June 9, 2025 • 33 mins
In this episode of One Thing Trump Did, we dive into the effect that budget and staffing cuts have had on the country's National Parks System, and proposals from the Trump Administration to sell off public lands. Jeremy is joined by Jonathan Jarvis, the former Director of the National Parks Service from 2009 to 2017. #NPS #NationalParks #PublicLand #Yosemite #Yellowstone #GrandCanyon #Trump
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to One Thing Trump did, available exclusively on the
Middle Podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson, and each week on
this show, we picked just one thing coming out of
the Trump White House to focus on it and break
it down in a nonpartisan way with someone who knows
what they're talking about. And our one thing this week
is our great outdoors, the public lands and national parks
(00:36):
of this country, and the plans that the Trump administration
has for them. There've already been doze related cuts to staffing,
and the White House budget proposal includes over a billion
dollars in cuts to national park funding across the country.
Trump himself has also floated the idea of selling off
public lands, although Republican Congressman Ryan Zinki of Montana got
(00:58):
that provision removed from the so called Big Beautiful Bill.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Now, the challenge is, you know, given what we have,
how we are going to be the stewards for the
next generation. I think it's the time to look at
the next one hundred years and how to manage it.
And there's a lot of anger out there of mismanagement.
But look, this is a red, white, and blue issues.
This is truly an American issue, and it's our moment,
(01:22):
I think to ask the right questions that are important,
I think to everyone that loves our public land.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well, joining me now to talk about all this is
Jonathan Jarvis, who became a park ranger back in nineteen
seventy six and led the National Park Service under President Obama.
Jonathan Jarvis, welcome, Thank you, Jeremy.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Well, by the way, the last time we talked, I
was sitting in front of Old Faithful hosting here and
now for the one hundredth anniversary of the National Park Service,
which was an amazing thing to I think it went
off during our interview. It actually erupted during our interview.
But let's start with an overview of the parks. You know,
people know the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the Great Smoky Mountains.
(02:03):
I read that last year there were over three hundred
and thirty million visits to the National Parks, more than
professional baseball, football, basketball, and Disney amusement parks combined. Just
tell us about the parks.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah, so yeah, let's start with the numbers. There are
four hundred and thirty three so called units of the
National Park System. We use that rather inarticulate term because
over the past one hundred years, Congress has chosen to
bestow a variety of titles. So there are national battlefields,
(02:36):
national seashores, national recreation areas, national parks, and the like.
But they're all managed on the benefit for the benefit
of the people of the public by the National Park Service,
under a set of laws and policies that protect the resource,
provide for the public access and enjoyment. They're the classics Yellowstone,
Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Rocky Mountains, so on and so forth.
(03:00):
They're incredible biological places like the Everglades or Big Cypress.
Then they are historical sites, all of the Civil War battlefields,
Revolutionary War battlefields, civil rights sites like Doctor Martin Luther
King Junior's Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Selmon to Montgomery Trail, Stonewall, Inn,
(03:22):
which is sort of the beginnings of the LGBTQ rights movement.
As like there are Native American sites like mes Verde
and Chaco Canyon, great symbols of American patriotism, Mount Rushmore,
Independence Hall, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island. They're all under
(03:45):
this management of a federal agency that's been around since
nineteen sixteen. The Park Service is about fifteen thousand employees,
hundreds of thousands of volunteers and partners out there, and
it's distributed its parks in every state of the Union,
including the territories from the Virgin Islands to American Samoa,
(04:08):
Puerto Rico. So it's a big responsibility and it's done
with a great deal of professionalism by the staff and
the many volunteers and partners.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
And what about the public lands. The US owns more
than six hundred million acres of public lands.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
These are not parks, that's correct. So as states entered
the Union, they were federal property initially, as you know,
after the Louisiana purchase and westward expansion and so particularly
in the West, a lot of the lands were retained
is under federal ownership federal management. So there are four
(04:47):
federal land management agencies, the Park Service being one, the
Bureau of Land Management, which is sort of the largest
of the four, the US Forest Service, which manages most
of America's national forests, and then there's the US Fish
and Wilefe Service, which manages some five hundred wildlife refuges.
(05:08):
And all of these public lands are open to the public.
They are managed on behalf of the American people. And
they provide not only oil and gas and gravel and
timber and you know, a wide range of natural resources.
They provide open space, recreation, wildlife habitat, and carbon sequestration,
(05:31):
you name it, watershed protection. There's many, many sort of
ecosystem services, public services, and often we forget about the economy.
And I want to specifically talk about the Park Service
and its value proposition in terms of the economy. So
last year, with three hundred and twenty million visitors or so,
(05:51):
they've spent twenty six billion dollars. And what's thinking you
think about that from an economic standpoint. They spend it
in the local economies, So that's the gateway towns. They buy,
they go to restaurants, they buy souvenirs, they buy local arts,
they stay in the hotels, they hire guides and outfitters,
(06:12):
they rent equipment, and so an enormous investment in the
American economy. But not just sort of like in one point.
It's distributed across the country. And that supported four hundred
and fifteen thousand jobs in the United States just the
Park Service alone.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Well, and you say twenty six billion dollars spent. I
believe the National Park Service budget is somewhere around three
and a half billion a year, So it's a big
return on the investment.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Absolutely. I always said the Park Service is not a
cost factor. It's an investment and it has an enormous
return back to the American economy and to the American people.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So one of the things I mentioned at the top
is that DOSE cut one thousand employees from the Park Service,
it has plans to cut more. What kind of an
effect do you know of that that has had so far?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
It's had a devastating the ripple effects. So not only
did they cut about one thousand employees, another seven hundred
or so have taken the fork in the road, the
so called buyout, and then there's planned for a reduction
in force another riff coming. We haven't seen the details
on that. So you're looking at a little over ten
(07:20):
percent of the workforce across the system. And I believe
it's having very much of a detrimental effect in the
parks themselves in terms of viability to manage these resources
for the benefit of future generations, for visitor service, visitor experience.
