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May 27, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
30:25
Trump Hits 'Crazy' Putin In Rage Filled Post

It didn't have to be this way. President Trump had the opportunity when first inaugurated to wash his hands of Biden's proxy war with Russia through Ukraine, but he could not resist intervening further. Now as things are not going as planned, he is raging at both sides, attacking Putin and Zelensky. Also today, Rand versus Lindsey on Russia secondary sanctions...who will win?

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Persisting Problems 00:14:35
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 Tuesday, Dr. Poe.
Did you have a nice Memorial Day?
Oh, wonderful.
The holiday and the weekend's over.
Back to work.
Back to solving all the problems.
But a few of those problems just keep popping up.
They don't go away.
You get some new ones, but the old ones just stick around and makes everybody nervous.
But before we start in talking about Trump's most recent political statements, which caught a touch of most of America, he calls people names.
Did you know that?
Very rude.
But we'll be polite and we will just quote him and nothing else.
Okay, but what I want to start with is an article from KitGo, you know, the website that keeps track of the gold and silver and all these precious metals and business news.
And the headline today that caught my attention was, what's the end game of dollar collapse, depression, inflation, or civil conflict?
I think a pretty good question we've been asking.
We try to answer, and a lot of people are talking about it because I think more people are thinking about it than they have in a long, long time because everybody knew it.
You know, even way back, even before Bretton Woods broke down, people knew this is the way it would end.
Now it's down to the wire and they're saying, is it going to be next week or next year or whatever?
But I want to just comment on the question.
It says, what's the end game of the dollar?
Is it going to be depression?
Is it going to be inflation?
Is it going to be civil strife?
And I would say, yes, yes, yes.
All of the above.
So it'll come in bits and pieces, and some things will be more dominant than the other.
But the one fallacy that I think I want to talk about for a minute is the fallacy that if there's a slump or depression, almost all politicians say, well, you have to solve the problem by lower interest rates and feed it with money.
And they believe they can manipulate the economy's ups and downs and have a smooth, they always talk about, yeah, we can stimulate it, we know that, but we're working on the day when we know how to have a smooth landing.
They keep looking for it.
That's what they're looking for.
But more people now are believing that there's not going to be any smooth landing.
But I want to just read a little quote from that article that sort of sums up the frustration about all that.
It says, according to data from the Treasury Department, the U.S. now adding roughly $1 trillion to the national debt every hundred days.
Fair sum of money, driven by rising entitlement costs, defense spending, and interest payments.
Net interest on the debt is projected, just listen to this one, to exceed $1.1 trillion this year, just the interest.
Wow.
Outpacing defense and Medicare spending.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal deficit this year, $2.5 trillion in 2025.
All I can say is, it's a good thing those liberals didn't win.
It's a good thing we have the Republicans to cut back.
But a lot of people knew it wasn't going to happen.
I think the people who wanted to cut back are sincere, but they're not sincere with the honesty of knowing what history is all about.
Once you get people totally dependent on government debt and government giveaways, and you can't wean them off.
They don't want to be weaned off.
You can pretend to do that, but eventually you always have to add on and add on.
And this one's going to be horrible.
Is up to 36, there'll be 37 trillion dollars.
And that means there's going to be a lot of problems.
You're going to see a lot of hectic things.
And you'd think this would be the top opportunity for them to listen to us on foreign policy.
You know, and we're going to talk a little bit about foreign policy, about how are we going to get them to stop.
But they never say, maybe we ought to stop by quit feeding the money into all these wars and then borrowing the money and then adding problems for us.
Anyway, that's where we are today.
I think the deficit's going to go up.
I don't think my little talk here is going to slow down anything at all.
So I'd like to go ahead and find out who's using this tough and terrible language against our president.
And should we try to get them to quiet the concerns?
Well, you use the word frustration.
That's the appropriate word you use in the context of the economics.
But President Trump has expressed some frustration over the weekend, and you can see it now coming.
He's done everything he's been told by his advisors.
Unfortunately, the ones he listens to aren't the right ones.
And it's not working.
He keeps doing the same thing, and he's not getting a different outcome.
So he was over the weekend, he was interviewed.
And we actually have that clip that we should listen to.
They asked about President Putin.
There have been an increase in drone attacks on both sides.
And you might want to grab that earpiece, Dr. Paul.
Let's go ahead and watch that clip of President Trump expressing his frustration.
