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Sept. 30, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
26:25
LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : Trump Spoils Hegseth’s Party
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom.
Today is Tuesday, September 30th, 2025.
Colonel Karen Kwardkowski joins us now.
Colonel Karen, thank you very much.
I don't know if you watched uh Secretary uh Heg Seth's speech to 800 admirals and generals, but how do admirals and generals feel about lecturing by a guy who's 20 years younger than they are and who was a reservist?
Yeah.
Yeah, this is a big problem.
I mean, I think actually that uh if Heggs, if he knew what he was talking about, if he had a particular proven expertise and he had something of importance to share with them, I think that they wouldn't be they wouldn't be prejudiced against youth.
They I don't think they're prejudiced against the younger, less experienced person, but I think they are prejudiced against incompetence, which strangely is what you know Hed Seth is trying to do.
He's trying to say we don't want to have incompetence in the military.
Well, he may not be the right guy to deliver that message.
You know, he um he purports to have a vision uh of the military, which when he lectures about it just doesn't come off uh credibly.
He it's not his fault that he has a trillion dollar budget, but he certainly didn't go in there saying, hey, I can do the job, but half of this, as Trump once promised during the campaign to accolades from people like you and me and your uh colleagues who are former uh military.
He he seems to be the the MAGA guy in the Pentagon, and therefore that reason.
My misreading this.
No, I mean I think it's exactly why he's there.
He's he's the guy that Trump can control that that is impressed by Trump.
Uh it's obedient to Trump.
Uh you know, he in fact, what other job could Pete Hedges get?
I mean, what could he get really?
What could he do?
Um he is there because he's Trump's guy.
And um, you know, I I actually didn't watch all of Hed Seth's address.
I saw bits and pieces of it, and it was um pretty disturbing.
And then I but I did watch the president's uh follow-on, and I was even more disturbed by that.
Well, we'll play you a clip of what the president said, which to me was the most disturbing.
We'll deviate from Heg Seth for a minute because you raised this.
Yeah.
Truly the most disturbing thing uh he said.
My column this week, I just finished writing it and getting it back from my editor.
It comes out uh midnight Wednesday night, uh, is called Who Will Protect Us from the Protectors, and it analyzes constitutionally Trump's devious behavior with respect to uh sending troops into the streets.
And I don't know if you're aware of this uh memorandum he signed purporting to federalize local police and put them under the domain of uh of federal troops.
It's profoundly uh unconstitutional, but it's very, very dangerous.
As I was finishing writing this, Chris, this is the cut that we uh played a few moments ago.
Trump said this.
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 our military, National Guard, but military.
So the military should use uh American streets with American citizens as a training ground for what?
Killing the enemy?
Yeah.
Yeah, sure.
You know, it occurs to me as I watch him say that again, and and it is unconstitutional.
I mean, there's no court that would uphold that, but the problem is he acts, and then we have to wait for the courts to come through.
Um, so that but it's unconstitutional.
But you know, it it it occurs to me that I think Bibi Netanyahu has visited uh Trump uh probably three too many times this year.
Um, because that is the way uh Israel runs.
You know, that's how they operate, and that's how they view national security.
You know, they have people inside the country who are enemies, and they have a uh unitary military defense, there's no National Guard, it's all in one uh one combined military that does internal and external activities.
Uh Trump is not well prepared for any of this.
And uh he doesn't he doesn't have a background, he doesn't understand.
Well, he's never we know he hasn't read the constitution, but he also hasn't served in the military and hasn't, he has no background of awareness in how militaries operate, how our military operates or how anyone's military operates.
And his best friends Bibi Netanyahu.
And he listens to BB Netanyahu.
Uh this is very concerning.
This is it's uh it's more, you know, I I what I expected from this uh gathering of generals, and I wrote I wrote something about it, uh, what I hoped that head Seth would say.
But what I truly expected was that it would be a big nothing.
It would be a nothing burger, nothing would uh come of it.
It was boring, and and head Seth, I think delivered on that.
He didn't have much to say.
But Trump actually, he actually moved the ball uh way far close to an own goal.
I mean, that that was an own goal, frankly.
Everything Trump said was uh hurting us, uh violating our standards.
I'm sure that those generals and admirals that were sitting there.
Well, I don't agree with most of them, and I I really consider them to be a parasitical class on this country, but even them I think were shocked at at the kind of uh uh lack of knowledge that Trump exhibited.
And he spoke forever.
He he didn't he just talked and talked about it.
