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Sept. 23, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
22:56
LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : Does Trump Want Peace in Ukraine ?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom.
Today is Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025.
Colonel Karen Kwadkowski will be here in just a moment on Does Donald Trump really want peace?
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Welcome here, Colonel Kwkowski.
Always a pleasure, uh, my dear friend.
Uh what is your take on the now near universal um acceptance of the state of Palestine as a sovereign uh entity?
Is this a substantive uh or just symbolic?
Well, it it's not substantive because there is no action or ability or or territorial integrity.
There's no foundation for uh having for meeting the definition of a Palestinian state.
You know, you've got to have territory that you control.
Well, the Palestinians control no territory.
Um and there's and nothing's being done towards that end.
Uh so it's very uh, you know, it's a demonstrative, and I think it is uh reflecting you know, they're compensating for the fact that that the most of these countries have done absolutely nothing uh until and perhaps until recently to uh stop the genocide and to uh rein in Israel's uh activities in the region.
Well, what could possibly rein in Israel's activities in the region, other than a president of the United States that had a uh a moral compass?
Yeah, that's what we would need.
And uh we don't have that, we don't have that at all.
So uh yeah, there's there's I mean I think what's more substantive is what you're seeing and what we've seen before this with uh countries deciding to um stop sending weapons to Israel.
You know, Spain did some things, I think uh different countries have have done different things and promoted that.
Now that is a substantive way to to uh uh resist Israel's policies.
So that's one thing.
But of course, um we are the big daddy of Israeli aid.
So uh the little things that are that the other countries are doing really don't make a huge difference.
We are and and we'll actually compensate.
I think the U.S., I think didn't Trump recently authorize another bunch of billions to go to Israel to Yes, yes.
I mean, not nothing, no recognition is going to stop the killing, only military force or the cutting off of their supply line.
In my view, you're the military person, uh, will stop the killing.
I mean, what remains of the so-called rules, rules-based order?
Well, what what rules does uh Israel comply with?
What rules does the United States comply with?
Yeah.
Well, you know, Israel uh is kind of like uh, I mean, you know, they didn't they don't they don't play about anybody's rules but Israel's rules, and that's that's been a long time that everyone knows that.
But the United States, what what has happened is um we are a spectacle of well, the United States itself has made a spectacle of any concept of a rules-based order.
And it's not just Trump.
You know, we did this under Biden, Obama, you name the president.
We make our own rules, and we call it once we decide what we want to do next week, we call that the rules-based order.
And then if we change our minds, then it we call that the rules-based order.
And the whole rest of the uh the world's uh nations and governments, um, anybody that has to deal with the United States, they already know that.
And it's it's become so obvious that you don't even have to talk about it anymore.
So we we have lost uh the United States has lost a great deal of uh respect over time, and now that has actually uh metastasized.
There is no coming back to a place where the rest of the world will respect the United Nation, the United States.
That that respect has been lost, and it cannot get it cannot come back.
And big part of that is we have ignored and the the concept of a global rules-based order, and we have said whatever we want to do is the world, the world's rule-based order.
Well, that's just end of the same with Israel.
These are not accepted moral norms, and these are not accepted rules of engagement.
It's whatever the United States wants to do for itself or for Israel, and whatever Israel wants to do for itself.
That that's their moral code, right?
Yeah, that's right.
And you know, it's funny because well, it's not funny, but you know, a lot of what Zionism and uh Eretz Israel, Greater Israel, a lot of the justification, they they they like to say, well, you know, it's in the old testament.
It's it's it's a biblical uh mission that we have.
And yet, even that is shaped by whatever they want to do tomorrow or the next week.
I mean, they're not even bound by their own uh their own documents.
So, you know, if you you don't like what it is, just call a new historian or get a new rabbi, and he'll explain it to you how it's changed.
So it is a spectacle, it's a joke.
Um how does in your opinion, does Donald Trump want peace in Gaza, or does he just want uh Netanyahu to get whatever he wants?
