Judging Freedom - AMB Chas Freeman : Will China Dump Trump?

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

AMB Chas Freeman : Will China Dump Trump?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? 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 Tuesday, March 17th, 2006, St. Patrick's Day here in the West, and especially in the United States and particularly in New York City. Ambassador, Chas Freeman, joins us now. Ambassador, thank you very much for your time this morning. I want to spend some time with you on one of your fields of expertise, which is China and how you expect the Chinese will deal with President Trump in light of the war in Iran. but before we get there on Iran, how do you suppose U.S. officials, intelligence, military, and political,

could have so underestimated the resilience of the Iranian people and the asymmetric strategy of the Iranian military? Well, I think the administration ignored predictions that the depletion of U.S. munitions in Israel, Israel's war with Iran would impair our own military capabilities on a global level. The exhaustion of our weapon stocks would deprive Ukraine of them and fatally weaken it. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran clearly signaled, would cause a global economic crisis.

Iran would attack U.S. bases throughout West Asia, which again, it said it would do. And the U.S. would have no allies in this war of choice on behalf of the genocidal state of Israel. And there were a lot of things wrong for this war from the beginning. There was no strategy, only a campaign plan, tactical hubris, but strategic and aptitude, coupled with unilateral diplomatic disarmine, have put us where we are. This is an illegitimate war, authorized by Benjamin not Netanyahu, not the U.S. Congress as the Constitution requires. It is supported by the Zionist lobby,

not by the American people. It's being conducted with brutal savagery without regard to the Constitution, the law, or international norms. And the troops are being told that it's in the name of some kind of Christian nationalist objective of bringing on the apocalypse.

There are no clear, constant, or feasible objectives. There has been, no marshalling or husbanding of resources. There's no plan for war termination. So this is a classic forever war, exactly what President Trump promised us he would not produce. There are no rules of engagement, thanks to Secretary Hedd's. No respect for international law.

No apology for mass murder, for example. The sweet young girls of Minab, who were murdered by us, the biggest massacre we've conducted by, and it's been conducted by our troops since Mila. We've suffered severe reputational damage, both political and military. And if the purpose of a war, as William Tocunso-Sherom said,

to produce a better peace, there is now no process in place to gain such a peace for Israel, the Gulf Arabs, the United States, or Iran. And no one now trusts Washington. Russia and I suspect China as well as Iran have now clearly joined us in reliance solely on the facts that the use of force can produce.

No diplomacy. It's becoming a more dangerous, not a more safe place. So this is a disaster. And the administration is characteristically meeting it with a combination of bombastic bluster. and bellicose rhetoric and declarations of victory that have no basis. I wonder if there's anybody in his inner circle who truly warned him about this. It appears that someone in the Pentagon, certainly not the Hexeth crew, released that General Kane, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned about this.

Then the president on his truth social denied it. it was released via the Washington Post, which means it probably made its way from the Pentagon through the CIA to the Washington Post. Well, I think General Kane did warn him, regardless of his denials. There's an old adage, never believe anything until it's been officially denied.

And this certainly fits that pattern. And I know, we all know, that the intelligence community did warn, there's a fact on the record, did warn in writing that the probability of regime change, except in the direction that has occurred, which is toward a harder line regime, would be the likely outcome.

So, you know, I mean, here we are. We're back in this crazy fallacy that if you murder senior leaders, that somehow produces, moderate successes. We're told that Ali Rani, the head of security in Iran, has just been assassinated by Israel or killed by him somehow. I wonder why we think that when we are normalizing such murders,

the other side will not eventually copy us overcoming religious scruples to do so. We don't seem to have any struggles these days. I think that the message that my former friend and former Fox colleague, who's now the Secretary of Defense and calls himself the Secretary of War, sends to the troops, is immoral, illegal, unconstitutional, and reprehensible, that there are no longer any rules. Combined that ambassador with the president,

saying I don't need international law. My own morality guides me. And it's no wonder that we have the largest U.S. slaughter of innocence since me lie. I hope I'm wrong, but probably more coming. These people are told no rules. And Trump said, I'll find it and run it. They told me it's, oh, here we go. It's fun to sink these ships. Watch this, Ambassador. Cut number two, Chris. The Navy is gone. It's all lying at the bottom of the ocean.

Forty-six ships, can you believe it? In fact, I got a little upset with our people. I said, what quality of ship? Excellent, sir. Top of the line. I said, why did we just capture the ship? We're going to use it? Why did we sink them?

He said, it's more fun to sink them. And they laughed. The ship about to which he was referring was not a ship equipped for battle. It was a training ship and the people killed were cadets and their teachers. And they were nowhere near, nowhere near the Straits of Hormuz. And he laughed and the audience laughed and he used the word fun. Well, this is reminiscent of this disgraceable comment by Hillary Kleeves. Clinton, when Colonel Caldafi, the ruler of Libya, was

sodomized and murdered in a drain pipe, you know, we came, we saw he died. This is despicable. But I think there's a fundamental issue here, Judge, and that is, what does winning mean? Death and destruction are not the ends of warfare. They are what happens during warfare. in either subjugation nor humiliation, which is what we're aiming at with regard to Iran, equates to peace. And Iran will accept neither subjugation nor humiliation.

