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May 16, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
34:38
INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap 16-May
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Friday, May 16, 2025.
It's the end of the day, the end of the week.
It's everybody's favorite time of the week, and it's the favorite show for the overwhelming majority of you guys.
Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson join us, as they always do, doing their double duty.
Gentlemen, thank you very much.
So we've had a very unusual week, guys.
Trump in the Middle East enriching his family, leaving with a $400 million jet, although he didn't actually get the jet yet, condemning the neocons and snubbing Netanyahu.
Larry, to you first.
What's your big-picture take on the events of the past week involving the president in the Middle East?
It's like the joke you tell about, what do you call, a thousand lawyers chained at the bottom of the sea?
A good start.
All right.
This was a good start.
At least when Trump took down the neocons and then warmed up to Mohammed bin Salman.
And what's fascinating is when you kick in a trillion dollars to the U.S. government, you do get a lot of affection.
I think Mohammed bin Salman actually outspent AIPAC, at least for this year, with that trillion dollars and bought a lot of goodwill with Trump.
And as a result, Trump said, hey, I'm lifting sanctions on Syria.
The audience went wild.
They erupted in applause.
But then at the same time, later in that speech, Trump said, hey, let's get together on this Abraham Accord.
Everybody sat on their hands.
Abraham Accord, for those that are not familiar with it, is to get all the Arab Muslim countries in the Middle East to recognize and embrace Israel.
And I'm sure that Mohammed bin Salman and the Sheikh of Qatar and the Emiratis, they all told Trump the same thing.
Hey, yeah, we'll get on board with your Abraham Accord, provided...
Israel stops murdering Palestinians, stops the genocide, and there's a two-state solution.
I think that was an implicit message in that.
Maybe that's the next step.
Ray, before you weigh in on this, here is Donald Trump ripping into the neocons like I have never seen an American president do.
Chris, cut number 11. Before our eyes, a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts of...
Tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos.
This great transformation has not come from Western intervention.
The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons, or liberal non-profits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop.
Kabbalah, Baghdad, so many other cities.
Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves.
In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.
They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves.
Peace, prosperity, and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly.
Just going to give you a little breaking news.
The Supreme Court has just ruled 7-2 that President Trump may not, may not use the Alien Enemies Act.
To deport people because none of them are from a country with which we are at war.
Ray, your thoughts on what the president just said.
Did you ever hear in the modern era you would think in the modern era you would hear a president rip into the neocons like that?
No, you're right.
This is unprecedented.
It really shows that somebody on his staff is writing the right words for him.
Those were not his words, we know that.
Some of them he couldn't even pronounce right, Larry, but go ahead, Ray.
Well, you know, at the same time, this administration is hopelessly divided.
I mean, not only on the Middle East, but even on Ukraine, where you have Kellogg and Witkoff, you have this divided empire here.
How does that look to President Putin?
You know, I think that he says, well, you know, let's deal with Trump while we still can.
Who knows when, to use Putin's words, the men with the dark glasses and the attaché cases and the nice suit like mine, says Putin, come in and tell Trump what he has to do.
So with a divided...
Advisory Council, so to speak, half of them still neocons.
Is Trump going to be able to translate this rhetoric into concrete deeds?
The first test comes on Ukraine.
Will Witkoff win over Kellogg, over the Secretary of State Rubio, over the traditional people who have been neocons?
This started a long time ago, the end of the 90s, the prospect for a new American century, written for Netanyahu of all people, and we've seen Iraq, we've seen Afghanistan, we've seen Libya, and Trump is fed up with it.
Whether he can do anything about it or not, well, let's see who gets replaced next after that fellow, what's his name?
The Congressman from Florida.
Michael Waltz.
Yeah, Waltz, who was the secretary.
A national security advisor.
I was going to save the heartburn later in the show, but in light of what Ray just said, Chris, let's show everybody who's sitting next to Marco Rubio while he's negotiating with the foreign minister of Ukraine.
None other than Senator Lindsey Graham, the prince!
Of neocons.
There he is with Secretary of State Rubio and the gentleman on the left, the taller gentleman, is the foreign minister or defense minister.
I'm not sure which of Ukraine.
Larry, why in the hell is he there?
Well, just to make sure that that neocon project stays alive.
Remember, Lindsay, let me put it this way.
There is evidence that Mr. Graham's personal bank account We're talking significant seven-figure income.
My mistake, not seven figures, eight figures.
