From the Black Hills to the Big Sioux, the Dakota Town Hall Podcast.
Hosted by Murdoc in the West and Jake in the East, Featuring South Dakota Searchlight’s Senior Editor John Hult as well as D11 State Rep Brian Mulder.
🎧New episodes drop weekly! 📲Follow us: @DakotaTownHall
Read along with this week’s transcript from Dakota Town Hall
Murdoc: You are special round table episode here. Have we ever done one of these?
Jake: On a round table? No.
Murdoc: That’s square tables. Square tables. All right. We have. The Press and Pro Temp office one was a round table one. Yeah. If anybody could hear it, you had to be in the office to hear that. Yeah.
Okay. So welcome to South Dakota’s most listened to political podcast. You may find yourself listening live here on a Friday afternoon on the cowboy. And perhaps you are listening later on in the weekend. Some of you listen on Monday. The listening is getting later. Yeah.
I’m noticing. You know, I, the, the, the setting. Brad janker used to. You when Brad was running, right? Janker, Friday night, I get my nose. And now I get, there’s a, there’s a seeming rotation of when you, when the wife sends you to Hivey and on the call there or the, or the code drive, drive back, I get my notes. That’s what seems to happen.
Jake: We’re not calling jaker to cart bag or anymore.
Murdoc: So we listen as much, I think on a dime’s less, you know, worried. This is South Dakota’s most listened to political podcast. Thanks for punching in. We are, I’m with Jake from the East. I’m Murdoch from the East on the fourth floor of the Hilton garden in. We’re all, we’re all at one spot, which we don’t get to do very often. I was back recording some more episodes with our show historian. Lieutenant governor for the upcoming presidential series. We have a name, even name. Okay. Do running mates.
Jake: Pretty good. Pretty good. That’s really good. That’s really good. It’s really good. So we have a date yet.
Murdoc: July, July. Okay. That’s a month. If we can get the first episode out right around America’s birthday. I’m pretty good. I feel like we’re, you
Jake: know, I’m driving the hills for the fourth. So I went left for my road trip. There you go. It’d be fantastic.
Murdoc: You should celebrate America’s military 250th birthday by listening to the upcoming presidential election series with Tony and I running mates. It’s good. It’s really good. Tony same. Tony thought of it.
Murdoc: He’s a really funny. So that’s good. That’ll be coming. Also, we have your friend and ours, Toby Doden coming up July 9th. So be on the lookout for that.
Jake: And next week is Robert Arnold. That’s the young man running for governor.
Murdoc: It’s just candidate.
Jake: After banger on Dakota town house. But this week’s stat guest episodes, except for this week.
Mulder: Except for this week. Yeah.
Jake: That first voice you’re hearing is the district 11 represented from Sioux Falls, Brian Mulder, Brian, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Thank you. And we’re also having on one of our journalists friends from the South Dakota district, the senior reporter, John Holt.
Murdoc: Hello. Nice to be here. What I think is interesting is we don’t have a nickname for you yet. We have nicknames, you know, there’s Austin hot God and, you know, Josh higher education. Also, we’re a road test. Yeah, that was like my Creed one.
Hult: I like that one. He’s got one. Can you take me higher? Not bad.
Hult: No, it’s not bad. But it’s J here. Now it doesn’t work for a podcast. You can get perfect here.
Jake: True story. My seven year old calls him Bruno Mars. My seven year old calls him Bruno Mars because his hair looks so perfect.
Mulder: But there’s a certain video with Elmo Bruno Mars in it. And the hair is the same. Okay.
Jake: Billy Mars.
Murdoc: Tupperware. Tupperware. We’re road testing a good one for Tupper. I’ll admit. Yeah. But well, welcome to the show. Um, well, um, where we started.
Jake: Okay. So I think we’re going to start with prisons. We’re right off the bat.
Murdoc: You two want to do you two want to make nice.
Hult: Okay. So yeah, here we are. Here’s how I’ve been teasing this. I’m here. Here’s how I’ve been teasing this. You know, Mulder’s got to come on and you have a Jake. It’s Jake’s little snippy last week about the prisons.
Jake: I’ve been snippy last couple weeks about the prisons. Text him right afterwards. I did say I pulled your quote and said it was the worst reason not put a person.
Mulder: So I did say that you got me a little fired up during that. A few weeks. Text.
Murdoc: You’re like them doctors. When I had that Medicare authority guy on, you know what I mean? Every doctor who has my text for it, I got a little yippy weekend text about it.
Jake: So let’s get into it. I want to give you the floor to talk about. Yeah. So let’s kind of set a baseline where we’re at with the president. I think that’s an important thing to do. Um, you guys have had two meetings so far. You’ve had multiple site visits, things like that. I’m going to consult and come in and give a review of the locations. Um, right now, where did we leave off? Cause it was kind of like Mitchell’s good idea. And then the Mitchell marriage torpedoed that. Yeah.
Mulder: So let’s, so yeah, thanks for the opportunity. I did. I mean, I’m not going to lie. A couple, I’m going to just shoot straight with you guys. A few weeks ago when I was listening to you guys talk about prisons.
Hult: And again, this was 14 days ago, right? And I know this show, you are at the end, you have your disclaimer for, you know, this is a live show of some, something’s not true.
You can call in text. Let us know every episode. And I’m like, I think they got a few facts wrong here and what’s going on. And just from being it quote unquote inside the room on the intention of the discussions, I, I did reach out to Jake and I was like, Jake, when can we set some record straight here? Real quick.
I don’t know what was going on here. And, um, I think for me, the baseline with the prison is that, uh, where we’re at is we need leaders who can just define reality. And where we’re at with that is do we want to move forward with something? And I think the, the task force has said yes, but at the same time, we need to move something forward. What I’ve been saying, which is palatable to the legislature.
And as much as I don’t like it, I’ve never been a anti-Lincoln County person. I think that site would have worked. I think that site had potential. We owned it. It made sense.
