TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #306: Bitcoin in Ohio with Josh Mandel

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

Join Marty as he sits down with Josh Mandel, Republican Senate Candidate out of Ohio, to discuss Bitcoin, populism, and the inner workings of Ohio politics. Follow Josh Mandel Twitter Support his campaign at JoshMandel.com Donate to his campaign via Bitcoin Shoutout to our sponsors: Unchained Capital Braiins HodlHodl Bitcoin 2022 - use the code TFTC for 10% off

is this thing on just what's up freaks it's your boy marty here to introduce this rip a tftc i sat down with josh mandel who's running for u.s senate out of the state of ohio embroiled in a pretty tight primary race right now 50 days away from from the vote beginning and uh he's a one-issue voter he wants bitcoin to be a thing in america not only a thing but a guiding force in the united states i think you guys are gonna like this app this app i haven't said this app ever this rip uh again like try to put your doesn't matter if you lean right or left try to enter this episode without any partisan politics in your mind. I think the overwhelming message of this rip

is the fact that Bitcoin is bipartisan. It's just pro-human, pro-freedom, pro-liberty. And that's a beautiful thing. And can Bitcoin be the thing that gaps the divide in our political, our hyper-partisan political sphere right now? Gosh, I hope so. So this report was brought to you by our good friends at Unchained Capital.

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So the first day. Days two and three. General Conference Day. A bunch of CEOs are going to be there. President Bukele's coming. He's designing a Toyota Tacoma. He's giving a presentation where he's going to pull up the Toyota Tacoma site

and it's going to be a collaborative build of a Toyota Tacoma with the audience. It's going to be really cool. So if you want to participate in helping President Bukele design his his new tacoma is i think he's going to get a 2023 model not even out yet but i think something's happening all right where he needs your help you got to meet him in south beach you got to go to the bitcoin 2022 conference and do that uh jack mauler is going to be there

michael saylor is going to be there marty bent's going to be there that's sly motherfucker Matt O'Dell as well I hear they'll be doing a rabbit hole recap on day three on the seventh maybe day two I'm not sure nobody's told me yet and then day four is

pretty poppin music festival Logic's gonna be there Deadmau5 is gonna be there I heard Steve Aoki's gonna be there if you're trying to get cake thrown at you not my prerogative I'll probably skip that but if you're somebody who likes

eating cake and getting it tossed in your face Steve Aoki will be there right am I just making Steve Aoki up I don't know I could be show up to find out

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10% off your tickets see you Miami freaks okay you've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free when you talk about a fed just gone nuts all all the central banks going nuts so it's all acting like safe haven i believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency bitcoin wins in the world of fiat currencies bitcoin is the victor i mean that's part of the bull case for bitcoin if you're not paying attention you probably should

be probably should be what is up freaks it's your boy marty bent welcome back to tftc i'm here sitting down with josh mandel who's running for uh the republican uh he's running for the senate and the republican race in the state of ohio he's in the primaries right now the gop race seems to be pretty pretty hot uh and josh is a fan of bitcoin and so we're here to talk about everything that's going on in Ohio, Bitcoin, and the state of this country, particularly Josh. How are you doing today? I'm doing well. How are you?

Doing well. Doing well. I think I'm excited for this conversation. I've had a few people who are, Cynthia Lummis has been on the show. She was not Senator. Yet when we recorded, Blake Masters has been on the show as well. He's running in Arizona and now you are the third politician we've had on the show to talk about Bitcoin. It seems like Bitcoin is becoming a very hot topic in the political sphere.

And I'm just here to understand your perspective, why you believe Bitcoin is important and why you've made it a point to thread Bitcoin throughout your campaign, which many would view as risky in some regards. Sure. Yeah, I'm running on a pro-Bitcoin platform. It's definitely made me a lot of enemies, but I wear those enemies as a badge of honor. I've had Paul Krugman coming after me left and right, and a bunch of other just luddites and dinosaurs in politics and in the media. If you want, I can give you sort of a background of how I became an enthusiast and a Bitcoin maximalist. um i uh i was state treasurer of ohio and i had this crazy idea to put the state of ohio's checkbook online as transparency i said the taxpayers have a right to know the tax money is being spent and i put online over 690 billion dollars of state spending everything from two bucks for a pack of pencils to millions of dollars for road contracts and everything in between

managed to basically piss off every politician in the state. You know, the politicians hated it, but the taxpayers loved it. And, you know, through that process of putting the state's checkbook online, I got to know a lot of people in the liberty movement and the libertarian community around the country and also in the technology community. And at that time, I put the state's checkbook online and created this ohiocheckbook.com. You know, a lot of the friends I made in the libertarian community and tech community, they kept talking about Bitcoin. This was probably around 2014. And so I've always been a strong believer in individual liberty and personal freedom. And it was my beliefs and those two principles that really brought me into the

community and had me at the beginning of just studying Bitcoin and the democratization of money in general. So a little later in my term as state treasurer, I decided that I wanted to make Ohio the first state in America to allow taxpayers to pay taxes with Bitcoin. At the time, it would have been a crazy idea in Ohio. And I don't think any state in America had done it either. I mean, now I think it's more accepted in a lot of states are doing that. And so I went to my senior staff and I said, listen, I'm not asking you, I'm telling you, we're going to make Ohio the first state in America to allow taxpayers to pay taxes with Bitcoin. I said, you have 24 hours to either walk out of this room or come back to me and give me ideas of how we can do it. And also all the

arguments that are going to be made against us. So I come back a day later, no one had walked out of the room, which was fortunate. And they came to me and said, listen, here's the bottom line. The bad news is there's nowhere in state law or federal law that enables you to allow taxpayers to pay taxes with Bitcoin. The good news is there's nowhere in state law or federal law that prohibits you from doing it either. And I said, all right, let's just do it. I believe that we're on the side of personal freedom, individual liberty. We're on the side of the law. We're on the side of the taxpayers. We're on the side of the angels. Let's just do it. And we can ask for forgiveness later. And so we did it. I created a website called OhioCrypto.com, made Ohio the

