Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 26-June

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 26-JuneSee 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 our judging freedom. Today is Friday, June 26, 2006. It's the end of the day, the end of the week. It's almost the end of the month, but it's our favorite time of the week, the Intelligence Community Roundtable with my longtime friends and collaborators, Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson. Ray and Larry, welcome here. I thought it's a pleasure. Larry, I'm going to start with you, even though I've been asking this question all week. Trying to get a consensus. What is the status of the Strait of Hormoos as we can possibly understand it

as we speak. Well, it's still in the same physical location where it was at the start of the week. So far, so far that hasn't moved. If you are following Iran's rules for transiting the strait, the straight is open, provided that you're not an Israeli-affiliated ship. Now, what about, so all the, that means all the other ships are lining up to come out? Well, no. Because ships that are not, that are insured by Lloyds of London or some other insurance company, they're not allowing those ships to go through the strait yet because there's still questions about are there land, are there sea mines,

explosive mines floating around in the water. Now, we heard throughout the first four months of this war that, Iran had, quote, mined the Persian Gulf. But, you know, in looking at it, we haven't seen a single instance of a ship hitting a mine that I recall in the last, you know, month or two. So I'm just wondering if that was an information operation that Iran put out to scare the insurance companies, but it wasn't actually followed up with on a threat. the if you look at the number of vessels people can go to marine

traffic.com and it's marine traffic.com I'm not getting paid by them it's just there's no economic affiliation with them but it shows you actually what the ships are where the ships are located what's going on in that middle part

of the Strait of Hormuz is empty or there's one or two ships going through the ships that have actually gone through look like they're, you know, 99% are headed to Asia. None, I have not seen a single ship designated as heading for the United States or for Europe. And so that's important because that means none of the kind of crude oil that the United States needs to make diesel and aviation fuel is flowing to the United States, notwithstanding Trump's declaration that the straits are open. And then why is the price of gasoline going down slightly, not a lot, but slightly.

Is it because these oil traders bet on the futures market? Well, actually, I had assumed that oil, gas, and aviation fuel were all one ball. Boy, I was wrong. Separate gas out. Gasoline is something the United States can easily produce that because we have a lot of what's called sweet crude, light crude. that is we produce it in the United States, we produce it in excess of what we can consume, and we send some of that overseas.

The one that is the critical, that's going to be the real issue on a supply front, is the heavy crude, the sour, what they call sour crude, what comes out of the Persian Gulf, what the United States is imported as well from Canada, from Mexico, and from Venezuela. But what's coming out of Venezuela can't make up for what was lost out of the Persian Gulf.

And that crude, they call it middle distillates. And this middle distillates, it's like you get a whole barrel of oil, but when they start processing it, it's only about 30%, 20 to 30% of it can actually be used to make diesel and aviation fuel. The problem these refineries have, or what we confront, is they can't do both at the same time. they are different processes to produce diesel as to produce aviation fuel.

So let's go back to just two days before the start of the war. You had this much diesel and you had this much aviation fuel. Then all of a sudden the Strait of Hermuz is closed. The supply for both of these dropped 20 percent. And yet what happened on the aviation side is the demand went way up because we were launching all these combat operations in the Middle East. So you've got a real disparity that has a split that's developed where we don't have enough of the supply of diesel aviation fuel, the oil that does that to meet existing demands. And it's gotten down to the point that's called a 13 to 18 day buffer, which means essentially we're close in a week or two.

We're going to be a divergent. Anything happens like a hurricane that takes out a refinery. we're going to be out of some critical fuels. Wow. Ray, will Netanyahu and his crew do everything they can to sabotage this memorandum of understanding because he needs war to stay in office and to stay out of jail? And because the Israeli public wants war with Lebanon? The answer is yes.

The other question is, will Trump allow him to do it? That's the $64 question. I don't think Trump knows what he's going to do just now. As long as this thing goes on, his main demand, namely open the damn straits, is in jeopardy. And so I think maybe this is the first time in recent history where an American president can say to an Israeli prime minister, look, forget about it. We're going to pursue our own aims here. And if you start following around on Lebanon again

after we just signed under our auspices, just this afternoon, by the way, another ceasefire agreement, well, we're not going to come to your age when Iran retaliates and bombs the hell out of you. So you want to do that? Try it and see what we do, which will be nothing. Here's what CNN's Jake Tapper says a transcript of a Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu telephone call revealed.