You're talking felony and life in prison, if proven.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's something that Ed Martin is actually going to take on.
Now, we'll see.
So, you know, Lindsey Graham's not a neutral observer here.
No.
The Ukrainians, I'll say this about Lindsey.
The Ukrainians have got the best American senator that money can buy.
Wow.
I'm surprised.
Actually, I've got to play this clip about money because here's Lindsey Graham talking about...
The best money we've ever spent.
It's 2023.
Cut number four.
Big, big support.
Very important.
The best money we've ever spent.
Thank you so much.
You know, we're on, let's see, this is 457th day of a war that was supposed to last three days.
You amaze me.
Your country amazes me.
It's about our people.
And about your people.
Your people, how?
Help our people, all our appreciations.
You remind me of our better selves in America.
There was a time in America that we were this way, fighting to the last person.
We're going to be free or die.
Free or die.
Free or die.
Now you are free.
Yes.
And we will be.
And the Russians are dying.
This wants to play another clip of Lindsey Graham and John McCain, but my stomach is already churning.
Why would he be there, Ray McGovern, at the negotiations with Marco Rubio?
Trump humiliates Rubio by dispatching Witkoff to do the negotiation.
Rubio is the Secretary of State in name only.
Why are they forcing this warmonger and, according to Larry, crook onto him?
Well, first I have to ask Chris why he put the dunce's cap on him, but I think that was just an arrow to point out to.
It's an arrow.
There he is, yeah.
It's unreal.
You know, Lindsey Graham is famous for bone-crushing sanctions, right?
Just six days ago, that coalition of the brain dead.
Merz from Germany, Macron, Stommer, and Zelensky said, look, you don't buy our 30-day ceasefire.
There'll be consequences, bone-crushing sanctions, according to Lizzie Nam.
So he's there to hold Mario's hand here, and most maliciously here, most consequentially.
To give the Ukrainians the idea, they still have really strong people on their side in this court.
So they have the Europeans, and they have Lindsey Graham, and they have Kellogg, and maybe they have Rubio.
But, you know, to give them the idea still after three years.
One last comment, Graham.
Yeah, this is great.
457 days, my God!
A thousand!
Hundreds of thousands of young kids have been killed in those 457 days, right?
And does Graham give a hoot about that?
Of course not.
Now, he said, we thought it would take three days.
So did Putin.
So did Zelensky.
That's my proof of that.
Two questions for you, Larry.
One, Rubio's in Istanbul and he says nothing will happen until Trump and Putin get here.
That might have been the origin of the rumor this morning that Trump was not flying to Washington.
He's flying to Istanbul.
It didn't happen.
But Rubio should know.
Heads of state don't negotiate.
They sign agreements that have already been negotiated by their team.
Second question, I want you to jump in on both.
Why the hell are General Kellogg and Sebastian Gorka and those characters still whispering into Trump's ears if he's diminishing and blaming all of our failures since 9-11 on the neocons?
Yeah, you know, Trump does not have any consistency in terms of who he surrounds himself with.
And once again, what was illustrated in today's talks, the United States doesn't hold any cards.
This entire spectacle was designed to try to create a scenario in which Trump's going to be compelled to impose new sanctions on Russia.
And Russia doesn't care.
You know, if Trump does that, he's going to dramatically erode his credibility with the Russians.
The Russians went in today, and boy, they essentially hit the Ukrainians with a bucket of cold water.
Medinsky said, look, here's the deal.
You withdraw all of your forces from Kherson, from Zaporizhia, from Donetsk and Luhansk.
And then we can talk about a ceasefire.
But until that happens, we're not going to talk ceasefire.
And if you turn this off or down, we're going to take four more.
So we'll control eight oblasts, not just four.
And that's been reported by a couple of different sources that seem to have access.
And the Ukrainians, oh, we reject that.
Okay, go ahead and reject it.
The Russians are moving steadily to the west.
They're going to...
They're going to take Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy, Potava, and Kharkiv.
And they'll be up against the east bank of the Dnieper River.
And there's not a thing that Ukraine or NATO can do about it.
Because, look, Judge, when all is said and done, the root causes of this conflict is not Ukraine.
It's not what Ukraine did to the Russians.
It is NATO and the United States.
It's what we've done to the Russians.
You know, you couldn't be more correct.
And yet, General Kellogg again pushes this NATO peacekeepers on the ground.
If anything were ever a non-starter.
