Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable : w/ Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 30-JAN

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

INTEL Roundtable : w/ Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 30-JANSee 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? Hey, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Friday, January 30th, 2020, the end of the month, the end of the week, the end of the day. It's our favorite time, our intelligence community roundtable, with my dear friends Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Larry, Ray, welcome here. You guys always do double and sometimes triple duty.

And thank you so much for this. We have a lot to get through. Larry, to you first, how soon do you believe, your observations and your sources, the United States will attack Iran. And will it do so alone? Yeah, it could happen this weekend. It could happen within next week. I think it's going to be soon unless Trump has talked out of it. And there is that possibility given the fact that Iran has been very clear that they are going to make this a war. They're going to attack the United the state's bases in the area, they're going to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, and they're going

to attack Israel. So, and I think part of their strategy in this is to one, let make all sure the Gulf states know how serious they are, as well as the countries in Asia that depend heavily upon the oil that comes out of the Persian Gulf, hoping that they'll all intervene to put pressure on Trump and tell him, don't do this. And in addition, you've had the goal, Saudi Arabia, Oman, I believe, Qatar for sure, United Arab Emirates tell the Trump administration can't use our airspace to attack Iran. The same applies to Iraq. So the United States will have a problem of either just ignoring them and say, we're going to overfly you anyway, screw you, or having to find another way in there. So, but it's, this is, this is real. This is what we've seen as a far bigger buildup

now compared to what happened last June. Ray, what conceivable justification could President Trump give to the American people that would be credible for an attack on Israel, which he knows, excuse me, an attack on Iran, which he knows will result in an attack on Israel and an attack on U.S. bases? Well, Judge, you put your finger on it. The rule of the law of unintended consequences. I have this vision of Trump speaking to his military. military. Okay, General so-and-so, can you obliterate Iran? Yes, sir. Done. Next day, Trump to General X. But Iran has obliterated Israel. General. Oops. Now, if Israel is obliterated by Iran,

as I was always thinking that they have the capability to do that, the unintended consequences is Palestine from the river to the sea because Israel will be obliterated. I don't think Trump wants that. I think somebody might whisper that into his ear. And the other thing, of course, is, will Russia abide by this? Will China? China depends heavily on Iranian oil. And the Russians last time were sort of milk toast. They said, well, you know, the Americans didn't tell us about that. And, you know, it's not going to affect our bilateral relations with the United States. These are two independent processes. My God, Iran and Israel attacking Iran.

So I don't think this time it's going to be so cool, calm, and collected on the part of Putin. Matter of fact, some of those people in the Duma in the parliament in Russia are already pressing for. reactions against Ukraine and others that are more forceful using Arrishniks and other things than before. All right. Before we get Larry to Ukraine and Russia, I want to play a clip from Trump. It's either yesterday or today. Chris, it'll be number 10 when I finish. This is a radically different reason he gives a reporter. for his threats to Iran than what our friend Pepe Escobar is given.

Watch this, number 10. I have had, and I am planning on it. We have a lot of very big, very powerful ships sailing to Iran right now, and it would be great if we didn't have to use them. Can you say what the message was that you shared with Iranians? Well, I told him two things. Number one, no nuclear, and number two, stop killing protesters. They're killing them by the thousands.

You know, I stopped 837 hangings two weeks ago, but they're going to have to do something. So two points, Larry, and then please weigh in. First, I don't think he knows what he's talking about. The protester issue is now history. And secondly, according to Pepe, he wants three things. He wants to stop all nuclear enrichment, even for civilian medical purposes. Right. He wants Iran to get rid of and reduce substantially its offensive weaponry, effectively

making it naked in front of its arch enemy Israel, and he wants it to stop supporting proxies, even though, of course, the U.S. has its own proxies. Did he know what he was talking about when he just addressed that reporter? Trump, no, Pepe, yes. Yeah, Pepe was exactly right. In fact, that was, I think that was presented to a joint. there was a meeting in Oman, I believe, yesterday, day before yesterday, with U.S. and Iranian officials reportedly. And that was presented to the Iranians, and they said, no, that's a non-starter.

