Seeing Red: A Texas Politics Podcast

He Built a Honey Empire. Now He Wants to Rebrand Texas Ag — Interview with Nate Sheets

• Garrett Fulce • Season 5 • Episode 6

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e built the #1 honey brand in America — then knocked off a three-term, Trump-endorsed incumbent without ever holding office. Nate Sheets, the Republican nominee for Texas Agriculture Commissioner, joins Garrett to break down the fight over data centers eating up rural Texas land, and why Texas farmers are going broke.

Garrett and Nate go deep on the data center wars — dueling newspaper op-eds, who should pay for water and power infrastructure, and whether counties should get zoning power over these projects. Plus: Nate's path from the Navy to 12 years in Christian ministry to running Nature Nate's Honey, and a preview of what's coming later in the show — the Paxton-Talarico Senate race, the fallout from the Houston ICE shooting, Camp Mystic's bankruptcy filing, and the looming deadline for Texas school choice families.

*Topics discussed:*

  • How Nate Sheets built Nature Nate's into the top-selling honey brand in America

  • His path from the Navy to 12 years in Christian ministry to the CEO's chair

  • Beating three-term, Trump-endorsed incumbent Sid Miller without ever holding office

  • The conversation with Rick Santorum that convinced him to run for Ag Commissioner

  • Dueling Houston Chronicle op-eds on data centers — Garrett's take vs. his opponent's

  • Why Texas farms are going under, and how that's fueling the rural land rush for data centers

  • The GoTexan program and other tools Sheets says he'd use to help farmers and ranchers

  • Google's $40 billion bet on Stamford, Texas, and what it means for rural communities

  • Preview: the Paxton-Talarico Senate race, the Houston ICE shooting, Camp Mystic's bankruptcy, and the school choice (TEFA) deadline


*Guest:* Nate Sheets, Republican nominee for Texas Agriculture Commissioner; founder of Nature Nate's Honey, where he served as CEO until November 2024. (Social handle not stated in transcript — producer to fill in.)

*Sources:*


Find us at seeingredpodcast.substack.com for full episodes. Follow us on all socials at @theseeingredpod and online at our website Seeing Red Podcast. x.com/gwfulce 

SPEAKER_00

Welcome back to Sing Red. I'm your host, Garrett Folse. We got a super sweet episode. That's right. We got the honeyman, Nate Sheets, Republican candidate for agriculture commissioner, on with us today. We're going to be talking about the Senate race. We're going to go into so many details about poll numbers, how much money's being raised, and what's being said, and what Ken Paxton's been up to, and how things are looking on TV and all that fun stuff. We're going to dive into what's going on with this ice shooting, how that's going to impact the races and what to look for. We're going to talk about Camp Mystic filing for bankruptcy. We're going to talk about Tifa and the deadline that's looming for people who got accepted into school choice and all that, and so much more on Seeing Red this week. But we're going to jump into it. We're just going to go over to and let's go say hi to our next agriculture commissioner, Nate Sheet. My guest today did something that very few people have done this year in politics as a whole, and that no very few people have done in Texas politics in the past few decades. That's right. He took out a three-term Trump endorsed the incumbent in the primary election, and he did it about having ever won or run for elected office before. That's right. I have today on today's show the Republican nominee for agriculture commissioner, Nate Sheets. Nate, welcome to seeing a rand. How are you today?

SPEAKER_01

Man, Garrett, it is great to be here with you. Great to be on the other side of the primary.

SPEAKER_00

No, I I bet. You know, we we ran into each other at the convention. You had one of the best booths, if not the best booth at the convention. And you are running it. I got to meet your wife and your son. You have this I know you have four kids, but the son I met as a college age or close to it was super nice and very excited to be there. You know, you're not just growing honey, you're growing a good family too. You know, what decided led you to wanting to run for agriculture commissioner after having started Nate's own honey and turning that into the what do you call the number one branded honey in America? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Well, I will attribute the great kids to my wife. Patty is an amazing woman, very intentional, homeschooled all four of our kids. And yes, we do have four, 26, 24, 22, my daughter, Sophie, who's also my campaign campaign manager, and then our youngest son, Sam. So, you know, I think that the real reason why we felt like this was a path for us. One, I spent 12 years in full-time Christian ministry. Uh went into the Navy coming right out of high school to be able to pay for my college. And then went to Southwest Texas State University, moved up to Dallas where I met my wife Patty, and wound up going on a mission trip that year. That resulted in me spending 12 years in full-time Christian ministry, bought a beehive as a hobby after she said we needed a hobby together, that ultimately wound up turning into Nature Nates. And so I always had the honey company on the side while I was in full-time ministry. And honestly, Garrett, the reason why I did ministry is I wanted to make an impact with my life. I felt like God had given me skills and talents, abilities, and passions to be able to make a difference in the lives of other people. And in the in 2010, I left ministry and started doing the honey company full-time. And honestly, when I started doing the honey company full-time, the same desire that I had to make an impact for God's kingdom in ministry, I had that same desire to make an impact in business and just using the resources and tools at Nature Nates to be able to make a difference. And I was the CEO of Nature Nates until November of 2024 and then stepped away. I had sold to private equity at the end of 2021, and I was a CEO until 2024, the end of the year. And then honestly, I was at this next place, really just asking the Lord, where can I invest my skills, my abilities, my experience to make a great impact for your kingdom? And a friend of mine, Rick Santorum, you know, challenged me. We were just having a discussion. And he said, Hey, why don't you just use the skill sets that you have, your experience? He goes, you know, you've dealt with with food, with pet with all the pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and in the honey business. You're focused on health. He said, Why don't you go be the ag commissioner? And so that was not really what I had in mind. But as Patty and I began to talk about it, pray about it, we just felt like we had the ability to make the same impact for God's kingdom as we did in ministry, as we did in business, and now coming into the public life, really to use a lifetime of experiences and a lifetime of passions to be able to make a difference in the lives of Texans and ultimately also for God's kingdom.

