Judging Freedom - LtCOL. Bill Astore : Trump and Venezuela.

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

LtCOL. Bill Astore : Trump and Venezuela.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 audible.ca. slash wondering. Hi. Tano here for judging freedom. Today is Tuesday, October 28th, 2025. Colonel Bill Astori joins us now. Colonel, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thanks, Chuck. Before we get to President Trump and Venezuela, a couple of questions listening your analysis on Ukraine. Do you think this war will be settled in a conference room or on the battlefield? It sure seems more likely to be settled on the battlefield, although I would certainly prefer a conference room.

I was recently checking, of course, this is very controversial, even the most basic facts about the Russia-Ukraine war are difficult to get at. So I was curious, how many people have, has Ukraine lost, the Russians, how many have they lost? And those casualty figures are very heavily disputed, as you might expect. I mean, both countries are jealously keeping those figures to themselves. So all we have is estimates. But it appears that Ukraine has lost, 100,000 killed. The Russians maybe double that. Again, these are figures are disputed.

A hundred thousand? Now Ritter and McGregor are telling us it's a million Ukrainians lost. See, that's the thing. I mean, these casualty figures are so heavily disputed. And each side, I think, is exaggerating the figures of the other side. Right, right. And the sense of saying we're winning because we're killing more of them than they are of us. But, you know, I think the intelligence here is unclear.

And I think, you know, this is something that we really don't have a lot of insight to. At least I don't have a lot of insight into it. And I think both sides are lying to us. But in terms of who's winning, isn't it fairly clear that the Russian military has the upper hand? I think so, right. I mean, when you just look at the map and you see the extent of the amount of land that Russia has captured, they tend to have the initiative on the battlefield. And nevertheless, as as true as that is, it still remains the case where neither side can

really inflict its will on the other. Maybe it's not a stalemate, but it's close to it. So each side is suffering heavily from this war. I think the Ukrainians more because the war is being fought on their terrain. It's being fought on their turf. Just think about the damage to the land. crops, environmental damage. All of that is happening in Ukraine. And we're approaching the fourth year of that war. It's a war that is dragged on far longer, I think, than most people were

estimating when it first began as just a special military operation. Here's a rather unique comment that President Putin made just two days ago on Sunday afternoon. Again, I don't know if this is PR or if this is based on troop strength on the ground, but he's talking about instructions he's giving to Russian military commanders to allow Ukrainian troops to surrender peacefully and treat them well in your custody. Chris, cut number eight. First of all, to minimize unnecessary human casualties, I'm asking to take all necessary measures to enable the surrender of Ukrainian troops,

those who want to surrender. We have to treat prisoners of war in accordance with international law as well as Russian law. Russia's army has historically always been merciful towards a defeated enemy. First of all, he was lording the successes of the Russian army in Pokrovsk and in Kupyatsk. He was saying, as you've heard just now, that basically there is a situation where Ukrainian troops are near, surrender and Russia should enable that. So he's been saying that Russian forces have encircled those two cities. You will see that both Pockrovsk and Kupyanska are around 50, 60 percent controlled by

Russian forces. Talk about visuals first. Are you surprised to see him in a military uniform? Yeah, that's interesting. It's almost like he's taken a page from Zelensky. So, no, I should point out. And, you know, obviously, I'm a Cold War retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel who always thought of Russia as our biggest enemy. Obviously, the Russians weren't always benevolent toward POWs.

I certainly don't blame them for how they treated the Nazis in World War II because the Nazis waged a war of annihilation against the Soviet Union. And so when the Soviets invaded Berlin in 1945, they took their revenge. But I think it's wise policy and also international law, as Putin mentioned, under the Geneva Convention. That's exactly what you should do to POWs. You know, they should be treated humanely. That is what you're required to do. So I'm glad to hear that, and I hope it's true. But one of the reasons I ask about a colonel is to elicit your view.

you, is this a PR stunt or are Ukrainians about to surrender? Well, I think it's, I think it's both. I think obviously it's good PR from Putin's perspective to appear to be, you know, to welcome Ukrainians to surrender and that you will be treated humanely. I think there's also some signs, as we know, of Ukraine war weariness. I mean, we have the polling data that says that, you know, 69% or so of Ukrainian people are exhausted from this war. This is not something that should surprise us.

It's a war that's been dragging on, and Ukraine has sacrificed heavily in this war. You know, Colonel, we've been listening to the kerfuffle back and forth last week over who canceled the Trump-Putin meeting and Bucharest. It seems now that there's a consensus that the White House can't. did. But do these meetings really mean anything unless Trump pulls the plug on aid to Zelensky? Does it even matter what they talk about? Right. Right. Well, yeah, I mean, the meetings obviously require a lot of preparation. You would hope so that when when Putin and Trump come together, they actually have something, you know, worthy of talking about. But you're right. It certainly would make a statement if instead of, you know, the United States constantly feeding intelligence information

to Ukraine and weapons as well so that they can mount these strikes into Russian territory, if we stop doing that, that would send the kind of message, I think, that would actually get Putin back to the negotiating table. What will it take for D.C. to recognize that. Kremlin's legitimate national security interests, that in the Kremlin's view, NATO on its borders, is a threat, just as in our view, it's a hypothetical. Chinese military in Tijuana, Mexico would be a threat. Yeah.

