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June 27, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
23:56
Trump Vs Biden On Stage: Fight Of The Century...Or Snoozefest?

Are you going to watch the debate tonight? It's billed as the battle of the ages, but with all the rules and biases built in, how much actual drama can we expect? Will anyone change their minds? Also today: How did the Left and Right both get the Supremes so wrong on Murthy v. Missouri?

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Deciding Our Leaders 00:15:14
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel Mick Adams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you today.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Good.
Is this a big day for some people?
I think so.
Is it a big day for the nation?
Because we're deciding our leaders.
This is the process, and we have this great democracy.
We've got to get the dictatorship of the majority going again.
So we'll talk about that.
You know, on all this, there's a lot of advice on television advising what Trump should do and what Biden should do and how they prep.
So I was interested in how they prepped because I was sort of independent-minded, and you may remember, as I prepped for, and I felt like I didn't want to go over pre-recorded answers.
I didn't want that.
That was always in the memory place, not in the thinking position of the brain.
So I didn't really like that.
And so I noticed one thing that Trump said that he didn't do it to do it.
He liked just, he wasn't going to have a four-hour session telling him what to say.
So I think that was something that was similar that I would do.
But I had two subconscious directions for myself.
And this might sound a little corny.
I wanted it down to do two things.
Just tell them the truth and be polite.
Those would be two good ones.
Trump couldn't do that.
Probably Biden either.
No, I couldn't do that either.
That's the whole thing about being oneself.
Well, what if you told Biden to do that?
He is being himself.
Unfortunately.
Maybe we're seeing that.
But anyway, the big debate is on, and there'll be a lot of, boy, the audience is going to be, oh, no, there's an audience, no audience there.
And when you look at the rules, you wonder, why Trump agreed all this stuff?
It looks like the whole business was set up by CNN.
Oh, that's right.
CNN was doing that.
So why is he doing this?
But he probably has a strategy.
And, you know, if they indicted Trump and found him guilty, it was the best thing that ever happened to his campaign.
So maybe this debate, which was canned, and the opposition thinks that, boy, we have Trump.
And Biden knows how to read the questions.
He'll hear the whispers, and he'll be able to do a very good job.
And it is true that I've seen at times, and other people have recognized this, on occasion, he will give a speech and do it rather well.
But there's sometimes when he doesn't do so well.
So it'll be interesting.
I'll bet there's a big audience for this tonight.
Probably.
And just to own when you talked about when you were doing it, I remember in the office in those days, because we didn't have a lot of contact with your campaign because they had that wall between us.
But somehow word got to us that I forget the details, but when you were going to go to the debate, the organizers were asking you, where does your team want to meet to game out the questions?
What team?
What are you talking about?
And basically, you just had your trusty envelope.
And if anyone goes back and looks, they'll see you with your little envelope writing down your notes.
So, no, it wasn't a team.
There was no focus groups.
So, Ron, if you say this, they're going to like you a lot.
Well, in a way, to me, it was almost like the lazy method and doing it the way you want to do it because, you know, you don't have to prep for that.
You figure that, you know, I was in the business of spreading a message.
So that means I've studied this message and I got engaged in that probably in the 60s.
And the philosophy of libertarianism was fascinating.
Monetary policy fascinated me.
But to sit down and memorize some numbers, that's confusing, but the principles.
So I don't envy him.
I don't sit around and say, sure wished I was there.
But I might have an opinion afterwards, too.
You didn't need Frank Luntz to help you.
Well, you know, thinking about it, thinking about what our good friend and former colleague Jeff Deist always says, that we live in a post-persuasion society.
You know, I don't think this debate is going to change a single vote.
And I said this this morning on a radio interview.
I don't think anyone who's a die-hard Biden supporter is going to say, well, you know that Trump, he made some good points.
I think I'm going to vote for Trump, or vice versa.
I think really what this debate is really about, it's kind of a job interview for Biden.
I mean, I think it's on him to prove everything that everything's been said, especially these last few weeks about his capabilities, is wrong.
You know, his White House spokesperson, she said, well, this is all deep fakes.
He's not really making, or cheap fakes.
He's not really making these mistakes.
He's really as sharp as ever.
So this, I think, what the debate really is about is a job interview for Biden to see if he really is up to the task.
Yeah, that is indeed what a lot of people will be looking for.
But like you say, there's not many people who want to be persuaded.
