Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano - COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Is NATO Finished?

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Sept. 3, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano

22:57

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Is NATO Finished?

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	Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom.
	Today is Thursday, September 4th, 2025.
	Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson will be here with us in just a moment on is NATO finished.
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	Colonel Welcome welcome here, uh, my friend.
	Before I ask you about NATO, I want to play you a clip which might startle you a little bit.
	It's a 14-minute interview where Chris has narrowed it down to two, two minutes.
	Uh of Matt Miller, who's the former spokesperson for the State Department and the Biden Blinken years.
	You, of course, ran the State Department when uh Colin Powell was the Secretary of State.
	Uh, but after we hear what he has to say about uh Prime Minister Netanyahu's duplicity, I'll ask you what your views are.
	Chris Cut number three.
	But I did never fully understand how the lead up to October 7th with the government of Israel facilitating payments from another country to Hamas wasn't a bigger issue.
	It's consistent with the pattern we saw for many months.
	They were always looking for ways to add conditions or uh make the terms more difficult.
	The government of Israel came back with its insistence on keeping troops in the Philadelphia quarter.
	We were really close to a deal, and the Prime Minister added these new conditions, and then we presented a proposal to bridge those differences.
	And the Prime Minister accepted that proposal.
	And the proposal was very clear about when Israeli soldiers would withdraw from Philadelphia.
	Somehow it managed to leak that he told the families of hostages that Israel would never withdraw from Philadelphia, which of course was a complete contradiction of the position that he had taken.
	We spent at every level of government in the national security establishment, An enormous amount of time trying to get this ceasefire over the line.
	And when anyone said anything or did anything that made it more difficult, it's incredibly frustrating.
	Will it be true to say that you wanted a deal, a hostage deal, more than Israel?
	I believe that's true.
	The secretary was laying out all of our concerns to the prime minister and to the rest of the war cabinet.
	And he said, without a plan for the day after the conflict, you're going to be dealing with an insurgency in Gaza forever.
	You have continued instability in the West Bank You are making it impossible to realize the dream that the state of Israel has had since its founding.
	You're going to be bogged down here fighting this war for years and decades to come.
	And the prime minister said, you're right.
	We are going to be fighting this war for decades to come.
	That's the way it's been.
	That's the way it's going to be.
	What does this tell you about the absence of personal courage on the part of this young man?
	And the utter duplicity, the diabolic duplicity on the part of Benjamin Netanyahu.
	I need nothing to confirm the latter.
	I mean, let me be uh a little bit of uh positive, optimistic person here for a moment.
	That's that's rare for me these days.
	I had to deal with Richard Boucher quite frequently, the spokesperson for Colin Powell for the majority of the time that we were there.
	And I know how difficult that job is.
	I know how Richard even was really tense sometimes because of what he had to say to the public and what he actually knew was the reality or even sometimes the truth.
	And this was under Colin Powell, mind you.
	Um, so I understand the pressure he was under, but my first inclination is to say a day late and many dollars short, because as bad as you were describing it, I suspect it was worse than even he was saying, you should have resigned.
	That's the uh consensus of your colleagues uh on this show.
	He should have resigned and become a whistleblower, should have resigned and revealed what Netanyahu uh was doing uh and his level of uh duplicity.
	Colonel, will there ever be peace in Gaza for the Palestinians?
	No, not until something happens like what we're trying to brew up right now.
	The UN General Assembly is moving to Geneva, I'm told reliably the vote was 154 to 2, which tells you something.
	Um, and they're moving there, so the Palestinians, including Mahmoud Abbas, the recognized leader of the Palestinian state, can present their credentials for the UNGA session that starts on 22 September.
	And then we're hoping, we're hoping, we got our fingers crossed that he will present a letter that we have written for him.
	This letter requests the UNGA under its charter powers to call for, because Mahuda Bas asked for it, that has to happen, a protective force to deploy immediately into Gaza and stop the killing.
	Chapter 7 ROE, not chapter six.
	Chapter 7 is can that happen without the consent of the uh Security Council?
	Yes, the UN Security Council cannot stop it.
	It's a provision in the charter that was used in 1998, 1988, in order to let Yasar Arafat attend.
	And where would these troops come from, Colonel?
	We're hoping, and I've got an initiative working on this too, that we can talk the Chinese into providing the predominant number of the troops, and then have others, as we saw at the SCO, there are plenty of countries that would probably contribute if China would lead, even Russia perhaps.
	We are hoping China will lead, and of course, that means China would have to uh pay you the majority of the funds for it, too.
	But um, we'd also like to see China become a hell of a lot more active in the UN, and maybe we even might think about moving the UN headquarters out of New York and to some place like Shanghai, for example.
	You know, I I didn't see anything in the Western press, Colonel, uh, about the uh vote in the General Assembly to uh move the uh annual September-October meetings, which if you live in New York, you know was a big deal, uh, to Geneva.
