Ep. 769: Can Conservation Be Non-Partisan?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
bug bitten, and in my case, underware. Listening past, you
can't predict anything brought to you by first Light. When
I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds,
no compromise, gear that keeps me in the field longer,

(00:30):
no shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at
first light dot com. That's f I R S T
l I t E dot com. We're joined today by
Benji Backer of Nature Is Nonpartisan, and we're gonna talk
about can it be? You're just saying it is?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
It is?

Speaker 1 (00:52):
You just that's the title.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
I'm gonna will it to existence, and we're gonna.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Say, is it how? How can can it be? How
does it become? How does nature become nonpartisan? Meaning wildlife conservation,
wildlands conservation? Can it? Can it rise above.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
The vitriol, the culture wars.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
In the in the cycles, Yeah, I mean and off again.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
It has to. Uh, That's why I created Nature's non parson.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I mean, because you just you're saying it is.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
It is because people, Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
We got to get out of our algorithms here and
realize that it actually once was non partisan. Right, you
look at history, the biggest environmental achievements, conservation achievements throughout
history were immensely by partisan non parson. I've spent the
last ten years of my career. I'm twenty seven. So
I started when I was a freshman in college. I
started a nonprofit by freshman year of college, like a

(01:50):
normal freshman does, and went around the country and saw
that people actually wanted a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Of the same things.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
They want clean air, they want clean water, they want
wildlife habitat to be concerned. They want to be able
to hunt and fish. They also want to be able
to hike and ski. They just want to be able
to spend time outdoors. And you could be the trumpiest
voter in the world, or you could be an AOC
lover and anything in between, and you want those same things.
And yet that's not reflected in our politics today. So
we have to get this right. So by saying I

(02:17):
could say nature should be nonpartisan, that's a less compelling organization.
There's four four words there instead of three uh ought
to be ought to be.

Speaker 4 (02:26):
Un could be The NSBN is not a really compelling acronym.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
It's just ESPN two similar too. Similar.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Uh, but yeah, I mean we we feel like it
should be, and so we're going to make sure that
it is.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
That's the whole goal.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
When we get into this, I want to talk about
some of my favorite little facts that uh the e
p A all the stuff that came in under Nixon, dude.
And not only that, this guy, yeah yeah, and not
only that, my other little favorite thing. Cal might remember
the numbers on it when they passed the Wilderness Act.

(03:02):
Wasn't like ninety nine to one in the Senate or
like it was like not that so much. She looked
that up, Phil, Yeah, I mean it, Phil, that's not something.
Phil's trying to memorize. His line.

Speaker 5 (03:18):
I'm also switching cameras, making you look good taking notes.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
I can look this up. He's back there a farw.

Speaker 5 (03:25):
Thing thrilled when Steve learns another form of English currency.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Phil, you ever hear of a fella named Bob scratch it? Nope,
Bob cratch it yep. I like that.

Speaker 6 (03:42):
You didn't play along there.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
You showed up in town at the wrong time. If
you just showed up in town months from now, you'd
be like, go see Phil and Christmas, Carol. Oh is
he in it doing Little Dickens. Yeah, right now is it?
He's playing do.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
A couple of the halftime you know what? What what?

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Like this this is my name.

Speaker 7 (04:03):
It's not technically a one man show, but he makes
it seem as if it is.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
That's he plays all the roles.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, Like in movies, there's like a big line that
the actor is excited about, Like when you think of
Bob cratch in your role, what line are you like?
What line are you most excited to?

Speaker 5 (04:25):
Just he's got a very emphatic yeah here when when
When when Fred is trying to convince convince Scrooge of
the joys of Christmas, I'll be watching for that.

Speaker 7 (04:40):
And the only reason I bring it up is because
that's the only line I have memorized so far.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
When I went to film some time a couple months
when I went to fill more of a sound effect
than a line.

Speaker 6 (04:50):
But go ahead, and Phil's last play.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
He I didn't really know what his role was, and
I was reading the bill, you know, and and he's
like all the way at the end of the bill,
and then as the play goes on, I'm like, God,
he's got all the lines, Like he's got all the
laughs he's.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
The main kid.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah, and I'm like, I was like growing as I
realized how central his role was. I was growing more
and more offended at Phil's placement in the bill. And
it wasn't until two days later and I told him
this and they said it was alphabetized.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Filled the engineer.

Speaker 4 (05:21):
Yeah, yeah, so he was under tea. But I thought
it was like this Grave Injustice. Uh yeah, I'm excited
for this one.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Thank you. I'll tell you what. It's watched this segu
you know what, you know what? It ain't gonna be
as good ass film, let's hear it. Mm. The Christmas Tour,
Ah should have guessed.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
You like that?

Speaker 1 (05:44):
That was good. I don't know they gonna be as
good as the Christmas Tour.

Speaker 7 (05:49):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Me Eater Live the Christmas Tour coming to the American South.
I wish I had all the cities in front.

Speaker 6 (05:55):
Of Birmingham, Memphis, Nashville.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
I want to do the dates and everything. Got you
how do I find that chack chatting?

Speaker 6 (06:06):
You go to the meat eater dot com slash tour.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
No, you can see all the day tight tang tight
here it is. We're coming out. We're coming on the road. Uh.
Brent Reeves will be there. He's in for the full tour.
Clay nukeomb there, Doctor Randall will be there. Yanni Full
Tour Special guests at every stop. December seventeenth, They're going

(06:31):
to be in Birmingham, Alabama, at the Lyric. At that event,
I will tell my story about taking a a very
paranoid two days I spent where I took a shotgun apart.
And I was going from on a Greyhound bus from Missoula, Montana,

(06:52):
to Auburn, Alabama to duck Hunt, very nervous about if
they found out I had that gun mhm. And we
went into and I'll tell my story about Birmingham. People
are gonna think they found the gun. They never found it.

Speaker 7 (07:10):
Wait and see, wait and see.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
But the drama is but yeah, it's just worth it.
At the Lyric December seventeenth, Birmingham, Alabama. At the Lyric
December eighteenth, Nashville, Tennessee Marathon Music Works, December nineteenth. You'll
know if these all are just these are all this
every night fills up here, Scrooge and we're down in

(07:34):
these places. What's that line? Here here here, here, you
got it? December nineteenth. Did I do that yet. Eighteenth, Nashville,
Tennessee at Marathon Music Works. December nineteenth, Memphis, Tennessee, Minglewood Hall.
I've been texting with Will Primos. I believe that Will

(07:57):
Primos is gonna be He's gonna come to the the
show and he's going to give life advice that's delightful.
That will be the top pieces of life advice from
a man that has earned a position of giving that advice. December.
We've been kicking around a couple of things, like Clay

(08:17):
wants Brent Reeves to hold a fish fry on stage
every night, but the minute you tell the venue then
they then they're gonna have to be like, well, now
we gotta get a fire marshal. That's hard. You know,
we do the casting contest. We kind of want to
do a blowgun contest, but not tell the venue, yeah,
because then they'll have to get a cop or you know,
you just said it right now so they might get it.

(08:39):
There'll be a fire marshal and the cop.

Speaker 7 (08:40):
Wait, we should just find out if the beauty of
our show is there's like zero percent of stage hands
that listen to it, so except.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, no one from the venue Oh yeah, Phil's friends.
Do your friends listen just to catch you on the show?

Speaker 7 (08:57):
Phil, definitely not No.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
December twenty Fayetteville, Arkansas at Ozark Music Hall, which I
believe is sold out. December twenty one, Dallas, Texas, Texas
Theater December twenty two, and I believe we've got Jesse
Griffis coming out. Hang out with this one too, December
twenty two, Austin, Texas at the Paramount. Tickets are all

(09:22):
in sale.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Now that's a good week night, dude.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
I know.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, you're gonna need to have some Christmas after that.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
I'm gonna go see my mam.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Where's she at?

Speaker 1 (09:33):
Michigan?

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Hey, I'm a Midwestern by myself. What state Wisconsin?

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (09:37):
Okay, we'll part of two of the three best Midwest
states covered well Partiscani Ohio.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
It's also at the table.

Speaker 7 (09:45):
Builds kind of similar to Chester. When we said Wisconsin,
I was like, huh.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Do look like Chester?

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Little Chester?

Speaker 7 (09:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Big ches, big Chess I met little Chester.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
You look like a big Chester, like if.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Chess had had better eate his wheaties and better like
pre natal. I don't know, yeah exactly, I'm just thinking
because we had that guy on the Monteeth about deers Mom's.

Speaker 6 (10:12):
Full expression, the full expression of his jeans.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, I'm gonna take this as a comment. I'm not
quite sure yet, but.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Like everybody here, Love Bodies on Montana say, I look
like a big gesture and I don't know.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
What that means.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
Uh, near Green Bay es great? Okay, So we're just
we're just like right across the lake. Yeah, I could
have shot. I could have shot over and we used
to cross and we'd land over at exactly God, God
knows his great lakes. Steve.

Speaker 5 (10:39):
The Wilderness Act passed seventy three to twelve in the Senate.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
But then that's why I like to say ninety nine
to one.

Speaker 5 (10:44):
Well sounds it passed the House three seventy four to one.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
See that's what you're thinking.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
That seems I was combining them. Yeah, it was combining
the legislative bodies in the one and finding a sort
of average.

Speaker 5 (10:58):
The only name being Joe Pool from Texas. And I
can't figure out why I've been looking up, but.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
I feel that it might be this is Lower. I
feel that he didn't feel it went far enough.

Speaker 7 (11:13):
Of the spiel.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, for sure, Lower. Yeah, I've talked about this a
handful of times. I don't know if I have on
the show or not. This is fitting because me and
Randall been working on our The Hide Hunters, Our Meat
Eaters audio original or sorry, Meeter's American History The Hide Hunters,
which tells the story of the begin Okay, let me

(11:39):
back up. Meeter's American History. The Hide Hunters tells the
story of the Buffalo hide Hunters. It covers from eighteen
sixty five, so the year the Civil War ended. We
explained why that's of significance up to eighteen eighty three,
and it tells about the men, the motivations, the skills,
the justifications, the dangers, the dangers, the bloodshed, the untimely

(12:04):
deaths involved in the men who killed the last fifteen
million buffalo off the American Great planes ran that number
from fifteen million down to less than a thousand. In
the US today we have about there's about a half
million in existence. Ninety four percent are privately owned. That

(12:29):
really needs to change. Maybe we'll touch on that that's
a non that should be a non part is an issue,
but even that is partisan.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Buffalo covering buffalo buffalo and non partisan.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
The should be but Recovering Buffalo organization. Recovering the buffalo
is a part is an issue, and it's not fair
because it's one of the few conservation achievements we could
have by not It's like, it's not by doing something,
it's by not doing something getting out of the way.
Like a lot of times you're like, oh, that's a

(12:59):
lot of work, but with this, it's like it's kind
of like not doing something would help the animals. Anyhow,
it's a long winded way of saying, we've been talking
about this. So we have a new jerky out. We
take our own jerky. So if you guys bought our cookbooks,
we always have jerky recipes in our cookbooks, and we
have a new jerky out. Here's a package right here

(13:19):
where we take our own recipes from our cookbooks and
use them on American buffalo So bison jerky. You can
get it. You can go to you can get it
right now. There's been a lot of fun working on it.
You can get it. You can you can order your
own at meat Eatersnacks dot com. One hundred percent buffalo
fuel in the country for a long time, and then
you can go read about do.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
You taste tests on set here.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
Well, do you want some we do mega taste tests
on set. You want classic pepper?

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Yeah, I think pepper, classic pepper, Yeah, classic, sorry, class.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
That new fangled pepper. Try it out.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
It's not normal pepper.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
But you know, when you start you on jerky, then
you got to talk gets hard.

Speaker 7 (14:02):
Just do it right into the microphone.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
You enjoy them, You enjoy them. It's a good morning jerky.
You regret taking that. It's a good early morning.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
I just want this part to be clipped and that's it.
You guys can end it now. Yeah, that's actually really
good though, No, it is good.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
It's great.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
That is solid.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
No, I think it's fantastic. It turned out really well.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
Really really good.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
That's not that's not regular pepper. Right there, that is
classic pepper right there.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
We had a lot of back and forth. We finally
got one that we love. One last little thing. Uh.
Whitetail Week is here right now. September twenty nine through
October fifth, First Lights run their white tail sale up
to forty off all kinds of gear. Oh look at this,

(14:50):
here's a kicker. If you pick up a new white
tail jacket and bibbs. First Light. We'll throw in a
Moultrie trail camera for free shopping out first light dot com.
How could you say no to that?

Speaker 7 (15:01):
So, yeah, it's not just a Moultie trail camera, it's
the first Light cameo multie trail camera.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
That's what I got. I got one cheeping an eye
on my fish shack right now.

Speaker 7 (15:14):
That that's an interesting thing, is like the Moultie folks
really just want you talking about hunting, and I'm like,
the hunting stuff I don't worry about nearly as much
as people, uh breaking into stuff. Yeah, and that's a great,
great use of those trail cameras.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Doug has a sign coming into the buckshack the farmhouse.
It reminds it's like a sign telling you that if
you're breaking in, he already has your picture on his phone.

Speaker 7 (15:47):
Yeah, he's got in typical Doug form. There's some cutesiness
about it too, like like there's nothing in here worth
the trouble.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, nothing in here worth the trouble you're gonna have. Yeah,
you know, I'd argue that because he's got this. He's
got this twelve pound uh sledge hammer head no handling
it that he uses to hold the bathroom door. Yeah,
and I kind of want that sledgehammer head. How much

(16:19):
trouble do you get in for taking something like that?
It can't be like a lot.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
So when you enter a window, is it to the
left or right? As long as they're putting this out there,
go in, go in and.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Go like go in? Is it just like like just
to the right? Gotcha's a bathroom door. There's a twelve
pound sledgehammer head there propping the door. That is just
a waste of a beautiful sledgehammer head antique. I would
tell people, dog's gonna have your picture. Yeah, don't start
in the kitchen.

Speaker 8 (16:50):
The kitchens like the table bypass the kitchen, and it
is so chocked fully junk from you know, decades of
people thinking, oh, you could use an extra sauce pan,
but there's already nine different saucepans jammed in the back
of this thing.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (17:09):
Anytime you go to put something away, there's just like
this cascade of old aluminum and nonstick pans and tin and.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
People are like they're holding it over their garbage can
and they're like, dah, I'll brand the ducks.

