Biden Gives Iran Some Of Its Own Money Back...Republican Heads Explode
In a rare successful deal with Iran, the Biden Administration secured the release of five US citizens held in Iranian prisons in exchange for the release of $6 billion in Iranian assets seized by the United States. Predictably, US Republican politicians lost their minds over the deal. Also today: Blinken green-lights Ukrainian missile strikes deep into Russia - what could go wrong? Finally: Biden's thuggish Energy Secretary strands young family so she can re-charge her electric car.
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 this morning?
Doing well.
Doing well.
Trying to sort out things and find out what's important.
We're all lined up.
We have several things.
But I heard something that the Republicans are going to be busy.
We're going to be busy.
And probably being able to do more investigation is good.
But I think that whole thing is a mess, and I'm afraid the Republicans might mess the whole thing up because their hands aren't clean either.
The impeachment inquiry, right?
Yeah, the fact that they're going to file that.
But that does, it seems like they should be able to do it without filing the form to be officially investigating possible impeachment.
But that's just a house rule.
So they're going to do it.
And I think they should investigate for sure.
But I think they have to be careful on how they run it.
Don't make things worse for them.
Make it a circus.
But I want to start off with one item about something that sort of bugs me, has over the years, and that is our empire throwing our weight around.
When people don't do as we say, we freeze their assets.
Even if we're not in active wars, or if we pretend they are, we want to make a political point.
We hate these people, so what we're going to do, freeze funds.
And anytime anybody goes in government and say, see, the president can release those.
And maybe with a vote also.
But when they talk about this, the people who are the warmongers and the military-industrial complex, they go nuts.
Then they distort things.
And the one thing we're going to talk about is the so-called return of, or the giving the funds, but it really is a returning of the funds.
They're talking about $6 billion to open up discussions and exchanging prisoners and all these things.
But how do we get that money?
Well, we run the show.
We run the financial markets.
It's also one of the reasons they keep gnawing away at the U.S. Empire, and we're losing clout overseas because we overdo it.
But anyway, there's a big issue.
U.S. released $6 billion in frozen Iran funds in a swap of prisoners of war.
So that, of course, we see that as diminishing the conflict and antagonism and potential war.
And yet there's a crew that says, well, if you're for that, you're un-American, you're unpatriotic, and you're giving our good money away to the Iranians.
That's what bugs me the most.
We steal this money, literally.
I mean, oh, no, we're just holding it for them because they're not behaving.
But we have control of the money.
I always wonder who earns the interest when these billions are held.
But there's $6 billion is in the news, but there's also many, many more billions of dollars that was frozen separate from this.
But right now, the question is in the discussion about the $6 billion.
And I think, once again, it isn't so much allowing them to narrow it down and saying, it's taxpayers' money, and we're giving it to the Iranians.
Otherwise, I want people to think, well, how did, was it that?
No, it's Iranian money that we've been holding, and how did that happen?
And did we take it legitimately and they owed us the money?
Or could it possibly have been that it was closer to the equivalency of stealing because they didn't do what we wanted.
They hadn't attacked us.
But yes, the Iranians, you know, are terrorists.
And they're always said to be the worst in the world.
And they're bad.
But some people would think America participates too because we drop a lot of bombs on civilians.
And that could qualify.
But anyway, that's big in the news, but I think the principle should be avoided, or this problem should be avoided by saying don't confiscate these funds and don't be a bully.
Don't pretend we own the world.
And don't pretend it's American money now.
As far as Americans are concerned, it's our money now.
Too bad.
But it's messy, and I think this is going to get worse.
Yeah, this is one issue when the UNA party is going to hate us.
They're going to hate everything we say.
This is Republicans and Democrats who make up that UNIPARTY when it comes to foreign policy.
Because, you know, this is, you know, this is a rare moment of praise for the Biden administration.
We're pretty hard on him, and deservedly so.
But this is one very, very small but encouraging bit of success in the foreign policy.
