June 23, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
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| Hi, everyone. | |
| Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. | |
| Today is Monday, June 23rd, 2025. | |
| Aleister Crook will be here in just a moment on Trump and his judgments. | |
| But first, this. | |
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| Alistair, good day to you, my friend. | |
| We did not have a chance to, or this is our first chance to chat after the Americans' attack on the nuclear facilities in Iran. | |
| In March, Tulsi Gabbard, President Trump's director of national intelligence, famously or infamously from his point of view, stated under oath that it was the consensus of the intelligence community that Iran did not have a nuclear weapon and hasn't been working on producing a nuclear weapon since the Ayatollah prohibited it in 2002 or 2003. | |
| He then publicly rebuked her and said, I disagree. | |
| Do we know what he was basing his so-called disagreement on? | |
| Was it just something whispered to him on the phone by Prime Minister Netanyahu, or is there some entity out there providing Trump and Netanyahu with intelligence at odds with the professional intelligence community? | |
| Well, it's the latter. | |
| It was staged and it was managed and organized. | |
| The IAEA have been using this artificial intelligence program called Mosaic, which is a program that belongs to Palantir and was originally thought up and conceived in terms for targeting the intent for counter-terrorist and terrorist organizations. | |
| So it was used, if you like, it was used in Iraq and Afghanistan. | |
| More significantly, a type of the palantir, the palantir have close connections with Israel and with Israeli intelligence. | |
| And also, it was very similar to the thing that we all know called Lavender, which was about targeting Palestinians who might have connections with Hamas. | |
| And the point was that they were collecting huge amounts of data for IEA, all sorts of data, social platform usage, movements, people's data, 400 million elements of data about people and events, and using that to plot not facts, but actually the supposition of intent. | |
| They projected supposition of intent onto all of this. | |
| And suddenly, so this is what happened. | |
| Suddenly we had out of nowhere, everyone was asking, you know, what's happened? | |
| Two weeks ago, we had nothing, and suddenly this week we're going to war with Iran. | |
| And what had happened was the mosaic program has suggested there was a sudden buildup of, if you like, enriched material at Fordo and from another base called Togirzaba. | |
| And they implied the program implied intent to it. | |
| And, you know, these AI programs are very much at the whim of who constructs the algorithm. | |
| I remember in Iraq that the programs there were being used to target and kill people according to the type of beard they had. | |
| Did they have a Salafist beard or did they have a Muslim Brotherhood beard? | |
| Depending on what you had and what your movements were and who you talked to on the telephone, then you might be assassinated for it. | |
| So they were using this and it came to the idea that, yes, Iran is moving very close to weapons. | |
| It's suddenly accelerating. | |
| Now the IEA, Mr. Grossi, has walked that back and said there was no evidence. | |
| But they presented it, particularly on the 6th of June and then on the 12th, the day before the Israeli attack on Iran. | |
| They presented this As evidence that Iran was moving speedily towards having enough enriched uranium for a bomb, five bombs. | |
| And this was made into the report and it was built up and launched in great fanfare with the support of the Europeans and the board as a dramatic document. | |
| And everyone has attacked it. | |
| I mean, Iran has said this was totally fraudulent. | |
| And Russia has said it was totally fraudulent. | |
| It was not based. | |
| You can't base these things on, you know, AI's presumption of intent. | |
| You actually have to have evidence. | |
| And Grossi was forced to say, well, there wasn't any evidence. | |
| And really, you know, I would say that in many ways, Trump was succored by this, because, of course, what was happening, the IEA, Mr. Grossi, it seems, according to Iranian reports, was providing this evidence from Mosaic to the Israelis. | |
| And Israelis were having input into all of this so that they could create the image, if you like, an AI image of Iran speeding towards bringing unverified amounts of uranium ready for enrichment and give the pretext for war. | |
| And I think Mr. Trump fell for this, and he also fell for the other narrative coming out of Israel at the time, that Iran could collapse, that the shock and awe of their attack on the 13th of June, | |
