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Dec. 4, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
27:46
The 'Affordability Crisis' And What It Means For The Midterms

While President Trump remains preoccupied with foreign affairs, new polling shows an accelerating softening in support among Trump voters concerned with the high cost of living. The buzzword is "affordability" but what does that really mean?

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Politicians And Affordability Concerns 00:15:20
Yeah, 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, Dr. Paul.
How are you doing?
Doing well.
Doing well.
All right.
I think better than what they're doing in Washington.
That's sure.
But we have advice for them.
But are they listening?
Maybe.
Who knows?
One or two people at least listen to our program.
No, we're doing better on that.
So anyway, we're going to continue to make the effort to try to explain things because if you depend on the politicians coming out of Washington, basically they have some distortion of their information for self-serving reasons.
But anyway, there's been a couple polls out that are important for the politicians that Trump's numbers are not as good as they said and is not as good as Trump say they are.
For instance, the subject of inflation comes up and Trump says, oh, we took care of that.
It's all okay.
But anyway, credibility is a big deal.
But this is something there are several polls out that are universal.
This last campaign, the election, you know, in Tennessee, you can win an election by nine points, but it wouldn't, it's not necessarily the greatest news in the world.
So they have to be a bit concerned.
I think the people closest to the grassroots are concerned, more so than the people who are traveling around the world, bombing ships and things like that.
But the people at home right now are expressing a disgust, which is very understandable, but not usually mentioned.
And that is, oh, you have inflation goes up.
The report is going, things are going up 10%, 10%.
Oh, now they're down to 3%, and they think it's over.
No, the 10% stays there for a long time.
It has to work its way out and work through the system till everybody adjusts their prices.
That's why, you know, they're not printing outlandish sums of money, but what they're doing is the people are starting to feel the brunt of it.
And that's what I think is happening right now.
But that's why people in politics should be a little bit more cautioned.
I think people are interested in hearing the truth.
If there's bad news, you have to give it to them in a way where you can say, you don't have to suffer.
If we do the right things, we can solve it.
But right now, they're not doing it that way.
They're trying to deceive the people and say, oh, this is no big problem.
And we're going to conquer the world and take care of the world.
And our numbers are still very good.
But I'm not so sure the numbers of the administration are very good right now.
Yeah, and there are a couple polls out that we've been looking at, you know, and it's still early.
We haven't entered, you know, 2026 where we're going to be looking at midterms.
But still, it's worth looking at.
And you point out the Tennessee by-election, where 13 points have been shaved off, at least Trump's margin of victory in the last election, which doesn't bode well, especially when taken with recent elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere.
Some concern.
Now, here's a politico came out with a poll, if you could put that first one up.
And there's some buzzwords involved here.
Poll, Trump's own voters begin blaming him for affordability crisis.
And I'll go to the next one.
This is the poll that just came out.
New polling shows many Americans have begun to blame President Donald Trump for the high cost they're feeling across virtually every part of their lives.
And it's shifting politics.
Almost half, 46%, say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they could ever remember it being, a view held by 37% of Trump 2024 voters.
So that's a big increase in people who think that things have gotten worse.
They also say the affordability crisis is Trump's responsibility, with 46% saying that it is his economy now and his administration responsible for the costs that they're struggling with.
So that's the unfortunate thing when you're president, whether or not you deserve all the blame, people sense it and they believe it, and that feeds their perceptions.
You know, when the race was going on in Tennessee, I picked up and I actually blogged a little bit on this word affordability.
And it's been used, you know, a month or two ago, it was hardly ever used.
And it's a political gimmick that they're using because affordability is different than, oh, it's inflation.
We created it.
We spend too much money and tell the truth about the Fed.
No, they're avoiding it.
But when you think about it, affordability is an important term.
You know, if you're making $100,000 a year, which could be a very good income, you can't afford a $5 million house.
It's affordability on what you have.
So this whole idea that it's an affordability, there's always, you know, you're not, it's not affordable because it depends on your desires and what's going on.
But some people, you know, due to their circumstances, they might be doing quite well, but they might not be able to afford the fanciest new car on the lot.
I understand they're pretty expensive these days because when I heard about how car or I can't afford that, the car automobiles.
