Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : Rob Reiner and Free Speech.

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Aaron Maté : Rob Reiner and Free Speech.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, December 16th, 2025. Our dear friend Aaron Mote joins us now, Aaron. Thank you very much for your time. I want to talk to you about Tucker Carlson, Chuck Schumer, Rob Reiner, the Freedom of Speech. But before we do, about two days ago, the... And Israeli defense forces posted a video of their assassination of what they said were Hamas leaders in Gaza.

In Gaza, I thought there was a ceasefire in Gaza. There's what's called a ceasefire, but in reality, all that meant was Palestinians gave up their last remaining leverage, which is the Israeli captives. And Israel continues to massacres. There have been hundreds of Palestinians killed since the so-called ceasefire went into effect. Israel is still blocking vital humanitarian supplies, including mobile homes that could shelter hundreds of thousands of displaced people who are now having to weather horrible winter storms. There's just awful footage being circulated of Palestinians in their rain-soaked tents trying to brave the elements in impossible conditions. And so this is just the genocide continuing, but Israel in the U.S. by calling it a ceasefire, managed to get it off the front pages, which was their main goal.

And the sadism of Israeli policy continues. And that includes to continue to assassinate Palestinians inside Gaza, including a commander of Hamas. And how will this end? Where will it go? At some point, some country is going to say enough is enough or no? Well, I don't see any indication of a country. country saying enough is enough. Look, what just happened recently at the UN Security Council, where the UN let pass this measure authored by the U.S., installing Trump as basically

the head of Gaza under the rubic of his so-called Board of Peace, approved this so-called international stabilization force to rule over Gaza, called on Hamas to disarm, and saying that there's no essential path to Palestinian freedom. All it said about Palestinians, is that we recognize it's the aspiration. And maybe one day if conditions allow, we'll put you on a pathway to a state. It was a heavily caveated statement that means absolutely nothing.

And so what Palestinians are being told to say is you have to give up your right to resist military occupation, but you have no guaranteed path to be free of that military occupation. And for Palestinians, that's a non-starter. But the problem is they have no more leverage and that's the sad reality

that Palestinians have to confront. Their last remaining leverage was the captive. And that wasn't getting them anywhere because Israel doesn't care about their own people. Israel was using the fact that the captives were being held to destroy Gaza. And even now that the captives are being freed, that remains the goal is to destroy Gaza and expel as many people as possible. So Israel will continue to move towards that goal of expelling as many people as possible by making conditions absolutely impossible. And it doesn't seem as if anybody around the world is objecting because Russia, and china could have vetoed this you measure at the u.m but they didn't they let it pass and their

excuse was that the the gulf states and the palestine authorities support this so how can we go against it well you can go against it because it's denying Palestinians their basic right to self-determination and what was once a global consensus that the part that the issue has to be solved by granting Palestinians their freedom that's been eradicated and now israel has a lot more free reign to pursue its ethnic cleansing policies whatever became of the proposal to make former prime minister tony blair it's tough to say this with a straight face the governor general of gaza i think tony blair is out but trump is still in charge he's still the head of the so-called board of peace and there's actually a meeting underway right now in which uh you know all the states involved here are going to be talking about

what do we do about this proposal for our so-called international stabilization force to bring foreign troops to Gaza? And the problem there is no one wants to come in. It's very hard to get someone on board to basically be the collaborationist authority with Israel to police Gaza and essentially do Israel's job for it. Not very many people want to do that. When I spoke to a Hamas official in Doha last week, he said that Hamas wouldn't accept any international force that deploys inside of Gaza.

The only international force that Hamas would accept, according to this official, Basin Naim, would be on the outskirts of Gaza to protect the people of Gaza from Israel. But the problem there is Israel's not going to support that. And Israel has all the cards here. And obviously, what has Trump done to send up to Israel? Even as Israel humiliates Trump by continuing violating the ceasefire that he broke, nothing.

So it's a very, very bleak situation. And in terms of who's going to come in and offer, for any kind of solution that gets us out of this, it's hard for me to see. Here's Trump yesterday, proclaiming that there's peace in the Middle East for the first time in 3,000 years. It's hard to watch this with a straight face. The initial inquiry is about Syria,

but he veers off into his standard fare of self-congratulation. Chris, cut number 12. I actually... I'm Syria, Mr. President. On the U.S. troops killed in Syria over the weekend. Why do we have troops in Syria? Because we're trying to make sure that there's going to be and remain peace in the Middle East. And Syria is a big part of it.

