Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #0218_ STORY INSPIRE: Zach Lahn — Exposing the Monsanto Files: Agriculture, Corporate Power & Food Safety
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Well, I got a little question for you before we
- 0:08Speaker 1: get going that doesn't really relate to what we're talking to,
- 0:10Speaker 1: but I just want to knock it out. The USDA
- 0:13Speaker 1: says the average U.S. farmer is 58.1 years old. And
- 0:18Speaker 1: in Iowa, the average producer is 57.6. Vices tractor hacking
- 0:23Speaker 1: coverage on farmers fighting repair restrictions went viral with a
- 0:27Speaker 1: related vice YouTube video surfacing in about 13 million views
- 0:32Speaker 1: I had no idea people are that concerned about this.
- 0:35Speaker 1: This sounds like I had a conversation about this exact
- 0:38Speaker 1: thing with Secretary Driscoll about right to repair for our military.
- 0:43Speaker 1: I didn't even know this was going on in the
- 0:45Speaker 1: farming communities Here's some here's some points Producers under 35 nationally, 296,480.
- 0:51Speaker 1: 9% of all producers. That's not good. Just context for
- 0:59Speaker 1: the audience. That's the up-and-coming generation. Iowa producers under 35, 15,782.
- 1:04Speaker 1: The FTC sued Deere in 2025 over repair restriction allegations.
- 1:15Speaker 1: and Reuters reported a judge let that antitrust suit proceed.
- 1:19Speaker 1: Deere has denied any wrongdoing. What do you say to
- 1:22Speaker 1: the next generation of farmers watching their parents work 16-hour
- 1:26Speaker 1: days to buy farm equipment, and they still feel like
- 1:30Speaker 1: they don't control what they actually own? Are you dealing
- 1:34Speaker 1: with this on your farm?
- 1:36Speaker 2: You know, we don't use, I use more legacy equipment,
- 1:40Speaker 2: older equipment, partially for this exact reason. But what I'd
- 1:43Speaker 2: say to producers, especially young ones, is I think what
- 1:47Speaker 2: they need to understand is this is being done on purpose.
- 1:50Speaker 2: They're doing this on purpose. And what I mean by
- 1:53Speaker 2: that is that, you know, my whole life, every politician
- 1:58Speaker 2: I've ever met has said, we have to support farmers,
- 2:01Speaker 2: we have to support farmers. And everything's gotten worse for
- 2:05Speaker 2: the actual producer. And so if you actually look at
- 2:09Speaker 2: the past 10 years, And what the agribusiness lobby has
- 2:15Speaker 2: spent in Washington, D.C. It's about a $ 1. 5 billion in
- 2:18Speaker 2: the past 10 years lobbying Congress. The top five companies
- 2:23Speaker 2: during that same time have made about $ 150 billion in
- 2:27Speaker 2: profit in the same time we've lost 100,000 farms.
- 2:33Speaker 1: 100,000 farms?
- 2:35Speaker 2: Family farms. So who are they lobbying for? It's not
- 2:37Speaker 2: the farmer. It's not the producer. This is something that
- 2:43Speaker 2: sometimes is difficult to bring up. Because, you know, right now,
- 2:47Speaker 2: Bobby Kennedy is really fighting against, like, big food, for instance.
- 2:52Speaker 2: And I've been told by people that taking on the
- 2:56Speaker 2: fight that I'm taking on with big agriculture is much
- 2:59Speaker 2: more difficult. And there's a reason for that. And the
- 3:02Speaker 2: reason is, big agriculture has created a caricature of farming.
- 3:09Speaker 2: And they're pretending to be the people that are defending
- 3:11Speaker 2: the heritage of our farmers. But actually, they're the ones
- 3:16Speaker 2: extracting every dollar of wealth out of our farms that
- 3:18Speaker 2: they possibly can and bragging about farm consolidation. It's like.
- 3:24Speaker 1: What is farm consolidation?
- 3:26Speaker 2: You know.
- 3:26Speaker 1: Is that buying a bunch of family farms and putting
- 3:28Speaker 1: them together at some big conglomerate?
- 3:31Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that, you know, the producers, the farms are
- 3:34Speaker 2: getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And so what that
- 3:37Speaker 2: actually means, and we've done the opposite on my farm
- 3:40Speaker 2: I'd love to talk to you about that. But what
- 3:42Speaker 2: that actually means is every time one of these farms
- 3:44Speaker 2: goes away or disappears, there's life that we lose in
- 3:48Speaker 2: our rural communities. And our rural communities in Iowa, in
- 3:51Speaker 2: the Midwest, they're on life support. But these companies want
- 3:55Speaker 2: to work with bigger and bigger producers. And we know that.
- 3:59Speaker 2: We know why they want to do that. It's easier.
- 4:02Speaker 2: They have less costs when they're dealing with less customers.
- 4:06Speaker 2: They can control people easier. And so the statistics that
- 4:11Speaker 2: you're talking about, about young farmers, you know, the World
- 4:15Speaker 2: Economic Forum talked about that. You'll own nothing and you'll
- 4:19Speaker 2: be happy. This is a part of it. 25% of
- 4:22Speaker 2: Iowa's farmland, at least 25%, is now owned by people
- 4:26Speaker 2: who don't live in the state. Out-of-state funds and investors.
- 4:28Speaker 2: A quarter of my state is owned by people who
- 4:32Speaker 2: will never go to a Friday night football game in
- 4:33Speaker 2: our small town, who aren't shopping on our main streets. Like,
- 4:39Speaker 2: this is... in line with Blackstone buying single family homes,
- 4:44Speaker 2: the same thing is happening to our agriculture community. The
- 4:47Speaker 2: thing that's so difficult for what I'm trying to undertake
- 4:49Speaker 2: right now is to get to the farmers to help
- 4:53Speaker 2: them understand that this is happening on purpose. They don't
- 4:58Speaker 2: want more family farms. And matter of fact, if you
- 5:02Speaker 2: go to the WF, they don't want sovereignty for our country.
- 5:06Speaker 2: And so what's one of the ways you can strip
- 5:09Speaker 2: away sovereignty is to have them have an insecure food
- 5:13Speaker 2: base in the state. You can't feed yourself how you're sovereign.
- 5:19Speaker 2: And it's gotten, you know, Sean, it's gotten very bad
- 5:21Speaker 2: to this point. You know, I'll be in these debates
- 5:24Speaker 2: with people about the use of agrochemicals and things like that.
- 5:29Speaker 2: And when I'm in them, they keep talking about this
- 5:31Speaker 2: idea that, well, we need this to produce food. We
- 5:35Speaker 2: need glyphosate, for instance, to produce food. And what they're
- 5:41Speaker 2: not discussing is that in my state of Iowa, 0.03%
- 5:45Speaker 2: of our acres are used to produce anything that will
- 5:48Speaker 2: end up on your plate in its original form.
- 5:51Speaker 1: Could you say that again?
- 5:52Speaker 2: How much? 0.03% of our acres. Out of 24 million acres,
- 5:55Speaker 2: it's roughly 9,000 acres in Iowa, is used to produce
- 5:59Speaker 2: any produce, food, that will end up on your plate
- 6:02Speaker 2: in its original form. So it's primarily... Holy shit.
- 6:06Speaker 1: It's all chemicals.
- 6:08Speaker 2: It's like, so they have, they're producing ethanol. They're, like,
- 6:13Speaker 2: we can talk about these things, but they're producing feed
- 6:16Speaker 2: that will then be shipped out of state for animals
- 6:18Speaker 2: and shipped out of our country for animals. Iowa has
- 6:22Speaker 2: the best farmland in the world, I would say, and
- 6:25Speaker 2: we import 95% of our food. So there's a big
- 6:32Speaker 2: movement of people that want to see, you know, homesteading
- 6:36Speaker 2: and smaller farms crop up. But when you have out-of-state
- 6:40Speaker 2: investors that are coming in and buying up land and
- 6:43Speaker 2: jacking up the price of land, there's not one young
- 6:47Speaker 2: person that can afford to get on land. Yeah. And
- 6:51Speaker 2: so your statistics, I look at it from even a
- 6:54Speaker 2: different perspective. I look at it from this perspective, that
- 6:56Speaker 2: aging population of farmers, they're on break-even margins now because
- 7:02Speaker 2: they're being extorted by big agriculture companies. that continue to
- 7:06Speaker 2: raise their prices, even as commodity prices stay the same
- 7:09Speaker 2: or drop, because they've formed monopolies now. You know, Donald
- 7:14Speaker 2: Trump and Brooke Rollins are talking about this, talking about
- 7:16Speaker 2: breaking these monopolies up. And a few other politicians have
- 7:20Speaker 2: talked about it. But there used to be a heritage
- 7:24Speaker 2: in my state where, you know, Grandpa would run the farm,
- 7:28Speaker 2: and then when he got older, he would step away.
- 7:31Speaker 2: Often he would move to a different house, and then Son,
- 7:36Speaker 2: would farm and raise the family. That's what happened with
- 7:39Speaker 2: my family. But the idea of supporting two incomes, two
- 7:44Speaker 2: families now in Iowa, it's basically gone for the average farmer. Damn.
- 7:51Speaker 2: So we're heading towards a cliff. And, you know, just
- 7:55Speaker 2: a little bit of where I come from on this
- 7:58Speaker 2: is that, you know, my family came to Iowa in 1850,
- 8:02Speaker 2: around then. Actually, my great-great-grandfather was one of the famed
- 8:08Speaker 2: Hawkeyes on horseback in the Civil War. He was, you know,
- 8:12Speaker 2: they participated, actually fought in the Battle of Nashville, Tristan
- 8:15Speaker 2: and Garrison's raid. These were people that were brought in
- 8:20Speaker 2: in Iowa's 2nd Cavalry to go counter the opposing calvaries
- 8:25Speaker 2: that were, you know, wreaking havoc. And he was in
- 8:28Speaker 2: a state that wasn't a part of this battle. It
- 8:32Speaker 2: was in America, but it wasn't what was going on
- 8:36Speaker 2: in the country was not happening in Iowa. At the
- 8:39Speaker 2: end of the Civil War, more Iowans fought in the
- 8:42Speaker 2: Civil War than any other state per capita.
- 8:44Speaker 1: No kidding.
- 8:45Speaker 2: Yes. And there's deep reasons for that. And it's about
- 8:48Speaker 2: where they came from and what they were leaving. And
- 8:51Speaker 2: that in Germany, when they came over, they had just,
- 8:55Speaker 2: you know, left this feudal system. They were trying to
- 8:58Speaker 2: have an uprising. They were defeated. They were exiled. Iowa
- 9:03Speaker 2: came on line right in 1846. heavy agrarian culture. So
- 9:08Speaker 2: you have these people that were fleeing a country primarily
- 9:11Speaker 2: because they wanted to control their destiny. They wanted to
- 9:13Speaker 2: own their land. They wanted to have the ability to
- 9:16Speaker 2: build their communities. And then you see what happens with
- 9:22Speaker 2: the expansion, the potential expansion of slavery. And all these
- 9:26Speaker 2: very wealthy people on the East Coast that were slave
- 9:29Speaker 2: owners wanting to make the Midwest slave states so they
- 9:32Speaker 2: could control it. I firmly believe that part of the
- 9:38Speaker 2: reason that Iowa stood up the way that they did
- 9:44Speaker 2: was because they fled that situation in their own country,
- 9:49Speaker 2: and they didn't want it happening where they were. So
- 9:52Speaker 2: he came over, and then about 20 years later, my
- 9:56Speaker 2: great-great-grandfather came over on a ship from Hamburg. by himself
- 10:00Speaker 2: at 14, and he was in the stowage of the ship,
- 10:04Speaker 2: and he made his way to Iowa. And then in 1900,
- 10:07Speaker 2: they built... He and his uncle built our family homestead
- 10:12Speaker 2: in Belle Plaine. And that place was a place of
- 10:18Speaker 2: deep stories for people. Decades and decades. From the Great
- 10:22Speaker 2: Depression to World War II, to my great-great-uncle fighting in
- 10:27Speaker 2: World War I, going overseas, fighting in World War I
- 10:29Speaker 2: and coming back to run the local newspaper. While his
- 10:33Speaker 2: brother kept everything steady with the farm. And then my
- 10:38Speaker 2: grandpa mowing a runway in the bean field and buying
- 10:42Speaker 2: a 1942 Taylor Craft and learning how to fly. and
- 10:46Speaker 2: starting a career in aviation, and his brother flew off
- 10:48Speaker 2: aircraft carriers in the Pacific in the 40s. Like, these
- 10:52Speaker 2: are our stories... of our history and our culture and
- 10:57Speaker 2: our people. And in 2005, my family farm was sold.
- 11:02Speaker 2: My great-grandmother had passed away. And my grandma had called
- 11:07Speaker 2: me at the time, and I was in college, and
- 11:08Speaker 2: asked me if I wanted anything to do with the farm.
- 11:11Speaker 2: I didn't know what that would be, but I was
- 11:13Speaker 2: out in Colorado at the time. I was like, I'm gone.
- 11:17Speaker 2: But if you fast forward a number of years, I
- 11:19Speaker 2: stopped in just to see the farm when I was
- 11:21Speaker 2: going to visit a family over in eastern Iowa. And
- 11:25Speaker 2: I just told them, if you're ever gonna sell this place,
- 11:27Speaker 2: please let me know. And then they called me a
- 11:30Speaker 2: couple years later. And they said, hey, we're gonna sell.
- 11:32Speaker 2: Would you like to buy? And before I could even
- 11:35Speaker 2: think about it, I said, yes, 100%. I wanna buy this.
- 11:39Speaker 2: So in 2014, I bought the family farm back. And
- 11:42Speaker 2: then over the past 11 years, I've spent restoring that
- 11:45Speaker 2: farm board by board using old pictures that I got
- 11:49Speaker 2: from my great-grandmother's photo collection. And during that time, I remember,
- 11:55Speaker 2: you know, a story that people often ask me, why
- 11:58Speaker 2: did I do that? And what comes to me is that,
- 12:04Speaker 2: you know, I really want my children to understand their story.
- 12:08Speaker 2: I want them to understand their history. Like, who built them?
- 12:11Speaker 2: And that these generations before them toiled and jumped in
- 12:16Speaker 2: to go to the Civil War when they didn't have to. And, like,
- 12:20Speaker 2: to protect what we have. And I wanted them to
- 12:23Speaker 2: understand that deep story and connect to it. It was
- 12:28Speaker 2: never because I wanted to run for office. I actually
- 12:29Speaker 2: don't even want to be a politician. But I remember
- 12:34Speaker 2: after I bought the farm, I was... down in the basement.
- 12:38Speaker 2: I had signed the papers, came to the farmhouse. I
- 12:40Speaker 2: was down in the basement. I was leaning against a
- 12:43Speaker 2: wooden post in the basement. This has actually happened. And
- 12:47Speaker 2: I just said to myself, what am I doing? Like,
- 12:51Speaker 2: this place needs so much work. It's going to take forever. Like,
- 12:54Speaker 2: it was a stretch to buy it in the first
- 12:56Speaker 2: place to get the loan. And I'm leaning on this
- 12:59Speaker 2: post and I turn and the posts are the initials
- 13:02Speaker 2: VL is my grandpa. And I just said to myself,
- 13:08Speaker 2: this is why I'm doing it. Because these things truly matter.
- 13:14Speaker 2: That we don't forget where we came from. And so
- 13:18Speaker 2: bringing this into what you just talked about, that's what's
- 13:21Speaker 2: at stake. That's what's being taken from us. And so
- 13:27Speaker 2: me deciding to run for governor was a choice of
- 13:32Speaker 2: wanting to throw everything I have in to protect the
- 13:36Speaker 2: culture that help build my state, build my people, and say,
- 13:43Speaker 2: it's worth preserving. Like, this is worth preserving. It's provided
- 13:48Speaker 2: for the greatest alleviation and suffering ever known to mankind
- 13:52Speaker 2: our culture has. Great prosperity. And if you look back
- 13:59Speaker 2: at the principles of what they came to do, it
- 14:04Speaker 2: wasn't that they came here to get rich. They came
- 14:08Speaker 2: here for the basics of freedom. And now much of
- 14:12Speaker 2: that is being taken away. And so that's why I'm
- 14:16Speaker 2: in this race. I often ask myself, is there room
- 14:21Speaker 2: for people in politics who still actually care?
- 14:27Speaker 1: That's the question of the fucking day, man.
- 14:30Speaker 2: It's a question that comes up often. And here's what
- 14:35Speaker 2: I love. I'm not out there talking about my opponents
- 14:38Speaker 2: in a negative way at all. I won't do it.
- 14:40Speaker 2: That's not why I'm here. I'm not out trying to
- 14:43Speaker 2: make people afraid that Iowa's gonna become the next Minnesota
- 14:47Speaker 2: if we, like, don't do X, Y, or Z. I'm here.
- 14:51Speaker 1: What's wrong with Minnesota?
- 14:53Speaker 2: If you're a daycare provider, nothing.
- 14:55Speaker 3: Oh, shit.
- 14:58Speaker 2: You know... I just believe that my job, what God's
- 15:04Speaker 2: calling me to do in this in my life, is
- 15:07Speaker 2: to tell a better story about what we could be
- 15:10Speaker 2: as a state. To bring people together about that. And
- 15:15Speaker 2: I will tell you, when I'm out on the campaign trail,
- 15:17Speaker 2: and I'm new to all this, like, I don't... I've
- 15:21Speaker 2: never done this before. I don't have a script that
- 15:24Speaker 2: I'm going off of. I have a couple key points
- 15:27Speaker 2: that I'm really passionate about. But what I try to
- 15:30Speaker 2: do is just tell the truth to people. and not
- 15:33Speaker 2: worry about what these big companies, lobbyists, or special interests
- 15:37Speaker 2: are gonna think about me. And just believe, like, to
- 15:41Speaker 2: the point I mentioned earlier, that God's gonna protect me
- 15:43Speaker 2: in this whole endeavor, and that he's got a plan
- 15:45Speaker 2: for this.
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- 16:55Speaker 4: Hi, I'm Sarah Adams, the host of Vigilance Elite's The
- 17:00Speaker 4: Watch Floor, where we highlight what matters. It became a
- 17:03Speaker 4: permissive state. Explain to you why it matters, and then
- 17:08Speaker 4: aim to leave you feeling better informed than you were
- 17:11Speaker 4: before you hit play. Terrorists, hostile intelligence agencies, Organized crime,
- 17:18Speaker 4: not everything is urgent. But this show will focus on
- 17:22Speaker 4: what is need to know, not just what is nice
- 17:25Speaker 4: to know.
- 17:34Speaker 2: I don't know if I could do it any other way.
- 17:38Speaker 2: I think everywhere we look, we see the opposite in politics.
- 17:43Speaker 2: Like what's expedient? What will get people to donate to me?
