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Sept. 13, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:00
Phil Giraldi : Rubio Pitches Trump for More War.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom.
Today is Wednesday, September 10th, 2025.
Phil Giraldi joins us now.
Phil, before we talk about uh Secretary of State Rubio uh encouraging President Trump to begin yet another war, this one uh in Latin America.
Let's address the events of the past uh 48 or 36 hours.
Why would the United States permit the Israelis to bomb a residential neighborhood in uh the capital of a country which is allied with the U.S. and uh in which is located the largest uh American uh air base in the region, maybe in the world?
Well, there's only one possible explanation, which is that the president and uh probably Mr. Rubio, who is advising him, um, wanted this to happen.
They wanted the um Hamas negotiators who were there under guarantees issued by the United States as well as as uh Doha and uh Egypt um to be killed, and uh that's the only reason I can come up with that this is actually what the what the White House wanted, kill these people.
They've advised he has advised uh Netanyahu to finish the job repeatedly.
Uh how do you take all this if you unless you believe that it that uh Trump is so much in the pocket of Israel, so much in Netanyahu's pocket, and it's probably being blackmailed, and uh basically he is uh he is wanting the Israelis to finish the job, to finish the job on the Palestinians.
Uh his uh ambassador to Israel said yesterday that uh the United States now approves of the total annexation of the West Bank.
How do you how do you how do you look at that?
It's uh it's just absolutely incredible what's going on.
I mean, this is really uh correct me if you think I'm uh wrong wrongly stating this.
The third time Trump has lured negotiators uh into a trap.
Uh they did the same thing when the Israelis murdered Nazarala, they did the same thing when Trump bombed uh Iran, and now uh yesterday in Doha.
Isn't Del, well, this is a topic we can talk about later, but isn't Doha the country that bribed Trump with a 400 million dollar jet?
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
But but this, I mean, who who would trust, who would negotiate with the United States again after these deceptions and these lures, whether they were concocted by Trump's people or Netanyahu's people, Trump and his crew obviously went along with it.
Well, I mean, the fact is nobody will trust the United States anymore.
And this is a process that's been going on for quite a while.
I mean, you cited a couple of instances, but this even goes back to the first Trump uh term in office where he was uh he assassinated uh Kassim Kolimani, the Iranian, who was in Baghdad to negotiate uh a peace settlement.
And um the United States had been briefed that he was going to be there for that reason, and they they killed him and nine others.
So they did it, they did that.
They've and they've also uh the Israelis have uh reneged on several uh informal peace understandings of you know, timeouts uh with the with the Palestinians that they uh they have broken.
So this is a pattern that we see where They basically are uh following their own agenda, which is the Greater Israel agenda, and Donald Trump is totally on board for one reason or another.
Um shouldn't uh cutter close the air base and say to the US, get the hell out.
Yeah.
Uh he should they should close the air base and tell the U.S. government to get the hell out.
And uh also the UN should step in and um kick Israel out of the UN.
Uh you know what more do you need?
I mean, what more can they do uh that they haven't done already?
And uh I another thing, let me throw this into the pot because I've been following all the uh commentary on the on the Doha business um since yesterday, even though it was my birthday.
And um, be late and happy birthday, and I'm sure you could have done happier things for your birthday.
Yeah, well, you you got that right.
Well, the thing is uh, you know Israel and Netanyahu are quite capable of anything.
And I think the issue that's not being addressed enough is the fact that if they go after Iran, which uh I believe many of your commentators on your show uh believe is the case, as do I, um, and Iran is uh tougher than they thought.
Uh Israel are going nuclear.
And uh what's to stop them?
They they already have a green light from Washington to do anything they want, and we will continue to supply them.
We will continue to give them money, and we'll continue to give them political cover.
We are totally complicit in everything that Israel does.
So I like to see somebody in the administration or in Congress say, well, what about this um nuclear arsenal that Israel has?
Never hear it uh mentioned.
Uh here's uh President Trump yesterday.
I don't think this denial that Israel told him about this is very credible.
I don't know how the communication works.
I don't know if something like this is literally Netanyahu calling Trump or if the Israeli uh defense minister uh calls Heg Seth or Foreign Minister calls Rubio.
I don't know how it goes.
But you tell me if you think Trump's denial uh of uh foreknowledge of this uh is credible.
Chris cut number 16.
Well, I'm not thrilled, I'm not thrilled about it.
I don't have to do that.
I'm just I'm not thrilled about uh the whole situation.
It's not not a good situation.
But I will say this, we want the hostages back.
But we are not thrilled about the way that went down today.
The Press: Did you know that while you advanced, Mr. President, did Israel tell you to advance?
The President: Huh?
You were caught by surprise.
I'm never I'm never surprised by anything, especially when it comes to the Middle East.
Uh I'll be giving a full statement tomorrow, but uh I would uh tell you this.
I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect and uh we got to get the hostages back.
But I was very unhappy about the way that went down.
But in another clip, either he or someone in the administration said we did know about it ahead of time, we warned the uh Qataris, but the warning came too late.
