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Jan. 27, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
25:14
Can Rubio Beat The Blob?

Newly-confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio is facing his first real foreign policy challenge: how to get his own Department to obey President Trump's 90-day halt on foreign development assistance. Will he be able to stand up to "the resistance" in his own shop? Also today, Trump's shocking position on displaced Palestinians.

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Time Text
Rubio's Resistance Encounter 00:13:32
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 this morning?
Ready and rearing to go.
All right, Monday, Monday.
Good.
We'll start off with, you know, a subject that we've looked at for a long time.
It'll be a foreign policy subject.
And it's in the news today, and it has to do with our friend Marco Rubio.
And State Department personnel are resisting him.
He's Trump's handpicked guy.
They wouldn't do that, would they?
But I brought it up to you today.
I said, why don't they just fire those and fire those?
And you made a point, and you can make it again.
And that is, who are these people?
Are they permanent residents of the deep state?
And not every single, as much as Trump has done historically in getting rid of some bad people and making plans, even the Democrats have to marvel at what he has done in a short period of time.
So I think your point that you were making and can make is that these people might have been appointed by Biden.
They're hanging around.
But I'll tell you what, one thing is on that type of a subject, Trump is not bashful.
He'll probably look up their names.
They're probably gone by now or something.
But resisting Rubio's orders to not send any money to Ukraine.
No aid.
And that has to be qualified a bit.
But it says it's temporarily being held and temporary is better than nothing.
But what does it mean?
We like to see has discontinued it.
It's been changed.
So this is part of the cleaning up that he has to do.
And I hope we can be helpful by pointing out some of our reactions to make sure that he looks at all the points.
Yeah.
Well, it's fascinating.
And the backstory of this whole thing is on January the 20th when Trump was signed in.
Viewers will remember Trump sitting there at the desk for hours signing executive orders, many of which were very, very good.
We talked about those last week.
But one of the orders, and I do have a copy, I mean, a print to show later of that order, was a halt of all U.S. development assistance, overseas development assistance, for 90 days.
The purpose of, and I think it's an excellent idea, the purpose was to look and evaluate each one of these programs and see that if it's in line with his philosophy, with the American First, whatever you want to call it philosophy.
So putting a halt on it is great news.
But, and he also gave wide discretion to Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, to take a look at these programs and see which ones shouldn't be continued and what should happen with them.
Essentially, it almost looks like an audit of foreign aid, as much as you can.
But the interesting thing, and I'll put this up, the FT talked about it over the weekend.
The interesting thing happened.
Marco Rubio, in concert with what Trump had done, issued his own order to the State Department, which he heads.
He's the boss.
And he said, okay, we need to stop.
We need to halt all foreign aid.
And the U.S. officials pushed to exempt Ukraine from Rubio's foreign aid freeze.
So what you have are State Department personnel, Dr. Paul, who said, well, yeah, that's what the boss said, but that's not what we want to do.
And so it's this amazing clash, and it harkens back to Trump 1.0.
If you remember, when Trump tried to stop aid to Ukraine, and remember, we heard, well, we heard from Vindeman.
Remember that guy, Vindeman, that kook?
He said, Well, that went against the inter-agency consensus, so you can't do it.
So that's what he's coming up against.
And it's fascinating, and that's hence we have the title of our program today: Can Rubio Beat the Blob?
Because now he's coming face to face with the permanent state, the foreign policy of interventionism, and we're going to see what happens.
It's fascinating.
You know, this is in the area of foreign aid, obviously.
But, you know, remember when the Seoul effort came out about Duke and foreign policy, that was the one that they picked up on what I had said and sort of spread it along.
So they do have some pretty strong feelings that would coincide with what we would like.
And they helped us spread our message, and we hope to help spread theirs.
But the government is very, very big.
It's very, very expensive.
And yet, they still do not know how they're going to get control of this.
But I think freezing it up and can't hold it off for a while.
And Rubio did what he should do, take a look at it and say, hey, you know, we have to be careful about what happening here.
So maybe some good will come of this.
But where was somebody wrote that said, you know, everybody's for putting more troops in.
They want American troops except the Americans.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think that is good.
I think that is one thing that the constitutionalists, the good conservatives, and the libertarians have made the point here.
And that attitude has changed because the media didn't come to our rescue.
You know, they haven't done it, the main street media, but the social media and the libertarian media has been helpful in changing the attitude.
And I think that helped.
I think it helped Trump in the election.
Oh, absolutely.
No question.
Big deal.
Yeah, no question.
Well, let's dive in a little bit to this Financial Times article.
I just picked out a couple of tidbits to show you what's going on.
Now, go to that next clip.
So this is what we have already talked about.
