On The Brink with Castle Island - Josh Mandel on Running on a Pro Bitcoin Platform (EP.309)

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

We sit down with Ohio Senate Candidate Josh Mandel to cover his race, platform, and Bitcoin advocacy.  Josh's political origins and why he is running for Senate in Ohio Josh's time as Ohio state treasurer and his Ohio state checkbook initiative Why Josh pioneered Ohio's acceptance of Bitcoin for tax payments How Bitcoin values mirror American values Why Bitcoin support ought to stay nonpartisan The state of the Ohio primary and Josh's prospects The political prudence of making Bitcoin such a key cornerstone of Josh's platform Learn more about Josh Mandel's platform at joshmandel.com. 

Hello and welcome back to On the Brink with Castle Island. I'm Nick Carter. Today we're sitting down with Josh Mandel, who is running for U.S. Senate in the state of Ohio. We've sat down previously with Blake Masters, also a pro-Bitcoin candidate, and Josh is no exception here. He's strongly pro-Bitcoin. He once tweeted, Ohio must be a pro-God, pro-family, pro-Bitcoin state. I wanted to investigate this so we got Josh on the show to talk about what it means. to be running on a pro-bitcoin platform. Josh does have some credentials here. Under his tenure, State Treasurer, Ohio is the first state to ever accept Bitcoin for tax

payments. He also did great work with the Ohio State Checkbook Initiative. Today we cover his platform where he's running for office, how he intends to advance Bitcoin in the Senate and why we need more champions desperately in Congress today. Let's dive right into the episode. I'm sitting here with Josh Mandel, who is a Senate candidate for the state of Ohio. Josh, thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate you being here with us today.

Thanks, Nick. Good to be on. I've been a fan for a long time. Awesome. So maybe leaving aside the Bitcoin stuff for now, tell us a little bit why you're running for office in Ohio and a little thing or two by your platform. Sure. Yeah.

You know, my inspiration in the public service and in the Marine Corps, my grandparents, On my mom's side, two of my grandparents were Holocaust survivors. My grandfather Joe was from Celts, Poland, lost his entire family in the gas chambers, and he survived multiple Nazi death camps. And my grandma Fernanda, she was an Italian Jew, which was relatively uncommon. And she was hidden by very courageous Christian families in Italy, and they saved her life. And, you know, during World War II, obviously, both of my grandparents, parents families in Italy and Poland had all their property and assets seized. And on one side,

you know, family members murdered. At the very same time, my grandfather on my dad's side from Cleveland, Ohio, he was serving in the United States Army Air Corps. And so when I was growing up in the Cleveland area, my grandparents really hammered into me that I wouldn't be here, were it not for the U.S. military and the United States of America liberating Europe. and that network of courageous Christians saving my grandmother. And so in trying to pay back that debt to the U.S. military and the United States of America for making it possible for me to be here, I decided to join the United States Marine Corps, did my small part on a couple tours in Iraq, and decided to go into public service. Served my state here in Ohio, two terms in the state legislature, and then two terms as state treasurer of Ohio, and now running for U.S. Senate.

The thrust into public service has been trying to stand up for the personal freedom and individual liberty that we have here in America, that we enjoy here. And that unfortunately was taken and stolen from my grandparents two generations earlier. And it's a big part of that freedom and liberty for which we fight, whether it's in the Marine Corps or it's folks in the Bitcoin community or in other communities. you know, it's foundational to who we are as Americans, but if we don't fight for it, it can disappear. Reagan and a lot of the leaders before us very articulately warned that we must fight to protect our freedom. And there's different ways we fight, but we must fight if we're going to protect it, because if we get complacent, it'll go away. So you had a pretty notable tenure as Ohio State Treasurer. Tell us a little bit about what you accomplished during that period.

