Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson: Do We Still Have a Constitution?

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Larry Johnson: Do We Still Have a Constitution?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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right for you. Call 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com and tell them your friend the judge sent you. Larry Johnson, always a pleasure, my dear friend, thank you for joining us accommodating my schedule. You wrote a fascinating piece. You write a great piece each day at Sonar 21. But you wrote a fascinating piece the other day, the essence of which is, do we still have a Constitution? Which of course is my other field. And I do want to talk to you about that but before we get there, this issue of the firing of two senior CIA analysts was raised over the weekend. Again, you and Ray and I talked about it on Monday. These two senior people after an exhaustive study concluded that the gang Trende Aragua is not controlled by or affiliated with the Venezuelan government

and they were given permission to reveal their finding. Then Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, fired them and ordered another evaluation. Then, this is what happened over the weekend, Secretary Rubio, without citing any source, said Tren de Aragua is controlled by the Venezuelan government. Now, I don't know if they were saying that because that's a part of President Trump's narrative which seeps into his efforts to use the Enemy Alien Act or if Rubio's State Department conducted its own analysis. But my question to you is, I guess CIA or intelligence analysis is corruptible and can

be corrupted by politicians. Oh, news flash. Go talk to George Allen, not the former football coach, but George Allen was in charge of the analysis during the Vietnam War and the political pressure that he encountered. I was just recounting to someone else earlier today the story of John Reed and Bob Gates at the CIA. So when Bob Gates was the director of intelligence, you know, headed the directorate of intelligence, DI, the Reagan administration was in power and Reagan wanted to know, is Nelson Mandela a communist? And so John Reed, the analyst covered South Africa, he wrote, and his bottom line was this, although Nelson Mandela has had associations and relationships with

people who are known communists, Nelson Mandela is not a communist. Judge, can you guess which word Bob Gates changed in that assessment? Oh, good God, he dropped the word not. Yeah, took not out. Wow. Now, so, you know, if that's happening, you know, so yes, the intelligence is highly politicized, unfortunately. It got worse under Biden. So I don't, you know, I really don't know

what the ground truth is right now because so much of the media is gonna try to manufacture something to indict Trump when they're actually maybe trying to clean it up. But on the other hand, it may be taking place. I don't know. A year or two ago, when Biden started funding the genocide in Gaza and the war in Ukraine, you and Ray and Phil Giraldi and all of your colleagues on the show have made it crystal clear that the analysts on the ground produce raw data as best they can,

as truthful as they can, as accurate as they can. Sometimes they risk their lives to get it. And then it's the Bob Gates' some mid or higher level management person that twists it so that the ultimate listener, the president, gets what he wants to hear. I gather that still goes on today. How does Donald Trump know if he's getting accurate information from the intelligence community or if he's hearing what Tulsi Gabbard thinks he wants to hear? And if the latter is the case, what has changed? Okay, there are two filters that you have to deal with. Filter one is the case officers in the field

when they're collecting raw intelligence from human sources and reporting that back up the chain of command. Sometimes that chain of command on the, what's known as the Directorate of Operations in my day will prevent that information from getting out. I saw that firsthand with what was going on in Central America with the war that we were waging against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. And a couple of analysts from the Nicaragua side went down to Honduras and they were accosted by angry case officers saying, why aren't you putting

this information out? And they showed them all the reports that they had been generating were accosted by angry case officers saying, why aren't you putting this information out? And they showed them all the reports that they had been generating that were pointing out that the weakness is on the side of the contrast. Well, it turned out that their chain of command, one guy that you've had on your show, you know, Jack Devine, were're covering it up. We're not releasing it to the Directorate of Intelligence. So that's one filter where the DO can self filter, prevent information from coming in that's accurate.

Then when you get to the analytical side, taking what's available and drawing conclusions and presenting that to the White House, there's also the pressure to say, oh, you can't say that. So the prime example right now is this notion that Russia suffered terrible casualties because the Director of Operations is relying exclusively on information that's coming out of the Ukrainian sources instead of accurately reporting what's going on

and using a whole variety of methods that could be used to track, such as following obituaries in Russia, looking at the size and expanse of cemeteries that are in Russia as compared to Ukraine. Number one is that you could tell that it's Ukraine that's suffering the overwhelming number of fatalities, not Russia.