He was like uh it was like one of Castro's uh talks.
The comments he made um at the end of his speech, which we just ran.
I don't know if it was in the uh scripted part, uh, are consistent with this special memorandum that he signed, which my column is about, which got very little publicity, which if you read it is chilling, chilling.
He's directed the feds to disrupt groups that are anti-Christian uh anti-uh American.
How do you define what's anti-American?
This this is a disruption based on speech.
Um we do have a clip from uh Heggseth, which we'll play play now.
There's uh internet acronym at the end, which I can't translate literally because if you translate it literally, it has a four-letter word in it that we don't use here.
Uh but uh here he is.
Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision, and ferocity of the war department.
In other words, to our enemies.
F A F O. If necessary, our troops can translate that for you.
So F around and find out.
That's what the uh military phrase is.
He also wants 65-year-old generals to pass a PT test uh twice a year, and then like Trump boasting if I'm the president, I can fire whoever I want.
He boasts he's the secretary of war and can make you uh do it.
These are bad times, uh Karen.
Look, the military uh is bloated, it doesn't need a trillion dollars, although Trump uh championed and and made that uh happen.
They haven't won a war uh in 80 years.
Uh but a 45-year-old treating these guys who've been in the military their entire career and have risen to the ranks of general and admiral talking to them uh like they're new recruits.
I don't think this, I don't think this works.
No, well, clearly uh they noticed they had pauses where they expected uh applause to happen or punch lines and that kind of thing, and they didn't get that, they didn't get that applause.
Um I I think you know, I'm not gonna defend the the military, but a lot of those guys, based on uh that they're currently active duty, they they came of age in uh the Bush 43 wars, you know, in the Middle East, and we know the lessons of those wars, you know.
You don't lie about your intel, you don't make up stuff, you don't try to nation build.
I think a lot of that stuff has been absorbed by our military.
Now, that doesn't mean any of those generals or any group of those generals can uh can fix the Pentagon because they can't, but I think they are far more aware of the complexities and the challenges facing our military than Head Seth is.
I mean, the naivety of of him to uh many of the things that he said, but it but the last one, the FAFO, that is um almost a casual uh it's it's just so inappropriate, uh unbased in reality, you know, it's it's it's crazy.
And of course, Trump's speech when he talked about all the arms that we're gonna sell to people, um, and how much how far ahead we are technology-wise, um, it's almost as if that is what Trump wants to be true.
But the reality is, and these generals that he was addressing also know the reality of our weapons systems and where our acquisition system has brought us.
Um, and our policy towards Israel has brought us.
I mean, we ran out of patriots.
Why?
Because we gave them to to Israel.
We we are fomenting wars and ruining our own ability to uh maintain the bare essentials.
And the and the generals and admirals know this.
They know this far better.
So um I just thought both Hed Seth and Trump were very unprepared for something that was quite expensive in terms of uh bringing all these people back on short notice.
And you would think you would be coming back for something really important, and and it not only wasn't important, it was it was insane.
Um so I I don't know.
I I don't I think this uh backfires.
It backfires on the Trump administration if that's what they thought they were gonna do.
Who wants to join the military today?
Isn't that Heg Seth's most serious and pressing issue?
Yeah, well, he thinks he thinks many people are joining, but um, I don't know if he's looked at the uh unemployment statistics and the layoff and pink slip pink slip statistics that we have.
Um, you know, military always does well when in recruitment when the economy is bad.
Now, Trump doesn't admit that the economy is bad.
He he uh I don't know where he's getting his information from.
But um people need jobs and military jobs, especially going in at the entry level are great jobs because they will take um just about anybody and train them to be whatever they need.
Uh so I don't even get that he's saying like people want to come into our military now.
Um I don't buy that.
I don't buy that.
I think these guys are so far out of touch.
And what surprised me is I didn't think they were that far out of touch.
And when I watch this, I'm just going, oh my lord.
Colonel, watch uh the very end of his uh speech, where of course he's expecting a standing ovation as he leaves.
Watch what happened.
Move out and draw fire.
Because we are the war department.
Godspeed.
Rude!
Attention!
Attention!
Rude!
Rude!
Thank you.
Yeah, that's crazy.
No, no, um I he, you know, the thing started late too.
They had this guys assembled in there for uh, I think it was 25 minutes late, which I don't have a real problem with, but uh on on X, a lot of the enlisted people or people who had been enlisted in the military years ago, they said the generals always make us wait.