(07:41):
And I think one of the most concerning thing is
visitor safety. So you think about sort of the value
proposition that the Park Service presents is you go to Yosemite,
there's not a guard rail between you and Yosemite Falls
or the Merced River. You go to Yellowstone, that bison
(08:02):
are not rounded up in a corral someplace. We don't
let the bears out at night or whatever.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Right, there was one hanging out right outside of our
lodge and I had to sort of stay away from
it because they are they can be mean, those bisons, right, right.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And so the public we expect the public to come
and see this, but we have rangers, and rangers are
there to one inform the public about how to do
this safely, and they're there to rescue you if in
case you do get into trouble, get lost, or get injured.
You take away that core group and the public is
(08:39):
at much greater risk in terms of response time, in
terms of how to behave in a safe manner, in
terms of information so that you can enjoy your visit
to the park and not be at risk. So I'm
deeply concerned about that, and I think some parks have
been hit harder than others because the the firings were
(09:01):
kind of a random, scattershot, stupid approach to whatever it
is they're trying to achieve.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So why do you think, given that, given the risks
to safety, given the popularity of the parks, why would
the administration want to cut the staff like this, cut
park rangers, especially because it's such a tiny fraction of
the federal budget.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, the fraction is less than one tenth of one
cent of your tax dollars going to support you know,
it's a good question. It's a bit of a mystery
that we haven't really figured out of why you would
cut such a popular agency with the American people. I
(09:43):
don't think the other shoe has dropped yet in the
results of that politically, but I think there are people
that have come in with this administration. Now, Look, I
worked for forty years with the National Park Service, so
I've worked under started under Carter and Reagan, under both Bushes,
(10:05):
under Clinton and Obama, and there were always a small
smattering of people that would come in with a Republican
administration that viewed the National Park Service with disdain, if
not overt hatred. And one is they felt that, you know,
(10:27):
if your goal is to dismantle the federal government, which
is sort of underway. The last thing you want is
a popular federal agency that doesn't meet your sort of
mental image of a you know, overblown waste, fraud and
abuse kind of thing. You've got this highly efficient, highly popular,
iconic kind of organization, and so if you can sort
(10:51):
of kill that, then you can achieve your broader objectives.
The other I think driving force is privatization. That they
look at places like Yosemite or Yellowstone as a cash cow.
If you turn that over to the private sector, they
could make money. They could exploit it not only for
(11:12):
extractive purposes, but for a variety of recreational opportunities at
the same time. And I think that those two forces
in the past have been sort of minor voices and
overshadowed by the larger public appeal of the National Parks
or wiser political heads, including Republicans. I mean, my experience
(11:35):
on the Hill traditionally historically is that the Park Service
has been very nonpartisan bipartisan support. I mean, you think
about Republican districts, they have parks in them, and that
helps local economies, particularly economies that are going through transitions
from a former extractive economy now they've got something they're
(11:58):
proud of that a national park. But this time there's
a lot more of those people have come in and
they've turned over the keys to the bus to doge
to say, go break it and we'll see what comes
out on the other side.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
And maybe the thing that comes out on the other side,
according to what you're saying, could be resort hotels and
golf courses that are like right in the middle of
a national park hot real estate.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
If the National Park Service, if Abraham Lincoln had not
set aside the mayriposa grove of Yosemite and then John
Muir and Teddy Roosevelt went there and ultimately expanded, Yosemite Valley,
would be a gated community with a golf course in
the middle of it, and the public would not be welcome.
(12:47):
But unfortunately that didn't happen, and today it is an envy.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Of the world.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
People from all over the world come. Millions of people
come to experience this place. And so there are those
that just don't see that. They don't they say, well,
you know, I could own it.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
You know, right. Republicans have also talked about mismanagement of
the National parks. Paul Gosar, a Republican from Arizona, referred
to quote crumbling infrastructure and growing maintenance backlogs, unhealthy overgrown
forests that contribute our nation's wildfire crisis, and diminished access
and opportunities for outdoor recreation. What do you say to
(13:28):
that charge, and this is years old, that there's mismanagement
of national parks.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Well, I would say that the responsibility for funding of
the National Park Service lies with the US Congress, and
I testified before Congress many many times on the Park
Service's budget making a request that they adequately fund the
(13:55):
National Park Service to deal with the maintenance backlog. That's
not mismanagement. It's that the infrastructure of the National Parks
was built seventy five years ago. I mean water systems,
wastewater systems, roads, buildings. There was initially a lot of
(14:15):
it was built by the CCC, So you know how
you're talking about the.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Thirties, the Civilian Conservation.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Core, that's correct, a lot of the infrastructure. Then again
in the sixties there was a major push to build infrastructure.
And in those days, visitation was one hundred million. It's
three hundred million now, and so the systems are stressed.
And I don't know what they mean by mismanagement when
(14:44):
you're not given enough money to actually take care of
what you've got. And there needs to be and there
was in the by Partisan Infrastructure Build, a significant addition
for the Park Service to deal with its maintenance backlog.
That was is being rescinded in the current bill under
the Big Beautiful Bill, It's being taken away from the
(15:06):
Park Service. Right So, in a way, they're setting us
up for failure. They're saying, oh, you can't take care
of your national parks. Oh, besides that, we took away
your money, and so we will hev any choice. We're
just going to turn it over to six Flags next year.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
We'll stay with us because we're going to talk about
that idea of privatization in just a moment. One Thing
Trump did with former National Park Service head Jonathan Jarvis
will be right back. Welcome back to One Thing Trump
(15:52):
did exclusively on the Middle Podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
This episode, we're talking about the Trump administration's attempts to
cut funding and resources from America's public lands and national parks.
