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Aug. 11, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
22:09
LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : Trump Can’t Stop Talking.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Forgive my squeak.y voice today our colonel today is uh tuesday august 12 2025 colonel karen kvadkowski will be with us in just a minute on on this intriguing question that i think everybody answers the same way no matter love him hate him republican democrat liberal conservative libertarian progressive whatever you are here's the question does trump talk too much but first this Why do so
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Colonel Gwarkowski, Colonel Karen, always a pleasure.
Is President Trump an authoritarian?
I mean, you know, he's a boss.
He's a boss.
He likes to play that role.
So, um, in politics., if you play the role of a boss all the time, calling the shots all the time, yeah, he's authoritarian.
But, you know, at the same time, I think he does value the ideas of freedom, you know, the ideas of the Constitution, you know, his campaign twice now.
You know, he's feeding off of what his supporters feel.
So there has to be something there.
I don't think he could fool that many people.
as often as, you know, so I think he behaves as an authoritarian.
I don't know if in his heart, you know, he really seeks to control everything.
I love you, Colonel, but I think your little puppy is disagreeing with you.
Quite right.
Well, does Donald Trump favor laws that help the police or that secure personal liberty?
I think, I mean, from what I can see as just a citizen, I think he definitely favors laws that help the police.
So I do think he's a statist.
That doesn't necessarily mean he's an authoritarian statist, but I think he likes the idea of the power of the state.
And, you know, he has tried twice and done it.
He's tried three times and he's done it twice to achieve the position of president, which sits atop this most powerful state that's ever existed on the planet.
And he wanted that.
So he obviously thinks that's important.
So yesterday he announced that he's going to become the police commissioner of Washington, D.C. I'm being a little sarcastic.
The Wall Street Journal mocked him for that this morning, although they agreed with what he did.
This is not quite what it seems because under the law, it's for 48 hours and then he gives.
notice to the Congress and then it's only for 30 days and then he needs the consent of Congress.
I don't think he'll get the consent of Congress.
Who knows if he'll drop this thing if he doesn't get the consent of Congress.
But there's a specific law that allows him to do this.
The District of Columbia Home Rule Act signed by President Nixon in 1973 gives the president the power to do it.
So what he's doing is lawful.
I'm not sure if what he's doing is constitutional, Karen, because it is not the job of the President of the United States to keep the streets safe, James Madison.
Yeah, isn't it funny how Trump has assumed the role of every, the, the, the, the, the solver of every problem.
He's not solving these problems, but he has assumed the role of he will, he will fix this, he will do this, he will do that.
And again, it just speaks to his, his grandiose personality.
And, and, you know, he's also, And they say this about Trump, you know, that he has his friends and big balls who got attacked and beat up, put in the hospital when he tried to help some lady who was being mugged.
or card jacked or something, you know, he got hurt.
And so that's a guy that Trump has spoken highly of, who probably, he probably knows him, probably likes him.
He feels like he's a young man with a great future, and now he's beat up.
So in Trump's world, he has to do something about that.
And he forgets, well, I say he forgets the constitution.
I'm not sure he ever.
Seriously, has he read the constitution?
Does he have any idea what's in the constitution?
I don't think that he does.
I think it's Trump just reacting as there's a friend in mine needs something and I'm going to do something big.
Right.
That's right.
You know, he's obviously reacting to these anecdotal events because the government's own statistics show a 30% reduction in violent crime in Washington.
You ask if he's ever read the Constitution.
I've told this story so many times, so I'm no longer telling it out of school.
When I was being interviewed by him, for the Supreme Court.
It was a long interview.
It went on for two and a half hours, the first 45 or 60 minutes of which it was just the two of us alone.
This was November of 2016.
So we had just defeated Mrs. Clinton.
He knew he had the vacancy in the court because Justice Scalia had passed away and the Republicans blocked President Obama's nominee.
So during the course of the interview, I don't know, he changed the subject so many times.
And I said to him, I said, you know, Donald, as he insisted on being called in those days, I wouldn't call him that today.
Donald.
In a month and a half, you're going to be asked to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Have you ever read it?
He looks at me and he goes, I don't read books.
I said, well, Mr. President or Donald, it's not a book depending upon the size of the print and the size of the pages, it's maybe 15 or 22 pages in length.
You should read it.
I got guys like you to tell me what's in there.
Wow.
Now, this is eight and a half years later.
I don't know.
if he's read the constitution.
I don't know if he understands the limitations on presidential power.
He certainly doesn't act as if he understands or respects those limitations.
I mean, suppose tomorrow he wants to take over the police in Chicago where there's no statute that authorizes it.
Yep.
No, I doubt he'ss had time to read it because he's been in, you know, running either as president or running for president.
You know, he's not had time to do it.
And this is really a shame because, well, it's not a shame.
It's a fact.
He is not a principle driven president.
