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Sept. 8, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
32:52
MAGA Frowns As Trump Hosts Big Tech 'Demons' 1

The MAGA world was stunned late last week when the same day RFK was grilled in the Senate, President Trump hosted a lavish White House Dinner for "Big Tech" billionaires including vax addict Bill Gates. Also today...Rand takes on JD over government murder.

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Time Text
Crony Capitalism Under Attack 00:04:52
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.
Happy Monday, Dr. Paul.
How are you today?
It's a Monday again.
It is again.
Well, those weekends just disappear when you're busy.
Yes.
So we're busy now trying to sort out things.
And I'm going to start off, of course, with an economic update, but we do want to talk about the tariff situation, how weird it is.
Now it means it's a possibility.
The courts might make Trump return the money, something crazy like that.
So we'll get into that later.
But what I want to do is start off with a headline that I got off hedge today.
And it says, Americans sour on capitalism as Democrats go all in on socialism.
This is a survey that was made.
And it says the survey reveals that Americans' positive perception of capitalism has slipped to 54%.
But they use that word like, whoa, America is a capitalistic country.
The lowest level since the poll began in 2010.
Meanwhile, views on socialism remain steady at around 39%, though partisan divides are widening.
Two-thirds of the Democrats, they're vocally for socialism.
And that might tell us a little bit of the problem and the results of education.
But I want to concentrate on this little statement of mine about words and definitions, because I think the conservatives and Republicans have all been drawn in.
And I think it's been done on purpose by the people who write this up and they don't want free market capitalism.
You know, the worst two words you could use about economics is laissez-faire.
Let the people spend their own money.
There's not much support in the Republican Party for that.
But it's the word capitalism that I think is important because capitalism is an ism on who it is that controls the capital.
And so technically speaking, communism is a capitalist study.
They have some capitalism.
They have goods and services and more so than they did during the Cold War and when communism was at a high level.
But they do believe in capitalism.
So there's all forms of capitalism.
So we're not the capitalism that most people think, American capitalism.
It's ruthless, it's rich and it's powerful and all this because I think that's the reason that many of us now use the word.
We don't like the word just capitalism.
We like to use the word crony capitalism to define it.
And also that the capitalism is something that people think negatively now more so, but I don't think they have the understanding because they're not talking about free markets.
They're talking about crony capitalism.
They're talking about all this interference.
And now we're moving in a direction.
We hear these stories on plans in the future for the government to have a fund where they're going to buy stock in private companies.
It's never been done in this country before.
So this is something that I think needs careful thought about it.
And to blame all the problems today, it's those Republicans believing in capitalism.
They use it all the time and they never qualify it.
And It's their substitute for free markets, and therefore free markets don't work.
They don't say that it's crony capitalism or corporatism or inflationism and all the things that we have.
We're so far removed from free markets and sound economic policy that it's sickening that they were able to capture this word and lay and pretend that the Republicans all believe in it and use it against them.
So, you know, I don't believe in the capitalism they're talking about.
I don't even like to use the word.
And what, so I suggest that we pay attention, but I would say it's not an accident.
It just didn't come.
It's not a cliche.
It just didn't pop up.
I think it's done by the intellectuals from our university that it feed this system into the system.
Bill Gates' Critics 00:15:28
But today, though, the politicians respond that if they're criticized, they just go, they try to defend themselves and they go along with the junk that is out there.
Oh, well, maybe we can do tariffs better than the last people.
That sort of thing.
But anyway, Americans are sour on capitalism, but my end-up statement is it's not capitalism.
In the true sense of the word, it's not free markets.
It's not free markets and sound money.
They're criticism.
But we who believe in that seem to be under attack.
And I think words have to be defined if we're ever going to get anywhere in trying to bring about better economic policy.
Well, Dr. Paul, Donald Trump got into a little bit of trouble last week.
On Friday, he had a dinner.
He had a little party over at the White House, which I think is something that I probably would do if I was president.
I might do that every day.
But the people he invited have gotten the base upset again.
This seems to be like a weekly occurrence that he infuriates his supporters.
The Newsweek put it this way: Donald Trump inviting Bill Gates to the White House sparks MAGA fury.
Now, if you go to that first clip, this is from the Newsweek article.
A number of President Donald Trump supporters have reacted angrily to him hosting Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and other tech tycoons in a White House dinner on Thursday.
I apologize, it's Thursday, not Friday.
Then it was held to support an initiative on artificial intelligence led by First Lady Melania Trump.
Attendees included meta-boss Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Open AIs Sam Altman, Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
And there was a reaction, Dr. Paul.
