Assessing the Early Days of Trump 2.0

Famed libertarian activist and author Sean Dempsey returns to discuss early takes on Trump 2.0. We discuss Trump's attempts to sledge-hammer parts of the government (CFPD, U.S.AID, Dept of Education), potential attempts to cut military spending, assessments of Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr., the legacy of COVID, Ukraine, Gaza, trilateral talks with China and Russia, and more.

You can find Sean's latest book "Trump Again!?" on Amazon. 

Chapters

00:00
Libertarian Perspectives on Government and Corporations

00:00
Corporate Influence and Consumer Protection

00:18
The Debate on the Department of Education

05:01
Cultural Wars and Political Divides

15:55
The Culture War Distraction

17:31
Government Spending and Military Accountability

20:59
The Illusion of Change in Politics

24:12
Surveillance and Whistleblowers

29:55
Health Care and the Role of Bobby Kennedy

36:01
Nuance in Political Discourse

48:47
Pandemic Response and Historical Context

49:58
Lab Leak Theory and Censorship

51:17
Polarization and Nuance in Society

52:30
Political Accountability and Historical Reflection

54:09
Foreign Policy and Military Spending

56:00
Ukraine Conflict and Diplomatic Solutions

58:10
Trump's Approach to Foreign Relations

59:29
Hypocrisy in International Relations

01:01:41
Free Speech and Political Hypocrisy

01:04:29
Trump's Controversial Statements on Gaza

01:06:12
European Free Speech Standards

01:08:04
Final Thoughts on the Trump Administration

Show Info
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Twitter
@KevinAMaley
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Email
ZipcodeZeroPodcast@gmail.com
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Music
Urban Deer Hunt: https://linktr.ee/urbandeerhunt

Transcript

Kevin Maley (00:00)
I had mentioned a couple of times the CFPB. So that's the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. this is something that Republicans have always hated, I would argue, because it regulates Wall Street and they get a lot of money from Wall Street, as do Democrats, which is why it was kind of difficult for Democrats to get it passed. But they got it passed after the financial crisis

before the CFPB, for those people who have experienced overdraft fees, an overdraft fee being you have $50 in your bank account,

and you go make a purchase for $60, the bank will allow you to make that purchase for $60, even though you're gonna be in a $10 deficit, but then they'll charge you some absurd amount, like 35 or $40. They call it like an emergency loan, which is how they get away with it or something like that. But...

Sean Dempsey (00:51)
And a lot of times they'll hit that for

you every single day that you're in a Rears too. I mean, unless that used to be the case.

Kevin Maley (00:55)
Well, they also,

I've experienced this years ago, I remember going out and I had very little money in my account and you buy a pack of gum and then for $2 and then you buy a cup of coffee for $5 and then you buy a sandwich for $7. So three different purchases throughout the day. They'll hit you $35 or $40 for each of those so that at the end of the day you're scraping $100

and fees for like $2, $5 purchases. But one of the things that banks used to do before the CFPB is if you had $10 in your bank account and you make a $5 purchase in the morning and then a couple hours later you make a $20 purchase, the bank would reverse the order of those purchases.

like in its system so that both of them become subject to fees because the original purchase you had enough money for, the second purchase you didn't. And then if you reverse them, you can get fined in bulk. That's the kind of very low hanging fruit that banks would employ to screw over obviously working class Americans. This is not rich people who are getting screwed over this way.

This is people who have very little money and financial acumen and you can argue some irresponsibility. I would agree with that, but it really is predatory. And from the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau came around, that was the kind of thing that they would target. And the banks actually just stopped doing that without even being told, because as soon as the CFPB came online, they thought, this this practice can't, they're probably going to come after us for this. And those are the things that they would go after. They were actually,

Also looking at Facebook and X, X slash Twitter, had started looking into financial tech and potentially issuing their own currencies. People might remember Facebook wanted to issue a currency called Libra or something like this a couple years ago. Do you remember that? Yeah, and so the CFPB, it was gonna be some sort of predatory thing and the CFPB.

Sean Dempsey (03:06)
Mm-hmm, I do.

Kevin Maley (03:13)
was really looking into it with scrutiny and so Metta backed off. X wants to do it right now and really evade a lot of the existing financial regulations that traditional banks have to go through and so he wants to kind of get rid of the CFPB before embarking on that. So I think there's a lot of arguments people can make about government overreach and things like USAID which...

that seems to have largely been a CIA front. I mean, I think it probably does a lot of good things, but it was also just undermining a lot of governments. that is the stuff like the CFPB is the kind of stuff that concerns me. I'm not as concerned about the Department of Education or anything like that, but there are some real things that protect consumers.

Sean Dempsey (03:44)
you

You're not concerned with the Department

of Education. Why? You mean in terms of shutting it down or in terms of it being under threat?

Kevin Maley (04:03)
Yeah, I don't care. mean,

it's not, I think people misunderstand what the Department of Education is. It's...

Sean Dempsey (04:07)
You mean you're not for education

Kevin? What's going on?

Kevin Maley (04:11)
I think it was created by Carter, right? Like it's not, it's not like it's been around forever. Most of our education is done on a local level, which I think most Americans on the left and right would want. And I think the department of education now is just like absorbed a lot of student debt over the years. And I mean, actually, if, they take a sledgehammer to the department of education, can see.

Sean Dempsey (04:14)
Yes it was.

Kevin Maley (04:37)
the Trump administration handing over management of student debt to these predatory companies again, which really screwed people over when we were first coming out of college 20 years ago, almost 20 years ago. So that would be bad, but I also think a lot of people just don't know what the Department of Education does.

Sean Dempsey (04:55)
Yeah, well I think

it goes back to what I was saying before. Yeah, Department of Education, you're right, started under Carter. Reagan.

very passionately, that was part of his campaign promises to his constituency, said, hey, I want to abolish it, came into office and was unable to do so. And it's just as the old adage goes, once nothing's more permanent than a temporary government program. So that became another just entrenched government department that just sat there and sucked life and money and blood out of the soil of Washington, DC. And that is just, I think it's a perfect example of what is

just the totality of bloat that exists there. And it's just all these little disparate departments and agencies and bureaus that have existed and just they're like whack-a-mole that come up as long as you hit them, they don't go back down. They just come up and they never leave. they're just sucking. And again, in government, and this is the part that I think most people don't get, is government, there's no revenue center in government. Government is a cost center, meaning it does not

produce anything. All it can do to raise money is from us, from the American taxpayer. So we're paying for all this bloat. And so when I see something like Doge come along, I can understand where you're coming from and it's like, you're right. If Musk is, let's just give you the benefit of the doubt and say that he's attacking first or attacking some of the organizations that are gonna give him personal.

problem. I mean, think that's terrible and that should not happen that way. But again, from a libertarian perspective, all of these organizations in my mind shouldn't exist at all. I have no, there's no love lost between me and them. if they, I don't care if it's the perfect tool to take them out. If Musk is just happens to be what's what we're given, then I'll take it. I think Dave Smith had a good analogy the other day on his podcast. He goes, if someone's breaking into your house and you know, I wish I had a shotgun, but all I have is this,

this carving knife that I pull out of the drawer, then I'm gonna use the carving knife. I don't care if my wife's over there batting me on the head saying, that's not a good weapon to use. I'm gonna use whatever I have. So Musk is what I have right now. He's the weapon I'm gonna throw at the wall and see how much he can take down with him. But someone like myself, I think a lot of say the conservative persuasion are just championing him because I feel these organizations are about

10 to 100 times bigger than they need to be. Frankly, they should never exist at all, most of them. And so I don't shed a lot of tears if the right thing's being done for even the wrong reason. I guess I'll put it that way. And I also don't fear that private companies are gonna come in and fill this giant power vacuum either, personally. But I can understand how that's a concern or that's a gripe with the strategy. I'd rather see these things just all get torn to smithereens.

Kevin Maley (07:30)
then

Sean Dempsey (07:46)
because they never should have existed to begin with, for my chair at least.

Kevin Maley (07:50)
I think we should do a future show dedicated just to that topic of private companies, publicly traded companies coming in to fill the power vacuum if government regulation goes away because we could probably both talk about that for very long time. And I feel like there's just a lot of examples I could give, but maybe you would correct me on some stuff.

