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July 14, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
26:59
Trump Digs Deeper Into Ukraine War!

It could have been over by now if President Trump had just pulled out of "Biden's war" on Russia through Ukraine. But he couldn't resist. Today Trump has made a "big" announcement that he will be imposing 100 percent "secondary" tariffs on countries that do business with Russia. Will he send more weapons and money?

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Seeking Economic Truth 00:06:20
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 Monday?
Doing well, doing well.
Let's see if we can find any places in the country or in the world that we can make a suggestion for them.
And then wonder whether they'll listen or even pay any attention.
But we're optimistic enough that truth can win out.
And that is our goal, is to seek truth.
We don't claim monopoly on it, but we claim a determination that we will seek out the truth and try to sort out the nonsense that goes on in Washington.
And, you know, if we achieve that, I think, Daniel, that would include trying to get people to quit flip-flopping.
You know, even if they tell the truth 50% of the time, if they flip-flop the next morning, what good is the truth?
You know, it seems like the lying prevails.
And sometimes they need to lie because some people just get sick and tired of what's going on in the government.
The only way they can live up to it is there has to be a lot of lies told to the people.
And one lie I think they tell currently, excuse me, a lot of it is on foreign policy and the reason why we have to spend so much money in Ukraine.
But there are some other things that they lie about, especially the economy.
You know, people think, well, there are tough times, but the government hasn't said we are in a recession yet.
So it must not be too bad.
Stock market's up, so the stock market must not think it's too bad.
And there's a lot of optimism.
The election has brought about a lot of optimism, but there's still some problems.
And I want to mention a few economic problems that are still with us.
There's a headline today in the zero hedge.
And this should stimulate people, but there's going to be a lot of people identify with this article.
It says the number of Americans dealing with food insecurity has almost doubled since 2021 as U.S. store closings are on pace for a new record, those being closed twice as many as they had last year at this time.
So that is what we're dealing with is trying to get the truth out about whether or not we're in a recession.
I remember this argument came up in the 08 debates, and there was a debate, a recession going on at the time.
But food insecurity has doubled, and that includes 15-plus Americans are hungry.
And that, of course, is significant.
It's a big deal for a lot of people.
The store closers, 70% of Americans admit when they're polled, all America feels stressed over finances.
And I don't, this seems awfully high, but that's sad if it is.
But there's a lot of different reasons for that.
And I think that there's a fight going on and confuses thing because the government is always telling us that things are very good.
But the fight that I keep watching and mentioning is the fight between Powell and Trump.
And Trump has his ideas about how the Fed should be run.
And Powell says he has the answer.
Guess what?
I think neither one has the vaguest idea of what the interest rate should be.
But I don't think there should be any doubt about what is taught in Austrian economics, especially by Mises, that if the government comes in and they have a fiat monetary system and they mess around with interest rates, there will be a price to pay.
And he even writes in here, this says, no, he's stretching it.
He believed that even if it's 1% or 2% manipulation of interest rates lower than they should be, it's going to put a distortion in the market, causing too much malinvestment, too many investments that are going into the wrong place, and too much debt.
That's what we have.
But in all these arguments, all these talks, and all this politicking, and all these plans to cut spending, and all this weaponry that we have to spend.
And a lot of people still believe that a war is good for the economy.
Everybody's back working and building weapons that they can blow up, like having a lot of fun.
So that is something that continues to go on.
And there's no real conversation about the real cause.
And that is the manipulation of interest rates, which cause people to make mistakes.
And once the mistakes are made, Mises' argument was it will be dealt with in the marketplace.
So, you know, just think if you look since 2008, there's not been anything to the point where everybody admitted we're in a recession and maybe going into a depression.
Everybody believes things are okay.
But what these statistics are saying, that things are not in good shape and a price will have to be paid.
And I think that's why a lot of people are worried.
And there was a lot of hope that the new administration would straighten things out.
And we hear bits and pieces that say that's good.
No wars, stop wars.
But we can become disappointed rather quickly when all of a sudden the policies change.
And that's one thing that has happened already in weaponry.
We make a lot of weapons.
We make a lot of money.