And maybe not all of them are, but, you know, Ron Paul just had his 90th birthday.
Now, there's a guy driven by principle.
There's a guy that knows and understands.
And he cares about the country, loves the country.
probably 10 times more than Donald Trump does, but Donald kind of ran on his coattails in many ways, you know, the people that wanted a transparent, an honest.
a constitutional government.
These were the Ron Paul people And Trump benefited from from.
I don't know how close you live to Dulles International Airport, but the Ron Paul annual gathering is Saturday at the Dulles Hilton.
There it is.
And we are doing a live judging freedom with Professor Sachs, Colonel McGregor, Anya Bloomfield, and Max Bloomfield.
They'll all be on stage, and I will be questioning them.
I'll be there watching.
I've bought my ticket already.
Oh, wonderful.
Wonderful.
That'll be wonderful.
Make sure you raise your hand and ask a question so that I know that it's here.
It'll be great to see you in person, Karen.
Is Trump interested in facts, true and accurate facts, or only in those which reinforce or support his preconceived ideas?
The latter.
He's not interested in actual facts that could inform him as to a reality.
And you can see this with the recent firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
uh bureaucrat he uh i think she'd been there for some time and um you know anybody who i'm not i'm not an economist but anybody that's looked at the num the numbers from the BLS on labor, if they've looked at how this government calculates any president, the existing government, how it calculates inflation and all these things.
It's a game of manipulation.
It has always been political, and it's geared to protect and promote the state in every way possible.
Which is why you called him a statist.
He promotes the state and not the individual.
That's right.
So he fired this lady because she retracted numbers again and made them, I guess, made the economy look worse than it was or something.
But he said, this can't be.
I'm putting a guy in there who's going to give me the numbers that I want.
And that is...
This guy, who I should like, he's an Italian from New Jersey and he's got a PhD in economics.
But he said today, maybe we don't need to release these numbers.
Listen, I'm not in favor of bureaucracies, but the whole world relies on these numbers.
And they haven't been accurate for years.
And people who study them and rely on them to make investments or make decisions, you know, know this they they try to figure out how wrong um and for what reasons these numbers are wrong every time they make an announcement or put out put out some data so uh and this guy that he chose i forget the guy's name but um he is very qualified to go in there and look at the system he has effectively been doing this for
the heritage foundation a conservative republican slash libertarian uh think tank but when he said today maybe we don't need to release these numbers right well he saw the writing on the wall if he makes honest numbers it trump will look even far worse than the previous BLS director did.
What cards does Trump have to play with President Putin on Friday?
Well, the urgency of Trump's need to develop his portfolio for the Nobel Peace Prize.
There's a sense of urgency in that Russia is steamrolling Ukraine.
turning what's left of Ukraine, rump Ukraine, even though it's, I think, maybe 80% of the original territory before the war started, but it's very well, it's damaged, it's very corrupt.
The industrious, patriotic, hardworking, trustworthy people of Ukraine have left the country.
Okay.
Those guys are working in Europe and Canada and the United States.
They aren't going back to rebuild Ukraine.
So Ukraine is a wasteland in terms of its economic potential and it's only swirling.
It's swirling down the toilet.
Every moment makes it weaker, less likely to be able to serve Trump's purposes and NATO's purposes.
So, you know, it's not a good foundation at this point to rebuild on.
And yet that's what you have.
So I think there's an urgency to stop it.
Now, they say, well, you know, Putin wants to stop it.
Sure he does.
He doesn't.
Nobody likes war.
But Putin is in a position to keep it going for however long he wants to.
I spoke yesterday with some people in Moscow.
And they, of course, hope and believe.
This is a group put together by Scott Ritter.
They were business people and governments.
government people they believe that to putin is far more is interested in far more than just ukraine that putin is interested in a reset of the relationship between the united states and russia well that would cause international rejoicing if the U.S. were to resume a normal relationship with Russia.
You can buy and sell goods.
There's no tariffs.
There's no sanctions.
You can fly from JFK to Moscow.
I mean, these things, which once were taken for granted, it can't happen.
Now, you can't even use an American credit card in Russia.
Yeah.
Well, I, you know.
Trump would like that too.
I mean, this could be packaged as an economic move, a positive thing.
It would kind of fend off the China killers or the part of the government that wants to go to war with China.
So yeah, there's a lot to that.
And, you know, Putin and Russia have survived these tariffs, but that's no way to live.
So yeah, it would be a great idea.
And also, I heard something about a tunnel from Alaska, maybe from Nome to Siberia under the Bering Strait.
Built by the Trump organization, no doubt.
He doesn't have a philosophy of government and he's not interested in the long-term effects.
I'm speaking economic now, of his policies.
You said that in your piece two or three days ago entitled, Does President Trump Talk Too Much?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, he loves the state and he loves power.
And he is the state.
Who is that?
Was it Louis XVI, I Am the State?
