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Dec. 18, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
27:33
What Was Said - And Wasn't Said - In Trump's TV Speech

President Trump addressed the nation last night live on television amid rumors he would announce the beginning of a war on Venezuela. Several warnings - including from Tucker Carlson - indicated the war announcement was likely. In the end the word "Venezuela" was not uttered. What does it mean? Also today - a new poll on Republican support for Israel aid is bound to be a headache for Trump.

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Tariffs and Their Complications 00:11:28
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, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Doing well.
Doing well.
Good, good.
And the country's doing well.
The president told us so.
He did, indeed, many times.
And he's made a lot of people happy, I'm sure.
But I do have one question.
If he's fixing it and things are so much better, why do we hear so many complaints?
Even in the moderate, you know, middle-of-the-road media, they talk about it.
Still have a problem and things are very, very expensive.
But CPI says they should be happy.
It's not going up very fast anymore.
I don't know.
There is a disconnect anyway for many people, I'm thinking.
But it's indirectly, maybe, Daniel, an asset for us because people get disgusted and they say, yeah, sure.
And they grow to be more skeptical.
And that's, I think, a good idea because people grow and grow.
You know, I like to read stories about the people in Russia, the Soviet system, before the Soviet system collapsed, the jokes that they were telling.
And they didn't believe a word.
They got to that point.
And that fits into my scenario that the prevailing attitudes had a lot of power and influence.
So the Soviet system collapsed when the enthusiasm by the people just dissipated.
And I think there's a little bit of that going on.
And I don't see it reversing very quickly because the one thing that he has not solved has been to make the living standards go up to get people to accept what's happening with the monetary system and also how unhappy people still are.
Even though I agree, there could be some things that he could say that things are a little bit better on that.
But I don't think the big things like there's not less war, talk of war, there's not less spending and balancing budget.
There's not much talk about sound money.
And those are pretty big issues.
But in some of the other things, I think he has hinted around to following through.
And hopefully those things come about.
It was a strange speech.
It was just announced a couple of days.
The president is going to address the nation live.
And the backdrop, of course, of all this is a lot of foreign policy rattling and rocking, particularly with regard to Venezuela.
And so the question is, what was this going to be about?
If you put on that first clip, this is how Hedge titled it.
Quote, I inherited a mess and I'm fixing it.
Watch President Trump unveil warrior dividend, signal housing reform, not mentioned Venezuela.
So uncharacteristically, Dr. Paul, he spoke for only 18 minutes.
I think it's one of his shortest speeches.
And I got an email just now from a friend saying basically he went down and gave a speech about himself, which is essentially what it was.
Here are some quotes.
11 months ago, I inherited a mess and I'm fixing it.
When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans.
There again, you see that word, Dr. Paul, unaffordable.
We did a show about affordability.
It's clear, and he's addressed this before.
I think it's clear that this is a word that he's worried about.
And it's a word probably that the Democrats plan on exploiting in the midterm elections coming up.
That's probably why he mentioned it so strongly.
Of course, I've made a few comments about unaffordability that they're looking for all in the wrong places because they're looking how to control prices and think that that's where the problem is.
And they never talk about the money supply or the value of the currency.
That they ignore, and they can't solve that problem without talking about it.
But that is a bigger problem.
How do you cut the spending?
And the people then who complain the most about the cost of living are the ones who very often are the group of people who are saying, yes, mine, my, mine, mom, me, you have, what are you going to do for me?
Send me more money.
And so the conflict is there, and that has to be reversed.
People have to think more about the purchasing power.
You know, I like to point out that there's two halves that people buy and sell, and they use supply and demand of the product, but there's a supply and demand of the money.
And that's on every transaction.
Yet they don't talk about it.
Oh, you mean it's important about the value of the dollar.
People understand that a little bit, but not enough to say, what we need to do is save the dollar by quit printing so much money.
And history is so replete with all these examples that this is never easily solved, you know, because it's hard to tell people you have to participate and accept a cutback.
So most of the countries always rely on the cutbacks by debasing the currency because, yes, they get less and there's a correction made and then there's bankruptcies and that sort of thing.
But it's not the easiest way to go.
And it's deceiving the people if they think, well, we just need a better manager of the economy.
And the president, you know, is on his way.
Yeah.
Well, we haven't really discussed the Vanity Fair interview with Susie Wiles, who's the White House chief of staff, which was an interesting thing, not least of which because she had for an entire year spoken with a reporter and told a lot of inside details about the White House.
But one of the things that was interesting, at least in the article, and I did read the whole thing, was that she said that there was a lot of disagreement within the White House about the tariffs, the tariff policy.
And she said that she encouraged President Trump to hold off on announcing the tariffs back in April when he did, and she lost the battle.
