Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : What Freedom of Speech?

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

Aaron Maté : What Freedom of Speech?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, May 16th, 2024. Aaron Mate joins us now. Aaron, I got to start by saying what a pleasure it was to meet you last night. I mean, I've been reading your work for years. You've been on the show for nearly a year now. I feel like we're longtime friends, but the viewers should know that at a book party for our dear mutual friend, Anya Parampil, at which you and her husband, Max Blumenthal, and she spoke to a wonderful, wonderful crowd. I was hiding in the back of the crowd until it was over. And then I jumped up on stage to hug and kiss you guys.

It was, there you go. There's the beautiful Anya and the handsome Max and the stately Aaron and the old judge. It was a great surprise, judge. And thank you so much for making it out. Your support means a lot. Oh, it was terrific, and it was a great, great audience. Young, seriously pro-peace people hugging and kissing this ex-Fox guy something five or ten years ago. I couldn't have imagined.

It was deeply, deeply moving for me as I left that group. What did Joe Biden consider a good day for peace recently? Joe Biden considered a good day for peace the day he signed his so-called foreign aid package into law. $95 billion to fuel carnage in Gaza, in Ukraine, and why not China as well, you know, with money going towards Taiwan to fuel conflict there. And Joe Biden at the Oval Office declared his signing of that measure, that bipartisan measure, a good day for world peace, literally asserting that war is peace. That's basically what he was saying. And we're seeing the results now. He has continued to deliver weapons to Israel despite briefly pausing just one package. And again, it's important to stress that that hold was not

stopping that package of weapons. It was a pause. It was just for PR. It was just to show all these college students and all these outraged Democrats that he's hearing them while really in real life doing absolutely nothing to address their concerns. The White House made clear that Israel has all the weapons it needs to attack Rafah. So they're free to ignore Biden's public admonitions to not attack Rafah because they have all the weapons from Biden that they need. So it's very fitting that Biden can call his enactment of a massive war funding measure, a huge transfer of money to the military-national complex, a good day for world peace. Because in his eyes, pausing weapons while enabling the mass murder campaign in Gaza is to him taking action against Israel.

So everything is window dressing. Is it, maybe this is an unfair question. Maybe it's unanswerable, but you're so smart. Maybe you can, which has the tighter vice grip on the American government, the Israeli lobby or the military industrial complex.

Well, they're a good team. They're a good team. They, they work in tandem. And certainly, whatever the Israeli lobby wants always benefits the military industrial complex. And it's very striking. You have groups like the Anti-Defamation League, which is supposed to be a civil rights organization, right? Purportedly. They're even weighing in and denouncing Biden

for putting a hold on these weapons to Israel. What does that do with civil rights in the U.S.? And it just underscores all this concern about anti-Semitism on campus and this hysteria we're seeing from Congress. It's not about anti-Semitism. It's not about protecting Jews. It's about protecting the right of Israel to carry out its military operation against Gaza. Do you think that the American public realizes how unserious Joe Biden was with the dramatic announcements he made about holding up the 2,000-pound bombs? He repeated it three or four times. This wasn't an announcement made by a functionary in the Defense Department. It wasn't even made by Tony Blinken or Jake Sullivan. It was made by the presidentary in the Defense Department. It wasn't even made by Tony Blinken or Jake

Sullivan. It was made by the president himself, repeated two times. Do you think the public sees right through it? At this point, I think it's pretty difficult for anyone who's paying attention to not recognize that Biden is just out of it and is constantly contradicting himself. Recall, he briefly said that Israel invading Rafah was a red line for him, but then he immediately walked that back. It's a sort of incoherent policy of firmly supporting Israel, but then when the carnage

gets so just indescribably awful, like for example, all these horrible incidents that now there's so many to count, we lose track. But remember the murder of the World Central Kitchen employees? Yes, I remember, but I think the world has forgotten it. Well, there's so many of them, it's hard to keep track. So every time this happens, Biden has to do something to pretend as if he's opposing Israel. But the policy always comes down

to continuing the flow of weapons. Dan Goldman, who is a Democratic member of Congress, just released a statement saying that he met with White House officials and they committed to providing all appropriated military assistance to Israel. All of it. He didn't say most of it. He said all of it. He's been having lunch with Lindsey Graham. Yeah, sure. It's the same argument. Graham, of course, was, I don't know if we played this clip for you. Chris, we have the clip where he loses his cool. Graham, of course, was totally over the top, suggesting that Gaza should be nuked. Watch this. Historians would say, why is it OK for Reagan to do it and not President Biden? But let me ask you about the big deal. Well, why is it okay? Well, can I say this?

