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June 23, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
28:28
COL. Douglas Macgregor : Trump and His War On Iran.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, June 24th, 2025.
Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now.
Colonel, a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you for accommodating my schedule.
Colonel, was any bona fide military purpose served by the United States of America spending $100 million to drop 30,000-pound bombs on empty tunnels in the Iranian mountains?
No, I don't think so.
I think this turned out to be a training mission with live ammunition, but fortunately, no one alive on the ground where the bombs fell, and apparently nothing of consequence on the ground where the bombs fell.
Would not American Intel or the Intel of its collaborators have been aware before the bombs fell that the tunnels were empty?
Or was this a PR stunt or training mission as you characterized it in the latter?
Well, I think it's probably in the realm of PR stunt.
It'll take time for people to figure this out.
In the meantime, people will say that President Trump is playing 4D chess or something like that.
I think he was looking for something that he could do that would not precipitate the massive introduction of U.S. military power in the war with Iran on Israel's side, to be frank.
And I think we informed the Iranians.
The Iranians did not apparently take us under fire.
I don't even know if they employed their radars to track us.
I have no idea.
We're not being told the whole truth.
But if I watched that particular news conference, it struck me that this Air Force four-star, who's now the new chairman, was less than entirely comfortable with everything he was saying.
Is it fair to use the descriptions that Secretary Hegseth did?
This was brilliant.
And that President Trump used it, resulted in, he said this as recently as this morning, after the New York Times reported that people in the military were saying the tunnels were empty.
He still said it.
Totally obliterated their nuclear program.
Well, when the truth is ugly, only a lie could be beautiful.
And I think that that particular lie is very appealing.
And we're going to stick with it.
Again, it may be, in his mind, a way to get out from under the demand that his donors are making that he join the war against Iran by attacking them and essentially rescuing Israel from its perilous state.
You know, that's the only thing I can come up with.
It's not going to work, Judge.
You know, these things don't work.
Ultimately, they failed.
Let's now see whether or not this ceasefire has any staying power.
He is keeping the United States in the war with NATO against Russia in Ukraine.
Is he in danger of leading us into a new war in the Middle East?
Well, at the moment, I think he's done his best to avoid it, to be frank.
I think it dawned on him that he was playing with very serious fire.
All sorts of terrible things could happen.
You have in the background of all of this, of course, the threat of disrupting the oil flow through the Straits of Hormuz.
I think that's something he absolutely wants to avoid, even though that won't affect us immediately as profoundly as it will affect the rest of the world.
It nevertheless is something to be avoided.
And I think he also recognized that the president of Iran's visit to Moscow was very important and that President Putin made it abundantly clear that he's going to support Iran.
I think Putin has sent a number of important signals.
And those signals, I think, probably influenced Trump as well, despite the fact that General Keene and others have said, oh, well, that's all nonsense.
We've heard all this from Putin before.
That's a bluff.
Forget it.
I think President Trump began to think it through.
I know, Jack, and I've stopped listening to him.
The two Jacks, Devine and Keene, they're just in another world on all of this.
I haven't spoken to Jack Keene about this, but he was ecstatic over the drone attacks on the four Russian military bases.
By what authority can the United States of America destroy a lawful, internationally examined and approved enrichment activity in a sovereign country?
Well, it presupposes that there's a body of international law that the United States of America actually respects.
I don't see much evidence that there is.
Yeah, it's there, but it's not respected.
LBJ himself signed the nonproliferation treaty for the United States, but nobody respects international law.
Yeah, I think there are some people out there who try to, but, you know, it's like everything else.
When you put the name international in front of it, somebody has to enforce it.
Who's going to do that?
That's the problem with the United Nations.
It's a good idea, well-intended, but no one is going to enforce anything.
I think President Trump is also very concerned about the state of affairs in Israel.
No doubt he was told that the Israelis are on the verge of running out of missiles.
Their economy is not just in ruins.
It's going to collapse.
