Global Insights with Ambassador Carla Sands and Legal Perspectives from Attorney General Austin Knudsen

In this week's episode of Breaking Battlegrounds, we're honored to host Carla Sands, former U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark and current Vice Chair at the America First Policy Institute. She brings unparalleled insights into pressing global issues, including ambassadors' advocacy for Israel and the dynamic role of ambassadors in conflicts similar to those in Israel and Ukraine. Join us for a comprehensive discussion on the risks associated with Biden's energy plan, featuring facts and figures that shed light on it all. Later in the show, we welcome back Attorney General Austin Knudsen, addressing his recent reelection bid for Attorney General, the constitutional implications of Hawaii's gun ban, and the support for a mother suing a school district for hiding her child's gender transition. Visit AustinForMontana.com to learn more. Wrapping up, we have a special podcast feature with labor law and policy expert Vinnie Vernuccio, exploring deceptive salting loopholes in unions and their impact on the workforce. Plus, don't miss Kiley's Corner, where Kiley provides updates on the Idaho 4 murder case and reports on the suspicions surrounding the suicides of four Los Angeles Sheriff Department deputies within a 24-hour span on Monday. It's a power-packed episode you won't want to miss!

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About our guests

Ambassador Carla Sands is currently the Vice Chair, the Center for Energy & Environment, America First Policy Institute, and also leads AFPI's Pennsylvania Chapter. She previously served as U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark which includes Greenland, and the Faroe Islands from 2017-2021.During her tenure, she and her team increased U.S. exports to Denmark by 45% according to MIT's Observatory of Economic Complexity. Her number one goal as ambassador was to increase U.S. national security by establishing a consulate in Greenland. By working with the inter-agency and Congress, her goal was realized in 2020.Additionally, she successfully executed trade and cooperation agreements with Greenland and the Faroe Islands to counter Russian and Chinese malign influence. In 2021 she was awarded the Department of Defense's highest civilian honor, the Medal for Distinguished Public Service.In 2015-2017 Carla served as Chairman of Vintage Capital Group and its subsidiary company Vintage Real Estate which specialized in the acquisition and development of regional malls and shopping centers across the country.Before an orderly wind-down of the company starting in 2018, Vintage Real Estate had a portfolio that included 13 properties with 4.3 million square feet invested in underperforming assets. The team was vertically integrated with in-house leasing, development, and property management.Early brief careers included film acting and practice as a 3rd generation Doctor of Chiropractic. Carla pursued her undergraduate education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Elizabethtown College where she studied pre-med and earned her Doctor of Chiropractic from Life Chiropractic College.Carla is currently a board member of the Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum and serves on the advisory boards of Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue, and the International Women's Forum. She has served on many charitable and philanthropic boards.

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Attorney General Austin Knudsen grew up on his family farm and ranch just outside of Bainville (in the far northeast corner of Montana) where they grew wheat, sugar beets and raised angus cattle. Austin was a 4-H kid, raising steers to show at the fair, and volunteering at community events. He participated in Future Farmers of America (FFA) throughout high school. In fact, Austin met his wife, Christie, while they both served as FFA State Officers during their freshman year of college at Montana State University-Bozeman.Austin put himself through college in Bozeman working jobs at the local butcher shop and a hardware store, and each summer he returned to work on the farm and ranch. Austin and Christie were married shortly after graduation and moved to Missoula where Austin earned his law degree from the University of Montana. Their oldest daughter Leah was born in between Austin's first and second years of law school and they were later blessed with a son, Connor, and their youngest daughter, Reagan.After law school, Austin and Christie moved their family back to the farm and ranch where they knew they could instill in their children strong Montana values. Austin worked at a law firm in Plentywood before opening his own practice in Culbertson.In 2010, Austin was elected to serve as the Representative for House District 34, defeating a two-term incumbent Democrat in what was one of the most expensive State House races in Montana history. Having quickly noticed the extent of the disconnect between Helena bureaucrats and political insiders and the rest of the people across Montana, Austin took on leadership roles within his caucus and was elected Speaker Pro Tempore (deputy Speaker) in just his second session of service.

AustinForMontana.com

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F. Vincent Vernuccio, president and co-founder of Institute for the American Worker, brings over 15 years of expertise in labor law and policy. Vernuccio holds advisory positions with several organizations, including senior fellow with the Mackinac Center. Vernuccio served on the U.S. Department of Labor transition team for the Trump Administration and as a member of the Federal Service Impasses Panel. Under former President George W. Bush, he served as special assistant secretary for administration and management in the Department of Labor. He has advised state and federal lawmakers and their staff on a multitude of labor-related issues, and testified before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and Labor Policy.

TRANSCRIPTION

Sam Stone: Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our first guest up today. Carla Sands served as US ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark, which includes Greenland and the Faroe Islands, from 2017 to 2021. Currently, the vice chair at the center for Energy and Environment and America First Policy Institute. Ambassador, thank you for joining us. Welcome to the program.