first state in America to allow taxpayers to pay taxes with Bitcoin. The governor went bananas. It was Governor Kasich at the time. The Attorney General, Mike DeWine, who's now the governor, was none too happy. The legislature didn't know what was going on. And we just did it. And we kicked that door open. And we made Ohio the first state in America to do it. And I didn't plan it this way because it took us a long time to build the website, but it so happened that I ended up launching OhioCrypto.com at a time, at the exact time when Bitcoin was in a bear market. It was probably around November, December of 2018. So if you remember, it was a time when Jay Clayton and Jamie Dimon and all these dinosaurs were stomping on Bitcoin and stomping

on our community. And so at a time when these big bank CEOs and big government dinosaurs who are anti-Bitcoin were stomping on Bitcoin, here comes the state treasurer from the seventh largest state in the nation and says, we are recognizing Bitcoin as a form of tax payments for our state. And so it totally cut against what Jamie Dimon and all these other anti-Bitcoin folks were trying to say and do. And, you know, I went to a conference in New York and spoke to a lot of people there and, you know, sort of got known in the community. And I left public office by term limits. And about a year ago, a guy named Rob Portman here in Ohio decided that he was not going to run again. And so I announced I'm going to run for the U.S. Senate. I'm the leading

candidate and i'm also the only pro-bitcoin candidate in the race that's uh it's a hell of a resume there from a bitcoin perspective getting bitcoin accepted uh allowing taxpayers to pay their taxes in bitcoin is a great endorsement what i want to see is just a bitcoiner what i've been pushing so i'm in the bitcoin mining industry and i think what we need to do is replicate what alaska's done with their oil permanent fund but deal with bitcoin mining so ohio is a very natural gas rich state you guys got that gucci gas uh and what i want to see and i i think wyoming's very well positioned to do this as well is you can maybe issue bonds at the state level to to get money to invest in mining uh infrastructure

that then gets rolled into a permanent fund it allows you um to prevent taxpayers from having to part ways with their bitcoin uh by paying taxes because you can use this permanent fund to fund state activities now i'm an idiot i i do not uh really get involved with the political sphere too much is this something that you think could be possible it's like could ohio create like a mining permanent fund potentially yeah i think it's definitely possible i mean listen i used to be in that office i was the state treasurer i was elected by the people of ohio and you mentioned the gas here, a lot of people don't realize if you took Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia and combined our three states into a region, that region will be the third largest producer

of natural gas in the entire world. We are literally sitting on a gold mine of natural gas. And as you know, in West Texas and other parts of America, there's such an abundance of natural gas that it's being flared and uh you know imagine if that natural gas could be captured and used for bitcoin mining what a great thing for our people what a great thing for our country yeah well and this just gets into energy policy in general like what there seems to be in at the federal government level right now a inability or an unwillingness is a better word an unwillingness to tap into these natural resources we have it seems like from an energy policy perspective We're taking many steps back because there's many virtue signaling environmentalists who think they're doing good for the country and the world by transitioning to unreliable renewables like solar and wind.

And they're unwilling to make America energy independent by tapping into the bountiful resources that we have in the form of natural gas, oil, coal, nuclear. Obviously, there's not much uranium on U.S. soil, but we do have people who are smart enough to spin up reactors that could leverage nuclear energy. We seem to be at this weird point in U.S. history where there's, again, an unwillingness to leverage our natural resources to become energy independent, economically independent, and increase the quality of life for individuals across the country. I agree with you 100%. I mean, these natural resources we have beneath our feet, these are assets, not liabilities. And we are blessed to have here in Ohio, this abundance of natural gas and the Marcellus and the Utica shale. And we're blessed to have these natural resources throughout the country in so many American states. And I reject the false choice that a lot of the radical environmentalists try to present. They say, well, either you can drill for oil and gas and mine coal, or you could be pro-environment. That's baloney. We can do both.

They're not mutually exclusive. We can protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, the environment for our kids and grandkids. And at the same time, we can explore for natural resources and develop natural resources here in this country. And we should be doing that for three reasons. One, for the economic strength of our nation. When we produce energy here, it not only brings down the cost of Bitcoin mining, but it brings down the cost of heating someone's home. Here in Cleveland, where I'm coming at you, I think it was

14 degrees over the weekend. And it's expensive for middle-class families and individuals on fixed incomes to heat their home. Well, let's bring down the cost with American natural resources. How about powering factories? If we can power factories with more reliable, dependable, affordable energy that comes from America, it means you could hire more people. The people already have jobs in factories, have higher wages. Obviously, we can bring down the cost at the pumps. And, you know, I think the, you know, Biden administration's decision to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, they're trying to shut down the pipeline from Alberta, Canada into Michigan. Was that pipeline five? Yeah, I mean, they're doing everything they can to block natural gas development here in Ohio and Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other parts of the country. But then, you know, Biden lifts sanctions on Russia and enables the pipeline of Russia. And then he says to the American people, why don't we depend on OPEC? It's like, wait a second, OPEC? I mean, these are radical Islamic regimes in the Middle East who'd love to wipe America off the map. Why don't we, instead of like, depending on Saudi Arabia, why don't we depend on Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, the list goes on and on and on. And so, you know, this is center to Bitcoin, but it's also center to a strong America. And I think, you know, strong Bitcoin and strong America are one in the same.

