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Sept. 18, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
31:43
What Everyone's Missing On The Jimmy Kimmel Firing

Conservatives are celebrating the firing of late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel after ill-chosen remarks about the killing of Charlie Kirk. Those on the Left are crying "cancel culture" on the Right. But there is something important that is being missed regardless of one's views on Kimmel. Also today: Trump's "special envoy" for the Ukraine war goes full John Bolton - will he finally get sacked?

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Market Manipulation Concerns 00:15:53
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 to see you, Dr. Paul.
How are you doing this morning?
Doing well, thank you.
Doing well.
We have several subjects.
This morning I was looking at the news, and I saw a lot of subjects that we could iron out.
But we have to be satisfied with a limited amount of solutions that we're going to provide for the world.
And we'll make an effort at least to do that.
But before we do this, I want to mention a little bit about the economy because the economy is pretty instrumental in everything that we do, whether it's foreign policy or monetary affairs, the whole works.
And this morning there was some news that should stir up the markets a bit.
Housing starts were down, and they made a mistake or they revised them, but they were really down $122,000.
That's a pretty big error.
And of course, gold was down sharply today.
I think that's because people like to make profits on occasion because the fundamentals haven't changed.
I relate the assessment of gold as an assessment of the dollar value and the dollar value.
I assess from how much money the government is pretending to spend.
Fictitious money, then backed by the whole economy.
So this has been going on for a long time.
We're still spending.
It's out of control.
And I think a big economic event coming up is here in the next couple of months when they have to do the refinancing and doing the budget.
But they're going to find a way to fluff over it for another month or two, I'm sure.
And it's something that in the media regarding the economy, you hear this shouting from the left about the Antifas, you know, and all those fascists in the government, you know, going after this stuff.
But when you look at it, it's really a weird situation.
The people, and this is characteristic of many politicians, the things they're most guilty about, we saw this in the last election, you know, what they're most guilty about, they blame the other party for the most.
But another report this morning was the margin debt on the stocks is over a trillion dollars.
Can you imagine what would happen if there's a rush out and everybody gets a phone call and then has to pay?
Because it wouldn't take too much.
I will tell you that.
So this is something that should be of our concern.
There was one other headline I wanted to mention, and this has to do with some of the court cases going on with the administration, especially with Trump dealing with tariffs and other things.
And they're major.
And one assessment here, it says that Trump asked the Supreme Court to give him total control over the U.S. economy.
Well, he might ask, but I don't think he's going to get that.
And I find it very interesting that when they want to violate our liberties and they want to interfere, that the market's pretty good at this.
When you think how quickly how quickly bad advertisement, all the woke advertisement, how long did it take the customers to speak out?
Within days and hours, the customers spoke out.
The market is much more efficient, much more morally directed, much better economic policy.
And it's almost like the politicians hate competition.
You mean they solve problems very quickly?
Yeah, they didn't like something going on with an ad, so they just boycotted the place.
And it wasn't a couple of people.
That has to be a message.
But no, the government then wants to crack down more to control what we do and say.
So that's a mess as far as I'm concerned.
And it has to do with basic misunderstanding about the principles of liberty.
But I do want to move into one thing that's really been in the news today.
It's related to Kirk, but Disney pulls Jimmy Candle live and definitely following Kirk's comments.
And, well, is this the market working?
What do you think about that?
I have my doubts about this.
I don't think this is the market working.
Maybe in a degree of some of the politics are working, but I think it's a mixed bag, just as it's a mystic bag, trying to figure out what freedom of speech is when it comes to who gets invited at the university campuses and how do you regulate them having terrible speakers.
Well, the government does because the government has invested so much.
So once again, here it is.
People are shouting, boy, this is great.
And they're talking about doing more of it.
And yet, as I pointed out, I tried to point out that that doesn't work that well.
And it's also a violation of the principles of allowing people to speak their will.
Well, everyone's talking about the firing, apparent firing of Jimmy Kimmel.
If we can put that first clip on, this is from Politico, Dr. Paul.
We both read this this morning.
As you say, Disney pulls Jimmy Kimmel live indefinitely following Kirk comments.
Now go to the next one.
This is what he did that got him into so much trouble.
Disney said Wednesday it would indefinitely suspend comedian Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show following the host's comments on the fatal shooting of conservative organizer Charlie Kirk.