SPEAKER_00

That's incredible. Well, one of the things that you know, we talked at the convention, uh and during the convention, I had an opin come out talking about data centers. I'm I'm for I'm for them. I think we should have more of them all over the place. For some reason, and I'll probably we'll probably find out next week, because I have the opinion editor from the Houston Chronicles, I guess, next week. Uh the Chronicle decided to run my piece immediately opposed to your opponent who had a piece that was very much against thing to centers and talking about what he would do to I guess fight back against thing to centers if he were to win. Now I don't really know how the ad commissioner kind of you know plays into this this conversation. And I've I've been into this a bit, I mean I'm sure you have your own your own thoughts on the matter. It's a hot political topic. Where do you stand on data centers and you know what your opponent ended up doing talking about? Uh and what would you do or could you do as the ad commissioner?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I appreciate that question. You know, data centers are are something that is very alarming, concerning to a lot of Texans, including myself. You know, I have no connection with big tech. I have every connection with helping to represent agriculture across Texas and to make sure that we are doing our best to help preserve agriculture. As I think about, you know, what is it that can the ag commissioner can actually do? Because the that is not under the purview of the Ag Commission. And so the one area that I feel like we can really make an impact is to be able to help change the economics for farmers and ranchers. You know, we lost 68 farms this week in Texas. And the reason is because farmers and ranchers cannot afford to continue to be in business. Their revenues have come down from 40 cents for a dollar of food 20, 30 years ago for a farmer to 15 cents today. That's a decline of revenue of 60%. And all the while, their input costs have gone up 300%. And I think it's typified by a rice farmer conversation I had down in Houston where he said, Nathan, I just sold my rice crop for 40% less than it actually cost me to make it. And so if you think about that, you know, rural lands are becoming available, whether it's for a data center or a land development or a solar project or a wind farm, because agriculture producers are going out of business. So the one thing that I can control and have an impact on, not control, but have an impact on, is really to be able to help change the economics and try to make it more profitable with tools like the Go Texan Program, which is a tool that the Ag Commissioner has. But beyond that, I think it's also the responsibility of to go out and advocate, you know, to ensure that there is accountability in counties as it comes to ensuring that data centers are not abusing the water, that they're not abusing the power, and that none of those infrastructure costs are being passed along to consumers because that is not fair nor equitable to be able to have those infrastructure dollars being passed on to your power bill every single month. And so, but at the same time, we do not want to give counties the type of power that local municipalities have, where they have building codes and zoning. We don't want the state or the county to do it because we have property rights. And no one in Texas, especially in rural Texas, wants to give up our individual property rights. And that's the slippery slope. And I'll tell you, my opponent is a socialist democrat. He is all about the Green New Deal. He wants open borders, he wants public health insurance for all, Medicare, Medicaid for everybody. And so, you know, this is just another ploy of the radical left wanting to come in and say, oh, we want to put some tools in place to make sure that we can protect you. But what we've really done is we've just given given them the very tools that they want to try to continue to rule and ruin America, like what we have seen over the past four years with Biden. I mean, think about that porous border and all those people coming in. My opponent, he thought that was great. And he thinks there should be a big welcome mat down there on the border in Mexico, just like Tel Rico. And so, yeah, I mean, data centers are a big issue. We're gonna address it. The governor is addressing it, the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house. We are gonna deal with it and make sure that that this benefits Texas and not big data companies and their shareholders. But we just need to remember supporting the opponent means all those things that come with the other side.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. And but I will kind of push back a little bit on on some of that. There's a lot in that answer that I want to uh get to. But I guess first off is my my contention on the the top the point about making sure that we're not passing on the infrastructure costs to consumers. I both understand where you're coming from with it, but I'm also of the opinion that we have significantly like let that go from the state. They've taken the can down the road for years upon years, and they've not invested wisely until now those infrastructure costs are costing more now than they would have if we had built it out more water and power infrastructure years ago. And it's one of the reasons we passed the water amendment last year so that we would start to do that uh to invest in water, more water infrastructure generally. So I I hear you where it's like, oh, the consumers shouldn't necessarily have to pay for it. I and I and I see if we can make the data centers pay for it, sure. But I don't think it's an issue. I think part of the issue is that we the people need more of this infrastructure regardless of data centers. And so I don't think I think the data centers should probably have to pay for above and beyond what that number is, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01

I totally agree. Listen, I mean, we've I forget how many hundreds of billions of gallons of water we leak out through broken pipes around the state. And and that that investment fund for water is greatly needed. And we're 30 or 40 years behind on water infrastructure, and and so we're racing to try to get caught up and and you know it's gonna cost 30 to 50 billion dollars to be able to build out the infrastructure that we need. And so, but that's just with the people who live in the state, the 1700 people a day moving into the state, and not 450 data centers being, you know, on top of that. And so when I say that that cost shouldn't be passed on to consumers, I mean the the the incremental data center utilization of water and power and to ensure that those don't just get added onto households' bills in a time where affordability is something that everyone's really struggling with.

SPEAKER_00

And and I agree with that 100%. So my my and my contention on that is basically just I'm for building of data centers, generally speaking, with the caveat being like, well, the same caveats you're laying out. Like we they need to do it in a smart way, and where possible, they need to bring their own generation kind of out to the grid, you know, find their own water sources or you know, pay a premium for the water they do use, encourage closed loop systems, approve tax incentives or penalties or whatever, whatever. Use the the levers that the power use the levers of the power of the state to to kind of make sure that they're good neighbors, because in a lot of cases that have been reported, data centers haven't been good neighbors. And so we we don't we want to do our best to prevent it from being a problem, and then if it becomes a problem to penalize those those centers that are you know not good neighbors.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think listen, I think we can I think we can coexist both agriculture and data centers. I mean, I was just out in Stanford over the weekend, which out in West Texas went to the Cowboy Reunion Rodeo, and then the next morning Patty and I, my wife and I drove over to the lake where Google is investing a $40 billion data center into Stanford. And the gentleman who sold his land, he got $30 million for that land. And you know what? That guy still lives in Stanford, and he actually gave a lot of the money to organizations inside Stanford. He's building a restaurant in downtown Stanford to be able to help make an impact for the community. So, you know, these there can be a benefit to these rural communities where they don't have, you know, any industry that's really coming in there. And I think long term, what I really hope to see is for us to be able to determine a way to have job creation, you know, that goes beyond just the initial GDP bump by building out a data center. But how do we really make this impactful long term for communities, all the while protecting water and ag land, and again, creating an environment where farmers can stay in business and even bring young people into agriculture and start growing versus having a net loss every week? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

