Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable - Weekly Wrap - 7-AUG

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

INTEL Roundtable - Weekly Wrap - 7-AUGSee 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? the government. What if 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. Welcome to this special edition of the Intelligence Community Roundtable today with Larry Johnson, Pepe Escobar, and Scott Ritter. Larry, Pepe, Scott, thank you very much, all double duty for you guys this week. Thank you so much for giving us all this time. There's a lot for us to talk about, particularly with respect to negotiations involving the Strait of Hormuz. But before we get there to a subject matter that I think is of profound importance, which has not been on the top of the fold this week, but as bubbling up as it sits in the hopper somewhere in the House of Representatives or the Senate. This is the proposal by Senator Tom Cotton, endorsed by the White House,

to merge the IDF and the Pentagon, the Mossad, and the CIA in such a way as to share intelligence and military secrets. Scotty, how dangerous is this to American sovereignty and to American security? It's fatal. Look, the United States is the United States of America. We're a constitutional republic.

That's the only thing we are. We're not anything other than that. If we don't adhere to the Constitution, the values of the Constitution, were no longer the United States of America. We're not the United States of Israel. Israel is not the 51st state. Israel is a sovereign nation.

There needs to be a Chinese wall separating the United States from Israel. But it's not just this. The underlying current, you know, the philosophy behind this is somehow American Israel are the same. That they're just like us. No, Israel has been elevated by the U.S. counterintelligence community

as a critical threat. That means Israel is, carrying out active espionage against the United States as we speak. Their number one targets, our defense industrial targets, and our national security. Jonathan Pollard, one of the greatest traders in American history, you know, has now, you know, taken his parole and gone to Israel. He compromised the greatest secrets we had, the Bible about how we did signals intelligence. He gave that to Israel, and then Israel sold it to the Soviet Union to get preferential treatment

to get people out. So Israel sold America's secrets to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. Israel is not the friend of the United States. Israel is an enemy of the United States. If you don't view Israel as a parasite and America is the host and understand what it means when the parasite attaches itself to the host, then you don't understand how utterly devastating this legislation being proposed is. It would be the end of America, the death of America. We have to stop this at all costs. Larry, as I understand this, it is not that the intelligence community, which we know is very close to the Mossad to begin with, but it has the option to tell the Mossad to go take a hike. If this legislation passes, it loses that option. It's not it may share. It's that it must share unless the President of the United States personally intervenes. Yeah. I mean, it just surrenders the United States to Israeli interests.

There's no other way to look at it. Look, I think this whole issue, let's call it, this will be the 1854 moment in the 21st century. In 1854, there are two parties in the United States, the Whig Party and the Democrat Party, the dominant ones. and the Whig Party split up in 1854 over the issue of slavery, and that's where the Republican Party was born. Well, I think this whole issue of being pro-Zionist or anti-Zionist is the 21st century equivalent of that. It's splitting the Republican Party, not even right down the middle.

I mean, I had a conversation earlier today. Do you remember Mark McCloskey, he and his wife for the, In St. Louis, they were standing outside their home with firearms during the... Okay. He ran Trump's campaign in Pennsylvania. He's been a diehard Trump supporter. And he was telling me today, he says, I never thought I'd be in this position, but I cannot tolerate anymore Donald Trump selling our country out to Israel.

Now, when you're getting someone like that, who was that intimately involved with the Trump campaign, that shows that there is this division coming. And it has got correctly noted, this is obscene. We wouldn't do this with the Brits or any other country. And to give Israel that kind of special service when it's responsible for killing American servicemen on the USS Liberty, it's been responsible for draining our security interests and embroiling us in wars we don't need to be embroiled in.

One just brief follow-up question on this, Larry, from your experience in the Central Intelligence Agency. I would think that the Five Eyes, you know, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, etc. Canada. Canada would not want to share certain intel with us if they knew we were compelled to share it with Netanyahu. Am I right? Oh, yeah. Well, hell, we don't share information with them.

