#131 - Angela McArdle - The Fight for Freedom in a Post-Rational World

Summary

The Peter McCormack Show: Episode #131

Guest: Angela McArdle
Date: November 25, 2025
Title: The Fight for Freedom in a Post-Rational World

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Main Theme & Purpose

In this episode, Peter McCormack sits down with Angela McArdle, former chair of the US Libertarian Party, to discuss the state of liberty and rational discourse in Western societies. The conversation spans politics, economics, immigration, the future of libertarianism, civil liberties, financial freedom (especially through Bitcoin), and the cultural divide between “freedom” and “free stuff.” Both critique the current trajectory of the US and UK, the fracturing of the political right, and the erosion of Enlightenment values in what McArdle calls a "post-rational world." Notably, they unpack issues around power, the role of third parties, specific cases of government crackdowns on privacy and Bitcoin, and strategies for pushing liberty forward in society.

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Episode Breakdown

1. Collapse of Rational Discourse & Political Polarization

Timestamp: 00:00–03:36

• Angela: Describes a shift away from rational debate towards emotion-driven, reactionary politics, characterizing the era as “post-rational.”
• "I feel like we're approaching the end of... a rational era. I feel like we're having a hard swing against Enlightenment." (Angela, 00:00)
• Observes extremes on both left (class warfare, identity politics) and right (fascist tendencies).

Notable Quote:

"Some people on the right are just going full Nazi... and people on the left are just going full communist." (Angela, 00:16)

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2. Economic Decline, Taxation, and Immigration

Timestamp: 01:40–06:18

• Peter bemoans UK’s exodus of wealthy individuals, rising taxes, and economic mismanagement.
• Discussion of the UK and US as increasingly hostile to entrepreneurs and the wealthy; immigration policy seen as “importing voters” rather than skilled labor.
• Political realignment in the UK and speculation about emergent party dynamics.

Notable Quote:

"We're scaring [the rich] off. We're not bringing in enough engineers and doctors." (Peter, 04:53) "You're becoming a third world country." (Angela, 02:41)

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3. Left vs. Right: Identity, Class, and Irrationalities

Timestamp: 06:23–09:44

• Analysis of how left-leaning and right-leaning parties are untethered from economic realities—especially monetary policy.
• Greens and other progressive factions accused of pushing contradictory or irrational positions.
• Peter: Demands for more taxes are depopulating the nation of entrepreneurs.

Notable Quote:

“Can a woman have a penis? ...if you answer yes... you shouldn't be taken seriously.” (Peter, 07:15)

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4. Libertarianism’s Struggles, Deals with Trump, and Pragmatic Coalitions

Timestamp: 09:44–19:09

• Angela introduces herself, recounting her controversial outreach and political deal with Donald Trump in 2023 to broker real libertarian influence.
• Emphasis on results over ideological purity; details the practical challenges of moving the Libertarian Party and building cross-ideological coalitions.
• Describes efforts to secure the release of Ross Ulbricht as a touchstone issue.

Notable Quote:

“We’re all incredibly economically literate, but... how do we get from point A to point B? People just lose their minds.” (Angela, 16:17)

Key Moment:

• 11:39: The deal with Trump and the libertarian vote.

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5. Navigating the Two-Party System: Tactics for Minor Parties

Timestamp: 21:28–23:16

• Angela’s strategy: use the small but vital libertarian voting bloc for leverage, not for direct victory.
• She recounts extracting real concessions by threatening to swing the election.

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6. Civil Liberties, Institutional Corruption, and the Power Paradox

Timestamp: 24:33–27:54

• Peter raises concerns about the intransigence and slow change in US government bureaucracy.
• Angela discusses the practical need for discipline and persistence, and the risks of being “captured by the machine.”

Notable Quote:

“There's a risk... For me, I just stay a registered Libertarian and I don't shift that Overton window.” (Angela, 26:33)

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7. Fracturing of the Right & Cultural Touchstones

Timestamp: 28:01–31:46

• The death of Charlie Kirk and fallout among American conservatives is discussed as emblematic of right-wing disarray.
• Young generations’ increasing demands for government “entitlements,” both in US (Gen Z) and UK.

Notable Quote:

“It’s really simple stuff, like men can’t become women. Abortion is wrong... Welfare traps you in poverty.” (Angela + Peter, ~29:00)

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8. The Decline of Major Cities & Broad Societal Decay

Timestamp: 32:00–34:32

• Observations about the urban decay in New York and the outmigration of productive citizens.
• Macroeconomic concerns tied to failures in public administration and loss of community cohesion.

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9. Pathways to Shrinking Government: Budget Wars and Health Care Debates

Timestamp: 34:32–42:42

• Angela details backroom progress in cutting US government expenditures (especially USAID and Medicaid) under current (pro-Trump) management.
• Debate over universal health care: Angela is resolutely against it at the federal level, favoring localized or private, crowdfunded models.
• Peter and Angela highlight regulatory capture and inefficiency in both US and UK health systems.

Notable Quote:

“It's not free. Taxpayers are paying for it... It's possible to shrink government. It's just really hard work.” (Angela, 36:15)

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10. Financial Freedom, Bitcoin, and the War on Crypto

Timestamp: 45:32–54:40

• Peter positions Bitcoin as a rational hedge against endless money printing and governmental overreach; Angela concurs and expands.
• Discussion of lab-created gold undermining traditional gold-bug arguments.
• Trump administration’s pro-Bitcoin promises, but slow implementation due to bureaucratic inertia and the leftover “Operation Choke Point 2.0” crackdown.

Notable Quotes:

“With all due respect to gold bugs... I think you should consider bitcoin because we don’t have a lot of good options left.” (Angela, 47:22) “Biden treated cryptocurrency like it was terrorism.” (Angela, 51:19)

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11. Civil Liberties Under Siege: “Bitcoin Hostages” & Weaponized Departments

Timestamp: 54:40–70:19

• Analysis of the ongoing legal persecution of Bitcoiners/crypto innovators (e.g., Ian Freeman, Roman Storm).
• Highlighting the contradiction between American foundational ideals and current prosecutions, especially the creation of a chilling effect.
• Weaponization of the justice system, especially under COVID, and the erosion of free speech and privacy.

Notable Quotes:

"Writing code... is free speech. It is a First Amendment issue." (Angela, 70:08) “There are a lot of people in the United States who don't want us to have civil liberties.” (Angela, 69:28)

Key Case Studies:

• Ian Freeman: Jailed for 8 years over “unlicensed bitcoin ATMs” and “money laundering” — seen as regulatory overreach, meant to chill liberty activism.
• Roman Storm (Tornado Cash): Prosecuted as an ‘unlicensed money transmitter’ for open source code, despite not being custodial or handling funds.

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12. Government's Nature and the Decline of American Backbone

Timestamp: 71:26–77:44

• Is government inherently self-preserving and power-accumulating?
• Dialogue on how far the US has drifted from its revolutionary roots and how modern Americans—by and large—lack the courage or backbone to push back against state overreach, notably during COVID.

Notable Quote:

"It's like a self-licking ice cream cone. It exists now to keep itself in existence... to feed itself and to grow just like any other organism." (Angela, 73:22)

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13. Free Stuff vs. Freedom: The Core Battle

Timestamp: 78:04–80:11

• Peter and Angela reduce modern politics to a “cold war” between the desire for free government services vs. the defense of personal liberty and property.
• Both agree this is the “internal cold war” at the heart of Western societies.

Notable Quote:

“Freedom versus free stuff.” (Angela, 78:13)

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14. The Battle for Liberty: Alignment, Divides, and the Future

Timestamp: 80:11–86:30

• Discussion of the uneasy alliance (and tensions) between conservatives and libertarians—once more aligned with the Democrats in the US, now finding greater common cause with the right, especially over issues like guns.
• The US-UK divide on gun rights is explored, with cultural and legal incommensurability made clear by anecdotes.

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15. Strategy for Liberty: Third Parties as Kingmakers

Timestamp: 96:44–97:57

• Angela lays out her repeatable playbook for libertarian (or third-party) impact: build a steady 1.5%-3.5% voting bloc, negotiate policy concessions with major party frontrunners, and endorse in exchange for real, pragmatic gains.

Notable Quote:

“You don't need to grow it big enough to win elections. You have to become a voting bloc that people must cater to. ...You exact concessions... then you drop out and endorse.” (Angela, 95:52)

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Memorable Moments & Quotes with Timestamps

• "We live in two different realities... it's not rational." (Angela, 00:00)
• "You're becoming a third world country." (Angela, 02:41)
• "Can a woman have a penis? ...if you answer yes... you shouldn't be taken seriously." (Peter, 07:15)
• “We’re all incredibly economically literate, but... how do we get from point A to point B? People just lose their minds.” (Angela, 16:17)
• “We just need to keep making progress. …if we don't make perfect progress… we have to just make progress anywhere and everywhere we can.” (Angela, 88:15)

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Conclusion: Angela’s Call to Action

• Angela openly recruits listeners to join the Mises Caucus and participate in building a coalition to extract liberty-oriented wins from the political process, using principled leverage and negotiation rather than quixotic electoral campaigns.
• She advocates for practical, persistent activism rooted in principle but aware of political reality.

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a sweeping, candid dialogue about the fight for individual liberty in an era increasingly hostile to rational discourse and personal autonomy. Both Peter and Angela express concern over cultural and institutional malaise in the UK and US but also offer strategic hope: that steadfast, strategic advocacy for liberty—rooted in Bitcoin, coalition politics, and cultural renewal—still has the potential to shape the future.

Transcript

[Angela]

We live in two different realities and I don't fully understand how they got to where they're at, but it's not rational. They don't want to be rational. I feel like we're, I feel like we're approaching the end of, of like a rational era. I feel like we're having a hard swing against enlightenment. Like we're entering this weird romantic period where people are, some people on the ride are just going to full Nazi.

[Peter]

Yes.

[Angela]

Which is not good. Yes. And people on the left are just going full communist. But with, with identity politics and, you know, so the gender, gender identity politics, maybe that's failed. So now it's going to be class warfare because that's more, you know, that's the tried and true oppressor, oppressed dynamic.

[Peter]

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[Angela]

It was brutal.

[Peter]

What? He bragged about it.

[Angela]

Oh, we pay a lot in taxes over here. We make sure everything's covered. Oh, we pay it all.

[Peter]

We, we have so many problems in our country at the moment.

[Angela]

Angela, you see this museum? It's all. We made sure we paid for that. And then it was something about a lottery lottery grant.

[Peter]

Yeah, yeah, that's a new, that was a, that was a new tax. Yeah, we, we introduced the lottery to give people the hope of becoming a multi millionaire and then funded things with it the government used to fund. But you know what? They actually fund some good things. A lot of sports stuff. But we, we have a problem at the moment and our government is broke and the left wing parties only answer is tax the rich. But they're all leaving. They're going. Yeah, we don't have an exit tax. Yeah, we've lost over 10,000 millionaires. Did we find out earlier, Conor? 16,000. 16,000. A couple of billionaires have gone.

[Angela]

You're becoming a third world country.

[Peter]

We are really upsets people when you say that.

[Angela]

I know.

[Peter]

It's like a parallel the uk. There's like this parallel universe that people are living in. There's people like me who are like, what the, what are we, what are we doing here? We're insane. Everything's really expensive, no one's got any money and businesses are closing down everywhere. And then there's a group of other people like, oh, everything's fine. We just need to tax the rich more. We're leaving.

[Angela]

I'm, I'm just very confused on what the long term plan is.

