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June 16, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:55
Larry Johnson : Is Trump Afraid of Netanyahu?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, June 16th, 2025.
Larry Johnson will be here with us in just a moment.
Can Bibi Netanyahu bully Donald Trump?
We'll talk about it, but first this.
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Larry Johnson, welcome here, my dear friend.
Is there any doubt in your mind or really in the mind of any objective observers that Donald Trump's speech last week in Saudi Arabia condemning the neocons, condemning American and Western militarism in the Middle East and promising to be a president of peace was part of a grand subterfuge intended to lull the Iranians and others into a false sense of security?
No, no doubt whatsoever.
Trump is playing a very dangerous double game, and in the process of playing this game, he's completely discredited himself.
No leader in the world, especially Vladimir Putin, will trust anything that Donald Trump says going forward, particularly after this version of Pearl Harbor on Iran that took place last Friday.
And I would remind the Israelis jumping around as euphoria over that strike.
The Japanese celebrated December 8, 1941 as well.
Didn't turn out too well for them.
And I think, unfortunately for Israel, this is going to end in a disaster for Israel.
Wall Street Journal is reporting you and I just...
This can't be true, is it?
No, no.
I mean, okay, if Israel's controlling the skies over Iran, then how is it that Iran, as of last night, has launched 10 different waves of ballistic missiles?
That have hit throughout Israel.
And Israel's clamping down.
They don't want to report the actual damage that's being done, but some of it is impossible to hide.
So no, that's just a lie.
And what's taking place behind the scenes is Russia is now stepping up.
It's a supply of intelligence and military equipment to Iran, as well as to boost Iran's ability to retaliate against this unlawful, illegal attack.
Just some breaking news.
The USS Nimitz, now I'm not sure what size ship that is, redeployed to the Middle East.
Aircraft carrier.
Okay, so they're sending an aircraft carrier.
To somewhere in the Middle East.
Is Trump actually going to allow Netanyahu to box him in to Americans fighting a war against a country that poses zero national security threat to the United States?
Well, I don't think this is so much Netanyahu boxing Trump in.
Trump's a willing participant in this.
Look, the planning for this operation, and I think Alistair Crook made the point earlier today with you, this started more than a year ago.
This means CIA was directly involved in coordinating and planning with Mossad the operation to destroy the Iranian regime.
This is all about regime change.
So that started under Joe Biden.
And, you know, when Trump gets into office, Radcliffe gets briefed on it.
Tulsi Gabbard gets briefed on it.
And, you know, the United States, instead of Trump saying, hell no, we're not doing that.
Well, go ahead, let's do it.
And then, you know, he played his role.
To lull the Iranians into a false sense of security.
Notice this exact tactic was used against Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, when Israel blew him up last year because he was meeting in a specific location in Beirut for peace talks.
For a ceasefire.
They'd been convinced that he could have a ceasefire and negotiate with Israel.
The United States was helping broker that.
And then he got killed.
It was a setup.
So they keep using this tactic.
I think now maybe folks will finally, after getting burned the second or third time, realize this United States is not to be trusted in this at all.
I don't think American diplomats can ever be trusted, not by Russian diplomats, not by any other country after something like this.
I don't know of an American president in the modern era, or even throughout history, engaging in this kind of bald-faced lying in subterfuge in order to lull somebody into a false sense of security.
They're about to go to a meeting to discuss peace, and they're murdered.
Yeah.
Well, and then look at the...
Oh, yeah, Putin, we're going to work together on getting a peace deal with Iran and Israel.
Really?
Then why is it the United States today, it was about three hours ago, called the Russians up and said, hey, those bilateral talks we're supposed to have about easing tensions, we're postponing them.
We'll get back to you.
Does that sound like, you know, the Russians are like, said, okay, hey, we...
But I think at some point, there's a growing realization in Russia.
Trump is not to be trusted at all.
There is no foundation for relations with the West.
Wow.
What is the extent of damage, if any, To the Iranian nuclear enrichment program, to the reactors, to the equipment that they have a half a mile underground, according to Ray McGovern, that they use to enrich uranium.
Well, they had enrichment going on above ground that was monitored by the IAEA, which has now proven to be an intelligence tool of the West.
They were allowing IAE inspectors in, and Iran continued to act in accordance with the NPT.
So some of those facilities have been damaged.
I'm not sure destroyed is the right word, but they've been significantly damaged, and there's some contamination reported at Natanz.
But there are other structures that are deep underground that are still operable, as are elements of their defense industry that produce missiles, rockets.
That's underground.
