Sept. 30, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
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| Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. | |
| Today is Wednesday, October 1st, 2025. | |
| Professor Glenn Dezen joining us today from Sochi Russia on the Black Sea. | |
| Professor Radizin, welcome here. | |
| Thank you for taking the time to visit us. | |
| I guess it's the middle of the night where you are, but uh much appreciated. | |
| You know, uh President uh Trump has purported to pass on to the Europeans the obligation for funding the Ukrainian war. | |
| He's done that in a variety of ways, directly and indirectly. | |
| Before we get to that, yesterday he purported to enter into an agreement to bring about peace uh in Gaza. | |
| It's not an agreement that the uh Gazans, the Palestinians, or the Hamas people have agreed to. | |
| In fact, it's not one that they are free to disagree to, or the war will obliterate them. | |
| But whatever the agreement was, as soon as Prime Minister Netanyahu got home, in Hebrew, he repudiated two important parts of it. | |
| One that the IDF would not leave the Gaza Strip, and two that the Palestinians would never have their own state, even though the agreement contemplates a state in five years and an immediate withdrawal uh of the IDF from Gaza. | |
| Does any of this surprise you? | |
| No, it seems like uh terrible deal. | |
| It's uh pretty much asking for Hamas and all the Palestinians in general to capitulate. | |
| And um as you said, uh the Israelis are already looking at how they can uh well uh get their obligations uh removed from this. | |
| But there's a lot of other components which are very concerning. | |
| There's uh discussion of a peace board, in other words, there should be in some external governance of the Palestinians. | |
| Apparently, this is uh to be led by Tony Blair. | |
| I'm not sure if they began if they've walked away from this, but this is uh quite uh extraordinary of all the people in the world. | |
| Um this will be you know one of the few which he would not put in this position after having hundreds of thousands of Arab lives on his conscience. | |
| Before we get to Tony Blair, here is uh Prime Minister Netanyahu. | |
| As soon as he landed uh in Israel, in Hebrew, very subtly, but you you can hear it, uh rejecting these two key components of the so-called agreement that Trump and his advisor Steve Whitcoff uh have gotten some Arab countries to agree to, and the two components are the departure of the IDF and the acceptance of a Palestinian state. | |
| Chris cut number 23. | |
| Instead of Hamas isolating us, we turned the tables and isolated Hamas. | |
| Now the whole world, including the Arab and Muslim world, is pressuring Hamas to accept the conditions we set together with President Trump to release all our hostages, both the living and the fallen. | |
| Who would have believed this? | |
| After all, everyone kept saying you have to accept Hamas's terms to withdraw everyone. | |
| The IDF needs to withdraw, and Hamas can recover and also rehabilitate the strip. | |
| No way, that's not happening. | |
| On the contrary. | |
| And President Trump added that if Hamas refuses, he will give Israel full backing to complete the military operation to eliminate it. | |
| And that's why I think from every perspective, this was an excellent visit. | |
| Many in the government, there's a question being asked. | |
| Did you agree to a Palestinian state? | |
| Absolutely not. | |
| It's also not written in the agreement. | |
| But one thing we did say is that we will strongly oppose a Palestinian state. | |
| President Trump also said that he said he understands that. | |
| He also said at the UN that it would be a huge reward for terror and a danger to the state of Israel. | |
| The so-called agreement, which, of course, has not been accepted by Hamas. | |
| I don't know how you can call it an agreement. | |
| It has been accepted by some of the Arab countries in the region. | |
| Does provide for the New York Times printed it. | |
| I'm sure you read it. | |
| Does provide for the IDF to withdraw to the borders of the Gaza Strip, but outside the Gaza Strip. | |
| Strip, and it does contemplate a Palestinian state in the next five years. | |
| Now that'll never happen with Tony Blair there, but we'll get to um Prime Minister Blair uh in a minute. | |
| How can he shake hands with Donald Trump and in the same day repudiate what he just took shook hands on? | |
| Well, there's no consequences, I think. | |
| I mean, uh, if now Trump obviously watches this video, finds out that he's rejecting everything he just agreed to, uh what will Trump do? | |
| I mean, he he he bends over backwards for Netanyahu. | |
| So uh this is what Netanyahu walks around the Middle East bragging about that uh they can make the Americans do anything. | |
| So uh I don't think there would be many consequences, but uh but this is a key problem why it would be very difficult for the Palestinians to accept any such a harsh deal. | |