- 17:46Speaker 2: You know, I had somebody once mention to me... that
- 17:52Speaker 2: you need to imagine every voter is walking around with
- 17:55Speaker 2: little buttons on them. And your job is to figure
- 17:57Speaker 2: out what those buttons are. What they like. And push
- 18:01Speaker 2: as many as you can so they'll like you. And
- 18:04Speaker 2: I say, guys, this is not at all what people
- 18:07Speaker 2: are asking for. They want... I believe they want people
- 18:11Speaker 2: that are willing to take on the big systemic issues
- 18:14Speaker 2: that they're facing.
- 18:15Speaker 1: It's getting to the fucking point I'll just take anybody
- 18:18Speaker 1: with a spine. You got a spine, you have a
- 18:22Speaker 1: fucking pole. I just feel so lied to. I mean,
- 18:28Speaker 1: we talked about it when our mutual friend Rich connected us.
- 18:34Speaker 1: Rich called me about you and I was like, I
- 18:37Speaker 1: don't know, man. I don't know if I want to
- 18:40Speaker 1: interview another fucking guy running for office. And we chatted
- 18:45Speaker 1: a little bit and I was like, all right, I'll
- 18:47Speaker 1: give Zach a call. And we chatted and I really
- 18:50Speaker 1: liked what you had to say. I mean, we talked
- 18:52Speaker 1: about it. I was just like, man, I just sat
- 18:55Speaker 1: in front of, I don't know how many politicians now
- 18:57Speaker 1: and they just fucking lie, lie, lie. Yeah. I mean,
- 19:02Speaker 1: it's so much hope, so much hope for this administration.
- 19:07Speaker 1: And I don't know about everybody else, but my hope
- 19:10Speaker 1: went right down the fucking shitter in less than a year. And,
- 19:14Speaker 1: you know, I know we're going to talk about this, but,
- 19:16Speaker 1: you know, the fucking Maha movement, I was all about
- 19:19Speaker 1: that shit. I'm scared to death of cancer. I just
- 19:23Speaker 1: found out about microwaves the other day. Now we're shit
- 19:25Speaker 1: canning our fucking microwave out of the house.
- 19:27Speaker 2: My wife threw ours out years ago.
- 19:29Speaker 1: But, you know what I mean? I'm all excited, like, oh,
- 19:32Speaker 1: they're going to clean up the food. They're going to
- 19:34Speaker 1: get rid of these pesticides. They're going to get rid
- 19:35Speaker 1: of all this shit. What do I see the other day?
- 19:37Speaker 1: We fucking, they ran, they fucking ran hard on this stuff, man.
- 19:42Speaker 1: Hard on this, all the, All the health, uh, influencers
- 19:47Speaker 1: and the doctors with big names, they're all fucking rallying around.
- 19:50Speaker 1: the Maha movement. Oh, let's throw a big fucking party.
- 19:53Speaker 1: Less than a year in. I don't know if anything
- 19:57Speaker 1: has changed other than I saw that they... Trump signed
- 20:02Speaker 1: an executive order and fucking RFK backed him and said,
- 20:06Speaker 1: we're gonna give immunity to, was it Bayer? Is it Bayer?
- 20:11Speaker 2: Whatever it is. Producers of glyphosate-based herbicides. Yeah. Yeah.
- 20:15Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you, Trump. Thank you, RFK. Good fucking job.
- 20:21Speaker 1: Way to fucking stick to your constituents. You know, shit
- 20:25Speaker 1: gives me chills, man. It's just every fucking thing that
- 20:28Speaker 1: came out of these guys' mouth is a fucking lie.
- 20:32Speaker 1: It just makes me think, what is the fucking point
- 20:35Speaker 1: of voting? Is there a point?
- 20:37Speaker 2: I think... there are far too many people that are
- 20:41Speaker 2: coming to that same conclusion that are just saying, why
- 20:45Speaker 2: am I doing this? You know, I.
- 20:48Speaker 1: Doesn't mean you give up, but I can tell you
- 20:50Speaker 1: one thing. Fucking vote isn't going to fix this shit.
- 20:52Speaker 2: Yeah, we're reaching a tipping point. And I think more
- 20:56Speaker 2: and more people... Look, you look at why somebody like
- 20:59Speaker 2: Nick Fuentes is getting a giant audience. Why do you
- 21:01Speaker 2: think that is? What happened to the Hunter Biden laptop?
- 21:04Speaker 2: Why hasn't Anthony Fauci been arrested yet? What about, like,
- 21:09Speaker 2: all of these politicians that have been in on a
- 21:12Speaker 2: lot of this, you know, this global ring of pedophilia. Like,
- 21:19Speaker 2: and then you wonder, why are young people checking out? Well,
- 21:23Speaker 2: it's because they just see it all as a lie.
- 21:27Speaker 2: I deal with this all the time in what I'm
- 21:28Speaker 2: doing right now. Because as somebody who actually wants to
- 21:31Speaker 2: make a difference and change things, and the beauty of
- 21:34Speaker 2: the Constitution and the 10th Amendment says that I can
- 21:36Speaker 2: do that in my state, Like, I have zero interest
- 21:38Speaker 2: in being in Washington, D.C. whatsoever. I think it's my
- 21:42Speaker 2: personal view, and people will, you know, Republicans will come
- 21:45Speaker 2: after me for saying this, is that it's beyond repair.
- 21:50Speaker 2: And let me give you an example why. Gosh, I'm
- 21:52Speaker 2: getting a bit upset here, but let's go back to farming.
- 21:59Speaker 2: Over the past 10 years, the agriculture companies have spent
- 22:04Speaker 2: a billion and a half dollars lobbying Washington, D.C. a
- 22:07Speaker 2: billion and a half. During that same time, their profits
- 22:11Speaker 2: have went up $ 150 billion. And at the same time,
- 22:16Speaker 2: we've lost 100,000 family farms. Okay, so I mentioned that earlier,
- 22:19Speaker 2: but what does that mean? It means that there's a
- 22:22Speaker 2: capture of these agencies that's so deep that lobbyists are
- 22:28Speaker 2: able to put in place whatever policies that they want
- 22:31Speaker 2: to basically, and we've seen this now, like with these immunity,
- 22:34Speaker 2: We've been.
- 22:35Speaker 1: With all kinds of shit. We see it with other countries.
- 22:38Speaker 1: We see it with the glyphosate stuff. We see it
- 22:41Speaker 1: with pharmaceuticals. We see it with oil and gas. We
- 22:44Speaker 1: see it with fucking everything. Everywhere but the actual American people.
- 22:49Speaker 1: They give a fuck about everything else but the American people.
- 22:52Speaker 2: Well, and that's when I go back to this idea that,
- 22:55Speaker 2: you know, farmers in my state are starting to understand
- 22:59Speaker 2: that these companies are not their friends. They're like, look,
- 23:04Speaker 2: They're charging foreign farmers, these three big companies in our
- 23:08Speaker 2: country are charging foreign farmers less for the same amount
- 23:11Speaker 2: of product than they charge our farmers. Just like they
- 23:14Speaker 2: were doing in pharmaceuticals. So they're saying, if you yield
- 23:17Speaker 2: more crop, we're gonna take more money because we can.
- 23:23Speaker 2: And there's a complete monopoly here. Nobody wants to address it,
- 23:28Speaker 2: but there is. And so the hard part for me
- 23:30Speaker 2: is that as I'm talking about these things, there's a, there's,
- 23:34Speaker 2: There's a divergence. Farmers understand these companies are extorting them.
- 23:40Speaker 2: But the part that gets me is that there's such
- 23:44Speaker 2: a complex of working organisms in D.C. and in lobbyists
- 23:49Speaker 2: in capital, in the capitals, that have gaslit these people
- 23:55Speaker 2: to make them believe that these products are safe for
- 23:58Speaker 2: their health. Safe products don't need immunity from liability. Full stop.
- 24:06Speaker 2: If you want to see an example of that, look
- 24:07Speaker 2: at the vaccine situation we have in our country right now.
- 24:11Speaker 2: The 1986 vaccine immunity has probably caused the greatest amount
- 24:14Speaker 2: of suffering of any piece of legislation that we've had.
- 24:19Speaker 2: And so, what happens? Well, we see. It's that $ 1. 5
- 24:24Speaker 2: billion of lobbying that these companies do.
- 24:28Speaker 1: I'm surprised it's not more than that.
- 24:30Speaker 2: Well, that's just for one industry and one sector. I mean,
- 24:33Speaker 2: right now, I read that Bayer has spent nine... Bayer
- 24:41Speaker 2: has two lobbyists per member of Congress right now pushing
- 24:44Speaker 2: for this immunity. The average amount they spend per member
- 24:49Speaker 2: of Congress is more than the members of Congress make
- 24:51Speaker 2: in a year. This is the capture. And what I'll
- 24:57Speaker 2: go back to is talking about what they've been doing
- 25:01Speaker 2: with this immunity. And so... when you look at what
- 25:06Speaker 2: they're actually doing, I say this, like right now we
- 25:08Speaker 2: have these companies pushing at the state capitals. We have
- 25:12Speaker 2: them pushing at the Supreme Court. We have them putting
- 25:15Speaker 2: things into the Farm Bill, which by the way, I
- 25:17Speaker 2: don't think you should be able to enter something into
- 25:19Speaker 2: a bill in Washington, D.C. without your name being next
- 25:21Speaker 2: to it of who actually put this in. It's like
- 25:24Speaker 2: we need a blockchain service that says like, here's who
- 25:28Speaker 2: put this ridiculous idea in that's going to help this
- 25:31Speaker 2: one special interest. So we know exactly who to talk
- 25:34Speaker 2: to about that. and who to go after about that.
- 25:37Speaker 2: And then you have the executive order. So this, what
- 25:42Speaker 2: I said, this is how big agricultural wages war. That's
- 25:44Speaker 2: what they're doing. Because they continue to lose in court.
- 25:49Speaker 2: And just to summarize that, when you talk about this
- 25:53Speaker 2: gaslighting of people, what these paid people from these companies
- 25:57Speaker 2: continue to say about this is that, oh, these juries
- 26:00Speaker 2: aren't scientists. Well, I tell people this. Bayer and Monsanto
- 26:06Speaker 2: can afford the best attorneys in the world. They have
- 26:09Speaker 2: no shortage of cash. They have every bit of influence
- 26:12Speaker 2: in the jury selection process, as the plaintiffs do. And
- 26:17Speaker 2: these juries are hearing about 100 hours of evidence in
- 26:21Speaker 2: each of these major trials. And they're still losing. And
- 26:27Speaker 2: so why is that? Because we have internal documents, for one,
- 26:32Speaker 2: for one thing, that show exactly what they knew and
- 26:36Speaker 2: that they knew it. There's actually things in these documents
- 26:43Speaker 2: that are so egregious, like this. Right now in Europe,
- 26:49Speaker 2: the type of agricultural roundup that we use is banned. Yeah.
- 26:54Speaker 2: People don't talk about this, and when the industry people
- 26:56Speaker 2: talk about it, they say it's a lie, but they
- 26:58Speaker 2: say glyphosate isn't banned in the EU. That's true. Glyphosate
- 27:02Speaker 2: isn't banned in the EU. But the formulation of Roundup
- 27:05Speaker 2: that we use in the United States is banned in
- 27:07Speaker 2: the EU because it's so toxic. So, what did Monsanto
- 27:11Speaker 2: do in, I think, 2015, when this was coming out
- 27:14Speaker 2: in the EU? They reformulated their Roundup into a formulation that,
- 27:21Speaker 2: by some measures, is 20 times less toxic than what
- 27:24Speaker 2: we use in the United States.
- 27:25Speaker 4: Jeez.
- 27:26Speaker 2: And then there's emails.
- 27:28Speaker 1: Now, has their food production gone down? I'm just curious.
- 27:31Speaker 2: No, and you'll... Not only has their food production not
- 27:33Speaker 2: gone down, but also they have far more stringent levels
- 27:39Speaker 2: of what's even allowed as residue on their products. That's
- 27:43Speaker 2: why you hear so many people saying they can go
- 27:45Speaker 2: to Europe and eat bread or eat pasta or things
- 27:47Speaker 2: like this, and they don't feel sick afterwards. But in
- 27:51Speaker 2: these emails from what's called the Monsanto files, which are.
- 27:55Speaker 1: Oh, shit. More email files.
- 27:57Speaker 2: More email files.
- 27:58Speaker 1: Here we go.
- 27:59Speaker 2: Here we go. In these emails, what you see is
- 28:03Speaker 2: a captured agency. The EPA's captured. But you also see
- 28:07Speaker 2: a lot of internal emails between Monsanto executives and people
- 28:10Speaker 2: at Monsanto and each other. So, for instance, when the
- 28:13Speaker 2: EU was saying, this formulation that you use in the
- 28:15Speaker 2: United States, we are not gonna allow you to use.
- 28:18Speaker 2: This was something called POEAs, polyoxyethylated taloanines. It's actually the
- 28:24Speaker 2: product within glyphosate, within Roundup, that they formulate to have
- 28:29Speaker 2: it break down the skin, basically, of the plant to
- 28:32Speaker 2: allow it to enter the plant easier. Well, it does
- 28:35Speaker 2: that on human skin too. It actually operates on fat.
- 28:39Speaker 2: And so... And this is... I'll get into this in
- 28:43Speaker 2: a little bit, but this is part of what they
- 28:45Speaker 2: don't want people to talk about, is that they'll always
- 28:48Speaker 2: say glyphosate is safe, and they will not talk about
- 28:51Speaker 2: glyphosate-based herbicides, which are known to be far more toxic
- 28:54Speaker 2: because the product can actually get in your bloodstream quicker
- 28:57Speaker 2: and more efficiently. So one of the emails that was
- 29:02Speaker 2: shared between the Monsanto EU representative and the US company,
- 29:11Speaker 2: after they reformulated it to make it safer for the EU,
- 29:14Speaker 2: the email went out that said, why would we continue
- 29:18Speaker 2: to make a harmful product when we can make a
- 29:20Speaker 2: safer one? And they didn't change a thing. They know
- 29:25Speaker 2: how to make these products safer. We have their internal
- 29:28Speaker 2: communications to know that they're lying to us. But instead
- 29:32Speaker 2: of owning up and putting a warning on the label,
- 29:35Speaker 2: which is what they would have to do to stem
- 29:38Speaker 2: the tide of a lot of this, they're going after
- 29:41Speaker 2: state houses and trying to get immunity. They're putting in
- 29:45Speaker 2: the farm bill to get immunity. They're now pushing the
- 29:48Speaker 2: Supreme Court to get immunity. And they now have an
- 29:52Speaker 2: executive order, which, just to dispel any confusion, does not
- 29:57Speaker 2: exclude immunity at all. Meaning there's nothing in that executive
- 30:01Speaker 2: order that says that it does not apply to product liability.
- 30:07Speaker 1: I mean, we just saw it. I mean, we were
- 30:10Speaker 1: just talking about it before we sat down here. I mean,
- 30:14Speaker 1: was it Rusty Groves, a state congressman or something here
- 30:18Speaker 1: in Tennessee? I got a call by, shit, I can't,
- 30:24Speaker 1: I'm drawing a blank here, but he ran for Congress.
- 30:26Speaker 1: He almost fucking won. Nobody's ever heard of him. He
- 30:30Speaker 1: shot me a text and told me about this bill
- 30:35Speaker 1: that was getting ready to get signed into law. The
- 30:38Speaker 1: rusty grills, you saw the clip, I think. And so
- 30:44Speaker 1: I got that the day they were signing. I'm like, well, shit,
- 30:46Speaker 1: I got like 30 minutes. He's like, well, you got
- 30:48Speaker 1: an hour. I was like, okay. I was like, just
- 30:54Speaker 1: give me the details and I'll get something out. and
- 30:59Speaker 1: he gave me the details, and I wanted to, you know,
- 31:01Speaker 1: you saw a little selfie video. Bill got yanked 30
- 31:06Speaker 1: minutes after that.
- 31:06Speaker 2: That's what I saw. I saw your video.
- 31:09Speaker 1: But then everybody's texting me saying, oh, don't worry, it's
- 31:11Speaker 1: going to come up again. It'll come up again. But it's,
- 31:17Speaker 1: these people aren't fucking, they are paying attention. They know
- 31:21Speaker 1: what we want, especially the federal government. I mean, The
- 31:26Speaker 1: country's been pretty loud about a lot of things, and
- 31:28Speaker 1: they're just willfully ignoring everything we want and doing whatever
- 31:35Speaker 1: the hell they please. It's fucking insane. It's insane. Let
- 31:41Speaker 1: me give you an introduction here real quick, Zach.
- 31:43Speaker 2: Oh.
- 31:44Speaker 1: Should have done this at the beginning. Zach Lane, a
- 31:46Speaker 1: sixth-generation Iowan. You're a regenerative farmer and businessman running to
- 31:51Speaker 1: become the next governor of Iowa independent of party leadership.
- 31:56Speaker 1: son of a Christian pastor, raised with a strong foundation
- 31:59Speaker 1: in faith, family, and service, founder of Homeplace Ventures, investing
- 32:04Speaker 1: in agriculture, real estate, and technology with a focus on
- 32:07Speaker 1: local ownership. Husband to Annie, you're raising seven children together,
- 32:11Speaker 1: and most importantly, you're a Christian.
- 32:14Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 32:14Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
- 32:16Speaker 2: Thank you. I think, um, as I hear you read that,
- 32:22Speaker 2: you know, something that comes to me is that, um,
- 32:25Speaker 2: as you said, most important as a Christian. That might
- 32:29Speaker 2: be where, in the deepest part of me, this really, like,
- 32:33Speaker 2: gets me, is that, you know, my dad was a
- 32:37Speaker 2: 30-year conservationist. He's a pastor, conservationist.
- 32:42Speaker 4: Um.
- 32:44Speaker 2: And as I was growing up, the lessons that he
- 32:46Speaker 2: was teaching me about stewarding creation, about taking responsibility and
- 32:51Speaker 2: doing the right thing with your land and with your property,
- 32:56Speaker 2: That all ties back to, as Jordan Peterson would say,
- 32:58Speaker 2: beauty is a pathway to God, to the divine. It
- 33:02Speaker 2: all connects in. And so, when I take a look
- 33:06Speaker 2: at what's happening around the state of Iowa, with our
- 33:10Speaker 2: farmland being owned by people who don't live here, which
- 33:11Speaker 2: you can't steward land properly if you don't live in
- 33:14Speaker 2: the state. You can't take care of it the way
- 33:17Speaker 2: that you would. And you look at single-family homes being
- 33:21Speaker 2: bought by trillion-dollar Wall Street hedge funds. Or you look
- 33:27Speaker 2: at agriculture companies extorting farmers and putting monopolistic practices in place.
- 33:34Speaker 2: This comes back to like something of faith for me.
