Where are we? Kind of give us the big picture of AI and how it's being adopted and kind of utilized in industries like ours.

First, I want to help people feel a little bit more comfortable about AI.

I don't see us being killed by Terminator robots in 10 years, which you guys have been seeing on the news.

I don't think that's going to happen.

It's going to be okay.

But if we're going to get killed by Terminator robots in 10 years, why not do as well as you can in business by maximizing AI, you know, for what you're doing in roofing? But what are we seeing right now? You know, interestingly, you know, a lot of people are out there using Claude or their vibe coding or they're doing certain things where they think that they're building something much quicker and bespoke for what they need.

What we're seeing out there is that with these frontier models, if you're talking about what they're using in AI right now, What we're seeing is that a lot of individuals or a lot of companies and even companies like myself, we're looking to self-reliance.

Denver.

So what did you tell people yesterday about this?

First of all, you have the most prepared staff in history.

I want to say that was wonderful.

Oh, I know.

They're so good.

They're amazing.

Secondly, when you see this, Alex, me and you have talked many times.

Explain how people who don't get that clearance can unknowingly become a security liability.

Right.

It's ludicrous.

I mean, it's almost, uh, it's just ridiculous.

But also, I, I would say the number of call detail records actually analyzed by the January 6th Committee might have been five fifty, six hundred at the most.

Um, and I just find it ludicrous and hilarious that the guy with the two small T-shirts, Tom Fitton from Ju- Judicial Watch, wants to actually put out something so ludicrous.

And for me, it's almost like they b- they bring a squirt gun to a firefight.

They're probably some of the most ignorant and stupid people I've ever seen, but the dangerous part is, is that it's disinformation and propaganda about what the J6 Committee did.

[chuckles] Exactly

What do you think?

I think it will.

I mean, I, if you're looking at this, what's interesting, and so funny, Joe, I was in Odessa in a bunker, and the August 15th one-year anniversary, uh, today, of the Putin-Trump Summit in Anchorage was only 10 weeks after Operation Spider Web.

And I think a lot of people failed to actually put that together, is that Trump gave Putin a lot of legitimacy after what a lot of people thought, with Operation Spider Web, was really the first time we saw that Ukraine could actually win the war.

And I think at that point, instead of the US capitulating to Putin, they probably should've, and, and I would have if I was POTUS [laughs] I would've been funding Ukraine at a much higher level, seeing what's happening with, with what's going on with Russia, specifically their economy, and what- Ukraine can do a drone.

So it's incredible to me that, um, a lot of people might have expected something to come out of this summit, but if we look at past performance as indicative of future performance, Trump even up to that time in August 15th hadn't done really anything against Putin except lip service.

And again, when you're a year on, we're in the same exact position.

Mm

So if that's the case, why won't you think or why don't you think Donald Trump will let this go?

He's got to pay for criminals.

You know, it's funny.

You know, I hear this alarming alliteration coming out of people.

Right.

But it's really financing for felons.

I don't think, you know, it's hard for me because I was on the January 6th committee.

When you say, you know, what do we do as Americans? Do you think the American public voters feel hopeless right now?

Yeah.

I think it almost goes back to, right? I think it almost goes back to the point that when you're looking at every country that we're involved in, if you're, if you're thinking about with Russia or Venezuela, when you're talking about the ongoing war in Iran and Trump's son self-dealing in drones, but also in the military industrial complex, when you're looking at the crypto flows, when you're looking at the amazing amount of corruption that we've seen in the Trump administration, I think if Ukraine can somehow, um, and I'm being very, listen, part of this sounds, but I'm not being glib.

I think if Ukraine could show Trump's family can profit off of the war with Ukraine winning, Ukraine would get more aid.

I mean, I think, and I know that sounds base, but it seems like that everything that Trump does, when you're talking about the thousand for thousand or the promises that he's made, he has never once fulfilled that promise to Ukraine.

Everything he does, regardless of language about Putin, favors Russia.

You can only go with actions over words.

And when you're looking at the Trump family specifically, the money that they're making through taxpayers in the US and the ability, right, to manipulate or maneuver the markets, whether you're in Iran, whether you're in South America, or whether it's Ukraine, that seems to be the primary driver for the Trump family.

Yeah

Can you give us some of your history and background and then tell us about RIG?

Yeah, so Denver Riggleman, married for almost 37 years, three daughters, live in Virginia.

My wife is a master distiller.

She makes bourbon.

We have distilleries in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

My background's pretty extensive, you know, when it comes to military.

Joined at 22.

