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June 17, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
33:33
Trump Throws Tulsi Under The Bus For 'Regime Change' War On Iran

Presented with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's assessment last month that Iran was not working toward a nuclear weapon, President Trump said yesterday, “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one.” If he will not listen to his Director of National Intelligence...who is he listening to?

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Interest Rates and Prices 00:05:10
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you this morning.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Very good.
Have you found any problems in the world today that we can talk about?
Just World War III.
You're such a pessimist.
No, we're going to prevent that just like we prevented the Middle East war.
I mean, we worked at it.
Anyway, we're going to be talking about foreign policy, a lot of talk going on there.
And just remind everybody that war and foreign policy is an economic matter as much as a military matter, because they tend to spend a lot of money doing this.
But the big argument now, right now, is what are we in the United States up to?
We hear a lot about what Netanyahu wants to do, and we hear about the nukes that are in the hands of those radical Iranians.
And the world is being frightened by this, just as they were from bin Laden and the other group.
And when Iraq was having the story that, oh, you got to get the nukes.
You got to get the nukes.
They're back to now radicalizing this whole thing about the nukes that the Iranians have.
So that is a scenario they're talking about shifting a little bit because that's everything you hear.
I mean, if you talk to Trump, at one time he wanted to stay out of it, but now he says we got to get the nukes out.
We're not going to do a thing unless we get all those nukes out.
But now there are other people suggesting maybe the ultimate goal might be a little bit different than just finding the nukes.
So when they finally got into Iraq, Saddam Hussein, he didn't have any nukes.
And what they did was they changed the whole government.
And now it was shifted over to a greater influence on the empire, has greater influence.
But they continue to do that.
The nuke is a good attention getter.
And I think that is what they have done.
And even Trump is still saying, well, we got it to go in.
Got to go in.
There's going to be nukes.
But I wonder if they find later on find out that the Iranians have no more nukes than Saddam Hussein had.
And they didn't have them.
They weren't about to bomb New York.
But the propaganda machine is there.
But they worry about nukes that don't exist, but they don't even care about the nukes that do exist.
Because I understand the common wisdom is that Israel does have nukes, and they're not bashful about that.
But there's not much talk about that.
But we got to go after these nukes that the Iranians had.
And it's not like we're making a guess about who's doing what there, because we know pretty much what our people have found about that.
But before we get into that very interesting subject, there was an economic report out that caught my attention this morning.
And I thought it was pretty astounding.
I would think it would shake the markets and confirm the fact that price inflation is back.
And this article was that, you know, the prices are still going up.
The people know that.
But U.S. retail sales tumbled.
They were down nearly a 1%, which is huge.
And that means the recession is here, but they still aren't admitting that.
You know, this is one thing I give Trump credit for in his manipulation of the Keynesian economic policy.
Because he, you know, what was one of the first things he said, even before he was president, he'd go after Powell and say, you got to lower the rates.
You've got to lower the rates.
Lowering interest rates is the only tool that the interventionist paper people know what to do, thinking that, well, if we print too much money, then the prices are going up.
So we have to kill the economy.
You kill the economy by raising interest rates and directing the people away from the prices going up.
So Trump early on said to Powell, raise the interest rate, even before anybody even pretended they knew there was a recession.
But the evidence that the recession is ongoing is pretty evident.
And so I would say Trump, Trump, as an economic planner, he would fit in, but he was just one step ahead of them.
He wasn't waiting as the Fed.
Oh, you're waiting till everybody's convinced that everything is too hot and we have to raise interest.
We have to lower interest rates to save the economy.
Manipulating Economy: Mischief and Misperception 00:04:27
So it's more of the mischief, but I don't think either side, whether it's Trump or Powell, are correct because they don't possibly know or understand.
They don't know what the interest rates should be.
So it's all a gimmick they play in order to manipulate the economy, just like some of this stuff going on in foreign policy having to do with the Iranians.
You know, they have to justify their mischief.
And I wonder what the real goal is here.
So maybe you can enlighten us on that, Daniel, about exactly what do you think this whole thing is about?