Why is it okay for America to not to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war? Why was it okay for us to do that? I thought it was okay. To Israel, do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state. Senator, again, military officials say the technology has changed. But let me ask you about how all of this could impact... Yeah, these military officials that you're talking about are full of crap. He's really become the lunatic cheerleader here to suggest, with what we now know, that the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was

somehow legal, appropriate, and moral when it was the opposite of all three, to compare that to what he's saying the Israeli government should do to Gaza is simply crazy. Does he represent what members of Congress think, what the Uniparty thinks, or is he just the lunatic fringe? I think the lunatic fringe is the bipartisan consensus, unfortunately. The I mean, it's incredible that, you know, Dan Goldman, Dan Goldman is a liberal Democrat, a classic Upper West Side liberal. But he sounds like Barry Goldwater. Yeah. Praying for provocation. Absolutely.

And look, the host of Meet the Press there, Kristen Welker, who's young, she's not in Congress. She's a liberal television host, but she didn't challenge Lindsey Graham on his premise that it was okay to commit mass murder in Japan eight decades ago. The U.S. is just off the charts in its fanaticism. I think the only country in the world, I think, where the political establishment could still argue that the atomic bombing was justified. And that's, you know, we're talking about eight decades ago.

It's still, on corporate TV, you can't criticize it. You have to accept that that was a legitimate act. The only criticism she offers is, well, the technology has changed. We wouldn't have to do that again. Well, the bombing was immoral to begin with. And of course, the attempt at a historical analogy is so wild. The people of Gaza are not trying to – they're not involved in a war against the U.S. They're not even involved in a war against Israel. Hamas carried out a one-day operation as part of its resistance to an

occupation. You don't have to support Hamas to recognize people have the right to resist armed occupation. So the attempt to draw some sort of analogy to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on top of the attempt to justify it is just so off base. You know, in one of my books, I referred to Harry Truman. If you measure numbers of deaths per second as the greatest mass murderer in history and a member of the United States Senate, a longtime friend of mine, I won't tell you who it was. You got to take that line out for me to endorse the book. You got to take that line out for me to endorse the book. You've got to take that line out for me to endorse the book.

You won't believe the hell that'll come. I said, don't you believe what I said is true? He said, yes. I said, okay, we'll take the line out. He endorsed the book. The publisher forgot to take the line out. Nothing happened. Nothing happened to him politically.

He's still there, still my friend. But it's interesting how people can be afraid to address painful truths when it seems like the whole country, particularly, I know you were born in Canada, but particularly American public schools have taught that this was a great heroic act that Truman committed. Do you think the U.S. is committed to perpetual war because of the military-industrial complex? Absolutely. And we've gotten the highest level warning of that from Eisenhower when he warned about the power of the military-national complex. And he's been proven to be true so many times. There was recently a study saying that world military spending has hit an all-time high, largely because of the war in Ukraine, who are the prime beneficiaries of this recent so-called Ukraine security assistance

package. If you look at the breakdown of that bill, so $61 billion earmarked in the name of Ukraine, at least $48 billion of that goes right to the Pentagon and arms manufacturers. So much of that won't even ever reach Ukraine. It's just to replenish US stockpiles. So absolutely, we are run by the Military Industrial Complex and all their various other allies, including the Israel lobby, which certainly has every interest in transferring more and more US taxpayer dollars into these weapons companies so they can be shipped off to Israel. Do you think that the 61 billion, even though, what, 23 of it may end up in the hands of the Ukrainians, will achieve anything militarily other than postponing the inevitable? I mean, they're

really walking on eggshells there from the reports we've gotten. You know, these tiger's teeth, which are basically pyramid-like devices to stop the movement or slow the movement of troops and stop the movement of tanks. They're huge and they're cement-like. Colonel McGregor sent me pictures of them. They cost a fortune. They cost tens of thousands each. Sent me pictures of them tossed on the side of a road in Ukraine. They weren't even used. So my question is, is this cash going to go into the pockets of the corrupt? Is it going to do anything militarily other than maybe postpone the inevitable until after November 4th? Well, I can only go by what we've learned so far. And what happened last year? All this money, all this training, all this preparation went into

Ukraine's counteroffensive. This was going to be the one that was going to push Russia back. Everybody declared this. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Biden administration officials, everybody said that Ukraine was going to take back Russian territory with all this equipment we've given them. All these game changers. Remember the Leopard tanks from Germany were going to be a game changer. Attackams were going to be a game changer tanks from Germany were going to be a game changer. Atacoms were going to be a game changer. Highmars were going to be a game changer. Nothing's happened. And in fact, the counteroffensive was such a failure that, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon doesn't even call it a counteroffensive anymore.

