Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : The Dead And Injured In Gaza.

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Aaron Maté : The Dead And Injured In Gaza.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's an equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited. plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, September 16th, 20205. Aaron Mante joins us now. Aaron, thank you very much for accommodating my schedule.

I want to talk to you about these disputes raging over the dead and displaced and injured in Gaza. But before we get there, why do you think Prime Minister Netanyahu felt the need to go on international television and deny that the Israelis had murdered Charlie Kirk? Well, given what Israel is allowed to get away with, the impunity it has, there's so much suspicion about Israel and, you know, to what extent it manipulates people, is holding blackmail over people. It's such an evil state. It gets away with such evil that people naturally suspect it now of being able to do anything. And that's been bolstered in recent days by the reporting of Max Blumenthal at the Gray Zone, which you've covered. You had a great interview with him, which I encourage people to see if they haven't yet, where Max spoke to a number of sources who relayed that Charlie Kirk was revisiting, rethinking, challenging his own support of Israel in light of all the atrocities there. So given that, Netanyahu has to come out and sort of, and claim that Israel had nothing to do with it.

And, you know, I don't think Israel was responsible for Charlie Kirk's murder, obviously. I mean, there's a lot known about the alleged shooter and that seems to be pretty straightforward. But the fact that Charlie Kirk was apparently undergoing this transformation, or at least questioning his support for Israel, it speaks to just how Israel has lost so many of its traditional supporters. And the debate that's been sparked by Max's article about the pressure Charlie Kirk was under to tow the line on Israel, the backlash he was getting from Israeli government supporters, people like Bill Ackman and others for platforming conservative critics of Israel like Tucker Carlson, this is a good thing. And this deserves to be amplified because the only way to stop Israel, this genocidal death machine that's a threat to the whole planet, is for a real bipolar. partisan coalition. And it seems to me, if you read Max's work, that Charlie Kirk was, you know, on his way to becoming a part of that, given the horrors that everyone is seeing in Gaza. I mean, Max's reporting was really extraordinary. Judging Freedom was thrilled to be the first show

to which he turned. That may have been a coincidence of timing because he had his sources. He was communicating with his sources yesterday. But the picture that he paint, of these people offering Kirk huge amounts of money and then berating him when he wouldn't accept it and Kirk's belief that Netanyahu himself was behind all of this. I mean, this is APAC at its worst.

Yeah, and that's how they operate. And if you look at some of the major figures in the international legal world who've been bullied by Israel, there's just a pattern. They get offered inducements, they get offered to tell the party land. And if they don't, they get threatened.

There was a South African jurist named Richard Goldstone, a Jewish guy, committed Zionist who wrote a UN report, who oversaw a UN report years ago about a previous Israeli assault on Gaza. And he documented extensive Israeli war crimes. He eventually was pressured to recant. And he did.

He renounced his own report. And, of course, the team of experts he worked with, they stood by it, but he recanted. And this must have been after, and we know this was after a pressure campaign on him by Israel. What exactly Israel did? Did they buy him off? Did they threaten him? I don't know.

And there's a similar judge on the International Court of Justice who was pressured by Israel and I think likely bribed. So this is just how they operate. So they're used to getting away with buying people off, bullying them. And I wouldn't be surprised at all if they tried to apply the same playbook with Charlie Kirk. Do you think anything will come of Max's revelations, or do you think people will say, well, this is the way the Zionists operate, turn the page? Well, what's already come of it is encouraging to me. You've seen a lot of discussion in the conservative space about the role of Israel and conservative support for, and you've seen people who previously expressed unwavering support for Israel, saying that they're uncomfortable. now with Gaza, of course, which is way too late. This should have been happening from the

start, but I think it's better late than never. And so already what I think Max has sparked is encouraging because it's highlighting the divisions that exist inside the conservative MAGA space about Israel. Not everybody's on board. Tucker Carlson is not Marjorie Taylor Green is not, Candace Owens is not, and that's good. I mean, however much I disagree with these people on so many issues. To me, Gaza is the moral issue of our time, and it's the existential issue of our time, because Israel has been granted impunity to carry out mass murder. There's no reason to think they will stop at Gaza. And they have nuclear weapons, and they're an out-of-control supremacist state. So this country and this country's influence in domestic U.S. politics were they able to basically