- 33:38Speaker 2: Meaning there is such thing as right and wrong. There
- 33:42Speaker 2: are things that we are called to do. And you know,
- 33:47Speaker 2: of all the laws that were given in the Old Testament,
- 33:51Speaker 2: Jesus boiled them down to two. Love the Lord your
- 33:54Speaker 2: God with all your heart, mind and soul. and love
- 33:56Speaker 2: your neighbor as yourself. And he actually, when he was
- 33:59Speaker 2: pressed on this by the Pharisees, who's your neighbor? He
- 34:03Speaker 2: kind of came back and said, no, the question is
- 34:05Speaker 2: to whom are you being neighborly? Because it's not a
- 34:10Speaker 2: law of like, oh, this person, that person, like who's
- 34:12Speaker 2: within proximity of where I live. It's actually much deeper
- 34:17Speaker 2: that we are tasked with working to make life better
- 34:22Speaker 2: for the people around us and the people in our
- 34:24Speaker 2: communities and our state And this key question that the
- 34:30Speaker 2: Amish have asked for a very long time before they
- 34:32Speaker 2: make a big decision, which is, what will this change
- 34:35Speaker 2: do to my community, before they make the decision, has
- 34:39Speaker 2: not been asked by politicians in a very long time.
- 34:41Speaker 2: And so when I'm thinking about running, that's what it
- 34:44Speaker 2: comes back to for me, is this idea of, when
- 34:50Speaker 2: I'm gone, what are my kids gonna be able to
- 34:52Speaker 2: look back? You know, before I came onto this podcast,
- 34:56Speaker 2: my prayer is very simple. I wanna put something into
- 35:01Speaker 2: the world that my children can look back on and
- 35:05Speaker 2: be proud that their dad was fighting for something that
- 35:07Speaker 2: really mattered.
- 35:08Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. I 100% get that.
- 35:11Speaker 2: And so, when I look at what's going on in Iowa,
- 35:16Speaker 2: and I tie it back to our heritage as a people,
- 35:19Speaker 2: and I just wonder, are my kids gonna even wanna
- 35:20Speaker 2: live here with everything that's going on?
- 35:24Speaker 1: Lot of people looking at dual citizenship right now. I'm
- 35:28Speaker 1: fucking wonderful.
- 35:30Speaker 2: Don't. No, come to Iowa. You can be a dual
- 35:31Speaker 2: citizen of Iowa. I'll give you, like.
- 35:33Speaker 1: I would love to, but I don't want to get
- 35:35Speaker 1: fucking cancer.
- 35:36Speaker 2: I know, I know.
- 35:36Speaker 1: You know, and let's take... We're going to come right
- 35:40Speaker 1: back to farming, but you brought something up just a
- 35:42Speaker 1: minute ago that I want to hit on. And so
- 35:44Speaker 1: I want to tie... I want to talk about Christianity,
- 35:47Speaker 1: the federal government, and state governments. Just a few minutes ago,
- 35:50Speaker 1: you had said that you think that... I believe you
- 35:53Speaker 1: said that you think that Something along the lines of
- 35:57Speaker 1: the federal government is unrepairable. And that you would get
- 36:00Speaker 1: pushback from Republicans for saying that. Do you believe that?
- 36:04Speaker 2: Do I believe it's unrepairable?
- 36:05Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 36:08Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 36:10Speaker 1: I do too.
- 36:11Speaker 2: This is what.
- 36:13Speaker 1: I think it's completely fucking gone. It's gone.
- 36:17Speaker 2: You know, here's the thing. There's this idea of the
- 36:19Speaker 2: American experiment. And that is real and true and good.
- 36:25Speaker 2: But if you look at the deviation we've had from that,
- 36:29Speaker 2: I think the most... One of the common questions that
- 36:32Speaker 2: comes up for me is, what do I think is
- 36:35Speaker 2: the most pressing issue facing the country today? And I
- 36:40Speaker 2: keep coming back to this. Our country's run by unelected people,
- 36:44Speaker 2: and we don't know who they are. And so, if
- 36:46Speaker 2: you're in a republic... I think.
- 36:48Speaker 1: We're figuring out who they are.
- 36:50Speaker 2: If you're in a republic, and... your elected officials aren't
- 36:56Speaker 2: making the decisions for you, that you have big business,
- 37:00Speaker 2: that you have special intern lobbyists, that you have undue
- 37:02Speaker 2: influence from foreign governments. Like, if that's the situation you're in, like,
- 37:07Speaker 2: my tendency is to say, let's hunker down and make
- 37:09Speaker 2: Iowa amazing. And let's get ready for whatever comes next,
- 37:13Speaker 2: because I want my state to be one that's prosperous,
- 37:17Speaker 2: to be one that has great education, clean water, that, like,
- 37:20Speaker 2: people have opportunity in my state. But no, I have
- 37:24Speaker 2: no interest in running for office to be in Washington, D.C.
- 37:26Speaker 2: And you know what? I think there are good people
- 37:28Speaker 2: really trying to do the right thing. You asked my
- 37:31Speaker 2: personal opinion, and I'm not a politician, so I'm just
- 37:33Speaker 2: going to tell you it. To me, it's beyond repair.
- 37:36Speaker 1: I think so, too. So much so that less than
- 37:41Speaker 1: five congressmen, less than five people in federal politics altogether,
- 37:46Speaker 1: I think are true to to their constituents, true to
- 37:51Speaker 1: their word. And they know what honor means and, you know,
- 37:56Speaker 1: they have actual real values. And I've tried to convince
- 38:00Speaker 1: every single one of them to come back to the
- 38:02Speaker 1: state and come back and run our fucking state because
- 38:05Speaker 1: this is the only thing we have left is the states.
- 38:09Speaker 1: We don't have a federal government. That shit has run
- 38:11Speaker 1: away every fucking institution, the CIA, the FBI, all of them,
- 38:15Speaker 1: all of them. I mean, I just had a guy
- 38:17Speaker 1: on here, Goes by AJ, got blasted with a microwave weapon.
- 38:21Speaker 1: Have you heard about Havana syndrome?
- 38:22Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard about it.
- 38:23Speaker 1: You know what the CIA told them? That they have
- 38:25Speaker 1: to make a decision between their people and the institution.
- 38:30Speaker 1: Taking care of their people or the institution. They'll pick
- 38:33Speaker 1: the institution, and they will willingly lie to Congress to
- 38:38Speaker 1: cover this shit up. That's our fucking... Now, how can
- 38:43Speaker 1: we trust anything at all, anything... that comes out of
- 38:47Speaker 1: an institution that's openly, that says, I guess not openly,
- 38:51Speaker 1: behind closed doors, that they will willingly lie to Congress.
- 38:58Speaker 1: And that's just one institution.
- 39:01Speaker 2: Well, institutional capture has been done on purpose and been
- 39:06Speaker 2: going on for a very long time. And now we're seeing, like, look,
- 39:11Speaker 2: I think the people that would sympathize with what you
- 39:13Speaker 2: and I are saying the most is the average voter.
- 39:15Speaker 1: I think so, too.
- 39:16Speaker 2: Like, you talk about the average voter and what hope
- 39:18Speaker 2: they believe that we have in Washington, D.C. And like,
- 39:23Speaker 2: this was something I had to think deeply about because
- 39:25Speaker 2: I wasn't planning to run for this seat. This seat
- 39:27Speaker 2: hasn't been open in 20 years in Iowa. The longest
- 39:31Speaker 2: serving governor in the history of America is from Iowa.
- 39:34Speaker 2: What I had to look at was, with the issues
- 39:36Speaker 2: I'm talking to you about, that I'm watching every day
- 39:40Speaker 2: in my state, was I willing to not do this
- 39:45Speaker 2: knowing that the next governor could be there till I die?
- 39:49Speaker 2: There's no term limits. And the institutional capture is very real.
- 39:55Speaker 2: I'm not the establishment candidate. But I'm also not somebody who's, like,
- 40:00Speaker 2: here to.
- 40:02Speaker 2: What I am here to do is give my people
- 40:05Speaker 2: a voice. To say, what you and I are talking about,
- 40:10Speaker 2: they're talking about, we hear it. And they'd have to
- 40:14Speaker 2: kill me to change the way I view these things
- 40:17Speaker 2: to get me to do something different that would be
- 40:20Speaker 2: adverse to what the state and the people need. It's like,
- 40:26Speaker 2: I told somebody the other day, I heard this term
- 40:29Speaker 2: is called, somebody used the term economic nationalism. It was
- 40:33Speaker 2: basically this idea that like the economy and the government
- 40:36Speaker 2: of the country should be there to focus on making
- 40:39Speaker 2: life better for the people in the country. And I think, like,
- 40:43Speaker 2: did we ever think that there was anything else? I mean,
- 40:46Speaker 2: we see something else, but, like, this is what it's
- 40:49Speaker 2: supposed to be. The state of Iowa, its economy, its government,
- 40:54Speaker 2: all the efforts it's undertaking should be solely focused on
- 40:57Speaker 2: making life better for the people that are living there.
- 41:00Speaker 2: And let me give you one of the most egregious
- 41:02Speaker 2: examples about this in my own state. Right now, there's
- 41:06Speaker 2: three big companies that control 85% of the agriculture input market.
- 41:12Speaker 2: When I was growing up in Iowa, there were over
- 41:14Speaker 2: 300 companies. They've bought up and bought up and consolidated
- 41:18Speaker 2: and consolidated. This way, farmers have the illusion of choice.
- 41:23Speaker 2: One of those companies is a company called Syngenta. Syngenta
- 41:27Speaker 2: is 100% owned by the state of China. 100%. And
- 41:34Speaker 2: we can get into what they produce and all of
- 41:36Speaker 2: these things and that, but let me just say this first.
- 41:40Speaker 2: Since being Chinese-owned... the state government of Iowa has given
- 41:45Speaker 2: a Chinese company $ 7. 5 million in refundable tax credits paid
- 41:50Speaker 2: for by the taxpayers. Propping up a Chinese company.
- 41:54Speaker 4: See.
- 41:54Speaker 1: Oh, man. This is where I was going, too. Sorry.
- 42:01Speaker 1: We see all this waste, fraud, and abuse, you know,
- 42:03Speaker 1: and they always want to fucking raise the taxes. Let's
- 42:06Speaker 1: raise taxes so we can send it to Israel, we
- 42:08Speaker 1: can send it to Ukraine, We can send it to
- 42:11Speaker 1: fucking whoever. You know, we can pay China's fucking, you know,
- 42:16Speaker 1: whatever bill, you know, the taxpayers will pay it. You know,
- 42:20Speaker 1: that's another, it's like, I don't even, why can't, I mean,
- 42:27Speaker 1: we need strong, we need strong governors and state legislators. And,
- 42:32Speaker 1: you know, what would it take for a state to go,
- 42:36Speaker 1: fuck you, federal government, we're not paying taxes. We're going
- 42:40Speaker 1: to raise our state taxes. We don't need your fucking funding.
- 42:43Speaker 1: We don't need any of your bullshit. None of it.
- 42:46Speaker 1: Fuck you. We're going to raise our state taxes. And
- 42:49Speaker 1: if you send in any fucking IRS agents, we're going
- 42:51Speaker 1: to have them arrested and put in fucking jail in
- 42:54Speaker 1: the state. I mean, is that even a possibility? Because
- 42:58Speaker 1: the government is just, it is all waste, fraud, and abuse.
- 43:04Speaker 2: Greed.
- 43:06Speaker 1: Pedophilia. That's what it is. It is what it is. Like,
- 43:10Speaker 1: you can't hide this shit anymore. You know, and so
- 43:13Speaker 1: why aren't more, you know, why aren't more people standing
- 43:17Speaker 1: up and taking control? It just... You.
- 43:19Speaker 2: Know, one of the things, let me say this first,
- 43:23Speaker 2: is that what you're talking... People talk to me running
- 43:26Speaker 2: for governor about this idea of, like, foreign aid. And
- 43:29Speaker 2: I say, my state doesn't have clean drinking water.
- 43:32Speaker 1: Exactly.
- 43:33Speaker 2: Why would I ever want to send $ 1... to any
- 43:36Speaker 2: foreign country, when we have the fastest rate of new
- 43:39Speaker 2: cancer in the history of civilization, we don't have clean
- 43:42Speaker 2: drinking water. Like, no, this is what I'm talking about.
- 43:46Speaker 2: This is where we expect our dollars to stay in
- 43:50Speaker 2: our state, to benefit our people. And the idea that
- 43:52Speaker 2: we'd use refundable tax credits to support a Chinese company,
- 43:56Speaker 2: when by the way, we have homegrown Iowa companies that
- 43:59Speaker 2: compete with them, that compete. One of these guys testified
- 44:03Speaker 2: in front of a congressional hearing, which let me just
- 44:05Speaker 2: say this like, This goes to your example. How many
- 44:09Speaker 2: times have we seen a congressional hearing about this? Or
- 44:12Speaker 2: this thing come up, and it's like Congress is talking
- 44:14Speaker 2: about it, and absolutely nothing happens.
- 44:17Speaker 1: We're too worried about aliens right now. Aliens and fucking UFOs.
- 44:22Speaker 2: Like, what's the next thing?
- 44:23Speaker 1: Are you shitting me? Aliens. Fucking aliens. That's what they're
- 44:30Speaker 1: talking about.
- 44:31Speaker 2: When you see that come out, it's just like, anybody
- 44:33Speaker 2: that's awake is just like, I'm sorry, what? we are
- 44:36Speaker 2: done being distracted from the things that actually matter. We're
- 44:40Speaker 2: smarter than this. But in this hearing on what's going
- 44:44Speaker 2: on in the agriculture input markets, one entrepreneur, third-generation Iowa seedsman,
- 44:52Speaker 2: creating independent seeds, who's competing against these companies, is talking
- 44:56Speaker 2: about what these companies do. Just a little background here.
- 45:02Speaker 2: We have GMO seeds. And so those genetics have patents
- 45:05Speaker 2: on them, and the patents last about 20 years. And
- 45:08Speaker 2: once the patent runs out, they're supposed to go into
- 45:10Speaker 2: a seed library. So an independent seed maker can pull
- 45:13Speaker 2: that seed off the shelf, and they can use it
- 45:17Speaker 2: to make their own version, and usually often, most often,
- 45:20Speaker 2: like generic drugs, cheaper. What this third-generation seed's been testified
- 45:25Speaker 2: about in front of Congress is that when these big companies,
- 45:29Speaker 2: two companies control all of the seed genetics in our country,
- 45:33Speaker 2: when one of those big companies puts that on the
- 45:35Speaker 2: shelf in the seed library, before they do it, they
- 45:38Speaker 2: scramble the name of it into random letters and numbers
- 45:41Speaker 2: so he can't figure out what it is, and he
- 45:42Speaker 2: has to continue going to them for royalties and pay
- 45:45Speaker 2: royalties to get seeds.
- 45:46Speaker 1: Holy shit.
- 45:48Speaker 2: And so, where's the justice system on this? This is
- 45:53Speaker 2: what we come back to. And so, yes, as governor,
- 45:56Speaker 2: I've already said very, very openly, I plan to sue
- 46:00Speaker 2: the federal government every chance I get. And just to
- 46:04Speaker 2: be very clear, I actually think Donald Trump would like that.
- 46:07Speaker 2: You know, the Chevron Doctrine was overturned, saying that, like,
- 46:11Speaker 2: that if Congress didn't specifically put a regulation in place
- 46:13Speaker 2: that states we can sue now if regulators have made
- 46:16Speaker 2: up their own rules, which they've made up millions and
- 46:19Speaker 2: probably billions of pages of these rules. But we have
- 46:22Speaker 2: got to get back to the point where we're looking
- 46:25Speaker 2: to say, how are we going to liberate ourselves from
- 46:28Speaker 2: exactly what you're talking about? The first step I would
- 46:30Speaker 2: do But this also just goes back to why I'm
- 46:34Speaker 2: not running for Congress. It's like, I agree with what
- 46:36Speaker 2: you're saying about we need to go deep into our state,
- 46:39Speaker 2: we need to have good governors who are willing to
- 46:41Speaker 2: stand up and just put it all on the line.
- 46:43Speaker 2: I've had people already ask me, Sean, not that... You know,
- 46:47Speaker 2: people just ask these questions. Are you thinking about doing
- 46:50Speaker 2: anything bigger than this? No, I'm not. I don't want
- 46:53Speaker 2: to do anything different than this. Matter of fact, this
- 46:56Speaker 2: isn't something I woke up in the morning and said,
- 46:57Speaker 2: I'd really like to go do this and put my
- 46:59Speaker 2: family through all this. What I said was, if I
- 47:03Speaker 2: don't do this, if I don't bring this up, if
- 47:05Speaker 2: I don't put my own money into this and say
- 47:07Speaker 2: to these donors, I don't want your funds, how much
- 47:11Speaker 2: longer is the state that I love, that I grew
- 47:13Speaker 2: up in, that my family, like, helped to pioneer, how
- 47:18Speaker 2: much longer is that going to even be recognizable to me?
- 47:22Speaker 1: Probably not very long.
- 47:24Speaker 2: Not very long. But I believe that with the right governor...
- 47:28Speaker 2: Here's the thing. We have things we could change in
- 47:31Speaker 2: the state of Iowa that a governor could change right
- 47:33Speaker 2: now to make some of the hot button issues that
- 47:36Speaker 2: the voters are talking about, like, go away or get
- 47:40Speaker 2: much better. And even on the Republican side, we're not
- 47:43Speaker 2: doing it. I mean, there's been great advancements and, you know,
- 47:46Speaker 2: we've passed school choice legislation, we've lowered taxes and all
- 47:49Speaker 2: these things. But what I often say to people is like,
- 47:52Speaker 2: this is not about taxes or regulations. This is about
- 47:55Speaker 2: our culture and identity as Iowans and as Americans. The
- 48:00Speaker 2: free market doesn't take into account culture. It doesn't fix
- 48:07Speaker 2: cultural issues. Oftentimes it makes them worse. People ask me,
- 48:11Speaker 2: what do you mean by that? It's like, what's the
- 48:14Speaker 2: free market solution for the declining church attendance in our country?
- 48:19Speaker 2: We have to make those decisions. And that is actually
- 48:24Speaker 2: the sole reason I am running, is to say we
- 48:26Speaker 2: have to get the culture right in our state. If
- 48:29Speaker 2: we don't get the culture right, Like, we're gonna end
- 48:31Speaker 2: up like Washington, D.C. Because the same people that are
- 48:34Speaker 2: buying off politicians and looking for influence in Washington, D.C.
- 48:36Speaker 2: are coming to the states. They're coming less and less
- 48:38Speaker 2: because more and more power is being concentrated in D.C.