i do as well right because bitcoin you leaned into it a little bit in the beginning of our conversation but it is the protocol itself being open transparent very focused on protecting private property rights in the form of public private public key cryptography and it aligns very tightly with the ideals that this country was was founded on and private property rights sound money and individuals being able to protect themselves absolutely if i can you know just make one uh other just observation i don't want to get too much in the weeds and energy here but you know when wells are capped you know there can be you know there's there's can be methane release well imagine if like that methane release instead of capping it was actually captured captured you know

for bitcoin development and bitcoin mining i mean there's you know elizabeth warren makes this ridiculous argument that Bitcoin is somehow bad for the environment. It's actually the opposite. Bitcoin mining is good for the environment. And, you know, we're going to talk about this, hopefully in the, you know, in the course of our conversation, but I do not think that the advancement of Bitcoin is a partisan issue. In fact, it only works if it's, if we as a community are relentlessly bipartisan and relentlessly one issue. And, you know, to be successful politically in Washington or in state capitals, the Bitcoin community needs to be relentlessly bipartisan and relentlessly one issue and just focus. And, you know, it's something I feel very

strongly about. And, you know, right now we have a one senator Bitcoin caucus in the United States Senate with Cynthia Lummis out of Wyoming. I've loved some of the recent stuff that Ted Cruz has been saying. And I'm running on a pro-Bitcoin platform to really go grow the Bitcoin caucus in the United States Senate. And my vision for it is that it's full of Republicans and Democrats. And if you got some folks who end up being there who are libertarian, Green Party, vegetarian, whatever, we'll take them if they're pro-Bitcoin. Right? No, that's the beauty of Bitcoin. It does not need partisan politics to succeed. And like you mentioned, it probably will be even stronger if many people realize this is a bipartisan issue. like sound money and transparency is something that are desperately needed, uh, at this point

in us history. I mean, just right before we came on to record this, uh, every tweet, a video has been circulating this morning. John Stewart had on the, uh, uh, president of the Kansas city fed. I believe I forget his name off the top of my head, but John Stewart's asking him like, what is backing the dollar? What, what, like how does the dollar operate? And he openly admits, Oh, it's full faith that the Federal Reserve and the Board of Governors can actually maintain and sort of steward the dollar. It is debt-based. You're banking on future production to make sure that this can subsist. But like Jon Stewart, pretty notable liberal in the political sphere, specifically as a commentator.

uh and that like most people don't even understand how the dollar works and that it is not backed by anything and it is all faith-based and he had it seemed like an epiphany during that conversation in the small clip that was shared that oh like i didn't understand this and i think that's what most people republican or democrat um don't understand how the dollar works and and how detrimental it is to the ability to save which is detrimental to society because you can't you can't plan for the future? Listen, you know, we have one of the 12 Federal Reserve banks here in Cleveland. And here's how I feel about it. I actually think we should end the Federal Reserve. There's a binary choice. It's sort of like a fork in the roads. And like we either,

as American citizens, we either live in one of 12 Federal Reserve districts or we live free both of those cannot be true and we need united states senators who get that we do you know i mean i agree i think we have a binary choice too like i would even describe it probably more uh be more aggressive with the description just like we either get the chinese social credit scoring surveillance system exported here to the u.s which the federal reserve the ecb central banks around the world want to do with their central bank digital currencies that's what will happen you'll have that that social credit scoring system enacted via that cbdc or we get a a future built on freedom and transparency which bitcoin provides

it's scary i've posted on it you know my my twitter josh mandel ohio that you know not only should we get in the federal reserve but we have to crush this you know federal reserve you know they're i think they're taking common question now about a cbdc you know here i mean it's just It's horrible for America. It's horrible for individual citizens. It's horrible for human liberty. It's horrible for personal freedom. It's just bad in general. And if they're still having that conversation, when I'm sworn into the U.S. Senate a year from now, I will do everything I can to crush it. And I get asked a lot about things I'll do in the United States Senate that are pro-Bitcoin. One of the most important things, I believe, one of the most important roles of a United States senator is the role of advising consent and the role a United States senator takes in really grilling and vetting nominees to not only the federal bench, but to all these

different agencies. And when you look at the Federal Reserve, or you look at the SEC and some of these others, I am going to make sure that every single person that is nominated, whether it's a Democrat president or Republican president, they are grilled and vetted on the positions on Bitcoin. And if they don't have an understanding, I will tell them to go study and come back, and then I will grill them again. But I don't know is not going to be a sufficient answer for me. uh and i will do everything i can to block and crush nominees i don't again i don't care if it comes from a democrat president or republican president if they're anti-bitcoin i will do

everything i can to stop and crush their nomination that's actually leads me to an interesting question from like your perspective if let's just say hypothetically bitcoin is is either banned or prevented from flourishing in the united states what do you think that means for the future of the U.S.? How does shutting down Bitcoin, attempting to shut down Bitcoin, I don't think you can shut it down, but you can certainly slow down individual U.S. citizens from adopting it and using it in an efficient manner.

What happens to the U.S. if we mess up policy around Bitcoin? It crushes liberty at a human personal level, and it crushes freedom for individuals and for families. And listen, for anyone listening to this, if you distrust government, if you are skeptical about politicians, if you are cynical about how the political process works, then you should be for Bitcoin. And again, it doesn't matter what political party you come from. It doesn't matter what race, religion, socioeconomic background you come from. If you have a distrust of government, if you have a distrust of politicians, you should

be for bitcoin and so the counter to that or the inverse to that you know going back to your to your question is you know what does what is it weakening or trying to stop bitcoin do it empowers those politicians and those bureaucrats who want to control our lives and like you said whether it's to get you know social credit scoring like the chinese communist party is trying to advance not just in china but eventually throughout the world or it's some other type of authoritarian Like, anyone who's into authoritarianism, anyone who is a big government, control the people, you know, someone who wants people to be as weak as possible and government to be as powerful as possible, it is those politicians and those bureaucrats who will flourish and advance their goals, you know, if Bitcoin is weak or stopped. And so that's why I feel so strongly about supporting Bitcoin, our movement, our community, because we need to do everything we can to eradicate from our government and our political offices, politicians and bureaucrats who want to control the people. Yeah. I mean, I agree. You're preaching to the choir. I probably fall into the former bucket of people you described. I'm personally politically disenfranchised. I've been a big believer for quite a while, having been a child of the aftermath of 9-11 and the great financial crisis that politics, unfortunately, throughout the course of my life has never ended in good results for my generation.