I mean, with the Five Eyes. You know, we've had numerous instances where the United States has certain intelligence that we will not even share with our, quote, closest allies. So putting us in bed like this with Israel is just, it's not only a bad precedent, it's dangerous. Pepe, if the Umani's and the Iranians come to an agreement, and you told me yesterday you thought they were close for the sovereign use, sovereign use, control of the street of Hormuz. And Trump's blesses it because he's got to do something to get out of this mess that he's in.

What will Netanyahu and company do? Apart from killing people, which is the only thing that they do. Well, this is very, very serious, Judge and Scott and Larry, because this agreement is practically 90% a done deal. It's between technicians on both sides, Omanis and Iranians. What they are agreeing at is that essentially, this is the headline version, everything sailing into the strait overmose is under jurisdiction of the IRGC Navy, the PGSA body that they established, and they will have to pay the fees and clearance to the Iranians.

And everything, literally, even pigeon. whatever, sailing out of the street. Ormose, there are two layers. First one, with the Omani Authority. It will be through Omani territorial waters. Second one, the Iranians as well. So essentially, Iranians will control cargo, traffic, 100% coming in

and at least 50% coming out. Can you imagine this sign officially by Tehran and Mosquat and being a precondition to possible negotiations coming ahead if the deadhead MOU is resuscitated. Can you imagine President Trump and the Trump administration even beginning to accept something like this? If they do, it's the crystal clear definition of a strategic defeat.

I want to play a clip from Major General Razai, who was at one time the head of the IRGC and is now the senior military advisor Pepe told him he was of the current Ayatollah. Right, I wasn't sure who he was of the current Ayatollah. This is very profound

and this is yesterday. Chris, cut number 10. The Strait of Hormuz will not be opened. No American worship has the right to enter the Persian Gulf. The American presence in the Persian Gulf is the main cause of the insecurity of the last 50 years. Without the U.S. leaving the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz being controlled by the countries of the region themselves, especially us and the country of Oman, who are on both sides of this strait, it is impossible for security to be established. The end of the war is also in our hands. We will look at the end of the war when, first of all, we have received all our damages from America. Secondly, we must reach a 100% guarantee about the future, which is not possible without the U.S. leaving the Persian Gulf.

Therefore, the second condition is the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Persian Gulf. Scotty, what out, what off-ramp is available for Trump other than just coming home and admitting this was a mistake? Well, I think the key is the Strader Hormuz and getting energy flowing through the Strait of Hormuz in a consistent, predictable manner. This is critical for global. you know, the global economy, and it's critical for the American economy. You know, Donald Trump hinted at what I think could be a possible solution.

If you remember early on, he said, America is going to take control of the straighter and we're going to apply a 20% tariff. So the first thing he did is legitimized the concept of a tariff. Now with the deal between Oman and Iran, you know, Iman is going to have a quarter of 50% of the outgoing traffic is going to be controlled by the Omanis. I think there could be a side deal between Trump and the Omanis

where America gets a piece of that action. And then Donald Trump gets to say that because we're getting a piece of the action, that implies that we have American control over the story of removes also that we're part of the guarantee of security. We're not totally subordinating it to Iran.

And that gives him a political out. And I think that that might be the way for him. Look, we've already withdrawn the bulk of our troops from Bahrain the Fifth Fleet headquarters is non-functional, and the American troops in Kuwait are likewise being

withdrawn. If Donald Trump can say, I have secured the strait-or-moos, I am responsible for securing global energy, therefore there's no longer a need for American military troops in the Middle East. I am the great peacemaker.

That could also provide him out. As Pepe and Larry know, and you know, and your audience knows, this is all the smokescreen. We lost the war, but Donald Trump can't admit that he lost the war. We have to find, he has to find some way to say, because of me, I've made the security of the world safer. I'm the greatest things that slice bread, vote for me. Right.

I want to put up a full screen of the speaker, of the Iranian parliament showing how the Iranians can mock Trump. I will read this aloud. Massive attack coming, wait, never mind, they wanna negotiate. That's theater diplomacy on loop. Using bullying, broken promises, fake news as leverage, is a failed strategy.

