All Episodes
Previous Next
Feb. 7, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
30:30
EU Freakout: 'BAN Tucker Carlson Over Putin Interview!'

Showing their disdain for journalism and fear of losing control of the narrative, leading EU politicians are calling for a travel ban on journalist Tucker Carlson over an interview he will release with Russian president Putin. And the interview is not even out yet! Also today: Rare failure of Israel funding bill in the House and McConnell losing control of Senate Republicans.

|

Time Text
Tucker Carlson's Rise 00:14:02
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you this morning.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you?
Good.
Anything exciting happening today?
Very quiet.
You know, there's this up-and-coming journalist that pops around and moves around television.
And people, he's getting to be better known.
But he has a big audience, too.
And he's in the news today.
This guy, Tucker Carlson.
Is that the same Tucker Carlson we used to know way back?
Yeah, in the good old days.
Anyway, Tucker's in the news, and everybody knows who he is.
And probably the large majority like him because he has a big audience and he's doing well.
And fortunately, there's a lot of things that he says because we want truth out there.
And I think basically he does make a sincere effort to get the truth out and get the information out.
But there's risk to this because just getting it out, if it happens to be true, or especially when it's true, it rubs to the other side the wrong way.
So there will be always some criticism.
But overall, he's done a fantastic job of looking for information that they might not get off of regular television or the mainstream media or anything else.
So he's done a very good job.
But he's really in the news now.
He's over there.
I don't know whether he was drinking beer or something with Putin.
I wonder if Putin speaks English, you know?
I think he speaks German.
Oh, I don't know about Tucker.
But anyway, Tucker's over there to do an interview.
They'll probably have some interpreters there to help.
But I think he's going to have a large audience to find out what he has to say because, you know, it's like a void out there.
What kind of things are going on between our president and Putin?
Are they talking about things?
Are they trying to make sure the world isn't blown up next week with nuclear energy and nuclear weapons?
No.
So we don't hear that.
So there's a vacuum there to feel maybe a little bit of diplomacy.
Very often in the past that, why don't we use the diplomats?
Why don't they talk a little bit more?
But Tucker's over there talking and trying to dig this out.
But there's a lot of people that are resentful of this.
It just turns out that the people who are most resentful are in Europe.
But the issue, the main issue I'm sure they're going to be talking about and why there's a problem like this is because of the Ukraine war.
Who's at fault?
And that's for other people to discern.
But we, of course, talked a lot about it and we should know about it.
But I've always wanted to make our job is to, how are we involved?
And it just turns out that in 2014, we were involved and we participated.
And I think we have every right and obligation, especially as a member of Congress, I felt obligated that we have to talk about why are we doing this?
What does it mean on our policy?
Rather than saying there are a lot of fights going on from Africa to East Asian and into Europe.
And we always have to pick a side.
But generally speaking, we've often picked sides too often.
So I can see No significant harm, although people are saying Tucker's over there, and that means he's disloyal and unpatriotic, and that to me is just carping and annoying.
And I think anytime you can get it, does that mean that we'll hear from everybody that seeks truth, perfect truth?
No, we're all capable of making our heirs and all.
But I think I think Tucker's seeking the truth.
He's working on this.
So I hope something good comes of it.
And the people who are trying to say, well, he's un-American, I would say there's a lot of those so-called un-Americans supporting Tucker right now.
Yeah, I mean, what is unpatriotic is the idea that a journalist can't do journalism.
Yeah, that's it.
He's not going over there to, he's going over there to do an interview.
That's what journalists do.
You know, you hire a plumber, he fixes your toilet.
That's what they do.
So this whole idea, this whole freak out over the fact that he's going to interview Putin, well, who cares?
You know, who cares?
Oh, he might lie to us.
Oh, like our governments always.
But you know, who should really care, and I'm sure it crosses everybody's mind, is that journalists sometimes are very vulnerable.
Look at Sassan.
Yeah, yeah.
That's right.