generation or people in the US. And Bitcoin, to me, presents an opportunity to sort of build something outside the system without having to wait for that political system to bring about the world that I would like to see. Bitcoin provides me with that opportunity. That's why I like leaning into it. That's why I like having the show. But with that being said, it is really nice to see a Bitcoin caucus developing among senators and representatives at the federal level, because i think again like i do love the ideal i do love this country right i think that's what many people uh when you talk to somebody like myself is politically disenfranchised i just think you're like anti-america or whatever it's like no like i'm anti-big government and i i do

and i i don't even come like i don't even like describe myself as like a republican or a right leaning person even though that's probably how people would describe me it's just like i I believe that systems like economies and monetary systems or complex systems and just applying a heuristic to the understanding of complex systems, you're never going to get good results from top-down control or attempts at top-down control of complex systems. And I think over the last three decades of my life, that's exactly what the government has done, has tried to control very complex systems, whether it be centuries worth of political stability built up in the Middle East, whether it be via the monetary system or the global economy, as we've witnessed for the last two years with the economic shutdowns and the lockdowns. Yeah, I mean, it's, I'm glad to hear you say that. So, you know, I think we're a similar generation. And I get these anti-Bitcoiners who, they come at me and say, oh, Josh, you know, by you saying you want to end the Federal Reserve or by you being, you know, pro-Bitcoin, somehow you're like not patriotic. It's like, wait a second. I'm a Marine Corps vet. I did two tours in Anbar province, Iraq. I did my small part. I put my life on the line. And the reason I do support Bitcoin is because I believe in the constitution that I swore an oath to defend. Because the foundation of that constitution

is human liberty and personal freedom. It's not big government. The framers of the constitution, the founders of this nation, they distrusted government. Like that is like the foundation of our American system of, of this Republic, you know, is making people as big as possible and making government as small as possible and as limited in, in size and scope. And so, you know, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's interesting, like the, so, you know, I don't know, you know, 10 years ago or so a decade ago you had a lot of folks who were just like totally dismissing bitcoin um and then like maybe you know seven eight years ago you had like a lot of folks i'd say were um tech specialists and at the pointy tip of the spear in the technology world who were embracing

it but it definitely you know was not mainstream and then maybe like you know five six years ago um you know it was you know more and more mainstream for you know the investment community and just others and then now today it's actually being talked about as a form of national security for america think about that think about that that progress and you know it's it's really amazing in such a short period of time where we've come and it's exciting to think where we're going because make no mistake about it the chinese communist party um they are they wake up every morning thinking about world dominance like that is what they think about let me let me read you this uh a buddy of mine um i mean i'm gonna let me just read this real quick because a buddy of

might text me. So last July, let's see if I can pull this up. Last July, Xi in China gives this speech to the Chinese Communist Party. And I'm just going to read one line from his speech. But this line from his speech, it was directed at us as Americans. So here's what he says. It says, Xi lauded the accomplishments of his country of 1.4 billion people and portrayed the 95 million member Chinese Communist Party as the only entity that can complete the task of national rejuvenation, warning that any force, and he's talking to America, warning that any force that attempts to bully, oppress, or subjugate us will find itself on a collision course with a great wall of steel. That was Xi last July. And these guys don't

mince words. And we've got, Marty, we've got politicians in this country on both sides, Democrat and Republican, they're thinking in terms of 24-hour news cycles and two-year, four-year, six-year election cycles. The Chinese Communist Party, these guys are thinking in terms of decades, generations, centuries. And I know you followed and a lot of your listeners followed what they're doing with debt trap, diplomacy, and a lot of what their activities throughout Africa, Central America, South America. And I think our politicians need to wake up. And the fact that the Federal Reserve here is talking about a CBDC is just, it's nutso to me. And we're going to stop it. But one of the tools we have in our tool belt to combat the Chinese Communist Party quest for

for dominance is Bitcoin. And listen, I'm a Marine Corps vet who's against the Patriot Act. I worked in the intelligence community. I'm against the Patriot Act. And I'm for Bitcoin. And I think you'll find a lot of men and women, our generation, who served in Iraq or served in Afghanistan, are increasingly anti-Patriot Act and pro-Bitcoin. And it's because we put our lives in line to defend this country and you know we know what this country's all about it's all about advancing the cause of human liberty and personal freedom it's not about government control of our lives and the chinese communist party that is that is all they're about is the the government control of people's lives yeah they're playing the win they don't they don't mess around and

that's i mean we covered it on this show when it first like came to light in like the summer of 2020 they infiltrated the university system like you had a bunch of researchers throughout the united states and the university system like reporting back to the ccp and that sort of got glossed over you had that one harvard professor actually i believe the department of justice and the fbi wound up arresting him and he got he got sent to jail for sending medical information or research back to the ccp and i think it was directly related to the coronavirus i was like And that's, if I understand it correctly, China doesn't only play for keeps. They only play long-term games.

They do war in a different way where it's more covert and behind the scenes. And one could argue that we're under attack in many regards here in the United States. And it seems like people are asleep at the wheel. Number one, not understanding this. And then it seems like some people do understand, but it doesn't seem like we're doing much to combat it. And like you said, I think Bitcoin is a potent tool to ensure that China doesn't win this long game that we're playing. And again, like I know many Chinese citizens are good people. Some of the best, most insightful, capitalistic people in the Bitcoin industry, the mining industry specifically, are from China.

