April 14, 2026 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:40
Prof. John Mearsheimer : Netanyahu Tricked Trump Into War
Professor John Mearsheimer argues Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tricked President Donald Trump into a war with Iran by rejecting CIA warnings and relying on Mossad assurances that the conflict would end in 96 hours. Despite a ceasefire announced April 7th, Israel continued attacking Lebanon to foment civil war, violating terms while leveraging the Israel Lobby—through figures like JD Vance and Marco Rubio—to block peace deals requiring nuclear enrichment abandonment or Strait of Hormuz control. Ultimately, Mearsheimer concludes Trump is trapped between Iranian demands and Israeli maximalism, validating claims that Netanyahu bamboozled the U.S. into a strategic blunder with no exit strategy unless the global economy collapses. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Illegitimate Use of Force00:14:46
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, April 14th, 2026.
Professor John Mearshammer will be with us in just a moment on just how Netanyahu and company tricked the president.
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Professor Mearshammer, welcome here, my dear friend.
Thank you for accommodating my schedule as you always so graciously do.
Before we get into Whether or not, and certainly whether, the Israelis tricked President Trump into believing this war would be over in 96 hours, I want to ask you a few questions about more recent events.
Were the events in Islamabad this past weekend a true negotiation intended to produce a long term peace?
It sure doesn't look like that.
I mean, I'd make two points.
One is it appears that the Americans thought they were in the driver's seat almost completely and could dictate terms on the nuclear issue to the Iranians.
And if you look at what we were demanding, it's hard to believe that this was a serious negotiating position that we were putting forward.
The Iranians have long made it clear they're not going to completely give up their nuclear enrichment capability.
Period.
End of story.
And the idea that we were going to force them to do it when we're not winning the war makes no sense.
Second point I'd make, and this is, I think, a very important point to get any form of negotiated agreement that puts an end to this conflict in a meaningful way, you have to deal with a whole host of issues.
The nuclear issue is just one of them.
And I don't see any evidence that those other issues were addressed.
And this involves things like reparations, who controls the Strait for the long term, what happens with Hezbollah and Israel, what happens with sanctions on Iran, what happens with American military bases in the region.
These are all issues that either the Iranians or the Americans have put on the table.
And I don't see any evidence that they were discussed.
It looks like everything revolved around the nuclear issue.
And even there, they couldn't get out of the batter's box.
Less to first base.
So I'm not sure where this all leaves us.
So you have the speaker of the parliament and the foreign minister of Iran negotiating with the vice president of the country that had just dispatched a few hundred planes and a few hundred troops to try and steal the enriched uranium.
And of course, that attempted theft failed when one of the planes crashed and they had to turn it into a rescue mission.
You also had present at the negotiation two people that the Iranians said, don't bring them.
Don't bring Witkoff and Kushner because we don't trust them.
They duped us twice, both in June and in February, leading us to believe negotiations were going on while you were planning an attack.
Witkoff and Kushner show up as the Israeli eyes and ears on Vance.
What do you think?
I think it's very important to understand that the reason you are highly unlikely to ever get any form of meaningful agreement and put this whole problem to bed is because the Israelis are in the driver's seat when it comes to how the Americans negotiate with the Iranians.
And the Israelis are firmly committed to at least achieving regime change in Tehran and getting a regime that will surrender.
To Israel and the United States in place, or what they'd really like to do is wreck Iran.
So, given Israel's agenda and given the tremendous leverage that Israel has over the United States, how do you ever solve this conflict?
The Israelis are not going to agree to leave Iran in a position where it can grow economically and it still maintains its enrichment capability.
They simply won't accept that.
They'll continue to cause trouble vis a vis Iran.
And because of the power of the lobby, we'll go along.
And by the way, you saw Israel's influence, as you pointed out, in Islamabad.
I mean, not only did you have two Israeli assets standing behind Vance and looking over his shoulder, but it's quite clear that Vance actually called Netanyahu once during the negotiations.
And he was in constant contact with Trump and with Rubio, both of whom I'm sure were in contact with the Israelis.
And on top of all that, Vice President Vance wants to be the President of the United States.
He wants to win the 2028 election, as does Marco Rubio.
And that tells you that both Vance and Rubio will dance to Israel's tune.
So the question is how do you ever put together?
A negotiating position, talking from an American perspective, where you can get some sort of meaningful agreement with Iran?
And the answer is I don't think you can.
How can Vance possibly dig himself out of the hole that he's already in politically?