buy out politicians. Cory Bush, Jamal Bowman, two progressive Democrats were essentially bought out of office. APAC spent millions of dollars trying to get them ousted and they, and they succeeded in that. So this country, Israel and its lobby and its army of apologists are a threat to the world. They're a threat to democracy. Look at the crackdown on free speech as well on top of APAC's role in Congress. So it's just paramount that there is debate everywhere and that there's as much of a bipartisan coalition as possible to stand up to this madness. I wonder what Kirk thought of Netanyahu. Max's sources didn't know, but there must be people to whom he whispered his own views of Netanyahu, whom he recognized as the figure behind these

efforts to intimidate him. I, you know, I can't speak to that. I never really followed the work of Charlie Kirk, and he's gone now, so he's not here to speak from. And so I don't want to, you know, over-speculate about what is feeling. Fair enough. But, but certainly the debate that this is, the discussion that this has sparked, just, you know, Max, documenting that there was some questioning going on and there was some pressure on Charlie Kirk to tow the party line. That to me, you know, it's important for people to understand that this is how it operates, it intimidates people and there needs to be as much dissension as possible. from this genocidal state and um what is to what is to stop them what is to stop them from bombing another arab country because they claim they want to kill a Hamas official nothing nothing

now and we've already learned recently that even Trump's claims that he didn't only that he only knew from Netanyahu at the last minute was a lie that Axios reported that actually Netanyahu personally spoke to Trump and told him. Trump had said he found out at the very last minute while the planes were already in the sky and he tried to get Steve Wickhoff to intervene, but it was too late. I mean, it's just Trump gave

Israel the full green light here, just as he did to give Israel the green light in Iran. By the way, on that front, we learned some new information recently. Israeli media reported on leaked transcripts of the Israeli cabinet meeting about bombing Iran.

And these leaked transcripts acknowledge what, you know, we talked about extensively on your show, that there was no imminent threat that Iran was going to acquire nuclear weapons. They weren't even close. In fact, there's a reference inside the meeting by Netanyahu. He says that, you know, Iran could be nuclear capable within a few years. Compare that to what him and Trump are saying in public that this could be weeks or months away. So privately, Nanyahu is admitting that Iran, even if it wanted nuclear weapons, was a few years away.

The transcript also showed that drawing the U.S. in was an essential part of this from the start. And they recognize that only the U.S. had the capability to destroy the Fordo plant, which was the paramount goal here. And they talked about destroying even more civilian infrastructure inside a run than they already did. But they decided to hold back on that because they worried that if they destroyed too much civilian infrastructure,

that that might deter the U.S. from entering the war along with them. But they said we'll save that plan for a later date. So Israel still intends to bomb Iran and still intends to bomb Iran's civilian infrastructure. Have you seen the statements on X in the past two hours that 250 members of Congress are in Israel as we speak? And do you know if that is possibly true? I know that Marco Rubio is there. I haven't seen the number by 250, but I wouldn't be surprised at this point. Israel has a bipartisan coalition in Congress. It's a uniparty essentially when it comes to Israel. There's some dissent in the Democratic Party now. It's growing a little bit. And of course, Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massey are rare exceptions on

the Republican side. But I know that Marco Rubio is there. I know that Markerubio went to a tunnel in Jerusalem built under the Al-Aksa Mosque, a holy site for Islam. which Israel is basically saying we're never going to give up, we're going to control forever, and we're going to continue desecrating as an insult to Muslims worldwide. What do you expect will be the geopolitical backlash from the attack on Doha other than the words of condemnation that came out in the past 48 hours from Arab leaders? I think there will be no geopolitical backlash, And I think it stops at those words of condemnation, which are just meaningless.

Look, all these Gulf states are in a tough position. They rely on the U.S. to basically keep them in power. And in return, the U.S. gets access to their vast oil wealth. But as a result of this, they're all complacent. And they don't do anything to stand up to Israel. Some of these states have been involved in facilitating arms transfers to Israel while publicly condemning it. And that's what happens when you make yourself an appendage of the U.S. I mean, there's a massive U.S. military base in Qatar, the biggest U.S. military facility in the Middle East.