And in fact, I did a clip of Steve Bannon, who, as you know, is sort of an on-again off-again, but he's definitely identified with the MAGA base.
You know, he appeals to them.
He has a very popular war room show.
You might want to grab that earpiece and listen to about a minute 29 of Ben.
Now, Bennon being Ben, and he goes off the rails after, I cut it off before he goes off the rails because he says some goofy stuff.
But this first part I think is pretty important.
And this will give you an example of the reaction to Trump hosting Bill Gates and the others.
My God, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, on the day that Bobby Kennedy goes in there, the guys at the White House, Katsiotis and Sachs, whatever Sachs is doing, you're telling me that we gave previews last week on Bobby Kennedy.
We said it's going to be a star chamber.
It's going to be an Inquisition.
That Bobby Kennedy is going to show his guts and courage by standing in the breach and taking it on, of which he did magnificently, magnificently.
And on that night, you're going to have at the White House a dinner that you're going to invite Mark Zuckerberg.
And Sachs, you're going to sit next to him like some clown.
He should be in jail.
And we got a huge, we're in a federal court right now trying to break the company up.
How is that appropriate?
He tried to talk, asked Mike Davis.
He went to the Zuckerberg, went to the White House and tried to talk the president out of it.
President, no, the FTC went ahead with the suit.
And Bill Gates, Bill Gates should be in prison.
He's a demon of a demon on the diet.
He's the worst in the world for the vaccines to put money in his own pocket.
And all of them to have the government underwrite it.
Remember, when you see those tech guys, all this and the government contracts, it's all socializing the downside.
You're paying for it, and they get unlimited upside.
This is why the conservatives and you guys, oh, you know, inside.
So, two good points he makes there.
The day that R.F. Kennedy, if you saw anything about RFK grilling, but he was being treated extremely disrespectfully in the Senate.
Elizabeth Warren and others were really being absurd.
So on that very same day, he invites the champions of the vaccine.
But he made it the reason I chose this clip.
No, not all of it was appropriate and pertinent, but I thought you would enjoy that last part where he points out they socialize the costs and they privatize the profits.
So these big billionaires are billionaires on the backs of Americans.
Yet they're the ones who, image-wise, represents American capitalism and pretend it's a worthy, worthy thing.
Now it's breaking loose.
But when you think about it, isn't it a shame the people who resist or the champion in the House is Thomas Massey?
He's the one that they're gunning for the most, spending the most money on trying to get rid of.
Even though it's a tight vote in the House to even who controls the House, but they're willing to go after him because he's, you know, what his problem is.
Thomas is probably telling the truth.
Telling the truth.
You're not supposed to do that in Washington.
They resent that.
But you know, if the free market people were wanting to have a conversation with people who believed in it, we could give them a list to have their, and the free market invites would be completely different.
And they bring these people in to all belong.
They're interventionists.
You know, they're not free market and they're not devout Marxists and this sort of thing.
It's intervention where they can mold it.
All you have to do is have strategy and power and influence and have threats and innuendos and all kinds of things to have your way.
So this to me is a reflection of not understanding what we're even talking about because it was good on your clip there.
At least we have fun.
Somebody, even though he's not in the Congress, he's at least saying, you know, call a spade a spade.
But that isn't what happens.
It's terrible on how quiet, you know, good conservatives, they vote and their speeches have been pretty good.
And yet when they come down to voting and support, they just roll over and do it because they're intimidated by somebody who is very powerful and has a lot of clout and doesn't not only use the power of the executive branch, but also excessively using the power, which is in many times illegitimate.
And a lot of these tech companies, what do they do?
I mean, they silenced, they censored Americans to the benefit of Kamala Harris, to the benefit of Joe Biden.
I think, was it Gates or it was Zuckerberg, I guess, who gave $40 million to Kamalis' campaign.
Now, not that you should base everything on political support, but certainly when it comes to silencing Americans who were skeptical about the vaccine, these guys were in the front, front line of that.
Now, Robbie Starbucks is a fellow that we've admired a lot.
He's gone after the woke in a very successful way.
And he's, I would say, pretty MAGA in many ways.
This is from that article, if you put it up.
This is an example, Dr. Paul, of how irritated people are with President Trump over doing this.
However, the dinner sparked a negative response from some MAGA-affiliated accounts on social media with conservative commentator Robbie Starbuck describing Gates as a quote globalist.
Posting on X, Starbucks said, quote, it's infuriating to see Bill Gates at the White House in a position of honor.
I want a future where we stop giving power to evil people like Gates.
He's a globalist who hates the America First ideology.
His God complex deserves nothing but contempt.
I think he makes a pretty good point, and I think he probably does a good job of speaking for the majority of the people that supported Donald Trump and probably continue to support him.
