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Sept. 29, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:35
Scott Ritter : The Paper Tiger Closes In.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, September 29th, 2025.
Scott Ritter will be here with us in just a minute on the paper tiger closes in.
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Scott Ritter, welcome here, my dear friend.
Before we get to uh the latest nonsense from General Kellogg and the choices facing uh President Trump, a few other questions.
Should Benjamin Netanyahu, who did not look very happy at a press conference just that concluded a few minutes ago with the President Trump and the White House, be concerned over Israel's diminishing, rapidly diminishing support in the United States.
I think he is concerned about Israel's collapsing support amongst what was the foundational component of this pro-Israeli lobby, which is evangelical Christian Zionists.
Everybody speaks of AIPAC, the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, and various pro-Israeli American-Jewish congresses or gatherings.
But the heart and soul of what makes the Zionist lobby viable in America is the Iron Group hold it had on American Christian evangelicals.
And we heard it with Ted Cruz when he said, I joined the Senate to serve Israel.
My God, an American senator making that statement in public.
But many of our elected officials do who come from communities where their constituents are comprised in large part of these Christian evangelists.
I just have to jump in.
I forget the congressman's name.
And this has outraged you and all of our guests who are retired military.
He wears a right Congressman Mast wears a an IDF uniform on the floor of the House of Representatives.
How can that be lawful?
Well, I mean, first of all, this is a man who served America.
Uh he was an explosive ordinance disposal soldier in the United States Army, uh, working with special forces units.
He lost both legs uh in an explosion in Afghanistan.
Um, but then he came back and instead of focusing on veterans' affairs and you know doing better for America, he went off and spent a year working for the Israeli defense force.
And that's been his priority ever since.
Uh, this is the warped sense of priorities.
It seems now to, you know, becoming home.
The chickens are coming home to roost.
Um, because the American people are waking up to the fact that we have foregone uh significant aspects of our sovereignty on behalf of uh of a foreign power.
Um, When we, you know, there are problems to be resolved here at home, things that need to happen to make America first.
And much of the MAGA base that was dual-hated, uh, people who would say, you know, America first, but we support Israel, uh, are waking up to the fact that uh America's second and uh Israel is first, and uh they can't square that, and now they're starting to walk away, especially when confronted with the horrific crimes taking place by Israel in Gaza on a daily day uh daily basis.
You can only, you know, people can only hear so many times there is no genocide, there is no crime.
Don't worry about when you turn on the TV, when you turn on the news, when you turn on the internet and you see it, even your brain, which has been brainwashed, realizes there is something bad happening here that we don't want to be a part of, and the American people are starting to walk, and Benjamin Yatny recognizes this, and he recognizes the reality that if he loses the American Christian evangelicals, the Christian Zionists, it's all over for Israel.
It's all she wrote.
Because the pro-Israeli Jewish uh part of the American population can't sustain Israel by itself, they don't have the political clout.
It's the Christian Zionists to give the pro-Zionist movement the political clout that allowed them to capture the Ted Cruises, the Brian Mass, and others.
Uh, and once they lose them, it's over for Israel.
And then I was very afraid.
Wow.
And hence this continued and persistent denials that the Israeli forces had anything to do with the murder of Charlie Kirk.
But I mean, it's the funniest thing in the world to say, and I don't mean that funny because the murder of anybody's not funny.
But you know, you've heard the saying, thou doth protest too loudly.
Right.
Right.
Or before this kid Robinson was caught, before they knew who the trigger man was, Netanyahu was on national television denying it.
Saying, I didn't do it.
And it's not because I believe he did do it.
I don't, there's no evidence to sustain that.
But it just shows how nervous he is of the potential of being accused of doing it because perception creates its own reality.
And if the perception of the uh you know Christian evangelical movement that was the core of uh Charlie Kirk's you know, base, if the perception is that Israel had something to do with this and they start to walk away from Israel, it's over for Netanyahu.
So he's out there saying, I didn't do it, I didn't do it, I didn't do it.
And um, you know, it just makes him even look more guilty in the eyes of those who are already inclined to believe that he is guilty.
