August 31, 2026 • 36 mins
Hour 2 of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show centers on debates over crime, law enforcement, public policy, race, agriculture, food prices, and the future of American beef production. Clay Travis continues hosting solo and revisits themes from the first hour, including the ongoing Lindsay Clancy trial, public attitudes toward violent crime, and concerns about what he views as a cultural shift in how society evaluates victims and perpetrators. As jury deliberations continue in the Clancy case, Clay discusses the possibility of an insanity verdict and takes listener calls addressing criminal responsibility, mental health defenses, and high-profile murder cases.
A major focus of Hour 2 is the tenth anniversary of former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick's national anthem protests and the broader legacy of the Black Lives Matter movement. Clay examines what he describes as the consequences of "Woke 1.0" politics, referencing recent comments from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about earlier progressive movements. He argues that anti-police rhetoric, calls to defund police departments, and criticism of law enforcement had significant real-world consequences, including rising crime rates and increases in homicides during the late 2010s and early 2020s. The discussion explores policing, criminal justice policy, public safety, urban violence, political accountability, and the long-term impact of social movements on crime trends in America.
Clay also shares a personal story connected to a recent high school football game in Nashville, where a teenage student, Cameron Frierson, was fatally shot after attending a game. Using the tragedy as a springboard, he discusses violent crime, unsolved murders, community safety, and the importance of supporting law enforcement efforts to identify and prosecute offenders. He also explains his decision to contribute personal funds to increase a reward for information leading to an arrest in the case. The segment expands into a broader discussion about homicide statistics, crime prevention, and the challenges facing major American cities.
The hour includes extensive listener interaction, with callers debating criminal insanity defenses, the justice system, and societal responses to violent offenders. Clay contrasts punishment through incarceration and psychiatric institutionalization while continuing to argue for stronger accountability in serious criminal cases. These conversations touch on legal standards, mental health treatment, criminal law, and public perceptions of justice.
A significant portion of Hour 2 is devoted to an in-studio interview with Ben Spell, founder of Good Ranchers, focusing on the rapidly rising cost of beef and broader challenges facing American agriculture. The conversation explores food inflation, cattle production, ranching economics, food supply chains, and agricultural policy. Spell explains that U.S. cattle herds have fallen to historic lows and discusses factors contributing to higher beef prices, including drought conditions, supply shortages, processing capacity limitations, and long-term challenges facing America's ranchers.
The interview also addresses growing concerns about imported meat and food labeling. Spell argues that many consumers are unaware of where their beef originates because country-of-origin labeling requirements were eliminated years ago. The discussion examines transparency in food sourcing, American-made products, domestic agriculture, and proposals to restore mandatory origin labeling so consumers can distinguish between imported and American-raised beef. Clay and Spell frame the issue as one of consumer choice, national food security, and support for American farmers and ranchers.
Another key theme is American food independence, with comparisons drawn between domestic energy production and domestic food production. The hosts discuss whether the United States should prioritize rebuilding cattle herds, increasing processing capacity, and strengthening agricultural self-sufficiency to reduce reliance on foreign imports. Topics include supply-and-demand economics, livestock management, food production policy, ranching incentives, independent meat processors, and the role government can play in supporting long-term growth in American agriculture.
Spell also shares the entrepreneurial story behind Good Ranchers, explaining how he and his wife built the company after discovering what they viewed as a lack of transparency in the meat industry. Their discussion touches on small business growth, entrepreneurship, family-owned companies, food quality standards, American sourcing, direct-to-consumer food delivery, and consumer demand for healthier and more traceable food products.
Throughout the hour, Clay fields audience questions about beef production, cattle feeding practices, grass-fed versus grain-finished beef, food quality, climate conditions affecting ranchers, and
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back in. Hour number two. Clay and Buck will
continue to take some of your calls. Buck will be
back with me tomorrow. He is out with his family today.
I hope all of you are having fantastic Mondays wherever
you may be across the country. You're just joining us. Hello.
Go check out the YouTube page if you have not already.
(00:23):
Go subscribe if you have not already. We are having
a lot of fun every single day, and you can
clip a lot of the different things that occur on
this program there, and the audience is growing rapidly. I
want to hit you with the first hour. We have
been talking about Lindsey Clancy and a really good Wall
(00:46):
Street Journal piece that I read over the weekend about
the fact that roughly one in six people edging towards
one in five of Americans today find killing acceptable, whether
it's the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, whether it's Charlie Kirk,
whether it is Lindsay Clancy murdering in cold blood her
(01:08):
three young children, the five-year-old, the three-year-old, and the eight-month-old.
There are nine women on this jury. The longer this
jury deliberation goes, the more I think they're going to
find her not guilty by reason of insanity. I really do.
And I'm basically preparing myself for it. We'll continue to
(01:30):
take some of your calls on that. I did want
to talk about a story about right and wrong and
the overall impact that it can create. You know, it's
the 10-year anniversary of basically of Colin Kaepernick taking a
knee during an NFL game to protest what he said
(01:51):
was the mass killing of innocent black and brown people
by police officers. I want to play this cut from
AOC because she says, oh, ha ha ha. It turns
out woke 1.0 was kind of crazy. Defund the police. Oh,
that was an awful idea. Eliminate prisons.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Ha ha.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Well, that's just kind of woke 1.0. We can't be
held accountable for the stupidity that we put out into
the world. Here was AOC recently saying woke 1.0. Ha ha.
Just a little bit crazy. Listen.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Woke one was crazy.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Just laughs it off. We're now into woke two. And
I do think that that is maybe even more dangerous.
Woke one. I've got a column going up on Sporting
State about this. I wrote it over the weekend. Woke
one was America is a fundamentally racist country and cops
are killing black people and we need to make sure
(02:54):
that cops basically don't exist. We should defund all the
police and we should just have social workers responding to
911 calls. Do you all remember it? Because I do.
And now AOC just wants to laugh it off and
there are no consequences for being wrong about everything. But
I want to talk about the consequences. And I want
(03:16):
to talk about Colin Kaepernick on the 10-year anniversary of
him taking a knee and what actually happened as a result.
I went into the data. You guys know I like
to dive into data. I like to look at the numbers.
I like to determine what overall is the true story,
not the story that is told, but what the numbers
(03:38):
actually tell us. The numbers tell us that from 2016...
Through 2022, the overall number of murders skyrocketed in the
United States as Black Lives Matter said and told us
police are killing innocent black people all over the country.
(04:02):
Thousands and thousands more murders occurred. I looked up the data.
Do you know if Colin Kaepernick had never taken a knee?
If BLM had never become an issue? if it had
never existed at all, and we just had basically the
same number of murders as we had in 2016, in 2017, 18, 19, 20, 21,
(04:23):
and 22, do you know there'd be somewhere around 20,000
more people alive today? 20,000 more people alive. an entire
(04:44):
basketball arena full of people that are currently dead that
would have likely, because unfortunately most people who are murdered
are young men, that would have continued to have their lives,
to get married, to have kids, to grow into older age.
