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The Tucker Carlson Show
Rising Cancer Rates, the Globalist Agenda, and the Big Business Land Grab Making You Poor
01:27:39
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- [00:05]
A
So you're running for governor of Iowa, and we can get into the whole politics of that maybe later. But I'm interested in why.
- [00:14]
B
You know, I think the primary catalyst for me doing this was I believe we are losing our culture and our heritage as a people. That's my honest belief. And I believe it's not just in Iowa, across the country, but when I'd look around and see people that were running for office, it was all about policy. It was all about, here's this tax rate or this regulation needs to be changed. And I just thought, no one is standing up to say we have to get the culture right. First we have to step in and say, what does it mean to be an American? What does it mean to be an Iowan? And are the traditions and the heritage and the value of our ancestors important to us? And that's in the deepest part of my heart, what motivates me in something like this. I actually don't want to be a politician. I bet I've not had interest in it. I spent a lot of my life in the private sector and building schools, and I have a pretty good life. I have a great family and a wife who loves me and supports me. But in 1850, my family came over from Germany and great great grandpa built our farmhouse. And we had that same house on this piece of land in Iowa until 2005. And my great grandmother passed away. And I can still remember my grandma called me and she said, zach, you wouldn't want anything to this old farmhouse, would you? And I had graduated from high school in Iowa. I was off in college and I said, no, there's something better out here. I'm off to get something to find something better. And then a number of years later, I was driving by to see my other great grandmother who lived to be 103. And I drove by the old farm and I just drove up, I said, hey, could I take a look around? And they said, yeah. I said, you know, my great great grandpa built this. He was a third class passenger on the SS Weiland coming from Hamburg, Germany, as a 14 year old. He was in the stowage. That's where he traveled over to America. And he became a carpenter and then earned enough money to buy the farm and build it with his uncle. And I said, hey, if you're ever thinking about selling it, will you please let me know? And I just didn't think anything coming at that time. But a couple years later, they called me and said, hey, we're going to sell this farm. Would you want? I'm like, yes. I don't know how I'm going to do it. But I end up scraping together enough money to get an FHA loan, a down payment, and I bought the farm. And then since that time in 2014, I've been working to rebuild it and restore it.
- [02:45]
A
Is the house still there?
- [02:46]
B
House is still there. When I bought it, it was covered in vinyls. It had been completely changed on the outside.
- [02:54]
A
Yeah. 150 years is a long time.
- [02:56]
B
Yeah. And completely changed the outside. But I went to my dad's cousin Peter, and he just kind of had the repository of great grandma's photos. And so I got this palette of boxes of photos, and I spent, I'm not kidding, hundreds of hours going through photos, and I was looking for every photo I could find at this old farmhouse. And I'll tell you, to anybody who wants to be radicalized on what we've lost as a culture, spend that much time going through your great grandmother's photos, and you'll realize the community, the traditions, the pride.
- [03:33]
A
I've done it.
- [03:33]
B
A lot of it's gone.
- [03:35]
A
It's unrecognizable.
- [03:36]
B
Unrecognizable. And so I did that, and I found every single picture I could find, and I put the house back together board by board, counted every single piece of siding, make sure it matched. And now we live in the home that was built by my great, great grandfather. And I tell people I didn't do that so I could run for governor. I mean, I started doing this over 10 years ago. I did it because I wanted my children to understand their story and their heritage and their culture. What built them. The man who built this house, who I bet hoped someday my kids would live in it.
- [04:13]
A
Yes.
- [04:14]
B
But knew he would never meet them. That that story matters deeply. And so that's what really got me into this. I was not looking to run for the seat. And as I was talking to my wife about this, the current governor of Iowa, who, by the way, has done a very good job. I mean, we're likely, other than Florida, maybe one of the most conservative states. And she's done a great job at that.
- [04:41]
A
He's a nice person. Yeah.
- [04:45]
B
When we were looking at this, my wife said the seat hasn't been open in 20 years, and there are issues in our state that are not dealing with taxes, that are not dealing with regulations, that are systemic. Deep issues that are really causing our people to be hurt. And I talk about them all the time. And it was kind of from her, this Moment of hey, put up or stop talking about it. Because this is an opportunity to go make real change. And so that's why I'm running.
- [05:17]
A
So you said there are systemic issues that are not included in the normal palette of politician concerns, which would be taxes and regulation. Just in order of importance. Can you go through a few of them?
- [05:28]
B
Well, I think I've spent my life in large part as an entrepreneur and in businesses, organization I've run or started. I have key metrics that I'm tracking to know the health of my companies or the health of an organization. And I think on that list for a state is the physical climate of it. That's no doubt that's part of it. Can people afford to live here? Yes, that's a big part, of course. But there's other deeper issues that I think are more long term in focus that we, because of this constant news cycle of what's happening right now that we all have to respond to, which thank God I'm not running for a federal office because it's like never ending and always changing. But because of that, often we're distracted or our eyes are taken off the ball purposefully from the big issues. And a couple of them are this Iowa's number four in the nation for net out migration of our kids 25 to 29. How can you build a state if your people are leaving?
- [06:30]
A
Important new people.
- [06:31]
B
Yeah. Yes, we can talk about that. Another one would be 25% of our farmlands now owned by out of state investors in funds that don't live in our state. So our farmers who have had this ancestral connection to the land are now becoming tenants again, something we left Germany in large part for. Just take a side quest here for a second. I remember when I was doing all that research in my family to understand a lot about the history and what drove them to leave this homeland of theirs. Because Iowa's made up 35, 40%. German immigrants came over, very industrious people, very family oriented people, people that had pride in the work that they do.
- [07:20]
A
Objectively, some of the best people ever.
- [07:23]
B
I would say that I'm not one
- [07:24]
A
of them, but I just have noticed
- [07:27]
B
big on tradition and big on family and a lot of pride in where they came from. So what would motivate people to leave? And I think the common answer we always heard was, well, it's religious persecution. And so I started to get interested in this just to understand more what were the real conditions. And I actually found out that my family, a lot of Germans came over around 1850. Well, in 1848, in Germany, there was an attempted revolution across Europe. Across Europe, yes. And it was called 48ers. And what did they want? Well, they wanted to be able to own the ground under their feet. They wanted free speech. They didn't like slavery. They had a lot of these, now, what we call Western ideals.
- [08:14]
A
It was the end of feudalism.
- [08:15]
B
Yes. Right. And so what happened to them? They were defeated. And so in Germany, when they're defeated, many of them got exiled, and then many others just left. Well, what state came online in 1846 was Iowa. And it was also very agrarian, just like where they came from. And so many of these people came over, and I like to talk about this, that. One of the key points in Iowa's history that I'm most proud of is how Iowans responded during the Civil War. So we had the Missouri Compromise, we had the Kansas, Nebraska Act. And with that, with that decision of they sort of get to decide whether or not they're going to be free or slave, there was a lot of wealthy landowning elites that were rushing to the Midwest to try to lobby to create slave states, of course.
- [09:14]
A
And this Iowa, plantations on the prairie.
- [09:17]
B
Right. And Iowa's not a part of this, you know. But one of my favorite stories, in 1861, the governor of Iowa, his name was Governor Samuel Kirkwood. He was on his plow in his field when a messenger from the Department of War brought a message on horseback to him. And in it, the president said he needed to put together a company of 750 troops to be ready in two weeks. And mind you, this is 15 years after Iowa became a state. We were in our infancy. And he said, 750 troops in two weeks. How can that be done? And two weeks later, 10,000 Iowans had signed up. By the end of the Civil War, more Iowans fought in the Civil War than any other state per capita. Why was that? I believe, and there's some evidence, of course, I read deeply in this, that they had just left a country that they saw oppression in and they fled, that left everything. And they were saying, this isn't going to happen here. So I think when you talk about land and you talk about now, 25% of our land is now owned by people that don't live in our state. They're not contributing to our communities. They don't go to the football games. They're not shopping on Main Street. It's a real generational issue. And I go to these auctions, I've bid against Many of these people land auctions. Oh yeah. And very often it's a farm management company. The actual owner, we don't know who they are. We actually don't know who owns our land. In Iowa. There's not human level disclosure that's required. So you can own land and LLC and that LLC could be wholly owned by a trust. And all the state knows is that the LLC owns the land. That's it. And so we've gotten to this place where just common courtesy or just common tradition of knowing who your neighbors are is not there anymore.