What is the goal?
Is it to get exposed the nukes?
Shouldn't we know about it?
These Iranians are dangerous people, and we'll just keep silent about others having them and lying about it.
We won't talk about that.
Or is it that maybe their goals weren't exactly as they have been portrayed and that our president has reinforced?
Well, if it feels like deja vu, Dr. Paul, that's because it is.
It feels like we're back in 2002, and everything is the same.
We have a hapless president who's been bamboozled by the neocons into believing something's true that literally no one else believes is true, at least anyone with any access to it.
Now, back in 2002, it was a hapless George W. Bush who insisted when the neocons were around him that Saddam Hussein had WMDs.
Who was the person who was the main progenitor of that idea?
Well, his name was Benjamin Netanyahu.
And he came before Congress and said, I can assure you, without any equivocation, that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
Well, he was lying then, and he said the same things about Iran.
Now, it's the exact same thing.
And the neocons back then, you remember it very well, Dr. Paul, because you were in the trenches.
They cajoled the president by saying, This will be a cakewalk.
We're going to be in and out of there within a week.
This war will pay for itself, and they will greet us as liberators when we arrive.
Every single one of those statements was a lie.
Now, they're doing the same thing again, bamboozling President Trump with the same dog and pony show.
The Israelis told him, We will start with decapitation strikes.
The regime is so weak in Iran, it is ripe for overthrow.
As soon as we take out their top leadership, there will be a regime change, and then we won't have to worry about the nuclear weapons that are coming.
This is exactly what they told President Trump, and he was bamboozled like Bush was bamboozled.
He said, okay, he even admitted that he gave the green light to them to do this.
And guess what?
Just as with Iraq, it did not work like the neocons promised.
The regime did not crumble in Iran.
And in fact, the opposite happened.
It turns out they can actually fight back, unlike Saddam's Iraq, and they are fighting back.
They are hitting Israel with significantly large missiles.
They've destroyed fuel depots.
They've destroyed the intelligence directorate headquarters.
They've destroyed the military headquarters, the Pentagon of Israel.
And they continue to fight with impunity.
So having been cajoled and lied to by the neocons, President Trump claims the whole thing was about, as you pointed out in your opening, Dr. Paul, nukes.
Well, this article just came out from CNN of all places today.
If you push this up, he said he believes they got him.
They're getting them.
That first clip is from CNN, if you can put that.
Israel said Iran was close to producing a nuclear weapon, but U.S. intel suggested otherwise.
Go to the next one.
This is CNN Today.
Extremely important article.
When Israel launched its series of strikes against Iran last week, it also issued a number of dire warnings about that country's nuclear program, suggesting Iran was fast approaching a point of no return in its quest to obtain nuclear weapons, and that the strikes were necessary to preempt that outcome.
Israel's Nuclear Claims 00:16:01
But U.S. intelligence assessments had reached a different conclusion.
Not only was Iran not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, it was also up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one to a target of its choosing, according to four people familiar with the assessment.
So we have the entire team of the intelligence community in the United States saying that Iran is at least three years away if they decide, but they haven't decided.
And on the other hand, we have Netanyahu telling Trump, no, no, no, it's coming within days.
And Trump signs on with Netanyahu.
You know, we talked a lot about when he was putting his cabinet together that he can do a better job than he did in his first term in office.
And the advisors have a lot to do with it.
We said there were too many neocons close to him, and not a whole lot changed in foreign policy.
This time, it seemed to be a little bit different.
And there was one person that we cheered on, and we were very pleased that his director of national intelligence was Tulsi.
And she's somebody we've worked with.
And now she's in the middle of it, even if she doesn't want to be.
But that's a reflection of how the management of the administration is.
I'm sure in every administration, there's going to be differences of opinion.
But, you know, to get this out in the open and go after her, I just think is, well, it's unfortunate.
And it means that, you know, there's not a balanced approach with our goal of getting some individuals that aren't neocons, let them have an opinion.
So I see this as a negative, but I still praise her for her viewpoints because she was a Democrat at one time and she saw the light and change.
