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July 24, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
32:01
Is The Epstein Case A Monster Of Trump's Own Creation

The MAGA 2.0 movement in many ways draws its coherency from a demand to "release the Epstein list," with the assumption that the rich and powerful are engaged in nefarious activities. Now that the MAGA 2.0 supporters have been told by the Trump Administration that there aren't any files after all, a full blown rebellion continues to simmer inside the Trump camp. Can the president navigate this growing anger in his base?

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Republicans Rush Home 00:11:40
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?
Very good.
Let's look into the situation around the world.
Okay, let's see.
We want to make it a better world.
But it looks like if you're going to depend on the Republicans, we might have a struggle because it looks like the Republicans had to rush home for some reason.
I'll bet there were some emergencies at home.
But there was a lot of activity getting summer picked up and get ready for the August break.
And it got interrupted.
And I just wonder really what's going on here.
The whole thing is, is there was a blockbuster coming out of the Justice Department.
And I guess it's carried away.
You know, yesterday when we were talking about this, I wonder if that could have affected the price of gold.
But I don't think so because that doesn't work quite that way because we don't know the answer to that.
But the justice, here's an article that we looked at.
And it comes from politics.
Justice Department told Trump in May that his name is among many of the Epstein files.
That catches our attention.
Bondi also told the president at the meeting that justice decided not to release more Jeffrey Epstein documents because of the presence of child pornography and the need to protect victims like our president.
Oh, no, that wasn't in there.
Oh, no, you're in trouble.
He's going to sue you.
We shouldn't.
Fake news.
Yeah, cancel that.
We have to do that to survive reporting on all this stuff.
So anyway, that is a problem for the Republicans.
I was a Republican.
I guess some people would say I'm still a Republican.
And I always tried to measure that.
And there was an automatic vote from the Republicans, like about 35 or 40%.
And I had to get the rest from independents and the Democrats.
And so I don't like to, and it's wrong just to say every Republican is a bum because there's one that we defend every day.
And we just might defend him today.
Maybe there is one that's speaking a Republican message.
And you know he must telling the truth because he's lonely.
You know, and ordinarily, you know, what happens when there's a power struggle, the people who get punished the most are the ones who are telling the truth.
And I'm alluding to, I guess everybody knows, to Massey, who's been championing the cause and he's stood up and he is in the middle of this little deal going on right now.
He is.
Yes, indeed.
Well, let's pull up that Wall Street Journal article because it came out today.
Now, you know, Dr. Paul, that President Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal because of reporting that they did last week about this supposed birthday card that Trump drew or wrote in for Epstein.
They didn't produce the card, but he sued them and said it's all fake news.
So we don't know what it is.
But what we do know is they must feel somewhat confident in their reporting because they've come out again with another article going after President Trump on this.
Justice Department, as you said, Dr. Paul told Trump in May that his name is among many in the Epstein files.
They go to that next one after that, and you'll see what they're saying at the Wall Street Journal when Justice Department officials reviewed what Attorney General Pam Bondi called, quote, a truckload of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year.
It's discovered that Donald Trump's name appeared multiple times, according to senior administration officials.
In May, Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files, the officials said.
Many other high-profile figures were also named, Trump was told.
Being mentioned in the records isn't a sign of wrongdoing, continues the Wall Street Journal.
The official says it was a routine briefing that covered a number of topics, and Trump's appearance in the documents wasn't the focus.
And, you know, I put down a title for our show today about, you know, was this sort of a monster of Trump's own creation?
Because in many ways, the MAGA locomotive was fueled by this demand for information on the Epstein files.
And President Trump definitely harnessed that energy of people who were frustrated.
They felt that Washington was some sort of an insider ring where people were completely, you know, not to be held accountable for their actions.
And so that energy that brought Trump to power now turned against him when he heard, apparently, according to the Wall Street Journal, that his name was in there.
And it doesn't mean that he did something bad.
