RADIOJune 20, 2025

Is there a sinister GOP plan to SELL national parks?

Is Sen. Mike Lee pushing a sinister plan to sell our national parks and build “affordable housing” on them? Glenn Beck fact checks this claim and explains why Sen. Lee’s plan to sell 3 million acres of federal land is actually pro-freedom.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Now, let me give you a couple of things, from people I generally respect.

Chris Rufo, I really respect.

I'm totally against selling this land.

Nobody is going to build affordable housing deep in the Olympic Peninsula, which is one of the most beautiful places in the country.

I agree, it's in Washington State. It's on the coast. And it's a rain forest.

I want my kids hiking, fishing, and camping on those lands, not selling them off for some tax credit scam. This is a question I want to ask Mike Lee about.

That's really good. Matt Walsh chimes in, I'm very opposed to the plan. The biggest environmentalist in the country are and always have been, conservatives who like to hunt and fish.

We don't just call ourselves environmentalists, because the label has too much baggage.

And the practice always just means communist. Really, we are naturalists in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt, and that's why most of us hate the idea of selling off federal lands to build affordable housing or whatever. I want to get to affordable housing here in a second.

Preserving nature is important. It's a shame we haven't -- that we've allowed conservation to become so left-wing coated. It never was historically.

No, and it still isn't.

You're right about one thing, Matt. We are the best conservatives. We actually live in these places. We use these places. We respect the animals. We respect the land. We know how the circle of life works. So I agree with you on that.

But affordable housing. Why do you say affordable housing or whatever?

Are you afraid those will be black people? I'm just playing devil's advocate? Are you just afraid of black people? You don't want any poor people in your neighborhood or your forest?

That's not what they mean by affordable housing.

And I know that's not what you mean either.

But what -- what we mean by affordable housing is, if you take a look at the percentage of land that is owned in some of these states. You can't live in a house, in some of these states, you know. Close to anything, for, you know, less than a million dollars. Because there's no land!

There's plenty of land all around.

Some of it. Let's just talk about Utah.

Some of it is like the surface of the moon!

But no. No. No.

Not going to hunt and fish on the surface of the moon. But we can't have you live anywhere.

I mean, you have to open up -- there is a balance between people and the planet. And I'm sorry. But when you're talked about one half of 1 percent, and we're not talking about Yellowstone.

You know, we're not. Benji Backer, the Daily Caller, he says, the United States is attempting to sell off three million acres of public land, that will be used for housing development through the addition of the spending bill.

This is a small provision to the big, beautiful bill that would put land in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado. Idaho. New Mexico. Oregon. Utah. Washington, and Wyoming at risk.

Without so much as a full and fair debate by members of both sides of the political aisle.

You know, I talked -- I'll talk to him about this.

The irony is, the edition of this provision by Republican-led Senate goes entirely against conservation legacy of a conservation. President Trump made a promise to revive this legacy.

Yada. Yada. Yada.

More about Teddy Roosevelt.

Then let me give you this one from Lomez. Is Mike Lee part of a sinister plan to sell off federal land?

This plan to sell off public lands is a terrible proposal that doesn't make any sense under our present circumstances and would be a colossal political blunder. But I'll try to be fair to base Mike Lee.

And at least have him explain where this is all coming from.

Okay. I will have him do that in about 30 minutes.

Let me give you just my perspective on this.

I'm from the West. I love the west.

I don't hike myself.

I think there's about 80 percent of the people who say, I just love to hike. And they don't love to hike. They never go outside.

I'm at least willing to admit. I don't like to hike. But I love the land. I live in a canyon now. That I would love to just preserve this whole canyon in my lifetime. I'm not going to rule from the grave. But in my lifetime, to protect this, so it remains unspoiled. Because it is beautiful!

But we're talking about selling 3 million acres of federal land. And it's becoming dangerous.

And it's a giveaway. Or a threat to nature.

But can we just look at the perspective here?

The federal government owned 640 million acres. That is nearly 28 percent of all land in America!

How much land do we have?

Well, that's about the size of France.

And Germany. Poland.

And the United Kingdom, combined!

They own and hold pristine land, that is more than the size of those countries combined!

And most of that is west of the Mississippi. Where the federal control smothers the states.

Okay?

Shuts down opportunity. Turns local citizens into tenets of the federal estate.

You can't afford any house because you don't have any land!

And, you know, the states can't afford to take care of this land. You know why the states can't afford it?

Because you can't charge taxes on 70 percent of your land!

Anyway, on, meanwhile, the folks east of the Mississippi, like Kentucky, Georgia. Pennsylvania.