And she was a very sincere person.
We've met with her several times.
We've been on this program several times.
So I was very pleased.
But all I would do is encourage her, hang in there, Tulsi.
We're behind you.
Yeah, well, this is the thing, though, Dr. Paul, is that it was just in March that we did a show about it, and we've talked about it since then, that Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, came before Congress with the assessment of the intelligence community, which is all of the different agencies that coordinate their assessment.
So it's not one rogue agency.
There's not one peacenick out there writing this thing.
It's the entirety of the intelligence community, the weight of our how many hundred billion-dollar intelligence apparatus is behind this assessment.
And she says, not only do they not have one, they're not even working on one, and they haven't since 2003.
Now, President Trump was reminded of this yesterday when he came back from the G7 summit in Canada.
And he had this shocking thing to say.
Let's play that first audio video clip and listen to what President Trump says.
You might want to grab your earpiece, Dr. Paul, and listen to what President Trump said when he was reminded.
Oh, no, no, go to the first one.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
If we can play that.
The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.
The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program.
So that's what Tulsi Gabbard said.
Now, President Trump was asked about this, and they said, but Tulsi Gabbard said in March that they weren't building one.
He said, I don't care what she says.
I think they're about to have one.
So basically, he threw her under the bus.
I don't care what she says.
I don't care anything about what she says.
I think they're about to build one.
Now, go to that next clip with the Greenwald clip, which I think is very important.
Greenwald said, Trump fought so hard.
No, it's a JPEG.
Sorry.
Go forward.
Yeah, Trump fought so hard and sacrificed political capital to get Tulsi as DNI because he believed she was vital to cleaning out the intelligence community and making it reliable.
So on the one hand, Dr. Paul, he puts her into this position to clear out all of the deep staters.
And then when she delivers her assessment, he says, I don't care what she says.
I believe they have one or they're about to get one.
So the question is: who disabused him of faith in Tulsi Gabbard?
It had to have been Netanyahu.
You know, this is a sort of developing pattern.
If there's somebody that disagrees and they get their opinion out for one way or another, it's not to answer it in an intellectual fashion or state his position, you know, and back it up with something.
Sort of like a gentlemanly approach to this debate business.
But the president's tool is to discredit people.
You know, if he disagrees with them, he says, I don't pay any attention to that person.
So, which is a contradiction.
That's why people lose confidence in government.
But what about Tucker?
You know, he came out and did have a whole lot to say about this, but he had to be discredited too.
So the president went after him lashing out against popular conservative talk show hoes because he was coming out against the war.
Well, what he was doing is he was saying, he started out this, he was talking to Steve Banning yesterday, and he was saying, I love and respect President Trump.
I think he's wonderful.
I think he absolutely means well.
He doesn't want things to go badly, but I'm going to warn him, if he drags us into this war with Iran, it's going to destroy his presidency.
And the president's response to this, I don't care what that kooky Tucker says.
Iran cannot get the bomb.
That's what he said.
And he said another thing about Tucker.
He said something to the effect of, I don't listen to anything he says.
He needs to get a network show if he wants people to listen to him, which is really weird because he's got an audience way larger than he had on Fox.
You know, bombs are very important to deal with, but ultimately it's the people who are involved in doing it in their decision making and what kind of character they have and what's their philosophy.
That determines on who's going to start World War III.
But it seems like there's a lot of people frustrated with the national boundaries that they're willing to, you know, go right up to that line and say, oh, no, we're not ready to have one of those big wars.
But I sure hope that's correct because it would be a total disaster.
But when I see some of this stuff, it could be solved by not saying everybody has to agree 100%.
It's the way you handle disagreements.
If you just do this where there's disagreement, that people say, who's running the show?
That's what happened to Biden.
Nobody knew for good reasons, other reasons too.
Nobody knew who was running the show.
That's why his credibility was lost.
Totally.
Trump's credibility is not lost.
But there's more people questioning it.
Yeah.
Well, I had sent the wrong link to that first video clip, and I re-sent an email to our folks back there if they can find it.