I mean, he's there ostensibly to negotiate the ceasefire of a war that he opposed right up until the last minute.
He had just finished three days of campaigning.
In English to Hungarian people for Viktor Orban, who suffered a resounding, overwhelming defeat.
And he talks to President Trump 11 times in 21 hours, meaning he obviously had no authority whatsoever to agree on anything without running everything past Trump.
And then, of course, and I'm going to use Prime Minister Netanyahu's word, he reported to the Israeli Prime Minister.
Chris, number three.
I spoke yesterday with Vice President JD Vance.
He called me from his plane on the way back from Washington.
He reported to me in detail, as the people of this administration do every day, on the development of the negotiations.
In this case, the explosion in the negotiations.
The explosion came from the American side, which was not willing to tolerate the blatant violation of the agreement to enter negotiations by Iran.
Essentially, the agreement was that there would be a ceasefire and Iran would immediately open the crossings.
They didn't do that.
The Americans were not willing to accept it.
He also conveyed to me that the central issue on the table from the perspective Of President Trump and the United States is the removal of all enriched material and ensuring that there is no more enrichment in the coming years, and this could be for decades.
Well, one key word and one fascinating phrase.
He reported to me in detail, as the people of this administration do every day, report to him.
Does this surprise you?
No, this is just more evidence for what I said a few minutes ago.
The Israelis basically own us.
They're largely driving our negotiating position with the Iranians.
And this is why I said to you how do we ever resolve this conflict when the Israelis are committed to wrecking Iran and making sure Iran has no nuclear capability at all?
And the answer is there's no way you can resolve this in some meaningful way.
This conflict is going to go on and on and on because the Israelis want it to go on and on and on.
And we are not in a position to stand up to the Israelis.
It's as simple as that.
So, when the president is confronted with intelligence from his own intelligence agencies that basically say, this is not going to be an easy war to win, and a foreign intelligence agency said, don't worry about it, it'll be over within 96 hours.
We'll kill the Ayatollah, we'll foment riots in the streets, the rioters will take over the government.
Have you ever heard?
Of an American president rejecting the intel of his own agencies and accepting that of a foreign entity.
I'm speaking, of course, of Mossad.
No, I think what happened in these meetings between Trump and Netanyahu and Trump and his advisors is really quite extraordinary.
And it's extraordinary in the sense that all his principal advisors, and you might want to use the word the deep state, that they all were flashing orange lights, if not red lights, and telling him that attacking Iran was not a good idea.
Except for Pistol Pete.
Yeah, except for Pistol Pete.
But he almost doesn't count.
Because everybody understands he's really not a serious thinker.
I'm sure that President Trump even realizes that at this point in time.
But except for him, all the other people, including John Ratcliffe, according to reports.
And John Ratcliffe is super pro Israel, but as the head of the CIA, he was undoubtedly talking to all sorts of his analysts who were telling him that this was a cockamamie idea.
But it was the Israelis in the form of David Barnea, who was the head of.
Who is the head of Mossad and Prime Minister Netanyahu, who basically bamboozled President Trump into thinking that he could win a quick and decisive victory?
But again, what's really remarkable about this is that his principal advisors were telling him this is a bad idea and that he was going to get himself into a well of a lot of trouble, which is exactly what has happened.
Well, the Israelis got him into the war.
They're going to get him out?
No.
No, they're going to keep him in.
That's my point to you.
Right.
You have to understand that.
You know, all.
Everybody's talking about how we're going to negotiate with the Iranians and can the Iranians and the Americans work out a deal here.
That's all beside the point because the fact is the Israelis have no interest in a deal.
Remember what happened right after President Trump announced there was a ceasefire.
The Israelis slammed Lebanon, they attacked Lebanon in a ferocious way.
They murdered huge numbers of innocent civilians in Lebanon.
All for the purposes of undermining the ceasefire, because the ceasefire, as was agreed to by President Trump and the Trump administration more generally, called for Israel to stop attacking Hezbollah.
The Iranians insisted on this.
Israel cannot attack Hezbollah during the ceasefire.
And of course, when Trump called up Netanyahu and told him that was one of the principal provisions in the ceasefire, Netanyahu made it clear he did not agree.
And then he went out and he started bombing.
Lebanon, in large part, to undermine the ceasefire because the Israelis don't want a ceasefire.
They want the war to go on.
They want us to destroy Iran or to produce regime change, which has not happened and is not going to happen, which leaves us with one option destroying Iran to make the Israelis happy.
