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Sept. 25, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
24:47
COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Netanyahu Controls Trump
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for a judging freedom.
Today is Thursday, September 25th, 2025.
My dear friend Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson joins us now.
Colonel, always a pleasure.
Colonel, what is that hat on your head, if you don't mind me mentioning it?
Well, this is my army hat, which I'm displaying.
And this is my pin, which I wear all the time, and it's to a World War II unit that was fairly competent that went all the way from the breakout at Avranch to the Rhine with Patton's Third Army.
And my father-in-law was a member of it, and I promised I'd wear that pen forever.
And the hat?
Well, the hat is a recent gift by my grandson.
He said, You were in there at 31 years, granddad, wear this hat and feel proud.
And I said, Oh, God bless you, Colonel.
Uh, before uh we get to the relationship between Netanyahu and uh Trump, um, Chris, if you could put up that full screen of his uh Truth Social.
How do you read what he said and posted uh recently, which is being interpreted either as a joke or as a profound U-turn in his thinking?
I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back in its original form.
With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and in particular NATO.
The original borders from where this war started is very much an option, why not?
I mean, is this even conceivable that Ukraine could win back Crimea and Donbas?
No, it's not.
And I I'm rather than putting a negative spin on it, I'm gonna give the man a little credit here.
And I'm gonna put a positive spin on it.
And you can judge whether it's positive or not, but it's not negative in the sense you were suggesting.
And that is that he and Putin actually did accomplish something at the Alaska summit.
And one of the things they accomplished was Putin uh was told by Trump what Trump was going to do, and really advised not to pay a whole lot of attention to him because fundamentally it would lay out the path he was going to take.
What is that path?
That path is over to you, Europe, it's yours.
Now, Putin knows, and Trump probably confided some of this to him, that there's no way that the United States is going to provide major armaments to Ukraine, even through NATO, even though he may say so.
Judge, we can't even fulfill our contracts with Taiwan right now.
Arguably a much more serious situation with regard to their self-defense.
It'll be four to six years before they get some of the very critical things we told them we'd give them.
We have given so much to Ukraine and to Israel, the latter in spades, that we are out in many respects.
The neocons are rejoicing in this.
That's another reason he might have done it.
I mean, the word is that uh Sebastian Gorka whispered this into his ear, and this is the last thing he heard before he said it.
That's uh always a possibility with Trump, but I'm trying to put a positive spin on it, and I'm trying to give him some ability to think strategically.
I know it's really hard, but I'm trying.
Is Russia a paper tiger, as he has claimed, as he said in the presence of President Macron?
A paper tiger with forward troops that are strung out all along the line of defense and offense in Ukraine now, ready to murder the rest of what's left of Ukraine's military, with some 200,000 to
300,000 behind them, all of whom are rested, refitted, well-equipped, the latest equipment, and with strategy and tactics that is overwhelming for anything that's left in the remnants of Ukraine's military.
So he's just going to take his time.
He's going to take his time, and he'll probably peel off at some point onto the flank and go down and take Odessa, have his military very content with the fact he now has all the ports on the Black Sea's northern rim, come back into the Black Sea America with peril at your at your beck and call.
Um, so I he's in the he's in the catbird seat, and I don't think he's really alarmed very much at what's maybe going to happen with the Europeans, because they're all talking no action.
Uh Chris cut number 22.
Watch this, Colonel.
It's been a terrible war, should have ended, and uh Russia should have stopped it.
But uh they've been three and a half years and they've gotten that so far.
So we'll see what happens.
But the other side can fight too.
And they've proven that maybe it's a pay it could be that Russia's a paper tiger.
I don't know what they are, but three and a half years of fighting and killing everybody, of killing 7,000 people a week for nothing.
For nothing.
So it's a very sad situation.
But most of you have seen the recent statement I put out a little while ago.
And I'm glad you got it.
But I feel that way.
I really do feel that way.
Let them get their land back.
Yep.
So we'll see how it all works out.
If they're a paper tiger, how are they killing 7,000 people a week?
That's a pretty potent tiger.
The Kremlin doesn't seem to be taking this uh seriously.
They seem to be taking the Lawrence Wilkerson approach.
They're not revealing if uh Trump mentioned to Putin that he was going to say or do this, but they don't seem to be alarmed by it.
That's at least what they're putting out in public and what my friends uh in Moscow uh are telling me.
I think Trump is very frightened.
And I think much of what he's gonna be doing over the next six months or so is gonna reflect that fear.
I think the assassination, murder, however you want to call it of Charlie Kirk put the fear of God in him.