| That is uh once it's time for the Israelis to do their part, what happens when Israel walks away? | |
| If this is a deal which is being monitored by Israel, the United States and UK, I mean, these are the main three countries carrying out the genocide, and they are the ones who are gonna make sure that uh uh that that the all sides live up to the agreement. | |
| It's you can see that this isn't gonna go anywhere. | |
| The fact that he all already has to reassure his own population and his own audience that this is never gonna happen. | |
| Uh, you know, it uh should be yeah, enough to make the Palestinians reject this. | |
| Uh Colonel uh Larry Wilkerson, who was the chief of staff in the State Department at the time, says that nobody except for Vice President Cheney was more uh aggressive uh and fanatical uh about pursuing the uh invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq than Tony Blair. | |
| Why would the uh Arabs agree, and why would the the neighboring Arabs and why would the Palestinians agree to uh neo-colonial form of government with Tony Blair as the governor general? | |
| Well, God knows a lot of the conflicts uh which uh continue to ravage the Middle East uh derive from the nation of Iraq. | |
| So the fact that you would get the main culprit, one of the main culprits, back and put him in back into the game and have him uh you know, or um manage uh Gaza, uh it's just uh it's uh it's hard to believe. | |
| It's uh it's like it would be a parody, but uh one gets the impression that this almost something they just added to it, uh just to make sure that uh uh Hamas could never accept this deal. | |
| I mean, as he suggested now, he did say more or less quite openly that uh that uh people used to put pressure on Israel, now they're they're saying that this Hamas who will begin to reject this deal. | |
| In other words, Israel is for peace, Hamas is not. | |
| I mean, we had the same problem in Ukraine. | |
| That is after more than three years of the Ukrainians and uh the Europeans uh boycotting all diplomacy, even banning it, uh they they had to change the narrative that it's the Russians who didn't want diplomacy, they always wanted it. | |
| So you come up with these conditions like an unconditional ceasefire, or well, before we even start to resolve anything, Putin has to meet Zelensky, all these things which can't happen. | |
| And uh, and then you get to the media can jump on it, they can spin it, and now suddenly it's uh Netanyahu that who really just wants peace, but it's Hamas who refuses it. | |
| So it's uh it's also a war of narratives. | |
| So will the former principal occupant of number 10 Downing Street, a truly opulent residence in London, now live in Gaza City? | |
| If he's going to be the governor general of Gaza, I mean I can't imagine that. | |
| Well, I can't imagine him wanting to live among the people he's ruling over anyway. | |
| So I think um, uh I mean, this is how is this different from the 19th century colonial rule? | |
| I mean, this is uh This is not the people who have uh your best at heart. | |
| Uh well, why not get the actual United Nations in? | |
| Or uh, you know, if you need someone to administer it and the uh Palestinians are not allowed to govern themselves, why not get a neutral country? | |
| Uh one that's not involved. | |
| Get uh you know, there's plenty of options out there, but of all the countries in the world, you go for Britain and of all the British, you're gonna go for Tony Blair. | |
| It's uh yeah, it's quite unbelievable. | |
| Um yesterday, the uh alternative media, not the mainstream media has uh reported that the captain of one of the uh boats in the uh Gaza aid flotilla uh has been seized and kidnapped uh by the uh Israelis. | |
| Doesn't the president of the United States have a heart? | |
| Doesn't he understand how starving these people are and how his buddy Netanyahu is perpetuating the starvation? | |
| Are the are the Americans just going to allow uh the by the captain's an American, by the way. | |
| Are the Americans just the American State Department just going to allow this to happen? | |
| Seemingly so. | |
| But uh what you touch upon is uh quite important because the whole narrative has been lost. | |
| I mean, after the horrific uh September 11 attacks, there was uh there was an a new effort to re reshape the world, you know, as good guys versus bad guys, that is the civilized liberal democracies versus the terrorists. | |
| And uh, this kind of was a good way of uh selling all interventions and wars. | |
| So to well, essentially do whatever one would want to do in the region. | |
| But if you forward now, uh yeah, jump ahead 24 years. | |
| Uh it's us who are, you know, supporting a genocide in Gaza, we're backing al-Qaeda leader in uh Syria, and now of course uh stopping flotillas, uh kidnapping people who want to give formula to uh to babies. | |
| I mean, it's uh it's just very hard to still sell this uh argument that uh we are necessarily the good guys now fighting the bad guys. | |