And we were told that one part, who knows who said what, but one part of the administration said, we've cut off no more weapons, but we don't have enough of our own.
We can't send any more weapons to Ukraine.
It looks like they've changed that opinion.
NATO's Dilemma: Russia and Weapons 00:15:19
Could they have changed their mind that quickly?
Well, this is the big day, Dr. Paul, where President Trump over the weekend said, I'm going to make a big announcement on Russia on Monday.
It's going to be a big one, you know, how he usually plays it up.
But unfortunately, it really is sort of a cascading disappointment in President Trump.
You mentioned the optimism when he was elected.
People were worried about the economy and inflation.
And then we got the big, beautiful bill, which spends just like Biden spent.
And we were hoping at least that there would be no new wars.
And then he went and bombed Iran without getting any authorization.
It was an illegal war.
And now we're hearing that he wants to dig deeper into Ukraine, which is certainly a war that Republicans have been opposed to.
It's Biden's war.
Trump has said it over and over again.
But it's easy to talk about wanting to get away.
It's difficult, more difficult to break away.
Now, here, let's set this up because Lindsey Graham, Senator Graham, for some reason, I don't understand.
He gets on all the Sunday shows.
Maybe no one else is interested anymore and no one else watches him, but he gets on the Sunday shows every week to say the most stupid things.
And here's what he said.
Do that bonus clip because I'd forgotten that I want to put this up.
Here's what he was promising that President Trump was going to announce today.
You might want to get that earpiece in, Dr. Paul, and listen to what your favorite senator had to say over the weekend on Face the Nation.
Here's a preview.
Congress is on the verge of passing the most consequential sanction package in the history of the country.
It will give President Trump tools he doesn't have today, a literal sledgehammer.
And the big offender here is China, India, and Brazil.
India buys oil from Russia cheap and resells it.
That's despicable.
I've talked to President Trump.
He said last week it's time to move.
He's tried to entice Putin to the table, but my goal is to end this war.
And the only way you're going to end this war is to get people who prop up Putin, make them choose between the American economy and helping Putin.
And you can only have one negotiator, and that's going to be President Trump with maximum flexibility to end this war.
China, India, and Brazil, you're about to get hurt big time if you keep helping Putin.
He loves making those threats against people.
You know, he's not an incredibly tough-looking guy, but he loves to sound like a tough guy.
You're going to get hit.
You're going to get hurt.
But it's clear what he's talking about is bricks.
He wants the U.S. to go to economic war with bricks, and Ukraine is the excuse.
So go ahead, yes.
No.
No, I think it's aggravating.
It's aggravating to what he's saying because it is all mischief and it's all annoying and it's not a principled position.
And like you already mentioned, it's not supporting what most Republicans voted for.
Yeah.
Yeah, they didn't want Graham.
President Trump already said, I had John Bolton in my cabinet last time.
I don't want any more John Boltons.
Well, he's surrounded by John Boltons, and here he is going golfing all the time with Lindsey Graham.
And he said, I think over the weekend or maybe on Friday, he said, Lindsey Graham is always there when I need him, which is the craziest thing you can imagine.
So Graham was amping up Trump's Monday big announcement on Russia Monday.
Well, it turns out, unless there's something more coming, that President Trump met with Mark Ruta, who is the Secretary General of NATO.
He just met with him a couple weeks ago.
Remember, that's when Ruta called him daddy, which was weird.
So they met, and Trump made his announcement.
It wasn't exactly what Graham was threatening.
If you can put that second video clip up, Dr. Paul, you might want to listen in on this one.
This is what Trump actually announced, among other things, with Ruta in the room.
Let's listen to this.
As you know, we've spent $350 billion approximately on this war with Russia and Ukraine.
And we'd like to see it end.
It wasn't my war.
It was Biden's war.
It's not my war.
I'm trying to get you out of it.
And we want to see it end.
And I'm disappointed in President Putin because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn't seem to get there.
So based on that, we're going to be doing secondary tariffs.
If we don't have a deal in 50 days, it's very simple.
And they'll be at 100%.
And that's the way it is.
That can be more simple.
It's just the way it is.
I hope we don't have to do it.
So what he's saying, Dr. Paul, is that we should have had a deal several months ago.