If anything were ever so profound, the Russians wouldn't even bother to come to the table.
It's that.
Am I right, Larry?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
No, absolutely.
Ray, does Rubio know what he's talking about when he says there can't be a deal until Putin and Trump arrive?
And when he said that, he knew that neither of them was coming?
Well, I can't explain Rubio.
There is talk now about a very soon summit, so to speak.
Nothing's really going to be resolved unless Trump is prepared to accept a pig with just a little bit of lipstick on it.
Larry's right.
The head negotiator for the Russians, he said, look, how long do you want to fight this thing?
We can do it for another year?
We could go for 20 years, like we did against the Swedes.
The Russians are in a very strong position.
And I think that the way this thing's played out, six days ago, we had the brain dead from the allies, the Europeans.
You had Zelensky saying, look, we're going to have a ceasefire or there'll be really huge sanctions.
And then what does Putin do?
Next day, he said, wait a second, all you media that you're about to go home from the celebration of the triumph in Europe, stay around.
Here's my plan.
We're going to resume, okay?
Big, big word.
Resume the negotiations that were broken off by the West in Istanbul.
And indeed, resuming with the same leader, Medinsky, okay?
So this means that this is a big deal.
Now, when I mention...
Lindsey Graham said, "We thought this would be done in three days." Well, as they say, so did Putin, so did Zelensky.
Why?
Because on the second day of the invasion of the Special Monetary Operation, Zelensky called Putin and said, "Let's talk.
Let's get this thing over." And the whole rest of the deal was the Russians succeeded in scaring the pants off Zelensky.
He sent his best representatives, closest friends to Belarus and then to Istanbul.
And we all know what happened in Istanbul.
So this is a resumption except the situation on the ground has changed.
And as Larry said, you know, I think the Russian negotiator says, okay, look, you want to come back later?
Well, then we'll have five more provinces, five provinces rather than the four we hold now.
So they have a strong hand.
I think that Trump...
And his people, maybe Witkoff, were aware of this ploy by Putin and fully support what happened today and are ready to say, well, if the Ukrainians can't be any smarter than that, and if they continue to be aided and abetted by people like Lindsey Graham and the Europeans, that's it.
We quit.
Europeans and Lindsey, you take over from here.
We're out of there.
So, Larry, the United States negotiates directly with Hamas.
It wasn't Marco Rubio.
It was somebody else that Trump dispatched.
And as a result of that negotiation, the last American hostage from New Jersey, 22-year-old young man, was freed.
No quid pro quo from the Israelis because they weren't involved.
Trump publicly embraces...
An ex-Al Qaeda commander who, according to Ritter, has killed Americans with his bare hands.
Trump publicly sidelines Netanyahu by ostentatiously not mentioning him in four days and, of course, not stopping in Israel.
Where is this going?
Well, let's start with Trump embracing Jelani, formerly known as Jelani, now known as Ashara, a bona fide terrorist.
You know, ISIS, al-Nusra, Hayat Tahrir al-Shem, one of the top ten international terrorist groups, on the State Department's hit parade.
But this is not without precedent, because we've got several American presidents that have been embracing terrorists before.
Menachem Begin, does that ring a bell?
How about Yitzhak Shamir, also a terrorist?
One ran Irgun, one ran the Stern Gang.
Both later became, you know, country leaders.
So, you know, we clean them up.
We dress them up in a suit, cut their beard, or shave the beard, cut the hair, make them look presentable, and then all of a sudden they're in good company.
What you know that Trump is actually doing something pretty significant with respect to distancing himself from the Zionists, that when you hear the likes of Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, Their heads are exploding.
They're out shouting about Steve Witkoff being...
Now, Witkoff is Jewish, as are Shapiro and Levin.
Right.
But yet, according to them, Witkoff is an anti-Semite.
He's taking anti-Semitic positions.
I mean, you can't make this up.
No.
And so, the fact that Trump, you know, after saying, I'll never talk to Hamas, and he talked to Hamas and got the deal done.
He's big on pushing the Abraham Accord.
Witkoff was putting out information this morning that, oh, they've got all these countries, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Saudis, they're all ready to go with the Abraham Accord.
The thing he didn't say, and I guarantee you is in the fine print, they're all on board as long as Israel stops the genocide against the Palestinians and the United States recognizes a Palestinian state.
Those are going to be the two conditions that these other countries, particularly the Saudis, will hold out for before they embrace the Abraham Accord.