And so that's not lightly to attack.
And in tandem with the actual violence that's being inflicted upon Iran by Israel, there is this massive, massive propaganda campaign information operation.
And let's also note that Elon Musk's Starlink played a role in this, that Starlink went live on June 13th, the date that the attack started.
So Starlink is being used as a communication device.
To coordinate the different terrorist attacks that are taking place in Iran right now.
So at some point, I wouldn't be surprised to see Russia come to Iran's aid with some electronic warfare capabilities to turn Starlink off.
What is the nature and extent of the damage to Israel?
I do understand that the Israeli Defense Ministry, its main headquarters, its Pentagon, was attacked.
Yeah, they've hit, well, the Iranians have hit an oil refinery in Haifa, which is a critical supplier of oil both to Israel as well as some that's exported to Europe.
They've hit a power plant as well in Haifa that was on fire.
Significant portions of Israel were without electricity.
There have been hits on the air bases.
See, there's a lot of information that Israel is just hiding.
They're not allowing the actual truth to get out because the attacks actually have been quite significant.
And, you know, they fully anticipated, they thought that they would collapse the Iranian regime.
If any regime is going to collapse, I think it would be Israel before it's Iran.
The euphoria...
Among some sectors, I'm still hearing from some, oh, Iran's going to run out of missiles any time now.
That's the Ukraine playbook.
Remember, Russia was going to run out of missiles any day now, starting in March, April of 2022.
And they still seem to have a few.
What's really been exposed is the limitations of Iron Dome.
And David Sling and the U.S.-supplied THAAD, Theater High Altitude Air Defense System.
Several of those have been destroyed.
And, you know, all you have to do is just watch.
You can see it on Telegram channels, on some YouTube, although it's being suppressed, on BitChute.
You can see the inbound missiles, and, you know, they're not being stopped.
Ron's got, you know, they've got a variety of tactics they can use because you can saturate with some drones to draw air defense fire, then follow that up with some of your old missiles that really are not terribly effective, but they can be used as decoys.
And then follow on with the actually more modern stuff that is far more powerful and more accurate.
You know, this tit-for-tat back and forth, you know, right now Iran's hitting, their air defense systems are working, you know, they're not perfect in Iran by any stretch, and targets are being hit.
But Iran is a vast country compared to Israel.
And Israel, you know, when you look at the, they've suffered, you know, their ability to endure suffering is far, far limited compared to Iran.
Iran's been through a terrible war with Iraq that was U.S.-backed and funded back in the 1980s.
So they know what suffering is like.
Israel has never, never experienced anything like this since its founding.
And it's not going to go away soon.
Now the question is, is the United States going to get involved?
I think the answer to that is yes.
Can Israel defend itself on its own?
No, no.
Israel, without the backing of the United States, would be completely vulnerable.
And, you know, the problem with the United States is we don't have unlimited resources and, you know, vast stockpiles of weapons and air defense missiles in particular.
and that's where if Iran has I've heard that Iran has upwards of 40,000 missiles that it's built up and stored over time.
Now, official U.S. government estimates have always said, oh, 3,000, 4,000.
I think it's a lot more than that.
And Iran has had years to prepare, and they've put a lot of effort into building these underground facilities to protect them.
They had some trouble, I think, getting some of the missiles out initially because the entrances to those locations had been bombed and there was rubble to clear.
But once they're out and they're on mobile launchers, then the West really has a big problem because we saw with the Houthis.
We couldn't stop the Houthis who had those mobile launchers and they kept moving them around.
Right.
What do you think the...
Well, no, troops on the ground don't do anything.
We're talking about air assets.
You know, the reports of moving the aircraft carriers like the Nimitz to the region, very, very foolish, because unlike the Houthis, the Iranians have hypersonic anti-ship missiles, and they are quite capable.
Of hitting and targeting a U.S. aircraft carrier.
Now, I think up to this point, despite the U.S. provocations, despite U.S. involvement in helping facilitate these attacks, Iran has confined itself to fighting Israel.
It's going to, under international law, it's entirely justified, according to Article 51 of the U.N. Charter.
The Russians and Chinese all endorsed and made that point the other day in the UN Security Council.
So Iran will continue to retaliate against Israel.
As long as Israel continues to attack Iran, Iran will retaliate.
Even if U.S. is assisting, I don't think Iran is going to start hitting the United States, at least not yet.
But if there is an overt attack by U.S. planes and or missiles, then...
And this thing can really spin out a control, Judge.
This is so dangerous.
And Donald Trump, his head is in a cloud of delusions.
