Are We At WAR With China?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Agriculture is just one component of that. We are at war with China. They know it, but we're too. Well, that's xenophobic, Steve. No, it's point of fact. It's not xenophobic. It's point of fact. It's an interesting thing that you point out there because of the population, you know, this whole climate change thing, another scam paid for by China. Right. This Green New Deal stuff is funded in large part by China. And Russia did some, but China's got the checkbook now. They're funding all this propaganda, your kids, by way of TikTok and so forth. And we use less energy to produce more food per acre than at any time in human history, unless the Chinese screw it up for us, which is possible because they're trying to do that. They know that if you want to control people, you control the food supply. Pretty simple. They know that we're not the same people we were in 1951, for example, were top then. We just came out of World War II. [00:00:59] Speaker B: Good morning, Steve. I'm Rich and this is Shelly. I spent two years in the bowels of the Pentagon. I have a master's degree in military strategy, and I spent two years in one of the Air Force's leading strategy cell. And we were obviously covering all kinds of threats and mitigations for different threats. And never in my conversation, in the. In the premier strategy cell was any discussion about a fungus. And Chinese nationals, can you talk to us about what happened recently in Michigan? [00:01:40] Speaker A: Sure. Well, I mean, let's be. Let's be honest about this. I'm going to be straightforward about this, and thanks for having me, Rich, Shelly, nice to see you guys. They really appreciate the invitation to be here. So my entire life, long before it was on anybody else's radar, and I can't tell you why, except that I looked at China when I was in middle school in the 1970s and said, that's the biggest threat we face. And the reason was pretty clear. There are more Chinese on the planet than anybody else. And human nature being what it is, power, control, money, it all leads back to the same thing, which is China trying to control other people and other groups of people. So I've always felt that the Chinese were the most dangerous element on the planet. And because they were a communist nation, that hasn't changed. You've got about 60 to 100 million Communist Party members, which really is remarkable. It's only about 6 to 10% of their entire population, depending on who does the numbers. But they reach everywhere. Their silk and road initiative reaches everywhere. So just recently, you asked me about this. I'll lay the backstory for this particular concern. And it's a major concern. If you want to control people, you control the food supply. Pretty simple. Hungry people are angry people, but they're also fairly compliant. You've seen this a million times on television, where they roll up after an earthquake, or they roll up and, you know, pick your country, be it Haiti or somewhere in Africa, and they roll for the food truck, and all the people converge on the food truck. You know, you see this pretty regularly. So here recently, two things have happened. One, three different Chinese nationals, which means citizens, were arrested trying to come into the United States with biological agents. One of those being a fungus. A fungus that is present in America already in corn and wheat and elsewhere. But if it were changed just a little bit, the fungicides we have wouldn't control it. And the farmers that I spoke to about this specifically said if a fungus of this nature were able to become more virulent, more powerful, it could wipe out half of the United States grain production. Half. And now think about that. It's pretty remarkable. And this comes after. And these are all University of Michigan students. Just about a year, year and a half ago, five other University of Michigan students were arrested at a place called Camp Grayling. Camp Grayling is the largest military camp in America. I believe it's certainly the largest place for training. Every summer since I was a kid, you'd see the National Guard units streaming up i75, headed north to Camp Grayling for training. And so there was a Taiwanese Chinese military exercise going on. And these five students, and I'll use that term loosely, showed up in Grayling, Michigan, taking pictures, pretending to be journalists. But they're taking pictures of all the Taiwanese and American military preparations and exercises. [00:04:27] Speaker B: It. [00:04:28] Speaker A: It's a very dangerous thing. So the focus of what we're talking about here today, though, has to be agriculture. We've seen China reach into different places and affect agriculture. I've seen this all over the world. I've seen them involved in places like South Africa, Namibia, Argentina, and elsewhere that I've traveled. China has its fingers into everything, and China has its fingers into American agriculture deeply. Most people don't even realize how much involvement the Chinese have in American agriculture. You hear about the 400,000 acres of farmland they own, right? And some states are saying no to that. South Dakota, Kristi Noeman, she was still governor before she moved to Secretary of Homeland Security, banned Chinese ownership of land in South Dakota. Other States following in that blueprint because it's important. Because if, for example, Chinese students come in here and their allegiances to the Chinese Communist Party and they bring in some pathogen or whether it's a fungus or anything else that can do damage to the American food supply, they don't have to go to your farm, guys, because they have their own farm to go to. And as you guys know, I know you haven't been in farming long, but you're obviously