Because, you know what's fascinating, Judge, is with the West, we talk about all, they provide all this support, all this support to Hamas and Hezbollah. And so I went and looked. I said, okay, actually, how many Israelis have been killed? Since 1982, that's when Hezbollah appeared on the scene, and then Hamas five years later, I believe. And I said, how many Israelis have actually been killed since 1982? Where is that number? 5,000, less than 5,000 by Hamas, Hezbollah, all of them. Meanwhile, the IDF confirmed yesterday that, yeah, we've killed over 70,000 Palestinians.

So when you want to talk about the murderous regime in the Middle East, it ain't Iran. Ray, why is Trump truly, why does he truly have Iran in his crosshairs? Is it to please Beebe and the donor class? Well, Iran is no threat to the United States. It never has been. There's a great deal of hatred toward Iran for what they did way back with the hostages. Some of this is inchoate. It's unexplainable.

And 98% of the reason is Israel. Now, you don't have to believe me. You believe people like, oh, like some of our more prominent commentators, professors and Sir Jeffrey Sachs, for example. And they say, look, U.S. policy is dictated. by the Israeli regime. Now, the thing is that Netanyahu has already blinked two weeks ago. He said, no, no, please, don't do this yet. And I don't know what's changed, okay?

But I know that the stakes are very, very high. And I think that Netanyahu, combined with all this other pressures that are going on, and if somebody warns Trump, that this could be a disaster for, or Israel, that maybe he'll cease and desist. There's no sign that he's going to do that yet, but, you know, they're talking about the weekend now. Maybe somebody to get to him and say, look, you're going to start World War III. It's going to come, as the Chinese used to say, it's going to come to a no-good end.

Larry, does he have an armada there and how close is the armada? Why an armada? Is it because he needs aircraft carriers? because, as you said, some of the Gulf states won't allow the U.S. to use their airspace? But it's not so much... So the capability of the aircraft carrier is actually somewhat limited.

They can't carry the planes launching, the F-35's launching off of that or the F-18s. They can carry a JASM, but those have, I think, their maximum range is about 1,000 kilometers. So they can only, from where they are in the Arabian Sea, they've got to, they're going to try to stay far enough offshore out of the range of the Iranian land to ship missiles that they have.

So you've got this carrier with its accompanying destroyers and cruisers. And, you know, this is what's so foolish about this strategy. The Iranians have drones and missiles that they can fire at those ships. And if they choose to fire 100, 200 a day, those ships, particularly the destroyers, have a limited number. They have a finite supply of missiles, air defense missiles, that they can shoot. And once they shoot them, their only option is then go to a port to get reloaded. Well, the port that they normally go get reloaded at is Bahrain,

and that's going to be closed by the Iranians. So now they've got to figure out where to go. And I'm not sure if there's a port facility at Diego Garcia or if they're going to have to, you know, but the point is the U.S. will. probably be able to stay there and exchange fire with Iran for about a week and a half, and then they're going to have to pull the carrier task force out. Will the Iranians close the Straits of Hormuz knowledgeable of the economic crisis that that would precipitate?

Yeah, I think they will. Absolutely. I've seen three different Iranian generals and even Arachi, the foreign minister. So, yeah, we're going to, we'll shut it down. They're not, they're not playing this. You know what? they try to do a demonstration in October of 2024 saying, look, let's show you what we can do.

And Israel and the United States said, ah, see, they failed. They're weak. And then when Iran stopped on the 12-day war of making a deal with the United States, again, that was interpreted as Iran being weak. And because they keep interpreting Iran being weak, the West persists in going forward. I think one of the real ironies of this is if the United States does launch this attack,

they're going to do significant damage to Iran. And I think this will be a tipping point that the Iranians will say, you know what? We said we weren't building a nuke. No matter what we say, they don't believe us, we'll build the nuke. Because look at South, look at North Korea. They've got a nuke and nobody bothers them. Ray, will we ever get into a conversation about why Israel is allowed to have nukes and Iran is not? Or is that very public conversation prohibited to people in the United States government?

Well, the answer is because Israel is our closest ally. And the last person who called them on this, the last person who tried to prevent this was a fellow named John F. Kennedy. That's one of the reasons they went after them. In other words, Israel is sacrosanct. We bowed, even when Netanyahu was involved directly in stealing some of our nuclear secrets, They went right there. And Israel is beyond reproach.

So that's what we are right now. The business is about the nuclear weapon. Let me just say a word about that. Pepe is right. They're demanding all kinds of things that the U.S. knows will never be exceeded to. But the supreme irony is that they're saying on the one hand, in the national defense guidance just out this month, that Iran might think about the possibility of renewing work on a nuclear weapon.