Um last uh Friday, President Trump said he's not going to allow Netanyahu, he's not gonna allow the Israelis to annex the West Bank.
And he repeated it, as he often does when he wants to make a strong statement.
Haven't they effectively annexed the West Bank already with all of the uh land theft that goes on there while the Israeli military and police look the other way?
They have taken uh a significant part of the West Bank over the years and they're doing it now as we speak.
And so for the president to make these words without backing them up, it's just another empty threat made by a president who has made nothing but empty threats when it comes to Israel.
If you want to back this threat up, Mr. President, the the answer is easy.
Make it illegal to seize lands and retroactively apply this law to anybody who has seized lands in the West Bank.
Now, if they're Israelis, they have nothing to fear.
But if they're Brooklyn Jews who uh have uh flown to Israel for the sole purpose of stealing Palestinian lands, um, these are people who are in Israel.
I just want to remind your audience they get paid salaries, they effectively don't work.
We pay their salary, we pay their health care, we pay everything, their education.
They live, you know, they steal land that they live off the benevolence of the American taxpayer who pays for all of this, um, make what they do criminal and tell them that there is an arrest warrant for them, and if they ever return to the United States, they will be arrested on the spot and prosecuted for theft.
That's one way you back up your words, Mr. President.
If you truly want to ban the annexation of the West Bank that make it impossible for American citizens to travel to Israel and carry out the theft that constitutes the core Aspect of this annexation.
Do you have any grasp on what Trump is about to propose that involves making former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the governor general, the overlord of Palestine of the Gaza Strip?
Yeah, this is yes, I mean, what he's trying to do is the person I can think of who will be less appealable to the Palestinians might be Dick Cheney.
I mean, Tony Blair.
Tony Blair's a sellout.
He has no um legitimacy amongst anybody who knows anything about the Middle East.
Um, but he is somebody who has sold his soul to the Zionist devil, and therefore he is acceptable to the global Zionist movement as the face of the West when it comes to you know a so-called impartial uh arbiter of the future of Gaza and of Palestine.
Um this is the grand bargain that Trump's been trying to put together.
Um, you know, the the the problem with it is not just Tony Blair, though, the problem is Hamas.
The problem is the Palestinian people.
Um, because in an effect, disenfranchises um the only political party that has the support of the Palestinian people in any significant way.
If there was an election today, if Tony Blair ran against the head of Hamas as the head of the Palestinian uh state, uh Blair wouldn't get a vote.
Um Hamas will beat anybody.
They'll beat the current president, Mahmoud Abbas, who is nothing but a shill, a sellout uh of the Palestinian cause to Israel.
There is no political competitor to Hamas, and yet you're looking for what's called a political solution, and you seek to disenfranchise Hamas.
This is you know the Achilles heel, so to speak, of this plan, because what do you do with Hamas?
Uh, he says that they have to go, go where.
Um, who's going to take them now that you've made them in effect illegal?
The Arab states that have never been there for Hamas now that the Hamas has been disenfranchised, we'll take them in.
This is this is why this plan has no chance.
There's a snowball's chance in hell of um of succeeding.
Chris, um, I want you to play the uh Sat number two, the uh shorter version of it.
Now, this is General Kellogg basically saying uh the the president won the uh electoral college and we're in the military, we do whatever he tells us to do.
I'm going to ask you what uh members of the military should do when he tells them to murder people on a speedboat on the high seas, but there's no question what General Kellogg says he would do, Chris.
He's the commander in chief by the Constitution, and everybody falls in line.
When the president is going left, you go left.
He says you go right, you go right.
That's the president.
The last I've checked, you know, none of us got electoral college will which he did.
So when the president says to do something, we just need to complete to do that and complete the action.
Sometimes I think we don't think we realize how serious this is.
My biggest concern is that a mistake can happen, and that causes for a larger escalation, be it the attacks by the drones into Poland or the aircraft that are overfly in Estonia, whatever it's going to be, you have to be very, very careful about it.
So this is just not only a European issue.
This is a global issue.
And I think sometimes we forget that.
