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Feb. 13, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
29:05
The Beginning Of The End Of The War In Ukraine

And all of a sudden...the end began. President Trump holds a 90 minute phone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, agreeing to soon hold a summit of the two leaders. Trump's read-out of the call makes it clear that his pro-Ukraine "Special Envoy" Kellogg is out of the picture. Is peace on the horizon? What will it take? Also today, the mis-named National Endowment for Democracy is defunded.

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A Few People Are Annoyed 00:08:10
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?
Doing well, doing well.
A couple exciting things happening.
Lots of stuff going on.
Maybe there's a little good news today.
But we'll look for it.
But one thing that caught our attention that could be of great significance, it could go haywire, which nobody's, at least in our camp, are hoping it'll go haywire, because there was a meeting, I think it was on Thursday, and the meeting was between Putin and Trump.
A phone call.
Phone call.
What, 90 minutes they talked?
A phone call.
And a few people are annoyed by that.
You know who's running the annoyance group is Zelensky.
Yeah, he is not a happy gamer.
He's not happy about that.
And the media isn't happy about it either because they tend to hate with a passion Russia.
And that is, you know, it's such a shame that just talking to somebody, you know, makes a difference.
And they get hysterical.
But Zelensky warns, he sent out a warning that cutting the Ukrainians out just won't work.
But then at other times, he's a little more mellow.
He's annoyed because he didn't get invited to NATO.
But anyway, it raises questions on how this is all going to be sorted out.
But I would say that the big picture is, you know, just talking to each other.
I keep thinking about the horrible situation leading up to World War II where our diplomats and the Japanese diplomats, the leaders of the diplomatic group, wanted a conference, but FDR wouldn't do it.
And they wouldn't even make an effort, and that meant war for sure.
So this is at least talking.
I just can't understand why people don't talk to each other.
But they're always gauging.
What will my supporters say?
What will my money supporters say?
And then they hold back.
But anyway, the meeting went rather well.
We go 90 minutes.
That's pretty good.
And the big follow-up is the issue.
So we'll have to wait and see.
But maybe we'll have more news this week on this issue.
Yeah, I mean, with the last administration, it was four years of insults.
Biden calling Putin a dictator, a thug, et cetera, et cetera.
It was the opposite of diplomacy.
And that's exactly how Tony Blinken acted as the Secretary of State.
And so here you have the incoming Trump administration.
I think he's unburdened now by all of the things that happened when he first became president, all of the insinuations that he was a Russian puppet.
Now, he's just jettisoning all of that.
Now, it's done.
It's over.
So he picks up the phone and they talk for 90 minutes.
It's a serious conversation.
And you can tell the readout from both sides, from Moscow and from Washington, is very positive.
And in fact, this is the first time that the Kremlin has admitted that there was a call.
Put this first clip on because this is from Edge.
Kremlin confirms Putin-Trump's summit on the way as Zelensky warns against cutting Ukrainians out.
So the Kremlin side has confirmed, this is for the first time, that they had an hour and a half phone call.
A Thursday report in Russia's RT strikes a glowing and enthusiastic tone.
Quote, it's hard to overestimate the significance of the recent phone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. counterpart Donald Trump, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, has said, now, as you alluded to, Dr. Paul Zelensky is not thrilled.
Put on the next clip.
He is very downtrodden, in fact.
If you look, put the next one up, you will see that he is kind of annoyed, as you said.
He said the question of the elections is not an issue at the moment because he technically, Dr. Paul, is not the president because his mandate ran out last May.
So, but he's still resisting pressure to get to have elections.
It's really not very nice that Trump called Putin first.
So he's sort of reduced to just saying that.
But, you know, it was a bit entertaining with what Trepp said immediately afterwards.
Millions of people have died in this war that would not have happened if I were president.
But it did happen, so it must end.
No more lives should be lost.
That's really pretty good.
Yeah, yeah.
But he said that as many times.
But sometimes we think that some minor details accelerate some friction.
And I think Iron and I with all the problems remains to be seen exactly what they do.
Of course, they're going to, you know, Trump will go over there and Putin will come over here.
And I imagine just sensing that the American media has always been willing to spread the propaganda that you can't even talk to Putin.
And I don't think they'll, well, we'll wait and see what happens.
But, you know, there was one time a Russian leader, a Soviet leader, came over here.
I think it was Khrushchev.
And he really had a demonstration.
I think he was the one that took his shoe off.
Bang, bang the table.