So they might think about the possibility of work. So this thinking about the possibility of doing a nuclear weapon means they're not doing it yet. And it also means, well, it doesn't matter. they have an ambition, as Trump says, and we're going to make sure we do war on that ambition to make sure they have a fatwa, they have a religious edict that we will know when it's changed. And I don't believe it's going to be changed because the Iranians don't need it. They have enough of a deterrent now, and we're going to see how this plays out within the next week, probably, because if they are attacked, that deterrent is going to transmogrify into an offensive capability and destroy Israel.

I don't know if white people don't understand that Israel. I don't know why they don't understand it either. Larry, last question about Iran. How much damage did the Israelis and the Americans do to Iran in the 12-day war, if any, in the 12-day war in June? Nothing. They killed some people. They called some physical damage to certain key strategic institutions, but it did not stop or prevent Iran from firing missiles at will. And in fact, what's fascinating is in that complete surprise attack that took place on June 13th, that would the West fully anticipated would have incapacitated both the Iranian political structure as well as the military structure, they were up firing in retaliation within 10 hours.

So now this is different. I mean, the West hasn't hit at all that we're coming to attack you. We're going to do it. In fact, you know, I believe that this attack was supposed to take place on June, January 14 as sort of the culmination of that attempt at a color revolution that was sparked out on December 28th with economic warfare as Scott Besset admitted. But they got it under the Iranians with Russian and the Chinese help got it under control. So now this is their second bite at the apple because they're convinced. They've got to get the regime change, and we've constructed this entire pyramid of lies about Iran being the destabilizing force in the Middle East. You know, when we said that we were fighting terrorism, ISIS and al-Qaeda, Iran was fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda, not helping them.

Wow. I have to ask you both about this domestic issue, even though we usually stick to foreign affairs, because of its intelligence community implications. Ray, to you first. I mean, this just blew me away. Why was the Director of National Intelligence with the FBI when they served a search warrant on a warehouse outside of Atlanta, which was holding ballots from the 2020 election? Why was Tulsi Gabbard physically there? Almost disguised, if you saw the photos, she had a baseball cap on down to below her eyebrows.

But she was there and it was her. Ray. She is the Director of National Intelligence. As the Director of National Intelligence, she has certain purview over some activities relating to the FBI. In other words, she has a hand in what FBI does if it pertains to foreign involvement. Now, that's the only thing that would justify this. In other words, there's an affidavit. It's an affidavit that authorized this search, okay? Does it specify that that the foreign involvement is suspected. If so, she's within her rights. If not, I don't know. I can't get a hold of the affidavit. Maybe you could judge. Well, I can't get a hold of the affidavit either.

The magistrate who signed the order has not put it in the public record yet. Larry, were you surprised to see her there? I mean, is she doing this to save her job just to kiss up to the White House? Yeah, well, actually, I am a bit surprised to see her there because as head of you know, is the director of national intelligence, national intelligence stays away from law enforcement. This is a law enforcement issue. Right.

So you're collecting evidence. You're not collecting intelligence. Now, you know, Ray's correct. And I think the reason that they're doing this is there were lots of different narrative spun after the 2020 election claiming that voting machines out were the Dominion voting machines out from Venezuela. This was a plot run from Venezuela. No, no, no, no, it was Leonardo Spa, this Italian defense company.

They did it. No, no, no, no. It was the Chinese. They were doing it. I mean, a lot of this, I think, was just gross disinformation put out to prevent people from actually looking at the fact that extra ballots were printed in Long Island, New York, and shipped off around the country. And there's actual evidence for that. So, I mean, it is bizarre to see her there because, okay, even if it in. involves foreign, she can't do anything about it. It's FBI. It's law enforcement. Right, right. I saw

know. We do know about the CIA. I mean, she's not the head of the CIA. Theoretically, Ratcliffe reports to her. I say theoretically, you both have educated me on that. CIA is barred from getting involved in law enforcement theoretically. That's what its charter says. We all know that's not the case. All right, let's go on to Russia and Ukraine. Ray, will the Russians ever accept an American presence and security guarantee in the form of military in Ukraine? No. Well, why is Putin? Why is Zelensky telling the world that this has been agreed to?

