March 17, 2026 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
22:14
Kyle Anzalone : WAR 'just for fun'
Judge Andrew Napolitano and Kyle Anzalone dissect the U.S. invasion of Iran, criticizing the Trump administration's lack of coherent justification despite June claims regarding nuclear facilities. They condemn Donald Trump's assertion that Navy ships were sunk "just for fun," arguing it solidifies Iranian resolve while ignoring historical intelligence failures similar to those in Iraq. The discussion highlights tactical resilience in the Strait of Hormuz, failed coalition efforts involving Germany and China, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's undermining rhetoric. Ultimately, Anzalone warns this unwinnable conflict could devastate the U.S. economy and hurt Republicans in November, suggesting the war serves geopolitical interests rather than national security. [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 Monday, March 16th, 2026.
Kyle Anzalone of the Kyle Anzalone show will be with us in just a moment on Do You Believe Donald Trump said for some of his military commanders, war is fun.
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Kyle Anzalone, welcome here, my dear friend.
Thank you for accommodating my schedule.
Has the Trump administration, after months of buildup and now two weeks of war, been able to articulate what the emergent, imminent threat to the United States of America was that justified an invasion of Iran?
No, not at all.
We've gotten many different explanations for why this war happened and what the U.S. objectives are for this war.
They said the nuclear program, but the problem for the Trump administration is they'd said they destroyed the nuclear program in June.
They've said Iran's missile program, but Iran doesn't make missiles that could hit the United States of America.
They say the goal is regime change, that Trump has said the Iranians wouldn't negotiate and that they were going to make a nuclear weapon.
And Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, and Steve Wickhoff, his personal envoy, told him that.
And we've also had statements from people like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said Israel was going to do this with or without the United States.
And Iran would respond by striking U.S. bases in the region.
And the U.S. had to attack Iran first to defend our bases.
That seems more or less the most coherent narrative that has come out of the White House.
You think that Netanyahu forced Trump's hand or this Rubio argument is just a fraud.
I mean, if Israel is going to attack Iran and that's going to result in a response that's caused by Israel.
I mean, Iran, the U.S. Navy is 3,000 kilometers away from Iran's missiles, so their missiles can't reach our ships.
How do these people think their missiles can reach the United States, which is 10,000 miles away?
Right.
Well, you know, when you say forced Trump's hand, he did have other cards that he could have played here.
He could have told the Israelis no.
And in fact, rather than sending more missile defenses to the Middle East to defend Israel from the repercussions of attacking Iran, he could have pulled military assets out of the region to make it clear to the Israelis that he was actually very serious about not getting involved in war with Iran.
He also could have gone to the Iranians and said, hey, look, Israel says they're going to attack.
We want no part of this war and don't attack U.S. bases in response.
And maybe Iran would have been happy to limit the conflict to the U.S. and Israel.
Instead, the U.S. gets involved.
And now it's a region-wide conflict.
Has Trump boxed himself in to a geopolitical and domestic political corner that he really can't get out of?
Yes, it really seems that he has because the economic repercussions, even if the conflict ended today, are going to be felt for months, if not years down the line.
So I do think this is going to hurt the U.S. economy, and that's certainly going to have extensive political repercussions for the Republicans in November, not to mention with all the Republican voters who got on board with the Trump, the MAGA, the American First Movement with the understanding that we wouldn't be fighting needless wars again in the Middle East, all those breaking with the Republican Party.
I think this is really going to hurt Trump's ability to enact any of his agenda in his second term.
And he's in an unwinnable conflict, but it seems that he's going to continue to escalate at this point rather than trying to take whatever off-ramp is available to him.
Tell me what you think of this, Chris.
Cut number three.
Together with our Israeli partners, we're crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force.
Iran's drone and missile capability is being utterly demolished.
The Navy is gone.
It's all lying at the bottom of the ocean.
46 ships.
Can you believe it?
In fact, I got a little upset with our people.
I said, what quality of ship?
Excellent, sir.
Top of the line.
I said, why didn't we just capture the ship?
We're going to use it.
Why did we sink him?
They said it's more fun to sink him.
They like sinking him better.
They say it's safer to sink him.
I guess it's probably true.
I think that's reprehensible, but what do you think?
It's absolutely reprehensible to, you know, sink a ship.
And again, you know, it would have some strategic value if the U.S. did capture that ship.
Let's say an American fighter jet goes down over Iran and Iranian forces capture the pilot, then we will have had 100 and something Iranian sailors to do a prisoner swap with.
Also, if Trump got his desired regime change in Iran, then this ship could have been a part of the new Iranian military that's backed by the United States.
But rather, he says they sunk it just for fun.
Also, it really goes to show that the president doesn't understand history in this clip when he's talking about how we're destroying their country.
We destroyed Vietnam.
We destroyed Iraq.
We destroyed Afghanistan.