That's why I was a little distracted because I didn't expect that to come up.
I mean, it might take a second for them to queue it up, but I think it bears listening to Trump when he throws Tulsi under the bus saying, I don't care what she says.
And it came through on an email.
Oh, that's great.
Well done back there.
Wait, one second.
Let's put in our earpieces.
This is Trump being asked about, well, your intelligence community said they're not getting a mom.
They've always said that you don't believe Iran should be able to have a nuclear weapon.
But how close do you personally think that they were to getting one?
Because Tulsi Gabriel, Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that the intelligence community said Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon.
I don't care what she said.
I think they were very close to having a nuclear weapon.
I don't care what she said.
Look, the disdain on his face, the look on his face, I don't care what she said.
I think they were very close to having one.
Now, as I said, I think that information came from Netanyahu or the neocons around him doing Netanyahu's bidding.
But we should remind the audience, and now this has really been making the rounds, Dr. Paul, how many times Netanyahu has made this claim.
Put up that next JPEG from Hala Jabber.
I may be mispronouncing her name.
She's a journalist.
This point.
Since 1992, Netanyahu and others have warned that Iran is weeks away from a nuclear bomb.
That's 33 years of false alarms.
Now even CNN reports, U.S. Intel believes Iran is not pursuing a bomb and is three years away, even if it tried.
If you haven't figured a mistake, this war isn't about nukes.
It's about crushing Iran for backing Gaza, Lebanon.
It's using fear, lies, and fire.
Next clip will be almost difficult to read, very difficult to read.
If you can go forward one.
This is the list.
It's making the rounds.
Just go on X and you'll find it.
These are the times since 92 that Netanyahu and his ilk have said that Iran is weeks away from a bomb.
Over and over and over.
They've been wrong every single time, but somehow they found in President Trump a sympathetic ear, and that's why we're now on the verge.
Because as I started, Dr. Paul was saying it was going to be a cakewalk.
Take out the leadership and they would crumble, but they haven't.
And now Israel's in a bind because they're in a war that they can't fight.
They have 8 million people.
Iran has 90 million people.
Their economy is completely reliant on the United States foreign aid.
So they can't fight this.
And so now what the thing is, Dr. Paul, is you must take because America, you're the only one with a bunker buster.
You've got to go and take out that enrichment facility that's buried deep inside the Mountain Fodro facility.
That's the demand right now.
And the big question now that we face is: will Trump take that bait?
Will he use a big bomber and go over there and take out that mountaintop?
And if he does, what will happen to the 50,000 American troops who are within range?
That's the big question, I think.
Risky business.
Very.
You know, it surprises me that Netanyahu has such a long political lifespan.
He's a survivor.
He has opposition and it comes to Zelensky.
Well, why?
Yeah, you know, they worry about, you know, respectful attention on the House floor.
It's bad enough we elect some of our leaders that take an oath of office and they go down there and spew out nonsense.
And, you know, we tolerate that.
But to bring foreigners in who's on the dole, who's just coming for money, and it's propagandists.
And it's to sway the people so the people don't rebel against this.
And there's a, I imagine right now, if we had an election with the American people, they'd say, looks like Netanyahu's a tough guy, but it has to be done.
You know, they buy into this stuff.
And it's scary business because eventually it'll end because this can't go on forever.
More and more people will wake up.
Yeah, that's a good analogy.
I mean, I think there's a lot of similarities between Zelensky and Netanyahu.
I think Zelensky is a piker compared to Netanyahu, because you point out he's a survivor.
So we've established now that the whole thing that they're about to get nukes is fake.
Even our Intel community thinks it's fake.
So what was the whole thing about?
This is Axios, of all places, very, very close to the Israel position on this.
Yet, nevertheless, there is some good objective reporting there.
You have to read between the lines.
But they came out with a piece today now that the Iran is about to get nuked story is completely fake.
If you put that next clip up, this is Axios.
Regime change emerges as the unstated goal of Israel's war in Iran.
Israel wanted to change the regime, as we said, and they needed help.
And Trump provided that help.
