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Feb. 9, 2026 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:57
Larry Johnson : Why Negotiate With Ukraine?
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Why Israel Wants War 00:15:21
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 Monday, February 9th, 2026.
Larry Johnson joins us now.
Larry.
Hi there.
Thank you, my dear friend.
Thanks for accommodating my schedule.
I want to talk to you at some length about the Russia-Ukraine negotiations.
But before we get there, do you have any idea why the Zionist press in the Zionist media in Israel is characterizing Prime Minister Nets and Yah, who's visit to President Trump on Wednesday as urgent?
Yeah, they fully, you know, we have to go back to December 28, 29.
You know, the last time Bibi met with Trump was just a little more than a month ago.
And that meeting on Monday, the 29th came 24 hours after the U.S.-British Mossad-backed color revolution was ignited in Iran.
And at that time, the planning was such that they fully anticipated it was going to culminate with such widespread protests and violence that a military strike by the United States on January 13th would have sort of been the final straw, would have pushed the regime over.
Well, that it failed because the Iranians, with the help of the Chinese and Russians, disconnected Starlink, shut down the internet, and broke up the communications network that was helping organize and drive this color revolution.
So now we're into phase two.
And notice that, you know, back then, Trump was saying, oh, we've got to go save the protesters.
Now you're not hearing a word about the protesters.
Trump pivoted back to nuclear weapons, but we were told he obliterated their nuclear capabilities.
So he's sort of having to lie about the real reason.
And Israel's preoccupation now is with ballistic missiles.
Well, why?
Because they got the hellbeat out of them in that 12-day war.
And they recognize what a potential threat the ballistic missiles are.
So the urgency now is to get Trump to pull the trigger.
And the military assets are in motion.
You know, there are several of us, you know, Doug and John Mearsheim and others who just, you know, we recognize how stupid and foolish and dangerous this will be if Trump proceeds with it.
But it's not just that the Israeli press is agitating and saying and putting urgency on this.
As I wrote at sonar21.com last night, I'm friends with a fellow named Stephen Bryan.
And Stephen was a he was an undersecretary of defense under Ronald Reagan.
Back then, he was a really young guy in his late 30s, I guess.
But normally he writes, he's a Zionist, but he's not one of these rabid, crazy people.
You can have a reasonable discussion with him.
But he just wrote a piece that rips Witcoff apart and describes what took place in Oman, the talks between Iran and the United States as a complete disaster.
So he, you know, when I see someone like him reacting this emotionally, you can bet every dollar you have that when Bibi shows up, the entire alignment of the Zionist community will be pressing Trump like he's never been pressed before, that he's got to act.
And that's why I think unfortunately we're headed to a new round of war that is going to be very, very dangerous and potentially devastating for the United States.
In one of his emails over the weekend with me, our mutual dear friend and colleague Ray McGovern says Trump is not looking forward to meeting his boss on Wednesday.
Only Ray could put it that way.
Netanyahu will what put pressure on Trump, demand of Trump, threaten Trump with Epstein revelations or cut off of Zionist support?
How aggressive is this going to be?
I think very aggressive, and I think Alistair had it right.
You know, you spoke with him about an hour ago that, you know, Trump and his team have been pretty effective up to this point, dismissing the say, oh, Trump, Trump really had nothing to do with Epstein and they broke up and, you know, he threw him out of Mar-a-Lago.
But now other information has come out.
And the thing I found most stunning was the picture of Trump's wife, Melania, with Ghislaine Maxwell in 2002.
They're cheek-to-cheek girlfriends.
I mean, you know, and who introduced Donald Trump to Melania?
That was Jeffrey Epstein.
So there is a lot more here that is, I think, has not been revealed.
And I think the Israelis have exactly what they need to pressure Trump, that Trump doesn't have any real good options on this.
Might the Iranians strike first while Netanyahu's out of the country and won't be able to return?
Not likely.
Iran is if Iran strikes first, they play into the narrative that the West is trying to perpetuate, a false narrative that Iran is the threatening force, that the Iran is the source of violence in the Middle East.
I mean, it's just laughable, or it should be laughable, except there's so much killing involved on the part of the Israelis.
You know, when you go back and look at how many, for example, they always talk about, oh, we got to cut off the funding to Hamas and Hezbollah because they're killing all these Israelis.
The number killed since 1982 is less than 5,000 by Hamas, Hezbollah of Israelis.
So, and yet compare that with more than 70,000, and it was probably much higher, but men, women, and children that the Israelis have killed over the last two years.
I mean, it's not even proportional.
And yet the world persists with this nonsense, this lie that, oh, Iran's a major terrorist state.
Everything Iran has done, when you go back over the last 46 years, it has been in reaction to provocations and actions by the West.
You know, here's Iran trying to set up the new Islamic Republic, and the United States encourages Saddam Hussein to start a war with him.
And not only do we encourage him, but we also supply him with the chemical precursors that he uses to kill more than 500,000 Iranians.
And then they wonder, well, why do they chant death to America?
Yeah.
Good Lord.
So tomorrow, actually, at this time, I'll be interviewing your and my good friend, Professor Mohammad Morandi from Tehran.
