Judging Freedom - Lt.COL Karen Kwiatkowski : How We Know Trump Lost His War

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Lt.COL Karen Kwiatkowski : How We Know Trump Lost His WarSee 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? 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, August 11th, 2006, Colonel Karen Koukowski, will be here in just a moment to tell us, how do we know that Trump lost his own war? Does he know it? But first this. You know, a few years ago, if you told people you were stocking up on emergency food, they would have thought you were crazy, not anymore. We've all seen supply chain chaos, devastating natural disasters, inflation, war, and civil unrest, and preparedness has now gone mainstream. That's why we're partnering with my Patriot supply, America's original Patriot Preparedness Company.

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Colonel Karen Krakowski, welcome here. Before we get to how we know the U.S. has lost the war. And before we get to Trump's attitude about that loss, how is the United States easing, sliding from a Republican to an empire? Well, same way they all do, I guess. One is debt. You know, obviously the state accumulates debt

because it's friends with the bank. we have the Fed makes lots of money available to the government to spend. They don't have to be accountable for it to the people until later because the people, they'll hold accountable, aren't born yet. So it's a great system for the government to spend. So they go into debt. And mostly what they go into debt for is to get good deals abroad and to show how great they are. So they seek war. They seek expansion. They seek the theft of territory. And I think also, too, we see governments tend to become kind of not just greedy, but kind of luxurious in a way. You know, we have a very luxurious government.

It's not a spare government. You know, it's not a nuts and bolts, very straightforward, functional government. We have a government that we can't audit. We have a government that we have no idea what it does. We have a government that works at odds. Parts of government work at odds against other parts of government. And so it gets so big, it inevitably fails. Now, the United States has followed all these patterns for some time.

Aggressively, for the last 50 or 60 years, aggressively, we have gone into this pattern. And there is no will, and there never is in empires. There's no incentive in Washington to fix the problem, to change the direction. So it doesn't. And eventually, your money's no good. Nobody wants it. Your military collapses. Nobody's scared of it.

Uh-oh. Where it's very close to where we are now. Talk to it. Yeah. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead, Karen. That's where we are.

I mean, that's where we are now. There's a collapse, a fragmentation, a decentralization of power, a competition for power where all of a sudden the state doesn't do well. The state is losing. And there's so many ways you can see that in the United States today. In your recent piece at Judge Knappin on Lou Rockwell.com called three things we can do now as the U.S. Empire ends. You talk about two Woodrow Wilson-era amendments to the Constitution. One, the 16th, allowed the government to tax incomes, something Madison predicted would never happen when he wrote the Constitution,

because there's an express prohibition for that in the original constitution. And the other change the way senators are chosen from being chosen as representatives of the states by the state legislatures to being chosen just the way House members are by popular votes. How did those two amendments contribute to the decline of America? Yeah, well, the 16th, obviously, I didn't talk much about the 16th in that piece, but, you know, federal collection of income tax basically makes all of us subjects to the king, subjects to the empire, subjects to the executive state. We now pay directly. So that is simple destruction of the republic, quite frankly. I mean, that's what that was.

and it also provided a new basis for borrowing. It's not that our tax dollars were enough, but those tax dollars provided, that income tax that the federal government could tap into and could count on in a way in the future, supported all the other borrowing. I mean, you've got to have something to borrow, right? You've got to have some sort of credibility,

and that was the credibility of the state that said we can borrow more money. So it is a bad path to go on, and that was bad. You know, the 17th, with the direction or under the idea of standardization that all of the senators should be chosen exactly the same way in all 50 states, which was to say then popular election.

That's what they, that was the default that they chose. That just made our senators one more representative and took away, of course, the influence that the governor, the state legislator and the people themselves in those states had the connection that they would have, to their senator. And I think it too it empowers the parties even more than you would think. Because, you know, a governor or a legislature might choose to put a senator or two in Washington on the basis of actual competence, on the basis of they're not part of a political party.

They are actually, you know, kind of like you think about judges. You know, we think about judges. It's not really being political. Ideally, they judge justice is blind. And so maybe, you So maybe we would get a, the states would choose very high quality and strong backbone senators. But once you go with the popular election, we now have the role of parties which fit perfectly into that, you know, popular election, getting out the vote, presenting a thumbnail sketch of what this guy is versus that guy. And you know, we wonder why when we elect people, we never get what they say they are. because there's a whole business telling us what we're getting. But in fact, somebody other than us

and other than our governor and our state legislatures are actually choosing these people. They're choosing them on behalf of Washington to perpetuate Washington. So anyway, the 17th has led to that. And it could have been predicted. It had to be an amendment because the Constitution allowed, as part of 9th and 10th, I assume, allowed the states to choose the representative, which makes perfect sense because that's who senators are. And, you know, representatives have far smaller districts. You know, the Constitution came into existence when 13 independent states gave away a little bit of their power to form a central government. I've also claimed that the third word of the Constitution is inaccurate. We the people. It wasn't we the people. It was we the states. It was the 13 states

