Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 3-OCT

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 3-OCTSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you're overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no, no contracts, no monthly bills, no BS. Here's why you should say yes to the switch and getting premium wireless for $15 a month. Ditch overpriced wireless and their jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages and get the reliable coverage on high-speed performance that you're used to at a significantly lower cost. plans start at $15 a month at Mint. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts.

Ready to say yes to saying no, make the switch at mintmobile.com slash freedom. That's mintmobile.com slash freedom. Up front payment of $45 required. That's the equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time, new customer offer for the first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on the unlimited plan, taxes and fees extra. See MintMobil for details. The proceeding was brought to you by Zipa.

With over half a million sold, ZEPA is the only FDA-approved mouthpiece that has a 91% success rate in silencing snoring. For limited time, go to ZEPA.com and use the code, sleep, and get the absolute best solution guaranteed to stop your snoring with the happy Z-Pack and save over 24% off. Plus ZIPA will donate $10 to breast cancer research. Visit zyppa.com, use code sleep. Save over 24% off with a happy Z-pack and start improving your sleep health. Remember, Zipa is happy Z spelled backwards. Save over 24% off by going to zepa.com

and using the code sleep today. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom, today is Friday, October 3rd. 2025. It's the end of the day, the end of the week, our favorite time and our favorite program, the Intelligence Community Roundtable with my dear and longtime friends Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson. Gentlemen, thank you and welcome here. Thank you for the double duty. Larry, to you first, did Tyler Robinson, the young man arrested in Utah and charged with the murder of Charlie Kirk, pull the trigger on the weapon that propelled a bullet that killed Charlie? No, no, he's innocent of that.

If he fired any rifle, it's not the one that the FBI is claiming. The round that killed Charlie Kirk was not 30-od-6. Early on, we thought so, but then once you finally saw that there was no exit wound, it was impossible that a 30-od-six round would have been the device that killed him. It was more likely what's called a frangible round. It's a round that was designed that the bullet breaks up upon entering the human body or upon hitting an object. So this was, I don't know why the FBI rushed in such a way with no good evidence.

And particularly, you know, the FBI is supposed to be better than this. The Cash Patel has turned this into a clown show, in my view. It's disgusting and it's despicable. Well, is your analysis that somebody else killed Charlie or that it was a different weapon from the one the FBI claims? When you watch the video, the minute after the shot, it's just as the shot breaks, it looks like you've been to a sporting event where people do the wave, you know, they stand up. Only in this case, it was the opposite.

of the wave. Everybody was sitting down and it went from Charlie's left to the right. Now, if the shot had come from behind, they would have been coming forward. Instead, the crowd is moving from left to right. That right there tells you,

it was somebody else than Tyler Robinson if, in fact, that was Tyler Robinson on the roof. We have no evidence that that's him. The fact that the FBI comes out with this crap, that it was like, we've got the screwdriver that was used at this assemble the rifle, go online, and you can disassemble one of those in maybe 43 seconds.

But they were saying he did it in a matter of two or three seconds. So, I mean, it's just lie piled upon lie. FBI has got a major credibility issue here. Why would, Ray, I haven't forgotten that you're there bailout. That's okay. I'm interested. Yeah, I know. I know.

Why would the FBI lie unless they're trying to cover up for somebody? Ding, ding, ding, ding. we have a winner, Judge Napolitano. Yeah, that's exactly what's going on. They're covering it up. You know, there are a lot of strange coincidences. One strange coincidence via Candice Owens, who spoke to Charlie Kirk two days before this,

Charlie had made the decision that he was going to stop taking money from the Zionist. That's both Christian and Jewish Zionists. He didn't like the first. fact that they were giving money and pressuring him, telling him that he can't have Tucker Carlson, he can't have Dave Smith, he can't have Megan Kelly at his rallies. And he goes, no, no, you're not going to exercise that kind of control. I'm going to stop taking your money.

Two days later, he's dead. Coincidence. Or the fact that the FBI, the head of the FBI that was sent out there to Utah to oversee the investigation came from an office in Connecticut that shared the office building with Anti-Defamation League who Cash Patel just two days ago cut all FBI ties with. Just again, coincidence.

So the weapon that we've seen, the bolt-action rifle, is not the weapon that killed him because the round that it shoots would have caused radically different damage to Charlie's body than was caused by the bullet that hit him. Do I have that right?

Yeah, it would have. It would have either exploded his head, literally, severed half of his head. There's a, I've posted a video at sonar21.com. I saw it. I was afraid to watch it. I thought it was going to show the killing. And it'll force me sleep this nights. Nobody wants to have that in their mind.

