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April 10, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
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INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Friday, April 11th, 2025.
It's the end of the day, the end of the week.
It's our favorite time of the week.
It's time for the Intelligence Community Roundtable with Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson.
Ray, Larry, welcome here.
Thank you again for all the time that you share with us.
I was reading a piece in Haaretz this morning.
Larry, to you first.
Reporting that Hamas now has 40,000 trained fighters, more than they had on October 7th of 2023.
Does this surprise you?
No. Well, what it does is, if true, is an indictment of Israel's military force as being ineffective.
The Israelis have killed an enormous number of Palestinian civilians.
And if Hamas has in fact recruited and then been able to do some training, albeit it's underground, because they're not going to be out in open formation above ground.
This is a number that Haaretz got from Shin Bet or whichever of the intelligence communities are feeding in information.
So this is what the Israelis believe.
Hamas has.
I thought it was a startling number.
It really doesn't make a lot of sense.
They're trying to present Hamas as if they are an army.
They're not.
They're a guerrilla force.
They've got some discipline, though.
We saw with some of the hostage releases, they showed up in sparkly new uniforms, and they were disciplined and ordered.
They could actually march in ranks.
I don't know where they're getting the chance to do that kind of training.
It's the kind of thing, if they're up above ground, the Israelis have enough surveillance and intelligence activities to detect and destroy it.
If nothing else, this is just a reminder, Israel can't fight its way to peace.
Prime Minister Netanyahu announced today, Ray, that He's going to fire a couple of hundred reservists who signed a public letter saying, why do we need this war?
It's being conducted for political purposes.
Why don't you just end it and bring the hostages home?
Two of the signers are now retired generals.
Surprising? Well, it's surprising that this has appeared.
As we know, the troops that have served there, The reports are that a third of them have PTSD.
Those are the good troops.
Those are the ones that care about achieving their military aim and not shooting women and children.
So what's he got left?
What does Netanyahu got left?
Not very much.
And if Hamas is recruiting, as just suggested, you know, that leaves him in a very precarious position.
And I take no solace in that, because that would prompt him to do something really stupid in the hope that Trump, having turned him down just earlier this week on Monday, would change his mind once the Israelis were engaged in an armed conflict with Iran,
my God.
uh this is he's got all kinds of problems he's gonna end up in jail if this doesn't go really well for him domestically firing all these people that's a pretty desperate move but then what else can he do just try to save what what what what reputation what power he still has within the israeli military Larry,
you mentioned earlier about the vast number of civilians.
It's well over 50,000 human beings buried.
The number is probably truly astronomical because so many of the bodies haven't been found.
The same Haaretz article that reported this 40,000 also reported this is hard for me to believe not a single IDF member has been disciplined No,
no, not at all.
Hitler wasn't punishing SS officers who were murdering Jews during World War II.
Now these Israelis are behaving just like that.
In fact, they've killed their own.
You recall, it was more than a year ago, that the three Israeli, you know, they had been soldiers, they had been taken hostage, they had freed themselves, and they tried, you know, they came out, they did everything within human reason to say,
hey, I've got the hands up, had their shirts off, waving a white shirt, and the Israelis still, the IDF still shot them, killed them.
So, yeah, there's no accountability, and that's...
You know, that's one of the reasons that they've turned into a group of thugs.
There's no honor within the Israeli Defense Forces.
That's the sad commentary.
I'm going to guess you agree with that, Ray.
Well, and the reason they're able to get away with it, of course, is the media.
Quite simply, the media, which is overduly influenced by Zionists.
Now, there was a ray of hope last Saturday.
The New York Times, above the fold!
First page reported accurately on the Israeli killing of these aid workers, these ambulances that they said had no lights on.
You had to read down, but you found out they did have headlights on, and they were murdered.
They're buried in the sand, and there are ambulances with them.
And I thought, wow!
Above the fold?
Well, maybe nobody reads the Times on Saturday because they went back at it.
And the Israelis, of course, would say, no, no, no, that's not true.
Well, it is true, for God's sake.
So as long as we can get the media, as long as they can get the media to go along with any of this stuff, you know, it's going to be easily covered up just like everything else is.
