Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : Their Blood, Our Bullets

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Aaron Maté : Their Blood, Our BulletsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, 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? 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, August 11th, 2006, Aaron Mote joins us now. Aaron, a pleasure as always. Thank you for accommodating my schedule. Before we talk again

about the thesis of your book, Their Blood, Our Bullets, a couple of questions for you about other hot spots around the world. Wall Street General reported yesterday that Donald Trump's oil bonanza

in Venezuela has sputtered. What is that all about? Trump's been bragging about how much money the U.S. has made off of Venezuelan oil since kidnapping Nicholas Maduro and his wife last January. He even said something prospective to the victor goes to spoils. But Venezuela's oil industry remains under a state of disrepair because of years of U.S. sanctions. And a recent earthquake that caused some $37 billion in damage didn't help, which makes the country even harder to function. But Venezuela has faced production problems because its equipment has been in a state of disrepair,

it's been cut off from U.S. refineries. This is largely the result of a U.S.-led sanctions campaign, is Anya Parenthold of the Gray Zone documents in her book The Corporate Coup. So although Trump's financial scheme with Venezuela is opaque, he talks about all this money that the U.S. is making, but we don't know exactly where that money is going. He said it was something to effect of $15 billion, but that's hard to verify. But the bottom line is Venezuela needs investment, and it needs a relief fully from U.S. sanctions. U.S. sanctions have been lifted that allow it to sell some oil.

But in terms of, you know, having the equipment and the parts to be able to make significant repairs, that hasn't fully happened yet. And then you have the fact that, you know, Venezuela has the kind of energy reserves that are hard to extract and need a lot more investment. And that's just difficult when the country continues to live under the boot of the U.S. and its heavy U.S. sanctions. Anya told us shortly after the earthquake that Venezuela didn't even have a heavy construction equipment needed to try and save lives from people trapped under the rubble because of U.S. sanctions.

That's right. That's right. And that's what happens when you dedicate so many resources, so many years to strangling a country and make it so weak that it's vulnerable to things like what Trump did, which is kidnap its president. It's going to be in a rough shape to deal with a disaster like a hurricane that cost $37 billion in damage. And the U.S. has provided some token amounts of aid and even sent over Israeli advisors for a photo op. But what Venezuela really needs is a relief from the sanctions that have made life very, very difficult. Yeah, and as Anya pointed out, prevent the country from being able to dig people out of the rubble.

Are the sanctions still being imposed? Yes. And, you know, there's some temporary waivers. So now Venezuela's been allowed to sell more oil rather than sell it on like the black market to China. It can sell it directly. So that's helped in some ways. But again, we don't know where the money is gone. because Trump brags about taking it.

And there's very little oversight of this. Congress is kind of missing in action. Trump is openly claiming that he controls the profits from the sales of oil of a foreign country, but we don't even know where that money is going and what's being done with it. And he claims it's going back to people of Venezuela, but again, no details there.

Got it. What are Rubio and the CIA up to in Cuba? Well, what we know of, officially is on top of the energy blockade that the U.S. has imposed on Cuba. Last month, the U.S. imposed new sanctions, making it harder for Cuba to import food. So by blocking energy, you make it harder for Cuba to produce food on an industrial scale. And now, and this is the first time the U.S. has done this, as far as I understand, has the U.S. has even imposed sanctions on Cuban companies that deal with shipping, making it harder for companies to send food into Cuba.

Cuba's not only being deprived of energy that it needs to run the country and also grow food, but now it's also being starved deliberately by the U.S. On top of the decades-old embargo. So it's absolutely sadistic. And yes, the Trump administration is given these open hints that regime change is coming. They've made no secret about that in terms of exactly what the CIA is doing. I don't know. But certainly they have a major operation going there.

But their problem is Cuba is extremely resilient. just 90 miles away they've been you know they've spent decades staving off a regime change campaign by the world's most powerful country and they remain resilient by all indications so

I don't know what more the U.S. has planned but certainly right now the official policy is just outright sadism making Cuban starve into submission wow did anyone take seriously anyone that you know of on the international scene.

