[00:00:04] Broadcasting live from atop the Rocky Mountains, the crossroads of the West, you are listening to the Liberty Roundtable Radio Talk Show. Lowell Nelson, CampaignForLiberty.org with me. The topic today, Lindsey Graham, Strait of Hormuz, Israel, NDAA, Dennis Kucinich, and more.
[00:00:31] Happy to have you along, my fellow Americans. I'm Sam Bushman. This is the one and only hard-hitting News Networks reviews to use broadcast. We call it Liberty RoundTable Podcast. Lowell, welcome back, sir. Oh, good to be back, Sam. And you, welcome back too, sir. You've been traveling a bit last week. Nice to have you back in town. Thank you, sir. It's been a little crazy. Went to the Freedom Fest event.
[00:00:55] We'll have all kinds of updates from that between me and our dear friends over there, Jacob Oaks and others. We literally got about 40 incredible video interviews, so we'll be rolling those out on our video side soon as well. We've got so much to talk about, so little time. Then we went to the Red Pill Expo and had even more content, more coverage going on. So it's just a, what do you call it? Freedom Fest, I guess. That's how you call it.
[00:01:22] And so Lindsey Graham passed away as we started to come home, Lowell. Well, it came as a surprise to everybody. You know, Graham is a very brief and sudden illness, probably a heart attack. I mean, some people are thinking it was a heart attack because it happened so quickly. I mean, he came home from a trip to Ukraine just on Friday. We're talking like three days ago, right? Friday, July 10th.
[00:01:49] And he came back from that trip. And then the very next day in the evening, he was gone. Very brief. So probably a heart attack of some kind. He talked to several people, said he had too much to do and wasn't feeling very well. And then before you know it, boom. Boom. Yeah. So, I mean, tomorrow's promise to no one, Sam. And it got to him.
[00:02:17] Now, Lindsey Graham, you know, people are lauding his, you know, shouting his praises and lauding all that he has done, which, of course, you do when a person dies. That's pretty normal. Graham was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002. But, Sam, he was a hawk. He supported military actions against Russia, Iran, Syria, many, many other countries.
[00:02:40] Of course, he was good friends with the late Senator John McCain and the late Senator Joe Lieberman, who were also war hawks. Lindsey Graham supported torture, euphemistically called enhanced interrogation or aggressive interrogation techniques, which I did not support and never have. His friends called him, quote, a strong ally to freedom-loving countries across the globe, end of quote.
[00:03:09] Of course, Sam, I think they're severely mistaken. I don't believe in offensive military action any time. I don't think that's helpful to anyone's freedom and should never be the first option on anyone's playbook. Well, to me, that's a march against a person.
[00:03:35] But anyway, Senator Graham, when he returned from his trip on Friday, he announced a legislative measure called Sanctioning Russia Act. Well, Sam, sanctioning countries is also an act of war. Even though it's not using bullets, you're using economic measures to wage economic warfare against a country.
[00:03:56] And anyone who urges offensive military action without a declaration of war, in my opinion, deserves to lose his seat in Congress. It shows a lack of fidelity to the Constitution. It shows a violation of the oath of office. Ms. Lindsey Graham should never have been a member of Congress. So, bottom line for me, Sam, you know, while I don't wish for anyone's demise, I don't hope for anyone's, you know, death.
[00:04:26] Because I believe that there's always room and time to repent if a person repents. But I, for one, I'm glad he's no longer in the U.S. Senate. Sam? Well, sadly, ladies and gentlemen, you know, we pray for his family. We don't mean any ill will to anyone, ladies and gentlemen. Let's be very clear about that. But we are simply saying this. We can't have Warhawk folks in office. We can't have folks that, you know, they say he's a friend of Israel.
[00:04:53] That's a kind way to say he was in Israel's pocket. And he was, you know, he had this whatever you want to call it affinity for Israel to the point where, hey, was he for Israel or was he really for the United States? And that's what the question kind of really relates to, ladies and gentlemen.
[00:05:12] Just so you know, to serve in the U.S. Senate, the Constitution requires that a person be at least 30 years old, have been a U.S. citizen for at least nine years, be an inhabitant resident of the state that they're, you know, to when they're elected. And for a U.S. representative, it's only 25. U.S. Senator, 30. President, 35.
