All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 25, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
34:26
Scott Ritter : The Limits to Putin’s Patience.
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, August 25th, 2025.
Scott Ritter will be here in just a moment on are there limits to President Putin's patience and the latest tragedy in Gaza.
But first this.
We all know how devastating war is.
Lives lost, communities destroyed.
But war can also threaten your financial freedom.
That's where America's heading.
Our growing involvement in global conflicts.
It means more spending, more debt, and a weaker dollar.
That's a direct hit to your wallet.
So here are three things to keep your eyes on.
Exploding debt, declining dollar rising prices of gold and silver these things are already happening Goldman Sachs predicts gold could hit $4,500 an ounce by 2026 why?
Why?
Because central banks and smart investors are buying gold hand over fist.
They know what's coming and they're hedging against it.
Currency collapse, inflation and market volatility.
Gold has been a trusted store of value for thousands of years.
And today we need that protection more than ever.
Call Lear Capital now at 800-511-4620 or visit learjudgenap.com.
No one is going to protect your wealth for you.
You need to do it yourself and not...
now is the time scotty welcome here uh my dear friend i want to spend a fair amount of time on the latest developments some of them are rather uh dramatic uh involving iran but uh before we get to president putin's uh patients uh this morning the netanyahu regime which uses American AI,
as you pointed out, to target its victims, targeted a hospital in southern Gaza and targeted it twice.
And in the process killed not only patients, bystanders and health care workers, but journalists as well.
The second target was aimed at the area known where journalists gather in order to acquire Wi-Fi from the hospital system.
Before you respond, watch this cut number ten.
So it happened around 10 a.m. this morning.
And for context, to give our audience a lay of the land, Nasser Hospital is the largest, the only functioning hospital in the South.
And the part of Nasser Hospital that was hit, you guys, is really important.
You can see it in the videos.
It was a staircase.
And the reason this staircase was targeted very clearly is that this is where journalists since the early days of the war have gathered to get wifi signal.
We have seen videos they've posted on social media.
Our team, which used to work right close to that staircase, would share videos of them holding their phones to the sky, kind of huddled over laptops in the wee hours of the night.
But journalists since the beginning of this war, you guys, since they have been personally displaced, have flocked to hospitals to use resources like wifi, to use power, to use water.
So this staircase journalists were on the staircase this morning when it was hit around 110 a.m.
And as Jonathan just laid out minutes later, as first responders were racing up to that area, as other journalists in the area were going to cover the strike, another drone strike hit that same exact spot.
Mika, we actually have updates from the numbers that you just read.
As Jonathan says, this is a very fast moving story.
It has now at least twenty people killed, including five journalists, as you mentioned.
AP, Reuters, and Al Jazeera have all said that at least three of those journalists were working for them, excuse me.
And this brings the total of journalists killed in Gaza since October 7 to 245 journalists, media workers.
These are our colleagues, our peers who have been killed in the last 22 months, guys.
All right, what do you have to say?
The truth shall set you free.
And that's the problem, is that journalists, the good journalists, are out there to gather ground-based truth and share it with a broader audience so that people can have a more reality-based understanding of what's going on.
Israel is the anti-truth.
They are the opposite of the truth.
They want to imprison us in their lies.
And they view journalists as some of the most existential threats to the continued well-being of Israel because the journalists are increasingly exposing the crimes of Israel, the duplicity of the Israelis, the absolutely abhorrent behavior on the part of all aspects of the Israeli government, the Israeli military, the Israeli society.
And they're also sharing the The truth shall set you free.
Therefore, it's Israel's job to suppress the truth by killing the truth and that's what they do every time they target a journalist.
And here's the MSNBC reporting Mika Brzezinski on the IDF response.
And before we play it, bear in mind, consistent with what you just told us, the Israelis have murdered over 250 journalists.
Chris cut number 11.
Israel's defense forces responded to the reports announcing plans to conduct an initial inquiry as soon as possible.
It adds the IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and does not target journalists as such.