You don't even realize, you know, how little of the land, you actually control.

Or how easy it is for the same policies, to come for you.

And those policies are real.

Look, I'm not talking about -- I'm disturbed by Chris Rufo saying, that it is the Olympic forest.

I mean, you're not going to live in the rain forest. I would like to hear the case on that.

But we're not talking about selling Yellowstone or paving over Yosemite or anything like that.

We're talking about less than one half of one percent of federal land. Land that is remote.
Hard to access. Or mismanaged. I live in the middle of a national forest.

So I'm surrounded on all sides by a national forest, and then BLM land around that. And then me. You know who the worst neighbor I have is?

The federal government.

The BLM land is so badly mismanaged. They don't care what's happening.

Yeah. I'm going to call my neighbor, in Washington, DC, to have them fix something.

It's not going to happen.

If something is wrong with that land, me and my neighbors, we end up, you know, fixing the land.

We end up doing it. Because the federal government sucks at it.

Okay.

So here's one -- less than one half of 1 percent.

Why is it hard to access that land?

Well, let me give you a story. Yellowstone.

Do you know that the American bison, we call it the buffalo.

But it's the American bison.

There are no true American bison, in any place, other than Yellowstone.

Did you know that?

Here's almost an endangered species.

It's the only true American bison, is in Yellowstone.

Ranchers, I would love to raise real American bison.

And I would protect them.

I would love to have them roaming on my land.

But you can't!

You can't.

Real bison, you can't.

Why? Because the federal government won't allow any of them to be bred.

In fact, when Yellowstone has too many bison on their land, you know what the federal government does?

Kills them. And buries them with a bulldozer. Instead of saying, hey. We have too many.

We will thin the herd.

We will put them on a truck. Here's some ranchers that will help repopulate the United States with bison. No, no, no. You can't do that.

Why? It's the federal government. Stop asking questions. Do you know what they've done to our bald eagles.

I have pictures of piles of bald eagles.

That they'll never show you.

They'll never show you.

You can't have a bald eagle feather!

It's against the law, to have a feather, from a bald eagle!

If it's flying, and a feather falls off, you can't pick it up. Because they're that sacred.

But I have pictures of piles of bald eagles, dead, from the windmills.

And nobody says a thing.

Okay.

But we're talking about lands.

States can't afford to manage it.

Okay. But how can the federal government?

Now, this is really important.

The federal government is, what? $30 trillion in debt or are we 45 trillion now, I'm not sure?

Our entitlement programs, all straight infrastructure, crumbling.

And yet, we're still clinging to millions of acres of land, that the federal government can't maintain. Yeah, they can.

Because they can always print money.

We can't print money in the state, so we can't afford it.

Hear me out. The BLM Forest Service, Park Service, billions of dollars behind in maintenance, roads, trails, fire brakes.

Everything is falling apart..

So what's the real plan here?

Well, the Biden administration was the first one that was really open about it, pushing for what was called 30 by 30.

They want 30 percent of all US land and water, under conservation by 2030.

But the real goal is 5050.

50 percent of the land, and the water, in the government's control by 2050.

Half of the country locked up under federal or elite approved protection.

Now, you think that's not going to affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze, cattle. Harvest, timber, just live free. You won't be able to go on those. It won't be conservatives, who stop you from hunting and fishing.

It will be the same radical environmental ideologues, who see the land, as sacred, over people!

I mean, unless it's in your backyard. Your truck. Or your dear stand, you know, then I guess you can't touch that land.

Here's something that no one is talking about, and it goes to the 2030.

The Treasury right now, and they started under Obama, and they're still doing it now.

Sorry, under Biden.

And they're doing it now. The Treasury is talking about putting federal land on the national ballot sheet. What does that mean?

Well, it will make our balance sheet so much better.

Because it looks like we have so much more wealth, and we will be able to print more money.

Uh-huh. What happens, you know. You put something sacred like that, on your balance sheet, and the piggy bank runs dry.

And all of the banks are like, okay.

Well, you can't pay anymore.

What happens in a default?

What happens, if there's catastrophic failure. You don't get to go fish on that land. Because that land becomes Chinese.

You think our creditors, foreign and domestic, won't come knocking?

What happens when federal land is no longer a national treasure, but a financial asset, that can be seized or sold or controlled by giant banks or foreign countries.

That land that you thought, you would always have access to, for your kids, for your hunting lodge, for your way of life.

That is really important!

But it might not be yours at all. Because you had full faith in the credit of the United States of America.

So what is the alternative?

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Redefining Autism: Is it a DEEPER form of human intelligence?

