Sermons that begin with sentences like “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro” generally don’t end well, especially when they’re uttered by white conservative ranchers gleefully breaking federal law. Such was the case on Saturday, when Cliven Bundy, the man whose illegal cattle grazing has won him plaudits from multiple Republican senators and the right to be declared a “domestic terrorist” by Senator Harry Reid, decided to let a reporter and some supporters in on his particularly racist world view. 
 
 “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” Bundy said, according to The New York Times. The rancher shared the story of what he saw when he drove past a housing project in North Las Vegas. “In front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids—and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch—they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.” 
 
 “And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” Bundy asked, before answering his own question in the worst possible way. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.” 
 
 The rancher has been illegally grazing his cattle on public land since 1993, and owes the government more than $1 million in back fees His refusal to pay—which creates a de facto “government subsidy” of his own—prompted a court order that sent Bureau of Land Management rangers down to the ranch to confiscate his herd. After Bundy’s case was reported in the press, hundreds of armed militiamen rallied to his side, and he effectively won a standoff with the rangers. 
 
 Bundy’s vile comments are bound to complicate life for the big-name politicians who more or less ran to his defense in recent weeks. Kentucky senator Rand Paul, while noting that he is “for obeying the law,” dismissed Reid’s “domestic terrorist” label and said the Nevada senator should “calm the rhetoric a little bit.” In multiple appearances on Fox News, which has taken a predictable liking to Bundy’s narrative of a rancher and armed vigilantes taking on the big, bad federal government, Paul sympathized with Bundy’s position and said much of the land currently owned by the federal government should be transferred to states. In a radio appearance, he went further: “I think there’s an opposite thing to what Harry Reid said, and that’s that the federal government shouldn’t violate the law.” 
 
 Nevada Republican senator Dean Heller has also defended Bundy and his gang. “What senator Reid may call domestic terrorists, I call patriots,” Heller said during a joint TV appearance with Reid. “It’s a pretty broad brush... When you have boy scouts there, you have veterans at the event, you have grandparents at the event.” 
 
 Heller’s spokesman told the Times that the senator “completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way.” Paul’s camp didn’t immediately offer a comment to the paper, and VF Daily left a message at his Washington office. Texas attorney general and Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abott, who took on the Bureau of Land Management’s plans to confiscate land, said through a spokeswoman that his statement was unrelated to Bundy’s case. 
 
 Aside from a merry troop of sympathizers and Fox News amplifiers such as Sean Hannity, Bundy’s situation did not become a rallying cry for the broader Republican Party—even though the rancher’s racist anti-welfare position is not uncommon in certain conservative circles. A Politico report from the middle of the month revealed that most conservative lawmakers (and, Senator Paul excepted, Tea Partiers) decided not to comment on the Bundy case. In the wake of Bundy’s racist comments, those who stayed silent are probably thanking their lucky stars. 
 
 Update (10:50 A.M.): Paul denounced Bundy’s comments about black Americans in a statement provided to Business Insider: “His remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him.” 
 
 Update (1:03 P.M.): Bundy appeared on Alex Jones’s radio show to say that he hopes The New York Times will retract the quotations at issue. “The other picture is, when they was back in the South, they were in the front of their porch as a family unit, and they had chickens and gardens to take care of, and their men were out working,” Bundy said in his attempt at damage control. “I didn’t say ‘picking cotton,’ but they were out working. It seemed to me like their family unit and happiness was greater there than it is here in the city in a government subsidy home.” 
 
 The Bundy Ranch team also posted a statement on its Facebook page. “There are new rumors going around about Cliven,” it reads. “We all know that with the media, words are taken out of context, meanings are twisted, and they can take anything and turn it into what they want it to be. Cliven is a good man, he loves all people, he is not a racist man. He wants what is best for everyone.” 
 
 There’s a slight complicating factor with Bundy’s claims of being “taken out of context”: video of Bundy saying the words—as printed in the Times—has already surfaced online. We’ve embedded the footage below. 
 
 In another radio interview, Bundy reiterated the “chickens and gardens” comments and said, “the statement was right.” “That’s exactly what I said,” Bundy told The Peter Schiff Show. At this point, even if he can’t keep his story straight, it should be clear what the rancher believes. ||||| Conservative radio host Dana Loesch said that the flare-up over Cliven Bundy’s comments on race is missing the point. 
 
 Loesch, who has defended the Nevada rancher on her website and on Fox News, on Thursday suggested that The New York Times coaxed an unseasoned public figure into a tangential discussion about race. 
 
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 reset Bundy's controversial remarks 
 
 “I hope no one is surprised that an old man rancher isn’t media trained to express himself perfectly,” she wrote, noting that “it’s justified to have a healthy suspicion of the New York Times” for raising the issue. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Rand Paul slams Cliven Bundy's racist rant) 
 
 Bundy made the racial comments on Saturday during one of his daily news conferences that was attended by only one reporter and one photograher, according to the Times. 
 
