An overwhelming majority in the Australian parliament has voted to request that charges against Julian Assange be dropped and that he be allowed to return to his native country. The UK high court will hold hearings next week on whether Assange can continue to argue his case against extradition to the US, where he faces 175 years in prison. Also today: the pro-war faction of Congress is maneuvering to get the military aid supplemental to the floor. Finally, House Intel Committee Chairman rolls out very suspicious "national security warning" regarding Russia.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you?
Good, good.
Ready to go.
Let's do it.
Up today, we want to defend a friend.
He needs more people defending him.
That's true.
What a tragedy.
We're going to talk about Assange.
And you talk about a war, a war against journalism.
He is a victim of it, the most popular victim.
But we mentioned other names that have suffered also, you know, from this kind of thing.
But certainly Assange has gotten the attention.
And the way he's been treated, not very much like a civilized democracy, you know, and it's going on and on.
But I think it's getting down to the wire.
At least they're making it, that there will be another hearing for him coming up next week to find out whether he can move along and work toward his freedom.
If not, they're going to send him to the United States.
He says, oh, he gets to go home.
No, he doesn't live here.
They're just going to send him here because, you know, the people, you know, during the war, the Mideast wars, they had different places where the prisons were.
Different people made a little money on the side by having these prison camps.
So that's the whole thing is they have been doing this.
And I imagine still, you know, when you go to a crowd as a libertarian and a constitutionalist, they're very, very much in favor of helping them.
But, you know, if you go out on the street, I bet if you checked everybody that went to the football game the other night, who are you talking about?
He's unimportant.
But that to me, I think it's a really big issue.
Yes, a lot of other people have suffered, a lot of journalists, and there's still going to be a lot more.
But this one is so visible, been around for so long and has gotten so much tension that a lot is riding on this.
So I sure wish we could do a lot for it.
The only thing that's going to wake them up if they have, you know, let's say they ship him back here.
I should say back.
He doesn't live here.
Shipping him off to the United States for a trial.
Then that to me is the only thing that I can think they get their attention is to have a couple million people out in the street and say, what are you doing to this guy?
We're supposed to have a First Amendment here.
How do you get away with this?
So that's what's coming up.
So we may have a big announcement this week on this case.
Yeah, actually the hearing is next week, I think the 20th and 21st.
The UK High Court is hearing what essentially is his final appeal to prevent extradition to the United States.
So it really is a very, very important hearing for him.
But, you know, I was thinking back before the show, and I remember back when we were in your office on the Hill when Wikileaks first hit the scene.
And it was so tremendous for us because, you know, you had been fighting so hard against the Iraq war.
Julian Assange's Final Appeal00:07:57
You knew what a disaster it was.
The staff, you know, we were always trying to uncover some evidence that we could, some things that we could hand you that you could go to the floor and talk, you know, just scouring.
And all of a sudden, Assange and WikiLeaks, it was like coming in on a white horse because they released the collateral murder video.
They released all this information showing that we weren't over there bringing democracy.
We were bringing death and destruction and murder over there.
And that was just so tremendous of a time for us.
And I remember you mentioned him on plenty of floor speeches about thank goodness for WikiLeaks, you know.
So now we knew as soon as they released that info about the CIA, though, that was it for him.
Remember, Pompeo said, we want to kill him.
You know, they tried to send the CIA to kill the guy.
So anyway, let's put up the first clip, though.
This is fascinating in a way, because, as you say, he's not an American.
He's Australian.
He's Australian.
But we're trying him under our Espionage Act.
I mean, it's crazy.
But here's a story.
It's from the cradle.
It's a great publication, by the way.
It came out yesterday.
Australian MPs vote overwhelmingly in favor of freedom for Julian Assange.
Turn on that next one if you can.
This is from the article.
Australian MPs, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and members of his cabinet, have voted overwhelmingly in favor of urging the U.S. and U.K. to allow embattled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to return to his home country of Australia.
Let him go home.
The federal parliamentary vote on 14 January saw 86 in favor of freeing him and 42 against.
Two to one odds that people that the members of his own parliament said, come on, guys, enough is enough.
Let him come home.
And Australia is our ally.
We should be listening to them.
Yeah, it is a real tragedy.
And, you know, it's not like there's a law that everybody understands.
It's been around a long time and it applies to foreigners and anything we want.
But the espionage has been around since 1917.
And it's well known to be not a protection of our civil liberties at all.
So that is a tragedy as far as I'm concerned.
And the people have to rise up and not enough people know about it.
So hopefully some good could come of it and more information get out because we can't fight them.
