May 20, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
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| Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. | |
| Today is Wednesday, May 21st, 2025. | |
| That familiar face that you see there is our former and soon-to-be-again regular Matt Ho. | |
| Matt, it's a pleasure. | |
| Welcome back to the show. | |
| We've all missed you. | |
| The audience has missed you. | |
| Thank you for making yourself available to us. | |
| I want to spend most of our time talking about Gaza, but before we get there, A few questions on Ukraine. | |
| Do you think that the president and his negotiators understand the Russian mentality when it comes to things like, we're winning this war, why would we ceasefire? | |
| We don't engage in ceasefires as a prelude to negotiation. | |
| These four oblasts in Crimea were part of Russia before the United States even existed. | |
| We're claiming back what's ours. | |
| Do you think they grasp that mentality? | |
| Judge, it's good to see you. | |
| Thanks for having me back on. | |
| No, they don't. | |
| No, they don't. | |
| You know, the American empire, as represented now by this leadership we have, has always been an empire that more or less has had it easy. | |
| Where it's always been an empire, all empires do, a bully, a lesser-than relationship with other nations after World War II. | |
| The United States had 60% of the world's economic production. | |
| We had it our way wherever we wanted to. | |
| And then those we fought and who we often lost against in our wars of the last 80 years. | |
| I'm not even going to go before that because we could be here for three days talking about that. | |
| But even in the military affairs. | |
| Which is essentially the focus of American foreign policy, particularly since the end of the Cold War, we've got militarized foreign policy. | |
| It's been one loss after another because the Americans fundamentally don't understand their adversaries. | |
| So I think what you're seeing here, Judge, and I think you're articulating it quite well, the Americans simply don't understand the Russian mindset. | |
| And I won't say that the Russian mindset is... | |
| It's no different, I believe, than other mindsets. | |
| It's no different than the Afghan or the Iraqi or the Vietnamese mindsets that say we have our people to protect, we have our land to protect, we have our sovereignty to defend, we have our security to consider. | |
| And I think those are the things that make up this mindset you're speaking of that is so, it shouldn't be, but so foreign. | |
| To American leadership, because again, the American empire has been gifted so many things through the centuries. | |
| You know, maybe you'll play it, but I've heard a couple of your episodes this week, and you've played the interview with the Russian Novitskiy, and then he quotes Bismarck at the end. | |
| You know, and Bismarck, you know, he talked, when he spoke about the United States, he spoke about how the United States has weak neighbors to its north and south and fish. | |
| I mean, so the United States has always had it easy. | |
| Bismarck reportedly also said that God has a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America. | |
| That sounds like a Ray McGovern line. | |
| Well, let's talk about the other side of this equation. | |
| Do the Russians understand The bifurcated Trump administration. | |
| Some of them America firsters. | |
| Their numbers seem to be dwindling. | |
| Most of them neocons. | |
| All of them ardent Zionists. | |
| Do the Russians get that? | |
| That Trump can change from minute to minute depending upon who whispered into his ear last. | |
| I think they do. | |
| And if you remember, Vladimir Putin said as much about... | |
| 14, 15 months ago when he was asked who he'd like to see win the American election, he said, you know, he didn't say, I want Joe Biden, but he essentially said, we prefer Joe Biden because he's predictable, because we understand him. | |
| We understand where he's coming from. | |
| And I think that is what makes President Trump unique. | |
| He is no lesser of an imperial president than any of his predecessors, but his worldview, his outlook, his loyalties. | |
| To the institutions, to the infrastructure empire to which his predecessors adhered makes Trump a different form of imperial president and more than likely a more dangerous imperial president because you don't know what he is going to decide to do next. | |
| None of us can sit here and say this is the United States position on Ukraine and Russia because it changes day by day or week by week. | |
| And the dangerous thing, of course, Judge, is do I believe that the White House actually knows what their position on Ukraine and Russia is? | |
