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July 28, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
25:52
Larry Johnson : Ukraine Losing Update.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, July 28th, 2025.
It's good to be back here at work again, and it's a delight to be here with my longtime friend and collaborator, Larry Johnson.
Larry, a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you.
Man, you can't believe it today.
You can't believe it.
You can't believe the emails I was getting saying, where's the judge?
Is he okay?
No, he's fine.
He's doing the vacation.
I was approached by a lady in a hotel in Berlin who said, Judge Napolitano, nice to see you.
Please give my regards to Larry Johnson.
So regards from this unnamed fan.
Before we get to Ukraine, there are so many other things we have to talk about, not the least of which are the Tulsi Gabbard revelations and the latest international recognition, I think, of the depravity of the behavior of the Israeli government vis-a-vis Gaza.
But let's start with Gabbard.
You were, and having advised me, I was, but you were ahead of your time when we revealed back in 2017 that GCHQ was doing, that the British domestic spying apparatus was doing dirty work for the CIA so that American fingerprints wouldn't be on it.
But we didn't really know, did we, that one of those fingerprints would belong to Barack Obama himself?
Not back then.
I mean, again, my source at the time, it wasn't so much being directed by Barack Obama.
It really was more from Hillary's side.
But Obama was providing support.
What Tulsi has revealed is, let's call it, it's phase three of Russia Gate.
Phase one was in the initial leadup when they hadn't actually designated presidential candidate.
CIA, FBI were involved with targeting all of the presidential aspiring presidential candidates, except for Hillary.
And that started in the summer of 2015.
Once Trump was identified as he's the man, the whole operation to tie Trump to Russia and make him sort of the puppet of Putin, at least in the public's mind, that kicked off 1st of May in 2016.
And then with Trump's election, and now that he was coming into power, that kicked in phase three.
And that's really where Obama started really exercising his influence, putting his thumb on the scale.
Interesting.
The allegations that some of this was criminal, of course, will really grossly exaggerate, but Harrim will fall on deaf ears because of the statute of limitations.
Well, I think, you know, number one, it was ill-advised for Tulsi to make any judgment about what kind of legal charges should be brought.
That is up to Department of Justice.
I think the two most compelling lines of, if you will, judicial attack would be one, a RICO, because you can definitely establish that this was a conspiracy and it wasn't confined just domestically.
It involved the cooperation of the FBI, the CIA, and foreign governments.
The other would be an action based upon defrauding the United States government.
And that doesn't mean you had to actually cost it money, although it did.
But so the perjury stuff, yeah, they lied.
And that's been, you know, people do that routinely in Washington and usually get away with it.
Right.
No accountability.
Particularly people in those levels of government.
Some of the statements under oath may actually be less than five years ago, meaning the statute of limitations has not expired.
Is there a developing consensus in Israel that the government has gone too far, that the concept of ghettos, the concept of concentration camps, the concept of collective punishments of the known innocent because they're children and babies is the hallmark of a Nazi regime.
Well, it appears at least there's a strong minority.
I'm not sure yet it's a majority view, but Alistair's wife, Aslin, puts together a terrific summary.
They go in and read the Hebrew press.
And the Hebrew press is different from the English press in Israel.
The English press tends to clean things up and not be as blunt or direct, whereas the Hebrew press sort of pulls the veil back and it's like what the Zionists are really saying to each other.
And what's remarkable about her latest contribution is that it highlights how many senior, important people across Israel are now speaking up in horror and liking what's happening.
I know I have made the comparison in the past.
Others have of tying it to the Holocaust in what the Nazis did to Jews during World War II.
But now you've got a number of prominent Jews making that same comparison and accusing their own government of engaging in the kind of behavior that was sanctioned, approved by Adolf Hitler.
I mean, I read this same thing also last night.
You can't put it down.
It's utterly Compelling.
And these are former, very senior people, including a couple of former prime ministers in the government saying very, very harsh things.
And you're right, things that we don't see in Haaretz, the English language publication, not fans of Netanyahu, but still dialing back the harsh criticism.
There's nothing dialed back in what Mrs. Crook compiled, and it's all compiled from public sources.
But I couldn't help but be angry at the hand-wringing this morning in Scotland between President Trump and Prime Minister Starmer over the starvations in Gaza.
