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May 11, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
32:08
Scott Ritter : Can Trump Resist the Neocons?
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, May 12, 2025.
Scott Ritter will be here with us on just a moment on Are the Neocons Getting to Donald Trump?
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Scott Rader, welcome here, my dear friend.
Can Trump resist the neocons with whom he surrounded himself?
I mean, that's a fair question, ultimately.
When we take a look at the composition of Donald Trump's cabinet and...
You know, his closest advisory bodies, we see a split between what I'll call the MAGA thinkers.
These are people who have broken with the neoconservative policies of the past who believe that the United States must chart a new course forward.
These are people like J.D. Vance, like Tulsi Gabbard, like Steve Whitcoff, this surprising name that's appeared out of nowhere to become You know, literally the top diplomat of the United States.
These three people are very pragmatic, realistic, and they seem to be supportive of Trump's, you know, stated agenda of avoiding war, seeking peace.
But Trump has also surrounded himself with...
An entire team of neoconservatives.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is the most neoconservative of neoconservatives.
And now he is double-hatted as the National Security Advisor of the United States.
This is constitutionally questionable.
And it's just not good policy.
But Mike Waltz, who was a neoconservative, got caught.
Conspiring behind Donald Trump's back, apparently, with the Israelis.
Steve Kellogg is there.
The Secretary of Treasury is a neoconservative.
And so these are people who are pushing for very hardline policies.
Who seem to support Israel's posture vis-a-vis Iran, Israel's insistence of no nuclear enrichment whatsoever, which would kill any prospect for peace.
These are people who continue to breathe life into Zelensky, into the Europeans, and into bringing an end to the Ukraine conflict in a way that doesn't really end the conflict, just buys Ukraine time to rearm, reequip, and be prepared to fight this in five years.
So Donald Trump...
I think he's a man who, you know, I used to work for a boss who I was told, you need to be the last person to brief him during the day.
And sure enough, everybody knew this.
And at the end of the day, if you're trying to get something done, you lined up outside of his office and you waited and waited until you could sneak in and be the last person.
Because the last person who briefed him tended to be the person that, you know, influenced his decision-making at the closing.
This is the sign of a simple mind.
Does Donald Trump believe whoever he's been talking to last?
You know, I've spent the last hundred days trying to go easy on Donald Trump because he's my commander-in-chief and he's somebody who I want to succeed.
And I still want him to succeed.
I think 100 days is more than enough time for the President of the United States to figure out who he is and what he is and what he stands for, especially a president that's previously served four years in the White House.
And so I think it's time now for the gloves to come off.
Donald Trump is a simple mind.
I mean, we've always known this.
He's not a complicated thinker, especially when he comes to foreign policy.
He knows nothing about foreign policy.
And he's a man who literally...
He repeats the last thing he was told.
Look at the nonsense he did with the MS-13 photograph.
He was told by somebody that there was MS-13 on the...
He was shown an image, and that went into his simple mind.
He's not capable of complex reasoning.
He's not a knowledgeable man about the issues at hand.
So yes, this simple-minded man does, in fact, listen to the last thing he is told by the people surrounding him.
You ticked off the names of the people around him, and we could go deeper into Sebastian Gorka and that crowd.
And I agree with you.
Some of them are hardcore neocons like Rubio.
Some of them are definitely not neocons like Gabbard and Vance.
But the one thing they all have in common, Zionists.
Am I right?
You are right, but as I've said on your show before, Judge, I think that Donald Trump is more complex on Zionism than...
I don't think he's a Zionist at heart.
I think that he is a political machine who understands that in order to become elected president, you have to surround yourself, cloak yourself, coach yourself with Zionists, and he has done that.
But I do believe that he...
He understands that if you're going to be America first, you must be America first.
And what we're seeing is having brought so many Zionists in around him, that's the old godfather saying, you know, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
And Zionism is the enemy of America, and we're starting to see some pushback on this, where Donald Trump is especially lashing out against Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he apparently has caught red-handed, conspiring with his inner circle.