| About two weeks ago, two very senior officials of the CIA released a thorough report demonstrating conclusively that this Venezuelan gang known as Trendy Aragua Last week, | |
| the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, fired these two career people because the narrative that they came to based upon their examination of raw data was inconsistent with the president's political needs. | |
| Then last weekend, without showing any evidence, Secretary of State Rubio said, well, we all know they were wrong. | |
| We all know Trinidad is financed and controlled by the Venezuelan government. | |
| What is the value to military personnel and civilian leaders of intel if it is trashed and tailored to support the president's present whims? | |
| Tremendous value, Judge, because they're chasing their own individual and institutional political desires. | |
| I mean, you look at the levels of warfare, tactical, operational, strategic, and the military guys like to live out the top level a lot. | |
| They like to live out political. | |
| Political trumps everything. | |
| And so if you have a loyal cadre of intelligence officers, of intelligence community that will do your bidding, then that is more valuable to you than someone who's going to present you information that's not in your interest. | |
| I mean, we've seen this occur. | |
| You know, our friend Ray McGovern likes to bring this up, still one of his favorite stories. | |
| About 10 years or so ago, you had Lloyd Austin, at that time the four-star commanding general of Central Command, then went on to Raytheon, board of directors, then came back in, of course, as President Biden's Secretary of Defense for four years. | |
| I'm not sure where he's at right now. | |
| I presume back at Raytheon as well as other, you know, He was part of a private equity firm along with Tony Blinken, etc. | |
| So we all know this. | |
| But Lloyd Austin, when he was commander of Central Command, faced a revolt from his intelligence officers because he was doctoring the information they were providing. | |
| Regarding what was occurring in Syria. | |
| So the information that the Central Command Intelligence people were saying, this is what's happening in Syria, that's supposed to go to President Obama, so President Obama could make its decisions about what to do in Syria, was being doctored by the four-star commanding general. | |
| So President Obama then or President Trump now will proceed on the basis of falsehoods. | |
| And in the case of this Trendy Iraqwa thing, because it's being used to justify... | |
| Deportations without due process, it's going to make its way into a courtroom where if you lie under oath, theoretically, you go to jail. | |
| I don't think they're too worried about it. | |
| Judge, I'm sure this probably gave you a near aneurysm, but we have a Secretary of Homeland Security who can't define habeas corpus. | |
| These people don't care about such things. | |
| You know, and what I view this issue with Trendo Agua and the intel community and these two intelligence officers being fired as getting their ducks in a row. | |
| Tulsi Gabbard getting her people, putting her people on notice, getting everyone in line. | |
| It was more, I think, an internal admonishment, an internal caution or warning that you better stay within the boundaries. | |
| You better color within the lines here. | |
| We don't want anything except for what we want. | |
| And I think this dismissal of those two intelligence officers had more to do with ensuring that future intelligence products go to the president's desk that meet the political narrative and necessity of this administration as opposed to resembling anything authentic or actual or honest. | |
| One clip I want to show you to which you alluded before we jump over to Gaza. | |
| This is Christy Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, making an absolute fool of herself yesterday in the United States Senate. | |
| Remember, she's under oath. | |
| Chris, cut number 16. So, Secretary Noem, what is habeas corpus? | |
| Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the President has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their right to... | |
| Let me stop you, ma 'am. | |
| Habeas corpus, excuse me, that's incorrect. | |
| President Lincoln used it. | |
| Excuse me. | |
| Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. | |
| If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason. | |
| Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America From police states like North Korea. | |
| As a senator from the live free or die state, this matters a lot to me and my constituents and to all Americans. | |
