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June 12, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:32
INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap 12-June
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Friday, June 13, 2025.
It's the end of the day, the end of the week.
It's our favorite segment with our longtime collaborators, the Intelligence Community Roundtable, Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson.
Gentlemen, welcome here.
Thank you for the extra time.
It's been a pressure cooker of a week for all of us, particularly the last 24 hours.
I want to spend our time analyzing from a military perspective, Larry, and from an intelligence perspective, Ray, what we are witnessing in real time between Iran and Israel.
Ray, to you first.
What is the likely involvement of the CIA in the attacks by the Israelis on Iran perpetrated in the past 24 hours?
Well, as usual, the CIA is embedded in Mossad, so there's a good chance that the CIA knew about these plans.
On the other hand, there's the Israeli habit of not seeking permission, but rather preferring to seek forgiveness after they do these things.
So I don't know which is the case in this instance, but I would emphasize that most people have Really not mention what I think is one of the main factors here, and that is Netanyahu's very precarious position in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, whatever you call it.
He almost got kicked out of power there earlier this week.
I think he saw an interesting and a very lucrative opportunity to start a regional war to stay out of jail.
Now, that sounds crazy, right?
This is the guy that's doing genocide in Gaza.
Would he start a regional war to stay out of jail?
I wouldn't put it past him.
Would he use nuclear weapons in this war?
Again, that since chills up the back of my spine, but I wouldn't put it past him.
So this thing needs to be tamped down.
I think the combination of Russia, China, and if Trump will divorce himself a little bit more from the Zionists in his government.
I think this could be tamped down, but not before Iran retaliates in a very, very vicious way.
Larry, have the neocons been triumphant in the Trump foreign policy machine with this series of events in the past 24 hours?
No, Trump did this.
This is all on Donald Trump.
In fact, you know, And, oh, we had really no knowledge.
So what does Trump tell the New York Post today?
And I'm quoting, I always knew the day Israel would attack.
I know everything.
Okay, so Donald Trump was up to his eyebrows in this thing and he The U.S. military knew it was going to take place.
The U.S. military was involved in planning and coordinating this effort with Israel.
Chris, sir.
Without a doubt.
And you know what this is?
Let's call this Saddam Hussein Part 2. Remember the lead-up to the war in Iraq in 2003, the American public were gaslit, as was most of the world.
With this nonsense, this lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and if we didn't stop him, oh my God, the world would come to an end.
Israel just did the same thing with U.S. and European support.
I can't emphasize that enough.
You notice last week, this document came out allegedly from the IAE, saying, oh, Iran has violated this and violated that, and they're a complete violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
And then you have same talking points coming out from the UK, from France, and from Germany.
That is not a coincidence.
I do not believe in coincidence.
This was a coordinated operation.
Israel's carried it out, but they're also carrying water for other people.
Chris, cut number 16. Our president will start a war with Iran.
Because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate.
He's weak and he's ineffective.
That's Donald Trump running against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Chris, Trump on his inaugural address, cut number 13. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.
You can leave that on the screen, Chris, and I'll read it.
I'm sure Larry and Ray have seen Trump's statement in the middle of the night.
Well, it came out about 5.30 this morning, guys.
I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal.
I told them in the strongest of words to just do it.
But no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn't get it done.
I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told.
That the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the world by far in caps and that Israel has a lot of it with much more to come and they know how to use it.
Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely but they didn't know what was about to happen.
They are all dead in caps now and it will only get worse.
There has already been great death and destruction.
But there is still time to make this slaughter with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal come to an end.
Iran must make a deal before there is nothing left and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire.
No more death, no more destruction.
Just do it before it's too late.
God bless you all, Ray.
Jeff Sachs says this is the most fascistic statement he's ever seen.
From an American president.
It's basically saying negotiate with us and agree with us at the negotiating table or we will kill you.
Well, you know, it's really ridiculous, Judge, because the ostensible reason is that Iran is working on a nuclear weapon that would threaten Israel.
Now, this all happened before.
In 2007, Everyone thought this was the case until a national intelligence estimate pointed otherwise, said with high confidence that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon in late 2003 and had not resumed work.
That judgment has been repeated every year since, as recently as two months ago.
So they're pushing at an open door.
Nuclear weaponry has nothing to do with this.
They're doing a dream change.