| Friday the 13th, would collapse, the state would seize up, the decapitation of the senior military, all of this would bring about such a shock that there would be paralysis and it would be possible through the sabotage elements that they'd already introduced into Iran and by the drone attacks and the bombing attacks that they could create, if you like, something of a color revolution. | |
| And so in Israel and in the White House, there seemed to be the real expectation that, you know, with the Israeli attack, actually Iran could collapse and it would be like Syria. | |
| The shop was open and you could just walk in because the whole thing stopped working, which it did do in Syria. | |
| So what grave miscalculations? | |
| What grave miscalculations, Alastair, if they really thought that attacking these nuclear facilities would result in the people uprising against their own government? | |
| It's had the opposite effect, hasn't it? | |
| It's had exactly the opposite effect. | |
| There's a huge rallying around the government by the Iranian people. | |
| Not unexpectedly, but of course, you know, political differences are forgotten and people have come together in support of the government. | |
| They are very much in support of the government. | |
| But this narrative, which is preached in Washington as ardently in Israel, is, oh no, you know, they're on the verge of collapse in Iran. | |
| The people hate the regime. | |
| They're ready to rise up against it. | |
| And that just one little knock, decapitation of the leadership, if we could knock out the supreme leader, then the whole thing would collapse and we could install the Shah's son as the new leader and have a pro-Western government as we did in the Shah's time. | |
| I mean, it's fantasy, but they believed it. | |
| And that's what's being fed to Trump on two things. | |
| And it seems he's so limited whom he listens to at the moment. | |
| I mean, I'm not in Washington. | |
| I don't know these things. | |
| But I'm told that Susie Wiles has sort of cut out everyone but Kurilla, Michael Currilla, the commander of CENTCOM, who spends most of his time in Israel, as far as I can see, that him and Ratcliffe, the head of CIA, and others have kept away, including Tulsi Gabo. | |
| But Gabard's assessment of Iran was based on solid evidence. | |
| No, we can't just take an inference that there might be an intent. | |
| We have to know that something has strategic has changed to make that judgment. | |
| Well, this isn't what happened. | |
| So they've gone into a war on the basis of false pretenses. | |
| I mean, it's, you know, there are shades of Colin Powell coming in with his tube and saying, this is it. | |
| Yes, Iran, just weeks away from a weapon, weeks away. | |
| We have to do something now to destroy it. | |
| And unfortunately, parts of Washington seem to have absorbed this and fallen for it. | |
| But it's as a serious crisis as it was with the Iraq war. | |
| Were the U.S. attacks on Saturday evening and Sunday morning of any military significance? | |
| I mean, Ritter has said that his sources have told him that the nuclear material was moved out and the entrances to these facilities were blocked up with such an enormous amount of material that the bombs could do only minimal damage. | |
| No, that's right. | |
| That's right. | |
| And it looks, you know, this is, we have to piece it together. | |
| But I strongly suspect that this was Trump doing the same exercise that he did in Yemen. | |
| In other words, he sent messages to the Iranians, look, we are going to attack on these targets. | |
| But if you don't respond, if you don't respond, then it'll be a once and done. | |
| And there won't be any more attacks. | |
| And so you just have to be quiet. | |
| And that would explain a lot of things. | |
| One was that the attacks were not particularly intense. | |
| It's not even certain that they were using those, if you like, GBU 57 ordnance, certainly in Fardo. | |
| And in other cases, it seems to have been they were using tomahawks from three submarines off the Gulf. | |
| But they have not done damage, except superficial damage. | |
| All the experts and people like Will Shriver and others who follow this precisely, all accept that, in fact, that the program is pretty well intact. | |
| Superficial damage at the surface, but not down in the deep, deep holes where the centrifuges are. | |
| So it's largely intact. | |
| And I think what was being thought of at this time was it was being planned that this could be the beginning of a sort of ceasefire in the mind of the White House, that it was going to be possible then, you know, to say to Iran, okay, you know, we've done it. | |
| We've done this once and done. | |
| Now you stop attacking Israel. | |