They don't want globalists.
They're done with it.
Once again, we're still at the same old fight about definitions.
People that are closer to us are saying, well, we have to defend American First, American First.
But how many times have we already volunteered the idea that maybe what we're getting isn't American First?
We do it on foreign policy.
We point it out when they invade countries and blow up ships and all this stuff and spend more money than ever.
And that's not America First either.
But unfortunately, America First is being used and it has become a sacred term for the people who have supported Trump for cutting back on big government.
So that, once again, this is one reason why I've never been enamored by the two-party system, because deep down on these definitions, and it's the Republicans and the Democrats who spend the money to say that the Democrats do all the spending isn't right.
They give speeches against it, but even they who used to be better on foreign policy, they roll over on that.
Everything military.
They're disgusted with a Department of Defense implying that we're only going to defend our country.
We want a Department of Offense.
We want to show that we're tough so nobody messes around with us.
And you know what?
We point out these shortcomings.
And they mentioned this article that people are getting annoyed with what's happening.
But guess what?
Trump's onto this political system because his numbers, according to some people, they're not going down at the moment.
At the moment, yeah.
Interesting.
Well, I picked a couple of more just at random on X, just to show you some discontent among the population.
If you go to that next one, I don't necessarily know these accounts well.
I don't know this one at all.
But he or she makes a good point.
Remember when Trump and MAGA, who got him elected, said Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Bill Gates, and Silicon Valley were the bad guys, part of the swamp?
Now they're besties.
Ditch the voters who got him elected, sold out true Americans.
That's a harsh one.
Now, I somewhat know this next account, Dr. Anastasia Maria Lupas.
She makes a good point.
Bill Gates, who is having dinner with Donald Trump in the White House, talks about vaccines and gene editing as President Trump and First Lazy Lady Melania smile in support.
Now, just looking at these pictures of these guys assembled, guys and guys assembled, should give pause to people who are concerned about this.
Now, the last one is just from a newspaper headline.
It says, Bill Gates says that he and President Trump are creating next-level cures to eradicate many diseases.
I think a lot of the mugg-up would say, We've been there, we've done that, and a lot of people died last time you did it.
So it looks like he's turning his back on a lot of these people who were sick of Bill Gates creating new cures.
The guy doesn't have a degree in anything remotely close to being medicine or science.
You know, this is all important, and we're trying to point out our side of the argument.
But when you think about what's happening in foreign policy and thinking about how the military buildup is going and how many people who have lived through several decades of this say that it's not a good sign in the likelihood of a major war breaking out seems to be growing by daily, you know.
So this is something that people want they want to hear the right thing, but then they do not want to challenge it when they hear the wrong things.
That I think is the biggest problem for people to stand up.
And this whole thing, you know, to dissect all that, all this out about the reputation of the people that they're doing, they fall into the category of Soros, you know, very, very rich, very, very smart with the money, very, very powerful in knowing how to use the system.
And then they get labeled, they get labeled, you know, capitalism, and they lump us in that group.
So I want to make it very clear, I separate myself from this.
And this is one of the reasons that I complained over the years, too much bipartisanship, even when the Democrats seem to have a different position.
And at times, there's some benefit to it.
But overall, you know, on the big issues, there's no change, and it's just a game they play, and they all delight in chaos.
Who are going to pick up the pieces?
These guys are sitting around ready to pick up the pieces, power-wise and money-wise.
Yeah.
Well, the next little thing, Dr. Paul, is America is going to hope that you explain this to us.
And I include myself in this category because I don't think any one of us understand this.
If anyone does, it's got to be you.
Put this next one up.
This is from Yahoo Finance.
Trump tariffs live updates.
Besides, warns of massive refunds if the Supreme Court rules against tariffs.
Now go to the next one when U.S. Secretary, U.S. Treasury Department said it would have to give rebates if the Supreme Court decides that President Trump's reciprocal tariffs were beyond his authority.
The Secretary of Treasury said we would have to give a refund on about half the tariffs, which would be terrible for the Treasury, terrible for the Treasury, Dr. Paul.
What does this mean?
This means that somebody's attempting to write a comedy.
I find this so ridiculous, but I should say it out loud because somebody might criticize me for being so strongly worried.
But the first thing is, is people have to remember all tariffs are taxes.
We don't pay, China doesn't pay us money when we put a tariff on it.
We charge the people, we charge China to put property in here if the people want it.
Then the people here have to pay the tariff.
So it's a pair, we put the tariff, the tax on ourselves.
And you can't justify it, I don't think, morally or constitutionally because of the way they spend the money and the way they just doctor up the deficits.
