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Feb. 3, 2026 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
24:17
Aaron Maté : A Reckless Game With Iran
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Time Text
Government Force and Freedom 00:02:32
Undeclared wars are commonplace.
Tragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people.
Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government.
To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected.
What if sometimes to love your country, you had to alter or abolish the government?
What if Jefferson was right?
What if that government is best which governs least?
What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong?
What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave?
What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now?
Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026.
Aaron Mate will be with us in just a moment on Trump's reckless game with Iran.
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Aaron Mate, welcome here.
My dear friend, thank you for accommodating my schedule.
U.S. Hegemony vs. Iranian Deterrence 00:12:42
What is the United States' interest in Iran besides wanting to please the Netanyahu government?
Iran is a deterrent to U.S. hegemony, and Iran has been in the U.S. crosshairs for a very, very long time.
Recall that the U.S. overthrew the government of Iran in 1953 because the nationalist leader, Mossadegh, wanted to have control over the country's oil, and that was a no-go for the U.S. and its British partner.
So they engineered his ouster, re-imposed a dictatorship under the Shah.
Then the Shah gets overthrown in 1979.
And you just can't do that.
When a country falls outside of your control, you have a bipartisan consensus in Washington that that just cannot stand.
So ever since the 1979 Iranian revolution, there's been a determination to weaken Iran and bring it back under U.S. control.
That's why the U.S. supports Saddam Hussein in the 1980s when he attacks Iran, helps him kill tens of thousands of Iranians, including with chemical weapons.
The U.S. shoots down an Iranian passenger airliner in the late 1980s.
George H.W. Bush says, I'll never apologize for America.
And then in more recent periods, you have the crippling sanctions aimed at destroying Iran's economy.
So this predates Israel in the sense that, you know, in 1953, the U.S. wasn't primarily concerned with Israel.
It's primarily concerned with simply dominating the Middle East.
But Israel is an appendage of it, is an appendage of that domination.
And now Iran resists the U.S. and Israel by supporting groups in the region that fight back against Israeli aggression, Hezbollah and others.
So therefore, Iran is in the crosshairs.
Wow.
But today, is this animosity toward Iran going back to 1953 still prevalent amongst policymakers?
Or is it today primarily whatever BB wants, BB gets?
I think it's both.
Certainly, this is an Israel-first administration.
In the Epstein files, there's just something that came out where Steve Bannon is talking to Epstein about the appointment of John Bolton as national security advisor in Trump's first term.
And it's either Steve Banner or Epstein says about John Bolton, Bolton will not cross Sheldon.
And who's Sheldon?
That's Sheldon Adelson, one of Trump's biggest donors.
Trump's bragged about how the Adelsons have given his campaign hundreds of millions of dollars.
So the fact that Bannon, who was working for Trump in his first term, is talking about how it's important for Trump's national security advisor, Bolton, to not cross an Israeli-American oligarch, Sheldon Adelson, that speaks to the huge influence that the Israeli government and its sponsors have inside the Trump administration.
So you have a convergence of Israel first, plus just long-standing animus toward Iran, going back even before Israel was a factor.
And that's what's converging into this new crisis of today, where the U.S. is demanding not only that Iran give up a nuclear weapons program that Iran doesn't have, Iran does not want to have nuclear weapons.
And it took care of that problem with the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump broke, but also that Iran stop supporting its allies in the region, what the U.S. calls its proxies, and also that Iran give up its ballistic missile defense program, which is Iran's way of defending itself, which everybody knows.
In fact, the New York Times the other day said that Iran's only deterrent against Israel is its ballistic missile arsenal.
And the U.S. wants Iran to give that up after recently being attacked by both the U.S. and Israel.
So the message from Trump is basically, give up your only means to defend yourself or else we will attack you after having previously attacked you before.
I mean, no sane country would ever give up its means of self-defense.
And that's what Trump, at least so far, has been demanding.
And if insanity is to prevail, he will give that up.
One of our chatters writes in that MAGA stands for Miriam Adelson Governs America.
That's a good one.
Nice move there, the person that wrote that in.
The idea that Trump wants them to give up their only means to defend themselves, of course, is absurd.
He also wants them to give up civilian development or enrichment of uranium, the use of uranium for medical and hospital purposes, which every sophisticated hospital in the country has, in the world, has today, and that Iran would give up providing aid to its allies.
Jeez, will Israel give up its nuclear weapons and providing aid to its allies?
Of course not.
The demands are absurd.
Why does he make them?
