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Jan. 29, 2026 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
27:41
Trump Makes Iran An Offer It Cannot Accept

President Trump has threatened to again attack Iran if it does not agree to three demands set by his Administration. The demands would guarantee Iran's inability to defend itself against a future attack and would lead Iran to the same fate as Syria. So unless Trump blinks, it's war.

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Oil Fight Choice 00:09:00
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning into the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, welcome to the program.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Doing well, doing well.
Got to talk a little bit about some foreign policy and a few other silly things that our government does.
So let's get started with mentioning something about the ongoing battle since 1953 between the United States and the British and others and Iran, which is so ridiculous because it's so unnecessary, but it's gotten hot, hotter than ever.
And it's looking like our administration is looking for a fight.
And they say, no, no way, no way.
Nobody would look for a fight.
But justification is done by rationalization, and they come up with being always on the morally correct side.
And therefore, whatever they do, they can set the rules.
Right now, the rules are getting pretty tough because our administration and Trump talks about Iran.
And he says, this is nothing new for Trump to do it.
This is ordinary stuff.
So why get worried about it?
So he sends out a warning.
And he threatens.
He says, you do it our way or you're going to get highways blown up.
And that is so unnecessary because there's been honest efforts.
There's been recognition of failure of policy in the past.
And right now, you know, in the last six months or so or even longer, even though the arguments and the fighting, verbal fighting has been going on with Iran, the oil price has been rather stable because they figure, well, you know, things aren't that bad and maybe they'll become more oil.
But today and last week, I noticed that the oil prices did pop up a bit.
And that might be an indication that more and more people are concerned about what's happening.
Certainly, if you looked at the gold market, even though the gold market and silver market and other markets always makes corrections, there's gold and silver has indicated there's some deep financial problems in this country and this world economic system.
So it's the threats that bother me the most, Daniel, that so unnecessary.
And as it's considered by the administration and the many supporters that work with him as seeing that this tough man approach is beneficial and good, and we like it.
We want a tough president.
I do want a tough president to defend liberty and to explain it and stand up to the bullies.
That is what we need.
So, Daniel, I think that you're well aware of this and the danger of this type of diplomacy that we're following right now with Iran.
Well, I think it's pretty clear, Dr. Paul, that President Trump plans on attacking Iran.
There's no question about it.
Two things that we do know.
One, this is a war of choice.
Iran is not coming halfway around the world to threaten the United States.
They don't have warships off of our coast.
They don't have missiles pointed at the United States.
They're not a threat to the United States.
So it's a war of choice on the part of President Trump.
He wants to do this war.
The second thing that we know is that a lot of people will die, including a lot of Americans will die.
There will be American soldiers killed if President Trump gets this war of choice against Iran.
He has a choice not to do it, and American soldiers will not get killed.
But he will not take that choice.
He will do the choice.
And he's desperately now searching, Dr. Paul, for some sort of a rationale to attack Iran because they haven't attacked us and they haven't threatened us.
There's no reason to attack them.
So, one of the things that he's doing is he's pulling out a page from the history, from the history of NATO.
If you remember back in February of 1999, the Romboyer agreements.
And that's when President Clinton did the exact same thing with the Serbs.
They got together at this castle in France and they said, okay, here's what you must agree to in order for us not to bomb you.
And President Clinton or his people presented the Serbians with something there's no way they could sign because it was essentially a surrender.
That's what Trump is trying to resurrect with Iran.
And if you go to that first clip, this is from anti-war Kyle Anselm wrote it.
Trump to Iran, agree to nuclear deal or the U.S. will attack.
Now, it's not just a nuclear deal.
What the President Trump is doing is demanding that they cease all nuclear enrichment, all of it, that they hand over everything that they have enriched to this point, that they give up the majority of their ballistic missiles, which they use to defend themselves against Israel, which has already attacked them.
And finally, that they cease support for their allies in the region.
That's an agreement, Dr. Paul, that there's no way Iran could sign it.
So President Trump is setting this up as a causal belly for the U.S. to attack Iran.
