Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté : Why Iran Negotiates

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

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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? the government? What if 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 Wednesday, June 3rd, 2006. Aaron Mote joins us now. Aaron, it's a pleasure. Thank you very much for joining us. Let's start with President Trump's rather accrued and direct admonitions to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, which Trump has admitted. How do you think Netanyahu received these crude comments and how, if you know, did the Israeli press treat them? Well, one possibility is that Netanyahu is in on this performance, which is, I think, a fair thing to guess that it is, given that it's been happening under now two presidents.

You have Axios, which is a outlet very close to both Israel and the White House. It's been reporting this story for a long time, not just under Trump, but also under Biden as well. We're called it under Biden. There are plenty of headlines leaked to Axios about how Biden yelled at Netanyahu, who used the F word, he's very mad at him. And that song and dance continued under Trump. So it's quite possible that this is just more of the same,

trying to create this impression that there's friction between Trump and Netanyahu. And although it's possible that there is some, Netanyahu is determined to continue bombing Lebanon and preventing a ceasefire with Iran. And perhaps Trump has some mild frustration about that. But the question is, rather than leaking the same story to Axios, why doesn't Trump do something about it?

He could tell Israel explicitly to knock it off. Instead, these stories feed this impression that he's sort of this frustrated bystander rather than being directly complicit in everything Israel does because there's nothing Israel could do could be done without the direct support militarily and diplomatically of the U.S.

So I suspect that this is just more of the same, feeding the media a false sense that Trump and Netanyahu are having tension when really Trump is not lifting a fact. finger to do anything about it. Does your gut tell you that this was performative? Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. I just don't see because again, if it weren't performative, Trump could do something about it rather than giving us another story about how frustrated he is with Netanyahu and use the F word. He can do something about it. He could

publicly say Netanyahu has to stop bombing Lebanon. And recall when he has done that, because a few times now he said he said that he's talking to Netanyahu, he's pulling his forces back from Bay, route. He's not going to do anything anymore. The bombings in Lebanon have continued. Israel's going scorched earth in parts of southern Lebanon. Now, the so-called compromise, the Trump administration wants people to believe they have achieved in Lebanon. They said, okay, we've gotten Israel to agree to not attack Beirut. But implicit in that is that Israel still has carte blanche to keep bombing the hell out of southern Lebanon. And they want the Lebanese people and Iran to accept that as legitimate. No, a ceasefire means a ceasefire.

No more attacks, period. No more ethnic cleansing in the south of Lebanon, which is what Israel is trying to carry out, trying to expel the Shia population, because that's where there is the most support for Hezbollah. And they can't have that from Israel's perspective because Hezbollah exists to resist Israeli aggression. At one point, Trump actually wrote the idea,

in his simplistic way, the IDF has turned around as if to suggest they made a U-turn and they're going back to Israel, is that even the remote, So does truth to such a crazy statement. Yeah, I'm sorry to laugh, but it seems as if the Trump strategy is to try to convince Iran and the public that they are renting in Israel because Israel is not bombing the capital of Beirut.

But meanwhile, Israel is going scorched earth on southern areas like the town of Teir, or Sour, as it's pronounced in Lebanon, bombing buildings, forcing people to flee. go on social media every single day, you'll see the pictures of a new family or a new round of medics in Lebanon that Israel has killed. And Trump's saying they've turned around from Beirut is a really crude way of trying to pretend as if he's raining Israel in when these bombings continue. Here's what Trump himself said yesterday when asked about using the F-bomb with Netanyahu, Chris No. 6. Which you were angry with him.

You said, are you effing crazy? What are you effing doing? I helped you stay out of jail. Is that true? Did you speak to him in those terms? I did. I always say angry. I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon.

You know, at some point I said, maybe we've got to stop this. You got to stop it. But he hasn't done anything to stop. How would he force B.B. to stop it? Do what no president has done, say the U.S. support for your country through arms and diplomatic cover will cease unless you cease fire. Joe Biden didn't do that. Donald Trump didn't do that. And that's why Israel can continue to do what it's doing. Now, meanwhile, Trump has done actions that actually encourage Israeli aggression in Lebanon. Recently, the U.S. sanctioned, I think, nine officials in the Lebanese government that they deemed to be too close to have.

