Truth In The Barrel UNFILTERED 04.10.25 Amy and Denver give their unfiltered takes on Trump’s tariff retreat. How does this affect farmers and agriculture long term? Can the world financial market trust us again? Later, they discuss President Trump’s weaponization of the FBI for the sole purpose of revenge as he has demanded an investigation into Chris Krubs and Miles Taylor. Last but not least, there are rumblings the United States may be pulling our troops out of Europe. 00:00 Buffalo Trace 02:00 Trump Tariffs v. Farming and Agriculture 16:03 To Those Who Believe Trump Is “Trying” 19:23 Bailouts? 26:48 Retribution : Taylor and Krebs 36:30 Are We Pulling Our Troops? *This episode was recorded on March 27, 2025, and aired on March 31, 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 is the significance of Buffalo Trace in this episode?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to Truth in the Barrel Unfiltered. We have a lot to get through today. I'm Amy McGrath, and I'm here with my co-host, Denver Riggleman, a former Air Force vet, a former congressman from Virginia, and very successful AI business CEO and founder of a multimillion-dollar company. So just thought I would throw that out there. Wow. Happy to be with you today.
But we do have a ton to get through. And like all of our episodes, we're going to start talking about whiskey and bourbon a little bit. Why? Because it's fun and because we love it. That's why.
Well, truth in the barrel, right, Amy? Truth in the barrel. That's right. That's what this is all about.
And the first episode that we did, Denver, I brought out Buffalo Trace. Why? Because that distillery is right down the road from me. And normally, for our episodes, we're going to do a different whiskey or bourbon every episode. But for this one, we're going to bring in Buffalo Trace yet again. Why? because they are dealing with the double whammy right now.
The Kentucky River has flooded to extreme levels in Frankfurt, right near where Buffalo Trace Distillery is. They're cresting at 48.2 feet. And what does that mean? It means that the entire distillery is basically underwater. So they're dealing with a lot of stuff right now. And they're also dealing with these tariffs that President Trump is instituting or enacting.
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Chapter 2: How do Trump's tariffs affect the whiskey and bourbon industry?
And so that's why I'm drinking Buffalo Trace again, because they need some help right now. They do. And we love them. But Denver, tell us about these tariffs and how they affect the whiskey and bourbon industry.
It's a cascading effect of brutal, you know, when you're talking about tariffs, taxes, supply chain issues, because all that actually sort of is bundled up in one bad thing that happened to Buffalo Trace. So let's go through everything they're going through. You know, floodwaters. They're losing whiskey. They have insurance, obviously, millions and millions of dollars of insurance.
Let me just give you an idea. For me, on my distillery, my barrel house, we have about probably $5 million in insurance just in our barrel house. Now, not counting our distillery and all that kind of stuff. Their insurance has to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, right? And if you look at me, my insurance costs are $24,000 per year just on my barrel house.
Now, I want you to think about that, people out there. That's just a small craft distillery. So first, Buffalo Trace gets hit with a flood. Um, they've lost, probably lost product. Uh, the insurance is going to be, you know, going through the insurance claim stack. But there's another thing that happened to FEMA, right? As FEMA gets defunded, what happens with any help there?
And then there's that other whammy you talked about, Amy, which are tariffs. Tariffs are a tax on everything, right? That you're actually utilizing if it's coming from other countries. So let me just give you an idea of this, Amy, and I think you'll really love this. When we were looking for glass,
when we first started our distillery, there was only one real glass company called OI that was an American-owned company. All the other companies, right, were actually sourcing glass from China, Mexico. I think we looked at one, I think, in Portugal. So we're looking everywhere for glass. I think we even looked for glass in France.
I mean, this is, you know, even cheaper than OI glass here in America. So what we found was, is that American glass was so much more expensive. So we actually got our glass out of Shanghai initially. Well, when COVID hit, they put on COVID surcharges, which were sort of applicable to tariffs, which actually upped our supply chain costs to a point that were ridiculous.