But they're Chinese citizens. They're not like members of the CCP, if you will. And that's just trying to, and that's another thing Bitcoin can do. like if the united states leans into it um and strengthens the bitcoin network that can strengthen individual chinese citizens who then have more leverage against the the oppressive ccp in the long run yeah i mean you know you talk about what the ccp does quietly where i live here in the cleveland area you know right down the road from where i'm sitting is case western reserve university it's one of the um you know one of the top engineering hard sciences in colleges

in America. The Chinese Communist Party, they have kids that are enrolled there at Case Western Reserve University, and I'm sure they have them enrolled where you're sitting in Austin at University of Texas and other universities. We know they do it at MIT, and we know they do it at Polytech here, and we know they do it at Purdue and Georgia Tech and all over the country. They go up to kids who are in high school in China, and they say, hey, we're going to pay and enroll you for college in America, and you're going to be a spy for the CCP. And these high school kids in China say to the government, no, I don't want to do that. I'm going to stay in China. And the CCP says to them, says, no, I don't think you understand. We are going to send you to

America. We're going to enroll you in XYZ University. You are going to be a spy for the Chinese Communist Party. And if you do not agree to do this, we will disappear your family. So those are your choices. And so they have kids enrolled at American universities in every state in this nation who are spies. They're there for one reason, to collect information and intelligence for the Chinese Communist Party. That is the game they're playing. That is the war they're waging. And, you know, we need policy leaders that are willing to wake up to it. Now, just to say something else here, you know, you were talking about just politically, you know, what happens, I think we got on this China topic talking about just the politics in this country. If,

if the anti-Bitcoin folks in DC succeed. Let me tell you who's funding the anti-Bitcoin folks. It's people like Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan and big banks like that. A buddy of mine recently told me that, I guess, following flight logs and whatnot, that Jamie Dimon spent approximately four months of one of the previous years in Washington, or at least on approximately four months of, of the year was, was in DC. Think about that for a second. You know, he's got, he's trying to, you know, build his own competing network, you know, to try to crush the lightning network. And like, this, this is an American company, but, but, but it's not a company that's advancing the cause of American strength. You know, if any, any company that's trying to

stop Bitcoin, it's not trying to strengthen America. And, and so, yeah, we should have our eyes on people like jamie diamond and companies like jp morgan and others um because you know they're trying to do everything they can to stop bitcoin which means stopping human liberty and stopping personal freedom and weakening america yeah not a big way in which jamie diamond does i imagine he was spending four months of an individual year in dc to to lobby for particular regulations either stay in place or be added because that's what these large behemoths in banking sector do very well is they they lobby to create a regulatory environment that creates a competitive moat that does not enable upstarts to to actually compete with them they don't like

competition and they they fight to to make it so competition is just immediately dismayed from the prospect of even trying to compete because the the cost of compliance is so high and that's one thing we focus on here at TFTC quite a bit is KYC AML regulation stemming from the Bank Secrecy Act. I personally think the Bank Secrecy Act should be abolished. I don't think KYC AML regulation that a lot of these banks use to create the regulatory modes actually helps any individuals. Criminals are going to criminal. They're going to figure out how to get, they're going to figure out how to launder money and they're going to use the KYC AML data that they hack from the And these servers that are holding that data on behalf of these banking institutions, not even banking institutions anymore, it's spread to many other types of institutions.

And it just puts individuals in harm's way. Again, you increase the cost of compliance by forcing companies to collect and store data, which is burdensome from an expense standpoint. and then those servers often get hacked and individually we see it in the Bitcoin world a lot with SIM swapping. People are able to take information from those hacks, get the phone number, swap the SIM card, get the email address, reset the password

and steal people's Bitcoin. This is just mainly because people are forced to give up all their personal identifying information in the name of protecting people from money laundering. Yeah, I mean, so many of these regulations and laws are, they're put forth to do exactly what you said, to create a moat for these legacy banks and big banks. I don't know if you've talked, I'm sure you've talked on your show about this, you know, $600 transaction thing. I mean, come on. The government is going to, the banks have to report to the government, to Big Brother, any transaction $600 or above. I mean, that's insane. I mean, this is like Orwellian, to say the least. I mean, it's just, the whole thing's just nuts. But you're right. You look at JPMorgan Chase. You look at some of these other enormous banks. The amount of lobbyists and tax attorneys they have on staff, it's just mammoth because – and there's this back and forth, and this is one of the dirty little secrets between Washington and Wall Street.

there's this back and forth where people work for goldman sachs work for drapey morgan chase and then when their party's in power they go and work for department of the treasury or federal reserve or department of commerce and then the next party comes in power and they go back to jp morgan chase or goldman sachs or wherever and then it just it's just back and forth and And it's not like pro-Democrat or pro-Republican. It's like pro-Green Party and not the Green Party with Jill Steins from the other Green Party. It's like World's Smallest Violin. These guys are just like doing everything they can to enrich themselves.

And it's this horrible – and you know who gets screwed? Mom and dad in Dayton, Ohio. A young entrepreneur, small businesswoman in Youngstown, Ohio. you know that truck driver in toledo ohio like that's who's getting screwed by this and uh it's got nothing to do with the strong america it's got you know it's got everything to do with them you know enriching enriching themselves um you know what i just uh realized also marty what's that i think like uh whatever half hour so we've been on i think i've drinking from like four different cups yeah i've noticed that too i saw coffee it's so like

like that's got like cold water and then i got this one i got like the red solo cup with the warm water and then i got this one with the coffee and then i got this one with the tea in it i mean is that a record for uh for this this show like four cups or four cups yes we've um in the early days of the show we used to drink a lot um so we would go through a lot a lot of uh either beers or whiskey in terms of quantity, but in terms of number of different... Maybe that'll be the fifth one. No, definitely highest in terms of number

of different liquids consumed on one show. We're going to write that down, strike it for the record book of TFTC here. We've got at least four liquids being consumed on the other side of the camera. But going back to

what you were just saying with the regulatory, I think it's completely disgusting. You have Janet Yellen, I think she's done being the chairwoman of the Fed, and then she's able to go give speeches, 45-minute speeches at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, whatever it may be, and get paid $250,000 a pop or more. Sometimes Ben Bernanke, he's on the board at Citadel, which is a hedge fund that many would argue has benefited pretty massively from Fed policy, particularly after they changed the facilities in reaction to the COVID stuff in March, April 2020. They essentially open the floodgates of the monetary spigot to hedge funds by using the FICC as proxy. It is completely a corrupt system. The Federal Reserve and its interaction with the primary dealers that have access to the window.