smart enough to know that a lot of these things get up into the. Into the jet stream. So if a. If a contaminant of some sort gets up in the jet stream, well, now it's not your farm. It's a farm five miles down the road and 50 miles after that, and then on infinitum as it spreads and destroys the crops. This is a very dangerous situation. The Chinese are deeply involved with this. The Chinese are also involved here's. And I'll get to all of this today. You can ask me anything you want today. You said you raise livestock, right? [00:06:04] Speaker C: Right. [00:06:05] Speaker B: Yes. [00:06:05] Speaker A: Do you have any hogs on your farm? [00:06:06] Speaker B: We certainly do. [00:06:07] Speaker A: Right. Well, in America today, I got to find this number here. The number of hogs living in the country today is just shy of 80 million pigs that are ready for production. It's just shy of 80 million of those. China owns at least 25%, maybe more. So China owns somewhere between 20 and 25 million hogs living in America today because they own Smithfield, which is the. One of the major meat packing companies in America. I think they bought it about 2/3 2013, 2014. So you just start to assemble all these pieces together. Okay? They own this farmland. They own the meat packing. They also own Syngenta. Excuse me. Which is one of the major seed companies. So if they're manipulating these things in any way. For example, if you brought in a fungus that was damaging to a US crops, but you had already worked on preventing it from being damaging to your own crops so that rice in America could be destroyed, but rice in China could be. Would be resistant to this new fungus. Boy, you've set the world on its ear, haven't you? You've changed the entire game. Because now, instead of the world being relying on America to feed itself, America's there with a bowl in its hand and its hat in its hand begging for a handout. And what I said, If America lost 50% of its food crops, wheat, rice, corn, barley, whatever, the first people to suffer would be Sub Saharan Africa, because 25% of our exports go to Sub Saharan Africa. And those countries, the ones like I named Namibia, Botswana, Zaire, South Africa, these countries would pay a terrible price for China attacking America. Which is interesting because having spent time in Namibia, in South Africa and Botswana, for example, I see the Chinese influence there already. China is already deeply invested in those places. But they. Look, China has this saying, I can't say in a Mandarin, everything under the sun or everything under heaven, however you want to translate it belongs to China. They don't just look at Taiwan as a rogue province, they look at America as a rogue province. They think that they own us. It's just a matter of time. And if we don't get our head screwed on straight, they might be right. [00:08:25] Speaker C: Wow, my head's spinning right this second, I gotta be honest with you. Wow, that's fantastic. We, we study all this, but, man, you're really bringing light and thought even to a different perspective whenever you're talking about the, you know, them basically making their own rice that is, you know, can withstand resistance, can resist it. [00:08:48] Speaker B: So are we, Are we prepared for such a thing? [00:08:51] Speaker A: Oh, God, no. I mean, no, we're not even close. Look, every state, including Missouri, where you guys live, I'm going to guess it's the University of Missouri. I don't know for sure, but in Michigan it's Michigan State. In Ohio, it's Ohio State, it's Texas A and M. I'm going to guess University of Missouri. Every state has a land grant college. Yes, right. Every state has a land grant college that do a tremendous amount of research in agriculture. So when you look at the actual raw numbers of the number of students that come over here from China, for example, and are involved in and studying, like these students that got arrested trying to get to Ann Arbor with this Fusarium fungus. They're deeply connected. They're there in the research models. Today at the National Institutes of health, there are 1,000 Chinese nationals working at the National Institutes of Health in the United States. I can't get accurate numbers for the USDA and ag programs and so forth because, look, if they're working at Texas A and M, is a grad student or University of Michigan or Michigan State or wherever they might be, they're not really being watched very closely. At least they haven't been historically. So they come here, they study this Fusarium, and they develop because, look, we've done this our whole lives. We create crops that are drought resistant, pest resistant, resistant to cool temperatures. They produce and we produce more, more bushels per acre. And use less energy to do it every year. It's remarkable. The best year, the best crop years of 19 of the 1980s wouldn't even compare to the worst crop years today. That's how far we have come in developing great seeds, great fertilizers, great practice of regenerating the earth and doing things pretty well here in America. So if you're able to come here and study these, these pathogens, whatever it is, we'll focus on the fungus today because that's what they got caught with. And you start your studies in Michigan and Texas and Missouri. And then you take this information, you go back to Beijing or wherever you go in China, and you sit down and you say, okay, here's how far? Because look, intellectual properties of no concern to the Chinese, never has been. They'll steal it from any. They'll take it from high tech, they'll take it from energy, they'll take them agriculture, doesn't matter. Take it from wherever they can get it. And so if they take a pathogen and they come here and they study it and they say, okay, this is a virulent problem. This would