The dynamic that is emerging right now is we will, anytime you innovate or do something new,
we will take your Bitcoin and then we will throw it in our strategic reserve.
There's no law about hiding dollars under your mattress.
It's a free speech issue. It's a privacy issue.
They don't want us to have financial freedom.
Congress needs to pass some things protecting Bitcoin.
I hate to say it. It has to become like the economic Gaza.
They're not going to support politicians who go after Bitcoin.
It's a self-licking ice cream cone.
Like it exists to grow.
It's going to grow and grow and get great, great big, like a big old tumor.
Don't brag too much about how much Bitcoin you have.
You're going to have people coming after you.
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.
My name is Walker, and this is The Bitcoin Podcast.
Bitcoin continues to make new blocks every 10 minutes,
and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.
If you are listening to this right now,
remember, you're still early.
This episode is brought to you by Blockware.
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or don't. Bitcoin doesn't care, but I sure do appreciate it. Without further ado,
let's get into this Bitcoin talk.
Angela, great to have you here. I've been looking forward to this for a while. I think it was,
I'm trying to think what it was that finally reminded me that I needed to have you on this
show. I believe it was a poem that either you or AI wrote, I'm not sure, perhaps about government
shutdowns. I'm trying to remember, but it was, it was some sort of a poem or a limerick of sorts
that where I was like, you know, I should reach out. The night before the shutdown, maybe something,
something like that. Yes, that, that, that was it. That was it. I appreciated it. And, and yeah,
I was like, you know what, it's a, it's, it's about time for me to reach out. So thank you for
coming on here. It's a, it's really a pleasure and an honor to have you on here. You're welcome.
Thanks for having me. There are a bunch of things I want to talk with you about because you've been
quite a, came on my radar like a number of years ago. And you've been quite at the center of a lot
of things, not that you're trying to put yourself at the center, but more so people, you know,
people have been paying attention to you because you've been getting things done. You've taken a
very interesting and pragmatic approach, I think, to libertarianism as it relates to the political
party's activism. And I think obviously gotten some incredible results, like, you know, playing
basically the key role in getting Ross freed, which was, I think, everybody who is not a complete
statist cuck believes is an incredible thing. So thank you for that. I mean, maybe, can we just
maybe start out? How did you actually get into becoming involved politically with the Libertarian
Party? Like, what was that? I think you were working in law for a number of years. How did
you actually get into, like, being politically very active, like deciding that you needed to go
on that path? So first of all, I want to say getting active in the Libertarian Party and
rising through their ranks is it's actually not that hard. If you have a very high tolerance for
being like irritated, it's, you know, you just have to like be able to withstand things that
are annoying. So yeah, my background is, you know, just civil litigation, paralegal. I do a lot of,
I was, you know, working with attorneys that do constitutional law, especially when it comes to
real estate and real property, complex business litigation. I don't know, right? Just like
dealing with lawsuits. I really like lawsuits. I think it's very fun. And I was generally active
in local politics in the city of LA. So I worked on, I helped this group called Monday Night Mission
over a decade ago overturn a proposed ban on food, they called it food sharing and public
rights of way, which is feeding homeless people, which is totally nuts. And that's a whole other
rabbit hole, right? But, you know, they had this motion that they were going to pass,
and it was like pretty much in the bag. Everybody was in support of it. And in about eight days,
we flipped it PR-wise and held a huge protest and smacked it down. And we brought together,
there were like left-wing anarchist groups, like Food Not Bombs, who I was also involved in a little
bit, you know, very right-leaning church groups. And it was really fun to like, you know, win,
win. And there's a lot of issues with the homeless community in LA, but those are not going to be
solved by telling people you literally can't. It was, the law was so out of control. It was that you
weren't going to be allowed to have a picnic in the park with your friends. Obviously there were,
there was going to be selective enforcement, but the way that it was written is you literally
cannot share food in public, which is just, you know, it's nuts. I'm like, this is not how we
solve problems. It's typical government, like insanity. So, you know, after that, I worked on
a number of other issues. I worked on a medical freedom initiative. California has got one of the
worst medical freedom situations in the country. I worked to try to overturn a ban on religious
exemptions for vaccines in schools. We pretty much got the number of signatures to do a referendum,
but that was my first time encountering feds and subterfuge. And it was like hundreds of boxes of
signatures were stolen. So it was a really eye-opening experience. Yeah. And so after that,
I started getting involved in the Libertarian Party. And I think I'd gone to a couple of events
or meetups in 2014, you know, and then I kind of circled back in 2016 and decided to get
active.
And it was like a small, scrappy, you know, group of people.
But I was very interested, you know, I'm like, well, where do the libertarians go?
And I was like, well, they go to Panera Bread and argue about stuff, but occasionally get
things done.
So that was kind of like my very first entry into it.
Wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
I didn't know that Panera was the go-to meeting place of a military party.
I mean, for that group it was.
You know, they had a very lively, lively meeting at Panera Bread.
Just took over half the restaurant.
Well, you know, I can imagine the rest of the folks there were probably quite confused and maybe alarmed.
The non-statism happening there.
That must have been shocking.
Lots of like a giant horde of people in taxationist theft shirts.
They're like, what is this?
I love it.
I love it. Well, so, okay. So that's interesting. I mean, uh, there's probably a bunch of different
rabbit holes to go down there. Um, and we can maybe circle back on some, but I wanted to maybe
ask a little bit too about the whole situation with Ross, because I think this is something
that was particularly contentious for a lot of folks within the libertarian party. This idea that
you were somehow, uh, in the libertarian party was somehow, you know, like cow-toeing to Trump
and trying to, you know, this was like, what are we doing? Putting our, our support behind a, you
know we should be you know focused on you know the third way but then like it like it worked like
ross ross you know thank god like ross is free now he's back with his family it's incredible like
i'm seeing seeing that image of him walking out of the jail holding that little plant was like
one of the just i mean that must have just been incredible for you for anyone i think but like
just amazing like just wow but can you can you talk about that a little bit because
I think this kind of goes to this deeper philosophy that I've seen from from listening to you speak and seeing, you know, a various post that you've had.
You you have a very pragmatic approach to how you view the role of the like of a third party.
Can you talk about that a little bit and maybe talk about it first in the context of Ross and getting Ross free and like actually driving some sort of meaningful action?
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Yeah, I mean, it's like you can call it pragmatic.
It's like the mechanics of it is more like crawling through broken glass to get something done.
It is it is really challenging to move the needle in libertarian circles.
So I have a huge appreciation for, you know, libertarian academia.
You know, like I'm a diehard Mises Institute supporter.
You know, I chair nationally the Mises Caucus, which is, you know, not officially affiliated, but we were inspired by Ludwig von Mises and all the work done by the Mises Institute.
But academia doesn't move the needle politically, and it often becomes a circular firing squad.
And you'll see this academic saying, these guys aren't real libertarians and this isn't that, you know, and this big fight.
And there's just so much I want to unpack here.
You know, formerly in the Libertarian Party, there was this group called the Pragmatist Caucus.
And I thought, well, that's interesting, like, because they're like, liberty doesn't happen overnight.
And so when I look at what the Pragmatist Caucus is doing, like, they just wanted to take pragmatic positions, not move the needle forward.
I felt like nobody was really trying to actually advance.
Like we just want to come up with the best policy position or the best idea or theory. But I'm like, well, why don't we just do the thing? Right. Nobody wants to do the thing. So, you know, I kind of started tinkering, trying things like let's hold a giant anti-war rally with a bunch of like leftists. Right. Because they're the only other people.
There's a handful of people who are really mad about the United States participation in the Russia-Ukraine war.
So that was like a big thing, you know.
And we had some former, you know, Tulsi Gabbard was a speaker there and Ron Paul.
So I started just kind of trying things, you know, and it would blow things up.
I'm like, well, why don't we work with this group on candidate support so our candidates can be less cringe, you know.
People get mad about that.
so when rick grinnell approached me about donald trump i was very open to the idea because i was
like i just want to do something i just want to like make it happen so it's like i don't know
seven in the morning some hour that i'm not awake and it's my i have a i have a two-year-old and he
you know his entire like life he's he's a late night baby so seven a.m is early for me when you
have a child who goes to bed at midnight and, you know, wakes up all night to breastfeed.
So it's like 7 a.m. in the morning, late 2023. And I get this text message from Rick Grinnell
saying, oh, hey, Angela, my name's Rick. I got your number from some mutual friends.