And I I would one of the things I look to, just you know, I was a government police high major, did a lot of research on the different systems and stuff over the back in the day. One of the things that I go back to is the fact that many states, when I say states, I mean national states, that have natural resources. So looking at mining, looking at oil and gas, looking at things like that, you know, they're the wealthy countries when they have that are able to utilize those resources because they're fixed. Like once the data center is built and you have that big multi-billion dollar investment, you're not just gonna up and move it. And so you have to be careful with how you tax it, you have to be careful with how that's done. But like exactly like you said, there is a how do you disperse the part that goes back to the citizenry in a way that's equitable to you know the people who are living in the community? And I think it's an open question, and I think it's a great problem to have, and I'm glad that Texas is leading the effort to solve that problem. I do find it interesting though, that in a lot of ways the current app commissioner, Tim Miller, is aligning a lot with your opponent. Do you have any like any idea why he's uh seems to be supporting your opponent?

SPEAKER_01

You know, there's no vindication better than him losing than to see me lose and being able to show, well, say you should have voted for me in the first place. That's the only thing that I can really imagine the reason why. You know, I've been a financial donor of Commissioner Milner for many, many years while he's been at the Texas Department of Agriculture. And unfortunately, I believe that the way that he is ending his tenure is eliminating all the good that he might have been remembered for. You know, he's always talked about going out and going on a rhino hunt. Well, I think he's shown his true stripes, and it's not the stripes of a zebra, it's the stripes of a rhino. He actually did an event with Clayton Tucker down in Matagorda County while we were at the convention, at the Republican convention, the sitting Republican Act Commissioner went and had an event with the with the Democrat opponent. And so it's either that or you know, the New World screw worm to where they both say that the way to deal with it is through the SWAS method, and so which is like napalm in all across Texas, and it's it would be a horrible outcome. But though they have a very similar strategy and agenda, and I just I just you know assume that it's he's just wanted to make sure that he can do everything he can to show that the voters made a mistake by not voting him.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I mean, maybe I I mean Sid Noller is uh put it this way. I've seen him campaign in person back when he ran 2014, and he was an excellent campaigner. He obviously figured out during his earlier tenure how to rouse some folks on Facebook. He kind of reminds me of Boom or Brian Harrison. But that's neither here nor there. You don't need to comment on that. But he he's he's kind of pugnacious, he's kind of you know, he is he's a cranky old man, and he's just don't have fit on his way out. But you did mention that you would be I mean, I I have the the line written down somewhere, I believe you referred to you'd be cleaning out the cancerous uh like infrastructure, so to speak, at TDA when you take over. Like, can you be a little bit more specific about what parts of the infrastructure a lot of those, and obviously most of the people at TDA are just career civil servants who are who are good hardworking people who I'm sure will keep their jobs. Tell me a little bit about what you meant by that statement.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I I did want to circle back and just kind of close the loop on on you know, the things that I've watched the current ag commissioner talk about over the years really didn't have a lot to do with agriculture and and going and addressing the challenges and the needs that agriculture has today. And it really frustrated all the producers across Texas. I mean, I hear it all the time that they feel like he was going and you know, focusing all the energy on things that had nothing to do with the TDA. And so here we are with the opponent. He's again taking on data centers, which officially the TDA has no oversight over, and yet he is making that because that's the one thing that he found that he can campaign on and try to be able to, but he's not presenting any solutions, any ideas to really go fix it. And so we just really try to be solution oriented. And so when I think about the TDA and I think about the the culture and the team, I mean, I've got four Ps that I talk about when we take office the people, the process, the the profit, and the product. And the first P is the people. I am big on culture. You know, you win by the team that you have. And so I want to create a culture of excellence at the at the Texas Department of Agriculture, one of where we have center, where we have producers at the center of everything that we focus on, of trying to help them be successful and not have all these other things going on that don't really have to do with producers. And so, you know, when the governor endorsed us, he was on a radio show here in Dallas and he said that, you know, there's too much criminality at the Texas Department of Agriculture. And so my desire is to go in and get rid of cancerous criminality, anything that doesn't have to do with the future of being successful in supporting agriculture in Texas. There are a lot of amazing people at the Texas Department of Agriculture that have invested their life in serving in serving the state. And I cannot wait to go and work and serve them and create a culture where they are excited to come to work and they feel like they're genuinely making a difference in their lives. And so, but there are some bad apples at the TDA. And so those are more of the political appointments, you know, that are aligned with our current commissioner and his felon chief of staff, Todd Smith.

