Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap 6-FEB

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap 6-FEBSee 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 Friday, February 6, 2026. It's the end of the day, the end of the week, it's our favorite time. My dear friends, Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson doing their double duty, the Intelligence Community Roundtable, Larry, Ray, thank you very much. Thanks for accommodating my schedule. Let's go to some relatively breaking news first. One story, which I'll ask Larry about in a minute, that China has reportedly delivered very sophisticated radar equipment to Iran. But to me, more pressing is comments by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with respect to the American rejection of President Putin's offer to extend New Start. Ray, I know you're on top of this.

What did Foreign Minister Lavrov say? Did he actually say, when translated into English, we've been burned? Well, he didn't say burned, but he said words equivalent to that. He was asked by the interviewer. You figure you've been burned ever since the NATO violated its promise not to move NATO closer to Russia. And he said, yeah, I was the equivalent of I was burned. But he said a lot of other things, many of them gratuitous. It's clear that he's really, really upset, as is Putin, no doubt. He raised a budget thing.

I made some notes here. One of the things that says, we have a study of Russia Pavorka, an old Russian proverb. You take the measure of people seven times before you cut once, which says volumes about the Russian character. We've been taking the measure very carefully for a long time now,

and we draw our own conclusions. He goes back to Obama's telephone. phone call to Putin as the coup was being prepared in Kiev on the 14th of February. Obama reassured Putin, don't worry about it. Everything is okay. We have the Europeans watching over. Don't try to tell Yomukovych not to agree to what he agreed to. And lo and behold, there was the coup. So there were a lot of gratuitous things. And actually, the interviewer asked one point. So how do you stay optimistic? And he says, in a quick fact, what do you mean optimistic? And he never spells out why he's optimistic because he's not anymore.

Right. Because I've been saying a long time, if the U.S., if Trump can't deliver on simply extending the limitations of New Start for one more year, Trump and not Trump, but Putin and Lovroff will draw their conclusions and they concluded he's either not his own man or if or he doesn't want to and so there's a new phase here as a new there's a new prejudicial regime here where there's going to be uphill struggle to get things back on the this flight kilter that they used to be on just a couple of weeks ago. Larry, before we get to the Chinese delivery of this unique piece of radar equipment to the Iranians. What is your view? How damaging to U.S.-Russia

relations is Trump's inexplicable rejection of Putin's offer to extend new start by a year? I think it is exactly as Ray presented it. I was not familiar with Measure 7 want, but part of their measurement is this. Trump has talked a good game about, you know, let's normalize relations. Okay. And I'm not sure what the substance of the agreement was at Anchorage, but at least what the Russians came away thinking they had something. But then look at what Trump has done.

On December 28th, while he's meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, an attempt is made to kill President Putin with drones that were, you know, they received targeting data from the Central Intelligence Agency at a minimum. just today, earlier today, you had an assassination attempt on the deputy, the general who is the deputy to the lead negotiator for Russia in the recent trilateral talks. And immediately, Lavrov was out saying that was Kiev trying to destroy the negotiation. Was this assassination attempt in Moscow? or Dubai? No, in Moscow.

So he was in his apartment building, got shot three, four times in the back. But fortunately, he's alive. It didn't kill him. But this represents the force such attack on a general. There's been no effort to ease the sanctions on any of the Russians that have been sanctioned by the United States. And in fact, we just had this week of Besson and Trump bragging about putting pressure on India to stop buying Russian oil.

So you've got to look and say, show me one solid, measurable thing that the United States has done to signal to the Russians we're serious about negotiating with you other than sending the real estate clowns over to talk about. Is this Chinese delivery of a YLC8B strategic three-dimensional radar to Iran? significant. Is it symbolic or is it substantive or is it both? It's very significant and it comes along with the Chinese also deployed in Iran, a system that disables GPS. So if you disable GPS, that means that the Tomahawk cruise missiles will be flying aimlessly. They won't be able to reach their target, assuming the Navy you get in close enough to shore to fire it. But then this, this radar now provides the screen, the advanced warning that Iran's going to need about inbound F-35's other combat aircraft that the United States would use in the event they decided to launch an attack on Iran.