In fact, I had a realtor friend who was looking at selling houses in that area and she said, Brian, do you think the prison is going to go on that land? And this was 18 months ago. And I said, book it. 100% it’s going to go on that land. I think that’s where it’s got to go. Um, but obviously things have changed. The political landscape has changed where we’re at. And at this point, uh, I, I’ve had some conversations with legislative friends of mine who are frustrated with the process, frustrated that we let that, that, uh, property kind of took it off the table.
The original Lincoln County site. And I said, Hey, listen, I’m just trying to define reality here and grasp it and say, is that a site that we’re going to get passed? Or do we do nothing?
If it comes down to that option? And I think that’s what it came down to with that Lincoln County site. And I think even, uh, Senator Smith, Jamie mentioned it last week when you guys asked him about it, he said, Hey, the reality is, um, the site would have worked. But it’s politically charged. It’s just that’s the way it is. So we have to move the ball forward and we got to let go of that site.
And that’s kind of what got me worked up about it was again, I’m not against putting in a prison in Lincoln County. The site has never been an issue for me. I have some issues with some operations and DOC work. We can get into that later. Um, but where I’m at with the prison right now is, um, okay. Where, where can it go? We need to do something.
Where can it go? And quite frankly, I don’t mean to tease anything here, but, uh, I think the potential sites that we have still in play, maybe not be the site that we’re eventually going to build this prison on. I think there’s going to be new developments here in the next few weeks. I think there’s going to be more.
Murdoc: It’s listening to this podcast and then writing a story.
Jake: Right. Or John Holt from something to search.
Mulder: John and I. Yeah. And I think there’s going to be more options on the table. Um, I’m, I personally, again, the Mitchell thing, I don’t want to name any names, but that stayed on the table because one person thought it was a good idea.
And the rest of the, the rest of the task force kind of just shrug their shoulders and said, fine, keep it on the table. I never thought it was a serious location quite frankly, because again, we want to work for us at this prison. And when you build a new prison, you don’t want to build a new work force.
You want to bring in experience. Yeah. And are we going to look at 200 plus, uh, officers right now, uh, and administrators working in the prison and say, Hey, we got a new prison. But guess what? Even though your kids go to school and Sioux Falls and you’ve developed a life here, you’ve put in 15, 20 years, uh, in the prison working as a correctional officer, but now you get to move to Mitchell. You know, that, that’s not a reality.
Murdoc: You say that like, you know, you’re in Mitchell’s great town.
Mulder: Mitchell’s a great town. Right. There’s, there’s points. And again, I applaud Mitchell for coming forward and saying, consider us, but.
Murdoc: Well, I wouldn’t say all of Mitchell.
Hult: I think the mayor. Cool as applause. Right.
Murdoc: But I like the Mitchell plan because I thought it would be nice to have a prison where every year you put a bunch of new corn colors on it.
Mulder: It would have been two tourist attractions in Mitchell.
Hult: A prison. Corn bags. Hotel stays. Mitchell, come on. Yeah. And that’s an opportunity. But for me, at the end of the day, that’s why I personally never considered Mitchell, but I was willing. Again, when you’re part of this political world, you don’t get everything you want.
Mulder: And if that’s what it was going to take to move the process forward at that day in the task force, I was like, fine, keep Mitchell on the table. That’s fine. But I want to keep the process moving forward. Let’s not stall out on things that aren’t going to come to fruition. Let’s keep it moving forward and talk about the possibilities of what’s is. I think that 600 million is not going to get it done.
And I think, and I personally think our bed count is too high. And for us trying to save money and trying to get something done. So that’s where I’m at on this task force. But again, I agreed to all that. Yeah, I voted yes on all of those things just to keep the ball moving forward.
Jake: I can hear that. My real problem is I feel like this task force is trying to make everybody happy by putting a prison somewhere. Sure. And that’s not possible. It’s just simply flat out not possible. And we have a site that we spent $60 million on already that is near the workforce that is near a major major population center. I still can’t.
Hult: I mean, I get what you’re saying. I get what you’re saying that it’s tough to get that thing moving forward. But it feels like no one in the literature wants to be the bad guy and say, you got to be there. This is where we need to be.
We have multiple consultants saying that’s the best location. I don’t see how you can’t put it by. I get that some people don’t want it. There are people that are loud voices don’t want it there. But to me, that’s not good politics and not a good solution for South Dakota.
Murdoc: What is if you’re the loud people, they’re kicking everyone’s ass right now.
Hult: That’s why I’m saying that’s my
Murdoc: question on that is like, yeah, yeah, you can fully accept that argument. A lot of people do fully accept that argument.
Hult: So what if you can’t get it passed? It’s good. Angry, you know, I mean, you need to get it across the finish line.
Mulder: And that’s what I’m going to do. It doesn’t have to be logical. It might be. I don’t disagree to Jake. You know, we can go back to how I voted in the in the session. And that’s a whole nother story that I don’t necessarily want to rehash, but because I feel somewhat personally responsible for giving us to this point because I was the swing vote on not moving some dollars. But at the same time, as John just said, it’s kind of like, I hear everything you’re saying. But how do we move forward from where we’re at today?
Jake: Well, it sounds like you kind of want the easy way out. No offense, but that’s the reality is you don’t want to take the hard path here that we need to put a prison somewhere. And the best location we have is being stopped by about 10 people that are really upset about it. And that’s hyperbole.
Mulder: Well, unfortunately, that 10 people is joined by about 1400 other people who have decided to jump on their
Murdoc: band waiting on principal for a I can be a Brian’s lawyer here. Let me get a little better. There’s 40 people in a Facebook group of Bel Fuchs that they could prison in Lincoln County is the government, you know, deep state coming down no matter where you put it. So like I also, I don’t mean this in a bummer way. What’s a house rep supposed to do?
Jake: Oh, I’m not really throwing these at Brian here. I know I might point that
Hult: it’s I think
Murdoc: what you’re saying is how come Brian’s not in there with a shoveled ticket?
Hult: Yeah, Brian.