Speaker 7 (17:23):
Exactly. Oh, it's infuriating.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Uh, here's here's the interesting little fight, bruin. We're only
gonna do like one or two. I think we got
one newsy thing we're gonna do. One's just funny. I'm
gonna do the funny one first. So, oh, did you
guys see damn it the Mississippi Black Panther. Yeah, that's funny,
And then you can get into it. A news story

(17:49):
broke out in Maryland. I only caught it after it happened.
But a woman got approached by a bear in Maryland. Okay,
she from the bear and fell and got hurt. The
bear never touched her, but she fell and got hurt.
So there was like a bear and an injury. So the
news cycle, I guess very quickly was like attack and

(18:14):
then it was well self inflicted she here's a self
inflicted bear injury related So you could go and find
if you felt like you can go and kind of
track the sort of evolution.

Speaker 6 (18:27):
Of of like what exell phone game?

Speaker 2 (18:29):
But what exactly went down that phantom bear attack?

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Here's one it's more interesting. I'm bringing the sucks. We've
covered this bunch over the years, and our very own
Jordan Sillers just wrote a piece about it. Florida is
my favorite story in the in the world. Years ago,
Florida ran a bear hunt. Florida had many bears. If
you go back historically, they over hunted them, they over

(18:56):
poisoned them, they over predator controlled them to the point
where they had very few bears. Bears have really recovered
in Florida, I think now, like you know, over fifty
percent of the state has good bear populations. Years ago
they ran a bear hunt, and they ran a bear
hunt in Florida. You might pulling up what year that
was Randall's I was bragging bot how fast he is

(19:18):
that researching? Well, I turned my WiFi. Years ago they
opened a bear hunt and they did the management strategy
of using a quota. And when you use a quota hunt,
what it is is you'd go and say, I'm trying
to do the best way to the simplest way to
put this. You say to your you say to the

(19:40):
people in your state. You're like, hey, we're gonna have
a bear hunt. And the quota is one hundred bears,
so everybody could go the whole state. You all go hunting.
As soon as you get one, call our hotline. And
then when we get to like ninety eight, we're gonna
turn it off, okay, And that's a quote. That's how
a quota said some functions. So everybody goes and you

(20:02):
just count, count, count, count, count, and then bank. Many
things are managed by quota. There's caribou herds in Alaska
that are quota hunts where they like, you hit two
hundred in the region closes in the state. I'm in
Montana right now. Montana runs quota's on mountain lions. They
run quota sheet bighorn sheep where anyone, anybody that wants

(20:24):
can participate. It turns off when you hit the quota,
and there's a little bit of a there's a lag.
There's a little art and science to it, like you
sort of watch your quota. It's speed and then and
then you usually have a little bit of a buffer
to turn it off. Meaning if some guy is like
drawn back on a on a big horn sheep and

(20:47):
all of a sudden his phone dings and the quota
is full, right, but he doesn't look at his phone
and shoots the big orn sheep, he's not trouble because
they give a forty eight hour buffer. So they go
like they the numbers climb and you're sort of watching
the trajectory and you're watching your quota cap and you
call it and you're like, okay, it's full. So in
forty eight hours, season's over. When Florida years ago tried

(21:11):
this bear hunt twenty fifteen, twenty fifteen, they tried a
bear hunt, and they in some of their areas they
shot past the quota very very fast, blew everybody away.
How fast a quota like, they had some units where
they blew past the quota, And.

Speaker 7 (21:30):
I just bring the speed up because I do think
that's like a factor in the general reaction.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, I don't think they had any idea.

Speaker 4 (21:36):
In two days the state wide quota because this doesn't
really this distorts like what actually happened. But the state
wide quota was three twenty and in two days they'd
killed three hundred. But because of the regional distribution of that,
like some areas were way shot past.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
And then you call it. And then I think that
what happened in some of those areas is they called it,
but there's a twenty four hour window, and then during
the twenty four hours over the they shot over the quota,
not enough to be of like biological significance, but plenty
enough to be of social significance because it was a
very contentious issue. It like, if you look at if

(22:15):
there's a theme in wildlife management, it would be that
when you have a species that becomes imperiled and you
stop hunting for that species because it comes imperiled, and
then over time you recover it, you will naturally like
you're gonna have friction when you want to reinstate a
hunt because people in their minds, for as far as
they can remember, back the bears there are not around, Like,

(22:38):
how can we be hunting? I thought bears are imperiled
and like they're not recovered. And also now you're telling
me we're gonna hunt them. I've known my whole life
that that you can't hunt them because right so you're
gonna have friction, And that created a lot of friction,
so much so that they just it was the agency
was beat up on the whole thing. Again, biologically insigt significant,

(23:00):
but it was socially very significant that in some areas
they went over the quota and then Florida just said, okay,
we're done with bear hunting. They're trying again now, which
I fully support. They're trying again, and this time they're
using the other way you do this. The other way
you do this is you say you say, Okay, everybody

(23:23):
can't go. We're not going to do that. Everybody goes thing,
and the quota we're going to do where only some
of you get to go. And I think they're probably
doing a quota too right on top of that, Yeah,
they have it. They have a mount they want. They're
issuing one hundred and eighty seven bear permits, So now

(23:44):
they know how many people are going to be a field.
They're going to issue one hundred and eighty seven bear permits.
And what are they look at that? I know they
have some quotas in place. I can't find it here.

Speaker 7 (23:57):
It's right, So what is it provide like tons of
opportunity for with the expectation that there's it's theoretical opportunity,
the expectation of actual opportunity is much much lower. In
that twenty fifteen hunt, the state didn't properly estimate the

(24:20):
actual opportunity in the field, meaning that a lot more
people who in theory wouldn't be successful were in a
very short amount of time. And it's a great fundraising mechanism, right,
because you get to sell a ton of permets. And
this is just exactly how like wolf tags in the

(24:44):
state of Montana function. Everybody buys a wolf tag, very
very very few people put in any actual effort to
target wolves. Specifically. It's like a animal of opportunity versus
strict pursuit.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
I buy them sons of bitches every year and never
do anything different.

Speaker 7 (25:02):
Exactly, yeah, exactly, yes.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
This will this will impact my behavior zero.

Speaker 7 (25:07):
But then there's that other group of people who are
like I am specifically dedicating time in the pursuit of wolves.
Corey Calvin's right, yep, he's happy either way.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
He knows what you mean. So they're they're saying to
one hundred and eighty seven people, hey, instead of letting
everybody go, you one hundred and eighty seven going, it's
gonna be easier to monitor this whole thing. And they
have a thing. So you buy a They're doing it
through a lottery democratic allocation five dollars lottery ticket. You
buy as many chances as you want five bucks. If

(25:44):
you draw, though, then you got to buy the permit.
So if you're so like you win, well, then to
actually get your permit, then you got to come up
with more money. So it's five bucks to get in.
And if you draw, if you're a resident, your permit
is one hundred bucks. Your non resident, your permit is
three hundred bucks. Great deal. Now here's where it gets

(26:05):
Here's where it gets saucy. The uh uh Sierra Club
is pushing its members, Hey, save a bear. Buy all
these lottery tickets and then don't use them if you win, Okay,

(26:29):
And they're like, that's how we're gonna save bears. Florida's
attitude about this is you guys can buy all the
tickets you want. That's great for you're generating all this thing.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
So they are a conservation organization again.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
And if we don't hit the quota, then we know
next year we're just gonna release a lot more.

Speaker 7 (26:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
Right, So it's like, you know, okay, this is the
thing that's been tried before. Like I don't know if
you remember Wyoming Grizzlies. Yeah, and the catch there, you're
ago when they moved to dlist grizzly bears in Wyoming,
they were gonna do you remember twenty four They were
gonna issue twenty four permits.

Speaker 7 (27:06):
Yeah, I was an Idaho resident at the time, so
I actually was in the drawing.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
Oh, you were in the draw for the one tag,
for the one tag. Yeah. And then in Wyoming some
guys went out and there was a big push to
get none hunters to try to get the permit, but
they never did the draw, so you never could wind
up seeing. Uh, it'll be it'll be interesting to it'll
be interesting to see. I could picture that what they
might do. Like if I was in Florida fishing games

(27:34):
shoes the agency shoes for Florida Wildlife Commission. I guess
is who approved the bear hunt rule. I would be
wondering should we should we make it a greater hurdle
to enter, meaning you got to go and let's say
you gotta be licensed, fully licensed, you got to go

(27:54):
and take an online bear identification class so you learn
how to tell a female with cubs, or like what
I like money, Would I make it more of a.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Pain in the ass to filter out the preservationists.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
To filter out anti hunters, or would I just really
be like, no, I want all those five dollars.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
So they've sold they've sold more than one hundred and
sixty thousand chances have they Yeah, Florida for one hundred
and eighty seven tags.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Good for them, good for conservation.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
Someone could tell me a lot of times five dollars is.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
It's about a million?

Speaker 7 (28:30):
I would you can grow anything in Florida. Literally, if
I was one of those bear tag holders, That's what
I would be concentrated. I'd be like, what mix of
food do I want in the black Bear? I'm going
to target apple region right like where? Yeah, that'd be exciting, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, it's yeah to have.

Speaker 7 (29:02):
Or even have to. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
My favorite word lately is it's a it's a situation
that's gotten frothy. I heard that in the market, like
in the markets listening to markets about the new frothy
like a lot of M and a a lot of
M and a activity out there. He'd be like, it's
a frothy.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Can you snacks? You should have be a frothy something.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
Yeah, frothy classic, Yeah, I would say, yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
What a final point on this, it's like a little
bit sticky. I feel for Sierra Club. It's like, how
is it cool for like is it cool for Sierra
Club to be? Is it cool for Sierra Club to be?
Like not only do we not support the State agency, right,

(29:52):
the state biologists and the State Agency is doing this.
Not only do we not support their mission, we're we're
promoting the idea that you try to like thwart right. Yeah,
the effort, which seems to me like that's a that's
an aggressive play.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
They're always aggressive.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
That's an aggressive play.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
Their whole thing is being aggressive. Oh yeah, I mean
they only raise money off of being aggressive. They're almost
a billion dollar annual organization every year because they raise
money off of being anti whatever the other groups are for.
That's they actually want sort of this this coverage even
because the conflict.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
This fill the conflict.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
They love that Donald Trump's president because they can raise
all the money in the world of being against everything
that he does. And when things are good and you're
solving problems, it's harder to rile people up. They love
riling people up. They're the problem in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
It's funny bring it up because Randall and I were
talking you have today about I don't even want to
kind of get into this, but we were talking about
please I'm glad that I'm just gonna be real quick
about it. We're talking about tail and all ah.

Speaker 6 (31:03):
As one does on.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
A Wednesday, trying to explain and Randall is trying to capture.
If I go on to social media and I want
to find out what people how people feel about Tailano,
I will come away with a different impression of what
people feel about Tylanh the thing I would if I

(31:24):
was just going about my existence in life.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
If you hold up a newspaper and start eavesdropping, there
are people pounding the table about Thailand.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
I mean, at this point we should start creating like
pro tail and all anti thailandolf swag.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
I feel that a lot of people are actually out
there thinking like, huh, that was kind of weird.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
What side are you on your pick?

Speaker 7 (31:48):
Fighter Ye when.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
He takes the national temperature, he feels the national temperature
in spite of what was happening in the news. The
national temperature was huh.

Speaker 6 (32:02):
I guess I'll go to work today.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
Well, our leaders are fighting about what silent Yeah, I
followed it autism, and I.

Speaker 7 (32:14):
Will point out the tag buying strategy I know back
to the bears, the buddy of mine drew the Upper
Rock Creek big Horned Sheep tag when it was still good,
and the jackasses who locked out all the public access

(32:34):
and Upper Rock Creek weren't there. The UH ran into
two guys, father's son who had drawn the Lower Rock
Creek a couple of the U tags.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
And this is back in the days. They're just standing
along the road.

Speaker 7 (32:55):
Yes exactly, ye, And we're chatting with them and they're like, oh,
we're non hunters, we just bought we apply for tags,
and then we come out like wildlife Watch and this
is how we save animals. And that was back in
probably I bet like four five.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
They were pioneers, early adopters.

Speaker 7 (33:18):
Yeah, so, I mean it was, it has been a
strategy in the past.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
Yeah, it makes I mean it seems like you could
take everyone on the planet and have them all forget everything,
and then have new people come and I think those
new people would quickly oh hit on the idea that
this could be a thing one could do.

Speaker 7 (33:37):
Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Yeah, you're like, uh huh.

Speaker 7 (33:40):
Yeah, well, I mean we were just talking about this.
I missed the big party last night because I was
at the public land water access.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
I was able to track your movements through a way
that you would never anticipate. Oh, your next door, my
neighbor is on the board. Yeah, so I knew where
you were before you knew where you were.

Speaker 7 (33:59):
That was great. Yeah, we chatted for a little bit,
but you could. I brought up in my talk last night.
I'm like, you know this public Lands fight. You know,
these people fought this in the thirties, forties, fifties, and
people were like where I thought, we just won that, right.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
Like this does happened before? Thought, Yeah, it will happen
again sooner than we'd like.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Kel it sound ten year cycle, I think, thanks, Yeah,
well that's tens like snow hairs plus three years.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
And it's going to happen sooner again.

Speaker 7 (34:42):
Oh I know.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
So unfortunately, first off, man, give us some background. You're
from Green Bay, yep, go pack Yeah is it Benjamin?
Benjamin Packer Benjamin? But so will you shortened? Most guys
go all the way down to bed then?