Let's full screen that and let's get rid of that on the upper right-hand corner before we start it.
There we go.
And I'm not happy with what Putin's doing.
He's killing a lot of people.
And I don't know what the hell happened to Putin.
I've known him a long time.
Always gotten along with him.
But he's sending rockets into cities and killing people.
And I don't like it at all.
Okay?
We're in the middle of talking and he's shooting rockets into Kiev and other cities.
I don't like it at all.
All right, so what do you want to do about it?
I'm surprised.
I'm very surprised.
We'll see what we're going to do.
What am I going to tell you?
You're the fake news, aren't you?
You're totally fake.
Any other questions?
I don't like what Putin is doing, not even a little bit.
He's killing people.
And something happened to this guy, and I don't like it.
I'm not happy.
Well, there's lots of things I don't like, I'll tell you.
And it's the denial, total denial by establishment, Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, neocons are the worst.
And that is no sense of responsibility for their contribution to this ordeal that we're all going to live through.
And they just claim that it's all one-sided fault.
At the same time, people know that our dollars, our money, and our weapons have stirred up a lot of problems.
And I'll bet you would probably agree to a point that it really hasn't slowed up all that much, all the money and weapons reverse today.
No, and there may be some new stuff coming down the pipe if Trump's new turn.
Now, he was last week, Putin was fine, we're getting progress.
Now he's gone crazy.
I don't like him anymore.
We're not friends anymore.
We're not best buddies anymore.
But there was a now he followed up that comment.
I'm not sure the exact timeline, but with a post on his Truth Social.
If we can put that post up, I'll read a little bit of it.
Similar kind of perspective here.
He says, I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him.
He's gone absolutely crazy.
He's needlessly killing a lot of people.
And I'm not just talking about soldiers.
Missiles and drones are being shot into cities in Ukraine for no reason whatsoever.
And then I'll skip the last part, but that's essentially what he's saying.
Now let's dig into this a little bit, Dr. Paul, because he's talking about he's killing a lot of people, if I can do a Trump impression.
Now go to the next one.
This is Sky News.
These missiles that went into Kiev killed at least 12 people.
Now that's a tragedy.
That's terrible.
But 12 people is not a lot of people in a war.
And in fact, go to that next clip for some perspective.
Israel strikes, hit school, turned shelter in Gaza, killing at least 36.
That's a lot of people, and they're killing more than 100 a day.
He's not mentioned anything about Netanyahu killing a lot of people.
But anyway, back to this, Dr. Paul.
He's saying Putin is launching drones into Ukraine for no reason whatsoever.
Well, let's go to the Telegraph, which is an extremely anti-Russia newspaper in the UK.
And they reported just before the Russians launched these strikes, Putin's helicopter fended off drone attack.
So the Ukrainians, and the big question is, where did they get the intel?
They apparently, Dr. Paul, launched drones toward Putin's helicopter when Putin went to Kursk.
So that would be number one, why they were angry.
Now, number two, this is our good friend Larry Johnson.
He put out something, and we have it up on the RPI website too.
Larry Johnson is responding to Trump's outburst saying, gee, why would Putin order massive strikes on Ukraine on May 24th and 25th?
No reason whatsoever.
And Larry Johnson says, it appears that no one briefed Trump on what Ukraine did starting May 19th.
Between May 19th and May 25th, Ukraine conducted a significant escalation in its drone campaign against Russia, launching over 700 drone, 700 drones across various regions.
Now go to the next one.
Last one, Dr. Paul, because I think this is the important bit of context.
Just imagine how Donald Trump would react if Mexican drug cartels launched 700 attack drones into the U.S.
We all know the answer.
The U.S. would be bombing Mexico as we speak.
Trump's failure to acknowledge the precipitating actions of Ukraine is a reminder that this man is driven by emotion, not thought or reason.
And I think that's important because it's just what you said a minute ago.
They never think about what caused this.
You know, 2014, all of these other things, the only is the reaction.
So.
You know, 2014 is a very significant date for these current events, what's happening over there.
And in many ways, I lump a couple units or governmental agencies or whatever it is together that are on one side, which I think really precipitated this whole thing.
Not that the Russians are angels, but Russia happened to have that whole country for 10 some years.
And it's controversial about what the history is all about.
But there were agreements between the West and Russia that we wouldn't be up on their borders.
And I see this as a coalition, especially with the coup.
There's no doubt it's recorded of us participating in the coup to throw out the government that was getting along with the Russians quite well.