What will he tell me about the determination and unity of the Iranian people?
Yeah, I think it's stronger now than ever.
What you do find is there's been a generational disconnect.
Professor Morandi was a teenager back in, you know, 16, 17 years old when the war started with Iraq.
And he fought in it.
He was wounded twice.
And you never know it talking to him that he's a war veteran, but because he's such a gentle soul.
But people that are younger than him don't have that memory of the war.
And so it wasn't until the attack, this 12-day war that started last June 13th that you began to get a new sense of unity among the younger crowd in Iran.
So yes, they're still behind the government.
There's, you know, you may have 20, 20%, 30% of the population that opposes the Islamic Republic.
Well, okay, we got over 50% of the American public that opposes Donald Trump.
So, you know, that's just, you know, the government still has majority support and it's still intact.
Where can U.S.-Iran negotiations go if the precursor demands articulated rather roughly by the president and more precisely by Secretary of State Rubio have been pretty much rejected by the Iranian foreign minister?
Well, Iran, in fact, just before we came on air, one of the Iranian government officials said that they would be willing to negotiate on limiting enrichment with no more than 60% because some of that is used for medical isotopes.
Trump can have a deal.
Iran is willing to make a deal.
The deal would be that they would allow full inspection of their nuclear facilities.
Only this time they're not going to defer to the IAEA.
They're going to want Russian and Chinese direct involvement in that as well, because they don't trust the West.
And then there would be some potential restrictions on enrichment.
Now, they're willing to make that deal, but Israel demands that they've got to cut off support to Hamas, Hezbollah, as well as get rid of their ballistic missiles.
And Trump has parroted that.
But Iran said, no, we're not going that route.
So this is, you know, I think it's coming to a head.
And the problem I see is that there are too many on the U.S. side that exaggerate our military capability.
They don't even step back and look at what we failed to do with the Houthis, who are much, much weaker.
And they're not nearly as powerful or potent as Iran is on the military front.
And yet we got run out of the Red Sea by them.
Jesus, one of those exaggerators, the person who calls himself the Secretary of War.
Yes.
I don't know that there's anybody in Trump's inner circle arguing for restraint.
But one last question about Iran, and then I want to get to Ukraine.
And I may have played this for you and Ray on Friday.
If I did, I apologize, but I want you to watch it.
Watch Trump try to explain why he'll attack Iran.
Chris, that NBC briefing.
Should the Supreme Leader in Iran be worried right now?
I would say he should be very worried.
Yeah, he should be.
As you know, they're negotiating with us.
I know they are, but the protesters have said, you know, where are the Americans?
You promised them we would have their back.
Do we still have their back?
We've had their back.
And look, that country is a mess right now because of us.
We went in, we wiped out their nuclear.
If we didn't take out that nuclear, we wouldn't have peace in the Middle East because the Arab countries could have never done that.
They were very, very afraid of Iran.
They're not afraid of Iran anymore.
Those beautiful B-2 bombers went in and they hit their target, every single bomb, and obliterated it.
And within one month, they were going to have a nuclear weapon.
That was a big threat that they're not going to have it anymore.
But if we obliterated it, what's the deal about?
I mean, if there's no more, are they trying to restart the nuclear weapons?
Well, we heard that they are.
And if they do, and I let them know, if they do, we're going to send them right back and do their job again.
So you're understanding they tried to restart it and that's why you're threatening force.
They tried to go back to the site.
They weren't even able to get near it.
There was total obliteration.
But they were thinking about starting a new site in a different part of the country.
We found out about it.
I said, you do that.
We're going to do very bad things to you.
Thinking about starting a new site.
Does he know what he's talking about?
No.
He's either not being properly briefed or he's just ignoring what he's being told.
Look, they've already, the satellite imagery has shown they've already been done reconstruction above the ground at Fordo, the place that was ostensibly obliterated.
And again, there's no logic to this because if you obliterate, that implies that you've destroyed it to a level that it can't come back.
Well, you know, the Defense Intelligence Agency said back then that, no, you didn't obliterate, that's still, and they still have an enrichment capability.
But he's being manipulated and he's going along with it, I'm afraid.
And we'll know later this week.
It may be that one of the reasons BB is coming is that they're going, again, to coordinate final plans on who's going to do what, when, where, and how.
But they keep forgetting not only does Iran have a say in this, but Russia and China are involved now in a way that they were not last June.
There are warships, Iranian warships will be joining Chinese and Russian warships soon and within the next couple of weeks to conduct a joint naval military exercise.
Now, this is an annual exercise.
So this is not something that's been ginned up just in response to the latest tensions.
U.S. Sanctions and Direct Flights 00:07:51
But this also takes on new meaning, new importance with the prospect of potential U.S. military strikes in Iran.
Trump will never acknowledge that the true reason for attacking Iran is to satisfy BB and to satisfy Trump's Zionist donors.
Well, again, they've convinced themselves that Iran is the ultimate threat.
And what's, you know, what's so strange about this, Judge, go back to the early 1980s.
Who was Iran's partner in securing weapons for Iran?
That would be Israel.