The explosions were happening uh at the time uh of the warning.
Isn't it inconceivable that Netanyahu would have done this without permission from the U.S.?
Well, uh it is in a sense inconceivable, but I wouldn't doubt that the Israelis might do that.
And um there are there are numerous uh accounts if you go through the um newspapers, New York Times, Washington Post, everywhere else, about how this message was was transmitted.
Apparently, uh one of the accounts is that uh Trump only heard about it when uh um the general in charge of uh CENTCOM uh somehow found out about it and and called the White House.
But as you note, by the time this got through to the White House and got through to the Qatari government.
Um the um the bombs were already falling.
And that the bombs were already falling, of course, raises another issue.
Uh did the air base, the U.S. air base turn off its radar?
Uh did the must have it must have turned off its radar.
I mean, there were no air defenses.
All the air defenses in Qatari are American.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so that gives you another clue as to possible collusion in terms of what went on and how it went on.
So at this point, I you know, I'm kind of an agnostic, uh, although leaning towards that uh uh obviously Trump and his little uh uh spiel there.
Uh what is he talking about?
Oh, we got to get the hostages out.
That's all this moron talks about.
And uh it's because his you know, his he's basically in Israel's pocket, and what Israel wants to do, he's gonna do.
What happens uh to future negotiations?
Or are they uh are they kaput?
I mean, who who would negotiate with the U.S. or with the Israelis after this?
Nobody.
Uh and and uh the uh Hamas has already indicated the uh negotiations are dead.
Um uh gutter has said that their participation is over, and the Egyptians, who were also guarantors with the United States and Gutter, uh said that their role in this is over too.
Uh the the Israelis, as you pointed out uh some minutes ago, uh are totally unreliable on any agreement that they agree to uh if they manage to get that far.
And uh particularly since the U.S. is not willing to hold their feet to the fire, and he's giving them basically a green light in everything they do.
Uh we get what we do what we have deserved in a way.
Everybody hates us.
The only country in the world that they hate more than us is Israel.
Not to um make you uh ruin your breakfast, but here is your favorite senator from South Carolina on all this.
Chris cut number 13.
Four to eight hours ago, President Trump issued an ultimatum to Maz Hamas, this is your last chance.
So what did Israel do 48 hours after ultimatum?
They took him down.
What did these people have in common who died uh in Qatar?
They all had their fingerprints on planning October the 7th, or cheerleading October the 7th.
If you're in a drug boat coming to America, I'm glad Trump blows you up before you get here.
I've got some sobering advice for the world right now.
It's time to realize that Israel has every right to kill everybody involved with planning October the 7th, and it is now time for America to understand where war war drug cartels.
I am all in for taking these people out.
I wonder if he's all in for the constitution uh to uh which he has sworn an oath of fidelity.
He doesn't know anything about the constitution.
All he knows about his crime and punishment as he perceives it.
And uh he's been an idiot all his uh professional life, and uh uh nothing changes.
Here's um here's the Qatari Prime Minister arguing that Israel is the bully of the region, uh, number 14, Chris.
This is a systematic behavior from coming from the person.
You have the is a claimant or legend that they want to stabilize the region, but what they are doing, what he's doing is only destabilizing the region for his own and personal goals.
Is there any clearer message that the world needs to understand who is closing and shutting the door?
The door of peace.
Does the international community needs any other messages to know who's the bully in the region?
But these are just empty words.
I mean, as we said earlier, uh if he had a backbone, he'd ask for the plane back, and he's which probably would have more of an effect in the White House than closing the uh the air base.
Shouldn't laugh.
And he closed that air.
How significant is that air base?
Do we know it?
Is it the largest in the world or the U.S. foreign air base?
I mean, largest, or is it the largest in the region?
It's it's the largest in the region.
I've been there.
I visited the air base and I've been to Doha a couple times.
And um it's very impressive, uh, fully manned.
And it's um it's it basically has has been there for quite a while.
I would say maybe even more than 20 years or so, and uh has been seen as the linchpin of uh U.S. strategic policy uh in the region.
And um so it's uh it's it's significant, it's important.
Uh, but at the same time, uh if I were Doha, I would send very strong signals that uh uh if there's anything even remotely like what occurred over the weekend, uh you're uh you guys are out of here.
And uh so we'll we'll see how it plays out.
But I have a feeling they're all kind of gutless watching each other to see what's gonna play and how they're gonna do it.
I think you're uh probably right.
Uh over the weekend, last weekend, obviously before this Israeli attack on a residential neighborhood in the uh Qatari Capital.
Uh Secretary of State Rubio, well, you can't make this up, Phil, announced that the State Department is going to check the social media of people from Latin America who are applying for American visas to see if they have unusual uh show unusual uh favoritism toward the Chinese.
Yeah.
What is this all about?
Is he looking for some excuse to bomb Venezuela?
Well, he's maybe looking for an excuse to bomb China, which is even more scary.
But the this whole thing is insane.
And uh I believe our our beloved defense secretary uh told the uh flotilla, which is gathering apparently just off of Puerto Rico and preparing to move south.
