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Aug. 5, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
20:48
Federal Disaster Aid Dependent on Not Boycotting Israel?

The U.S. government pushed it too far yesterday with DHS guidance which stated federal disaster funding would be withheld from states that boycott Israel. This garnered massive amounts of pushback and protest. Americans have free speech and the freedom to boycott anyone they want. That means any country in the world, including America! What was the Trump Administration thinking?

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Time Text
The Depreciation Of The Dollar 00:04:10
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Chris Rossini, our co-host.
Chris, welcome to the program.
Great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
Let's try to solve some problems.
There aren't any problems anymore, you know.
They got rid of all the problems, you know, with the last election.
Now, it looks like there's going to be some perpetual problems in government.
I think it's the state of government.
And it looks like we have trouble, and cultures and many nations have always had trouble because most of them have had governments.
And they haven't accepted this fact that maybe the government's the source of so much trouble that we have.
But the trouble is sometimes reflected if one country controls the world currency like we do.
We control the dollar as the world reserve currency.
And, you know, the best way for me, obviously, on a day-to-day basis, when I'm wondering about that currency reflecting our policies and the politics of this country, you know, I say, well, what's the dollar doing?
I look at the price of gold, but that's secondary, and we shouldn't talk about that.
We should talk about the depreciation of a very important currency, and that is the dollar.
And guess what?
The dollar is depreciating.
And how do I know that?
Well, the housewives tell us that.
You can't even, you know, lately we found out we can't even be sure about government statistics because sometimes they fudge those numbers.
But the people who have to do the shopping, going to the grocery store, realize that the dollar can't be stretched to pay for all the bills, which means the dollar is losing its value.
And this was an obvious discovery by me and others because there was a warning in the 50s and the 60s even that the artificial fixing of the price of gold at $35 an ounce wouldn't last.
And lo and behold, we declared the initial bankruptcy by saying we can't give up our gold.
We don't have any gold to honor the Federal Reserve notes.
So we're going to cancel that.
And that was in 1971.
That was the time that I said, wow, all this stuff that I had been reading is absolutely right.
So I anticipated that there would be a bad time ahead.
And lo and behold, there was a bad time ahead.
And the 1970s were a mess.
Gold theoretically and artificially was considered $35 an ounce in 1971, but we weren't even allowed to own it.
So you don't know where the market price was.
But if you say that it was $35 or more, how much did it go up in that decade?
Well, if you go 10 times 35, 350, 20 times, 700, you know, it went up tremendously.
The reason I say this is people still will ask and they decide, and I can understand it because psychologically say, you know, how high is this gold going to go in a dollar denomination?
And people say, oh, it's $3,000 on its way to $4,000.
I missed the boat.
I can't do it.
But I tell you what, once they destroy a currency, it's amazing what the market can do.
The government can't rig things.
They pretend they can rig interest rates and the price of gold and manage everything.
But lo and behold, they are not able to do that.
So I think recognizing that people shouldn't say, well, we can't, it's too big a deal.
We can't look at the value of the dollar and the currency or the so-called price of gold because I think these conditions are going to last a long time.
And the reason I'm assured that that's going to happen is because what we have, the mess we have, is related to deficit financing.
Government Financing Controversy 00:11:22
And lo and behold, even after the last election, the deficit hasn't shrunk.
It's still going up.
So you can be sure that this mess is going to continue.
But we're going to talk today, Chris, a little bit about a policy position that is very annoying to a lot of us.
And Axios reported it early on, that was a couple of days ago.
States that boycott Israeli companies will lose disaster relief funds.
DHS says, well, yeah, why should they do that?
The Israeli, but what they're doing is they're punishing anybody on the college campuses and all.
We're regulating.
What they're doing is they're coming and regulating, and the administration is doing that, regulating speech.
Because you have to have a certain position on your sympathies for the Palestinians.
If you're overly sympathetic for the Palestinians and you even introduce that to a state legislation, then we're going to punish you by taking away federal funds, which is crazy because they never should have had the federal funds.
And even if you say, well, they have the funds, what is this?
It's a regulation of speech.
And that to me, Chris, is the real problem here.
They get by with this.
It's institutionalized and they don't address the real subject.
And that is why are we involved?
And then after we get involved with passing out this money, by what right does that give the administration or the Congress or anybody the authority to give and take and threaten and tease with and bribe and do all these things with the passing out of money, especially when we have a lot of it, especially we have because we have the wealth, you know, the reserve currency.
So, Chris, I think this deserves attention.
That's what we'd like to do today, because I think the people have started to speak out and maybe there's a move away and a hint that maybe the government wouldn't respond if the people just woke up.
Yeah, Dr. Paul, it's, you know, we're only seven months into President Trump's second term.