Oh, no.
Now, here's what happens.
So Rubio signs this thing 90-day stop.
And the diplomats said, well, that doesn't apply to us, does it?
So here's what the Financial Times article says: U.S. diplomats have requested an urgent exemption for Ukraine-related programs from a 90-day freeze on foreign aid and stop work orders.
So he issued stop work orders.
He said, Stop what you're doing.
Stop these projects.
They want an exemption.
They cited national security concerns.
They said that they want Rubio to grant a full waiver to exclude the work of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Ukraine from the sweeping directive.
Now, here's the part that gets interesting.
Go to the next one.
USAID in Ukraine has temporarily held off.
Now, this is as of Saturday, and I didn't check this morning.
They have temporarily held off issuing these stop work orders while they are waiting for the potential exemption.
So they basically have disobeyed a command from their boss.
And go to the next one.
The agency has also asked staff to assess programs and, quote, and I highlighted this, find ways for them to more clearly support the Secretary of State's directive to make the U.S. safer, stronger, and more prosperous.
But by Saturday evening in Kiev, some organizations began receiving these stop work orders.
So basically, Dr. Paul, USAID doesn't believe that this applies to them, and they want to continue doing what they're doing.
It's a really fascinating meeting of the minds, I would say.
Do you think McConnell could have some friends involved in this?
Yeah, yeah.
He's probably very pleased, wouldn't you think?
But he's in the club.
He's in that club.
You know, he reminds me of McCain.
As they're going out the door, they have to have one last parting shot, and it isn't for liberty.
It's to be in the face of people who are trying to get away from those policies.
And there's plenty of people in the Senate and House that feel the same way, I'm sure.
Yeah, that's where you asked earlier, who are these people?
And that is a good question.
I think part of it is the deep state, the permanent state.
Now, if they stop doing these things, well, they won't have a job.
What am I going to do?
I'm supposed to be messing things up.
That's my job.
But the other could be, and this is just speculation on my part, and not only at Ukraine but elsewhere, I don't believe that Trump has named ambassadors, has gotten rid of Biden's ambassadors.
You may have, theoretical on my part, you could have a U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was appointed by Biden, who's all in for Project Ukraine, and he may be slow walking these things.
He may be finding ways around what Rubio is doing.
So this is a real challenge to legitimate constitutional authority that the president has over foreign aid.
We talk a lot about the president has too much power.
This is one area where the Constitution gives him broad power, subject, of course, to Congress in terms of the power of the purse.
But this is a real challenge for him from the deep state, and we'll see how he responds to it.
You know, it is surprising that this whole issue on how much power the president has.
And the founders did give the president some significant powers, you know.
But I think it's so much worse.
You know, every response, if somebody responds to something like, all right, in less than 24 hours, probably 20 minutes, he can change the law.
He can change the penalties and everything else.
It's really amazing how quickly that happens.
You know, some people might disagree on the process.
I disagree with what he's doing, but never on the principle of where, why did, well, technically, the Congress gives him those privileges.
Because they said, oh, it'll be too cumbersome.
It won't be workable.
We have to have a president that can respond.
We're in an emergency.
We have to do something.
But it did.
The power had gravitated to the executive branch, especially the president.
And I guess the conclusion of that might be, hopefully, the previous administration, maybe that's why the American people are saying, you know, enough is enough.
But the final act is yet to come on exactly how this is going to pan out.
Yeah, and I think you sort of suggested it earlier.
I think the best secret weapon that Rubio has is the fact that the American people are behind him.
So if I were giving him advice, and I'm not, I've insulted him so many times, he's never going to call me.
I know that.
But if I were giving Rubio advice, I would say absolutely open the doors, absolute transparency.
Go in there.
You've got 80 some days now, 85 or whatever.
Do an audit of all foreign aid.
Actually, go to the next clip.
This is from the FT.
Do an audit.
Expose every single program.
Because nobody, no, go back one, please.
Nobody knows what they're actually up to.
Nobody knows what these projects are.
And this review that he's doing, which I would like to see it as an audit, this review expected to take up to 85 days.
Now, listen to this, Dr. Paul, leaves the fate of hundreds of U.S. foreign aid contracts valued at more than $70 billion in the 2022 fiscal year in limbo.
Who's getting these contracts?
Where's this $70 billion going?
What are they doing?
What are the subcontracts and the sub-subcontractors?
This would go really far to exposing the shenanigans that's going on in our foreign policy in our name.
Well, I think the people who are benefiting His system of corporatism.
I mean, there's all these bargains, and we do know the corporations are very much involved.
But maybe if they do a good job on this, maybe the people who want more auditing of this, maybe somebody's going to put it together on the entire Pentagon.
