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Oct. 14, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
33:05
Zelensky Back To White House Again! Will He Get The Tomahawks

Ukrainian leader Zelensky is returning to Washington today to meet with President Trump. The US President has said he is considering sending Tomahawk missiles (nuclear-capable0 to Ukraine if the war does not end soon. Russia has again sounded a warning about handing over weapons that could strike deep into Russia and could carry nukes. Is Trump mis-reading the situation?

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Ukraine War Update 00:03:24
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Doing well.
Doing well.
Good, good.
We have a couple of things to talk about today.
We could find more if we had a lot of time and we were well rested.
But we're going to continue with two issues that are in the news constantly.
And one has to do with the Ukraine war against Russia.
You know, that sort of thing has been around for a while.
We've been talking about that since 2014.
But nobody has listened so far.
We're still very much involved, and the money's pouring out.
And also, there's another economic war going on.
Some people said that there's no trade war going on, and that has been settled, and things are working out pretty well, and the Gaza peace treaty, and this sort of thing.
But the thing of it is, that war is hot and heavy.
And if people aren't paying attention, they're in denial.
And I think there's a bit of denial of what we do and what others do and how this is accepted, that if it isn't on your doorstep, they can't be motivated to say much about it and demand the end of this stuff.
But I think overall, there's too much denial that there's a serious bankruptcy going on in a historic sense, that it's probably bigger than the United States.
It could turn out that way, bigger than anything we've done before.
We've been through world wars and we've had the admission that our dollar was not an honest dollar.
It's a fiat money.
So we've done all this, but there's something big going on.
A lot of people are recognizing this.
And there's a lot of arguments going back and forth.
And of course, in one part of the world, we're sort of needling Russia.
In the other part, we're needling China.
Like we need more controversy.
But I think where the neglect is philosophically is the people that should be talking more about protecting liberty here at home and having more confidence in what a free society could produce and not entangling alliance would be so helpful to solve all these problems that we talk about because there's too much economic intervention, the ruining of the dollar, and also too much military intervention overseas.
But so far, we can talk about it, we can emphasize it, and we can believe it.
And I think we have that issue, that position is getting better known than it was, say, 15 or 20 years ago.
It takes a long time to see things reverse itself when a country has accepted certain principles for 150 years.
And it took probably a long time for enough people to get up enough nerve to produce our American Revolution.
And right now, I'm not satisfied that the current revolution is moving quickly enough and clearly enough to dwell on and emphasize the cause for liberty.
Zelensky May Send Tomahawks 00:15:00
Well, you know, speaking of the cause for liberty, Dr. Paul, we've got a great libertarian coming to Washington again, Vladimir Zelensky.
He's been in a few times.
The first time, of course, was the famous scene between he and JD Vance and President Trump, where JD Vance put him in his place, and so did President Trump.
You don't have any cards, Vladimir.
And that didn't go very well.
It was Vladimir Zelensky was like a recalcitrant teenager.
Didn't want to hear dad tell him to sit down and shut up.
So he's been back a couple times.
He's learned his lesson a little bit.
He even wears sort of a suit when he comes these days.
But he's going to be back again on Friday.
Again, he's like Beebe.
He and Bibi are going to be competing for how long they can stay in the Blair House.
You know, I mean, this is crazy.
But he's coming back again.
Now, put this first one up.
Apparently, Dr. Paul, the discussion is about tomahawks, the latest game changer.
How many have we been through, Dr. Paul?
We've been through Javelins, we've been through Abrams, we've been through what else?
High Mars, you can name them all.
They were all going to be game changers until they weren't.
And now, this is the next one.
Dave DeCamprets it up an anti-war.
President Trump is set to host Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at the White House on Friday.
Two leaders are expected to discuss the possibility of the U.S. supplying Ukraine with tomahawk missiles.
Axios reported it will mark a significant escalation of the proxy war since they are nuclear capable and have a range of more than a thousand miles.
That means that Dr. Paul can hit pretty much every major city in European Russia and even beyond.
She says he's going to use them.
