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Jan. 6, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
22:43
Karen Kwiatkowski : Whom the Government Chooses to Honor.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, January 7th, 2025.
Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski joins us now.
Colonel, always a pleasure.
It's been a pleasure to work with you in 2025.
A belated Happy New Year to you and your family, and I hope we can continue to work together.
It was great working with you in 2024.
I hope we continue to work together in 2025.
Super. Thank you.
Thank you.
You have an interesting piece out at JudsonApp.com and elsewhere about the people the government chooses to honor.
And I have to get to that piece because some of this is really ridiculous.
But before we do, to some more pressing issues.
The president-elect just held a two-hour press conference at Mar-a-Lago in which he spoke at length.
Obviously, on many different things.
One of them was he would not rule out the role of the United States military in Gaza to extricate the Israeli hostages.
No word about extricating.
There's a hundred of them still living.
No word about extricating the 10,000 Palestinian hostages being held unlawfully by Israel.
How dangerous is the comment?
And you can combine that comment with what he said over the weekend when he said he is Israel's best friend in the world.
Yeah. Well, it occurs to me that if Trump sent American troops into Israel, of course, Israel historically does not want...
We rarely have troops there.
We have contractors there, small units, but they watch us very carefully.
We're not trusted by Israel and they don't want us there and they don't need us there.
But let's assume that what he said happens in some way.
For American troops to see and to work side by side with the IDF and to see what the IDF has wreaked upon Gaza would not be a winning A winning strategy for Israel, and I don't think they would allow that at all.
The United States troops would be complicit in genocide.
Well, we already are.
The whole country is, the taxpayer is, you know, we're paying for every bit of it.
So we are complicit.
My sense is, though, if American soldiers were deployed there, they would have their eyes opened.
In many ways.
And they would not be silent about it.
Because, you know, our view, Americans have a sense of goodness that they aspire to.
We are not taught to hate.
You know, if we find people that hate other people because of their race or gender or anything like that, you know, we condemn that.
We try to avoid that.
And we certainly don't have that as part of something we embrace.
Israel is very different.
Okay, the Israeli, not just the IDF, but the Israel society condemns, is disgusted by the Arabs in general.
They teach that Arabs are subhuman.
Killing a child is killing a baby terrorist.
I mean, this is not something that will fly in any American conversation.
And if our soldiers saw this and experienced this, our sense of support for Israel would increasingly evaporate.
So Trump himself should go there and see it.
I mean, obviously, he doesn't understand.
He's speaking out of...
Ignorance, I think, in many ways.
But I think Israel would prevent this from ever happening.
They do not want Americans to see what they are doing.
I mean, we're all reporters in a way.
And more journalists were killed last year and since October 7th of last year, the year before last, 2023, than any other place combined in years.
I mean, this is a massive...
They do not want visibility into what they're doing in Gaza.
Allowing American troops to assist, to hunt down and retrieve hostages.
No, that would not be something that Israel would allow.
What about air power?
I mean, we already drop 2,000, excuse me, we already pay for the Israelis to drop.
2,000-pound bombs on refugee tents.
And these bombs have destroyed every hospital, every mosque, every school, every bridge, every supermarket, and the whole place.
That's right.
What more can he do?
Yeah. It's really insane that he would...
Well, I don't know where Trump gets all of his information.
Clearly, he is a supporter of...
The Israeli government.
He owes a lot to his election to funding from American Jews.
So this is part of who he is.
Part of his rhetoric is very pro-Israel.
The practical thing is, though, of course...
We are shielded.
Americans are shielded from what Israel is doing in Gaza, what they've done already, and also what they're doing in Syria, in southern Lebanon, potentially in Egypt.
They are expanding in all directions.
They are fighting wars in all directions.
They don't consult with us before they do this.
This is an Israeli decision that we pay for.
They do not want our interference.
What Trump might call assistance and help, and we're going to make this happen, very positive.
That is not something that Israel not only does not want, they will not allow it.
Okay. Israel has conquered parts of Syria and is beginning to treat them as if those parts of Syria are actually parts of Israel.
Who or what is going to enforce international law that says you can't do that?
I don't know.
As long as the U.S. provides veto cover for Israel, which we've been doing consistently for, you know, 45, 50 years, most obviously recently with what they're doing in Gaza, you know, there's nothing that the U.N. body can do if they are constructed the way they're constructed with the veto power that the United States holds.
So everything Israel does is a special case.
In world law, in world justice.
This is what we think is right.
And then we have this special case, which is Israel, which can do whatever it wants, call it anything it wants, destroy anything it wants.
In the long term, this all hurts Israel a great deal.
I mean, Israel has burned every bridge it ever had with the Arab community, its neighbors.
Those bridges are burned.
They're destroyed.
The rest of the world sees, they understand what I'm saying, that the UN is basically objectively powerless.
But what power do they have?
Well, you know, if an Israeli or an IDF member vacations in your country, you can put an arrest warrant out on them, which they have done.
