Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable : Weekly Wrap 25-SEPT

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

INTEL Roundtable : Weekly Wrap 25-SEPTSee 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, September 25th, 2006. It's the end of the day, the end of the week. It's our favorite time afternoon on Friday. It's the Intelligence Community Roundtable

today with Larry Johnson just back from three weeks in Russia and Colonel Karen Kutkowski. But first, this. Today's headlines aren't just bleak. They're an indictment of a government that has abandoned the Constitution. You are witnessing the

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Secure your freedom today. Take possession of your precious metals or diversify your IRA by adding gold and silver. Call 800, 511, 4620 to see if you qualify for up to $20,000 in bonus medals. That's 800, 511, 4620. or go to Learjudgenapp.com. Larry Johnson, Colonel Koukowski, welcome here. A pleasure, guys. Thanks very much for joining us.

Larry, I have to go to you first. You just spent three weeks in Russia. You participated in academic programs. You did many, many interviews where you were doing the interviewing and you interacted with a lot of important people that affect public policy in Russia. You interacted with ordinary focus. and you were there during an election.

Right. What's your take after all this? Western media is engaged. You'll be no surprise to you with a lot of hype, exaggeration, and misinformation. Example was last, a week ago Sunday, when the election was concluding the last day of a three-day vote for the Duma.

I woke up in the morning to news that there had been the most massive drone attack ever in the history of the world on Moscow. I didn't hear a damn thing. There were no sirens going off at night, nothing. Apparently what happened is, yes, Ukraine launched

around 1,600 drones. Some said 1900. The vast, vast majority of them got shot down in the way out outside of Moscow. Now, people need to understand Moscow city limits is three times the size of New York City, including all five boroughs, okay? Just to give you some idea of the size, twice the population. That drone strike killed two people, sad for them, and they injured five.

So, you know, it was not a strategic blow that was going to change the course of the war. But when you listen to the news reports, they provided that same, that kind of hype and exaggeration. So it was useful to see it from that standpoint. The election was very well run, very well organized. There were ten parties that participated. I had a chance to interview the foreign election observers. One gentleman from Argentina, two from Spain, a couple from Greece, an Irishman from Lebanon. No, figure.

He's born in Lebanon, but he's an Irish citizen now. Someone from Syria and someone from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So, you know, and they all commented on how well run they thought the election was. And again, you had 10 parties participating. Nobody was being arrested and drug off to jail. Wow. Karen, does it surprise you that American media would have, the same Russophobia as the European media does?

I think it's coming from the same source. You know, our government is when it comes to Ukraine and Russia, this was a US project. NATO went along with it, of course, but it's a US project and our media is reflecting the government. It's state media. I mean, we're really late-stage Soviet Union, and we don't have an independent media

other than true independent media. media because of the First Amendment. I mean, the mainstream is state media. So it's not in their interest to report, honestly. It's in their interest to contribute to whatever narrative is going on, which is still the narrative that Ukraine can possibly win and look how strong they are. And look how great our investment was for the last four years plus. Well, Larry, both of you, I'm going to play Trump's hideous statement at the UN. And then I'm going to ask you, could you count the number of members of Congress who condemned this? Chris, cut number 12. But I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was

before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world. Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we'll make a deal right after the election. Karen, did he just threaten to murder 91 million people? Yeah, he sure did. He sure did. And he acts like it's all his decision. So I guess he lives in an unconstitutional world where he decides who lives and dies. And then he talks about a deal, a deal like after the American election, like that's how the world evolves, I mean, or revolves. It's really shocking in a number of different ways. I just don't, I didn't see Congress push back against that because they have given the executive branch all of their.

power. They have given it to them willingly, maybe because in this issue, APEC wants it that way. I don't know. But, yeah, our Congress is, you know, I used to say like a piece of cooked spaghetti, but it's not even that consequential. It's less consequential than that. We have an executive state, an emperor, and the emperor was speaking out of the side of his mouth, basically, whatever came to him. and he's he apparently fancies a violent end. I mean, the kind of language, that's, I mean, it's shocking. It's just shocking. Larry, I think you were back from your trip when, and maybe I'm wrong.

Correct me if I'm wrong when Trump made those comments. Did you hear a single Republican or Democrat or anybody in the Congress condemn that? Well, no, I was actually, I was monitoring it from the aircraft. God for, you know, Starlink, you can hook up to the Internet. You know, I asked a question of one of the AI search engines. And Donald Trump has done something that Adolf Hitler never did. Or Joseph Stalin or Mao Zetaeng or, you know, Pol Pot. Pick your mass murderer in history.