Well, I mean, the Trump administration seems to see the Mexicans as a threat, let alone the Chinese as a threat in Mexico. But you're right, you know, we definitely could use a lot more strategic empathy here in the United States. I mean, we're still obsessed with Cuba and its potential threat off our coast. And yet we have no sense that the Russian people, with their long history of being invaded by various countries, you know, that they deserve their measure of security and safety as well. I think if only we could go back to, you know, three, four years ago and just say, look, you know, Ukraine is not going to join NATO.

You know, Ukraine can be a neutral country. We are not looking to put long-range weapons into Ukraine. I mean, that could have prevented these last three and a half, almost four years of devastating war. I wonder what Trump had in mind when, while campaigning for president, he said over and over and over and over again, he can end the war in 24 hours. What could he possibly have had in mind? I mean, if he called up Zelensky and said, you're not getting into the nickel,

well, there's a lot of material in the pipeline, so even that wouldn't end it in 24 hours. I guess that that is just his own personal hyperbole, intent to. to animate the base that there's no reflection between those words and reality on the ground. Yeah, and I think as well, perhaps Trump just overestimates

the effectiveness of his brand of personal diplomacy. I mean, you can't end a war as intense as this, as long-lasting as this in a day. You can't end it just by showing

up and telling both countries to play nice. Unfortunately, history teaches us that the longer that wars go on, typically the more intense they grow, the more emotions become involved, nationalism, all of these things. So both countries, you know, Ukraine and Russia, are more likely to become more intransigent, less likely to negotiate unless positive steps are made or else, you know, either one or the other, drops out due to exhaustion. Colonel, isn't nationalism a force that Zelensky cannot control? I mean, stated differently, could he even agree to some sort of a session of land?

Or would he be assassinated by the nationalists? Yeah, no, no, that's a good point. And I guess the short answer is we don't know, but you're right. Whenever it reminds me of Japan at the end of World War II, this is, you know, even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the emperor was discussing with the army about surrendering. And there were attempts within Japan by the hardliners, you know, there were assassinations or attempt at assassinations because the hardliners in Japan still wanted to fight. So that's always a risk. And I could see Zelensky being concerned that any kind of, any kind of surrender, so to speak, on bad terms like the giving up land in a major way could lead, very, very well lead to hardliners attempting to kill him. But there's no realistic way, is there, that the Russians will.

not acquire the land over which they have military dominance? I don't think so. I don't see how Ukraine, given its current force structure, I don't see how they could expel the Russians from that land. And I don't see why Putin would give up that land when they spent so much Russian blood to acquire it. Wow. What will it take to stop the neocons from whispering in Trump's ears?

Rubio, Hegset, Orca, Kellogg, even that character from South Carolina, Senator Lentie Graham. These people keep telling him that the war can be won by Ukraine and used as a battering ram with which to reduce the effectiveness of Vladimir Putin. Right, right. Yeah, it's always the armchair of warriors who are most avidly seeking further and further war. You know, I wish it were the case with someone like Tulsi Gabbard, who, you know, I supported when she was a Democrat running for president. I voted for her. I voted for her because she promoted peace, you know, because she was against regime change wars. She recognized the danger of the Russia-Ukraine war, possibly spiraling out of control and becoming a regional conflict, possibly even a nuclear war.

I wish the president was listening more to her, assuming that she's saying what she used to say about four or five years ago. Yeah. I don't know what she says today. I don't know if she's the same Tulsi Gabbard. I mean, I don't vote in Democratic primaries. Of course, I don't live in Massachusetts. I live in a state just as loony, New Jersey, politically loony. But we haven't heard of peep from her recently. We all thought she'd be the Ron Paul in Trump's inner circle. Now, maybe she is, but they've certainly kept her from the press.

Well, you hope she's the quiet adult in the room, so to speak, and that she has power behind the scenes. I just fear she is that her sane voice is being sidelined. Colonel, what national security threat does the country of Venezuela pose to the United States of America? I'm not aware of any national security threat that they pose. the United States. What would American Intel tell the president, CIA, DIA, defense intelligence agency? All those three and four letter agencies, they would probably tell him the same thing that you just told us, right?