But, you know, thinking back, it's okay for me to think back when I was in a position like this.
You know, I was pretty low on the list of, you know, not many people knew about me in 07 in that setting.
So it wasn't so much that there wasn't any shifting.
I had to gather up new supporters.
And so that fell, it was natural.
And, you know, and we did fairly well.
And we had a few political conflicts about reporting.
But I didn't make that a deal because I didn't think it was worthwhile.
All I was concentrating on is what I believe in.
And that's where my heart was.
And then after the debate, they'd take a poll.
And who do you think won the debate?
Ron Paul by a million.
And the mainstream media said, well, Romney came in second in a real good showing room.
Well, yeah, we knew first and third.
So anyway, I dug up, believe it or not, from National Review, which I never read.
I used to when I was a kid.
They had a good article.
If you can put on this second clip, I transpose them again.
They have an article called, Everyone is Going to Hate the Debate Rules.
And now you alluded to it earlier, but here's a couple of things that they pointed out.
If you go back to the first one, which is the second one, da-da-da-da-da.
So the host of tonight's debate, CNN, has stripped its moderates of the discussion.
Okay, here it is.
So the rules that will govern the first colloquy between Biden and Trump lend that authority to the machines.
The machines have got to control, Dr. Paul.
So they said both candidates will have a standard time allotted to respond to a moderator's question.
When the time expires, their microphone will be cut off.
If a comprehensive response requires more time or the candidates seek to engage in an extended and illuminating direct discussion with one another, well, that's just tough.
The machine dislikes, dictates the terms.
Now go to the third one.
This is just the last one about the rules to point out.
And you did mention it earlier, and it's the most important, I think.
They said, these are Joe Biden's rules, rules that Donald Trump accepted in total.
The president's campaign insisted on a debate that would take place in a television studio without an audience and without and with automated microphone cutoffs.
If this format proves irritating, blame Biden.
So that's what it's going to look like.
I don't know what's going to do the audience.
Yeah, and the interesting thing is, is what about all the plains plans, maybe two years of it or longer, all the way back to when Trump was elected.
The conspiracy and the plans that the left had to destroy him.
Because nobody can challenge John McCain and come on back on a stage.
You know, that sort of thing.
Yeah, exactly.
But he did that.
So this thing, right now, I would say that Trump might feel very frustrated and maybe stomp his feet or something.
That's true.
But it'll be interesting.
I'll be watching it for the fun of it.
Yeah, yeah.
Actually, I was on George Galloway's great talk show yesterday.
I know you've been on it.
And he asked me if I was going to watch it.
I said, yeah, but I may have a bottle of whiskey next to me to get through it.
So we'll see what happens.
Well, let's move on to the second thing that we just want to talk about.
And I think we both view our program as sort of competing in a way with the mainstream on the left and the right and trying to point out that both of them are wrong on a lot of issues and both of them are only speaking to their audiences without doing real analysis.
And this is the Murphy versus Missouri Supreme Court ruling yesterday.
It's a big deal.
It's all over the place.
I'm just going to throw out, Dr. Paul, what the left and the right said about it.
Now, this is the Guardian, which is on the left for sure.
And they say the Supreme Court allows government to request removal of misinformation on social media.
The court strikes down a lower court ruling permitting government to call on platforms to remove the falsehoods.
That's what they said.
Now go to the next one, again, National Review.
I don't think we've ever done two National Reviews in one day, but there was always a first for everything.
So the National Review says something basically the same, Dr. Paul.
Supreme Court turns a blind eye to federal authorities pressuring social media companies to ban free speech.
So both of them are saying that, well, the left is saying, well, this is terrific.
Biden can pressure Facebook to take down your posts and Twitter and everything.
That's just fine.
And the National Review and on the right are saying, doggone it, those Supremes are just a bunch of liberals.
We knew it.
They're allowing the Biden administration to censor us.
They say it's A-OK.
The interesting thing is, and it's fascinating, is the real interpretation and how the court came down and all of a sudden said, you know, why do you guys bring us this stuff?
We don't need to do that.
And why didn't they read the Constitution?
It's pretty clear in the Constitution.
They're not supposed to be dealing with this.
And they don't have standing to do this.
This is all mischief and manipulation.
How do I angle up?
Because they're used to doing this.
You know, that's the way they live in Washington.
How do I manipulate the agencies of government and courts and do all these things?
They can manipulate it.