Wars don't end when, until the defeated admit defeat. And wars don't end when one side proclaims mission accomplished or portrays the death and destruction it has wreaked on another side as some sort of victory. Iran continues to pursue its regime, its objectives of removing Israel as a threat to it. And by the way, Israel has been a persistent threat to it, to what, to Israeli expansionism in the region? Iran has not directly threatened Israel. But it is now a direct threat to Israel. and Iran is intent on eliminating it as a threat as well as the American military presence in the Persian Gulf.

And it has, in my view, you know, a fighting chance of doing so. Trump told NBC News on Saturday that Iran reached out to him via a third party's foreign ministry, didn't say what party it was, seeking negotiations for a ceasefire offering term. terms. Iran's foreign minister said it never happened. I don't have Trump saying it to NBC news, but I have the foreign minister saying it never happened. Chris cut number one. President Trump said this weekend he is not ready to make a deal with Iran because the terms aren't good enough yet. Has Iran asked for a ceasefire? No, we never asked for a ceasefire. and we have never asked even for negotiation.

We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes. And this is what we have done so far, and we continue to do that, until President Trump comes to the point that this is an illegal war with no victory. And, you know, there are, you know, people, being killed only because President Trump wants to have fun. This is what he has said. Have fun? Yes, this is what he said, that they are sinking, you know, ships and targeting different places because it is fun.

So who do you believe Trump's claim that the Iranians called and asked for a resumption of negotiations? or the Iranian foreign minister said, why should we negotiate with a country that kills us during the negotiations? I'm sorry to say that I find, or I see the foreign minister of Iran entirely credible, and the president not. And I'd note that American diplomacy is not just missing in action.

It's basically dead. It's been killed by amateur envoys who engage in protection rackets and personal corruption rather than well-prepared or good faith negotiations, so-called napkin agreements with no implementable details agreed that are entirely performative, not real, one-sided false assertions about what has been agreed or what's happening, which is just what we heard,

and repudiation of specific understandings or lack of follow-through on them when they are reached. But more than anything else, as you said, the use of negotiations as cover for surprise attacks. And we are isolated. President Trump's call for our naval support from other countries who opened the Strait of Barmuz has been met with firm refusals by everybody. Chinese did not respond, but their press made fun of us for making that request.

So we're a laughing stock. We're not, we have not made America great again. We've done the opposite. What happens if the straight of Hormuz stays closed for a couple of weeks or months to Iran's enemies, which of course would mean the U.S.? Well, we'll see the price of oil go to first around $140 a barrel and eventually over 200, very likely. Iran, you know, there's one big missing point in the media coverage of this war, and therefore,

our knowledge of what is going on in it. And that is, there's a big blank where Israel is. Israeli military censorship and the deference of our press to that censorship, to their disgrace, mean that we don't know how much damage Israel is suffering. The little news that comes out suggests that it is suffering a great deal of damage. Israel claims it has destroyed most of Iran's missile launchers,

but the missiles keep coming. And so who are you going to believe the Israeli government or your lying eyes? Right. Isn't that to Nahu alive? I have no idea. I know that he hasn't appeared for a long time. And there was a film put out, supposedly, but it looks to me like a deep fake. Israel is really good at that kind of thing.

There's a lot of false flag stuff. going on in the region, and I fear we may get it here because we're not winning this war. And we're basically, as had been predicted, running low on interceptors and other defense capabilities, we're acting with a bit of desperation, moving Marines from Okinawa to the Strait of Hormuz, where, if they do go ashore, it may resemble Gallipoli more than Normandy. So, you know, this is not going well. And, you know, there comes a moment when the effort to portray reality in false terms is overcome by the fact that reality persists. And that's where we are.

We're proclaiming victory, but there is no victory. We're proclaiming military success on the basis of wreaking a lot of instruction. We clearly have done that. We have not broken the will of the Iranian regime, the Iranian people. Those who thought that our intervention might help them secure greater rights in a post-Islamic Republic Iran are now turning against us because you bomb someone. That's not a good way to endear yourself to them. And of course, all of the insults,

and the contempt we've shown toward our allies, the wild gyrations of our trade policies, the belittlement of their performance in past wars, all mean that they have absolutely no desire to come to our aid. Even the British have said, it's your war, not ours. Right, right. Can you talk to us, please, about China? Did Trump dump China or did China dump Trump?

The Trump G meeting is now officially off. My own view is that President G didn't want a picture in the front page of the Financial Times of himself shaking hands with the world's most despised head of state. I think Xi Jinping was, in fact, prepared to go ahead with it with that meeting. I'm sure he's relieved that it's not going to happen under these circumstances. It was very clearly President Trump, who has a tremendous set of problems domestically, politically and internationally, of course,

because what's been revealed is he's essentially dissolved our alliances. Our partnerships are not there. There are scatzing comments out of the Europeans now who had held their fire earlier in an effort to appease him. They've stopped trying to do that. And they're talking honestly about the end of the Atlantic Alliance. I think there's a real question, Prime Minister Takeichi, of Japan is supposed to be here this week, I believe. In a couple of days, I don't know if she's coming or not.