destroy corn and wheat and beans and whatnot. And then they take it back to China. And this is what I getting, I was getting at, Shelly. And they go there and they, they research it and they game it out over five, 10 years, whatever it takes. And they develop a plant, rice, in this case important crop in China, and make it fungus resistant or at least find a fungicide that will deal with that resistance strain. However you, however you solve the equation doesn't matter because the bottom line, the final result is China eats while America starves. And that's part of the game here. I mean, this is not, this is not a new card. This has been a card in warfare since warfare existed, which is from the beginning of time. [00:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:59] Speaker A: And if you can starve America, I mean, it's basically starving America out. But then you wonder about the other people that play into that. You know, you've got the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum, the United nations there. I mean, it seems to me that Chinese money flows freely to all of these places. And it doesn't seem to me. I mean, there's evidence for it everywhere. And you go back to the universities. Look, these universities, Michigan State University, I'm pretty close to that campus. And whenever I'm on that campus, you see these Chinese students driving around in Maseratis and they've got all the fancy stuff, and when they move out, they just put brand new, you know, 75 inch flat screen TVs on the curb for whoever wants it. I mean, the money doesn't matter to them and. But to these universities it does. All of these universities have overspent. That's why you're seeing some smaller universities in this country go bankrupt right now. They've overspent. So all of these universities need that money. They're starved for Chinese money. And because of that, oh, there's a Chinese student that's doing some studying over here that maybe they just, they just look the other way. It really is a dangerous scenario we. [00:13:02] Speaker B: Have set up so bringing it home to us and our small farm. Do you see? Small farm, local economy, rural America. Like, is this a, a hedge towards these types of threats? Is it, is it something that maybe offers hope? [00:13:21] Speaker A: Well, Victory gardens, I believe, what they're called in World War II. Exactly. Big, big believer here. Look, I'm a chicken rancher myself. Kind of proud, proud chicken rancher. I think we got 29 today. Raccoons get one here and there. And the coyotes can be hell on them if we let them free range a little bit. And of course you've got red tailed hawks and Harris hawks and in other birds of prey, owls will do damage to you if they can. You know, all that. But yes, I do think it's a hedge against all that. I think that being able to. And look, more people need to be able to do this. We saw a surge in this during COVID Right. We saw people a surgeon, hunting licenses and so forth. And I'm a big proponent of hunting free range organic red meat. I believe in it. I, I take, I mean, I'm in Michigan, we're loaded with deer. But most people, most people couldn't clean a deer if you gave them a knife, a pamphlet and an explanation how to do it in two weeks be laws. It's sad that most people. Where does chicken come from? Come from the grocery store. Come from the grocery store. Really? Where's chicken come from? McDonald's comes from that restaurant down there called McDonald's. No kids. Most people couldn't clean a chicken, clean a rabbit, clean a deer, you know, but they can figure out how to watch TikTok videos. They can, they can sit here and watch, you know, Instagram and all that garbage and look, people need to be more self sufficient. I think what you're doing is, is genius. I, I'm not a, I'm not a prepper per se. But am I prepared? Sure. I mean, do we have the tools of the trade? Sure. Can I go out and hunt deer? Yeah, probably for the next 5,000 years. I got enough ammunition to probably last me 5,000 hunting seasons, if that's really what it took. And I've got the tools of the trade, and my kids know how to hunt. My kids know how to clean game if needed. Look, I'll eat a turtle before I eat the crickets. They're trying to sell me out of Illinois. All right, for sure. [00:15:12] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:15:13] Speaker B: And that's absolutely our talking point. We're not preppers, but we are prepared. And for us, you know, our. Our preparation is in the. The food storage. That's happening with those live animals out there walking around that are grazing. [00:15:27] Speaker A: That's right. [00:15:28] Speaker B: We're. We're trying. From a preparedness perspective, a freezer is not the best option, but an animal walking around that's living off of grass is an amazing option. [00:15:40] Speaker A: Well, here's something else. How. How many people. I mean, I've got. I got maybe 100 pounds of salt. Right. Not because. And I like salt, but I don't like it that much. The reason I have the salt and 100 pounds of salt, you just put in a corner and, you know, someplace, make sure it's in a dry container, nothing to it. But that's. If you have to take one of those animals and you don't have refrigeration, which is a great point. How do you do it? You think anybody can preserve meat if they had to? I can. I got a pretty good idea how to do it. Might be a little bit of trial and error. I'm not a prepper, but we are prepared. And that's really important because I think if you cut the electricity to most of America, 90% of America would suffer and curl up in a ball within 24 to 48 hours. You took away their ATM, their smartphone, their car doesn't work because you had a magnetic pulse from China, whatever it might be. Right? [00:16:36] Speaker C: Right. [00:16:37] Speaker A: Mostly people curl up and be all done. You, Captain, I don't think. I don't know what your actual rank is. I called you Captain because you flew. [00:16:43] Speaker B: Colonel. Colonel. [00:16:44] Speaker A: Colonel. Sorry about that, Colonel. I don't want to give you a demotion, Colonel. And the fact of the matter is, your training allows you to do things that many people cannot. So in my life, I've got some old basic pieces of equipment, like diesel, basic diesel engines that run things because they're not going to get messed up with the chips and so forth. So when I talk about raising chickens and having machinery that will work. Yes, that's something that we look to. One of the things that grows really well in Michigan is potatoes. Easy to grow, easy to do. Leave them in the ground, plant the next round. Brussels sprouts grow really easily and they grow all the way into December. Funny thing, the way the leaves come up around them. You can get fresh Brussels sprouts even after a couple of good frost because the way the leaves wrap around. People don't know these things because nobody knows anything about farming to speak of much anymore. So what you're doing should be an educational jumping off point for people to say, look, if China does poison the crops, what's your plan? If the grocery store wasn't there, what's your plan? If the electricity wasn't there and your freezer was going to go bad, what's your plan? And most people don't have it. Have never even thought thought about that. Most people never even conceived of that. It all entirely possible. Go ahead. [00:18:03] Speaker B: It seems like, you know, in the, in the year or year and a half, whatever, the pandemic was a big deal. People were thinking about these types of things. But what we've seen is that that interest taken even a home, a Homesteading channel on YouTube, the interest was like spiked way high and there were millions of views on every video that they put out. And now the interest has just like waned to where it's very, very low. So it quite complacent. [00:18:34] Speaker C: Again. [00:18:34] Speaker B: What a short memory from the. There's no food on my grocery store shelves. I'm freaked out. I need to grow a chicken. You know, do where we are today. [00:18:43] Speaker C: How do I make sourdough bread? [00:18:45] Speaker A: So I don't know what you have for a water source. I'm in Michigan. Water is not my concern. As a general rule in Michigan we've got lots of it. We got 20% of the world's fresh water where I live. But that's something else people don't think about. And what you guys were just talking about reminded me of going to Costco right after the pandemic started and seeing these guys push around these carts that have to weigh hundreds of pounds because they got them stacked with bottles of water. You really haven't thought ahead to see what your water supply is going to be. Really? Are you that unprepared? Oh, you've got piles of toilet paper. Really? You never thought to get a 24 pack just to set on the shelf for future reference in case something got a little dicey that didn't even cross your mind until this very Moment. And you're hoarding toilet paper and water. I mean, come on, people think a little bit. But, you know, the problem is most people say, well, if something bad happens, I'll just go on chat GPT and I'll figure out what to do. Really? Is that yours? Is that your plan? Yes. If you have no electricity and the cell service goes out, guess what, guys? ChatGPT doesn't work here anymore. [00:19:39] Speaker C: I think that the, the real problem is they really honestly don't believe anything like that can happen here. [00:19:46] Speaker A: Oh, that can't happen in America. Not. [00:19:48] Speaker C: Not here. Because our, our government and our defense and all of our things and all the tricks up the government's sleeve is going to put protect us and make sure that nothing like this ever happens. [00:19:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I wonder what the people of western North Carolina would tell you about that today. Yeah, I know the people of Lahaina would tell you about that today. Right. You know, from Hawaii to North Carolina, look, the government's not there for you. You need to be there for you. You need to think about. And again, I'm just talking about some basic stuff. I mean, I have, I don't really take any prescription medications. I'm. I feel pretty good. I'm just a couple of months away from being 60. I don't take any prescription medications. Nothing. Most people I know are taking pills. That not my deal. I've looked out for myself. I, I try to eat smart, do the right thing, you know, move, keep moving. Use your brain. You know, when you Back to chat gbt, if you don't use your brain, you keep using that thing too much, your brain kind of turns into mush. Use it or lose it applies to your mind too, my friends. That's absolutely true. And when you. So when you think, here's. So here's something to think about. Victory Gardens is what they call it. World War II. Circling back to that and think about, well, what will grow good where I am. Because what grows in northern Michigan is not what grows in Missouri where you are. Some of the things would be the same, but some of the things wouldn't be the same. Some things that grow easily in Michigan, apples, peaches. These are northern, you know, and you can plant these dwarf trees, for example, that really produce, and they're not too tall. And the kids can get the apples if you want. Honeycrisp apples on a tree that's northern, about 10ft tall, man, you can get that. Peaches grow great in this state. Blueberries grow great in the state. So there's different things that, you know, in Missouri's agriculture is going to be. Where you live is going to have special