Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 3/21/24 Daniel McAdams on the Politics of the Wars in Gaza and Ukraine

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

Scott was joined by Daniel McAdams to talk about the domestic politics of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. They start with the retirement of Victoria Nuland before getting into the regime’s recent shift in Ukraine rhetoric. They also talk about the war in Gaza and how it’s impacting American politics. Discussed on the show: “Did ‘Toria’ Jump…Or Was She Pushed?” (Ron Paul Institute) “US House Goes Full ‘Gangster’ With Tik Tok Ban” (Ron Paul Institute) Daniel McAdams is the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and the co-host of the Ron Paul Liberty Report. Follow him on Twitter @DanielLMcAdams and read all of his work over at Antiwar.com. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new, enough already, time to end the war on terrorism. And I've recorded more the 5,500 interviews since 2000. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.4 you can sign up to the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scottornton show hey an interview about a good thing on this show that's weird danny mcadams ron paul's right hand man director of the rompaw institute for peace and prosperity and of course foreign policy advisor uh, back when he was the greatest congressman who ever lived and now co-host of the Great Liberty Report. Welcome back to the show, Dan. How are you doing, bud?

Hi, Scott. Thanks for having me back on. It's great to be with you again. Yeah, happy to have you here. Something good happened. Believe it or not. Something bad happened to someone bad. That's good. Yeah. Did Toria jump or was she pushed is the headline at anti-war.com. an article that we poached from your very fine Ron Paul Institute and thank you for permission to reprint

that and so what do you think Victoria Newland Kagan has left the State Department where she was says here deputy secretary for political affairs what do you think is going on with that

Dan? Yeah it's an interesting you know it's an interesting thing that happens it doesn't happen very often that you see something from a neocon at the stature of victoria newland having the situation um yeah i've wrote that a little while ago right after she announced that she was retiring um and i've had some time to reflect on it and some things have come out by the way scott you may have heard that she landed on her feet uh she's going to be teaching at columbia university so i'm sure that's going to be a hard slog right i know can you i don't know i could see like auditing the class once or

twice maybe i mean just think about the quality of a professor whose profession she has been so wrong in her entire career i mean everything she's touched has turned to dirt and her reward is probably a do-nothing job where she rolls in occasionally to pick up a check and have some adoring students fawning over her or something terrible yeah talk about dystopia i was i was talking with uh kyle earlier about gaza but columbia university these days sounds worse. We should, yeah, we should send her to Gaza, maybe. Oh, yeah. There's she. I could think of some things for her to do there.

Yeah. But I think the other, the other couple interesting things about it, though, is I, and there's some speculation among people that I read and listen to that, you know, there's a shift away from Ukraine. The project Ukraine is not going well. It's pretty obvious to everyone. And that's her main baby. So, and I don't know. know if you heard this got, but I think just today, Jake Sullivan is in Kiev again, and he had this amazing statement. He said, the United States will consider Ukraine a victory if it emerges from the war as a sovereign, democratic, and free country. So no more talk about getting your territories back or getting Crimea back or anything. They, they, it'll be, we talk about moving

the goalposts, it'll be a great victory if they actually survive as a country. Yeah, and no more talk about the great strategic victory and the strategic defeat they're going to inflict on the Russians for Darren to try it either. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's just gone. So I think that kind of shift in realizing this is an election year. We're getting heavily into the election season. We pretty much know who the two front runners are going to be. Therefore, we need to shift gears out of this losing prospect. So I think that's one of the reasons why Victoria Newland was out. And remember, she was up for the number two post at state and she could never get confirmed. So that was another, that was another big deal. In fact, someone was promoted over her who's known, I forget the person's

name, who is known as a China Hawk. So she's a Russia Hawk. So she's passed by for a China Hawk. So that's that's bipartisanship. You know, that's the, that's the Washington War Machine. Yeah. Well, you know, just to go back one step, that really is the greatest news. heard all year about Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, climbing way, way down on the Ukraine Goals ladder there, Dan. You want to talk a little bit more about that? Yeah. If you just survive as a country, we're going to call it a victory. It's incredible. I mean, at this point, I mean, I've thought about this a lot, you know, the $61 billion. Everyone that I listen to and talked to, when we talk to a lot of the same people, Scott,