As such, the IDF acts to mitigate harm to uninvolved individuals as much as possible while maintaining the safety of IDF troops.
How can she read that with the straight?
First of all, stop reading Israeli press releases.
They lie.
The Israeli government, the Israeli Defense Force, just about every aspect of official Israeli society are natural-born liars.
They can't tell the truth about anything because to tell the truth about what's going on is to expose the fact that Israel is a living manifestation of war crimes from the very beginning of its birth up until the present time today.
Israel can't embrace the truth because the truth will condemn Israel.
We need to stop treating the Israelis as legitimate sources of information.
We need to start treating the Israelis the same way we would treat, you know, the most horrific regimes in history.
Would we read the words of Goebbels?
Would we read the words of the Nazis as they sought to defend the crimes of Auschwitz?
Would we listen to the Nazis say, no, the trains were just running on time.
We're here to feed these people.
It's de-lousy.
No, we wouldn't read them because we wouldn't want to give any credibility to them.
She's reading in a statement from the Israeli Defense Force excusing mass murder by pretending it was a mistake.
No mistake was made.
These are drones.
These are guided to their target by drone operators who are supervised by Israeli officers who are obeying the orders given to them by higher command to kill journalists.
They knew what they were doing.
This is just ridiculous.
We need to stop legitimizing Israel.
We need to start calling them out in every way, shape, and form as the despicable.
of genocide that they are.
And I apologize for losing my temper, Your anger is righteous.
The only thing I would add is these creeps from Peter Thiel's Palantir.
These are this American AI that they have used to target, and they target almost literally the hairs on people's heads.
They know exactly who they're targeting.
100%.
The complicity of the United States in these crimes is absolute.
You know, I just spent a week in Russia talking to some people including people who were you know Russians who were entrapped by U.S. law enforcement on manufactured charges and imprisoned on conspiracy you know they they They didn't commit a crime, but somehow they committed conspiracy.
My God, if we were going to use conspiracy as a standard to convict, the United States is guilty from top to bottom of a conspiracy to commit genocide because of how we, how closely we work with the Israeli government and every aspect of it.
You know, even go to Fox news, go to MSNBC, look at how many Israeli, you know, government representatives who are out of the government, former IDF, former intelligence officers who have, you know, They're there not to have an honest day's employment.
I'm sorry I have to call it out.
They're there to promote the policies of the Israeli government.
They've been doing it since day one.
We are complicit as a society in the deaths of these guys and civilians.
We murdered them, not just the Israelis.
You know what is so, so distressing?
Never mind Netanyahu's nonsense that this is a blood libel.
There is no libel.
Truth is a defense.
Is that Donald Trump doesn't see this?
Donald Trump could stop it, as Max Blumenthal has said, and you've said a hundred times, with a phone call.
One phone call.
One phone call, the President of the United States could do the right thing.
And, you know, he's not making the phone call because of political reasons.
And I have to tell you, you know, I understand politics.
I'm not a politician, clearly.
But I understand you have to watch what you say.
You have to be careful with what you say.
You have to measure your words.
But if you're political while people are dying, you're a coward.
You're a despicable coward.
if you're an american who's silent while people are dying because of things america's doing you're not much of an american at all so i know this man's wrapped himself in the mantra of make America great again.
But if making America great again requires us to remain silent while our government is complicit in the slaughter of Palestinians, that's not an America that I want to be part of.
I believe America's better than that.
We're making America lesser.
I don't know who the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is at the moment.
I guess we don't have one at the moment, but whoever it is, will be told to veto the following.
Chris Cut number eight.
It is a famine.
It is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been allowed.
Yet food stacks up at borders because of systematic obstruction by Israel.
It is a famine within a few hundred metres of food in a fertile land that forces a parent to choose which child to feed.
That forces people to risk their lives to seek food.
It is a famine that we repeatedly warned of but that the international media has not been allowed in to cover, to bear witness.
It is a famine in 2025, a 21st century famine, watched over by drones and the most advanced military technology in history.
