Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson : Trump's Ukraine Dilemma.

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Larry Johnson : Trump's Ukraine Dilemma.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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That's an equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited. plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, September 29th, 2025. Larry Johnson will be here in just a moment on Trump's Ukraine dilemma. Or does he not have a dilemma?

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Call Lear Capital now at 8005114620 or visit Learjudge.napp.com. No one is going to protect your wealth for you. You need to do it yourself, and now is the time. Larry, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for accommodating my schedule, as always. Before we get into Trump and Ukraine, and is this really a handoff to the Europeans, and can the Europeans take the ball and run with it to continue the football analogy? Trump has been murdering Venezuela, and I know you've done work on this,

and I want to talk about it, Trump has been murdering, murdering Venezuelan civilians claiming their members of the Tren de Aragua gang. At the same time, he's sending naval ships outside of right off the coast in international waters. Let's start with Trend de Aragua. How long have they been around? First mention of them is in 2018 in press in Latin America, and I believe, Peru was one of those. What makes 2018

a fascinating date is that's the date that year that Donald Trump, as president, authorized maximum pressure campaign on Venezuela. Now, if somebody was to argue that that was done just diplomatically and through Department of

Treasury and that the CIA was not involved, I have a bridge to sell you. Okay? So, you know, look, During my time, I was at the CIA when we went after Manuel Noriega, and there was an analyst in my branch. She was being briefed regularly by the Directorate of Operations who were involved with this comprehensive plan to create a pretext that would justify a U.S. invasion in Panama. Well, it sure looks to me that's exactly what's going on. Trende Aragua is either a creation of the intelligence agency,

or it's a group that the agency has funneled money into or encouraged to become this face of the threat to the United States and to go out and create this narrative that that's where all the drug trafficking is coming from. I can't emphasize enough that just because you got some people in a boat, And you think that they're carrying drugs. Let's say that, in fact, you know they're carrying drugs. You know that they're transporting drugs. Just like assume that you're a cop in New York City or in Baltimore and Philadelphia.

And you see these two drug dealers on the corner. Right. See them go up to a car door and they sell drugs to somebody. And you see them take the money. You do not have the right to shoot and kill them. I mean, you wouldn't allow that in the United States. That would be considered murder by those police. Now, if you went up to try to arrest them, they pulled out guns, then, yeah, you could kill them because they represented an immediate threat to your life or could cause grievous bodily harm.

Well, we're doing the same, you know, we're faced with the same circumstance, except we're in international waters. and in those international waters, instead of stopping the boat, seizing the drugs, we're killing them. So we're using Trennairagua to create this narrative, oh, the drug trafficking that said in the United States

is coming out of Venezuela. That's a lie. But we're using it so that there is this pretext that Trump's going to attack. I don't know when, but the indications, you cannot assemble the force

that we have off the coast Venezuela and keep it there indefinitely. It's too expensive. All right. I'll talk to, I want to talk to you about the size of that force and what they're likely to do in a minute. But back to Trend de Aragua, the recently retired chief federal prosecutor for drug interdiction cases, federal, says Trend de Aragua is engaged in human smuggling, not in drugs. Okay. A, what is Trump talking about? B, would the CIA be aiding them in drugs or human smuggling just to create this pretext?

Would the CIA break the law so blatantly? Well, we already have a recent example of, this is in Syria, with the new president, Al-Shada, who was a member of al-Qaeda. Then ISIS, then Al-Nusra. Then he had this dramatic break, so-called dramatic break with al-Qaeda. He spent five years, I think it was at least five years in prison in Iraq, as David Petraeus noted the other day, while Petraeus was in charge of the military operation in Iraq.

This is a guy who carried out and supervised fighters that carried out terrorist attacks against Christians, Al-Witts, and Shia Muslims. This was a guy who was involved with chopping heads off of people. Yet, that very guy had the backing and support of the CIA, and the CIA played a direct role on with the Brits and the Turks and installing him as a new president of Syria, even though the guy had a $10 million reward on his head

for his prior acts of terrorism. And I would simply know that if you go read the State Department reports on terrorism, And for like 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, Hayatahir al-Sham was listed as one of the top 10 terrorist groups. In other words, this Al-Shara carried out more terrorist attacks in two years than were attributed to Hamas over a 25-year period. Is this the same human being who's but, metaphorically speaking, General Petraeus Kist in that tape we watched last week? Oh, yeah, same one. So, I said, this, funded by the CIA, aware of the fact that it was cutting off hands and heads.

