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July 7, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
25:59
LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : US a Collapsing Empire.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, July 8th, 2025.
Colonel Karen Kwatkowski is here with us or will be here in just a second on the collapsing American empire.
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Colonel Klutkowski, always a pleasure.
Karen, my dear friend, is the American Empire collapsing?
Yes.
It's been in a slow collapse for some time now.
I mean, really, to be realistic, really since World War II, I mean, it looked like we were at the top of the world.
And maybe that's the key.
Maybe we were at the top.
And at that point, policies, expansionism, constant war, we are an empire in decline for 70 years now.
What are the signs of an empire in decline?
Is it gross overextension of the military as we have?
Is it the reduction in the value of the dollar as we have?
Is it popular but utterly incompetent and incapable leadership as we have and have had?
Yeah, I mean, it really is all of those things.
And also it's a shifting in the spirit of the population.
It is when people are no longer proud to be a part of this great thing.
And I think, you know, the whole MAGA message, make America great again, is a calling back to sometime long before, you know, many years ago when, you know, most Americans were extremely proud and happy and honored to live in this country.
And our culture has shifted in such a way that you can't say that anymore.
So, and that's something that happens to all empires in their decline.
People no longer really want to be associated with them.
Do we have competent and capable leadership today?
No, no, we don't.
And, you know, we have, you know, we have this elective system, right?
This republic with democratic features, and we elect leaders.
And, you know, these people are, for the most part, pure politicians, which means they're very good at telling stories, convincing people, fake empathy, raising funds, living double lives.
You know, this is what politicians are good at doing.
And so this is what we get.
It is no wonder that Congress is the way that it is.
I mean, these are the people we have put there.
Our system rewards people like this.
And when you get the rare commodity like a Ron Paul, Congressman Ron Paul for years and Congressman Massey, when you get this rare individual, the whole system turns against them.
Right, right.
I mean, have we ever had a state of affairs as we do today where a small foreign country so totally dominates our politics that we utterly support everything it does.
We gain nothing but the hatred of the world from supporting it.
Its behavior fails every moral and legal test.
And yet the president celebrates the prime minister of this country.
The American director of central intelligence is virtually a stenographer for this country's intelligence community.
I don't think anything like this has existed in history, has it?
Not in American history, I don't think.
You know, as you were describing a small country that has great influence on America in our past, you know, you have to think about Britain, you know, even after the War of Independence, and that took some years to get finished with.
And then in 1812, there was another battle.
And there were loyalists to Britain throughout that period, a significant percentage of Americans were loyal to Britain, disagreed with the idea of independence.
And those guys were technically part of a small country that had undue influence.
But that was the country we were colonized from.
And that was a great empire, really still at their peak.
Of course, losing the American colonies was a sign of their decline, but they were still quite powerful.
But that's the only thing I can think of.
And it was something we were able to talk about.
Are you a loyalist?
Are you loyal to the king?
Are you loyal to the republic?
We could talk about that.
And what we have with Israel today is something that we cannot talk about.
We can't talk about honestly.
How has the American government succeeded in desensitizing the American public to its financing of genocide, slaughter, and war crimes in Gaza?
And even to a certain extent now, this is relatively new, but it's happening in Syria.
How did that desensitization come about?
Why aren't we outraged at what our dollars are being used to accomplish?
Well, part of it is we give our dollars to the government without any choice, of course, but also without our knowledge.
Because, you know, we have every month or every two weeks, whenever you get paid, your taxes are removed from that.
It's not like it used to be at the turn of the century where, you know, you would pay the taxes in one lump sum and you would realize how expensive your government was, even though it was much less expensive than it is now.
So we, they have a, our tax funding of the government is basically stolen from us before we've ever really acknowledged it.
You know, we don't, occasionally we'll talk about before tax income, but nobody lives on before tax income.
You live on after tax income.
So part of it is we don't recognize how much our government costs.
And then the other part is we don't send great armies abroad and we don't have a draft and we don't, you know, we're not sending the young men and women of this country to fight actual wars.
What we, that is all hidden from the people.
And it's been highly technologically, you know, enhanced, I guess you say, we fight wars differently.
I mean, how many guys did it take Trump to, you know, pilots, what was it, seven pilots that flew to Iraq and did a great war and ended the 12, you know, all this stuff that he says, that's seven heroes.
