The View From DC — Thomas Massie at the Ron Paul Institute

Sep 17, 2026 · 30:59 ron-paul epstein spending iran surveillance

Conference speech at the 10th Ron Paul Institute gathering in DC: the most expensive House race in history, the Epstein recess, refusing to treat any country as special, and a $40-trillion voting-card closer.

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[applause] [cheering] [applause]
Thank you. [applause] >> I I am sorry I'm a little bit late. I was on the phone with McConnell. We
[laughter] call went about 40 minutes. He said, "We got to quit spying on you all without a warrant. We should quit spending so much
damn money. We got to get out of the war in Iran." And he's really sorry for how my election turned out. No, it you know, in all seriousness,
these people stay in office way too long. I'm going to introduce a term limits bill called three strokes and you're out. [cheering] [applause]
Watch out, Federman's on deck. [laughter] So, I just lost the most expensive House
race in US history, in the history of this country. Um, and I'm pretty happy about it, honestly.
Um what happened is if you just boil it all down, my existence in Congress became intolerable
to the deep state, to just the deep Congress, to everything [applause] because I I achieved a level of
independence, but more importantly, I achieved a level of sentience which is reserved for the permanent staff in Congress.
Uh, you know, every the congressman is supposed to go up there and run from one fundraiser to the next, give you a tour, write a strongly worded letter to one of
the departments over there so they can heat their buildings with our letters. Uh, you know, Congress has become a vestigual organ of the republic. We're
basically on budsman to the executive branch. Uh, Mike Johnson's promise to America was that he wouldn't do a damn
thing unless Trump wanted him to. And so basically, you collapsed two branches of government into one. And honestly, even
if you are a big fan of Trump and everything he's done, that's a great disservice to not put it in legislation. Look, the executive branch is supposed
to enforce the laws, carry out the laws, and the legislative branch is supposed to pass the laws, to legislate, also to do oversight. We're not doing a great
job of that. um when both, you know, I was on the oversight committee once. I've done it well for six or eight years. I've been on the oversight
committee when there's a Democrat in the White House and Republicans in majority. Now, that's fun. Or the other way around, a Republican in the White House
and Democrats in majority. It's the most exciting committee you could be on, but it's the most boring committee you can be on when both party or the same party
is in charge of the White House and the oversight committee, which is where we are right now. There's virtually no oversight. Um, so you know, if Congress
is a sausage factory, I found the sausage machine in the sausage factory and found out how to run
the thing, right? That's why they had to get rid of me. I got on the rules committee. I figured out that it's not about the bills you write. It's about the rules that you write. In fact, my
colleagues maybe one day I'll take some time and try to explain this to them. They have no idea how I passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. They
still don't. [applause and cheering] >> [applause]
>> You know, when I got on the rules committee, I said there there are a few things I'll never do, so don't ask me to do them. I said I will never uh vote to
hide a war powers resolution in the farm bill, okay? Or the manage our wolves act, which they had done twice on Yemen
when brocon and I did war powers resolutions. But I also said, "I will never vote for one of your freaking self-executing amendments." Now, what is
a self-executing amendment? This is legislation that passes itself and nobody has to vote on it. It sounds like black magic, right? But they put it in a
rule resolution that's supposed to the rules are supposed to tell you how long to debate a bill, whether you need a twothirds or simple majority to pass the
bill, what motions are in order while the debate is going on. But they slip stuff in the rules that create entire bills from thin air. And so how did I do
the Epstein Files Transparency Act? I didn't write a bill. I wrote a rule that created a bill by taking somebody else's
bill. Does this sound familiar? Obamacare. [applause] I took a bill that had been sitting
around for nine months and I injected language into it. Um, but to get this to the floor, I had to do a discharge petition.