[Peter]

This is Argentina. Yes, I guess so in 70 years we're going to get a libertarian like Melee who's going to come into power and try and restore our country to what it once was. Now we, we are on this terrible trajectory. The, the one hope we have is we will have an election in three to four years and hopefully someone slightly libertarian minded, maybe he's read a bit of Hayek, will come into power and go, we can't keep, you know, we can't keep expanding the money because we keep expanding the money, we're gonna make everyone poor. Hopefully we're gonna get that.

[Angela]

So how does that work here with, with immigration? There's been a, an in a huge influx of immigrants and there's. Yes, we've experienced the same thing in the United States. Do they get to vote in that upcoming election?

[Peter]

Not immediately.

[Angela]

Okay, so you still have, but I.

[Peter]

Don'T know the trajectory. How long can you find that out, Connor? Once you get citizenship, right? Yeah, but I don't know what the path is for that. You're talking about basically left wing people importing voters.

[Angela]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Peter]

So I don't know the answer. Connor can look that up. But what is very clear is we, we are demonizing and scaring off the rich people and then inviting in. You know how I want to, I don't want to sound like a dick when I say this, but like people who are going to be delivery drivers.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

And we're growing gdp, but a GDP per capita is not growing. If anything is falling and it's. So what do you, what do you think is going to happen?

[Angela]

You're not inviting in millionaires and billionaires.

[Peter]

No, we're scaring them off. We're not bringing in enough engineers and doctors. We've also made it a very hostile environment for entrepreneurs like A very hostile environment for entrepreneurs and. But we, we live in this parallel reality where we have. Which is quite interesting really. Imagine between your current election with that you've just had with Trump versus Kamala and then by the next election the vote was between two new parties that wasn't the Democrats or the Republicans. This is essentially things. Look, and I know you're a two party country, really, you're two party politics, whereas we have multiple parties. But by the next election my prediction is that the two biggest parties could be will be certainly reform, which is essentially our new version of the Republicans.

[Angela]

Right.

[Peter]

And essentially probably Green, but maybe Lib Dems, which are two small left wing parties. We will not. The Conservatives and Labour Party will not be in government or likely shadow government out of nowhere. Currently 5 million people can't vote due to their papers. Can't. But what's the path to be able to vote is get citizenship. How long does that take? That double range.

[Angela]

Right.

[Peter]

I don't know. I'm sure Grok can tell us.

[Angela]

How crazy are the Greens here?

[Peter]

Look, I was listening to Charlie Kirk being, I think he was being interviewed by Gavin Newsome, but they were, they were having a conversation. We listened to it on YouTube yesterday and you know, I thought was brilliant about it is Charlie Kirk went in, you know, he talks about getting on the same frequency as the other person. He went in to help Gavin Newsom and to give him ideas and he said to him, let's, let's talk about the trans issue because this is, you're getting crushed on this. This is like an 80 20. Even your own voters are like, we, we shouldn't be having men competing in women's sports.

[Angela]

It's too much.

[Peter]

It's too much. He said, why don't you just come out now and say you're getting crushed on this? Why, why don't you say that? And the thing about the Green Party is if you ask Zach Polanski, can a woman have a penis, he will say yes, they can.

[Angela]

Of course.

[Peter]

Yeah. And so that's, that's to me like, can I take you seriously? I've got two questions. Can a woman have a penis? And will you run a government that runs inflationary policies? Like if you answer yes to both of those, you shouldn't be taken seriously. And we, before you came in, we, we've recorded our first ever monologue where I spoke at the camera for 52 minutes, ranting away like Dave Smith basically saying we're all nuts as an electorate. We don't actually know what we're voting for, because if you are a lefty and you're saying, I want to help the poor and the most vulnerable in society and you support monetary expansion, you are making the rich richer, making the poor poor. You know that as an Austrian.

[Angela]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Peter]

So that's my starting point with every left wing voter, is like, do you care about the poor? Yes. Do you understand that if you vote for monetary expansion, you're going to make me richer and the poor poorer? And they come out with a no, no, no, that doesn't happen. Just, that's the base reality. And so look, the Greens are doing very well. Zach Polanski is doing a very good job of saying virtuous things, that virtuous people go, oh, well, he's amazing. We have to vote for him. But there's no grounded economic reality to what he's talking about.

[Angela]

We live in two different realities, and I don't fully understand how they got to where they're at, but it's not rational. They don't want to be rational. I feel like we're, I feel like we're approaching the end of, of like a rational era. I feel like we're having a hard swing against enlightenment. Like we're entering this weird romantic period where people are, some people on the ride are just going full Nazi.

[Peter]

Yes.

[Angela]

Which is not good. Yes. And people on the left are just going full communist. But with, with identity politics and, you know, so the gender, gender identity politics, maybe that's failed. So now it's going to be class warfare, because that's where, you know, that's the tried and true oppressor, oppressed dynamic.

[Peter]

But this is, this is a thing. It's like, okay, if enough people are listening to my show, what can we do that's effective?

[Angela]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And I think the least effective thing we can do is outright support a party. I think we have to outright support principles.

[Angela]

I agree. Yes, I agree. So this is kind of what I do with third party politics in the United States.

[Peter]

Go back, because not everyone in the UK is going to know who you are, Angela.

[Angela]

Sure, sure. So I'm the former chair of the National Libertarian Party, and I made headlines and became, I don't know, beloved and hated for making a deal with Donald Trump in 2023. I met with him. I was very fortunate. Rick Grenell, former Director of National Intelligence and former ambassador to Germany under Trump's first administration, reached out to me and said, hey, I'm a friend of President Trump. We'd like to know what libertarians think of him, which is quite a, quite a thing. Wake up at seven in the morning and you have a, a text from the former Director of National Intelligence. You know, and I thought, well, this is like, this is an incredible opportunity because I can move the direction, I can move the needle in the direction of liberty. And so that's, you know, that's how I view third party politics. I, I had a cup of coffee before I called Rick Grenell and spoke to him. And I was very diplomatic, which is not something that libertarians generally do. And I told him, you know, libertarians, we're. There are things we like and there are things that leave a little bit to be desired. You know, we're not super crazy about the drone strikes on General Suleimani, but we do appreciate you didn't start any new wars. That's really, that's a first for quite a while. And, you know, we have mixed views on immigration and the Libertarian Party, and we're very sympathetic to the lawfare you've experienced, and we think that's really gross and we hope you defeat it. And I think that in particular they really liked. Okay, you know, really like that response. And so that got us into this conversation of like, how do we get.

[Peter]

The Libertarian vote and release Russell Bird?

[Angela]

Well, that was, that was what I came up with, by the way, his.

[Peter]

His mother, Lynn, when I started my original podcast eight years ago, she has my 10th interview.

[Angela]

Oh, she's. She's a, She's a doll.

[Peter]

She's a hero.

[Angela]

She, she also lives close to me.

[Peter]

Great.

[Angela]

In Austin, Texas. She's wonderful.

[Peter]

I'm absolutely in awe of that woman. Not. It was really interesting watching her. Obviously she spent the last. How many years. Was it, eight years, nine years?

[Angela]

It was like 11 years.

[Peter]

11 years campaigning for the release of Ross. But also she became an activist for prison reform.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

And what she's exposed with the lobbying by the Prison Guards Union. Is it they call the Prison Guards Union, where she explained to me these small towns rely on the prison to provide jobs.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

So they don't, they don't want prison reform. They want people in jail for smoking weed.

[Angela]

It's crazy. And I mean, I've gotten to know a lot more about the situation in prison. Having. Having spoken and advocated for people in prison, a really wild one is, is Joe exotic who was, you know, like the tiger guy. Yeah. Yeah. So I speak to him a lot and the conditions in his prison are just, it's just horrifying. Black mold.

[Peter]

Well, look, I consider Myself a libertarian in training, because we don't have a large libertarian movement in the uk. It's not as. It's not as large as you have in the us. And I'll be honest, I'd never even heard of the idea of libertarianism until I discovered Bitcoin. And then obviously I started bumping into bitcoiners.

[Angela]

Interesting.

[Peter]

Yeah. And you know, the Ron Paul class and various people who were just kind of shouted at me, saying, stop being a statist, Go and read Hayek.

[Angela]

We're very charming, very sociable.

[Peter]

Do you know what the problem was when I made the show? I lived in a bubble whereby I would travel out to the us, stay in an Airbnb, make some shows and come back. When I stopped doing it and came back to the UK and started interacting with our government more, I was like, huh, Everything the libertarian said is true. Yeah, everything is right. And now I basically, I'm a. I'm a disciple of Dave Smith. I think he's brilliant.

[Angela]

Very nice.

[Peter]

And I. But I'm still in training. I'm still reading through my various textbooks. I've got a. I've got a library at home of books I kept. I'm buying them quicker than I can read them.

[Angela]

Lubbon Mises.

[Peter]

Yes. Bastiat's the Law Is One. I'm part of the way through. But I'm also like my friend Nick. Do you know Nick Carter?

[Angela]

Possibly.

[Peter]

Yeah. So he said to me something interesting ones about libertarianism. He said, the problem with libertarianism is to achieve libertarian goals, you really need to accumulate power, which is antithetical to being a libertarian.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

And I was like, huh. So really what we need is libertarian parties that accumulate power to dismantle government.

[Angela]

It's been a struggle. Okay, so it's. So it's. So it's been a struggle. Right.

[Peter]

This is. This is where I'm stuck.

[Angela]

So. So the first thing I had to do was take over the Libertarian Party, which was quite controversial. And, you know, prior to my rise, you know, through the Mises Caucus, the party had been infiltrated by leftists in the 90s and 2000s. George Soros money, you know, all of that stuff. Former national chair was also the chair of an organization that was very focused on democracy as opposed to liberty. And that's how they sort of slowly slid, you know, into a totally different framing. So when I took it over, you know, we get smeared, alt right, Nazi, racist, misogynist, apparently I hate women. Just kind of crazy, right?

[Peter]

Yep.

[Angela]

And, you know, I was like, well, we're just going to advance liberty. Everything prior to that was sort of like this weird Model UN club, very focused on Robert's rules of order and parliamentary procedure and just having a candidate on the ballot. And I said, well, why don't we actually do something very controversial? So I started doing issue coalitions. I did an event called Rage against the War Machine, which was a big anti war, maybe the first big anti war protest against the United States involvement in the war in Ukraine.

[Peter]

Correct.

[Angela]

We pulled Tulsi Gabbard, Ron Paul. We actually worked with a bunch of leftists, you know, and, and it's interesting because we had, we, you know, one of our speakers is like, now the Director of National Intelligence. You know, we started to kind of get on the map. The big one, though, was working with President Trump's campaign and also Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

[Peter]

Okay.

[Angela]

And I really had to drag the party kicking and screaming towards success. They just is so challenging to get the libertarians to do the thing. You know, like, we're all sort of floating around in theory, we, we're all incredibly economically literate, but it's like, how do we get from point A to point B? People just lose their minds. It can't be done. Can't be done.

[Peter]

Well, it's like, it's like, do you want to make that compromise of working with the thing you hate to make it do less of what you hate? And I think that's. That's like, I try and be practical about this. So when we made that, did that monologue before, I said, I'm a conservative libertarian. And when I say about my early understanding of libertarianism, is that I want directionally to be correct?

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

So Eric Voorhees, you must know Eric Voorhees. Yes. So I interviewed him very early on, and he said to me, I was like, well, what is this libertarian end goal you want? He says, I don't want the end goal. He said, just give me government next year to be 5% smaller, even 1% smaller. Look, just don't even grow. Can we just get to the point where it doesn't grow year on year and then get 1% smaller? And I was like, okay, if we talk about the big red button and the utopian end goal, it's never going to happen. But can we just infiltrate government and just make it start less wars and tax less and be pro business?