Sean Dempsey (08:13)
No,

don't doubt that. I don't doubt that. And again, just to correct the record here, I don't feel that it's outside the realm of possibility at any stretch of imagination. I feel that power exists in Washington, D.C. And that right there is the biggest problem. We need to get power out of government. And as long as that power exists, you're going to have players vying for that power. And right now it's bureaus and agencies and they've controlled that space for the better part of the last century. And if they go away,

you might very well have the pendulum swing the other way, and might have corporations come in and fill that.

that is not the solution, the solution is get the power out of government completely, or at least to control some of these agencies and these departments.

Kevin Maley (08:54)
Kind of an undemocratic

perspective though, right? Because as bad as government can be, it's at least somewhat responsive to the public through elections. I'm someone who views the government as very influenced far more by companies and then wealthy Americans and lobbyists. But I would say that there is some responsiveness, especially through elections to the

the actual voting public, even if it's five or 10 % of the influence of government, comes from the public. For a corporation, there's none of that. I mean, if you're a shareholder, you can buy voting rights, but that's about it. So at least for the government, I mean, when you say like, just get the power out of Washington, that sounds to me like, get the power out of democracy.

Sean Dempsey (09:34)
What?

No, wouldn't say that at all. I'd say that the power that exists in Washington is largely right now, as of 2025, the power exists not in these three branches of government like we are led to believe in fourth grade. Now, it's not like the executive or legislative branches are doling out the power. It's from these unelected bureaucrats. That's the problem that we have.

Kevin Maley (10:02)
which are in the executive

agency whose heads are appointed by the president who's elected by the Electoral College who's elected by the American people.

Sean Dempsey (10:10)
What?

Okay, well let's just pick on it anyway. So FDA, for example, here's just one of these many bloated agencies. The FDA can come down like, unilaterally on any organization that it wants and just dole out terms and saying, hey, listen, you need to follow these regulations and do these things and pay these fines. And there is no legislative process in that whatsoever. There's no guardrails around that. There's no guidelines. is simply whatever the FDA decides is best. Well, it is true. I see it happen all the time.

Kevin Maley (10:34)
That's not true.

If the FDA is creating a rule, for example, has a regulation, it has to go through the Administrative Procedures Act, meaning it has to craft the rule, it has to put it out for 90 days and get public comments, then it revises the rule. Then after the rule is issued, Congress has, I think, 90 days, I think it's called the Congressional Review Act, where they can just override the agency through a vote through Congress.

Then if that fails, the rule can be litigated, which they almost always are. I can't think of a rule that hasn't been litigated. And then that goes through the court system. So there's a lot of slowdown and veto points before a rule can come out. And then on top of that, the head of the agency is a point in, actually, not just the head, but the deputies and all that, they're appointed by the president who's democratically elected.

And I'm no fan of the FDA. I think it's totally bloated and corrupt and all that stuff, that's, it's, doesn't exist without any of those inputs or controls. It just so happens to be that like the people around it, like Congress and the president are also corrupt.

Sean Dempsey (11:41)
Come on.

Amen to that.

And again, I'm not trying to pick on the FDA any more than the SEC. I mean, I could just list three other agencies, but a lot of these organizations, they exist. They have these general mandates to do X, Y, and Z, and then they operate with tremendous latitude in exercising those directives. And they go after individual organizations and individual people a lot of the time with complete immunity, and they can put huge impediments to conducting business or living

Kevin Maley (11:49)
in both parties.

Sean Dempsey (12:15)
just healthy lives a lot of the times. mean, I've had people's lives, several friends of mine have had their lives destroyed by the SEC for arbitrary decisions that have no laws around them. just completely, what we feel the definition of X, Y, and Z is a commodity or an equity or what have you. And there is, these are organizations that are supposed to be setting up guardrails to help and establish rule of law and order, but they're just run by a lot of.

bureaucrats and they're running rampant. And so when I see organizations like this that are run by unelected bureaucrats being thwarted or audited, let's let's forget dismantling them for a second, which is what I would do. I just take a blowtorch to them all. But even if they're just audited, what's what's wrong with that? I mean, again, I don't understand the left opinion. Well, I mean, maybe you and I agree with that. But even that simple statement, I think, runs afoul from a lot of people on.

Kevin Maley (12:59)
Yeah. Nothing. should all be audited.

Sean Dempsey (13:10)
who don't want to see an organization that wasn't democratically elected, having any power or authority over an organization, that they feel, whether or not they're being corrupt or bloated doesn't seem to matter to them. They just want it to be run by the book, which is I think the biggest amount of feedback I've seen in social media sphere and others is they don't focus on the fact that the organization's corrupt or bloated. They just don't want the whistle.

blower to be Musk because he is someone they don't like, which I think gets into the culture war a lot, is that this whole thing has become a derivative of the culture war is my side's not winning, my side's on the defense, someone I don't like is sitting there with power and I'm therefore going to not agree with what's happening. So that's the gripe, that's the primary gripe that I see, at least in the political space, which is such a binary way of thinking. If we were truly a united country and wanted the best for our people,

We kind of wouldn't care about the

partisanship of it all. We just say, hey, let's just make sure we're focusing on things that we agree on. How can we make ourselves more healthy? How do we make ourselves less prone to war? How do we make ourselves more wealthy? And these are nonpartisan issues that we've just lost the plot and have an inability as a people to see. We're so focused on the, hate Trump or I'm with Trump divides that we just can't allow or shoot ourselves in the foot even when we're.

Kevin Maley (14:35)
I agree with that and I wish there were on the left, wish that people on the left

took that perspective when looking at something like USAID. mean, the amount of money that goes to foreign journalists that goes to clearly interfering with governments. mean, the stuff that made the headlines was like DEI training in Serbia and like, I don't know, like gender neutral plays in Brazil or something like that. the, yeah, but the agency, which I'm sure does some good stuff.

Sean Dempsey (15:04)
the culture war stuff. Everything left focused on the culture war.

Kevin Maley (15:11)
you know, like bring food to countries that might need it, but they're also trying to like overthrow the governments there. I mean, it's like clearly a CIA front and I wish more people on the left would see it for that.

Sean Dempsey (15:26)
Well, I mean, what

you just said, think needs to be clarified. It's like, yeah, it does some good things because that's the front. know, the front is just like saying, it's got great sushi. you know, just because there's a gambling ring in the back doesn't, why are you focused on that? It got great sushi. It's a silly way of perspective. I just don't like that perspective. A lot of people, I've, again, friends, I've had a friend I was talking to the other day who helped run for, he was in.

Kevin Maley (15:35)
Right, that's the run.

Sean Dempsey (15:56)
in Uganda, I think, for like three or four years for a USAID project. He was telling me all the great things he was doing. And I'm like, that's fantastic. I applaud you for it. think that that's an amazing, you know, that was the front part of the organization though. The problem is the back door that you had no privy to. Like that's the reason, that's what's getting audited. That's the part that people need to be paying attention to. And I got very frustrated how it all became about the culture war stuff. The culture war stuff just drives me crazy.

Kevin Maley (16:19)
Yeah.

Sean Dempsey (16:25)
because all the focus on the transgender or the woke-ism or whatever kind of spending here on that, that is just missing the biggest part of this whole thing is this organization was a front for the CIA. Why is that not the front and center headline that should be on every single newsstand in America, not the fact that it was giving $70,000 to some...

you know, some woke opera or something in Brazil, that's just, that's noise. Like that is so non-consequential. And I know that makes the headlines because the culture war is hot right now.

Kevin Maley (17:01)
Yeah, the media pushes

it, people click on it. I think to a degree the Trump people likes to push that out. Some of which were blatant lies. I don't know if this was USAID, but when they were talking about $50 million in condoms, they said we're going to Hamas and Gaza, which is not true. And then people thought maybe it was 50 million going to a place called Gaza in Mozambique. Then it turned out that wasn't true. It was actually like just AIDS funding going to.

Sean Dempsey (17:17)
You

Kevin Maley (17:31)
Somewhere. So some of it is just bullshit that they're also making up or just being stupid about. But yeah, it has been a CIA front that has been bad for a lot of countries on the spending issue and wanted to get to a couple other issues. But so I think you would agree, though, when you're talking about reigning in the power of government and what they're doing. Steve Bannon on his podcast, said recently.