And when I uh started, a discharge petition is parliamentary procedure where if you can get 218 signatures, auto pins don't count. They all have to
be on the same document. It's really hard to do. It takes time. Uh, it's like, you know, hurting cats to get 218 people to sign this thing. And uh so I
had to do a discharge petition, but it actually I call it the Epstein recess. They shut down Congress for two months
to keep me from getting 218 votes or signatures. And that was last year, but now it's like Groundhog Day. Okay. I
want to if you if you can queue up that video and show it. I've got one audio visual thing here to show you. There's a video that shows you um what they did
literally this week. >> Mr. Speaker, Thomas Massie, Mr. Speaker, Thomas Massie is now alleging that you are going to hold the House in recess until after the midterm elections due to
the Epstein Files Transparency Act. >> So, let me tell you how stupid Thomas Massiey's comment is. If he would come to our House Republican conference meetings, as we had this morning, he
would have heard me say privately, as I've said publicly, "Republicans are here to work. We have a schedule, a calendar that's been out for a year. We are abiding by that calendar. I I we are
going to work all the way through September and every day that's on the calendar so long as people like him don't stop the progress. So that is a nonsensical statement by someone who is
not participating as a full member of the of the Congress. And it it's really sad that he doesn't. >> That was Tuesday. >> Your reaction, Congressman? >> This is Wednesday.
>> Uh I could show you a bunch of clips of things that Mike Johnson has said absolutely are positively true and then they aren't true.
Uh I'm glad to hear that he says we're going to stay here. That gives me time to get 218 signatures. We we're
collecting them. Uh we've already got dozens already. We need to get to 218. So that's good. But I heard him say unless he stops progress. Now what's his
view of stopping progress? Progress to him is making a political statement up here every day in order to put the
Republican party ahead in the midterms. not to actually get anything done. So if I start making real progress and they
don't see a political advantage from their fake messaging bills, he may say that I've stopped their kind of progress
and he could call it off. He also might be talking about other members of Congress who would be voting to take down rules. He's had a hard time. A rule
is the resolution you have to pass before you get the bill passed. and those are usually partyline votes and he's had a hard time getting those passed. He called us off for uh two or
three weeks this summer. He took days off the calendar where I'm sure he thought we were going to be working and he sent us home early because he
couldn't get things passed on the floor and he can't attribute that to me. Look, I'm here to get stuff done. I want to get Epstein Files Transparency Act part
two done and that would be a big win. >> Now, this is Thursday. Republicans are leaving Washington early to focus full
time on the midterm elections. Today, Speaker Mike Johnson and GOP leadership cancelled two scheduled voting weeks in
September, sending lawmakers back to their home districts ahead of November. The early exit follows passage of a continuing resolution that keeps the
federal government funded through December 11th, averting an October shutdown. The decision gives vulnerable incumbents more time on the campaign
trail while sidest stepping contentious floor votes in the run-up to election day. >> Mr. Speaker, Thomas, Mr. Speaker, Thomas
Massie is now alleging [applause] >> I just shut down the government again.
Um, this is why, you know, it's like checking out of the Matrix, right? when you figure out what's it's all fake and gay
and then and then you can pull any lever you want and drive them nuts. Clearly Mike Johnson's losing his marbles over
me this week. Can you imagine when he was sitting in the meeting with his staff and they said, "Sir, you got to go out there and cancel Congress, [laughter]
but I just said I would never do that. Sir, just do it." Um, so it's really it's really above his pay grade if you
understand what's going on in Washington DC. Um, we we've got people in charge of things and you can't see that they're in
charge, but my election kind of showed you who's in charge. The people with the money, the lobbyists are in charge.
Um, and ultimately I'll talk about some of the sins, you know, the greatest of which was committing cander. That's a felony in
Washington DC. But some of the sins that got me unelected, shall we say, uh, but the biggest sin I committed is I refuse
to acknowledge that any category of people or any country other than the United States and Americans is special.
[cheering] [applause] I just said I'm not voting for any wars.
In fact, if you try to start one, I'll try to stop it. And I'm not sending American tax dollars to any country.
[applause and cheering] So for that
I had $30 million of foreign lobby spent money spent against me in an election. The president campaigned against me. The
secretary of war came to my district and campaigned against me all on his own time. We're in the middle of a war. He takes a timeout like in the cartoons.