We think foreign policy is big, foreign aid, but the Pentagon is even bigger.
It's policy plus all that spending.
And what I marvel at is how bold they are, or how innocent they are, or how ignorant they are about $36 trillion in debt.
And the country is starting to really falter under this, and yet they come along and they talk about spending money like crazy.
But they always, now the Republicans are better at putting it in a tone that eventually, though, you know, if we just do enough tariffs and all, we can pay all the bills.
And there's some shortcomings on thinking you can get a free lunch that way.
But they should continue to do changing of the regulations that seem to be beneficial, but they can't believe that they're going to tinker without saying that we have to cut spending.
They talk that it, but that is going to be the tough one.
This is just one little thing, you know, but it's a big thing.
And the way this turns out might be setting a standard.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, just before we go to the second subject, I just want to show you this is the executive order if you look at it, re-evaluating and realigning the United States foreign aid.
Wiping the Slate Clean 00:04:10
Good move on the part of President Trump, I will say.
Go to the next picture, and that is the order.
You can see what it says.
Now, we don't need to read it here, but just to show you, that's what he did.
Day one.
It was a very good executive order, I think.
And so we're going to be criticized for praising Trump, but we also, where criticism is necessary, we will criticize him.
And the next story is something that he said over the weekend that in my opinion, I don't want to speak for you, was incredibly ill-advised.
Go to that next clip, because here's the headline: Trump calls for Jordan in Egypt to take more Palestinian refugees, quote, clean out Gaza.
That's a tough word, clean out.
No, you may give us some more quotes on that, but boy, that attitude really shook me up because what they are doing, the final conclusion of what our government is going to do with the Palestinians, and that is cancel them.
You know, that sort of came up in one of our, and the words came out: are the Palestinian a people or not?
And I guess this sort of thing says they're not even a people.
But not only that, that could be philosophic, but this whole idea of picking them up and moving them someplace, so it looks like Jordan isn't going to roll over on this, you know, and say, oh, yeah, bring them on.
They see problems with this.
But what about the problems of being rooted out and taking them out?
They might not want to go.
They might want to come back and they might have conflict going on for years and years.
They've been going on for years and years.
It might get worse rather than better.
But this whole idea of a clean slate, that's a little bit overly optimistic, that they can wipe the plate.
And he says, we'll help and rebuild it.
We'll send our corporations.
We'll rebuild Gaza.
But the indigenous people that were there will be gone because they're kicked out.
Well, here's a couple of these quotes.
And it's hard to believe that he said this.
I think it shows that he's, I don't know who he's listening to or this is his instincts, but it sounds incredibly inhumane to talk about people as if they're just sort of moving cars around.
Go to the next one.
He says, I'd like Egypt to take people, Trump said.
You're talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out the whole thing and say, you know, it's over.
He's talking about a civilization that's been there, you know, for generations, for thousands of years, to just clean it out, say it's over.
And here's another thing that he said to go to the next one.
Something has to happen.
It's literally a demolition site right now.
Well, why is that?
Because American bombs blew it to smithereens.
He said almost everything is demolished and people are dying there.
There are bombs in our money.
So I'd rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change.
There's nothing humanitarian about ethnic cleansing.
You know, there are many times this has been going on because I can remember early in my political career, there was some bombing going on in the country.
I said, well, before you know it, we'll probably have to pay to rebuild it.
And the bombing hadn't even started, stopped.
And we were over there rebuilding.
Here it is.
Because, you know, one thing it's hard for Americans to accept that because I don't like it.
The fact that we have a responsibility here.
How many bombs would have been dropped if they were not provided by the American government?
I would predict there would probably still be fighting and some killing and some terrorist acts, but there wouldn't be this wholesale killing.
Oh, well, we really took care of those Palestinians.
Why don't we wipe the slate clean?
You know, this says so much over the top.
But even if that becomes the policy and they're trying to put out, like you already suggest, it might not go smoothly.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day 00:06:08
Yeah.
And I mean, and this is not to draw any parallels by any stretch of the imagination.
But, you know, this is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
And there was a time in the past where a disgusting individual thought he should just remove an entire people from the middle of Europe because they were subhumans.
We can't go back to this idea.
You know, you can't just remove people because you don't think they belong there.
You know, and that's why it's so astonishing, especially on a day like today, to hear something like this.
It's terrible, terrible stuff.
Well, if I had my way, I would require them all to study, understand, and accept natural law.
That the message is out there on how we should treat each other and our countries treat and eat each other.
But we're a long way from that.
And yet we still see, and we've mentioned already some of the things that Trump has done in this short period of time, moving in the right direction.
