Austin Knudsen on the Fentanyl Crisis and Increasing Energy Costs
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Great program for you today. And be sure you stay tuned for the podcast segment because we've got some good stuff coming on there. But first up today, I am very excited to talk to someone in a state I lived in for exactly one year. And the cold drove me out. He's tougher than I am.

Austin Knudson, attorney general for the great state of Montana. Austin, a fifth-generation Montanan, grew up a farm and ranch kid in eastern Montana, two-term speaker of the House, and a lawyer, had his own law firm. And Austin is fighting the battles that...

I don't think a lot of people realize extend every part of this country right now with what Democrats are doing with our borders, with drugs pouring in, with the energy crisis we're facing. Montana is as central to that as any state in the country. And people don't realize it.

Austin, you guys have a fentanyl crisis all the way in Montana, too. This isn't a southern border state issue. They're all border states now. They're all border states. And Montana's a northern border state. Yeah, exactly. And you have trafficking coming across the Canadian border. Hey, guys, great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we've got a huge fentanyl problem here in Montana. All hyperbole aside, the numbers we've got just in the last two years are staggering.

Our fentanyl confirmed deaths by our state crime lab since 2019 have increased 1,100 percent. Oh, man. Our fentanyl investigations with our state division of criminal investigation, that's under my purview at our State Department of Justice, their investigations in the last two years have increased 1,600 percent.

We are already on track this year. Here we are in September. Halfway through the year, we're already on pace to smash last year's seizure record for the fentanyl. And last year was a huge year for us. We seized more fentanyl than we've ever seized in the state of Montana. Just from 2017, almost a 60% time increase

in the amount of fentanyl seized by our state officials. To say that we're facing a real epidemic here, I don't think is understating it. Austin, do you know, and you may not know offhand, but do you know how much they're selling a pill of fentanyl for right now in Montana? I do know, and this is a reason why they're here, guys.

Depending on where you are in Montana, obviously we're a very large state and we're a rural state. We've got a lot of the Indian reservations and that certainly plays into this. But look, what we've learned is that if a fentanyl tablet in Phoenix or in Denver might be worth a dollar, maybe two dollars, you put that tablet on Interstate 15 and you get it up here to Montana and certain of our rural communities, that one tablet can be worth up to $100. Wow.

So it's not hard to see why the Mexican cartels are targeting Montero. And they are targeting him. Again, we have specific intelligence that this is happening. They want to be up here. And it's profit motive. I mean, this is not long division. You can make a tablet.

of illicit fentanyl south of the border of Mexico for pennies on the dollar, drive it up to Montana and make $100 on that one tablet. That's a pretty serious profit incentive. So your drug task force in Montana at the end of June had seized over 111,000 dosages of fentanyl. I mean, that's real money.

That's huge money. I mean, that's dosages. That isn't tablets, because you have to remember, if you take one of those full big tablets, you're just about guaranteed to die. Usually they're shaving some off, they're smoking it, they're injecting it. Let me ask you this question. So if you have 111,000 dosages, how many pills would that make?

It's tough to know because there's no quality control batch to batch. You might get one tablet that's got a minute amount of fentanyl in it, and the next tablet might have a lethal amount of fentanyl in it. And that's what makes this so dangerous. These cartels, primarily two Mexican drug cartels working here in Montana, but there's just no quality control in these super labs they've got south of the border. They're mixing all kinds of other garbage in.

And you don't know what you're getting from one tablet to the next. Yeah, that's really a hard question to answer. And they're branding them as other things, too. You might take a different pill and you end up with fentanyl. Let me ask you this question. Have you met families who have lost loved ones with fentanyl overdoses? I have. And what do people not understand about it? Because you've seen the pain and anguish. I mean...

Tell us a little bit about that. Well, yeah, I mean, it's heartbreaking. I recently spoke to a grandmother on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. That's actually where I'm from, up in the way rural northeastern part of the state.

She has now lost two of her sons to two separate fentanyl overdose incidents. And she's raising her grandchildren by herself. This is the kind of things that's happening all over the state of Montana. I mean, before I was the attorney general, I was a prosecuting county attorney. We have county attorneys, not district attorneys here in Montana. I was the elected county prosecutor.

Whether it was methamphetamine or whether it was fentanyl, because we still have a major, major methamphetamine problem in Montana as well. This is what's driving our foster care problem in Montana. We're one of the highest per capita foster parent, children in foster care.

Boy, Austin Knudson, Attorney General for the state of Montana, that's actually the first time, and we've talked about fentanyl and the drug crisis going on on this program with other officials. You're the first person who's made that connection, and boy... I was just saying, you are the first person we've had on the program. We've talked about the fentanyl crisis before, but you're the first person who's brought up that connection with the foster care system.

And that just struck me, boy, is that a profound statement and a profound connection that people are missing.

You're ending up with a lot of orphans. It absolutely is. It's a huge one, and it's one I think most people don't think about, but it puts such a tax on your state resources. I mean, Montana, we're a rural state, right? We just cracked a million-one people. We just got a second congressional seat. But when you think about where the... We've got over 4,000 children in the foster care system in Montana. We don't have enough foster families. We don't have enough social workers. This is absolutely overwhelming.

overwhelming the system that was never designed to handle that many children. It absolutely is a direct causal causation from the drug crisis, whether it's methamphetamine or whether it's fentanyl. You've got parents that would literally rather do drugs than take care of their children, and it's heartbreaking. What is the drug crisis costing Montana taxpayers annually?

Again, that's very tough to quantify, especially if we start talking about the child protective system, foster care system. I mean, just in terms of law enforcement, I'm prepared to go into our next legislative session and ask for some pretty significant increases in law enforcement resources.