Sure. So I ran on a platform to clean up the corruption in the state treasurer's office. And I ran on a platform of using transparency and shining sunlight on spending in order to accomplish that. So I ran on this platform to put the state's checkbook online, this big transparency initiative. I got elected and I said, well, I'm going to do what I said I would do. So I got elected at the same time as Kasich was elected governor. So I went into Kasich's office. And I said, hey, governor, you know, just got like the state treasurer. I ran on a platform to put the state's checkbook online. And I just wanted to come in here and see if you want to partner with me on it. And he's like, Josh, we're not putting the state's checkbook online. I was like, no, you don't understand, governor. You know, I campaigned on this. I'm going to keep my campaign promise.

And oh, by the way, you know, people are going to love this. It's transparency. It's open checkbook. It's like, you know, everything that, you know, taxpayers would want to be able to hold politicians feet to the fire. He's like, Josh, I want to. want you to hear very clearly. We're not doing that. And if you try to do it, I'm going to kill it. And, you know, Nick, I'm not one to back down from a fight. So I said to Kasich, I said,

listen, I don't work for you. I'm, I was independently elected, got more votes than you, was elected as the top vote getter of any of the statewide executive candidates in this state. And I am going to do that. And he said, Josh, if you try to put the state checkbook online, I'm going to make you feel pain. So I was. walked out of his office and I called a friend of mine in the legislature and I said, hey, I need you to introduce a bill to force me to put the state's checkbook online. And he was like, you want me to do what? I said, make me do it. He's like, all right, oh, I can introduce that bill. And the reason I wanted it to be required in, in like state code was because I knew

after I was state treasurer of some big government person came in, you know, they wouldn't want the state's finances online. So I thought Nick, once it was introduced, it would pass pretty quickly. It's sort of like baseball, motherhood, apple pie, and it's tough to be against transparency. But what happened along the way is, you know, I figured out the politicians would go on TV and in the newspapers and say they're for it. And then when they'd see me in the state house, they'd pull me aside and they'd be like, Josh, we're going to kill this. Why are you doing this? You're going to make us look bad. And it was so hard to get a pass out of the state house. It took us to like two in the morning

before they recess for the summer to finally get it passed. Then after the summer recess, it went over to the state Senate. And by that time, Kasek had sort of woken up to the fact that we had momentum behind it. And he dispatched his goons to the state Senate and they killed the online checkbook legislation. So Kasek and all these politicians, Democrat and Republican, were high-fiving and celebrating that they killed this online checkbook legislation. And they really embarrassed me because this was my baby. but what they didn't know, Nick, was that I had a plan B up my sleeve, a contingent plan. And the contingent plan, we called it Operation Shawshank.

So I don't know if you've ever seen Shawshank Redemption. I'm sure a lot of your listeners have. There's that scene at the end of Shawshank Redemption when the warden comes in after the prisoner escapes. And he's ticked off and he's trying to figure out where the prisoner went. And he throws that pebble against the wall. and instead of it bouncing against the wall, it goes through that poster. And they peel back that poster. And they see for 20 years, the prisoner, Andy Dufrein, was just every day chipping away just a little at that wall.

And that's what we were doing. We were concurrently, while we were trying to get the online checkbook legislation passed, we were also chipping away at that wall and just slowly building it every day. And so about a week after KSIC and the politicians killed the online checkbook legislation, I just launched it anyway. And I launched Ohiocheckbook.com, put online $690 billion of state spending, everything from two bucks for a pack of pencils to millions of dollars for road contracts and everything in between.

KSik went apoplectic. The politicians went apoplectic. They hated it. but the taxpayers loved it. And it was so popular that we earned Ohio the number one ranking in America for fiscal transparency. And around that time, I started talking with a lot of folks who were mostly libertarians and limited government types throughout the country, but especially those involved with tech. And they loved what I did in the transparency space. And they said, you know, you should start paying attention to Bitcoin.

So this is 2014. And I sort of became like a closet Bitcoin enthusiast back then. And in Ohio at the time, you know, no one was really talking about it much, especially if you were in public office. But I learned more and more and developed into a Bitcoin maximalist and educated myself. And then in 2018, when I was state treasurer, I walked in the office. And I told my senior staff, I said, I'm not asking you this. I'm telling you this. I said, we're going to make Ohio the first state in America to allow taxpayers to pay taxes with Bitcoin.