Jake: No, it’s the reality is it doesn’t take a hard sense things. We wouldn’t have things like DSU right now as as the tech place it is. You wouldn’t have the Sanford Research Lab Center. You wouldn’t have all these things that we work really hard for in a state. You just take really hard positions.
Murdoc: Bold idea. I’m mean this. This is not this is not this is not a bit. Okay. Sometimes you can’t tell if I’m Larry fundraising maybe if you who knows what’s real because no one’s got to disclose anything. But if you were if you believe the conversations at the bars, you know, fundraising is hard for everybody right now. But it’s hard for Larry to if you Larry and you can’t raise any money and that probably doesn’t mean you can win. If you don’t raise any money, build the prison. Sue him. Who cares? I’m going to build this thing. You want to change yourself to the fence. Fine. Go ahead. By the time anybody can do anything that conquer to be
Jake: down, you can’t quite do that yet. I mean, seriously, you can’t know.
Hult: I mean, look at our
Murdoc: president expanding the authority look at our president expanding.
Hult: Correct. If you want to do it that way, just be like, just it’s a brand new world. And so what do we get? Are you going to get some sign holders in the ditch? You bet you. Does Larry care? No, just build it. Sue him.
Hult: Sue him. I know when I may or may not have been having conversations similar to this this week where we were talking about had Joe had Bill Janklobe and faced with this truck. He would have actually had that’s my point.
Jake: It takes it takes foreign politics to get big things done. And I don’t think I’m as willing to take that stance right now.
Murdoc: Janklobe didn’t have one gaggle of morons at his ankles like like you guys do though.
Jake: That’s true. Different gaggles of idiots. Yeah. My dad.
Hult: That was Sue was a gaggle of it.
Hult: Back in the day where you just pointed gun at him to get him to spike down a little bit. Dang it. Yeah.
Mulder: Obviously again, biggest spending project in state history. You know, if I were a leader in Mitchell like they did come to the prison task force, we got to remember the prison was built in Sioux Falls as an economic development project. Right. I mean, that’s why we got it versus.
Hult: Yeah. Right. And what it was, there’s all about jobs and homes and family stability and that’s what Mitchell was after. But, but again, the reality there was we want to experience workforce. What that what’s that look like we want to keep that close to Sioux Falls. I think that’s our only option. In what we do.
Mulder: And I get all the arguments, but as a house representative, as he’s mentioned Murdoch, like my role in this is to say, okay, what’s the best thing to do is to get that. What’s feasible to get through the legislature.
Jake: So can I ask then what what is feasible right now? What is the option because I think we all agree that Sioux it needs to be in Sioux Falls. It has to be here because of the sort of here in the populations here, the transports, you did with the interstate and all the stuff. So it needs to be here.
Hult: I just like to know like, like right now as like, in like a half hour, people will be in Worthing talking about this. And my guess is there’s maybe not a lot of love for this.
Murdoc: Worthing’s rolling out the air mattress.
Jake: Probably not again, not going to make everybody happy.
Hult: So what are our options here in Sioux Falls and Sioux Falls area for this
Mulder: still, I think there’s a couple of sites that might reveal themselves yet that I’m aware of a few conversations that are taking place. But Jake, you bring up a great point. And I think, again, let’s just be transparent in the conversation. We also have on this task force. We have several people running for different offices. And they’re all trying to take a victory somewhere.
Hult: Whether it’s saving money, whether it’s hard on crime, you can guess who that is, whether it’s a Sioux Falls guy saying Sioux Falls is great. And we kind of talked about that. We said, who’s making motions and it shouldn’t be people like this that are making those motions.
Jake: I do think that if it’s cost a billion dollars, everyone’s going to lose their races. That’s the thing.
Mulder: It’s cost a billion dollars. It’s going. So this has gotten really interesting on how to navigate all this. And that’s why I think there’s no one taking a hard stance because it’s going to be hard to pull all of them together and what that is. Again, I think the number is going to have to be north of 600 million. What’s the top number, palatable number? I don’t know. I think we’re probably in order to reach something that’s going to be palatable as far as the financial number. I don’t know if we’re going to get 1500 bets. And I think a location yet to be revealed could be the solution. Just tell us the location. No, I’m not going to say it right now.
Murdoc: Let me talk about one other thing. I think we have heartburn over the number, but we also have a state just south of us that’s kind of a few steps ahead of us. And we should be watching them. I mean, Nebraska is sticking to a 1500 bed facility at $325 million. And we should be asking, why can they do it?
And we can’t. Just this, I think this month, the head of the prisons, they have different terminology. It’s not department corrections or whatever down there, but. Minister of Donuts.
Yeah, whatever it is. They, they, um, they said, well, we’re only doing 400 beds at maximum security. We’re doing 600 and medium, which drives the cost down.
And here’s why, but is that $300 million of costs? Really? That’s what it’s going to save you. So I think we got to watch what’s going on there. It’s reality. It’s probably going to balloon because of tariffs and construction and all that kind of stuff. But they’re kind of holding tight to it. And I know the, the bids came out and maybe it ballooned and the reporter has different information.
Hult: No, no, no, no, I don’t know. I was going to say, he’s pulled it off. It’s just a story. It’s 313 million.
Jake: That’s what our, you know, if that balloon is six, she’s still pretty happy.
Mulder: Yeah.
Murdoc: And they’re prisons 130 years old. I’m going to, I’m going to insert just because we got to take a break here. We’re sitting, we got, we got a lively conversation. We can come back and wrap up our present talk before we get to, well, tick talk back in the news or not.
Jake: We’re launching a tick talk here at the co-town hall.
Murdoc: I don’t have that. I don’t either. I saw them south coast, sir. Slight and Brian Mulder district 11 representative. We’ll come back with that and more. It’s Jake in the East and Murdoch in the East. This is the co-town hall.
Jake: Welcome back to see a quick cheers. You know, all together. We’re on the table.
Murdoc: This is, by the way, how I want to do every, I want to do every Dakota town hall with a Martin. I know, right? I mean, just imagine how smart we’re going to be if we have a little gin to this.