The problem you have with tariffs, which is sort of shooting yourself in the face for maybe one of the biggest, right? When you're looking at bourbon, you're looking at whiskeys, it's so beautiful. You're shooting yourself in the face by adding cost to every single part of your supply chain. And you're like, well, Denver, what would that be? Stupid things like corks. Yeah.
You're like, what if it's only 8 cents more per cork? If you're selling, right, say 500,000 cases a year, and say one of your cases are six bottles, right? So you're looking at what, 3 million bottles. I'm just doing this, right? Do 3 million times 8 cents. And what if your glass also goes up 10%? What if your shipping cartons go up 10%? What happens then?
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Chapter 3: What are the economic implications of Trump's tariff retreat?
Well, you have to pass the cost on too. So now you have sort of an artificial inflationary measure based on tariffs that sometimes are unilateral. So I guess, Amy, what I'm trying to say, and I didn't want to make this too long, is that when you talked about the double whammy, right, that's going on with Buffalo Trace in Kentucky specifically, where you're sitting right now,
It's also the defunding of FEMA, the lack of monies for real support for infrastructure rebuild. When you're talking about roads and everything else that happens with Buffalo Trace, you're talking about their insurance loads. And now you're talking about tariff loads on top of that. This is how you destroy businesses through bad policy and the cascading effect of stupid decisions.
Yeah, it's terrible. And let's be real. The bourbon spirits industry is over 30,000 jobs in America. That's huge. it's huge and you know since when i graduated college in in 1997 the the spirits industry because of exports has exploded like 400 so they're booming and that's a that's great that's great for
It's great for the people overseas that are buying Kentucky bourbon, and it's great for the industry here. But these tariffs are just, the potential for them is really wreaking havoc and uncertainty. So that's where we're gonna start today, okay? Just a few days ago, Trump announced his liberation day, okay? And let's just bring it back to where we are. Trump announced his liberation day.
It shocked the markets, created uncertainty among businesses, created a ton of uncertainty among consumers and the American public. And so almost hours after they went into effect, truly hours after they went into effect, Trump reversed course. And saying that some people got yippy, and that's why he reversed course. He announced that he was pausing these tariffs, Denver, for 90 days.
And although there are still 10% tariffs on everyone and 125% on China. So that's where we're at. you know what happened to the stock market. And my question to you is, how stupid is this entire thing?
Now that's a hell of a question, Amy. First of all, we're on truth in the barrel. I do think Liberation Day created inebriation day for a lot of traders. I think that's the first thing, right? I think the other thing too, when you're looking at shooting yourself in the face, which is something this administration seems to be really good at, I find it amazing, right, Amy, that the day before
I think it was the day before, they said there was no way there was gonna be a 90-day pause. It was fake news that people were talking about a 90-day pause, then he does it. Also, how many people got rich by buying the dip? And if people knew about the, there's that. But the other thing is this, and this is what is incredible to me. So we lose $10 trillion in market cap, right? Gone, right?
Then the press – once he lifts these tariffs, the press reports yesterday. I mean they report, oh my gosh, it's the biggest single-day gain in history, which still needs to make up 2,000 more points to make up for the declines and losses over the past five days. It's insane. Amy, I don't know if we're to a point that the press is stupid. or they're culpable, or they're only looking for access.
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Chapter 4: How is the global perception of the U.S. affected by recent policies?
And under the last administration, the Biden administration, Biden didn't fix all the problems, but we had some acts that worked, the Chips and Science Act, the Infrastructure Act. These acts were actually moving us in the right direction in a targeted, strategic way, not this like stupidity that is going on right now. I mean, would you agree with that?
Or do you think that the Biden plan was terrible?
No, I mean, I thought the Biden plan was doing what he could do coming out of COVID. It was very difficult, right, to find the stimulus, right, based on the COVID policies, really, to start with Trump. You know, so Biden was doing, is it perfect? Absolutely not. There's nothing perfect in an administration, but there's still the rule of law.
