Buck Sexton breaks down everything you need to know about Saudi Arabia

Glenn's in New York City for the week, and he was joined by TheBlaze's National Security Expert Buck Sexton for an in depth discussion on the Middle East and Saudi Arabia.

Below is a transcript of this segment

Glenn: How are things going to change in Saudi Arabia? Who is really going to be in charge? How is this guy’s health?

Buck: I think the Saudis, there’s a couple of dynamics that are intersecting right now, and one of them is just that the Saudis aren’t quite as important to us as they used to be, and they recognize that. The Saudis, because of shale, because of the energy revolution in this country, we don’t need them in quite the same way. They’re not going to be able to play quite the same role of oh, Saudis, up your production, we need you.

Glenn: But as a guy from Texas, where all the Texas-based oil companies are currently freaking, out saying we cannot handle this, we can’t handle this drop in the price of oil this low for this long, and the new king saying he’s going to continue dropping the price of oil—

Buck: You’ve got sort of an old-fashioned price war going on. It’s not just hurting us.

Glenn: Exactly right, and they win.

Buck: It’s not just hurting us, it’s hurting other countries. Well, hopefully the technology will get even better, and that will add into this as well, but on the security side, the real overlay across the entire Middle East now, as I see it, you have the Islamists, jihadists, sort of the hardline fundamentalists on the one side and really everybody else on the other.

You also have intertwined within that Sunni and Shia, and when you’re talking about Saudi Arabia, they are not just because, of course, it’s where you find Mecca and Medina, it’s where people go for the pilgrimage, for the Hajj, they have elevated themselves as the real clear, especially because what’s happened in Egypt, they are the clear defenders of the Sunni, so to speak.

This schism which goes all the way back to the seventh century, it goes all the way back to the earliest years after the life of the Prophet Muhammad, this schism is now playing out in conflicts that include Syria, includes Yemen. It includes Iraq. I mean, you look at everything that’s happening there, there’s a Sunni-Shia divide. Iran is picking favorites. Iran is meddling, getting involved in things.

The Saudis are doing the same, and because we’re not as clear on what we want right now, both of those states have, I think, a freer hand to do that, or at least Saudis feel that they have a freer hand than maybe they did in the past because the administration is essentially saying we don’t really have a vision. We don’t really know…this current administration doesn’t really know what the Middle East should look like.

Glenn: Some people describe Saudi Arabia as the heartland of hate. How would you describe it?

Buck: Just imagine for a second that you took, sort of to give you a sense of a corollary, if, you know, Catholics, Rome, right, Vatican, the Vatican, if you had a country, let’s say all of Italy, that banned the practice of any religion that was not Catholicism, that beheaded people for actually apostasy or for trying to spread a different religious belief system, I think the world would look very unfavorably upon that.

Glenn: Yeah, I don’t think if the pontiff who had been washed in blood who, you know, had the big machetes and beheading people there at St. Peter’s, if he died, the world would not be saying he was a reformer.

Buck: Yeah, the world has embarrassed itself in the case of Saudi Arabia or at least the world media has embarrassed itself, I think, most of it, by referring to…I mean, this is really just the sort of lowest of low expectations. I think it’s a fair way to put it.

Glenn: Don’t you think it is the racism of low expectations? I’m fascinated by the way we just accept from the Middle East that okay, yes, they’re behaving like barbarians, but they’re doing the best they can. Excuse me? I mean, what are you saying?

Buck: The left in this country doesn’t really take that tone. Their tone is well, it’s different than ours. Don’t criticize it. They’re doing things differently there, and the things that are bad are actually our fault. It would be one thing if we had clarity on the barbarity, if we were all agreed that look, what they’re doing is ridiculous, guys, and maybe we can’t change it, but what you hear actually in this country is well, no, it’s one of the three great monotheisms, and this is the seat of the religion, and they’re doing things differently, but that’s okay because the Crusades or the Inquisition or, you know, you hear this just sort of hiding of the ball all the time.

People aren’t honest about the fact that not only are the Saudis…are they doing things from a human rights perspective that are just appalling, and they are, but they have been the main exporters of virulent Islamist hate for decades.