Mr. Waltz, to name one, to undermine Trump's own policies.
All right, I agree with everything you've just said.
Do you believe, the news reports, from your own observations or your own sources, that Trump is sick and tired of Netanyahu and believes that Netanyahu has been manipulating him, whether it's the Waltz incident or other things?
100%.
We know that he was sick and tired of Benjamin Netanyahu before he was sworn in as president.
Why else would he play a couple of Jeffrey Sachs clips that condemned Benjamin Netanyahu and pointed out that Netanyahu is responsible for getting America involved in the very Middle East conflicts that Donald Trump has so...
Rightfully criticized.
And Netanyahu's trying to get us knee-deep in another Middle East war with Iran, something Donald Trump does not want to do.
And so I think it's clear that Donald Trump has made a decision that Netanyahu's bad for America.
And we're seeing a divorce take place live before us.
It's an ugly divorce, but there's a divorce happening right now.
So the U.S. negotiates directly with Hamas.
Directly with Hamas, no Israeli involvement whatsoever for the release of an American-Israeli joint citizenship born in New Jersey, 18 years in New Jersey, went to Israel, fought for the IDF.
He was released today.
The U.S. instigates humanitarian relief in Gaza without the knowledge or consent of Netanyahu.
The U.S. stops killing the Houthis without the knowledge or consent of Netanyahu.
The U.S. sends B-52 bombers home to the United States without the knowledge or consent.
I guess he's trying to send Netanyahu some kind of a concrete message.
There's another one.
Steve Witkoff is, as we speak, negotiating with the Iranians.
See, I keep hearing the opposite.
Alistair says, and he agrees with you that Iranians will never agree with this, that Whitcoff has now changed and wants no enrichment.
You're the expert on nuclear, all things nuclear.
Educate us a little bit.
If you want to use nuclear sources, For hospital purposes, do you need enrichment?
If you have, for instance, Iran has a, the Tehran research reactor is used to create medical isotopes.
Okay, that's what I'm talking about.
It uses 20% enriched fuel.
It had previously, you know...
It ran out of fuel.
Nobody would supply them with fuel, so Iran had no choice but to make its own fuel, which it has done.
Iran also has a nuclear power reactor, several of them, at the Bushir facility.
Again, it requires 3.6%, 3.7% enriched uranium.
The United States led the global boycott to prevent Iran from acquiring this fuel from abroad, so Iran developed its own enrichment capability.
They guarantee Iran's continued access to fuel from abroad, but Iran says, fool me once, shame on me.
Where is Whitcoff on this now?
Is he negotiating for them to keep a certain amount of enrichment?
They have superb hospitals.
You can't run a hospital today without certain nuclear isotopes.
My understanding is that there were three rounds of negotiations, and at the end of the third round, they had moved into the technical phase.
And I'm just telling you right now, the technical phase is how do you monitor Iran's enrichment program.
That's the discussion they were having when the Israelis said 0-0-0.
And Witkoff came out and made a statement to that regard.
There is a fourth round taking place right now, or getting ready to take place, where the Iranians are saying, we are very pleased with what's happening.
The United States is taking a realistic posture.
This means that the Israelis lost, that the United States is talking about a deal, because there will be no deal.
They're talking about a deal that has Iran retaining aspects of its enrichment program.
All right, so here is...
What I think is nonsensical, but you know this better than I, and it's not because I used to work there and I don't anymore, but it's Fox News claiming they found a nuclear reactor in Iran.
Chris?
Fox News exclusive satellite images revealing the location of a previously unknown Iranian nuclear site.
Now, the facility spans nearly 2,500 acres, and this is a big discovery.
Jillian Turner has more from the State Department.
Good morning, Jillian.
Pretty explosive, Dana.
These satellite images that we have obtained exclusively show the alleged site location and even the layout of the secret, previously unknown nuclear weapons facilities inside Iran.
