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May 15, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
29:37
Neocon Senators Declare War On Trump!

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Old Problems, New Hope 00:04:59
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.
Good.
Doing well.
Excellent.
Summer's almost here.
Oh, yes.
Oh, if not, we have to worry about hurricanes.
Oh, don't say that.
But I don't spend any time worrying things I can't change.
Why am I worrying about the government?
Why am I not?
Why do I worry about neocons taking over?
So that statement couldn't hold water, though.
But anyway, we have a personal responsibility as far as I'm concerned.
If we have knowledge and we've been informed and we're motivated to think that policies could be improved in Washington, I think it's something that we should do.
And we've been trying to do that for a few years.
And some days we're encouraged and some days we're not.
Today, we want to talk about an old problem.
And lo and behold, we're talking about a relationship with a country that was changed dramatically, not just recently.
This has changed, you know, constantly and continuously.
We're always looking for a fight, and Israel, they don't get along with them.
But I'm referring to 1953.
Eisenhower gets in.
It was one of the first things he did was he orchestrated an overthrow.
It had an oil deal with the British, and we were buddies.
And it was that incident of taking over that the radicals took over and led to the hostage takeovers.
But there it was.
But nobody really wants to, that's old history.
That shouldn't matter.
But it's the history.
You could go there in the Middle East.
History is important.
How about Ukraine?
If they don't even want to remember 20 years ago or 10 years ago about why wars come about.
And it's usually bad policy and bad motivation.
But anyway, Trump's been, and we have to hope he's on the right track of trying to have better relationships with Iran.
And he has somebody over there negotiating.
And it was hopeful that something would break.
But not to our surprise, all of a sudden we read the headline and we realize more than 200 Republicans work to sabotage chances of a nuclear deal and understanding with Iran.
So that's a little bit discouraging.
And when you look at those numbers, that's a lot of Republicans that are involved in that.
And I think they were busy.
The opposition was busy writing a letter and trying to slow this down until Trump, you know, give Trump a little bit of advice.
But it hasn't, it's not finished until it's finished, you know, not yet.
But we'll be watching this closely.
Yeah, and the backdrop to this, Dr. Paul, is I think what by all accounts was a successful trip to the Middle East by President Trump.
He went to Saudi Arabia.
He gave a great speech where he completely trashed the neocons.
It was one of the best speeches I've heard.
We talked about it yesterday with Chris when you were playing hookie.
But it was a great speech.
He trashed the neocons.
He made a lot of deals.
You know, I don't know, whatever.
Then he went to Qatar.
Then he went to United Emirates today, I think it is.
You know, great speech, successful trip.
And in the midst of this trip, there is talk, and there must have been talks with the Saudis and the Qataris about Iran.
But there's trickling information about success and maybe even a breakthrough on Iran.
So here's the backdrop.
Put up that first clip that just came out on Hedge this morning.
White House has presented Iran with a written nuke deal proposal in huge first.
And this is an update just a few minutes ago with President Trump and his envoy having arrived in the UAE for the last leg of the president's tour.
New details of behind-the-scenes U.S.-Iran negotiations have come to light on Thursday.
In a huge first, the Trump White House has sent Iran a written proposal toward forging a new nuclear deal.
White House envoy Steve Witkoff has led several rounds of talks, and Oxios has revealed that the communications were issued to Tehran last Sunday.
The next clip points out that both sides have received the other's written proposals positively.
Now, you can imagine, Dr. Paul, how the neocons are absolutely flipping out that it looks like a deal might be closer, you know, within reach.
As I listen to this and keep studying what's going on, I still am bewildered.
Behind-the-Scenes Negotiations 00:15:35
Why are neocons neocons?
Why are they so determined?
And of course, it boils down to various things.
And a lot of times it's just plain old money and political power.
But nevertheless, it's done in a very, very messy way.
And they're very determined.
And, you know, the whole neocon movement, they're well placed.
And I think people were a little surprised.
They thought Elon Musk would straighten them up.
It doesn't look like Musk is going to, they didn't grab hold of his suggestion.
The goal now is to do whatever they can to destroy his reputation and not have this introduced.
But the neocons are everywhere.
But to me, neocons are a reflection of a particular philosophy that endorses a government different than our constitution.
And a lot of them pose as constitutionalists.
They say they're conservatives.
Of course, being conservative sometimes can be a risky use of terms.