- [11:20]
A
Well, it's impossible if you don't can't find their names. It's kind of hard to have a community.
- [11:27]
B
It's buried.
- [11:28]
A
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- [12:42]
B
And so one of the things as governor that I want to do is require human level disclosure of land ownership because I would bet that it's actually more than 25% of our lands. Of course it is owned by people. And then another two other ones.
- [12:55]
A
By the way, if you don't have to bear the consequences of your actions, then you're much more likely to exploit and degrade the community that you're taking money from. So why wouldn't you? I mean, why do you care about long term best practices? You don't. You're just extracting wealth.
- [13:14]
B
This is the spiritual part of the discussion, I believe. My father was a 30 year conservationist and a pastor and I grew up learning to love and appreciate the place. I've said this before, but he legitimately made me believe that every sunset was made for me by God. Amen. We'd be driving and say, look at what God made for you. And I still think to those things to this day of just those little pieces that made me appreciate creation. And one of my favorite clips from your show ever, ever is when you were on with Bobby Kennedy and he was having that discussion about how nature is how we connect deeply with God. Yeah.
- [13:56]
A
It makes me emotional thinking about it. I couldn't agree more.
- [13:58]
B
I sent that to so many people, and especially my father, because it's true and it's language we don't use anymore. It brings you to a higher place and it helps you understand this is much deeper than just who owns a piece of land or what's happening. It's actually like we are connected to God through the land, through his creation.
- [14:20]
A
It's on every page of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. There's a lot of nature. What's the Garden of Eden filled with trees, rivers, animals. Right.
- [14:30]
B
And all the parables that have to do with that. So that, of course, that's a systemic issue. And let me say that that's been going on for a long time and nobody's really talked about it. You go to a cafe, every farmer's talking about these things about, my God, you see the. We had a piece of land in northwest Iowa recently. Go for $32,000 an acre, not development land.
- [14:54]
A
Okay, I'm interested. I'm a land buyer. I'm interested in land, I'm interested, you know, and all that. How do you get to $32,000 an acre, even for, you know, famously productive farmland? Like, what is that? What's the potential return on that? How did that happen?
- [15:11]
B
Well, let's just say commonly we'll go to $20,000 an acre. That's fairly common in northwest Iowa. So it's some of the best land in the world. It is. And so look outside, investors look at Iowa as a great investment because it's a solid asset.
- [15:27]
A
Yeah. It's a hedge against the dollar, of course.
- [15:28]
B
And you get a dividend, like you rent out the land. And so one of the things I kind of complain or opine about a lot is that our land isn't an asset class. It actually was meant as the inheritance for the sons and daughters of our state to build their lives, their communities and their families. And when they're tenants on that land and they're paying high dollar rent, because the only way you can justify a high price like that is very high rent, you're stripping away a lot of go back to say it's kind of the spiritual aspect of this. And that land is best when it's owned and farmed by the same person. We know this, we know this from if you own rental properties or whatever it may be. There's a connection of stewardship that comes with that. To know that I'm passing this piece of ground on to my grandkids and their kids and their kids. And that's what it should be. But that is being actively taken away in our state. And so two other things that I think are big systemic issues that are on my scorecard, as I'd say is one is our farmers are actively being exploited by big ag companies. When I was growing up, born in Iowa, we had over 300 seed and input companies, fertilizer and agrochemical companies that were selling to our farmers. Today that number's three that control 85% of the market. Over 90% of seed technology is owned by two companies, Monsanto. Actually it's Bayer and Corteva own 90% of this. Which owns Monsanto now. Seed technology.
- [17:10]
A
No, of course, but I forgot that Monsanto doesn't actually exist anymore, does it?
- [17:15]
B
I don't think so.
- [17:16]
A
It changed the name. Yeah, it was bought by Bayer in Germany.
- [17:19]
B
Yeah, they're sure mentioned a lot in court still. But they're not a company. So if you look at the long term trend that anytime there's a rise in commodity prices, these input costs go up, even though there's not a direct correlating factor. There's a study out of the University of Illinois and this study compared the cost of farming in Brazil to the cost of farming in Illinois. Iowa, basically. And you have to understand that the three big companies in America that provide these inputs are also the same three big companies in Brazil. Bayer, Corteva and Syngenta. That study said that for growing corn using the same application rate that they're charging Brazilian farmers, about $150 less per acre than they are Iowa farmers.
- [18:12]
A
How?
- [18:15]
B
Well, the real answer is because they're an unchecked monopoly and competition doesn't exist. There's tacit collusion. But here's how it actually works. They have what they call regional based pricing. But what it really is is this. When they look at their pricing they base it on the yield that you're going to create. So let's say you have more productive land, even though you're using the same amount of product, they're going to take more. You have less productive land, even though you use the same amount of product, they're going to take more. It's wrong. And I will give credit to Brooke Rollins and Donald Trump and the administration. They're talking about bringing antitrust and investing in this with the Department of Justice. And one of the things I pledge to do that if I'm governor of Iowa, I'm going to lead the charge to bring antitrust suits against these companies that are exploiting our farmers because they're taking every dollar they possibly can, and we're already on life support. I mean, most farms are operating at a loss right now. And when you talk to farmers about this, you do not. I can't emphasize this enough. You do not hear them talk about tariffs. They're not. Matter of fact, the price of soybeans this year with the tariffs was higher than it was last year before the tariffs. The change came that the cost of growing went up. I mean, the cost of the input products that they're using went up. I tell people all the time the tariffs are not the issue. We have to get this unchecked monopoly in check and under control.
- [19:56]
A
Obviously, inputs are essential to agriculture or to creating anything. One of them is diesel fuel. Not a lot of movement there. But then you have the products that you just mentioned, seeds and fertilizer, taking out seeds. Let's just focus on fertilizer. What are the products like?
- [20:19]
B
Well, I mean, it just depends on the most common product for fertilizers. Anhydrous ammonia. It's used in the fall. It's where a lot of the nitrogen comes from. But then you have other products that are, you know, products from earth, potassium, potash, those things. But you look at the trend of the pricing in these. I think it was five years ago. The past five years, nitrogen fertilizers went up 150% and the price of corn's down 2%. So farmers are really being, I would say, extorted in this process.
- [21:00]
A
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- [22:30]
B
I don't know, you know, I'm not
- [22:31]
A
in the ag business. I thought Roundup was bad.
- [22:34]
B
Yeah.
- [22:35]
A
Again, I'm, I'm very ignorant, but I just thought, I didn't realize that people were still spraying Roundup. He said, oh, everyone sprays Roundup like everybody does. And we kind of don't talk about it.
- [22:44]
B
And I'm like, hmm.
- [22:46]
A
I mean, is that I'm not attacking Roundup specifically, but like, are we sure that these chemicals are all safe?
- [22:52]
B
Well, you know, well, Roundup is the most high. It's the most highly used herbicide in the history of the country, the history of the world.
- [23:01]
A
Because it's so effective. I mean, I've seen it.
- [23:04]
B
It's losing its effectiveness greatly. It now has. Is that's true? Oh yeah. It has to be. Yeah. You'll have different mixtures now that'll go in because they're. We're getting Roundup resistant glyphosate resistant weeds and now there's a high percentage of weeds have glyphosate resistance. So I think in some ways the life cycle of Roundup is kind of, it's going to be coming to an end on its own.
- [23:26]
A
Limited by nature.
- [23:27]
B
It's limited by nature. And New products are coming out. But I will tell you this. When you talk about safety of products. Well, let me back up and just talk a little about the companies I mentioned, the three big companies that are controlling the ag input market. Bayer, Cortev and there's other ones. But Bayer is a German company.
- [23:44]
A
Yes.
- [23:44]
B
Corteva is an American company. Top shareholders are BlackRock, Vanguard and State street of that company. But Syngenta is a wholly owned state enterprise of the Chinese government, actually 100%. So about somewhere on the end of 5 million acres in our state has chemicals and seed technology from a company that's a wholly owned company of the state of China, the country of China. So I mention that to say this, if you talk to farmers about some of these products, and like I said, glyphosate or Roundup is very ubiquitously used. But if you talk to them about products even many of them won't use anymore, you'll get to products like Paraquat. Paraquat is actually. It was originally formulated by Syngenta.
