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Get ready to take a flamethrower to the official narrative and learn what the
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elites don't want you to know. You're listening to the Tom Woods Show.
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Hey, everybody, Tom woods here. It's episode 2723 of the Tom Woods Show. Here we are at the very, very beginning of 2026. I guess this is probably our second episode of 2026, isn't it, with Daniel McAdams, who is executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, which if somehow after the end of the year you were thinking, you know, for tax purposes, I wanted to give a lot of money away, but I still have some leftover that I'd like to give away. Give it to the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and prosperity. Ron Paulinstitute.org Daniel is also co host with Dr. Paul of the Ron Paul Liberty Report, as you surely know. And I, I like having Daniel on because we can just sit here and talk about a wide variety of things. We can have a potpourri episode on just what's going on in the news. So, Daniel, welcome back and Happy New Year.
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B
Happy New Year, Tom. Thanks for having me on your show. Looking forward to our chat.
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A
Well, here we are finally in 2026. And 2026 in politics means the midterm elections. That's what 2026 means. Like, this is going to be bad for 2026 means this is going to be bad for your electoral prospects in 2026. Now, on Christmas Day, I didn't initially see the Donald Trump message, I guess it was on Truth Social. But what I saw was Thomas Massie's response, which was, imagine you're spending a pleasant Christmas with your family, and then all of a sudden, people's phones start blowing up all over the country with a message from the most powerful man in the world condemning you for what? For basically says Massie trying to pursue his own campaign promise to help victims. Obviously, we're talking about the Epstein situation. So Trump had this post the other day, and it's the usual thing that makes no sense about Epstein's real Epstein thing is fake. The Epstein thing is just Democrats, or only the Democrats are gonna get in trouble for it. Or like you can't even keep straight what he's saying. But there was a little snide comment about Massie, that Massie is the one in quotation marks Republican who's in on this whole, what he would call Epstein hoax. The whole thing is just wild. But my recollection of the 2024 election is that although Trump won the swing states, and it was a surprise to most people that he won them all. And he did win the popular vote. At the same time, I wouldn't say that his victory was so sweeping that he can just be cavalier about jettisoning a whole wing of his coalition. And he went to the Libertarian Party convention because he thought he might need libertarians in order to win. I mean, why else? Who else would want to go to the Libertarian convention? You know, he goes there because he thinks he could use their assistance. Well, now, the most libertarian guy in the Congress is the guy he, you know, defecates on all the time as if, well, you know, I don't need these people. But you know what the funny thing is, Donald? I think you do. I think you do need them. What do you make of this?
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Well, and he does that, and then he turns around and pals around with Lindsey Graham, you know, who is. Yeah, you couldn't get farther from Trump's base. I mean, even the people who are not libertarian or pro peace part of his base, which is an important part, even those who are more traditional conservative, they all join together. They all join hands in hating Lindsey Graham. Yeah, it's just a fact of the matter. So what kind of a president would, as you say, dump on Massey and embrace Lindsey Graham, someone so universally hated among the left and the right? A person who is the embodiment of of all the worst aspects of U.S. foreign policy that we've tried so desperately over the years to put back in the toothpaste tube. I mean, this is a guy who, when the Maidan happened in 2014 in Ukraine, he was there on the Square with John McCain and a few other senators saying, come on, guys, keep going. Overthrow your government. Imagine if that happened here. Well, they listened to him and they overthrew their government and they killed thousands of people. And with the encouragement of people like Lindsey Graham and these types, with the encouragement of the then US Ambassador, who was Obama's ambassador to Ukraine, who was planning the next government, was caught on the phone doing that, as your viewers and listeners very well know. I mean, this shows A, that it's a bipartisan deal, but B, all of the tragedy of the past four years, they were baked into the cake by Lindsey Graham. And so that is the hero of President Trump, promised no new wars, and people like Thomas Massie are the villains for simply holding him to his campaign promises. We're going to release the Epstein files. That's what we're going to do. And that's what, you know, Americans were looking forward to. At least his voters were looking forward to. And then, as you say, Tom, you have these weird flip flops. And I've never really been that obsessed about the Epstein files. I just kind of figured it was simply an intelligence operation, whether it was the US CIA or the Mossad or someone else. It was using agents of influence to compromise people in power to get them to do what they want. This is nothing new. Let's not be naive, Tom. This is nothing new. But nevertheless, there's a Streisand effect. I mean, he got everyone, even me, interested in why is he saying this doesn't exist. So massively, massively badly handled, this whole thing, and now he's turned it into an incredible political liability.
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In my opinion, every time he opens his mouth about it, it gets worse. But the thing about Massey, he was going after Massey even before the Epstein piece of this puzzle. And not to mention, he can get along with the new leader of Syria, you know, like an Al Qaeda guy, and take grinning pictures in the White House and say, well, you know, we all have troubled pasts. Well, you know what? Not that troubled. You know, he can say that, but he can't sit down with Massie and Rand Paul, who have, by the way, defended him numerous times when it was highly unpopular to do so. It's incredible. It's just incredible. Whereas Lindsey Graham, January 6, was on the floor of the Senate, throwing him to the wolves.
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B
And let's not forget Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I think even more than Massie and Senator Paul were at President Trump's side. I mean, she did everything to push the MOG coalition. And. And then she started questioning some of the ba, you know, the basic tenants of the, you know, that which shall not be questioned. And that was it. She's gone. She held his feet to the fire on the Epstein files. She questioned some of our alliances overseas. She questions our overseas foreign aid and military aid, and that was it. She's. I mean, the way he talked to her, it's strange, and maybe it's a little bit old fashioned, Tom, and maybe you'd felt this same way, but you normally. I mean, we had a little bit of dignity. I think maybe I'm just getting old, but to see a man who's the President of the United States talking in such a despicable way to a woman, to me, it just. It was awful. It was very, very, very. Unseemly.