But I think that's good.
I believe in talking before and hoping talking will prevent the shooting.
And I think a great thing that Trump did by doing it this way is he completely sidelined NATO and he completely sidelined the European Union.
They're just not part of the process whatsoever.
And they're furious.
In fact, Radek Sikorsky, who is the foreign minister of Poland, was criticizing this call.
He's criticizing the direct context, saying we've got to keep supporting Ukraine until they can negotiate from a position of strength.
Well, they're losing.
They're losing every day.
That's what they've been saying for the last three years.
We've got to give them weapons and money so they will be in a position of strength for negotiations.
And in the meantime, it's not Sikorsky's rear end that's getting shot off.
It's all these kids in Ukraine.
And I think Trump realized that and understands that.
I think once he even talked about these young boys, you know, reminding him of his sons, you know, being killed over there.
So he senses it.
Whereas the Europeans have shown themselves to be completely irrelevant.
NATO has shown itself to be completely irrelevant.
And it's for someone like us who wants us out of NATO, that's a great thing to see.
I think this is hopefully the beginning of the end of the philosophy that entangling alliances enhances our safety and our security.
Because I think I don't see how NATO can survive in the image they have, but there'll be something people will put together.
Maybe there will be such a tremendous militarization of Europe, but they have such a, you know, their whole economic system is so bad.
But ours is, you know, basically not a whole lot better.
So I think that I think, though, that NATO has lost a lot of steam.
And that, of course, doesn't bother me one bit because it's an entangling alliance that we didn't need.
And when we knew that the first thing the NATO people did after the Korean War broke out, we sent troops to Korea.
That told you something of a, yeah, we're there to keep the Soviets out of Europe.
Yeah.
A lot more to it.
Yeah.
Well, I think Zielinski knows that it's over essentially.
Now, if you go to this next clip, this is a quote from him.
He did an interview with The Guardian.
And one of the things he says is: there are voices which say that Europe could offer security guarantees without the Americans.
And I always say no, Zelensky said.
Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees.
Zelensky's Security Guarantees 00:07:15
And so he knows that he's not going to get those security guarantees from the U.S.
So essentially, he knows that it's over.
Now, here is a long postcard.
The next one that President Trump made.
And obviously, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but this is the readout that he made of his call.
And one thing that's interesting, I will draw your attention to.
He says, he says, I have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Ambassador and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to lead the negotiations with Russia to prepare for a Putin summit.
Now, there's one name there that you would have expected to see that you don't see, and that is General Keith Kellogg, who is, or at least was, Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.
His name has disappeared, and that led to a ton of speculation yesterday about what happened to him.
We know that Kellogg is the one who has been, you know, he put together the Kellogg plan, which is completely a non-starter.
We've talked about it here, but he is a hawk and he's very pro-Ukraine.
And in fact, one of the things that broke early this week, and we did mention this article, is the fact that Kellogg's own daughter is the president of a quote-unquote NGO that does a lot of work in Ukraine.
And I actually posted this on X yesterday.
If you put this up, this is the foundation's NGO's website.
And I said, why is Keith Kellogg seemingly off of Trump's Ukraine team?
Because he's compromised.
This is from a rapidly pro-Ukraine NGO that his daughter runs, the Weatherman Foundation.
Now, list this.
Here's one of the things that they list on the website, Dr. Paul, as what they've done.
They coordinated and sponsored the travel of General Keith Kellogg, Fox News contributor and former national security advisor to U.S. Vice President Pence to Ukraine.
Now, this is the interesting part, which led to testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee about the need to provide rapid lethal aid to Ukraine.
So, this guy always been in the camp of more weapons, more money, more weapons, and he's taking these trips over there on this NGO's dime.
Wonder if they're getting AID money.
I haven't been able to verify that they are.
But, whatever the case, it does seem like someone who was compromised in the team.
I'm just wondering if this could be a strategy of Trump.
You know, he didn't do the greatest job in the world in his appointments in his last term.
But here he's making them, and he seems like he's willing to throw a bone here and there.
Maybe he figured, well, that'll show that I'm not absolutely leaning toward non-intervention.
You know, I'm not an isolationist, this sort of thing.
So, he does this, and then he doesn't listen to him and gets rid of them.
So, there's a little bit different transition than there was during the first administration.
And it is true.
They said maybe it was a real benefit for him to been in, been out, and then suffer the consequences of the idiots that couldn't stand them and the corruption that occurred in the Department of Justice.
