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Oct. 7, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
32:49
What Does Trump Want In Venezuela?

After calling his envoy back home and cancelling further talks, it appears clear that President Trump is determined to make war on Venezuela. But no one is asking the real question: Why? Also today, Israel launches a new propaganda campaign aimed at the American public. Will it work?

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Deep State Dynamics 00:14:54
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you this morning.
Good morning.
How are you, Dr. Paul?
Doing well.
Good.
Doing well.
All right.
Want to talk about foreign policy?
A little bit, yeah.
They haven't accepted our suggestions.
Oh, just they hurt my feelings.
I'm annoyed by this.
What I'm really worried about is what is it going to do to our country?
And what is it going to do to the pocketbooks of the American citizen if we continue in this route?
But there's a lot of deception going on compared to all the things we heard in the campaign that we were going to have American First foreign policy.
And in some ways, they still argue that case, but their ideas of American First is quite a bit different than what we think American First.
We think it's leave me alone.
Let the people be first.
And they're the true Americans.
But America First, when it used it as an excuse to devise social policies and financial policies and deficits, everything is to be number one king, and they justify it.
And of course, I think it gets us all into trouble because there's the opposite of what they claim America First is interventionism.
The government has an obligation to make us safe, wealthy, and wise because they take care of our schools.
And they're not doing a very good job.
And that's why I think people are pretty darned unhappy.
But the issue we want to concentrate on today, and we've mentioned it in the last several weeks, even though there still are a lot of hotspots around.
We say, why are they starting to stir up trouble in Venezuela?
Well, it looks like just in the last day, they're stirring up more trouble in Venezuela, and they're proceeding with a confrontational system.
The cancellation of any real negotiations with Maduro reminded me of what went on before World War II when the Japanese leaders and the American diplomats, you know, were getting along together.
They had like a solution to delay the war and Roosevelt just turned it down.
So this is, you know, I guess on a scale, the same scale, it's not quite as big as that, but you can't ever tell.
But right now, it looks like the administration has thrown in the towel, but maybe they never had any intents on doing anything because there's a lot of threats and innuendos, and they rely on that.
And they want the administration want their way.
They want their policies.
And it's intimidation because, you know, in spite of all our stupid policies, and no matter how badly our currency is reflecting, you know, the situation, you know, we're still pretty rich and pretty powerful, and we still have airplanes.
And one person was making a point.
Anytime there's a discussion of any international function, we fly a bunch of airplanes and they're not on a vacation.
They're fighter jets and everything else.
Just as a reminder, we are the king of the hill, and we're going to make you listen.
So right now, it looks like there's a setback because there was a feeble attempt to try to come to odds because as bad as Maduro has been, it looks like we're stretching it.
It looks like the information that the administration uses is not legitimate in saying it's time for the American people to endorse our war because we're going to war no matter what.
They don't ever say that in so many words, but that's what it looks like to me.
Don't try to stop us.
And if you do too much, all we know is that when people take an opposite stand to the deep state and they're warmongering, sometimes they lose their lives over that.
And there's been assassinations that have been a consequence of it.
Certainly it was the case in the 1960s.
So anyway, this does not look good.
And it looks like it has severed any chance of coming to a common sense answer to what's going on in Venezuela.
Well, your statement that this doesn't look like an America first foreign policy is an understatement, actually, because we've got warships off the coast of Venezuela preparing to hit targets inside Venezuela, according to the president himself.
We have tankers going to the Middle East to help support another Israeli attack on Iran.
And we have the president veering closer and closer to sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine from which they could target every Russian military base in European Russia.
We're talking thousands of military bases.
Massive, massive escalation.
And for all three of these, the question would be: why?
Why are we doing this?
How does this promote America's interests whatsoever?
The answer is it doesn't.
Well, there's one good article that came out today in the American Conservative.
Jude Russo wrote it.
We kind of riffed off of the title for the title of our show, if we can put that up.
But it's a very pithy article, and I like his short articles that really get to the meat of it.
