Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : Trump and the DC War Lobby

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Aaron Maté : Trump and the DC War LobbySee 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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Today is Wednesday, October 29th, 2000-25. Aaron Mate joins us now. Aaron, what is your understanding of the state of affairs in Gaza today after Prime Minister Netanyahu's order of either yesterday or the day before, I forget, or I don't know exactly when he issued it, of a forceful bombing, which resulted in the deaths of over 100 people in the past 24 hours? It's Israel doing what it always does, which is ignoring agreements that it reaches into. to commit aggression. In this case, killing, as you said, over 100 people, including 35 children. The official pretext was that there was an attack on Israeli soldiers.

Now, note where this attack happened, happened inside of Gaza, where Israeli soldiers have no right to be, they're in occupying power. But putting even that aside, this attack, Israeli media admitted that Israel has no idea whether or not the Hamas leadership was behind this attack or it was just some random cell that is not connected to the leadership.

Hamas keeps insisting, they are committed to the ceasefire. And Muhammad Shahada, who is a Palestinian analyst who, you know, extensively cites Israeli media. He points out that even the Israeli forces have admitted through their own media channels, that they don't know if Hamas was behind this attack on Israeli soldiers. Now, even if Hamas were behind it, it's still not a reason justification for Israel to attack Gaza because Israel's an occupying power has no right to be in Gaza to begin with. But even going by the official Israeli pretext,

they know that this is not, it's not confirmed that Hamas is even behind this. But they've said also in Israeli media that they don't care, that they're using the ceasefire essentially to rearm, to reconfigure and continue out their periodic massacres inside Gaza. And that's no surprise if you know Israel's history.

Is Hamas being re-enacted? armed during the you can't call it a ceasefire the down periods and the violence you know that's a great question how has hamas managed to maintain uh some arm capability throughout right right because of genocide they have tunnels where they get material through egypt and they have workshops where they can build you know some light weapons uh but in terms of their current capabilities and how that's happening i i don't have the insight to know Interesting. But I mean, what is Gaza like? Are there roads? Is there water? Is there electricity? Are there hospitals? Are there mosques? Are there schools? Are their apartment buildings still standing? Do you know? You have a few hospitals that are still barely functioning on generators. So much of the infrastructure has already been destroyed. Even before October 7th, so much infrastructure in Gaza was in serious.

a really dire state because of the Israeli blockade of two decades. So now at this point, yeah, finding running water is pretty difficult. There are some areas where you can still find it. But for most of the population, they do not have access to clean water. And certainly, if hospitals are running, they're barely functional. Trump, either Trump said or Netanyahu said, I don't know which or who, that the resumed attacks were with Trump's approval that Netanyahu called Trump. Do you know if this is true? Well, afterwards, Trump said, yes, in his typical incoherent way, said, yes, the ceasefire still holds, but Israel had to break it, essentially, that Israel had no choice to go in and hit Hamas.

So Trump has given his public blessing to Israel breaking the ceasefire. Afterwards, but we don't know if he gave it beforehand. I mean, would Netanyahu feel the need to get this, this would be demeaning for Netanyahu to get Trump's permission before he can attack Palestinian civilians? I suspect they had an understanding beforehand that Israel can basically do whatever it wants. Israel is so committed to aggression that I doubt that it could have

committed to Trump's so-called ceasefire without an understanding from Trump that it could break it whenever it wanted to. And given that Trump has constantly enabled Israeli aggression, whether it was breaking the last ceasefire in March or attacking Iran, just as the U.S. and Iran were in negotiations, Trump has always given Israel the green light, and I suspect at this time it's no different.

Here's another incoherent statement. This one's about the West Bank. It's really absurd what he says to this reporter. Don't worry about the West Bank. Don't worry about it. But tell me how you read this. Chris, cut number five. Can you say that louder, please?