Go to the next clip from this article.
And I won't read it all, of course.
But Netanyahu openly stated on Fox News Sunday that the war could bring regime change to Iran.
Then on Monday, he contended that killing Khomeini could end the war.
It's not going to escalate the conflict.
It's going to end the conflict, he told ABC News.
Now, that is almost an exact representation of what he said back in 02.
The taking out Saddam Hussein will have reverberations, positive reverberations throughout the region.
It's almost exactly what he said here.
He hasn't changed his script.
But the difference is this time it was bought into.
It's not even a difference because it was the same thing.
So the White House supports Israel's stated war aims of eliminating Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, but not a broader mission to reshape Iran through force.
They might be more comfortable with regime change than we are, the U.S. officials said, referring to the Israelis.
They may be more comfortable with destroying the country than we are.
But generally speaking, the world should want this bomb capacity to be destroyed, and eventually we're going to have to get it done, is the idea.
They're sticking to their guns.
What bomb capacity?
They're sticking to their guns.
It's amazing how the sentiments can change.
They change during COVID and to the better.
But just like that, the opponents that might seem to have lost, they don't go away.
They're persistent.
Even when it comes to the COVID argument, they're still there screaming at people who won't go along with all this protection.
So the propaganda and the idea of safety, see, they use the issue of safety when it comes to nukes because people know that we're the only country that ever used nukes that take out hundreds of thousands of people.
And that, I think, is what people want to protect against.
They want to be safe, whether it's from viruses, and then they get tired of the ramifications and the negative aspects of it.
But boy, this is a hard nut to crack to get them to look at this in a world view of individuals who think about and try to promote the cause of non-interventionism because it's not going to let we won't be safe if you guys won't be willing to intervene and stop these.
Just think how we prevented World War I and World War II and Vietnam and Korea and all these things.
It's all nonsense because it doesn't work.
People Want Safety 00:03:16
And then they wanted to turn it around and say, oh, you guys are isolationists.
But I keep saying our philosophy is opposite of isolation.
We're moving every day when we hear this nonsense we're talking about.
There's more isolation, not less.
And that's why free trade and talking to people and diplomacy is the important way to go to try to work in the direction of a more peaceful world.
Indeed.
Well, this next post, and I sent it over to you this morning, this is what prompted our good friend Larry Johnson to write a piece yesterday, which we reproduced on the Ron Paul Institute website, saying Trump doubles down on the crazy.
Because this is a message that he put out last night that I will say is chillingly unhinged.
This is not a person.
Either he cannot control himself and he cannot stop.
He's the president, you know.
So he should have some self-control.
Put that next one up.
This is frankly bizarre and extremely reckless.
Iran should have signed the deal I told him to sign.
What a shame and waste of human life.
Simply stated, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
I said it over and over again.
And then he said this, everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran.
That's shocking.
Tehran is a city of 13 million people.
And you can imagine if you're sitting there and says everyone should immediately evacuate, because that's what the Israelis do in Gaza before they go and bomb and kill all the civilians.
So if I'm sitting in Tehran and he said everybody should immediately evacuate, I am absolutely panicking, thinking, is Israel going to drop a nuclear weapon on Tehran?
Is Trump going to drop a nuclear weapon on Tehran?
And as soon as he did that, the White House now started trying to explain, well, what the president really meant is that, and this is what they did with Biden.
Remember, Biden would say some whacked out crazy thing.
And the White House would say, well, what President Biden really meant to say, and now they're having to do it with Trump because he's unhinged right now.
Yeah, when people hear that, they immediately, they also direct it to the loss of credibility of the president.
Because I'm sure there are many people, because there are many, many decent, peaceful people that live in Iran.
And they would be hopeful about Trump.
But I would think that once they hear this stuff, oh, he wants us all to leave the country.
You know, where are we going to go?
Yeah, where are you going to go?
Then all of a sudden, the credibility, international credibility is not enhanced by this.
So far, the president's been successful in using his technique.
But I think it'll war thin eventually.
It almost sounds like a terrorist threat.
