local news. There was a 20 minute piece about how there's just no, they need to build homes around Washington County, St. George,

• 1:15:02Speaker 04

  that kind of stuff. And there's just no place to do it. We, you know, we don't have room, you know, etc. Clearly trying to sell this bill to people. It was a realtor and a politician for the most part talking. And then maybe a sob story from some person that probably moved there from California whose kid can't buy a house, which I'm receptive to, man. Home prices are ridiculous in the West. So I, I get that argument, but. The Realtor was saying things like, uh, if I built, if I could get 1,500 new homes in this area, I could have them sold before they were done being built, you know, stuff like that. Obviously, real estate developers would enjoy that, Realtors would enjoy that, but then the water question comes up, and even in this piece,

• 1:15:47Speaker 04

  there's just some weird vagaries. They say, oh, we're gonna build six new reservoirs down here. Like, okay, well, you can build a dam, but you have to have water to fill the reservoir.

• 1:15:59Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, Utah, Utah specifically knows this because when I interviewed Augustus, Utah is one of the states that is, is they're worried that the Salt Lake is gonna dry up.

• 1:16:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 1:16:11Shawn Ryan?

  And so they have him cloud seeding, trying to bring water into that valley. And

• 1:16:19Shawn Ryan?

  and I can't remember the other states that are working with him on this, but they're, all of the western states are worried about the water supply. The other thing is, you know, if we're talking about affordable housing, then why aren't we fixing cities like Baltimore, Washington DC, St. Louis, Chicago? All, I mean, we have affordable housing all over the place and it's a disaster. It's a disaster. So what, why are we just putting new sections of it all over the map when we could just fix what we already have? I mean, you see these dilapidated buildings all over the place. Redevelop that. You know, and so there has to be some kind of a financial incentive, I would think for,

• 1:17:05Shawn Ryan?

  for this hard of a push, plus all the pushback I got about having bringing, about bringing you on the show. I mean, that was like a siren going off in my head. And so I wanted to, I wanted to ask you about, uh, this gentleman. We kind of looked into him a little bit, but Clint Brown, the president of American Path Initiative, 501(c)(4). I'd never even heard of a 501(c)(4) before. But apparently, apparently it is a organization that

• 1:17:36Shawn Ryan?

  You don't have to, you don't have to report all of the money. So it's a great way to send dark money to whoever you want. And from, from what I, Jeremy, can you, can you give us a quick lowdown on Clint Brown?

• 1:17:51Speaker 03

  As you said, he's the president of American Path Initiative. He's also responsible for helping get Cash Patel through his FBI director nomination in the Senate. And he was a, he worked in the Senate with Mike Lee for over a year.

• 1:18:08Shawn Ryan?

  He worked in the Senate with Mike Lee?

• 1:18:10Speaker 03

  On the staff.

• 1:18:11Shawn Ryan?

  Is Mike Lee attached to this president of American Path Initiative 501(c)(4)?

• 1:18:16Speaker 03

  Because he's a political candidate, he can't be attached to a, to a 501(c)(4).

• 1:18:20Shawn Ryan?

  He's got, he's got real ties with this guy though, right? And it'd be a great way-

• 1:18:25Speaker 03

  He has worked with him in the past.

• 1:18:27Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, okay. Interesting.

• 1:18:32Shawn Ryan?

  Do you know about this guy?

• 1:18:34Speaker 04

  I've had Twitter interactions with him. That's about all I know. Besides what you guys just said. I guess maybe-

• 1:18:44Shawn Ryan?

  Did he make a burner X account to come after you?

• 1:18:47Speaker 04

  I, I could never prove that, but it was funny. This rando account was only responding to my tweets. And it was like calling me gay and shit, you know? Doing like 20-year-old Brokeback Mountain jokes, that kind of thing. Like, you think I haven't heard that shit? You know? It's like, what the fuck, dude? The thing about that-

• 1:19:13Speaker 04

  Dude, when they do that, it drives me crazy too, because here's some film written by some Skittles person, like however many years ago, that's trying to denigrate our culture. And then we've absorbed it into our own lexicon, you know? That annoys me. But other than that, that's not new. Well, this, this account, eventually, after I went and looked at it and looked at all the replies, eventually I just said, "Is this you, Clint?" And it replied, "No." Uh, which is a funny way-

• 1:19:46Speaker 04

  I think if I was running a burner, I'd probably, and again, I don't know, right? I'm just speculating. I have no idea. I could never prove this, not even necessarily attempting to. But I would probably say something like, who the fuck is Braxton or whatever? I'd probably be smarter about it than to just write no. And then it deleted itself right after that.