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, nobody.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
I wanted to kept some Yeah, yeah, I had kept
a little extra little tail there called Benji.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
I second grade woke up and said I don't want
to have been Benjamin's too long, So Benji it is.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
But thanks.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
I grew up in Green Bay and I watched John
McCain and Barack Obama debate in two thousand and eight
and said, I want to be part of that for.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
The whole ten.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
You were like, I want to be a detective, right,
or a.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Sports announcer or an NFL player. I'm five nine, There's
no way I'm becoming an NFL player. But yeah, I
was like, I really want to be part of the
civic process, and so I started. I asked my parents,
who were not political at all, can we go? Can
I go door knocking for John McCain? And they were like,

(35:42):
that is the weirdest thing that you could ask us
to do. And my parents were not political at all,
and they did not want to have signs in their
yard or bumper stickers in their cars or any of
that stuff. And I just was like allured by the process.
And so I became super active in high school in
conservative politics and spoke at Seapack. My freshman year of

(36:03):
high school was on Fox News for the first time.
My freshman year of high school, I had a really
good biber haircut. My Wisconsin accent was really intense, and
I knew nothing about what I was doing, obviously, but
I cared a lot about America was really what it
came down to and like I wanted to be a

(36:24):
part of solving complex problems. But I have since grown
more and more disillusioned with politics and I hate the
two party system. I hate the political system that we're
working within, and I hate how it's impacted the environment
and conservation. Because at the same time that I was
strangely volunteering for John McCay and Meant Romney, I also

(36:47):
was an avid hiker avid skier, was fishing every weekend
in the summer with my grandpa. My parents were vegan,
so oh yeah, So I was the only meat eater
in my family. So I'm like the as I didn't
meat eater in my family, so it's nice to be another.
My parents were just, I think, like most people were

(37:07):
just like whoever has the best ideas they're going to
vote for. Like they they're conservatives, practical fiscal conservatives. They
voted for McCain and Romney, but like they were definitely
like independent voters. And my sisters are liberal. And I
grew up in a very like politically diverse family, but

(37:28):
we all got along and we all loved each other,
and so I was frustrated politics. I loved the environment,
and I also realized that people could actually get along
and that the country that I was seeing crumble politically
and it's still getting worse, was not representative of the
people itself. Like the people themselves don't want that to happen,
and they're not as polarized, they're not putting each other
in such boxes. And so that's kind of how I

(37:51):
got to being more of, you know, trying to bridge
the divide on conservation in the environment, because if there's
one issue that should transcend party lines that should get
action regardless of who wins, it should be conservation in
the environment like it used to. So I transitioned to
that my freshman year of college, tweeted out that I
was going to start a nonprofit to get this going.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
As a freshman in college. Yeah, yeah, I knew. I
knew when you did it that you were young, but
I hadn't thought about the fact that you're like, like
also being in college eighteen. Yeah, because normally it's like, well,
I'm a freshman college and I have to drink a lot,
and then that's kind of my schedule.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah, girls, drinking time.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
To hang out, standard smoking weed. I have a hard
time finding a hangout time.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
I was starting environmental policy nonprofits instead, Well, where were
you at school?

Speaker 2 (38:42):
University of Washington.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
So I searched the best business school, best business schools
in America and went down the list to the first
one that was in a place that I could hike
and ski on the weekends. And the University of Washington
was like probably like fortieth on the list of best
business schools, but it was the closest to where I
wanted to recreate. So the Cascades obviously beautiful national parks

(39:04):
out there, and that's really why I went there. So
then I started it out there, and I started, you know.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
And like registered a nonprofit.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
Yeah, I first started a pack because I had know
what I was doing and I.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Was all done that, just me eighteen looking up.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
So what's the quickest way to start a nonprofit? Well,
a pack gets approved right away.

Speaker 6 (39:24):
Classic freshman you're a mistake.

Speaker 7 (39:25):
Oh yeah, you look wake up and you look at
all the texts that you sent out that you don't remember,
and then you're like, oh my god, one.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Of those I was you.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
I highly recommend because there's basically zero barriers of entry.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
I know this, I mean, I know I know what
it is, but I didn't know that is it designed
to be fast?

Speaker 2 (39:53):
It shouldn't be.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
But like if you want to start, if you want
an eighteen year old accidentally starts a pack and then
suddenly is the owner of a pack, and then there's
no like the I R. S checks five to one
C three's traditional nonprofits. It takes like a year to
approve that a packets approved literally overnight.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
To help people. I mostly know what you're talking about,
but just help people understand, like what you mean. So
there's different designations, political actual committee.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
There's diferent designations.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
They're ephemeral, right, because you can they're very responsive to
I mean, like like a race heats up, you get
a nominee, and then all of a sudden, there's all
these packs, right, and some of them are meant to dissolve.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
That's because there's a lot of eighteen year olds starting packs.

Speaker 7 (40:32):
The most visibility right for the normal person is that
fine print that says paid for by right Concerned Citizens
for Montana.

Speaker 6 (40:41):
Factory twenty four.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no one knows who it is.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
In this case, it was me, but you know it's
it's basically a political action committee. There's a super pack
in a pack, but it's it's a government designation of
what you can do with the money when someone donates it.
And so, uh, like a five to one C three,
which is like the Red Cross, and like all the
big nonprofits they you're aware of that's tax deductible to
a donor, they can't do any political activity at all.
A pack you do not get a tax deduction when

(41:07):
you donate, and it strictly is going to be to
support candidates, like you're supporting political candidates. There's no educational
part of it. It's it's it's a political organization. And
so I was like, wait a second, I'm trying to
like bridge the divide on the environment. I'm not trying
to like donate to candidates. So then I quickly shuddered
the weekend mistake.

Speaker 7 (41:24):
But a pack is it would be is a five
to one C four, right, So.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
That's very complicated.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
But no, because if I on C four, this is like,
this is like zero point one hundred of the things
that you don't wish you new at age twenty seven
the difference between the C four and the pack. But
a C four is a non tax deductible organization that
can lobby, but they don't really donate. You can donate
to candidates, but it's like a certain percentage. A pack
is strictly to get people elected, and.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
That was not my goal.

Speaker 6 (41:51):
It's a money funnel.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
It's a money funnel, and it's basically so people can't
trace the money to dark money. It is honestly dark money,
and it's like anyone can donate and then it's not
traced back to them and no one knows where the
money came from. So the whole nonprofit space is very complicated,
and I think it probably designed partially that way. The

(42:13):
money in politics thing is its own really big issue.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
But what was your pack?

Speaker 3 (42:18):
Conservatives for Environmental Reform? And basically my original goal was
to get conservatives back to the table on the environment
because I watched Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton debate, and
Hillary Clinton had a radical plan for the environment that
I didn't agree with that was like shut down industry,
very preservationist. Wasn't about hunting or fishing or anything with

(42:40):
the outdoors. It was largely just climate, climate, climate, but
on the extreme end. And then Donald Trump was like,
none of these problems exist and we shouldn't do anything
about them, and he had no plan. I was like,
what the hell am I supposed to do? And I
leaned right, So I was like, I got to get
conservatives back to the table. So that's kind of the
origin story of what became the American Conservation Coalition, which

(43:00):
I still started my freshman year just after.

Speaker 6 (43:02):
The pack mistake second semester.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
You always.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
Turn it to the five to one C three, and
that organization now is one hundred thousand members across the country,
has big staff, does a lot of work in DC.
It is strictly focused on getting conservatives active on the environment.
But to me, that wasn't far enough because to me,
it's not about the labels. Like the rational majority of
Americans across the political spectrum, as I opened saying, want

(43:29):
the same things, and I don't care if it's Martin
Heinrich or Tim Sheehey or Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.
We got to figure out how to get shit done
no matter who's in office and what the political wins
are in that moment, and we have to show politicians
that Americans want this, not just conservatives and not just liberals.
We need to show them that Americans across the spectrum

(43:51):
want action. So I thought getting conservative to the table
was helpful. But there's no organization in this country right
now that hasn't impact no matter who wins. The Sierra Club,
even the Nature Conservancy, any of these traditional environmental groups,
They're only relevant when democrats win. And the organization I
started in college is only relevant when Republicans win. What

(44:13):
about an organization that's just trying to move consistent conservation
through no matter what, and no matter who you are politically,
you want to be a part of that movement. And
that's the vision of nature as nonpartisans. So it kind
of went from a pack mistake to a conservative group
to now building upon that to try to build a
nonpartisan movement in America.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
Again, let's start with the let's start with the polar opposite.
So what year was it, twenty sixteen? I guess twenty fifteen. Yep.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
That was my senior high school freshman year of Colusus.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Where you had two visions yep. One one being a
vision of denial, YEP one being a vision of offering
a fix that isn't going to get wide spread buy in. Yeah,
I could picture that if you were like a picture
that if you were a staunch Democrat, because of all

(45:06):
their other planks in their platform that you might say, Man,
I need to go get my party to start getting more.

Speaker 7 (45:15):
In line.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
With Middle America so that we can win and I
can get my other policy pieces in that play right,
Like we're losing on the same way you might say
in twenty in the last election cycle, like if you were,
if you were, if you're sitting there thinking, man, the

(45:39):
tax structure in America is whacked. Corporations should be paying
way more taxes, the poor should be paying way less taxes.
But that's never going to happen because our party is
going to continue to get slammed on DEI issues. I
need them to stop it about that so we can
stick to the things that most of the country like.

(46:01):
That's our Achilles heel right, right, Like I can picture that,
But what's hard for me to picture is the process
of saying that, like to be like, I'm a conservative,
I want bigger environmental presence within my party. I want
them to come around in my way of thinking. I

(46:22):
feel that that would be like very private.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
For the politicians.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
For you, oh for me, I feel like that's you
having meetings with politicians, Yeah, because you can't burn them
you feel that you like, you can't publicly burn them. Well. Now,
the same way, if I was doing my whole thing,
I might go and say, hey, listen, tone it down,
tone it down. I'm like athletes, like who plays on

(46:48):
what team?

Speaker 3 (46:49):
But I could do I could do that. I could
do that, but that's not morally right to me. I
could be in the Trump administration right now, or have
some really high position if I just played the game.
I don't care about playing the game. I want to
get conservation outcomes. And so I'm willing to be bolder
because of that, and I'm willing to take on both
sides because a spotlight like, hey, you guys are freaking

(47:11):
weak here, and you're losing people. And by the way,
I'm not afraid to say, you should lose people because
you don't have an environmental plan. You should lose people
because you don't care about conservation. You should lose people
because you don't have any plan for clean air clean water.
But yet you use those terms in your speeches, right Like,
you say you want clean air and clean water, but
yet you're rolling back some of the most important regulations

(47:33):
and policies in American history. I'm not afraid to say
that because I don't care about who. I actually don't
care about who wins. In high school, I might have
cared I expose a seatback and stuff, but I do
not care who wins. I'm an environmentalist, conservationist, nature lover
person who wants to protect wild places and allow people
to go hunt, fish recreate in them so that we

(47:54):
can also have a healthy livelihood more than I care
about any political identity. And I think most people when
they think about this issue, do you think about it
that way? So people think I mean. In the last
couple of weeks, I've this famous EPA transition guy for
Trump just wrote a big hit piece on me that
I was like this trojan horse at Climate Week, just
trying to promote the Green New Deal, and I get

(48:16):
told that I'm all the time some like maga guy.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
It's because I don't really care.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Like we're quite familiar with it.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Yeah, you guys definitely get that.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
We're quite clear that you're like everyone.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Like you get in the box, and I don't want
to be in the box.

Speaker 6 (48:35):
Yeah, so don't you say anything. Just get in the box.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
And just say what we want you to say.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
But that would work I mean, so I've been starting
to talk about this a little bit more because of
the light of recent events. I co founded, and I've
never said this in a podcast for but I've I
co founded Turning Point us say, with Charlie kirk Oh
in twenty twelve. I was fourteen years old, so just
it was a lot long time ago. The organization was
supposed to be about young people standing up to the

(49:04):
government to prevent the national debt from getting worse.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
That was the turning point.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Yes, that was the founding origin of Turning Point.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Like, you guys are gonna really stick it to You're
really sticking it to us, right our generation. Yeah, later,
Like at some point we're gonna have to tackle this. Yeah,
at some point, you're creating a real headache for us.
So please make my future not so tenuous exactly.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
So Charlie and I had this vision for that. Charlie,
that was a very tragic event, and it was a
very perfect opportunity to see how divided our country is becoming,
which is a huge problem. But what Charlie saw was
that there was an opportunity in playing into the political
culture war. Right, if I wanted to be a part

(49:54):
of the culture War. For the sake of telling people
how to win voters or or how to get people
a part of our team or box, I'd be doing
things so much differently than I am. And again I
could have many times. But it is ruining our country
and it's ruining conservation as well. And so for me,

(50:17):
when I wake up every morning, I think of how
much progress can I make given the political shit that
we're in, Because for the first time in a long time,
our environment is getting worse in America. Again, we actually
solved a lot of big problems for a very long time.
We funded public lands, We had the Clean Air Act
and Clean Water Act take care of really bad problems

(50:38):
in our cities and in our rivers. We had the
Endangered Species Act, which was effective for a couple of years.
There is sorely in effective. Wildfires are getting worse, public
lands are getting worse, the management of our ecosystems is
getting so much worse. Our water quality is getting worse.
And you know what the byproduct of all that is is,

(50:58):
because it is the byproduct of the division that we're saying.
Because no one actually has an incentive to solve problems.
They have an incentive to feed the culture wars. And
until we change that incentive, at least on this I
can't promise that we can change it on every issue.
But until we create a movement that just says we
expect you to get shit done and we're not going
to vote for you if you don't prioritize conservation, that's

(51:21):
actually the part that we should be saying out loud.
That's the part that we should be saying out loud,
because it's not just about killing animals for recreation and
hiking and skiing and all the things.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
That we all love, right It's not just about that.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
The health of our environment is about the health of
us too, and right now we are failing miserably, and
the left doesn't care, and the right doesn't care. They
care about winning the next election, and that is where
the root of our environmental problems comes from. And so
I say that to say, I could go down this
path of playing into the culture wars, but I wouldn't
be sitting at this table right now, and I absolutely

(51:55):
wouldn't be fighting for our environment because it's way easier
to make a name for yourself and get power and
get you know, influence right now off of doing things
completely differently. But at some point, at some point, Americans
are going to wake up and realize that the system
right now is screwing us all and it's also screwing
up our environment. Uh.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
That's what I'm backup common on the thing you brought
up with, just how hot like how he did the
how he did the online I always want to point
this out, how he did the online experiences right, Oh, totally.
Now for Charlie Kirk, Yeah, it wasn't an online experience. No,

(52:40):
that was a way that online like became a bullet
in real life. Yeah, and like killed a man. Right,
Do you know what I'm saying. I have this thing,
and I've brought it up. I brought up to ten
guests talking about various things. I think I was most
recently talking about with Sebastian Younger, where I'm like, there's
what I under stand to be true about the climate

(53:01):
in America from social media, the news, and then there's
what I understand to be true about America from being
an American, Yes, from going about my business and I
had I met someone for breakfast this morning. Yeah, the
conversations we had on the street with people, the interactions

(53:24):
we had with the people that were working there, like
the whole picture. I would never come out of my
morning being like, good lord, everyone's the country's falling apart.
I'd be like, this seems like a wonderful country. This
is this America. This is awesome being an American. But

(53:44):
then I go and look about what it is and
it's red hot, and and and with with Charlie Kirk,
like I was like, man, and many other examples, this
is this was because it's fresh. With Charlie Kirk was like, Man,
they collide, they are they collide.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
And then we're manifesting it to become It used to
just be an online thing I used to get. I
got death threats in high school for what I was
doing politically, I had.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Because people don't like because it's it's too unexpected, right,
it's too unexpected to see a woman that killed a
lion in Afta that.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
That's gonna go viral off more than more than making
phone calls. And my voice hadn't even changed yet. Okay,
I was just a little boy, But yeah, I mean
that they're the chronically online world, which is so disconnected
from reality. I mean, I had breakfast with Van Jones
yesterday in New York City, the big social justice liberal

(54:42):
commentator see an guy I don't recognize that name, CNN host. Yeah,
but he's black social justice guy.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
We don't.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
He's one of my best friends. I don't talk to
him about politics. I just love him as a human,
you know. Like, and my mom's like, oh, what, you know,
what what issues did you guys talk about? I'm like,
we literally didn't. He just give me advice and how
to be a better leader. And we were just talking
about life and his girl, his fiance and all that stuff.
That is how most of America actually operates on a
day to day basis. But then you look online and

(55:10):
you see what But we're becoming a chronically online nation.
I mean, you look at the average screen time in
this country, and it's not people looking at candy crush, right,
it's people looking at Twitter and Instagram and feeding themselves
the worst information. And we are convincing ourselves that everyone
else is actually evil, like Hitler level evil for both
sides to think about the other side. So it is

(55:32):
colliding now. For a while, it was just like, oh yeah,
just turn off the social media. It's just it's not
that bad in real life. Well, it's becoming that bat
in real life because we're manifesting.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
You, because it's some dude on a roof of the gun, right,
and people takes one.

