Cracks Forming! NATO Official Suggests Ukraine Give Up Land
Despite endless promises that NATO's dedication to Ukraine is unwavering, we were treated to a peek behind the mask yesterday, when the NATO Secretary General's chief of staff suggested in a newspaper interview that Ukraine might cede land to Russia in exchange for NATO membership of what's left of the country. Is Ukraine about to get thrown under the bus? Also today: Trump's numbers keep improving with each indictment...do they realize this?
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 this morning.
Good morning, Dr. Paula.
How are you this morning?
Very well, thank you.
And we'll do a little bit of talking about, you know, wars are being started all the time.
We're always involved.
But we're going to talk today about how do you end wars?
And I came to a quick conclusion after thinking about this, that all wars that are started badly end badly.
And I would say that we've now gone many, many decades where we have rejected the notion that we should be cautious about going into war.
And essentially, never quit fighting the war.
The war goes on and on, and it even transfers into economic wars and trade wars.
So it's a conflict that in a libertarian society, I would think we would deal with it quite differently and hopefully a lot more peacefully than what we have now.
But the reason we brought this up is the lead article and our friends are anti-war.
The headline was a very powerful.
NATO officials suggest Ukraine could cede territory to Russia to join the alliance.
So this is saying that, well, we'll cave in and we'll give you some of your land back and then we'll let Ukraine join NATO.
I think the immediate reaction of both of us is, that doesn't sound like much of a solution.
But that is there.
Then I got to thinking, you know, this is coming up and we can talk about that.
What means immediately, what's going on there.
But to me, it also says something about these many wars that have gone on that have ended, you know, have started badly or illegally or unconstitutionally.
They end up ending badly.
And we might mention a few of those because I thought there might be one or two, maybe looking at the pictures of Afghanistan and Vietnam.
But when you think about it, you can't find a real delightful ending.
And I remember Murray Rothbard used to say, the only war that ended in a positive way where people had more liberty rather than less, and Leonard Reed made this strong point too, was our revolution.
Most revolutions ends up with the people having less liberty.
And that's what I would say that is generally the case in the rest of the wars that have gone on now.
We don't get freer as time goes on.
So I want to just mention the fact that something's changed a little bit here, that they're talking about a NATO official talking about it.
And not like he says, well, next week we're going to have a meeting.
It's going to happen.
But the fact that he had to talk about this, and of course the reaction by Zelensky was very, very negative against it.
So in a practical sense of something happening next month or two and there's a real settlement, I think we're a long way off from that.
But it also tells you maybe about the perceived strength of the two parties that are fighting.
Maybe there'll be a little bit of common sense about, you know, Zelensky beating Russia.
Yeah, it's interesting.
And people might say when you suggested that this is a war that started badly, that will end badly.
They might say, well, hang on a minute.
Russia invaded out of the blue in an unprovoked manner.
But it started badly in 2014 when the U.S. was behind the coup and was pushing them.
And then for the intervening almost 10 years, when it was arming and training Ukraine to fight Russia, that's how it started badly, and it probably will end badly.
But what's interesting, we can actually put the article up because this was Steen Jensen, who is the chief of staff to NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg.
So he's a high-ranking official.
He's very close to Stoltenberg.
It's very doubtful that he would speak off the cuff without at least having his finger in the air, knowing which ways the wind's blowing in Brussels.
But he told a Norwegian magazine, VG, that, quote, I think that a solution could be for Ukraine to give up territory and get NATO membership in return.
It's what he told the magazine.
And then he was asked after he said this, has this been discussed in NATO?
And they said that, yes, there have been discussions about this.
So it's very interesting.
And it's not interesting because of that nature of the deal, because it's a non-starter from the beginning for a number of reasons we'll get into.
But the fact that NATO is talking about this, obviously, or he wouldn't have opened his mouth about it, the fact that they're talking about this means that they have started to have that realization, or at least to articulate the realization that things are not going well.
And as you started out by saying, this war is going to end badly.
You know, the aide to Zelensky had a retort for this because we would expect it, and we could predict it's going to be tougher, and he can't concede anything.
And that is exactly what happened.
But it still was, I got a little charge out of it because it's so silly.
The aide said, I had this out on the internet.
He said, that means, that is conceding territory, that means deliberately choosing the defeat of democracy.
That's, boy, we can't be for this.
Oh, no, we don't believe in all this democracy stuff.