I'm sure that Donald Trump wants Gaza to go away, okay, as an issue that he has to be criticized for.
Um he at one point, early, you know, early in the year, early in his uh second term, he wanted to try to make peace in Gaza, and I think we ended up with a 12-day war um and uh and some assassinations here and there.
So uh, and he backed off of that because Netanyahu doesn't want peace.
So I guess Netanyahu made it clear to him that we're not gonna have peace in Gaza, we are going to exterminate the Gazans, and you're gonna help us do that, so shut up.
I'm pretty sure that's pretty much what Netanyahu told Trump.
And um, so he went, he stopped talking about Gaza.
So he wants it to go away.
If he cared about Gazans, if he cared about peace, if he cared about uh right and wrong, as the planet understands right and wrong.
I mean, it's this transcends the great religions, you know.
Uh there's no disagreement uh about what right is and what wrong is.
It's wrong to murder people to take their land.
You don't do that.
We've whenever we've done that, we've said, you know, that was wrong.
So why are we allowing or you know, helping Israel do this?
So Trump Trump just he's not addressing that.
He wants Gaza to go away.
And if that means Gazans die, down to you know, the last hundred thousand, I guess he doesn't care.
Uh, Chris is going to run some um uh clips of demonstrations in Milan, Italy.
These demonstrations occurred in every major city uh in Italy yesterday.
It actually shut down commerce in Italy, uh, organized by labor unions, uh, protesting the slaughter in Gaza.
Now, I don't know if the Italian government has recognized uh Palestine, as you said, that's just symbolic.
I don't know if the Italian government is sending any aid to Israel, it certainly permits trade with Israel.
Uh, and you can see that these demonstrations got sort of violent.
Uh, people were throwing rocks at the by the way, this is Milan.
This is the most sophisticated high-end western oriented and wealthiest city in Italy.
And you can see what's uh going on there uh in the downtown area.
Look at the police.
The police vehicle is going backwards as the uh demonstrators.
I don't know what they're throwing, but they're they're pretty aggressive.
Um here's uh President Erdogan, but he should talk.
That's all he does is talk, but he is very critical of Trump who boasted that he would bring about peace in Ukraine and peace in Gaza and has done neither this interview is with Brett Baer of Fox News, my friend and former colleague right here in New York uh two days ago, Chris cut number 17.
Mr. Trump is you might remember he's used a term Ukraine, so then between he said, I will finish the Russia-Ukraine war.
Did it end?
It still goes on.
I initiated the similarly so he said I will finish the war in Gaza.
No, that means once we start analyzing the issue that our prices to pay.
And when we look at the hostage hostage exchange, that was done.
It goes on.
Does he want war to end in Ukraine?
Why and and if you say yes, why are we still sending or facilitating the sale of American military equipment in an utterly profoundly losing cause?
Yeah.
Um Trump uh does does not have the background that you might think uh a statesman would have, because he doesn't under he doesn't know very much about American history, and he thinks that you can run the government uh like a business, and to some extent, you know, there are some similarities, but he actually sees his new position as I think CEO.
And so as a CEO, he's saying, Well, how do I return uh profits to my shareholders?
That would be all of the citizens, and um, so he says, Well, peace, they they want peace, so we can do peace, but um, yeah, that's too hard.
Um, why don't we sell arms, you know, at a profit?
Why don't we sell gas and and oil at a profit?
Why don't we create markets around the world um that will put money back into my shareholders' pockets?
So I think he views it that way.
And and that is uh kind of uh how else can he view it?
What what does he bring to the table except that kind of a uh perspective?
So you know, to to uh President Erdogan's point, President Trump uh boasted he would end the war in Ukraine before he became president, and the war in Gaza within 24 hours obviously hasn't, they're both in far uh for both far more violent now than they were uh eight or nine months ago when he became president, and then told the UN today that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
Yeah, he didn't care, he didn't dare mention the name of the person who nominated it, nominated him for it, because that's the only person who will speak to the General Assembly with less popularity there than Donald Trump that's in Yahoo.
