Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano - Larry Johnson : Trump's Ukraine Dilemma.

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Sept. 29, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano

25:54

Larry Johnson : Trump's Ukraine Dilemma.

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	Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for a judging freedom.
	Today is Monday, September 29th, 2025.
	Larry Johnson will be here in just a moment on Trump's Ukraine dilemma.
	Or does he not have a dilemma?
	But first, this.
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	And now is the time.
	Larry, uh a pleasure, my dear friend.
	Thank you for accommodating my schedule as always.
	Before we uh get into uh Trump and Ukraine, and is this really a handoff to the Europeans and can the Europeans take the ball and run with it to continue the football uh analogy.
	Uh Trump has been murdering Venezuelan.
	I know you've done work on this, and I want to talk about it.
	Trump has been murdering murdering Venezuela Venezuelan civilians, claiming they're members of the trend Aragua gang.
	At the same time, he's sending naval ships uh outside of uh right off the coast in international waters.
	Let's start with Trend de Aragua.
	How long have they been around?
	Uh, first mention of them is in 2018.
	Uh in uh press in Latin America and uh I believe Peru was one of those.
	Well, what makes 2018 uh a fascinating date is that's the date that year that Donald Trump as president authorized maximum pressure campaign on Venezuela.
	Now, if somebody wants to argue that that was done just diplomatically and through Department of Treasury, and that the CIA was not involved, I have a bridge to sell you.
	Okay.
	During my time, I I was at the CIA when we went after Manuel Noriega.
	And the uh there was an analyst in my branch.
	Uh she was being briefed regularly by the directorate of operations who were involved with this comprehensive plan to create a pretext that would justify a U.S. invasion in Panama.
	Well, it sure looks to me that's exactly what's going on.
	Trend de Aragua is uh it's either uh a uh a creation of the intelligence agency, or it's a group that the agency has you know funneled money into or encouraged to become this face of the threat to the United States.
	And to go out and create this narrative that that's where all the drug trafficking's coming from.
	I can't emphasize enough that just because you got some people in a boat, and you think that they're carrying drugs.
	Let's let's say that in fact you know they're carrying drugs.
	You know that they're transporting drugs.
	Just like assume that you're a cop in New York City or in Baltimore in Philadelphia, and you see these two drug dealers on the corner.
	Right.
	You See them go up to a car door and they sell drugs to somebody, and you see them take the money.
	You do not have the right to shoot and kill them.
	I mean, you wouldn't allow that in the United States.
	That would be considered murder by those police.
	Now, if you went up to try to arrest them, they pulled out guns, then yeah, you could kill them because they recogni represented an immediate threat to your life or uh could could cause cause grievous bodily harm.
	Well, we're doing the same, you know, we're faced with the same circumstance, except we're in international waters, uh, and in those international waters, instead of stopping the boat, seizing the drugs, we're killing them.
	So this we're using Trend de Aragua to create this narrative, oh, all the drug traffic that it's in the United States is coming out of Venezuela.
	That's a lie.
	Uh but we're using it so that there is this pretext that you know Trump's going to attack.
	I don't know when, but uh the indications you cannot assemble the force that we have off the coast of Venezuela and keep it there indefinitely.
	It's too expensive.
	All right, I'll talk to you.
	I want to talk to you about the size of that force and what they're likely to do in a minute, but back to Trend de Aragua.
	The recently retired chief federal prosecutor for drug interdiction cases, federal, says Trend Aragua is engaged in human smuggling, not in drugs.
	Okay.
	So what A, what is Trump talking about?
	B would the CIA be aiding them in drugs or human smuggling just to create this pretext?
	Would the CIA break the law so blatantly?
	Well, we already have a recent example of uh this is in Syria with the new president uh al-Shara, who was a member of Al-Qaeda, then ISIS, then Al-Nusra, then he had this dramatic break, so-called dramatic break with uh Al-Qaeda.
	He he he spent five years, I think it was at least five years in prison in Iraq, uh, as uh David Petraeus noted the other day while Patraeus was in charge of the military operation in Iraq.
	This is a guy who carried out and supervised fighters that carried out terrorist attacks against Christians, Alawits, and Shia Muslims.
	This is a guy who is involved with chopping heads off of people.
	Yet that very guy had the backing and support of the CIA, and the CIA played a direct role on it, the Brits and the Turks in installing him as a new president of Syria, even though the guy had a 10 million dollar reward on his head for his prior acts of terrorism.