[00:05:42] Now, just so you know, there's no maximum age to serve as a U.S. senator. They can serve as long as they're elected and meets the constitutional requirements. Did you know that 90 senators are over 50 years old? Yeah, I never counted that. I never knew that. But I suspect that's probably the case. Sure. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of a problem, in my opinion, just because we're getting such old people. Under 40, you got one senator. 40 to 49, seven senators.
[00:06:12] Exactly 51 senator. Over 50 years old, 90 senators. Approximately 91 percent of these are over 50 years old. The average age of senators, so if you total them all up, divide by the number, right? 65 years old. Hmm. Well, you know, that presents a bit of a problem. We'll talk about this even more later, perhaps. But a lot of the young people in our country do not support Israel.
[00:06:41] And so what we've got in the Senate, then, is older people, which they tend to support military action. And, you know, they tend to support Israel. But the younger crowd, which is not apparently not represented very well. Of course, the Senate should represent states, not people. But as we know, they do represent their people nowadays because of the 17th Amendment.
[00:07:07] But the young folks and their disdain for Israel is not being represented accurately in the U.S. Senate, apparently. Sam? All right. There you have it. Anyway, we just thought we'd spend a little bit of time on Lindsey Graham. Mitch McConnell had serious issues as well. And the problem is what we get is when these people are sick and have the problems they have, you know, when can they should they really be able to serve when they're not really with it as an older person, too?
[00:07:36] We're seeing that as president. Questions with Biden. Questions with Trump. We're seeing that in the Senate now. Questions with Mitch McConnell, you know, et cetera. And it's a big concern. But anyone who urges offensive military action, I believe, is a serious problem. You know, we don't want to go on the offense. What we need to do is say, look, we're going to take care of defensive actions. But when does it make sense to go on the offense, folks?
[00:08:03] I don't really believe offensive war should be what we do, folks, especially not chasing people into their own lands. That's for sure. All right. The Strait of Hormuz is a big battle going on. Ron Paul focuses on this big time. And I believe he says exactly what needs to happen. Well, I agree, Sam. He mentions a couple of key ideas in the column that's posted at RonPaulInstitute.org last week.
[00:08:29] One idea is that Iran's reaction to – yeah. He talks about Iran's reaction to the assassination of their leader, the Ayatollah, last February. And the other idea, he talks about what ought to be done with the Strait of Hormuz. Now, it turns out that thousands and thousands of Iranians mourned the death of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last weekend – or two weekends, I guess weekend before last.
[00:08:58] He was assassinated by the United States in a surprise attack in February. So it's quite a while ago. The attack was sold to Trump by the Israelis, Prime Minister Netanyahu. He was told it would be a cakewalk and that killing their leader would lead to the fall of the Iranian government and its replacement by a government that was friendly to the United States. Well, that did not happen.
[00:09:28] Not only did the Iranian people not replace their government, that assassination unified them more than ever before. And this really shouldn't surprise anyone. I mean, that's what people here in the States did after 9-11. We came closer together as a society. Well, it was the very same with the Iranians. They did the same thing. They're more cohesive now than ever before.
[00:09:52] And then Ron Paul mentioned something that they talk about at the FIFA World Cup, right, the international soccer tournament. It's called an own goal. An own goal is where you put the soccer ball into your own goal by mistake. Your opponent doesn't score on you, but you score on yourself. That's an own goal.
[00:10:14] So Ron describes Trump's attack on Iran as an own goal, and not just one own goal, but a series of own goals. He writes this, quote, The blunder will likely go down in American history as one of the worst foreign policy moves in our history, end of quote. And I agree, Sam. You know, Iran retaliated by decimating many of our military bases in the region.
[00:10:39] Billions of dollars of equipment got destroyed, and surrounding countries realized the U.S. could not protect them. And we've really forced the Straits of Hormuz into the hands of the Iranians with an own goal. We'll talk about it more with Lowell Nelson. You're listening to Campaign for Liberty's Liberty RoundTable Podcast. Is receiving a faith-based, character-focused education for your children difficult to find? Do you believe that godly principles should be a central component in your child's education?
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[00:12:09] Your support is what fuels our mission to revolutionize journalism and bring you the truth. Join our passionate community of changemakers by donating at libertynewsradio.com today. Together, we're creating the future of news. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. This is Lowell Nelson.
