This Week Unfiltered 05.08.25 Today we’re taking an UNFILTERED look at the plans Donald Trump has for our military – will having more parades and fewer generals keep us safe in this dangerous world? Also, can the administration truly make America healthy again by cutting $880 billion from Medicaid? Plus, there’s trouble in the skies over Newark, Alcatraz is poised to return, and the President “doesn’t know” if he needs to follow the constitution. This is TRUTH IN THE BARREL – a different kind of whiskey rebellion. *This episode was recorded on May 8th,2025, and aired on May 8th, 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 are Donald Trump's plans for the military?
Today, we're taking an unfiltered look at Donald Trump's plans for our military. Will having more parades and fewer generals keep us safe in the dangerous world we have? Also, can the administration truly make America healthy again by cutting $800 billion from Medicaid? Plus, there's trouble over the skies of Newark.
Alcatraz is poised to return, and the president doesn't know if he has to follow the Constitution. This is Truth in the Barrel. I'm Amy McGrath, along with my co-host Denver Riggleman from Dubai. How's Dubai, Denver?
Dubai is warm and sandy. But I tell you, the people are great. I was just in Abu Dhabi today. I'm back in Dubai. So thank you, Amy, for your patience with me broadcasting from the United Arab Emirates about what's going on. So I really appreciate that.
Chapter 2: What is the new weekly live show by Amy and Denver?
Well, Denver, you are the international man of mystery, so you're pretty much all over the place, and it's great to do this show with you. We have an exciting announcement. We're so excited to announce our new weekly live show, which is happening starting on June 10th. It's called Cask Us Anything, and it's going to be the most distilled version of Truth in the Barrel.
It's just Denver and I talking about the news of the day, answering your questions. and, of course, having a lot of fun with whiskey. So please join us on Tuesday, June 10th, from 7.30 to 8.30 Eastern Time. Can't wait.
You know what it is, Amy? It's like the whiskey thief. When you put it in the barrel and draw it out, it still has the char in it. It tastes so good, but you still got that black char from the barrel. That is what it's going to be like on Cascas Anything.
But if you want to be protected from this dangerous world, as Amy said, and you want to see all this incredible stuff that we're doing, you have to subscribe. You got to go to your favorite podcast. You got to download us or you got to subscribe on YouTube. You better be following us on the socials or even on True Social.
So in order to get this incredible content to see two beautiful people in action, you got to go out there and subscribe. So you better go do it now.
Yeah, and if you want to participate in that live show, you're going to have to do it on YouTube because that's how it works, at least initially on the chat function there. So stay tuned. In June, we're coming at you live. Now, let's talk whiskey. That is very important, okay? It always is. So today, I am drinking one of my faves. This is Andean Black Corn Whiskey, Denver. It's from Lima, Peru.
It is Don Michael is the distillery. I love it. I love the taste of it. The water comes from 10,000 feet up in the Andes Mountains, and it's this purple black corn that they use to make the whiskey. And I just love it. That's why I wanted to highlight it. It's one of my favorites. Top five, I would say. Don Michael Andean Black Corn Whiskey. Cheers to that.
I wish I was in a place where I could do the bourbon thing or the whiskey thing with you, Amy. And by the way, if the whiskey from Peru is anything like its people, it's going to be beautiful and awesome. It's great. Yeah. Because I love Perot.
All right. Let's get on to this week's news. And, you know, you need to stick around, everyone, to the end of the show because there's going to be more whiskey drinking, at least on my part, while we celebrate some bright spots throughout the week. And we'll do that at the end of each show. But first things first.
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Chapter 3: Why is a military parade considered controversial?
Trump, of course, is Denver is constitutionally the commander in chief of our military. This is true. He's officially that. But, you know, he sees our military as as his toy. He sees our military as he's the owner of it. And I think what he's doing with the military right now shows you that. I mean, here's the first one, this military parade that he wants to have on his birthday.
Okay, let me just kick it over to you to get your thoughts on this before I...
Before you go off, Amy. Well, first of all, to have somebody who constitutionally is a commander in chief is true. But we also have somebody who's constitutionally challenged. So I think that's part of the thing that makes me very angry.