I'd rather bump into somebody that says, I'm a strict constitutionalist.
That's a little safer to deal with.
And they say, oh, I'm a conservative.
Well, the libertarians and freedom fighters don't like to use those terms.
They like to use the term that demonstrates limited role for government.
And here we have these people planted.
I think the public knew the neocons were running roughshod over us, and they became unpopular with the COVID mess and the foreign policy mess.
And they were routed out of office.
But you think, some people let their guard down.
Well, Trump won, the neocons lost.
But I tell you what, it's still very, very dangerous on who has clout up there.
And I guess in many ways, when there's a battle, having somebody that is adamant and will speak clearly, Trump, that at least the voice that tends to come and trends in our direction, at least we hear him speaking out.
There's a little bit of that going on right now about this negotiation with Iran, because we've been doing it, like I said, since 1953.
And there are some people are still, the neocons didn't get invented this last 10 years or so.
The whole issue of authoritarianism and control of foreign policy and tangling alliances, which is all what the neocons love to have.
They love power, and that's what we're up against.
Yeah, exactly.
And here's more details from, this is actually from today.
Go to that second clip.
President Trump followed up on Thursday by saying from Carter, this is just today, as he left for UAE, we're in very serious negotiations with Iran for a long-term peace, is what he said.
Now, here are a couple of interesting teasers.
Now, this was sort of a breakthrough yesterday.
If you go to that next one, this is Ali Shankani, the Iranian official who serves as military nuclear advisor to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni.
Here's what he said yesterday, Dr. Paul.
He said Iran would commit to never making nuclear weapons, getting rid of its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, which can be weaponized, agree to only enrich uranium to the lower levels needed for civilian use, and allow international inspectors to supervise the process in exchange for immediate lifting of all sanctions, economic sanctions on Iran.
Asked if Iran would sign an agreement today if those conditions were met, Shamkhani said yes.
And that article where he's quoted here, if you go to that next clip, that article was reposted by none other than President Donald J. Trump.
Obviously, he thinks that's important and a breakthrough.
But this gets us back to where we wanted to start today, Dr. Paul, which is in the face of this potential huge breakthrough and reduction in the chance of a destructive war.
Turn that next clip on.
This is that Dave DeCamp wrote up on antiwar.com.
In the backdrop of all of this, 200 Republicans work to sabotage chances of Iran deal.
They sent a letter, more than 200 Republicans in Congress sent a letter to Trump urging him that any deal with Iran must involve the complete dismantlement of Tehran's nuclear enrichment program.
Complete dismantling of all their nuclear program, which the Iranian officials have made clear is a non-starter.
That is absolutely understandable because any IAEA member has a perfect right to enrich.
Anyway, so there's a little bit of, there's a tiny bit of good news in this.
The letter was signed by 177 GOP House members and every Republican in the Senate except for Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky.
Good move, Rand Paul, because this is a good move for a couple of reasons, Dr. Paul.
First of all, it's the right thing to do because understanding the diplomacy isn't pounding your shoe on the table like Khrushchev at the UN and making demands, but it's understanding that there's something about compromise.
And it also is not under, he's the only U.S. senator not actively undermining his own president in this process.
You know, a lot of these people that are opposed to what Trump is trying to do, they don't bring up the subject very often of the international agreement that already exists.
I mean, we've had the international, that means they're in denial that the inspection has said there's no evidence.
You know, that was the same case with Iraq.
You know, when it was done over there, they were lying too about it.
But now they totally ignore it.
So in a way, these people that say we have to do this, this, and this, they're saying, well, under the circumstances, you know, we're doing pretty good.
We've had the inspection and they're not likely to quit unless they're provoked into doing something else.
But they can do that and they're able to get away with that.
But the inspectors have indicated that there's no evidence they're building a bomb.
They haven't enriched that far.
Our own CIA says it is.
You've already hinted that some of that enrichment may well have medical needs for that.
And I think one thing that they wanted to propose, I don't think Israel's in favor of it, and that was have a coalition with another country that's friendlier to Israel and United States.
Why can't they do that?
And they find a country nearby, have a regional agreement to that.
But anyway, nobody talks about the fact that how long has it been since the Iranians have been convicted of having been close to a nuclear bomb.
I don't think they've ever been, oh, next month we're going to have the bomb.
Well, Netanyahu has been saying this for 25 years.