Kimmel criticized conservatives on Monday for, quote, desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it.
Obviously a distasteful and inaccurate statement.
I don't believe Dr. Paul that this was the first time the mainstream media has broadcast a distasteful and inaccurate statement and we don't endorse it.
For the record, I've never seen Jimmy Kimmel's show.
I just assume that it's another one of those garbage shows that are on TV that I don't watch.
But nevertheless, as you alluded to in your opening, the interesting thing, not to give away the punchline too early, but the interesting thing about this is not that his network decided that that was over the top, as so much of the country was mourning the shooting of Kirk, but the wrinkle in this was the role of the U.S. government.
Now, if you go to that next one, you'll see the FEC director Brendan Carr got involved.
And here's the full statement that he made.
He said, this is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney.
We can do this the easy way or the hard way.
These companies can find ways to take action on Kimball, on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
So the FCC chair, i.e. the U.S. government control of the airwaves, says, I don't like what this talk show host said.
They're going to either get rid of him or we're going to come down cracking down hard on them.
And we remember Dr. Paul during COVID when we found out from the Twitter files that that's exactly what the Biden administration was doing for people who challenged the tyranny.
Yes, and they have a club, they can club them with it if they don't do what the government tells them.
And that's, to me, the issue of fascism comes up.
That's not fascism, but it's the system that leads to fascism.
So I think that's equally as great a danger, if not more, than the people around Antifa.
At least they're out in the open and they vote for pure communists, at least socialists, and say that this is what they believe in.
But this stuff about taking control, that's why I worry about these court cases.
If it gives more control to the executive branch of government and it controls money and regulation, and I'll tell you what, Trump is good.
He's good at this activity of intimidating these people that are involved.
And the message is very clear.
And even foreign nations now realize that they have to contend with it.
But they don't look at this the same way we do.
Obviously, maybe they shouldn't be doing this kind of stuff.
Maybe there is an alternative.
Maybe the market does work.
And they aren't too interested in trying that.
You know, there's been a, well, certainly I've gotten a lot of backlash on X for speaking out against this.
But I find the hypocrisy disturbing when the right was the victim of so much cancel culture during the Biden administration and even before that.
We saw so much of it now.
Now, this isn't necessarily a First Amendment issue, but it's a matter of hypocrisy, celebrating getting people fired for saying disgusting things about Kirk, even mildly objectionable things about Charlie Kirk.
There's a rush to call and get these people fired.
Well, that's what happened to you guys.
What do you think is going to happen when the left gets back in power?
And the response has always been, well, they're finally getting their fair share of what they dished out.
Okay, I mean, if that's the game we're going to play, then you're no better.
If it was wrong when they did it, then how is it right when you're doing it back to them?
You know, there should be a better way.
But the real issue here, again, as you point out, Dr. Paul, is the role of the FCC coming in and busting heads, which is what the Biden administration did to dissenters during the COVID era.
Now, this next one, if you go ahead to this next one here, a friend of ours sent this over to us this morning to get ready.
Now, most of the stuff we've covered, but this is interesting.
Brendan Carr, Trump's FCC chair, entered the fray piling public pressure on ABC and its owner, Disney, to take action by threatening dark consequences if it refused to do so.
Status is Oliver Darcy reports that an afternoon of panicked executive meetings ensued and that Kimmel planned to address the controversy head on.
ABC's affiliates piled on the pressure.
Eventually, Disney execs pulled the plug.
I think what a lot of these people celebrating this don't realize, Dr. Paul, is that if Biden was back in power and Charlie Kirk had a show on the equivalent of ABC, that same thing could get Charlie Kirk himself taken off the air because I'm sure Charlie Kirk said things that irritated the left as much as this irritated the right.
So if you're going to keep going in this circle, we're never going to have an improvement.
See, and this has been around for a long time, this condition of the Association of The media, you know, whether it was radio or television or whatever, because then they have control and it's through licensing and then modification.
Remember, there was a time when everybody had to have equal, if somebody had one position, you had to get somebody else on.
And it was always this management of it.
And I really believe a lot of that comes from the lack of clear-cut ownership.
But what they do is they own licenses and the government can remove them.
So the setup has been there.
It's just that the conditions in the country have not been so severe that so many people are willing to use this power and the clout that they have to close them down and just stir up the trouble.
This is not good.
It's not good for the position of limited government and looking for free market answers.