things. You're going to have corn in both places. And. But you also have to think about, look, corn can get devastated by the deer. We were talking about other crops not so susceptible. Maybe you can grow cabbage, maybe potatoes and root vegetables because they're underground. And these are all things that everybody should think about because I do think that China is a danger to of us. But they're not going to spend the time, I don't think, to figure out what will destroy carrots or potatoes because it's their, their main line is going to be at those food crops. It's going to be corn crops, it's going to be wheat, it's going to be rice, it's going to be. It's going to be those main stays that America produces in tremendous volume, right? So if you can knock that down, you can knock America down. And again, I think that being proactive and thinking about it, and if you don't have a piece of ground, well, you can find some somewhere. Every, every city of any size that I know has community gardens. At least you could do that. You can learn that canning is not high science. It's boiling water and getting a seal to happen. Right. I mean, this is easy stuff, but when people don't know where meat comes from, hard to know if they can figure out. I mean, you can can meat because that's one of the things you can do to preserve it for years. Literally on the shelf you can take ball jars and from Muncie, Indiana used to be anyhow, and you can create all this food supply. And like I said, I'm not a prepper. I don't have 10,000 cans of green beans because I think that would be weird. I do think that would be weird. But we do think about. I mean, I think if you're alive today in America and you're not thinking about the dangers of communism and intervention by other countries, if you're not situationally aware that there could be a terrorist sitting in the restaurant with you and you don't know where the exits are there, you're not paying attention. I mean, that's just. That's me. And that's not paranoid. That's being, you know, awake and aware of what's happening in this world. I mean, are any of us going to be surprised if we woke up tomorrow morning and we heard about an attack at a football game or a concert? No. Would any of us be surprised we heard, woke up and saw that Taiwan had been attacked. No. Or that Russia had launched a missile at, you know, someplace, you know, other than Ukraine. No. [00:23:44] Speaker C: I've gotten to where whenever I look at the news, if I open my news app, I. My, my first thought, the reason I open it is, well, I wonder what's happened today. And it's never a good thing, you. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Know, it's never a good thing, you know. Yeah. [00:23:56] Speaker C: What I wonder what's happened today. Probably something. And if, if there's some, you know, nothing news, I go, well, I guess nothing happened today, you know, overnight and, you know, some part of the world. Wow. [00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah. My show is on the air Monday through Friday. My. I, I'm on the air twice a day every day, by the way, for folks pay I. My first show is from 6 to 9 Eastern Time, and that first hour is on Real America's Voice, but all of it's on streaming. It's on x, it's on YouTube, it's on Facebook, whatever. So I get up about five. I. The show's usually put to bed by about nine the night before, but I could not tell you the number of times you wake up at five in the morning, you look at your phone and go, well, I guess we're starting over because something big has happened, right? And one of the things that comes to mind recently is when the helicopter and the plane collided there in Washington here a few weeks back. And of course, that just, that changed everything because then your whole focus that day, you scrap everything you've done. And so you. And so I'm like you, Shelly. I look and see what's going on because for me, it has direct impact immediately. And for my audience. [00:24:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:01] Speaker A: And look, none of these things would surprise you. And how can you live in a day and age like today and think that the Internet's always going to be there, the electricity is always going to be there. The fact of the matter is it can happen in America, and China's trying to make it happen to America. That's why China is the number one threat. They want to do whatever it takes to knock America down. Look, China and Russia are not natural allies. They're not. In fact, at some point, China will just dispose of Russia like it's trying to dispose of everything else. Russia's 150 million people, right. It's not a big country by, I mean giant land mass, but population wise, I think it's about 150 million. Vietnam, by the way, is 105 million and growing fast. So keep that in mind, Russia, you're going to be smaller than Vietnam before too much time passes. The point that I'm making here is China and Russia, it's, it's a marriage of convenience. And so when China's done with using that, then they turn their focus back to the one thing they want to get rid of, which is America. Which is why every day you see propaganda about people like this guy running for mayor of New York who's a communist from Uganda. He's being. I can't. I don't have the documents here, but I would bet dollars to donuts that he's getting money by way of China. You look at the funding that comes to these universities turn the other way because they're getting money from China. You look at these big news companies, Chicken Noodle News or MSNBC or whoever else, they're getting money by way of China. When you look at the pharmaceutical industry, the number one supplier of money to broadcast is the pharmaceutical industry. Well, when 90% of your pharmaceuticals