Speaker 6 (55:43):
It only takes one to.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
Bring it out of the yeah right, and man it
has a yeah. It's like it's been I look. I
brought that up as a preamble to say I got
a fifteen year old. The insanity that he comes home

(56:08):
and he's you know, he comes home and it's just.

Speaker 7 (56:10):
Like and then it was like, Dad, here's some solid facts.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
I know. It's not even that, it's more like a
what do you He kind of comes home with like
what do I make of this? Right? And just the
insane things, the insane things that are being spun out
of that it's just this A long preamble led me
to like I hit a point a week like some

(56:35):
time ago. A week ago, I hit a point where
I'm like, dude, I am like, I was like, I
am ready at my age, I'm ready to just I'm
going to step away from discourse. I mean I'm not,
but for a minute, I for the first time in
my life, I was like, I just don't want to
talk to anybody. Anymore. Like I don't want to participate

(56:57):
in the discourse anymore. I just want to be the
guy that only knows about who he runs into at
the hardware store. It's like, I'll go to the Harvard
store because that's going to be cool.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
We have to bring that back.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
I'll go wherever. I'll go to my buddies party because
that's going to be cool. But I can't do anything.
It didn't last and it's not for real. But I
just had a point where I'm like, I'm just done. Man,
Like I'm done because that style of that style of
uh debating or that style of like exploring ideas is

(57:34):
like it's rational conversation. Hey, like I understand what you're saying,
but I don't agree. Is pass a?

Speaker 3 (57:41):
Yeah, that's it's absolutely not the norm anymore. And I feel,
so do you give up?

Speaker 4 (57:46):
No?

Speaker 2 (57:47):
I think we got to play the game.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
Okay, what's the game?

Speaker 2 (57:50):
The game is, let's let's talk about the environment.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
How do you play the game?

Speaker 3 (57:54):
We have to create a similar movement around culture shifting
for conservation that that is in people's social media networks,
it's it's in their communities, it's around them, because we
are not going to beat the algorithm. We're not going
to change people's tendencies to log on to social media

(58:15):
whenever there's a break in their day, at least not
anytime soon and see the worst news imaginable. We have
to figure out how to meet people where they're at
and help people understand that there's something they can advocate
for right instead of just being like, oh my god,
I hate this person, I hate this person, I hate
this person.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
As a song, you have a little tune to that.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Sometimes, you know what, I guarantee, I guarantee he goes
in and takes that out of the show.

Speaker 5 (58:47):
Just to prove you it's not going to happen. I'm
not disturb but my one person I left through is
my wife, and.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
So just breaks the whole flow during the show.

Speaker 7 (59:01):
Yeah, kind of piggyback a little bit off of what
Steve said, but also just the the there isn't a
need I see, Well, it's going to be complicated. I
push back on the fact that like established conservation groups
aren't making stuff happen under every administration. I mean they are,

(59:29):
maybe like the is the win that we're getting not
an actual win. A lot of times I believe that
for sure. Like I think if we are looking in
terms of like, oh my gosh, the Democrats did this,
that's such a win, that's not a win. If we're
looking in terms of like, Okay, the Republicans did this,

(59:50):
that's a win, that's not a win. Agree. The win
is when it's there's certain things like the health of
are an natural resources are just this non starter for
every political party, Like it's assumed that these things have

(01:00:10):
got to have a certain level of health and management
because it does tie into national defense, the health of
individuals within our country, mental and physical, and our food
production and all the things like it does.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
But I would say the groups that are currently out there,
there are so many good organizations, many of whom we
both work with, but it's not getting the job done.
And what I mean by that is there is no
cultural movement in America that's telling politicians they should take
the environment seriously as America, like as Americans, like the

(01:00:48):
Human Rights Campaign, for example, you might disagree with gay
marriage or you might love gay marriage. They showed politicians
they had a national campaign. Their bumper stickers are still
on people's cars all over the country that it was
an expectation for almost all Americans that equality was important.
That's how they got it done. And obviously this is
a different issue because it's not just like one landmark

(01:01:10):
thing that we need to get accomplished. We need continuous
But there was a national unified expectation of conservation thirty
years ago that does not exist right now. So and
that is not the failure of these organizations, but it's
not working. The current movement is not working. And the
vast majority of people who do reach out for conservation

(01:01:32):
in the environment are left of center people, whether we
want to admit that or not. And until we make
it left center and right, until we show no matter
if you're a Republican or a Democrat, this was an
expectation of Americans that we're going to continue going down
this trajectory where we don't get the policies that we need,
and actually, even worse, we get the policies that none
of us want, which is what we've been getting over

(01:01:54):
the last year. And it's because there's not an expectation
of pushback. The only time that I've seen it since
I became active in this space where it's actually worked
is this public land selloff where you had people from
across the political spectrum saying, no, over my dead body,
you're going to sell this land. Right, But we haven't
had a unified front like that on the environment for decades.

(01:02:17):
And we can try to push behind the scenes. And
you know, like I love TRCP and t you and
I know you know Chris and Joel and all these
are great people running great organizations, but there's no national
movement that represents what they believe is your.

Speaker 6 (01:02:31):
As far as like what you're doing.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
That's not that groups like TIERSCP aren't aren't doing currently,
You're talking about a coalition that expands beyond the Hunter
because I think the Hunter angler space has is unique
in that it's it has that bipartisan.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Angle.

Speaker 6 (01:02:54):
It's expanding that if I think beyond the hook and
bullet I am.

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
I am having a hard time thinking beyond the hook
and at groups what like environmental policy groups have that
same bipartisan influence because.

Speaker 7 (01:03:09):
Like I'll give you an example, right, Like I believe
very strongly in the work that Pheasants Forever Quail Forever does,
right and and it's like not super sexy working on
the farm bill right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
Right, those groups are already there right, and they do
great stuff, but the culture in America is not there.

Speaker 7 (01:03:27):
And and here's the example, right, is like, uh, it's
getting late in the election cycle, yea, all of a sudden,
it's announced all over media that both parties need hunters.
Hunters are underrepresented in their demographics, their research, we need
hunters at the polls. And here's this push from the

(01:03:51):
Biden campaign at that point. It was it was the
Biden campaign at that point.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
Yeah. And and then.

Speaker 7 (01:03:59):
So it was like Byden Harris for hunters, and then
and then the Trump campaign was pushing out hunter specific
language as well.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
And then.

Speaker 7 (01:04:10):
There's the annual Governor's hunt ye in Minnesota that pheasants
forever is always a part of, doesn't matter what uh
political affiliation the standing governor or current governor has, And
that got kind of turned into like a Biden Harris

(01:04:31):
hunter moment that had nothing to do with pheasants forever,
and they just got absolutely shellact. They still are and
still are, yeah, and they're they're made to like swallow
this right rhetoric in order to quote unquote be in

(01:04:52):
the room when it's like our history, our track record
says we will work with anybody in order to fulfill
the mission, and the mission benefits everybody by the way, yep.
And the pushbacks on the organization that has this established

(01:05:13):
track record of nonpartisanship, the pushbacks not on the politicians
that manifested all this bs.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
Right, that's true, But the political tenor of the conversation
hitching your wagon to anybody politically right now is risky, right.
I mean, Pheasans forever saw that, and they shouldn't have
been taken, you know, to the to the court for that.
They should have had Tim Waltz there. And that's not
a big deal, like it shouldn't be seen that way.

(01:05:42):
But I go back to the fact that like this
public land sell off was almost a godsend in terms
of giving an example of what I'm trying to build,
which is, you had millions of people for the first
time in years, like you did win there's smog in
the cities across the country, like we did when there
were rivers on fire in Ohio. Right, you had millions

(01:06:03):
of people saying I don't give a shit with my
political belief is, and honestly I don't. I voted for you,
Mike Lee, but I'm not for this. That's the cultural
movement that we need, and so I don't know how
to change that peasants forever situation, because that's very unfortunate
and they don't deserve that.

Speaker 7 (01:06:17):
I guess succinctly, right, I'm like the the issues with
the politicians.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Right, the issue is with the politicians, but there's also are.

Speaker 7 (01:06:22):
The ones who are hitting the clickbait button.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
We're also falling for that right as a populace. Yeah,
and that's part of the problem too, And so how them, Well,
the issue is like tim the environment right now, if
you ask the average person on the street who owns
the environmental issue, almost everyone would say Democrats. Oh yeah, everyone,

(01:06:47):
So we like that, right, but even conservation people associate
We've done pulling and focus grouping. People associate these words conservation, environmentalist,
environment wordship, anything related to the environment as liberal coded
as Democrat coded words.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
And so yes, some more than others, right, I completely agree.

Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
But we've got to change that because like all these
words are being weaponized intentionally and unintentionally for people's gains,
whether that be clickbait or for campaigning. And you know,
in the same way that like stand up for cancer
or stand up to cancer or the Human Rights Campaign
or the gott Milk Campaign, Like, we need to show
politicians that there is a cultural movement to help create

(01:07:33):
space for the Pheasants Forever and the ducks and limiteds
and the trcps and the great organizations that are out
there to do the work that they need to do
because right now it's basically Republicans are fearful of associating
with any conservation group as they are scared of being
seen as liberal, and the left is scared of the
far left coming at them for not going far enough
on like climate stuff. And so again, it's creating the

(01:07:56):
cultural space. And we and there's so many great local
organizations out there already there. They're already there. There's so
many great topical based organizations out there, they're already there.
But in the way that like the Sierra Club or
NRDC or these groups could have been like the face
of America's environmental movement, conservation movement, rally people together for
common sense conservation.

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
But didn't we need to create that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
And and I would say, I don't have every way
of getting there yet, but someone's got to try because
the current environmental culture is not working for us, and
there's no space for politicians to see that they have
to get something done except for the public. Land sell
off as like literally the first example in like a decade.

Speaker 7 (01:08:40):
Yeah, I see, and I see this within the environmental space,
within the nonprofit space of a real disconnect with the
end consumer h just as I see it in the
political realm.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
The week of.

Speaker 7 (01:08:58):
Land selloff language going in the house, right We're up
on Capitol Hill talking with everybody we could super back schedule,
and it was like, hey, don't worry, it's not going
to happen. But you heard over and over again the
exact same lines from everybody. And by the way, we're
not going to sell national parks. Don't worry, right, thank god?

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
As just as just in it as I've ever heard that, like, oh,
we're not talking about national parks. Didn't trust me. I
didn't think you were.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
Confirmed what I already knew.

Speaker 7 (01:09:33):
And the you know, it's frustrating but eye opening too,
where you're like, Okay, something is going on, right because
everybody seems to have the exact same talking points and
they have no knowledge of the fact that the people
that are starting to push back right now have no
interest in the national parks or very little interest. Uh

(01:09:54):
not because they don't care. But the assumption is parks
are going to be safe.

Speaker 3 (01:09:59):
I mean I had senior official in the total gistration
tell me, hey, like Americans won't get upset about this
because Americans just care about national parks and national park health.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
And I was like, do you realize have you like
a quick chat ebte? Quick? You know you're gonna research
it sounds like very quickly you're gonna help. You could
help them with this.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
You know, there's more recreationists than US four service land
and b L m N than there are national parks
every year. So they were missing the boat. But there
is again a real disconnect between the politics and the
public on conservation right now. I mean it was but
it was really uplifting to see like far right militia
leaders and far left climate activists literally stand together and

(01:10:45):
but the.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
With either one of those groups that's replicable.

Speaker 3 (01:10:56):
That is replicable though, because it's not just about public
lands and hunting and fishing. It's also about clean water
and more efficient agriculture and forest health and wildlife conservation
and like clean air, Like we could rally people in
a similar diverse coalition and that's what I'm saying hasn't
existed in a while.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
And so there's it would create, it create.

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):
It created space to kill the bill or that part
of the bill and it, but it also could create
space to do the right thing too.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
And that's the vision that I have.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
Let me hit you with one.

Speaker 3 (01:11:32):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
I had three questions pop up my head, but I'm
forgetting them as fast as I'm thinking. This was the
first one that I wanted to ask you about. If
what is the let's say you what you're you're talking
to a neighbor. Okay, yep, you're taught new neighbor. And
you know that you have your taught new neighbor who
is my parents. Fiscally you're taught to do a fiscally

(01:11:54):
conservative neighbor. Sure, okay, single issue voter maybe a little
bit like likes the fiscally conservative economy efficiency not like
an idea logue, right, And he says to you, Benji,
why should I give a shit about any of the
stuff you're talking about? Like, sell me on it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
There is no country that we love without the resources
and the beauty that we have, right, like the resources
that we develop largely on public land in a lot
of ways. The resources that we develop, the water that
we have, the agricultural industry that we have. Our entire
country relies on the environment to survive. So we could
extract everything over the next five or ten years and

(01:12:40):
probably break in a lot of money, but then we'd
be destroyed after that. And you can't take care of
the economy if you don't take care of the environment.
You can't take care of the country without taking care
of conservation. And it is not only an economic driver
to take care of our country. I mean recreation statistics.
We have the most recreationists in American history, generating you know, billion,

(01:13:03):
tens of billions of dollars of revenue for the government.
It not only generates an economic value, but it also
generates the value that our communities depend on to survive.
And I'd argue, what is a more important issue? Like
I live in Arizona right now, So if we're talking
to a neighbor in Arizona, what issue is more important
than water quality in Arizona? I mean in water, in
water availability, like, I can't think of one because we

(01:13:23):
have no water. We don't have a city, right like,
So this is this is all interconnected with people's lives
in a way that we've kind of forgotten about because
we've just developed so many resources and we're so technologically
driven that we kind of forget about the natural world.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
But but we have to.

