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Aug. 23, 2023 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
31:48
What You WON'T Hear In Tonight's GOP Debate

There will be many jabs and many one-liners and many hollow promises made as eight GOP contenders - minus Trump - take the debate stage. But there are some things you are guaranteed to NOT hear tonight... Also today: Pentagon plays the blame Ukraine game.

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Time Text
Two Hours of Debate Watching 00:04:49
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you today.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you?
Good.
Election season.
Are you going to be up and make sure you hear everything that's going on?
Are you going to listen to the debate or that other thing that's going on?
That's a good question.
The debate or Trump and Tucker.
You'll probably have two TVs here watching them both or something.
I would watch Trump and Tucker, I think, up before the debate.
Yeah, they would be talking about more the essence of the issues.
The other is just sort of a gimmickery thing.
How are we going to hurt somebody else, not how to present their case?
These are both interesting.
The other candidates, in my opinion, with some exceptions, there are some exceptions, but they're really not that interesting.
Yeah, and, you know, I keep thinking, what are we going to learn?
Sometimes there will be something new and different, and they'll go after somebody.
But I just want to talk for a second or two on what they're not going to be probably talking about.
And my prediction is that there won't be a whole lot of talk about the Federal Reserve.
I don't think they're going to be talking much about that.
I think if they talk about foreign policy, it will only be to reinforce our intervention's foreign policy.
I don't think we're going to hear too much new and different and present an American foreign policy of, you know, getting out of these international agreements to go to war at the will of the president and the United Nations and NATO.
I don't think that's going to happen.
So there's going to be a lot of things that they'll talk about, I'm sure.
But, you know, this is pretty what is disgusting about these debates.
When they each get a chance to answer the question, they each have 60 seconds.
And they better wrap it down faster.
Or I think, I guess they're going to talk for two hours.
The two hours will be up.
So I don't see there's too much serious talk under that.
So that means if there's a little interview on another station, there's probably going to be a lot more serious talking about the issues.
Or at least entertaining.
Well, you can be sure that these candidates have spent hours with coaches and prep people, you know, practicing, getting ready, doing mock debates.
Now, what was it like for you?
What was your team of people like doing a prep for your mock debate and all this when you were on a debate?
Did you spend hours on questions?
No, I didn't because I figured it would, I wanted to be spontaneous because I had looked at issues for a long time and I knew my position.
So I didn't want somebody coming and there were quite a few requests.
You sit down, we got it.
You don't tell you what's going on.
I tell you what issues, what they might ask you, this sort of thing.
Well, I'll deal with it when I see it because it was just an additional bunch of information that if I try to work it into what I already think about the issue, I thought I'd be more confused than them.
So I didn't do that and some people criticized me for it.
I think it kind of worked out in the end.
Did you have your famous envelope though?
Oh, not allowed to do that.
That's right.
But somebody tried writing on their arm once in an interview.
But we were allowed to write notes, which I think is reasonable.
If you think about it up there and you want to make a point, that to me didn't seem unreasonable at all.
Yeah.
Well, here's what we're talking about.
We're not just having a coffee clash here.
Turn on that first clip because this is from the Washington Times.
And it's just to tell you what we're all about.
RNC releases official list of eight primary debate participants.
This came out this morning, I think.
And this is Rona McDaniel.
She's the chairman of the Republican.
Lead up just for a second, please.
She's the chairman of the Republican Party.
And it says, McDaniel says she is excited despite lack of Trump.
That is really interesting.
Go to the next one.
Here are the eight people that some of America will be watching tonight.
Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Tim Scott, Doug Bergham, and Asa Hutchinson.
And as for Trump, if you go to the next one, Trump announced his plans for tonight on his own social network.
My interview with Tucker Carlson will be aired tonight at 9 p.m.
Sparks will fly.
Enjoy.
So it's kind of an interesting showdown between these eight and Trump saying, hey, I'm going to have my own show at the same time.
Trump's Time Advantage 00:03:07
I bet Trump ends up with more time.
Yeah, you have more time, young man.
But it'll be interesting.