The founders tried to teach us about pure democracy.
It leads to sometimes wars that were unnecessary and hard to stop.
Yeah.
Well, let's look at the next clip is the VG article, and it's just for purposes of demonstration.
This is Jensen, the guy that you're seeing here talking.
But you're right to point out the reaction from Ukraine.
And I would have to say, Dr. Paul, and I listened to Alex Christophoro this morning, who I like very much.
I think he's a very good commentator.
But he pointed this out.
It seems to me almost like Ukraine has been blindsided by the reaction, which you've already read one of them.
But they're basically acting like nobody said this.
Someone's making this up.
And in fact, go to the next one.
This is Alexei Danilov.
He is, I guess you would say, the equivalent of the National Security Council chairman.
There is no compulsion to negotiate with Russia.
Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Danilov says, if you go to the next one, here's what he says when presented with this quote from the NATO high official, chief of staff to Jen Stoltenberg.
Here's what Danilov's reaction was.
Reports of this alleged pressure are not confirmed by anything.
They exist only on the internet.
I don't know.
Perhaps this is the work of the Russian troll army.
But our partners have not set any demands to negotiate.
Ukraine will solve this problem independently, and there can be no negotiation with Putin.
Russia must be destroyed like a modern-day Carthage.
You can't leave the enemy behind.
So to me at least, I don't know, maybe you feel differently.
That sounds like a guy who has broadsided with this and say, no, that can't be true.
It's impossible.
You know, another group that is confirming the fact that people are getting tired of this and there's no reason for the Ukrainians to celebrate is there's articles out now because, you know, they've lost so many people, 400,000.
I don't believe those numbers that are so huge.
But they're still looking for more bodies.
And so, and it's a draft, of course.
They're not my volunteers for this.
But the draftees now, there are stories about them all hiding and trying to escape and hiding in the basement.
So that's a confirmation that the patriotism and the desire to take on Russia, it has rather weakened.
Yeah, well, you can't blame these guys for trying to hide.
I mean, it's awful.
But so here's Michael Podoliak.
He's a top advisor to Zelensky.
And you did talk about his reaction, but here's his tweet where he says this.
It also to me sounds like he was blindsided by this quote.
Trading territory for a NATO umbrella?
It's ridiculous.
This means deliberately choosing the defeat of democracy, as you point out, and preserving the Russian regime, destroying international law, and passing the war on to other generations.
So he's having a little bit of a fit there when presented with this.
And in a way, you can understand why they're upset, because for the past year, the mantra has been, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.
You know, like, we won't even talk to anyone without them being there.
Then all of a sudden, they come into the room and they say, well, we made a couple decisions for you already.
You're going to have to give that up in order for this to happen.
So I think it's a real shift here in the paradigm.
Right.
And to me, it invited the thinking about wars in general.
And when wars are started illegally, unconstitutionally, and they start badly, they are destined to end badly.
Then I got to thinking, well, can we figure out a couple of these?
No, we thought it for a few minutes.
We had more than a couple.
And of course, the two incidents that are most vivid in the people's mind right now would be, of course, the leaving of Saigon.
I mean, of course, that was in the 60s, and that was very vivid for me.
And it was a disaster.
And then also, Afghanistan, now they're making hay.
The Republicans are making hay out of that, and they rightly should criticize it.
But, you know, in some ways, the difference is, if you want to really look at a tragedy, it was going on in Vietnam.
I mean, this was Afghanistan was tragic as far as Americans being killed and trying, the good people that were anti-Taliban trying to get out.
You know, that's a different story.
But this to me is a sign that if things aren't done cautiously and everybody knows, why are we going to war?
What is the goal?
How was the end point?
How do we stop?
It never happens.
And so they continue.
But you say, well, that's just sloppy planning.
But like some people, we are sometimes cynical enough to believe maybe it isn't an accident.
Maybe some people deliberately like perpetual war.
I think we've been warned about perpetual war and that's what goes on.
And some people make a lot of money off this.
Not a couple million, couple billion, but probably over the years, trillions of dollars that go into the constant fighting of war.
And we're getting more sophisticated.
We exert our power through sanctions and robots and all this.
And we try to save the heartache of seeing Americans being killed and brought home.
But the wars still go on and the suffering still lasts because there's always a cost to our liberties and to our financial position.
And that's why one of the reasons why I think Republicans are starting to be lack hawkish, you know, sending more money to Ukraine.
