Breakaway Ukraine Republics To Hold Referenda On Joining Russia, Putin Speech Expected
Russian president Vladimir Putin is expected to make a major speech in hours regarding the special military operation in Ukraine as several breakaway republics in Ukraine will soon hold referenda on joining Russia. Is major escalation coming? Also today: Is Heritage Foundation turning conservative on foreign policy?
Watch the Liberty Report LIVE Every weekday at 12pm EST on Rumble!
https://rumble.com/RonPaulLibertyReport
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you?
Doing well, thank you.
We want to talk about Ukraine, see how they're doing.
But it looks like they believe in voting.
You know, there's going to be some type of referendum.
You know, I keep saying, how many times have we interfered in elections around the world?
It looks like they did have a referendum in 2014, and we didn't like it.
So we got rid of him.
And so we had our own election and got rid of their elected leaders.
And it's such a joke, really.
But yet, I'm a strong believer in self-determination.
I think the least government you have, the more self-determination is.
The people just, you know, know how to get along or they're forced into it.
But anyway, it's a mess over there, and there's a lot more guns over there now than there were in 2014.
But the world started to change significantly in 2014, especially for the Ukraine area and with what Russia is doing.
But right now, there's the claim in the media that the Ukrainians have made a big advance and Russia's on the defense.
And now the Russians want to have a referendum, Eastern Ukraine, to find the area that has mostly the Russian citizens, see which way they go.
I think it's a pretty foregone conclusion that they'll be voting for going with Russia.
But this is the kind of thing that if governments and the politicians and the insiders would be a little bit more tolerant of people practicing self-determination, they wouldn't have this problem.
They'd probably have two separate companies or maybe an alliance, maybe loosely associated.
But no, when the outsiders get involved and the people get really excited about this, can it be solved with this referendum?
I think they ought to try, but I think that we have a referendum every year, every two years, every four years, and it doesn't seem to settle much.
Eventually, if you have anything leading to pure democracy or artificial elections in authoritarian states, there is no meaning to it.
You know, the Russians always, the Soviets had elections, but nobody believed they were significant.
So anyway, they're going through this.
It could very well be significant.
Putin is going to make his comments.
And I guess the biggest concern I would have for the world is are they going to pull this off and have a referendum and everybody's going to be happier than they were before.
But, you know, the threats that have come from Ukraine are pretty clear-cut.
And, of course, when they speak, they speak with somebody backing them up, like NATO and the United States.
So it's not like there's a few people left in Ukraine that the Russians are trying to submit and have them submit to them.
So it'll be an interesting thing to watch.
I wish they would be so optimistic.
That said, a lot of good can come of it.
Maybe some good can come from it, but it's also sort of like a time bomb.
You just don't know.
Things could just deteriorate right in The middle of the referendum or shortly thereafter, who knows?
Yeah, you're right to date, back to 2014, which is when the?
U.s was involved in the coup there, but also in the.
You know, when you talk about self-determination well, that was the whole point of the Minsk agreement, which would have given some autonomy to those eastern republics, and if Ukraine had implemented, it probably would not be where we are now in this, in this war that we're looking at.
Um, let's put up the first clip, because these are the two important things today that we're looking out for.
The first is the fact that president Putin will probably hold a speech just in a couple of hours, along with his defense minister.
Uh, rumor is that he'll be talking about the referendums in the Lugans Republic, Donetsk Republic, Kherson and Zaporoshe uh, and also possibly talking about mobilization.
Uh, you know uh, it's difficult.
Of course you know as, as a former election observer, obviously it's difficult to hold a referendum when you're in a state of war, there's no question about it.
Voting gets very complicated now.
Crimea was different because it wasn't militarily occupied and there wasn't a hot war going on.
I think it's difficult to hold it, but if you look at voting patterns and I think you suggested this in your opening statement this part of Ukraine did vote, you know, like 90 percent for the Pro-Russia candidate for in in Ukraine.
So if you look at that, you probably can get a sense of how they might vote, even though, as you said, as I say, it's difficult.
So what is the significance of these, these referenda?
Well, it's not just because they want to have to demonstrate that they're going to join Russia.
The whole purpose of it is to take on a new legal status, and they've put this next clip on, if you can, okay.
So this is I mentioned this, let's do the next one.
So in the DUMA, in their parliament, they have already adopted legislation about mobilization, which means a full-on war.
And this is Zoltan Koscovich.
He's in a think tank in Hungary and he makes this important point, the referenda all across Russian occupied Ukraine from September 23rd to the 27th.