Trump suggested he'll use them as leverage.
And actually, I do have an audio clip of the president being asked about sending tomahawks to Russia.
And the reason I'm putting it on here because I think it's interesting and important to listen to his tone and how he describes what this might mean.
So this is audio only, but let's give this a listen.
Need patriots very badly.
They'd like to have tomahawks.
That's to step up.
They'd like to have tomahawks.
We talked about that.
And so we'll see.
Well, I don't know.
I might have to speak to Russia, to be honest with you, about tomahawks.
Do they want to have tomahawks going in their direction?
I don't think so.
I think I might speak to Russia about that, in all fairness.
I told that to President Zelensky because tomahawks are a new step of aggression.
Well, you understand very well.
Are you saying that you will speak to Putin first about Tomahawks?
I might talk to him.
I might say, look, if this war is not going to get settled, I'm going to send them tomahawks.
I may have said that the tomahawk is an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon.
And honestly, Russia does not need that.
They don't need that.
Yeah, I might tell them that if the war is not settled, that we may very well do it.
We may not, but we may do it.
I think it's a little bit on the way into the studio today.
I was listening to Colonel McGregor on Judge Apolitano's show, and he was talking about this.
And he made a good point, as he often does, is that Putin is sort of treating this as if Zelensky and Putin are his, as I said earlier, teenage sons.
And Putin, and President Trump is going to tell them, if you don't do this, you're going to get this.
And if you don't do this, you're going to get that.
And the thing is, it doesn't work with Russia.
It may work with Kirstammer, as we saw in Cairo yesterday.
It may work with the European, it may work with von der Leyen, but it doesn't work with Russia.
And it doesn't work with China, which we'll talk about later.
But still, it's humiliating.
Trump is trying to humiliate Putin, and that is not a good tactic to use.
You know, this idea that he spontaneously came out, this wasn't planned, it wasn't in a speech, and his speechwriters didn't do this.
It's describing it, and it was in your quote, very offensive weapon.
But then he says, he says, honestly, Russia does not need that.
As if his statement like this, this threat is going to take care of it.
They can't even, you know, when some of these weapons are coming in, theoretically, they were supposed to be able to identify if Hanukkah was on its way.
They could tell.
They can't even tell what's really in the missiles that are coming in.
So that is a real mess.
But, you know, with Zelensky coming to Washington, my first reaction was, again, and it's again.
But you know what?
My little thought on this one was, you know, Zelensky has a powerful vote.
You know, we have people in and out of the office and they influence.
You know, we have, you know, Musk and other people and the political leaders.
And they all, what they say is important.
But this guy's in and out, but he's won a lot of his desires because he wants more money.
But of course, that's a little bit more complicated than just him.
He's the messenger, you know, for a group of people that, you know, want it also everything from the military-industrial complex on down.
But the message is, but I keep thinking that, boy, why are we even talking about it?
He must carry a lot of weight in a political set.
So he has his vote too.
But I don't think we should allow foreigners to vote in our elections.
Yeah.
Well, money is a key word that you're using, you know, and the previous administration already sent at least, they transferred at least $170 billion from the American middle class to the wealthy class in Ukraine.
And I've seen so many videos, I should have put one up, of people in Ukraine with Bentleys, young ladies with unbelievably expensive jewelry cars.
I mean, these people are multi-multi-millionaires.
They did not get it through hard work.
Most of them are politicians, right?
They didn't get it through hard work.
And I think we've talked about polls, and I'm sure that the Americans, we know this, we've talked about how unpopular it was to send this money.
The American people do not want to send their money to Ukraine.
So Trump comes up with this scheme, which is sort of a fig leaf for it.
He says that, well, NATO will buy the Patriots.
NATO will buy the Tomahawks, and then they can do whatever they wish with them.
It's none of our business.
It's just business.
Well, the fact of the matter is, what is NATO?
It's the United States.
That's what it is.
And the cash flow goes from the American taxpayers or more printed money and is sent to the arms manufacturer or to NATO.