- [24:43]
A
Paraquat was used in anti drug spraying in Latin America. It was very controversial for that.
- [24:51]
B
And it'll burn down plants in a matter of hours. But if you're exposed to paraquat, your chance of Parkinson's doubles. Matter of fact, actually. Oh, yes, Parkinson's. There's people. If you.
- [25:08]
A
That's something you don't want to get.
- [25:09]
B
No. And if you go on X and you type in and you just like look at Paraquah, you'll find stories of farmers who just will not use it anymore. They'll tell stories of, you know, spraying it and immediately getting like, or that day getting like uncontrollable bloody noses. It's a very, very harsh product. And it's still spray. I think the estimate, the best estimate is about 300,000 acres of land in Iowa use this product. This product is actually used in research settings in mice and rodents to induce Parkinson's.
- [25:39]
A
Are you being serious?
- [25:41]
B
I'm 100% serious. And our EPA, and this is where the big issue lies, our EPA still allows it. So if we're talking about like, are these products harmful? Like, we can get into that more. But yes, we know if it doubles
- [25:59]
A
your chance of Parkinson's, you're going to have to explain the upside to continue selling that product. I mean, my instinct is like, well, you'd ban that today.
- [26:08]
B
And I think that's what people Parkinson's park.
- [26:11]
A
Now that's true suffering.
- [26:13]
B
Yeah, it's a sentence you don't want. No, but when you can research this, your listeners can research this, it is used to induce Parkinson's in research settings. So when I talk about these products, I think what farmers want is to understand the truth, to know that their government is telling them the truth about these products.
- [26:37]
A
Gee whiz.
- [26:38]
B
But as with many other things, the corporate capture is so heavy. And so when you talk about glyphosate or glyphosate based herbicides, Roundup is one of them. There's many glyphosate based herbicides. The EPA studied this for years. We know way more than we've ever known about this. And we also know that there are significant risks associated with its use. And so, for example, one of the most known cases is the case of the groundskeeper in California. The first major lawsuit against Monsanto. And this was a man who was. His job was to work for the school districts and spray glyphosate. And the hose broke on his pack or in his little cart and it ended up showering him with this product. In a matter of months, he had lesions all over his body. And he sends emails to Monsanto asking, what should I do here? I mean, they're very like, I need help. Like, not, I'm trying to blame you. He's like, what do I do to solve this problem? Well, if you fast forward in that trial, when they were in the discovery process, the judge agreed to make a large portion of the discovery confidential, meaning that it wasn't to be released. But the plaintiffs could challenge something or request the disclosure of it. And they could request a meet and confer to talk about him. And they requested it at one point. And the Monsanto attorneys, I think literally said the words, go away, we're not going to disclose anything else. But then there's, do I get to
- [28:25]
A
do that next time I get sued? Go away, go away.
- [28:29]
B
But there was a stipulation there that said if they didn't, if Monsanto didn't put in there another request to continue the confidentiality within 30 days that the confidentiality was waived, they forgot to respond. And so now we have millions of pages of documents called the Monsanto papers. Millions. And in those documents, it is an absolute masterclass in corporate capture to the effect of that email that he sent to the company. They opened it, they read it, they forwarded it around. What should we do here? And they just didn't respond to them. I'm a man who's hurting, who's.
- [29:07]
A
Oh, the initial email. I'm covered in lesions from your product. What Should I do?
- [29:10]
B
What should I do? Yeah, basically he's asking for help. They read it forwarded around. What do we do with this? Nobody responded to him. And he sent two of those emails. I believe it was two. But in there is also things like there was a time and place where another governmental body was going to be doing a study on the safety of glyphosate or Roundup in this case. And the EPA official that Monsanto was working with at the time got wind of this. And in the email with the Monsanto official, he's recounting his conversation with this EPA official and in it he said, the official said to him on the phone, he quotes it in the email, if I can kill this, I should get a medal. And he did. He prevented this other governmental body from doing their own independent research on the safety and effectiveness of glyphosate of Roundup.
- [30:07]
A
Come on now.
- [30:08]
B
This is real. This is out there. This is 2000.
- [30:10]
A
This is the regulator.
- [30:11]
B
This is the regulator, yes. And so this is out there and other egregious examples of. And I say this, to say this very often when I'm talking to farmers who I love, who are my friends and my neighbors and my family. And I am one of them. We actively farm our own land. I work with young farmers to help them have an opportunity to be on land we share crop. But I'm in there, I'm doing this. The most common comment I get from people is if it wasn't safe, they wouldn't let me use it. And I'm just here to say that's a lie. Just like they were captured during COVID and the medical establishment, captured agencies, just like Bobby Kennedy is fighting right now and Donald Trump is fighting right now, these agencies have been captured for a long time and they've been lying to the consumers about the safety and efficacy of their products. And my whole goal here, I'm not here to sit and say we should ban X, Y or Z. That's not what I'm talking about. I mean, think there's certain things like paraquat probably should not be used.
- [31:11]
A
I mean, I think double should be used of Parkinson's.
- [31:15]
B
Like hard no, hard, no, it shouldn't be used. But what I want is good science. So farmers can say, do I want to use this product? And we can say, should this product be allowed? And also know if I'm going to use this product, this is how it should be used. I mean, when you have commercials, we know how glyphosate enters the bloodstream we know that if it's on your skin, about 30% enters your bloodstream. About 10% of that is through cardiac output. About 10% goes into your bone marrow. In bone marrow, glyphosate disrupts the replication of hematopoietic stem cells. They're differentiating from red to white. It's genotoxic. There's 50 studies that show this. We know how it happens. And yet there's commercials showing people using this product in flip flops and shorts just saying, like, be cavalier about it. We have many products we use. You go into my shop at the farm, there's many products on the shelf that if they're used improperly, are bad for your health. And they warn about that on the label. These do not. Not in that same way, but in these papers were also examples like this. In 2000, there was a study called the Williams study. It's the most cited study on the safety of glyphosate. The most cited, 99.9% of the all papers that cite the safety of glyphosate cite this study. Last month, that study was retracted because it was found that Monsanto executives wrote it, wrote the study. But here's maybe even the worst part. We found that out in 2017, and it was retracted in 2025. The Monsanto executive actually said when he's sending this back, he better not have any revisions. That's what he said. And so look, I think oftentimes when you talk about this subject, especially in my home state, there's this desire to paint you as some liberal hippie that doesn't like farming. I'm the exact opposite of that.
- [33:26]
A
I can tell.
- [33:27]
B
I actually think that wokeism is a mental disorder that's trying to destroy our country, of course, and that we have got to fight to protect our culture, our people and our heritage. But I also believe that our government has been captured in large part, and this is one of the most egregious examples.
- [33:45]
A
It's really simple. Why do you love the country? One of the reasons you love it is because of its physical beauty, the landscape. I mean, America is great because it's got great people and because it's inherently great, just beautiful. And anyone who's despoiling nature is an enemy of the country. Super simple. Anyone building ugly buildings, spraying poisonous chemicals, those are our enemies. Those are not our friends. I don't think it's complicated at all. And that's not the liberal position. The liberals are the ones who are putting solar bulldozing trees to build solar farms. Let's just be clear about what this is. It's an aggressive, coordinated effort to defile God's creation by people who hate God. Not hard abortion is directly related to building strip malls.
- [34:32]
B
Sorry.
- [34:33]
A
They're both destructions of beauty and of God's creation. That's what I think, and I'm not a liberal. Our new partner dose is a way better option than big Pharma. That's not damning with faint praise. Anything's a better option than big Pharma. There's a much better option. Some things are just out of people's hands and cholesterol is often one of them. Everyone gets blamed for getting bad cholesterol because they eat crappy food food. But the truth is a lot of it's just genetic. It runs in your family and there's not a lot you can do. So pharma decides the only option is take some pill and they can help. But a lot of them have unintended consequences, to put it mildly. And if you don't quite trust that plan, no one can blame you for it. That's why you should think about dose. Very different. Dose for cholesterol is a clinically backed cholesterol support supplement. Targets triglycerides, hdl, ldl, total cholesterol. A lot of people use it and the results have been remarkable for them. And it's easy to take. It's a daily 2 ounce shot that tastes like mango. So that means no pills, no powders, no injections and it works. And it's filled with natural ingredients like turmeric, not a bunch of weird chemicals that you can't pronounce and may again have unintended consequences. Visit dosedaily co tucker and use the code tucker for 35% off. If you want to try it, we recommend it dosedaily co Tucker code Tucker 35% off.