	And I would simply note that if you go read the State Department reports on uh terrorism, and and for like 2017, 2018, 2019, Hayatar al-Sham was listed as one of the top 10 terrorist groups.
	In other words, this al-Shara carried out more terrorist attacks in two years than were attributed to Hamas over a 25-year period.
	Is this the same human being whose uh butt metaphorically speaking?
	General Petraeus kissed in the tape we watched last week.
	Oh, yeah, same one.
	So I said that this uh funded by the CIA, yeah, aware of the fact that it was cutting off hands and heads, yeah.
	It was, but you know, this goes back to what we did in Afghanistan.
	We armed Mujahideen, we uh holy jihadists, and then later use them to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia as well.
	So, with that as a is uh uh prior evidence, yeah, is it far-fetched to suggest that the agency might also have ties and connections to help create and fan the flames for Trend de Aragua to be this threat that we can justify attacking Venezuela?
	I absolutely believe that.
	So Bibi Netanyahu created Hamas an excuse to destroy the Palestinians, yeah.
	Well, so Hamas was a creation without Netanyahu's uh direct involvement, but once it was organized, then the the Zionists and Netanyahu made sure that they would fund it and get money to it to keep it strong for the exact same exact reason that you just mentioned to destroy any chance of creating a uh genuine Palestinian state.
	How much of an armada uh do we have off the coast of Venezuela?
	Is it known publicly?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Uh four missile uh cruisers you know that launch um um you know these would be missiles that could be a attack uh to attack inside Venezuela, one missile cruiser, three amphibious uh landing ships that carry uh approximately 4,500 marines and and naval personnel, and then you've got a variety of air assets that are deployed uh into Puerto Rico.
	So, yeah, no, it's it's a significant military force.
	Now it's not it's not a force significant uh enough to be able to attempt uh uh uh amphibious landing and to try to carry out a ground attack in Venezuela, at least I hope that's not their plan because 4500 marines would get chewed up in a heartbeat.
	Uh, but uh it's it's more likely that what the United States will do is they'll they'll target certain areas, they claim that they're blowing up drug labs where the the actual uh uh target may be trying to kill Maduro.
	Now understand this this program started in 2018, and I believe what happened.
	I don't have you know, can I prove this?
	No.
	But it would the way it would work is Trump would sign a finding, the CIA would then put together a program, and then even after Trump left office, that CIA effort could continue to go on, because frankly, it was something that uh the Biden administration was endorsed as well.
	And there were there were a variety of efforts.
	Now Maduro, Nicholas Maduro has been hollering, hey, you know, the CIA is after me.
	And we keep saying, ah, that's a lie, that's just you're just paranoid.
	So uh, but but actually I believe that projects, you know, the the circumstantial evidence indicates the project started in 2018.
	The the Trump administration admitted to a maximum pressure uh initiative, and uh then they they were very public about their support for Juan Guaido, who was uh designated as the the new president of Venezuela that the United States found acceptable.
	Now, a uh grad student in Miami, according to uh on your parent poll, uh Mrs. Max uh Blumenthal.
	Should uh I know I'm all over the place, but I want to pick your fertile brain.
	Should Benjamin Netanyahu be worried that he is hemorrhaging support in the United States of America for his genocide and uh starvation, particularly among young people?
	Yes.
	Yeah, and that's why I think one of the reasons that they're trying to get control of TikTok uh to so you can shape the narrative.
	Um but you know, uh when you and I were you know growing up in the in the 50s and 60s, you know, we our information came over television and with television is actually fairly it was pretty easy then to get a controlled narrative because there were there were only limited number of outlets.
	Well, now it's not so easy.
	I mean, this internet thing is a real problem unless you just shut it down, because shows like yours and others on the internet, no matter how much they try to tamp it down, they can't silence it.
	And uh the people who are under the age of uh you know 30 and younger, you know, they they have no memory of uh uh uh of the kind of what I call the exodus generation.
	Those of us who grew up with the movie Exodus, which portrayed a particular narrative of David versus Goliath as far as Israel versus all the nasty Arabs.
	Now they're seeing something quite different.
	They cannot ignore the photographs of the mutilated bodies of children in Gaza murdered by uh Zionist uh soldiers.
	You probably remember that famous one-liner, horrible human being, but very telling, uh, President Johnson, Lyndon Johnson saying, oof, when I lost Cronkite, I lost the public because Walter Cronkite was the principal means, and for millions of Americans, the only means through which they learned what was happening in Vietnam.