And this is the important part, Dr. Paul, Russian military doctrine allows for very different rules of engagement when it armed forces are fighting on Russian land.
So if these eastern republics become part of Russia, at least according to Moscow, they will have different rules of engagement.
Right now, the fighting in the east to a large degree is being done by local militias.
This will mean that the proper Russian army, Russian military, may well be deployed there.
So it it could be a significant escalation militarily.
Yeah, there sure is, uh would be, and I think most people believe that in this election that there will be a lot of sympathy expressed, you know for, for Russia.
But that will only antagonize and excite NATO and a few other people and they will get very much involved.
But it's a time bomb that as far as I'm concerned is all preventable but human nature is such that this has been going on for so long and I still have this sneaky suspicion that if you could get young people together, say those up to 25, those who are in the age where the deaths occur once the wars really break out.
And, you know, it just in a sober moment, say, do you like this idea of next week?
You have to go there and chase those Russians out of there.
I just don't think, you know, the average person, because everything has to be hyped up.
And that's what we do to our soldiers.
Everybody gets hyped up.
Not only the soldiers, the soldiers get hyped up because the people finally have an enemy.
I mean, I don't know if it could have been anything worse than the hype after 9-11.
And they had such an easy target.
All they had to do was talk about the bombing of the towers and people were ready to do whatever.
Yet it turns out now that people were very skeptical of the whole scenario and what went on over there.
But the people were there and they were ready to go to war and we ended up with all that war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That's why it's so dangerous for people to interfere.
And I just think that the biggest complication is the fact that outsiders are involved in the States, but inside the countries.
But people want, people sort of like this idea of globalism, you know, that you get together and you have trade policies and you have peace treaties and you do all that.
But it's this whole notion, because globalism is the ultimate end point of destroying individualism.
So if you want the smallest unit of government that would best serve the world, if it were respected, would be the family unit, you know, and local communities and the churches, which we had a lot of that in our early history.
I mean, the schools and the churches and the hospitals were all done very, very locally.
But now you have to get permission from the United Nations and NATO and other organizations.
And besides, the inevitability of a situation like that is financial bankruptcy and really moral bankruptcy as well.
And that's where we are, and that's why there will be no easy solution here.
Yeah, definitely moral bankruptcy is a good way to discuss, to describe our foreign policy.
You know, Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, he was at a private meeting, I think, over the weekend, and it's reported that he was talking about, he's really making the point that the West has made what would have been a very local conflict into now a global war by intervening.
And I think that's a very good point that he makes.
He also says that Europeans are shooting themselves in the foot with these sanctions because it's destroying their economy, and that Ukraine could end up losing a third to a half of its territory because of this, all because of Western interference in what was really a very localized dispute.
So the question is if this is an escalation, if this is going to have a referendum and join Russia.
So what may have precipitated?
Well, I think one thing is the Kharkov counteroffensive, which I think surprised a lot of people.
The Ukrainians were able to take back a lot of territory in the Northeast.
And they say, well, a lot of it was empty because the Russians pulled out.
There's a lot of reasons for it, perhaps, but nevertheless, the optics are there that Ukraine has made a major advance, even if it may be temporary.
But that may have pushed it on.
But the other thing is the Biden administration apparently pondering the idea of sending much longer-ranged missiles into Ukraine.
And let's put this next note.
This is from Reuters.
Russia says longer-range U.S. missiles for Kiev would cross the red line.
These are missiles that could strike deep into Russian territory.
We've already seen the High Mars missiles that the U.S. sent, the shorter-range missiles, have gone into Donetsk.
There was a horrible, gruesome strike in the center of town yesterday in Donetsk.
It killed, I think, 13 civilians.
So we're seeing them used against civilians.
And I think the Russians are looking at longer-range missiles, maybe striking the bridge on the Kerch Strait or striking deep into Russia.
They've said it very clearly.
This is our red line.
So it's, I think this is a very sobering moment.
I think it's very dangerous.
I do hope that there are a few sane people left in the Biden administration that will realize this is not the time to escalate and bring us closer to a nuclear war because like it or not, the Russians are not going to back down.
They view this as an existential issue.
We don't have to agree with or disagree with it.
It's a fact.
And we're getting involved in something, Dr. Paul, that we have no business being involved in.
And certainly, do we want to give up New York, Washington, half of our country, maybe even just down here with all the refineries because Ukraine's borders are in dispute?
I don't think it's a good trade.
Well, you know, there's always a lot of promises, and the people can be led, misled by the promises our governments make.
But there were promises all along the way since World War II, you know, about how things would be handled around the Russian border.
