Welcome to the Hot Dish, comfort food for rural America. I'm Heidi
Heitkamp. And I'm Joel Heitkamp. Today we're going to focus on something near
and dear to my heart and Heidi's, and that's public
lands. Yep, we are, because we're both supporters of
public lands staying in the hands of the public. And we have a couple great
guests to talk about it. Land Tawney and Aaron Murphy are
here with us today. And, and they're co-founders of the American
Hunters and Anglers Action Network, or as they call it,
AHA. And they have a lot to say and they
are doing a lot to protect our public lands. And so we wanted you to
meet them.
As most of you know, an earlier version of the Republicans Big
Ugly Bill would have allowed millions of acres of public land
to be sold that would have been devastating to rural communities,
particularly in western usa. Those provisions didn't
make it into the final bill thanks to public outcry, but that
doesn't mean the threat is passed. We know this is important to
a lot of our listeners out there, so we brought in a couple of guys
who are working every day to protect public
lands. Land Tawney was born and raised in rural
Montana and was CEO of the Montana-based
Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. That's enough for me right there.
Love it. Aaron Murphy was the Executive Director of Montana
Conservation Voters and spent 13 years on
Senator John Tester's staff as Press Secretary and
Chief of Staff. You guys recently got together -
What, that poor guy.
Yeah, working with John. You're on your own there. Yeah,
I have lots of stories. Yeah. These guys recently
got together and started a new group, the American Hunter and
Anglers Action Network, to defend our public lands.
Land, Aaron, thanks for being here. Appreciate it, you guys. Well, thank you
guys. Appreciate you having us on. All right, why don't you get us up to
speed? You know, we, Heidi mentioned the Big Ugly Bill and why it was
ugly to a lot of guys like us who hunt and fish and,
and love our public lands, but just - Land, I'm
going to go to you first. Tell me why you think it is that they
want to sell off our public land. I mean, they want to sell off our
public lands to do two things. They either want to exploit it so they can
make a bunch of money or they want to privatize it so they have their
own playground. And so this is something that's been going on ever since, you know,
Theodore Roosevelt really started our conservation, our public lands
legacy that people want to take it away from us.
Okay. It didn't make it, Aaron, into the Big Ugly Bill
in the end. Guys like you and others made a difference
and didn't end up in there. So let me ask you this. Are
they safe now? Are we done having to worry about this?
No. The threat is graver than ever. And that is because
Senator Mike Lee, who originally put that legislative text,
tried to put it into the Bill, has promised that he wants to come back
to it. And this is not just a one off thing for us.
We call ourselves AHA, short for American Hunters and Anglers. But
what we did is we joined a huge community of folks who
were quite distressed about this plan,
mostly because it was sloppy. Senator Lee wanted to sell off up to
3.3 million acres of Forest Service and BLM land. And
that just sort of lit a fuse. And what we tried to do
is just amplify that and really speak to a lot of people who care
a lot more about public lands, hunting, fishing, access to them,
than they care about partisan politics. So I think we hit a chord.
But in terms of the threat, it is far from over. In fact, we
think it's just beginning. We say that we are the front line in the war
on public lands. And it's more evident than ever, especially after
last election day. Years ago, there was a big movement again
to sell private land. And I think a lot of the ranchers and
farmers were all for it because boy, now I can buy that grazing land
that I've been grazing. And then all of a sudden, people like Bill Gates,
people like Ted Turner, what I used to tell our farmers and
ranchers is I think, you think you can compete with billionaires for this
land? And so let's put a fine point on it. It's not
about, you know, kind of opening this up to the public. It's about
giving it at bottom prices to
billionaires who can afford to buy it. And it is, I mean,
we have an income and wealth inequality and this is
just part of that whole picture, I think, Aaron. And Mr.,
Mr. Land. I think that's such a great name by the way.
Yeah, I didn't like it when I was, you know, younger, like in fourth grade,
but now it kind of fits. But I mean, it really
is about billionaires. Land, is that where you see it?
