Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : US Politicians Putting Israel First

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Aaron Maté : US Politicians Putting Israel FirstSee 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 Wednesday, November 19th, 2025. Aaron Mante, my dear friend, joins us now. Aaron, thank you very much. I want to talk to you about U.S. politicians and U.S. media figures openly and notoriously putting Israel above the United States and above their constituents. But before we do, what? What is your understanding of Trump's latest maneuvers and latest plans with respect to Venezuela?

Do you know if there are back channel negotiations going on with President Maduro? So what are they negotiating? Or is he about to attack? Well, the question of whether or not he will attack is an open question. I don't think he's made up his mind. He certainly put in place all the assets he would need to attack, sending in huge, military assets, including an aircraft carrier, and authorizing CIA covert action, there's been another leak to the media saying that Trump has authorized CI covert action that would

include paramilitary action, including presumably taking out Maduro directly, as the CIA has done in the past. At the same time, Trump also said this week, yeah, we're probably going to have to talk to Maduro at some point, and there are reports of back channel talks. But the question is, which faction of his White House will we listen to? The faction that wants diplomacy that's previously negotiated prisoner exchanges with Venezuela, this was done by Richard Grinnell,

Trump's hostage envoy. Or will you listen to his Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio, who's had the president's ear for the most part since the start, who is dead set on regime change, has been pushing this for a very, very long time. And so far, Trump has done everything pretty much that Rubio wants.

Wow. How can MI6, the British intelligence group, notoriously more daring, more illegal, more immoral than CIA, back away from helping Trump locate and murder fishermen on speedboats in the Caribbean? What does MI6 know that CIA doesn't? Well, I mean, it's a great question. It speaks to the complete criminality of Trump's policy that not even the most reliable lackey it has, which is the UK, is willing to go along with it. Recall that previously, in Trump's first term, and Anya Parinpo writes about this in her great book on the Venezuelan coup, the corporate coup, the UK stole Venezuela's gold, which is in British banks at the behest of the U.S., because that was part of a plan to deprive Venezuela of its own resources, including its own state oil company, so that the state would

collapse and regime change would be achieved. So the UK has gone to unprecedented lengths before to abet the Trump administration's regime change efforts in Venezuela. But this time, killing fishermen in the high seas, people trying to feed their families, even for the UK, loyal, lackey, going back many years, including in the Iraq war, that was a bitch too far. I think that, hold on just a second. Oh, go ahead, Chris. We have a sound on tape of Senator Graham. Well, you'll get a kick out of this.

Go ahead, Chris. You've got United States senators and members of the House suggesting to our men and women military that they should be disobeying unlawful orders issued by President Trump and his military. I was a military lawyer for 33 years. I was a prosecutor, defense attorney, and a military judge. And if you're listening to this program tonight, I find no evidence that President Trump or anyone in your chain of command has issued unlawful order to you, to the people who made these accusations. I'm going to write you a letter tomorrow, and I want you to tell the country what orders you think are.

unlawful, what did President Trump do wrong as Commander-in-Chief? You owe that to the men and women of the military to be specific about what you're talking about. If you're in the military, you need to follow the lawful orders of your commanders. And Article 92, check it out. So this is a little bit confusing here because he's speaking about an AI-generated clip that made the rounds on the internet. which purported to show Democratic members of the Senate and the House telling troops to defy the orders of their superiors if it involved killing people. It was AI generated, and I believe it has since been withdrawn. Nevertheless, it is illegal to comply with an illegal order, and an order that directs you to kill non-combatants is illegal. under federal law and under international law,

and Senator Graham knows that. Yeah, and what he's displaying here is this complete contempt for the law, and that's what this whole Venezuelan operation is based around. I mean, the whole thing proceeds from the premise that we have the right to decide who can rule Venezuela, and we've been trying to make that decision for the Venezuelans for a very, very long time.