Acknowledge the facts and fulfill your commitments, we don't need more theater. Larry, are you surprised the Iranians are speaking so so directly and derisively to the President of the United States. Well, heavens no, I love, golly buff trolling Trump. That's a beautiful thing. You know, he just, but he's not making anything up. I mean, that's exactly what Trump has done.

Look, Trump is under enormous pressure. I've learned in the last 24 hours that the Intel cell in the cat, the crisis action team at CENTCOM, it's been deactivated. So what does that mean? That means the odds that the United States is going to be launching any new military operations against the Iranians. It's pretty slim because you've got to have the intel sell up. If for no other reason, tell you about possible targets, tell you about possible threats. So the ops people won't do it without some of the intel backing.

So then we have to step back and say, why is Trump suddenly completely reversed himself? Remember four weeks ago, he said, every time Iran hits a ship trying to go through the strait, well, we're going to retaliate, we're going to take out a bridge, or we're going to take out an oil factory or, you know, something. Well, Iran's hit four ships, at least in the last five days. The United States has not responded once. So what's going on? And I think a critical part of this is the economic damage from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is having a global. impact. It's not isolated to oil. It's also LNG, it's helium, it's sulfur, it's urea. This is indirectly connected. The shutdown of the Strait of Hermuz actually poured gasoline

on the economic fire that was consuming Japan, where the United States had to intervene this week. And so I think what Trump's looking at is there's now, there's a global shortage of diesel and aviation fuel and with each passing day, that shortage is going to get worse because the United States has drawn down its Strategic Petroleum Reserve about as far as it can go. Same with Japan. They don't have other alternatives. It's not like there's something else out there. They can flip a switch and give replacement. So I think the bad news for Trump, what he's seen, is that the economic chaos that's flowing from this continued shutdown of the straight, is going to have long-lasting effects.

They'll certainly go through the midterm. Pepe, can the Omanis give Trump a little piece of the action? I don't mean Trump personally. I'm sure he'd love that. But to the United States, just to give him an out? Or would the Iranians object to that? Or would the Iranians even be in a position to object to it? Exactly.

They will be in a position to object to it because they are supervising this. technical negotiations. For instance, they go live for a few days now saying there's absolutely zero negotiations going on in the United States. The only negotiation going on is the technical negotiation between us

and Oman. If we reach an agreement between us, then this agreement will translate or migrate towards a possible reenactment of the MOU.

This is, by the way, this is what China wants. He wants, obviously, a full navigation rights for anyone across the straight over moves. But at the same time, they respect Iranian sovereignty. They are key ally. Don't forget the 400 billion, 25-year strategic deal between Beijing and Tehran, energy infrastructure. So, Iran, this channel. China, Pakistan, Iran is very, very strong because they are totally aligned. They all want the same thing.

Let's say, free straight of Hormuz, but free, according to the new rules of the game established during the war. So when Kalibaf is saying and what Morsen Rezai is saying, and it's that you play both tapes because one is the political voice of the leadership, The other one is the military-minded voice. And they are basically saying the same thing. The new rules of the state of our moves are established by us because we inflicted a strategic defeat of the United States. Right.

Scotty, I want to wade into this issue of how depleted American military supplies are. Trump, according to the Washington Post, accused Hegg Seth of not being candid with him. The White House is denied of the dispute. Trump says we have all the military equipment we need that can't possibly be true. No, it's not. What we do know is that the ammunition allocated for use of the Middle East theater of operations has it's gone. They're down to literally nothing.