Autism is often described as a disorder, but what if it’s something more? Glenn Beck and Dr. Diane Hennacy explore the extraordinary cognitive abilities of autistic individuals, from pattern recognition and visual thinking to savant-level intuition. They discuss how autistic minds may represent a different kind of human intelligence which is faster, more perceptive, and less dependent on language. Could autism be an evolutionary adaptation, revealing a deeper form of awareness we’ve lost?

Watch Glenn Beck's FULL Interview with Dr. Diane Hennacy HERE

The REAL culprits behind America's economic divide

America’s economy isn’t broken by capitalism... it’s broken by control. Glenn Beck and Carol Roth dive deep into how government intervention, corporate monopolies, and central bank policies have created a rigged “K-shaped” economy that rewards the rich while trapping the working class in debt and despair. From housing shortages and student loans to the rise of socialism and global governance, they reveal why Americans are losing faith in the system and what must change to reclaim the American Dream.

Dr. Oz EXPOSES the $15 Billion Medicare SCAM Behind the Gov't Shutdown

Glenn Beck sits down with Dr. Mehmet Oz to reveal the shocking truth behind the government shutdown and how billions of taxpayer dollars are being STOLEN through Medicare and Medicaid fraud. From California’s healthcare funding for illegals, to foreign governments like Russia, China, and Cuba exploiting America’s medical system, this discussion exposes the corruption draining our nation’s resources. Was this the real reason for the government shutdown?

The DISTURBING truth about the END of the government shutdown

Enough Democrats have finally decided to end the government shutdown. But as we await a final vote, Glenn warns that the battle is far from over. The shutdown had a MAJOR effect on our nation: it softened people up even more to socialism.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

STU: Thank God, we are out of this shutdown potentially.

That's the thing today.

GLENN: Yeah. Are we? Are we though?

Are we?

STU: Yeah. The Democrats stepped up. Or folded, depending on who you are talking to. And solved this for us.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

It is -- it's so clear now that all they did was they held this for the election, to try to win the election. And now they're ready to -- to fold. And we are seeing people with real, real problems all around the country.

Socialism is becoming popular because the -- quite honestly, the -- the right is not -- is not answering the question, what do we do from here?

We are in what's called a K shaped economy right now.

And that's what happens after a crisis. When the different groups, head to different opposite directions and locations.

If you think about a K, you think the upper line goes up. And the lower line, that's the -- the up are the people with assets and homes and stable jobs.

And they'll do well.

But the lower -- the lower line goes down.

And that's the people living paycheck to paycheck.

The renters. The small businesses. The wage earners. That all fall behind.

And right now, you're seeing on television, you're seeing, oh, my gosh. Look at, the stock market is up. All of these things are up. Well, that's great. Some rise. Some sink. But the gap is widening here. The K at the very beginning where the two lines meet is very, very close to each other.

But as they keep going, those lines becomes further and further apart. And there is a moment in -- you know -- there's a moment -- how can I explain this?

Remember the old country fairs? You probably never went to one. But maybe you saw it on TV. Where there's a strong man contest. And there's that thing where, you know, you hit the -- you hit the thing with the hammer, and the bell goes up. And it goes bing!

That's what's happening right now. There's a strong man contest going on right now, and everybody leans in to see, oh, will this guy be able to ring the bell? And he takes the big hammer, and he swings it, and the puck goes up, and it rings the bell. Some swing just as hard, and the puck barely budges, okay? Same hammer, same pole, different outcomes. That's a K-shaped economy.

And we live in a moment where the puck is going up for those who already own a house and have investments or run businesses that survived the storm. And, you know, they -- they swing the hammer.
And the bell goes up and rings the bell. But the family down the street, the young couple that is trying to buy their first house. The small shop owner that never reopened. They're swinging just as hard. Just, the puck is barely going up as hard. And the system says, "Try again, step right up. Try again."

And then hands a smaller hammer. A K-shaped economy is not philosophy.

It's not a political slogan. It's what happens when a government prints money like confetti. And then watches inflation climb a ladder that is missing rungs. And then tells you, don't worry. The economy is booming. I'm sorry. The economy is not booming for a lot of Americans.

And there are big changes being made right now of the global level. And I like the changes that are being made at the global level. But we are -- we are forgetting there are too many people that are really hurting right now.

You know, we are going to continue to work and continue to spin our wheels on socialism. Until there is a new idea on how we're going to get out of this problem.

And Donald Trump is working on a long-term solution. But I -- I fear that's not going to be enough.

I heard a crazy idea today about a 50-year mortgage. Oh!

Wow!