Um that this is not a this is not a training exercise.
In other words, this is uh this is telling them you know, be ready for war.
And of course, he's now the secretary of war, so he's uh he's got, I guess, a right to say that.
But uh this whole thing is obscene.
Uh there is no justification for this.
The killing of those 11 people, uh totally uh illegal act in by any measure.
And um essentially the uh the the real story about Venezuela is that Venezuela has the world's largest reserves of oil.
So it that's the backstory.
And uh do we want to get our hands on that?
I guess is uh uh Donald Trump and company are are lusting for that oil.
I don't know, but uh I've been to Venezuela a couple times, and yes, it's uh it's uh it can be a strange place.
And uh, but the the point is they're not a threat to the United States, and we should be repeating that over and over again.
Uh the only threat to the United States right now comes from Israel.
U.S. has signed uh three treaties which limit its war-making powers, offensive war-making powers to those countries which are threats uh to the United States, neither Venezuela nor Iran are a threat at all.
You're right, Israel is a threat.
Uh Chris provides me with this uh research.
The uh air base in Qatar is the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East.
It houses 400 British uh Royal Air Force personnel and 11,000 uh American troops.
It's the regional headquarters for U.S. Central Command and a key hub for air operations and troop deployment in the region.
Uh I would imagine the person you referred to as the beloved Secretary of War would go bonkers if uh the Qataris tried to close this, but uh but they don't seem to have uh the backbone uh whatsoever.
They're probably more Upset that uh this happened because they gave away a 400 million dollar plane and they thought that they had bribed Trump and he would uh treat them nicely.
Yeah, well, it's uh always a mistake to trust Trump.
Yeah, but back to uh back to Rubio and Heg Seth uh and uh the uh killing of the 11 uh people on the speedboat um and the presence of 2200 Marines, they're still there aboard uh ship in international waters off the coast uh of Venezuela.
Phil, what conceivable national security purpose does their presence there serve?
You know, that's that that's a the a good question because they're not enough to invade the country, and they're too many to be people that are just you know casually supplementing the crews of the ships.
Uh it's it's it's just a stupid gesture, I would rather suspect on the part of the Secretary of War and the part of the White House.
And where this stuff is is all gestures.
Trump, if there's one thing characteristic about Trump, he really likes to threaten people.
And I think this is a the kind of situation where he's threatening.
In fact, you know, there's been words coming out of the government about the U.S. thinking about overthrowing the government of Venezuela.
And uh again, this is the kind of threat that's there to scare people, to make them do things against their best interests.
And this is what uh this whole administration has been about.
What's your bottom line view of the relationship between Netanyahu uh and uh Trump?
Did Netanyahu say we're doing this or ask for permission to do it?
Uh I think um if indeed there was that kind of communication, uh Trump would have said, uh rather Netanyahu would have said we're doing it.
And uh Trump would have maybe made some loud noises uh as he tried to figure out what Trump, what Nanya was talking about, and uh but wouldn't give him a red light on this, because if he had done so, uh he could have stopped it.
And uh clearly he did not do so.
He's too concerned about those 20 hostages that uh uh he keeps racing every 30 seconds.
The uh the original uh or the initial Israeli statement uh said uh the Israelis did this alone and on our own.
Then Trump said he knew nothing about it.
Then the White House said, well, we did get some sort of a heads up, and we did warn the Qataris, but it was too late.
But that's ridiculous that they would expect us to believe that they warned the Qataris.
If you can make a phone call to the Qataris, you can make a phone call to Netanyahu saying turn your planes around.
Yeah, and bear in mind there there are a lot of uh inconsistencies about the nature of this attack, too.
I mean, the fact is that uh the planes had uh were within uh striking distance uh from Israel, but the fact is they would have to be refueled to go back, and that would take them over Saudi and Jordanian airspace.
And um, you know, so uh there's a lot of uh uh weird weird crap that's kind of attached to this story, which I hope we're gonna get clarified in the next couple of days, but maybe we won't because these people are not very good at lying, but they're very prolific with their lies.
Uh Colonel McGregor says the refueling was done by the Royal Air Force, but uh they're not sure where, over in whose air space the refueling uh took place.
So MI6 was involved if the Royal Air Force was involved.
If MI6 knew about it, CIA knew about it.
If CIA knew about it, the White House knew about it.
I mean, this is uh president's lies are absurd and not credible.
And our air base with its radar would have been aware about all of this uh as it was developing.
Uh so uh as they say, what they turned the they turned the air the radar off.
Uh let's hear a little bit more about that.
Right.
Uh Phil, thank you very much.
I know this is not your usual uh time.
Uh we have an odd uh week here, but uh thanks for accommodating my schedule.
All the best.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
Absolutely.
Thank you very much for having me on.
Uh, thank you, my dear friend.
Uh, a busy day coming up at eleven o'clock this morning.
I I think he's in China.
Pepe Escobar at noon, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at one o'clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson.
At two o'clock, Aaron Mate.
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