[Angela]

Yes. You just have to get in and just start hacking.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Angela]

And if you're not willing to do that, you're not, you're not going to do anything, you know, so, so, like the first thing I did was make a deal with, with President Trump when he was running, which was really surreal. Right? And so I got invited to Mar A Lago, and he was a few minutes late because he was testifying in his lawfare case in the Southern District of New York and literally flew in to meet me for dinner. And he was very sweet and warm and friendly. And he does eat his steak well done with ketchup, which in the United States at least, it's like my dad.

[Peter]

We go to a restaurant, my dad, when he orders a steak, he basically says, I want it burnt and if I see any blood, it's going back.

[Angela]

Yes, he tried to send mine back because it was rare, but then he apologized and said, oh, I'm sorry, you're probably healthier than I am. It's whatever, eat whatever you want, you know. But I got to talk to him. Yeah, I had like a two hour conversation with him where he totally listened to everything that my husband and I said. We talked about like, the drug war. And I was like, well, maybe don't give every drug dealer the death penalty. You know, he was, he was listening, you know, and, you know, it finally got to the point where, you know, it was like, make the ask. What, what should I ask him to do to get Libertarian votes? And, and this is where it's like, we start to get into, like, really like, action, you know.

[Peter]

How many Libertarian votes do you think there are out there?

[Angela]

At minimum, like a solid 1.2 million.

[Peter]

Okay.

[Angela]

And that's not counting protest votes and people who are just ignorantly checking a box. That's like people who are just like, dedicated. Like, I am a registered Libertarian or a card carrying member. I identify, I know what it is.

[Peter]

But, but if you can influence a Dave Smith or Scott Horton or like any of those people who are libertarians to say, look, we're to maybe proactively talk about Trump might do some good things. There are people who are going to be listening to them who may be just floating voters or Republicans who are unsure. So it does a bigger job.

[Angela]

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I mean, when Gary Johnson ran, it was like 3.2%. So it goes up and down a lot depending on the candidate. And he was a former governor.

[Peter]

He could swing an election.

[Angela]

Yes, well, that, that's why he reached out to me. You know, he was like, I, I had a long phone call with him before I met with him in person. He's like, oh, Joe Jorgensen. She, she took the vote for me. She took the vote in 2020, you know. Oh, the libertarians. Yeah. You're not going to win. You're not going to. I was like, well, I. I know we're not going to win. You know, I'm not really worried about winning. I'm, you know, we're trying to do something.

[Peter]

So on this podcast, you are definitely hearing me talk about bitcoin a lot. Well, why? We live in a really strange time with governments driving inflation with their reckless spending and endless money printing. There is a way out of this. There is a way to protect your money, and that is by stacking bitcoin. I've made loads of shows about bitcoin. You can go and research this, you can go and read the books, but the truth is, it is the hardest money ever created. If you are interested in protecting your financial future, it's time for you to get on the bitcoin train. I have. I've been stacking bitcoin personally and through my businesses since 2017. It's protected me, it's secured my family's future, and it also strengthens all of my businesses. So if you want to start stacking bitcoin, where do you do it? Well, for me, it's with Gemini. They're a fully licensed, full reserve exchange and custodian. So they give you a secure way for you to buy and own your bitcoin. There's no risks and no funny business. So if you're serious about stacking bitcoin the right way, head over to gemini.com, which is G-E-M-I-N-I.com and does that mean not putting a candidate forward yourself to vote for people to vote for?

[Angela]

Well, I mean, I have a theory. I have a strategy on that that I'd like to do. So what I told, you know, President Trump at Mar a Lago was, if you will, if you come to our convention, because he wanted to come speak at our national convention. That's where we nominate our candidate for president. I said, if you come speak there, which is extremely controversial and maybe political suicide for me, but if you walk out on stage and you say that you're going to free Ross Ulbricht, everyone will lose their minds, they will scream, and they will all vote for you. And if they still aren't convinced right then and there, they're going to change their minds and they're going to vote for you. As the time gets closer, as it becomes more and more real. And I said, and the bitcoiners they don't even vote. They will vote for you and they will give you their money and they.

[Peter]

Got a lot of money.

[Angela]

And he said, who's Russ Ulberg? I'll do it. I'll walk out on stage and I'll say, free Ross Ulberg. Mic drop. It was just like that. It was that easy. Obviously it was a real slog to get elected and have to be the chairman of a very dysfunctional organization for a couple of years. But like, it was the, the ask was just that easy.

[Peter]

So you got the Libertarian vote and the orange bitcoin.

[Angela]

He did, he did. He did. And we had a record low vote for the Libertarian candidate because we did still run one.

[Peter]

Okay.

[Angela]

We ran a guy who a lot of our members refer to as, quote, a gay race communist. He was a very left wing, Rainbow flags everywhere. He spent all this time at pride parades. President Trump could not have been happier. His, when I told his staff who we selected, they all said yes.

[Peter]

Was that strategic?

[Angela]

Well, a little bit. I mean, it was like a happy accident. And we didn't have a good candidate. We just didn't have a good candidate. You know, Dave Smith was going to run. Yes. And then he had to back out for family reasons. And, you know, we got to like our 6th or 7th ask got a candidate, you know, and the Mises caucus candidate didn't win because we just didn't have, we just didn't have a strong candidate. And so after like seven rounds of convention voting, that was, you know, what we were left with. And could I have pulled him off the ballot and forced my board? Yes. You know, but, but then we don't get Ross Ulbricht out of prison. And I burned my relationship with, with President Trump. So, no, we're keeping the clown on. You know, I referred to it as a shit eating suicide mission, but we're the suicide squad.

[Peter]

So have you taken many bullets for this?

[Angela]

Oh, so many. Two lawsuits, maybe more on the way. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Peter]

But you must have some support as well.

[Angela]

Oh, a ton of support. A ton of support. A ton of hate. But I mean, the haters are, it's a small group. You know, they're, they're very angry still.

[Peter]

So, so how, so how are the Libertarians right now? Because if you listen to Dave Smith, he's, he's not happy with Trump. He thinks he's done some bits he said he would do. But yeah, there's still, the US has still been involved in wars.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

You know, and they, they still bombed Iran and They haven't really got the debt down. If anything, I think what is up? Two and a half trillions.

[Angela]

And it's gonna, it's up, it's up.

[Peter]

And so there's this guy called Neymar Parvini. I wrote a book called the Populist Delusion. Talks about populist candidates getting into power and then they can't actually.

[Angela]

It's challenging. Yeah, it's challenging. Senator Alyssa Slotkin, just a Democrat, just released a whole video about defy telling people in the intelligence agencies to defy the President. Like the, the Democrats, you know, have, have basically just declared cold war on us. You know, and you see that with some of these bitcoin cases too. The Southern district of New York and judges, activist judges across the country are like, I, you know, I'm going to make a ruling that says the President can't do X, Y and Z. It's like, you're, you're not the Supreme Court. Who are you? You know, you're like a lower circuit judge. You don't get to decide that. The libertarians are pretty, pretty pissed off right now, I think. I mean, I'm sympathetic, obviously, but I have a long term vision.

[Peter]

Okay.

[Angela]

I'm not like, if we flip out every six months when things don't go our way, we're just never going to be able to advance if we burn all of our relationships that quickly. We have to do a long march through the institutions.

[Peter]

Yes, you stack some wins.

[Angela]

We have to stack wins. This is our first, this is our first major victory. We can't. A lot of people just want to burn it all down. And I'm just like, no, you just have to be disciplined and like, just keep marching. You know, you can't, you can't burn your relationship with the administration like this. It's, it's stupid.

[Peter]

Is there any risk that you get? I think of House of Cards when I watched that, it was like looking behind the veil of what really goes on and all the kind of deals. Is there any risk that you get sucked into the machine, become part of it? How do you maintain your own principles?

[Angela]

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There's a risk. I mean, so for me, I just stay like a registered Libertarian and I don't shift that Overton window.

[Peter]

Okay.

[Angela]

And I stay, I am essentially like an ambassador to the administration for the libertarians because I can, you know, still behave myself and, you know, talk nicely to them and not insult them. But I, you know, my goal is to shrink government. And so if we're getting our People in. And I did send hundreds of resumes in, and hiring has been slow, but it's starting to pick up. If we get a few people in who start to do the job, that's a start. You know, we just. It just at the end of the day, to me, it's like, did it shrink? If it shrunk, then. Then we're on the right track. We need to give it at least a couple of cycles.

[Peter]

Okay. So that means through the full Trump administration to the next one.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

Which a lot of people talk, should and could be. J.D. vance.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

He will have a hell of a battle against likely the AOC or Gavin Newsom, probably one of those two.

[Angela]

He's clearly jockeying for the position. Or they may. They may slot him in as VP and put someone more moderate and less slimy in. You know, I don't know. Maybe they learned their lesson with Kamala, maybe they didn't.

[Peter]

There's going to be a battle, though.

[Angela]

It will be a. It will be a battle. Especially if morale doesn't pick up on the right wing.

[Peter]

Yeah. And the right wings seems a bit fractured at the moment.

[Angela]

It's horrible. It's horrible. People are just flipping out. Charlie Kirk died and everything just imploded. It just imploded.

[Peter]

Yeah. I'm still upset about that.

[Angela]

That's horrible.

[Peter]

We were watching videos of his again yesterday. I think he's the best you had.

[Angela]

He was literally the best we had.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Angela]

He was just. He was so generous. He was so kind. I don't really. I mean, I guess it's fascinating how, like, the Woke mind virus works because he. He would just have conversations with people. He wasn't cruel or belittling. You know, he wouldn't. He wouldn't agree with them, but he was never nasty to anyone. I've watched so many videos. It's. It's just wild.

[Peter]

Yeah, but he. He challenged that kind of leftist orthodoxy that.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

Grown out of what used to be something that was about the working class and then just came about all this kind of insane, crazy.

[Angela]

It's just really simple stuff, like men can't become women. Yes. Abortion is wrong. And here's why I think so. Just really. Just straightforward, you know, not super emotional. Fairly rational.

[Peter]

Welfare traps you in poverty.

[Angela]

Yeah.

[Peter]

Yeah. I watched this really good video on the way. We was talking about young people, and seems like my message to young people is just get out there and work hard and stop whining about government and what you deserve. Stop being a victim. And I was like, this is. I'M a parent, right. Do I want my children to be watching Zap Polanski? Or we have this other guy, Gary Economics who doesn't understand economics, ranting about taxing the rich and making everyone a victim or do I want them to watch Charlie Kirk and says look, life is hard. Get out there and work hard. Like stop whinging. Get out there and work hard. That's what I want my kids to see. Yes, but our problem here in the UK is we have a growing, especially amongst the youngster, a growing base who think they deserve something from the government. And they are, they could become the majority and that that's going to create a death spiral in our country.

[Angela]

It's very scary. We have the same thing in Gen Z. You know, Gen Z males are starting to lean to the right, but that's starting to, that that phrase can be a little bit deceptive because most of them, most of Gen Z is left wing. There's some of them are starting to break away. All of the women, it's like vast majority of the women are leftists. It's very scary. You know, as angry as, as millennials and Gen Xers are boomers. Boomers are like holding the Gen Z socialism at bay. When they die it's going to be like we're going to have to really mobilize millennials as voters because Gen Z could just absolutely wreck us in the polls.

[Peter]

Was it, was it Gen Z's who won Mandami the vote?

