On January 27th 2025 President Trump signed an executive order to begin production on a missile defense system based on the design of Israel’s famous “Iron Dome.” Would the potential cost be worth it? Could something like that even work for a country as big as America? Join Amy McGrath and Denver Riggleman as they discuss this potential “boondoggle.” 01:42 Whiskey Of The Day 04:20 What Is A Missile Defense System? 14:00 Why Not Consider It? 23:00 What Are The Actual Logistics? 32:20 What’s In A Name? *This episode was recorded on April 21, 2025, and aired on April 29, 2025. About Truth in the Barrel: Amy and Denver are both military veterans, political junkies, and whiskey lovers who sit on opposite sides of the aisle but have one thing in common: they love the United States of America. Truth in the Barrel was born of Amy & Denver’s commitment to country, the Constitution, and a well-curated collection of the world’s finest bourbon. Join them weekly for deep dives into timely topics, interviews with recognizable guests, and a dose of call-in fun. Visit Our Website: www.TruthintheBarrel.com Subscribe to Truth in the Barrel: https://www.youtube.com/@TruthIntheBarrel Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0JQcSj5mwVyGDJ8DcXwlu9?si=5f2bd1d1b0c64e6f Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/truth-in-the-barrel/id1804092329 Instagram, BlueSky, Facebook, TikTok: @TruthintheBarrel
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts of Truth in the Barrel and what is this episode about?
Hi, everyone. I'm Amy McGrath, and I'm here with Denver Riggleman, and this is Truth in the Barrel, The Devil's Cut.
Love this. Love this. And, you know, today, before we get into the incredible story of Golden Dome, which, you know, it sounds sort of like one of the kids books, like everybody poos, you know, it's just sort of weird.
Yeah, we're talking today about Trump's new shiny idea of a Golden Dome missile defense system, which he has decided we need. based on Israel's Iron Dome system. And so this is really important because it's a massive amount of money. And we need to talk about the potential for this system, why we might need it, and how kind of crazy it is.
But first, I'm going to hand it back over to you, Denver, because this is Truth in the Barrel, and we got to talk whiskey.
Chapter 2: What is the Whiskey of the Day and why is E.H. Taylor's Small Batch Bottled in Bond special?
We got to talk whiskey because it is a devil's cut episode and pretty special. By the way, if everybody out there, you need to know, you can always join in the fun, the education, the incredible insight into what's happening every day by making sure that you download us on your favorite pod. And you subscribe to our YouTube channel. And you can actually see us on all the socials, Amy.
I mean, we're pretty brave. We've been on True Social, on X, we're on Blue Sky, just everywhere that you can find Truth in a Barrel, look us up. And then you get to hear things like Golden Dome and also Whiskey Tastings. And today, Amy, I have E.H. Taylor's Small Batch bottled in Bond, which is very interesting because Now, people are like, what is bottled and bond? And so E.H.
Taylor, I don't know if people know this, why this is so cool. E.H. Taylor was one of the first people to lobby for bottled and bond to ensure that distillers had tax breaks.
So what does that mean, bottled and bond?
What does that mean? Yeah, bottled and bond is a four-year whiskey that you're already paying the taxes on it, but it has to be at 100 proof, right? It has to be bottled at 100 proof. So when you have a bottled and bond, you have a straight whiskey, right?
over four years old that's bottled at 100 proof that's already been taxed it's been bottled in bond or in a bonded warehouse so pretty cool right yeah so in each taylor this is a bottled and bond this is very very traditional and if people know the history they're gonna love it each taylor started multiple distilleries around the around the country well in kentucky but but his stuff is everywhere and by the way this used to be a like a jim beam product do you know who bought this
Buffalo Trace. This is now distilled at Buffalo Trace's distillery, which I know, Amy, you're a Buffalo Trace fan. So we're looking at a bottled and bond E.H. Taylor. If people go look up E.H. Taylor, incredible, the distilleries he started. The distillery that he started today is actually Castle and Key. I don't know if you know that, Amy. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Been there. Castle and Key, right?
So Castle and Key rebuilt the original distillery. By the way... Gosh, I'm trying to remember the distillery's name. Two of the distilleries that E.H. Taylor started are now the baseline for Buffalo Trace Distilleries. So incredible history. E.H. Taylor is just an amazing person. And how does it taste? Well, we're going to do it now. I'm going to pop the cork.
I don't know if you could hear that, but I'm going to do a little, Ooh, a nice little pour. So here we go. So let's see, you know, let me get the nose real quick, but okay. I have a Glencairn class today for the nose. I haven't had my small batch in a while. This is special for you, Amy, as always. Oh, you know what the nose is? You know, I have an awful palate.
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Chapter 3: What is a missile defense system and how does it work?