But the fact that we're having a parade like that thrown for Kim Jong-un or thrown for Putin or thrown for Xi is completely out of bounds of what we believe as Americans. We don't have dictators. But the fact that he's using resources, military resources to do this, when we're at a time where Doge,
is cutting all this federal funding, Amy, and all of a sudden we're spending, what, tens of millions, maybe $100 million?
Well, right now it says, right now they're saying $45 million up to $117 million to roll these tanks down the streets of Washington, D.C., these 90 heavy vehicles, 6,500 troops to do this parade for Donald Trump's birthday. I don't know. You're right. It's un-American. It's not something we do. And here's the thing that other people need to know. Not only the cost of this.
People that think that you and I were in the military. When do we march in the military? When do we actually march in parades? You march when you're going through boot camp, right? Or you're at the academies, you march. Once you get into your job... We typically don't march as part of our jobs anymore.
And to have this parade with 6,000 troops, people need to know that's just an enormous amount of time. And, you know, you're taking people out of their jobs. You're having to pay for their temporary duty. It's kind of a pain in the ass, frankly, to march on one of these things.
How about D.C. 's infrastructure, Amy? I don't know. Some of those roads, I don't know if you want tanks going down DC roads. What's gonna happen? Are they gonna blow off sewer lids hitting people? I mean, what's gonna happen up? I mean, it's just so ludicrous. It's hard to get your arms around that we're in America where you have idiots that wanna parade in their honor, a military parade.
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Chapter 4: Is reducing the number of generals beneficial?
First of all, I mean, so which generals are he cutting, Amy? What are the metrics to say that we have too many generals? I'd like to see that. He also said something sort of ridiculous. Didn't he say that it would actually, we'd have more manpower if we got rid of the generals? Right, that is ridiculous. It's ludicrous.
So first of all, let's look at the DOD combined budget, which is north of $800 billion. When you're talking about getting rid of 20% of generals, say that's only 44, that's the 20%. Is he talking about, and I don't know, is it one to four star? Is it specific generals and specific commands? If you actually knew how the military worked, that's a very difficult thing to say.
If you're cutting 20% of generals across the board, did you forget we have new commands? We have- Space Force. Space Force adds a specific amount of generals. So, okay, that's pretty interesting. How about with the number of bases? Since World War II, bases have actually expanded.
So now we're looking at a geographic expansion that takes more base commanders and more squadron commanders, if you're Air Force. Or in the Army, there's more companies, there's more battalions, there's more platoons, there's more Fifth Army or Tenth Army. You just keep going on and on and on. So I don't know if he's going to cut
Again, it's just a statement without metrics based on a person who still doesn't know how to use Signal. So I'm not quite sure if we should take them seriously. But if they do it arbitrarily, I'm wondering if those generals are actually anti-Trump generals.
The truth is, Denver, during World War II, we had nine five-star generals and 13 four-star generals and admirals. This doesn't make any sense. And the other thing about it is, if you want to go back to World War II, hey, you know the Air Force was a part of the Army? Are we going to go back to that? Okay. Here's the thing. A lot of people don't even care about this, but if you look at
What Hegseth is saying here, I don't understand the reasoning behind it. If he's thinking that it's going to save money, it's not going to save money. You're cutting, what, a dozen generals? That's like nothing in terms of money. Is it going to fix the bureaucracy of the Pentagon? You know, I worked in the Pentagon. I got to tell you, When you take generals away, the bureaucracy is still there.
I actually think it's going to get worse. Why? Because people are used to having decisions made at a certain level. So if you take some of those generals away, now those decisions still need to be made. They just need to be made by other generals, which is going to slow things down. You're just giving more people more work to do. It doesn't make any sense.
And here's the last thing I'll say about this. The military, as you know, Denver, is an up or out system. And so you want to keep good people. How do you keep good people? You keep good people by promoting them. So to me, having 44 four stars is a good thing because you're able to keep people for 25, 30, 35, 40 years who know what they're doing. Okay? We don't want to just get rid of them.
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Chapter 5: Why are military recruitment numbers rising?
What scares me is people being tackled because they're getting in the way of a military parade. I think that would be some of the worst images we have coming out of the Capitol. So we have so much incompetence, crazy, narcissism. and psychopathy that's going on right now in the United States government and the DOD. So anyway, it's insane. It's insane.