Yes. Yesterday there was a vote at the Gnisset in Israel on annexing the West Bank. Do you see it as a challenge to your peace efforts? Will you answer that, please? Because I cannot understand the words you say. Where are you from? Where are you from?

Where are you from? You're from France, beautiful accent, but we can't understand what you're saying. The West Bank is, don't worry about the West Bank. Israel's not going to do anything with the West Bank, okay? Don't worry about it. Is that your question? They're not going to do anything with the West Bank. Don't worry about it.

Israel's doing very well. They're not going to do anything with it. Is this a trick answer? They're not going to do anything with it because they already have de facto annexed it. Exactly. Whether Israel formally annexes the West Bank or not, it doesn't really matter. They're stealing all the West Bank land that they want to and making life there for Palestinians absolutely impossible by subjecting them to daily terror from the Israeli army, the occupying Israeli army, and fanatical Israeli settlers from places like where I am in New York City. So whether or not Israel formally annexed Israel. are not. And yes, you have people in government who are so fanatic that they want to formally annex. It doesn't really matter because, as you said, de facto, they've already annexed the West Bank. They just take whatever land that they want. And so Trump claiming Israel's not going to do anything

with the West Bank. All he means by that is he's not going to let Israel formally declare an annexation of the West Bank just to do it in practice. And that's to appease the Gulf states that it would be embarrassing for them if Israel formally annexed the West Bank. They're okay with Israel stealing the West Bank, but not formally annexing. Where is the Palestinian Authority located? Well, they're in the West Bank, and they're mostly in Ramallah, but they control, you know, Palestinian controlled areas of the West Bank. So they're the ruling authority for Palestinians in the West Bank.

But again, it's largely a name only because Israel can do whatever it wants with them. And Israel actually uses them as a subcontract. to police the local population and keep them in line. Do you see a line of moral relativism between Netanyahu's slaughtering of innocence and now Trump's slaughtering of people on speedboats off of Venezuela and off of Mexico? It's the same disregard for human life, for international law,

for all standards of evidence. You know, Trump keeps telling us that he's killed drug dealers without presenting any evidence whatsoever in the same way that Israel would just slaughter tens of thousands of people and call them all Hamas or claim it was targeting one Hamas member

and therefore that justified killing so many civilians. So, yeah, and they're doing it with also another through line is the complete impunity that is being offered them. There's been some congressional pushback. People like Rand Paul and others have been demanding hearings on this, demanding briefings.

And Trump has sort of casually mused about, yeah, they'll get a briefing, but we're going to keep doing it. And everyone's going to just sit back and accept it because we can do whatever we want. No evidence. I mean, do we know of any evidence of the Maduro government being involved in drug trafficking? I mean, it is more out of Venezuela. It is more likely that the CIA has been involved. than drug trafficking than the Maduro government. Is that an exaggeration, the statement I just made?

Well, no. I mean, I know the next one with those talked about this on your show. The supposed Venezuelan cartel that Maduro is alleged to be the head of, they don't exist anymore. And when they did exist, they work with the CIA. The CIA worked with them and actually let them bring drugs into the U.S. because they wanted to use that to help penetrate Colombian drug cartels. But that was a long time.

ago. And now this fictional cartel that Maduro heads is just an invention by the Trump administration to justify the regime change operations. It's just so obvious. This has been an obsession of people like Marco Rubio for a long time. In Trump's first term, they tried a coup in Venezuela. It didn't work. So now they're dusting off this old playbook of basically accusing a foreign leader of being the head of a drug cartel and achieving regime change that way. So is their goal, I mean, there's 10,000 Marines down there on some sort of a ship. I don't know if they're on the aircraft carrier or what ship they're on. Is their goal to kill Maduro or to capture him and install this lady that is a CIA and Mossad asset,

the one that won the Nobel, name escaping me, forgive me, forgive me who won the Nobel Peace Prize? Yeah, her name is. Maria Karina Machado literally funded by the U.S. government has called for regime change, has promised to offer up Venezuela's resources to the U.S. if it can change the government. And yet, she's the current favorite in Washington, and that's why she was given the Nobel Peace Prize. The U.S. has been trying to overthrow the Venezuelan government for more than two decades. There was a coup against Hugo Chavez back in the early 2000s. That didn't work because Chavez had such massive, popular support.