But what are some of the things, what are some of the specific items within the roofing industry that have you really excited? You know, whether it's estimating your call centers or what it be, what are some things that maybe most of us aren't even thinking about yet that you're seeing and going, oh, this is exciting.

I don't know.

think it's enough to where the democrats still have a pretty solid majority in the midterms regardless of the voting machinations you're about to see i'm telling you it's going to be bad i i i'm going to tell you there's going to be lawfare there's going to be the things that are going to happen there's i think there's going to be some specific violence in polling locations i it's going to happen and i think people need to brace themselves and you know i said this before january 6 people there's no way um there's a way it it the data is not great um So I think we're to a point, you know, I think there's three legs of the stool that we got to think about with MAGA.

And I'm going to say this specifically.

The first thing is the economy, right? When you're talking about economy and healthcare, you're talking about removing healthcare subsidies from the poorest in MAGA districts, red districts, right? When you're talking about Medicaid, when you're talking about healthcare, you're talking about ACA, you were talking about trying to sort of destroy that safety net for so many rural individuals that are on, I would say, assisted healthcare.

I think the second are the Epstein files.

I think the Epstein files still is an issue.

I still think there's enough people think Trump.

Yeah.

European Union so it did have a broad support which is what I remember the most about I also remember you know big sis actually voting for it and taking a whooping for that because she was seen as weak like you wouldn't believe and now it appears Denver that this this agreement is just simply a mirrored image of that

you know it's actually worse and I think Part of trying to be intellectually flexible when you look at facts or when you look at downstream and historic context is can you change your mind even though you held on to something very dear? When the JCPOA was being sort of reliticated when I was in Congress, Joel, it goes back to I think voting for – there's never a perfect deal.

I think at that point when I was on the center-right side of the ledger, even by that time I was having issues with the Republican Party.

I had this almost personal hatred towards the Iranian regime where I think it colored some of my decision-making.

And I wonder, even as I get older, right? I'm 56 now, Joe.

So it's like as Denver matures into his 50s.

But as I look at Heidi's vote now, I'm like, you know what? In hindsight, if I had to go back, I'd probably say, can it get better? Is it something that we could actually live with instead of trying to get the perfect deal? And it's just something...

That being said, what does America... think of a country that was set up as a democracy with three co-equal branches of government, and then on any given president's night, now you're going to see the events that happened on the White House lawn? I mean, what do you think those countries that you negotiate with, that you studied, what do you think they think of us?

Me too

...

Brian is actually sane.

I think that's the issue that you have, you know, with other Republicans that are maybe for this weaponization fund.

But there's a few things I wanna point out, and obviously you both can ask me any questions.

I will answer them.First of all, the number 1.776 billion, 1776 being sort of the rallying cry for QAnon during the stolen election conspiracy theory.

So when you're looking at the weaponization fund, I think people have heartburn for two reasons.

Well, on your point on Bill Pulte, and I ask you this, as a former intelligence officer, what's the greater risk? That you have an acting DNI who might be able, uh, to use, uh, intelligence against, uh, certain individuals who are perceived by the president to be enemies of him, his, or that because Pulte was tapped as acting DNI, FISA Section 702 doesn't get extended and goes dark after Friday?

Mm-hmm

... they're getting still Trump Tower deals arou-around the, around the world, man.

I mean, come on.

You know what I mean? So I think we're to a point that if we don't start looking at this in another way, and that's asymmetrically, we're in trouble.

Institutions have completely failed us, but how do we get that back? Chris, I-- Buddy, I wish I had an answer.

You know, people are like, "Well, Denver, you know, you're out there warning people.

What's the solution?" Well, what's your solution? What is the solution? Right? What, what is it really if we are allowing this four years to completely destroy not only our institutions but allowing wealth to accrue in a way through self-dealing? Either you're talking about, you know, Leary in Utah to Elon Musk with this ridiculous IPO, right, for SpaceX.

Would a 9/11 style commission, would it be able to, to do the things that the committee couldn't do or, or am I just off like I- on my interpretation of the way that the committee was structured and, and, and its limitations?

No competition.

No. Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr.

Uh, even some of the people downrange, right? Like Bessent, right? Um, he just, just a nut.

Just absolutely a nutter.

And the people that they've, underneath him, everybody's like, "Well, Marco Rubio is sane." Well, why is he appointing white nationalists as undersecretaries? People that were kicked out of the prior administration, you know, like Darren Beattie, who wrote for The Revolver, who's now part of the culture position at the State Department.

Are you kidding? I mean, we...

The thing is we run out of words.

Yeah

[laughs]

I had to cover all my bases, Jim.

