bloomberg news and he is also one of our former presidents. holly johnson is a scheduler for the congressman. todd is the washington chief for the dallas morning news. jeff is the chief of staff for the congressional office. we will skip over the podium for a moment. melissa sharp is with the news media. she is the chair are speaker's committee. we are forever in your debt. danny is a vice president for the public policy wire and he is the member who organized today's yvette. gary howard is the press secretary for the presidential campaign and a guest of the speaker. mike is vice president

welcome and thank you. at the end of the table, mark capscott. please give them a warm round of applause. [applause] our guest speaker today is a member of the u.s. house of representatives, representing the 11th congressional district in texas who announced his run to become gop for president of united states this past july. he is known as the intellectual godfather of the tea party movement. our guest has called for a reduction in government that go beyond those advocated by other conservatives. he wants to abolish most federal agencies including the irs and the federal reserve and returned with monetary -- our monetary system to something akin to the gold standard. he has proposed a constitutional amendment that would abolish personal income, state and give texas, and for that the government from engaging in

business in competition with the private sector. back in 2002, he was among the six republicans who voted against giving president george w. bush authority to use military force in iraq. he says the resolution was unconstitutional because it transferred the right to transport -- to declare war from congress to the executive branch. he has remained a consistent critic of war in foreign lands. in 2010, and barney frank, voted to trim the deficit. he takes a dim view of foreign aid generally opposes u.s. support for the international monetary fund and world trade organization and generally favors the u.s. withdrawal from the united nations. some have said our speakers libertarian beliefs make him an erratic ally of other gop members. he says marriage is the union of one man and one woman. he says everyone is an

individual and should be treated equally. he backed repealed in 2010 of the stature oratory ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military. he opposes abortion. our guest also ran for president in 2008 but he decided this time around to put all his energy in the 2012 race, vowing that he would not -- not seek a 12th term in congress for it arisen from pittsburgh, our speaker graduate from gettysburg college and the duke university school of medicine. he began his medical practice as a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology. he entered politics in 1970 and won a seat in congress and he relinquish his house seat in 1984 and returned to his medical practice. returning to congress in 1997 to represent the 14th congressional district of texas, he serves on the foreign affairs committee and the house financial services committee as chairman of the subcommittee of domestic monetary policy and technology. our speaker is the author of

several books. i will say that we're grateful he accepted our invitation to speak because at the club, we believe it is important that we contribute to a civil discussion of important issues of our day and the election process is chief among them. please give a warm welcome to congressman ron paul. [applause] >> i am pleased to be here and look forward to visiting with you. i want to make one announcement. i'm not very good at marin -- and remembering the details of

campaigns because i get involved in economic policy and foreign policy. i don't talk all lot about the intricacies of the campaign. we just ended a quarter for fund-raising and the report will be out on october 15 but we have sound numbers on the amount of money we collected. i have been told by the staff that we have collected over $8 million and also the number of donors to the campaign now is over 100,000. we're very pleased with that and believe that will give us the energy to keep the campaign moving right along since there is a lot of energy right now with our volunteers and our organization. we have a lot of energy as says it with our young people on college campuses. that will continue. i want to spend some time to start the discussion on economic

policy. in the campaign, economic policy right now is the big issue. the issue of jobs and why we are in recession and what exactly is going on. four years ago, this subject came up and i was talking about being in a recession in 2007 and this was fluffed off. things have changed a whole lot. my feeling about the financial situation in general have all come about where the average person on the street knows there's something very seriously wrong. this is not like another recession. we have had 17 setbacks, recession-types, some more severe than others since we have had the federal reserve system. the idea that the federal reserve is supposed to be the major participant in central economic planning and they are

