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Oct. 17, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
22:23
INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson, McGovern, & Scott Ritter : Weekly Wrap 17-OCT.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom.
Today is Friday, October 17th, 2025.
This is the intelligence community roundtable with Larry Johnson and Scott Ritter live from Moscow, where the three of us are joining others in many festivities this weekend.
Larry, Scotty, even though we're spending much time together and even though we're right near each other in different rooms in this building, thank you very much for joining me.
Our schedules have been crazy.
It's been great to accommodate uh all of this.
We have about three or four topics uh to discuss.
We still need to discuss the Trump Gaza plan.
We need to analyze what's happening in Venezuela.
We need to understand what President Trump and President Putin spoke about, and we need to understand the likely consequences of whatever demand President Trump made and whatever response President Putin made.
So let me start with Trump Gaza.
First, uh to you, Larry, what what assurances are there that the Israelis will comply?
They never comply.
They've already killed seven people and they blocked people and they blocked food from coming in.
Yeah.
No, none.
Uh, you know, the when when Trump signed that deal, I described it as it's like holding a wedding, except the bride and groom weren't there.
And in this case, she didn't have uh either uh the Zionist government of Netanyahu or the uh Palestinians represented at the actual signing server.
So you know the the reality remains Hamas is not going to surrender its weapons.
Uh it's not going to agree to let some outside international force come in and rule over them.
They're not going to surrender their own sovereignty.
And Israel is not giving up on its quest to from the river to the sea to take Judea and Samaria, as they call it, and and and expel the Palestinians.
I, you know, so this is this is a mythological creature.
It's like a unicorn.
Scotty, you agree, I'm gonna guess.
Yeah, I mean, you know, in theory, there's a plan waiting to be discovered.
But um, as Larry said, you know, the the people that gathered together and signed the document were the people who were supposed to guarantee this, who said we're gonna we're gonna make this happen.
But the people that need to make it happen, Hamas and Israel weren't represented, and they're talking cross-purposes.
Um they're not on the same sheet of music.
And the United States and its European allies haven't shown any ability at all to get Israel to you know make compromises necessary.
Um this deal will not happen if Hamas has to 100% disarm.
If Hamas is allowed to retain a police force, there could be a partial disarmament, even one that you could say the majority of their weapons have been removed.
Uh but the idea that Hamas is going to surrender its weapons at a time when Israel is arming equipment and uh aiding um anti-Hamas militia groups among the uh Palestinian community in Gaza to go down and hunt down Hamas is ludicrous.
Hamas will never do that.
And two, Hamas will never give up its right to be politically represented.
Um, the president when he announced that this peace treaty was done, you know, his original 20 points, you know, had Hamas disarming and had Hamas walking away.
But Hamas, when they said we're going to agree to this, they put down two conditions.
And one was, you know, sort of an asterisk on on disarmament, meaning we're willing to do it, but it it's conditional.
Uh and two, uh no, we're going to be part of this government that you're forming.
And Trump went, okay.
And if you remember early on when Hamas was executing collaborators in the street, Trump said, no, this is good.
I approve of this.
This is a police force.
They're there.
I uh but now Trump is back in way, saying that if Hamas continues to kill people and doesn't totally disarm, uh, there will be you know hell to pay.
Um, and Israel is already in violation of the ceasefire agreement shelling uh North Gaza.
I think this this um I think this this agreement is in danger of collapsing before it ever really got off the ground.
Here's uh one of the uh far right members of president uh of uh prime minister Netanyahu's cabinet, uh the infamous uh Belazil Smothrich saying, guess what?
We're gonna install settlements in Gaza.
Chris number seven.
There will be Jewish settlement in Gaza without settlement, there is nothing.
First of all, the territories of the land of Israel are ours, but without settlement, they have no foothold.
So we have patience, but we also have determination and faith.
Yeah.
So say there you have it right there, Larry.
They don't have settlements in Gaza now.
And yet, after this so-called ceasefire, which is a step toward a possible Palestinian state, they think they're gonna further peace by installing settlements?
Yeah.
Well, look, the the only way this uh Gaza peace deal would actually work uh is if Donald Trump would tell Bibi Netanyahu and uh the settlers, no, this is not gonna happen.