So it's they thought it was cool that the generals had to wait.
But the problem is they were waiting for something that um really if I was sitting in that audience as a career person, and I you know, it was not myself, I was not who I am, but I was a devoted to the uniform and devoted to my career, and I was sitting in that audience.
Um, I would be very concerned about the quality of knowledge and capability of the leadership, and that would be two people that are the military's leadership, the secretary of the def of defense and um the president.
I would be extremely concerned, and well, the president changes his mind, and he changes his focus.
It seems a dozen times a day.
Yep.
He does this has got to drive uh serious military people.
You have some generals there that have tens of thousands of human beings under their command, the crazy general Donahue who said uh we can take Kaliningrad uh in 45 minutes, whatever.
Um he's got a hundred thousand troops that work for him.
Nevertheless, it must drive people like him crazy that the president changes his mind.
Yeah, I'm sure that it does.
And um yeah, you know, these people that currently are wearing three and four stars on their shoulders in our military, uh, they have their own culture.
It's a it's a uh uh boutique war culture, okay.
We haven't had a major challenge, but we've gone in nation built and done wars for Israel, and we've uh fomented war in Ukraine, and you know, we we've done all these things that are not really defensive wars, and of course, our military is not oriented to defend this country, and we know that and they know that.
But these generals have come up through that system, and they rely on they rely more than others, I think, more than previous generations on the quality of thinking and leadership of the president because the president is picking the wars that we participate in.
You know, the president is saying, Oh, go do this, go do that, take this city, you know, in the United States, which is a whole nother story.
But the president is picking targets, and here they meet this guy in this grand meeting, and he rambles on and on, shows no understanding of what it is they do, has no direct instructions for them other than do what I say.
Um, that's that's pretty concerning.
If it was if it was me, if I was one of these guys, I I would think many will put their papers in after this.
And if that was the goal of the meeting, fine.
Um, you know, we've Ritter and um uh Colonel McGregor predicted the same off the record to me, predicted the same thing.
If Ritter had a star on his shoulder, according to Ritter, he would have ripped the star off right there in front of Trump.
I believe it, but no, I mean, I think a lot of these guys um I have contempt for so many of them, so it's hard for me to put myself in their shoes.
But I do believe, based on their view of what it is that they do for this country, that this was a blatant insult, a loss of confidence that they would have.
I mean, it's not just that the president doesn't really have confidence in them, but they have every reason to have lost confidence in President Trump for sure, based on what he said.
I mean, if if he hadn't talked so much about himself and about stupid things and about things that aren't true, that would be one thing.
But he went in there with all of the things that Trump's enemies label him with, you know, and he presented that to them.
So yeah, it's it's time for uh so many of them to retire.
And they can all retire whenever they choose, and they should.
Here's uh Trump asking for and expecting applause.
See if you can hear any.
Fantastic job.
I've never walked into a room so silent before.
This is very don't laugh, don't laugh.
You're not allowed to do that.
You know what?
Just have a good time.
And if you want to applaud, you applaud.
And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything you want.
And if you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room.
Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.
But you just feel nice and loose, okay, because we're all on the same team.
And uh I was told that, sir, you won't hear a you won't hear a murmur in the room.
I said we gotta loosen these guys up a little bit.
So you just have a good time, but I want to thank nobody applauded.
Uh they're not going to applaud.
I don't know, maybe military culture tells you don't applaud uh the chief.
I mean, if this were World War II and that were FDR, they would have been going wild.
Yeah, no, no, the military will applaud generals who applaud they they're people like anybody else, and also um there was no what was missing in this address today was any type of connection between uh Hedgeeth and Trump and the connection that they might have and should have with the with the generals that lead this massive.
I am sure that Heg Seth was miserable that Trump spoiled this party.
Remember, this is supposed to be supposed to be Pete's party, and then at the last minute, the president says, I'm gonna show up.
I won't too well talk too long, Pete, but I'm gonna show up.
Exactly.
No and completely bigfoots him.
Yep.
No, it's true.
And and again, that is the casual kind of approach to uh being in charge of this great massive, expensive military that we have that's deployed in 155 countries, engaged in wars and uh soon to be wars and conflicts around the planet.
You have to have a certain seriousness about that.
And if you don't, it could be a big problem.
Big problem in uh in how uh you know, because we Trump needs these guys to do what he says.
And um, if I was sitting in that audience, and I was in a sense watching it, and and uh all these generals and admirals there, um, they must have been uh I mean the anger that's many of them might have felt.