So there's always some danger in this because the people who don't want to hear the truth can get pretty nasty.
Yeah.
And what's really happening here, and we're going to go into it.
There's an article that came out in Newsweek this morning.
But what's really happening is that people here in the U.S., but especially in Europe, as you mentioned, they're absolutely panicking, the people in power in Europe, because what have they done for the past over two years now?
They have completely destroyed their economy.
They've gutted their industrial sector.
They've destroyed jobs, all because they followed the U.S. foreign policy of a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine.
They're the ones that have sacrificed.
Germany is the one that doesn't have an economy anymore, and they don't want it exposed.
They don't want the European people to see what their policies have done to them.
That's why they're freaking out.
And go to this next, this first clip.
This is Newsweek this morning, exclusive.
Tucker Carlson could face sanctions over Putin interview.
They'll sanction anything that moves.
And they want to sanction Tucker Carlson because he's going to do what journalists do, which is do an interview.
I guess it could be worse.
Like you say, it could be like Assange.
I'm sure they would throw him in jail if they could.
But this is from the article.
Now go on that next clip.
So Carlson's work in Russia could see the former Fox News host in hot water with the EU.
Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister and current member of the European Parliament, told Newsweek, the lawmaker who has called for the EU to explore imposing a travel ban on Carlson, described Carlson as a mouthpiece of former President Donald Trump and Putin, adding, as Putin is a war criminal and the EU sanctions all who assist him in that effort,
it seems logical that the External Action Service examine his case as well.
So if you interview someone, you're a mouthpiece for that person, is what Guy is saying.
Doesn't sound like an adult debate coming up between the people who disagree on the issues of Ukraine and what's going on in Russia and all that.
And that's the shame because that's what we are starved for.
And yet everything lately, it's always been there, the demagoguing and the media and the fighting and all that stuff.
But I think it's worse than ever.
I think the respect and understanding of the First Amendment is in bad shape.
And it's not an accident because I think the people who want to be in power, I believe they are the people that don't care about law and constitution and the 10 Bill of Rights.
And they think that they can ignore that.
So they try to silence people by either ridiculing or saying, you're unpatriotic or you're telling a lie.
And so there'll be a lot of that fanfare going on.
But I don't think Tucker's easy to push around and demagogue too much because he's done an unbelievable job already.
And the one thing that he's done is expose the total failure of journalism in the U.S., you know, because here he was fired by Fox for not towing some lines on certain things.
But instead of having to sort of slink away and have a little website somewhere, he's actually bigger than ever.
And this interview will probably be the most watched interview in the history of journalism.
You know, millions, hundreds of millions of people will watch this interview.
It'll make a fortune.
So that's what irritates them most is the fact that he's thrived by breaking the chains of the mainstream media.
He's thrived because people are starved for information.
And that's exactly what the elitists don't want because they're authoritarian at heart.
They don't want you to even hear the other side.
You know, it was like in the Soviet East Bloc before the wall fell.
If you even listened to Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, you were attacked.
You were sent to the gulag.
They don't even want you to hear the other side.
They want to control the narrative.
They're the authoritarians.
You know, and the argument here is that he's too close to Russia.
He's a Russian stooge and he's taken this position in the Ukraine war, and you're not allowed to look at any history.
But the one thing that, you know, we hear those arguments, but they're pretty narrow.
It's somebody in the United States not being obedient to the United States position and being pro-Russia, that sort of thing.
But, you know, if they really got to the bottom of this, how we should look to ourselves and what we're doing, they'd have to deal with this principle and what is occurring with the American Empire.
The Empire is a much bigger deal for people to swallow.
You mean to say you think they run the world?
No, I don't think so.
I think there's evidence.
So our job, when we start saying, well, we want to hear the truth about that, every once in a while, our government participates in a lot of illegal things like coups and assassinations and all that.
I think that's our job.
And that's why we need more journalists going out.
And we have a few good ones and they're friends.
And yet they're running the mill.
They're working for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and who knows what.