But this was done by this Army, retired Army Special Forces Sergeant. He is, it goes by VALA VFT as his channel. And, you know, he shot a quarter. inch steel plate, a three-eighth inch steel plate, and then a half-inch steel plate. Because remember the spokesman for Turning Point USA say, Charlie's neck was like steel, it stopped the bullet. Well, they fire a 308 at each of those steel plates. It goes completely through the quarter inch and the 38-inch, and it makes a heavy indentation and deflects off of the half inch. I guarantee you, nobody, no human neck

is the equivalent of a half inch of steel number one. And it also shows that that bullet when it hit, when it was fired at the femur of a, you know, the bone from a cow femur, shattered the bone. So why the FBI would go out

with such a lame story, one that's so easily disproven. And that's why I say, Tyler Robinson, if this case goes to court, you know, unless they do the Epstein treatment on him, if the case gets to court, he'll be acquitted. Does defense

counsel have your contact information, Larry? Tell you what? Ray Charles could prosecute this one. Oh, boy. All right, Ray, continuing in the genre of, let's correct the public

record from what everybody thinks category, when Israel and the United States attacked Iran in June, where they, truth of all, when they claimed that they believed that the Iranians were within days of developing a nuclear weapon? Or have you seen documents that were leaked from somewhere that would indicate that they were not being truthful?

Well, Judge, it's this story all over again. This book was written by a good friend of mine, Gareth Porter. He interviewed everybody in his brother 12 years ago, okay, when next year. Netanyahu was showing this bomb, right? And he's written a really good book about all this stuff and how the Israelis have adjuiced it every time. This time, we happen to know because of leaks of actual transcripts of talks between Netanyahu and his senior command.

Before that attack on the 13th, or 13th of June, I go, the 13th, I remember. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What happened was he said, well, you know, we're going to decapitate. We're going to, and the military, yeah, of course, the long term, we want to long term prevent them from getting a bomb. But, you know, that's a long term. Long term is about 10 to 30 years. Not only did it indicate that Nithyn Yahoo and all those people had no idea about Iran being just about to get a nuclear bomb,

the only person that may have believed that apparently was Donald Trump. But there was a recognition that this was never true, and there was a recognition in these documents that Netanyahu felt that Trump had assured him that he would come into the fray once if Israel got retaliatory strikes from Iran, which of course they did and which Trump did. And then when they become too ferocious for De Sinojo, that's what he called his daddy, he called Trump. But he said, look, now we need a deal. They're creaming me. Now, what's going to happen now with these tankers and all those things headed out that way? I just don't know. But I guess maybe I'll inject here my major fear.

Trump is not okay. I mean, the way the teenagers say it today. you know he's not okay what do you mean he's not okay physically or mentally I mean both now I'm not an expert on the physical thing but look

at his as is hour plus long address to the United Nations and then this thing at Quantico on Tuesday my God he's not okay and you know that is not okay if you could let me say it

that way right and so what that means is that neither the Russians or the Chinese nor the Venezuela, no anybody can depend on a cogent, sensible approach to the problems that Trump has raised with them. So I think that Russians are trying to play it cool, but it's more a matter of, more a matter of, what's the word, appeasement, for God's sake. They don't want to rile this guy, and so they're being extra nice, and Putin pretty much said that yesterday. Larry, how carefully would Russian intel have scrutinized everything Trump said, every movement of his hands, his mouth, his eyes, and every word he articulated in that 90-minute Fidel Castro-like speech before the 800 generals and admirals?

Oh, yeah, they watched it. I'm sure they watched it intently. I think that in what Ray's referring to is Trump sounded like, Dustin Hoffman in the moon, you know, rain man, you know, talking in a monotone voice. I've been, I'm the greatest in the world and the world wouldn't, you know, no inflection, no up and down, no, you know, there's no emotion. And he talked about, used to make fun of, you know, Joe Biden being low energy. Hello? You know, he looked like he needed the energizer bunny to come on stage and charge him up. So, yeah, but as Ray noted, I watched the Putin's speech at Valdai carefully, and I wrote a piece yesterday outlining sort of what he, you know, sort of what he had to say about Trump.

