Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson : Epstein and Kirk Attack Trump from Their Graves

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Larry Johnson : Epstein and Kirk Attack Trump from Their GravesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, November 17, 2025, staying up late for us and directly from Moscow as our dear friend and regular colleague, Larry Johnson. Larry, never wanted to skip a beat. Thank you very much for joining us. I know you've had long, full days and are doing much traveling, but thank you for accommodating my schedule. Before I ask you about what is happening here, we can't hear you, Larry. Okay, can you hear me now?

Yes, yeah, we got you now. I'm filing a medical complaint against you. All the times have been asked to sign an autograph on your behalf. My arm is tired. Did you actually sign the autograph pretending to me? Absolutely. Dude, you can't believe how many people can't, you're on Judge Napolitano.

Then I go, you're Larry Johnson, though. You're on Judge Napolitano. Oh, God. Chris, play the clip that Larry sent us of him with the Russian ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Judge, meet Ambassador Balakhanov. Yeah. He is a fan of Judge Napolitano,

and your show is very important here in Russia. So he says, thank you. Many TV viewers will share this point of view. So best regards. Thank you. Well, thank you for that. Larry, how did you run into the ambassador? Alistair Crook and I were at the new school of economics,

which is one of the leading universities in Moscow. And so Alistair and I were sitting side by side, and the ambassador was one of the participants. And he came up later. And again, you know, he's talking about you, not talking about me. I'm going, hey, I'm somebody. No, no, no, no. Judge Napolitano. It's very flattering.

And thank you very much for mentioning. I want to talk to you about NATO and I want to talk to you about Ukraine. I want to talk to you about MAGA bleeding support over here. But before I do, earlier today, you. You may not know this. President Trump says he's willing to negotiate with President Maduro of Venezuela. What are they going to negotiate? Yeah, well, what they're going to negotiate is giving U.S. access to the oil

and the U.S. avoiding going into Venezuela and risking the chance of getting its rear end kicked in. You know, the United States has had an enormous military force deployed off. the coast of Venezuela now for three months. You can't deploy that kind of force and not use it without it degrading and losing capability. They've lost capability. And I think at least some people with, you know, an ounce of brains around Donald Trump is saying, we can't afford the risk of attacking Venezuela. Because if they do, you know, if the United States did,

we would run the risk of losing ships. Venezuela has the capability to launch missiles that would sink U.S. destroyers and or the aircraft carrier, number one. Number two, the United States does not have enough personnel to land on Venezuela and then be able to, quote, take control of Caracas. A large number of them would be killed. Three, the United States can launch some airstrikes, but in launching those airstrikes, the risk of U.S. aircraft getting shot down is extremely high.

So I think Donald Trump has finally come to realize, you know what, it may be better to negotiate with Venezuela. What would it cost? What would it cost the federal government to amass that kind of an armada in that place? And is it risky to do so by exposing other areas to be unprotected, by where that armada normally operates. Yeah, about a billion dollars, number one. Number two, Venezuela has more military capability than the Houthis, all right? Remember the Houthis?

We were there in March for seven weeks. And the Donald Trump says, oh, they capitulated. We're pulling out. Well, they didn't capitulate, but we pulled out. Why? because we could not sustain the losses that we were incurring in the Red Sea. So, you know, the word's starting to spread around the gold. Yeah, U.S. talk's tough, but man, they cannot hang.

The Houthis beat them. And now what we're demonstrating is up against Venezuela, the United States is not going to risk it militarily because it would do significant damage to the United States. would expose us, frankly, as a paper tiger. What conceivable threat to the national security of the United States does Nicholas Maduro's Venezuela pose? Zero. Zero threat. Well, he's exporting fentanyl, okay? I've got some skin in this game. My 39-year-old nephew died in my house from a fentanyl overdose, okay?