I mean, is this about the rich building their playgrounds? You mentioned it
in your opening statement. Well, absolutely. And I think that, you know, our
country is different than anywhere else in the world where we the people
own 640 million acres. We have a
gigantic kingdom that belongs to us. Many other countries,
it's the royalty and the very few that own the land. And so, you know,
I think Will Rogers said, 'buy more land because we're not making any more of
it.' Well, this is our land that belongs to all of us. And I grew
up here in Montana. I don't have a big ranch. But what I
do have, I have all this public land. So that is my kingdom. And so
there are others that want to have that for themselves. And so, you know, Aaron
and I have, you know, been in Montana for a long time. I've traveled a
lot around the West. There are example after example after
example of local ranchers or local farms that have been bought up by
those that are from out of state, usually that have way more money that I
can even fathom in my lifetimes that are now buying these places as
a second or third or fourth property. They are looking to
build their kingdom to keep us riffraffs, us serfs
out of that, that those areas. So, Aaron,
let me throw it to you this way. We have a lot of people that
listen to the Hot Dish that don't agree with me, don't agree with
Heidi on certain issues. Let me ask you this.
Some of them listening right now are saying, why do we need a
kingdom? Why do we need the United States to have a kingdom? Why do
we need that much public land? What's your answer to them? My answer
off the bat would be, it is part of our legacy as Americans. Right?
I mean, I think a lot of us take for granted the fact that, again,
as Land said, if you don't have access to your own private ranch, you have
access to access to 640 million acres of public lands all
over the country that you don't need any special permission to go in
for the most part. I would also say that in terms of
framing this to people, the way that certain
politicians have decided to get at this is by
trying to sell it through the lens of transferring management of these federal lands
to individual states to manage, which I think sounds like a good idea on
its face to a lot of people. But there are specific partisan
party platforms that say, hey, the states should
manage all of these hundreds and thousands of acres
of federal forests. States can't afford to do that. They
don't have the resources to, say, fight wildfires or to manage the land
the way that the federal government does. And so what we are trying to do
is tell a story that even that, even saying, hey, we should
transfer the management of these federal lands to individual states. That is
the first step towards selling those public lands off, not just to
anybody, but like you said, to the people who can afford them, to the highest
bidder. That means the billionaires. And when that happens, we are
locked out. You can see it happening right now. We cannot access
our own land. As soon as that happens, habitats are
affected, wildlife is affected, recreation is affected. It
impacts a multi-billion dollar, actually it's a $1.2
trillion outdoor recreation economy. All of that ties together.
And so if people are thinking, ah, maybe that sounds like a good idea,
we're here to say, hold on, they ain't making more of
it. We have to protect this as part of our American legacy, our
birthright. I agree with everything that Aaron just said. It's a place where I go
with my family to hunt and fish. It's a place where I go pick huckleberries.
And when I hunt and fish and I'm providing food for my family. It's a
place that, you know, I go find solace. You know, remember, remember COVID, where you
couldn't do anything but go outside and what that meant to all of us. So
I think there's that piece. Aaron mentions the $1.2 trillion
outdoor economy that is not only sustainable, but we can grow
that economy. Then the last piece, I guess if none of those kind of like
make your ears pick up a little bit, is that our public lands
and public waters are essential to clean air and clean water for all
Americans. And so when I think about, you know, 70% of our clean
water starts on public lands, could you imagine if somebody
else is owning those headwaters to our streams and our rivers and not just like
a billionaire, but potentially a foreign-owned entity? And so to
me, these are public resources that provide again, recreational
opportunities, an economic economy that is actually amazing.
And then also clean air and clean water. Let me throw this at
you guys. The image that administrations, even
before this, that wanted to sell off our public lands
presented to the public were images of lands that weren't
being used. Lands that were out there, you know, on the edge of
oil fields, talking about why in the world aren't we developing
these? You know, the nation is short oil, gas prices are
high. I'm going to go to you first with that one, Land. That,
that strategy, the, the pro-gutting our public
lands individuals use, how effective is it and
how wrong is it? I mean, you talk about, you know, Theodore
Roosevelt, which I'm sure you all are very steeped in, you know, North Dakota kind
of lore. When he lost his mom and he lost his
wife on the same day, like, they both died on the same day, he came
to the lonely lands of North Dakota. He came there to find, like,
solace. Right? And so how important, like, put a price tag on that, like
these lonely lands that you're talking about. But I go back to
the Big Beautiful Bill that Aaron was talking about earlier that was
all about making money. And so this was not like these lonely lands that didn't
have, like, very much, let's say, like, economic benefits. There
were stuff that was close to national parks in particular.