- [36:01]
B
Exactly. And here's the thing. I think farmers agree with a lot of this.
- [36:06]
A
Of course they do.
- [36:08]
B
They're looking to say, like, look, number one, many of these guys would like to try different things. But when you're operating razor thin margins, the idea of trying a new method of farming is not that appealing. Because what if it doesn't work and I actually can't keep the farm next year? And so these are our people that enjoy hunting, enjoy fishing, enjoy nature, want to be outdoors. This is our culture. That's what we like. And you're right, we are the environmentalists, obviously, we are the people that want to keep that and keep God's Creation.
- [36:41]
A
Bernie Sanders spends a lot of time outside. You think AOC can identify a tree species? I mean, these are people who are rejecting nature, rejecting beauty, rejecting anything that is natural and pure and trying to defile it. That's their program.
- [36:56]
B
Yeah, well. And they've been completely captured by this religion of carbon, but it's insane.
- [37:04]
A
And so carbon is not. I'm by the way, admitting it right now. Carbon is not the problem. Carbon is the basis of life. The problem is man made poisons. So how's the health? Okay, so I was still primarily an Ag state, obviously.
- [37:23]
B
Yeah, we're. We are. Absolutely.
- [37:25]
A
Well, you've AG in all 99 counties, correct?
- [37:27]
B
Yes. AG is, is the largest industry and, and kind of come to the last point of like that, that scorecard I mentioned to you. It's like we have the fastest rate of new cancer of anywhere in the history of human civilization.
- [37:42]
A
What?
- [37:43]
B
Yes.
- [37:43]
A
Can you repeat that?
- [37:44]
B
We have the fastest rate of new cancer of anywhere in the history of human civilization.
- [37:49]
A
Iowa.
- [37:50]
B
Iowa. Iowa. Matter of fact, if you live in one of the top counties for cancer in our state, they're all rural counties, your lifetime chance of getting cancer is one in two. And if you take Iowa as a whole and you compare it to say, a state like Nevada, Nevada actually has fairly low cancer rates. In any given year.
- [38:12]
A
Nevada is the highest smoking rate out of 50 states, but one of the lowest cancer rates. Iowa has very low smoking rates, very low smoking rates relative certainly to Nevada, and has a really high cancer rate. I'm just, just not a scientist. I'm just noticing.
- [38:28]
B
I, I just, I picked Nevada because I needed to pick a state that I was like looking.
- [38:32]
A
That is the highest smoking rate in America. Look it up.
- [38:34]
B
So if you choose to live in Nevada over Iowa, in any given year, your chance of getting cancer is 40% less.
- [38:43]
A
Why have I never heard this before?
- [38:45]
B
40%. If you take the top county for cancer in our state and you compare it 70% less. Actually, actually.
- [38:54]
A
And is the top county in Ag County?
- [38:56]
B
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
- [38:57]
A
It's not Des Moines.
- [38:58]
B
No, no, no, no. Actually there's lower rates of cancer. I mean, per capita, of course, in those places.
- [39:04]
A
For real, in your population centers, they have lower cancer.
- [39:09]
B
The top 10 counties are all rural counties.
- [39:11]
A
So you can say that people who are spending the day outside getting physical exercise 12 months a year, when those people have higher cancer rates than someone working in a cube in Des Moines, then you start to think maybe there are external factors we should be looking at.
- [39:27]
B
As I've brought This up. I find myself, this is so interesting. I find myself with a genuine care because like I said, I'm not trying to tell farmers how they have to farm. I'm not trying to tell everybody they have to farm like me. We run a regenerative farm. Lots of it's organic. My goal is to help Iowans live longer, healthier lives, help farmers make more money and help kids stay on farms for longer.
- [39:51]
A
Sounds like it's the farmers who are being abused here. They're the victims here.
- [39:55]
B
100%.
- [39:55]
A
They're the ones getting cancer.
- [39:57]
B
It's 100%. And I'll talk to farmers about this, or I'll talk to people that maybe are big in the ag community and they hear these talking points and they'll say applicators of these products have lower cancer rates. And they're not wrong. That's actually an accurate statement. Meaning farmers in general as a whole can have lower cancer rates. But when you hone in, specifically on non Hodgkin's lymphoma, leukemia, they have much higher cancer rates. The lifestyle of the job is going to give you more exercise, it's going to put you out. And so there are these things that lower it, but you hear these industry talking points about like, actually there's lower in total. It's like, yeah, but your chance of getting these specific cancers linked to these products is much higher. And so even with the rate of cancer in our state, you know, I'm in a governor's race right now, and even with the rate of cancer in our state, there's not one person talking about these things that I'm talking about right now with the likely causes of the cancer in our state. We hear things like, do you fear
- [41:03]
A
you'll be attacked as a liberal for bringing this up?
- [41:06]
B
I fear most that it's not a fear, but most. I think that the ag associations, especially the ones that are not member driven, that are constituted by actual farmers that take large checks from the companies that I'm mentioning right now. I think the most likely scenario that everybody's warned me about is they're just going to come and try to destroy me. I'm literally here because I could get into tears thinking about the people that I know that have gotten cancer. My own father got it. He was a crop consultant. So his job was to go into fields, check for pests, weeds. I used to do this with him as a child. I had a lot of fun doing it. He'd write a report and he'd bring it back to the farmers. And this is part of his job. He did it very well. And this is just the norm. It's what you did. And he'd recommend. This is what you should apply. He did that for over two decades, and he was diagnosed with one of these exact types of cancer. And that's what really, I think.
- [42:08]
A
How old was he?
- [42:09]
B
He was 60.
- [42:11]
A
Ouch.
- [42:12]
B
Well, Tucker, this is maybe where.
- [42:14]
A
I'm sorry.
- [42:15]
B
Thank you. He's in remission now, thank the Lord. But this is where I think this hits home spiritually, too, is that I think Iowans, and myself included, about three and a half months ago, I went back to my hometown that I grew up in in Iowa for the funeral of my best friend from high school for his father. He died of cancer again in the 60s. And I just tell people, like, I don't know how many more of these funerals of men and women in their 60s I can go to when their parents live to be 80. We're losing the wisdom of an entire generation of people.
- [42:53]
A
When life expectancy goes down, it's not progress.
- [42:55]
B
No. So I tell people, and this is more the political way to say it, look, we can have. Amazing. I'll say this. I often tell people I'm not running for office because of policy. I'm running because of culture. And they say, well, what does that mean? And I'll say, look, ask a Republican in Dearborn, Michigan, how much he cares about his tax rate. Or does he care that the Muslim call to prayers on the loudspeaker five times a day and he doesn't know where he's waking up anymore and his culture's gone? We have to protect our culture. Our founders intended that to be the case. We have a huge amount of talk about founders primarily when it comes to fiscal issues and things like this. We forget that. I think it was John Adams that said something along the lines of public virtue is dependent on private virtue, and public virtue is the only foundation of a republic. So we hear these things. And this is a bit of a tangent here, Tucker, but I've had to have a bit of a realization on this and to understand better what's going on, because I grew up in an era where libertarian thinking was very pervasive. It was all over the place. I agreed with much of it. And there's still things I do agree with.