This, of course, raises fresh concerns about the regime's role in these ongoing nuclear talks with the Trump administration.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran has collected intelligence from sources on the ground inside Iran that locate this nuclear weapons facility in what is called Semnan province, far from the regime's already known nuclear sites.
It's codenamed the Rainbow Site by Iran's officials, and it spans nearly 2,500 acres.
It's been operating as far as we can discern for over a decade under the cover of a chemical production company that's called Diba Energy Siba.
the so-called This was late last week.
I haven't heard it anywhere since then.
Is this credible?
No, not at all.
Look, the NCRI, the National Council of Resistance in Iran, they're also known as the Mujahideen al-Khulk.
These are Marxists.
They've been against the Iranian regime since 1979.
We conspired with them to orchestrate, you know, the CIA works with them to orchestrate assassinations.
The Israelis use them for assassinations.
These are people who have in the past given briefings written by the Israelis.
This briefing...
Is written by the Israelis.
Now, it's delivered here in the United States, and this is where I don't understand why Tulsi Gabbard doesn't shut them down, because this is done by the Israelis seeking to throw a wrench into the negotiations.
Look at the timing of it.
This is a garbage report.
First of all, when they called it a nuclear weapons facility, what they're talking about is they say that the Iranians could be producing tritium.
I may be pronouncing that wrong because I am not a nuclear scientist.
But tritium is used in a boosted nuclear weapon.
So if you have a standard fission weapon, if you have tritium in place, you can boost it.
It shoots in.
These neutrons get hyperactive.
Then you turn it into a fusion weapon, a hydrogen bomb.
And that's what they're talking about.
This is absurd in the extreme.
Again, the International Atomic Energy Agency has had Iran under very stringent inspections.
They look for these sort of things.
This is simply an effort.
What Israel is trying to do is open up this gigantic, very sensitive military industrial facility.
Parchin is where they make their ballistic missiles.
They have the chemical facilities that produce the precursor elements for the solid rocket fuel that are produced there.
They want to create a condition where inspectors now will demand access to these facilities at the very moment when Trump's negotiator is talking with the Iranians about inspectors.
Corrections.
So, no, there's nothing to this story whatsoever.
This is as garbage as garbage get, and shame on Fox News for running with this story, literally.
Why don't you have me on, Fox, at least to counterbalance it so I can show you what kind of idiots you are.
This is stupidity in the extreme.
Let's go back to Trump and the Nikons, and I appreciate the analysis you just gave.
I didn't know where we were going to go there, but our conversation took us there.
During his first term in office, didn't Trump effectively grow by troubling the Ukrainian military?
Didn't all that happen under him?
More than that, Judge.
This is Donald Trump's war.
He's trying to call it Joe Biden's war.
He says, this is Joe Biden's war.
This war never would have happened had I been president.
That's a lie, a straight-up lie, because when he was president, the policies he eventually signed off on were supportive of the very policies that Joe Biden inherited from him and then expanded upon.
Joe Biden did not invent the policies that...
That led us to the conflict with Russia and Ukraine.
Donald Trump is the one that took Barack Obama's policies, which were defensive only.
Defensive only.
And Donald Trump turned them into offensive training, offensive weaponry, because the Ukrainians said, we want to invade the Donbass.
In the United States, under Donald Trump went, we'll get you ready to invade the Donbass.
Donald Trump is the man who created the concept of strategic defeat of Russia.
He's the man who underwritten...
20 CIA bases operating on Ukrainian soil.
20 CIA bases.
Talk to Larry Johnson what a CIA base is and what they do.
Talk to Alistair Crook what that means in terms of it.
This isn't about analysts like me sitting back there reading things.
No, this is about operators, paramilitary guys, training people to go into Russia to spy, to carry an unconventional warfare, to target assassination, all the things necessary to bring down a government.
That's what...
Donald Trump's policies were, and then he lost the presidency, Joe Biden picked it up, and Joe Biden ran with it.
Joe Biden actually had to tune down some of the things Trump was trying to do with the paramilitary guys.