I'm joined by the former head of the National Park Service,
Jonathan Jarvis. Let's talk about public lands. President Trump wants
to put them up for sale, but there was enough
opposition to that among Republicans that it was pulled out
(16:14):
of Trump's megabill that's working its way through Congress. What
do you make of that? And is there a lesson
for the national parks in the idea of get a
powerful Republican on your side and you can save them
from privatization and selling public lands.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Absolutely, there's a lesson there. And what I used to
joke about this that on Capitol Hill there are closet
park supporters. There are particularly Republicans who have a deep
core value around the proper management of our national parks
and our public lands. And I've worked with many of them,
(16:51):
many of them and have enormous respect for them. And
I think what you just saw, and you've seen it
in the past too. Great America's Outdoors Act was a
bipartisan effort led by Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to invest
in our parks and public lands. Of the bi partisan
(17:11):
Infrastructure Bill also supported this and head Republican support. And
now you're seeing individuals step up to protest and resist
the concept of selling our public lands and that would
be a complete loss to the American people. Most of
them BLM lands and for service lands are open to
extractive activities. In part that's okay. That generates revenue, generates
(17:38):
resources for the American people. What we don't want to
do is the sale is a permanent loss. Lands that
have been used for mining or timber can be restored,
but once you sell it and it's in private owns,
that's the greatest lock up of public lands there is.
As an avid fly fisherman, I know I can't go
(18:01):
to that river because of private ownership. But if it's
public ownership, then I know I have the right of access.
And that's why I think you see, particularly some of
our Western members stamp up and say, let's not sell
our public estate.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
And who's on the other side of that are there?
You know, big oil and gas CEOs and mining companies
that are just pushing really hard on the Trump administration
to sell these public lands off.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I don't frankly think it's the oil and gas industry,
because the oil and gas industry can drill it anyway.
I mean, tekn grant permits and they've declared an emergency,
so they're accelerating the permitting process and avoiding the environmental
compliance and archaeological resources protection, all those regulatory framework to
just get it going sale, I think is real estate.
(18:56):
That's you know that we have a few lessons about that.
There was an effort in and around Las Vegas, Nevada,
a number of years ago where highly developable real estate
properties that were owned by the Bureau of Land Management
in and around Las Vegas were sold at auction and
(19:20):
it generated enormous amount of money. What's an interesting factoate
about that, though, is that that money came into the
federal treasury and we could use it to buy lands.
And so at the end of ten years of that effort,
there was more federal land in Nevada than there was
when we started. The difference was we bought lands of
(19:43):
high conservation and public recreational value and sold lands that
were basically adjacent to already developed lands in Clark County
in Las Vegas. They not every place is Las Vegas.
Let's start with that. That you're not going to be
able to do that around on a lot of other communities.
There may be in some unique situations where it is
(20:06):
appropriate to transfer small pieces of public land that otherwise
are not of high value, But to look at it
on a wholesale standpoint, that's basically a giveaway to the
private sector.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Speaking of conservation and the environmental impact of some of
this stuff, how important are the national parks in protecting
various species of both plants and animals.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
They're very, very important, and for a couple of reasons,
they are the least impacted portions of our public lands
that we have. If you look at all of our
other aggregate public lands, there are other activities that are
going on that are impacting that wildlife or impacting native species.
(20:54):
Even our wildlife refuges, most of them are open to hunting,
and so that's going to have some impact to wildlife species.
The National parks are protected. Everything in the park is protected.
Every butterfly, bumblebee, grizzly bear, sequoia, try all of those
things are protected, and so as a consequence, they're relatively
(21:18):
relatively intact ecosystems. We are certainly learning that the ecosystems
are much larger than that, and working cooperatively at a
larger scale is really the future of resilience, ecosystem resilience.
These are the last refuges for many many species that
have been lost outside of national parks.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
What do you think about the idea that has been
brought up by some in the administration of turning some
of the parks over to state control or some of
the sites over to state control, rather than being part
of the federal government.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
So they have rolled out this suggestion in their so
called skinny budget that they've revealed, which included a nine
hundred million dollar cut to the parks of its budget,
about a third of the parks of its budget, and
that we're going to take care of the so called
national parks, which there are sixty three of those, and
(22:18):
I assume they probably take care of, you know, the
Mount Rushmore or the Independence or the National Mall, or
a few of the icons iconic parks, and then they
said everything else we could just you know, get rid of,
because it's then they don't measure up for some reason.
I did a little analysis on those so called other
(22:39):
parks that they theoretically are going to give to the states. Well,
first of all, you've got to understand the states and
I might might not be willing to take them because
they cost money to operate, and states don't necessarily have
that every one of those parks is nationally significant. So
what we're talking about here, when you think about them,
(23:01):
it's Gettysburg, it's Antietam, It's Valley Forge, It's Vicksburg, it's
Selmon to Montgomery Trail, It's Birmingham. It's the Ebenezer Baptist Church.
It's the Colonial which is the Revolutionary War battlefield site.
It's all of the African American sites, all of the
(23:22):
sites that tell the story of women Clara Barton Women's rights.
It's all of the Asian American sites, like where the
Japanese American were interned imprisoned during World War Two. So
you're talking about Mansonar and Minnedoka and Tully Lake and
Hano Huli Uli. It's all the Native American sites, mesa
(23:42):
Verde Canyon, just che Chaco Canyon.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So Paul Revere's House, I assume is one of those
two in Boston.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yep. Absolutely, So all of these sites, which represent basically
the core of American history, whether it's Civil War, Revolutionary War,
civil rights, women's rights, would be somehow divested from this
aggregate of stewardship by the National Park Service. And I think,
(24:11):
first of all, I think it's illegal that these were
established by acts of Congress. Congress has spoken repeatedly over
the years about the value proposition of this system of
national parks. So I don't think they can do it administratively.
They've got it, they would have to get Congress to
(24:33):
do it. And then your start about goring individual axes.
Here you're talking about individual parks and individual congressional districts
and local communities that rely upon that. So I don't
I don't think it's it's not a wise idea, and
hopefully it'll it'll fail miserable.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Well, let's talk about the fact that you just said
you think it's illegal, because as we've done these episodes
of one thing Trump did on various top including his
targeting of law firms, and there have been lawsuits against
that or his targeting of public media, and they're suing NPR,
is suing the Trump administration, the corporate for public broadcasting.