So that's what Bitcoiners really lean into, as you know, is the incentives of that system are just completely borked. The way it is structured from a hierarchical design is easy to corrupt. It is, one would argue, corrupt from inception just to how the hierarchy and the connections between the Fed and its primary dealers are set up. And that's the beauty of Bitcoin. For anybody listening, it's left, right, middle, whatever you may be. like that i think that's one thing we can all agree on is across the aisle is the incentives of a a monetary system run on bitcoin are much more aligned with fairness and not not going to bring about equality it's not going to bring about a quality of outcome or equity but the the playing

field is much more fair and the incentives are much more aligned with fairness and allowing individuals to to compete i i agree wholeheartedly um one of the other gross revolving doors is between the federal reserve and treasury you're thinking about it i there should almost be like a wall right um but now it's like all intertwined from everything i've read like they have like all these like meetings between the fed reserve and the treasury and i just think there's a lot of bad things going on there um yeah yeah just none of it's good for bitcoin and none of it's good for like the american people and the fed and the treasury have essentially merged at this point the treasury has an account at the fed now after after the

reaction to covid i mean janet yellen obviously she was a fed chairwoman now she's secretary of the treasury treasury secretary larry summers was um similarly held both positions uh i believe or it's at least a fed governor um and yeah it's it's very incestuous it's and it's filled with a bunch of individuals who don't have experience in the real world they're academics who get to these positions and they don't really understand what it's like for a small mama pop shop in ohio to uh run its business they don't understand the the problems that they go through the trials and tribulations that they have everybody you know all the mom-and-pop shops and even large corporations there's inputs and excel sheets that these people use as models to to try to predict

what will happen in the economy and again it goes back to the fact that these people think that they can micromanage a complex system in a monetary system it's just not possible Totally, man. And not only do they not know or relate to people like in my state, but I don't think they care. Like I was a, the other day I was at a Waffle House in Okta, Ohio. It's about rural areas, about halfway between Cincinnati and Columbus. And my waitress, her name was Teresa. she was you know i was just talking to her and she was like listen like i work here 10 12 14 hours on my feet then i go to the grocery store after work and like the price of bread the price of milk the price of meat it's just getting tough josh and then she's telling me like go to fill up my gas tank it's getting tough and i said to her i said you know i think inflation is theft i said like this is politicians and bureaucrats and people the federal reserve they're stealing

from you. This is theft. And the best antidote to that theft is Bitcoin. And you think Gary Gensler, Goldman Gary, you think he cares about the resources working at the Waffle House in Ohio? No way. He doesn't care. And that's the problem. We just need a whole new generational leaders in this country. And there's this lady running for Congress in LA. I think I disagree with her on every single thing like i can't think of one topic i agree with her on her name is erica rhodes except bitcoin and that's one of the beautiful things about bitcoin is that it can bring people from totally opposite ends of the political spectrum together and you know there's uh you know i think when the american people are looking at washington right now

they just see a lot of politicians who care about stuffing money in their own pockets and who care about enhancing their own personal power, but don't care about the American people. And I think we just need more leaders in this country who just care about the people. And one of the things also, I think it's important to note, in the 1970s, about 80% of public officials were veterans of the united states armed forces um today it's down to 16 one six we're all time low and you know by no means does military service uniquely qualify someone for public office um but i will say that i think there's moments in american history when our country would be better served with more veterans more young men and women who've

carried a weapon in a foreign land serving in the united states house and serving the united state senate and i think now is one of those moments and you know i think there's a lot of people in our community in the bitcoin community who come from a libertarian um viewpoint and you know i do as well and i think it's important that we do everything we can to recruit more military veterans into the bitcoin community because at the end of the day like the marines i served with and my buddies from the marine corps they don't want the government involved in our lives they are and we don't i don't talk politics with my buddies from the marine corps and i don't even know what political parties they are but you know when a lot of them talk about sort of how

they view the world it's almost like a libertarian type viewpoint which is like how you and i see the world marty and at the end of the day like like i was saying earlier when we raised our right hand to defend the constitution to defend this flag behind me we were we were defending the concept of human liberty the concept of individual liberty the concept of personal freedom and that's what bitcoin's all about and so you know i i think as someone who's pro-american strength pro-american military anti-patriot act and anti-big government and pro-bitcoin obviously i think we've got to be doing everything we can to recruit more and more like-minded philosophically veterans um to you know to leadership in our in our country but also just get involved in the bitcoin community because

they fought to protect the ideals that bitcoin represents i completely agree and i think even to add to that i think it probably is wise to have more military members in positions uh throughout politics at the federal level because they understand uh how how scary war is how how vicious it is and they don't take going to war lightly which i think a lot of the politicians that that sit in dc right now do they don't they're not it's a really good point you make marty that you know i think there's a misconception i think a lot of voters they look at someone with a military background is running for office and they think they're going to be a warmonger and be for military adventurism in the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate.

I'm the exact opposite. Like, because I served and did a couple tours in Al-Anbar Province, Iraq, as a United States senator, I will do everything I can to keep our sons and daughters from going to war, you know, because, you know, I've been there and, you know, and that's how most of my buddies feel too. You know, it's just, you know, we should do everything we can to stop war and to defend against new wars and you know what what is the formula there the formula there is a

strong america and what's foundational to a strong america individual liberty personal freedom freedom and bitcoin yeah i love i love hearing a politician say yeah bitcoin's essential to to a strong america is it i mean you're talking to somebody who wholeheartedly believes that and not only believes it i've seen it to be true i've seen it make my life better as an american i've seen like somebody you described it's a natural gas uh taking capped wells and mining bitcoin with it i'm doing that like i've seen it like i'm doing it you're doing it yeah like i've seen it yeah uh up in tennessee uh oh really yeah it's interesting tennessee's not a state i think of like as a natural gas state so that's awesome what what uh is it like in one of the shale

formations or what we're uh yeah i don't know the exact shale by the way it works up there very shallow uh oil wells that they they dig and i had a person i used to work with buy some land up there and he happened to have a well on on his land throwing a few miners on there to mine personally and what we're doing is basically so the way it works up in that particular shale northern tennessee southern kentucky is the the producer would go get the oil out again shallow well so the oil part of the well would run dry within a few years wasn't economically sound to build a gas pipeline and connect it to a grid or a larger pipeline that would sell to midstream and so oil runs dry you capped a natural gas well that's associated with