The new leader is a strong person, and that's what you need. This is a rough part of the world. And we've, it's been amazing what's taken place in Syria. We got rid of Assad. We got rid of other people that were really bad people and that were in the way of, peace in the Middle East. You know, we have legitimate peace in the Middle East, first time in 3,000 years, and we have 59 countries backing it. And we'll see what happens with Hamas. We see what happens with Hezbollah. But regardless, I mean, we have countries that want to go in

and clean that out if we want them to do it. Chidimate peace in the Middle East for the first time in 3,000 years. What the hell is he talking about? Trump is a good example of how, no matter who's in office, the permanent neo-con establishment just always wins. When Trump was running for president in 2016, he accurately pointed out that the U.S., you know, under Obama, was supporting an insurgency in Syria dominated by al-Qaeda. And when he came in office, he actually terminated the program, the arm and equipped program. Because he said a lot of our weapons are running up in the hands of al-Qaeda, and he didn't support arming al-Qaeda. And then in his first term, he actually ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria because he actually raised the same question that that reporter asked him, why are U.S. troops in Syria? And amazingly, Trump's order was ignored by his underlings.

They simply ignored his order because they wanted to keep U.S. troops in Syria to help keep Syria contained, no longer part of the acts of resistance that resists Israel and the U.S. and they wanted to help drive Assad out of power. So Trump ended up caving to the very same agenda that he criticized on his way to office the first time. And now he's basically, with that answer there, in his incoherent way, he's acknowledging complete surrender to that same agenda that he ran against back in 2016.

He says that our U.S. troops are now there because we want to help the new government, we want to help bring people to the Middle East. And what that means is have a new government, yes, even though it's ruled by the former leader of al-Qaeda and Syria, that is subservient to Israel won't be sending weapons to Hezbollah anymore. In fact, the CENTCOM commander, Brad Cooper,

recently praised the new government of Syria for cutting off weapons shipments to Hezbollah. And that was basically, that's why we got involved in Syria is to weaken a country that was part of the states that resist Israeli aggression. And so Trump is bragging now about how that's been a success.

And we're going to keep U.S. troops there to support that mission. Before the reason for the U.S. troops was, And Trepa also admitted this, it was to steal Syria's oil and wheat, because by doing that, we were weakening the Assad government. And by plundering their resources and by imposing crippling sanctions and by having that decade-long dirty war in which we spent billions of dollars arming the al-Qaeda dominant insurgency, we helped overthrow Assad. Now that Assad's gone. Now the mission is help, I guess, the new government and help ensure that they're not going to be getting any bad ideas about resisting Israel or letting Hezbollah. resist Israel. So this is just a surrender to the agenda of U.S. Israeli hegemony by Trump.

Aren't we building an Air Force base in Syria? I don't know exactly what's going on there with U.S. military construction, but the point is Trump, in his first term, ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops that was ignored. U.S. troops are still there. In fact, a year ago, the Pentagon had to admit that there were double the number of U.S. troops in Syria than they had publicly disclosed. And now, what just happened? Two U.S. troops were killed to Iowa National Guardsmen,

paid the price with their lives for our dirty war policy of keeping Syria under our thumb. I was talking to Ambassador Chaz Freeman earlier today about Prime Minister Netanyahu's claim that the murders on the Bandai Beach in Australia were fomented by an American. an atmosphere of anti-Semitism fomented by the Australian government. Ambassador Freeman's response was Netanyahu is the greatest cause of anti-Semitism in the history of the modern world. Netanyahu himself. Sure.

Oh, I couldn't agree more. I mean, when you have a state committing genocide and reminding everyone constantly that it's a state of the Jewish people, you're going to inevitably spread anti-Semitism. when the in the you not only have these horrific atrocities that everyone can see on their phones and computers every single day you have such impunity for them and you've such entitlement that when people protest these atrocities they get canceled fired imprisoned deported so of course that's going to foment anti-semitism and and of course when the face of global judaism is netanyahu this jewish supremacist narcissist always playing the victim yeah but of course it is so it's no

surprise that massacres like this are happening and it will continue to happen as long as Israel is putting itself forward as the representative of the Jewish people. It's not surprising at all. And of course, because Netanyahu wants to foam an anti-Semitism, they're taking advantage of this massacre by trying to, it's almost if they told Australia that Australia deserved it because Australia dared to recognize a Palestinian state. The, the mania, the mania, is just off the charts with Netanyahu and his apologists. So basically, after this horrible tragedy, exploiting it. And if you read his words, he was basically saying that Australia had it coming

because Australia dared to recognize a Palestinian state. I'm going to veer from our subject for a minute because of a statement made a few moments ago by the Secretary of Defense who calls himself the Secretary of War, saying, of course we're not going to release the footage of the second September 2nd Boat Strike, the one that killed the survivors. Chris says the video of this, we'll watch it now. Also going to tomorrow allow the Hask and Sask to see the unedited video of the September 2nd, alongside with Admiral Bradley, who has done a fantastic job, has made all the right calls,