This man Smotrich, who's one of the more fierce advocates for mass murder in Gaza and elsewhere, actually spoke publicly and said, we've got maybe a week left.
And now nobody in Israel will admit that.
Nobody, certainly at the top.
And then finally, there's also the other possibility that nobody really has come to Terms with right now.
And that is that the potential for Israel to become extinct as a state and a society through mass emigration.
People are leaving and more people are likely to leave, in which case, you know, the 9 million man state of 2 million Arabs and 7 million Jews will consist of 2 million Arabs and substantially fewer Jews.
So I think Israel is in trouble.
And the notion that somehow or another they hold the high ground and hold all the cards is a little ridiculous.
Is it true that the Israeli government is attempting to prevent people from leaving?
Oh, yes.
There's no doubt about that.
I've had people tell me that point blank who sent me notes about it from Israel itself.
Do you think that the so-called ceasefire, and I don't mean to demean it, but if it's not in writing, who knows what they agreed to?
And as far as I know, there is no writing.
Whatever President Trump announced before was requested by the Iranians or by Netanyahu crying, uncle?
I think the Iranians have been advised by Putin and Lavrov to exercise restraint if possible.
And if the opportunity presents itself to participate in something that will slow or halt the destruction, that they should do so.
The Iranians, however, were not begging for a ceasefire.
That's nonsense.
But the Israelis very definitely needed one.
Now, how long will this last?
How rapidly can we replenish what they've fired?
You know, somebody said to me late last night, the Israelis have probably fired off in terms of missiles in two weeks, what will take two years to reconstitute.
In other words, they haven't got enough left to defend themselves.
And two missiles have to be fired in response to every one missile coming in.
The Iranians, on the other hand, as an Israeli official, I think it was Gavir, mentioned about a week or five or six days ago, we completely underestimated the Iranian missile arsenal.
They did.
And the Iranians have been very straightforward and said that, you know, we'll stay in this as long as it's required.
So I think, you know, the Israelis may have two more weeks, three more weeks before they're completely run out and they needed a break.
What damage has Netanyahu done to himself?
You know, it's too soon to tell, but, you know, I think we and Netanyahu have done damage to ourselves.
I don't think anybody beyond the borders of the United States believe anything we say, Judge.
We have broken our word.
We have deliberately misled and lied to not just the Iranians, but to others.
I don't think anybody in Moscow or Beijing, or for that matter, anywhere else listens.
I know that the Koreans and Japanese have both backed out of the most recent conference invitations.
I think they view us as unstable and dangerous.
Again, you know, I think I mentioned this some time ago.
The rest of the world sort of looks at us as patient zero, and they want to contain us.
They want us to stay in our room.
They don't want to go to war with us.
That's the great myth.
I think it was Jeffrey Sachs who said more than one occasion, never in our history have we been more safe from attack than we are today.
That's true, except for our soft underbelly in Mexico and the drug cartels and the millions of illegals in the country.
But no one external to the country wants to go to war with us.
And as I've heard repeatedly from my friends in Korea over and over and over again, the only people that are talking about going to war in Asia are the Americans.
Nobody else in Asia is interested in it.
Nobody is interested in going to war with China.
And they utterly reject the notion that China is a military threat to them.
So, you know, we've reached this strange point where President Trump is doing what most presidents do.
He's taking, you know, credit for what looks like a short-term positive development.
And he might as well, because presidents, when they're in office, are always blamed for anything that goes wrong in their watch anyway.
Do we know the nature and extent of the damage to Israel?
I know the IDF and the Netanyahu government are laboring mightily to keep that from coming out.
But can we piece it together from what your friends have told you?
Well, I think you've got to look at the satellite photography.
You've got to talk to people that are at least on the periphery of the intelligence collection system.
And they paint a pretty grim picture now.
Has every building and every house in Haifa or Tel Aviv being destroyed?
Not yet.
No.
Could they be?
Absolutely.
And that's the problem.