So from like 1980, from the start of the Islamic Republic, it was Israel that went and pleaded with Ronald Reagan to provide parts for the F-4 Phantom jets that had been part of the Shah's Air Force, but were now under the control of the Iranians.
It was only after Iraq was finally out of the picture as posing a nuclear threat, you know, following the U.S. invasion in 1991, that Israel started making this hard turn towards against Iran because they feared that now Iran could build a nuclear weapon.
Well, why should Russia be negotiating with Ukraine when if you listen to what Zelensky says, they're rejecting all of the Kremlin's long-standing, never-changing demands going back to three years ago?
Well, yeah, they shouldn't be.
There's nothing to talk about.
I mean, look, this is not a matter where the Russians can just come in and sit down with them and say, okay, look, Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, Luhans, Crimea, that's now part of Russia.
That's not coming back.
You need to acknowledge that.
Ukraine's not going to acknowledge that.
The only way they're going to acknowledge that is when they are compelled to surrender from the result of military victories by Russia.
And, you know, Russia wants to maintain good relations to the extent possible with the United States.
But candidly, what's the United States done?
It's just, you know, it's like what we saw what happened last week with Iran.
They have the talks in Oman, oh, good talks, and then immediately hit the Iranians with more sanctions and threats to put 25% sanctions on any country, China, Russia, India, that does business with Iran.
Same thing is happening with Russia.
We're not lifting sanctions.
We've got a number of people that are in the government in Russia.
You know, Vyacheslav Fetisov, you know, he's a sports legend in Russia.
He played for the Detroit Red Wings, for God's sake, and won two Stanley Cups for them.
He's got a daughter and grandchildren that live here in the States.
And yet we've sanctioned him and won't let him come in.
So instead of Trump doing some actual substantive gestures to show that we're serious, continue to send Witkoff and Jared Kushner and that other tag-along guy, Grunbaum.
And for what purpose?
That is not.
In fact, you're seeing growing frustration now in comments that Terry Lavrov made last week with Rick Sanchez.
And that sort of bloom is coming off that rose.
With the hopes they had had that they could make progress with the United States, they're fading.
And frankly, a number of Russians, prominent Russians, are growing increasingly frustrated, not with Putin, but with wanting to say, look, we're just going to say enough is enough, and we have to go full bore now, not hold back.
And they may be moving in that direction, I believe.
Here's our friend, Foreign Minister Lavrov, earlier today, Chris.
Cut number two.
President Putin has repeatedly said, no, we are not refusing to use the dollar.
Under Biden, the U.S. has done everything to turn the dollar into a weapon against those who are out of favor.
And I would like to point out and emphasize that the U.S. administration, notwithstanding the various public statements we have heard regarding the urgent necessity of bringing a conclusion to the war in Ukraine that was originally unleashed during the Biden administration, we need to come to an agreement, remove it from the agenda, and then clear bright prospects for mutually beneficial Russian-American investment and other cooperation will open up.
But all the laws that Biden passed to punish Russia after the start of the special military operation are not being challenged by the Trump administration.
For example, in April, the state of emergency law was extended.
The core of which is the punishment of Russia, the imposition of sanctions against Russia, including the freezing of our gold and foreign currency reserves.
This is explicitly stated as being due to Russia's hostile behavior in foreign policy.
And as examples, interference in United States elections is cited the very thing President Trump categorically opposes on a daily basis and rejects all of it and violations of international law, human rights.
There's no end to the list.
This is all pure Bidenism, which Trump and his team reject outright.
But nevertheless, they calmly extended it.
The law of the sanctions against Russia continue to be in effect.
Pure Bidenism, which Trump and his team outright reject, but they've extended it.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, you look at what we do, not what we say.
And there are several things that Trump, the Trump administration could do immediately as a gesture to Russia to show that we are serious about finding a peaceful diplomatic solution.
But we're not.
That's the point.
It's a game.
All they have to do is say, okay, we go back to the open skies treaty.
Let's have direct flights now between the United States and Russia.
You know, as you and I both know, getting to Russia these days is a quest and a painful trip.
You got to travel about 30 hours through various countries.
They could return the property that was seized by Barack Obama in December of 2020 or 2016 from the Russian diplomatic, both the embassy and the consulate in New York.
But they haven't done that.
So there are a number of things that Trump could do where we've been the aggressor, could show that we're going to back off, haven't done it.
And frankly, I don't know why Putin has just told Witkoff and Kushner, next time they want to come, guys, if you're going to come, this is what we expect from you.
You're going to lift these sanctions.
You're going to do some positive gestures.
Otherwise, we got nothing to talk about.
Always Helpful Analysis 00:00:40
Well, Larry, thank you very much, my dear friend.
As always, very, very helpful analysis.
Have a good week.
We'll look forward to seeing you with Ray, who's on shortly on Friday.
All right, my friend.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And coming up at 11, excuse me, at 10 o'clock this morning, Ray McGovern at 1 this afternoon, Ray and Larry's former colleague, John Kiriaku, at 2 this afternoon from London on the perilous state of the British government, Ian Proud.
And at 3 this afternoon, our new guest, Ben Freeman, from the Quincy Institute.
Why does more military spending lead to wars?
I guess it's kind of obvious.
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