So the average person is in their house for 12 years.

And I've got a 30-year mortgage. Which means, I'm not really putting very much into it. Because the bank is taking all of the interest rates for the first, you know, ten years, at least. They're taking all the interest first. And then I don't really start paying my house off until the last 15 years of that mortgage. But now, instead of a 30-year, you want me to do it for 50 years!

Oh! Okay. Okay.

Well, what -- what is that going to do. Well, first of all, it's going to raise the price of the house.

You know, if everybody starts -- I get a 50-year mortgage, so I can afford the house. We have a shortage of houses.

So the house payments. Sorry, the house prices are going to go up because we have a lack of housing. And then on top of it, you're going to double the payment anyway.

Because you're paying all that extra interest. I mean, you're just charging more and stretching it out. It's like, solving hunger by not giving food. But just giving longer straws to people.

Okay. Wait. What?

You'll pay double to the same house. It means double the interest rates. And while your roof has to be repaired, the -- the brand-new wiring that you had when you bought the house, all needs to be redone. The appliances have to be replaced. Everything. The bathroom is completely out of date.

All has to be replaced again. You're still paying on that house.

It's like buying, not one house, but two houses. And it's not freedom.

It is trapping you. And, you know, what really bothers me is, it is home ownership. No. I'm sorry.

It's renting, disguised as home ownership.

That's what that is. You're not going to build equity into a house like that. You won't own your home until you're in your '80s. And if you bought it later in your life, your children will inherit the payments that you have. It masks the problem that we really have. Is home prices. Because we don't have enough homes.

We also have these giant corporations that are buying up homes, en masse!

And then renting them to us!

And we also have prices for the home that is broken from the wage -- a 50-year mortgage is like giving someone a longer plank on a sinking ship.

I'm going to end up in the water anyway.

I guess that's helpful in a strange sort of way.

What we don't understand is these are the conditions in which socialism thrives.

If we keep just trying to say, socialism is wrong! We're not going to help anyone.

There's two things that have to happen.

We, A, have to come up with new solutions for these very old problems.

And the new solutions cannot involve printing more money. Bailing the banks out.

Giving the banks more interest. Or anything like that.

Because socialism is coming with a vengeance. And, boy, I've got to tell you, it is going to have all kinds of answers, because it always does. In January, I will start something new, called the Torch, and it exists really, for one reason. We're running out of time to relearn what our grandparents knew by heart. Okay? The lies that we face today are not new.

They're old ghosts wearing just modern clothes. And starting January, I'm dedicating the next part of my life.

The last part of my career, to education on history and -- and usable things going deep. You know, the thing about broadcast is, you go very wide and very shallow. I need to go narrow and deep at times.

We will still be doing what I do here. Which is bringing you all the news and trying to make sense of it.

But I need to go deep on things. And socialism is one of them.

So we are working right now on new programs and new podcasts, and new -- a new daily rhythm of learning that I've never done before. And some of these shows are just going to be you and me, every single day, just walking through history with a flash light in one hand and the truth in the other, trying to figure out what's going on. But one of the lessons that I think we need in this is a series on socialism, on why it never works, how it happens.
And how the lies always begin exactly the same. This is the kind of work that the Torch is being built for. So let me give you -- let me give you a highlight of one lesson.

On how -- whenever a society gets into this situation, history will show us, a poisoned promise begins. And I'll give that to you, here in just a second.

GLENN: Okay. So let me give you -- with a K-shaped -- a K-shaped economy, the socialists always arrive making all kinds of poison promises, and there is a pattern. And it is so ancient, it can be Scripture. Also, modern enough to sit on the news crawl, as you're watching whatever news you're watching.

Every socialist experiment starts with the same smooth tongue promise: We are going to make life fair.

Unfortunately, for socialists, you know, history keeps impeccable books. The receipts are really, really damning. Fortunately for socialists, nobody ever reads history.

So let's take a quick stop at history for a second. Hugo Chavez is probably the latest. When Chavez took power in Venezuela, it was 19.95. He told the nation, which was boom. It was lake America 2000, okay?

He said -- he's building a new -- a new revolution that would create a classless society. Where oil wealth would lift the poorest into dignity.

Okay?

He had the richest country, besides I think the United States of America, in the western hemisphere.

He said, it wasn't enough!

We need no more hunger.

No more shantytowns. And the state will guarantee your rights. And we're going to distribute the wealth of the rich to the people.

And everybody cheered. And everybody was so very excited. And for a short moment, the fantasy glowed. Because it always the blows for just a fraction of the second.

He nationalized the oil industry. Then he said, poverty he would end by decree.

