Judging Freedom - AMB. Chas Freeman : Can Trump Save Lebanon?

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

AMB. Chas Freeman : Can Trump Save Lebanon?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish

fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Tuesday, June 30th, 20206. Ambassador Chas Freeman will be with us in just a moment. Can Trump restrain Netanyahu in Lebanon? But first this. Today's headlines aren't just bleak. They're an indictment of a government that has abandoned the Constitution. You are witnessing the direct result of the Federal Reserve's relentless war on the value of your dollar. For centuries, gold and silver have been the ultimate shield against the state's favorite tools. Monetary expansion and runaway inflation. To protect your wealth is to protect your liberty. And you can do that with gold and silver.

I own both and continue to buy because J.P. Morgan is now lying gold at over $6,300 an ounce. And Bank of America is suggesting silver could reach $300. That's great news for precious metal investors. don't wait for Washington to fix a mess they created. Secure your freedom today. Take possession of your precious metals or diversify your IRA by adding gold and silver. Call 800, 5114620 to see if you qualify for up to $20,000 in bonus medals. That's 800,5114620 or go to Learjudgeonap.com. Ambassador Freeman, welcome here, my dear friend.

Before we get to Trump and Hezbollah and Netanyahu and Lebanon, what is your take on the uptick in drone attacks by Ukraine in Moscow? Is this military advance or propaganda? I think it's basically propaganda. It's a show put on to boost morale to cement the support of the European with. Europeans to Ukraine. It is part of a broad effort by Ukraine, which includes a huge increase in propaganda and some false flag operations in that connection, all intended to obscure the fact that Ukraine is in retreat, not advancing. Well, and is this going to have any kind of an effect on President Putin's patience?

and slow orchestration of the Russian military? Well, I think it has had an effect. I think three things are going on. First of all, President Putin, rather like the Iranian leadership, has concluded that there is no point in talking to the United States because we cannot reach an agreement or with anyone, we cannot keep our word.

We are subject to too many contrary pressures. So the only answer to the issues confronting Russia in Ukraine is military. And I think that we are going to see some sort of repetition of what the Russians did in the Chechen war in Krosny. That is, they will simply obliterate the obstacles in their way with heavy bombing. The other issue, of course, is that there is a great deal of frustration in Russia with the continuation of the war, the slow advance. And for some time, President Putin was relatively silent and didn't offer much of an explanation for how he saw things developing. That now seems to have that moment. It seems now to have passed, and he has said what he, that he has said, that he, that he, that he,

he will persevere in the war. The final development, and the one that is really quite ominous, is that the Russians have clearly concluded that European members of NATO have, in effect, declared war on Russia. And we see various countries in Western Europe, most notably the United Kingdom boasting about the development of technology to assist Ukraine, in deeper, further deep strikes into Russia. Since Ukraine cannot prevail on the battlefield in Ukraine, it is striking, as you indicated, at refineries and other installations around Moscow and elsewhere in Russia. This doesn't seem to have had any effect, by the way, on Russian oil exports.

So the supposed justification for it that it is depriving Russia of revenue. with which to fund its war on Ukraine, doesn't seem to hold much water. But it's very ominous because the Russians may very well be on the verge of retaliation directly against the factories in Western Europe that are producing these weapon systems for Ukraine. And I think probably there's a real danger at a minimum of

some sort of special forces sabotage operation or covert action directed at these factories. At the worst, there could be a missile attack. And of course, the most obstreperous and offensive to the Russians are the three Baltic states, and they are terribly vulnerable. And all of this takes place in a context where the waters have been muddied so much that no one in Europe, is sure that Article 5 of the NATO-June North Atlantic Treaty, which commits the United States and other members of NATO to come to each other's aid in the event of a direct attack, it still holds. Nobody knows. The deterrent effect of NATO has been greatly eroded.

So this is the dangerous moment. It's one in which Ukraine is acting desperately, and there's a real danger that Russia will do the same. in a very destructive way. Donald Trump came to the White House with a lot of promises, and many of which are unkept and some of which did the opposite. But one of the more interesting ones to me was his wish to bring about a grand reset between the United States and Russia, a reset, cultural, political, economic, commercial, banking,

athletic, all the things that have been severed, by the sanctions that were imposed on Russia as a consequence of the special military operation. It seems that things have gotten worse, not better. I mean, President Putin yesterday in an offhanded comment said nothing was agreed to in Anchorage, nothing. So, as you pointed out at the time, and as did many of your colleagues on this show, was just performative. if it wasn't substantive? Well, that's the issue. We don't know whether our president at Anchorage

or in other contexts means what he says, says what he means, remembers what he said, feels bound by his own word, or free to alter the circumstances at will. And we've seen, and now particularly in the Iran case, the so-called memorandum of understanding, which I think is a memorandum of misunderstanding, constantly violated by us.

First clause in that memorandum of understanding makes it clear that everything is contingent. That is the discussions and negotiations to reach some sort of agreement on disengagement between the United States and Iran, that everything is contingent on the Israelis removing themselves from Lebanon and ceasing their aggression against it. But we've had now no indication that that's going to happen, quite the contrary.