- [44:14]
A
I was a fellow at the Cato Institute, so you don't need to apologize my presence. No, I know what you mean. Well, it wasn't that long ago that many Americans thought they were inherently safe from the kinds of disasters you hear about all the time in third world countries. A total power loss, for example, or people freezing to death in their own homes. That could never happen here. Obviously it's America. People are recalculating, unfortunately, because they have no choice. The last few years have taught us that. Remember when the power grid in Texas failed in the dead of winter? Yeah. It happened and it could happen again. So the government is not actually as reliable as you hoped they would be. And the truth is the future is unforeseeable and things do seem to be getting a little squirrely. So if the grid does go down, you need power you can trust. Last country supplies newest product is designed for exactly that. The Grid Doctor is a 3300 watt battery backup system that will power full size appliances, medical devices and tools with clean, reliable power. It's even EMP protected. That means it's shielded from lightning, solar flares, or an actual electromagnetic pulse event. There's no gasoline, no noise, no emissions. You just plug it in, charge it from the wall, from your vehicle, or from the included 200 watt solar panel and keep going day after day. Taking care of yourself and the people you love is solely up to you. And the amazing thing is with these new batteries, we use one at home by the way, is they're super easy to use. There's no inverter you need to figure out on the front of it or anything like that. There's like three buttons. It's very easy and totally reliable. Highly recommended. We literally use one, as I said. Visit lastcountrysupply.com to shop the Grid Doctor for power you can trust this winter. Lastcountrysupply.com and I think what that amounted
- [46:05]
B
to is there's so many people have subscribed to what I call this religion of economic thinking, this idea of market fundamentalism, that the market matters above all. And I say that that's not what our ancestors believed, it's not what our founders believed.
- [46:20]
A
Has it worked?
- [46:22]
B
Exactly. I say about our ancestors, they didn't come here to become capitalists. They came here to own the ground under their feet, to build their churches and communities and pass something on to the next generation, to their children, of course. But they didn't come here to do it at the detriment of their neighbors. They actually came here to do it helping their neighbors.
- [46:41]
A
Well, you obviously are a communist.
- [46:44]
B
I have to tell you the amount of arguments that I hear from this generation that has subscribed to this religion of economic Thinking, which, by the way, our founders did not support. They were in favor of tariffs. The states all had laws. Primarily, all of them had laws to protect moral virtue. This is a part of what they did. They knew it. And they knew because the state has a role in that. And we are a Christian nation with a Christian form of government. Our Constitution could not have been created by any other religion. You're not endowed by a creator. You don't have inalienable rights. In Christianity, you do. The divinity of the individual is real. We're made in the image of God. And so I have these arguments with people where I'm saying, look, 25% of our lands owned by investors. I'd like to raise their property taxes. I'd like to disincentivize this thing that's been happening in our state and create a new category of. Of tax for investment land for people that are coming in and prospecting. And I'm just. This is socialism. This is communism. I'm just saying.
- [47:52]
A
Who says that?
- [47:54]
B
This is what gets me.
- [47:56]
A
Self defense is immoral. Now, that's basically what they're saying. You're not allowed to defend yourself.
- [48:02]
B
Yeah. I would just say this. Iowa is not an economic zone for the world or for the country. It's not.
- [48:09]
A
You're upsetting me. Yes, I agree.
- [48:11]
B
And so. But when I say this, it's oftentimes people that were. Oftentimes it's people that were really affected by the economic thinking that came out of the Chicago School of Economics. And when I trace much of this back, I look at what happened in the 1980s. I think Ronald Reagan did a lot of great things, but there's also this market fundamentalism that really took over. And then you look at what's been the repercussions of that. This idea that unrestrained capitalism is what
- [48:45]
A
we worship, or that it even is capitalism.
- [48:48]
B
That it even is capitalism. Because oftentimes it's corporatism. Of course.
- [48:52]
A
Always just oligarchical. Always. Exactly.
- [48:55]
B
Or that free trade is the ideal. It's like even the fathers of modern economics, Adam Smith, even David Ricardo, who was a person that basically developed the idea of comparative advantage. This is a big thing. Yes, Free trade is good if you protect your national interests first. For instance, the silicon microchip was invented by a man from Iowa, Robert Noyce, he's with Intel. And then you look at what's happened now in our country from a product that was invented in our country. We produced 10% of them and basically all of the high tech versions of this we can't produce. We don't have the technology. So the ones that would be a military application are coming from somewhere else. So there's this idea that the market matters. Overall, I'm saying, no, that's not. We don't worship the market. The most egregious example of this, I think is when you look at what happened through free trade in the Rust Belt and throughout the Midwest where you had people that were told that their jobs were being shipped overseas, but they'd be replaced by high tech jobs that then they'd be trained by. Which by the way, is a lie. It didn't happen. Matter of fact, the biggest benefits that came from that were for the leaders of large companies that chose to do what Adam Smith said not to do, which was free trade was about one country doing something really well, another country doing another thing really well. And they exchange. A comparative advantage in the market isn't exploitative labor conditions of a communist government. That's not included in the comparative advantages.
- [50:50]
A
Adam Smith didn't foresee that. No.
- [50:52]
B
And so when capital's mobile and you can move all of these factories to one place to get cheap labor, everything's going there. And then. So who got rich off that? Well, large companies got rich and then pharmaceutical companies got rich that prayed off purposeless white males who lost their work, of course, in large part the Sacklers.
- [51:16]
A
And it created still, billionaires never went to jail.
- [51:19]
B
And as I say this, I get goosebumps because it's like, this is just wrong.
- [51:27]
A
Oh yeah.
- [51:28]
B
I mean, the hundreds of thousands of deaths that have come from this. When you take work and purpose away from people and you sell them a lie that then it's going to be replaced by these high tech jobs or high tech training for jobs, and it doesn't happen. And then you have these practices where people, here's a new customer, we can get them addicted. There's a stat I read.
- [51:51]
A
It's almost like it was on purpose.
- [51:57]
B
In 2016, the World Economic Forum had that article that was published still online. I don't know why they sell it online today, but it talked about this idea that in the future you'll own nothing and you'll be happy. I tell people that wasn't a joke, it wasn't a threat, it was a plan, of course. And it's happening.
- [52:17]
A
Oh, I know.
- [52:19]
B
And so I think many people in our country just feel as if there's this large plan or effort that's being executed that we're not privy to, but we have These psyops that happen that like that come up and we're fed them through news or something like that to get on board with it. I think what we just talked about is probably a large part of that. This idea that we're going to take away meaningful manual labor with your hands, which by the way, is maybe second to farming. That type of work is really gratifying because you're creating a product for.
- [53:01]
A
I do it in my spare time. I can't wait to get off work and do it. Not because I'm great at it or something, but because it's so rewarding. It's so refreshing. It feeds something. It feeds a real hunger, I think, in all men. And so, yes, no, it's like my primary form of relaxation. I just love it.
- [53:18]
B
And I think.
- [53:19]
A
I think every man feels that way.
- [53:21]
B
I agree, man. You look at some of these channels on social media that have taken off.
- [53:28]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [53:28]
B
It's so much of this because it's like. And they're like addicting. It's like, I love watching. Gosh, even the Bushcraft videos of people making these houses.
- [53:36]
A
They're amazing. Or how about Pakistani metalworking videos? Watch those. That's a whole genre. Those guys are amazing. I've never really liked Pakistan. Spent time in Pakistan. You watch those videos, you're like, I'm pretty pro Pakistan. Just. Just the ingenuity, the craftsmanship, which is not high, by the way. But it's just like these are men making things out of raw materials. And it's thrill to watch that.
- [53:58]
B
Yeah. And they're proud of what they create.
- [54:00]
A
100%. And they ought to be.
- [54:02]
B
They should.
- [54:02]
A
And they have my respect.
- [54:04]
B
Yeah. But in me as well. And I would just say that I look at this from the standpoint of you'll own nothing. And I look at this large narrative that's happening in our country. I mean, you know this. But even in Iowa, Blackstone is buying single family homes. There's another company in Council Bluffs that's doing as well. Multibillion dollar real estate investment trust. It's buying up single family homes in Council Bluffs. Council Bluffs.
- [54:28]
A
That's a tough town.
- [54:29]
B
Yeah.
- [54:30]
A
Right across the river from Omaha.
- [54:31]
B
Yeah. It wouldn't be your first choice. That's how ubiquitous this is. Right. It's like Council Bluffs. Council Bluffs. Yep. And then you look at our farmlands being bought by people that don't live here. And even when you get back into agriculture and you look at, you know, Iowa is the top pork producing state in the country, yes. What most people don't know is I think somewhere above 75% of the pork that's raised in Iowa. The farmers don't own the pigs.
- [54:59]
A
Of course not.
- [55:00]
B
They're on contract from one of the big four agriculture conglomerates, Cargill, Tyson, JBS and National. So we're having this pride in our work, this pride in our land, the health of our people. We're having these major issues come up.