SPEAKER_00

And so let's mention that Fell only came from his first tenure serving with the TDA or as an advisor to the similar when he was, I'm not sure what's alleged, but also I'm just going to say allegedly, was selling access to hemp permits other than under the TDA's jurisdiction.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah, and so after he got $150,000 wired to his account, the Texas Rangers arrested him and charged him with a commercial felony bribery charge. And then they subpoenaed his client, the current ag commissioner, to come in and testify against him. And I think that would be a pretty bad look. And so he pled guilty and negotiated a deferred adjudicated sentence. So if he doesn't have any more felonies over those two years, then that sentence, you know, then that felony goes away. But he couldn't go and be a lobbyist. I guess there's a higher standard to be a lobbyist in Austin than there is to be a chief of staff at the Texas Department of Agriculture. And so Sid hired him, and I think he makes about $300,000 after he just gave himself a uh pay increase after he lost the race. But yeah, that's where he sits today at the Texas Department of Agriculture over the very community that he was trying to defraud. That's incredible. That's the type of cancer and criminality that I'm referencing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And I mean I think it's it'd be it's wise for you to uh to it's a wise course for you to be so vocal and what you'll root out over there. And frankly, Sid's probably doing you a favor by going after you so hard because it just shows that you're going to go after his corruption and in the ways that you can, and it's probably not going to make him look at me out of office.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and unfortunately, they're burning down the TDA. You know, they're firing really good people that have a lot of tenure, they're canceling projects, they're sending money back to the federal government. They gave away all the money out of the star fund, and they're just doing everything that they can to try to set us up for failure. But what they just don't really realize is they're not impacting me. I'm going to be able to come in and lead and build back whether they burn it down or not. But unfortunately, they are impacting Texas and agriculture producers. And so it just again, you just really start to see that everything was just about them and really not about the state and the people that it serves.

SPEAKER_00

Well, let's go back to what you were talking about earlier with the screw worm. And let's like let's take it, you know. I guess generally is that it's a cattle framing and then a beef free. So the cattle it becomes beef doesn't affect the food supply in that way. It does affect how much beef is made because you have to call herds and stuff. But it's more of a cattle problem, a live animal issue. Tell me a little bit like what is the screenwork? Why is it so so bad? And I mean and then talk to me a little bit about the current USDA versus Texas fight. And I guess we can just kind of answer from there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I would not even say this is a cattle problem. This is a living animal or human being problem, because the fly really doesn't distinguish between animals or even people. What the fly, and it's just, it looks like a blow fly. And so what this fly looks for are open wounds or orifices, you know, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, if you were asleep. And so the fly comes in and lays an egg in an open wound. And so right now we've got fawns being dropped from white-tailed deer. We've got calving season. And so when these animals are birthed, that they have their umbilical cord. And so the fly will find that animal, that baby, and then they'll lay an egg. And then the egg hatches, and within seven hours, it screws, it burrows into the living hosts. And unlike a blowfly that eats dead meat, this one actually eats live meat. And so just imagine a maggot, you know, being inside of an animal or a bunch of maggots being inside of an animal and eating their way out. And then once they are about to pupate, then they they breach the surface and fall out on the ground, and then they they pupate into the fly itself. And so it's been in the in Texas, it's been in the United States back going all the way back into the 1800s, but most recently, 50s, 60s, 70s, we've had outbreaks. We had an outbreak in 2017 in actually in Florida on Pine Island. And so the way that we have historically beat it is through the sterilization of flies, specifically male flies. And those sterilized flies are released into a area of infestation. And the females only mate once in their lifetime. And so the way that the strategy has worked is she goes out and mates with a fur, uh, a sterile fly. And so when she goes to lay eggs, she's not she's not uh able to do that. And so we so we beat this the screw worm back south into South America all the back into the 90s and down in in Panama in the Darien Gap, where the thinnest part is in South America, they had a screw worm sterilization lab there where they were sterilizing 100 million flies a week. And they would go and disperse these flies to keep it back. But during the Biden era, with the cartels both bringing massive amounts of people up, but also they have gotten into the agriculture business because they realize they can launder money and deliver drugs through it. They were bringing infected cattle up into Mexico, which ultimately resulted in the border being closed between Mexico and Texas. And so that's what's really driven a lot of the challenges with the cattle industry specifically, because Texas ranchers decades ago went out and brought DNA and herds from Texas down to Mexico because they have a better temperate climate where they can calve out for a longer period of time. And so these Texas ranchers would calve out, bring those calves into Texas, and then ultimately bring them up into Amarillo and bring them in feedlots and slaughter them. So with that border being closed, you know, that part of the cattle industry is really being starved out because they just don't have the throughput of the animals. Now, the other side of the cattle industry are the cow calf producers that are, you know, typical rancher where they have a bunch of heifers and and they're breeding them and then they're having calves and they raise the calves and go sell them off after they're raised. And so if you're a cow calf producer in Texas, you know, it's been good because cattle prices are just at an all-time high, and yet the population is at an all-time low. And so there's a lot of challenges going on. But going back to how we beat the screw worm, you know, so the goal was to keep it south of the border. About six weeks ago, seven, eight weeks ago, we had the first case come up here in Texas. And the way it really came into Texas, we believe that there was a big storm on the west coast of Mexico that was blowing east. And we think that it blew those flies up into Texas. And so I think we've had 32 cases, really, primarily down in South Texas. Crockett County's had the most, I think with nine or 10 all on the same ranch. But what we're doing is we're localizing the fly drops. And so the 100 million flies that we still produce a week, I believe I just heard that we rerouted 65 million of them this week into Texas, and we're dropping them in any areas where there's been an infestation or an outbreak. And so it's been in cattle, we've had one dog, and we've had some sheep that have been impacted. But we're doing everything that we can, you know, to make sure that we can produce the goal is to get to 500 million flies. And so the original sterile fly facility that we had in Texas was burned down accidentally, and so we are rebuilding it and more Air Force base down on the border. But I just spoke with John Bellinger, who is appointed by the governor and the president to be the private sector leader. And so Admiral Schmoyer, who is with AFIS, which is part of the USDA, he is the public sector leader. And so if he's the if if Admiral Schmoyer is the tip of the spear, I'd say John Bellinger's the shaft to make sure that we we drive it in fast, deep, and hard. But they're looking at everything, every possibility. They're looking at you know other technologies from utilizing X-ray, because right now they use gamma radiation, but sterilization originally started with X-ray. And so if we can do that, then we can expedite being able to sterilize more flies while we're continuing to build out the more Air Force base. But you know, they're doing everything they can, but the answer of what the current ag commissioner proposes, the SWAS method, is like napalming. And so it's killing everything. It that's an environment where last year we lost 65% of all the beehives in America. 65%. And so we're that SWAS method is it's napalm. It's killing the bees, it's killing the butterflies, it's killing bumblebees, it's killing everything. And that is not the way to go about and try to fix this. And the traps that he has been proposing, John Bellinger said he saw them himself and they haven't caught one single fly. And so we just need to stay the course and and continue to look at all possibilities of new technologies that can help us deliver more flies more quickly.