• 1:20:06Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, the whole account disappeared?

• 1:20:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, I took screenshots because I thought it was really weird.

• 1:20:11Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. We'll put those screenshots up. You got them?

• 1:20:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're on my phone.

• 1:20:15Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect. Have they identified the, actually, let's put in his LinkedIn as well. We'll put a screenshot of this guy's LinkedIn on there, just so people know I'm not just making shit up out of thin air. But, um, but have they identified the developers? Or is BlackRock involved? BlackRock buying up neighborhoods at a time? And, you know, who, who are the developers that are going to develop this land if it, if it does get sold? Who would it be sold to? Would it be sold to the developer?

• 1:20:53Speaker 04

  These are all questions I'd like answers to. I, I don't know. Uh, I know that when Senator Lee has accused me of lying

• 1:21:07Speaker 04

  uh, to his constituents, I have posted underneath a list of his donors and, and he said I was being paid. No one's paying me. I mean, no one, I've never been paid for public land advocacy, ever. Uh, I mean, people, uh, organizations have bought flights, you know, but no one's ever paid me for it. I've always done a volunteer. In fact, I bought my own flights down here just because I thought it was so important, right? It's like, I'm not, I don't mean that anything by that, other than to say no one's paying me. So when he has said that, uh, I have posted underneath, here's a list of your top donors. No one's paying me to lie. Who's paying you to lie? And no one ever responds. And on that list, you've got stuff like Club for, Club for Growth, Microsoft, uh, Blackstone.

• 1:21:56Speaker 04

  I can't remember what the others are, but I've got those on my phone as well. So Blackstone, from what I understand, is, you know, private equity equity type stuff that invests in this kind of thing. I think Utah is fourth in the nation for private equity investment in single family homes. So I don't think it'd be too difficult to start drawing lines if a person wanted to or knew how. I mean, I'm an idiot. I don't know how to do this stuff. I barely. The only reason I do any good on Twitter is it's just an app that is really easy to use. I'm not good at tech, man. How did you get involved in this? How did it pop up on your radar? Well, I've been arguing with this guy about this issue. This guy's in Senator Lee?

• 1:22:39Speaker 04

  Senator Lee, yeah, since twenty, at least twenty something. I mean, you've been in an, in his office. Yeah. You've, okay. Yeah. Let's go through this whole timeline of, of how you got started. There was a. Now. Senator Lee and I believe Ted Cruz and some other politicians had put together this thing they were calling the Public Lands Initiative, which was a push to seed, in their terms, back, these lands back to the states. Which is a total misnomer because the, if you go to the Utah Enablement Act, there's language in there that straight up says, here's your seven million acres, you never get any more.

• 1:23:21Speaker 04

  And I, I think I sent you guys the screenshots of that, so you can put it up. It says, you're not entitled to any more, basically, ever, you know, but in lawyer speak. So it was never their land to begin with. But that's a good way to push this kind of thing on to the public. Cause like, if you, if you take somebody who's got a grazing allotment in Southern Utah, for example, if he's got an issue with the riparian area, so he's trying to fix some kind of water on his place, and it's BLM, it is much harder to get that done through the BLM than it is on state ground. Cause there are allotments on state ground as well. What does the BLM stand for again? Bureau of Land Management. Okay.

• 1:24:03Speaker 04

  And Utah has a thing called, uh, SITLA, that covers most of their state lands. It's like, uh, student initiative teachers, some shit. It basically, it covers, uh, that, that, these lands are managed to make money for the Department of Education.

• 1:24:23Speaker 04

  Well, if you wanted to fix some stuff on a riparian area on state land, it's way easier. Just as an example, and they'll even let you use your equipment and time and stuff like this as an in-kind contribution. So it's cheaper. I can totally understand why a guy who's a rancher down there would prefer state management to BLM management on an allotment. But from a political perspective, or from the perspective of the people that are pushing this, they know that if that land were to be ceded to, not back to, but ceded to the state, there's a provision in the constitution that says that the state constitution,

• 1:25:04Speaker 04

  which is true of, this is true of basically every western state I know of. There's a provision in there that says any land held in our trust has to be managed to essentially highest maximum value. So it has to make money. Well, I mean, I don't think I need to explain to people a grazing allotment is not going to make as much as a data center or something. So you've just set it up for being sold off by transferring it into state control. Unless the constitutions were to be amended. So are you saying they might be putting data centers? Out there too? It's just speculation, but yeah, I don't see why you wouldn't.