Jake: Just drunk. I mean, it would be great.
Hult: You know, just try to talk to Toby Dodean while we’re also about backstones into matter on the show.
Mulder: We don’t break news. We like to strain it.
Murdoc: We bend it a touch. You know, that’s more our speed. That’s why we bring in the heavy hitters.
Jake: Well, Brian, thank you. I really appreciate it. Can I give you like your closing statement on it? If that’s our spring?
Mulder: I think our closing statement again is I know people are frustrated, but we’re to the point where there’s there’s two options. We got to move something forward or nothing gets done. Right. And moving something forward means you’re going to have to compromise. It’s a political process on that.
You’re not going to get everything you want. And I think I would encourage everyone on all sides of that. That’s going to have to be the case. Whether. Yeah. So I think I’ll leave it at that.
Jake: I think that’s great. I really appreciate you coming in.
Hult: Get the hell out of here.
Mulder: I got some things to finish yet.
Murdoc: Well, one of the most entertaining searchlight stories I’ve read, which is hard to beat, you know, we got a lot of great searchlight talent here in this state. Josh, can you take me higher set Tupperware Tupper? We had to be a good one for time.
Jake: I thought we had a better one for Tupper. Something that was Tupperware. It was Tupperware. It was just like, that’s one of the best guests we have on a show every time.
Murdoc: I mean, we wouldn’t have any facts of tests.
Hult: No, that’s good. Some of you guys wouldn’t come out once in a while. Yeah. Anyways, Mr.
Murdoc: Holt, you, what were you called by read a liberal, no, a communist? What did he call you? Oh, wow.
Hult: Oh, it was, I mean, it was, it was like a generic term, you know, it was like, it was like a sort of fridge magnet, Maga poetry is what it sounds like. Oh, fridge magnet, Maga poetry.
Hult: Your bias attacks will not deter razzar media.
Hult: Completely unprofessional, accusatory nature. There was, there was a zinger in there as a leftist keyboard warrior.
Murdoc: There we go. Leftist keyboard warrior. Thank you for that.
Jake: I did appreciate it. Those that don’t know, you wrote an article on searchlight, basically kind of examining Reed Rassner, is that the correct name? Reed Rassner and his claims or the claim that he is a billionaire and has the money in some way to fund this TikTok deal. And what you didn’t really say straight out in the article, but you kind of kind of says that probably not. This is like, he has the money to back it up. So, so what was your, let’s talk about your article a bit. Yeah.
Hult: So, so Reed is a, he’s a financial planner. He also sells a lot of stuff on eBay, about $70,000 worth of stuff.
Murdoc: A lot of stuff on his, he does a lot of stuff. That’s also, I’m seeing more of these dudes getting into politics. Like if you have time to sell junk on eBay, you got time to talk about election denying on Facebook.
Jake: It’s Omni sellers, right?
Hult: Is that what’s called? Omni sellers and is, and you see Omni best financial is his financial planning.
Jake: Can I, do you mind if I read off some things I’m just seeing on his, what on his, we got a, a carburetor for $75.
Murdoc: Is it a double? A tail light.
Jake: Tail light. I don’t see it. Oh, wait, hold on.
Murdoc: Those are, those are hubs. Any bird feeders?
Jake: No bird feeders. Oh, it’s kind of cool. It’s kind of, look at this phone. It’s like an old fashioned phone.
Murdoc: Oh, rotary. Rotary phones. Is it rotary? That’s what’s called. So he sells Chinese nonsense.
Hult: This looks like, that’s American made.
Hult: That’s a nice thing. You might find the kind of stuff you get in a Marlboro Miles catalog for 1995.
Jake: Yeah, that’s exactly where the graph is. Of stuff. Yeah. This ham’s cooler.
Murdoc: See, that was a bizarre bit on that. Made in America.
Jake: It’s my dollars number. All right. I see you guys making 70,000 dollars a year.
Hult: Anyway, he’s legit. He’s got a very high sellers rating. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a legit company. It’s not like, you know, the ad you click on Instagram for shoes and it turns out to be, you know, God knows what.
Hult: You know, right? No, it’s legit.
Murdoc: But yeah, so he ran for Senate, ran for US Senate in Wyoming against, against Barasso. Got a woman.
Jake: Yes. Barasso is one of the top guys in the US Senate. Absolutely. Was absolutely housed. And he said he was the Trump, he was the more Trump friendly candidate in the race.
Murdoc: And even endorsed by Trump. You know, I got a lot of Wyoming buddies. It’s Hinky over there, right? Like it’s district 30 in a lot of places in Wyoming,
Mulder: just to kind of give you some landscape of Wyoming. And even those people were like, this guy’s on doofus. You know what I mean? And they say that they don’t love, these are the people who don’t love Barasso, who think he’s, you know, part of the swamp. But they’re like, he’s swampy, but he’s not that guy. Anyways, that’s how we’ve known him until this TikTok thing. Yeah.
Hult: And it really did sort of seem to come out of nowhere. The thing that got my attention immediately about this, aside from the number, it’s just, let’s, can we just say the number? I mean, have you guys put this together? I didn’t put this in the story.
Murdoc: How much? 47.45 billion. 47.45 billion. What’s the point for that? That’s his commitment.
Hult: 47.45. It’s the Trumpiest TikTok.
Hult: Oh my, I didn’t even think about that. He’s been interviewing about it. He says it, right? So it’s very calculated. But obviously the number is huge. It’s a bigger number than Elon Musk paid for Twitter, which was, which of course
Murdoc: he had to get financing, which is man in the world. Right? So that stood out. But the thing that really got me was going to his website, to the Razner Media website and seeing the press releases, just like Viome.
Mulder: And one of them says, South Dakota officials are behind this TikTok bid. And I said, well, you’re from Wyoming.
Hult: Why isn’t there any Wyoming name on this, on this website saying we support this TikTok bid? I mean, does Wyoming not want TikTok?
Mulder: What’s going on? So that was kind of the first classic. What’s going on here? I mean, you would think that in your home state,
Hult: maybe somebody would come out and sell you.