Well, seeing someone like Guy Verhofstadt seething with hatred over Trump really makes me want Trump to win.
I want to see his head explode when Trump wins.
What's he going to do when Trump goes over there?
It's just great.
The other thing is that Tucker, he did like a pre-interview explanation.
Here's why I'm going to go interview Vladimir Putin.
And it was interesting.
And millions and millions of people watch this.
But he also said on this little pre-interview comments, he said, I want to interview Zelensky.
I've already asked him.
I'd like to sit down and talk with him.
So it's not like he's trying to present one side of it.
He wants to talk to him, which is what journalists should do.
And it's been going around on Twitter X that they showed how many other mainstream journalists interviewed Putin.
And there's dozens and dozens of them.
And people interviewed Saddam and all the Hitlers of the Flavors of the Month.
On and on and on, they've done it.
But let's look at a couple of Verhofstadt's tweets just so we can get a flavor of what this dude's all about.
Here is his first tweet.
Tucker Carlson is surely on the path to being labeled a propagandist for the Russian regime.
If he enables disinformation for Putin, the EU should explore a travel ban.
And here's his next one, follow-up tweet.
Guy Verhofstadt, member of the European Parliament, representative of the freedom, the Western civilization.
He says, the real journalists in Russia are in jail or had to flee.
Carlson is Putin's mouthpiece.
And listen to this.
And an enemy of everything the U.S. stands for.
No more, no less.
So Carlson is an enemy of everything the U.S. stands for because he actually interviews people and does journalism.
We have a First Amendment.
I mean, this guy's a nut.
He really is.
I mean, we work at trying to make these points, but isn't it sad that somebody can, the critics can be so destructive and dismissive of the things that people still claim they cherish.
You know, they still, did you know, and I think you probably do know this, that everybody that serves in Congress, House members and senators, they raise their hand and take an oath that they'll obey it.
Oh, well, yeah, quizzy.
Oh, yeah, but the people who they don't understand it.
We understand the Constitution.
This is a live document.
We make it say anything we want.
And then they march off and they sleep well at night.
Yeah, that's right.
Until the world blows up.
Well, just to go to show we're not picking on the Europeans.
We've got plenty of authoritarians here.
Put on this next clip.
Here's our old friend, Bill Crystal.
Let's put him up.
Bill Crystal, go to the next one, please.
Here's what Bill Crystal said.
Perhaps we need a total and complete shutdown of Tucker Carlson re-entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what's going on.
So he believes that Tucker Carlson should not be allowed back in the U.S. because he went overseas and did journalism.
It's pretty amazing.
Interestingly enough, by the way, that Tucker Carlson got his start in journalism working for Bill Crystal on the Weekly Standard.
So that makes Bill even more mad.
He didn't stay on the reservation.
Yeah, he didn't follow the orders and the direction.
He was supposed to be a student there.
It's huge.
Here he learned to look at things up intellectually.
Well, yeah, it looks like the interview is going to be out tomorrow.
McConnell's Stalemate Strategy 00:13:07
I'm not sure exactly how he's going to release it.
It's going to be on X eventually, Twitter X eventually.
I'm certainly going to watch it.
I think so many people are going to watch it.
You know, if you had a nickel for everyone that watched it, he'd be the richest man on earth.
So anyway, I guess we'll move on to the next one.
And this is kind of a head scratcher for me.
It was fascinating.
If you put up that next clip, please.
This is from Fox News, but you can read about it everywhere.
Israel bill sinks in the House with 166 Democrats and 14 Republicans against.
Speaker Johnson did a suspension of the rules vote on this $17 point something billion dollars for Israel.
He pulled it out of the border bill and did a standalone bill on the floor.
You know, as our viewers probably know, the suspension of the rules means you need a two-thirds vote for it to pass.
That's because usually they're non-controversial.
But this time he brought it to the floor and it did not get the sufficient votes to pass.
It's strange.
I wonder if we've had a journalist ask Johnson about why did it they I'm sure there's a lot of people asking that question, but I don't know whether he's been point blank asked that question or why he did it that way.