That's not 700,000 American men dying on some over, you know, some battlefield overseas.
So I think our, our people have, our government has really protected us as a society from paying the cost.
We don't know how much it costs in dollars and we rarely visualize how much it costs in lives because it's not our kids'life.
It's not our cousins or nephews or uncles that are dying.
And this is by, this is the lesson that our government learned in Vietnam.
This is the lesson they learned.
Isn't the, isn't the Netanyahu regime, I mean, let's face it, Israel was born out of the Nazi Holocaust.
But hasn't it become under Netanyahu another Nazi regime in almost every respect in the manner in which it deals with the Palestinians?
Oh, I would say in the manner that it deals with everyone.
It has become entirely a Nazi regime.
You know, the idea of racism or religious, racial purity, you know, as being the citizen, the true citizen, everybody else substandard to them.
That is clearly how that government operates.
And it's really how the people are taught to think of themselves.
This is part of Zionist theory.
So you have that.
The way that they conduct themselves domestically, the lack of attention they pay to international norms or standards or morals or rules and how they treat not just the Palestinians, but really how they treat their neighbors.
I mean, can you imagine any other country in the world that was just would wake up one day and, you know, bomb their neighbor, just hit them, smack them down?
You know, it's a very militarized society.
That's something else that you saw with the rise of Nazi Germany, you know, the emphasis on state power.
We see this.
So in every way they match up with with Nazism.
And again, I don't know if we can if we're capable in this country of really talking that way.
Can we really say that?
Because, you know, you can't say it in a lot of places.
We can say it here.
But you can't say it on mainstream media and you can't say it on a lot of a lot of college campuses.
Who could take the Netanyahu Trump love fest last night at that small dinner party in the White House?
It wasn't one of those state dinners in the East Room, whether it's a cast of hundreds.
It was a small dinner party of Trump's closest people.
Tulsi Gabbard, not there.
Mike Huckabee there.
Pete Hegg, Seth, Marco Rubio, et cetera.
A couple of the faces on Netanyahu's side I recognize.
We'll play a clip or two from it in a minute.
But who could take that love fest seriously?
In the middle of it, Netanyahu, as if this wasn't planned ahead of time.
Hans Trump, a piece of paper in which he says, here's a copy of a letter I sent to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee recommending you.
My God, a recommendation for the Nobel Peace Prize from Benjamin Netanyahu.
You're talking about sinking the nomination.
I know.
Well, it definitely shows how a lack of self-awareness, you know, that's just it's almost like watching, you know, Gotham City, the crooks of Gotham City get together and talk about things because they're just not credible.
But they're also very it's also almost kind of funny to see the words that they use.
But Netanyahu clearly is playing sycophant to Trump to some extent.
And I think I think it's I think Bibi was very I think he was surprised at what happened, how hard that Israel was hit by by Iraq.
I'm sorry, by Iran, you know, a couple of weeks ago.
The losses that they sustained, the damages were really faith shaking in terms of the.
zionist government there you know israel was not protected they told the people they would be protected that they were invincible but that didn't happen and and you know uh i don't know for sure who called who first but trump flying in with his bunker busters and then immediately pronouncing the end of the war the ceasefire and peace talks must start you know this was clearly to save netanyahu's butt um his political butt uh his perhaps his legitimate torso, you know, his body.
I mean, we don't know how much danger Netanyahu is in.
You know, if you are a prime minister of Israel, if you look back at the history of the prime ministers of Israel, their ends come oftentimes in violence.
So I don't know how safe Netanyahu is.
Not that it would make much difference.
The people around him are much the same, but he needs America now.
He needs Trump to give him whatever he needs now.
And so I think you could see that in that Nobel Peace Prize letter nomination.
Is Trump his own man or is he a tool of the Zionist deep state?
You know, I think Trump's unpredictability is part of why he was popular amongst many people in the country, the majority.
He's a little unpredictable.
You can't always be sure what he's going to say, what he's going to do.
He talks a big line and then he'll change his mind.
He's not afraid to change his mind.
There's no shame in that for him.
And that's not a bad thing.
But I think he's harder to manipulate for the Israelis in particular.
I think he's harder for Netanyahu to manipulate, even though so far you'd have to say Bibi has gotten everything that he wants.