(05:05):
They would not have had funerals. They would not have
had families destroyed by the death, the murder of their kids.
20,000 more kids would be alive today if woke one
had never happened. Can we play AOC laughing again? Woke
(05:27):
one was crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
We supported policies that led to 20,000.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
More people dead than.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And by the way, Colin Kaepernick, who is still considered
a hero on the left, do you know that around
10,000 of those murdered kids, young men, were black? I
(06:04):
don't know why no one will actually look at the
data and talk about this, but do you realize that
Black Lives Matter led to more young black men dead
than if Black Lives Matter had never existed in the
first place? This to me is a perfect window of
what social media does. It doesn't, and I think it's
(06:24):
connected to what's going on with Lindsay Clancy too, it
doesn't just kind of float out there in the cosmos
and do nothing. People respond to morons online making awful arguments,
listen to them, implement their policies, and then when we
see the results and there start to be political consequences
(06:45):
for their results, Cue it again. AOC, when asked about
all of it, she says woke one was crazy. She's
laughing because 20,000 people got murdered because she was a moron.
And there are no consequences. Colin Kaepernick, still a hero,
(07:06):
gets awards every day. The Atlantic is paying him tons
of money. Nike built an entire campaign around Colin Kaepernick
being a hero. He helped 10,000 young black kids get killed.
And they all just laugh. You know, I was thinking
(07:29):
about this because the 10-year anniversary is coming up. I
mentioned it on the show. Some of you may have
seen me talking about it. So I've got a son
who plays high school football. College football came back this weekend.
My son plays high school football. Posted a picture with
him on social media. Played in his first high school
football game on Friday. His first game of the season...
(07:55):
was at a school called Pearl Cone in North Nashville. Now,
I went to public school in Nashville. I went to
high school no more than a mile away from Pearl
Cone in a building that was the old Pearl High School.
Pearl High School, some of you are going to know it,
was an iconic all-black high school in downtown Nashville that
(08:19):
Oprah Winfrey went to back in the day. It's educated
all sorts of older black people. Americans in a pre-segregated Nashville,
in a segregated Nashville, pre-desegregated Nashville. And then they turned
it into a magnet school. It's an academic magnet now,
public school. I was fortunate to get to go there,
(08:39):
got a great education, got scholarships to college, got a
law degree, all those things. But I was a public
school kid from Nashville, K to 12. If I hadn't
been at Martin Luther King High School, If I hadn't
gone to that high school in inner city Nashville, I
would have gone to a school named Hunter's Lane. Some
(08:59):
of you are going to know what Hunter's Lane High
School is. It's a North Nashville high school. And there was,
at that football game, there was a large police presence
at the football game. And... That's because, unfortunately, there's far
too much violence still in cities like Nashville, even though
(09:22):
things are starting to get better. And a 16-year-old kid
named Cameron Friesen was shot and killed just outside that
football game shortly after it ended. And he was a
junior in high school at Hunter's Lane. He had gone
(09:44):
to watch the game. Nobody really knows why he got shot.
Nobody really knows whether he was the target, whether he
was misidentified, whether it was just in some way a
random act of violence. I was reading about that murder
because I was at that football game. And as I
(10:06):
was reading about the murder, I saw there's a $ 5, 000
reward if people can catch that killer. And I'm sorry,
I saw it and I said, $ 5, 000, you have got
to be kidding me. This kid's life was taken outside
(10:26):
of a football game, and $ 5, 000 is the reward. So
I tripled it, tripled the reward. My math's not always good.
Quadrupled overall to $ 20, 000.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I put up $ 15, 000 of my own money.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I said, I want this kid to get caught. I
still do. If you're listening in the Nashville area, you
can go look it up. There's a white vehicle that
they're looking for. Nashville police are trying to catch the guy.
I presume it was probably a guy who did the shooting.
If you look at the data, over 50% of all
murders are committed by young black men in America. Now,
(11:06):
people get all upset when you say that. Oh, how
dare you mention race? You can't solve problems. without figuring
out where the problem is coming from. Let me give
you an example. If I said to you right now,
I've got a magic wand, I'm going to eliminate all
Asian murders. No Asian person is going to commit a
(11:27):
murder in America this year. Boom. And I just waved
my magic wand. The murder rate overall would not change
hardly at all because there's almost no Asian people committing murders.
So the data reflects that when we pull down the
murder rate nationwide, when we actually catch people who commit murders,
(11:52):
black people are going to benefit the most because young
black men are by far the most often to be killed.
And do you know who is most often killing them?
Other young black men. I've never heard Colin Kaepernick talk
about this at all. I was at a football game.
Young black man gets killed outside of the football game.
(12:12):
I've never heard Colin Kaepernick say, you know what? I
want to take a knee because I want to drive
down violence in America. I want there to be far
less murders. No, do you know what he said? He
said police are killing young black men. It's not happening.
And in fact... What he did was make it more
difficult for police of all races, white, black, Asian, Hispanic,
(12:36):
that are out there working across the nation to make
us all safer. He misidentified the issue and actually made
it worse, such that 20,000 more people got murdered, 10,000
of whom, by the data, are likely to have been black.
They were wrong on it all. Defund police. They tried
(12:58):
to end the police puppy on Paw Patrol. For those
of you out there with little kids, grandkids, Paw Patrol.
I've watched a lot of Paw Patrol commercials. They tried
to cancel the cop puppy on Paw Patrol. 20,000 dead.
(13:23):
What does AOC say? Play the tape. Woke one was crazy.
Think about that. What I would suggest to you is
one of the biggest issues that we face as a
country is wrong policy doesn't result in people getting fired.
(13:46):
AOC is not only not going to get fired for that,
she's going to run for president and she might be
the nominee, despite the fact that she's been wrong on everything.
As we go to break, college football is back. I
want you to think about this idea. We have a
higher expectation of job performance for football coaches in America.
(14:09):
than we do for politicians. We fire football coaches all
the time for not winning enough football games. I wish
we held politicians to at least half the standard that
we hold football coaches to. And if you can help
that kid's killer come to justice, Cameron Frierson is his name,
(14:31):
and right now his killer is walking free. And unfortunately,
because of Colin Kaepernick and AOC and all of those
woke one ideas, there are 20,000 people just like Cameron
Frierson that aren't alive today because we decided cops were
the problem and killers took advantage of it. I want
(14:55):
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you prepare for protecting your family? You may want non-lethal methods.
I've got a son who is off at college, saw
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sons and daughters, granddaughters, grandsons who are working late nights,
(15:19):
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(15:43):
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(16:10):
pass along this common sense to family and friends.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Clay and Buck, owning the airwaves.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Welcome back in, Clay and Buck. I hope all of
you are having a fantastic Monday. So many of you
reacting to so much of what we are talking about. 800-282-2882.