But you know, who knows?
You know, in the short run, oh, we have that money for another day or two, you know, which is irrelevant because that hasn't changed the philosophy.
But the dissension is good.
Some of the dissension here on the argument between the funds going to our borders versus the funds going to Ukraine or to the Israeli debate over in the Middle East.
So that is, I think, the big thing that there is a lot of money being spent needlessly.
And there's a, you know, I think one of the things that brings this on, I've mentioned this before, is they don't have money.
quite like they had before.
The inflation is, it really runs up to its limits, just like the inflation and the lying about the gold-backed currency, you know, was a lie for many, many years, and finally it exploded and ended in 1971.
That's what's happening now.
You know, if there was so much cash here and nobody was questioning it, nobody was talking about having a competition, you know, for the dollar as a reserve standard, you know, I think they would just sail through and do it.
So I think philosophically they haven't changed it, but there's more monkey wrenches right now.
And because of our economic conditions, more Americans are waking up and starting to see the connection.
So I like it when the debate comes up in the Congress about, well, you have money here.
Are you going to give it this way?
Are you going to do it?
And sometimes there's a stalemate.
And I think that's what happened.
There was a stalemate on this.
We don't know exactly who's planning this one.
But the one thing I am taking a bold prediction, they'll be back.
They'll be back.
And the $17 billion will probably be put in some other bill.
But there's some of this conservative Republicans in the House.
They are determined.
I mean, they've stood up to it so far.
So we'll see.
It's interesting.
I mean, just in terms of procedure, it's very unusual for a speaker to bring a bill to the floor that he wants to pass and not have it passed.
Because you remember all the whip calls.
Where's your boss on this?
Is he a yes?
They want to line up the votes completely before they take the risk of going to the floor and walking away with nothing.
So it makes, I mean, for me, I could be not seeing everything that's out there in play, but it either shows, one, it's amateur hour for Johnson, that he brought a bill to the floor that he wanted to pass and didn't have the votes, didn't know that he had the votes, or two, that he wanted to bring it down and see it fail, which is a possibility because, as you say, they'll bring it back the next time.
Maybe he did it just to show the Senate that this is what we want to do.
So it's very unusual.
The other thing that strikes me is 14 Republican no's.
On a pro-Israel bill, that's very unusual.
I think the last time there was a vote for money to Israel, only two Republicans voted against it.
So that's huge.
The 166 Democrats who voted against it for a variety of reasons, I think Biden threatened to veto it because it didn't, he wants the whole enchilada, the whole the border stuff in there, open border stuff in there.
But you have to wonder, as we talked about yesterday, Dr. Paul, the numbers on Israel in the U.S., the polling numbers, Americans and Democrats especially are turning against Biden's just complete blank check for Netanyahu there.
So you have to wonder if some of these Democrats aren't thinking about their own political careers and they can go home and say, look, I voted against the money.
You know, that's another interesting thing.
And sorry to go on, but just the other thing, it fascinates me when this happens.
But the other thing is, ironically, you could almost see this as an aid to Biden, as an assistance.
Certainly, this is an unintended consequence from Johnson.
I'm not accusing him of trying to help Biden.
This does help Biden a little bit because so far Netanyahu has been recalcitrant.
Biden says, please, would you mind dropping a few less bombs?
No, I'm going to drop more.
And so this may actually get Israel's attention.
Whoa, hold on a minute.
A funding bill didn't pass in the House?
This has never happened before.
So interestingly and ironically, it may push Netanyahu to be a little bit more flexible, which would help Biden because his numbers are in the tank over the Middle East stuff.
Well, you know, this argument about where the money's going and how does everybody get satisfied.
And it seems to be in a temporary state right now, a stalemate.
But it also involves the Senate.
And there's an article in Politico today that says, behind this board, a message, open GOP rebellion against McConnell.
I mean, some of that stuff's been smoldering, but right now, he wasn't satisfying the conservatives in the House of Representatives.