And you already pointed out the terms of the deal.
It's a pretty good deal.
There are five Americans.
Now they're dual citizens, but they're Americans, and they're sitting in prison in Iran.
I'm sure it's not like going to prison in Denmark, right?
Have your espresso machine, sir.
No, they're sitting in prison in Iran right now.
And we're holding some Iranians in prison.
I'm sure it's not very much fun for them either.
So we're going to exchange these five prisoners.
We're going to give them, as you say, $6 billion of their own money back that we seize.
We actually didn't seize it.
We told the South Koreans to grab the dough, and they did.
So we're going to give them their own money back, although we said you can only use it to buy medicine.
And then the other thing that's not written about as much is that the Iranians have agreed to a temporary reduction in the level of enrichment of uranium.
So we get a little something on their uranium, they get a little bit of their own money back, and we each get those five people back.
If you can put up the first clip, here's what Zero Hedge correctly analyzed it as.
GOP and Trump and GOP Hawks blast Biden for handing over $6 billion to, quote, terrorist regime in Iran.
So you can see them trying to make political points attacking Biden in one of the few foreign policy areas that he's actually done something useful.
Now, here's a line in this article.
And what they're doing is trying to persuade the Hawks to back off.
It's not just giving him U.S. money.
It's this return and there's a deal and they're trading and this sort of thing.
But the one thing in this sentence is he also said Iran would not have direct access to the funds and there would be significant oversight from the U.S.
That doesn't quite sound like a clean deal even in their unclean world.
But that's just to pacify.
But that's not satisfy them.
It's a simple principle.
It's American money and we shouldn't be dealing with these people.
We stole that money clean as a whistle, you know.
Well, that's, you know, and the Iranian president rejected any conditions.
They said it's our money, we'll spend it how we want.
But I think that's in a way probably the Biden administration trying to cover its own rear end, saying, hey, we told them they can only spend it on this and that and the other.
So, I mean, it's a tough thing.
It's very tough politically for them to do.
And you can be sure, of all the boneheaded things that Biden has done this past couple of years, this is probably one of the only ones that will come up to attack him on his foreign policy.
And the Republicans don't have a real good record of dealing with Iran, going all the way back to 1953.
Exactly.
And also, the Trump administration didn't do well.
Matter of fact, they canceled some effort to try to get along with Iranians.
And then that's when they confiscated even more money.
So it hasn't.
Let me read that sentence dealing with that.
Tens of billions of dollars owed to Iran for oil and other exports are believed to have been frozen in bank accounts across the world.
Now, who do you think has the key to the freeze?
Yeah.
World since 2018.
I wonder who is president when then President Donald Trump abandoned an international nuclear deal with Iran and reinstated U.S. sanctions.
You know, it's back to whose side are they on when they're aggravating and threatening and intimidating with nuclear weapons, this whole thing.
But that's tens of billions of dollars.
So this is peanuts compared to what we do.
But the principle is so bad.
It's always sitting out there that if you don't behave, that's what we're going to do to you because we own you.
But I tell you what, there's a lot of people getting tired of this.
And I think that's why you hear more talk than ever of countries banding together and trying to have competition for the dollar in international commercial transactions.
That's exactly right.
You know, and stupid foreign policy has stupid results.
And you're exactly right.
So when Trump did this ridiculous move against Iran, stupid move.
Now, what is the result of that?
Is anything better?
Is Israel better?
The neocons love Israel.
Is Israel in better shape now in the Middle East?
No, because Iran said, okay, we'll sit down and talk with Saudi Arabia, who's been our enemy for all this time.
We're going to talk with Qatar.
We're going to talk with the Emirates.
We're going to start talking and getting together.
And the only one not invited to the party is Israel right now.
You know, they didn't get invited to his birthday party.
So it has produced results that are the opposite of what was supposedly intended by doing it.
You know, and this is, you know, this is just, well, here's a typical example here of Michael McCall, our favorite neocon hawk, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee.
