Massie Criticized (Again) For Opposing Reckless Spending
Here we go again. Congressman Massie refuses to support reckless government spending and increased debt. President Trump comes out to criticize Massie and says he should be primaried. Many will remember that we've been down this road before with the trillions in Covid spending (and subsequent inflation). Massie vehemently opposed the Covid spending, was criticized by President Trump, and was primaried. Massie was right and won the primary election. It's not a good look for President Trump to do this again.
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Chris Rossini, our co-host.
Chris, welcome to the program.
Great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Good.
You know, we're going to be talking about a certain individual that we have a lot of respect for, and it's a shame that we even have to do this.
But once again, our president, that we try very hard to support everything he says, that it lends toward that free market that we're looking for in a free society and First Amendment rights.
But anyway, he went after, once again, he went after a friend of ours who has earned respect and is probably the most straightforward person in the Congress, except for maybe somebody in the Senate.
But Thomas Massey earned the wrath of the president because he said he wouldn't vote.
He says, I don't think anybody's going to give me a lobotomy and erase all my memory before the vote comes out, but there's no way I could vote for this.
And it wasn't hard to figure out why not.
He happened to believe that you're supposed to follow your oath of office.
It's no more complicated than that.
And he staked out his territory.
And once before, probably during the campaign, he stood his grounds on being independent and Trump went after him.
And what I'm annoyed about, and maybe Chris is too, is that why would they pick on this, especially that Trump has made overtures to the libertarian group of people in the Republican Party, because that group is silently growing and being instrumental.
And that's been reflected on a lot of what they are doing.
There's no doubt about it.
But you can't gain favor with people who are standing and taking the blows for the Constitution and turn around and say, well, on this day, we need it because we're going to save the world.
So he's unhappy with the plan for Thomas to vote against the appropriation bills and what's coming up.
And it's outrageous that the comparisons he's made.
But there's no doubt that people who know anything about libertarianism, freedom, the Constitution, and dignity and telling the truth would realize that Thomas Massey is unique.
And there's a lot there that would say, yes, but we're in a situation where we have to be, you know, it isn't so much that we're against Thomas, it's that we don't want to give any edge to the Democrats because taking a weight away from the Republicans means the Democrats could win the day.
There is some truth to that.
But if you do that for a couple years or 10 years or 20 years, always compromise and say, well, you know, it's just the lesser of the two evils.
And before you know it, the Republican Party is endorsing, not only just trying to stop things, they had endorsed over these many decades, you know, the spending.
I mean, this spending problem, the inflation problem, the foreign policy problem.
I just don't see that as a democratic problem.
I think it's an American problem.
I think the situation is bad.
I think this belief in this tyranny of the majority has a lot to do with it.
So it's more complex than that.
But to pick out one person, say, ah, if we don't lose this one vote, you know, the whole thing comes down.
Well, that's a very weak philosophy if one vote can destroy it like that.
But anyway, I'm sure Thomas will manage to survive with this.
Who knows?
Maybe he'll get a promotion before it's all over.
And I think that's the way a lot of his supporters think of it.
Chris?
Yes, very good, Dr. Paul.
There's always a problem whenever the Democrats are kicked out of power.
And that problem is the Republicans, because the Republicans are huge spenders, often, very often worse than the Democrats.
And there's always an excuse, always, always, always.
So this time they want to just push it to the end of the year.
And by the time that comes along, all you need is another excuse.
So Thomas Massey is standing up.
He's not going to go along with it this time.
This is supposed to be different.
We have Doge.
But, you know, and then last night, President Trump came out with this statement that, I mean, it's just so ridiculous.
I'll quote some of it.
He said, he should, he, Massey, should be primary.
And I will lead the charge against this.
He's just another grandstander who's too much trouble and not worth the fight.
This is where it gets.
He reminds me of Liz Cheney before her historic record-breaking fall loss.
The people of Kentucky won't stand for it.
Just watch.
Do I have any takers?
And quote.
I mean, how outrageous can you get talking about one of the best congressmen in our country?
If we only had more of him, we would not be in this mess.
And the thing is, we've been down this road before.
Anybody who remembers COVID and the trillions of dollars that were printed and the inflation that we suffered because of it, Thomas Massey stood against it.
And President Trump lambasted him, called him a third-rate grandstander, had him primaried.
Massey was right.
Massey won the primary.
A ton of that COVID money was fraud.
They don't know where it went.
He was right.
So, I mean, even if it happens at this grand plan that the Republicans have and they end up doing it, okay.
You don't attack Congressman Massey like this.
It's poor taste and bad judgment by our president.
The 80s after Reagan was elected, and I was a strong supporter of Reagan, and they came up with a budget that was not a good budget.
Matter of fact, it had more debt in than all the yearly deficits that Carter had had.
So I was a little bit annoyed.
I voted against that.