I think the most interesting thing will be how the competition is on the size of the audience.
You know, and you already said you'd probably prefer listening to Trump in that interview.
But the other will be, even if somebody had something to say seriously, what can you get out in 60 seconds if you're talking about what should we do in the different places?
Of course, there were times when I could summarize what I should do overseas with foreign policy.
Some of the more serious things can be simplified is when you're an interventionist and you believe in intervention and what you're looking for is balance and you know, like the Fed, the Fed could do this this week and they do something next week and they ought to have that.
So it's endless.
And then when it comes to welfarism and taking care of everybody, it's the interventionism, the ability to start managing things.
And people, you know, I think their argument is, I can manage it better than you can manage it.
There's not enough talk as far as I'm concerned of do we need this thing?
Do we need all this stuff?
And I think the biggest challenge that anybody that takes our position is being able to have the time to say, yes, I don't believe in such and such federal insurance on so-and-so.
That's horrible.
But maybe the market can handle something better, you know, but you don't have time to explain the downside because the conventional wisdom is government has to do it, and maybe some people can do it better than others, and they're sort of stuck there.
It's so much nicer to talk about freedom or non-freedom.
And the approach to this with property rights and freedom and contracts and voluntarism, it makes so much sense.
And I'm convinced personally that it's so much better.
Well, you know, the thing that benefited you is that the conventional wisdom is so boring that when you came out and said something so different, people really paid attention because they were half asleep listening into everyone with the bumper stickers.
So it was kind of a secret weapon for you to come out and say something different.
But you're right.
All eight of those candidates are interventionists, especially overseas.
I would even say I would put Ramaswamy in that category, although he's a more thoughtful, realist interventionist, and certainly less so than the others.
But I suspect what's going to happen is it's going to be a beat-up party against Ramaswamy because he's come out and said a couple of more or less reasonable things.
I was just reading a piece in Newsweek where he was hammered for saying, I would freeze the current lines of control and would leave parts of the Donbass region with Russia.
I would also further make a commitment that NATO would not admit Ukraine.
And for that, he was pilloried.
James Stavridis, the former admiral, I think he was, or something like that, was talking about this is appeasement like Hitler.
Beat-Up Party Against Ramaswamy 00:12:55
But, you know, despite the fact that there are a lot of problems with that, he's the only one saying, you know, we need to step back from World War III.
And I think that's going to make him a punching bag, certainly for Chris Christie and probably for Mike Pence, and maybe to a degree for DeSantis, who's also very interventionist and very much a neocon.
See, this commitment, the little bit of talk about, you know, the commitment and he being a little bit different, to me, the thing is, if they talk about these technicalities and go along with it, they really ought to be talking about who started the war, who's responsible.
You know, what's NATO's position?
What should we do?
And the American average voter, you know, fortunately, more and more Americans are saying, what are we doing it for?
And they just need a lot of that.
But if they finally get to the Republicans and the Republicans are, you know, even at times a little less hawkish than the Democrats, and all it is is how soon do we drop the bombs?
You know, and what do we do?
And who's going to get blamed?
Do they ever really talk about the basic, why do we go to war with the people not having a part in a decision, like voting to go to war?
I mean, they would say, oh, this isn't real war.
I mean, it's just a police action and that kind of nonsense.
So that's the real problem is it's tough getting out.
We don't know how to get out.
It takes 10 to 20 years to get out of some of these wars.
And yet they spend about 10 minutes behind the scenes, you know, starting a war.
And that's usually done in secret.
Yeah, of course it is.
Well, let's look at some of the polls.
And I just grabbed this one off of Twitter just to give us a sense of what's going on here.
Now, this is a new national poll from Interactive Polls, August 22nd.
And it says, Trump at, for President, Trump at 43, Biden at 38, Biden at 37, DeSantis at 34.
So it looks like a head-to-head with the two of them would be the benefit of having Trump.
For the GOP presidential, Trump is in at 6D.
DeSantis 16.
Ramaswamy 6.
Pence 4.
Scott 3.
Haley 3.
