Feb. 26, 2026 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
31:49
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs :
Professor Jeffrey Sachs critiques NATO’s prolonged Ukraine conflict, calling Zelensky’s military rule illegitimate and warning U.S. involvement—now in its fourth year—serves only corporate interests, risking reckless escalation. He dismisses Trump’s negotiation claims, exposing the 2018 JCPOA abandonment as a Zionist-driven move (Netanyahu, Smotrich) that backfired globally, from Syria to Yemen. Sachs links Christian and secular Zionism to endless wars, citing Genesis 15’s misinterpretation by figures like Huckabee, and predicts Trump’s "maximum pressure" tactics could trigger Strait of Hormuz closure, destabilizing oil markets and the U.S. economy despite public opposition. [Automatically generated summary]
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 Wednesday, February 25th, 2026.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs will be with us in just a moment on Does Donald Trump have an off-ramp on Iran?
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Professor Sachs, welcome here.
United States Nuclear Negotiations00:15:24
My dear friend, before we get to Iran, how significant is the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian firing of a British missile with American intel and attacking a Russian munitions plant 800 miles inside of Russia?
Look, it's all significant because there are so many forces that want the war in Ukraine to continue in our military-industrial complex, especially in Britain, which is bereft of capacity but endlessly for war in the behavior of Zelensky and his gang,
which to my mind is not really legitimate government, but essentially military rule, which it literally is.
So it's all significant that everybody plays with fire.
Donald Trump is too incoherent and weak to do what he could do, which is to stop all of this.
He does not have the capacity to maybe understand, but certainly not to explain to the American people, to the Europeans, to the Ukrainians, to the Russians.
This is a basis for ending this on a mutually satisfactory grounds.
So we're just seeing the four just finished the fourth year of this war and it continues onward with every possibility of reckless escalation.
Are the U.S.-Russian-Ukrainian negotiations serious?
Do the Russians take it seriously?
Do the Russians respect anything the American real estate agents tell them?
Not very much.
They are seeing one thing, which is the United States is not interested in this war in any real way, but they see that Trump is too weak and inconsistent, too susceptible to pressures inside U.S. politics, too weak to explain anything to the public.
So I don't think that they are counting on these negotiations.
I think they're quite disappointed.
It is all very disappointing.
In this case, Trump basically, I think, has the right sense, which is that this war is not in America's interest.
It's not in Ukraine's interest.
It's not Russia's interest.
It should stop.
But beyond that, it takes skill.
It takes political leadership.
It takes the ability to put forward a coherent approach and then stick with it.
And Trump doesn't have that, unfortunately.
I want you to watch what one of our friends and colleagues, Larry Johnson, has said on this show, characterizing the poor American attitude, almost ridiculous American attitude about negotiating both conflicts.
That is, the negotiations with Iran and the negotiations with Russia and Ukraine.
And then after you comment on this, we're going to jump into Iran for the rest of the show.
Chris?
How could this be a serious negotiation when the negotiators are Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, both avowed Zionists, number one?
And then how was it conducted?
Well, they had it in Geneva.
So here's Witkoff and Kushner.
First, they're watching the Russians and Ukrainians, and they're part of that negotiations.
And hey, guys, time out.
And they run into another room.
Okay, they talk to the Omanis, who's playing as an intermediate.
They don't directly talk to the Iranians.
I mean, if this was a serious process, they'd be talking directly to the Iranians.
And they would actually send a negotiating team that was staffed with some people that had some expertise.
But, you know, they went in and said back and forth with the Omanis.
And then they run back into with the Ukrainians and Russians.
And then that's not serious negotiation.
This is amateur hour.
Do you agree, Professor Sachs?
Well, of course.
And Steve Witkoff in an interview recently just expressed bewilderment.
The Iranians just don't capitulate.
So the idea of these negotiations is that Trump and the CIA and others lay down the line and the Iranians are supposed to capitulate.
And when they don't, nothing proceeds because that's what they're counting on.
They don't understand what they're doing.
They could absolutely close a deal because Trump ripped up a deal that was a perfectly sensible deal 10 years ago.
Incidentally, Trump is just replaying the playbook of his own first term in 2018, 2019, 2020, ratcheting up pressures, making assassinations, Israeli attacks on Natan's at the time, one of Iran's nuclear facilities.
None of this has worked.
And this kind of approach doesn't work.