Before we get into the uh European uh issue, and we have another cut from him, and I want you to explain uh Tomahawk missiles.
What should troops have done when they knew they were ordered to commit murder by blowing up a speed boat on the high seas?
Well, here's here's the difficult part of this.
Um if I have received an order from my lawful command to execute um lethal action.
And I've been told by my lawful command that it is confirmed that the people in that boat are uh narco-terrorists um who mean to bring harm to the United States and that the appropriate legal authorities have reviewed this and uh this is a legitimate target.
I don't get to second guess that.
Um, because I've been given the conditions under which it is construed that this is a lawful order.
So I open fire and I will kill them.
And if I refuse to do so, that's a problem for me because we can't have a situation where every trigger puller is suddenly a constitutional scholar.
Now, if I was told the people in that boat um could be innocent tuna fishers, uh, you know, tuna fishermen, and uh we don't know for sure, then I have a duty and responsibility to say, whoops stop.
No, I can't pull the trigger on this one.
Uh we have to go in and investigate.
We need confirmation.
There are things that have to happen before we can apply lethal force.
But if I've been told by competent authority whom I have to believe are giving me lawfully construed orders, I have to execute those orders.
And so, yes, if the president says turn right and it's there's nothing uh that leaps out that says that's unconstitutional.
I have to turn right.
I have to obey my lawful orders.
Uh so this is an issue that needs to go up to the top to who where this generated from.
And what we need to find out is, you know, who is the one who made the decision to gloss over um, you know, the the component that allows lethal force to be done.
Who's the one that said uh, oh no, these aren't tuna fishermen?
These are this, and what was the basis of that?
Those are the people that committed the war crime, not the trigger pullers.
We are still awaiting the DOJ's um memo on legal authority, and nothing has come out after a month.
They don't have one.
They don't have one.
Hexes just did what the president told them to do.
They're not a program or counsel to the uh defense department didn't produce one and the DOJ didn't produce one.
And this is problematic for Pete Heggseth for President Trump and for everybody involved in that senior chain of command.
This is extremely problematic because uh we're no longer talking about you know politically motivated theory of war crimes.
We are talking about actual war crimes being committed.
Um that if they made this decision for political reasons that we need to be seen as being tough, therefore we're gonna arbitrarily pick this boat and kill it, claiming it's narco traffickers, even though we don't have the evidence to back it up, or we might have evidence that actually proves it's not narco traffickers, then you committed murder.
Uh we're gonna play another clip also of General Kellogg from yesterday.
I'd like you to explain if he knows what he's talking about with respect to the uh Tomahawk missiles.
The questioner says is it the president's position that Ukraine can conduct long-range strikes into Russia and that that has been authorized by the president.
Watch his waffling answer to help himself get to yes, crisp cut number one.
Are you saying though that it is the president's position that Ukraine can conduct long right long-range strikes into Russia, that that has been authorized by the president?
I think reading what he has said and reading what vice president Vance has said as well as Sir Tiger Rubio, the answer is yes, use the ability to hit deep.
There are no such things as sanctuaries.
That's one of the reasons I believe that this last week and it has been confirmed that uh President Zelensky asked President Trump to get Tomahawk missiles, which give you uh uh depth.
They're really good systems.
America makes the best systems in the world.
Are we giving him the Tomahawks?
Well, that decision has not been made, but he's asked I know that President Zelensky did in fact ask for them, which was confirmed by uh uh social media post by Vice President Vance.
That's gonna be up to the president to do it.
Okay, so we'll start with the likely consequences.
If we had these tomahawk missiles tomorrow and the Ukrainians got them on uh Wednesday and fired them at Moscow on Thursday, what would happen?
Uh we'd all be dead by Friday because it would trigger an immediate Russian nuclear response that would then ping pong out of control and we'd have a general nuclear exchange and the entire world would be annihilated.
The Tomahawk missile is a intermediate range nuclear capable missile with strategic uh importance attached to it.
Uh just so people know the ground launched version of the Tomahawk, which is what we're talking about giving the Ukrainians was banned by the intermediate nuclear forces treaty back in 1987-88.