Never. as of any of them going out and threatened by name specifically to annihilate a particular country now you know you can say Hitler celebrated taking down Czechoslovakia after the fact

but that's quite different I mean what Donald Trump is doing by his very words he is putting himself in a category of monsters of historical of historical historical monsters to even think such a thing, to threaten such a thing. It's like if you've got a neighbor that moves in and threatens to murder you and your family,

you're going to step back and wait until they do something? This kind of language, I think, is designed as well to try to provoke Iran into taking preemptive steps, which they might do. Karen, yesterday I was able to participate in a private conversation. Professor Sachs was there. There were about 25 or 30 other people there with President, Iranian President Poseskian and Foreign Minister Araji. Foreign Minister Araji is fluent in English, President Poschian, who's a cardiac surgeon, was not, but there were able to... translators there. They are

absolutely devoted to the fatwa issued by the Ayatollah that the United States and Israel murdered. They are from their hearts as well as their law. I'm quoting them now opposed to the concept

of obtaining and using nuclear weapons. But they think that they can expect that Trump would honor his own signature on the memorandum of understanding and they can't understand,

they can't grasp that a head of state signing a document in front of an international audience within a week would repudiate the document and his own signature. Yeah, that is, it's understandable that they would expect any head of state who signs a document like that, publicly, that his best people, not in my opinion, but Trump's best people negotiated for him,

and then to repudiate it as if it doesn't even matter. But I think, you know, I've had a little bit of more concern because I saw Tucker Carlson talk about a meeting he had just before the Iran thing. And he said there's three things that are going to happen if you invade Iran. Let me stop you right here. And we will play a clip of exactly what he said. That's very concerning. It's extremely alarming to me. It's terrifying because of the statement Trump said with sort of a devil-may-care attitude,

oh, it doesn't matter because in the long run, we're all dead. Chris, cut number 19. This war is being pushed by Israel with three aims. One, its own regional hegemony take Iran off the map. They don't have freedom of movement as long as Iran is a regional power. Two, diminishing the power of the GCC, the six Gulf states, which are a rival to Israel and are becoming this kind of Switzerland in the Middle East, and that's bad for Israeli interests. And three, getting the U.S. out of the Middle East because we constrain their ambitions,

getting our bases out, destroying our bases. Israel wants our bases out of the Middle East. I said this to Trump, to his face in the Oval Office, days before the war began. And he looked at me and said, yes, you're right. But in the end, we all die anyway. So it doesn't matter. That's exactly what he said. In the end, we all die anyway.

Karen. Yeah, I mean, denialism. And also the fact that he's willing, Trump is willing to do what Netanyahu wants him to do, which is unbelievable. I mean, it's, you know, beyond Pol Pot, it's beyond any of these monsters in history. And he's willing to do that and willing to listen to the truth about it and basically say, well, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. We're going to do it anyway. My friend Netanyahu is asked us to do this and he's going to do it. And also, I think the fact that he says we're all dead anyway, that's kind of, yes, it is nihilistic. But

it also indicates perhaps that he is under real threat of death or death of his family members. And he's just going to do whatever Netanyahu tells him to do. And that's why when I saw this afterwards, but when you look back at that speech he gave to the UN, I have a decision to make. I have a tough decision to make. And I'm going to be making that decision. Really, are you, Mr. Trump? Are you making that decision?

Or is this really far more disturbing even than having an insane president? having a more insane small country that we have absolutely no control over other than we give the money. Apparently, we can't stop that either. And they're making our decisions for us. And they're deciding a nihilistic vision of the world will be implemented, starting, just starting in West Asia. Because obviously, it doesn't look like it would be contained beyond that. So I just, this is serious problem. And I noticed, I didn't notice before, but that was on NPR.

So there's a whole lot of people that watch NPR that probably don't are not as up on some of the global politics. And so I imagine they're shocked also. Larry, is Trump planning an invasion of Iran after the midterms? No, I don't think so. We haven't seen, you know, to do that, you'd have to start moving a large number of troops forward. they haven't done that and even if they did move those troops forward they would be in jeopardy he may he may try some more airstrikes but that that already has proven to be a fruitless feckless effort the real problem for him is going to be the economy and the diesel shortage

this this shortage of diesel and aviation fuel is global and in contrary to what trump says does not have a damn thing to do with Ukraine's attacks on Russian refineries. Not a thing. Completely irrelevant. But the issue is reopening the flow of oil, the high sulfur content oil that comes out of the Persian Gulf and getting that into refineries. And under ideal circumstances, if Iran and the United States made an agreement tonight.

and tomorrow, magically all these super tankers are showing up, filling up with oil and sailing off, you're not going to see any possible relief with respect to diesel and aviation fuel, which has to be refined for at least

two to three months, minimum. And that's ideal if we get started tomorrow. Well, we ain't getting started tomorrow. So you're facing a massive, shortage of diesel and aviation fuel that's going to depress the global economy or most countries in the global economy for the foreseeable future. Well, does the federal government understand that? Does Trump understand that? Does he believe his own confabulation that this is caused by Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries?