So, but I think it's a gimmick that they use to try to deceive the people and not be unleveling with them.
But what I was amazed about is when I noticed the term, it was during that race, but now it's being used a lot.
I think they must think they must have done some polling, and it's a good thing.
But it makes inflation and the Federal Reserve and wars that you'd have to quit and quit the welfare.
They don't want to talk about that.
And that maybe that has something to do to cause people to be unable to afford things when the money goes down in value.
That's the issue.
That's what we can't afford.
But they're misdirecting this.
They want to use it in political ways.
And right now, it looks like people are responding to this.
He's right.
We can't afford bread anymore.
You know, this sort of thing.
So it's just a political gimmick the way I see it.
Yeah, without going to the root causes of why things aren't affordable.
Let's do a couple more from the political.
Then we actually have your piece that you put up on X when we need to talk about that.
But so this is a political poll was conducted by Public First, and it found that despite Trump's continued support among Republican-based, now this is important, his softest supporters, the ones the GOP most needs to hold on to next year, are expressing concern.
Republicans were already worried about how they can turn out lower propensity voters during a midterm cycle when Trump himself is not on the ballot.
Now Democrats are also trying to peel away their voters by focusing aggressively on affordability, which remains a top priority for 56% of Americans.
So you're right, it is a buzzword, and the Dems are not stupid.
They understand it.
Go to the next one.
Now, this is a spokesperson for the Democratic Super PAC, C.J. Warnke, and he says House Republicans should 100% expect to see ads next year, calling them out for their broken promise to lower prices and for supporting Trump's tariffs.
The article goes on to say Republicans, for their part, argue they're the ones focused on reducing costs.
And this is the National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Mark Marinella, who says, while Democrats are fighting among themselves on who could be the next Zoron Mondani socialist, Republicans are laser focused on lowering costs, rebuilding prosperity, and delivering relief for the middle class.
To me, Dr. Paul, that sounds like an overly long bumper sticker without any substance to it.
Boy, that's for sure.
You know, the effort to do this is politics this way.
You know, if they were guilty, if they could be found guilty of a crime, even a moral imperfection, the politicians are, except for the few, we know, a few we know, yeah.
But they're able to distort anything that can fool the people.
And, you know, this whole thing is that lying is necessary.
But they don't consider it lying.
They're considering it, you know, that it's a noble thing to serve in Congress and protect the people.
So I'm providing a great service.
So if I don't bend things a little bit, most people will understand it that we wouldn't be here to fix these problems.
And they stay there.
So the longer they're there, the more they adapt to the system.
And that's why some people lend itself to turd limits.
Maybe that would clean it up.
And there was a time when I supported that.
But the more I was experienced at Washington term limits, it's not an answer whatsoever because sometimes the people they brought, you know, if people voluntarily left and term limited themselves, the next person was worse.
Would be worse, yeah.
If you imagine if Thomas Massey said, okay, I'm going to turn limit myself.
That would be terrible.
Well, as usual, Dr. Paul, you break it down.
You go through the buzzwords.
You go past the buzzwords.
And this is your post on X. We're going to skip that chart and just go to his post.
And if you're not following, if you're one of the few people who don't follow Dr. Paul on X, well, you're missing out, especially since you started commenting again.
You're back in the saddle on these.
But this is great because you go past the buzzwords.
Dr. Paul said a couple of days ago: politicians are vigorously arguing over who's responsible for the lack of affordability for most goods and services with prices skyrocketing.
President Trump said the word affordability is a Democrat scam.
Without turning this into a team sport, it's more accurate to say that both teams are guilty for the sharp increase in prices, the unpayable debts, and lower standard of living for Americans.
You continue, Dr. Paul, by saying Republicans and Democrats spend money they don't have with reckless abandon.
And it's the American people who suffer the most.
It's not wages or profits that are the cause, but the loss of purchasing power for the dollar.
That's the problem that politicians and special interests will always avoid mentioning.
Boom, you zero in on that.
It is the first thing.
And I think that people understand that.
I don't think it's complicated, even though I had the edge, I happened to write it.