Carla Sands: Thanks. It's great to be with you guys.

Chuck Warren: Well, ambassador, I was listening to an interview that you had recently that said you always wanted to be an ambassador. You've always been involved in politics, very engaged. You always wanted to be one. Then one day, you get a call from the Trump administration and said, we're going to appoint you here. What? Did it meet your expectations, I guess is my question.

Carla Sands: Wow. So it was a dream as a high school girl to be an ambassador, but I didn't know about the Foreign Service.

Chuck Warren: Matter of fact, matter of fact. Ambassador, I wonder how many girls in junior high have the dream of being an ambassador.

Sam Stone: It's. It's brilliant. I love that.

Chuck Warren: I love it, too, I continue. Sorry. That's amazing.

Carla Sands: No, no, not at all. So I just harbored that dream in my heart and went off and became a businesswoman. And so when I got the call, I mean, I was thrilled because we know, like when you can fulfill a dream, it's a very, very good thing. So I went off and served and it did exceed my expectations. It was extraordinary. What an honor to work for the all the people of the United States. And the power of our federal government is so immense that that, you know, the respect that you receive has nothing to do with you as a person. The the other country's leaders respect our country so much.

Sam Stone: Ambassador, I have to jump in. I know we're going to get to talking about the letter that you helped organize to Congress about Israel, but from the outside, and maybe this isn't entirely fair, but it seems like there are, in essence, two types of ambassadors, those that go in a more ceremonial role and those that roll up their sleeves and dig in. And the ones that, like you did, roll up their sleeves and dig in, can get really extraordinary things done. And I think a lot of times under the radar, people don't even realize that it's true.

Carla Sands: And political ambassadors, some of them do go to it seems like have have a vacation and some go to really work hard. But but the career foreign service officers, because some people make a career out of being an American diplomat, you just take the test, the Foreign Service test, and then you enter the Foreign Service and the, the, the capstone for their careers would be to become an ambassador. Those people also get a lot done, but they don't have most of them don't have that private sector experience that, for instance, the Trump ambassadors brought that where we know how to get things done. And they're also fearful of doing the wrong thing, because then it's very easy to derail a fellow Foreign Service officer's career.

Chuck Warren: Oh, interesting. Interesting.

Sam Stone: That makes they live in fear a lot of sense.

Chuck Warren: What surprised you about the what surprised you about the job?

Carla Sands: Um, what surprised me was how much some European countries dislike, like the United States and do not wish us well. Who are they? How unfair. Most of our European allies. Actually, our trade isn't fair. They do things. Their tariff barriers, non-tariff barriers. They they do. They do a lot of unfair things to our trade, to suppress our trade where we don't do that to others in the same way we're we're pretty much a fair minded country. We've cut a lot of bad trade deals. I think President Trump tried to right those bad deals and did have a lot of success. He got that phase one China deal, he got the NAFTA, became Usmca. So he was looking after the American working people and American companies and saying, you got to treat us fairly. That was a big surprise to me.

Sam Stone: And that's a that was a big shift in his administration, because historically, there really hadn't been much pushback against any of those barriers or trade deals.

Carla Sands: Yeah. No.

Sam Stone: No.

Chuck Warren: Let's get to the nitty gritty. So on October 7th, a major terrorist attack happened upon Israel. Yeah, a group of ambassadors, including you, sent a letter to Congress urging support for our closest ally in the Middle East, which is Israel. My question to you. There's two questions here. One, did you have anybody saying no to you when you try to round up this letter? And two, we have two main hot points in the world right now Israel, Ukraine. And of course, there's a bunch of other things. There are very long term but immediate focus. What is the role for an ambassador, a US ambassador in those crises?

Carla Sands: Yeah, it's a really good question. So first of all, the ambassadors really did want to support this letter on behalf of. So on behalf of all of us urging bipartisan urging Congress and the Senate to support Israel and to make sure that that support stuck. And because we all saw that ISIS kind of behavior in Israel. My worry is we're going to get that in the US on our soil, because the Biden administration has a wide open border and they're not catching all of the terrorists. They already caught less than 300 like in the last recent time, but we only catch 60%. So some are getting through. And a lot of Chinese aged and foreign countries we're not friends with aged military men are getting through to tens of thousands. But the role of an ambassador. So during a conflict like this, it really depends where they're serving. Are they serving in a NATO ally country? Are they serving in an adversarial country, a muslim majority country? Right. So you got to know, like the audience and how you can get support. And then if you look at how all of these different countries around the world are voting at the UN, for instance, not to censure Russia after the Ukraine invasion, if you see how the Chinese Communist Party is having an outsized influence on a lot of these countries in the world, and then you see how if we all think about the United States Congress and the president, we have been in a bipartisan way supporting Israel, the state of Israel and the Israeli people. It's been very strong. But now you see how the left and the Muslim supporting elected officials and citizens have really, it looks like abandoned Israel in a public way. And they're supporting the terrorist group Hamas.

