Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson : Does Iran Have the Bomb? Part 2

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

Larry Johnson : Does Iran Have the Bomb? Part 2See 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. Today is Wednesday, June 3rd, dear friend and colleague Larry Johnson joins us now Larry a pleasure thank you for coming back yes sir be the second of your third trips here this week as if you don't have anything to do yeah does the rean have a deliverable nuclear weapon uh I don't know all I all I know is this is uh and I know you had peppy on earlier I haven't had a chance to fully watch what he said but I know that we've been in sync on this we received information

last week, Wednesday, last Thursday, late on Thursday. It is from a source in Pakistan that is the position and access of this person is such that this information that we were provided with is the kind of stuff that this person would have access to. We're not saying it was, we're not talking about some taxi driver or, or somebody who's sitting in a swarma station. This is someone who actually had access this information. And the sequence, what we're told,

we looked at this information is that in the aftermath of the US attacks on Iran in the Persian Gulf, the attacks of Bandar Abbas, the attacks in Keshem Island, the attack that killed for Iranian sailors, sailors that the Iranian National Security Council met. And out of that meeting, President Posashkin was directed to call up Prime Minister Sharif and basically say three things. And those three things were, and remember, we're getting this information last week.

And I didn't, when I talked to you on Monday at 930, we didn't even have the first part of this, which was Iran was going to pull out of negotiations. They were going to end the negotiations with the United States. Now, remember, when we talked on Monday at 9 to 930, that news had not broken. Right. But that was one of the, that was the first thing that this source said was going to happen. After that, it went, oh. So the source was accurate, but that decision had nothing to do with nukes.

That's because the Israelis continued to model up. No, no, no, it had everything to do with nukes. Okay, go ahead. Because that was the first decision that was communicated to the prime minister of Pakistan, Sharif by President Poseskin said, next, we'll withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty. We're going to withdraw from talks about nukes. That's going to be off the table. And then three, and it's conditional that if these attacks, if you don't, basically, if you don't get the Israelis back in the corral to stop attacking the Lebanese people and the Palestinian people.

And if you don't stop your attacks on us, then there will be. a demonstration where we will detonate a nuclear device so that you know that we have one. That was the essence of it. That is the guts of what Pepe told us three hours ago. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, that's what that's what. Now, people say, well, how do you know are you? Look, folks, all we're doing

is reporting what a source who we know has access. What he's saying. Now, is he line? possibly, but I'm just saying he believes it. That's why he's saying it, because after that, Sharif got on the phone with this foreign minister and said, inform Marco Rubio, inform the United States. Pakistan's and foreign minister gets on the phone, talks to Rubio. Now, here's another reason I think this information is credible.

Have you noticed the change in Donald Trump's tone vis-a-vis Iran over the last four days? Has he been talking about, I'm going to obliterate them? We're going to eliminate their civilization. We're going to wipe them out. No, he was saying that weeks ago. But he's in fact been surprisingly conciliatory.

And notice yesterday that the United States, again, hit, attacked an Iranian ship with a hellfire missile fired by a helicopter that came out of Bahrain, and then attacked a communication station, and Iran retaliated by hitting a ship connected to the United States with an anti-ship missile, punching a hole in its side, and attacked the U.S. airfields in Kuwait, and including the Kuwaiti International Airport.

So, and at no point did Donald Trump come out and say, see, Iran, you're getting what it takes. were showing none of the true social man he was silent silent when we started this interview i asked you if iran had a nuclear weapon you said you don't know do you believe it does do you believe these sources that reached out to you and peffay what i believe is they believe it okay uh and look i could i could make i could make a case right let me just stop you is this correct what you said on sonar 21 earlier today yes

Yes. Okay. So the, and let me put it this way. It looks like now Donald Trump and his administration are taking that seriously. So it is, this doesn't expect that CIA, MI, M.I.X. and Mossad know this? Probably. I would hope so. But, and again, this doesn't invalidate, you know, previous assessments,

by the intelligence community that Iran didn't have a nuke, but the circumstances have changed. And those circumstances are the cumulative effect of Iran's attempts to enter in to negotiations with the United States to achieve what both the previous administrations and the Trump administration claimed was that Iran would not have a nuclear device. and yet every time Iran entered in, they did it with JCPOA, Trump tore it up and walked away.