All the cannonballs stop midair. He goes to Kentucky and he spends the whole day uh you know railing against me
and all on his own time. Uh you know Fox and and it worked. By the way, they created AI ads, artificial intelligence ads. U you know showing me doing crazy
stuff. I'm not going to get into it. Um but people believed it. old people believed it and and they watch Fox News in the
kitchen. They watch Fox News in the living room. In fact, they gave me an idea for my next invention. I'm going to get it so you can watch Fox News on your
CPAP machine. [applause] But I'll insert my own ads. Um, [laughter]
so that was, you know, the foreign I think it was the foreign uh the non-intervention policy that ultimately they said they had to take me out. But I
had committed a few infractions before then. If you remember in 2020 there was this thing called COVID and there was uh 15 days to slow the spread
and everybody was losing their ever loving minds and we got this uh message from the leadership to stay home. was
too dangerous. And they would pass the biggest spending bill in history, two trillion dollars, but it was actually going to be$6 trillion dollars because they're gonna
give some money to the uh Fed to make loans or to Treasury to make loans and so they could leverage all that up to $6 trillion.
And I said, "This is nuts. You got to vote on something like this." So I got in my car and I drove to Washington DC. I started at midnight. It's 450 miles. I
was able to make it before they could open the floor of the house the next day. We don't go by Robert's rules of order. Thank goodness. You don't need a second for a motion.
I didn't have a second. So, like all you got to do is make the motion. They they assume if one person will do it, some somebody among the other 434 feels the
same way and would give you a second. But I had no second to make the motion. But I made the motion that you got to show up that you don't have a quorum.
And um the they hated me for breathing air. Okay. CNN called me the most hated person in Washington DC.
[applause] I I I thought I could trick you into
clapping for CNN, but it is the only time they ever got the news right um that I've seen or when I'm on their
shows. Um so anyways, I I I stood up uh well actually I got a phone call on my cell phone and I looked down and it was
Donald J. Trump and I was sitting on the floor ready to make the motion to to oppose the biggest spending bill in history. I thought, man, I'm really
busy. I'll just let that one go to voicemail. [applause and cheering] He called me three times in a row within 90 seconds.
And I let all three go to voicemail. And then uh because I couldn't take my eye off the ball. I actually think it might have been a ploy to get me to
leave the chamber so they could do it by unanimous consent. But with they yielded some time for debate. By the way, they I forced them to debate it for two hours
and they wouldn't yield me a second. So I went out and I called the White House back and and Trump came on the line. He said, "I'm coming at you like
you've never seen. Never in your life before have you seen the way in which I will come at you. I have subsequently diagrammed that
sentence. Never in your life before have you seen the way in which I will come at you. It's grammatically correct. Um,
I'm more popular than you in Kentucky and you know it. I'm back in your primary opponent and you're going to lose.
And I really did think I was going to lose. Like I'm standing here before you so excited that I got six more years cuz I got 81% in that primary.
[applause] >> So I forced them to vote and they did it anyway. Um another another infraction
against the deep state or the deep congress if you will is uh I voted against the so-called big beautiful bill
[applause] and I didn't just vote against it. That's not enough. I got up and gave a speech
against it. And um when I spoke, I said, "We're not here today rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. This thing is a
debt bomb, right? We are putting coal in the boiler of the Titanic and setting a course for the iceberg." Like, you
cannot Look, I love to cut taxes there. There was actually kind of a bastardized version of a Ron Paul bill in there that I loved and had introduced, which is no
tax on tips and no tax on seniors. Those are both my bills. Okay, they [applause] by the way,
I say they are my bills, but I did some R&D to come up with them. You know what that stands for? Ripoff and duplicate. I used Ron Paul's bills to make those
bills. Okay. So, [applause] I was not excited to vote against this big giant bill that had a couple good
things in it. But we were, my colleagues were standing there saying, you can if you vote for this, um, you know, it's a
good thing, but I stood there and said, I can't lie to you. If you cut taxes and increase spending, you're going to blow
the budget. It's going to be worse than it was. And it has been. And we just hit $40 trillion. And by the way, you got all these senators that voted for the BBB. I have been trolling them hard,
right? They're like, "Oh my gosh, it's $40 trillion." And I reply, "You voted for the big beautiful bill, sir." And
then they get ratioed and then they get the community note on X. It's just been wonderful. Um,
some of my favorite senators I did that too. Um, but you you can't do both, right? You've got because the real tax
rate is ultimately how much you spend. You're going to pay for it one way or another. You're either going to pay for it through inflation when they print
more money to cover the bill. You're going to pay for it in debt. And by the way, there's interest, which is more than $4,000 per US citizen right now per
year. So, if you're a family of six, you got you're just paying $24,000 of your salary is going to interest on the debt.