| So, Secretary Noem, do you support the core protection that habeas corpus provides, that the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone? | |
| I support habeas corpus. | |
| I also recognize that the President of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not. | |
| Let us be clear, though, that this President... | |
| It has never been done without approval of Congress. | |
| Even Abraham Lincoln got retroactive approval from Congress. | |
| I don't know if Senator Hassan's a Republican or a Democrat, a Libertarian or a Progressive, but she's 100% correct on the Constitution. | |
| And this lady who commands a police department, Kristi Noem, Of 165,000 police officers and is in charge of the deportations, doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. | |
| No, Judge, I went to law school for five days back in 1995. | |
| And I'm pretty certain we covered that within those five days. | |
| I mean, so, I mean, this is the basic. | |
| But, you know, I was reminded the other day of an amazing Dostoevsky quote, Fiona Dostoevsky quote. | |
| It covers a lot of this. | |
| He talks about if anyone has ever, and it's from the House of the Dead, people want to look it up, if anyone has ever enjoyed humiliating someone, the hypnotizing power of that, right? | |
| How tyranny is something that can be indulged in. | |
| And he concludes by saying blood and power are intoxicating. | |
| And that's what you have here. | |
| You have people who are intoxicated by their power, intoxicated by the ability to not just carry forward tyrannically, but sadistically. | |
| Kristi Noem, who has gone to that prison in El Salvador and taken TikTok videos there in the midst of that crime against humanity, she is not simply an ignoramus, but she is a sadist. | |
| She is someone who, as Dostoevsky would describe, intoxicated by blood and power. | |
| Our friend Max Blumenthal looked at a picture of her in front of 400 mostly naked men, the way she was dressed, and called it prison porn. | |
| Right. | |
| It's a legitimate critique of her. | |
| Let's change the subject, and thank you for your very, very sharp analysis on that. | |
| She's a disgrace. | |
| Nevertheless, Tom Fletcher, the High Commissioner of Humanitarian Rights for the UN, has told the UN Security Council that 14,000 babies will die tomorrow, tomorrow, Thursday, May 22nd. | |
| 2,025, 14,000 of malnutrition if they are not adequately fed. | |
| I don't know if food is getting through or not, but it now appears that the monstrous nature of the Netanyahu regime is worse than ever. | |
| Who or what will stop it? | |
| I don't think anything can stop it, Judge. | |
| No one's going to stop it. | |
| The Israelis don't care. | |
| You just had Danny Anon, who is their ambassador to the UN, this morning say to BBC that we don't care about support from the world. | |
| We don't need support from the world. | |
| You have seen the Americans, despite all the clamor last week about this space, this distance between the White House and Netanyahu or Israel and America, that's... | |
| That's nonsense. | |
| I mean, we've seen whether it's comments from Whitcalf or Bowler or whoever, the relationship with the U.S. is ironclad or there's no daylight between Trump and Netanyahu. | |
| I think what you saw with almost two weeks ago now, when the Israeli prisoner of war, who is an American citizen, Adon Alexander, was released through a deal between the Americans and Hamas. | |
| That was the Americans essentially getting the only thing they actually care about out of Gaza, clearing the way for the Israelis to do as they wish. | |
| You have the Europeans making all types of noises. | |
| It will come to nothing. | |
| Spain, my grandparents are from Spain. | |
| They've been one of the leaders, if you will, against this genocide. | |
| And it's all... | |
| It's meaningless and consequential. | |
| Their parliament just passed a non-binding resolution on arms sales to Israel. | |
| So if you're going to look at these nations around the world, who's talking the toughest? | |
| They're passing non-binding resolutions a year and a half into a genocide on arms sales. | |
| If anyone believes the French or the Britons are going to do anything... | |
| I guess those 14,000 babies... | |
| By this time tomorrow, we'll be on the way into their graves. | |
| It's just a reprehensible monstrosity. | |
| I want to play for you a clip from Prime Minister Netanyahu who couldn't care less about these babies. | |
| You may have seen it, but I want to play you a clip that you may not have seen, which is a monster from the Knesset, a former member of the Knesset, former member of Netanyahu's party. | |