(25:14):
So do you think that that's the next step here?
Is there needs to be a lawsuit or is this
something that Congress you believe that you can find the
support in Congress to stop some of these things from
happening to the national parks?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Well, we all hope that at some point Congress gets
a backbone, which they haven't demonstrated yet on some of
these more egregious actions by the Trump administration. And I'm
hoping that at some point, particularly the Republican led Congress,
we'll speak up about that. I say it's illegal because
(25:48):
the original organic Act of the National Park Service was
nineteen sixteen, and it said, you're to preserve these places unimpaired,
for the enjoyment of future generations. So does getting rid
of them impair them?
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Does defunding them have the potential to impair them? Yes.
And then in the nineteen seventies Congress spoke again, and
Congress said there shall be no derogation of park values
except and expressly authorized by Congress. So basically they said, hey, President,
(26:24):
whoever is president, you don't have the discretion to impair
the values for which each individual park is established without
the express permission of Congress. Now that has been tested
in the court many times. So now I think it's
an opportunity for the courts to say defunding, the removal
(26:46):
of staff, the elimination of entire parts of the organization,
like all of the natural resources people and all the
culture resources people and this concept of facade management where
you don't let the public know what's going on, which
is the way they've told it is going to result
in impairment, and I think it will result in litigation.
(27:09):
Probably before legislation.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
And the facade management you're talking about. There was an
order from Doug Bergham, who is the Secretary of the Interior,
saying basically, everybody has to operate just like you have
to operate at full capacity at the parks is in April.
This is after the cuts already had been made to
the staff.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Yeah, and just make sure everything looks okay, you know,
make sure the bathrooms are clean, the trails are open.
And so as a result, you know, we've got biologists
who are supposed to be out monitoring the bear population
to make sure they don't come into the campgrounds cleaning bathrooms.
(27:51):
Not that that's below them. They can clean bathrooms, but
the idea is that there's something that should be going on,
some resource costs of work, some restoration work that isn't happening,
so that they can make the parks look like they're fine.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
What would you say to people who are listening. So
there's just regular people who are listening to this, who
love the parks and are now worried about them. What
should they do?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
So, yeah, there are millions and millions of people that
come to our national parks every year. They have a
fantastic trip, They take their photographs and their kids, and
they have lasting memories. Some sixty percent of park visitors
are repeat visitors. They come back year after year, sometimes generational.
I'd say one is get pissed off. This is unacceptable.
(28:39):
There are many things going on under the Trump administration,
attacks on science, and on universities, and on history, and
on DEI and so many things. Let's overwhelm the national
parks are a place that unifies us as a nation.
They are places that are a core of American patriotic pride.
And we should be about it. And when we're mad
(29:01):
about it, we should let people know, particularly our members
of Congress. We should protest, get up, speak up, write letters,
call your congressman, say this is unacceptable, this is this
is not what we asked for. You could have maybe
be a Trump supporter, but you're not. You don't expect Gettysburg,
(29:22):
you know, National Military Battlefield Park, to be turned over
to the state this is this is an asset that
belongs to us all, and I hope people realize that
and they need to reach across the aisle. Don't just
you know, expect the Democrats to solve this. This has
got to be solved across all partisan lines.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Do you feel any concern about speaking out yourself. Some
people are kind of scared to talk about things right now.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Well, uh, you know, I've always been a bit fearless
in the Park Service. You know, I spent half a
day being avoided being eaten by a grizzly bear and
the last.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
So this is nothing, Yeah, there's nothing.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
I figured they're not going to kill me, so I
figure I can speak up.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Let me ask you one more thing, Jonathan Jarvis. I
you know, when I go to National parks, and I
you know, full disclosure, I do love going to the
National parks. I think they're just beautiful and amazing to see.
But one of the things I noticed is there are
so many people from all over the world there. Sometimes
you see more foreign tourists than Americans visiting the national parks,
(30:29):
and it makes me think, you know, I think of
the Grand Canyon as this American thing, but really it's
an earth thing that's just incredible and happens to be
in our land. Are there any other countries that have
national park systems that rival ours?
Speaker 3 (30:44):
They're working at it. I'd give Canada a lot of credit.
Canada's got a great national park system. Interestingly, China has
decided to have a fully operational, full blown national parks
as twenty thirty and they've already launched about ten new
(31:04):
national parks. And I've been there, I've been helping them out,
and they're spectacular. There's some I mean everything from the
Great Wall of China to the headwaters of the Mekong
River up in the Tibetan Plateau. Costa Rica. Costa Rica's
got a fantastic national park system. An interesting point though,
(31:25):
they all look to the US for guidance. The Park
Service's Office of International Affairs, which by the way, has
been shut down and eliminated by the Trump administration, has
been a leader in soft diplomacy, helping other nations design, build,
and staff and support national park systems. They're over two
(31:48):
hundred countries today have national park systems and they come
to the US to learn about national parks. And when
you think about Europe has its cathedrals. We have our
national park. Well, you go to Europe, you go visit
those places. You see Notre Dame, you see the Eiffel Tower.
You come to the US, you see the Grand Canyon
(32:08):
and Yellowstone. They are our cathedrals. And so people come
and you know, certainly know my numbers in terms of tourism.
They come, they want to go they want to see
New York City, they want to go to Las Vegas,
and they wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. Yeah,
and those people spend money. There was over sixty million
(32:31):
international visitors have come to the National parks on an
annual basis. I don't know about this year. Things are
going to be different. But that's new money into the economy.
That's that's new money into local economies as well.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
That is Jonathan Jarvis, who was the head of the
National Park Service from two thousand and nine to twenty seventeen.
Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks Jerevy,
it's great, and thanks you for listening to One Thing
Trump Did. It was produced by Harrison Patino. Our next
middle episode is in your podcast feed later this week.
We're going to be asked you for your thoughts about
Trump's so called Big Beautiful Bill, not just what it
(33:05):
does to the parks, but Medicaid cuts, etc. We're gonna
be taking calls and we'd love to hear from you.