supposed to give us stable prices and full employment, the evidences out there that they have not done a good job. even though they might give you statistics and say prices are not going up that much, we would like to go -- them to go up faster and only 2% inflation, that is a fiction and most people know it. if you go back to the old calculation of cpi and look to the free-market economist, you'll find that prices are going up at a rate of about 9%. for some people, the economy goes up even faster. the inflation rate is not all the same for all people. if you are a wealthy person, you don't really care about the price of gasoline and other things. if you are living on the margin or you are a retired person, is a serious matter. retirees right now are suffering a whole lot because the last two go-arounds, they did not get a

cost-of-living increase, claiming that there is no price inflation to worry about. my motivation to get involved in politics had to do with economic policy in relationship to the principle of personal liberty. if somebody asks me what my main goal is, it is to restore individual liberty to everybody in this country equally. then he would have a special way of looking at all civil liberties. you have a special idea of what foreign policy we should have but certainly, it would tell us what kind of economic policy we would have. i believe in the free market. i believe the free market is the only humane system that can provide the maximum benefits for the maximum number of people. i reject central economic planning. my whole problem in a political sense is that we are now witnessing the failure of an economic system that has been with us especially since the

1930's. basically, we as a people in our universities, have been taught keynesian economics which is plenty not -- economics and the federal reserve has become the big economic planner. the results in the demonstrations on the streets around the world but here in the united states demonstrates there is a lot of people who are pretty upset and notice something is wrong and want something different. the big goal is to define what and how we get into this mess and what we have to do to get out of it. the whole theory behind free- market economics is that the federal reserve is the key in string for the business cycle. their job is to monkey around and fixed interest rates, the price of money. most people in this country, most economists, conservative or liberal, are no longer pushing wage and price controls. that doesn't mean they would not

try later on because wage and price controls are coming in medicine and that is a problem we have already and will have a much worse. nobody really is out there saying wage and price controls is something that is beneficial. when it comes to fixing the price of money, nobody asks any questions. they just assume that the federal reserve knows what's best. they note the interest rates should be and yet in free-market economics, we have come to understand that prices are key. the price of a product tells the businessman and the consumer what to do. if the price is too high, the consumer does not buy. then the businessman knows what to do. without that, socialism is destined to fail. this is what a free market economist predicted in 1929. he predicted the fault of the communist system before it was really at its best level.

it was yet to come. socialism was explained to never work and it didn't work and we have seen the failure of it. the only question now is whether interventionism which is what we have today, how long it will last. money is one half of every single transaction. yet we don't question the fact that a couple of individuals secretly, 12 people get together and say i wonder what the money supply should be this way. there is a crisis going on. , let's double the money supply. let's decide who gets the belt out. the little people lose their jobs and houses. this is all done behind the scenes for the federal reserve is bigger and spends more money than the congress does. there is no oversight this is one of the reasons for years and years i have argued for

oversight. back in the 1970's, it was henry royce, the chairman of the banking committee and henry gonzales tried to get it done. it has not gotten done but we are making inroads into to the lawsuits that, but due to a very partial audit that we had last summer. we're getting some information but it is not good. the fed was involved in probably about $15 trillion of transactions and 1/3 of it was there to serve foreign banks. when the american people hear this, no wonder they're on wall street raising cain. they know the system is biased against the average person variant i think this is an issue that really questions the whole idea of the interventionist system. my opening remarks, i said the free market is the humane system. it is a humanitarian system. it is the very best and we to

argue for limited government and markets say you guys don't care. the result is that the system we have today whether it is in a recession or the results of a financial bubble, think of the housing programs. we had easy money, easy credit, low interest rates, everybody had a house and not only did the fed make the money available, there were the affirmative action programs telling the bank that had to make bad loans. it seems to work. people were buying houses. it was fantastic. the price of houses would go up and would borrow more. i don't know how anybody could miss it that there was a bubble out there. they continued to do that then the bubble burst. it was predictable by free- market economics. yelling and screaming and scaring people that there is going to be a depression if you don't bailout the rich and the