[00:12:36] I'm co-hosting, I guess I'm a guest, here on Liberty Roundtable Live. Sam has me on Monday mornings. I'm happy to be here riding shotgun. And we've been talking about this column, an incredible column by Ron Paul. He's talking about the assassination of Iran's leader last February and the impact it had on Iran and how they have come together, more cohesive now than ever before.
[00:13:04] And then he mentions this own goal idea and, you know, Trump's attack on Iran being an own goal, the worst decision, foreign policy decision that could have been made. And one of the natural consequences of our attack on Iran was their decision to establish control over the Strait of Hormuz, which they have done. Now, the Strait of Hormuz is a vital trade route.
[00:13:31] I guess about 20% of oil coming out of Iran goes through that strait. And there are ships, many, many, many ships that use that strait to transfer oil away from the region and deliver it to countries around the world. Well, Iran's decision to establish control over that strait has impacted global trade. And now, you know, energy costs have gone up, which brings the cost of everything up,
[00:13:59] including, you know, food and water and fertilizer and all of the things that the global, you know, marketplace utilizes. And so Dr. Paul concludes his column with this important and what I believe sage advice, quote, it is in the best interest of the United States to abandon claims on Hormuz, which is thousands of miles away, and live with the consequences of Trump's mistake.
[00:14:28] Another war cannot win what two previous wars have lost. Let Iran control the strait and let international trade and commerce be reestablished. Let's leave the strait alone, end of quote. And I would add to that and say let's create our own oil internally and let's not depend on the global oil trade. Let other countries fend for themselves and pay the piper for what's been done. And let's make sure that we don't depend on other nations.
[00:14:57] We can look for other sources for solutions for fuel. We can also, you know, take care of our own oil. We're supposed to be one of the biggest oil producers in the world. And let's just make sure that we are independent, Lowell. Absolutely right. We have oil all over this country and we're not drilling because of bureaucratic regulations and court orders and executive orders and prohibiting the states from, you know,
[00:15:23] mining their own natural resources and selling those. I mean, it could be very, very, very profitable for a state to do so. And they wouldn't have to depend on the federal government for their money. I mean, Utah ought to be doing this. And we ought to just ignore these prohibitions on mining our own resources. And we ought to responsibly mine them and sell this energy to surrounding states. It would free us, really.
[00:15:53] It would free Utah, that's for sure. Free Utah from the government dole on which we live today. Well, and the problem is we've been doing Israel's bidding for way too long. Jeff Harris writes a column highlighting this reality, Lowell. He does. It's entitled Israel's Days Are Numbered. And I sure hope that's the case. It does seem likely, given the fact that a majority of our young people,
[00:16:20] as we mentioned earlier, they oppose Israel's genocide of the people in Gaza. I mean, they're pretty adamant about it. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, and these numbers have been corroborated by the United Nations, if you want to trust them, as of February 2026, so just, you know, what is this? This is August? No, this is July. Seven to, so five months ago, these numbers were accurate, apparently.
[00:16:47] Over 75,000 Palestinians have been killed since the October 23 uprising. Over 20,000 of those deaths, Sam, have been children. And interestingly, Israel has killed 248 journalists covering the war. And that is compared to the Vietnam War, where 63 journalists died over a 20-year period covering the fighting. So what's that?
[00:17:16] That's like eight times as many journalists have been killed during this two or three or four-year conflict in the Middle East, compared to the conflict, 20-year conflict in Vietnam. And so a lot of people are getting killed, and it's really a sad thing. Now, Sam, something is dreadfully wrong with the people of Israel.
[00:17:39] According to the Jerusalem Times, 78% of Israelis want to continue the war with Iran. And according to Pew Research, 73% of the Israelis support the slaughter in Gaza or think it should be ramped up even more. I mean, how can human beings justify this callous disregard for human life? Partly it's that they've been propagandized since they've been in the cradle. That's part of the problem.
[00:18:09] The other problem is I wonder how truthful this poll really is, Lowell. Yeah, some of these polls are truthful. We can't trust the Israel Times to tell you the truth about what's happening in Israel, can you? No, probably not. Well, Jeff Harris characterizes this mindset as a mental health condition called malignant narcissism. And, you know, I don't think that 78% of Israelis are malignant narcissists, Sam,
[00:18:36] but I do believe most of their leadership is, you know, kind of like Trump and most of the U.S. leadership. The people he's surrounded himself with, they just, you know, they're bullies, really. And they think that whatever they do is okay. They justify their actions in their own eyes without the objective, you know, they dismiss the objective criticism of their critics. Well, amen to that.