Going back more than 20 years under the Chavez government, where the Bush administration first tried to overthrow them, And then tried again. And then when that failed, Obama administration imposed sanctions. And then when Trump came into office, he turned it into a full-blown regime change campaign by trying to install an unelected president, Juan Guaido. The Biden administration came in and basically continued the Trump policy, although didn't try as hard.

And now Trump is back in office inheriting this longstanding campaign for regime change and trying to revive it. And that's why Lindsey Graham was the biggest cheerleader for regime change. I think in the Senate is now saying that U.S. service members should should execute unlawful orders, including assassinating fishermen on the high seas. I can't tell you that the chatters are writing, and please, Judge, not Lindsay Graham again. I don't blame you, but I needed for Aaron to hear what Senator Graham said so that he could slice and dice it. The other day I saw a photograph that repulsed me.

Danny Dennan and Mike Waltz hugging each other on the floor of the United Nations. What the hell was that all about? Well, this was the UN Security Council measure on the issue of Palestine that the U.S. didn't veto because it got everything that the U.S. wanted. This is the measure that just passed on Monday, which basically gives it. international imprint to the Trump plan for Gaza, a so-called international stabilization force of foreign troops that will come in and rule Gaza, and a so-called Board of Peace headed by Trump that for at least two years will be the new ruler of Gaza in concert with a technocratic

Palestinian committee that has yet to have been selected. And the Israeli ambassador and the U.S. ambassador are celebrating because Russia and China did not veto this. They abstained. and it's a pretty extraordinary development one of the few times possibly the first time in the history of the Security Council where a measure on the Palestine question has been passed that does not affirm the

basic legitimacy of Palestinian self-determination. It only says in line with the Trump peace plan that maybe one day if enough conditions are met maybe then we can put Palestinians on the pathway to a state or to self-determination.

It's a huge victory for Israel and the U.S. And before the vote, the U.S. essentially threatened violence if it failed. Mike Walt said that if this does not pass, the people of Gaza are going to pay a very real human cost. And he also threatened the return to war. So using the threat of violence,

Israel and the U.S. pushed this through. And remarkably, China and Russia abstained, even though they openly recognized that this was a huge betrayal of the Palestinian people. Russia had circulated its own measure with clear language for a Palestinian state. But they dropped that by after U.S. pressure. Now, what Russia and China will say was

is that they didn't want to veto a measure that had the support of all the Arab states, which is true, it did. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, they all got on board. So if Russia and China were to veto this, then it would look as if they were the obstacle to a global consensus. And also, they would maybe be blamed if Israel blocked more humanitarian aid

and resumed bombing Gaza at will. The problem is, in the process, they essentially sold out Palestinian rights. That's what this resolution does. It offers not even a token nod to Palestinian rights. And also Israel is violating the ceasefire anyway. Just today, as we're reporting this, Israel launched another attack on the Gaza Strip.

The death toll since the so-called ceasefire went into effect in Gaza is at least 280. So Israel and the US were threatening violence while all the same while they were carrying out violence anyway. Our friend and colleague, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and former Deputy Secretary of Defense, Chaz Freeman, has a little snarkier view of the reason

for China and Russia abstaining. If the United States wants to get itself involved in another land war mess, Let them go ahead and do it, because part of this is the U.S. is now going to build a military base there, and they're going to put troops on the ground. What happens when those troops on the ground see Israeli the IDF killing innocent Palestinians? Will they stop them? What happens if those troops on the ground get in the middle of some military conflagration? What happens if some of those troops on the ground come home in body bags?