Glenn: Okay, so let me just talk about the double standard again. The new prince, the new king, is going to continue the work on the border fence.

Buck: They apparently believe in fences. They believe very strongly in fences to the north and to the south. They think that those can keep people out who aren’t supposed to be there.

Glenn: So, we’re not supposed to have one, because that’s racist.

Buck: We say it’s not possible also, which apparently the Saudis are better at engineering than we are. I doubt that.

Glenn: The Israelis build a fence.

Buck: Well, they’ve shown that it is of course possible.

Glenn: Right, but that fence is racist. That fence is akin to the Holocaust, right?

Buck: The fence that the Saudis are building, of course, is keeping out other Arabs, so that’s the justification for it is that this is just hey—

Glenn: The world is completely silent. It’s an enormous fence, enormous.

Buck: And it’s going to be getting bigger too. They recognize that the instability that exists on the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and also to the north in Iraq, that’s not going away.

Glenn: So, the president has to go meet the new king. Was he called and told? I mean, because honestly I don’t think the president at this point cares all that much.

Buck: I don’t think he cares all that much either, and I think that part of this might just be the sting of the condemnation that came for the administration after not sending anyone to that march. Remember, it didn’t have to be Obama. This was, I think, where the criticism was fair. Biden, the Secretary of State, somebody you would think should be there, and nobody was there. People said well, the French ambassador was there. Yeah, the French ambassador could hop in a cab and go the ten minutes or whatever it was to the march.

Glenn: Eric Holder was there, but he left.

Buck: Yeah, didn’t have time or didn’t have the inclination.

Glenn: Right.

Buck: So the president, I think, wants to, again, because, you know, ego does factor into this too, and legacy, wants to seem like he’s on top of things, he’s going there. Look, we have this very strange alliance, this bedfellows relationship with the Saudis that we’re not about to abandon, and quite honestly—

Glenn: Should we?

Buck: We can’t.

Glenn: I don’t buy that.

Buck: Oh, I mean, we say abandon it entirely, I mean, what would that really even mean at this point?

Glenn: I mean we as a nation. If I’m President of the United States, and I said to you, you’re an advisor, I say Buck, here’s the thing, by the end of my administration, I want the cord cut as much as I possibly can from the Saudis. I don’t trust them. I don’t want their stinking oil. We have enough resources here. I’m not going to be held hostage by these guys anymore. They’re bad people. They oppress women. They stone homosexuals. They kill you if you’re a Christian. I’ve got nothing in common with these people. I don’t want more enemies, but they’re not exactly our friends. I don’t want any more enemies, I want out. What do you tell me?

Buck: I would tell you that the levers you have to try to prevent them, prevent not just the royal family or the regime there but try to prevent Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula from being even more so than it is sort of the wellspring of this global ideology that’s very dangerous and destabilizing all over the world, you’d rather have some input into this than no input, and then also when you add the energy issue into it, you’d rather try to steer them in directions that are useful to U.S. policy in the region than not.

Does it feel good? Does it smell good? Are we okay with this? No, but it’s going to continue. Look at Republican, I mean, this is one issue where the scorn is bipartisan. For anybody who’s going to say well, that’s just silly talk, Republicans on this issue, they are “What’s up, Abdullah? We’re all pals.”

Glenn: You know what it is? This is the biggest key that opened up my mind, and I am so glad to see so many people understand this now. When people are like oh, you know, talking about liberals, stop talking about liberals. I can live side by side with a liberal. I can live side by side with a liberal. Progressives are in both parties, and it is this idea of whether it is the UN that controls everything or the United States and its military that controls everything, that’s the progressive idea. The true independent, the true classic liberal wants nothing to do with either one of those.

Buck: This is why I won’t call them liberal. I mean, I just refuse to call progressives liberal. I hate that they’ve appropriated that term.

Glenn: I agree.

Buck: I think it should be a movement in this country to stop referring to people who are statists, who want control of the apparatus, who want to take your stuff, who want to tell you what to do, as liberal. They’re the antithesis of liberal.