So they figured, well, we'll get the courts to say that we should be able to Close down people's speech and regulate social media.
So they thought that that would be it.
But I don't know.
Right now, it looks like the court rules that they shouldn't even do it.
And they use the word the standing issue.
And it's there.
It's explicit.
And all of a sudden, all this business has been going on.
I don't know how long this case has been going on, you know, through the court system and how long it could have gone on if they hadn't ruled it.
And it's amazing that the two sides have a strong feeling of the ruling.
And you'd think one is satisfied for interpreted one day, the other one is satisfied for this way.
Oh, it's over and done with.
They've done it.
And sometimes courts will do that.
They'll sort of be fuzzy and make sure that everybody gets a little bit and they become political.
But in this case, I'll tell you what, that was like closing the door on the whole thing.
Just go home.
This is not the kind of case you should bring to the Supreme Court.
Just read the First Amendment more carefully.
And I was, I mean, I admit I was guilty.
When I first saw the Guardian piece, I was dejected because we hate censorship more than anything, probably, because you're right, it's an attack on speech.
I was dejected.
I read the headlines.
I sent it over to you saying, oh, my gosh, we've got to talk about this.
This is terrible.
But then I turned to someone a lot smarter than I am, and certainly with a better legal background than mine, and that's our good friend Glenn Greenwald, who, like us, doesn't fall into either camp.
And so thankfully, Glenn, in his classic, pithy way, he was able to describe it.
Now, put on this first tweet.
It's exactly as you just said, Dr. Paul.
It's not what it's advertised as.
So here's what Glenn says.
Two lower courts found that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment by coercing big tech to censor dissent.
The Supreme Court today, by a six to three vote, reversed that, but not as pro-Democrat pundits imply, because they approved only because they said the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the case.
And he backs that up with the ruling of Judge Barrett.
If you can, it was written by Barrett.
If you can go to the next tweet, this is how he backs it up.
He says, the majority opinion was written by Barrett, joined by Roberts, and three liberals, actually four judges, he clarifies that in a later tweet, the liberal judges.
She makes clear that they aren't approving what Biden officials did, just that the plaintiffs couldn't prove it was why they were censored.
He says, and this is the ruling, this is the Supreme Court ruling, we begin and end with standing.
So they're just saying that you weren't able to prove that you were the one injured, therefore you don't have standing in the court.
What I wonder is, remember Alex Berenson we talked about all the time during COVID.
Now he got some documents that proved that they said block Alex, block Alex.
Now I bet if Alex's case went before the Supreme Court, it might be a different end.
That's right.
And this is a fascinating case.
I just wonder what will happen in the next month or two or three.
Will it be brought up again?
There might be another case trying to get their side clarified so that they can block language.
Because obviously the left likes that idea of blocking language.
Alex's Case: Supreme Court Possibilities 00:05:02
And there's just so many of this, so much regulation.
And of course, you know, if you can't decide who won the presidential election, who's supposed to decide it?
When do people really want the final decision?
It's the House of Representatives that's supposed to come in.
And legislation is a way of speaking.
And of course, there's times when the courts come in.
But I think the courts, the Supreme Court, probably comes in more often than it would in a libertarian society because the Bill of Rights is pretty libertarian, what they can do.
And that means the problems aren't going to be solved.
They'll be solved in a different way.
Yeah.
And we also look to our friend Jonathan Turley, who's always, who's the king of free speech issues.
And he also had his own take, which was similar, not dissimilar to Glenn's, but he had a different conclusion.
If you go to that next clip, if you can, this is from Turley's article that he wrote, his recent column on it.
And the title is, Want to Defeat Joe Biden?
Look to the 1800 election and make free speech the key issue in 2024.
And here's the key takeaway from Turley's take, Dr. Paul, this sentence that I highlighted.
With the Supreme Court taking an off-ramp in Murphy versus Missouri on internet censorship, the free speech community is left for now with the political process to protect free speech.
And if you remember when Turley was giving talks to your Thursday lunches when you were on the Hill, he would always say, what do you guys, you're Congress.
If you don't like the Supreme Court ruling, just pass a law against it.
You have power.
You don't even use your power.
Yeah, but they use their power for the wrong reasons.
And it's usually for the accumulation of more wealth when you look at the strong lobbying groups, the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry.
They're using their power, but in the opposite way.