Trump's boast last week that he had crafted a peace agreement between Hamas and Israel, which called for both sides to disarm a peace agreement publicly repudiated over the weekend by Prime Minister Netanyahu. No, I mean, you can't take anything seriously Trump does with that portfolio, given how deferential he's been to next. Netanyahu, and that's another example. He crafts his peace plan, and Netanyahu goes and humiliates him because Nanjou can't even get a full surrender by Palestinian militants past his extremist cabinet

because they want the right to just continue bombing Gaza indefinitely with no even formal constraints. So if Trump wanted to again, he could push this through. He could tell Netanyahu to fall in line, I believe Netanyahu would. But he doesn't because Israel is carte blanche to commit. genocide to continue the occupation. I mean, this deal, the idea of establishing parity between, you know, Hamas fighters in Israel is silly to begin with.

Hamas is no threat to Israel at this point. I mean, Gaza's been destroyed. Hamas was able, after years of planning to launch a one-day operation on October 7th, taking Israel by surprise. But it's not a military threat to Israel. It never has been. But Israel, or some Israeli officials are insisting that there has to be this full disarmament. of Hamas. They can't even have light weapons. So, for example, if Israeli soldiers want to go in and

kill more Palestinians, that there can't be any possibility of any local resistance whatsoever. And so they want just absolute complete humiliation for Palestinians who've been struggling for their rights for decades. And Trump is fine with that. Trump is fine with that. I'm going to assume that Netanyahu's public rejection was not so much to humiliate Trump as to energize his base amongst the Israeli public? Absolutely. There's an election coming up in Israel, and certainly if he can posture and even show that he's able to stand up to the U.S. president who wants to take away Israel's so-called right

to defend itself or undermine that, then yes, absolutely that was for domestic consumption, because, you know, his political opponents are coming at him from the same perspective of how, No one can tell Israel what to do. We should have carte blanche to go bomb and occupy whoever we want, not just Gaza, but the people of the West Bank and also Lebanon, Syria. So, yeah, I mean, and this is a thing in Israeli politics where sometimes the leader likes to show that they're independent of the U.S. even though they're actually not. They're totally dependent on U.S. patronage. So, yeah, this falls in line with that tradition.

Moving on toward Ukraine, you wrote a great piece. yesterday about the revelations of the FBI investigating President Trump while he was the President of the United States based on nonsense claiming that he might have been a Russian asset. Many stories have been around for years and totally repudiated, but some new FBI documents were recently revealed, which you've examined. What did you find? Yeah, so it's extraordinary. We already know that in July 2016, The FBI opened up a crossfire hurricane, which is an investigation of the Trump campaign's fictional ties to Russia, right? That kicks off in July 2016.

Then after Trump takes office, this is May 2017, so just four months into Trump's rookie administration, the FBI opens up another investigation of Trump and Russia and is targeted to Trump personally himself. And it's predicated with the belief that he's possibly an agent of the Russian government, and taking orders from Vladimir Putin. They open this while he's sitting in the White House. It's extraordinary. And for years, they've concealed the basis for this counterintelligence investigation. The first investigation of Trump and Russia crossed the hurricane,

that was like a foreign agent's investigation, a criminal one. This was a counterintelligence one. And for years, they've concealed the basis for that. I tried to get it released years ago. And the document that I got at the end of the Biden administration was totally redacted, the second. that revealed why they're investigating the sitting president as an agent of Russia. Well, we finally just got it last week.

It was released by the Trump White House. And there's a direct tie to Ukraine. One of their main reasons for investigating Trump as an agent of Russia was a totally manufactured, overblown controversy that emerged at the Republican National Convention in July 2016, where Josh Rogan, who's a new conservative opinion columnist, The Washington Post, were to column complaining that the Trump camp had, like, changed some land. language in the meaningless R&C platform. You know, at every convention there's a platform, you know, putting out the party's position.

It's totally meaningless. No one cares. But Josh Rogan made an issue out of the fact that the Trump campaign had reportedly rejected some language that said we should send lethal arms to Ukraine. And instead, the final text of the RNC platform said we should send appropriate assistance to Ukraine, which very well could include weapons. So the issue was, was nonexistent because it wasn't even an issue, A, because these platforms, don't matter. And B, the platform, if you really care about Army and Ukraine, still left open

that possibility. And initially, the Republican platform was far more hawkish than the Democrats platform at the time because Barack Obama, when he was still the president, he was reluctant to arm Ukraine because he didn't want the weapons going to neo-Nazis. And he didn't want to give Ukraine the impression that could beat Russia in a war. That was back when Democrats had that position, which is long forgotten. So this was a controversy over nothing. But because this was happening at a time when there was a Democratic Party effort to paint Trump as a Russian asset, this became sort of an issue

and it became a matter of public controversy. And after Trump took office, it was used to put pressure on him to send weapons to Ukraine that Obama wouldn't send. So now we learn, you know, so many years later, 10 years later, basically, that the FBI used that non-issue

of the RNC platform change to investigate him as a Russian agent. And it read the FBI document, they say that, you know, the reason why this is suspicious because this could be favorable to Russian interests. Well, even that was... This is all after Trump fired Comey. This is under Andrew McCabe, I believe.