Yeah, it was, but, you know, this goes back to what we did in Afghanistan. We armed Mujahideen, holy jihadists, and then later used them to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia as well. So with that as a, is a prior evidence, is it far-fetched to suggest that the agency, might also have ties and connections to help create and fan the flames for Trend de Aragua to be this threat that we can justify attacking Venezuela. I absolutely believe that. So Bibi Netanyahu created Hamas, so he'd have an excuse to destroy the Palestinians. Yeah, well, so Hamas was a creation without Netanyahu's direct involvement, but once it was organized, then the Zionists and Netanyahu made sure that they would fund it and get money

to it to keep it strong for the exact reason that you just mentioned to destroy any chance of creating a genuine Palestinian state. How much of an armada do we have off the coast of Venezuela? Is it known publicly? Yeah, yeah. Four missile cruisers that launched, you know, these would be missiles that could be. be attacked to attack inside Venezuela, one missile cruiser, three amphibious landing ships that carry approximately 4,500 Marines and naval personnel, and then you've got a variety of

air assets that are deployed into Puerto Rico. So, yeah, no, it's a significant military force. Now, it's not a force significant enough to be able to attempt a, uh, uh, amphibious landing and to try to carry out a ground attack in Venezuela, at least I hope that's not their plan, because 4,500 Marines would get chewed up in a heartbeat, but it's more likely what the United States will do is they'll target certain areas that claim that they're blowing up drug labs where the actual target may be trying to kill Maduro. Now, understand, this program started in 2018, and I believe what happened, I don't

don't have, you know, can I prove this? No. But it would, the way it would work is Trump would sign a finding. The CIA would then put together a program. And then even after Trump left office, that CIA effort could continue to go on. Because frankly, it was something that the Biden administration endorsed as well. And there were, there were a variety of efforts. Now, Maduro, Nicholas Maduro, has been hollering, hey, you know, the CIA is after me. And we keep saying, no, that's a lie. That's just, you're just paranoid. So, but actually, I believe that projects, you know, the circumstantial evidence

indicates the project started in 2018. The Trump administration admitted to a maximum pressure initiative. And then they were very public about their support for Juan Guaido, who was designated as the new president of Venezuela that the United States found acceptable. Now a grad student in Miami, according to Anya Parenthold, Mrs. Max Blumenthal, should, I know I'm all over the place, but I want to pick your fertile brain. Should Benjamin Netanyahu be worried that he is hemorrhaging support in the United States of America for his genocide and a starvation, particularly among young people? Yes. Yeah, that's why I think one of the reasons that they're trying to get controlled. control of TikTok so that you can shape the narrative.

But, you know, when you and I were, you know, growing up in the 50s and 60s, you know, our information came over television. And with television, it was actually fairly, it was pretty easy then to get a controlled narrative because there were only limited number of outlets. Well, now it's not so easy. I mean, this internet thing is a real problem unless you just shut it. down because shows like yours and others on the internet no matter how much they try to tamp it down they can't silence it and uh the the people who are under the age of you know 30 and younger

you know they they have no memory of uh of the kind of what i call the exodus generation those of us who grew up with the movie exodus which portrayed a particular narrative of David versus Goliath as far as Israel versus all the nasty Arabs. Now they're seeing something quite different. They cannot ignore the photographs of the mutilated bodies of children in Gaza, murdered by Zionist soldiers. You probably remember that famous one-liner, horrible human being, but very telling, President Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, saying, when I lost Kronkite, I lost the public. Because Walter Cronkite was the principal means, and for millions of Americans, the only means through which they learned what was happening in Vietnam.