And indeed, it appears the United States, whatever else it may have done, to put pressure on Israel, is continuing to back the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon. In fact, we brokered an agreement between the Lebanese government, which does not have the power to end the war, which is interested in cooperating with Israel and in countering Hizpala, the Shiite population that is now a majority in Lebanon. We have brokered an agreement, and there's some sort of arrangement, which really can only be likened to the

Vichy regime in France when northern France was under Nazi occupation directly and the South was under a nominally independent government. Basically, Lebanon has sold out its sovereignty to the Israelis and done it under our auspices. And how this could possibly be consistent with the memorandum of understanding is impossible to imagine. What do you think Netanyar will do? he'll just continue his killing. If he stops the killing in Lebanon, and he loses the majority in the Knesset, and he loses his immunity from prosecution

as prime minister, as I understand it, and to make it pretty basic. Yeah, I think he's made a bet, which looks like it is a pretty good bet, that Donald Trump will yield to the pressure from the Zionist plutocrats who have funded his political career and will therefore not take effective action to stop Netanyahu and the Israeli defense forces, the Israeli occupation forces in Lebanon or anywhere

I mean, they're on the offensive everywhere. They're squeezing Gaza to the last Palestinian and looking forward to removing the Palestinian population in some sort of macabre, so-called voluntary departure. The pogroms, military-assisted programs on the West Bank are in full force. Israel has bombed Syria. It's made it clear it intends to hold on to the Syrian territory. It has seized. It is engaged in depopulating southern Lebanon, turning it into the equivalent of Gaza, and has made it clear that it intends to annex that area. So it is completely, completely out of control, and there is no evidence that the United States has the will to control it. Of course, if you pose the question, can Netanyahu be brought to a heel?

The answer is yes, but that requires a level of courage, political courage, that we're not seeing. Here's Treasury Minister Smotrich on what they've done in Gaza and in the West Bank and what they plan on doing. Chris? Samaria is the mountain that geographically and topographically dominates all these areas. And if we are not there, God forbid, Hamas will end up taking over in a second. We saw how quickly they took over Gaza. In the end, when we established 103 settlements and 160 farms, paved roads, plan and regulate, our goal is to bring a million settlers to Judea and Samaria

so that there won't be pickup trucks later in Raanana, Kfar Saba, Petatigva, Tel Aviv, Be'er Sheva and Afula. And that's true? God forbid. Of course, Hamas came to power through an election. And let's remember that. And basically, if you act with sufficiently vile oppression, you get in persistent resistance. This is not a solution to anything.

Israel has made itself an international outlaw. it has placed the so-called Abraham Accords on life support. Its prospects are poor if it follows the advice of Mr. Smokic. How dispirited, unhappy, unstable is Israeli society today, a place where Netanyahu has brought it? Well, it's ribbon by multiple divisions. Some of these have been longstanding. For example, the division between the ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis,

symbolized by the difference between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. But others are more acute and new. The economy is in deep distress. the reserves, Israeli armed forces like the U.S. armed forces are structured basically for short, victorious wars, not wars of attrition. And Israel has now managed to engineer a war of attrition against it on multiple fronts. And so the reserves are not available to conduct economic activity. The army is to demoralize. Very diminishing numbers of reservists turn up for duty when they're called.

Casualties in Lebanon have been significant. Hezbollah turns out to be quite good at infantry operations, which Israelis are not so good at. And the political scene is greatly divided. A lot of what's going on in Israel we don't know because of censorship and the bias of our press to always report the best about Israel. We don't know how many people have emigrated, although we know it's a large number.

We don't know what the damage of the Iranian attacks on Israel were, They were considerable. But we don't have the information because it's illegal under military censorship to report it in Israel. And the Western press no longer investigates situations like that with the exception of a few people like Max Blumenthal and Aaron Matte, whom you have on your show and who are vigorously

pursuing investigative journalism. So we don't know. But, you know, I mean, if you ask me, if I were an insurance company and you asked me to write a life insurance policy on Israel at this point, I don't think I'd do that. A lot of things are going wrong for the country. Let's go to the memorandum of understanding. Isn't it true that the Strait of Hormuz as we speak is under the control of the Iranians? Yes.

And the MOU actually acknowledged. that it says that for 60 days Iran will not charge tolls as it manages traffic in the Strait of Ormuz. So there is a sort of a ridiculous statement that somehow Iran interpreted the MOU incorrectly to affirm its control, but the MOU is very clear on that really. And the fact is that Iran is in control of the state of foremost. And so we've seen efforts by the United States, by the British, and now most recently by the French, President Macron, in talking to the sultan of Oman and offering the services of the

French Navy to help demine the passages along the Omane coast, which relatively shallow compared to the part of the strait that's on the Iranian side. And there appears there were about 80 mines laid there and they have to come out. You know, Iran is solely responsible under the MOU for removing his minds and will do so. But it will take time. Anyway, Iran rejects any effort by the United States, Britain, France, anyone else, to assert control of the Strait of Hormuz. And so when the United States attempts to cheat on the Iranian control of the Strait to enforce

freedom of navigation in the strait under international law, as it existed before this war, Iran reacts by attacking the tankers that are coming through. We've just seen an exchange which illustrates that Iran has not adopted the Israeli standard of disproportionate retaliation for tax on it. International law responses, retaliation reprisals are meant to be proportionate to the damage suffered that justifies the reprisal. Israel's never agreed with that and has become quite well known for disproportionate reprisals. Iran has now followed down and done.

