Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer critiques Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's success in ending "woke" culture while debating Geneva Convention withdrawal and military domestic deployment. He argues U.S. intelligence targeting Russian sites codifies support for a civil war over Donbass resources, blames neoconservatives for hindering the President, and asserts that CIA killings of citizens like Anwar Al Awlaki violate the Constitution due to regulatory capture by congressional committees. Ultimately, Shaffer warns against unchecked military power, echoing Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address on the military-industrial complex dangers. [Automatically generated summary]
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Conflict Over Limited Rules00:14:51
Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, October 2nd, 2025.
My dear friend, Colonel Tony Schaefer, joins us now.
Colonel, thank you very much for making the time available.
Thank you.
I want to spend some time talking to you about the use of American intel in Ukraine to target sites deep inside of Russia.
But before we get there, I must ask you about the events of this week at Quantico.
From your Without revealing sources, you have a lot of friends who are active duty and retired military.
Is there a consensus on Secretary of Defense Heg Seth's performance from among the military, retired and active duty?
The people I deal with are very happy.
I know there's some unhappiness, and I'll talk about that in a second, but let me just talk about those who are happy.
I like the speech.
Pete's a friend of both of us.
So I'm saying this with just people understand that we're friends, but I thought it was superb.
He outlined why he was making the changes, what the intention of the changes are regarding in state.
And he gave people the doors like, hey, if you're not digging what we're doing, you can leave.
And that, I think, is a very gracious way to honor someone's service.
The ending of woke is hugely important.
I talk to service members who consider themselves completely apolitical.
They just want to come to work for the military, for the Pentagon, in whatever specialty, from the Navy to the Air Force to the Army, the Marines.
They don't want to be political, Judge.
They want to do their job.
And that's what Pete said they're going to be able to do.
Long before you and I met, I worked for Jim Woolsey when he was director of CIA.
I was an Army guy, but we were working together on a project.
And that project, Basically, reveal that the North Koreans had nuclear weapons long before the US government admitted it.
My job was to collect the intelligence and get it to the decision makers, not fight the policy.
So, many people, and I'm a Republican, so I was just saying, you know, my job was not to judge it, my job was to do the work.
And so, most military members want to get back to that.
The military had become essentially a daycare for adults.
And I'm not joking about that.
It was always about what can the military do for me?
Not what can I do to support the country?
And that's going to stop.
It has stopped.
And that part is causing a lot of dissent.
There were some people in the Navy, for example, attempting to the very last moment to do transgender surgeries, believe it or not, at Fort Belvoir.
There was one incident where a Navy 06 had to call a Navy 05 commander and order them to stop a surgery about to happen at Fort Belvoir when the policy changed.
There's going to be about 10% who don't want to get the message, another 10% who are going to fight it and not get out.
But most people, I think, understand it.
Recruiting is at an all time high, and I think we'll see the military move forward, much like the Reagan Revolution saw the military change from 81 to 83.
Should we withdraw from the Geneva Conventions as he wants?
So, which we wrote and which are the last standard of civility among nations since the rule of law doesn't exist?
The problem is, I have no strong position on it either way.
My issue is we often use the Geneva Convention to judge and use that as a measure of our actions.
Our enemies do not.
There's not a single group we've engaged over the past 30 years, judge, which uses the Geneva Convention as a bellwether of what they should do.
So I'm not saying we should take off the gloves and be like them.
I'm saying that holding ourselves to a standard that's not realistic may not be the best thing.
Watch this clip, Tony.
Well, I listen, I know Pete as well as you do and worked with him for 10 years.
Yeah, I thought it was a preening, arrogant, condescending, inappropriate way.
I can't imagine Curtis LeMay or Douglas MacArthur or George Patton sitting there and listening to that.
But anyway, it's a different world today.
Chris, cut number eight.
Every day we have to be prepared for war, not for defense.
We're training warriors, not defenders.
We fight wars to win, not to defend.
Defense is something you do all the time, it's inherently reactionary and can lead to overuse.
Overreach and mission creep.
War is something you do sparingly, on our own terms, and with clear aims.
We fight to win.
We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy.
We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement.
We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country.