That's how badly it went last year. So based on what we've seen so far, is there anything to tell us that the result will be any different? No, and we're seeing it now. The main problem for Ukraine, which no amount of U.S. weaponry and assistance, dollars, can change, is they don't have enough people to fight. They're running out of people. They've sacrificed so many of them. Zelensky's tried to address that by lowering the age of conscription, but it's still not enough. And this week, Ukraine's military intelligence chief warned of that. We

just don't have the people to fight. And that's been Russia. No one's been more aware of that than Russia, which if you look at their strategy, it's pretty clear. They're just trying to grind Ukraine down in this long war of attrition until they just don't have the people anymore. And that's where it's headed. Let's get back to Israel. Do the Israeli and the Palestinian hostages play any role any longer in Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision-making, or is he determined to continue the slaughter, whether the Israeli hostages come home, whether he releases the Palestinian hostages or not? It's absolutely the latter, and that's been made explicit. An Israeli official recently told Haaretz that, you know, under no circumstances will Netanyahu agree to a deal that frees the

hostages but ends the war for good. The war will end, according to Netanyahu agree to a deal that frees the hostages but ends the war for good. The war will end, according to Netanyahu, on his terms. And what that means is unclear. Yes, he says he wants to destroy Hamas, but he also wants to destroy Gaza, leave it uninhabitable. That's obviously the war aim, if you look at what Israel is actually doing. And that's why there was recently a ceasefire agreement on the table. Hamas accepted it. But Israel, with U.S. backing, ignored that. And that's why we got a ton of, you know, just confusing coverage in the corporate media saying that trying to cast doubt on Hamas's intentions.

You know, someone on CNN said that Hamas was trying to look good by accepting a ceasefire proposal. Well, the whole line from the Biden administration was that this could be over if Hamas accepts a ceasefire proposal and agrees to free the hostages. Was this a ceasefire proposal that was crafted by the negotiators in Qatar, a half a dozen of whom are Americans? Correct. Yes. I said Qatar. I meant Cairo.

Forgive me. Yeah. Yeah. But the the guitar is obviously heavily involved and yes uh hamas did accept that but for netanyahu whose entire premise is just basically to leave gaza in ruins it's it just it doesn't matter including the lives of his own hostages and israeli an israeli um spokesperson for the hostage families who the initial spokesperson of his own hostages. And an Israeli spokesperson for the hostage families, the initial spokesperson,

he's since left that position, he said that there was a deal on the table very early on where Hamas offered to release all the hostages if Israel agreed not to attack Gaza. Israel rejected that, and here we are. You know, seven months later, and how many tens of thousands of people dead.

Tells you what Netanyahu's uh goal is and it goes back to those early questions of why was the uh concert that went on until the sun came up so close to the gaza border why was the border so unguarded why was intelligence so disregarded how does this help net Netanyahu? But I don't want to get so conspiratorial, though I think those are legitimate questions to ask. Is there a division in the war cabinet now over managing the peace after the war is over? We'll play a clip in a minute of Defense Minister Gallant, who doesn't mention Netanyahu by name, but it's obvious who he's talking about. And he's very angry. And then we'll play Netanyahu pushing back. But is this a serious division? And does Bibi still march in lockstep to Ben-Gavir and Smotrich?

Well, the answer to the latter question is yes, he does. Netanyahu just said that a two-state solution would reward terrorism, and he's rejected any sort of plan after this genocide is over that would leave Palestinians in charge. Now, the split inside the cabinet, it's basically, yes, there is a split, but it's a split between people who fundamentally reject the idea of Palestinian self-determination. Gallant wants to have a Palestinian collaborator force ruling over Gaza. Netanyahu is so extreme that even the idea of any kind of Palestinian, even if it's a collaborator controlling Gaza, he just can't countenance that. But the Gallant plan sounds to me like it's very similar to what the Oslo so-called peace process was all about. Find a collaborator, policy and authority to rule over the parts of the West Bank that Israel doesn't want to keep for itself.

And they can, you know, crack down on protesters, keep people in line. That's what I think a lot wants for Gaza. Netanyahu at this point has gone so far to the extreme that even a token gesture of a, of a collaborator is not extreme enough for him.