And somebody said, too well.
And we don't want like that.
And who was involved?
Well, NATO was involved.
The United States was involved.
Europe was involved.
And they were the ones that decided that borders would be changed or we were going up to those borders.
And just like the point you made, but they don't talk about, you know, why the Russian would retaliate after being hit hard.
So it's such a shame.
The only thing that where I come down on this is that we have a bit of additional responsibility.
I thought of it, especially when in Congress, that we have to deal with ourselves, our policies and all.
And in that sense, if we would be, we have to be critical.
But they're blinded to this, that we could participate in it.
And I can understand it.
But they have to try to separate government action, which leads to big problems, versus the people in the country that we live in that we love.
And you can imagine targeting Putin's helicopters.
Can you imagine if President Trump, God forbid, is traveling somewhere on Air Force One and he's going over a country where that country's troops are trying to take down Air Force One, the United States would not respond.
That's crazy.
Of course they would respond.
They would be firing missiles into that country right away.
I mean, this is a, it was an attempt, it was a blatant attempt by Ukraine to teal President Putin in the air.
And, you know, those kinds of things are high-risk operations.
So anyway, it's a shame that, you know, there are some good things that President Trump is doing and is trying to do.
But these emotional outbursts, I mean, it does remind me of having a teenager at home.
You know, he's just hair on fire over one thing, and then it's the opposite.
He really needs, I think, Dr. Paul, to take a deep breath and stop doing this.
But the big problem is, is a lot of people love that.
Yeah, I guess they're saying that.
They like that.
And they say, well, you have to have a strong president.
You guys are wimps.
You know, you're not out doing it.
But sometimes, as I've mentioned, that the special interest, the money interests and the people to stand up against them, to stand up against the military-industrial complex and those neocons who want to dictate.
And just think of the influence they have in the Senate.
And along with the power of the deep state and the military-industrial complex, they're very powerful.
And they threaten people.
You're going to lose your seat.
We're going to throw you out.
Yeah, well, you talk about the neocons dictating things in the Senate.
That brings us into our second story, which is Lindsey Graham, senator from South Carolina, somehow keeps getting elected.
He was furious over the weekend.
He wrote a strongly worded letter to the Wall Street Journal.
He was really mad.
Put up that next clip.
He is talking up his new bill.
Let me see.
Put up that Senate won't tolerate Putin's games if we can.
The Senate will not, U.S. Senate will not tolerate Putin's games.
This is in the Wall Street Journal.
In this letter, Dr. Paul, he's talking about, go to the next clip.
He's talking about his bill.
Why Tariffs Matter 00:12:58
He said, since taking office, President Trump has earnestly sought to bring Ukraine and Russia together to achieve a just and honorable peace, ensuring global stability.
That's more important now than ever.
America's shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan didn't merely damage our reputation.
It set in motion aggression across the world.
Now, that part is really important, Dr. Paul, because this is what the neocons always say.
It wasn't that we went into Afghanistan and stayed for 20 years, it was that we left.
You know, they always say that if we had not left, it would have been fine.
I heard people 20 years after we were whipped out of Vietnam, and they would still argue that we should be there.
I mean, we were so close to winning.
He said, they're so far removed.
I'm not sure a good lecture and education would be available to them, or they wouldn't absorb it.
I think they're lost when they come to thinking about what the Constitution really says and what non-aggression is like, what the opportunities would be if we did have non-aggression for peace and prosperity.
Sometimes you think they must enjoy this.
They must enjoy all this stuff.
Lindsay does love sending other people to die in wars that he's never going to have to fight in.
You know, that's his thing.
But so, anyway, I just wanted, that was an important point.
I think it's a classic neocon stuff.
But the letter is actually about his bill.
Put on that next clip.
This is from his strongly worded letter.
If we can put that up, the Senate is, okay, so I have coordinated with the White House on the Russia sanctions bill.
This is his bill since its inception.
I highlight this part.
The bill would put Russia on a trade island, slapping 500% tariffs on any country that buys Moscow's energy products.
The consequences of its barbaric invasion must be made real to those that prop it up.
If China or India stopped buying cheap oil, Mr. Putin's war machine would grind to a halt.
The sanctions bill has 82 co-sponsors.
That's a lot, Dr. Paul.
As Senator Thune said last week, if Mr. Putin continues to play games, the Senate will act.
The point is that he's not playing games.