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Yeah, exactly. And it's the sort of thing that you really hit the nail on the head with that aspect of it because the kind of people who tend to follow him are the kind of people who would raise their sons not to behave that way. You know, they're trying to raise their sons to be gentlemen, and at every turn, he's undermining them on stuff like this. So, you know, it remains to be seen, maybe the midterm, maybe nobody cares about this stuff. Maybe the Libertarian wing is too tiny to matter. Maybe this will all just go by the wayside and he'll have a really successful 2026. I don't know. But if he doesn't, I don't think he can look anywhere but in the mirror for this. Like, he really did start off, I felt like, in a way, that was somewhat encouraging, discouraging and encouraging. Like appointing Marco Rubio Secretary of State. That was pretty discouraging. I mean, not only because of Rubio's point of view, but because nobody ever said to himself, you know whose opinion I really need to hear on this matter? Marco Rubio. No one ever said that. So that was a little discouraging. But the fact is, he did take some risks. He did put some good people into some good positions. I mean, he put RFK Jr. In at HHS. You know, he put in. I think Jay Bhattachary is a great guy. I mean, there are some. There were some bright spots and there were some initial good signs, and then it just went off the rails in terms of absolutely unforced errors, fights. He doesn't need to be having enemies. He doesn't need to be making. It's like, at every turn, and he's got nobody around him, apparently, who can tell him, this is going too far. This is a. You're shooting yourself in the foot and you gain nothing. Or maybe there is somebody around him doing that, and he would be 10 times worse without that person. Could be.
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B
I mean, under Reagan, you know, you had Cap Weinberger, you had George Schultz, you had people of some depth, some intellectual depth. Now, they were evil in many ways, but they were people who could say, Mr. President, this is what you need to consider, you know, and we don't seem to have that anymore. I was extremely disappointed in Rubio, but then I was happy because it seemed like he was given a title and really not much to do. He actually was given a bunch of titles and not very much to do. So it seemed like a sop to his donors. One of whom we know specifically wanted Rubio as VP and didn't get it. So, okay, give him a job. Give him a nice shiny hat. Let him, you know, run off. But the thing about Trump is, actually, I mean, he is Teflon Don. In many ways, he's benefited, ironically, I think you'll agree with this, Tom. He's benefited by the fact that the people who have opposed him in the past have been so unhinged and so idiotic in their opposition to Trump, the color of his skin, all of these incredibly superficial things that has ironically sort of insulated him from serious criticism of people like me and I'm guessing, like you, who don't hate him for those reasons. In fact, I wanted him to win. I thought he was a better alternative. I liked what he was saying. I thought maybe he'd learned the lessons from the mistakes he'd made. People that he had talked to that I know very well who he had promised to bring into his administration that he didn't do. So I was very, you know, as you know, Dr. Paul and I were both very sanguine about the whole thing. But then when we start criticizing him, and I noticed this on the Liberty Report, I mean, it's very, very obvious that our numbers have gone way down this year. They started out incredibly high. And as soon as we've pointed out some of the sort of basic things we're not, we don't, as you know, we don't go after. Dr. Paul would never go after anyone in a personal way, but we criticize things like, you know, blowing up people in the water. We don't know that they've committed a crime or anything, things of that nature. And people are just angry. I think they're so desperate for a hero, I guess, after the four years of Biden that they don't want anyone criticizing their, you know, their white knight on a white horse. And the fact of the matter is, he's unfortunately just not fulfilling those promises.
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Hey, everybody, if you're like me, you've been watching the Fed inflate the dollar into oblivion while politicians bungle trade policy and rack up historic amounts of debt. And you're wondering how to protect what you've worked so hard to build. And that's why I want to talk to you about Monetary Metals, a company doing something truly revolutionary with gold. We all know gold is a safe haven asset, but let's face it, most gold just sits there in a vault, not doing much. It holds its value over time, but it doesn't grow. What if I told you there's a way to not only own physical gold, but also earn a yield on it? Paid in gold every single month. That's exactly what I do with monetary metals. I lease my gold with them and earn an annual yield around 4% in in gold, not in paper currency. I keep my ounces and every month I get more. So think about it. You still benefit from any price appreciation like what we've been seeing in 2025 with gold pushing past all time highs and you also get paid more ounces of gold along the way. That's what makes this model so exciting. It's a genuine breakthrough. For the first time in decades, gold is functioning as a yield bearing asset. Just like in the classical gold standard days. The Fed can print dollars, they can't print gold. It's time to start growing your wealth in ounces, not just hoping for the best with Fiat. Go to monetary medals.comwoods to learn more and see how you can start earning a gold income too. That's monetary medals.comwoods what do you think about this? I was listening to Dave Smith the other day and he was saying that what's going on is that Rubio has been more or less shut out in Ukraine and the Middle east and they felt like they got to give him something so he can play around in Venezuela. But Rubio is not the key figure in these other theaters. I don't know if that's true, but geez, I would. I wish they could just tell him to redecorate the building or something if they need to give him something to do.