We're going to be joined by our friend Ben Spell
here coming up in a moment, if you were watching
on video. I have my assistant Katie's little girl sitting
(16:37):
in my lap right now as we've got friends coming
into the studio. Sean in Springfield, Mass. wants to weigh in. Sean,
what have you got for us?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Hey, what's up?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
It's Clay.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Clay.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, fire away, Sean.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I'm here.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Let me just say something. I follow these cases, these
cases of people murdering, claiming to be crazy. But I
do know one thing. We have 350 million people in
the country, Clay, and you have 350 people. The more
people you have, unfortunately, the more nutcases you have. And
let me just give you one famous case, and I'll
(17:15):
tie it in. The famous son of Sam, David Berkowitz,
when he was caught, he originally pleaded insanity. And he
was held in a Brooklyn psychiatric ward for seven months.
After seven months, just before the trial was going to start,
he changed his plea to guilty because he didn't want
(17:37):
no part of being in a psych ward for whatever
it is, 10, 20, 30 years. They keep these people.
And Hinkley's the other famous case.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, Hinkley was found not guilty. Thank you. We've got
to go to a break here. When we come back,
Ben Spell is going to be with us. Also, I
want to hear from Marie in Wisconsin. You can stay
with us. She says she supports Lindsey Clancy. and is
upset for what I have said so far during the
course of the program. But I want to tell all
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(18:07):
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(18:27):
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(18:49):
Say Clay and Buck. Pound 250. Say Clay and Buck.
Welcome back in, Clay and Buck. We got a lot
of people fired up across a variety of different topics,
and we're going to continue to take your talkbacks and
your calls. 800-282-2882 is that phone number. We will get
to Marie, who's upset about my take with Lindsay Clancy
(19:10):
case as the jury deliberation continues. But one story that
has gotten a lot of attention is the cost of
meat in particular, beef and more. And we have an
awesome guest. He's been spell of good ranchers. I want
you guys to go flood good ranchers dot com as
we are talking about So that you can go check
(19:32):
out this website. Usually they are an advertiser, but he's
also an expert. And so I want to start with this.
I didn't realize this until President Trump started talking about
bringing in beef from out of the country. I want
to start with this. What percentage of steaks out there
are organic? American-raised American beef? This is the entire foundation
(19:53):
of your business at Good Ranchers, but I think a
lot of people are finding out that a lot of
the meat that we consume is being brought in from
out of country. What is the actual reality?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah, so we've been importing. We import beef into the U.S.,
and it's part of our system. But about a little
over 10 years ago, in 2015, we repealed the mandatory
country of origin labeling law for beef and for pork
in the U.S., which means beef and pork can get
imported from any other country anywhere in the world. And
it doesn't have to say where it comes from. And
(20:25):
last year, we imported over four billion pounds of beef
into the U.S. that got sold with no transparency of
where it came from.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
So for people out there that are like me and
you would like to be eating meat that is coming
from American ranchers, That's actually probably a minority of the
meat that people are consuming out there.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, absolutely. But the problem is without the mandatory country
of origin labeling law, and this has been the hill
that we've been dying on at Good Ranchers since the beginning.
We want to connect the American family to the American farm,
and we want transparency of labeling across the industry. But
(21:05):
the truth is you can go to the grocery store
right now or you can go to a lot of
other meat companies online even, and you have no idea
what you're buying, where it's coming from, and what the
quality really is. So for us, we ensure born, raised,
and harvested. The entire supply chain comes from 100% from
(21:27):
American farms and ranches.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Do we have enough? Cows and beef in the United
States right now. Why is the price what it is
for people out there that don't and are not familiar
with the American ranching business? Why is it suffering? Where
are we? How do we get these herds more substantial?
Our herds are at a 75 year low. 75 year low.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, it's it's it's not good. And again, this is
not I appreciate the president addressing the issue about eight
days ago. And he's right with the problem. Beef is
way too expensive, and we need to do something about that.
But just flooding the market with more imported beef with
no transparency doesn't help the real problem. We have to
(22:10):
rebuild the herds. And to do that, we need to
incentivize the farmers and the ranchers that are actually responsible
for doing that.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
That's a staggering number to me. And we're talking to
Ben Spell, Good Ranchers. He's got four kids, by the way.
I'll get you into the origin story of how you
started your business. Eight-year-old, seven-year-old, six-year-old, four-year-old, two boys, two girls.
He and his wife Corley run this business, Good American
Business with Good American Ranch. 75-year low in herds? I mean,
(22:37):
I think that's staggering to a lot of people out there. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And again, the American ranchers have just not been prioritized
over the last decade. And when we took away, when
we silently took away the country of origin labeling law,
as a business, Good Ranchers, we've been trying to tell
this story. We've been shouting the story that there's no
country of origin labeling. We need transparency in sourcing in
(23:03):
our beef and in our pork in the U.S. And
so I think, you know, honestly, the 300,000 metric tons
is a drop in the bucket compared to the 4
billion pounds that we did last year. And I'm not
saying that imports are bad, but right now the beef
can get imported and And there's there's just it just
(23:25):
sits equally alongside American beef, quality beef at the grocery store.
So there's no way for the consumer to tell the difference.
So why would that lower the prices until we get
mandatory country of origin labeling put back on the package,
which the plates we eat on have to say what
country they're from. But the food that we buy doesn't.
That's a real problem.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
What makes good ranchers because I think a lot of
people out there are trying to feed their family healthy
American based products without preservatives, without all the all different
sorts of goods that are being put in. What makes
your product different? And I do think you're right that.
letting people know where their meat is sourced from seems
(24:05):
like something that should be very important. People can choose
not to buy American, right? That's right. But if you
want American ranches to thrive and you want American steaks
to come from American based ranches. You guys, this is
the foundation of your business. Why did you start it?
And tell me about preservatives, organics, like all of these
different things that matter too, because you wanted to feed
(24:27):
your kids particularly healthy food.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Sure. I had a small stint doing sales for a
meat company before starting Good Ranchers. And in that four
month window that I worked for that meat company, I
realized just how quickly, how little transparency there was how
there was no country of origin labeling law and that
(24:51):
the consumer is by and large, very ignorant when it
comes to, um, what it actually, what actually goes into
the process of beef, the process of food. Um, and
I don't mean any offense by that. They just don't know.
And so my wife and I, after about, I don't know,
every few months or so saying somebody should fix this.
Someone should fix this. Someone should fix this after about
(25:13):
a year.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Um, You realize nobody else is going to do it,
which is often how entrepreneurship starts. You look around, you say, boy,
somebody really should do this. And then you go look
for it, and you can't find it. And you eventually,
I bet, you and your wife, because I know the story,
you're just, I guess it's going to be us. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
So I was a worship pastor at a large church
in Houston prior to this. And I'd been that since
I was 20 into my early to mid-30s when we
decided to start Good Ranchers. And for me, it was
really a calling. God said, go do it. And because
I really didn't want to do it. I didn't know.
I didn't think I was qualified to do it. And
but kept having those thoughts every, like I said, every
(25:52):
few months and talk to my wife about it. Somebody
else should do it. And for me, it was a
kind of a Damascus Road moment where God spoke to
me and he said, you do it. And I went
to my wife and we just had our first baby boy,
the one who's eight right now. Um, he was about
six weeks old and I thought she was going to say,
but we don't have any money. We don't know anything
about running a business, where are we going to get
(26:13):
the meat? How are we going to do all the things?