you know, and has said that this $61 billion is not going to. going to change the outcome of the war. For a lot of reasons, number one being that we just don't have the weapons, you can't buy, no matter how much money you have, if there are no weapons to buy, you can't buy them. And we're not manufacturing them. So there's no way it can make a difference in that respect. And in one sense, if you think about what we're heading toward, again, the election season, wouldn't it be smarter for Biden and his people to like quietly not push that hard for the money? Because then they could do what Neocons always do, saying, We could have won this war

if it wasn't for those stupid Republicans they refused to fund this war. Don't blame us. It's their fault. You know? You know, it really raises the question, too, about what the Republicans would do if they tried to back down in any way now.

I mean, they'd have to deal with Lindsey Graham and all them attacking at full volume in that same way, right? They would have won if it wasn't for you, feckless Democrats. It would certainly be the narrative of the Republican Party leadership, but they've got a problem, too, when it comes to domestic politics on that. And this is a war that the right is far more opposed to than, say, Gaza in the polls. And so there's a real split between the lords and the regular citizens and the Republican Party these days on that.

I wonder whether anyone could explain that to Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell or how much worse could they make it for themselves trying to attack Biden for not doing enough in the war, you know? Yeah. Well, Lindsay Graham's a slippery snake, though. I mean, he's already changing his tune. You know, he was, of course, he was gung ho, all gung ho for taking out Russia. He's been gung ho since, you know, 2014 and before then, you know, we remember. remember him standing in my dam with McCain saying, come on, bring it on, let's do it. And then back in 2017, this is a year of going on the offense, guys, you know, meeting with the Ukrainian army. So he's all, he's been all in the entire time. But now he senses that the wind is shifting slightly. And so in the Senate, he voted against that $61 billion. And then he just went to Kiev to tell Zelensky, hey, we're going to structure this as a loan. Now, if you if you can't pay it back, that's okay. But it's going to sell a lot better at home as a loan. So he is

trying to insinuate himself into what he believes is the coming Trump administration. So, you know, he will move. He will go where the wind blows him. Yeah. Hey, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump made him Secretary of State. Well, you know, Dr. Paul and I did our show today. And there was a piece in, oh my gosh, I'm forgetting the publication now, but it was Um, you probably know it. It was founded by, uh, some people who were in like Bloomberg and all that. Um, but anyway, it was basically about, um, about Trump's picks. Um, these are the people that Trump is talking most about, you know, most about, or people

around truck are Trump are talking most about, um, as his potential, uh, national security team. And they're like, Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton. And get this. Mike Pompeo. Yeah. I mean, so if this is anything more, I mean, this might be just neocons, neoconning, you know, where they'll throw something out there because they wish that was happening. Yeah.

But if it is indeed happening, it's extremely concerning. It's certainly not surprising. Not surprising. Yeah. Yeah. He never gets it. He never gets it. Yeah.

They say that Rubio, who serves as vice chairman of the Senate and intelligence committee, could be a fit. to head the CIA little Marco heading the CIA my god and then you know in the middle of the Gaza war his and in a way it's the best thing about him is that everything he says on whatever issue is always just so over the top yeah that it just goes to show how absolutely horrible his thinking is where he's equating Biden's absolute unequivocal full-fledged support for the slaughter in Gaza and he says

that's selling the Israelis out that's nothing compared to the violence I'll inflict on those people if I'm given half a chance again yeah you know like he's just mad that he's not present right now so he can be the one helping Netanyahu complete this genocide And I mean, and he's not reading the room because, I mean, if you look at the polls, even among the Republican Party voters, people are walking away from Israel as fast as they can. I mean, this whole thing has changed, shift in American opinion. I think we talked about a poll on our show where it was something like, like 52% of Republicans oppose more U.S. military aid to Israel. I mean, that's a, that's a, that's a massive swing.

Wow. Yeah, that really is. I hadn't seen that. That's great. I'll dig it up and send it over to you. But, I mean, that's Trump not reading the room. And maybe he just doesn't care. I mean, you never get punished for being considered too pro-Israel.