You know, the real thing that they should do is cross the Potomac and go to the Pentagon because I would imagine you are aware that federal spending, the agencies that you were talking about, we're looking at a pie chart, are actually a relatively small amount of federal spending. mean, the federal government spends, I think, six or $7 trillion a year now. So even if you're a small part of the pie, it's still a lot of money, but most

Sean Dempsey (18:00)
for the Fed.

Kevin Maley (18:21)
Federal spending is either the military, which is a trillion dollars on paper a year now, probably a little more than that, when you account for things like nuclear weapons are in the Department of Energy and there's a lot of R &D that goes through NASA and stuff like that. And then there's the non-discretionary spending and pharma and social security and Medicare and that stuff that takes up a large part.

the government. Paul Krugman likes to say the federal government is an insurance company with an army. So would you, I probably know your views on the social spending, but would you agree with that need to go look at the Pentagon and not at the Pentagon and maybe cut that in half, which Trump actually proposed. I don't, see if he moves on this, but Trump recently floated the idea that we actually take an ax to the Pentagon. That seems to be the goldmine of corruption.

malfeasance of bad influence and of just American consumers, American taxpayers getting screwed.

Sean Dempsey (19:20)
Yeah.

Yeah, the Department of Defense has failed every single audit for the last seven years, right? mean, crossing the baton, well, basically getting over to the Pentagon, I think will never happen. I think it's a pipe dream. And this is why, to go back to something I was saying before, I think the culture war is this giant magic trick that's happening. think Doge may even be part of that, is that the organization that be, and this is the Trump administration and the corporate media kind of egging

on and fighting it out along with the population at large is basically orchestrated in this giant magic trick and they're saying focus look at look at this guys look at this over here with my right hand you know and getting getting all their attention so that the prestige the magic trick that's happening over my right hand isn't being looked at and that's the that's all the the spending that's happening at the military level that's how that's all the what the feds doing that's the inflationary robbing

We're robbing this blind by making the rich richer and poor poorer. That's the stuff that we're aggressively tried to keep our attention at large from focusing on so that we can focus on the culture war. And I think that as good as what I think

Doge is doing and must is doing and a lot of what Trump is doing frankly. I think that it's just simply, it's all a magic trick. It's all just look at all the great stuff that we're doing over here. It represents maybe 3 % of the budget so that we don't focus on the stuff that really matters. I mean, again, that's me as a black pill person kind of talking, the nihilist talking over here as I just don't think that that can ever change. Unless there's this massive revolt or revolution in our time, you're never gonna have the Pentagon on.

You're never going to have that money get out of our military. Our military is basically never going to have the auspices of the democracy at play. We're never going to see it actually looked at with any amount of foresight or...

any president's going to be paying any attention to it. At least that's my perspective. I'm hoping to God I'm proven wrong, everything that I've seen up to date has made it seem like that is, you know, Trump's going to get a third bullet heading his way if he starts to peel back that onion.

Kevin Maley (21:28)
Yeah, I agree. will

say historically speaking, we have had a few times when we did pull back on military spending. Almost in the 1930s, there was a bunch of hearings looking back at World War I and showing a lot of corruption between military contractors and the federal government, basically them all getting rich off the American taxpayer. there's, and it was the Great Depression. So there was a big pullback in military spending.

It seems like the Pentagon became sacrosanct after 1945, but we did have some cuts to the Pentagon after 1991. And that was a big concern, I think, for lot of Pentagon contractors. And that's when we started hearing about NATO expansion and liberal internationalism and humanitarian interventionism. And then 9-11 happened and we haven't looked back since on that stuff.

Sean Dempsey (22:18)
Yeah. Did you ever watch that Jon

Stewart interview? I forget who it was with. I think it was a secretary of somebody at the Department of Defense. And she was basically... Yeah.

Kevin Maley (22:27)
She was like an undersecretary. Yeah, she was like the number

two or number three under the Obama administration. She was very arrogant when he was asking her about failing those audits.

Sean Dempsey (22:33)
I think that...

Yeah, well I think that that is a great

example of just the arrogance and the hubris that exists. It's like we are this untouchable agency. I mean, I am deigning to be on your show just to talk to you right now about things that you couldn't possibly understand and just the way that she would just explain things, you know, using language that was couched in such deceptive language embodied in my mind.

exactly why we're never gonna see any push in that direction. But like I said, I will remain cautiously optimistic, but I don't think Doge will touch any of that stuff because it actually matters. I think it will stay on all the superficial stuff.

Kevin Maley (23:15)
What do you make of Trump's appointees, starting with Tulsi Gabbard, because I know that illegal government surveillance is important to you. It should be important to everyone, but there was a lot of reluctance to make her, for Republicans to vote for her, and guess Democrats, to vote for her in part because she refused to say Edward Stodin was a traitor. And I think a lot of Democrats, in particular Michael Bennett, I don't know if you saw this part of her confirmation hearing.

just really made asses out of themselves trying to get her to denounce Edward Snowden as a traitor. And she kept saying, he broke the law, he shouldn't have done it, but she wouldn't call him a traitor and that was just infuriating Democrats. I think he's a hero for the record. I think you think that as well. But then there is also, I think it's section 702. Is that the FISA backdoor one? Do you know what I'm talking about?

Sean Dempsey (24:02)
Thank you. I think he is a hero as well.

Kevin Maley (24:12)
There's basically part of the government surveillance laws that are reauthorized every couple of years. There's an aspect of the FISA law, which is the Foreign Something Surveillance Act, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But basically it allows it back to respiring on the American public. that's a lot of sort of more libertarian Republicans, I wish the Democrats would get on this, but I've been trying to claw back from the government and Tulsi Gabbard before she

Sean Dempsey (24:13)
roughly.

Kevin Maley (24:38)
within the last couple of years has been in favor of rescinding this power from the government, but then she reversed herself to appease senators who were voting on her confirmation.

Sean Dempsey (24:50)
Yeah, I don't know how much she's playing the game or really believes what she's saying. It is disappointing when she does back off of these more staunch or idealistic statements that she makes that I really support.

I mean, because like you just said, believe Edward Snowden is a hero and the fact that he is a whistleblower is vilified in the congressional hearings the way that he is. It's just absolutely dastardly to use a silly word. I just cannot understand how we are not, how we in 2025 still have an organization like the NSA.

and haven't completely dismantled it. After it was revealed, the horrors and the unconstitutional behavior that's taking place and the basically, the black book of funding that goes into it. mean, they have a budget, assigned budget of course, but they've never been able to audit.

And the NSA is largely committed to keeping data on the American people, which is as much in violation of our privacy as could possibly be imagined. And like I said, the fact that that organization exists is just absolutely outrageous. So someone like Tulsi Gabbard comes along, she should be on a soapbox deriding that organization, but instead she's taking half measures. so, yeah, what do I think about Tulsi? I think that she is a

right tool, she's the best tool for the job, or she just means she's the best tool we got, but not necessarily the best one that we got. I mean, think from a libertarian's perspective, she's probably about halfway in the middle of where I would like to see someone like her in her position from, she's certainly not a Biden, but she's no Ron Paul. But she's, think, gonna stand up for...

for the best interests of America and actually not going to aggressive wars the way that we, that's I think the best part of Tulsi's, you know.

her stance on issues and the reason why I'm so happy she is where she is. The fact that she was derided by like the likes of Hillary Clinton of all people for being a Russian asset is just laughable. I'm so, it just tickles me no end knowing that she's now the boss of the people who, you know, were calling her Russian assets not long ago. Like this is just very, very exciting to me. I mean, here's a woman.

Kevin Maley (26:40)
Yeah.

But do think she can

take control? So she'll be director of national intelligence overseeing all the intelligence agencies. I would imagine that the national security state apparatus, the so-called deep state, which when people hear the word deep state, they sometimes think that's just like a Trump conspiracy theory. But what it's referring to is career bureaucrats within the national security establishment. So people in the CIA, people in the NSA.

people in the, think there's 17 different intelligence agencies scattered throughout the federal government. And there are people who are there for a very long time. They make a career out of it. And then they'll still keep kind of connections after they're out of the government. People probably heard of Trump canceling security clearances for people who have left government. Why do they still have those security clearances in the first place? So when.