And my staff was like, we're going to do what? And I said, we're going to do that. If anyone's not on board, walk out of the room, but we're going to do it. And so we created this secret compartmentalized operation in our office. And we built a website called OhioCrypto.com. And we ended up launching it in 2018. You know, not by design, but by coincidence, we launched it in a bare market. It was a tough time for Bitcoin.

It was at one of the times when, you know, Jay Clayton and Jamie Diamond were going on CNBC and Fox Business and all these shoes, shows and just sort of crapping on Bitcoin and basically, you know, making the argument that it was fake and that it was not legitimate and it wasn't normal. And they were just sort of trying to put a nail on the coffin. And so as Gensler, as Clayton and Diamond are doing that on TV, here comes me, the state treasurer of the seventh largest state in the nation. And I come with a message is totally counter to Jamie Diamond, totally counter to Jay Clayton. And I say, yes, Bitcoin is legitimate.

And it is so legitimate that we are going to recognize it for purposes of paying taxes in the seventh largest state in the nation. And by doing that, Nick, I kicked down a door. We made Ohio the first state in America to allow taxpayers to pay taxes with digital assets. And it really kicked down a door. And it opened up, you know, for a lot of governmental entities all around the country. And listen, it's four years later now. Frankly, every state should be on board and most of them still are not. So that's sort of sad. But we started a movement and, you know, over time, more and more we'll get on board.

But for me, like the importance of it, I believe, was really opening, getting that camel nose under the tent and cracking that window open or kicking on the door and really providing cover and courage for politicians who might not have that same like courage gene or leadership. gene that I have. And listen, I made a lot of enemies by it. You know, the attorney general and the state auditor and the legislature and the governor were pissed off, but, you know, I'm not here in politics to make friends. I'm here to do the right thing. And in my mind, doing the right thing means standing up for freedom and liberty. And if we're going to stand up for freedom and liberty, we've got to stand for Bitcoin because the principles of freedom and liberty are core to Bitcoin and core to the democratization of money. So I think a lot of us believe that Bitcoin values mirror American values.

But what is it about Bitcoin that inspires you to make it such a central part of your campaign and your platform? Is it more sort of the sound money side of things or sort of the censorship-resistant payment settlement or is it just the whole bundle? Both those. I mean, both those attract me. Sound money attracts me. also censorship resistance.

But I would say this, take a step back and sort of like zoom out. For any of your listeners who are skeptical about government, for any of your listeners who are cynical about politicians, they should be for Bitcoin. Because I think Bitcoin is the greatest antidote to bad politicians. and bad government. It is, I mean, listen, you and I were just at this Bitcoin conference, and you saw, you know, hundreds of companies, maybe thousands of companies spend millions of dollars on sponsorships. Okay.

And then if you watched the Super Bowl, you saw companies, you know, different types of crypto companies, exchanges and mining companies, all the different companies spend millions of dollars in Super Bowl ads. And I'm not saying they wasted their money on Super Bowl. I'm not saying they wasted their money on sponsorships of conferences. But I will tell all of them, and I said this at the conference and the panel I did, the most powerful advertisement for Bitcoin just happened. Definitely the most powerful advertisement in my mind since Bitcoin has come into existence.

And I think it'll be the most powerful advertisement for Bitcoin in a very long time. And the name of the advertiser is Justin Trudeau. Because what happened in Canada was the collusion of big government, big banks, and big tech to seize the assets of middle class, working class, truck drivers, and families. And if that's not the most powerful advertisement for why we should embrace an advanced cause of Bitcoin, I don't know what is. And remember what big government, big tech and big banks colluded to do, it wasn't in China. It wasn't in Russia. It wasn't in Venezuela. It wasn't in Iran. It was in Canada. And when you think of authoritarianism and you think of dictators who kill and disappear oppressors, you think of Xi in China. You think of the mullahs in Iran.

you think of what's happening and has happened over the years in Venezuela. You think of a lot of countries in the Middle East and in Africa that mutilate their people, that like I said, turn the word disappear into a verb. They just disappear people of you. But it wasn't those countries where this happened. It was Canada. And I believe what happened in Canada was a beta test for what big government, big tech, and big banks would love to do in America. And don't think for one second that Trudeau did not check with Washington, D.C.