Just because I think we have to. I mean, we would, I think, very easily be in the tens of millions of dollars just if we're talking about law enforcement, direct law enforcement costs, overtime, toxicology equipment, increases at our state crime lab. It's put a huge tax on our medical examiner system, our autopsies system.

I mean, again, small state, I've got four medical examiners, but they're, I won't say overwhelmed, but we're getting very close to it. Let me ask you this question because you visit with law enforcement, I'm sure, quite a bit. Several years ago here in Phoenix, I met a gentleman who used to be a paramedic, and he had just retired at 18 years. He had two more or so to get retirement, and I asked him why, and he goes...

honestly, I couldn't have one more summer where I pulled a kid out of a pool, you know, and it just, he just couldn't do it anymore. He wasn't sleeping. He saw too many kids drown in a pool. Do you see this having this type of ripple effect on law enforcement, hospital staff, just saying, I can't watch, I can't do this anymore. I can't watch one more person die of a drug overdose.

You know, thankfully, we haven't seen that kind of burnout yet in Montana. I'm afraid if this keeps going at the rate it is that we will start seeing that. I mean, one of the nice things about Montana is that we're very much a pro-police state. And honestly, all this defund the police garbage going on everywhere else has been a great recruitment tool for police departments and agencies in Montana. I mean, that's one good thing.

But it's also tough when you're dealing with a very rural population. I mean, if you're a rural sheriff and you've maybe got a staff of three deputies and suddenly you're dealing with fentanyl overdoses and multiple deaths in an agency that's not used to dealing with that. Yeah, that becomes very, very taxing. And we absolutely have to be worried about burnout for sure. Has Montana yet equipped its officers with Narcan?

Yes. I mean, everyone's got Narcan. There's Narcan everywhere. We make sure shelters have Narcan, drug treatment centers have Narcan, cops have Narcan. We're making sure that all of our highway patrol and DCI investigators and local police are working with a partner because if you get hit with a whiff of fentanyl, if it's aerosol or if you happen to touch it on accident,

You're not going to have time to administer that to yourself. You're going to go down. And so at that point, we're relying on your partner who's, you know, stayed back a little ways to keep an eye on you to come in and administer that Narcan. Wow. This is such a stark problem that so many Americans I don't think understand the scope of.

And you've touched on some things here that I really wish everyone in this country could hear this interview because at the end of the day, this is affecting every single person in the country right now. And this is coming from Biden's open border because he threw away the things that Trump had done that had made a real difference, that had separated the wolves from the sheep and allowed our Border Patrol to actually target drug traffickers.

We're going to go to break right now in just a moment here. Austin, I want to give you an opportunity to tell folks how to follow you. And are you up for election this year?

I am not. I'm a holdover. I'm not up until 24. But if you want to know what we're doing, mtdoj.gov. That's the easiest way. I've also got a Facebook page. You can, Austin Knudson, Montana Attorney General, you can look me up, find me on Facebook. There's a Twitter account up there. We don't do a lot on Twitter, but there is some presence. As we are saying on this program all too frequently, I think probably not doing a whole lot on Twitter is excellent for your sanity.

We're going to cut out again. We're going to be coming right back here with Austin Knudson in our next segment. Chuck, I want to talk a little bit with him about American energy production and what's going on. Because obviously that affects Montana a great deal. They are one of the big energy producing states. Breaking Battlegrounds coming back in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone.

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Why refi dot com or again, call 855-316-3087 and make sure you tell him Chuck and Sam sent you. Absolutely. And you can do that while you're listening to our podcast and radio program right here. Right now, we're continuing on Austin Knutson, attorney general for the state of Montana. Austin, you were in D.C. recently pushing back, fighting back against the Biden energy dependence agenda.

Tell us what's going on there. There's so much to say here, guys. There's a ton to unpack. We're seeing a war on American domestic energy, the likes of which we've never seen literally since World War II.

My staff did a little bit of looking into this. We're at a historic low since World War II for the amount of domestic energy we are actually producing in this country. And everyone's paying for it right now. I mean, I just, you know, it wasn't not two years ago, the price of gas here in Montana was actually under $2 a gallon. I'm not sure what it was like where you guys are, but that hurts. We're now pushing $5, $6 a gallon, depending on what kind of fuel.

This is what happens when you've got just an absolutely idealistic-driven administration. They want Chinese solar panels, you know, that are still built with oil, they're still built with steel that has to be smelted somewhere, and the only way you can do that is with coal. But apparently it's somehow better if we're doing that in China. And

Several things my office has done, partnered with lots of other states. We've sued the Biden administration over several of these steps that they've taken, unilateral steps they've taken since he's taken office to fight domestic oil.

You know, their fight is, I think, more extensive than people realize because Biden touts that he has put out some of these oil and gas leases. I have a friend in the oil business in Oklahoma who said, yeah, we got a lease from them, but then we were denied the right of way to be able to access it.

That's exactly right, and that's what most people are missing here. The Biden administration loves to get on TV and say, oh, no, we've let all these leases out. That very well may be true, but your friend is exactly right. Now you've got to get a road right-of-way, a federal permit, if it's on federal land, to get to that well site. Oh, well, now we've got to talk about the emissions issue.

requirements that they've got now. Used to be you could flare off some excess natural gas that comes naturally out of these wells. Now we can't do that. Now we have to get a permit and we have to capture. It's just death by a thousand cuts. And that's the intention. I don't think this is accidental at all. And we're all paying for it. I think Biden's been very clear that, I mean, he hasn't come out and said the words, I'm intentionally driving up your energy costs. But what he's said over and over is,

is that they don't mind these high costs. Jennifer Granholm, as transportation secretary, said she approves of the high cost because it will further a evolution or revolution in electric vehicles and in so-called green technology. Nobody's grid system, nobody's, is prepared to handle a 10-year transition entirely into EVs.