- 48:42Speaker 2: But that's why we have to start suing. And we
- 48:44Speaker 2: have to start saying, we're gonna be bringing this back
- 48:46Speaker 2: into the control of our state. So, to me, it
- 48:54Speaker 2: goes back to culture. It goes back to who are we?
- 48:57Speaker 2: What do we want to stand for as a people?
- 49:00Speaker 2: And do the traditions and the heritage of our state
- 49:04Speaker 2: and our ancestors matter to us? Because I can tell you,
- 49:08Speaker 2: they would have revolted for far less than what's going
- 49:11Speaker 2: on right now.
- 49:12Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
- 49:13Speaker 2: And they did. For far less. You know, I was
- 49:16Speaker 2: talking to somebody about the conditions of farming. in Iowa.
- 49:23Speaker 2: And he was telling me a story that I ended
- 49:25Speaker 2: up looking up. And it was about, you know, in
- 49:30Speaker 2: the 30s, about how bad farming conditions were. And there
- 49:36Speaker 2: was farmers from basically 80% of the counties in our state.
- 49:40Speaker 2: that started protesting to such a level that the sheriffs
- 49:43Speaker 2: had to bring out submachine guns. And I would actually
- 49:48Speaker 2: say that the conditions we have right now are worse.
- 49:52Speaker 2: We're to the point where you'll have people talk about
- 49:54Speaker 2: farming as if it's just a hobby, meaning, like, you
- 49:58Speaker 2: have to have an off-farm job to support your family,
- 50:01Speaker 2: but you're still farming. And I've even seen agricultural establishment
- 50:06Speaker 2: people bragging about that. It's like, hey, they just love,
- 50:10Speaker 2: they do it for free. They just love it. I'm thinking,
- 50:14Speaker 2: you don't understand this. Like, this is a key part
- 50:18Speaker 2: of our heritage, and we're being poisoned with our food.
- 50:21Speaker 2: We import 95% of what we eat in the state.
- 50:25Speaker 2: And basically, none of our land is to actually grow
- 50:27Speaker 2: anything that we eat. The entire chessboard is backwards.
- 50:34Speaker 1: Yeah. Let's talk about the collapse of the family farms.
- 50:39Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 50:40Speaker 1: You want to?
- 50:41Speaker 2: Yeah. I'd love to.
- 50:43Speaker 1: What are they turning them into? Data centers? That's a
- 50:48Speaker 1: big thing right now. A lot of real estate investors
- 50:51Speaker 1: are looking for land next to power grids so that
- 50:53Speaker 1: they can build a huge data center.
- 50:55Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
- 50:55Speaker 1: We'll sit out to a big data center.
- 50:57Speaker 2: Let me answer your first question, is what's happening to
- 51:00Speaker 2: family farms? Most of the time, they're being bulldozed and
- 51:03Speaker 2: farmed over. So the place, like my house, I was
- 51:07Speaker 2: afraid that was going to happen to my family's home
- 51:10Speaker 2: And that's why I couldn't say no when the opportunity
- 51:12Speaker 2: came to buy it for me. Because what used to
- 51:15Speaker 2: be these small farm sets dotting all these places and
- 51:19Speaker 2: known by the last name of the people that lived
- 51:20Speaker 2: there for 100 years are just being bulldozed, farmed over,
- 51:28Speaker 2: and forgotten. But when you talk about bigger efforts, you
- 51:34Speaker 2: talked about data centers, there's many examples of how this
- 51:40Speaker 2: is happening across the country and what's happening in Iowa too.
- 51:44Speaker 2: You know, if you go to the south of Cedar Rapids,
- 51:49Speaker 2: so if you're in Cedar Rapids, you head south towards
- 51:50Speaker 2: the airport, you will drive past what used to be
- 51:55Speaker 2: farmland that had been farmland for generations and generations that
- 52:01Speaker 2: now looks like a military installation is being put in.
- 52:05Speaker 2: I've never seen so many pieces of heavy equipment in
- 52:08Speaker 2: my life. I've never seen something built so quickly in
- 52:10Speaker 2: my life. And what it is is two companies, Google
- 52:14Speaker 2: and QTS, have bought 1,400 acres of farmland, and they're
- 52:20Speaker 2: building data centers there. Now, I'm not going to get into, like,
- 52:24Speaker 2: the debate about, like, whether we should have data centers
- 52:26Speaker 2: or not. I think we're being a bit premature on this,
- 52:29Speaker 2: especially with Elon Musk talking about putting them in space.
- 52:32Speaker 2: But there's a broader... of we're not thinking through at
- 52:36Speaker 2: all what AI is going to do to us as
- 52:38Speaker 2: a people or our communities. So, like, I could come
- 52:41Speaker 2: to that discussion in a different way, but just from
- 52:43Speaker 2: a policy perspective or just a principle perspective on this,
- 52:50Speaker 2: the city of Cedar Rapids gave one of those data
- 52:53Speaker 2: centers $ 529 million in tax rebates.
- 52:54Speaker 4: What?
- 53:02Speaker 2: Half a billion dollars in tax rebates to come to
- 53:06Speaker 2: Cedar Rapids to put this data center in. And let
- 53:07Speaker 2: me just say this. In the contract, they're contractually obligated
- 53:10Speaker 2: to create jobs as part of this to receive these
- 53:14Speaker 2: tax breaks. For $ 529 million, they're contractually obligated to create
- 53:18Speaker 2: 30 jobs. $ 17 million a job.
- 53:25Speaker 1: It's a big paycheck.
- 53:27Speaker 2: Huge. And what I say is like, look, you want
- 53:29Speaker 2: to build a data center in Iowa? I'm going to
- 53:31Speaker 2: charge you far more in property tax, and I'm going
- 53:34Speaker 2: to use it to lower the property taxes of the
- 53:36Speaker 2: people in the communities that you're around. We won't be
- 53:40Speaker 2: taken advantage of anymore, is what I'm trying to say.
- 53:43Speaker 2: Whether it's agricultural companies having to sue to break up
- 53:45Speaker 2: their monopolies, or just say something as common as, look,
- 53:48Speaker 2: $ 100 billion multinational tech companies are searching across the country
- 53:54Speaker 2: to find land to build data centers and get approval
- 53:56Speaker 2: from governments. They're the ones... that should be on the
- 54:02Speaker 2: opposite end of this negotiation. We should be saying to them,
- 54:06Speaker 2: what are you going to offer us? Because 30 jobs
- 54:10Speaker 2: and $ 529 million in tax breaks doesn't pencil.
- 54:14Speaker 4: Wow.
- 54:17Speaker 2: All right, everybody.
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- 56:50Speaker 2: So when we go back to this idea, Sean, you know,
- 56:54Speaker 2: something I give Trump a lot of credit for is
- 56:57Speaker 2: pioneering the idea of America first. You know, before Trump
- 57:01Speaker 2: came under the scene, nobody's even really talking about China
- 57:05Speaker 2: in a major way from the political standpoint. Everything was good.
- 57:07Speaker 2: Like the free trade we have with them is good,
- 57:09Speaker 2: even though it's hollowed out an entire region of people
- 57:14Speaker 2: who then ended up getting addicted to opioids and dying
- 57:18Speaker 2: off at faster rates. They're all saying how our partnership
- 57:21Speaker 2: with China is great. And then Trump came in and said,
- 57:25Speaker 2: they're taking advantage of us. We're suckers. He was right.
- 57:29Speaker 2: 100% right. So when I talk to people about what
- 57:33Speaker 2: it means to be Iowa first, like this is part
- 57:35Speaker 2: of my campaign. It's like, I want to put Iowa first.
- 57:39Speaker 2: It's not just a slogan. It's saying like, If you're
- 57:42Speaker 2: a multinational, if you're owned by a foreign government, you're
- 57:44Speaker 2: getting zero dollars from my state, period. Those dollars will
- 57:50Speaker 2: go towards homegrown Iowa entrepreneurs to build their life, to
- 57:53Speaker 2: build their company and compete with you and hopefully make
- 57:56Speaker 2: it so you have a hard time keeping up. That's
- 57:59Speaker 2: what it should be. That's the idea of putting Iowa first.
- 58:02Speaker 2: It's the same thing about these data centers. It's like
- 58:06Speaker 2: we have two amazing assets in our state. We have
- 58:10Speaker 2: our children and we have our farmland. We have some
- 58:13Speaker 2: of the best in the world. To give them over
- 58:17Speaker 2: to $ 100 billion multinational tech companies and then pay them, basically,
- 58:23Speaker 2: to do it? It doesn't make sense. And here's... Going
- 58:26Speaker 2: back to what you said earlier. Voters know this. When
- 58:31Speaker 2: I talk to them about Syngenta getting refundable tax credits
- 58:34Speaker 2: from the state, I don't care how many high-quality jobs
- 58:37Speaker 2: they say they're creating. The voters don't want this. They
- 58:41Speaker 2: don't want to support a Chinese company. And they want
- 58:45Speaker 2: to support Iowa companies. So this goes back to just,
- 58:49Speaker 2: we've taken our eye off the ball. Our politicians aren't
- 58:51Speaker 2: paying attention to the right things. And I believe they're
- 58:54Speaker 2: not asking the right questions about what will these changes
- 58:56Speaker 2: do to our community. And they do not care about
- 58:59Speaker 2: the culture of our state and our people.
- 59:02Speaker 1: That's what I was going to say. I don't know
- 59:04Speaker 1: if they're not paying attention, but they definitely don't care.
- 59:06Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 59:07Speaker 1: They just don't give a shit. Yeah. Because there's no repercussions.
- 59:12Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 59:13Speaker 1: There's no consequences. None. They'll get reelected. What's Congress have?
- 59:18Speaker 2: Like a 95% re-election rate, something like that.
- 59:21Speaker 1: 5% approval rating and 95% re-election rate. Yeah. Like, I mean,
- 59:28Speaker 1: if you think the, You know, if you think the
- 59:32Speaker 1: elections are good, I mean, that's... We're fucking ourselves over here.
- 59:41Speaker 2: You know what I mean? When they have donation limits
- 59:45Speaker 2: to run for those seats, right? Well, that just puts
- 59:50Speaker 2: them in such an advantage. I actually think the limits
- 59:52Speaker 2: put them in an advantage in some ways because, you know,
- 59:56Speaker 2: And I'm not saying take donation limits or not have
- 59:59Speaker 2: donation limits. We don't have any in my race, which
- 1:00:00Speaker 2: is part of the reason I can go elsewhere, because
- 1:00:03Speaker 2: as you could probably imagine, my message within the big
- 1:00:06Speaker 2: agriculture community of donors isn't exactly popular.
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: Well, I'll bet.
- 1:00:11Speaker 2: And so I'm going elsewhere to raise funds from people
- 1:00:14Speaker 2: who want to see... the agriculture... the culture of agriculture
- 1:00:20Speaker 2: in our state restored, regenerative farming, safer practices, less cancer.
- 1:00:25Speaker 2: But if you look at Congress, you know, finding those people,
- 1:00:30Speaker 2: if you're an upstart candidate who are going to be
- 1:00:33Speaker 2: willing to give you the $ 7, 000 apiece, I mean, you
- 1:00:35Speaker 2: have to put a lot of that money together to
- 1:00:38Speaker 2: be able to wage any sort of battle against one
- 1:00:41Speaker 2: of these entrenched people. And so, every part of the
- 1:00:45Speaker 2: deck is stacked against the person that's trying to unseat somebody.
- 1:00:49Speaker 2: Every part of it. So, when I look at Iowa
- 1:00:53Speaker 2: and I look at what are we doing with our state,
- 1:00:56Speaker 2: how can we, like, make a major difference in our state,
- 1:01:00Speaker 2: it comes to the most entrenched interest for me. The
- 1:01:03Speaker 2: people that are paying the money so politicians will look
- 1:01:07Speaker 2: the other way. And I've just been very clear. People
- 1:01:11Speaker 2: ask me all the time, are you accepting funds? No,
- 1:01:13Speaker 2: I'm not. I won't. And, you know, I think for
- 1:01:16Speaker 2: people that are principled, what I'd like to say is like, well, yeah,
- 1:01:19Speaker 2: but I'm never gonna take my eye off the ball.
- 1:01:23Speaker 2: But I just think the average voter is so weary
- 1:01:27Speaker 2: of seeing this group or that group support them. And
- 1:01:30Speaker 2: then they just realize, well, that was just the precursor
- 1:01:33Speaker 2: to me knowing that I'm just going to get screwed over.
- 1:01:36Speaker 2: And that when it comes down, the time of addressing
- 1:01:39Speaker 2: the fastest rate of new cancer in the country, in
- 1:01:42Speaker 2: the world, or making sure that a big agriculture company
- 1:01:47Speaker 2: stops losing in court, which side are they going to
- 1:01:50Speaker 2: line up on? And so I just can't do it
- 1:01:54Speaker 2: from a principled standpoint of saying, like, I can't look
- 1:01:58Speaker 2: at you or in the mirror or my kids and say, well, no,
- 1:02:03Speaker 2: that's not going to have any effect. Because these people,
- 1:02:07Speaker 2: they know what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah.
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: Let's move into glyphosate. But first, but first, I got
- 1:02:17Speaker 1: a question for you. This is from a patron. We
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: have a Patreon account.
- 1:02:21Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 1:02:21Speaker 1: Turned it into a community and they get the opportunity
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: to ask every guest a question. It's from Oliver. Why
- 1:02:28Speaker 1: do you think so many politicians are more interested in
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: money and special interests rather than their constituents in America's progress? Furthermore,
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: what can we do to help remedy this issue in
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: the future?
- 1:02:43Speaker 2: I think we.
- 1:02:43Speaker 1: We've pretty much covered that.
- 1:02:45Speaker 2: You know, but... Oliver's question... is a very big question,
- 1:02:53Speaker 2: because there's many things. I mean, of course, money and
- 1:02:57Speaker 2: special interests, but I think it comes down... You know,
- 1:03:00Speaker 2: being on this show with you right now is a
- 1:03:04Speaker 2: very different medium than what politics usually is. Because people
- 1:03:09Speaker 2: can actually see how I address these issues in a
- 1:03:12Speaker 2: long-form discussion, and I hope they can see my spirit,
- 1:03:15Speaker 2: and they can see, like, my heart. Politics isn't set
- 1:03:18Speaker 2: up for that. And so I think that if we
- 1:03:21Speaker 2: had more of this, of being able to understand where
- 1:03:23Speaker 2: somebody comes from, what drives them and motivates them. There'd
- 1:03:27Speaker 2: be less of that. And that's probably what I go
- 1:03:30Speaker 2: back to. What's motivating them, truly? Like, what's the why
- 1:03:34Speaker 2: that when everything goes wrong and a donor pulls out
- 1:03:37Speaker 2: or whatever, that's just gonna keep them saying, I don't care,
- 1:03:42Speaker 2: I'm doing the right thing.
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: Man, I don't know. I love, I'm with you, but
- 1:03:48Speaker 1: I've interviewed probably half of the fucking administration. before they
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: got elected.
- 1:03:54Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: I was told all kinds of shit on air, in
- 1:04:00Speaker 1: front of millions of people. I don't know if any
- 1:04:03Speaker 1: of it's done. In fact, some of it has just
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: gone the complete opposite way. Like the Maha shit that
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: we were just talking about, which we'll get into at
- 1:04:12Speaker 1: the end of the glyphosate section. But you know, but I,
- 1:04:16Speaker 1: on the other hand, I agree with what you're saying
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: because it's hard to hide in it. But... They did.
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: They found a fucking way, man. They found a way
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: to hide.
- 1:04:25Speaker 2: That's fair. You know, I think as I look at
- 1:04:27Speaker 2: this as somebody who's new in these things, and as
- 1:04:31Speaker 2: I pay attention and watch the short reels and the
- 1:04:34Speaker 2: quick news clips that come up from politicians, and you
- 1:04:38Speaker 2: realize that, like, when you know, when you're in it,
- 1:04:40Speaker 2: when you're deep in it, you understand, well, hold on,
- 1:04:41Speaker 2: you just took this vote. But you're saying this thing,
- 1:04:44Speaker 2: or you're speaking to this group. And so many times
- 1:04:47Speaker 2: politicians will just, Either they don't go face their constituents
- 1:04:51Speaker 2: or they come in, they talk and they leave immediately
- 1:04:53Speaker 2: without having to talk to them. That happens so much.
- 1:04:56Speaker 2: So that's maybe more of my long form point. It's
- 1:05:00Speaker 2: just that, you know, if you're unwilling to have the deep,
- 1:05:07Speaker 2: long discussions and own up to things that you've messed
- 1:05:10Speaker 2: up on even, because I don't think any of us
- 1:05:12Speaker 2: would say, look, if you've learned and you admit that,
- 1:05:17Speaker 2: that you're beyond repair, but none of these people are
- 1:05:19Speaker 2: saying they did anything wrong. They're not saying they took
- 1:05:22Speaker 2: a wrong vote, not saying they should do this differently.
- 1:05:26Speaker 2: But to Oliver's question, I think that's the question of
- 1:05:33Speaker 2: our democracy in many ways. It's like, okay, well, why
- 1:05:37Speaker 2: do they do this? Look at all the institutional capture.
- 1:05:40Speaker 2: Look at all the money that they're being offered. Look
- 1:05:45Speaker 2: at the perks that they're getting. We've incentivized the wrong things.
- 1:05:51Speaker 2: Accountability needs to be what's incentivized. I don't know exactly
- 1:05:53Speaker 2: how to do that, but it's something that's on my mind.
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: I think we need people that will stand up to politicians, too.
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: And I understand why you wouldn't, but there are people
- 1:06:03Speaker 1: that can. And I think that people think that politicians
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: have a lot more power than they actually do. In fact,
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: I just got a cease and desist from a congressman
- 1:06:14Speaker 1: not long ago who said he was going to fucking
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: sue me. And so I did a rebuttal video. I
- 1:06:20Speaker 1: talked to my attorney. Turns out we could actually sue
- 1:06:23Speaker 1: his ass and maybe we should, but I don't like
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: getting into litigation and all this shit, but I wanted
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: to prove a point. I'm not going to let a
- 1:06:32Speaker 1: fucking congressman or any politician push me around. No fucking way.
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: Could you imagine letting another man push you around in
- 1:06:40Speaker 1: front of your fucking kids? Nuh-uh, buddy. And more people
- 1:06:44Speaker 1: need to take that stance and be like, fuck you.
- 1:06:48Speaker 1: Cease and desist. You don't want me to talk? Fuck off.
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: You won't silence me, and I dare you to fucking
- 1:06:54Speaker 1: sue me. Do it. I fucking dare you.
- 1:06:57Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
- 1:06:59Speaker 1: And what happened? Not a damn thing. I'm still here.
- 1:07:03Speaker 1: I'm still doing the same show. Still talking about the
- 1:07:05Speaker 1: same fucking things. And I did that because I wanted
- 1:07:08Speaker 1: to set an example and show people these fuckers aren't
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: as powerful as you think they are. They're just pieces
- 1:07:14Speaker 1: of shit. That's all they are. Treat them like, like,
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: it just, man, I'm getting, I'm getting, I'm getting angry.