And Christie 1.
Head-to-head, Trump is 67 to DeSantis is 26.
So those are the numbers that we're looking at.
Now, betting odds is often even more accurate.
Let's look at that next one, the same group, but here's the betting odds.
68.1% for Trump, up 0.4% in the last day, with Ramaswamy beating out DeSantis at 13.5% and DeSantis going down 0.2% at 7.4.
These are the people who are putting their money where their mouth is.
So interesting to look at it going in, I think.
I think there's no doubt that Ramaswamy is stating a principle.
He might not be agreeing with us on it, but at least he states it clearly.
And when he disagrees, it was cordial and polite.
You know, we had him on our program, and I thought it was worthwhile.
And yet, I think it's the fact that people say, well, he's telling us the truth.
He's leaning toward actually telling us what he believes in.
But, you know, from my experience, my meager experience about debates, I don't think there is such a thing that they can create with these large crowds a fair debate, you know, because there's always an interviewer that's going to be biased.
They always say it's going to be fair.
Now, the way I understand this rule, at least they've alluded to this, is that the questions will be asked, everybody gets the answer, and they get 60 seconds.
That's not going to happen.
I predict that there will be some, especially if they gang up on somebody, there's going to be a bias against it.
And there always seem to be a bias.
I mean, how can you have these particular television stations put their people up and they're holding it?
So it's real hard to find a neutral person.
They're out there.
There are people, we could name a few, that would be willing at least to have an interview and be honest and above approach and be trusted.
But right now, I think there'll be something in there that will come across, especially if somebody is coming across very favorable and doing very well, and they get nervous by that.
Well, we can't have him saying that.
So then there'll be sort of ganging up and something unfair about it.
And even the people running the debate will be biased.
Yeah.
One of the things I haven't been able to figure out, and we haven't talked about this, so I don't even know how much you've followed.
I'm sure you have or thought about it.
But I was a little bit surprised, A, that DeSantis ran this year.
He's a young guy.
He's making his bones over in Florida.
A, that he ran, and B, that he ran, to my opinion, at least, such a bad campaign, such a shabby campaign.
What were your thoughts when you saw him running?
Well, I was confused because I didn't know what he was up to.
But in one way, if you look at the politics of what's going on, when he made that decision, it was at the height of lockdown.
The people were getting upset, even though he had a weaker position, but he sensed that the people were getting disgusted with this, and he really did lead the charge.
So if they had the primary race a year ago, it was much better.
It was only the one issue.
I don't think the way I see all of them is they don't work it into a definable principled policy that they have.
Well, I'm going to follow the Constitution, even if I might like to have this done.
I'm going to follow the Constitution.
And besides, in a free society, you solve these problems better than all.
But you didn't hear that.
And I think it was all one issue.
And he deserves credit for it, even with the shortcomings.
But there were so many others, so much worse.
And it's true, you know, that Florida has come across as a place you'd rather be in than New York.
If you were looking at that.
But you're probably right about timing.
Timing is a big deal.
And there's two things.
If you're running to offer something that is truly an alternative and precise and you really believe in it, you don't think about those things.
But if you're doing the timing, that's another political variable that I didn't get too worried about that.
You know, the thing that, I mean, we've spent a lot of time praising DeSantis because he did, when it was all around us was darkness, there was DeSantis.
Remember that time he went out and he had a beer with the motorcycle guys, you know, and without a mask on, and he was a hero.
That's why it's been so surprising to see.
I think one of the mistakes that he's made is just going after Trump so hard, making it personal.
Now, Trump can, if you want to be nasty and make it personal, Trump is the champion, right?
He will make up a name about you, and that's just how it is.
You know, playing that game, I think, was a mistake.
And that's where I think Ramaswamy has been much more clever because he's been more careful.
We've talked about it on the show.
He's been more careful.
Said, yeah, I'm running against Trump, but the way they're railroading him using this lawfare is wrong.
I would pardon him.
You know, he's not a terrible guy.
And I think everyone's talking about, because Ramaswamy is surging, quote unquote, in the polls.