Hezbollah, by which they mean people who simply aren't on board with this plan for a civil war. This U.S. Israeli plan for a civil war instead of Lebanon as a way to disarm Hezbollah. So Trump sanctioned Lebanese officials because they're not on board with this plan to destroy their country on behalf of the U.S. and Israel. And they've encouraged these Israeli attacks on the South because they haven't stopped them. So yes, I think all this from Trump is just performative. Is the IDF still expanding its control of Gaza and South Lebanon? Recently, there was an announcement from the Israeli government that they're going to keep permanent control of, I believe, 70% of Gaza. So pushing its population, which has been through a genocide and continues to face daily attacks from Israeli bombings,

into 30% of a territory that even before October 7th was one of the most densely populated areas in the most densely populated areas. world and yeah they are taking more areas of Lebanon in line with their long-standing desires to expand to Lebanon as part of so-called greater Israel and they want us to think that not taking Beirut is some sort of compromise and when you're an aggressor and you believe you have the divine right to steal as much Arab land as you want yeah I guess from your point of view that that is a compromise to everybody else it's just continued annexation occupation and it's illegal You know, this past Sunday was the Israel Day parade here in New York City, which is a very large and festive gathering. But I saw on Monday morning on the news who had been there, not only Congressman Randy Fine of Florida, but his buddy, Benazil Smotrich.

I'm surprised that Smotris took the chance in traveling. aren't there arrest warrants out for him? Well, not if he's coming to the U.S., which doesn't even respect the jurisdiction of the international criminal court. And this should be a political scandal. A massive hate rally, pro-genocide rally held in the country's biggest city

and politicians from both parties march alongside an open bigot, an open supporter of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bezellos-Mutrish. And it wasn't just Republicans, it was also Democrats. Kathy Hokel, Democrat Democratic governor of New York March. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader,

who said before that it's part of his job to ensure U.S. aid to Israel. He was marching in that. Can you imagine if a politician marched with a comparable bigot, like Smotrich, if it was about any other ethnicity? If someone from, if it was say like a, well, you know, I don't want to get into scenarios, but it should be an outright. scandal that Chuck Schumer and the like, you know, marched along with someone like Smokr. Even a Smoksher wasn't there should be a scandal because what is an Israel Day rally,

it's celebrating genocide and ethnic cleansing. But that's how much we've normalized Israeli influence in this society. The mayor of New York City, who of course is a very controversial young man, declined to march and said when asked why he said, because I said to my camp, campaign speeches that I wouldn't march. I'm not going to march. He avoided the addressing the moral issue, which you just addressed. But he didn't, he didn't march. I saw Congressman fine at Newsmax on Monday morning, but I studiously avoided him. Otherwise, I might have another incident like Max said with him. Well, it's funny. Some people will try to make a controversy out of Mamdani skipping the Israel day. rate when he ends up looking again extremely vindicated given that again he'd be vindicated regardless of who was there but especially when you have people like smotrich you know opens defenders of

racism and genocide and yeah uh johnny spoke about how that was offensive that he was there and how can that be allowed to happen how can you have someone who openly celebrates the mass murder hundreds of thousands of people openly celebrates their expulsion being welcomed as a honored guests to a major parade in a major city. Yeah. Does Iran more or less have Trump painted into a corner? I mean, they won't negotiate with him while Bibi is, while Netanyahu was slaughtering people.

And yet he's under tremendous pressure to bring the war to an end. Marco Rubio can say under oath all he wants, the war is over, but nobody believes it when they pay. five or six bucks a gallon for gas. Yeah, and when U.S. military assets in the Gulf are still being hit, this happened, as we're speaking, you know, yesterday, U.S. military assets in Bahrain and Kuwait were hit after the U.S. struck an empty oil tanker, Iran retaliated by going after U.S. military assets and caused some considerable damage.

So yeah, for them to claim the war is over is just transparently false. I do think Trump was in a corner. He went to war. He thought he could pull off regime change. It didn't happen. He knows he has no more military option to reopen the state of Hormuz. So that's not happening. But he's also incapable of making peace.