What I was going to throw to you is, you think these career bureaucrats, can she really, if they wanted to resist her, don't you think she could? She's one person overseeing a large bureaucracy. It's pretty hard to, if you encounter bureaucratic resistance to make meaningful change.

Sean Dempsey (28:08)
I guess the only way I can answer that is time will tell. I really don't know. I haven't been following her specific plan and strategy for how she's going to tear up that. mean, again, she's not a libertarian. So like if you got a Ron Paul in there, I think he would day one say, defund this organization that I'm charged with and return the funds back to the American taxpayer. That's not something Tulsi's going to do, but I think hopefully she does a lot of firing. She does a lot of cleaning house. I think hopefully she finds the folks.

who are responsible for a lot of the illegal things that were happening there over the last, and probably still happen there, and ferreting that out and bringing it to light. And again, I don't know if it's gonna ever see the light of day because again, it's basically a hands-gentle organization to the CIA. I mean, a lot of the stuff is redacted or heavily classified. So...

So we're not going to see another Edward Snowden data leak like we did. But I think if she can, with her privileges now, the light of the sun on a very dark and dank organization, that's all going to be for the best. But I don't know the specifics on that. Like I said, I think the best part about Tulsi, frankly, was her stance and is her stance on...

being anti-war and being anti-aggressive, going into aggressive wars overseas, which she's now relegated in a department that's not going to have a huge focus on that particular area of her.

ideology so I think in some ways she's been actually a little bit neutered but I'm just happy that someone with her acumen and her style of thinking is at least getting some form of recognition in the cabinet so it's better than nothing. Like I said it's the knife instead of the gun.

Kevin Maley (29:49)
What do you think of?

What do you think of Bobby Kennedy at HHS?

Sean Dempsey (29:55)
much more excited about him. I again, that was my presidential candidate. That's who I voted for him. That's who I wrote in. I think that he is phenomenal. I know that he's very contentious in both sides of the aisle, but I think the man is brilliant. I the man's...

really focused on what should be a nonpartisan issue, making America healthy again. Whether or not you like the moniker, obviously it has a lot of hints, I'm very politically charged. But I think that that is what he's focused on, I think that's what he's gonna do. And I really am excited about getting the poison that exists out of our...

And there's no secret that, again, we as a country spend more money on health care than any other country. Some countries, multiple times more. And we are literally one of the bottom of the pack when it comes to our health. So if he can move the dial even slightly, then we're in really good place.

Kevin Maley (30:44)
Yeah, just on that. So that's been something that's been frustrating to me as someone on the left. The real, I don't know what to call it, not hatred, or paranoia, but the freak out over Bobby Kennedy. And I should have pulled up his opening statement before this, but he was rattling off kind of going off what you were just saying. We, United States is the richest country in the history of the world. We spend more.

on healthcare per capita than any other country in the world. And we're pretty much the sickest OECD slash richest country. We're the sickest developed country. So I just looked this up. The average American takes four prescription medications per year. We are the most obese developed country in the world to be at the highest rates of anxiety and depression. And those are all

going up, also have chronic diseases that are going up. The sickness of the American people should be a national scandal. mean, it's incredible. And the amount of money that we put into not just treatment of health, but R &D and that sort of thing, we're not getting anything out of it. We're getting sicker and sicker as a country. And again, not just our physical health, but our mental health.

the response from the healthcare system is just putting us on more and more drugs and giving us more shots and prescriptions and that sort of thing. another thing he's pointed out a lot is I think there's only two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise drugs on television. And that might surprise a lot of Americans because we get so many pharmaceutical ads where it's

whether it's a weight loss or erections or depression or anxiety, but you just see pictures of happy people running around and then they'll say, ask your doctor about this one. And then you go to a doctor's office in the United States. And I remember this because many years ago I wanted a prescription of Adderall and I knew how corrupt the healthcare system was. So I made an appointment with a doctor and I was a little nervous about whether I would get it, but I got into the waiting room.

and the clock had a big logo from Pfizer in the clipboard where I was filling out my forms was some other pharmaceutical company. The pen was from a different pharmaceutical company. And that's because these pharmaceutical companies have sales agents that goes into doctor's offices every day and they'll leave pens, they'll talk to people, they'll talk about the new drugs that they have. Sometimes they'll take them out to lunch, sometimes they'll take them out to dinner.

Sean Dempsey (33:07)
you

Kevin Maley (33:23)
It's just such a terribly corrupt system. And again, the end result is we are getting sicker. We're not getting healthier. So if this was all resulting in the Americans are the healthiest people in the world, there would be less criticism of it. But it's not we're just getting sicker and sicker and sicker. So RFK in his opening statement, cites all this information. And we were, by the way, we were not like this 50 years ago. So something has gone wrong with all this.

these medical advancements and we're just getting more and more sick. And so he's the one that raises this issue. And I should say it's not just the pharmaceutical companies. He's also raising the issue of just toxins in our environment. That's when he talks about the food system and the toxins that we're putting in the food system, not just making us obese, but what are all these weird additives that we just keep on putting in our food? But also he came out of the environmental movement.

And so the reason he got into this health stuff is he was looking at the toxins that are in our water, the toxins that are in our air. So I think it's very good to have someone come into the government and say, look, something's really gone wrong in our, our total environment where we're getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And we should take a look at that. But he's reduced to this caricature of someone who's insane and

wants to get rid of all vaccinations and May had killed a bunch of people on American Samoa or something like that because of, don't know quite know what the story in that one was, but that came up in the hearings a bunch of times. And then you see, you hear all the stories that leaked out about some of his eccentric behavior with leaving a dead bear in Central Park and that sort of thing. You know, he's an eccentric guy, but yeah, I thought it was funny too.

Sean Dempsey (35:08)
That's just that's just funny

Kevin Maley (35:14)
But you know, if you

want to take someone down and discredit them, you can always find weird shit that they've done that you then magnify and blow up and maybe twist a little. But it has been a little frustrating to me again, as someone on the left who sees, like no Democrats in Congress supported him. I don't know anyone that I know personally, like friends and colleagues on the left who.

support him. They're all just afraid that we're going to have a polio outbreak and he's a lunatic. I just wish there was a little more nuance in understanding someone like that, or at least saying, I don't like him, but I get the larger point about trying to make America healthy again, because we're a very sick country.

Sean Dempsey (35:56)
think you hit the nail on the head when you said nuance. We've lost the ability of...

as a country to have nuanced conversations. that's whether we're talking about Tulsi Gabbard, we're talking about RFK Jr., Trump, any issue just becomes completely polarized. And that I think is the major disservice that we have in today's day and age. I think it's just gotten so much exponentially worse. Every year it seems to get worse than the year before. So we can't even have simple, nuanced conversations about basic things like can we make ourselves healthy anymore?

without it turning into people wanting to make a caricature or a cartoonish villain out of the other side. And again, it's whether it's Trump or Musk or R.F.K. Jr., Tulsi, these people that love America want to do better, want to make it better. mean, just put, it's like we have lost the ability to strip away all the veneer and the facade around people and just focus on what are they actually saying? Let's not pay attention to what the other side is trying to paint them.

them

into looking like, what are they actually saying? Can we pay attention to RFK's speech and listen to what he's actually saying and take on his arguments, take on his words for what he's saying, not to what Mitch McConnell is saying about him and not making this very nuanced topic into a black and white, into a monop-

a single issue or a single viewpoint on a very complex topic. And I think that that is my meta-narrative behind all politics right now. And it's just very frustrating. I cannot have nuanced conversations with most people. Like you said, you're from the left persuasion and you just admitted it yourself. Like you cannot, don't have a single friend or very few friends or anyone on the left who would even want to probably give RFK the time of day. Not because of anything I would...

Kevin Maley (37:44)
Not a single one,

not a single person I know.

Sean Dempsey (37:46)
Yeah, and I would venture

it's not based on anything that he's ever said, frankly. I bet it's based on the cartoonish caricature of what he's been derided to look like. Again, everyone wants to call him an anti-vaxxer or a nutcase or they use even more divisive language like he's got worms in the brain. It's like, well, what does he actually say? Take on his arguments. Let's have a conversation about that. Let's have a conversation about the very nuanced

Kevin Maley (38:06)
yeah.