I don't know what mutual friends I have with a former acting director of national intelligence.
so it a little like kind of kind of unnerving right but he like you know we really want to know what the libertarians think about president trump so i had a cup of coffee and composed myself and then i was
like responded and rick called me and i did this thing that libertarians don't do which is i was
very diplomatic um and i said you know like it's a you know we have a lot of thoughts um we really
like that he didn't start any new wars. We weren't really crazy about the drone strikes on General
Soleimani. You know, different views on borders within the libertarian movement. But, you know,
we love that he shook things up and we're sympathetic to him that he experienced lawfare
and we hope he beats it because it's because it's gross and wrong. And so I think I'm losing my
headphones sorry okay um i think that went over really well right and so rick was like oh let's
keep talking i'm not on his campaign team but i'm a friend of his you know so so i met with rick
he like flew down to meet us from wherever i think he lives on a plane i don't think he lives
in a house i think it just flies all over the place um and and uh we had dinner with him so
It was very surreal. He was a former ambassador to Germany under President Trump's first administration.
He's running the Kennedy Center right now, I think, and was like the special diplomat to Venezuela and problem countries in this most recent administration.
And so we're having we're having dinner with Rick talking about President Trump, me, my husband and my gig.
He was like a year old at the time, almost a year old.
Sorry, my cat is just screaming.
Can you not do that?
We're in an interview.
Don't worry.
Pets are always dark on this show.
Okay, good.
Debbie, she's chonky and always hungry.
Chonky, chonky, spoiled house cats like a lot of libertarians.
And so anyway, Rick was like, President Trump's going to call you right now.
So he just called on Rick's phone and Rick just passed the phone to me.
And I was just like sitting in this just like very like average restaurant.
in South Austin while Rick Grinnell holds my toddler. And I talked to Donald Trump on the
phone and I was like, what is my life? You know, it was crazy. And he was really sweet and
grandfatherly. And he's like, he'd gone through my Twitter and done like at least five minutes
of research about me, which I thought was very classy. Yeah. And I appreciated. And we just,
you know, like he was like, I want to get the vote. How do I get the libertarian vote? That
Joe Jorgensen, she cost me the 2020 election. The Democrats were stealing, but Joe Jorgensen,
And, you know, he knew all about he was like, she got five percent.
I was like, no, sir, she did not get five percent.
But she did cost you the election, probably.
I was like, Democrats stole from her, too.
You know, by the way, 40,000 votes of hers, poof, disappeared in Pennsylvania.
So, you know, basically, I was like, I can't like endorse you, put you on the ballot, make it happen.
That's just not like it's just not technically possible.
but um i can help you win the small l libertarian vote like if you want to compete for our votes i
can show you how to do that policy you know like commitments there's all kinds of things and he was
like yes yes i want the vote i want the vote let's keep keep talking to rick let's keep let's keep
talking let's work on it i mean that was the beginning of it right and so you know we continue
to talk with Rick and we got invited to go down to Mar-a-Lago like just a couple of weeks later.
And the whole time I'm thinking like, what am I going to ask? You know, and Rick is like,
the president is a deal maker. He's not a regular politician. You make the biggest ask you can
and he'll work on it. Maybe he'll, he'll work it down. You'll negotiate it, but don't be afraid to
make a big ask. So I started thinking, you know, and I'm sure you could figure out what I came up
with. Yeah. So, you know, I am thinking like, what do the libertarians want to see? Well,
in the Fed, you know, this and that, all kinds of things, right? But I'm like, well,
what can the president do? What can he actually just do on his own? And what is going to make
all the libertarians just go absolutely crazy? And it's got to be, whatever my ask is, it's got
to be just wrapped in emotional appeal. That is so important. It's got to be like a really good
return on investment for him. And it's got to just like, it's got to tug on people's heartstrings.
And I was like, it's free Russell Brick. That's it. Like, that's the ask, you know? And Rick was
like, make the ask. So, yeah. So I did. Right. You just did you just like come come out with it
Like right away, did you kind of like warm up the conversation or did he get right into it?
No, we waited.
I got to Mar-a-Lago.
We're having dinner.
It's like me, Rick, and just a couple of his staffers, trusted people.
And President Trump was late because he was testifying in a Southern District of New York trial at that moment.
So he was like 20 minutes late.
Yeah, it's so surreal.
And he comes running in and, you know, everybody stands up to meet him.
And he has such a presence.
And the first thing he did was actually he apologized for being late.
And he's like the master of this like side hug.
If you've ever seen him hug people, it's crazy.
And so I get like the masterful Trump side hug.
And he's like, I'm sorry, I'm late.
I'm late.
I came straight from trial, but I got a lot to say.
It's just like from an attorney, from a trial perspective, having a client who will not get off the stand, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I cannot even imagine.
So we sit down for dinner and we had already ordered because he had texted ahead telling us to order our food.
So our food comes out and he looks at my.
It was like a tenderloin or a steak.
And he's like, send that back.
It's not done because I'd ordered my food rare.
And Rick's like, President Trump, it's OK.
He's like, oh, sorry, sorry.
You're probably healthier than I am.
So I got to eat my food.
Yeah, he ordered his steak well done.
He ate it with ketchup and he did have a diet coke.
So that is true.
I've heard that before.
That's 100% true, yeah.
OK.
He was also very sweet to his wait staff, which I also thought was a very good sign that they were comfortable around him.
Nobody was tiptoeing around him.
I was like, this is like a real person, you know.
We've all been to dinner with someone who's just like tyrannical and horrible to the waitresses.
It's so uncomfortable.
It's usually a good sign about a person.
Yeah, it was a good sign.
We talked about drug war.
He's asking my boyfriend, my husband, have you ever smoked weed?
It's so crazy, you know.
He's like, it's okay, you can tell me.
I'm so sorry, I lost a headphone.
Can you still hear me okay?
I can still hear you loud and clear.
Okay, good. I can still hear you. We'll just let that one go.
Okay.
So we were talking about that. We were talking about the border crisis.
Like, oh, you know, maybe drug dealers, death penalty, maybe not such a good idea.
He was totally open to everything we were saying, which is just totally wild.
We're talking about how important economics is, the Treasury, foreign policy.
You know, and we're just kind of like brainstorming.
Like, I was like, what if you moved marijuana from like class one to class two?
You know, that won't be quite so controversial with the Republicans, you know, and it would balance out your fentanyl stuff.
And he's just really open.
He's like, oh, this, oh, that, you know, what do you think?
You know, so finally, it's like, what do I do?
What's the most important thing to get the vote?
And he wanted to speak at our convention.
He's like, can you make that happen?
Can I speak at your national convention?
and I'm like well that'll be um political suicide for me internally but yeah so that's I wrapped it
up in a nice little bow I said I think if you come to our convention and you say um you walk
out on stage and you say you'll free Ross Olbert I think you can come to the convention if you do
that. And I think that, first of all, everyone's heads will explode. They will all scream.
They will all vote for you, all the libertarians and the Bitcoiners will vote for you.
And they'll give you their money. And he went, huh, who's Russ Olbert? I'll do it. I'll walk
out on stage and I'll say, free Russ Olbert, mic drop. And I just, like, I mean, I had been,
you know, stressing over this for a few weeks. I'm like praying about it. I'm thinking like,
I do this. It has to happen because I can't get his hopes up, his mother's hopes up, you know.
Right.
I was like tied up and there's just, he's just like, yeah, I'll do it. It's just,
it was insanity. It was, I didn't even know what to think.
Just like that.
Just like that. Just like that.
And then, I mean, and he actually did do it, right? Like it wasn't, it wasn't bluster. He
did follow through. And he followed through not just with commuting the sentence, but with a full
pardon. Was that part of the initial ask or did that happen like later? Was that a surprise?
That happened four days before the inauguration. So I worked pretty closely with his team.
You know, I passed them all the work his attorney had done because his attorneys had been,
you know, for over a decade getting signatures of this person and that person and all this
advocacy. I passed it all over. You know, we work on this convention poll with the libertarians.
You know, what are the top issues you want President Trump to talk about? And I'm telling
everybody, you damn well better vote for Ross Ulbrich on this poll, you know, calling everybody,
make sure you vote, make sure you vote, please put Ross on, you know, and they're watching it
and they're listening to me, you know, and some of they met with President Trump met with Lynn,
his mother. I got her, you know, meetings with other people like, you know,
Kash Patel's texting me like, we're going to get him out. We're going to get him out. It's crazy,
right? It's crazy. All these people are like, don't worry, Angela, we're going to do it. We're
going to do it. And, you know, the election happens. And I mean, I'm feeding them all kinds
of data on Chase Oliver. I'm like, here's his that's our our libertarian presidential candidate.
