Judging Freedom - Lt COL. Bill Astore : American Empire is Breaking : Freefall Ahead

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Lt COL. Bill Astore : American Empire is Breaking : Freefall AheadSee 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 Tuesday, January 20th, 20th, 26. My friend Colonel Bill Astori joins us now. Colonel Astori, a pleasure. Thank you very much for joining us. By what legal authority or diplomatic precedent or moral principle can the head of the government of one country, unilaterally demand the removal of the head of the government of another country, as President Trump actually did in Venezuela and demanded in Iran. Right. Well, there is no legal or moral justification for what President Trump has done. But I think we're operating under a rules,

order in which the rules are made by the powerful against the less powerful or the power less. And obviously this is a dangerous precedent for the world. It seems to me that we've degenerated into a might-makes-right kind of a government. I remember, you know, Abraham Lincoln 150 years ago, a little bit more than that, made a famous speech in which he talked about the idea that that right should make might, that when we're in the right, when America is leading from a moral position, from a legal position, that is when we're acting with the proper authority and setting an example, not. just in our own country, but for the world. But the Trump administration obviously believes otherwise. When President Trump famously or infamously told interviewers in the New York Times about a week or two ago that he did not feel constrained by law, which must mean, he actually said international law, which means,

treaties, which means treaties enacted pursuant to the Constitution, which means under the Constitution, treaties are the Supreme Law of the Land like the Constitution. When he said that and said he was only constrained by his own mind and his own morality, what were your thoughts? What was your reaction, Colonel? Yeah, yeah. It made me think about a debate answer that he gave early in 2016 when he first ran for president. When they asked then candidate Trump whether he would be against the use of torture. And basically what Trump's answer was is that the troops will do whatever I want, including if I issue orders to torture individuals for terrorists, he would say for information, they will do that. And when the journalist or the interviewer pushed back and said,

well, but Mr. President, that would, or candidate Trump, that would be illegal. That made no impression on Trump back then. He basically said, look, the troops will do what I want. And the next day I wrote an article where I said that President, I said, I'm calling him President, but then candidate Trump, I said, just disqualified himself for the presidency because he fundamentally misunderstood his duties as president, which is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. So when President Trump, now President Trump, elevates his own morality, whatever that might be, as a beacon of truth for America, again, I think he's funded. fundamentally misunderstanding his role as president and leading us into very treacherous waters as a country and as a people.

Well, his very oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, an oath in the Constitution, so it can't be changed by statute. An oath written by James Madison, which includes the word faithfully executed, requires a subordination of his own morality to the principles of law, and to the Constitution itself, and he's rejected that. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think Trump has never really understood the idea of being a public servant. No, I, I, uh, Trump basically serves himself and his, his own power. But what I would say is that I was thinking about this the other day, when you kindly invited me on your show again, I was thinking about when I first took the oath of office. And I was,

18 years old when I did that when I was when I joined Air Force ROTC and at the time I joined a little late so so the oath was given to me one-on-one and it really was to me a solemn occasion in which I really had to reflect on the idea that hey I'm I'm signing up to support and defend the constitution that that's what my my service as as a cadet and later as an officer is about. You know, it's not about advancing, you know, some abstract idea of patriotism. It's not about expanding American power.

It's about living up to the ideals of our founders. And we're supposed to be celebrating this year, the 250th anniversary of that. You know, all of this reminds me, I wasn't going to go there, but you raise this and you're really the appropriate person to discuss it because you have such a refined moral sensibility colonel. The comments that were made by Senator Mark Kelly and three other members of Congress in a video shortly before Christmas time

telling members of the military that they have a duty to disobey illegal orders. a truthful statement, something we're all taught. I was in Army, ROTC, which is at Princeton, which is probably the first time I took that oath, and I didn't take it alone, but it was like you did, but it was very solemn, and it sort of gets to you, particularly when you see it in writing and then you sign it, as well as when you stated publicly.