Yeah, well Trump Trump's uh circle of friends is uh getting smaller, not larger.
Uh and this is domestically as well as uh internationally, and so but he's he's paved he's paved that road.
I mean, he he has chosen that path by elevating Netanyahu by believing everything Netanyahu tells him, and and by being uh not just submissive, but I'm sure that he is uh fearful and blackmailed by uh by Netanyahu.
And I I you know it could be the government of Israel, but Netanyahu's been there long enough so we can just call Netanyahu the government of Israel, and um so you know, he Trump is scared, you know, and he is not willing, you know, it's one it's okay to be scared, but he's not well, he's not courageous, he's not willing to say, you know what, this is risky, but I have to do the right thing.
And Trump at some level knows what the right thing is.
You Know he's he's able to talk about uh people did you know his closing words to the UN talked about a big beautiful world with peace, with prosperity, with uh a beautiful countries all over the planet, everywhere, you know.
He has this ability to say, well, that would be good.
Yeah, you're right, that would be good.
So what are you doing about it?
And what he's doing about it is is nothing.
He's being a he's being a coward.
Um and and also it's it's a shame because you know, Charlie Kirk, I hate to bring it up, but you know, Charlie Kirk is a young man, was a young man, and he had expressed some fear about doing the right thing as he understood it to be.
And he expressed some fear by other parties that wouldn't be happy if he did the right thing.
And he was a young man with young children.
There's a lot of reasons for a guy like Charlie in that situation to not take great risks, but there is no reason in the world for 79, 80-year-old guy who's at the top of every game he's ever played to be a coward.
There's no place for that.
So I don't understand why he uh is unable to to learn, because Trump is capable of learning, but he can't he seems incapable of dealing with the most obvious crime that's being done that he is doing.
He is assisting in this crime, and he seems unaware of it.
Um, yeah, he's he's actually you know out of his mind to to talk about uh a Nobel Peace Prize, and he just continues to do that.
Here's Brett Bear asking uh President Erdogan uh if he thinks the Ukraine war will end soon, Chris.
Number 16.
Do you think the war ends soon?
Because I don't really believe that it will.
And that's not a good thing for the world.
It's not good news.
Uh and we think about this in this manner uh is heavy on our hearts.
Just um maddening that he won't do what he says he said he was going to do.
He could stop the war in uh probably two weeks if he cut off the supply of military uh equipment.
The Europeans don't have it.
Soon we won't have it because we're giving so damn much of it uh away.
Listen, I believe we're way over militarized, but we obviously need some equipment uh in the case we are attacked or an attack uh is imminent, but giving it away to a fruitless, useless neocon cause caused by him, caused by him uh giving away so much military equipment to Ukraine in his first term and caused by the the government and its coup d'etat in 2014.
I don't know.
You think he knows that?
Do you think he knows the history of this?
Do you think he knows that we started the war, not Vladimir Putin?
I I don't think he truly understands that.
I think he he did learn a little bit early on, and I think he learned a little bit from listening to Putin uh explain things to him, not just in Alaska, but before that.
So I think he was educated at that point, very late in the day.
Um, but but again, Trump monetizes, he's he feels like these wars are uh ways to increase capital.
He doesn't understand the fundamentals that war of any type wastes capital, it destroys the the machine that makes everything else wonderful.
It is a it is basically um, you know, it's like gambling, you know.
You it's it might be fun for a day, but you're not gonna get that money back.
And um, this is he he has a uh strange view of it, and I it I think it's because he is not studied American history, he's not interested in that.
Um he doesn't understand uh the fundamental principles of uh how you know how humans work, how governments work, he doesn't understand war.
You know, he's never he's never served.
Um he's he doesn't have a lot of uh real military friends.
He has he has a few, but um he uses them for very niche type of uh input, like Flynn, right?
He he he was friends with Flynn, but Flynn didn't advise him on other things, and you know, McGregor, you have Colonel McGregor on this show all the time.
He's wonderfully wise, full of excellent advice in a reasonable manner.