It's all made up out of nowhere.
Horrible.
So sad.
And, you know, there's another factor that is always there, has been there, and is a very serious thing because, you know, if your description of our foreign policy such, there's some key players in the deep state, in the financial markets and all these things.
They are very much influential on Trump.
But there's one that will not be ignored.
They will not be bumped around, and that's Netanyahu.
And he plays an important role.
Sometimes I think that the argument that we're going there for national security reasons, just after you describing the danger of doing this, this is a danger to our national security to get involved in this.
And say, oh, no, Iran, they're a primitive nation and they can't do anything.
They won't do anything.
And we've handled them up and down for 50 years.
And we can continue to do that.
And eventually we'll badger them into surrendering and we'll be able to take over Iran and their oil.
That's why we messed around and stirred up this trouble back in 1953 so that we can control their oil.
We're still doing this.
We have all the oil we need just by freeing it up.
And then you have an abundance of oil or whatever you need.
But no, what to do?
But this is the thing that I think a lot of people know about it.
But how often does a foreign dignitary come in and get the platform of the House of Representatives almost when he ever wants to?
So I think the factor of Netanyahu is a big deal.
And I think that is a shame because the big deal should be to protect American sovereignty and liberties and our constitution and a little bit of common sense when we practice diplomacy.
And that's a great point, Dr. Paul, because this war, again, is not a war that the United States needs to fight, but it is a fight that President Trump has willingly taken on to the benefit of Israel, because Netanyahu told him we need you to defeat Iran for us because we don't like them.
So President Trump, ironically, the America first, President Trump and his MAGA followers are going to get Americans killed to the benefit of a foreign country.
That to me is beyond America last.
And Americans should understand this.
And it doesn't matter what country it is, any country demanding that we fight their battles where Americans will get killed in the process, that should be an automatic no-go.
Yes, and that's not going to change quickly.
And yet, as we speak, there may be some sudden changes that occur that will be very, very serious.
But then again, if you're a betting person and you want to bet money on this and say, oh, well, we've analyzed it's going to happen and the bombs are going to fly and people are going to die.
There's no way to know that for sure.
There's a lot of other factors.
One is that, you know, a couple of weeks ago, we thought for sure, you know, that they were getting ready to, you know, bomb Iran and really accelerate the war.
Iranian Couple's Tragic Perspective 00:13:33
So, but I know there's a plan on their part, but I know they don't have perfect control of those plans.
And most of the time, it gets out of hand because I believe, you know, whether it's our administration or even when the Soviets were in power, they want peace.
But the only thing they don't add is on our terms.
Yes, they did.
But even now, that the terms are out there, and we're the ones who are playing the bully pulpit, but we're out there demanding.
And I just don't think the world gets along that well.
It's exactly opposite of the society that I dream about, and that is a voluntary society.
Just think if you had voluntarism for all interpersonal relationships, whether it's social, religious, or political, or worldwide.
If we could just get people to talk to each other, I would say, Daniel, that we've taken a step and or we're stepping away from that concept, which I think is very important.
You know, the other thing, Dr. Paul, we've talked about it this week.
We've talked a lot about Iran this week, is the idea that Iran is not Venezuela.
Iran is a sophisticated, has a sophisticated military.
People have the narrative was sort of obviously that Iran was getting wiped off the face of the earth after the Israeli sneak attack.
But in fact, it was Israel that had to beg the U.S. to join because Israel was running out of defensive rockets.
They weren't able to shoot Iranian missiles out of the sky anymore.
They were in very big danger of absolutely losing all defensive capability.
And, you know, this is confirmed by the Israelis themselves.
A single Iranian missile hit in downtown Tel Aviv and wiped out 27 buildings.
It was a massive, massive missile.
So this is the kind of things that will be unleashed.
And again, as we said yesterday, ironically, a lot of Israelis are going to die too.
So with a friend like the, with friends like Netanyahu and Donald Trump, the Israelis don't really need enemies.
But I wanted to do, to click on one thing.