Sure, they'll give Trump his victory to say, man, I stopped the war between the Arabs and Muslims and Israel.
Yeah, but in the course of that, he may actually end up saving the Palestinians.
I'm at least hopeful that that's what's being done behind the scenes.
Ray, I want you to comment on a clip that we're now going to run.
It begins with the UN High Commissioner on Genocide giving a brief report to the Security Council.
And then it transfers to a Sky News, biggest cable facility in Europe, reporter ripping into Danny Dannen.
Cold, steely-eyed, you can describe him as you see fit, UN ambassador from Israel.
Cut number 15. We have briefed this council in great detail on the extensive civilian harm that we witness daily.
Death, injury, destruction, hunger, disease, torture, other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
We have described the deliberate obstruction of aid operations.
And the systematic dismantling of Palestinian life.
This degradation of international law is corrosive and infectious.
It is undermining decades of progress on rules to protect civilians from inhumanity and the violent and lawless among us.
That was Tom Fletcher.
Ambassador Danon, he goes on to say, stop the 21st century atrocity in Gaza.
Will you act now decisively to prevent genocide in Gaza and to ensure respect for international humanitarian law?
I just want to get your reaction to what Tom Fletcher was saying.
We are in this war because of Hamas, period.
If you want to blame somebody, blame Hamas.
Ambassador Danon, I'm not talking about Hamas.
A terrorist organization.
I am talking about you, the State of Israel, as a responsible actor.
For the last 19 months, the world has been watching the way that you have prosecuted this conflict, the way that aid has been prevented from reaching the most needy.
In the last two months, 73 days, we have seen that there has been no aid that has entered Gaza.
So while you can deflect and say that this is Hamas' responsibility, So the only starvation in Gaza is the starvation of the hostages.
How do you deal with...
Ray McGovern with a mentality with an inhumane attitude like that.
Well, I'm just glad that the interview wasn't in person because I think she was Irish and she would have done him in.
You know, it really is.
When we talk about the Arabs, let's admit that they're cowards.
The Arabs don't give a rat's patootie about the Palestinians.
Even though they have real domestic problems with Palestinians, they do a lot of their work for them, okay?
So what's going to really take is that Trump has got to make that telephone call we all talk about and tell Mr. Netanyahu, look...
We're getting embarrassed ourselves about genocide.
We don't think it's a real neat thing.
Even the press in Britain and to some extent in America are talking about genocide now.
Sure, CNN and BBC not, but it's coming.
We want you to stop.
Now, can we as citizens do something about that?
Sure we can.
My colleagues in Veterans for Peace are doing a fast before...
The U.S. representation at the U.N. this coming week.
There are lots of stuff we can do, but each of us, each of us individually need to do something to stop the genocide.
Last thing here, Aaron Bushnell, who was so beside himself about what we were doing, set himself on fire.
The last thing he said was, look, We ask them what we would have done during slavery, what we would have done during Jim Crow, and then what would we do during genocide?
Well, you're doing it now.
You.
You're doing it now or you're not doing it now.
And so that's what we got to do here.
The Arabs are a feckless bunch.
They're just interested in money.
Sorry to say that.
And Netanyahu is not going to listen to anyone else.
Maybe the time has come for Trump to make that telephone call.
Ray, about a month ago, officials of the National Intelligence Council of the CIA issued a report concluding that the Trend de Aragua gang was not affiliated with or subject to or directed by the government of Venezuela.
This week, Tulsi Gabbard fired the two top officials at the National Intelligence Council.
What is the National Intelligence Council, and how significant is some firing like this?
Well, if it's tied to this paper that undercut Trump policy, then that's mischievous, because that shouldn't happen.
What we see here now is a whole reorganization of the reorganization that took place after 9-11.
All those senators and all those members of the 9 /11 Commission said, "Ah, the problem was no one was in charge." Well, I got news for you.
Someone was in charge and had the authority and had the responsibility to prevent 9 /11 and he didn't do it.
His name was George Tenet.
So everybody made mistakes for him and they set up a new superstructure which was totally unnecessary.
Now that's coming home to roost because there's all kinds of Games being played here.
And all you need is somebody in authority with integrity and the gumption to do things about it.
They can run the PDB.
They can run the National Intelligence Council and make good estimates.
But they need to have the right kind of people in there.
They don't need another superstructure.