Jude asks, what does the U.S. want in Venezuela?
Go to the next one.
He talks about what Trump has said already.
Clouds of war drift over the Caribbean.
America's engines of death idle in the waters of outside Venezuelan territory.
New York Times report announces President Donald Trump.
Now, this is the interesting part.
Now, talk about changing times.
President Donald Trump has determined that the United States is in a war with Venezuelan organized crime groups, of which the State Department assures us strenuously President Nicolas Maduro is the leader.
Washington Examiner says the American forces are prepared for seizure operations, that is to say, expeditions to take assets like ports in Venezuela.
So what they're talking about, Dr. Paul, is that the president has determined that we are at war with these cartels.
He said, well, how can you declare war on a non-state actor?
Well, we've determined that the head of Venezuela is the head of the cartels.
Zero evidence whatsoever.
In fact, counter-evidence, as we've said many times on the show, our own intelligence media says he has nothing to do with drugs.
In fact, he cooperated with the international anti-drug groups and organizations.
That would be a weird thing to do if you're the head of the biggest drug cartel in Venezuela.
So what is going on?
But you know, our problem is not enough people ask the right questions and they go along with it.
I say they're moving in the direction that we'd like them to, and there's more people asking questions.
But right now, there's not going to be too many questions asked about these noise going on now to sever any type of talk and any effort at all.
And then they don't deal with the subject of, you know, what does America first mean?
I think America First means to protect the individual sovereignty and liberty of every American individual.
And that would be, he said, and that would, you know, set a standard.
And they could do that by maybe reading the Constitution, but they don't even give a hoot about this, about following the rules.
And it's easier to start these wars.
The evidence is there strong enough.
And we've tried our best to outline it, that the American people have to wake up.
They can't wait until 20 years.
Like they finally got tired of Afghanistan, but they never get tired of it.
They surrender, they walk out.
That is our administration, and it's bipartisan.
They walk out, but all of a sudden they're back in again.
I mean, like Iraq.
Do you think Iraq is an independent nation?
I think we have a big air base there or something like that.
So it just goes on and on.
And I know there's a lot of stuff to look into.
And certainly the average citizen has a lot of stuff they have to deal with adjusting for inflation and other things.
But I don't see how it can be combated without a discussion and exposure of bad ideas and misinformation.
And I think this is the real problem.
It's the propaganda.
And we've spoken so many times in recent weeks about the attack on the First Amendment and how the internet may be controlled.
So this is the kind of thing that is very difficult because although the internet offers us some opportunities, it really offers a lot of opportunity for some government agents and others who may use it as their number one weapon.
And the deep state is not so deep anymore.
It's just boiling over.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, Jude helpfully offers three theories about why Trump is doing this.
And theory one, if you go to that one, the oil.
And people do talk about that.
It's got a lot of oil over there in Venezuela.
But Russo points out that launching a war is a risky way at best to maximize the exploitation in the short term.
He also says we have other sources for hydrocarbons, including those at home.
This is not the 1970s, he reminds us.
But Trump says we should have done blood for oil in Iraq, so maybe that's in the mix.
The other thing is that it's apparently Trump himself has said it.
Venezuelan oil is difficult to refine, so it's not the top quality oil, even though they got a ton of it.
So theory one, oil.
Now go to the next one, theory two.
This is a weird one, I think.
And I think Jude Russo agrees that this is about tying up forces in a hemispheric fight so we can say no to Israel when asked for more resources in the Middle East.
Russo says this has been floated to me seriously, but it seems frankly insane.
And also, I suspect, attributes more intentionally to our national security policy than is perhaps just.
This is crazy, I think, that we're putting all our troops down there.
So when Israel asks, we'll say no.
We're too busy fighting Maduro.
I would, like Russo, I would cross that off.
Now, the third one actually does make sense.
And here's what he says.
Theory three is, by my lights, the most plausible, plausible.
We are just doing it because we can.
Nobody likes communist Venezuela, said Russo.