Or you hadn't in the past, you know, but things are changing. Yeah. Well, and it really is, I mean, and look, I know, you poor guy. I don't know how you did it living in Washington, D.C. All those years or all those years around. all those crazy people. But to me, it is fascinating a little bit the electoral politics angle. It's not usually my focus, but the politics of politics up there, you know, and how these people have to play this when they're all Israel first. And you just can't be America first when you're

Israel first. And you can't even be Biden first if you're Israel first. And that both parties right now are compromising themselves so bad on this issue where the party leadership is locked up as just about as horrible as could be, aside from a little bit of posturing by Chuck Schumer, but otherwise, you know, it's like it's the people versus the leadership of the parties in both parties and more and more all the time. Yeah, but the Schumer thing is a scam. You know, that's a desperate attempt to pull Biden's chestnuts out of the fire because that That whole little routine was basically Schumer saying, this is all the fault of the right-wing Netanyahu. You know, we, of course, are distancing ourselves from the right-wing Netanyahu, trying to erase some of the damage that Biden has done to his own voter base by his absolute blind adherence to whatever Israel is doing in Gaza.

So that whole thing was a completely transparent attempt by by Schumer to blame everything on the right wing, allied with Trump sort of thing, you know. Although, yeah, I can see that working on American Democrats, but what about the rest of the world? Because what he said in this speech about how's Israel going to survive if it's an absolute pariah state on the planet, that still stands. because even if it's Benny Gantz or whoever's next, you're either going to give these people citizenship or independence or the status quo.

And if it's the status quo, I don't see the rest of the planet being so appeased by a speech in the Senate, you know? Yeah, no, that's true. But I do think he was looking for political points there. Oh, I agree with you about that.

But I'm saying he kind of was right in the speech, too, though, that they really are driving Israel into the ground here, man. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you do have Trump's son-in-law who recognize the real estate potential for beach front property in Gaza, right? That's amazing.

Can you believe the Hutzpahs and go out there and say that? Yeah, we should move them all to the sign-knice. We can take their beachfront property and build some condos there. Is this thing on? You know, like, what? Yeah, yeah. It's incredible. You know, I mean, I guess watching these, watching them go down is literally the only consolation.

And of course, you and I are nowhere near in the situation, but the heartbreak of, you know, of watching what's happening in real time and think what the hell is going on, you know, there is a mass slaughter happening in front of everyone's noses and no one is saying a damn word. It's just astonishing. Hey, guys, I've had a lot of great webmasters over the years, but the team at Expanddesigns.com have by far been the most competent and reliable. Harley Abbott and his team have made great sites for the show and the Institute, and they keep them running well, suggesting and making improvements all along. Make a deal with Expandesigns.com for your new business or news site. They will take care of you. Use the promo code Scott and save $500. That's expanddesigns.com. Man, I wish I was in school so I could drop out and sign up for Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom instead. Tom has done such a great job

on putting together a classical curriculum for everyone from junior high schoolers on up through the postgraduate level and it's all very reasonably priced just make sure you click through from the link in the right margin at Scott Horton.org Tom Woodses' Liberty classroom real history, real economics,

real education. Hold on just one sec we've got to make some money here. Yeah it really is and it's such a disappointment about Trump too because boys he just not Ron Paul he is just you know we needed a rogue but then we got

this guy who's like he might as well be one of them it wasn't really the difference between him and like say Cheney or Addington's take on the world in the bush years you know what I mean he's just

he's a right wing populist but he's not for freedom in any way everything is he's on every issue where he's to the right, maybe other than immigration, every issue to which he's to the right of the establishment, he's worse than them. It's not he's to the right of them in a better way. Yeah, exactly. Only in the worst ways. Yeah, in the worst way. I mean, he's he's a monster that they accuse him of being, but not for the reasons they accuse him.

Yeah. He's the monster because he's just like them. Yeah. It's just, it's the worst IRA. It's like the devil playing a practical joke on us or something. You wanted Ron, here. Take Donald. It's like that meme, best I can do is Dawn. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know in the first Trump administration, I mean, there were some libertarian-minded people who were very close to him. And not to say they had a lot of influence, but they were around him and they were trying their best. And there's a good argument to be made should you work from the inside or the outside.