[Angela]

I think so. I mean I really think, you know, there' conspiracies about or ideas like oh, it was a referendum on Israel, which I don't think is correct because it's a local election. Even if there's videos of Eric Adams kissing a wall or, or whatever, you know, he wasn't in the running. I think people in New York were really pissed off at how expensive it was.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Angela]

And that that's why most of them voted. They're like, well okay, he's a crazy woke Muslim guy who wasn't born in the United States and everything's really sketchy and weird about him, but just really pissed off about how expensive things are. So we're going to give him a try.

[Peter]

It's so funny though because my expectation. How, how long is this term? Four years.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

In four years time things will be even more expensive because of the things he does.

[Angela]

Oh, I'm sure.

[Peter]

Yeah, I'm sure you might have some.

[Angela]

Cheaper rents and all the millionaires are leaving New York.

[Peter]

It's like here. Yes, they Go to Miami.

[Angela]

I think they're going to Miami.

[Peter]

They're going to red states.

[Angela]

Yeah, they're going to red states. I mean, maybe Tampa and Orlando. A lot of them are going to Florida. They're probably looking at North Carolina. I'm sure maybe we'll see some in Austin, Texas. Yeah, it's New York is like mini uk. The what's happening in the UK is. Is happening in New York.

[Peter]

Yeah. So we went out there. Where were we there? Three, four weeks ago? Yeah, we went out three or four weeks ago. And it's changed a lot. I've been going since 20, what, 2002 year after 9, 11. And first time I went, it was. It was amazing to see the city. Went to Brooklyn. It was dangerous. And came back.

[Angela]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And then over the years, I mean, I go nearly every year and I just sort of get better and better and better. I think it peaked for me probably like 2015. It was brilliant. Yes, Brooklyn was amazing. There was one time I went to New York and I stayed in Williamsburg. I didn't even go into Manhattan. I had a great time. And then I've been going back since COVID and I've just seen it get worse and worse and worse. Like, the real signal for me is you suddenly saw lots of homeless people again, but not just homeless homeless and just. Just high as. Fuck off. Fentanyl or something.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

And open cocaine dealing in Times Square. Like, people just come up to you and say, do you want to buy coke? I was like, hold on. I used to see police in Times Square. Now they're selling cocaine openly. It's just like. And I don't care. I mean, I used to do cocaine, but it's just. The signal for me is strong that this is a city decaying.

[Angela]

It's not homeless keeping to themselves. No, it's. They're aggressive, they're angry. The drug use is out in the open. Trash everywhere. Trash everywhere, rats everywhere. Everywhere. Louisiana Is the same. But. But New York is just so sad because Giuliani, you know, who, you know, controversial, he did. He did some. Some things that we were not crazy about. But he cleaned it up. He did get it clean. And it's just. It's a wasteland.

[Peter]

I went to Washington, so I went down to Pubkey Thomas and I went to Washington park. And it was the weirdest scenario. So I'm walking through Washington park and you know the rows of benches down the paths, you've got people buckled over high of fentanyl and sat next to them as a couple On a date.

[Angela]

I can't understand. It's just like, what, what are you doing sitting your, sitting your woman down next to the high on fentanyl drug? I guess there's nowhere else to sit. And if she's tired.

[Peter]

Well, so, I mean, I'm, I'm fascinated by what's going to happen over the next few years in America. I really. Look, I hope, I mean, what is your plan to make government smaller? How, how will you actually do it?

[Angela]

Okay, so there's a lot of work being done in the Office of Management and Budget right now, and it doesn't get coverage on social media because it's just not as sexy as screaming about the Epstein Fil files or Israel. But that's how USAID got cut. They zeroed out the budget. Amaryllis Fox and, and Russ Vaught are doing an incredible job. And it's, it's really simple. It's. What's this for? Budget item. You need this money. What's it for? You can't tell me? Just. I'm not going to say no. But I just. We'll release it when you tell me. And just, just. Wow. It's amazing how, how much people just don't want to, they don't want to spend. They don't want to let you know what they're spending money on. And so, you know, they're doing a really good job. They're auditing things, they're getting costs down. We just have to hold on to that.

[Peter]

Where are the big pockets of money if you, I don't know what the, like in the uk I think our, I'll say our tax revenue is about, I don't know, a trillion.

[Angela]

Sure.

[Peter]

And we spend about 1.15 trillion. So we're going over by about 15. I don't know what it is in the US but we're, I know our big pockets of spend. One is the National Health Service. I think that's about 20%. 10% is debt, interest. You know, total welfare is, I don't know, maybe 40%. Like there are big pockets. Where's the big pockets in the US Defense.

[Angela]

Defense and health.

[Peter]

Defense and health.

[Angela]

And there's another, if there, there are some really good GOP activists who are doing auditing of Medicaid waste, fraud and abuse. And they're finding it's going to be, I think, close to a trillion dollars nationwide.

[Peter]

Wow.

[Angela]

Most of it in California. Big surprise. I mean, should people in the United States who bring in $1.7 million annually, should they be getting free Prescription drugs. No, no, you can afford it. Yeah, buy your, buy your stuff. Buy your stuff. That's insane. You know, it's totally insane that middle class people are paying for their prescription drugs. And there are people, boomers probably, who are just getting free drugs. It's not free. Taxpayers are paying for it. So if that gets cleaned up, like, yeah, it is possible to shrink government. It's just really hard work. And there are people in government who are fighting it, who don't want to shrink it. They want to push us to universal health care. And I think that's why, I think that's, I mean, like Obamacare, that was the start of it. And the Dems screamed because they wanted universal health care, but they only got Obamacare. They're much more disciplined than anybody on the right. They'll fight, fight, fight for what they want. They get something lesser than that, they scream through a fit, stick to it, and just keep pushing the Overton window in their direction.

[Peter]

So universal health care here is sacred. The NHS is sacred.

[Angela]

Yep.

[Peter]

Any attempt to, you know, even consider kind of elements of it that we should maybe privatize, like. So, for example, if you want to go to the doctors, you find out the doctors, you get an appointment, but it takes three weeks because there's a lot of people on appointments and you turn up. Most of the people in there don't need to be at the doctors. If you go to an accident emergency, yes, you have people turn up in a car crash or stabbed or heart attack, but you got a lot of people turn up anxiety or issues that the doctors should handle. In Ireland, the way they sold the doctors is if you want to go to the doctors, it's €50, that's it. And every single person has to pay it. And, and it's a good idea. And, but even the idea of bringing that into the UK people fight against, they want all healthcare provided free at the point of access.

[Angela]

It's not free.

[Peter]

It's never free.

[Angela]

It's not free.

[Peter]

There's no such thing as free. But, but is there any place for social health care in your worldview?

[Angela]

I don't think so. I mean, at the community level, yeah, but not at the federal level. Okay, not at the federal level. I'm about to just drop my health insurance. I pay $426 a month, I think just to have it, you know, that I have to pay a copay every time I walk through the door. I don't actually even go, you know, but if I were to walk through the door, I Have to pay a copay somewhere between 20 and $80 just for a regular doctor visit. I'm about to drop it and go to crowdfunded health care. It's going to be cheaper. I'm going to have better coverage. I'll be able to go to a specialist directly if I need to. Yeah, I just can't, I just can't imagine.

[Peter]

Is there one called crowd health? Isn't that big? Yes. Yeah, they've been doing great, right?

[Angela]

Yes, they have. I'm about to jump to that. I think it makes more sense.

[Peter]

How does that work?

[Angela]

So you pay. I was looking and I just looked at it like a week ago. You pay at least $40 a month and it's like a big gofundme. Right.

[Peter]

Okay.

[Angela]

Every month you're going to get pitched. Somebody needs an operation, they need a this or that. Your premium is going to go up, but it won't go up more than like $140 to $150. And it's maxed out for families of four or more at like it's like 350 or $360. Some crazy. I was like, I could put my whole family on that and pay less than I'm paying for me myself on regular health insurance. And when you need an operation or if you're, I think if you have a baby, the max you pay out of pocket is $3,000. It was $8,000 for me. With health insurance, it's, it kind of.

[Peter]

Is socialized health care within the construct of a private environment. Yeah, you can insurance based.

[Angela]

Yeah, you can opt in. And they also help you negotiate any bill. They shop. They help you shop. So if you need like a knee replacement, that was an example they used. They'll help you find the most affordable one. And then there's a max you pay out of pocket for every single thing that is almost always lower than your insurance. And, and they help negotiate the build out.

[Peter]

But why does that work? Because insurance is essentially private.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

Based. Crowd health is essentially private based. Is it because. Because the insurance system is essentially crony capitalism.

[Angela]

Oh, absolutely.

[Peter]

So it's tied into protectionism and.

[Angela]

Oh yes. Oh yes. And it's. The bills are so gross. I mean they're full of, you know, like the nurse checked your blood pressure for two minutes. Well, that'll be, you know, $90. Just like crazy things. They just inflate every bill and there's, there's all kinds of regulatory capture. It's. Nobody's checking most of the time. You work 40 to 60 hours a week, you end up sick in the hospital for a week. You don't have time to go through your bill and call hours on end to argue, you know, dispute fraudulent charges or charges that are just obscene and should be lowered, you know, so crowdfund pays people to do that.

[Peter]

Interesting. Yeah. We have quite good private healthcare here. We've had it for 20 years for me, my son and my daughter. It started out at 150 pound a month for the three of us.

[Angela]

Okay.

[Peter]

We're now up to 350 cause I've got older and I had a back operation that kind of put the premiums up. But any situation we have, we speak to a doctor online and we'll see pretty quick. I had my operation three days after my consultation and it was great. And if we've got a lot of private doctor signs open up on our high streets in our town centers, it's 50 pounds for your phone call, book appointment, 50 pound. You get seen by a doctor in a nice modern doctors who knows you, who can see you the next day and it's brilliant. It's just like they're proving the private model works, is more efficient than the government model.

[Angela]

Nice.

[Peter]

The thing is there's so many people out there who can afford it, who still aren't doing it, who's still relying on the nhs. It's crazy.

[Angela]

I just, I think people get really emotionally attached. They believe in this idea, you know, so they'll pay into it even if they're suffering or in pain.

[Peter]

There is zero world where you will able to convince the left wing side of this country that they're wrong on universal health care. They don't want to hear it.

[Angela]

It's mostly the same in the United States and you know, like, you know, one, one left winger. I've had good faith conversations with us. Is Jimmy Dore okay? You know. Yeah. And he's for universal health care. He's not nasty about it, you know, but he, but he is for it and he just. It's just a heartstrings thing, man. They feel like, oh, we just gotta take care of them. And it's like. Yeah, but you know, with all the regulatory capture and special interests, like we're actually not providing good care. No, it's not good care. It's the worst care. Like we could do so much better. And they're just afraid, you know.

[Peter]

John made me laugh. So I have this heart condition where I have these things called svts or it's my, my heart rate goes absolutely Crazy. It happens once every couple of years. Son's taking me to hospital for it. I've had it happen once in America. My experience in both hospitals was almost identical, UK and US in that I waited, I think a couple of hours to be seen because there was a queue and there was a wait. Then I was seen and I had all my checks done. The only difference between the US and the UK is in the UK when I'm done, they said, we've done your checks, you can go home in the U.S. they said, you just take this, this and this and sign this, this and this. And I was like, I have this in the UK and this doesn't happen. And it's fear of lawsuits.