They caused it.
Trump funded it.
Trump financed it.
Trump would stop it with a phone call.
And here he is bemoaning it.
So it troubles me that people don't take responsibility.
It delights me that people are starting to see what's going on there.
Yeah, well, he's like the arsonist that sets a house on fire, then waits outside to see if the fire department's going to show up, and then laments the fact that the house is on fire and somebody ought to do something about it.
I mean, it is the scale of human suffering that's being inflicted upon the Palestinians is just, I mean, we don't have any reference in history really to compare this because, you know, they go back to the Zionists, the Israelis, they justify what they did or are doing because of the attack on October 7th.
Okay, let's assume that the Israeli version of that is true, which it is not.
But let's just go with the Israeli version, that 1,200 Israelis and foreigners who are Jewish were killed on October 7th.
Okay, 1,200.
And then they have people like Netanyahu come out and say that this was the worst thing that's ever happened since the Holocaust.
Really?
I mean, 1,200 people compared to your claim of 6 million people, this is the worst thing that's ever happened.
And then you respond by that by bombing, killing, and starving women and children to the tune of well over 60,000.
The number is probably much higher because the official Palestinian account doesn't total up the people that are buried under rubble or whose bodies have been disintegrated.
And yet the person who sits next to Donald Trump in his golf cart and whispers into his ear while they're playing golf wants a full-fledged invasion of Gaza.
Watch this, Chris Cut number five.
I think Israel's come to conclude that they can't achieve a goal of ending the war with Hamas that would be satisfactory to the safety of Israel.
And if they're going to do in Gaza what we did in Tokyo and Berlin, take the place by force, then start over again presenting a better future for the Palestinians, hopefully having the Arabs take over the West Bank and Gaza.
But I think going forward, Christian, you're going to see a change in tactics, a full military effort by Israel to take Gaza down like we did in Tokyo and Berlin.
Wow.
And the United States would fund that, Senator Graham?
Well, the dumbass doesn't even know history, okay?
Number one, the United States didn't take Berlin.
That was the Soviet Union.
They're the ones that fought and entered Berlin.
We had nothing to do with that.
And Tokyo we took by force?
No, the Japanese surrendered after we dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima Nagasaki.
So, one, he doesn't understand history.
Two, he ain't paying attention to what's been going on in Gaza.
Here you have the Israeli military, which has launched a full-fledged offensive starting 22 months ago.
They have every advantage you can have in the world militarily.
Now, in addition to more men in uniform, they have tanks, armored personnel vehicles, artillery.
They have a variety of rockets and missiles.
They have bombs that are dropped by combat aircraft.
They have helicopters, attack helicopters.
They have intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
And they're fighting what is basically a guerrilla force, probably numbering less than 30,000, who are armed with rifles, pistols, some RPGs, a lot of improvised explosives.
They don't have artillery.
They don't have tanks.
They don't have aircraft.
They don't have the things that a modern army has.
And despite all of that, Israel can't beat them.
They failed after 22 months.
And the only thing that's happening now is more Israeli soldiers are getting killed with each passing day.
And at the same time, one of Trump's strongest supporters in the House of Representatives, I know sometimes she goes off the wall with the things she says, is introducing legislation to curtail, curtail military aid to nuclear-armed Israel.
The Republicans in the House don't even want to vote on the legislation because they don't like the way she's entitled it.
Marjorie Taylor Green ripping into the status quo.
Chris Cutton number eight.
My amendment would strike $500 million in funding for nuclear-armed Israel's missile defense system.
And it's important to phrase it that way.
Israel is a nuclear-armed nation, which is very capable of defending themselves, and they have been proving that so, as we've watched on the world stage.
The U.S. already provides Israel with $3.8 billion annually in foreign aid.
$3.8 billion.
That's a lot of money.
Additionally, the April 2024 Security supplemental included $8.7 billion for Israel.
That is nuclear-armed Israel.
And during the recent 12-day war, the U.S. used 15 to 20% of our terminal high-altitude area defense missiles stockpiles defending nuclear-armed Israel, which cost us over $800 million.
The $500 million provided in this bill will fund Israel's, that is nuclear-armed Israel's, missile defense system, the Iron Dome David Sling arrow system.