• 1:25:46Speaker 04

  If AI is the future, as everybody's saying, you know, we've got to build our demonic overlords. Just from a financial perspective, it's got to be cooler to run them in the mountain west, where you've got six months of winter and a lot of wind. And I'm sure these, you know, I know computers get hot fast. I'd imagine giant ass computers get hot even faster and are expensive to cool. So just one reason to move them out there. Another reason is they'd be very remote and a lot easier to harden. You know, if you think of it from a tactical perspective, if you put a data center in the

• 1:26:27Speaker 04

  middle of like six sections of land, you can get this thing out of mortar range or whatever, if that's something you were worried about. So you put that in the middle and then you hire security and you've got a suite set up for your data center, bring in some H1Bs and put them on there and I guess-

• 1:26:44Shawn Ryan?

  But this is, this is speculation.

• 1:26:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, totally.

• 1:26:47Shawn Ryan?

  Alright, let's, let's not do speculation, let's just do, let's just do facts.

• 1:26:52Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:26:52Shawn Ryan?

  So let's move into, e- e- even the voting stuff that you mentioned, I, I understand it, but I don't think that is, me personally, I don't think that is a legitimate argument about, you know, well, the state might flip. Well, if the state flips, the fucking state flips. Like, people live there now and they have a right to vote. But, but my, my concern is, this is our land. It's my land, your land, this is American, Americans' land that they're able to enjoy, like Theodore Roosevelt wanted us to. And now, it's potentially going up for sale. So, let's, let's start with how you, how you got involved.

• 1:27:35Speaker 04

  So when this public land initiative was going, I, before I learned more about this, I had been amenable to the idea of transferring to the states. It's, it's a really easy sell if you don't get in the weeds, because a guy, of course, local control sounds better, right? So I thought, yeah, this would be much better for everybody, give us our land back, that kind of thing. But, when you look into the details of it, that's not like, you're not likely to keep it. And when Teddy and others put this thing together, the idea was that it belonged not just to us, but to those yet in the womb of time, to our grandchildren, right?

• 1:28:14Speaker 04

  Well, I joined an organization that was supposed to be like a nonpartisan organization. And got involved with them doing advocacy stuff. In fact, my wife still bitches at me to this day because I I had forgotten about this. But I guess the day before we got married, I went to a trade show to do advocacy for this stuff. And so she had to go to a trade show for a few hours and she's still pissed about it, you know, eight or 10 years later, you know. Uh, so I joined this organization and I get in voted into state leadership. I actually didn't want to be in state leadership. I just wanted to try to provide the perspective of someone that didn't live in Salt Lake.

• 1:28:56Speaker 04

  You know, like a liberal perspective. I wanted to have our voices involved. So I was going to these meetings and, you know, pushing my. What do you mean you got elected into state leadership? The organization has an election process, so they elected me and put me in a Southern Utah chapter board leader or whatever title they had. And again, I didn't even, this is not something I desired in any way. So that meant I needed to go to this rendezvous in Missoula. So I went up there. And attended some of their workshops, hung out at the beer garden, went to the lectures, all that kind of stuff. But at one point there was this ethics panel and it was some very smart people up there on this ethics panel.

• 1:29:41Speaker 04

  And they were deliberating on the ethics, the difference between morality and legislation and other nerd stuff. And I, when it came question, answer time, I got a mic and was just like, I actually don't think you guys understand the difference between morals and laws at all. And I presented a scenario that was basically if a deer is stuck in a fence.

• 1:30:09Speaker 04

  If you shoot it without permission, you're breaking the law. But if you leave this thing whose leg is completely ripped up and is gonna die anyway, to suffer, then you've cut against your morality. So there's just a real easy delineation between the two things. And I was saying, you guys are trying to argue that ethics are foisted on us by laws, and I think the exact opposite is true. Laws should reflect our ethics and morals. So after presenting that, some people came to me and said, we want you to go to DC and lobby. Uh, well, advocate. I don't even know what the right term is. Okay, I don't want to get anybody in trouble. Whatever the hell the right term is, either lobby or advocacy.