So, what happens at the end of this week when the two weeks of the so called ceasefire are over?
Does Trump resume bombing or does he await the outcome of his blockade of the blockade?
Caught Between Two Forces00:12:08
Well, what's going on in his mind?
I'm sorry for the triple questions here, Professor.
On Easter Sunday, in a very profane and most inappropriate tweet demanding the Strait of Hormuz be open, now he's blockading it.
Well, what's going on is that he's desperate.
I mean, he understands at this point that he made a colossal blunder starting this war.
If we could go back to February 27th, he would not attack Iran, knowing what has happened.
And the question now is how does he get himself out of this situation?
And the problem he faces is that the Iranians are a formidable adversary.
They have lots of cards to play.
And on the other side, he's dealing with the Israelis, who are a formidable adversary.
And I'm choosing my words carefully here.
The Israelis are a formidable adversary of the United States, and they have very powerful cards to play because they have this institution called the Israel Lobby, comprised of all sorts of institutions and individuals in the United States who have enormous power and go to great lengths to make sure that U.S. foreign policy dances to Israel's tune.
So Trump is caught between a rock and a hard place.
He's got the Israelis on one side and the Iranians on the other side, and he has hardly any negotiating room.
What has Netanyahu accomplished by slaughtering civilians in a shopping area in downtown Beirut?
Civilians.
Well, I think the problem that he faces, this is independent of Iran, is that he is doing very poorly against Hezbollah.
You want to remember in the years 2023 and 2024, it looked like the Israelis had decimated Hezbollah to the point where it was effectively defanged.
And then the war against Iran started on February 28th, and Hezbollah joined in to help its Iranian allies.
And it's been quite remarkable how effective Hezbollah is in two different ways.
One, at lobbying rockets and missiles in large numbers at Northern Israel and even into Tel Aviv.
It's quite clear that Hezbollah, in terms of its rocket and missile force, has not been defanged.
But furthermore, if you look at the battles that have been taking place in Southern Lebanon, you want to remember the Israelis are interested in conquering Southern Lebanon up to the Latani River.
The Israelis have really been clobbered by Hezbollah in the tank battles and the infantry battles in southern Lebanon.
And the Israelis have actually pulled back, and they're no longer talking about colonizing southern Lebanon up to the Latani River.
They now have a very narrow strip that they control along the border between northern Israel and southern Lebanon.
So Hezbollah is alive and well.
And what I think Netanyahu wants to do is he wants to foment a civil war in Lebanon.
He wants to foment a war between the government on one side and Hezbollah on the other, as a way of weakening Hezbollah and as a way of weakening Lebanon.
That would explain his offer to negotiate, not with Hezbollah, but with the government of Lebanon.
Absolutely.
And there's all sorts of talk in the Israeli press that what the Israelis are interested in doing is getting the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, because the Israelis can't disarm Hezbollah, as I was just saying.
So they want the Lebanese government to do it, but of course, the Lebanese government is in no position to disarm Hezbollah.
And many people think that the end result will be a civil war involving Hezbollah on one side and the Lebanese government on the other side, and this will be good for Israel.
Wow, I have to change the topic for just a minute.
One of the chatters writes in, I won't tell you what the person's email address is, John.
Is my dear grandpa.
So, one of your grandchildren is watching us now, Professor Mearshammer, and it's a delight.
It just excited me to see that.
Wow.
Hello, my grandchild, whoever here she is.
I don't want to embarrass the person, but I will give you the email moniker of this person when we're off air.
I mean, Trump really has no out anymore, does he?
He does not have a good out.
I mean, he could basically cave in to the Iranian demands, but he would pay an awful price from Israel and from the lobby in the United States.
My view on this, Judge, is that for Trump to cave, what has to happen here is that the economy, the international economy, the world economy, has to be on the verge of going off the precipice.
There has to be enough damage around the world.
To cause President Trump to simply say to the Israelis, enough is enough.
We have to shut this down.
And this is why I've long argued that from Iran's point of view, the longer this war goes on, the better.
I think the Iranians were actually foolish to go to Islamabad.
If I had been playing their hand, I would not have gone to Islamabad.
I would have just kept the war going because they were in the driver's seat.
And the longer the war goes on, the more leverage they have.
And I think at some point, if the war goes on long enough and things get bad enough economically, Trump will then have no choice but to clash with the lobby and with Israel and force them to accept some sort of meaningful peace agreement.
But if we never reach that point, this is just going to go on and on.