And that's where we come in.
And I hope that we make a dent in all this, because if we can cite a New York Times front page above the whole article, well, maybe we can convince some of my former colleagues that, well, you know, it's true that you have been brainwashed, and you gotta confront the truth,
or we're all in bad shape.
That is, Americans supporting genocide.
When the three of us were together last, it was Monday morning, Each of you in your usual time spot.
And then a few hours later, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu had a lengthy meeting which included lunch.
And then at the end of the lunch, they came out and they spoke together and answered questions from reporters in the Oval Office.
With apologies to our audience because I've played this several times this week.
It's so absurd.
It's about 90 seconds long.
It's Trump revealing gross ignorance of the history of the Middle East, and it's Netanyahu lying at his best.
Chris, cut number 10. An incredible piece of important real estate.
The level of death on the Gaza Strip is just incredible.
And I've said it.
I don't understand why Israel ever gave it up.
Israel owned it.
It wasn't this man, so I can say it.
He wouldn't have given it up.
I know him very well.
There's no way.
They took oceanfront property and they gave it to people for peace.
How did that work out?
Not good.
They gave it away for good intention and it didn't work out that way.
I think what the President talked about is, first of all, to give people a choice.
Gaza, Gazans were closed in.
Any other place, including in arenas of battle, I mean, whether it's Ukraine or Syria or any other place, people could leave.
Gaza was the only place where they locked them in.
We didn't lock them in.
They were locked in.
And what is wrong with giving people a choice?
Now, we've been talking, including over lunch, about some countries I won't go into them right now that are saying, you know, if Gazans want to leave, we want to take them
Sorry, does Trump have any idea what he's talking about?
Israel gave them Gaza.
No. No.
I mean, it's so ridiculous in that they were, quote, Netanyahu, they were locked in.
They were locked in by the damn Israelis.
They were surrounded by walls, barriers, armed guards, for God's sake.
So, no, this is outrageous.
And this, I had a chance, you know, there's been some question about whether or not Netanyahu was surprised by Trump's comments about wanting to negotiate.
I was going to get to that, but go ahead.
Go ahead.
Well, but then I listened to Netanyahu's comments in Hebrew with the translation.
He got everything he wanted out of Trump.
Trump, the demands to Iran are going to be, oh yeah, the Libya solution.
Give up all your weapons so that we can eventually come back in and bomb your country and rape you.
You know, that was the Libya solution.
And that's what they want.
They want Iran to disarm.
They want to dismantle their nuclear program completely.
And they've got to cut off all support and assistance for Hamas, Hezbollah.
and the Houthis.
And I tell you what, whatever public reaction Netanyahu gave in English, he
high-fiving it in Hebrew.
I think this meeting tomorrow in Oman, it's going to be very interesting to see what comes of that, whether Whitcoff is, whether Trump's going to betray Netanyahu
Ray, I want you to comment, if you would, on...
Trump's ignorance of the history of the Middle East and Netanyahu's lies.
And then I'm going to play the clip that Larry's talking about and also going to ask you about the BBC and the Economist view of it and whether they've been sucked in or whether it's accurate.
Ray. Well, let me address history first.
When Bush was president and Condoleezza Rice was Secretary of State, they encouraged elections in Gaza.
and the west bank and hamas won hands down then the cia got involved okay why did hamas win hands down because they're terribly popular because they take care of women children social needs the the palestinian authority took it on their chin and the cia did everything they could to recruit people from the palestinian authority to defeat hamas then it's all In a Vanity Fair article written by a very well-experienced
historian and journalist, look it up.
Vanity Fair, probably 2008.
Now, with respect to what Larry is saying, I don't agree.
I mean, Bibi didn't get what he wanted.
Trump said, look, we're going to talk directly to Iran.
Whoa! That's not what Bibi wanted.
Now, for those who saw some disappointment in Bibi's face, I didn't see any, but I did see some, well, some indications that he had drank too many Diet Cokes over lunch, okay?
This was not what he wanted or expected, and as most of us know by now, where's Witkoff today?
Moscow. But Ray, did you see what he said?
After that meeting in Hebrew.
Let me play this for you.