They did it last June. They were in negotiations with the United States on that. Israel launches a surprise, sneak attack that led to the 12-day war. And then two days on the 26th of February, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister of Oman is in Washington, talking about how great the talks, the progress that was made in Switzerland, between the United States and Iran,

that he was hopeful and optimistic an agreement would come. And the United States had already made a decision to attack Iran. Right. And that attack was launched two days later. So the Iranians are like, you know what? Whatever we do, they ignore. And so I think a decision was made shortly after that, that, okay, we're now going to get an active nuclear device

so that we can defend ourselves. Not to use offensively, but at least, say, okay, now we got it. So stop. I'm going to play a clip, which is a composite of what Pepe told us this morning and asked you to comment on it. And after the clip, I'm going to ask you, did your source reveal where it came from? Was it domestically developed or did some country? And I'll ask you what countries would be in that category, gave it to them. But here's Pepe this morning, Larry. It's about two minutes long. I asked our Pakistani connection to, can you grill this guy again and again and again?

And at the end, we got a definitive answer. Look, if I didn't want you to break the story, I would never have given it to you. And this is what our sources revealed to us. This is the bombshell in itself. Peshashkin, to Sharif, over the phone directly, he delivered a very well-structured three step sort of ultimatum that he said to Sharif should be communicated to the White House immediately. Number one, which is something that the Iranians have been insisting on for the past few weeks. No nuclear talks, that's it, unless we go to stage number one, end of our wars,

stage number two, we start discussing straight of our rules, then we have no. nuclear talks. Point number two. No more prospective nuclear treaty framework. These were the words that our source... Meaning nothing like the JCPOA? Exactly. Not even getting towards a JCPOA,

which, considering the circumstances, the best that Trump administration can get now is a sort of diluted JCPOA. And Iranians are saying, no, not even that. Because first you need to go to stage one and two. End of our wars. And then we start discussing hormones. Without that, we discuss nothing.

And then the number three, which is at the heart of what we revealed on Monday. And of course, there's a lot of controversy more than expected everywhere. Pesachan said, if American threats persist, we can go for the detonation of a nuclear device on Iranian soil without specifying. Is this a bomb that Iran already has? Is this a bomb that only Iran developed? Is this a bomb that they could count on Russian input to develop? Or it was delivered, ready made, let's put it this way, by Pakistan or by North Korea?

nothing. The source did not elaborate on that. He was elaborating on what Pesachan actually told Sharif. So this detonation would happen in the words of Pesachan translated by our source. Executed not as an act of war, but as an irreversible sovereign demonstration of capability to control scallation. dominance. Agreed? Oh, yeah. No, it's absolutely right. It is, how did Iran do this?

A cold of mine, Ringo Starr's song. I get by with a little help from my friends. Iran has the scientific engineering capability to do it. And the major reason up to this point that they have never entertained even getting a nuclear device was because within, it's not just confined to Shia theology, but within Islam, killing non-combatants is a sin. And it's one thing to kill military personnel.

The killing non-combatants is a sin. So that's why they stayed away from that. The same way that they didn't go after chemical weapons during the war with Iraq back in the 1980s, even though we, the United States, were supplying Iraq with the chemical weapons or the precursors to make it. Where do you think the nuclear device or devices,

and I'll have to ask you how many you think there are, because surely if they have only one, they're not gonna waste it in the desert, but where do you think the nuclear devices originated? No, I think the originated within, most likely within Iran. Now, the important point to make, as Pepe noted, Peschian was directed

to communicate to the Prime Minister of Pakistan. talked over the phone. I'm pretty sure that they don't have a secure telephone, that they're not using a tactical satellite radio. I could be wrong. That means UIA, MI6, and Mossad heard it. Yeah, that's my point. In fact, that may have been the very point, the reason they did it.

If they did it over an open line, they wanted to make sure that everybody heard it, including Israelis, unit 8200, they intercepted it, United States. And so everybody's got to now take a big breath and go, Is this for real? Again, when you get into these kinds of issues with intelligence, you know, this person, once you know the bona fides of the person,

you know that they do have this kind of access. They are not hearing something around the water cooler, or they're not hearing rumors in the bathroom. This is something that they would have been involved with the decision making from the standpoint of Pakistan knowing what is being communicated with Iran and what Iran is communicating with them. So, and that's why I say I am struck by how cautious Trump has been. You know, so far, we're day three this week since that news broke.

