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April 30, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
29:45
Bankruptcy: House Republicans MASSIVELY Increase Military Spending Bill

House Republicans have stepped up to Donald Trump's plate just weeks after Trump announced a trillion dollar military budget for the first time. Mike Johnson's House Republicans ADDED another $150 billion to push the official spending bill over the trillion dollar mark. That's ten thousand dollars PER FAMILY going to the military-industrial complex. Also today: Is the Ukraine mineral deal on or off?

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Steve Cannot Understand 00:14:46
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.
Happy Wednesday, Dr. Paul.
How are you?
Doing well.
Middle of the week.
Yeah.
In the middle of a problem.
We have this problem I thought was going to be solved.
They were spending too much money, and we set up a committee to find out where the wasted fraud.
They found billions and billions, if not trillions of dollars of wasted fraud.
But can you believe, yes, you probably can.
Can you believe the budget's going to go up and the deficits are going to go up?
And we work so hard, and I've been working all day, and I have to come up with it still, still thinking about it.
We can't leave everybody despondent and say it's all negative news.
There has to be some benefit comes out.
Just the education and the understanding of the nature of the problem should be a positive.
So we'll search for that.
But to begin with, we have to start with some really sad news if you're thinking about economics and deficits.
And this, of course, comes from anti-war, from our favorite friend, Dave DeCamp.
And he's talking about this.
And he's, I think, a great writer, great researcher.
We quote him all the time.
We need more Dave DeCamp.
Okay, the headline is, Republicans unveil bill to bring 2025, I think we're in 2025 already, the 2025 military budget to over $1 trillion.
Well, that in itself sounds bad, but you know what?
It could be worse than that, the way it's going.
$150,000 billion dollars to the budget and on and on.
And I know you've memorized all those numbers and where are they going to spend this money and you're going to pick out the good stuff and cancel the bad stuff.
That was easy choices to make.
So I think this is so bad.
And in the midst of so many promises and so much education through the study of waste and fraud in the government.
And you'd think the American people would be for it.
You'd think the politicians are for it.
But it doesn't look like they are because it looks like, well, I think the Republicans have some responsibilities.
They control, supposed to control a little bit, but they're the ones who have the final stamp of approval.
And they didn't find a nickel to cut.
So this to me is sad.
Because over the years, when I would do speechings to a general audience, especially a young audience, you know, I would explain, you're in trouble, kids.
You're going to suffer from this.
There's going to be inflation.
And, you know, I described what I thought was coming.
But I didn't like to end it that way because it's not that complicated.
We know why we're in this trouble because we have bad economic policy and bad foreign policy.
And all we have to do is adhere to this.
But it's still a political thing because I always so worried it is true.
You can gather up emotions, including many good people that want to cut, that you don't cut with food stamps and food for babies that are sick and increase bombs that are nothing more than warmongering and benefits to the military industrial complex.
But this is what this is doing.
This money is going to the military, exactly opposite of what we believe that should be done.
So if you wanted to develop a policy of gradually or steadily cut, cut, cut and avoid the collision and the collapse, it could be done.
But it has to be done by stopping these stupid wars and all this militarism, the power of the military, the industrial complex, and it could be done.
But right now, sure, the revolution of a couple months ago with the election does not look like it's bringing about much fruition.
I think it looks bad.
Yeah, Trump has fallen for the siren song.
We got to be a great nation.
Well, to you, it would mean, well, we have to have our financial house in order.
We have to be trading with people.
We have to be raising our standard of living in the U.S. because we're getting rich.
But unfortunately, in the old way of thinking, which he's now fully embraced, being a great nation means spending tons and tons of money running the global military empire.
And when you run a global military empire, it is extremely expensive.
But what we thought he understood, which apparently he must not understand, is that this will be the end of the U.S. Spending this level on the military will be the end, because just the interest on our military budget is bigger than the next item in the budget.
It's just a massive, massive amount of interest.
And you ask yourself a question, well, if we have to spend a trillion dollars, we must have the best military equipment in the world.
We must have the best military in the world.
Well, we put everything we could short of a nuclear weapon to try to defeat Russia in Ukraine, and they failed.
We've talked about it before.
Highmars, Atacoms, Javelins, the Bradleys, they all failed on the battlefield.
So we're not getting a lot of good stuff, although the companies making it are getting rich.
And look what's happened in the Red Sea.
The Houthis almost shot the USS Harry Truman.
