Judging Freedom - CPT. Matt Hoh : Military Spending Into Oblivion

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

CPT. Matt Hoh : Military Spending Into OblivionSee 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 2nd, 2006. Matt Ho joins us now. out of pleasure. Thank you very much, my friend. Before we get into military spending and the quagmire that Trump has painted himself into in Iran, he just announced the appointment about an hour or two ago of a new director of national intelligence, a home builder known for bar room brawling and corporate takeovers with zero experience in the intelligence community. How can this guy get a top secret national security clearance and deal with the CIA? Well, he'll get security clearance.

I don't think there's any problem with that. It's good to see a judge think to have me back on. It reminds me of what the danger is that he won't know that these people are lying to him all the time. But that's not his job. That's not why he's being put there. It's being put there to advance the agenda of the president to be loyal. But what if you have an intelligence community that doesn't want to be loyal to the president? He will not have any understanding, any death, any experience that will tell him that his people are lying to him.

And they lie all the time, all the time. You know, imagine we had like a Mike Morel working for him, a career, you know, or John Brennan, you know, right? I mean, how would he handle them? He would, would he just assume because Morel and Brennan were career CIA guys, that they're going to be honest, that they have integrity, that they aren't dupes for in those cases, the Democratic Party, you know, and the same thing too with the current CIA director, Ratcliffe. You know, in Radcliffe's case, he had no intelligence background before he went into Congress and he's on the intelligence committee and he believes every word the intelligence community tells him because he's got no reason not to. everything he knows about the Intelligence Committee he's learned from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and Fox News

and from Hollywood movies and reading Tom Clancy. I mean, I'm assuming this gentleman is in the same is coming with the same background. You've got to scratch your head about what's going through Trump's head. Isn't being DNI, Director of National Intelligence, a full-time job?

Yes, absolutely. During the Tulsi Gabbard, it was like 18 was a day. Well, this gentleman is still going to run Fannie Mae, the Federal National Mortgage Association, while he's DNI. Both of those are jobs that are probably overwhelming for anyone in their singular capacity. The DNI is responsible for the 18 federal intelligence agencies. And I think that might be 19 now because the Capitol Hill police have their own intelligence service from what I understand now. They're somehow adjacent or ancillary to all the other federal intelligence agencies. So maybe there's 19 intelligence agencies now.

But yeah, how you could not do this part-time or as a second job. But that's not the purpose. His purpose is to be loyal to the president, to push the president's agenda, to be a figurehead, essentially. we've seen that, Jeremy Ratcliffe, the CIA director, he supplanted Tulsi Gabbard over the last year. He is a darling of the intelligence committee. He is a darling

of the neo-conservatives. He is fully in the pocket of the Israel lobby. And I think Ratcliffe is the guy who is the one who runs American intelligence. But he also has the great trust of the United States. Who was the first person who went to Venezuela

after the Maduro kidnapping? It was Ratcliffe, right? I mean, so who's, who's, You know, that those, you know, I don't think this, the DNI's purpose is going to be for anything other than to just essentially be Donald Trump's frontman. Yeah. It's funny how Max Blumenthal refers to Ratcliffe as the Mossad stenographer. Right. Whatever they say he takes down.

Yeah, yeah. And I would guarantee, I mean, I have no personal knowledge of this, but I would. guarantee that a guy like Ratcliffe, like I would imagine many members of Congress, like I believe the President of the United States, and we have evidence on the President of the United States for this, will defer to Israel analysts, to Israeli officers, to Israeli experts and Israeli politicians over their own personal staffs. Right, right. So in the past 48 hours, Iran has said it's not going to be involved in the negotiations.

Israel has ramped up its invasion of Lebanon. Trump has cursed out Netanyahu on the phone. Netanyahu has told Trump to go take a hike, and the president of Iran has said, I haven't resigned. Here's what Trump said. You're effing crazy. Trump fumes at Netanyahu. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me.