And we're already seeing this in California. But you're exactly right. This is another dirty little secret that the administration's not talking about. Most of your household grid system, literally just your household, is not set up to charge multiple electric vehicles. Just your in-home circuit panel is not set to do that. Nor is the breaker out on your street.

Correct. Correct. But bring it back. Okay, fine. We've all got an electric vehicle. Those batteries have limited life. And where are those batteries coming from? That lithium has to get mined and created somewhere. We have to dig a hole and dig lithium to produce these batteries. We're not doing that here in America. So where's that lithium mined and coming from? Well, it's all coming from China.

And your battery is going to last in your electric car maybe six, seven, eight years if you're lucky. And then you're going to have to go get a new one. This is just not sustainable. I mean, it is pure fantasy here. Well, let's talk more about diesel prices for a minute. Again, Sam and I were talking during our break how much we appreciate you talking about

how the fentanyl crisis is affecting families and foster care. And more elected officials need to say, this is what happens. A happens, this is what next, and B and C, right? And we appreciate you doing that. So, you know, you look at in November 2020, the average diesel price was $2.50 per gallon, okay? Today, here in Arizona, it's $4.63. It's double.

Explain to our national audience, because Montanans know this because they experience it, what does that mean? Because I imagine you have a lot of diesel trucks. That's how we get the farm product from Montana to other states. You use diesel for your tractors. People want to know why we have food inflation. We can start with there. It's one of the points. Is that right? Yeah.

That is absolutely a point. Guys, I'm a farmer. I grew up a Montana farm and ranch kid, so I speak this language pretty fluently. Farming technology in America, we feed the world. And the reason that is because we've gotten very good at intensive agriculture in this country. Lots of technological breakthroughs. But at the end of the day, you still have to go out and pull an implement with a large diesel tractor.

probably multiple times throughout the year. You've got to put feed in the ground, you've got to put fertilizer on, you've got to cultivate, all those things, you've got to harvest. That burns up a tremendous amount of diesel fuel. They've yet to come up with a 100-horse electric tractor, and that just wouldn't work here in Montana. So we have to burn diesel fuel. When you're looking at a farmer's budget right now, when the cost of fuel has doubled,

Okay, let's talk about natural gas and the production of fertilizer. Okay, the reason we're able to produce as much food as we can is fertilizer. The price of that has tripled and some places quadrupled. So farmers have a lot more input costs now, and the cost of fuel is definitely one of those, and that is absolutely why you are seeing an increase in the price of food. No question about it.

It's astounding how interconnected all of this is and how much the Biden administration appears to be really putting Americans under their thumb for an agenda that is totally anathema to 90 percent of this country. It's astounding. We're going to be talking more about it with Attorney General Austin Knutson of Montana when we come back on Breaking Battlegrounds in just a moment.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. On the line with us right now, Attorney General Austin Knudson of Montana. Austin, let me ask you this. We like our audience that gets to know our guests, and we hope you'll come back on. You've been fantastic. Tell us, how did you get—you come from a farming family, many generations. How did you get involved in politics? What has surprised you about politics?

And then the question everybody wants to know is, how has the Yellowstone TV series changed Montana? What do farmers think about it? Let's go ahead. Hey, I'm asking what everybody's thinking. Let's just call it for what it is, right? You know, go ahead. I'm not sure there's enough time to answer that one fully. I mean, the Dutton's are America's favorite mafia family. So go ahead. Yeah.

It's brought a lot of people to the stadium, for sure. Let's talk about Yellowstone first. You know, between COVID and that TV show, I mean, I fully...

credit those two things with giving us a second congressional seat. I mean, we took a seat away from California. Our population is increasing pretty drastically, and I certainly think the popularity of that show is part of it. It's pretty sensationalized, I've got to tell you. I grew up on Angus Cattle Ranch in

Ain't nothing like that. It's a soap opera, but you know what? I travel a little bit, and I show up in a pair of boots and a cowboy hat. People kind of swoon, and they ask me if I'm related to Dutton. I kind of have to shake my head, but that's just part of it now. You know, guys, my background, I'm a farm and ranch kid, yeah. Honestly, I had to go to law school because our place wasn't big enough to sustain my dad's family and my young family.

So I went to law school on a whim, got my law degree, moved back to my little rural community. I practiced law for a little while, and pretty soon I had people asking me to run for the state legislature. And it's just kind of snowballed from there. It's never been anything I planned.

I never imagined I would be the Speaker of the State Legislature. I never imagined I would be the Montana Attorney General. It just kind of happened. So basically, you got the short end of the stick. They said, Austin, you can't work here anymore. Go to law school, and next thing you know, you're AG. Is that basically what happened? Yeah, hey, dreams come true, I guess. I was about to say, I don't know. It sounds like they keep sending you back for corporal punishment. Yeah.

What is surprising about politics, by the way? What is surprising about politics? You know, ego.