So when Donald Trump says the Russians have lost a million people, a number we know is grossly, grossly inaccurate. Do you think he thinks it's true? Do you think some intel source has told him that whether the intel source knew it was inaccurate or not. Yeah, yeah, I think that's highly likely. You know, we've got the the Russians and Ukrainians have been exchanging corpses of soldiers and over the last three months for each Russian body that's turned over to Russia. Russia is giving Ukraine 25 to 27 bodies each

month. In other words, it's a 27 to 1 ratio. Now, some would argue, say, well, that's just because Russia's advancing and Ukraine's not ever able to recover the bodies of those that the Russians are killing. And I said, okay, if that's the case, then so much for this claim that the war is a stalemate, right? Because it's not a stalemate because Russia is continually, uh, moving forward. But you've also got the disparity between the amount of artillery that are the Russian can fire and the limited amount that Ukraine can fire and the limited amount that Ukraine can fire. And the overwhelming number of drones that Russia can produce

buys what Ukraine can produce. So, I mean, it's just, it's a lie, and that's part of the problem of Trump. You know, he's supposedly still talking to Vladimir Putin as we speak, where he insists that Russia is suffering so many casualties that they just can't wait to get out of this war. It's just not true. So he's operating with that faulty assumption among men.

That really weakens his ability to negotiate with Putin when he comes armed to that negotiation with information that is grossly inaccurate with which President Putin knows is inaccurate. Yeah, exactly. Do you think American negotiators, not President Trump, but Rubio, Witkoff, and I don't know, the names of the people at the level right below them, Understand the Russian mentality. Do you think they know that the Russians believe that negotiations should go on while the war is continuing, that the Russians are not going to stop the war for the purpose of conducting negotiations? This is part of Russian culture

and Russian history. Yeah, no, they don't understand at all. They're not listening. You know, over the on Friday, once the talks concluded in Istanbul, you know, the Western press and some in the Trump administration like, oh, that's outrageous. The Russians, the Russians are demanding that Ukraine withdraw from Khorasan, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk and Luhansk before they'll even entertain discussions of a ceasefire. How could they? This is over the top. And it's like, guys, Vladimir Putin put that on the table as one of the Russian demands a year ago, June 14th, 2024. And, you know, Sergey Lovroff reiterated that to you and me, along with Mario, when we met with him in the 1st of March.

So the West just isn't paying attention. Russia says it very plainly, very clearly, they're very direct, and the West says, oh, we're not listening to you. It's crazy. The chief Russian negotiator in Istanbul quoted Bismarck of all people saying, the Russians always claim what is theirs. They're not going to give up something that has been historically Russia.

Do you think Rubio and Wittkopf, and I'm going to ask you about the two of them in a minute, their relationship, do you think they understand that? No. And here's the problem. They are conceiving of this war between Russia and Ukraine, as is Donald Trump, as if it's like two kids that don't like each other. That, oh, Russia hates Ukraine and Ukraine hates Russia, we just got to get them apart. That's not the root cause of this. The root cause of this is NATO, the United States pushing NATO to the east. And Donald Trump was just as much a part of that as Barack Obama and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

They've all had a hand in it, as has Biden. So NATO is the issue, the fundamental issue for Russia. Ukraine's just a pawn. Ukraine has been simply a tool used by the West, one, to hopefully attack and destroy Russia. Well, that plan's gone up in smoke. And then to compel Russia to acquiesce to become dependent on the West, to become basically a vassal in much the same way that Europe is now a vassal of the United States. Larry, I agree with everything you've just said. What terrifies me is who's whispering

into President Trump's ear. Is it JD Vance or is it General Kellogg? Oh, it's Kellogg. No, I mean, Vance, I think Vance understands, but you've got to come back. Why is the United States so obsessed with pushing the NATO agenda? And it's reflected in Trump's defense budget. One trillion dollars.

And what is that? That goes to buy weapons systems from General Dynamics, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, go down the long list of defense contractors that are feeding at the federal trough. And one of the reasons you expand NATO is that those new members got to buy US equipment. That's one of the, so you were creating a market for it. Is Rubio trying to marginalize Witkoff? Is Rubio at the present time just Secretary of State in name only? Yeah, boy, Witkoff is,

he's got a leash around his neck and he's been pulled up short. After the first round of talks with Iran, which was four or five weeks ago Witkoff came out suggesting. Oh, yeah, we could live with a limited Enrichment that would allow Iran to enrich it a three point six percent, which is peaceful use It's done around the world every country that's got a nuclear reactor as the rear is enriching at that level, right? got a nuclear reactor as a re is enriching at that level. Right. Oh, and so Iran said, Yeah,