That is the, those are the highest value lands to the people. And
those would have been lost. They would not been given to the, you know, the
rank and file. Those would have gone to the billionaires. And so to me, then
you talk about, like, kind of oil and gas. We need oil and gas development
in this country. You've had a bunch go on there in North Dakota. There's places
in Wyoming, my home state of Montana, that needs to be done in a
sustainable fashion and so that you can develop those
resources, then make sure that you go back and restore those resources
and then move on. Right now, this idea of energy dominance, that
means one person is winning and somebody else is losing. And I don't think that
is beneficial to anybody besides the people that are making the money. Aaron, I'm going
to bring this to you. The ability for Donald Trump, the
Administration, to be able to change a person's position, I don't know
that it's done through passion or belief as much as it's done through
idolization, but I'm going to throw this to you. The Secretary of the
Interior right now was my Governor, and he's somebody
I knew and know really well, but he's completely
changed. So I don't know him. I mean, he was
not for sale of public lands. In fact, he was an advocate for
the very area that Land was just talking about, the badlands in North
Dakota. So how do you fight that
when basically you end up with a Secretary of Interior
who sees his main job sucking up to a man that
wants to sell the land? Yeah. And to be clear, we're talking about Doug Burgum
just for folks who might be outside of North Dakota, but yes - I didn't
want to pick on Doug. I didn't want to say his name. But I'm happy
to. Yeah. So our issue with Secretary
Bergam is, is several fold. And yes, if you look at his
messaging right now, it's all focused on, quote, unquote, energy dominance.
But he is also doing some what we think are pretty insidious things
for public lands going back a couple of weeks to win the Big
Beautiful Bill. And Senator Lee was trying to propose the sell off. He was supportive
of that. And he was supportive of divesting some of the public
lands as the solution to the housing crisis in this country, which we
don't buy. I don't think that argument stands up whatsoever
because the housing crisis is a much different set of issues.
And we don't need to go and raid our forest service land as
a solution for more suburbs. It's just a fact.
Secondly, we noticed that he and the Secretary of
Agriculture, a woman named Brooke Rollins, are sort of
gearing up to go after very specific places
like the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness area in northern
Minnesota. They want to, by executive order,
open the doors to allow a foreign-owned copper mine
right at the headwaters of the Boundary Waters. That is something that he should
be standing guard against and in fact is basically saying, look,
foreign-owned copper mining is more important than this precious
resource, which is 150 miles of
pristine water and wilderness. So we
are looking at why he's changed. I don't know. I didn't
know Secretary Burgum as Governor, but I can tell you that I think he
is, like many in this Administration, are just taking marching orders and
rather than upholding the duty of being the Secretary of
the Interior, just being a mouthpiece for a very specific slice of it.
And that is hurting public land. So we are
making sure, as in our role in our organization, that we
are making sure everybody knows what's happening and saying it plainly and
truthfully. Heidi, I'm going to send this one to you. You
worked with Mike Lee. You know Mike Lee. For all I know, you got
Mike Lee's cell. So let me ask you this. What's
motivating him here? I mean, what's driving him? I think
Mike Lee is a traditional conservative who believes that
government should just get out of the way, never have a
regulation, and they shouldn't ever own land and it should all
be in private ownership. Well, I mean, that's all fine and
good until he runs into people who hunt
and fish and who say, wait, wait, wait, you're taking
something away from us. And I think he was shocked that he
didn't get his way in the Big Beautiful Bill and that it didn't
work out the way he thought it was gonna work out. And so I think
he's working on what we call the workaround. And Donald Trump
hasn't been shy about declaring stuff and trying to make it
happen without legislation. And so I don't think anybody should
right now assume anything other than there is going to be
a plan to continue this going forward. Now,
what Mike Lee will point out is that abandoned post office in
downtown Salt Lake or, you know, some urban property
that a federal building sits on that hasn't been
alienated from GAO, the Government Accounting
Office and the Government Services, GSA. And so, you
know, those things need to be reviewed, why they are still standing empty.
I get that. But when he's talking about we're going to go
into Utah and basically
sell all the public land, let me tell you, I've met
very conservative people in Utah who realize that
their bread and butter is in tourism. It's in, you know,
being able to take people on bike trips, being able to take people
snowshoeing, being able to take people out there cross country skiing.