- [55:21]
A
Well, so can I just ask you. I mean, that does. So you will own nothing and be happy is a very famous phrase. And thank you for reminding us that it was 10 years ago that it first emerged and that it was real. It was not a meme at that point, it was a statement of intent. But I think that has obscured the even darker reality, which is not only will you not own anything, you won't create anything. I personally, just speaking for myself as a middle aged man, I would rather at this stage create than own. I like both. But the joy, the thing that proves that you are made in God's image is your ability to create because God is the creator. And when you create something, it's the whole purpose of being here, whether it's children or harmony or a pair of reading glasses. Creation, making something out of nothing is the main joy in life. And when you take that away, no wonder people are on fentanyl. Right.
- [56:21]
B
Well, also I think maybe missing the biggest one of those is speech. Well, exactly, of this right here, of what you're creating.
- [56:28]
A
I like to believe that's a form of creation.
- [56:29]
B
It is. That's it. It's like I spent my life talking speech is that. And that is that this is where I believe that we get bogged down in the policy and the politics of this whole thing and we forget about the grander story of who we are as a people, that we're endowed by our creator, that we're here for a big purpose. You know, I spent a number of years building schools and one of the things we'd say is that we believe every young person is a hero on their journey to find a calling and change the world. That was the inspirational line that we would say basically every day, like that's who we are, that's why we're here. And a lot of this creation is being taken away, as you mentioned. And AI is not the least of which I tell my kids all the time, look, use AI for research. Never let it write for you. Writing is how you organize your thoughts. It's how you can think something through to separate the wheat from the chaff, to understand how to think critically, to test your ideas and then get in debate and things like that. You can't have a machine do that. It's a uniquely human thing is for us to come up with these ideas based on our unique life experience.
- [57:54]
A
It's stealing joy. It's like saying, eat a steak for me, have sex for me, wake up at dawn and watch the sunrise for me. No, I'll reserve those to myself because those are the greatest pleasures in life. And creating something is number one on that list of joy. It's like, why would you ever outsource that to a machine? I don't understand that.
- [58:13]
B
Did you see the commercial for the product that basically records your grandmother? You'll record them when they're alive and then after they pass away, it creates basically an avatar of them. But the actual.
- [58:29]
A
So you can steal my memories? I can replace them with the creation of a machine? Yeah, I don't think so.
- [58:34]
B
This is real, though. It's actually. This is what I say. It's like for the longest time we accepted technology and look, farming is a big in this too. It's like, look, it reduced the burden of labor. And there's a certain point to that that's probably good. Meaning, like, hand plowing a field is a really difficult task. Using a tractor. Okay, that's probably okay, right? It is. Okay. Obviously I'm joking. But then when you start to see what it's being used for now to replace human beings, meaning you can continue to have conversations with this grandmother long after she's passed away and she'll give you her unique thoughts, well, that's completely stripping away the divinity of humanity. This idea that we're creating God's image, that we each have something unique to share and that humanity is something to be protected and is very special in the history of the universe. It's very special. Let me just say this. A lot of my campaign comes down to this question. I was reading an essay by Wendell Berry.
- [59:36]
A
Oh, you know, it's funny. As you were talking, I was just thinking of Wendell Berry. And I was going to say apropos of nothing, I love Wendell Berry. I thought maybe he's never heard of Wendell Berry. I love that you read Wendell Berry.
- [59:49]
B
I love Wendell Berry. As a matter of fact, his essay
- [59:51]
A
on 911 was so radical, I think it got taken off the Internet. But it was like so good.
- [59:56]
B
You know, I maybe shouldn't say this on here, but I drive a Tesla and it has an autopilot feature. And there's a period of time when I'd be driving with my kids somewhere and I might pull out the Wendellberry poem book and give them. And so on the way to school,
- [60:13]
A
I was talking to my sister in law yesterday about Wendell Berry poems.
- [60:16]
B
Literally yesterday, I would actually have the kids take turns in the car reading a poem to each. Because, look, understanding these ideas, I don't know if there's other than faith. And they're tied in together. Inextricably woven together are the ideas that Wendell Berry puts forward in the ideas of our faith. You can't separate them because it's about creation. It's about protecting that and understanding that. We were told to tend the garden. We're told to subdue, but not destroy, of course. And so I would have the kids read this because it's like, I want you guys to know, like, look, if I'm gone tomorrow, and you knew two things about me that I loved my savior and I loved the creation, I'd be very happy. And I hope that you know, if that's the only two things you remember about me, and you just had to keep reflecting on those two things. Great.
- [61:05]
A
You're making me emotional again. Sorry.
- [61:09]
B
But in this essay I was actually in the Atlantic.
- [61:12]
A
Okay, if you're listening to Wendell Berry poems in the car with your kids, tell me where the fundraiser is, because I'm going. Because we need more of this in America.
- [61:23]
B
So he had this poem, this essay he wrote in the Atlantic. I think it was 1991. And some quote I read turned me on to that. And I was like, I wonder what this is? So I went and read the whole thing. And in it he talked about this idea. And I think this summarizes so much what I'm talking about when I say our farmlands being owned by people who don't live here. Our jobs are being shipped to other countries or factories being shipped to other countries. We have unchecked monopolies that are exploiting our farmers. We have the highest cancer rate, but we're not talking about it. Wendell Berry said that a foundational question that the Amish ask before they make any big decision is what will this change do to our community?
- [62:09]
A
Yes.
- [62:10]
B
And I think I don't know anyone who would deny that. Our politicians and our leaders have not been asking that question for a very long time.
- [62:18]
A
That is absolutely right. That is absolutely right. And we don't ask ourselves enough, how will this change us and our relationships and our understanding of God in the world? And I think that of labor saving devices. I find myself. I'm the product of America at its peak and there's not enough labor, actually. And I find myself trying to eliminate labor saving devices from my life merely so I will have the experience of labor. We hand grind our coffee. Don't have to do that. Why do we do that? I always say to my befuddled and grumpy children, because we're not depending on electricity for everything. You can grind your own coffee. It's okay. And I just feel like that. And obviously I'm insane, so that informs a lot of my decisions. It's my lunacy. But it also speaks to a need in all people to be involved in the production of something. Yeah, right.
- [63:12]
B
Oh, absolutely.
- [63:13]
A
Like doordash is. I'm not against doordash, but like, not that I've used it, but like, I don't know, you gain something, but you also lose something. That's all I'm saying.
- [63:21]
B
Yeah. When you feel the feeling of accomplishment, it's a liberating feeling.
- [63:30]
A
Yes.
- [63:31]
B
It's a feeling that brings pride. And I would say this. It's a feeling that brings pride. That also, if you understand your own history of your family and your story, that you can connect it to what's happened generation and generation and generation before. I think so much of where we've went wrong is that I was at a. Gosh, I was at a funeral for a woman that I loved dearly. Her name was Becky Elder, and she was an agrarian from Kansas and lived in Kansas for a while. And she was somebody who started schools. She was an amazing woman. I mean, this could get me emotional. But I was at her funeral about a week ago, and she was, I would call a Daughter of the Prairie. Like, loved creation, tended it, had their own farms, all these things. And her son was reading something about her and he said, one of the most common sins is forgetting. Forgetting where we come from, forgetting our heritage, forgetting that these places really matter. And so when I'm in my community and I'm seeing the people I'm surrounded with, in large part, it's like many of these places feel forgotten, especially by our politicians who didn't ask these questions of what will these changes do to our community. I have a defensive mechanism that comes up in me to say, like, I'm going to hear it. I'm going to fight for you. I'm going to do it. And I don't know what that is. I don't know where that came from. But I would just say that God put Something on me to say, look, maybe I win this governor's race, maybe I don't. My whole life is going to be focused on these issues because they're issues of caring for your neighbor. And it's the one of the two commands I've been given by Jesus. And so that's why we work with. You know, we could do farming a different way and I could make more money on that. I have a family that I love, that I want to, like, work with specifically because it's additive to the whole equation.
- [65:48]
A
Yes.
- [65:49]
B
You know, when my great grandparents were living on the farm, I found all these documents and I hear stories about them from the community. What's so interesting is we talk about, we don't know who owns our land. Before, when I was growing up, and I'd talk about these pieces of land. We've bought some of these pieces because the people have passed on and oftentimes they'll want to sell to us because they know where my heart is and they don't want it to go into an auction and they don't want it going to somebody from out of state or out of the country. We don't know. We call the pieces of land by the last name of the people that lived there forever, of course.