So I think that's the split inside the Israeli cabinet. All right, here's Defense Minister Golan. I want you to analyze this for us. Cut number 16, Chris. Indecision is, in essence, a decision. This leads to a dangerous course, which promotes the idea of Israeli military and civilian governance in Gaza. This is a negative and dangerous option for the state

of Israel, strategically, militarily, and from a security standpoint. We must make tough decisions for the future of our country, favoring national priorities above all other possible considerations, even with the possibility of personal or political costs. I wonder who he's talking about at the end, personal and political costs. How serious a breach, we'll play Netanyahu's response in a minute, but how serious a breach with Netanyahu and the right-wingers, if at all, is this? I mean, is it window dressing or is it serious? Well, certainly Gallant wants power and he's going to exploit Netanyahu's weaknesses for that. I think that's what he is doing here.

But when it comes down to the, you know, will this help bring peace to that region and the conflict? It won't because it's only a difference, a tactical difference over how to rule over Palestinians. The fundamental premise that we have the right to rule over them and occupy them and steal their land,

that's not questioned by Gallant. So he's just saying, it reminds me of when Israel did its so-called disengagement from Gaza in 2005. You had some people inside the establishment who didn't want to leave, who believed that we have a biblical right to all this land. So we don't want to leave an inch of this territory because we have the divine right. So that was one faction of the establishment. The other faction

of the establishment recognized that it was too costly to rule over Gaza when really there's not that much land of value there in Gaza, at least compared to the West Bank where there's a lot more valuable land, especially the water reserves. And that's where we should be focusing our resources, our military resources, in terms of stealing Palestinian land. Let's do it in the West Bank, not in Gaza. Let's let Gaza rot in a cage. And so that's why we got the disengagement. So it's a similar thing now. The fundamental premise of we're going to steal what we want, that's not questioned. It's just a difference of we're going to steal what we want, that's not questioned. It's just a difference of do we want to find a token collaborator to rule over Gaza for us and do the job of cracking down on people

that we don't want to do ourselves? All right. Well, I want you to hear this. Here's Prime Minister Netanyahu's response to Defense Minister Gallant, number 17, Chris. Therefore, all the talk about the day after, Netanyahu's response to Defense Minister Gallant, number 17, Chris. In any case, there's no alternative to military victory. The attempt to bypass it with this or that claim is simply detached from reality. There's one alternative to victory, defeat, military, diplomatic, and national defeat. He's playing to his base, I guess.

Is it still a majority of the Israeli public is in favor of the slaughter that's about to resume? I haven't seen the latest polls, but I would bet anything that, yes, the majority is in favor. We see still very little dissent. Those people in Israel who do try to oppose this mass murder campaign face much bigger counter protests. Even hostage families have tried to protest. They've blocked roads. But again, the overwhelming consensus in that society is behind Netanyahu. It's behind carrying out mass murder. It's a society that is just gripped with fanaticism, with chauvinism, with a sense of vengeance, that they were humiliated on October 7th when the people that they rule over dared to rise up and show that Israel's military was not the behemoth that everyone considers it to be. And I think that desire there, too, basically – what the New York Times said was that Israel's aura of power was shaken on October 7th.

Not Israel's security. It's aura of power was shaken on october 7th security it's aura of power so i think you know to defend that aura of power there is an overwhelming consensus behind slaughtering defenseless people in gaza how um is israeli television portraying revealing exposing reporting on the events in gaza do the israeli people know what we know? They don't. According to my Israeli friends, you barely see any images coming out of Gaza on Israeli television. It's just across the board.

Obviously, just state obedience to the state line, and the state line just doesn't want people to see for their own eyes what their government is doing. And it's been like that way for a long time. I've been to Tel Aviv a few times, and I just remember that being there, you had a sense that people had no idea what was going on just a few miles away in Gaza and the West Bank. People just have no clue. Apologies for jumping back and forth between Israel and Ukraine, but do you have any feeling for what will happen on May 21st, which is next Tuesday, since President Zelensky's office ends at the end of the day at 11.59 p.m. on the 20th, and there were no new uh elections i mean does somebody else take over does it just stay

as a as a holdover will there be a coup what do you think well we just got an answer to that i think from the person who really matters which is anthony blinken anthony blinken was just in kiev and he said that ukraine will hold elections when all their territory is returned to ukraine so that's an endorsement of zelensky's plan to basically delay elections they'll never hold elections if that's the problem you know i have to say though judge you know unlike some of my um some other critics of the ukraine proxy war on this one i actually understand the ukrainian government argument you know they are at war uh i don't fault them for not holding elections while they're at war. Maybe that's being too generous on my part to them, but that to me is – I could see the case for that. doing that well before Russia invaded, a year before Russia invaded, when the Biden administration