All this paramilitary unconventional warfare stuff began with Donald Trump, and it was the Biden administration that went, well, that's an act of war.
We may want to tone that down.
So Trump is responsible 100% for this mess.
Trump is now boasting about sending or authorizing attackums, terrorists, and javelins to Ukraine.
Aren't we a co-belligerent fighting Russia?
And how can the Kremlin take us seriously as mediators?
Look, the Kremlin right now, again, I don't speak for them, but I have spoken with people.
I just enjoyed the Victory Day celebration at the Russian embassy.
The Russians...
They're realistic.
They're pragmatic.
They are thrilled to death that they're talking to the United States because that wasn't happening under Joe Biden.
And so as long as they're talking, that creates the possibility of something happening.
But they also look at the inherent contradictions.
They have no false expectations from, you know...
The Trump administration.
This is confusing.
I spoke to a friend who I speak to often about the situation in Ukraine, and this person is confused.
Everybody's confused.
People I speak to in Moscow are confused.
People I speak here...
Everybody's confused about what Donald Trump wants.
On the one hand, he speaks of peace.
He speaks of understanding the Russian perspective.
On the other hand, he does this.
He sends weapons, the stupidity of it.
Now he's on an airplane where he may go to Istanbul, to Zelensky in Istanbul.
Putin might be flying to Tehran with a quick trip.
You know, what do they do if they meet?
Will Trump tell Zelensky you have to back down, accept the Russian terms, or will he try to strong-arm Putin, which you don't do?
And I don't think Putin would show up in Istanbul if he thought Trump was going to try and strong-arm him.
Donald Trump is, remember what we said at the beginning, Judge?
He's a simple man.
A simple-minded man.
I hope he has somebody sitting next to him who's giving him good advice.
Who's going to be sitting next to him but the super neocon Marco Rubio?
Well, Rubio is going to Istanbul to do what they call a NATO mini-ministerial that was sort of invented.
To interfere with Vladimir Putin's initiative.
The Russians said, hey, we're going to send Yuri Ushakov to Istanbul to meet with a Ukrainian delegation.
Ukraine has said, well, Zelensky said, I'm going to be there.
I want to meet with Putin.
And the Russians are like, well, it's Ushakov.
Now, Rubio's coming in on the spur of the moment to do this 14 to 16 May ministerial.
But it's there simply to interfere.
And now we have Donald Trump apparently showing up, which once again shows the struggle because Trump doesn't...
I believe that Trump doesn't trust Rubio when it comes to Russia.
I think he understands that Rubio is the man giving him the advice that is going to lead to enhanced conflict.
He wants to trust Witkoff, but he's a weak man.
He's a simple-minded man.
And the person sitting right next to him before he opens his mouth or starts putting...
Stuff out on social media is the person that influences what he says and what he does.
Tulsi Gabbard's got to be going crazy because that's supposed to be her job.
But the problem is she briefs him in the morning.
So she comes in, briefs him in the morning, and he's probably all gung-ho to be realistic.
And then as the day goes on, people come in.
Yeah, Sebastian Gorka and that crowd get to him.
We have a new cut from Trump on the upcoming talks in Turkey about possibly, ready for this, lifting sanctions on Syria.
Watch this.
Don't underestimate Thursday in Turkey.
President Erdogan is going to be a great host.
And we are doing some work with him, having to do with Syria, too, by the way.
We're going to have to make a decision on the sanctions, which we may very well relieve.
We may take them off of Syria because we want to give them a fresh start.
you you Look, Syria is governed by Al-Qaeda right now.
Let's show you how simplistically stupid Donald Trump is.
You know, if you want to make that step, I know what he's doing because what wasn't said there is that the deal is that Saudi Arabia will recognize Israel in exchange for Trump.
Well, I think that's with Hamas.
Trump is going to recognize Palestine.
Saudi Arabia is going to recognize Israel.
Trump's going to lift sanctions on Jolani in Syria, and that's going to create opportunity.
Trump's going to recognize Palestine?