- [66:26]
A
Always we do the same.
- [66:28]
B
That's what we do.
- [66:28]
A
That's exactly right.
- [66:29]
B
And it's honoring, like I've told my wife, I plan to put up plaques or signs saying like, this is this farm. This is the history of this farm.
- [66:36]
A
That's exactly what we do. That's exactly right. And that's exactly the way to do it.
- [66:41]
B
And so when I was talking early on about this idea of something lost, I remember hearing so many stories. And one of the stories I really loved was that my great grandmother, my great grandpa, when they were on this farm, these Iowa communities used to be dotted with these small farmsteads all over. Many of them have just been bulldozed and farmed over because people are growing and growing and growing. Farm consolidation's happening everywhere, of course. And with the consolidation, every time a farm is consolidated, I say to people, life goes out of our community. We have to get our young people back on these farms. One of my biggest, biggest efforts I'm going to be undertaking is to do that. They were so tight knit in these communities that people would tell me, we used to come over to your house. This house. Coffee was on till 10pm at night. And your great grandma and your great grandpa were actually the counselors of our neighborhood. So they had These groups. And so if husband, wife were having an issue, they'd come over and they'd sit and talk this through. If they're having issues with kids, they'd sit and talk these things through. And they cared for each other and they're involved in each other's lives. And we're experiencing likely the exact opposite of that trend happening. And it's having a profound effect on our culture where we're becoming insular and othering. Just because you have a bumper sticker that somebody doesn't like that they're not to be talked to, just not at all. What defined us back then? No, not at all.
- [68:17]
A
And we're not allowed to behave like that anyway.
- [68:20]
B
My dream for the state of Iowa is to see long term rich agrarian society, like a long term rich agricultural heritage be restored. That's my dream and that's what I'm fighting for.
- [68:33]
A
Boy, that's got to be one of the toughest battles you could fight.
- [68:38]
B
But it's worth it. It's foundational not just to the state, but to us as a people. I think it's something in our soul that working with our hands in the dirt, with animals, with family, with multiple generations. There's a book by a guy named Alan Carlson, I think it was called the Natural Family and Where it Belongs. And another basically radicalizing moment for me was reading this and realizing this man said so many things that I didn't know how to say. Just that that setup of farmstead and neighboring farmstead that care for each other and that did a lot of life together was the most in tuned and connected. I think spiritually we could probably say we have been as a society or a community and I would like to see that return. I don't know quite.
- [69:31]
A
We met at an event a couple of months ago, a very crowded event, and had like a three minute. I'd never heard of you. We had a three minute conversation. I was like, whoa, I want to talk to that guy. So I should just confirm to anyone who's still watching this an hour in that you talk this way in private too, which I love. But what do people in like official organized Iowa politics think when you say stuff like this?
- [70:01]
B
You know, in longer form discussions, I find that it's very, very good. But I think that politics has been so overtaken with this like bumper sticker ideology, which is like. I think somebody once said a bumper sticker is a substitute for thought or something like that. And also I just think I'm not the typical person that would run for office.
- [70:31]
A
That's putting it mildly.
- [70:36]
B
I've really worked hard to be on our farm, to farm it, to have my kids understand that, to work in education and these types of things. I really worked hard to do that. This was not something that I had. Just saying, you know what timing's like. I've been waiting for this forever. We're doing this. It was more that I thought, there's no term limits on the governor of Iowa. The longest serving governor in the history of America is Iowa's former governor, Terry Brent. Said so in my head and in my heart as I was talking to my wife about this, it's like the next person who gets elected governor could be governor till I die.
- [71:11]
A
Oh, yeah, well, look at your senior senator. Emphasis on the senior. I like him. I'm not attacking him, but he served for a couple hundred years.
- [71:19]
B
I think it's like that quote when Ronald Reagan said, I knew Abraham Lincoln. And you know, Abraham Lincoln, I love that. But it's so. Politics is not the place for long form, deep and spiritual discussion. And I wish it was, because I think if it was, you'd require people running for office to connect with you at a deeper level, to actually understand what you're going through and to know that they care about those issues. Because I don't care how low our taxes are. I would say this. If our kids are leaving and our people are dying from cancer, we are not in what I'd call successful territory.
- [72:07]
A
That's exactly right. The beauty of economics is it's supposedly a species of science, which means it can be tested. So if you have an economic system in progress longitudinally over a period of time, then you can assess with the highest degree of accuracy whether it worked or not. Right. Because you look at the outcomes, and by that measure, socialism, communism is like the worst possible failure. Our current system is not anything like that. But it's not a win. It's a failure because look around. So what we're doing isn't working. I don't care what they tell you at some think tank or what should happen. I've lived long enough to see what actually happened, and no, it doesn't work.
- [72:50]
B
And look at some of these new ideas that are coming out, which, by the way, it's like the fact that these have to be stated is kind of crazy. And then the fact that we get pushback on it. I'm somebody who firmly believes that the priorities of my government and my economy should be solely focused on making life better for the people that live in My state and my country, like, not racist. Not for big business, not for foreign countries. And I think so many people just thought that was the case and then. Meaning people that we're not really paying attention. But it's like the politicians are all telling me we're going to work on this low tax. We're going to work on this thing. It's like. But hold on. What? Just A day ago, 81 Republicans voted to keep $315 million of spending for the National Endowment for Democracy. What? Yeah.
- [73:49]
A
Not on your side.
- [73:51]
B
Right. And it's like after everything that Elon Musk went through, after all of what these people did, all of what they took in the news, all of the conflicts and relationships that broke down with this, that one thing that we know is a front organization in large part is now getting hundreds of millions of dollars from our government. And Republicans are voting yes on it.
- [74:12]
A
Of course they are.
- [74:13]
B
It's like we're not learning anything. It's like the idea.
- [74:19]
A
Why am I laughing? Because I don't know what else to do.
- [74:21]
B
How could you ever deny the existence of the uniparty at this point?
- [74:24]
A
Oh, I know. Well, you have a very prominent Republican Party, a senator and presidential candidate working with the ADL to suppress the speech of Americans. So it's like, maybe the current system isn't what they. But people know that it's fake. And I guess the good news is we still have enough elbow room, enough freedom in the United States that reform is possible. If enough people are like, no, come on now. You have to serve our interests, sort of. Or at least acknowledge them.
- [74:55]
B
You would hope so. I think this vote specifically is quite the conundrum to that point. Right. This all just happened.
- [75:04]
A
Well, I could name eight other things that have happened in the last month. And you're like, this is so unbelievable. It's so outrageous. It can't continue. The internal contradictions have reached the point of breaking and like, oh, we're getting something new. And then it's just like, oh, onto the next.
- [75:19]
B
You're right. It'll be gone in a week.
- [75:21]
A
In a week. It's gone now.
- [75:23]
B
Yeah, exactly. But to that point, I think this is why this idea of running for governor is so appealing. It's like, maybe I'm wrong for saying this, but I've largely written off Washington, D.C. oh, I think that's fair. And it's like, if the people that we've put in power now, granted, I will say there's some huge, huge shining stars. I think what Robert F. Kennedy is doing unbelievable. The repercussions of this for positive health benefits of Americans will reverberate for generations. If it can stay in place. Because he's going to help an entire generation of people become far more healthy, live better lives, meet their great grandkids potentially. That's amazing.
- [76:10]
A
And have clearer heads and purer spirits. Just start with just. The government should not officially endorse eating a thousand pounds of sugar a year. Just that right there. Flipping over the nutrition tables into something that more closely resembles reality. That's a huge step. Reducing the vax schedule from like a million vaccines for the newborn to a smaller number. You gotta call that a win. That's a win.
- [76:40]
B
And it's also something that I think we believe. Why are we even having to have this fight? But somebody asked me the other day, what do you think the most pressing issue facing America is? And taking out the spiritual, because spirituality is intertwined. But taking that out, it said, I think it's that our government is run by unelected people and we don't know who they are.
- [77:02]
A
Yeah. Without our best interest at heart at all.