So we get a first disembolic American attack on Iran, not very serious, and then a second strike, which was more serious, followed by real damage to the remaining U.S. facilities in Bahrain and at Ali al-Azalem Air Force Air Base in Kuwait. The Iranians are not messing around. defending their control of the strait vigorously and effectively. So what's happened now is that with the memorandum of understanding violated in multiple ways by the United States, it's basically not an effect and there are no talks going on. Both parties, I guess, are present in Qatar today.

That is Wickev and Kushner. Iranians have no interest in talking to and don't plan to meet, evidently. The Gauterese will act as they have done as mediators go-between. But the prospects that this is going anywhere good are not, are pretty poor. From an unlikely source, Jake Sullivan, President Biden's National Security Advisor for four years, commenting on one of the talk shows over the weekend, advantage Iran. And what I expect when you send two real estate agents to negotiate for you? Chris, cut number three. If you just look at how they work the wording of the agreements they do,

they are highly detail-oriented, not just because they're lawyerly, but because they want to extract benefits from those details. Just one example from the MOU. The provision that says the U.S. would waive sanctions refers to oil. And then there's this little clause that says, and derivatives. What are derivatives? The petrochemical sector. That is the second largest sector in Iran. Now, do I think the U.S. really even understood what it was signing with that? Maybe not. But Iran knew it would get billions and billions of dollars just by inserting that word. And that's why you bring a very large delegation because you're looking for every advantage in this highly complex detailed negotiation. And I think as long as they're bringing that expertise

and we're only bringing a couple guys, it will be advantage of Iran. brought a naive and inexperienced vice president and these two are real estate brokers. The Iranians showed up with all kinds of expertise and voluminous documents and experts in the English language translated into Farsi and vice versa. And you can see the outcome. Yeah, no, I mean, you don't put a bunch of real estate agents on the football field against the NFL. fell. And basically that's what we're doing, you know. And we don't have professional diplomats to speak of anymore. The Department of State has been gutted. The diplomatic service has been demoralized. Many people fired. We're seeing the same thing now happening at the Directorate for

National Intelligence. I'm not a great fan of that organization, which I think in many respects It was a fifth wheel. I don't think the Congress was wise to establish that as an answer to the poor coordination of intelligence during 9-11, which was the reason it was established. I think it's far more important to separate analysis from operations in the intelligence field. That was a mistake we made in 1947 when we combined everything in the CIA. And anyway, but we are.

are stripping our expertise in every realm. And I would say the Supreme Court decision yesterday, which gave the president the authority to politicize specialized agencies, which previously operated on professional standards, and in accordance with criteria established by law, to replace the heads of these agencies on a political basis, just extends this. amateur hour and politicization process into our domestic realm.

It's been very evident in our foreign policy. So the dynamic duo to whom Jake Sullivan refers, Whitkoff and Kushner have bungled every single international negotiation they've attempted. There is no peace in Ukraine. There is no peace in Gaza. There is no peace with Iran. there is no effective answer to what is going on in Lebanon, in fact, quite the contrary. And it's all military all the time and no diplomacy because we don't have the wherewithal to conduct diplomacy.

Oh, but my dear ambassador, there were a number of deals that they did not bungle, their own real estate deals in these foreign countries, some of which have been met with tremendous local opposition. Well, I think that's exactly right, and that's the other part of this. And I think we're setting ourselves up in the midterms for an election which focuses on a number of issues. One of them is corruption. The other one is governmental incompetence. And the feathering of nests. I've seen a figure that the Trump family has gained enormously to the point of $6.4 billion during the

the Trump presidency. And, you know, we're at our 250th anniversary. Abraham Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg of a different kind of government than we have. We have government of the people by the billionaires for the billionaires. And I think many people in this country are not prepared to accept that. On that note, we'll conclude. I'll be off for a couple of weeks, ambassadors, you may know, but we'll look forward to seeing you in the middle of July.

Thank you for all you've done and look forward to seeing you then. Enjoy your vacation. I hope it's not interrupted. Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador. All the best of you. Coming up later today, if you're watching us live in 33 minutes at 9 o'clock this morning, Professor John Mearsheimer at 1.15 this afternoon, Scott Ritter. At 2 o'clock this afternoon, Matthew Ho. At 3 o'clock this afternoon, Colonel Karen Koukowski, Justinapal Paul Tonnell. for judging freedom.