If if you dare to do that, we're gonna cut off all eight.
Well, he's not gonna do that.
He made it very clear the other day when he was uh praising Miriam Adelson for the billions of dollars.
You know, she's loyal first and foremost to Israel, not the United States.
And this this is the problem Trump faces.
He his constituency is largely America first, not second.
Instead, Israel first under under Trump.
And it's just not gonna hold.
So this uh, you know, I I wrote last week uh the history of these previous ceasefire uh and since 2017 that they last less than a year.
So you know, it's just uh it's a matter of time.
This this is not going to result in you know a historic piece as uh Donald Trump requires.
Um Scotty, while we were in Moscow yesterday, here's what the president said about disarming Hamas.
Chris cut number six.
How long will it take Hamas to disarm?
And can you guarantee that is going to happen?
Well, they're gonna disarm.
Uh and because they said they were going to disarm.
And if they don't disarm, we will disarm them.
How will you do that?
Uh I don't have to explain that to you.
But if they don't disarm, we will disarm them.
They know I'm not playing games.
Okay.
Now, we did something monumental.
We got the hostages back.
That was the first thing we had to do.
Above all else, get the hostages back.
Now, they misrepresented because we were told they had 26, 24 of dead hostages if we can use those terms.
And it seems as though they don't have that because Scotty, how would the United States government go about disarming Hamas without putting boots on the ground?
We're not going to put boots on the ground.
Uh we would just green light Israel.
Um look, the president basically said that he he defeated Hamas by providing Israel with perfect weaponry, some that he doesn't even know about, but he gave it to them and sold it to them.
Um I believe that we would continue just to green light Israel going in and um and doing what they've been doing.
Um it's a failed policy.
It hasn't succeeded, it won't succeed, and the president will be left with egg on his face.
Um but this is a man who only knows how to bluster, only knows how to talk tough.
Um the problem with talking tough is some sometimes people call your bluff.
And uh the president is in at risk of um you know having his bluff called here and not being able to back his words up because the United States isn't putting boots on the ground.
We may facilitate Israeli airstrikes, but this is stupid because you know, what can uh uh a U.S. Navy F A 18 do that an Israeli F-35 can't?
We're just talking about dropping bombs.
So having American planes flown by American pilots dropping American bombs on Gaza isn't gonna change um, you know, qualitatively what happens when American planes flown by Israeli pilots dropping American bombs um on Gaza takes place.
Larry, let's jump to an area of the world in which you spent uh a lot of time with the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department, and that is Latin America.
Can I ask you a very basic question?
What national security threat to the United States of America is posed by the government of Venezuela?
As they say in Spanish, nada, cerro, you know, nothing, zero.
Um, you know, this is this is a contrivance.
Uh and you know, frankly, it's been in the CIA plans since uh Donald Trump ordered it in 2018.
Uh that that's when they created Trend de Aragua uh as a group.
I mean, it may have existed at that time, but the CIA went to work to promote it as this major threat.
Uh it is not the primary, uh, it's not even a secondary or tertiary source of narcotics coming into the United States.
Um, the only thing that's really come into the United States out of Venezuela have been a number of Venezuelans who have uh fled the country.
But uh the fact is Maduro does not represent a threat.
Uh, but this is this is an unprovoked action by the United States.
Um Trump continues to build up uh military forces.
Um there are two, I think, marine expeditionary units off offshore.
Um there are uh four uh battleships uh with uh missiles on board.
But uh, you know, Venezuela's trying to avoid a confrontation, but uh Trump Trump is uh headed towards a confrontation, and it it'll be when it happens, it'll be a war crime.
Scotty, where is the great national debate?
Where is the debate on the floor of the Congress about the pros and cons of war?
Why are we going to fall into the same trap of a presidentially declared presidentially waged war?
He'll claim some sort of presidential victory.
What happens when boys come home in body bags?
Well, I mean, if if we have Americans coming home body bags in significant numbers, of course, that that should precipitate a problem.
But um the Trump administration has articulated a case for conflict that, while legally questionable, um passes muster with his base.
Uh believe it or not, his base wants this war.
They're told that Venezuela is ruled by this evil uh man who's already been indicted by the Southern District of New York as a drug as a narco trafficker.