All those governments, and they're all brainwashing.
So this is important.
Our national security depends on peace in the world.
Democracy exists.
We have to protect the dictatorship of the majority.
What would we do if we couldn't fudge that thing around very much anymore?
So it's something that we'll have to wait and see what's going to happen.
But maybe there'll be a little bit more on the media.
But I can't imagine the media, mainstream media will ever get involved in.
If they are, it'll be negative.
Yeah, I was actually just on the radio this morning, and we were talking about how sad it is that the progressives, which they initially embraced Wikileaks, they embraced Assange because he was, that was when we had a lot of good progressives on our side because he was telling the truth about the war.
Oh, but then he did something damaging to Hillary and he released her emails.
And uh-oh, that's it.
You know, so the partisan, the politics takes over and destroys a principle.
And that's the really sad part about it.
You know, it's really awful.
And, you know, for Trump, it was the same.
We have to have criticism equally.
He campaigned.
I love WikiLeaks.
He said 100 and some times over and over on the trail.
But we thought, that's great.
He's speaking up for the First Amendment.
He's in favor of a free press.
Well, it turns out he was also only using it for politics because he was trying to get at Hillary.
And so once he was in office, he didn't lift a finger for Assange.
He didn't do anything, nothing, zero.
He could have pardoned him.
You know, we all know about the pledge that people take when they have an official position or in the military, defend all enemies, foreign and domestic.
And, well, that sounds good.
But the whole thing is, is the foreign thing is built up because they're going to attack us, they're going to bomb us, and the end of the world is coming.
And the domestic isn't mentioned.
But if you compare, you know, the two, who's, you know, is China really threatening our First Amendment?
If it is, it's our carelessness, you know.
So, and if we did it, the domestic, but the foreign, they used it all the time, and it's always, you know, sneaking in votes and inventing different ways how they can get all this money for the military-industrial complex.
So, I see, my point is the enemy is within.
Yeah, what we really have to be concerned about.
And they say, well, that's un-American.
What?
It's more American to allow this to happen and not say anything?
That's un-American.
Yeah, I call that un-American.
Absolutely.
Well, we have a couple more clips.
Amnesty International, which is often good, sometimes a mixed bag.
But they've come out, if we put this next one up, they've come out and they, what does it say?
Julian Assange High Court hearing is global media freedom is on trial.
This is from Amnesty that came out yesterday.
And here's a quote to the next one.
This is one of their top experts on counterterrorism and criminal justice.
He says, the risk to publishers and investigative journalists around the world hangs in the balance.
Should Julian Assange be sent to the U.S. and prosecuted there, global media freedoms will be on trial too.
That's a very good statement.
That's a true statement.
That's for sure.
Hope a lot of people read it and are enlightened and decide to join all of us who are trying to defend these issues on principle.
So often it gets narrowed down.
Should we give $10 more billion dollars to buy 10 more submarines for such war?
And a war is so crucial.
And they always narrow it down to something that is just a technical point in the real issue.
When it comes to all this money spending and foreign policy and the weaponry we spend, we should ask, what right do we have there?
Where's the authority?
Where's the money?
But it's amazing.
They're just totally blinded.
They never really ask that question.
They think that they think they go by, guys like Schumer and others, they just feel we have them snowed.
We don't have to worry about it.
But someday that snow is going to melt.
I hope so.
That's a great metaphor, yeah.
Remember, we had Gabriel Shipton here in our own studio, the brother of Julian Assange.
He and Julian's wife, Stella, have been tireless, tirelessly fighting for their brother and husband's release.
I mean, it's just heartbreaking to see she's got these little kids.
They haven't spent time with their father.
I mean, it's heartbreaking.
I went to see the film Ithaca, which is the story of John Shipton and Gabriel Shipton, which is Assange's father and brother, the efforts that they've been making to free Julian.
And it's a great film.
I urge people to watch it.
Gabriel is such a terrific, terrific guy.
Who wouldn't want a brother like that?
I mean, unbelievable.
But so anyway, we'll keep everyone updated, and I'm sure we'll talk about it next week when hopefully we'll have good news.
Moderates Kicking Johnson00:04:54
But let's move on to something different.
Now, this is interesting, especially for us.
We spent a lot of time on the Hill.
We're interested in the different kinds of maneuvers that happen there.
We know the issue about this $90-some billion dollar national security supplemental.
And we know that Johnson doesn't want to bring it to the floor.
Speaker Johnson doesn't want to bring it to the floor without the border stuff.