So I went to Iceland, to Greenland, then to Denmark, just to make sure I was in the right spot.

But, uh, Greenland, I was in Nuuk, and, uh, you know, it's just incredible what I experienced there, but tomorrow I'm very humbled.

I was invited by the organizer of the march, the silent march for NATO, but for Danish troops that were, um, disrespected, uh, by Donald Trump.

And it's been one of the most incredible trips for me.

As you know, I, I've been to Ukraine a few times, um, but this has been very touching.

Yeah.

Um, Denver, I know you're just back from Ukraine, and I promise we'll, we'll get to t- to that in a second, but your thoughts on this moment unfolding.

You know, th- you just said it.

When they said insurrectionists, what they are setting up is the Insurrection Act.

You know, when...

Right before the election, we were war gaming a lot of this with a lotta groups and the, uh, sort of, uh, let's, let's protect democracy movement.

I remember I was doing one with Bill Kristol, and we were talking about the Insurrection Act and how we thought there would be some type of motivation or ty- some type of escalation, maybe even artificial escalation to get to that point.

And what you're seeing, Nicole, is the use of the word insurrection to get to what they hope is the Insurrection Act, because that's something that it seemed that President Trump has been wanting to do since he took office the first time in 2016.

Do you think they think their own base is stupid? Do you think they think we don't know what happened on Jan- I mean, why, how do they say those things without caring about the officers that were hit by Trump supporters on January 6th?

But anyway, tell us about your experience, your thoughts on everything.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I was there just by happenstance when Ukrainian hit the Russian strategic bomber fleet.

So I got to see the retaliation.

Now, here's what I want to tell people on here.

There already was indiscriminate targeting of civilians well before the Russians were hit by the Ukrainian drones deep into their territory.

Using something called FPV drones, first person view drones.

It's extraordinary.

Of course, they would.

... come at us, right? South Korea, right? And then you're looking up north to the Baltics, right? We know that there's seven countries that surround Ukraine, right? One of them being Poland, but we even have places like Moldova, which we were trying to actually integrate with, and we crushed them with tariffs.

And, you know, it's just, it's just amazing to me how shortsighted this policy is, based on hubris and arrogance, and really a lack of understanding on how the global nuance situation is integrated in everything we do as a global power.

I think what also gets to me, and, and Charlie, I think you were mentioning this, when you're talking about tariffs, soft power, the combination of how we're alienating our allies, the fact that that's gonna push people maybe into getting their own nuclear programs.

And, and again, Amy teaches this, right, as a professor.

And now you're looking at proliferation, you're looking at the loss of the security apparatus.

All of this stuff is actually intertwined, and that's why you need serious people in charge.

Yeah.

What does that mean, that we can't survive two Trump terms?

Well, I think, um, when you're looking at what even happened, I saw it on the 116th Congress, that already they were calling the Freedom Caucus, which, you know, I have to say I was part of for a few days, right? They were calling the Freedom Caucus the Trump Protection Society.

And so when you're looking at Congress giving up, you know, any type of responsibility for what's happening, a lot of that has to do with they're just looking at three things, right? They're looking at their polling, they're looking at their fundraising, and they're looking at the favorability rating for Trump.

So in c- instead of caring about the constituency of the United States of America and people struggling or what's happening, what they care about is getting reelected, but they certainly want to get their bobble h- head signed by Donald Trump when they go into a meeting, which actually happened to me once.

When I was at a meeting, somebody wanted a bobble head sign.

That's really the limits of their IQ.

Um, and I'm not trying to be too harsh, but this is people who want to be elected, this is maybe the only thing they've ever done is politics, and they love going to Mar-a-Lago.

Mm-hmm.

(instrumental music plays) First, Donald Trump invited President Zelenskyy to the Oval Office so he and JD Vance could try to publicly humiliate him. Then, Trump froze all military aid to Ukraine. And now? Well, he's cut Ukraine off from US intelligence. And right on cue, Russian forces launched devastating attacks on Ukraine, striking Ukrainian troops and crucial supply lines. US officials have told NBC News that Ukraine continues to get US defensive intelligence. But one Ukrainian official said, "As a result of this pause, there are hundreds of dead Ukrainians." And what's Donald Trump had to say about all of this?... that the US is doing very well with Russia, and Putin is doing what everybody else would do. And as if we needed any more evidence about which side Trump is on, he's now moving the goalpost even further for Ukraine. He had been pursuing re- as you recall, right, that mineral deal with the Ukrainians as a condition f- to military aid. Remember that? Well, NBC News today is reporting that Trump has privately made clear that a signed mineral deal, quote, "won't be enough to restart aid and intelligence sharing." (slaps legs) Denver Riegelman is a former Republican congressman and a former Air Force intelligence officer. Amy McGrath is a former Marine Corps fighter pilot. Both of them join me now. Denver, the news this morning from NBC News, um, is problematic, trouble- tr- troubling, um, but in many ways not surprising, uh, that U- Ukraine has to give up natural resources but that's now not enough, uh, to get a deal, uh, for peace. What's your reaction, sir?