Karen, because the American public doesn't believe that. No, and also, we controlled the Iranian attacks and their targets. I mean, what do you complain about? Call up Ratcliffe and tell him you quit doing it. He's not, he's, this is all, it's fantasy land. And I don't know what Trump really understands. You know, he was with the Xi meeting, you know, he was quite restrained. I think he was not on his, he was not his normal bully aggressive self. He was being respectful and it seemed like there was a power differential there. And so maybe, and then I heard there were going to be follow-up meetings with Xi, two more meetings potentially before the end of the calendar year. So, you know, I,

this is very strange for an American to feel this way or to think this way, but I almost think that the fate of the world is in the hands of the Chinese president and Putin. These two guys are in a position to watch Trump objectively, to know everything that we know and more, I think, because their whole intelligence apparatus is oriented to learning the facts, the objective facts of what's going on in the West, in particular Washington, D.C. So, you know, it's almost like the fate of the world is being held by people far, far from us. otherwise, it's held in West Jerusalem, which is very disturbing. But I think, I think, I think, Xi and Putin, and maybe like some of the BRICS members, I mean, Malaysia, countries that have become disturbed enough about what's happening,

that they are actually speaking out. I mean, we even had the King of Jordan, right, complaining that Israel was out of bounds and would never stop. And that's unusual for him. He's not even, you know, what does. what do we care what he thinks? He's our puppet too in many ways. But I think there's a, the whole world is waking up to the danger that's posed to the whole world out of Washington and particularly Trump. So that doesn't give me a sense of security. It makes me very

uncomfortable to think that the future of the world is in the hands of people far, far away. But I don't see how Americans can do anything. I mean, we don't even have a Congress that will act. You know, the way Trump, I mean, just, Just the declaration of threat against Iran and his back and forth and his profiteering on the war that he has here, Congress has done nothing, zero. They won't even articulate that this is a problem. So they're useless. They're absolutely useless. We don't have representatives in Washington.

Yeah, so I guess you keep your fingers crossed and you buy rice and beans. I'm not sure. Larry, the Chinese are deep into the Iranian camp and deep into their being accustomed to buying oil from Iran. They couldn't care less about Trump's threats for secondary sanctions. I don't know what Trump thinks he's going to accomplish this week with President Xi in town. Well, did you see the video of Trump and Xi? when the B-1 bomber flew over? I don't know if Chris pulled that.

Chris has it. Chris has it. The strong man winced. Well, Donald Trump had to go get a change of depends after that. Okay. I think he soiled, soiled himself in the process. Meanwhile, she was cool as a cucumber, just like, oh, B-1 bomber. Yeah, that's interesting.

You know, didn't flinch. Trump, man. I thought he was getting ready to have an epileptic seizure on the tarmac. You know, it's really disturbing, giving, you know, as we started off talking about the things he said at the UN. And then how he conducts himself, does not conduct himself as a president at all. He has turned out to be a bully and lost, sort of lost in his own little world. and it's highly concerning. Here's the scene that you were talking about, Larry,

at Andrews Air Force Base. Cut number 14. I don't know if he's well, Larry. I mean, we're not really mocking his physical problems, or we're just pointing out that he's not what he claims to be. Yeah, I mean, not even Melania nor the wife of she flinched. Only Trump, which is like,

you know, what's going on with that? But so, but again, this gets back to his decision making. One minute he's touting that, oh, yeah, we got negotiations are underway with Iran. They're not. And I think you probably confirmed that yesterday

in conversations you had with Peschkin and Arachi. That, you know, they didn't say, oh, yeah, we're chatting it up with the Trump administration and a deal is near. A deal is nowhere near on the table. Correct. And then the Saudis, they're becoming as erratic as Donald Trump because they're getting their rare ends handed to them by the Houthis.

Now look at this. The sun is out and it's 64 degrees. It's a perfect early fall day. why is the president of the United States in an overcoat and with gloves? Yeah, that's that's it. I remember when, Karen, you remember this, when Reagan met Gorbachev, I think it was at Reykubik. It was chilly out. There was Reagan in a beautiful gray suit and Gorbachev with an overcoat and gloves and a hat on.

