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June 25, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
30:22
Forging A New Antiwar Movement, With Special Guest Dennis Kucinich

There is a new antiwar coalition building outside the uniparty doupoly, with rebels in the US House on "Left" and "Right" joining together to oppose US hyper-interventionism and lurching toward World War III. Former US Congressman, current candidate, and lifetime peace activist (and RPI Board Member) Dennis Kucinich joins today's Liberty Report to discuss.

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Time Text
Julian Assange's Release 00:07:55
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us this day, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, welcome to the program.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
I'm doing well, and as you know, we have a special guest here today.
And it's somebody that has been with us on the issues for a long, long time.
Served in Congress with him, but he belonged to that other party.
But guess what?
He and I voted together as much as anybody.
Sometimes we were the only two.
The person I'm talking about is Dennis Kucinich, our friend, who is now, he just loves politics.
He's campaigning, and he's, according to his own statistics, he's on his way back to Congress.
Dennis, welcome to our program.
Dr. Paul, Ron, Congressman, my friend, it's good to be with you and Daniel on the Liberty Report.
And there's so much to talk about, what's going on right now.
But I'm looking forward to this election.
Of course, as you know, I'm running as an independent in a district that is a nominal Republican district.
But over the years, a number of people who voted for me have since turned their party to Republican.
And I've always done well with Republicans anyhow.
So I'm looking forward to the election.
Wonderful.
Well, you know, there's a few things in the news I want to start off with to get your opinion.
And I guess the big one, because so many of us in the libertarian movement and the constitutionalists have been very observant of what was happening to Julian Assange.
And it looks like he's on his way home.
And you'd think, well, you know, we've been dealing with Assange for a good many years.
He must be an American citizen that just is wandering around.
All this activity.
I'm amazed at what we do with non-citizens and decide that we can tell every country what they have to do to punish them.
Anyway, the story today, Dennis, was that he has been released.
He's Australian.
And we feel like he's been mistreated.
He was a journalist and is a journalist, and yet he was punished as if he was the worst spy in the world.
And all I can think of is, you know, in an empire, an empire is, truth is evil in an empire.
So the lies are there, and that was involved in how he had to go off to prison in a bad, bad time.
So I'm sure you, Dennis, have been following this, and a lot of us have been pretty excited.
The fact is it's moving in the right direction.
It's pretty good, except if we want to be really detailed, we could say, well, it could have been better.
I would say, yes, it could be, by having never been imprisoned for being a journalist.
Dennis?
Well, you know, for those viewers there, in the United States Congress, when someone makes a speech ahead of you and you agree totally with what they're saying, you would say something like, I would like to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from Texas.
And I certainly agree with you, Ron.
And I just want to add this, that Julian Assange was prosecuted for practicing journalism.
He was simultaneously held to U.S. law standards, but not given the constitutional protections of freedom of speech, freedom of press, which people, writers in this country and all of us expect to have, those of us who write, and in any event, all of us would, under the Constitution, First Amendment, have the right of free speech.
The Assange case is a is worthy of historical note and also to be taught everywhere because it's an example of how the government uses its power to try to squelch individuals who are bringing forth the truth.
Assange and WikiLeaks revealed war crimes.
And instead of the people who committed the crimes being punished, the people who essentially exposed the crimes are being punished.
And this is certainly a path to tyranny when the truth is crushed to the ground.
But as the Bible says, truth crushed to the ground shall rise again.
And so we're seeing an example of that with the release of Julian Assange.
Right.
I mean, what he did is he opposed the Uniparty War Party, you know, the Duopoly War Party.
And both parties wanted to kill him.
You know, we remember back when Hillary said, can't we just drone him?
And we remember when Pompeo said he's a hostile non-state intelligence service and was looking to get the CIA to kill him.
So you know you're doing something right when the warmongers from both parties want to kill you.
But you know, all three of us, of course, share the joy of millions.
And I've seen Julian's small boys growing up without their dad.
And it's heartbreaking to see, we share the joy that he's free.
But that has to be tempered.