And here's what I would suggest to people, Amy, that are listening. You might have really hated some of the things that Biden did or the administration did, or you thought that the CHIPS Act was too far, the Infrastructure Act was inflationary. There are things that you can say in stats, statistics, and numbers that might look that way. Okay. Yeah, we can have policy differences.
But if you're looking at an administration that's enriching themselves, destroying the rule of law, making autocratic decisions, ruling by fiat and going after enemies, I think we're looking at something that is so dire that even if you didn't appreciate some of Biden's policies, at least you could appreciate we were still America.
And I think when we see the difference in wealth when Trump goes into the presidency and when he leaves or whenever that happens, I think you're going to see a massive increase in his wealth based on the fact that he's mining the American people, right? At this point, he's mining the wealthy United States to line his own pockets. And I think we need to consider that.
Yeah, it's huge. And by the way, manufacturing construction soared to record levels under the last administration, but nobody talks about that. Let's move on to how these tariffs affect farmers. And this is really important to me, not only because it's here in Kentucky, but also I'm married into an amazing family with my husband and his family deals in the agriculture equipment industry.
business. So I have learned so much, much more than I ever thought I would, about agriculture equipment. And these tariffs are really hurting farmers. And they also get sort of a double, triple whammy right now, because as their prices for their crops are going down and have gone down continually and will continue to go down under these tariffs, because a lot of what they do is exported,
But also their equipment prices, their prices for seed, their prices for fertilizer have all gone up. And so they are really getting hurt right now or have the potential to get hurt tremendously from these tariffs. And during the last administration, Trump bailed them out with a $28 billion bailout. And there's talk of doing that again. I mean, at what point do we just say this is crazy?
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Chapter 5: What impacts do tariffs have on American farmers?
Yeah, so... I'd like to just sort of take everybody back because you mentioned this is personal to you, and it is to me as well. I know Miles Taylor, and I think he is an amazing patriot, an amazing American, and I'm sure Chris Krebs is as well. But these two individuals worked in the Trump administration. They were Trump appointees.
Miles Taylor was the chief of staff to the secretary of homeland security. It's CISA. Now, that's the Cybersecurity Information Security Agency. I know it's a long acronym. But what they do is they protect our elections from foreign interference. It's a very important agency, by the way, one that Trump is gutting right now. But what happened to Chris was that after the 2020 election,
He was in charge of that agency, and he basically came out and said, there's no evidence of any kind of fraud in this election. And of course, Trump fired him. And now he's trying to wreak retribution on him by basically opening and having the FBI open an investigation on him. And it's not only affecting Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor.
The president in his executive order basically said that I'm revoking the security clearances for everyone, for the entire company of Sentinel-1, which is a cybersecurity company that Chris Krebs now works for. And for everyone that works with him in that company. Like, how bad is that? That is like mob, boss, authoritarian stuff.
You're not only going after the two individuals who you don't like because they told the truth about you, by the way. You're going after their companies that they work for and then everybody that works with them in those companies. I just think that is... Something we have never seen before in this country.
And that is why it is so important that people understand the overreach of Donald Trump right now.
Yeah, it's it should be one of the most chilling things that has happened since this all began, since he was, you know, actually sworn in. So let's talk about why he's really mad at Chris Krebs.
So in the cybersecurity infrastructure, what is it, the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency in CISA, Chris Krebs set up an area or a way to debunk conspiracy theories that were coming out about the stolen election, right? So when you're debunking that, who are you debunking? Well, you're debunking Rudy Giuliani. You're debunking Peter Navarro.
Some of the, it's always the same names, isn't it, Amy? Yeah. You're debunking some of the people that people don't know about, like Colonel Phil Waldron, who's the one who sent the briefings to Giuliani and Trump about the stolen election in the swing states, or Seth Ketchell, or the cyber ninjas, right? Or Andy Biggs, all the congressional representatives from Arizona.
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