So the only way the United States can attack and try to hurt Iran would be from this small naval force that's parked off the coast of southern Iran and then with air attacks that would come largely from the east and possibly the north. Ray, is Trump really faced with a choice between a deal with Iran and pleasing his Zionist backers, or is there no conflict whatsoever? Is he totally beholden to the Zionist backers the opportunity to craft a big deal with Iran that brings peace be damned? Well, Judge, it's not very complicated. to your question is, yes, not only the Zionists, but the neo-conservatives, they're really beating on Trump. How can you build up this armada and not use it? Well, the other aspect is one that Larry alluded to,

that is China and Russia. They are weighing heavily in now with the United States. Now, what happened? Russia received the National Security Advisor, Larry Rajani from Iran, and they had a big talk. This was just three days ago. Next thing you know, we have a meeting between negotiators from Iran and the United States in Oman today. Results, not clear, but no war yet. The other thing is, I'm not quite sure whether Netanyahu wants us to do this this time, because he experienced last time, as we all know, direct hypersonic missiles from Iran against which he could not defend. So it's all up in the air. All the signs are that Trump is under great, great pressure, but also there's counterpressure from Beijing and also

from Moscow. Look, you don't want to do this. This is too close to us. We have real interests here, the Chinese and oil. The Russians, it's right on their doorstep there with Gaspian Sea. So it's different this time. My guess is it's not going to happen. Larry, what conceivable military purpose would be served by attacking Iran, American military purpose? Irritating the hell out of them and probably inspiring Iran to go ahead with acquiring a nuclear weapon. You know, up to this point, they have abided by the fatwa from the Ayatollah Khomeini. And I was just, I was talking yesterday with Professor Morandi and Nima Alkarsid. Nima lives in Brazil, but he's been back for a couple of months visiting family after 12 years' absence.

And they both said there has been a remarkable change in public opinion where the majority of the public, something well over 65%, are saying, you know what? If we had a nuclear weapon, we wouldn't be facing this crap right now. Correct. And so if the United States goes ahead and decides to launch, to try to strike targets in Iran, I think it will have the ultimate ironic effect of finally persuading the Ayatollah to reverse and say, you know what, we're going to have to do something to protect ourselves. So the United States, despite its claim that it can do a lot of damage,

they haven't counted on all of the support that has come from both Russia and China. And in that conversation that Putin and she had, and she was actually coordinating with Putin before he talked to, Trump because he wanted Putin to know here's what we're going to talk about here's what we're going to say and they also wanted to make sure they were on the same page and they were on the same page with respect

to Iran and the threat posed by the United States as well as supporting Cuba they also made a point of that here's here's Trump well I don't even want to characterize that it's so off the wall about why

Iran should be worried he's back on this nonsense about he totally obliterated their nuclear capabilities back in June, but you'll hear him and watch him. Chris, number 14. Should the Supreme Leader in Iran be worried right now? I would say he should be very worried, yeah. He should be. As you know, they're negotiating with us. I know they are, but the protesters have said, you know, where are the Americans? You promised them we would have their back. Do we still have their back? Well, we've had their back. And look, that country's a mess right now because of us. We went in, we wiped out their nuclear.

If we didn't take out that nuclear, we wouldn't have peace in the Middle East because the Arab countries could have never done that. They were very, very afraid of Iran. They're not afraid of Iran anymore. Those beautiful B2 bombers went in and they hit their target every single bomb and obliterated it. And within one month, they were going to have a nuclear weapon. That was a big threat that they're not going to have it anymore. But if we obliterated, what's the deal about? I mean, if there's no more, are they trying to restart the nuclear program?

I heard that they are, and if they do, and I let them know, if they do, we're going to send them right back and do their job again. So you're understanding that they tried to restart it, and that's why you're threatening force. They tried to go back to the site. They weren't even able to get near it. There was total obliteration. But they were thinking about starting a new site in a different part of the country. We found out about it. I said, you do that.

We're going to do very bad things to you. The president, nobody's talking about? No, there are two things here, nuclear enrichment, which he's tried to damage, and of course, that has been damaged, and working on a nuclear weapon. Now, there is a new national defense strategy out as of January, like last month. And it says, if things get, this is a direct quote, if things get worse, the Iranian leaders may want to reconsider their decision not to build. a nuclear weapon. Whoa. So, in other words, they have not yet decided to build a nuclear weapon. Now, I agree with Larry. They're tempted to do that, and the same speculation arose after the June strikes. But it takes the Ayatollah to give this fatwa, to change the fatwa. And the same people that

Larry's been talking to has told me that this would have to be an open, public decision, freely debated in the Iranian parliament. And we haven't seen that yet. And I tend to think that they're going to stay with their fatwa because they don't need a nuclear weapon. They have damaging potential beyond belief if they choose to use it against Israel. Larry, your thoughts on what Trump just told the interviewer.

