← Truth in the Barrel
Truth in the Barrel
The Week Unfiltered 04.25.25
00:51:43
Truth in the Barrel Unfiltered 04.25.25 This week Amy and Denver talk about everything from Donald Trump’s devotion to Putin – The White House spitballing the idea of offering women medals for giving birth – Signalgate 2 : The...
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- [00:00]
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- [02:05]
Amy McGrath
Hi everyone, I'm Amy McGrath with Denver Riggleman and this is Truth in the Barrel Unfiltered. We have a tremendous show for you today. There's a lot going on this week. Den, you are not in your normal spot.
- [02:21]
Denver Riggleman
No Amy, as you can see with my shades I am now in San Diego and I have to look completely California for you today. So I wanted to see people to see how cool I am while we're doing Truth in the Barrel when I'm in San Diego so I know I have the Tom Cruise look. I know it's hard. I'm not Going to take away from the whole show, though. Amy.
- [02:40]
Amy McGrath
Yeah, please don't. We have a lot to get through.
- [02:42]
Denver Riggleman
I want to make sure it's content driven and not looks driven with my sunglasses. So, yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready.
- [02:49]
Amy McGrath
All right, well, before we get into it, I am super excited to talk about my whiskey today. Okay. What I'm drinking, because this is my current favorite, and it is called arbicky Highland Rye 1794 Single grain Scotch whiskey. It's from the northeast coast of Scotland. And honestly, I don't know a whole lot about it. All I know is I love it. That's all I know. And here's. Here's why I was introduced to this. I didn't do a lot or I didn't drink a lot of international whiskeys, but my husband bought me this set. It's a around the world whiskey tasting set. And he saw it at Costco, and It was like 300 or 400 bucks. But it was amazing. It was like 25 different whiskeys, and we got it for Christmas, and in these sort of dark ages of January and February, every other night or so, we'd take two or three of these whiskeys out and we'd do a tasting. And one of them was this Arbicky rye. And I absolutely fell in love with it. I cannot tell you because I'm not a super connoisseur of, you know, the smell and the taste, but I, I, I. This is absolutely the best I have ever tasted. So that's what I'm drinking today.
- [04:16]
Denver Riggleman
I. Can, I. Can I talk about our bicky a little bit for you, Amy, and why it's so. So unique.
- [04:21]
Amy McGrath
So I'll drink, you talk.
- [04:22]
Denver Riggleman
Well, okay. That's. Oh, by the way, I, I wish there was some whiskey in here. There might be. I'm not quite sure. It's just a water bottle, but who knows what's in this water bottle? Amy. So our Vicki. So, as you know, most traditional Scottish and Irish whiskeys are malt, right? A combination. Like, for instance, Scottish whiskeys really like to stay 100% malt, whether even if they're blends or they're single malt. When you're looking at Irish whiskeys, right, it's a combination of malted and unmalted rye when you talk about their Irish whiskey. So what's really special about your whiskey, Amy, is that it's a. It's a grained Scottish whiskey or it's a rye whiskey that's not quite as unique. I mean, it's very unique and not quite as common as the other whiskies that are gonna be in Scotland and Ireland. So that's why when Christine and I were in Ireland and in Scotland, we tried their rye whiskeys. And I vaguely remember going through some rye tastings. I don't know if I had the arbicky, but, Amy, the reason that whiskey is so special, because my guess is there's a little bit of toast on that rye. They probably toast the rye like they do the malt, and that's probably giving you a tiny bit not. Not peated. Not peated, but probably a toasted rye or bicky, which gives you a little spice. And it's probably a little bit sweeter on the end than a lot of American whiskeys. I bet you it is.
- [05:30]
Amy McGrath
Well, you know, it. It's definitely spicy, and I absolutely love it. And there's no. That's one of the things about whiskey is everybody's different. You know, my husband doesn't. Doesn't love this the way I love it, but. But I don't love some of the things that he loves. And so that's really cool. And that's why I love that little wine or not wine whiskey tasting kit that he bought, because it would. We. We got a chance to write down what we liked and what we didn't like. And anyway, I thought it was a great gift, one of the best ever.
- [06:02]
Denver Riggleman
There's no wrong way to drink whiskey, Amy. And you know, there. There isn't. And people's like, I put Coke in my whiskey. Drink whiskey any way you want it. I don't do that. Amy McGrath doesn't do that mostly. But, you know, there's no wrong way to drink whiskey. Awesome. I can't wait to try the art. We.
- [06:16]
Amy McGrath
We have a lot in store for you. And I want to start with what happened this week. Just recently, President Trump once again blaming the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky for the war that Russia started, and specifically saying that Zelensky is at fault for peace talks that were ongoing. For those stalling right now because Zelenskyy would not accept the terms that Donald Trump and his team put out there for you. Now, I just want to go over what those terms are. Okay. And again, J.D. vance, our wonderful vice president, said, I think we've put together a very fair proposal. So for everyone, what is that fair proposal? All right, here's what the terms were. Russia would get all of the territory that it invaded and is currently occupying right now, which is 20% of Ukrainian territory rate to include Crimea. And the US and the EU would lift all sanctions on Russia. There would be no security guarantees for Ukraine, and Ukraine would have to promise never to join NATO. Wow. Does that sound like a very fair proposal to you, Amy?
