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March 2, 2022

453: What's the ACTUAL State of the Union? (with Kevin Warmhold)

453: What's the ACTUAL State of the Union? (with Kevin Warmhold)

What do you think about the current state of our union?

What do you think about the current state of our union?

 

If you ask today's guest and I (Kevin Warmhold), you'll be shocked to hear our take...

 

Yeah, the state of our union?

 

It ain't good.

 

Where have things gone so wrong? And is there hope at getting things back on track?

 

 

From COVID to Inflation to War in Ukraine and more, Kevin Warmhold and I outline how we got here and where we (hopefully) are headed.

 

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Transcript

Brian Nichols  
Instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, hey there, folks, Happy Wednesday, and welcome to another fun filled episode of The Brian Nichols Show. I am as always your humble host. And today we have a returning guest. He's been a little busy just like yours truly, and in more ways than some because he too, made the venture from the East Coast to the Midwest, specifically in Indiana. Kevin warm old Welcome back to The Brian Nichols Show.

Kevin Warmhold  
Thank you very much for having me back on Brian. It's been a while. I think our episode was number 59 was our episode that we did before.

Brian Nichols  
And we're at like, 450. I think you're 450 to 453. So yeah, a little bit.

Kevin Warmhold  
It's been a while. But thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

Brian Nichols  
Absolutely. And I mentioned there in the intro, you too, just like yours truly made the trek from the East Coast, you set up shopping, Indiana, just like yours truly. How has the trip, Ben? And how has the transition been to the Hoosier State on your end?

Kevin Warmhold  
It's it's a relief. Yes, the fact that my pockets are full on with more money that the government doesn't get to take is is truly what a difference? And how

Brian Nichols  
about the Who's your hospitality? And just the ideas and the goals and the values that everybody even though you might have differences of opinion? It doesn't seem like everybody is in this constant state of waiting to be offended and have a fight. It just, it's so much less, I don't know, less toxic? Is that the best term to use?

Kevin Warmhold  
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's different when people actually hold doors for you and say hello, and how you doing even if they don't know you, compared to the Get out of my way, what I have to do is more important than what you have to do. Yep. Hustle and bustle in New York. So I'm glad to be out in New York City, the last two years, the pandemic and everything. I couldn't wait to get out of there. So that I'm ready for the next pandemic, I got trees and pine trees and maple trees around me, I'm good.

Brian Nichols  
It was, um, it was a transition, I went to the gym. So first and foremost, for the past two years, I did all my workouts at home because I was not going to be able to do my workouts effectively in a gym wearing a mask and such I just I tried to one day, I couldn't see anything on the glasses. And I just like this isn't safe. I'm lifting heavy weight over my head. Let's just not do this. I can do this pretty much at home just I was limited to the weights. And finally I get you know, here to Newcastle and the gym is not even five minutes from my house. It's open 24/7. And I'm walking in now the first day. And there's an old couple on the treadmill and just me in still East Coast mode. I'm just like, you know, powering in and they're like, Oh, good morning. Like, Hi, how are you? And you're right, you have to almost recondition yourself. Because I think it's really been not just the disparity between the Northeast and the rest of what we consider the quote unquote flyover states. But also, Kevin, and I'm sure you've seen this, as we moved out here, the past two years of insanity from a COVID perspective, really has made the contrasts very stark between the not just those, I'd say more coastal states, but also the in disparity between those flyover states, but specifically the difference between the red states and the blue states. What are your thoughts there?

Kevin Warmhold  
Well, I've noticed since being out here, how the masking you know everybody's a little bit more tolerant of let's get, you know, keep businesses open. Places didn't shut down, please just didn't close. The gym gym has been open the whole time since I've been here. So I've noticed that where there's a lot less restriction people are happier, people are still doing the day to day less businesses closed down. I know many businesses in Queens especially where did most of my work shut down. Half the businesses in New York would never come back. So that in itself is a prime example of why Indiana and states like Indiana are better. Yep.