Um Trump had him in the first term, but he he refuses to be educated.
Yeah.
Trump uh never listened to Colonel McGregor.
If he did, McGregor would be the Secretary of Defense now.
But then again, he wouldn't do all these things.
Pete when but Trump says jump, Pete.
Heg Seth says, How high, sir.
Not, are you sure you want to murder these people on a speedboat in the Caribbean?
You sure you want me to do that?
Whatever.
Here's something else Trump didn't know.
Uh, all of the uh uranium and plutonium that the United States buys from Russia, cut number one.
You've been calling on Europe to stop buying Russian oil.
The US has imported $755 million worth of Russian uranium and plutonium so far just this year.
That's up from the Biden administration last year, about 100 million dollars.
Uh, can you ask Europe to cut off purchasing those kinds of products?
Yeah, do you know anything about absolutely?
But uh just this goes back, not only drill, baby drill, we've got a mine baby mine.
We allowed ourselves to fall in underdependence of both China and Russia for critical minerals.
Uh us America buying uranium from Russia is not acceptable.
And so we're working very hard in Sector of Energy, Chris Wright, uh, myself to make sure that we've got a plan so that the United States can get back into domestic and rich range production as quickly as possible.
He said that there's uranium in the United States.
Where?
Well, there's some in Virginia in Southern Virginia is a huge uh uranium mine.
It's not even really being developed.
And of course, I think Wyoming and some places out west, we have it.
Yeah, we have we have uranium, but uh, you know, the future is probably gonna be nuclear as far as uh clean energy goes.
So uh yeah, I can understand that.
But you know, he's it Trump is such Trump and his people around him so do not understand economics.
They they understand money making, they might they understand monetization, but you know, free trade is a good thing, right?
I think Jefferson said that, didn't he?
And and all of our great presidents, you know, free trade's a great thing.
Both parties benefit.
There's no sin in buying uranium from or anything else from China or Russia or any other country.
Um but their view, their world view is so narrowly I say un-American in that respect.
It's it's certainly uh uh uh that he supports an autarchic type of an economy.
And uh that's never been that's never been the American vision.
So um he's out of touch.
He has no he has no background.
So you can't have this conversation with Trump because he hasn't he doesn't know what the words mean.
Um he's and he's not interested.
So this is a shame.
Uh I think I feel sorry for uh the MAGA voters who really thought that he understood them and the kinds of things that they cared about, uh making America great.
There's nothing wrong with that, but you're not gonna do it by uh refusing to trade and engaging in and stimulating and and lengthening wars that we ourselves are involved in.
And the two that he hasn't ended are the two that we are still funding.
So he could end them both.
Yes, the Israeli war could end with a phone call.
The Ukrainian war would take a couple of weeks to uh wind it down.
Look, there's still US Intel uh showing the Ukrainians how to aim their weapons to uh kill Russian soldiers and the Citadel American military in Germany doing the same thing.
That he could stop.
Oh, absolutely, just like that.
And uh he's probably as unaware of that as he was about who we're buying uranium from.
So um it's a shame.
It's a real shame.
And uh, you know, he surrounded himself, he's very careful about loyalty is important to him, and and that's that's not a bad thing, but he has surrounded himself by people who are equally unable to really grasp the importance of uh what's going on in they and they're so far deep, they can't see the hypocrisy.
You know, I want to I want a Nobel Peace Prize, I've ended all these these wars, but the two that are killing everybody, you haven't you haven't done a thing about you're actually fueling those wars, and you won't even stop doing that.
So I don't know.
We thought we'd get a strong president, you know.
We thought, well, this president will go up against the military industrial complex.
This president will stand up against um some bad ideas that have been coming out of the State Department for like 25 years.
Um, but hey, he hasn't done that.
Colonel Kotkowski, a pleasure, my dear friend.
Your your ideas are so crisp and clear in your uh your thought process So courageous.
It's always a joy to be with you, Karen.
Going back to when we first met.
Thank you for all your time.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Judge.
Sure.
We'll see you again soon.
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