But I don't think it's complicated because with using the same language and the same logic, I felt like I reached some young people who didn't come to hear a speech by me, had already made up their mind.
It wasn't like, oh, yeah, you know, this is what we're going to, this is what he stands for.
We were running, we went to campuses where people were just curious.
And I thought it was just great that they grasped that much easier than some of the traditional Republicans, traditional Democrats, traditional politicians.
I think, and I also look at these kind of problems as being bipartisan.
And both of the parties are involved in doing this.
And there is a little bit of bipartisanship.
We worked on that while we were there.
But right now, they're trying to get together to use a resolution to try to prevent a war in Venezuela.
So it's out there.
But the thing of it is, and I think one of the reasons why you like polling, it is a reflection of an attitude by the people.
And that type of measurement to me is sort of more democratic than some of the stuff that goes on in Washington, you know, and arguing democracy and all this stuff.
Well, I do want to read the rest of what you wrote because it's important.
Now, you identified the problem in the first half of your post on X, which is the problem of purchasing power.
Now, in the second half, you go into why that is an issue.
And you say it's the unconstitutional and immoral Federal Reserve System that makes government's outrageous spending possible.
The ability to counterfeit dollars should never be permitted to exist, but it does.
And it's the very root of the affordability problem.
Bingo, that's it.
And then you go on, in order to fix the problems, endless wars, corporate welfarism, foreign aid, and affordability, politicians would be required to cut back spending in all areas.
But as we can see, you say, with big, beautiful bills, politicians don't want to cut back on spending.
In the same way, they always resist giving up power once it's granted.
We have a choice, cut back voluntarily under our own will or be forced to cut back in a severe financial crisis that not even the Fed will be able to save us from.
Empires throughout history tend to always go out in financial ruin.
I'm afraid the American empire may end up doing the same.
You know, in there, I'm trying to make the point that it's a devaluation and depreciation of the value of the dollar that is the big issue.
But what if, and I know a couple people that have done this, once gold was re-legalized in 1975, people started taking their savings instead of having one or two or 3% earned interest and losing more by the inflation over time, that we were able, people were able to, the opposite happens.
This doesn't happen where there's prices going up too fast and people are suffering.
And they have all kinds of gimmicks.
Well, we have a savings account, and some of them are worthwhile trying.
Savings account for my kids' college.
Oh, that'll cost you $20 a year, $20,000 a year.
Okay, I think we can handle that.
And they save it up for 10, 15 years.
And the price of the school goes double or triple.
You know, it doesn't happen.
But what happens if you have the gold in that incident over those periods of time?
That purchasing power goes up, you know, and the prices come down.
But we hear, we see more people.
Boy, when I read stories about central banks and cryptos and people are buying gold now, that means that somebody is catching on, that maybe that's a necessity to, you know, to get your protection.
And it's a shame, though, there'll be a lot of people that won't.
But I've always argued that more people that understand that, that when the big bust comes, it's better to have a lot of people understanding what they can and should do.
Yeah, and it's better to have a lot of gold, too.
People Buying Gold 00:04:43
Well, here's another little bit.
I mean, talk about polls.
This is a Gallup poll that came out a couple of days ago.
It's more bad news for President Trump.
You go to that next one.
Trump's approval rating drops to 36%, a new second term low.
Not good news.
And you go to the next one.
President Trump's job approval rating has fallen five percentage points to 36 percent, the lowest of his second term, while disapproval has risen to 60 percent.
The latest decline follows three months of stability with 40 to 41 percent, et cetera, et cetera.
Now, go to the next one.
Now, this chart, if I were looking at this chart, I'd be having a heart attack right now.
Um, that red line is disapproval.
This is among all Americans questioned, and that black dark line is approval.
They are veering very, very far apart.
But actually, what I would think is even more concerning, Dr. Paul, is if you go to the next one, this is a partisan view.
Now, that red line is Republicans.
You're seeing a real decrease after kind of an August/slash September increase.
You're seeing a decrease among Republicans to the lowest point since he took office at 84% approval rating.
So, of course, the other Dems go lower and the independents go lower.
But among Republicans, that's really not a good sign for President Trump.
And maybe we're biased, but I think we would suggest, okay, of course, it's the big, beautiful bill and all of these things, but it's also his seeming obsession with foreign affairs.