And that all fell apart.
And it wasn't like it was Russia invading Ukraine.
That whole mess came from the fact that we made a lot of promises.
So now, even if they come up with something and they all of a sudden say, hey, there's way too many weapons here.
And somebody's thinking about dropping a nukon.
We're going to get together and have some agreements.
We'd probably say, hopefully, yes, and talk.
But you've got to be realistic.
Who's going to obey the agreements?
And then the pickle we get put into is we have to talk about our own government, which is more our responsibility.
Can we trust them to do what they said?
Because there's a lot of times when it's just necessary.
You know, there were times when Reagan talked to the Soviets when a lot of people in this country didn't want them to, and yet it was a movement in a certain direction.
And that's what they have to worry about.
The other thing I think that gets us into these kind of problems is this misunderstanding about sanctions.
Sanctions is a good compromise.
Let's just put on sanctions.
Let's punish them and they will behave themselves.
And then right now, I think the trade war is just building and building.
And it's building now because the original sanctions, the warmongering that is going on, but also the COVID is going on.
Also, the end of the trade cycle caused by money managers.
You have to have downturns and you have to have the cleansing of the mail investment and the debt.
All these things are coming together.
And then the trade war is intensifying right now.
And that to me is really a problem.
But then, all along the way, especially since World War I, they said, oh, what we need is an international government.
Well, they tried the League of Nations and people said, that's not going to work.
But the United Nations, that's working.
And in this addition, they don't have, the United Nations doesn't have an army, but we'll create an army in NATO.
And it just goes on and on, dependency on government.
And government, you say, well, they're big and powerful.
Yes, they are because the people either don't know what's going on or they're too complacent.
Supreme Court Ruling00:04:06
And we allow that to happen.
And there is a vacuum out there.
And so the international community is a big deal because that's where a lot of the support will come.
But then you have two groups.
You have, you know, of course, in the Cold War, you had the Soviet system versus the West.
And the transition never turned out to be quite what I had hoped for myself personally.
Well, let's move on to something a little closer to home.
And this raises a lot of issues.
And you have some thoughts on this that are probably different than, that are different than how it's going to be portrayed.
Let's put up that next clip.
This is dealing with Yeshiva University in New York.
It's one of the go back one, please.
There we go.
Supreme Court reverses itself, rules, yeshiva university must recognize LGBT Club.
This is an Orthodox Jewish university founded in 1897.
Very conservative.
It holds very close to its view, which is an old, what we would call the Old Testament, they call the Torah.
So now it's complicated to explain what happened, but at least temporarily while the case is ongoing, the Supreme Court has ruled that they must accept an LGBT student union, even though the university argues that it would violate its religious standards.
And I think there's a hold on this, and there still will be debates because I think some of the conservatives doesn't mean they're going to vote exactly as maybe they should.
But I think there's a hold on this and eventually go back into the courts.
But they're temporarily, the Supreme Court had an action that identified that they can prevent the club, LGBT club from forming.
But I don't think they've touched it because I went through this article the best I can.
I may have missed it.
But what I always want to know when they get into this is who has the authority, the responsibility of the church or the building or the property.
Because if people had a clear understanding of property and that it was private property, you could say, well, if they're going to say such and such, that's their freedom of speech, and we can't march in there and take care of it to tell them they have to change it.
But the one thing I don't know, because almost every university, even the conservative universities in this country, they were very conservative and didn't want government involved.
But they even cracked down on them because some students had a student loan from the government and therefore they own and they can control the school.
And I don't know whether they even take money.
My guess is hardly anybody can avoid taking money in some way.
But they certainly wanted to watch, you know, be independent.
But even if it does get real messy in there, oh, you're waiting for the ownership and we can't decide this and all.
Well, if there is a controversy like this, and it does not involve violence and killing and war and all this, I think the decision ought to all be, you know, to more leniency.
You know, let them meet and all.
Because, you know, if we had a private university, and we have a private school group, a homeschooling group, but if somebody wants to get in there and their main goal was trying to rally the cry with terrorists and teaching them how to make bombs and all this, I mean, there's a time when there's a clear and present danger from that, and you don't do that.
But it should be determined by the private owners and control.
So I always ask, I often wrestled with this a little bit in public school.
Public schools is a government entity, but they're local sometimes.
Protecting Liberties in Education00:11:28
And then they'll come in with dress codes.
And, okay, what if you didn't have a dress code?
Pretty soon it'd be a bunch of pretty raunchy-looking kids coming in without discipline.