Sean Dempsey (38:14)
in very complex topic of healthcare in America. And the fact that the big pharma is bleeding us Americans dry. Like how is this not an all-America problem? Why does this have to become a black white boogeyman in the corner that we're just all afraid of topic? Why does it have to be me versus you and you versus me instead of us versus the problem? I don't have a good answer for that, but it's just very, very frustrating and it's only getting worse and the culture

war

is just tearing apart any ability for us as a society to take on an issue head on and nothing embodies that in my mind as much as RFK does because everywhere out of his mouth is spot-on in my viewpoint with again he's an eccentric character I'll give you that hundred percent he's a wild man but when he talks

about a topic. you read his books, again if you read one of his books, every line has a citation and it's usually seven or eight.

deep in terms of the research that goes into what he's saying. He's not saying these things flippantly. It's not like a Trump who says something off the top of his head and it's like half of it's, you know, just whatever he's making up. When RFK speaks, he's talking from, usually from a position of deeply researched facts and figures. And so take on what he's saying. Don't just turn him into a cartoonish villain. So yes, long-winded answer is I love RFK. I'm so happy he was confirmed. I didn't think it was going to happen again. I'm slowly becoming

un-blackpilled by the moment because of things like Tulsi getting and because of things like RFK getting into his cabinet role. So I think the proof is going to be in the pudding though. So if he falls on his face then I think the left's going to take a giant, left and right frankly will both take a giant victory lap. But I think that if he does well...

I'm very excited for what he can do for the American people and just our health. there's only up, we can't go fall any further. So I think it's actually not that large of a bar to meet.

Kevin Maley (40:11)
Yeah, that's another one where I think the bureaucracy, if they really want to fight him, that's a massive, bureaucracy that he oversees. I think the total budgets of HHS and everything under it are larger than the Pentagon. Although a lot of that is just social security and Medicare, it's probably hard to get under control and there's ways the bureaucracy can fight back. But even just as you were talking, I was just thinking, you know, it is unfortunate that on the left,

there used to be this skepticism of corporate power. that's, you know, there is a little still left of that, but not with pharmaceutical companies. And we were talking about this notion of nuance. It feels like a lot of people are afraid that if you question a vaccine or if you question pharmaceutical companies or the power of big pharma.

there is no gray area, that means you're automatically against all vaccines and against all medicines and totally discount this wonderful cancer drug that came out a couple years ago, you know, whatever it is. Because of course we've made wonderful advancements in healthcare and I guess drugs over the last many, many decades. But it's just weird that there's no, like what happened to any skepticism of like,

Sean Dempsey (41:29)
You

Kevin Maley (41:30)
pharmaceutical

companies like they're not they are for profit companies. They do some good things, but they as I was you know talking about at the beginning of the show their companies that exist to maximize profit like they're not there to love and care about you. They're not creating drugs because they they have like a warm heart and they like any other corporation try to influence the government and you should be able to question them and it doesn't make you

a wacko conspiracy theorist to say like, why do we have so many drugs or should we put a four year old on Adderall, which is like a form of speed. And, you know, and like, should we, I mean, probably shouldn't go off topic on this, but like, should we be giving this or that medication to a 12 year old to undergo a transition, which you might otherwise agree with and say, I support anyone's right to do that, but.

this brand new drug that came out a year ago. That's like not really been tested. Should we be that to a 12 year old who wants to undergo that? Like, I feel like we should be able to ask these questions without just being shuntered as a conspiracy theorist. Cause it's like, I wish people would understand, especially again, people on the left, it's normal to ask questions and the people who kind of poo poo that I would argue you're the ones that have been conditioned. It's healthy.

to have skepticism and to ask questions. It doesn't make you a lunatic.

Sean Dempsey (42:58)
Yeah, we've been ushered into believing that you're all or none. It's like there's no, there's no, you're all, know, it's you're either with us or you're against us and there's no questioning, you know, even if, even if so, something like vaccines, I think is a great example. Like I don't personally believe, I'm sure half your audience will probably write me off now, but I don't believe that the COVID vaccine, it all did what it was supposed to do and said that it was going to do and was advertised that it would do. But I'm obviously,

Kevin Maley (43:03)
Yes, exactly.

Sean Dempsey (43:28)
100 % for the 99 % of the vaccines that have come out prior to that. polio vaccine was a lifesaver. It's probably one that's going to go on in history as one of the most life-giving miracles of the last 200 years. Like, I can hold these two truths up and not be one or the other. And the fact that a lot of America can't do that, know, including Mitch McConnell apparently as of yesterday, just demonstrates that we live in a black and white myopic society. It's like you're either with us or you're against us.

You're either all for us or you're all against us. And that's not that's just not the way life works We live in a very complex multifaceted Nuanced Reality and to not face reality in this postmodern world is basically asking to be

is basically sticking your head in the sand, in my opinion. If you cannot face reality, if you cannot call a spade a spade, if you have to create these giant binaries to live in, you're just sticking your head in the sand and you're not facing the world for what it is. And that's, think, what reason why so much of, so many Americans are just so miserable these days is they can't face reality. So yeah, I think that, and I think that drives a lot of the political conversations is these black-white divides that they create.

Kevin Maley (44:31)
You

Sean Dempsey (44:39)
are getting created. So yeah, bringing it back though to the Trump administration. Again, I see a lot of good happening personally. I also am being really frustrated by a lot of what he's doing. know, no administration is perfect, but like I said, I'm very excited for cabinet picks like Pulsey.

specifically the two of them, think they're just fantastic. I would love to see real change manifested though. think a lot of this stuff, including Doge, is this giant, look over here so you don't focus over here, culture war slash just magic trick. If we really wanna manifest real change, we wanna do things that are meaningful, not to say that making America healthy isn't meaningful, I think it very much is, but I think where the real change is gonna happen

in America is going to be things like reducing or eliminating our debt, focusing on auditing the Fed, focusing on getting out of the entrenched warfare state that we're in right now. Take those three things by themselves. If you handle, tackle any three of those, you're going to be in a position that no other president or least presidential administration has been.

has had the temerity to take on in the last 60 years. whether or not Trump takes any of those topics on, to be determined, he's talking very favorably about drawing down our military and doing so. I think he was talking the other day about a tri-country drawdown, China, Russia, and US. If that is true, and again, I'm being very cautiously optimistic, put the man on Mount Rushmore. That is the best thing that we could ever do

Kevin Maley (45:59)
Yeah, so.

I agree, yeah.

Sean Dempsey (46:09)
world.

Again, it's Trump, so I take everything with a pound of salt, but if that is true, we are on a huge, huge path forward. that is, forget the magic trick, that's the real deal. And that's what presidents should be focusing on, is things like that. And again, think debt and auditing the Fed or reducing the Fed's power and influence is another big piece of that. The reason I focus on that one so much and us libertarians do is because it is what creates the wealth divide in America.

the that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. You get rid of the Fed or you audit and curtail the power of the Fed, now you get an even playing field for the rich and the poor and you actually bring back the middle class in a sustainable way, which is one of the biggest problems in America.

Kevin Maley (46:49)
As a quick aside, by the way, I kind of have in the back of my head that I'm not sure the COVID vaccine did anything for me. I'm not sure it's a real vaccine. I might get this out, but it it it may be very sick. And then I got COVID a little while later and I got very sick from COVID. And what they tell you is what they tell you on this on this one, I might be.

Sean Dempsey (46:59)
Therapeutic.

You must, you sound like an anti-vaxxer, Kevin. I gotta tell you, you're gonna get this episode canceled.

Kevin Maley (47:18)
What they tell you is, you would have been worse. COVID would have been worse for you if you didn't have the vaccine. That's not how they advertise it. They advertise it as you won't get it and you won't transmit it. But then everyone got it and they transmitted it. So then it became something that you can't prove. Like you obviously can't prove that you would have been worse. Because everyone reacts differently. So you couldn't even do like two people, maybe if they're identical twins, I don't know.

Sean Dempsey (47:37)
A negative.

Well, if you ever want to do an episode...

