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Nov. 5, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
28:08
LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : Does It Matter Who’s President?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, November 5th, 2024, Election Day here in the United States.
Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski will be here with us in a minute on, does it even matter who's President of the United States?
And we will talk about the latest dramatic developments in Israel.
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Karen Kwiatkowski, Colonel Kwiatkowski, a pleasure, my dear friend.
Welcome back.
I want to have sort of a big brain conversation with you, since you have a big brain, about whether voting is a fraud and whether it really doesn't really matter who the president is.
Don't the essential parts of the government stay the same?
And I think we probably agree on that.
Notwithstanding the vast difference in personality and talent of the people that often run for office.
But before we get there, the late breaking news out of Israel is twofold.
One, BB-gate, which is the scandal involving the release of highly classified documents by somebody in Prime Minister Netanyahu's inner office, who since has been arrested and been denied bail, documents that make Prime Minister Netanyahu look
But first, on the firing of Gallant, do we care?
Is this just a domestic Israeli political issue?
Or is this something that could affect United States involvement in a potential war against Iran?
Yeah, well, we do have to care because we're so invested in Israel.
Our government is so either pulled by Israel or tries to push Israel.
You know, we're connected to Israel.
Our government is anyway.
So, yeah, that's important.
And Gallant was a key player in...
We know that.
Now, as far as, you know, he's the same party.
He's Likud, just like Netanyahu, pro-war.
They have a difference of opinion, personality clashes, but also a difference in opinion on how to get themselves out of this war that Israel has gotten themselves into.
You know, it started off pretty easy, right?
I mean, how many times have they destroyed Gaza?
You know, gone in there and trying to clean it up, so to speak.
Murdering and massacring, you know, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people each time.
Every couple, three years we see this, you know.
And between that, of course, you've got the restraint of trade, of food, limitations on concrete, you know, all these things to control Gaza.
So it started out, oh, we can do this.
We've done this before in Gaza.
But now it's expanded to everywhere.
Southern Lebanon, West Bank, Syria.
It's approaching seriousness with Iran.
So it's a big deal for Israel.
Israel stands to lose a great deal.
Let me just stop you for a second, Karen, and we can talk over this.
We're going to show you a shot.
This is a live feed from Reuters via Reuters YouTube channel of demonstrations outside of the defense ministry.
You can see fires.
The smoke that you see is from a fire, but the fog that you see is from a tear gas that the Israeli police have fired at these demonstrators.
Adding to all of this is an order by the Netanyahu government that the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox shall be drafted.
This was a decision.
Forced upon Netanyahu by a six-to-one vote of the Israeli Supreme Court.
This is not something that he wanted to do, and this, of course, goes against the grain of the wishes of his far-right partners in his government.
So I think you're right in what you're saying.
According to the Washington Post, Foreign Minister, now former Foreign Minister, or Defense Minister Gallant, has spoken to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin 70 times.
They have developed an excellent relationship.
He is the go-between between Netanyahu and the IDF.
He has a bad relationship with Netanyahu, obviously, but an excellent relationship with the IDF.
He's a former general himself.
I don't know if Israel Katz, who was, until a few minutes ago, Was the foreign minister and is now his replacement at the defense minister shares the confidence that the IDF had in Gallant.
So I don't know where any of this is going to take the Israelis.
Netanyahu has nine lives like a cat and he's under tremendous pressure to do something for the hostages.
Because one of the reasons that Gallant wanted to dial back some of the military activity was to enter into a ceasefire to get the hostages home and Netanyahu refused to do it.
Yeah, I mean, and Gallant in caring about the hostages and not caring as much about Bibi's legal problems, you know, he puts in a sense, they're both Likud, they're both warmongers, but...
So you have an example of the Israel first guy, the people of Israel, the hostages.
He got fired.
We're witnessing a political internal conflict in Israel in this pressure cooker.
Netanyahu may have nine lives, but I think he's used to at least eight and a half of them already.
So I think this is not a good thing for Israelis.
And again, you mentioned the drafting, the legal ruling to draft the Orthodox.
You know, this is a big issue.
And why would the pressure be there to do that?
Well, the IDF needs soldiers.
Why?
Because they're fighting a six-front war.
And they're using their military, their young military.
It's an investment in Israel that they don't see, you know, saying, is this shared?
Is this shared by the Orthodox?