This is why the House is irrelevant, really.
He says, for example, Representative Michael McCall of Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, asserted that the Americans held by Iran are innocent hostages who must be released.
We agree with that.
They should be released.
And then he says, however, I remain deeply concerned that the administration's decision to waive sanctions to facilitate the transfer of $6 billion in funds for Iran creates a direct incentive for America's adversaries to conduct future hostage-taking.
He blamed the Biden White House for demonstrating weakness that only further endangers Americans and freedom-loving people around the world.
They always have this mantra.
If we show any weakness, they will attack us.
They will hate us.
They will do this.
No, when you bomb them, when you steal their money, when you do stuff like that, that's what makes them irritated.
The other thing that's backfiring on them is that with all this antagonism that's going on, the loyalties are shifting away from trying to get along with Iran and antagonizing Saudi Arabia.
Guess what?
Oil prices have jumped up significantly and they're going to go up higher too.
And it wasn't like an oil shortage.
And, you know, there was political use of oil by Saudis back in the 70s, and they're not exactly our friends, you know.
But they're back at it again.
But it's our intervention that precipitates so much of this.
But I just don't understand why people can't opt out with volunteerism and getting along with people and give up on coercion and threats and innuendos and freezing of assets.
Yeah.
Well, we've, I think, well, speak for you, but I think we've both in many ways grown more sympathetic to Trump over this period just because the people who hate him and want to put him in jail are just so evil.
However, we have to call a spade a spade.
And if you put the next one on, this is where Trump is just completely off his rocker, I think.
Go back one, actually.
Yeah.
Here we go.
So here's what Trump wrote on his own social media.
Can you believe that crooked Joe Biden is giving $6 billion to the terrorist regime in Iran?
That money will be used for terrorism all over the Middle East and indeed the world.
This incompetent fool is absolutely destroying America, blah, So, I mean, I would think, and I wouldn't say it, but I would certainly believe that people could say, well, what about U.S. military actions in the Middle East over this period?
Terrorism is when you use force to frighten people into political conclusions that you wish them to take.
That kind of defines our policy in Syria and Libya, etc.
So, yeah, I think you've got to be too careful about throwing those words around.
But it's just unfortunate.
You know, I just, you know, Trump didn't start any new wars, but he rekindled old ones, let's put it that way.
We continuously shift our interests back and forth.
There was a time in the 60s, we had a lot of interest in Vietnam.
We lose, we leave.
So Bush wants to cancel out all that embarrassment of losing that war by taking over the Middle East and remaking the Middle East.
But things aren't going very well in the Middle East right now.
So what are they thinking?
They're shifting back to the affairs.
They're talking about, well, we have to be prepared.
It looks like China's going to invade Taiwan tomorrow.
And China has every reason in the world not to do that, I'll tell you that, because they've learned to be comparatively decent state capitalists in the sense that they act in a more capitalist way than we do sometimes.
And they're competing instead of spending all their money they earned by us buying stuff from them.
They take that money and they're investing it in mining and oil and things around the world.
Yeah.
Without the army, they're not wasting their money on their well, they spend their money on armies for sure.
But they also spend it on the things that we used to be known for.
Yeah.
Well, you know, you never know, though.
What may encourage the Chinese to invade is the fact that we're giving every one of our missiles to Ukraine.
They may look around and say, they don't have any guns left.
And I guess that would lead us to our second story.
If we just skip ahead and go to that blinking one.
So this is a big deal, I think.
This is our friends in anti-war, Dave DeCamp, got a new baby.
Blinken, U.S. does not oppose Ukraine targeting Russian territory with U.S.-provided missiles.
Now, these are all about the Atakams, which have the longest range of any missile that we have thus far provided Ukraine.
Supposedly, the U.S. administration is on the verge of agreeing to provide them with these Atakums with a range of up to 190 miles.
These are some pretty serious missiles.
And it always has been in the past, Dr. Paul, that when we've given them missiles, we have received assurances that they will not be used to attack inside Russian territory.