I'm like, here's video of him, you know, in a rainbow cape at Pride Parade, you know,
screaming that voting and gender are non-binary and like here's some more stuff and here's the you
know and they're just like oh this is amazing because they were so happy they were so happy
with chase oliver as the nominee um when i told them that they were like yes i could hear the
whole room cheer when i was on the phone with their campaign they were just yeah couldn't have
gone better um and so then you know the election happens and i don't hear from them nearly as much
for like six weeks because they're busy.
And I'm just like, oh my gosh, you know,
am I going to get the BLM treatment?
Like how Biden, you know, kicked out BLM after he won.
I'm like, ah.
And it's like four days before the inauguration,
which I was going to and, you know,
had a nice seat before the rain and everything happened.
I just get this text from someone at the top saying,
Russell Brick, clemency or full pardon?
and it's like oh don't mess this up you know i just kind of had to compose myself you know
and i'm like oh flip pardon please if that's possible thank you so much
and i followed it up with a message about roger bear because by that time i had started to work
on that um and they were just like done promises made promises kept it's just like
so phenomenally classy just a class act the whole way through
i mean that's it was incredible to see the full pardon because obviously like for those of us on
the outside i think a lot of us just assume this would be okay ross is free sentence commuted but
you know maybe the pardon was going to be a bridge too far but to see that go through i think was and
and like justly deserved right i mean he i i cannot imagine what he and his his family went
through. And so that must have been just like such a, such a relief. Like what a burden off
your shoulders. Like it's not just a commutation. Like this is a, this is a presidential pardon.
Like that's as, that's as good as you could get, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was,
you know, so like on inauguration day, my phone is just like blowing up. I was, I was like physically
ill from stress by that time. Um, like having a Crohn's flare, you know, that I hadn't had in a
few years. Like it was tense, you know, so I'm like, hold up in D.C. waiting, you know, the next day.
I'm like, it hasn't happened yet. You know, and they're like, don't worry, it's coming. We're just
a few hours behind on everything. It's like it was kind of like at a conference or at a convention
when things run late. That's what the inauguration and everything was like, you know. And so right
when people there was just a crescendo of insanity about it, I'm like, I can't look at the Internet.
I can't look. You know, I'm being roasted alive. People are like, I lost my bed. He's not going to
do it you know they're like it's done and i call lynn ulbrick she's on the phone with the president
you know finding out her her son and it was so fast it wasn't like this j6 or drama where they
start moving around and trying to hide him you know the someone on the president's staff calls
the part the calls the prison and they got to do it i think they have like 24 hours to comply but
it's like they expect it within one hour so he was out wow i mean that's just like like still
hearing this now, it's just so surreal.
And I can only imagine even more surreal for you
and for Ross and his family as well.
I mean but what an incredible saga And it was just it was great to see that actually it was a very heartening moment you know seeing that actually go through that that actually happened And I think it was a great example of a let say a third let say just a third party a third option a third movement being able to move the needle on something that really matters
Like not just matters for Ross and his family, but actually matters in terms of the message that that sends, right?
the message that sends about the fact that he was in prison for so long a double life sentence 40
years plus 40 years without the possibility of parole that he was just absolutely made an example
of in this insane way when no victims were even named at his trial like that seeing him walk free
I think just sent a message that like look this stuff matters and you as an individual or as a you
know not a red or blue team person can move the needle and this kind of brings me back to like the
the larger idea of, is this how you view, or I should say, how do you view the role of the
Libertarian Party, whether that's the big L Libertarians or small Libertarians? How do you
view the role of that in terms of actually enacting change? Is it about winning, you know,
winning the elections and trying to take a big chunk of the vote? Or is it about
being a credible threat so that you have negotiating power? Do you know what I mean?
I do. And it's the latter. I mean, I think that we need to play kingmaker. And anybody who wants
to help, by the way, and I have a whole bunch of pardon I'm still working on, you know, go sign up
at lpmesiscaucus.com if you want to actually move the needle. For 50 plus years, the party has been
trying to win elections. They won some in the 80s. There was a whole thing with feds and Soros money
and, you know, that's a whole nother rabbit hole we can get down. The party's just got, like, wrecked.
But beyond that, I just think foundationally, like, the vision wasn't there that was going to
It wasn't going to sustain the party because they didn't plan this thing.
They didn't lay a foundation to enact realistic change, you know.
And so when I came in, I kind of turned everything upside down.
And, like, we can do it.
I tried it.
It can be done.
It can be repeated.
We need to kind of lean out of being spoiler, which is what the party is sort of settled into.
that like, oh, well, we just spoil elections. Ha ha ha. This is kind of this like joker,
nihilistic, burn it all down attitude. But then we, you know, you slap the word liberty on it.
Like, oh, because no one passed our purity test. We need to go from spoiler to fixer.
And that's what we did with the Trump campaign. We just want to improve things. We want to make
it better. For our first try, is it 100%? No. President Trump was not running a pure libertarian
campaign. We're not going to get it 100%. There are going to be things that fall through the cracks,
things that blow up. Sometimes those things are out of his hands. Sometimes whatever, you know,
maybe it's not. But the fact that we made any progress on our very first attempt is incredible.
And so I think we need to do this over and over again. Every two years, every four years,
libertarians need to pop up in the election cycle and say, these are our demands. If you can
follow our demands, if you can pledge, if you can do X, Y, Z, make it happen, we're going to
we're going to drop out of the race and we're going to vote for you. And if you don't, you know,
if you put up like a Mitt Romney character, someone that's, you know, like McCain centrist,
you know, neocon stuff, you know, we're going to wreck you. We're going to wreck you in the polls.
But you have to reward them when they do the right thing. And that's how you advance the needle.
And you lose the power to do this, I think, when you give up your ballot access, because people are
like, well, why don't you just join the Republican Party? No, because then we're just, it's just
diluted out, you know, and then we're just 1% of the Republican Party. When we are 1% in the
general election, 1.5%, that makes or breaks the election. And they know that. And that's where
the power is. Hold on to your ballot access. Hold on to your party, you know, registration.
just be willing to, you know, dispense with your vote differently when the time comes.
I think that that's a it's a great approach and doesn't is another part of this thing.
I've heard you talk about a little bit to kind of getting back to that negotiation of trying to say, OK, yeah, like we'll drop out and endorse you, give you the votes.
But also, like, we need to get something for that. You need to put some of our people into cabinet positions or, you know, is that kind of part of the strategy as well?
Absolutely. The other side of this. Absolutely.
So, you know, I'm trying to talk ideas of negotiating on Roger Ver's situation.
And, you know, a lot of that they don't want me to, you know, make public it because it's still little loose ends are being tied up.
But that was a lot of heavy lifting.
It was a lot of heavy lifting.
And, you know, thank you, voting bloc, for existing.
But where was I going with that?
What did you ask?
Just like getting people from, you know, of the Libertarian Party or Libertarian mindset, at least into positions, whether that be in the cabinet or other, you know, other areas.
Here's midterm asks are like, please let our political prisoners go. Right. Please do this. Please do that.
General election presidential year asks. You know, we need to repeat what Kennedy did.
And I worked pretty closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. too towards the end because the Libertarian Party entered into what's called a joint fundraising committee with him. He was running as an independent candidate, which meant the donations he could take from individuals were much smaller than a candidate who's running with a national party.
And giving him that donor ability increased his reach and his political power. So he went to the negotiating table with President Trump in a better position than had he been on his own. And so we sort of like boosted him to help him make what he did possible. And we need to repeat that every four years.
So Kennedy goes in and he's like, maybe I'll drop out, you know, and I think that they really were kindred spirits after that assassination attempt with with everything that's gone on in the Kennedy family's legacy, you know.
But it's like, you know, Kennedy's like, these are the things I'm passionate about.
You know, like I'm very upset over all the COVID stuff.
I'm very angry.
I have a very different position than you.
I'm very upset about how wrecked our health is, especially children.
You know, like, I can't just drop out and have no outcome. And people have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get me to the top. How do we resolve this? You know, Kennedy went in and he got a cabinet position out of it. And he got spots on the transition team. And, you know, Amarillo Spox was on the transition team, his campaign manager. And she was an absolute badass, you know, and she was able to put more people in. Even with HHS running on a skeleton crew.
the thing that happened was not just getting a few spots the tide turned and you know a lot of
people are very upset still about gaza they're very upset about epstein files they're very upset
and i hear you and i don't want to like diminish your concerns but for the first time in history
in i don't know 100 years the the we moved the not just we didn't move the needle we we reversed
course. It's really challenging, you know, to continue to make progress. But we have to keep
doing that. I mean, so now we've reversed the direction of things. So now let's continue to
push, you know, there's a lot, there's just so many things we can do. I would love to, in 2028,
send another Maha person and a Bitcoiner to the White House to negotiate as the Libertarian
presidential and vice presidential candidate. Could you imagine? Hold on to HHS, expand,
no more fights over the CDC director and that kind of nonsense. Have a Bitcoiner there who is making
transition team picks on financial policy. This is the future of the Libertarian Party
and Bitcoiners in our voting bloc. And I don't care about Libertarian Party activism.