NATO purchases these things and then they sell them and say, see, our hands are clean.
It's almost like washing my hands.
We're not participating in this crucifixion.
And yet we are.
We are participating in it.
And that's the biggest hurdle because it's his nature, and it's not all bad, is to identify with a group of people that you live with and be patriotic.
But if you are careless with this, patriotism then lends itself to the supporter of dictators.
A lot of times it used to be said that they just march in, they have guns, and they take over.
No, they end up getting support and thinking about and talking to people who had personal opinion about Hitler having support.
Of course, that's been well known.
And yet the people supported him.
And then it got out of hand.
And then the whole thing went to pot in a literal sense.
No kidding.
Yeah.
Well, the debate about the tomahawks is really similar to the previous debates.
On one side, we need these.
It'll be a game changer.
On the other side, there's the realization that no matter what happens, it's not going to change the outcome of the war.
Just like if I went out for an NFL pro football team right now at my age, it's pretty much easy to conclude that I'm not going to be recruited onto the team.
So here is NaRT, which is the Russian station.
And they quoted an interesting article from FT, which is the Financial Times, which I don't subscribe to, so I could not get up on my screen.
But it's important because this is the point over and over again.
And I'll read a little bit from the RT piece.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump called the potential transfer a step of aggression toward Russia, but also warned that he would send them tomahawks if this war is not going to get settled.
They go on to say the Tomahawk missiles are estimated to cost $1.3 million each and have a range of up to 1,550 miles.
That range would in theory allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory, including Moscow and beyond.
Washington could spare 20 to 50 tomahawks for Ukraine.
Stacey Petijan, the director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security.
Now, that's a Dr. Paul hawkish neocon think tank.
So this Stacey Petijan quoted to FT, which also was very, very hawkish.
This defense expert said, such a delivery, quote, will not decisively shift the dynamics of the content.
Now go to the next one.
So that's important to keep in mind, Dr. Paul.
It's not going to shift the dynamics.
So here is in response to reports of the possible transfer.
President Fluton said that Moscow's response would, quote, would be the strengthening of the Russian Federation's air defensive defenses.
Kremlin spokesman Peshkov noted that operating the tomahawks would likely require the direct involvement of U.S. military specialists given the complexity of the system.
So Americans will be operating.
We've talked about this over and over, Dr. Paul.
These will be operated by Americans, a whole new class of weapons.
And even according to this neocon who was quoted, they're not going to change the outcome.
Boy.
So no gain.
You know, Medvedev offered to hit former president, and he still has credibility.
He's head of their National Security Council.
Medvedev's chilling response to all this was on Monday spelled out that this, quote, could end badly for everyone, most of all for Trump himself.
So these are hollow words.
And yet if they can shift things, and so far, you know, Trump's handled it pretty well.
If he has overstepped the bounds and said something, he switches it.
But what's happening is he'll eventually lose credibility.
Nobody will know which one to switch.
This weekend, it seemed like it was back and forth.
You know, this is tough.
Oh, no, we won't do that.
Oh, yes, we would do that.
And that's very confusing because the situation is very complex.
So if you have those answers, but maybe that's done on purpose to keep people off balance.
But people off balance sometimes, they do things that they shouldn't be doing or wouldn't do under a much more organized system.
Yeah, you know, Medvedev is kind of like the bad cop, good cop, bad cop.
Peshkov is kind of the good cop.
He's very mild.
And Medvedev is known for being a little bit more bombastic.
But it's important when you want to gauge what their real thinking is over there.
Now, you mentioned this article.
Put that next one on.
This was up on Hedge, and it's important because it talked about the sense in the Kremlin.
Now, we have to establish a few things, as we've already talked about, Dr. Paul.
He's weighing, sending these missiles over there, but yet we know they will not change the course of the war.
So no gain.
But what about the risk?
Well, Medvedev spells out the risk.
He understands it very well.
Put the next one on.
Now, you quoted for the part of what he said, which is that This could end badly for everyone, most of all for Trump himself.
Now, this is an important part.
This is probably the most important part.