On the other hand, if you look at how hard Israel was hurt by Iran, physical destruction of buildings, a lot of military targets were hit that they don't talk about, that is a serious, well, that's a rebuilding.
That's a cost.
And who's going to pay that?
The Congress, I'm sure.
That's right.
We know who's going to pay for it.
The Congress will authorize $100 billion to repair Israel, I'm sure.
There was conversation last night about Ukraine.
I'm going to play a clip, which is very interesting.
We're actually going to play it twice, once where we watch President Trump speak and once where we watch CIA Director Ratcliffe react to what Trump is saying.
So Chris, he's being asked about, are you planning to send more weapons to Ukraine?
And of course, he says yes.
This is obviously his war now where we're totally in the Biden era of just send them whatever they want.
Oh, I didn't stop that stuff last week.
Pete stopped it because he thought we were running low, but we're not as low as we thought we were.
Here he is, cut number eight.
And are you planning to send more weapons to Ukraine?
We're going to send some more weapons.
They have to be able to defend themselves.
They're getting hit very hard now.
They're getting hit very hard.
We're going to have to send more weapons.
You have defensive weapons primarily, but they're getting hit very, very hard.
So many people are dying in that mess.
Now watch another version of it.
It's the same tape, but it focuses on John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA, who reacts with such relief and joy that we are going to continue funding the disastrous war in Ukraine.
Ratcliffe, who Max Blumenthal refers to as, talking about the Israelis, the stenographer for Mossad.
But here he is.
Just watch his reaction.
Same tape, different view.
Are you planning to send more weapons to Ukraine?
We're going to send some more weapons.
They have to be able to defend themselves.
They're getting hit very hard now.
They're getting hit very hard.
We're going to have to send more weapons.
You have defensive weapons primarily, but they're getting hit very, very hard.
I'm not a fan of Pete Hagseth, but I worked with him for many years, but his response was professional and stoic.
Well, look at Radical Help Life.
I mean, this is making the rounds on social media today, and so we thought we would play it for you.
A lot of our fans and regular viewers were anxious to comment on it.
It's ridiculous that he would react that way, knowing that the television cameras were there.
It's also ridiculous that he would react with glee and surprise as if he didn't know what the president was going to say.
Yeah.
It looked like he took a big sigh of relief.
You know, just, wow, this is great.
And, you know, it makes me wonder when I look at Ratcliffe, and of course it's the same with most of these guys, but you get a political, a former congressman, and we've had it with Pompeo, and you put them in as the head of the CIA.
And they're not operatives, so they haven't grown up in the CIA.
But they have, you know, they obviously support the CIA.
They wouldn't be chosen otherwise.
And I think many of them have a kind of, not really a worship of it, but they are very impressed by not just the CIA, but they're impressed that they are in charge of the CIA.
And it's almost like they've got a hold of the ring and it's this great power.
But you look at them, like Ratcliffe in particular, and you see a person who doesn't seem very well qualified.
And as you pointed out with Hedgesith, who we know is not well qualified, he did a great job.
He did what a staff member should do when the president makes a decision.
That stoic, non-reactive, supportive, quietly supportive type of thing.
But Ratcliffe didn't even, he doesn't even have the gumption to behave that way.
And I think what it speaks to is, again, the state of our empire.
That's our top intelligence operative.
He's our top, you know, the largest part of the budget, a significant part of the budget goes to his agency, which operates largely in the dark, does all kinds of things around the world all the time, oftentimes in conflict with different projects.
And here's the guy in charge of it, who can't even keep a straight face when he needs to.
One of our chatters, one of our viewers who writes in by the name of Nicholas said he reacted as if he were an investor, an investor in the military-industrial complex because his investment was about to go up.
Tulsi Gabbard was not there.
She's Ratcliffe's boss.
She was not at the dinner, but there was a Gabbard sighting today at the two and a half hour, there it is, cabinet meeting.
She was not called on.
She didn't volunteer.
She didn't utter a word.
but there she'll put it up again, Chris.
There she is at the very end of the table, as far away from Trump as she could be seated.
Is she on her way out, Karen?
Well, you know, either that or she's she's been chastened in some way.
You know, I remember when, you know, when she, when the president said he didn't care what she said, that is something that you really should quit your job over on principle.