So I'm very pleased that he's concerned and recognizes that he does not want, he'll even bring up the word, oh, the libertarians might like this, you know, and he has, and he's reached out to us on certain issues.
So that I think is good.
I tell people that as long as I've been in Congress, I've never heard anybody come up and say, oh, and brag about it, you know, in quiet or something to a colleague and say, well, this is my day.
I wrote it this way.
I'm a good socialist today.
But a lot of people would come up, and it always pleased me.
They would come up because I was political power.
I was a zero.
I had no power.
But people would come, and they were very pleased.
They might have a tough vote, and they voted with me on a vote, or I joined them that they had something leaning libertarian.
And they were very pleased to come and tell me, you know, Ron, I voted libertarian today.
But they were pleased to tell me that.
With the cool kids.
I was pleased to hear it.
Well, I think the final word on this is that even the extremists who don't believe that there's such a thing as Palestinian people, whatever, even the most extreme people here in the U.S., most of which call themselves Christians, by the way, but even if they believe this, the fact of the matter is it won't work.
Getting rid of these people, trying to make them disappear won't work.
It will only harden the resistance.
They keep doing the same thing over and over, bombing over and over, radicalizing the younger generation over and over, and it hasn't worked.
It hasn't worked for 70-some years.
So maybe try something a little different and see if that works.
The one that was really, I don't know, really got to me.
And that was when Trump described the territory.
I've never been in that territory, but he described how beautiful it was.
And no wonder people want to live there.
But it was almost like he was evaluating it from a real estate dealer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, this is real estate.
This car to scratch clean.
Well, it's a mess now.
They can't ever go back to those houses.
So let's get the bulldozer and send to take the, not only clean the mess up that we participated in creating, but we will also get rid of the people.
Yeah.
And this is actually the cool.
I'm glad you mentioned that because he says it's really got to be rebuilt in a different way.
Gaza is interesting, Trump said.
It's a phenomenal location on the sea.
The best weather.
You know, everything is good.
It's like some beautiful things could be done with it.
So he's saying after you get rid of the people who live there, you're going to have, maybe he'll put his son-in-law in charge again like he was last time.
Well, if the conditions were ripe and there was a little bit more tolerance, a place like that could be turned into a Hong Kong.
Just think of Hong Kong at one time was more productive than the whole country of China.
And the main thing is they had a lot more freedom.
But that doesn't look like it's available.
But there's a problem there.
We've contributed to it.
But just trying to get it out of sight, we don't want to see it.
Get out of sight.
Send them somebody.
Send them to Jordan.
Whatever.
The problem doesn't go away.
Yeah, it doesn't work.
Well, I'm going to close out with an announcement.
And this is a Save the Date announcement.
And I will, if you are subscribed to Ron Paul Institute for updates, you'll get more information from me today.
But Save the Date, March 22nd will be our annual spring conference down here in We Hope, Sunny Lake Jackson in March.
We usually get pretty good weather, although it's touch and go.
We're going to have a great little conference down here in March, March 22nd.
So make your plans.
Type it in, pencil it in, whatever you need to do to come down and join us.
Again, subscribe, go to ronpaulinstitute.org and subscribe for free.
More details there.
But just to give you that announcement, Dr. Paul.
I want to finish up with a positive story.
Oh, good.
And that has to do with the IRS agents.
We're not going to, at least this consensus now is that we don't need 88,000 that Biden was going to do.
That was his answer.
Just tax the poor people that they've made poor to pay for the bills that the poor people need help with.
But Trump says he's immediately halting, hiring a new IRS agent.
And that to me sounds pretty good.
He says, they hired, we're trying to hire 88,000 new workers to go with you.
And we're in the process of developing a plan either to terminate all of them and maybe we move them to the border.
Trump remarked in a speech in Nevada, while also saying, one day I immediately halted the hiring of any new agents.
And I would add, get busy and fire the rest.
Cautious Optimism 00:01:20
There's hope out there, but what I feel is that they're overly optimistic at times and they're not really upfront because there are big problems up there.
You know, just shifting around, just changing a little bit of foreign aid.
You know, the deep state is still pretty deep.
They haven't gotten to the bottom of it.
But the big thing is, ideologically, I think the American people are much more attuned to what we're talking about.
That the system we've been living with, especially the last four years, it's been a blessing because it pointed out to the American people how terrible politics and economics has been.
But we have to be cautious and not openly optimistic about all we have to do is ABC, and everything is being all right.
If somebody's in the way, we'll just move them over here.
Anyway, so the good things are there, and we encourage that.
And it's not that difficult because all we have to do is look at why there are countries that live in more peaceful areas and are more prosperous and how our country once was.
And you would come up with a solution of saying liberty is much better than authoritarianism.
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