That's not important, right? You pop up every two to four years and do this and repeat and repeat and repeat, and we will completely change the course of history because they know. They know that our votes matter.
I think I mean I love that position you're taking on this because again I think that it's
it's just very practical it's about like not how can we virtue signal with purity tests about you
know look at the the sanctity of our positions and yeah none of them ever get implemented and
yeah nobody ever gets into a position where they can meaningfully affect change but hey at least
we passed our own purity test it's like no what can we actually do how can we genuinely move the
needle by getting people in positions where they have actual political power. And you do that by
like, you know, we do have leverage. We have leverage in the sense of, you know, independent,
you know, libertarian or undecided voters who are principled and don't identify with the Coca-Cola,
Pepsi-Cola duopoly, but are willing to, you know, vote with their feet, right? And also who are,
especially, you hinted at this earlier, but just with the Bitcoiner cohort, it's like,
it's a it's a cohort of individuals who have an increasingly significant amount of economic energy
at their disposal this is only going to increase right and so it's like what do you do with that
what do you do with that there are a lot of bitcoiners i know a lot of bitcoiners have been
in a lot longer than i have who are sitting in you know they're they've become quite quite wealthy
now and it's like i don't just want to sit on this i want to do something i just i don't want
to go retire to my citadel and cut myself off from the world i want to try and make the world
a little bit better. I want to actually move the needle. And like, it turns out that money is a
great way to do that. And, but also you have to have the people in the positions that are going
to affect change. And so I, I, I love the approach. And, you know, one of the things that was brought
up over and over when I asked people for questions about this, this interview was the samurai case.
Cause I think this is one of the things that Bitcoiners are really focused on right now,
rightly so, because it's, it's insane on so many levels, right? Can, can we talk about that a
little bit and just kind of your position on it, if you think this is a reasonable one to
potentially get a pardon on at some point or a commutation, because to me, this whole case is
absurd and sets an insane precedent. Like these unlicensed money transmitter laws are just patently
absurd, right? At the end of the day, you're putting people in jail and giving them egregious
fines for writing open source software when they never even handled anyone's funds, right?
Didn't touch it.
Like, this is insane. That is a dangerous, dangerous precedent. Like, where are you at with this right now? Also, what can people actively do at this point to try and help move the needle in this case?
Yes. Okay. So I have been in contact with the administration about it, as well as Roman Storm of Tornado Cash's case, which is basically the same thing, but with Ethereum. There's several cases like this. There's Roman Sterlingov, Bitcoin Fog. I don't even think.
think he I don't even think he created it they just he used it you know and so they accused him
of creating it though or something right yeah they accused him of creating it but they're they're so
bad at what they do they're like well we found one person who used it therefore you must have been
the author of it it's just totally insane he is in prison right now and I think he's got like six
years left so these are these are free speech issues they are privacy issues um there's no law
about, you know, hiding dollars under your mattress.
It's just crazy.
And we're treating Bitcoin
because it's a new emergent technology.
You know, it's new to them.
It's still fairly new.
And they don't fully understand it.
Like they are wigging out over it.
At least the Biden administration was.
You know, President Trump's administration
has been a lot friendlier to it.
And so what I'm trying to convey is, you know, it's a free speech issue. It's a privacy issue. Also, they didn't hurt anyone. They did not take anyone's. They did not do what they were accused of, right?
Right. And if you let this happen, Bitcoiners are not showing up in the midterms.
You know, the other thing that I think is so disturbing about this.
Is that, you know, we're pushing for a Bitcoin strategic reserve, at least a lot of the Bitcoin movement is.
And if we can't fix these cases, the dynamic that is emerging right now is we will anytime you innovate or do something new, we will take your Bitcoin and then we will throw it in our strategic reserve.
And that's not the dynamic that we want, that we want for this.
But I think the administration is there. They're starting to become aware that, like, the Todd Blanch memo, you know, is not it's not being followed.
There are rogue prosecutors and districts like the Southern District of New York that hate President Trump.
They hate the DOJ new leadership They hate us you know and they happy to tap dance on our graves and defy defy you know like they consider themselves as like woke warriors for real justice real truth you know that that they going to defy everything that President Trump and Todd Blanch and Pam Bondi say
So it's a lot to unpack there.
Yeah, I mean, maybe one one point to start on there is this.
This is maybe zooming out a little bit, but this kind of like defy culture, right?
this uh yes because so much of the political is also cultural i think and so much of what moves
the needle politically is ultimately cultural and you see so many of these you know i guess
self-proclaimed activists you know who are who are defying trump or whatever because clearly he's a
democrat democratically elected uh dictator um or so they would have you believe so crazy you know
he's trying to make himself a king apparently um all of these things which is just like it's all
steeped in hyperbole. It's all just really like call out bad things. I'm generally the opinion,
like call out bad things when a politician does bad things. Don't, you don't need to make up bad
things. They do plenty of bad things already. You can, you can, you can find them acknowledge good
things when they do good things, because then they realize that, Oh, people see when I do good
things and those will be rewarded with, you know, public praise. But I mean, where do you think
we're at with just the, let's say the cultural vibe as it relates to the political in the United
States because we are obviously like the duopoly is very strong. We are clearly, uh, you know,
like, I don't know if we're, we've never been more divided, uh, but you know, whatever we're,
we're, we're divided, right? It's a, it's a, it's a forced duopoly. And, and it just feels like
reason is left at the door when it comes to anything my opponent does is automatically bad.
And this, this goes for both sides, right? Like this is a knee jerk reaction to anything. The
other side does. I need to denounce. I need to be against it. It's all this just reactionary,
like binary understanding of what is good and bad. I mean, how do we actually break out of that
cycle? Like is this is the this third influence, this this libertarian third party influence,
what actually allows us to do that? Or are we just kind of screwed and we just kind of trend
towards like alternating extremes as this pendulum just swings back and forth, knocking over
everything in its path. Yeah. I mean, it's, I don't have a perfect answer for this. You know,
I think, I think a lot of it is cultural. I think people have sort of reached a point of fatigue
with, with it, which is good, you know, but like democratic strongholds, they have not reached
fatigue. You know, they want to regroup and find a different way to approach it. And I think that
they learned like gender ideology burned people out and it was like too much. So they're going to
try class warfare again. So, you know, don't brag too much about how much Bitcoin you have.
You're going to have people coming after you. I lost all mine in a boating accident. Yes.
Yes. Very bad boating accident. It's terrible.
You know, I think the reason that the fighting is worse and worse every election cycle is because
more and more is at stake. You know, the more power is consolidated federally,
the more there really is to lose. Like it does matter who the president is.
It does matter. We've seen that. And so until we get to a point where it matters less, I think that we're going to continue to fight over it.
And, you know, I think Bitcoin is one of the things that can, you know, it can alleviate that situation a little bit as long as we keep it in our hands.
Which I think, you know, I think we mostly can do that. I think the way that it's designed, you know, prevents a lot of shenanigans.
But, yeah, like, we just have to have more things like Bitcoin. Like, I can't, I don't really fully know what those technologies are yet. But the more we have them that move our dependency away from a centralized government, the better that we are going to be. And if we can get just normal people to adopt it, you know, they may start to chill out a little bit and become less invested.
I think I fully agree with that. And it's something I've been thinking about and just speaking about a lot lately, which is just this idea that like people forget that the government does not give you rights or give you freedoms, right? You need to take them yourself. Individuals take their freedoms.
and luckily we have these amazing tools at our disposal now like like strong encryption and and
and bitcoin and all and like nostre that we're broadcasting on right now which like nobody can
can shut this down because it's again a decentralized communication protocol you've got cashew which is
built on top of the it's e-cash built on top the lightning network on top of bitcoin and it allows
for near perfect privacy like with trade-offs right it's not bitcoin at its base layer but
the point being we have all these incredible tools at our disposal but people need to use them
You have to use them and you have to be able to actively take that freedom back because otherwise you're just like, if you expect to have any, you need to do something about it.
And I'm curious, too, I think so much of what truly moves the needle happens in a very localized level, but people discount that.
Where are you at in terms of priorities as far as working at the national, federal level versus trying to move the needle at the local level, the state level?
How do you view that and kind of what do you think is the best path there?
I mean, is it obviously like a dual-pronged approach or, you know, is there one that moves the needle more for the average American citizen?