If this is accurate, it's quite lively and very Trumpian. Chris, cut number one. Trump told Netanyahu was sick of his antics. I've done everything to protect you. You better fucking go along with this. Everybody's sick of you, Bibi, Trump said. All the Jews are sick of you. Even the two Jews on this call are of you, Trump added, referring to Jared Custer and Steve Whitkoff. You can't back out of this. Trump ticked through the list of controversial decisions he had made supporting Israel through both of his presidency. Doesn't he risk the wrath and the retaliation of Mrs. Adelson and all of her wealthy donor friends, Larry? Well, yeah, potentially, but Trump's actually, you know, he's now put some teeth on this. I understand the order was finally released.

that directing U.S. aircraft and U.S. military units that had been deployed to the region for the war with Iran, they're now being recalled. So this is going to- What does that mean they're coming home back to the United States? Yes. That started within, I understand, within the last 24 hours. As Ray McGovern would say, that's huge. Yeah. Or that's big.

Yeah, well, what it means, so number one, this process, it's going to occupy about a month, month and a half to return all of those assets. because, you know, for example, if you're going to bring home a squadron of F-35 jets, combat jets, they can't fly the whole, I think it's between, depending on the route, six to eight thousand miles back to the United States. Because they have to fly about 500, 450 miles before they need to be refueled. So they go through the air refueling, and then you get to the issue of how long can the pilots stay aloft and, you know, will they fly to a base and then stops, stay overnight? So you've got to ferry all this aircraft back.

We're talking F-35s, F-15s, F-16s, 8-10s, so a whole variety of aircraft. That's number one. Then the troops that have been sent forward, 80-second airborne, the Special Operations Forces, the 75th Ranger battalions, those all start being pulled back as well. Now, what that means is then if Bibi decides, to launch an attack on Iran, United States is not going to be there to back him up. And that's another card that I think Trump is playing here,

just said, all right, you know, you want to be on your own, be on your own. We're not going to be around here. Because if a war sparks off between Israel and Iran again, it's going to take the United States another month or so to actually deploy forces back into the region in order for them to be in a position to operate. So this is, I think this is significant. So Ray, one of my former colleagues and still friend at Fox, Trey Yinks, who's their Middle East,

their chief Middle East correspondent, called Trump on his cell phone that Trump answered. And here is Trey saying what the president told him, cut number two. The president told me he is disappointed. Israel can't put Hezbollah away. He went on to say they can't do anything without knocking. buildings down and that he is close to giving it to Syria. And he is talking about empowering Syrian president, Daphma al-Sharah, to actually go into southern Lebanon and fight Hezbollah because the president believes that he would do a more precise job in terms of

the way he would deal with Hezbollah, not knocking down buildings, but fighting them on the ground. Ray, isn't this almost inconceivable? The head of the Syrian government a former terrorist who chopped people's hands and heads off would now be doing Israel's work by fighting Hezbollah? Yes, Judge. That's why Trump doesn't accept my calls only from Trey. I'm just crazy. It's a McAllamaniac. It's just a simple way that Trump is trying to embarrass Netanyar.

You can't do the job. You can't do the job because Hezbollah? Well, the Syrians, for God, say, could do a better job in the disarray that they're already. They probably could do it. You can't do. I think that's all he says. He's so unpredictable. Yeah, there's our.

There he is. That's the president. The CIA, MI6 installed president of Syria. On the left, right before Petraeus and company arrested him. On the right, the way he looks today. Yeah, he's the president. today, and that's an interesting way to become president, isn't it? That shows the chicanery of the CIA and the Defense Department trying to work their will on

Bashar al-Assad. Yeah, they got rid of him. What we got now is a bunch of a can of worms, and Turkey is deeply involved now. In my view, that's not a good thing. Larry, was there ever a serious military plan to top a... the Iranian government, replace it with the Shah's son, and seize the and enriched the uranium? I don't know if what I wouldn't call it a military plan. I would think that the CIA Directorate of Operations, or what used to be called the Directorate of Operations, may have come up with a proposal saying, here's how we do this. I'm sure that Mossad was pushing it along as well, which is why the Mossad chief was there briefing Trump on the eve of this start of this war against Devon.

Because they said, listen, all we've got to do is kill these top guys. And the problem was they started believing, you know, believing their own propaganda. Because it was CIA-generated propaganda that was pushing the claim that 80% of the Iranian public opposed the Ayatollah. the rule of the clerics and were just that given the opportunity would rise up and overthrow them. Well, it turns out that that storyline was being produced by a CIA-funded propaganda outfit that was based in the Netherlands and in Canada. The two elements of it were based in both locations working together.