[Angela]

Yes. Oh yeah. The insurance that doctors have to pay is through the roof. Malpractice insurance is very high. So I'm sympathetic to a certain degree because the United States, especially in California, people are very, very litigious. You know, they have med mal caps, wrongful death caps even. But yeah, they have med mel caps, wrongful death caps, you know, but also the doctors are doing, they cram 30, sometimes 50 patients in, in an hour into these offices. They don't do a good job, you know, so then you get sued. It's like, why don't you change the way you practice, Stop over prescribing prescription drugs which is a leading cause of death in the United States and then maybe you won't get sued so much. You know, don't rush women. You know, like our, our rate of, of deaths in, in deliveries is very bad for a first world country.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Angela]

For baby deliveries it's very bad. And it's not because American women just have some weird thing where they give birth to children who die. It's because the doctors pump them full of drugs. They don't want to do deliveries on the weekend. It's just kind of crazy stuff, you know, it's like just to slow down. Yes. It's painful. You know, let her take 36 hours or whatever it needs, you know, just help her through it.

[Peter]

And sometimes they arrive on a Sunday.

[Angela]

Yes, it's, it's, that's just the human condition, you know, they don't like the human condition. They're like nine to five, pop that baby out.

[Peter]

Well, listen, look, that's a long intro because to talking about financial freedom.

[Angela]

That is true.

[Peter]

Let's talk about financial freedom. So as you know, I made a bitcoin show for a long time.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

Made a bitcoin show for a long time. And there has been a War on bitcoin. Globally, from certain states. We have governments like the government of El Salvador, which is very pro bitcoin. But there was a long time under the Biden administration, pretty much the entire administration. We felt like they were coming for us.

[Angela]

Yeah.

[Peter]

For people who just wanted to hold a financial asset and be able to transact privately, why you, as a libertarian, what would you tell people and say that the importance of bitcoin and financial freedom.

[Angela]

I mean, the dollar is not in a good place.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Angela]

And it keeps getting in a worse place. So it would make sense to diversify. I recently heard that. Okay. So everyone knows what cubic zirconia is. There's a gold version of that coming out. I love gold standard people. I think that's great. I think it's still a wise idea to have, you know, some gold or silver. You know, if you get in some crazy apocalyptic event, you have something to, you know, there's no electricity. It's probably not going to happen though. Right? Cubic zirconia gold. Lab gold. That's going to wreck. We're not going back to the gold standard.

[Peter]

You know, hold on. Because there's lab diamonds now.

[Angela]

Yeah.

[Peter]

That are. My understanding is that almost they're indistinguishable from real diamonds.

[Angela]

Yes. Same with lab gold.

[Peter]

Yeah. So it's destroyed the scarcity of diamonds. Basically.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

And you can create now lab gold.

[Angela]

Yes. It's difficult.

[Peter]

Indistinguishable from real gold.

[Angela]

It's difficult and cumbersome. So far.

[Peter]

So far. But it will get easier. They will figure it out and then it will just become a industrial metal and no longer money.

[Angela]

With all due respect to gold bugs. I.

[Peter]

Sorry.

[Angela]

I think you should consider bitcoin because we don't have a lot of good options left. And this is a good option.

[Peter]

Can you. Can you look that up, by the way, Connor, Lab grown gold. I'm really intrigued. But I hadn't heard about this.

[Angela]

It's very. It's fairly new.

[Peter]

Yeah. So I knew about the diamonds because there's a girl I know from London who moved to New York to work for a company who was creating these diamonds.

[Angela]

Yep.

[Peter]

Which was odd. Okay. So currently not commercially viable or cost effective yet.

[Angela]

Not yet.

[Peter]

Not yet. This is a lab grown golden nugget. But that is.

[Angela]

There you go.

[Peter]

That is a lab grown gold nugget.

[Angela]

There's no lab grown bitcoin yet. There's no bitcoin knockoffs yet.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Angela]

I don't see it happening.

[Peter]

Well, that's. I mean, even if you weren't lab growing it. We know that gold in the universe is not scarce.

[Angela]

It's not scarce.

[Peter]

Bitcoin is scarce in the universe, in this room, in this country.

[Angela]

It's not inflatable. You can't, you can't inflate it. You can't pump it up. There's a finite amount.

[Peter]

So, so where, where are we at with the US Government in terms of their attitude towards. I just want to stick to bitcoin, but I know we have to talk about crypto a little bit, a little bitcoin, but with their attitude towards it because essentially, like America's the first line of defense for this. If America falls, it's easier for Europe to fall. If America supports bitcoin, is pro Bitcoin, it puts a bit of pressure on government, say our government. I know the Reform Party led by Nigel Farage. They have a pro Bitcoin attitude. They've put together a manifesto for how they'll treat crypto and bitcoin should they become governed, come into government. Where are we at with it?

[Angela]

Okay, so I think we're behind where the current administration intended to be, if that makes sense. Yeah, the administration made a bunch of promises and they embraced it publicly. You know, President Trump spoke at the bitcoin conference. JD Vance spoke at the bitcoin conference after he was elected. They want, they're, they want to be pro bitcoin, but there are so many things going on in the United States right now and the administration has its hands full, that they have not fully cleaned up the mess of the Biden administration, like fully ending operation choke point 2.0, following through completely on the Blanche memo. I mean, I think the, I think they're, they're willing and they want to do it, but they are just a little bit behind on their to do list.

[Peter]

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[Angela]

Yeah, I probably won't explain it as well as him, you know, but they. Biden treated. I think the best way to put it is Biden treated cryptocurrency like it was terrorism.

[Peter]

Yes. Enemy of the state.

[Angela]

Yes. And so they cracked down on bitcoiners. They treated any innovation and technological advancement as though it was dangerous and harmful. They almost treated it like we were manufacturing narcotics, I think, and made a point to send Alphabet agencies and activist judges after bitcoiners or anybody developing technology around Bitcoin or cryptocurrency.

[Peter]

And the Blanche memo.

[Angela]

So the Blanche memo was written by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and it basically said, we are going to end Biden's policy of regulation via prosecution. So Biden and his administration basically said, if there's any gray area, we're going to default to arresting people and locking them up, at minimum, suing them into oblivion.

[Peter]

Is this because they considered Bitcoin as an enemy to the money printer?

[Angela]

Well, it is, yes.

[Peter]

Well, we know it is, but that is why.

[Angela]

Yes. Yeah. And beyond that, I mean, it's. It removes control from their hands. They're control freaks.

[Peter]

Yes.

[Angela]

Not every administration is going to be a control freak like that. You know, there are going to be administrations that are more laissez faire. They embrace capitalism. They know that aggressive central planning is just not going to produce economic growth. And, and it's going to drive out innovators. But Biden administration, you know, we gotta. We gotta stamp that out. We gotta stamp that out.

[Peter]

It's so funny. I've read so much US history about the founding of the Republic and how you kicked our asses and, and a country that was built on like a foundation of freedom and liberty. You have a constant battle to maintain it.

[Angela]

Constant.

[Peter]

It's like you're at the. You're at the gates trying to. Trying to keep them closed because there is a constant battle to attack all the Freedom and liberties. All the ideas that your country stands for.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

Or stood for.

[Angela]

Yes. It's a republic if you can keep it. Yeah, it's hard to keep it. It's really hard. You know, so, you know, we've got all these cases now that sort of came to their conclusion after President Trump took office. And people in the DOJ are aware of them, but they, you know, they're busy dealing with weaponized departments, people who are openly defying them, people who are secretly defying them, that it's been challenging to get the DOJ on top of these bitcoin cases, and they're very important cases, so it's not like they should be far down the list. They should be at the top of the list.

[Peter]

The. The bitcoin hostages.

[Angela]

Yes, the bitcoin hostages.

[Peter]

Yeah. And by the way, with everything you said there, I mean, you're basically making a. An obvious argument for small government, because the bigger government gets, the more nefarious it can be.

[Angela]

Yes. And the bigger. The to do list, you know, and.

[Peter]

The more people you have to track and the more departments that can go rogue.

[Angela]

So one of these cases, and I'll, you know, keep it anonymous, but one of them. And there's a number. Right. So I have a good relationship with the doj, the pardon attorney's office, you know, people in the Trump administration. So I call, you know, and I'm like, XYZ is happening. Can you help? It's like, yes, but you guys really need to try to work with aligned prosecutors. Well, you know the line prosecutors, which would be the people, middle management, lower management. They hate your guts. They hate the president. They hate us. They hate bitcoin. They don't want to work. You know, if you don't ride their ass, they will not do what you tell them to do. And they're gleeful about it. They're, you know, like, there's these one prosecutor, he's got, like. He has got, like, rainbow pedicure, like, nail. Like, they're very woke. Sassy. The department is kind of out of control.

[Peter]

I guess that's one of the biggest challenges. Then you win an election, but you don't win. You don't win over every government employee.

[Angela]

Right.

[Peter]

If anything, you suddenly create arch enemies who want to fuck things up for you.

[Angela]

Yep. And I don't say it as a. As a criticism. I mean, like, just a reality. It's just the reality. When I took over the Libertarian National Party, it was, you know, small. It's like a staff of 20 people, half of them hated my guts, you know? And it's like, hide the ball. Like, where's the this, where's the that? Where's the data breach? Where's. You know, it's like whack a mole, you know, you gotta fire. You gotta fire everybody. It's not so easy, though. It's not so easy at the doj.

[Peter]

All right, so how much can we talk about these cases? Because the more we can talk about, the more we can highlight how nefarious these cases are and what they actually mean for freedom and liberty. Because my view is. And I think a lot of people who hold bitcoin's view, is that if you write code, if you're running a bitcoin node, you're essentially kind of disagreeing with the state because you're producing something to circumvent the state in one way or another. The creation of bitcoin is to give you an exit from the dollar, an optionality outside of the dollar.

[Angela]

Although I would never put that into my opening argument at trial.

[Peter]

Okay, okay.

[Angela]

Bitcoin's not money.

[Peter]

Interesting. Okay. But it's. You know, it goes back to the foundational elephants or elements of the U.S. republic is freedom and liberty. You used to have a free market for money.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

You don't have a free market for money.

[Angela]

No. 1913 really ruined things. And 1971 was just like the death sentence.

[Peter]

Yeah. So you now have the. You created the Fed and then you came off the gold standard. What the fuck happened in 1971? But actually, Bitcoin is a very American idea, if you think about it. Even though the inventor is probably English, it's a very American idea. And it very much supports freedom, liberty, sovereignty. And so, like, a real American should love and support the idea of bitcoin.

[Angela]

Yes. Yes.

[Peter]

And so to see it attacked, I see it as an attack on the American, like, American culture.

[Angela]

I think that's right. I think that's right. And I think that there are. There's a growing number of people in the United States who. They don't like American culture. They're ashamed of America. You know, they hate the American flag. They don't like it. You know, they think we're a terrible, evil country. And certainly I disagree with a lot of the foreign policy decisions that have been made over the last 50 years, but it's still an incredible place to live. Like, I don't know what other country has the Second Amendment like we do. I don't know.

[Peter]

Switzerland, maybe. Similar.

[Angela]

Do they have conscription? I don't Know, there's something with Switzerland. Yeah. Where they have a ton of guns, but I think they. I think there's. I think they have some other issues related. Maybe it's. Maybe it's conscription.

[Peter]

I think the US has probably the most liberal gun policies.

[Angela]

Yeah. And. And so, you know, like, it's crazy. You know, we have. We have a First Amendment. We have free speech.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Angela]

I'm watching my. Minding my Twitter while I'm careful, you say I'm being very careful.

[Peter]

You might get stopped at the airport by men with guns.