And all you had to do was look at them and know who was in command of the situation. I want to play another clip from Tucker Carlson's NPR interview because it's getting a lot of play and it's really a summary of where we are now. Chris, cut number eight. Last question. How do you, since I know that you're so focused on the war in the Persian Gulf every day

and you're immersed in the details, how do you think it likely ends and when? Well, the only next thing he could potentially do would be to drop a B-6113 ground penetrating nuclear device on pickax mountain now it's not going to really do anything in terms of like what does it do okay it knocks out pickax mountain pickax mountain's not even finished being built yet that facility there by the way so really it's sort of like he gets his big finish now in his really source of mine recently used the phrase a war in three acts and that's stuck in my crawl because if you think about it that is

what this is shaping up to be. The first act was the 12-day war. The second act is whatever you call the last six or seven months. There's kind of a pause going on as everybody kind of reorients themselves to the new normal. The third act, the finale, the final act, if we're talking in screenplay terms, the big finish would be a mushroom cloud over pickaxe Mountain, drop from a B-2. And then Trump gets to say, I'm the first president since Harry Truman, drop it, I got my big bang. It was a movie finish and I'm done. Problem with that is, once you do that, once you do that, Tucker, Russia and China and every other nuclear power gets a vote. All right.

Well, I was wrong. That's not the NPR interview, but it's very, very telling what that gentleman was saying to him. Brandon Weicker, yeah. You think he wants to be the second president after Harry Truman to drop a nuclear bomb? He has said, what's the sense of having all these beautiful military apparatus around here if I can't use it, Karen? Yeah. Well, he's obsessed with what people think about him and what he thinks about himself. And, you know, he loves the flattery.

I, you know, Robert Barnes was talking up and he knows Trump and he's got friends that are currently in the Trump administration. And they say Trump used to, when Barnes knew him, Trump would ask for, you know, differing opinions, alternative opinions, and he would search for data before he made decisions. And he says, now he's totally relying on the flatterers. And the flatterers, of course, we know who they are and what they want. And they're getting served well by Trump. It's everybody else, the people who voted for him, the country, the world is not getting served well by Trump. So the problem, And Barnes kind of said this is really inside Trump's head. He is a diminished man.

He is diminishing his presidency and he's diminishing the world and, you know, behaving very recklessly. Now, you know, we have ways of protecting ourselves from people that are losing their minds, right? The community gathers and takes action. That community for Trump would be the Congress. they're doing nothing. So I guess they're on board with it all. Yeah, I think if what Brandon is saying about a third act and that third act being nuclear, that big finish that Trump needs in wants for his strange concept of a legacy, the unintended consequences there are without limit. And, you know,

this is not to be allowed. Okay. And I personally think that the military folk, guys like Raisin Cain and others will constrain Trump, as Larry has told this has happened already before when it comes to nuclear discussions. Well, Larry, I'll give you the last word on where we are now. Ukraine is facing a bitter cold winter without even minimal energy supplies. Trump still can't find an exit ramp from Iran. Every time the polls are taken, they show the Republicans sinking deeper and the Democrats rising, and Trump doesn't seem to give a damn.

Yeah. We're in a situation. I think the next six months are going to probably be the most dangerous time. since maybe the Cuban missile crisis. What was made clear to, you know, Pepe and I, when we spoke with General Aledinoff in Moscow, the Russians think they're going to be at war with Europe, not as a, you know, just a remote possibility

as an almost certainty. And they are preparing accordingly. That's number one. If Trump launches a nuclear attack inside Iran, I could see the Russians being willing to move in a more aggressive direction against Poland and Romania, where two Aegis air defense systems that were previously on board destroyers have been brought to shore.

They're on land. They're capable of firing nuclear-tipped missiles. up to this point Russia has not made an issue of it once if Trump crosses that nuclear threshold guarantee you Russia will not only make an issue of it

they will destroy those sites including if they can do it with an irreschnick they'll do an irreschnick if not they'll use a tactical nuke they're not going to wait to see if Donald Trump goes crazy with them because he will have already established that he had crossed the line

This is kind of dark and gloomy, but it's a brilliant summary by Professor Sacks of the deterioration of the American Constitution under Donald Trump. Chris? I shuddered then, and I shudder now, that a president of the United States can stand at the podium of the UN General Assembly, speaking to world leaders in a language of annihilation. of other countries and of sending them to hell. It was ghastly, unprecedented, totally disgusting, disgraceful for the United States. But I would also say a measure of how broken the constitutional order of the United States is

Trump basically said, said like a madman, which I think arguably he is, that he and he alone will decide the survival of Iran. I certainly could never in my lifetime imagined coming from a president of the United States or anybody standing at the UN podium because what Trump said was odious and completely in violation of every religious, moral, ethical, and legal standard that we have in this world. It was also a measure of the brazen collapse of our Constitution. Well, as I said earlier, did you hear anybody in the Congress, Republican or a Democrat, condemn him, and none of us has? Yep.

Guys, thank you very much. A great conversation. I'm sorry the world is not so happily arranged us to please. all of us, but I do appreciate your analysis. Larry will look forward to seeing you on Monday morning and Karen on Tuesday afternoon. Thanks for all you do. Have a great weekend. See you, Judge. Thanks. Thank you. All the best. Coming up on Monday, back to our old routine with Alster Crook and Larry Johnson

and your favorite guests as the day progresses. Thank you for watching. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.