It's so haphazard.
It so much underestimates the real issues on the table.
There is no nuclear expertise on the table, obviously at the table, I should say.
And so it's very sad.
And this is a replay of about seven years ago.
Also, the economic side, it was Trump that pronounced, then it was Pompeo at the CIA, maximum pressure campaign against Iran.
This time, Scott Besant articulated almost the same words and same idea.
We'll crush the Iranian economy.
It will bring Iran to its knees.
We'll assassinate those who we want to assassinate.
This is not real negotiation, and it doesn't work.
Here is President Trump's view in a nutshell of Iran as a threat to the United States.
I don't obviously think he made the case.
I think you're going to find what he said is inaccurate.
But here he is.
This is maybe about a minute long from his two-hour speech last night.
Chris, number 13.
They've already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they're working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.
After Midnight Hammer, they were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, in particular, nuclear weapons.
Yet they continue starting it all over.
We wiped it out and they want to start all over again and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions.
We are in negotiations with them.
They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words.
We will never have a nuclear weapon.
My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy.
But one thing is certain.
I will never allow the world's number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon.
Can't let that happen.
Before you respond, let me make two observations.
First, the four-star with the blue uniform and the scowl on his face was the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who let it be known to the Washington Post Over the weekend, that he advised the president that his plans are not going to work.
He didn't look very happy as to what he was hearing.
Second, this is very dangerous, Jeff.
The only standing ovation that the president got all night that the Democrats joined in was from that erroneous statement that clip that we just played.
I think the starting point is to say that Iran has been saying what he called those secret words, nothing secret about them, that they do not want a nuclear weapon, that they are not only ready, but absolutely eager and accepting of International Atomic Energy Agency scrutiny to that effect in a real deal.
And there was a real deal.
It was the joint comprehensive plan of action.
Trump's entire framework is completely phony.
And it's completely phony because Iran did not want nuclear weapons, signed an agreement that there would not be nuclear weapons, and then Trump ripped it up.
Now, why did he rip it up in 2018?
And why was there a standing ovation in Congress?
Because this is Israel's policy.
Because Congress and the White House are owned by radical, militant, crazy Zionists in Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben Gavir, who want a war with Iran.
And Trump is a puppet here.
He does not have an independent capacity.
Maybe he's not bright enough.
Maybe he's blackmailed.
We don't understand entirely.
But the standing ovation reflects the Zionist lobby in the United States.
This is Israel's war.
And like so many of America's wars, they're trying to bring us into their fight, which is not our fight.
When I say so many of our wars, the United States has been drawn by Israel into the wars in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, across the Middle East.
These are not wars for American security.
They're not even wars for Israel's security.
They're wars for Israel's hegemony in the region.
They're wars by Israel to take out any opponent in the region or any counterweight in the region.
So the United States tasked the CIA to overthrow the Syrian government.
That was Obama that started that one.
Trump continued it.
Trump even said, I put the current leader of Syria into power.
Yeah, that's a CIA operation.
It was Israel that got the United States to go to war with Libya in 2011, leading to the next 15 years of chaos in that country.
It is Israel that got the United States into the Iraq war in 2003.
This is all so thoroughly documented at this point that that was not a war under mistaken pretenses of weapons of mass destruction.
That was a PR campaign to justify Bibi's war.
And the reason why it's most likely that Trump will attack is the following.
The American people don't want it.
The Iranians have said they don't want nuclear weapons.
The regional leaders have said, don't go to war.
Other leaders around the world, President Putin, President Xi, and others have told the United States that is a terrible idea.
The joint chiefs of staff have told Trump this is a terrible idea.
Trump's political advisors have told Trump this is disastrous because the American people don't want this.
But that's all on one side.
The other side is Bibi, is Israel, is Miriam Adelson.
Who else?
We don't know exactly why.
But this is the point.
Trump is being overwhelmingly advised by everybody, by his military, by leaders in the region, by his political advisors, and not the least, by the American people.
Don't do this.
But it's so strange and discouraging.
There isn't an honest word that comes out of Washington because of this Zionist lobby right now.
And there was no coverage whatsoever, by the way, that when Rubio said a couple of weeks ago, look, we need a broad-based negotiation.
And the Iranians said two days later in a speech in Doha by the foreign minister, yes, here's a path to peace, the two-state solution, a state of Palestine, Israel, mutual respect, peace.