- 1:07:20Speaker 1: I'm losing my words. But it just, but that, I'm serious.
- 1:07:23Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
- 1:07:24Speaker 2: And it did.
- 1:07:24Speaker 1: It proved. It's like, look at that.
- 1:07:28Speaker 2: Calling the bluff in that, it's like, why pull that
- 1:07:31Speaker 2: ripcord if you're not going to try to follow the
- 1:07:33Speaker 2: way through with it or if you don't know what
- 1:07:34Speaker 2: you're doing? And I think going back to like citizens
- 1:07:37Speaker 2: and voters, it's like, again, people should be up in
- 1:07:41Speaker 2: arms about what's going on. I've talked to voters about
- 1:07:45Speaker 2: what Elon Musk uncovered with all of the Doge stuff,
- 1:07:49Speaker 2: and then that our representatives are voting to put it
- 1:07:52Speaker 2: right back in the budget. It's like... Were they.
- 1:07:55Speaker 3: All rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah-rah.
- 1:08:14Speaker 2: I don't want to get into a subject I don't
- 1:08:15Speaker 2: know a lot about. I don't want to, you know,
- 1:08:19Speaker 2: get out over my skis on things. And so when
- 1:08:22Speaker 2: I see people doing things like this where they're like,
- 1:08:26Speaker 2: we're so in favor of cutting all this waste in Doge.
- 1:08:31Speaker 2: And then when it comes time to it and the
- 1:08:33Speaker 2: party leadership says, no, you need to have it in there.
- 1:08:35Speaker 2: It's like, I don't know what, I don't know how
- 1:08:38Speaker 2: you could do that. That isn't a part of my
- 1:08:41Speaker 2: genetic pool.
- 1:08:42Speaker 1: They sold their soul.
- 1:08:47Speaker 2: And so I don't get it. And even as we're
- 1:08:49Speaker 2: talking about it, I'm thinking about it. I'm just like,
- 1:08:51Speaker 2: how do you get it?
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: We have a federal government that's sending $ 87 million a
- 1:08:56Speaker 1: week in cash to the Taliban. Yeah. That's where that
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: flag came from, the guy that broke that. He was
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: an Afghan-American and worked in army intelligence, recovered that in
- 1:09:07Speaker 1: Kabul from the Taliban fucking burning it. And then came
- 1:09:11Speaker 1: here on the show, gave it to me and told
- 1:09:13Speaker 1: everybody that we're funding. That was like two or three
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: years ago. Still funding them.
- 1:09:21Speaker 2: You know, I was reading something.
- 1:09:22Speaker 1: Fought them for over 20 years. Me personally spent 14
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: years of my life in and out of those countries
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: only to fund them. As soon as before it was over.
- 1:09:35Speaker 1: That's our federal government. That's where we are.
- 1:09:39Speaker 2: You talk about getting upset. You know, I think back
- 1:09:41Speaker 2: to growing up in the 2000s when we, you know,
- 1:09:45Speaker 2: my friends, people went off to Iraq and Afghanistan. And
- 1:09:51Speaker 2: thinking about the $ 10 trillion we've spent on all of that.
- 1:09:57Speaker 2: And meanwhile, we don't even have programs for our veterans
- 1:09:59Speaker 2: when they come home. You know, my great-grandpa, when his
- 1:10:04Speaker 2: brother was off in World War I, and then that ended,
- 1:10:07Speaker 2: and then during World War II, my great-grandpa's a bit older,
- 1:10:11Speaker 2: he would actually sign up locally to teach veterans how
- 1:10:15Speaker 2: to farm when they came back from World War II.
- 1:10:18Speaker 2: And that just got me interested in, like, what was
- 1:10:20Speaker 2: it like back then for veterans coming home? Because they
- 1:10:23Speaker 2: saw some just terrible things. And I couldn't believe the
- 1:10:29Speaker 2: extent of the programs that were in place to help them, well,
- 1:10:34Speaker 2: we'll just start with farm, learn how to farm, apprentice paid,
- 1:10:37Speaker 2: buy a farm. We created thousands of farmers after World
- 1:10:41Speaker 2: War II with our troops that came home. And then
- 1:10:45Speaker 2: I look at what's happened my friends that I came home,
- 1:10:49Speaker 2: and they're just dropped in. And then we see, like,
- 1:10:54Speaker 2: some of the highest suicide rates.
- 1:10:57Speaker 1: I think it's under farmers now.
- 1:10:59Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: I think farmers has the highest rate now.
- 1:11:01Speaker 2: That's what I talk to people in Iowa all the time.
- 1:11:03Speaker 2: It's like, look, in that time that we've lost 10,000
- 1:11:06Speaker 2: family farms in Iowa over the past 20 years, we've
- 1:11:08Speaker 2: lost 10,000 of them, the suicide rate amongst our farmers
- 1:11:12Speaker 2: went up 50%. And let me tell you, I don't
- 1:11:14Speaker 2: know of any other politician in Iowa that's talking about
- 1:11:16Speaker 2: it but me. 50% in the last 20 years.
- 1:11:22Speaker 1: Holy shit.
- 1:11:23Speaker 2: And so my message to the people of Iowa is
- 1:11:26Speaker 2: do not get distracted away from the things that actually matter,
- 1:11:30Speaker 2: that really matter. Your neighbors dying in that way, your
- 1:11:36Speaker 2: veterans dying in that way, all while we're being distracted
- 1:11:40Speaker 2: by this, you know, tweak in a regulation or here
- 1:11:43Speaker 2: we're gonna get a little bit lower tax rates. You know,
- 1:11:45Speaker 2: I tell people, We have the fastest rate of new
- 1:11:47Speaker 2: cancer in the history of human civilization, and our kids
- 1:11:50Speaker 2: are leaving our state faster than 46 other states. If
- 1:11:53Speaker 2: your kids are leaving and your people are dying, you're
- 1:11:56Speaker 2: not winning. That's not winning. And so I look at
- 1:12:02Speaker 2: my campaign at the four things, and those two things
- 1:12:04Speaker 2: are two of the top things that I'm focused on.
- 1:12:07Speaker 2: And what dumbfounds me is that I'm not joined by
- 1:12:10Speaker 2: a chorus of people that are just like, of politicians
- 1:12:13Speaker 2: that are just like, yes, Finally, we've been waiting for
- 1:12:16Speaker 2: somebody else to talk about this, because they're not talking
- 1:12:18Speaker 2: about it. You know, I found out that Iowa's kids
- 1:12:21Speaker 2: are leaving the state at a rate faster than 46
- 1:12:23Speaker 2: other states. I found that out because I was curious
- 1:12:26Speaker 2: as to what our rate was. And I started looking
- 1:12:29Speaker 2: it up, and I found out in 2025, an extensive
- 1:12:32Speaker 2: study was done on this. And I have actually had
- 1:12:36Speaker 2: politicians in the state reach out to me and say,
- 1:12:38Speaker 2: where did you get that information? I'm like, it's publicly available.
- 1:12:43Speaker 2: And it maybe is the number one stat you could
- 1:12:45Speaker 2: possibly track as an elected official. Are the people that
- 1:12:50Speaker 2: are growing up here wanting to stay or leave? And
- 1:12:54Speaker 2: I'm having to bring this up in this way, which
- 1:12:57Speaker 2: I'm happy to do, but it's like, we need people
- 1:13:01Speaker 2: to focus on the big issues. And that's the reason
- 1:13:03Speaker 2: I'm running.
- 1:13:04Speaker 1: I mean, they don't know because they're spending all their
- 1:13:08Speaker 1: time hanging out with lobbyists.
- 1:13:10Speaker 2: That's, yeah.
- 1:13:12Speaker 1: It's the truth. It's funny, but, like, it's real. They
- 1:13:15Speaker 1: don't give a fuck. Like, all they care about is
- 1:13:19Speaker 1: hanging out with lobbyists so they can enrich themselves. That's it.
- 1:13:23Speaker 2: This is why I go, something as simple as, like,
- 1:13:26Speaker 2: knowing who put something into a piece of legislation. Because
- 1:13:30Speaker 2: I know it's not the legislators. I know this stuff's
- 1:13:34Speaker 2: not coming from them. This stuff is written far too specifically.
- 1:13:37Speaker 2: It's coming from industry. And that's the cozy relationship. I
- 1:13:41Speaker 2: guess something that surprised me being in this maybe more
- 1:13:43Speaker 2: than anything, I don't know if more than anything, but
- 1:13:45Speaker 2: it's a big surprise, is how little research you have
- 1:13:52Speaker 2: to do to become a very informed politician, like at
- 1:13:55Speaker 2: the top 1%. How much you have to care to
- 1:13:59Speaker 2: get away from the talking points of one party or
- 1:14:01Speaker 2: the other and do your own research. Some of the
- 1:14:05Speaker 2: things we're going to talk about with glyphosate, you know,
- 1:14:12Speaker 2: I can't believe that they're just not on billboards everywhere.
- 1:14:14Speaker 2: I mean, it's so egregious of what's happened. But when I...
- 1:14:20Speaker 2: Let me go into this a little bit. When I
- 1:14:23Speaker 2: first was talking about these pesticides, I've been following glyphosate
- 1:14:26Speaker 2: for years. Part of the reason was my dad was
- 1:14:30Speaker 2: a 28-year crop consultant in Iowa. And so his job
- 1:14:35Speaker 2: was to go into a field, inspect for pests, weeds, bugs, fungus,
- 1:14:40Speaker 2: things like that. write a report and send it to
- 1:14:43Speaker 2: the farmer to say, here's what you should apply, what
- 1:14:45Speaker 2: chemicals you should apply, because that's just what they do,
- 1:14:48Speaker 2: what they did. And then you fast forward to about five,
- 1:14:54Speaker 2: six years ago, my dad gets diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma,
- 1:14:58Speaker 2: the exact type of cancer that's implicated in all of
- 1:15:01Speaker 2: these roundup lawsuits.
- 1:15:02Speaker 1: Holy shit, man.
- 1:15:04Speaker 2: And so I'm looking at this from the standpoint of like,
- 1:15:07Speaker 2: and I think you could probably tell already talking to me, like, like,
- 1:15:12Speaker 2: I care about this stuff, like I really do. And
- 1:15:15Speaker 2: so when I'm thinking about my own dad, it's like,
- 1:15:20Speaker 2: how much did that shorten his lifespan? He's in remission,
- 1:15:23Speaker 2: but how many fewer days do I get with my dad?
- 1:15:27Speaker 2: And the amount of funerals that I see for people
- 1:15:30Speaker 2: that are dying in their 60s when their parents lived
- 1:15:33Speaker 2: to be 80, there's a generational wisdom that's being completely lost.
- 1:15:41Speaker 2: And so, when you talk about all these things that, like,
- 1:15:44Speaker 2: are going on in the world, and in DC and
- 1:15:46Speaker 2: the government, where our money's going, all these things, it's like...
- 1:15:50Speaker 2: there's not something more important than human life. And when
- 1:15:54Speaker 2: we're willing to turn our head away from that to
- 1:15:57Speaker 2: protect industry... I mean, like... it's time for revolt, basically.
- 1:16:04Speaker 2: And that's like, you know, with my campaign, that's like.
- 1:16:08Speaker 2: You know, like I said, I've been told many times,
- 1:16:10Speaker 2: I actually was told sitting, gosh, I was meeting with
- 1:16:15Speaker 2: a high, well, with an elected official in Washington, D.C.
- 1:16:22Speaker 4: Once.
- 1:16:23Speaker 2: This is six, eight months ago. And in that meeting,
- 1:16:27Speaker 2: I thought he was kind of on the same page
- 1:16:28Speaker 2: with me on some of these things. And I think
- 1:16:30Speaker 2: he is to some extent, but people usually don't hear
- 1:16:34Speaker 2: somebody talk about it with like the passion or the
- 1:16:38Speaker 2: interest that I have. I got done talking about what's
- 1:16:41Speaker 2: going on in my state from a cancer standpoint. And
- 1:16:44Speaker 2: he literally said, if you say these things on the
- 1:16:48Speaker 2: campaign trail, they will effing kill you. And I laughed.
- 1:16:52Speaker 2: I just laughed. But I looked around at the people
- 1:16:54Speaker 2: with him and they were laughing. And look, that could
- 1:16:57Speaker 2: be figurative, of course, likely. But they know. They know
- 1:17:02Speaker 2: the power these lobbies have. And so when you look at,
- 1:17:07Speaker 2: what's at stake is the life of my people. You know,
- 1:17:11Speaker 2: like when you go into a gas station in Iowa
- 1:17:14Speaker 2: and you see a collection jar for a kid with leukemia,
- 1:17:18Speaker 2: or maybe two or three now, and all the while
- 1:17:22Speaker 2: you'll hear a politician say something like, in Iowa, they
- 1:17:24Speaker 2: say this all the time, well, we need to figure
- 1:17:28Speaker 2: out what's causing it. We don't know what's causing it,
- 1:17:31Speaker 2: what's causing the cancer rate.
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: Can't figure it out, huh?
- 1:17:34Speaker 2: Can't figure it out. And one of the things that
- 1:17:35Speaker 2: he mentioned, and I kept hearing this, and again, It
- 1:17:38Speaker 2: was being spouted off without any research done to it.
- 1:17:40Speaker 2: And I thought, well, what's the situation here? They kept saying, well, yeah,
- 1:17:45Speaker 2: we have one of the highest levels of radon in
- 1:17:48Speaker 2: the country. And I looked into this. I was like, well,
- 1:17:53Speaker 2: what's the truth to this? And it's like, well, first off,
- 1:17:56Speaker 2: radon was deposited here by glaciers. Glacial activity ground this
- 1:18:02Speaker 2: down and spread it out across the state. That's where
- 1:18:05Speaker 2: it came from. So thousands of years we've had this.
- 1:18:10Speaker 2: In the past 30 years, we've had a hockey stick-like
- 1:18:12Speaker 2: graph on cancer rates in our state. And so this
- 1:18:15Speaker 2: is part of what I'm fighting against. And I have
- 1:18:17Speaker 2: to continue to say this. This is not about farmers,
- 1:18:21Speaker 2: meaning like I'm not against farmers. I am one of them.
- 1:18:23Speaker 2: I love them. They're my neighbors and family. And they're
- 1:18:26Speaker 2: getting cancer. This is about large agriculture conglomerates lying to
- 1:18:32Speaker 2: their customers and to the people about the safety of
- 1:18:35Speaker 2: their products and getting away with it.
- 1:18:37Speaker 1: I mean, cancer isn't even an organic disease, so it
- 1:18:41Speaker 1: would have to be caused by something that's not organic
- 1:18:44Speaker 1: to Earth. Glyphosate. Gee, I wonder. Let's... So.
- 1:18:55Speaker 2: oftentimes this conversation goes, like, to glyphosate, but I will
- 1:18:59Speaker 2: just say to farmers that are my friends as well,
- 1:19:06Speaker 2: they all know these companies are extorting them financially. They
- 1:19:10Speaker 2: know it. They watch what's happening. They watch that they're
- 1:19:12Speaker 2: getting charged more than what these same companies charge a foreign,
- 1:19:15Speaker 2: a farmer in a foreign country. They know that every
- 1:19:19Speaker 2: time there's an increase in commodity prices, their input costs
- 1:19:22Speaker 2: are going to go up. That farm bankruptcies increased by
- 1:19:26Speaker 2: 70% in Iowa last year and John Deere raised their
- 1:19:29Speaker 2: prices by five. And they know that truth that they're
- 1:19:36Speaker 2: just being extracted from. What I'm trying to bring a
- 1:19:40Speaker 2: voice to is this idea that they're also.
- 1:19:42Speaker 1: Lying to you.
- 1:19:44Speaker 2: And they know they're lying to you. We have their
- 1:19:46Speaker 2: documents that say and show that they're lying to you.
- 1:19:51Speaker 1: How are they lying? What specifically are they lying about?
- 1:19:55Speaker 2: The safety of the products. That they don't, I mean,
- 1:19:59Speaker 2: that they don't believe it causes cancer. So let me
- 1:20:04Speaker 2: take a step back here and just talk about agrochemicals
- 1:20:06Speaker 2: for a minute. You know, something that would be very
- 1:20:11Speaker 2: interesting to know about glyphosate is from the traditional metrics
- 1:20:15Speaker 2: that have been tracked for pesticides. And, you know, people
- 1:20:20Speaker 2: talk about pesticides. Pesticides is a blanket term, and it
- 1:20:24Speaker 2: includes herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, like different products that kill pests.
- 1:20:29Speaker 2: And pests are defined not just as like a bug,
- 1:20:31Speaker 2: but weeds and bugs and fungus, things like that. Glyphosate,
- 1:20:40Speaker 2: from an acute toxicity standpoint of like, if you get
- 1:20:43Speaker 2: it on you, it's going to hurt you, is one
- 1:20:45Speaker 2: of the safest we have. Like, one of the safest.
- 1:20:49Speaker 1: Are you serious?
- 1:20:50Speaker 2: Yes, from acute toxicity. When you look at other chemicals,
- 1:20:58Speaker 2: and I've talked about a chemical a lot that's called Paraquat. Paraquat,
- 1:21:04Speaker 2: you've probably heard of this. You know, in the 70s
- 1:21:07Speaker 2: and 80s, it was used to burn down marijuana fields
- 1:21:09Speaker 2: and the war on drugs. Also, you can, if anybody's
- 1:21:13Speaker 2: interested in learning more about paraquat, you can read about
- 1:21:16Speaker 2: the Japanese paraquat poisonings, where somebody's putting a very small
- 1:21:20Speaker 2: amount into bottles at vending machines, and the people would
- 1:21:24Speaker 2: drink it and die 48, 52 hours later.
- 1:21:26Speaker 1: Holy shit.
- 1:21:28Speaker 2: Paraquat is so toxic... that is actually used in research
- 1:21:34Speaker 2: settings to induce Parkinson's in rats and mice. It actually
- 1:21:39Speaker 2: interacts with oxygen within the plant to create something that's
- 1:21:43Speaker 2: called superoxide, basically a highly unstable form of oxygen. And
- 1:21:47Speaker 2: then I'm going to simplify this, but basically it burns
- 1:21:49Speaker 2: it from the inside out. It is a product that
- 1:21:52Speaker 2: if you apply onto a plant in a matter of hours,
- 1:21:55Speaker 2: it's destroyed. It is unbelievably toxic. I say that to
- 1:22:03Speaker 2: just bring up this point. When we talk about this issue,
- 1:22:06Speaker 2: we're going to get into the issue of agency capture
- 1:22:08Speaker 2: of our government. Because Paraquad was actually originally formulated by Syngenta,
- 1:22:14Speaker 2: the now Chinese-owned company. Syngenta sells this product still, and
- 1:22:25Speaker 2: the country of China bans it. They won't even allow
- 1:22:29Speaker 2: it to be sold in the country that owns the company.