He's fighting a war and he's winning it.
That's what irritates them.
But these 500% sanctions on anyone who buys energy products from Russia.
They deal in economics, how this is going to be an economic benefit, and it's going to keep us from going into recession and depression.
So they use that.
And on the surface, you might find one issue out of 100 where somebody benefited by having tariffs on.
And they don't ask the question, where in the world did I, and how did it happen that our president has that much power?
It's in the Constitution.
He has a little bit to say about it.
But, you know, it's just every day.
I mean, 500%, tomorrow it might be different.
Where does he get this authority?
And that to me really, really bothers me.
But the other thing about tariffs and getting involved is the fact that I see it from the beginning because I see the importance of where does the money come from?
Well, it comes from the people.
Well, you have to take it from the people with force.
You have to use guns.
You send the IRS, and I want your money.
But they take the money from the people, and then they are forced to go ahead and do these things.
But why do they have the authority to come to a poor person or middle-class person that might like, like most Americans, they wouldn't admit it, most Americans buy Chinese goods, you know, and a lot of small businesses are making money off that.
Like, oh, only the Chinese benefit.
Well, these things are, you know, sold.
So there's always a profit along the way.
But I think the subject they should discuss is why does the government take away the right of an individual who worked hard and the money belongs to the government?
First, they say, well, it's taxes.
They have to pay a certain percentage.
No, they don't have to.
We didn't have it that way all the time.
They assume it's the government's money, and then they allow them to spend it a certain way.
I say that the principle of liberty would say, if you work hard, save your money, and invest it the best way, and you don't cheat or steal or kill, and that's a big thing for a government to try to follow those rules.
But they should be able to spend their money they want, but tariffs are nothing more than mischief and intervention.
And then they don't even want, I mean, when you get to Lindsay that far, they're not going to listen to, can you imagine debate him, debating him?
You know, it would be so much demagoguery that they have to be influenced someplace else.
But then again, just like the wars, when the wars persist, well, you left too soon.
So if we have trouble with the tariffs and they back off and then the economy gets worse and they say, oh, you quit too soon.
We need to have the tariffs back again.
Well, you know, it's a bad sign that 82 out of 100 senators have signed on to Lindsey Graham's 500% tariffs bill.
And it really isn't a tariff bill.
It is a secondary sanctions bill.
It sanctions countries that purchase fuel products from Russia.
That's what it's all about.
And the fact that there are so many, and they promise big.
Lindsey Graham says we're going to finally get serious and take them down.
Well, go to that next clip because there is another senator who thankfully is not on this co-sponsor list, someone who has a little bit of sense about him.
Put on that a responsible statecraft article.
This came last week.
A senator by the name of Rand Paul.
And he's sober and he looked at what was going on and he made a sober analysis instead of an emotional analysis.
The headline is, imposing 500% tariffs on nations that trade with Russia will backfire.
Subtitle.
If Lindsey Graham's bill were to pass, it would cause an economic calamity on a scale never before seen in our country.
People should take this seriously.
The next clip says that 500% tariffs essentially amounts to an embargo on anyone who trades with Russia.
Go to that next clip if you can.
He also makes a point, and I did not make a clip of this, but Lindsey Graham and 81 other senators are saying this is going to finally tell Russia to change their ways.
Well, Senator Paul points out that they have already put 16,000 sanctions on Russia, and it hasn't changed anything.
Do they think this additional one is going to finally make them say, okay, guys, you got us?
You know, it's a good point.
Also, this is something that motivates those who say we're sick and tired of all this.
And they go to meetings and guess what they discuss?
It's the BRICS nations are talking about, how are we going to get rid of this dollar?
Yeah.
Because that would bring the United States down.
And the dollar will eventually go and the empire will end.
But it's a heck of a way to make so many people who are totally innocent, you know, suffer as much.
But I think it will come and a lot of people are going to suffer.
And my only suggestion when people are desperate to have something to do, we'll try to stop these monsters who keep saying that war is war is wonderful and prosperous and all this regulation, all these taxation.
And then they go and you put in the conservatives and they spend trillions, trillions of dollars more in one year.
And then they pretend it's not going to be too serious.
Rand the other day was giving a talk about how serious the debt was or how bad that the bill was in the Senate and urged the Senate not to rubber stamp the House version.
And boy, he got really knocked around for that to suggest there was another way to do it.
That's not nice, if you tell the truth.
Get with the program.