They had to do such a crazy maneuver.
We talked about it yesterday.
Such a crazy maneuver they lost an F-18 off the deck of the ship, right?
These are Houthis.
Everyone's laughing about them.
They knocked out 22 predator drones at a half a billion dollar cost.
So what are we getting for this money?
Nothing.
More danger, more risk, more financial problem.
You know, they say the budget for this year is $885 billion.
And I find that, well, the clip in David's article, I think, makes a very important point.
He says the U.S. has never officially had a $1 trillion military budget.
He says it's way over it.
Because once again, it's sort of, you can't audit the Pentagon, and you don't know where they get the money.
But he goes on to say it has exceeded $1 trillion for years.
And then he goes on to say, oh, he quoted Winslow Wheeler.
I believe you've quoted him in the past.
Yeah, he spoke at one of our lunches.
Winslow's a great guy.
Yeah, and he says, he says it's based on $895 billion FDA.
He says it's not.
U.S. national security spending for 2025 was expected to reach $1.7 trillion.
This is so outrageous.
I don't know where their minds are.
Yeah, you know, or where their concern is.
It just is so devastating that it just confirms the fact that my warning to young people has been, I don't think the people will respond and cut back and go back to work.
You know, an individual might do that, a company might do that.
They would go bankrupt and they quit wasting money or they sell out or they marginalize and they get another job or whatever people have to do.
And a country doesn't do that if they have power over the monetary system.
And this is the power of the Federal Reserve in combination with many internationalists is so powerful, so big, they think they control every single thing by controlling the dollar especially.
But right now, the dollar's on the wane, and the crisis is coming.
I believe it can't be avoided.
But what we can do is urge people to prepare for it, to know, are we going to get the people conditioned for reforms and try to renew a spirit that the founders had?
Or are we going to just roll over and do it and become Venezuela and live with the consequences with a dictator?
And that's what I fear the most.
Yeah, and I think there's a big part of the party that voted for Donald Trump that was attracted to him talking about, just like with George W. Bush, I want a humble porn policy.
I don't want to be an empire.
People like that.
And then they get in office.
Well, here's the, when we get a chance, we'll put up that first clip.
This is just to show people what we're talking about.
This is Dave's article up there today on antiwar.com.
If you can put it up there, the House and Senate Armed Services Committee, they're going to add another $150 billion.
As you said, Dr. Paul, it was $885.
That seemed a little chintzy.
So they're going to up it by another $100 billion, $150 billion, I should say.
But I did find a clip from someone who I think, even though we may not always agree with him all the time, I think he's a very astute and intelligent observer.
And here's the thing.
He understands strategy.
He understands politics very, very well.
Very close to President Trump in the first term.
And that is Steve Bannon.
And he's got a quote that I think is great because it reminds me of something that you would say.
And let's go ahead and put that first quote because he's talking about what a disaster this trillion-dollar military budget.
Play that first video, please.
If we can get that up.
This is Steve Bannon here.
Full screen, Steve.
And let's get him full screened and played.
There we go.
Listen to Steve Bannon.
And in this reconciliation, the big beautiful bill, they're going to throw another $150 billion.
That's over a trillion dollars.
And I'd love Pete Hegseth, but when Pete Hegseth puts out a trillion-dollar defense budget, all caps, I'm not feeling good.
I'm not feeling like you got control of the building.
The important thing here is that for America to be safe and to get a defense budget that doesn't drive us into bankruptcy, because you are not going to be able to touch social programs until you get cuts in defense.
And people up there right now are selling you a bill of goods.
And in this way.
Great quote.
Yeah.
The only word I would softly say could be a stronger word.
I don't like to call it defense.
I like to call it the military budget because I think it's more offensive and more an increase in our danger, not in doing anything to defend ourselves.
But that's a technical word, semantics.
But anyway, I don't think they call Steve anymore for advice, do they?
Well, I think Steve is still very influential, you know, and he gets the political part of it.
Yeah.
You know, which we don't really delve into politics, but you're not going to be able to cut any of these other things.
Obviously, you've got midterms coming.
You're going to play around with people's Social Security.
It's not going to happen.
Because this is the elephant in the room.
Anyway, when you get into the increases, and thanks again to Dave for going through some of this stuff.
This first, if you go to that next JPEG, the bill includes $25 billion for President Trump's vision to create a new missile defense.
Go back one, please.
A new missile defense system for the U.S., which he called the Iron Dome for America, or the Golden Dome.