Glenn: That’s why we are misunderstood in Europe, because they gave us the conservative title, which we’re classic liberals. We’re classic liberals.

Buck: And we haven’t come up with a term that is as useful or as accurate for the beliefs of people like you and me who are classic liberals in this country. It’s been appropriated by the other side. It really does hurt, I think, the discussion, because you don’t know who’s on what side. It muddies all the waters. But the Saudi problem is very real, and look, until 9/11, by the way, we had no cooperation from them on a lot of these issues. It was only after 9/11 happened that we’re like we like your oil, we know you behead people…we’re serious now, where are the bad guys?

Glenn: Are we really serious though?

Buck: We were. Are we as serious now? Probably not.

Glenn: What happens? What do you see? Give me a look five years down the road with the jihadis all around the world. What does the world look like in five years?

Buck: What’s different now or what’s different at this phase of the game is that they are playing for control of nationstates. This isn’t just a question of their hitting out at the U.S. and at Israel, and they’re trying to sort of wage this global insurgency, which is really what the jihadists are trying to do. Now they’re saying okay, where do we have a strong enough foothold that we can actually run it, we can be in charge? Because the moment you do that, and we’re seeing this with the Islamic State…why can’t we get rid of the Islamic State? Well, it’s not a bunch of guys in training camps. It’s guys that are controlling cities.

In the case of Mosul, Mosul has about 2 million people that live in that city, so to take that back, there’s no nonconventional, unconventional way to take that back, and so if they can establish control of the infrastructure of an actual state, of a country, whether it’s Libya, whether it’s Syria, Iraq, Yemen, I mean, go down the line, they’re getting more and more opportunities to do this, that changes the whole game.

The reality is that if they can do that in a couple of places, they think they can do it all across the Middle East, and that’s not…once you start to look at what the landscape is of a nuclear Iran on the one hand and this rising Sunni jihadism on the other hand in Syria, Iraq, all these other countries, who’s going to stand up again? We always hear about the moderates, and they’ll point to some blogger that nobody’s heard of in Cairo. That’s not going to cut it.

Glenn: So, if I’m President of the United States, my phone bill, my international phone bill, is mainly made up of phone calls to Israel because they’re the only ones that have the same kind of ideology that we have. You could disagree with them on a lot of things, and I do disagree with a lot of things on Israel, but they’re the only ones that have a clue as to what the Western world believes in and follows, and yet, Benjamin Netanyahu is coming, and we’re peeing all over him.

Buck: Well, the White House is.

Glenn: Yes.

Buck: The White House is.

Glenn: The White House is.

Buck: Unsurprising given the president’s antipathy. Look, if you’re a man of the academy in this country, I mean, if you’re somebody who your background comes from the university, it comes from a campus, right, which is the really, with the president, I mean, I know he’s a politician, but before then he’s really a guy of the academy, you tend to be anti-Israeli. That’s now taught.

Glenn: But let me ask you this. He is a man of the campus. He’s a well-educated man. He campaigned as a guy who was a constitutional scholar, so there’s no excuse for derailing the Constitution on him. He knows exactly what he’s doing. You cannot be…and this I felt on the Paris thing, you don’t send anybody? That doesn’t occur to you to send anybody? You don’t want to go to our oldest ally? There’s nothing that crosses your mind?

Buck: It wasn’t that he forgot—

Glenn: No, he chose not to.

Buck: And he chose because this administration does not want to be seen in any capacity ever as taking something that could even be construed as critical of Islam.

Glenn: So there’s no way you’re this wrong on this many things. There’s no way. You could play the odds, man. You cannot make this many mistakes, you can’t, and have it come out in favor of jihadists.

Buck: You’d be right by accident sometimes.

Glenn Once in a while you’d be like okay, well that one fell in our favor. It is falling to the jihadists and to the caliphate every single time. So, I’m Benjamin Netanyahu, is the American administration an enemy of mine?

Buck: The American administration is not an enemy, but they can’t count on—

Glenn: Show me why they’re not. Show me the time that they have said “Buddy…”

Buck: I think the administration is apathetic, and you could say that apathy in the face of rising threats all around Israel, which are clear and obvious, I don’t think anybody would disagree on what’s happening in Syria and the prospect for what will happen, by the way, probably soon in Egypt and what’s happening in Iraq, that it’s a dangerous neighborhood that’s getting more dangerous.