It doesn't matter what he says in Hebrew.
It doesn't matter.
High five Hebrew.
It doesn't matter.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
In fairness to Larry, let me play this and then we'll evaluate it.
It's Netanyahu in Hebrew with a translation.
But before we do, the BBC and The Economist each separately reported that Netanyahu's trip To the White House was a failure.
In their view, he wanted three things.
He wanted a tariff exemption for Israel.
Before Trump dropped the tariffs for everybody but China, Trump said no.
He wanted Trump publicly to attack Erdogan.
Trump said, Erdogan's my friend.
I'm not going to do it.
He wanted Trump to agree to a timetable on the war.
And then to his utter shock and dismay, Trump says, by the way, we're negotiating directly with the Iranians.
P.S. Putin arranged it.
He didn't actually add that.
Now to what Larry saw.
I think, Larry, this is the same clip that you saw.
This is Netanyahu addressing the Israeli people from Washington.
From the Israeli embassy in Washington.
It's in Hebrew with a very clear English translation.
Chris, cut number two.
We agree that Iran will not have nuclear weapons.
This can be done by agreement.
But only if this agreement is Libyan style.
They go in, blow up the installations, dismantle all of the equipment under American supervision and carried out by America.
This would be good.
The second possibility that will not be is that they drag out the talks and then there is the military option.
Everyone understands this.
We spoke about it at length.
I don't think he's telling the truth, Larry.
I don't think Trump agreed to a Libyan option.
Well, we know from Alistair Crook that what appears in the English press, what appears in Haaretz and Jerusalem Times, that there's a completely different version that comes out in Hebrew.
And I don't think he's lying.
So we'll see.
Because what we saw after that, we saw different remarks from Trump later talking about Israel being in the lead.
In a military attack.
Now, we'll see what Witkoff does.
I think the wild card in this are the Russians and the Chinese.
Well, that's exactly right.
They met with the Iranians and they're in a position where Iran goes into that negotiation with two big brothers behind them.
The Russians arranged for the Iranians to meet Witkoff and then the Russians met Well, even more, perhaps this just happened and you're unaware, Witkoff's in Moscow.
He's talking with Putin the day before he's supposed to talk to the Iranians.
The Iranians said, look, it doesn't matter what Trump says, we're going to have indirect talks like we always insisted on.
Trump doesn't say anything.
Trump's got lots of problems.
He bowed.
Larry, is the United States preparing for war against Iran?
Yes. Yeah.
I mean, you know, they're all over the board.
That's the problem.
There's certainly the desire there.
I mean, you know, Witkoff, he just left Moscow probably within the last hour.
He had a four-hour meeting with Putin, which is significant.
But within that, I guarantee you, he didn't get any progress on a ceasefire as the Americans want.
They want Russia to declare a ceasefire and immediately give up.
No, I'm sure Putin explained it to him, and I'm sure Putin spent a lot of time explaining to him, hey, we can guarantee, we can give Trump a victory right now.
He can say, I've secured Iran's agreement not to build a nuclear weapon, and we can guarantee that that is the case.
And, you know, that's a deal that Trump may be desperate enough to go for now.
But he still...
He still has been on the record about that they've got to dismantle their nuclear program.
They've got to cut off all relations with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
We'll have to see.
Judge, let me just add.
Carolyn Leavitt has just said that this is all about Ukraine.
It's not about Ukraine.
Yeah. It's about Iran.
He's doing Iran.
He's doing Qatar tomorrow, for God's sake.
Oman. Oman.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
Oman, right.
Yeah. Sorry.
So, you know, what he's getting is last minute impressions from Putin with respect to, look, don't even think of what Bibi Netanyahu wants to do.
If you let yourself be mousetrapped.
Not only no ceasefire, we'll finish off the Ukraine episode in another couple of weeks.
And we don't give a rat's patootie about what you think about it.
Forget about detente.
Forget about rapprochement.
That game is over.
That's what both Putin and Trump want to avoid.
So this is a sideshow on Iran.
Netanyahu is the fly in the ointment.
They're sidelining him.
And again, on Monday, I think he far from got what he wanted.
He got instead what he didn't want.