and we're glad he'll be there to do it. But in keeping with Lerner, longstanding Department of War policy, Department of Defense Policy. Of course, we're not going to release a top secret, full, unedited video of that to the general public. Hask and Saskin, appropriate committees will see it, but not the general. No surprise. It will show, it will regenerate the debate over whether he and Admiral Bradley are war criminals. I love his, uh, his, attempt to claim that he's just so he's just so careful about not releasing you know classified video when they love to broadcast all these videos of these assassinations you know immediately after killing people on these boats in the Caribbean they they released the video and they love

to broadcast the show tough they are now all of a sudden they're pretending as if oh we can't release these videos because out of deference to longstanding practice well remember how he began his tenure as secretary of defense by having that chat that included geoffrey goldberg yeah which really which uh released classified information about where the troops are going i think there were another one of their disasters trying to kill people trying to kill the hootis i think that's what it was about that's right it was about uh bombing yemen and uh yes pitt hexeth of course was the was the man behind that signal group chat that got disclosed and so Now he's claiming all of a sudden, even though he rushed to release all these other videos

of his forces under his command, killing people without due process in the high seas. Now, this footage of the aftermath in which they killed survivors of one of those strikes that can't be released. And the reason is obvious. I mean, you've covered a lot. This was an obvious crime with no justification legally on top of the initial strikes, which also have no justification legal. Correct, correct.

I, you and Max and I have talked about this, and I've discussed. with others as well, my fear that the preoccupation with the killing of the two shipwrecked survivors will refocus attention from the fact that the entire killing process is unlawful, unconstitutional, and criminal. The killing of these two survivors is just an exacerbated example of it. One that goes back to September, they've probably killed 100 people since then. in another announcement from the Department of Defense slash War, a heckset spokesperson said they killed a few in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico yesterday. I'm staring at something called Senate Resolution 533.

I don't expect you to know what it is by the number, but it is a resolution offered, you can't make this up, by Senator Charles Schumer and 40 Democrats in the Senate to condemn Tucker Carlson because he failed to condemn Nick Fuentes when Fuentes was on his show. Whatever happened to the freedom of speech that the Senate would attempt to evaluate the content of political speech,

act upon the evaluation, and condemn somebody for failing to condemn it, look i i don't understand the fixation with nick fuentes or across the spectrum i'm someone i never paid attention to i understand he has a following and he's a sort of a cultural force that has significance but certainly um i don't understand why chuck schumer is spending his time condemning a tucker for having him on a show and i i suspect if tucker carlson hadn't come out and become sort of the biggest critic within the conservative movement the MAGA movement of Israel, I strongly doubt that Chuck Schumer would be spending his time

drawing up resolutions condemning him. That's what I think Chuck Schumer is concerned with. He's, Chuck Schumer is Israel first. And he's also just not a very effective opposition leader. He refused to endorse Sauramam Dani recently in the New York mayor election because Zarmatani is also critical of Israel. When asked recently, clearly, you know, do you support Trump's call for regime change in Venezuela? Chuck Schumer wouldn't give a straight answer. because he does support Trump's regime change campaign in Venezuela. So Chuck Schumer, as an effective opposition leader to Trump, I think, fails across the board. And I think I think a lot of Democrats agree with you, and he may face the primary of his life come next June, just seven months from now.

I don't know if it's going to be AOC or who it's going to be, but I don't think the Democrats in New York, particularly after the Mamdani crushing of Cuomo will allow Schumer-free reign. Do you? I hope not. I think Trump has been so disastrous that Democrats have a great opportunity, and they don't help themselves having Chuck Schumer as their leader. And hopefully they'll realize that in time for the midterms. Here's what Trump said when it was announced that Rob Reiner and his wife had been

slaughtered by their son. This is just reprehensible. A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, now I'm reading this literally, a tortured and struggling but once very talented movie director and comedy star has passed away together with his wife, Michelle, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive unyielding and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as Trump derangement syndrome, sometimes referred to his TDS. Now, I'm reading this literally as repellent and disgusting as it is. He was known to have driven people crazy by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump administration surpassed all goals

and expectations of greatness, and with the golden age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michelle rest in peace. When I started to read this to Scott Reddery, he said, I thought you were reading something out of North Korea talking about the North Korean leader. What can you say about that statement? It's just so sick, it's so cruel, so heartless.

There's just, you have to be, I think, a really twisted person to gloat over someone's brutal murder as Trump just did with Rob Reiner and his wife. Now, I have to say about Rob Reiner, I mean, first of all, he had an incredible run as a director. I mean, like so many, I was just a fan of so many films of his. He did have Trump derangement syndrome, I think. I actually think that Trump is right about that. In Trump's first term, in Trump's first term,

Rob Reiner unfortunately succumbed to the Russiagate mania. Yes, he did. Where to explain what I think was a, you know, what I understand was a very unpleasant development, which is Trump's victory and what that meant about the country and the world, people embraced, as people in QAnon embraced outlandish conspiracy theories, people embrace this insane conspiracy theory that Trump was being controlled by Russia. And that's what explained Trump's rise. And if only we could just, you know, find the smoking gun, then this nightmare of Trump would go away.