yeah, we'll agree to that. That's basically what's on the table. Now, what cough is back? Not one inch, not one, 1%, nothing. It's all or nothing. And you know, he's doing that is, you know, I think you discussed earlier today with Alistair, because of the enormous pressure from the AIPAC-purchased US Congress within both the Senate and the House side. So you know, Trump's trying to, I guess, please them, but in the process, he's destroying any prospect whatsoever for a deal with Iran. And he's, you know, painting himself again into a corner that, uh, he's going to go the way of George HW Bush. You promise read my lips, no new taxes. Well, Trump was, you know, read my lips and we're not going to get

involved with endless wars overseas. And next thing you know, Oh, probably before the summer's out, he's going to, going to be behind an attack on Iran. That's going to blow up in his face. Do you agree with Alistair that the United States is in no good military position to aid the Israelis in attacking Iran? Yeah, well, we we can aid them. The point is, we're going to suffer significant damage. We're going to lose aircraft that are going to get shot down.

But then in retaliation, Iran will hit US military bases, particularly al-Udeid, which is a massive base in Qatar. I was there back in 2006. And it's only basically a five-minute missile launch from Iran to get there with one of their hypersonic missiles It's it's quite close. So You know, the United States is extremely vulnerable

We could not Defeat the Houthis. Let's be clear about that. Right? It's wrong when Trump came in they said the same nonsense that they're saying about Russia. That, oh, the Biden administration was too soft. You know, with Russia, they're too soft. They didn't really put sanctions on that would hurt and force the price of oil to go up. And now they're saying with the Houthis, they're too soft. They just didn't bomb enough. And then lo and behold, we had seven weeks of bombing

and we lost a billion dollars worth of aircraft and drones and did not stop the Houthis from hitting Israel with missiles. And we didn't stop the Houthis from interfering with Israeli ships in the Red Sea. And what did we do? We retreated. We campaigned any way you want.

We spent a billion dollars. You did the calculation. What did we get for the billion dollars? Embarrassment and exposure to the world that our Navy has limited in its power. So we think, you know, we want to drop these buster, the bunker busting bombs

right on the underground facilities that where Iran has moved some of its sensitive nuclear enrichment programs Well to do that you got to put an aircraft over Iranian territory and I guarantee you be to B-52 whatever they decide to fly over there, one or two of them are going to get shot down. And then all of a sudden if they shot down and the pilots survive, now you've got the embarrassment of Iran holding U.S. pilots as prisoners of war. Oh boy, it won't even be a lawful war. I can't imagine Congress declaring war on Iran.

It poses no national security threat to the United States whatsoever, and we don't have a treaty with Israel. We've been there before. Over the weekend, President Trump, notwithstanding his public snubs of Prime Minister Netanyahu in the Middle East last week, denies that he's having a rift with Prime Minister Netanyahu in the Middle East last week denies that he's having a rift with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Is that denial credible? Yeah, I don't think so, but we shouldn't confuse a rift on a personal basis with Bibi Netanyahu with a rift between Donald Trump and Israeli policy to destroy the Palestinians so Trump because we're still funding

Genocide and it's worse than ever because now it includes starvation correct and we're not doing anything we're in a position to compel Israel to allow the Humanitarian aid and we're not doing that, we're refusing to do that. So we're allowing this genocide to go on. And what's interesting is what came out over the weekend. So Israel's supposedly has launched or is getting ready to launch Operation Guardian, Gideon's sword, I believe it's called.

But they noted that they're only going to use establish the regular army. So Israel's military, a small component of it is the regular army, the much larger component are the reservists. And they were not going to use reservists in this operation because basically they didn't trust them, A, to show up and B, to fight effectively. So, you know, the regulars are going to have to carry that burden. And again, yeah, it's easy to kill women and children who are unarmed. Israel can do that. They're doing that every day. But within that rubble, there are Hamas fighters, and with every dead woman, child, teenager, elderly person, Hamas is

going to seek revenge. And they've created rubble, just like the Nazis did in Stalingrad and just like the Soviet soldiers at the time were able to use that protection to ambush and defeat the Nazis. So Israel is gonna pay a price. What can or will stop the slaughter in Gaza if Trump just continues to pay for it? If the Arab nations, if the Arab and Muslim nations came together and said, hey, we are going to suspend relations with the United States and until the United States takes action to stop Israel. Now, but none of them are willing to do that. You know, they're paying, they paid lip service. They'd rather do business than worry about the deaths of these Palestinians because, you know,