And Dave comments, the project would be a boondoggle for U.S. weapons makers and would likely click off a new global arms.
We've sort of seen this movie before, Dr. Paul.
Remember under Reagan when they were going to do the Star Wars and they spent billions and billions and they finally realized it doesn't work.
It's not going to work.
Maybe we should just concentrate on developing a policy where people don't want to bomb us.
That might be a better defense.
That would be better.
You know, and I always assumed that there would have to be a new emergency.
You know, somebody invaded another country or there was a massive hurricane or who knows what emergency to justify it.
Now, they're justifying putting this in the budget, but they haven't even passed this year's budget, so they can't have an additional appropriation.
But because of the lingering the way the system works, you just hang in there.
You keep adding on up until the day it has to pass.
And then they use their usual tactics to get people to join in.
And that's, you know, going to be a big fight to get this thing finally passed.
But, you know, just in one of the recent votes, some of the hardcore Republicans, they really twist arms.
I understand the pressure and all that stuff.
And you can't have your way all the time.
All those arguments.
So I guess there were two Republicans that held out on that last bill.
But it'll be interesting to see what happens.
But it's a big deal.
It's a big deal economically and politically.
And it's going to get a lot of attention.
And I think by that time, there's going to be a lot more people suffering from these consequences.
Because once again, we have criticized Trump for some of his policies like tariffs and things like that.
But the people can't think in those terms.
The inflation, even though Trump hasn't done much to help, he's arguing lower interest rates and all this stuff and more money.
So the policy hasn't changed.
But the problems we're facing today, the inflation and the misallocation in the economy, that is a consequence of even further back than of Biden.
You know, it goes back.
It's a whole system.
And of course, it was gradual and steady, and people became immune to it.
It was especially an explosion of this attitude after World War II.
Well, the thing is that when you look at what kinds of wars are envisioned.
Well, first of all, I was going to say this, by the way, Trump was elected by working people by and large.
He was again able to capture working Americans who want to have good jobs brought back in the country.
And you have to imagine that they're going to be disillusioned when they see what's happening here.
And you'll go to that next clip because what this money is purchasing, this is welfare to the rich.
They're talking about cutting welfare to the poor.
This is welfare to the rich.
According to The Hill, the bill includes $33.7 billion for shipbuilding.
Welfare to the Rich 00:06:08
Shipbuilding.
We've got the Harry Truman up there in the Red Sea terrified of the Houthis.
It's 1,000 miles to the north of Yemen because it doesn't dare get any closer.
Well, we're going to build more ships.
We're going to fight the last war.
$20 billion for munitions.
Well, we need that because we gave them all to Ukraine.
You don't even have a single bullet left.
$13 billion for innovation, i.e., tossing away money to all kinds of different think tanks and what have you.
$12 billion for nuclear deterrence.
$11 billion for military readiness, et cetera, down the line.
Aircraft, lots more aircraft.
Got to keep Lockheed Martin happy.
$5 billion for the board.
I love this last one, though, Dr. Paul.
$380 million for the Pentagon's annual audit.
They've never been able to pass an audit, yet we still keep spending almost a half a billion dollars to audit, to audit this.
And I did have a couple clips, though, because it's really kind of sad because here's President Trump bragging about this trillion-dollar budget.
Let's put that second video clip on and listen to President Trump talking about how wonderful it's going to be to have to spend a trillion dollars listen to Trump here.
We have great things happening with our military.
We also essentially approved a budget which is in the facility.
You'll like to hear this of a trillion dollars, one trillion dollars, and nobody's said anything like it.
We have to build our military, and we're very cost-conscious, but the military is something that we have to build and we have to be strong because you've got a lot of bad forces out there now.
So we're going to be approving a budget.
And I'm proud to say, actually, the biggest one we've ever done for the military.
We have great.
I'm proud to say the biggest one ever.
But put that next clip on if you can, because I just want to know what happened to this Donald Trump.
This next Donald Trump is the one that we were clapping for just weeks ago.
Put that next video clip on.
This is the same guy, I'm pretty sure.
He looks just like him.
Full screen listen, listen to the Trump just a few weeks ago.
One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia.
And I want to say, let's cut our military budget in half.
And we can do that.
And I think we'll be able to do it.
Just a few weeks ago.
I want to cut it in half.
Then he brags about how it's bigger than anything.
If you and we say something, you know, pointing this out, who loses the credibility?
We, we lose.