A huge issue, a huge internal issue for Israelis to determine.
Now, if Israel was a country that didn't depend on the United States for just about everything, unfortunately, and we and Congress didn't depend on Israel for just about every election that they have, if that wasn't the case, this would not be a big issue for us at all.
This is an internal problem, a political evolution in a time of conflict.
It would be considered conflict rather than war.
But for the fact that the U.S. is so, so, so embedded with everything that Israel does, and Israel is embedded with most of American foreign policy.
That's the problem.
This wouldn't be a problem if we followed George Washington's, you know, advice to avoid entanglements.
with other countries.
Right, right.
And of course...
Our colleague Matt Ho, who was on right before you, points out that the Israeli Air Force flies American F-35s.
These things cost $200 million each.
They are the instruments from which missiles were fired at Iran 10 days ago, which if you listen to General Jack Keane on Fox says has left Iran naked, and the Wall Street Journal says the same thing.
But if you listen to all other media, they didn't lay a glove on Iran.
There's no evidence whatsoever to support what General Keene said.
Yeah, there's two squadrons of the F-35s in Israel, and contractors, American contractors, operate a lot of the logistics in place there.
And then a lot of the rest of it is done back here at home.
So that's another, you know, we talk about the recent deployment of those radar, defensive radar systems, or the FADs, rather, the defense systems.
The F-35s have been there for a long time.
It's a long relationship.
And again, the F-35 runs at a...
about a 32% operating rate, right?
It's not...
Yeah, there you go.
Perfect.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Here's General Keene on Fox.
Cut number three.
Military effects of that strike.
It's beyond what's being reported because they have literally taken down most of the Russian air defense system, the so-called S-300 missile defense systems that the Russians gave them years ago.
And that's what's really protecting their nuclear enterprise, their oil and gas industry, and other key strategic assets like the missile production factories that the Israelis did destroy at multiple sites.
Those are ballistic missile factories, by the way.
So yes, this air defense system destruction is really powerful because Iran is sitting there essentially naked.
*music*
According to Alistair Crook, Scott Ritter, Matt Ho, there is zero evidence to support General Keene's last conclusion, which is that Iran is sitting there essentially naked.
I saw when this storyline of huge damage to Iran, everything got through.
It came kind of after the more immediate reports of, you know, they put up some good defense, the Iranians.
And so it seems like something they kind of pulled out.
I didn't find it believable, but I don't know where Keane is getting his information.
But I'll tell you.
Listen, I've known Jack for years.
We worked together at Fox for a long time.
He does work for an NGO, which is funded by the Defense Department.
Okay.
And where is this coming from?
this is another one of netanyahu's false narratives according to alistair he thrives If you ask him, they won the war in Gaza.
Well, let's see.
Have they crushed Hamas?
No.
Have they secured the release of living hostages in significant numbers?
No.
Not at all.
And, you know, it's election week when this came out, too.
And it's a soothing type of a message for the American audience in particular.
Oh, it's all good.
Israel's being totally successful.
This war will be over soon.
Whatever, whatever.
Yeah, I don't, you know, again, it's the Democrats are worried about misinformation and narratives and things like that.
And we all need to learn from that.
And we all need to be aware of the.
You know, the amount of misinformation that comes out of our own government.
Right.
Back to the firing of the defense minister.
This is from John Kirby, whom we like to mock as Baghdad Bob.
But this is a serious statement.
Minister Galant has been an important partner on all matters related to the defense of Israel.
As close partners, we will continue to work collaboratively with Israel's next minister of defense.
That's from John.
Kirby.
According to Alistair Crook, when the Israeli fighters, the jets, the IDF, the Israeli pilots flying American jets, confronted this missile resistance in the form of radar, they didn't understand.
They turned around and went home because they couldn't confront.
Something they didn't know.
Now, maybe they did this to tease out this system so they could experiment with it.
They had a second and third wave planned, and the second wave was canceled, and the third wave was canceled, and the first wave was canceled halfway through.
The Israeli media reported an unknown Iran air defense systems, probably that S-300 or S-400, that the Russians gave them.
Isn't voting basically a fraud?
Doesn't the culture stay the same?
Will the military-industrial complex still be triumphant whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris picks the next secretaries of state and defense?
Yeah, for the most part, it will.
I mean, the one thing that gives people hope, and I think this is why people that...