And so, but I think under those circumstances, the authorities who has assumed the responsibility might have to make a tough decision.
But if you have a libertarian leaning, you always make it in the direction of allowing the maximum freedom if you are not encouraging or promoting violence.
Yeah, that's absolutely true.
Well, let's move on to our last story because we want to end on a good news story.
And let's put up that next clip.
And this is a piece by Josh Rogan, who calls himself a neoliberal, I think.
He's a neocolonist, not the worst guy out there, but anyway, a conservative think tank turns away from Reagan and toward Trump.
I wouldn't call that a good headline, but what it's about, Dr. Paul, is this shift that people are noticing at the Heritage Foundation, which, as you know, always the biggest, hawkish, most warlike, one of the most, you know, they and AEI and the others, very, very neocon, very pro-war.
Well, they've got a new sheriff in town, Kevin Roberts.
He was head of the Texas Public Policy Institute, which we're familiar with, libertarian-leaning group.
And he's now taken over heritage, and he's, at least it looks like, it's probably too early to tell, but he's turning it in what we would call, and certainly our friend Jimmy Duncan would call, a more conservative direction.
Let's go to the next clip because this is from the article itself.
He says, what's more interesting, he said, on Ukraine, heritage has broken with the center-right think tanks such as American Enterprise and Hudson and is aligned with the Center for Renewing America, Koch Institute, and Quincy Institute, who argue for restraint.
And then he goes on to say in an interview, he said that, hang on a second, he said, Roberts told me he's trying to position heritage to be relevant to both sides of the conservative foreign policy world, calling himself, quote, a recovering neocon.
He said, Washington is caught in a false dichotomy between interventionism and isolationism.
That last part is pretty encouraging.
You know, I think what will eventually happen if the dispute continues or gets worse, it will be resolved.
For them, it would be pragmatic in a sense.
But, you know, it reminds me of how they do it with monetary policy.
If our Federal Reserve overdoes it, prints too much money, and there's inflation, they have problems, they have to solve it.
Oh, the solution is give them a recession.
Oh, we have to raise interest rate.
So they nudge the interest rates up, and then all of a sudden the stock market goes down, and then there's a reaction.
Oh, no, we know you're doing the right thing.
We know the market would demand the higher interest rate.
But I'll tell you what, the people have spoken and the business community has spoken.
The stock market went down.
So they give up on it.
And that has happened.
And people are just, that's all they talk about on the media today on finances is when are they going to change their tune again and give up on raising the interest rates.
Well, I think that's sort of the way this is too, that they just wonder if what's going to happen to their donations and who's supplying it because it's a powerful talk.
But that's the wonderful thing I think we have with our little organization here.
But we talk to a lot of people.
And that is that we don't have to worry about it.
We have very, very generous people who help us.
And yet the only qualification is take a look at us, ask us questions, see what we do, where are our positions, and they're going to stay that way.
If you feel good about it, support it.
It's not like, oh, well, if you guys don't come out and say such and such, oh, you're going to get cut off.
We don't have to sit around worrying about that because we've been so pleased that when we have our conferences and get to know the people more, we don't have to twist arm in the sense of overpressure.
And we've been blessed in that sense.
And even though we keep saying that someday, you know, maybe there'll be more joining us and say, you guys could do better.
Your studio could be improved.
That sort of thing.
But it won't be a quid pro quo.
That's for sure.
It does make it easier for us.
We don't have to see which way the wind's blowing.
But nevertheless, I mean, I am encouraged by this, and I hope it continues in this direction.
Put on the next clip because he says something good about someone we know, and I think that's also a very good sign.
If you can put up that next clip.
It says, after being criticized for Heritage's stance on Ukraine aid, Roberts, the new head of heritage, praised Senator Rand Paul for his leadership in opposing this aid, a not so subtle jab at the GOP's actual leadership, McConnell, which he called swampy, for supporting the assistance package.
Now, I like how he frames this.
If you can put this next one up, I like how he's framing this, and this is a very good conservative argument.
He said, Roberts claimed the next batch of Ukraine legislation would fund, quote, social justice programs being spent through USAID and, quote, nefarious things that the State Department wants to do.
He said he's personally talked with several GOP lawmakers about the issue and predicts more no votes this time around.
Quote, that's where the conservative movement is going on foreign policy.
This is so important because a lot of Americans and a lot of conservatives think, oh, we're going to send some aid over there and it's going to go to get rid of the bad guys.
No, it's going to go to USAID, the State Department, to put up some new LGBT programs and buy some all sorts of things that if they want to do it on their own, that's fine.
