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June 23, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:26
Aaron Maté : Trump’s Unconditional Surrender to Israel.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, June 24th, 2025.
Aaron Mate joins us in just a few minutes on Donald Trump's unconditional surrender to Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Aaron Mate, welcome here, my dear friend.
I'm scratching my head.
I know we want to talk about Trump's unconditional surrender to Netanyahu, but I'm scratching my head about the things that come out of his mouth.
I mean, late last week, he said if Iran doesn't surrender in 24 hours, all hell will break loose.
And this morning he said, we have a ceasefire.
And then he says they're fighting like children.
And he uses the F-bomb, and he doesn't know what to do about it.
Is the foreign policy of the United States now subordinated to the demands of Israeli leaders?
I think it's fair to say Trump used diplomacy with Iran as a ruse to provide cover for Israel's attack.
Even after Israel started bombing Iran, he then gave a two-week deadline, which was also used as another ruse to facilitate his own bombing of Iran.
And why would he care about bombing Iran?
It's not in the interests of anyone's national security.
Iran wasn't threatening the U.S. Iran, as its own intelligence agencies had concluded, did not have a nuclear weapons program.
So why would he bomb Iran?
Israel wanted it.
And that's what his pro-Israel donors wanted, the Mary Maidelson.
It made them very happy.
It made the rest of the world a more dangerous place.
So yeah, it's safe to conclude from Trump's statements, even though today now he's saying he's mad at Israel, that the overall thrust of it certainly is subordinate to Israel.
When he told a reporter in Air Force One, and we've all seen this several times, referring to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's testimony under oath, not her own opinion, but the consensus of the intelligence community that Iran did not have any nuclear weapons and hasn't been attempting to create one for 22 years.
He told the reporter, I don't care what she says.
I believe otherwise.
What was that otherwise belief based on?
Information from Netanyahu, from this company called Palantir that the government pays hundreds of millions of dollars to to surveil people?
It was based entirely on Israel and the spin that Israel was putting on already existing intelligence.
The picture that you get from all the reporting that's come out from people who I've spoken to, also who Max Blumenthal spoke to, him and Anya Ponpol at the Grey Zone had a really big scoop at thegrayzone.com speaking to a Trump administration official who told them that basically Israel was feeding the U.S. with the intelligence picture that Trump sees, which is that Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon.
And there are certain key figures in the administration, especially CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who are basically representing Israel's point of view.
But this wasn't the point of view of the U.S. intelligence community.
And recall, you know, during Russia Gate, people like John Brennan, James Clapper, they handpicked certain analysts and they cherry-picked intelligence.
So a Trump supporter might look at that experience and say, well, based on that, why should we trust what the U.S. intelligence community says?
This is far different because at this stage, when it comes to the assessment of Iran's nuclear weapons program or non-existent nuclear weapons program, what Tulsi Gabber presented in March and still holds true today, that's the result of the consensus view of the intelligence community.
So that's multiple agencies, many analysts, all coming to the same conclusion.
So all that happened was Israel gave a different spin on the existing intelligence.
They didn't have anything new to provide.
I know for a fact from someone who I spoke to on the inside who said there's no intelligence assessment internally, even up until just a few days ago, that was saying that Iran is weeks away from a nuclear, from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
So that all came from Israel.
And that's who Trump chose to believe, not his own intelligence agencies.
Surprise, surprise.
Netanyahu lied.
Yeah, that's right.
And there's an article in the Washington Post today that explains why.
This had nothing to do with Iran's nuclear energy program or its nuclear or its non-existent nuclear weapons program.
This had to do with the fact that Netanyahu saw an opportunity because in previous Israeli Attacks, Iran's air defenses took a hit, the ones last year.
And so Netanyahu saw a narrow opportunity before Iran's defensive capability could be restored.
So therefore, he seized the moment.
That's what all this is about.
Seizing a moment where Netanyahu and Trump perceived that Iran was weak and therefore more vulnerable to an act of aggression, which is what they carried out.
Why did Trump spend $100 million dropping 30,000-pound bombs on empty tunnels from which the nuclear material and their equipment had been safely extracted days and weeks before?
Well, you know, this is where you have to enter into the realm of psychology and mental health.
There's been reporting that basically Trump didn't like the fact that Israel was getting most of the credit on Fox News for the Israeli attacks on Iran.
And so Trump won it in.
And normally you can maybe dismiss this stuff as just as deceptive leaks aiming to make Trump look bad.