| And it seems that Israel, there are some reports, I can't guarantee their authenticity, but there are some reports in the Israeli press saying that Israel was saying they wanted an end to this war by the end of this week because they're suffering enormously. | |
| They're running out of their air defense missiles and they're suffering considerable damage at the same time. | |
| I don't know if it's true, but it's very plausible that this was the idea and the idea that it would go back and there would be a ceasefire, except, you know, actually that whole idea of a ceasefire has become toxic because of what happened in Ukraine. | |
| Everyone understands that ceasefires now spell out attritional trap, attritional cage. | |
| They put people in this and then Israel will go on attacking Iran, you know, and say, oh, well, we must have the right to attack whenever we want. | |
| So we'll have a ceasefire, but we'll go on attacking. | |
| This is exactly what's happening in Lebanon with Hezbollah, that Israel assumes the right to attack whenever it chooses, in every way, whenever it chooses, and it's called a ceasefire, monitored by the United States. | |
| And so it's not going to work like that, a ceasefire of that sort. | |
| And I think already today, we've seen major damage inflicted by, I think there have been two, if not three, major waves of missile attack on Israel this morning, attacking the power plants, attacking other sites in Israel. | |
| And Israel has been attacking also certain sites in Tehran and beyond. | |
| So I mean, the next step to this is clear. | |
| It is going to escalate. | |
| And there's been no attack. | |
| I don't think there's any Iranian plan at this stage to attack American bases. | |
| But I just point out that the foreign minister, Araki, is in Moscow and meeting with Putin, meeting directly with Putin. | |
| And I think you should interpret this as meaning that he is coming as the representative of the supreme leader, not of the government of Tazashkian. | |
| He coming as Qassam Suleimani was sent to talk to Putin at the time that the Iranians feared that Syria might fall and to ask for assistance. | |
| I think they have come to talk about what next, how to take this forward, and what help might be available. | |
| I don't think the help is going to come directly so much from Russia because Russia needs its own air defense systems for its conflict in Ukraine. | |
| But it's quite likely it might come from China or North Korea. | |
| Don't forget it was North Korea who helped build some of those centrifuge halls in the first place. | |
| Give the expertise all the work. | |
| What was the reaction in Beijing, Moscow, North Korea, Pakistan to these attacks on Saturday night? | |
| Well, and this is just my suspicion. | |
| I think that Russia and China and Iran, and the three of them are coordinating very closely. | |
| I think when it was learned, or perhaps they passed the message that indeed America was about to attack these three bases, nuclear enrichment sites in Iran, that when that was passed, I think the message probably came from Russia to say, let them do it. | |
| And, you know, I mean, it was quite extraordinary because there were no air defenses, nothing, no aircraft, nothing moved as the Americans did this attack, which suggests very much that it was a, you know, this was pre-orchestrated with Iran, probably with Russia, because they said, listen, you do this, you have absolute legitimacy. | |
| It will be the United States attacking unprovokedly, illegally, against the United Nations Charter. | |
| You will have complete legitimacy and support from the Global South and all your allies in whatever you do next. | |
| And I think that's what has happened now. | |
| The Supreme Leader has sent Rahi to Putin to coordinate the next steps. | |
| What will they be? | |
| Well, they've already started with further attacks in Israel, and I think those may continue. | |
| Maybe it will be something to do with the Hormo Straits, the Hormo Straits. | |
| Now, there's talk and there's a lot of noise out there that they may shut the Hormo Straits. | |
| I don't think that's necessary. | |
| I think we've learned a little bit from what happens with the Yemenis, with the Houthis and the red sea you don't actually need to block it you don't need to mine the the straits of hamuz or to sink ships in it so it becomes impenetrable what you need to do is you say we'll only allow certain traffic to pass hamuz we will slow the rate of traffic passing through hamuz and | |
| we will provide legitimize some but not others you only have to do that and the insurance companies in london and elsewhere will do the rest they'll say oh no thank you no ships in hamuz too big a risk for us and we will see a big restriction of traffic through the hamuz so i think that's the sort of thing they're probably discussing with putin um you know at this time in the next day or so you know when it will it move the war moved | |