[Angela]

Yeah, I'm careful what I say on social media while I'm over here. And I just think people don't. They don't understand how good we have it. Health care is expensive. It's overpriced. I agree. Also, though, it's. It's just a much higher quality than most other places in the world, you know, except when we drive out innovation. So that part sucks. And. And it's the same with Bitcoin. You know, like, we're. I want us to continue to be, like the birthplace of innovation, like, just like a. Just a shining star in the world. And it's just tragic that people hate it. It's like Tall Poppy syndrome. You know, they want to stamp out anything that's. That's better. Anything that's, like, worthy that could be a North Star.

[Peter]

So what can we. What can we say about these cases if we start with Ian Freeman.

[Angela]

Yeah, let's start with Ian and work backwards.

[Peter]

So he's serving eight years.

[Angela]

He's serving eight years. He's already been in there for close to three years. Ian was a very outspoken libertarian activist in New Hampshire.

[Peter]

Okay.

[Angela]

Which was problem number one. Feds didn't like him, you know, and he's. And he was like one of the. He moved there, I think, for the Free State Project, you know, and was definitely a benefactor of that movement generally. And the Free State Project is. A bunch of libertarians moved to New Hampshire to make it the freest state, which it technically is by most metrics, and to reach critical mass there in the state legislature, which they have done. You know, they're very focused on that tragedy being that, you know, the federal government didn't. Didn't really care, quite frankly, because Ian's in prison. He had, among many other things going on, like libertarian things going on. I mean, he had some Bitcoin ATMs, okay. And so people would come and use those Bitcoin ATMs to engage in business, you know, like, okay, I want to Put the dollars in and. And get the bitcoin out. And there still is. And there definitely was, at that time, ambiguity as to whether or not bitcoin was a dollar. You know, is it. Is it a financial instrument? Is it money? And he. He had an unlicensed bitcoin atm. And so, yeah, basically the feds didn't like it.

[Peter]

And so. So you can have Bitcoin ATMs, but you should have a license.

[Angela]

It's a gray area, and people recommend that you have licenses. So he didn't have one.

[Peter]

Okay.

[Angela]

It was a gray area at the time. And there are still many unlicensed Bitcoin ATMs in the United States.

[Peter]

Okay, so what was he charged with? Money laundering, money laundering, wire fraud, money.

[Angela]

Laundering, conspiracy to commit. What's the second charge? Two major charges. They. They also had some tax evasion charges on there, and they. I believe they pulled all those. Oh, actually, the. The court. I believe the judge overturned that conviction. It was a mess, you know, it was a mess.

[Peter]

And that's a. That's quite a big sentence. Eight years.

[Angela]

It's ridiculous when you look at. I was just looking up financial crimes that. That banking institutions commit. You know, no one serves time. They rip off. You know, banks rip off millions of dollars. People just lose so much money.

[Peter]

2008, anyone? Yeah, yeah. No one went to jail.

[Angela]

They don't serve time. Ian didn't take anyone's money. So the thing that he got in trouble for is people used his ATMs to commit scams. So there's a. It's called know your customer. There's a. There's a policy, you know, that you have to have. Generally speaking, he had a really strong one. Little old ladies who fall victim to romance scams. And I think actually plenty of millennials and people in their 30s and 40s fall victim to romance scams, too. But, you know, occasionally little old ladies would call in and, hello, I'd like to take my life savings and turn it in. You know, And Ian's like, well, hold on, you know, and walks him through. Who's your husband? Do you know your husband? You know, which is very offensive sometimes to little old ladies that do know their husband. But he'd figure out somebody was being scammed and say, no, I'm not going to. We're not going to do this transaction. I think he even tracked someone down one time, a woman's adult son, and called him, you know, and was like, hey, your mom's trying to give me, like, thousands of dollars, you know, and she wants to take it out in Bitcoin. And the whole thing sounds suspect. And that son was like, oh, thank you. You know, so he stopped people from getting scammed, but he wasn't able to stop every single one because people lie to him.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Angela]

You know, how are you. How do you know when someone is lying over and over again? And so the feds used that to go after him and say that he was committing money laundering. You know, he was engaged in financial crimes, and, you know, really threw the book at him. You know, what's interesting is nobody went to prison for the actual scams. No one did.

[Peter]

They. Did they have suspects?

[Angela]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Lots of suspects.

[Peter]

So this is a bit more like Russ Ulbricht is. Create a chilling effect.

[Angela]

Totally. Totally a chilling effect. And some of the. Some of the suspects were out of the United States. And they're like, well, that's not our purview. I think it literally is. And there's whole divisions in your department dedicated to going after people in other countries. Yeah, there's. There's. There's. It's in your purview, but whatever.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Angela]

It's just meant to make an example of Ian.

[Peter]

And so he served three. Could he serve a fourth and then be out?

[Angela]

He could serve. It would be more than that.

[Peter]

But there's no appeals left. He's just.

[Angela]

Well, there's a Supreme Court appeal left.

[Peter]

Okay.

[Angela]

But that takes so much time. You know, they just wrapped up the. The latest appeal a couple months ago, which failed. It failed.

[Peter]

Do we know on what grounds?

[Angela]

I. If I had drafted it, and I'm not an attorney, I'm a paralegal, but I basically do all the heavy lifting. You know, when I'm at a law firm and the attorney signs it, I would have made different arguments, but, yeah, there's no way it was going to. It was just not going to happen.

[Peter]

Okay, let's talk about the Tornado Cash developers, because I think this is. I think this is a really interesting point in that we seem to have given up the right to privacy.

[Angela]

Totally.

[Peter]

As a. Yeah. I think everything that we found out with the NSA tracking everything we say, do, or hear, and now it's almost getting weird. Like, I had a conversation with my girlfriend the other day, actually. I saw this great Instagram post. You'll love it. So this.

[Angela]

This.

[Peter]

This woman's. She's got a husband's phone. It's just on the side, and she's just shouting things, and it's like Christmas, big diamonds, new dresses, holiday to the Maldives because these phones listen to us. And so we have no privacy left. Even if we, and if we try and get privacy, we're considered a criminal. You want privacy, you must be engaged in criminal activity. It's like, no, I just don't want the government to know everything I'm doing.

[Angela]

It's just a very basic concept. It's like, why the reason that we close the bathroom door. It's just privacy.

[Peter]

Well, without privacy, do you have to, do you have real democracy without privacy?

[Angela]

I don't think you have.

[Peter]

It's like a foundational.

[Angela]

You don't have any freedom of choice without privacy because it completely rewires your behavior. You're disincentivized to do certain things.

[Peter]

Yeah. And so the Tornado cash, that, that was an Ethereum.

[Angela]

That was an Ethereum one similar to Samurai Wallet. But these guys are developers. So, you know, unlike Ian Freeman, they're not. They don't ever take your money. It doesn't happen. It doesn't exist. They wrote code, they put it out there. You, anyone can download the code. I believe you create your own keys. You know, there's a way to do it. And then you can have peer to peer exchanges. You can send someone bitcoin, they can send you bitcoin. None of the money ever touched Roman Storm's hands and they busted him for the same. You know, it's, it's conspiracy, money laundering, unlicensed money transmission. That's what it is. Unlicensed money transmitter. Even though we have, you know, this, this entity, FinCEN, that said, no, I don't think so. I don't believe that qualifies as a money transmitter. If they don't touch the money, you know, and, and the court, the activist judges say, well, you know, maybe they. FinCEN wasn't really talking about, like, that's not what the whole department thinks. That's not what the whole government thinks. That's just some guys who wrote a letter on letterhead. Out of control. It's out of control. And this is what President Trump is dealing with in all these departments, you know, these people who just openly defy orders.

[Peter]

And what is that hierarchy of authority in that you say an activist judge, but are they going to tap on the shoulder and saying, you need to prosecute this guy because we need to set a standard?

[Angela]

I mean, I think so, but it's not coming from President Trump. You know, it's like, who is it coming from? And that's difficult to figure out sometimes. Is it coming from senators? Is it coming from special interests. You know, it's all done behind back doors.

[Peter]

And so. Okay, so what is the status of Roman's case?

[Angela]

Roman went to trial. He was found guilty, but the jury was not able to reach a conclusion on one of the counts. And so I think we're going to find out now next month what happens.

[Peter]

But he's probably going to serve time.

[Angela]

It's unclear. His is.

[Peter]

But he's. He is serving time now, isn't he? Oh, I thought he went over.

[Angela]

Roman Sterling of. There's two Romans. Roman Sterling of. Is serving time. I believe he's in New Jersey right now in a federal prison. Roman Storm is still out. He's basically. He's got a probation officer. I think he's in Washington and can't leave the state. So he's definitely dealing with. With some stuff. But his is going to. His is the least scary right now. You know, his legal bills are pretty scary, I'd say.

[Peter]

Yeah. I mean, I. I was sued by Craig Wright in the uk. It's a scary.

[Angela]

It's not good. Yeah, I'm lucky. I had. I had DNO insurance when I got sued.

[Peter]

I wish I'd had insurance. So what do these cases really say about civil liberties? And. And really, what do they really say about America at the moment?

[Angela]

It's just. It's not good. You know, there are a lot of people in the United States who don't want us to have civil liberties. And I think that is one of the most important wars going on right now in the administration. And that President Trump, you know, and some of the people he's picked, they're really trying to go to bat for us to say, like, yes, we do have civil liberties. We need to reclaim freedom. We need to reclaim our right to privacy, our First Amendment, because that's a very important issue in Roman Storm and the Samurai wallet cases. You know, like writing software, writing code, literally writing. It is free speech. It is a First Amendment issue.

[Peter]

Okay, so why doesn't. Why doesn't that defense work?

[Angela]

Because there are people in positions of power who can just arbitrarily decide.

[Peter]

No, but that doesn't sound like justice.

[Angela]

It's not. It's not. It's completely out of control. We have. Our. Our justice system has been weaponized. And I think the real eye opener was during COVID you know, where you saw all of this. Just. They're just like, what did Arnold Schwarzenegger say? He said, screw your freedoms. Screw your freedoms. It was. It was wild. Oh, really?

[Peter]

Yeah, I fell for it.

[Angela]

At first, I was. I was just day one, like, nope, not doing this. Not doing this. Not wearing the mask. This is bs. I don't believe it. I don't know what wild conspiracy. I don't know how true XYZ with germs are, but I ain't doing this. This is a giant control operation.

[Peter]

Yeah, I fell. I fell for it. I think it was the. It was like, the final thing for me afterwards.

[Angela]

I was like, ah, they scare you. I mean, it's a scare tactic.

[Peter]

Well, yeah, but it was. It was a chain of events. So I went out. There was a. There was a crisis in Turkey at the border where Erdogan was opening up the border to because there had too many immigrants in the country. Wanted to flood Europe.

[Angela]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And I was like, I'm gonna go and film this. And so I found a sponsor. He said, yeah, go. We'll pay for it all. And I flew out. And I. The day I flew out was the day that the rumors. The next day was we were going to close the airport. So I just went and I went. And you could fly back. Plane was half empty. I got. You know, I think I got Covid because I was. I was almost the most ill I've ever been. And then I came back, and on my podcast, I ended up interviewing this doctor who was talking about the flood of people coming into the hospital who couldn't breathe. And I was like, oh, shit, this is a real thing. And so I fell for it. I completely fell for it. I supported it. I was like, yeah, we should lock down. It's a good idea. I got the jab.

[Angela]

Oh, no.

[Peter]

Yep, I got the jab. Although I wouldn't let my daughter have it. And I can't remember the moment. Time. There was a moment in time I was like. And that's it. Ever since then, it's like, I don't trust anyone.

[Angela]

Yeah, well, I mean, everybody has their moment, right? Everybody has their red pill, red pill moment. I think that's. That's what the United States. We're supposed to be against that. And we have a strong disagreement in the United States about how far control and. And freedom should go. And that is really manifesting in these cases. And we've already seen it in Covid, like, the very worst of it. They just don't want us to have that much freedom. Just a little bit of freedom. Just a little bit.