Larry, what kind of pressure will be put on Trump and from what sources to get the U.S. fully involved?
Well, you've got a significant number of members of Congress.
It was Lindsey Graham leading the charge, but he's backed with Democrats like Dick Blumenthal.
So, you know, show me the member of Congress that's the voice of reason saying, hey, hey, we need to hold up here.
Very, very few.
Nobody in a leadership position.
No.
Everybody's jumped on this.
Rand Paul and Thomas Massey, and then a handful of progressive Democrats.
That's about it.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's the problem.
So, did Netanyahu, in your opinion, actually ask Trump for permission to assassinate the Ayatollah?
That's all theater.
That's all theater for public consumption.
They were trying to kill the Ayatollah from day one.
You know, and let's face it, when you look at the legacy of countries that have been involved with killing leaders of other countries, United States and Israel are right there at the top of the list.
You know, it's been a long stand.
You go back to the days of Mossadegh, go to Diem in Vietnam.
The United States tried to pretend, oh, boy, we didn't know anything about that.
It's been fascinating watching Trump go back and forth, flip-flop on, he knew everything, now he knows nothing.
Were we all naive to rejoice in that speech he gave in Saudi Arabia, telling the neocons so often promising no more interventionism?
Yes.
Yeah.
Trump's a liar.
He's dishonest.
And it's unfortunate that even the Saudis, the Qataris, the Emiratis, I think they're now really starting to have some significant second thoughts about what kind of madman are we dealing with?
And really, he's not to be trusted.
Trump's vision of securing a Nobel Peace Prize, it's gone up in smoke.
And the only question now is, how deep will he take the United States into this pit of war?
And I'm afraid he believes his own press clippings with respect to the so-called power of the United States military.
Yeah, we have a powerful force.
But as we saw with respect to the Houthis, we couldn't stick and endure.
Right.
Good point, Larry.
You mentioned Richard Blumenthal.
This is a really odd pairing of Blumenthal and Graham, but whatever.
They're buddy-buddy on all this.
Here he is yesterday on one of the talk shows.
Chris, cut number six.
You know, the defense secretary was testifying to Congress this week, and he said he's moved equipment meant to counter drones in Ukraine over to the Middle East now because of this escalation.
not only to protect U.S. personnel, but also to enable Israel to defend itself against Iran's retaliation.
But I think that the president...
There is a deal that's possible here if Iran were to abandon its effort to build nuclear bombs that endanger not only Israel but the entire regional stability because all the other Arab nations are going to have nuclear weapons if Iran does.
The people Trump's people were negotiating with were just killed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You saw this interview, Dana Bash from CNN, apparently had a phone call with Trump, and she didn't tape it, but she immediately went on air to recount from her memory and her notes what the president said to her.
This is, according to Alistair, not even worthy of responding to, but I'll ask you how you want to respond to it.
Chris, cut number 12. And then he went on to say this.
Iran should have listened to me when I said, you know, I gave him...
And then he said something really noteworthy.
He said, the people I was dealing with are dead, the hardliners, to which I just wanted to underscore.
So what you're saying is Israel has now killed the people who you were dealing with.
And he said very sarcastically, they didn't die of the flu.
They didn't die of COVID.
it.
you Yeah, despicable.
You know, yeah, I'm sad I voted for him.
That'll never happen again.
And I know several people that were supporters of Trump.
Because, you know, the alternative with Kamala Harris was no better.
It could have even been worse.
But, you know, at least with Trump's ego and his narcissism, you could maybe appeal to get him to maybe manipulate him, maneuver him into a path of peace.
But I think that's gone now.
And, you know, Iran was not building a nuke.
That's a 40-year-old story.
I was on a podcast with Professor Mirandi the other day, and he said 30 years.
I said, Professor, you're wrong.
I hate to correct you, but it started in 1984 with Netanyahu and others predicting that Iran would get the bomb within a few years.
I said, it's not your fault.
You were only 10 years old back then.
And he laughed.
But it's really no laughing matter that this trope has been put out there time and time and time and time again for more than 40 years.
And this isn't about stopping Iran from getting anew.
The whole uranium issue, it's a red herring.
This is the same as Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.
We've got to stop him.
This is all about regime change.
That's pure and simple.
Professor Miranda is on with us in a couple of hours, and I will give him your regards.
Thank you, Larry.
Thanks for your insight.
Terrific, as always.
We'll see you again Friday afternoon with that youngster, McGovern.
Yes, sir.
If we can dial him back and calm him down, but I think that'll work.
Thank you, Larry.
All the best, my friend.
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