- 1:22:33Speaker 2: 50 countries banned this product. If you want to spray
- 1:22:37Speaker 2: this product as a farmer, as an applicator, here's all
- 1:22:42Speaker 2: you need to do. You have to take an applicator's class,
- 1:22:47Speaker 2: which is an online class that lasts between 30 and
- 1:22:50Speaker 2: 60 minutes. And you can go buy and use this product.
- 1:22:55Speaker 2: There have been stories about people in medical journals that
- 1:22:59Speaker 2: have gotten, through spraying for crops, have gotten enough on
- 1:23:03Speaker 2: their skin that they literally just died from topical exposure.
- 1:23:08Speaker 2: Holy shit. And it does the same thing in our body.
- 1:23:12Speaker 2: What it does is it enters in, and it actually
- 1:23:17Speaker 2: accumulates in the lungs, it reacts with oxygen, and then
- 1:23:22Speaker 2: it starts to create what's called superoxide, and it will...
- 1:23:27Speaker 2: I'm using a simple term, burn you from the inside out.
- 1:23:31Speaker 2: It'll just start to kill you. And long-term exposure at
- 1:23:35Speaker 2: lower doses is, gives you a two and a half
- 1:23:39Speaker 2: times more likelihood of getting Parkinson's. Because the neurons in
- 1:23:43Speaker 2: your brain, the dopamine neurons that operate with, they operate
- 1:23:47Speaker 2: with a lot of oxygen, it starts to kill those
- 1:23:51Speaker 2: because it's looking for oxygen. We know all this data.
- 1:23:54Speaker 2: Like I said, they use it in laboratories. to create Parkinson's,
- 1:23:59Speaker 2: and it's still legal to be sprayed. It's still used
- 1:24:03Speaker 2: on hundreds of thousands of acres in Iowa alone. So
- 1:24:07Speaker 2: when we talk about the safety of products and whether
- 1:24:10Speaker 2: or not our agencies are there to, like, protect us,
- 1:24:14Speaker 2: they are not. They've been captured. And I have sympathy
- 1:24:19Speaker 2: for farmers because they're in this cycle where they're using
- 1:24:25Speaker 2: products and they're trying to fight weeds and all of
- 1:24:27Speaker 2: these things, And they are operating on razor-thin margins, where
- 1:24:32Speaker 2: the opportunity to try some other method of farming is
- 1:24:34Speaker 2: almost non-existent. And so, many of these people just feel
- 1:24:40Speaker 2: stuck with that.
- 1:24:43Speaker 1: Damn.
- 1:24:44Speaker 2: So, paraquat is one of the most... poisonous substances. Literally,
- 1:24:50Speaker 2: you know, one.
- 1:24:52Speaker 2: If you had a spoon and you just had enough
- 1:24:54Speaker 2: to cover the tip of the spoon and you ingested it,
- 1:24:57Speaker 2: you'd die. And we have tremendous amounts of evidence on this.
- 1:25:03Speaker 2: And so when I get to glyphosate, you know, often
- 1:25:07Speaker 2: I'll see people on X or somewhere saying, like, if
- 1:25:08Speaker 2: you think glyphosate's bad, what about this? What about paraquat?
- 1:25:11Speaker 2: I'm like, I understand that. But when you get to glyphosate,
- 1:25:17Speaker 2: there's so much that's being obscured about the truth of
- 1:25:20Speaker 2: it and what's happening with it. Just to the basic
- 1:25:24Speaker 2: point of the two separate types that is traditional glyphosate,
- 1:25:30Speaker 2: the molecule that's pure, and the formulated glyphosate-based herbicides. These
- 1:25:35Speaker 2: are the ones that are up to 50 times more toxic.
- 1:25:39Speaker 2: The EPA does not require the registrant testing on these,
- 1:25:45Speaker 2: just on the molecule, on the traditional glyphosate. So when
- 1:25:51Speaker 2: the EU banned our version of glyphosate, they did it
- 1:25:55Speaker 2: because the formulation was so toxic. It actually, pure glyphosate
- 1:26:00Speaker 2: has trouble getting into your bloodstream without the surfactants that
- 1:26:03Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier. But when you formulate it specifically to
- 1:26:07Speaker 2: penetrate the dermis of a plant, it'll do the same
- 1:26:11Speaker 2: thing to your skin. 30% of what's on your skin
- 1:26:13Speaker 2: will enter your bloodstream. 10% of your cardiac output goes
- 1:26:16Speaker 2: into your bone marrow. And in bone marrow, it disrupts
- 1:26:21Speaker 2: the cell replication cycle. But here's something that I haven't
- 1:26:24Speaker 2: yet talked about and that I want your listeners to understand.
- 1:26:30Speaker 2: is that many people who avoid products that could have
- 1:26:33Speaker 2: glyphosate in them, residues of glyphosate, that eat organic diets
- 1:26:37Speaker 2: and all these things, they'll still show up that they
- 1:26:39Speaker 2: have glyphosate in their urine. And the reason glyphosate is
- 1:26:44Speaker 2: so talked about and so dangerous is because it's the
- 1:26:46Speaker 2: most widely used herbicide in the history of the world.
- 1:26:50Speaker 1: It's used everywhere.
- 1:26:52Speaker 2: Everywhere. Not just on ag applications. Consumers buy it at
- 1:26:55Speaker 2: Home Depot. Glyphosate is a chelator. It's looking to bind.
- 1:27:02Speaker 2: It's actually one of the most powerful chelators, meaning I
- 1:27:06Speaker 2: won't go deep into that, but it's looking to bind
- 1:27:08Speaker 2: to things. What does it bind most closely to? What
- 1:27:11Speaker 2: does it grab onto? Calcium. So there's actually papers coming
- 1:27:15Speaker 2: out now that are saying, they're theorizing that the reason
- 1:27:20Speaker 2: this is happening... By the way, 1983, Monsanto did a study,
- 1:27:22Speaker 2: a rat study, that they did not ever publish publicly,
- 1:27:28Speaker 2: but the EPA had, and the EPA referenced, so we
- 1:27:32Speaker 2: know basically what's in it. And in that study in 1983,
- 1:27:35Speaker 2: they were testing where does glyphosate stay the longest? What tissues?
- 1:27:41Speaker 2: And where it stayed the longest was bone. And what
- 1:27:45Speaker 2: the thought is now is that the reason it is,
- 1:27:47Speaker 2: is glyphosate is actually going into your bone marrow, it's
- 1:27:50Speaker 2: attaching to calcium in your bones, and it's creating basically
- 1:27:54Speaker 2: a repository of glyphosate on a slow release cycle. And
- 1:27:59Speaker 2: so when you're releasing it into the bone marrow on
- 1:28:00Speaker 2: a slow release cycle like that, and you're disrupting the
- 1:28:04Speaker 2: cell replication cycle, because this is how cancer starts, is
- 1:28:07Speaker 2: that you damage the DNA, and we know glyphosate is genotoxic.
- 1:28:10Speaker 2: We know this. That it's creating like a bank of
- 1:28:16Speaker 2: glyphosate in there. And that's why people who have stopped
- 1:28:22Speaker 2: eating this stuff for a long time will have that
- 1:28:25Speaker 2: continue to come out in their urine. And so, what's
- 1:28:31Speaker 2: happening with this is that we know that it causes
- 1:28:33Speaker 2: non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. We have a ton of data and evidence
- 1:28:37Speaker 2: that it's genotoxic and that the cancer that's gonna come
- 1:28:39Speaker 2: out of this is non-Hodgkin's lymphoma primarily. But when the
- 1:28:45Speaker 2: EPA doesn't even require you to test... Now, for the
- 1:28:48Speaker 2: people out there that are gonna challenge me on this,
- 1:28:50Speaker 2: they don't require you to do the long-form chronic toxicity
- 1:28:54Speaker 2: tests on the glyphosate-based herbicides, the ones that are formulated.
- 1:28:59Speaker 2: that are way more toxic. They require that just on
- 1:29:02Speaker 2: the product. And this is how so much of this
- 1:29:06Speaker 2: is obscured. You can pull out study after study that
- 1:29:09Speaker 2: will show that this product, Pure, doesn't have a high
- 1:29:15Speaker 2: risk profile, which by the way, most of those are
- 1:29:17Speaker 2: industry studies. We know this. Like the EPA or in
- 1:29:20Speaker 2: the EU banned this version of glyphosate The industry submitted 1,500 studies.
- 1:29:26Speaker 2: Many of them they wouldn't even allow publicly to be released,
- 1:29:30Speaker 2: but they're all industry studies. And so the big difference
- 1:29:33Speaker 2: between the EU's determination on the safety and the EPA's
- 1:29:38Speaker 2: was three primary things. Number one, the EU used... The
- 1:29:44Speaker 2: EU used glyphosate-based herbicides, the more toxic version that everybody's
- 1:29:48Speaker 2: actually using. Nobody's spraying pure glyphosate. Number two, They looked
- 1:29:56Speaker 2: at dose-dependent exposure, so not just, like, what's the overall
- 1:30:01Speaker 2: cancer rate. And then there was one other category that
- 1:30:05Speaker 2: they looked at that differentiated greatly. It's slipping my mind
- 1:30:08Speaker 2: right now. But what the EU came to was that, yes,
- 1:30:12Speaker 2: this is a probable carcinogen. And they have far lower
- 1:30:16Speaker 2: levels that are allowed in their bread, far lower levels
- 1:30:18Speaker 2: allowed in their food. So the agencies have been captured.
- 1:30:22Speaker 2: And now we are facing a situation where in Iowa,
- 1:30:25Speaker 2: there's between six and nine agriculture chemicals within the wells
- 1:30:31Speaker 2: in our state, where it's everywhere.
- 1:30:37Speaker 1: Is it even possible to get rid of it?
- 1:30:39Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. You know, here's the... I had somebody
- 1:30:44Speaker 2: once tell me recently, he's like, hey, you need to
- 1:30:45Speaker 2: be more positive, because I.
- 1:30:47Speaker 1: I mean, out of the wells.
- 1:30:48Speaker 2: Yeah, well.
- 1:30:49Speaker 1: Can you get it out of there? Can it be.
- 1:30:51Speaker 2: You know, I haven't done the research on wells. In soil, yes.
- 1:30:54Speaker 2: So like glyphosate will stay in soil for a very
- 1:30:56Speaker 2: long time. However, there are products, there are very natural products.
- 1:31:01Speaker 2: It's broken down by bifidotype bacteria. Very interesting. Lactobacillus bacteria
- 1:31:09Speaker 2: breaks it down. And so we have amazing scientists and
- 1:31:13Speaker 2: researchers that are helping to develop better products, but we
- 1:31:18Speaker 2: have such a captured agency structure. that oftentimes they're not
- 1:31:23Speaker 2: able to get to market. Many times farmers have been
- 1:31:26Speaker 2: lied to to say that like people that think glyphosate
- 1:31:29Speaker 2: is bad or, you know, liberals hate farmers and all
- 1:31:32Speaker 2: these things when we're the exact opposite. So as far
- 1:31:36Speaker 2: as you know, I don't know that, but I do
- 1:31:37Speaker 2: know we can get it out of the ground. There's
- 1:31:39Speaker 2: some really interesting studies that have been done on that.
- 1:31:41Speaker 2: And you can get 80 to 90% of it within
- 1:31:44Speaker 2: seven months using certain natural products. You know, if I could...
- 1:31:50Speaker 2: close on the glyphosate piece on one thing. It would
- 1:31:53Speaker 2: be just to help people understand in this debate that's
- 1:31:56Speaker 2: going on right now all over about what is happening
- 1:32:02Speaker 2: with residual levels in our food. You know, Ron DeSantis
- 1:32:06Speaker 2: just recently had that. His surgeon general released the findings
- 1:32:12Speaker 2: of glyphosate in bread. And when you talk to people
- 1:32:19Speaker 2: that are in the industry, and there's so many of
- 1:32:20Speaker 2: these paid people that are on social media, on X,
- 1:32:22Speaker 2: that are just like out there to put out this
- 1:32:24Speaker 2: information defending Monsanto, defending Bayer, defending glyphosate, defending what they
- 1:32:29Speaker 2: are saying is like agriculture when it's... when that's not
- 1:32:32Speaker 2: what they're doing. They're not defending agriculture. Because they're also
- 1:32:36Speaker 2: exploiting our farmers. You know, when you... What they often
- 1:32:40Speaker 2: talk about is that, yes, but the exposure levels are
- 1:32:44Speaker 2: so low, they're way below the tolerance levels that are allowed.
- 1:32:50Speaker 2: And this is something that really infuriated me as I
- 1:32:52Speaker 2: dug deep into this. When you look at tolerance levels
- 1:32:55Speaker 2: that are allowed in food products, you think that when
- 1:33:01Speaker 2: you hear this, it's like, okay, well, if in wheat,
- 1:33:04Speaker 2: five parts per million are allowed in wheat, you think, okay, well,
- 1:33:09Speaker 2: that must be a level that's been deemed to be
- 1:33:12Speaker 2: like safe, because if you have more than that, you
- 1:33:15Speaker 2: can actually be illegal to sell the product. You can't
- 1:33:17Speaker 2: sell it. It's been considered adulterated. And so I was
- 1:33:23Speaker 2: looking into this, and what I found out was this.
- 1:33:27Speaker 2: That level can be changed by the industry if they
- 1:33:32Speaker 2: petition the EPA. So for instance, in the 1990s, the
- 1:33:36Speaker 2: allowable level of glyphosate on oats was 0.1 parts per million.
- 1:33:44Speaker 2: When the industry started moving to desiccation, spraying this product
- 1:33:48Speaker 2: to kill the plant at the end of the growing cycle,
- 1:33:51Speaker 2: when they started to change the desiccation, they lobbied the
- 1:33:54Speaker 2: EPA to change how much is allowed on oats. And remember,
- 1:33:58Speaker 2: if you had over 0.1 parts per million in the 90s,
- 1:34:01Speaker 2: it was illegal to sell the product of oats. They
- 1:34:06Speaker 2: lobbied and got a 20,000% increase. Holy shit. 200 times
- 1:34:13Speaker 2: what was previously allowed was now allowed, and here's why.
- 1:34:17Speaker 2: Because that's what they needed to be able to use
- 1:34:20Speaker 2: the product to spray at the end of the growing cycle.
- 1:34:23Speaker 2: So they went and said, what do we need this
- 1:34:25Speaker 2: to be allowed at? How much glyphosate is actually on
- 1:34:29Speaker 2: the product after we do this desiccation process? And that's
- 1:34:33Speaker 2: what we need to petition the EPA to get. And
- 1:34:35Speaker 2: Monsanto did that. And they got it. And so the
- 1:34:39Speaker 2: upper level of this You see, the common question would
- 1:34:42Speaker 2: be like, okay, well, what's the limit? Well, they use
- 1:34:44Speaker 2: what's a reference dose modeling. Basically, the limit is when
- 1:34:48Speaker 2: it gets to a point where they've determined that if
- 1:34:52Speaker 2: it goes higher, and there's a buffer there, if it
- 1:34:55Speaker 2: goes higher, it'll start causing organ damage.
- 1:34:58Speaker 1: Holy shit, man.
- 1:35:01Speaker 2: So there's a blank check to just say, hey, now
- 1:35:04Speaker 2: it's five parts per million is allowed on wheat, but
- 1:35:07Speaker 2: if we have a new practice that's gonna increase that,
- 1:35:09Speaker 2: we'll just petition the government to go to 10 parts
- 1:35:13Speaker 2: per million, even though they just told us that if
- 1:35:15Speaker 2: you're above five, it's illegal to sell, because it's not safe.
- 1:35:19Speaker 2: It's captured. And so, the industry's running the show. And
- 1:35:23Speaker 2: the more people dig into this, the more you're gonna
- 1:35:25Speaker 2: realize that we're being lied to and misled.
- 1:35:31Speaker 1: And....
- 1:35:33Speaker 2: Part of my mission in this is not just to
- 1:35:36Speaker 2: become a governor, It's to give a voice to these issues,
- 1:35:40Speaker 2: to people who are talking about them, and have other
- 1:35:44Speaker 2: people that aren't paying attention to this realize, just like
- 1:35:47Speaker 2: the medical establishment captured us during COVID, just like so
- 1:35:52Speaker 2: many of the other lives we've seen our government do,
- 1:35:55Speaker 2: we have big business running the show at the detriment
- 1:35:57Speaker 2: of the health of our people.
- 1:36:01Speaker 1: I mean, before we end on glyphosate, what do you
- 1:36:05Speaker 1: think about this executive order? 18th of February invoking the
- 1:36:09Speaker 1: Defense Production Act to boost domestic glyphosate production critical to
- 1:36:16Speaker 1: national security. Love how they threw that in there. Section
- 1:36:19Speaker 1: 3 of the order confers all immunity provided for in
- 1:36:23Speaker 1: Section 707 of the act to domestic producers. The act
- 1:36:28Speaker 1: states no person shall be held liable for any act
- 1:36:32Speaker 1: resulting from compliance with the order. Bayer is the only
- 1:36:37Speaker 1: domestic producer. EWG President Ken Cook, in quotes, Trump just
- 1:36:42Speaker 1: gave Bayer a license to poison people, full stop. RFK Jr.,
- 1:36:48Speaker 1: who won a $ 289 million verdict against Monsanto, is an attorney,
- 1:36:54Speaker 1: endorsed the order, claiming it's about national security. Here's some
- 1:36:59Speaker 1: maps for you. We're going to put these up on screen.
- 1:37:03Speaker 1: This is a map of the highest concentrated states of glyphosate.
- 1:37:11Speaker 1: Guess what number one is?
- 1:37:13Speaker 2: Not anything I'm proud of.
- 1:37:15Speaker 1: Iowa. Here is another map. We're going to put this
- 1:37:19Speaker 1: on screen too. This is a concentration of cancer. What
- 1:37:25Speaker 1: states have the highest concentration of cancer? Guess what state
- 1:37:29Speaker 1: that is?
- 1:37:30Speaker 2: Sean, you're saying things that are going to get me
- 1:37:32Speaker 2: very upset.
- 1:37:33Speaker 1: Iowa. So, okay. So there's those. Now, since we're all
- 1:37:39Speaker 1: fucking concerned about national security here, in 2025 alone, 618,000
- 1:37:49Speaker 1: people died of cancer in the United States. Now, isn't
- 1:37:54Speaker 1: that a fucking national security concern? RFK? President Trump? Isn't
- 1:37:59Speaker 1: that a fucking national security concern?
- 1:38:01Speaker 4: I mean.