And it's not good for the economy.
It's not good for the system at all.
It's not good for an understanding of the Constitution.
Because I think the Constitution is probably way down on our list of people trying to sort this out.
Yeah, and I think Trump partially gets it because he referred several times to the miserable ratings that Kimmel's show has.
And he also did that with Colbert.
He mentioned the miserable ratings.
Well, that's how you solve the problem.
Don't watch the show.
Because if you don't watch the show, they can't pay the guy's salary and he's yanked off the air.
So does this government lose these things for getting rid of them through force and power?
Yeah, just don't watch them.
You deny the money.
But I saw this similarly when it came to the universities and some over the foreign policy issues that have speakers that the administration didn't like.
Oh, we'll take your money away.
Why did you ever have it in the first place?
Exactly.
But that's not the way they think about it.
They want to guide it.
I think they want, the bottom line is the people that are fighting for more effort.
I think there is much for, because some of these people aren't going to make millions of dollars over this.
And some of them are doing it, I think, for political power.
I think they thrive in it.
And if they have power, they do.
There's some of these people who all of a sudden up, you know, they're in office and they're willing to endorse a guy that brags about being a socialist.
I mean, there's something wrong going on.
Yet I don't think the country's that bad off.
I welcome them to do that because, and I think some Republicans are starting to realize that's over the top.
But sometimes we think the Republicans are over the top in manipulating the whole system, you know, through the government.
Absolutely.
Let's put on that next quote.
This is still from the Politico article.
ABC's move drew sharp criticism from free speech advocates, including the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression's Ari Cohen, who said the network, quote, withered under government pressure, ensuring that the administration will continue to extort, extort, and extract retribution on media institutions that speak critically of Trump and his allies.
A quote from Cohn: We certainly, we cannot be a country where late-night talk show hosts serve at the pleasure of the president.
But until institutions grow a backbone and learn to resist government pressure, this is the country we are.
Now, a lot of people on the right are going to dismiss FHIR, which is the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, as being some sort of leftist tool.
Well, nothing could be further from the truth.
And we had the spokesman for FHIR on our show a few months back, if you remember.
Great guy.
This is an organization that does what the ACL used, ACLU used to do, which is to really challenge government infringement on speech.
And here I think they're absolutely right.
Yes.
But unfortunately, the people who are out there propagandizing don't happen to agree with what we're talking about.
Ukraine's Winning 00:11:16
But I still think the atmosphere and the ability to reach people is still there.
And sometimes, you know, this whole thing about getting those ads off the air, how fast and quick, we're not going to buy your beer.
And boy, that got their attention.
So that has to be the vehicle of the communications today, you know, with the internet and all, because in the old days, you wouldn't be able to gather that much strength to close some big businesses down or at least back off and really red in the face.
They were so ridiculous on what they were doing.
So I like the way that is the censorship comes that way, voluntary censorship.
Exactly.
Well, let's move on to a little bit of foreign policy here.
And I'll go to the next one.
I did slightly censor this because we are a family-friendly show.
And I will change my way I pronounce the title.
We'd kick Russia's butt.
I'm using a different word than he used.
Trump's special envoy to Ukraine says Moscow is losing the war and would collapse without China.
Now, we are talking about none other than Keith Kellogg, the retired general who came up with the ill-fated Kellogg plan, which basically told Russia, stop shooting, stop winning, and we'll start talking.
Obviously, that didn't go very well.
So Kellogg went to Kiev, I think probably his 500th trip, who knows, to attend a conference.
And he said some things that raised some eyebrows.
Go to the next one.
He said, Ukraine will not lose this war.
Ukrainians have a moral superiority over Russia.
That's obvious.
I don't know where he's getting his information from on that first part.
The second part is subjective, but it reveals a lot about the way he thinks about something that he's supposed to be objective in, Dr. Paul.
He's supposed to be serving the president well by giving him accurate information.
He also said, as to Russia, they talk a big game, adding that Putin often likes to tout that Russia is a nuclear power, but other Western powers have nuclear weapons too.
On the topic of Russian superiority, we would kick their butts.
They're not as good as Putin says they are, he said.
Now, to that, I would say, Dr. Paul, before I turn it over to you, well, put on that bonus clip, because his claim that Ukraine is winning the war, now this is the exchange of bodies between Russia and Ukraine.