But the deal that was offered, which was the Kellogg plan, was a non-starter.
And Russia said, no, we don't want this deal.
And then the U.S. came back and said, well, here's that deal again, again.
And remember, Kellogg kept going over there, and Putin kept saying, no, we don't want this deal.
The deal is you have a unilateral ceasefire, and then you sit down at the table.
Well, there's no country in the world that in the middle of winning a war decides to stop and have a ceasefire.
So it's a fallacy that there is a negotiation and that Putin is recalcitrant and won't sit down.
He just says, no, I'm not going to stop the war because you're still arming Ukraine while we stop fighting.
But you notice that Graham was very, very clear-cut.
He was for peace.
Yeah.
The sledgehammer of peace.
All I remember is the statement that, yes, a lot of people want peace, but usually only on their terms and only a justification of their aggressiveness that they're pursuing.
But you know, this financial arrangement is interesting to me because now they decided again to get the weapons to them, but it'll be NATO's going to send them to them or Europeans.
But, oh, that means that the American taxpayer is off the hook now.
And won't the military, American and military industrial complex have a complaint?
Will they have to go to another country and get these things manufactured?
Maybe they'll manufacture them in Ukraine, you know, and get all these things.
So if another entity, whether it's the European Union or NATO, if they do it, you know, we've talked about the simplification.
This is going to complicate the payment if somebody wants to pay attention to it.
Because what they would do is if the Congress allotted so much money to send Ukraine weaponry, we just send the money to the weapons manufacturer.
And they sent the weapons.
And now, if they're going to get away from this and try to say the Americans didn't sell it to them or send them weapons, they will say, oh, NATO did it.
But of course, Trump was for cutting back on NATO.
But if they're going to do that, but I just don't think it's going to be that neat.
I don't think that our government is going to write a check to NATO.
Oh, well, we write too many already.
We were supposed to get rid of some of that stuff.
But I don't think this additional spending is going to pass through NATO or European Union or anything.
I think the American taxpayers are going to get stiff for this.
And the worst part about it is the policies are wrong on dealing with that.
And we've been talking about the stupidity of the policies since 2014 when the handwriting was on the war, on the wall, that this thing would not go well.
And then they will talk about, well, 14, we were getting up into the decades now and how long this war has lasted.
Oh, yes, but we didn't have a lot of American casualties.
We just had the American people, the type of casualties I mentioned in my introductory statement, the people are getting poorer and hungrier in this country.
And they say, well, that's a different subject.
And it isn't a different subject.
And people have to connect it to find out that the problems we have here at home, and if they understand the history of the Roman Empire, it's when the Roman Empire got too engaged further away from Rome, the worse things got, and the thing finally fell apart.
Well, right now, I think we're in a very fragile situation.
And unless we really stick to our guns, when you hear these good terms, and we say, that's exactly what we want.
We want to end wars and don't start any wars.
And that's a difficult task because there's a lot of special interests that have something in it for them if the wars continue.
Yes, exactly.
And, you know, Lindsay Graham threatened a sledgehammer was going to come down on Russia.
Well, let's look.
Now, this is a write-up from Zura Hedge, basically on the meeting with Ruta.
Big announcement on Russia, more taco.
Oil tumbles as Trump delays sanctions threat against Putin.
The big announcement by President Trump, just the threat of more secondary tariffs on Russia, inventing a little more frustration at no peace progress.
Here are the bullet points that they hopefully put together for us over on Hedge.
If you can go to that next one.
Apparently, now this is the big announcement.
Severe tariffs on Russia, if no deal in 50 days.
Trump threatens to impose secondary tariffs on Russia.
Trump reiterates he's very unhappy with Russia.
Trump made a deal today to send weapons to Ukraine.
Trump, if it's all talk, then missiles go into Kiev and kill.
No, he says it's all talk, and then missiles go into Kiev and kill.
Trump, Ukraine will take the military equipment from NATO.
Trump suggests more dying in Ukraine, more than publicly known.
Secondary sanctions, very powerful.
And I'll go to that next one.
Here's the weapons part.
So you have two prongs of this, Dr. Paul.
One is the economic, which is the secondary sanctions.