I guarantee you he would not have done that without checking with Washington, D.C. first. And I'm sure the Biden administration said, you know what? Why don't you try that? We'll see how it goes. And if he would have fully gotten away with it, you would have already seen Biden doing it here. Because that's what they want, you know, whether it's Biden or it's Elizabeth Warren or these others. like they want big government because big government, there's a relationship with government and people. When government is big, we as people are small.

But when we can make government limited in size and scope, we can make people big. And that's it. And like when you look at the folks like Elizabeth Warren or others in Washington who want big government, they don't want individuals to be big, meaning they don't want individuals to have power and control over their families, their kids, their finances, their life. And listen, I don't want to like go on a big tangent about COVID and masks and all that stuff. But like, I personally think that was all about power and control. And, you know, a lot of the same people that advance the cause of government power and control during COVID are the same ones that are against Bitcoin.

And it's not by coincidence. Totally. So looking at your Republican colleagues, they've in the Senate in the House, you know, they've certainly made good strides. would say I've been impressed by uptake for Bitcoin values among, you know, a number of actually really influential members of Congress. What do you make of the prospects on the Republican side for, you know, a, we're gaining control of Congress. I guess that's a separate question. But subsequent to that, imposing a pro-crypto agenda in Washington following a victory in November, do you see that as as likely and what would that look like?

Well, first of all, I'm a constitutional conservative. I'm a full spectrum conservative. I'm going to be elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican. I will say this, though. Our Bitcoin movement has to be bipartisan in order to be successful. And I think it needs to be relentlessly bipartisan and relentlessly one issue. because if we're going to be successful as a movement,

we have to focus on what's good to advance this cause. And we need people on both sides of the aisle who are willing to work with anyone who's pro-Bitcoin. And so listen, I did a panel at this Bitcoin conference with Erica Rhodes. I'd never met her before. She's running for Congress out in L.A. I looked at her platform. I literally think I disagree with her on every single issue. I couldn't find one thing I agreed with her own.

Except her support for Bitcoin. But it brought us together, and that's a beautiful thing. And so I just want to hammer that home for all your listeners who want to get politically active. I would encourage you to support anyone who's pro-Bitcoin. And if you look at some of these organizations that over the years have been very successful, they've been relentlessly one issue and relentlessly bipartisan. And I can give you a couple examples. One is the NRA.

You know, the NRA has been relentlessly one issue pro-gun, but they've also been relentlessly bipartisan. And, you know, while they end up supporting more Republicans and Democrats, you will watch when they support Democrats, they support them very strongly. I remember actually here in Ohio in 2006, there was a pro-gun Republican running for governor. and there was a pro-gun Democrat running for governor. And, you know, I was back in the pro-gun Republican. He's a friend of mine. He would have been a great governor. And the NRA went out and supported the pro-gun Democrat because when he was in Congress, he was pro-gun.

And people were shocked by it. But the NRA said, you know what? They needed to stand by their friends. And so, you know, another organization along those lines is APEC. You know, that supports oral candidates. You know, they look at Democrats or Republicans and, you know, we'll support either. And, you know, there's a lot of organizations like that, you know, there's some of the organizations out there that support natural gas. You know, natural gas is becoming a more and more bipartisan issue because it's a jobs issue.