It is a famine openly promoted by some Israeli leaders as a weapon of war.
Everyone owns this.
The Gaza famine is the world's famine.
that asks, but what did you do?
A famine caused by cruelty, justified by revenge, enabled by indifference and sustained by complicity.
It is a famine that therefore also asks, and what now will you do to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him.
Enough.
Ceasefire.
open the crossings, north and south, all of them.
It is too late for far too many, but not for everyone in Gaza.
Enough.
For humanity's sake, let us in.
It's hard to respond to that.
It's so profound and so emotional.
Is Iran preparing for another war with Israel?
Iran is ready for another war with Israel.
To say they're preparing for another war with Israel is to imply that Iran is the one who is causing the problem here.
Israel has made it clear, and so has Donald Trump, that this war isn't over.
And they are now confronted with the reality that Iran is not going to surrender, that Iran is not going to bend the knee, that Iran is not going to continue to play the game, the same game that led to the duplicity of the United States and Israel in carrying out a surprise attack against Iran, killing the negotiators as they prepared for a negotiation that President Trump promised not only would occur, but could bring an end to this crisis.
Iran will never again trust the West.
And so Iran will believe Israel and believe the United States when they say they will respond.
So Iran is building the capability to be absolutely devastating in its response to any attack.
We have the United States evacuating bases in the Middle East because they understand the next time Iran isn't going to give a courtesy call, the next time Iran strikes, they will strike to kill.
And Israel better understand because Iran now has released evidence of the existence of new weapons that will not only overwhelm their ballistic missile defense systems, but destroy decisively what they hit on the ground.
Iran is preparing to do this.
Does Iran want to do this?
Absolutely not.
Iran won't start this fight, Switching gears to Ukraine.
In one week, President Trump authorized the Iranians to fire thousands of ERAMs.
I want you to tell me what ERAMs are in a minute.
And he also said this, Chris, the full screen.
It's very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader's country.
It's like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but it's not allowed to play offense.
There's no chance of winning.
It's like that with Ukraine and Russia.
Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine fight back, only defend.
How did that work out?
Regardless, this war that never would have happened if I were president, zero chance.
Interesting times ahead, President DJT.
It sounds like the man who wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the man who embraced very warmly.
of Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, who sent an image of bonding and breaking down of barriers that had been established by the Biden administration, that that man now wants to ratchet up the war, America's proxy war against Russia.
Yeah, I mean, it's tough language, but let me try to do the impossible and explain Donald Trump.
Let's not forget that Donald Trump is fully aware of a certain reality.
And that reality is that there are strategic strikes into the depth of Russia carried out by non-nuclear powers acting at the behest or empowered by nuclear powers.
Russia will treat that attack as if it came from the nuclear power.
This is Russia's nuclear doctrine, the one that was promulgated last year in November.
At that time, the CIA, when reading this nuclear doctrine and considering the fact that Joe Biden was about to give permission to the Ukrainians to use American-provided attack-ems missiles to strike into the strategic depth of Russia, the CIA said there's a better than 50% chance there will be a nuclear war by the end of the year.
That's the CIA.
That's not Scott Ritter calling, you know, the sky is falling, the sky is falling.
That's the CIA giving a cold-hearted assessment that if we allow Ukraine to strike Russia strategically using American-provided weapons, Russia could very well use nuclear weapons in response.
This led Donald Trump to make a statement in early December that said, when I'm president, I won't allow this policy to continue because he understands the ramifications of it.
He knows the risks.
And so I have to believe that that same knowledge base exists.
He's under pressure right now because Ukraine is getting their butts kicked.
Every lie Donald Trump was told to tell, because again, he is not the originator of data.
He's fed this data by people about the number of Russian casualties, you know, and smaller amounts of Ukrainian casualties, has been proven to be a lie.
We now know that Ukraine has suffered 1.7 million dead and missing.
625,000 dead and missing this year alone.
That's 90,000 a month.
90,000 a month Ukrainian dead and missing.