I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this. To which Nestin Yahoo replied, I spoke this evening with President Trump and told him that if Hezbollah does not stop firing at our cities and citizens, Israel will strike terrorist targets in Beirut. This position of ours remains unchanged. Concurrently, the IDF will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon. So he's telling the president to go take a hike. Is this theater? Is this

performative or is this real? Their disputes? I think their disputes are real. I mean, we have evidence of, you know, all American presidents about a deal with Netanyahu became exasperated. You know, there's the report of Bill Clinton, you know, when he first met Netanyahu, Netanyahu comes in the Oval Office. And when Netanyahu leaves, Clinton says, who the hell is that guy think he is? You know, and the same thing, Obama getting caught in an open mic complaining about Netanyahu. But we have to balance that with what we've seen come out of Axios over the last. three or so years where there has been just one story after another, one headline after another,

where particularly Barack Reveed, the journalist who authored his piece, has made it out as if Joe Biden is very angry with Netanyahu. Things are at a breaking point. Donald Trump is really upset with Netanyahu. Things are at a breaking point. But then nothing happens. Nothing changes. And I think it is grist for the United States. audience. I think it's a way for the axios and baroque v. to spin on behalf of the White House that Donald Trump is not being controlled by Israel, that Joe Biden is not being controlled by Israel, that these people have their own agency, that they don't agree with Netanyahu's war, however you want to phrase it. This has made for a great agitation in Israel.

The Israeli opposition to Netanyahu is having a field day with this. and they are criticizing Netanyahu for being on Trump's leash. You have Naftali Bennett, Abadour Lieberman, a whole host of Israeli opposition politicians, as well as media, you know, demanding that Trump not obey, obviously Netanyahu not obey Trump and to go ahead and bomb Beirut, right? I mean, so it causes drama, it's theater. I think the tension is really there.

I think Netanyahu is one of those people who, who would get Mother Teresa to curse, you know. But I think in the end, all these stories we see about this anger, this, this, this hostility, this tension between the White House and Netanyahu's government, whatever changes. Nothing ever changes. At the end of the day, there's still that support. I mean, Joe Biden famously paused one shipment of bombs. Meanwhile, he sent $22 billion in weapons, munitions, and assistance to Israel, despite

the dozen or so headlines that Barack Ravid wrote describing this type of tension between Biden and the I mean, he honest. We had here in New York on Sunday the Israel Day parade, and I just learned that two of the most despicable people on the planet who are not from New York were here marching in the parade. One is this crazy congressman from Florida by the name of Randy Fine. It's just the guy that Max Lomontfall chased through the Capitol building once. Now, Max is built like you and Fine is built like the former governor of New Jersey. So I don't think it was much of a race.

And the other was Belizeel Smotrich. Smotrich himself was here in New York marching in the parade. Happily, with a big smile on his face, mugging for the cameras, at the front of the Israeli delegation. He wasn't skulking in the back with a baseball cap on, you know, in sunglasses. But it wasn't just him. It was a whole host of war criminals that came over from Israel. There's been a number of folks who have, you know, taken the time to document who was there.

And you see just members of the Knesset, former Israeli ministers, various public figures who have called for genocide, who have rooted on the, you know, the atrocities. you know, so it wasn't just Smotris. It was a whole cobble of these people that were there. It went to remind people that Bezal Smotrich, among other things, is currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. And we're likely to see within this year an arrest warrant be issued for him. Is he an official in the government as in the cabinet as well as in the Kinesit?

Is he like the secretary of the Treasury or something like that? He's the finance, Minister, Judge. I mean, he's not some like backbencher. He's not some guy who is the minister of, you know, theme parks or something like that. You know, he is the minister of finance. He's also essentially the governor of the West Bank. His position also includes this role administering on the civilian side, the West Bank. And NAMR. Ben-Gavir is a minister of national security.

