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Feb. 3, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:50
Larry Johnson : Does Trump Know What He Is Doing?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, February 3rd, 2025.
Larry Johnson will be here with us in just a moment, but first this.
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Larry Johnson, welcome here, my dear friend.
Hi there.
Do you think that the Trump administration understands Economics 101, that a tariff is a tax on the consumer?
Well, yes and no.
It's a tax on the consumer, but it also puts money in the Treasury.
So, in the short term, it's going to actually reduce...
Albeit, you know, a small amount, U.S. debt.
So that'll look good on the U.S. balance sheet.
But, as you correctly note, it's also a tax.
And, you know, I use the example of tequila coming out of Mexico.
You know, so if you're going to buy a bottle of, let's say, Tres Amigos, which, say, right now goes for 40 bucks a bottle of total wine.
A 25% tariff means you're going to pay $50 for that.
Now, that additional $10, that goes into the pocket of Uncle Sam.
So, it gets back to, how much do you need that bottle of tequila?
You know, are you willing to pay the extra $10 or not?
And it's, you know, once that $10 is built in, then, you know, the cost is built in all along.
Well, extrapolate that out to Walmart, where half the products they sell are made in China.
That's going to put people out of work, as well as increase the price of those products.
Potentially. Again, with the tariffs on China, they're only at 10%.
But I think all of this is part of a negotiating ploy by Trump.
And we saw this morning, as it's already worked with Scheinbaum, the president of Mexico, She got on the phone with Trump and begged, and hey, put it off for one month, so Trump's agreed for one month, and the Mexicans are going to immediately deploy more troops to the border,
and they pledged to stop allowing fentanyl to get into this country.
Part of this whole issue of fentanyl is a synthetic narcotic.
And there is a very close relationship between Chinese criminal organizations and Mexican criminal organizations in the movement of those synthetic narcotics.
These synthetic narcotics are going to come in as long as there's a market for them.
Absolutely. And it's going to continue killing Americans at a horrific rate.
Correct. So this is the best way, I think, to look at these tariffs.
I guess guacamole during the Super Bowl was saved.
Well, as long as those avocados, the agrocates, as long as they come out of California, you're good to go.
Yeah. You know, when Trump makes these threats like...
Oh, Vladimir Putin is not doing a good job, and the Russians lost a million troops in Ukraine, and the Chinese are controlling the Panama Canal.
How does the Kremlin view that stuff?
Do they view it as he doesn't know what he's talking about, or do they view it as he's got a very narrow audience he's trying to appeal to, and we are not in that audience?
No, I think they view it as he's not reliable at this point, that he's going to say a variety of things that he may not really believe.
So they're looking more, I think the Kremlin view is much more concrete.
What is the United States going to actually do?
Are they going to continue to flow money into Ukraine and encourage attacks on Russian targets?
You know, what they're seeing right now, what's happened over the last three or four days with respect to curtailing the Agency for International Development Funds has been a real eye-opener because, one, It's exposed the press in Ukraine as being entirely funded by the United States.
Right. You know, it was previously perceived as all of some, what remained of independent press, but in fact, it was all on the payroll of AID, which has frankly been working in tandem with CIA.
It's actually been an open arm, an open source information arm of the Central Intelligence Agency's Covert Action Program.
It has played an instrumental role in trying to spark color revolutions in Georgia, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia.
I mean, it has just been relentless.
Man, it's been shut down.
How does the CIA react when they get exposed like this?
Well, this is like the cockroaches in your kitchen at night when you flip on the light.
They go scurrying for cover.
You know, they've been the major source of the funds that have enabled this flow of illegal migrants that were showing up in Panama and then working their way up the isthmus, up through Central America, through, you know, Honduras, Guatemala,
then into southern Mexico, crossing Esquipulas, and going all the way up through a variety of towns, you know, like Brownsville, Matamoros.
Shutting this down, I didn't realize how big the budget for AID had become.
And you remember, during the 1960s, AID was seen as a counterweight to Soviet models of development.
It was supposed to promote community development.
There was an economics professor way back then called Walt Rostow, who was also an advisor to John F. Kennedy.
And Rostow had published a book called The Five Stages of Economic Growth.
And it was a vision of how capitalism was going to outcompete the Soviets.
And AID was an essential part of that.
And I do recall, you know, my master's degree was in a field called community development.
And one of my instructors at the time was, I came later to understand, had been a central intelligence agency officer.
But he was...
Undercover in the Agency for International Development.
No surprise.
Are you surprised that Trump has kept the Biden pipeline of military supplies to Kyiv open?
Well, I'm not sure.