The Republican Party back in Texas were going to sanction me for this.
And I said, well, you know, my defense was, you know, this is okay, but why don't we compare the record?
Why don't you take my voting record and compare it to the Republican platform and see who has done the best?
And, you know, nobody ever looks at a platform later on.
And they certainly don't look at the Constitution in detail.
But they didn't do that.
But they did drop this whole idea of sanctioning me because I think the whole thing is they knew darn well I was closer to all those declarations in the platform.
And I voted that way.
And they were the ones that were compromising.
But anyway, there was many times when that came up again.
But the easiest thing to do to survive all that is exactly what Thomas does.
He states his position by the way he votes.
Everybody knows it.
And most of them respect him for it.
And to gang up on him and say, well, we got to get rid of him because he's helping the Democrat.
You know, it's preposterous.
It's so sad to see that.
And that's why, so this say because, you know, the Republican Party has already gone soft on some of this spending and it's not going to be nearly as good as pretended by the Efficiency Committee to, you know, really cut back.
So it'll be the same thing all over again.
And of course, that's been my prediction, Chris, that it would not be stopped, that we can't do it.
I support it all.
Anything is cutting.
I'm going to support.
But I also said that the likelihood is of that really going through and cutting back.
You could cut 1% off everything we ever did up there and the budget would be balanced in no time.
But they will not do that.
So they just go on.
So this is the reason I said it's going to end.
There's too much debt.
There's too much malinvestment and there's too much government.
And they've tried for a long time to settle it with getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse, which I'm all for because I think government is wasteful and fraudulent and abusive and start too many wars.
So it's something that exists.
And that's why they cannot stop the roller coaster of the collapse of the economy because all this accumulated debt and the malinvestment, all the mistakes would have to be ironed out.
It doesn't mean every single thing, every dollar gets ironed out that people used during these periods of high monetary inflation.
But the whole system is based on this.
We wouldn't have a foreign policy if we didn't have all this inflation coming from the Federal Reserve.
There's so many ifs, ifs, ifs.
But nevertheless, I do not believe that the current efforts will solve our problems.
I'm glad they're doing it.
The Republicans are doing it.
And every time they cut, I'm okay with that.
But the thing of it is, the powerful pressure of the special interest is such that there's always going to be somebody get up and say, oh, yeah, our problem is that Thomas Massey's a communist.
That's going to work.
And he works with the worst kind of Republicans.
That's a sad story.
But it also means that in spite of it, if that's the way you have to get a bill passed, how can you be optimistic that we're on the road to fiscal integrity, Chris?
That's right, Dr. Paul.
And as we've mentioned on this show, yourself and Daniel, Doge will end up just being smoke and mirrors if Congress just keeps the status quo.
And how ironic that we went through this whole big election.
And this is it.
This is the big revolution.
And the Republicans are going to be the ones to make Doge, you know, they're going to neuter them.
But that's what is bound to happen, as you say.
And, you know, spending and debt, this is theft from the government.
And the burglars always have an excuse.
The burglar will always say, you don't understand.
I have to steal this just this one more time.
I have this reason.
I have to steal.
Just let me steal this one more time and then I'll change my ways.
And that is government.
Just let us push this further down the road and then we'll change down there.
And it never ends.
If you're going to cut, it has to be like Doge.
You know, Elon Musk and his team went in there and they're just firing people.
And that's it.
That's how it has to be done.
You can't be just kicking the can down the road because it'll never happen.
That's how we got into this mess.
37 trillion.
And the Republicans want it to be more, much more by the time they're done.
I mean, this is typical Republican stuff, but they have rhetoric.
It was the same thing with the Reagan administration.
Lots of great rhetoric.
I remember I was a kid.
What a great speaker.
Really inspiring.
But when you look at the spending and the debt, it was off the charts.
So again, we have a good speaker.
He's entertaining.
He knows how to fire people up.
But we're past that.
We have to get this government cut down or we really are going into bankruptcy.
So that's the problem we face.
And Thomas Massey is standing against it.
I want to emphasize the fact that a so-called victory by manipulating things and embarrassing and pressuring people to vote a certain way, it's not a victory.
And you pointed out that so, so well, Chris, that even if it goes through, what have they done?
What's been achieved?
And I think this is something that people don't realize.
And, you know, it's real easy for us to blame the system and the politicians in charge.
But I think that is still a consequence of the bigger picture, the one that I emphasize all the time is the political and economic philosophy that has come out of our universities for over 100 years, an indoctrination of many, many generations.
And they actually believe some of this stuff that they're talking about.
Because if we were in charge, the limited government people in charge, the Constitution was in charge, oh, the people would be devastated.
Well, I happen to believe the people would be well of.
I'd love to have my freedom back and a lot of other people would too.
And then when they got a taste of it, it would be all right.