We know this to be the case.
Ukraine can't replace them.
Russia is pummeling them.
And the president's trying to create the conditions for some sort of But in order to do that, he has to be seen as not abandoning Ukraine.
So he puts out this god-awful statement, which is as stupid as stupid as possible.
And then he backs it up by saying that the United States, in six weeks' time, I believe, is going to sell Ukraine 3,600 and some odd ERAM missiles, the ERAM missile.
The ERAM missile is a missile specifically designed, extended range.
attack munition, I think it is, specifically designed by the U.S. Air Force in 2023-2024 for Ukraine.
It's supposed to be an accurate system that can be delivered by the aircraft available to the Ukrainians that provide up to 700 kilometers worth of strike distance into Russian territory to level the playing field.
The thing about it is it was conceived in 2023-2024, but it would take two years.
to bring it up to production.
Gosh, I don't know.
That's 2025.
So they haven't even begun cereal production of this munition yet.
When they do, the maximum sustained production capacity for ERAMs is 1,000 missiles a year.
Now, we are talking six weeks from now.
If they begin cereal production today, we're going to be able to deliver, what, 10, 15 missiles to Ukraine.
And here's the kicker.
They can't use them.
because the United States has to approve the targets.
So Trump knows that if we, if the Ukrainians use an ERAM against Russia, the Russians will know that we targeted it.
Therefore, we have become directly involved in this conflict.
We are a direct participant of this conflict, and that's the end of any peace treaty.
So this is just stupidity on the part of the president who will never allow these weapons to be used because he can't allow these weapons to be used.
He knows what will happen.
It was a 50% chance of nuclear war last year.
I would imagine the odds even gone up given the stakes at play here.
So this is just political.
And I can't, I'm sitting here trying to work with this guy to bring an end to this conflict, to have better relations, to bring about nuclear arms control.
And he's saying the right things about the potential of this.
But then he does something like this.
Thank God Vladimir Putin is a very smart man and a very patient man.
And he's not going to take the bait.
This is just not going to happen.
This is something that is not going to happen because it can't happen.
We don't have the ability to follow through on this.
And even if we were to provide them with these weapons, they can't use them in the way that they would desire to use them because it would get us involved in a war that would very likely end nuclear.
It makes you wonder, it makes you wonder, General Kellogg, Secretary.
secretary Rubio, secretary Hegseth, do they know what's going on?
Are they feeding this nonsense to him?
Are they encouraging him to say all these things?
There's Kellogg.
We thought he was out of the picture, but he's right there on the other side of Trump.
It's not shown in this picture as Zelensky.
So this was a very significant gathering in the Oval Office.
This is Kellogg.
This is Lindsey Graham in a golf cart.
Yeah, this is Kellogg.
This is Rubio.
Not so much Hegseth, although this is a system that was developed and Hegseth's going to play the economic game.
As I said before, Hegseth's a battalion operations officer.
are operating several pay grades above what he should be.
He's not qualified to be Secretary of Defense.
And this is one of the reasons why this is the kind of thing you veto.
This is the kind of thing to say, hell no.
But you got Marco Rubio, who does not want this policy to succeed.
And I hope the president understands that, that Rubio is not his friend, not his ally.
Rubio is his enemy.
And Rubio is empowered by Keith Kellogg, who is the antithesis of settlement.
He's a man who has embraced 100% the Ukrainian narrative.
He doesn't, you know, he downplays everything the Russians say.
He's the one who pollutes President Trump's mind with the nonsense about casualties.
And he's the one who's pushed the ERAM missile solution.
It's something that Zelensky's been asking for.
This is to placate Zelensky.
They gave Kellogg a medal.
He marched up yesterday on Ukrainian National Day and received a medal from the Ukrainian president.
Why?
We now know the answer.
Did the Russians destroy German terrorist missiles over the weekend?
And did President Putin more or less say to Chancellor Mertz, enough is enough, pal.
You want Berlin to look like it did after World War II?
Keep this up.