I bring this one up a lot with my staff, my senior staff, new people who are getting involved, new legislators. Ego is a thing in this game that you really have to watch out for, and I think it's the single most dangerous trait we have to watch out for in politics because you start being an elected official. It doesn't take long for the sick of fans to show up, and it doesn't take long for them to start flattering you

And you've got to be really careful not to buy into what people are telling you about yourself. And I think that's been the downfall of a lot of politicians. Well, there's an old quote from Wayne Owens, who was a congressman from Utah. He says, to a politician, a whisper in the ear sounds like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

And my question for you is, you mentioned humility and ego. How do you keep grounded? Because, you know, you're very articulate. We've had a lot of guests on the show. We're not feeding you a line. You're very articulate. You're engaging. You probably have a future in Montana for more if you want it. My question for you is, how do you and your family, how does your family keep you grounded? And what do you do personally to stay grounded? Yeah.

Well, I mean, the family is a huge part of that. I mean, my wife is a rock star. She's as much the attorney general as I am just from a campaign standpoint. But she's very good at keeping, you know, my head under the clouds. I keep a pretty close-knit group of friends around me that, you know, frankly, they don't pander to me. And I don't like sick of fans. I truly dislike having people around me that, you know, are there to...

Help me out, you know, whatever. It makes me uncomfortable. So I've got a pretty good group of friends that keep me humble. You know, Austin, that's actually something we've talked about before, which if you meet a politician who doesn't have that, I start to worry. You need those grounding people from your from your from your real life.

Yeah, you absolutely do. And the great thing about my friends, like they're not afraid to tell me that I'm being a complete moron. You know, you're about to screw this up. You might want to step back and rethink it. I will say from my year in Montana, you're never going to meet people who are more forthright than Montanans. They will hit you right between the eyes.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, we've got some folks coming in here that don't quite have that, but I just think that's so important when you're building a staff, when you're surrounding yourself with other elected officials.

You have to have real people who are not afraid to give you constructive criticism. If you can't take constructive criticism, then you're in the wrong game. This is why, like Norway, I believe red states need to institute cultural immersion classes before people are allowed to register here. Austin Knutson, Attorney General for Montana, very much appreciate having you on the program today. We'd love to have you back in the future.

I'd love to do it, guys. You bet. Have a great time. Thank you. Fantastic. Folks, Breaking Battlegrounds will be coming right back. You deserve a home that's beautiful and stylish. At Overstock, you don't have to choose between low prices and quality. Find new on-trend home goods that reflect your taste and don't compromise on value. You can be proud of your home and design a space where you feel like you, all under budget. Plus, you get free shipping on everything in the continental United States. Overstock is where quality furniture and decor cost less.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. On the line with us right now, our second guest today, Michael McKenna, columnist for The Washington Times, president of MWR Strategies. Most recently, he was a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House. Michael, thank you for joining us today. Really appreciate having you on the program. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. You have an interesting column that Chuck and I both read recently.

about Biden being afraid of irrelevancy, which I thought actually was a really good point. Tell us a little bit about that and what your insights are there, because I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. Yeah, it's pretty simple. The speech the other night, the speech last Thursday night where President Biden called a third of the American adults illiterate.

stretch to the republic right and fascist uh easy to get upset about a little more difficult to kind of take a deep breath and figure out what's going on he he wanted to drag president trump into this campaign because he knows he's losing right the democrats know they're going to lose the house and they probably suspect they're going to lose the senate that's a little contrary to um the thoughts here in dc right everyone thinks oh the democrats can hang on to the senate i think they're going to lose the senate and i think

More importantly, I think President Biden thinks they're going to lose the Senate unless he can make the election about something other than himself. And long and the short of it is,

Without a House and a Senate majority, President Biden is going to be pretty irrelevant pretty quickly. It's got to be painful for a president to come to the realization that if an election is about him, his side is going to get housed. I mean, that's actually kind of seems like it's probably a hard thing for him to accept.

I think it's hard for a lot of folks to accept that, you know, they're not as great as they think they are. And the thing about President Trump is every once in a while, not all the time, but every once in a while, he exposes that to people. You know, you think about the mainstream media.

When I was in the White House, we had a list of accomplishments and went around every month or so and got updated. And at the top of the list was always defended, preserved documents.

How did he say it? Golly, now I can't remember. It was basically make sure that the New York Times, the failing New York Times, survived. I was like, I'm not kidding. That was number one on the top of the list of accomplishments. Well, it's a fair point because, frankly, their readership and CNN, they were so dependent on President Trump, it's almost a joke. Do you find it real? I find it interesting, Michael, that

Right now, the last 60 days in particular, the New York and D.C. press have really pushed this narrative that look at all the great things Biden's done. And I sort of laugh at it because he has a majority in both houses, right? Yeah.

So what is so special what he's doing? I mean, you know, he has a majority. I mean, I think anybody on this interview right now or in this building could have done it. I think anybody would expect him to have done more. I was going to say a few, two things about that. First of all, that's good insight. One is that if you look at the list that the Democrats came in with, all the stuff they wanted to accomplish,

what they've actually done so far has been a relatively minor portion of that list, right? And it's mostly involved giving money away, which, as we all know, is what the easiest thing to do in Washington is give money away. People like free money. People like free money. Right? Who doesn't? And the second thing, and it's...

related to the first one is, whenever someone talks about achievements of a president, you know, I like to think about Roosevelt winning World War II, or Lincoln winning the Civil War, or Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon getting us to the moon. We talk about achievements nowadays, we talk about basically passing legislation that gives money to people. And, you know, most Americans don't

don't think of that as achievements. They understand that they're stuck paying the bill, so they're like, not exactly sure what was achieved here other than moving money from my pocket to somebody else's pocket. You mean like giving away student loan forgiveness for a certain percentage of the population where two-thirds have to pay for it? I was shocked at the number that's been associated with that, right? I don't know if you guys have seen it. Penn Wharton guessed that the 10-year cost of that was going to be a trillion dollars.