Trump, for all his peace rhetoric, does, in fact, enjoy displays of American hard power.
Now, you just said that, Dr. Paul, when you're talking about these flyovers that the summits always begin with.
We now have a Department of War, Russo writes, which Trump has emphasized shows that we don't just do defense, but offense.
And McKinley, the 47th president's historical fixation in the administration's early days, had a splendid little war in Latin America with few immediate ill consequences.
So Russo determines that we're just doing it because we can.
That is so sad.
You know, no real purpose.
Are they rescuing anybody?
You'd think maybe if they decided they'd stop the famine, you know, in the Palestinian territory to help some people.
But no, that's not what they're doing.
And I think this attitude, and they may be right, and you're suggesting this the only halfway reasonable thing to talk about or explain why it's happening.
But it's evil.
It's evil.
It's unconstitutional.
It's immoral.
And I think it's just bullying.
You know, if we can, like, I can beat you up, but I don't need to.
And I don't even need to show that I'm stronger than you are, but I'm still going to do it.
And the bully does it.
And I think we've been doing that too much.
But I think long term, we build up the enemies.
And I think this is what's happening in these last three, four, five years, and it's going to get worse, is that the bullying and the power that we've expressed all around the world is catching up to us, and the people are getting upset.
But quite frankly, the bullying is all done on borrowed money.
And they don't care about that because they just know that they have guns and the guns are going to back up the dollar.
And they will keep using force.
But there will be a day that they won't have those airplanes flying over all these countries to demonstrate to them, watch out, do what we tell you or else.
Yeah.
And I mean, I think maybe I'm wrong, but as bad as things were when you were in Congress, I would have think if it was the same situation back then, there would have been a resolution brought to the floor, a bipartisan resolution advising the president or warning the president that you cannot initiate military conflict with Venezuela without a declaration of war or at least an authorization.
I would have thought that that would have been there already.
There's nothing now.
They can't even pass a budget.
And even a hint of it, like Thomas gets through and he introduces things that the best he can do.
He's just one guy.
I've never seen such an idiotic response that he was the closest to our beliefs and understanding.
And yet he's gotten the most beat up like he's the most evil man in Congress.
You know, it's just totally bizarre.
And I don't understand it.
It'd be a sure shame that if that type of an operation, if anybody speaks out against anything, that they get punished.
I think what we're going to see in the next several months, there's going to be a few people that have done their best to hold their nose and present the correct case because the Trump people campaigned on issues that some libertarian-leaning people were going to endorse.
But that didn't happen.
I think, especially like if they say there was an invasion tomorrow, literally of Venezuela, there may be somebody that enough is enough.
Advisors And Diplomacy In Venezuela 00:03:27
But you know, the other thing I was thinking about, there's some similarities to how we bullied and did things with Cuba.
Guess what?
The communists really won that thing.
They're still in charge.
Probably might not be as ruthless.
They probably are less ruthless, and our government is getting more ruthless.
Yeah, I think so.
Well, one of the reasons we think this is a front burner issue is because of something that happened yesterday.
The New York Times covered, if you could put that next one on.
And you alluded to it earlier, Dr. Paul.
Trump calls off diplomatic outreach to Venezuela.
He had Rick Grinnell down there, who is a mixed bag, but I think he's a pretty adept negotiator.
There are some other problems we have with him, but I think he's probably pretty good.
And he had been reporting progress, Dr. Paul.
We're getting closer.
Things are going okay.
We're moving ahead with diplomacy.
Trump, if you go to the next one, he decided, nope, not going to do that.
He said he called Mr. Grinnell and instructed him that all diplomatic outreach, including his talks with Maduro, was to stop and called him home.
And this is paving the way for the escalation that we fear is on the horizon.
Now go to the next one.
And this is what it's all about.
This is what diplomacy is in the eyes of the Trump administration.
The reason why they called it off.
Mr. Trump has grown frustrated with Mr. Maduro's failure to accede to American demands and give up power voluntarily.