Kevin Maley (47:44)
I got pretty sick.

So then, what did I inject myself with? What did they inject me with?

Sean Dempsey (47:50)
Yeah, we could take a whole hour on that. I mean, the bigger question behind that is, mean, we could focus on the medical side. There's so many levels to go into that. The bigger topic there with COVID that makes me so angry. I mean, you and I chatted about this in Washington last time we got together is just the, the, parthide state and the totalitarianism that, that, that, um, took over our country between 2021 and 2023. I mean, the

Kevin Maley (47:53)
shit.

Sean Dempsey (48:17)
The fact we just kind of are trying to brush that under the carpet now is beyond maddening to me that we can just pretend like that didn't happen, that the pundits on TV can just get up there and pretend like they didn't say the things that they did, the barbs that they threw, the things that they were saying about the epidemic of the unvaccinated, the fact that people who were looking at the evidence, doctors, medical professionals were looking at the actual data, looking at the studies and saying, know, raising up their hand timidly and being like, guys, I don't know if this is doing what you're

it doing? Viscerated. Just had their entire careers ruined. I mean the folks that put together the Barrington Declaration had their careers ruined because they had the temerity to just stand up and say, guys there's a better way. Let's do it the way that uh you know we're as a pessimist. Yeah the way that well Sweden but just in general how like dealing with a pandemic is something that

Kevin Maley (49:06)
Sweden.

Sean Dempsey (49:15)
It's not novel. We've been dealing with as a species, we've been dealing with pandemics for 4,000, 5,000 years. I mean, it's not like we have to reinvent the wheel like we did in 2020. There's a body of knowledge on how to do it successfully. And we just threw that rule book out the window and decided to do these crazy things like locking us down into our houses where we're to take on and reduce our immune systems and not going outside and getting vitamin E. And it's just all these things that we could have been doing.

that we just did, we didn't just not do the good stuff, we did the exact opposite of what we should have been doing and then anyone who doubted it or questioned it was just completely raked over the rails. That's an episode right there I think we should talk about. I'm getting on a rail.

Kevin Maley (49:58)
Yeah, I know, because

you probably saw last month the CIA came out. They think it was a lab leak now. And it just kind of blows my mind that that passes without a huge upward, because neither party wants to look backward. it's pretty clear, we'll never be able to say 100%, but it's pretty clear. our now preeminent intelligence agencies say they think it was a lab leak.

Sean Dempsey (50:05)
Wuhan, yeah. Hell yeah.

Kevin Maley (50:24)
which you would be kicked out of social media for saying a couple years ago.

Sean Dempsey (50:27)
I was, I got kicked

off Facebook specifically for four weeks for posting articles about how it was most likely from the coronavirus was most likely from the coronavirus lab in Wuhan. That got me kicked.

Kevin Maley (50:39)
coronavirus lab where

people had fallen ill in October and then down the street a novel coronavirus appeared.

Sean Dempsey (50:43)
Yeah.

I mean, still to this day, we

were talking about Jon Stewart. mean, his interview with Kobera was still one of the richest things I've ever seen. Just the look on, not so much for what Jon was saying, but what the looks on Kobera's face is just like, I don't know if we can talk about this, Jon. It's just, it's absolutely insane that you have to be in either, this is actually relevant to the conversation only. It's not actually a sidebar because it gets right back to what we were saying is we live in a society now, a postmodern world where we either have to be

Kevin Maley (50:54)
Yeah, that was, I know it circulated recently.

Yeah.

Sean Dempsey (51:18)
all the to the right or all the way to the left and any conversation about nuance or any disagreement is just completely eviscerated and you cannot have dissenting opinion or debate. It all has to be you're either for me or you're against us or you're for us and you've got these two camps, these bifurcated camps and instead of having a body of knowledge come together and discussing things in a clear and transparent way.

sad that as a society we can't even take on something as black and white as a virus, know, and not get it polarized and not get it into the political arena, dragged into the political arena where it doesn't belong. Why can't these topics that are very, very empirical get discussed with some nuance and some complexity? It's just maddening to me. So, as you can...

Kevin Maley (52:08)
And why did

Tony Fauci's pardon begin in 2014? I don't know if anyone saw that. He not only got a pardon for Biden, but if people look at the fine print of that pardon, like under Biden, but for completely different reasons, it's for all crimes that go back to 2014, which is very interesting.

Sean Dempsey (52:12)
You

Well, your preaching is acquired, I love it. I'd love to hear you talk about this stuff too, because you're a bad progressive, I tell you. I mean, again, if you're...

Kevin Maley (52:38)
Well, like you just said, it shouldn't be

a political issue. mean, our whole, all of our worlds got upended by this virus that turned out to have come from a lab. And we're just completely, I bet if you poll most American, or maybe most Americans would say that, but I if you poll most liberals, they would say it is not from a lab. But it is worth looking back and understanding like this, cost us $6 trillion or probably more.

And like so many people's lives, millions of people died. And it might have been, it probably was, from a lab that also the United States was partially funding through gain of function research that had previously been banned, that the Obama administration had tried to the kibosh on gain of function research because gain of function means just like making viruses more contagious and lethal. And so he...

Sean Dempsey (53:04)
times more.

It's funded by United States.

for most

likely for military purposes. mean, let's not color coat or whitewash this. It all goes back to the military industrial complex. I bet the next phase of that plan, and this is where it gets obviously conspiracy theory, but it could probably well have been like to turn over this fully flushed out virus once it was built to the CIA, to be used in on warfare and somewhere. So like these things all play together in a very tight apparatus. So it's not like these things all have

Kevin Maley (53:33)
Yes, yeah.

Sean Dempsey (53:59)
in their neat little camps and it just happened to I think that they all who for all I know the USA was helping to fund some of this stuff as an arm of the CIA I mean who knows what ten years are gonna reveal

Kevin Maley (54:03)
They do, yeah.

Yeah, and

I mean, it's a good point. And for anyone who does think that's conspiratorial, I mean, maybe that's right, maybe that's wrong. I know you're just theorizing on it, but people should look back at just Google like random things that were funded during the Cold War through the Pentagon or the CIA. There is the weirdest shit that they were trying out from, you know, the stuff that they were doing against Castro, like let's come up with something, a cigar that will make his mustache fall out when he smokes it or blow up. But also they were,

Sean Dempsey (54:38)
using LSD for a lot of the, read those studies?

Kevin Maley (54:39)
They were funding, they were giving people LSD

without telling them what it was, but they're also funding telepathy research to see if they could read the minds of Soviet agents. There was also something I was reading that they were funding this like love bomb where they thought if they dropped it on the Soviets, it would basically just cause mass arousal and stuff. I mean, there's just a lot of shit that gets funded. So anyway, we could go on and on and on.

Sean Dempsey (55:01)
You

Kevin Maley (55:06)
I did want to round it out with foreign policy because I think that is where we could see a lot of good things from the Trump administration. I think we already have seen a lot of good things from the Trump administration. You talked about his floating this idea that I think we're both skeptical on, but really welcomes this idea that the U.S. would lower its defense spending, but in order to not lower our competitive advantage, we would work with the Chinese and the Russians and kind of all lower them.

together and there is precedent for this kind of thing. We've done that after World War I. We had worked with lots of other countries, basically Japan and the United Kingdom and a couple other European countries on lowering military spending. Who knows if that'll happen, as you said, but that was a hopeful thing. But something more tangible that we're seeing is progress on Ukraine. We saw Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary.

I think Marco Rubio has made statements about this, but basically saying, Ukraine's not going to be in NATO and it's not going to get the territory that Russia had took the territory. That's kind of a lot of the people within that territory are Russian or pro-Russian anyways, but, these kind of acknowledging the realities on the ground. And you also heard Trump say that not just that this war should have never started, but him just talking about the mass deaths that have occurred.

and how awful it was. And you never heard Joe Biden really bemoan what was happening to Ukraine. Just no compassion for the destruction that was happening. But so your take on those developments with Ukraine and, you know, it's very easy for him to make those statements. Do we think there's going to be tangible progress when it comes to discussions with the Russians?