And I can remember the second or third day of basic training, a lecture on illegal, orders and the duty not to comply with them. I mean, how would that work? What should these guys have done that he sent in to kidnap Maduro or that he has dispatched to murder fishermen on fishing boats in the high seas because somebody claims they have cocaine in the boat? Right, right. Yeah, that's, as you know, Judge, I have very, very, very. very difficult question. I mean, in theory, it might seem simple in that, oh, well, if you recognize that an order

is illegal, then it is your duty as an officer or an enlisted person to say that I refuse to do that. But as you know, there's an enormous amount of pressure within a hierarchical organization like the military against being the tall poppy, being the tall poppy that stands up because you're you're liable to get your head chopped off. But there's also a lot of trust in the chain of command. So, you know, these are orders, at least in theory, they come down from the president. And, I mean, you obviously, if you're a lieutenant or a captain or a sergeant, there's a sort of an assumption that you're being given, the order is being passed through the chain of command and that the order is a, a, a,

legal one for that reason. And you may not have the knowledge, the wherewithal to question or to challenge that kind of an order. And even when you do, you may be told, well, we can't get into the details. That's classified. You know, just do your job. So I think it's a lot to expect military members to to push back. But I do think that, you know, those members of Congress who made that video, who said, who reminded the troops that they have a legal duty to refuse orders, I mean, they shouldn't be punished for that. They're basically teaching the basics of military law. Right, right.

And now, of course, no surprise. the Secretary of Defense, with whom I worked for six or seven years at Fox News, who calls himself the Secretary of War, wants to punish Senator Kelly. This is creating a constitutional maelstrom because of what's called the compatibility clause in the Constitution that says military service is incompatible with being in the legislative branch translated. You can't be an active-duty military and the U.S. Senate, and he can't be punished unless he's an active duty military. I don't know where this is going to go. I wish they would lay off and just respect his free speech. And I recognize that not every grunt in the military, truly, not every person in the military

is a constitutional scholar. Right. Well, it's a true trial. Yeah. The admiral should have rejected it and should have said, I'm not killing those people in the boats. And maybe, you tell me, Colonel, because you were in the Air Force, maybe some of the people along the chain of command didn't even realize that this was a kill mission. Because you said parts of it were classified. Maybe they weren't even told who the targets were. Right, right.

No, that's certainly possible. And then, of course, the other part of it is that it very well could be, I mean, basically, if you're a pilot set up to execute a mission, I mean, you may be told that, oh, well, we have solid, you know, ironclad proof that this is a, this is a boat with drug runners on it and therefore you're cleared hot on the target. And I mean, what is, what is a pilot going to say? I mean, he's being told that there's ironclad proof and, execute the mission. It would it would be, you know, quite brave of such a person to say, well, I refuse. I don't see any, I don't see any weapons on that boat or I don't see any

drugs on that boat. But, but how could he anyway? It would be, I mean, the drugs are probably hidden away. So I think the more, I don't want to say easier because none of these is easy, colonel, but I think the more demonstrable case is the one in September where they fired a second time to kill people who are clean for their lives to the debris of the boat. That to me is the clearer case, the more demonstrable violation of a basic moral principle. It's also a violation of a law to kill somebody who's shipwrecked. Right. No, absolutely. Yeah. No, I agree. Yeah. Let's switch gears a little bit. How did the MI6, the CIA, and Mossad so terribly miscalculate the intel of the Iranians

that they thought they could cause another 1953-style coup in Iran last week, and all of a sudden they were shut down? Right. Yeah, I think there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of, wishful thinking going on there. And not a lot. You know, I wonder, you know, I wonder how much, you know, human intelligence we actually have on the ground in Iran. That's, that's reliable. You know, I know, I know there is supposed to be Mossad agents there and so on. But I think one of the weaknesses, I mean, our intelligence agencies, I mean, they have the ability to sweep up all

this information. But our actual in-country knowledge, our human intelligence, I don't think it's anywhere close to where it used to be. And so I think we're going to see more instances of when the United States, you know, all our intelligence agencies, all 17 or 18 of them, and their their, their, their, um, stratospheric budgets of, you know, approaching $100 billion a year, it's, it's rather shocking, though, how much they don't know and how many wars that they end up losing, even though we supposedly have, you know, such a, such a vast, uh, intelligence agency that supposedly knows everything. Right. Right. I want to, uh, segue into another area of expertise to you. You wrote a fascinating piece that just captivated me, the essence of which is

the danger of the glitter of nuclear weapons. What is the glitter of nuclear weapons? Yeah, yeah, that's a great quote from Freeman Dyson when he talked about, it's from a documentary called The Day After Trinity by John Elsa, which I recommend to anyone who, who is, I think it's even better than the Oppenheimer movie. You know, Freeman Dyson mentioned, you know, I felt it myself, the glitter of nuclear weapons, you know, the ability to lift, you know, a million tons of rock into the sky. And, you know, it's seductive. It's, you know, it's for a token fans, it's a little bit like the one ring of power.