Jake: Find some support. For a billion. If Denny Saver wanted to buy TikTok, we’d be all up, all headed.
Murdoc: Wyoming cybersecurity to, you know, is not. Yeah.
Hult: Hub. You know what I mean? It’s just teaching kids how to shoot. That’s their cybersecurity. Yellowstone. Right.
Mulder: There’s value to that. So, you know, we have we have college that, you know, colleges that train and whatever. Right.
Hult: I see your point, except he initially asked everyone in Wyoming. So he says he’s asked all the governors in the neighborhood. And he did. Reaching out to everyone. And he and he always said from the beginning, like, I’m from Wyoming, I want this to be in Wyoming. He said that just like a week and a half ago, a few weeks ago in an article on Cowboys Day Daily. So yeah, definitely started with Wyoming. Didn’t appear to get a lot of traction and then called our governor and the governor said, sounds great to me.
Jake: I mean, and to be fair, like we’re not out anything of entertaining us a little bit, right? Other than kind of looking like,
Hult: well, yeah, I mean, who’s going to say, well, it would be terrible if it would be terrible if we had a giant social media company at which the graduates of DSU could apply their skills. That would be, nobody’s going to say that’s terrible.
Murdoc: But I don’t know if I’d have done the press conference though.
Jake: Maybe not. Maybe vet the guy a little bit like, can I see an income statement from a reputable audit firm?
Murdoc: Yeah, right. Easier way to take credit for something. Although here’s the problem, as you alluded to in our first break, Brian, he’s run for office. You need a lot of tricks right now.
Jake: You know, Larry’s got to bring TikTok, South Dakota. That’s a guaranteed you are in the governor’s mansion again for four more years.
Murdoc: I mean, you know, also selfishly, just so we’re all being transparent, I have it on good text authority that if they do move to talk to this state on the first Zara TikTok, it’s been, it’s been, it’s been, I get it. It’s already been appointed.
Mulder: No, does Lieutenant Governor have TikTok? I don’t know. Doesn’t mean that’s why he has the point.
Jake: We should have your friend on again, by the way, to talk about TikTok.
Murdoc: Dan Patterson. We should have him on again. 100%. We have an actual cybersecurity buddy. All my friends.
Jake: We had him on a couple of summers ago. Everyone. Okay, so Paul, is this guy a billionaire?
Hult: Well, let’s just, let’s just put it this way. If we’re talking about the parameters of the possible, like is it
Murdoc: somewhere in that sandbox, like way over, very deep in one of the corners where the cats hang out and the kids don’t kind of like maybe. It’s that the trust question.
Jake: In your article, you talked about trust that he had that might have some money in it, but thoughts of being crypto guys, crypto, right?
Hult: There’s no way for me to fully confirm or there are there are trusts out there. The family has a trust. He has a trust. I know there’s some property in that trust in those trusts, but as far as knowing exactly how much is in there.
Murdoc: Is he like an oil nepo baby?
Hult: No, it wasn’t oil.
Hult: It was like his dad owned a gravel company. Stepfather. Stepfather on a gravel company. And it’s like his mom’s trust. I’m kind of, I’m basically working on it.
Murdoc: Yeah, there’s some property from a couple of businesses, family businesses that are in the name of the trust. And you can sort of see that on the county assessor’s website. But you know, there’s, not on the Forbes billionaire list. Nobody in the family is on the Forbes billionaires list. I don’t know if you can hide being a billionaire from the chousel.
Murdoc: A long time ago on the first round of this, but I never heard back.
Jake: I’ll take a bet right now. I think we’re not going to get tick tock south. And we want to take that bet.
Murdoc: And what do you really like that bet? Just because it’s so rad if it actually happens, even if they have to make the position for me. What are we betting?
Mulder: Paul, it’s either. I once had a bet with the attorney general, Marty Jackley for warms, a warm hams beer.
Jake: I love hams. Oh man. I love hams. That’s Urious Minnesota. Ham’s kind of what you drink at the Urious Minnesota.
Hult: Yeah, it just, it does, it does seem to sort of strain credulity just a little bit that a guy who’s never run a social media company who founded his media company in February got a tick tock account in March has a terrible haircut.
Jake: I mean, that’s my turn.
Hult: Yeah, you know, so what are his options? You know what I mean? What’s he supposed to grow out of? A mullet? There’s, you know, not good.
Jake: You see that? It’s not bad. I have, but it’s not. No, the options are great. I know. I’m just saying. Shave it. Okay.
Murdoc: So he looks, he’s got the same haircut. Doug Putnam does.
Jake: I actually vote people based on what I think their hairstyles mostly. Yeah.
Mulder: That’s how most people do it. I think it’s how most people do it. Yeah, I think it’s because Jake’s got a flow. That’s why I do. I can do that.
Murdoc: Yeah. So what’s going on since I’m talking to some Sioux Falls people here? What’s wrong with your county Republicans?
Jake: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Mulder: They’re promoting some, they’re promoting non mini Ha Ha County Republicans.
Jake: That’s true. Yeah. No, it’s what they’re promoting. So you’re a good friend. My colleague, my colleague, my colleague, fellow legislator, Dylan Jordan from DJ for the Lord. DJ Dylan Jordan, DJ DJ. Um, this is pretty.
Mulder: I believe Cottington.
Jake: Yeah. Okay. I believe it. I don’t know how the counties work up there. You know, we have things in Warthouse. He is doing a seminar, a Q and A town hall forum.
Mulder: Well, it’s a session wrap up session wrap up. According to the promotion that I saw is that in Sioux Falls, in Sioux Falls, but he’s from Cottington on June 26. So maybe you want to check it out.
Murdoc: June 26. Is this the thing that Phil Jensen and him are at?
Jake: No, it’s not. No, no, that was an education seminar of some sorts.
Mulder: Wrong leg of the two words. Yeah. Downtown. And yeah, I’ve seen him for a few weeks. He’s downtown at the public library downtown public library, which is used for a lot of different forums. June 26, I believe.