Brian Nichols  
And it speaks to the state of our union, which of course our fearless leader Joseph Biden talked about yesterday in front of the nation. Everybody I'm sure was on pins and needles to hear what are just absolutely steadfast commander in chief had to say, I know I was excited to see Nancy Pelosi get really weird maniacal she was trying to do her shapeshifting rub your hands together behind Joe Biden when he's talking about soldiers dying in toxic fumes and I think I like you and many Americans were like, you know, I think I know the State of the Union. It's bad. It's not good. Let's talk about that, Kevin, because your average person, they listen to the Joe Biden say the union and they probably left it feeling just as confused or pissed off as they did entering it. So let's give people the real state of the union Now, besides us, obviously, addressing the fact that yeah, it's not good. Let's focus on where it is not good in maybe talk about where we can get some positive outcomes to bring forward to show people there's a way out. I'm going to start off, I think the number one area that we have to talk about has been the COVID regime. Right. And we started talking about this and the disparities we've seen between the Northeast, and the you know, that the red states, the the West Coast, it's insane. The the differences, and we really have gotten to your point to see it firsthand now as we made our move out here, but there still seems to be this little bit of a sentiment, we saw this in the SNL skit. I don't know if you saw that where they they can't admit that they were wrong. Right. And I don't know if they ever weighed that

Kevin Warmhold  
they actually changed the rules for masks for the State of Union today of

Brian Nichols  
which speaks to the insanity that we've been pointing out from the very onset of this. And I mean, if you're going to look at what the narrative has been, and where the Democrats and this this, you know, the COVID cult has been over the past two years, they're now in a position to basically acknowledge everything that Rand Paul, Ron DeSantis, and Joe Rogan, we're talking about, not only were right, but have been proven to be right, it's not the science changed, is that the politics change? And I mean, what's the way out? Kevin, do you do you see the 2022 midterms as being maybe a saving grace for the State of the Union?

Kevin Warmhold  
Well, I would say that I would have hoped, but I don't, because living in New York, you know, I did some work with the Libertarian party in New York, I was actually elected to JD 10 in New York. And what they did was they changed the rules when they didn't apply to them anymore. Larry sharp got ballot access and 20 in his gubernatorial run, and then they just changed the rules, and took them off the ballot. So I mean, as a whole, when the government doesn't like something or sees a threat, they change it. When something is scary, it benefits the government because they could implement whatever they want. They could change make changes, they could, and it always goes one party or the other. They're just opposites. So when you only have two choices, this is what you get.

Brian Nichols  
Yep. And let's go towards another thing we get when you only have two choices. It's in this case, some economic catastrophe. Inflation is running rabbit, we are seeing a supply chain, a chain, supply chain crisis and breakdown where you're leading to what seems to be stagflation. And we have a job market where jobs aren't being filled. So we're seeing right now, a lot of economic uncertainty. Now, you mentioned before you had some roles in the Libertarian Party, but we're not necessarily married to one particular party over the other, though, yours truly will be speaking at the Libertarian Party of Indiana, this coming weekend. So hopefully, I'll see you there. But with that being said, what can we do, from a policy perspective, bring solutions to the table to show people there is a way out from this economic catastrophe that we find ourselves in?

Kevin Warmhold  
Well, I think the solution is less federal oversight, more localization, I think, the communities that kept most of the operations local, and instead of abiding by the federal mandates, were a successful look at localization, how small towns and small cities were able to keep businesses open during the pandemic in some of these flyover states, as you said, they were able to keep the economy going during a time where now we have, you know, we have inflation, things are more expensive. I mean, gas is going through the roof. I mean, I'm not gonna like a couple months ago, I invested in some US oil, thinking it's going to skyrocket or whatever thing going on, and then this conflict in Ukraine happened. So I mean, everything's getting more expensive. And if you live in the northeast, or the West Coast, they are affected by even more, but they never learned your lesson. They just move to another state, and then bring their rules with them.