He's going to attack Venezuela.
He's got to bomb Iran.
He's got to send love notes to the terrorists that's in control of Syria.
He's got to do all of these things instead of just staying home and focusing.
We talked about it yesterday.
Marjorie Taylor Green said something like, why don't you fix our medical insurance problem in the U.S. instead of being obsessed with being overseas all the time?
Right.
You know, during the campaign, they would ask me, this is pretty complex.
How would you end this war in the Middle East?
And mine, of course, was very simple, and a lot of people remembered it.
We just marched in.
Why don't we just march out?
March out.
And it really isn't any more complicated, but there are too many special interests that wouldn't want you to march out.
And that way, why couldn't that same message go to the president?
And I think there's a few that's been hitting at that.
Mr. President, you've just marched in.
Why don't you just come home?
So that, of course, would solve a lot of problems.
And not only you could start with just money problems, just the fuel on Air Force One.
Yeah.
Well, the problem with a lot of this, though, is that these wars and this obsession with overseas is very profitable to very well-connected people.
You know, the donor class.
I was listening to Colonel McGregor on the way into the studio on George Galloway's show.
I highly recommend it.
I think it came out yesterday.
Great, as usual, both two of my favorite commentators.
But Colonel McGregor was talking about how the talking heads on TV, the former generals, they're all on the take.
They're all being paid to go out there and push these wars.
And then he also mentioned that Trump's inner circle, I think Woodcoff's son is involved.
Trump's kids are involved in doing business in these areas where Trump is obsessed with overseas.
So there's a class of people, according to Colonel McGregor, who are becoming enormously wealthy.
And so Trump is so focused on this donor class that he's forgetting the fact that the entirety of the rest of the country is suffering for this.
Yes, and I don't know what it will take to wake up, especially if they have bad information, if they don't understand why groceries are going up in price and they buy into some other crazy scheme.
The other thing that they use are statistics.
When the government's in control of the statistics, like we hear announcements, well, you know, in the last six months, inflation has gone down 10%.
Or, you know, there'll be some outlandish announcement.
And yet, there must be a lot of housewives and other people who just shop.
That is not true.
And they don't like to be lied to or fibbed to or think they're dumb enough that they have to believe all this stuff.
How can that be when people are already cutting back?
I think it's an interesting, just from an economic viewpoint, interesting phenomenon how inflation works.
People was one time, somebody said, well, look, why would if you're an increase, if you double the money supply, prices are going to double.
Congress Involved? 00:03:42
Not so simple.
Some prices might go up four times.
Other ones might go down because there still would be a market.
And this is the reason people can be deceived and the figures and the stats.
And governments like to mess around with the stats.
And this is secret information.
Even the Fed does it.
Yeah.
They let us some bad statistics.
Yeah, they love that.
Well, we'll finish up with a little something.
And we don't usually do this, obviously, because we're not in the business of lobbying, but we do.
This is kind of a call to action, I think, and it's a worthwhile one.
Go to that next clip.
Senators reintroduced bill to block Trump from launching war with Venezuela.
And I think particularly in light of what we've learned over the past week, that not only are they engaging in lawless activity of killing people on boats, but anyone that survives is also getting blown to pieces.
This is a huge problem.
It's putting pressure on Republicans.
Well, this bipartisan war powers resolution that's brought, it's a privileged resolution, which ensures that a floor vote.
And thankfully, Senator Paul, he's gotten together with Senator Tim Kaine out of Virginia to do a bipartisan effort to reintroduce this, to remind the president that there is a thing called the Constitution.
You do have to follow the Constitution.
You don't get to go to war wherever you want.
You don't get to blow people up wherever you want.
Congress is reasserting its role.
Now go to the next one.
It did fail, but it was very close last time, 49 to 51.
Just two Republicans, Paul and Murkowski, supporting it.
But Kaine, Senator Kaine, says he expects the legislation to receive more support now that the U.S. has deployed more military assets in Venezuela due to the controversy of the September 2nd bombing.
So you could peel a couple of Republicans off, Dr. Paul, and get this to pass, which would be huge.