You're getting nothing from it. But the banks are, by the way, China is too smart to buy our debt now. They're
buying our gold and uh saying, "You can keep the paper. We want the gold." Because four and a half%, you guys inflate your dollars
more than four and a half%. we can't even break even on a US treasury. So you keep those US treasuries, we'll take your gold. Um anyways, uh so and then
the other infraction which I have alluded to already was the Epstein files transparency act which gener generated the release of three million files.
Right. And [applause] there's been accountability
everywhere but the United States, right? Prince Andrew lost his title. The British ambassador to the United States had to resign in disgrace. The former
prime minister of Norway was indicted, attempted suicide. The former uh minister of culture from France has been
arrested. And my favorite one though is the CEO. Remember that organization that said you'll have nothing and be happy about it? Remember that dude? Remember
they said you'll eat bugs and not beef? This and and this was so this was Klaus Schwab's like highest best hire. The CEO
of the World Economic Forum had to resign after I got the Epstein files released. [applause]
>> [applause] >> Let me um and I could go on. There's so much about the Epstein files and we're doing part two right now to give
standing in court to the survivors so they can get their own files which are being withheld. We're giving standing in court to state attorneys general like
the attorney general in New Mexico who wants to prosecute the crimes that happened at Zoro Ranch, but Todd Blanch won't cooperate with him. We're giving him unfettered access to those files. so
you can prosecute those crimes. That is what the next bill will do because I never anticipated after you exposed all this nobody would do anything. Right? So
this this is it's a big deal. Let me you know this is uh talk about Ron Paul who we all dearly love. Um, [applause]
I told you I I admitted to R&D of some of his bills already, ripping off and duplicating. Another one that I R&D from Ron Paul was the raw milk bill.
Uh, [applause] man, this one almost got me in as much trouble as the Epstein files. I didn't see that coming. I I introduced this
bill. I snuck around, got 23 co-sponsors, Democrats and Republicans. I drop this thing in the hopper, and immediately the milk lobby attacks me.
They're like, "Oh my gosh, kids will die. There's not enough emergency rooms in the United States to take care of all the people whose kidneys will fail and
this that and the other thing." And uh my my late wife Rhonda had Google alerts and she was seeing all this and she texted me and she said, "OMG, I didn't
realize the lactose lobby was so intolerant. [cheering] [applause]
So you got to watch out for those Ron Paul bills. U I did a few other of them. Um, but then you know first that's sort
of like in art or in writing you sort of emulate your heroes or people who've done done it well and then you eventually learn to compose or write
your own stuff. One one of the bills that I did write on my own uh was the prime act and I've got Democrats, I've
got Republicans, I got 50 co-sponsors. It right sizes regulations for meat processing. The thing that is in the news I solved 11 years ago if they would
just pass this thing. There's just too many damn meat lobbyists in Washington DC that have been fighting against. But I've got a a pilot program for the Prime
Act in the Farm Bill right now. So [applause] I think I think lunch goes for four more
minutes. So, um, I want to talk about sort of a call to action. You know, I would I've got great operational
security. Like, if people want to know what I'm going to do next, even if they capture me out here in the parking lot and scan my brain, they're not going to
know what I'm going to do next because I don't know what I'm going to do next. Right? I do know what I'm not going to do. I'm not going back to Congress. You can drag me back there with a log chain.