But right now, I think the people in the driver's seat, the military-industrial complex, and the hawks that we have in Washington are in the driver's seat, and they're not going to quit the budget.
Every week when things look like, where are they going to get the money?
It's another many billions of dollars just recently another time.
$24 billion, they do.
So that myth will end.
Yeah, I mean, I think, excuse me, I think a lot of the reason that wars end badly is because the people who are in charge believe their own propaganda.
You know, and you and I experienced it personally when you were on the Hill.
Don't you remember the endless hearings in the Foreign Affairs Committee, the House IR Committee?
You know, and ironically, it was the Kagans that were always there in the front row giving us the testimony.
One more surge and we're about to win.
Victory in Afghanistan is just a corner away.
We're almost there.
Fred Kagan, you know, and every time, and they believe it because they wanted to believe it.
They wanted to believe it.
You know, this reminds me about our friend Walter Jones because he was very hawkish and he was all with it.
And he would diligently go to all these briefings that we would get, secret briefings to tell us what's really going on over there.
So he would attend that.
And for a while, you know, he was buying into it in the early years.
But he came across some literature and all that, and he found out that, you know, they're not telling him the truth.
That was all propaganda.
So they propagandize by taking the administration, the people who secretly get us into these wars and the money behind it, and then pump up the congressmen to make it a political event.
So if you don't support it, you know, you're unpatriotic and you don't support the troops.
And they would never in any of those hearings have someone like a Colonel McGregor who's sitting there and saying, okay, now I've heard what Kagan just said.
Here's reality.
And let me tell you this.
It was always, the whole thing was always rigged.
So you wonder why Congress members are so dumb with a few exceptions.
It's because they have zero curiosity and they're constantly force-fed propaganda.
Oh, we need more money.
We're almost winning.
We're almost winning.
Let's vote yes.
And so that's why we have these disasters.
You know, when I was thinking about this issue of all the wars end badly, and certainly us going quickly into a new war after World War II by direction of the United Nations and not by the U.S. Congress and the American people, that I thought, well, I can't really go.
It wasn't quite the defeat of Vietnam.
It wasn't a victory, but at least the South survived.
And I was trying to talk myself into maybe this is an exception.
South Korea's Unification Trajectory00:03:28
Maybe it didn't end badly as some other wars have.
But it turns out that the people that were involved, they claimed great victories and all.
But the whole thing is, I got to thinking, well, Vietnam, it didn't end badly.
But one thing happened is we became westernized or Vietnam became westernized when our troops left and they became unified.
But we maintain a strong presence in South Korea.
And technically, we're still at war with North Korea.
So it never ends.
And I think when I was looking for these spots in the world where you could go either way, well, maybe some good came of it.
You suggested that some people might be deceived about the war in Libya.
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
It started badly and it ended badly because it's been 10 years of civil war and what was the richest country in Africa is now a disastrous wasteland.
And we, Hillary involved in that one?
Yeah, she loved it.
She was practically ecstatic when they killed him.
Hope.
Well, moving on on this one, because I just want to make one other point.
You know, they say that the five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
We saw the denial and anger on those first two reactions to the suggestion.
I would suggest that we're getting to the depression and acceptance.
When you look at our next clip, which comes from the foreign ministry of Ukraine, when they heard about it, they seem quite genuinely upset and depressed.
If we can click that one on, this is from a Newsweek article about this statement that they might want to give up land.
A spokesperson for the Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also publicly rejected the suggestion, calling Jensen's proposal absolutely unacceptable.
Quote, we have always assumed the alliance, NATO, like Ukraine, does not trade territories.
The conscious or unconscious participation of NATO officials in shaping the narrative regarding the possibility of Ukraine's giving up its territories plays into the hands of Russia, they said.
So they almost seem now like they're a little bit depressed.
You guys can't be doing this to us.
This isn't fair.
This can't be happening.
You know, you said they may get around to the point of believing their own propaganda.
And I think most everybody has heard the story or the history of Afghanistan, that they've never been conquered.
There's been many times all the way back to Roman times, thousands of years, and the people of Afghanistan.
And most people believe, you know, the Taliban, they were the ones that attacked us on 9-11 and this sort of thing.
But, I mean, just look at all those years they sustained, and they're back in charge again.
I mean, but they don't want to believe reality.
Why wouldn't they pay a little attention to the history?