That would make it right now the most expensive social program in the history of the country. Sam and I have talked about this. A more fair and equitable program, if you're going to spend a trillion dollars, is issue vouchers to every high school senior for two years of community college or tech school. If you're going to a four-year university, you can take that voucher and apply it to whatever tuition it is, but just whatever the rate is for your state JC for tuition.

Give it to them on a voucher. And that's probably something that can really help working Americans. Certainly do more for the workforce in this country. Oh, my goodness. And so, you know, you have this voucher for two years to probably help pay for your technical education and so forth. But, you know, we have a sponsor of the show that goes and buys defaulted private student loans. Right. And they were just talking, visiting with them yesterday, and they were just talking about, look, this loan forgiveness is only going to increase tuition costs. Right.

Trust me, it's only going to increase the cost. It's just like Ford, right? You pass a $7,500 EV credit and Ford immediately raises the prices of their EV by $7,500. Exactly, exactly. It's...

Well, first off, let me agree with you. And second off, let me tell you, Bernie Sanders has been beating the drum for free community college for 10, 12 years. And every time he raises his hand and says it, everybody always says, can't afford that, Bernie, too expensive. We literally just gave away a trillion dollars. And guys like

Senator Sanders are rightfully angry about that because, you know, if you ask, you know, this is, I think, I think this might come about the post up here a couple of days. If you ask people, Hey man, I'm going to spend $3 trillion in the next year or two, you know,

What would you like me to spend it on, or how should we spend it to get the most bang for our buck? Literally no one would have picked the way we've spent the last $3 trillion. Well, no one who doesn't have an Ivy League degree and a lot of debt they can't pay for because their degree is useless. It's even worse than that. Let's just call it for what it is. He's buying votes. Yes.

He's buying suburban votes. I mean, there's no other way around this because it's not really helping those who truly need help. And again, student debt is a major problem. I don't think anybody here talking would disagree with that. It has really put these folks in a bad spot. Now, of course, they made the decision to take out the loans to go to the colleges they went to. If you had never transferred the loans to government control and left them with the banks, this wouldn't be the case. I mean, that was the inflection point for the explosion of higher ed costs. Yeah.

You know, let's put it that way. We can all agree student loan debt is a problem for the people who are holding it, right? No doubt about that. It's probably a problem for all their knock-on people they would buy stuff for. No doubt about that. The thing we don't talk about is part of the reason why we have a student loan debt problem is because the universities have been relying on the federal government to do just this for the last 15 years.

Right. They have been they've been running up tuition and fees for 30 years now and counting for the last 15 years that eventually the federal government was going to do something just like this. You know, when you were going over the list of presidential accomplishments, Michael, I started thinking back, when is the last time a Democrat accomplished something really significant, the benefit of this country? And the last thing I can point to is.

is Bill Clinton's welfare reform that would never get a hearing in any Democratic Party body today? Yeah, I was actually just kind of going through a quick scan in my own head of, like, what would I consider the... Yeah, I think that was a pretty good accomplishment. Difficult, contrary to his party's wishes at the time, right? Bill Clinton was a better president than people gave credit for. Oh, I think we would all kill for Bill Clinton as president right now. I...

I believe he was a good president, a flawed human being, but a good president. And I'm okay with that, right? Yeah, very, very much so.

Let's talk quickly here for three people running for hypocrite of the year. Eric Adams, New York's mayor, Larry Lightfoot, Chicago mayor, and the D.C. mayor, who have sanctuary cities. They get a couple hundred to a few thousand immigrants, and now supposedly it's going to collapse these three major cities in America. Has there been something more comical than these three stooges that you've seen in a while? No.

I realize Governor Abbott started this thing out as a political stunt. I do. Absolutely. But I have to be honest with you. It has exposed the hypocrisy of these three big city mayors better than anything I could have imagined. It was spot on, perfect, pitch perfect, right? Indeed.

It turned out to be brilliant, and I dismissed it as a publicity stunt, too, when it came out, but darn. And, you know, the thing is, and this is something that's important and meaningful in the conversation that we tend to gloss over because we have in our own heads, in a situation where you don't have a border,

everybody's at risk. Everybody's at risk, not just the border states. No. And, you know, and I, the only, my only hesitation is I wish the Republicans would be clear about this. Like, this makes our point for us that, you know, eventually these folks are going to show up in places like this. All we did was accelerate the process and show you what it looks like. Well, and everybody's at risk. And that brings a good point. Our guest after you is the Attorney General from Montana who's going to talk about this issue. Um,

But what's really interesting about this is the Republican Party should be sued for malpractice, for not being able to have every candidate talk about the crime issue, how inflation affects household budgets, and the border crisis, which is bringing drugs around the country and killing all these young men, primarily young men. And suppressing salaries for entry-level workers. And for some reason.

Our party cannot stay focused on that issue. We want to talk about Mar-a-Lago. We want to talk about all these things that really do not affect 80% of these voters at the end of the day. They're trying to put food on the table, pay their bills. Crime is up. I mean, I have a friend that's leaving medical school in New York because the crime is so bad she's just afraid to take the subway anymore. And for some reason...

You know, the Democrats have their three stooges. I don't know what to term our leadership who's messaging, but it's bad. And it's a simple message. Yeah, and I think you're, first off, again, absolutely right. Crime, inflation, border, this is not a particularly complicated election, right? But the Republicans are terrible at just picking some issues and sticking with it. And I think it's because, and some have thought about it for decades,

A couple of years, right? The folks who are loudest in the party tend to glom onto the social media-ist of the stuff, and that's always going to be about President Trump. And sometimes that's great, but in this particular instance, it's crowding out the actual message. It's frenetic, and it changes. And that leads us, as we're closing this conversation with you, you wrote a great argument, a great column about the polarization of America, and I think that's part of it, right? Everything's dictated by Twitter now.