If you like this podcast, please rate it. Our theme
music was composed by Noah Haidu. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Talk
to you soon,
Welcome to One Thing Trump did, available exclusively on the
Middle Podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson, and each week on
this show, we picked just one thing coming out of
the Trump White House to focus on it and break
it down in a nonpartisan way with someone who knows
what they're talking about. And our one thing this week
is our great outdoors, the public lands and national parks
(00:36):
of this country, and the plans that the Trump administration
has for them. There've already been doze related cuts to staffing,
and the White House budget proposal includes over a billion
dollars in cuts to national park funding across the country.
Trump himself has also floated the idea of selling off
public lands, although Republican Congressman Ryan Zinki of Montana got
(00:58):
that provision removed from the so called Big Beautiful Bill.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Now, the challenge is, you know, given what we have,
how we are going to be the stewards for the
next generation. I think it's the time to look at
the next one hundred years and how to manage it.
And there's a lot of anger out there of mismanagement.
But look, this is a red, white, and blue issues.
This is truly an American issue, and it's our moment,
(01:22):
I think to ask the right questions that are important,
I think to everyone that loves our public land.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well, joining me now to talk about all this is
Jonathan Jarvis, who became a park ranger back in nineteen
seventy six and led the National Park Service under President Obama.
Jonathan Jarvis, welcome, Thank you, Jeremy.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Well, by the way, the last time we talked, I
was sitting in front of Old Faithful hosting here and
now for the one hundredth anniversary of the National Park Service,
which was an amazing thing to I think it went
off during our interview. It actually erupted during our interview.
But let's start with an overview of the parks. You know,
people know the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the Great Smoky Mountains.
(02:03):
I read that last year there were over three hundred
and thirty million visits to the National Parks, more than
professional baseball, football, basketball, and Disney amusement parks combined. Just
tell us about the parks.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah, so yeah, let's start with the numbers. There are
four hundred and thirty three so called units of the
National Park System. We use that rather inarticulate term because
over the past one hundred years, Congress has chosen to
bestow a variety of titles. So there are national battlefields,
(02:36):
national seashores, national recreation areas, national parks, and the like.
But they're all managed on the benefit for the benefit
of the people of the public by the National Park Service,
under a set of laws and policies that protect the resource,
provide for the public access and enjoyment. They're the classics Yellowstone,
Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Rocky Mountains, so on and so forth.
(03:00):
They're incredible biological places like the Everglades or Big Cypress.
Then they are historical sites, all of the Civil War battlefields,
Revolutionary War battlefields, civil rights sites like Doctor Martin Luther
King Junior's Ebenezer Baptist Church, the Selmon to Montgomery Trail, Stonewall, Inn,
(03:22):
which is sort of the beginnings of the LGBTQ rights movement.
As like there are Native American sites like mes Verde
and Chaco Canyon, great symbols of American patriotism, Mount Rushmore,
Independence Hall, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island. They're all under
(03:45):
this management of a federal agency that's been around since
nineteen sixteen. The Park Service is about fifteen thousand employees,
hundreds of thousands of volunteers and partners out there, and
it's distributed its parks in every state of the Union,
including the territories from the Virgin Islands to American Samoa,
(04:08):
Puerto Rico. So it's a big responsibility and it's done
with a great deal of professionalism by the staff and
the many volunteers and partners.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
And what about the public lands. The US owns more
than six hundred million acres of public lands.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
These are not parks, that's correct. So as states entered
the Union, they were federal property initially, as you know,
after the Louisiana purchase and westward expansion and so particularly
in the West, a lot of the lands were retained
is under federal ownership federal management. So there are four
(04:47):
federal land management agencies, the Park Service being one, the
Bureau of Land Management, which is sort of the largest
of the four, the US Forest Service, which manages most
of America's national forests, and then there's the US Fish
and Wilefe Service, which manages some five hundred wildlife refuges.
(05:08):
And all of these public lands are open to the public.
They are managed on behalf of the American people. And
they provide not only oil and gas and gravel and
timber and you know, a wide range of natural resources.
They provide open space, recreation, wildlife habitat, and carbon sequestration,
(05:31):
you name it, watershed protection. There's many, many sort of
ecosystem services, public services, and often we forget about the economy.
And I want to specifically talk about the Park Service
and its value proposition in terms of the economy. So
last year, with three hundred and twenty million visitors or so,
(05:51):
they've spent twenty six billion dollars. And what's thinking you
think about that from an economic standpoint. They spend it
in the local economies, So that's the gateway towns. They buy,
they go to restaurants, they buy souvenirs, they buy local arts,
they stay in the hotels, they hire guides and outfitters,
(06:12):
they rent equipment, and so an enormous investment in the
American economy. But not just sort of like in one point.
It's distributed across the country. And that supported four hundred
and fifteen thousand jobs in the United States just the
Park Service alone.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Well, and you say twenty six billion dollars spent. I
believe the National Park Service budget is somewhere around three
and a half billion a year, So it's a big
return on the investment.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Absolutely. I always said the Park Service is not a
cost factor. It's an investment and it has an enormous
return back to the American economy and to the American people.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So one of the things I mentioned at the top
is that DOSE cut one thousand employees from the Park Service,
it has plans to cut more. What kind of an
effect do you know of that that has had so far?
Speaker 3 (06:59):
It's had a devastating the ripple effects. So not only
did they cut about one thousand employees, another seven hundred
or so have taken the fork in the road, the
so called buyout, and then there's planned for a reduction
in force another riff coming. We haven't seen the details
on that. So you're looking at a little over ten
(07:20):
percent of the workforce across the system. And I believe
it's having very much of a detrimental effect in the
parks themselves in terms of viability to manage these resources
for the benefit of future generations, for visitor service, visitor experience.