But I do have some hope that Tulsi Gabbard, as she is moving the people that do the President's Daily Brief out of CIA headquarters, I hope she gets somebody with integrity and responsibility and guts to run the PDB because that's where it hits the road.
Larry, A, what is the National Intelligence Council?
And B, who would work for her if they're going to get fired for being intellectually honest?
Well, back in my day and Ray's day...
The NIC was actually part of CIA.
And you'd get senior officers from different divisions, like one of my friends and mentors, Fulton Armstrong, went on to become the National Intelligence Officer for Latin America.
He was in that position when the decision was made to invade Iraq in 2003.
He, along with the National Intelligence Officer for Africa, opposed that invasion.
But after the reorganization, the setup of the Office of Director of National Intelligence, the NIC was moved under it.
Now, whether they physically moved out of CIA headquarters and moved to the DNI headquarters, that I don't know.
But what the National Intelligence Council is supposed to be is to have...
The best Latin American expert, the best Africa expert, the best European expert, the best Asian expert, the best Soviet or then it was then Soviet, now Russian expert, etc.
So you've got the expertise from these different disciplines and then to oversee the production of national intelligence estimates, which that's virtually disappeared, at least under the Biden administration.
I don't recall even a single...
National Intelligence Estimate coming out.
So it's to be there as sort of an expert consultants.
And my understanding is the people that Tulsi fired, they fired them for their political involvement, not because they were providing unwelcome analysis.
It's because they were political activists openly talking about defeating Trump.
Okay.
To sort of liven things up, the opposite of the Lindsey Graham full screen, here is our friend Ben Cohen of Ben& Jerry's Ice Home.
Yes!
Doing his best Ray McGovern imitation at a hearing at which Bobby Kennedy was testifying.
You've got to watch this.
Cut number 16. Permitted, while the committee conducts its business, Capitol Police are asked to remove the individuals from the hearing room.
Move down the hallway.
Ben, why are you getting arrested?
Move down the hallway.
The staffer will be arrested.
Lawyer kills poor kids in Gaza by buying bombs and pays for it by kicking kids off Medicaid in the U.S. Keep going down.
Keep going down the hallway.
How many days have they been starving in Gaza?
What has it been?
Seventy times.
Stop.
I've been handling my troops.
Our program.
We work down the road.
Down the road right now.
Ben, what are you calling for the Congress and senators to do for Gaza?
Congress and the senators need to ease the speech.
They need to let food into Gaza.
They need to let food to starving kids.
What did you say in there, Ray?
I said that Congress is paying to bomb poor kids in Gaza and paying for it by kicking poor kids off Medicaid in the U.S. Don't let them any closer.
Stop!
Everybody stop!
Everybody stop!
See, Ray, when they arrested you, you didn't have your own PR set up ready to go the hallway.
No, I barely got the same word.
Well, you know, there should be free ice cream after every event like that.
And I would invite every one of us to seize whatever opportunity we have to intervene like that when these people are pontificating about starving kids in Gaza and justifying that as necessary to defeat Hamas or to support Israel.
It's a scandal I have not seen in my 85 years.
And that's a long time to wait for this kind of scandal.
Let's stop it, folks.
Let's stop it.
Larry, I was surprised.
I thought the cops were a little rough with him.
It was just freedom of speech, for gosh sakes.
He wasn't harming anybody.
They were treating him like he was a linebacker who had attacked his girlfriend.
It's unfortunate that, let's call it the rules of engagement.
Are not designed to treat people as human beings.
It is a bit of thuggery.
It's unfortunate.
You know, it'd be one thing if he was armed.
He wasn't armed.
And he wasn't fighting back.
He wasn't throwing punches.
He wasn't spitting at him.
But so, you know, they should have.
It's just, it was a power trip.
You know, that's part of the problem.
Sometimes people put on a uniform and they forget that they're a human being.
Right.
And they forget the oath they took to the Constitution.
Gentlemen, thank you very much.
Thanks for your time.
Thanks for the double duty.
Have a great weekend.
We'll look forward to seeing you both at your usual times on Monday.
Happy to do it.
Thank you.
All the best.
And Monday, of course, at 8 in the morning, Alistair Crook.
At 10 in the morning, Ray McGovern.
At 11.30 in the morning, Larry Johnson and probably one of our other regular colleagues.
In the afternoon.
I know that Scott Ritter is very unhappy at some of the things that happened in the Middle East and can't wait to express that unhappiness.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
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