Before we move on from this topic, though, there's something I want to touch on because I'm still hearing it a lot among conservative friends and circles that I am involved in, and I am involved in some. It's the recruitment piece. So this notion that Pete Hegsath and the Trump administration have said, look, the recruitment, the numbers are way up because of us.
It's because of Donald Trump being strong and we're getting out all the woke stuff from the military. And that's why the recruiting is up. Here's the truth, guys. And this is what the show is all about. It's about the truth. The truth is recruiting is going up. it has been going up at the same rate for the last year. It's mostly a function of the economy. And that's the facts.
It really doesn't have anything to do with Donald Trump or Pete Hegseth or woke or any of that stuff. All right. And the other thing that people need to know, and I think is really important is all of this stuff about recruiting could be meaningless if
if you look at the fact that a quarter of the United States Army's first-term enlistees right now, at least in the last two to three years, Denver, aren't making the cut, meaning they're leaving. They're not finishing their four-year enlistments. A quarter. And why is that? Well,
Maybe it's because we're lowering the standards for people going in in order to meet those recruiting numbers, to get those numbers up. We're allowing more folks with criminal records, for example, in. You know that a very small percentage of Americans even qualify or are eligible to serve because of health and weight restrictions and that sort of thing. So this is a real problem. And
I just, them taking credit for the higher recruiting numbers is just a bunch of bullshit.
It is bullshit. I don't know what I can add to this except this. When you're talking about a quarter of Army recruits not making it through, part of that could be physical fitness standards. But I have another truth bomb. I would like people to go look at statistics of how many of those individuals that don't make it are men.
You know, one of the I think the burrs you've had in your saddle a long time is this ridiculousness on DEI. And as I'm listening to you talk in your stellar decorated career, Amy, my wonder is total. I bet you a lot of that 25 percent are men that couldn't hack it, couldn't hack the standards and are out. And I would love to see those statistics repeated.
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Chapter 6: How will cuts to Medicaid affect Americans?
I'll send you some of my younger pictures. But, you know, and the other thing, too, though, is with I put in doors for Hechinger. So, Amy, if you ever need a entry door or a sliding door, I'm your guy or even a storm door. But we made about with all that I made about four to five hundred a month. I can only work certain hours. And in order to have our child, we had to be on Medicaid. So I I.
I don't think people understand that so many red world districts are Medicaid dependent. As you know, I know that with the fifth district of Virginia, many of those are actually relying on Medicaid or the ACA. So I think it's sort of incredible to me that we're looking at an $880 billion cut on Medicaid. But we have seen a little bit of pushback, Amy. I don't know if you saw this.
Congressman Don Bacon from Nebraska, who is a friend of mine,
is saying he's not voting for this which could really throw this into a turmoil because now he said there's about another two dozen republic republicans that are secretly against this now what that translates to who knows amy but again medicaid is for underprivileged individuals you know some of them income challenged that need the type of medical assistance or aid and specific health activities that they couldn't otherwise afford or have the insurance for
Yeah, and Denver, there are 64 current House Republicans that represent districts that have a higher than average Medicaid enrollment number. So that's real. That may be why some of these guys are finally stepping up. You're scared. But here's some facts that people need to know about Medicaid. 40% of children in the United States- are covered with their health care coverage by Medicaid.
80%, 80% of children below the poverty line are covered by Medicaid. One in four adults with disabilities, 70% of nursing home residents are covered by Medicaid. Special needs kids, kids with mental illness, And how is it funded? It's funded by the states and the federal government. The federal government funds about two-thirds of Medicaid. The states cover about one-third.
But the states, as you know, Denver, administer it. And the states can decide who gets it and who's covered and who's not covered. And so that's why you see the different states have different variables in terms of coverage. You also see differences in the states because some states, frankly, have more people who are in need of that kind of coverage.
28%.
And that is also a function of what states expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. So not all states did that. And so when we're talking about cutting Medicaid, we're talking about cutting the very... Coverage for the most vulnerable people in our country. Children, people with mental illness, people with disabilities, seniors. That's who we're talking about.
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