But this desire to have the natural resources of Afghanistan and pump up the people with their, you know, about their patriotism, about, you know, having a strong military and this sort of thing.
They go along with that.
And at the same time, it doesn't pay off.
It still ends up, it still ends up badly.
They started badly.
But after all those years, you know, you say, well, what was gained?
And they say, well, we couldn't leave.
Trump's Face Shows Bad Indictment00:09:13
You've heard me talk about this before.
We can't leave because we have to save face.
Just think, thousands of Americans have killed Vietnam.
That was it.
I remember Johnson saying, I don't want to be the president of the first war we have lost.
So he wanted their save face, and that was even said in the debates I was in.
One of them said, well, you can't just leave.
That means they have died in vain.
Well, the best thing to do is look at history and pay attention to this and think about war and peace and how it comes about.
And then you really might be contributing something to a peaceful world.
Yeah.
Well, this first crack that we're really seeing, I think, is the testing of the waters.
And I think they know things are going badly and they're not going to get any better.
Anyone following this closely knows that.
So we'll keep an eye on it.
Well, let's move on to another thing that may not go as well as they'd hoped.
And I wouldn't mind starting this if you don't mind with a clip.
And I did see this on Alex's show this morning.
And I think it's a hilarious clip.
Pardon me.
From Trump at a rally.
Play the first 48 seconds of that.
Here he is at a rally making fun of these indictments.
And it's hilarious the way he says this.
If we can get that queued up.
Here we go.
Incompetent these people are.
It's horrible.
In the recent Raspusin poll, we're up 44 points with Trump at 57, Rhonda Sanctimonius at 13.
And the rest of them down in single digits and really low.
And in the morning consult that just came out, I wanted to see, because, you know, every time you get indicted, I like to check the polls.
One more indictment that I think this election's over.
One more.
No, it's horrible.
You get indicted for nothing.
Can you imagine a guy?
Let's indict my opponent.
This is a sick, this is a third, this becomes a third world country.
The latest morning consult poll.
I think we can probably now, but here he is.
One more indictment.
Just give me one more, and I think this election's over.
And he's making fun of it, of course.
But our next little segment is from AP.
And of course, because it's AP, it means absolute propaganda.
That's what it stands for.
But nevertheless, they can't help but report a little bit of truth.
If you put up that next clip, it's pretty fascinating that came through this morning.
After every new indictment, Donald Trump has boasted that his standing among Republicans only improves.
And he has a point.
Nearly two-thirds of Republicans, 63%, now say they want former president to run again, according to a new poll from the A.P. Nork Center for Public Affairs Research.
That's up slightly from 55% who said the same in April.
I would say more than slightly.
55 to 63 is pretty significant.
In April, when Trump began facing a series of criminal charges, seven in ten Republicans now have a favorable opinion of Trump, an uptick from the 60% who said so two months ago.
They're viewing him more favorably after this.
I get the biggest charge out of those rhino Republicans who have deserted him and said we have to stop anybody but Trump and they fought it and they were getting attention and all of a sudden right now a few of them are quietly switching over and on especially the ones in the office in office because they still hate Trump and they despise him.
And I think it's I've decided that his personality, which comes across rather arrogant at times, but it also serves the interests of people not liking to see friends or people who should be treated more fairly.
And right now I think that'll be the big issue.
He's been treated unfairly and I think the American people are more desirous.
And I've heard a few of them say, you know, I don't like Trump, but I'm going to vote for him, not because I really think he's the answer as much as it's a system that mistreated him that has been so bad, because it gives a victory to the corruption in the FBI and the deep state, the Department of Justice, and all these courts that are so abusive.
They're the ones, you know, we don't like Trump because he's so arrogant.
But don't think that the arrogance of what his enemies right now might be much, much greater because they could care less and they flaunt it and they just are in everybody's face and they're in Trump's face.
They think, you know, Hillary was on the other night.
It was just like, she didn't say the word, but she said, they want to put me in jail, but he's going to jail, you know.
So that's not the way to get to the bottom of the issue of what is worthwhile and how would we prevent it going to war.
And it's not complicated.
Just mind our own business and follow the rules and how you go into war instead of letting the deep state and the department of the military industrial complex making the decisions for us.
Yeah, I think people are also seeing that, you know, if this use of lawfare and the criminalization of speech is able to go through unchallenged, it's going to become the norm.