It turned out not to be true. And in fact, the exact opposite happened. So this is one of those things where poor planning. There's another P that goes with that, but poor planning leads to poor performance. Right. McGregor says that we are not a ground military. Do you agree, Larry? Oh, yeah.

No, absolutely. Look, we are an expeditionary force, but to be an expeditionary force, you've got to have some way to get there, some place to build up, and then to be able to launch. from there and sustain the logistics. We really can't do that anymore because of the advent of drones, short-range, intermediate-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. The luxury we had of the build-up of troops back 23 years ago outside of in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia on preparation to invade Iran, Iraq, we couldn't do that today

because those concentrations of troops would be immediately attacked. Wow. Ray, what would the Israelis do to pull off a false flag and make it look like it was the Iranians? They could do a number of things, Judge. They have a whole quiver full of such arrows. One candidate would be to sink a U.S. naval ship, blame it on the Iranians, all kinds of things. The question really is whether the U.S. armed forces would tell the president, look, the Israelis did this. It wasn't the Iranians at all, or whether they would be so so timid that they wouldn't even tell them the truth. Now, I asked Larry Wilkerson, who knows a lot of these guys, and should have been one of these generals, but didn't pass the smell test, so to speak.

I asked him, are there any major three or four stars or even two stars that would speak up to the president, tell them this kind of thing? And he said, forget about it. One star, maybe. Colonels would be, but these guys are all so politicized. That's how they got to be two stars, three stars, four stars. And other people tell me the same like Tony Aguilar, who was a colonel. These colonels know what they're doing.

As soon as you become a one-star, then you're a political, you don't even have to go through any of the usual promotion panels. You get promoted by the Hexeths of this world, and they know more about that. Larry, why did Heg-Seth terminate the career of General Donahue? I have no idea. I mean, it's, Donahue, I guess you could conceivably say they wanted to punish him for the deba-eux.

of our, you know, pull out from Afghanistan. But again, that wasn't, it wasn't him that ultimately issued the orders. It was President Biden. You know, you could maybe make a case that Donahue should have spoken up and said, and protested what was, you know, just a clumsy, stupid way to leave and did not. But really, this, you know, this kind of purge of. the military. It just, it appears to be more based on personality and petty stuff as opposed to actual, you know, some dereliction of duty or some level of incompetence.

Wow. It may be true. Can I interject there? Oh, yeah, of course, of course, right. Maybe right. My guess is that he and others that see the utter folly of having landing troops, Marines and 82nd Airborne in the Gulf region could not resist the notion that Hakeseth might employ them in a ground attack of some kind and gathered together some of his friends and came to Haxeth and says, you employ those guys on the land in Iran, as the Russians and the Chinese have said is completely unacceptable. It's not only completely. unacceptable to them. It's unacceptable to us because that would just be sacrificing our wonderful troop. So if you do that, I quit. And so Hague says, goes to the microphones that evening and says, I fired Donnyu. That's my guess. That's just a thing. But I think it's equally possible as

what Larry suggested. Wow. Larry, is the Russian public losing patience with the war in Ukraine? Yeah, they're wanting a stronger response, and based upon what Putin has said of like they're going to get it. I think really what we're seeing now is a very dangerous escalation on the part of the West, the NATO countries, and now to Trump. The progress that the Russians were hoping was going to be made after the meeting between Putin and Trump last August. in Anchorage. The hope surrounding that have been basically dashed. They haven't completely called for

that it's stated that it's over, but the kind of optimism that initially had accompanied that meeting has gone the other way. And Trump, according to recent media reports, is stepping up the support, intelligence support, to Ukraine, as well as allegedly providing

what limited weapon stocks we have. I just literally about 45 minutes ago, I was in a conversation with Ambassador Polianzky, who's currently the Russia's ambassador to the organization for the security and cooperation in Europe in Vienna. And I asked him about this about, do the Russians, do I said, do you perceive, you know,

does President Putin's government perceive that, You know, Trump is now, he is doing something new in terms of providing intelligence to Ukraine. And he goes, I wasn't aware that he stopped. Right. You know, Ray, how can the United States claim to be an honest broker between Ukraine and Russia? When we're helping, we're helping the Ukrainians kill Russian troops? Well, Judge, I'm really glad you asked that question because Dimitri Paskoff, Putin's spokesperson answered that question just about two hours ago.