| party left the Likud to form his own party no longer in the Knesset. | |
| You'll hear what he has to say. | |
| So, Chris, first number 14 and then number 10, back to back. | |
| Eventually, we will have an area fully controlled by the IDF, where Gaza's civilian population can receive aid, while Hamas gets nothing. | |
| This is part of the effort to defeat Hamas alongside the intense military pressure and our massive incursion, which is essentially aimed at taking control of all of Gaza and stripping Hamas of any ability to loot humanitarian aid. | |
| This is the war plan and the victory plan. | |
| Every child in Gaza is the enemy. | |
| We are at war with the Gazan entity, the Gazan terror entity, which we ourselves established in Gaza, in Oslo, and in the disengagement. | |
| The disengagement that Prime Minister Netanyahu voted in favor of, that is the enemy now. | |
| Every such child to whom you are now giving milk in another 15 years will rape your daughters and slaughter your children. | |
| We need to conquer Gaza and settle it. | |
| And not a single Gazan child should remain there. | |
| Let's stop telling ourselves this deception, just to score points in this game between pro-BB and anti-BB. | |
| This isn't about left or right, it's about winning this war, and it's about justice. | |
| When will we learn? | |
| When will we learn? | |
| Our understanding is this mentality, kill these babies now before they grow up, is this mentality prevalent among children The Israeli public, or is it just the right-wing fanatics like this person and Smotrich and Ben-Gabir and their colleagues? | |
| I believe it to be, Judge. | |
| There was just a poll by Channel 14 in Israel found 53% of Israelis do not want food to go into Gaza. | |
| They want the blockade to continue, the starvation. | |
| And an important thing about noting about that 53% of Israelis who were polled who want 14,000 babies to starve to death is that that includes Israeli Palestinians, right? | |
| So you remove that number and just look at Israeli Jews and you're upwards well over two-thirds, three-quarters of the population, you know, we've seen this consistently in public opinion polls, are in favor, are supportive. | |
| Of this genocide. | |
| Haaretz just had a story a few days ago about the yoga Nazis, as Haaretz called them. | |
| These spiritual or many of them are secular and they wouldn't be at first plus considered Zionists. | |
| And they do things like run yoga studios who are full in favor of. | |
| The genocide. | |
| Maybe they don't use the terms that we've just heard. | |
| Maybe they're not as blunt as, say, Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, who has been incredibly blunt and honest these last few days. | |
| He's always been that way, but especially these last several days, he's been incredibly clear about what... | |
| He expects to happen. | |
| But we've always known this, Judge. | |
| I mean, even go back several months to the great Trump ceasefire, the inauguration ceasefire that Wyckoff signed and got done. | |
| You know, when that was passed, when that was accepted by the Israeli cabinet, they had an addendum tacked on saying, we will begin the genocide again. | |
| I mean, so this has always been the goal, and this goes back, predates October 7th, predates, you know, 67, predates 48. This has been the more than 100 year on the Palestinian people that requires ethnic cleansing and genocide in order for it to be successful. | |
| We only have a minute or two left. | |
| Why isn't Trump known as genocide, Don? | |
| Why don't the crowds chant that? | |
| It's just as bad under him as it was under Genocide Joe. | |
| It may even be worse. | |
| It appears that it may be worse. | |
| We keep seeing things, Judge, coming from Palestinian journalists saying how they've never seen it this bad. | |
| You know, a year and a half in and you have these men and women who have been reporting heroically and diligently through this genocide. | |
| And they are saying it's never been this bad. | |
| And I am perplexed, too, as to why Donald Trump has not received a nickname himself, because what he is doing certainly is equal to what the Biden administration did. | |
| Matt, how a pleasure, my dear friend. | |
| I hope you can come back and visit with us soon. | |
| We miss you. | |
| Thank you for your insight. | |
| Thank you for your incredible heart and compassion. | |
| Tempered by all of your knowledge and experience. | |
| All the best, Matt. | |
| We'll see you again soon. | |
| Thanks, Judge. | |
| Of course. | |
| Coming up later today at 3 o 'clock, Phil Giraldi. | |
| And at 4 o 'clock, the always worth waiting for, Scott Ritter. |
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