It just means his name was in the files.
And all of a sudden, it seems like, whoa, let's not release those files.
That sort of builds the case for why is he so frightened?
In a way, I think this is something like what happened with the Democrats.
You know, they have all that lying and scheming with the Russian.
Yeah, exactly.
And then they found out it was bad.
They thought they had everything in place and they would guarantee that the next president would be a Democrat.
It all fell apart and then the truth finally came out.
And you just pointed out something similar.
The Republicans were promoting something and all of a sudden now it's a little bit too late for the Democrats to win the election.
But it won't diminish their enthusiasm for fighting and skirmishing.
And of course, they're always looking for the future.
When are we going to, if they can't, you know, impeach him and they can't get rid of him, they will just try to destroy him, which both sides seem to be doing.
So it's to me, just politics.
And one of the reasons that if you're there, you either have to go with just trying to ignore the nonsense and trying to do the job you're supposed to be doing.
And yet, then there's a Thomas Massey who's up against the whole gang of Republican leadership.
But boy, the reaction to this to me is astounding.
And it's almost an overused cliché, but I think it does apply in this case, which is that the original crime, which may not have been a crime, he may have just been in buddies with Epstein.
They may like hanging out together.
But the original quote-unquote crime was far less, if it was not a crime, than the cover-up, because that's what Watergate was as well.
The break-in was sort of a side note, a footnote to history.
But the massive attempt to cover it up made people think there's got to be something more there.
And that's what's happening with the Epstein case.
Now, there may be something in there.
We don't know.
But the fact that Trump has gone so far overboard to the point where he says, I don't want your support if you want to look at the Epstein files, to his base, turning his back on his base, to that point that people are not going to say, oh, well, okay, I guess there's nothing there.
On the contrary, they're demanding, his base is demanding more information.
And as you just pointed out, Dr. Paul, the Democrats have finally woken up and realized that, hey, we can make political hay out of this.
And so they've jumped on board.
But really, it does seem to me, at least, Is a matter where the cover-up or the attempted cover-up or the there's nothing to see here.
There are no files.
Let's move on to something else.
By the way, Russia Gate seems to be worse than the crime itself.
I think they value and believe that power is the most important thing.
Otherwise, they wouldn't be acting this way.
But the Congress in itself, especially the Republicans or the people in charge, they lack a moral compass too.
Look at the problems that are going on with our support and our allowing a whole people of Palestinians to be starved.
At the same time, the Congress really says nothing.
They keep sending money to people who are doing this.
This is the case here.
The Republicans and the Congress that thought they had a free ride on, you know, getting after the last administration.
And now, like you point out, that's what they campaign on.
Release the files, release the files.
And all of a sudden, you know, now don't, or you're the enemy of the people.
I mean, but the whole thing is, is I just, I just have a hard time figuring and trying to understand our president because, you know, somebody who is probably, you know, this gets somebody set aside and completely so completely separate from this and maybe never wanted to identify as a Republican or a Democrat.
They would think, well, that doesn't make any sense.
You know, who is this Thomas Massey?
Is he that powerful that we have to destroy his character?
And all of a sudden, someday, a few people have already awakened and said, oh, this is actually helping him as a man of character.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, put on that next clip.
This is from the same Wall Street Journal article.
I'm not going to read the whole thing, just the first paragraph, which is about, this is about what's, you know, the behind the scenes activities among Trump's Justice Department.
They also told Trump that senior Justice Department officials didn't plan to release any more documents related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender because the material, as you mentioned earlier, contained choppy offending and victims' personal information.
Officials said Trump said at the meeting he would defer to the Justice Department's decision.
Now, that really kind of goes to what you just said.
This doesn't make any sense because on the one hand, Trump is in there, but it's no big deal.
But on the other hand, we can't release the info because it's full of chopparnography.
Well, those two things next to each other, juxtaposed with each other, will tend to cause people to say, well, hang on a minute.