Brian Nichols  
Which we've done the opposite. I mean, we brought our rules with us, but we left those blue areas, and we were like, no, no, no, we come in peace. Yeah, please.

Kevin Warmhold  
I went to Austin, Texas, for my 40th birthday. And that was California. Part two right there. I really Yeah, it's it's definitely it's might as well just move California to Austin at this point.

Brian Nichols  
It will take a little bit of a turn here. Because I think everybody knows what the third pillar and you you tease it, it's gonna be the Ukraine talk. But what do you think and before we go there, Kevin, what do you think it is that holds people to keep those ideas when they're making a they're making the decision to move from California to Texas? Which, I mean, I made the decision to move from Philadelphia to Indiana and I wasn't a big fan of Philadelphia, it wasn't that hard of a decision. But like, if you're a big fan of the policies of California, and you move to an area to escape said policies, but only to bring those policies with you, why like Is it is it really this mentality? And we see this right, with the wearing the mask? It's it's that the you're showing your your politics that I'm going to show how good I am by voting for the Democrat? Is that what it is?

Kevin Warmhold  
I think it's a little bit of both conditioning. I mean, people are conditioned a certain way, when things are given to you or things are made easy for you. People have lost the struggle, the hunger to you know, achieve things, because there are politicians that try to make everything so easy that you're given everything that you giving health care that you're given, you know, everything you need. People lose that hunger, that desire to try to achieve things on their own. Try to work hard for the thing. So yeah, I mean, I guess that would be my take on it. Yeah,

Brian Nichols  
well, and I, I asked that question kind of tongue in cheek, I kind of was in the same boat as you. But I was hoping maybe you had a more positive answer. But no, I think you're right. And that's the the unfortunate reality that we find ourselves in is we do have this battle of changing hearts and minds. And there's so many different ways to do that. I mean, I've had, let's see, I had two US Senate candidates, I had both the chair candidates for the National Party had both chair candidates for the Pennsylvania party. And I think that the way to discuss how to change hearts and minds came up in six different ways. And I got six different answers from six different people. And that's just the very nature of us being in the greater libertarian world. So it's difficult because we can't necessarily give one, one size fits all solution. And I think right there, Kevin, that's the point. There shouldn't be a one size fits all solution, because we're not one size fits all people. And we have to be able to meet people. And I know I say this all the time, where they're at on the issues they care about, but that's actually how you're able to change people's minds. And I mean, if we want to change people's hearts and minds, and let's go towards the third topic right now, because this is probably the one that's leading all the headlines. And this is where all the emotional fervor is, it is this war in Ukraine. And I saved this one for last night, just because it is the most pressing conversation we're having, because I think, you know, I saw nucular war trend about six times over the past day or so. But also that you have some personal experience in terms of being in the armed forces and invading a sovereign country, in your case, invading a country like Iraq. And to your point we were discussing beforehand, a little bit less pretext for what we did in Iraq.

Kevin Warmhold  
Yeah. So, I mean, if you look at the why we went to Iraq, the idea of W MDS and scaring everybody, you know, at the time, you know, as a Marine, you don't think about the politics behind it, you just worry about the gada left, gotta be right, come home safe, or gal, everybody goes home safe to their families, the politics don't matter at that point. Now, as I gotten older, a little bit wiser, you look back on things. It's why did we ever enter that crisis? I've discussed this with friends of mine that were in the service with me. And, you know, the Ukraine crisis is more of a justified reason to go to war. And we still shouldn't go to war. And that's the thing. That's how bad are these same politicians that made those decisions to send people to war and in Iraq in 2003, or something, most of them is stolen power now, and then making the decisions on how to handle a pandemic and then making the decisions on what to do with this crisis. We got to be very careful that we don't enter into another war. Because, you know, people's emotions are taken advantage of, then that's exactly what you know, they played a heartstrings and they try to get, you know, make you feel like it's a necessity, but it's not because being on the ground when you see what war does, not just to the people around you on your side, but to the people on the other side. I watched you know, people get pulled out of houses, they got mortared. They weren't done on purpose, but it happens civilian casualties are guarantee no matter how hard you try. And it's something that we need to be very careful about.