So, I think, well, who, whatever, is happening.
And he's not standing behind Kellogg.
Certainly doesn't seem like it.
Now, it could change.
We don't know.
He's never said anything.
But it's interesting because we've said on this show several times, where is Trump getting this information about Ukraine that he's spouting?
You know, a million dead Russians, not true.
Russia's economy is on its last leg, not true.
They're about to lose.
All of these things, they talk about Putin's talking points.
These are actually Kiev's talking points.
And I think they were being delivered to Trump through Kellogg.
He was delivering straight from Zelensky's mouth into Trump's ear.
And I wonder, I would love to know who it is.
It has to be someone in there.
Maybe it was JD Vance.
Someone had to have gotten to the president and said, Mr. President, these numbers are not true.
They're not accurate.
You need to take a look at this.
Maybe Tulsi did it.
Who knows?
I guess it's a little early to demand an audit.
How did you guys come to this decision?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's fascinating.
So I wanted to just do a quick thing about this.
If you move ahead to the Politico article, this is kind of a funny thing I wanted to put up, Dr. Paul.
NATO ministers plead for Ukraine to be involved in the Trump-Putin peace talks.
And go to the next one.
Here's Mark Ruther, the NATO chief.
Look at him.
He is so dejected.
He is so unhappy.
And he says they're begging.
They're basically begging Trump, please, please bring him in.
And I'll go to the next one.
This is Afsin Ratansi, who runs going underground a program.
And this is from the FT.
Europe is left reeling by Trump over Ukraine peace talks with Russia.
And Afshin says, European countries have realized that they are simply vassals, having no real say in Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin's negotiations to end the proxy war in Ukraine and being expected to pay for Ukraine's post-war security.
Europe has been sleepwalking as a vassal of Washington for the entirety of the proxy war.
It took Trump to wake them up and realize their irrelevant vassal status.
Well said, I would say, for Afshin.
That's for sure.
So I wonder how long this will take.
Probably take a couple weeks before anybody does any traveling.
Yeah.
Well, the other interesting thing is that China proposed to host the summit, which would be almost like a Yalta if you think about it.
China, Russia, and the U.S. talking about how to end this war.
That would be interesting.
Tired of war.
That sounds good to me.
Now, the only thing if I were to quibble, I'm glad that Trump's done this.
I think it's a fantastic thing.
I think it will end the war.
I'm not super thrilled about the U.S. being involved in the negotiations.
Now, if we're a catalyst for the peace, that's fine.
But I think if we're being set up for Trump coming with a bunch of terms to dictate, it's going to fail.
And maybe if it fails, it'll be okay because then the war will be decided on the battlefield.
It'd be nice to have it decided somewhere else.
But hopefully, that's not the case.
Well, I think Zelensky is losing credibility, but that's what it's requiring.
He has to go to zero credibility.
And people who pushed that and made him so important, they need to lose the credibility too, because this guy just wasn't a super political star or military star.
I mean, he was closer to being a clown.
He was a comedian, yeah.
So it's to me is, I think, a good breakfast, and I sure do encourage negotiations.
Yeah, get this thing over with, and it should probably end quickly.
The other one, this is going to be like a good news story, I guess, almost, because the next one we want to talk about, and this came out, and Dave DeCamp wrote it up on anti-war.com, Trump suspends funding to the National Endowment for Democracy.
Another Source of Information 00:09:19
And anyone that knows you and has read your statements for all these years know how you feel about the National Endowment for Democracy.
If you can find that clip and put it up, here we go.
The NED is a U.S.-funded organization set up in the 80s that meddles in elections around the world in the name of promoting democracy, writes Dave DeCam.
You know, and that's true, Dr. Paul.
If you remember back when Reagan was in office in 1983, one of the things that pushed him into office was the arrival of all the Scoop Jackson Democrats, all of these right-wing pro-war Democrats.
They came on to the Reagan Revolution, and one of the things they demanded, we are going to support you, Mr. President, but we want something.
This is what we want.
And the NED was one of those things they wanted.
We want to be able, because they're Trotskyites at heart, all of these guys are.
They wanted to be able to have worldwide revolutions, and they wanted to have it funded.
And so that's how it started.
You know, this falls into place.
You know, they started after USAID, and all of a sudden, it might even surprise some of those who were doing the investigating.
It was an explosion of information.
So this now seems to open up another whole source of information when the people who were involved, you know, the governments, maybe some of these coups were manipulated.