We don't want to pour cold water on Dennis, but it has to be tempered by the fact that the plea that he was forced to take, and no one should blame him for taking it, has the effect of criminalizing journalism.
Now, Michael Tracy, who I think is a very astute observer of the scene, he tweeted out earlier today, Julian Assange has reportedly agreed to plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act in exchange for release from prison.
Just a reminder, possessing or accessing material related to the national defense of the U.S. is something the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and CNN, et cetera, do every day.
So that's what he pled guilty to doing, possessing or accessing national defense information.
That's kind of what journalism does, but it's okay unless it hurts the war party, it seems.
Right.
Well, so much for equal protection of the law and so much for a system which protects itself and not the people.
The thing about Julian Assange is that he was a prisoner in an embassy before he was sent to Belmarsh.
And I just want to share with you something I've never shared publicly, but I had an opportunity to meet on several occasions with Julian Assange at the embassy during visits to London and to talk with him in depth about his travails and to learn of how,
just to see what it was like for him in a condition where his health was deteriorating because he couldn't go go outdoors.
His skin was translucent, almost ghostly.
His health has been, you know, has suffered from this greatly, and hopefully in his return home to Australia, he'll be able to return to the fullness of health.
The effort was made to, as you pointed out, to try to wear him down, if not that, to assassinate him.
And his release now, after having fled to this county that has been described, is still something that is welcome by all those of us who stand for the freedom of information, for the government to be held accountable for its misdeeds.
Right.
Voting Rights and Messages 00:05:47
Dennis, I want to go into the subject that you're very interested in and you're participating in, because all of us have been involved one way or the other in the political process, even though some of us, including myself, it's not so much we endorse the political process.
It's a vehicle for us to get a message out and maybe come up and change the political process.
So you're engaged, and you, I think you started off pretty early.
I think you were a kid and you were a mayor of Cleveland or something.
Were you allowed to vote that time?
It's very funny.
The first election I was in, I was actually challenged as to whether I was old enough to vote.
But that was true.
That was city council, though.
I mean, my career goes back to 1967.
Wow.
And, you know, and I believe in public service.
I think that our lives are here to be of service to others.
And if you want to lead, you should serve.
And so I served as a city councilman, a total of four terms, off and on, a clerk of courts, which is a citywide office which administers the courts, municipal court, quasi-judicial office, then mayor of the city of Cleveland, the youngest elected mayor at that time nationally, then out of politics for a while, back as a state senator in Ohio,
and then on to 16 years in the United States Congress, where I was privileged to serve with Ron Paul.
And there wasn't a day that went by that we didn't talk to each other.
And having our mini group in the middle of the, literally in the center of the Congress, people like Walter Jones and Jim Hunter and others who would congregate to see, wait, maybe the Democrats aren't right, maybe the Republicans aren't right.
Maybe America needs a different path.
And that's what we did repeatedly in voting to chart a path towards keeping our nation prosperous and keeping it away from these endless wars.
Well, I would consider this year a pretty good year for announcing very broadly that you are independent-minded and you're in a district and an area there that you're well known.
You've held a few political seats there, but I would say that there should be some opportunities there.
The message should be very well received.
So how are things going?
That's the issue.
How many people are in the race?
And do the Democrats, will they have somebody in the race?
How's it going?
Well, there's a Democratic candidate, but he's not doing much.
In the last election, he was defeated rather soundly in a two-person race.
The Republican was basically parachuted into the district with the help of President Trump, which was an advantage for him.
But his problem is that he hasn't always and often does not vote in a direction which would be that which President Trump would approve of.
Starting with the $1.2 trillion omnibus bill, he voted for that, the hundreds of billions of dollars for these wars.
He's Forever Wars voted for that, voted for increased government surveillance by voting for the Section 702 FISA and also the extension of it, and also voting most recently for this national NDAA Act, which has a provision, which that alone would cause me to vote against it,
for automatic registration for the draft of 18 to 20 six-year-olds.
I mean, there ought to be a revolt over that alone, because it raises constitutional questions, Fourth and Fifth Amendment, and it also puts every 18 to 26-year-old in a system of vast databases where they'll be under surveillance from the time they're 18 to the time they're 26,
always ready for the government to reach in and pluck them up to be able to satisfy the personnel requirements of these forever wars.
Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.
So, you know, I'm running on real issues here.
I'm running on ending the forever wars, taking this crazy budget deficit down because it's approaching 50 million and a trillion in the next 10 years, sealing the border.
We can't have a country if we don't have borders, and protecting our basic liberties by stopping this intrusion of government in people's private lives, which this increased surveillance does.
So, I want to reclaim our country at its basic constitutional level.
And that's something that is key in this race that I'm in.
You know, I'm very interested, as everybody should be interested, in the involuntary servitude that the draft uses.
I think there's a law against that.
But there was this recent vote, and most of the Democrats voted not to reinstitute this forced draft, but there were only three Republicans, and Republicans like to be seen as the constitutionalists and fall limited government and all this.
Reclaiming Constitutional Basics 00:03:08
And here they vote for this.
So, and that reinforces what Daniel was saying.
You know, it's sort of blended together.
There's about one party.
Daniel?
Well, I was just looking at the race a little bit before we started, Dennis, and it looks, it's an interesting race.
The district in 2022 went 55.3 to the Republican.
So, as you say, it's a marginally Republican district.
The Democrat got 44.6, and this is in Ohio's 7th district.
Now, next door in the 6th district, there was a special election just a little while ago where the Trump-approved GOP candidate did win because it was a red district, but by far less than was expected.
What do you think?
What is your sort of finger feel of the key issues in your district and in that area that you think you're addressing better than Republicans and Democrats?
They're definitely going to be economic, Daniel.
Moving across this district, I've talked to so many people who are having trouble surviving economically.
People whose middle-class standards are slipping away into mounting debt and lack of access to credit and the effects of inflation, the high cost of housing, of food, of energy, of health care, of childcare, on and on and on.
People are having a tough time.
And it doesn't, you know, you can drive through what looks like very prosperous suburbs, but don't kid yourself, inside those homes, there's a lot of people sweating month to month, figuring out how they're going to make ends meet.
And when you go into some of the rural areas, as I have, people gather together for days of caring and sharing where they share meals and they try to support each other in an effort to survive.
Now, these are tough times for a lot of Americans.
They're not participating in the go-go-go of the market.
We should never equate the success of the stock market with the success of people living in neighborhoods or rural areas throughout the district I'm seeking to represent.
And there's one other point I want to make, and that is that you're right.
In the sixth district, the candidate who aligned himself with President Trump didn't do quite as well as expected.
Well, see, in this case, candidates have to rely on their own merits.
And if somebody's thinking they're going to ride President Trump's coattails and yet haven't done the job themselves or haven't voted in a way that's consistent with the interest of the people, they may have a rude awakening.
And in this district, people know me.
They know me on sight.
They know me because of years of public service.
I'm familiar with generations of families, sir.
And so I think that, you know, the opportunity to win is important.
But check this out.
When I win, I could very well be the only independent elected to the next Congress.
Think for a moment the possibility of 217 Democrats, 217 Republicans, and one independent.
Yours truly.
A kingmaker.
Couple Questions Left 00:13:16
Dennis, I want to switch to something specific, but in foreign policy, because one of the things we spend a lot of time on is the foreign policy, especially what's going on in Ukraine.
That's cost us a couple dollars and a couple lives.
And also, just the relationship with China.
You know, we're very, very annoyed, you know, ever since 2014.
But why don't you give us a brief assessment of that and maybe if ABC, what should be done?
Well, see, my opinion, and this will not be new to Dr. Paul or Daniel, my opinion is that the United States has totally misplayed its hand on foreign policy by militarizing foreign policy with putting a gun on the table everywhere and trying to force people to yield to our will as though it's a unipolar world, which doesn't exist anymore.
So what's happened in Ukraine to begin with, we knocked off the governor of Ukraine in 2014 and engineered a coup.
And that set the stage for conflict in the eastern part, in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Russia came to the defense of the Russian-speaking, of the Russian people who live in those provinces.
America helped to escalate a war there.