Uh I I would understand that totally.
If they were angry, if they uh wondered why they were wearing the uniform of this country when this country has so little knowledge, the leadership has so little knowledge of what a military is supposed to be doing.
Um and that is defend.
And honestly, if you ask military guys of any rank, they want to defend the country.
They don't want to go fight imperial wars.
They they never do, none of them do.
They they obey orders, but um, I don't know, it was kind of a clown show.
And I think um uh I don't know if that's what they intended.
I don't know if that's what Trump intended.
I don't think so.
And that's what's scary about it.
Because it's one thing if you said, well, we're gonna punish all these guys, we're gonna make them come here and listen to crazy talk for 25 minutes, and we're gonna punish them.
We're gonna show them who's in charge, make them wait 25 minutes.
Okay, that's one thing.
That is that is something that has an objective, and it may or may not work.
But I got the feeling after watching this that they were just simply unprepared.
They had no idea what they wanted to communicate to these guys.
Um that's that's very concerning.
Americans pay a lot of money, a trillion dollars a year and more for this military, and this is how we manage it.
Um is bad, bad problem.
I wonder if this made its way over to them.
Here's what he said, it's a threat as he was leaving the White House uh getting on uh a helicopter.
This is truly remarkable, Chris.
And if I don't like somebody, I'm gonna fire them right on the spot.
Yeah.
Shane uh shades of the show that uh made him popular nationally, the apprentice.
That's right.
And it seems like uh, you know, they they had the the great patent backdrop, you know, the American flag, and um it was it was all theater and no substance.
Right.
Right.
Very disturbing.
And uh disturbing for you and people like you who made a career in the military who were proud of their work, who still refer to themselves or are referred to publicly uh as their title.
Now you got generals who, if they could would have hidden their faces this morning.
Yeah, yeah, that's um uh yeah, I i it H. L. Mencken, you know, says eventually with you you get the government we deserve with the democracy.
It's gonna be really stupid.
I don't have his quote proper, but um it it's possible we've meet we've we've satisfied that peak stupidity.
We went through Biden with his uh dementia, which was a problem, but that's a physical problem, not necessarily that he was stupid.
But now we have Trump uh version two, and uh he's proving H. L. Minken to be to be correct.
So very scary, very scary.
I'm gonna play one more uh for you because we talked about it earlier.
Um, the unconstitutional use of troops in the streets.
I'm not a fan of Governor Pritzker of Illinois.
I don't I can't even think of any issue on which we agree except for this.
Uh, but he was very uh angry and uh articulate.
Here he is, I believe, earlier today.
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 Broadview, 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 shit show in the Broadview community.
There you go.
A little uh crude at the end, but everybody knows what he's talking about.
Yeah, I think Trump is is has a fantasy that the people love him because you know he had a lot of he won the election, he won the popular vote last time.
He talked about that to the generals, as if that has any relevance at this point.
But he thinks that the people back him, and he doesn't realize that um whenever a group is attacked, we always join together for the underdog or for the one closest to us, our community, right?
So I'm with I I stand with Pritzker on this, you know, and he's right.
Um if this was um if this was uh 1859 or 1860, uh and the president was sending troops into states.
Do you know how serious that is?
I mean, that is that is incredibly concerning.
And I people don't think it in those terms, but uh this country is highly vulnerable to uh civil war, but that word is tossed around, but um it almost sounds like Trump wants that, and he assumes that the people in these various states will side with the federal government.
And I think he's I think he's sadly mistaken um if he thinks that.
And uh it's it's uh yeah, this is some incredibly scary stuff going on.
Yeah, this uh the clip we ran, I was wrong.
It was the governor Pritzker yesterday.
So if anything has happened uh today, I'm uh even though I live and work in a news environment and a newsroom, I'm unaware of it.
Karen, great chatting with you.
We'll look forward to seeing you again.
Keep those great uh pieces coming.
If you haven't seen Colonel Kwadkowski's piece and assembly of generals, half of it is dreadfully serious, and half of it is hilarious, and all of it is worth reading.
Uh you can get it at Judge Knapp.
Thank you, uh, Colonel.
We'll see you again soon.
Okay, thank you, Judge.
Sure.
Coming up tomorrow Wednesday at uh eight in the morning, Professor Gilbert Doctorow at one in the afternoon, Professor Glenn Deason at two in the afternoon.
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson at three in the afternoon.
We missed him last week.
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