Glenn: And you’re making it, as the administration, you’re making it more dangerous.

Buck: I have to say I’ve always had a tough time, because there is a healthy dose of incompetence at the upper reaches. Look at the people that are making a fair amount of the administration’s decisions.

Glenn: I believe they’re all like 14 years old, I know.

Buck: I mean, there’s a healthy amount of incompetence too, and I don’t want to make it seem like they all have these Machiavellian schemes that are playing at every step of the way.

Glenn: Some do.

Buck: The president does play a lot of golf. I mean, some of these things are true.

Glenn: But they also have people like Samantha Power, who knows exactly what she is doing. She’s well thought out.

Buck: She’s well thought out. I think it’s interesting that her whole ideology of responsibility to protect, somehow that’s I don’t really know who we’re protecting, but this is what she came into office, or came into her position rather, espousing. The Israelis have, and under Netanyahu I think there’s a recognition that they’ll take care of themselves, or they have to. They will have to if things get really ugly, and I think at least right now they would agree that they can, but that could change.

Demographically speaking, Israel is very small, and the Arab world is very large, and we’ve seen United Arab armies in the recent past trying to eliminate the state of Israel. The moment you throw a nuclear Iran into the mix, I think things change pretty dramatically. That’s what the Israelis believe.

URGENT: FIVE steps to CONTROL AI before it's too late!

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By now, many of us are familiar with AI and its potential benefits and threats. However, unless you're a tech tycoon, it can feel like you have little influence over the future of artificial intelligence.

For years, Glenn has warned about the dangers of rapidly developing AI technologies that have taken the world by storm.

He acknowledges their significant benefits but emphasizes the need to establish proper boundaries and ethics now, while we still have control. But since most people aren’t Silicon Valley tech leaders making the decisions, how can they help keep AI in check?

Recently, Glenn interviewed Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist deeply concerned about the potential harm of unchecked AI, to discuss its societal implications. Harris highlighted a concerning new piece of legislation proposed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz. This legislation proposes a state-level moratorium on AI regulation, meaning only the federal government could regulate AI. Harris noted that there’s currently no Federal plan for regulating AI. Until the federal government establishes a plan, tech companies would have nearly free rein with their AI. And we all know how slowly the federal government moves.

This is where you come in. Tristan Harris shared with Glenn the top five actions you should urge your representatives to take regarding AI, including opposing the moratorium until a concrete plan is in place. Now is your chance to influence the future of AI. Contact your senator and congressman today and share these five crucial steps they must take to keep AI in check:

Ban engagement-optimized AI companions for kids

Create legislation that will prevent AI from being designed to maximize addiction, sexualization, flattery, and attachment disorders, and to protect young people’s mental health and ability to form real-life friendships.

Establish basic liability laws

Companies need to be held accountable when their products cause real-world harm.

Pass increased whistleblower protections

Protect concerned technologists working inside the AI labs from facing untenable pressures and threats that prevent them from warning the public when the AI rollout is unsafe or crosses dangerous red lines.

Prevent AI from having legal rights

Enact laws so AIs don’t have protected speech or have their own bank accounts, making sure our legal system works for human interests over AI interests.

Oppose the state moratorium on AI 

Call your congressman or Senator Cruz’s office, and demand they oppose the state moratorium on AI without a plan for how we will set guardrails for this technology.

Glenn: Only Trump dared to deliver on decades of empty promises

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The Islamic regime has been killing Americans since 1979. Now Trump’s response proves we’re no longer playing defense — we’re finally hitting back.

The United States has taken direct military action against Iran’s nuclear program. Whatever you think of the strike, it’s over. It’s happened. And now, we have to predict what happens next. I want to help you understand the gravity of this situation: what happened, what it means, and what might come next. To that end, we need to begin with a little history.

Since 1979, Iran has been at war with us — even if we refused to call it that.

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell.

