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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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This is Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
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Let's get into it.
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All right, guys, I've got to introduce a new segment--
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I guess you can call it a segment or a new type of episode
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that we're going to be doing here on the podcast feed.
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It's going to be called From the Senate with Mark Wayne Mullen.
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And so a lot of you guys became familiar with Mark Wayne
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Mullen last year, because we had him on several times
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to talk about the runoff.
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He was going on against TW Shannon
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for the last Senate seat here in the United States
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for the state of Oklahoma.
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But then we went all the way through the general election.
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And so in November of last year, he
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was elected to the United States Senate,
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representing the state of Oklahoma.
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And then I pitched him on this idea like, OK, well,
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that's cool.
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We had you on a few times to talk about why you should be
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elected and all that type of stuff.
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But when we actually start getting down
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and actually getting to brass tacks and working
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through stuff, I think the people in our audience
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would want to make sure that they're on top of that as well.
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Because in this podcast, we cover faith, culture, and politics.
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And so we don't always do those in perfect symmetry
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or any of those types of things.
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But there's a lot of things that are going on politically
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that are affecting us on a day in and day out basis.
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And I want us to stay in on that.
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So what would you think about coming on once a month,
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20, 30 minutes, and just talk about what's going on legislatively
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and how that's going down?
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He's like, absolutely.
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Before I could even finish the sentence, he's like, absolutely,
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let's do that.
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So that's what we're shooting for.
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So we're essentially going to try to have him on at least once
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a month for a short interview to talk about what's going on,
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currently in the country, what's going on in the Senate,
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and to give us a view from his seat up there-- hey,
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there's only 100 of y'all.
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Like, what exactly is going on in the Senate?
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Now, in this particular episode today,
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we talk about how we were promised a red wave,
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and then we got the red whimper.
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And he gives us his ideas as to kind of why that happened
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and why it went down that way.
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We talk a little bit about the drama that
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went on in his old chamber, the United States House of Representatives,
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with the speaker vote around Kevin McCarthy
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and all the things around that.
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But then we got into some legislation that he's introducing.
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So he's introduced this legislative package.
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That's talking a lot about energy independence
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and us here in the United States,
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and how during the Obama administration,
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some of the things that were done that hurt our energy independence.
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Then in the Trump administration,
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how for the first time ever we became energy independent,
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and a net exporter of energy, and then with Joe Biden,
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we're basically going back to the Obama years.
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But a lot worse.
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And so we dig into all that in this.
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And so guys, you know, if you're a policy wonk,
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or if you're really into the politics stuff,
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you're going to like these monthly sit downs with Mark Wayne Mullen.
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So without further ado, let's get into it.
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Mark Wayne Mullen, welcome back to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
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Thanks, brother. You look a little swollen.
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I'm looking at that shirt.
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Either you've got schmetiums, or you've been looking a little bit.
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I both, okay, it is a large.
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All right, I've got X cells in the back as well.
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But yeah, you know, I've been getting after it a little bit.
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But hey, I don't want you to divert away from my initial question,
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which is, do you expect me to call you Senator Mullen now?
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Is that what's happening?
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Or can I just call it an owner?
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This your honor.
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Okay. Okay.
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Mr. All-powerful who is in charge of everything.
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Well, we're going to get right into it because it's been a couple of months
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since we talked.
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I was so glad to see that you made it into the United States.
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And obviously we talked a lot about that at the end of last year.
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But it didn't seem like there were a whole lot of people that came along with you
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because we were promised, you know, this red tsunami.
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And then it was like, okay, maybe a red wave.
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Okay, maybe a red, you know, trickle.
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And then I called it the red whimper.
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So obviously the Democrats kept control of the Senate.
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They actually have a one seat majority.
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They don't even need the tiebreaker vote.
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The Republicans took the United States House representatives by the slimmest of margins.
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And then obviously we still have supposedly a Democrat that is alive and running the White House.
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So let's just talk about what went down because, I mean, I got you to give us a prediction.
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I think you said we were going to end up with about 53 seats for the GOP in the Senate.
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It didn't go that way at all.
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A lot of people have a lot of reasons for it.
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They're like, oh, you know, bad candidate quality or everything was stolen and everything in between.
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So take me through a went down last November.
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And why do you think it shook out the way that it did?
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Well, you know, when we were talking about, I said we had to win the independence.
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And I was very confident we were winning the independence.