No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.
Just common sense, maximum lethality, and authority for warfighters.
That's all I ever wanted as a platoon leader.
A platoon leader addressing four stars, as Yogi Berra would have said, only in America.
Well, look, I know someone else who went through this.
You do too, John Lehman.
John Lehman, when he was Secretary of the Navy, he was still a lieutenant commander in the reserves, he was promoted to commander in the reserves.
And he was still flying reserve missions.
I mean, the Secretary of the Navy would land on an aircraft carrier as a lieutenant commander.
It didn't play well, and people had the same issues.
But Tony, Tony, Johnny is a friend of both of ours.
He has forgotten more than Hegsef knows.
I'm just saying that I know from talking to our friend John that he went through similar criticism for being the youngest, I think, the youngest Secretary of the Navy ever.
And with this said, I understand where Pete's coming from.
I suffered.
Through very restrictive rules of engagement.
For the most part, most of my missions, which I can't talk about still, we did not have rules of engagement that saddled us because we were specifically tasked to do certain things.
Tony, the intelligence community has no rules of engagement.
We know that.
Talk to Ray McGovern.
We have limited rules of engagement.
There are certain things I don't think we could get away with, but it didn't mean we wouldn't try.
But anyway, I agree with Pete on this, Judge.
I've seen.
The effects of overly restrictive rules of engagement.
Again, I'm not, and look, as you know, I document in Darkheart.
I am surprised to hear you say this, but it's a refreshing observation that we haven't heard all week.
Well, look, I, in my book Darkheart, document an abuse of authority where McChrystal orders a strike on a madrasa that turns out to have women and children in it.
I'm against.
The overwhelming and unmitigated use of force.
That was a stupid move.
I still can't believe to this day they've not investigated it.
I know the media's kind of put their head, I've talked to a few folks about it.
But yeah, it's like I think we use force way too willingly without regard to outcome.
I'm just saying, I agree.
With that said, whenever I've seen circumstances where troops are in combat trying to kill the enemy and they are not permitted to do those things necessary to defend themselves.
So I do believe it's good that they're.
One more question to you about the president appearing like George Patton in front of that enormous flag.
What do you think of this, Chris?
Chris, number seven.
There is no place for.
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.
Should we be using America's streets as training grounds for the military under the Constitution?
Posse Comitatus?
Common sense, rules of war, common morality?
Judge, we already are.
I had to say this the other day on the network.
Portsmouth Naval Hospital is located in the most violent part of Portsmouth, Virginia.
It's a war zone.
They actually have a trauma center set up there because they get to treat wounds just like the coming off the battlefield.
There's a number of cities like this.
And we can debate all day should any military unit be sent into those locations?
And I think from looking at Washington, yeah, as long as it's within, there's no violation to posse comitatus.
We've been using the military over and over for significant capability to support law enforcement for decades.
And then also, I mentioned this last week on the channel.
I wrote a book called The Last Line.
It actually covers what's going on, basically, the refocusing on the Southwest border.
Many of the problems we face to include the open border under the Biden administration.
Allowed for all sorts of cartels, criminal enterprises to get inside the United States and function.
I think it's time we end that.
I don't think the military should be permanently part of this solution, but for now, because of the overwhelming losses of security and law, of basically the basic enforcement of law in these big cities, yeah, I think the military should be looked at as an option to come in.
The National Guard series of statutes, 34 or 32.
All right, before I jump to Ukraine and what the Wall Street Journal is reporting, which is right up your bailiwick about the use of military and civilian intel in Ukraine, should we withdraw from the Geneva Conventions?
Can you give a yes or no there?
Because it's ratified by the Americans, it was ratified by the Senate, it's accepted by every civilized country on the planet.
I can't give you an answer at this point because I haven't studied it enough to understand what the benefits versus the bad thing would be.
You took an oath to uphold it, Tony.
Yeah, but if someone changes it, it doesn't mean that I have to go along or not go along with that.
It would have to be a congressional decision if we decide to do something about the Geneva Convention and our following.
It is codified in U.S. statute that we have to follow it.