Chuck Warren: Right.

Sam Stone: Ambassador, do you think this is adjacent? But one of the things that we've seen is that these these radicalized Islamic factions have done a really good job of infiltrating US universities and education and really spreading their message there. Does Israel need to be more proactive in trying to counter that messaging at that level?

Carla Sands: Well.

Sam Stone: Can they? I mean, I don't know.

Carla Sands: I think it's tough because there's so much anti-Semitism around the world. It's very strong. So it's a big challenge. But it's not just in academia. Iran is at the highest. Iran has people in the highest levels at the DoD, at our Pentagon. So and yes, they do in the white House and at State Department. So they have influence over our government. And you can see that in some of the softer support of Israel, how we saw Obama, very big Iran sympathizer. And we can see how, for instance, the the students for Justice in Palestine is on a lot of college campuses. That's a muslim Brotherhood offshoot, right, funded by the Muslim Brotherhood. Okay. Like ISIS kind of people, all funded through Iran. So this is all the spawn of Iran. And I think we really are are doing a disservice to the kids on our campuses to allow such an entity have such a big influence, but also Muslim countries. And they're funding things at the universities are having an influence in what our kids are learning too.

Chuck Warren: Well, it seems like all these university professors do is out, raise money all the time, and they don't really care what it comes from. But, you know, like Covid, while while Covid was a tragedy, what it did do is open a lot of middle class parents eyes, upper middle class parents eyes to how bad the public schools are. And you're seeing those changes in education and the only the only spark of light in this tragedy in Israel right now is it's a waking up a lot of donors to how bad these universities are, and that they've been giving money and they're not going to do this any longer. So hopefully this has some long term effects. Have you? Being a Pennsylvania girl, are you surprised by Fetterman's absolute support for Israel? I mean, I've been impressed. I mean, he is not taken. He is giving it back. I'm really impressed by it.

Carla Sands: Well, before I pivot to Fetterman, I just wanted to say that China has given $400 billion to Iran in military training and military equipment. So China is behind a lot of what is happening. There's now become an alliance which is economic and military with China, Russia, Iran. And of course, we know North Korea, but it seems like it's strengthening and becoming more bold. John Fetterman I mean, please, how it's embarrassing to Pennsylvania. It's embarrassing that he's representing us. He doesn't share my values. But yeah, I'm glad that he's supporting Israel. That's the right thing to do. Everything else he's ever said and fought for, I'm against. But in this one place, I will stand with him because you find your friends where you find them.

Sam Stone: It takes a lot of courage on the left. Right. Well, I.

Chuck Warren: Think I think here's the thing about him as well. And I agree with you 100% on your opinion on him. I think it's important if we want to start seeing some resolve and getting things done in DC again, that when our political opponents do something that's worthwhile, that we do say thank you. Though you agree, you give credit. I don't think you can get anything done. If we say everything they do is bad. Because you know, what makes you ever going to build any goodwill to get things done? And so I think in the case of Fetterman, I agree with you. I wish he wasn't in the Senate. I think he's going to vote the wrong way 98% of the time. But when they go and do something like this, I think you say kudos. Thank you.

Carla Sands: Yeah.

Chuck Warren: Quickly. We're going to take a break here in about two minutes. But I quickly want to ask you, how did you increase trade US exports to Denmark by 45%. Who did you beat up to get this done really quickly?

Carla Sands: What I did is we made goals at the embassy. Number one, security number two, trade to make to create American jobs. And so I and my team would go and talk to pension funds to insurance companies saying, please invest in America by our by by our companies or invest in them, invest in our stock market. Please buy our real estate. And we would ask them to invest in the US. And then I would work to get them to be open to more trade to from the US. And you have to understand the EU trade really is done in Brussels. We went to Brussels, but there's other stuff we did as well.

Sam Stone: That is brilliant and real quick we have about 30s left. What are our number one export? What are our top exports to Denmark?

Carla Sands: Well, they buy our pharmaceuticals, we buy theirs, they buy a lot of software and they use our Zoom and Microsoft platforms. So there's a lot of service exports as well. But they also buy wood pellets and burn them and call it green.

Sam Stone: Of course. Of course folks, we're going to be coming back with more from Ambassador Carla Sands in just a moment, so please stay tuned. And if you're not already, make sure you're subscribed to download our podcast, Breaking Battlegrounds Dot vote. We'll be back in just a moment.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We're continuing on with Ambassador Carlos Sands in just a moment. But first, folks, how's your portfolio doing? The market's been going up and down. Biden. The Biden economy is just tearing people apart. That's why we recommend highly recommend that you check out our friends and invest y Refy.com. So go to their website, invest the letter Y then refy.com learn how you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return on your money. You can compound it. You can take the money monthly as income. No attack on principal if you have to withdraw your money ahead of time, it's a fantastic opportunity. So again check them out. Invest y.com or give them a call at 888 yrefy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you.