But based on his behavior, I think it's quite plausible that this was just part of this.
He wanted to look tough.
Maybe he thought in his head he could do some damage.
But Iran knew this was coming.
So as many of your guests have discussed, they moved out their enriched uranium prior to these strikes.
So therefore leaving their stockpiles intact.
So I think there's a psychological factor here, wanting to look tough on Fox News and get credit.
And then there's the, you know, what are the political reasons?
What's the strategic aim of trying to deprive Iran of its right to enrich uranium?
Because we know it's not shopping a nuclear weapon because everybody knows Iran doesn't want a nuclear weapon and they were negotiating good faith to put that in a binding agreement with Trump and Netanyahu sabotage.
Well, Max Blenthal has talked about this.
If you undermine Iran's ability to enrich uranium, then you're basically undermining their ability to meet the needs of their population.
And what goal does that serve?
It serves regime change.
If there's unrest, if there's even more discontent on top of the existing sanctions that the U.S. has imposed, then if you deprive Iran of its right to produce energy and meet its domestic needs, you increase the chances of regime change.
And there's also, I think, just the fact that Iran has tethered its right to enrich to an expression of its sovereignty.
There's something psychological here in the eyes of foreign actors like Trump and Netanyahu, who just have such contempt for Iran's existence as a state, as a state that resists U.S.-Israeli dictates, that even an expression of Iran's sovereignty must be destroyed just to teach them a lesson.
In the same way that when Hamas carried out a one-day operation on October 7th, Israel had to carry out a more than a year and a half-long genocide just to teach the natives a lesson, that you don't raise your heads to the masters of the region, which is Israel and the U.S. Under the non-proliferation treaty,
which of course the United States and Iran signed and Israel hasn't, wasn't whatever they were doing in those tunnels to enrich uranium lawful, monitored, and approved?
Now, it was monitored and approved by a corrupt organization, which I'll ask you about in a minute.
But there's no question but that Donald Trump attempted to, he didn't succeed, destroy a perfectly lawful activity in a sovereign country with no provocation.
It was completely lawful and the Israeli U.S. attack was completely criminal.
Now, here is where tactically, I think Scott Ritter has raised a really interesting point that tactically, even though Iran was acting lawfully, was it smart for them to do?
And I'm not endorsing his argument, but I think he raises a fair point that's worth considering for those of us who want to look at this in the most fair-minded way.
And the most, you know, in thinking like strategically is what is the best way to handle pathological aggressors in the U.S. and Israel who are committed to your destruction?
And Scott's argument is that by enriching at a higher level than is needed for peaceful purposes, because Iran was going up to 60%, that that helped give Israel and the U.S. a pretext to bomb.
Now, one could argue to the contrary that the U.S. and Israel would have bombed no matter what.
So whatever Iran did didn't matter.
The Iranian argument was that we needed to enrich to 60% to give ourselves some leverage.
But when you're dealing with, and this is where I think Scott's argument is worth considering, when you're dealing with pathological aggressors like the U.S. and Israel, whose entire like strategic identity is oriented around destroying countries that aren't under their control, then you have to think about doing, or at least I think it's worth considering what Scott raises, which is not giving them any possible excuse that they can use to justify them attacking you.
I think it's an interesting question that Scott's raised.
The murders of Iranian senior officials, not the Ayatollah, but senior Revolutionary Guard, senior scientists, senior military.
The Economist magazine this morning, which is well worth reading.
I have a bias, but it's a great publication.
I've been devouring it since I was a teenager, which for me is a long time, is arguing that the next generation is far more hardline than the people who were killed, and Israel may very well have produced the opposite reaction from what it intended.
Is that argument worth exploring?
Well, sure.
I mean, when you only know Israel and the U.S. as being just violent aggressors, and not just in this current phase, but for a long time.
I mean, look at the history of Israel, of the U.S. and Iran and go back to 1953, the coup, U.S.-backed coup that overthrew a nationalist government that made the mistake of trying to use Iran's resources for its own people, not Western oil companies.
So therefore, it was regime changed.
And then the Shah, the violent tyranny of those years.
And then, of course, the U.S. supporting Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and his war on Iran.
And then, you know, the many, many more years of aggression, including shooting down a civilian airliner and the sanctions.
I mean, so people growing up with that, of course, you'll become even more hardline and defensive.
And then, you know, I think another, like a related question is on the issue of nuclear weapons.