And this has been a lot for Americans to take in in these seven months with whatever it is that you want to call it that Trump has with Israel.
It's a lot to accept.
We had the act of war with Iran.
You know, this was the peace ticket.
And all of a sudden, he's throwing bombs on Iran.
Even bigger outcries is our tax money being used for the horrendous treatment of Gaza.
Then you have representatives saying, you know, we're voting on like 20 bills of anti-Semitism stuff.
You know, we're here.
We have to start focusing on America.
We have representatives complaining about that.
Restriction of speech for foreigners that come here.
Now this anti-boycott, this is, these are all, we have the First Amendment in this country.
You could say we have freedom of speech and the freedom to boycott whoever we want.
Any other country, we could boycott our own country companies here.
You know, we have that freedom.
That's what it means to be an American.
And the federal government is going to withhold our tax money for our natural disasters if the state boycotts a foreign country.
I mean, what are they thinking?
Fact, we're not the only ones thinking this, the backlash was so massive and incredible that they started backpedaling.
They rephrased what they did.
I don't know if they took it away, but they rephrased it.
This whole thing is this is too much.
We're only seven months in, and Americans are getting fed up with all of this.
You know, there's a consensus among many, many people in the media and various organizations.
They come down on the side that even if you whisper or say something that is not directed at Israel immediately or directly, that you're an anti-Semite, you know, and then they want to take you to task over that.
But, you know, when I took a vote, I voted against every penny that they wanted to send to Israel.
Oh, that made me an anti-Semite.
Yeah, but I voted against every penny going to anybody.
You know, none of them should have had money.
But now, so often, we send to both sides of these wars, too.
They've done that for years and years.
We'll try to support one side of a war.
We send them the money, and then there's a takeover and it shifts over and they use the same weapon.
Just look at money weapons that we left in Afghanistan.
Do you think they were sold and redistributed and the whole mess?
So that's why it's very easy morally and constitutionally to take a position when you say, you know, how do you avoid this charge that you're anti-Semitic?
Well, treat everybody exactly the same and not use this favoritism.
I think what we're witnessing here now, especially in this last six, eight months, is the wholesale use of government power.
That's what really bothers me.
That, yes, they do mention, they do mention tariffs on the Constitution, but they didn't describe what's happening now with give them some money and bribe them and tempt them to do this.
Do what we say, say what we want you to say, shoot these people if we want you to.
If you don't, we're going to take away your money.
And the people say, well, no, look at how they've done to the universities.
The universities that are in bed with all this stuff, just think they've been doing that for many decades, probably 100 years they got involved.
And so they depend on it.
And I give Trump credit for taking credit for cutting out some of those funds.
But when it's used only for policy and not used on principle, we shouldn't be sending the money, that is annoying because I think that is enhancing a power to the executive branch that they don't deserve and it is not constitutional.
That's right, Dr. Paul.
And favoritism, like you say, this is only natural.
It creates animosity, especially when it's favoritism from the government, whether it be for industries like the military-industrial complex, very hated, but they take a trillion dollars anyway.
I don't care.
Pharma, another one.
One of the most notorious industries in our country.
I've never heard anybody that loves their cable company.
You know, anytime that there's favoritism, monopolistic privileges, it creates animosity.
And that's the problem that we have with our government.
They favor companies, countries, and we're taxed.
We go to work, taxed, taxed directly, taxed by inflation, and our money goes to these favored groups.
So you can't help but create animosity when you do this.
Now, we wish that that wasn't the case.
Like Dr. Paul said, treat all the countries the same.
Don't show favoritism.
Treat the companies the same.
But we're very, very far from that.
Doesn't mean that we can't say what should be, but we're very far from that today.
You know, I use the term a lot, prevailing attitudes, because when there's an attitude and it's prevailing throughout society and reflecting some deep thinking over many periods of time, and it's based on the principles of liberty, that is one thing.
But right now, it's very frustrating.
You know, a lot of people asked me why I wasn't really frustrated up there among these people that were doing this.
And I said, I had low expectations.
I myself, I had a purpose and I could contribute, but I wasn't there to think that, boy, next week they're going to make me chairman of the Federal Reserve.
And the next day I'd have to resign.
That sure doesn't sound like a practical course to take.
But I think the people woke up.
There was an attitude that morphed into something where the people were leery about taking these booster shots.
And it shows now that a large majority of the Americans aren't taking the booster.
And it's a good, wise choice in my estimation.
But even on this issue that we're talking about today, DHS explicitly stated, I'm reading a post that was on this issue, stated that the federal disaster funding was barred from states that allowed boycott of Israel.
Well, that's a violation and there's all that money stuff.
Why would they do it?
How would they, why should we do it?
But the White House, listen, the White House changed this explicit language after widespread outcry, but the DHS tweeted, makes it clear that they are going to reserve some powers to do it.