Those really big, tall blue lines are Ukrainian bodies that are being returned to Ukraine from the battlefield by Russia.
Those little tiny red ones that you're seeing, those are Russian bodies being returned to Russia.
This is an objective measurement of the fact that Ukraine is not winning.
You don't win a war by getting the most people killed.
So anyway, over to you, Dr. Paul.
Kellogg is off his rocker.
You know, when I read this article this morning, usually I get an image and a theme that's going on just for my own benefit.
On this one, I wrote grand fiction.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, that's a lot of fiction.
When he went, got into that foreign policy stuff.
And it's just unbelievable how many, are they lies?
Why did they do this thing?
That still is bewildering, although I think I know a little bit about why they do it.
They do have some goals, but there's a lot of people who get involved that don't necessarily get $10 million stuck in their pocket.
But there are some people who get $10 billion stuck in their pocket over this.
And then there are some dedicated to Marxism.
They're dedicated to government rules.
And they're dedicated to the false understanding that people cannot solve their own problems.
And I look at it. quite differently from my meager experience I've had is the government is at fault.
Government creates so many of our problems, mainly because people say, well, the people can't take care of themselves.
Then why put people in charge of everybody?
And then they find fault with every single person eliminating the opportunity for the individual to solve some of their own problems.
So it's a system that comes to an end because they always play it up.
It's always demagoguery.
They always play that this is just wonderful thing.
We care for humanitarian reasons and we are really for peace.
We're for peace as long as you do it our way and you just need to give us more power and don't question us when we do things because we're for peace and if you have a good cheerleader, believe me, they can get the crowds cheering up loud and clear.
One of the things we've been hearing around the Charlie Kirk affair is that people around the president have a very tight rein on who gets to see him and who he gets to listen to.
You know, his chief of staff particularly is one.
And I think it was Max Blumenthal that talked about this, that she actually had worked on Netanyahu's campaign, Susie Wiles, her name is.
But they really tightly control.
And I'm sure that's the case with the Middle East, but I bet it's also the case with Ukraine.
And it doesn't serve the president well to have someone like Kellogg being the only one that he's hearing.
Kellogg is essentially John Bolton in the White House.
That's what he is.
And for him to have the presidency here is dangerous.
And I'll show a couple of things about that in a second.
But this is just how wrong they are.
If you go to the next one, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is also on board with this.
He said, Dan Crane, he said, Russia is not winning the war.
Well, according to that chart, I don't know.
But here's what Kellogg added.
If Putin was winning, he'd be in Kiev.
How do you know what Putin wants, what the objectives are?
You know, you're making this up.
Now go to the next one.
This is the part where it gets interesting.
He also lashed out at China.
Kellogg did.
Russia has now become China's junior partner.
At present, we can say that China has both economic advantage over Russia and a military advantage, even historically.
I will say more.
Now get this.
If China completely cut off its aid to Russia, this war would end tomorrow.
I've never seen anyone say that.
It's a bizarre claim considering the ability Russia has to manufacture military material, which has been demonstrated.
But the other thing is, even if that was true, the opposite could be said.
If the U.S. and NATO was not providing weapons to Ukraine, the war actually would be over tomorrow.
So what he's saying is a distinction without a difference.
Yeah.
But what about the prophets?
Yeah.
The profits would be different.
But the other thing I wanted just to show really quick, Dr. Paul, who is this guy, Kellogg?
What's up with him?
He's supposed to be Trump's objective envoy, getting information, telling it to the president.
Put on that first clip.
Look at how he is greeted when he gets to Kiev.
We don't have to put on the earpieces because the imagery speaks for itself.
That first video clip, here is a most recent trip.
Well, the one before this current one.
This was in August.
He goes every month, I guess.
Here's how he's greeted when he gets to Ukraine.
Good to see how you move.
He did that.
Great old friends.
Now, go to the next one.
This, I think, was also in August.
And this is what happened.
So, before you hit start, so Kellogg goes to Ukraine on Ukraine's Independence Day, and he receives one of the highest state awards for the country of Ukraine.
Put this on.
Let's watch this for a second.
You can cut it now.
It's comical.
How can he be the objective advisor to the president when he's getting state awards from one side in a war?
It's absolutely comical.
You know, this statement that we've been working around, I want to repeat or emphasize: Ukraine will not lose this war.
Ukrainians have a moral superiority over Russia.