Brian Nichols  
And we're we're dealing with a niggler power here I like I think that gets like it gets talked about but not understood like the implications of nuclear war. War sucks. nuclear wars the worst and by the worst like there is nothing app like that's that's it. That's Feeny done. And I think we see too many people. And you mentioned this like, being so cavalier in well, we we need to go stand against Russians and it's like, Do you know what that's gonna do? The moment a US soldier shoots Russian soldier, oh my god, like that's, that's the beginning of something that we've never experienced. And Kevin, we'd never want to experience now not picking on you, you're a little bit older than I. So you got to experience the tail end of the Cold War. Are you seeing some similar tones in terms of what you saw when you were growing up as the Soviet Union was ending and what we're seeing here today?

Kevin Warmhold  
Well, there's definitely the movement towards the second Cold War, you see that trend and all of a sudden social media, it's it's everywhere, right now they're trying to get you prepared to be scared, because if they decide to do something, there's a justified reason behind it. And, you know, yeah, I was a little young had turned the the end of the first Cold War. But you know, I remember the idea of, you know, the Soviet Union and watching rocky four, and like, how everybody felt like, those are the bad guys. Those are communists, you know, we don't like them. We don't know, the Soviet Union's evil. And right now, what's happening is pretty evil. I mean, violence is unacceptable in any way. So But is it necessary for us on the other side of the planet, to get involved in, we got the Pacific Ocean, we got the Atlantic Ocean, we got a country to the north and one country to the south on our border. Nothing's going to happen here, unless we bring it to that level. And I got three kids, so I don't want them. You know, this thing goes on for another 20 years, Afghanistan lasted over 20 years. Iraq lasted almost 20 years. I don't need my kids going to fight that war.

Brian Nichols  
The war is not meant to be one. It's meant to be continuous, continuous, endless. George Orwell, though 1984. Yeah, it's, it's scary. It's weird. And I frankly don't like it. I don't think anybody really likes it, Kevin. And I mean, God, we rewind a couple of months, couple years and the conversation, it's changed so much like the the tenor of where things were, to where things are. It's like, the writers of the script for life are just there, they're snorting lines of cocaine, way too much Red Bull. And they're just going to town here that like they took the Adderall, or they're having a grand old time writing the craziest scripts. And I just like, I think your average person just wants like this. This is why Biden got elected write this, I want things to stop being crazy. I want this return to normalcy. And it's like every action has led to another insane reaction. And unlike, I'm thankful because I think your average person now is starting to see in real time how each of these actions when they lead to another reaction, just it's the inevitable cause of another action that's going to lead to another reaction. And since we've seen this happen, especially in these past few years happens so quickly. And so real time that now I think your average person saying time out like this was supposed to be the return to normalcy. This was the john delaney skit the horse in the hospital, and he talks about, you know, I never really thought about the guy in the office before because I thought he was kind of an okay guy, and he was competent and doing his thing. That was a whole skit. And but he's indicative in that skit of your average person, they don't really pay attention to politics until things get weird. And not only things got weird under Trump, it was really blown up to be weird under Trump, but then like now that Biden has been president, and things have really gotten weird. People really can't not look away. And and once they see it, they can't unsee it, Kevin. So the State of the Union. It's, it's a it's an it's in a pickle. And I guess there are some ways out of it. Let's look at the we discuss it a little bit at the very beginning the electoral path 2022. We're just a few shy months away from the November election, believe it or not, and we're already seeing I think it's a plus 10 GOP swing in the most recent poll, I think it was a CNN poll of all polls. I could be wrong there. But I pretty sure I was the one I looked at. Or it may have been a Gallup poll, but the fact that the GOP is holding such a strong lead right now, I'm seeing your red wave. Kevin, what are your thoughts?