I think the Israelis have figured out that this is a war they cannot win, which is why Mr. Netanyahu has been so determined to drag us in.
We were supposed to go in and win this for Israel.
President Trump has betrayed his donors, apparently, and Mr. Netanyahu, at least insofar as he's been unwilling to take us directly into the war.
Now, you can argue, as I have, that we've effectively started a war with Iran.
But Iran thus far, since no one was killed and the targets that we attacked were irrelevant, has scrupulously avoided giving us an excuse to go to war against them.
And I think that's what happened with the attack on the airfield and the installations in Qatar, where we had already evacuated everyone, and they did what we did for them.
They let us know that it was coming.
Now, there are a lot of people who are misinterpreting events right now.
They're saying, oh, well, now all the Emirates will flock into our arms.
They all hate Iran and so forth.
There's a problem in the region that we don't get, and that is that everyone in the region hates Israel.
That's the problem.
Whatever goodwill there might have been, it's gone.
Now, what about the elites in the Emirates or Saudi Arabia?
They are increasingly isolated from their populations.
The populations are the ones who are enraged over Gaza, and they're angry that nothing has been done about it.
You have a similar development, not as dangerous, but it's serious in Turkey, or Turkey, as they want us to call it now.
The Turks are furious with what's happened in Gaza and the absolute failure of the Muslim world, with the exception of Iran in their estimation, to do anything about it.
We keep focusing exclusively on Iran.
Iran is not the only issue here by any stretch of the imagination.
This is a regional-wide hate fest now against Israel.
And the Israelis are saying, well, they always hate us, not on the scale that they do now.
Absolutely Frank.
What is the danger to President al-Sisi in Egypt and the King of Jordan presiding over populations that profoundly and overwhelmingly and massively disagree with government policy towards Israel?
Well, I think King Abdullah is very much at risk of being removed, and I think he knows that.
And he is surrounded by very powerful security forces.
And I think that they've been very lucky thus far that nothing has happened to him because he's seen, frankly, as a stooge for Israel.
He didn't start out that way, but that's the way he's viewed at the moment.
Cece is in a somewhat different position.
He has moved forces to the border with Israel.
People are angry that nothing has been done.
But as I think I mentioned earlier, Cece is worried about the consequences for Israel, for his own country.
Number one, the Israelis have always privately, quietly threatened Israel with the use of a low-yield nuclear weapon that could you meant to say threatened Egypt.
Yeah, threatened Egypt.
I'm sorry.
Right.
Because of that Aswan Dam.
And that could have terrible consequences for the state.
The other problem is that they see us as unconditionally supportive of the Israelis.
So if the Egyptians were to attack right now, their fear is that they wouldn't simply contend with the Israelis.
In fact, today, Israel is weaker on the ground than it's ever been.
They're afraid of what U.S. air power would do in support of Israel.
And they don't necessarily want to be in that fight.
Now, Egypt and Iran are close.
Egypt and Russia are close.
And China stands right behind Russia in connection with both countries.
If something happens to unravel everything in the region and start a regional conflict that would be the end of Israel, it will start with Egypt because the Egyptians could now have a very serious impact on Israel.
What do you think the Kremlin is thinking about what Trump ordered on Saturday night?
I think they're shaking their heads, trying to figure out what is driving President Trump.
And I think they've decided that President Trump is impulsive, short-term in his thinking.
He's looking for the so-called win that he can get out of this for himself here at home.
So I think they've pretty much given up on us.
Somebody said that the Russians sort of view us, and this applies to the Asians as well, I think, certainly in Northeast Asias, as the equivalent of a large-scale drug addict who has cravings, mood changes, acts on an impulse that is completely unpredictable.
Now, some people in this country think, well, that's a good thing, isn't it?
That scares all our enemies.
Well, that presupposes everybody's the enemy.
I don't agree with that.
And then secondly, that also leads your potential adversary to take measures against you that you may not care for and lead them to pull the trigger when you really don't want them to.