If you buy Russian oil, I believe it's oil or uranium, then the United States will impose 100% tariff on your goods.
So if the Chinese buy some oil, and actually the Europeans are buying quite a bit of oil, and the U.S. is buying quite a bit of uranium from Russia.
So I guess we're going to sanction ourselves.
So that's part of it, the sanctions part.
But the weapons part is interesting.
And I don't know how this is going to work out.
Speaking alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office, U.S. president, Trump announces a new package of military aid featuring, quote, advanced weapons to Ukraine, financed by members of NATO.
Ruta adds that a massive number of weapons will be headed to Ukraine from Europe and the United States.
So Trump can't get away, Dr. Paul, with continuing to say this is Biden's war, because now this is Trump's war if he sends these weapons.
But here's the thing that he's doing, which is pretty funny.
And you actually alluded to it in your last comment.
He said, we're not sending these weapons.
I'm not a dummy like Biden.
I'll paraphrase what he said.
Biden is such a dummy, he just gave him weapons.
We're not going to do that.
We're going to sell the weapons to NATO, and then NATO can send them to Ukraine.
It's a business deal.
You know, that's what he's doing.
But, and you suggested this a few minutes ago, but where does NATO get their money to buy weapons from the U.S.?
Well, go to that next chart, and that will tell you where NATO gets the money.
If you can put that chart up, this is NATO spending.
All that blue in that circle, Dr. Paul, if you look up, that is the United States part.
That's our share.
It's massive.
I think it's over 70% of the entire NATO budget is borne by the United States of America.
So this is basically a shell game where President Trump says, we're not sending weapons for free.
We're selling them to NATO.
Well, where does NATO get the money?
It gets it from the United States.
You know, I think there's going to be a result and a price to pay for the flip-flopping to the support and the key personnel who gets the leadership of the country on Sunday morning programs.
And that's Graham.
Now, he gets to play golf, you know, with the president.
So that is now the big issue.
But I think what is happening, though, and I think it's becoming more apparent that there's a division right now.
And you sort of alluded to this, that some of the Republicans are frustrated with this thing on again, off again.
Weapons, we'll stop them.
Well, no, we're going to have to send them.
And on again, on again, with Russia.
I think, you know, MAGA is getting, will get weaker if they haven't been weakened already because, you know, when the political opponents get hold of this, which they already have, they're going to work it.
But they lack so much credibility.
They'll have a little problem.
And the people, it's going to frustrate the Republicans.
You know, what really counts, though, is how Trump's not going to be up for president.
What really is the issue, I think, is, you know, who's going to carry the day in the Senate, especially, or maybe even the House.
That's up for grabs.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you're right.
I mean, over the weekend, there was also a big meeting of Turning Point USA, which is that conservative, very, I would almost call them MAGA youth, young people that are very, very much in Trump's camp.
And you may have seen a couple of clips, but Tucker Carlson was there, and he was received very warmly.
And he's been very critical of President Trump, particularly on this warmongering and on the big, beautiful bill.
Tucker has been very outspoken.
He was very warmly received.
So I think that's an indication of what you just suggested, that the MAGA base, especially that youth, a young MAGA base that was so strong, is now becoming very disillusioned in President Trump.
Right.
And I think the numbers are going to show that more and more.
And there's a little debate going on with the Attorney General.
Yeah, they're basic.
And the FBI director.
Yeah.
Yeah, the Epstein.
That's probably why we're talking about Ukraine today and not Epstein anymore.
He wanted to change the subject.
You know, we've talked about that and had the two reasons why that might come, you know, because maybe Republicans were involved and they're going to get some protection.
But the other one is both parties, this is one example of where it's a one-party system.
They don't want the truth to be let out about the security system.
And if that was being used for blackmail, you know, it's in motion.
There's still a lot of people around there that play in that game.
Yeah, and it'll show how deep the corruption goes if it gets out.
The other interesting thing that I observed about Lindsey Graham, now, he's evil, but he's no dummy.
And he's known, as you say, he likes to go play golf with Trump because he has cracked the code, which is that if you are the last person to talk to Trump, then Trump will take what you say and run with it.
But it's interesting because there was a slight disconnect in what Graham threatened over the weekend.