But it was interesting to hear that it wasn't unanimous.
There were some really vicious fights about this is not a great idea.
She also sort of indicated that they weren't very well thought out.
So what's interesting about that is how that comes up in the speech last night.
If you go to the next one, now he's talking about, again, affordability.
Early in the speech, he addressed affordability, but he insisted that his use of tariffs had helped address the issue.
Now, here's President Trump.
Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs.
My favorite word, tariffs, which for many decades have been used successfully by other countries against us, but not anymore.
Companies know that they build in America, there are no tariffs.
And that's why they're coming home to the U.S. in record numbers.
Now, once again, he makes a claim that doesn't really have any numbers behind it.
That may be true.
I would be interested in seeing the numbers because you can't just drop your factory in the middle of Shanghai and pack your bags and go to the U.S. and open another factory.
It sort of makes it sound like it is, but these are complicated things.
But the idea is that he's saying that affordability is not a problem.
My tariffs have solved the problem.
That doesn't seem very logical or rational to me.
You know, when he started off, he says the use of tariff has helped to address the issues.
And I think, well, that's pretty good.
They've realized they need to do something with it.
Oh, we need to keep doing and doing more of it and back it up with guns.
Yeah.
You know, because it doesn't just sit there and everybody's happy.
But the odds of this solving the problems, the problem is like raising taxes in the middle of a recession or depression, where we need to get less government, not more government, that caused the problem.
But I don't think there's, it happens very often where a country would deliberately bite the bullet.
Probably the closest thing that has come to in my lifetime was what Volcker did.
You know, take an interest rate way, way up there in a very serious recession and all.
And things were reversed and gave us a little bit more time, but we didn't get much smarter.
Yeah, what would we do with the $39 trillion debt, though, if we had a 25% interest rate?
That would be pretty rough.
But yeah, absolutely.
Now, lest we be accused of only being negative, I was able to find something that I thought was pretty positive in the speech.
Strange as the speech was.
Now, maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I'm just digging too hard.
But I don't think this part was that awfully bad.
If you put that next one on, and he's talking about housing costs and how he's solving them.
And he said a major factor driving up housing costs was the colossal border invasion.
The last administration and their allies in Congress brought in millions and millions of migrants and gave them taxpayer-funded housing while your rent and housing costs skyrocketed.
Over 60% of growth in the rental market came from foreign migrants.
At the same time, the illegal aliens stole American jobs and flooded emergency rooms, getting free health care and education paid for by you, the American taxpayer.
They also increased the cost of law enforcement by numbers so high that they're not even to be mentioned for the first time in 50 years.
We're now seeing reverse migration.
Now, I don't know that we would agree with all of that.
The idea about stolen American jobs might be a little bit up for debate.
But nevertheless, I think that is a pretty good point.
People coming over, signing up for free houses, for free welfare, and that did put a burden.
And I think he deserves credit for solving the problem of the border migration, illegal border migration that he inherited from Biden.
See, I don't think the issue per se are immigrants and even people who just walk in.
I think the bigger deal is how we subsidize them.
Yeah, exactly.
And it's the subsidy that says you subsidize it, you're going to get a lot more of it.
And that's what happened.
Because I think a free society, you know, especially with the amount of raw materials and the things that we have here on natural resources, we could, you know, if that was the goal.
But it shouldn't be the individual, it shouldn't be politicians making these decisions and under what circumstances.
But the Democrats really hated the idea if it was pointed out that maybe you would have these, use the illegals and have immigrants be able to vote.
Regime Change Sentiments 00:07:50
And of course, they got hysterical over there.
But the more you look at that, the more evidence shows up that that is darn close to what they like to do is to have that.
They figure that the immigrants will automatically do that.
But maybe for six months, then maybe after they look at how the market is supposed to work, maybe they won't be so loyal to that.
But anyway, we subsidize illegal immigration and these numbers coming in.
We subsidize war.
And we're going to do it until we go bankrupt.
And the signs are there that we're in the midst of dealing with the early stages of a big bankruptcy.
Yeah, that does not sound fun.
But of course, you know, it doesn't mean we have to agree with all the tactics used by ICE and these things.
There have been some horror stories, but just addressing the idea that it is expensive to have people here who are a drain on the system and the people who are happy, like you say, happily subsidize them because they think it will translate to votes.
And you're right, it probably does, maybe even for a generation.
But what is another thing that's very interesting is not what was said, but what was not said.
Because there was an awful lot of speculation yesterday that President Trump was using this live address to the nation to announce starting a war with Venezuela.
And of course, you could be forgiven for believing that because he announces a blockade a couple of weeks ago.
He announces that he shut the sky, shut the air to airplanes around Venezuela, et cetera, et cetera.
So clearly the sabers were rattling.