Uh, my reaction is always, you know, you're stunned but not surprised, you know, it's the opposite. And I think part of it too is why isn't Donald Trump so strident in his negotiating path with Russia? Why does it seem to always be about Zelensky? And we look at what's happened over the last week or two with our withdrawal of intelligence support, and it's not just that, right? It's the fact is that we've taken away commercial imagery over there, right? We have issues with that. We're taking away every single step. We're almost stacking our priorities against Ukrainian defense. So it's really that n- much of a surprise. Then you have the double whammy, right, Michael? This morning where Elon Musk all of a sudden comes out and says, "Hey, we need to withdraw from Europe- uh, from NATO, and Europe needs to take care of their own defense." What are we seeing here? We're seeing messaging, uh, that really goes to the- to the heart of the matter, is that this looks like-

... right? I'm looking for James Bond at this point, right? Uh, how do you... W- what do we do? What does that mean? And certainly what does it mean for the Ukrainians that we have one individual who has control over the information links that they're gonna need?

Well, you know, it's interesting. You know, Starlink has contracts all over Europe, right, Michael? So if they break this, what happens to some of their other partners like, you know, say contracts in Poland? The other thing too, if he removes Starlink, what happens to things like Eutelsat, right? You have French competitors out there or other types of competitors who's gonna fill that void. So now he's got an issue, right? He has a country like Russia, that it seems like he's in support of, that has a GDP lower than three US states. Think about that. You know (laughs), California, Texas and Florida- uh, California, Texas and New York, with Florida almost as high. So what does he do now, right? So is he gonna take Starlink away just to make Trump happy? And what happens if Eutelsat or other companies fill the void? And just as lately as March 4th, Eutelsat was in talks with Ukraine about providing terminals themselves. So here we go, right? So now, I think Europe is starting to wake up and say, "Listen, we can fill some of these technical voids that are happening right now." He can say and he can scream this type of stuff, but even if he loses that, Ukraine- the Ukrainians are not stupid. They're actually brilliant, and they're building redundant systems right now. They're in planning. They're looking at laying fiber. All these things are actually happening. So yes, sadly, Starlink is the best system out there, but there are competitors and there's a way to jointly combine these communication paths where Ukraine, who are internet agnostic, they can actually do some of these operations. So when I saw this, it looked empty and it looks like messaging that's coming straight from the Trump administration to me.

Right.

Because we're accusing Ukraine of breaking the peace when they were invaded. What does that do to NATO on Article 5 if we're to be attacked by Ukraine while we're supporting Russian troops? So now, what does that do to the EU and our allies if we go there based on the weapons and money flows we have between our allies? And here's what I'm talking about with the United States economy. What happens to our contractors, DOD, intelligence community, but also our weapons and armaments contractors and our big companies in supplying weapons and armaments to EU and Ukraine if they refuse to support United States operations and then boycott us economically? What does that do? So the cascading effect of this, I think, could be so devastating and we could never think about this six years ago, but now there's nothing off the table to the bad things that can happen to America when you have the ignorant and fascistic in charge.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is... That last, last point is the whole deal. It's what it's all about. Putin wants Ukraine, and Donald Trump is not only prepared, but actively working to hand it over to him. Your, your final thoughts, my friend.

I don't know if I beat those final thoughts, Michael, honestly. How do I beat that? Um, you did it, right? You just... In summary, what's going on right now... And, you know, it's interesting. You have Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right? And he's fighting for his country. He's a wartime president. He's seen it all. He's had to comfort those who've lost children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends. And he's talking to an individual in Donald Trump that the only thing he ever fought himself out of was Epstein's jet. And you're talking to somebody else, like a JD Vance, who's a public affairs officer who might color his beard and had to look more like, you know, the people that he emulates, which are the far right traditionalists, uh, that he wants to, to be a part of. So you had two cowards trying to preach to a wartime president. And I think what you just said, the way that Zelenskyy handled them shows what real leadership looks like and freedom looks like. And when you saw Trump and Vance, it shows the embarrassment of an administration that does all their dealing in fantasies, authoritarian tendencies, and conspiracy theories. And I think that's really where we're at right now as a country.