Golf Trump's Double Standards 00:02:23
He had just played golf with Trump and he said, you're not going to believe what's coming out, what's coming out.
And then when Trump actually said it, it was milder than Graham threatened.
So it sounds to me like he's yelling in Trump's ear over and over and over.
And then Trump waters it down a little bit when he delivers it.
And the whole thing is, is you or I or anybody will not be able to predict exactly what will come as policy after you hear the talks.
Because right now, I think President Trump has made an effort to talk to and get along with and at least respect the libertarian group that's in MAGA.
MAGA has some libertarians in there that were hopeful for that.
But now, now with his a bit of lack of support, maybe, a little criticism at Thomas Massey.
Yes.
That in itself could annoy a lot of people, including myself.
Yeah.
And for people who say that we're just here to pick on Trump, we're not.
I wanted Trump to win.
I certainly didn't want Kamala Harris to win.
But the fact is he's doing things that he shouldn't be doing.
He's doing things that he said he wouldn't do.
So we're trying to be constructive in our criticism.
President Trump, no more dates with Lindsey Graham.
Get him out the golf.
If you want to go play golf, call the senator from Kentucky.
You used to like playing good golf with him.
That would be a good one.
Call up Thomas Massey and apologize for being such a jerk to him and ask how you guys can work together.
He can find his way out of this, but he's running with a bad crowd.
He needs to get out of that bad crowd.
Do me a favor.
If you get your call this afternoon, would you give me a bug?
Yeah, I'm sure you'll be calling.
Well, I'm going to close out, Dr. Paul, and close out with a quote that I've shown before.
If you go to that last clip, but it really is apropos what we're talking about today.
And this is Colonel Douglas McGregor, a good friend of ours.
We are moving towards war with Iran, and the chosen destination is Armageddon.
That war is not over, Dr. Paul.
It's just on pause.
And Colonel McGregor warns that it will be coming back.
And that's why you need to get those tickets for Blueprint for Peace, the Ron Paul Institute's conference on August 16th.
We had a good weekend.
We sold quite a few tickets over the weekend, Dr. Paul.
Getting Off Drugs Painlessly 00:02:54
The room is filling out quite nicely.
But we want to make sure that all our friends can be there.
And so, if you're watching this, there's a few days left, I believe, for those early bird specials.
Get the early bird special ticket, save a couple of bucks, and we'll see you in August.
Dr. Paul, over you.
Very good.
I'm going to close with a gentle but firm recommendation for the administration, and that is to pay more attention to the deficit and the debt that we have to deal with.
Because even though it seems to be painless when you have the control and you're king of the world and you have the military power most ever in the history of mankind, and still be a very wealthy country, that things can go wrong, and they have notoriously for centuries, and they're understandable in an economic explanation.
That is, yes, when the money becomes easy, you can print it.
It will be spent too much, and they can get away with that fraud for a long, long time.
But eventually, the piper has to be paid.
And that is what's happening right now.
And I'm open up with some statistics to show that the American public right now is starting to suffer.
And yet, nobody says, Oh, you know, we're really in a recession.
Well, those individuals, that's 15 or 20 percent that are going to bed hungry right now, I think they might not argue with you.
Say, you know, it's probably a recession because they themselves have not been able to get the work that they needed to take care of themselves.
But this is a situation that has to be changed, and it's not going to be changed easy because it's a very difficult thing to do.
To me, I compare it to getting somebody off drugs.
It's painful, difficult, and dangerous to get somebody off of the bad drugs that people are very much addicted to.
And this economy and the world is addicted to the distortions that have occurred since Bretton Woods was established in 1945.
And we're seeing it, we're seeing the cracks in the seam there.
And it's going to continue until we lay down the law and the recommendations of what the proper role of government ought to be.
Somebody said that's too complicated.
It'll never happen.
Yeah, it is.
I agree with that.
The market's going to do that, but it should be more less painful.
But I say, if you're really sincere and wanting to try to understand it, what would it be like?
What kind of a system would we have?
Well, there's been a pretty good outline drawn up for us that we should pay more attention to.
And that would be just to get more and more people involved in reading and studying and enforcing the United States Constitution.
Export Selection