Kevin Warmhold  
You know, I think it's it just goes to show I think every president after their first midterm during their first term, there's always a swing because he was elected or she was, you know, we ever have a she would be elected to make a change based off what they didn't like about the last person. Now, two years into it. People don't like what they see there's going to be that shift again. And I think it's constant back and forth. It's healthy in a way that people are able to Change and kind of, but I just wish that there was more than two options. I preach it all the time I want. I don't want to be told that I have to do something. I'd also don't want to be told that there's only two options. I would like three or four options or five. Because let's be honest, they'll last election. Look at the two candidates. I mean, is that really the best that America could provide for this country? I mean, is that what we could? That's the best we could do? Hell yeah. And now

Brian Nichols  
best everybody loves voting between old man one and old man too. And the other option was to have like, we saw her behind the scenes old lady one. And oh my gosh, like Nancy Pelosi, she's got to get something like she's got you're

Kevin Warmhold  
supposed to give up her seat. And then she apparently is not going to give up her pill. Really? Yes. That's used to house

Brian Nichols  
is if I was only inside call me.

Kevin Warmhold  
i She said she would only do one term until it were until Trump got out now. She's gonna run again.

Brian Nichols  
She's a power hungry shrew. Like, there's nothing surprising I guess about that,

Kevin Warmhold  
which I actually actually, here's a quick story. I actually did her dignitary protection when she flew to New York when I was still working with the NYPD. Yeah. Oh, I had to pick her up at LaGuardia take her out to see her. Her daughter, grandkids they went to breakfast. And you know, she did her own on a personal thing. You know, maybe she had a meeting mixed in? I don't know. But yeah, we provided security for her at the text. Taxpayers dime.

Brian Nichols  
Well, New York is known for having the taxpayer dime pay for some scrupulous activities. Andrew Cuomo. Yeah, he had a mistress up in Northern New York, and he'd had the state police escort him up there to go see her. Yeah, that's fun. So that's where your taxpayer dollars go New York, folks. And people wonder why people are leaving the state in what was it 500,000 people per year over the past few years, they lost the seat in the house. They sure did. Well, they tried to take out northern New York's District, which is my home district, and they've gerrymandered that now to look nothing like the original 23rd district I grew up in, which is now the 21st district, which is currently seated by Elise Stefanik. And, I mean, it's obvious why it's being done. Right. Like they're trying to play politics to to take out more seats, that could be Republican seats. But like back to the election, 2022. I don't know, Kevin, if it's gonna be enough.

Kevin Warmhold  
You know, I'm starting to lose faith on the federal as a period, you know, to begin with. So I think I like to focus on my local politics, where I'm at, you know, I think it makes more of an impact for me,

Brian Nichols  
that's why we're we are here in Indiana, because we saw what happens when you're in those blue areas, and you have blue federal policy and all sudden, emboldens some of those blue leaders. I mean, I saw the mayor of Philadelphia, in a heartbeat just follow along with the mayor of New York City with his indoor mask mandates and his vaccine passports. And it got a little weird. And I said this is kind of scary how quickly everybody fell in line with what the narrative was. So maybe it's important to surround ourselves with people who don't just share the same party identification, but also share the same values, right, that's something we should be focusing on. So I'm glad to hear that, you know, we're seeing people start to do that, Kevin, and you mentioned it before, you know, it goes to options. People are looking for options. They're looking for different ways of doing things. And you've been doing that you have your own podcast, and you're talking a lot about your behind the scenes experience in law enforcement enlisted. Let's go ahead and talk about that and lead folks to where they could go ahead, subscribe and learn more.