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Our polling was showing us that we were in it winning the independence right now.
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Independence for the majority makers.
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And we only have traditionally carried around 26%, 27% of the independent vote since Ross Pro
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was on the ticket.
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And so we had saw the trend break.
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We saw the trend that we were trending well over 50% with independence.
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And in fact, some polls had a society of 70.
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That's where we were looking at that red wave.
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But the independence are a lot of times issue based voters.
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We're Democratic Republican.
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They can deal with some issues they don't like on because they're voting for the party.
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And so it's more on a person that they're voting for.
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So it's kind of finicky there.
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What happened was is a Roe v. Wave abortion pro-life pro-choice
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topic was like number 10, highest poll had it number six, but had it as a very low issue
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because of the court's decision, nothing that Congress did because the court's decision
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basically kicking Roe v. Wave back to the states.
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Well, the Democrats did a very good job of painting us as extremists.
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And we didn't pay them as extremists.
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They came after us, painted us as extremists.
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And the moderate independence and independence left us.
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I mean, when I say moderate independence, the ones in the middle,
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they could go Republican or Democrat and to the left of moderate.
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They left and they didn't come back and vote for Republicans.
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And instead of us getting 50%, which we had to have that to get the percentages up,
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we were tracking back down to where we were at about 27% of the independent vote.
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And we just we lost them literally the week up.
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And there just wasn't was any way to bring them over.
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So I remember saying last summer, whenever Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey
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went the way of the trash bin that that was going to have huge implications for November.
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But then just about every other conservative pundit out there said,
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no, no, no, this isn't a topic. She everyone's worried about inflation and gas and eggs and,
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you know, all these different things.
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And I was like, ah, I would like to think that most people vote with their brains.
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But I know better, like, I know that people vote with their hearts.
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And when you saw the amount of money, the millions and tens of millions of dollars,
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the Democratic Party and the, you know, pro baby murder machine was pouring into ads in these places.
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I mean, again, we saw the writing on the wall on Kansas when it's like,
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even Kansas were convinced that if a woman had an ectopic pregnancy that she wasn't going to be
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able to get treatment because Roe v. Wade was overturned, which is complete hogwash and has no,
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you know, bearing in reality. So I knew that that would be an issue. But obviously,
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I think candidate quality did come have an issue as well because when you had certain candidates,
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and we'll leave some of them nameless, but there were some prominent candidates that was like,
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is this the best your state come up with on the GOP side? I think that had an impact as well,
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don't you think? Well, not well, in most cases, maybe, but member Federman got elected in Pennsylvania.
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Because Democrats will vote for anybody. So candidate quality doesn't make any difference.
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Republicans will vote for Republican. A Democrat will vote for a Democrat.
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Independence are where the swings are. And at the end of the day, you still got to run your own
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election. It's kind of like a primary at that point, right? A primary, you're all trying to
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get the same voter. And you just got to say your message differently. And you got to be more
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likable. You got to have a great smile or something. I don't know. I would have lost if I had to
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worry about the great smile. But I'm just I'm just saying that it's it really comes down to the
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candidate and be able to articulate the message. We always are going to get out spent. You know,
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we're never going to build a deal with and match dollars for George Soros or or Bloomberg or the
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super PACs that'll put in millions and millions of dollars into a race. We're just we're just we
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don't have that kind of money on the Republican side. But it's up to us to get the message out.
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It's up to us to run our effective campaign. So anybody can talk about whatever they want to
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about candidate, but that candidate won the primary. And so at that point, they are the Republican
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candidate. And then it is that candidates responsibility to go speak the message to bring
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over those moderates or those or those independents. And and we just didn't sell that. I'll tell you
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in in in in in in Georgia with Herschel Walker, you know, I spent a lot of time down there campaigning
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with him. I was down there four different times. And and we just we just got beat on the campaign.
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Quite frankly, money wasn't the issue down there. There was more money thrown at that race and
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there are then there used to be presidential races in one state. So money was complete absolute
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saturation, but they ran a better campaign than Herschel Walker's team ran. And and I was there
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two weeks out. And then I was there the week of the election. And I came back and told my wife,
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I said, I don't think we're gonna win it. His commercials weren't very good. He wasn't coming
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across right. He wasn't responding the way you need to. Now Herschel is a great guy, great candidate.