Ukraine's War Conundrum00:07:44
Now, even if this is just paying lip service to it, nevertheless, it has the effect of calming down any Russian view of crossing the red line.
Well, now, if you can just put that back up, please, now it's basically like, you know, they pull all the stops.
He says we don't oppose it.
He said someday, actually, go to the next one, because here's the quote.
When asked about increasing Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia, Blinken claimed the U.S. does not, quote, encourage or enable the operations.
He said he was asked if it was okay for Ukraine to use ATACOMs to hit targets deep inside Russian territory.
He said, quote, in terms of their targeting decisions, it's their decision, not ours.
But of course, as everyone knows, it's common knowledge that the intelligence telling them where the targets are comes from the United States.
And the weapons and everything else.
And then when they make these comments, when Blinken makes these comments, it's sort of like, why we wash our hands clean of this.
We don't tell the Ukrainians what to do.
And they argue all that time.
And it doesn't take a genius really to figure out, well, that's nonsense.
I mean, this is the borderline, front lines between one group of people in the world and the other group.
And it's our empire.
It's our empire with the benefit of controlling NATO that takes on the empire that didn't exist, that was wiped out by their own stupid policies, and that was the Soviet system.
It's self-destructed.
But nobody would ever want to consider the fact that maybe we're in a mood of self-destruction in this country, too.
And that will not be forgotten because as bad as some of this stuff is, and you mentioned we're running out of money and all our weapons, that eventually it will.
And that's how all empires end.
So I have a strong belief that the empire since World War II is a very deliberate, powerful thing, moved quickly because of technology and money and wealth.
And it really fell on our lap.
And then I think it was, I don't think the world has ever been controlled financially because we didn't have the mechanism, you know, technical mechanism of controlling all the money in the world.
And yet we have done that.
And this makes it bigger than ever.
But eventually, either the countries go bankrupt or we develop enough enemies.
And I think both will happen.
I think our country is bankrupt.
And that's part of the reason.
And I think the other people who are on the receiving end of this and say, oh, yeah, we're giving them weapons that can reach Moscow, but we won't do it.
Then the next day, they decide to give them the weapons that will reach Moscow.
Yeah, I think this is just very dangerous logic.
We've talked about it before on the show, Dr. Paul.
The calculus among people like Blinken and Sullivan is that the Russians have not responded as we continue to escalate our involvement.
Therefore, they will never respond.
And I mean, is it really worth that kind of a gamble?
You know, it's an enormous risk, I think.
Yeah, the administration previously feared the Russians could respond to such attacks by targeting NATO countries.
But I wrote down, yet to come.
Yeah, yet to come.
You know, the ballgame is not over, and there's going to be something.
And it's this idea that the Soviets, so not the Soviets, the Russians have not been aggressive in their defense of their country, and therefore they're weaker, and therefore we can start doing this, and we're going to keep giving the drones that can go in there.
And it's just a nuisance because even those individuals spending all this money, I think they know deep down their heart that the war is not going to be won by Ukraine.
You know, it's not going to be won by there.
But they'll still keep aggravating.
And so then they wonder why you see the end of the Afghan wars and under that tragic end and the tragic end and the destruction and the killing of Americans in Vietnam, all these things.
But we don't seem to learn much from that.
No, we don't.
Intervention is bad.
It's bad, yeah.
Well, you made a point just now about how this whole idea that it's slowly starting to dawn on people that Ukraine is not winning and will not win the war.
Of course, they're not dying in the battlefield, the people that are pushing this thing.
And Blinken had a weird visit, two-day visit over there in Ukraine this past week.
He was petting a dog and eating McDonald's.
So I can't figure out what's going on over there.
But let's put this next one.
Here's a tweet from Aaron Mattei from the Gray Zone.
And it's an interesting tweet.
It's a little hard to see, but this is a chart from the Washington Post.
So if anything, it's biased in favor of Ukraine.
