New poll numbers go from bad to worse for President Trump, as his MAGA base - who signed on for "no more wars" and "America First" - are increasingly disappointed watching the nightmare unfolding in Gaza, while Trump continues to back Netanyahu's slaughter. Conservatives inside and outside Congress are increasingly vocal over the harm being done by Trump's continued support of Israeli actions.
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With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, welcome to the program.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Good.
Today, we have some things that are very interesting, not necessarily bad, but we haven't solved a few problems.
So, I think we'll be in business for a little while longer.
But I want to start off with a comment about what's going on, you know, with the Federal Reserve, because the Federal Reserve is in the news much more so these days and these months than they were 15 or 20 years ago.
And of course, the argument between Trump and Powell, that's keeping everybody excited about it.
But there was a comment made, and it may come to fruition today, that two members of the Open Committee don't intend to vote with, you know, on Trump, on the chairman's side, on Powell's side.
They're talking about voting, you know, against the approval of not, you know, raising the interest rate.
They want to vote with Trump and say interest rates should be lower.
And that's a controversy.
And they said having two people opposed in a vote like that is very, very unusual.
So maybe they're getting a spine also.
That would be nice.
Maybe there'll be enough of a spine and more people in Congress say, why do we even need this thing?
And just decide to do away with it.
And the argument, like I said, is mainly over interest rates, something that we know that either whether it's Trump or Powell, they have no idea what interest rates could be because no one individual does know because that's determined by millions and millions of people working in the marketplace, helping to decide what an interest rate or cost of passing the money around actually is.
And I think Trump has sensed the fact that the economy is not healthy and may turn down.
And in a way, I've given him credit for jumping the gun.
Not that it's good policy, but it's one that I think reveals that he knows a little bit about finances and he wants to do something.
And on the short run, it's going to be helpful.
People have given him a lot of credit for a lot of victories, whether it's trade, oh, tariffs don't hurt.
Everything's going on.
Revenues are going up.
And he's riding high.
And I acknowledge that.
But the whole thing is it doesn't solve the problems because it gives him more clout.
But, you know, a month or two of these changes, we don't even know how long they're going to hold up.
So to start figuring in that this is going to be permanent and all the good news will remain and keep getting better, we have to just wait and wait and see what happens.
But in the meantime, what it does, it gives Trump even more credibility.
He's eventually going to win this thing on lowering interest rates because the economy will start to show weakness.
Oh, maybe Trump's right.
We better lower these interest rates.
So they will.
But it's ironic.
He's winning support by coming up with policies and people are excited about it.
But the answer of lowering interest rates, that's literally like saying more inflation.
You lower interest rates by buying more government debt and lowering the interest rates.
And that's supposed to make the economy healthy.
But that's too little, too late for stopping the problems of the inflation.
And it will lead to lowering the interest rates.
It actually leads to more of their policies.
So far, we can't give them too much credit for cutting spending and that we're approaching a balanced budget.
And we're not lowering the debt at all.
So by lowering that, they're adding this addition of the debt being monetized and bringing on more inflation.
Americans' Views on Israel-Gaza Conflict00:14:35
So we'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks.
Even today and this week, it's going to be exciting because the Fed is still meeting.
Daniel, what do we have today to talk about?
Well, one of the things we've been tracking, Dr. Paul, over the few months is that the shift, apparent shift in Americans' views of our relationship with the state of Israel.
And a couple of polls have come out within the last few days that have indicated that the trend of increasing dissatisfaction, not only with how Israel is acting in Gaza, but the U.S. relationship with Israel itself, that trend continues.
And now there are a couple of polls that I think underscore that continued shift away, continued dissatisfaction.
Now, Dave DeCamp over at antiwar.com wrote about one of these polls.
A new Gallup poll came out with a pretty shocking number.
Just 32% of Americans approve of Israel's actions in Gaza.
That is a less than a third of Americans think that it's okay what's happening there.
And if you happen to go to antiwar.com, which of course we encourage all of our viewers and listeners to do every day, you can see those first 10 headlines almost day in and day out.
Another 100 killed, 100 civilians killed, another bunch of kids starved.
So it's being fed now and it's making into the mainstream.
So that's one, Dr. Paul.
And not only that, but the poll also found that 60% of Americans disapproved of Israel's actions in Gaza.