Speaker 3 (01:13:38):
We have a symbiotic relationship with the natural world that
we've completely forgotten about. And we're one of the last
frontiers in the world that's actually taking care of our
land by and large, Like, yes we've got issues, and yes,
this like public land self was a huge threat, but
if you look around the world, Africa is getting destroyed
by the Chinese government and other countries going in and
saying we're gonna just mine everything and destroy with slave labor.

(01:14:02):
South America is getting deforested continually at a crazy rate,
and its wildlife habitats continually being encroached upon. We are
one of the last places in the world, Canada, a
couple of other places where we actually are investing in
this and it's one of the best values and assets
that our country has is our environment. So if we
aren't thinking about that from a national perspective, then we're

(01:14:24):
completely missing one of the most important parts of our country.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
Okay, I buy that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
I would hope you do.

Speaker 3 (01:14:32):
Well my neighbor by it, I don't know, but you know,
I think the we have become so digitized that we've
kind of forgotten about the natural world around us. And yes,
that's like, it's not the I heard a quote the
other day that was like so simple, but it's so true.
Like the environment isn't ours to, you know, extract resources

(01:14:56):
from the environment. Is ours to care for and develop
and work with and conserve so that future generations can
also exist. So yes, we need to develop resources, and
yes we need to you know, manage these places, but
we also have to care for them because we're not
the only people that are going to inherit this. And
I think we've just become such a selfish society that

(01:15:18):
that neighbor who's worried about fiscal policy isn't they're not
seeing the forest through the trees literally, right, They're just
literally thinking about their own vanguard account and the national debt, which.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
Of course is important.

Speaker 3 (01:15:29):
Both are important, but we've also got to think about,
you know, our children and grandchildren. And you know, I'm
twenty seven, I've got you know, I was working with
Charlie on the National debt when I was twelve right,
But I still got hopefully seventy more years on this planet,
and then I'm gonna have kids someday, and then I'm
gonna have grandkids someday, and I need to have a

(01:15:51):
world that's worth bringing them into, right, And it's not
about like kumbaya, like protect nature because we just care
about the wildlife. It's like it's so much bigger than that, right,
It's literally about us, And that's lost in a lot
of this.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
If you look at there's there's a couple of movements
that I'm that I'm always stunned by how effective they were.
And so we're gonna look at the push for the
legalization of gay marriage and then the legalization of weed. Okay,
now those are long running Those are long running disputes,

(01:16:29):
but something happened, But something happened, and they hit like
a they hit like a moment, and just like they
hit a moment where it became kind of bipartisan.

Speaker 2 (01:16:39):
Yep, that's what I'm hoping for.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
Yeah, but here's the rup. I want to talk about
those movements for a little bit. Then I want to
tell you why I think that what you're engaging is
more complicated because these were these were like fairly simple asks. Right, Okay.
The way the way gay marriage got over the threshold
was it wasn't like, this isn't about special privilege, right,

(01:17:05):
This isn't about this isn't like part of some zero
something we're going to take away something from someone to
give it to somebody else. This isn't like we're not
really asking the government to bend over backward on too
much here. It's just there's a thing. It's like this
symbolic gesture that we feel should be kind of applied

(01:17:27):
to all Americans and like and then to the right
on the right, you'd say, and really, remember, what business
is it of yours? What business is it of the government?
Who I decide to marry? Like? Do you really think
the government should tell you who to marry? And eventually
got where you had. You had this kind of leftist idea,

(01:17:50):
and the right merged onto it. They had an easy
way to merge on because it was like if you'd
gone back, my dad was very conservative, got back, asked
my dad, he would have said, but it's none of
my business, right, what you know, what what that guy's
going to do in his house nothing to do with me, Right,

(01:18:10):
I don't have to love it. It's not my business
that that became a thing, and like, and that's when
that went legal. Weed a long running left issue and
it eventually became it's kind of even hard to get
to it, but it kind of became like a little
bit of a it's a plant that goes out of
the ground. I mean, can you really have a bunch
of rules about a plant that grows into your garden? Right?

(01:18:33):
And A, Hey, what that guy's doing is you know
what he's doing in his own house? Is it really
my business? And no one can really demonstrate to me
that it's more destructive than alcohol. It seems like when
you look at the stats like domestic disputes, vehicle crashes,
like booze ain't the best thing in the world, now,
is it really like there's less that goes into making

(01:18:53):
weed than booze?

Speaker 3 (01:18:55):
There's also a safety argument, right, like wouldn't you rather
have it be monitored by the government not have it
be e leg coming in? I mean, I had a
friend in high school who had like fentanyl in the
weed because it was illegal, and he died. So that
that you know, that's the argument that people make too.
So yeah, there's plenty of arguments to more of people
together there.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
But these things, these things that I've marveled at, like
in my lifetime, yep, in the end, were real clean
and they were like an issue. Public lands becomes like
a clean issue. But to call for a sort of
expansive kind of umbrella of environmental concern is bigger because

(01:19:41):
people would say like, well, what's the ask, and you'd
be like, it's a lot of asks all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
That's a great way of putting in it, you know,
And it's harder, It is way harder, but I think
it's worth it because you're gonna have different stakeholders engaging
in different parts of it, like the water stakeholders might
be different than the forest stakeholders, but but very similar
to those issues. There is an easy on ramp for
every political identity to care, whether that be for national

(01:20:09):
security or for jobs, or for moral high ground, or
for just carry about your local community, or for carrying
about nationals. You know, our national identity and legacy and heritage,
like protecting, conserving, taking care of our environment intersects with
everyone's political views in a very similar way to those issues.
Because that's not actually true on immigration as easily. It's

(01:20:32):
not as easy it on guns, right, Like those are
core parts and what on ramp are you going to
create between those issues from both sides. I don't know
how we solve those, right, But the environment might have
more variables to it, because it's not just one policy
that you're trying to get to legalize it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
Legalize it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
Yeah, It's not like you can go like, okay, we
did it in that state, that we're going to do
it in that state, right, and eventually it'll be that
we got like forty nine states.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:20:57):
This is not a one trick pony movement that we're
trying to create. And you look, this approach needs to
be applied to situations. Applied to the public land sell off,
and we were three months old and obviously so many
great organizations worked on that. We showed that it was
at least possible on that applied to that. But if

(01:21:17):
you apply that same group of people to restore in
Utah or restoring the Great Salt Lake, I think we
do a lot better of a job at restoring the
Great Salt Lake. But right now there's no knowledge, but
everyone in Salt Lake Vicinity wants to restore the Great
Salt Lake. Yet nothing is really being done about it
because everyone's focused on other political culture war issues and

(01:21:39):
there's no mobilized cultural movement across the party lines to
get something done. So you apply it to that, or
you apply it to Oh my god, wildfires are getting
worse and worse, mega fires are getting worse every summer,
not only in the United States but around the world.
Apply that to that issue, and so some stakeholders might
drop off, some might come on. But it's the same
on ramp where people have different whys, different reasons for caring,

(01:22:03):
but they care about the same end goal and they
have the exact same end goal, less wildfires. Who wants
to create a policy that creates more wildfires in this country,
I don't know anybody. So in the way of getting there,
the vast majority of people actually would agree on if
we actually had the chance to debate it, but right
now we're not. So I agree it's way harder, but

(01:22:24):
it's worth it, and I think it's worth it to
pursue that rather than having a disjointed movement where the
pendulum swings back and forth every four years on a
subject like Biden puts in all these massive conservation preservation
restrictions and public land deals and all this stuff, and
then Trump undoes it. People are like, oh, it's just
a Trump problem. No, we need durable, durable conservation solutions

(01:22:49):
in five years and ten years and fifteen years. No
matter where the country heads.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
We don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:22:52):
It could be advance, it could be a new sum,
it could be nobody that we've even been talking about. Right,
but at some point we have to have some consistency
because the lack of consistency is killing our environment, and
it's and it's refusing, it's we are deferring any policy
from getting done because of that disconnect.

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
So it is harder, but I think it's worth it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:17):
And I don't have all the answers today, but hopefully
in ten years we'll have this conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
We'll have made a lot of progress there.

Speaker 7 (01:23:21):
Let me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
Offer a.

Speaker 6 (01:23:26):
Probably a poor analogy, and you can tell me how
accurate it is.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
Can I raid it too? Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
Five stars?

Speaker 4 (01:23:34):
Absolutely, Like when you're talking about building cultural momentum and
having something where people on both sides can approach it
from their own angle, I'm wondering if you're and I
don't this might sound stupid and maybe dismissive, but you're
trying to like you're essentially saying, I want to make
caring for the environment, like support the troops.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
Yes, Like no, that is not dismissive.

Speaker 4 (01:23:58):
That is exactly because like five stars, there's because every
every politician is going to say that they support the troops,
and they're going to lean into it as as sort
of part of their mantle of legitimacy. Democrat who supports
the troops might vote for mental health counseling for veterans
and and research on on you know, like PTSD things

(01:24:22):
like that. Maybe they are pushing for greater equality in
different like you know, combat roles whatever. A Republican who
supports the troops might vote for funding for extra you know,
like like make sure the troops have what they need
to fight the wars.

Speaker 1 (01:24:39):
We send them to armored doors on their humbes, armored
doors on their humbes, right, And like.

Speaker 4 (01:24:45):
Obviously, I mean I feel like there's part of there's
part of me that when I hear someone say I
support the troops, I'm kind of like, well, that's brave
of you, you know, like, but it's good politics.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
And space where both sides are to support them.

Speaker 4 (01:25:01):
Because Nixon, I mean, Nixon has all this huge environmental legacy,
and and you could read it one way and say, like, god,
I didn't know he cared so much about the environment.
But really Nixon didn't give He didn't he didn't care
about the environment. He just was like, boy, this is
a powerful horse to hitch to my wagon.

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:25:22):
So that's that's that's sort of the analogy that occurred
to me as you're talking. It's it's making this sort
of a cultural plank of America that everybody's got to
have that feather in their hat if they want to
throw their throw said hat into the arena.

Speaker 6 (01:25:39):
To make this a really messy metaphor.

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
Five star.

Speaker 1 (01:25:42):
No, I like the metaphor, but I think that and
I get the point supporting the troops. You could say, oh, no,
I support the troops. We should bring them home, right,
and some guys like, oh no, no, I support the troops.
We should send them. Got to give them with they
need to send them advanced munitions. Yeah, right, Like you
both get the carried around.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
But I agree with that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:03):
But the troops are one of the few topics where
both sides actually sit down and have a conversation now though,
even though it's not pretty and they don't always agree,
and I'm not expecting that this is not some kumbai
a shit, but eighty percent of the time there's actually
a lot of agreement. So, but that's not being facilitated.
If there's agreement on troops in our military, they're at
least having that conversation because they feel like it's part

(01:26:26):
of the American national identity. And of course there's extraneous
times where they totally see differently, right, and that's going
to happen, and that did happen when Richard Nixon was president.

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:26:36):
There are people who thought Richard Nixon didn't go far enough,
and there are people who thought he'd went too far.

Speaker 2 (01:26:39):
Sure, but stuff got done, and that was.

Speaker 7 (01:26:43):
Farmers feed America. It would be the platform that I
think is the most applicable, is like everybody loves farmers
and that is the thing that feeds us and large
part secures our country. We don't have to import stuff
from all these other countries if we really focused on
farmers feeding America. But those ecosystems are the most rapidly

(01:27:08):
disappearing ecosystems on the planet, let alone in the United States.
Here in Montana, we lost a million acres of farm
and ranch ground over the last year, sorry, over the
last three years. And like, if you take a chunk
of grazing ground in Oklahoma and look at the interests

(01:27:31):
that want that grazing ground, yep, despite the fact that
every fricking politician is like, farmers feed America, God bless
the farmers. Right, it's like the last week in uh Foot.

Speaker 6 (01:27:42):
Let me but let me rush back on that.

Speaker 4 (01:27:45):
There's there's probably elected officials from urban burrows in New
York that don't get questions about farmers.

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):
Totally, like yet they're eating their food right.

Speaker 4 (01:27:56):
Like like it's that's something where people would be like, oh, sure,
but that's not really what my constituents set me here for.
There's nobody who's like, do you support the troops, and
they're like, it's not.

Speaker 7 (01:28:09):
Really name one.

Speaker 4 (01:28:10):
Yeah, I'm just not involved in that, you know, Like
everybody's like, yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:28:17):
Right, name one troop.

Speaker 4 (01:28:21):
Like like that that's an issue I feel like where
no one can, no politician can sort of step out
of line and no one can ignore it or say
like it's I'm focused on this.

Speaker 6 (01:28:32):
I'm focused on this and they're like, no one.

Speaker 4 (01:28:35):
Would respond to do you support the troops and be like, well, really,
I'm focused on transportation an infrastructure.

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
You can pivot easier with that. But I think it's
like if you're AOC as an extreme example, there are
serious environmental issues in New York City and with the
Hudson River. You know, if you're Wisconsin Senator, the water
you know, aquifers sinking and having the Mississippi get destroyed
by runoff is an issue, but that doesn't really matter

(01:29:05):
to New York. But like it's I think that's where
we've lost it is. It's like the environmental movement in
general has also hurt the hunting and angling community because
it's always been about for the last twenty years, polar bears,
climate change, energy, like things that don't really impact the

(01:29:25):
local community. That every local community has really their own
environmental issue and they truly don't care too much. Like
in Arizona. In Scottsdale, where I live, they truly could
not care less about farmers. Should they care, probably, but
like they don't. They care about water quality and access,
and they care about the smog that's getting worse. So

(01:29:47):
as but as a country, we shit, we share a
different reason for caring, but we all share the caring
part because we know we rely on it. So I
agree that like tagging farmers in is part of it,
but it needs to be a part of like local
community ownership. And people feel like there's no way to
get involved because it's like this issue is too big,

(01:30:09):
climate change, polar bears, that's not like my thing. What
if everyone was able to activate and advocate for the
issues that they cared about in their own local community
in a better way that felt more tangible, that felt
more realistic. And the vision that I have is for
if you live in the Great Salt Lake area, you
can advocate for that across party lines and actually get

(01:30:31):
something done for that, because that's what's affecting you. If
you're a big part of the country that has agriculture
and farming and you're worried about water quality and the
lack of crops that you can get now because the
substance in the soil is so bad, like then you
can advocate for that, But right now there's nothing kind
of that holistic view like there would be on troops,

(01:30:52):
Like troops is very complex too, actually, right there's so
many different variables there, but there's a culture around it
that kind of forces people to face You're some sort
of solution out and that's that's kind of the vision.

Speaker 1 (01:31:04):
A difference between you and me is that you thought
about something and then did it and and and I
thought about this and never did it. But I'll share
with you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):
I eat another piece of at.