Um, you know, and and we we need to bring this man to justice, is what they're being told.
When you have a de facto case like this that's that has been you know, prepared, where's the debate?
I mean, it's not debatable in the United States whether Maduro is a um not you know, not just indicted, but he convicted.
No, I think you're right, he's indicted, not convicted yet, but an indicted narco trafficker that has fled justice, is evading justice, is how Marco Rubio describes it.
And legally, he's correct.
Um now the question is do you bring him to justice?
And the way that uh Trump has articulated the case reward, it revolves around the very same fentanyl smuggling um you know narrative that he used to promote border security.
So all these people are jumping up and down saying, oh my goodness, the border security is the best it's ever been.
Uh, we got Cash Patel now bragging about how he's rounded up fentanyl this summer, and everybody being told we're you know we're doing our job to seal the border, but now we got Venezuela, which is shipping fentanyl in, and nobody's asking the question, is this true?
You know, what's your evidence, etc.?
They're just saying this is what we voted for, shut it down.
And uh unfortunately, that's why there's no debate, discussion, and dialogue.
Um, because the base doesn't want one, and you know, uh the Trump administration therefore doesn't feel compelled to give them one.
And so we have a constitution of no authority, Larry.
Yeah, well, and you know, here Trump is murdering people on the allegation that they're carrying drugs on these boats.
And you can prove uh very easily that those boats had no means to reach the United States.
I mean, the very first one they blew up um had a range of 250, 260 miles with you know, the four outboard motors on board that cigarette boat.
And that means you could go about 260 miles.
But the problem is for the coast of uh Venezuela, the North Coast, to say the Florida Keys, which is the point farthest south in the United States, that's over 1,300 miles.
How in the hell does a boat that can only go 250 miles going to be transporting drugs into the United States?
And yet Donald Trump ordered, and you know, it doesn't bother me so much that Trump ordered it.
What really bothers me is the military chain of command that carried out this order.
It was an ill legal order.
They didn't push back because the nobody in that boat was firing at the United States.
They didn't, there was no way you could make a case that it provoked poised a direct threat to the United States.
And yet the generals and colonels up and down the chain of command and admirals, let's not forget them, went along with this.
Scotty, shame on them.
Scotty, does it mean anything that the admiral in charge of the Southern Command, which is a three-year gig resigned yesterday after just one year?
Is there a connection doing now between his resignation and these illegal murderous strikes?
If there is, the it hasn't been publicly articulated yet.
Um, and nor will it be, because I think um, you know, resigning is one thing, resigning by making noise could cost you um you know, a star or a stripe in this case, uh, and pension money.
Um, but I I would imagine that um the you know, according to the news, the president signed a uh presidential finding authorizing the CIA to carry out uh covert lethal action, which means that in this theater of operations, the CIA now has primacy.
Um and I think that that is something that could prompt a um uh a commander of uh Southern Command to step aside um uh you know, being compelled to sit back and support um a constitutionally questionable action, you know, presidential finding just makes it legal.
Um temporarily, it doesn't make it constitutional.
Correct, correct.
But but Larry, in all your years of observing and receiving presidential findings of covert action.
Have you ever heard the president of the United States announce publicly that he authorized covert action?
Yeah, but uh it's like I don't think he knows the definition of covert.
You know, it's it's not supposed to be known, it's supposed to be secret.
They're not supposed to, you know, you're not supposed to have the hand of the CIA deliberately exposed like that.
And so I I was not aware that the head of uh U.S. Southcom resigned or was uh forced out.
Uh hopefully it was a resignation, a resignation in protest to say, look, I'm not going to carry out illegal orders.
If that is in fact the case, and you know, kudos on him for doing so.
At least there was one person in that chain of command that had the integrity to stand up.
You know, look, I I've got a personal stake in trying to stop a fentanyl from coming into the country.
I had a 39-year-old nephew that died in my house uh of a fentanyl overdose.
Uh so it, you know, I don't at all dismiss I know the pain and anguish the families are going through.
But that wrong does not justify murdering people just on the suspicion that they're carrying drugs.
And and what shocks me is that so many Americans uh go along with this, say, yeah, this is okay.