• 1:30:51Speaker 04

  So I went and presented my case to our representatives in DC. Those that I could get ti- FaceTime with, which at that time was basically all of them or uh, their high up staff people, which is who you really want to talk to anyway, for the most part. And at one point, I'm in Lee's office, and I don't want to get it any family in trouble, but they, one of his staffers ends up, because we're arguing about this transfer idea. And I was saying, for all the reasons I just mentioned, I don't think it's a good idea. And they pointed to, basically, they were calling me an absolutist, like they're doing now, which I'll just happily wear at this point.

• 1:31:35Shawn Ryan?

  What's an absolutist?

• 1:31:35Speaker 04

  That I just want, I don't want them to take any of it now. I don't trust them with an anchor, you know? So they're, they're calling me an absolutist. Uh, it's another way of you calling me an extremist and others. It's not just me. There's plenty of people that are out there saying this stuff. I mean, Cameron Haynes is saying this stuff. He's got a huge platform, you know?

• 1:31:53Shawn Ryan?

  It seems like anybody that's big in hunting, outdoors, fishing, they're all, they're all beating to the same drum here. So there's something to it.

• 1:32:04Speaker 04

  Totally. It's, you've, if you've proven yourself untrustworthy, why would I trust you with even an inch, right? That's kind of my viewpoint on it. So they get up and they, they got an actual plot map of Utah, and they pointed at a parcel. And they said, well, what about a parcel like this? Why can't we just have this transferred? And I said, I know the family that runs cattle on that personally. You know, they're a friend of mine. So you'd be taking food and money out of their pocket if you did this. And I don't.

• 1:32:39Speaker 04

  At least with the staff that didn't go over particularly well. I'm not saying it embarrassed them, but it probably did, you know? So that was my first interaction with the guy who, who, by the way, I thought was a pretty decent guy. Otherwise, we, we disagree strongly on this one thing. But I never thought he was a bad guy. I mean, I've done interviews like six months ago saying, I think he's a good guy. We just disagree and I think you're making a huge mistake. But if you're hiring people to look into me, I don't know about the good guy thing anymore. My opinion's starting to. And I think he probably still is a good guy. There's just something going on here. So that's kind of where it started. And then I eventually.

• 1:33:22Speaker 04

  I ended up leaving that organization because I had begged them not to let this thing become a liberals who haunt organization or else it'd be absolutely doomed. And that's what they did. You didn't want to politicize it. Yeah, you can't. You cannot politicize this issue. Especially as a liberal, because it's the conservatives in Utah that are that want it, you know, to a degree as far as the politicians go.

• 1:33:54Speaker 04

  In fact, at while I was on that trip, one of the guys from that organization way up in the leadership there. He was, we were at a dinner. And he was essentially, but I, he might've even straight up used the term, but he was calling me a baby killer. Because he used to be with one of these other liberal orgs that goes over to war torn areas. And so he was doing like the meme. You know, baby killer meme. So that was kind of, at that point, I was like, all right. You know, if you guys are this ridiculous. I'm not interested in staying. So then I've just been kind of on my own, trying to educate people whenever the subject comes up. Are there any politicians that are against the transfer?

• 1:34:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, Ryan Zinke. Ryan Zinke has been great.

• 1:34:44Shawn Ryan?

  He's a SEAL. He was, he's a SEAL out of, he's a congressman out of Montana, right?

• 1:34:49Speaker 04

  He is, yep. And he used to be Secretary of Interior under Trump. Did a lot of great things. In fact, I was at the OAR breakfast. I can't even remember what that acronym is. It's like outdoor, something in research. Basically, they go over how much money is brought in by hunting, fishing, recreation, that kind of stuff. It's around eight hundred and sixty billion a year. So this is big money. And then Secretary, at the time Secretary Zinke spoke.

• 1:35:20Speaker 04

  You know, so I shook his hand, but I don't know him, never really met him. I don't want to, you know, hello, thank you. That's it, right? But since then, when he, he got into office, he has since reintroduced this Public Hands and Public Lands Act that would protect this kind of stuff and, and add another layer of protection to what is already there. I mean, he's been fantastic and totally stalwart on this.

• 1:35:46Shawn Ryan?

  You know, the, the other thing that I, I know that it sounds like Lee is trying to do is reduce national debt, which I think we all want that, but you know, there are lots of other ways, I think, to reduce that debt.