Sean Dempsey (56:46)
I'm optimistic man. mean this was something at least he campaigned on so I believe that he's gonna hopefully try to follow through with it. I mean to the extent that he can. I mean he does no control over what Putin does but to the extent that he can stop funding Ukraine and throwing good money after bad at least will bring

it'll bring both parties to the table, which is something that we haven't seen before. In fact, we were actively, under Biden, we were actively trying to dissuade Zelensky from...

coming to the table with Putin. And in fact, Boris Johnson, as you probably recall, was sent over to Ukraine to actively try to persuade Zelensky from taking a deal, or from offering, which he succeeded in doing, which probably single-handedly undermined, well, not just undermined, but it caused the death of upwards of, who knows, a million plus casualties in that war. And it's just simple things.

Kevin Maley (57:29)
Which he did, which he succeeded in.

And just a quick

point on that, the conditions that the Russians were offering on that deal were better than what they're offering now because the Russians were in a weaker position. If Zelensky had accepted that deal to the point that I just cut you off on, we would have saved hundreds of thousands, if not more lives in the destruction of most of Ukraine and would have gotten a better deal than we're going to wind up with. I mean, this is just a complete disaster.

Sean Dempsey (57:51)
Of course.

Yeah.

Kevin Maley (58:10)
and tragedy that I think is entirely at the feet of Joe Biden and the crazy European allies in Berlin and Paris and London.

Sean Dempsey (58:21)
100 % and in fact, I'll take your point and I'll raise you an additional point I mean if you recall Putin before the invasion, I don't know the exact year I think it was maybe a year and a half before he put out a single point It was he just wanted to see to the NATO Let's see. What was his name? I think it was Jens Stoltenberg. Yeah, John Stoltenberg basically said listen I'm gonna know his exact quote, but it was something like listen just let

Kevin Maley (58:41)
Yeah, in Stoutenburg, yeah.

Sean Dempsey (58:48)
Let

it be known, just put it in writing that Ukraine will not be part of NATO and I won't invade. And thank you. That's right, it was. Okay, so it was up to two months.

Kevin Maley (58:55)
That was December 2021, so two months before the invasion.

Sean Dempsey (59:01)
And so what did the guy do? He laughed in his face and went on television talking about how he wouldn't be quote unquote bullied by Putin. Think about that. mean, how much bloodshed and warfare and devastation has there been? The catastrophe could have been completely avoided with a single stroke of a pen of just admitting that what this man wanted, what Putin wanted was actually somewhat relevant. was like, major power doesn't want a

giant military alliance having one of its allies or one of its members on its doorstep. I mean, it's like I've made the point many times over. mean, the United States obviously wouldn't want Cuba or Canada or Mexico in a military alliance because they're on our doorstep. mean, went to war. We almost went to a nuclear war with Soviet Union over the Bay of Pigs. mean, that was miles and miles off our... mean, was you know, not

even a border country is technically is what island country yeah sure was

Kevin Maley (1:00:02)
And the Bay of Pigs was an invasion. It was a failed invasion. But we invaded Cuba in

1961 because they were allying with the Soviets and it just didn't work out. So then we put a blockade on a couple, two years later, or one year later, and that was a story in itself.

Sean Dempsey (1:00:12)
So that just...

but.

What it just highlights

though is it's just the hypocrisy from both the left and the right, but largely left. It's just like looking at this and being like, seeing this from anything but like this was a very, very...

I again, let me just back up. mean, obviously Putin should not have invaded. Do I even need to admit this? Do I even need to talk about this again? It's such a tired point. Yes, he was wrong to invade the country, but any country in that position would have not wanted one of their border countries in a military alliance. It's just end of point.

Kevin Maley (1:00:52)
Because, because

just to underscore that when people hear military alliance, they think it might mean, just means that we'll have Ukraine's back if they're invaded. What it actually means is the US would set up a series of military bases in Ukraine, stock them with weapons aimed at Russia. So it's not this just purely defensive stuff. We move in when they're in the alliance.

And we put American, whether it's American troops or NATO troops, but there's US military equipment and technology that goes in right on Russia's border. So it's not as benign as it sounds like just an alliance, it's, I don't know, survivor or something like that. There is a heavy threat that comes to Russia when there's a NATO member country on its border.

Sean Dempsey (1:01:29)
Yeah.

Well,

thank you for clarifying that. I I feel like a point like that doesn't even need to be stated, but you're right. In this day and age, it almost does because people have such blinders onto the obvious. mean, even just a year before in 2020, I mean, remember why Trump was impeached the first time. It was because he failed, quote unquote, failed to deliver on weapons deliveries to Ukraine. I mean, again, that was not even a year before.

Kevin Maley (1:02:03)
Which Obama had refused to do because he thought it was irresponsible

to send weapons to Ukraine because it would provoke the Russians.

Sean Dempsey (1:02:09)
And

well, look at where we are. mean, it's just like this whole catastrophe is such a laugh. mean, the aliens are laughing at us. It's just like this so, so avoidable. And we just did everything possible at every,

Position as a country as the United States the onus is strictly on you work, you know and are working with our NATO allies we did everything possible to just flare up and provoke this war and we we should have Just had a little bit of temperance and a little bit of humility and we just we don't and so yeah anything that Trump can do now to What dial this back is obviously for the best but you know it he says it roughly fairly well and I'm sorry to give him credit but it's

true it's like this would not probably have happened under his watch because he doesn't have the hubris well excuse me he certainly has the hubris but he doesn't well that that's

Kevin Maley (1:02:58)
I don't know about.

He did start

to the point that we're talking about a minute ago, Obama was against arming the Ukrainians. He was giving them surreptitious aid. He probably almost certainly helped to the Maidan coup in 2014, but he wasn't giving direct arms to the Ukrainians. Trump upped the ante and Trump was actively arming the Ukrainians. So I think there's this perspective that Trump feeds into that there was some benign

You know, presidents, when he was president, Trump also expanded NATO. He signed off on two more countries going in, Montenegro, I think in North Macedonia. So I'm not convinced, maybe it wouldn't have happened, but Trump was a...

Sean Dempsey (1:03:39)
That's true, you did.

No, I guess it's

fair to say, I'll walk back a little bit what I said. The Trump of 2016 is not the Dove that is the Trump of 2025. think that we have a much softer, I think that Dove-ish, he's at least trying to draw down.

Kevin Maley (1:04:00)
Yeah, I'm still not convinced he's a dove, but I get your point.

Sean Dempsey (1:04:09)
the military, he's pushing to get out of Ukraine. I certainly don't like what he's doing in Gaza by any stretch of the imagination. yeah, maybe dub is certainly the wrong word,

Kevin Maley (1:04:16)
Yeah, what's the deal with that?

What's your take on his proposal? Yeah, switching gears, what's your take on his proposal to ethically cleanse Gaza of its two million people?

Sean Dempsey (1:04:21)
we switching gears?

Yeah. Well, I mean, again, I think Trump's an interesting character because I can say so many good things about him with one hand and then backhand him with the other. mean, obviously that's despicable. I don't know exactly what he means and I hope to see some walking back at that statement. mean, again, getting involved, having big Satan and little Satan join forces on anything involving,

the cleansing of the people is just going to further shake the hornet's nest over there. So we just would be very well served if we're interested in America First policy. We just need to get the hell out of the Middle East and stop trying to shake things up from a military perspective.

Let Israel solve this, let's stop funding them, let's stop sending money their way. Let's certainly not aid in their ethnic cleansing campaign of Gaza. So whether or not he's gonna do that or not, I don't know. I really don't know. He obviously is a kowtow to the Israeli lobby here in the United States. Very sad to say, I think maybe one of the reasons he got elected is he was quote unquote strong on his support of Israel.

Kevin Maley (1:05:38)
Yeah. So just jumping back to Europe, did you see any of JD Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference where he was talking about Europeans free speech laws and that sort of thing?

Sean Dempsey (1:05:51)
heard about it after the fact on social media. haven't watched the speech. I know that they were real frustrated with him. I thought it was ironic. I know they were mad that they couldn't censor him. Yeah, give me the brass tacks on that. What was the big points that he made?

Kevin Maley (1:05:58)
Yeah, we're not friends.

Yes, pretty much the case.