Every time he's doing this, well, this next clip shows you a little bit of the letter, and the letter is a weasel letter.
There's no question about it, because it distorts what Trump's position has been.
Now, Trump's position, understandably, because when you're in negotiations, you don't say, this is my final word.
It's been slightly in flux.
This is one area where his not being absolutely set in stone isn't a bad thing.
Put on that next clip.
Now, here is what they're trying to pin him down to something that's not his words.
Go to the next one, Axel.
That's the letter.
Okay, now here's the part I want to draw your attention to.
You, in the writing to Trump, you and your administration have therefore correctly drawn a red line against any deal that allows Iran to retain any enrichment capability.
That is just simply not true.
That's trying to tie President Trump's hands.
And you can see these first three signatures.
I don't recognize Pete Ricketts.
I'm sure he's a neocon.
But the next two are Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, two major, major neocons.
If you go to the next one, here's why this whole thing is important, Dr. Paul, because the original JCPOA, the deal with Iran made under President Obama, was not able to get through the Senate as a treaty.
So it was only a deal between the president at the time and Iran.
So when Trump came in, he ripped up the deal, which we thought was a bad idea, and we still think it's a bad idea.
So if they want to get something that's permanent, and the thing about, I think if you're the Iranians, hey, we already agreed to this deal and you ripped it up.
So if the next president's going to rip it up, why are we going to do this?
Keep that up there, please.
That's what their position is.
So here's what David captures the importance of it.
The vast congressional opposition to the deal will allow Iran's enrichment program to stay intact will be noted by Iran since it's aware that any deal without congressional approval could easily be erased by a future president.
That is the real problem, and that's why this letter is so significant.
Now go to the next one.
I know this is going to shock you, Dr. Paul.
President Trump has been threatening to bomb Iran if a deal isn't reached, meaning that if the talks fail, the U.S. and Iran could go to war.
The letter was celebrated by pro-Israel lobby APAC, since Israel wants the U.S. to participate in an attack on Iran.
This is AIPAC writing on Twitter X. Today, the overwhelming majority of Senate and House Republicans reaffirm that Iran must dismantle its nuclear program.
They're calling it an important effort, the letter being an important effort.
So they probably drafted the letter.
I would not be surprised.
I would not be surprised at all.
But what they never talk about is there's various Jewish groups, like not one or two, maybe 10 or so.
It comes out for a more peaceful approach.
But all we hear from, and that means the neocons are in control of the major medias, and you have to come to the Liberty Report to find out what's going on.
That's right.
That's right.
Well, I think we've seen many polls recently saying the Americans are sick of this.
They're sick of APAC.
They're sick of them pushing us around to the perceived benefit.
And I think to your point, the perceived benefit of one country, because I don't think APAC is helping Israel at all.
You know, their positions have put Israel as the enemy of everyone else in the region and most of the rest of the world.
So they're not doing Israel any favors.
But nevertheless, the U.S. House and Senate Republicans are now finding themselves at odds with the American people.
And that is a good thing.
Now, the next article we're going to talk about is from Responsible Statecraft.
This is a poll that came out a few days ago, Dr. Paul.
And some more very surprising results.
If you put this next one up, you got to read this twice almost.
Nearly two-thirds of Republicans support talks with Iran.
Two-thirds of Republicans do not want to go to war.
They want to have talks.
And this is a new poll that came out, the Critical Issues Poll.
And you can go to Responsible Statecraft and get all the numbers on this poll, but I think it's over a thousand people they surveyed.
Go to the next clip.
And then I'll just, Dr. Paul, I'll just show the chart.
This is the poll that we're talking about.
The methodology is there if you want to have a look at it.
But here are the two critical charts from the poll.
If you go to that next one.
Okay, question five.
American policy aims to limit the likelihood of Iran developing nuclear weapons.
Which path do you prefer the administration pursue to achieve that end?
Now, military action, only 24% of Republicans, only 5% of Democrats want this, but a negotiated settlement limiting Iran's nuclear program to peaceful ends with stringent monitoring, 64% of Republicans, Dr. Paul, support this.
78% of Democrats.
And overall, among respondents, almost 7 in 10 say, we want a negotiated settlement.
We do not want to go to war with Iran.
So how out of touch are senators and congressmen sending this letter and undermining the president?
They must get a lot of donations from APAC.
You know, this is great news in reality.