If we can scoot ahead a little bit to the Aaron Mate post on X.
It starts out with a quote, the second demand.
This is from the New York Times.
I mentioned it, but I want to go into detail a little bit.
And I want to mention what Aaron said.
The second demand is in the New York Times to limit the range and number of ballistic missiles would make it all but impossible for Iran to hit Israeli territory.
Those missiles are the last deterrent in Iran's arsenal against a renewed attack by Israel.
Such an attack does not seem imminent, but Prime Minister Netanyahu has threatened renewed attacks if Iran rearms.
And so Aaron Matei points out very importantly, in threatening another U.S. military strike, Trump demands that Iran gives up its ballistic missiles.
As the New York Times notes, those missiles are the last deterrent in Iran's arsenal.
Why would any country give up a deterrent against an armed attack, especially after Israel has already attacked it?
Very good point, Aaron Matei.
Why on earth would you give up the only deterrent you have against a country attacking you?
And that's why I titled the show, you know, makes Iran an offer that it cannot accept.
There's no way any country would accept giving away their deterrent from getting attacked.
You'd be crazy.
You know, there's another big bomb we ought to pay more attention to, and that is the bankruptcy that we're living with.
And that is huge.
A lot of people talk a little bit about it.
But the people who are running this show, where are you going to get the money?
You know, the votes for this type of activity, it's easy to get their votes because of the, you know, the politicians and the ability to politicize the whole system.
But I think the big, the big financial bomb is something that should not be ignored.
But I think also under conditions, under wartime conditions, it leads to the sacrifice of personal liberty because you can't talk about some of these things and some of the things that we just said.
You know, people have said these things and they've gotten into some big trouble.
And that shouldn't be the way it is.
We should be allowed and able to.
Fortunately, we have not been silenced, but it's still something there's been an encroachment on our First Amendment rights, especially on institutions that we send a couple of dollars to because we can use that as a weapon.
And this is what a university can have as a speaker and what a student can say, all that nonsense.
So along with this terrible foreign policy we have, we have this policy that is attacking us personally at home.
And that is the deficit, which causes printing of money, inflation here at home, as well as an attack on our personal liberties.
Absolutely.
That's always the case with war.
Well, the other thing that we've seen, unfortunately, in the second Trump administration is a complete disregard for any kind of international law or norms.
And that's not to say we embrace globalism or the UN, but some of these international norms are also there to protect the United States.
And one of the things Trump said, President Trump said famously a couple of weeks ago, I don't feel myself bound by anything except my own mind, which is a little bit frightening.
So what we're having now, if you go to that next clip from Megatron, so now Trump is considering just assassinating the leadership of Iran.
Again, a country that has not attacked or threatened the United States.
Megatron points out, this is from CNN.
Trump is now considering targeting the leaders of Iran, like Ayatollah and the president.
President Trump is weighing a major new strike on Iran after preliminary discussions between Washington and Tehran over its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs failed.
That happened yesterday.
The talks broke down because Iran said no way.
Trump is now considering airstrikes aimed at Iranian leaders and security officials believed to be responsible for killing protesters during the recent anti-government protests, as well on strikes on Iran's nuclear sites and government institutions.
Those, of course, same sites that President Trump said were completely obliterated.
He's now going to strike those again, Dr. Paul.
And if we go to the next one, Caitlin Johnstone, the Australian intellectual, she spoke at one of our conferences.
She makes a good point about the fact that the administration seems like it's desperate to find some sort of justification for a policy that it's determined to carry out, which is war.
President Trump said, hopefully, Iran will come to the table and negotiate for a deal, et cetera, et cetera.
Caitlin Johnstone wrote, first it was about going to war with Iran over possible nuclear weapons.
Then it was about going to war with Iran because they're rebuilding their conventional missile arsenal.
Then it was about going to war with Iran to protect the protesters.
And now it's back to nukes again.
They're just running the gamut, Dr. Paul, desperately searching for a justification for war.
And there's literally no one, or almost literally no one on Capitol Hill willing to say, stop.
You do not have permission to do this.