So the Ayatollah, yes, he's issued this fatwa against nuclear weapons.
When he goes, will his successor see the same?
Or even will he even change his mind now, given the persistent aggression of Israel and the U.S. and the use by the U.S. of diplomacy to further that aggression?
So everything the U.S. and Israel has done will be to discourage diplomacy and encourage a harder line from Iran.
And who can blame them after what they've been through with Israel and the U.S.?
So, apparently, whatever this ceasefire is, it's not reduced to writing, so it's not even a cognizable ceasefire.
The Mossad doesn't think it pertains to them because apparently they have said to Iranian generals, quit the regime in 12 hours, or you and your family are next.
We are closer to you now than the veins in your neck.
This, according to Israeli sources, came out this morning.
Have you heard this?
Yeah, see, I believe this comes from the Washington Post.
There's an article about this.
And this is not a new threat, as far as I know.
I believe this threat from Israel to these top Iranian generals was issued right after Israel launched its attack on June 13th.
And that's when these top Iranian generals were given this message, these phone messages from Israel saying, you know, resign or we'll kill you.
Now, and your family.
Yes.
Thank you, Judge.
Thank you.
Did a single Iranian who received this threat resign?
Did any of them do what Israel told them?
No.
And that speaks to the national pride that Iran has as a state with sovereignty that resists U.S.-Israeli aggression.
So this story, on top of showing just how flagrantly in violation of international law is, Israel is by threatening people with violence.
And this is just classic terrorism, basically.
It also shows how Iran will not be bullied.
And they've shown that in their response.
I initially, again, military matters are not my forte.
I have no insight into Iran's military capabilities.
But just seeing how this has played out, I was surprised by how much damage they've done to Israel.
It just surprised me based on the fact that they've been under assault for so long from Israel and the U.S. via sanctions and military strikes and other forms of warfare being bogged down in Syria with the dirty war there, which was, by the way, a major point of the dirty war, not only to take out an ally of Iran, a member of the Axis resistance, but also just to bleed Iran and Hezbollah.
So after all that, the fact that they were able to stay in the fight and inflict some serious damage in Israel, personally, it surprised me.
And that, plus the fact that these Iranian generals who were threatened by Israel didn't back down, it speaks to a resilience that the U.S. and Israel really underestimated.
Tell me about the IAEA, what it is, and the corruption of Mr. Grossi, I think his name is, who heads it.
Well, Iran has alleged based on leaked documents that I have not actually seen, so I can't speak to their veracity, but they've arreged that Grossi was basically colluding with Israel and giving Israel the names, as far as I understand the allegation, of even some Iranian scientists.
I don't know if that's true or not.
What I do know is from my own experience, you know, covering international watchdogs, namely the OPCW, the Organization for the Probation of Chemical Weapons, that these are heavily compromised.
The OPCW was compromised first in the lead up to the Iraq War when John Bolton, then working for the Bush administration, engineered the ouster of Jose Bustani, the OPCW chief, because Bustani was standing in the way of the Iraq war by trying to facilitate inspections that would have undermined the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq.
And Bolton threatened Bustani.
He threatened his job.
He threatened his family.
And Bustani revealed to me in an interview a few years ago, the U.S. bugged his office.
So, and then ultimately, the intimidation campaign succeeded because basically the U.S. threatened enough people and also threatened the OPCW's budget.
So finally, Bustani, right after he was elected for a second term, he was kicked out under U.S. orders.
And then, of course, you have the OPCW cover-up scandal in which the OPCW suppressed its own investigation into an alleged chemical attack in Syria because the actual findings of the investigation undermined the allegation that the Assad government used chemical weapons and their findings pointed to insurgents on the ground staging a false flag.
And so that was compromised.
The whistleblowers were censored, maligned.
So the notion that an international watchdog could be compromised in the service of U.S. hegemony wouldn't surprise me at all.
And by the way, funny story, after Jose Bustani, the original OBCW director, after he was kicked out by the Bush administration, one of the people who came in to replace him as a deputy, not as a chief, but as a deputy to the chief, was Rafael Grossi, the new head of the IAEA.
Now, he's corrupt.
I don't know, but it's just a funny irony of history.
But this guy, Grossi, is the one who the Iranians allege, and you haven't seen the evidence.
I don't know if there's evidence of this, has been passing what he learned about Iran onto Mossad.
That's what Iran says.
I haven't seen the evidence for it.