And since we have no special feelings for, positive feelings for the CIA, that needs exposed because that to me is one of the most vicious organizations ever to pretend that we're living in a republic now, in a radical democracy ruled by the dictatorship of the majority that is manipulated and owned the Justice Department.
That's a different story.
But boy, I'll tell you, I think this could be another neat story if everybody that had, because there were several comments about where the CIA's been involved in how, boy, I didn't mean, well, I'm not surprised, but it's still shocking that it's coming out now.
So it's good to me, we're going to be living in an age in a reversal of all this secrecy.
And I think so much of what's happening is in a subtle way, it's representing the fact that this world is changing because it's literally bankrupt.
The system is bankrupt.
Free enterprise, free markets, sound money, you know, non-intervention, all these things, constitutionalism, Department of Justice.
It's been used and corrupted so long.
But I still argue what you have to do is wake up the people.
And when the people speak out, you know, an idea, you know, that has come.
And if the people want to know more about it and reverse this, they can do it.
And I hope this is the beginning of a significant change for the better.
I mean, I honestly never thought that the National Endowment for Democracy could be ended.
And the reason is because it's so perfidious the way they put it together.
It's so nasty and evil.
Because what it is, is that Ned gets a chunk of money every year from the government.
And they dole it out to their sub-NGOs.
So the Republicans get something, the International Republican Institute.
And that's exactly where, actually, Victoria Newman was just named to the board of NED.
She's going to be out of the job.
So the Republicans get a chunk of money with the Republican Institute.
The Democrats get with the National Democratic Institute.
And then another chunk of money goes to the Chamber of Commerce types in the CIP, Center for International Private Enterprise.
And then another chunk of money goes to the unions, the union NGO.
So all of the bases are covered, and that's why all the constituents were in favor of keeping the gravy train rolling.
And the IRI, the Republican Institute, was particularly evil in what it did overseas.
And in fact, I was involved in the Albanian Civil War in the early 90s.
And it was the International Republican Institute that pushed for the overthrow of the government of Saudi Barisha in 92 to the advantage of the actual communists.
They're the ones that took over there.
And I couldn't believe it was the Republicans that were doing this, but they actually were.
So I've seen very up close and personal the evil and the destruction that the NED does.
You know, this illegal, immoral distribution of funding, you know, to buy power and control.
You know, they start off with an idea that corporations, business interests need to benefit from this and get large benefits from the government.
So that happens, but they want to hide it because it is turned into, we're feeding the poor.
You heard it already.
We're building houses for the poor people.
Yeah, let's check the record.
Let's check the record and find out we're giving free medical care.
Yeah, we sell a lot of vaccines.
And it's good for business.
So I think that the welfare is big.
I went to Congress many years ago believing that welfare was people on food stamps, poor people on food stamps.
And now I think it's rich people who want to become very much richer.
And they said they always have it.
So the distribution, then when there's a problem, they say, oh, look, we build houses.
I trust Jimmy Carter for building houses than I would anybody in current government.
Exactly.
Well, another fallout from this, Dr. Paul, has been that foreign leaders are looking at what's happening in the U.S.
The AID is doing all of these things overseas that are very, very nasty and anti-democratic.
Well, they're starting to write to Washington saying, can you expose the NGOs in my country that you guys funded to overthrow our democracies?
And go to the next one.
Now, this is from an article.
Go to Forget America.
Go to the next one after this.
Forget America, foreign leaders want to know exactly how far U.S. meddling went in their own backyards.
Go to the next one now.
This is Robert Fiefso, the Prime Minister of Slovakia.
And he wrote to Elon Musk.
And he said, so he wrote and he asked for clarity on exactly what funds AID sent to Slovakia, requesting a face-to-face with Elon Musk as the past operation of USAID is, quote, extremely serious for the internal affairs of the Slovak Republic.
And now, if this continues, Dr. Paul, it'll be fascinating because all of these foreign leaders are going to say, you guys were interfering in our elections, in the way we run our governments.
We want to know who's behind it.
You know, it just makes the point stronger than ever because my theory and my efforts when it comes to monetary policy and the strength of the Fed, audit, audit, audit, find out what they're doing.
They can't do it secretly.
And yet the people who are doing this say, oh, national security prevents the people to know what is actually going on.
So we want to, you know, we don't want interference by certain people.
So they go ahead and do it.
But if anything else, a true Republican type of government happens that it has to not have this secrecy.
There has to be open government.