[Peter]

Why and who and for what reason, though? Is it because I always think, is it. Is this just organic? Is this the way government works? Does Government just grow and to maintain itself. There's. Yeah, it's a bit like, you know, when Hayeks talks about spontaneous.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

Markets, like markets are the spontaneous order that's created from millions of little decisions. Is government the same? Is it, is it the compound interest of bad incentives?

[Angela]

It's like a self licking ice cream cone. You know, I think it, it exists at this point. It's supposed to exist to defend our liberties. Supposed to just be a minimal amount of government that didn't stay in place very long. I think at this point it just exists to keep itself in existence. That's. And to, to feed itself and to grow just like any other organism that's like that. And so it's disincentivized to give us liberty because it just needs more and more control so it can get bigger and bigger and bigger.

[Peter]

Is it essentially doing everything that your forefathers warned about? Is it the Hamiltons? Because I read the Federalist Papers, I've read the Declaration of Independence, I've waxed lyrical about it on hand and I've said everyone listening should, should go and read the Declaration of Independence. The, the gripes they had, the colonies had with the British government. Exactly. What we should have with our British government right now is everything they warned about is happening right now.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

And then I look and go, well, these were great people in some ways. Yeah. I mean they had a few slaves but like generally they were.

[Angela]

For the time. Yeah, for the time. They were very forward thinking.

[Peter]

But what. It's almost like every senator you've had since, it's like, why do you not think like these people? Where's your backbone? Where's your.

[Angela]

That is one thing that I, I'm very frustrated with is I feel like Americans have just sort of lost their backbone. Not all of them, but, but most of them, you know. And I live in, I live in Texas and I lived in LA for a long time, but I was, I grew up in Texas and moved back, you know, before I had my, my son. And I see all these tough men who have a lot of guns, watch football. Some of them are veterans walking around grumbling about COVID And I'm like, is anybody going to do anything? I don't mean like just walk around and start shooting people. I don't mean do something like that. Not violent. Are we going to just say no? Can we just say no? They don't know. That's too much effort, I guess.

[Peter]

But you celebrate your history so much.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

America is so proud of its history. It's so proud of how the republic was found. It's so proud of what you fought in your civil war, in your revolutionary war. Like, so proud of this and so proud of the people. And yet you keep electing people who look nothing like Hamilton, Washington.

[Angela]

We've turned into a bunch of Canadians. It's just. It's just. I thought we got rid of them all, you know, no offense, you know, but those were the people who supported the crown. It was like, get out of here. You know, we kind of. I think we kind of persecuted them a little bit after the American Revolution, really. Get out of here. Crown, crown loving scum. And. And then we just turned into them. It's just, you know, I've been like, I was the person getting in fights in the grocery store. I'm not wearing a mask. I'm not wearing a mask. You know, I almost got kicked off an airplane. I ripped out the lining of the mask so I could breathe better. I didn't realize I would have such an issue with it, but I actually, like, it freaked me out. I had, like, claustrophobia. Yeah. They were like, put it on, ma'. Am. Oh, it was a disaster. I had. I had like an emergency surgery during the worst, the height of COVID and I had to fly home afterwards. And it was just drugged up on steroids because of course, it happened when I'm meeting my in laws for the first time. Of course.

[Peter]

Of course.

[Angela]

Hi, welcome. Thanks for having me over. I need to go to the hospital to have emergency surgery, and so I'm flying back home, you know, and they're just. They're like, you have to put your mask on. I'm like, I literally have a medical order right here that says I don't have to wear one because I'm taking this thing that makes it hard to breathe. And they're like, wear it or get off the plane. That was the closest I've come to complying. You know, I went to the bathroom and tore out the lining and poked little holes in it that they couldn't see. So I can breathe. But most Americans won't do that. They'll just put on the mask. I'm like, what are you doing? What do you do? We can all, if there's 100 of us, we can all just be like, no, we outnumber you. I see people have, like, crazy riots over, I don't know, French fries and not getting enough ranch dressing. You know, when they go to the fast food restaurant, I'm like, we can't, like, there's all these, like, ghetto people rioting at the Chick Fil? A. We can't riot when there's, like, a real reason to.

[Peter]

We can start a revolution on spirit.

[Angela]

Like, can 100 Karens rise up and Karen their way out of this?

[Peter]

But the problem is one side of the plane will be with you and one will be against you.

[Angela]

Yeah.

[Peter]

One side is like, we want freedom. The other side is your killing grandma.

[Angela]

We hate freedom.

[Peter]

Yeah, we hate freedom.

[Angela]

We want free stuff, not freedom.

[Peter]

Well, so look, I tweeted the other day that the battle of our time is I want free shit versus leave my shit alone.

[Angela]

Yes, absolutely. It's freedom versus free stuff.

[Peter]

Yeah, it's freedom versus free stuff. And, like, you can. You can bring every. You can bring every argument back to that. It's big government, small government, it's high tax, low tax. It is pro, entrepreneur, hostile to. Everything comes back to free versus freedom. And we. It's almost like we're reaching this kind of crescendo with it. I mentioned in the uk, it's okay. The Conservatives aren't going to give us freedom and Labour Party aren't giving us our free. Okay, so we're gonna go to reform and green. But it's a battle of our time. It's. It's like a. Like you say, it's like an internal cold war.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

And it's like, who's gonna win?

[Angela]

Oh, man. I mean, I hope it's liberty. You know, I. I worry that it's gonna. That the right wing is gonna become too reactionary. Both. Both sides are angry. Right. And so if we feed that, I don't think that's good. You know, I want the right to become. To embrace liberty more and to not be so nihilistic and angry and resentful. And if we can dodge that bullet, you know, I think that we can win.

[Peter]

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[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

If you look at economics and law and order.

[Angela]

Economics and, and being rational and not being so emotional.

[Peter]

Yes.

[Angela]

But it used to be with the Democrats, the libertarians.

[Peter]

I used to think there was more of an alignment between the Democrats and the libertarians.

[Angela]

I don't think so. I mean, maybe it depends on the libertarian.

[Peter]

Well, it was. I think it's the, the era of the neocons. Who's still there.

[Angela]

Oh, for sure. That. Yeah. Maybe it just changes administration to administration. I mean, most of us are really triggered, though, about taking our guns away. Like that is the ultimately, like the most triggering thing for us.

[Peter]

You can't sell that here, by the way.

[Angela]

I know, I know.

[Peter]

You know, you, you, Connor, if we had a vote, if we had a referendum for essentially a second amendment here, we could have guns. What percent do you think would vote yes? Below five. Below five?

[Angela]

That's crazy.

[Peter]

It may be below one. Yeah. It might be just like me, Conor and a couple of random people.

[Angela]

That's wild.

[Peter]

Yeah. Because we, the way we see it in our country is we like knife fights. We like knife fights.

[Angela]

I, I read about it. I read about it.

[Peter]

We'll get you with a fork.

[Angela]

Yeah. It seems a little rough.

[Peter]

Yeah, we, I mean, we're against it. We're against it. We in even the, the people who can get guns. Because you can get a gun, you have to have a certain license, has to be sporting, whatever, but your, your opportunity to use it in defense is tiny.

[Angela]

Geez.

[Peter]

So if somebody walked into your house, if somebody walked across your yard holding a gun saying, I'm going to shoot you, and you shot them through the window, you go to jail.

[Angela]

They got to be in your home.

[Peter]

I assume they got to be in your home pointing the gun at your head at the moment you think, I'm about to die.

[Angela]

That's pretty.

[Peter]

And even then, you might go to prison. Yeah. You still might go to prison.

[Angela]

Yeah. That's a pretty narrow window of time to use a gun. You race to pull the trigger, I guess.

[Peter]

Yeah. But we look across. We don't start with the point of freedom, of liberty, whereby it's like it's my choice to own a gun to defend myself. We start at the point of what is the risk of society having guns?

[Angela]

That's a problem. Yeah, that's a problem. So generally in the United States, if you ask someone who's like, really educated on it, these are natural rights and the Constitution is put there to defend them. But the Constitution didn't grant me a right to own a gun. That's my natural right. My natural right to defend myself with whatever instrument is within arm's length, defend life, liberty and.

[Peter]

Yes, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, we, I mean, in fairness, you. You kicked us out for a reason.

[Angela]

Right, Right, right, right. Yeah, we had a big disagreement on that.

[Peter]

Yeah. A little, Little tax on the T, but, you know, it would never. I, I don't think culturally we. It's almost like, you know how America couldn't culturally shift to not having guns because you can't get the guns back.

[Angela]

Yeah.

[Peter]

There's just no way we couldn't culturally shift to having them because the first people to get the guns are probably. Some of them would be stupid and start shooting each other.

[Angela]

So I think we have that too.

[Peter]

Yeah. Well. But that's what we look at. We look across and go, there's another school shooting.

[Angela]

I think we probably have less stabbings and we have. You know.

[Peter]

Do you know that's actually not true, is it? Statistically, yeah, it's not true. I think you can look that up, Connor, because somebody said it to me once, I was like, huh, I wonder what it is. And I looked it up.

[Angela]

But America's wild.

[Peter]

But what you have is if somebody runs up you with a knife, you have the right to defend yourself against that person.

[Angela]

Yes. Most states have. Have pretty good laws on that. Yeah. Some of the further blue states are starting to erode that and make it difficult. New York is a. New York is a challenging one for sure, but New York has fallen.

[Peter]

It's gone.

[Angela]

Yeah. Yeah. It's important, though. It's important to be able to defend yourself.

[Peter]

Yeah, let's. I don't believe this. What have you found? It says 31 in the UK. 31 stabbing deaths this year. Yeah.

[Angela]

That sounds underreported.

[Peter]

Yeah. In the US 1600 maybe deaths, but. But per capita, like ask per capita and ask for last year because we hear of a lot of stabbings. 20, 23. Yeah. Her 100,000 US was 0.49. The UK was. Doesn't say.

[Angela]

So we have less stabbings but higher fatalities. We mean it when we do it.

[Peter]

I guess we mean Business, you got a better aim. I'm pretty sure it's high.

[Angela]

I'm.

[Peter]

I'm almost certain every time I've looked it up and it's look, it's state dependent.

[Angela]

Yeah.

[Peter]

I think red states stab people a little bit more. Surprisingly interesting. Yeah. But I could be wrong. But yeah, when I looked it up I was, I was actually surprised.

[Angela]

I have a sign in my window warning people that we have a God and a gun in this home and if you enter you will meet both of them if you break in.

[Peter]

So my, so we own a football team and my photo in the program of the thing is me holding an AR15 that I shot in Vegas and there was a complaint about that photo and the football association charged me for it and I got banned for going to three games for having a photo of me holding a gun.

[Angela]

Photo of a gun.

[Peter]

Photo of me holding a gun for bringing the game into disrepute. There you go. That's the photo. I like it. I think it's a cool photo.

[Angela]

I think it's a great photo.

[Peter]

Yeah, but I got banned for. Yeah, there you go. Chair fine for FA gun. I was fine with 30 pound. Here we go. On the BBC, the chairman of Non League Football Club has been fined by the FAA of a photo of him holding large gun was printed in the matched program. Was there? The FAA said here a 30 pound fine was issued for improper conduct in relation to the picture. He was also given a separate fine and a three match ban for users. Oh, the ban was because I was separate. Yeah. I called the other manager a cock on Twitter. He was, he deserved it. He was a bully. He bullied one of our female players. But like that's where we are. We can't even have a photo of a gun, let alone.