Well, he ended something by decree.

By 2014, the shelves were completely empty in the stores. By 2016, the average Venezuelan was losing over 20 pounds a year, due to food shortages.

Let me just remind you, that by 2016, they were eating the dogs and the cats in the streets.
Not making that up. Look it up yourself. And the zoo animals in the cages of the zoo were also being cooked up for people on the streets to eat!

Hospitals lost their power. Children died from treatable diseases.

Millions fled the country. And today, Venezuela sits on the largest proven oil reserves in the world!

And yet, people are standing in line for bread while the daughters of the socialists post photos of European vacations. What's happening to the revolution there?

It ended with a ruling class gorging on privilege and the nation digging through dumpsters for meals. That's the way it always happens. It's not an outlier. It's a rule.

Look at Cuba, 1959, Fidel Castro. I'm quoting, the revolution will bring justice, equality, education, and health care for all!

Freedom from American exploitation. Che declared that Cuba would become an example of a new humanity!

Well, what followed?

Well, first thing they did, was they shut down the independent newspapers. They were shut down by 1960. Then they imprisoned people in labor camps for being counterrevolutionary, including priests, teachers, and homosexuals.

Yeah, that Che. Then food rationing began in 1962. By the way, food rationing in Cuba has never ended!

Today, the average salary in Cuba is $15 a month!

Now, the same communist party that claimed to abolish class, created the most immovable ruling class in the Caribbean, and yet the billboard still shows smiling peasants and slogans about equality, while the sons of party officials are driving imported cars through Havana's rotting streets. And everybody else has to fix a car from the 1950s. Remember, the promise was fairness, but result was an island-sized cage.

All right. It was just those two! Now, let's look at Germany. The Nazis were -- national socialists. Hitler didn't sell Naziism as tyranny. He sold it as social justice for the German worker. The Nazi platform, 1920, promised abolition of unearned incomes. Profit-sharing in large industries. Nationalization of trust. Land reform because there just wasn't enough space for people to own their own houses. All in the interest of the common good. It was marketed as a worker's movement. A worker's -- a socialist worker's movement, and it was going to correct all the inequality, punish the greedy capitalists, and restore fairness. So what happened? Well, first the disabled had to go, and the sick children. Because we can't afford to keep them going. And the political dissenters, they were just stopping us from all this progress. Oh, and the Jews, of course and the Slavs.

And the Pols. I mean, anyone who didn't fit the utopian math, they were gone. The promise of fairness became the most industrialized murder machine the world has ever seen. But don't worry. We can also go to the Soviet Union. The grand cathedral of socialist dreams.

Here's what Lenin promised: We'll bring about the complete equality of all citizens, end quote!

The state, quoting, will whither away! Oh, yeah.

The workers will own the factories. The peasants will own the land. Okay. So they got power. And what happened?

Well, none of that. Under Stalin, over 100,000 priests were executed or sent to camps. Why?

Why do they keep going after the religious people? Because the religious people are the only ones that will stand against monsters, that's why.

Millions of Ukrainian peasants were starved under the Holodomor for refusing the collectivization. Read that story. It's horrific. The workers paradise required one of the largest secret police stories in human history. Why?

Soviet Union became a nation where you waited hours to buy bread. Party members, however, if you were in the party, and you were high up.

Oh, you could get anything you wanted. You had luxury stores that were built just for you.

By the 1980s, the system was so hollow, that the most basic consumer goods. Soap. Shoes. Toilet paper, they were rationed or unavailable. And, by the way, the state never withered away. It metastasized into every corner of life. It became everything.

This story of socialism is written in blood, in ledger books, all over the world.

And it always starts with the promise of equity or equality. And it always leads to the rise of an elite who decides what equality means. And every time it fails, they say, well, that was just put in the hands of the wrong people.

No, the key word here is not wrong. It's people. People.

The workers never get the factories. The peasants never receive the land. The poor never get any of the wealth.

And it's this story over and over and over and over again.

Socialism begins with a promise. But always ends with a ruling class, armed with absolute power!

Only the names change.

Did you know that -- did you know in Jamestown, in 1619, you know, that boat that the New York Times said arrived. Didn't arrive with slaves.

It arrived with socialism. It ended in cannibalism. Did you know that the pilgrims tried the same thing?

They decided, you know what, we should put everybody's money into a big pile. You take whatever you be need.

That's the Christian thing to do!

You know what that ended with?

Starvation and death.

By the way, the big reunion tower, the big ball you see in the sky.

That's to mark reunion.

That's the first sociologist town in 1855 in Dallas. Guess how that ended! Starvation!