But she said, if you heard God, then I trust you.
And so a few months later, I started selling meat
out of the back of a truck in a parking lot.
And I went from one truck to two trucks to
five trucks to 20 over the next few years. And
then we launched online. That was 2018, 2019, 2020. Then
we launched online in 2021. We shut down all the
(26:34):
trucks by the end of 2021. It went fully online
in 2022. And it's been amazing to see. I mean, one,
it's amazing to know that we're sourcing quality for our family,
for our friends and for hundreds of thousands of families
across the U.S. But it's also amazing to know that
(26:55):
we're supporting our own. Yeah, we're supporting American farms, supporting
American ranchers because they need us. And if and if
we don't support our own, if we don't if we lose,
if we're not producing enough food to feed ourselves, God
forbid what would happen to our country. And if we
if you read the history books, anytime a nation loses
(27:17):
access to their own food and has to be dependent
on another country to feed them, that's a problem.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
To me, it's not dissimilar to energy independence, right? I mean, drill, baby,
drill was the president's charge to make as much oil
and gas as we can here. We're now an energy
independent country now. The fact that we aren't producing enough,
and by the way, it's not just steaks, right? It's
not just beef. You've also got chicken. You've got all
sorts of products that people can order out there, including
(27:45):
chicken nuggets if you've got young kids. I know everybody
knows sometimes it's tough to get those kids to eat.
How big is your company now? Obviously, the decision that
you made when you had a baby boy six weeks
old has benefited your family, but you're working. You're like me.
You work all the time because when you drive any
kind of business like this, There is nobody else to
(28:07):
rely on. How much has your company grown? How much
more do you think you could grow if people are
aware of the importance of buying American sourced meat products?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yeah, well, I want to say this first and foremost.
If you know a local rancher, buy from your local rancher.
We exist to connect the American family at the American Farm,
and we're so far removed from.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Our I'm at with you. This is important. Knowing where
your meat comes from is almost unheard of, right? Some
people live in areas where they can go out and
they can buy their own steaks. They can buy their
own meat products. Most people aren't in that position. So
it ships directly to your house. It's vacuum sealed. It's
(28:50):
going to arrive cold and ready to go put into
your fridge. We're having the kids... 15-year-old's football team over
on Labor Day, and we're grilling out all your different
products for everybody to have. But I think that's important.
You can buy your own. You're not saying, hey, don't
just buy from American ranchers.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Buy from American farms and ranches. They need our support.
And if you don't have access to a ranch, then
good ranchers is... That's what you guys do.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Then we're here. They want to hear for you. And
we sell, like I said, we sell beef, we sell chicken,
we sell pork, we sell even wild-caught seafood.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
But, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
two generations ago, um, pretty much everybody knew a farmer
or ranch. Yeah. And then, you know, like, so my grandparents,
I mean, they were farmers and, um, and then, you know,
my parents knew somebody that knew a farmer and rancher,
but today, people, by and large, don't even know how
to cook, let alone know how to source food themselves.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
What would you tell, because they may be listening, what
would you tell the White House if they said, hey, Ben,
good ranchers, you've got a great American business, you're buying
great American meat. What should we do to make meat
products and food overall more affordable? Because that's the goal
here in many ways. What would you tell them that
(30:08):
you personally, based on your experience, you would suggest? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
So I think this is absolutely a moment that the
president could turn into a historic win for American agriculture.
We need to restore mandatory country of origin labeling.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
I think that's first and foremost. And the president had
a follow-up or had a conversation with Glenn Beck last
week and did a follow-up, um, announcement saying we want
to give more power to the ranchers to process. Um,
that's a, that's a good step, but that's not a,
that's not an easy task. Yeah. I mean, we're talking
about a five to 10 year process to make that
(30:43):
happen plan there. So first and foremost, we need to
restore mandatory country of origin labeling. Um, and then we
need to expand the independent American processing because right now
the processing, um, 85% of the beef that's processed in
the U S is controlled by four major corporations. Two
of them are foreign owned.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
That, I mean, that's problematic. That in itself is problematic.
And we need to protect the economic incentive for ranchers
to rebuild their herds. Like I said, 75 year low,
we need, we need to rebuild the herds. So we
need to hang on to females and, you know, build
(31:24):
the herd, back up to a place, I mean, it's
supply and demand. Right now, supply is so low, it's
going to drive the price up. But if we can
get the herds back to a healthy place, we would
have enough domestically to get the prices back down. To me,
it connects with energy independence. To your point, I don't
(31:46):
want America to have to rely entirely on out-of-market locations
to provide us food. We've seen what happens when that
supply can get severely restricted when it comes to oil
and gas, and that was the impetus to create that. uh, this, uh,
energy independence that we have. We need to have more ranchers.
(32:06):
And by the way, this is a long range plan.
Last question for you. It's not like you can just
snap your fingers and say, Hey, we need bigger herds, right?
Like this is a process that has to play out
over years where farmers have to be able to get
those herds back up. So we're not at 75 year lows. Yeah.
So two things. Um, I'm not saying I'm not anti-import
(32:27):
and neither is the ranching community. Imports play a role
into our system. So this isn't an anti-trade and anti-import.
This is a pro-transparency conversation. Label imported beef accurately and
let American families decide at the at the check out.
what they want to buy. Because if we really want
the imports to be sold for less, they need to
(32:48):
be labeled accordingly.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
I'm going to bring you back because a lot of
people are blowing me up with questions, including my own wife.
And if I don't ask the questions that she has,
as you well know, as a married man, I'm in trouble.
So if you have questions about ranching, about meat, hit
me up right now at Clay Travis on Twitter. And
I will hit Ben with a couple more questions here
as we finish the hour, because this is a major
(33:12):
inflection point, major discussion. Beef, how do we produce it?
How do we produce American meats, make it more affordable?
And by the way, go check it out yourself. Good
ranchers dot com right now for a limited time. You
can get a free ground beef bundle with your first
Good Ranchers order. Four pounds of 100% American Angus ground
beef to stock in your freezers. Visit goodranchers.com slash clay
(33:36):
to claim the free ground beef bundle. Plus, when you
start a plan, you get free meat with every order.
Goodranchers.com slash clay. Go check them out right now. You're
hearing from the founder himself, Ben Spell. Good ranchers.com slash
clay for the free four pound ground beef bundle. Good ranchers.com.