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B
Well, it's strange, you know, I mean, I've followed secretaries of state for many years, for decades, and it's astonishing that you have one of the most important foreign policy situations that we can remember, and that's the Ukraine, Russia war. And it's important. It shouldn't be important for us, but it is important because as we said earlier, the involvement of the United States in ginning up this war and the involvement in the United States in providing weapons and technology and intelligence to one side of the war, we're deeply involved in this war. The United States is. Unfortunately, President Trump had the opportunity when he first took office to say, not my war. I'm out of here, guys. He didn't do that. He couldn't resist the temptation of being the great peacemaker. So we're still in that. So with that said and done, it's astonishing that the president's Secretary of State. I mean, you could imagine someone like a Jim Baker who was kind of an evil guy, but he was a serious person and he was involved. I remember. I mean, I briefly worked for him at The State Department. He was deeply involved in the discussions and negotiations with regard to Yugoslavia. But Rio is completely gone in favor of two real estate developers, One who happens to be his good buddy and business partner, and the other who happens to be his son in law. I mean, this is the most bizarre diplomacy that I've ever seen in watching, you know, how many administrations after another, Marco Rubio is just simply not involved. And it's to the point where the Russians are wondering, well, who the hell are we negotiating with? Yeah, these two people that have come over, they bring plans, they bring ideas, but they're not officers of the United States government. They can't agree to anything. They don't have any Senate confirmation. So it's like, you know, I've sent my buddies over to talk to some. That's great, but it doesn't really get the job done. So it's a strange. It's a very strange situation.
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A
How do you account for the Venezuela obsession? We've heard various theories, none of which have anything to do with the official reasons given. I mean, apparently it's just a rule of life that whatever the official rationale given by the US Government for some intervention is always false. You just rule that one out instantly. So it's obviously not drugs. So what exactly is it? And like, why now? And plus, there are presumably other countries where we could pick a fight just as easily. Why this particular one?
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B
Well, it's usually all of the above because you know how the neocons are. They pile it on. That's what they did with Iraq, that's what they did with Libya. Oh, Libya not only has isis, not only has a maniacal dictator, but wait till you hear this. He's passing out Viagra so they can rape people. You know, I mean, they pile everything on. Now, in that case with Libya, that obviously wasn't true. He was fighting isis, he was fighting Al Qaeda, but nevertheless, they pile it on. In Venezuela, they're piling on things that in some ways are true. Yes, it is, partly. I mean, the critics. Some of the critics are correct. Yes, there is a lot of oil there. And Trump has always said, we want to take the oil. Now he's even taken the oil. There's a ship actually about an hour away from here in Galveston, discontinuing the oil of the first ship that was seized, the first tanker that was seized by the United States, and it's being offloaded. We're stealing that oil and we're going to steal the ship. So it's partly the oil. It's partly, you know, they claim that it's narco terrorism. Obviously Venezuela is not involved in narco terrorism that are other countries in the region. But I think the real issue and one of the sort of main, it's all together, it's all part of the package that's being presented. But I think what it really is, it's about the fact that the Chinese have been extremely active in Venezuela. And ironically, it's because of U.S. foreign policy. Right, because we've sanctioned the heck out of them. So they have no one else to do business with. I'm sure they'd rather do business with us. We're just a hop, skip and a jump up the road. But we say, no, we're absolutely shutting you guys out. So they pick up the phone and call Xi Jinping and say, hey, we got a lot of oil down here. You guys are pretty good with technology. Do you want to come down, let's do some business and try to say, sure, absolutely. And so they're very, very heavily involved with Venezuela. And So now the US looks over and said and is PO'd about the fact that China is involved in doing that. So we, you, we won't play with you and we won't let anyone else play with you is the idea. And the world doesn't work that way. So I think a lot of it is they want to chase the Chinese out of the Western hemisphere. That's number one. And number two, I think it's also very important is the Isaac Accords. And you've seen one by one, the dominoes have fallen in Latin America. The governments that have been opposed to Israel, a lot of the left wing governments that have been more pro Palestine, the darlings of the U.S. people like milei and Argentina are not only pro Israel, but fanatically pro Israel. So the Isaac Accords are bringing together countries that have signed on to be extremely pro Israel. Chile is one of them. Argentina, was it, Ecuador, I think is another. And now Venezuela. You have this woman who won, bizarrely won the Nobel Peace Prize. Her Peace Prize speech was, please invade my country and kill a lot of people because it's an act of love. She has openly stated that she will absolutely move the embassy to Tel Aviv. She's actually written a love letter to Netanyahu saying, please come invade my country. So there's a lot of that as well. There's a strategic presence of pro Israel countries in Latin America. And that's also a big something that the administration is very interested in. So you have this Sort of convergence of things that make Venezuela unfortunately a perfect storm.
- [18:42]
A
You know, mentioning Israel here. I mean, obviously in my little mental list of things I want to talk to Daniel McAdams about, I don't even want to have to talk about Israel that much, because my show in principle, like the Liberty Report, can cover anything in principle. I could talk about Austrian economics, I could talk about the Fed. I could talk about precious metals and what's happening with them. I could talk about antitrust law. I could talk about discrimination. I could. I mean, whatever. I can talk about anything. But it's like during COVID During COVID what else could I talk about other than that, you know, realist. Well, what else am I gonna talk about other than Covid? That is front and center. Everybody's talking about it. It affects us directly. So it's like that has happened again, because one news item after another, it's this issue. And the key news item really is not even a foreign policy issue right now. It's the division within the right, which is a domestic issue. And that has an awful lot to do with. With the subject of Israel, which has, you know, that. It's not like that hasn't been there, but it suddenly went front and center partly because of Gaza. And you had a lot of people jumping ships saying, I was willing to support Israel up to this point, but this really is too much for me. You had people like that. And then those people were shown no grace whatsoever. They were shown no grace whatsoever. You know, hey, we appreciate that you've been a good friend all these years, and we're sorry that you're having difficulty on this matter. Let us try to explain this to you further. Absolutely not. Instead, it's been like, Megyn Kelly is an evil witch with a B, basically, is what, you know, there. I mean, this is how people on that side are treating people. And so, of course, that makes even more people upset. And even more people reexamine the question saying, what am I defending here? After all, I'm suddenly being attacked by people who are acting more woke up than AOC herself in the way they assume that everybody who's. Who disagrees with them is motivated by hate. And we even get Mark Levin just the other day said to somebody, he said to a pollster, you were born with Jew hatred in your heart. You were born with it. Which is exactly what the woke people say. And yet Levin has the nerve to call other people woke. Right? You are so woke, Mark Levin. You have adopted all these the way of arguing the demonization the you're born with it stuff. Josh Hammer says the Jew hatred, which is the new thing, by the way, just like racist got boring, so they replaced it with white supremacy, which is ridiculously over the top antisemitism. They just used that so many times and now it's Jew hatred so that we make it a little bit more vivid. Josh Hammer said Jew hatred is embedded in the European DNA. I mean, imagine this, you know, so instead of what they could have done as they started to see the num people running for the doors is they could have said, look, we've had a fruitful relationship up to now. It would be a shame for this thing to break apart. Why don't we all sit down and talk this through? Or let's make the positive case for why the US Israel relationship really does benefit the US you just don't get that, Daniel. You don't get. Instead, it immediately went to let's try to destroy their careers, let's try to demonize them, let's call them Nazis, which indeed they've been doing. Let's award Tucker Carlson Anti Semite of the Year. I mean, of all the people on planet Earth, apparently Tucker Carlson, who in every episode tells you he's not an anti Semite, and I would guess he is probably the world's foremost expert on himself, is the one you're gonna choose. I mean, I have never seen a worse campaign of public relations in my life than what's been going on from the Israel first corner.