these scientists and engineers who work on the Manhattan Project, the hydrogen bomb, and all of that, it gives you the illusion of a limitable power. And that is something, I mean, the problem, of course, is that we have collectively more than 5,000 of these nuclear weapons around the world, only a fraction of which could end most life here on Earth. And so if I were President Trump, my number one priority would be working with Russia and China and other nuclear powers on reducing the threat of nuclear war. But instead, we're rearming with more new ICBMs, new stealth bombers, and a new class of nuclear submarines, which may cost this country. $2 trillion over the next 30 years, which is just an insane amount of money

when you think about all we're really setting the stage for is Armageddon. How does our nuclear capability compare to the Russians or the Chinese? Right. Our nuclear capability is far more survivable. I mean, one of the things about, I mean, we have spent, we, the United States, we've spent so much money on what we call the nuclear triad, you know, consisting

of land-based ICBMs, then of course the bombers, like the B-2 stealth bomber, the B-1, and then the Navy's Trident-class nuclear submarines. I mean, we have a more survivable system than the Russians and the Chinese. Our nuclear weapons capability, our strike capability, surpasses any other country. And yet we still feel, allegedly, we still feel unsafe. And this is something where I think you have a very powerful nuclear lobby. When you talk about this idea of modernizing the triad,

you're talking about an enormous amount of money, an enormous amount of profits to be earned by big corporations like Northrop Grumman and Boeing and Lockheed Martin and all of the big contractors involved in building the new planes, the new missiles, and so on. And so, you know, I hope we see a saner path ahead. I know I actually respect President Trump for talking about his fears of nuclear war,

and yet his idea of spending yet more money on all of these nuclear weapons is just increasing the threat of war. Well, soon the Congress will debate a military budget. It's hard to even say this with a straight face. The president wants $1.7 trillion. Now, that would be more money than all other country's military budgets combined. How dangerous a temptation in the hands of people. Hague, Seth, and you even take Pete's name out of it, put anybody's name in there. Right. It's $1.7 trillion.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, we're building an enormous warhammer. And it seems when you put that much money into any sector of your economy, there's just that awful temptation to use it. And, you know, this is not something. we shouldn't be spending another $500 billion on what Trump is called a so-called dream military. I mean, that's really, it's not a dream military. It's a national nightmare.

I mean, we need to be focusing on a military that defends America, that defends our Constitution, that defends our liberty and freedom. And so we should be focused on that, you know, not on this. imperial military that as, you know, self-style secretary of war says, is driven by some kind of warrior ethos. I mean, our military, you know, we really need the idea of the citizen soldier again, where we are citizens first and soldiers second. The whole idea of the warrior ethos is wrong and mistaken and inconsistent with the founding of our country. This is going to bring us back to what we were alluding to earlier.

Is he going to send warriors, trained killers, into the streets of Minneapolis, not citizen national guardsmen and women, but people trained to kill? Yes, this is exactly the problem. It seems like Trump is sadly, is itching to do this. He's like he's trying to set up a scenario, you know, under which he can justify what he says, well, there's an insurrection occurring and therefore I can send in federal troops. Well, if there's any kind of insurrection, number one, it's not an insurrection.

But even if you call it that, it's an insurrection of your own making. And so it's not, you know, Trump shouldn't be sending in troops, federal troops, into our streets. If that came to pass, he should really be thinking about removing himself from office for being so incompetent as to create the conditions of that disturbance. Colonel Astoria, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for your intellectual honesty and personal courage. And I hope you'll come back and visit with us again soon. Thank you, Judge. Happy to come back again.

Okay. All the best to you. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up later today, if you're watching us live in 35 minutes at 11 o'clock this morning, Colonel Douglas McGregor at 1 this afternoon, Pepe Escobar, at 2 this afternoon, Matt Ho, at 3 this afternoon, Colonel Karen Koukowski, our day of colonels. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.