I think the attempts on his life put the fear of God in him.
And I think he knows there are powers of raid out there, not least of whom are some of the more virulent neoconservatives like Lindsey Graham.
Not saying Lindsay would pick up a weapon, he's too big a coward to do that.
But I am saying they would spark people to do it.
Um, and we seem to be with Bibi leading the fray here on an assassination binge in the world today.
Before we get to uh BB, here is your favorite senator from South Carolina, cut number 28.
Uh Trump 2028.
I hope this never ends.
When he asks, what should you do if a Russian jet flies into your country?
Shoot it down.
He's tried to go out of his way to get uh Putin to the table.
Uh we don't want to humiliate Russia, we just want to end the war.
And to our friends in Russia, here's what Trump did today.
He told uh NATO, I'll sell you all the weapons you want.
You can provide them to Ukraine, and as to Ukraine, you can use them any way you want.
So to the Russian military, you're gonna be up against the high-end American weapons that will be sold to NATO for the benefit of Ukraine, and this war is uh coming to your backyard here with no limitations like Biden.
Sick is this.
Well, you see what this war is coming to your backyard, Mr. Putin.
You can see what he's done.
He's essentially satiated Lindsey Graham.
It doesn't take much to do that.
He's such an idiot.
Um, and he's not cost himself anything.
Now there's nothing coming to NATO, Judge, of consequence, for four to six years.
We do not have it to give it to them.
We do not have it to give it to Taiwan.
We are running out of giving it to Israel.
If Israel goes against Iran, we're gonna see just how badly we have run out.
Before we get to uh Trump and um Netanyahu and who controls whom, I think you know General David Petraeus.
I think you know that under his uh four-star command uh an al-Qaeda thug who used to cut the heads of people off and cut their hands off, cut the hands of their babies off in front of them.
I don't want to get too disgusting or graphic.
Uh, is now the president of Syria, General Petraeus' people arrested this guy, put him in jail, but he's now come full circle.
Here is a disgraceful, I think you'll agree, David Petraeus with uh Al Julani at the UN earlier this week.
As you know, Mr. President, I spent over 37 years in the U.S. Army, uh, and I was a soldier, not a diplomat.
So I hope you'll forgive me if I speak with the directness of the old soldier that I am as I get the first question out of the way.
Because the fact is that we were on different sides uh when I was commanding the surge in Iraq.
Uh, you were, of course, uh detained by U.S. forces for some five years, including again uh when I was the four-star there, and here you are now as the president of Syria.
I just want to tell you, really, on behalf of all the people who are here, uh, that this conversation has truly filled me with enormous hope.
Uh, it has been very, very heartening and illuminating.
Um, your vision is is powerful and clear.
Uh, your demeanor itself is is very impressive as well.
Um, how are you holding up under all this pressure?
Uh are you getting enough sleep at night?
Uh again, I've been there.
Uh, and it is so very, very hard.
And your many fans, and I am one of them.
Uh, we do have worries.
Colonel.
This man has sunk considerably.
When he was a two-star, I was on a panel with him and Samantha Power and a couple of other people who were more or less working their way into power positions within the U.S. government.
And I was impressed uh by him as a two-star.
He held his own with these people in the arguments over right to protect from Samantha Power and others.
I think he's just gone totally downhill since that time and since the Paula Broadwell affair.
And I'm one who uh I don't entertain conspiracy theories very much, but I'm hearing that that was a honey trap, that Paula Broadwell was a Mossad agent, actually.
And I've seen some evidence to that effect, too, and that pretty much set him back considerably in his career, which is what you may recall what he said to the Senate.
He told the Senate that one of the problems for his troops in the Middle East was Israel.
He quickly had to retract that, but he told the truth.
And I think that's when they sick Paula Broadwell on him.
When you say Paula Broadwell was a honey trap, you're talking about the woman that supposedly was writing his biography with whom he uh uh cooperated who eventually became his lover, and about which he lied and it uh undid his career as the head of the CIA.
Yes.
Yes.
You were suggesting this might have been a setup by his friends, his former friends in the Mossad.
Exactly.
Payback for his having you just don't do that.
You don't go as a four-star before the United States Congress and testify in any way, fashion or form that the U.S. relationship with Israel might be detrimental to your troops' lives in the Middle East.
But of course it is.
Of course it is.
I can't tell you how many times Colin Powell and I had that conversation.
He never said it publicly, and he never would, for obvious reasons, particularly as Secretary of State.