American delete meat delivered. When we come back, your questions
(33:59):
here for Ben on playing buck. Miss the show while
you're on the go. Wind down your day with the
daily review podcast. Find it on the I heart radio
app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back in
clay and buck. A bunch of questions rolling in. Appreciate
all of you. The most common question that I am
getting is, including from my wife and multiple people who
(34:21):
are tweeting right now, why are the herds low? Is
it regulation, lack of land? How do we get this
from a 75-year low back up to respectable herd size?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yeah, so we've had years of drought, and the biggest
issue is American ranchers have not been incentivized over the
last decade, really, to expand their herds and to grow
their herds because of the flood of imported beef that
comes in with no labeling. And cattle aren't widgets. Most
(34:55):
people don't really think about this, but it takes two years. Chickens,
you can turn that over in six to nine weeks
from hatch to harvest. But cattle, you're talking about a
two-year process at minimum to rebuild a herd. And so.
(35:17):
The economic incentive has not been there for American ranchers
for a decade or more. And couple that with drought,
couple that with the cost of everything is going up,
the cost of fuel is going up. It takes fuel
to run tractors to get the crops. to bail the.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Hay a bunch of people are asking about the non-labeling
i'm presuming that that was lobbied for by out of
american interest because they wanted to take away the incentive
to buy american-born beef.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Yes and that happened in 2015 under a republican controlled
congress and president obama.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Wasn't was in office yeah um are, how is your
beef fed? It's, I believe the answer is grass fed beef,
but I'll let you tell everybody.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Boy, I don't have enough time to go into all
of this. Um, we, we sell, uh, all of our
beef is raised on pasture grass fed. Uh, we do
finish with grain. Um, uh, the majority of our beef,
we have grass fed grass finished. Um, But if you
want the marbling to produce upper choice and prime, you
(36:26):
have to feed cattle grain. You can't get prime beef
with no grain introduced to the diet.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Go to goodranchers.com. Get hooked up today. This has been
a question that a lot of people have had. I
appreciate all of you. We've got climate change questions coming in.
Everything else, we'll come back next. Take your calls on
a variety of subjects. Final hour of Clay and Buck.
Welcome back in. Hour number two. Clay and Buck will
continue to take some of your calls. Buck will be
back with me tomorrow. He is out with his family today.
I hope all of you are having fantastic Mondays wherever
you may be across the country. You're just joining us. Hello.
Go check out the YouTube page if you have not already.
(00:23):
Go subscribe if you have not already. We are having
a lot of fun every single day, and you can
clip a lot of the different things that occur on
this program there, and the audience is growing rapidly. I
want to hit you with the first hour. We have
been talking about Lindsey Clancy and a really good Wall
(00:46):
Street Journal piece that I read over the weekend about
the fact that roughly one in six people edging towards
one in five of Americans today find killing acceptable, whether
it's the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, whether it's Charlie Kirk,
whether it is Lindsay Clancy murdering in cold blood her
(01:08):
three young children, the five-year-old, the three-year-old, and the eight-month-old.
There are nine women on this jury. The longer this
jury deliberation goes, the more I think they're going to
find her not guilty by reason of insanity. I really do.
And I'm basically preparing myself for it. We'll continue to
(01:30):
take some of your calls on that. I did want
to talk about a story about right and wrong and
the overall impact that it can create. You know, it's
the 10-year anniversary of basically of Colin Kaepernick taking a
knee during an NFL game to protest what he said
(01:51):
was the mass killing of innocent black and brown people
by police officers. I want to play this cut from
AOC because she says, oh, ha ha ha. It turns
out woke 1.0 was kind of crazy. Defund the police. Oh,
that was an awful idea. Eliminate prisons.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Ha ha.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Well, that's just kind of woke 1.0. We can't be
held accountable for the stupidity that we put out into
the world. Here was AOC recently saying woke 1.0. Ha ha.
Just a little bit crazy. Listen.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Woke one was crazy.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Just laughs it off. We're now into woke two. And
I do think that that is maybe even more dangerous.
Woke one. I've got a column going up on Sporting
State about this. I wrote it over the weekend. Woke
one was America is a fundamentally racist country and cops
are killing black people and we need to make sure
(02:54):
that cops basically don't exist. We should defund all the
police and we should just have social workers responding to
911 calls. Do you all remember it? Because I do.
And now AOC just wants to laugh it off and
there are no consequences for being wrong about everything. But
I want to talk about the consequences. And I want
(03:16):
to talk about Colin Kaepernick on the 10-year anniversary of
him taking a knee and what actually happened as a result.
I went into the data. You guys know I like
to dive into data. I like to look at the numbers.
I like to determine what overall is the true story,
not the story that is told, but what the numbers
(03:38):
actually tell us. The numbers tell us that from 2016...
Through 2022, the overall number of murders skyrocketed in the
United States as Black Lives Matter said and told us
police are killing innocent black people all over the country.
(04:02):
Thousands and thousands more murders occurred. I looked up the data.
Do you know if Colin Kaepernick had never taken a knee?
If BLM had never become an issue? if it had
never existed at all, and we just had basically the
same number of murders as we had in 2016, in 2017, 18, 19, 20, 21,
(04:23):
and 22, do you know there'd be somewhere around 20,000
more people alive today? 20,000 more people alive. an entire
(04:44):
basketball arena full of people that are currently dead that
would have likely, because unfortunately most people who are murdered
are young men, that would have continued to have their lives,
to get married, to have kids, to grow into older age.
(05:05):
They would not have had funerals. They would not have
had families destroyed by the death, the murder of their kids.
20,000 more kids would be alive today if woke one
had never happened. Can we play AOC laughing again? Woke
(05:27):
one was crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
We supported policies that led to 20,000.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
More people dead than.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And by the way, Colin Kaepernick, who is still considered
a hero on the left, do you know that around
10,000 of those murdered kids, young men, were black? I
(06:04):
don't know why no one will actually look at the
data and talk about this, but do you realize that
Black Lives Matter led to more young black men dead
than if Black Lives Matter had never existed in the
first place? This to me is a perfect window of
what social media does. It doesn't, and I think it's
(06:24):
connected to what's going on with Lindsay Clancy too, it
doesn't just kind of float out there in the cosmos
and do nothing. People respond to morons online making awful arguments,
listen to them, implement their policies, and then when we
see the results and there start to be political consequences
(06:45):
for their results, Cue it again. AOC, when asked about
all of it, she says woke one was crazy. She's
laughing because 20,000 people got murdered because she was a moron.
And there are no consequences. Colin Kaepernick, still a hero,
(07:06):
gets awards every day. The Atlantic is paying him tons
of money. Nike built an entire campaign around Colin Kaepernick
being a hero. He helped 10,000 young black kids get killed.
And they all just laugh. You know, I was thinking
(07:29):
about this because the 10-year anniversary is coming up. I
mentioned it on the show. Some of you may have
seen me talking about it. So I've got a son
who plays high school football. College football came back this weekend.
My son plays high school football. Posted a picture with
him on social media. Played in his first high school
football game on Friday. His first game of the season...
(07:55):
was at a school called Pearl Cone in North Nashville. Now,
I went to public school in Nashville. I went to
high school no more than a mile away from Pearl
Cone in a building that was the old Pearl High School.