So I'm not, I don't ignore the tragic dimensions of this. But Venezuela is not the primary mover of fentanyl. It's not the primary mover of heroin. It's not the primary mover of cocaine. When it deal with that, deal with Mexico, deal with Colombia. Not Venezuela. And this attempt to destroy Venezuela militarily, again, it's exposed to the United States. I claim as the paper tiger.

We make these huge threats, but when it comes down to actually having to deliver on it, we're not capable because Venezuela has missiles that can be launched from F-16s that they're flying, that can hit the U.S. aircraft carrier and hit the U.S. destroyers, and basically sink them. The United States doesn't want to do that because it's going to expose us

as weaklings, not as this enormous country with great military strength. You and I happily spent a lot of time in Moscow. I wish I were with you this time, but I'm not. But have you been able to put your finger on the pulse of Russian thinking, whether it's elites or average Russians about the war in Ukraine? And if you have been able to do that, what have you gleaned from that? They are trying to figure out what is it that Donald Trump's trying to do. They are completely confused by Donald Trump.

However, that said, what Russia is doing now, according to their general staff, they have acquired sufficient troops that they're launching multiple attacks, at least in nine sectors, along the line of conflict, that Ukraine is unable to resist. And so Russia is advancing rapidly to the West. And Ukraine can't stop them. Is there any pressure, obviously, would be not public, but is there any pressure on President Putin

to bring the war to a swift conclusion or swifter conclusion than his slow methodical pace has been producing? Zero. Zero pressure. If anything, there are a number of Russians that believe the Russian military ought to move with more force. But what we're seeing with the Russian military, they have recognized, you know, they've been building up and gathering their forces over time.

You know, just because you mobilize the number of people, they're not ready to fight. You've got to, you know, they've got to be trained for three to six months. And so Russia is just, they're tending to their business. They are building up their forces. Those forces, as they're coming online, provide additional resources that the Ukrainians are incapable of stopping. And so what we're seeing right now is a slow but gradual collapse of the Ukrainian front line. Is there any talk among the Russians of Trump's murdering people on the high seas? off the coast of Venezuela and off the coast of Colombia.

Yeah, I got a call the other night from BBC. And BBC was saying, boy, you know, the British intelligence is going to stop providing intelligence to the United States. What do you think about that? And I said, well, I give the Brits credit that they finally recognize the United States is engaged in an illegal activity. And what was funny is about 30 minutes later, that's okay well we're going to go a different direction okay they didn't like what I had to say

but the fact of the matter is when the Brits are calling out the United States and the French as well for carrying out what are illegal under international law attacks on these quote drug boats you know what if those boats are actually carrying narcotics the United States The military, the United States Coast Guard has the ability to seize those boats. Right. To take control of the cocaine or the fentanyl, whatever it is. And then once you have those people in custody, you can sweat them. Hey, cooperate with us.

You're not going to go to jail. You know, that is the perfect thing for them to do. Some of those people would trade their freedom, or at least trade a lesser jail sentence in return for squealing on the higher-ups who dispatch them. Absolutely. And now there's no evidence. What remains now are the families of fishermen who were murdered talking about how they can

bring actions against the government of the United States, which if they do in a U.S. federal court, will finally get this before a federal judge. but Larry, the same office in the Justice Department that told George W. Bush he could torture and Barack Obama that he could kill Americans with a drone told Donald Trump that he and Higgseth can murder all the people in the high seas they want and keep secret the legal rationale for doing so.