Now, I keep thinking that maybe they let's assume that they do.
But you know, if you have a moral superiority and you live in a world that respects and understands what morality is, you don't have to say, look at me, I'm the most moral guy in the world.
That's what they're doing.
So, that to me is just obvious that it's a thing.
What did I call it?
A grand fiction.
Grand fiction.
You know, more we read it.
Look at this.
This is so much fiction.
And believe then the people, Daniel, we don't win the PR war when we hear this warmongering and war rhetoric.
Too many people in this country seem to support it.
And even the Democrats don't even come up with a good opposition to it.
And it's absolutely right.
It's a fiction, but it's a dangerous fiction, too.
Because if the president is not receiving accurate information about foreign affairs, it has nothing to do with whether we prefer Ukraine or prefer Russia.
The United States, the President of the United States, cannot make informed decisions if he's being misled by his staff.
And that appears, certainly appears to be the case.
So his staff is saying, hey, Ukraine's winning.
Russia's on its last legs.
It's almost ready to capitulate.
Just a little bit more weapons, a few more weapons, a little bit more confrontation.
That's false information.
That will get the president to be more aggressive, perhaps.
You don't think they take that chart that you just showed to Trump and say, hey, look, maybe we better reassess this.
Yeah.
It's dangerous.
Danger.
Not likely.
Yeah.
Well, the final one about this.
So he gets a huge hug whenever he goes to Kiev.
He gets a very nice, shiny award for highest merit of Ukraine.
And just put that last one up.
This is the icing on the cake.
That last clip, if you could find it.
Zelensky offers Kellogg Ukrainian citizenship.
I mean, if anyone looks at just even these three examples and tries to tell me that this is an impartial representative of the president to assess the scene, I don't know.
I've got a bridge to sell you in Lake Jackson.
Well, I thought he had citizenship.
Group Anger Over Citizenship Offer 00:03:26
You know, if they could do that, and the bargain was that they would leave our presence, and then not be allowed to be in our government.
Yeah, you can go for it.
Not likely.
So anyway, I think we want to move on, or do you want to close out now?
Well, I'm ready to go.
I'll just.
I think we did already emphasize this, but the one headline that I wanted a reminder, and I think you've mentioned it, Vance White House promises to go after all left-leading organizations.
Well, you know, from our viewpoint, we don't deal with left and right.
We do deal with moral and also nihilism.
Yeah, I mean, if there's a group that's a left-wing group and it's violent, well, violence is illegal.
You should go after them anyway.
I mean, if Biden were doing this against the right, they would be screaming bloody murder.
It's all relative.
And we suppose there's an effort that should be made to make this more objective, that maybe lying and cheating and stealing and killing should apply to government.
I mean, you should look at the deaths you put up on the screen.
Most Americans don't know.
I mean, how many wars have been this broad?
If you had all that's going on in the Middle East and what's happened in the last 10 years with our foreign policy, we're talking about a lot of killing, and nobody knows how many civilians have been killed, let alone just the military people.
So it's a sad situation.
And I think there is an answer out there, but there's a lot of resistance to a policy of peace and prosperity.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I'm going to close out by thanking our viewers.
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Over to you, Dr. Very good.
And you know, when people get upset with this political thing, and you stand up like Thomas is doing right now, who gets the angriest?
It's the people that he's defending.
He's talking about exactly what we're supposed to believe in.
And they get angry at him.
So I think that tells you something.
You know, I was treated, I always thought, pretty well in the Congress.
You know, I did try to get along with the left as well as the right.
And the left seemed to be a little bit easier.
Embarrassing Writing Battles 00:01:07
I don't think they held grudges.
But I always figured that Republicans will leave me alone because I'm not going to become a chairman of the banking committee and I'm not likely to cancel the Fed tomorrow.
That'll take another year to go before we can do that.
But they do this and they get so angry.
But the anger comes from your friends, so-called friend.
But what I did learn after I left Congress, even though I was probably a little bit naive because I wanted to see the best in everybody, but people will come up and whisper in my ear what they were doing behind the scenes and subtly making sure that they would talk in honesty that they couldn't stand what I was doing.
You know, standing up and voting all by myself, embarrassing them like I did.
So they didn't like that.
But that's been in writing.
And so I didn't let that bother me.
I thought, well, so be it.
But I do want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Reports.
Good to have you visiting with us today.
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