I don’t know what time, but a representative Jordan from Cottington County is going to talk in mini hot hot County. Yes. About his his first year in session, right? Session wrap up. Lot to learn. And yeah, there’s a, I believe he led the charge from what
Jake: that’s what he said right on the email from the mini hot County Republicans.
Murdoc: For what? Of what? Conservative charge.
Mulder: Patriots. Oh, Patriots. Oh, it’s Patriots. Oh, it’s Patriots. And and is that, let me ask this, let me be his defense lawyer for a second. It’s not that odd for a group of Republicans to get talked to from some other guest.
Jake: If he was a high profile individual in the house, that would make sense to me. So if it was like Scott Audenbach was going to be in Sioux Falls to do with him like that, that makes sense.
Cause he’s the majority leader. That would make sense. Sure. Right.
But when you’re a first year legislator and with basically, I think he had one bill that he championed, I probably had other ones, but one bill that was well known for, which was getting rid of seat belts here in South Dakota. Oh yeah.
Murdoc: That’s right. That was it.
Jake: It’s hard to imagine why this is the guy you’re promoting and be like, this is a good session wrap up.
Murdoc: Like Aaron, our people can’t tell the difference between Dylan Jordan and you. I put some separation between those. You know what I mean? Like I don’t think to hear that, but like you can’t, the moderate Republicans who look at this outside looking in can’t tell the difference between Aaron Orward and Dylan Jordan. There’s a big difference between those two. Yeah.
Jake: I’m not paying attention right now anyway. It’s not an election season. So, I mean, That’s a good point. I mean, we talked about this before the show a little bit. Like, what’s that room look like? Is it like a hostile room? No, of course not.
Murdoc: This was my point as we were meeting earlier is that I hold, I think you agree with me. That’s a friendly room. I mean, that’s a bunch of Republicans who would say, yes, Dylan Jordan is in our is reductive our camp. I don’t think they’re you, you came in and you’re like, can you believe this?
Mulder: And I’m like, my, my, my, my, my, can you believe this is a victory lap? We have a, again, many hot country Republicans, we can get together and do a session wrap up.
I don’t understand to your point, Jake, a first year representative being promoted. And I’m going to get myself in trouble. I’m sure here. People aren’t going to like what I have to say, but being promoted in, in Sioux Falls, I mean, so why are his voter basis in there? I haven’t been invited.
Jake: Why haven’t you done a session wrap up?
Mulder: Why don’t you? Well, I guess maybe I have to be proactive
Jake: and maybe it’s all that says he’s doing one in Sioux Falls because he wants to get a bigger name. And then the many hot country Republicans were like, he’s Republican. We’ll promote it.
Murdoc: Maybe that’s honest, but every, every Rockefeller Republican in Sioux Falls doesn’t need a session wrap up. They paid attention. They saw you did. They didn’t think you, you know, it got out of normal people’s, can help people’s not fair, but it got out of control, right? And, and nothing kind of got funded or done. And that some of the crazier stuff got beat. I think they are informed. You don’t need to do a session wrap up. This isn’t a session wrap up either. This is a rally for nuts.
Jake: Yeah, so box is all it is. I mean, I, I, but they like doing that.
Hult: It’s like a Thursday or something. You know, this might have to go to this. No, I don’t really 26.
Murdoc: Also, it’s, they’re not the only group that likes this, but lots of groups like to get together and hear their own, you know, our own message, right?
Jake: Right? You know, that’s a champion for the conservative costs. They want to hear a champion.
Murdoc: No, what is it? No, a thought leader. No, what does it?
Mulder: I would have to pull it up.
Hult: Leader in the conservative costs, leader of liberty, freedom, things, something that’s something one of those lines. But he, I just pulled this up. If you guys want to, oh, this
Mulder: is, this is, so yeah, so creation and use of educational empowerment accounts, prime sponsor on that permit the selling of fireworks throughout the year. So this, you know, there’s a liberty interest there. If that’s the theme, there’s the seat belt deal, immunity for off duty law enforcement officers who perform citizens arrests. Forhibit DEI in law enforcement hiring,
Murdoc: community for security personnel of a religious organization. So if you’re a security of a church,
Jake: oh, this was, this was, this was this thing like they wanted to have, was he the chaplains and schools guy too? Oh yeah.
Mulder: Representative Nordstrom brought that.
Murdoc: Oh, he wanted to get guns that somebody I can’t remember who.
Hult: Well, I don’t, I don’t see.
Murdoc: I mean, that doesn’t really narrow it down, does it?
Hult: Well, I mean, just from the title of the bill, I can’t tell you where the guns would be involved.
Jake: Well, Dylan Jordan, open invite to the show. We’d love to have you on and talk about your non-annual have a month. Okay.
Murdoc: Talk about what you got done this session. I forget we can both give open invites and like open that’s open.
Jake: Okay, we were round the curve here. Let’s take a break.
Murdoc: Round the curve, round the bend, round the
Jake: bend, round the bend, up to the curve, up to the curve. We’re here in Sioux Falls. We’re at the Hilton Garden Inn and we’ll be right back after this break. Cheers.
Murdoc: All on the final lap. Thanks for coming back with us on the Friday afternoon here on the Cowboy or in your favorite podcast player. You can help this show. If you’d like this show, we get kind messages from you that say you listen every week and you could give it a share. You could tell two friends about it. I give it a rating. You could get your checkbooks out when election season starts next year too. That’s all the ways you can help this show.
Hult: It’s out the code as most listen to political pie buckle up to we ain’t taking 10 cents for three years. Bet that’s going to change. So you’ve all you people listening right now and just your budgets appropriately because 2026 we’re going to cash this thing in. All right. Sorry.
Welcome to the show. We were brainstorming. We were brainstorming. We finally okay. So we got when we when actual reporters come on this show, we you know, like the fancy and nickname it all started with Austin.
Ha, gosh. And then we have that we forgot Jacob, not Jake, the producer reminded us we do have one for Seth Tupper. Seth Top rope Tupper. There we go. Which is pretty good.