- [07:39]
Denver Riggleman
I. I don't even know what to say to this. I mean, we went from, you know, Ronald Reagan and his look at the Soviet Union to where we have Donald Trump and J.D. vance. They're like the magic duo rolling over and showing their belly to Putin. And I think I was listening to Zelensky being in Ukraine going back. Zelenskyy was talking about the constitution of Ukraine, and they actually can't sign it. There's no way they're going to sign a 20% give of territory taken by force and say they're never going to join NATO. And I'm wondering if there's some secret, you know, sort of monetary damages in there, but also it's lifting all sanctions. I'm absolutely convinced at this point that if Trump isn't a Russian stooge, he's so idiotic that he doesn't even realize what he's doing. But I think it goes to the incompetence and this authoritarian Ben in the administration right now. Amy?
- [08:32]
Amy McGrath
Yeah. I mean, here's the other thing people need to remember. Russia invaded Crimea, which is part of Ukraine, in 2014. They invaded the whole of Ukraine in 2022. Russia has broken almost every other previous agreement with Ukraine. And so if you're the president of Ukraine, you got to think, you know, they're going to violate it again. Meanwhile, the Russians, the Ukrainians are going after the Russian army. They're attacking the Russian army. The Russians are attacking Ukrainian civilians every single day and every single night. They are committing war crimes. They are targeting apartments, they are targeting hospitals. They are targeting people and civilians. And it's just for us. For the United States to now take the side of Vladimir Putin, who is a war criminal, is just something that, that I don't think I would ever have seen in my lifetime. And, you know, on top of all of this, Marco Rubio, who, who we thought was going to be a decent secretary, well, some people thought he was going to be a decent secretary of state, has just completely turned on this issue as well. He and the ambassador that, that Donald Trump appointed Witkoff to run these peace talks, have said we're pulling out. I'd like to remind you that this Wyckoff guy, the Ambassador Wyckoff, is also doing the peace plan for Israel, Palestine, and he's Also doing the peace plan for Iran. So he's got a lot on his plate, none of which has actually worked yet.
- [10:18]
Denver Riggleman
I think, you know, past performance is indicative of future performance. Right. It's not like we thought that Trump would be any different with Putin. I think another thing, too, when you're talking about wit cough, you know, I literally call him witless cough. I mean, the guy is absolutely witless. But you said something about Marco Rubio, and I want people to look something up. Do you know, Amy, that Marco Rubio appointed as an undersecretary a guy named Darren Beatty. Have you ever heard that name, Darren Beatty? He was a far right writer who worked for Revolver. Darren Beatty is the one who started the Fed direction, or actually bloomed the Fed direction. Conspiracy theories of January 6th that Ray Epps and the FBI were behind January 6th. That is the guy who's his undersecretary. Also. Yes. In 2019, this same Darren Beatty was kicked out of the Trump administration. Amy, you know why? Ties to white nationalists. Now, when you're looking at Putin, right. The white nationalists, Christian nationalists, love Putin. They think he's sort of the avatar for the new, strong Western Christianity, and he's in the East. But that's what's happening right now, is you are the people you surround yourself with, as, you know, me and you, Amy, personnel is policy. And if you're surrounding yourself with such awful human beings, what other type of judgment are you making downstream on huge policy decisions like Russia? So I think where we're at right now is we have an administration that's pro Putin. And I think that's. I'm hoping that people like me and you can bring that to light. We're doing that. But I do think the midterms, I think that's something that people need to really look at as we're going into 2026.
- [11:56]
Amy McGrath
Yeah. And I don't want to just throw darts here, because a lot of people that look at this issue from the outside are like, hey, well, you know, Donald Trump and his team, we want peace. We want the war to end. And so my question to you is, like, what does that look like if this isn't it? And I clearly agree with you, this is not it. This is giving Vladimir Putin everything he wants, everything. And that if he gets that, he's just going to turn around and do the exact same thing again, thinking, well, I got what I wanted last time, so. So this isn't it. But what should it look like?
- [12:37]
Denver Riggleman
I'm going to be pretty hawkish here. And, Amy, I mean, this is where I love having our conversation. So here's what it is to me, if I'm president, Amy, the first thing I want to do is I'm going to actually increase spending for specific types of airframes and armaments to go directly against Russia. I think the only thing that actually works against Putin, because I've always said sociopaths only feel pain, I think it's to drive him out of the entire territory. We cannot capitulate on NATO inclusion. Like, that's not something that we should probably do, right? So here's. Here's what I would do right now if it was me. First of all, I would increase spending to a point where Russia knows we're incredibly serious. Not only that, I would involve all the NATO. I would actually be going to NATO, actually asking for increased funding across the board to arm Ukraine completely. I would do this. However, I think what I would do is say, listen, you have a choice, Vladimir, right? We already know you're depleted. Right. We already know that one of our tanks are going to take out 10 years. And, you know, I had to study 10, 90s, T90s and all that stuff. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to destroy your army and Russia if you don't pull out. However, if you do, if you give back that captured territory, we'll give some time, five to seven years, right, to negotiate what a NATO type of relationship would look like with Ukraine. But we are going to include them. We're going to continue in PFP partnership for peace. We're going to make him a PFP country in perpetuity. Right? We want him to be an ally. I think that's the only thing that would actually stop this right now. Again, Putin is only going to react if he feels massive pain. That's the only way you win this. That's how I would actually approach it. Peace with a sociopath and a dictator, especially a Russian one, who believes that his historical drive is to take back lost Soviet lands. That's the only way you got to deal with him is absolutely overwhelming force and a destruction of everything he holds dear. In Ukraine.