And then the rumor started flying left and right.
Tucker Carlson was on Judge Napolitano's show.
And in fact, I do have a clip of that.
Let's listen to this of what Tucker kind of broke some news and it got a lot of attention.
You might want to put the earpiece on.
Let's watch that first video here of Tucker on the judges' show yesterday.
Is Trump going to start a war in Venezuela?
I don't know.
I don't know when this program airs, the one that we're on right now, this big speculation.
Well, we're live now, and then it'll be posted immediately.
So, right, so my sense is I don't know the answer.
I've certainly been on the phone a lot about it.
I have no power.
I'm a podcaster, but I'm very interested.
And so here's what I know so far, which is that members of Congress were briefed yesterday that a war is coming, and it'll be announced in the address to the nation tonight at 9 o'clock by the president.
Who knows, by the way, if that will actually happen.
I don't know.
And I never want to overstate what I know, which is pretty limited in general.
But a member of Congress told me that this morning.
So if you want to really desperately look for something positive, maybe he says there was a change and is a change in sentiments.
And he's not bashful about changing his mind or keeping people off balance and to tell him one thing.
And maybe he did have a plan to do that because there's people who were close enough to have heard what the rumors were all about and what they were planning.
But maybe he starts listening to what the sentiments are.
And ultimately, he'll have to do that.
No matter how powerful you are as the president, you may get some time.
But eventually, once the people decide that they've had enough, I still so often reflect back to the 60s.
When the people finally got disgusted with it, it took a lot of pain and suffering and spending and killing.
But the people said, stop it.
And the sentiments are out there, and politicians generally watch what those sentiments are.
Yeah, absolutely.
I do want to thank Gypsy Magic who just kicked in $50 for today's show saying Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2026 to the entire RPLR family.
Thank you, Dr. Paul, Daniel and Ash, for your hard work in 25.
Well, thank you, Gypsy and the others, all of you, for watching the show and keeping us going.
We appreciate that.
Now, one of the things that probably didn't help matters much was that Congress, again, passed a buck.
They lost their ability to assert themselves according to the Constitution.
We're referring to, I believe it was H. Conrad 61, if I'm not mistaken, that Thomas Massey and a group of other members, bipartisan members, introduced to tell the president you have amassed military forces off of the Venezuelan coast.
You cannot do that without the authority of Congress, without authorization/slash declaration of war.
Now, that was on the floor for a vote in the afternoon.
And unfortunately, when I tuned in, I tuned in after the time had run out.
And you know how they always do this, Dr. Paul.
They're going to wait until they get the results they want and then they're going to gavel it.
Well, at that point, there were five Republican yeses.
I'm assuming, of course, that one of them was Thomas Massey.
Probably another was Marjorie Taylor Greene.
I'm not sure who the others would have been.
And I didn't look at the roll call, forgot to do that.
But nevertheless, that five then shrunk to two, then four, and then I think the final end of it was two Republicans voting their duties to the Constitution.
And of course, I think there were a couple of Democrats who voted against it, against doing this.
But Thomas Massey gave a great floor speech, I think, in my opinion.
And I did want to play a little bit of that, a minute, 16 seconds, if we can, because I think he made such a great case for why we should not be in the business of changing the regime in Venezuela.
If you want to put on your earpiece, Dr. Paul, and listen to Thomas Massey for a minute and 16 seconds, a lot of this is going to sound familiar to you because it's just great anti-interventionist rhetoric.
Mr. Speaker, James Madison warned us that in no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature and not the executive.
Madison called it the crown jewel of Congress.
The framers understood a simple truth.
To the extent that war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves.
If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case and Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America.
Let's be honest about likely outcomes.
Do we truly believe that Nicholas Maduro will be replaced by a modern-day George Washington?
How did that work out?
In Cuba, Libya, Iraq, or Syria?
Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs, weapons of mass destruction that did not exist.
Now it's the same playbook, except we're told that drugs are the WMDs.
If it were about drugs, we'd bomb Mexico or China or Colombia.
And the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez.
This is about oil and regime change.
Okay.
And when it comes to regime.
That's good.
This is about oil and regime change, says Massey.
Pretty good speech.
Pretty good little speech there, I think.
That is.
You just wonder about people sitting there and listening to that and pretending they're paying attention, and it has no effect at all.
Yeah, they vote the wrong way.
They just go and do it.
And they know in their heart that this statement is correct.
Why Voting on Principle Matters 00:08:12
Yeah, they have to.
But they have a tremendous ability to rationalize.
Yeah, that's true.
But, you know.
My party.
But really, you know, if I'm not careful about what my people want back at home and they think I am not supporting the troops, I might lose.
And how can I do my, you know, all these good things I do for my constituent?