Pearl High School, some of you are going to know it,
was an iconic all-black high school in downtown Nashville that
(08:19):
Oprah Winfrey went to back in the day. It's educated
all sorts of older black people. Americans in a pre-segregated Nashville,
in a segregated Nashville, pre-desegregated Nashville. And then they turned
it into a magnet school. It's an academic magnet now,
public school. I was fortunate to get to go there,
(08:39):
got a great education, got scholarships to college, got a
law degree, all those things. But I was a public
school kid from Nashville, K to 12. If I hadn't
been at Martin Luther King High School, If I hadn't
gone to that high school in inner city Nashville, I
would have gone to a school named Hunter's Lane. Some
(08:59):
of you are going to know what Hunter's Lane High
School is. It's a North Nashville high school. And there was,
at that football game, there was a large police presence
at the football game. And... That's because, unfortunately, there's far
too much violence still in cities like Nashville, even though
(09:22):
things are starting to get better. And a 16-year-old kid
named Cameron Friesen was shot and killed just outside that
football game shortly after it ended. And he was a
junior in high school at Hunter's Lane. He had gone
(09:44):
to watch the game. Nobody really knows why he got shot.
Nobody really knows whether he was the target, whether he
was misidentified, whether it was just in some way a
random act of violence. I was reading about that murder
because I was at that football game. And as I
(10:06):
was reading about the murder, I saw there's a $ 5, 000
reward if people can catch that killer. And I'm sorry,
I saw it and I said, $ 5, 000, you have got
to be kidding me. This kid's life was taken outside
(10:26):
of a football game, and $ 5, 000 is the reward. So
I tripled it, tripled the reward. My math's not always good.
Quadrupled overall to $ 20, 000.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
I put up $ 15, 000 of my own money.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I said, I want this kid to get caught. I
still do. If you're listening in the Nashville area, you
can go look it up. There's a white vehicle that
they're looking for. Nashville police are trying to catch the guy.
I presume it was probably a guy who did the shooting.
If you look at the data, over 50% of all
murders are committed by young black men in America. Now,
(11:06):
people get all upset when you say that. Oh, how
dare you mention race? You can't solve problems. without figuring
out where the problem is coming from. Let me give
you an example. If I said to you right now,
I've got a magic wand, I'm going to eliminate all
Asian murders. No Asian person is going to commit a
(11:27):
murder in America this year. Boom. And I just waved
my magic wand. The murder rate overall would not change
hardly at all because there's almost no Asian people committing murders.
So the data reflects that when we pull down the
murder rate nationwide, when we actually catch people who commit murders,
(11:52):
black people are going to benefit the most because young
black men are by far the most often to be killed.
And do you know who is most often killing them?
Other young black men. I've never heard Colin Kaepernick talk
about this at all. I was at a football game.
Young black man gets killed outside of the football game.
(12:12):
I've never heard Colin Kaepernick say, you know what? I
want to take a knee because I want to drive
down violence in America. I want there to be far
less murders. No, do you know what he said? He
said police are killing young black men. It's not happening.
And in fact... What he did was make it more
difficult for police of all races, white, black, Asian, Hispanic,
(12:36):
that are out there working across the nation to make
us all safer. He misidentified the issue and actually made
it worse, such that 20,000 more people got murdered, 10,000
of whom, by the data, are likely to have been black.
They were wrong on it all. Defund police. They tried
(12:58):
to end the police puppy on Paw Patrol. For those
of you out there with little kids, grandkids, Paw Patrol.
I've watched a lot of Paw Patrol commercials. They tried
to cancel the cop puppy on Paw Patrol. 20,000 dead.
(13:23):
What does AOC say? Play the tape. Woke one was crazy.
Think about that. What I would suggest to you is
one of the biggest issues that we face as a
country is wrong policy doesn't result in people getting fired.
(13:46):
AOC is not only not going to get fired for that,
she's going to run for president and she might be
the nominee, despite the fact that she's been wrong on everything.
As we go to break, college football is back. I
want you to think about this idea. We have a
higher expectation of job performance for football coaches in America.
(14:09):
than we do for politicians. We fire football coaches all
the time for not winning enough football games. I wish
we held politicians to at least half the standard that
we hold football coaches to. And if you can help
that kid's killer come to justice, Cameron Frierson is his name,
(14:31):
and right now his killer is walking free. And unfortunately,
because of Colin Kaepernick and AOC and all of those
woke one ideas, there are 20,000 people just like Cameron
Frierson that aren't alive today because we decided cops were
the problem and killers took advantage of it. I want
(14:55):
to tell you, if you're trying to take care of
your family, Sabre can make a huge difference. How do
you prepare for protecting your family? You may want non-lethal methods.
I've got a son who is off at college, saw
him this weekend. A lot of people on college campuses, well,
they're walking around with pepper spray, and a lot of
that pepper spray is provided by Sabre. Maybe you have
sons and daughters, granddaughters, grandsons who are working late nights,
(15:19):
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You don't want. to have access to a gun because
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(15:43):
I didn't even realize this. We were talking with the
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(16:10):
pass along this common sense to family and friends.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Clay and Buck, owning the airwaves.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Welcome back in, Clay and Buck. I hope all of
you are having a fantastic Monday. So many of you
reacting to so much of what we are talking about. 800-282-2882.
We're going to be joined by our friend Ben Spell
here coming up in a moment, if you were watching
on video. I have my assistant Katie's little girl sitting
(16:37):
in my lap right now as we've got friends coming
into the studio. Sean in Springfield, Mass. wants to weigh in. Sean,
what have you got for us?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Hey, what's up?
Speaker 3 (16:49):
It's Clay.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Clay.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, fire away, Sean.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I'm here.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Let me just say something. I follow these cases, these
cases of people murdering, claiming to be crazy. But I
do know one thing. We have 350 million people in
the country, Clay, and you have 350 people. The more
people you have, unfortunately, the more nutcases you have. And
let me just give you one famous case, and I'll
(17:15):
tie it in. The famous son of Sam, David Berkowitz,
when he was caught, he originally pleaded insanity. And he
was held in a Brooklyn psychiatric ward for seven months.
After seven months, just before the trial was going to start,
he changed his plea to guilty because he didn't want
(17:37):
no part of being in a psych ward for whatever
it is, 10, 20, 30 years. They keep these people.
And Hinkley's the other famous case.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, Hinkley was found not guilty. Thank you. We've got
to go to a break here. When we come back,
Ben Spell is going to be with us. Also, I
want to hear from Marie in Wisconsin. You can stay
with us. She says she supports Lindsey Clancy. and is
upset for what I have said so far during the
course of the program. But I want to tell all
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(18:07):
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(18:49):
Say Clay and Buck. Pound 250. Say Clay and Buck.
Welcome back in, Clay and Buck. We got a lot
of people fired up across a variety of different topics,
and we're going to continue to take your talkbacks and
your calls. 800-282-2882 is that phone number. We will get
to Marie, who's upset about my take with Lindsay Clancy
(19:10):
case as the jury deliberation continues. But one story that
has gotten a lot of attention is the cost of
meat in particular, beef and more. And we have an
awesome guest. He's been spell of good ranchers. I want
you guys to go flood good ranchers dot com as
we are talking about So that you can go check
(19:32):
out this website. Usually they are an advertiser, but he's
also an expert. And so I want to start with this.