And he's not taking any of the Trump bait. He's not, there are areas in which he could push back and say something scathing or derogatory. about Trump. But he's staying on the high road. They're going to, Russia's going to keep doing what it's going to do. And Putin made it very clear that if the United States uses a long-range missile to hit inside Russia, that that will change the nature of the relationship. Well, absolutely. But, you know, I think a lot of this stuff surrounding the tomahawk, right now the only tomahawks in the U.S. inventory can only be fired from aircraft or from

submarines. So or from ships, but there are no land-based systems right now apparently available. So this is, you know, with Kellogg talking about it, that's just a pipe dream, number one. Number two, Putin made it very clear that, well,

we are quite capable of shooting that down. It's a subsonic munition. It only travels at around 500 miles per hour. That's fast, but it's not supersonic. All right. Here's Here's exactly what you're talking about out of the mouth of President Putin. Chris, cut number 12. It's dangerous. As for the Tomahawks, it's a powerful arm, perhaps not the most modernized, but it's powerful.

It poses serious threat. This will not change in any way the balance of powers on the battlefield, the fundamental issues of the. the armed forces of Ukraine, no matter how many UAVs they get. And no matter how many lines they create with those UAVs. Without the personnel, there will be no one to lead those battles. They have to change the tactics. Will this pose damage to our relations? Where we see light at the end of the tunnel, of course.

of course using tomahawks without direct involvement of the U.S. officers is impossible which means a brand new stage of escalation

even between in the relations between Russia and the U.S. So Ray Ritter tells me Larry I think you'll agree that the Tomahawk is nuclear capable so what

happens in the following scenario. Some lieutenant at a Russian lieutenant is looking at a radar screen and the colonel behind me and goes, Colonel, I see a Tomahawk coming toward Moscow. I don't know what it's carrying.

What do the Russians do, Ray? Judge, we'll never come to that. The Tomicawks will never arrive in Ukraine. The Russians have that covered like a blanket. There are no Tomic hawks to spare. And the ones that have nuclear capability, I'm not sure if there are any around that you could give it to the Ukrainians.

What I look at from that little clip from Putin is he's saying, look, you know, even if they got tomahawks, it's not going to change anything, number one. And if they actually got them, they don't have any people to man them. Now, then he says, look, we had Haimars, we had all that stuff. Did that change anything? No, it didn't change anything. What else? Well, attack them and all that kind of stuff. Well, they could be saturated, but it's not going to change anything.

Then he says, oh, well, he's asked, will this damage our relationship? He said, oh, there's no other answer but to say yes. But he includes, yeah, we were seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. This would, subjunctive mood, damage our relationship. Now, they're counting on the president not approving. despite Kellogg and everyone else, Lavrov said that two days prior to what Putin said yesterday, and of course, Kellogg had spoken two days before that.

It's kind of a red herring. There are no troops that man them. The United States is not going to do them. I think that Witkoff and Putin have already been talking, Whitkoff and Lavrov saying, look, we have to say this to please our European, friends, and that's precisely what Lavrov said to excuse this, saying, look, this is just a Philip to the Europeans, we do not think any decision has been taken, period, end quote,

by Lavrov. That was two days ago. So I'm saying this is a big, quote, Celebra, it has more to do with the European allies, so to speak, who want to push, push, push, and they're aided and abetted by Kellogg. It's not going to amount to much. And what Putin is saying here is the necessary. Yeah, this would damage our relationship. Sovoche is not going to happen.

It's certainly not going to change the course of the war. Larry, tell me what you think of this. I know it's going to aggravate the three of us. It's Kellogg on his high horse. Chris, number one. Are you saying, though, that it is the president's position that Ukraine can conduct long-range strikes into Russia, that that has been authorized by the president? I think reading what he is.

in reading what Vice President Vance has said as well as Secretary Rubio, the answer is yes. Use the ability to head deep. There are no such things as sanctuaries. That's one of the reasons I believe that this last week, and it has been confirmed, that President Zelensky asked President Trump to get Tom Hawk missiles, which give you a depth. They're really good systems. America makes the best systems in the world. Are we giving him the Tomahawks?

Well, that decision has not been made, but he's asked, I know that President Zelensky did, in fact, asked for them, which was a good. confirmed by social media post by Vice President Vance, that's going to be up to the president to do it. Sounds like Kellogg thinks that these things are sitting around at a warehouse ready to be delivered, Larry. I'm surprised it is ignorance on this. And just to put an additional exclamation point of what Ray said, the United States deactivated,

I think, 20, 25 years ago, the nuclear option on its ground launched. tomahawks so there are no more nuclear tipped they're capable yeah you can you can create make them in such a way that they'd be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead but apparently the united states got rid of that option as part of the whole arms control process with russia back in the day uh so that leaves the air launched and the sea launched which sorry ukraine ukraine is not getting any of those what they don't even have the aircraft to launch it with And if any aircraft goes up with such a missile, it's going to be shot down. So, you know, Kellogg, but it's not just Kellogg that's the problem.