Chuck Warren: We're with Ambassador Carla Sands. Sands? She's from Pennsylvania. She's a former US ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark. You can find more about her and her writings at Carla. Sanskar com. She is also the vice chair for the center for Energy and Environment for the American First Policy. Which brings me to the question. I'm still laughing. They import the Kingdom of Denmark wood pellets in Burnham and count them as clean energy. How is the clean energy policies affecting Europe? I know when the war started in Ukraine with Russia's aggressive actions. Yes. You know, oil, the Nordic pipeline, I mean everything.

Sam Stone: Germany, Poland, they're buying coal to burn in their houses.

Chuck Warren: New York Times basically said when the war started, Europe's going black that winter. Right. Okay. So how was the green energy crusade of Europe affecting businesses and employees and their households and things of that nature? Yeah.

Carla Sands: Well, thousands of people died in London last year because of the high price of heating. Thousands.

Sam Stone: You don't hear that from anywhere?

Chuck Warren: No. Wow.

Carla Sands: Yeah. Germany and Denmark pay the highest energy costs in all of Europe. And they really did believe in Germany that they were going to have everything was going to be windmills and solar panels and Kumbaya. But the dirty secret was they were doing that deal with Nord Stream two, the Russian gas pipeline, as their base load power. But they never talk about that. They were turning their back on clean nuclear. They wouldn't turn their nuclear plants on. So there's there is a kind of climate delusion, a climate religion that a lot of Europeans have bought into. And you can hear their doxology as they speak. But but it's crazy. It doesn't work. You need baseload power. Maybe tiny countries can make that work, but not countries that make big things. You need a lot of power to do manufacturing like we do in the US. And so on. A cold day in my state of Pennsylvania, a third of the power comes from gas, a third from nuclear, and a third from coal, with maybe 2%, 2.5% from renewables. And and that's pretty much what it's going to be. I think we'll increase the natural gas over the years. The renewables haven't kicked up a whole lot, even with the billions and hundreds of billions and trillions that we're dumping into it as taxpayers.

Chuck Warren: Well, I just looked up your comment about how many people died in England. This is from The Economist in May 10th, 2023. Expensive energy may have killed more Europeans than Covid 19. They're estimating high energy costs. I'm sorry for laughing. High rising energy prices cost 68,000 deaths in Europe. Yeah, that is that's true. I mean, no one's talking about kudos to the kudos to the economists for printing it. I haven't heard anybody else talk about it.

Sam Stone: I had not heard it.

Chuck Warren: I'm actually stunned by this.

Carla Sands: Yes. It's real. It's killing people. Cold kills a lot more people than heat does. And people thrive when it's a little warmer.

Sam Stone: Yeah, it cracks us up here in Arizona because they keep telling us if the temperature goes up one degree, we're all going to die.

Chuck Warren: And soon, soon, soon.

Sam Stone: Yeah. We've all been through summer before. What's one degree?

Carla Sands: Yeah, well, Joe Biden says it's more frightening than nuclear war if it goes up.

Chuck Warren: Exactly. I remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is very green, was trying to put solar panels in Death Valley and all the environmentalists started complaining and suing that, you know, you can't do this. You're going to kill X, Y, or Z, right? Some rodent, some insect, and I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger, I'm paraphrasing, basically said, if you're not going to put these in Death Valley, where in the hell are you going to put them?

Carla Sands: But it does kill birds and it kills animals, just like the windmills kill a lot of eagles and other protected birds and bats too, right?

Sam Stone: Well, Whales also.

Chuck Warren: So yeah, it's it's incredible. So let's talk here. So what do you think America's energy policy needs to be going forward?

Carla Sands: Well I would like to see a policy where. Every kind of energy is treated on a level playing field. So and I trust American innovation to figure out how we're going to do it. But we're never going to run out of our oil and gas. We have enough gas to run the whole world for hundreds of years. And with innovation, we're going to figure out incredible ways to power our lives going forward. If you think about how fast the world's changed, I can remember a time before cell phones. So it American innovation is extraordinary.

Chuck Warren: But.

Sam Stone: Ambassador, for instance, if we were putting a significant portion of this money that they're spending on this green fantasy, if we were putting that money into the development of advanced nuclear and reactor technologies, how much further ahead would we be on that road right now to developing things that are truly sustainable?