And so ever since then, U.S. has turned to the traditional method of just an economic embargo, crushing sanctions designed to destroy Venezuela's economy. John Bolton admitted this. John Bolton admitted recently to the Washington Post that he knew sanctions team post on Venezuela would destroy its economy and cause millions of migrants, It's the same migrants that Trump demonizes during his presidential campaigns. But it was all worth it to John Bolton and now the second Trump administration, even though they're now indicting John Bolton for mishandling documents

and he's a political foe of Donald Trump's, is pursuing the Bolton policy. Right, right. So this is the same thing. Do you believe that we will, that the United States will invade Venezuela? That's a great question. So far they've tried. other methods. So for example, a Venezuelan pilot who flies Maduro around the world, he's just claimed that the U.S. has been trying to bribe him for a long time to get him to switch sides to

during one of Maduro's flights to like reroute the flight and land somewhere where the U.S. can arrest Maduro. That's what he claims. And I totally believe that. This is what the U.S. does. They're obsessed with overthrowing disobedient governments, whether it's Venezuela, Iran, Nicaragua, Syria, Russia, whatever, like you name it. This is what we do. So whether this will rise to the level of invading Venezuela, it's a fair question. And you never know under these people. Now, one difficulty is that Venezuela can fight back. They have a disciplined army, an army that's pretty loyal from what I can tell to Maduro. And that doesn't want to just bow to Washington. But look, the country has seriously suffered. There's no denying that. And the stock line here, if you watch a recent

report on this in 60 minutes, CBS News is 60 minutes. They talk about, you know, Maduro's mismanagement of the economy and, you know, corruption and all that stuff, what all this omits is the U.S. sanctions that have destroyed Venezuela's economy, destroyed its main industry, the oil industry, made it very, very difficult. And that does have the anticipated effect of weakening a country and making it more ripe for regime change. Here's the Venezuelan Interior Minister. know him or know of him.

Alastair Crook says he's a serious, substantial, and credible person. Chris, cut number one. I was on my way here just a moment ago, and they informed me about three people they captured at another location with CIA manuals, and they

have no shame. So they arrive and delete things from their phones because they think that by deleting their phone, everything disappears, but no, those phones talk. They talk. And what we've discovered is truly pure gold. The CIA is connected to those sectors that hate Venezuela. We live in peace and security in this country, so please just leave us alone.

It is undoubtedly an act of aggression. These military exercises, which they are currently conducting together with Trinidad, are clear provocations. These actions have been denounced in the official statement that you are referring to. Well, if what he says is true, then they have arrested not CIA agents, but locals who were clearly operatives of and paid by and flipped, if you will, ideologically or nationality-wise, by the CIA. Yeah, and listen, the Trump Minister. has made no secret about the CIA operating in Venezuela. There was an article in the New York Times very recently saying that Trump has authorized

covert activities by the CIA in Venezuela. And if you read the article, this was not some story based on a whistleblower coming forward to the Times and revealing something they were against. This was a deliberate plant by the Trump administration in the New York Times, wanting everyone to know that the CIA is operating in Venezuela. And why would they do that? It's because they want to create enough panic in Venezuela. They want to destabilize it enough so that hopefully there will be a mutiny inside the ranks of the Venezuelan military and intelligence service against Maduro.