I think the Russians want to avoid a conflict with us at all costs.
So they're going to continue to counsel caution.
But at the same time, they're moving decisively towards the river.
I think they will go across that river.
I think they will take Kiev and then move south to seize Odessa.
I think all of that is coming.
But they want to avoid a direct confrontation with us.
What is Beijing thinking of what Trump ordered on Saturday night?
I don't think they're taking us seriously any longer in terms of whatever propositions that we float to them.
I think they're looking at us as a power in decline that is lashing out as it goes down.
Now, that may not be accurate, but that's probably the way they view it.
And they too want to stay out of the area.
They would prefer to sort of avoid any direct confrontation.
But see, what do you do in the United States?
People have been persuaded, convinced over many decades, China is going to attack Taiwan.
It's not.
They're not interested in that.
The people on Taiwan are not interested in it.
Given the opportunity, the people on Taiwan will eventually vote themselves back into China.
The Chinese know that.
But we keep insisting on that.
And the rest of Asia looks at us and says, why would the Chinese do that?
If they did, it would destroy them commercially and politically in Asia forever.
They don't want to do that.
But we keep insisting on that.
So we have this picture of the world that is divorced from what I would call geostrategic reality.
And that's their concern more than anything else.
You know, three weeks ago, the Secretary of Defense was in Japan shaking his fist at the Chinese saying, hands off Taiwan.
This is absurd.
Well, his performance at that particular conference in Asia was not well received.
Frankly speaking, people were horrified by him, not because of the threats, but the evident disconnection from reality.
That's what they all walked out saying, you know, how did it ever get to this point?
These people have lost their minds.
And I think that's the way they look at us.
They think we're crazy.
That's not something you want anybody to think about your country, particularly ours at the moment.
The president of the United States is on his way to Europe at a NATO conference.
The Secretary of State and his entourage apparently preceded him there.
The official spokesperson for the Department of State had a very interesting statement to make about her role, her job, and her love of America.
I thought you might be interested in watching this.
You're not going to like it.
Chris cut number nine.
The pride of being able to be here and do work that facilitates making things better for people.
And in the greatest country on earth, next to Israel.
In the greatest country on earth.
Next to Israel.
It is an honor to be able to make a difference and to be able to speak in this regard with an administration that I love so much.
How does an official spokesperson for the government say something like that?
Well, I think the real question is, or not questioned so much, is now you know why she's got her job.
Because I think effectively everybody who's serving in the administration in an appointed capacity understands that that is the prerequisite, the precondition for service in the government.
Let's be frank.
And I always take people back to the Republican convention.
I remember I was shocked when I was watching the convention and suddenly I saw this giant Israeli flag on the wall and above it, Israel first.
And this rather plump gentleman in a suit came out and said he was there to lead cheers for Israel first.
And I remember listening, he says, Israel first, Israel first.
And I heard, and a lot of people looked at each other and said, gee, what is this?
Yeah.
And I think people now know what it means.
And you've got to accept what people tell you.
She's telling you what she knows to be the truth.
That's what is governing us right now in Washington.
This is what $100 million from Mrs. Eglson will get you.
Well, it's more than these contributions.
Everybody, first of all, the Israelis understand something very well.
There's nothing more reliable than a man that can be bought with cold hard cash.
All right, let's face it.
But that's not enough.
It's more than that.
It's access to benefits that reach into the financial firms in New York City, into the market, and across the country that can be provided to people who become serious acolytes like this woman that you just had on.
I don't know if you saw it, but just as he was leaving the White House this morning to get on a helicopter, to get on Air Force One, to fly to this NATO conference, the president exploded.
Chris cut number 15. Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I've never seen before.
The biggest load that we've seen.
I'm not happy with Israel.
You know, when I say, okay, now you have 12 hours, you don't go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them.
So I'm not happy with them.
I'm not happy with Iran either.
But I'm really unhappy if Israel's going out this morning because of one rocket that didn't land, that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn't land.
I'm not happy about that.