On the security side, on the police side, administers to West Bank. you know, that way. And this is why it's such a terrible place to be in the West Bank has been for decades, but under these two, it's brutal. But yeah, no, Benzill-Spoch, which is not a minor figure. He is the finance minister, and he is the de facto governor of the West Bank. Can Trump control Netanyahu or is Netanyahu control? Trump, I know I've asked you this. I've asked everybody on the show this. Right. Yeah, I mean, theoretically, Donald Trump can do what Ronald Reagan did with Monachan Begin back in 1982 and tell him to knock it off. He can do what President Eisenhower did in 1956 and tell him to knock it off, tell them to pull their forces back or tell them to take it down to, you know, to, you know,

scale back on their operation. Certainly the leverage the United States has over Israel with regards to, as I just mentioned, Joe Biden sent Israel $22 billion in assistance and aid. The Israelis themselves say all the time, we could not do what we do in terms of our genocide in Gaza, our ethnic cleansing in Lebanon, our occupation in Syria, our wars throughout the region without the support of the United States. Israel wouldn't survive without the United States support. But you get into this really chicken and egg situation then of the control that Israel has in the United States because of the United States. his system of legalized bribery. You know, Judge, I believe, you know, the root causes of what's happening here are the American Empire and that Israel as a colony of that empire, something we took over from the British, is a

manifestation of the empire. But also then, too, you have, on the other hand, America's legalized system of bribery. So where you might have an empire acting sanely might say, you know, this colony that we have here, this proxy we have, we no longer need. And I think people make a very strong argument that Israel is not in the United States a strategic interest. I'll say, I'll say it's not in the strategic interest. You know, we don't need Israel. We have bases in every country in the Middle East besides what, Yemen and Iran.

What do we need Israel for? Or we had bases until Iran blew them all up. But, you know, on the other side of it, though, is this idea that we have a legal, our government is legalized property. And the Israelis, just like big ag, just like big ag, just like. like the pharmaceutical companies, just like the banks, et cetera, all understand that. And so they control Middle East policy. It just isn't a way, again, that the health care insurance companies control our health care policy. You know, so, I mean, that's the way I look at it.

You know, in the United States, Americans view Israel as controlling the United States, but in Israel, the Israelis view the Americans as controlling Israel. So I think a lot of it probably is your perspective. But again, I go back to the two fundamental things here. America as an empire and America's legalized system of bribery as government. On the legalized system of bribery, let me repeat the phrase by the great Pap Buchanan. The American Congress is Israeli-occupied territory. Yeah, I think so.

It sounds ridiculous, but it's true. It is statistically numeric. Merically true. I think APEC last cycle in 2024 gave to 365 out of 435 House candidates. Or maybe it was 365 out of 535 total congressional candidate. That wouldn't be right because the Senate doesn't run, you know, every race. But like, yeah, I mean, absolutely. You have that.

You have that fear that the Israel lobby is able to administer throughout the Congress. But, you know, you see. that with its near total capture of Thomas Massey. We saw that, I mean, excuse me, the Republican Party, and we just saw that recently with Thomas Massey's loss in the primary where, what, $35 million was spent to unseat him? Majority of that coming from the Israel lobby, but we saw that as well on the Democratic Party, where you had Cory Bush and Jamal Bowman, who lost primaries where the Israel lobby spent 10 or 15 million dollars against both of them. I mean, so you see this fear that dominates both parties.

And of course, we just saw recently the Democratic Party release its autopsy of Kamala Harris's 2024 loss. And, you know, the thing is just so it's insipid. But, you know, you see that it doesn't, in 200 pages, it doesn't mention Gaza. It doesn't mention Palestine. It doesn't mention Israel. How is that possible? We know through polling that Kamala Harris would have won that election if she had broken with Joe Biden's position on Israel and Palestine. Correct. But the Democratic Party is so afraid of the Israel lobby, they can't even articulate the truth. Well, they may not be much of a party if they don't break with Israel because huge percentages of young Democrats don't want to have anything to do with Israel.