So basically, the idea of diplomacy is we send Grinnell over there to say, hey, you need to quit.
You need to resign or else.
You know, that's what it is.
That's what it is.
And so here's the thing.
This is all, and we'll talk about it in a second.
I think this is Rubio.
This is Rubio's pet project, Marco Rubio.
He is a lot of hats, and I think you're going to talk about him.
But here's what Rubio is talking about.
Go to that next one.
Mr. Rubio has described Maduro as, quote, a fugitive from American justice and increased the reward for Mr. Maduro to 50 million.
Now put these two things together, Dr. Paul.
Maduro is involved in drug trafficking, heavy drug trafficking, and he is a fugitive for our justice.
Well, I had a kind of one of those deja vu moments.
Put this next one up because I had a deja vu back to 1988.
Noriega indicted by U.S. for links to illegal drugs.
We've been there, Dr. Paul.
We've done that, and it didn't work out very well.
That's for sure.
You know, we complain a lot, justifiably as far as I'm concerned, that the advisors, you know, get the ear of our presidents and misdirect them, and they go along with it.
And it's not that 100% of the advisors are all involved, but the key advisors are there.
And I just wonder whether they're there for justification or why this comes about.
But, you know, it's that they're there not to advise, you know, and tell them what their opinions are, just like Grinnell.
He's an advisor, and he gets fired.
But an advisor today is a person who is supposed to conform, confirm everything that the president wants.
Propaganda Among Christians 00:05:37
And if not, and you know, to a degree, that's true, because if you've made a mistake and somebody's coming in and doing the other thing, but this is not, this is not, it seems like the bad guys have the greatest amount of control.
That was true under the Bush administration, you know, and it just doesn't seem to be very practical.
It doesn't work out well.
It doesn't work out well at all.
Well, I want to thank Georges for kicking in 20, and his theory is that this is a distraction from Gaza.
Could be true, partly true.
But the next one we want to cover is something that should infuriate all Americans.
You know, and I think this is the height of ingratitude and beyond.
Go to that next one because Dave DeCamp writes up on anti-war.com: Israel to spend up to $4.1 million on a propaganda campaign targeting American Christians.
The Israeli foreign minister is preparing to spend up to $4.1 million for a propaganda campaign targeting American Christians, being sold as the largest Christian church geo-fencing campaign in U.S. history.
Now, I have the definition of that geo-fencing later on.
It's actually quite chilling.
But it's reported by the Jewish Telegraph Agency.
If you go next, a federal filing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act shows that the Israeli ministry has hired a newly formed U.S.-based firm, Show Faith by Works LLC, which will target churchgoers with digital ads that are explicitly pro-Israel and anti-American or anti-Palestinian.
Sorry, that was a Freudian slip.
The campaign will involve creating a mobile October 7th experience.
Today's October 7th, by the way, that will visit Christian colleges, churches, and events.
So basically, they're going to use Hollywood experts, by the way, top top spokespeople.
Basically, what this is and why it's so infuriating, Dr. Paul, is that this money is fungible and it's the result of the billions of dollars that we give Israel every year.
They take some of it and come back and propagandize us, bite the hand that feeds them, I think.
You know, this is so crazy, but evidently, Yahoo believes it's necessary, which means that maybe he's getting worried and concerned because this was this big base.
I mean, this was one way to neutralize a lot of people.
Now, if this information gets out, and one place where it has changed is the starvation of the Palestinians.
And a lot of people have changed.
I think this is what's happening.
But to come and have this parade and billboards and change the minds of the Christians that should be more astute to this.
Sometimes, I think in churches, they certainly have a responsibility.
You say, if we have communism and to make a comment about it, but it means that they come in and they won't change their minds at all until something gets really tough.
I think they're changing their minds.
And I don't think I'm predicting that this demonstration, the money not only would be considered theft and evil, I think it's going to backfire on them.
I mean, I would think that if starvation is something that wakes some of the people up on this subject, that there'll be more of them when they start saying, especially what your point was, whose money is paying for this?