But there is a train of thought that many people in government service have, and that is that they're more effective inside the system than outside the system.
And this debate goes on in a lot of different places.
And my opinion is you're not more effective inside the system.
And this is, you know, whistleblowers, people that dissent.
The system has ways of silencing people who dissent.
And they are, and I think that's what we're seeing with Tulsi's treatment right now.
She has been silenced.
She hasn't quit, but she's been silenced.
Now, why she stays, maybe she feels this is temporary.
She will have an ability to influence and do good work for the United States.
Hard to say, but she looks silenced.
Yeah.
Here's Trump, you know, used the F word the other day.
Here he is using the BS word.
I guess he thinks this resonates with his base or it's an honest expression, but he's angry at Putin.
Of course, I don't know the number of the clip, but you have it.
That was a war that should have never happened, and a lot of people are dying, and it should end.
And I don't know, we get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin for you want to know the truth.
He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.
And then here he is yesterday at that meeting with Netanyahu.
I'm going to play this because you have written, and I have written on this as well, that Harry Truman was arguably the greatest mass murderer in history if you measure the number of deaths by second or minute or even hour.
But yet Trump tried to compare himself favorably to Truman last night.
Chris cut number 10.
They flew for 37 hours with zero problem mechanically.
I mean, when you think in carrying the biggest bombs ever, the biggest bombs that we've ever dropped on anybody, when you think, non-nuclear.
And we want to keep it non-nuclear, by the way.
But they did a phenomenal job.
It was an amazing job.
And I think that was, I was talking to Beebe about it before.
That was the very beginning of the end.
It ended very quickly after that.
I don't want to say what it reminded me of, but if you go back a long time ago, it reminded people of a certain other event.
And Harry Truman's picture is now in the lobby in a nice location on the lobby where it should have been, but that stopped a lot of fighting.
And this stopped a lot of fighting.
When that happened, it was a whole different ballgame.
He must have been taught, you know, he went to a private school, but he must have been taught the same nonsense that government schools teach everybody that the atomic bombs ended World War II.
They just began the atomic era.
They slaughtered tens of thousands of people.
The Japanese army had collapsed and was within days of surrender.
But I'll let you take it from there.
You have some very interesting observations about it, and you have the courage to touch this third rail of American history.
Oh, yeah.
Well, I mean, I'm no expert on it, but I remember even as a student in high school, when, you know, when you heard the cities of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, these are not famous, they're only famous for being bombed.
They're not famous war cities or anything like that.
And then you read, you find out, well, you know, pretty much a bunch of wooden shacks and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not too much different, maybe a little more technology there.
But these were not military targets, okay?
And then you find out later, long after college, that actually the war was over.
Of course, we know VE Day had already occurred months before this, and the Japanese army was done for.
The war was over.
So why do this?
And then later, even later, you find out, oh, well, you know, Truman needed to send a message and the military industrial complex needed to test these bombs out before it was too late.
And so really an example of the scientific military industrial complex making policy, the same stuff we were warned about years later from Eisenhower.
But so it's been going on for quite a long time.
You know, I looked for data and facts from what I call CIApedia, Wikipedia.
You know, that's the government story for the most part.
But you can learn more from Wikipedia than you will be taught in American public schools and apparently in American private schools as well.
The first bomb, you know, they dropped it by sight, not by radar.
And the site was a Roman Catholic cathedral.
And of course, it hit the cathedral square on.
And the second site was chosen because somebody honeymooned in another city, the Secretary of Defense, that they were going to choose.
And he had fun memories of it.
He didn't want to ruin that city.
This is insane.
From the American public until everybody that was involved was dead.
Yeah, that's right.
The guy who was the Secretary of War, it's in my article and I can't remember his name right now, but he had honeymooned in Kyoto two decades or two and a half years, two and a half decades before 1945.
He had had a honeymoon.
I guess he was still married to his wife, still loved her.
So that place had special memories for him.
And it was one of the five targets that were presented to the decision makers, to Truman and them, and the military decision makers on which ones are we're going to bomb.
There's five choices.
And one on Was Kyoto, they landed on Hiroshima, Kyoto.
But then this guy, the Secretary of War said, no, no, no, we can't destroy Kyoto.
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