He's increasing in the polls.
I think this might be some of the reason why he's increasing.
You know, what's this pressure put on by the party?
Will you take an oath that you will support the nominee?
I think it's the dumbest thing in the world.
What if Liz Chaney pulls it off?
That's what I would have done.
I said, Do you think I'm going to vote for Liz Chaney and support her?
But nobody did.
They kept hemming and hauling, you know, oh, oh, yeah, we should be a party.
We should stick together, never give up.
And that's why party politics, I was never too enthralled with political parties because there's a lot of shenanigans go on there.
But no, I think it'd be foolish.
I don't know whether Trump's lost anything on that.
It's sort of not as much of an issue as it was weeks ago.
But I just think it was ridiculous.
Oh, anybody we elect.
Well, what if they don't believe in anything I believe in?
And they out there.
I mean, just think if they were, I mean, if somebody was ready to start World War III and they say, well, he's a Republican.
Yeah, he's a crazy.
Well, I think it'd be crazy.
Besides, if you're running on that campaign and you have any support, the people would expect you to do that.
I could be wrong, but I think I heard RFK said that he wouldn't support Biden.
I could be wrong on that.
That would make sense, though, if you said that.
And maybe one of the reasons why Ramaswamy is doing better, continues to do better, is that he's more realistic on foreign policy, even though we don't agree with him completely.
He's more realistic.
And maybe that's why someone like Christie is just universally hated and despised because he's terrible.
And in fact, here's Christie in a nutshell.
If you put this next one, here he is.
Excuse me.
Christie, here's a politico article.
I don't want to be the apple of Vladimir Putin's eye.
Christie breaks with GOP rivals on foreign policy.
Well, that's fake.
He doesn't break with rivals.
He only broke with Ramaswamy on that being nasty.
And here's Christie being nasty again.
If we can go ahead.
Chris Christie says, if Trump is indicted in Georgia, the U.S. will have the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president out on bail in four different jurisdictions.
When are we going to stop pretending that's normal?
And here's one more.
Sorry if this is, I know, grossing everyone out, but one more with Christie.
And that really is his natural expression.
I think his best look is right there on the right.
Chris Christie on Donald Trump's refusal to debate.
If he believes he's the best person to go up against Joe Biden, then show up Wednesday night and stop being such a coward.
To that, I would say, what do you think if someone were to ask you?
He's ahead by a long shot.
And if you were his advisor and he said, hey, Ron, should I go on, should I do this debate?
What would you tell him?
I'd say, how do you feel about Eli?
Would you enjoy it?
Do you think it'd be beneficial?
You know, I'm not critical of him because he didn't do it, but I worried more about why when I was doing reasonably well, they wouldn't let me come to the police.
I did have a position.
But, you know, this whole thing of back and forth, it's still done frequently by the Democrats.
They're wringing their hands because they still believe that the more we charge Trump with being a criminal, the better.
What just this past week he raised another way?
$8 million because another indictment.
But he is charged with, I think, about 92 felony charges against him.
And then they still wonder why they're not believable.
You know, well, he's such an evil person.
And, oh, what about that stuff about Biden and his son?
Oh, that's not true.
You know, just remember Russia gate, how bad Trump.
Oh, you mean they disproved that?
Russia gate?
Exactly.
It's pretty bad.
Well, here's an interesting little aspect.
And I think Trump is, in my opinion, Trump is right not to go.
Why would you, you never punch down?
He's so far up, he's got nothing to gain.
He would be up there being the punching bag for everyone.
And what's the point in that?
I think he's making the smarter choice, just my opinion.
Nobody's asked me for advice.
And here's just a fun little thing.
Tim Poole from Timcast did a little poll on Twitter just asking, are you watching the lesser-known GOP debate or the Tucker and Trump interview tonight?
And from just this very informal thing, 79.7 are going to watch Trump and Tucker, and 20% are going to watch the GOP.
And here's what makes it interesting.
And this is not an original thought in my head, but it's funny because here is Trump and Tucker Carlson, and I hadn't realized that the debate is being hosted by Fox.