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It was his campaign that was running the team, but ultimately Herschel's the CEO of the campaign
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just like I'm the CEO of the campaign. But I don't think he had he had the right people around him
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and and he got out spent. You start looking at what happened in Pennsylvania. I mean, Oz,
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if you sit on top of that guy, he's phenomenal. He's a he's a great guy. But the message that he
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needed to get out didn't get out. And what is that message? I don't know. That's up to the
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candidate knowing his state, knowing what message he has to give to bring over those
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individuals. I know this. There's a big difference between running a primary race, Kyle, and running
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a general race. Your message to some degree has to change. And if you alienate everybody and you're
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you're casting an us in them projection or mentality, it is not an us or them. You got to get them to
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come over and vote for you. And so if you're chastising the individuals that you want to come
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vote for you all the time and tell them how bad they are, then that's probably not going to work.
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But if you're able to kill a vision of what you're going to do for them, regardless they're a
10:26
Democrat, because this is what we're going to do for our country, then that's a different message
10:31
that needs to be told. And sometimes in these general elections, we got a we got an us and them
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11:08
Well, and you use the word message a lot there. And so I think that was the other thing. So
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right now, you're in the United States Senate and you're in the minority, but the how or the
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chamber that you left, the United States House of Representatives is now in the majority for the GOP.
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What some people are looking at, some Republicans or conservatives are looking at is they're wondering
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what exactly is the message of the Republican Party? What exactly are the things that we can
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all coalesce around and come around because that is going to affect how you will operate in the
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minority in the Senate and how you're brethren over in the House is going to mean operate in the
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majority. So I guess what would you say in general? Because we thought it was going to be easy enough
11:45
to be like, well, the message is just like everything that Biden's doing, we want to do the opposite of
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that, which with how bad things were going, you know, for the first two years of his presidency,
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that's not a bad message. But then whenever the red wave didn't happen and we're kind of sitting
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in the position we are now, it's like, okay, well, what is that message? Because we got to have
12:02
something clear before we get to 2024, regardless of who's representing the party.
12:06
Well, you hit the nail on the head. Everything that he's done has been bad.
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And let's talk about good. So let's talk a river opposite of that. But first of all,
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before you start giving the message, you got to quit fighting with yourselves.
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And inside the Republican Party, we had this term called a rhino. And I sit there and I look
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at it and, you know, a Republican in disguise, essentially, is that what you're saying? And I
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get that some of these individuals, I mean, Liz Cheney, she wasn't a Republican. She wasn't even
12:36
a rhino. She had no choice of being cut. She shouldn't be called a rhino even. And I'd say the same
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thing about Kinzinger. But you start looking at some of these more moderate Republicans, because
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understand not every Republican comes from Oklahoma. Some come from California, New York,
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and those individuals are much different than what we are. That's why our representatives have
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individuals that represent our backyard. I don't care what Republican you are,
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mind you, minus Liz Cheney and Kinzinger, you, Adam Kinzinger, you have to pull that out and say
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they're better than the Democrats. So what our message right now is unification. We got to unify
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our party. We got to quit fighting with each other. And there are some people on the Senate side
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and on the House side that that's how they get their message out by showing contrast,
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regardless of his contrast with a Republican or contrast with a Democrat. Our fight isn't with
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ourselves. Our fight is against the Democrats that's trying to move us to a socialist country.
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And we have to realize that and understand that we need to set our differences aside. We've already
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had our conversation around the table. Our table was during primaries. We had our conversation
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during the primary. Whoever won, we need to come out. Our second time around the table was over
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leadership. I get that people have their feelings about McConnell. I have my feelings. Everybody
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has their feelings about McCarthy. I have my feelings about McCarthy too. But they're the leaders
14:09
right now. And they're the coach. They're making the play calls. And they won an election. And so
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we have to quit fighting with each other and understand, okay, where's our fight? Our fight is
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defend against Biden and this left takeover of the United States and trying to move us to a
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socialist country. That has to be our message. Our message is about freedom. Our message is about
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independence. Our message is about economy. And those things have to be brought to the forefront
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every single day and quit fighting with each other. So let's talk about the infighting a little bit
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because I remember texting you whenever we were on the 84th vote for who was ever going to be the
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speaker of the House of Representatives, all this craziness I was going on with Kevin McCarthy.