So once again, you could use some anti-patriotic language with him.
Oh, he's helping the enemy.
So he wants to help out.
He wanted money for everybody.
He's like Santa Claus.
Well, he might argue we're consistent.
Yeah, we are.
If we're confused, we just give everybody the money.
Well, this is another interesting thing.
And, you know, we're not up on the hill.
We're not listening to all the scuttlebutts, so we don't know exactly what's going on.
But it is kind of a head scratcher for me, too, because we've talked about the Senate border bill, border-slash-foreign aid bill.
And McConnell was supposedly for months working behind the scenes.
This is his baby.
He hands it off to Senator Lankford.
Senator Lankford runs with it.
Everyone attacks Lankford.
And then McConnell says, don't vote for that bill.
That's a terrible bill.
It's a weird, weird thing.
You know, sometimes we have sympathies which aren't enthusiastic because these people aren't exactly libertarian.
But I'll tell you one thing, Lankford doesn't generate a lot of kind thinking toward him because it may be that he'll get in Oklahoma.
Maybe he'll be in political trouble before it's all over.
But he worked hard.
They said he took this stuff really serious.
And this is how he was going to get his name out there.
His historic funding, you know, that he was going to achieve.
Well, it doesn't look like it because somebody said the bill's dead.
Forget about it.
But the ideas aren't dead.
They'll come around.
They'll figure out something.
There'll be some other military reason.
I mean, they might even come closer to home and say, look at what they're doing here.
We better fund both.
The borders are open and they're sending these people in there and they're blowing us up.
And it's all due to this war over here.
And we haven't settled the war.
And they will have it.
It's fear-mongering.
And they'll use the whole idea that if you don't do it, you're not a very good American.
You're not patriotic.
And that stuff's been around for a while, those arguments.
Yeah.
But, you know, you said before we started the show that, you know, that there's maybe not be a lot of affection for McConnell among a lot of senators, but there has been like a lot of respect that he can get the job done.
Here's a guy who knows politics.
He knows how to twist arms.
And just to see him floundering like this, it's very strange.
It's unusual.
Well, let's put up a couple things because I just want to put up that first Massey tweet because even though we're going on about the Senate, I do want to bring this up because he makes some very, very good points here that we should ponder.
We should always listen to what Massey has to say.
So here's what he tweeted out.
Getting rid of Speaker McCarthy has officially turned into an unmitigated disaster.
That's an interesting, that's a real attack on Johnson.
He says, all work on separate spending bills has ceased.
Spending reductions have been traded for spending increases.
Warrantless spying has been temporarily extended.
And our majority has shrunk.
That's really interesting.
He was the one who said we shouldn't get rid of McCarthy.
I thought it was a good idea, and I was wrong.
And Massey is right, of course.
But that's interesting to see that all of the work on the appropriate bills has stopped.
That's your main job.
What are you guys doing up there?
You know, it's interesting.
So I want to skip ahead to the first McConnell one just so we can get back on.
This is what, yeah, this is what we were talking about.
The $118 billion military aid and border bill will not become law, Mitch McConnell says, after working on it and then handing it over.
And Mike Johnson said, this is dead on arrival.
And McConnell says, okay, sorry.
Sorry about that.
Yeah, you know, McConnell has this reputation of being able to get things done.
But he was talking about this whole thing and his frustration that he was having.
And he was saying, the reason we've been talking about the border is because they wanted to, the persistent critics about him, he has this, you can't pass a bill without dealing with a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate.
He's right.
He's right.
But they'll still die over this stuff and never talk about.
Well, you know, this is the other thing.
I always sort of laugh because, you know, when you say the whole thing is, people will give their big talk about a support for a bill.
Even if you don't agree, everybody has to vote.
I think we should say everybody who agrees with me, but go vote.
So they don't do this.
And you can't pass a bill without it.
And they're not talking about it.
Why would he feel good about it?
He's a good strategist, and he's gotten away with that because that's the way government is run.