And, you know, states like my state, like Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, a lot of the Democrats are pro natural gas. And these organizations, you know, they should support them, you know, regardless of their party. And so I want to use some of those examples just like, because I think. it's important that in order for the Bitcoin movement to be successful in Washington, it's got to be bipartisan. Now, you asked about what's going to happen in November. I think it's going to be like bloodshed for Democrats this November just because their policies have so negatively impacted working class families. You know, you look at their spending policies has created this inflation. It's crushing people at the grocery store. Their energy policies has created higher

gas prices. It's crushing people at the gas pump. And I think in general, when I talk to just moms and dads around Ohio, around my state. They feel that like the big handed government's just gone too far in trying to teach their kids things that don't belong in the classroom. And I think moms and dads are like, wait a second. Hey, schools, you guys stick to reading, writing arithmetic. Wanted to leave like the cultural and the social and the sexual stuff to moms and dads to have those like tough conversations with their kids at the kitchen table. And so I think because, you know, just government at all levels has gone so far, I think you're going to see a huge swing in the pendulum this November. And you're going to see, you know, Republicans take over the House and the Senate because the voters are going to say we need to check and balance on these crazy liberal policies. But I have a primary to win before that. So if you want, I could talk about that because that's actually coming up in a couple weeks. Yeah, it's certainly a tight one. Tell us about where you stand there.

and how Bitcoiners can help? Sure. So the good news is the pro-Bitcoin candidate for US Senate in Ohio, me, Josh Mandel, I'm winning. And so the election is in two weeks. I'm in the lead. That's the good news. The bad news is the guy I'm battling with is a banker. He's a 70-year-old banker.

He literally has never mentioned Bitcoin. I don't think he understands it. and he's very wealthy and put $15 million of his own money into the race. And so we're winning, but it's tight, tight, tight. And it's sort of developed into a two-man race between me and this banker named Mike Gibbons. And like in order to win, we need to fully fund our advertising for the rest of the campaign. I would say our advertising is relatively strong in Cleveland and Columbus and Dayton. it's not nearly as strong in Cincinnati and Toledo and Youngstown and some other areas.

And so we're at the point now with our campaign that we're pretty much out of money. So every dollar that comes in just goes in one end and out the other. And so any support that your listeners could provide, it'll be immediately used to project our message of standing up for individual liberty and personal freedom and limited government and the issues we care about. important for our country. And so our website's pretty easy. It's Josh Mandel.com, j-o-s-h-M-A-N-D-E-L.com. I think I'm the only U.S. Senate candidate in America, Democrat or Republican, where it says pro-Bitcoin on my Twitter and on my website because I'm very proud of it.

I get asked about it every day by people in Ohio who say, what's a Bitcoin? And it gives me an opportunity to educate them and to talk to them about our movement and our community. And, you know, people can give on my website via, you know, fake Fiat via credit card or they can give via Bitcoin. As you know, most people in the community, we set up this Bitcoin payment donation portal, but hardly anyone wants to donate their Bitcoin. So most people just end up giving, you know, via credit card anyway. So again, it's Joshmandel.com. And the timing is such, Nick, that we're in the fight now. We are, election day is May 3rd.

In Ohio, we have a month of early voting. So people have been voting here for a couple weeks. And so, you know, it now is my time of need. And any dollars your fan base can donate. We'll go to immediate use and have a very high impact. While in the general election, I will not take my foot off the gas. I would say with pretty high probability, whoever wins the primary will most likely be the U.S. Senator from Ohio.

And there's only one candidate in this race who's, running on a platform to go to the U.S. Senate to work with Cynthia Lummus to create a Bitcoin caucus. Gotcha. Well, I'll certainly include those in the show notes. I wanted to ask, actually, given that most Americans don't own Bitcoin, there's quite a few. I don't know what the latest numbers are somewhere. Maybe I think I saw a NIDIG estimate, sort of the 40 million range. what do you make of sort of the political prudence of being, you know, overly pro-Bitcoin? Do you have you found in your conversation with voters that it's been a positive overall or is it mainly people are sort of agnostic about it? Mostly agnostic. I get sort of some head scratchers because they don't know, they don't understand it.