They have been able to rob Peter to pay Paul. They go to the Pacific. They draw down stocks in the Pacific. They draw down stocks in Europe in order to, for Hexat to tell Trump, we can sustain this fight for X number of days further. But what then Trump is being told by the commander of Pacific Theater and the commander of European forces is, we no longer have conventional military power capable of deterring or containing or prevailing in any conflict with either China over Taiwan or Russia over the Baltics. You took away all the weapons we have. We've got nothing, which means there's sort of a universal revolution taking place in the Pentagon saying that we're out of ammunition, Mr. President.

not only, you know, if you continue to fight with the Iranians and drawing down even further, you're not going to get a different outcome. You know, there's no magic formula to change the fact that we lost this war. We don't have a winning hand. But you're weakening us across the board. This is a global weakening of American military power. This is why, for instance, the Trump administration is redoing the nuclear posture right now because they have to talk about if we went to war with China tomorrow over Taiwan,

and we have no conventional munitions, what do we do? And the answer is the early use of tactical nuclear weapons. Your audience needs to understand that. As we speak, the Trump administration is redoing our nuclear posture so that we can use tactical nuclear weapons early on in a conflict in a larger numbers. Now, this is suicide. The moment we use it, it goes to general nuclear war, But that's the only option we have left because Pete Hedgef lied to the president, misled the president.

And the president allowed these drawdowns to take place until we are not only weak in the Middle East, we're weak in Europe and in the Pacific as well. Before you weigh in on this, Pepe and Larry, here's the president of the United States with another one of us lies. This is yesterday. He claims we have an unlimited supply of whatever we want. Listen to this. Cut number 11. Mr. President, on munitions, you host. overnight that the U.S. has a massive amount. That's right. You deny that there were any shortages.

There is a supplemental request for $21 billion to restock. So why is that request still there? Well, because we need more all the time. I mean, we need more. Look, we gave tremendous amount to Ukraine. The Biden people did. And they were given free of charge. No charge. No charge. Billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. And fortunately, I built up so much during my term. I rebuilt the military and also loaded it up with a lot of stuff. We have certain types of munitions that are very powerful, that we have unlimited, virtual unlimited supply.

We have others where it's a little bit tighter. I forgot about that part at the end, Larry. Maybe he's admitting when he says others, there's a little bit tighter. Oh, yeah. that there's some truth to what the Washington Post reported. Not only some truth. I mean, what Hexeth did is he blamed it on the Jew. Feinberg.

He's, no, it's Feinberg's fault, the deputy, not mine. So, you know, it's like passing the buck. Look, I wrote about this on April 3rd at sonar21.com. I described in detail that we were running out of Pact 3 missiles back then. What we now know is that 78% of the weapons, the modern weapons that the Department of Defense relies on, produced by our military industrial complex, 78% depend on five rare earth minerals that are supplied only by China. So even if the Congress appropriates $20 trillion and says, oh, Make as much money as you want.

Make the weapons. They can't make them because they don't have gallium. They don't have tungsten. So there are these five key elements that are not under our control. They're under the control of China. And they have depleted these weapons systems. And it's just simple math. This isn't classified information.

But I will disagree with my friend Scott that Hexeth lied to Trump. I bet Trump was told, but Trump just refused to listen. Because, you know, we saw the commander of Ucom, and Scott was spot on pointing out how the, you know, Paycom and Ucom commanders said, whoa, wait a second. You're not going to strip us of our Tomahawks and our jasms and our attackums and our prisms, et cetera. No, no, no, no. In fact, the other day, the commander of you, the European commander for the U.S. in Europe known as Ucom. He said, hey,

you're not going to park the Sixth Fleet off the coast of Israel to provide air defense. I need it back here. And so this is a real debate that's taken place among these senior commanders right now. Pepe, are the Iranians aware of how dangerously

low America's military gear and ammunition and supplies has become? They are. This is discussed in Iran and TV, practically every night. Absolutely. And because they run the clock, literally, I had to write a column with running the clock

as the headline because it was so obvious. They know that all the constraints are exploding simultaneously. Depletion of munitions and weapons. The base is being bombed mercilessly for days, including the repeal and two bases. in Jordan. The depletion of strategic petroleum reserves and the red line is literally next week, mid-August, according to everybody, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, you name it. Any gold trader,

everybody knows that. And of course the internal domestic pressures over Trump. The Iranians are very good readers of the American geopolitical and geo-economic networks. They don't brag. They study. They spend hours, days studying. And they incorporate all this data into the way they tweak their decentralized mosaic strategy, which is now it's going, it's being upgraded. And it's more offensive. If there are American attacks, it's going to one the response, just like the Yemenis. So they are not worried. And this sense of self-confidence, I think we spoke about that before.