And it's just so outrageous.
American people are too tolerant, but they're tolerant because they're too busy.
And I just, I understand that.
And they're probably some of them, you know, every day there's more people, you know, going into poverty and they can't wait for their next paycheck.
And yet, the news wouldn't say that.
The, you know, the financial news was pretty good.
Everybody's socks are up and they're making a lot of money.
And everybody seems to be satisfied.
But they're really not.
There's a problem, a big problem brewing.
You know, I almost think that if we were back in 203 Canon, I might knock on your door and suggest, why don't we put together a bill that says that any foreign country receiving U.S. foreign aid is not allowed to lobby American citizens whatsoever.
You know, full stop.
Isn't there a technicality in the hair?
Are they actually legally doing this?
Yeah, they are.
They fired with Farah.
Shouldn't they be registered or something?
They registered with Farah.
This project is registered.
I think it should be illegal.
If you get foreign aid money from the U.S., you shouldn't be able to propagandize the American people because it's.
I think it should be illegal to give off money.
Yeah, anybody.
That'll be the next step.
That's already true.
But actually, one of your suspicions, I think, is there if you go to the next one.
So, this whole document, they're going to go to California, Texas, Colorado, and Arizona.
And Show Faith by Works expects to receive $3.25 million from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Israeli Foreign Ministry, the government, the government's giving this group money to go into our churches and propagandize Americans.
Geofencing and Campus Surveillance 00:02:16
But here's the part that you sort of brought up a second ago: the document, which is the FARA registration, was filed on September 27th, says one of the activities of the campaign will be to, quote, combat low American evangelical Christian approval of the nation of Israel.
So that tells you something they are feeling even among the evangelical community, they are seeing these people turn, these Christians turn away from Israel, and they're worried about it.
That's a good sign.
Yeah, it is a good sign because of well, the other, I do want to talk about this geofencing.
Maybe it's just me, I'm not a tech guy, but this is an integral part of this propaganda campaign.
I didn't know what it was, but this will tell you that here's this clip here tells you what the strategy is.
Church targeting, college campus focus, precision engagement.
Now, our friends over at DD Geopolitics, which I do recommend following them, they did a good job if you go to the next one of explaining what geofencing is, because I didn't know that, what it is.
Geofencing, bear with me, it's a little bit long, but I think it's worth hashing this out.
Geofencing is a digital marketing and surveillance technique that sets up a virtual perimeter or fence around a specific physical location, for example, a church, college campus, or protest site.
When someone with a smartphone enters that geofenced area, their device can be identified and tagged through location services, mobile ad IDs, or app data.
So once tagged, the person can be targeted with ads, example, pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian messaging, while they're inside that fence.
And later, as they move around or browse the internet, they're tracked over time.
The government can follow that device after it leaves, continuing to deliver tailored ads for weeks or months.
And they can be profiled for further outreach or data analysis, often without the user ever realizing it.
This is not, this is DD Geopolitics says, this is not a private PR campaign.
Hot War Morality 00:06:32
This is funded by the Israeli government and filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
A foreign state is spending millions to shape U.S. Christian opinion with military-grade psychological operations technology.
That is spooky.
They get in your phone and they keep pounding you over and over with these ads.
We have to, I think it's a fair and accurate statement, and they're using taxpayer, American taxpayers' money.
That's the problem.
Maybe it isn't direct check-to-check and whatever.
It's all fungible, and Israel is not living off what they produce.
And it's something that we have fallen into a trap on it.
And I go back to economics problems to explain it.
Because if you didn't have easy money where you can print it, most of these programs wouldn't be done.
Wars wouldn't be fought.
You wouldn't have runaway welfareism.
But the people say, yeah, but the people would all starve, you know, and they wouldn't have that.
And all of a sudden, some foreign country is going to take us over, which is a bunch of scare tactics.
And I don't believe a word of it when they try to build up fear and convince the people they have to go along.