It's been said 100 times in a manner understandable even to the star-spangled man that it's impossible to distinguish a nuclear tomahawk missile from a conventional one in flight, said Medvedev.
He's alluding to Russian strategic doctrine in a scenario where Moscow leaders believe or suspected a nuclear payload had been launched at Russia, its military would have the right to respond in kind with nukes.
So they're saying we won't know if it's in flight, if it's got a nuclear weapon or not.
We may have to assume that it does.
And that means we launch our entire array of nuclear weapons because if you don't use them, you will lose them because the retaliation will take them all out.
You know, what I think is very clear-cut, looking at what's happened this weekend, is the fact that we've talked about this battle in Ukraine and Russia, and that's accelerating, and there's really some tough words said, and who knows what will happen.
But at the same time, the economic system, you know, we are bankrupt.
The dollars on the attack, and there's a recession really ongoing, and there's certainly an inflation going on, and debt is totally out of control.
So if you put these together, you know, it's a double whammy.
A lot of times, I think the World War II, our structure was a little bit different, and we survived that, fortunately, because we were probably the wealthiest country in the world and remained that way and benefited by that.
But right now, I think the conditions are so much different and so much more dangerous, and they can just be glib about it.
And, you know, whether it's talking about tomahawks and people, but you know, most people, when I hear of a new weapon, I have to go look at it, read it up, and study it.
And what is this effective?
And what are they saying about this?
But the average person isn't going to do it.
Hopefully we help at times, you know, given the information that a tomahawk is a little bit different than some of the other ones.
But the principle is the same.
Why are we meddling?
Why are we giving them the money?
Why are we increasing our bankruptcy?
So that's a basic philosophic position that people take.
Why Trust Loses 00:10:34
And we continue to do it.
And, of course, we heard some good language during the campaign.
We've had a lot of most of that.
I think that the current administration benefited by that.
But right now, from my personal view, the complications of doing it in a trade war that is persistent, nobody seems too worried about it, especially those who are perpetuating it.
And also the war in Ukraine.
Yeah, we are spending too much money.
But boy, that is accelerating because if tomorrow they move those missiles on there, I sort of think, I always am optimistic enough to think they can't be that stupid and that dangerous.
But what if they're psychopaths?
They become dictators.
There's been a lot of that happened in our history.
Well, we should probably give the last word on this to our good friend, Colonel Doug McGregor.
He was on, I think he was on with Danny Davis, who was also an Army veteran, decorated Army veteran, Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis.
And he had, if you go to that next video clip, he want to grab that earpiece, if you can.
This is just 18 seconds, but I think it's a good summary from Colonel McGregor on what might happen with these tomahawks.
If a Tomahawk missile lands in the outskirts of Moscow or Rayazon or Kazan or any of these places, he's going to be in war with Russia.
And that war could rapidly escalate to the nuclear level.
And once you hit the nuclear level, you have almost no control.
We know that from experience in multiple war games, and everyone loses.
Everyone loses is a good description of it.
Is it worth it?
Everyone loses.
This is very true, and it's very serious.
But in some ways, that's generally most wars.
You know, yes, some will benefit to one degree or the other, but there's a lot of people that lose on both sides.
Especially a nuclear war will lose a lot.
Well, I guess we'll move on to our second one.
That's just kind of a follow-up.
And this is more your area of expertise than mine, to be sure.
But we talked a lot about China in this sort of ping-pong match where we're going back and forth.
You know, Trump ups the NE and China responds, then Trump downs the NE.
But here's the article from today, Market Maelstrom Returns as China Escalates Trade War with Sanctions and Tit-for-Tat port fees.
What is going on with this U.S.-China stuff?
Well, my immediate response to this, because Trump answered this, it was like, you're going to do that to us.
What have we done to you?
We're bringing about peace in the world.
You would do that to us?
How dare you?
And it was, it's, you know, it's so outrageous, the whole thing.