And now they come along and the courts have entered into this too.
And maybe rightfully so, because I think the founders, if they had a chance, they should rewrite the tariff part of the Constitution, even though it was very restrictive.
It wasn't to do this, threaten, intimidate, and sanctions and mix them in with all the stuff we do.
Initiation of Force Rejected 00:11:13
And now, all of a sudden, after they collected all this money, they're going to be repaid to Secretary of Treasury.
He says, that's going to be hard.
He didn't say it, but what he says is it's already been spent.
It was spent before it even got into our checking account.
So it's all, well, we'll print the money.
We can get by on this.
They'll probably come up with some crazy scheme to do this.
But it has to be the silliest thing.
Doing this crazy thing, doing economically speaking, they shouldn't even do with tariffs.
Morally and constitutionally, they should question this.
And then now they have to say, well, technically, there's somebody in the court, which I do not fault.
They say, look, you guys are way overboard.
And we have a Republican Supreme Court.
So you think maybe somebody's waking up there.
And they're saying, oh, maybe you don't have to return all this money.
So if they do, it'll come out of inflation.
I mean, we don't have any money in the bank.
They think, oh, well, they sent it in.
We'll send it back to them.
I mean, it's a crazy scheme.
It wouldn't make a good comedy.
And maybe somebody will do that someday.
And a tragedy.
I think a lot of people misunderstand.
They think that this money would be going back to China and India and whatever.
But as you said, it would go back to the importers, the Americans who are importing it.
They're the ones that have been.
That's not likely.
Well, there were some sparks over the weekend, Dr. Paul.
And it should be no surprise to our viewers that we came out on one side of this.
Put that next one up.
This is from Politico, but you could have seen it all over X over the weekend.
Rand Paul clashes with JD Vance over U.S. strike on boat leaving Venezuela.
Go to the next one now.
This is from the article.
This is a quote from JD Vance, the vice president of the United States.
He says, killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.
He wrote on X, and Politico continues, but others in Washington question the attack's legality.
They're looking for answers as to why the administration elected to fire on the cartel rather than rounding them up.
And some are wary the strike could expand the president's authority to call upon his war powers.
There have also been questions about details of the attack and desire for proof that the boat itself was actually what the administration says.
Now, here's a quote from Senator Paul on JD Vance's comment.
What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.
Now, I'm sure that earned a lot of disdain for Senator Paul because people are, especially a lot of the Trump followers, they like to talk a tough game and they like to talk about due process doesn't matter.
Oh, that's just for wimps.
But it is a good point.
And it's a point that others have made, Dr. Paul, which is that we were told, we've been told in the past that enemies of the regime are bad guys.
We were told it about Saddam Hussein.
We were told it about Gaddafi.
All of the things they said about Saddam Hussein, of course, were a bunch of lies used to justify a policy.
And people should be skeptical when they say this boat was filled with bad guys, therefore we had to kill them.
Now, it may well have been filled with bad guys, may have been filled with bad guys and a bunch of drugs.
But until we know the fact, until we have interdicted the boat and found out what's going on, you can't just blow these people out of the water.
Well, it hasn't been too long ago.
It was running rampant in this country.
These bad guys, and they got caught red-handed, they weren't sent to prison.
They were turned over to a policeman who released them two hours later.
Exactly.
And so it's just these wild swings, and they're politically driven.
But I think that it's very, very dangerous this.
And I'm sure glad he pointed this out.
But I am really sad that nobody comes in and says, you know, he has a point there.
Yeah, nobody.
They don't say that.
And there's so many good people there, too.
So it isn't done because they're doing this for some personal gain.
The only way it could be a personal gain is, I can't stand the heat.
Yeah.
And I think Thomas had the right answer.
Well, that's what you're supposed to do.
Stand the heat if you're here for a purpose and you announce why you're here and then you follow through.
So that's one thing that should be done.
They're just not willing to stand up because it is a political risk.
When they cave in and say, I know you're right, but under this circumstances, we have to do this.
That means they're identifying their priorities.
And this is why we get here this far.
Somebody said, well, we're only caving in on a bill.
It's such and such an amount or abuse of our liberties.
We're not going to do the whole thing.
We're only going to, you know, we'll give 10% exemption.
We'll cut the bill 10%.
I said, that's a, but the 10% goes to an issue or a project that's 100%.
It's 100% endorsement of something.
But the 10%, then if you keep caving in, guess what?
After a while, there's nothing left to cut back.
And that's where we are on the interventionism and the spending and the absurdities that we saw, you know, on our immigration problems with the last administration.
A little bit here, a little bit here.
And they don't start off with a basic principle.
