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 Quickening – The Pentagon’s new powder room – and much much more! 01:15 Whiskey Of The Day 04:14 The Zelensky Blame Game 15:41 Medals For Babies 31:35 Rapid Fire Questions *This episode was recorded on April 24, 2025, and aired on April 25, 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: What whiskey is Amy McGrath enjoying today?
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... Our Bicky 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. Das ist alles, was ich weiß.
Und hier ist, warum ich dazu eingetreten bin. Ich habe nicht viel, ich habe nicht viel internationales Whisky getrunken, aber mein Mann hat mir dieses Set gekauft. Es ist ein um die Welt Whisky-Tasting-Set und er hat es bei Costco gesehen. 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 the 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 Arbicci 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 this is absolutely the best i have ever tasted so so that's what i'm drinking today i can i can i talk about our bicky a little bit for you amy why it's so unique so i'll drink you talk 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, Arviki, 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? ist, dass es eine grüne schottische Whisky ist, oder es ist eine Rye Whisky, die nicht so unangenehm ist. Ich meine, es ist sehr unangenehm und nicht so üblich wie die anderen Whiskys, die in Skotland und Irland sein werden. Das ist der Grund, warum wir, wenn Christine und ich in Irland und in Skotland waren, wir haben ihre Rye Whiskys probiert.
Und ich erinnere mich auf einige Rye-Tastings. Ich weiß nicht, ob ich die Arbicci hatte. Aber Amy, der Grund, warum das Whisky so speziell ist, ist, dass mein Wunsch ist, dass es ein bisschen Toast auf dem Rye gibt. Sie toasten wahrscheinlich den Rye, wie sie den Malz machen. Und das gibt dir wahrscheinlich ein wenig, nicht nicht gepeatet,
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.
Well, you know, 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 love this the way I love it. 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 whiskey-tasting kit that he bought.
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Chapter 2: What are the controversial terms Donald Trump proposed for Ukraine peace talks?
dass Marco Rubio als Untersekretär einen Jungen namens Darren Beatty verabschiedet hat. Habt ihr jemals diesen Namen gehört? Darren Beatty? Nein. Er war ein Far-Right-Writer, der für einen Revolver arbeitete. Darren Beatty ist derjenige, der die FED-Surrection begonnen hat, oder tatsächlich die FED-Surrection-Konspirationstheorien am 6. Januar geblieben hat, dass Ray Epps und die FBI am 6.
Januar hinter sich waren. Das ist derjenige, der sein Untersekretär ist. Also, ja, 2019, der gleiche Darren Beatty wurde aus der Trump-Administration ausgewählt. Amy, weißt du, warum? Beziehungen zu weißen Nationalisten. Nun, wenn du dich an Putin anschaust, richtig, die weißen Nationalisten, christliche Nationalisten lieben Putin.
Sie denken, er ist ein Art Avatar für die neue, starke westliche Christentum, und er ist im Osten. But that's what's happening right now. You know, 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 I'm hoping that 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.
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.
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Chapter 3: How do Amy and Denver view the current US administration's stance on Russia and Ukraine?
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?
I'm gonna be pretty hawkish here. And Amy, I mean, this is where I love having our conversations. So here's what it is to me. If I'm president, Amy, the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna actually increase spending Right. 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 is 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 of yours. And, you know, I had to study 1090s, T90s and all that stuff. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to destroy your army in Russia and Ich glaube, wenn Sie das tun, wenn Sie das Captured Territory zurückgeben, werden wir 5-7 Jahre Zeit geben, 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 them a PFP country in perpetuity. Right. We want them 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've got to deal with him, is absolutely overwhelming force and a destruction of everything he holds dear in Ukraine.
Yeah, it's really hard to do. This isn't going to happen on day one, as Donald Trump simply lied about. But, you know, When you're talking peace deals, first of all, you should have diplomats that actually know what they're doing. Okay, 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... Die Grenzen sind enorm, wenn es um unfreundliche Menschen oder unfreundliche Nationen geht. 1300 Meilen auf der Grenze.
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Chapter 4: What is Denver's proposed strategy to counter Putin and support Ukraine?
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 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.
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 our EU allies, Amy, at this point. I just don't see any way around it. Even what we're talking about with J.D.
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 allies. I think 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.
And it's terrible. It is everything the greatest generation fought against and sacrificed for. And all the cold warriors out there that came before us, what they sacrificed for. And you know what? It's not that expensive to help Ukraine. It will cost us so much more in the long run if Ukraine falls. 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?
Well, I think they need to give medals to the women for sleeping with anybody that belongs to MAGA. 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.
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Chapter 5: Why is a $5,000 check or medals not effective for increasing American birth rates?
Among high-income countries, the United States is the only country that does not provide paid maternity leave and also has the highest maternal mortality rate. What are we doing? Seriously, this is just stupid land.
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 to... 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 side. But there is a longer-term effect here. When you're talking about, you know, my brother has ten children. So one of my brothers has ten, the other one I think has seven.
One has three, I think the other one has five. But they, my brother with ten 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 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 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 homeschooled, 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 is 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 worshipping these dictator figures and this bizarre sort of mix of Christian nationalism. I've never seen this.
It's like a 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 flow down of 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.
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 kind of like that women are in the workforce.
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Chapter 6: What are the real reasons behind the decline in US fertility rates?
Chapter 7: How do Christian nationalist and evangelical views influence US family and education policies?
Und es ist fast so, als würden sie sich wie alte Propheten aussehen. Es ist dieses neue, wir haben eine Haare, die wie Jeremiah aussehen. 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've got to 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'd 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? Russia does it. Russia, what, $16,000 to women with 10 kids? How about 15 kids, baby? We should be giving freaking coupons. 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. Oh, stop. We can do practical things to do that. 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 have no access to abortion, have worse maternal and child health outcomes. One of the reasons why you might as a woman...
Not consider having kids if you're in one of these states where, gosh, I'm looking at my finances, I'm looking at whether if something goes wrong, I won't have healthcare. I have to cross state lines to get the healthcare I might need if I have 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. zu, 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.
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