But if, you know, if you accept the principle of tariffs and protectionism and all this, yeah, you go along with this because some of the business people and so-called economists that never would have accepted this 10 years ago, even the universities aren't teaching, you know, what you really have to do is be more aggressive with tariffs.
I mean, it just wasn't said.
But that is now a position.
And it's going to, you know, I've always claimed that, you know, there was an argument during the Reagan era that how do people vote?
And do they vote from their heart or from their mind?
And I said, no, I think they vote from their bellies, you know, when they're hungry.
And that's what's going to happen here.
As a matter of fact, it is.
I mean, they came up with a number.
And this was, I don't know where it came from because I don't want to believe it.
The percentage of people in this country now that could be going to bed hungry.
That's just bewildering.
But that's what usually happens, though.
If it hasn't really happened yet, it's going to.
And it's a system that is doomed to fail, just like the wars are doomed to fail.
And both sides will fail.
Economically speaking, that's generally the case, too.
Although that was not exactly what was the result of the first Bretton Woods agreement, because the conditions led to us having a tremendous advantage because we had tremendous wealth that we could just waste away.
But what they don't want to admit is we've wasted away.
And there are some countries that have economic system that wouldn't dare use tariffs and all the things that they do.
And I think that it's hard to accept one's own, you know, as an individual, one's own, oh, you know, that was 100% my fault and I got to do something about it.
It's psychologically unpleasant to do that.
And countries don't like to do that too.
But that is what has to happen, these policies.
But I think the people wanted that.
I think that's what they were voting on it for.
We're a little bit restless.
We don't think that we've gotten too far with freer markets, sounder money, more peace, and more balanced budgets.
It's just not happening.
Well, you mentioned off camera, you wonder how much money has moved around with this tit-for-tat back and forth, probably trillions, you said.
And I'm sure you're right.
You know, it started on Friday with Trump's comments to which the Chinese said, okay, we're going to impose export controls on certain things, rare earths, and the things that you need to mine them and the things that you need to cut the silicon wafers and all this and that.
And then Trump said, oh, yeah, well, we're going to put 100% tariffs on you.
So there.
And then Trump, I guess, Sunday night, just kind of had a clearing of the head and he said this.
No, no, don't put that on it.
He said, it's going to be okay.
Don't worry about it.
But the Chinese, this is the problem, Dr. Paul, is that Trump is dealing with China and Russia like he deals with Kier Stammer and Macron and Mertz and von der Leyen, the Europeans who kowtow, who scrape before the master.
It doesn't work that way with China and Russia.
And he should understand that, or he should have people around him who do understand it.
He doesn't need to kowtow to Russia or China.
That's not necessary.
But he needs to treat them as equals.
He can't order them around.
And so what China said after this dizzying back and forth, you can put that back up.
They didn't say, oh, please, Mr. Trump, what can we do?
The Chinese Commerce Ministry condemned the Trump administration's tactics, calling them incompatible with dialogue.
Quote, if you wish to fight, we shall fight to the end.
If you wish to negotiate, the door remains open.
They continue.
The United States cannot simultaneously seek dialogue while threatening to impose new restrictive measures.
That is not the proper way to engage with China.
Very clear.
Stop it.
We're not going to be pushed around by you.
You know, the ultimate test that has to be made on how well these policies are and how they will work, and that is trust.
You know, if you can't trust the people you're dealing with on a personal level, on a business level, there are some people in a minor way with small businesses that I wasn't too keen on a lot of complicated contracts, but I was really keen on trusting the person I was working with.
And I think it's that trust that is going to get worse because it's so complicated.
It's so mixed up.
It's on again, off again.
And you have to, a lot of people give Trump credit for his experience in dealing in these contracts and things.
So he said, oh, yeah, I said that.
But, oh, I changed my mind.
It's going to be okay.
And the markets moves on a dime.
So he's been able to achieve that.
But I think the chaos is going to overwhelm.
And people, well, right now we've heard some statements coming from China that they're not going to roll over.
They're not going to roll over.
So that means the chaos that they've created cannot be solved.
It can be mellowed a little bit.
And Trump's been able to do that.