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B
You know, that's absolutely true. I mean, the thing is, it's not just new that they've tried to ruin people's career for saying things like this. That's something they did 20 years ago with people like Pappy Cannon and Joe Sobrino. But they can't do that anymore. Because one of the things that's happened over the past few years is that people have tuned into a live genocide. They've tuned in to the destruction of perhaps a couple of hundred thousand people, mostly women and children. And they've also been able to go on X, which is relatively free. And they've been able to listen to Israeli politicians saying they need to kill them all. There are no innocent people in Gaza. They need to all be slaughtered. You have this woman who's the Secretary of Settlements or what have you, who said the most. She said literally things that you could have read in Dermer back in the 30s about the Palestinians and Americans are consuming this and they simply turned away from Israel and they've lost the plot. Now they're so infused with their own hatred and self obsession now that they've lost the plot, they've entirely lost the young generation. Generation Z is gone forever. And I don't mean on the left, I mean on the right. They've lost the right. And every time they try to recover, they have a great idea, here's how it's going to fix it. It doesn't work anymore. It's like, you know, a heroin addict, that next fix. But it doesn't really do it anymore. It's not working anymore. And that's what's happening. You know, they brought over a thousand American Protestant pastors as ambassadors to Israel. Now, my good friend Jason Jones, you may have had him on your show, but he's a terrific guy. He does. He's a Catholic who does a lot of relief work in Gaza in the West Bank. But he had a great piece up on his substack last week. I think it was saying they should register as foreign agents. They went over there and they were indoctrinated. Here's what you need to do. You need to go back to your congregations and indoctrinate people to be in favor of the secular state of Israel. The should register as foreign agents. Any other country that did that, you know, they love to bring up Carter. If Carter had done that, these guys would be busted as foreign agents, and that's just a fact. But they've lost the plot and everything they try to do to recover, including, you can bet Tom, hundreds of millions of dollars going into Beltway PR firms to try to figure out what the heck to do. You have this new, I forget his level, very high level person to combat anti Semitism in the State Department who's literally warned people that we will seek you out. We will use the power of the government to destroy you if we believe that you are anti Semitic. And whatever they do, it's making things worse because I'm like you, Tom. Yeah. I was critical of a lot of the things that Israel had been doing. I thought their policies were pretty crappy for a long time, but it wasn't in a really super focus for me until I started seeing kids blown up. You step over an imaginary line, they shoot you. And I've got three kids of my own and like, I think millions of other people. You start thinking about your own children and you get mad and you get angry. And that's what's happened to millions and millions of Americans and a lot of them being American Christians. So there's no way to put this genie Back in the bottle for them.
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A
This is a trivial point, Daniel, but yet I can't help bringing it up. Christmas Eve, the ADL puts out a message. Now these people cannot help themselves. They can't be normal. Even if it would benefit them to be normal. You know, and on Christmas Eve, the benefit to them would be to issue a very friendly Merry Christmas message. You know, the way a lot of evangelicals might have wished Jews all kinds of blessed holidays throughout the year. All they had to do was just say Merry Christmas. Instead their message is, you know, this week, around the world a lot of people are going to be celebrating Kwanzaa and Christmas, you know, and we really want to wish, send our good wishes to everybody. So then they say whatever the heck the Kwanzaa greeting is and then, and Merry Christmas. Now, obviously this is not a conspiracy theory that is obviously meant to diminish Christmas. Putting it in the same sentence with some made up holiday invented by a woman abuser in 1966. Come on. You know, and that's the same thing as Christmas, such that Christmas, Christmas gets lumped in with that. Like all you had to do was be normal. That's all you had to do. But the Christian hatred is so great that they can't even do it, Daniel. It would help them. And they can't even do it. They can't be normal for five blankety blank minutes.
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B
Yeah, you're never on the positive side of the ledger with them. It is to diminish the same Christians who they rely on for the very existence of Israel. I mean, if all and more American Christians are turning against Israel, that's in every poll I've seen this year. The numbers are incredibly high. But for whatever ones they have left, you'd think that you're right, you'd think that you would do something to keep them on board. Now a lot of these people are just masochistic because they believe in you. You actually had one of the best posts on X a few months ago. Maybe it was even longer ago. But when you talk about the heresies that emerged in Christianity in the late 19th century, particularly the Scofield heresy, and you pointed out that not only would the Catholic Church not recognize this theology, but not even any of the Restorationists, not Cranmer, not Luther, no one up until the 1890s would have recognized any of what you're saying. So almost 2,000 years of Christianity, this would be considered burn at the stake heresy. And all of a sudden now it's coming. Infiltrated. It had infiltrated. And now it's sinking because of a lot of brave pastors like Chuck Baldwin and others are saying, hold on a minute, this isn't Christianity. And so it's fading and the days are up, the days are numbered. And I think that's why they're getting a lot more nasty and it's a lot more dangerous, in my opinion.