Carla Sands: Well, we're pretty far ahead in nuclear. We do have those small modular reactors and they are successful, and I'd love to see them roll out more. I actually don't like a lot of taxpayer money in the private sector a little bit to incubate and get it going, but then I like to see the free market work because consumers are the best judges of what they want. And when you do top down planning Chinese Communist Party style, you don't get to a good outcome. And that's what the Biden administration is trying to do, for instance, with our combustion engine cars. They're trying to say you will drive an EV by 2030. I think it's 2035. No, it's nine years. So 2032 and you will and it will be 60 or 70% of you will drive an EV. So they're shoveling hundreds of billions of dollars at the car companies right now. So they retool and make EVs. But the fact is people don't want them and it enriches China. They make most of the parts.

Chuck Warren: Well, it also you have to have the car 15 years to see an environmental benefit from it.

Sam Stone: And we don't have the grid.

Carla Sands: Most people don't know that. That's a terrific.

Chuck Warren: Fact. So George Will had a great op ed today. I suggest everybody post it. But he makes a point here. In 1914, the Bureau of Mines said the US oil reserves would be exhausted by 1924. In 1939, the Interior Department said world oil supply done in 13 years. It goes on and on and on. In 1970, it was estimated there were 612 barrels of proven reserves. In 2006 it was 767 billion. Now it's 1.2 trillion. His whole article is climate warriors are idiots. I mean, it's just like they don't know what they're talking about. And the problem is, Sam has this theory that this is all about just government power and ruling has nothing really to do with the environment.

Carla Sands: Yeah, I totally agree. And Harold Hamm, who's one of the original founders of the horizontal drilling to get at that oil from one clean little pad of drilling, wrote a book recently called Game Changer. I highly recommend it to your audience if they like to read about Great American Story. Yeah. Great book.

Sam Stone: Absolutely. We have just about one minute left. Ambassador, how do people follow you and your work? Because especially at the America First Policy Institute, you guys are doing amazing work, and we'd like to get more people tuned in to to help support those missions.

Carla Sands: Thank you so much. So you can go to American America First policy.com. And we have 22 centers. And we're working to make policies that benefit every American. I also am on Twitter at Carla H. Sands. I'm on Instagram and Facebook a little bit, and I have a website, Carla sands.com, and I'd be delighted to. They can read what I'm posting. A lot of it is pro American energy to bring us back to American energy independence. Well, come.

Chuck Warren: Back and join us any time. We'd love to having you ambassador.

Carla Sands: Talk to you guys.

Chuck Warren: Bye bye. This is breaking battlegrounds. Breaking battlegrounds vote. We'll be right back.

Sam Stone: All right. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. Up next, we have a friend of the program, returning guest, Austin Knudsen. He is the 25th attorney general of Montana. We had a great conversation with him. It was about a year ago, wasn't it? It was. Yeah, yeah. And actually it's Knudsen. Knudsen. I am so sorry. I'm the.

Chuck Warren: Boat. And he was so excited about the interview. He flew down to be here with us.

Sam Stone: See, I happen.

Austin Knudsen: To be in town. This worked out really, really well. So glad you're here.

Sam Stone: Yeah, it's great golf season for any guests who want to come into town and knock a ball around. How many.

Chuck Warren: How many whip wimpy Montanans come down here for the winter? I mean, I'm sure you look at them very poorly, but how many wimpy Montanans.

Austin Knudsen: Well, you're wrong. So my my parents are actually among that group. There. Look, it gets cold. Oh, it does this time of year.

Chuck Warren: And my one of my better friends is up there, and it's. He.

Sam Stone: I lived in Montana through exactly one winter, and I'm from upstate New York. Yeah. And one winter of that. And I was like, okay, no.

Austin Knudsen: There's a ton of people from Montana that come down here and actually, believe it or not, my little my little rural hometown, I bet half the town spends the winter in Wickenburg. Oh, do they really well? And they rope. Yeah, they're all rodeo people and they all rope. And Wickenburg is a huge roping community.

Sam Stone: They have a fantastic facility.

Chuck Warren: And you have a lot of Arizonans go up there for the summer.

Austin Knudsen: I don't know about that. I think the whole thing's probably still better here. But it gets hot, though. Yeah.

Chuck Warren: It does. Well, thank you for coming in. You've announced a re-election.

Austin Knudsen: I have, yeah.

Chuck Warren: Was that a tough decision?

Austin Knudsen: No it wasn't. I had people asking me to do some other stuff. There was, you know, people wanted me to run for the Congress and run against Jon Tester. And I like what I'm doing. I mean, I, I've put together a really, really good team. We're doing really fun, aggressive things with the attorney general's office. We're taking Montana in directions. It's never gone. I think it just makes a ton of sense to stay, stay the course and keep doing what I'm doing. So that's that's why it was this was a no brainer.