Kevin Warmhold  
Sure. So now that I'm no longer, you know, beholden to the government of the city of New York. I think it's important to bring the community and people who are in service first responders, police officers, detectives, military veterans, together with people in the community, the point of a police officer is to suppose to serve the community, protect the people within that community, and to help people protect their property against violent action. And we see time and time again, there's a lot of there's a lot of friction between the community and the people and the police officers or detectives or, you know, first responders in general. I just tried to give the place where we could have a discussion, they could tell their stories, they could talk about some of the case work they've done if they're a detective or an experienced as a police officer, that you know, they delivered a baby or save somebody's life or something, something involved like that, where it can make a difference and have people understand it. It's just I got lucky I got to the military. I got hired by the NYPD within two months. And I was an NYPD cop I didn't you know, I wasn't looking for politics. I watched movies as a kid growing up saying I want to chase bad guys and arrest bad guys, you know, robbers, murderers, stuff like that. Then as you grow within the department, you see some of the issues with the department. And you see a lot of like, you know, the petty, non violent stuff that they want you to enforce now, changes need to be made at the local political level to achieve that. And that's a whole other topic and conversation. But I just want to give a platform for people to listen and actually hear from their mouth, their stories, and hopefully bring people together. So that's in enlisted, it's on every, you know, Spotify, Apple, this YouTube channel up. Also, you can follow it up Facebook at official enlisted podcast. And just check it out. It's interesting, interesting, you know, just listening to people's stories. My last guest was a Navy corpsman who was with First Battalion, seventh Marines in Iraq in a day to day battle passion people up, they'll have 16 members that have company during the battles and 20 This is why I mentioned is 20 have committed suicide after so more have died after that at a time in service, wow, by suicide, then in combat. So the war doesn't stop when they declare the war is over for the veterans that never stops. They take that for the rest of their lives. And that's something that people need to realize, and that's why I'm doing that podcast.

Brian Nichols  
It's why we have conversations with folks like Adam Koch ash, Wiley Gray, who are going out of their way and you know what, yes, our dear friend of the late Gourav Dubay, who he is on the show from micro dose dot buzz and he unfortunately passed away. But talking about the importance of focusing on alternative forms of therapy of medicine for our veterans. It's it's imperative because that's the and that's the unspoken epidemic. Kevin so thank you for what you're doing over enlisted and having those conversations and of course telling those stories. And folks, please do me a favor if if you've gotten value from what we're talking about today. Well, obviously Please share the show but also, please go support Kevin's amazing program enlisted, you can go ahead and find that if you go to Brian Nichols show.com You can find today's episode or just BZ click your podcast link. The artwork right there will bring you to today's episode, where you can find all of Kevin's links, including the links to enlisted, but also you'll find his bio entire transcript of today's episode. And oh, by the way, all 450 plus other episodes, The Brian Nichols Show. That being said, Kevin warm hold any final thoughts for the audience today?

Kevin Warmhold  
No, just Brian, you keep doing what you're doing. And you know, you're doing great. You're you've expanded over the years. I mean, you got me into podcast. And when I first did that first episode with you, it motivated me to do something and I appreciate you. And I always remember that chance you gave me an opportunity to come on and talk with you about what was going on in New York at the time. And I you know, to this day, I still appreciate it. Thank you very much

Brian Nichols  
good people bring out the good people, my friend. And as always, folks, if you believe that and you embrace that sentiment, but please do me a favor, share today's episode, but so we can go ahead and support good people like our dear friend here at Kevin warm hold. But with that being said, Folks, thank you for joining us on today's episode of The Brian Nichols Show. With that being said, it's Brian Nichols signing off. You're on The Brian Nichols Show for Kevin warm home. We'll see tomorrow. Thank you all right, brother. We are calling

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Kevin Warmhold

U.S Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq in 2003. Former Libertarian party state representative JD-10 for the state of New York. Retired NYPD Detective and host of the Enlisted Podcast.