You do not have constitutional authority to do this.
No one has the courage to speak up with the exception of a couple people.
Yes, and it's sort of sad that those individuals that do speak out and speak up for a policy of common sense and, of course, of serious nature about trying to follow the best of your ability the constitution that you swear to follow.
And they always have an excuse and an intellectual reason why they don't have to follow those things.
We don't need them.
They're old-fashioned.
And the ignoring of the Constitution is so bad that it contributes to the conditions.
But when you combine those kind of conditions and economic conditions and our foreign policy, they're one and the same.
It's big government.
It's the rejection of the principles of the republic.
And it rejects the whole principle of aggression.
It rejects the principle that you have to threaten people.
If you don't do it our way, we're going to bomb you or kill you.
And what did we do in Venezuela?
We did it.
And people died.
It's just astounding that the American people don't wake up and start sending more messages.
They're doing it already, and their people are getting unhappy with it.
It's hitting home.
There's inflation, all these problems.
But the American people really need to wake up and they say, well, is it worthwhile calling their congressmen?
Yes, in a way, not in the sense that, oh, you call and they're going to immediately do what you want.
But they care.
Congressmen could care if there's an attitude, if it's going to affect their election, but you can't do it with two people.
You need to get out there.
The way the Vietnam War ended was tragic, tragic war.
It was tragically ended with another decade of killing once they elected a president to stop the war.
So it is there.
And it has to happen because otherwise, if this does not get stopped and understood that it's going to be stopped, but if you just go back and forth and back and forth and say, well, okay, we have a deal here.
And then the next week, no, the deal's off.
It just go on and on.
They're playing games with the lives of American citizens and Iranian citizens.
And all the victims are the people who are exposed to our foreign policy.
When we decide we're having a coup here, you're going to become part of us.
By the way, we want Greenland.
Greenland is a place that will solve all our problems.
Exactly.
You make a great point, Dr. Paul, which is that people can contact their representative, and it's a good idea to do so.
I would encourage, you know, we've been on the receiving end, you and I, Dr. Paul and our former staff.
The most effective way is to be polite, to have a couple of things that you want to say, say them quickly, and ask them to pass the message on to the representative.
And you could simply just say, look, I voted for President Trump if you did, because I want to fix our problems at home.
I don't want to fix the problems in Iran.
So please raise your voice against this war.
Very simple.
If 100 people called one representative in a day, that representative would definitely get a memo sent to him by the staff.
And the representative would know that people are not happy.
This is an election here, certainly in the House.
I did want to play a couple of videos, Dr. Paul.
Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, the acting president of Venezuela or something of Greenland, whatever he is.
He's got a lot of hats.
But he was before Congress yesterday, and he offered one of the most comical but tragic comical comedic rationales for why we may have to attack Iran.
So if we can queue up that first video clip and listen to Secretary of State Rubio.
On the issue of our presence in the region, here's the baseline I want to set for everybody.
The baseline is this.
We have 30 to 40,000 American troops stationed across eight or nine facilities in that region.
All are within the reach, theoretically, not theoretically in reality, all are within the reach of an array of thousands of Iranian one-way UAVs and Iranian short-term ballistic missiles, short-range ballistic missiles that threaten our troop presence.
We have to have enough force and power in the region just on a baseline to defend against that possibility.
That at some point, as a result of something, the Iranian regime decides to strike at our troop presence in the region.
The president always reserves the preemptive defensive option.
In essence, if we have indications that in fact they're going to attack our troops in the region to defend our personnel in the region, we also have security agreements, the Defense of Israel Plan and others that require us to have a force posture in the region to defend against that.
So, Dr. Paul, if you got this, it's circular.
He says, we're building up our troops and our weapons in the region, getting ready to attack Iran.
But Iran may preempt us because they know we're ready to attack.
So we may have to preempt Iran's preemption of the attack.
It's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
Well, it's not surprising because that just demonstrates how ridiculous our foreign policy has become.
It isn't a foreign policy of non-aggression and non-intervention overseas and one where the people have a bigger say.