That's what they're trying to do.
Now, here's Trump talking about his most recent discussion with Putin nine days ago.
We also discussed Iran after Ukraine and the fact that time is running out on Iran's decision about nuclear weapons, which must be made quickly.
I stated to President Putin that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
Well, and we agreed on this.
Well, we also agreed, did we, that Iran is not working on a nuclear weapon?
Now, the reason I mention this is because the Zionists in Trump's government are more powerful than the ones in George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's government, because when that estimate came out, it prevented Bush and Cheney from supporting or acting with Israel in an attack on Iran.
This time, it's the same judgment.
They're not working on a nuclear weapon.
And Tulsi Gabbard was so upset about all these neocons and these warmongers that she made an unprecedented statement saying, don't you people realize what happens when nuclear weapons go off?
That's how I read that.
So what Tulsi Gabbard is saying is, look, I'm having a hell of a time with these other troglodytes here.
They think they can use nuclear weapons or risk nuclear war.
I see that exclusively in the Iran-Israel context.
And I think she's trying to plead with everybody who might listen, say, look, this is getting very serious because not even the intelligence community is allowed to express what is reality, and that is that Iran continues not to work on a nuclear weapon.
And so why do you want to blow it to smithereens?
When it's not doing what you're accused of doing.
It's regime change.
I think Netanyahu sees a really good opportunity window when Trump is diverted with tariffs and Los Angeles and a whole bunch of other things.
Go ahead and do it and ask for excuses later or ask for forgiveness later.
Although it does look like Trump is crowing about the fact that he was in on it from the beginning.
Doesn't make any sense.
The Iranians are going to retaliate.
It's going to be fierce.
We're going up the escalation ladder, and there was no real need to, except for the Zionists' wish, to decapitate, which they have, and emasculate Iran.
Larry, before you respond, it's a brief one.
This is Tulsi Gabbard under oath.
Two months ago, March 25th, Chris cut number one.
The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.
Not building a nuclear weapon.
And Supreme Leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.
The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program.
But I don't know whether to believe her or not, Larry.
This is based upon the unanimous conclusion of the intelligence community.
And then she fired the people, didn't she, that wrote that report?
No.
I don't think so.
I'm not sure.
Look, Iran, within the last hour, hour and a half, Iran has already retaliated against Israel.
They've hit the Damona nuclear reactor.
They've hit the defense headquarters in Tel Aviv.
They've hit several other targets.
They've launched at least three waves of missiles.
The first wave was to attract air defense systems.
The final ones you can see, again, these hypersonic missiles streaking in, not being stopped, exploding on impact.
So Israel's now saying they're going to retaliate for that.
So we're past escalation.
This is war.
We're now in a war.
Iran's not going to back down.
Israel's going to not back down, and the United States is, to this point, Iran's avoiding attacking U.S. targets, even though the Iranians have said and believe that this was carried out with U.S. support.
But they don't want to fight the United States, at least not yet.
But, Larry, apparently the President of the United States doesn't speak to his own Secretary of State.
Chris, put up the full screen from Marco Rubio.
This is just incredible in light of what Trump said.
This is last night.
Marco Rubio, the Senate confirmed, but not actual, real Secretary of State.
Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran.
We are not involved in strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.
Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for self-defense.
President Trump and the administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners.
Let me be clear, Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.
Larry, the first two sentences are bald-faced lies, are they not?
It is, as Ray calls it, male bovine excrement in large, copious amounts and extremely odiferous, to use several adjectives.
Look.
Trump, upon getting that message from the Israelis, all he had to do is tell Netanyahu, don't do it.
We've got peace talks.
We're going to get this settled through peace talks, if he was sincere about that.
Donald Trump is not sincere about that.
I think Donald Trump now has established himself in the last 48 hours as a liar.
Because, first of all, we don't know anything about it, and we told him to stand down.
The United States has the power and ability to stop Israel in a second.
Because without continued U.S. support, Israel cannot sustain this kind of operation.
Instead, Trump's point, oh, what can we do?
Those Israelis, man, they're so tough, we can't stop them.
And then, today, yeah, I knew when they were getting hit.
I knew all about it.
I know everything.
The sick narcissist said.
It is disgusting because people now are dying that did not need to die.
And these attacks by the Israelis, they've got 50 years of history of doing decapitations.