And they know that resource if it's done away with, that
resource is a financial resource that
will hurt them economically. I mean, Mike Lee is totally on the wrong side
of this, but like everybody else, he's brazen because he's a Republican and
thinks that no one will ever challenge him. So, Land,
let me throw this at you. Your group, the American Hunters and
Anglers Action Network, has to be part of the
solution of this in some ways, because I don't
think people really understand where federal lands are. I
don't think they know in my backyard here where Stack's Slough
is and what it meant to me where I shot my first pheasant, where I
shot a bunch of mallards and some honkers and everything else. Do you
think your group and other groups like you have done a good
job of making sure the general public knows what public land
is and where it's at? It's a great question. I
think that it's part of the fabric of life in the West, right? And I
think that in North Dakota, you know, I think about the grasslands in particular,
you know, I've hunted birds there a ton of the National Grasslands.
And so I think hunters and anglers know about these
places, Joel. I don't think they know the threats to them, though. And it's our
job in particular at AHA or other places to let people
know when these places are under threat. I think that hunters and
anglers in general like to be by themselves and they like to be left
alone. And so, you know, they don't know that Mike
Lee is trying to steal this land from them unless we tell them. And so
that is, I think, one of our main jobs at American Hunters and Anglers is
to let the people know and then give them an avenue to talk
about this and to push back. And I think that's what you saw when this
was part of the Big Beautiful Bill. And why Mike Lee was so surprised
is he kicked the hornet's nest. And once he kicked that hornet's nest, he started
getting stung. And I think at first he started saying, 'oh, this is just a
bunch of liberals that are being paid to do this.' He found out real quickly
that it was not just Democrats, not just Republicans, but all
of Americans that understand that public lands mean something to
them. And once you're going to take it away, they're going to say, hell, no.
And that's exactly what happened. And I think democracy still works in this country,
and I think people forget that. And really what that means is that the squeaky
wheel gets the grease. And sometimes we've got to just, you know, we the people
have to rise up and demand from our elected leaders what we
want. So, Land, where, where could you see a map of public
land? Do you guys post that? To Joel's point, you know, people don't
know where they are. They don't know what they look like. I think if you
showed pictures, and I had a friend once from Wyoming who said, you
know, y' all think about the Tetons, or you think about, you know,
Yellowstone, he goes, but there's parts of Wyoming that'll scare the hell
out of you. And you know what? That's really awesome. That was
one of the most powerful tools, I think, that happened during that fight, is the
Wilderness Society came out with a map and just talked about the lands that were
for sale, not just public lands in general, but the lands that were for sale.
And when you look at a map and you see those things in your backyard
and places that you did go shoot your first antelope or you did go
shoot, you know, a bunch of honkers, those places mean something to people. And
so I think those maps, we did not produce one ourselves, but the Wilderness Society
did on what was for sale. And that became real really quickly.
I think we talk a lot about how, you know, these public lands are kind
of in the West. I'm going to Tennessee next week, and I've been doing a
little bit of research. I mean, their public lands are much more finite
over there, but they mean that much more to them. Right? They have less
of them, and they mean even more. And so I think showing those maps
in particular that you're asking about, Senator, are absolutely essential.
So, Aaron, I want to throw this one to you because your group, the American
Hunters and Anglers Action Network, is, your
job has to be to connect to somebody who's never held a
Remington or a Winchester. I mean, never held a
big ugly stick out fishing. You know what I'm getting at here? I
mean, if you're going to win this and keep control of our, of our
public lands, we're going to need that urban person. We're going to
need that person. You know, Heidi mentioned, you know, different sports,
biking, you know, trail, snowshoe, all of that.
But you gotta get them, because if you don't get them,
you're not gonna win this argument. Yeah, and I would say it's further than just
urban versus rural, but I would say West versus the
rest of the country. I think when you talk about public lands, a lot of
people think, you know, the sprawling wilderness of
Montana. And Senator, I happen to be a Wyomingite, so I know
exactly what you're talking about. You know, lots of BLM land,
for example. But what we wanna do is really make a connection
between not just those lands, but also, say,
reservoir where you go fishing in Arkansas, that's run by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Well, guess what? Because of DOGE
and Elon Musk, hundreds if not thousands of those sites, we're
talking fishing areas, we're talking campgrounds, picnic areas,
reservoirs, dams, all of those have been shut down because of
budget cuts. Those are public lands and water. So we're talking about them too.