Let me give you a fun fact on that. In 1968, the total audience for the news shows at night. So Walter Cronkite, the David Brinkley, and I forget who the other one was. but total audience was 54 million okay and that was back in an age when we had like 180 200 million people in the country um cronkite audience alone was 28 million okay in any given night today or no actually I ran these numbers in August of 2016 in August of 2016 the combined audience of CNN Fox MSNB ABC, ABC, CBBS, and NBC. So both, you know, the cable as well as the regular news shows. Their total combined audience for all of them, 27 million.

Wow. So just shows the difference in the kind of influence that Cronkite had back then compared to how sort of, I guess, watered down the media has become today. Are the Zionists in America going to come after alternative? media like the show what you and I are on now? It wouldn't surprise me at all. You know, there's, but, you know, you can't, trying to control the people has proved difficult.

Remember, when they got rid of Candace Owens at the Daily Wire, because she was, quote, anti-Semitic in their view, just because she happened to ask some very tough questions that were not favorable for the Zionists, what happened? Well, her show, she's now like got four or five million subscribers, and the daily wire is in bankruptcy proceedings or appears to be. So, you know, the people will follow where they find information that's fresh, that's truthful, that's candid. And, you know, that's one of the reasons your show's been growing. What is your take? I want to go to Ukraine now.

What is your take on what Trump is trying to accomplish? Has he handed off the ball to Europe? Yeah, he's done. Can they take the ball and run with it? Yeah. He's done, he's done the Pontchus pilot thing. He said, hey, Europe, hey, NATO, this is your problem. And apparently not recognizing or admitting that the United States is the key member of NATO.

But let's set that aside. But the only thing he said in that true social post, the truth, as he called it, that he put out last, I guess it was Tuesday, is the, despite sounding like General Kellogg, you know, Russia's losing, Ukraine's winning, Russia's economies and tatters, etc. The only concrete proposal that he made in that was, hey, NATO can buy all the weapons at once from us here in the United States. And initially, the reaction from people like even Lindsey Graham and Mark Ruta and Kayakales, the foreign minister for the year, they were all like, yay! And then they went, oh, wait a second. You know, A, the United States doesn't have any weapons for us to buy right now. We're going to have to wait a while.

It's not like they got warehouses of inventory bulging out that they can't wait to get rid of. And Trump made it very clear, this is your fight, not ours. Hey, good luck. And remember, he ended it. Good luck to both Ukraine and Russia. Good luck, you guys. So, NATO,

take up your metaphor, if given a ball, they'd try to eat it. You know, they'd be looking at it. So they're not going to be running anywhere except for cover. So when Lindsay Graham rejoices,

because the president calls Russia a paper tiger and makes a hyperbolic and the irrational statement like Ukraine can win back Crimea and the Dunbuss. Does he not know that Trump is handing the ball off to the Europeans and this is a neocon nightmare? I don't think he knew that at first. I think now with some reflection over the weekend, he probably realizes, you know, the game is up. the Russians have you noticed you know like yesterday we heard

Russia launched the most massive missile and drone strike since the war began and I'm going boy this is deja vu all over again because I heard that a week ago in fact I heard the same thing from two weeks ago so what Russia is demonstrating is it doesn't have any limitations it's not suffering from shortages of either drones or missiles and it is intensifying its attacks. And, you know, the NATO countries, they were initially, you know, when Trump first came out with that statement,

boy, they were very belligerent in their statements towards Russia. Since then, even that wretch of a human being, Sikorsky, the foreign minister in Poland, even he's toned it down a bit. Because now that they've been, you know, it's one thing to trash talk. from the audience and then you get called up on the stage they have to face off with Mike Tyson and then all of a sudden,

you know what? I might want to speak a little bit more respectful now instead of getting, you know, clubbed to death. Russia, you know, from Lavrov, from Peskov, they have made it very clear that they, well, as Lavrov said at the UN, we're at war with the Europeans. Europe is at war with us. He didn't say with the United States. And he didn't say, say with NATO.

Correct, with Europe. But then we also have heard from, you know, the advisors to Putin, Dmitriev and Ushikov, and they both, as we talked on Friday with Ray, they've continued to be pretty upbeat in terms of the conversations that are ongoing behind the scenes with the United States. We saw Lovrov comes out of his meeting with Rubio, and they asked him, Hey, how'd the meeting go? And he goes, hey, thumbs up.