Well, there's no logical consistency to it. And I guess we shouldn't be surprised by that. because what the questioner was trying to ask, well, if you obliterated it, then how does there exist anything to go back and try to obliterate again? And, you know, so it is, this is not about nukes at all. This is about regime change. Now, Trump himself may not be saying that,

but the people around him are. And we've had open admissions now by Scott Bessent, that the United States has committed repeated acts of war against Iran by attacking it economically. And, you know, Russia... Did you catch Trump saying Iran is a mess because of us? Yeah, yeah, exactly. We've created the economic chaos and suffering that it was designed to ignite protests. But let's also look at the...

There's another thing on the horizon. China and Russian warships are now in. route to the sea just south of Iran to conduct joint naval military exercises. Now, this is not in response to the U.S. threats, at least not directly, because this is an annual military exercise that China and Russia began conducting in 2019. Huh. Why did they start doing it in 2019? because in 2018, Donald Trump blew up JCPOA, which China and Russia had signed on to.

And I think it was at that point that China and Russia decided they needed to start taking active measures to support Iran. And so this is, you know, this is now like the eighth year of this exercise. And they are, they're going to conduct that by, I've heard everywhere from the middle of February to the first week of March. But what that means is that with their presence, that's going to reduce the chance of the United States starting anything militarily against Iran because then they're going to also be potentially dealing with Russian and Chinese warships. Earlier today, the defense industry of China unveiled this radar that Colonel McGregor reports, this YLC-8B that was delivered to Iran. And apparently, Larry, you'll have to tell us what this means. it's able to detect stealth fighter aircraft. What does that mean?

Well, the FC35, the preeminent fifth generation fighter bomber for the United States, it's supposedly a stealthy aircraft. So what this means is when they are, let's say that Iran decides to deploy them 150 to 100 kilometers inside the borders of Iran, facing out towards the Gulf and facing down south towards the Arabian Sea. They'll then have advanced warning that any of these aircraft, once they get within 700 or say 600 kilometers of Iran, Iran will then be able to start targeting them. And I believe that the Russians and Chinese have provided air defense systems

that can work in tandem with that radar so that they'll be able to shoot down, US aircraft if we dare to attack. Before we leave Iran and go to other subjects, I have to play this for both of you. This is Vice President Vance being interviewed by my friend and former colleague, the lovely Megan Kelly, but he really doesn't know what he's talking about. But then it is followed up by an 11-year-old interview at 5. with another friend of my David Asman, which to me was pretty eye-opening. And the guest is a former senior CIA official.

I know I knew Dewey. Okay. Well, I'll be happy to hear what you both have to say about this. Chris, number 17. What happens when the same people who are shooting up a mall or driving airplanes into buildings have a nuclear weapon? That is unacceptable. And it's not just them.

Because if the Iranians get a nuclear weapon, you know who gets a nuclear weapon like the next day, the Saudi Arabians. People, Mr. Clarege, have talked about Saudi Arabia. They certainly have more money than anybody in the Middle East. Are you concerned about the possibility they may get a nuclear bomb? Saudis already have the bomb. But people failed to remember. Hold on a second, Mr. Clare.

Let me just emphasize that point, because that's an important point. You say Saudi Arabia already has a nuclear bomb? Or several. People forget that it was the Saudis who financed the Pakistani bomb. They put billions of dollars into that effort to create that nuclear capability. And in return, of course, they got something. Now, people can argue whether it was dibs on four nuclear devices or seven. That's the argument. But no one who really in the know argues that they do have access to nuclear weapons.

Put aside the vice president equating the Iran government with ISIS. Larry is the statement by that fellow Clarege credible. Oh, yeah. Dewey, I mean, Dewey is a character. He was one of the flashiest dressers in the Directorate of Operations, number one. He set up the counterterrorism center. He was the first one to head that up when it came into creation, I believe, in 1986, 1987.

So, you know, he knows exactly what he's talking about. He's, and Dewey, despite some moral failings, we could talk about off air, he was, he knew what he's talking about. He was, he was not a fraud. He wasn't a big talker. And so, yeah, yeah, he was, if he says it, it's true. Ray, your thoughts on, on this gentleman and on what? he said. Well, now, did I understand Larry to say that he believes that Saudi Arabia has between

four and seven nuclear weapons? That's what Claveridge said. Yeah, I didn't hear him say a number, but he said he had multiples, didn't he? Yeah. Well, he said you can't really dispute that they have it, and there are some disputes as to whether it's four or seven. Yeah, take it from there. In the operations department that want to create this myth, that's poppycock. It's great. It's crazy. The Saudis do not have a nuclear weapon. And no matter what, how much they helped Pakistan with money, that doesn't mean that Pakistan said, okay, we'll give you four to seven nuclear weapons in return. I know, Dewey, I have to deal with him when he was running the Afghan thing. Don't believe him. Don't believe him any more than the other operatives that talk to the press and sometimes

talk to us. Wow. Do we know if the... the in the Ukrainian negotiations, the Ukrainians recognize that they're on their last leg, Larry? No, no, they don't. And frankly, I think it's just a waste of time for Russia to do it. Again, with this assassination attempt today of the general who's heading it up, Kuntzof, his, this was his deputy. They tried to kill him.