So they're not going to do anything. Look, they've tried to resolve the Palestinian issue diplomatically before. For more than two decades, there's been a peace offer on the table to Israel called the Arab League peace plan or the Saudi peace plan, which said all of us will normalize with you with Israel if you simply and the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and allow for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, to 22% of the land that Israel stole from the Palestinians. Israel refused to even discuss that. So these states have tried to resolve this diplomatically, but that's as far as they'll go. They're not in any position anymore to do anything else.

Does Netanyahu control Trump or does Trump control Netanyahu, or is that not an answer, and not a question that can be answered in a straightforward way? I think Trump is beholden to his pro-Israel donors. Mary Madelson, whose top issue is Israel, gave him a lot of money. And he's bragged about doing favors for her, like, you know, giving her the gesture of moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem or recognizing Israel's theft of the Syrian Golan Heights, things like that. According to Scott, Ritter naming Marco Rubio, Secretary. of state, but she wanted him to be Trump's vice president.

Again, this is courting to Ritter. I haven't seen this anywhere else. Yeah, well, that makes sense. That makes sense. So, look, I don't, if Trump wanted to, he could tell Netanyahu to stop the genocide, and I think Netanyahu would have to comply. I don't think Netanyahu controls Trump, but I think Trump is letting himself be controlled by people like Mary Middleston and doing their bidding because they give him a lot of money,

and he identifies with him. Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, is a, committed pro-Israel fanatic. So this is just who Trump is surrounded by, and this is who he listens to. Well, he's surrounded by other committed Zionists. Mike Huckabee, Pete Heggs, Seth, Marco Rubio, himself Rubio quintessentially.

I don't know where Telsie Gabbard is. She was not a Zionist when she was in the Congress. She may very well be one now, or maybe she gives them lip service. Can you bring us up to speed on the current, disputes about which you have been writing over the numbers of dead, injured, missing, displaced in Gaza. The UN Commission of Inquiry for Palestine just came out with a new report saying that Israel is committing genocide. And given now this is just such a broad consensus of experts, I mean, even the New York Times now has to print voices calling this a genocide because it's just so,

overwhelming. Given that this is a genocide, the official toll from the health ministry in Gaza is just, it's a vast undercount. How can you possibly keep an accurate toll when all the infrastructure has been destroyed, when people are still buried under the rubble, and Israel is dropping the most powerful bombs on a defenseless death camp or people are trapped? So we know that the toll, the official toll from the Gaza health ministry, which is so often derided in the corporate media as the Hamas-run health ministry, we know that the official toll is way too low. As to what it actually is, there's all sorts of estimates, and I can't commit to a number, but all I know is I think this is in the hundreds of thousands at least. And the irony of constantly trying to impugn the

credibility of the gaza of the Hamas run health ministry quote unquote when really the only criticism you can make of it is that its numbers are way too low well uh chris informs me that the um event of where i asked you about with 250 members of congress it's not 250 members of congress it's 250 members of state legislatures uh and they group is called the 50 states one is The conference is a gathering of state legislatures from all 50 U.S. states together with members of the Israeli government. It is hosted by Israel's foreign ministry with travel costs, accommodations, transportation, meals, et cetera, paid by the Israeli government. The timeline is September 14, that was Sunday, to September 18, which is Thursday of this week. So this is probably more subtle bribery to get state legislatures to enact legislation to punish contractors who do business with the state that have expressed abuse critical of the Netanyahu regime.

Exactly. Exactly. I need to pass this office. It's not significant, but it's so passei today, even though these are profound and direct assaults. on the freedom of speech. Marco Rubio announced this morning he may deport people here on visas who celebrate the death of Charlie Kirk. Well, celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk is truly reprehensible.

He was murdered, slaughtered in public. But punishing people because of their speech, don't you read the Constitution you took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend, Mr. Secretary? He's taken that oath many times. times in Congress and to become Secretary of State. It's almost like the Constitution's meaningless today.