If you've seen Cy Hirsch's latest piece, he's talking to senior officials. He doesn't specify whether, you know, which agency or, but it's in the Trump administration. But I'm inclined to think it's still somebody out at CIA. and God, the line of horse manure they're feeding them is unbelievable about, oh, yeah, boy, we're going to just have to put more military pressure because that'll cause Putin to break. And I mean, these guys haven't been paying attention. And, you know, I think the world at Gildoctoro,

but he was on, I think, another show earlier this week, saying that, oh, you know, the elites in Moscow are. Really, you're getting upset with Putin, and Putin could be gone. If you watched Putin at Valdei yesterday, the man was as relaxed as could be, spent an hour speaking at the podium, and then sat down and answered questions. But unlike the droning of Donald Trump and his monotone voice

and talking about me, me, me, me, me, aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. Here you had Putin talking in full, complete sentences, doing analysis, and again, not showing any kind of panic, not saying, oh, my, yeah, we're going to react emotionally to the United States. None of that. There's a lot of disinformation out there, and I attributed a lot of it to panic. Ray, here is President Trump, what in my view, was the lowest point in his speech the other day. I think it was extemporaneous. It didn't appear as though he was reading it from the prompter. And I'm sure if this had been in the text,

his advisors would have done their best to get him not to say it. You probably know what this is. Chris number seven. San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. They're very unsafe places. And we're going to straighten them out one by one. And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That's a war too.

It's a war from within controlling the physical territory of her. border is essential to national security. We can't let these people in. We're under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don't wear uniforms. At least when they're wearing a uniform, you can take them out. These people don't have uniforms. I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, national guard, but military. Does this terrify you, Ray McGovern, as it does me, knowing that the Secretary of War, as he calls himself, will do whatever the President wants, including murder people of the high seas, which apparently did either yesterday or today. He announced it today. I'm not sure when it happened.

And now the President is saying, I said to Pete, meaning Heggseth, I want the troops to practice what on Americans? Well, Judge, it was an interesting spectacle on Tuesday after Pete sort of strutted around the stage. In came the president. With the music stopped, there was silence. The journals remarked straight. No applause. So what was the president do? He said, this is amazing.

I come in here, there's no applause. Well, please, I mean, feel free to applause. If you don't want to pause, that's okay. And, you know, you can leave the room if you don't like something I say, but that would go your rank. There would go your future. Now, if I were one of those generals, and that's why I'm not one of those generals,

I would have got up and walked out then, okay? Now, there's lots of excuses why no one walked out then. But when the president said, look, I think I used you in the cities, I'm going to violate Pasi Kamutatus willy-nilly. Are you going to be training in our cities? Then, then somebody with guts, some general would have got up and walked out. And I dare say there would have been 10 more after. I mean, there's more important things than rank or futures, okay?

There's an oath that they took to the Constitution, not to the president. So that is those most revealing things. really revealing thing. I mean, I couldn't abide hit sick. Neither could they, but the other automaton, they're going to follow orders, and no matter, there was no kind of overt

response, no, nothing. When he said, you can, you'll lose your rank and you'll lose your future, there was a little bit of laughter. My God. So that's what the armed forces we have has come to. And you judge have made a point of how

illegal and how unconstitutional all this. And you know, if we're going to be winter soldiers of the kind that Tom Paine asked for, we've got to go up and get our generals, the ones that speak truth to power to say whether they're retired or not, to say what the truth is, and that generals and admirals and big, big NCOs should not be obliged and in duty to the Constitution are required not to be obliged to obey unlawful orders, having them oppress people in these United States of America. Ray, McGovern, you are so right on the mark in your understanding of the Constitution. Now, when Chris gave me this, I said, I can't play this for the guys that's going to turn their stomachs

because it turns mine. I'm going to play it anyway. This is Stephen Miller, the day after Trump said, I want rehearsals in the streets. You tell me who this sounds like, number 14. We are about to provide you with a level of support. You cannot even imagine. This isn't just a task force.

This is a all-of-government unlimited support operation. ATF, DEA, FBI, ICE, Department of War, every resource we have. We are sending in real cops with guns and badges, to go out with you on the street every single night making arrests. I pledge to you, we will liberate this city from the criminal element that has plagued it for generations. The idea that there is a square inch of block in this city where a citizen doesn't feel safe is unacceptable. This is Memphis, this is the United States of America, and all that bullshit is done.