If it's full of that kind of crap and his name's in it, and it just causes the imagination.
It's a disaster for Trump.
You know, I remember the news items going out when Watergate was happening.
And it wasn't like they made a discovery and then everybody made their final decision and Watergate was over.
I mean, it was bit by pieces and back and forth.
And like Like you said, if they probably would have approached it a little bit differently, said, so what, you know, and marched on.
But no, it was cover-up, which I think is good that the people don't like the cover-up either.
And I think that they don't like the people on average don't like cover-up.
But what we found during COVID is people don't like hypocrites.
People preaching something and then taking advantage and doing exactly what they tell everybody else they're not allowed to do.
But that's the tradition of all governments.
August Recess Revelations 00:10:16
Absolutely.
Well, you remember, I think it was a week ago or so that Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, was in town and he did a press conference with Trump where he was, I will try not to say it in a rude way, kissing Trump's rear end in such a way that it was embarrassing to everyone.
Well, I think Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, is the Mark Ruta of American politicians because he does the same thing with Trump now.
And go to that next one.
Now, here's a politico article of, now it's not only what's happening in the executive branch, this is ripping through the legislative branch, Dr. Paul.
It's ripping the House Republican very, very slight majority to pieces.
Now, this is Mike Johnson yesterday.
The rule was going down inside the House GOP's Epstein meltdown.
Appropriate title, go to the next one.
Now, here's what's happening.
Inside his cavernous office on Monday afternoon, Speaker Mike Johnson was facing a growing crisis.
The House GOP conference, which included some of the Louisiana Republicans' key allies, and I have this highlighted, was in full rebellion over the spiraling Jeffrey Epstein situation.
Rules Committee Chair Virginia Fox of Virginia, Virginia, Virginia Fox and Virginia remember Virginia Fox.
And the panel member Aaron Huchin of Indiana informed House leaders that Republicans on the panel would not advance any rule for the week, the prerequisite for chamber to fully function without a better solution to the Epstein problem, according to two people with direct knowledge.
Now, we remember Virginia Fox, if anything, I think a nice lady probably personally, but a team player.
She is not, she was not, as I remember her, someone to launch a rebellion against leadership because that's what she aspired to, which is leadership.
So the fact that Representative Virginia Fox told Mike Johnson, the speaker, we're not going to do any business this week until you solve this problem, I think that speaks volumes for how panicky the House GOP is.
She used the word explanation.
All she wants is, and the rest of the group on, she doesn't do this on her own.
An explanation, which is sort of an excuse or explanation, but not a resolution or not admission and not telling what's really going on.
But they're looking for how are we going to get out of this mess?
Exactly.
Yeah.
Instead of maybe coming clean.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Help us out of this.
We want to help you.
Help us help you.
So that's why it's important.
But so here's what happened.
She said, no, we're not going to do this.
You got to deal with it.
Well, Johnson went ahead and used some of his power.
Go to that next one.
This is from the same politico article.
The lawmakers knew that bucking their own leadership was an extreme response.
But panel Republicans were incensed that a week earlier, they were all but forced to vote against a Democratic effort calling for the release of Epstein-related information.
I would not characterize it as a democratic effort, but we'll get into that later.
Many were under intense pressure from constituents to support unsealing.
They wanted leaders to provide more cover.
Exactly what you said, exactly what you said.
But hours later, Johnson and senior Republicans decided to shut down the rules committee altogether, which meant foregoing votes on two key immigration bills before lawmakers left for the month-long August recess.
August recess started early this year.
Dr. Paul Johnson took his toys and went home.
What I would do if I were a candidate, I would, these guys that went home that avoided, especially the ones who led it, find out what they're doing.
Catch them on the beach someplace.
Remember how they caught Nancy Pelosi doing exactly the rules that she was writing for everybody else, and she was breaking her own rules.
So to have these guys go down and show what they're really doing.
They did it to Biden.