Well, if you're looking at missile defense systems, there's pretty cool stuff, right? And, you know, my training and Amy, you know, me and you've talked about this, you know, based on your background being in the jet, my background mission planning for the jet.
So when you're looking at a missile defense system, you're looking at something that's almost an integrated air defense system that goes all the way from early warning to executing against a target. So that means seeing something coming as soon as it's actually launched to shooting it down with a variety of methodologies or a variety of warheads or weaponry.
Even when you're talking missile defense, you have different types of missile defense, which is interesting because we've talked nuclear in one of our shows and we talked about ICBMs. But missile defense could be anything from ICBMs to rockets fired from Lebanon into Israel, right? Or even different kinds of specific types of surface-to-air missile systems, even MAN pads, MAN portables, right?
They can shoot from your...
from your little shoulder here, all the way to very advanced mobile SAM systems like the Russian SA-15s, right, or even up to very advanced systems like strategic surface-to-air missile systems like the S-400, right, that can actually reach out and touch aircraft from a long way away, which you can put our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets in harm's way.
Yeah. Basically, you're trying to... You're trying to shoot down something that is coming at you in the sky. So if a drone is coming at you, a missile is coming at you, a cruise missile or something, a nuclear-tipped missile, the idea behind missile defense in all of its broad categories is we're going to shoot that thing down so it doesn't go boom. That's what this is.
Now, Donald Trump has decided that he loves Israel's – Iron Dome system. The Iron Dome system is a system that Israel has developed. It's worked very well against rockets coming from Hamas. It's worked very well against regional missiles coming from Iran. And Donald Trump has basically said, I want that for America. I acknowledge the idea. We all want to be...
safe from incoming potentially incoming missiles but um there's some real issues with this starting with the size of israel is about the size of new jersey and so protecting the entire united states makes makes it more difficult scientifically right i mean the iron dome as you know denver it's protects against regional missiles
Lower flying missiles.
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Chapter 4: Why is the Golden Dome missile defense system controversial and considered a boondoggle?
Chapter 5: What are the challenges in defending the United States with a system like the Iron Dome?
So we've been here before. Right. I mean, Ronald Reagan started what was called some people called it Star Wars. Some people called it the SDI or Strategic Defense Initiative. And the idea behind that was we'd have space lasers out there to be able to shoot down nuclear ballistic missiles coming at us. And here's the bottom line about what happened in that case. It was a super costly program.
It cost us over $400 billion in the 1980s. It proved way too technologically difficult to do, and we abandoned it. We abandoned the program because it was not working. And when you think about today and think about all that's happening in government with this, hey, we're going to tackle fraud, waste, and abuse, the Dodge people going up there and trying to do that, think about –
spending trillions because that's what this golden dome would cost, $5 trillion to build this thing. And you can say, well, Amy, aren't we more technologically savvy than we were in the 1980s? Shouldn't we be able to do this now? Well, it's still really hard. Scientists liken this to trying to shoot a bullet out of the sky with another bullet. It's tough.
Chapter 6: How does the size difference between Israel and the US affect missile defense feasibility?
It's really tough. And, you know, of course, spaceborne lasers, obviously, there's sort of an umbrella of defense, right? We do have a system that, you know, has a certain number of missiles in the dozens to shoot down ICBMs. I can't go into it much, you know. Amy, me and you have talked about this, right? I've always been absolutely impressed by what you've done.
My background has been very diverse in even space-based weapon systems. You know, I've worked the NSA, NRO, combined the joint angle. for specific programs in this area. You know, I've been to Cheyenne Mountain. I've been to Peterson. I've worked in Cheyenne Mountain, I mean, and in Peterson Air Force Base.
You know, Fort Belvoir, been all around there, but really worked a lot at Buckley ADF, right? Aerospace Defense Facility, which is now, I think they changed its National Guard base, but it's still, it's an NRO, NSA joint area that I can't talk too much about. But that's where I cut my teeth, right?
Um, and I think when we're talking about this golden dome thing, and it's interesting, I think they might've named the golden dome cause they had a trademark issue with iron dome in Israel. Um, I think what you're looking at is a- Yeah, because Trump loves gold, right? Well, not only that, but it's weird.
I think based on the rumors of him and golden things happening in Russia, like golden showers and stuff, maybe Golden Dome isn't the appropriate name for this, but you talked about how big this would have to be, trillions, right? Do you know that they're already running lines for funding through the appropriations process for Golden Dome now? Think about that.
without really a defined way of going about it. What's the first requirement? And it was like, Denver, it's a boondoggle. And Amy, why don't you define boondoggle for people? I think this is, I loved it when you said it. Yeah. Would you define boondoggle?