And you're inclined to do it.
And it really puts a monkey wrench into it when you have a Thomas Massey there and a few others who say, hey, what about the Constitution?
Are we supposed to read it?
Oh, no, man.
That's an old-fashioned magazine.
Yeah, exactly.
Overtaken by events.
Well, let's look at just about this rebellion.
This is from Politica.
We both read the article, and it's very interesting to watch this happen.
If you can put on that second to last clip, this is from Politica today.
Behind the border mess, Open GOP rebellion against McConnell.
And it might just be, Dr. Paul, that the kind of politics that he was good at is just not working anymore.
It's just not in vogue anymore.
And he's become kind of a dinosaur.
But I did clip this next little segment from the article.
This might explain some things.
And I'm not sure, but I think it's a decent explanation.
So this paragraph starts out.
The Senate GOP leader is facing internal resistance, not seen in more than a year, as Republicans descend into discord over two issues they once demanded be linked, border security and the war on Ukraine.
And we explained yesterday, I think, why they were linked initially.
But I underline this part.
McConnell, now nearing his 82nd birthday, is determined to fund the Ukrainian war effort, a push his allies have depicted as a legacy-defining issue.
So the reason that he is melting down and doing things uncharacteristic of someone who gets the job done is that he is personally absolutely dedicated to getting this money to Ukraine.
And no one else wants to send the money to Ukraine.
But I can't quite comprehend or be sympathetic to his legacy.
I think there are legacy.
Thomas Jefferson has a little bit of legacy.
Passed Bills Legacy 00:03:07
You know, he did and thought for certain things.
But this legacy is just getting it through.
And most of the time, it's a lot of negative stuff because they literally have to cave in to things that they don't agree with.
But we got the bill passed.
We got the legacy.
And how many bills have you passed?
You know, they'll ask.
There was somebody being interviewed the other day, and the congressman said he never did it.
But the interviewer said, Well, that's great.
We like people who never got anything passed.
If you get it passed, that means you're a real sellout.
I remember when you were running for president, and people were saying, Well, how many bills did he get passed?
And they say it about Massey.
Now, how many bills does he pass?
That's actually a good thing.
So, anyway, we'll see what happens.
It's an interesting time to watch the House and Senate.
I guess if we were up there, we'd get more of a feel for it.
We're just kind of observers from afar.
But I'm going to, I'm going to, well, you got to.
No, you do yours.
Okay, okay.
I'll finish.
I've just got to close by thanking the viewers.
Remember, please to hit like.
I see there's over a thousand of you there.
If each one of you guys hit that, that would be awesome, and we'd appreciate it.
And we'll, God willing, see you tomorrow.
Up to you together.
That's very good.
And we have been pleased with the way things have been going.
Our numbers have been picking up, and that is a sign that people are very interested.
And we also realize that those of you who join us are interested in the ideas and the principles of our Constitution and also the difference between nihilism and a higher law.
And that's why we are very pleased when our numbers go up.
So please continue to help us out.
I do want to finish with something.
I think this is a good news story, isn't it?
You know, about Dartmouth.
I've heard of Dartmouth.
And the news here came out on Zero Head.
Dartmouth returns standardized testing for admission after failed experiment.
Can you believe it failed?
And then I get to thinking, and I forget when I was really excited about this.
You know, you have all these university people, they have the money they need, and they have all these brilliant professors, and they've been around teaching our kids for decades.
And all of a sudden, you know, they say, well, we have some new ideas.
And they put them in.
And what I was so shocked about was, why didn't they know it was going to fail?
You know, there are enough people around that made these predictions, and they're still out there, all this stupid stuff.
So they changed it, and there's been some good results coming from it already.
But these, it still baffles me how we allowed them to do it for not 10 years, probably 30 years of all the clowns taking over and taking over to the point that our whole government is filled with people who learn from these people and all those tests.
So I think this is a mini step, but I think it could be a big step.
And I sure hope that people get complimented when they finally wake up and give up on it.
Export Selection