And he's also, I think, you know, he's thrown in more conditions recently that would make a peace deal impossible. He started talking about the Abraham Accords as sort of now a condition. for an Iran peace deal going through where the remaining Gulf states that haven't signed on yet would normalize with Israel and the Palestinians would get absolutely nothing. That's the whole point of the Abraham Accords.

It's to bypass the global consensus that Palestinians deserve self-determination. And the Abraham Accord says, forget all that. The Gulf states are going to normalize with Israel without anything for Palestinians. And Trump thinks now, after launching this unprovoked war of aggression,

with the aim overthrowing a government that was one of the few to actually stand up for Palestinians, that the Gulf states are going to reward him somehow by setting on to this sellout treaty. It's madness. And he also, I think, still expects Iran to put limits on its nuclear enrichment program, not nuclear weapons, which they've already agreed to cap, but even nuclear enrichment when this whole crisis underscores

how important nuclear energy is for Iran. Because look at what Trump has tried to do. He's tried to destroy Iran's oil exports and cut them off. And this underscores for Iran that if Iran wants to meet its minimal energy needs, it can't just rely on its oil supplies. It needs something like nuclear energy, which it's invested decades worth of innovation and effort and a lot more money into developing.

And so if Iran just to give that up, especially given that Trump has shown it, that Iran can't even rely on its oil exports and its oil production because Trump has tried to destroy it, it's just, absolutely madness. But because he's capable of diplomacy, he's hostile diplomacy. He, after all, caused all this crisis by tearing up the major diplomatic agreement that prevented all of this. He stuck because he's stuck between not having a military option, but also not being able to engage seriously in diplomacy. I mean, do we know if diplomacy is actually going on? The last time I spoke to an Iranian official over a few days ago, he said that messages are

being exchanged back and forth. That's what he said. Trump was saying that we're close to a deal. I'd have to sign off on it. That was an embellishment. But there were messages being exchanged back and forth through third parties, through Pakistan and through Qatar. But Professor Mirandi has told us that the Iranian government will never agree to a deal that fails to restrain Israel. Now, unless there's going to be a two or three part deal intended to produce a temporary ceasefire, which will aggravate Netanyahu, who can control Israel unless Trump does what, as you indicated earlier, Aaron, what no president has ever done?

Well, this is the moment of truth. It goes back to how we started the interview. Will Trump be willing to actually tell Israel to knock it off? Does he want to keep blowing up the global economy, Republicans' future political chances for the sake of greater Israel? That's ultimately what it comes down to. And that's what so much of Congress. conflict in the world has been based on the Gaza genocide. That was based on a U.S.

refusal to constrain a genocidal apartheid state that won't grant Palestinians self-determination and wants to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people for a one-day act of resistance from people trying to seek their freedom. The dirty war in Syria, which set the stage for this war of aggression against Iran because that was an attempt to knock out a government that was an ally of Iran and Hezbollah and to bleed Iran and Hezbollah in the process by drawing them into a war to defend the government from being overthrown. That also was for the purpose of Greater Israel, and that caused massive carnage and suffering and many refugees and went on for a very, very long time.

So now it's the moment of truth. Trump went to war against Iran itself, which again only serves the cause of Greater Israel because Iran acts as a curb on the Greater Israel Project. It's a big country. It can resist Israeli aggression. and they can support groups who do the same. So Trump finally willing to do something that undermines the interests of greater Israel and the intertwined interests of U.S. hegemony,

which says we have to control the entire region and not let anybody with an independent foreign policy, an independent economy, let them exist normally. Trump has to decide. And so far, he's been unwilling to make a decision because he doesn't have a military option, but he also doesn't want to recognize that he lost. And so I think now we're stuck in this limbo for, at least for a very long time. Is there a Jewish community in Tehran? There is.

Max Blumenthal, my colleague, when he was there last, about a year ago, he went and sat with them and went to religious services with them and made a video about it at the gray zone. And what did is. I did recently, it bombed one of the synagogues in Tehran. So why would they do that? Because, well, assuming they deliberately targeted the synagogue, which is totally a fairer.

assumption because Israel targets civilians, targets Moss certainly in Gaza and in Lebanon, because they're not Zionists. These Jews in Tehran are not Zionists. And Zionism is about supremacy and about preserving this apartheid state. And even Jews in foreign countries are seen as an obstacle to that and can be taken out because it, because it's, Israel doesn't care about Jews. It just cares about its own supremacy and its own power. So they had no problem bombing a synagogue in Tehran. Wow.