- [14:32]
Amy McGrath
Yeah, it's really hard to do. This isn't going to happen on day one, as Donald Trump simply lied about. But when you're talking peace deals, first of all, you should have diplomats that actually know what they're doing. That's number one. But I feel like you can't just focus on, let's just end the war now. Let's just end the war now because. Stop the fighting. Everybody wants to stop the fighting because it's more than that. Ukraine has to have some kind of security guarantee in any kind of peace deal. They have to. Why? Their borders are enormous when it comes to unfriendly people or unfriendly nations around there. 1300 miles of border. So to give you some sense of how big their border is just with Russia, it's four times the size of the North Korean, South Korean DMZ border. So they need some equipment, as you said, some equipment and help aid to beef up those defenses on those borders. We need maybe some international surveillance to monitor any ceasefire so that the Russians can't get their troops close to the border again, you know, all of these things should possibly be in a ceasefire or peace agreement so that you can give the Ukrainians some sense for, hey, they're not going to do this again. And, and we'll know that if they do. And if they do, we'll have the support of the United States and the west to be able to counter. And that means that they need to spend a lot of money and a lot of effort in those defenses. So it can't just be we're going to give Russia what they want and then walk away with no guarantees. That's my two cents.
- [16:24]
Denver Riggleman
I think it's a 50, 50 chance we withdraw completely as an American delegation. I think there's a chance that the EU takes over all funding of Ukraine and I think we lose our global partnerships and trust for decades, whether it's NATO or EU allies. Amy, at this point, I just don't, I don't see anywhere around it. Even when we're talking about with JD Vance or what they're actually releasing. As far as what's happening right now, I think we've already lost the trust of our all. That bridge has been burned. I really don't know how to gain it back unless we have decades of bridge building right with us actually going back in and saying, hey, we have a responsible administration, responsible foreign policy, and we don't have a coward like Donald Trump who just wants to be with authoritarians. We do have the Neville Chamberlain of presidents when it comes to Putin, but it's the Neville Chamberlain that probably sniffed too much glue as a child. And I think that's what we have right now in America.
- [17:15]
Amy McGrath
And it's, it's terrible. It's. It is everything the greatest generation fought against and sacrificed for and all the cold warriors out there that came before us through what they sacrificed For. And you know what? It's. It's not that expensive to help Ukraine. It will cost us so much more in the long run if Ukraine falls.
- [17:40]
Denver Riggleman
So much more.
- [17:41]
Amy McGrath
Great topic. Important. We got to keep track of that. I want to turn to something a little bit lighter now. It's maybe not so much lighter for women, I don't know. But it sort of made me laugh when I read about this. So here we go. The fertility rate in the United States of America has been declining for the past 15 years, according to the CDC. Yes, we still have a CDC. Trump hasn't gotten rid of that completely just yet. So the White House is now discussing ways to incentivize American women to have more babies. Okay. And so some of the things that they are talking about is giving a $5,000 check for every child birthed, for example, or a medal for women who give birth to six or more children. Where do we begin with this?
- [18:38]
Denver Riggleman
Well, I think they need to give medals to the women for sleeping with anybody that belongs to Maga. I think that's. I think they're getting confused, you know, because I think that's, first of all, like, who does that? Like, okay, Amy, I have to ask you a question. All right? Now, I'm not a woman, so I have to ask you this. I mean, would medals incentivize you for a more robust posture and creating younglings for the nation? Like.
- [19:12]
Amy McGrath
The short answer is no, not for me.
- [19:16]
Denver Riggleman
Did I say younglings, Amy? Did I use the word younglings?
- [19:20]
Amy McGrath
And here's the other thing. The $5000 check.
- [19:23]
Denver Riggleman
Yeah.
- [19:24]
Amy McGrath
Anybody that has children knows that, like, a $5,000 check doesn't go very far. So I was actually thinking about this, and I was looking up. Do you know how much it costs to raise a child in the United States of America from birth to 18 years old?
- [19:44]
Denver Riggleman
I think it's 200,000.
- [19:48]
Amy McGrath
Yeah, that's. That's pretty good. It's 237,000 in 2023. I'm sure that's higher now. So a $5,000 check is sort of laughable. The other thing that's laughable and actually cringe worthy is Donald Trump dubbing himself last month the fertilization president. I can't even get through that.
- [20:08]
Denver Riggleman
No, but I can't either.