And in none of those situations did the war end in our favor.
So, you know, he seems to have it in his idea that the more ships that we could sink, the more targets that we could hit, the more missiles we claimed we destroyed, that this is somehow going to amount to a victory in Iran, when in reality, a lot of it is counterproductive, particularly sinking a defenseless ship that had no part in the war whatsoever, ever when it could have easily been captured.
You know, all this is going to solidify the Iranian people around their government and military.
I know you're going to be interviewing our mutual friend and colleague Larry Johnson soon on your show.
Larry told us this morning that Mossad had turned the top general in charge of the Revolutionary Guard.
You remember when Trump murdered General Soleimani?
This is Soleimani's deputy who succeeded him.
He became a Mossad agent.
He since has been executed.
But that human being and his integral position in the Iranian government is what gave the United States and the Israelis the false belief that by killing the Ayatollah they could replace his government with a new government headed by this guy who was the became an agent of the Mossad.
Well, you know, we've seen it time and time again in the Middle East where they develop different intelligence assets.
We saw with the Iraq War II, where different people, Ahmed Chalabi being one of them, were feeding American or Israeli sources different intelligence that was confirming what they wanted to believe would happen in Iraq.
And then the Americans bought it and ended up in a war there.
So I guess I'll be talking to Larry about this later today because it sounds very interesting.
But it seems like this is another piece that got us lied into this unnecessary war in Iran.
Here's the latest from the Iran foreign minister.
This was just a few hours ago, basically mocking President Trump for asking other countries, none of which has said yes, for help with the Strait of Hormuz.
And he ends with a very, very interesting line: crisscut number 11.
When our adversaries first began by insisting upon a total and unconditional surrender, and then after a period of 12 long days, they requested please an unconditional ceasefire.
This time they implemented the same scenario, but with even greater intensity and force.
They mobilized all their forces so that this unconditional surrender would happen.
This time they were determined to make it happen for sure.
Well, the sheer scale of the attacks, the action they took on the very first day, you know all of this better than I do.
And again, they started with the phrase unconditional surrender.
And today, after almost 15 days have passed since the war began for the security of the Strait of Hormuz, they are turning to those whom they considered enemies until just yesterday.
They are asking other countries to come and help them so that the Strait of Hormuz remains open, which, of course, from our perspective, it is open.
It is only closed to our enemies.
Only closed to our enemies.
So the United States is not getting through, and Western European nations are not getting through.
Are you surprised at the Iranian resilience, Kyle?
I'm surprised with how capable their military has proven in this conflict to some extent.
They've managed to not close the Strait of Hormuz, but as the foreign minister says, they're controlling, which means they're not just dropping mines or blowing up any ship, but they are being very careful and tactful and able to use drones and missiles to target what they need to target in the region, but allow the ships through that they want to allow through.
I mean, that's impressive tactically, and also goes to show that if the United States tries to bring its navy into the Persian Gulf, that Iran still has very capable anti-ship systems ready to go.
Also, that Donald Trump is now trying to form an international coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz and is being rejected at every turn is really just an embarrassment for the American Empire.
The Germans today unequivocally said no.
The French said no.
Trump is apparently trying to leverage his meeting with the Chinese president later this month to say he's not going to China if China doesn't agree to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, and the Chinese aren't going to sign up for this.
And it goes to show how really desperate the American empire is at this point, where we've gotten ourselves in this problem.
And the Iranians are saying, look, however, this conflict ends, we ultimately get a say in it.
We're not going to let you have a ceasefire and just end the war on your terms, that this war is going to end on our terms to ensure that in eight months from now, in 12 months from now, Israel and the U.S. aren't attacking our country again.
So Trump told NBC News over the weekend that the Iranians reached out to an intermediary foreign ministry, wouldn't say who, and that that foreign ministry reached the Department of State and conveyed the message that the Iranians were interested in negotiating toward a ceasefire.
The Iranian foreign minister said, basically, why would we do that?
But I'm going to play what the Iranian foreign minister said, and then I'm going to ask you who you believe.
Chris number four.
Don't you have to negotiate?
No, it's not a war of survival.
We are stable and strong enough.
We are only defending our people from this act of aggression.
And we don't see any reason why we should talk with Americans because we were talking with them when they decided to attack us.
And that was for the second time.
There is no good experience talking with the Americans.
We were talking.
So why did they decided to attack us?
So what is good if we go back to talk once again?
Who do you believe?
Yeah, I don't think the Iranians are interested in talking right now, primarily because as the foreign minister points out, in June, the U.S. and Iran had engaged in five rounds of talks on the nuclear issue.
Everybody was saying that progress was being made.
A sixth round of talks was scheduled.
The Iranians are saying a potential deal could be really like the basis of it formed at those talks.
And then Israel launched an attack and the Americans backed the Israeli attack on Iran and actually joined that attack and destroyed Iranian nuclear facilities.