Is he just looking for an excuse to attack?
Why is he demanding something he knows they cannot comply with?
It's a great question.
I've been thinking about the nuclear demand because the U.S. knows Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.
And to the extent they've given themselves the capacity to do that, it's pretty obvious why, that if Israel decides to use nuclear weapons against Iran, then obviously Iran, the only way to survive as a nation would be to quickly develop nuclear weapons of its own.
That's why Iran has, I think, increased the threshold of enrichment in recent years to give itself the possibility in case it needs it, in case it has to break its own edict ruling out nuclear weapons.
But why would Trump also want to take away Iran's right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes?
And the best answer I can come up with is just simply national humiliation, that because Iran resists U.S. hegemony, because it's existed outside of U.S. control, and because there's this animus towards Iran going back many years, the coup 53 and then the revolution of 79, there's just this determination to humiliate Iran and say, you don't get to have sovereignty in a world that we control.
That's the best answer I can come up with on that front.
Because again, it's clear, you know, U.S. intelligence has repeatedly reaffirmed.
Tulsi Gabber did that earlier last year, that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program.
So why would you insist on giving up peaceful enrichment, especially when Iran developed this enrichment under harsh conditions, under crippling sanctions?
And for them, it's a point of pride that they've developed this capacity with a lot of ingenuity and with a lot of domestic effort.
I think it's simply to humiliate Iran and try to teach it a lesson.
And Iran, being a proud country with a long history, it's simply not going to countenance that.
Do you believe the media reports that Netanyahu himself asked Trump not to attack Iran for fear of a ferocious attack from Iran on Israel if the U.S. attacks Iran?
I do believe that.
I mean, Israel only attacks people that can't fight back.
That's been its long history, or at least that it believes it can't fight back.
And especially seeing that Iran surprised people, including myself, with its response to the last round of Israeli aggression last June.
It makes perfect sense to me that Netanyahu would believe that Israel is not ready yet for another onslaught, having to build up its missile defenses.
So that makes perfect sense to me.
Well, and are you of the belief?
I know you're not a military person, you're more geopolitical, cultural, historical, but are you of the view that Iran would not hold back and would seek to demolish Israel?
I don't know if they have the capacity to demolish Israel, especially given that Israel is the bigger threat in the region.
Israel has nuclear weapons after all.
Iran doesn't.
But certainly Iran could do damage.
And certainly if Iran gets attacked, they will go after Israel.
And it's worth noting.
They've gone out of their way in previous rounds to avoid an escalation.
When Trump killed Qasim Soleimani, Iran telegraphed its response.
It basically told the U.S. what it was going to hit to make sure that no U.S. soldiers would be killed.
The same thing with last year, with its response to Trump's second act of aggression against Iran last June.
It told the U.S. basically what it was going to hit, this military base in Qatar.
And so to make sure that there were no casualties.
But at this point now, if Trump goes ahead with another round of aggression, I'm not confident that Iran would exercise this restraint.
I mean, from their point of view, dealing with a country that uses diplomacy as a cloak to carry out aggression, that's going to require a response.
So certainly, I mean, I think Israel would face the brunt of it.
But also, I believe Iranian officials have made clear, it would also be U.S. military bases in the surrounding Gulf countries and the Gulf countries surrounding Iran that also would be a target.
There was a very funny line in the New York Times the other day where they were talking about Trump's demands on Iran.
And it said something to the effect of, I'll quote it, Trump's demands are aimed to address long-standing concerns about the threat that Iran and its proxies pose to the U.S. military bases.
So Iran poses a threat to U.S. military bases that happen to surround Iran.
U.S. military bases don't pose a threat to Iran.
That's ridiculous.
That's just circular reasoning.
Yes, yes.
I mean, imagine if Iran somehow got to build military bases, I don't know, in Mexico, in Canada.
Would we describe the U.S. as a threat to Iran's military bases?
It's just such a joke, but that speaks to the imperial mentality that's embedded in our media.
Did the United States create ISIS?
Well, certainly U.S. actions created ISIS.
I mean, without the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there would be no ISIS.
And then once ISIS was created, the U.S. helped fuel its spread.
John Kerry admitted in a leaked recording with Syrian opposition activists that the U.S. watched as ISIS grew inside Syria.
And Kerry explained that the reason why is they thought, the U.S. thought that they could use ISIS's growth as leverage to force out Assad, that if Assad was threatened enough by ISIS, then he would accept U.S. terms and leave power.