And I don't recall him once making an overt threat against Iran like he did two weeks ago, three weeks ago, four weeks ago. So I think, I think the intelligence. community, it says, you know, they very well may have one. They may very well, more than one, because I think both Ted Postal's made the point, and I think John Mearsheimer made the same point on your show yesterday. Right. That if they're going to do it, they better have more than one because if you got multiples,

then that changes Israel's entire calculation. So what do Israel in the United States do now, try and find out where these things are and destroy them? not be destroyed. Yeah, they'll be kept in where they can't be destroyed. I mean, Iran's nuts. You know, they started building,

they built all these underground cities and missile factories in the aftermath of 2003 when we invaded Iraq. And they were hardened specifically against a nuclear blast. And we've already seen that, you know, these are so-called obliterated, even U.S. intelligence is reported

over the last two weeks that, you know, these things that were supposedly obliterated, they're wide open and operating again. So I think actually, and this may be the silver lining to this, it creates more incentive for an actual serious negotiation

on the part of the United States, but part of that's going to require reining in Israel to get Israel to stop its campaign of murdering Lebanese and Palestinians. Well, only a Donald Trump with a backbone can do that. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I'm thinking of the bitter irony. And we, you and I and all the guys and gals on the show have talked about this, of Tulsi Gabbard saying under oath before the Congress, Iran has not been developing a nuclear weapon since 2003. And then Trump's saying, I don't care what she says. I think they do have one. Now it turns out she was wrong and Trump was right. Well, no, she wasn't wrong. When she testified on that, she was correct. They hadn't done it.

This is a very recent vintage because that testimony is about 14 months ago. No, no, I think this is recent. Again, Iran didn't make this decision until after February 28th for the second time Iran was attacked out of the blue after engaging in good faith negotiations. In fact, this last round, they were talking about having made the most progress they had in any prior negotiation. And what does the United States do with along with Israel? They assassinate the top leadership. Right. And here's Mostaba al-Khameni, the new Ayatollah.

He's there. He witnesses the death of his wife, the death of his baby girl, the death of his father, the death of his mother. Now he's in a position to influence this decision. You tell me any decent person in the world, if they witness their family being murdered, that they wouldn't seek some sort of justice? I mean, we're talking, this has nothing to do with any particular culture. This is ingrained in human beings. If you attack my family, I will defend my family.

Right, right. Has anybody picked this up besides you and Pepe? Anybody in the West covering this besides just? judging freedom. Some other podcasts have mentioned it. But no, it hasn't, you know, and people are going to come out and say, oh, Johnson's making, look, folks,

all I'm doing is telling you what a source that both Pepe and I have been able to check out that we believe that this person has access to this kind of information, is in a position to know this kind of thing. And that's what he is saying. He believes it.

Now, can I prove that? Absolutely, I can't. So there's the caveat. You mentioned the Beatles song. I mean, what outside help might they have had? Pakistan itself, North Korea, Russia? All of the above. I mean, right now, Russia and China are actively engaged

with helping Iran stabilize in the aftermath of that attack on the 28th. And there's ample reports about, both technology, military equipment, technical advice from experts. All of that's being provided. And, you know, I imagine one of the things I learned yesterday from a completely, it's a recently retired member of the U.S. military, an officer who was involved with Intel. and he's been directly involved with the stuff surrounding Central Command that has oversight of this war with Iran. He said there's a lot of frustration among the intel analysts because the intelligence is being ignored.

So I said, okay, that is, and, you know, that may impart be, you know, part of Tulsi Gabbard's frustration. And then, you know, let's compound that with here's, Trump bringing in a man that is completely, totally unqualified to be director of national intelligence. And it's just, it's making a joke. But on the other hand, Trump now has got, if the intelligence community has come back in and said, hey, yeah, we intercepted. We've got the recording of Poseskians conversation with Prime Minister Sharif. And that's what they said.

What Johnson and Escobar are saying, that's exactly what they said. Wow. So how will the, how will the, I'm getting to the home builder becoming the DNI, how will the intelligence community react to this guy? The statute itself, the statute creating this requires a substantial amount of experience and intelligence. Yeah, they'll be popping champagne corks because they'll have a, this doof is sitting at the top. He won't know what to even look for.

They'll be running circles around him. They'll be, they'll be, they'll be feeding him cow mull. and telling them it's a new form of chocolate moose. All right, consistent with your shirt today. Thank you, Larry. Thank you very much for breaking this news with us. We'll see you

at the Intelligence Community Roundtable on Friday. Unless something dramatic happens in the next 24 hours, Chris will find you. Yeah, I pray for peace, man. I pray for peace. Same here. All right, my friend. Thank you so much. All the best. Okay. Bye.

Wow. Well, I'll ask Phil Jarrelde about this at 3 o'clock. So at 3 o'clock, the great Phil Giraldi, and of course, a full day for you tomorrow. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.