SPEAKER_00

That's incredible. I think you're on the right track. The the main issue, it seems, is just getting the the cur what we know works up to the level where it needs to be. Because we were in a seem, it sounds like we were in a pattern where it was fine if we had known known cases to kind of you know protect it. But now that we have stuff, it's like we have to up the dosage a lot. It's just gonna take a little bit of time to ramp that up. And we just need to make sure that in the future we have we we have that ramp, we shorten that timetable for ramp to that ramp up.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and and you know, when when we identify an animal that has an outbreak that's infested, they can go treat it with Decamax. And so that's a a dewarming agent that you know will kill those flies and those larva inside that animal and then protect it for 28 days. And so it's really important for people to report when they suspect an infestation. And, you know, this is like when they always say in school, there are no dumb questions. And so this is, you know, there are no bad reports. I mean, if you think it's something, then go report it. And if it proves out it's not, then great. But if it proves out it is, then all the more important because we can treat that animal and put that as the focus of the next fly drop.

SPEAKER_00

That's that's a total. Okay. So we've talked a little bit about the more hot button issues, but like most people don't really hear about what's happening at the ag department most of the time. The two places where most people will interact with the TEA is via Co Texas and via the free school, the free lunch program, which is administered via the Texas Department of Agriculture. So tell me a little bit about what your plans are to make those to use to utilize those programs to the benefit of all Texans.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you know, if you think about it, Texans intersect with the TDA more than any other department of the state of Texas. If you ate breakfast, lunch, or dinner today, you inacted, you intersect with the Texas Department of Agriculture. And I'd say that people really care, even beyond just the nutritional aspects of school lunch or go Texan program, because we are all a direct result of what we put into our body. How we eat food has impacted our health. We see in America where we have 70% of Americans have one chronic disease or more, 78% of kids 18 to 25 can't serve in the military because of their health. And we spend $4 trillion a year treating symptoms of diseases related to the food we eat. And in Texas, we spend $200 billion a year. And so that's a result of decades of pursuing cheap calories, but we've been pursuing it with ultra-processed foods. And so when you see the impact and the cost and the quality of life and the financial cost of healthcare, you can see that those cheap calories are very expensive. And I'll say the good thing that this just came out in this morning, that this is the first time in the past 30 years that healthy, whole, nutritious foods outsold processed foods at retail. And that is a massive shift here in America because the food pyramid, which they took the old food pyramid, turned it upside down, and took all the processed foods off of it and filled it with everything that comes right off the farm. And so this is the golden age of agriculture for farmers and ranchers. And we're doing some things to even produce healthier, more nutritious, nutrient-rich, and deeply rich foods through things like regenerative agriculture. And so we have opportunities at the TDA to go really focus on trying to get more producers to utilize new farming methods like regenerative agriculture. But we also have the opportunity to be able to go make a difference in the lives of kids that we feed 5 million, 5.5 million kids in the state of Texas through the school lunch nutrition program. I think last year we were 44th in the nation in nutritional value at in our school lunch program. And so our goal is to be in the top 10 and really focus on making these foods healthy and nutritious, trying to get rid of all the processed foods. And we're putting together a great team of people that have a lot of experience to be able to come in and start to really change the trajectory and ultimately the health trajectory of our kids. You know, I try to get people to think about the way we feed ourselves more like a 401k than just an expense. Because when you fund a 401k, you're typically you're young and you're broke and you think, man, I could really use that money. But when you're 50 or 60 years old, you're really glad that you had the discipline when you were young to put money into your 401k. So if we start to think about the way that we feed ourselves from an investment early on, we're going to make our money back. I promise you, on the back end, in quality of life and lower health care costs. And Oklahoma just did a program where they require insurance companies to cover prescribed regenerative meals for diabetes patients. They did a program where they created a regenerative farming network that created regenerative produce that had higher nutrient values than both traditional and organic. They tested it with diabetes patients and came to the conclusion that for every 5% of diabetes patients they can get into this program, it saved the state $28 million a year in health care costs. And so that is a great example of what we can do in the future of not just impacting the financial impact, but just the health of Americans by starting to change how we feed ourselves. And the school lunch program and the nutrition program is going to be at the very top of that program that we're going to focus on. And it's in the fourth, it's the fourth P. The product is the kids, it's the future. And then the other part is trying to really focus on the financial economics of farming. As I shared with you earlier, people can't afford to be in business anymore in agriculture because their revenue has dropped 60% while their input costs, their expenses have gone up 300%. So how do you help a farmer that's going out of business? How do you help them go sell more product to more people for more money? Well, we have consumers that want to buy healthy, nutritious food from producers that they know locally. And so as we can start to bring that consumer with the producer closer together and allow that financial transaction to happen, they can actually lower food costs and make it more affordable for a consumer, all the while raising profitability for a producer by taking the distribution dollars between what a farmer goes and sells for and what a consumer buys for in a grocery store. Those dollars are the fungible dollars that we can start to move towards a producer. And the main program that we have at the Texas Department of Agriculture is called the Go Texan Program. I was a member of the Go Texan program when I started Nature Nates back in the 90s. Honestly, it had no value to me other than just like this little logo that went on the side. But we sell Nature Nates in 30,000 grocery stores across America. It's the number one brand in America. So if there's one thing I know how to do, it's to how to grow revenue, drive revenue, branding, sales, marketing. And so we're going to take the Go Texan program and we're going to create a secondary component to it called the Grown Texas program that's just for producers. And then we're going to help connect those producers with consumers. I mean, I'd love to see grown Texas farmers markets at every elementary school across Texas. Mom goes and drops her kids off on a Tuesday and then goes down and buys her stuff for the week from local producers. So whether it's at a farmer's market or whether it's direct to consumer via a robust Amazon type platform or at retail and partnering with retailers, great retailers. We have some of the most amazing retailers here in Texas and to be able to have grown Texas programs that allow products to be able to be sold at retailers with our great retail partners all across the state. So it's, you know, it's a variety of ways and ways that we'll go to market, but we're going to create a great mechanism that's already in place. We're going to redo it so it can make a great impact for both the consumers as well as producers.