Well, put that next one on.
And this is Senator Paul continues.
He said, though the bill seeks to punish Russia, it will also punish America's allies and even the United States itself.
The global policemen in Washington are so incredulous that they cannot force peace between Russia and Ukraine that they formally abandon even the pretense that their meddling is in America's interest.
Now go to the next one.
I just want to get through this really quick.
He goes into the specifics of Lindsey Graham's bill.
Said specifically, the bill directs the president to impose 500% tariffs on all goods and services imported into the U.S. from a country that knowingly sells, ships, transfers, et cetera, et cetera, petrochemical products that originated in the Russian Federation.
The tariff is subject, and I highlight this, to increase by no more than 500% every 90 days, meaning some countries could face 1,000% tariffs in just a few months.
So, this is the funniest part, though, Dr. Paul, because Senator Paul brought out a real laugher in here.
And this made its way through the social media.
If you put that next one on, dozens of countries continue to trade with Russia directly and indirectly, including key strategic allies and even the United States itself.
In 2024, the United States imported $624 million worth of enriched uranium and plutonium directly from Russia.
The United States, like many other countries, has also seen Russian crude oil imported from third countries who buy Russian oil and sell it abroad.
And I've highlighted this point that the senator makes.
Are the proponents of this legislation honestly seeking to require the president to enact a 500% tariff on ourselves?
You'd like to see, you know, what would it be like if you had a good interviewer put that to Graham, you know, on a live microphone?
He cannot answer it.
He would probably deny the facts.
Oh, no, that can't be true or something like that.
Exactly.
Well, the final one on this: Senator Paul's excellent piece in responsible statecraft.
Never underestimate Washington's ability to make things worse.
That is a bumper sticker.
That's almost as good as your signature bumper sticker.
Okay, keep it up, please.
The Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 will cut off our nose to spite our face.
Congress should reject this misguided bill and instead focus its efforts to advance realistic peace negotiations in Ukraine.
And this is an important part: pursue policies that advance America's national interests.
And in between, I didn't make all the other clips, but he's talking about how much is actually going to hurt our close allies in Europe that still do trade, despite all their sanctions, still do trade.
So we're going to actually hurt our allies in this and be forced to sanction ourselves.
Yeah, when you think early on in this thing after 2014 or not too many years ago, where we, it looks like we participated in blowing up something that would have brought countries together.
I think if the gas was coming from Russia into Europe, the North Stream.
And then we were, it has been said that we were involved in that.
And the Europeans go along with this stuff.
But boy, I'll tell you, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
And how the people, the people can't quite comprehend this, but it's amazing to me how they get away with how the Grahams get away with this.
They're not really called on.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a shame.
Well, I'm going to close out if you think we're ready.
And I do want to thank Georgist out there for kicking in $40.
He was interested in our comparison that some deaths are more important than others, unfortunately, in the world.
So thank you for that.
And put up the very last clip.
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Bitcoin's Rise 00:02:50
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Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
Well, I don't know whether we should be celebrating the fact that Trump is tough.
He's going to stand up to these bad people.
And first, you have to do is have strong language.
And our president is not bashful.
He's quite willing to say what he's thinking.
And a lot of people love it.
Sometimes I think it's good when he's talking about the right things about we don't need to start a war.
We should be ending wars.
That's excellent.
But when he goes, and then the debate gets a little confusing.
So his opposition might be on the right track and it could be sorted out with, you know, maybe sitting down and having some diplomats talk it over.
But my first reaction to name-calling and the one side calling the leader of the other country that he likes and gets along with quite well, and that is they're crazy.
He's a crazy man.
Well, he didn't really mean that.
Who knows what?
But I tell you what, that just isn't the language of people getting along.
I think people don't get along because there's too many in charge who are authoritarians and their goals are completely different than the average American who would like to be left alone, would like to be left to the point where they can earn some money and spend it the way they please and that they don't have so many people taking care of them because quite frankly, the government does not do a very good job taking care of us.
They say, well, they're making us safe.
No, the government's not there to make us safe because if you did, you'd have to have a policeman at your front door.
Well, we have them at our front doors and inside our houses monitoring everything that we do.
So I would say that a society that emphasizes personal liberty and means it, and the government's there for that reason and not to take care of us and not be willing to destroy the monetary system and endorse the whole principle of counterfeiting, we'd all be a lot better off.
And of course, we defend these principles by just reading the Constitution.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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