But of course, Japan has just declined to provide naval support for anything that we might do in the state of war moves. By the way, I don't believe I defer to a military expert to honest. But I don't believe that naval support could in fact overcome the blooms. The only way the blockade can be overcome is the way the Chinese, the Indians, the Turks have done it, namely through diplomacy. They've reached agreements with Iran. They've reached out to Iran and their ships are now exempted from being shot at. So they're coming through the strait. Iran's own ships are going through the strait.

And the strait is not mined. That's not a problem. Iran controls who goes through it, when they go through it, how they go through it. And there's not much we can do about that because Iran's military is land-based. They are like the Houthis in the Red Sea, demonstrating that you can blockade the sea from the land. This is why presumably the Marines are being moved over toward the state of Hormuz. But as I said, the Iranians are dug in and we should remember Gallipoli. What are the Marines going to do?

Well, that's not clear. You know, Trump was idly talking about taking Harg Island. That's way, you know, 800 kilometers up the Gulf. It's not within easy reach. You have to fight your way through the Gulf under Iranian fire to get there. So I suspect it's probably something about trying to take out the land-based Iranian control. of the Strait of Hormuz itself. And as I suggest, they've had 20 years to fortify that.

I don't think that would be an easy task at all. I think our Marines are terrific, but I fear for them if they try that. Here's a new comment. I'm being anxious to hear your thoughts on this from President Trump on who, how, why the Strait of Hormuz is close. to Chris. From Hormuz, the strait,

Hormuz, a famous, wonderful, beautiful place, but you wouldn't want to be necessarily sailing a boat there right now? You know why? Not because they're them, because of us. Because we've taken out their entire Navy. We've taken out every one of their drone. They call it a drone layer, a mine layer. Well, I'm encouraged that he's to say,

discovered the Strait of Hormuz, which he apparently didn't think about earlier. But taking out of the Navy, first of all, that's not entirely true, but even if it were true, it's irrelevant. The reference to mines is misguided. There is no mining. This strait is closed from the land, from the Iranian side of the Strait oformuz, by Iranian emplacements of weapons. there. And it cannot be opened by the Navy for that reason. And whether the Iranian Navy is operating or not really isn't terribly relevant. By the way, tankers are being blown up by a small,

guided, unmanned speedboats in other techniques of drone warfare that Ukraine has pioneered in the black sea. Ironically, of course, we've had to call and ask the Ukrainians for help in terms of drone supplies and so on, and I gather they're not complying. Well, that is the world turned upside down that we're calling on Ukraine for help and they don't have the ability to help us. Who or what can call Israel in the United States to account for this catastrophe? Well, of course, one of the features of this and the collapse of our diplomacy is that we have no credibility and indeed no real support at all in international organizations. We've threatened them, we've defunded them, we've alienated them, and we've eviscerated them, and not just the World Health Organization, but we've treated the Security Council and the General Assembly of the UN with contains. And they basically are not in a position to extricate us from this dreadful mistake we've made, even if they wanted to.

But they don't really have any desire to do that. We don't have any allies, you know. We have, there are bystanders. Up to now have been muting their criticism of us in an effort to appease Donald Trump. But they're now openly criticizing us. And as I said, this is a reaction to the contempt. and the verbal abuse to which we have subjected them, as well as our disregard of their interests by putting tariffs and other quotas and sanctions on them.

They won't jump when we call them now to do. Right. Here's the Iranian foreign minister concludes with a very interesting line, the straits, the straight is only closed to our enemies. Chris cut number 11. When our adversaries first began by insisting upon a total and unconditional surrender, and then after a period of 12 long days, they requested please an unconditional ceasefire.

This time they implemented the same scenario, but with even greater intensity and force. They mobilized all their forces. so that this unconditional surrender would happen. This time they were determined to make it happen for sure. While the sheer scale of the attacks, the action they took on the very first day, you know all of this better than I do.

And again, they started with the phrase, unconditional surrender. And today, after almost 15 days have passed since the war began, for the security of the Strait of Hormuz, they are turning to those who are turning to those who are they considered enemies until just yesterday. They are asking other countries to come and help them so that the Strait of Hormuz remains open, which of course, from our perspective, it is open. It is only closed to our enemies.

It is only closed to our enemies. Well, it's very clear. I think that what we have done has greatly devalued not just our reputation, reputation for sound policy making, alliance management, and so forth. But our military reputation, we have pounded Iran terribly and we have not broken its will. And I would say, you know, the question really is, have we defeated Iran or have we actually defeated ourselves? It's looking more and more like we've defeated ourselves. Thank you, Ambassador. Sure, great conversation.

Thank you for your insight. Be well, my dear friend. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. Hope so. Thank you. Coming up, if you're watching us live in 30 minutes, but at 9 o'clock Eastern on all of this, Professor John Mearsheimer,

at 10 o'clock Eastern on all of this, Scott Ritter. At 1 o'clock this afternoon, Aaron Mote, at 2 o'clock this afternoon, Matt Ho at 3 o'clock this afternoon, a full day for you. Colonel Karen Kutkowski, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.