Instead of saying, if this is a difficult decision, we'll suggest that you should never have the authority to close down social media.
Probably wouldn't be too hard to describe where the lines are drawn.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Well, I'm going to close out, Dr. Paul, with a couple of big announcements.
I had a big one yesterday.
I've got two big ones today.
Now, the first one, if you can put this next clip up, and I forgot to add the links, I will add them when the show's over, to remind everyone that the Ron Paul Scholars Seminar, the 24 Ron Paul Scholars Seminar, takes place the day before our August 31st conference.
It takes place on August 30th.
And all upper division undergrad and grad students are eligible to apply scholarships available.
Come and have an all-day seminar on foreign policy, civil liberties, and other important issues.
And stick around with the special table at the conference the next day.
It is a terrific, terrific program, in my opinion.
And don't take my word for it.
We're going to have a previous Ron Paul scholar.
In fact, the first class of Ron Paul scholars, T.J. Roberts, is going to be there to give a talk, who was just about to be elected to the Kentucky State House.
But here's a great announcement for today, Dr. Paul.
The keynote luncheon speech, you can actually leave it up, will be delivered by none other than our friend.
You can put it back up, please, that picture.
Delivered by none other than our great friend, Judge Andrew Napolitano.
Now, he's going to give, imagine sitting in a room with 10 or 15 other scholars listening to the judge.
He's going to give his lecture, The Natural Law Origins of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
It's a masterclass.
Within the last three months, he's given this masterclass to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Vatican and the Bruo Leone Institute at the University of Milan.
So it's a great speech.
You'll be able to ask the master some questions about his views on the Constitution.
So apply for this right away.
Link will be in the description.
And here's the big announcement for today, Dr. Paul.
Another speaker announcement.
And I could not be more excited because we have never had him at our conference.
You and I have both admired him for many, many years.
Put on that next clip.
Announcing speaker at the Ron Paul Conference on August 31st, Professor John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago, a great intellectual, the author of the groundbreaking, co-author of the groundbreaking book, The Israel Lobby.
And here's a great quote to give you a taste of the mind, the great mind of Professor Mearsheimer.
Large Crowds, Small Actions 00:03:22
As far as I'm concerned, the Democrats, Republicans, and Democrats on foreign policy are like Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle D. There's just no difference between them.
So I can't wait to see this, Dr. Paul.
I know you've wanted to have him on our show for a long time.
So I'm very excited.
Get your tickets today for the conference.
Save a little money on the early bird special.
While it lasts, it's not going to last long.
See, there's all ways of spreading information, and we do it our way, and there's other ways people do it on political activities.
But this is important.
It's important to me, the intellectual community.
And see, he's the reaction in a very healthy way to the progressive era.
You know, and the progressives, you know, there were a few that wanted to sound like libertarianism.
They wanted, you know, a little difference in foreign policy.
But that's been dissipated.
This doesn't exist.
So that's why I like to see the connection there to the good philosophers in the university.
But, you know, the other thing, as I was watching the picture with the students and listening to Napolitano, everybody thought Napolitano would disappear.
You know, Fox is not building Napolitano.
And I think what he's doing is great.
He's more popular than ever, just like Tucker.
I mean, his show is huge now.
Yeah, so and very necessary.
But what it reminded me of was, you know, the person I identify with and mention, and that's Leonard Reed, because he emphasized exactly what you have designed here.
Small groups and build by reputation and quality.
And the one thing, one of Leonard's statements was that if you have something like this in, don't give equal time to the opposition.
You don't have time.
You just present your case, let them compare it.
But he did not, because there were one time where they tried to enforce equal opposition, you know, equal size on radio and television.
They still pretend that.
They do.
They split the time between Republicans and Democrats.
But they both support war.
But that's what's good.
And anything that reminds me of Leonard Reed, and you know, and I think I mentioned this with regard to Lou Rockwell, the way he ran the Mises Institute.
Small groups, you know, like this, that's where the real action occurs.
Large crowds can encourage one, and large crowds mean something.
And I think that not many people can get the crowds like Trump.
And we'll see how much they really mean because if you go by the crowds, he's going to clobber his opposition.
But anyway, it's a very interesting subject.
I'm delighted that you started this program and it's advancing.
I'm all done, Dr. All right, very good.
And I'm all done too.
But I want to thank everybody for tuning in to the Liberty Report and looking forward to seeing you at either conference.
Thank you for listening.
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