SPEAKER_00

So the the State Fair is like the only place I ever saw the GoTex and stuff for the longest time. So I kind of knew what it was just from having seen it at the State Fair because I always wanted to feel like you could use it to get like free milk or really cheap milk at the TVA booth pavilion. But don't don't quote me on that. I feel like it would always go there. I do see the local occasionally, and I guess it does help me say like, oh, at least I know it's a fairly local product. But you're right, there's a lot of activity with that program. I'm really hoping that I'm gonna see you in the office and can see you at the range of something like that, because you're obviously an expert on bringing agricultural products and getting them you know to become the number one from the you know from one beyond. So like I think your your experience in particular suits itself to the task at hand. So I think it'd be great for Texas and Texas farmers and the Texas agriculture if you're in that role. Um so I'll be cheering you on, but I think I think that's enough of our conversation for today. Thank you so much for the time you gave me. Where can people find more information about you, your campaign, and what you're doing out there on the camp big throw?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, thanks again for having me today. It's really uh it's been great. You can go to NateSheets.com and you can find every everything you need to know. You can come follow us on social media, Nate Sheets for Texas. And I'll tell you, it's gonna take all of us to be diligent. The Democrats want to see Texas turn blue, and they are going to invest heavily into it. And so, you know, I think it's really important to remember that, you know, the way that the socialists and the communists have taken over in, you know, in other countries is they find an issue that they can get people to rally behind, and ultimately they use that momentum to take away the power of the people and install socialists. And so the those so those same socialist tendencies that we see now happening up in New York City and in other major metropolitan cities across Texas or across the United States, they're wanting to bring to Texas, and and they find no better opportunity than our Democratic opponent than to try to sneak in the back door using data centers. And so it's just super important for us all to stay vigilant and to remember just the bot Joe Biden days of what it was like having millions and millions and millions of people pour in to our country and the Democrats would love to see that again. So it's gonna take all of us. Let's make sure that we continue to vote red and let's keep Texas strong.