Interesting. I mean, the concept of the Libya option.
I mean, Libya was destroyed, was demolished.
Its sovereignty virtually non-existent.
It was once the most prosperous country in the African continent.
Of course, we all know what happened to Colonel Gaddafi.
It's unspeakable.
How could Netanyahu possibly expect that Trump could talk or coerce the Iranians into giving up their sovereignty, Larry?
Well, again, we've seen Trump all across the board on this.
So we're not even getting a consistent picture.
I don't know if that's just a negotiating ploy or if it's a sign of beginning mental decline, but it certainly is unsettling the rest of the world.
Iran has made it very clear that they are undertaking preparations for a U.S. attack.
The one thing that argues against it is the failure of the United States in Yemen right now to stop the Houthis.
If you notice, within the last two weeks, the Houthis have now shut down three Predator drones.
And the significance of that is that conventional intelligence collection for identifying a target on the ground takes hours from the time you get the information to the time you can turn around and then give the order to fire.
Whereas with the Predator...
Once it's above, it can see it and then it can carry armaments so it can fire so it can happen within minutes.
But what the Houthis have figured out, I think, is that they can put out a bait.
They can put out something that looks like a missile launcher, but they've got their air defense systems around it.
And as soon as the predator shows up, they take the predator out.
Those are $30 million a pop.
So, Ray, when Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth Boast about the fantastic success of the bombings.
Our friend, our mutual friend, Pepe Escobar says, don't believe them.
They don't know what they're talking about.
They haven't laid a dent in the Houthis.
Agreed? What does Pepe know?
I mean, is he believing his own lying eyes?
He was there, right?
Yeah, it's, you know, Tracy Hexeth, the square jaw, you know, central casting.
He doesn't know.
Now, what I'm depending on is not the generals in our armed forces, but the colonels.
They're going to say to the generals, look, you know, this is really crazy.
We can blame Vietnam loss on the Congress.
Who are going to blame the loss of 3,000 troops in northern Iraq?
3,000 troops in northern Syria, and that's inevitably the consequence if the U.S. starts bombing Iran.
It's not going to happen.
Now, are they prepared to do it?
Of course they're prepared.
But military preparedness is not the same as military intentions.
I think we can breathe easier given the fact that Trump told...
Netanyahu, forget about it.
We're going to talk directly to the Uranians, and that's going to happen tomorrow.
And what happened before that?
You find Witkoff in Moscow.
Give me a break.
Larry, yesterday in the Oval Office, the President was asked about tariffs and China, and he gave the answer he intended to give, but then he veered off into a fascinating Are you concerned of escalation
beyond the trade war with China?
No, I don't expect that.
I think President Xi is one of the very smart people of the world, and I don't think he'd allow that to happen.
And we're very powerful.
This country is very powerful.
It's far more powerful than people understand.
We have weaponry that nobody has any idea what it is, and it is the most powerful weapons in the world that we have.
More powerful than anybody, not even close.
You have any idea what he's talking about?
Is he grossly exaggerating, or is he tipping his hand about some secret weapon that no one knows about, Larry?
Well, they may have some technology that they tried to work on, but you saw that they just cancelled the contract.
For the hypersonic missile, the naval version, because it had cost overrun and it was delayed.
So much for that wonder weapon.
And if we really had these great, marvelous weapons that can work miracles, why aren't we using them in Yemen?
So here the Yemenis, the Houthis, continue to defeat us militarily in terms of thwarting us from accomplishing what we claim is our mission.
So, yeah, this is, again, Trump's not a critical thinker.
And I think you know that from your dealing with him.
He is not a critical thinker.
He's got some street smarts.
He acts on gut instinct.
But he doesn't think things through in terms of, if I take this step, what's likely to be the consequence of that?
And what must I be prepared to do in response to that consequence?
Doesn't think that way.
This is, you know, if nothing else, this is just, I think, more bombast.
Ray, do you think that Trump's continued keeping open the Joe Biden spigot of military equipment to Kiev is a playing card in Whitcroft's negotiations?
I'm sure it is, yeah.
It's going to be closed off once all those weapons that were appropriated by Congress reach their target.