He's mad at us.
Oh, you guys are a bunch of hypocrites.
Yeah, why do you hate the president?
We don't hate the president.
We just like that other president who seems like he's the same guy.
We liked him a lot better.
And I did this next clip because I thought it's funny because it reminds me of something that you always say about compromise.
Put on that next JPEG, Republicans in the House.
This is classic, classic U.S. Congress.
Republicans in the House initially proposed a budget plan to boost military spending by $100 billion.
Well, Senate Republicans pushed for a $150 billion increase.
That's compromise when it comes to this.
They'll settle for $149.
Yeah, exactly.
I'll say that.
Yeah, that's how it works.
So the last little thing that I have on this, Dr. Paul, is a great commentary by the good folks up there in New Hampshire, the Free State.
Libertarian Party of New Hampshire put out this post on X. If you put the next one up, this puts it in perspective.
If you are struggling with groceries right now, like a lot of Americans are, a $1 trillion defense budget, rights to the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, is $10,000 per year per American family.
Should national defense really cost so much, they ask, to which we would say, not unless you want to have a global military empire, which is clearly, it seems, what's happened sadly to the administration.
You know, I use, excuse me, I use the word defense.
I use the word defense frequently because people understand because everybody uses it.
But I don't like the word because it's such a force.
It has nothing to do with defense.
It has to do with offense, has to do with the military-industrial complex.
So that's the real problem.
We should never call it defense because it makes us Less able to defend ourselves because we're building for the economic crisis and all.
But you know, there's two things that I think that motivates the people to roll over and accept this and not even open their minds at all to some of the things that we say.
One is defending one's own country is sort of a sacred thing to do.
And if you don't, if you don't vote for every weaponry, that means you don't like America, like the blame they put on me when I take in this position.
You hate the military.
Well, there were statistics to show that wasn't the case.
That there's no hate of the military.
But they say, but so there is a sacred, you know, the one thing that is rather annoying, everybody who has ever been drafted or been in the military, that they have to be thanked for their loyal, wonderful service.
And I keep thinking, how many stupid wars were they forced to fight?
And that is ridiculous.
But the other thing is the politics of the Middle East.
You know, the picking of the sides of the two factions in the Middle East, that is sacred also.
And if you're not on the so-called right side of that one, you can be destroyed.
And if you ever would vote back, well, indirectly or directly, it's going to be picket sides there.
And libertarians aren't supposed to pick sides.
That's why I want to pick the side of the American system.
Exactly.
Minerals Deals and Middle Eastern Politics 00:08:12
Well, the last one we want to talk about, we'll do it really quickly, but this is just kind of another one of those.
I mean, I guess we're kind of negative on Trump today.
We don't mean to be, but he's doing some funky things.
Now, this next one, this is the now, I got up this morning and you sent me the original clip saying that they're going to sign the mineral deal today.
And I said, okay, I file it away in my brain.
I start thinking about it for today.
I get into the studio, and this is what pops up.
Put on that another last-minute, if you can find that clip.
Sorry, I'm jumping around a little bit.
Another last-minute dispute delay signing of Ukraine minerals deal.
So when you came in the studio, I said, Dr. Paul, there's an update.
It's off again, on again, off again.
Apparently, and this is the update 10:46 Eastern Time from Zero Hedge.
Another minerals deal headline that wasn't, not for the first time.
A Ukrainian delegation's plane may have been literally rerouted mid-air amid Wednesday reports that the Trump-backed deal was to be signed in Washington within hours.
Ukraine's first deputy prime minister, Yulia Shrivdenko, was flown to Washington to sign the deal with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, said three Ukrainian officials.
But problems arose as her plane headed to Washington, and Besant's team told her she should be ready to sign all the agreements or go back home, said three people.
And apparently, she decided to go back home.
So no deal right now, at least as of this second when we're talking.
Well, when you got me all confused after I gave you this lead, I went back and looked.
I have three things here printed out this early.
And one is stated, or time-wise, was 8 o'clock.
The next one was 8:16.
And the next one was 9:45.
So it's hard to keep up because policies keep changing.
That's how ridiculous the policies probably are.
So this is to me a sickening response or reaction to a foreign policy that is not very wise.
That is all this, to me, it looks like it's divvying up the spoils.
And as if it were absolutely necessary.
The only way you divvy up or spread out or fairly distribute something is through the marketplace.
So even under a hurricane emergency, the last thing they should do is ration and keep people from raising prices and all this kind of stuff.