A lot of loyal Tucker fans are Trump fans, and they hate Fox for firing Tucker.
Foxes, Dollars, and Fault Lines 00:10:41
So it's almost as rivalry between Tucker and Fox.
Yeah, Trump, you know, was friendly at one time, but boy, he's not a friend of Fox anymore.
And he'll be delighted.
And he's almost like the kind of person to say, I told those people at Fox, don't mess with me.
That's an attitude that he has.
He does, yeah.
It'll be interesting.
I mean, if I were a betting man and I'm not, I would put money on Tucker beating Fox tonight, you know, in terms of viewership.
So we'll see.
Well, let's move on from one little update that we wanted to do.
If we can put that next one on.
Now, antiwar.com did a great job of covering it as they do.
But here's the original New York Times article.
Ukraine's forces and firepower are misallocated.
U.S. officials say.
Go to the next one.
This is from the New York Times article.
Ukraine's grinding counteroffensive is struggling to break through entrenched Russian defenses in large part because it has too many troops, including some of the best combat units, in the wrong places, American and other Western officials say.
And I think this goes along with what we've been talking about on the show lately, Dr. Paul, which is now that things are obviously going very, very bad for Ukraine.
The U.S., the experts in the U.S. government and think tanks are saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't blame us.
It's your guys' fault.
You did it the wrong way.
Yeah, there was a report today about the F-16s coming from the Netherlands.
Well, it wasn't until end of next year, maybe.
And so much of the weaponry, it was old.
I keep thinking, but you don't understand.
That opens up the market.
And more and more money flows into the coffers of the military-industrial complex.
So it just amazes me how inconsistent the progressives can be.
Because, you know, there was a time that they'd be good.
They were against the military-industrial complex and corporations like the pharmaceutical company.
Now they're gung-ho over the whole thing.
And it makes no sense whatsoever.
But they also lose credibility over it.
Eventually the people wake up on it.
Maybe someday there'll be somebody that will write a song that will really point out how stupid it is all.
Yeah, exactly.
There you go.
Well, we know from Tucker talking to Doug McGregor a couple of days ago, McGregor has said from his sources that there have been about 500,000 casualties on Ukraine's side.
And that's a horrific, horrific amount of casualties.
And so you're talking about a very, very large-scale war, the biggest war since World War II.
And so that's why it's so interesting, in my view, to see these American military experts saying, well, you guys are doing so bad.
It's not our fault.
You're just doing it wrong.
You're not doing combined arms warfare.
Well, the first thing we do is we have air superiority in every conflict.
And we also never fought a peer power since World War II.
It's always been Libya, Iraq, Serbia.
You know, we've never fought a peer power, and we've always had air dominance.
Well, they don't have it.
And this is actually, believe it or not, you've got to dig down in the New York Times article to find something actually a little interesting.
And if you can move ahead, skip that next one and go to the next one, American officials' criticisms.
Because I think this is a little bit of a glimmer of truth in this article.
Because here they are attacking and criticizing Ukraine.
It's all your fault, you dummies.
You didn't do what we told you.
Well, here's from the article.
American officials' criticisms of Ukraine's counteroffensive are often cast through the lens of a generation of military officers who have never experienced a war on this scale and intensity.
Moreover, American war doctrine has never been tested in an environment like Ukraine's, where Russian electronic warfare jams communication and GPS, and neither military has been able to achieve air superiority.
That last part is incorrect.
However, that's a very interesting statement they made there, I think.
You know, thinking about this unnecessary war, this manufactured war for various reasons, 500,000 casualties.
This is horrible.
It's so bad.
But at the same sense, most people will, you know, sort it out.
If you lose 500,000 people from all of the Soviet Union or all of the United States or something, that percentage is much lower.
But I just wonder, that is not a big country over there.
Ukraine doesn't have millions of people to go to.
So percentage-wise, no wonder they had to say, you know, they had to say, well, maybe people are admitting you can't win this war.
Even if people have been gung-ho over this, I guess they decided, well, maybe we stretched it too far and we could get away with it.