I would just like to say something that you only get to say once in a career, and that is that Soviet weaponry, Russian weaponry, is better than U.S. weaponry.
Now, in every class except nuclear, intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Now, that's big because, as Larry just said, isn't it bizarre that we can't develop a hypersonic missile?
For God's sake, the Iranians could.
The Houthis have them.
I don't know where they got them, but the Russians and the Chinese, we don't have them?
Well, that's because we're wasting our money on fool's errands like the F-35 that we've already spent, what, about $400 a piece on?
And we're going to have trouble selling that abroad because most people realize that it doesn't fly real well in inclement weather, for God's sake.
I mean, that's how bad it is.
So there's a change.
There's a change in the correlation of military forces now, and Russia has come up on top, and China is a close...
Second, they're joined at the hip against the United States.
This is a new deal.
I hope, as mercurial as Trump is, that somebody has the guts to tell them, look, Mr. Trump, you're working in an old paradigm.
It's changed.
The correlation of forces, in military terms included, has changed.
Larry, before you weigh in, here's what President Putin said today.
Now, we don't know if this is a response to Trump's meanderings.
Yesterday, but here's what he said today with an English translator.
Cut number 22. Undoubtedly, one of the top priorities is strengthening the key segment of our domestic fleet, which is its strategic nuclear forces, which serve as a crucial guarantee of Russia's security and the preservation of global balance.
In this regard, I would like to note that the part of modern weapons and equipment in Russia's naval strategic nuclear forces has already reached 100%.
And I want to emphasize that this level must be maintained going forward.
Now your thoughts on what Trump said, Larry, in light of Putin.
Well, Russia has the advantage that they've got battlefield-tested weapons.
They don't have to just go out into some laboratory, outdoor laboratory, and test it.
They're able to demonstrate what works, what doesn't work, and a level of innovation.
But it's not just that you've got the technology that works.
They've got the ability to produce it.
I don't know if you recall from General Cavoli's testimony last week to the Senate Armed Services Committee, but he ruefully admitted that the Russians are replacing every single tank that's been allegedly destroyed.
A lot of them are disabled, and then the Russians recover them and refit them.
But not only are they able to replace those, but they're building 1,500 new tanks a year, while the United States, he admitted, are only building 50. So right off the bat, it's not so much even the technological
edge. It's just that they can produce it.
And as Ray correctly noted with the F-35, that's 200 million.
The actual cost of it in terms of...
And it's like an opera singer, a prima donna.
You know, got to make sure that the temperature is correct and not too wet, not too cold.
You know, good God.
This is supposed to be a combat aircraft able to take a beating.
Instead, it's a little princess.
Ray, the last word.
Well, I guess we have to look to tomorrow.
By the way, I hadn't been aware that Putin said those things.
So nobody accused me of saying I'm in Putin's pocket by emphasizing.
But I think what Putin told Witkoff is, look, You know, we want some peace in Ukraine, just as much as you do.
I have spoken of the fact that I trust the new American president.
I've gone out on a limb, okay?
Now, try to work with that, would you please?
And for God's sake, if you don't, we're going to embarrass the hell out of you and all your European neighbors.
We're going to go right to the dnieper.
And you will have no way to avoid the opprobrium of having lost yet another war.
What I see in private is that Putin is saying to Witkoff, who is impersonating Trump,"Look, this is the deal.
We can deal on Iran and we can deal on Ukraine, but we can't deal on Ukraine if you fly in the face of reality." And let yourself be mousetrapped by Bibi Netanyahu into attacking Iran,
like tomorrow.
Make sure you know that when you talk to the Iranians.
Gentlemen, thank you very much.
Another great end of the day, end of the week conversation.
Deeply appreciated.
And we look forward to seeing you both after a restful weekend on Monday morning.
Whatever happens, we'll be there.
I'll work on this beauty sleep.
Thank you, Ray.
Thank you, Larry.
Thank you.
And of course on Monday at 8 o'clock Eastern, Alistair Crook.
At 10 o'clock Eastern, Ray McGovern.
At 11.30 Eastern, Larry Johnson and probably one of our other regulars at some time in the afternoon.
Thank you for watching.
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