And I don't know the answer to it. But they were clearly trying to work on the inside. And from everything that I'm hearing, those people are no longer in play. So that might even be worse news for us, even this small group of people. And there's some people in that group of the ones that help reach out to me to get the phone call between the president and Ron. So there were some good people. From what I'm hearing, they're not around this time. So that could be bad news.

Yeah, that is too bad. And, you know, back to the liberal conservative split on Russia and China we were talking about where you had a lot of the social media totalitarianism was enforced in the name of Russiagate narratives and protecting America from, you know, evil censorship. And it's funny because I just, I hadn't had a chance to look at it yet, but I saw where Taibi put out a thing about his interview on Greenwald's show where they talked about the problem. by which free speech became a right-wing extremist thing to believe in. And then in my other eyeball right here, I have your article about all these Republicans want to kick TikTok off the internet because somebody somewhere from China invested in it or something. And so there is no, if, I'll tell you what, it's like this, I guess, Dan, if free speech

is just a right-wing extremist point of view, then we're screwed because right-wing extremists don't believe in free speech. They never have, and they never will. Remember that mainstream journalist back during COVID, who had that ridiculous headline, right-wingers are talking about a dangerous new conspiracy, natural immunity. Crazy thing, man. It is crazy, but the TikTok thing goes back to what we were talking about earlier. I know you know this, as well as anyone, Scott, are better than most people, which is that the people who were on TikTok were getting more and more sympathetic to the Palestinian situation.

You know, there's that intercepted call or leaked call from a greenblat of the ADL saying, we've got a TikTok problem. And magically, Congress leaps into motion, a Congress that can't seem to get a dang thing passed, and boom, you know, a couple days later on the floor, we're going to ban TikTok. And parroting the same talking points, too. That, oh, my God, this is turning the young against Israel. Yeah. What, you mean pictures of the sins Israel is committing in front of cameras? and our ability to access them? I'm like, well, okay, as long as we're clear.

But no, it's an algorithm or something. It's tricking you, Dan, into opposing this thing. Yeah, the Chinese might spy on you. That's our job. And, you know, it seems really like careless of the Israel lobby to own this issue in such a big way. I mean, the Wall Street Journal had a whole article about that's what this is about

Israel and he's like yeah well I mean if you're for that and agree with that then okay great but what about the rest of us that you're dismantling our First Amendment our basic protection of freedom of speech to help some

foreign country when they're in the middle of being the worst most brutal criminal government on the face of the earth right now and just to cover for their crimes really Yeah. I think it backfires on them as well. I mean, they've lost control of the narrative. There's no question about it. And they can shut down TikTok, but something else will crop up. You know, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. You know, and it's it's not because these young kids are somehow bad. It's because what they're, what they're noticing. I mean, I think the young people do have the sense of, more sense of, of moral justice than when you get older and more jaded. And, you know, they're, they're, that's not going to be stopped. by doing this. You can't do

it. Well, look, I mean, I remember in 08 when they're bombing the hell out of Gaza, you only see what CNN shows you. And that was bad enough. That was really ugly. But it's just different now with social media. It's peer-to-peer picture sharing. What are you going to do with that?

And we just didn't have that. It was like having one eye closed back then. Boy, they're bombing Gaza again. I can only imagine how bad it is for those poor people over there. I'm old enough. I remember that. Yeah. You know? But now You can see it, and it's ugly as hell. For the people who aren't looking at it, I mean, and I actually had to quit Twitter, one,

because I got a book to write, and I'm never going to get it done if I'm looking at Twitter and Israel all day. But also just because I can't stand it anymore, it is so ugly. It is just horrifying. I mean, yeah, I mean, you can easily fall into a serious depression. I mean, I've been chatting with my friend Ilana Mercer off and on about it, and she feels the same way. I mean, she's just, you're just sickened. You can't look, you feel guilty looking away, but you can't stand looking at what's happening.