Well, you know, if you want to believe Zelensky, I mean, he meanders back and forth almost as frequently as President Trump. Now Zelensky is pretty much on his last legs. He's got no influence. He's got no parts to play. So he's going to say things that are really hard to interpret because they're really hard to believe. Larry, in your view, is Abu Dhabi a serious negotiation? As far as ending the war, no. As far as trying to, I think they're focused on military matters and some.

some security issues. They will, that may be helpful. What was interesting is yesterday, both Levreov and Ushikov. Lavrov gave an extensive interview to some Turkish journalists. And basically, he was pretty scathing, both of Europe. And they asked him about the security guarantees. He goes, I don't know. Ask the Americans.

We haven't seen it. and I mean he was irritated Uschikov made sort of the same thing in an interview I think it was with Toss and then I had a conversation yesterday morning with Sergei Karganov you know Karganov as you may know was he was an advisor both to Yeltsin

and then to has been an advisor to Putin and is close to Putin and he said you know he said when Trump came in we were pretty optimistic we thought yeah we've got somebody that we can talk to and he says now that's he says that's that's starting to turn we're we're beginning to have our doubts so you know i just i think it's up to the united states to show some gestures of goodwill you know not just talk but do so do something substantive like hey we're

going to we're going to lift lift sanctions on several of these individuals that are there are prominent governor of officials like Alexander Babakov. He's the number two guy in the Duna, Duma, Vyacheslav Fethysov, who was, you know, the minister of culture. And he played for the Detroit wedrings, for God's sake. But we're not doing any of that. But one thing they did do, apparently Trump did call Putin and ask for a pause in the attacks on the energy systems. Putin agreed to do that. And they... Until February 1st. Let me run the clip.

Trump is, as you three of us know and everybody watching those, is often imprecise with his language. I think it's cut number 12, Chris, whatever it is, here it is. And because of the cold, extreme cold, they have the same that we do. I personally ask President Putin not to fire on Kiev and the cities and towns for a week during this. It's extraordinary. It's not just like all. It's extraordinary cold, record-setting cold. Over there, too. Having the same place, it's a big, it's a big pile of bad weather, the worst. But it was really, they said they've never experienced cold like that. And I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kiev and the various towns for a week. And he agreed to do that. And I have to tell you, it was very nice. A lot of people said, don't waste the coal, you're not going to get that. And

He did it and we're very happy that they did it. That's correct. Because on top of everything else, it's not what they need is missiles coming into their towns and cities. So I just thought I should say, I thought it was a very good thing. And Ukraine was almost, they didn't believe it, but they were very happy about it because they are struggling badly. Is this credible? And did Putin what, a ceasefire? or just direct his fire at other places?

It's credible. I mean, look, I've been telling people that the Russians are putting extreme priority on creating a better relationship with the United States. That's the backdrop for all of this, okay? So let me just say right now that if the U.S. attacks Iran with or without Israel over the weekend or any time soon, all bets on that score are off, because I don't think the Russians can tolerate this, another attack like that. But if things go better than that, then you have all kinds of indications that, well,

let me just ask you, why would Putin spend three or four or five hours with Witkoff and Kushner? Why would he agree to the trilateral? That was coming out of Alaska, trilateral, but trilateral had to bring Zelensky into it. And now the Zelensky, his representatives, the Russians, and we are in a trilateral atmosphere. It's supposed to continue here on Sunday. So the thing is real. It's new. It's unprecedented.

With respect to security guarantees, that's all Zelensky. He says he's got 100% security guarantees from the United States. That's bollocks. It doesn't anything like that at all. This is all contingent. on the final arrangements. Now, the U.S. is not going to guarantee what's left of Ukraine in any sense, but they're willing to play along, and let Zelensky brag about this. But they're inching toward an agreement. And there's unusual haste on the U.S. port, and the Russians have noticed this openly.

And the question is, well, hello, why are we in such a rush? Well, it's not going well on the battlefield, right? and there's not to be much left of Donetsk after the Russians to get through with them. So that's the time pressure here. They want enough lipstick to put on this pig of negotiated settlement before there's no pig left to put lipstick on. So, Larry, I'm going to ask you about the new Star Treaty. And if I've got to throw this in because Pepe told us this, that his sources told him that amongst the...

the Russian demands at Abu Dhabi is the release of Nicholas Maduro. Wow. I don't know how Trump would react to that. Why hasn't the United States responded to Putin's offer to extend new start, which expires a week from today, Larry? Yeah, because we have no end. I don't think we have a genuine interest in seeking peace with Russia. I mean, I wouldn't trust us.