Netanyahu will have a heart attack.
Well, I think that's what he wants.
At this point, if Netanyahu killed over dead, Donald Trump would hold a party.
He doesn't like Netanyahu.
He never has liked Netanyahu.
This is Netanyahu's fault.
Netanyahu's the man who...
He lies straight to the president's face and then conspires behind the president.
Donald Trump is a narcissist, a supreme narcissist.
And the way you deal with narcissists is to stroke their egos.
And you don't get caught speaking ill of them behind their back.
You want to know why Steve Witkoff is so popular?
Because he's never said a bad thing about Donald Trump.
And when the time came, and this is before Trump was president, Witkoff stood up for Donald Trump, defended Donald Trump, went to bat for Donald Trump, and Donald Trump recognizes that kind of loyalty.
Netanyahu is not a loyal man.
And Donald Trump's saying, we give you everything.
We give you the bombs.
We give you everything you need.
You want and you betray me?
You stab me in the back?
I mean, this is literally Michael Corleone basically taking Fredo out in the boat and popping it around.
Does the neocon mentality still hate all things Russian?
Yes.
First of all, hate's a very strong word.
Because hate, you have to actually understand something.
You have to know something about it.
To hate means you have a deep insight into something, and it's so viscerally against everything you stand for, you hate it.
Neocons don't hate Russia, because they don't know anything about Russia.
Literally, I could take all the neocons today, put the totality of the knowledge they have about Russia, and it would fit into the head of this pen.
They are that stupid and that ignorant.
What's the word to describe their feeling about Russia?
Fear?
No, no, they don't fear Russia.
They want you to fear Russia.
See, they use Russia as a tool to manipulate the public.
This is what Russophobia is all about.
Their job is to spew lies about Russia, to tell mistruths about Russia, to make the public afraid of Russia so that the public will then nod their head stupidly when they put forward idiotic policy about Russia.
That's what the neocons are about.
They don't fear Russia because they know Russia is not a threat.
You know, you don't need to lie.
You don't need to manipulate if there's a true threat out there.
If Russia was a genuine threat to the United States, it would be the easiest thing in the world to sell.
But why do the neocons wrap themselves in lies?
Because the truth about Russia is the exact opposite.
They are not our enemies.
They are our friends.
Victory J just proved it.
The 80th anniversary of when Americans and Russians stood side by side and defeated the worst threat the world has ever seen in the past couple centuries.
Nazi Germany.
And yet, the neocons now have Donald Trump saying stupid things like, yeah, the Russians did a little bit, you know, they lost a lot of guys, but they couldn't have won that war, not even close, without us and the great contribution which we made.
We made great contributions.
I will never denigrate the sacrifice made by any American in that conflict.
We did great things.
We fought on two fronts against two massive enemies and we contributed to the victories.
But to pretend that our going across on D-Day in June 1944 somehow turned the tide after the Russians stood strong at Stalingrad.
Crushed the 6th Army, stood at Kursk, carried out operations in the Carpathian region that drew seven divisions away from the Normandy Front in May before we went across.
If those seven divisions were there, we would have lost.
Eisenhower would have had to read that note that he had in his pocket.
Yeah, that's the truth about World War II.
We did a lot.
We sacrificed a lot, but we could not have beaten Nazi Germany without the Soviet...
The Red Army that destroyed 76 to 80 percent of the German.
The best German units were destroyed by the Red Army on the Eastern Front, not on the Western Front.
And you know who agreed with you was Winston Churchill, who said the Red Army, quote, tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht.
That's what he was talking about, what you just described.
Yeah.
And remember, Churchill was no friend of the Soviet Union.
He's the man who came up with the plan right after World War II to assassinate Stalin and bring down the Soviet Union.
So it's not as though Winston Churchill was a dyed-in-the-wool commie who was saying that.
He just said the reality of it.
Wow.
Trump has now said that he may very well fly to Turkey to try and initiate talks between...
Putin and Zelensky.
Putin's not going to be in Turkey, is he?