SPEAKER_00

I'm so glad that Nate was able to jump on the show with us this week. It was a pleasure to talk with him, and I wish him nothing but the best. Make sure you follow him on all the places he mentioned. We'll have those descriptions, uh those links in the description. But let's go ahead and just change gears a little bit. Let's talk about the absolute top of the ticket. That's right. We're talking about Ken Paxton and James Tallerico. Paxton had a rough week. He had a lot of weird stories that sucked a lot of oxygen. Now, to his like Lucky's count as Lucky Stars, Graham Platiner decided to explode, implode, sink to the bottom of his oyster farm up in Maine. So that sucked out a lot of the energy that was gonna s that could have popped up around Paxton. But he had two big things that are going to follow him for the next couple months, and they're clearly things that the Democrats are putting out into the atmosphere to lay the predicates for ads in the in the general election. Those are Paxton was seen in Europe and a couple of different places with his I don't know what we want to call her, because he's you know openly separated, but with the woman he's seeing. But that's not gonna have a huge impact on anything. It just kind of reminds people that he cheated on his wife a lot and allegedly, and you know, he's they're gonna he's going through a divorce. The the issue is there's reporting from Texas Tribune and ProPublica that Paxton doesn't live at his residence residence that's listed on his voter registration because he and his wife are going through a divorce and she's staying in that house and he went somewhere else, and he's recently bought a property in an adjoining county, and so that he's been voting in the wrong place effectively. Now, I could be wrong. There's there's there's it's not gonna look good, especially when all the it doesn't look good. He's gonna have spin, he'll almost certainly never be tried for anything because he's going through a divorce and still has some claim to the residence in question, and that's his own thing. It just reminds people of the divorce again, and reminds people that he doesn't necessarily always follow the rules. Is he following the rules right now? There's a good chance he probably isn't doing anything wrong, but guess what? Ad headlines form, and those headlines will be used in ads. And so, yet again, Ken Paxson finds himself trying to work the system and then the political system working him right back. And that's the same thing as out in the best case scenario on the nicest viewing of all of the scandals involving Ken Paxson, of him pushing the envelope on whatever the law is or might be, because he's a pretty skilled attorney and he wants to kind of get his maximize his whatever, and it ends up whenever you're in elected office, if you're kind of pushing those lines and living in that gray area all the time, gives your opponents a lot of uh ammo to use against you. But to Ken Paxton's, you know, credit, he keeps winning elections, he keeps winning primaries, he keeps winning legal battles. And so, you know, it might look bad in the moment, but it ends up not really hanging around his neck. So until it does, I'm just gonna shrug my shoulders and be like, we'll see. The thing I will notice is Talerico's on air and he's defining himself. I've seen the ad of him coming out of the the convenience store in Bartlett several times, and he is like, and it's just him talking about normal stuff, defining himself. Paxton or his and his allies need to be defining Calarico on air. You know, I've talked about it before, I'll talk about it again. Taler Rico is just kind of a weird dude. He's a nice enough guy in person, he's fairly affable, but he just comes across as trying really, really, really hard to be the politician. And he comes across as disingenuous, and he comes across as kind of a weird dude. And so if you're working on campaigns and you're trying to define your opponent, and you're you're You have his record, which he has, which is bad. You need to kind of put it into a bucket, and you just need to be like that's also tied to them as a person. And the weirdo bucket is gonna be what they need to do. And you see it, some predicates being laid, but you don't see any of the actual real work or money behind it yet. And so that's something that has to happen. I'm gonna use this to talk a little bit about something else. So we're gonna slightly move away from that topic. The Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that certain laws that prohibited level lots of coordination between party committees, the parties, and candidates are unconstitutional, which basically just opens up the floodgates to let party infrastructure coordinate efforts with people running on their on their ticket. And in a perfect world, and in the world in which that legislation was passed, it made sense because you had all sorts of contract limits on all sorts of things, even to limits on how much a PAC could spend. But after Citizens United, all those limits dropped. And so all that money kind of left the party ecosystem, and the parties have been weak ever since. It's one of the reasons why parties aren't what they used to be. When I'm talking about parties, I'm talking about like the actual organization, business, campaign entity of the parties. They're not what they were 10, 15, 20 years ago because they didn't have the heft to do the things that they need to do. This ruling really kind of changes that. Right now, instead of having to give to Ken Paxton, they don't really like him, or they don't want to be seen giving to Paxton, donors can just give money to the party now, and the party will go spend it for them. And that's a huge deal. So all these numbers we've seen over the past few months of how much Ken Paxton or Talarico's raised, we're gonna be needed looking at how much of the RPT raised in its federal accounts and how much did the RNC raise in its it has a litany of accounts. And that'll probably tell a better picture, but also where they spend that money will show us where where they're what's happening there. But that's where we have with the Senate race to a degree. But some more pollings come out from UT Tyler, other places that basically have it in a dead heat. Now it's better than some of the polling that came out earlier, right after uh uh Paxton won the runoff, that some polls had him down five. Those polls were gonna be bad polls. They were from a former Democrat candidate, but they're the only thing that was out there. So a lot of people say, Oh, is Paxton down five, it's Paxton down five. I'd never seen anything from the numbers I see that are more internal leaning that had him anywhere close to down five points. And basically it was a 42-43 with like 17% undecided. That's a big number. A lot of those people are gonna come home, and it's gonna like it basically it's a great poll, it's a neutral poll. It means that a lot of work needs to be done by both Palo Rico and Paxton to kind of get us to a better snapshot of what it will have actually happened on election day. I said it before, I'll say it again. We have to have things really well defined by Labor Day. The campaigns in earnest really kicked off earlier this month. And we're gonna we're on a sprint. We're 100 days-ish away. Yeah, maybe it's eh, whatever. We're close to the election. We need to start seeing some money being spent. And people need to go on air and stay here and go on air in a big time, get in a big way, so to have those numbers come back to earth. So that's where those numbers are kind of meaning. It also just means that anyone who tells us that says they know what's happening is absolutely wrong. They just don't know. Because right now we are very much not in a coin cell territory, but just in a way too much stuff needs to happen between now and October for us to really have an idea. I will say a couple of things. Senator Cruz has gone out on the record and said that Taller Rico can win. He's a radical, and James Tallerico is a radical, but he can win. Saying the same things I've been saying, and a lot of other people have been saying. Doesn't matter how radical you think he is, doesn't matter any of those things. You can you may not be able to fathom how he could possibly ever win an election, but he can. And the people who know how elections are working and running and whatever else are telling you this for a reason. It's because he could win. There's the best chance since Beto by far. Hard to say whether he had a, you know, how to handicap that and beyond aware beyond that. But he is absolutely a threat, and we need to take it seriously. We need to organize and we need to rebuild our infrastructure to make sure that we can do it. But that's enough talking about the Senate race right now. I want to hear your thoughts on it. Go into the comments real fast, drop me a note, and let me know what you're thinking about this race. Do you think Talo Rico has a snowball chance in hell of winning the election? Go ahead and comment that. But we're gonna move on to the next story. Now, earlier this week, there was an officer involved shooting where an ICE officer shot Salgado Raujo, who was apparently an undocumented person. The officer shot. The initial claims were that the body cam footage either doesn't exist or malfunctioned. I believe it's that it didn't exist, that they somehow was trying to the officers were trying to be rammed, and that's why it was a good shoot, quote unquote, being the terminology for you know one where the officers had to defend themselves. A lot of information has been coming out that is painting that story as false. Now, these stories take on a whole life of their own, absent the facts, and based off of just perception of what's happening. You can look at that on any of these types of these types of stories happen all the time. It could be a flashpoint. This could be the start of something, and we've seen all sorts of stories like that where the narrative gets built and then it goes to court later, and everyone who was involved gets exonerated. Like with Rittenhouse, that comes to mind top of the head. So keep a keep an eye on that story as it develops. And this we're gonna have to