If they're going to war, I'm doing all these things.
You know, they're supposed to ask the Congress and get a declaration, but the people who ask for that get ridiculed.
Say, what are you doing?
Act of War Politics 00:04:03
And one of these articles, there's one paragraph I want to read dealing with this subject because they were trying to be fair and balanced.
And the article goes on and says, for now, it's an open question.
I said, how far Rand is willing to risk his personal political career and push to push back against Trump's historically aggressive agenda.
With GOP colleagues skeptical, he could do a lot in his position.
But, you know, my thought that came to me, it would be somewhat personal, but I also know, I know Rand a bit.
And how far is he willing to risk his political career to push back against Trump?
You know, why isn't that, why can't a person in that position think that the most important thing I do is talk about liberty?
And I'm not saying, what about my political career?
If I object to what they're doing, it's going to hurt my political career.
You know, the one thing that I found, and I touched on that subject a little bit, one thing that I have found, if you tell the truth and stick to it, it isn't a political negative.
It actually becomes a political positive because the people are looking for somebody telling the truth.
And as much grief as Rand's getting these days, because he's not bound to all this type of foreign policy, I'll tell you what, there's a lot of people every single day that will grow to listen to our position, our position, and our Ron Paul Liberty Report position that we ought to change our foreign policy.
It's not complicated.
And besides, it is going to change because we're bankrupt and we can't afford it.
And the people will eventually get upset enough because too many innocent people die from these nonsensical wars.
A great point, Dr. Paul.
And I'm glad you brought up Senator Paul because I just happened to have a clip in my back pocket of Senator Paul asking a zinger question of Secretary of State Rubio.
You're going to love it when you see the look in Marco Rubio's eyes when he realizes that Senator Paul is asking a question that there's no way he can answer.
Let's cue up that second video.
This is great.
So I would ask you, if a foreign country bombed our air defense missiles, captured and removed our president and blockaded our country, would that be considered an act of war?
Well, I think your question is about the, and I will acknowledge you've been very consistent on all these points the entire career.
So let me let me, no matter who the who's in charge.
So I will point to two things.
The first is it's hard for us to conceive that an operation that lasted about four and a half hours and was a law enforcement operation to capture someone we don't recognize as a head of state, indicted in the United States, launched with a $50 million ban.
The question would be if it only took four hours to take our president.
It's very short.
Nobody dies on the other side.
Nobody dies on our side.
It's perfect.
Would it be an act of war?
We just don't believe that this operation comes anywhere close to the constitutional definition of war.
Well, would it be an act of war if someone did it to us?
Nobody dies, few casualties, they're in and out.
Boom, it's a perfect military operation.
Would that be an act of war?
Of course it would be an act of war.
I'm probably the most anti-war person in the Senate, and I would vote to declare war if someone invaded our country and took our president.
So I think we need to at least acknowledge this is a one-way argument.
One-way arguments that don't rebound, that you can't apply to yourselves, that cannot be universally applicable are bad arguments.
So my great question.
That was a great one, wasn't it, Dr. Paul?
All right.
If they did it to us, yes, it would be war.
So I'm just going to leave that there and close out, Dr. Paul.
I hope everyone enjoyed that.
I think that was a fantastic clip from Senator Paul.
Why We Must Acknowledge This 00:01:04
I want to thank everyone for tuning in.
Hopefully, this will be our last, barring some unforeseen circumstances.
This will be the last day that we're in our temporary digs, and we'll be in a little bit more normal of a situation, at least when I return next week.
So, over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
I want to thank all our viewers for tuning in today, and we appreciate the support.
We ask you to spread the message.
That's the main and strongest way to pass a message along.
I know we have technology to help us, but the message has to be verbal, personal, and believable.
And I think, under those conditions, we can, you know, make progress.
And that is to me the most important thing that we can do.
And right now, I believe we're on the right track by standing up against the authoritarians and saying, get more confidence, get a better understanding of how true liberty works.
And then it'll be impossible for you to reject it if you understand that issue.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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