It's over. It's finished. Sounds like Berlin in 1930. Yeah, you know, there's not enough understanding or talk about, you know, I guess the Trump people think they're doing it under the Insurrection Act. But then there's Pasi Kamatadas. Now, I think the reason it was passed in 1879, part of that was sort of the aftertaste of what Lincoln did with U.S. troops during the Civil War. and the recognition that normally we don't want federal troops to be able to go in and operate in cities because they're not at war with the American citizen, no matter how unhappy those American citizens might be. American citizens have the right to protest.

And, you know, the notion, this failure to understand the military mindset as opposed to the law enforcement mindset, The fundamental thing about law enforcement mindset is ultimately to de-escalate conflict, if possible. The force is used only as a last resort. Whereas in the military, the training is that if you encounter any opposition, you escalate. You don't de-escalate. You don't look for a way to avoid contact. You go out and look for contact. And those two mentalities create very, very different outcomes.

So it'd be one thing if you deploy National Guard who had a military police background, that at least they understand something of that mentality. But to treat this as an insurrection right now is entirely inappropriate. And this, you know, if they've gone into Memphis with the National Guard, with the governor's approval and deployment, then, you know, that's under the Constitution. I don't have a problem with bringing together all the federal resources. resources, the law enforcement resources you talked about in terms of FBI, DEA, U.S. Marshals, ATF. But as long as it's done from the law enforcement standpoint, which proceeds that anybody that's

accused of anything is presumed innocent, what we've seen taking place with Trump, particularly off the coast of Venezuela, and trust me, these are connected, is imagine you're a cop, you see two, what you think is a drug exchange. you see two drug dealers you think they're giving some drugs to somebody in a car and they're passing it off the cops don't have the authority or the right or not even the legal ability to get out and start shooting them because they think that they were involved with drug trafficking because drug trafficking is not a direct threat to your life whereas what trump's doing is he's blowing these boats up on a suspicion that they're doing something illegal and it's it's criminal

and it's, you know, it violates everything about America that I believed in. Ray, I'll give you the last word. Well, you know, the question is whether there's real hope for our military, where they really know their duty to support and defend the Constitution the United States against all the enemies, foreign, and domestic. That's the oath we all sign, all right? Give you a little thing yet. I was speaking at Annapolis, at the Naval Academy, second and third year people.

I had a professor who was interested in enlightening his people about how the intelligence didn't work or worked before Iraq to justify this evasion. Now, we talked about the Constitution a little bit, you know, and we talked about the president. And then I said, now, you all swore an oath coming in here. Who was that oath to? the president anybody else yeah the president of course the president

I said that's wrong I'm surprised they didn't know this wrong you're oaths to the Constitution United States not to the president specifically and explicitly not to the president well what's the difference well here's the difference in 1973

an Air Force nuclear missile officer named Harold Herring asked a simple question at a training session. How could I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president? That goes back to my saying

that as the young people say today, the president of the United States, the commander chief, is not okay? So, the question cost him his career. But today, both the man who can order the use of arms and the men who would likely verify such an order gave an unnerving, disgraceful performance in Guantanamo. How many officers left the room asking themselves, Mayor Herring's question,

how can I know that an order that I should receive an order to launch my missiles came from a sane president? That's where we are here. And good people like Colonel Wilkerson tell me, no, Ray, don't give up on the military. There's still some good people in there. I just hope that Larry is right and that I'm wrong on this particular one. For all of his faults, here's General Millie articulating rather forcefully what Ray just said. You see, we in uniform are unique.

We are unique among the world's armies. We are unique among the world's militaries. We don't take an oath to a country. We don't take an oath to a tribe. We don't take an oath to a religion. We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or to a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don't take an oath to an individual.

We take an oath to the Constitution. And we take an oath to the idea that it's America and we're willing to die to protect it. Every soldier, sailor, airmen, Marine, guardian, and coast guardsmen. Each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price,

and we are not easily intimidated. Well, you wouldn't know that the other day, Larry. I have to run, but I'll give you the last word on it. Yep, support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. There's not a cult of personality. It was a fat guy, but he was right. On that way, on that happy, you know,

the first time the three of us have laughed in 35 minutes. We'll end. Thank you, gentlemen. I look forward to seeing you on Monday. God bless you both. Have a great weekend. Thank you, Judge. Thank you.

On Monday, as usual, at 8 in the morning, Alastair Crook, at 10 Ray McGovern at 1130, Larry Johnson and some of your favorites in the afternoon. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you. Thank you.