We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the f ⁇ they're doing.
Do you understand that?
As only he can say it.
Well, the president is obviously the master of the universe, and he's in a position to play daddy in all events, control everything and impose his will.
Remember, Ukraine and Russia.
These are like two school kids, and sometimes you just have to let them fight it out.
That's what he said two weeks ago.
Yeah, and there's a complete failure to understand the complexity of what's happening.
As far as him being angry with Israel, well, that's nice.
And I think that's the biggest load in what he had to say.
A load of something.
And I'm not talking about munitions.
He doesn't really have much to say about what the Israelis do.
And that's a fact.
So I think he'll come back online very quickly when it's deemed appropriate.
But he's made it clear that he really doesn't want to be on a complete war footing.
And I think he's afraid of the things that I mentioned earlier.
He's very much afraid of the straits and foremost being closed and the potential for direct confrontation with the Russians.
But instead, you get that kind of analysis, which is not very persuasive, and it certainly isn't sophisticated or thoughtful.
In the meantime, he, because all these funds are subject to presidential discretion, continues to fund the slaughter and genocide in Gaza and the utter catastrophe and losing war in Ukraine.
I think these things, Judge, are going to continue as long as we fund them in the sense that as long as we can, at some point, you know, you end up with Nassim Taleb's scenario, the black swan.
Does that happen in two weeks, six weeks, six months?
I don't know, but we've gotten awfully close.
Nassim Taleb has recently pointed out that we are not really the reserve currency anymore.
Gold has become officially the reserve currency because while dollars are still used in most transactions, not all, but most, it's no longer viewed as a store of value.
And that has everything to do with our terrible position in terms of the sovereign debt, the lack of a manufacturing base, the disorder at home in the United States, the absence of any national industrial scientific strategy that anyone can point to.
Again, we're back to this sort of confused picture of the United States that we're a potentially dangerous adversary because we always have an axe in one hand and a bag of cash in the other, and nobody knows which one's coming first.
Colonel McGregor, thank you very much.
Thank you for your time.
Thanks for letting me take you across the board from China to Ukraine to Israel to Iran.
Deeply appreciated, my dear friend.
Please continue to send me your emails.
They're so informative.
Somebody said something to me last night that I think is very apropos that we should end on.
And this was about former Dean Acheson, former Secretary of State, brilliant man.
He ran twice for the presidency against Eisenhower and, of course, had no chance of winning.
But the second time he ran, he delivered what everyone concluded was really a brilliant speech in San Francisco.
And a woman walked up to him and grabbed him by the arm and said to him, Mr. Acheson, any thinking American, anyone with any intelligence and education will absolutely vote for you.
That was brilliant.
And he looked at her and he said, well, thank you, madam, but I need a majority to win.
Nicely put.
Somehow, Donald Trump has assembled a majority, not by promising war, but by promising to do the opposite of what he's been doing.
Iran, Gaza, Ukraine, war, war, war.
Well, nothing has changed in Gaza.
People are still dying there every day.
The Israelis continue to operate wherever they care to, to kill whomever they want.
They just issued new threats against Iranian officers, against the officers and their families.
Nothing has changed.
This ceasefire, as you point out, is uncertain.
It doesn't represent a solution.
It doesn't suggest that there will be any talks or discussions that could lead to a solution.
So we may be seeing a pause, something that lasts a few days, a few weeks, maybe a couple of months.
But the fundamental problem is unchanged.
The people in the region no longer believe that they can coexist with Israel.
It's that simple.
Yes.
Thank you, Colonel.
All the best, my dear friend.
Right.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Great conversation with a great man.
Coming up tomorrow, Wednesday at 8 in the morning, Ambassador Craig Murray at 11 in the morning.
If we can get him up, Max Blumenthal at 1 in the afternoon.
Professor Glenn Deason at 3 in the afternoon.
Phil Giraldi at 4 in the afternoon.
Colonel Karen Kwatkowski.
Thank you for watching.
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