Trump announced that they blew up a third speedboat today. In Venezuela, yeah. You know, on the free speech issue, the Attorney General, Pam Bondi just said that there's a distinction between free speech and hate speech, and we're not going to tolerate hate speech in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination. This is the attorney general. Charlie Kirk himself once pointed out that hate, hate, speech does not exist legally.

It's protected speech. So even Charlie Kirk argued against what Pam Bondi is now claiming, she will do in the aftermath of his assassination. This is an administration that is, I can't think of an administration that has been more hypocritical on one issue as they have been on free speech. They accurately pointed out that the Biden administration did crack down on free speech on around issues of COVID, around, you know, smearing people as Russian disinformation purveyors because they contradicted Ukraine proxware propaganda.

But whatever Biden did, it pales in comparison to the Trump team, criminalizing criticism of Israel. And now in the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk saying they're not going to tolerate what they deem to be hate speech. I mean, this is a radical administration opposed to the free speech principles they claim to uphold. Here's the Attorney General of the United States showing that she flunked constitutional law. There's free speech and then there's hate speech. And there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society.

All right. It's a very simple statement. You can say it was a political statement. You can say it was a moral statement. but she is the chief federal law enforcement officer of the land. She must know of a slew of Supreme Court opinions that stand for the proposition that hate speech is protected. I've got to get your take on this, even though usually just dwell on Israel,

you've also done a lot of work on Ukraine. This will give you heartburn. So I'm playing it for you in spite of the fact that I'm such a fan of yours, not to give you heartburn, but to see what your reaction will be. Here's General Kellogg at his worst. And this is just three days ago. Chris, number nine. If he was winning, he'd be in Kiev.

If he's winning, he'd be west of the Nepe River. If he's winning, he'd be on Odessa. If he's winning, he would have changed the government. Russia is, in fact, losing this war. Now, they may make movements and say, well, they're advancing in the Donbass region and the Desk. But if you consider advancing moving by meters, not miles, Well, then, okay, that's successful.

But at the cost that they're having, it's enormous. And I don't think people truly appreciate it. It's a number. But the numbers they have lost, when you're talking dead and wounded, well over a million, they left Afghanistan after losing 18,000. We left Vietnam after losing 65,000. They have lost over a million debtor wounded. These numbers are World War II-level numbers when you think about it.

They're stunning in the loss. And this is in their first line units that they came and tried to take key with a little over four years ago. Those first line units are gone. So they've gone through a second or a third or fourth iteration of wartime commanders. They're pulling tanks out of mothballs out of museums to put on the battle line. They can't operate in large movements because the Ukrainians would kill them. Is there any truth to this? The Russians are pulling tanks out of mothballs and museums.

And this is the guy who gets to whistle. whisper into Trump's ear. The one kernel of possible truth in there is that, you know, Russia wanted to overthrow the Zelensky government. I do think it's quite plausible that that was their goal in the initial days, and they were overconfident. They thought that just by sending in troops and putting a little bit of pressure on that Zelensky would fall,

which didn't happen. I think that's quite plausible. Everything else, to me, reads like total fiction, including the death toll, which I have no way of knowing what it is, but a million dead Russian strikes me as upset. seemingly high. And even the notion that Russia tried to take Kiev, if you go back to the early days of the invasion,

they advanced toward Kiev. Was there a concerted effort to capture Kiev? Well, not really, because there was no major bombings of essential infrastructure around Kiev. So this idea that they tried to take it, I don't think, is true.

What they tried to do, I think, was intimidate Zelensky, intimidate into basically resigning and falling. But they also tried to intimidates Zelensky into entering peace talks, which he had refused to do right before the invasion when he clearly wouldn't even speak to the leaders of the Donvoss, the breakaway republics that the Ukrainian government have been fighting ever since the U.S. back made on coup in 2014. So what Kellogg is doing here is just a lot of spin.