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And I just got to be honest, as someone who likes this stuff that likes the political stuff and
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I've been caught, you know, watching C span from time to time, even I was bored with it. I was like,
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this is ridiculous. Like literally, I just paid $6 for carton of eggs. And here we are like fighting
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about this and the other thing. I didn't really understand it. And I know that you've gone on
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the record, but I don't know if everyone in my audience knows. But if you were still in the House
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of Representatives, what would you have done? So I guess, you know, what did you think about all
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the drama around who's going to be elected speaker? And then if you had still been there, where would
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you have voted? I would 100% have been with Kevin every step of the way. But everyone that every
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one that opposed him knew he was going to end up being speaker. Why? Because no one else was
15:34
challenging him. And that was evident on the second ballot when everybody pulled away from Andy Biggs.
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Andy Biggs had no chance of winning. And then they went to Byron Donaldson. Byron had no chance
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of winning. And then they just went all over the place. They went to Donald Trump. They went to
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Kevin Hearn. They went to Jim Jordan. They went to Donaldson. They went, I mean, they voted for
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everybody but Newt Gingrich. I mean, it was just, it was so absurd. And they all knew the only
16:02
person that there was going to be leader, be speaker of the Republican Party and at the House
16:08
was going to be Kevin McCarthy. So it was mainly, it was for show. Now they'll go out and they'll
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tell they got rules changes. Okay, they got rules changes. Let's talk about one of them. One of them
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was okay. I agree with one of them, but we could have easily done that anyways with a debt-silling
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increase, a debt-silling increase. Before you have a debt-silling increase, you got to have a minimum
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of a 2% cut across the board. Okay, that could have easily been accepted because the old cut was
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10%. So they actually went backwards from what it was because we're used to having, we couldn't
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have a budget and we couldn't have a debt-silling that immediately 10% cut across the board would
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go into effect. So they negotiated 2%. Now, let's talk about the speaker being able to vacate to
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chair. Why was that removed to begin with? Because they call this the Jefferson rule. Why was it
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removed to begin with? Because it did exist for 200 plus years, but then the Democrats started
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abusing that when Boehner was in office and they were trying to vacate the chair because remember,
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it's not a Republican that can do it. It's a Democrat that can do it too. And so they can
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keep us fighting every day if they wanted to because any Democrat can walk in there,
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file a privilege resolution to vacate the chair and require Kevin McCarthy to get 218
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more people on the floor to vote for him. And it throws the whole, the whole thing into disarray.
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We had never done that. We didn't do that. But they did that to us. That's why that rule was
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taken out. And it was taken out not by the Republican conference. It was taken out by Pelosi because
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Pelosi didn't want that happening to her. And then they talk about the amendment process.
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It has an open amendment there once again. The reason why we pulled that away because when Paul
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Ryan was speaker, what was going on is every time we had tried to bring a bill to the floor,
18:00
the Democrats would come there because it's an open rule amendment. They would come to the floor
18:04
and they would file 160 amendments. And they would have anything to do with the bill. They would just,
18:11
they would just jam the floor where we couldn't do anything because they were trying to keep
18:15
Trump from getting anything accomplished. So what we did is we said, okay, it's got to go
18:20
through rules now. And it's got to be made germane to the bill. If it's made germane to the bill,
18:24
then it can come to the floor. But if it's not too, if it's not specific for the bill,
18:29
then it's not going to be this open rule process. So we can get out of this. We still had hundreds
18:33
and hundreds and hundreds of amendment votes. But we, we kept it from where they flooded the floor
18:39
at the minute they walked onto the to it. So it was an orderly process. Well, they tout their
18:43
head that they got the, they opened the bills back up. I told my assessor, the guy who took my spot,
18:49
I told him, I said, these two big changes that you're touting about the open amendment process
18:55
and the speaker, I will, I will be willing to say by the time this Congress is done,
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those rules are going to be changed. And so you fought for all these votes, you, you drug the
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Republican Party through the mud, knowing when you first cast your no vote that you're going to
19:10
eventually vote for Kevin McCarthy anyways, for nothing. It was just for show. And I remind people
19:16
up here all the time, Kyle, that people in this business will hurt you a lot to gain themselves
19:24
a little. And that was an opportunity for them to get a little notoriety. That was all that was.