it with no pipeline connectivity and it sits there or in the perpetuity if nobody's there to come pick it up and so um we're happy to un uncap the well turn the valve let the gas come out flow through a generator mine bitcoin with it awesome man reducing methane uh emissions and and yeah and it's a rural farming community so it's um it's helping like we think there's a shit ton of these wells throughout this this part of tennessee you can go to the farmers who are just paying leases on these wells that are sitting on their land and not really doing anything with the gas and be like hey you could get something out of your gas you you have another revenue stream on top of what you're doing with your cattle ranching or your your crop farming like

you can you can get more value out of the land that you own and this emboldens uh the individuals actually run the country the people producing our food uh who have been somewhat forgotten in today's day and age and that's the beauty of bitcoin being able to take these stranded wasted energy sources turn into hard money uh and anybody could do it a farmer could take participate in it a large publicly traded uh company could take a part in it democrat republican bitcoin does not care let me um do you mind if i shift gears and talk about my race for a little yeah let's do that what's going on it seems pretty it seems pretty heated from what uh from what i've Yes, my race for U.S. Senate, the unique opportunity for the Bitcoin community to elect a Bitcoin champion.

And let me just walk through the difference between a friend and a champion in politics. A friend is someone in the United States House, United States Senate who might vote the right way for our community at the end of the day. But when the fight is going on and the senators that are in the pockets of the big banks are trying to do everything they can to screw over the Bitcoin community and block Bitcoin and stop it, a friend is not someone who's going to fight behind the scenes. They'll vote the right way at the end of the day, but they won't fight. A champion will fight. And that's what I'm going to the United States Senate to be.

I'm going to the Senate to be a champion for the Bitcoin community. So when these US senators, Democrat and Republican, who are in bed with the big banks and have this big bank money stuffed in their pockets when they are trying to advance the cause of big banks and big government and trying to stop bitcoin and block bitcoin and put in horrible language like they did in the transportation bill i will be there fighting tooth and nail alongside of cynthia lummis to stop them and you know in this race there is no united states senate race in america where there was someone like me a bitcoin champion running for office when i get to united states senate i will live and breathe and sleep i will wake up every morning fighting for

the advancement of bitcoin and the reason i'll be doing that is because i believe in my bones in in fighting for individual liberty and personal freedom and i fought and and served you know standing up for for those freedoms now let's go go ahead go ahead i was just going to say like do are or any of any individuals who are running against you in this gop primary or what are their thoughts on bitcoin yeah most of them are silent one of them because they don't even understand it like if you started talking to them about you know right to run your own node or proof of work or self-custody like they'd be lost in the sauce like they don't they don't understand any of this um on top of that i've got one lady running against me her name's jane timkin she was the chairman of the

republican party here she is completely in bed with these big banks and like if you look at the the United States senators who inserted the language in the infrastructure bill that was horrible to our community. She has support from some of the same banks that are supporting them. And the interesting thing with this race is the voting starts in 50 days, 5-0. And so this thing's going to be over soon. And so the reason we got our teeth kicked in in the infrastructure bill was because we only had one champion, Cynthia Lummis. We had some friends, but we only had one champion. And the big banks had a bunch of champion, and so we lost. And so the way to get more champions in there so this never happens again, and so instead of playing defense against

Goldman Gary and the SEC and all these bad guys who are trying to stop Bitcoin and advance big banks, if we want to go on offense, we need to elect more champions. And there is no race in America, US House or US Senate, that has a champion like me. And I've got the scars to prove it, right? From building the first website in America to allow taxpayers to pay taxes via Bitcoin. And I've got scars now. I mean, when I talk about ending the Federal Reserve, I get private messages to say, hey, Josh, you shouldn't say that. People in the past who've said that, they've ended up in a body bag, literally. But I keep saying it because it's the right thing for our country. And so my website is joshmandel.com, J-O-S-H-M-A-N-D-E-L.com. On the website,

people can donate via Bitcoin. They can also donate via fake fiat if they want. There's a button for both of those. But listen, at the end of the day, the only way to get more champions in the US Senate is to elect them. And my race is going to be over soon. And so I need help. I'm up against one guy who's a banker. He put in 12 million of his own money. I'm up against this lady who's got all this big bank money and her stuff in her pockets. And here I am, the pro Bitcoin candidate. I'm actually in the lead in this race, but they're coming after me with a lot of big bank money and big government money. And I need your help. And so anyone who can go to my website joshmandel.com and and donate whether it's via bitcoin or or via usd like i really

appreciate it because the only way to win is to be able to get this message out throughout the state in a state like ohio that's 11.7 million people the seventh largest state in the nation the only way to get my message out is via media whether that's you know digital media on the internet whether that's cable news, whether that's streaming via Hulu, YouTube, what have you, whether it's traditional broadcast TV. We've got a lot of people in our state who are still watching the 6 o'clock, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock news. And so we need to advertise via all those different mediums, but we can't do it without money. And so I'm here as a Bitcoin champion. I want to be a Bitcoin champion in the United States Senate. I want to take on the big banks.

I want to take on the SEC. I want to take on the Federal Reserve. I want to take on the Chinese Communist Party. I want to stand up for Bitcoin in the US Senate, but I can't do it if I lose. And so I need help now to get across the finish line. And the way for people to help is post about me on their Twitter, post about me on their other social media, and most importantly, go on my website, joshmandel.com and donate. You heard it here first, Freaks. And this is something that I think in the last year, year and a half specifically, Bitcoiners have realized like, all right we probably think again said it many times for this conversation i've been politically disenchanted i said disenfranchised not really disenfranchised disenchanted by the

whole process uh uh but i have been coming around more recently like all right like you can't enter the game and fight fire with fire and by getting bitcoin focused politicians into positions of power, it can only help Bitcoin, I would imagine. So there's a massive push within the Bitcoin community to begin supporting politicians who are doing single-issue voting or single-issue with Bitcoin.