- [20:11]
Amy McGrath
But it is true, and this is why I want to talk about this. It is true that the fertility, the birth rate has gone down and it's been going down for the past 40 years. And some people feel like this is a really important thing to look at the average woman in 2024 has one to two biological children, according to the CDC report, and compared more than three in 1960. So I have three children, so I'm highly average, I suppose. But this, this issue, if you're serious about this issue and you like really care about the fertility rates of women in this country, don't you think that you would get behind some, like, actual common sense, practical things that might help men and women think about having more kids? So I'll give you a couple examples. And then this is again where, where like I'm gonna bash a little bit on Republicans because it's not this just. Tom, how dare you. It's Republicans for year after year after year that shoot down these what, what I think are common sense initiatives. Okay, so like paid family leave. No, we don't, we don't want that. We want that $5,000 check. How about better medical care for pregnancy and birth? No, no, that's, that's too far. How about affordable child care? No, no, We Republicans, of course oppose women's health care rights. Yeah, yeah. No free meals in school. We don't want that. You can have the kids, but, you know, we don't want that. And we're going to cut Head Start programs, you know, all of these things. And yet they're talking about giving women a medal.
- [22:00]
Denver Riggleman
Well, the other thing too is cutting public education. Right. That's sort of nuts. I would think after every six kids, though, Amy, I think you should get something like on the seventh kid, like a Klondike bar. And then I think on the eighth kid, I think you should get like a year supply of Crest toothpaste. And then I think like, if you go to nine kids, I think you should get like the smallest version of like a Toyota, like the Versa. And then I don't know, with the 10th kid, I think you should get a year supply of rock candy. I think that is incentivization, though.
- [22:38]
Amy McGrath
These, these Republicans, these, these conservatives, apparently people are really upset about this and this is apparently a real issue, but they don't want to do any common sense measures to, to tackle this issue. You know, if you talk about opposing paid family leave among high income countries, the United States is the only country that does not provide paid maternity leave and also also has the highest maternal mortality rate. What are we doing? Like, seriously, this is, this is just stupid land.
- [23:13]
Denver Riggleman
I don't want to go here, but I'm going to go there, Amy. And I know that sometimes me and you might say some things that are controversial, but you have. Okay, I'm being incredibly serious here to say this. This is a Christian nationalist, evangelical push. Right. And if I remember correctly, and I could be wrong, I think medals were given by Russia. Right. For childbirth, for how many kids you had. So now we're back almost into the Russia. Into the Russia side. But there is a. There's a longer term effect here when you're talking about, you know, my brother has 10 children, so one of my brothers have 10. The other one I think has seven, one has three, I think the other one has five. But they. The. My brother with 10 kids, I love them, but they homeschool. And so what I think you're seeing is the dissolution of public education and sort of this push towards evangelical teaching. And in a homeschool way where you do teach some weird things, like dinosaur bones were actually just put here from other planets to mold the Earth. Right? They were. They're part of the packing material to make the earth 6,000 years ago. That's something that I've actually had to have arguments with on people that have been homeschool is this creationist push. So I think what you're looking at, Amy, and what makes me really angry is that we're basing policy, which was my biggest thing, on fantasy. And if you have Russia, you know, if Hitler and Stalin both gave out medals for childbirth, you still have Hungary doing it. Now you're going back to Orban. Now you're going back to these things where we're actually sort of worshiping these dictator figures and this bizarre sort of mix of Christian nationalism. I've never seen this. It's like new wave, autocratic Christian evangelicalism with this homeschool twist based on the fact that nobody's having enough kids in a traditional way as based on biblical principles. And I think that's really the baseline of all these policy issues. And what you pointed out, Amy, which is the technical. The technical flow down a bad policy and the lack of realization on what this would actually do. And I think when you combine that, I think we do have a fantasy based policy right now.
- [25:23]
Amy McGrath
Yeah. I mean, I was looking online and I quite often go over what some of the. I think sometimes more reasonable conservative viewpoints are. And one guy said, he said this, the reason for the birth rate decline is women entering the workforce. But no one is ready for that discussion. Well, then let's have that discussion. Because I like that women are in the workforce. I actually think that's a good thing. But there's lots of reasons why and multiple studies can back this up. There's lots of reasons why the birth rate has gone down. It's not just because women are in the workforce. Women have more access now to contraceptions. We're better educated. That makes a difference. And we are pursuing careers. And that isn't bad. Like, why is that bad?
- [26:19]
Denver Riggleman
Because you're a woman, Amy.
- [26:21]
Amy McGrath
Yeah, I know. And here's another truth that we aren't talking about enough. I think half of the declining pregnancy rate in our country is due to the steep decline in teen bursts. Steep decline in teen bursts. That's a good thing. So there's a general downward trend in births to teenagers, and there's an upward trend of bursts to older women. And. And you know what?
- [26:48]
Denver Riggleman
I don't know. Why is that bad?
- [26:49]
Podcast Advertiser
Why is that?