	I wonder why I didn't see that.
	Nor did I. I found this this morning when someone alerted me to it, and it's a Middle East press piece, and then I confirmed it.
	I Googled UNGA moving, and up came Arafat in 1988 repeatedly, and then down at the bottom, about the ninth hit or so, was UNGA on two September votes 154 to two to move its opening session and subsequent sessions if necessary.
	Yeah, I wonder who the two were.
	I mean, I'm I'm being sarcastic.
	It must have been the U.S. and Israel.
	It had to be.
	It had to be.
	Wow.
	I can't imagine anyone else in the world voting against it.
	Yeah.
	And I have talked about this for a long time, and I don't know if this changes over time.
	Where is the Arab street over the slaughter and starvation in Gaza?
	Why aren't there a hundred million voices pressuring their governments in the Middle East to do something using force to stop the Netanyahu regime?
	I'll give you one example.
	Saudi Arabia broke some records, I think, uh, this past 12-13 months in terms of executions.
	And if you examine those executions, such as you can in this country, many of them were of people like uh Khashoggi of old.
	There were people who were exposing the regime.
	There were people who were taking the side of the Palestinians in a demon fashion, uh, and they got their heads cut off or whatever they do there in Saudi Arabia.
	I think it's swords where they cut their heads off.
	Um, so yeah, there's uh there's a street swell, if you will, but uh they've got their own problem.
	Look at Egypt, for example.
	Egypt has got tremendous problems right now, just feeding itself and watering itself.
	One of the reasons why they certainly don't want two million Palestinians in their land.
	Um, Jordan's got similar problems, not quite as bad, but they've got less to call upon.
	So it's not uh a question of their being quiescent so much as it is, is they've got their own very significant problems to worry about themselves.
	Right.
	I would imagine that uh Egypt is hog tied.
	I mean, they get four billion a year at least from the U.S., and that would be cut, and it doesn't come all at once, it you know, it comes periodically.
	That would be cut off immediately if Egyptian troops were to strike out at uh the IDF, don't you think?
	Uh, this administration would do it forthwith.
	I think you're right.
	Right, right.
	Um, switching, I think it really was unconscionable that Rubio stepped in and and refused visas to the Palestinians under these circumstances.
	Right, you know, it just well, Colonel, it's not just Palestinian officials, it's all Palestinians.
	You got five-year-old kids that have no legs.
	You have doctors here in New York prepared to treat them.
	I don't know what you do to a baby that doesn't have legs, but there's some medical procedures, not far from where I am right now at Wild Cornell Medical Center, and those kids can't are not allowed to land at JFK.
	Right.
	Meanwhile, we're off blasting supposed drug smugglers out of the international waters.
	Colonel, uh, in my view, that was an act of murder.
	I I agree with you under international law, uh, under anybody's law, under Christian law.
	You go out there and you blast somebody out of the ocean.
	I mean, we would have fast wrote down on them in my administration.
	We did that several times.
	We would have taken a boat.
	Now they throw the cargo over sometimes, but from what Trump was saying, I don't know if it's it's valid or not.
	The stuff was spread all over the boat.
	So if it was spread all over the boat, take a video of it, take some pictures of it, and then fast rope down.
	The New York uh Times interviewed uh Department of Just retired Department of Justice chief of narcotics interdiction, who said a couple things.
	One, Trend Aragua does not traffic in drugs, they traffic in human beings.
	That's what I unless they were transporting human beings to another country for which those people paid dearly.
	There would only be two people on that boat.
	Why would there be eleven?
	Why would they have 11 smugglers expose 11 people?
	Three boat was 1,300 miles from the United States.
	There's no way it could have reached the United States with the fuel needed uh to get there.
	And when asked about the legal authority for this, both secretaries Hegseth and Rubio said, ask the president.
	There is no legal authority for this murder.
	Not any at all.
	It's illegal under every regime I can think of, international or domestic for that matter.
	There was no congressional authorization for the use of force.
	Correct.
	Correct.
	Moving back to Europe, because I want to ask you some questions about the viability of uh NATO.
	Uh do you think that Ukrainian Ukrainian elites, military, diplomatic, government officials other than Zelensky, uh recognize that the end is near and it's not going to be the end they hoped for?
	Well, it depends on what you include in that term elites.
	I was made aware recently, and I think it was reliable information that there might be as many as a hundred to two hundred thousand of the Nazis, if you will, left in Ukraine, because they've been very judicious about the way they deployed to the various battles, refusing to deploy to those where they knew they would be destroyed.
	And so they're still intact.
	And that's a huge domestic force to put pressure on Zelensky after all, he's just their tool, I think, and the rest of the oligarchs in terms of I will kill you if you don't do what I tell you to do or don't do what I want you to do.
	Um, so it's a real tense situation, I think now in what remains of Ukraine, and that's about to be squashed by the Russian juggernaut.
	Um Putin's not going to stop.
	Are you still of the view, Colonel?
	And if I'm wrong when I say still, I think I think my memory's serving me correctly, but I could be wrong, of course.
	Um that Zelensky is not free to enter into a peace uh agreement because if he did so, he would lose his life at the hands of these bandarists, neo-Nazis, ultra nationalists, whatever you want to call them, the same people we're just talking about.
	Right.
	I think you're right.
	I think he's trapped.
	Wow.