(07:41):
And I think one of the most concerning thing is
visitor safety. So you think about sort of the value
proposition that the Park Service presents is you go to Yosemite,
there's not a guard rail between you and Yosemite Falls
or the Merced River. You go to Yellowstone, that bison
(08:02):
are not rounded up in a corral someplace. We don't
let the bears out at night or whatever.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Right, there was one hanging out right outside of our
lodge and I had to sort of stay away from
it because they are they can be mean, those bisons, right, right.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
And so the public we expect the public to come
and see this, but we have rangers, and rangers are
there to one inform the public about how to do
this safely, and they're there to rescue you if in
case you do get into trouble, get lost, or get injured.
You take away that core group and the public is
(08:39):
at much greater risk in terms of response time, in
terms of how to behave in a safe manner, in
terms of information so that you can enjoy your visit
to the park and not be at risk. So I'm
deeply concerned about that, and I think some parks have
been hit harder than others because the the firings were
(09:01):
kind of a random, scattershot, stupid approach to whatever it
is they're trying to achieve.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So why do you think, given that, given the risks
to safety, given the popularity of the parks, why would
the administration want to cut the staff like this, cut
park rangers, especially because it's such a tiny fraction of
the federal budget.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, the fraction is less than one tenth of one
cent of your tax dollars going to support you know,
it's a good question. It's a bit of a mystery
that we haven't really figured out of why you would
cut such a popular agency with the American people. I
(09:43):
don't think the other shoe has dropped yet in the
results of that politically, but I think there are people
that have come in with this administration. Now, Look, I
worked for forty years with the National Park Service, so
I've worked under started under Carter and Reagan, under both Bushes,
(10:05):
under Clinton and Obama, and there were always a small
smattering of people that would come in with a Republican
administration that viewed the National Park Service with disdain, if
not overt hatred. And one is they felt that, you know,
(10:27):
if your goal is to dismantle the federal government, which
is sort of underway. The last thing you want is
a popular federal agency that doesn't meet your sort of
mental image of a you know, overblown waste, fraud and
abuse kind of thing. You've got this highly efficient, highly popular,
iconic kind of organization, and so if you can sort
(10:51):
of kill that, then you can achieve your broader objectives.
The other I think driving force is privatization. That they
look at places like Yosemite or Yellowstone as a cash cow.
If you turn that over to the private sector, they
could make money. They could exploit it not only for
(11:12):
extractive purposes, but for a variety of recreational opportunities at
the same time. And I think that those two forces
in the past have been sort of minor voices and
overshadowed by the larger public appeal of the National Parks
or wiser political heads, including Republicans. I mean, my experience
(11:35):
on the Hill traditionally historically is that the Park Service
has been very nonpartisan bipartisan support. I mean, you think
about Republican districts, they have parks in them, and that
helps local economies, particularly economies that are going through transitions
from a former extractive economy now they've got something they're
(11:58):
proud of that a national park. But this time there's
a lot more of those people have come in and
they've turned over the keys to the bus to doge
to say, go break it and we'll see what comes
out on the other side.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
And maybe the thing that comes out on the other side,
according to what you're saying, could be resort hotels and
golf courses that are like right in the middle of
a national park hot real estate.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
If the National Park Service, if Abraham Lincoln had not
set aside the mayriposa grove of Yosemite and then John
Muir and Teddy Roosevelt went there and ultimately expanded, Yosemite Valley,
would be a gated community with a golf course in
the middle of it, and the public would not be welcome.
(12:47):
But unfortunately that didn't happen, and today it is an envy.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Of the world.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
People from all over the world come. Millions of people
come to experience this place. And so there are those
that just don't see that. They don't they say, well,
you know, I could own it.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
You know, right. Republicans have also talked about mismanagement of
the National parks. Paul Gosar, a Republican from Arizona, referred
to quote crumbling infrastructure and growing maintenance backlogs, unhealthy overgrown
forests that contribute our nation's wildfire crisis, and diminished access
and opportunities for outdoor recreation. What do you say to
(13:28):
that charge, and this is years old, that there's mismanagement
of national parks.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Well, I would say that the responsibility for funding of
the National Park Service lies with the US Congress, and
I testified before Congress many many times on the Park
Service's budget making a request that they adequately fund the
(13:55):
National Park Service to deal with the maintenance backlog. That's
not mismanagement. It's that the infrastructure of the National Parks
was built seventy five years ago. I mean water systems,
wastewater systems, roads, buildings. There was initially a lot of
(14:15):
it was built by the CCC, So you know how
you're talking about the.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Thirties, the Civilian Conservation.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Core, that's correct, a lot of the infrastructure. Then again
in the sixties there was a major push to build infrastructure.
And in those days, visitation was one hundred million. It's
three hundred million now, and so the systems are stressed.
And I don't know what they mean by mismanagement when
(14:44):
you're not given enough money to actually take care of
what you've got. And there needs to be and there
was in the by Partisan Infrastructure Build, a significant addition
for the Park Service to deal with its maintenance backlog.
That was is being rescinded in the current bill under
the Big Beautiful Bill, It's being taken away from the
(15:06):
Park Service. Right So, in a way, they're setting us
up for failure. They're saying, oh, you can't take care
of your national parks. Oh, besides that, we took away
your money, and so we will hev any choice. We're
just going to turn it over to six Flags next year.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
We'll stay with us because we're going to talk about
that idea of privatization in just a moment. One Thing
Trump did with former National Park Service head Jonathan Jarvis
will be right back. Welcome back to One Thing Trump
(15:52):
did exclusively on the Middle Podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
This episode, we're talking about the Trump administration's attempts to
cut funding and resources from America's public lands and national parks.