- [26:50]
Denver Riggleman
My. My sister was 15 when she had her first child. Fifteen. My mom was 17. She had just turned 17. My sister passed away three or four years ago. And, you know, I'm the oldest of eight. We have a huge family, right? The oldest of eight that I know of. Amy. But I think there's another reason for the decline in women having children. And I think that there's a huge population that are in cells and voted for Donald Trump. And I think there's not a lot of women who are out there scoping bars for people who look like Charlie Kirk or Matt Walsh, right? Or J.D. vance. I mean, literally, J.D. looks like he velcroed his beard to his baby face to try to make him look older. And if you look at these new evangelicals like Walsh and Vance, all of them have the beards that they're coloring black, and it's almost like they're looking like old school prophets, right? It's this new, you know, let's have a beard to look like Jeremiah. And I think. I'm not even kidding right now, guys. I'm. I'm so freaking angry. And because you're getting to a point now that you're demeaning a whole part of our population that is everything to me, right? With my wife, my daughters, my granddaughters, Amy, I'm going to make this guess. And I'm not trying to stereotype at all, but I think you're probably the glue that holds your family together. You take care of the kids, right? Your husband, awesome, has to go to work, but you're there, right? And you're a professional and you're doing this podcast and you're raising money for people and you're trying to help people. You know, my wife the other day, yelled at me because I'm such a loser, right? She's like, you know what? I work, I do the dishes, I come home, I feed the dogs, I do this, I do that. And, honey, I know you're on the phone and you're working all the time, but I'm also a CEO. And you know what? She was right. And I told her, honey, it's because you're a woman. You gotta work harder than me because I'm a white male and I'm privileged, and you don't have. I don't have to do anything. You need to understand, that's the way. I'm kidding. I never said that, Amy. I would have been killed in my house. But I think that that's where we're at right now. And here's the last thing. We're cheap. We're the richest country in the world, and we're offering only $5,000 for six kids. Where's the graduated payment scale? Yeah, Russia does it. Russia what? $16,000 to a woman with 10 kids? How about 15 kids? Baby, we should be giving fricking coupons. We should be giving.
- [29:11]
Amy McGrath
The thing is, Denver, it's not about the money. It's not about the money. It's about creating a culture that is actually family friendly, which we can do practical things to do that. And here's the other thing, and this is also a bit controversial. We know that states that have no reproductive rights now for women, that no access to abortion, have worse maternal and child health outcomes. And so one of the reasons why you might, as a woman, get. Not consider, you know, having kids, if you're in one of these states where, gosh, I. I'm looking at my finances. I'm looking at whether if something goes wrong, I won't have health care. I have to cross state lines to get the health care I might need if I have a. A pregnancy that is high risk. You know, this is where we're at in this country. And so people that look at this and they're like, oh, women need to have more babies. And the answer is a medal or a $5,000 check. They're just not living in the real world. And the last thing I'll say about this, because I remember teaching this, when I teach elements of national power back to midshipmen and to grad students, we talk about population as a mechanism of power. And so when you think about this strategically, the reason why people are upset about this is we're going to have an aging population, right? And that's what Elon Musk is. Everybody's talking about this, so we got to have more babies. Okay, well, that's demographics. And the demographics in our country is such that we are getting more older. Right? We're not having as many babies as we used to, but we still have a better trajectory on demographics than Japan, than China, than the eu, certainly than Russia. Pretty much every other developed nation in the world, we have a better trajectory on demographics than they do. Why? Why? Why do you think?
- [31:24]
Denver Riggleman
I'm gonna say it's because of legal immigration.
- [31:27]
Amy McGrath
Damn right.
- [31:28]
Denver Riggleman
God.
- [31:28]
Amy McGrath
It's because of immigration. And we. So we're shooting ourselves in the foot right now. In turn, if you want to tackle this issue by being sort of this anti immigrant craziness that's going on. You know, when immigrants come into this country, you don't see a ton of like 95 year old immigrants coming into America. They're typically younger, and that helps us demographically, and we should be embracing that. If this is the issue that you care about, hey, let's do that.
- [32:02]
Denver Riggleman
You know, there's something about when people talk about the refreshing of America and we talk about immigration in the past, and we come from the awful. From awful, you know, slavery all the way through to how other immigrants were treated. Whether you're talking to Irish, the Italians. Right. We are all immigrants to this country, all of us. There's. There's just no way around it. But the thing about when I. When I talk to first and second generation immigrants is their pride in being Americans. I believe that immigration, new blood into what America used to stand for, is the only thing that keeps us going. Amy, listen. America is not about a specific ethnicity or race. It's not about a shared heritage all the way back thousands of years.
- [32:46]
Amy McGrath
It's values.
- [32:47]
Denver Riggleman
It's values. It's shared values and a shared idea that we're all equal based on how we work, what we do, and the freedom to do what we want to do. And that's the country I love, Amy. And, you know, I just think that we're just shooting ourselves in the foot so many different ways and destroying the real bedrock of what makes our country great.
- [33:05]
Amy McGrath
I know, and call me a feminist, but I'm just so tired of this sort of patriarchal expectation that women's roles is just solely about having babies. I mean, J.D. vance, I know disagrees with me, but.
- [33:23]
Denver Riggleman
Literally, there you are. What a pogue. He's just a chud.
- [33:28]
Amy McGrath
All right, it's time for rapid fire. So, Den. Ma'am, this Week. Ron Johnson, who's a sitting senator from Wisconsin, said, and I quote, what actually happened on 9 11. What do we know what is being covered up? My guess is there's an awful lot being covered up in terms of what the American government knows about 9 11. And now Ron Johnson, senator, sitting US senator, wants to hold hearings on 911 whether it was an inside job or not. Do you think the Senate should be using taxpayer dollars to hold these, these hearings?