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A
On a more serious note with the adl though, there's another thing I want to run by. And then eventually I'd like to talk about Ukraine a little bit, but. But they wrote this. This is from just several days ago. It's a multi tweet thread, but I'm interested only in the first one. Megyn Kelly's recent comments cross a dangerous line. And now what are these recent comments? She said in an interview with Vanity Fair, speaking about Barry Weiss and Ben Shapiro, they are making anti Semites. Tucker is not making anti Semites. They are. Which, I mean, is the most obvious thing in the world. Right? I mean, they're behaving in a way that is like. It's like they're trying to. They're using Jewish stereotypes as a playbook to live by, which, no, you're supposed to be outraged by these and denounce them. You don't actually copy them, you know, so the way they've behaved has been, of course, horrendous and made them look terrible. So they say accusing Jews of making anti Semites blames Jewish people for the hate directed against them. A classic victim blaming trope. But you know what? These very people, I am quite sure would say, if we look at, let's say, the Westboro Baptist Church, you know, which is known to be very harsh, and protests at people's funerals and stuff. I haven't heard about them in a long time, but we all know about them. I'm quite sure they would say, well, you're making Christianity look bad. Right? You're encouraging anti Christian sentiment. Yeah, because everyone can see that. Like I as a Christian would say that. I would say, hey, knock that off, you're making us all look bad. You know, like, why can't we say the obvious? I could say that about people in my own, you know, general religious universe. I can say it about them. Why can't I say it about. Ben Shapiro is obviously making the anti Semitism problem worse. I don't see what could be clearer.
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B
I don't think he views it as a problem though, Tom. I mean, I think they need anti Semitism. The real problem that they face is that there really hasn't Been very much anti Semitism in the U.S. i would say before Gaza there were a few people and I know you've probably gotten plenty of emails and mails, at least I certainly have over the decades who have a one issue focus and obsessed with Israel. But that was a relatively few and far between. It just didn't really exist. So you had to do two things. You had to dumb down anti Semitism, which is you had to lower the bar so low that basically anyone could be considered that. And two, you had to do things that would irritate people and make them say things like Israel is acting like an apartheid state, you know, and so that's where you get the antisemitism. They need that antisemitism to survive. ADL needs antisemitism to raise money and survive. The Ben Shapiro's of the world need anti Semitism. So in fact they're doing it because they need to have that. They need to gin it up because it enables them to forward their agenda.
- [31:17]
A
Hey everybody. Henry David woods, my new son was just born. He's not named after Thoreau, by the way. I keep emphasizing that David's my wife's grandfather's name. But after five daughters, I also have a son. And that son, as it turns out, is going to be the great guest star aboard the next Tom Woods Cruise, August 2026. Sure Scott Horton will be there and sure Clint Russell will be there, but the real star is going to be little tiny Henry David Woods. Cutest kid you ever saw and I'd sure love to have you come meet him. It's this thing, you know, I hear people say I don't like cruise. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It's because you haven't gone on my cruise. My cruise is a million times better than any cruise you've ever been on. I host these huge games that have everybody in stitches and this time I'm going to be handing out. I was going to hand out cash prizes, but I think I'm going to hand out silver rounds because I think you want to hold on to those. We don't have boring lectures on the non aggression principle. Instead we're gonna have great talks from Scott and Clint and me. An exclusive performance by world class magician Doc Dixon. Remember my 2000th episode when he sawed me in half? He also fooled Penn and Teller on their TV show. Well, he's gonna be performing just for us. So everybody else on the cruise ship, you know, stinks to be you. We got an exclusive performance by Doc Dixon for the wives and girlfriends who might not be entirely on board. Or we'll have a special. My husband SL boyfriend is a libertarian conservative right winger group. In case the ladies would rather have fun together, we'll have delicious dinners with friends you haven't met yet. And our speakers, like Scott Horton and me will rotate from table to table each night. We'll have exciting shore excursions with me normal people and normality 247 lifelong friendships. I have people who've been sailing with me for nearly 10 years and they've made friends they remain close to to this day. Our special gatherings for night owl Scott Horton will talk your ear off till three in the morning. You have plenty of free time. Our hilarious pitch contest with the prize a free cruise and plenty more. Too much to list. So you gotta be on board this thing. It's the best thing I've ever done. It is so much fun. You won't know how much fun it is till you go. It's like Obamacare. You have to. You have to pass the bill to find out what's in it. You gotta come on board the Tom woods cruise. Check it out@tomwoodscruise.com all right, let's move on to something else. This is just going to make me cr. Oh, actually, you know what? No, we can't. Sorry, Daniel. One more thing. I wanted to move on to something else, but what do you think about. It's funny that J.D. vance is in a weird spot here because he's clearly trying to walk a tightrope, let's say, on this topic. And he's, he has made a statement along the lines that people are way, way, way too quick to accuse people of antisemitism. There is legitimate disagreement with Israel that people can have, and that's being called anti Semitism. And this is ridiculous. And there's no reason that Tucker Carlson should be demonized in this way. And he's gotten pushback, like, you know, oh, he's a bad guy. We'll have to. Have to have Ted Cruz instead of him. What do you make of that? Is that sincere? Is that a political calculation? What do you think's going on? I mean, I don't expect you to get into his head, but what did you think about that?