But the fact that the educational system has misled so many people, but there's also, you know, the political organization, the group of people who believe in democracy, get the majority to agree on this, and we can do anything.
And there's also a human nature to say a free lunch is something that we like.
We got it for free and the money is being passed out.
So why do I get my fair share?
And they join and they become lobbyists themselves.
And so it's the lobbying industry that come together.
So we have a lobbying industry in medicine, pharmaceuticals, the military, and education and all this stuff.
A lot of that is being looked at right now under Douche.
But what we're arguing is that without a more determined emphasis on an accurate explanation and no wimping out and say, oh, this is too much.
We can't do it.
They won't vote for it.
Patriotism Under Fire00:12:44
Well, that might be a good signal.
You know, there's something wrong with it.
But the lobbyist business, but where does this all come to?
I go one step further.
I mean, we do, we have lost a lot of our liberty, but we still do have access to the voting.
And everybody would say, yeah, it worked pretty well.
The people spoke out and they kicked out the crowd that had been in there for four years.
And they put in people with different ideas.
And that's all good.
So the people do have a vote, but there's a lot right now.
That vote is still being manufactured and promoted by mainstream media in spite of their exposure on how horrible they are and how much they have had to give up on their propagandizing.
They're still powerful.
So a lot of people, but the people band together and they've been taught to be totally dependent.
Well, if you get rid of Medicare, there would be no medical care ever.
And I remember when we didn't have that stuff, you know, and things weren't nearly what they described.
And it is true that if you cut that off tomorrow and said, we got you addicted to all these giveaways and freedoms, and we're going to print the money and let nature take care of the payment, which would be the, you know, the recession, depression, and all the nonsense that go on.
So the people ultimately, if there's any freedom left, it's up to them.
And sometimes when the freedom is practically gone, it's finally when the people wake up.
I'd like to wake up people sooner and make sure that people like Thomas Massey do not become the target, Chris.
Excellent, Dr. Paul.
I'll say one more thing about Congressman, and we'll go to our second topic.
Yeah, Congressman Massey, keep up the great work.
You have much, much more support than today, I'm noticing on X than even back during COVID.
You've earned it.
So keep up the great work and you're doing the right thing.
The second thing Dr. Paul and I wanted to talk about is these arrests and deportations for speech, I believe, on college campuses or wherever are happening, criticizing either Israel or our country's support of Israel.
And the way government works, always, we know with 15 days to slow the spread, what that turned into.
We know with censorship, they started with Alex Jones, and then everybody was getting censored.
The income tax was for the richest of the rich.
Don't you worry about it.
Now everybody pays income tax.
Government always gets their toe hold, the camel's nose under the tent, and then eventually it spreads to everyone.
That's just how it is.
They know it.
And that's why they start on the edges with foreigners coming here with visas and green cards and doing protests.
And when you're in America, we're allowed to protest.
We have freedom of speech.
There are laws against crimes for everyone, not for just protesters.
If you commit a crime of violence, then there's laws.
But if people are being targeted for criticizing a foreign country or our support of a foreign country, that's starting trouble because then that can spread to American citizens very easily.
And God forbid something like that happens.
We saw during COVID what happens.
What a disaster.
I mean, we don't want to repeat that with a foreign policy, which we all as American citizens have every right to criticize our governments, what they do with our money.
And if they're supporting any foreign nation, our position and Thomas Massey's position and Dr. Paul's position is nobody should get foreign aid.
Nobody should get these weapons.
We should take care of America.
And we have every right to say that, and every American has that right.
So it's very, it's a slippery slope.
Once we start censoring people for criticism and protest, even if they have foreign visas or green cards or whatever it is, it can turn bad on Americans if it's allowed.
Internationally speaking, this is not just in the United States where there's more and more attack on the First Amendment.
And internationally, they talk about people who speak out about Islamophobia.
That's an easy thing to attack.
They're even going after, you know, more of a religious symbol of blasphemy.
And they want to punish people who are saying things that are not approved.
And also the hate speech.
Well, you know, there's a lot of hate going around.
Probably there wouldn't be people left if they never expressed, you know, or could be charged with saying, oh, that's hateful for doing this.
Anyway, that's so I would say that, yes, we're bad off.
Hopefully we don't get as bad as some others, but Britain seems to be leading the charge.
There was a time in history where they led the charges for First Amendment rights, you know, the rights of man.
But that does not seem the case right now.
And the one thing that's going on, I think, is a form of blackmail.
We break the law by taking money and giving it to our friends and our neighbors and the people who are supposed to do what we tell them on trade and do what we tell them on foreign policy and wars.
And if they don't, of course, they get in trouble.
Sometimes we turn on them or whatever.
But right now, what's happening is if they say, if somebody on a campus says something that we don't approve of, then we'll go after them.
And the one now is that Islamophobia is saying anything about Islam and Gaza and all this stuff.