So if you want to take care, it's during tough times that you don't want to have wage and price control.
World War II, I remember wage and price controls then.
Korea, wage and price controls.
Nixon, wage and price control.
And they never work.
So that to me is what is so disgusting that they keep falling back on here.
And this is one reason why we need another course in economic policy.
One of the reasons that motivated me to make an attempt at educating a few young people by promoting homeschooling.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, what I wonder really is why is President Trump the person and his administration, why are they expending so much effort, so much time, so many finite resources on pursuing a deal like this and pursuing a ceasefire like they've been doing.
This is taking up an enormous amount of the administration's time, and I have to wonder why.
Maybe it's just Trump desperate for something he can scream is a win.
But the whole minerals deal is insane from the beginning.
As many people pointed out from the start, Ukraine has been one of the poorest countries around.
If these minerals are so valuable and so readily accessible, they would have already exploited them.
And in fact, a lot of people speculate that the recent deal that Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, signed with the UK government, the 100-year partnership, includes those minerals.
So Zelensky's running around selling the same minerals, you know, he's like the charlatan that he actually is, selling the same minerals to anybody who will listen, you know, like the guy with the trench coat or something.
And so that might be what is happening.
But why are they putting in so much effort?
Because remember, when Trump first started this, we are going to take $300 billion worth of minerals, the money that we sent you, we're going to take it back in minerals.
And they said, no, you didn't give us that much, blah, blah, blah, blah and forth.
So they dropped that requirement.
I think yesterday.
Okay, never mind.
You guys can just have that money.
You don't have to pay it.
Don't have to pay it.
That to me is amazing that he has so much clout.
How does he get away with this stuff?
It's so arrogant.
But the ridiculousness of expecting them to pay back that loan that we marched in and we became a participant in the coup and everything else and all these wars.
All right, once we take that oil from Iraq, it's going to help balance our budget.
It didn't work there.
And it's a bad system.
We ought to still promote the cause of liberty and property ownership.
The most frustrating thing about the policy of the administration toward this war is that Trump still doesn't seem to understand reality on the ground, which is that Ukraine is losing the war.
They won't have a say about the minerals.
They've already lost the eastern part of the country.
A lot of the minerals are in the eastern part of the country in the first place.
They're not going to get those because that's Russian territory now.
Why is he trying to make a deal with the side that's losing the war and then he's acting frustrated with the side that's winning the war because they won't give up?
Why don't you just stop fighting?
He just said it yesterday.
Putin, stop shooting.
What if someone would have told us that in World War II?
Stop shooting.
We're almost to Berlin.
Stop shooting.
You don't do that in a war.
And he doesn't seem to have anyone around him who can tell him that this reality, you know.
You know, one of the arguments in the past decades has been you have to fight for the oil.
You know, and Saudi Arabia always involved.
And we have to protect our sources of oil and keep the prices down.
And this doesn't really work because eventually there was no shortage of order.
They have different ways of finding oil.
And now what about these special minerals?
And maybe there's a lot more out there that they have no idea what's available.
Instead of crying about it and going to war over it, they ought to just let the market work out.
And believe me, if they're around, they'll be found.
And now look at the oil in the world now.
It's estimated to be so much bigger and accessible than it was 20, 30 years ago.
But they're not willing to look at the advancement of technology, especially if it were in the marketplace.
So they, the politicians who run that, just create the problems that we have.
I mean, just all the things we talk about in foreign policy, they didn't come out of thin air.
They came out of bad policy and profiteering and a few other wicked things.
But I would hope that I can end up on a positive point by just saying, you know, the only thing I could see right now that could come across this is positive is waking people up because I see that as what happened under COVID.
When people woke up, they became much more critical and they still are.
It's tragic that so far under this new Congress and the new presidency, there has been nobody charged and nobody in prison and nobody penalized for the criminality associated with COVID.
And there were a lot of promises before that and people are still suffering from it, but they have not pursued this.
Closing Thanks 00:00:29
And the person that wrote the article was more or less dumbfounded himself.
I'm dumbfounded.
Why don't they do anything?
Well, that might explain the power of the deep state.
Who knows what the real problem is, Daniel?
You know, I just want to close by thanking everyone for watching the show today.
Please hit that thumbs up and pass the show around.
Please subscribe if you're not already subscribed.
Over to you, Dr. Paul.
And very good.
And once again, I want to close by thanking our viewers for tuning in today.
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