- [77:07]
B
And so this idea of America first, of Iowa first, it's like to many of us, this is just common sense. It's like this is what the country was set up for.
- [77:15]
A
What's the other form of government that's legitimate? I can't think of one. If this is a democratic republic and the government is acting in an interest that's not our interest, how is that legitimate? How is that not grounds for anyway? Right. There's no other legitimate form of government but America first or Iowa first. That's the only option.
- [77:39]
B
And how we got away from that is unbelievable. And like, look, I was talking to my dad about some of these things the other day. And some things you can think and know, but not exactly know how to describe or put into words. And I get that feeling when I think about the shift that our country clearly went through after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
- [77:58]
A
Well, that's it right there.
- [77:59]
B
It seemed as if something spiritual happened at that point within our country. And it has to do with the complete disregard for truth, honesty, or the American public deserving to know what's happening. And then I read a tweet one day. I don't know who said it. Maybe it's Russell Brand or somebody that said something along the lines of the future success of our country and the Kennedys is intertwined in some way.
- [78:30]
A
It is true. I never used to believe that. And I would hear these baby boomers say that was the day everything changed. And. And they were silly. They were not serious people, but they could feel something that was true and that was clearly true. That a lot did change. Everything changed when he was assassinated in a way that I did not appreciate until I was much older. But they were right. They were right in saying that. And the fact that 63 years later, CIA still will not. This is a fact, will not divulge all the information that it has on his murder, despite a bunch of laws from Congress, despite a executive order from the President of the United States. And a year ago, they're still hiding it. Clearly there were, you know, probably a lot of people involved, probably a foreign country clearly involved, our own government clearly involved. So, like. And they're still lying about it. It's wild. But if the truth sets you free, then lives enslave you. Yeah, the obverse is true. So I think we are enslaved in some sense by these lies.
- [79:34]
B
You know, I think where I see this most is in the newest generation of people that are coming up, coming of age, so to speak. And there's some very loud voices out there that they're all flocking to. One in particular that you've interviewed. And people ask me all the time, like, why do I think that is? And I just say, guys, look at the lies.
- [79:57]
A
Exactly.
- [79:57]
B
Look at what's happened. Look at the lack of justice, the lack of accountability. Like, we don't. Where's Fauci? Like, what about the Hunter Biden laptop? When are these people going to be arrested?
- [80:11]
A
I said this about Trump 10 years ago when I lived in Washington. I'm a product of Washington, obviously. And I wrote a piece, basically, trump is popular because you failed. And it wasn't an endorsement of everything Trump said, though. I like Trump and voted for him, but it's not about Trump. Trump wouldn't have existed if the system was working. And the same is true of the person you're referring to, whose name shall not be named. But, no, no, but true. It's like we argue about, is he good or bad? Is he, you know, whatever? But the argument's not really about him. It's about the system that allowed someone like that to become popular. It's like, why do you think people are watching that? Because you failed. You betrayed your own voters.
- [80:55]
B
Yes. Yes, that is right.
- [80:57]
A
Yes.
- [80:58]
B
And look, one of the biggest issues that's come up is about immigration. It's all over. And I think for a long time, we have been criticized, ostracized for noticing what's happening. And calling it out to say, what's happening? And there's this idea of replacement migration, this replacement theory. I don't ever talk about this, but it's like people talk about it, and they're immediately just hammered down. Well, in 2000, the UN put out a document called Replacement Migration. Of course, 144 pages, multiple languages. But I read this, and it's lining out exactly what's happening. And it's saying, look, European nations are going to be losing population. America's going to be losing population. What's the answer? Well, traditionally, throughout history, the answer is to promote having more children.
- [81:55]
A
Make it easier for people to have kids. Yes.
- [81:57]
B
Make life more affordable. Bring home the money that's being spent overseas and use. I mean, imagine you just talked about Iraq and Afghanistan. Imagine what our country would be if we didn't spend $10 trillion on that. Imagine what we could have done for our children in our communities. So when you look at this and you're called this. I'm not called that because I don't ever talk about this. But people are called conspiracy theorists for bringing up this idea of replacement migration. They literally wrote a white paper on it, of course, and they described what it was going to do. And then you look at these people that are feeling like especially young white males, they're being taken out of society. They're being told they don't matter. Matter of fact, they have this original sin of being who they are. It's unbelievable. And then you in the.
- [82:47]
A
Sounds like a dangerous conspiracy theory. You ever look at the census numbers? Oh, yeah. Right. So again, we can just bring science to bear on this. Is the native population being replaced? I don't know. Let's check the census answer.
- [82:58]
B
Yes.
- [82:58]
A
How about we do it by zip code? I'm 56. So let's go back to 1970. The census of 1970. Just spend an afternoon reading that. So anyone who tells you you're a bigot or you're engaging in conspiracy theorizing is lying, and probably lying in order
- [83:20]
B
to hurt you and Tucker. Why? It's like, why are we not allowed to have and appreciate and love our culture? And why are we also not allowed to let people in that want to be a part of that culture? That's the whole idea. People ask me how to pronounce my last name, and it's L, A, H, n, but it's pronounced Lane. Well, why is that? Well, my great, great grandpa, when he came over, he wanted to keep the German spelling, but he wanted to be a pronounced American. And they took on the American customs and they became American. That's what it was. And the idea that we're saying that this is.
- [83:57]
A
How did the family pronounce it in Germany?
- [83:59]
B
I was told it was pronounced learn. And that's what I was told. Someday, as you could probably imagine, I'm going to go over there and dig as deep as I can and all this stuff. Because, you know, some people get the bug for learning this about their family. I am that human. I love this. I love learning about my history and heritage. And you know what? Like, 150 years in America is a thing to be very proud of.
- [84:22]
A
Yes, I agree.
- [84:23]
B
But also, like, they likely did not want to leave where they were at. They didn't want to go three weeks on a boat in the stowage from Northern Germany. Northern Germany. And on my mom's side, actually, the family's been here since the Revolution. Actually, my great ancestor. Direct great ancestor or died in the Revolutionary War.
- [84:41]
A
Me too.
- [84:42]
B
And so these voices of people who understand the culture that our ancestors created, and it's something to be so proud of. It's so inclusive. It reduces suffering. It is welcoming to people. But the idea that you can come in and try to put something else over top of that. And Charlie Crook said this beautifully. He said something. I'm a butcher's words, and I'm sorry for that. I first met him in 2011. I think we were supposed to speak in the same event. He said something along the lines of, the reason we're in a constitutional crisis is because we have a Christian form of government, but we have elected people that are not following that custom and religion hate Christianity. And so you're going to have a constitutional crisis. You're going to have fraud all over the place. You're going to, like, your institutions will
- [85:38]
A
break down because the system was a bespoke system. It was created for the people who lived under it. And you've got different people, so you're going to get a different system.
- [85:47]
B
Yeah, it was created.
- [85:49]
A
Not a value judgment. It's just an observation.
- [85:51]
B
Yeah, it was created.
- [85:53]
A
Zac Lane. Amazing, amazing conversation. I'm intentionally not going to ask you about the politics of it. You're going to have plenty of time to talk about that. But I think this is gives, you know, any. Anyone who has again watched to this point is either, you know, like, oh, my gosh, I'm sending this man money, or stop him, but I am interested, like when really quick last question. What is the process from here on out?
- [86:22]
B
So our primary elections June 2.
- [86:26]
A
Okay.
- [86:26]
B
And then if we win the primary, then the election's in November.
- [86:30]
A
How many people in the primary?
- [86:31]
B
There's five people in the primary right now. And so I believe we have a really, really good shot at this. And I believe our message, the time for the message that we're saying is now. And that there's been a. I think there's been a void that's been there. And people are wanting politicians and people running for office, because I've never ran for office. I'm not a politician. They're wanting people that will speak truth to them and that will talk about the big issues. Even if the donors and the special interests say, I've told them, I don't want your money, I'm not looking for your money. I'm actually here to stop a lot of the practices that you're putting in place. And so I've said, I'm my own biggest donor to this campaign. I will not be bought. It won't happen.
- [87:21]
A
Oh, boy. They're going to try and stop you. It's not radicalism that scares them. It's. It's quiet, sincere determination, I would say. So Godspeed.
- [87:32]
B
Thank you. Thank you.