You know, they have not made any overt move to shut it down.
No, if it had been shut down, Zelensky would be screaming like a stuck pig.
Well, he is screaming like a stuck pig if you've listened to him over the last couple of days.
You go, oh my God, $177 billion.
We only got $77 billion.
Where's that $100 billion?
He's already screaming about cash, but he's not screaming about the absence of artillery shells and equipment.
Well, because they've got a personnel problem right now.
They have gutted.
So the United States trained.
No, but my point is...
Trump could stop the war in Ukraine with a phone call.
I realize he's only been in office for a few weeks, but it's still going on.
Yeah, we're right at two weeks, you know, 14 days since he took the oath of office.
What is, I think...
It's only been 14 days he's done so much.
It seems like it's been a month.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Think about that.
He is, I think he's taking a backdoor strategy that, you know, this...
Cutting off the AID, cutting off that source of fun as a way to start draining Ukraine and then sending the other signals that he has been.
Oh yeah, Ukraine, they've got to have elections.
And Marco Rubio and his various discussions with Europeans, they're not talking Ukraine at all.
Or if they are, it's only peripherally.
So the message is getting sent very loud and clear to Zelensky that...
The flow of military aid, whether it's artillery shells, that's even limited because the United States does not have ample stores to send.
So this war is in its final stages.
You mentioned Rubio.
What's the message to Rubio that the first foreign head of state to visit Trump...
Is Prime Minister Netanyahu tomorrow?
And Rubio's in Panama trying to shake down the government over the canal rather than participating in the negotiations with Netanyahu.
Oh, no, he'll be back up tonight for the Netanyahu visit.
He finished up, you know, they've got a tentative deal with the president of Panama where they say, okay, yeah, we'll terminate this contract that we've had with the Chinese for 30 years.
Next year, we won't renew it.
Well, okay, so they don't renew that contract.
It remains to be seen.
Who then comes in to manage those container ports?
And if the Chinese say, okay, you're telling us to go home, we're going to take our equipment, including the cranes.
We're going to pull that out.
Well, how can you operate the canal without all that equipment?
Exactly. So the United States doesn't have a group of technicians and qualified personnel that can step in and run that port, run those ports.
So on the one hand, this may be like a Pyrrhic victory for Rubio.
He was able to go down.
He didn't have to have a translator along with him.
He could talk to him in Spanish.
I've been in touch.
A friend of mine used to be the president of the Cologne Free Trade Zone.
They're both angered and really worried and concerned about relations with the United States.
Now, coming back to Netanyahu, this doesn't mean Despite the social memes that have showed up, which they show a plane landing and they say, oh, here's the President of the United States.
Door opens and out walks Netanyahu.
Okay. I mean, that's a joke, but it's not.
But the reality is Trump's not going to be sitting there going, hey, Bibi, what can I do for you, baby?
You know, Trump's got his own agenda.
And he's not a fanboy of Bibi Netanyahu.
And Bibi Netanyahu has some physical ailments, both heart condition and probable prostate cancer.
So, you know, he's not in the best of health right now.
And Israel has not won a stunning victory over Hamas, just the opposite.
They've failed after 15 months to defeat and destroy Hamas.
What did they gain by their genocide in Gaza?
Well, they killed well over 50,000-60,000 Palestinians.
People say the number could be much higher, and it may be because they haven't dug out bodies from under the rubble.
It's left Israel more isolated diplomatically.
It's reduced Israel's military readiness because it has stressed its reserve force to the breaking point.
In terms of a tangible military objective, it didn't achieve any of what they established at the outset.
It may actually jeopardize Netanyahu's tenure in office.
I mean, Trump doesn't want more war in Gaza, and the right wing in his office wants the war to resume tomorrow.
Yeah, but as you've noted before, with some of your other guests, that Trump talking about sending...
Sending Palestinians to Egypt or to Jordan or to Indonesia or God knows where.
They're not going to go.
They're not going to be willing exiles.
And the countries of Jordan and Egypt are not going to put up with that for a minute either.
So Trump thinking out loud is not going to necessarily make that happen, turn it into action.
I'm going to play the clip.
of Senator Michael Bennett making a fool of himself and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.
You wrote a great piece last night on this about whether or not Snowden is a traitor and you demonstrated beyond dispute how she should have answered that question.
Let's watch the clip as irritating as it is and then we'll talk about Snowden Do you believe, as the chairman of this committee believes, as the vast majority of members of our intelligence agencies believe,
that Edward Snowden was a traitor to the United States of America?
Senator, if confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, I will work with you to make sure that there is not another Snowden-like leap.