But Aaron writes, in his rosy assessment of the proxy war, Blinken claims that, quote, Ukraine has taken back more than 50% of the territory that Russia seized from it since February of 22.
And Mattei responds, where does he get that from?
The Washington Post chart says otherwise.
And so that area underneath it is the amount of Ukrainian territory controlled by Russia.
From the beginning, you can see how it starts.
They very rapidly controlled a large amount of territory.
And then you see late in mid-2022, they retreated.
The Russians did.
So you see it go down.
And then they took some back.
But now you're seeing, if you go more toward the right, you'll see Ukraine launches counteroffensive.
And that was in June.
Now, look how much reduction of territory Russia controls from when they launched their counteroffensive.
Virtually nil.
That line has not got down.
So that means Russia has not lost territory.
So even in the Washington Post, very pro-Ukraine in their own chart, it defies what Blinken claims.
You know, when they push this, it's put to blame on Russia.
They're the aggressor.
They're the ones that caused all the trouble.
They're the ones that, you know, suffered from us breaking our promises on how we would handle ourselves and NATO.
So in all these articles that describe it, they talk about, you know, 99% of it is Russia, Russia, Russia.
And they make it easy.
They set them up and they do it.
But what about mentioning, what about a little bit of fairness?
Maybe they don't agree with us that NATO was really, really involved.
Why couldn't they say NATO's made some mistakes that have led to bad things happening?
And they were predictable.
And they don't even want to touch that.
And then you rarely find anything in the major media talking about NATO may have been a contributing factor.
Yeah, no, you can't do that.
Well, there are a couple people in Washington who are getting it.
And we're happy to pat these guys on the back.
And here's one right now.
This is Senator JD Vance from Ohio.
And he's retweeting an article from Fox News that says, White House confirms more than $100 billion spent on Ukraine war, to which JD Vance, Senator Vance, says, we've got to stop sinking money into the Ukrainian money pit.
And that's where most Americans' heads are right now.
Ignorance Of Electric Cars00:04:31
Certainly those that are feeling the pain of inflation and a stumbling economy.
And I mean, it's such a great position for the Republicans to run on.
I just don't understand.
You've got McCarthy and McConnell, and you've got the old Rhino Republicans.
They're just not grabbing on this.
You know, to me, it's amazing how this lasts.
And I think one thing is, you know, ignorance helps.
People are sort of ignorant to realize what our policies are doing, what our monetary policy is doing, what our debt is doing, what our spending is, how serious it is.
So they tend to ignore it.
And it lasts longer, but it doesn't make it, it makes people feel better on the short run, but it just prolongs the agony because you just can't get away with it.
And there's very, you know, right now they're talking about the budget again.
You know, the Republicans are split on knowing whether or not we should cut spending, you know, or whether we should make it, we don't want to be blamed for closing down the government.
I say, why blame it?
Some people praise you.
Exactly.
You know, we'll see.
Well, our last little story is, I would say, kind of a funny story, but it's not.
But it's an interesting one.
Our energy secretary, Jennifer Grenholm, I have to say, I'm not familiar with her, but by looking at this next clip, I think we have a good idea of how she views being a quote public servant.
Put this next one on.
Now, this is a tweet from a reporter at the post-millennial, Savannah Hernandez, and she wrote up a little piece about this today.
Our Secretary of Energy tried to take a four-day trip in electric vehicles in an attempt to get more Americans to use EVs.
A family with a baby in the car ended up calling the cops on her after one of her staffers used a gas car to block the only available charging station at one location.
Savannah adds the jokes right themselves.
Yeah, the way it was that we had to help them out, but we had to get a car that wasn't electric in order to go and get somebody to help them out.
Yeah.
We have to block the station and not let this family with a young kid can't charge the car because we've got to wait for the energy secretary to get this hers.
I don't think the final word is in.
It's pretty amazing what electricity can do, and there's people who do who like these vehicles.