I think for China and Russia, I mean, I see it differently with all respect to Ambassador Freeman. I think China and Russia simply didn't want to be seen as the obstacle to something that, you know, even the Arab state support. And also, they're also bogged down themselves. Russia is trying to see an end to the war in Ukraine. I think they want to remain on good terms with Trump. China also constantly faces the threat of conflagration with the U.S., whether it's, and the trade arena or even militarily over Taiwan. So I think in this case, these great powers just decided that the Palestinian cause wasn't

worth it, that the Palestinian cause here was expendable. It brings to my Nome Chomsky's observation a long time ago that Palestinians offer nothing to people in power, nothing. They have no rights accordingly. So therefore, they're constantly abandoned. So I'm not blaming China and Russia here as the cause for all this misery, because this is the doing of Israel and the U.S. But I do think it was a betrayal,

it has to be said, of Palestinian rights and not vetoing this resolution that completely abandoned. It absolutely was a betrayal. Here's someone who disagrees with you and me. Chris, cut number 17. Well, things need to be stated as

they are in the clearest way possible. To this people, to this invented people called the Palestinian people, must not be given a state. These people cannot be established. Because the aspiration of those who seek to establish that state is to erase the state

of Israel. I am appealing today to our dear Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. You must declare that Abu Mazen has no immunity whatsoever. If they push for recognition of this invented state, if the UN recognizes this, you, Mr. Prime Minister, must order targeted eliminations of the senior officials of the authority who are terrorists in every sense of the word. And you, Mr. Prime Minister, must order the arrest of Abu Mazen. We have a cell ready for him in Ketsiod prison, and he will receive the same conditions as all the other terrorists in prison. And I call on the Prime Minister, arrest Abu Mazen. I'll take care of him.

What is this all about? Well, this speaks to just how absolutely fanatic Israeli society is that even Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, who has constantly sold out his own people, acted as a collaborator with Israel and the U.S., to essentially be a police force on behalf of Israel against the people of the West Bank, totally sold out the people of Gaza, essentially supported Israel's assault on Gaza. that even Mahmoud Abbas is in the eyes of this Israeli minister to Mark Ben-Gavir even he's not acceptable and has to be arrested why because he's simply because he's Palestinian and these people are you know this extreme

this minister like this guy are so extremist that even the existence of Palestinians just can't be tolerated even a Palestinian who collaborates with Israel and the main beef that he probably has with Abbas is that a boss has done some token things like going to the international criminal court, going to the U.N. seeking recognition of Palestine. And so if you're a fanatic like Ben-Gabir, you just can't even tolerate that. So therefore, he wants him arrested.

But look, overall, this opposition to a Palestinian state, that's across the Israeli spectrum, whether it's the ultra-extremists like Benghavir or, you know, the liberal extremists, like Netanyahu's opposition. This is universal. Ahead of this vote at the UN, Netanyahu, and his top ministers and the opposition all said, there will not be a Palestinian state. And in the face of that, when you have an Israeli government blocking a Palestinian state, and when you have the Israeli government doing that over decades, that should be the international community's responses to address that and say,

actually, there will be a Palestinian state. In this case, the U.S. pushed through a measure, essentially abandoning that formally, by only saying that if there is a Palestinian state, it might happen one day if a series of impossible conditions are made. It's a huge betrayal of the Palestinian people. Let's talk about American politicians and media figures putting Israel first. When Senator Chuck Schumer, who's the minority leader in the Senate and the senior senator from the state of New York, was asked if he would endorse now mayor-elect Mamdani, he said no, because I have to put Israel first. so Israel first over the United States

over the state of New York over his own constituents did any of this surprise you not at all because Chuck Schumer comes from the Israel first establishment he fashes himself as the guardian of Israel not a representative of his constituents but the guardian of a foreign state

it's funny during Trump's first term there was constantly this phrase used by his critics who were accusing him falsely of being a Russian asset. And they were imploring Republicans, you know, to put country over party, right? Country over party. In this case, Chuck Schumer has done that except he's done that with a foreign country. So he's put a foreign country over his own party, refusing to endorse the mayoral candidate

in his own city from his own party. It's unbelievable. And yet in a country where we had for years this freak out, a bipartisan freakout about fictional Russian interference and fictional Russian collusion with the Trump camp. Politicians, whether they're Chuck Schumer or Donald Trump, openly collaborating with Israel, openly putting Israel's interests over their own party's interests and over the country's interests, that's completely acceptable. So this is not just a problem with one party. This is a bipartisan issue where you have leadership in both the GOP and Democrats putting Israel

first. And it's totally tolerated. Nobody raises an eye about it. In fact, those who do raise an issue with it, they're forced out of Congress. APAC spends $20 million getting people who raise questions defeated. And that's considered normal right now under the guiding roles of Israel first. Here's someone whom formerly supported, enjoyed President Trump's support, who he will try and push out of Congress. And she, listen to this. accuse the president of treason by putting, without mentioning the name of the country, a foreign country ahead of the United States. Chris, cut number 14.