I don't think we got a thumbs up from me, did we? No. I have to play General Keller. Chris, this is not the one that we just looked at. I wonder why they're still sending him out to say these things. The two takeaways from this, cut number one, Chris, the two takeaways from this are the President of the United States indirectly authorized the use of long-range missiles that can hit Russia. Oh, and by the way,

Russia's losing. He says this again. Larry, this is yesterday. Cut number one. Are you saying, though, that it is the president's position that Ukraine can conduct long-range strikes into Russia, that that has been authorized by the president? I think reading what he has said and reading what Vice President Vance has said as well as Secretary Rubio, the answer is yes. Use the ability to Heideep. There are no such things as sanctuaries. That's one of the reasons I believe that this last week, and it has been confirmed,

that President Zelensky asked President Trump to get Tom Hawk missiles, which give you a depth. They're really good systems. America makes the best systems in the world. Are we giving him the Tomahawks? Well, that decision has not been made, but he's asked, I know that President Zelensky did, in fact, asked for them, which was confirmed by a social media post

by Vice President Vance. That's going to be up to the president to do it. why do they put him out there to say this stuff larry yeah well it makes i guess it saves trump time effort and energy he is uh it's important to note that actually j d vance was saying some similar things which again tells me that vance unlike trump does read and vance i believe also gets the presidential daily brief so the fact that vans is saying some of the same things tells me that this is what the intelligence community is feeding trump so tulsi is having little effect at correcting the narrative and as long as they

perpetuate this narrative that russia's losing ukraine is winning it does bring with it the uh if that's their attitude uh you know i think trump is twisted it around that okay well if ukraine's money. Why do we need to continue to providing support? Because it's doing so well. This notion of, though, introducing the Tomahawk cruise missile, number one, let's recognize, I think that's at least 40-year-old technology. It's been somewhat modernized, but, you know, I think we are 30, at least 34 years. We were using it in the first Gulf War back in 1991. Secondly, it's not hypersonic. It's subsonic.

Third, Russia's air defense systems are quite capable of shooting it down. But what makes the possible introduction of it into the theater is it is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. And Russia military planners would have to take that into account. And that would be seen as a provocation from that standpoint. As far as this notion of hitting deep into Russia, you know, the administration, I think the CIA embarked along with MI6 and the military, U.S. military, in helping Ukraine start to carry out attacks on some of the Russian oil refineries. The way the public narrative and Trump has repeated this is that, oh, Russia's got terrible gas lines and they've really disrupted the Russian oil market. Well, that's not what's actually going on.

It is true in about four regions that are close to Ukraine. There have been damages to refineries to oil distribution, and particularly in Crimea, there are gas lines. But in the rest of Russia, no, not a problem at all. There's a good report that I saw yesterday on YouTube from an American expat that's living in Russia, but he went around, went on all these different gas stations, and then talk to five different people

around five different places in Russia and they're all going gas shortage we ain't got no gas shortage but again the West is trying to create this narrative that Russia's weak, Russia's suffering and they believe that if only they could stir up enough discontent with Putin over the war that it would bring it into it

except what they're not reading the room because the majority of Russians think that Putin's been too soft that he's not doing enough to beat the hell out of the Europeans. So it's just instead of cultivating animosity towards Putin that will undermine the Russian war effort, what the Europeans and the United States have been doing

has done, had the exact opposite effect. Larry Johnson, thank you very much, my dear friend. Great conversation all over the place from, and I appreciate you letting me do that from Venezuela to Ukraine. I will look forward to seeing you with Ray on Friday. All the best. Yes, sir. I'll be there. Thank you, Judge. Thank you. Bye-bye. And the aforementioned Ray at 1 o'clock this afternoon, at 2 o'clock, Scott Ritter, at 3 o'clock, Max Blumenthal, on his interactions with the President of Iran, part of which I participated in last week. And at 4 o'clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs,

Judge Napolitano for judging Freedom. Thank you.