But I think it's artificial to say that we're going to have everybody driving one of these vehicles by 2030.
And they push it.
It's part of this whole idea of over-government regulations, environmentalists gone nuts, and also malinvestment because there's a lot of money out there.
You can take it and invest in these things.
But there's a lot of investment in electricity and use in our automobiles that isn't being used.
I can remember when the diesels came out and people were having diesel cars, but then they started putting you could have a diesel car by yourself, but it wasn't a mixture.
It was you had to have one or the other.
And I thought, I'm not going to do that.
It sounds good.
I think diesel engines are great.
But I was worried that where can I get my diesel when I need it?
At the beginning, every gas station didn't have it, so the market finally did catch up.
But a lot of people had the same thing.
This is much bigger, though, this whole thing.
And the biggest fallacy at all, if everybody's driving, everybody's driving a car by electricity, every once in a while somebody will say, yes, but where does this electricity, who generates this electricity?
Oh, we have a fancy coal plant down the road there.
They're generating the electricity without any pollution.
Well, you know, the whole thing is just like COVID.
You have the government forcing you to do what they want you to do.
Whereas if an electric car or whatever, maybe some alternative, maybe they'll get a car that runs on water.
Who knows?
Maybe whiskey.
But whatever the case, if an attractive alternative comes, Americans are not idiots.
They'll make a rational choice.
Now, maybe for some people who live in the city, an electric car makes perfect sense.
But as our illustrious Secretary of Energy has demonstrated, it may not be the best thing for a long-haul over-the-road trip, especially when you got to kick in the face a young family with the baby who's out there roasting in the heat because Madam Secretary needs to use this plug-in for her own car.
And it also shows you a lot, Dr. Paul, about the mentality of our overlords, the people who rule over us.
Americans Make Rational Choices00:03:21
We're just the peons.
But this article is good.
The subject is good.
I learned a new word.
What's that?
And you probably know it already, but you know, they had to reserve that spot.
They had to go down and reserve it so that she didn't have to wait.
They showed how failed the system is.
He says, the practice of somebody getting in there, like a politician who doesn't have to wait, this practice is known as icing.
It's when an internal combustion engine, ICE, car, blocks an electric charger, usually out of malice.
Oh, that's interesting.
I never heard that before.
Icing.
No, new word icing.
Icing on their cake.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I'm going to close out just by thanking our viewers.
It's good to be back in our little studio here, and I'm glad for you watching.
We had a great day yesterday with a lot of viewers.
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Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
And, you know, a lot of this could be prevented by just maybe learning a couple new words because there's two words that people, if they remembered it and thought, well, that makes sense.
And I think that's a good guideline.
It's not complicated.
You don't even have to memorize the Constitution.
And that is to condition people to think.
And I think a lot of parents do this with their children, trying to teach them manners and all.
But if all things in life were controlled by the rejection of the use of force to have your way and depend on volunteerism, that the world would be a better place to live.
And I don't think that's that hard to understand.
It just means people should use common sense.
They shouldn't think they're a boss, and we shouldn't think certain countries are boss over everybody else, and that people have the determination and control of the financial system, so we'll tell everybody what to do.
No, if we're going to try to get along with our neighbors and get along with our own government and different governments getting along, if everybody practiced this whole thing, that you're not allowed to use force to have your way.
And then also, well, how would you work out differences?
Well, you have to get more people in the world to say, well, volunteerism sounds like a pretty good idea.
There was one time in this country, there was a lot, and there's still some of it left.
If you have 50 states that are different, a lot of times there's people automatically, they don't use force against another state, and they voluntarily get together and solve some of their interstate problems.
Except now we have drifted to the point where the bureaucrats have taken over.
They have decided that we will regulate because the states can't possibly do it.
Individuals don't know what they're doing.
They might not even want to take a vaccine when it's very important to say.
So I think one thing we could remember, that we ought to think about volunteerism and no coercion.
And believe me, I think it would be a good road to peace and prosperity.