Speaker 1 (01:31:15):
A point, please. At a point, I realized that there's
like a way I think about the environment that isn't
shared by the environmental movement. And I realized that this
way I think about it is actually shared by a
lot of friends of mine. Is that I have a

(01:31:36):
sort of there's there's a bit of a like a
nationalism and a patriotism yes to a view on the
American landscape. You know, Like a friend of mine was like, whatever,
he's going fishing with his kid. He's like, you think
they're doing this with Tyran, you know, just joking. Perhaps

(01:31:58):
they are, but just joking meaning he like it's like, uh,
he kind of views it like America the beautiful Yes, yeah,
do you follow me?

Speaker 7 (01:32:09):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:32:09):
And there was there was times I think it was
like maybe like the last election cycle or whatever. There
was times I was like, man, I should find some
better way of articulating this thing that I think is
kind of widely held where people have a sense of
American pride about the American environment.

Speaker 3 (01:32:29):
That is exactly you know, and you look at like
Yellowstone the show, Right, People didn't watch that because this
show is just good. It was because it evoked an
emotional connection to Americana in a way where it's like,
I'm proud of the fact that we have places that
look that beautiful. And every if you go into a
Member of Congress's office, no matter if it's Marjorie Taylor

(01:32:52):
Green or AOC, the first pictures on the walls are
of their natural beauty in their districts, right, Like, there
is an immense pride that Americans have in our environment.
This fall, we're going to launch a campaign called United
by Nature? United by Nature?

Speaker 1 (01:33:07):
Can you call it? Don't ship Up America.

Speaker 3 (01:33:10):
That'll be our secondary That'll be the secondary slogan, and
we let people use which one they like more. But
we have America's two and fifty anniversary next year. I
would argue that America, in our conservation legacy is the
best in the world. I would also argue that it's
incredibly at risk right now for the first time at

(01:33:32):
least to this severity in a very long time.

Speaker 1 (01:33:34):
Can you, when you get a minute, can you touch
on a couple of those points about.

Speaker 2 (01:33:37):
What I'm worried about.

Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:38):
Yeah, Americans are so proud of the natural environment. We
have to tap into that. So what I'm worried about.
National parks are in massive maintenance debt. We're having conversations
constantly about selling off public lands for development, which doesn't
solve affordability at all. And the people who are perpetuating

(01:34:01):
that know that wildlife issues are becoming worse. Chronic wasting, disease,
in ages species like these things are not getting better necessarily,
especially invasive species. I mean, water quality is going down.
Microplastics are a ninety four percent of tested water that
we drink, and the water quality in our rivers is

(01:34:22):
getting infinitely worse every single year. Megafires are on the
rise in this country, and things like the Great Salt Lake,
the watersheds, the aquifers below the farms, these are all
problems that are getting infinitely worse too. And at some

(01:34:42):
point we're already starting to see the impacts of this.

Speaker 1 (01:34:44):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:34:44):
Air quality issues in the summer with the fires, farmers
having tons of issues, flooding getting worse, not just because
of quote Unico climate change, but also because of the
fact that the ecosystems that help prevent a lot of
hurricanes and stuff the damage from the hurricane have now
been destroyed, so there's not these natural barriers. So we
have massive problems. And yet the government, the Biden administration

(01:35:10):
didn't focus on this at all. They focused on them
like climate and energy and infrastructure and evs, but until
kind of the final hour, they didn't even really talk
about this conservation or preservation or anything with the natural landscape. Yeah,
and Trump's whole approaches. I will to undo everything because
it's gone too far and it's wrong and whatever, but

(01:35:30):
we're not going to replace it with anything. I never
liked that guy, because I never liked that guy. But
he's not just doing stuff that Biden did. He's not
just undoing some Biden did. He's undoing stuff that Nixon
did and George W. Bush did and Clinton did.

Speaker 7 (01:35:44):
What I point out to people often, right is I'm like,
there's always the other side right, participating in this, right,
Like even when there's a supermajority. Yeah, pick your supermajority. Right,
but there's right now, there's Democrats in the room. They're
not going home. They're not like, okay, well we'll see

(01:36:06):
you in four years.

Speaker 1 (01:36:07):
Right.

Speaker 7 (01:36:07):
There's always that non partisan aspect in there. One side's
ultimately going to have like a final say.

Speaker 2 (01:36:14):
But you know, it's like people are trying and on.

Speaker 7 (01:36:18):
The public lands issue too, it's like, well, thanks for calling,
but we defer to the eleven Western states, right. You know,
they're be a Democrat or Republican, they're the ones that
have the knowledge, and so we're going to listen to them.

Speaker 3 (01:36:33):
Right.

Speaker 7 (01:36:35):
And that's just like something that people need to be
reminded of, right, because it all gets shackled onto, you know,
kind of who's in power at that time.

Speaker 3 (01:36:44):
Yes, but I think on a quick diversion, I just
want to say thank you to you guys, because first
of all, I think between you and me and a
couple of others in the non elected space, we are
blamed for killing that horrible idea to sell off the
three million acres. It didn't matter that Patagonia took a

(01:37:06):
stance against the public lands at all. The sell off
didn't matter that Sierra Club did that didn't move the
needle at all. In fact, it probably hurt that they
weren't engaged. It mattered because center left, center and center
right voters who were largely in your communities Joe Rogan's
community campaign's community and in our community were saying no,

(01:37:26):
hands off. Because that's the broad coal that's the power
of a broad coalition, because no matter what the moment is,
you're meeting it. Then, right, you're meeting the moment because
you have the broad coalition. And it's nice that the
people in California were saying things, and it's nice that
the people in Washington didn't like they should. But that
didn't move the needle on that one. But maybe it'll
move the needle on a different one.

Speaker 1 (01:37:45):
Right, Maybe if I tell my family something and my
kids get real mad, and then also my wife's mad,
she's mad.

Speaker 3 (01:37:57):
Exactly exactly, And so I want to thank you for
that in the areas where you know, quote unquote didn't
make an impact, right, like the.

Speaker 7 (01:38:06):
Rosy picture of the idea, right is it's building equity, yes, right,
and there's going to be this like alarm bells went off?

Speaker 1 (01:38:14):
Right, why is that?

Speaker 7 (01:38:15):
What's the deal with this issue?

Speaker 1 (01:38:17):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:38:17):
And it's all very important.

Speaker 7 (01:38:18):
I already said I support the troops. Right, people are
still looking at me weird what's going on.

Speaker 3 (01:38:25):
But that's that's the power of this broad coalition. So
I just say that to say also, that's how like
in the future, it will be different states that are
relevant for different environmental initiatives and will need those people
there too. So but you know, there's some really good
people there like Martin Heinrich and Tim Sheehy and you
know Crapo and Danes and who care about conservation and

(01:38:46):
there's overlap with this idea, but they also don't have
a lot of space to work within, like they they
they all actually, whether they want to publicly acknowledge this
or not, they really were happy about the pushback because
it gave them the ability to do what they actually
wanted to do, right like, especially for a Republican A
lot of Republicans. I know for a fact that there

(01:39:09):
were about sixteen other Republican senators who wanted to stand
up against the public man sell Off, but they didn't
feel like it was politically helpful to do so. And
until they feel like there's that space to step out
and say, actually, this is not only what I don't want,
but it's also what my voters don't want. They're going
to be more gun shy. And you look at the

(01:39:30):
senators who spoke out. We all knew that they didn't
want this to happen from the get go, but because
there were so many voters saying they didn't want it too,
then they're like, well, now I can justify speaking out.
That's kind of American democracy at work in a time
when people are just don't really speaking out about things
other than the radical extremes. So that's where like the
rational middle standing together to say, oh, we support the troops,

(01:39:52):
Oh we support the environment and conservation. It gives space
for not just the Heinrix and the ones who are
always going to be willing to put their like Martin Heinrich,
who we all love.

Speaker 2 (01:40:02):
I think maybe I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:40:03):
I love him. No, I like him. I like him personally, Yes,
he's a rare I like him personally, Yes. And I
appreciate his constant advocacy on behalf of public lands. Yes.
And I appreciate that he of many things I appreciate.
I appreciate that he is willing to be like a

(01:40:24):
very outspoken hunter right, and a yeah in a in
a in a a in a political party where that's
not always the most uh, it's not always the most
welcome identity to have.

Speaker 3 (01:40:35):
And Tim Sheehy, when I've had conversations with him, will
be like Montana cares more about conservation and the outdoors
than you know any other place, you know, arguably, and
so I I have to lead on this, but I
also want to both of those two gentlemen go against
the grain in a lot of ways of what they're
quote unquote supposed to do.

Speaker 2 (01:40:54):
There's very few leaders like that in d C.

Speaker 3 (01:40:57):
Right, Like, that's the world that I'm you know, really
unfortunately familiar with, and we need to give space not
just for those guys who are always going to try
to stick their neck out as much as possible, but
also the kind of the cowards. To be honest, they're
always going to be cowards and the Senate in the
House who actually do want to do the right thing though,
and they just don't feel like they have a space
to do it. And that's the power of the movement

(01:41:17):
that I think we could build, because there's an underbelly there.
If you talk to those sixteen Republican senators who wanted
to speak out about it. I guarantee you if I
said there's gonna be a million people in your state
right and left, we're speaking out about this in your favor,
they would have been like, Okay, than I can too,
and that's the power we.

Speaker 2 (01:41:34):
Need to build.

Speaker 1 (01:41:36):
Let's change subject of teeny bit or change focus at
teeny bit. If you're sitting there as a guy that
grew up and you had conservative principles, right, and you
felt that like the party I kind of instinctively want
to align myself with, Like they just are not representing
my environmental concerns, right, I need them to. I want

(01:41:59):
to change that position from your perspective, Like, what do
you have to say if you had a private audience?
So you have a private this is a private audience, right, Yeah.
So so the houses, the Democrats in the House and Senate,
they come to you and say what can we be
what could we be doing different? What can we be

(01:42:20):
doing different? What to them? Because it can't be that
like they got it just right now, and you just
want you just want the Republicans have adopt their approach,
like where are they missing? Where are they losing people?
Where are they missing? Where could they be more effective?
When I say, I mean like a big day like

(01:42:40):
the Democrats on average, Ye, like the Party of the Democrats.
Where do they miss?

Speaker 3 (01:42:46):
Well, I think I'll reiterate, I think both sides are
failing almost pretty equally on this issue. And the way
that the Left has failed is it has been so
much about climate and kind of this hysteria around Like
I believe in climate change, and I you know, I'm
not afraid to say that, but like when you're just
talking about carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, like, climate change

(01:43:06):
doesn't matter if we destroy all the wild places that
we have left, right, Like it's like a distant priority.
If you destroy the Amazon and you destroy all the
wild places that we all love to recreate in, then
we might as well just keep eating up the climate
because we're all screwed. So they've kind of forgotten to
work on conservation because they've been so focused on this other.

Speaker 1 (01:43:27):
Issue technical solutions.

Speaker 3 (01:43:28):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:43:29):
Green New Deal, you.

Speaker 3 (01:43:30):
Know, is an oversimplified way to give the analogy, but
it's basically, you know, that was their whole environmental platform,
and you were like, well, if you look at the
Green New Deal, it had nothing to do with public lands,
private land conservation, sustainable ag forestry, water quality. It just
only had to do with energy and EVS and technical infrastructure.

(01:43:52):
So that's where they've really failed. And it's also been
a race to the left. What's the most that you
can do to be as radical as you can out
to say you care more than the other person. But
it's all about grand standing and it's all about like
these pledges and these goals, but there's nothing behind them.
Like I went to cop the UN Climate Conference for
three years in a row, and it was the most

(01:44:14):
abysmal time of my life because it was just like, well,
if we have this pledge to be one hundred percent
renewable by twenty thirty, that would be better than this
company's pledge, or this country's pledge, or you know whoever
the stakeholder was.

Speaker 2 (01:44:26):
And it was like, what are you actually gonna do?

Speaker 7 (01:44:29):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:44:29):
Like there there's no it's all about the messaging and
it's not about the details. And the last thing that
I think that they failed that is it has been
you know this age old conservation versus preservation is like
the debate, right, it's been going on for centuries and
in America specifically in the last century, they've been hinging
very closely to just working on preservation rather than conservation

(01:44:50):
and restricting access for hunting and angling and getting outdoors
and like people are so scared of like resource development
and using public lands for other and then just like
the Zero Clubs saying they want to watch the bears
or the wolves and not hunt, you know, hunt them,
Like that's kind of been the mindset has been the
Zero Club mindset. And so in a similar way that

(01:45:11):
the right has completely failed and is failing right now
and we're seeing it. It's their turn to fail. The
left has been failing too, and at some point one
of the parties will get it right, or hopefully ideally
both of them get it right, but right now that
neither one of them is.

Speaker 7 (01:45:27):
Yeah, the use ray like we're both in New York City. Yeah,
And man, the riot that would ensue if somebody was like, yeah,
we're just gonna make Central Park off limits, right, just
I was up with this Upper West Side array.

Speaker 4 (01:45:47):
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 6 (01:45:49):
We don't want we you know, we don't want people
to interfere with the squirrel movement, right.

Speaker 2 (01:45:53):
The squirrel movements, squirrel migration.

Speaker 7 (01:45:55):
Yeah, a couple of like quick anecdotes for rip over
their brutal travel and get on the island of Manhattan.
As soon as he get into Manhattan, there's this guy
who does not look like me, probably has very different
ideas about a lot of things, on an electric scooter,

(01:46:20):
flying through traffic, and he's got two fishing rods strapped
to his back coming off the Hudson. And I was
just like, Okay, this guy and I like, we can
have a conversation, I guarantee you. I thought that was
just super awesome to see. And then yeah, the conversations
that I had about like the parks, because I was

(01:46:43):
blown away by how many dogs are on the Upper
West Side and people like they do whatever it takes
to maintain a dog friendly lifestyle. And I thought that
and it, you know, it obviously like connects to these
park systems, right. And I thought that was just a

(01:47:03):
good example of like, here's this very this this group
of people that I would put in a very nature
disconnected category who have totally changed their lives in order
to have that connection with that version of nature. Right.
And they were like bird watchers, Holy, now.

Speaker 2 (01:47:23):
So many birdwatchers in New York.

Speaker 7 (01:47:25):
I was amazed. I was pretty pretty amazed with that.

Speaker 1 (01:47:27):
And then.

Speaker 7 (01:47:30):
But kind of to go back to the like the
farm ranch community and where a lot of environmental groups
have just like again lost connection with the end consumers.
Another example, man, the majority of farmer rancher folks that
I know address climate change every single day. It is

(01:47:53):
part of their business as part as their their business plan.
And they are so aware of the changes and the
effects of climate change. Uh, the only way that they're
going to be viable is.

Speaker 2 (01:48:07):
By adapting, mitigating all the above.