And that's an increase from just 48% less than a year ago.
So you're seeing a massive shift.
But the second poll I wanted to bring up, which makes, I think, even worse for President Trump, and this is, I think, where we have the jumping off point in terms of his backing.
There was another poll that came out, a YouGov poll that came out around the same time.
And it has shown a shrink in approval rating for Trump across the board in terms of age, Dr. Paul.
But here's the shocking number.
Among the 18 to 29-year-olds, that decrease in support is astonishing.
A minus 27% drop from a 55% approval rate back in February.
55% of 18 to 29-year-olds supported Trump, approved of how he was governing in February.
That has gone down to 28%, the lowest of all groups.
Now, why do you think the young people are turning against Trump, Dr. Paul?
Well, I think it has to do with foreign policy, because they could cut more money, you know, out of the Department of Defense, which is in defense.
And that would be helpful.
But young people would like to see a person consistently defending peace and not looking around and satisfying a military industrial complex.
And even that looks like it's shaky because Israel and even Netanyahu and Trump, there's a little change in that relationship.
But Netanyahu is also not having as much popularity in his own country with 50 at an all-time low with 52% of the Americans having an unfavorable view of Netanyahu.
Just 29% of Americans said they had a favorable view.
That's not average.
That's not the way it's been for years.
And I think that's significant because it's almost like for some people, it's almost like treasonous to go against a leader in population, but it's changing.
And it's young people, of course, that's might well be leading this charge.
I think what Daniel just read, the young people, whether I think they're in the United States or whether Israel, they're sick and tired of it.
And they know that this, and I think this problem with Gaza and the starvation in Gaza is calling attention to this.
And as bad as it is, hopefully some good things will come of that and more people will wake up.
Yeah, that's the key.
I mean, I think President Trump, candidate Trump, appealed to young people.
They were facing a choice.
Those who voted were facing a choice between the continuation of Biden's disastrous policies, not only in Israel, but also toward Ukraine.
You know, basically a brain-dead administration who allowed these wars to continue, allowed the suffering to continue, and allowed the bleeding from our national wealth to continue.
That's what they were facing with the prospects of Kamala Harris if they elected her.
And so they went and they listened to what President Candidate Trump was saying.
I'm going to end the wars.
I want no more wars.
I want to put America first.
I want to pull out of all of these entanglements.
And they liked what they heard.
And my guess is, I know you wouldn't say, my guess is some of these young people probably remembered back or their parents told them about a candidate back in 2008 who said the same things, but actually meant it.
And that was, of course, Ron Paul.
And you were extremely popular among young people.
And anyone who wonders about that, I guess it is a little bit in the rearview mirror.
Just do a little bit of Googling at college campuses and see how many people turned up.
Young people hate war.
They don't want war.
So Trump presented himself as the anti-war candidate and young people rushed over to him.
Now it turns out that he's basically Joe Biden 2.0.
He's continuing the war in Ukraine.
He's ramping it up.
He's sending weapons just like Biden did.
And he's backstopping everything Netanyahu does to make life more miserable for the people in Gaza and in fact to kill them all.
So that's where I think the youth is turning against him, Dr. Paul.
Yes, and you know, I've always made fun about how wars start.
Not fun, but making a point that it's not the kids that have to fight war.
And that's why those statistics are coming out because there's more and more evidence that a war may well start.
But I think that the point that I made to emphasize this is that, you know, the kids don't start the wars.
And I said, you know, when Germany or Japan or whoever we're going to fight, the young people don't get together, young people from two countries and say, hey, don't you think it'd be pretty neat if we have a war, like it's a war game, like it's a football game?
No, they want exactly the opposite because they know they're going to be in the front.
And, you know, that's one thing we have to give technology some credit to because there's more chance for people to see how terrible these policies are.
But, you know, in this thing that's going on that we're talking about, I think Trump's biggest problem is the credibility.
You know, and he's a person with a strong personality.
Things have gone his way more times than they've gone against.
But all of a sudden, how did these things drop?
People were losing confidence.
And that is something I think is the most important thing there is.
That's what happened to Biden.
You know, there was no credibility at all.
I mean, Trump is not approaching that point.
But when Trump says he's going to do ABC and then it changes his mind, some people give him a pass and say, that's only his strategy.