So basically, Kerry was saying that the U.S. used ISIS to push regime change inside of Syria.
And there's all these fortuitous events.
So, for example, the current leader of Syria, Ahmed Al-Sharra, aka Muhammad Al-Jalani, he's the founding leader of al-Qaeda in Syria and the former deputy leader of ISIS.
That's where he got his start.
And he comes out and joins ISIS and then later forms Al-Qaeda in Syria right in early 2011 when the dirty war in Syria is getting underway.
And that's when he's released from prison by the U.S.
Now, was that just a coincidence that right after he gets out of prison that a dirty war begins in Syria where he's an integral part?
Was that just interesting timing?
Or was maybe something happen in prison?
I believe he was held at Camp Buka in Iraq, where this was a plan.
It's certainly worthy of speculation.
And even if it was a total coincidence, the fact is there's a direct line between the U.S. invading Iraq, deliberately amplifying sectarian tensions in Iraq.
And then those sectarians spill over into the creation of ISIS.
And the sectarianism basically destroys Syria because in Syria, the U.S. was arming an insurgency dominated by Sunni extremists led by Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
And what was Mossad's role in the development and flourishing of ISIS, whatever they want to call themselves?
Well, we know that during the dirty war in Syria, that Israel was treating ISIS soldiers in Israeli hospitals when they got wounded.
There were weapons that made their way to ISIS and al-Qaeda through other so-called rebel groups.
In fact, one time when ISIS fired a missile that accidentally struck Israel, ISIS apologized to Israel.
They apologized.
It's very odd for like a, you know, whatever, like a jihadist group to apologize to Israel, but that's what happened, which speaks to the either direct or tacit alliance that they had during the dirty war in Syria.
Warrants and Woes 00:08:58
Transitioning to the dirty war in Minneapolis, the latest ICE threats are arrests without warrants.
So if the FBI comes up to you on the street and says, Mr. Mate, can we speak to you?
You say, do you have a warrant?
And they say no, and you say, have a nice day.
If you're in Minneapolis and ICE comes up to you and says, we want to speak to you, and you say, do you have a warrant?
have a nice day, they will restrain and retain you and detain you.
This is so profoundly violative of basic Fourth Amendment principles, and yet it's happening right under our noses.
Why?
Why is the Trump administration visiting this level of stormtrooper behavior on American citizens?
Well, Judge, let me put the question to you as an expert in the law.
The Trump administration's argument is that basically because immigration is an administrative action, then they don't need judicial warrants.
So if they want to take someone because they're enforcing immigration laws, they don't need a specific warrant going after an individual.
And Democrats, that's what they're pushing for right now when it comes to ICE is they want, if you're going to go snatch people to have warrants.
So what do you say that argument from the Trump team, if I understand it correctly?
Yeah, that is their argument.
So they are using something called an administrative warrant.
And administrative warrants were authorized by Congress when immigration violations were considered civil violations, not criminal violations.
And people possessed of immigration, of administrative warrants couldn't arrest you.
They could talk to you and they could seize evidence that you didn't belong here.
Then, when Congress, in response to a paranoia about immigrants, changed the law to make immigration violations criminal, the feds told their people, go ahead and use the administrative warrants.
They are not valid for arrest.
They don't come anywhere near the Fourth Amendment.
They don't identify the person to be arrested.
Some of them identify people.
Go to such and such a car wash and bring in people that speak with Spanish accents.
Okay, at a car wash, people with Spanish accents, you're probably going to find some people that are not legally here, but that is not probable cause of crime, which is what the Fourth Amendment requires.
However, the argument is made, look at how it's being played in the media.
Trump's approval ratings are down in the mid-30s, and he's confronting a midterm election, which could make the outcome of which could make the next two years of his life miserable.
And look, I mean, so this is not my area of expertise, but as someone who covers geopolitics, you know, what bothers me about this too is missing from this conversation is however you feel about the issue of immigration and Trump's pledge to deport mass numbers of people.
So many people wouldn't be here in the first place if we didn't spend so much time and energy destroying their countries.
I mean, look at Venezuela.
John Bolton admitted that he knew that the sanctions he helped design in Trump's first term would destroy Venezuela's economy and force people to flee.
He admitted that to the Washington Post.
Tom Shannon, who also worked at the State Department at the same time in Trump's first term, veteran U.S. diplomat, his words were, he warned that if we impose these sanctions, we are going to grind the Venezuelan economy into dust.
So when you grind an economy of a massive country into dust, people flee.
So Trump's policies cause people to flee.