Speaker 7 (01:48:10):
Yeah, and they are doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:48:12):
And they do not.

Speaker 7 (01:48:15):
Want to be associated with the climate change crowd, no, right,
but they're doing it every single day and they.

Speaker 2 (01:48:20):
Are the climate change ground.

Speaker 1 (01:48:22):
They don't want anybody to think they're a weirdo. Yeah,
oh yeah, a liberal hit. Yeah. And it was like
when my calves hit the ground, when I plant this,
when I picked that, What I'm gonna do about water?

Speaker 7 (01:48:33):
How am I going to change what I plant?

Speaker 1 (01:48:35):
What?

Speaker 7 (01:48:35):
You know, what is worth it now versus was worth
it ten years ago. As far as like field cultivation
or non field cultivation, bringing what crops to market, the
whole the whole thing. Water use, right, fertilizer, use all
of it. And if you're not doing these things like
you're you're not going to be around, you're not out

(01:48:55):
of business.

Speaker 1 (01:48:57):
That's an interesting point.

Speaker 3 (01:48:58):
Yeah, And and then they hate they get the lecture
to them, the environmentalist lecture to them, even though they're
the ones doing in a lot.

Speaker 7 (01:49:07):
And some hook and bullet organizations too, like they use
what I would call at this point like boiler plate
conservation speak, right, and it's ian. It's the same version
slightly tweaked for the last twenty years, right, that's going
out to everybody, and they're like, well, this resonates. I'm like, well,
it doesn't resonate with people with the dirt under their

(01:49:29):
fingernails doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:49:30):
But the problem is philanthropy, so that there's money type,
there's so much money tied to it.

Speaker 3 (01:49:35):
And that's that's where I that's another world that I
have to work in, is the philanthropic world where you know,
and probably shouldn't even be talking about this because they
probably don't like that i'd be saying this, but it's
like they are so out of touch, but they have
so much money and they're funding these campaigns, they're funding
the zero clubs of the world. When they're doing this
anti bear thing, for sure, they're also funding these very preachy,

(01:49:59):
condescens Rural people are screwed up and dumb and like
are doing the wrong thing all the time, and we
need to take it back because farming an egg and industry,
they are the bane of our existence and we have
to basically ban them from society if we're gonna keep going.

Speaker 7 (01:50:18):
And it's it's like, and don't even get into the
nuance of like the definition of rural if you're standing
in Manhattan, the definition of rural if you're standing in
cold Foot, Alaska.

Speaker 3 (01:50:28):
The philanthropists are only the philanthropists would not survive a
literally ten minutes there. They live in San Francisco, they
live in New York, and they live in Chicago. Those
are kind of the and a little bit of la
Those are the four places they don't leave there and
they are in the biggest bubble if you think, like DC,
the swamp is a bubble which people want to drain.

Speaker 2 (01:50:48):
Philanthropy needs to be drained.

Speaker 3 (01:50:50):
Like it's it's crazy what I have to put up
with with philanthropists and how disconnected they are, and they
actually don't understand what's going on in America at all,
and yet they are funding tens of billions of dollars
of nonprofits to dominate the narrative. And so that's also
part of my plan right, is to represent in an

(01:51:12):
environmental movement America. Actually, because the environmentalist groups can't do that.
They literally can't. That's why I have such an advantage here.
They can't even they can't they can't even try to
do what we're doing because they're funded to not do that,
and they are in philanthropy is so screwed up because
a nonprofit only exists if they get the money, and

(01:51:36):
you only raise money if there are problems, And so
what's the Is there an incentive to solve the problem.
Then no, because if you solve the problem, you lose
your job. So there's there's there's you know, that's where
the disconnected messaging comes from because the people who are
dominating that from a financial perspective, who are donating to
these groups, have no idea how real America lives.

Speaker 1 (01:51:55):
I'm going to give you a very weird, petty example
of what you're talking about. I remember, uh when I
remember watching Just in the News, when when Michael Bloomberg, No,
not Bloomberg. Who's the guy the tall guy kind of
left in a little bit of a scandal. Mayor of
New York City Blasio. I remember right away when de

(01:52:17):
Blasio got elected, I haven't thought about and scamd.

Speaker 7 (01:52:22):
I was like, still.

Speaker 1 (01:52:26):
Bloomberg shor.

Speaker 6 (01:52:29):
He pulled that up on the screen.

Speaker 2 (01:52:32):
Can you put up all the Michaels.

Speaker 1 (01:52:35):
I remember when he when he came in, like a
thing he did very early was this like thing about
we laughed about it on the show, but he came
in and very early had this thing about the rules
about the horses.

Speaker 2 (01:52:50):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:52:53):
I remember being like, if that is not an example
of someone giving that guy money and saying listen, you know,
and he's like, okay, got it. I'll try to remember,
like you give me a bunch of money and some
about the horses. Got it? Like it was so transactional,
Oh yeah, and that like I imagine, but why not

(01:53:14):
that magic? I've seen it, Like you know, I've had
exposure to the nonprofit space where I see where donors
philanthropy can come in and manipulate a nonprofit agenda with
a big carrot.

Speaker 2 (01:53:33):
That's that's really how this all works and they're.

Speaker 4 (01:53:35):
Like advocate here though there because there's also ways in
which like a group the people as part of an
NGO have issues that they care about, Like they want
to work on wildlife, they want to work on public lands,
they want to do this.

Speaker 1 (01:53:50):
And and they see.

Speaker 4 (01:53:53):
Grants available and they sort of go, oh, we can
tie this to that by framing it this way. They're
still trying to solve that problem, you know, like like
I don't I don't believe that people at BHA, uh
don't want I don't believe that people at BHA want
the public lands issue to still to just be a

(01:54:13):
constant football because they actually care about it.

Speaker 1 (01:54:16):
No, that's true. They yeah, they're not. They're not like
they're definitely not thinking, well, we want to win, not
all the way.

Speaker 4 (01:54:23):
Yeah, and then like when they look at a I mean,
the philanthropy thing is complicated, and I think that I
think it exists on sort of like a spectrum er.

Speaker 1 (01:54:34):
It's like a tug of war.

Speaker 4 (01:54:35):
It's like, well, we could get into this pot of
money if we sort of frame our work in this way,
and we can use that money to do what we
really want to do. And sometimes you can get too
tugged too far outside of your core issues. But there's
also a lot of ways in which they're using that
money strategically to get to sort of pour more gas

(01:54:58):
on the fire and what they really want to work.

Speaker 3 (01:55:00):
I agree, but I think I think a lot of
it's subconsciously going in the wrong direction. So what I
mean by this is during the public lands sell off,
the Senator Mike Lee, if you remember on Twitter, was
going after me largely because of what I was saying
on social media, and his whole conspiracy is that I
was funded to go against him. I will be transparent.
I raised fifty thousand dollars after it happened, fifty thousand dollars.

(01:55:26):
I know that there are so many massive environmental NGOs
who took this massive public stand, again not moving the
needle at all, but they were like, you know, screw you,
President Trump, screw you, Mike Lee, screw you whatever. They
raised tens of millions of dollars off of that because
they tried to make a name for themselves in a
time where they weren't actually doing anything.

Speaker 1 (01:55:47):
Probably were not impactful because they weren't talking to anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:55:50):
Knew, right, So Mike Lee had actually in a strange
way the right thought process there, which is like Benjie's
probably using this to raise a ton of money, and
I didn't because I didn't even plan and get involved
in that, because I didn't know it was coming down
the pike. Like there was like you couldn't even plan for, right.
We all found out pretty last minute, and we all
just did what we needed to do, so there wasn't
some coordinated effort. But these groups are incentivized to make

(01:56:12):
it seem like they are doing more than they actually
are and to take harder stances than what actually would
move the needle because they know that that's where philanthropy is, like,
oh thank god, you know this group is taking such
a hard stand, but there's not actually like an outcome
thought of it. And so I think that you're right.
But a lot of groups raise money when they don't
actually do anything with it. And I'm not saying BHA specifically,

(01:56:35):
I don't know enough about that, but well, i'll give you.

Speaker 7 (01:56:38):
An example to your point. So roadless rule, Right, I'm
working with a bunch of different groups and talking about
roadless rule, and this kind of ties in a couple
of points I've been made today is right, Like, we're
not even at the actual conversation about roadless rule because
it's not about timber, it's not about public access to

(01:57:00):
these areas. It's not, in my opinion, actually about wildfire mitigation.
So just tell me what the reason is. Yeah, that
you want to roll back protections on forty four million acres,
that that would be like the chunk that is actually
going to get affected.

Speaker 1 (01:57:18):
You're not you mean, you're not buying that. It's just general, no,
a thing.

Speaker 7 (01:57:23):
Like, just tell me the thing so we can talk
about the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:57:26):
Right Earlier we talk about the debate, like the buffalo thing,
and there's all these red herrings, brucellosis whatever. In the
end you're like, oh, I get it. This is about
who's what animals eat? What grass? It's about grass, Yeah,
you know what I mean. And with the with the
l it was about like, this is about increasing new

(01:57:48):
lands for developers to develop.

Speaker 3 (01:57:50):
Right, and decreasing the federal state and trying to achieve
for their goal of reducing the federal budget deficit.

Speaker 1 (01:57:59):
That thread hearing it might it might be one thing
one thing.

Speaker 3 (01:58:04):
Well, either way, it's definitely out in affordable housing. We
can agree in that for housing.

Speaker 1 (01:58:08):
I don't think they're worry about the debt. There's a
lot better ways to figure out the debt totally.

Speaker 7 (01:58:12):
But on this road list deal, I've you know, I
have a good, good idea. Come upper.

Speaker 1 (01:58:20):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:58:20):
And I was like, well, why don't we all these
groups that have resources, why don't we spend some time
get the list of the green groups that sue the
most on some of these mitigation efforts that are that
are technically included in the wording of the roadless rule, right,

(01:58:45):
and we at least get them to a table where
we can have a discussion on what they're going to
sue on and what they're not.

Speaker 1 (01:58:56):
Right.

Speaker 7 (01:58:56):
And then we're going to have this letter and this
coalition that says, hey, all these including these ones that
are screwing everything up for everybody because they just sue
all the time. They just try to grind things to
a halt. Say this is our line. If you guys
outline where you need the work done, we will not

(01:59:16):
sue on this. And if they don't, we'll just make
this big, huge coalition out here say there is no
working with these groups, and we'll make it as public
as possible. We'll make them prize and that that'll be
the tactic here, right, And the response is like, man,
it's a great idea, ideas.

Speaker 2 (01:59:38):
We can't do it.

Speaker 7 (01:59:40):
And they're like are you I mean, are you going
to go to these law firms and be like, uh,
your business is going to be And they're gonna be like, Hey,
that's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (01:59:51):
Go to those law firms, be like youre familiar with
the whole like doge complex, that's what you're gonna have
to apply something different because work's drying up.

Speaker 2 (02:00:00):
Yeah, they're not going to say yes to that.

Speaker 1 (02:00:01):
Right. When did Nature is non Partisan get founded? April
twenty five? April twenty twenty five, layout for me, like,
how do you think? How do you approach things? Do
you approach things like quarters in your mind? Years in
your mind, ten years in your mind?

Speaker 2 (02:00:21):
Quarters? Because the world changes every quarter?

Speaker 1 (02:00:23):
Right, a couple of quarters? What's come? Like? What? Like?

Speaker 3 (02:00:27):
We're going to launch a national narrative shifting campaign with
a lot of the coalition partners that we've been working with,
including a lot of the groups that you work with,
you know, the trcps of the world. We're gonna include
everybody who's in this broad coalition in a campaign called
United by Nature. We're gonna have concerts, We're gonna have
community events, We're gonna have calls to action, We're gonna
have national ad campaigns. We're going to try to make
this United by Nature the calling card for support the troops. Right,

(02:00:50):
we are united by nature, whether that nature is your
salt lake or it's your you know, Everglades, or it's
your you know, beartooth mountains.

Speaker 1 (02:00:57):
Right.

Speaker 3 (02:00:58):
So it's it's trying to create that national identity. We're
going to launch it in the in the next quarter.
We're also going to launch it bipartisan caucus in the
Senate focused on conservation and try to create the space
for that to get done.

Speaker 1 (02:01:12):
Is it gonna be called the level Headed Caucus?

Speaker 2 (02:01:14):
The level Headed cauca? What was the notion?

Speaker 3 (02:01:17):
What was your secondary slogan for you don't show up
America Caucus?

Speaker 2 (02:01:21):
I'll ask.

Speaker 3 (02:01:24):
That's great, and then you know, we're really going to
focus on tell people to Caucus caucus is like a
little little family of senators that want to do the
same action on the same topic. And so there are
there's like the Congressional Sportsman's Caucus, which is a great
group focus on you know, sportsmen's issues and trying to

(02:01:45):
build support in the Senate just on those issues.

Speaker 7 (02:01:47):
So we saw the public Lands Caucus in the House.

Speaker 3 (02:01:50):
Yeah, yeah, and so it'll be very complimentary to that
in the Senate, but on more than just public lands.
It'll be about private land, wildlife, water, and a little
bit of a wider.

Speaker 1 (02:01:59):
Sweet And you imagine pulling in you imagine this pulling
in centrists from both parties.

Speaker 3 (02:02:05):
Or we actually want pretty hardcore Republicans and hardcore Democrats.
But it's gonna be one for one membership. So for
every Republican, we get a Democrat.

Speaker 1 (02:02:12):
Is that normal for a caucus?

Speaker 2 (02:02:14):
No, there are a few that are modeled that way,
but very rare.

Speaker 1 (02:02:17):
Oh yeah, because yeah, obviously.

Speaker 3 (02:02:19):
And our organization is structured part yeah, yeah, our organization
is structured that way too. We have half our staff
is liberal, half its conservative. Half our boards liberal half
half its conservative. And we're intentional for everybody that we add,
we are making do you have non binary everyone's got
a leaning somewhere like put me down for both.

Speaker 6 (02:02:44):
We do.

Speaker 2 (02:02:45):
Actually, if you look at it from the box, you
have to figure it out. No, we we we have
out our board.

Speaker 3 (02:02:51):
We have got a few people who I actually have
no idea, but if there's a pretty active conservative person,
we're definitely gonna have an active understood so that that's
the vision that we see, because when you have it
structured that way, and this is why, you know a
lot of environmental organizations their staff is one hundred percent
liberal or you know other boards one hundredercent liberal, and
of course they're going to lean that way, just like
if it was the other way. So so we're gonna
launch this caucus. We're gonna launch the National Narrative Shifting Campaign,

(02:03:15):
United by Nature. We're probably gonna do a big event
at Yellowstone here in the spring to rally people around
public lands and bring in like an A list celebrity,
a list music. So we're trying to make this a
culturally relevant thing. And can you speak, no, just bring
my kids want to hang out? What if they want
to watch their dad on stage, they won't.