It's because they hope, they hope, against evidence really, that Trump has learned how to handle this part of the government, this sector of the government that really runs things.
And it's a hope.
And I know in your LER ad, there's hope is not a strategy.
You know, it's tough.
It's tough.
I don't know.
But he did, you know, when he said over the weekend, I know he says wacky things, but when he said he would consider Mike Pompeo or Tom Cotton as Secretary of Defense, I thought to myself immediately, World War III, here we come!
That's right.
And that is, you know, you really have to ask yourself why he would bring up those names.
I mean, clearly he is working with people like Tulsi Gabbard, RFK, to some extent.
Elon Musk.
Elon Musk knows people.
Why would he toss a bone to Pompeo, the supreme flatterer, just an evil, evil person?
And Cotton, useless, completely useless in terms of defending this country.
And I will extend that to, I know he's a military guy, but I'm sorry.
He's done very little.
And he would not be worthy of an appointment.
Based on his merits, but he's also a neocon and a vocal neocon.
So why would he throw these bones?
I don't understand.
I don't understand it either.
He had such a horrible time with John Bolton, he eventually fired Bolton.
Bolton is the prince of the neocons, you know, along with Lindsey Graham.
Why Trump would listen to Graham?
Why Trump would have Bolton in his...
I mean, somebody like Colonel Douglas McGregor or Professor Jeffrey Sachs or Professor John Mearsheimer, Trump wouldn't go near them.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's hard to read what it is that Trump is doing.
And, you know, he does say many things.
He talks for a long, long time and he says lots of crazy things and entertaining things sometimes for some audiences.
He says a lot of stuff and you can pick these things out.
You have to wonder in what context.
Did he not read Pompeo's book where Pompeo talked trash about him?
Cotton has never been a Trump supporter.
Expanding this conversation to beyond defense.
Whoever wins tonight or tomorrow or whenever we know the outcome, let's play safe and say January 20th of next year.
Won't the U.S. continue to fund genocide, spy on all Americans, increase the debt by a trillion dollars a year, and marginalize people like you, McGregor, Ritter, Neersheimer, Sachs, and me?
I think Washington, D.C. will continue to do those things.
And if Trump selected Washington, D.C. and the media, the mainstream and legacy media will still do that.
But the real thing that I think is interesting, and this is, other people have written about this, and so I know when I wrote, I'm seeing other people say similar things from a different angle.
The political culture in this country.
Has shifted.
The parties are both collapsed.
They don't stand for anything, really.
It's candidates like Trump and candidates like Harris, who, you know, not overly impressive in a lot of ways, but kind of an icon of what people wish maybe things could be like.
But the people behind them is what matters.
And the people who have adopted Trump or are willing to support him.
In spite of many things they disagree with.
And I've noted one thing that many people disagree with Trump and they're still supporting him.
So he is reflective.
His candidacy for all of its faults is reflective of a real, I think, cultural shift that is happening.
And it's been happening because...
The stupid things that we've been doing, and that includes the debt, and that includes the attempts to control our free speech and regulate it and take our guns and a whole bunch of things.
Take our property, kill our squirrels.
All the things that the government is doing, people are pushing back against it.
You have written recently in your column at JudgeKnapp.com and LouRockwell.com and elsewhere.
That the government is the enemy of the truth.
Now, I love that phrase.
Can you expand on that, Karen?
It's government worthy of belief in America.
It isn't.
It isn't worthy of belief.
And both sides of the political spectrum agree with this.
Because when Trump is elected, or if he is elected, everything he says will not be believed by the people that hate Trump.
And if Kamala is elected, nothing she says will be believed by the people that don't like Kamala.
So we have already achieved, we the people, have already achieved a certain level, not just of cynicism, but really doubting our government, doubting its intentions, doubting its words.
And this is healthy.
This is good.
This is American.
Because we didn't come into this world as a little country, you know, independent.
By accepting what our central government told us.
We came into this world because we rejected it.
We said these people have their own interests.
Those interests are not compatible with my interests, with our interests together as a people.
So we're seeing what I call central state rejectionists and also central people who question the D.C. They question the state.
Protesters and state questioners.
And that's a whole new party.
And that has people from all of the previous parties.
You know, when Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress and famously or infamously, however you want to look at it, got 58 standing ovations.