So we're not just talking to, or trying to talk to,
you know, the, the trophy elk hunter in, in the wilds of Montana
or the, the fly fishermen and, and the Tetons.
We're also talking about the bass fisherman who lives
for the weekend where he wants to crack open a beer and sit in a
boat and pop a worm into the water. That person enjoys and
is enriched by public lands and waters as much as everybody
else. Now extend that even further. Say, for example, example,
somebody who does live in a city, maybe they take their kids to a local
park or swimming pool or even a tennis court. They
might benefit from something called the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That is a federal
fund that uses no taxpayer dollars and
it essentially pays for those facilities
and access and more public lands through offshore oil drilling in the
Gulf of Mexico. Something a lot of people don't really know, but even that is
under attack. We were talking about Secretary Burgum, Secretary Burgum wants to
raid that fund to pay for Park Service
maintenance backlog, so fixing outhouses and whatnot. We think that is
awful. It's a misdirection of priorities. And we want to center
the conversation and basically let everybody know that they
benefit from public lands and waters whether they know it or not, because
they might not even realize that they do well. And I think a lot of
people, Joel, go to the National Parks in the summer, and
there are long lines. There is an incredible
desire to go and see these natural places, to be
able to kind of envision what it was like for the pioneers. And
so this idea that they're underutilized, they're
underutilized by the rich people because they don't own them,
they're over prescribed, which means that there isn't enough land for the
demand that we have for people who want that experience.
And so we should be thinking about how we make public
lands more accessible to more people, but, you know, which
is affordable. Go ahead, Land. I said this earlier, but I'm going to reiterate it.
$1.2 trillion benefit to the economy that is
sustainable. What other, like, like what other part of
our economy is, like, we know is going to be $1.2 trillion at least? That's
a huge benefit to all Americans. The second piece I would say
is clean air and clean water. If you never step foot on public
land, you got to go outside, you got to breathe air, and you got to
drink clean, cold water. And so to me, these ecological
services that our public lands provide for our entire
country are essential to every single American.
Heidi, I'm going to throw this one to you, though. You mentioned earlier
about, you know, whether or not Donald Trump
cares, you know, in terms of following regulation and
law. Did you ever think Donald Trump's been on a hike?
I don't think the guy's ever been on hike. Yeah, I don't. I don't. I
mean, this guy, this man of the people. Yeah, I bet you he wouldn't. He
wouldn't know his way. I mean, it would be kind of fun. Point him in
the direction and say, go out and shoot an elk and gut it where it's
at and carry it in, you know, Mr. He-Man, macho,
no way he's going to be able to do that! It's a long walk from
that golf cart to where you kick the golf ball.
But let me ask you this. If we know that he
doesn't adhere to the rule of law, that he
doesn't do that, he doesn't care whether it's the rule of law or
not. And in the end, he tends to win because he's got the
right people in the court system that he wants. Isn't
that a bigger threat than Mike Lee? Oh, I think right
now it is. But you know, one thing
that happened in the courts, you know, it used to be that if one district
court issued a nationwide injunction, it was honored. Which is why,
you know, whether you agreed with them or not, when Biden tried to do student
loan reform or student loan reductions for people,
he got stopped. And he got stopped by one district court when they were form
shopping. Now, what we know is that you're gonna have to file in every
district where public lands are or you're gonna have to file
class action, which I hope these guys are
organizing to try and stop it. Because look at the level of
extortion. I mean, basically he knows he's got
a deficit problem and so he's out extorting money from
companies like Nvidia saying you gotta pay us 15% of
what you sell into China. He's out, you know, doing tariffs.
You know, when Mike Lee comes in and says, Mr. President, you could make
$3 billion tomorrow, all you got to do is sell
this little hunk of land in Montana or this hunk of
land, you know, and we got buyers lined up, including some of your friends in
Saudi Arabia. And you know, off, we're off to the races.