I would gnaw my leg off. Um, I mean, I'm the I guess I'm the the the
litmus test or the prototype for can you fix Congress. I thought if I can win this, yes, you can fix it because what'll happen is you you don't need
more new colleagues. You don't need new clowns in DC. You need them to get a spine. And if I had won, they would get a spine. But
because I lost, that's why there was so much at stake here. They are all hiding under their desks now. U with the exception of a few. Warren Davidson took
a really brave vote the other day. Um [applause] and he plans to come back to Congress,
right? Um Nancy Mace has co has signed on to the Epstein Files Transparency Act part two. [applause]
And let's give let's give Lauren Bober and Marjorie Taylor Green a round of applause, too. [applause]
I told I told Marjorie when I went to visit her after, you know, my election or loss thereof, I said, "Marjorie, you
d you jumped out of the plane. I followed it all the way to the crash site." [laughter] Um but in any case, we both ended up in
the same place. Uh what is the most powerful thing you can do? Well, I look back to CO and we didn't really get out
of CO because we have strong leaders. U we got out of CO because some of you said I'm not going to comply, right?
[applause] And and I think w you know without you
know putting your family in poverty or or whatever I think within the the biggest window you can create for non-compliance you you need to operate
at the edge of that window. Now, for some of you, that's printing a fake vaccine card, right? Uh
or hiring a doctor to miss um with the vaccine. Oops, that went in the trash. Uh and for some of you, it's just
on the plane flight, taking the peanuts, pulling your mask down, and forgetting to put your mask back up. If half the plane does that, like they can't ever
enforce the mask mandate. Um, I don't I still don't have a real ID, by the way. I [applause]
I mean, they they've got so much on me, though, it's not even funny, right? There's three nation states plus our own in this phone. Enjoy the speech. Um,
[applause] [cheering] but if you if you just make it hard on
them and if just like five or 10% of us do not comply and they can't close the loop on the system and make it 100%
compliance, then the system will fall apart. And so, you know, do that wherever you can. Whether it's your finances, whether it's the currency you
use, whether it's how your kids get educated, whether it's where you buy your food. Uh, I had a guy show up. I sold him half a be or no, I sold him a
whole beef and he showed up with a gold coin to buy it. We hadn't talked about the terms of the deal till he got there.
And I was so excited. Then I realized I couldn't make change. So, I'm like, I'm going to sell you a bigger cow. Um, I trade the Amish folks
that uh, by the way, talk about checking out. Those are some real libertarians there. U, [applause]
by the way, I don't I don't claim to be one. I have my favorite shirt is not a real libertarian. If you know, you know, right? But these
I asked the the Amish couple that I get my milk from, you know, the milk mafia. Uh we were talking about inflation
because they have to buy be bleach at like Costco, right? They can't make everything. They still interact a little bit. And I was trying to tell him he needs to raise the price of his milk
because inflation is coming. This was like during COVID. And he said, "I guess you never got those stimulus checks." He said, "Oh, we got the checks."
I said, "What'd you do with them? We burned them. I'm like, what? You burned the checks? You take the
check, they will send you to war eventually. >> So, um, [applause]
those folks understand. By the way, I all during the summer I was trading him peaches for raw milk and it was the best
transaction ever. And one day I showed up and I and I didn't have peaches that week and I said, "I'm I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to pay you with cash this
week." And he looked distraught. "Will you have the peaches next week?" "Yeah, keep your money."
So I just brought him twice as many peaches the next week. Anyways, these are these are examples. Have Have any of you read Brave New World?
>> Okay. I loved that book. But there were there were the people, you know, raised on test tubes and watching feelies and getting graded and trained and, you
know, ratting out their neighbors and whatever. And and then there were the savages on the outside, right? They called them savages. It was a pjorative.
They were probably the happiest people on the planet, right? Um my my admonition to you is be a savage. Be a
savage. Okay? to the extent you can be outside of the wall. I want to leave you with this. Uh I've still got a voting
card for a few more weeks. This is what it looks like. Funny I have to use an ID to vote in
Congress, right? That you don't. Um it's got my picture on it because
congressmen are always losing these at bars and who knows where. Um, but it's it's shaped just like my other cards in my wallet. And one day I uh
very recently I bought a meal and I and I it was dark and I handed the waitress I I thought it was my credit card. It was my voting card and you know there's
some weird looking credit cards these days. So she went she didn't ask about it. She tapped it. She swiped it. She tried chipping it. I could see she was
having a problem ringing up my bill and she came back and said, "Sir, your card was rejected." I said, "Why?" She said, "This one's
already got $40 trillion on it. Thank you and God bless. [applause]
Thank you all very much.

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