[00:19:03] But Jeff Harris lands on the solution at the end of his column, Lowell, in my view. He really does. And so basically he says we need our politicians to quit supporting Israel, you know, and to stop supplying them with arms and money and munitions.
[00:19:27] It is true that Israel has bought Trump and most members of Congress with thousands and thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. But sooner or later, that's going to die away because, you know, almost two-thirds of Americans have a very negative view of Israel. That's not represented in Congress right now. But sooner or later, it will be. And in his words, he says that day can't come soon enough. And, Sam, I certainly agree.
[00:19:57] You know, there's a couple things. Well, and the other lie is that if you don't support Israel, you automatically support Palestine. See, I don't support either of them. I think we just need to stay out of their eternal war. Yeah. And do what Ron Paul says, which is don't give money to anybody, to any country. Just walk away and do our own thing. Yeah. And that would solve the problem because these countries, I mean, they exist on our dole, basically,
[00:20:23] because it's part of this overall economic global warfare plan that we have is make people dependent on us, and then we can control them, right? It's like a puppet master. Amen to that. But we do have some good news. There's the external summary, ladies and gentlemen. So on internal affairs, now Adam Dick breaks that down, sir. Yeah, with a little bit of good news, and a bit of good news, Sam, is that the NDAA for fiscal year 2027,
[00:20:53] it was blocked last week by a rules vote of 198 to 2024. And so if you do a little quick math, that's 13. So had 13 people changed their vote, it would have been a tie. Well, it turns out that 14 Republicans joined the Democrats to block the measure, right? Thomas Matthew of Kentucky, for example. Chip Roy of Texas, to name just a couple of these courageous members.
[00:21:22] None from Utah, unfortunately. And I say that with a bitter taste in my mouth. However, just because the members of Utah voted for the rule doesn't mean they will vote for the bill. And I hope they will not. I'm fairly confident. And we have an opportunity to make sure we let our views be known to them right now, Lowell. Exactly right. Because they are returning to session today, July 13th.
[00:21:50] And the House Rules Committee is meeting, and they will put together another bill, another rule to accompany the bill. I guess this happens on all the bills. The Rules Committee puts forth a bill which describes what amendments can be brought up, what can be talked about, and, you know, about the bill, and which cannot. And that's really what happened with Thomas Massey's amendment.
[00:22:18] See, Massey wanted to remove from the bill this military merger with Israel. I would have voted for that. Yeah, for sure. But the House Rules Committee, in this rule that they proposed with the bill, would not allow Massey and his supporters to consider his amendment.
[00:22:39] And so it's like they hogtie the House in a way that your representative cannot even discuss this important aspect of the NDAA. You know, Kucinich gives us a lesson in civics. He says, quote, quote, Every piece of legislation has its own rule, which determines, among other things, how much time will be permitted for debate, what amendments are made, whether legislation can be further amended from the House floor,
[00:23:08] whether a point of order can be raised to challenge the bill, all kinds of stuff here. The Rules Committee makes up the rule for each bill as it goes along. See, that's one of the big problems. Well, the House Rules Committee, by the way, is controlled by Republicans. The people who should be against this NDAA, they're the ones in sheep's clothing who are quietly voting for it. Well, big, big problem. So what's the solution?
[00:23:32] Well, the bottom line is contact your U.S. representative today and urge him or her to urge House leadership and the Rules Committee to allow the Massey Amendment and other amendments that would remove this U.S.-Israeli military merger. And if the committee refuses to allow amendments, then vote against the rule again.
[00:23:58] And if the rule passes, then vote against the NDAA until this merger is removed from the bill. Sam? This unconstitutional merger, ladies and gentlemen, undermines American sovereignty and opens the door for Israel to engage us in more wars to advance its murderous impulses. Ladies and gentlemen, we have got to stop this. This is psychotic. It's insane.
[00:24:27] Massey is on point. And the rest of them right now seem to be either not willing to stand up or intentionally selling Massey and us out. For Lone Nelson Campaign for Liberty dot org, I'm Sam Bushman. God save our constitutional republic.