- [34:10]
Denver Riggleman
Then it would be exactly the same as holding hearings on alien abductions, Bigfoot breeding populations in the Northwest, interdimensional energy beings as part of the voting population. It's about the exact same thing. The other thing too, what really bothers me, you know, what was Ben and Jennifer Lopez. They were Bennifer, right? When you put them together, right?
- [34:35]
Amy McGrath
Yeah.
- [34:36]
Denver Riggleman
So this is Ron Johnson and Laura Loomer. It's rumor, right? Same exact belief systems. And Laura Loomer is firing people in the nsc. But now we're starting to see that we have a sitting senator who believes in the same absolute horseshit that Laura Loomer does. Here's the other thing about 911 conspiracy theorists. And you know, I deployed raptor 9 11. You know, this makes me mad. Like, this actually enrages me that we would be belittling or we would be, you know, diminishing the deaths of all those people based on just ludicrous made up fantasy is that 911 conspiracy theorists are the second worst conspiracy theorists on the planet, right above people who believe in crisis actors. And I think Ron Johnson might believe in that too. And I think what we have is when you have again, man, we're back to Russia, right? If you can't even understand that 9 11, what it was and you want to do something like that. I think we're to a point that we can't trust anybody in the GOP to make solid decisions if something like this were to happen. But I don't even have the words, Amy. I'm not actually, I'm not presenting to you my rage. I don't know if I have the vocabulary for that kind of batshittery and nuttery.
- [35:43]
Amy McGrath
It's just offensive. Read the 911 report. It's offensive that a sitting US senator would even bring it up.
- [35:51]
Denver Riggleman
I have a question for you though, Amy. And I know that this is near and dear to your heart. Right? Okay. Signal gate one, pretty bad. But I want to ask you, do you believe or why would you believe that Signal Gate 2 would be worse than Signal Gate 1?
- [36:06]
Amy McGrath
Yeah, I said this right away when it came out. Remember the first time Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, sent out time on target launch times, the strike package, bunch of sensitive, classified information. He sent it over signal, which is an app on your phone, which is not secure for classified information, and he sent it out to an Atlantic reporter and all of these other members of the Trump's national security team. Right. The. The Vice President and the Director of National Intelligence. Okay, so that was like Signal Gate 1. And everybody went and said that was wrong and stupid, and I was part of that. Signal Gate 2 is different. It is different. It is not the same thing. Here's why. This time, Pete Hegseth set up the chat himself. And he sent that same information then, not to other members of the cabinet, not to other members of the national security team, but to his wife and his friends and family, people he knew did not have a clearance, people he knew had no reason to know at all the time on targets, the launch times, the strike package, and all of the sensitive details. And he sent that over signal chat. And so to me, it's not just a mistake. It is willful misconduct. Because to me, that's not about the signal chat anymore. That's about classified information that he is pushing to people who are uncleared. Okay? And to me and you, you know, that's. That's like a felony.
- [37:56]
Denver Riggleman
It is. And.
- [37:57]
Amy McGrath
Right.
- [37:58]
Denver Riggleman
It's worse, though. You're right. It's awful. You're right. You. You nailed it. But also, we have a nepotism issue. Didn't Hegseth put his brother, his name is Phil Hegseth, right. Into a high government position? We don't know if he was vetted for the clearance for that high government position. His wife has no government position. I almost said something very inappropriate about medals, but I think we have nepotism mixed with the passing of classified information, mixed with using the exact same comms channel that absolutely shouldn't be used. And, Amy, I think I'm with you. That signal gate two is worse than signal gate one. I'm with you. I don't even. I don't even have the words.
- [38:43]
Amy McGrath
It absolutely is. None of these people had any. I mean, I don't even know why was he doing it. You know what? You know what? This is my take on it. He was doing it because he's never been in a position that mattered.
- [38:58]
Denver Riggleman
No.
- [38:59]
Amy McGrath
And he is bragging, and it's kind of like this is all new to him and fun and, you know, he wants to share with his friends and family, all the cool that he does and is completely unprofessional. And also it's this mixture of like, arrogance with also being unqualified. I've said this many times. If you're, if you can, if you're unqualified, you can muddle through. If you're somewhat humble and if your aides are telling you, don't, don't do that, don't, don't do that.
- [39:36]
Denver Riggleman
Yeah.
- [39:37]
Amy McGrath
And you, and you, you do it anyway. That's because you're, you're arrogant. And that, that is, that is who he is. But I want to move on because this week the White House, as you know, in previous months, since the Trump administration took over, the White House won't allow the ap, the Associated Press in the press room, but they welcome this guy named Tim Pool. He got the first question this past week on Wednesday. So who the heck is this guy, Tim Pool?
- [40:07]
Denver Riggleman
So great question. Tim Pool was actually, although he denied he knew, though it was proven, is a far right wing propagandist who was proven to be taking funds funneled through Russia. A specific individual, there was a hub and spoke of Russian directed funds that were going to far right propagandists and media types. He's also a person who wears a stocking cap sometimes to cover his bald head, but he's specifically a propagandist and he's somebody sort of in the lane. And I'm not trying to. He's sort of this, you know, in science I learned this term called asexual budding. Right. Where things could actually sort of bud off of things without any type of mating. Right. It could actually reproduce singularly. Tim Pool is like an asexual bud off of Jordan Peterson, maybe off of.