He then turns around and demonizes those same immigrants that he creates and vows a huge sprawling crackdown on them.
And then the process, Americans lose their lives when they try to defend the rights.
So how did MAGA come to stand for the destruction of foreign countries?
That's a great question because listen, it's unfortunate, but you could argue that MAGA operates as sort of like a cult.
Trump is the dear leader.
Whatever he says goes.
I mean, Trump's first term, in Trump's first term, I thought the most dangerous cult was not MAGA, but it was the Russiagate crowd, which was convinced that Trump was a Russian agent taking orders from Vladimir Putin and an assortment of Russian oligarchs.
And the disasters of that are ongoing.
I believe that fueled the proxy war in Ukraine.
I believe that made arms control with Russia even more impossible.
And we're about to see the expiration of the last treaty limiting the nuclear weapons stockpiles of the U.S. and Russia, Newstart, which expires on Thursday, unless Trump takes some drastic last-minute action, which I don't think he will.
So RussiaGate, to me, was the most dangerous cult of Trump's first term.
But now in this term, it's MAGA because they're doing whatever the dear leader says, including when he violates his own campaign promises, including when he takes orders not from Russian oligarchs, but Israeli oligarchs.
And unfortunately, his Democratic opponents, because they're also in the pocket of the same oligarchs, the same pro-Israel oligarchs, don't raise a word of protest about that.
Here's somebody who truly worships the dear leader, Chris.
Cut number four.
The biggest thing you could possibly ever do to the Mideast is take this regime down.
And they're as weak as they've ever been since 1979.
Mr. President, you can do it.
I hope you will do it.
And if you do it, this is Reagan Blush.
He, of course, is looking in the camera and encouraging his golfing buddy, the president of the United States, to bring about regime change in Iran.
I mean, this is not Venezuela.
He's not going to kidnap the Ayatollah from his bedroom at 3 o'clock in the morning.
Look, it's a very bleak time right now.
And so I try to find sources of hope.
And the fact that Lindsey Graham feels compelled to go on Fox News and beg for Trump to bomb Iran, that says to me that he has not won Trump's ear on this issue if he feels compelled to do that, because he knows the way to reach Trump is go on Fox News and also to flatter him, call him Reagan Plus.
And also in that same interview, he's saying that unless you bomb Iran, basically you'll be like Obama, which is playing on Obama, Trump's hatred of, personal hatred of Barack Obama.
So the fact that Lindsey Graham is so desperate that he feels they need to go on TV and beg for this, to me, that's a sign of encouragement.
Chris has a 90-second cut from the same interview in which he says you can't talk like Reagan and act like Obama.
That's exactly what you're talking about.
And I said, Chris, if we play this 90-second clip for Aaron, I don't think he'll come back next week.
Aaron, it's a pleasure, my dear friend, no matter what we talk about.
Things are terrible in Minneapolis.
The people in Tehran, I don't know how they can sleep at night.
The president of Iran says he wants to negotiate.
We trust Trump.
The last time he invited them to a negotiation was the very day he and Netanyahu started the attack.
Yes.
And on that front, when Lindsey Graham says that the government in Iran's never been weaker since 1979, I think U.S. actions have strengthened the Iranian government.
When you bomb a country, threaten its sovereignty, and then brag about destroying their economy, as multiple U.S. officials, including Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, have done, people, no matter their grievances with the government, are going to rally around the flag because people have national pride, no matter their very real concerns and differences with their own government.
And that's what's happened, I believe, inside Iran is people have seen the attacks from the outside, and that's caused a rallying around the flag moment, especially when you had in these recent protests, violent actors who took this far beyond grievances about corruption and mismanagement and repression.
But we're, as Max Blumenthal's talked to you a lot about attacking mosques, hospitals.
What kind of person with national pride would attack a house of worship or a clinic?
I mean, these were not people acting in the interests of their country.
And that's forced those inside Iran who may have differences with our government to really think about who's on their side and who isn't.
It's certainly not people like Lindsey Graham.
Terrifically put, Aaron.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for your time, my dear friend.
Notwithstanding having you listen to Senator Graham, we'll look forward to seeing you next week.
That's good.
Thank you, Judge Stephen.
All the best.
Coming up at two o'clock, Matt Ho at three o'clock.
Colonel Karen Kwatkowski at four o'clock on all of this, including the new start treaty.
Aaron mentioned this, which is about to expire Thursday night, and the dastardly consequences of Trump allowing that expiration.
Who else?
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