| I uh I I don't want to drag you into American uh domestic uh politics, but I have to ask you this about Europe. | |
| Uh the US is embroiled right now uh over this issue of um American military troops in in the streets in major cities uh for law enforcement purposes. | |
| Does this happen in Europe? | |
| European troops in in attack garb and with automatic uh weapons appear in the streets engaging in ordinary law enforcement. | |
| I realize the history, the law, the constitution, the culture is all very different from America. | |
| But I just want to know if this happens anywhere else in the Western world. | |
| But no, it's not. | |
| But uh America always tends to be a bit ahead ahead of us. | |
| So we do tend to emulate that emulate America, uh both the good and the bad, unfortunately. | |
| So uh but uh this is uh you know, it's an old truism that um uh you know the empire essentially come back to haunt you. | |
| That is the instrument one uses abroad. | |
| Uh the military tactics, uh you know, eventually this this can come back and uh and be used against one's own population. | |
| Uh I know in the United States is it's literally the same weapons because a lot of the weapons and military equipment which is has been used um in in wars abroad can be cut can be used uh home by the police, uh sold. | |
| Uh so this is why police forces some kind sometimes come uh dressed up like they're ready to do uh to invade. | |
| But uh it is it is quite unfortunate. | |
| It uh it risks breaking the social contract between the public and its people. | |
| And what is strange about you know, United States and all the gun laws and all are but uh a lot more liberal than what you would find anywhere in Europe, but it's also true that the United States has a much stronger uh liberal foundation in terms of uh being protected by by the law, having constitution, uh and to yeah, so to see the individual freedoms. | |
| This is uh we we claim these are also European values, but uh we import it more from the United States. | |
| These are good values uh uh but uh they seem to be stepped upon here. | |
| So it is a bit surprising that in the US, uh, I mean, if you can't keep up your uh individual freedoms Over there, I don't think it's much hopes for the Europeans down the road. | |
| Yesterday, the president of the United States uh addressed theoretically every general officer and admiral uh in United States military as well as their chief non-commissioned officer. | |
| There were about 800 people in the audience. | |
| And he actually made a comment that was very terrifying, uh, which I'll play for you now, suggesting that the American military could train or practice its work in American cities. | |
| Chris? | |
| San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. | |
| They're very unsafe places. | |
| And we're going to straighten them out one by one. | |
| And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. | |
| That's a war too. | |
| It's a war from within. | |
| Controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security. | |
| We can't let these people in. | |
| We're under invasion from within. | |
| No different than a foreign enemy. | |
| But more difficult in many ways because they don't wear uniforms. | |
| At least when they're wearing a uniform, you can take them out. | |
| These people don't have uniforms. | |
| I told Pete we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military national guard, but military. | |
| Would the uh European uh governments use major cities, Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, as training grounds for the military? | |
| Well, not their own cities. | |
| We this is quite uh this is quite extraordinary. | |
| That uh yeah, you can say this and get away with it. | |
| Now I I would uh think that uh in terms of having a large immigration problem, I think using the military to patrol the borders, I think that would be defensible. | |
| Uh, there's uh I wouldn't see anything uh awful about this. | |
| Uh indeed, uh, it's the responsibility of a country to uh to guard its own borders. | |
| Uh so when Trump used to say if you don't have borders, you don't have a country. | |
| Fair enough. | |
| I I'm pretty much on board with this. | |
| But the problem is when you refer to uh uh illegal migrants who are uh inside the country and you treat them as uh invaders to say that they have invaded the country and and then we use the military uh lingo that is they're not wearing uniforms but still an invasion. | |
| No, it well, it's clearly not. | |
| I mean, the words do matter. | |
| Uh they are illegal uh immigrants, they can be deported, of course, they're not there legally, but to c but to use this military terms, it's very dangerous because once you frame it uh as effectively enemy combatants not wearing uniforms, uh this legitimizes a military response. | |
| And uh and you can use the example of uh of uh Venezuela as an example. | |