And people will say, well, we're on the right track and they're strong enough and they'll call their congressman and this is going to reverse.
But do you recall, which I know you do, what it was like in the early part of this century when the first polling about going to war against Iraq made no sense.
And the polls were all on our side of this.
It made no sense at all.
But, you know, they didn't go to war right away.
All I remember, it was on and on.
And they, you know, sent people through Washington to propagandize.
And eventually they went ahead and did it.
And the people didn't say too much.
And so my advice is be alert.
We have to be alert and we have to get the message out and we need help.
Anybody, these people, the majority is on our side.
They need to talk about it.
But I guess it's difficult.
Everybody has things to do.
They might have to worry about COVID again or something.
Yeah, I mean, that's such a great point, Dr. Paul.
Every single one of these 64% of Republicans who said no should be on the phone right now, today, with their congressmen saying, I saw that you signed this letter.
I completely disagree.
Be respectful.
Don't be a jerk.
Be respectful, but make your voice be known.
It does make a difference for people to call.
It really does.
So I just wanted to draw your attention to one other chart on this poll, Dr. Paul, which is also very interesting.
And this is something APAC would not want you to see.
Go to that next one.
So this question is: in your opinion, it's a little bit hard to understand the wording.
In your opinion, which of the following would be the least dangerous, the least dangerous for stability in the Middle East?
Now, the number one is the question: Is only Israel having nukes, only Iran having nukes, both having nukes?
I don't know.
But the answer that won overall is neither having nuclear weapons.
This is an astonishing 63% of Republicans think it would be better if Israel, neither Israel nor Iran, had nukes.
Among them is that 75%.
Again, all respondents, seven in 10 prefer that neither side.
So maybe we should be talking about Israel giving up its nuclear weapons to make more stability in the region.
You know, early on in the presidential campaigns, I would talk about Israel does have the nuclear weapons.
Somebody came and whispered to me, Don't you know that's a secret?
The worst secret.
You're not supposed to say that.
So there's never been an acknowledgement by Israel that they have how many?
Israel's Nuclear Weapons Debate 00:08:01
10, 20?
100?
Of course, all you need is about two to start a war that wouldn't end well.
Yeah, absolutely.
So anyway, we'll see what happens on this.
But we wanted to just do one other thing while we're on the topic of the neocons.
And I just, I literally pray that Trump sticks to the words that he said in Saudi Arabia because he was absolutely right.
But people often ask, you know, who do I like to read?
Who do I find, you know, inspirational or informative?
And James Cardin is one of those people.
He's a realist.
He's not a non-interventionist strictly, but he's a very intelligent realist.
And I read everything that he writes, and I consider him a friend.
We communicate at times, but he did a great piece for his realist review, which is his substack.
And it's a very good one.
And anti-war picked it up.
Revolving door: why can't Trump quit the neocons?
Now, this was written before the Saudi speech, so keep that in mind.
But what Cardin is talking about is the revolving door within the Trump administration.
He talks about Mike Waltz, who was shown the door because he was found to be colluding with Netanyahu to keep his own boss in a box, you know, and the neocons.
But he points out that he wasn't the door, but a revolving door where he ended up in the United Nations as the ambassador to the UN.
Where is this?
This is in limbo.
He's not a neocon, but he's not on our side either.
But they really come down hard on the people that spout it off and do nothing about it.
And some of the other people involved in this, it's not news, but it's just so aggravating.
When you see a Texas senator, that's terrible.
Mr. Cruz, Mr. Carson.
But Cruz has been around a while, and he usually has an opponent, but Texas is getting more Republican.
And that means, are they getting more neoconnish?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's the same.
But that whole thing, that wall's firing was a big deal.
And then the point that the author was making is the revolving door was a little sloppy there, you know, because it's easy in medical and FDA.
You're in the government, you learn the terms, you know all the people, then you go and work with a drug company.
And you wonder why they can charge that much for drugs when they're running the show and they're running the regulation.
Hopefully, Trump is looking into that.
Hopefully, that deserves a lot of improvement.
Why don't they just say, why don't we let the free market do it?
Yeah.
Well, you know, the whole thing about Trump's anti-neocon speech was the kind of the elephant in the room was that, you know, your administration is peopled by neocons.
You know, you've got them all around you.
Well, you know, wake up and smell the neocons.
But here's what Cardin also pointed out: Marco Rubio is another neocon revolving door beneficiary.