[Angela]

I just can't. Yeah, I can't relate to it.

[Peter]

Yeah, you're never going to sell it here. So, so, so what, what, what, what does the future hold then for liberty in America?

[Angela]

In.

[Peter]

In. In the worldview of what you're doing?

[Angela]

I think the right wing, including libertarians, needs to get their act together and join forces. Doesn't need to be across the board, just areas of common interest. Right. Free speech, civil liberties, privacy, things of that nature. Shrinking the government, defeating the deep state because we have a deep state cabal who hates our president and wants to throw us into socialism. Right. And we need to work together. And if we can do that, then I think that we can make some progress. The thing that was so incredible about President Trump getting reelected Again, is the tide turned, like, for the first time in a long time, people are complaining that we haven't made enough progress, but we just did the hardest thing, which was shifted the trajectory of the country. It's so difficult to do because it's so huge, you know, and it's so laborious and it involves so many coalition partners. We just need to keep making progress. And if we don't make perfect progress on foreign policy, if we don't make perfect progress on things like the Epstein files, like, we have to just make progress anywhere and everywhere we can. This is low hanging fruit. This is low hanging fruit.

[Peter]

This is the easy stuff.

[Angela]

This is the easy stuff. You know, I've asked the administration to issue pardons for these men. They deserve them. It's an easy win. It's an easy win for them. You know, we need to rally the troops. So I think this is, this is something that will help turn out in the midterms. We just have to work together. People don't want to hear it. They're caught up in their feels on Twitter, you know, they're very mad. You know, they see President Trump fighting with Thomas Massie. You just gotta, like, do the work. You don't like it. Support Thomas Massie, you know, support Thomas Massie. Donate to him. Door knock for him. He's probably going to be fine. Like, I think he's very safe in his district. But we gotta, we gotta get it together.

[Peter]

You gotta move the needle.

[Angela]

We gotta move the needle. I don't, I don't care about all of the podcaster battles, you know, like.

[Peter]

But that's interesting in itself.

[Angela]

Oh, my gosh. Like three hours of hearing conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk's death. I think he was just, he was holding everything together. Everything just exploded afterwards. We got to pick up the pieces and just like, march forward.

[Peter]

Is there a, a natural person to take over Charlie?

[Angela]

Jack Posobic. He's the closest you're gonna get because he's a Christian. He's generally sweet and doesn't pick nasty fights with other right wing influencers. And he was Charlie Kirk's close friend. He's a, he's a friend of mine. He's a fantastic person. I think he's the closest and I love a lot of the other guys, you know, like Vivek Ramaswamy has done some. He's a friend of mine. I fully support him, but I think it's gotta be a Christian who picks up Charlie's mantle.

[Peter]

Can you find him? Can we see anything of him? See if I know who he is. Oh, yeah. Can you find him talking? Is he doing college debates?

[Angela]

I think he's doing some. Yeah, they've been, you know, changing people in Ben Shapiro, you know, but again, you know, like, no, you know, I'm not throwing any shade on anyone for being Jewish, but a big part of Charlie's identity was being a Christian.

[Peter]

Yes.

[Angela]

It's not just conservatism. That was his brand. So it needs to be a Christian who takes over for him.

[Peter]

And you've had this weird breakaway because Nick Fuentes, who I'm cautious about, well, gender wise, but Candace, who can be a little bit out there, like there is this kind of breakaway from.

[Angela]

The.

[Peter]

Status side of the Republican Party.

[Angela]

Yes. It's. It's reactionaryism, though.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Angela]

Like, it's driven by. It's generally driven by a reaction to something. Literally. It's full of anger, it's full of resentment. It's not moving us forward. It's keeping us focused on a handful of narrow issues where we're not advancing when there's plenty of other areas we can advance to. And, you know, I'm very sympathetic to Gen Z men in the United States who feel that they don't have a future and they're angry, but preaching to people that all their problems are related to, to Jews and that they shouldn't get married and have kids and they should be political reactionaries. I'm like, that is not a future. No, that is, that is sustainable. And it's not anything that's going to like, make the United States better. We have to give them hope and opportunity, not just make them more like pissed off. And tell them, like, stay at home and be an angry online political activist.

[Peter]

Like, no, no, get out there.

[Angela]

Get out there. Get a job. Educate yourself in some way. You have to go fight. Like, the system is unfair. Life is unfair. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry it's harder for you than it was for me. Do your best and like, become a man and self actualize. Don't like the frog culture sucks.

[Peter]

Yeah. But don't be a victim. Don't be for the government to save you.

[Angela]

No.

[Peter]

That is an interesting thing though is like all that infighting within the conservative movement. But everyone was friends with Charlie Cook.

[Angela]

Yep, yep. I was friends with Charlie Kirk. Charlie donated like, like a hundred thousand dollars to a big event I had called Rescue the Republic. I don't know anybody who wasn't friends with Charlie Kirk. Everybody's friends with Charlie Kirk.

[Peter]

Man, what a sad Loss. We. We. I mean, we. We need a Charlie Kurt type person in the uk.

[Angela]

Yeah.

[Peter]

It won't be led with Christianity. That doesn't sell here.

[Angela]

That I know enough.

[Peter]

It sounds.

[Angela]

It's coming back.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Angela]

Right. There's this really good book called the Twilight of Atheism by this Irish theologian, Alistair McGrath. It was written in 2004 and he predicted that atheism was just going to be on its way out because it just. People. It was just not. It's not satisfying. And I think we're starting to get to that point. There's a great revival happening in the United States of Christianity, so it could possibly happen here.

[Peter]

I mean, you're definitely seeing a movement. We've even. We even talked about ourselves in the car when we tried back. Normally is like feeling like you need to anchor yourself to something.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

Have something to anchor yourself to. To have a moral framework to live by.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

I mean, I am a Catholic. I was raised a Catholic. My mum was a staunch Catholic, but I just. I don't go to church.

[Angela]

Right.

[Peter]

I don't read the Bible, I don't pray. I'm not a practicing Catholic, but I. There's definitely. It may even be an age thing for me. It's like, you know, everything's crazy. Everything's so insane. It's like, can we anchor ourselves to something?

[Angela]

I think it's. I think it's necessary. I don't think the Ross Ulbert pardon or Roger versus settlement would have happened if I hadn't been praying about it so hard. I've never prayed so hard for anything in my life.

[Peter]

You don't just think it was a good deal?

[Angela]

No, no. I mean, Ross was easier than Roger, you know, and maybe in the future I'll be able to break all of that down.

[Peter]

How's Roger doing? I spoke to him recently, very briefly. So I've interviewed Roger before I went out to Japan. Interviewed?

[Angela]

He's doing better.

[Peter]

He was like, interview five of my podcast or something. I went out to Japan and interviewed him. He's really kind. Nice guy.

[Angela]

Oh, yeah. He's incredibly generous, but he fell out.

[Peter]

With a lot of the Bitcoiners. We don't need to get into that. But he. He secretly, when I was being sued, like, I reached out to him and said, I've got no money for this lawsuit. He's like, I'll give you 100k.

[Angela]

So generous and sweet. Yeah, so generous and sweet. He and Ian both, just incredibly generous, have helped a lot of people. You know, like, when I started Working with Ian and trying to, like, get him into shape to get a pardon. He sends me a list. He's like, here's 60 other people who need part. You know, it's just. Just so kind. Roger's always like, who needs help? You know, how are they doing? Are they okay? Do they have. Do they have an attorney? Do they need help? It's always helping.

[Peter]

Well, listen, I wish you the best. I hope. Here in the uk, we. We have a growing movement of liberty. We. I think it's something we should be teaching at school. I think we should be teaching kids history. I think we should. And not just how many wives. Henry VIII had real history. Real history. You know, what. What. How great nations were created. What happened during the Industrial Revolution, what happens when governments get big. What happened in the Soviet Republic, what happened in East Germany. We should be giving them a base foundation for understanding the good and the bad side of government and why freedom and liberty are important. We just. We do not teach. People fight you on freedom and liberty. It's like, hey, I'm here because I want freedom. And they're like, what the fuck's wrong with you? You're insane. I'm like, I just want freedom.

[Angela]

It's a dirty word. Yeah.

[Peter]

How is freedom. How have. How have we made freedom a pejorative?

[Angela]

I don't fully understand how that needs to be taught in history. Yeah, that needs to be a whole class.

[Peter]

I really, honestly, I'm. I think that. What did you call it? The third.

[Angela]

Third World?

[Peter]

No. No. Yeah. I mean, yeah. God, no. In politics, you. You talked about the.

[Angela]

Oh, the third party.

[Peter]

The third party. I. I kind of. I think I'm gonna steal that because I kind of think that's what we try.

[Angela]

Need to do, because you leverage it. Here's. Here's the plan.

[Peter]

Give me the playbook.

[Angela]

You. And this is. This is. This is sort of what we did in. In the last election. And here's what I want to do. Explicitly, you get your 1.5 to 3.5% in this third party. You don't need to grow it big enough to win elections. You have to become a voting bloc that people must cater to. And you get a candidate who's running for president, Prime Minister, whatever it is, right? And this is what we're running on. And you go to the negotiating table and you negotiate with the likely front runner of the Conservative Party or Reform or whoever it is, and you're like, these are the things that we're running on. And you exact concessions. And you do it diplomatically but firmly, and you get those concessions and then you drop out and endorse.

[Peter]

That's basically what Rupert Lowe's doing. Right.

[Angela]

You do that. Kennedy did this. Right. So the Libertarian Party also worked with Kennedy. We entered into a joint fundraising agreement with him, which meant he could fundraise more and take bigger donations as opposed to being independent. We were like his unofficial party. And that enabled him to go to the negotiating table with President Trump because he was going to take 10% of the vote. It's crazy. You don't have to win. You just get organized, negotiate, drop out, get a cabinet position, and just stack wins every two to four years.

[Peter]

Right.

[Angela]

It can be done.

[Peter]

I feel empowered.

[Angela]

Yes.

[Peter]

Angela, thank you for coming in.

[Angela]

Thank you for having me.

[Peter]

Is there anything we didn't discuss you wish we had?

[Angela]

I'm. I'm recruiting for the Mises Caucus.

[Peter]

Okay.

[Angela]

You want to see. You want to see US repeat in 2028 what we did in 24? I'd like to have a bitcoiner and a maha person as our presidential and vice presidential candidates. I'd like to send them to negotiate with J.D. vance or whoever the Republican nominee will be, and I'd like to see them get strong concessions and drop out and endorse. So if you want to advance Liberty, if you want to get maybe two cabinet positions, go to lpmesis caucus.com, sign up with us in the United States and help us advance, you know, and be useful.

[Peter]

Have you got a bitcoiner lined up?

[Angela]

Not yet. I'm actively looking for a bitcoin.

[Peter]

Pierre Rochard.

[Angela]

Do you know Pierre in the United States?

[Peter]

Yeah. I do not know Pierre Rochard. He's. He's the guy who I've always thought. And I've got on with him and fallen out with him and got on with him. I think he understands bitcoin better than most, and I think he understands politics well.

[Angela]

Okay.

[Peter]

He. I've seen him in D.C. i've seen him in his suit, and I'm not physically. I've seen the photos. I think Pierre Rochard, if he would be interested, he'd be the most interested one. I can introduce you.

[Angela]

Okay, thank you.

[Peter]

I will do that. Angela, thank you so much. Good luck with everything. Keep doing your thing. I think I'll come and see you next in America.

[Angela]

Thank you.

[Peter]

Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for listening. We'll see you soon. Bye.