It began with the hostage crisis, when 66 Americans were seized and 52 were held for over a year by the radical Islamic regime. Four years later, 17 more Americans were murdered in the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, followed by 241 Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing.

Then came the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, which killed 19 more U.S. airmen. Iran had its fingerprints all over it.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Iranian-backed proxies killed hundreds of American soldiers. From 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and 2003 to 2011 in Iraq, Iran supplied IEDs and tactical support.

The Iranians have plotted assassinations and kidnappings on U.S. soil — in 2011, 2021, and again in 2024 — and yet we’ve never really responded.

The precedent for U.S. retaliation has always been present, but no president has chosen to pull the trigger until this past weekend. President Donald Trump struck decisively. And what our military pulled off this weekend was nothing short of extraordinary.

Operation Midnight Hammer

The strike was reportedly called Operation Midnight Hammer. It involved as many as 175 U.S. aircraft, including 12 B-2 stealth bombers — out of just 19 in our entire arsenal. Those bombers are among the most complex machines in the world, and they were kept mission-ready by some of the finest mechanics on the planet.

USAF / Handout | Getty Images

To throw off Iranian radar and intelligence, some bombers flew west toward Guam — classic misdirection. The rest flew east, toward the real targets.

As the B-2s approached Iranian airspace, U.S. submarines launched dozens of Tomahawk missiles at Iran’s fortified nuclear facilities. Minutes later, the bombers dropped 14 MOPs — massive ordnance penetrators — each designed to drill deep into the earth and destroy underground bunkers. These bombs are the size of an F-16 and cost millions of dollars apiece. They are so accurate, I’ve been told they can hit the top of a soda can from 15,000 feet.

They were built for this mission — and we’ve been rehearsing this run for 15 years.

If the satellite imagery is accurate — and if what my sources tell me is true — the targeted nuclear sites were utterly destroyed. We’ll likely rely on the Israelis to confirm that on the ground.

This was a master class in strategy, execution, and deterrence. And it proved that only the United States could carry out a strike like this. I am very proud of our military, what we are capable of doing, and what we can accomplish.

What comes next

We don’t yet know how Iran will respond, but many of the possibilities are troubling. The Iranians could target U.S. forces across the Middle East. On Monday, Tehran launched 20 missiles at U.S. bases in Qatar, Syria, and Kuwait, to no effect. God forbid, they could also unleash Hezbollah or other terrorist proxies to strike here at home — and they just might.

Iran has also threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil flows. On Sunday, Iran’s parliament voted to begin the process. If the Supreme Council and the ayatollah give the go-ahead, we could see oil prices spike to $150 or even $200 a barrel.

That would be catastrophic.

The 2008 financial collapse was pushed over the edge when oil hit $130. Western economies — including ours — simply cannot sustain oil above $120 for long. If this conflict escalates and the Strait is closed, the global economy could unravel.

The strike also raises questions about regime stability. Will it spark an uprising, or will the Islamic regime respond with a brutal crackdown on dissidents?

Early signs aren’t hopeful. Reports suggest hundreds of arrests over the weekend and at least one dissident executed on charges of spying for Israel. The regime’s infamous morality police, the Gasht-e Ershad, are back on the streets. Every phone, every vehicle — monitored. The U.S. embassy in Qatar issued a shelter-in-place warning for Americans.

Russia and China both condemned the strike. On Monday, a senior Iranian official flew to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin. That meeting should alarm anyone paying attention. Their alliance continues to deepen — and that’s a serious concern.

Now we pray

We are either on the verge of a remarkable strategic victory or a devastating global escalation. Time will tell. But either way, President Trump didn’t start this. He inherited it — and he took decisive action.

The difference is, he did what they all said they would do. He didn’t send pallets of cash in the dead of night. He didn’t sign another failed treaty.

He acted. Now, we pray. For peace, for wisdom, and for the strength to meet whatever comes next.


This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Globalize the Intifada? Why Mamdani’s plan spells DOOM for America

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If New Yorkers hand City Hall to Zohran Mamdani, they’re not voting for change. They’re opening the door to an alliance of socialism, Islamism, and chaos.