I didn't realize this until President Trump started talking about
bringing in beef from out of the country. I want
to start with this. What percentage of steaks out there
are organic? American-raised American beef? This is the entire foundation
(19:53):
of your business at Good Ranchers, but I think a
lot of people are finding out that a lot of
the meat that we consume is being brought in from
out of country. What is the actual reality?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah, so we've been importing. We import beef into the U.S.,
and it's part of our system. But about a little
over 10 years ago, in 2015, we repealed the mandatory
country of origin labeling law for beef and for pork
in the U.S., which means beef and pork can get
imported from any other country anywhere in the world. And
it doesn't have to say where it comes from. And
(20:25):
last year, we imported over four billion pounds of beef
into the U.S. that got sold with no transparency of
where it came from.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
So for people out there that are like me and
you would like to be eating meat that is coming
from American ranchers, That's actually probably a minority of the
meat that people are consuming out there.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, absolutely. But the problem is without the mandatory country
of origin labeling law, and this has been the hill
that we've been dying on at Good Ranchers since the beginning.
We want to connect the American family to the American farm,
and we want transparency of labeling across the industry. But
(21:05):
the truth is you can go to the grocery store
right now or you can go to a lot of
other meat companies online even, and you have no idea
what you're buying, where it's coming from, and what the
quality really is. So for us, we ensure born, raised,
and harvested. The entire supply chain comes from 100% from
(21:27):
American farms and ranches.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Do we have enough? Cows and beef in the United
States right now. Why is the price what it is
for people out there that don't and are not familiar
with the American ranching business? Why is it suffering? Where
are we? How do we get these herds more substantial?
Our herds are at a 75 year low. 75 year low.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, it's it's it's not good. And again, this is
not I appreciate the president addressing the issue about eight
days ago. And he's right with the problem. Beef is
way too expensive, and we need to do something about that.
But just flooding the market with more imported beef with
no transparency doesn't help the real problem. We have to
(22:10):
rebuild the herds. And to do that, we need to
incentivize the farmers and the ranchers that are actually responsible
for doing that.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
That's a staggering number to me. And we're talking to
Ben Spell, Good Ranchers. He's got four kids, by the way.
I'll get you into the origin story of how you
started your business. Eight-year-old, seven-year-old, six-year-old, four-year-old, two boys, two girls.
He and his wife Corley run this business, Good American
Business with Good American Ranch. 75-year low in herds? I mean,
(22:37):
I think that's staggering to a lot of people out there. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And again, the American ranchers have just not been prioritized
over the last decade. And when we took away, when
we silently took away the country of origin labeling law,
as a business, Good Ranchers, we've been trying to tell
this story. We've been shouting the story that there's no
country of origin labeling. We need transparency in sourcing in
(23:03):
our beef and in our pork in the U.S. And
so I think, you know, honestly, the 300,000 metric tons
is a drop in the bucket compared to the 4
billion pounds that we did last year. And I'm not
saying that imports are bad, but right now the beef
can get imported and And there's there's just it just
(23:25):
sits equally alongside American beef, quality beef at the grocery store.
So there's no way for the consumer to tell the difference.
So why would that lower the prices until we get
mandatory country of origin labeling put back on the package,
which the plates we eat on have to say what
country they're from. But the food that we buy doesn't.
That's a real problem.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
What makes good ranchers because I think a lot of
people out there are trying to feed their family healthy
American based products without preservatives, without all the all different
sorts of goods that are being put in. What makes
your product different? And I do think you're right that.
letting people know where their meat is sourced from seems
(24:05):
like something that should be very important. People can choose
not to buy American, right? That's right. But if you
want American ranches to thrive and you want American steaks
to come from American based ranches. You guys, this is
the foundation of your business. Why did you start it?
And tell me about preservatives, organics, like all of these
different things that matter too, because you wanted to feed
(24:27):
your kids particularly healthy food.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Sure. I had a small stint doing sales for a
meat company before starting Good Ranchers. And in that four
month window that I worked for that meat company, I
realized just how quickly, how little transparency there was how
there was no country of origin labeling law and that
(24:51):
the consumer is by and large, very ignorant when it
comes to, um, what it actually, what actually goes into
the process of beef, the process of food. Um, and
I don't mean any offense by that. They just don't know.
And so my wife and I, after about, I don't know,
every few months or so saying somebody should fix this.
Someone should fix this. Someone should fix this after about
(25:13):
a year.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Um, You realize nobody else is going to do it,
which is often how entrepreneurship starts. You look around, you say, boy,
somebody really should do this. And then you go look
for it, and you can't find it. And you eventually,
I bet, you and your wife, because I know the story,
you're just, I guess it's going to be us. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
So I was a worship pastor at a large church
in Houston prior to this. And I'd been that since
I was 20 into my early to mid-30s when we
decided to start Good Ranchers. And for me, it was
really a calling. God said, go do it. And because
I really didn't want to do it. I didn't know.
I didn't think I was qualified to do it. And
but kept having those thoughts every, like I said, every
(25:52):
few months and talk to my wife about it. Somebody
else should do it. And for me, it was a
kind of a Damascus Road moment where God spoke to
me and he said, you do it. And I went
to my wife and we just had our first baby boy,
the one who's eight right now. Um, he was about
six weeks old and I thought she was going to say,
but we don't have any money. We don't know anything
about running a business, where are we going to get
(26:13):
the meat? How are we going to do all the things?
But she said, if you heard God, then I trust you.
And so a few months later, I started selling meat
out of the back of a truck in a parking lot.
And I went from one truck to two trucks to
five trucks to 20 over the next few years. And
then we launched online. That was 2018, 2019, 2020. Then
we launched online in 2021. We shut down all the
(26:34):
trucks by the end of 2021. It went fully online
in 2022. And it's been amazing to see. I mean, one,
it's amazing to know that we're sourcing quality for our family,
for our friends and for hundreds of thousands of families
across the U.S. But it's also amazing to know that
(26:55):
we're supporting our own. Yeah, we're supporting American farms, supporting
American ranchers because they need us. And if and if
we don't support our own, if we don't if we lose,
if we're not producing enough food to feed ourselves, God
forbid what would happen to our country. And if we
if you read the history books, anytime a nation loses
(27:17):
access to their own food and has to be dependent
on another country to feed them, that's a problem.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
To me, it's not dissimilar to energy independence, right? I mean, drill, baby,
drill was the president's charge to make as much oil
and gas as we can here. We're now an energy
independent country now. The fact that we aren't producing enough,
and by the way, it's not just steaks, right? It's
not just beef. You've also got chicken. You've got all
sorts of products that people can order out there, including
(27:45):
chicken nuggets if you've got young kids. I know everybody
knows sometimes it's tough to get those kids to eat.
How big is your company now? Obviously, the decision that
you made when you had a baby boy six weeks
old has benefited your family, but you're working. You're like me.