corporations and the banks and the foreign banks. they did not get the depression. they got the belt out. the fed has $1 trillion worth of securities, these derivative type of securities. why don't they sell them? they are worthless. instead of liquidating debt which is necessary in a bubble in order to get back to grow again, we just transferred the penalties from the wealthy over onto the people. what happened to all the wonderful idea of giving the people house tax bill lost their job here they could not pay their mortgages. they're losing their houses and there is no end in sight. the basic flaw in this is the prevention of politicians from allowing the market to correct because politicians cannot act with him off their they have to do something. were to the 1930's, there recessions and depressions and

it usually can because of the distortion of money and credit and the pyramid of debt. at that time, there was not this keynesian obsession of bailing out people. in 1929, the recession lasted -- 1921, the depuyt -- the recession lasts for one year. in the 1930's, that is when the keynesian interventionists came into vogue in you had to do something. it started with herbert hoover went to roosevelt. it became a depression that did not end until 1947 the idea that war ends depression is an idea still floats around. it gets rid of on plummet but where the people employed? they are getting shot and killed real growth did not come until 1947, after millions of troops came home, the military

budget was slashed by more than half, taxes went down 30% and went back to work. we're doing the same thing that the japanese have been doing for a couple of decades, propping up bad debts and that is the most difficult thing we have to deal with is allowing these mistakes to be corrected. these ideas have floated around a long time and they are connected to those ideas of personal liberty. we should see people as individuals and not in groups. it was mentioned in the introduction about who can and cannot serve in the military. i see those problems we have had in the past as too often we see people in the long ago past, people were mistreated because they belong to certain groups. now we still see people trying to gain advantage.

a person that understands personal liberty cs everybody as an individual and it has nothing to do with the group you belong to. it is a system of thought that is very tolerant. in many ways, the way we look at our first amendment, we are very tolerant about our first amendment in many ways. we say you can say things and the first amendment is there to protect you from controversial things. we don't question the fact that you can study very vicious philosophy sprit think of how many hundreds of millions of people were killed by communists in the 20th century but we don't outlaw that. often people are annoyed when i talk about personal liberty. this is someone might use their personal liberty to practice they have a i don't endorse.

freedom of choice of a dozen other people is not an endorsement. you can read something and you have the first amendment right and that does not mean we endorse those things. if we can allow individuals to pick and choose their intellectual lives and their spiritual lives, why did we get to this point where we are obsessed with regulating people's personal habits and dependent upon the government to take care of us. we have accepted the notion that government can protect us from ourselves. it is very dangerous. it is a careless attitude about civil liberties. we need to, of course, look at other policies. i talked little about the federal reserve and sound money but there are a couple of other reasons. if you happen to be opposed to massive expansion of the government whether it is the entitlement system or the perpetual war as we are in, you cannot be for a gold standard is that the way you finance it. that is the way it has been done

for thousands of years. they have known about debasing the currency on metal. it is not just printing money. it cannot be financed. these wars would never have started if you had to tax the american people. the founders did their very best to try to put the control of us going to war in the hands of the people, never in the hands of the executive branch. yet today, the congress has graciously given up that prerogative in the people don't seem to care they listen to the war propaganda. listen to the war propaganda going on currently. we're of the verge of going to war against other countries in the middle east. we assume that we can drop bombs any place you want any time we want. guess what? sometimes innocent people die

and sometimes those innocent people have families and sometimes they get very annoyed by that. the real irony of this stationing bases with drones around the world, the cia and the 9/11 commission acknowledged the fact that a significant event that helped prompt the 9/11 attack was the fact we had military bases on what was considered holy land in saudi arabia. after 9/11, we took that military base out and the cia has talked about blow back for a long time. guess what? we are loading back the peninsula with these drones and cruise missiles. will that go unnoticed? there are more suicide attacks around the world in one month than they incur in the entire time prior to 9/11. we are under a direct threat

which is dangerous and it will get worse and except in the fact that the president needs more authorities to pursue this undeclared war against everybody anyplace in the world -- the president needs more authority? he can now assassinate people without due process. people cheered this. what is going on with this country? if it would make this perfectly safe and rich in had to sacrifice our liberties, it would be tough but it is exactly the opposite. we are less free and we are certainly broke. these wars have cost us $4 trillion. that is a major contributing factor to our national debt. this is not new. this is what has happened throughout history. empire's get too big and spread themselves too thin are around the world and they self-destruct just as the soviet system dead.