	Let me give you let me give you a fun fun fact on that.
	Uh, in in 1968, the total audience for the news shows at night.
	So Walter Cronkite, the uh uh the uh David Brinkley, and I forget who the other one was, but total audience was 54 million, okay?
	And that was back in an age when we had like 180 200 million people in the country.
	Umite audience alone was 28 million, okay, on any given night.
	Today, uh no, well, actually, I ran these numbers in August of 2016, in August of 2016, the combined audience of CNN, Fox, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC.
	So both, you know, the cable as well as the regular news shows, their total combined audience for all of them, 27 million.
	Wow, so just shows the difference in the kind of influence that Cronkite had back then compared to how sort of um uh I guess uh watered down the media has become today.
	Is are the Zionists in America going to come after alternative media like the show in which you and I are on now?
	I it wouldn't surprise me at all.
	You know, there's uh, but you know, it you can't trying to control the people has proved difficult.
	Remember when they got rid of Candace Owens at the Daily Wire because she was quote anti-Semitic in their view, uh just just because she happened to ask some very tough questions that were not favorable for uh for the Zionists.
	Uh, what happened?
	Well, her show, she's now like got four or five million subscribers, and the Daily Wire is uh in bankruptcy proceedings, or appears to be.
	So uh, you know, the the people will follow where they find information that's fresh, that that's truthful, that that's candid.
	And you know, that's one of the reasons your show's been growing.
	What is your take?
	I want to go to uh uh Ukraine now.
	What is your take on what Trump is trying to accomplish?
	Has he handed off the ball to Europe?
	Yeah, he's done they can they take the ball and run with it.
	Yeah, well he's done it for questions, yeah.
	Yeah, so he's done he's done the Pontius pilot thing.
	Uh he said, hey Europe, hey NATO, this is your problem, and apparently not recognizing or admitting that the United States is the key member of NATO, but oh, let's put set that aside.
	But the only thing he said in that true social uh uh post for the truth, as he put as he called it, that he put out last, I guess it was Tuesday, is the despite sounding like General Kellogg, you know, Russia's losing, Ukraine's winning, Russia's economies and tatters, etc.
	The only concrete proposal that he made in that was hey, NATO can buy all the weapons at once from us here in the United States.
	And and initially the reaction from people like even Lindsay Graham and Mark Ruta and Kaya Kallas, the foreign minister for the they're all like, Yay, and then they went, Oh, wait a second, you know.
	Hey, the United States doesn't have any weapons for us to buy right now.
	They're gonna we're gonna have to wait a while.
	It's not like they got uh warehouses of inventory uh bulging out that they can't wait to get rid of.
	And Trump made it very clear, this is this is your fight, not ours.
	Hey, good luck.
	And he remembered he ended it.
	Good luck to both Ukraine and Russia.
	Good luck, you guys.
	So um NATO, it uh you take up your metaphor.
	Uh if given a ball, they'd try to eat it.
	You know, they'd be looking at it.
	So they're not gonna be running anywhere except for cover.
	So when Lindsay Graham rejoices because the president calls Russia a paper tiger and makes a hyperbolic and and irrational statement like Ukraine can win back uh Crimea and the Donbass.
	Yeah, does he not know that Trump is handing the ball off to the Europeans, and this is a neocon nightmare?
	Uh I don't think he knew that at first.
	I think now with some reflection over the weekend, he probably realizes you know the game is up.
	Uh the Russians, have you noticed, you know, like yesterday we heard Russia launched the most massive missile and drone strike since the war began.
	And I'm going, boy, this is deja vu all over again.
	Because I heard that a week ago.
	In fact, I heard the same thing from two weeks ago.
	So what Russia's demonstrating is it doesn't have any limitations, it's not suffering from shortages of either drones or missiles, and it is intensifying its attacks.
	And um, you know, the the NATO countries, they were initially, you know, when Trump first came out with that statement.
	Boy, they were very belligerent in their statements towards Russia.
	Since then, even that wretch of a human being, Sikorsky, the foreign minister in Poland, even he's toned it down a bit.
	Because now that they've been, you know, it's one thing to trash talk from the audience, and then you get called up on the stage to have to face off with Mike Tyson, and then all of a sudden, you know what?
	I might want to speak a little bit more respectful now.
	Uh so instead of getting you know clubbed to death.