This was a week after Trump fired Comey. And yes, Andrew McCabe ordered this probe. It was him who initiated it. And so they say that, you know, because this could possibly favor Russian interests, this is a reason to investigate the sitting president as an agent of Russia. It's the most extraordinary investigative decision I've ever seen. Like this is the basis for investigating anybody, I mean, let alone the president or being an agent of Russia. It's amazing.

What became of this investigation? Was it wrapped up into Mueller? It got folded into the mother investigation, which began the following day, actually. One day after this counterintelligence probe was open, that's when Mueller was appointed. And then Mueller inherited this investigation and then did nothing with it because it was It was a complete joke. So there's another document that was released saying that Mueller closed the investigation, but they don't say anything about what they found because obviously they found nothing because it was based on a neoconservative ideology where it's now suspicious if you offer more neutral language on army and Ukraine.

That was literally the basis for the probe. And it underscores how Russiagate was driven by neoconservative dogma that it's if you don't favor arming Ukraine, all of a sudden you're worthy of suspicion, including if you're the president. and it helped build the momentum for the war that happened because it made diplomacy with Russia impossible. If you're in a climate where even like watering down some harsh language about arming Ukraine gets you investigated as a Russian agent, even if you're the president,

no wonder we ultimately were unable to engage in diplomacy with Russia and that an invasion happened. So this is just an extraordinary new revelation. And yeah, it underscores the thesis of my book, which was that the U.S. has made, made war with Russia inevitable by being so devoted to arming Ukraine that it even was willing to investigate a sitting president as a Russian agent for having a more neutral position. Where do we stand with Ukraine today?

Are Wickhoff and Kushner still negotiating? I'm doing it in air quotes because we know the Russians don't take them seriously at all. There was talk of Wickkoff and Kushner maybe going to Moscow and maybe going to Key, which they haven't done yet. But, you know, if they go to Key, they have to go and fight a Poland and then take a train. It takes eight hours. And I mean, what's the point? They're not able to carry out diplomacy. They've shown that. And if the U.S. were to carry diplomacy, would have to take Russia's concern seriously. And that would include addressing the legacy that Trump has helped create because Trump likes to say this was Biden's war. This is all democratic hoax. He enabled it, too, by,

under the pressure of Russiagate, admittedly, but still, he chose to listen to John. Bolton, his National Security Advisor, when John Bolton told him to withdraw from the INF Treaty, from the Open Skies Treaty, to send weapons to Ukraine that Obama wouldn't even send. So Trump also owns this war. And to end the war, he would have to address Russian concerns. And he's just shown with Iran, he's not capable of any serious diplomacy with the rival power. Even in the case of Russia where he has some sympathy with Putin and he talks about the Russia hoax, he won't actually do anything that addresses Russia's concerns. He won't. And of course, Of course, Biden wouldn't do that either.

So what's the point of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kush are going over there and having more talks with Russian officials? And meanwhile, what's happening in Ukraine? Well, just today it was announced that Ukraine has stopped reporting the number of missiles that are being fired by Russia at Ukraine. And why is that? Because they can't stop these missiles. So they don't want the public to know the scale of the attacks that they're now unable to prevent. And this was the inevitable result of years. of proxy war policy where Ukraine was given the false impression by Biden and all the other

proxy war cheerers that they could win, flooded with weapons. But as Obama warned back when he was president, and unfortunately, he was overruled by, including his own aides, including Joe Biden and Victoria Newland, that no matter what we do, Russia will be able to overmatch it. And we're seeing that now to catastrophic effect for Ukraine. Yesterday I was speaking with a retired Russian major general, who's now a member of the Russian Duma, their legislature, who told me that universally in the Russian government, America is considered a co-belligerent with NATO and Ukraine against Russia and the special military operation. Why should they take seriously anything the White House said? And he said to me,

we don't. Yeah. Can't negotiate with Donald Trump. We're wasting our time with Krishna, and Whitkoff. We're just in, with the U.S., we're in a holding pattern until there's a new president in two and a half years. Yeah, well, good luck with that because if it's a Democrat, they're still going to be likely