Well, I mean, I think Vitadin might have said that.
All right.
He's fighting a little counterweight.
I apologize.
Yeah, Putin is far more mature and he doesn't say things like that.
He doesn't issue idle threats.
But what the Russians are very good at doing is letting action speak for themselves.
And what we've seen over the course of the past week is Russia has begun the deliberate targeting and destruction, not just a signal.
In the past, they've sent a cruise missile in to blow up a workshop here, a workshop there to send a signal.
We know what's going on.
Now they're coming in and leveling facilities.
They've leveled an electronics facility, American-made Flex.
They've taken out the facility that was built by the Germans to produce long-range missiles, including analogs of the Torus.
And they're showing that their intelligence is impeccable, meaning that they can track material into Ukraine.
and target it before it becomes operational.
And this should be a lesson to anybody talking about the ERAM.
It will never be used.
They're going to show up in airfields in western Ukraine and the Russians will deploy the weapon systems necessary to take them out.
The Russians, you know, they've been producing, you know, I guess apparently they have a lot of washing machines because apparently they need those chips from the washing machines to make their missiles work.
But their missile production is way up.
At the beginning of the war, you know, they would parse out.
you know a kinsol here a kinsol there a zircon but they didn't want to use these weapons because they didn't have that many of them you always have to keep some in reserve in case the balloon goes up with nato now they're just pop six uh kinsols six into a single factory to level it why because defense industry is pumping them out like candy.
So I think, you know, this game is over.
The Russians, you know, just the other day, the Ukrainians, Russia respected the Ukrainian National Day.
Not a single attack.
Total respect.
You know, and during that time, Ukraine reached out and struck Russian, you know, refining capacity outside of Leningrad and elsewhere.
You really think tonight's going to be a quiet night in Ukraine?
You think that this week's going to be quiet in Ukraine?
Ukraine's going to get flattened.
Again, only military targets and all that.
But the Russians, they're not playing games right now.
They are in the process of collapsing the Ukrainian military on the battlefield and they're going to collapse Ukraine's military defense industry.
They're going to make it clear to Europe that no amount of money you provide will result in anything meaningful, that every dollar, every euro you spend in Ukraine will be destroyed.
And this is at a time when the German economy, because of the policies of the German government, is on the verge of absolute collapse.
You have as great an understanding of the Russian mentality as any American that I know.
And it's because of your homework, much of which you've done in Russia interacting with Russian people.
What do you think the Kremlin thinks Trump is up to.
Does he really want peace?
My understanding, and again, this is just my take, is that the Russians truly believe that Donald Trump is looking for an off-ramp and that left to his own devices, he would definitely be out of this conflict already.
They also recognize, and they've said this over and over again, the obstacles that he faces.
The Russians understand that not only does he face opposition in the opposing party, but even within his own party, within Congress, people who have bought into this conflict, people who have embraced the narrative.
that Ukraine is good, Russia is bad.
Donald Trump is fighting decades of Russophobia, the infection of the American mindset so that we're programmed to accept at face value anything negative said about Russia and we're incapable of processing anything positive or the Russian reality.
They understand that the academic institutions in the United States are thoroughly corrupt.
When you have Hillary Clinton and Victoria Nuland teaching Russian area studies at Columbia, when you have Michael McFaul polluting the minds of Stanford graduates, you can't have sound academic foundations upon which to build positive outcomes.
They know that even within Donald Trump's own inner circle, people who are supposed to be supporting him don't support him.
Marco Rubio is not a fan of these policies.
Keith Kellogg is sabotaging him.
P. K. says this is too stupid to live when it comes to Russia.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
Steve Whitcoff is a loyal lieutenant, but he's not the originator of policy.
His job is to take the president's desires and take them to Russia and see them enacted upon.
But he's not there to articulate original thought about Russia because he's incapable of it.
In fact, whenever you delve into details, nuances about Russia, Whitcock falls apart because he knows nothing about Russia at all.
This president is ill-served by his administration, by the establishment, by the American people.