Can you imagine what would happen?
Heads would explode if the head of Iran said everyone should leave Washington, D.C. immediately.
You know, people would flip out, but somehow it's okay if he does it, you know.
So, I mean, I think the next 12 to 24 hours will be critical to see whether President Trump will continue to take the bait that Netanyahu is giving him.
And as I said earlier, Israel has found itself in a war that it cannot win.
It needs a way out of, and it's having problems, and it's demanding the U.S. join the war.
Draft Coming: Join the War 00:02:23
Now, if you go to that, skip forward to a clip.
This is a member of the Israeli cabinet, and this is the attitude they have toward the United States.
If you put that one up right here, yeah, Israeli cabinet member Gria Gemlio, quote, we categorically demand that the United States join the war against Iran.
So we give him all the weapons, we give him all the money, we give them all the diplomatic backup, still not enough.
We demand that you join the war.
Immediately, what I think of is the attitude of Zelensky.
He comes over here, he demands it.
Give me all that mess.
They have the gull to come over.
And the American people, you know, they have to be, you know, partially the problem.
Why do they tolerate this nonsense?
But they're less tolerant, but now they have to understand why our economic conditions are deteriorating.
It's because of our empire.
And this is the way all empires self-destruct: they spread their wings too far, spend the money, get into too much trouble, and all of a sudden go back to Roman times.
You know, they had a great empire, but eventually, you know, the currency went to pot and the whole thing fell apart.
So this should be available, but you can't say, well, you know, maybe the kids can't understand it.
But as soon as they get into government schools, all this stuff will be straightened out.
They'll explain this to the kids.
Yeah, then they'll draft them.
That's what's coming next.
That's it.
Set it up for the draft.
That's what's coming next.
So anyway, I'm going to close out now, Dr. Paul.
We've gone over again.
There's a lot of stuff to cover, though, and put that last clip up to remind everyone that this is what we're going to be discussing in just a few weeks' time.
Guys, this is straight out of the headlines.
And we're going to have some of the top experts discussing and explaining it.
Colonel Douglas with Gregor will be there, several others that I will be announcing soon, getting together and talking about what's happening, World War III, what's happening, what we can do about it.
I do have a link in the description here for you to go and click and get those tickets to join us in Dulles, Virginia, August 16th.
You really are going to want to be there.
You're really going to want to have like-minded people to talk to and listen to people who are going to give you the real information about what's going on.
Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very, very good.
Internet for Peace and Prosperity 00:02:11
You know, we've talked a little bit about what happens to the people when the governments decide to have certain policies.
It's the use of fear.
Scare the people to death.
You're all going to starve.
The bombs are going to fall.
So you immediately have to do everything the government thinks they should be done.
But where does this confidence come from?
And they say, you know, they say we can't turn it over to the people.
They wouldn't take care of themselves.
They wouldn't provide for their future and their retirements, all this.
But the people do make mistakes, and that would happen to some degree.
But why do we turn all this power over to the government?
And then when they make a mistake, it's such a big mistake.
And some of this stuff that we're talking about right now are big mistakes when we get into this foreign policy thing.
And it's been going on, especially since World War II.
And all the money lost, but the empire has grown, and the dollar has so far been maintained.
But it all's coming to an end.
The signs are there.
And the people should wake up and decide that they got to have to look at it when it's fear-mongering.
They ought to recognize it.
They ought to say to themselves, why don't we accept this principle of liberty where everything is voluntary between individuals, between countries, between states, between governments?
A voluntarist society is one that solves the problems, but you have to have two people agree.
You know, we're a long way from that because right now it's the authoritarians.
Your authoritarian against our authoritarian and who's going to scare them the most, who has the most money, and who has access to the propaganda machine.
That is the difference.
But it's available to us now.
The internet is a menace for some people, but it's also a blessing to others because we have been able to use it to get our message out small in numbers compared to others.
But there's a lot of others that are speaking close to what we're doing, and they have huge, huge membership.
So the internet is available to us to spread the message of peace and prosperity.
That should be our goal.
Thank you very much for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
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