- [40:56]
Amy McGrath
Who's Jordan Peterson?
- [40:57]
Denver Riggleman
Jordan Peterson is this sort of this far right philosopher who's become very bizarre. Right. But I can even go better than that. He is, which is almost in line with the J.D. vance's. He could be an asexual butt off of J.D. vance, off Matt Walsh, who's another far right commentator. I don't know if you know about Matt Walsh, Amy, and I want people.
- [41:17]
Amy McGrath
But wasn't. Wasn't Tim Pool paid by the Russians?
- [41:20]
Denver Riggleman
That's what. Yeah, he was part of that whole. Spoke of Russian payment systems that were going, that were actually going to all these influencers, these far right influencers. So that's why, Amy, this question gets to me is that we're not allowing the Associated Press, but we're allowing some slime ball Russian shill who monetizes, lies and conspiracies to be in the White House briefing room. I don't even know where to go from there. I'm just to a point.
- [41:51]
Amy McGrath
Well, Tim Pool, I know, I thought, and I don't know this, but wasn't he the guy that like the Russian TV station was funding his operation? Now here on Truth in the Barrel, you know who's funding this? We are. And you are the listener. So like there's no like Vladimir Putin or, or anything, but anyway, well, rt.
- [42:19]
Denver Riggleman
So that's why I was being very careful. So the source funding they said came from rt. Right. Or it was a Russia Today sort of thing. However, there is a larger pool, no pun intended, Amy, of money that was being actually executed through a singular individual that was almost acting as a launderer. So. And this would be another whole nother show on how the money's actually flowed from this specific individual. I'd love to get into that one day, but that's why I was trying to. Is it all RTs? RT? But I could say specifically, you're absolutely right. This is a Russian funded influencer that was in the White House. And I think we're to a point that we know that we do have a pro Putin government right now.
- [43:02]
Amy McGrath
It's sad. It's very sad.
- [43:04]
Denver Riggleman
Okay, now Amy, you know we've had a lot of talk about women's issues today, right. And it's been profound. But I have to ask you this question and I'm always laughing before I ask it because I love, I can't wait to hear your answer. What do you think about the Pentagon's new powder room?
- [43:23]
Amy McGrath
You know, you know, so for those people that are listening, our Secretary of Defense reportedly ordered a, A, a makeup room to be constructed or at least outfitted so that he could look good when he goes on tv. And you know, I call it the powder room. I, I, I just think, you know, it's for, for a Secretary of defense who is consistently talking about making the military lethal again, by the way, the military was always lethal. I don't even know what to say. I'm just kind of like laughing my ass off about this guy. Here's the other thing that is interesting to me. Since this, this story came out then I can't, he has like losing his mind. He is like posting, he's having his rapid response social media team post. This is a lie. This is a lie. I mean he is like really triggered by this powder room. And, and, and the last thing I'll say about this. You just can't make this story up. Just can't make it up. Hey, get it. Do you get it? That's a dad joke, man. Do you get it?
- [44:43]
Denver Riggleman
You can't make it up. Here's the thing.
- [44:49]
Amy McGrath
I don't know. I love it. I just. I don't. You're on. The last thing I'll say, though, I will say, because there are some more serious things going on in the, in the DoD other than this crap. One of the things that the Secretary of Defense was like, super eager to do today in his annoying way, was to come out and say that he was getting rid of all of the Department of Defense's climate initiatives, dealing with, like, green energy and stuff like that. And he's, he's sitting there saying, you know, I'm gonna, We're gonna get rid of the. The climate change warship and the war woke and be laser focused on mission. The mission of war fighting. Okay? Everybody is always focused on the mission of war fighting. And here's what people need to know about green energy and the Department of Defense. Because I was in the Pentagon when a lot of this stuff was being looked at. Do you know how most of our casualties in Iraq, for certain, and then also in Afghanistan, the majority of them happened, they happened on convoys, Convoys going to outlying posts, convoys taking fossil fuels so that the outlying posts could have the energy that they needed. So the military actually looked at green energy as a way to be not reliant on those fossil fuels. And you know what that would do? It would save lives on the battlefield. Literally save lives. But because we have a Secretary of Defense right now who is such a complete, who is more focused on culture wars than real wars, he is, like, getting rid of this stuff and everybody's cheering him on, you know, because it's, it's quote, woke. Let me just tell you, I've been in the Pentagon. There's not a whole lot of woke people in the Pentagon. They, they have these, these offices, these programs, because they care about the war fighter and they care about saving lives and they care about winning in battles, and that's why they have them. And he's such a complete idiot. And the other thing, last thing I'll say, the Secretary of the Navy, current Secretary of the Navy, and the current Secretary of Defense are now also throwing away all of the plans dealing with the Navy and the bases. And this, this affects you. Denver in Virginia, the bases on the east coast dealing with climate change. So that's, that's fine. Let's look the other way as the sea rises and not plan at all for the climate change that we know that is going to happen and is going to seriously affect our naval bases, including Annapolis, Maryland and Norfolk Naval Base. It's just, it's stupid. They're stupid right now.