19:29
Yeah. I mean, to be honest with you, if, if I had watched that situation and seen something
19:35
substantive change, I would have been like, okay, that was worth it. But it seemed like drama for
19:39
the sake of drama. It seemed like they were trying to steal t shirts and trying to raise money,
19:42
which, you know, it was dubious. I didn't really like it. Well, Matt Gaetz, Matt Gaetz is the,
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Matt Gaetz is who Matt Gaetz is. But he's the absolute worst showman. He his portray of what he
19:54
is and what he really is, is two totally different people. I mean, he, he brags all the time on the
19:58
floor that he's going to sell catheters every time he goes on TV. He doesn't believe what he says.
20:02
It's just he's a showman. And he's an actor. And that's what he does. There's a reason why no one
20:07
came out and defended Matt Gaetz when he was accused of sleeping with underage people because
20:12
all of us were like, yeah, we could seem doing that. I'm not saying he did it. I'm just saying
20:16
that there's a reason why someone accused me of that or accused McCarthy of that or Jason Smith of
20:21
that or Dan Crenshaw that we'd all be like, heck no, that didn't happen. Why? Because we know him.
20:27
We know that wouldn't take that wouldn't take place. You didn't see anybody out there defending Matt.
20:31
But let's talk about Matt. Matt went out there and threw a fit for no other reason other than
20:35
he wanted to have the last word. He wanted to become the central of the story. He wanted to be
20:41
known because every since this whole thing about this underage girl came out about him,
20:46
he wasn't getting the same publicity that he used to have. And let me tell you, Matt's a great
20:51
he's great at articulating his message. He can actually deliver a message. Well,
20:56
but the great example of this is when they were calling row call votes and he just sat there.
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Why did he sat there? Because he wanted to be the last person to come in for Kevin. He wanted it to
21:10
be all about Kevin. That's why they all ran over to him and he knew the TVs were going to be on him
21:15
because Matt Gaetz has been called early on. He sat there when they called his name and didn't
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answer. So purposely the clerk would have to come back to him at the end of it knowing that it would
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be his vote because he knew how close it was. He knew it was going to be one vote. One decision
21:32
would have to be overturned. He knew that going into it. So what did he do? He sat there. Made
21:38
everybody come over there, made the conversation all to be about him knowing at one o'clock in the
21:42
morning, all every new station around is going to be covering Kevin McCarthy talking to Matt Gaetz.
21:48
And then when he turned around and Kevin did one more, he finally did exactly what Matt Gaetz
21:55
knew he was going to do. And he was going to be the person that was going to be all over new. So he
22:01
could be asked the question, why did you change your vote? And it was nothing but for sure.
22:07
When I could tell that he wasn't serious about the process, whenever he
22:11
whenever he suggested that Donald Trump be nominated for Speaker of the House, it was like,
22:15
okay, that's cute. If you're running a TikTok account, but not if you're representing, you know,
22:20
a district in the United States House representative. So, you know, it was just crazy process and
22:24
ridiculous. I don't know. I don't know how many different people that Matt Gaetz voted for. But I,
22:29
but I would go back and find it. I've been he voted for at least four different people.
22:35
And then he voted present at the end. That just shows that they had no real challenge. That's
22:38
why I said it was never a real challenge. Everybody there knew that Kevin McCarthy was going to be
22:45
speaker. It was just a matter of time. It was just a matter of time. How many votes this was going to
22:50
go through before that took place. But we knew he was going to be speaker. Yeah. And it's kind of
22:55
one of those things. It's at the very least, if you take him seriously, it's like, wait, did
22:58
your mind change four times with all these different people that you voted for? It wouldn't make me
23:02
feel very good if I were in his district. But I do want to talk a little bit about actual
23:06
legislation because again, you will be legislating from the minority. But one thing that is very
23:10
important to you and also to your constituents here in Oklahoma is energy independence because
23:15
during the Trump administration, we were energy independent. We were a net exporter of energy.
23:20
And there's things that that you are ramping up to do from from your seat to where you're
23:24
introducing these legislative packages to really protect American energy. So I just want to tee
23:28
you up to talk a little bit more about that. Sure. So first of all, you can't talk about the economy
23:33
and you can't talk about inflation and it's serious about bringing it under control, bringing the economy
23:37
back under control and bringing inflation down unless you're talking about energy. Energy is the
23:41
backbone of every economy without reliable and affordable energy. You can have a reliable and
23:46
affordable economy. You can't make a product and you can't deliver a product without energy.
23:51
And a lot of times that product itself is made out of energy, meaning like petroleum,
23:56
like the shirt t-shirt you have on right now probably has a petroleum based product in it.