You know, I would say it doesn't come up on the campaign trail a lot unless I bring it up. We've had some journalists who are intrigued by it and have asked. But the way I view it is that once I'm in the U.S. Senate, I'll have a very big platform in bully pulpit. And I plan on using that platform and that megaphone to advance the cause of Bitcoin. And the reality is, like, if you're going to be an effective United States Senator, you can't be effective at focusing on 10 things or even five things. You've got to pick like one, two, maybe three issues and really become an expert in focus on. And for me, Bitcoin is going to be one of those issues. And, you know, I watched very closely our community, unfortunately, get its teeth kicked in during the infrastructure bill. And one of the

reasons we got our teeth kicked in in the infrastructure bill is because we only had one champion in the U.S. Senate. And that that one champion is Cynthia Lummis. And, you know, what I've learned is there's a big difference in legislative bodies, whether it's U.S. House or U.S. Senate or even state legislators. There's a big difference between friends and champions. A friend is someone who you got to sort of hold their hand and maybe at the end of the day they'll vote the right way. A champion is someone like Cynthia Lomas or someone like me who will wake up every single morning living and breathing and sleeping an issue like this. And a champion is someone when the door is close and the horse trading is going on and the sausage making is going on and and people are really

going at each other and maybe there's some blood being shed and you know it's it's hard hard hard fighting high stakes it's people who are willing to use their political capital to stand up in this case for bitcoin and people who are willing to like take scars and maybe take some pain along the way the same way i was willing to take pain from john casick when he was trying to me from putting the state checkbook online. I just endured through it, head down, and shoulders to the wheel and won. And that's what me and Cynthia Lummis are going to do. We're going to build a Bitcoin caucus. It's going to be bipartisan. It's going to be strong. It's going to take us time to do. And so when the next, you know, infrastructure bill comes along or whatever bill comes along

when these big bank, you know, when these senators who are in bed with the big banks try to screw over our community, we're going to stand up and we're going to fight and we're going to win. And let me tell you what else we're going to do, Nick. This isn't, I'm done with defense. We're going to start going on offense to advance the cause of Bitcoin and democratization of money. So what does that look like going on offense? It means that when presidents, Democrat or Republican, make nominations to the SEC or the FTC or the Federal Reserve or Treasury, that we're going to block nominees who are anti-Bitcoin and we're going to shepherd through and advance nominees who are pro-Bitcoin. And we're going to work with the presidential administrations to help identify pro-Bitcoin nominees to vet.

and to nominate. You know, what else does going on offense mean? It means ensuring that these agencies are not colluding behind the scenes to attack our community and attack our movement. This disgusting, revolving door between the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve and Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan, it's gross. And they all go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. There's no firewall. There's no separation. They're all scratching each other's back.

They're all enriching each other. And it needs to stop. And it's time for us to go on offense and call them out and smoke them out. And listen, we're going to go on offense by educating other senators. When I'm in the Senate, besides for Cynthia Lummis and maybe, you know, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, a few others, most of these people are not educated at all on digital assets or Bitcoin, you know, and we're going to educate them. We're going to teach them about proof of work. We're going to teach them about self-custody. We're going to teach them the fundamentals behind this and why they should be supportive. And it's in my mind, Nick, it's time to go on offense. It's time to elect United States. States senators and United States congressmen who want to go on offense and really lead the charge. And that's going to be me in the U.S. Senate. Love it. Well, Josh, I know you're extremely busy and you have a campaign to run. So we'll let you go.

But I want to thank you for joining us. It's been great. I'm going to put all those links in our show notes. And I want to wish you the best of luck. Thanks, man. Appreciate having me on. I would love to, you know, keep the conversation. Come on any time.

And, hey, open invitation to Ohio. If you ever want to come out here, hop in the Jeep with me, I can, introduce you to some of the people in the Bitcoin community who are doing great things in Ohio. And you know, you might not know this, but Ohio is now one of the leading natural gas states in America. And my vision for Ohio is to really make Ohio an epicenter for Bitcoin mining. So that might be a good, good topic for our next podcast. I'd love to. Thanks again, Josh. It's been great. Take care.