When he was having his problem, he was always on the beach.
That's true.
But you know, you mentioned Thomas Massey earlier.
Thomas Massey is one Republican who's actually in tune.
Here's an irony.
I think he's more in tune with the MAGA base than Trump himself.
He said, release the files.
And he put in a piece of legislation.
And it's a technique that you use for certain types of legislation that require a floor vote.
This is one of the few kinds of things, there's a lot of tricks in the Senate you can use to force things to happen.
In the House, you don't have a lot of magic tricks in your bag.
But Thomas Massey pulled a rabbit out of his hat and he put in this piece of legislation.
Now, go to that next one.
He's announced that he will lead the next independent phase two of the congressional investigation.
But also go to the next one now.
This is what Johnson did.
Johnson attacked and said, Republicans won't be lectured on transparency by the same Democrats who orchestrated one of the most shameless and dangerous cover-ups in history, Biden's obvious mental and physical decline.
When they claim they're for transparency, roll the tape.
This is what Speaker Johnson said because he's talking about the bill that Massey put in to release the files.
And so thankfully for X, there is a community note saying over half of the sponsors of HRES 581, which is Massey's bill, the current effort to release the Epstein files are Republicans.
So he just said, it's just the Dems who are doing this.
But in fact, now go to the next one.
It's not just the Dems.
Over half are Republicans.
And Thomas Massey said, Speaker Johnson, why are you running cover for an underage sex trafficking ring and pretending this is a partisan issue?
MAGA voted for this.
So I would say game set and match to Thomas Massey for calling out what Johnson did.
This is a disaster.
The GOP is getting ready for these midterms.
People are expecting with Trump's numbers going down, down, down, that they're going to take a big hit, which they can't afford to take.
This is a perfect storm for them to lose that.
Sometimes long-term explanation and arguments don't work very well.
And I like to find a statement like on, I mentioned it before about a platform.
I'm sure the Republicans did a platform in the last thing.
And I'll bet you in that platform, they said, release all the photos.
No doubt.
And just write one sentence there.
What did you say a month ago?
This is what you said.
And also, pick up a, it wouldn't be hard.
Almost every part of the Constitution is trying to prevent these kind of things from happening.
But no, it's always into, well, I guess we better go home and start our vacation sooner.
So that has to be how they see it in their best interest.
So evidently that means to me, and I think others will conclude that this stuff is really hot.
They think it's, you know, I think one of the other Congress is there, well, this will be a cooling off period, and maybe Johnson, you know, will get a break on this because maybe they'll be talking about something else.
Somebody might go out and start a war, something like that.
They may actually.
That could.
Remember Clinton with the aspirin factory in Sudan when he had some problems with an intern.
You know, it could be.
But I do have one clip of Thomas Massey.
We have to have an obligatory Massey clip.
You might want to put your earpiece in because here's Massey explaining what he's trying to do with his legislation.
If we can put that clip up, I think it's a little longer than we usually use, but let's go ahead and listen to it if we can.
Let's listen to Massey explain what he's up to.
Well, I don't think this issue is going to go away.
The kids go to Fester over the August recess.
I also think it's sort of symbolic of why the American people gave Trump the White House and gave us majorities in the House and the Senate.
It's because they believed for so many years their votes didn't matter, that there was a group of people that were untouchable because of their power, influence, or money, and that the DOJ couldn't get to them, that no matter who they elected, nothing ever changed, and that Trump would come up here and disrupt that.
So the Epstein thing is symbolic, and it encapsulates why people were so excited to vote for Trump.
And so it's not going to go away over August.
I think it'll get stronger.
And, you know, we needed seven legislative days for my bill to ripen.
We only got six before the August recess.
So as soon as we come back, I'm going to collect signatures.
A couple of things, Dr. Paul, from that.
The first I think is important is that he said this is symbolic.
This is why Trump was elected.
He's not saying that there's smoking guns.
He's saying this is symbolic of what people want.
