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June 23, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:57
Ray McGovern : What President of Peace ?
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, June 23rd, 2025.
Ray McGovern will be here with us in just a minute on what president of peace.
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Grant McCover and welcome here, my dear friend.
Thanks, Judge.
When last we spoke with Larry Johnson, when we did the intelligence roundtable on Friday afternoon, we did not know what was going to come on Saturday night.
So let's backtrack a little bit.
When Director of National Intelligence, Telsey Gabbard, testified in March under oath that it was the consensus of the intelligence community that Iran did not have and was not attempting to build a nuclear weapon, the president, as we know, chose to disbelieve that and believe other sources, if there were any.
How does the intelligence community, which consists of various different agencies, American and foreign, come to a consensus, particularly a consensus on something as profound and controversial as that?
It's a very simple answer, Judge.
In 2007, people were very worried that Iran was in the crosshairs of Bush, Cheney, and Kundalisa Rice.
It indeed was.
And so an estimate was prepared under an honest manager of intelligence.
His name was Tom Finger.
He came from the State Department.
They worked all year, and they concluded that Iran was not working on a nuclear weapon, that it had stopped doing that at the end of 2003 and was not about to begin.
Tulsi Gabbard said that.
She also said, we see no evidence that the supreme ruler, the Khamani, has reversed that decision.
So, you know, what's good about this, Judge, is that the major media is aware of this.
And people like Margaret Brennan embarrassed the hell out of Rubio yesterday on FaceTime.
She says, what about this?
What about this?
You say that do you not believe that judgment?
And what Rubio says is it's irrelevant.
Huh?
Well, it must be about regime change then.
Of course it is.
And Pete Hexeth and J.D. Van say, no, not about regime change.
And the president, and Oli says, well, what did the president say?
This is really, really amazing.
Yeah, it's not politically correct.
As if you're using the wrong pronoun.
I mean, it's not politically correct to use the term regime change, but if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, well, why wouldn't there be a regime change?
M-I-G-A, make Iran great again.
The guy is deranged.
And this is something that the Russians and the Chinese and everyone have to take into account here.
They're going to proceed very gingerly, but very straightforwardly, because they have the upper hand.
This make Iran great again was the president, not Secretary Rubio, correct?
That's correct.
That's correct.
I'm going to play the clip to which you referred, Ray, and I'm glad you referred to it.
It's quite profound, where basically Rubio is saying, forget about the intelligence.
We'll play it in a minute.
But back to the intelligence.
Does CIA, the DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, the NSA, do they just get together and achieve a consensus?
Because these agencies, as you know, having worked for one of them, are notoriously combative with each other at times.
Well, Judge, I not only worked for CIA, worked in the intelligence community profession.
In other words, I was an NIO for Russian studies in Western Europe.
Now, what happens is when you get a manager of intelligence who goes after the truth, you bang heads together and you make sure that if the Defense Department is coming up with some spurious evidence, you put them in their place.
That's exactly what happened in 2007.
All that has been necessary since is to say, do you still feel that way?
Yes.
Why do you feel that way?
Because there's no evidence.
And, you know, that used to rule the Russ, no evidence, but they wanted to have regime change.
Now, when J.D. Vance said, oh, it's not about, or maybe it was Hexeth, it's not about regime change.
Two hours later, the president got down and wrote one of these little texts, okay?
And he said, oh, yeah, well, you know, you say it's not a good, what's wrong with regime change, except that it's not politically correct to say so.
So it is about regime change.
All the suspicions about the uranium facilities.
They didn't even get them.
They don't know where the uranium is, the highly enriched uranium.
Well, we now know.
I mean, the government won't admit this, but you know it.
Larry Johnson knows it.
Colonel McGregor knows it.
Scott Ritter knows it from your own sources.
The centrifuges and the material were gone by the time the American bombs came down.
And on this main one, Fodro, that they wanted, they barely got through the front door.