Most Americans don't want to have anything to do with Israel. I think it's only the oldest Republicans judged where there's still a majority support for Israel. I think in every other demographic, you have either majority support or plurality support for Palestine, essentially. Let me change this subject because I want to ask you, I want to prevail in your expertise in this. What is HECSeth going to do with $1.7 trillion? Sounds like a joke, really. Really? I know, because I want to be.

I want to say, I have a check for $1.7 trillion. What should I do with it? He's going to spend a lot on booze and makeup. I can tell you that, Judge. You know what I mean? So, but, you know, I don't even know if they can spend it. You know, you've had some pretty serious people look at this, like the folks at the National Prieties Project, the people at Brown University, guys like Bill Hartong or Stephen Semler.

It may not have been possible to spend all that much money. I mean, it'll just eventually go into back orders for the weapons company. I mean, that's where this money will go to. We'll go to, you know, the, the military, you know, the defense industry. It's not going to pay raises for the troops. It's not going to make sure the troops are living in safe, sanitary, modern barracks or anything like that. It's going to the weapons company. So it'll just be more back orders for Lockheed and Raytheon, you know, but the question then, too, is where does that money come from?

You know, it's going to just pile on into debt and it's also going to be cut to services, you know. And so this idea that this $500 billion increase into the Pentagon's budget is fiscally responsible, like Pete Hengseth and other members of the Trump administration is saying, it may be just about the most absurd thing these people have said. And as we all know, they have said a lot of absurd things in the last 16 months. But this might be the height of that absurdity. So, you know, it's going to go on to drone companies. It's going to go to build this Golden Dome missile defense system, which most experts say is an impossibility.

It's going to go to Donald Trump's quest to build a 300 or 400 ship navy, including his Trump class of battleships or whatever, the golden fleet, as he's calling it. So it's going to go on to some vanity projects, but most of it is just going to go into back orders. for the weapons companies, will they'll have back orders, say, for Patriot missiles through 2050 or something like that? Our two dear colleagues, longtime friends of mine, both on the show as frequently as you, Larry's on sometimes two or three times week. Larry Johnson and Pepe Escobar are reporting that a source of theirs, I believe, a Pakistani intel source, tells them that Iran has a deliverable nuclear weapon, more than one, and they're going to explode one in order to make a statement.

This is from Sonar 21, which is Larry's website. Now, Larry revealed this on our show yesterday. He since has related that he has done more research, and he and Escobar Pepe are satisfied that their source is credible, and accurate. This is somebody known to both of them. Does this make sense to you? It doesn't make sense to me in a sense that the Iranians have not abandoned their fatwa on having a nuclear weapon. And I believe they're very sincere about that. They certainly face the risk of another attack from the United States and Israel. They faced the risk of attacks from

the United States and Israel for the conceivable future. I mean, even if a deal was, even if if we had a magic wand and we created a deal today to end this war judge. You and I know that six months from now, they're going to be back at it. So, you know, the idea of having a nuclear weapon to deter the Americans and the Israelis, as well as having a nuclear weapon to deter Israeli use of nuclear weapons, I can understand all that. But again, I believe the Iranians are sincere in their commitment to not having a nuclear weapon at this point. Maybe that will change in the future, but I think there will be some form of announcement regarding that.

I think they also believe control of the Straits or Hamoos is as good as having a nuclear weapon at this point. You know, control on the Straits or Hamoos, you can destroy entire economies. Nuclear weapons can only destroy, you know, cities. So, I mean, maybe there's, you know, that's where I'm thinking, I'm not sure that calculus them for the Pakistanis to provide the Iranians and nuclear weapon. The Pakistanis in the past have said they would provide nuclear weapons to other Muslim nations. But at this point for the Pakistanis to interject themselves in this way doesn't seem correct to me. Just the way that Pakistanis have been mediating the this, the way the Pakistanis see this as a real way to ensure themselves as having a place in the order that emerges out of this war. The Pakistani relationship with Saudi Arabia, I just don't see the Pakistanis doing that.