And so we have to be prepared to tackle this legally too,
Joel. All right, Land, last comments from you. People's
voices still matter. They may not think they do. We're against
the biggest threats to this country and we're just talking about public lands, but I
think it goes much larger than that. A lot of people don't know what to
do. We all need to rise up and use our voices
and make sure that democracy still works in this country. And that's the only thing
that we have, and I have a lot of faith in the people. If we
unite, we will get what we want. But if you sit on your hands, we
are, no matter what, we're going to lose. Aaron, last comments
from you. I would ask folks to give us a follow on
Instagram. We're @AmericanHuntersAnglers. You can find
us there. And part of our strategy is to really use social
media the best way we can. In fact, and Senator, you can correct me
if I'm wrong, but I would argue that the old fashioned method of
calling your lawmakers may not be as effective now as it used to be
because they've gotten the memo, and they don't tend to answer phones anymore.
But if you go on social media and if you find them on Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter and tag them and comment in the
comments, that in our experience at least seems to be quite
effective in moving the needle. We saw it happen with the attempt of
Senator Lee to sell off public lands. We'll keep the gas on. And
we want to make sure that people are following along because a lot of people
are tuning out. We want to make sure people are tuning in because again, it
is our very heritage at stake. And we want to make sure that every, everybody
knows exactly what the threat is. Well, keep the fight up, you
guys. Keep it. You gotta win. So appreciate you guys coming on the Hot
Dish. Appreciate you guys. Appreciate you having us on.
Joel, my goodness, you had an exciting week. In fact,
the whole family had an exciting week. It didn't quite turn
out the way we wanted it to, but boy, was it exciting. But talk about
your experience at the Little League World Series Regional,
Midwest Regional. Yeah, well, you know, Fargo,
my grandson plays on the 12 and under team, the Fargo All
Stars, and he was a center fielder. He runs. He's out there
because he's as fast as what his grandpa was.
That would not be true. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Anyway,
they came up short. On Wednesday they beat
South Dakota, and on Friday they lost to South
Dakota. Had they beat them, they'd be in Williamsburg,
Pennsylvania. And so they were that close. They played on ESPN,
which is what Heidi's getting at, where my whole family was glued to the
TV. I was in Indiana at the game, watching
my wife have a heart attack and trying to pretend it didn't matter to me.
Heidi, how's that? And those of you who are out there
know we talk about so many things and there's so many challenges, but
somehow watching these 12 year old kids
play baseball. Tune into ESPN, they're
going to cover it. And it really is, it's a fun
thing to watch. And I've actually watched the Little League before on
ESPN and really enjoyed it. I enjoy it as much as I enjoy
watching professional baseball because somehow it means more. It's
got that "Sandlot" vibe. Yeah, I've played a lot of sports in my life,
but when you watch 12 year olds that close playing on
ESPN, which to them is the religious network,
but you, you watch how, how into it they are and how,
you know, you lose that one big game after you beat that same team
and you walk on that field thinking, we got these guys. You know,
they're 12 year olds. I mean, some of these kids are, are six foot
tall and some of these kids are under five foot tall and they're knocking
heads and playing together. And it's what sport
is all about. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. But
it teaches you a lot of things. For my grandson's case, my
other son in law, not his father, said it best when he said,
'I just hope this isn't the highlight of Reed's life
already at 12 years old,' Heidi.
Well, congratulations, Joel. It was so much fun for all of
us. But let's turn to the real world that we live in.
And the crops look great. I mean, actually we have a very
good friend, happens to be related to our sister in a weird
way. When I asked him, you know, he's always like, I don't know, you know,
when you ask him how the crops are. And this time he went, they're looking
really good. So there are lots of, lots of crops out there, lots of good
looking crops. I just got a text from
another guy that we know in Jamestown, had a beautiful sunflower field
leveled, Joel, by the weather. And so these farmers have so
much stress in their life just praying for rain or praying that'll quit raining,
you know, praying that they don't get hailed out. And now they have the additional
stress of the ag markets and this is devastating
that, you know, we grow more in this country than we can actually
consume. And so we need that export market on the margins
and it's gone. So what are you hearing from the farmers that you talk
to every day, Joel? You know, I think it's starting to catch up a little
bit in this sense that, you know, some of them are
hanging onto equipment for a year longer than what they normally would.
A lot of equipment in my neck of the woods comes down from Canada.
Some of that specialized equipment, you know, not the type of stuff you
buy from John Deere, Case IH, that type of thing. I'm not talking
about tractors and combines, I'm talking about diggers, I'm
talking about seeders, I'm talking about things like that. And
so, you know, they had things scheduled, but then they look at the
tariffs and they're saying, well, maybe I can wait a year here, maybe I can
do this or that. All of that is one thing. You know,
it's, it's, to them, it's a business practice and it's about depreciation.