And the Israeli government has been forced to respond by rescuing some of their soldiers from being arrested in places like Brazil.
We know this.
More of that will happen.
You'll see sanctions unilateral.
Sanctions being made by various countries who have had it with Israel's blatant disregard for morality.
So Israel is being hurt by this, but not through necessarily the power of the United Nations.
And, you know, we saw this recently.
Didn't they shoot up a bunch of United Nations folks in southern Lebanon?
And, you know, they fired in.
I think there was a top UN guy in Yemen.
And they fired on the airport when he was there.
So the Israelis have nothing but contempt for the UN, much like many Americans do.
So I wouldn't look there for the solution.
However, the world is very different now.
I mean, every one of us is a journalist and every one of us is an activist.
We can all choose.
We've seen enough of what Israel is doing and how they're behaving that many people are choosing not to be Israel's friend, and that will have an impact.
Unfortunately for Israel it will have a bad impact on the quality of life that Israelis have.
They're concerned about their security, but they're so narrowly defining security that they're getting ready to lose all of it.
Switching gears to Ukraine, General Kellogg, who's president-elect Trump's designated envoy to the Ukraine-Russian conflagration, has been reported as having said,
and nobody's denied it, and I didn't hear the words come out of his mouth, but he hasn't denied it, and the Trump transition team hasn't denied it, that if President Putin doesn't Sit down to ceasefire negotiations.
He, Trump, will send more military aid to Ukraine.
Now, that would require an act of Congress.
The last time Congress voted for that, it said, this is the last we're going to do.
But, of course, that's now with Joe Biden as president.
Can he end this for 24 hours, as he claimed?
And does General Kellogg really help things by saying what he is a...
Yeah. From what I know of General Kellogg, only what I've read, he's an odd choice, I think.
I don't see him as an expert in the region.
I don't think he understands necessarily what's going on.
So I don't know what the benefit was of choosing him.
So Trump chose him.
And if Trump thinks that politically...
You know, does he want to throw away all of his goodwill?
You know, he got a lot of votes from a lot of people in this country because he promised not to expand war.
He promised to reduce war.
He promised to end war.
He promised to put America first.
Now, many people bought into that.
So if his first act out the chute is to, you know, expand the war.
And also, where is he going to get all this?
You know, he's got this one of the very popular.
Aspects of his presidency is he has promised to reduce government waste.
He has promised to eliminate the stupidity of government.
And he's doing that because we have too much debt, unaffordable debt.
So he wants to deal with that.
That is something Americans want him to deal with.
Sending more weaponry that we don't even have and more cash to corrupt little wealth.
The corrupt, unelected leader.
He's currently not the elected leader of Ukraine.
Zelensky has, I think he's a year or so past the election that he suspended due to martial law.
So, no, this is not something Trump's supporters want.
I don't know exactly.
I'm not inside of Trump's head.
I don't know what makes him say the things that he does.
If he's a populist, he will not do this.
If he is a typical American president, he may well do this.
Well, he has indicated an intention to surround himself with neocons and Zionists.
I mean, the most libertarian person around him is Tulsa Gabbard, and even she is an ardent Zionist.
The others don't even make a pretense to being interested in peace.
Mike, Waltz, Pete Hegg, Seth, Marco Rubio.
These are classic neocons who are in favor of shooting first and asking questions later.
So I don't know where this is going to go.
The American public elected him overwhelmingly because they want peace.
And now he's talking as if he personally is going to extend the war in Gaza.
And his emissary is talking as if he personally is going to extend the war.
Do you think that, talking about Ukraine, a lasting peace between Russia and the United States is even feasible with this mindset, establishing foreign policy, with American school children growing up to be American adults taught to hate all things Russian?
Yeah. Hard to say.
I think one thing that Trump is in agreement with And it's, there's a whole, a lot of people in Washington agree with him and a lot of his supporters agree.
And that is that we have to remain a top dog world power.
And we need to have captive markets for the things that we produce.
So our raw materials, our energy, obviously, and our military production, which is, you know, we've invested in it, if you can call it investing.
We certainly spent a lot of money.
We have a big defense industry.
He wants to sell these things.
He wants to sell these things to people that will pay the price that he wants to charge.
Well, you know, this is a big reason.
This is why Nord Stream was blown up, but it's a big reason why Ukraine was pimped out, really, to fight Russia, to cause a problem.
You know, we wanted to eliminate Russia as the energy supplier for Europe.
That is a consistent objective across late Obama, Biden, Trump.
This fundamental thing that we want or that Washington wants has not changed.
And for Trump to embrace that, I can see why he thinks of this.
He's thinking of everything as a business, but he doesn't understand the free market.
And I think we see that also with his adamant emphasis on tariffs.
We haven't even talked about tariffs.
I mean, tariffs have put everybody that works at Walmart out of business and would deny everybody that wants to shop at Walmart the less expensive goods that they know they can get there.