He points out that Waltz's colleague, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is now set to inherit the title and responsibilities of U.S. National Security Advisor.
He rightly points out he's the first to hold both jobs since Kissinger, which is where the parallels between the two end.
That is true.
His stock is on the rise, writes Cardin.
What that actually amounts to when someone is mercurial is Trump is at the head of the table, as anyone's guess.
But he points out the significance is that Rubio is absolutely dedicated to Zelensky in this conflict.
He's absolutely dedicated to keeping this war going.
And this is an important point that he makes, Dr. Paul.
He's now with this dual role, the most powerful neocon since Vice President Dick Cheney.
Still worse, Rubio's takeover of the NSC, National Security Council, provides cover for the neocons that Waltz brought in with him.
The personnel is the policy.
You know, they cleaned out Waltz, but all of the underlings, all the neocons are there and they remain there.
Well, what does the president do?
He wants real advice.
Can he go to Rubio and say, what do you think we ought to do in Ukraine?
Do you think we could bring some troops home?
And boy, that's a mess.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Longstanding.
Well, the other thing that just the final thing that Cardin does in the piece is he talks about the people who are actually interested in diplomacy in the administration, and there are some.
They are under fire.
And I go to that next one.
Steve Witkoff is one of them.
He is being brutalized by the neocons.
And he was even called anti-Semitic by Mark Levine.
And Witkoff himself is Jewish.
I mean, it's insane because Witkoff is trying to negotiate.
So here's what James Cardin writes.
Steve Witkoff, who served as the president's envoy to Iran and Russia, has emerged as a primary target of pro-war neocons and GOP neocons, pro-war Democrats and GOP neocons, which he said is a difference without a distinction, or distinction without a difference.
So the New York Post says Steve Witkoff shouldn't be leading Iran-Russia in negotiations.
Mark Levine said that he was in league with fifth column isolationists.
And Applebaum, another neocon, said she sees his jaw-dropping ignorance.
He knows nothing.
He has no knowledge of the violence the Russians have used, etc., etc.
And go to the next one if you can.
And James points out Witkoff is setting off alarm bells, not because he succeeded and he probably won't.
I'm paraphrasing, and I highlight this part, but because he's committing the biggest sin of all, engaging with Moscow and attempting to empathize and understand their position.
That's what they're mad about.
They don't want diplomacy.
They want war.
That seems like his punishment, so to speak, should have been a little bit better than that luxurious place at the United Nations, where he can still have access to a lot of people to continue his dirty work.
Yeah.
Finally, he does mention Sergio Gore, who he points out rightly, very, very powerful position.
He's head of personnel in the White House.
Very powerful person.
He used to work for Senator Paul for quite some time, if I remember correctly.
I think from when Rand started out there, I'm not mistaken.
And so the tablet, which is a neocon tabloid, Cardin points out the tablet is going after Gore, Sergio Gore, because he has those credentials from Rand Paul.
And they're worried because they don't want people like Witkoff and Gore and people who actually want to have a diplomatic foreign policy and solve problems.
They only want war.
So hats off for another great piece from James Cardin.
That's right.
That would be a real sad day if they're able to bump him out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'll close out my week, actually, by thanking everyone for watching the show again.
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Over to you.
Very good.
And I too want to thank our audience for paying attention to us.
And Daniel, in a clear voice today, urged people to call their congressmen and let them know that if you're on that list of people that said you ought to negotiate and not be authoritarian and say you're, if you don't behave, we're going to bomb you, and and the Congress, you know is, is supporting a lot of that Neocon stuff and uh, they gotta have to, you know, respond to the people, have to respond and let them know and uh I, I guess uh,
I guess the people just can't keep up with everything, but that's one of our goals is, help them keep up with some of the item items in the news.
Empire's Unending Disaster 00:01:00
Uh, that's important, but it's gonna getting no coverage and that's how, like I said, in the Iraq war uh, the people were against it, but a year of politic and turned it into a disaster that uh, it's so not even over over there, you know, there's still troop, our troops, there and uh, it's, in a way uh, you know, very close to the empire.
It's empire building, and I don't think the group in Washington right now or the Congress or the executive branch are dedicated to unwinding the empire, because the empire has to live on a lot of misinformation and sometimes outright lying about what's going on, because that's the way the system works, because they're challenging the truth of what's in our Constitution and what represents a
goal of peace and prosperity.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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