| Now the argument is that the Venezuelans uh are invading the United States, but it's the US who puts crippling sanctions on uh the on Venezuela, it causes uh social havoc within the country, and a lot of people are fleeing and seeking refuge in the United States now. | |
| You know, there's ways to solve this, but calling it a Venezuelan invasion and go for, you know, using this as a way, for example, to attack Venezuela, it doesn't make any sense. | |
| Uh, this is definitely gonna bring more people. | |
| So words do matter, and I I fear that uh Donald Trump's um yeah, uh framing of this as an invasion by people not wearing uniform, as I said, this will uh be used to legitimize the military response, that is military force against America's own public. | |
| Again, as someone who always admired America's uh focus on individual freedoms and key principles is kind of a heartbreaking to watch. | |
| It is it is very uh heartbreaking and uh and demoralizing. | |
| Uh the two speeches yesterday were preening performances of political claptrap. | |
| And uh I'm I don't think it went over very well with the generals. | |
| We'll be talking to Colonel uh Wilkerson about this in the next hour. | |
| Uh in your travels uh in Russia and your finger on the pulse of uh things Russian from your university perch um in Europe. | |
| Do you get the feeling that Russian elites are getting impatient with uh the war still going on and on and on in Ukraine? | |
| Yeah, and uh I do think that uh it's that the further they get into this war and uh uh the the more Ukraine gets weakened, the more the Europeans well, also the Americans, but now it's more the Europeans are escalating. | |
| So there seems to be a sentiment that as the Ukraine now gets weaker and the Europeans prepare to escalate, uh that uh yeah, Russia is in a position where it can respond more forcefully because uh uh again the the Europeans at least uh a few years ago they were suggesting that they weren't party of the conflict. | |
| Now you have uh people like uh Ben Wallace who was arguing that you know we have to strangle Crimea, make it unlivable, uh we have to get this tomahawks and we will help you with the targeting and the planning pick, you know. | |
| This we are at war with Russia now. | |
| This the pretense is more or less gone. | |
| So it's the weapons are more powerful, the uh the rhetoric has changed. | |
| So at some point um, you know, Russia always had this dilemma. | |
| Do they uh strike back at NATO uh but then risk World War III, or they do nothing and then embolden NATO to escalate further, cross more red lines? | |
| So I think um now that uh yeah Ukraine seems to be on its last leg and uh the Europeans are escalating further, while the Americans seem a bit lukewarm on the whole issue. | |
| I I think that uh they yeah, they they could begin to change their tactics because there's a certain anger. | |
| Uh just uh just to add very quickly, this uh well, this conference I'm at now, it's called the Valdae Discussion Club. | |
| It's it's um yeah, it's gone on for 22 years. | |
| I've been here the last uh uh well five or six years. | |
| You feel the rhetoric and uh sentiments uh changing, and uh if I would put uh you know, in 2022 I would put concerned, uh, because it's in around October, November, and uh and then in 2023 it began much more confident, 2024 they act as if the war has already been resolved, and now in 2025, there's a lot of anger, especially towards the Europeans, so um and then especially the Germans. | |
| So I I'm I'm quite concerned. | |
| Um should go back to principle where security you know goes into reducing security competition, uh diplomacy. | |
| Everyone seems determined that the security uh security derives from simply defeating the other side, which isn't a good plan when you're fighting the world's largest nuclear power. | |
| Are are the European countries paying American arms manufacturers for the type of weaponry that the United States under President Biden was just giving to Ukraine? | |
| And if they are, well, if they aren't, that's the end of the inquiry. | |
| If they are, are the arms coming at the same rate as they were when the US was just supplying them from our surplus? | |
| Well, I haven't seen the the lists of the weapons uh supplied or what uh how they've been paid for. | |
| But uh NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte made a comment, I think was yesterday that America had opened the floodgates again for uh for weapons pouring into Ukraine. | |
| Well what does he mean by that? | |
| Does he mean that Trump is now doing what Biden did, or that Trump has authorized all the sales that the buyers can afford? | |
| Yeah, it seems to be the sales. | |
| Uh, but again, uh the the Europeans tend to well speak very loud, but uh in reality, I don't think it's it can do much now because the US needs uh weapons for other things. | |
| They already depleted a lot of their surpluses, they're now uh possibly preparing for another war with Iran. | |
| They uh so they don't have that much more to sell, and the European economies are doing very poorly, so they don't they can't really buy these weapons, and there's not that many more Ukrainians to use the weapons because uh of the attrition warfare. | |
| There's been so many horrific losses, which appears to be intensifying. | |
| So I I don't think it really matters much. | |
| I think Trump at this moment is his main focus is simply unloading the war on the on the Europeans so he can tell his own audience or his own public, I'm just selling the weapons, you know, we get to weaken Russia and uh help Ukraine, but at the end of the day, it's not my war. | |
| This is what is gonna go with the Europeans are growing very concerned though, exactly because they know they can't fill the shoes of America, they can't simply buy all the American weapons and continue this. | |
| So the main concern for Europe now is that uh uh America's uh dumping the war on them, and um And yeah, that the war is uh being lost. | |
| How did you uh interpret President Trump's uh statement that uh Russia is a paper tiger? | |
| Was was this just dumb and ill informed, or was this part of a strategy, perhaps to go to Russia into accelerating the war to get it over with sooner? | |
| Um I'm still on the fence about Trump. | |
| It's hard to position because uh you and 99% of the American public. | |
| Well, I kind of tend to operate with two different theses. | |
| One is that he's uh kind of been um yeah, learned learning into the um to the war hawks that is uh he's not that much more different. | |
| He simply wants the Europeans to carry a heavier load. | |
| But uh, you know, this is more or less a new division of labor that the Europeans focus on uh killing Russians and America can focus other places. | |
| So again, they're still continuing the war, but under America first. | |
| Uh my second uh hypothesis, which I uh often tend to lean to, but not always, is that uh he has to manage a very hostile uh political class at home. | |
| That is uh what he's doing in terms of trying to end the war and uh improve bilateral relations with Russia is not necessarily very popular among what uh the political class in Washington. | |
| So uh so you know, so he finds these things he can do. | |
| He can call Russia paper tiger, you know, you can conquer all of Ukraine and get all the territory back, and why not take some Russia at the same time? | |
| They're taking you know huge losses and uh their economies weak, their peep paper tiger, all of this stuff. | |
| I mean, um all the hawks will applaud, but then at the end of the day, they end up asking, well, uh where's the crushing sanctions? | |
| And he says, Well, the Europeans have to do it first, you know, shoot down the Russian planes, but you know, uh, that's a Europe's responsibility. | |
| We don't want to get involved. | |
| So it could just be empty words. | |
| So we talk a bit big game, and then he doesn't really have to follow it up with policy. | |
| And uh I'm hoping this is what he's doing, otherwise, we're looking at World War Three. | |
| Uh last question, you um will be in the audience tomorrow when President Putin speaks. | |
| What do you expect to hear from him? | |
| Well, uh a key theme here at the conference has been uh multipolarity, that is uh the optimism uh because I was here last year as well, after Trump had been elected, and that was a big thing because they were optimistic. | |
| A lot of the optimism that uh they would find a partner in Trump, someone who could help them end the war, is uh almost gone. | |
| They don't feel that Trump actually did anything. | |
| Um I asked I I spoke to uh Sergey Lavrov yesterday as well. | |
| I asked him as well why why are you negotiating why why are um uh uh are is well, why is uh Trump and simply trying to push the Russians and Ukrainians together? | |
| Surely if the foundation of a peace agreement is to stop NATO expansion, you don't really need Ukraine for this. | |
| Indeed, uh making Russia pressure the Ukrainians into this uh a near impossible thing to do is almost cruel. | |
| Surely this could be done with a bilateral agreement, but again, they they don't want to talk uh don't want to tell what they're talking about behind closed doors with the Americans, so you kind of you know but I think do let us know if President Putin says anything that uh doesn't make its way uh to the Western press. | |
| Safe travels, thank you for joining us. | |
| I know it's the middle of the night where you are. | |
| Thank you so much for accommodating my schedule. | |
| All the best, Professor Dees, and we'll look forward to seeing you next week. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Thank you. | |
| And uh coming up uh for the remainder of the day at two o'clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson at three o'clock, Phil Giraldi at four o'clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Johnson Apolitano for judging freedom, |
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