Yet Israel is a nuclear-armed nation.
That's a pretty big deterrent for any of their enemies.
Any nation that has a nuclear bomb has the greatest threat against their enemies.
USAID typically accounts for 15 to 20 percent of Israel's defense budget, even though Israel, nuclear-armed Israel, has universal health care for their citizens and subsidized college for their citizens.
They're able to provide that.
However, here in America, we're $37 trillion in debt.
I never heard anybody in the federal government call Israel nuclear-armed Israel until she just said it.
I guess she won't be getting the AIPAC Hanukkah card this year.
No, no.
And she won't be getting a nicer office on Capitol Hill because she surely got under the skin of Mike Johnson and the others.
Let's move on to Ukraine.
Are negotiations still going on?
And if they are, what are they going to accomplish?
Nothing.
I mean, they had a, I'll call it a pro forma meeting last week in Istanbul where, you know, the meeting lasted 34 minutes.
You know, nobody even had time to let their coffee get cold.
So, and this came about because the United States pressured Ukraine to go to the meeting.
And, you know, Russia said, hey, we're always happy to meet and discuss.
But, you know, the discussion boiled down to, we're going to give you back 3,000 bodies and you're going to turn over five dead Russians, basically.
So the lopsidedness in the casualty, the lopsidedness in terms of the number of captured soldiers from the other side, Russia is winning this militarily.
And then, you know, top it off today, we've got more buffoonery from Donald Trump who are claiming, oh, they no longer have 50 days.
Russia's got to bring this to an end in 10 to 12 days or else what?
Right.
You're going to write it.
No, that's what I was going to ask you, or else what?
And he did say this 10 to 12 day nonsense this afternoon, this morning, our time, but this afternoon in Scotland.
Yeah.
I guess he means the secondary tariffs, which does he really think that's going to change Russia's military strategy?
Well, like I said, if he does, he's a fool.
And frankly, his actions over the last week or so have proven that he's pretty foolish in every regard.
You know, you're going to impose more sanctions on Russia?
The Russians said, fine, go for it.
It's actually made Russia stronger.
People said, oh, but their economy is suffering.
You know, their economy right now is growing at 1.4% because they deliberately deflated the economy because they were experiencing high inflation.
Well, inflation now has dropped.
And just two days ago, the central bank in Moscow dropped the interest rate.
So they're lowering rates.
They've got inflation now under control.
And, you know, whatever, you know, 1.4, they said, oh, that's an anemic growth rate.
Well, tell you what, they're growing at twice the level that Germany, France, or the UK are right now.
And I don't hear Western economists spending any time talking about the imminent collapse of Germany, France, or the UK, who are actually in worse, much worse economic situation than Russia.
So the sanctions don't work.
And then they're going to impose secondary tariffs on China and India.
Neither country really cares.
Correct.
The United States is now in a position where we are isolating ourselves.
We're doing this to ourselves.
And Trump labors under this mistaken belief that we've got the clout, the influence, that we can tell everybody else what to do and that they're going to have to toe the line or do what, just like the Europeans did actually.
Europeans turned out to be the poodle and Donald Trump's holding the leash.
They had to sit there and take it.
But the global south is saying, no, no, we're tired of this.
We don't need the United States.
But the 50 days, if he thinks that that means anything to Putin and his colleagues in the Kremlin, he really is naive.
They couldn't care less what kind of a date he gives them.
We don't even know what the basis for the 50 days is.
Now he's reducing it to 10 to 12.
Do they not understand?
Does Zelensky not understand?
Does Trump, Rubio, and Hegseff not understand that Putin's demands have been regular, consistent, and systematic since day one?
And he's not stopping until those demands are met.
And he's close to achieving them.
Is he not?
Yeah, yeah.
What we're seeing is a dramatic acceleration in both the capability of Russia to wage war and what it's actually doing on the ground.
You know, you go back two years, you would get a combination of missile launch with some drone attacks, maybe once, you know, maybe once a week, sometimes once every three or four days.
Now you're getting 700, 500, 600 in one day of drone and missile attacks all across Ukraine.
It's not just one day, pause, we got to rest.