You're going to have each president's going to put the previous one in jail.
It's going to be worse than a banana republic.
It's going to be a lunatic.
And you mentioned how the other, the rhinos and the other candidates.
I think the one candidate who's gotten it right is Ramaswamy.
He said he's defended Trump.
He said, look, I'm running against the guy, but I don't like what's happening.
If I win, I'm going to pardon him.
I don't stand for this.
So I think he's playing it smart, and he's also going up in the polls.
I've seen some polls where he's neck and neck with DeSantis.
No, he's a smart move.
Very interesting.
And he comes across as he's has beliefs.
He tells you what they are.
He sticks to them.
And I think he comes across and the people say, you know, he's telling the truth.
You know, we can trust what he's saying.
And this is a big item.
This is why the country starved for that.
To have somebody just come forward.
And I think the opposition would be the current president.
They can't be trusted.
Can you imagine a real debate between Ramaswamy and Biden?
Oh, no, that'd be one-sided, wouldn't it?
I don't think Biden will show.
I don't think he will show.
Well, I wanted to say one more thing about this.
I know it's close to our closing, but you know, we both met Tim Poole.
We went on a show, and we've got a lot of respect for him.
I actually think he really nailed something because I was thinking, what's this?
All this Georgia stuff is so weird.
I was listening on the way into the studio about some of the charges against him from this 98-page indictment, and some of them are so nutty.
It's just beyond.
I mean, it's not even laughable.
But I think Tim Poole actually hits the nail on the head of what they really want.
If you put that next clip up, and it just hit me when he tweeted this earlier, he said, if we put that up there, he said they want to remove Trump from the Georgia ballot as it's a critical state to win in 2024.
He may be right there.
That may be what this is all about.
Get him off the ballot.
He's convicted of crimes in this state.
He is not eligible for the ballot.
You know, he can't compete here.
Do you think there's any way that that issue could end up in the Supreme Court?
She's like, how could it not?
Boy, that is really bad because they can't win honestly.
They'll win dishonestly.
And the other thing is, the more I try to understand lilism, it doesn't matter.
You say, how can they do this?
They do it with a straight face, but they do it with a sense of satisfaction.
Well, we have them, and we're doing what is right in their sense.
We're doing what is right because there is no truth about what you should do.
You mean you're supposed to follow the rules?
No, it's the people who can cheat and cheat the best and propaganda is the best.
But hopefully the people will wake up.
And I think there's going to be too bad it's so serious, but there could be some exciting things happening now between now and next year.
But this can be really serious.
Yeah.
Well, let's put on that last clip, and I'll just say to our viewers, I'm looking here.
There's about a thousand of you watching us live right now.
First of all, thank you for watching us live.
We can't say how much we appreciate you because we appreciate it so much.
If you could put that back up, thanks.
Each one of you, or a handful of you, stop what you're doing and get tickets to our conference.
If you like what we're talking about, you come back every day.
We've got a great group who are talking about the things that we talk about on this show.
A Thousand Watch Live00:01:58
Which Way America, September 2nd, Labor Day weekend, Washington, D.C., take one day and do some learning, a couple of days and do some sightseeing.
There are, despite it being a pretty evil town, some beautiful things to see there.
Make it a little mini vacation.
But come see us on Saturday.
I'll put a link in the description and in the comments after the show.
But you're watching us now.
Get your tickets and come see us in a couple of weeks.
Back to you, Dr. Very good.
And I'd like to make one point about that, which way America.
And most people still are conditioned, and sometimes we slip up and might talk about right and left, but it isn't between right and left because that's so conventional.
You think about liberal Democrats and Biden, and then you think of the Republicans and Conservatives and the Hawks and all this stuff.
So it's not that simple.
There's other directions as well.
One is toward limited government.
Something that is very easy to understand.
And you have to point out, though, you can't do that without pointing out that the major parties are really led and influenced by special interest groups.
And just think of the B issues that they agree on.
Tremendous issues like monetary policy, spending, debt, and the financing and the wars.
That can't be done by just one party.
So which way for America is, I think, is very, very important to talk about and try to get people to be independent-minded.
Ronaswamy, I think he avoids that type of things, but he explains exactly what he's doing.
So that's why he is soaring and climbing in the polls.
But I will be looking forward to seeing a lot of you at the convention here at our meeting that we're having in September.
And I want to thank everybody who's turned in right now and all of you.