And then we have Josh. What’s yours? Higher education.
Higher education. But I’m pretty good. It’s pretty good.
It’s a little production heavy. It’s a law. You got to sell it. Yeah. Brian Motor put the exclamation point on the on the on finally we have one for our dear friend. John holds with us with South Coast searchlight, which is John the Incredible Holt.
Mulder: Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah.
Mulder: Pretty good. It was it was a group effort. It was good. It was brainstorming. It was it was all there. I just kind of summed it up.
Hult: I had a pro wrestling theme for South Dakota searchlight, which I don’t think is the image that people get.
Murdoc: That’s right. That’s probably leading in a little I liked halter top.
Mulder: It’s nice, right? It’s not bad. It was it was on the table for a few seconds.
Jake: Yeah, they were like that’s not good.
Murdoc: So we got okay, we want to talk about is make calm people fat. You want to talk about who’s running for PUC. We got lots. We got a lot. We got a lot goofy stuff here.
Jake: Let’s talk about our soon to be good, very good friend who is running for governor. Mr. Toby Dodin was on Kello this week. Yes, he was. He’s good guy.
Murdoc: Good guy. He’s good guy. Speaking of wrestling. He’s he’s the baby face. Yeah. Toby Dodin would call them if you don’t know wrestling lingo. That’s what you call the good guy. And he would say Dusty Johnson’s the heel who’s the back.
Hult: Because he called him evil.
Murdoc: Did he say evil? I don’t listen to the thing. I asked and he said yes. He said evil.
Mulder: Yeah, I went and listened to it and it was it was straight out that I believe the quote had something to do with you’re going to have a choice between light and dark, good and evil. Oh my gosh. That Toby Dodin who I have not met and I’m not making any judgments on mentioned that he was the good and some aggressive rhetoric.
Jake: I would say Congressman Johnson would be the evil. Yeah.
Murdoc: Doesn’t respond though. I thought it was so clever, right? In the sense if you think of this like boxing, which is a little silly, you know, Toby put a full body. Oh, you can see him swinging a mile away right cross. And as a reminder, how good Dusty is at this. Dusty just sidesteps to the left, throws a little jab and compares Toby Dodin to the evil son of a bid shooter in Minnesota.
Jake: Yeah, that’s a good one. I didn’t compare it to be clear. I didn’t compare him to him.
Hult: That’s true. That’s how you get the candidate. This is this kind of rhetoric.
Murdoc: Is this what it means to things that happen in Minnesota? He didn’t call him a shooter or anything. So oh, by the way, can we put a pin in this for a second? Let’s just talk about that. Obviously, this is a political talk show and these are neighbors. We know these people. Not I don’t know any of these people, but some, you know, it’s just a I thought Sneeve’s post that it wasn’t if you go back on Joe Sneeve’s page and look at his thoughts in the service from a few weeks ago, he just lost his patience with people that immediately turned it into a team camp debate.
Jake: It’s just one idiot is what it is. It’s one idiot who decided to take two people’s lives. Ty would take a lot more than that.
Mulder: Yeah, he was on a mission, obviously. Yeah, I mean, there’s a list of all the people. He was on a mission and in political rhetoric, it is the reason why people like this developed that mission. I think they go after it. Then it did become real. You know, I had to wake up to it as a state elected official representative. My email was blowing up from South Dakota LRC, some of the security actions that were taking place in South Dakota almost immediately as a state representative. And then because this guy was on the loose for 36 hours, right? We didn’t know what was happening and what was going on.
And then I’ve made some changes to some websites and what takes place and information that’s out there. But then obviously the joint statement from our elected leadership as well, just sharing our condolences to what took place in Minnesota. And it is serious. It shouldn’t happen. We should get back to civil debate, not name calling. Let’s find compromise. Let’s find solutions to real problems. And it shouldn’t be personal attacks that lead to death. And for me, just to take it serious, just for a half second here on our show is that this led to my wife and I having to sit down with our kids even this weekend because they all are in retail jobs here in Sioux Falls and they’ve been approached by people who say, oh, you’re Brian Mulder’s son or daughter. And they’re not sure how to react to that.
And what does that look like? It kind of takes them off guard sometimes. Sometimes they know the person. Sometimes they don’t. But they’re being noticed. They’re being seen.
And I had a conversation. If you ever feel uncomfortable, you just need to get the heck out of there. Pull a phone up, call 911, whatever it takes.
Because obviously it became very real when this thing has just happened in four hours away to our neighbors to the east. So my condolences to the Minnesota representative. I believe her name was Hoffman, Representative Hoffman and the Hoffman family.
And the other, it starts with an age, but I’m forgetting their name last night or the two that were assaulted on the attempted murder. It shouldn’t be. It just shouldn’t be. And we need to get back to civil discourse and stop the name calling.
Jake: This could happen here. That’s the reality. I mean, there’s no reason. Minnesota wasn’t special that it happened there. But right.
Hult: And addresses, the addresses of lawmakers in North Dakota was scrubbed. And that’s the case here in South Dakota. Yeah. The incredible McKenzie Huber also, also incredible.
Mulder: He’s got a story about that. It’s coming out pretty soon. So I mean, that’s, that’s reality, right? For you guys. Yeah, it is. It is a reality. I did find it weird. You know, I’m in my second term, but my first term, I came to that realization as well. I mean, I had people come up to my house and ask for yard signs and different things.
Murdoc: And I’m like, Oh, people all of a sudden got a vacuum now. Can I do the dishes all the time?
Mulder: Really know where I live. And obviously they were friendlies, but they were still strangers to me. And I was like, Oh, this kind of became real. That my information’s out there and people can find out where I’m at.
Murdoc: And we’re going to see more and more of this, right? I don’t mean that as a, Oh my God, the world’s ending. Just like the technological change that’s happening and everybody’s newest speeds right now are going to, are going to just, you know, really knee kick people that have mental health issues.