So that would mean then, Judge, our favorite branch of government, the invertebrate branch, as Bruce Fine calls it, Congress would have to get involved.
And you and I both know they're not going to do anything to change it.
Good enough.
And I agree with your comments and Bruce's on the weakest branch of the federal government.
It's not going to change, Judge.
Yeah, they're never going to change it.
Just saying.
They're not going to change it.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that a few hours before President Trump made his comments calling Russia a paper tiger, and I want your thoughts on why he said that, he signed a directive for U.S. intel, military and civilian, to continue helping Ukrainians find targets deep inside of Russia.
Why would the Nobel Prize candidate do that?
Well, two things.
First, this is codifying what has already been going on.
It's just, I think, if nothing else, he's being honest about the fact.
Judge, you and I both know the modern military systems that we've been giving Ukraine cannot function without our oversight, maintenance, and intelligence.
And so we've talked about this on the show, and I'm frustrated by the fact that we still pretend that we're not in the war.
We kind of are.
And this is where there's a conflict.
Keith Kellogg, Is supposed to be a negotiator, and yet he's getting awards from the Ukrainian government for loyalty to Ukraine.
Just saying, not really a good look.
And so, yeah, President Trump is not really in a position to negotiate the end of the war if he's openly admitting, yeah, we're giving him intelligence, and we always have.
So, this is where I think there's a potential for the president to go to Putin and say, look, we are going to continue to basically do things to upset you.
Until you come to the table in a realistic way, I think that may be why he's trying to do it.
But it's very clear that there's no way the Ukrainians would still be in the war right now if it wasn't for us and our weapons to include the intelligence that we've been given.
All right.
So they have American weapons.
They have American officers in Wiesbaden, Germany, directing them.
They have American intel, military and civilian, on the ground.
I don't know if military is on the ground, but clearly the CIA is there.
Finding targets deep inside of Russia.
Is the United States itself at war with Russia, Colonel Schaefer?
Well, again, it depends on one's definition of war.
I mean, to me, the Biden administration got us directly involved in a conflict that's, to me, a civil war.
It's a civil war between Ukraine and Russia relating to issues that go back generations.
Dangers of Blind Obedience00:07:07
Ultimately, it's about resources.
Uh, there were major gas and oil reserves found in the Donbass and the Black Sea that Russia does not want the Ukrainians to have.
That's what this is really all about.
They're just using the other stuff as excuses to go in.
And so, it's time that both sides just sit down and admit what is true that the United States with NATO, by the way, you know, NATO is now buying things from us.
Well, we're kind of NATO, it's kind of like, okay, NATO's buying stuff, we're not involved.
It's just kind of a Kabuki dance that I don't think is very helpful.
And again, I think it's the neocons in the administration, it's the Senator Grahams and others who I think are very unhelpful with the president on this topic.
Chris, let's run the clip of General Milley in a second.
I should have run this a few minutes ago when we were talking about troops in the streets and when we were talking about the Geneva Conventions, but the topic is still relevant.
General Milley on the significance of the oath that you and I have both taken, and everybody in the military has as well.
You see, we in uniform are unique.
We are unique among the world's armies.
We are unique among the world's militaries.
We don't take an oath to a country.
We don't take an oath to a tribe.
We don't take an oath to a religion.
We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or a tyrant or a dictator.
And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator.
We don't take an oath to an individual.
We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we're willing to die to protect it.
Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, guardian, and Coast Guardsman, each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price.
And we are not easily intimidated.
Agreed.
He violated that on a regular basis.
I know, Mark Milley.
Yeah, I agree with the sentiment.
But in application regarding Mark, he violated it.
Judge, you don't get to pick and choose.
I tried to use this as an example earlier.
When I was running an operation in the early 90s, 92 to 95, it was under the Clinton White House and under a Democrat oversight chain of command.
I did not agree with virtually anything they were doing.
I could see that there were going to be ramifications in the future that result in catastrophic failure.
Relating to nuclear weapons.
And it happened.
The North Koreans got nuclear weapons.
They've been dealing them ever since.
Yet instead of accepting that in the 90s, we pretended we didn't know and acted differently.
Now, I did not violate my chain of command by doing things against the chain of command like Mark Milley did.