But we had that conversation, and I don't have any problems at all revealing that today, that he thought Israel had become a liability rather than an asset.
Does Trump control Netanyahu or does Netanyahu control Trump?
I think it's a little bit of both with this president.
Um we haven't had a president like this really since well, we haven't had one, not since uh 1948 and the creation of the state of Israel.
We haven't had a president who would do everything, apparently, anyway, that the leader in Israel asked him to do.
Now, I pointed out that George W. Bush essentially in 2004 in the Oval Office told Arik Sharon, Ariel Sharon, then the prime minister of Israel, that the roadmap had failed, the Middle East process had failed, Oslo had failed.
Everything had failed.
Remember now, Powell's getting ready to go to Romala and meet with Arafat for the last time when Bush is saying all this.
And Sharon was shocked because what Bush told him was it's over to you.
So from that moment to the present, we have essentially said our attack dog in the Levant, Israel, had carte blanche.
It could do anything it wanted to do.
And of course, now we're seeing it doing it.
To include, I'm becoming very convinced, setting up October the 7th, either by standing down the usual 100% vigilance on that border, or by actually coordinating the attacks with Hamas, whom Netanyahu was paying off periodically in order to combat the PLOPA, because Hamas was on his side in being opposed to a two-state solution.
The PAPLO, Mahmoud Abbas primarily, and that group were for a two-state solution.
So Netanyahu was actually funding Hamas through Qatar.
Wow.
Here's um a very interesting clip from Tucker Carlson on the relationship between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, Chris number 26.
I mean, BB's running around.
This is a fact.
I'm not guessing about this, because I talked to people he said it to, is running around the Middle East, his region and his own country, and telling people point blank, just stating it, I control the United States.
I control Donald Trump.
He's saying that.
And again, I'm not guessing at all.
That's a fact.
And I dare them to say that's not true, because it is true, and they know it's true.
So I'm an American.
How do you think it makes me feel?
Even if I didn't vote for Trump, which I did, I did vote, I campaign for Trump.
But even if I, even if it was Joe Biden, I'm an American.
You can't treat, it's too humiliating.
I can't handle that.
And I shouldn't have to put up with that.
This is a country of 9 million people.
I'm not saying it's I'm not even attacking the country.
I'm attacking my leaders who are allowing my nation of 350 million people to be forced into doing things that are bad for me and my children because of some other country.
Like that is a violation of the most basic arrangement we have with our leaders, which is represent us, please, at least most of the time, and they're not.
Boy, he's right on the mark if if if what his um correspondents have told him is true that they did hear this from Netanyahu.
He's courageous to say it, and he's right.
This is a profound violation of the social contract we have with our leadership that they should put another country first.
Well, Tucker Carlson is right, but at the same time, he's right prima facie.
That is to say, yes, Netanyahu says that all the time.
I could tell you BB said that back in 2005 and 2006, and probably even said it when he's finance minister.
But it doesn't necessarily make it true because he says that does not make it true.
Now, you might think, and others might think, and clearly a lot do that it is true, and particularly with this prime minister.
But I happen to think it's a little more subtle than that.
And I don't necessarily mean Trump is the person who is making it subtle.
It's the people behind them.
It's the billionaires who want what's happening in the Levant to happen, and like Lindsey Graham, see Israel as the best instrument to make it happen.
Colonel One does not often associate subtlety with Donald Trump.
Uh, after he met with uh or after he addressed the United Nations, he met with the uh leadership of the Arab states that were there, and according to several people that were in that meeting, uh told them that he would uh not permit uh the Israelis to uh annex the West Bank.
Can he do that?
I doubt very seriously.
Um he and Whitcoff might lie about that right up to the moment that Bibi does it, but I think that's all going to be by the wayside anyway, Judge.
I think we're going to war with Iran.
I think that's the next cataclysmic, explosive, disastrous event we've got to look forward to.
We're going to war with Iran.
And then Trump has truly got an existential, in my view, decision to make.
Does he go with him, whole hog?
Does he just partially go with him just to keep him from sinking?
Or does he deny it and let them sink?
I don't think the latter is a course of action that Donald Trump will take.
So we're going to be in the middle of those two possibilities, one of which is going to be existential for the empire, too.
And the other one, very damaging in terms of trillions of dollars and years of no success.
Think of Afghanistan and then multiply it times 10 with regard to Iran.
I listened to Max Blumenthal talk about for uh with Aaron Mate very candidly what he heard from the group I was going up to meet with in New York, the president of Iran, the foreign minister.
I I was at that lunch with uh Max.