Beyond dispute, the longest standing ovation was when he condemned demonstrators outside the building.
He was condemning Americans for exercising the freedom of speech and the American Congress, which took an...
That's right.
And they are identifying themselves with our enemy.
So D.C. is our enemy.
Now, I've always thought that.
But the evidence is piling up and a whole bunch more people think that.
And if they don't articulate it, they still feel it.
They still feel it.
So those changes are real.
And they started even before Ron Paul, but they certainly But this messaging, and even Ronald Reagan said these things, you know, about small government.
Now, he didn't do those things, but he talked about them, and they were appealing to a bunch of people.
And then you look at our younger generations, and we worry about them for a lot of reasons.
But our younger generations are not people who easily believe whatever they're told by authority figures.
This is wonderful.
This is an excellent thing.
I'm not so worried about who wins.
Obviously, I think a lot of things will stay the same.
But we the people are shifting and changing.
We are becoming more reality aware.
We are more likely to believe our government is lying to us.
Because why?
Because our government is lying to us.
And we have evidence of that repeated daily.
Every minute we get new evidence of it.
I think I can trust the people of this country.
So regardless of who wins, and the point of the essay this week, really, is if Trump's people, let's say his large body of support, if Trump himself does not prevail, what will his supporters do differently in their lives over the next four years?
They're going to live their lives, just like they're doing it right now, in a way that doesn't trust government, empowering themselves, making up their own minds.
Being as fiscally conservative as they can in order to survive and expecting their government and their congressmen, who will be facing them repeatedly, expecting their congressmen to do the same.
You know, I think Massey is our future model of a great congressman, and I think we're going to see people come to Congress that are like Massey.
Thomas Massey is the Ron Paul.
Of our day.
He is absolutely the most faithful to the Constitution in the Congress.
Thomas Massey introduced legislation to prohibit members of Congress and public officials in the federal government from having dual citizenship.
That's right.
They won't bring it to the floor for a vote.
Of course not.
you wonder who has dual citizenship.
The only one we know about is this fellow Amos Hochstein who was born in Israel and then became Makes you wonder where his loyalty is.
Chris, let's dip in and take a look at the demonstrations outside the defense ministry in Iran.
It looks like the tear gas has succeeded in dispersing them.
It's hard to tell what time of day it is there because they have floodlights on them.
I'm sure this is live, so it's the middle of the night there.
As we speak, I guess we won't know the full story, Karen, on the firing of Gallant and on the release of these top secret documents for a while.
Here's what Prime Minister Netanyahu said at the height of a war, complete trust is needed between the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister.
In recent months of that trust between me and the Defense Minister, Chris, do we have the one that rips into Netanyahu?
Take to the streets, tweets the chairman of the Democrat Party.
This is the Israeli Democrat Party, Yair Golan.
I call on all heads of universities and all heads of colleges to spend studies.
I call on all the heads of the economy, stop work.
I call on all the heads of the security forces, raise a cry, even now while you're in uniform.
I call on all citizens of Israel, take the streets.
Netanyahu is destroying Israel, and only we can save it.
That's a minority view, but it's not one we've heard articulated that forcefully.
Sometimes, Karen, I think Netanyahu is his own worst enemy, don't you?
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Well, like all of us, like all people, he sees his own problems first.
They're closest to him.
He can't help, but he has a lot of problems, many he's brought on himself.
And so he's worried about his own, he's always been, we know this, about his own political career and his post-political jail term that is pretty well coming.
So it taints his ability to lead.
And, you know, it's funny, though, to hear what Golan, to see what Golan wrote and advised people to do compared to those, how many?
50, 47 standing ovations in Congress.
It's very interesting.
And again, I like to see obviously peaceful protests, but I like to see people think about what's important to them and act on that.
And they're doing it there.
We should, you know, this is how cultures change.
And they're not worried about us.
Those people on the Reuters feed.
They're not worried about us watching.
They are caring about their country and trying to see how they can get to a better future.
And that's great.
That's great.
I have more power to them.
We need to do the same.
Karen Kwiatkowski, thank you, my dear friend.
Always a pleasure.
I'm sure you voted already, knowing you.
I did.
We'll talk to you again next week.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Judge.
Sure.
Coming up at 4 o 'clock on all of this and more because of some insight he has.
On Ukraine on the thinnest of ice, Scott Ritter.
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