Yes.
So, you know, Louis XIV, let's start saying, wa, I am the state.
Yeah, yeah.
So that's Trump.
You know, and he's not a terrible person, although certainly he's done nothing for the Gazans, you know, and he's played by people who flatter him.
So that's really, that's high, you know, we can criticize that.
But, you know, he glorifies his role as a man of power and he likes to throw his power around and talks about it.
And he tells a lot of stories, a lot of which are not even true or accurate.
You know, he's entertaining in that way.
And I think people still like him because of it.
You know, you can kind of make fun of him.
He has a thick skin in some ways, you know.
He doesn't like to be insulted or whatever.
But for the average American watching him, he's quite entertaining.
I mean, I think he's more entertaining than Biden because Biden, it was like waiting for him to fall.
Yesterday, Monday, when he announced the takeover of the DC Metro Police Department, took him an hour and a half to do so.
Oh, wow.
So, Colonel Kwajkowski, does he talk too much?
And if the answer is yes, and it probably is, what is the problem with that?
Yeah, he definitely talks too much if it took him that long.
Time is valuable, especially for a president.
So I think he's entertaining himself.
I think he may be one of those people.
people, you know, that talks through to figure out where he's going.
He doesn't know where he's going.
He starts and he talks and then he ends up.
He gets feedback from his audience or whatever.
So, yeah, that's, again, it's very entertaining.
And, you know, you could say, and this is said by a lot of people, especially with our foreign policy, but even with our domestic policy, that the president is largely irrelevant.
You know, this is a ship of state.
It's run by, we can talk about who might be run by, but certainly, you know, we have the intelligence community.
We have big business in many ways, big banks.
We've got the Fed and all the people that benefit from the Fed.
We have insiders and the deep state, the swamp.
Okay.
And it runs whatever this America is, which is not constitutional and it's not particularly productive.
And it's kind of humming along at the end of empire and the failure is happening.
the 41 trillion, the 155 trillion, the 250 trillion in monies and promises made can't be paid back.
They're going to be written down and terrible things are going to happen in this country when that happens.
But we have this president.
who sits atop of all of this and he's very flamboyant.
He talks all the time and he tells stories again, half true, half not true.
He does things nobody understands.
He's not trustworthy.
You know, you cannot trust Trump.
And this is a concern for this meeting this Friday.
You know, but it's entertaining.
And it is where we're at.
Is he a war criminal?
All presidents are war criminals.
All American presidents and pretty much every other leader of a country.
Because they murder.
without cause.
They murder for the wrong reason.
They kill people who have not harmed them.
So yeah, how many people have any president killed?
But Trump, you know, his assault on Iran in the middle of our, you know, negotiations.
killed a whole bunch of people that didn't need to be killed and did nothing to him and did nothing to this country and it was done illegally.
So does that make him a war criminal?
Sure it does.
He's also friends with probably the most contemporarily vicious war criminal we have on the planet, Benjamin Netanyahu.
And he entertains him.
He takes care of him.
He funds him.
He feeds him weapons.
He justifies Netanyahu's actions in Gaza, which is a genocide that's, you know, the most recorded and well-watched genocide that the world has ever been treated to.
And Trump's all about that.
Now, you know, where's the hour and a half talk about that?
You know, he's avoiding that topic.
Yeah, I just, you know, I think the problem is way bigger than Trump.
We've got him.
We can be entertained by him.
If he makes mistakes, if he tells us something he shouldn't have told us, that's a good thing.
We have a tiny bit more transparency.
Do you agree with me that James Madison and company never intended the imperial presidency we have today.
That's yes, absolutely.
And that is well known by, I don't care what historian or what politics you have, that is extremely well known.
This country was designed as a very decentralized republic.
Now, you can fault the constitution for allowing all this to happen, allowing this concentration of power, this confiscation of 35 to 40 percent of the GDP every year.
You have to pay or you'll go to prison.
And, you know, this country is not free.
And certainly the founders envisioned a kind of liberty that I don't even think libertarians today can really put their head around.
We're so far from that.
But they would be shocked.
They would be shocked.
He's more powerful than a king and he's more crazy than any kings that the founders were aware of.
Colonel Kwadkowski, always a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you for this great piece, which anybody can read at judgeknapp.com.
Does President Trump talk too much?
It's typical Kwadkowskian.
because it goes through a lot of philosophical principles as well as the president talking.
Thank you, Karen.
All the best to you, my dear friend.
I'll see you Saturday.
Yes, I'll see you Saturday.
I'll look you up.
I'll find you.
Okay, thank you.
Okay.
Coming up tomorrow, Wednesday at 11 a.m.
Colonel Douglas McGregor at 1 a.m. in the afternoon, Max Blumenthal at 2 a.m. in the afternoon, Pepe Escobar at 3 a.m. from antiwar dot com, our friend Kyle Anzalone.
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