originate in China, the components originate there. Where do you think that money comes from? Ultimately, it comes from China. I mean, this is not, it's not conspiracy theory stuff. It's. It's blatantly obvious. Except a lot of people are completely immune to facts. They've been vaccinated against factual reporting, and it's kind of sad. [00:26:55] Speaker C: So what about policies? Do you see any policy changes that need to be made? Go back to the agriculture part with the, with the bioterrorism coming in. That could help mitigate some of this. [00:27:07] Speaker A: Well, number one, I think, And I, and I do think this. I think a lot of things that China does are overt acts of war. I think sending students in under the guise of being students and bringing in fungus, I think that it might be a minor act, but it's an act of war. And here's the real takeaway. Yes, there should be policies. Yes, we should make it so. China, so no foreign country. I can't go buy land in Mexico. I can't go buy land in China. I can lease land in Mexico for 99 years, but I cannot own it. As an example. And so, yeah, there have to be policies. But China is relentless. They are pulling an asymmetrical war on us right now. We may not understand it. We're at war with China. Agriculture is just one component of that. We are at war with China. They know it, but we're too. Well, that's xenophobic, Steve. No, it's point of fact. It's not xenophobic. It's point of fact, China is coming at us with high tech, with transportation, with technology, with rare earth elements, agriculture. I don't pick your. Pick your topic because whatever it is, China's already there and they're already gaming that out as to how they can control that sector. And yes, we need policies. We need to get our act together quickly. We need to ban the ownership of land in America by any foreign entity. I believe we need to closely scrutinize any students that come here to study anything of significance to our well being, including agriculture, maybe most importantly, agriculture, so we can feed ourselves. Look, America has fed the world for 150 years, but that can change. When Rhodesia was rhodesia, until about 1986, when it became Zimbabwe, that country fed almost all of Sub Saharan Africa. After there was, and I'm not going to debate the political point of it, but after apartheid was thrown out. The point that I'm making here is when there was a big shift there, suddenly they fed nobody and they had a famine. By 1990, there was a famine in Zimbabwe where 5 million people were starving to death. That country went from feeding all the countries around it to starving itself. Wow. I mean, these are important things to look at in history and understand America. We have been blessed with the greatest piece of real estate in the world. We have natural resources better than anybody. We have timber, water. We have gold or oil, natural gas. And we have farmland, lots of it, and really good farmland for all sorts of different things. If you want to graze cattle, do that. You want to raise corn, do that. You want to grow apples in Washington, blueberries in Michigan and cherries in Maine, you can do all of these great things. And that's why we have to protect it. And yes, Shelley, we should have change of. Of laws. We should take quite seriously the threat of what China is doing everywhere, especially in agriculture. Because one day, if we don't, we're going to wake up and we're going to read. You're going to wake up to that headline, Shelly, that you don't want to see, that is, hey, there's a blight that's destroying the corn crop in Illinois. And all of a sudden it's in Iowa, and all of a sudden it's in Missouri, and all of a sudden it's coming across Ohio or whatever it is. We need to be more proactive. We can't have Chinese nationals in our military. You can't. I mean. And how many of those have you seen so far? We can't have them in our government agencies. You Just can't this idea. And not just China, but they're the number one there. But all of these people come from all these countries all over the world and come here and get themselves injected into these places where they just absolutely should not be. Yeah, there should be policies, but will it be enough? No. We need to be vigilant, situationally aware, and willing to believe that there are threats around us every day, because there are. And I'm not being paranoid. I mean, I don't walk down the street, you know, chewing my fingernails because I'm scared, but I look around, for God's sake, when I walk into a restaurant, do I scan the room? Of course. I bet you do too, Colonel. I bet you look around the room and say, who's here? What's going on? [00:31:39] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yep. [00:31:40] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:31:41] Speaker B: Where's the door? Where's the exit? Yeah, absolutely. So we. We recently, in a podcast, talked about beef. And we've. I know we've focused on China, but, you know, 40% of the nation's beef is controlled by Brazilian companies. Do you take the. The comments we've been having on China? And do you. Do you think that the threat is other places as well, or is it simply China? [00:32:03] Speaker A: No, no, no, I agree with you. Well, for. Okay, where does Brazil stop in China begin? That'd be my first question, because a lot of cross over there, too, as you know. Here's the other thing. I'm gonna just type this in while we do this. And the reason being is. I know that I just read. We have fewer beef cattle today than in decades on the hoof. [00:32:28] Speaker C: 19. [00:32:29] Speaker B: Yeah, 51. That's right. We're the lowest herd. The national herd is lower than it has been since 1951. [00:32:37] Speaker A: There you go. [00:32:37] Speaker B: So that was a stat from last