Speaker 2 (02:03:38):
What if your wife wants to Yeah, we wanted to go, dad,
but we're actually gonna stay home this week.

Speaker 7 (02:03:50):
We heard this speech at dinner, part of it.

Speaker 3 (02:03:54):
But but yeah, that's kind of what the next few
months look like. And you know, we're we're really excited
because we're seeing, especially in the wake of just like
the political division, people are wanting something positive in politics
right now. And if there's one issue that could help
democracy kind of move forward and also bring our priorities

(02:04:15):
to the table, the environment's probably the best one in
my opinion. So we're seeing a lot of natural support,
and you know, people from across the spectrum. I mean,
we have drag queens and militant you know, militant activists
who are all believing in this same model. And it's
it's it's really kind of incredible what people are looking
for on this right now.

Speaker 1 (02:04:36):
How will you decide going forward? How will you decide
Like where with the public land sell off, there's like
a specific thing. Yeah, there's a known party that's pushing it.
There's a no, not not even party, there's a known
individual who's pushing it, yep, Right, and so you got

(02:04:58):
to like create friction, Yeah, like you're going to You're like,
whatever you do, however positive you keep it, you will
create friction. Right. How how are you deciding on what
issues where you're like, I'm going to create friction on
this one. I'm going to create friction on this one.
I mean specific bills, right, specific measures do I mean like,

(02:05:19):
is it just your moral compass? Like, like what goes
into going like this is going to get ugly?

Speaker 3 (02:05:25):
I think it's when we know that the vast majority
that there's a winning coalition that's willing to be like
active on something. Because we mostly want to be four things.
So what I mean by that is like, we don't
want to always be the group that's standing against whatever
is bad. That's what a lot of environmental groups do.
We want to show that there is a political constituency
to put forward funding for national parks, to put forward

(02:05:48):
funding for wildlife conservation, right, like, like show that there's
an appetite for that in a positive way. Because I'm
so sick of like politicians only being afraid of people
instead of like being like, oh, I'm doing this because
people actually want me to do it. So but when
there's this example, like the public land sell off, where
we have to take a stance against it, we are
going to be very intentional about picking and choosing. I've

(02:06:09):
already gotten so much shit for not taking a stance
against absolutely everything that's been happening over the last eight months.
And I'm like, I can't die on every hill, right,
and our organization can't die on every hill, and no
organization can die on every hill. But if there's an
overwhelming winning coalition of Americans where the politicians are so
out of touch with America like they were on the

(02:06:30):
public land sell off, we're going to show them that
they're out of touch. And so it will depend on really,
where's the American populace at, where's the winning coalition at?
And can we actually mobilize them, because if we can't,
then we're trying to stick a square peg into a
round hole, and a lot of times that's what happens
and it doesn't actually do anything. So if we're going

(02:06:50):
to really lean in and be against something, we better
be damn sure that it's going to be impactful before
we do it.

Speaker 1 (02:06:55):
Yeah, that's that's I like that appro Yeah, I'm at
a loss for words. I love that approach. I like
that approach because I think another way that groups would
look and they'll say this is we're gonna lose bad,
but this is gonna be good for fundraisings, and this
is gonna be good for press. If Peta says, hey,
we're gonna have it be that you don't say a

(02:07:16):
whole hog anymore. You know, they're like, we're probably gonna lose.
People are still gonna say a whole hog, but it's
gonna get a lot of media, exactly. But you know,
I'm not gonna win this one.

Speaker 2 (02:07:30):
And that's exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:07:31):
I mean what I'm at the point where it's like,
I care about the outcomes and if that, if that
comes at the cost of fund fundraising, I'm willing to
take that. If it comes at the cost of media,
that's fine. If it comes at the cost of people
thinking that I have some ulterior motive because I'm not
taking a stance on everything because I think that I'm
like trying to shy away from every issue, then that's
fine too. But I think people have gotten so used

(02:07:52):
to like, oh, you're not taking a stance on absolutely
everything that's bad, therefore you must have some ulterior motive.
It's like, no, it's actually the opposite, right, Like I
could raise so much money opposing everything that Donald Trump does.
I could raise so much money off of that, and
if I wanted to, I would do it. Or if
I wanted to defend everything he was doing, I could
also raise a lot of money off of that. But

(02:08:12):
I think over time people's demand is going to be
for trying to actually create good outcomes. At least that's
my optimistic view of the world, that people will actually
want that, and over time people will see, man, this
is if you want to take a legitimate stance on
something that will actually move the needle, this is the
organization to work with.

Speaker 2 (02:08:29):
That's the goal.

Speaker 1 (02:08:30):
You know what good analogy could be for you, Like,
think about how the military would look at battles. They're
not like, all the guys are gonna diem, but think
about what this is gonna mean from a publicity stamp,
right right. They're kind of like, no, no, no, I
think we should go on Wednesday night because we're gonna
win on Wednesday night, are you guys? Just you guys

(02:08:52):
have we're gonna go.

Speaker 7 (02:08:54):
We're gonna go on too much time together, Steve. Steve
and I were playing phone tag all day and I
happened to be on a Gettysburg tour and we finally connected.
While I'm sitting there looking at at Pickett's charge from
the viewpoint of the Union lines and seems like, well,
what do you think I'm like, this is so stupid.

(02:09:15):
I'm like, you cannot tell me, you cannot, Like, I'm
at odds with our historical tour guide right now because
I'm like, yeah, I'm not buying this.

Speaker 1 (02:09:26):
This is ego driven something being like can I get
a quick word? Just kind of looking down, looking around here?

Speaker 3 (02:09:37):
And that is the perfect analogy, though, That is the
perfect analogy. Yeah, and I think the conservation movement could
really use that. But also, like there to your point earlier,
there are so many incredible groups out there in the
hunting you know, in the hook and bult crowd, but
also in the conservation crowd, but they're not trying to
do what I'm trying to do, and so we can
work really well together to get things done because they

(02:10:00):
they do they do have science behind them, and they
do have resources, they do have research, they do have
some grassroots right, and they have a brand, and they
have really good ideas. But we need to facilitate the
space for those ideas and create the national identity around
those ideas. And so you know, I think for most
of America, like we hope to be the national movement,

(02:10:20):
but then we want to help accelerate the priorities of
all these other great groups that are out there that
just haven't had the space. Like TRCP has so many
great policy ideas. All these groups have so many great
policy ideas, but if the political space isn't there to
move them, then they're just ideas right and the roadless
rule or anything that we're against, you know, being rescinded,

(02:10:42):
Like we might be right about that, but if they
still decide to go forward with it because Americans didn't
speak up enough about it, then then it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (02:10:51):
Matter how right we were.

Speaker 1 (02:10:53):
So that I'm a big TRCP supporter. Cal does allow
to work with BHA, but I think that I'm sure
there are people that fall into a trap of being competitive. Yes,
but I would say, like speaking for the people at
this table, I would say, like we'll take the wins.
We can get them, yep, and we just need wins. Yeah,

(02:11:15):
Like you know, I love to see the groups I
love and the people I love thrive and do well.
But I'm not I'd rather see environmental wins than organization wins.

Speaker 2 (02:11:24):
I agree with that.

Speaker 3 (02:11:25):
No, And honestly, I mean, if nature is not God speed,
thank you God. And you know, it really doesn't matter
who gets the credit. We just need good conservation wins.
Like people ask me all the time, why am I
doing this? And I think you'll find out in twenty
years as we look back, forty years, as we look back,
I just care about conservation wins. And if Nature's non

(02:11:47):
partisans isn't needed, then that's then that's great. But if
it's also the most important culturally relevant organization, that's great too.
But like there is no motive other than getting wins
on the board. So but I like that approach because
it also means that we are being so collaborative with
all these other groups that largely have seen each other
as like competitive enemies in a lot of ways, but
they could be moving together.

Speaker 2 (02:12:07):
And I do believe that it's more powerful if they do.

Speaker 3 (02:12:10):
And I know that's kind of breaking the mold of
like the nonprofit model, it's breaking the mold of like
the political model. People want to be against each other
to find competition. But like, this to me, is bigger
than that. It's bigger than politics. It's bigger than who
has the money. It's bigger than who gets the money.
It's bigger than who gets the win. It's who and

(02:12:30):
how did we get the best outcomes for conservation because
we need like a twenty first century infusion of conservation
progress like Teddy Roosevelt created. We need to have that
legacy recreated in this country, and we're not going to
do it with the typical political bullshit that we've been
dealing with over the last few years.

Speaker 1 (02:12:49):
I appreciate it taking so much time to talk.

Speaker 3 (02:12:50):
Man, this is really fun. I even got to eat
jerky on air. Get to look my chops a little
bit frothee.

Speaker 2 (02:12:58):
Should we all do that and.

Speaker 1 (02:12:59):
Just go, oh, Phil, there's some jerky where you feel
like they should have put one of those old flossers
in the bag with it. But that doesn't give any problem.
I mean, like threads when we when I was a kid,
when we made we made jerky, my dad would just
like take the shank and slice it thin, you know.

(02:13:19):
I remember, like every piece of jerk you ate, you'd
have like a cut. You'd have a cut, and after
an hour jerky eat and you take this white ball
it's like a piece of chewing gum sinow and you'd
eventually take that and flick it.

Speaker 2 (02:13:37):
It's full of little jerky pieces.

Speaker 1 (02:13:41):
You just be like like, yeah, it's probably and you
open the window and off into the side of the road.

Speaker 2 (02:13:48):
This does not that I don't need that, no connective.

Speaker 1 (02:13:51):
Tissue, there's no cut, there's no cut to choose, but.

Speaker 3 (02:13:55):
I do want to again, you guys have a lot
of incredible influence and pact that you've made, both of you,
specifically on getting people rallied around these ideas across party lines.
So you're living the Nature's non partisan mantra every single day.
And I look up to you guys a lot, and
and just the way that you've LED's.

Speaker 1 (02:14:13):
Cal's tenacious man. You are.

Speaker 7 (02:14:16):
Well, it helps when you're right, that's the good thing.

Speaker 1 (02:14:23):
In the morning.

Speaker 3 (02:14:23):
Yeah, Well, when it's when it's authentic, you fight harder, right,
and and you can tell that you mean it, and
you can tell you mean it, and hopefully you can
tell that I mean it, And that just makes it
easier because you wake up every day and you actually
want to do it and you're not trying to put
someone in a box. Because the thing is the thing
that we have against these these screw ups in politics
today is that they are putting themselves in boxes that

(02:14:44):
they don't even think are authentically real. And at some point,
this authenticity of fighting for what we actually believe in
will win because we actually have the passion and we
actually care, and that will win.

Speaker 7 (02:14:54):
I keep reminding people, I'm like, we are right. And
if you don't think you are, bring this, bring your
viewpoint of public lands and the value of them to
somebody who doesn't have that viewpoint. And you can just
watch the mental gymnastics happen exactly and how they have
to like try to re center themselves on their argument.

Speaker 1 (02:15:16):
They're like, well have you.

Speaker 7 (02:15:19):
It's like, yeah, yeah, we got it.

Speaker 1 (02:15:23):
But I feel like you're not feeling.

Speaker 2 (02:15:25):
That that's not an authentic view you have, right, right,
They're like, well, I've never been but right, that's true.

Speaker 3 (02:15:38):
I think some of those guys we could really they
look like they've never been in the outdoors before, and
they look like, you know, maybe we could help them.
So yeah, that's something we should think about at some point.
Little sun, a little little mountain, little tree, little dirt,
little dirt.

Speaker 6 (02:15:52):
Not to sidetrack it, but summer.

Speaker 1 (02:15:54):
I was going to wrap up.

Speaker 2 (02:15:56):
An allergy.

Speaker 4 (02:15:59):
Summer and yellowstone. You see all these people pouring through livingstone.
They look like they've never spent a day outdoor in
their lives, and there's a lot of eye rolling about it.
But when I see that, I actually think it's really
cool that somebody who lives in Florida or or New
York or wherever is like, you know what.

Speaker 6 (02:16:18):
We need to do this year? We need to go
see Montana and Wyoming because you're a big hearted person.

Speaker 4 (02:16:23):
No, I mean the traffic gets old. I don't like
waiting for tables at restaurants, but like it's I don't.

Speaker 7 (02:16:30):
Want to peel the curtain back too much. But Randall
and his wife have both told me that if they
ever went on a murder spree, it would it would
be to target people who do illegal things in national parks.

Speaker 2 (02:16:44):
Okay, that's but that's a different argument.

Speaker 6 (02:16:46):
Again, all of my darkest secrets are coming out.

Speaker 2 (02:16:49):
No, but those are those are not contradictory, Like, yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:16:54):
I think it's I think it's so cool that people
are like that. The people in this country are like
I have to see this.

Speaker 2 (02:16:59):
This is part of my Americans.

Speaker 4 (02:17:01):
This is part of being an adult as an American.
Is like sharing this with my kids, even if they
never come back like another day, or they don't hunt,
or they don't fish. They're like, you know what, We're
gonna load up the station wagon and go look at
rocks and water.

Speaker 1 (02:17:16):
No, that's true, Phil. You should take that clip and
send that to Venmo and if they'll let Randall back on. Yeah,
I'm on it.

Speaker 7 (02:17:28):
This guy come on, such a bad guy him.

Speaker 1 (02:17:32):
Let him transact, let him buy what he needs to buy,
Let him buy what he needs to buy from the
state sales.

Speaker 2 (02:17:38):
This episode sponsored by then.

Speaker 1 (02:17:40):
Mountain man Benji Backer. Nature is nonpartisan. Thanks man, thanks
for having me.

Speaker 2 (02:17:47):
This is a lot of fun. And come back to
come back.

Speaker 1 (02:17:49):
No, I'd love to have you back on.

Speaker 2 (02:17:53):
And let's get out there together at some point too.
Would That's why I'd rather.

Speaker 1 (02:17:55):
Be hit us up in a year. That's kind of
a year later we allowed. I have a lot of
people to come back.

Speaker 2 (02:18:02):
I'll put her well, hopefully we made a lot of progress.
I'll put it on my calendar one year.

Speaker 1 (02:18:05):
One year unless things change a whole bunch and that's
all of a sudden, you win all the environmental battles,
then come back on.

Speaker 2 (02:18:12):
Is that that's the incentive right there?

Speaker 1 (02:18:15):
All right, you do an update, we won them all.

Speaker 2 (02:18:20):
I'll see in a year that's no way, that's happening.

Speaker 1 (02:18:23):
All right, Thanks man, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
H M.

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Steven Rinella

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 769: Can Conservation Be Non-Partisan?