No, but this is where it gets really interesting, Judge.
Putin's flying to Tehran.
And, you know, Trump is...
This is where his real estate mind comes into play, where there's so many factors going in on the deal.
Russia is the secret sauce.
The secret ingredient to our negotiations with Iran.
Russia's behind the scenes doing things, helping us make sense to the Iranians, getting the Iranians to the table.
Russia's there to backstop us.
Putin's going to Iran right now, and he's going to be having conversation with the supreme leader and the Iranian president.
But that also positions him, A, to do a couple things where Trump's going to owe him, because he's going to say, look, I'm...
I'm helping you win this Iran thing.
Now I'm in Tehran.
If you can get Zelensky to cave on Russian territorial demands, and you get Zelensky there ready to sign a document, and you're there, Mr. President, and you're going to be there as the guarantor of this.
Maybe Putin will come in.
I would not want to be a Russian diplomat or an American diplomat right now because, you know, they are going absolutely bananas trying to backstop this stuff because you don't bring your principles together unless you have everything in order.
And so they are working overtime right now to try and get all of this done because I think Trump has said, I want something to happen in Istanbul and Putin wouldn't be going to Tehran.
Unless he was like, I'm willing to let something happen in Istanbul, but you have to meet our concerns.
And Steve Whitcoff knows every single one of those concerns inside and out.
And Marco Rubio is going to try and sabotage every single one of those concerns.
And Steve Kellogg should be sent as far away from this discussion as possible.
And J.D. Vance should be hanging around, whispering sweet nothings in the president's ear to keep him on focus.
Here's what Trump just said about Turkey.
I think you may have a good result out of the Thursday meeting in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine.
And I believe the two leaders were going to be there.
I was thinking about flying over.
I don't know where I'm going to be on Thursday.
I've got so many meetings.
But I was thinking about actually flying over there.
There's a possibility of it, I guess, if I think things can happen.
Wow.
Again, it's going to have a heart attack if Trump cuts a deal with Putin and with the president of Iran.
Yeah, no, this is a divorce from Netanyahu.
And it's interesting because Netanyahu then has spoken about...
Detoxing Israel from American security systems.
What the hell?
Of course, now they're meeting with the Germans.
You might see the Germans say, well, we will back you up.
We will give you the weaponry and all that stuff.
Great.
So Germany is once again on the side of genocide.
That's nice.
But I think this is Israel floundering right now.
This is, again, the success of Hamas.
For all the people that didn't, you know, when I said, look, Hamas beat the Israelis for 15 months.
In the end, they had to take a compromise, bring in this deal.
But Hamas has a lot to play.
You know, there's a lot of Hamas left.
And for Trump, who said Hamas is...
The very Hamas people that he talked to?
He's meeting with Jolani, an Al-Qaeda terrorist who just a few months ago had a $10 million reward on his head.
So please, people, let's just keep the right people whispering in Donald Trump's ear.
A $10 million reward on his head posted by his own State Department.
Yeah.
Can't make this up.
Scotty, thank you very much.
Don't forget about this, Judge.
There's a reason why there's 10 million.
He killed Americans.
This is a man...
Jolani killed Americans?
Jolani killed Americans.
Jolani was AQI before he became ISIS, before he became al-Nusra.
This is a man who, in Iraq, was responsible for the deaths of Americans.
And now we're going to have the President of the United States meet this guy.
I'm not saying that under no circumstance should this ever happen, but let's understand what's happening here.
This isn't just a casual meeting.
This is the President of the United States meeting with an al-Qaeda terrorist leader who killed Americans and has a $10 million bounty on his head, and we're going to normalize relations with this guy.
Hey, why couldn't we just normalize relations with Bashar al-Assad?
It would have been a hell of a lot easier, and we wouldn't have to put up with any of this nonsense.
Thank you, my dear friend.
We covered a vast array of issues, and I deeply appreciate your analysis, Scotty.
All the best to you.
We'll see you again next week.
Thank you.
Of course.
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