- [34:31]
B
Well, I mean, J.D. vance has always been considered a philo Semite. I mean, there's no question about his entire career. Maybe that was for political expediency. Who knows what goes on in the hearts and minds of politicians because what they love more than anything is Power. But what you can say is he's no dummy. So I think he understands. He reads the writing on the wall even to Donald Trump. I mean, he was, wasn't it in front of Miriam Adelson the other day? He was saying that, you know, geez, half the right wing hates Israel. I don't know, something like this, you know, it was weird. But I think J.D. vance is, he's a young guy, he knows what's going on. He's got his fingers on the pulse and he knows that what his boss is doing is destroying his future as a potential presidential candidate. I mean, I would love to see some polls like a head to head between tucker Carlson and J.D. vance for the presidency. I mean, I think Tucker would beat him, you know, by a very, very wide margin. Right now he's extremely popular. So I think J.D. vance is very, I mean, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes. Is trying to position himself very gently as in opposition to the over the top, I would say. I mean, Donald Trump doesn't even try to hide it. He goes to the Knesset and says, you know, I love you guys, you're great. Miriam Adelson has given me so much money, I'll do anything that she wants. She loves Israel more than America. It doesn't bother me at all, you know, I mean, he doesn't even try to hide it. And Vance I think is a little bit more in tune and understand this is not the political winner it was 20 years ago. And so he's got to look to the future.
- [35:56]
A
Yeah, I think he actually is recognizing that and that. Is it just me or did this happen really fast? I didn't think it would ever happen, certainly not in my lifetime.
- [36:05]
B
Yep. The cautionary tale was someone like a Joe Soberin who colored outside the lines. And William up Buckley Jr. Destroyed his life. He tried to do it with Buchanan, but Buchanan was. Buchanan didn't have the demons that poor Joe Sobran had. And I knew Joe. We spent some time together and I didn't know Pat as well. Not that he's passed, but he's no longer active. Pat is able to bounce back better than Joe was able to. Joe lived out of his car for the last part of his life, if you've ever seen his car. It was shocking, but destroyed his career. And that was easy to do and it's not as easy to do anymore, especially with the young generation. I'll tell you something, we have, every year we have the Ron Paul scholar seminar and this is for upper division undergrads and grad students. And this year we had some speakers that I knew were going to be slightly spicy with regard to our relations in the Middle East. A couple of great speakers. If you know, Brian McLinchey is a great writer, great analyst, and he writes a lot on the Middle East. He's not some sort of raving guy. I mean, he's a serious journalist. But he gave a speech and a couple people like him. And I was anticipating pushback, which is fine. I mean, it's an academic environment, you know. It is, Tom. And I was expecting some pushback, but in fact, the young people that were there were wanting to push further rather than back. So it was really, for me, it was a real wake up call as well. They've gone way beyond where we are at. Made me feel a little bit old, I guess.
- [37:27]
A
So. All right, let's move on because I feel like I've been just doing so much about this topic, but my gosh, I watch Mark Levin. He's just nasty and getting worse all the time. He seems like a really unhappy guy.
- [37:39]
B
We manhandled the President of the United States. Didn't that shock you? Yeah, you know, put his arm, hey, you're the first Jewish president. Can you imagine someone doing that to President Reagan or even President Bush or Obama? Unheard of.
- [37:53]
A
Yeah, no, I know, I know. But I think Levin has realized that the way to Trump is flattery. You know, like, he's never been a Trump fan. He's been very clear about that. And the way to Trump is flattery and make him feel like everybody loves him and shelter them from the news that indicates that they might not. But what I want to know is, on an unrelated touch, given that I'm talking to the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute, what's the state of things with Ukraine and what are the main stumbling blocks now that they're trying to work through? Or is it just a matter of we see no need to listen to the US because we're perfectly content with how things are going?
- [38:33]
B
Well, it's garbage in, garbage out. I mean, the entirety of the U.S. foreign policy community is absolutely in a, you know, circular firing squad intellectually with regard to this. Everyone believes what everyone else is saying and it's all completely untrue. And it's been proven untrue. I mean, it was two or three years ago that Russia was, was on the verge. They were out of missiles. They were, they were. You know, there's a piece that just came out. They're so desperate on the Front lines that they're eating each other. The Russians are. I mean, this is insane. We just saw a clip. I forget what it was, but it was a former senior official. She's now with one of the think tanks in D.C. saying the most absurd things about Russia will never take Donbass. They will never move forward. So if you believe things that are objectively untrue, you can never come to a proper conclusion with regard to how to deal with the situation. First, you have to understand what's going on. We have a long history of manipulating intelligence in the US and my friend Larry Johnson, who does sonar 21, is a great blog, by the way. People should read. He was a career counterterrorism CIA officer, analysis department. And I didn't realize this really is that John Brennan reorganized the CIA in a way that mixed the operations and analysis sections. And they had, like, task forces, which is very, very dangerous because, you know, it's always been. I don't want to go too far into the weeds here, Tom, but it's always been the case they were even literally physically on separate wings of the CIA building because you didn't want to mix the two, because operations people want the analysis to match what they're doing in their operations. And so there's a huge amount of pressure to fix the intelligence around the preordained policy. And that's what's been happening. And it not only happens with our intelligence community, but with the think tank community. So they've all gotten it completely wrong. The problem now is that Trump, probably because of his own ego, has fallen for an unwinnable situation. The idea that you are a neutral mediator while you provide weapons and intelligence for one side to kill the other side, it's absurd. It's not a sustainable way of thinking. So the fact of the matter is Russia is winning. It shouldn't surprise anyone. Russia would always win. Just look at a map. You know, just look at industrial output. Just look at. I mean, on any metric, Russia versus Ukraine, even when you add in NATO, it was never going to be Russia losing. Yet still, the idea is that the side that is. This is unprecedented in history, the side that's winning the war must not only make concessions, but also must pay reparations to the side that's losing the war. And you can imagine after World War II, you know, say Hitler hadn't offed himself, and he said, okay, guys, you got us, but listen, you got to rebuild Germany. You gotta. You gotta give us all this stuff. You gotta give us back the sedate lands and all this. People say, are you high? Are you nuts? It doesn't work that way. You lost. We dictate the terms. And so it's. I mean, I feel like I'm, as they say, taking crazy pills because they're just. Nobody is living in the world of reality.