Now he's so committed that he kind of can't because it'll be backing down.
Well, here's the new move that they're trying to do now.
Put this next one up.
This is from Zero Hedge.
House Democrats eye backdoor to force vote on Ukraine and Israel funding.
If you do the next one just really quick, I'll see what it is for our audience.
What they're going to be pursuing is a discharge petition.
You need 218 signatures.
which means the support of Republicans to force the legislation to the floor.
Now, you and Dennis Kucinich did this a lot when it came to anti-war Iraq stuff, and you were joined by a lot of others.
It's an interesting tool to use.
It is a good tool, and it's been around.
The founders thought it was a good tool.
And it's also, you have to recognize that you don't take the strategy and say, well, we don't want to be embarrassed and called up and not win the vote.
Well, the purpose is to get some attention to it, and maybe more people will join.
And I think, you know, what are they trying to get up?
Another $100 billion almost.
$60 for Ukraine and $14 for Israel and 9 for Gaza.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting.
But the thing that's interesting about it is the dynamics because, first of all, they do have the votes for this.
I mean, we shouldn't kid ourselves.
All the Democrats will vote for it because Biden wants it.
And you've got a good chunk of Republicans who want this.
But the politics of it are very awkward.
And if you put on this next clip, this is actually Zeroheads quoting Axios.
And Axios does a pretty good job here because they're able to suss out what it really means.
So the GOP hardliners have repeatedly defied Johnson over the last several months.
These are the ones who don't want the money going.
But the appetite for rebellion among the moderates likely to support Ukraine remains untested.
So yes, we've heard from Gates and a lot of the others who say we don't want the money of Marjorie Taylor Green.
That's great.
But we don't know what the moderates say.
And here's what Axios says.
As the Government Affairs Institute's Matt Glassman points out in a useful thread, the gap between what you vote for if forced to vote and what you will demand gets voted on is huge.
And I underline this part.
He says, Glassman said, this is what makes discharge so hard.
The problem is the cost of undermining the leadership agenda is so high that little rises to that level for most members.
So the moderates who have been pretty generally in favor of Johnson, they're going to have to basically kick him in the face.
The question is, do they love spending on war so much that they'll kick their own speaker in the face?
That's why I believe they're at a dilemma and it's not solvable under these conditions because the country is bankrupt.
And they're going to go back and forth and figure out how we can get by another day, another week.
But unless they admit that they're bankrupt and you can't just keep printing money.
I think one law would take care of things.
Just write a law and say the Federal Reserve can't monetize any debt.
Yeah, that'd be good.
Somebody else, if you want to buy those treasure bills, you could.
But, you know, in the transition period, but they should be running up the debt.
But if they couldn't monetize it, it would sort out who exactly is the guilty party.
Yeah, that would be interesting.
Well, we'll see.
They want to get this money through.
They have to get it through.
They depend on getting it through.
Will they, I mean, I think, I don't know how you feel, but I mean, I was reading a piece earlier today, and I didn't clip it, but about a lot of the perceived missteps, perceived and real missteps of Johnson so far.
He hasn't done a great job of hurting the cats, of running a tight ship so far.
The only thing he really has going for him right now are that the moderates haven't rebelled.
If they kick him in the face, I just wonder if this is going to be the death knell, figuratively speaking, for Speaker Johnson as Speaker Johnson.
I wouldn't be surprised because they're talking about putting Kevin back in.
But that would be a real coup.
Oh, I'm going to be Speaker again.
Well, you don't have to be a member to be Speaker, as we've said on this show, so you better keep by your phone, too.
Real Coups Ahead?00:13:04
Can you imagine trying to keep those guys in line?
I mean, that would be a nice.
I don't think it would work on that.
I would not wish it on the words.
I'd probably be able to give my first speech.
I'm going home.
How did we ever find you?
But that was their way of treating me because they were always polite, but they knew that what I was talking about was so extreme, obeying the Constitution every time.
They didn't need that extreme attitude.
Well, you reminded them what they all professed, but didn't really take seriously, and that's what made him so irritated.
That's for sure.
We remember a certain member, we won't say his name, he's passed away, but he was so mad at you all the time.
He was the champion of the Constitution.
Yeah, and he developed the reputation of, you know, even on the right-to-life issue.
And that was not a strong position yet.
His anger was palpable toward you.
No reminder.
Well, our last story is interesting.
Now, this hit me yesterday afternoon when I was looking around on Twitter X, and I sent it over to you.
This dire warning, dire warning.
Put on the next one.
MSNBC captures it fairly well.