That's the point of all these exercises. And there's a long history of the U.S. doing this. You mess with the country enough. You destroy its economy, create a huge migration crisis, cut it off from the global financial system, spend hundreds of millions of dollars destabilizing the government, you know, supporting opposition. candidates supporting so-called grassroots movements. And eventually, the country is he stabilized enough. So, yeah, there is some internal revolt. In Venezuela, I've only been there once, but my reading of it, yes, it's a very divided

country. Sure, you have people who would love to have regime change now, especially after years of living under a de facto U.S. blockade, but you also have a strong constituency that is national pride and doesn't want to bow down to the global hegemon. I suspect the plans for a mutiny inside or the hopes for a mutiny inside the Venezuelan military, I don't think that's going to come to pass. That's my prediction. Talk to me about the influence of Marco Rubio in all of these wars.

Does he really want peace in Ukraine or is he part of the Victorian Newland mentality? I can't say crowd mentality that believe. that the war can bleed the Russians dry and impair the standing of President Putin? Does he really want peace in Gaza, or is he an ardent Zionist that is in cahoots with Netanyahu? And is he behind the – is he whispering into Trump's ear each morning? It's time to invade Venezuela. I realize that's a long question, but you know this stuff better than most people. When Rubio was auditioning for a spot in the Trump administration, whether it was to be Trump's VP or Secretary of State, he talked about how we have to end the war in Ukraine.

It's a proxy war. It's gone on too long. We have other priorities. That was clearly just him auditioning for the job because he knows that that's what Trump wants to do. Trump wanted to end the war in Ukraine. Trump was not ideologically committed to the proxy war project of the Biden administration that most people in Washington. So he said some nice things about peace in Ukraine, but it was all just performative. He is a dyed in the wool neocon. He always has been, especially obsessed with regime change in Latin America. His family comes from Cuba. Venezuela has used its oil wealth, not only to help impoverish people in its own country, which you're not supposed to do if you're a U.S. ally, you know, oil wealth is supposed

to go to elites and the people who actually run things, not to the poor majority. And they've also used it to help countries like Cuba, which Rubio is obsessed with overthrowing. So, yes, I think Rubio's main focus is regime change in Latin America. He wants to go after Venezuela because he also wants to overthrow Cuba and also wants to overthrow Nicaragua. But everything else, look, in Ukraine, where even Trump said he wanted to make peace, what has Rubio done? Well, recently, after Trump said that him and Putin were going to meet in Budapest, Rubio spoke, with his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and afterwards, the Russians said basically there's no point in talking right now because the clear indication from Lavrov and the Russians is that

the U.S. said is not serious about doing the actual grunt work it would need for a successful presidential summit. Like you can't just have Putin and Trump show up and work everything out. Before such a summit, you need teams from both countries to meet and hammer out the tough issues, including NATO encroachment, which is Russia's main... And the American team, presumably, would be headed by, directly or indirectly, Rubio. Exactly. And Rubio's no interest in doing that. You think Rubio, after presiding over NATO expansion, after encouraging the proxy war in Ukraine, after supporting the destruction of arms control treaties that keep the peace between U.S. and Russia,

suddenly he's going to now deploy a team of experts to renegotiate and restore all the diplomatic agreements that he spent his career trying to destroy. So that's ultimately who has the power now in Washington. And yes, I mean, inside Maga, you have a faction of people like Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Nassie, Chucka Carlson, who are here. Yeah, Bannon, who are against this neocon stuff. But they ultimately have no power right now. It's people like Marco Rubio and Mitch McConnell running the show.

Mitch McConnell told Pete Higgseth earlier this year about Ukraine. that we don't want to have a headline at the end of the war that says Russia wins, America loses. So Mitch McConnell still sees this war in Ukraine, is not between Russia and Ukraine, but between Russia and the U.S. And by not losing, he means not catering or trying to reach an agreement on Russia's grievances, which include the status of Russian speakers in the Donbos and military encroachment. So basically what he means is for us for for Washington war lobbyists not to lose Ukraine must continue to bleed You will enjoy this if you haven't seen it even if you have you'll enjoy it