And he survived perhaps miraculously. And there's nothing, Russia is not going to surrender territory for a ceasefire. And I don't see Ukraine, nothing that Zelensky says indicates that they're willing to do so either. So, you know, they're just, they're taking time to talk. Meanwhile, the war goes on on the ground and the advance of Russian forces is accelerating, not accelerating. Ray, do you accept the idea that the Americans are engaged in two negotiations, one with the Russians and the Ukrainians over trying to bring an end to the special military operation, and the other with the Russians trying to reestablish normal relationships between the United States and the Russian Federation? Well, up until Trump decided not to honor the offer given by Putin back in September to keep the limits of a new start,

the Russians were primarily concerned with developing good relations with the United States. I think that's limited now to avoiding anything that would cause a nuclear war. It's a different situation now. we have now is that the Russians are winning. There's no read for the Russians to make concessions, but one has to ask them oneself why it is that Putin would receive Whitkoff seven times, or you'd spend three, four, one time, five hours with them. The Russians have some kind of interest in having this thing appear to be a negotiated settlement. Why? Because they want the U.S. in Europe so the U.S. can honor their basic interests, what they call their core interests,

and make sure that this doesn't happen again. So that's what's going to follow the Russian win. The question is whether Russia has to go farther than it really wants to toward the West or whether it can make some kind of deal that only the U.S. can guarantee. And I think that's the latter. That's their primary interest. Just to go back to your friend Larry and your not so happy friend Ray Mr. Clarege he did say four to seven nuclear weapons

but no one really in the no argues that they have access to the weapons so they can be contracted out to Pakistan I don't necessarily think if it's not like Saudi radio

sitting around with the capacity to quote deliver them which is the other issue. Right. The last question for both of you. Is Netanyahu still terrified of the Iranian response to an American attack, the response on Israel, and if so, is his terror enough to dissuade Trump from the attack that some people think is going to come this weekend?

Ray? Trump is unpredictable. My sense is that Netanyahu is saying, look, we're in no better shape than we were in June. Don't do it. It could be down to destroying Israel. We don't want that. And we don't have to, we don't want to be forced to use a nuclear weapon to defend ourselves. So don't do it, Trump.

That is one main reason, I think, President. Larry, same question to you, and I'll add another one. Did Netanyahu flee Israel in June? No, I don't know. No, no, he was there. He was hiding in a bunker. What's interesting is the backstory were starting getting out of, about these negotiations. That number one, they were not face to face at all. They're playing telephone. Which negotiations are you talking about? Between, between Iran and the United States.

Right. So Iran will talk to the, the Omani's, and then the Omani's go talk to the U.S., and then the U.S. comes back and talks to the Omanis who go back and talk to, and they were just, they're setting up the terms for negotiation. At one point, though, they did, the U.S. delegation came in, and the Iranians initially rejected having the head of sentcom come in. When he finally did get into the room, the Iranians refused to shake his hand. They would only shake hands with Whitko. So, you know, a little bit of a frosty situation there. And I think, you know, Bibi, if he's got a brain in his head,

The last thing, he may be emotionally inclined to support an attack, but I think he's got still some sane military officers around him that are saying, don't do this because we're going to get hurt. Got it, got it. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Much appreciated. Larry, of course, will be, you'll both be with us on Monday. Larry had a new time because he likes getting up early.

We'll be with us at 9 a.m. guys, I'll see you both. Just let me just say that if I didn't hear Dewey Clavage quite right, I apologize, but I heard him say four to seven weapons were given to Saudi Arabia. I heard the same thing with a little bit of a waffle room about whether or not they knew how to use them, but I heard the same thing. You needn't apologize, Ray. But thank you, guys.

Have a great weekend, both of you. Thanks for the double duty, as always. Yep. It's going to be below zero here tomorrow in northwest New Jersey. in the New York City metropolitan area. Monday. Alster Crook at 8. Larry Johnson has just mentioned at 9. Ray at as usual spot at 10. John Carriaco at 1.

Ian Proud. What's going on? What chaos is there in the House of Commons at 2? And a new guest from the Quincy Institute, Ben Freeman, at 3. Have a nice weekend, everyone. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.