New House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner's warning of a, quote, national security threat facing the U.S. was referring to a Russian military capability for sources with knowledge of the matter tell NBC News.
So Mike Turner, chairman of the Intel Committee, GOP, Republican, he rolls out this threat.
And actually, go to the next one because this is what he said.
He rolled out this, today the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has made available to all members of Congress information concerning a serious national security threat.
I'm requesting the President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so Congress, the administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat.
And when it came out, it was like, what, are the Russians coming?
Are they attacking?
Are the bombs in the air?
It sounded so dire.
Well, would it be un-American if they moved this along and say, well, okay, you're going to do it, but I think it's a good idea that we tell them exactly what we're doing.
How many nukes do we have up on this satellite and what are our plans?
Because the first time I heard of this, and it really bugged me, it was when George W. Bush was president.
He mentioned it in one of his State of the Union messages, but it wasn't a big thing, but it was more or less to put it under NASA and have a new division of this.
So it was theoretically installed in there, and that was the beginning of talking about it.
And they still look for an excuse to do it.
But we just have all that money sitting out there.
We might as well spend it.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, it turns out this huge grave threat that he very cryptically referred to, now that a little bit of time has passed, we have a better idea of it.
And put on this next one.
This is Politico who wrote about it several hours later.
I think this came out today.
I like how they have disturbing in quotes because it's appropriate.
The disturbing intel roiling the hill is about Russian nukes in space.
So that's what it's about.
And go to the next one.
This is what the whole scare warning was about.
A vague warning by the chair of the House Intelligence Committee about a serious national security threat Wednesday is related to Russia's attempts to develop an anti-satellite nuclear weapon for use in space.
Now go to the next one.
This gives you the more detail about it and also the timing.
In his statement Wednesday morning, Turner said his committee had made available information, et cetera.
Now this is the part that I underlined.
It's not clear what prompted Turner to issue the statement now, as the intelligence has been available to leaders of the House Intel Committee and their top aides in a secure room for more than a week.
Others say longer, one of the people said.
So this is kind of old info.
It's nothing new.
And then all of a sudden, he releases it in a very scary way.
The question is, what's going on?
What's the story about this timing?
We had one thing we just talked about is how are we going to get more of this funding?
Well, there's an enemy out there.
So you're going to be unpatriotic if you don't go along with it.
Yeah, it's pretty transparent.
In fact, here's the thing, because I remember when I read it, I said, hang on, wasn't that Turner, Representative Turner, who was just in Kiev, like a couple days ago?
So he's in Kiev.
Then he comes back home and says, oh my gosh, I've got some new info that's really scary, you know.
And so I went and I found a clip of him in Kiev.
Let's put that on and play that whole clip.
Here is the chairman of our House.
You might want to put that earpiece in, Dr. Paul.
Here's the chairman of our House Intelligence Committee in Kiev.
I know I'm not giving you a lot of time back there, but I'll job.
Here we go.
Listen to Turner.
In part, to deliver the message that the United States fully supports this funding and that as legislators, we support it and we believe that there is overwhelming support in the House and the Senate and this will get done.
It includes a package that provides the weapon systems that Ukraine has indicated that they need.
Also, I know this group and others in the House and the Senate are very big proponents for longer range weapons being provided to Ukraine because of the needs on the battlefield that we're seeking all.
So here he is in Kiev saying that everyone, this is going to pass everyone.
Well, it just failed in the House last week.
So I guess not everyone is for it.
But then he goes on to say, and we also want to give them longer range weapons.
You know, there was just another attack in Belgorod, which is Russia proper, on a civilian area of Belgorod with a missile provided probably by the U.S.
And now they want to send more, what, to get to Moscow or St. Petersburg?
This lunatic is going to get us in World War III.
And now, and actually, put on the next little tweet, because this is D.C. Drano, I think, is a very popular conservative right-wing commentator.
And I think he nails it right here.
It somehow gets more pathetic.
House Intel Chairman, Rhino, Mike Turner, is trying to scare Americans about Russian space weapons so he can pass a $60 billion Ukraine money laundering bill.
But get this.
He just visited with Zelensky four days ago.
How do you say scam in Ukrainian?
Pretty good.
Pretty good.
Yeah.
So I guess they'll use any tool that they can, and they will.
And it's amazing.
Well, it's a lack of good journalism.
And the good journalists are punished if you overstep the message they sent with Assange isn't gone unheard because some people will look at this and how can I do this?
Get arrested and put in a prison for just telling them the truth.
But that is times come where that's what has to be done.