But if we stick with this, well, it might hurt our reputation.
Well, you remember in the Iraq war when things were going very badly and there's no way they could deny it anymore.
How many of these people who are so gung-ho, well, I wasn't really for it.
Well, if they hadn't done it this, then they always do that.
But here's the thing that is most repulsive.
And you're the one that suggested that we bring this up, and I think it's a good point.
Because if McGregor is anywhere near, if his sources are anywhere near being correct and you have half a million casualties, this is what makes it even more disgusting to hear what the U.S. is complaining about.
If you can do the next one, this is from anti-war.
They lose a half a million to death and injury, and the U.S. fears Ukraine is too casualty averse.
Could you imagine if we had been plunged into a war like this and we lost a half a million men and someone said, come on, get over it.
Suck it up.
You didn't send enough sacrificing troops enough in there.
No, it's such a horror.
This is why the founders are pretty smart people because they anticipated this type of operation when you don't have restraints.
And they also knew that the restraints put in the Constitution might not work if you end up with a bunch of immorality in the government that they don't have.
They don't believe that taking an oath of office.
They have to believe that's the biggest joke in the world.
But they don't call it a joke.
What they say is just a modern interpretation of the Constitution.
You have to have not an over-rigid, and we can justify this by, look, they've been doing it for years, and of course, we'll rule this way.
You know, all this stuff.
So, the founders did it with an idea that it was a good idea.
I think they knew it wasn't perfect, but the one thing they knew wasn't perfect were the people that drifted into politics.
And I would say that in these last, well, more than a couple decades in this century, there's been a gradual deterioration of the people who grasp the power and they have no concern at all.
They think it's a joke.
Abandon the Constitution?
Well, that's so old.
And I've been told that to my face in a congressional setting.
We don't do that anymore.
Come on, man.
Well, I'll close out by reminding our viewers, and thank you for being our viewers.
Put on that next clip if you can, which way America is our conference coming up on September 2nd.
There are still some tickets left.
You're going to want to hear Ron Paul speaking.
You're going to want to hear Colonel Doug McGregor, Jonathan Turley, who you see on Fox News, Max Blumenthal of the Gray Zone.
This is a very diverse group.
Mike Flajos from taught at the Naval War College, former CIA.
This is going to be a very diverse, very interesting group.
You're going to want to get your tickets.
I'll put a link in the description.
If you don't see it, go to ronpaulinstitute.org and up at the upper right hand, you'll see a link to get your tickets and come join us.
Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
Now, I want to finish by emphasizing something I've talked about a lot before, and that is think about one step before these wars start.
And in this case, I think the understanding by the American people who started this war, and they say, oh, Russia.
Russia invaded Ukraine, and that's it.
I imagine half the people don't have the idea and don't have a big strong opinion about it, but the ones that do are still believing in that.
And yet, that is not true.
So I think seeking truth about who really precipitated this makes a big difference.
So yes, we have the interventionists.
Oh, well, if we just had a little bit more air power, if we just had this, if we just had the Ukrainians willing to risk the lives of another 100,000 kids, this would all be different.
It's all this, you know, modify the intervention.
But if you're going to do it more strategically with an understanding of what the rule of law ought to be and telling the truth.
So the American people need to know the truth how this war got started.
And it is not a war against Ukraine, against Russia.
It's a war of NATO precipitating a war against Russia.
And they sacrificed Ukraine in doing it, and they don't care about it.
And a lot of people made a lot of money.
Millions of dollars, billions of dollars?
No, it'll probably be trillions of dollars before it's been going on.
So I think it's time it stopped.
And I sure wish there was a greater debate going on with a presidential campaign coming up.
But the whole thing is just one person, even one leader saying one thing, doesn't solve the problem of the people understanding it.
And that is why they use fear-mongering and also patriotic zeal to get people to go along with that.
So if you don't agree with the warmongers, then you're on America and we'll punish you for that.
So I think if we would tell the truth more often about our government and at least admit our participating in Managing and expanding our empire is a big problem, and we ought to work to stop that nonsense.
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