In both vectors, the political, parliament, diplomatic vector, and the IRGC, the different levels of IRGC, all the way to reside, he's much more influential than the actual commander-in-chief of the army. RGC nowadays Vahidi. Rezai is one of the old school guys experienced in the trenches and they run Iraq war. These guys live everything and you know what war is like. So this changes completely the interpretation of what this war is about because there is an experience level, a religious level, a moral level, a resistance level, a sovereign level and on top of it, doing their homework as military strategists and political strategists as well.

So when the American mainstream media say there is a split at the top of the leadership in Iran, no, they have different interpretations, but it's cohesive. And the way they look at the chessboard is cohesive. And they pay attention to, let's say, the basis. Where are the bases? 40 million people in the streets are during the funeral rights of Ayatollah Khomeini. And they basically were saying, revenge. We don't want any agreement with the United States.

So the leadership has to listen to them as well. And at the same time, they need to keep open this very tiny window of opportunity for diplomacy. That's where Arakshi comes in. Arakshi is the global phase of Iranian diplomacy. And you know, he's very well measured. He's humble. He's never aggressive. He always leaves the opportunity to,

talk to the American side as long as there is mutual respect. But as you know better than I do, guys, you're Americans. The empire does not respect the other. The other is supposed to be subjugated. With the Iranians, that's not going to play. Scotty, last topic. Will we see a more aggressive Russian military strategy in Ukraine, or will we see more of President Putin's patience? I think you're going to see a combination of both. I mean, the patience is that Russia will not expand this conflict into Europe. The aggression is that Russia has closed the door on negotiations and has taken the gloves off,

and we're looking at the total destruction of Ukraine as the modern nation state occurring before our very eyes. The Russians have achieved, you know, a very – you know, a very – you know, a very – you important posture. They have exhausted Ukraine's air defense. Ukraine has no viable air defense today, which means that once Russia identifies a target, Russia will destroy the target. And thanks to Ukrainian stupidity, the target deck is now expanded to include not just purely military targets, but critical economic targets that are literally squeezing the life out of Ukraine as we speak. So all you have to do is take a look at the targets that are being struck and the damage being

done. You know, the Black Sea has been cut off from Ukraine. They no longer have access to the sea. 60% of their economy is non-existent anymore. Can't get the market. They can't get crops out of the field. They can't generate income. This is the death of Ukraine. We're watching literally the death of Ukraine. This could have happened two, three years ago, militarily. But it couldn't have happened politically. What people have to understand is if Vladimir Putin has been balancing, you know, a very delicate international diplomatic game. He's been playing the economic game in Russia and courting international investors. And he's been managing the domestic political, you know, temperature in Russia.

All of the things have been managed to the point that right now it is literally the perfect storm when it comes to being able to apply nation-killing damage to Ukraine. There's no nation in the world that can stand up to Russia, but more importantly, there's no nation to world that is willing to stand up to Russia because Russia has out maneuvered every single one of them. And Vladimir Putin's like the guy playing that rapid chess game against 50 people, and he's winning every single match. Wow, wow. Larry, before you respond, here's a statement from somebody that none of us really appreciates at all. but occasionally even a stopped clock, well, twice a day, a stop clock is correct. Here's Henry Kissinger on Ukraine in 2014.