Your point is very well taken. You and Ritter and McGovern and the others have educated our audience that MI6 is more daring than the CIA, and even they're saying it's a war crime. Listen, those people in the Department of Justice, they need to go back to the Judge Napolitano School of Law, okay? They need to be instructed in the basics, the fundamentals of the Constitution,

about how you produce evidence, and about under what circumstances, is the United States government allowed to carry out extrajudicial executions of people? Right. And last time I checked, the Constitution does not endorse extrajudicial execution of people. The Constitution states that there is the presumption of innocence until the government proves its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Correct. That this person or persons were engaged in criminal activity that could cause the loss of life. You know what? That's the Constitution. And I had 28 ancestors that fought for

this. And this didn't start with Donald Trump. This started with Bill Clinton, continued with George W. Bush, continued with Barack Obama, continued with Joe Biden. And it's wrong. the American people need to stand up and say this is wrong because murdering people like this just because we think they're bad guys I've been around intelligence enough over good God now the last 40 years and I know that intelligence can be wrong and yet to use wrong intelligence in order to take the lives of human beings is it's a sin against God. It's a sin against the Constitution. It's wrong. It's murder, pure and simple. I don't know if you're aware of this, because you're in Russia, but last night, President Trump did a 180 on the Epstein

files. And when he was told that scores of Republicans are going to vote in favor of favor of the release, he called upon Republicans to release the Epstein files. Now, this is, in plain English, ridiculous because they spent three or four hours stiff-arming the congresswoman from Colorado to get her not to sign the petition. Then Massey told them of all the Republicans that are going to vote in favor of this. Larry, the resolution. orders the Justice Department to surrender the files. Guess who the Justice Department works for and who could, on his own order, the files surrendered. President Trump.

Well, you know, Alistair Kirk says something today in this briefing we were doing. He goes, Trump doesn't read. And I had to interject. He said, well, Alistair, my friend, I disagree with you. I agree Trump doesn't read intelligence briefings but by God he reads polls

and the polls tell a different story the polls tell the story that hey Donald Trump you better step up release these files like you promised to in the last

in your presidential campaign or if you don't you're losing us as a base That's why he did the 180-degree turn. Or is Annalina Berbach of the EU calls it a 360? But it wasn't about face. Whatever you want to call it. You did an interesting piece recently.

Maybe you did it on the plane. I'm not sure where you were about MAGA bleeding support over Epstein and over the death of Charlie Kirk, who shortly before he was. murdered, recognized that he had been wrong to support unwaveringly the Netanyahu regime, was pressured by his Zionist big bucks donors to change his mind, and he told them no and was fearful of his own death. Well, we know what happened to Charlie, but we also know, and you wrote about it. In fact, you cited the numbers in your Sonar 21 piece that Trump is grievously

hemorrhaging support amongst his own people. Yeah. The under 30 crowd is abandoning him dramatically. Tucker Carlson, you know, 5.1 million subscribers. Candice Owen, 5.5 million subscribers. McFentay's well over 5 million. You know, these are not, in consequential numbers. And Trump is losing major support among those under 30. And frankly, I think even those, some of them who are up to my age, I'm 70, he's lost my support. I think he has disgraced himself. I think he has proven to be a liar. He was given a chance to do the right thing. And instead, he has submitted himself completely. to these Zionist donors.

It's not America first, it's Zionist first. America last. Some of the people that you are rubbing elbows with are people close to the Kremlin, and some of them work in the Kremlin, and you told us earlier that they're befuddled by Trump. Is there a view that this is Richard Nixon redux, that, in other words, he is intentionally trying to confuse them and keep them off balance,

or do they think he just doesn't know what the hell is going on and doesn't have serious thoughts in his head? No, I think they've come to the conclusion that the head of the CIA, that Marco Rubio as the Defense is the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, And it's Scott Besson, the Secretary of Treasure, that they're the ones calling the shots. And that Susie Wiles, who is clearly a Zionist puppet, is controlling all of this. Well, she is the chief of staff in the White House and the former manager of Prime Minister Netanyahu's last campaign. I mean, you can't make this stuff up, Larry. Yeah, no.

And so the combination of those three, they have, they pushed Trump into corner. Now, with Trump's announcement with respect to Epstein, I firmly believe that in January, early February of 20 of this year, Trump was briefed on the danger that exposing Epstein and his activities, what that represented to both the CIA and Assad. And that's one of the reasons you try to shut it down. Nothing to see here.