They go out and they kill a leader.
They killed the Hamas leader.
Guess what?
Still there.
And we're talking Sheikh Yashem from 25 years ago.
They kill Nasrallah.
Hey, Hezbollah is still there.
And so this thinking that they can kill their way out of this, it's a sick, perverse policy on the part of these Zionists.
It's also sick, Ray and Larry, that this is the opposite of what Trump told everybody he would do.
Chris, cut number 17. Just as importantly, bringing back impoundment will give us a crucial tool with which to obliterate the deep state, drain the swamp.
And starve the warmongers, these people that want wars all over the place, killing, killing, killing.
They love killing.
And the globalists out of our government.
We're going to get the warmongers and the globalists out of our government.
Wanted the people, and I guess to a certain extent succeeded in getting a significant majority to believe that all along.
Funding a war in Ukraine, where Ukraine is profoundly losing.
Perpetrating genocide in Gaza, even ratcheting it up more than Joe Biden.
And now this.
All at the expense of the American taxpayer, Ray McGovern.
Were you surprised, Ray, that Mossad was able to set up some sort of a coordinating facility inside Iran?
And smuggled drones inside Iran?
No, Mossad is pretty good at that kind of thing.
Actually, the Iranians have done something similar.
They sent their intelligence agencies to filch very important documents which have yet to be fully published, but they have to do with Israel's nuclear capabilities and who helped them become nuclear.
One thing that I was just talking to UK ambassador, former ambassador Craig Murray.
He spent four months in Lebanon and he watched what happened to Hezbollah when Hezbollah sort of laid back and let the Israelis pretty much attrit them.
And he said that he thought that the Iranians probably had learned a lesson from that, that there's no sense in waiting.
You use it or you lose it.
The Israelis continue to attack.
He thinks, and I agree with him here, that the Iranians will have no inhibitions to fire all those hypersonic missiles that they have, and they can utter destruction within Israel as they have already demonstrated the ability to do.
They can't be shot down.
No Patriot missile battery can shoot them down.
So apparently, Larry just mentioned, they're doing that now.
So this is going on.
What's going to happen?
Well, it seems to me that there is some saving grace here.
Here's what Trump said.
He asked the Russians to help.
Well, did he really ask?
Well, maybe they try to help.
The Chinese are saying, oh, this is awful.
We can act as intermediaries.
This is a big problem, folks.
It's a worldwide problem.
China and Russia have real big interests there, strategic interests in that area.
There is a possibility that they can persuade Trump to ditch the Zionists that have already prevailed so far and say, look, this is really interesting and really difficult because Israel has nuclear weapons.
Look what Netanyahu has already done.
Do you think he will stop before using nuclear weapons just to stay out of jail?
Sounds crazy, doesn't it?
What he has already done.
Larry, your favorite, our favorite, the favorite of the three of us, a member of the United States Senate from South Carolina considers this a game.
Here's what he said.
Game on.
Pray for Israel.
This is the guy that whispers in Trump's ear whenever they play golf.
He never met a war.
He didn't want somebody else to fight.
Well, yeah, again, Judge, the reason we do this, the United States never pays a price in blood.
You know, we get all crocodile tears over all the people that died in Vietnam on the U.S. side.
Well, excuse me, 58,000, that's how many we lose in automobile accidents in a year, and we don't give a damn, okay?
the same in korea so you know And therefore, we can go around the world sowing mayhem, killing these other people, causing their deaths, causing the deaths of a million-plus Ukrainian soldiers, and we make money off of it.
US companies get richer.
So that's why I say this is a...
We're like a drug addict when it comes to this.
Larry, how do you see the war expanding?
Is it just going to be Israel with the help of the U.S. against Iran, or will other countries in the region get involved?
It depends on what happens.
I mean, it depends.
If the United States now gets involved directly with these attacks, then the U.S. bases will then be hit.
To the extent that the Saudis and all the other Gulf Arabs, so far, they've come out and condemned us.
Russia's Ambassador Nebenzi, I watched his statement just about an hour ago, very, very strong condemnation, blamed Israel entirely for this as an illegal act of war, as completely unjustified.
So he was excoriating the Israelis.
You know, this has the potential to spiral out of control.
If Israel decides to use a nuke, then that's going to make it impossible for other countries in the region like Pakistan that have nukes to ignore it.