- 1:38:02Speaker 1: I don't know what fucking scientists you guys are talking to,
- 1:38:05Speaker 1: but here's the evidence. I know it's fucking mind blowing, right?
- 1:38:11Speaker 1: It's that simple. We just fucking solved the problem, but
- 1:38:15Speaker 1: you know, but national security, what the fuck? Like what's
- 1:38:19Speaker 1: more 618,000 people died in 2025. And we're going on
- 1:38:24Speaker 1: about a fentanyl crisis where 100,000 people died. This is
- 1:38:29Speaker 1: over six fucking times worse than the fentanyl crisis. And
- 1:38:35Speaker 1: I'm all about stopping the fentanyl crisis. Let's get fucking
- 1:38:38Speaker 1: real here. So what is the national security concern? Do
- 1:38:43Speaker 1: you know?
- 1:38:43Speaker 2: I don't know the national security. I mean, look. If
- 1:38:45Speaker 2: you want to talk about specifically the National Security Concern,
- 1:38:47Speaker 2: the only thing that would ever make sense to me
- 1:38:49Speaker 2: in this is that we're about to go to war.
- 1:38:51Speaker 2: That would be it. Is that we're about to go
- 1:38:53Speaker 2: to war and that they say that if we disrupt
- 1:38:57Speaker 2: this and the import of it, that we're going to
- 1:38:59Speaker 2: disrupt the food production of the country. But I've heard
- 1:39:03Speaker 2: nothing about that. Let me just say, you know, I
- 1:39:05Speaker 2: hate the politics of these things because when that came out,
- 1:39:09Speaker 2: I was sitting at my house and it just popped
- 1:39:13Speaker 2: up and I said, what is this? Because you have
- 1:39:16Speaker 2: to understand, like, I've been fighting these things. Like, I've
- 1:39:21Speaker 2: read the Monsanto cases when they're in court. Hundreds and
- 1:39:24Speaker 2: hundreds of pages because I actually care about it. I
- 1:39:27Speaker 2: want to know the arguments. I want to know how
- 1:39:28Speaker 2: does a jury keep finding them guilty, and I do
- 1:39:30Speaker 2: know how they keep finding them guilty, and they are guilty.
- 1:39:34Speaker 2: I've been talking to people in my own state about
- 1:39:36Speaker 2: not passing these pesticide immunity bills. Even people that have
- 1:39:41Speaker 2: as their constituency the companies. and just saying like, look,
- 1:39:45Speaker 2: here's what's happening. They're lying to us and I can
- 1:39:47Speaker 2: prove this. I know how they're lying. And I have
- 1:39:52Speaker 2: came out as a part of my campaign to not
- 1:39:55Speaker 2: put my head in the sand and deny the truth
- 1:39:59Speaker 2: that's in front of me of what's going on. So
- 1:40:02Speaker 2: that's the backdrop of which I read this. And you know,
- 1:40:07Speaker 2: the most common thing I'm reading about it is that
- 1:40:09Speaker 2: it doesn't provide product liability immunity. That's a complete lie.
- 1:40:14Speaker 2: There's nothing in the executive order, the Defense Production Act,
- 1:40:18Speaker 2: or 707, that excludes product liability. If the order from
- 1:40:22Speaker 2: the USDA, which, by the way, this is gonna be
- 1:40:23Speaker 2: managed by the USDA, is to maintain full production and
- 1:40:29Speaker 2: availability of the product, that they're ordered to do this,
- 1:40:33Speaker 2: they'll use the same type of defenses that were used
- 1:40:36Speaker 2: by Monsanto, by the way, when they created Agent Orange
- 1:40:40Speaker 2: and poisoned so many people. The government in that case,
- 1:40:44Speaker 2: now this was defense, I get that in the sense
- 1:40:46Speaker 2: of we're at war, but we invoked the Defense Production Act.
- 1:40:51Speaker 2: But in that case, when they were using Agent Orange,
- 1:40:54Speaker 2: and there's so many harms from it, because it was
- 1:40:56Speaker 2: a very nasty, nasty chemical, the government ended up paying
- 1:41:01Speaker 2: $ 50 billion to people hurt by it, while the companies
- 1:41:06Speaker 2: paid about 180 million. My bigger fear about this is
- 1:41:10Speaker 2: that what we've just done is we have offloaded liability
- 1:41:14Speaker 2: onto the taxpayer. And so right when this came out,
- 1:41:18Speaker 2: and this is again about me not being a politician,
- 1:41:21Speaker 2: I voiced opposition to it. And it's not a popular
- 1:41:24Speaker 2: thing to do, but when it comes to taking a
- 1:41:27Speaker 2: stand for the right thing, you have to do it.
- 1:41:30Speaker 2: And that could have negative repercussions for me. For sure.
- 1:41:35Speaker 2: But none would be as bad as.
- 1:41:38Speaker 2: What you're saying about me going along with this You know,
- 1:41:42Speaker 2: Jordan Peterson said something I thought was very deep. He said,
- 1:41:48Speaker 2: when you have something to say, silence is a lie.
- 1:41:53Speaker 2: And that's really difficult in politics. Because I think in
- 1:41:57Speaker 2: something like this, the easiest thing for me to do
- 1:42:00Speaker 2: would be to not immediately put out a tweet saying that,
- 1:42:03Speaker 2: my tweet basically said this, there's no potential ban on glyphosate.
- 1:42:08Speaker 2: There's no pending ban on glyphosate. There's no pending shortage
- 1:42:10Speaker 2: of glyphosate. There are only pending lawsuits of Americans who
- 1:42:15Speaker 2: have been harmed by this product. This must be reversed.
- 1:42:20Speaker 2: And so, when I look at this and I hear
- 1:42:23Speaker 2: all these people saying it doesn't provide immunity, absolutely it'll
- 1:42:25Speaker 2: provide immunity. The word is used right in it. That's
- 1:42:27Speaker 2: on purpose. When they go to court after they invoke
- 1:42:30Speaker 2: the Defense Production Act, when Bayer goes to court on
- 1:42:33Speaker 2: new cases, because they're still not putting a cancer warning
- 1:42:35Speaker 2: on the label, if they just put a cancer warning
- 1:42:38Speaker 2: on the label, future cases would be null and void
- 1:42:40Speaker 2: because the entire thing is about failure to warn. That's
- 1:42:45Speaker 2: all they have to do is admit culpability. Now, what
- 1:42:48Speaker 2: will that do? It'll create a cascade effect of people
- 1:42:52Speaker 2: that jump into lawsuits because, well, now you're admitting it.
- 1:42:56Speaker 2: And so they can't to save face instead of doing
- 1:43:00Speaker 2: the right thing. When they go to court in the future,
- 1:43:05Speaker 2: they will hold a piece of paper that says, which
- 1:43:07Speaker 2: has precedent... that courts will grant immunity, citing the DPA,
- 1:43:13Speaker 2: they'll hold that and say, we were ordered to do this.
- 1:43:16Speaker 2: We didn't have a choice. The safety of the product
- 1:43:22Speaker 2: is assumed in the order, basically. So, you know, my belief,
- 1:43:31Speaker 2: you know, without going too far into this, is that
- 1:43:34Speaker 2: I believe, and I might be naive on this, look,
- 1:43:38Speaker 2: hold me accountable, but I want Donald Trump to know
- 1:43:42Speaker 2: the truth about this. I want him to understand that
- 1:43:46Speaker 2: there's lobbyists that are doing something, trying to get him
- 1:43:51Speaker 2: to do something, doing something that will end up harming
- 1:43:56Speaker 2: the people that he cares about and loves. There's a
- 1:44:02Speaker 2: big talk about how much he loves Iowa. And I
- 1:44:07Speaker 2: think that look, I would love to get an audience
- 1:44:09Speaker 2: with the guy and just say, this is what's happening
- 1:44:13Speaker 2: in our state. And these are what these lobbying groups
- 1:44:15Speaker 2: are doing. But I came out right after that was released,
- 1:44:22Speaker 2: that same night, before I, I mean, I had to
- 1:44:24Speaker 2: do a lot more research on it to understand how
- 1:44:26Speaker 2: bad it really was. But I came out and said,
- 1:44:28Speaker 2: this has to be reversed. And that, as I told
- 1:44:33Speaker 2: you before, you don't need immunity for a safe product.
- 1:44:36Speaker 2: The idea that the courts are coming to the wrong
- 1:44:38Speaker 2: decision is completely wrong. Bayer's paid out tens of billions
- 1:44:41Speaker 2: of dollars. They've settled over 100,000 cases. And they have
- 1:44:46Speaker 2: the best attorneys in the world. They know what they're doing.
- 1:44:49Speaker 2: They understand this. Immunity is the wrong way. Like, immunity
- 1:44:54Speaker 2: for me, like... You want.
- 1:44:59Speaker 2: The Vaccine Immunity Act caused tremendous issues. This will cause
- 1:45:03Speaker 2: tremendous issues from a health standpoint as well.
- 1:45:06Speaker 1: I mean, we just pulled the map up.
- 1:45:09Speaker 2: This is what we're living in.
- 1:45:10Speaker 1: It's not a fucking coincidence.
- 1:45:12Speaker 2: No.
- 1:45:13Speaker 1: Highest concentration of glyphosate, highest concentration of cancer. Yep.
- 1:45:19Speaker 4: Yep.
- 1:45:20Speaker 2: That's why I'm running short. I mean.
- 1:45:23Speaker 1: Oh, man. Want to take a break?
- 1:45:29Speaker 2: Sure.
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- 1:47:35Speaker 1: All right, Zach, we were having a little discussion out
- 1:47:37Speaker 1: there about 30 seconds ago about how nobody in Iowa
- 1:47:42Speaker 1: is talking about the cancer crisis, glyphosate, or what was
- 1:47:47Speaker 1: the other one? Polyquat?
- 1:47:48Speaker 2: Paraquat.
- 1:47:49Speaker 1: Paraquat. Nobody's talking about it. None of the senators, none
- 1:47:52Speaker 1: of the congressmen, none of the people running for, you're
- 1:47:54Speaker 1: the only one talking about it.
- 1:47:56Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
- 1:47:57Speaker 1: And, and, I'm just going to summarize it. We don't
- 1:48:00Speaker 1: have to rehash it all, but I said, yeah, that's
- 1:48:02Speaker 1: because they can't talk about it. We just got done
- 1:48:06Speaker 1: talking about the lobbies. They can't talk about it.
- 1:48:09Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:48:10Speaker 1: And they don't give a shit. And I think that's
- 1:48:13Speaker 1: where people are in disbelief that the human.
- 1:48:20Speaker 1: Being that they elected into power doesn't give a shit
- 1:48:24Speaker 1: about them. I don't think that's computing in people's brains,
- 1:48:28Speaker 1: that they don't care. They don't care about you. They
- 1:48:32Speaker 1: care about who's lobbying them, who's telling them what to do.
- 1:48:36Speaker 2: Getting reelected.
- 1:48:37Speaker 1: They justify it in their mind. You know, as all
- 1:48:41Speaker 1: human beings do, every time we're doing something we shouldn't
- 1:48:43Speaker 1: be doing, you always go through, well, you know, it's
- 1:48:47Speaker 1: the mental gymnastics that people will do to justify shit
- 1:48:50Speaker 1: that they shouldn't be doing in their head is fucking amazing. Yeah.
- 1:48:54Speaker 1: You know, and we've all done it, but this is just,
- 1:48:57Speaker 1: it's another level of evil, you know, that they're justifying.
- 1:49:02Speaker 2: Just choosing to believe the lie. Like, it's a choice
- 1:49:06Speaker 2: to believe the lie. Because if you're going to, to
- 1:49:09Speaker 2: believe a lobbyist on something this important and not be
- 1:49:13Speaker 2: willing to go as deep as I have or other people.
- 1:49:15Speaker 2: You know, this is one thing that I've loved about
- 1:49:18Speaker 2: Bobby Kennedy is that, you know, there's this thought all
- 1:49:21Speaker 2: the time about, you know, if you're elected, if you're
- 1:49:26Speaker 2: in a position of authority, what you should be doing
- 1:49:29Speaker 2: is getting experts around you and delegating to these experts.
- 1:49:36Speaker 2: But the experts brought us the COVID response that we had.
- 1:49:39Speaker 2: And what you have to be willing to do is say,
- 1:49:44Speaker 2: I'm not delegating the most important things. I need to be...
- 1:49:48Speaker 2: I need to have the proper amount of knowledge to
- 1:49:50Speaker 2: make the right decision on these issues. So... So when,
- 1:49:56Speaker 2: you know, Bobby's talking about vaccines, he understands the situation.
- 1:50:00Speaker 2: He's not gonna bring some expert in that, like, is
- 1:50:03Speaker 2: completely counter to him when he knows the truth about
- 1:50:05Speaker 2: what's happening. But when you say this, that, the politicians
- 1:50:11Speaker 2: aren't talking about this. It's true. It's very true. I mean,
- 1:50:16Speaker 2: right now, on a political sense, I'm yelling into a void.
- 1:50:21Speaker 2: But on a voter sense, I can't go to a room...
- 1:50:25Speaker 2: You know, we've had a couple town halls in the
- 1:50:28Speaker 2: past week. One was over 150 people showed up. Another
- 1:50:31Speaker 2: one was close to 80 in these smaller restaurants, packed house.
- 1:50:37Speaker 2: And when I get to the fourth point, about what
- 1:50:40Speaker 2: my campaign's about, which is stopping the cancer crisis in
- 1:50:42Speaker 2: my state. And I talk about what's going on with
- 1:50:46Speaker 2: big companies lying to us about the safety of their products.
- 1:50:49Speaker 2: 89% of the heads in the audience are nodding. These
- 1:50:53Speaker 2: are Republicans. The voters know what's going on. The problem
- 1:50:57Speaker 2: is there hasn't been....
- 1:51:00Speaker 1: Why do you say it's just Republicans?
- 1:51:02Speaker 2: What do you mean?
- 1:51:02Speaker 1: You don't think Democrats give a shit about cancer?
- 1:51:05Speaker 2: I just mean in this room, it's Republicans. Oh, okay. So, no,
- 1:51:08Speaker 2: but this... No, just to clear... In my rooms, I'm
- 1:51:12Speaker 2: talking to Republicans in the primary. And so, traditionally, Republicans
- 1:51:16Speaker 2: are the ones that are not going against what some
- 1:51:20Speaker 2: of these big companies are saying. But I'm saying the voters,
- 1:51:22Speaker 2: they know. They know what's going on. And yes, the
- 1:51:25Speaker 2: beauty of what I am running on and the hope
- 1:51:28Speaker 2: that I am running on, whether it's keeping our kids
- 1:51:31Speaker 2: in the state, or saving our family farms, or making
- 1:51:34Speaker 2: our education system number one, or saving the cancer, solving
- 1:51:36Speaker 2: the cancer crisis, is that these are bipartisan issues. I
- 1:51:40Speaker 2: have people comment on X and things like this that are,
- 1:51:44Speaker 2: you know, criticizing Iowa Democrats for saying, how do we
- 1:51:48Speaker 2: let a Republican beat us to the punch on this?
- 1:51:52Speaker 2: How do we do that? And it's both sides, on
- 1:51:56Speaker 2: the political side. On the elected side of politicians, both
- 1:51:59Speaker 2: sides have been silent on this completely. and then they'll
- 1:52:03Speaker 2: give excuses like alcohol rates, or they'll give excuses like radon,
- 1:52:06Speaker 2: or they'll say, we need to have a greater tax
- 1:52:09Speaker 2: on cigarettes. It's like, this is literally... This is happening
- 1:52:14Speaker 2: right now in Iowa. And I'm like saying to people,
- 1:52:16Speaker 2: cigarettes have an inelastic demand curve. Meaning, when you tax cigarettes,
- 1:52:22Speaker 2: you're just taking more money because they're an addictive product
- 1:52:25Speaker 2: and they're gonna continue using them. Meanwhile, Nevada has one
- 1:52:29Speaker 2: of the highest smoking rates in the United States and
- 1:52:30Speaker 2: one of the lowest cancer rates. This is about, again,
- 1:52:36Speaker 2: coming back to being willing to tell the truth, even
- 1:52:38Speaker 2: if it means somebody tells me that they're gonna destroy me.
- 1:52:40Speaker 2: Even if it means they're gonna come out and attack
- 1:52:42Speaker 2: me or my family or whatever it is. This is
- 1:52:44Speaker 2: what I knew I was getting into. It's why this
- 1:52:48Speaker 2: conversation is so important. Because the voters are talking about this.
- 1:52:52Speaker 2: The people are talking about it. You know, right now
- 1:52:54Speaker 2: in Iowa, we have the world's largest nitrate removal system
- 1:52:59Speaker 2: on our water supply in Des Moines. Meaning, from... The
- 1:53:03Speaker 2: runoff that comes off of farm fields, I could talk
- 1:53:06Speaker 2: deeply about what's happening there, but the nitrogen that's ending
- 1:53:10Speaker 2: up from fertilizer in our streams and rivers is getting
- 1:53:15Speaker 2: to our major population center. And it's so much that
- 1:53:20Speaker 2: we have the largest one in the world to remove nitrates. Jeez.
- 1:53:23Speaker 2: And often it can't keep up, meaning they have to, like,
- 1:53:26Speaker 2: put notices in that you can't water your lawn because
- 1:53:28Speaker 2: you're stressing the system too much because we can't filter
- 1:53:30Speaker 2: these chemicals out fast enough.
- 1:53:33Speaker 1: Are you serious?
- 1:53:34Speaker 2: Yes. This is hap- This happened last summer.
- 1:53:37Speaker 1: In Iowa. You know... Wow. I mean, in what is...
- 1:53:43Speaker 1: What are... What is the state placed population-wise? It's not
- 1:53:46Speaker 1: a densely populated state. It's not like it's over... It's
- 1:53:49Speaker 1: not like Florida where they're worried about flushing the fucking
- 1:53:52Speaker 1: toilets because so many people are moving there and they're
- 1:53:54Speaker 1: just destroying all the farmland there and turning it into
- 1:53:58Speaker 1: condos and apartments. It's crazy, you know? But there... But
- 1:54:02Speaker 1: Iowa isn't like that. You don't have a house five
- 1:54:05Speaker 1: feet from another house, five feet from another house. You
- 1:54:08Speaker 1: know what I mean?
- 1:54:09Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:54:09Speaker 1: It's spread out.
- 1:54:11Speaker 4: It is.
- 1:54:11Speaker 1: It's very lowly dense. Do you know what it is?
- 1:54:14Speaker 1: I'll bet it's in the lowest, probably the 90%.
- 1:54:17Speaker 2: It's very low population density in Iowa. I mean, our
- 1:54:19Speaker 2: population's just around 3 million. And I don't know what
- 1:54:24Speaker 2: the density, though, is. But it's very sparsely populated.