You work all the time because when you drive any
kind of business like this, There is nobody else to
(28:07):
rely on. How much has your company grown? How much
more do you think you could grow if people are
aware of the importance of buying American sourced meat products?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yeah, well, I want to say this first and foremost.
If you know a local rancher, buy from your local rancher.
We exist to connect the American family at the American Farm,
and we're so far removed from.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Our I'm at with you. This is important. Knowing where
your meat comes from is almost unheard of, right? Some
people live in areas where they can go out and
they can buy their own steaks. They can buy their
own meat products. Most people aren't in that position. So
it ships directly to your house. It's vacuum sealed. It's
(28:50):
going to arrive cold and ready to go put into
your fridge. We're having the kids... 15-year-old's football team over
on Labor Day, and we're grilling out all your different
products for everybody to have. But I think that's important.
You can buy your own. You're not saying, hey, don't
just buy from American ranchers.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Buy from American farms and ranches. They need our support.
And if you don't have access to a ranch, then
good ranchers is... That's what you guys do.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Then we're here. They want to hear for you. And
we sell, like I said, we sell beef, we sell chicken,
we sell pork, we sell even wild-caught seafood.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
But, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
two generations ago, um, pretty much everybody knew a farmer
or ranch. Yeah. And then, you know, like, so my grandparents,
I mean, they were farmers and, um, and then, you know,
my parents knew somebody that knew a farmer and rancher,
but today, people, by and large, don't even know how
to cook, let alone know how to source food themselves.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
What would you tell, because they may be listening, what
would you tell the White House if they said, hey, Ben,
good ranchers, you've got a great American business, you're buying
great American meat. What should we do to make meat
products and food overall more affordable? Because that's the goal
here in many ways. What would you tell them that
(30:08):
you personally, based on your experience, you would suggest? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
So I think this is absolutely a moment that the
president could turn into a historic win for American agriculture.
We need to restore mandatory country of origin labeling.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
I think that's first and foremost. And the president had
a follow-up or had a conversation with Glenn Beck last
week and did a follow-up, um, announcement saying we want
to give more power to the ranchers to process. Um,
that's a, that's a good step, but that's not a,
that's not an easy task. Yeah. I mean, we're talking
about a five to 10 year process to make that
(30:43):
happen plan there. So first and foremost, we need to
restore mandatory country of origin labeling. Um, and then we
need to expand the independent American processing because right now
the processing, um, 85% of the beef that's processed in
the U S is controlled by four major corporations. Two
of them are foreign owned.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
That, I mean, that's problematic. That in itself is problematic.
And we need to protect the economic incentive for ranchers
to rebuild their herds. Like I said, 75 year low,
we need, we need to rebuild the herds. So we
need to hang on to females and, you know, build
(31:24):
the herd, back up to a place, I mean, it's
supply and demand. Right now, supply is so low, it's
going to drive the price up. But if we can
get the herds back to a healthy place, we would
have enough domestically to get the prices back down. To me,
it connects with energy independence. To your point, I don't
(31:46):
want America to have to rely entirely on out-of-market locations
to provide us food. We've seen what happens when that
supply can get severely restricted when it comes to oil
and gas, and that was the impetus to create that. uh, this, uh,
energy independence that we have. We need to have more ranchers.
(32:06):
And by the way, this is a long range plan.
Last question for you. It's not like you can just
snap your fingers and say, Hey, we need bigger herds, right?
Like this is a process that has to play out
over years where farmers have to be able to get
those herds back up. So we're not at 75 year lows. Yeah.
So two things. Um, I'm not saying I'm not anti-import
(32:27):
and neither is the ranching community. Imports play a role
into our system. So this isn't an anti-trade and anti-import.
This is a pro-transparency conversation. Label imported beef accurately and
let American families decide at the at the check out.
what they want to buy. Because if we really want
the imports to be sold for less, they need to
(32:48):
be labeled accordingly.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
I'm going to bring you back because a lot of
people are blowing me up with questions, including my own wife.
And if I don't ask the questions that she has,
as you well know, as a married man, I'm in trouble.
So if you have questions about ranching, about meat, hit
me up right now at Clay Travis on Twitter. And
I will hit Ben with a couple more questions here
as we finish the hour, because this is a major
(33:12):
inflection point, major discussion. Beef, how do we produce it?
How do we produce American meats, make it more affordable?
And by the way, go check it out yourself. Good
ranchers dot com right now for a limited time. You
can get a free ground beef bundle with your first
Good Ranchers order. Four pounds of 100% American Angus ground
beef to stock in your freezers. Visit goodranchers.com slash clay
(33:36):
to claim the free ground beef bundle. Plus, when you
start a plan, you get free meat with every order.
Goodranchers.com slash clay. Go check them out right now. You're
hearing from the founder himself, Ben Spell. Good ranchers.com slash
clay for the free four pound ground beef bundle. Good ranchers.com.
American delete meat delivered. When we come back, your questions
(33:59):
here for Ben on playing buck. Miss the show while
you're on the go. Wind down your day with the
daily review podcast. Find it on the I heart radio
app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back in
clay and buck. A bunch of questions rolling in. Appreciate
all of you. The most common question that I am
getting is, including from my wife and multiple people who
(34:21):
are tweeting right now, why are the herds low? Is
it regulation, lack of land? How do we get this
from a 75-year low back up to respectable herd size?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Yeah, so we've had years of drought, and the biggest
issue is American ranchers have not been incentivized over the
last decade, really, to expand their herds and to grow
their herds because of the flood of imported beef that
comes in with no labeling. And cattle aren't widgets. Most
(34:55):
people don't really think about this, but it takes two years. Chickens,
you can turn that over in six to nine weeks
from hatch to harvest. But cattle, you're talking about a
two-year process at minimum to rebuild a herd. And so.
(35:17):
The economic incentive has not been there for American ranchers
for a decade or more. And couple that with drought,
couple that with the cost of everything is going up,
the cost of fuel is going up. It takes fuel
to run tractors to get the crops. to bail the.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Hay a bunch of people are asking about the non-labeling
i'm presuming that that was lobbied for by out of
american interest because they wanted to take away the incentive
to buy american-born beef.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Yes and that happened in 2015 under a republican controlled
congress and president obama.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Wasn't was in office yeah um are, how is your
beef fed? It's, I believe the answer is grass fed beef,
but I'll let you tell everybody.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Boy, I don't have enough time to go into all
of this. Um, we, we sell, uh, all of our
beef is raised on pasture grass fed. Uh, we do
finish with grain. Um, uh, the majority of our beef,
we have grass fed grass finished. Um, But if you
want the marbling to produce upper choice and prime, you
(36:26):
have to feed cattle grain. You can't get prime beef
with no grain introduced to the diet.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Go to goodranchers.com. Get hooked up today. This has been
a question that a lot of people have had. I
appreciate all of you. We've got climate change questions coming in.
Everything else, we'll come back next. Take your calls on
a variety of subjects. Final hour of Clay and Buck.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
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