24:01
That Mike you're speaking through is a plastic. It's a petroleum based product. So you can't talk
24:07
about anything when it concerns goods, products, or the economy without talking about energy.
24:16
So when you start doing, when you start talking about that, what brought us to this point? Well,
24:20
let's look at the federal lands alone. Federal lands alone, just federal production that's these
24:27
are acres of land that was deemed drillable. That this has been drillable since, I mean,
24:33
you can go back to Obama or you can go back to Clinton or you can go back to Jimmy Carter.
24:37
Some of this land has been open for drilling for that long. They have cut just under the
24:42
Biden administration in the last two years has cut a million barrels per day production
24:49
from being produced out of public lands. Now, contrast that with what Trump is doing,
24:57
we were exporting almost that amount per day. When Trump was in office, when we had low energy
25:04
cost. So why is it that energy now is being a political ploy? It's because AOC and the environmental
25:11
ist movement has made it that. So we need to take it out of hands of Washington DC. Washington DC
25:16
is good at one thing and it's plain politics. And politics is speaking to your base, regardless
25:22
of what the truth is, it's going to speak to your base. We have not curved one bit of appetite for
25:28
petroleum products since Biden has been in. In fact, our appetite has increased for petroleum
25:32
products since Biden's been in office. And we're making it up by still importing to this day
25:37
Russian petroleum products and crude oil. We're still importing at record numbers now
25:45
at the highest levels we've had in years importing oil from the OPEC cartel and asking Venezuela
25:52
to help us out too when we don't have to. But it's because of politics because day one,
25:57
what did Biden do? Biden canceled the Keystone pipeline. If he went and canceled the Keystone
26:02
pipeline today, we would be refining 800,000 barrels per day coming from Canada and North Dakota
26:10
products, refining it today, probably down in Houston. That alone would eliminate our need
26:16
for Russian oil and gas. Gas meaning petroleum gas, not natural gas. So we're saying the first
26:24
of all, the first bill is the cross border act, where we take the federal permitting process
26:30
of the cross border, which is a presidential permit, we take it out of the president's hands.
26:35
We say since you're going to play politics in it, which by the way, what investor would now invest
26:40
on on infrastructure, be it a gas or pipeline or a petroleum or crude oil pipeline or even
26:48
our power lines coming across. Why would they apply for that permit knowing that one president
26:55
could reverse that the next day after billions of dollars have been invested in it. And they went
27:00
through all the processing of getting us of doing all the studies that needed to be done,
27:05
and they come back good and you go through all the litigation, which is what happened to Keystone
27:08
pipeline. These are dollars invested in it. And with a stroke of a pin, Biden canceled it
27:14
for no other reason. So we're saying sit you're playing politics with it, take it out of your hands.
27:18
Let's put it in DOE Department of Energy. And let's put it into FERC's hands who handles that
27:24
and allowed them to do the process of the permitting process. That doesn't that doesn't mean the
27:29
government's not involved in it. That is saying that we're not going to allow one person to make
27:33
that decision who's who's who's getting elected. And he's speaking to the to one party rather than
27:39
the well of the country. So we're going to we're going to put that in those in the proper agencies
27:45
hands to handle that. And then we start talking about FERC or not fracking. I mean, fracking
27:50
was a renaissance that put us as being allowing us to be net exporters underneath Trump. We became
27:57
energy independent for the first time ever because of fracking. Fracking wasn't discovered by some
28:04
federal program. Fracking was discovered on the way they do it. I mean, fracking has been taking
28:09
place for a long time, but I'm talking about vertical or horizontal fracking, not the vertical
28:14
fracking. That has been put in place because of the the ingenuity and the engineers for independent
28:24
oil producers, mainly continental resources, who really brought it to the forefront. Harold
28:28
Hamm, who developed this into the technology it is today, he dealt with the states for permitting
28:34
for fracking. Well, today, the federal government is trying to say we need to control all permitting
28:38
for fracking, which is absolutely ridiculous. They shouldn't. It's always been in the hands of the
28:44
state and these are staying the hands of the state. And if California doesn't want for what they don't
28:49
want to go after the resources underneath their feet, then fine. Then you had the rolling black
28:53
outs and you had the highest gas prices in the nation, you deal with that. But that shouldn't
28:59
affect Oklahoma because Oklahoma is going to do it. So we're going to say, Oklahoma, allow the states
29:04
to make that decisions for themselves set up some faceless bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.