Chuck Warren: Well, let's talk about one case you've signed on. It's states are supporting a mom suing a school in Chico, California that hid her daughter's gender transition. And this seems to be popping up here and there everywhere, more frequently than we would ever thought ten years ago. Right. Are you amazed by the rapid process of this now, this just this trajectory, just like they're hiding what these kids are doing from parents.

Austin Knudsen: It seems like we say that about everything. I mean, we just can't believe how fast this stuff is moving. We can't believe how fast, you know, just just in three years of Joe Biden, how much the world has changed. Really? Yeah.

Chuck Warren: I mean, it's it's sort of like I had a friend who was an attorney when the gay marriage issue was coming, and he said, I'm not concerned about gay marriage, but I don't think the people understand the floodgates on other issues is going to come about. That's my concern about it. I really don't care if Bob marries Mark, right. But it's the other issues.

Sam Stone: And then I think Covid broke the norms when they were able to get so outside of the norms of governmental operations, suddenly it seems from the left, like anything is possible.

Austin Knudsen: I think that's exactly right. I mean, there was a huge power grab with Covid and I mean, if if that's constitutional, I mean, what isn't constitutional, right? And that's that's why you saw so many AGS like me push back on that. But yeah, the case you're talking about, I had to look up the lady's name. It's Regina versus the Chico Unified School District. And so yeah, what you had in this case was you had a girl who was going through a rough time at home.

Chuck Warren: Dad died.

Austin Knudsen: Yeah, dad, I think that's right. I think dad died or left the home and divorce and mom got cancer, and she was she was going through a really, really tough time. And unbeknownst to her, to her mother, the school district started transitioning her and using male pronouns and helping this girl transition, which she now has backed away from and has detransitioned and said, no, I was. I was mixed up, I was emotional, I was going through a very difficult time and but but look what the school district did to her. And we've seen this in a couple other jurisdictions as well. And this, this people ask me, well, why does Montana care? I mean, this is. You have a fundamental right to raise your children. I mean, there's nothing more fundamental in our country than you as a parent are the one responsible for those kids. My kids can't get an aspirin at their school without my say so.

Chuck Warren: Nor should they.

Austin Knudsen: But we're going to live in a world where you can transition my children without me knowing. I mean, my God, what are we doing?

Chuck Warren: But that's that's what's amazing about it. They don't even understand the illogical nature of the argument. I'm going to hide the gender transition. But you can't get an aspirin. I don't want you to drink. I don't want you to do these things. But I'm going to hide your gender. I mean, a fairly lifelong decision, a.

Austin Knudsen: Lifelong decision, and one that certainly should involve the parents and probably faith leaders, whatever that might be. But it's probably not the job for the school guidance counselor.

Chuck Warren: Like, ever.

Austin Knudsen: Like ever.

Chuck Warren: So what? So what happens when you go when you guys go and join, you have 16. Well we have one minute left. We'll go over from that. But when we come back I want to ask what is. So what does it mean when you have I think it was 16 or 17 Republican attorney generals join in on this case. To our listeners, what does that mean for the residents of voters of Montana? What does that mean when you have all of these people and you're a leader in this group? Yeah. What does that mean long term on these issues? Well, I.

Austin Knudsen: Mean, first of all, I think it sends a message to the people of our respective states. But number two, I mean, this is us literally trying to help. I mean, we file amicus briefs. This is front of the court briefs. We're we're not an actual party to the case, but this is where we come in and say, look, court Ninth Circuit in this case, which, you know, we sit in right here, this is important enough that we as state attorneys general, believe that we should tell you our opinion on this and you should listen to it.

Sam Stone: Precedents are being set in California that will affect the people of Montana, Florida, Arizona and every other state.

Austin Knudsen: Unfortunately, we're all in the Ninth Circuit.

Sam Stone: Breaking battlegrounds back in just a moment.

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Sam Stone: Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck and Sam. We're going to be continuing on with Attorney General Austin Knudsen of Montana here in just a moment, folks. But first, you've been hearing us talk about why refy for a while now? They've been getting a ton of calls from people listening to this program. We thank you for your support in an investment that actually helps people. First off, it's true you can earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return that's not correlated to the stock market. You can turn your income on or off, compound it. Whatever you choose. There are absolutely no fees and no attack on principal. If you ever need your money back, you'll get your monthly statement each month with no surprises. If you're not sure you trust this economy, this secure collateralized portfolio may be a good option for you. Go to invest. Com that's invest the letter Y then refy.com or give them a call at 888 refy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you. All right. Continuing on Attorney General Knutson Hawaii. Hawaii has been trending to the farthest left. But they're not alone right now. They recently did something in relation to the Second Amendment that I have a hard time imagining would stand in front of the Supreme Court, but it's part of a trend. Now, we've seen the same similar type thing in our nearby state of New Mexico, where the governor there tried to essentially ban guns in public for an indefinite period and got slapped down by her, even members of her own party there. Yeah. So tell us what's going on in Hawaii and what they've done, because this story, I don't think has really gone far and wide enough. Yeah.