Move along. But I think Susie Wiles came to him and said, hey, you can't keep this up. You are bleeding support across the board. And Trump can read polls. And instead of bleeding support, he's going to do what he can to retain it. Now, with this force a change in U.S. policy, both with respect to Israel and with respect to Epstein, I hope so. But if Trump doesn't, he's dead. The Republican Party is dead, come midterms of next year.

Is he at his full capacity physically and mentally? I don't think so. You know, we all have filters where sometimes we think things we should say, but we go, yeah, I probably shouldn't say that. Trump has lost that filter. He has said a number of things that are so grotesque and over the top that it shows that that safety catch in the brain ain't working. So I think that's another element that's involved here,

that as we move into next year, there may be serious questions arise about Trump's mental competence to continue as president. You know, I think the key factors in this will be Don Jr. and Eric Trump. You know, they love their father and their good sons in that regard. But they recognize that he may be doing

some damage to himself that will be irreparable if they don't, you know, stop him, get him out of the way, maybe have him resign, maybe have J.D. Vance take over. We'll see. but Trump's current policies are destroying any hopes that he had of a legacy that people would celebrate years from now. Here's Dr. John Gartner, graduate of Princeton and Johns Hopkins Medical School, one of the most sought-after psychologists here in New York City.

There are many clips of them. We're just going to play one. Chris, the first of the two of them, analyzing Trump's mental state. All of these things are going to get worse. You know, I always say, look at Donald Trump today, because that's the best Donald Trump you're ever going to see, because dementia doesn't stay the same and it doesn't get better. It only gets worse. It's a rock rolling downhill.

What do you think is wrong with President Trump? Two, maybe three major things. The first thing is that he has the most severe personality disorder, actually, that a human being can have. It's called malignant narcissism. It was originally introduced by Eric Frome, who escaped the Nazis, to explain the psychology of Hitler. And it has four components, narcissism, of course, but also psychopathy, or what we call anti-social personality disorder, so lying, breaking laws and norms, having no remorse for

violating the rights of others, also paranoia and finally sadism. A lot of what he does is gleefully destructive and harmful. And it actually gives him enormous pleasure to hurt people and to destroy things. Make sense to you? Can't hear you, Larry. Sorry, somehow I got turned off. Okay. Yeah, it makes an enormous amount of sense.

You know, Donald Trump's 80. You know, my mother, when she turned 84, I was noticing significant change. in her mental status. She was previously always a very kind person. She got a little bit more snippy and cranky once she hit 84. And I frankly, I think I'm seeing a little bit of that with Donald Trump.

You know, there are ways, if you disagree with Marjorie Telly Green, there's a way to take the high road and appear classy instead of grotesque. And Donald Trump's choosing the grotesque He's doing the same with Thomas Massey, and the same with Rand Paul. Right. You know, these are, actually, I believe these are legislators who are not your traditional

politicians trying to shine themselves up for an election. They genuinely believe what they say. And for Trump to reject them outright like that, I think is a disservice to his presidency and the disservice to America. Larry, will we see you for the Intelligence Community Roundtable on Friday? When are you going to be back? Believe it or not, I'll get back sometime Thursday night. I'll be there, man.

I may be sleepy, but I'll be there. And I think you and I are going to be together, I by Zoom, of course, remote, on Wednesday morning, my time, Wednesday afternoon, your time with our friend Natalia, Godfrey, and whoever it is, we'll be interviewing. Maria Zakarova. Oh, good Lord. She didn't tell me that. Well, she's a good friend of yours and mine, and I look forward to it. Larry, thank you very much, my dear friend.

I know it's the middle of the night, but we deeply appreciate it. Anything for you, Judge. God love you, Larry. All the best. All right. Bye-bye. Bye. Coming up at 4 o'clock this afternoon, cleanup hitter on all of this, Scott Ritter, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.