there is no more chance of us having a victory in afghanistan. all we have is a drain on our resources we had a significant group of veterans in new hampshire and many of them had come back from iraq and afghanistan supporting my candidacy. that is one area where i am very pleased to announce also that if you add up all the donations to all the other republican candidates for military activity people, i get twice as much. they are sick and tired of these wars and they know they are not working out. one young man can the other day and he was practically in tears talking about all his buddies that he lost in afghanistan. his concern now is so many of his buddies are committing suicide because of the long-term consequences. what about the 8500 who died,

the 40,000 watts of. injuries, hundreds of thousands pleading for help at the veterans administration and we want to start more wars? anybody who wants to start another war in these conditions needs there had examined. we need our heads opened up. we need our brains opened up. we need to pay little attention to what is going on. that is what we really need. it is going to happen. it is happening economically. that is what the demonstrations on the street are about. one of these days, the people will wake up and connect the excess of spending we do in these wars overseas and our economic decline in this country. i believe very sincerely that we are in a crisis period of time that will be a do-or-die situation. we are at a point where i think

we have essentially, hopefully i'm wrong, essentially crossed the rubicon. we have crossed the barrier from republic to dictatorship, to tierney, to empire. we have our empire. we are in 150 companies, we have 900 bases around the world keeps and people want more war. we have the empire. what about the financing? what happens in a dictatorship? they have control of money and credit. it is a loss of civil liberties. what privacy do we have? they're talking about the institutionalizing -- the government can call up all self was because there is $1 trillion

lira of loans out there to students who will not be a able to pay them. i want to give the telephone numbers to the government so they can bother these kids and ask them to pay their bills. -- they want to give the telephone numbers to the governments of they can bother these kids and ask them to pay their bills. we are in perpetual war. we have essentially lost our republic. this has to be reversed rather quickly. without strict adherence to the rule all block, let me tell you, things go downhill and i believe that is the case. my advocacy is for the cause of liberty, the cause for which america stood at one time, the cause of sound money and free markets and trying to get people to get their courage back again and say that if the government doesn't do it, it

will be destroyed. the government gave us a to everybody and they gave free education to everybody now they are in a dilemma and i have to follow up on the consequences of this. we have lost our understanding your there's a better understanding now of the free- market economist unsound money than ever before. the evidence is quite clear about what the founders were talking about, a non interventionist foreign policy. we cannot solve the problems of the world and we cannot go into nation-building. these fights a been going on for hundreds of thousands of years. we will be forced to make changes. there is no reason that we can cannot make positive changes. we have to change policy. we cannot do the same month salary policy, economic policy, and the same foreign policy. that is just a figment of imagination that if you think you can do this. you can't tinker on the edges. we don't have a budgetary crisis. we have a crisis in what our

understanding of the role -- of what the role of government is. what should the role of government be? is it to take care of us and police the world? is it to protect our liberties and give us some money and enforce contracts and protect property rights. there's a big difference. it is that part that made our country great and prosperous that we are giving up. we are seeing it does appear before our eyes. young people know it. the young people are awakening. they know they need something new and different. they are coming and they are listening and they are studying about foreign policy. they are sick and tired of what they are inheriting. there is every reason for me personally to be very optimistic for the changes that have come about here in the last several years. i will continue to do this. i will continue to do the campaigning and quite frankly, i feel optimistic about how the campaign is going.

thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, congressman. we have a number of questions that were sent in over the internet as well as some members of our audience at the head table. we will sort of died then. i would like to try to translate what you were talking about in your speech to what you might do as president of united states ^ it is certainly one thing to be campaigning for the office but it is another to occupy the white house as president obama has found out very the american people seem to be somewhat dissatisfied with the lack of ability to enact policy in washington given the budgetary process of past several months. you were president of united states and we don't know what the complexion of congress will be -- what of the several steps you would take that parallel the

campaign speech you just gave to attack some of his larger problems? >> in order to get the economy growing again, you have to liquidate the desperate you liquidate the debt by not bailing out these agencies. veto the bills for the congress tries to bail out the special interests as well as curtail what the fed can do in the best and most rapid manner possible for them to get out of the business of taking care of their cronies. this would be a strong message. there has to be a lot of spending cuts as well. i will be proposing in detail a cut in spending of $1 trillion. all this talk about cutting in the future and tinkering on the edges and cutting future increases means nothing and the american people know it. i would propose the cuts will

need to do and guarantee that we would not be abusing the civil liberties of individuals. i would bring the troops home. let us military personnel come back here and start spending their money right here at home which beat -- which would be an economic stimulus. there is a lot a president can do. working with the congress is key. this is where i think he velocity i am talking about brings people together, not by two sides sacrificing their beliefs but i work quite well with progressives and liberal democrats. we have coalitions to prevent the war restrictions we still exist and talk to each other. to get us out of the wars. they protect several liberties and bring people together to realize we have to cut spending. there is no doubt it is a major task. i believe this program has a much better chance of solving

our problems than continuing with the status quo. >> we like to keep our reputation here the national press club. why cannot you outline what the spending cuts are today? if you're going to bring the soldiers home, we have 40 million unemployed people in united states right now, we would like them to be consumers but where will they find jobs? >> bring them home. you don't put them out on the street. i do want to look at example, look at world war ii. there were five or 6 million people that got out of the military. they came home and slashed the military budget like 60% and cut taxes 30%. we finally went back to work again. i would not be frightened by that. if you understand the market, don't have to be concerned.

as far as the cuts, i can talk in broad categories but i want to design a program where you can sit on the line items. ultimately, it frequently happens when we talk about the defense budget, i don't want to cut defense. i want to cut the military. eisenhower tried to teach us something about the military- industrial complex and building weapons we don't use in fighting wars we don't have any business being in. we're not cutting defense there. we have less defense because of that. our coastguard is in the persian gulf. where are the national guard when we need them to help us? they are in afghanistan. i would say you can cut hundreds of billions of dollars out of the military budget. you can cut programs that have

no constitutional authority. where does the authority come to have a department of energy or a department of education or a department of commerce, a department to pass out subsidies to farmers? will they not existed we have free markets and sound money? we have to understand how the markets work and have confidence but the cuts can be there and hopefully in due time, this the service will be there and you can look at every line item we will cut. s canlash the budget 7 -- new canslash you -- ccan slash the budget by 70% if every item is not paid for. whether it is going to war or institutionalizing prohibition, these things we have gone so far from what was originally intended by the founders of this country. >> just to follow up -- when you

have specific ideas of where to cut? when would you have those specific? >> in a couple of weeks, i believe. i am probably more as the seven others. i want to get rid of the debris of education, the department and is the, the department of commerce, the department -- but as a good start and a specific. [laughter] [applause] >> you can stay up. want.t if you you talk about the protests on wall street. what do you see as your areas of agreement with those people? as president, what would you do to ameliorate their concerns since they seem to be very upset primarily with big business and the banks? >> i cannot speak for the people

out there because i don't know who they are at exactly what they are demonstrating against. i can argue the case for their right to express their outrage frustration with what is going on. some are liberals and some are conservatives and some are libertarians and some are strict constitutionalists. if you read carefully a lot of what i have written on economic policy over the last 10-15 years, i talk about this that eventually we will go bankrupt and eventually will undermine our productivity. we have created no new jobs in the last 10 years. we have a 30 million increase in a proper -- population. our jobs will eventually go thee would andpi shrink. -- and the pie would shrink. the practice of civil disobedience is up to the states to deal with. i think civil disobedience, if

everybody knows what they're doing, is a legitimate effort. it has been done in this country for many grievances. some do and that going to jail but to speak for a special group and say i like what they are doing are not doing, i want to sort it out and tell people why they are struggling . the solution is getting a healthy economy. you cannot get a healthy, and to do with the many things i just got done talking about. >> you have retained a solid block of the republican vote in the polls. what you need to push into the top tier? >> i personally plan to do what i have been doing for 35 years and that is talking about the philosophy of liberty and as a program because people need something and i don't like what

they have. i will continue to do that but we will continue to run a very well-run can. we are raising enough money. we're not competing with people who can wave a wand and get money from the big donors. we will continue to do the same but the litmus test is the primaries. we have to prove ourselves in the primaries and that is where we are encouraged. >> are you focusing your attention on the early part of the process? >> yes, i spend more time in iowa and new hampshire, no doubt. >> there is a shift in leadership in the polls so far month to month. there is a seeming yearning for someone else to jump into the campaign. the headlines for the past 24 hours focused on chris christie. how do you explain this yearning

with some voters seem to be engaged in to see someone else jump then? does that say anything about the quality of the people currently running? >> i did represents the failure of the system and what is offered up as the status quo. the candidates i'm up against represent the status quo, keynesian spending and militarism and it does not answer the question. it does not even asked the right questions about what liberty is all about and what about the federal reserve and the change in foreign policy? those questions are not being asked. they keep looking for others. quite frankly, i have an uphill battle. i imagine that everybody in this room knows who won the straw vote in florida. i want to see a hand up the

don't know who won the straw vote in florida. does anybody know who won the straw vote in california? one person. that happens that yours truly won the straw vote in california and -- [applause] it is a non-eve and. event. the documentation of ignoring of me coming in tied for first place a in themes straw vote, we were able to turn around that the exclusion of being tied for first place became an issue and i think we did quite well. i don't lie awake at night worrying about this. that is part of the way the system works. it also explains what if there is somebody out there offering something different, it is up to the american people.

we have to compensate for our ability to get the message out. when i go to a university campus and get 1500 young people out, they have gotten the message because they don't depend on the conventional method of getting their news. they use the internet and they know what is going on and they are giving me a lot of encouragement pinpoint >> is that to say you have a problem with the way the news media is treating your campaign? >> no, i just accepted because that's the way it's been. all politicians have a problem to a degree. yes, if you want to see an explanation, look at the jon stewart. he demonstrated rather dramatically what was going on. yes, it makes a big difference. if we are worth our salt and we can raise the money and we can communicate, i would say for the

most part, i get a pretty fair shake. sometimes, -- i am not the right person to ask why these things happen. i don't have any idea. i think people should be asked why something is news and other things aren't. it is a fact of life. >> you have raised more money than any other republican presidential candidates. you have legions of small donors and supporters. why has that not translated into a better showing at the polls? >> it is a different world compared to four years ago. the fund raising is easier, the support is much greater, the organization is much more organized and much more professional. our polls do not discourage us in new hampshire and iowa and that will be the litmus test.

you have to overcome all the obstacles of getting the message out and raising money. as far as progress is concerned, i am pretty satisfied with the way we have made progress. >> you brought up the issue of fund-raising in your speech and your feeling about that. what kind of a boost will governor rick perry get from raising $7 million for his campaign and would he be regarded as the front runner? >> maybe, but if you get $8 million and you get from small individual donors who are fervently engaged in campaigning for you, that is a little different than getting money that more likely, the special interests for other candidates for it ought to get that type of money. i have been on financial

services for all these years. bankers don't give me any money. i wonder why. they know where i stand. i think it is much different. all donors are not equal. i will take my smaller donations with the enthusiasm of the people who send me the money. >> you raise the issue of raising money -- how do you feel about the way the system now works in the sense that fundraising is such an important part of this. the supreme court did research and out power to corporations that was not given to them in the past for does that make it more difficult for a candidate like you that does not h -- that is not working toward a system like other candidates might? >> probably, but i don't know how important it is. the president says he will raise $1 billion. there's a limit. i look at it on the positive

side. there has been some very wealthy individuals who self-financed and i may win but that might not get reelected. sometimes they don't win some money is not care the only issue. i think the funds are obviously very important. i don't think this is an invitation to say that we have to limit this. i believe in freedom of people to spend their money. many people say is the money that is driving it. it is the power of the government to control our lives and the economy and pass out favors. if you have individuals that might resist the temptation to accept money -- the lobbyists don't come to see me and that is quite a bit different. money is pretty darn important but i don't think it is the

final answer. we have to prove ourselves. >> why is that you receive more donations from military members than any other candidate? is that true? >> that is absolutely true. i mentioned it in the talk. we don't know about this quarter but so far, i have gotten twice as much, more than twice as much money from active military duty then all the other republican candidates put together. that should be a message. also, more than obama got and he is the commander in chief. it tells me that the young military people are sick and tired of the war and want to come home. that is the message i get every single day those numbers are growing.

it is up to us, the people, to look at this as a moral issue and a constitutional issue. if we look at this as a moral issue, and monitor issue, and a constitutional issue, we would not have lost one soldier over there. it is just endless. it is on and on and on. it is because we break the rules. if we were more restrained -- before we went into iraq, i made them vote on a declaration of war. i said i will not vote for this but you want to go to work on a go to war but vote for it. they said they don't want to give this -- they don't want to do this, i want the president to make up his mind. that is an example of the loss of the republic. one of the reasons we fought our revolution and war and the founders of the police said the president cannot go to war this way and look at where we have been very i was in the military for five years during the 1960's. that was not declared.

korea wasn't declared. we only care about national sovereignty. the president doesn't even tell us now. he starts another war in libya and does not even mention it. what is so discouraging is the lackadaisical attitude about the people. that is what i am hoping to change and quite frankly, i think we are changing that. there are polls that show now that a death and a majority of american people say enough is enough. it is time to come home. >> you recently suggested that the killing of suspected terrorists in yemen could be an impeachable offense. this is after you seemed to agree earlier that the u.s. military involvement in libya was along those lines. if that is the case that you say the american people to have the courage of their convictions, why not go ahead and draw up the article of impeachment? >> i would have to do it for

every president i have ever seen very [laughter] cannot follow the constitution and it is a practical matter. there is not going to be an endorsement. nothing will happen. they ask whether it was an impeachable offense and it is. ignoring the fifth amendment and assassinating an american citizen without due process? of a woman tells what the rules are. he is a threat. can you imagine being put in the list because you are a threat? what the media becomes a threat or a professor becomes a threat? sunday that could well happen. this is the way it works. it goes by increments. it is slipping and sliding, let me tell you ve. i would say we should not totally ignore this. we should pay attention to this. >> i'm not sure you answer the

question. if you believe that's the case, when i go ahead and do this? >> it does not accomplish anything because the senate is not there. that would not be achievable. it is more important that we educate the people to understand how offensive this. if there is a consensus, then that will come along. i probably have a coalition of people that would agree with that. many people are having second thoughts about that assassination. this was an announced policy in february of 2010 by dennis blair. he used the word assassination. sometimes they will say that ron paul will call the says the bridge assassination. dennis blair said that is our policy. think of the list we already have at the airports. you are a potential terrorist by