I mean, it was it was normalized under Barack Obama when he killed Anwar Alaki and the Unlocky son, both American citizens who had well while allegedly terrorists, they had not been convicted in a court of law in the United States.
We still have under the Constitution the presumption of innocence.
Right.
Scotty, uh, let's go to the uh topic of the moment uh which occurred uh during our time here in Moscow, and that is the phone call between President Trump and President Putin yesterday.
What do you think they said to each other?
What do you think uh President Putin demanded of President Trump did is there a marker?
Is there a condition laid down by President Putin for him to come to Budapest and meet Donald Trump uh in a week or so?
I believe there is.
I believe that um this conversation was to quote um Mr. Ushikov, the president's advisor, very frank.
Um they had a frank exchange, which means they didn't agree.
Um, and I believe that President Trump was put on notice that um Russia's not gonna change what it's doing on the battlefield, that the Tomahawk missile, if in incorporated into Ukraine's arsenal will not have any impact on the battlefield, won't move the needle at all.
But what it will do is destroy any possibility of US Russian relations and could lead to further escalation.
So nothing good will come of this.
And then the the you know, president, then they put forward some other things.
I believe they talked about you know Kharil Dmitriev type's economic uh pie in the sky uh stuff.
And Putin offered to meet, which you know uh Trump wants because he wants to be seen as facilitating this.
But the condition is that uh Lavrov, uh Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister, and Marco Rubio, the um Secretary of State, have to meet first.
And I believe from that, the United States has to say they will not be deploying the Tomahawk missile because I I think the the meeting between Trump and uh Putin can't happen if Trump is um holding the Tomahawk over Putin's head.
Putin wouldn't meet under those conditions at all.
He's not going to allow himself to have the appearances of being intimidated.
So uh the United States is gonna have to back away from Tomahawk.
And you know, if you take a look at Zelensky, who fully expected to be greeted with a color guard and a red carpet and President Trump, you know, shaking his hand coming down the plane, he's greeted by nobody.
Um he's walking into a completely different environment.
So I have a funny feeling that the president's gonna give him the bad news today, which is uh there won't be Tomahawks uh coming.
And um, and that uh the president's gonna put a hold on everything until after his meeting with Putin.
Larry, before you respond, here is President Trump yesterday, after the conversation with uh President Putin, joking about Tomahawks.
Cut number five.
Tomahawk, Ukraine?
Uh we'll be talking about Ukraine.
Yeah, I mean, I have the president coming in on Friday, and we'll I know what he has to say.
He wants weapons, he would like to have tomahawks.
Everyone else wants to have a lot of tomahawks.
Tomahawk is a do you need any tomahawks in our GTA?
You can grow Muffo.
You need them for your opposition, I guess.
Because see, in this country, they'd use Tomahawks for the opposition.
I don't do that.
I'm much nicer.
The Democrats would use them if they had the chance.
They're sick people.
Go ahead.
So he was sitting across the table from President Millet of Argentina, and it was to him that he was joking.
Uh, do you want Tomahawks?
Isn't this deadly, deathly serious business, Larry Johnson?
Uh he doesn't seem to understand it.
Um, you know, maybe he's confused that he thinks the Tomahawks are like the, you know, the uh it looks like a hammer with a sharp edge, what the American Indians, some of the Native American Indians carry.
But uh, you know, this is a weapon capable of uh killing people.
Uh I think it packs about a 500-pound warhead.
And it is capable, though not currently in its current configuration, uh cannot carry a nuclear warhead, but it is capable of being configured to do so.
And so if you're a Russian military planner, you just have to assume uh that if the United States is going to deploy it, they have to be ready for that.
But it's again, this is it's it's so cavalier.
And uh, you know, we've seen we've seen the steady parade of uh Wunderbach and you know the wonder weapons that have come down, starting, you know, with High Mars and the Tacums and F-16s.
None of it's gonna, it's you know, the war is going to end, and Ukraine is going to lose.
That's the reality.
I'm gonna let you guys go.
I know you both have commitments coming up in a few minutes, and we have a commitment together coming up in an hour or so.
Thank you very much for joining.
Thank you, Larry.
Thank you, Scotty.
See you shortly.
All the best.
Okay.
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