You know, it's here, give you a little bit here.
But the point I want to make is when the people rise up and object to it, yeah, I do believe in boycotts, but I wish there'd be more boycotting of government stuff, you know, rather than taking government money they stole from unpeople and using it to boycott and prevent boycotts against, you know, people who are just supporting certain issues.
And I think the government ought to be in the business of protecting the First Amendment.
I think this mess that we deal with here and threaten money and take it away and control universities and universities can't speak out.
And then they're called, you know, if they stand out and have a position where why don't you consider starvation among the Palestinians without saying anything more than that, that then they say, oh, no, you're not allowed to say that.
And then say, we're going to take all your money away.
Well, you should have never given them the money in the first place.
But I think the point is it's just a terrible power that we grant to universities or big business or whomever, because where does the government get the money to give it to them?
They steal it.
They steal it from other people.
They steal it from working people to pump up these universities to get these fancy degrees that teach Keynesian economics.
There's a better way to provide a service of government without doing that.
Right, Dr. Paul.
I'll finish up my last statement on this.
And, you know, Dr. Paul and I, before the show, we were talking about how sad that we even have to have this show about this.
Marching Forward Despite Resistance 00:03:20
You know, with President Trump, of all people, everybody was so sure that we were getting America first this time.
All the dancing, all the shows, you know, to get the votes.
And, you know, at first, it was looking good.
It was looking really good.
In fact, people were accusing us of being Trump supporters because we were reporting all the good stuff that was going on at the beginning.
But then, boy, what a massive change.
And it's, you know, we have to report it as it is, not America first.
This, all of this Israel stuff is not America first, but it doesn't even stop there.
The most basic one that everybody wanted was Ukraine.
And he's going to end it on day one.
We are now seven months and he is arming Ukraine, turning it into his war.
What was so easy to pass off as Biden's war?
He is making his own.
This is all going in the wrong direction.
And, you know, it's sad.
This is not what we wanted.
This is not what so many millions of Americans wanted, but it's what it is.
We need to go in the opposite direction.
America first.
Bring the troops home and all foreign aid to all of these nations.
We can't afford it.
Our government can't pay its bills.
We can't pay our bills.
The country is a reflection of the government.
Everybody's in debt.
The government is in debt as if it doesn't exist.
They're just going forward, same thing.
Wrong.
Hopefully things change, but as of now, wrong.
Very good.
You know, my term that I use for this on what you said so clearly is how do we do it?
How do we plan this?
And my answer is, you know, we just, you know, marched in with all these countries where we have troops and interference.
So we ought to just march out.
But back, you know, even 10, 20 years ago, we were, all our troops were there.
Now, now they're trying to get by with saying, oh, we don't send our troops in there.
We send secret, we send the CIA to participate in coups and all this other nonsense.
But maybe you can't just say, just march the troops.
But what we have to do is march out being our dictator and an authoritarian and telling people that you'll do it this way or else.
And, you know, I just'm astounded that this has gotten this far, even these last couple of months.
But quite frankly, I think there's going to be a resistance to it.
You know, people say, boy, Trump was absolutely right about tariffs.
Things are doing pretty darn good.
And I have learned one thing, not to be dogmatic and say, well, I have a precise opinion of tariffs, but whether to say that, you know, that when it's going to fail and what it's going to do, but time will tell.
And I think what we're doing, and that Chris hinted to, that right now things have changed.
And I think they're going to change much, much more.
Resistance to Tariffs 00:01:55
So, you know, the one thing that I look at and wonder about and concern about, because what we're witnessing now is, you know, a currency crisis, but they don't ever talk about it.
Oh, is it?
Is it related to spending?
Yes, it's related to spending and debt.
It's related to the debasement of currency and all these things.
So if, but I think Mises was right when he talked about a crackup boom, when people just panic because the currency loses its value, it still loses its value.
People say there still is price inflation out there, and there's a lot of problems and concern.
And it's the middle class and the poor that suffer the consequences.
But that is going to continue.
And I think what we'll have seen is there'll be a rush out of paper money, the fiat money, and it will have to go into anything.
Mesa says, you know, it isn't that they're going to just go buy silver coins or something like that.
Everybody has money left over and they realize what's happening and it becomes massive.
And you have to just think of: could we be moving in the direction of Venezuela and runaway inflation and all this?
Yes, we are.
We could be, but it doesn't have to be that way.
It didn't have to get this way.
But we sacrificed carelessly that people thought there was a free lunch out there.
And guess what?
There is no free lunch.
And right now, people are starting to pay for it.
And that is the reason why we have to wake up people to get them to realize the change of attitude and position and understanding and restore confidence and excitement about what it's like to live in a free society.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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