I know. Well, here's another, here's a little bit of good news, though, that cheers you up. I just finished watching a, I don't know what the equivalent is in the UK, but a floor speech in the House of Parliament with George Galloway. And he was on fire. I mean, it's an empty chamber. But now he has a position, and his speech on Gaza, I encourage your listeners to dig, it up. I mean, I know George isn't perfect from a lot of our perspectives, but hearing him down there on the floor, he was one of the great orators of our time, I think, giving a fantastic speech

about Israel and what's happening. You know, that's a rare win, I think, for our camp, having him in parliament. Yeah. And it is. It's such a crisis and a moral crisis. And, you know, I don't know. I don't have the vocabulary to be too, like, sanctimonious about all this stuff. really you know what i mean but i do look at it in a way like you got to imagine how this is written in history like this is part of who we are that we keep doing this you know yeah well absolutely this will be in history this will be written in history there's no question the people who resist it i mean the one thing you can say if you're looking if we're looking for other positives is that you know back in oh eight even or certainly before that we couldn't

really be having this discussion because we would we would both likely be a lot more concerned about what that might do to our reputations, you know. And I think the whole idea now that you can criticize Israel without being an anti-Semite, that is now more mainstream. It certainly wasn't. I mean, look at all Buchanan had to put up with when he said a couple of slightly out of center things about it, you know. So I think that's one good thing. We can actually have a discussion about what's happening without all of the other baggage. Now, it's not perfect, But I think we're moving in the right direction with that Yeah, absolutely right

And I'm certainly not intimidated by that And I don't see why anyone else should be And it's just like, in fact, you know, It's only one faction of wokeism or whatever But everybody is sick of being called a racist over nothing And so this is just another example of that, right? Like why should why should this group of people Going racist, racist, be any more impressive

than any other group who does? that who are not impressive you know like this whole thing is so bankrupt and stupid that everyone is supposed to presume ill intention on the part of anyone who disagrees with them about anything important yeah yeah you know yeah it doesn't uh like darrell cooper uh from martyr may he had this great blog entry where he had gone on show uh podcast and did a debate with these guys who were like, I guess officially white nationalist, you know, admitted racists and saying there ought to be all this separation and this and that. And he went on there and argued with them and was saying, no, that's not the solution. It should be, you know, this other thing and whatever

and had this whole conversation. And at the end, he said, there are people who said that I should not engage with these guys at all because of their cooties or whatever, exactly how they, you know, try to put it. They should not be dignified with argument or all. And he's You said, yeah, you know what? Sorry. I've been around too many people of too many different descriptions to ever be worried about somebody else's reputation rubbing off on me. And I ain't afraid to engage with anybody. These guys got things to say that I think are worth engaging with.

And so I do. And like, what am I afraid of you going to cry that your feelings are hurt? Like, he didn't say it like that. But he was like, forget it, you know. Nobody's going to tell me who I'm allowed to talk to or who I'm allowed to listen to, you know? Yeah. I mean, he's remarkable. I mean, I haven't gotten a chance to look at his, like, 50-part series on Gaza.

I laugh because it's a monumental piece of work. I haven't had a chance, but, I mean, I'm very impressed with people like him. And there are also some impressive younger people who are not in our libertarian camp. You know, look at someone like Candice Owens, who's been shown a lot of bravery, and she's working for some people who would probably fire her if they could. Certainly, she's putting her career on the line for saying some things about what's happening in Gaza. Um, Kim Iverson is another one I was on her show a while ago and young, super smart. Um, so there are a lot of yoga people that are doing shows like this that are, they're just not in that mental prison anymore. Yep. And seriously, like, who cares if somebody calls you a name? I've been over that since I was a little kid. My mom told me you got to get over that. Sticks and stones and all that. That's it. That's it. Fares. Yeah. Um, I call you a hero. And I mean that too, dude. You know, the Ron Paul Institute. talk about going down in history and holding it down for libertarianism, for freedom and liberty

and non-interventionist foreign policy and, you know, helping to cast your great legitimacy onto the rest of us in this movement and all of the great work that you do and all the stuff that I've learned from you and all of the assistance that we all know that you have been to the great Dr. Paul all these years. And I sure appreciate it, man. And thank you for your time. Thank you, Scott. You're too nice. That's the great day, McAdams, y'all. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com,

Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.