Yeah, I mean, it's a division of labor.
And so with me, with the relationships I've cultivated, I have to keep working at the federal level.
But, you know, like the Mises Caucus is basically focused on local elections.
You know, we want libertarians to, like, run on a race where you could actually win, you know, and where you can make a difference.
So if you're in a small town and your town council has like five people, run.
You know, you can spend $1,000 and maybe win that race because you knocked every door and sent everybody a mailer and did a couple of appearances.
You should do that.
And, you know, when it comes to issues of like affordability, there are so many taxes at the local level.
Like if you can beat those at the local level, if you can get rid of annoying permits that don't let people have like backyard chickens, you know, like if there's no.
and be practical about it by the way you know if your town has no backyard chickens like go ahead
and pass a law that's allowing people to have up to like 20 if you think that'll win as opposed to
like just completely you know all or nothing like you can do things like that um you can get rid of
red light cameras which cause more accidents by the way and then people lose money on like stupid
tickets that they should never be, you know, like, because you didn't come to the camera's
definition of a complete stop when there's nobody in the intersection.
You know, like, there are so many.
Guilty of that many times.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So is literally every human being.
Those are the sort of things that you can change locally, you know, zoning restrictions.
Oh, my gosh.
You know, there are, and then there are times where, like, it's a nuanced situation, but
you would know best because you live in your community.
Maybe you don't want the entire town to turn into renters, you know, and yeah, we're having some problems like that in the city of Boston, Texas, where it's like everybody on the city council is a renter except for like one person.
Can you imagine?
Like we just narrowly defeated a crazy property tax increase of like 30% because nobody owns a home.
So they're like, oh, it won't matter to us.
You know, it's like, yeah.
So you can do a lot.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
You can do a lot at the local level.
And, you know, I think that you should spend more attention at the local level and just pop up once or twice a year to deal with some federal issue.
You know, like if you want to run a spoiler kingmaker candidate, do that.
But don't make it like your life's work.
You know, like that's like a five-month project.
And then go back to your life.
I mean, I think that that's great advice.
And again, people often, for whatever reason, just discount that local power, right?
Even though it's the thing that really does affect your day-to-day life the most.
Like, yes, what happens in the federal government matters, right?
It matters who we happen to be waging war.
I mean, not officially waging war with because we haven't actually, Congress hasn't declared war in a very, very long time.
Quite a while.
It's a whole different story.
Yeah, quite a while.
But what happens in your local community genuinely matters.
and it matters to you and your neighbors and like the people that you're around the most, right?
And you have the best chance of actually, like you said, you might be able to spend a thousand
dollars and maybe do a little bit of targeted social media, you know, advertising and send
out a couple of pamphlets and go shake some hands and, and get yourself elected. And I feel like
that's what, that's what it sort of takes to begin that bottom up approach of reshaping things,
because people also forget that the federal government was never meant to be this big.
It was never, never, ever meant to be this big. Like our founding fathers be rolling over are certainly rolling over in their graves. Yeah. Seeing what's happening now. Do you have any thoughts on on that on just, I guess, ways to meaningfully shrink the federal government? Because it seems that at the at the federal level, no matter which side is in power, they even the, you know, even the, quote, conservatives.
it's like the government just keeps getting bigger and bigger and more bloated.
And even the, you know, the Doge initiatives didn't, I mean,
I think Elon Musk truly tried there.
I think that was very disillusioning for him,
but he couldn't even move the needle with that even after finding all this waste.
You know, what do you think about this?
Is there a way to do it?
They cut like a few hundred.
They cut a few hundred.
Actually, I don't know.
They've cut twice now, so I don't know what the number is.
It's not, I mean, it's not close to.
It's not nothing.
It's not close to a trillion dollars, but it's yeah. Congress is not going to do anything. So Congress, when people are like, I'm writing for Congress, I'm like, oh, that's very cute. Congress is it's not going to happen there.
there are people in the administration right now specifically in the office of management and
budget who are zeroing out that's where usa was killed and so getting people into cabinet positions
who haven't been it's not that everybody is a swamp monster that's not the case but you have
you owe a million people favors and you're just tied up and you become afraid to do something
even if you don't have like an unholy allegiance to Pfizer. You just, you don't have the courage to
do it. So getting people in, like how we got Kennedy in, getting outsiders into cabinet positions,
I think is the best way to do it. And so that's another reason you should do the Kingmaker strategy
because they can slash. And remember, it's our first time, right? So we're not making all the
cuts that we wanted to, but things are getting cut. Like USAID got zeroed out through cabinet
appointees. But beyond that, I mean, beyond government, it's just going to have to be
emergent technologies. Healthcare is one where it can definitely happen. And, you know, like
there's a lot of controversy over wearables and brain computer interfaces, which is this kind of
scary rabbit hole to go down. You look at some of the stuff China's come out and you're like,
But being able to take your health care into your own hands and to understand what's going on with your body and to have affordable treatments and just completely bypass the system, that I think is going to help us.
It can potentially prevent us from flipping to a totally socialized system because when people can't afford health care and they can't afford a place to live, that's where they just tend to go nuts.
If we can continue to make advances there while also maintaining autonomy over our bodies, I think that that will stave off the giant growth of the federal government and all that stuff.
And then obviously housing, you know, you're seeing a lot of pod houses now on Amazon.
It's like a little discouraging.
If we can find some technology where people can just build from the ground up and it's cheaper, like water, sewage, plumbing, all that, if that stuff also becomes more affordable, then I think that will also alleviate some of the pressure right now.
Because like Gen Z, they can't afford homes.
That sucks. That's not that's not good, you know, and so they're going to be incentivized to grow government because that's that's the solution that they see right now.
I think that that's such an important point when it comes to the younger generation is understandably, they don't have any hope for the future because they look at this and they see the boomer who bought their house for two raspberries in the 70s and now it's worth $3 million telling them to just pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just go hand in your resume at the local store and they'll hire you and then you'll work a nine to five job and you'll be able to buy a multimillion dollar house just like I did.
And it's like, no, that's just like, you know, from a, obviously I come at this through a, through a Bitcoin lens and it's like, well, you can't afford anything because the money's broken because we, there was a post on X recently, a guy, some boomer being like, and not all boomers are bad.
I know a lot.
really amazing super-based boomers. There's some really great ones, but this guy happened to be
one of the bad boomers. And it was like, oh, you want to buy a house? Cool, cool. Well, are you
doing, like, enlisted all these different things, right? And the reality is like, that has nothing
to do with you being able to afford a house. We've debased the currency perpetually. And it's like,
what would really move the needle? Like, you want to buy a house? Build a time machine. Go back to
1971. Punch Richard Nixon in the face as he's trying to take us off the gold standard. Better
yet, go back to 1913, make sure you walk into Jekyll Island, you know, and maybe nobody leaves
Jekyll Island, you know, like, I don't know. And maybe that fixes a lot of the problems that we
have right now. Um, I don't know if it's, can be considered a call for violence if I'm talking
about people that are long dead. So yeah, we'll, we'll see. Well, left us, left us talk about going
back in time and killing baby Hitler. So, you know, it's, there you go. So I think I'm clear
on this one, right?
We could also just...
They're understandably frustrated.
You can see why.
They have no prospect of getting ahead.
This is why Bitcoin is a really powerful tool for them.
But the problem is even there,
then they will look at it and say,
well, Bitcoin's at $100,000.
I've already missed the boat there.
You look for more and more destructive
sort of, let's say, gambling schemes
to essentially try and get yourself ahead.
And none of those really work.
Your best bet would be to just try and create value
and focus on your craft and save in Bitcoin because the government's not going to save you.
The monetary system is not going to get any better.
And it's like, you know, maybe if we end the Fed and massively shrink the government
and stop taking so much from people in taxes, you'd have a chance at getting ahead.
But I just don't see the Fed ending or the government shrinking meaningfully anytime soon.
Same. I don't see the Fed ending.
And I think we can put a lot of people in who are passionate about ending the Fed
and they are going to have their hands tied.
And it's not because they're not true believers.
You know, like I know that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants COVID shots completely away, gone.
You know, people are screaming in the Maha movement.
Why aren't all the COVID shots just gone?
You know, it's not it's not always that easy.
You know, you make an order, you're like, such and such is illegal.
It's done.
And you get hit with a bunch of lawsuits and regulatory, you know, and you're just like, this is insane.
You know, that's what ending the Fed is like.
I want it ended.
But I just I think it's been designed in a way that we can never push the red button.
You know, the red button is elusive.
It's the princess is always in the next castle.
So we just have to make it like nearly irrelevant, nearly irrelevant.