- 1:54:28Speaker 1: So that's what I'm saying. And they have the largest...
- 1:54:31Speaker 1: water treatment plant to take, what did you say?
- 1:54:33Speaker 2: Nitrates. Nitrates out. Nitrogen fertilizer out.
- 1:54:37Speaker 1: Like, look at that shit, man. You know, it's not
- 1:54:40Speaker 1: even that many people using the fucking water and you
- 1:54:42Speaker 1: have the biggest one in the world?
- 1:54:44Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:54:44Speaker 1: And they can't keep up. That's insane.
- 1:54:48Speaker 2: They can't keep up.
- 1:54:49Speaker 1: That's how many fucking chemicals are getting dumped in.
- 1:54:52Speaker 2: We actually had this winter. So what happens is, now, look, again,
- 1:54:59Speaker 2: When I look at this, I don't look at it
- 1:55:01Speaker 2: from the standpoint of, like, farmers are purposefully doing these things.
- 1:55:07Speaker 2: A lot of times, I look at the associations that
- 1:55:09Speaker 2: know better, and they know what's going on, and they
- 1:55:12Speaker 2: give cover. But, like, in Iowa, what's happened to cause
- 1:55:18Speaker 2: this is that one of the technologies that farmers have
- 1:55:22Speaker 2: used most recently to increase yield has been field tiling.
- 1:55:28Speaker 2: three feet under the ground or so. There's a perforated pipe.
- 1:55:31Speaker 2: It takes... Basically what happens when you have a really
- 1:55:34Speaker 2: wet season, a lot of rain will come down. The
- 1:55:37Speaker 2: water table will rise. When the water table rises, it
- 1:55:43Speaker 2: moves into waterways, areas that water goes into, and these tiles,
- 1:55:47Speaker 2: these pipes, bring the water out in daylight and dump
- 1:55:51Speaker 2: it directly into a stream. And so Over the past
- 1:55:55Speaker 2: 20 years, we've started what's called pattern tiling, which is like,
- 1:55:58Speaker 2: we are putting these corrugated tubes all over the fields,
- 1:56:03Speaker 2: 10 and 20 foot separation, and it's to make sure
- 1:56:08Speaker 2: that the land is farmable, so it's draining water. What's
- 1:56:13Speaker 2: happening there is that when you have a really wet season,
- 1:56:16Speaker 2: the water table rises, and you have anhydrous ammonia, you
- 1:56:20Speaker 2: have nitrogen that's been applied to the field, and it rains, Well,
- 1:56:25Speaker 2: it can't soak down into the soil to purify. So
- 1:56:30Speaker 2: it goes directly into these tiles, and the tiles drain
- 1:56:32Speaker 2: directly into the streams, and the streams drain directly into
- 1:56:35Speaker 2: what in Iowa is the Raccoon River is one of them.
- 1:56:38Speaker 2: The Raccoon River is either the most or the second
- 1:56:40Speaker 2: most polluted tributary in the United States.
- 1:56:42Speaker 1: Wow.
- 1:56:43Speaker 4: Wow.
- 1:56:44Speaker 2: And so when I look at this, People are probably swimming, tubing,
- 1:56:49Speaker 2: all kinds of shit. We have so many lakes that
- 1:56:52Speaker 2: there's notices on signs that you can't swim in them.
- 1:56:55Speaker 1: Are you... because of the chemicals?
- 1:56:59Speaker 2: There's so many products in there.
- 1:57:01Speaker 1: Holy shit.
- 1:57:02Speaker 2: Your listeners can go on and Google this and you'll
- 1:57:04Speaker 2: find stories of like a woman, this is last year,
- 1:57:07Speaker 2: maybe two years ago, who didn't know that jumped in
- 1:57:09Speaker 2: and her skin got all red, like it was just burning.
- 1:57:13Speaker 2: But we have lakes in Iowa with such high levels
- 1:57:18Speaker 2: of nitrates and products that swimming is barred in them.
- 1:57:23Speaker 2: In Iowa, the Eden of the United States. This is
- 1:57:26Speaker 2: what I go back to. I think when people look
- 1:57:28Speaker 2: at Iowa, they think of like the Norman Rockwell painting
- 1:57:31Speaker 2: of like the cows on the hill and you have
- 1:57:34Speaker 2: this and the beautiful stream. And you know, when General
- 1:57:38Speaker 2: Albert Lee was coming through Iowa, when they're first on
- 1:57:41Speaker 2: their trek to going up, they're actually going up the
- 1:57:45Speaker 2: Des Moines River. when he was coming through Iowa, he
- 1:57:48Speaker 2: actually said that in all of his travels, and mind you,
- 1:57:52Speaker 2: he'd been all over the country at this point, he'd
- 1:57:54Speaker 2: never seen a place as beautiful as this. That's what
- 1:57:57Speaker 2: we came from. Now Iowa is the most terraformed place,
- 1:58:01Speaker 2: I believe, on the face of the earth, meaning we've
- 1:58:04Speaker 2: done more to our landscape. So when I talk about
- 1:58:10Speaker 2: the water quality issue, it's a hot button issue. But
- 1:58:16Speaker 2: I've talked to developers in Des Moines who've said, I
- 1:58:19Speaker 2: can't even sell a house if I don't pre-install a
- 1:58:22Speaker 2: reverse osmosis system in here. And I think when I
- 1:58:26Speaker 2: talk about this in the campaign, I just get back
- 1:58:28Speaker 2: to this. I believe... that Iowa families are just looking
- 1:58:32Speaker 2: for something that they can count on. Clean water is
- 1:58:35Speaker 2: one of them. Having a safe community is another one.
- 1:58:37Speaker 2: An education system that's not bottom half. Like, these are
- 1:58:41Speaker 2: the common things that people are just looking for. And
- 1:58:46Speaker 2: it's not too much to ask that your government focuses
- 1:58:49Speaker 2: on giving you... Your government focuses on making sure things
- 1:58:55Speaker 2: that you should just be able to count on are there.
- 1:58:59Speaker 2: Here's one thing I'll tell you about the, um, the
- 1:59:01Speaker 2: nitrate removal system. So, it'll remove... I don't even know
- 1:59:07Speaker 2: the exact number of how many pounds of nitrogen. Up
- 1:59:12Speaker 2: until recently, after they removed it, they just dumped it
- 1:59:16Speaker 2: back in the river.
- 1:59:17Speaker 1: Get the fuck out of here. Are you... No way.
- 1:59:19Speaker 2: I'm serious. I'm serious. They now have some biological methods
- 1:59:24Speaker 2: to where it'll break down the products. But the way
- 1:59:28Speaker 2: to get rid of it was to put it back
- 1:59:30Speaker 2: in the river. So, again, we have to have clean
- 1:59:38Speaker 2: water in our state. We have to have good education.
- 1:59:40Speaker 2: Our farmers have to be able to make money and
- 1:59:43Speaker 2: not be extorted. And I believe that one of my goals,
- 1:59:49Speaker 2: I've said to people, is that Look, over 20 years,
- 1:59:51Speaker 2: we've lost 10,000 family farms. There's no term limits on
- 1:59:54Speaker 2: the governor of Iowa, and I've made it very clear, like,
- 1:59:56Speaker 2: this is not what I want to do for my life.
- 2:00:00Speaker 2: But I want to make it so there's 10,000 new
- 2:00:02Speaker 2: family farms in the state. Or that by the end
- 2:00:07Speaker 2: of my second term, the majority of the food served
- 2:00:09Speaker 2: in Iowa schools actually comes from our state. Common sense
- 2:00:13Speaker 2: things that if we had our eye on the ball,
- 2:00:18Speaker 2: we'd say, This is just good to do. We should
- 2:00:22Speaker 2: employ our people, supporting our kids to grow their food.
- 2:00:28Speaker 2: But it hasn't. 95% is imported. And it's garbage. Like,
- 2:00:32Speaker 2: we know it.
- 2:00:34Speaker 1: How many other people are running?
- 2:00:36Speaker 2: In the primary, there's five people running in it.
- 2:00:39Speaker 1: Five people? Yeah. Because as of this recording today, Polymarket,
- 2:00:44Speaker 1: are you familiar with Polymarket?
- 2:00:46Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, yeah.
- 2:00:46Speaker 1: They give you a 25% chance of winning Iowa governor
- 2:00:50Speaker 1: Republican primary on June 2nd.
- 2:00:54Speaker 2: We're just getting started.
- 2:00:55Speaker 1: That's pretty good. I think it was 6%. Then he
- 2:00:58Speaker 1: went on Tucker and it.
- 2:00:59Speaker 2: Went, went up. And you know, this is all about
- 2:01:02Speaker 2: getting a message out.
- 2:01:05Speaker 1: Why do you think, why do you think poly market
- 2:01:07Speaker 1: jumped that much?
- 2:01:08Speaker 2: I mean, nobody knows who I am.
- 2:01:10Speaker 1: What's resonating with you?
- 2:01:12Speaker 2: I think the number one thing is nobody knows who
- 2:01:13Speaker 2: I am. I've never ran for office. So one of
- 2:01:15Speaker 2: the people on there, the only reason that they're as
- 2:01:17Speaker 2: high as they are is because they have and they've
- 2:01:19Speaker 2: been elected and they have name recognition. But I know
- 2:01:24Speaker 2: that the message that we're putting forward about putting Iowa first,
- 2:01:28Speaker 2: about saving our family farms, the things I just mentioned,
- 2:01:30Speaker 2: I know those things resonate. I don't need a poll
- 2:01:32Speaker 2: to tell me they resonate. I hear it from my neighbors.
- 2:01:38Speaker 2: So often when I'm talking to them, they're talking about
- 2:01:42Speaker 2: issues in private that politicians aren't talking about in public.
- 2:01:46Speaker 2: They're not talking about them. You go to the cafe
- 2:01:48Speaker 2: and you lean in and you hear what the farmers
- 2:01:50Speaker 2: are talking about, it's the things I'm talking about. The
- 2:01:53Speaker 2: problem is they felt like they haven't had anybody, I believe,
- 2:01:55Speaker 2: and I'm not gonna speak for them, and this is
- 2:01:57Speaker 2: how I felt, that there's nobody out there that's willing
- 2:02:01Speaker 2: to give them a voice. That's willing to say, we
- 2:02:04Speaker 2: shouldn't give a Chinese company millions of dollars of tax
- 2:02:07Speaker 2: breaks paid for by Iowans. That we shouldn't have a
- 2:02:10Speaker 2: data center getting $ 529 million in property tax abatement. That
- 2:02:18Speaker 2: we shouldn't allow our farmers to be exploited or let
- 2:02:21Speaker 2: hedge funds buy our homes. That being an Iowan and
- 2:02:25Speaker 2: living in the state of Iowa means something significant. And
- 2:02:28Speaker 2: what it means is not about an economy. It means
- 2:02:30Speaker 2: something about culture and who we are as a people.
- 2:02:37Speaker 2: One of the things that I've had to wrestle with
- 2:02:39Speaker 2: in this whole process is coming away from this idea of, like, um,
- 2:02:44Speaker 2: libertarian economic thinking, which was very pervasive when I was
- 2:02:48Speaker 2: a kid, when I was growing up. And that the
- 2:02:51Speaker 2: only thing we should care about is what the market
- 2:02:52Speaker 2: says is good. The market will just determine it. And
- 2:02:57Speaker 2: I don't, like, I don't know how you could look
- 2:02:59Speaker 2: back on what's happened to our country, to our culture,
- 2:03:03Speaker 2: to the hollowing out of our communities. I mean, look,
- 2:03:05Speaker 2: even something as simple as, in these small towns, We've
- 2:03:09Speaker 2: always had these country food stores. Well, they're going out
- 2:03:11Speaker 2: of business, and what's coming in? Dollar General. And who
- 2:03:13Speaker 2: is the largest shareholder of Dollar General?
- 2:03:15Speaker 1: BlackRock.
- 2:03:17Speaker 2: So the money that used to circulate within my small community,
- 2:03:20Speaker 2: because the owner of the grocery store stayed there, and actually,
- 2:03:23Speaker 2: I'm very thankful we do have a country foods, but
- 2:03:26Speaker 2: Dollar General set up shop 200 yards away.
- 2:03:30Speaker 1: The Dow was at 50,000. I don't know what you're
- 2:03:33Speaker 1: complaining about, Zach. The Dow was at 50,000.
- 2:03:39Speaker 2: Well, my... Our communities are not there. Our communities are struggling. Like,
- 2:03:45Speaker 2: really struggling. And there's the idea that I talked about
- 2:03:52Speaker 2: in the economic thinking. I call it a religion of
- 2:03:55Speaker 2: economic thinking. I think people have been captured by this
- 2:03:56Speaker 2: religion that says, like, whatever the market says is best
- 2:03:59Speaker 2: is best. And I'm talking mostly politicians and people in
- 2:04:02Speaker 2: think tanks and all these things that don't spend time
- 2:04:05Speaker 2: in the community. And I've said something I think people
- 2:04:08Speaker 2: think is kind of radical, is that, look, I'm going
- 2:04:11Speaker 2: to choose community values over shareholder value every day. Because
- 2:04:15Speaker 2: that's what my great-great-grandfather was here for. That's why he
- 2:04:18Speaker 2: came here. He didn't come here to make some company.
- 2:04:21Speaker 2: And I'm not against business, but the extractive nature of
- 2:04:25Speaker 2: what's happened in business in my state is undeniable, and
- 2:04:28Speaker 2: it's making our state unrecognizable. Just when you look at
- 2:04:33Speaker 2: the 24 million acres of ground that's in crops and
- 2:04:37Speaker 2: us losing 10,000 family farms over 20 years. Like that's life,
- 2:04:41Speaker 2: that's stories. One of my favorite stories that I talk
- 2:04:49Speaker 2: about this, and I'm bringing this up now because I
- 2:04:52Speaker 2: just mentioned the idea of stories. Teddy Roosevelt famously said
- 2:04:56Speaker 2: that I intend to be a preaching president to talk
- 2:05:00Speaker 2: about the values of what it means to be an American.
- 2:05:03Speaker 2: I mean, we got Man in the Arena from him.
- 2:05:06Speaker 2: Something that I have to find myself reading a lot.
- 2:05:08Speaker 1: Just to remind myself.
- 2:05:09Speaker 2: Okay. It's been a lot, lot harder things. When I
- 2:05:16Speaker 2: go out and I talk to people or I'm at
- 2:05:19Speaker 2: an event, I'll start to tell my family history a
- 2:05:22Speaker 2: little bit that I've mentioned to you. There's not one
- 2:05:25Speaker 2: person in the room, usually. that if I didn't go
- 2:05:29Speaker 2: back one or two generations with them and their family story,
- 2:05:31Speaker 2: that we just don't have an almost identical story of
- 2:05:35Speaker 2: people who came over here looking to provide a better
- 2:05:39Speaker 2: life and pass something on to their kids. And in
- 2:05:41Speaker 2: our case, that was farmland in a major way. And
- 2:05:46Speaker 2: to create something that they didn't have for themselves and
- 2:05:50Speaker 2: to build their church. We have a shared story. And
- 2:05:56Speaker 2: my hope is to be able to be somebody who's
- 2:05:58Speaker 2: preaching about that. That the fact that more Iowans served
- 2:06:02Speaker 2: in the Civil War per capita in the United States
- 2:06:04Speaker 2: is something to be dang proud of. That we should
- 2:06:07Speaker 2: just like... But that should be taught in every single
- 2:06:08Speaker 2: history class in Iowa. That the people who came here
- 2:06:12Speaker 2: before you were courageous, they wanted to build something for you,
- 2:06:15Speaker 2: and they were never gonna meet you. And that you
- 2:06:18Speaker 2: should be proud of your heritage. One of my favorite
- 2:06:23Speaker 2: stories on our farm, I'm a pilot, my dad's a pilot,
- 2:06:25Speaker 2: both my grandpas were pilots. And my grandpa in 1940s,
- 2:06:36Speaker 2: he bought a Taylor Craft airplane for $ 700 and great
- 2:06:42Speaker 2: grandpa mowed a runway in the bean field. And he
- 2:06:45Speaker 2: learned to fly there and that became his whole professional career,
- 2:06:48Speaker 2: as I mentioned. And, you know, that, took him off
- 2:06:52Speaker 2: the farm. He was the first generation to leave the farm.
- 2:06:57Speaker 2: And he went off and, you know, he worked at
- 2:07:00Speaker 2: Iowa companies as a pilot. He was very good at
- 2:07:03Speaker 2: what he did. He was very proud of what he did.
- 2:07:06Speaker 2: And I think that back then, that was kind of
- 2:07:08Speaker 2: the idea, that take a step away from the farm.
- 2:07:14Speaker 2: Try something new. And I'm very thankful for what he did,
- 2:07:17Speaker 2: because he provided a life for me and my family
- 2:07:19Speaker 2: and my grandma, who's 93 years old today, who's still
- 2:07:21Speaker 2: living on his pension and on, like, what he created
- 2:07:24Speaker 2: for her. So, when I look at me coming back
- 2:07:29Speaker 2: full circle, I think about my grandpa, like, all the
- 2:07:33Speaker 2: time at the farm, whose initials were carved in that post.
- 2:07:37Speaker 2: And just to say, why am I doing this? I'm
- 2:07:41Speaker 2: trying to do something that I hope would make him proud.
- 2:07:44Speaker 2: They'd say, see what's going on in our country, see
- 2:07:47Speaker 2: what's going on in our world, and say, we've got
- 2:07:50Speaker 2: to get back to these roots. So that's my mission.
- 2:07:55Speaker 1: I think that's a great mission, Zed. Thanks. Thank you
- 2:07:59Speaker 1: for your message. is going to resonate with a lot
- 2:08:01Speaker 1: of people. I know it is. Everybody I talk to
- 2:08:05Speaker 1: is worried about this. It doesn't, I mean, I don't
- 2:08:10Speaker 1: even give a shit Republican, Democrat anymore. Like I said,
- 2:08:14Speaker 1: I just want somebody with a spine that's going to
- 2:08:16Speaker 1: stand up for the people. You know, it sounds like you're,
- 2:08:20Speaker 1: You might be that guy.
- 2:08:23Speaker 2: Well, don't endorse me yet. Wait to see what I do.
- 2:08:25Speaker 1: Oh, I'm not endorsing it. Just kidding. I'm not endorsing it.
- 2:08:28Speaker 2: I just heard you talk about the other ones. Let
- 2:08:30Speaker 2: me go out and prove myself. I'm just thankful for
- 2:08:36Speaker 2: you letting me have this conversation and hopefully bring a
- 2:08:39Speaker 2: voice to people that have felt like they didn't have one.
- 2:08:46Speaker 1: Best of luck to you.
- 2:08:47Speaker 2: Thanks, sir.
- 2:08:47Speaker 1: Cheers. Cheers. No matter where you're watching The Sean Ryan
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