But then again, you know, for the reasons that Larry and Pepe explained. plane, there's a rationale to it. There's an argument to it. And so I don't know. I mean, we'll see. I mean, we'll know if there's a mushroom cloud in an Iranian desert someplace. We'll see. But, you know, it would make sense in a sense that this is what war does, right? War brings about unintended consequences. So if the Iranians acquire a nuclear weapon because the United States was trying to bomb them into not having one, that would make perfect sense. Last subject matter, this crazy section 224 of the NDNA of 2027. So the NDNA is, it sounds like we're talking gibberish here.

The NDNA is the National Defense Authorization Act, but it is the document that funds the Pentagon. And it sets law. It sets law and policy as well. So it provides, right, you know, provides both the funding parameters, but it also as well. sets law and policy. Correct. Nobody reads it. It's a thousand pages long.

The Republicans have inserted in. They sense have taken it out. They're probably going to try and get it back in. The section 224, which would provide for a joint sharing in the law now, without discretion, a joint sharing of military and intelligence information between the United States and the IDF. It's actually more than the IDF. it's the Israeli government. Right.

This is something that has never existed in American history. No, certainly not with a non-treaty ally. I mean, you can make a comparison to that we have similar types of agreements with, say, you know, United States natal allies with the five eyes. You could stretch it and say, oh, it's really just like that. But it's not. It's an integration of the Israelis into not just our Pentagon, not just our intelligence services, but into our defense industry.

It would allow for the Israelis to produce weapons here in the United States. It would allow for American policy or planning, our budgets to incorporate Israel into it. So when the Defense Department puts forward their $1.7 trillion budget or whatever it's going to be for 2027, this assistance to Israel is baked into that in a way that it's not detectable. It's not going to be in a line item saying for Israel. It's going to be baked into all kinds of other programs. And so that's how this thing is so ingenious. It's so brilliant.

It's so dastardly, right? Because it takes the politics out of it. Congress will now never have to vote again on providing assistance to Israel because it's all just going to be part of the American security budgets going forward. Suppose the United States is in a way. war with China over Taiwan or in a war with Russia over Ukraine. The latter seems inconceivable, but who knows? Can the Israelis give away or sell American national security secrets? They've done it before. And they'll do it again. I mean, Judge, when I used to go for security briefings,

and then I'm dating myself, this is more than 20 years ago, but every time I went for a new security briefing, whenever I showed up in a new job, either in the Marine Corps or Department of Defense or a Department of State, you know, you'd have the counterintelligence officer explain to you what the threats were and, you know, don't bring classified material out of the building, you know, all that stuff. But they'd also usually tell you, here's our biggest threats. And the biggest threat was almost always what was China. And it was Israel continuously. Those were the two biggest threats we faced counterintelligence wise. That's what the counterintelligence officers would tell all of us who are using classified material. The two biggest countries that you got to worry about trying to

steal stuff from you are going to be the Chinese and the Israelis. You know, I mean, so it's all, it's been that way. It's been that way for decades. And I don't see how it changes. And now you're putting them into the same system as us and allowing thereby more access. Absolutely. Why wouldn't Israelis have the ability to do that? Yeah.

You know, it is, this is a, this is a complete abdication of American sovereignty. This is a abdication of, of national security. This is just completely reckless. And this is the height of, you know, the capture of the U.S. Congress by a foreign government. Right. Matt, thank you very much. Unpleasant material, but it was a pleasure to chat with you. And I know the audience deeply appreciated.

Thank you, my friend. All right. Thanks, Judge. Okay. Have a nice day. Coming up still today, if you're watching us live in 32 minutes, at 3 o'clock, Colonel Karen Kortkowski, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.