	Um, Russia, you know, from Lavrov from Peskov, uh, they have made it very clear that they, well, as Lavrov said at the UN, we're at war with the Europeans.
	Europe is at war with us.
	He didn't say with the United States, and he did and he didn't say with NATO.
	Correct, with Europe.
	Um, but uh then we also have heard from you know the uh advisors to Putin, uh Dmitriev and Ushikov.
	And they both, as we as we talked on Friday with Ray, uh, they've continued to be pretty upbeat in terms of the conversations uh that are ongoing behind the scenes with the United States.
	We saw Lavrov comes out of his meeting with uh with uh uh Rubio and they asked him, hey, how'd the meeting go?
	And he goes, Hey, thumbs up.
	I don't think we got a thumbs up from him, did we?
	No.
	Uh I have to play General Kellogg.
	Chris, this is not the one that we uh just looked at.
	Uh I wonder why they're still sending him out to say these things.
	The two takeaways from this, cut number one, Chris.
	The two takeaways from this are the president of the United States indirectly authorized the use of long-range missiles that can hit Russia.
	Oh, and by the way, Russia's losing.
	He says this again.
	Larry, this is yesterday, 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 Secretary 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 a 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.
	Why do they put him out there to say this stuff, Larry?
	Yeah, well, it makes uh I guess it saves Trump uh time, effort, and energy.
	He is uh it's important to note that actually uh J.D. Vance was saying some similar things, which uh again tells me that Vance, unlike Trump, does read.
	Uh and Vance, I believe, also gets the presidential daily brief.
	So the fact that Vance is saying some of the same things tells me that this is what the intelligence community is feeding Trump.
	So Tulsi is having little effect at correcting the narrative.
	And as long as they perpetuate this narrative that Russia's losing, Ukraine is winning.
	It does bring with it the uh if that's their attitude, uh, you know, I think Trump has twisted it around that, okay.
	Well, if Ukraine's winning, why do we need to continue to providing support?
	Because it's doing so well.
	This notion of though introducing the tomahawk cruise missile, uh, number one, let's recognize I think that's at least uh 40-year-old technology.
	Wow.
	It's been somewhat modernized, but you know, I think we are 30, at least 34 years.
	We were using it uh in the first uh Gulf War back in 1991.
	Um secondly, it's not hypersonic, it's subsonic.
	Uh third, Russia's air defense systems are quite capable of shooting it down.
	But what makes the possible introduction of it into the theater is it is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
	And Russian military planners would have to take that into account.
	And that would be seen as a provocation from that standpoint.
	As far as this notion of hitting deep into Russia, the you know, the administration uh I think the CIA embarked along with MI6 uh and the military, U.S. military in helping Ukraine start to carry out attacks on some of the Russian oil refineries.
	The way the public narrative and Trump has repeated this is that oh oh uh Russia's got terrible gas lines and they've really disrupted the Russian oil market.
	Well, that's not that's not uh what's actually going on.
	It is true in about four regions that are close to Ukraine, there have been damages to refineries to oil distribution, and particularly in Crimea, there are gas lines.
	But in the rest of Russia, no, not a problem at all.
	There's a good report that I saw uh yesterday on YouTube from an American expat that's living in Russia, but he went around, went to all these different gas stations, uh, and then talked to five different people around five different places in Russia, and they're all going gas shortage.
	We we ain't got no gas shortage.
	But but but again, the West is trying to create this narrative that Russia's weak, Russia's suffering, and and they believe that if only they could stir up enough discontent with Putin uh over the war that it would bring an end to it, except what they're not they're not reading the room, because the majority of Russians think that Putin's been too soft, that he's not doing enough to beat the hell out of the Europeans.
	So it's just instead of uh cultivating uh animosity towards Putin that will undermine the Russian war effort, what the Europeans and the United States have been doing has done had the exact opposite effect.
	Larry Johnson, thank you very much, my dear friend.
	Great conversation all over the place, from and I appreciate you letting me do that, from uh uh Venezuela to Ukraine.
	I will look forward to seeing you with uh Ray on Friday.
	All the best.
	Yes, sir.
	I'll be there.
	Thank you, Judge.
	Thank you.
	Bye-bye.
	And the aforementioned Ray at one o'clock this afternoon, at two o'clock, Scott Ritter at three o'clock, Max Blumenthal on his interactions with the president of Iran, part of which I participated in uh last week and at four o'clock,

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