I was called a traitor by a man that I fought for five, no, actually six years for. And I gave him my loyalty for free. I won my first election without his endorsement beating eight men in a primary. and I've never owed him anything, but I fought for him for the policies and for America first. And he called me a traitor for standing with these women and refusing to take my name off the discharge petition. Let me tell you what a traitor is. A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves. A patriot is an American that serves the United States of America and Americans like the women standing behind me.

It's obvious what country she's talking about and it's obvious why. The answer is Miriam Adelson and her colleagues and their checkbooks. Exactly right. Exactly right. So Marjorie Taylor Green is a rare Congress member who was part of the MAGA movement who's actually trying to stand up for what she thought it meant, which is putting America first, not Israel first. And because she's done that, and it's a real transformation. She deserves credit for it. She's been viciously attacked by Trump.

He called her Marjorie Trader Green. And he did the same thing with Thomas Massey, even insulting Thomas Massey for recently getting remarried after the passing of his wife over a year ago. So Trump has shown no loyalty at all to, you know, the original concept of his movement of America first and the people who represent it because he's decided to get a lot of money from Mary Madelson which he openly flunts. I mean,

we've talked about that address he made at the Israeli parliament where he openly credited Mary Madelson for his policy decisions. He said he did their bidding, the bidding of Mary Madelson and her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, openly admitting to a foreign government that he was putting Israel first. And so the split you're seeing now inside of Maga,

Trump is dismissing this and I think he's expecting that he'll have continued loyalty and that may be the case for the majority of members of Congress who are loyal not just to him but also loyal to APEC but Marjorie Taylor Green

and Thomas Massey are exceptions and I don't think this will work with their constituents I suspect the people who elected them actually take the issue of America first seriously and don't want to see oligarchs who serve a foreign country

dictating what policy should be. Here's an example of how deep all this goes. Now, honestly, I never heard of this lady, but she was a speechwriter for President Obama. The clip was about 90 seconds long. But listen to this warped and tearful thinking from Sarah Hurwitz, Chris, cut number 18. I think that since October 7th,

but really before then, have been huge shifts in America on how people think about Jews and Israel, and I think that is especially true of young people. So we are now wrestling with a new, I think, generational divide here. And I think that's particularly true in that social media is now our source of media. And this, you know, it used to be that the media you got in America was American media, and it was pretty mainstream. You know, it generally didn't express extreme anti-Israel views. You had to go to a pretty weird bookstore to find global media and fringe. media. But today we have social media, which is a global medium. It is shaped, its algorithms

are shaped by billions of people worldwide who don't really love Jews. And so while in the 1990s, you know, a young person probably wasn't going to find Al Jazeera or someone like Nick Fuentes. Today, those media outlets find them. They find them on their phones. It's also this increasingly post-literate media, less and less text, more and more videos. So you have TikTok just smashing our young people's brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza. And this is why so many of us can't have a sane conversation with younger Jews, because anything that we try to say to them, they are hearing it through this wall of carnage. So I want to give data and information and facts and arguments, and they are just seeing in their minds carnage, and I sound obscene. And, you know,