So I feel very strongly about this.
Yeah, I took an oath.
I did things during the time I was in uniform, acting as an intelligence officer, serving under the Constitution.
To follow a chain of command I did not fundamentally agree with.
I worked for a number of chain of commands I did not fundamentally agree with.
Heck, as you probably remember, I got called back to do an off the books operation to help get Bullberg Dahl back for Obama.
So I'm just saying, I don't want to hear from Mark Milley lecturing me about what my oath of office means when I actually do support chains of command that I don't agree with.
Okay.
Does the CIA kill people?
Oh, yeah.
They do.
It's kind of a fundamentally basic question.
Absolutely, they do.
And I think it's something that Congress has not fully internalized regarding the fact that that happens.
I think on a more general level.
Is there some principle of law or statute or something in the Constitution with which I'm unaware that allows them to do this legally?
So this has been more apparent.
And again, this is a policy I don't agree with either.
And it was done against a U.S. citizen.
Our friend Catherine Herridge was reporting on a guy named Anwar Al Awlaki.
He and his son were both killed by drone in Yemen.
I think that was a huge violation because nowhere in the Constitution does it say, yeah, you can kill American citizens if they're overseas.
And that's what happened.
So, no, I am completely against and aghast that this has been something that's been routinely permitted.
Judge, we've talked both on and off the air about my Able Danger experience.
The Intelligence Oversight Committees in Congress are not there to do oversight, they're there to be cheerleaders for the intelligence community.
And members of Congress who are on those committees, Are cheerleaders.
They're not there for oversight.
Chuck Schumer said it you don't want to go against the intelligence community.
They'll come after you five ways from Sunday.
So I don't agree with it.
Yeah, this is called regulatory capture when the entity being regulated has captured and controls the regulators.
That's correct.
Look at the Gang of Eight, which shares secrets about what the president is up to.
They're all sworn to secrecy.
So, you have members of Congress who know things that they're not allowed to tell their constituents that they theoretically work for, or even other members of Congress.
You have the Speaker of the House being visited by five intel people, and 15 minutes later, does 180 flip on whether he's in favor of extending warrantless wiretaps.
So, there's no question who controls what.
Well, by the way, on that point, Judge, you may remember Kurt Weldon, Congressman Weldon, Kurt and I have been making the rounds on.
The Able Danger and 9 11 issue, Kurt insisted, and at the time I didn't get it, Kurt Wilton insisted that we do everything at the unclassified level regarding Able Danger to include pushing the Pentagon to declassify stuff.
Now, he got, I'd say, about 90% of it declassified in some form, some of it by him going on the House floor and doing special orders, reading things into the congressional record, which then automatically declassified it.
He had a great deal of courage to do that.
And by the way, Walter Jones would do similar things.
God rest his soul.
But I'm just saying that people like Kurt Weldon and Walter Jones recognize the danger of the executive branch coming in and having you sign something that says you have to keep a secret that is not healthy within the system that we have.
Risks in Military Establishment00:03:33
And I agree with you on this.
This is something that we need to look at changing.
Right.
Colonel Schaefer, always a pleasure, my dear man.
You're stirring the pot.
God bless you.
After you and I say goodbye, we're going to play a two minute clip.
Of one of the greatest speeches in American history.
If you want to hang around, you'll hear it.
You're familiar with it.
I'm sure you've seen it.
It's long before your time and mine, but it's very profound.
And unfortunately, the prediction in there is correct.
But Colonel, thank you very much.
Always a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you, sir.
Sure.
Coming up later today at 11 this morning, Colonel Douglas McGregor at noon from somewhere in China.
We hope he can find internet.
Pepe Escobar at one o'clock, Scott Horton.
At 2 o'clock, Matt Ho.
At 3 o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment.
Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known of any of my predecessors in peacetime.
Or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry.
American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well.
But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense.
We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.
Added to this, three and a half million men and women.
Are directly engaged in the defense establishment.
We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.
Now, this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.
The total influence, economic, political, even spiritual, is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications.
Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved.
So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex.
The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists.
And will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
We should take nothing for granted.
Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.