kind of look at this because immigration has been a very good issue for Republicans over the past few years. President Trump has largely his policies have largely stopped the influx of new illegal immigration and has started an outflux, both by forced deportations and self-deportations of the illegal immigrant population in the state, and in the states generally. There was some problems with how Christy Gnome was doing it optically, and then all some of the weird stuff that was happening there, which was why she's no longer the Secretary of Homeland Security. But that issue has kind of quieted down. There was the old fight about how DHS didn't get funding for a long time, and now the administration is pointing to that as why there weren't body cameras. That's a whole other topic. There's a lot of things that will come out of this that we're gonna they're gonna have to get addressed. The Democrats need to turn immigration into a bad issue for Republicans, and if their their partners in the media are able to turn a story like this into that, they will. Sometimes what will happen, and it's too early to tell, eventually certain facts will come out that make that those stories fall apart, and that reporting kind of disappears. But just being this no, whether it's this story or something else, something will be the catalyst for the Democrats and for their partners in the media to turn some story relating to ICE or immigration into a bad look for Republicans going into this election. And so Republicans need to be prepared with talking points that talk on and probably run to a certain extent on those successes to make sure that they're insulated and are prepared for the eventual onslaught of what will be happening. They have to start framing that issue now. They really need to start doing it before, and some people have, but that's gonna be top of mind because that that's how this issue could go out. It can also lead to other things happening. Let's talk about a couple other stories that are happening. One is the president of Mexico is seeking for charges to be writ to be filed against people in the United States for the death of 17 ICE detainees over the past some period of time, and is you know working the international challenge channels to try and do that. There's some that's that's that's that might be the story they use down the right road to they being the the press that the Democrats use to make this issue more toxic for Republicans, but that's yet to be seen. But it could be something like that. So just be mindful of it, keep an eye out for that. The other thing on that is there's still aspects of the birthright citizenship decision that was decided earlier this month that are being uh uh worked out on the political side. Notably, and I saw it from current revolt, other people are pointing to other sources as being the source of it, but there is reporting that shows that there were billboards in Mexico that offered to have it was basically have your babies in Texas.com. So if you were gonna have a natural birth, it'd be 4,000. If you're gonna have a CSX, it'd be like 5,500. So people in Mexico could go to America to have their baby and then go back home. Part of this question is birthright citizenship is an open question. It's a closed question right now, to a certain degree, uh, on the Supreme Court, where birthright citizenship, as it's been interpreted for the past forever, is the law of the land, effectively, says the Supreme Court, and the Congress really can't change anything about it. But there are a number of different legislative solutions that are being offered, both at the state and federal level, that are going to be explored. This issue isn't gonna go anywhere, and so that's gonna revive immigration as an issue for Republicans going forward. That it's an issue where, again, like it's for so long, immigration was a big issue. It was the top issue for voters to a degree most people have never seen for a number of years. And it has fallen off. It's just not seen as the economy's been seen as more important for a while. Other issues have been have taken precedence. And with immigration is the top issue Republicans do a lot better. Well, the Democrats need to make it more toxic for Republicans, or they just need to make it go away. And stuff like the birth tourism story, things like birthright citizenship now being uh continuing to be granted the way it's been granted, which opens up birth tourism, which, if I haven't clarified already, is when people come to the United States on a tourist visa or as tourists in order and at very pregnant in order to give birth here so that their kids have American citizenship. That's what birth tourism is. That type of issue is going to really rally the Republican base and immigration voters, and depending on how it's done, could make immigration a very good positive issue for Republicans going into this midterm election. So those are some things on this. There's a lot of stuff going on on the immigration fund. It's really up bubbly underneath the surface, but it could pop up and go either way. So you want to make sure you're keeping an eye on that because it's going to really impact elections, not just up and down the ballot, but across the state, because immigration issues play all over from the border regions all the way to Amarillo and East Texas. Like those issues are salient for everybody in Texas. So that's kind of that's the big kind of campaign stuff. We touched on, I touched on, I should say. I touched on the floods, the hill country floods from last year, a couple weeks ago, and just talked about how a number of things are happening. There's a couple of other things that have popped up since then in the anniversary. One is Camp Mystic, where Heavens 27 lost their lives. And they filed for bankruptcy. They're the attorneys for the families impacted are saying it's another delay tactic. There are any number of other camps that are facing pressures to close because of litigation, not litigation, legislation passed in the special session that addresses this, that are raising the cost where they can't operate, allegedly. So that is something to keep in mind that this fight, there's gonna be a lot of policy fights over this, and people need to be aware that it's happening. I I mean the daycare and schools are some of the most highly regulated industries that exist at all. Period. And in a lot of ways, camps have not been nearly as regulated over the years. They've had good legislation, good lobbyists, or whatever. Uh there is a decent logic to making those institutions be more regulated or be regulated similarly to other areas that are literally watching kids for overnight or like they are for a week, a week or two to you know, for several days at a time, or to and longer. And we see what can happen like in this story with Camp Mystic. It's awful. And as a parent of young kids who wants to send their kids to camp, who had great experience at camps all over the state, from Rock Springs to Tyler to Baptist encampments and the Dallas area and all over. I've been to I've been to a lot of camps and a lot of the famous camps in Texas. I went as a as a camper as a kid and loved it, like a lot of people, loved camp, like the Texas camp experience. But knowing what I know now as a parent, I would be reluctant to send my kids to it if I didn't know that there was at least some regulatory body. Some if there if there weren't people checking child welfare, making sure that child welfare laws were being followed, and that the people who were supposed to be taking care of my kid were following the laws that we as a society have deemed necessary for other people who have to watch kids. I think that there is validity to the arguments that are made by the camps that are impacted by this, that the legislation was passed too quickly, that they didn't think about it hard enough, and that's impacting them in really weird ways that they didn't intend. And you want to make sure that your laws that are passed are actually effective at what they're trying to do, which is make kids safer. And right now it doesn't seem like that is really what the law is even doing. So we need to look at it. We want to make sure that just because we've overturned, we look to change the law that was passed in the special session, that we're not forgetting that we need to make real reforms to this industry, and that it's going to suck, it's going to make their lives more difficult. But sometimes you're in a job, you're in a position, if you're especially dealing with kids or the public or anything like that, your job needs to be a little bit more difficult. You need to have responsibility. And if you're not going to take it upon yourself, then the state needs to enforce it. And that's the way that's the that's the society that we live in and how it works. One last thing also on that. We have the school choice bill, the banner bill that passed. We had applications got extended, they push it. All this happened happened in the spring. July 15th. The parents who were accepted into the program are will tell the state or have to tell the state whether they accept the funds or not. So then we know we'll have more numbers soon of what the family income range looks like for the students involved and all sorts of other stuff. So that's super exciting stuff. The program's up and running, and I'm just looking forward to it. If you have, if so, this is a reminder if you applied for school choice and the a Tifa account, and you haven't told the, you know, opted in the way and done your paperwork, go and do it. Don't forget. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button, regardless of whether you have a TIFA account. Make sure you subscribe, make sure you like, and make sure you go in and comment some stuff. Ask me questions. Follow us on YouTube, follow us on Twitter. I do post a lot on Twitter on my personal account at GWFols. Follow me. I would love to see you there. But and if you don't want to, that's fine. I will see you next week. But until then, keep seeing red, and I'll see you next time. Bye, guys.

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Garrett Fulce

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