Austin Knudsen: Well, I mean, I'm a big Second Amendment guy. I mean, just as a Montanan, shooting, collecting, hunting, competitive shooting, reloading. It's my hobby. So I mean, I'm, I'm really, really passionate about about the Second Amendment, but this one's really dangerous. And unfortunately, this isn't just Hawaii, but what Hawaii did is it started with the Bruen decision, right? This this is the US Supreme Court decision where it affirmed, yep, there is an individual right to carry a firearm and not just in the home. You have the right to bear arms outside of the home. Right? Okay. And what the Bruen decision also said is, well, okay, but there are some restrictions. This isn't wide open. You there are some historical precedents where we have restricted firearms carrying, for instance, and the Supreme Court in Bruen said specifically polling places, government buildings. Okay, those those were the two examples that they could historically say, all.

Sam Stone: Right, airports. And.

Austin Knudsen: Yeah, well, I mean, even that there's probably a historical question about. But I mean, I think just from a I think that one probably stands. But what has happened with Hawaii, they created they crafted new legislation that said, well, yeah, polling places, government places, but also also sensitive places. Well, what is a sensitive place? And this is where this gets real nebulous. The Hawaii said, well, you know, parks, maybe some restaurants, maybe beaches. Yeah. Well sorry. No, that's not in the Constitution. And that certainly does not comport with with the Bruen decision. I mean, the Bruen court was very clear. There has to be some sort of historical precedent, a historical analog for whatever restriction you're trying to place on the Second Amendment. So, I mean, that's why we jumped in this one, because Hawaii, I think when they when their legislature passed this, they probably knew this was going to get slapped down.

Sam Stone: Well, in their really good Chuck and and AG Knudsen, they're really good at nebulous language that they then work to expand on over years. Oh for sure. They chip away at every legal decision and they're very patient about it.

Austin Knudsen: Well, and we had a very similar case to this coming, coming out of Maryland. And I forget which circuit we filed a very similar brief because they tried to do this in a in a county in Maryland. I mean, almost exactly the same thing. And people said, well, why does Montana care about Maryland? Well, as these circuits go, so do the rest of the circuits. I mean, we're going to create a situation here where if this is done in one circuit, another circuit will try it, and pretty soon this is the law of the land. I mean, this is this is why we're having to be so, so aggressive on the Second Amendment stuff in front of the Ninth Circuit. I hope we don't have to go to the US Supreme Court, but based on Bruen, we might.

Chuck Warren: You probably.

Sam Stone: Will. How much is the Ninth Circuit moved back towards the center after Trump's appointees or has it.

Austin Knudsen: Well, I mean, some of those appointees are fantastic. I mean, I happen to know one of them. He's a he's a former solicitor general from from Montana, Justice Van Dyke. The problem is there's they're just so outnumbered. I mean, the ninth is still just so crazy to the left. Yeah. There are a handful of of better justices on the panels for sure. But what what inevitably happens is whenever you draw one of those good panels. The ninth will suddenly find a reason to come in on bonk. And and we'll just review what those conservatives did and and yeah, we don't like that and we'll flip that over. I mean, that happens a lot.

Chuck Warren: Former Senator McCain wanted to break up the ninth. Yeah, he.

Sam Stone: Did, and he was right about that.

Austin Knudsen: He's totally right. Absolutely. I mean, I look at my state, I look at your state. I don't think we belong in that that crazy circuit.

Chuck Warren: No. Let me ask you a question. So we have this Maine tragedy, this this evil act done by this guy. And there was just like, gobs of warnings from the Army Reserve. They did two welfare checks on him. How do we prevent people like that from happening? I mean, he just should not have had a gun for law abiding citizens. We all agree this evil act could have been prevented. They had plenty of warning on this family. The Army Reserves. A former soldier said he could break the sheriff's office. Yeah, I mean, they all did it. Yeah. How do we prevent this? I mean, that's that's going to help a lot. How do we prevent this?

Austin Knudsen: Well, I mean, we have to enforce laws that are already on the books. I mean, this guy was clearly a prohibited person. This this is a person with a history of mental disease or defect diagnosed. The warning signs were all there. I mean, they were multiple, multiple reports. I mean, he literally kicked one of his friends out of a moving vehicle because the guy tried to talk him out of shooting up the military base that he was a member of. This was reported to the sheriff's office. The sheriff's office showed up, knocked on the door. He didn't answer. Oh, well, case closed. I mean, this this was a case of the law enforcement system failing. I mean, there needed to be follow up here. And this guy, I mean.

Chuck Warren: But it seems that but that seems that failure seems to happen a lot when you ever you go look at these mass shootings, has there been one. There's not been there's been no warnings.