But eventually, it's going to be the chaos that's going to be the dominant force.
And that's going to be very difficult times.
I think even if you eliminated the threat of nuclear weapons, I think the economic policies of the world, just now people talk about Europe, people who like Europe, talking about how bad it's become.
But what about the people who love the United States and its history?
Right now, there's so many problems.
But I think the biggest issue, which in many ways becomes subjective, is trusting people and trusting people's promises.
So I guess we can never have that.
But if you get two people, one in one authoritarian government with another, and they do have an honest goal and they could trust each other, something might be achieved.
But I think the world doesn't have a lot of trust left in it.
Well, the thing about Trump is that he's not going to go digging for the information himself.
He's not going to do his own research.
So then it requires that he hires competent advisors, which he has shown that he's really not capable of doing.
We had John Bolton.
We had so many people in the first administration that were just awful.
And we're seeing the same thing here.
And I would say case in point is the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, who at first seemed competent, but now he does not seem like the sharpest knife in the drawer.
And this is the kind of advice he's giving President Trump.
If you put that next one on, U.S. Treasury Secretary Besant told the Financial Times that Beijing is, I'll go to the next one actually, that Beijing, next one please.
Beijing is trying to damage the global economy with its export controls on rare earths and critical minerals.
This is the important part, Dr. Paul.
This is what Besant is advising President Trump.
This is a sign of how weak their economy is, and they want to pull everyone out with them.
Battle Over Natural Law 00:04:06
Maybe there is some Leninist business model where hurting your customers is a good idea, but they are the largest supplier to the world.
If they want to slow down the global economy, they will be hurt the most.
So here's him belittling China as just some Leninist nobodies out there whose economy is going down.
It's just no way to deal with your adversaries, even in a non-hostile way.
Yes, and that is not an easy problem to solve because people don't want to admit the truth.
Because at times, I think that some of these state-run capitalistic systems, you know, outdo us in some of the things that they present.
You know, this whole thing about the rare earth problem, that's a free market thing.
You know, we have so much that we could sell and they have so much, but then they want to cancel it.
So the only thing that the tariff war that's going on now has done to me, it's made me more emphatically convinced that they're dangerous, very dangerous.
And I think that they get worse rather than better until people finally give up and say, but with total chaos, with the breakdown of, you know, when the system breaks down, say, after a big war, believe me, they use stuff, things for their money, and they also use, you know, promises to pay and take care of their bills.
But that's not going to happen for a while.
And if people say, well, why are you worrying about it?
Why are you trying to convert it if you're not if you don't have any confidence that it will be all right?
Well, long term, I do, because I think our side is winning the philosophic battle.
We deal with a lot of organizations.
They're small.
They might only have 100 people in them.
But we run into these people in hope schooling, private schooling, and those numbers are growing.
But that doesn't mean that next week or next month or even next year, everything, because you have, the big problem is you have to liquidate debt and malinvestment with fiat money.
And we're still solving our, quote, pretending we're solving our problem by just pouring out more fiat money.
And you know, did you know, Daniel, that prices go up?
Yeah, especially for the middle class and working class.
Well, I'm going to sign out and thank everyone for watching the show.
If you're watching the show right now, please tick that thumbs up or like button wherever you're watching it.
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And we appreciate you doing that.
Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
I want to thank all our viewers for tuning in today, and we are going to stick with it because we believe sincerity that what's going on can be solved, could be prevented.
These wars are not necessary, and they're solvable.
But it's also, if you look at human history, they seem to persist way too long.
But I think there's a battle going on, those who believe in natural law and those who believe in authoritarianism.
And believe me, I met a lot of authoritarians in Washington, and I met and understand the system because for some reason, the people accept the idea that governments are unique and they're allowed to have authority over the people because we dedicated it to them.
I think that's nonsense.
The government should never have authority to do to an individual that you or I can't do.
We can't rob, steal, or kill, and governments are very much involved in all that.
And somebody someday ought to wake up the people and say, Look, governments are too big, they're too authoritarian, and they ought to study natural law.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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