Hmm.
Well, the president has a terrible dilemma on his hands.
There's no question about that.
Do you think he understands?
That's a dumb question on my part.
Do you think he understands?
Who knows what he understands?
Do the people around him know that Netanyahu's goal is to divide Iran the way MI6, CIA, and the Israelis divided Syria?
I'm sure they do.
I mean, they have, we're talking about his advisors here, and I would even imagine him.
They understand full well that they are in a desperate situation, that we have to get out of this conflict.
You want to remember, it was the Americans who pushed for the Islamabad meeting.
It was not the Iranians.
The Iranians went along with the meeting, but it was the Americans who wanted the meeting.
But the meeting was just performative.
I mean, Vance had no authority, he was monitored by the two Zionists, he was reporting to Netanyahu, and his demands were outrageous.
Yes, but what you're missing here is that Trump is caught between two forces.
One are the Iranians and the need to shut this down, and two, the Israeli desire to destroy Iran.
So what happens is that Trump says last Tuesday that we're going to have a ceasefire.
This is on April 7th.
We're going to have a ceasefire, he says.
And he says we're actually going to negotiate on the basis of Iran's 10 point plan.
And this looks very promising at the moment.
But then, what happens over the course of the week, and what actually happens in the negotiations itself, is that the Israelis and the lobby weigh in and Trump backs off.
And instead of negotiating with the Iranians in Islamabad on the basis of the 10 point plan that the Iranians had put on the table, he negotiates, contrary to what he said he was going to do, on the basis of the 15 point plan that the Americans had put forward earlier, which is All the maximal, which includes all the maximalist demands that the Israelis want.
So, what you see is that ultimately we adopt the Israeli position, and that's the basis of the negotiations.
And this is what happens all the time.
Anytime we show any flexibility, any interest in accommodating the Iranians, the Israelis and the lobby move in, and we adopt the hardline position, which reflects Israel's interests.
And as Prime Minister Netanyahu made it clear, We're reporting to him all along the way.
And don't you think that when we report to our boss, Prime Minister Netanyahu, that he makes it clear to us exactly what he wants?
And we salute and do what he wants.
And anytime he senses that we're getting out of line and we're getting too flexible with the Iranians, he calls up President Trump and he tells him in no uncertain terms that he has to get back in line.
President Trump salutes, gets back in line, and here we are.
I wonder if Netanyahu tricked Trump or threatened Trump.
It's probably a combination of the two.
I think that if you look at the New York Times story on what the negotiations or what the discussions looked like between the Israelis and the Americans before the war, before February 28th, it looks like the Israelis bamboozled Trump.
They convinced him that they could win this magical victory, they sold him a bill of goods, and he was gullible.
And he bought it.
He didn't listen to his advisors.
He didn't ask his advisors tough questions that might have led him to counter the Israeli narrative that was on the table.
So I think he was bamboozled.
But the point that I'm making to you is regardless of what happened in those discussions, the fact is as we move along here, President Trump fully understands, JD Vance fully understands, Marco Rubio fully understands.
That they really have little choice but to do what the Israelis and what the lobby wants.
As I've long argued, Israel is a huge albatross around their neck.
And if anybody needs more proof of that than what's happening here, they're a hopeless cause because it's patently obvious from this case that Israel is causing us huge strategic and moral problems.
Do the Iranians recognize Israel?
The United States towing the Israeli line.
Absolutely.
I mean, all you have to do is listen to them talk and look at all these memes that they're putting out.
Everybody understands this at this point in time, even inside the United States.
I'm shocked.
As someone who, along with Steve Wall, wrote this book on the Israel lobby in 2007 and an article on the subject in 2006, I'm shocked at how aware most Americans are today.
Of what the lobby and what Israel are doing to influence U.S. policy in a negative way.
We've just reached the point, thanks to the alternative media, that lots and lots of people in the United States fully understand what's happening.
Americans Finally Understand00:00:43
And you go around the world, especially to places like Iran, and they understand full well.
Wow.
Professor Mearsheimer, thank you very much, my dear friend.
If you stay with us for a moment, I'll give you the name of.
Or the name used by the person who said you are his or her, dear grandpapa.
Thank you, as always, for your analysis, and we'll look forward to seeing you next week.
My pleasure, as always, Judge, and I look forward to seeing you next week.
Thank you.
Coming up at 10 o'clock this morning, Aaron Mate at 2 this afternoon, Matt Ho at 3 this afternoon, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski.