Posted on 02/23/2016 12:44:52 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Of all the controversies associated with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, his position on federally owned land tends to attract less attention.
But the issue of public land ownership is important to Nevadans, where federal government agencies manage and control around 85 percent of state land.
And it's partially why Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is slamming Trump on the issue in a campaign ad airing just days before the Nevada Republican presidential caucus on Feb. 23.
"Eighty-five percent of Nevada is owned and regulated by the federal government," says Cruz in the ad. "And Donald Trump wants to keep big government in charge. That's ridiculous."
The ad has aired dozens of times in Reno through the lead up to Nevada's caucus, according to Political TV Ad Archive. We thought Cruz's claim merited fact-checking, because public lands management is a critical issue with Nevada voters.
An on-screen graphic refers to a January interview with Field & Stream magazine, where Trump said he would be hesitant to give federal land over to state and local governments.
"I don't like the idea, because I want to keep the lands great, and you don't know what the state is going to do," he told an interviewer. "I mean, are they going to sell if they get into a little bit of trouble?"
Trump's campaign offered a slightly more detailed explanation of his proposed policy in an answer to a candidate questionnaire, but said the bigger issue was land management and not transfer of ownership.
"The issue is not that so much of the state is public land; it is how that land is managed," the campaign wrote, promising to cut "needless bureaucratic red tape."
The Trump campaign didn't return emails seeking comment.
Cruz, on the other hand, takes a more libertarian stance on public land issues and said the amount of land owned by the federal government is "unacceptable."
"I believe we should transfer as much federal land as possible back to the states and ideally back to the people," he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in December.
Cruz fought with the Bureau of Land Management over the agency's efforts to "claim 90,000 acres of disputed land near Texas's Red River," and for a time supported Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy's standoff with the federal government over his unpaid grazing fees.
And many of the Texas senator's Nevada supporters pushed for a failed bill in the state Legislature that "would lay claim to almost all federally managed public lands and water rights in the state."
It's worth noting that Nevada's state constitution expressly gives up the state's rights to all "unappropriated public lands" to the federal government, which is why it's worth quibbling with candidates like Cruz and Rubio promise to "return" control to its citizens - who have never held a claim to the federally owned land in the past 151 years of Nevada statehood.
Our ruling
Cruz says that Trump wants to keep "big government" in charge of Nevada's public lands.
Trump has answered questions on public land management twice. He has not advocated for transferring ownership, but he has focused on cutting bureaucratic red tape. Cruz exaggerates Trump's position slightly by saying Trump favors "big" government.
We rate the ad's statement Mostly True.
That post commits the fallacy of too few alternatives.
Refute it. You can’t.
I did.
That is a lie of omission. Exactly what Ted does, I should expect it.
Trump will round up 300,000 illegals in Nevada and send them home.
Keep thinking that. Dont believe it until it happens.
"I mean, are they going to sell if they get into a little bit of trouble?" Trump asked. "I don't think it's something that should be sold."
I am saying that Trump has not formed any definite thinking with the issue. His reaction to the Cruz add in his Las Vegas rally, appears to be taking a position that he does not know much about the issue: "And I am saying to myself, well, it's not a subject I know anything about."
He does want the land to be taken care of in the best way. That is something all Americans can agree with. Who to trust for that effort is something he is not sure about--yet. And to say he is against the states does not accurately describe his position. Cruz's add said that he had a position. That was false. Trump has no definite position.
Evangelicals and Trump’s Three Wives
Trump's divorce from his first wife Ivana was tabloid fodder for years because it involved a long affair between Trump and Marla Maples, who eventually became his second wife. While still married to his first wife, Trump put Ms. Maples up in a suite at the Trump Regency, where together they would dominate the social scene in Atlantic City.
Meanwhile, the Trump children were devastated, as all children are in such circumstances, by the attention given to their father's affair with Ms. Maples and by front-page coverage of their parents' separation and impending divorce.
Donald was utterly unapologetic about abandoning his first wife. He admitted that he was the one who left, and that he did it because of his sexual infatuation with Ms. Maples, using a vulgar expression I cannot repeat on a family-friendly website. All this was happening in the early 90s, at the very same time news started to dribble out about Bill Clinton's sleazy sexual escapades.
Trump's excuse for his behavior, and his explanation for why people should not give it serious consideration is, "You know what? I wasn't the President of the United States. And I wasn't dealing in the Oval Office, all right? A big difference. I wasn't the president." That's an alarmingly thin and relativistic pretext, as if some things can be sexually immoral if a president does them but not if a businessman does them.
Trump also divorced his second wife, with whom he had conceived a child out of wedlock, in 1997, just months before their prenuptial agreement would have boosted her settlement from $1 million to $5 million. He made it clear at the time that he was the one who ended the marriage. "Marla's a good girl," Trump told a friend, "but I wanted out."
The problem is Trump operates as if people have their brains engaged. When people don’t it’s really not Trump’s problem.
Actually, he’s a spin master and if he doesn’t say something you like.....wait 5 minutes.
I’ve been on dates with my daughters. Ivanka very obviously loves and respects her dad. You should be ashamed for posting utter crap like that - but I doubt you will.
We have seen that. When Trump realizes someone did not have their brains engaged, we have watched him say the words, "Your fired!" When he said that to Omarosa, the entire nation said, "Yesssss!" I think Trump taught the entire nation how to think with his show The Apprentice.
Why doesn’t it bother Ivanka??
Read 194 and learn something.
Stop making excuses for Trump being sleazy. You can’t change it or excuse it. When Ivanka was asked in an interview what she shares with her Dad, she answered “Golf and business”. His answer was disgusting. It is what it is and they are going to eat his lunch.
Btw, she was embarrassed.
No and neither has FR since we supported GW which many here regret.
Stop making excuses your YOU being sleazy.
No need you all show up on Trump threads.
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