This is not a moment for social media.
It's not a moment to propagate theories, conspiracy theories, or attacks on journalism in the United States.
This is when you need to answer the questions of the people whose votes you're asking for to be confirmed as the...
Chief intelligence officer of this nation.
As my colleague said, this is not about you.
It's about the people that serve the intelligence agencies of the United States.
Is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?
That is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high.
Senator, as someone who has served in uniform...
Your answer, yes or no, is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?
As someone who has worn our uniform in combat, I understand how critical our national security is.
Apparently you don't.
Apparently you don't.
Let me...
What a fool.
Have you been charged with treason?
No. And that's what she should have started and said, well, Senator, I'm not here to explain to you what I believe.
My job as the Director of National Intelligence is to present policymakers, and the President in particular, with the best intelligence and the facts as we know them.
It's not my job nor my role to tell you what I believe.
I'm not here to advocate.
I'm not here to make policy.
I'm here to present intelligence.
And here are the facts.
The facts are that the United States government has only charged Edward Snowden with a violation of the Espionage Act for mishandling classified information.
It has not charged Edward Snowden with treason, which it very well could have if it wanted to, but it did not.
Correct. Correct.
Correct. But it presented him with a conundrum, because he also took a pledge to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
And in his duties, as someone with access to intelligence information, he saw firsthand that the Constitution of the United States was being gutted and violated by officials in the Department of Defense and in the intelligence community.
And the conundrum was this.
Should he blow the whistle, except he had seen what happened to previous whistleblowers, Bill Benny, Ed Loomis, Kirk Veeby, and most importantly, Thomas Drake, all had worked at the National Security Agency.
Thomas Drake ended up being charged under the Espionage Act.
It was false charges.
He did not commit espionage, but the government was relentless.
They went in and after Bill Benny, he was standing naked in the shower when they took him out at gunpoint.
At 5.30 in the morning, correct.
So Ed Snowden had watched that and he realized if you try to be a whistleblower on things like this, it doesn't come out well.
So yeah, he took information and he released it to the press.
He wasn't releasing it in order to destroy the United States.
He was releasing it, I believe, as a way to set off alarm bells about the lies that were being told to the American people.
So no, Senator Bennett, not only is Edward Snowden not a traitor, He served his country according to the oath he took under the Constitution.
I would to God that you held the Constitution as dear as Ed Snowden did.
That's a great, great answer.
I mean, he basically took an oath to obey the law.
He also took an oath to comply with the Constitution.
When those two oaths clash, you obey the higher of the two, which is, of course, the Constitution.
He's a patriot and an American hero.
Trump at one point told me he was going to pardon him.
And then Bill Barr and Mike Pompeo, those two patriots, I say that sarcastically, talked him out of it.
This is at the tail end of his first term.
Maybe he'll do it this time around.
I hope she gets confirmed because she has She's far from perfect, but she has the healthiest attitude of anybody that would have had that job about the role of surveillance in our lives.
Well, that's why they hate her.
Right. Because she's been a skeptic, correctly so, of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that we shouldn't have gone to war there.
You know, the false story told about Benghazi, And about the use of chemical weapons allegedly by the Syrian government, when in fact that was a CIA operation with the MI6 and using this group called the White Helmets.
It was a staged attack in much the same way that the Gulf of Konkin was a staged attack in order to precipitate action, military action by the United States.
But again, Tulsi, this Bennett's a fool.
Because the last thing you want as a director of national intelligence is somebody with a political agenda who's going to be making...
Unless, of course, it's your political agenda.
Well, yeah.
No, Larry, the piece you wrote was terrific.
And I'm remiss, you know, given my legal background, that I didn't think of this when you and Ray and I were talking about it on Friday.
I mean, calling him a traitor is absurd.
Even if he's guilty of everything the government says he's guilty of, it's not treason.
The government has only prosecuted seven people for treason in 250 years.
The last was Ida D'Aquino, better known to the world as Tokyo Rose, and she was pardoned by President Ford.
Anyway, fascinating stuff.
Thank you, Larry.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you for your courage.
It's also a great conversation.
We'll see you Friday afternoon with that youngster McGovern.
I'll be there.
We'll see you then, Judge.
Thanks. Thank you, Larry.
All the best to you, my friend.
Coming up tomorrow, we have a busy day for you, a full day for you.
At 8.30 in the morning from Brussels, Professor Glenn Deason at noon, Max Blumenthal at 1.15, Colonel Douglas McGregor at 2 o'clock, Matt Ho at 3 o'clock, Karen Kwiatkowski at 4 o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer.
Wow, looking forward to it.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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