He has to do that.
That's how he makes a deal.
And yet I don't think everybody analyzes it the same way and said, this is just a good deal.
And look, he's winning all these arguments over trade.
But I say it's premature to brag about the benefits of tariffs.
Yeah, exactly.
And combining this trend is a piece that came out in Politico today, which was titled, MAGA is Turning on Israel over Gaza, but Trump is unmoved.
And the point that this article makes, and obviously Politico is not pro-Trump, so that you have to factor that in.
But they're making a very good and very important point, which is that it's not just these people that are responding to these polls, but it's actually very influential conservatives who are becoming increasingly concerned.
Now, they point out that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has definitely found her anti-war and pro-America voice over these past couple of months, now she has become the first congressional Republican to call Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip a genocide.
No one else has uttered that term.
She did it yesterday, and she did it in a post on X criticizing, you could almost say, slamming is how Politico termed it, slamming fellow House Republican Randy Fine of Florida.
If you remember, we talked about Randy Fine a couple of days ago.
His response to the starvation in Gaza was starve away, which is repulsive to anyone with a conscience or any human being.
So she called him out on it and she said, this is a genocide.
And that's a big deal.
And interestingly enough, even AIPAC has dropped Randy Fine.
He's not a good poster boy for APAC saying things like this.
But as Politico points out, it's not just Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And of course, we have to add Thomas Massey as one who's been vocally opposed to our policies.
But they point out that a lot of prominent MAGA influencers have really stepped up their criticism of Israel and Israel policy.
Matt Gates, if you've seen some of Matt Gates' recent stuff, he's on fire over this.
They also mentioned Steve Bannon.
Now, Steve Bannon is not necessarily a moralist, but I think what Steve Bannon looks at is politics.
And he says this policy toward Israel is going to be a huge political liability for the Trump administration.
And I would add with the midterms coming up soon.
So very, very prominent people and even a congressperson or two are becoming extreme, increasingly concerned about this problem.
You know, like I said, I think Trump better becomes aware of this because if it continues at this rate, it's bad news.
That doesn't mean that he won't and can't reverse it.
But I think the credibility thing is so important.
And that's why I think if voters can hear people talk and they have somebody they're supporting, they'll frequently say to me and others like that, they'll say, I don't agree with everything you say, but I know where you stand.
And they want to have trust.
And I think this is what's happening right now.
There's a lot of loss of losing some trust with Trump.
And the credibility is going down.
Now, you referred to this article on Politico, and I think the headline is something that Trump ought to read because, you know, Politico has some clout.
They're not the gospel and they're not the final word.
But MAGA is turning on Israel over Gaza.
But Trump is unmoved.
That is devastating as far as I'm concerned.
Because sometimes even the worst, If they call themselves a communist or Marxist, they might stand by these words, but there's but Trump is unmoved by that.
I think we should be moved and just recognized, even if even without pointing to one individual, it's just the concept of war and the concept of non-intervention, how beneficial it is.
And we should be moved.
If we're unmoved by what's going on in Gaza, we're all in trouble.
And that's why we should assume, as we have, Daniel, our obligation to alert as many people as possible on exactly what's going on.
And the internet is filled with a lot of stories and information that I believe is reliable and it is mess.
And there's a lot of people now reporting it's not nearing like it's getting over.
All of a sudden, we're going to have peace.
It does not look like that.
And I think a lot of that falls back.
The determination to continue this has it falls on the shoulders of Netanyahu.
I don't think he can say, oh, I'm for peace.
Yeah, they're all for peace under their terms.
But we want peace under the terms of the people who have to fight the war.
And that's the growing number of young people saying enough is enough and we ought to quit this foreign policy activity, which leads to no good.
And I think President Trump is starting to get the message.
And he has said, I think it was yesterday he talked about people are starving in Gaza.
Now, just him recognizing that and mentioning it, that tells you that the truth is getting through the wall that is built around him.
I'm sure that every one of the people around him are doing their best to keep him from getting this information, but he's still, he is seeing it.
And I think he's reacting to it.
Now, as we speak, Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, is flying to Israel where he's expected to meet with Netanyahu tomorrow.
This is his first trip to Israel in about six months, the media is reporting.