About U.S. mediation on Ukraine. President Donald Trump's earnest desire, this is a quote, to help find a peaceful solution to Ukraine conflict, and he believes that Washington's good offices could be useful given the influence that Washington has in Kiev and in Europe. So taking into consideration all this, we believe that it's the sincere desire of President Trump and his team to help bring the settlement process onto a peaceful track. And we highly appreciate that willingness. Okay, you're speaking for Putin.

What's the Adaka? The Russian word, Anaka is but, or nevertheless. Okay. Nevertheless, the U.S. cannot pretend to be a neutral observer because it's also a, assisting Ukraine by providing weapons, selling weapons, and providing, quote, other technologies. So it's sort of a dilemma. Why this sort of paradox? It's because Putin wants the U.S. around in a capable framework so that when the war is won on the ground in Ukraine, I perceive that to be this fall at the latest, then that's not enough.

for the Russians. What they want is a security architecture that they've been pining after for five years now. What they want is a deal, which not only the U.S. is in, but the UN Security Council will approve, so they don't have to do this five years from now. So you get these various streams. And last thing here, a little punch at Macon. He says, look, we know, this is, Piskoff. We know what Macron says. We asked around, but he's not speaking for the United States. If the United States wants out of this thing, let them speak for themselves. We don't pay much attention to Macron. So that's the latest two hours old. It's not all that clear, but the fuzziness helps Putin because he's winning and he doesn't need to resort to extreme measures

to keep winning. That's great reporting, Ray. Let me pick up on Ray's last statement, Larry. Putin doesn't need to resort to extreme measures. Will Putin attack the drone manufacturing plants in Europe, in Britain, France, Sweden, Poland, Norway? Two years ago, I would have said it's probably not on the menu. Now I'd say it is on the menu as a potential. option. But, you know, Russia's not, you know, they've been very careful not to react emotionally, not to react in anger. You know, because much of the Russian public,

when the attacks, like the killing of those girls at the school, primarily girls, and there's a few male students a month ago, that caused just a top. tidal wave of anger across Russia, that this was an unjustified illegal act of terrorism. And so a strong desire to punch back. But, you know, what's really bizarre right now is how the West narrative that Russia's on its back foot, that Russia is losing, that Ukraine's winning, is occurring at the very time

that Russia is taking more critical pieces of territory. not just in one area, but up and down that, you know, a thousand kilometer line over, you know, 600, 800 miles of fighting that stretched from Sumi in the north to Khersin in the south. So it is, there is a disconnect here. The Russian army is moving with greater speed. And, you know, I think you've, I don't know if you've had a chance to interview. Scott since he's been back. But what Scott was saying is that because of the increased use of drones, excuse me, my dog is in here caught under my chair.

He's 135 pounds of Rottweiler. My dog, Chris, is sound asleep and he's right here. But what Scott was saying is that because of the increased use of drones, instead of a front line being a kilometer separated. It's now 60 kilometers separated. Yes, Scott did tell us that. Yeah, so that's one of the other factors in here. But the long answer to a short question that I think we're looking,

that down the road, you're going to see Russia being willing to strike those factories if these attacks continue and if the civilian casualties continue. Last topic, Ray, about 45 minutes ago, Anya Paramol, that's Max Blumenthal's wife, Anya, is the expert on Latin America, as you know, reported that one of the reason that the death toll reasons that the death toll on the two earthquakes is now approaching a thousand people. Wow. is because of the American sanctions on Venezuela prohibiting the importation of heavy construction equipment, which still haven't been lifted. Well, Anya is a very conscientious reporter.

I've seen that in the press as well. It just makes sense. You know, if Venezuela, in this case, cannot import this kind of equipment of these kinds of resources, they're going to be really less able to deal with these tragedies when they occur. So, yeah, this debilitation of other countries just by sanctions and other things is really sort of kind of a dastardly way to treat other countries.

And I think it's all going home to roost. What we need to do now is turn our attention to Cuba, because Rubio, in my view, quite likely to use Cuba, to turn attention from the utter defeat in Iran and the context in Ukraine. Let's do something that we can do. We prevail there. Let's get rid of these commies, just as we've been trying to do ever since,

well, ever since John Kennedy and Truman and Eisenhower before them. Wow. Gentlemen, a great conversation, deeply appreciated. have a great weekend and we'll look forward to seeing you next week. All the best. Thanks, Judge. Thank you. And as usual, we'll have, we will post what we're doing on Monday for you.

I'll be spending a fair amount of time with the latest Supreme Court opinions coming down Monday morning, but we'll get all of your favorite guests on air as best we can. Justin O'Poelteno for Judging Freedom. You know,