under the sway of Russia gate, where diplomacy with Russia was effectively criminalized. And, I mean, look what Biden did. I mean, Biden refused to negotiate with Russia on so many key issues, including NATO expansion, which helped make war inevitable. I think in Russia,

other in the Kremlin, I suspect there's been this hope that maybe Putin and Trump can, because of their personal rapport, they can reach a deal. But, you know, everything that's happened ever since then undermines that. I mean, even after Anchorage, the summit one year ago between Trump and Putin, that did produce this, you know, this peace plan that Wiccoff worked on with Trump's envoy. But look what happened when they unveiled that. So, you know, the Alaska the summits in August. I think that the the the Trump did the 28 point peace plan comes out in November and look what happened immediately there was a backlash in Washington neoconservatives freaked out Marco rubio the secretary of state immediately disavowed it he said it was written by Russia which is

not true it was drafted by Russia and wickoff and cusher but rubio just in a flash sold out his own administration colleagues and rubio took out the parts of the peace plan that neoconservatives and Ukraine didn't like which thus made the peace plan completely useless And that's what happens over and over and over in Washington. Do we have normal relationships with Kiev? Is there a U.S. ambassador in Kiev? I actually don't know the current status of whether there's a, there's not a, you know, there was a U.S. ambassador, Bridget Brink, I believe her name was, who recently resigned

because she felt as if Trump wasn't supportive enough of Ukraine. But, I mean, whether there's a formal ambassador or not, I'm not sure, but there would be a top official there. I mean, the embassy is still functioning. Do we have an ambassador in Moscow? There is a U.S. ambassador in Moscow, yes. But, I mean, what is that accomplishing? No, nothing.

I've said this before. The embassy is enormous. I mean, it houses normally a thousand people, and there's only a handful there now, so nothing's being accomplished. There are effectively no diplomatic relations between the two countries. The only slight improvement, correct me, if you see this differently,

or is that the Secretary of State and the Russian Foreign Minister speak with each other, unlike when Tony Blinken was in there. He wouldn't even have a phone call with Sergei Lovroff. You know, I have to correct myself. The position, actually, of U.S. Ambassador to Russia is currently vacant. There's a Charger de Fair, but that's different than an ambassador. So there is a U.S. envoy there, but it's not officially the ambassador. And a previous ambassador under Trump, John Sullivan, who was a deputy secretary of state under Trump

and then became U.S. ambassador to Russia and also served at the beginning of the Biden administration. He wrote a memoir about his time serving as ambassador to Russia. And he has this one line that's extraordinary. He says, whenever Russia talks about diplomacy, we should treat that as, quote, pure disinformation. So if Russia even says we want to negotiate, according to the former top U.S. envoy in Russia,

that should be considered pure disinformation. So no wonder there's no diplomacy between the U.S. and Russia. So maybe there has not been an improvement from the Biden years. Well, certainly, you know, going back to your point that the Russian official who you spoke to made about the U.S. being a co-belligerent, that's continued. I mean, we know that, and U.S. officials have bragged about this. They planted stories in the New York Times and Washington Post about how they basically ran the war in Ukraine from a military base in Germany, selecting targets for Ukraine to hit, giving them the intelligence,

giving them the weaponry. So basically, yes, the U.S. is a co-belligerent. That's continued under Trump. I mean, John McCliff at the CIA. He's even spearheaded the program of Ukraine's long-range drone strikes, targeting Russia's energy facilities. It's re-between the lines of some of the reporting that comes out, it appears that was the CIA's idea.

And certainly, they took the initiative in helping out, giving the intelligence and helping to provide with all the necessary assistance. So that's continued under Trump as well. So when he says this is Biden's war, it's Trump's war now. Wow. The book is Their Blood, Our Bullets, by our dear friend of regular correspondent and analyst Aaron Mote. You can get it.

I guess you can get it wherever books are sold, right? Yes, but if you're interested in the book, the website for the publishers or books.com, or books.com. Okay. Thank you, Aaron. Thanks for all your good work. Thanks for allowing me to go across the board from Cuba to Venezuela to Israel to Ukraine. All the best. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. See you then, Judge. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up later today, if you're watching us live in 33 minutes at 11 o'clock, Scott Ritter. Ritter was supposed to be with us yesterday, but we were having internet problems, which thanks be to God, are gone today. At 2,

I hope I'm not speaking too soon, Chris. At two this afternoon, Matt Ho, at three this afternoon, Colonel Karen Koukowski, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.