Far too often, the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown, whether Ukraine joins the east or the west. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side's outpost against the other. It should function as a bridge between them. Larry, I think Vladimir Putin would agree with that. Yeah. Listen, Henry, he had his faults, and, you know, you could accuse him of war crimes,

but he was a smart strategist, you know, and he was the one that got the China open and started that whole ball rolling. Yeah, look, the Ukrainians made a fatal error with a declaration really 40 days ago to open war against Russia. and as a result of that, Russia has now, as Scott correctly noted, shut down the Black Sea, Odessa and Nikolaev, those two critical ports, no longer operating or they can't send anything out and not getting anything in, coupled with the repeated strikes of hypersonic missiles, cruise missiles, regular ballistic missiles, drones on key centers, both military, industrial, manufacturing.

capturing inside Kyiv and other other critical cities and then on top of that Russia has opened up a new front in Chernigiv so now they're operating in seven former oblast in Chernigiev, Sumi Kharkiv, Denezsk, Nipopritrosk, Zaporizya and Khersat. So you know with this expanding the military operations they're stretching the training forces beyond the breaking point. So this is, I think in some respects, many are surprised that this is moving as rapidly as it is towards a conclusion. Last question, Pepe, what was the Iranian, how measured was the Iranian response when the Ukrainians were crazy enough to attack an Iranian vessel? They waited for a while, and I think in a matter of hours, one day later, Ukraine. that it was a mistake. Can you believe that?

They never excused themselves for anything. This time, they made an official apology. And that's why nothing happened from Iran. They wanted to confirm, first of all, that Ukraine was trying to enter the war in the Caspian Sea. If that was the case, and considering that the military shuttle between Russia and Iran goes across the castle. It can be by boat, but usually by, you know, overflying the casper. From Astrakhan to Bandar-Anzali and then to the port, Iranian port, and then to Tehran. So after the, let's say, the formal apology, the Iranians start talking to the Russians with their back channels and say, look, if they enter the war,

I'm sure you're going to take care of them in the costume. You don't need us, right? And the third Russian response, according to one of our contacts, was, yeah, we don't even need to call you. So stay cool. But if they attack your assets, that's a completely different story. But there was a lot of speculation at the time. if this was a last desperation card by Ukraine to internationalize their war,

and actually merge both wars. But these wars are the same. The war against Iran and the war against Russia is the same war of the US against both as a prelude to a war in the future against China. These wars have been the same war from the beginning. Well, last thing I want to show you is Congressman Jason Crow, eviscerating the Secretary of Defense who calls himself the Secretary of War. Cut number 12. Pete Heggseth, you know, dressed up, sitting at the podium, saying everything's fine. I mean, that's what the man was hired to do, right?

He's incompetent. He's un-serious. He's a professional liar. But that's actually the point. He was hired to look good in a suit, stand. at a podium and say everything is fine. The problem is that there is this thing called the real world in reality that is pressing down now on the administration and that you can't engage in a war and a conflict like this in perpetuity without a plan, without a supply line,

without stockpiles, which this administration has decided to do without eventually that reality catching up on you or with you. And that's what's happening here. Every passing week, we have fewer options. We have fewer off-ramps and fewer things to protect our troops in the region. Fewer options to assert pressure in Iran and fewer off-ramps to end this.

Buddy? I agree 100%. I mean, we're getting weaker. Iran's getting stronger. Understand this. We're running out of Pact 3 interceptors. We're running out of Tomahawk. We're running out of attackums and other

long-range strike weapons. Iran is actually building more missiles, more drones. Iran is getting stronger. They just unveiled a new category missile, the Rod 3, which has ICBM-type capabilities attached to it. Iran is getting stronger, not weaker. This war is lost. The longer we wage this war against Iran or the longer we prolong conflict termination, the stronger Iran gets. I mean, the best thing we can do from a national security perspective is in the war today because this is as good as it's going to get for the United States tomorrow's going to be worse guys I have to run but I also have to read what one of the commenters said the judge is like OJ he has the dream team you're sure dream team you're all my dear

friends and colleagues Larry Johnson Pepe Escobar Scott Ritter always a pleasure dear friends We'll see all three of you next week. Scotty, I think you've already arrived at where you're going. It looks like that car has stopped. Yep, but I'm a pro. I'm staying on. I'll try and make movement in the background so to deceive people. All right.

God bless you, all the best. Have a nice, have a nice weekend. Nice, Judge. Bye. Good. Thank you for watching. We'll have your usual guests, certainly, Alistair Kruk and Larry Johnson, bright and early on Monday morning.

Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.