If you have like almost no money, I would say go get five dollars in Bitcoin.
Like I know it sounds like so silly, but like add five dollars, get a hundred dollars in Bitcoin.
Just add a little bit because it is going to grow.
You know, we've seen it.
It'll continue to do that.
And yeah, I think you'll be in a better position.
Like maybe it sounds silly.
I don't think it sounds silly at all.
And, you know, if you I tell people all the time, just just buy a little bit every day or every week.
Like and, you know, if you buy a dollar a day or five dollars a week or whatever it might be, that may not seem like a lot.
but that does move the needle. And again, if you're young, the one thing you have on your side
is you have time on your side, right? And Bitcoin does incredible things if you are patient. And so
that's where I hope that more young people find Bitcoin. A lot of just from my own analytics that
I have in talking to other people who are educators in the Bitcoin space, a lot of the demographic is
like is, you know, I'm a, I'm a millennial, uh, you know, millennials to Gen X to, to early, uh,
boomers. Like that's, it's heavy on the millennials and Gen X side. The Gen Z side is harder to reach,
right? Because like, you know, I'm considered ancient to them already, you know, and like,
I'm not even like so far removed. So like it's, it's that we need, we need more, uh, we need more
Gen Z Bitcoin podcasters, I guess, to step into that role. I think another really important thing
about adopting Bitcoin, even if it's just like a little bit, is it starts to give you a paradigm
shift. And so you're moving your attention away from like being hopeless to being solution
oriented. And you may start to notice other opportunities. Like it's really, it is really
like abysmal and depressing to think like, oh, I'm 26 years old. I went to college. I got a college
job and I live in an urban area where I can only afford a one-bedroom apartment. It's like a pretty
nice apartment, but it's one bedroom. I don't think I could afford to have a stay-at-home wife and a
child, you know, and it's like you have to just like, you have to start to like shift your
perspective in some way, I think, in order to escape that trap. And it's like the first thing
is to just literally look, just like look for something else a different way.
And I think, again, like just having hope goes a long way in this.
If you have no hope, you're not going to work very hard for anything because it's like, well, what's the point?
If you have even a glimmer of hope, then you will work your ass off because that glimmer starts to get brighter and brighter.
But you need to just have that spark.
And I hope that Bitcoin can be that spark for more and more people.
And it's heartening, too, to see things like Square, just like a couple of days ago, made their Square terminals.
Basically, you can accept Bitcoin now, like any of the four million merchants can accept it.
And like Bitcoin as a medium of exchange is also such an important thing.
Just overall, like the freedom to transact being, in my opinion, fundamental in terms of allowing all of our other freedoms to be taken by us.
Like it's really hard to organize and to protest and to pay your phone bill to, you know, use the internet if you don't have money, if your money can be frozen by the state, right?
And so like normalizing Bitcoin as a medium of exchange and as a store of value, but to young people, it's like, man, you can just start accepting Bitcoin for work that you do.
That's the beautiful thing about like the gig economy gets a lot of grief.
But if you do gigs and they're paid in Bitcoin, that's a different story.
Like that's a way to get yourself out of that gig economy eventually.
Yep. Yep. I get paid in Bitcoin. It's really cool. It's really cool.
It's the best. It feels like it should be illegal. But thank goodness they haven't gone that far yet.
Yeah. Yeah. I will continue to fight against that. Trying to get these guys out of prison is like, they're the tip of the spear. You know, they're the tip of the spear. We got to protect them because they're protecting us and they're making all of this possible for us.
So maybe a good opportunity here to just, okay, so you mentioned a few of the cases, the Bitcoin fog, the tornado cash.
We talked about Samurai a little bit.
Are there any other cases right now that you're looking at or that you'd really like to call attention to for people to kind of make some noise about?
Yeah, Ian Freeman is another one.
His website is freeiannow.org, I think.
Yeah, freeiannow.org.
um so ian freeman ran he ran bitcoin atms in new hampshire and they busted him you know it's the
same they're like you're not properly licensed you're not you know you don't have you haven't
complied with all the regulatory stuff no one was hurt you know the they they went after him
because they said well some people used your bitcoin atms to commit scams and it's like
he had better know your customer policies than most major financial institutions
He actually stopped some elderly people from being scammed. It's just, and of course, none of the people who actually committed scams, they didn't even go after them or attempt to, because that's not really what it's about. It's that they don't want people, they don't want us to have financial freedom, you know.
I think the judge that locked Ian up was also one of the defy judges, you know, who's like issuing ridiculous rulings trying to trying to tie up President Trump. It's just crazy. So, yeah, Ian is innocent. He is in he's in prison right now, unfortunately, federal prison. So I'm trying to get him a pardon.
And it's I feel good about it.
I mean, I feel optimistic because I know that President Trump recognizes how important the Bitcoin community is and how Bitcoiners helped him get elected.
So, you know, I'm hoping, definitely hoping that that will will push the needle a little bit and that Ian can get a pardon before the holidays.
Roman Storm also, you know,
and with Tornado Cash, which was more tied
to Ethereum, but it's the same
situation.
And these guys have just
been, same with
Keone Rodriguez, like they have
just been financially drained.
This is lawfare, you know.
So donating to these guys you know like please do They have tons of legal bills Attorneys are very expensive And you know we really hoping that the Samurai Wallet guys can get a pardon
I think they have to report in for prison in like five weeks.
So working really hard to get pardons before then.
it's it's just insane uh because
not like all of these archaic or not necessarily archaic these these just let's say fiat world laws
yes being applied to these software developers to anyone who looks at this just impartially and
logically it's just absurd right it's it's patently absurd there's there's no like it it
seems insane to make the case like the samurai case is a great example where it's like they weren't
even, I forget the exact how, exactly one time, but FinCEN basically said, no, you don't really
need this license or whatever. And then that's exactly what they were charged for was needed,
that they did it without the license. So it's like, there's not even consistency amongst the
different departments, which is equally insane. But I mean, I would hope President Trump obviously
understands lawfare, right? Yes. He's been a victim of it himself. I mean, does that give you
some hope that he's like, like going to be able to kind of move quickly with some of these things?
He knows what it's like to be on the receiving end, right?
He does.
I mean, it's crazy.
I had dinner with him while this was going on for him.
You know, it makes me optimistic about Ian.
The feds hated Ian.
You know, he was really a thorn in their side.
He was a very outspoken libertarian.
And when talk radio was big, he was a host of Free Talk Live, which used to be like a really big radio show, which I think would probably also make it.
He was a public figure, you know.
They went after him for things like that. They don't want people being loud. They don't like emergent technologies. The Biden administration went after all these guys. They also went after Roger. Thankfully, that case was dismissed and reached a settlement.
You know, he was facing 109 years for tax evasion, allegedly. And the feds basically like raided his attorney's office, kicked in the door and interrogated his attorneys with a gun. Like if that had been allowed to go, then there's no there's no more attorney client privilege, not just in big cases like that.
But the precedent is set that, you know, you're in a family law situation. Oh, you had a dispute with your ex-wife? Well, she can send the cops in to interrogate your attorney, you know, and now your family's gone. Just like crazy, crazy things. Like the free speech issues with samurai wallet and tornado cash. Like any code you write, any new technology, they could say that terrorists could grab it and then you're in prison.
And so I think that President Trump recognizes this, you know, and his kids are also there.
They're definitely dabbling in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
Right.
You know, it would make sense for him to protect his own children, too.
So fingers crossed, you know, I spend a lot of time praying about it.
I'm in church more often now.
Dear God, please, please, please, please, please.
And I yeah, I feel I feel optimistic, but it's a lot of work still.
so i mean and and pardons are obviously like really important for these people because these
are people's lives we're talking about this isn't just some academic question right this this is
something like we need some some immediate actions that these guys don't need to rot in prison and
get absolutely just destroyed even more so than they already have been and ripped apart from their
families it's so bad more so than they already have been i mean but like i was just gonna ask
going going forward it's like how do we make sure this doesn't keep happening again because
the pendulum again does swing back eventually it will like it's when we have a party duopoly a
political duopoly it's like that pendulum just goes back and forth and it's a question of how
far and how fast it swings and how many people it hurts how do we make sure that this stuff
doesn't just get reignited again with an even more fervent you know sickening sycophantic desire
when some some commie is in charge you know eventually hopefully that won't happen but like
it might probably will. I don't know. Yeah. Congress, the dirty word. Yeah. They need to
pass some laws. They have they have passed a couple. Congress needs to pass some things
protecting Bitcoin. I hate to say it. I think the other thing we need to do is educate Democrats.