Right. Yeah, it's amazing. We have 17 or 18 intelligence agencies, but the equality of our intelligence seems to go down as the number of agencies proliferate. Yes. But, but yeah, there's no, there's, Venezuela poses no national security threat to the United States. And this idea of narco-terrorism, I mean, we, the United States have been, have been fighting the so-called drug war for, for decades. I mean, this approach now that Trump is following where he just goes around blowing up boats in the Caribbean and in the East Pacific is, is the worst kind of, of, of,

vigilante violence. It reminds me of those of us who are our age, that Clint Eastwood movie Magnum Force, where there were vigilante cops who just went around, you know, killing people and called that the right way to fight criminals. I mean, the problem with that is pretty soon you start, you know, you start killing everyone. And that's, you know, something we should have learned decades ago. Where will this, this end? I mean, will he take it to Chicago, which he seems to hate, or any city governed by a Democratic mayor and a Democratic state he seems to hate and feel he can take over and control the streets? I mean, the whole concept of presidential killing, extrajudicial killing, is homicide, it's murder, pure and simple. He may believe he has immunity.

He doesn't have immunity under international law, and who knows how a future presidential administration would view this. It's a homicide for Hegset and it's homicide forever's pushing the button that's dropping the bombs. Yeah, yeah. What do you do if you're a lieutenant colonel and they say, or you're in charge of get your guys to destroy these five boats? What do you do? resign? Right. Yeah, I mean, all you can really do is refuse to carry out the order

because you have moral and legal concerns about it. And what that probably means is that your career is over, number one, and number two, they'll probably find somebody else to carry out that order. But at the very least, you will have made a moral stand based upon your oath to the United States Constitution. And I think officers or anyone in the chain of command who believes that they've been given an order that is illegal should not carry out that order. I can remember the Nuremberg defense. I was just following orders.

That, of course, has been rejected by the Western world and under the natural law. Here's my dear friend Senator Rand Paul. rather animated about all of this recently. The land is going to be next. And we may go to the Senate. We may go to the, you know, Congress and tell them about it. But I can't imagine they'd have any problem with it. I think they're going to probably like it except for the radical left lunatics.

All right. So I'll start with you, Senator Paul. What do you need to hear in a briefing? What questions do you have? You know, it's not so much about a briefing, but we haven't had a briefing. To be clear, we've got no information. I've been invited to no briefing. But a briefing is not enough to overcome the Constitution.

The Constitution says that when you go to war, Congress has to vote on it. And during a war, then, there's a lower rules for engagement. People do sometimes get killed without due process. But the drug war or the war or the crime war has typically been something we do through law enforcement. And so far, they have alleged that these people are drug dealers. No one said their name. No one said what evidence. No one said whether they're armed.

We've had no evidence presented. So at this point, I would call them extrajudicial killings. And this is akin to what China does, to Iran does with drug dealers. They summarily execute people without presenting evidence to the public. So it's wrong. He's 100% correct, isn't he? Yeah, absolutely. And yet, if you talk to friends, I imagine your friends are a homogeneous group like mine,

they'll say, oh, but he's killing the drug dealers. What's wrong with you? Don't you want to get rid of drug dealers? Right. So this is popular what he's doing, reprehensible, immoral, illegal, unconstitutional, against the laws of nature, but popular. Right. And that's why we need to push back against it. Because, of course, all of us, you know, you hate people obviously who push drugs, you know, narco, you know, narco-terrorism.

gangsters and all that. But nevertheless, we are supposed to live in a society based on the rule of law. And without that, we descend into barbarism. And unfortunately, as we're seeing that play out right now, because if the Trump administration can go around and kill people. and the high seas without sharing any evidence of any crime with the American people. As you already said, Judge, what's to stop them from doing it right here in the United States? Yes, yes. All right, Colonel, these are not happy things that we're talking about.

The Congress is supine. You know, the clip we just saw was Senator Rand Paul and Senator Tim Kane. They have been very animated about this, but they don't have a majority. They certainly don't have the 60 votes needed for the Senate to do anything. And the Christian nationalists that run the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives wouldn't even allow this stuff to come to a vote. So I don't know how this ends unless there's a sea change in the majorities in the houses of Congress in the elections in 2026 or unless the president changes his mind. You know, our friend, your fellow New Englander, Ambassador Chas Freeman, has a one-liner that he loves.

The problem with searching the world for monsters to slay is that they have a way of following you home. Right. So, you know, something's going to happen. I mean, what's next? an invasion of Venezuela so that we can steal their oil? Yeah, yeah. We, you know, next year is the 250th anniversary, as we all know, of 1776 in our founding as a nation.

And somehow we have to regain that spirit of independence, you know, that kind of courage that the founders exhibited because they knew, as we know from American history, they knew putting their names on the Declaration of Independence was a risky act, that their heads might swing as a result. But they were doing, they were acting on principle. And we need a lot more of that spirit again here in the United States. Colonel Bill Estory, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. I hope we can see you again soon. Thanks a lot, Judge. Thanks for having. All the best. Thank you. Coming up at 2 o'clock this afternoon, Matt Ho, at 3 o'clock, Colonel Asturie's buddy, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Koukowski, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.

Thank you.