And it's not real world. It's just not real world. I mean, they're funny videos. I love all my dog videos I get on Twitter. But, you know, how do we change that? We got two minutes left here. How do we change that?

I'm not sure, right? I think the first thing to do is recognize that you have a problem, right? And the problem is that Twitter is basically the debate club geeks, you know, grown up, and they're now running the conversation instead of moms and dads and small businessmen and cops and farmers and doctors and people who should be running the conversation. I think the way you get around it or the way you preclude it or fix it

is to have leaders like members of Congress actually talk about stuff that's meaningful to people, of crime, inflation, border, routinely, instead of engaging in this essential trivial, you know, these trivialities on Twitter. Owning the libs is great, lots of fun. I like to do it myself. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really win you elections or win you policies, right? Policy bites.

Right. Right. Michael, how do folks follow you and your work and keep up with you?

I'm on WashingtonTimes.com, right? WashingtonTimes.com twice a week. I write a column. And that's really, oh, my Twitter handle. Mike McKenna. Sorry, I'm not a Twitter guy. It's Mike McKenna, M-C-K-E-N-N-A, one word, three. Mike McKenna three is my Twitter handle. Thanks for making me do that because I always forget it. Well, we're going to always make you do it because we plan to have you back. You've been fantastic. Absolutely. Really appreciate having you on today.

Breaking Battlegrounds. Be sure to stay tuned for our podcast only segment. If you're not doing it, download it. Get on there. Subscribe. We have some great content coming up for you this week and every week. We'll be back on the air next week. Welcome to the podcast only segment of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Boy, a lot going on in the world this week, Chuck.

I feel like from this day forward, even the last 10 years, every week, you can say there's a lot going on. It's just nothing changes, nothing slow. I think we could all use a boring day or two and they just don't exist anymore in the world. I would love to see a 24-hour news cycle with no actual news at this point. Yeah. Let's just give us a break. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you get why people are having anxiety.

It fed its force fed to the entirety of America day after day after day. No matter what sort of media you watch or what you do, it's just pushed down your throat. And everything, it seems, left and right is designed to incite people to anger. This is terrible. It's terrible for our country. Yes. I there was actually a on a tweet I saw from USA Today reporter who did research about the tweets from congressional office, Democrat, Republican.

And the premise of the story, and we'll post it on our social media, was they're not even talking the same language anymore. No, they are not. That's a good insight. It was really good. And we'll put that on the Breaking Battlegrounds social media, Facebook, so forth. But I just immediately saw that like, yeah, that's right.

Yeah. We don't, we don't talk the same language at all. No. When I read tweets from Democrats, it is gibberish to me half the time. And my only solace in all that is 90% of Americans don't participate on Twitter. Uh,

And 70% of them get along with their neighbors, whether they're Democrat or Republican or not. So I think social media exacerbates the situation. Can I tell you, I think the best day at the end of whatever, whenever I end my political career, the best day is going to be the day I can just get off of Twitter and just turn it off. I mean, you're kind of required to do it in this business. Yeah. And you just sort of go, you got to, as we've talked before, maybe we have not, I turn off the news at six at night. Yeah. I mean, you know, people say, how do you sleep? I sleep well.

I watch a sports game. Yeah, or rerunning or something funny or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Comedy, some sort of light. Unlike our mutual friend Aaron who's watching cold serial case murder shows, mass murders. Everybody in the room is concerned about Aaron. Well, let's be honest. That's research for Aaron. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, I have to say there's a high degree of possibility that that's research. Let's talk about these divisions. Sam, you were bringing it up earlier.

The BYU incident. Why don't you tell our folks what happened with it and let's talk about it. Yeah, I mean, this kind of came out of nowhere, you know, but you had a Duke BYU women's basketball game where one of the Duke players after the game accused a BYU fan or fans of shouting racial slurs at her and the Duke team. And BYU, you know, reacted immediately.

They actually pointed out a fan that someone kind of pointed to who had nothing to do with it. In fact, after extensive review, they have reviewed multiple video camera recordings, everything else. There was no such thing. And to me, this is how Democrats really misunderstand Mormons.

Yes. I mean, quite frankly, the last school in the country where I would expect someone to be shouting a racial slur from the stands at an opposing player is BYU. Well, I mean, and let's look at the facts. So this is a BYU field house. They have good attendance for their volleyball teams because their volleyball teams are nationally ranked all the time. I hate to say this, but they're like the only one in the country who has sellout volleyball, women's volleyball games. Yeah. So you have this program.

You have BYU, which is full of people who would quickly call out someone for yelling any type of derogatory comment towards anybody. There's no drinking allowed at BYU games, so there's not drunk people there. The game was televised on BYU TV, which you can find on, which means it airs all over the world, right? Right. The school went through it. Duke went through it. No one can find or hear this supposed horrible racial outcry

Well, and it turns out the mother of the person who made these accusations is running as a Democrat. I think it's her aunt or something. Yeah, I don't think I think I don't think it's her mom. But I mean, that's where that's actually how it first came out was was that candidate tweeted it out. And then, you know, well, and Greg Price this morning on Twitter had a great comment. He goes, I haven't been this shocked about the BYU racial slur being a hoax.

And

And it's just true. And what BYU should do, they won't because that's not how the school operates. BYU should sue Duke. Yes, they should. And you had a great comment what they should get out of it. They don't should sue the school. They should sue the player. Yeah, they absolutely should. And one of the things I would demand in that settlement is the next time that Duke's volleyball team comes to Provo, that they go out with.