That wasn't even picked up in our newspapers.
Right, right.
Are subject to mass propaganda.
And Trump lied every word that we just watched.
And the Congress stood up and applauded him.
But that's for a reason.
That is the chokehold on American politics that this Zionist lobby has right now.
And we need to break that chokehold for our own security.
So Trump pretty much has a dilemma.
You know, if he doesn't attack, he's going to look weak.
There's a trillion dollars worth of naval gear in the eastern Mediterranean and right south of Iran.
If he does attack without a clear attainable military objective, he may risk the ruination or the substantial damage to Israel.
Don't his Zionist masters, and I don't think I'm being rude by calling them that, they have an absolute lock and control over him.
You've just described the nature and extent of it.
Understand the probable consequences when Iran attacks Israel?
50% Chance of War?00:03:45
It's not going to stop.
No, they don't, because their view is that the U.S. will simply have to escalate to the point of a full-fledged war against Iran, and the U.S. will have to devote its great military power to a full war.
And they think, as is so often the case, that'll just go fine.
Well, it never goes fine.
Look at the disasters that stretch across the Middle East from this whole Netanyahu strategy.
Libya still in massive civil war.
Sudan, two civil wars, because Israel wanted to break apart Sudan into a north and a south.
And now each of those is in civil war.
Somalia, which has been destabilized by Israel and continues to be destabilized till today.
Fighting in Lebanon, destabilization in Syria, destabilization continuing in Iraq, destabilization in Yemen.
So this whole approach has been a complete debacle.
But every time, Every single time, Netanyahu has said, it'll all be fine.
It'll all work out fine.
This is the delusional approach and the arrogance that is driving us to one disaster after another.
What will happen economically, prevailing upon your other expertise, Professor Sachs, if the Straits of Hormuz are closed?
Well, look, if there really is a war that you have to think is at least 50%, if not higher at this stage, and maybe even considerably higher than 50%.
And if the Straits of Hormuz are closed because oil tankers are being sunk and because Iran has the capacity to close the Straits of Hormuz, if that happens and oil prices soar, what we already have, which is a weak economy and people suffering, will become an outright contraction of the U.S. economy,
an economic crisis.
Of course, also a political debacle for Trump, but for the American people.
It's funny, ironic.
I came into the economics profession.
I got my PhD 46 years ago.
My dissertation happened to be on the oil price shocks of the 1970s after the embargo on oil in 1973, 74, and again in the crisis in 1979.
The point of that dissertation was to explain how those oil shocks, oil supply shocks, led to a worldwide economic crisis.
So we've been there before is the bottom line.
And they're courting another utter debacle on many different fronts, but economics is one of them.
Trump, of course, in the State of the Union said we're the hottest economy anywhere.
Covenant and Conquest00:09:27
This is absurd.
The American people know it, which is why they completely disapprove of Trump's economic policies.
They completely disapprove of Trump's tariffs, which they know correctly they're paying, not foreign countries.
Trump's just taxing the working people, and they're hurting, and they're saying they're hurting.
And what this war would do is make them hurt a lot more.
Before we go, please take a look at this.
Cut number two.
Christian Zionism.
I want to go back because that's where we started.
I'm not going to let you off on this because you have led it three times that God gave this land to this people.
And so it is entirely fair for me with respect to ask, what land are you talking about?
Because I just read Genesis 15, as I have many times.
And that land, I think it says from the Nile to the Euphrates, which is once again, basically the entire Middle East.
So God gave that land to his people, the Jews, or he didn't.
You're saying he did.
What does that mean?
Does Israel have the right to that land?
Because you're appealing to Genesis.
You're saying that's the original deed.
It would be fine if they took it all.
How did that play in Arab capitals?
Well, first, let me say that this man should resign immediately, or he should be removed from his position immediately.
An invitation to Israel to have open war in the Middle East based on a misreading of the Bible and a very profound misreading of the Bible, by the way, is grotesque.
And it did not play well anywhere with thinking people.
Europe used to have religious wars by absolutely foolish statements like Huckabee's, but that was three centuries ago.
It put that aside because it understood you don't take a selective line in the Bible as a basis for war and expect to come out at the other end with anything but bloodshed.
So the first point is for an American official to be proposing this kind of open-ended conquest on the basis of a quotation in the book of Genesis is by itself immediate grounds for the removal of this individual.