And to put maybe a positive spin on Kellogg's comments, perhaps he's preparing Ukraine for a declaration of surrender by saying, well, look, we've already won because we've prevented Russia from taking over the entire country. Densky said certain things too recently. Zlensky used to say that, you know, we're going to expel every single Russian troop from our territory. Now he's saying we've already won because Russia didn't take over all of Ukraine. I don't think Russia ever wanted to take over all of Ukraine. If they wanted to do that, they would have to send in way more troops than they actually did. That doesn't mean that they weren't overconfident that I think Putin maybe did not expect the resistance that he faced.

but the spin from catalog is really overblown i want to go back to hate speech for a minute because i'm astounded of what pam bondi said i'm going to play a clip from an african-american uh minister in the south uh not a fan of charlie kirk at all and you and i will speculate as to whether in the opinion of the attorney general of the united states this constitutes hate speech this is Pastor Howard John Wesley. Cut number 10. Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be murdered, but I'm overwhelmed to see the nation's flag fly at half staff for a man who was a proud racist and spent his entire life sowing seas of division and hatred into this land.

Your death does not make you a hero. It does not make you one who should be honored. It does not make you one who should be respected. I can be sorry about your death, but not celebrate your life. That's absolutely protected speech by any standard, any judgment. Yeah, and I actually agree with what he said. I mean, of course, Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be attacked, to be assassinated. Like, that goes without saying.

But that doesn't mean we have to venerate him as sort of champion as some people want to do, whitewash his legacy. He did say a lot of things that I find very distasteful. And the reason why he's being honored as sort of like a, you know, I think Trump is going to give him the presidential medal of freedom. The reason why is because he was a Trump accolite. He was a part of Trump's movement. And Trump has every right to mourn his friend, but to celebrate him as like a state hero, I just, because he's supported Trump's movement is, it strikes me as ridiculous and an abuse of power.

But look, the one thing I want to say here, it's so unfortunate how polarized this country is. And Trump certainly plays into that. He's a very divisive figure, and he offers no grace towards political opponents. But I would like to see on the Democratic side still is some acknowledgement of where they've been excessive as well. And I'm not trying to equate the two because Trump's rhetoric, I think, is very extreme and it's harsh, and he's, you know, and he has gone after very marginalized people in a dangerous way. But what do Democrats do? They framed Trump and his team as Russian assets, and there's still been no contrition over that whatsoever, no accountability. There's still this belief that that was okay to do that.

And they also went after him and his team via really excessive lawfare campaigns that were not rooted in. in fact and trying to get him off the ballot, which was an attack not only on him and his movement. So I'm not equating the two sides, but until someone can take some responsibility for their own actions and acknowledge that the other side has some legitimate grievances, then we're just going to keep going down this path of increased polarization. And for all the criticism we can make of Trump and his movement

and all their hypocrisies, there needs to be on the Democratic side. awareness of what they've done to fuel polarization. And to me still, I agree with you. But if Ronald Reagan were president when Kirk was assassinated, he would have wrapped his arms around the country and tried to unite people with his soaring rhetoric instead of blaming the hard left and dispatching his secretary, his press secretary and FBI director is saying, we're going after left-wing organizations that were behind this.

behind this. This is a crazy deranged human being messed up sexually and in so many different ways who pulled this off and they want to blame a political idea. It came from a conservative Republican Mormon family and they want to blame an ideology. Yeah. And who else did that was Benjamin Netanyahu. He said before any details about the shooter were known, he said that Charlie Kirk was killed by a coalition of progressives and Islamists or something like that. Um, so he exploited this too to serve his own agenda because, you know, he just wants everyone to get behind, uh, his genocetal campaign and thinking that he's on some quest to save civilization as, as he openly talks about.

So yeah, of course the Trump team is exploiting it. And of course, there's no excusing that. And of course what they're doing is very, very dangerous. I just think to, you know, everyone has some responsibility for everyone has the most responsibility for their own actions. And I think, again, not to choose anything Trump has done, but if liberals were to express some acknowledgement that they've also been excessive in their own way ever since Trump came to power, that could do something to sort of reducing the polarization in this country.

Because otherwise, it's heading to a very scary territory. It already is. You're a good man, Aaron, and you're so intellectually honest. I'm deeply grateful for our personal friendship and our professional collaboration. Thank you for your time. and we'll look forward to seeing you again some thank you judge you're welcome and coming up later today on all of this at 2.15 this afternoon scott ritter and at three o'clock colonel karen kutkowsky We trust in the Palatana for judging freedom.

Thank you. Thank you.