You know, we've broken every agreement with Russia. Russia. And, you know, Peskov announced this morning, was it, Russia time, that, yeah, Russia had agreed to stop attacking the energy sites until February 1st. That's Sunday. So Sunday, but in the interim, they continued to attack other targets. They had drone attacks, you know, major drone attacks throughout Ukraine last night. So, but they, but they held off on some of the energy sites. But again, you know, the start taking a step and saying, you know what, President Putin, you're right. We need to keep start alive. That, you know, that's another genuine gesture the United States could offer that they're serious about peace. One of the things,

one of the things that Lovrov emphasized in his, in the statements to the Turkish journalist yesterday. He says, this conflict in Ukraine, it's not about territory. This is a broader confrontation with the West. And at the heart of that is NATO and its expansion. That's the root cause. That's what ultimately has to be dealt with. That's what he said to you and me when we were privileged to interrogate him for a couple of hours. You asked about New Start. Please. Could not be more important. Yes.

Now, there's no negotiations necessary. What Putin said on the 22nd of September was, look, we're going to keep the limitations, the quantitative limitations on offensive strategic arms for another year

if you do the same. 22nd of September. Now, Trump has not been able to answer officially. If he's on a able to answer, the Russians will clearly read this as Trump is not his own man. Even if he wanted to re-knowed this treaty, all he had to do is say, okay, another year, but he doesn't, either he doesn't want to do that, or he's in the throes of the industrial, military, industrial complex. Either way,

it's bad news for us. It's, we can't, we can't trust Trump to be his own man in anything, and that will have direct, direct impact on the negotiations over you. Ukraine as well. In other words, this is big. This dwarfs all the other things. I agree with you. So we'll say it's just six days away now. One thing I'll note is that Lavarov, Peskov, Mzv, all three of them within the last three days that weighed in really heavy with Tass, Commerzant, and other journals saying, look, there's only a couple of days left. Mitzvijev says, look, is there any hope? Well, yeah, it's not February 5th yet. So they place great importance on this. If Trump can't say yes, that'll have real

consequences. God, I hope he can. So once a week, I call into the radio show of a friend of mine, Jake Smith. It's called The Talk of Del Marva, 92, 7 and 985 FM in Wilmington, Delaware. And yesterday, he played a clip for me of another interview on his show that you both will appreciate. Chris, cut number 11. James, you are obviously, you are obviously someone who doesn't trust what they're being told from a government. and I have to tell you that for the first month of what was been going on in Tehran, I questioned how do we know the legitimacy of what we're being told? So how then do the American people get information so that they can make decisions they need to make, whether to support the government's actions or not?

How do we do that? How do we get the right information? Who do we get it from, James? There's plenty of information out there coming in from, reliable sources, Judge Napolitano, my friend Ray McGovern, ex-C-C-I-A, Larry Johnson, X-C-IA, Professor John Meersheimer, they're all over. And, you know, you can get the good information. I was blown away to sit. Do you know this fellow, Ray? I do, yeah. He interviewed me, well, when Russiagate first began, he was on his way to Moscow.

to query all the people in that hotel where Trump was alleged to have urinated on prostitutes. I told him. Hey, right. We got a lot. And that started a front year. He's got a book now. I was trying to look for it here. Yeah.

He's got a great book on Vietnam. It's terrific. Yeah. And he's been, how the Vietnamese one, not how we thought. Yes, he spent 10 years living and researching. before he wrote the book. It's a terrific book. But I was thrilled to hear, not so much my own name, but the two of you. But congratulations on that nice mention. Guys, thank you for another great program. Have a great weekend. We'll see you both on Monday morning. Remember, put another log on the fire. Oh, God. I'm just about to do so. It's going to be about 10 below here when I'm walking Chris. My dog, Chris, tomorrow morning. Okay, God bless. God bless you both. Have a great weekend. It is a bitter cold. weekend in the northeast of the United States. We will see you on Monday with Alistair Crook,

Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, and I'm sure one of our other fabulous guests on Monday afternoon. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.