What matters to them the most is that China's
not buying. There's no containers going. And in fact, they're
paying over a buck more for a bushel of
soybeans than what we would charge them. And that's how
ticked China is and how much they want to expand into Brazil and
Argentina. And Heidi, I don't know about you, but the farmers
I'm talking to are starting to get that, that long term
this is going to be a major problem, especially with soybeans. Well, you know,
we went through this during the first term with the farm
economy being ground zero for the injury that tariffs
would bring. And, you know, there was the assistance, right?
But there's a whole lot of other people are getting hurt by these tariffs,
businesses that are getting hurt. And as we see
now inflation ticking up, and as we see those
inventories, when everybody bought up a lot, you know, to avoid the
tariffs, now you can't do that. Everybody kind of waited to see if
they're going to pass prices along. Now you can't wait and see because you got
to operate on your margins. So, I mean, I think that we're going to
start seeing the consequences of these tariffs very soon.
Yeah. And the other thing that we see all over the country, it isn't
just here in the upper Midwest, but all over that,
that One Country Hot Dish neck of the woods, is the fact
that elevators aren't buying. There's nobody saying, okay, you
know, I got space for you because they don't have space for you,
and they don't want to put it on the ground because then they lose some
of what they put on the ground. And so a lot of these farmers are
looking at how much bend space they have, looking at crop that they
haven't sold yet, and they're sitting there going, what the heck? I
mean, I'm going to end up with more crop than what I can do. As
you pointed out, the yields look pretty good in some of these areas. I'm going
to end up with more crop than I know how to get rid
of before I can sell. And that's a major issue,
Hyde. Well, I just suggest that, you know, one of the
things that we do here at the Hot Dish is we talk about agriculture because
that's a big component of the rural economy. And this is one
of those places where the economy is not going well and we'll
see what happens come harvest. But my prediction, Joel, is we're going to see
a lot of those white sacks that we've seen in the past, those
long - if you drive through rural America and you see a big,
long, white snake, that's stored grain. And that
stored grain isn't, I mean, that's not, not a condition you want
to store it in permanently. And so this is, you lose a lot
of value putting it on the ground. You lose a lot of value putting it
in a sack. Yeah. And my prediction is this, that the
federal government under the Trump Administration, which is so
incredibly conscious of debt - not! -
is going to use this as an opportunity in those Red state
areas where they want to continue to have that level of support,
and they're going to use the word disaster, even though yields
are going to be unbelievable in a lot of those areas, and they're going to
use the word disaster to send disaster payments. And
so the ag producers out there aren't going to want me to say this
word, but in many ways, the federal government is going to have to subsidize
them rather than allow what was the free market,
which was working pretty doggone good when it came to sales
of soybeans, for example. Well, and, you
know, if you're somebody who's making parts for the supply
chain and your aluminum price just went up 40-50%,
your steel price just went up 40-50%, and you're trying to
compete with people who can buy their steel and aluminum much cheaper,
you might argue you're going to give relief to farmers, you ought to be giving
me some relief because of this. And so, you know, it's going to
be, it's going to be interesting. And I always laugh, you know, Joel, you know,
I do this, you know, when people say, 'oh, see, it's working, you know,
blah, blah, blah.' And you want to say, 'well, then you don't need anything. You
don't need any, you know, you don't need any bailout,' which is
what I call it. Anyway, Joel, we will talk more about what's
happening with the agricultural economy as we get closer to
harvest, but I just thought we should kind of raise it. And we should
say: way to go, Fargo. We're really all proud of you, and I'm
sorry everybody else that we beat, but it was really fun watching those
little guys, you know, performed so well. And I was amazed
by the pitching, by the way.
Learning more about how conservationists are fighting for public land was
really inspiring. If there's something else we need to talk about,
please let us know. You know what, email us your thoughts.
Our email address is
podcast@onecountryproject.org. That's
podcast@onecountryproject.org.
And to keep up with everything One Country is doing, be
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And thanks for joining us today on the Hot Dish, which is brought to you
by One Country Project, making sure the voices of the rest of us
are heard in Washington. Learn
more at onecountryproject.org.
And we will be back in two weeks with more Hot Dish, comfort food for
rural America.