But the one thing that I thought I discovered personally was that some of these things that people say, you can't do that.
You can't vote that way.
I found out that if you stick by it, the sticking to a principle also becomes an issue, and people understand that.
So I think long term, Massey, no matter what happens in the next month or two, a year, he will win this argument, hopefully as quickly as possible.
But long term, he will have won this argument.
Yeah, it's too bad we don't have everyone says that a handful more of Masses because as you always say, it doesn't take 100 and some Masseys.
It would take about probably 10 to really do something there.
Maybe that'll happen.
Keep voting harder.
Well, we want to finish up with something that you have previewed yesterday that we want to go ahead and bring up again because I think it's pretty important.
And I also think it's pretty good news.
This is an article Connor Eccles in Responsible Statecraft came out this week.
If you put that next clip up, plurality of Republicans say end U.S. aid to Israel according to a recent poll, youGov and IMEU policy project.
And this is all about that $38 billion in U.S.-funded weapons over the next decade.
They want to sign a 20-year obligatory funding.
And I'll go to the next one.
A plurality of Republicans oppose extending the agreement, which would give $38 billion in U.S.-funded weapons to Israel over the next decade.
While 35% of Republicans would renew the arrangement, 42% said they would rather see it lapse.
Support for ripping up the deal is particularly high among Republicans between 18 and 44, with 53% of these respondents calling for an end to the aid packages.
Now, these are not among all, this is among young Republicans, Dr. Paul, self-identified Republicans, 53% of the younger generation.
Now, you're always very optimistic about younger people, and I always hope that you're right.
And I think these numbers are very encouraging because, of course, aid to Israel has always been incredibly strong in the Republican Party.
So now you're seeing that slip.
Now, you made the good point yesterday that this is, of course, about aid to Israel, but certainly it's about aid across the board, not signaling it out.
But when this Star War, when this sort of beachhead of Israeli aid starts to fade away, then that's, I think, a very good sign.
Well, I think the proposal that I have is very practical, but it's also based on a principle.
Because I remember the case, and I'm sure you do too, because I wanted to state a principle.
So to make that point is when they came up with these $30,000, $40,000 gold medallions to give to people.
And most of the people were deserving of recognition, but why should we tax the people to give them a gold bar or something like that?
And one time there was, you might have been in the office, but by the time I walked back, I had voted against the gold thing.
I think it was Cardinal O'Connor.
And the New York Times was on the phone.
Why did he do this?
They were looking for, does he not like Catholics or something?
And somebody told him, they told the reporter, they said, oh, no, he votes against all these things.
Oh, okay.
They hung up.
Yeah, no story.
No story.
No story here, exactly.
So sort of funny.
But no, I think if you vote on the principle, it's very important.
But it's also very practical to do this.
People think voting on principle is not practical, that people will not understand.
You mean you voted against the DOD, and oh, you voted against the troops.
But if you explain it, you know, one time when I think the Patriot Act was coming up, I was sitting beside a friend and generally would be voting with me on a lot of these things.
But on the Patriot Act, he said that, but no, how can this was after 9-11?
He says, how can you vote against the Patriot Act the day after 9-11?
And he says, how would you explain?
He says, how do you explain it to the people?
Because they won't understand.
I said, but that's your job.
I said, go home and explain it to them while you're doing it.
And I think there's more value to that than they realize that people will give you a couple pluses for that.
And then eventually doing the right thing has a great deal of benefit to it.
But I think this is one time you can have the benefit, the immediate benefit, and that you're voting on principle.
That there's nothing there that says that we should be passing money out to every nation that wants to improve and advance our empire.
And that is just as unnecessary.
So I argue the case that it's practical and it's principle to vote against this stuff, but then look at what they do to them, like how they've treated Thomas.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I'm going to close out and thank everyone for watching the show today and for all your support throughout the year.
Those of you that donate in super chats and those of you that donate online.
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And you might be discouraged.
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We've only been doing it for about a week and a half.
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Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
I too want to emphasize the importance of supporting RPI because we put a lot of time and effort in here.
It is so necessary to continue.
But I believe that really, ultimately, the real ability, the important ability is for people to talk about and pass a message on one-on-one is still very valuable.
It becomes more valuable because it's the one-on-one to convert and talk to friends and neighbors through the internet.
And that's a lot of time better than just listening to the propaganda on the television.
So it is a hard fight to do this and to get the funds that are necessary.
But we feel very good that we're on the right track.
Not perfect, obviously, but we're on the right track for defending the Constitution.
And I think somebody like Thomas Massey really emphasizes so well what we're trying to do because his voice is loud and clear.
And we need to encourage all who listen and pay attention to what we're doing, that your voices will become loud and clear and help us along.
Because I think that is the most practical way to promote peace and prosperity.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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