• 1:36:01Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of other ways, but nobody's acting on them. And then, and then, and then the other thing, you know, there's the, there's the affordable housing. But I mean, there's other ways to do that. I mean, I don't know, cut some taxes, put a, put a little money back in everybody's pocket to the American citizen and then, you know, maybe they can go buy a house. But I mean, this is one, one thing, but you know, would, I mean, do you think that?

• 1:36:31Shawn Ryan?

  Is there anything good that could come from this?

• 1:36:36Speaker 04

  For the everyday guy?

• 1:36:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:38Speaker 04

  No, I don't think so. No, I don't think the everyday guy wins anything. If he was going to, there wouldn't be this many people pissed off at me for saying I don't think so. I think when these arguments come up,

• 1:36:55Speaker 04

  it, the argument, the, the response should be,

• 1:37:00Speaker 04

  the everyday man, hunter, fisher, wrangler, recreator, you know, that, that kind of thing, he only loses. He loses access, he loses his heritage, his birthright, all of that. The winners are mega corps, donors, politicians, that kind of thing. Kind of typical American story.

• 1:37:26Speaker 04

  The, the talk of,

• 1:37:31Speaker 04

  you've got to allow for growth in these places, all of that. That sort of thing has been argued since the beginning.

• 1:37:38Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we just established there's been plenty of growth this state. You met, you rattled off several states at the beginning that had, the population has doubled since 2000. Definitely plenty of growth.

• 1:37:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, and we went to the fucking moon while all of this existed. So I don't think it's necessarily holding us back in some serious way.

• 1:37:58Shawn Ryan?

  Did we go to the moon?

• 1:37:59Speaker 04

  Well, right, I don't, you know, there's that.

• 1:38:05Speaker 04

  Well, we at least made a really cool film.

• 1:38:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think the everyday, the everyday guy only, only loses.

• 1:38:18Speaker 04

  Grazers, hunters, all of them, it's just a loss. And then I would really like to drive home again, the point that this is the only place on earth that's like this. You can't just go do whatever the hell you want in Germany. I'd like to use them as an example because they have a roughly the same percentage of quote unquote, public land as we do, roughly 28%. But in Germany, you can't just go hunt wherever you want, or go hike around whenever you want. And sometimes people will push back and say, well, you can't either because you need a license. Like, well, you have to manage the species too. These are two separate arguments. But in theory, yes, I can. You know, I can go

• 1:39:01Speaker 04

  in Idaho, I can go buy a tag over the counter every year. You can't do that in other places. So this is a loss for us and a win for someone else. Take your bet.

• 1:39:12Shawn Ryan?

  And then all the animals that will go extinct because you're saying that this is, this is where they go during the winter.

• 1:39:18Speaker 04

  Mule deer populations are on decline across the entirety of the West, have been for years. Nobody knows exactly why. Most likely, it's a combinatory thing. It's a, it's more than just one thing. Certainly, loss of winter range is one of those things. Mule deer only live in the Western United States and Canada, like in, that's it. And from my, I don't like to pretend to be overly pious because I am a Christian, but I suck at it, you know? And I'm not trying to do a false immunity thing. I just am really not very, I'm trying to be

• 1:39:58Speaker 04

  better, but I, I suck at it. And I don't want to pretend to be overly pious. But the book that we all adhere to, in theory, one of the initial commandments is to be a steward of creation. So killing off a species, especially one as iconic as a mule deer, I view as a sin, an actual sin. And that's probably what would happen. The only state I know of that's heard has reached stasis. It's now, it's down from 1 million to about 400,000 animals, last I read, is Wyoming. And one of the things they did, I think Eastman's worked with the head biologist

• 1:40:43Speaker 04

  of mule deer there. One of the things they did was identify some tracts of land that were used as a migratory route, a couple of ridges, and those ridges had fences on them because they were privately owned. And they came up with some money, bought those ridges. This is my understanding. They bought those ridges out and then removed the fences and now their herd has reached stasis. You know, some of these animals travel 100 miles.

• 1:41:12Shawn Ryan?

  You know, people are worried about land preservation all over the country, too. I mean, just, just for example, here in Tennessee, I told you since, since COVID, this has been, it's overdeveloping. There's piles of people jumping in here. And now, just, just in this state, there is the Tennessee State Land Trust where you can put your, put your, put your property into a trust and to, to preserve it so that it can never be overdeveloped. And, I mean, like I said, people all over the country are starting to worry more and more about overdevelopment and what's going to happen to our forests and our rivers and our creeks and our conservation, you know, and, and so.