And people that would say, oh, you're just obsessed with Israel.
Well, that's in the headlines right now, okay?
But I would challenge them to go back when Biden was giving untold gazillions of dollars to Zelensky.
And we talked about on this very program how infuriating it was that Zelensky was using the money that we gave him to hire DCPR firms to push for more money.
We were mad at the time.
So it's not singling out this one country.
We don't think that U.S. aid should be used to propagandize the American people or lawmakers.
You think with people that do have religious beliefs that they could connect the two, you know, the morality, it's this whole thing that governments aren't allowed to do that.
If we're not allowed to do it, government shouldn't be allowed.
Yeah, we're not allowed to cheat and steal and all these things.
But the governments do it all the time.
I mean, what about if you and I knew how to counterfeit the money?
We'd be in big trouble, rightfully so.
But the government doesn't say, oh, it looks good to me.
Just give it to me first.
Yeah, give it and my cronies.
Yeah.
Well, I'm going to close out with a simple exercise.
If you go to that last clip, I'm going to ask our audience to go to ronpaulinstitute.org.
We've got a lot of great articles up today, including one by Max Blumenthal.
But before you read those articles, you look there in the middle.
You'll see a word subscribe.
Just click that subscribe button.
It's very simple.
Put in your email address.
I don't think there's more information than that, maybe your name.
And you'll get updates from the Ron Paul Institute, especially about our upcoming events.
We will not sell, rent, give, beg, borrow, steal your name for anyone else, just between you and us.
But we do want to keep up with you, especially as we talk about it, Dr. Paul, when we talk about the problems that we're having with getting messages out, with censorship, with big corporations buying media.
We have to be able to communicate in the best way.
They still can't steal our emails, hopefully.
So please do that.
It'll only take a second.
It'll help us keep in touch.
Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
I would say that our program today was certainly dealing with Venezuela, and we want to sound the alarm that things are not getting better in Venezuela.
They're getting worse, and they could explode and get much worse in the near future.
And yet, the propaganda that we hear, you know, has brought attention to Venezuela right now.
But it's been a distraction.
You know, I think they're tired of Ukraine and the people are getting annoyed with it.
So they're not pumping up.
They don't.
A lot of people, a lot of citizens now say, Afghanistan, well, that's been settled.
We messed up, but it's settled.
Oh, yeah.
And Iraq, didn't we win that war?
And it's all hunky-dory.
Yeah, if you like fun.
And then there's Afghanistan, there's Iraq, and then there's Ukraine, and all these things.
People have enough to think about.
Here we want them to think today about people stirring the pot in an effort to really, you know, promote a hot war down there.
There's no other reason we'd have all this naval equipment on there and provoke and refuse to even talk to them like we're intimidated by the Venezuelans and we have to do it.
And nobody knows exactly why the people who motivate this policy, but it's all I can say it's not the right thing.
There's no morality behind the decisions made.
And therefore, people ought to wake up to this.
And I much prefer in medicine, you want to prevent the sickness and treat and take care of that rather than waiting until people get real sick.
In politics, we let it go ahead.
We have all these wars breaking out, and then we spend 15, 20 years trying to get the wars stopped, and yet we never started them legally.
We never declared the war.
We never explained to the American people that this is a hot war.
A lot of people are going to die, and it's going to bankrupt a lot of people.
So, to me, this is an opportunity for people to take a look at this.
But to look at the whole picture, you have to look at foreign policy.
Foreign policy of interventionism and justifying it on moral grounds, and the Constitution is absolutely wrong.
The Constitution doesn't justify this, and morality doesn't justify it, and refusing to talk to people who are looking for trouble doesn't make a lot of sense.
So, I would say instead of saying nothing can be done about this, there's a lot that could be done about that.
Everybody should help spread the message.
And on today's session, at least think about Venezuela.
It's bad news, and we ought to head that off.
And then we have to start picking up on all the other efforts because we have too many wars going on.
And supposedly, this administration was supposed to stop these wars, not start them.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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