 The paper quoted him saying, “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro [as he recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas] … and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do. 
 
 “And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” Bundy continued. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.” 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: 10 things to know about Cliven Bundy) 
 
 Loesch said that Bundy’s comments might have been aimed at “decrying what big government has done to the black family,” as opposed to necessarily being racist remarks. She said the Bundy affair is primarily about “government overreach.” 
 
 “If Bundy is a racist, that is awful,” she wrote, “but what exactly does that have to do with the [Bureau of Land Management]? I’ve been saying for weeks that this isn’t about one rancher. It’s about government overreach.” 
 
 Loesch concluded by suggesting that liberals are trying to distract from government overreach by focusing the story exclusively on Bundy. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: The left's secret club plans for 2014, 2016) 
 
 Ben Howe, contributing editor at the conservative blog RedState.com, seemed to echo Loesch’s statements on BLM with a series of tweets on Thursday morning. 
 
 In one message, Howe tweeted: “We’re running into classic conservative over-correction here. Bundy may be an idiot. This doesn’t make BLM actions correct. Come on ppl.” ||||| The Fox News Crusade For Cliven Bundy 
 
 The New York Times has overheard Cliven Bundy—the Nevada rancher who, instead of paying decades of overdue grazing fees, met the Bureau of Land management with guns and a small militia—saying this: 
 
 "I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro," he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, "and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn't have nothing to do. They didn't have nothing for their kids to do. They didn't have nothing for their young girls to do. "And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?" he asked. "They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I've often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn't get no more freedom. They got less freedom." 
 
 Conservative and libertarian politicians have been sympathetic toward Bundy's cause, framing his protest as an act of patriotism in the face of an overstepping government. The grazing fees were related to the Endangered Species Act. Ranchers on protected federal land have to pay a fee if they want to use it. And most of the land in Nevada is owned by the federal government. 
 
 Expect every politician to back away from the issue. 
 
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 "His remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him," Sen. Rand Paul said in a statement Thursday morning. 
 
 But it was just Monday night when Paul offered a careful defense of Bundy's actions to Fox News. Saying that while breaking the law is wrong, the government should rethink its business managing grazing land. "I'm for obeying the law and I'm not for a violent outcome," he said. "But with regard to the general question, should the states have some prerogative in this, I think so." 
 
 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who hasn't had many kind words for Bundy before Thursday, called the rancher a "hateful racist" in a statement. 
 
 
 
 Sen. Ted Cruz has also rallied behind Bundy, saying the standoff "is the unfortunate and tragic culmination of the path that President Obama has set the federal government on." He said the administration was "using the jackboot of authoritarianism to come against the citizens." 
 
 Conservative Fox News anchor Sean Hannity has had Bundy on his show multiple times, and Bundy calls Hannity one of his heroes. 
 
 Sen. Dean Heller, who the Times writes has called Bundy's supporters "patriots," offered this response to the paper via a spokesperson. He "completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy's appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way." 
 
 Correction: An earlier version of this story mispelled Sen. Dean Heller's first name. 
 
 Elahe Izadi contributed to this article. ||||| For now, Mr. Bundy appears to have won, forcing the government to back down after its rangers were met with armed Bundy supporters this month. 
 
 “The gather is now over,” said Craig Leff, a deputy assistant director with the Bureau of Land Management. “Our focus is pursuing this matter administratively and judicially.” 
 
 But if the federal government has moved on, Mr. Bundy — a father of 14 and a registered Republican — has not. 
 
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 He said he would continue holding a daily news conference; on Saturday, it drew one reporter and one photographer, so Mr. Bundy used the time to officiate at what was in effect a town meeting with supporters, discussing, in a long, loping discourse, the prevalence of abortion, the abuses of welfare and his views on race. 
 
 “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Mr. Bundy recalled driving past a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do. 
 
 “And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he asked. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.” 
 
 A spokesman for Mr. Paul, informed of Mr. Bundy’s remarks, said the senator was not available for immediate comment. Chandler Smith, a spokesman for Mr. Heller, said that the senator “completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way.” A spokeswoman for Mr. Abbott, Laura Bean, said that the letter he wrote “was regarding a dispute in Texas and is in no way related to the dispute in Nevada.” 
 
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 The crowds may be beginning to dwindle, but for much of the past two weeks, here at Mr. Bundy’s ranch in Bunkerville, 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, the rancher has been a celebrity, drawing hundreds of supporters, including dozens of militia members, many carrying sidearms, and members of Oath Keepers, a militia group, who have embraced him as a symbol of their anger and a bulwark against federal abuse. 
 