The basic principles are not complicated.
And they should feel good about standing up to a basic principle.
I'll bet you any money my son didn't lose any sleep over the fact that he'll get criticism for this.
And anyone who thinks that he's in love with drug runners is barking up the wrong tree.
But it is all politics and no principle.
Remember when Obama thought it would be a neat idea to kill to assassinate an American overseas, and then he went back and assassinated the guy's son and daughter, and there was outrage, rightly outrageous.
The president doesn't have the power to decide who lives and dies.
These are civilians.
This is not a declared war.
They're absolutely not targets.
But anyway, let's look at the exchange because it's sort of interesting if we look at how it goes.
Put that next one up.
So here's JD Vance.
He's feeling his oaths.
He's feeling like a tough guy.
He says, killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.
Brian Krassenstein, who I take it is probably a lefty, but whatever.
Killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime, to which JD Vance says, I don't give a H what you call it.
Now, Senator Paul picked up on that last part.
Go to the next one.
He said, JD, I don't give an H Vance an S.
I don't give an SH Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the highest and best use of the military.
Did he ever read to kill a mockingbird?
Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation?
What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.
Excellent point.
Nobody wants to hear it.
Nobody wants to hear when everyone is acting very tough.
Nobody wants to hear someone say, hey, this is not the right thing to do.
Do you think one of the major networks will, next time they get to interview Vance or somebody else and have them explain it?
You see this, you see the one complaint, but you never see a follow-up.
Well, I can't say never, but there's not going to be a significant follow-up to make them answer that question.
And there are questions because, well, there are a lot of them.
There are too many to get into now, but if we can just go to the Greenwald, Glenn Greenwald posted about it too, and he makes a good point.
There are a lot of questions that have not been answered.
The U.S. government itself repeatedly says that the amount of drugs that comes into the U.S. from Venezuela barely registers.
That means they don't send drugs to the U.S.
And that little tiny boat could not have brought drugs to the U.S.
This is not him.
This is me interpreting him.
Drugs are the obvious pretext for the latest Trump military intervention from his new Department of War.
Regime change is the actual goal, obviously, to which I would go to that next one if you can, that last one.
They're not even hiding it, Dr. Paul.
This is Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth.
He says, we are fully ready for regime change in Venezuela.
The final decision to change the regime in Venezuela is up to President Trump.
To which I would say, you obviously don't understand the basic constitution because it's not up to Trump.
Most people think changing the name is no big deal.
It's a technicality.
But did you see the figure where how many signs that say DOT?
They're going to have to change hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions of changing it.
But the issue of war is out on the table, and we don't like it because it's a term that they like and enjoy, and we have to be tough and strong.
And to order to have that, we have to give more power to the executive branch.
I like the idea of what the Swiss has for their executive branch.
That's what they ought to look at.
And also the word that they're using is offense.
Yes, it's good to have some defense, but you've got to be strong and you've got to be willing to use an offense.
They use the word.
And still, the American people are lulled asleep.
But as they wake up slowly, and all I can think of is how long it took them to wake up over Vietnam, year after year after year.
How long did it take them to wake up after Afghanistan and the Middle East, every place?
Well, now, how many years has it been for Ukraine?
2014.
That sounds like it's getting to be a long time.
So it's a tragedy because I believe they don't start off with a basic principle.
The founders gave us that basic principle, and it was to be a guidance by the Constitution and a requirement that you take the oath and take it seriously and try to follow it and change things when you need to, but change things in an orderly way and amend the Constitution that they might find offensive to them.
Well, you know, every one of those right-wingers and MAGA supporters out there who are cheering, giving the president the authority to do a thumbs up or thumbs down and have someone murdered should think twice about that because there will be a next president and they will inherit that ability, that implied ability.
Rejecting Initiation of Force 00:01:16
And it may not work out how they wish.
It will work out.
So anyway, I'm going to close out by thanking all of our viewers on Monday.
Please hit that thumbs up, the like button.
Make sure you subscribe.
Make sure you go to ronpaulinstitute.org every day and read our two or three articles, three or four articles that we put out that we think are the most important things to read every day.
Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
And trying to summarize what I've been trying to say into a simple sentence is that is that we have to get people to understand why it's important to reject the initiation of force to have your own way.
Whether it's economics, whether it's social things, religious things, just don't give in to the people who say that we can use force to do that.
And the world has been running on that notion because there's been a contest for literally thousands of years on this, on what is the right way and the wrong way.
And if people understood a little bit more about natural law, they would realize that from the very beginning, people were aware of the fact of lying, cheating, stealing, and killing was not to be acceptable in a civilized society.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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