That's why they voted for Trump and for them to feel betrayed now.
He says it's not going away.
And the other thing that I hadn't realized, but this trick that he used to get it to the floor, after seven days, if you get enough sponsors, it goes automatically to a vote.
Well, that's why Johnson said recess time yesterday, because it only went six days and he called out Congress.
They band together.
They gang up against the person trying to tell the truth, which is a real tragedy.
And I think this is going to last for a while and longer.
And I cannot see how those words for the administration and others to sharply attack the one person as time goes on will be recognized as the one person standing up and telling the truth in the house.
Tragedy Of Ignored Suffering 00:08:53
Yeah.
I hate to use this word, but Thomas Massey looked sort of presidential standing there, didn't he?
That would be something I could get behind an honest person.
I do want to thank Georges for kicking in $30 in today's show.
He was happy that we're covering this issue.
But so we'll see what happens.
August break, August break.
I loved August break when I worked for you.
It was a little easier.
We didn't have to put on this coat.
We could just come in in our regular shirts.
But this was different.
I can't recall.
It's probably happened.
It was always probably strategic in a manner, and they time all these things.
But this was sort of a last minute this came out.
We better do something.
So let's leave town.
Yeah, let's leave town.
Stand here and expect people or us to understand what to do and do something about it.
What kind of people are they?
Do they think we are?
So we attack the people.
Who's the leader of this?
Oh, it's just Massey.
This guy, You got to stop this guy.
He's telling the truth.
How dare he?
How can we stand this?
Well, following up, and this is a little bit less humorous, unfortunately, but following up a little bit on what we talked about yesterday, go to that next clip.
Now, this is Dave DeCamp over at anti-war.com.
Horrible, horrible news.
10 more Palestinians starved to death in Gaza under Israeli blockade as over 100 aid groups sound alarm.
Now, that's interesting.
108 and human rights groups have sounded the alarm that their own workers are facing starvation.
Not just the Gaza and Palestinians, but their own workers.
Now, go to the next one.
It's even worse than that.
You say 100 people starved yesterday, or 10 people starved yesterday.
That's terrible.
But adding insult to injury, Dr. Paul, as Dave DeCamp writes, on top of the starvation deaths, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while attempting to reach food aid.
So these are desperate, dying, starving people who are just trying to get something to eat for themselves and their families.
And a thousand of them are shot by the Israelis.
They're not shot because they had guns or they were blowing anything up.
They shot because they were looking for a meal.
This is so bad.
And what the American people, the most important message that they get, and they look at it, is the fact that we're participants.
Yeah.
Unwilling participants for most of us, or out of ignorance, you know, is what is happening.
But it's our money and our strategy.
And we are the ones that have the empire.
And we allow this kind of stuff to happen.
And that to me is really a tragedy.
You know, when Fine was saying, well, you know, let them starve.
You know, they're having all these kind of problems.
He says, well, let them starve.
And all I could think of is what Marie Antoinette said, you know, when her kingdom was falling apart, and they say, what do you do?
And she, and some people say that she probably didn't say this, but it is symbolic in a way because her attitude was, well, if they don't have, if a people don't have bread, why don't they eat cake?
Yeah.
So what Fine is saying, well, if they aren't doing well, why don't we just let them starve?
Let them starve.
If they can't find their own food, never mentioning how the problem comes about.
Yeah, the Palestinians, they were 100% responsible for this mess.
And that I don't agree with.
That doesn't mean that both sides have no problems with themselves.
But this, I think, is going to backfire on the Israelis.
And I think Yahoo is probably not the most popular prime minister out there.
And eventually it's going to change.
And if you just think of what the world would look like if we really did come home, even what Trump hunted at, oh, we're going to stop wars.
And then he said, yeah, let's stop all that weapons.
We're going to Ukraine.
Oh, no one today.
Yeah, no, let's restart the weapons to Ukraine.
And we know that it's not going to change.