Clearly, this is an effort on the part of the Trump administration to address the problem of the base or of the supporters or of just America in general who are turning against this genocidal war in Gaza.
Now, he may not be coming to our conclusion as quickly as we would like.
And there's still this false sense that if you dare criticize Israel, somehow you hate Jewish people.
But I think people are coming or are getting over that.
They're starting to understand that despite the pushback, it doesn't mean anything about hatred of a people.
It has to do with hatred of a government's actions, just like we hate a lot of our government's actions.
But nevertheless, I think sending him there is quite important that he's recognizing that he's got a problem that he needs to deal with.
But, you know, the thing you remember, sorry, one last final thing I just remembered I wanted to mention, Dr. Paul.
Both of us remember, of course, how it happened with the Iraq war.
Now, we were frustrated because people weren't becoming disillusioned with it quickly enough for our tastes.
And that's why we held our Thursday lunches to try to help speed along Republican discontent with a terrible failed policy.
Frustration With Slow Progress00:03:35
But nevertheless, it's a slow process, a slow progress, slower than we would like, but it is moving in a positive direction.
Now, certainly that's very little comfort to people who haven't eaten in several weeks.
And it's horrible and heartbreaking.
And it's also frustrating that pro-life Republicans can't see this, or many of them can't.
But nevertheless, it did eventually come our way on Iraq to the point where you remember this, Dr. Paul.
Even people that supported the Iraq war initially, you know, a few years later would say, I was never for that, really.
And so we're moving in that direction, which we can find a positive, just not quickly enough.
But I never heard him say, it was Cheney's fault.
He did all that mess.
He got by.
Yet I think it's not easy to critique or make these points with Trump because you can hardly say he's a bad politician.
Matter of fact, he's pretty shrewd and it's worked.
But the thing of it is, when an inconsistency pops up, I think that's important.
And I think the sentiments are important on just the policy itself, you know, just like the policy at the Federal Reserve is popping up.
It's at least in debate.
And there's two sides of that issue, but at least they're talking about it.
But we want them to talk a lot more, not just about their day-to-day strategy.
We want them to talk about the principle of our foreign policy and advising that the founders never intended for us to be, you know, the policemen of the world.
And until we understand that what we need is a non-interventionist foreign policy, stay out of entangling alliances, we're still going to have these problems.
And when I see these signs and these on-again off-agains, and people say, well, maybe you should change these things, I find this as encouragement there.
And I have to admit that the rallies we had when the presidential campaign was going on, I liked it when young people were with us on the issue of war and peace.
And that to me is very encouraging.
And I think the fact that that happened, when you expose young people to an alternative foreign policy from the universities and schools that they've been fed into, they're very open-minded.
You know, it's converting somebody that's been in the military complex, earning a lot of money, and have been in part of it for 30 years.
The conversion there is much more difficult.
Absolutely, Dr. Paul.
I'm just going to close out by reminding everyone, get those tickets to the Ron Paul Institute August 16th conference.
We've had some really big speaker announcements.
In fact, one of our supporters wrote to me yesterday and said, I think this is your best lineup ever.
And I tend to agree.
It's a good lineup.
You know, we announced Professor Jeffrey Sachs will be joining us.
Natalie Morris of the Redacted, extremely popular podcast will be joining us in addition to our friends Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil, Colonel Doug McGregor, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Ron Paul.
And there's going to be one announcement that I'm going to give later today.
I'm going to send it out to the people who subscribe to the Ron Paul Institute updates.
And if you don't subscribe yet, go to ronpaulinstitute.org.
And there you will find both in blue at the top a link to get your tickets.
And you will also find the ability to subscribe to free updates for the Ron Paul Institute.
So do those two things right after you finish watching the show.
Get those tickets while they last.
Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
Foreign Policy Pitfalls00:00:49
And I want to conclude by just putting another pitch in for a foreign policy that should be run by non-authoritarians, because when you have dictatorships or strong central governments and you have all these political and patriotic reasons why we must go to war, it's hard to win the fight.
But this is not new for us right now.
It's not new for the United States.
It's not new in history.
It's worked that way.
Conditions do change.
The way they fought wars in World War I and how they came about, there are some similarities.
But most of the time, it occurs because the American people don't become alert and convinced there's no necessity to do what we have been doing these past several decades.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.