- [47:33]
Denver Riggleman
Amy, can I foot stop something you said real quick? What you said about using green energy to clean up the supply and logistics lines is so profound. And I think it goes beyond just climate change. We're talking about saving lives. And by the way, with the advent of technology, if we're looking at battery operated vehicles, you're looking at self driving vehicles, but you're looking at solar, you're looking at wind power, you're looking at water power, you're looking at much more efficient ways of powering equipment, especially if it's like auxiliary power. Right, Amy? When you're talking about water treatment, stuff like that. Yeah. Why not use green energy so that we do have less logistics issues and less people in harm's way based on resupply. I mean it's a brilliant, for me, it's brilliant. It's not just about climate change, it's about saving lives, it's about military readiness and operational readiness. So I wanted to footstep that for the listeners. That's a, that's a really brilliant point. Second thing, when you talk about powder rooms, shit, more Republican men carry makeup kits than the Democratic women on the floor of Congress. And I want to tell you why. So really quickly, there was a congressman from Tennessee who's still there and he came in and he was beautifully adorned in massive amounts of caked on makeup. And I'm coming up, you know, the aisle and I looked him, I'm like, dude, I was like, did you just come out from a hit? I mean that's a lot of makeup. You know, Matt Gaetz carried his own makeup bag everywhere. I mean if this, listen, if this guy got medals for the number of cameras that he accosted, he'd have so many medals. Right? Yeah, that's Matt Gaetz. Right. So Mark Rain. Oh, I'm sorry, I just said his name. So sorry, Amy. But he said, well, you know, we have to wear makeup because if I get hit with cameras or interviews, why. So when you leave the House floor and you go towards the rotunda to Statutory hall, you have camera banks on each side. So that's where you can actually peel off and get interviewed. Me, I'm like, eh, you know, every now and then, but a lot of those, they would just go straight for the interviews. Right. As quickly as they could. And that's because, you know, they wanted to get those medals for how many cameras they were on top of. And so I think that's. So I want to tell people this, that this is not a big Hegseth. Certainly needs a makeup studio, because that's how these guys think.
- [49:53]
Amy McGrath
Well, you know, Dan, I'm. I'm in a lot of chats, a lot of different text chains, shall we say. And I have a lot of friends who are women in the military. I'll just say that. And when this came out, I mean, the. The jokes that. That just got. Just were around. I mean, constant. Like, I had to literally put my phone down because I was laughing my ass off so hard. And. And. And to watch the. The Secretary of Defense, who clearly does not have thick skin about this issue, it's just. To me, it's. It's hilarious.
- [50:35]
Denver Riggleman
But they got as much makeup as the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Amy. I'm telling you, when they're behind closed doors, that's what's happening.
- [50:44]
Amy McGrath
I mean, whatever works for you. It's fine. I mean, it's fine.
- [50:48]
Denver Riggleman
I don't need makeup anymore.
- [50:50]
Amy McGrath
I think we have to end on a Cheers because this is an important piece of our show. We don't want to just throw darts and make fun and laugh the entire time. Most of the time. Cheers this week, then, to Pope Francis. Because, I mean, I. I grew up Catholic. I think that this is a man who was truly a holy man, you know, And I don't. I'm not. I don't have a great definition of that, but I've seen, you know, in my lifetime, going to Catholic schools and. And growing up Catholic. My dad was. Was in the seminary for a year.
- [51:38]
Denver Riggleman
That's wonderful.
- [51:38]
Amy McGrath
I remember when we had Pope John Paul and when he died and how big of a deal that was, and all of the tradition around the sort of changing of the guard, shall we say, and then Pope Benedict. And we're here watching that again. But the man himself was a very humble man. He was somebody who was the first non European pope for, I don't know, 1300 from. From 1300 years or something like that. And I just want to end with. With what I. I feel. This is the best quote, I've ever read that.
- [52:15]
Denver Riggleman
He.
- [52:16]
Amy McGrath
He said. He said, quote, we're. We're all born to help each other, no matter how difficult it is. Life is good when you're happy, but much better when others are happy, when. Because of you.
- [52:32]
Denver Riggleman
Here's Amy.
- [52:33]
Amy McGrath
I just love that. And here's cheers to Pope Francis. Rest in peace.
- [52:41]
Denver Riggleman
To Pope Francis. That is beautiful. And yeah, I don't know how to beat that, Amy. There's no way. So here's, here's what I want to say. If everybody wants to join us for this type of incredible back and forth. This content are probing, an incredible research that we do before the shows, but also what we say during the show. Please go to your favorite podcast and download us. Also subscribe on YouTube. Follow us on our socials. We're on Blue sky. We're on X. Guess what, Amy, she talked me into it. She goes, we got to be on true social. I'm like, you're right, Ms. McGrath. We have to do that. So you know what, everybody, if everybody watches this show and you watch it six times, you get a medal. You get a little digital medal. So everybody, just to make sure that you come back and you listen to what we're doing, Amy, thank you. Thank you for being patient with me here in California. Incredible show.
- [53:39]
Amy McGrath
All right, see you next time, everyone.
- [53:41]
Denver Riggleman
Truth in the barrel, baby.
- [53:43]
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