| to if you like bases in the middle east or will it be more financial war through if you like restricting or curtailing um the passage through hormuz which will have an immediate effect on inflation in america right an immediate effect on interest rates pushing them up further um and that will have uh really certainly will have a big impact on europe as well as on the united states is there any basis whatsoever | |
| for secretary hegseth's characterization of the attacks on saturday night as brilliant or president trump's conclusion that they quote totally obliterated iran's nuclear capabilities well i have to confess i you know i often wonder why do they use such exaggerated language right that's my point who believes that i mean nobody believes them anymore when they say these things there's | |
| no truth in that at all is and there's no truth in the story that the you know there are no air defenses in iran and the sky is there open iran is defenseless and sitting there um ready to be attacked in fact what we see is in the those days leading up to america's attack there were no israeli aircraft over iran um at the visit there's not a single video i mean that's the only thing you know substantive | |
| thing we can we can go on what we do see is there are sort of rocket parts and there are booster rockets littering um parts of syria and iraq suggesting that what israel has been doing is you using their airplanes for standoff attacks uh into iran coupled with drones that are being launched internally in iran have been brought in by the mek or | |
| whatever um part of the sort of mossad plan for the collapse of iran and the end of you know the uh the the regime would all just implode and some of those are being used internally some of them are being sent from the israeli base in azerbaijan um through no from the north and from into the east um from the caspian area and that's very obviously what's happening so | |
| you see these explosions taking place in in tehran some of them actually are just bomb attacks uh planted and raised by if you like these cells that mossad have put placed inside some of them may be drones that have launched nearby um and been sent in this is part of this new war i've been saying for some time you know the the whole of the west has moved to this new war which is so worrying for russia and china and everyone because this is obviously | |
| a plan it's the same plan as the spider's web we saw in russia decapitation assassinations um uh insertion infiltration of small groups taking in exactly the same in iran we have these trucks going in there full of um drones which they can be remote launched and fired at iranian air defenses or or | |
| sites giving the impression of something you know that chaos is coming that everything is gone couple that with cyber attacks and with information war i mean what we saw in russia but the point is it's so serious for russia because it's still configured for conventional warfare the warfare that's been going on in ukraine what are we going to do now we've got to check for all these containers that are coming in in case they're | |
| full of drones are we going to have to look for electronic warfare mechanisms inserted into the country this whole idea of sort of turning it into a terrorist type war of this sort means that all the states are going to have to reconfigure their security in a new way and it's quite clear the five eyes are coordinated on this we're seeing this we've seen it in with iran we saw this in russia we're seeing it take place in the baltic | |
| area at the moment preparations for a conflict there this is going to be very serious this is where that's why i think mr putin is so emphatic on the dangers of what's happening people may think he's exaggerating he's not but when you start talking decapitation strikes when you start talking about unconventional weapons um even tactical nuclear weapons being used against the iranian um targets um | |
| well what about decapitation in moscow with a tactical weapon and all the rest of the paraphernalia of drones of insertions if you like Insurgents into the area to create, to cause social chaos in the country. | |
| I mean, it's a very clear and worrying new development that the West, having lost the conventional war, is now turning to this sort of extreme type of athmetrical warfare. | |
| Alastair, thank you very much, my dear friend. | |
| As usual, an extraordinary analysis, deeply appreciated and widely, widely viewed. | |
| You have a huge audience and it will only grow once we post this, which will happen immediately. | |
| Thank you, my dear friend. | |
| We'll see you again next week. | |
| Always a pleasure, Judge. | |
| Thank you. | |
| And coming up later today at 10 this morning, Ray McGovern at 11.30 this morning. |
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