Um, Donald Trump withdrew from that treaty in 2019, and we've been deploying that uh missile uh ever since or has the potential to deploy it.
It is an American strategic system, uh, especially when it has a nuclear missile or nuclear warhead attacks.
It does have conventional capabilities, but those are capabilities that um cannot be transferred to third parties.
Uh you know, when we launch a cruise missile because the United States of America decided to launch a cruise missile, or we gave a green light to our British allies who possess a handful of them to launch cruise missiles.
Uh But this is not a system that's uh just handed out like candy.
Um there's a number of reasons why.
Well, first of all, the missile technology control regime would prohibit it.
So uh you the president would have a whole bunch of issues about uh nuclear about you know missile proliferation.
It would also undercut everything the United States is trying to achieve when it comes to North Korea and Iran.
If we start handing out uh you know tomahawks, then we have no uh moral authority or legal authority now to confront Iran or North Korea, and this would undermine our position.
The State Department would have huge problems with this.
But uh the biggest thing is uh the Tomahawk missile cannot be operated without American hands operating it.
This isn't giving it to Ukraine and Ukraine suddenly is able to launch this missile.
First of all, the guidance system, there's three aspects of it.
There's GPS, that's encrypted American G military grade GPS.
Uh, there's terracomp terrain um uh uh following uh radar images that only we have, and then the final uh adjustments that are made, basically we take satellite photos of the target and we use real-time imagery from the system itself to align and zoom in.
We control everything there.
So if a tomahawk missile hits a Russian target, it's because American intelligence uh personnel prepared the targeting deck to that.
And the Tomahawk can't be fired without certain things going through certain classified communications channels that can only be handled by Americans.
So let me make it clear to Keith Kellogg and everybody listening.
The United States will never ever provide Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.
We know that.
Russia knows that, Ukraine knows that.
It's stupid for Keith Kellogg to put the, but this is part of the stupid game that he's playing.
You see, his job right now is to create the perception that Ukraine is able to continue this fight, to sustain this fight, and to extend this fight into Russia.
The goal here is to pressure Russia into having a trilateral meeting between the president of Russia, the president of the United States, and the president of uh Ukraine, something the Russians have said we're not doing.
J.D. Vance uh lamented that fact.
He said the Russians just refuse to have this trilateral meeting.
So this is all part of a game being played to put pressure on Russia to have such a meeting.
Ukraine will never receive a Tomahawk missile because Donald Trump knows that if they do, the world ends.
And Donald Trump's not in the world-ending business at this point in time.
What troubles me is that uh people like Kellogg, General Kellogg, you could add, this person might be worse, Scotty.
Uh Sebastian Gorka, Lindsay Graham, they get to whisper this nonsense into Trump's ears, and he could pick up the phone and call Heg Seth before any rational person speaks to him and and something horrific will be commenced.
In theory, but the the just talked about the senior leadership blowing up.
So uh, you know, I mean here I am trying to reflect on the constitution and and the law, and we just acknowledge that there's a real potential.
This administration doesn't give a damn about the law.
Um but there are laws that prevent this from happening.
There would have to be congressional action.
This is an impeachable offense.
I'll tell you right now that if the president ordered Pete Heggseth to transfer tomahawk technology to Ukraine without getting congressional permission, it is an impeachable offense.
Um, you know, it's do you remember when Ronald Reagan violated the Bolin Amendment?
Um, and how serious Congress took that.
Yes, yes, Iran contra.
This would be with your with your fellow Marine Ali North.
Yes, there's a reason why many Marines uh stayed away from Ali during that time period because we were like, we don't want to violate the Constitution.
Um much longer will uh President Putin's ability to resist the pressure on his right flank and his personal patience last.
The British are playing a very dangerous game because they're the ones who are doing this.
It's the British who are involved in every aspect of this is the British information operation, you know, uh keep Ukraine in the fight.
You have to maintain the perception of Ukraine victory, uh, the whole Pak North of Pakrovsk counteroffensive.
You know, it's collapsing as we speak.
Uh it's over.
Uh, and the Russians will now take everything back.
But it was you know, basically like the the jab into curse, where they accumulate their best forces, they pick a time and place and they push forward.