And you’re going to see more of this. It’s not, I don’t mean it as a finger point of anybody’s fault. It’s just where we’re at right now. Just the reality of it. You got to take it seriously.
Mulder: Yeah, it’s just a tragic deal. And just on a side note, I mean, we do live in the Midwest and we’re only separated by a couple degrees of separation from everybody. And a friend of mine who’s in the same business that I met, the other day, when this was all going down, he was in private equity business prior to his nonprofit world. Are you friends with Reed Raster? No, not Reed Raster.
Hult: And why they call it private equity?
Jake: Which is by the way, not why they call it private equity.
Hult: Banker jokes. There it is. Almost never get banker jokes. Nice job. Nice pull.
Mulder: Thank you. And so this gentleman who lives in Sioux Falls works in a nonprofit. He said the shooter worked for him in private equity. I mean, he knew him 15 years ago. And he goes, I knew him before his name came out. They showed the picture and I’m like, I know this guy.
And yeah, so just how close that relationship is, it kind of brings it home. And it’s a reality that we have to, again, get back to let’s bring this whole world back to civil discourse. Let’s be the leaders in that.
Murdoc: Also, hey, this is all we can talk about this. A lot of this audience runs for office, has run for office, think about running for office. We don’t really need to give this lecture to the Facebook people, the citizens. The next time you guys are looking at your postcards, maybe pull back a word or two. And that helps this whole conversation.
Jake: Like reality check, even if you don’t like what this is doing, it’s not an evil person. That’s not the rhetoric you need to use in these conversations. You can disagree with someone, but they’re not the devil.
Mulder: Yeah. And I don’t believe Toby Dotton’s an evil person. Everyone is trying to champion what they think is best for their families, their communities, their state. And we love love. That’s what we’re saying. We’re going to have a difference of opinion on how to get that done. But that’s okay.
Murdoc: And I don’t know. I mean, we’re all talking about this and we all agree. And I bet most listeners on this agree. And I think it leads to this kind of narrative where we’re going to see more June turnout because they think everyone’s going to just show up and fix all this. What is the evidence that says that’s going to happen? Back to why Toby Dotton’s saying this, it works.
Jake: It does work. It gets people out. It gets people motivated. Because when you’re fighting the fight against evil or darkness or whatever you want to call it, that’s way more motivating than fighting the fight against any other dumb cause.
Hult: Like a great family guy. Yeah. You’re not in the middle of this. You don’t really follow politics. You get kids and your house payments trying to get made and things are tight.
And you know, now everything’s more expensive. And so you only check it for 90 seconds and you don’t really know who Toby Dotton is because you haven’t listened to this hilarious show for two years. And like, you know, you don’t want to put your faith in dusty because nothing’s gotten better over the last six for you. I’m just total hypothetical. That person will vote for Toby if they can show up at all. And the message of, Hey, everybody, we got to take this seriously and hold each other’s hands because people are getting shot. That person’s not listening to that message. You’re never going to infect that person.
Jake: It’s very hard. You excited about the idea that you got to keep property taxes and you have to inform them getting rid of them is so much easier to say. It’s what we’re fun to give property taxes. So I don’t, you know, we got a two minute warning.
Murdoc: I have, okay, let’s end here. I have a blind source. Oh, yeah. Chris Reeder is stepping down, right? Yes. This blind source. According to one of I’ll narrow it down this far according to one of the potential gubernatorial candidates. Okay, there’s another legislator about to move, which is going to have to make them resign.
Jake: Can we East River or West River? I don’t know. Oh, okay.
Mulder: Oh, that is, you weren’t given that kind of clue.
Murdoc: I’m not hiding. I am telling you I am hiding a couple source, but I’m that’s all I know. That’s all they know.
Jake: Because we got Chris Reeder is currently in MTC. They asked him that is not it.
Hult: Well, I’m not I’m not I’m just saying that’s the only clarification. Yeah, we got the creature or MTC. We have the wheels. David Miller. Is that it? MTCs?
Mulder: I think those are the only two MTCs. So it would be one more.
Murdoc: I don’t know if it’s northeast, southeast. 103 more to go.
Mulder: It’s not me. Say you say you so. Okay, 102. If we’re playing guess who we can cost a couple people off the list here. Okay, very good. So I don’t you know, lead. I’m dropping breadcrumbs for you real reporters. I think it’s incredible. You’re like talking about.
Hult: I think so. I think he chased us down.
Murdoc: Oh, look back at me like you’d rather move to North Korea than drive down.
Jake: Which district house ramp is going to move the funniest thing is to someone’s part of the show going, oh, they know about that. Like someone’s going, Oh, that’s me.
Murdoc: We’ve we caught you. You text us in. Okay, I want this is a great show guys. Thank you very much. I want to thank our guests. His name is John. The incredible halt is South Dakota searchlight. He has a wonderful article on if tiktok is coming to South Dakota.
You can check out it on South Dakota searchlight.com. Also, what I would call what a debate is a little supposed to sound like maybe not everybody’s on the same page, but everybody came to the table district 11 representative Brian Mulder came and talked about the prison and the task force work he did. And that’s gonna do it on me. That was a good show.
Jake: I think who’s coming on next week. We’re having Robert Arnold, the young man running for governor. He’s 19 years old. He’ll be I think maybe 21 to be governor. I think he’ll be 21 by time he’d be sworn in. If you would win that, he’s gonna come on talk about his campaign, what he cares about. And then we’ll see if the Democrats even wander on it seems,
Murdoc: you know, I’m I ask them, you know, kids, they can wear white socks and sandals now. It’s cool. We got beat up for that when I said when I was this kid’s age,
Jake : do you think this is was a big platform issues?
Murdoc: I don’t know. Let’s see. I don’t know what I don’t know who knows what tricks 19 year olds into running. That question was healer face is the first thing you have to lead with.
Murdoc: Oh, really? Okay, we’re sure. All right. Well, we’re gonna find out that and more evil good guy white socks or not. It’s it’s Jake and the ace and I’ll be back in the West. Thanks for listening to the go to town hall. We’ll see you next week.