And that's so close to getting totally out of control.
That's why I've always emphasized the First Amendment as being key.
You have all the good amendments, but the first one gives us a chance to talk.
But if that's the crime, you're locked out.
You're locked out of the discussion.
And you're in big trouble.
And in this day of social media, oh, we'll take care of you.
We sort of have an agreement with the FBI and a few other people.
And they'll tell us what's going there.
And we know how to close them down.
And they'll lose a lot of money if they don't do what we tell them.
That's it.
Well, Mike Lee, senator from Utah, who very often has good tweets.
He's worth a follow.
He also has another theory about why this terrible, scary thing just came out.
Put up his tweet up here, tweet post on X. That's a good take on it.
He says, he reposts the statement from Mike Turner about this terrible threat.
And Senator Lee says, very interested to learn about this threat.
Also, very interested to know why the spy guys are raising mysterious alarms right before we're about to reform illegal domestic surveillance under FISA.
So he's suggesting here that this is a smokescreen for reauthorizing that FISA, the 720, I guess.
Yeah, and they all do come together.
They probably have backups on a different appropriation.
If they miss it in one, they can slip it in, and all of a sudden, oh, yeah, it was put in this other bill.
And that's why the people are so cynical, and they should be.
Because whether it's economic reports or foreign policy reports, the trust of our government has just diminished tremendously.
And this is a positive because they don't tell us the truth very often.
And when we do, the individuals get into deep trouble.
And this is the way it's been working.
And the more money involved, and the more they get behind the egg ball, the more they're going to come down hard on protecting the First Amendment, because we can't have somebody out there telling the truth.
I mean, just think of all the truths that Assange was involved in revealing.
And there were several others that were doing the same thing.
So that's pretty bad.
But I don't know, other than trying to get our message out and convert people into looking at things differently.
But there are statistics that help.
I think the one is that if you go out on the street, and I ask a lot of people who probably hasn't been reading Mises and probably don't know what libertarianism is, and ask them, I mean, how do you feel about the government?
It's not like they love the government.
They don't say, well, they have their problems, but they always send me a check.
Now the checks, just say all the extra money they sent out of Social Security.
They just have to send it.
The worse the prices get, the more checks they send out.
And the more checks they send out, the more the prices go.
They haven't figured that out.
The less they're worth.
Yeah.
Well, I'm going to close out thanking our viewers for watching the show today, especially our live viewers.
Please hit like.
Please hit follow.
But I also want to underscore something that Dr. Paul said during the show, which is it really depends on us.
Assange's freedom depends on us.
If any of you are out there care about the First Amendment, care about a truth teller, find some way to get involved.
There are plenty of opportunities to get involved.
There are people who are collecting money to buy signs going through town on trucks in D.C. That's worth supporting, getting the message out.
Every one of us can do a little bit of something because we rely on, as you say, Dr. Paul, if the First Amendment goes, that's it.
You know, it's all over.
So find something, figure out something, and do it.
We've got only a few days before this hearing.
Know, even though this sounds complex, it's an old idea, and that is a contest between right and wrong.
You know, and telling lies, they've been telling lies for a long time.
The earliest codes that were ever written is you couldn't commit false accusations.
And so it's been there, and I call it natural that the people had that.
And most people know the difference, except the conditioning for those who defend their lying have had the upper hand, and they have brainwashed themselves because they don't for a minute, you know, have any sense of guilt or shame because they'll lie us into all kinds of problems.
They do.
A lot of people die from this.
It doesn't matter because, you know, they have talked themselves into being the experts on all that goes on.
When you look at what they assume they can and should do, if you start with the money issue and civil liberties and the foreign policy, you find out that there's too many people that are complacent.
And that's one of our goals at RPI is to get people awakened, not be complacent, because the truth is good information is still most strongly passed by small groups of people, individuals to other individuals.
I had a few times in campaigning that it was worthwhile to have a nice large crowd, but that wasn't the answer.
It was the people I still hear from that would come to that and have their own organization defending the liberty.
That pleases me a whole lot.
And I think that things are better than they were in 1976, the first time I went to Congress, because I don't think in 1976 anybody had any idea about some of the terms that we use.
But now I think there are a lot more, and I don't think people should give up because that would be a heck of a world to live in.
Plan And Strategize00:00:24
If you just, oh, they win.
We can't do anything else about it.
But that means that you have to plan, strategize, work with other people, and then you can become more optimistic because this isn't the first time the world has gone through problems like this.
So let's keep up with the effort to strive for our efforts to promote peace and prosperity.