Now, at the same time, in the House, there's a resolution that's been introduced.
And as could be expected, you're going to remember some of these names.
Remember Representative Jim McGovern.
You worked with him all the time on some of these issues.
So it's great to see him working with Thomas Massey.
Go to that next one if you can, introducing a House resolution to the same effect.
And Massey said the Constitution does not prevent the executive branch to unilaterally commit an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn't attacked the U.S. Congress has the sole power to declare war against Venezuela.
Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.
So in the House and Senate, it's active right now.
You know, one neat legislative thing about what's going on here, and I don't know when it originated or what the debate was like, but this is a privileged resolution.
They can't, and the Speaker of the House can't bury, or the president can't stop it.
The vote is going to come.
Yeah, well, the War Powers Resolution was a terrible piece of legislation.
But the only good thing about it is that in that resolution that was enshrined, you can bring this to the floor.
Boy, that is great.
And it's been used several times.
We got a couple votes.
You and Mr. Kucinich and McGovern and a bunch of others were Jimmy Duncan was involved.
So this is one thing that you can, I mean, I think people especially, now not all members are going to be receptive on the Republican side, but I think everyone should contact a representative and say, look, I don't, you know, I want to at least have Congress involved.
You don't have to say, don't say, I hate Trump.
Don't say, even I hate war.
I want Congress involved.
You know, you need to vote for this because you need to have your voice.
Why We Can't Bury It 00:03:59
That's why I sent you there.
Well, I think it's neat that you can have examples of what could happen where you can get very liberal Democrats coming together with constitutionalists and people who believe in or take an anti-war position.
And that to me indicates that the source is there.
It's just that how do you get it to grow?
Because one thing that is noticeable is that sometimes people who are very good on an issue, but then if they have to vote with the Democrats, all of a sudden they're not as good as they were because they're frightened about voting differently.
They think that there's a political liability.
I argue that even if it is, you ought to do what's right.
If it's the Constitution, you took an oath to you ought to follow it.
But the whole thing is, I think it's a political benefit.
People are so sick and tired of not hearing the straits.
So sorry.
I had so many people come up and the compliment that they frequently give me is, well, you know, they qualify.
I don't agree with everything you do and say, but, you know, we can trust what you're doing.
And I think that makes a difference.
That's why I like to see these groups together.
And that's why it would be really tragic that if the enemies of Thomas and Brown, you know, have any sort of a victory by being closer to the Constitution.
That would be a sad story.
Absolutely.
Well, remember what we've talked about many times.
Our late friend Walter Jones, he found out that it's not a liability at all.
All those military people he represented, and he felt that he had to do that.
But he was such a delightful person because it was so rare for people to come up and say, you know, I had the wrong ideas for 20 years.
And now I see the light and I'm changing my mind.
Yeah, it's fantastic.
Well, I'm going to close out and I'm closing out for the week because this is my Friday, I suppose, at least on the show.
And I appreciate everyone watching the show.
I appreciate all the thumbs up.
In fact, I'm going to give our show a thumbs up right now.
Why not?
I liked it.
And I hope you did too.
And I hope you'll share it and keep watching the show and help us grow our channel.
And we definitely do appreciate it.
Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
I want to close with first thanking our viewers for tuning in today.
And also for everybody to look for an opportunity to spread the message because individuals, our viewers can spread the message.
I'm still amazed at what we can do with the internet.
The internet has lots of problems, and I'm trying to sort it out in my own mind.
But we reach a lot of people.
And I think it's miraculous that we can reach a lot of people.
And so it just takes a little energy, a lot of enthusiasm, and preach the gospel of liberty and freedom and justice.
And we can always hide behind the Constitution and say, well, yes, I believe on this because it's in the Constitution.
But so why don't we have a solution to that?
Why don't we have everybody that goes to Congress raise their right hand and take an oath to follow the Constitution in everything that they do?
Ron, don't you know they've already done that?
But the results haven't been all that great because all of a sudden, they all say I still follow the Constitution, but they changed the words around.
They changed the interpretation.
They said the court ruled this way and that was canceled.
I think people who are seeking the truth can seek it out.
It's not that complicated.
And I hope we're helpful in that effort here at the Liberty Report.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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