I think, unfortunately, the very smart, I think, bet that we made on Holocaust education to serve as anti-Semitism education. In this new media environment, I think that is beginning to break down a little bit because, you know, Holocaust education is absolutely essential. But I think it may be confusing some of our young people about anti-Semitism because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews. And they think, oh, anti-Semitism is like anti-Black racism, right? Powerful white people against powerless black people. So when on TikTok all day long, they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it's not surprising that they think, oh, I know, the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel. You fight the big, powerful people

hurting the weak people. How do you analyze her thinking? Does she want to suppress the free speech of people who expose the slaughter in Gaza in order to temper anti-Semitism in the U.S.? She does want to silence the free speech of people who care about Palestinian rights because she's a Jewish supremacist. It's an extraordinary clip. This is a liberal Democrat who is the main speech writer for Michelle Obama for many years while Michelle Obama was first lady. And she's openly advocating social media censorship because, as she says,

people are seeing too much carnage. The problem is not that there is carnage. The problem is that people are seeing it. So, therefore, her response, her policy prescription is to advocate censorship. Recall that the ban on TikTok was begun under the Biden administration after there was so much concern in Washington that young people were seeing all the carnage that Washington was fueling in Gaza. So that's her first policy prescription. And then she says, also, we made a mistake with Holocaust education because Holocaust education taught people this idea. that all human beings are equal and that mass crimes mass murder shouldn't happen again and so

therefore and it taught people that we should have sympathy for victims of genocide and for victims of marginalized groups when she's basically saying the lesson of the holocaust is not that we should have empathy with marginalized groups it's that basically only jews deserve protection and it's fine even if the so-called jewish state carries out mass murder that's essentially her argument it's such a revealing window into the depravity of Zionism, where she can recognize that people fill empathy with victims of mass murder, but rather than saying that that's a natural thing, she's saying it's a problem that has to be addressed. Terrific analysis of this, and it is obviously consistent with the Merriam Madelson's and Chuck

Schumers of the world. I don't know where it's going to go, but I feel it's going to to lead these rich oligarchs to pull the levers of power to try and suppress the free speech of people like you and me and the thousands that are watching us and want to hear what we have to say. It's already happened on college campuses. You can't stand on the Columbia College campus and wave a Palestinian flag and say, I want the Palestinian people to have their own country. You'll be kicked off the campus, or if you're a student, you'll be disciplined. Yes. And, you know, one thing that Twitter just did, which is really extraordinary, is Twitter just disabled the translate button for Hebrew. So now if there's a post of an Israeli politician speaking in Hebrew, you can no longer click translate to find out what they're saying. And why they do that is because so often what would happen on Twitter is, you know, someone would just share a post from an Israeli, Israeli politician, Israeli journalists and say, just click translate and you'll see. And you'd click translate and then you'd hear some genocidal racist fanatic statement so to prevent people from now hearing what israeli

leaders thought leaders politicians openly saying you can no longer translate hebrew text on twitter and i suspect we'll be doing something similar with comments like this the sarah herwits is of the world i think they're going to stop letting us hear what they have to say because they're so openly fanatic at the same conference this jewish federations conference a report from Barry Weiss's outlet, the free press, which is now owned by CBS News, thanks to the billionaire Ellison family, bragged about her so-called reporting that some of the starving children in Gaza had serious pre-existing conditions, had major illnesses. And so their intent was to say that the problem in Gaza was not the kids are starving. It's that we were manipulated because some of these kids were actually

afflicted by serious medical conditions when the whole point is the people who are going to starve first when you block aid and be most vulnerable are people who are already sick but these people are so fanatic and have so much contempt for human life if the human life is Palestinian that they thought this was some great scoop that like some of the victims of starvation were already medically compromised so I think eventually the answer is going to be just to stop us from hearing what these people are openly saying because it's so damning every time they open their mouths. Aaron, thank you very much, my dear friend.

Thank you for pressing us to point out this fanaticism among us. I mean, it's one thing to hear Ben Gavir in Israel talk like a fanatic. It's another to hear this lady who's just a few blocks from me talk this way, and God only knows who's listening to her and is being influenced by her. We're so courageous. Thank you, my dear friend. All the best to you. We have a short week next week, but I hope you can join us.

Thank you, Judge, for having me. See you soon. Sure. All the best. Coming up later today, one this afternoon on all of this, Colonel Douglas McGregor at 3 this afternoon, Phil Giraldi,

Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.