But the Russian government still has faith that Donald Trump, whom they respect, they are willing to tolerate any amount of nonsense because they understand the political reality in which he operates.
They believe that he wants to find a path towards peace.
And that's why they continue to put up with this garbage.
That's why they continue to be patient because otherwise they could just unplug?
I will spare you Lindsey Graham's latest, but I cannot spare you President Macron's latest.
I don't know if you've seen this, but if this is the attitude of Russian, excuse me, excuse me, of European leaders about Russia, World War III is around the corner.
Chris, cut number nine.
So a country that invests 40% of its budget in such equipment that has mobilized an army of more than 1,300,000 men, it will not return to a state of peace and an open democratic system overnight.
Let's not be naive.
And so even for its own survival, it needs to keep feeding itself.
That's it.
So it's a predator.
It's an ogre at our doorstep.
I'm not saying that France will be attacked as soon as tomorrow, but still, it's a threat to Europeans.
We must not be naive.
And I say this with immense respect for the Russian people, for that country, its great history, its tradition, and its leaders.
But that's where we are.
not be naive, but we are here.
I have to say, Judge, when I went to Russia in December of 23, January 24, and I went to the Donbass and I visited, I didn't get to the front lines.
They wouldn't let me anywhere near.
They're not going to let a 64-year-old American man die.
But I got to interview the soldiers and some of the generals off the front line and talk to them.
They gave me this patch to wear on my coat.
And it's an orc.
It's an orc because the Ukrainians call them orcs and we just heard Macron call them ogres.
The Russians.
First of all, they don't take Macron seriously at all.
He's a non-entity, a non-factor.
What does France bring to the table?
Nothing.
No military force of any note.
France is nullified if the political trends continue.
Macron won't be president very long.
There'll be a new party in place that will reverse trend.
So this is Macron just being stupid.
But the sad thing is Macron's, the, the, the, This is an infection of the minds of the Europeans.
This is the danger of Russophobia here in America because what we're seeing is Russophobia on the extreme end.
end, the extreme spectrum.
This is what happens when you are infected with Russophobia.
You start to speak in this manner.
It's so devoid of reality, so far removed from the Russian reality and what Russian policy is and what the Russians want.
He ignores history.
Why is there 1.3 million soldiers in Russia?
Because NATO expanded to Finland and Sweden, compelling Russia to do things like, you know, put 70,000 men.
on outside of St. Petersburg to protect it against you know NATO troops coming out of Finland to expand the Kola Peninsula force you know Russia didn't want to do this.
Russia wasn't seeking to expand its military, but it has no choice when NATO expands to its very borders, when NATO provides hundreds of billions of dollars of military equipment to allow the Ukrainian army to build up to the size of 800,000.
Russia has a military of 1.3 million.
That's to cover everything.
And the Russians are kicking the hell out of 800,000 NATO-trained, equipped Ukrainian soldiers in Ukraine.
Macron is just...
I apologize.
I shouldn't use words like that.
My wife gets very mad at me.
But no, this is insulting to the Russians, what he said.
But the good news is the Russians have a hell of a good sense of humor.
Like I said, their response will be just to wear more of these.
Scotty, you're the best.
Thank you very much, my dear friend.
Please don't apologize for your words or for your anger.
I am sure that Mrs. Ritter is accustomed to them by now.
As are we.
Thank you, my dear friend.
We look forward to seeing you again next week.
All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Wow.
What an extraordinary interview that was.
Please like and subscribe.
I'm not even sure where we are on the numbers.
I think maybe up to 625, 630,000.
I haven't mentioned the numbers in a while, but thanks to you, we are growing.
And to people like Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson and Aleister Crook and all the others that will be on with us later this week, we have been growing.
And the audience, you, the audience.
gives us a lot of strength.
So like and subscribe and thank you for sticking with us.
Tomorrow at 8 in the morning, Ambassador Chaz Freeman at 1 in the afternoon, if we can find him, then we will.
▲
Export Selection