People on the left, like we cannot just like forget them. People on the left who are in Bitcoin
circles, like we can't kick them out. We can't be nasty to them because they need to educate.
Like if all the like left wing Gen Z people started using Bitcoin, they would like it has to become like the economic Gaza.
I think like it's got to become something where lefties like are also really invested because then they're not going to support.
They're not going to support politicians who go after Bitcoin.
so i think that's actually a really a really good point is that beyond the political
it is about moving the needle culturally like making this something that is because that's the
and that's the frustrating thing too i think for a lot of a lot of libertarian or you know right
wing bitcoiners or however they want to identify whatever's not you know left right it's like well
yeah i have these opinions but like bitcoin is for anyone who is willing to learn that's the
whole thing is that Bitcoin doesn't care. It's agnostic. It doesn't care about your politics. It
doesn't care about your gender. It doesn't care about your, your gender identity. It literally
doesn't care. Right. And so anyone is free to use it. That's the beauty of it. But, you know,
I think like the left only ends up hurting themselves. And from the politician's perspective,
like Elizabeth Warren only hurts her constituents, right? When she rails against it. But, but they
don't see that. And to me, it's like one of the most American aligned with Western values,
ideas that has ever existed. And it's that separation of money from state and the freedom
for anyone to freely transact and use money and save the value of their time and energy in something
that the government or the central bank cannot debase. But apparently that's now like a fringe
idea or a right wing idea, but it's not. It's like, and there's a lot of people doing very good
work, I think, reaching across the aisle. Like there's the Progressive Bitcoiner is an organization
that's doing really good work with this.
But it's hard, right?
Because they've just been,
they've been steeped in this,
like just dog shit information, honestly,
from folks like Elizabeth Warren.
And sadly they've lapped it up
and haven't gone deeper.
But I hope that they do.
Yeah, we need, like,
there needs to be Bitcoin outreach at Berkeley.
There needs to be Bitcoin outreach
anywhere where there's like a hotbed
of leftist activism.
There's got to be Bitcoin.
And it's like you have to proselytize.
You have to proselytize.
I'm a Christian, so I feel like I have kind of like this like evangelistic approach.
And I know a lot of Bitcoiners do.
And you want to like tell everybody, which is great.
Make sure you are telling the people who you perceive to be your enemies.
Like those are the people like we got to go after them.
We got to go after them on everything.
Like that's like the whole like Charlie Kirk thing.
We need Charlie Kirk of Bitcoin.
That's what we need.
Yeah, it's a very good point because you want your enemies to use Bitcoin.
Yes.
That's ideal because, again, that's the beauty of it, right?
It's money for enemies.
And the more enemies that you have using Bitcoin, the less chances that they're going to try to use lawfare against you, Bitcoiners, just because they disagree with you politically.
Yeah.
That's what it comes down to, right?
We got to have discussions with people who are opposed to it. And we got to tailor those discussions for all of the people who are listening. You know, like, we want to change their minds. And I think that that is a really good way to protect Bitcoin and our financial.
Like one thing that I worry about is, you know, we get a Bitcoin strategic reserve set up and what happens to Bitcoin is kind of not exactly, but it is similar to what happened with gold that they are like, well, now we're confiscating it.
So if you have Bitcoin, you got to turn it in.
Like I worry about something like that.
6102 type situation with, yeah.
Turn all your Bitcoin in.
yeah at least with that i mean even during the 6102 like a lot of people just said like well
fuck you you know like i'm not giving you know giving you my gold and and and thankfully it's
easier to hide a lot easier to hide bitcoin than to hide gold you know it's more comfortable too
depending on where you're trying to stow it um but but yeah no i i completely agree with you like
even if such an order would not be terribly effective you don't want to see such an order
happen. Like you want politicians to ultimately be pro-Bitcoin. You want them to be falling over
themselves to see who can appeal to Bitcoiners more, right? To try and get their donations,
to try and get their votes. Like that's the ideal state. Like, you know, you don't want it to become
a political football It may just become that you know but ideally we don want it to Yeah I want them to be competing for our votes That really what they should be doing You know you in a good spot where they not just trying to silence you or ignore you or drown you out but they competing to get your attention
I wanted to ask you, too, just the Mises Caucus specifically, because you were the chair of the Libertarian National Party.
You're now the chair of the Mises Caucus.
and like just uh re you know reading over kind of some of the literature that you guys have too
and i think just like the bio of your twitter is basically like you're focused on austrian
economic literacy decentralization privatization and opposition to war and it's like yes yes agreed
those those are those are good things i can can you talk a little bit about i mean just the the
dynamics within the libertarian party for those who may not be familiar like how much of a like
how much power do the individual caucuses have? And, you know, is this something you're already
kind of thinking about and positioning for as we run into the next, you know, like presidential
election? Or how soon does that start, I guess? Oh, we're recruiting right now. So like there's
a major deadline coming up in California on the 17th to be signed up as a party member and
registered libertarian in order to participate in the February convention. We just need as many
people signed up as possible. We've been the dominant caucus for several years, but we've
experienced burnout and attrition. So I'm trying to restack us with Bitcoiners and Maha especially,
because that's what I see as like the future of the United States, our financial health,
and our bodily health. We really want to transform the national party so that the
express intention is to play kingmaker, you know, caveat being our candidates won't drop out if
the major party candidate doesn't give us concessions, you know, or if they're just atrocious.
But we want to be fixers, you know. And, you know, we do, we have a lot of opposition
within the organization, you know, what we call the old guard. Not all of them, but a lot of them
are like, no, my baby, you can't destroy, you know, and I'm like, you've had 50 years.
There is a real problem with the boomer generation. Not all of them. Some of them are very fine people, but they don't want to pass on the torch. You know, how old is Nancy Pelosi? And she's finally like, I guess I'm finally too old.
It's like your job, whether it's a political thing or a different, you know, a private organization, your job is when you rise to the top.
And like this is something I'm very passionate about, you know, and I'm always looking like I'm mentoring actually someone to take over my place, a really great Bitcoiner from Michigan named Amber Harris.
Like your job is to stay in charge for so long and then identify the next upcoming leader, pass the torch and mentor them and set them up for success.
And the boomers did this weird twist where they told all of their children they were very special, very special.
You're the most special kid ever.
And then they were like, psych, you know, we're not helping you get off your feet.
We're not helping you launch.
We're destroying the currency.
Oh, we think you're too stupid and incompetent to be in charge.
And we're going to hold on to it forever.
And that same dynamic exists in the Libertarian Party.
I hate to say it.
You know, when I was running for chair, there's like a 70-year-old man running against me.
Just like with all due respect, why aren't you like offering to advise me?
You want to like, no, dude, bro, step down.
Like let younger generations take charge of their own futures.
So, yeah, so that's one of the dynamics in the party, you know, and then there's just generally people who are more libertine.
so they're very passionate about sex work and drugs but they were really bad on covid
you know they don't care about war they're bad on god they're just silent on it you know
so those are kind of the dynamics you know and and i've uncovered and i'm certainly not done yet
there's a lot of work to be done but there was some soros money that went into people who went
into the organization in the 90s and it's all indirect right it goes to a foundation goes to a
foundation, goes to a guy, and then he runs. And it's like, it doesn't go directly. You know, and
the Mises caucus came in, and we kind of rooted it out, and then we tore it up. And I experienced
lawfare. You know, I got sued twice for working with President Trump. Our Colorado affiliate,
which tried to endorse Kennedy and had this whole liberty pledge with Republicans to basically play
kingmaker, you know, like they got sued and torn up. So it's been challenging.
but I'm not afraid
you know tip of the spear kind of stuff
like someone's got to be the vanguard
so what the Mises Caucus has done
you know is we have cleaned all of that crap out
so that people like you
so that Bitcoiners and people who are like
I don't have time for that drama
so that they can come in and work with us
and not have to deal with the drama
it's like you know we've been the garbage men
of the Libertarian Party
you know it's well hopefully a lot of that garbage got taken out um yeah you know i i wanted to ask
you as well this is something that i i think somebody you've met actually uh average gary
is what he goes by online but he's a bitcoin veteran and just a super great guy but he had
sent me a message before this just saying uh wondering if angela wants to sue on behalf of
all u.s bitcoiners because the samurai case admits bitcoin is money this would make cap gains not
applicable, maybe. And he clarifies, not a lawyer, but could be fun. Thoughts?
I mean, I could find you an attorney. I'm sure I could find you an attorney. Suing the government
is tricky because you have to ask the government permission to sue it. And then it gets to decide
yes or no. But yeah, there's some good securities, Bitcoin attorneys out there.