I'm joined by the former head of the National Park Service,
Jonathan Jarvis. Let's talk about public lands. President Trump wants
to put them up for sale, but there was enough
opposition to that among Republicans that it was pulled out
(16:14):
of Trump's megabill that's working its way through Congress. What
do you make of that? And is there a lesson
for the national parks in the idea of get a
powerful Republican on your side and you can save them
from privatization and selling public lands.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Absolutely, there's a lesson there. And what I used to
joke about this that on Capitol Hill there are closet
park supporters. There are particularly Republicans who have a deep
core value around the proper management of our national parks
and our public lands. And I've worked with many of them,
(16:51):
many of them and have enormous respect for them. And
I think what you just saw, and you've seen it
in the past too. Great America's Outdoors Act was a
bipartisan effort led by Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to invest
in our parks and public lands. Of the bi partisan
(17:11):
Infrastructure Bill also supported this and head Republican support. And
now you're seeing individuals step up to protest and resist
the concept of selling our public lands and that would
be a complete loss to the American people. Most of
them BLM lands and for service lands are open to
extractive activities. In part that's okay. That generates revenue, generates
(17:38):
resources for the American people. What we don't want to
do is the sale is a permanent loss. Lands that
have been used for mining or timber can be restored,
but once you sell it and it's in private owns,
that's the greatest lock up of public lands there is.
As an avid fly fisherman, I know I can't go
(18:01):
to that river because of private ownership. But if it's
public ownership, then I know I have the right of access.
And that's why I think you see, particularly some of
our Western members stamp up and say, let's not sell
our public estate.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
And who's on the other side of that are there?
You know, big oil and gas CEOs and mining companies
that are just pushing really hard on the Trump administration
to sell these public lands off.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I don't frankly think it's the oil and gas industry,
because the oil and gas industry can drill it anyway.
I mean, tekn grant permits and they've declared an emergency,
so they're accelerating the permitting process and avoiding the environmental
compliance and archaeological resources protection, all those regulatory framework to
just get it going sale, I think is real estate.
(18:56):
That's you know that we have a few lessons about that.
There was an effort in and around Las Vegas, Nevada,
a number of years ago where highly developable real estate
properties that were owned by the Bureau of Land Management
in and around Las Vegas were sold at auction and
(19:20):
it generated enormous amount of money. What's an interesting factoate
about that, though, is that that money came into the
federal treasury and we could use it to buy lands.
And so at the end of ten years of that effort,
there was more federal land in Nevada than there was
when we started. The difference was we bought lands of
(19:43):
high conservation and public recreational value and sold lands that
were basically adjacent to already developed lands in Clark County
in Las Vegas. They not every place is Las Vegas.
Let's start with that. That you're not going to be
able to do that around on a lot of other communities.
There may be in some unique situations where it is
(20:06):
appropriate to transfer small pieces of public land that otherwise
are not of high value, But to look at it
on a wholesale standpoint, that's basically a giveaway to the
private sector.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Speaking of conservation and the environmental impact of some of
this stuff, how important are the national parks in protecting
various species of both plants and animals.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
They're very, very important, and for a couple of reasons,
they are the least impacted portions of our public lands
that we have. If you look at all of our
other aggregate public lands, there are other activities that are
going on that are impacting that wildlife or impacting native species.
(20:54):
Even our wildlife refuges, most of them are open to hunting,
and so that's going to have some impact to wildlife species.
The National parks are protected. Everything in the park is protected.
Every butterfly, bumblebee, grizzly bear, sequoia, try all of those
things are protected, and so as a consequence, they're relatively
(21:18):
relatively intact ecosystems. We are certainly learning that the ecosystems
are much larger than that, and working cooperatively at a
larger scale is really the future of resilience, ecosystem resilience.
These are the last refuges for many many species that
have been lost outside of national parks.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
What do you think about the idea that has been
brought up by some in the administration of turning some
of the parks over to state control or some of
the sites over to state control, rather than being part
of the federal government.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
So they have rolled out this suggestion in their so
called skinny budget that they've revealed, which included a nine
hundred million dollar cut to the parks of its budget,
about a third of the parks of its budget, and
that we're going to take care of the so called
national parks, which there are sixty three of those, and
(22:18):
I assume they probably take care of, you know, the
Mount Rushmore or the Independence or the National Mall, or
a few of the icons iconic parks, and then they
said everything else we could just you know, get rid of,
because it's then they don't measure up for some reason.
I did a little analysis on those so called other
(22:39):
parks that they theoretically are going to give to the states. Well,
first of all, you've got to understand the states and
I might might not be willing to take them because
they cost money to operate, and states don't necessarily have
that every one of those parks is nationally significant. So
what we're talking about here, when you think about them,
(23:01):
it's Gettysburg, it's Antietam, It's Valley Forge, It's Vicksburg, it's
Selmon to Montgomery Trail, It's Birmingham. It's the Ebenezer Baptist Church.
It's the Colonial which is the Revolutionary War battlefield site.
It's all of the African American sites, all of the
(23:22):
sites that tell the story of women Clara Barton Women's rights.
It's all of the Asian American sites, like where the
Japanese American were interned imprisoned during World War Two. So
you're talking about Mansonar and Minnedoka and Tully Lake and
Hano Huli Uli. It's all the Native American sites, mesa
(23:42):
Verde Canyon, just che Chaco Canyon.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
So Paul Revere's House, I assume is one of those
two in Boston.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yep. Absolutely, So all of these sites, which represent basically
the core of American history, whether it's Civil War, Revolutionary War,
civil rights, women's rights, would be somehow divested from this
aggregate of stewardship by the National Park Service. And I think,
(24:11):
first of all, I think it's illegal that these were
established by acts of Congress. Congress has spoken repeatedly over
the years about the value proposition of this system of
national parks. So I don't think they can do it administratively.
They've got it, they would have to get Congress to
(24:33):
do it. And then your start about goring individual axes.
Here you're talking about individual parks and individual congressional districts
and local communities that rely upon that. So I don't
I don't think it's it's not a wise idea, and
hopefully it'll it'll fail miserable.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Well, let's talk about the fact that you just said
you think it's illegal, because as we've done these episodes
of one thing Trump did on various top including his
targeting of law firms, and there have been lawsuits against
that or his targeting of public media, and they're suing NPR,
is suing the Trump administration, the corporate for public broadcasting.
(25:14):
So do you think that that's the next step here?