But can you imagine how wonderful the world would be just with that one move, living up to the Constitution on taking money, especially from the poor people in this country and instituting these revolutions, whether it's Ukraine or Assyria or wherever we've been.
And then we spend a lot of time here, whether it's, you know, the Democrats were trying to take over the government or the Republicans doing it or whatever.
It.
Just think how many times the American people fully endorse Congress, the president, and taking over these countries, and uh so, so we're participating in it all the time.
So what's disgusting is, the guideline that we have is totally ignored and uh, it leads to one thing, a moral bankruptcy.
That's becoming more evident every time, you don't we?
Nobody believes what the government says, and that's good, because they're not.
They're not believable.
But at the same time financially, we're at the end of our ropes.
And still the the people, The people would rather criticize those who would say, you know, you need to cut spending.
Oh, yes, cut spending.
But this, guess what?
They finally pretended to cut $9 billion out of a $26 billion deficit.
They were going to cut that, but we were going to cut one was foreign aid.
Of course, never gets really cut.
And the other was public broadcasting.
Well, they'll get around that somehow.
They'll make out a private, private, and they'll give them the money under the table.
Yeah.
Well, thanks again to Georgia, she gave us another $30 saying thanks for covering this issue, too.
We're always happy to please those who are watching the show.
But the issue is with Gaza, it's not us intervening, but this whole tragedy, genocide, is being facilitated by U.S. interventionism.
If Donald Trump did not give them the money, did not give them the bombs, did not give them the bullets, and did not give them the cover to do what they were doing, we wouldn't be talking today about the slaughter of people just trying to get food, just trying to get shelter.
Now, go to that next one.
This happens, I look at anti-war every day, and there's an article every day that says this.
Israeli forces kill 100 Palestinians in Gaza over 24 hours.
Among those killed on Wednesday was a pregnant journalist, her husband, and their four children.
In what world in the 21st century is it possible for a country to murder 100 people every day, innocent civilians, and nobody says boo?
If it happened anywhere else, people would be screaming rightly so.
At the very least, they would be demanding that their government stop facilitating this slaughter.
And the voices are rising in the United States, and they're also rising, thankfully, among conservatives and Christians who are looking at this and saying, I can't be pro-life if I don't stand up for this innocent life as well.
That's right.
And this is the perfect example of the thing that concerns me to a great extent.
And that is the moral, the immorality of a country, you know, either actively doing it.
I can't believe that you could go out and find, you know, very many people say, well, we think this is good policy.
But the ignoring of it and putting these people back in and rationalizing it and said, well, this is necessary to do.
And all these kind of arguments, it's so tragic.
And I think you and I have made some points about history where many of these fights go in between the various factions that they did fight and kill each other for a long time.
But there were periods of times when Muslims and Christians and Jews, the best times they had was when there was no government telling them what to do.
And this, it really materialized in the 20th century.
1945.
World War I was a disaster for that.
We were going to make the world safer democracy by remaking the Middle East.
What kind of talk do we hear now?
We're in the process of another remaking of the Middle East.
And they've been doing that for another decade.
Remaking the Middle East 00:01:10
It's not going well.
And that is a tragedy.
But I think the answers are easy to look at because I think if we would live with a non-interventionist foreign policy, it would help us there, save a lot of money and save a lot of lives.
But being a non-interventionist in personal matters, that protects civil liberties.
That also is very important that people are tolerant, even on ideas of religious differences and all.
But it's the promise that you won't commit violence to have your way that would make all the difference in the world.
The nonviolence is the only thing that will do it.
Because right now, lying is permitted and you are rewarded for it.
And you are permitted to say it and get credit for condemning the people telling lies.
And the more you tell lies, the more you get to condemn.
And that is moral bankruptcy that has to be addressed.
And I do believe there's a lot of people waking up to this matter.
And hopefully we can, you know, have some changes a long time before the whole thing comes apart.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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