And then when it came time to try to settle it in Ukraine's favor, that peace agreement was scuttled by the U.S. in cooperation with Boris Johnson a few years ago.
So now we're even though Ukraine's lost probably about 600,000 people, Ukraine has paid a horrible price.
And they've lost the people, they're lost land, and they need help.
But what the U.S. is doing is still insisting on working with NATO and using Ukraine as a platform to attack Russia.
And the other day, we, you know, our country, our beloved country, the United States, took a very dangerous step in helping to engineer a missile attack on Sevastopol and basically planning and guiding it.
We did it from Ukrainian soil, killed five people on a beach in Sevastopol, and over 100 people injured in what was declared by Russia to be an act of war.
And Russia has promised retaliation.
Now, whether or not Russia is going to take a step up the escalatory ladder is one thing.
But there's something that you and I know, Dr. Paul, and that is you cannot begin a war with another country unless you go through Congress.
And there is a clear violation of the Constitution here in this effort to try to keep pushing the envelope with Russia.
It's very dangerous, and we could end up in the foothills of World War III over this.
Now, you asked about China.
China, too, over Taiwan, you know, we're trying to covet Taiwan for economic reasons, and that's the red line for China.
We crossed that, and China's ready to go to war.
Why are people doing that?
Why are we rattling sabers in the Far East with China, in Europe, with Russia, in the Middle East?
America's overextending.
Our country is in jeopardy here because of that.
We're in jeopardy financially.
Our national security is at risk.
And, you know, this is a dangerous time for America.
Well, you know, Dennis, at least in the Cold War, the propaganda made sense.
You know, the godless commies were coming to get us and take us over.
I mean, to this, you're right.
We're on the edge of World War III, especially with this attack on Sevastopol.
But where are people saying, to what end?
What is the benefit?
Why are we doing this?
I mean, you could make a justification, even if it was overblown during the Cold War.
But now there's no justification.
We're fighting for democracy.
Oh, well, the guy canceled the elections.
He outlawed all the political parties.
He outlawed all the opposition media.
So what democracy?
I mean, maybe it's as Lindsey Graham says, it's just a flat-out resources grab.
They're worth a couple trillion.
Let's take it all.
You know, it's just, it's insane how it's being portrayed.
And no one, the opposition party in Congress, certainly the Republicans in the House and Senate, they're not the opposition in the House.
Nevertheless, you don't see anything happening.
Now, one of the things I remember very well from the time that you and Dr. Paul were in, and I was a staffer, is that you were known for finding clever little things, clever little ways of sort of etching away, ticking away at the war party, several different resolutions.
So we're in the beginning of 2025.
Congressman Kucinich is back in the House.
What kinds of things would you do to stop the Ukraine war?
Well, first of all, you want to stop a war, cut the funding.
We're putting hundreds of billions of dollars into that war.
So stop the funding.
That's where it starts.
And once Congress funds something, it's very difficult to get out of the morass.
We must cut the funding.
But more than that, when do we start taking care of things back here at home?
And not only that, but we're putting all these wars on a national credit card.
Since 9-11, of the $35 trillion in debt that we are right now, about around a quarter of it is attributable to these forever wars.
We're breaking our countries financially.
We're breaking it morally.
We're causing America to be weakened.
The more war goes on, our basic civil liberties are undermined.
The more powerful government becomes, the less powerful we are as American citizens.
And so, you know, I mean, this is something that Dr. Paul and I, we were the opposition in Congress to this kind of limited thinking that says that war is inevitable and that we have to keep a war going to ensure our strength as a nation.
Actually, the opposite is true.
Danny, there was another area that we have not mentioned, but you have been a strong supporter and you understood the issue.
And it's so important when you come to how does the welfare warfare state get financed, and it's financed by a big war and corruption by counterfeiting the money.
And that is the subject of the Federal Reserve.
And there were a few Democrats that came over, but you, I think, was one of the few that understood it.
And why that is important, that as long as you can, if you run up a debt, you just give it to the Federal Reserve.
They have no choice but to monetize it, and it's a perpetual.