Yeah. We'll see what happens.
But what did Joe Biden do the other day that got you so exorcised?
Oh, well, it's just interesting to see the array of people that received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
And, I mean, we've seen it before with those medals.
They are given to all kinds of people.
And it's just irrelevant.
It is such a stupid award that I would only recognize somebody who...
Refused it publicly, and people rarely do that.
In fact, I don't know anyone who's refused the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
There may be some person that has done that, but all of them should have refused it.
First off, Presidential Medal of Freedom, it connects to nothing, especially when you look at Soros and Hillary Clinton as the awardees.
They're pretty much high-profile people that hate freedom, hate liberty, and hate the Constitution of this country.
So why would the president reward him?
Well, we know why.
We know why he rewards it.
It's political.
So, you know, you've got that.
You've got your...
Oh, there were so many different ones.
George Soros.
Why would you honor George Soros, the quintessential billionaire lefty in America?
That's right.
Well, I mean, he has paid for many Democratic candidates to win their elections, both by donating and by facilitating the media story around those candidates.
He's done a lot to elect Democrats, there's no doubt.
And certainly in our legal system, he has done a lot to elect attorneys general.
And other prosecutors in large Democratic cities.
And we see the results.
They aren't good for this country.
Even the people in those cities are rejecting the kind of philosophy that Soros stands for.
So, you know, it's just ludicrous.
And it's like anybody, even a Democrat, even a Joe Biden fan, if there are any.
Such creatures in this country that really admire Joe Biden have to look at the list of recipients and wonder what is going on.
Now, granted, we know that he's not fully functional, but this whole award, I advocate that it be eliminated.
We certainly don't want to spend a penny for this.
It is such an embarrassment.
Something like that gets media coverage.
The president is hanging fake medals around the necks of famous civilians for this and that.
The whole world looks at that and they see the hypocrisy.
It's just one more thing that makes America look stupid.
Producer Chris reminds me that Bill Belichick, the greatest NFL coach in history, recently retired head coach of the New England Patriots, now coaching a college team in North Carolina, was offered the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Donald Trump shortly after January 6th.
In 2021, and he turned it down, stating Trump's involvement or Belichick's perception of Trump's involvement in January 6th was the reason for it.
Wow, I forgot.
I forgot about that.
That's good.
Well, one guy that should have refused it.
Very obviously is Jose Andres, the cook who's in charge of World Central Kitchens.
You know, he's lost 10 people to IDF strikes, and they weren't accidental strikes.
He lost, I think, seven in the spring, and then in November, three more of his people were killed, along with other people that were with him.
And all he got was empty apologies from no one, really.
I mean, no one apologizes for that.
No one really cares.
And he understands what's going on in Gaza.
His company, his nonprofit, he's been there.
He's trying to help.
His nonprofit is being attacked by our weapons and our money.
The president has attacked his people.
Why? Why would Jose bow his head to have a medal put around his neck?
Why? It makes no sense.
And people need to get a little bit more brave and angry.
And I'll give you an example.
My son talked to me this morning about, he was at Trader Joe's, eggs.
The price of eggs was $8 a dozen.
And there was a guy there and he started, he had a meltdown in the store.
He was very angry about the $8 a dozen eggs.
Well, we need more of that.
When you see something that doesn't make sense, that doesn't serve your needs, it's probably because of the government.
Let's act on that.
And Jose had a great opportunity because people would have paid attention.
They would have understood.
And it would have made a point.
And instead, he showed up like all the rest of them and accepted this.
It's not something that...
It just makes us look bad.
It makes us look bad, and it cultivates a kind of submissive attitude towards the president of the United States.
You know, it's one of these things that presidents gave themselves the authority to do it.
This is done by executive order.
They have a slush fund, whatever it costs.
I don't know how expensive these awards are, but they're not...
So, we have a clip.
Of Chef Andres from April of 2024.
Let's see it, Chris.
What I know is that we were targeted deliberately, non-stop, until everybody was dead in this convoy.
This happened over more than 1.5, 1.8 kilometers.
So this was not just a bad luck situation where, oops, we dropped the bomb in the wrong place.
Or no, this was over 1.5, 1.8 kilometers with a very defined humanitarian convoy that had signs in the top, in the roof.
That cannot be the role of an army.
That cannot be the role of an army that has hundreds of drones above Gaza in any single moment.
The humanitarians and civilians should never be paying the consequences of war.
This is...
Wow. That's pretty powerful.
Wow. And he was speaking about and to the man who, nine months later, would tie that award around his neck.
Wow. Cameron, thank you for pointing all this out.
Thank you for all the work you do.
Thank you for the time you share with us.
My dear friend, we look forward to seeing you next week.
Okay, me too.
Thanks, Judge.
Sure, all the best.
Coming up at 4 o'clock this afternoon Eastern, the always worth waiting for, Colonel Douglas McGregor.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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