Did DJT destroy thousands of acres of public land? NO

 President Trump did not erase millions of acres of public land. The claims that he “sold off” or eliminated huge amounts of public land come from a fight over Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah. These are national monuments, not national parks. A national monument is a special designation placed on federally owned land to protect specific historic, cultural or scientific resources. President Clinton created Grand Staircase-Escalante in 1996, President Obama created Bears Ears in 2016, and Trump later reduced the boundaries of both monuments.

Reducing a national monument does not make the land private. The land outside the new monument boundaries remained federal public land. What changed was the special monument designation and the rules for those acres. Trump reduced the monuments in 2017, Biden restored the larger boundaries in 2021, and Trump modified them again in July 2026. The newest proclamations allow excluded lands to be managed under the federal public-land laws, including multiple uses such as recreation, grazing and resource development, subject to existing federal law.

So when you hear that Trump simply “destroyed” or “eliminated” millions of acres of public land, that leaves out the most important part of the story. The land did not get sold. The fight is over how federally owned public land should be designated and managed. Simply put, it doesn’t mean sold, it just means we get to use it.

— Stephen Ziegler