	Uh earlier uh this week, the United States ambassador in NATO, Matthew Whitaker, said NATO is strong and well.
	Does he know what the hell he's talking about?
	He's got a really bad thermometer.
	If I stuck my thermometer in its mouth or somewhere else, it might be more telltale.
	He would be dying.
	What's the state of NATO today and what would it be like if Trump pulls us out?
	If he pulls us out, I actually think it would be a healthier state than if we stay and let them think we're always behind them, like this business he's just talked about with regard to Ukraine and their deployment of guardians into Ukraine, whatever's left of it.
	I think that's dangerous, extremely dangerous, because we're not going to do what we say we're going to do.
	We're going to leave them hanging out on the limb they put themselves on.
	That would be traumatic, and I think an end to the relationship as well as an end to the alliance.
	I think the alliance is going to crumble principally because of Ukraine as a precipitate reason, but the long-term reason is it no longer has a viable purpose for existing.
	And you're going to have major changes over the next 24 months in the political leadership in each one of these countries.
	And by and large, they're going to be very different, especially in France and in Germany and in Britain.
	Well, those are the those are the principal cast of uh characters whose governments are about to collapse.
	I uh, you know, uh, let's start with uh Germany.
	Uh Chancellor Murray, he may be a very successful financial guy at BlackRock, but he's a babe in the woods when it comes to uh running uh the government.
	And and it appears as though AFD, you talk about supernationalists, uh, will be uh prevailing in the next uh election as soon as his uh government uh collapses.
	Let's just say that that's of deep concern because I think there's an element in AFD that is salivating, not against, but salivating over what he has started in terms of rearming Germany.
	Well, um McGregor agrees with you and McGregor, um Colonel McGregor, your recolleague argues that uh Merz's rearmament is making him the most dangerous German chancellor since Hitler.
	I agree.
	And Are you saying that he's got to take note of that too?
	Yeah, I'm sure he does.
	And are you saying that it's feasible that his successor could be worse?
	Don't know.
	I don't know who his successor would be.
	I have not surveyed uh painstakingly the AFD and tried to figure out who might emerge in some kind of coalition leadership.
	Well, in Great Britain, you have Nigel Farage and that uh reform party is now out pulling the labor and the conservatives, and in uh France you have uh Marine Le Pen and the young man that works for I forget his name, Bartella, I think not even 30.
	Uh they're out pulling uh Macron's uh people.
	Is it possible we'll see a radical change uh in Europe that will show a happy face towards the Russians?
	Very possible, I think.
	I'm I'm even judge.
	Uh I I've got two really close contacts in uh Poland.
	One lives in in Chicago, but stays very much in touch with the cognizante in Warsaw, and another one is in Warsaw, and they tell me that they are creeping very slowly to a better appreciation of their situation, and that means that they don't like making an enemy out of Russia, and they don't like what has happened in Poland with regard to the affection Poles have for the United States.
	Wow.
	Well, you have the prime minister of Poland, who sounds like an American neocon, and then you have the newly elected president of Poland, who sounds like it could be a guest on this show.
	I don't know how they can work, I don't know how they can work together.
	It's Poland.
	Your your uh friend uh in uh Chicago probably lives in one of those many.
	I went to law school right outside of Chicago in South Bend, Indiana, one of those many neighborhoods in uh Chicago where English is not spoken, where everybody speaks Polish, even the mass in the cat, the local Catholic church is in Polish.
	Yeah, I had somebody tell me one time if you want to know why we always favor Poland, go to Chicago.
	Well, uh right, where does NATO stand right now?
	I mean, are they in any position to guarantee any kind of uh security for uh Ukraine, or is this totally off the table because of what our friend um uh Sergei Lavrov has said?
	Well, that plus you know, all these things.
	I take Scott uh and Doug McGregor and others, and people who talk to me from time to time at their uh at their word.
	None of this stuff that Trump is promising to sell to NATO is gonna be available anytime soon.
	So what are they gonna go into Ukraine for or with if they do come to a settlement that includes and Putin might agree to it, they're being a part of the security guarantees.
	Uh, and when they can't do that, what have you said to the world about the viability of NATO?
	Well, do all American presidents disrespect the constitution, particularly when it comes to war and killing.
	Yes, in many respects.
	It's built into the system, Judge, but it's supposed to have two major checks on it.
	One, the legislature, the primary check, because read the constitution, people, that's where it all is, and the Supreme Court.
	And unfortunately, we've had one or two periods in our history where those things kind of jibed with the executive branch.
	This is one of the most egregious, I think, and going to go down in history as perhaps the most egregious, and that's real danger, and it's a fault in the system.
	It is, you can't do it except hope the people wake up enough to change the apparatus in terms of the people serving it.
	Wow.
	Colonel, thank you very much.
	I don't know where the time went.
	It seems like we started two minutes ago, but it's been a uh a delightful conversation, as it always Is with you.
	I wish I could kiss your head again, but we're a few hundred miles apart.
	Let me remind you that at the Tabard Inn on Monday, was it?
	Randy kissed my head.
	You're talking about that great character, Randy Credico.
	He said, I gotta rival the judge here.
	All the best, sir.
	We'll see you again soon.
	Take care.
	Thank you.

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