the fact of the matter is the vast majority of the world doesn't care. Does, do members of Congress take seriously their oaths to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution? Do they take seriously their strengths imposed on them, or do they think they can write any law and regulate any behavior that they can get away with politically? Well, we've got, let's put it this way, we've got 75 years since the end of World War II, and so I'm counting from 1950 on, where the Congress has gone, has ignored the Constitution and allowed the President to carry out wars and

attacks overseas at the whim of the President. And you know, in many cases, there's been, you know, economic incentives for members of Congress to go along with that. But whether we're talking the war in Korea, whether we're talking Vietnam, the wars in Central America, the war in Iraq, version one and version two, the attacks in Afghanistan, the war in Syria, the war in Somalia, it's on and on and on. Congress has been unwilling to

hold the executive accountable according to the constitutional powers. They've just, and they're allowed to spend the money. And so that's why, you know, the United States has been the biggest meddler in the affairs of other countries of any country in history. And how do we get out of this mess? The Congress is controlled by AIPAC or by the military industrial complex. Presidents like to kill. It's a vicious cycle that almost seems to be getting worse. Remember Tom Woods, one line, no matter who you vote for, you end up with John McCain.

Yeah, well, and probably our only exit will be if we decide to attack Iran and suffer massive defeat in terms of not being able to compel a government change in Iran and significant damage to our air and naval forces, as well as our ground forces that are based in the Middle East. It will be a shock. Americans will be shocked because we've been told all along, we got the best, we're the greatest. You know, Judge, when you start looking for sort of markers, like what's happened to our middle class?

Well, you know what? Well, in Russia, their middle class has grown from, say, 7% in 1995 to 50 middle class. Well, you know what? While in Russia, their middle class has grown from say 7% in 1995 to 50% now, in the United States, our middle class is shrinking. It's going down. Our literacy levels have gone down. So if you define greatness in terms of having a well-educated population, a population where there's some equality of income

and great economic opportunity, that ain't the United States. Not anymore. Let's go to the other side of the world. What will the United States military do if the Chinese blockade Taiwan? Well, the United States would send ships, and a lot of those ships would be in jeopardy being blown out of the water with Chinese hypersonic missiles. But China is not gonna do that.

I call it the mythology of China being this aggressive military power. It hasn't been that in its history. We've got 5,000 years roughly of history on that front. It's a concoction that the West uses to justify expanding defense spending that benefits who? Oh, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, et cetera. So, yeah, this is a scam.

You know, China believes that Taiwan is part of China, and the United States agreed with that back in 1972, and that remained our position. It's still sort of our position on the books, except now we're saying, no, no, we didn't mean that either. You know, what keeps coming up time and time again, whether we're dealing with China or Russia, is the United States can't honor and abide by any single agreement. We break them all. George W. Bush walked away from anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia.

Donald Trump walked away from the intermediate nuclear forces agreement with Russia. And then, you know, we told the Chinese, Al, we recognize Taiwan as part of China. And now we're saying, no, no, we never met that. We don't mean it. You gotta leave China. You gotta leave Taiwan alive. That is an actual statute signed into law by Jimmy Carter. You may disagree with it, but it's the law of the land.

And it's been the public policy of the United States for 50 years. Yeah, yeah. So this is where we're seeing Trump, his administration is living in an alternate reality. I just watched Carolyn Levitt, the press secretary this morning, insist that, oh, yeah, the terrorists are working so great that China came running, begging for a deal. That's a deal. That's a lie.

It's not true. It was the United States that called China, not vice versa. Correct. China is taking steps. They're gonna try to maintain a relationship with the United States. They don't want a military confrontation, but they're going to disentangle themselves

as much as they can economically from us so that they're going to disentangle themselves as much as they can economically from us so that they're no longer in a position that we think we can bully them. And before that happens, the price of almost everything at Walmart and Amazon will go up. Thank you, Donald Trump. Yeah. You know, again, Trump is saying, oh, it's not going to hurt American consumers. And then Wal-Mart said, yeah, we're going to raise our prices. And Trump said, no,

hold your prices. Again, it just, you know, Donald Trump may understand real estate, but boy, he doesn't understand international trade. Thank you, Larry. It's a pleasure, my dear man. Thanks for letting me go across the board on all these topics. We'll look forward to seeing you on Friday with McGovern. All the best. I'll be there. Thanks, Judge. Thank you. Have a great one. Coming up later today at four o'clock this afternoon on all of these topics, including the pressure on Congress to suppress free speech. You probably know where that is coming from. Professor Jeffrey Sachs,

Jocelyn Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

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