The fact of the matter is that because of the Zionist lobby, I'm sure there were pats on the back in the White House, but it's grotesque and it is a reflection of all that is wrong with American policy.
But a second point I'd like to make is that Huckabee's version of the Bible is so profoundly immature and ignorant, it is shocking.
The whole biblical narrative is not a deed to land from God to the Israelite people, whatever Huckabee thinks.
It is what's called a covenant, which is an agreement.
You are chosen, not in the sense that I'm giving you a gift, but you have a responsibility to moral behavior.
And the promise in the Bible, I'm talking in theological terms, is not that this is your land.
The land is my land, God would make clear, but it is entrusted to you based on your righteous behavior.
That's what the covenant is.
That's the whole story of the Bible.
And you can listen to prophet after prophet after prophet who explain to the Israelites, you're going to lose the land.
You're going to, in fact, it says in Leviticus, if the people are not just and moral, the land will be vomited from you.
I'm not quoting exactly right, but it's a line in Leviticus, quite vivid, saying you will lose the land.
And the prophets from Micah and others onward made absolutely clear.
This is a deal, if you want to put it that way.
It's a covenant.
This is not a unilateral promise that you do what you want.
Now, Israel is not behaving justly or morally or according to God's laws would be read in either Testament of the Bible.
Israel is committing mass murder.
It's committing slaughter in its country.
It is completely iniquitous against the Palestinian people and against others in the region.
This is not grounds for, well, it's promised.
This is not promised.
Israel is not fulfilling the most basic measures of morality.
So Huckabee, I don't know where he gets this, but the trivialization that he makes of the Bible, just in purely theological terms, is shocking to me how ignorant he is about what the Bible really says.
Not a quotation of one line from chapter 15 of Genesis, but the whole basis of God's covenant is completely different from what he says.
And that you find throughout both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
Yes.
All of it is just to say, it's shocking, but it is a reflection of the crudeness and the violence of this militant Zionism, so-called, which has, by the way, nothing to do with the Bible and it has nothing to do with Judaism.
It is a militancy that is absolutely vulgar.
And it is not the deal that was made to be a holy people and then to slaughter tens of thousands of children.
This is not the deal that Huckabee seems to think it is.
The deal isn't a land deed.
The deal is a moral covenant.
Your understanding is remarkably consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church and even with traditional non-Catholic Christians.
It's this weird Christian nationalism.
Remember when Ted Cruz tried to explain it, he hadn't read the Bible and God knows how long and he looked ridiculous, but he embraces this.
Tom Cotton embraces this.
Lindsey Graham embraces this.
I don't know what Trump is.
But it's the opposite of what Jesus teaches.
Yes, it is.
Completely the opposite of what Jesus teaches.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
And he tells Peter, put away the sword.
Those who live by the sword die by the sword.
Come on.
This is the opposite of Jesus' teachings.
Exactly.
A man like Huckabee should know this.
Well, Huckabee is a trained Christian preacher of some variant of Christianity, but totally sucked in by the Zionist mantra, which is why he's there, which is why people were, as you say, slapping each other on the back.
He should have been publicly rebuked and fired.
Instead, he probably got a congratulatory phone call from Netanyahu and maybe even from Stephen Miller and Donald Trump.
And the whole point about modern Zionism, it was not rabbinic Judaism.
The rabbi said, no, this isn't what Judaism is about.
Judaism is about morality, is about following God's law.
It's not about idolatry of the land.
Zionism was led by Christian evangelicals and secular Jews, not rabbinic teachings or rabbinic Judaism.
And so it's so misrepresented what has happened.
And it has become violent.
And we're on the verge of yet another war because of this violence.
and it's extraordinarily dangerous what's happening.
And if Israel had in its politics any sense of morality and any sense of covenant, it would say that the 8 million Palestinian people have their rights to self-determination and we will live peacefully next door to them.
That's the basis of justice.
And that's what's missing right now from Israeli politics.
Extraordinary Understanding of Conflict00:00:39
There's no covenant here.
There's just militarism.
Thank you, Professor Sachs.
Very, very passionate, very articulate, an extraordinary understanding of history and economics.
No surprise coming from you, but deeply appreciated, my dear friend.
Safe travels.
We look forward to seeing you next week.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Sure.
Coming up tomorrow, Thursday at 8 in the morning, Scott Ritter.