- [41:36]
A
Is there anything in the realm of foreign policy that has happened in this first year that has been a pleasant surprise to you? Is there anything that has involved having a, a softer touch in the world? Anything like that?
- [41:53]
B
Yes. I was sitting there thinking, no. But, yes, President Trump did one great thing, I think is ridiculed NATO and ridiculed the Europeans. And they absolutely deserved it. They deserve all the scorn that he piles on them. And maybe he does it because of his ego or whatever. I don't care. Today's the current political leadership in Europe is an absolute disaster, with few exceptions. And those exceptions are thankfully rising to the foreign. With the success of Babish in the Czech Republic. You also have Robert Fico in Slovakia, relatively new. Viktor Orban's been in power in Hungary for a long time. But you're also seeing other little kernels of this. But the prevailing wisdom or what passes forward in Europe has been a disaster. And Trump. One thing about Trump is somewhat admirable, I suppose. He looks at them all puffed up, these puffed up roosters, and they're so full of themselves with no actual achievements in their lives. Kaikalis, you know, no achievements in their life. And he ridicules them. You guys, you're a joke. I'm not even going to invite you. If I do invite you, I'm going to sit you down in the Oval Office like naughty students and I'm going to read you the riot act as. Which is what he did. So in my opinion, I think that's probably one of the most positive things, putting the Europeans in their place.
- [43:04]
A
Well, you look at the leadership, quote unquote, in Europe, the political class in Europe, and it makes you all. It doesn't really, but you almost by comparison, have a soft spot for the US establishment. I mean, as you say, this is a bunch of unbelievable mediocrities. In my feed the other day. I don't know why. Maybe it was a. I think it was a classical liberal. I guess I get more impatient with these people all the time. Who said that King Charles III had just given a powerful speech, you know, on the eve of Christmas. I thought, wow, okay, let's see, what did he say in this powerful. Maybe he said something completely unexpected. You know, that the time has come to protect Christian civilization or something, you know, maybe something like that. No, it was. Well, we now have this multi faith England and it's gonna be filled with a lot of people who are unlike you. And that's what Christianity demands about it. It was just the typical diversity speak, like born. You know, I could hear this from any third rate professor at a community college. You know, I mean, it was just nothing. And this one poster was talking about what a bold, I thought, bold. Next he'll come out and say cancer is bad. You know, this took no boldness at all. He's just saying what every other bureaucrat in Europe has to say. None of them have anything interesting to say. It's just platitudes over and over and oh, if you don't like our platitudes, we're plotting ways to shut you up or imprison you. Oh, nice people.
- [44:32]
B
Yeah, they live in a bubble, Tom. You know, there was a time when I first got back from Hungary that I really wanted to break into the US one policy establishment. And I spend a lot of time with people like that and they genuinely would believe something like that is bold. Because as someone I know, who I respect a lot says the 3x5 card of conventional wisdom in foreign policy is not even three by five. It's like this, it's a postage stamp. And so anyone that, even if you're slightly outside of it, I'm thank God I went to work for Ron Paul where I could understand that everyone else there was wrong. And you're an historian, Tom, so you know much better than I do. But I wonder about stumbling into World War I and World War II and what kind of mediocrities were in charge then because you have a Germany. If you remember Ursula von der Leyen, who is now the EU commissioner, she was the defense minister in Germany and she completely gutted the German military to the point where comically, they were actually doing military drills, holding, I think it was brooms because they didn't have weapons to hold in their military drill. She gutted the economy. The German military there. I wonder, you probably know I don't have a, you know, I don't know exactly what, what kinds of mediocrity, slouching these people into war.
- [45:43]
A
Yet at the same time, maybe there is a bit of a bright spot out there. Not as bright as we need, but it's a bright spot. Just the other day I was listening to Dave Smith and he had Scott Horton on our good friend and what they were talking about was David Wormser, which is a name that is familiar to a lot of people that might not exactly know. They know he has something to do with the war in Iraq. He was an advisor to Dick Cheney on Middle east affairs. And he was a terrible. I mean, everything he thought was the opposite of reality. And I guess Scott had must have said something about him. And maybe Scott and Dave together had said something about him and he went on another podcast to go through and respond, in effect, to Scott Horton. Now that is not a world that five years ago existed that David Wormser would not feel like he needs to lower himself to respond to the rubes out there. Why should he? He's David Wormser and you're nobody because you don't have an opinion on the three by five card. Right? The three by five card is how are we going to intervene, you know, in what ways and in what duration, with what force and what goals. Not intervening at all is not on the card. So I don't even acknowledge your existence. And now suddenly he's going on a podcast to respond to Scott Horton. You know, like, that is a. I will say that is one way in which the world is better now than it was five or 10 years ago.
- [47:04]
B
And the joke's on them because whenever they do that, they end up failing miserably. You know, classic story of Bill Crystal when he thought he was going to smack Scott around in a debate and he came completely unprepared and was, you know, they can't stand up to this. I mean, we're like the punk rockers and they're the old, you know, 70s metalheads. You know, we come along and, you know, faster, quicker, and they have to respond, you know, and it's. You're right. I mean, that's a positive point, I suppose. Although, to be. To be honest, I just don't care about them anymore either. Worms, right.