Break them up into twos and threes and have them go to dinner with BYU families. You know, and it would, you know what, that would not be a bad idea for all schools to do. No, actually, I think that's, that would be a really good thing, frankly. I think everybody could learn a lot by visiting whatever college town they're going to, sitting down with families or boosters and just learning about them. And boy, we need a lot more of that. And I think that's a brilliant idea, Sam. You know, but this reminds me a lot what's going on now, like Oberlin College, which

You know, they love to view themselves progressive. Funny thing about the New York Times. So Oberlin lost a lawsuit for $36.59 million from a local bakery, which they basically shut down because a young man who was black shoplifted. Right. And the guys chased him out of the store, chasing the street. And so, therefore, this bakery was inundated with food.

Number of days. You had, I think, the dean of the college. Yeah, no, they actually had the dean of the college. So they lost the lawsuit. It was funny. The New York Times trying to justify Oberlin as his great progressive college said, this small liberal arts college with a reputation for turning out students who are strong in the arts and humanities and for its progressive politics, leaning heavily on its history of being a stop on the Underground Railroad. Ha ha.

That's literally where they went, right? Somehow they got the Underground Railroad, right, in there. Anyway, they lost, and the judge decided that, you know what, you can budget this $36 million, you're going to pay it. And they decided to withdraw their appeal.

And good for the bakery. And frankly, that stuff needs to happen more. Now, now, now for you morons out there who are saying Sam and I in any sense could own racism. That's just crap. If someone does it, call them out. Right. They can pay for it. Absolutely correct. There's no place for any of it in our country. No. And maybe we need to start doing more things like Sam suggested that.

That players go and visit with other families and they visit a school. Somehow we've got to start talking instead of talking over each other and going to our own little bubbles. And Republicans, Trump MAGA people are just as guilty of this as everybody. Oh, no, it's both sides. But you can definitely see how this this player looked around and sees, quite frankly, a very white school.

but doesn't know anything about the LDS church, the missions that basically all the members go on. You talked about this being broadcast around the world. The reason for that is because LDS missionaries go all around the world, in every country around the world, to take the word of God to these folks. Now, I am, as most people know, a lapsed Jew.

But if you want to talk about people who are deeply vested in other cultures, if you want to talk about people who have tremendous respect for people who are not like them, Mormons are at the top of that list. Oh, very much so. I mean, that has always been...

For a religion where a majority of the people, well, super majority vote Republican, why they've always been a burr into the anti-immigration forces bottoms because most of them have a family member who has served a mission and lived two years in Mexico or South American country or any foreign country, and they're just like,

Great people. And it goes back to Sam's point. If these college students start going to see other people, we need more of that. Yes. Talking about this, by the way, there's another one that came out in Associated Press this morning. The South Carolina Democrat Senate candidate who's trying to oust Senator Tim Scott. She's a state rep. Her name's Crystal Matthews is being called by her Democrat Party to withdraw just two months ahead of the general election.

And this is a response to a video that she captured, and she said it in a restaurant. Matthews, who is black, is heard saying that she represents mostly white district, adding, of white voters, I keep them right here, like under my thumbs. Otherwise, they get out of control like kids. You ought to know who you're dealing with, Matthews goes on. You've got to treat them like shit. Sorry.

Shoot. That's the only way they'll respect you. It's a podcast only segment, Chuck. We can get away with it. Yeah, I dropped some F-bombs on this portion last week and Jeremy panicked in the studio. So she acknowledged it. She also complained that

Other things she complained about, which were previously published by Project Veritas, in which she spoke to an inmate about funding her campaign with dope boy money. She's a blast. And having Democrats run as Republicans saying secret sleepers represent the only way we can change the dynamics in South Carolina. So anyway, the Democratic Party, her colleagues are just simply saying we're advising her to get out of the election. And they're just saying...

She's a distraction and that if a white person did this, we'd all be up in arms about it. And this just we can't tolerate. So kudos to them. Absolutely. Kudos to them. And we need we need more of that from both sides to call it their own. But the reality is she's just a less polished Stacey Abrams. Do you think Abrams feels any differently? Well, Stacey Abrams is absolutely being walloped by Kemp.

And she should be. And, you know, and she is the poster girl for progressive left. Yes. She's never, by the way, unless something's happened the last couple of months, I'm unaware of, accepted that she lost in 2008. No, no. I mean, she's still making the elections fraud claim from that race. And so what I read this morning, Eric Erickson, friend of the show on his was saying that big money donors and outside groups are pulling out of that race. I mean, Kim's going to win that by eight points. He may win it by 10. Good. Good.

And the reality is Kemp's going to make my prediction. Write it in a post-note, folks. Kemp, Herschel Walker is going to win that Senate race.

Which is amazing. Kemp's going to pull him across. He's going to win that race by a couple points. Everyone wrote Walker off. Oh, right away. Right away. And, you know, the good Reverend Warnock, who's the senator there now, they also came out this week that he's taken $70,000, $80,000 from his church that he didn't need to declare or something. I mean, since he's been in office. I mean, I don't know. It's just, you know, it goes again, another issue both sides. Look, when you're an

When you're in office, have some frigging ethics. Well, yeah, and Republicans do. I mean, and then they'll get the stock trading. Look, you should not be able to trade any stock. I mean, let's just hard stop because we have to get back to a higher standard where people trust...