Okay.
Scott Ritter, Scott Ritter was there, Professor Sachs was there, our other mutual friend who I had never met in person, uh, Medea Benjamin was there.
Well, Max Max's take on it, and Aaron's take on it too, I think, although Aaron was just sort of nodding his head, was that uh they're ready.
And I think he's right, they are ready.
And it isn't it is my uh my take is the same.
The president of Iran, who was a cardiologist, was uh thoughtful, intelligent, grasps the situation, understands the Zionist uh mentality, and courageous.
The best way to uh to uh to describe him.
And someone asked me the other day, Judge, they said, What what is your experience with Persians mostly?
I do mean Persians in most cases here.
I said they're they don't brag.
They don't brag.
Even if they have consequential reason to brag, they don't brag.
And if they don't have it, they just tell the truth.
They don't brag.
They're not like Americans in that respect.
They don't use braggadocio to make diplomacy work or whatever.
They usually tell you the truth, they give you the factual truth.
I believe, for example, two foreign ministers told me to my face in English, very good English.
Ahmadinajad, President Ahmadinajad actually told me this too, that they were ready to go to the UN and operationalize.
They use that term, one of them did, because he knew I was military, the fatwa in front of the UN and sign it in blood if necessary.
The wrinkle now, though, I think, is they've convinced the Ayatollah that the situation is so dire that the fatwa should be changed to banning the use of nuclear weapons, not the possession.
And that tells me they're gonna build one.
Watch um the senior senator from South Carolina inadvertently referring to the president of the United States as a circus showman.
It really does matter who's in the White House.
This guy's a cross between P. T. Barnum and Ronald Reagan.
He's got it in he's in everybody's head.
God bless you, President Trump.
His uh strongest ally, no matter what the president says, refers to him as a uh P. T. Barnum.
Why would the Secretary of uh Defense who calls himself the Secretary of War, order every general and admiral in the world, Americans, uh, to come and bow before him at uh Camp Lejeune when we have the most sophisticated means of uh communicating securely, accurately, in real time electronically.
Very important what you said there because he's pulling them away from their key responsibilities in their region, which is a testimony that they don't have key responsibilities.
Right.
He can take them away from.
I I think this is a special operator, special operations forces.
This is a guy who's never been high in rank, never had any real responsibility with regard to the military, in particular, probably with regard to anything, and he's printing, and he's showing them what he can be and do.
And he's probably gonna preach to them about everything from uh I wouldn't be surprised at all if he doesn't hold a session beforehand that features the Lord's Prayer and Jesus.
Well, we you know, he did uh do that.
Um to background music, which was copyrighted, and so we got a little spanking from uh YouTube, not from YouTube itself, but for from whoever owns the uh copyright, but he had himself filmed by professional uh defense department uh videographers uh praying the Lord's Prayer with his troops,
irrespective of whether those troops are Christian or not, uh, with this beautiful uh music uh in the background.
Um he really is very uh very full of himself.
It's It's tough for me to be critical because he was my friend for many years.
I worked with him on almost a daily basis at his former job.
His his now wife for a while was my boss at uh uh at Fox.
It's a strange state of affairs to see him with this power as command.
But what happens when all these admirals and generals are pulled from their commands?
Next person in charge runs them?
That's true.
Plus, they're what you just said about the civets, the secure video teleconference capability is there at their beck and call, too.
So it's not like they'll be gone.
They'll physically be gone, but they'll be able to stay in contact with Honolulu or Stuttgart or where.
Well, you have a lot of Admiral and General's jets flying from the four corners of the earth to Dulles or Lejeune or wherever they land.
Yeah, and one of the things we never did in PACOM, which was the biggest, you know, when I was there in the 80s, it was the biggest unified command.
We never put a bunch of people up at any given time because there's always the possibility of an aircraft accident or some untoward action towards the aircraft.
Right.
Right.
Colonel, I appreciate your time.
I appreciate your um understanding of President Trump rather than just jumping on the bandwagon.
I would expect uh nothing different from you at all.
Uh, I will happily mention your name to our friends on Saturday with uh Gerald Salenti and uh Scott Ritter and uh Congressman uh Kucinich and Ray McGovern at uh Celenti's uh rally for peace.
Uh and I thank you for your time as always, my dear friend.
And I'm very proud of your grandson that he gave you that cap.
Thank you.
He wanted to go into the military and he couldn't because he has asthma or a condition like asthma that they won't take him.
Well, well, thank you, Colonel.
All the best.
Have a great weekend.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
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