year, and then this year it's even lower. [00:32:42] Speaker A: Right, so. And why is that? I don't even know what the reason for that is. Let's see here. Inventory, 86 million. Had an 8% decrease from 2019 and the smallest herd size since 1951. Now, in the population of America in 1951, I'm gonna say was probably 180 million. What do you think? Want to check my math? [00:33:08] Speaker B: Definitely less than 340. [00:33:10] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I know that. I mean, let me see. I'm just gonna check my math here. See how good I am. Always everything's a competition with me. I don't know. I. I was high. It was 153 million. [00:33:24] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [00:33:25] Speaker A: So. [00:33:26] Speaker C: Oh, okay. [00:33:27] Speaker A: There you go. Just. We'll call it 154. Because it's right close 154. For point being is 82 million cows then, 82 million cows now or whatever, and the population of the country was less than half of what it is today. Yeah, it's an interesting thing that you point out there. Because of the population, you know, this whole climate change thing, another scam paid for by China, right. This Green New Deal stuff is, is funded in large part by China. And Russia did some, but China's got the checkbook now. They're funding all this propaganda, your kids, by way of TikTok and so forth. That's part of the game here, is to convince people that you can't have cows, you can't have this, you can't have that. It's terrible. I mean, I've seen Tedros out there at the United nations just last week saying agriculture contributes to 35% of climate change. We must restructure agriculture. How about no? How about no chance? How about leave the farmers alone? How about you let the farmers continue to feed the world? Because how many times since 1970, I'll ask you both this. I mean, you can go back and pull these bites, have people come out. There will be a famine before 1980. Millions will die. We can never feed ourselves. It's impossible. We're going to start. Fact of the matter is, back to my example. The best crop years of the 1980s to. From about 1980s, 1985, the very best years, optimum weather, no drought, perfect rainfall. Those yields are less than years now that have drought and problems and issues because we have developed agricultural and we use less energy to produce more food per acre than at any time in human history. Unless the Chinese screw it up for us, which is possible because they're trying to do that. They know that if you start. Look, they know that we're not the same people we were in 1951, for example. We were tough then. We just came out of World War II. The average education of a World War II veteran. Eighth grade, we were tougher and. But that eighth grade education, by the way, probably had a lot more value than a full 12 year education now, because they taught people things then, reading, writing, arithmetic, not pronouns and bs. All right, so we were tougher then, right? And smarter then. And more resilient now. We're soft, man. Well, just go walk through time and you see this. These people are so big, they can't see their own feet. And they're young. They've, I mean, diabetes and all these other problems. This is not necessary. That's a whole nother conversation. [00:36:00] Speaker C: But yeah, we like that conversation too. [00:36:03] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, there's just, there's no excuse for it. It's sad. I mean, you see 10 year old kids that are 100 pounds overweight. I mean, my God, they're set up for disaster. Their whole life is gonna, it's gonna suck. It is because they're going to have disease and diabetes and they're not going to live very long. You know, not your problem. As I can see. [00:36:26] Speaker C: We're kind of like you. We try to take care of ourselves. [00:36:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:29] Speaker A: I mean, I could lose £20. I get that. [00:36:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:31] Speaker A: But it's not because I'm down eating, you know. [00:36:34] Speaker C: Right. [00:36:34] Speaker A: Garbage. Because my wife's a terrific cook, God bless her. She really is. Ivy's the best. I got to give a shout out to Ivy. She's the best. I'm not kidding you. [00:36:44] Speaker C: Oh, good. [00:36:46] Speaker B: So, so do you have, as we wrap things up, do you have a moment in your journalism career that stands out to you? It could be, you know, regarding agriculture or otherwise. I know as we were getting ready to, to record this, you mentioned that you've sat down with President Trump. Is there, is that your highlight? Like what's, what's a high moment for you? [00:37:06] Speaker A: I'll give you three that come to mind when you say awesome. The first, I was working for NBC News at the affiliate in Columbus, Ohio. That was what they called an O and O owned and operated by the Mothership. So my checks came from 30 Rock. So I was an NBC employee directly, but it was still a local affiliate. Columbus, Ohio, which is a big city by the way. I arrived there late in 1997 and in 1998 I had become the investigative reporter there. The point being is, if I showed up on your doorstep, you were about to have a bad day. Because we did our homework extensively. I had two full time producers. We did really good work back then. Joel and Elena were the two producers I had. They were fabulous. I mean, these were just, these were, they were just dig and dig and dig and then they bring me in because I did other news stuff as well during the day. But you know, we do this investigative stuff and that was all great, but I got the assignment to go cover John Glenn in 1998. STS 95 was the mission. So I got the opportunity to go to the Houston Space Center. I got the opportunity to sit