I guess that's not a term that people But we use it in the military. It basically means it's a complete waste of money, that there is no feasible way to get to the mission to actually succeed. And people are just having a lot of fun. with the money. I mean, it's a boondoggle, right? It means we're all having a lot of fun with the money that's been thrown at us.
When people say to me, why is this a problem? Shouldn't we be thinking big? Shouldn't we be tackling these technological challenges to protect our country? I break it down and try to remind people You know, there's three different phases for when a ballistic missile is shot and launched at us, okay? The boost phase, the midcourse phase, and the terminal phase. The most vulnerable phase
is the boost phase. So ideally, we would want to shoot down that missile that is launched at us in the boost phase. That's, as you know, the first three or four minutes of when it's launched up into the atmosphere, you know? And the idea behind this golden dome is that we would try to do that.
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Chapter 7: What lessons can be learned from the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) in the 1980s?
When you're looking at that, I think the one plausible thing is tracking where or how those missiles will be released, right, based on an I&W AI or advanced technology look at how these countries are actually deploying, for example. I don't know how far I can go. Okay. There's different things that happen before there's a missile launch, right?
We talk about people are moving things into place to launch something, right? If it's a mobile missile, it's going to be moving. We can track those movements, right? And we have different systems to do that.
But if our AI says that this movement happened or we're looking at historical precedent because past performance is based on future performance and there's Russian ways of doing business, we look at tactics, you know, Russian tactics, we look at Chinese tactics, which are the same. We can tell by past tactics what they're getting ready to do.
What if we could do an automatic INW without having thousands of analysts? We can take analysts out of the simplest part of the room. What is INW? So indications and warning. So that you're looking way left of boom, right? You're saying, oh my gosh, they just did it. You know what? When they did that announcement 10 years ago, they launched something. That's interesting.
You know, they might be launching something.
But I'm going to push back on that a little bit because like, so we get an indication that they're launching something. So what? I mean, you still have to knock the thing out after it launches. It's not like you can, oh, we're going to bring our space-based satellites closer now because we think they're going to launch. It doesn't work like that.
Well, retasking can. So when you can pre-position assets, so, you know, for me, right, if you're going into harm's way, right, and I already saw, and so say I'm doing, you know, a mission plan, right, and we have tactical operational strategic assets. So I got national data coming from NSA, right? I have data coming in from our combatant command, right?
That's looking at past historic data for order of battle. And I'm getting tactical inputs from aircraft or other areas or other prepositioned ISR assets. Say I'm getting all that data, right? And I have three things up, right? This is what I did. So I got three things up. And all of a sudden, I see a very specific system pop. right?
And that specific system based on microns or infrared might tell me that it's the Bob's your uncle system that we didn't know was there beforehand. We can pre-position assets quickly to mitigate the threat. So if we have indications and warning that say that Djibouti is already moving TELs, transport erector launchers, and I'm making this up, right, because I can't talk about the other stuff.
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Chapter 8: What are the phases of a ballistic missile launch and how do they impact missile defense?
Yeah, and I would actually not use the term going offensive because you're not saying strike them. You're just saying move assets to be in a more defensive position, okay, to be able to. Okay. I mean I hear you. I just think that it's harder than we make it out to be.
It's very, very difficult.
And here's the other thing I hear about people that are kind of pushing this, hey, we need to buy this golden dome. We need to invest in this thing. This is Trump's big thing. And he's a – you know Denver. He's a master negotiator.
And this all in his master plan, this Golden Dome, is like Reagan started Star Wars, and that's when the Soviet Union collapsed because they couldn't compete with Star Wars. And so now this is Trump's idea of bringing China and Russia to the table again. to talk nuclear nonproliferation or arms control, shall we say, because he's going to start this talk of starting this Iron Dome system.
I don't know. I don't know what you think about that, but I don't think Trump even understands any of this stuff. Doesn't. No.
I think if Golden Gnome was relegated to indications and warning left to boom for ICBMs, for any other type of possible prioritized targeting and terminal phase, and you can build the requirements for that, I think that's worthwhile.
I don't think it's worthwhile to go right into building a Constellation because your other question about the boondoggle is that there's two people that are really, really going to benefit from this because I think we've lost all competitive nature in contracts, and I think that's Musk and Bezos.
Um, so, and I also think, you know, the big boys, you know, you have the other competitors with the Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, sort of all the JVs, the joint ventures that are out there also building missile equipment and rocket equipment and satellite equipment for, you know, NASA and for NSA and for NRO and for our DoD services and all the other things we could go into on another, if we want to talk about satellite constellations, um,
I forgot more about that, I think. I don't even want to remember everything that I was taught in special access programs. So the thing that scares me here, looking at what the rational portion of this would be, which is a requirements-based appropriations process for looking at strategic threats in the nuclear space and strategic space. Wow, that's a good way to put it, right?
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