29:09
when you got to remember 96% of the individuals walking around in Washington, D.C. that work
29:14
of these agencies voted for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. That doesn't represent the rest of the
29:20
United States. So we're saying put it back in the states. And then the other thing is the federal
29:24
lands. As I spoke when I first started, the federal lands act, which the Biden administration
29:30
has attacked and we're producing, they have literally eliminated over a million acres that,
29:38
I'm sorry, it's 100 million acres. Thanks 113 million acres. They have eliminated out of production,
29:42
which is a million barrels per day, which they have eliminated. And we're saying, if you're not
29:48
going to manage it correctly, then once again, that land actually is part of the state that
29:53
that resides in. So that state should make that decision for themselves. No one wants cleaner parks,
30:01
no one wants a cleaner stream of water than those that live by it and right when in it.
30:06
So who would be best to make that decision for the environment? Who would be best to make that
30:12
decision for that public land? It's the people using that. And that's typically the people in
30:17
that state. So they once again should be putting in that we're not saying don't don't have oversight,
30:22
we're just saying put it, take it out of the hands of Washington DC and put it closer to the people,
30:26
which is what we're doing here with these three bills. So we don't have very much time left here.
30:31
Obviously, being in the minority, you've got an uphill battle here, but kind of give us an idea
30:36
of what are the realistic chances of any of these going through and becoming law? Well, keep in mind,
30:41
call the Senate is the is a voice of the minority. So in the Senate, you have a lot of ability to work
30:48
and keep in mind too. In the Senate, you take like or in the house, you take AOC or Jerry Nadler,
30:54
Jerry Nadler represents a subway stop and AOC represents like four blocks. When I was in the
31:01
house representative, I represented a third of the state. When you're in the Senate, you represent
31:06
the entire state. So you're not dealing with just a small snap picture of just this one group of
31:13
blocks of apartments. You're dealing with the whole state. So New York City is quite different
31:17
than upper New York and the politics is different. So when you start talking about energy and these
31:23
individuals that they don't agree with what's happening in New York City, they vote for a Republican
31:30
congressman up in the upper part of the state. You take the congressman from there and they have
31:34
to or a senator from there and they have to take that into consideration. And so it's a much broader
31:41
look at the where they're at and what they're supporting. So when you when we're having conversations
31:48
about inflation and we're having conversations about the economy, there's a better chance that I
31:54
can get something like this past in the Senate than I ever could in the house. Okay, well, do you
31:59
have an idea in terms of timeline, like when when this is going to be officially introduced,
32:03
when it could potentially be voted on and we introduced it already this week.
32:06
But unfortunately, Chuck Schumer hasn't gave us the ratios of the committees and without the
32:11
ratio of the committees, the committees can't be formed. And so until we can get into the committee
32:16
and start working it, we we don't know. I would I would this is going to this could be something
32:20
that can move fast about it will because it'll be debated forever. But it this is going to be a
32:26
process that we're going to try to get accomplished, you know, hopefully within a year. But who knows?
32:32
Well, it's good to see that you're not just sitting on your laurels now that you're all
32:36
important and excited. You're in like the most exclusive fraternity on the planet.
32:39
There are less senators than our people with Heisman's, you know what I mean? So that's a very,
32:43
very cool thing. But man, we're happy to have you on happy to have you on in this regular thing,
32:47
because we'll be able to check back in on some of these pieces of legislation. But that's all for
32:51
me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? No, I'm good, Kyle. Thanks for having me
32:54
on. Mark Wayne Mullen. Thank you for coming back on the Don to Life Man's podcast.
32:57
There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Mark Wayne Mullen. But before we let you go,
33:00
we are going to do a quick resilience boost. Adam Don to life, our mission is equipping men to
33:04
push back darkness with content that forges spiritual mental and physical resilience. So I've
33:07
got a link to Mark Wayne Mullen's website, but I've also got a link to the exclusive Fox news story
33:12
where he talks about his energy policies that we talked about on this interview.
33:15
Thank you guys for listening to this episode. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe,
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rate and leave us a positive five star review. If you want to come speak live at your event or on
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33:38
we want to thank the band August Burns Red for allowing us to use their music for our content.
33:42
The music on this podcast is our song, Cutting the Tides, which is off their 10th anniversary
33:45
re-recording of their album Leveler. The links are in the description.
33:48
I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness,
33:54
keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience, keep seeking the Lion of Judah.
34:24
[Music]