And Ray, you just finished arguing a few minutes ago that Netanyahu was so desperate that he would, in your view, he would consider using nuclear weapons if he felt that that would preserve his time in office and insulate him from prosecution for crimes where the evidence of his guilt is overwhelming.
I fear that.
There's no guarantee that he wouldn't do that.
I mean, he's got a lot at stake personally.
They have that little bridal suite prepared for him in one of those Tel Aviv jails for him and his wife.
As soon as he's out of power, that's where he lands.
Now, maybe the chances are less than 50 /50 that will happen, but if you're Netanyahu, you're going to roll the dice.
And the dice, in this case, has caused already a major war and could end up in a situation where the Iranians, with their new capabilities, force Netanyahu into a decision.
Does he give up?
Does he go to jail for the rest of his life or does he use the sanction option, the nuclear weapons that we all know he has in quantities of weapons?
You mean the Iranian?
Uranian, excuse me.
I meant Iranian.
I'm sorry.
No, no.
I think, look, we're faced with a similar bit of what I'll call artificial intelligence and initial intelligence.
Euphoric reporting that we saw with Ukraine's drone strike on the Russian airfields.
Remember, 41 aircraft destroyed, five airfields hit.
We had video footage.
Oh, my God!
It turned out it was not true.
A lot of it not true.
It was actually two of the five airfields hit, if I recall correctly, and a total of about seven aircraft, and many, at least half of which, Some of their AWACS didn't have engines attached to the bottom of the wings.
How accurate were the reports we all saw when we woke up this morning that Israel had inflicted the BBC unprecedented damage on Iran?
It's true, because the last time Iran was attacked like this was when we helped Iraq attack Iran, and Iraq never had that kind of capability.
So, yeah, this is the first time Iran's been hit like this, and we're not quite sure how effective some of their air defense systems were or were not.
A lot of this reporting is, I will maintain, propaganda from the West designed to paint a narrative and a story in order to encourage more support for Israel.
One of the things I'd point out, Judge, is that the end of the Russian announcement said, "We note that the U.S. is ready to hold another round of negotiations with Iran in Oman, having to do with the nuclear program of Iran." That was the very end.
That's what the Russians are hoping for.
Most people would say, "Oh my God, do you think the Iranians would do that?
Would they, on this coming Sunday, go to talks with the US?" Well, the proof will be in the pudding.
I don't know what the answer is, but the Iranians have this option.
They know full well, okay, that Netanyahu's game is to suck.
The U.S. into open warfare with Israel against Iran.
I think that makes them hesitant to hit the U.S. air bases, the bases in the immediate area, Iraq, elsewhere, Syria.
And so I think there's a chance that they will be circumspect.
Sure, they'll blast the hell out of Israel as long as they can.
But on Sunday, the proof will be in the pudding.
Will Iran decide to continue?
This would be the sixth such round of talks.
It's in Oman.
Well, I wouldn't rule it out.
And if that happens, then we have the Omanese, we have the Gulf people, we have China and Russia all interested in tamping this thing down.
There is a smittering of hope in this, and also the fact that Trump did ask Putin to intervene with the Iranians, and there's a very close relationship now between Iran and Larry,
last question because we have Larry Wilkerson coming up in three or four minutes.
After what Trump did, after the duplicity in which he engaged, can anybody trust?
Donald Trump or the United States of America in a negotiating posture?
No, no.
I think what Trump has said in the last 48 hours has damaged it.
And Iran has already come out twice in the last 12 hours and said that they're not going to the talks on Sunday now.
Now, maybe they'll have second thoughts.
Maybe Russia will intervene with them and try to persuade them.
But the problem that Trump has created now, instead of sticking with the line, You know, we tried to stop those crazy Israelis, and I didn't know nothing about this.
Hey, I knew about it.
I knew everything.
See what a smart guy I am?
I mean, the narcissism is the worst part of this because he's taking great pleasure and joy in the deaths of Iranian citizens.
Well, he's got his parade coming up tomorrow.
I wonder if there was, which is also his 79th birthday.
I wonder if the timing.
Was to coincide with that.
Guys, thank you very much.
We could go on and on, but Uncle Larry is waiting for us.
Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, thank you for the double duty you always do.
We'll see you both at your usual times on Monday morning.
Have a great weekend.
Thanks, Josh.
Thank you.
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