No, they're able now, they're on a sustained roll, and they're hitting key military targets, industrial targets to really cripple Ukraine's ability to wage war.
And that's being accompanied on the battlefield with in a couple of different areas.
In Donetsk in particular, there's this one key town that's called Pakrovsk.
And the belief is that once that falls, that that is going to basically, it's like unlocking a door.
And once that door is unlocked, the rest of Ukraine is open.
Russia has already, just to the west of Donetsk is the other oblast called Dnipropetrovsk.
Russia has already actually entered Dnipropetrovsk, as you're speaking, and they've been steadily advancing from the south into Zaporizhia, which is Russian territory, but Russia has not been able to fully occupy it.
But they're in the process of taking care of that.
And then up north in the area of Kharkiv and Sumy, you've got the Russians also advanced.
So they're advancing really all along the front.
And there's nothing that Ukraine can do, nothing that the United States can do, nothing that NATO can do short of trying to enter the war to try to halt this.
And the danger is if the West enters the war, they're going to get destroyed.
The West does not, short of using nuclear weapons, the West does not have the military power to defeat Russia.
And you've got some just insanity with this current commander of European command, USUCOM, Donahue.
I think his name is Thomas Donahue.
And he was speaking at a NATO event last week talking how quickly the United States could invade the Russian territory called Kalinograd.
It used to be in Germany.
It was called Konigsberg.
At one time, it was the capital of Prussia.
But now the Russians have occupied that since the end of World War II.
It was given to them as part of the Potsdam Declaration.
So that's secure Russian territory.
And here you've got this U.S. general talking about invading it.
Over.
And the Russian response is, basically, if that happens, we're going nuclear.
They've been very clear about that.
Well, when a general talks about invading, does he do so without the knowledge and consent of the Secretary of Defense and the President?
You want to assume that he has been talking, but I can't rule out that he's actually that stupid to say something like that on his own.
But there's been no public reprimand.
There's been no effort to walk that comment back.
There hasn't been a statement out of the White House or Pentagon going, oh, no, no, wait a minute.
The general, he was mistaken.
He was already, they haven't done anything to discount it.
So in light of that, I have to assume that it was an authorized statement.
Wow.
What military gear are we still sending them and how much of our own supplies are being depleted?
We're like Wimpy from the old Popeye cartoon.
I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
So, hey, we're going to give you those Patriot missile batteries.
They'll be there in six to eight months.
Those artillery shells are being built maybe next month.
And the artillery barrels, yeah, that's not.
We don't have it to give.
We don't have stockpiles sitting in warehouses unused.
We have now tapped out on those and our industrial ability to produce any kind of volume in a short period of time is zero.
So it is, you know, if you think about it, if Trump just sent 10 Patriot missile batteries, 10 Patriot missile batteries consist of four launchers per battery.
So, you know, that gives you 40.
And then each one of those missile batteries shoots 16 missiles.
Well, all of a sudden you're at 640 missiles in that group.
Lockheed Martin annually produces 550 total.
Okay?
So right there, 10 launchers, I mean, 10 batteries with four launchers each represent more than a year of U.S. production of just the missiles.
How much longer can Ukraine last?
You know, this could drag on until next spring, but frankly, I don't see how they last through the winter, particularly with the kind of shift in morale you've seen, coupled with the articles being leaked, or intelligence being leaked to people like Cyhurst reporting that the U.S. is basically done with Zelensky.
He's got to go.
With the protests that erupted across Ukraine when Zelensky tried to cancel and take control of the two anti-corruption offices.
You know, there's a lot of maneuvering going on behind the scenes.
I think there are at least some in the West, and this may have been the impetus for Trump advancing instead of giving the Russians 50 days, no, 10 to 12 days, because he realizes Ukraine is in desperate, desperate straits right now.
They got to do something quick because they don't have 50 days to wait.
That's another way to look at what Trump said today.
Larry Johnson, thank you, my dear friend.
Always a pleasure.
Thanks for bearing with me and going all over the place on all of these topics.
We'll look forward to seeing you on Friday with the senior statesman of this group.
Yes, well, we'll hope he gets over his black eyes, man.
But welcome back, Judge.
It's good to have you.
Thank you, Larry.
All the best, my friend.
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