And I've said before, there was a very well-known right-wing, right-leaning old conservative that, you know, he told me once, and he was very active back after World War II.
And he said that, he says, Ronnie, and he was an FBI guy instructed to get the CIA fixed up.
And he said, and I was, and this would have been in the 70s.
I talked to him.
He says, you know, you cannot have a republic if you have an instrument like the CIA.
And that is blunt but clear.
But they say, we just need better people running the CIA.
That's what I don't believe.
Because if they're not corrupted when they go in, they lead toward more corruption.
Yeah, that's a big problem.
Well, I wanted to just show another leader who also said, and this is Victor Orban in next door Hungary, next to Slovakia.
Now, he put out a post a little while ago, a couple days ago, and this is a pretty good one.
He said, what we have learned about, what have we learned about the work of USAID thanks to President Trump?
The globalist liberal elite used U.S. taxpayers' money to force their own progressive political agenda down the throats of people around the world.
Then he says, we better start looking for new conspiracy theories because the old ones have proven to be true.
That's great.
Isn't that great?
And it didn't come out of our office.
We're just repeating.
He's a great guy.
Anyway, I'm about done, and I'll just conclude by, and I want to do a shout out to James Cabral for kicking in 40 bucks today.
We really appreciate it.
Hope we see you down here in March.
If not, maybe we'll see you in the summer in D.C. Daniel Hamill also kicked in.
We appreciate that.
But put on that last clip, if you can, to remind everybody, and I will put a link in the description of our March 22nd conference down here in sunny, a little chilly today, but sunny Lake Jackson, America in the Age of Trump 2.0.
This is not going to be a love fest, guys.
Changes Ahead 00:04:10
This is going to be a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly, and to see where the world and where the U.S. particularly has changed.
You're going to want to get your tickets.
I was looking, Dr. Paul, before we got on today.
It looked like we sold about a third of the tickets already in just the first week and a half or so.
So looking good.
It's going to be a great group.
Wonderful.
You know, I keep talking about exposing government for what they're doing in secrecy, and that is why auditing is very important.
But the tragedy is, is most of this stuff shouldn't exist.
And that's why funding is so important.
Why do the American people do this?
But a country can be falsely in a situation believing they're very wealthy if a counterfeiter is the central bank, because they can make a lot of people happy.
Even the poor and the middle class are happy at the beginning.
But it also causes so many problems.
And it's all fake.
Much of the wealth is fake.
And all of a sudden, things change.
Foreign policy changes.
The whole situation changes.
And all of a sudden, you know, conditions between countries changes.
But I think most of what we're witnessing now, where there are problems and what are we going to do?
What are we going to do without this money flowing into our coffers?
Well, something has to change.
And there's no doubt about it because I think the marketplace and the ideas that exist by a prevailing group of people is key to what's going on.
So that is why our effort has to involve, if we want to protect ourselves against all this, yes, do our best in a political sense, in an economic sense, but ultimately the protection comes from trying to get away and get our kids away and a whole generation away from government-run schools.
And that is coming around.
I mean, Trump is even talking about that.
I think it's great because that's where it is.
And there's been, you know, cultural Marxists.
Marxism, you know, want control.
They want control from the beginning, and that's why they attack families and the responsibility of the family.
Now you can have the government make decisions for young people on their medical decision.
And I think that is atrocious.
When I first started medicine, if we put a stitch in a child of underage in an emergency room, we were in big trouble.
And even though it needed to be done, the phone call would be made for the parent to make the decision.
But now that's not the case.
Anything from abortion on to changes of sex can be done by some social worker in a government school by pressuring the system that way.
So I think all that is coming to light.
There's more, more available.
You know, we complain about the shortcomings of the internet and other technology.
But I tell you what, it's a place where there's going to be revelation about what's happening.
I think it's great because the information is there and they won't be able to stop it.
I don't know much about how all that works, but I just don't think for a minute that there will be a monopoly, total control of all the electronics to watch and swion people.
You just have to get it out of the hands of the government, monopoly of controlling all this fancy, wonderful technology.
But the best thing I think we should defend is just the understanding of what personal liberty is all about.
The funders understood it, and we have benefited by it, but I think it's at risk.
And the more people we can alert to it, the more we can do the prevention.
Trump is right.
We're stopping wars.
We're not going to start war.
What we want to do is stop inflation by having honest money, that sort of thing, and prevent the wars and prevent the inflations and prevent all these problems.
That would be a much better way to go if we're seeking peace and prosperity.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the weekly report.
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