This is Mike Waltz Blasting Cuba from the main podium where the heads of state usually speak at the UN And being interrupted much to his chagrin This is fabulous Chris Cudson number seven. The facts are this is an illegitimate and brutal regime that seeks to cast itself as the victim of aggression while plainly describing itself as, quote, the enemy of the United States. It's located just 90 miles off our shore. It conspires and it collaborates with

enemies and adversaries of the United States against our interests. The facts are that this This regime supports terrorist organizations around the globe. It is allowing mercenaries to fight in the war in Ukraine. It's propping up the Venezuelan regime, and it aids cartels. The facts are that these cartels that it pops up are trafficking people, drugs, and weapons, and is aiding and abetting instability in our hemisphere. They undermine democracies in our hemisphere. I'm very sorry to interrupt.

but there's a point of order from Cuba. Yes, we have to give the floor to the point of order and the representative of Cuba. The permanent representative of the United States not only lies by substantively deviating from the topic but also expresses himself in a rude and arrogant manner towards your presidency, the dignity of this.

Assembly and the member states. He does so with a lack of culture, rudeness, and discourtesy that is unacceptable in this great and democratic chamber. Mr. Walsh, this is the United Nations General Assembly speaking to you today. We welcome your attention and presence. This is not a signal group, nor is it the House of Representatives. He obviously did his homework. This is not a Chat or the House of Representatives. That's a great clip. I hadn't seen that. But why is he standing? I don't know how you could know the answer to this, but you're so smart.

Why is the United States standing in the well of the United Nations General Assembly blasting Cuba 20 years after Fidel Castro's gone? The U.S. is just obsessed and always has been obsessed with overthrowing disobedient governments. There's a State Department document from the early 1960s, not long after Castro takes power, which says that, you know, we have a problem in Cuba because Castro actually has popular support, and there's no really effective political opposition to them. So what is our answer? They say we want to cause hunger and misery.

That's the policy, official policy. Let's cause hunger and deprivation. It's a document that's available online. I'll quote it for you, actually. I have it right here. We need to, I'm quoting now, decrease monetary and real wages, bring about hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of the government. That's an American government document? That's a State Department document.

It's online. Yeah. Hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government. So that's the U.S. policy in Cuba since the 1960s, bring about hunger and desperation. And this idea that this tiny island off the coast of the U.S. has some kind of security. threat is just such an absolute joke. Cuba's tried to open up to the U.S. There were some successful talks under Obama, which Trump immediately reversed, and Biden kept that policy going until its final day in office when he undid some of the harsh

Trump measures, which then Trump immediately restored the next day when he took, when he retook office. And so, yeah, this is just the policy. And look, Cuba's really suffering. There's no denying that. I'm shocked the government has lasted this long under the blockade. But all the things that Mike Walt accused them of mercenaries in Ukraine, for example. I mean, I don't know about that, but look, we're going to complain about mercenaries in Ukraine when we're fueling a massive proxy war there, flooding it with weapons. Also, certainly American mercenaries have fought in Ukraine as well. It's all just such a joke.

And that's what happens, though, when you're a country that resists U.S. control, You'll be targeted with a massive regime change operation that's been going on for more than 60 years. And in the case of Mike Waltz here, I believe there was recently a vote at the UN as there is every year against the U.S. embargo of Cuba. And every single year, it's the entire world voting against it and the U.S. and Israel and a few scattered allies voting to keep it. So this is just another example of how the whole world stands against a policy that is causing mass suffering. but because of the U.S. is behind it, it doesn't matter. Aaron Monta, thank you, my dear friend.

Always a pleasure letting me pick your brain. Thanks for joining us. We'll look forward to seeing you again next week. Thank you, Judge. See soon. Sure. Coming up later today, some changes. At 1 o'clock, Scott Ritter, at 3 o'clock, Phil Giraldi, and just reminding you, tomorrow Thursday at 9 o'clock in the morning,

Jack, look at that baby face picture. Jack is back. Jack Devine. We'll see you at 1 o'clock with Scott Ritter today. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.