You know, I actually didn't see the whole thing, so I probably shouldn't be speaking about it with authority, but it was, he raised the issue. think this is something a lot of Americans probably don't know. The Europeans have much weaker free speech protections than the United States. Some of that has to do, well, important thing is we've got the first amendment, but we also have judicial precedents that protect a wide interpretation of the first amendment. In Europe, hate speech, for example, is banned.

And so if you say something the intakeful, you can literally be arrested. You can't deny the Holocaust, for example, which of course people would say you shouldn't deny the Holocaust, but should you go to jail for denying the Holocaust? And then they've expanded that they're also now really clamping down on pro-Palestinian protests because they just say that's anti-Semitic, even though it's not. And then this is creeped into social media. there are...

people who might be arrested for saying this or that on social media, not just in continental Europe under the guise of the EU, but also in the United Kingdom, which is not part of the EU. So he was just giving examples of that and effectively lecturing them. But it was interesting to see because for so long you have had Americans, American diplomats of both parties go to developing nations or

somewhere in the Middle East or China or something like that and give a speech and lecture them on human rights and this and that. And it was interesting to see someone do that to Europeans where he was right on his points. I mean, I agree with him on it. They should have an expanded view of free speech. And, you know, it's not polite to go and visit another country and lecture them, but it's something that the West does a lot.

with countries outside the West. So was kind of fun just to see them do that to the West itself.

Sean Dempsey (1:08:05)
I to watch the speech. mean, it is kind of funny, yeah, just hearing you play it out, but it's also funny because we can barely defend free speech in America. How are we going to, can we attack other countries for, I mean, I think a lot of the, I mean, look at what's happening, by the way, not just in UK, but in Canada. I mean, a lot of the free speech has been eroded over there. I mean, you have professors that are losing their tenure and their ability to speech for not using the right.

pronouns, mean, it really has become a war on thinking and wrong speak is entering into our lexicon again. mean, a lot of what is happening today is really harkening back to what's talked about in, you know,

great dystopian novels like 1984 where, again, you can take wide liberties with how you think and what you say and use it against somebody. We're seeing it every day, even today, like we were just talking about earlier, like with RFK. So if you're not on the quote, quote, right side of an opinion, can be very, yeah, may not go to jail for it in the United States, but you can be certainly deplatformed and you can have your livelihood ruined and you can have...

your

profession derailed or lose the ability to get promoted. I mean, yeah, being on the wrong side of some very sensitive political issues, even in America can get you into a lot of hot water, which I would argue is one of the reasons that maybe the MAGA movement was as successful as it was, is because largely the left, sorry to say, was championing a lot of these anti-free speech, you know, I mean, they always couched it in language like,

even if have these actors these days.

Kevin Maley (1:09:42)
It's like the European

interpretation. It's like, don't want hate speech. I will say though, I agree that MAGA and the right have been pretty good on pushing back on these free speech restrictions, but of course they have one big exception, which is Israel. And if you criticize Israel, all bets are off. And that includes in academia, not just students protesting with a fucking Hamas sign, but literally like professors getting in trouble.

Sean Dempsey (1:09:57)
Yes.

Kevin Maley (1:10:11)
There's, you know, you can in some states, it's illegal to advocate boycotting Israel, that sort of thing. There's no room for them for free speech. Everything else is fine. You can say,

Sean Dempsey (1:10:21)
It is a huge

area of hypocrisy amongst the right. mean, I have a whole chapter in my book. I called it the woke right where, you know, it's using the leftist tactics against, against the right by like, just deciding to pick a, an area and decide like, like Israel and using those tactics of, of coming down on people's rights to talk about something and using,

the lexicon of wokeism against the right, which is very interesting to me. think it's happening more than you think, but yeah, it's very hypocritical in my opinion.

Kevin Maley (1:10:52)
Yep. All right. So final thoughts or predictions on the Trump administration? feel like we've covered a lot of grounds, but it's only just begun. something I'm paying pretty close attention to as best I can is the reconciliation process in Congress, which is basically the kind of big legislation that has to be pertinent to spending that they're trying to get their heads around. But what are you looking for in the weeks and months ahead with the Trump administration?

Sean Dempsey (1:11:18)
What am I looking for?

What will I see? I think those are two different things. What I'm looking for is I am really excited for another vigorous battle over the budget. And I'd love to see an actual another filibuster and talk, you know, really shut down of government and have it actually hold. I mean, this is this always gets us libertarians always excited because but it never amounts to anything. But I would really love to see a real freeze in budget and spending until we get

Kevin Maley (1:11:21)
I guess both.

Sean Dempsey (1:11:47)
a budget plan passed doesn't involve raising the spending limit, which we do over and over and over again, just kicking the can down the road. What I think will actually happen, of course, is you'll have lot of impassioned pleas by the usually cast of characters like Rand Paul and others, and then everyone will capitulate and the debt limit will be raised again and we'll move on.

Kevin Maley (1:12:08)
yeah.

Sean Dempsey (1:12:09)
Another thing that I hope to see is I really hope to see Doge continue to slash and burn federal programs and take an even more vigorous, you know, hack saw to these organizations and these bureaus. What I think will happen, however, is that he'll probably get a lot of his efforts stemmed.

folks pushing for administrative oversight and things of that nature. But I'll remain optimistic nonetheless. And then lastly, what I hope to happen is I hope to see the Pentagon audited. I'd love to see a drawdown of the proliferation of military arms and warfare.

What I think will happen though is that Trump will stay focused on topics in the culture war, including immigration. Even though I think that that's an important topic, I think that he'll try to keep the American people's focused over here on the left so that the big issues will go unattended to. And again, think warfare will probably continue to get its bloated budgets increased. I think the Fed will continue to be funded and continue to drive the ship and continue to make the rich richer.

and poor, and I think we'll continue to probably have...

a good run about of inflation over the next couple of years. So again, I'm kind of in the middle. I am very white-pilled when it comes to some of the things that I've seen happening, like we talked about in the administration and the cabinet. Some of these programs that I'm really super excited about involving specifically Make American Healthy Again with RFK. I think that's probably the biggest, most exciting thing that's happening in the administration right now.

also excited that Tulsi was confirmed, but like we talked about, I don't think that it will actually achieve any significant drawing down of power of the NSA, but again, I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic. And what else? I'm watching, obviously, the Gaza topic very closely. I'm really hoping that Trump's rhetoric is just that rhetoric and not actionable, because if it is, it will be horrific.

continuing to punch an already well-punched bee's nest. but yeah, that's kind of where I'm paying attention to. again, cautiously optimistic in several areas, but also realistic. And I don't think that Trump and his administration are in any stretch of the imagination a panacea. He's going to be a mild improvement at best, but we'll see.

Kevin Maley (1:14:23)
Yeah.

And I keep telling people, think the, the momentum of the Trump administration is going to slow down. I think they know that too. I think they know politics and how DC works. think the reconciliation process is going to start to consume them, especially because they don't know if they're going to do one, two or three reconciliation bills. I think some of the courts will start to slow down some of these actions and

And I think his approval ratings will start to lower. I think they're above 50 % right now, but depending on the last inflation report showed inflation still, I think above 3%, maybe it's three and a half percent, which means interest rates are not going to go down anytime soon. And I think we'll start to see his popularity, not plummet, but not be sky high, relatively speaking anymore. So I think.

He'll still be Trump, but I think the speed will slow down. Sean, reminded you, I know you mentioned your book. What was that book that you had and where can people find it?

Sean Dempsey (1:15:25)
Yes, it's called Trump Again, How Did America Let This Happen? and it's found at donaldtrumpagain.net which will lead you straight to Amazon where you can buy it. In short, it's a book about how did the rise of Trump happen over the last couple years and the rise of MAGA? Well, I make the point that it's largely a direct reaction or overreaction to the rise of wokeism in America.

extensively about that and even the likes of yourself, great Kevin Mealy is interviewed in that book and so I think he makes very good points on a couple of really exciting topics.

Kevin Maley (1:16:02)
I to highly recommend it. All right, Sean, thanks for coming on. Hope you come back. We'll continue the conversation.

Sean Dempsey (1:16:07)
Thank you so much, Kevin. Love it. Talk to you soon.

Kevin Maley (1:16:10)
All right. All right. Thank you again.

Sean Dempsey (1:16:12)
Thanks bud.