And both Daniel and you have already said, it doesn't look like it's going to stop unless we have some major changes in our attitude.
But no, I want to make that very clear that you were helpful and dedicated and understood the Federal Reserve.
Well, thanks, Ron.
And I just want to say something.
When Dr. Paul made the effort to go forward to monitor or to audit the Fed, people were calling their cardiologists all over Washington because they were thinking, oh my God, if we actually understand how this works, that they're creating money out of nothing and giving it to Wall Street and to these big banks, what will the people do?
And yeah, really.
Thank you, Dr. Paul.
And it was so great to work with you on that because the Federal Reserve, or otherwise known as the creature from Jekyll Island, needs, you know, has not been restrained.
And their whole approach has made it possible for endless wars, made it possible for Wall Street bailouts, casino capitalism, and has gradually caused the middle class to shrink because the whole system takes the capital and sends it outward, not taking care of our own country.
So, you know, I was privileged to work with you on that, Dr. Paul.
And I'll tell you something.
This was, we still have that battle ahead, which is why, you know, people say, well, why are you running again?
I'm running because there isn't a voice right now in Congress that is determined to reclaim our civil liberties, that's determined to cause the Federal Reserve to be held to account, that's determined to stop these endless wars, and that's determined to make sure that America goes back to being the republic it was intended to be and not this hegemon roaming the world looking for dragons to slay.
Right.
Okay, we're getting near the end, but we have a couple of little questions left over here.
One last one that's kind of about economics, but kind of about electoral politics.
You know, my dad was a lifelong Teamster who grew up in Akron, just next door to your district.
You know, and so I grew up with that infused in me.
But, you know, it seems now there's no one in politics talking to the working class, to the blue-collar.
And I think that Trump did a good job in 2016, make the right sounds in the so-called rust belt to attract people to his campaign.
But essentially, since people like Jim Webb are gone, there really aren't any that are sort of taking up this cause.
And how do you see yourself incorporated?
You've spent a lot of time concerned about this.
How do you see incorporating that into your campaign?
Well, I carry with me an honorary card since you mentioned it in the Teamsters for supporting working families.
That's where I come from.
I remember where I came from.
And your point is well taken, Daniel.
We have to remember where we came from.
Working families, middle-class families, all Americans, it's a tough time economically.
Let's focus on taking care of things at home.
Peace and prosperity is possible.
Now, before we go, I just want to say this.
You know, I'm taking on the machine the same way that Dr. Paul did.
I'm taking it on frontally.
And I'm not afraid to do that because that's who I am.
And I was proud to stand with Dr. Paul in Congress for 16 years battling away.
If I'm going to go back there, I need help.
So, you know, anybody who wants to help this campaign, go to consinich.com and help us out, you know, with any way you can, slight contribution, advice, help us go door to door, whatever.
This is a campaign for America.
And when I win, again, I could very well be the only independent in the Congress.
I could be at a pivot point to take our country in a direction that's consistent with the aims that Dr. Paul and I have worked on for so many years.
And I'm so grateful that this Liberty report for RPI keeps going on and telescopes into the future because it is necessary to continue to communicate what's possible in America if we can only change our direction to what's important for the survival of our country and its people.
Right.
And I'll add to that that I think Dennis is in a position where an independent voice can be very valuable because of the climate of what's happening economically with the wars and the whole works.
But I'll tell you what, you do need the money.
There's a big difference.
But he doesn't need all the giants because when you see that, when it works, the donations will be smaller.
So he would like to hear from more of you.
So he needs the help.
He needs workers if you're from Ohio.
And if there's money you can send them, that is very good.
Now, Dennis, one thing I think we could continue to do, we could talk for a long time.
If all of a sudden we shifted the discussion to, why don't you and I just talk about all the shenanigans we remember that were going on in Congress.
It might be entertaining.
And I don't know, maybe it would be just a little bit of entertainment for ourselves.
But maybe we'll think about doing that after you win this next election.
I do want to thank you, Dennis, for coming on the show.
And I'm sure we've had a lot of interested viewers today.
I do want to acknowledge our viewers and thank them for tuning in to our Liberty report.
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