going through the airport and they can violate all your civil liberties for they can put on these lists. how'd you get your name off a list of your a threat? thousands and thousands of people are on these lists. i tried to demonstrate in my talk that we are not say for for it. we are broke and we are in greater danger. p robertaproberts pape was soi studied. he is the expert on suicide terrorism. he says the number one reason on every suicide terrorist attack he has studied, the number one reason why somebody would do it his occupation. we go into various countries and we go in and we invade a country and people get killed and then they should back and

they are all terrorists. therefore we have to expend our war to go after those who are trying to kill us because we are occupying their land. i don't know why we can't think about a foreign policy of good will. , of treating people how you would want to be treated. the golden rule could apply. think about anything we have done other countries over the last 10-15 years, if ever, any country would of done it to us. what if we get poorer and the next 10 years and china starts drawn attacks on a separaus. we cannot allow that to happen. that is was going on today. there is a transition away from protecting personal liberties. i want to protect these liberties. i want prior restraint on the

media, certainly, but i don't want prior restraints on u.s. and individual. why can we apply this whole principle of price restraint, this censorship of a. media we respect that we should do that for all individuals rather than saying he is a threat and a terrorist but we don't have to tell you why we put him on the terrorist list. if there is a reason, tell us. have a trial. the israelis tried adolf eichmann. criminals were tried. there were taken to court. and then executed. there are quite a few examples like thatmcvey is another one. everyone knew he did it. the reason we do this is because we want to protect the rule of law for ourselves. you protect first amendment rights to protect the right to

say controversial things, not to talk about the weather. that is why you have to protect the courts, not because there are bad people. we are protecting it so it does not get out of hand. it is a crucial matter. >> when you talk about the cause of terrorism being the occupation of other lands, how did that fit into 9/11? >>read michael shore and robert pape. >> tell us in 20 seconds. >> the explain the reason for having us on 9/11 or military bases in saudi arabia, there was one, the 9/11 commission conceded that pariba. they said is the constant bombing and killing of many people in iraq for over 10 years which was challenged on national tv to madeleine albright and she

acknowledged that yes, probably 500,000 died but that is the price you have to pay. those are the reasons they gave for doing it. it is very real. another good example of this is when the occupation stops, the terrorist attacks stop. lebanon is a perfect example. we went into lebanon in the early 1980's and we were seen as occupiers. we were attacked and to order 41 marines were killed by suicide terrorists. eventually, we left soon after that and the french and israelis left her there was no more suicide terrorism. it's just stop like that. this is worth looking into. when ronald reagan wrote his memoirs, he said he would never turn tail and run but he did because he had not realized the irrationality of the policies in that region. he said he had been -- he said

if he had followed a policy of neutrality, those marines would still be alive. that took a lot for ronald reagan to admit the shortcomings in this policy. >> before we get to the last question, a couple of housekeeping matters we like to take care of. on october 13, a secretaryray lahood with the department of transportation and october 19, natalie cole talk about the american liver foundation public health initiative h andarvey levin will be here and october 31, one of your opponents, herman cain will join us and he will be followed november 3 by tom brokaw and november 9 by william shatner. we would like to present you with our small thank you give him that is the traditional npb

coffee mug. thank you for being here today. [applause] your son is a u.s. senator and sent the senate is considered the upper chamber, how this is world on the hill different and perhaps better than yours? [laughter] [applause] >> the first day we were sworn in together, we were on the same tv programs and they were poking fun at me. there were saying your son is in the senate and you are in the house. i said that i have already told him that if he does a real good job as a senator and he eventually might be able to get a seat in the house of representatives. [laughter] >> how about a round of applause for our guest speaker today [applause] ? thank you all for coming here today and i would like to thank our national press club staff including our library and

broadcast staff in organizing today's event. you can find more information about the national press club on our website. you want to get a copy of today's program, you contend that atwww.press.org. thank you and we are adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [no audio] [no audio]

[general hubub] [room chatter] [a cacophony of talk]

[no audio] [room chatter] [muted conversatyions] [muted conversatyions] >> robert muller will be