It only took 25 years for New York City to go from the resilient, flag-waving pride following the 9/11 attacks to a political fever dream. To quote Michael Malice, “I'm old enough to remember when New Yorkers endured 9/11 instead of voting for it.”

Malice is talking about Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens now eyeing the mayor’s office. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state representative emerging from relative political obscurity, is now receiving substantial funding for his mayoral campaign from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR has a long and concerning history, including being born out of the Muslim Brotherhood and named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding case. Why would the group have dropped $100,000 into a PAC backing Mamdani’s campaign?

Mamdani blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone.

Perhaps CAIR has a vested interest in Mamdani’s call to “globalize the intifada.” That’s not a call for peaceful protest. Intifada refers to historic uprisings of Muslims against what they call the “Israeli occupation of Palestine.” Suicide bombings and street violence are part of the playbook. So when Mamdani says he wants to “globalize” that, who exactly is the enemy in this global scenario? Because it sure sounds like he's saying America is the new Israel, and anyone who supports Western democracy is the new Zionist.

Mamdani tried to clean up his language by citing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which once used “intifada” in an Arabic-language article to describe the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So now he’s comparing Palestinians to Jewish victims of the Nazis? If that doesn’t twist your stomach into knots, you’re not paying attention.

If you’re “globalizing” an intifada, and positioning Israel — and now America — as the Nazis, that’s not a cry for human rights. That’s a call for chaos and violence.

Rising Islamism

But hey, this is New York. Faculty members at Columbia University — where Mamdani’s own father once worked — signed a letter defending students who supported Hamas after October 7. They also contributed to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. And his father? He blamed Ronald Reagan and the religious right for inspiring Islamic terrorism, as if the roots of 9/11 grew in Washington, not the caves of Tora Bora.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

This isn’t about Islam as a faith. We should distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Islam is a religion followed peacefully by millions. Islamism is something entirely different — an ideology that seeks to merge mosque and state, impose Sharia law, and destroy secular liberal democracies from within. Islamism isn’t about prayer and fasting. It’s about power.

Criticizing Islamism is not Islamophobia. It is not an attack on peaceful Muslims. In fact, Muslims are often its first victims.

Islamism is misogynistic, theocratic, violent, and supremacist. It’s hostile to free speech, religious pluralism, gay rights, secularism — even to moderate Muslims. Yet somehow, the progressive left — the same left that claims to fight for feminism, LGBTQ rights, and free expression — finds itself defending candidates like Mamdani. You can’t make this stuff up.

Blending the worst ideologies

And if that weren’t enough, Mamdani also identifies as a Democratic Socialist. He blends political Islam with Marxist economics — two ideologies that have left tens of millions dead in the 20th century alone. But don’t worry, New York. I’m sure this time socialism will totally work. Just like it always didn’t.

If you’re a business owner, a parent, a person who’s saved anything, or just someone who values sanity: Get out. I’m serious. If Mamdani becomes mayor, as seems likely, then New York City will become a case study in what happens when you marry ideological extremism with political power. And it won’t be pretty.

This is about more than one mayoral race. It’s about the future of Western liberalism. It’s about drawing a bright line between faith and fanaticism, between healthy pluralism and authoritarian dogma.

Call out radicalism

We must call out political Islam the same way we call out white nationalism or any other supremacist ideology. When someone chants “globalize the intifada,” that should send a chill down your spine — whether you’re Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or anything in between.

The left may try to shame you into silence with words like “Islamophobia,” but the record is worn out. The grooves are shallow. The American people see what’s happening. And we’re not buying it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Could China OWN our National Parks?

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The left’s idea of stewardship involves bulldozing bison and barring access. Lee’s vision puts conservation back in the hands of the people.

The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.

Here’s what’s really happening.

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized.

The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.

Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.

Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.

Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.

Failed management

Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.

Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.

So what do they do when the herd gets too big?

They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.

And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?

Biden’s federal land-grab

Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.

The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.

That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.

You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.

Land as collateral

Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.

What happens if America defaults on its debt?

David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images

Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.

This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.

The American way

There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.

Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.

Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?

Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.

This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.

So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.

Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.