• 1:42:01Shawn Ryan?

  Man, you've been on this for 10 years.

• 1:42:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, long, yes, as far as talking to, to people about it, anyone who would listen. But I, dude, I remember being in Iraq. I, I wrote about it in my book, however long ago I wrote that freaking book, but we were, I can't remember if we were on an OP or we were in, you know, who, whichever it was, I think we were on an OP. We were talking about what do you miss back in the world, you know, that kind of thing. And everyone's talking about their family. And of course, I love my family and everything, but I said the dirt. And they were.

• 1:42:38Speaker 04

  Even my friends kinda shocked and I mean it, you know. The, there's this concept on Twitter that it's not magic dirt is what they say. And I understand what they mean when they say that. They mean you can't just bring anyone on earth here and then magically they're an American just because they touched the dirt, right? But it is magic dirt. It's magic because of us, our history, our heritage, the people that made this place. It is magic dirt. So not in that other sense, but in this sense it is. And I love it, man. So yeah, I, I've been on it since, you know, when I got wounded, dude, I was 20. I turned 20 in Iraq. So I was thinking about this stuff back then.

• 1:43:20Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. One thing you missed the most was the dirt.

• 1:43:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:43:26Shawn Ryan?

  Braxton, I, I think that might be the perfect place to end this, but I do wanna ask, if Senator Lee was sitting right here in my chair across from you right now, what would you say to him?

• 1:43:39Speaker 04

  I, uh, I'd say what's wrong with the process that we have in place? And it seems like you're trying to ride the popularity of Trump to ram through a pet issue and I'd like an explanation for why that is.

• 1:43:58Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we reached out to his office. We'll probably offer him a slot here to give him his, to give him the opportunity to tell his side, even though it's already all over the place. I think this is the first time he's spoke on a, on a fairly decent sized platform, correct?

• 1:44:13Speaker 04

  I did Jaco's a couple of years ago.

• 1:44:15Shawn Ryan?

  You did?

• 1:44:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:44:16Shawn Ryan?

  Cool. But, well, Braxton, I, like I said, I really appreciate you coming down here. I think it's very honorable, you know, the fight that you're putting up and, um, and it seems like the majority of America is behind you and not behind the politicians. I wish there was more politicians other than Ryan Zinke fighting this, but doesn't look like there is according to you.

• 1:44:40Speaker 04

  Well, at least on the right wing side.

• 1:44:43Shawn Ryan?

  One more thing, we just got some news that came in. Can you read that off, Jeremy?

• 1:44:48Speaker 03

  Trump administration to end protections for 58 million acres of national forests. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the Clinton era ruling barring road construction and logging was outdated and absurd.

• 1:45:03Shawn Ryan?

  Well, there goes 58 million acres. Is that what that means?

• 1:45:08Speaker 04

  Well, it depends. You have to be careful not to lean into hysteria. The, the left is good at that.

• 1:45:18Speaker 04

  Extraction is covered under FLIPMA and can and should be done responsibly. The, the old way they used to say it is, uh, graze it, log it, or watch it burn. It can and should be done. It just needs to be done responsibly. And so this is another one of these places where I'd like to see the map because I don't know who put out the very first map that everybody was reacting to. But if you know the areas, some of the areas that were designated for logging were stuff like juniper trees. And as a lover of mule deer, I hope they cut more of those, but you're not logging junipers. So whoever, I, I want to know exactly which sections and how it's going to be done, but yeah, you should log.

• 1:46:03Speaker 04

  I mean, you have to really. Some people, we have wilderness areas. Now wilderness.

• 1:46:10Shawn Ryan?

  So that may not be a bad thing.

• 1:46:12Speaker 04

  No, maybe not.

• 1:46:13Shawn Ryan?

  That may not, but it says giving up protections, correct?

• 1:46:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, but it all, so it could be bad. You just have to be able to identify the plots in order to make the, the decision. Some areas do need to be logged a hundred percent.

• 1:46:28Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, I wish you the best of luck and, um, maybe we'll do a follow on if any more develops.

• 1:46:37Speaker 04

  Good. Thanks, man.

• 1:46:38Shawn Ryan?

  All right. Cheers.

• 1:46:39Speaker 04

  Appreciate it. Cheers.