Then they surge drones in and they made life a living hell for the Russians for a period of three weeks.
The Russians have stabilized the situation, and now they're bringing in overwhelming force to destroy the Ukrainians.
This is this is the reality.
But now the Ukrainians are striking deeper and deeper into Russia.
Um, and at some point in time, the Russians will lose their patience, uh, their strategic patience.
And, you know, there are certain weapons systems that haven't been used against Ukraine, and there's certain um, you know, targeting priorities that haven't, you know, reached up.
We saw it the other day.
You know, the Russians reached out with two Kenzal missiles um and uh which are fired from MiG-31 fighters and took out a Ukrainian air base, uh destroying five uh U.S. provided F-16s, killing a whole bunch of Ukrainian pilots and a whole bunch of uh Western ground support crews.
Uh the Russians have avoided that because the Russians, you know, don't want to provoke NATO into saying, oh, you killed a bunch of our people, now we have no choice but to come in.
But the Russians are making now are going to start increasing the target, the targeting uh categories that bring pain to NATO, including the United States.
And um, and then they will also add to the mix weapon systems.
We've seen the Ureshnik once.
I'm fairly comfortable uh saying that before this year's over, uh the Ureshnik will be used in a decisive fashion Ukraine, and it will not end well for Zelensky or his government if they continue to behave in the in the manner that they are.
Russia isn't going to let Ukraine and let the British and let NATO make this uh you know an even fight.
Uh Russia has the strategic advantage, and they intend on keeping the strategic advantage.
And as the West continues to pour resources into Ukraine, Russia will counter with resources of its own.
Um you say we the Ukrainians are firing deep into Russian territory.
Are they using American equipment to do so?
Not deep.
I mean, no, right now what they're doing is using the uh German and British provided drones, um, using American provided intelligence uh to evade Russian air defense to strike oil uh targets, you know, in the in the Russian depth.
Uh but the you know the attack's missile has not been used at its full potential, and as J.D. Vance has acknowledged, the president hasn't made the decision to give Ukraine permission to do that.
He the president committed in December of uh 2024 not to give this permission because he understood that doing so would enable Ukraine to strike targets, which could be classified by Russia as being in the strategic interest and therefore triggering Russia's nuclear doctrine, meaning Russia would have at least doctrinally the right to respond using nuclear weapons.
The president said he doesn't want to cross that red line.
So that line hasn't been crossed yet, and hopefully it never will be.
Do you think Ukrainian senior leadership recognizes that its days are numbered, that it can't possibly win this war no matter what Europeans pay for or American arms manufacturers deliver?
I believe that the Ukrainian senior leadership believes that they believe that what they've been told by the British and by the Americans, that if sufficient pressure is brought to bear on Russia, the pain will be so great as to compel Russia to come to the negotiating table, that Ukraine won't get what it wants at the negotiating table.
But the fact of the matter is if Russia comes to the negotiating table under those conditions, Ukraine will continue to exist, and that means exist as a NATO proxy, and it's a poison pill because if you allow Ukraine to exist as a NATO proxy, ultimately Ukraine will become a NATO member and everything but the word, which is something Russia will never allow to have happen.
Ukrainians don't understand that Russia, when they say never means never, uh, but they believe that they continue to put pressure on this.
As to the sustainability of this, um, what I would say is follow the money, Judge.
Um, every single one of these senior leaders have taken hundreds of millions of dollars uh out of you know the aid, um, pocketed it, and they have bought their retirement homes.
They all have villas in Miami, villas in France, uh apartments in London.
Um so they will flee in a heartbeat to accounts that have already been padded with uh American taxpayer Largesse.
Um, and they'll do that instantaneously.
So, you know, they're they're up there playing games with the American with the Ukrainian people's lives on the line.
But when you know, when Russia calls the bluff, they're not going to be there uh to lay their cards down.
They'll be gone.
Scott Ritter, thank you, my dear friend.
With a pleasure being with you on Saturday.
And uh thank you very much for your time today.
All the best.
Look forward to seeing you next time.
Thanks, Judge.
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