They did next to no damage whatsoever.
So when General Kane says they didn't lay a glove on us, they didn't try and lay a glove on you because you weren't laying a glove on them.
Look, the president say we totally obliterated those facilities, right?
Okay, now obliterate comes from the Latin word.
Maybe it's the same in Italian, literare.
What it means is to erase and wipe out completely.
Right.
You know, even if that happened, and it didn't, the uranium had already been moved out.
Now, the curious thing is, are we to assume that U.S. intelligence didn't know McGregor and Ritter and McGovern and the rest of us?
No, they knew it.
This is theater.
There was one commentator that I saw this morning.
I think he got it right.
I'm starting to feel like Trump's bombing of Iran's nuke sites was just to create an excuse for Israel to stop fighting.
Israel can't afford war losses anymore, but Netanyahu won't call a ceasefire, scared he'd be labeled as a coward.
The truth is, Trump's strikes didn't really hurt Iran much, just the big show.
So the Israeli media this morning, or well, this afternoon for them, are saying, you know, we're ready for a ceasefire.
If you just stop, if you just stop now, Iran, well, what does that betoken?
That betokens the reality that there's a plethora of hypersonic missiles that Israel cannot defend against, and they're hitting deep inside Israel as we speak.
Here's Secretary Rubio yesterday with this forget about the intel.
It's long, but it's worth listening to.
It's about 75 seconds.
Chris, cut number two.
Weaponization ambitions.
Are you saying there that the United States did not see intelligence that the Supreme Leader had ordered weaponization?
That's irrelevant.
I think that question being asked on the media, that's an irrelevant question.
That is the key point in U.S. intelligence assessments.
You know that.
No, it's not.
Yes, it was.
That's the political decision.
I know that better than you know that, and I know that that's not the case.
But I'm asking you whether the order was given.
And the people who say that, it doesn't matter if the order was given.
They have everything they need to build nuclear weapons.
Why would you bury things in a mountain 300 feet under the ground?
Why would you bury 60%?
Why do they have 60% enriched uranium?
You don't need 60% enriched uranium.
The only countries in the world that have uranium at 60% are countries that have nuclear weapons because it can just quickly make it 90. They have all the elements.
Why do they have a space program?
Is Iran going to go to the moon?
No.
They're trying to build an ICBS.
No, but that's a question of intent.
And you know in the intelligence assessment that it was that Iran wanted to be a threshold statement.
I don't even know what the intelligence assessment is.
It's a March assessment.
And that's why I was asking you if you know something more from March assessment.
That's also an inaccurate representation of it.
That's an accurate representation of it.
That's not how intelligence is read.
That's not how intelligence is used.
Here's what the whole world knows.
Forget about intelligence.
Forget about intelligence.
Has anything changed in the intelligence community's consensus since Director Gabbard made that statement in March under oath for which she was publicly rebuked by the president and from which she's attempted to distance herself?
The big change, Judge, is not in the intelligence community.
It's in the media.
Here's Margaret Brennan, for God's sake, ask her real questions.
She's memorized what Tulsi said and she's confronting this prevaricator who says it doesn't matter.
Well, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter that the community, the whole intelligence community ruled with high confidence unanimously since 2007 every year that Iran is not working on a nuclear weapon.
The trick here is to conflate enrichment of uranium with working on a nuclear weapon.
They're not working on a nuclear weapon.
Are they enriching uranium?
Yes.
Are they within their rights?
Yes, they are.
Are they enriching more than they have to?
Yes, they are.
Why?
It's been very clear.
Mirandi has told us to have some kind of leverage in negotiations, okay, doesn't mean they started working on a nuclear weapon.
Yes, they have more highly enriched uranium.
But the Russians have said, hey, give us that highly enriched uranium and we will dispense with this whole problem.
But no, no, no.
That deal won't work because the West prefers to conflate this thing and say, well, it doesn't matter.
It's irrelevant.
I don't care what the intelligence.