 UTAH 80 20 miles Mesquite UTAH NEVADA nevada Bunkerville 93 Virgin River CLARK COUNTY Area of detail 15 Las Vegas california GOLD BUTTE ARIZ. Las Vegas 15 100 miles ARIZONA 
 
 He was honored at a celebratory party on Friday night attended by 1,500 people, who wore “domestic terrorist” name tags, listened to cowboy poetry and ate hamburgers, hot dogs and Bundy beef. “This is the beginning of taking America back,” said Shawna Cox, who had come from Kanab, Utah, to support him. 
 
 Mr. Bundy, whose family has grazed cattle here since they homesteaded in the 1870s, owes the government more than $1 million in grazing fees. He stopped paying after the bureau ordered him to restrict the periods when his herd roamed the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area as part of an effort to protect the endangered desert tortoise. 
 
 Mr. Bundy’s case happened to heat up around the time that Mr. Paul, building the foundation for a presidential campaign, struck a chord with some members of the Republican Party with warnings about governmental overreach. Mr. Paul’s latest book is titled “Government Bullies: How Everyday Americans Are Being Harassed, Abused and Imprisoned by the Feds.” In the Bundy standoff, Mr. Paul has criticized the federal government as overreaching with its use of regulations, but cautioned against any violence or lawbreaking. 
 
 Rob Mrowka, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been battling to get Mr. Bundy to move his cattle in deference to the tortoises, said the standoff had come to symbolize divisions across the country about the role of government, particularly here in the West. 
 
 “It’s symbolic of the polarization and divide within the country that we saw starting with the Obama election,” he said. “This is merely a surrogate for bigger issue and topic in America today — it’s the whole idea of federalism versus states.” 
 
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 The federal government owns 85 percent of the land in Nevada, a statistic repeatedly noted by Mr. Bundy’s supporters as they denounced the actions of the government. Six cattle, including two that had Bundy brands, died during the attempt to collect the animals. 
 
 “Western states don’t have the control over their land that Eastern states have over their land,” said Ivan Jones, 60, a brick mason who came here from Northern California. “Someone like the Bundys, they have been here for generations, before the B.L.M. was ever created, using this land to graze their animals. And the B.L.M. comes in and changes the rule. A small little rancher trying to make a living and they come in like big bullies.” 
 
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 Toby Purvis, 51, an electrician who came here from Farmington, N.M., called the bureau operation “a land grab.” 
 
 “This is happening all over the country right now,” he said. 
 
 Mr. Bundy’s case is clearly divisive. About 16,000 ranchers across the country pay relatively modest fees for their herds to use public land. The Nevada Cattlemen’s Association, while expressing sympathy with some of Mr. Bundy’s complaints, pointedly did not endorse his methods. 
 
 “This should not be confused with civil disobedience,” Mr. Mrowka said. “This is outright anarchy going on here.” 
 
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 Mr. Bundy disputes the legitimacy of both the bureau and the courts that have ruled against him. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to honor a federal court that has no jurisdiction or authority or arresting power over we the people,” he said. 
 
 Still, as Mr. Bundy surveyed the dusty landscape last weekend, the only sign of law enforcement was Brad Rogers, the sheriff of Elkhart County, Ind., who had flown 1,800 miles to stand in solidarity with the embattled rancher. 
 
 With the rangers gone, “I don’t feel any threat — that’s a big change,” Mr. Bundy said. At the same time, he said he saw no reason for his supporters to leave. “As long as we are getting together as a group and as long as we feel good about being here, we are going to be here,” he said. 
 
 One of Mr. Bundy’s sons, Ammon, 38, a car fleet manager from Phoenix, said his father had taught the federal government a lesson. “We ran them out of here,” he said, sitting in a trailer set up near one of the protesters’ camp sites. “We were serious. We weren’t playing around.” 
 
 But Alan O’Neill, who had a similar struggle with Mr. Bundy when he was superintendent of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, expressed concern that the government had backed down. 
 
 “He calls himself a patriot, and says he loves America,” Mr. O’Neill said. “And yet he says he won’t follow any federal laws. You just can’t let this go by, or everybody is going to be like, ‘If Bundy can break the law, why can’t I?' ”
– Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy became a hero in some libertarian and conservative circles for his standoff with federal authorities over grazing rights earlier this month. But then he kept talking. The New York Times today quotes him thusly: “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he said. Referencing a public-housing project he once saw in North Las Vegas, he continued: "In front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids—and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch—they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do." It gets worse: “And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.” The upshot is that he "just ruined his cause," declared the conservative National Journal in a headline. Rand Paul, who repeatedly defended Bundy amid the standoff, issued a statement asserting that Bundy's "remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him." Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who previously called Bundy and his supporters "patriots," said that he "completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy's appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way." Vanity Fair notes, however, that most mainstream conservative lawmakers shied away from Bundy, and that his "situation did not become a rallying cry for the broader Republican Party." Meanwhile, conservative radio host Dana Loesch, who defended Bundy on Fox News, blamed the Times for taking advantage of an "old man rancher" who "isn't trained to express himself perfectly," reports Politico.