- [47:36]
A
That's another thing. That's another thing. But when you look at the comments, everybody is against a guy like Worms or basically everybody. There's a handful of people, but it's basically everybody. It does make you pause sometimes. Who's supporting all this stuff? Then every time these people open their mouths, they get absolutely destroyed on social media. Half the time they have to turn comments off. Who's out there supporting it? I don't even know. But the interesting thing is, in a sense that doesn't matter to them that one, once an administration gets elected, I mean, I think it was like this Iraq war that is like 15 people kind of thought it up and went ahead and did it and they came up with whatever cover story they needed to, but they were going to do it come hell or high water. And it didn't matter what the, you know, they'll give whatever official rationale they need to appease the rubes, but suddenly you look around and there's nobody favors this. You know, I mean, the disappointing thing is that as I suspected, some of the people who are really, really on the Trump train, like, no, even if he says the opposite of what he just said 10 minutes ago, they'll just instantly adopt that some of those people will just support whatever he does. But there's a decent number of well placed influencers who won't and ordinary people who won't and who are finally saying, this is just stupid. Our country is so full of problems, it's laughable that we would be thinking about Venezuela of all possible places on earth. Give me a break.
- [49:05]
B
Well, the sad answer to your question as to who supports people like worms there is that we do. We don't do it voluntarily, we do it involuntarily, and that's through the military industrial complex. All the money that gets spent on weapons doesn't go to making great weapons because our weapons aren't that great, as we found out in Israel over the summer. It goes not only to the weapons, but it goes to all of the support structure. And that is the think tanks, the NGOs that support all of this. The people like worms are, they're on the gravy train. They've been on the gravy train this whole time. They have the, you know, our entire budget at the Ron Paul Institute is probably one luncheon for these people. You know, they have so much money, they have so much power. And so we're made to support them, unfortunately. And until we can make some more headway and convince people that it's not unpatriotic to oppose people who are destroying our country, you know, but I, I do share your, your optimism. I think we are making some headway on it.
- [50:01]
A
So that's at least something as we move into a new year. It's interesting that, you know, for the longest time there was no party. Neither of the two parties could be relied on to be the anti war party. You couldn't, because they all want it. You know, it's just a matter of which war, at what time and who's running it. But there is a solid core. Not in the Democratic Party. Forget them. They're gonna go with whatever CIA designated enemy they're supposed to oppose. But you know, at least on the right, I don't know about in the Republican Party, but on the right there's more skepticism about it. There's no question about that. And I hope that gets reflected electorally eventually. So again, Daniel, the website for the Ron Paul Institute is ronpaulinstitute.org, that's exactly it.
- [50:46]
B
And we do the Ron Paul Liberty Report Monday through Friday. My colleague Chris is on Friday with primarily financial and economic news, but we do it live at noon Eastern time. Right now we're live on Rumble, but we're planning on making some changes in the new year. By the time the show comes out, we're going to be live streaming on multi platforms and we already have a new theme song that was made by someone we both know. I won't say his name but but is someone that I think is a great filmmaker. So we have that and we're going to try to upgrade the studio. But you know, it's fundraising season so it all depends on whether we can get worms or to cut us a few bucks to get some furniture for our studio.
- [51:23]
A
Well, you know, it'd be nice if worms are would attack you, but apparently nobody cares about worms or so it wouldn't really help all that much after all.
- [51:31]
B
That's true. That's true.
- [51:32]
A
Yeah. Because he went on this podcast to respond to I guess Dave and Scott and you know, it got like it didn't get the number of views that a David worms or should get if he mattered as much as you know, we've been told he does. So anyway, some good news as we continue into 2026. Thank you so much, Daniel.
- [51:52]
B
Thank you, Tom.
- [51:53]
A
And for another bright spot in 2026, my Tom woods cruise is setting sail later this year with the brand new addition to the woods family who was just born at the end of 2025, little Henry David woods, who is not named after Henry David Thoreau, by the way, but will also be joining us. You'll have a chance to meet that little guy. So check that out@tomwoodscruise.com we'll see you next time. Make yourself and those you love less vulnerable to the regime, both mentally and physically.
- [52:22]
B
Get more forbidden information@tomsfreebooks.com and be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you listen. See you next time.
- [52:39]
A
Like the sound of the Tom Wood Show. My audio production is provided by Podsworth Media. Check them out@podsworth.com hey folks, as you may know, the team at Podsworth Media has worked with me for a long time producing this show, and a big part of that over the past couple years has been using the Podsworth app to make the audio sound clean, level and professional, even when the raw recordings were super sketchy, like this one you're listening to right now. Believe it or not, this recording that you're hearing now was that bad before. I ran it through the Podsworth app and you can hear the full before and after demo for yourself at the link in the description or on the Show Notes page. The app recently got a huge update and it's better than ever. So good, in fact, that it can take a truly atrocious voice recording and make it sound great. Great. Here's how it works. It removes background noise, cuts down on plosives which are like with the letter P When you say the letter P into a microphone, it just goes with the letter P When you say the letter P into a microphone, it just goes. Which is why you usually have a little screen in front of the mic. It fixes clipping when your gain is too high, removes clicks and pops, reduces reverb, improves tone, and levels out the dialogue so you don't get crazy volume jumps like one guest is loud, another one is quiet, and this way everything's consistent. Using it is super simple. You just go to podsworth.com and click. Get started. Drag and drop your audio files or open them right from your smartphone's browser. Customize your settings if you want, but honestly, the default works great for most podcast recordings. Enter code WOODS50 to get 50% off your first order. No account needed, just your email and payment. You'll get a download link in your inbox with your cleaned up files. It's Perfect for podcasts, YouTube videos, sermons, audiobooks, you name it. If your recording sounds rough, the Podsworth app can make it not only listenable, but professional. Remember, when you use code WOODS50, you'll get half off your first order and you'll also be supporting this show.