Specifically, you mentioned Erika Rhodes. There's many Bitcoiners who have gotten behind her and anybody out there who's listening has gotten behind Erika. I mean, why wouldn't you get behind Josh as well? And so I hope that this conversation, while I know it definitely will permeate throughout the Bitcoin world, hopefully goes beyond that. Because again, these are bipartisan issues. We need to bring sound money back and really fight for individual liberty in terms of private property rights, which Bitcoin does. And then, like you said, we were talking about end the Fed and audit the Fed. The Fed is in a very precarious situation.

We need a lifeboat. It's not going to be a CDBC or whatever, CBDC. The monetary system and the financial system is skating on very thin ice. It would be good to have a lifeboat for when that eventually does collapse. It's going to happen. It is inevitable. It is a mathematical inevitability. And so at the federal level, if we were to shut down Bitcoin or prevent Americans from adopting Bitcoin, it would be very bad for individuals across the country.

So Josh, I want to thank you for being a champion. I really like that distinction that you made, champions versus friends, because there have been a lot of people who just mentioned Bitcoin because they want the votes and really won't do anything behind the scenes. And so it is nice to know that there will be individuals like you standing side by side with Senator Lummis to actually champion Bitcoin on Capitol Hill because it's desperately needed. I appreciate it, man. And, you know, there's over 300 million people in this country and most of them are getting crushed now because of inflation. And I think, you know, I just appreciate you in this conversation showing a heart and bringing up like regular people. Because I think that's something that's lost in all these political discussions. This isn't about numbers on a spreadsheet.

This is about human beings' lives. And that's one of the main reasons I support Bitcoin, because it's good for people in my state and people in my country. And as you know and your listeners know, Bitcoin is deflationary. But the establishment politicians in this country that subscribe to this traditional monetary policy they're the ones who are creating and increasing the inflation that's crushing people you know just like i said earlier moms and dads and waitresses truck drivers and places like cleveland ohio dayton ohio columbus ohio cincinnati ohio and and it needs to stop and so like we just

got to remember when we're talking politics we're not we're talking policy like this isn't about like spreadsheets, like this is about people. And like, that's, you know, I think our Bitcoin movement, if we really centered on how it impacts people's lives, we win. And, you know, let, let the Janet Yellens and the Powells and the Genslers and let them talk about, you know, spreadsheets and charts. And like, we got to talk about people because that's how, you know, that's how we win And the argument of ideas is talking about how good policy on Bitcoin and strong Bitcoin and Bitcoin champions in the United States Senate will help individual citizens throughout this great country. Yeah, and I actually truly believe it will solve the hyper-partisanship that exists right now because people, due to the rising inflation and the gorge that has been forged in the wealth inequality gap via monetary policy, people are misdiagnosing they're saying no it's the left in their policies is the right in their

policy nobody's pointing at the fed to be like this is this is the root of the problem and if we fix the root of the problem i think we should see tensions in this country uh from a from a hyper-partisan perspective uh lesson and i because i think we'll actually people won't have many things to complain well they won't have as many things to complain about because they'll actually to be able to live their lives in a comfortable way, which just hasn't been possible in recent history because we fucked up the money. Well said, man. Well said. And listen, when your viewers, listeners, when they go on my website, joshmendel.com, they might not agree with everything I stand for. But one thing I think they do agree with is my being a fierce

pro-Bitcoin champion in the US Senate. And so, like I said, if we're going to be successful as a community in this political arena, we need to be relentlessly one issue and relentlessly bipartisan. And so when you go to my website, just remember, I am pro-Bitcoin, pro-Bitcoin, pro-Bitcoin. And I urge you to take that into consideration and be relentlessly pro-Bitcoin, which means being relentlessly one issue and supporting me because of my support and future champion of Bitcoin in the U.S. Senate. So just one more shameless plug for the website, joshmandel.com, J-O-S-H-M-A-N-D-E-L.com. You can donate there via Bitcoin and also via USD. And you can follow me on Twitter, Josh Mandel, Ohio. And listen, it's not lost on me that not

everyone has money to give. And there's other ways to help. If you live in Ohio or if you've family or friends here in ohio shoot them a note today and uh you know tell them you heard you heard me and uh like what you had to say and ask them to put a sign in their front yard ask them to vote for me you know this isn't just about money we do need money to win this thing but we need a lot more we need votes and we need volunteers and you know people can help out in a variety of ways freaks if you want to help the cause if you want to get bitcoin uh a bitcoin champion on capital hill josh mandel.com we'll link to it in the show notes as well josh i wish you well thank you for fighting the good fight on behalf of liberty in the digital age thanks man next time let's do the

show in ohio let's get you up here yeah now i'd love to come up with me get you on the road yeah i need to come check out that gucci gas so i'll definitely be up in the state at some point no joke like i i know a lot of people here who are active in the eunuch in the marcellus that'd be an interesting show for you to do to come up here and you know people don't realize you know the abundance of natural gas up here in poor poor parts of ohio eastern ohio western pa and west virginia and it'd be interesting to come up here and do a show and talk to some of those folks because so much of that natural gas is not only contributing to the economic strength of america but it could be contributing to bitcoin mining as well oh yes i mean it's a bit contrarian to

of the Bitcoin world right now, but I believe off-grid natural gas mining is going to contribute significant hash rate to the network by the end of the decade here. I'll definitely be making a trip up because I love the producers that I've spoken with in Ohio.

It's good people. I'm from Pennsylvania personally, so just a state east of you. And I'm from Philadelphia, but everywhere west of Philadelphia, it's just like good, hardworking people who just want to put food on their family's tables,

put a roof over their heads and just live a good life. Yeah, you know what they say about Pennsylvania, right? You got Philadelphia on one side, Pittsburgh on the other, and Alabama in between. Yeah, yeah. It's an incredible state.

It's a big state. They're big states. Good football states too. The Ohio-Pennsylvania football rivalry is a good one. I mean, I'm not sure I'd compare Pennsylvania. That's another conversation. Yeah, it's a conversation for another day. Josh, thank you again.

Wish you well. and that's all we got this week freaks peace and love thank you