Is there needs to be a lawsuit or is this
something that Congress you believe that you can find the
support in Congress to stop some of these things from
happening to the national parks?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Well, we all hope that at some point Congress gets
a backbone, which they haven't demonstrated yet on some of
these more egregious actions by the Trump administration. And I'm
hoping that at some point, particularly the Republican led Congress,
we'll speak up about that. I say it's illegal because
(25:48):
the original organic Act of the National Park Service was
nineteen sixteen, and it said, you're to preserve these places unimpaired,
for the enjoyment of future generations. So does getting rid
of them impair them?
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Does defunding them have the potential to impair them? Yes.
And then in the nineteen seventies Congress spoke again, and
Congress said there shall be no derogation of park values
except and expressly authorized by Congress. So basically they said, hey, President,
(26:24):
whoever is president, you don't have the discretion to impair
the values for which each individual park is established without
the express permission of Congress. Now that has been tested
in the court many times. So now I think it's
an opportunity for the courts to say defunding, the removal
(26:46):
of staff, the elimination of entire parts of the organization,
like all of the natural resources people and all the
culture resources people and this concept of facade management where
you don't let the public know what's going on, which
is the way they've told it is going to result
in impairment, and I think it will result in litigation.
(27:09):
Probably before legislation.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
And the facade management you're talking about. There was an
order from Doug Bergham, who is the Secretary of the Interior,
saying basically, everybody has to operate just like you have
to operate at full capacity at the parks is in April.
This is after the cuts already had been made to
the staff.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Yeah, and just make sure everything looks okay, you know,
make sure the bathrooms are clean, the trails are open.
And so as a result, you know, we've got biologists
who are supposed to be out monitoring the bear population
to make sure they don't come into the campgrounds cleaning bathrooms.
(27:51):
Not that that's below them. They can clean bathrooms, but
the idea is that there's something that should be going on,
some resource costs of work, some restoration work that isn't happening,
so that they can make the parks look like they're fine.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
What would you say to people who are listening. So
there's just regular people who are listening to this, who
love the parks and are now worried about them. What
should they do?
Speaker 3 (28:15):
So, yeah, there are millions and millions of people that
come to our national parks every year. They have a
fantastic trip, They take their photographs and their kids, and
they have lasting memories. Some sixty percent of park visitors
are repeat visitors. They come back year after year, sometimes generational.
I'd say one is get pissed off. This is unacceptable.
(28:39):
There are many things going on under the Trump administration,
attacks on science, and on universities, and on history, and
on DEI and so many things. Let's overwhelm the national
parks are a place that unifies us as a nation.
They are places that are a core of American patriotic pride.
And we should be about it. And when we're mad
(29:01):
about it, we should let people know, particularly our members
of Congress. We should protest, get up, speak up, write letters,
call your congressman, say this is unacceptable, this is this
is not what we asked for. You could have maybe
be a Trump supporter, but you're not. You don't expect Gettysburg,
(29:22):
you know, National Military Battlefield Park, to be turned over
to the state this is this is an asset that
belongs to us all, and I hope people realize that
and they need to reach across the aisle. Don't just
you know, expect the Democrats to solve this. This has
got to be solved across all partisan lines.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Do you feel any concern about speaking out yourself. Some
people are kind of scared to talk about things right now.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Well, uh, you know, I've always been a bit fearless
in the Park Service. You know, I spent half a
day being avoided being eaten by a grizzly bear and
the last.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
So this is nothing, Yeah, there's nothing.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
I figured they're not going to kill me, so I
figure I can speak up.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Let me ask you one more thing, Jonathan Jarvis. I
you know, when I go to National parks, and I
you know, full disclosure, I do love going to the
National parks. I think they're just beautiful and amazing to see.
But one of the things I noticed is there are
so many people from all over the world there. Sometimes
you see more foreign tourists than Americans visiting the national parks,
(30:29):
and it makes me think, you know, I think of
the Grand Canyon as this American thing, but really it's
an earth thing that's just incredible and happens to be
in our land. Are there any other countries that have
national park systems that rival ours?
Speaker 3 (30:44):
They're working at it. I'd give Canada a lot of credit.
Canada's got a great national park system. Interestingly, China has
decided to have a fully operational, full blown national parks
as twenty thirty and they've already launched about ten new
(31:04):
national parks. And I've been there, I've been helping them out,
and they're spectacular. There's some I mean everything from the
Great Wall of China to the headwaters of the Mekong
River up in the Tibetan Plateau. Costa Rica. Costa Rica's
got a fantastic national park system. An interesting point though,
(31:25):
they all look to the US for guidance. The Park
Service's Office of International Affairs, which by the way, has
been shut down and eliminated by the Trump administration, has
been a leader in soft diplomacy, helping other nations design, build,
and staff and support national park systems. They're over two
(31:48):
hundred countries today have national park systems and they come
to the US to learn about national parks. And when
you think about Europe has its cathedrals. We have our
national park. Well, you go to Europe, you go visit
those places. You see Notre Dame, you see the Eiffel Tower.
You come to the US, you see the Grand Canyon
(32:08):
and Yellowstone. They are our cathedrals. And so people come
and you know, certainly know my numbers in terms of tourism.
They come, they want to go they want to see
New York City, they want to go to Las Vegas,
and they wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. Yeah,
and those people spend money. There was over sixty million
(32:31):
international visitors have come to the National parks on an
annual basis. I don't know about this year. Things are
going to be different. But that's new money into the economy.
That's that's new money into local economies as well.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
That is Jonathan Jarvis, who was the head of the
National Park Service from two thousand and nine to twenty seventeen.
Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks Jerevy,
it's great, and thanks you for listening to One Thing
Trump Did. It was produced by Harrison Patino. Our next
middle episode is in your podcast feed later this week.
We're going to be asked you for your thoughts about
Trump's so called Big Beautiful Bill, not just what it
(33:05):
does to the parks, but Medicaid cuts, etc. We're gonna
be taking calls and we'd love to hear from you.
If you like this podcast, please rate it. Our theme
music was composed by Noah Haidu. I'm Jeremy Hobson. Talk
to you soon,
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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