"My forefathers have been up and down the Virgin Valley ever since 1877. All these rights I claim have been created through pre-emptive rights and beneficial use of the forage and the water. I have been here longer. My rights are before the BLM even existed," Bundy told the station.
"With all these rangers and all this force that is out here, they are only after one man right now. They are after Cliven Bundy. Whether they want to incarcerate me or whether they want to shoot me in the back, they are after me. But that is not all that is at stake here. Your liberty and freedom is at stake," he continued.
And Bundy sees it as a state issue.
"The federal government has seized Nevada's sovereignty ... they have seized Nevada's laws and our public land. We have no access to our public land and that is only a little bit of it," he said.
This week, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval told the bureau of residents' criticism of the roundup.
What Sandoval said he found "most disturbing" was the BLM's use of a "First Amendment area" that confined protesters to a designated area.
Such an area "tramples upon Nevadans' fundamental rights under the U.S. Constitution," Sandoval said. "No cow justifies the atmosphere of intimidation which currently exists nor the limitation of constitutional rights that are sacred to all Nevadans."
In response, federal officials are allowing the protesters to gather on public lands as long as they don't impede the roundup, said Lueders, the BLM's director in Nevada.
Bundy is digging in for a long fight.
"I've been fighting this for a number of years. It's not about my cows, I'll tell you that much," he said at a town meeting on Wednesday night. "It's about freedom and liberty and our Constitution ... and above all it's about our policing power. Who has policing power today?"
With the growing controversy, it was uncertain Thursday how long the cattle roundup will now last. At Wednesday night's meeting, residents gave Bundy a standing ovation when he publicly spoke.
"I love you people. And I love this land, and I love freedom and liberty," Bundy told the crowd. "I know without doubt that our Constitution didn't provide for anything like the federal government owning this land, and so when I pay my grazing fees -- if I owe any grazing fees -- I will sure pay it to the right landlord, and that will be to Clark County, Nevada."
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