Let me switch topics. Should the United States have as a director of national intelligence, excuse me, a home builder with no intelligence, you almost can't say this with a straight face, with no intel experience whatsoever. for a job where the statute requires substantial intel experience. So you're talking about the replacement for Tulsi Gabbard, who's stepping down at the end of this month.

Apparently one of the selling points for him, from Trump's point of view, was that he supports the war in Iran. But that apparently was one of his qualifications for the job, according to one report. I think it was in Reuters, which doesn't vote well for the process. aspects of peace. Yeah, I mean, this is just Trump appointing someone, it's more the same, a sycophant, someone who will suck up to him, someone who, unlike Tulsi Gabbard, will not even be willing to articulate the U.S. intelligence consensus that Iran does not have nuclear weapons program. I recall when Tulsi Gabbard did that, Trump responded by saying, I don't care what she says. And I think with this chosen replacement, Trump won't have that problem of having an intelligence director contradicting him.

And still, Tustlian went out of her way to cater to Trump's propaganda and his lies. But still, at least on this issue, she affirmed the truth, which is that Iran doesn't have a new co-reference program. I don't think Trump will have that problem anymore. I also, though, don't want to lose sight of the fact that there are plenty of people previously in that position who also lied through their teeth in the service of false narratives. James Clapper, for example. Oh, Clapper is the classic example. You know that. You covered it, wrote about it, researched it.

He lied to Congress about mass surveillance. He's claiming it wasn't happening under the NSA. That wasn't true. He lied to the public about Russiagate. It took years. Actually, it took, it took Tulsi Gabbard to come into office and release documents from eight years prior, showing that James Clapper and John Brennan colluded,

essentially, to give the public a false claim, and not only of collusion, which everyone now knows was a scam, but on this core allegation of Russian interference, which was the major issue of Trump's first term, this notion that Trump waged a massive interference campaign. Documents released by Tulsi Gabbard showed that Clapper and Brennan had no evidence, and Clapper wrote to his fellow intelligence chiefs, our operating method here has to be,

it's our story and we're sticking to it, acknowledging that they were perpetrating a fraud on the American public. So the director of national intelligence does not have a strong lineage of people when they tell the truth. I wish that Tulsi Gabbard would speak truthfully about the reasons for her departure like Joe Kent did. I gather her husband is sick. I'm sorry like anybody would to learn of an ailment of that magnitude and has progressed as far as it has. But surely she has the same gripes as Kent.

I don't know where she's at these days. She certainly changed in some significant respects from the Tulsi that I knew. I mean, she was so openly against regime change wars and then continue to serve under a president who launched one in Iran. And she had previously campaigned against the prospect of regime change war against Iran. And Joe Kent couldn't go along with that. He resigned. Tulsi Gabbard, for her own reasons, decided to stay on board. And maybe now after she leaves office, she'll explain what her thinking was.

I do think she served some positive ends by standing. staying on because she did continue to affirm the U.S. intelligence consensus that Iran didn't have a nuclear weapons program. Unlike some of her colleagues like John Rackcliffe, who essentially lied before Congress and saying that Iran was close to a nuclear weapon. Tulsi Gabbard avoided answering that question by saying it's up to the President to determine that, basically saying this is all Trump's doing, and I'm not endorsing it. That was her way of threading that needle. But yeah, it'll be curious to see what she says after she leaves office. Well, Aaron, thank you very much, my dear friend. As always, your announcement, and now

This is deeply appreciated by the audience and by me. All the best. Two as well, Jones. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up later today at 11.30 this morning, Pepe Escobar, on what his sources tell him about Iran and a nuclear weapon, followed at 2 o'clock by Larry Johnson on the same story, followed at 3 o'clock by the great Phil Jarreld. Is the United States about to give Israeli officials full and unfettered access? to all military and intelligence secrets.

Wow. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.