down with John Glenn, a Democrat that I like, by the way. I mean, it's important. Well, it's important because that John Glenn was not a Democrat like today, just as an aside, but I sat down with him and then I got to go to the launch and watch it from the front row. And I know you're a fighter pilot there, Colonel, but when they light that bottle rocket and you're a mile and a half away and I'm on the risers and the earth moves, I mean, I'm 1.5 miles from the actual launch pad on the media risers and the earth moves. So that's one high. I thought it was fabulous. In fact, I got tears in my eyes that day. I've had it happen a couple times in my career, but I got tears in my eyes from pride about how glorious it is to be an American because we do great things. And that's what I thought it was funny. Gail Hogan was her name. She was the anchor that was on the desk when they came to me right after the launch. And she goes, Steve, you look a little choked up. Well, thank you for pointing that out. Thank you for pointing that out to everybody so that we don't get away with that anyhow. It's true and I'm not ashamed of it and I'm embarrassed. I'm so proud to be an American that day. God, it felt good. [00:39:26] Speaker B: That's awesome. I, I had the opportunity, I hosted a group of Korean War aces when I was stationed in South Korea and I had the opportunity to, to meet Buzz Aldrin and I went and picked him up from the airport and like that was a, it was a great, a great time. So I certainly understand what, what a, what a really cool guy. [00:39:45] Speaker A: Yeah, so that was a great moment. I had the opportunity to do a special report on the USS Michigan, which is, they used to call them Trident class nuclear submarines. Now it's an Ohio class nuclear submarine. In fact, the USS Georgia, one of the ships in that same group of ships was the one sending the cruise missiles to Iran with a little hello on it here just recently. So I've. Being on that big ship was a very interesting place to. I've had the opportunity to be a lot of really interesting places. You mentioned the Oval Office. Yeah, that's been five years now. But I just got my hard pass to the White House. I just had a couple of sessions with Donald Trump where, you know, I was in the, the group and he came to me several times for questions, which worked out great. And I'll be having more of that because now that I'm in the rotation, I have a 13 year old son. Otherwise I'D be in Washington. Moore Because I like being where the action is and you know, and back to my hunting career. I took a giant Boone and Crockett moose in Alaska. That was great. But my wife and I went to Alaska on our honeymoon on a moose hunt and she killed a giant 66 inch wide moose which I think which was all on camera for television. So those are different kinds of moments in a career. But they're all fabulous, you know, all fabulous. So that's kind of, I guess a couple of highlights. [00:41:01] Speaker B: That's great. So you mentioned that you're on every day. Tell everybody exactly where we can go to find you. [00:41:08] Speaker A: Well, you can always go to stevegruber.com Great columns there. Every day I've got this woman that writes for me by the name of Liberty Page. She writes some pithy things that are just fabulous. And she does satire Saturdays plus I write about things, you know, I predicted in July of 2016 on that website that Donald Trump was going to be the next president. And people like you didn't predict that. I said here's the article, July 2016. So I got that perfectly right. Anyhow, so that's a good place. But I'm, you know, I'm in all the places that Steve Gruber show is, most of them be it Twitter, X, Facebook, we're on YouTube, we're on Instagram, we're on Truth Social. Of course we're on Getter. I mean all these places you can imagine, those are all great places to go. And look, we try to tell the truth every day, people. He's a radical right wing conservative. No, I'm a guy who grew up near a dairy farm in southern Michigan and wandered down there when I was 3 years old for my first good close up look at a cow when I was only wearing a diaper and a smile. I've been around because I went to Montana state to school. I've been around farmers and ranchers my whole life. I get my conservatism from a basic understanding of honesty in this world. And it's to me, nothing I talk about is particularly radical. I believe in my family, my country. I believe in God. Come on, this is where we all come from. And that's what I believe. And if that's radical, then I can live with the label. [00:42:33] Speaker B: I hear you. Well, I, I'll throw an offer out to you if you ever need a, a viewpoint from a former military strategist, fighter pilot or a current regenerative farmer. We're, we're here for you. [00:42:45] Speaker A: Well, we love that. I mean, I love your whole story. 160 acres, and you just started from scratch. No crops, no anything. Just a. An idea. I think that's great. I think I'm proud of both. You're Rich and Shelly. I'm proud. I think you guys are just doing God's work out there. I do. [00:42:59] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:42:59] Speaker A: It's important. [00:43:00] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:43:00] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:43:01] Speaker C: This has been a pleasure. This has been a great conversation. Very educational. [00:43:04] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. [00:43:05] Speaker C: And eye opening. [00:43:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:07] Speaker C: Like, wake up, people. [00:43:09] Speaker A: Please. [00:43:11] Speaker B: Wake up. Yeah, for sure. All right, well, thank you, Steve. Thanks for joining us. And until next time, guys. Bye. [00:43:18] Speaker C: Bye.