I don't care what Tulsi Gabbard says like the president.
So even Bill Crystal had it right yesterday.
He said when Trump was watching Hexeth, he said, oh, good job.
When he watched Rubio, he said, oh my God.
And then he saw people saying, this is not about regime change.
And Trump says, but it is.
Okay.
Now, Bill Crystal knows better than anybody else.
So that's when Trump sat down and wrote that thing.
Whoa, you know, it's not politically correct.
Again, as though he used the wrong pronoun for God's sake.
That we say regime change, but you know, why don't we all make Iran great again by creating regime change?
So the president is deranged.
He was probably misled by this fancy guy with the blue uniform.
Okay.
Now, what did he say?
He said, well, the bomb damage assessment, we really won't know, but it's already obliterated or words to that effect.
How can they know?
Don't you think he was also misled by the unfancy guy with the silver hair in Tel Aviv who's been lobbying him on the phone 10 times a day?
Well, you know, as you know, Judge, I think that Trump can easily be mousetrapped.
He's not real clever when it comes to B.B. Netanyahu.
So, yeah, if Netanyahu is telling him all these things, then, you know, he's inclined to believe it and is a general raising cane going to tell, well, don't bother with what B.B. Netanyahu says, Mr. President.
And we know that we really can't do this.
Now, there's a theory that this whole thing was not only theater, but it was prearranged theater where the U.S. bombs, not maybe even B-1s and B-2s, did their damage.
And now we can brag about obliterating their enrichment capability.
And now maybe Netanyahu will be off the hook.
He doesn't have to ask for a respite here, but his TV channel is already doing so.
They're losing, okay?
Iran is more powerful.
It has far more missiles than Israel has with its inept defense systems, Patriots and High Mars and the rest of the stuff that doesn't work against hypersonic missiles.
It's a terrible embarrassment.
It will play out.
Now, the foreign minister of Iran is in Moscow.
He's just met with Putin.
Putin said all the regular things about how irregular, how unprovoked, how illegalist the thing is.
They're talking about whether Iran should overreact, whether they should let this thing play out.
I'm with those who say that the Russians are counseling caution, that there's a lot at stake here, not only for Russia, but for China with all that oil in the Persian Gulf.
So let's see how this plays out.
Maybe, maybe the Israeli TV today is a little signal that Nets and Yahoo is going to cry, uncle, and not just cry, Uncle Sam.
Please.
All right.
So you're suggesting, and I think your colleagues that come on this show probably agree with you, that Iran's retaliation for what the U.S. did on Saturday night will be taken out on Israel.
And you're wrong.
Well, yes, and you're also arguing that statements from Secretary Hegseth that the president's planning was brilliant and from the president himself totally obliterated.
This is nonsense that nobody seriously believes.
Well, Hegseth says, look, remember, this was just a limited, we limited this attack.
Does that mean they told him beforehand?
It could be.
They've done that before 2017 in Syria.
Okay.
So it was a limited attack, but the U.S. military has almost unlimited strength.
What does almost unlimited mean?
Well, he didn't say unlimited.
So he's playing games here.
It's like almost pregnant.
There's no such thing as almost unlimited.
You know, these people this morning are saying Donald Trump this, Donald Trump that.
Joe Biden didn't know what he was doing.
Ritter says it took 18 months to prepare this.
That means it was planned under the Biden administration, under the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Brown, that President Trump fired.
It was rehearsed under the Biden administration.
It was rehearsed last month by the Trump administration.
All for show.
Well, you know, I agree with that conclusion, but, you know, they couldn't be sure.
They might have thought that they could destroy more than they actually destroyed.
But the point is that Scott is absolutely right.
These contingency plans are at work all the time.
The Pentagon and the CIA and MI6 have oodles of money to waste on scenarios like this.
So yeah, it was in preparation for a year and a half.
The timing is what is important here.
And the timing was go ahead now during this very sensitive time when it looks like Tel Aviv is losing.