Again, I certainly don't rule it out based on how I've seen international watchdogs be corrupted.
And also, moreover, even if he didn't do that, he did put out a report recently that was, I think you could argue it was disingenuous.
And Israel used it to justify their case for attacking Iran.
And then grossly, after Israel and the U.S. attacked, tried to walk it back and say, no, we didn't have evidence of a nuclear weapons program.
But I think he was trying to save face after helping to serve Israel, whether he did so intentionally or not.
How much damage was caused to Israel by the Iranian retaliations for Israel's unprovoked attacks?
I can't speak to that, Judge, because Israel keeps a lot of that censored.
So maybe the fact that they've gone to such lengths to censor reporting on it speaks to great damage, but I just don't know.
Certainly, I will say that as I said before, Iran did a lot more damage than I expected them to.
What damage did Netanyahu do to himself?
Well, that depends whether Trump is willing to distance himself from him.
I mean, the issue now is, will Trump continue to try to enforce Netyahu's ridiculous demands that Iran commit to zero enrichment, so therefore undermine its own sovereignty and energy needs, and also accept limits on its missile program, which there's no way Iran will accept now, especially after being attacked?
I mean, they never would have accepted it to begin with, because who is the U.S. and Israel to try to impose limits on Iran's self-defense, but especially now, it's just ridiculous.
So, is Trump going to continue to act on behalf of Netanyahu or on behalf of the best interest of the U.S. and the world?
And if Trump continues to enforce Netanyahu's maximalist red lines, then yeah, Netanyahu is fine because he has the backing of his country.
If you look at the Israeli political spectrum, did any Israeli leader criticize Netanyahu for attacking Iran?
No.
His opponents all applauded it.
They're all on board.
Even if you speak to critics, people call themselves critics of Netanyahu, the kind of people Israelis will go on Al Jazeera and say critical things about Netanyahu.
I haven't seen one of them to criticize Netanyahu because they're all bought into this Israeli notion that we have to attack everybody constantly for our own self-defense.
Wow.
What is your view of the validity of Trump's claim that there's a ceasefire?
Let me restate it.
Did Netanyahu seek the ceasefire because of the damage because we can include the intolerable damage to the Israeli state?
I think that's very fair to assume, especially also since, look, these people are so they're so bigoted and they're so driven by their supremacy that I think Netanyahu, it's fair to assume that he probably thought that maybe after a week or two of U.S.-Israeli bombing, the people of Iran would rise up and overthrow their government, that nobody would side with the government, everybody would join Netanyahu, that they would listen to him after he called on them to rise up.
I mean, the nerve of Netanyahu, as he's attacking a sovereign country, to tell the people there who he's bombing that he's on their side and wants freedom for them.
And I think in his deluded mind, and that's putting it very, very generously, he may have thought that bombing alone and bombing energy plants, bombing water facilities, that'll be enough to get the people to rise up against the government, which of course hasn't happened.
So it's possible now that at this point, given that didn't happen, and given that Trump's airstrikes apparently did relatively little damage to Iran's nuclear facilities, that he wants out now as well, because Iran has smartly kept its retaliation mostly on Israel.
They did fire a symbolic amount of missiles at a U.S. military base in Qatar, but they clearly telegraphed that to avoid damage.
They're focusing their ire on Israel.
And so Netanyahu has every incentive to want to put a stop to hostilities if Trump will not continue to bail him out.
Before we go, today is the one-year anniversary of the successful culmination of something for which you and I and Max and many of our friends ardently labored and wished, the release of Julian Assange from captivity in a hellhole in the basement of a London prison.
Just thought I'd mention that.
Chris reminded me of it.
I remember how ecstatic we all were a year ago today, June 24th, 2024.
Occasionally, liberty triumphs over power.
We haven't seen much of that lately.
Aaron, thank you very much for your time.
Safe travels.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
You're coming back to a 100-degree New York City.
I'm looking forward to it.
And listen, you know, in a very bleak world, sometimes there are moments of small acts of justice.
And Julian Assange's freedom is one of them.
Another one just happened too with Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia student.
He's been released as well and now back with his wife and newborn sons.
Yes.
Sometimes in a very, very bleak world, some good things happen.
Thanks to a courageous federal judge in New Jersey who took his time, but who did the right thing.
Yeah, that's right.
Thank you.
All the best, Aaron.
We'll see you soon.
Safe Travels.
Thank you, Justin.
You're welcome.
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