But they're doing all this social justice stuff with our money.
And conservatives who support that are nuts.
And I'm glad that Kevin Roberts is realizing this.
And I hope he continues.
Maybe they should invite Senator Paul to speak there.
That'd be a good move.
But, you know, the weapons things can be put out there on the table.
And most Americans say, yes, we have to be strong, especially in the Cold War.
There was a lot of weapons out there.
We have to be safe.
And they go along with the weapons.
But then you brought it up, and it wasn't so much at the beginning about the cultural things.
And the cultural thing, they tag along with it.
So they might not be promoting it.
If they were promoting the issues that you mentioned, you know, there'd be more no votes on here.
But they promote national security, you know, freedom.
Democracy.
We need to go into Iraq because we want to protect our Constitution.
We have to protect our liberties.
So that is a shame.
But right now, well, it's all money, and that's all part of the problem.
But, you know, politically speaking, this cultural effort has been tagged on there.
And because of its broad appeal for different things, they're really in charge of so much that's going on, and that's the consequence of it.
But of course, this fits our argument because we sort of challenge welfare and warfare.
And this way, even though it might have started off on weaponry and national defense, it really has morphed into something that's very cultural Marxist.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, I'm going to close by, for the second time, reminding everyone we've got a conference coming up in Lake Jackson, exciting Lake Jackson, November 5th.
It's about, again, a very topical issue, cancel culture and the war on speech.
We talk about it a lot, Dr. Paul.
We're going to have some great guests, some great speakers.
We're going to have a great time.
So go to ronpaulinstitute.org and you will find that picture, a little bit of a frightening picture.
Just click on it and get your tickets.
Come join us down in Lake Jackson.
Maybe there'll still be some Gators out at the Wildlife Refuge.
You can make a little bit of a vacation, visit some Gators and listen to some good speeches.
Well, I'm not messing with those alligators yet.
I saw somebody on TV the other day made a pet out of one and kept it on his lap the whole time he was interviewed and petted this alligator.
That's dangerous.
No, I'm not going to do that.
We have enough other alligators to worry about.
Some of these people in alligator and they come saying, peace, oh, you will be like that alligator.
We have too many people get into government that way.
But it will be interesting.
You know, I imagine the election this year is going to be about as interesting as most of them because I think there's a lot more at stake.
But I still maintain, you can look at the narrow sense and you can look at this next year and the different things and what the future will bring.
But you know, in a way, though, my argument is that the two parties aren't that much different.
You'd never, how could I defend that with what's going on today?
And they would say, and yet the two parties exist, but on the big issues are the ones that I make a point.
They aren't a whole lot different, you know, because they don't start from a position of an individual liberty private property free market situation.
They talk with intervention.
Less interventions with more.
But if you have a system where you just have less intervention, you still believe in intervention.
And what happens in government?
It always grows.
And we've been doing that, you know, for 100 years.
But let me tell you, it's running out of steam because we're running out of money.
We're running out of wealth.
We're running out of freedom.
And the antagonism is growing.
So let's just hope that I'm completely wrong, that elections don't change things very much.
I do know that a lot of people are very hopeful that our borders might become secure.
And things like that could be improved.
And just getting rid of some of the regulations that were totally unnecessary in the energy field might be a big help to us.
But ultimately, it's bipartisan.
They generally, both sides support the war, the financing on the welfare and the warfare.
They support the Federal Reserve.
There's only a few who really care about the deficit and they really understand why deficits are very, very dangerous.
And when the correction comes and the whole process has been designed, the inflation, the spending, the malinvestment, it's all happened already.
People say, is there going to be inflation?
Yeah, well, there's what, well, you mean the prices are going to go up?
Yeah, the inflation we've had.
It's been going on.
They haven't stopped.
But the inflation since 08 with quantitative easing and all these things, that has set the stage for a correction that has not yet accomplished anything because we are doctoring it up and we play these games.
People Will Wake Up00:01:00
And that's why it's so important that we can help people to understand what personal liberty, property rights, free trade, these kind of things that solve the problem by the people making the decision rather than having the politicians making the decision because all you have to do is say, Ron, I don't think so.
We need them at times.
Yeah, like we needed them to really help us get through COVID infection.
That's a good example.
Who made all the money?
The drug companies made all all the money.
Whether the drug is really successful, not too successful from my viewpoint.
So it's one of those things that people are and will wake up.
It's our job and others' job is to present the case for liberty because it's such a positive thing and it will answer so many of the questions, but it still boils down to having a society that's made up of people that have a little bit of moral concern about their own activities.