Sam Stone: No. I mean, for instance, the Nashville, the three pages of the Nashville Shooter Manifesto that just came out. Yeah. How about that stuff? Wow. I mean, she she references that there was some sort of contact, probably in 2021 with law enforcement or the FBI or something. We don't know exactly all the details, but she references that she could have been caught at that time. Right.

Chuck Warren: I think Republicans, those who support the Second Amendment, are going to have to allow law enforcement to say if there are these triggers, we're bringing them in, period, and we're going to understand that.

Sam Stone: But as the AG says, it's really just a matter of enforcing laws we already have.

Austin Knudsen: That's exactly right. It's already illegal to be a mentally defective person and have a firearm. The question is, how do we get that diagnosis done and how do we make sure that's enforced? And I mean, I've had cases of this just in my own private practice where someone that clearly has a mental disease or defect is still able to walk in and purchase a firearm, like there's there's obviously a gap here, I think, in law enforcement, but whether it's from law enforcement to the ATF and the NICs system or, you know, however that gets communicated. And I'm here to tell you, sometimes the communication between the administrations from a state level to the federal level does not work really well. That that's a real, real problem. And I think you're right. As Republicans, we have to be in favor of enforcing that.

Chuck Warren: Well, and I think we need to be leaders on this and be very proactive and tell people what's in the books and what's being missed. I don't think people understand. I just think they think we keep adding x, y, z. It's going to solve the problem. All these problems would have been solved. Nine out of ten of these would have been solved if law enforcement had done their job. These people have come in and I don't care if they had had a psychological check or whatever, you would not have had these tragedies. A lot of.

Sam Stone: This tracks back to the FBI, which maintains the database. Is it time for Congress to hold hearings on where did you guys miss all these signals?

Chuck Warren: It is it is time. And matter of fact, maybe what you do is skip Congress. Maybe the AG's do a tour around the country and say, here are these ten shootings. Nine could have been prevented. How are these missed?

Austin Knudsen: Atf has got a lot of problems. I mean.

Chuck Warren: They've always had a lot of.

Austin Knudsen: Problems. The NICs system with an FBI has got a lot of problems. I mean, the problem right now we've got is that those agencies aren't talking to me. I mean, they they especially the federal DOJ, I mean, they they detest me. They do not like me. Now, I've had some communication with ATF that the regional director on the western side of the US, we've we've we've had some things happen in Montana and he's actually traveled up and sat down to his credit, knowing he was coming into probably an unfriendly situation. He came into my office and sat down to talk with me. But they don't communicate with us. The states, especially the red states, they don't talk to us. So, I mean, there is a huge breakdown here.

Chuck Warren: You were. Uh. Let's see. Well, you were in Trump's. You were elected in 2018.

Austin Knudsen: In.

Chuck Warren: 2020. Okay. So you missed the Trump years. I'm interested if there have been the if it's just them being just obstinate or that's an administration thing. Well, I mean.

Austin Knudsen: I certainly saw it in my time in the state legislature. But before this, several years back, I was the state speaker of the House. And I can tell you, I mean, I started that serving while Barack Obama was was the president. Zero communication out of Washington, DC to our state legislature? Zero. And I just assumed that was normal because I was a freshman legislator, I didn't know why would you know? And then I transitioned in my last term, we had President Trump, and all of a sudden I'm getting phone calls from the white House, from from the Office of of Intergovernmental Relations. I didn't know there was such a thing. I didn't know that we could have intergovernmental relations from from the federal government to the state legislature. And it was great. You know, we were able to discuss policy and talk about things that we had mutually could work on together. That did not happen at all before. It's not happening now.

Chuck Warren: That's just unacceptable.

Austin Knudsen: It makes no sense. I mean, it was such a it was such an aha moment for me to get a phone call from, from the president's office. And it was, hi, I'm so-and-so. This is my job outreach to state legislatures. What do you need? How can we help you? What are you working on?

Chuck Warren: Well, especially since not every issue you're working on is adversarial to the administration. Right?

Sam Stone: Right. Well, and Democrats like to talk.

Austin Knudsen: It seems like it is anymore.

Chuck Warren: Yeah.

Austin Knudsen: Especially in Montana.

Sam Stone: Democrats like to talk in the press all the time about finding common ground. They want to present themselves in that light. But what you're saying totally refutes that. I mean, just totally refutes it.

Austin Knudsen: The only communication I have with the federal government is I do have a relationship with our US attorney in Montana, and that's just because I went to law school with the guy. You know, he's a he's a Biden appointee. He's he's a John Tester. Confirm me. But we're like, we're we get along, you know. Yeah I mean just it's a small state. We know each other.

Chuck Warren: Are you a better student to him? You can be honest here. You know, he.

Austin Knudsen: Was a couple years ahead of me. I really couldn't tell you. We're both in the legislature. I'll say that.

Chuck Warren: S