And Rob Reiner, I think, is one of those people who, for under the first of the, understandable reasons was very afraid of Trump. And certainly, you can see in Trump's statement there about Rob Reiner's death that Rob Reiner identified in Trump something very, very horrible and scary, accurately. But his response to that correct fear of Trump, which totally understandable fear, was to embrace a really just ridiculous conspiracy theory about Trump being controlled by Russia, which ironically only helped Trump in the end. Because for Trump, and this is the point I tried to make when.

all this was happening, it was a huge gift that Trump's opponents and his top critics like Rob Reiner, rather than focusing on his actual policies, were explaining him and challenging him are on the basis of a concocted theory that he's controlled by Russia, which of course ended up collapsing in the end. Right, right. It was a big disaster. So Rob Reiner, I think, in Trump identified, as you can see in Trump's callous comments about Rob Reiner's murder, something very, very horrible and scary.

unfortunately Rob Reiner exemplifies just in his embrace of the Russia gate thing that the response to it was just so off base that they went too far they went to an extreme man to try to explain something that was uniquely American it wasn't the result of Russia well here's J.D. Vance in 2016 which could have been Rob Reiner cut 13 Chris and and I cannot stand Trump because I think he's a fraud well I think he's a total fraud that is exploiting these people who is a total fraud I agree with you on Trump because I don't think that he's the person. I don't think he actually cares about folks. But I think that I'm going to vote for, I'm going to vote third party because I can't stomach Trump. I think that he's noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place. People obviously change their minds. He's now Trump's right hand. I don't know.

I loved Ryan. I loved him as Meathead and I loved the movie. movies also, and I never take seriously. I thought your criticism of him was right on the mark, Aaron. I just never take seriously the Hollywood crowd expressing an opinion. They are notoriously not well informed and overreacting, whether it's Tom Selleck on one side, and I know Met Selleck a number of times, and I'm not being critical of him now, or the late Rob Brynner on the other side.

But you got to watch this. Now, I never watched this guy, but Tucker Carlson's on tomorrow, and obviously this is going to come up. This is Nick Flintes ripping into Trump's statement about Rob Reiner. Someone gets murdered by their son. It's a horrific tragedy. This is a horrible story. And nobody deserves that.

I don't care what their politics are, what they said on the Internet or on television. Nobody deserves to be murdered, stabbed to death with their wife by their own son. who they tried to help. Now, if Trump were actually doing what he promised to do, you could overlook the fact that he's vain, that he's a narcissist, that he's tactical but not strategic. You could overlook all these things

if he was bringing home the goods. We haven't ended one of the wars. We haven't remade the federal bureaucracy. And then he's a on top of it. Then it's all about his vanity and his own self-aggrandizement on top of it. What is the redeeming quality now? It's nothing. It's hollow.

As my take on the Rob Reiner stabbing. No one should be making fun of that. It's not funny. Who could honest to God look at that and laugh? This guy had a daughter who now has to live with this. Her brother is in prison for murdering her parents who are now dead. Her life is shattered and destroyed, and so many people's lives are destroyed. You go on true social and make a joke about Trump derangement syndrome? it just goes to show there was never anything there there was never a center it was always

empty you don't follow this guy and neither do i but do you think he uh offers the sentiment of a lot of young maga males when he says that well i hope so uh because he's he's totally right there and more broadly what has trump offered his constituency he you know talked about uh stemming the uh he talked about addressing the issue of affordability because inflation under biden and the price of basic staples went up and then what has he done since then he talks about affordability being a democratic con job he talked about stopping the endless wars but like what has he done he's continued to give assault to israeli genocide he's now escalating his regime change campaign in venezuela um and then even when it comes to meeting the most basic

test of not gloating over the murder of a critic. He can't even pass that one. He has to take that has an opportunity to gloat and to mock someone who's just been brutally murdered along with his wife. So I hope that Nick Fuentes, I hope that what Nick Fuentes says there represents discontent amongst Trump's base because he deserves it. And if we don't have a reckoning with with Trump, I think we're all in a lot of trouble. Karen, thank you very much, my dear friend. Not our usual type of conversation, but I knew you'd appreciate all the free speech issues,

and I appreciate your thoughts on them. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again soon. Thank you, Judge. Thank you. All the best. And remaining today, 2 o'clock, Matt Ho, 3 o'clock, Colonel Karen Koukowski,

and a reminder, 11 o'clock tomorrow morning, here on judging freedom, the best known alternate media personality in the world, Tucker Carlson. Justin Paletano for judging freedom. Thank you. Thank you.