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Sept. 30, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:18
[SPECIAL] - ASK THE JUDGE - JudgeNap takes viewer questions from the chat.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom.
Today is Tuesday, September 30th, 2025.
We haven't done this in a while, but producer Chris and I thought we would do and ask the judge today.
I'm going to talk for a couple of minutes about my dismay and disenchantment with the federal government and the direction in which President Trump has been taking it, particularly with respect to domestically.
I say domestically because judging freedom has been concentrating on foreign affairs.
And those of us who, those of you who are regular, loyal, faithful viewers understand exactly where I stand and where our guests stand on foreign matters.
The war uh in Gaza is a Holocaust, it is a genocide, it is many, many, many war crimes, and the United States has paid for it and can stop it with a phone call.
I've made that argument.
Scott Ritter has made that argument.
Colonel McGregor, Professor Meersheimer, Professor Sachs, Max Blumenthal have all made those arguments.
We make a similar argument that you have heard with respect to uh Ukraine.
Trump may be right.
There might never have been a Ukraine war had he been uh elected president in 2020, but there is one, and he's doing nothing to stop it.
And American armaments, whoever's paying for them are still going to the Ukrainians, and American intelligence agents are still showing the Ukrainians how to aim them at Russians.
At some point, President Putin and his colleagues will be sick and tired of American weapons killing Russian soldiers, and there'll be a terrible reaction to this.
None of what I've just said will surprise you as being my view or the views of those who appear on the show.
But today I want to tell you how utterly dismayed I have become with uh President Trump.
Many of you know that I've known him for 40 years.
I have stated publicly that he interviewed me twice for the Supreme Court of the United States.
This is true.
I've also stated publicly that he called me many, many times during his first term uh in office to discuss personnel and public policy matters.
And obviously, I was happy to take those calls and sometimes I was able to influence him in a constitutional direction.
At one point, when a section of the Patriot Act was up for renewal, I told him he should veto it.
And he said, why?
And I said, well, because the same mindset that supports warrantless wiretapping, which is what this section of the Patriot Act calls for, spied on you before you were president and spied on you while you were president.
He announced he was going to veto it.
Within about 15 minutes of that announcement, a congressman by the name of Mike Gallagher, uh, Senator Mitch McConnell, Speaker Paul Ryan, and Vice President Mike Pence went running to the Oval Office.
There were others there as well.
And said, what are you doing?
What are you doing?
Why are you listening to the judge?
So, well, the judge told me that uh spying on Americans without a warrant is unconstitutional.
Ah, the judge believes the Constitution means what it says.
We need this power.
So he sent a message to me.
Judge, I think you were right, but they twisted my arm.
Yes, the Constitution means what it says.
It means what it says for everyone, not just for me, but especially for those who've taken an oath to preserve, protect, and defend it.
And Trump and I have had many, many uh communications, nearly all of them happy.
Sometimes he wasn't pleased with what I said on air.
But now I must say that I am terribly dismayed uh at what the president is doing uh domestically.
The use of Troops in the streets is out for law enforcement purposes is absolutely prohibited by federal law.
And he has taken an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and interpret the federal law as the and apply the federal law as the courts have interpreted it, not as he may choose to interpret it.
In Los Angeles, the troops were chasing drunk drivers and chasing bank robbers and chasing ship uh shoplifters.
Right.
Nobody likes drunk driving or shoplifters or bank robbers, but that is not the job of soldiers.
They are untrained in arresting, they are untrained in enforcing law, they are untrained in preserving evidence.
Many of the people whom the troops arrested cannot be prosecuted because the troops did not know how to conduct an arrest, how to interrogate uh a witness, how to give Miranda warnings, and how to preserve evidence.
Now we may be seeing the same thing again under the pretext that ICE needs protection.
ICE which beats up old ladies and wrestles them to the ground in courthouses.
Ice which arrests people in plain clothes wearing masks, like the police in eastern Europe did in the old Soviet Union days.
ICE somehow needs troops to protect them, and therefore he's sending them to Oregon, where the governor says ICE doesn't need any additional protection.
The mayor says the same thing.
The chief of police says the same thing.
The head of the police union says the same thing.
President says, Well, I saw riots on television.
Guess what?
He was watching riots from another city in another state, according to the chief of police.
It was nowhere in Portland.
Today he said he's sending 100 troops to Chicago to protect IC.
There is no indication of a need to protect ICE.
There are no riots in Chicago.
There are people peacefully assembling to protest to protect ICE.
I would protect ICE too if I weren't here.
I would protest ICE too if I weren't here doing my work during uh the day.
ICE is a bunch of jackbooted thugs who are not necessarily arresting criminals.
They're arresting people who are law-abiding and who have overstayed their visas.
That's not the way to resolve this by grabbing them in the streets with a mask on.
Nevertheless, Chicago will be the next place where all of this is going to happen.
Here is the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzer, just a few moments ago, reacting, in my view properly to a notice he got from the feds.
Moments ago, the Illinois National Guard received word that the Department of Homeland Security has sent a memo to the Department of War seeking the deployment of 100 military troops to Illinois, claiming a need for the protection of ICE personnel and facilities.
What I have been warning of is now being realized.
One thing is clear, none of what Trump is doing is making Illinois safer.
In broad view, people nonviolently holding signs and chanting against brutality, expressing their First Amendment rights, have been regularly attacked with chemical agents like tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and flashbangs.
Agents reportedly unholstered their guns and pointed them at protesters.
In their own words, ICE intended to unleash, quote, a shitshow in the broad view community.
Sounds like my friend Gerald Salenti, who agrees with what the governor was saying and uses that terminology.
The governor's argument is a very good one.
When you give up liberty to obtain safety, you end up with neither.
And adding more troops to the streets is not going to make us safer.
It's just going to add violence.
Here's the young man who is the attorney general of Oregon making a similar comment.
The troops are not yet there, but he knows they're on their way.
Chris, listen, you have a president that has started to attack our independent judiciary.
He's attacked free press, and now you've seen the normalization of the United States military in American cities.
We are not a third world country.
We are America.
It's happened in California, D.C. He's doing it in Memphis.
He's talking about in Illinois.
And we received formal orders at 9 32 yesterday morning on Sunday.
And it was my instruction at the Oregon Department of Justice that I wanted to be in court within 12 hours of a formal order.
And we have amazing people that work at the Oregon Department of Justice, and we did it in less than six hours.
And so that's why it's so darn important.
We have to draw a line in the sand.
This is America.
We have the police, the Portland Police Department, amazing police department is doing a wonderful job in keeping community safe.
We have the Oregon State Police, who have the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, and we have an incredible district attorney in Multnomah County doing the work to keep the public safe.
You don't need the U.S. military walking our streets in our any country in any city.
That's not America.
Well, you know, federal law, he's right.
Federal law prohibits the U.S. military uh walking the streets for law enforcement purposes.
When the president says these places are dangerous, and I have to send the troops in, he is not limiting their use to protecting federal assets, which is the only lawful activity they may engage in.
He wants them to engage in law enforcement activity.
Look, in in Los Angeles, there were uh LAPD who welcomed the troops.
It was like having more cops on the street.
I get it.
But we are not a country where the troops walk the streets, particularly troops that are untrained uh in law enforcement.
As upsetting as sending troops into the streets uh is, and I'm gonna go to your questions in just a minute.
Uh this morning, uh the president uh gave uh a stem winder to the 800 generals and admirals who were assembled before him uh at Quanaco um marine base in uh in Virginia.
Uh and he went off uh script as he often does, but one of the things he said off uh script has upset me terribly, and it should upset you.
He basically said to the generals, your troops should practice their military defense on Americans in American streets.
Didn't make it up.
Here it is.
San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles.
They're very unsafe places.
And we're gonna straighten them out one by one.
And this is gonna 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 military National Guard, but military.
American streets as training ground for the military.
Even Lincoln didn't say that during the Civil War.
All right, I'm going to go to uh questions.
Producer Chris is picking them out.
Many of you have sent in many, many questions, but since this is an ask the judge segment, I'll go to it.
So from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Well, welcome, Brazil, and thank you very much for watching us so far away from where I am at the moment.
Do you think Trump will attack and or invade Venezuela?
If he if yes, do you believe it will be another Afghanistan love your show?
Uh we have assembled uh 2,000 Marines and four warships within striking distance of Venezuela.
The Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, has stated many times he thinks we should bring about regime change in Venezuela.
The Justice Department has indicted the president of Venezuela, even though he's never been in the United States.
Whatever he does in Venezuela, they've characterized it as a crime against American federal law.
So the short answer to your question is yes.
I do believe we will invade Venezuela.
I believe that uh General Kellogg, Secretary Rubio, Secretary Heggseth, and Sebastian Gorka will continue to whisper into the president's ear.
Let's do it, let's do it, let's do it.
And they'll try and put a puppet in.
It'll either become another Afghanistan or another Vietnam.
And I hope this doesn't happen, but American boys will be coming home in body bags.
And I don't think the American public will tolerate tolerate that.
Thank you for the question, Brazil.
Next question.
I would like to know how you feel about the Iranian people and their elected government after meeting with our president.
Thank you, and God bless you for all of your service.
I was very impressed with the uh Iranian president.
He's a physician, he's a cardiologist.
He's not a uh he's not a politician.
Uh he understands that uh the Iranian people are great people.
The Iranian people do not hate the Israelis.
The Jewish people don't hate the Iranians.
The government of Israel does, because Netanyahu wants to reduce Iran to another Syria, a dysfunctional country that he uh can dominate.
I believe that the Iranian president understands this.
I believe that the Iranian government has the wherewithal to resist and to defeat Israel should it attack, and I do believe that that attack is coming.
Boots on the ground in Venezuela, Judge.
Well, the president will probably try to attack using the Navy, which would not literally mean boots on the ground.
But because the military will be doing the attacking, they of course are fair game from the Venezuelan military.
But Venezuela is huge and much of it is jungle, and American boots on the ground would be suicide for those troops.
I would condemn that.
The president shouldn't be using the military without a declaration of war from the Congress.
And the last time the Congress did that was December 8th, 19 uh 41.
Chris, I don't know uh if you're sending me any more questions.
Those are the only ones uh that I have uh gotten.
So if you have other questions, write them in.
Chris will take a look at them and get them to me.
Please tell what you thought of Heg Seth's speech to American generals.
What was his purpose and why?
Also, Trump not knowing about it that they were to be U.S. generals.
I'm not sure if Trump understood who was there, but theoretically, every one to four-star general and admiral and their chief non-commissioned officers.
So typically the master sergeant of the army uh would be there.
That's why they're uh for each general.
That's why there were uh 800 uh people there.
You know, I'm a little conflicted on Pete because I know him and like him as a person.
I believe he's about as qualified to be Secretary of Defense as I am to run the New York City ballet, which is to say, not at all.
But he's there, and I don't want him to fail.
Um, I think the speech was insulting uh to generals and those generals who are courageous enough to speak to the press or leak to the press, because if they speak to the press and are identified, they know they'll be fired or demoted.
Uh, we're very uh unhappy with it.
The whole concept of this mass uh meeting uh was not a pleasant one.
Cost millions of dollars for them all to be there.
As for what Trump said, uh it was uh reprehensible, uh, the clip uh that we just played.
Judge, do you think the UN should be disbanded and a new organization founded based on real international cooperation and not dominated by the U.S. for the purpose of peace?
Short answer is yes, if the UN can't be reformed.
But with the U.S. domination and with the U.S. veto, the UN uh is toothless.
There should be a UN force In Gaza to repel the uh the Israeli troops, but with the U.S. veto, it's not possible uh to do it.
Chris, I'm ready on the next question uh if you want to pop it up.
And thank you for those who are uh writing the questions.
Many, many of you have written in, but we're um we're we're picking select ones.
Judge, why do you think Trump values Pakistan lives so little?
He mentions the 48 Israelis who are soldiers, yet, excuse me, Palestinian lives so little, yet Palestinian women and children are abducted and held in door torture chambers.
Look, the American taxpayer has paid for every bullet that's gone into the brain of every Palestinian baby that was murdered by the IDF.
Why does Trump do this?
Because he's under the control of the Zionist lobby here in the United States of America.
Uh, we've played the clip many times uh of my friend and former Fox colleague, uh Tucker Carlson interviewing.
Well, he doesn't interview them in the clip, but he recounts the interviews, having interviewed uh people in Israel who have spoken directly with Benjamin Netanyahu, who boasts about his control of Trump.
He does boast and he does control Trump.
Trump is uh basically not the bravado character that he uh portrays, uh, but is absolutely controlled by the Israeli lobby in the United States, and that's why you'll never hear him say anything even empathetic about the slaughter uh of the Palestinian people.
So I don't know if he doesn't value their lives or if he's afraid to upset the uh Zionists who control him.
Judge, how do we regain control of our subverted elected politicians through powerful lobbies outside interests over our country?
Thank you very much for the response.
I don't have an answer to that.
I have argued as recently as Celenti's rally on uh Saturday, and I will do so again uh this Saturday in Dallas, that um we don't have a two-party system, we have a one-party system.
It has a Democrat wing and a Republican wing.
But both parties favor war, presidential killing, debt, seizure of property, distribution uh of property.
None of them, neither of them favors small government.
We probably need a third party that believes the constitution uh means what it says.
The uh uniparty with its Republican wing and Democrat wing have made it very difficult for a third party to survive.
Look at Bobby Kennedy with uh the most recognizable political name in my modern American era, and he couldn't get to first base starting a third party.
There is a substantial movement for it.
I don't think it's going to happen overnight.
I don't think it's going to happen by the 2028 election.
But as Republicans and Democrats become more and more alike, as they both favor the same thing.
And as none of these things leads to peace or freedom, uh, we'll see the cries for a third party uh beginning to grow to grow.
I'm gonna take one more and then rest my voice because we have Aaron Mate coming on in about 20 minutes at two o'clock.
Judge, do you think the U.S. is becoming a police state and our rights are in jeopardy?
Well, thank you for that question, whichever of you sent it in.
I think we are a police state.
Uh here's the the two classic definitions of a police state.
When the public policy favors governmental order over personal freedom, and when the laws are interpreted to make police behavior Trump, lowercase T, personal freedom.
We have that in the United States of America today.
No question uh about it.
Uh, when these ice characters with masks, masks on their face can arrest people without warrants, when they can arrest a judge because she let somebody out of the back uh of her courtroom because they were trying to arrest the guy uh without uh a warrant, when people are afraid to speak fairly for fear that the government will come after them.
We have a police state.
It used to be that the federal judiciary, life tenured and unelected, would be a bulwark against the police state.
And many, many federal and state judges, as I was, are a bulwark against the police state.
But the current Supreme Court, with its three uh Trump appointed justices on there, thus far has been letting him get away with trashing the Constitution and ginning up the police state.
We'll see how this ends.
This has been a lot of fun, and I'll do it again.
And next time I'll take more questions.
Thank you for uh watching us.
For those of you watching us live in 15 minutes at 2 o'clock Eastern, Aaron Mate at 3 o'clock Eastern, Colonel Karen Kwakowski, on everything that we've just been talking about.
Thank you for watching.
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