What can we do to help them?
Well, let's pretend to have destroyed the part of their nuclear program that doesn't really matter without a nuclear weapon.
Are they working on a nuclear weapon?
Not even Rubio said they're working on a nuclear weapon.
That's the key.
I almost felt sorry for Rubio.
She really boxed him into a corner.
Who knows what he truly thinks?
He's just mouthing what, you know, the president who for months mocked him and belittled him wants him to say.
And the president continues to mock and belittle him by dispatching Mr. Witkoff to do all the serious negotiations, turning a bit.
Now, what do I ask about Russia?
Go ahead.
I just want to say that you're much more charitable than I am.
Now, Rubio deserves all the embarrassment that people like Margaret Bernan, for God's sake.
This is big.
The media has done its homework.
They're asking real questions now.
I can't tell you what a Big deal, that is so.
Let's go to Russia.
That would be great.
All right.
What do you think the Kremlin is considering?
And what do you suspect President Putin and the Iranian foreign minister are talking about either as we speak or a few hours ago?
Okay.
Well, closing the Strait of Hormuz, would that be a good idea?
Not a good idea.
Taking out some ship within the strait, good idea, not a good idea.
Should Iran relent and stop its very successful hypersonic attacks with missiles against Israel?
Well, Israel TV this morning is saying, well, let's have a ceasefire.
I think they're about to cry, uncle, because they're running out of defense missiles as well as offensive missiles.
So, well, all this stuff, you know, Putin has already met with foreign minister Raji, okay?
We're not going to know exactly what happened, but we know there's a very close relationship, and we know that Iran is very close to Russia, that Russia considers it just as important as Ukraine, for God's sake, in terms of its strategic posture.
It's not going to let Iran be obliterated or even harshly decimated without supplying them with weapons.
Now, the Chinese have supplied weapons, plane loads of them.
I imagine the Russians will as well.
More important, I think Putin will pick up the phone and call Trump and say, look, you know, we've seen the, have they shown you the real bomb damage assessment, Mr. Prump?
And by the way, didn't your people know that we moved that uranium?
I mean, who you got working for you?
You know, you're real good at firing people.
This might be a good time to fire a whole bunch of them.
Wow.
Wow.
How about China?
What do you think their thoughts are?
This is big, okay?
Now, more than 50% of the oil that Iran exports comes out of the Persian Gulf to China, okay?
For China, well, it's much less, maybe 5% of what the Chinese need.
Besides that, there's another port that Iran can export oil into the Indian Ocean and there are overland ways.
So China would be hurt, but not really badly.
Still, they don't want a strait like this straight to be obstructed.
And of course, the real damage would be to the world economy, not only China, but everyone, including the US.
So it's a bad idea from the beginning.
I think the Russians will counsel against it.
I think they'll say, look, back last two years when we were negotiating that treaty, that geostrategic treaty with you, you told us no, you didn't want a mutual defense treaty.
Okay, we respect that.
I imagine you regret that now, but let's cooperate to the point where the Americans know that we have the equivalent of a mutual defense treaty, like the Chinese.
There's no mutual defense, but they know that if we do something bad, China's in, okay?
China, of course, also has the opportunity, which I've always said, to rattle some sabers in the South China Sea or in the Taiwan Strait, just to show that, look, we don't really like the U.S. doing what it's done, whether it obliterates people or whether it just gives them a shot in the foot.
Great conversation, Ray.
Very, very insightful, candid as always, and helpful.
Thank you so much.
Who knows what the world will be like when we see each other next in four days, but look forward to seeing you Friday afternoon with Larry.
Most welcome, Judge.
Thank you, my dear friend.
All the best to you.
And the aforementioned Larry is, of course, Larry Johnson, who will be with us here at 11.30 this morning.
At four o'clock this afternoon, Scott Ritter at 4.30 this afternoon from Moscow, Pepe Escobar.
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