Then Iran re-engaged in talks with the U.S.
They were willing to make concessions.
The mediators for those talks, the Omani, said, Hey, we got a potential deal on the table here.
And just a few hours later, the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran.
China Allows Airspace Attacks on Iran00:05:34
So why would Iran believe that going to the table with Trump and Netanyahu means anything other than putting your guard down for another American and Israeli attack?
And this is probably going to be a lesson that's learned across the world that it's better not to negotiate with the Americans.
When you talk to them, the president makes unreasonable conditions for the negotiations.
And then when his commitment aren't met, he goes into an unnecessary war that never needed to happen.
So this is going to create real problems for the United States when Iran doesn't allow this war to end on the terms that Donald Trump wants.
This idea that we were going to get in and out quickly, that this would somehow be like a bigger Venezuela, maybe four days, less than a week.
Iran could drag this out for months and it's going to devastate the economy.
It's going to raise oil prices and Iran is probably going to sell enough oil to keep funding its government while average Americans will suffer and they'll punish the Republicans and Donald Trump in November.
Does the Secretary of Defense who calls himself the Secretary of War have any international credibility other than that of a belligerent thug?
I sure hope not.
I mean, this man is an utter idiot.
I can't believe the kind of things that he has been willing to say.
You can't believe he graduated from Princeton.
That's astounding.
Yes, that is truly unbelievable to me.
You know, he has just rolled out some of the old tropes that we've heard time and time again, that these wars aren't won because in the past, the military was unnecessarily constrained by things like ethics and morality and international law.
And we just need to ignore that.
And then we'll devastate Iran so completely that they'll capitulate to the Americans.
When actually the lesson we learned is the opposite, that when you just use air power and you bomb and devastate even the civilian infrastructure, which has already happened, say with the bombing of the school on the first day of this conflict that killed well over 100 school children, you solidify the opposition against the United States of America and the countries fight even harder and willing to drag the conflict out even more.
So yeah, he's not helping his own cause.
And he's actually made a lot of just tactical mistakes, like admitting that the Gulf Arab countries are allowing the U.S. and Israel to use their airspace to attack Iran.
These countries are trying to appeal to Tehran and say, hey, you know, we're not involved in this country, this conflict.
Please stop attacking us.
And then Pete Hedseth goes on in a press conference and just admits that, no, they're getting ready to enter this war in an offensive way.
They're going to war against Iran.
They're allowing us to use their airspace to attack Iran.
He's actually undermining the position of our allies because he doesn't understand the context of this conflict or how it's being fought.
As the Secretary of War, he is really the person that should have put his foot down and said, we can't do this, that the American stockpiles of interceptors isn't great enough, that we really don't have the number of warships or missiles or bombs or warplanes needed to conduct an operation like this.
And if we end up in a place where we need to put troops on the ground, we're going to end up with tens of thousands of dead Americans, Mr. President.
We simply can't do this.
And yet he just goes along with it because I think, as Donald Trump said before, he finds it fun to blow things up and kill people.
Wow.
You mentioned Trump and China earlier.
The White House over the weekend leaked the President Trump's, it's hard to say this with a straight face, Kyle.
President Trump's personal management of the war is so critical that he needs to do it from the situation room in the White House and might not be able to take a week away from it by going to China.
I think this is really the U.S. getting a message from President Xi.
He doesn't want to be seen in public with Donald Trump after this war.
It would be interesting.
The Chinese are the ones that end up canceling this summit because Donald Trump, in an interview with the Financial Times, really tried to leverage the summit to say that Beijing had to participate in his international coalition for the straight-a-forward moves.
Excuse me.
So he's put himself in a real problem, doesn't have the leverage with the Chinese that he thinks he does.
And the Chinese were already upset at the U.S. and the way that we were handling this by not taking this security concern seriously and doing enough planning for this event.
So I think it's very possible that the Americans try to leverage it against the Chinese that they just cancel it.
Do you have any insight as to whether Netanyahu is dead?
I have no insight into that.
I've seen the videos that do seem strange, and I understand why people are questioning it, but I see no reason to believe other than the videos being questionable that Netanyahu is dead or harmed in any way.
He may not even be in the country of Israel.
Right, right.
Questioning Netanyahu's Death Videos00:00:55
So you have Larry Johnson coming up at 4:45 today.
Yes, I do on the Kyle Ansloan show.
Really looking forward to interviewing Larry.
He has just such an extensive understanding of all this, which, of course, is why I watch every time you have Larry on, whether that's on Monday or Friday, Judge.
Yeah, thank you for doing that.
Larry has a wealth of information, and your viewers and listeners will deeply appreciate him as they appreciate you, as I appreciate you.
Thank you, Kyle.
A pleasure, my dear friend.
All the best.
Coming up tomorrow, Tuesday, at 8 in the morning, Ambassador Chaz Freeman.