Can you have a fair and balanced debate about the Middle East policy or even a more fair approach to how we got engaged in spending these tens of billions of dollars in Ukraine?
I think that the door gets opened.
It's like, okay, there were demonstrations on the campus the other day, Columbia, and they were saying things that just aren't true and they were being anti-Semitic.
And oh, okay, we'll take away their money.
They either straighten that out or we're going to take our money off.
Why did we give it to them in the first place?
Then they go in and say, well, they're not even doing the propaganda we want.
All right.
We're not going to send you any money.
And then all of a sudden, that perks up the university.
Hey, maybe we better be cautious.
That's so removed from the concept of freedom of speech.
My simplification of what I think of the First Amendment is they didn't write the First Amendment so that we could talk about the weather.
I think we have the First Amendment because we can criticize our government.
And I think that's the difference between patriotism and non-patriotism.
There's a lot of patriotism thrown around.
It's usually militant driven.
And I think that that is the thing.
They say that a good patriot did not.
No, I think of a person.
I think of Thomas Massey as a patriot because he knows the Constitution.
He actually votes that way.
And one time somebody asked me a few questions like that, and they were giving me credit for my defense of the Constitution.
I said, why are you talking to me?
The other candidate said the same thing.
He said, yeah, but we don't believe them.
But I'll tell you what, people in Washington believe Thomas, and it's a shame to see somebody with so much power.
But, you know, the fact it would be pretty neat if, well, you've already mentioned that, Chris.
There's been criticism before, but he went on.
And even though he was receiving this criticism, he won more overwhelmingly than ever before.
So truth does win out.
That's why we should be more optimistic than sometimes how we get more pessimistic than we need to be, Chris.
Very good, Dr. Paul.
I'll finish up with my closing thoughts.
With liberty, many Americans know this.
You have to be vigilant because the attacks never stop.
No matter who's in power, Republicans, Democrats, Trump, Harris, Biden.
It's like tending a garden.
There's always going to be the weeds that are going to try to take it from both sides.
Same things, freedom of speech, your rights.
Both sides try to take it.
You have to be vigilant against it.
So we're now getting it from the Republican side.
And we have four more years of it.
So we're here at the Ron Paul Liberty Report to defend our liberties.
We want government to have its proper role.
But, you know, the government is run by people and people can be authoritarians, especially when they have power.
So, you know, we all have a mouth, a keyboard, and we can speak the truth and speak the ideas of liberty and make sure that that garden keeps the weeds as far away as possible.
Good.
You know, I want to read a statement by Trump dealing with the First Amendment.
And this came about relating to what was going on on the college campuses.
And his statement was, all federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests.
And I was thinking to put up a parenthesis in there, like January 6th.
Is that what you're talking about?
You know, oh, yeah, most of it, there's so much illegality there.
It's so much involvement probably by the CIA and others to set that whole thing up.
But under the law, you know, we're going to punish people.
Agitators will be imprisoned or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.
American students will be permanently expelled or depending on the crime arrested.
So, and that's it's not because they were accused of killing somebody or hurting somebody or stealing something.
This was for saying something, you know, stop any college from that allows protests.
Well, that's what it is.
They might be just putting up a sign.
They might be shouting.
Who knows what?
So that to me is a shame that it's drifted into that because I'll tell you, when I left Congress, I did a little statement, a farewell statement.
And I looked briefly at the 10 amendments.
I said, I think the First Amendment is the most important because they're all good in the Constitution.
It's basically a good document.
But I think that if you have the First Amendment and you can say things and you don't get arrested, but even when our country started, there was violations of this principle.
But it survived.
It's still there.
And there's a few libertarian legal experts now that are strong defenders of the First Amendment.
And I think it's critical, even spite of all this other economic intervention and foreign intervention, you can't curtail it if you're silenced.
And sometimes it's their embarrassment.
They want to silence the people who are speaking the truth, not because they hate the person or hate the ideas, but they don't want to be personally embarrassed.
They're pointing out that we're doing the wrong thing.
And all of a sudden, we have to get rid of him and we have to silence him.
Oh, he's a bunch of like all those other neocons and people, you know, fibbing away and supporting all this nonsense.
So I think that it's very, very important that we recognize this and we should every opportunity defend the First Amendment because I think it was one of the strongest, if not the strongest motivation for people wanting to come to early America for the fact that they wanted religious freedom and First Amendment speak is freedom.
So I'm always saddened to see especially a country, a nation like England right now coming through and being the leaders in undermining the First Amendment, the right of free speech.
Enough Is Enough00:00:27
So eventually people did wake up over the COVID incident and stood up and said, enough is enough.
We don't want it.
It's still a threat, but there's more resistance now than ever before.
So I think that's what we need is a lot more defense by the average person in the streets and arguing the principled case for freedom of speech of First Amendment.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.