took office, a really important thing happened that, you know, the more I learned about it, I think made a war inevitable. When Zelensky, right after Biden took office, he shut down three television networks from the opposition linked to Medvedchuk, who was a close ally of Putin. And at that time, Medvedchuk's party was second place, and it recently won a bunch of regional elections. And Zelensky was basically saying that dissenting views that don't support us in our civil war, which is going on at the time in the Donbass,

and people who favor friendly ties with Russia, not welcome inside Ukraine. He was basically telling millions of Ukrainians who identify with Russia, who speak Russian, who have relatives in Russia, that you're not welcome here. And that decision, I think, helped make war inevitable. Because right after that is when Russia first deployed its troops to the border as part of beginning the buildup that culminated in the invasion one year later. So Zelensky not holding elections now. Okay. I can understand that actually you're at war. What I cannot understand if he actually cares about democracy

is why he's been banning opposition parties and television networks well before Russian troops crossed the border. Here, uh, just for a little bit of amusement before we, uh, call it a day, uh, is the secretary of state of the United States in a basement pub, not unlike the joint we were in last night, but this one is in Kiev, cut number 15. The United States is with you. So much of the world is with you. And they're fighting, not just for a free Ukraine, but for the free world. And the free world is with you too so maybe we can try something yeah sure i don't know we'd like to have played what they attempted to play but you know google youtube copyright would have a big fight uh over that was a new young song that he totally totally misinterpreted but whatever he's

in an unusual unusual situation how much longer do you think ukraine can last no matter what joe biden sends over there you know that's not something i can predict but it just doesn't look good uh they just don't have the people um they No matter how many weapons gets poured in, I don't see how it's going to make a difference. And in fact, so much of this weaponry that's just been authorized for purchase, it's not even going to Ukraine, as we discussed earlier. So war is so unpredictable, so who knows? And Russia certainly is playing the long game. So maybe they'll just let this drag out for a long time and continue to grind Ukraine down. But overall, this notion that Ukraine is going to recapture its territory, it's such a fantasy.

And again, the alternative was accepting some Russian influence inside Ukraine, accepting neutrality inside Ukraine, accepting the right of the people inside Ukraine who aren't hardcore Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and actually want ties with Russia, recognizing Ukrainians' differences and keeping the country neutral. But because people in Washington like Antony Blinken and his allies in Kyiv, the ultra-nationalists, wouldn't accept that, we're in the situation we're in right now. And so Blinken, what can he offer is a cover song of Neil Young that he's, as you said, doesn't even understand because Neil Young's song,

Rockin' the Free World, was written at the time of, at the height of the Cold War. It was written in the late 80s and it was a critique of Cold War militarism and jingoism. And so many of the themes in that song, it pointed out that there's deprivation in the US

while we're talking about how we have a thousand points of light, how we're a light unto the world. That's increasingly magnified today, exemplified by us spending tens of billions of dollars on these horrible conflicts abroad while neglecting people's needs at home. And something I haven't verified yet, which is what I heard, is that Zelensky and Blinken went to a pizzeria while they were in Kiev. And on the wall, there were ultra-nationalist symbols, neo-Nazi symbols, and even a picture of a massacre, the Odessa massacre of May 2014. So this month, 10 years ago, there was this massacre that really was instrumental in galvanizing opposition to the coup regime that Blinken's Obama administration helped install when dozens of people were burned alive. And apparently, in that pizzeria, there is a photograph of that massacre celebrating that massacre, not mourning it, celebrating it.

And so I haven't verified this, but I will look into it. And so it's just such a symbol of who we're actually supporting inside Ukraine, if that's true, the people who glorify the murders. Wouldn't you think the State Department people would know not to bring him there? Good God, is there a photo of him in front of that wall with that photograph? Well, I'm just relaying a rumor, i i'm gonna have to verify it and uh but yes apparently there are photographs of him inside this pizzeria and there are and there are those photos on the wall right now i understand why some of the writers who write to us during the show have been saying to me ask aaron about the pizza now i know what it is yeah yeah yeah

well there you go right a, thank you very much. Pleasure, my friend. Thank you for last night. Thank you for today. Look forward to seeing you again soon. Likewise. Thank you, Judge. Sure. All the best. Great interview. Very, very, very smart young man. Three o'clock today, another smart

young man, Kyle Anzalone. And at four o'clock today, the one and only Max Blumenthal. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.