Governmental entities. It's bad when you don't trust anything. Yeah, you really do need to put those into management by someone else where they don't give you any information about what stocks you're invested in. Absolutely. Put them in mutual funds, set the rules. You don't want to tell people they can't have investments. No, no, no. But they should not be in control of them.

Exactly. Not not when they're in Congress, not when they're in the Senate. In the world, Queen Elizabeth, monarch for 70 years. Is that the right number? 70? I think 70 years she took the throne when she was 16, which I didn't realize. And by the way, I'm probably going to get myself in trouble for this comment. Someone did a montage of her through the years on Twitter that I saw. She was a looker.

She was. Sam Stone. I'm just saying. Call him the Queen of Liquor. I'm just saying. That was a beautiful woman. She was a beautiful woman. Of course, we have the absolute craziness of people who are attacking her instead of just letting the poor woman pass away.

It's been remarkable. But, you know, you get the funny memes like there's one out now with Prince Charles of Pitcher. Seventy three year old man finally gets a job. I mean, there's just good stuff on it, right? You know, there was a story Prince Charles told that I saw the other day and I hadn't seen this before. I thought it was hilarious. They were out near their country estate walking and they see two American men.

You know, walking up the path towards them and they start up a conversation. It's the prince and the queen. And it's very clear right away that the two Americans have no idea who they're talking to.

And so they ask them where they live and they say, oh, well, we have a house in London, but we have an estate nearby here that we spend a lot of time at. And the Americans ask, how long have you been coming up here? 20, 30 years, that sort of thing. And the American turns to the queen and says, do you know the queen? Right.

And have you ever met the queen? And she deadpans. Well, I've never met him. But turns to the prince and says, but he has met her quite frequently. And so this American tourist grabs the prince, puts his arm around him, hands the queen his camera and asks her to take a photo of him to commemorate this.

And they deadpan the whole thing. They go their separate ways. And the preacher said, you know, I hope when he got back and had that developed, someone pointed out to him who was in the photo. It reminds me of the story of our mutual friend whose dad retired years ago. And he retired to Carmel after he sold his business. And so every morning he would go get coffee and struck up this friendship with this hippie looking guy. And so after a while, they started walking the beach after their coffee every morning.

As time came, the trust developed. The younger hippie-like guy just started telling him about the trials he had with the business he started, how the board kicked him off. He was seeking advice because this guy had a successful business that he sold. He got to find out the guy was Steve Jobs. The old guy didn't know anything about it, right? Right.

Let's end this podcast with, Jeremy, if you could play that clip from Morning Joe this morning, which will enlighten us. It's an astounding clip. Yes, go ahead, Jeremy. I'll just say, as a Southern Baptist, I grew up reading the Bible, maybe a backslidden Baptist, but I still know the Bible. Jesus never once talked about abortion, never once, and it is.

was happening back in ancient times. It was happening during his time. Never once mentioned it. And for people perverting the gospel of Jesus Christ down to one issue, it's heresy. Go, if you don't believe me, if that makes you angry, why don't you do something you haven't done in a long time? Open the Bible, open the New Testament, read the red letters. You won't see it there.

And yet there are people who are using Jesus as a shield to make 10-year-old rape girls go through a living and breathing hell here on earth. They've also conveniently overlooked the parts.

of the New Testament, where Jesus talks about taking care of the needy, taking care of those who are helpless, who live a hopeless life, because they believe, these state legislators believe, that life begins at fertilization and ends at childbirth. And, Cady, what a powerful message yesterday.

OK, Joe Scarborough has lost his ever loving mind. The Bible didn't talk about climate. Yeah, no, it didn't. And it didn't predict Henry Ford either. So, you know, and I'm pretty sure that most abortions that were forced.

Well, yeah. I mean, also, a lot of it was just taking poison, basically. And, you know, but but well, in the Democrat in the Democrat. Look, you and I have a very nuanced position on this. And, you know, there's exceptions. The pro-life side would call me very moderate on the issue.

But morning Joe has lost his mind. - He's gone over the edge. - Yeah, and I always love people who say, well, I'm a lapsed Baptist, which means he's probably not read the Bible in 20 years.

Also, Jesus did not say to the Romans, you need to go tax everybody and take care of the poor. Exactly. I mean, there's lots of issues there. Go take your sword and gather the coins so we can take care of the needy. And the Democrats keep trying to bring up this point about people wanting a 10-year-old who was either raped or abused to keep their baby alive.

Folks, first of all, it's not even 0.0001% of what's happening. 96% of all abortions are because there's no medical issue. They just they don't want the child. It's a choice. There's over a million abortions a year. Yeah. So the Democrats keep trying to play this violin song on these stories.

That really are rare and exceptional. And realistically, though, Chuck, that's all they've got. I mean, they're heading into an election cycle where if it wasn't for unforced errors by Republicans, they would be getting annihilated. I mean, that and the cover the press provides for them.

Yeah. And, you know, then Republicans fail to admit that most abortions, 88 percent exactly, are done in the first trimester with over half of those done in the first eight weeks. Right. Right. And that's not a 10 year old little girl who's been violently raped or abused.

No. To me, though, this issue is cover right now. I mean, I think you are going to have every state's going to have slightly different laws, and that's OK. I mean, we were never envisioned to be a nation of identical laws, and people will be able to choose where they want to live and under what laws they want to live. That's part of being an American. So I don't see this issue as the existential crisis that some people on either side do.

But at the same time, Democrats are really running on this issue alone. This is their hope for November. Well, I think it's going to work in some races. It's going to work. It's going to work. It's having an impact. It has fired up a segment of the population, women, professional women. And I understand it. Before we end today, we have a new sponsor for the program. And got to tell them thank you for helping keep us on the air today.

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