Might have ourselves a case there. I want to know too, because I want to be conscious of your time
here because we're we've got maybe you still have a couple minutes left yeah yeah I'm okay okay I
just I wanted to ask like because we've talked about a lot of kind of specifics here today but
I wanted to just zoom out a little bit and I'd love to know like what is what is your thoughts
on or what are your thoughts on just the actual purpose of the state like the modern state like
not from an academic standpoint but from a practical standpoint like what what is the
states raison d'etre in the modern world. Yeah. So I think it started as to defend your
liberties, you know, to defend your rights, like your rights already existed. And then we just
stuck this thing up to protect your right. And I think it exists now to grow. Like it's a self
licking ice cream cone. Like it exists to grow. And anything that gets in its way is bad,
is the enemy. So, you know, it's going to grow and grow and get great, great big,
like a big old tumor. Yeah. And that's why I'm trying to cut it down a little bit,
shave a little off the top. Yeah. It's like the purpose of a system is what it does, right? And
the state's purpose seems to be just to continue feeding itself and growing ever more bloated.
Yeah, I think it's profoundly impersonal. And so it's like, you know, it's not personal, right? Like it's nature, but it becomes so incredibly impersonal that it's like shocking, you know, the callousness and cruelty, the degree to which it operates, which you see, you know, in these Bitcoin cases, they don't care if they tear your life apart, ruin you.
It's like you don't exist. You know, you're just a you're just a resource, you know, and they just gobble you up.
It's kind of scary. That's malevolent, I think, too.
Sorry, say that last part again. It's it's malevolent, you know, like it's OK.
Yeah. Well, that's that's the difficult thing is, you know, the old adage of, you know, don't attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence or something like that.
But it's like, boy, sometimes there often does seem to be some malice in there, especially with just the vindictiveness of some of these prosecutions.
Right. That's what I don't understand is like who wakes up one morning and decides like I'm going to misinterpret the law to try and screw over somebody because they wrote open source software.
I just don't I don't get what's wrong with you that you would wake up and want to do that.
I truly cannot comprehend it.
It's like it's very hungry and it perceives you taking away its food.
And so it's going to smack you down really hard, really hard.
It's generally, I mean, I don't think that it's like really malicious and angry all of the time,
but that you experience that as a reaction to anything that it views as a threat to its existence.
And so it's like you just have to be on the lookout.
Like I just have to tiptoe really carefully you know please and thank you please and thank you And I try not to I don know piss off the wrong people I do you know sometimes but I try not to go out of my way to do it
I think that that's a difficult thing.
It's a very difficult line to walk.
And you obviously do it very well.
But for, I think for a lot of people, there's, and this is why I guess like anonymity and pseudonymity online is also a really powerful tool, right?
But there's also something powerful about actually putting your face or your name or both behind something that you're doing to show that, look, you can't just write this off as a bot.
You know, this isn't just a Russian bot farm, right?
No, this is a real person.
But when you do, when you put your face out there, you put your name out there, you are opening yourself up to threat factors, either from the state or from various actors.
There's a lot of people that benefit from the status quo.
and it's a difficult line to walk to figure out how hard can you push without you know being uh
being basically you know being taken out or silenced or having lawfare used against you
like lawfare seems to be the really the easiest way for them to do it and it's the one that they
can justify because they don't have to technically they it's not viewed externally as using violence
but like if you resist arrest like when they FBI kicks in your door they'll they'll kill you right
Like, so it's like crazy. And they use they use individuals to do it, too. You know, it doesn't always just come from the state. Yeah. I mean, I could tell you that being in the being in the Libertarian Party, you know, like the lawsuits and attacks I've gotten. They're not all just from like people. They're from organizations that propped up a particular person. Most of those organizations used to receive USAID.
it's
very
thorough. I'm curious to see where the money will be coming from
next year on all of this stuff. And we're like a small fry.
You know, there are other organizations who
you know, the attacks are just insane. And I mean, yeah, they pull out
the big guns for guys like Samurai Wallet. You know, they just go straight
at them.
I saw an interview you did
maybe a couple of months ago with
Ian Freeman's wife
talking about like her
talking about the experience of what
happened and when the FBI came in
basically the FBI stalks you for
a while and then claims that they
like oh we didn't even know that you were his wife
or that you were there and it's like of course you did
you liars like it's just
it's insane
that you can just be made a target
and then made an example of
and really unless there's, you know, folks advocating on your behalf, like unless you
have some sort of an audience, like so much of this, like just gets, can just be swept under the
rug and you can just be kind of disappeared and put away. Like thank, I mean, I'm glad we have
social media now because that gets harder even for people who are, you know, very, you know,
quote, small fries, but it's still like, you know, if they can, if they can do this, you know,
to president Trump, like, of course they can do it to you. Right. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Like poor
Roman Sterlingov, who was not even, he wasn't a U.S. citizen. He was, he has a, he has a Russian
name. I think he's Swedish. I think. I could be butchering that. Like he, they caught him. He was
coming through the United States to go to, on vacation in South America. And he was just changing
airports. They pulled him out and nabbed him. And he doesn't have a strong support base in the
United States, you know, so like he's just like locked up and I reach out to him regularly just
to be like, hey, you know, like I'm I'm trying to get you out. I'm still fighting for you. It's
taking some time, you know, but like if you don't have that that support base, you know, like you
just get swallowed and forgotten. It's so it's so incredibly impersonal the way that it operates.
For people who are listening right now and who are hopefully angered by this lawfare being used against software developers specifically, what is the best way for people to take meaningful action to move the needle, to get involved?
Yeah. If you go to freeiannow.org, sign his petition, that would be great. I'm going to be launching one for all of them soon at cryptoprisoners.com.
I'll add that in the show notes.
Okay, great. That just went live and we'll have the petition up within about 24 hours. And I mean, you need to make your voice known in the midterms. You need to, whether it's social media. I mean, I highly recommend you join the Mises Caucus and help us.
with our kingmaker strategy. I think there are going to be candidates who are running on this
particular issue and they need to be loud and they need to make their voice heard. You know,
I try to always be the carrot, right? I'm the carrot. I'm sweet. I want to have a really good
relationship with the administration. Someone needs to be the stick. And so I need a bunch of
sticks. And that's the dynamic that we have to operate in, right? I can't do it, but you can
be the stick. I love it. So if you're out there and you are feeling more like a stick than a
carrot, reach out and get involved. And I'll share both the freeiannow.org and the Crypto
Prisoners website just in the show notes for people so they can check those out. But really,
I do encourage people to, to use the voice that you have. It's also like, it's never been,
um, I sort of jokingly, but also not at all jokingly very often tell people like,
you should just start a podcast. Like you should just do that. You should just start creating media.
And, and it's joking because there's this joke about, you know, we need more Bitcoin podcasts.
We don't need more Bitcoin podcasts. There's too many. Right. The point being like,
there has never been a time before in history where independent voices could make themselves
heard so easily as you can today. And like, so like, look at the, in the last election, like
talk about, you know, media moving the needle, like podcasts, president Trump going on long
form podcasts and a bunch of them move the needle for him meaningfully, especially with younger
voters. Like this makes a difference. So like, you know, get involved, speak up, make your voice
heard, start a podcast, start a, you know, start, start evangelizing for whatever it is you care
about because you can actually move the needle now. And when you have that, you become harder
to silence too, because then you, you know, you have, you have a platform. So, you know, make use
of it, make use of the tools that are at our disposal and get yourself on, on Noster as well.
We need to get you back using it more. It's, I do. I need to use it more. I need to use it more.
Yes. So I am on it. I just need to use it. I'm going to blast out your, your account here.
please do i was struggling to put in a proper profile picture i was at the i was at the lake
satoshi is a michigan bitcoin festival and they the guys there and set me up with it it was it was
um it was like kind of hilarious they were awesome making it happen i i love it well you know that's
the beautiful thing bitcoiners and folks on noster are always happy to uh to help others get started
right? That's kind of the beauty of it. Angela, thank you so much for your time. This was really
a pleasure talking to you. You're welcome back truly anytime. Is there anywhere else you want
to send people or direct them? Did we cover enough? Anything you want to leave people with
if nowhere else to send them? I think, you know, I think we got it. I just,
you can make a difference. Don't feel like you can't. 1% of the population
can change the course of history.
I say amen to that, and that's a perfect note to end on.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thanks to everybody who joined live on NOSTER 2.
Again, if you're listening to this after the fact,
this is your sign to go and get on NOSTER
so that when they inevitably ban you from centralized social media,
you have somewhere to still speak and be heard.
But Angela, really, thank you so much for your time.
It was a pleasure.
Thanks.
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of The Bitcoin Podcast.
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Lastly, the deleted video editing
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