that formed the Constitution. There was no popular referendum. The decisions were made by state legislatures and state conventions. And it was the states whose sovereignty was to be protected in the federal government on the third side of the three-legged, three-sided table. One side was the people, the House of Representatives. One side was the nation as a state, the presidency. And one side was the states that formed the union, the Senate. And the Senate, senators would be sent by state governments no longer. It totally diminished the power of the state. To give you an example, the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. At the time, there were 26 Republican state legislatures that meant they would have sent 52 senators to the Senate, all 52 of whom would have voted

against it and we wouldn't have had it, even though when the popular election of the senators turned out, you ended up with more Democrats and the Senate of President Obama got what he wanted. The government lies, spies, and propagandizes. Why should anybody believe it? That's true. Well, I mean, it's so obvious today that that's what our government does. And I can't say in the old days, I think, I mean, before I was born, I don't know. You know, Woodrow Wilson as president also lied, spied and propagandized, you know. Lincoln lied spied and propagandized. You know, I think maybe they always have done that.

But I think it now is common knowledge, I think. Most Americans don't trust the government. If it says something, they doubt it. They wonder what's in it for, you know, what is the state really trying to accomplish here? And I think, luckily for us in a way, but even after COVID, which was such an effective psychological operation on the people of the country by the government, even then, you know, we got through that and many, many people popped out of there a little more cynical than they were before. It doesn't matter what the government does, whether it's war, war at home, Obamacare, you know, how many people, I shouldn't call it Obamacare, whatever it's called, Obamacare. that we know it is. You know, a lot of people are very frustrated who are using Obamacare, that they're getting nothing for it and they're being charged more and more every year.

So I think it is the majority of people who agree with that, with me and with that statement, lies and propagandizes, yeah, it's no faith in government, which also is a sign of the end of your government, but in particular the end of empire, you know, when empire is, When empires collapse, people stop identifying themselves as a citizen of that proud empire, because they're no longer proud and they're no longer really that interested in sharing it. What will happen to the 40 trillion owed to the borrowers, to the bondholders when the United States collapses? We don't know. No.

There isn't really an ability to pay it back. I mean, they're using things to, they're trying to monetize or whatever, not monetize, but collateralize almost every asset that exists in North America. You know, our park systems, our water, our clean air, I don't know, everything you can think of, they want to collateralize that because that allows them to borrow more money. But you can't, that is an asset, it's real, but you can't, who's going to take our water? as collateral on this bad debt that we've created. So they're going to want money or they're going to want gold, silver,

they're going to want property, industry, or maybe they want our services. Maybe we'll be a slave nation to some other country that we owed money to. I mean, these are the possibilities, or they just write it off as bad debt. We are bankrupt. The United States government is bankrupt. And people that we haven't declared bankruptcy, but a kind of bankruptcy might be declared where our, creditors have to accept much less. They have to say, look, you made a bad bet here. You thought

there was going to be return, but it was a bad investment. And so, of course, future investments stop coming in. Future investors become wise to that. We're seeing that a little bit already with the market for our debt bonds, you know. So can it be collected? Well, usually what happens is wars. Wars happened because if you kill a creditor, then he doesn't collect from you. Or if you steal all of his stuff, you can use his or hurt stuff to satisfy your other creditors. So war is a likely outcome. Unfortunately, unless it's nuclear, we don't really have much of a military left. So this is also very scary. And I think it's something people need to be seriously thinking about. I want to ask you, how do we know we have lost the war in Iran?

But before you answer, I'd like you to compare Foreign Minister Arachi's version and Donald Trump's version. Chris, first number 14 followed by number one. And well, our brave armed forces, who truly sacrificed everything they had, managed to render the world's largest and most formidable arms. completely helpless and ultimately defeated it. And please understand, this is not just some empty slogan at all. It is a profound reality that the entire world is now openly admitting to and acknowledging with great respect. That in the recent war, it was the Islamic Republic of Iran that proved itself to the world.

And it clearly showed us that it is truly a remarkably tough, resilient and completely invincible power. I have heard this many times from the world. this many times from foreign ministers of other countries, from officials of other countries, that you Iranians have created a wonder, the exact same phrase. You have astonished the whole world. Well, it's open now. We're taking a lot of shit. It's open now. Look, the only one that has control of the Strait of Hamos right now is the United States Navy. We have a blockade that's been infallible. It's a steel wall. And we let people in that we want to let in. And those people come

in and they've been coming in and they're going out. So it's actually open now. We do not let them go into Iran to not admit it into the straight to go to Iran. Which is a closer approximation to the truth. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, as you listen to Foreign Minister Arachi go through the statements that he's making, they are confirmable in fact. And, you know, when he talks about what other countries say. We know that other countries say that because if you're paying attention to the news, you can see that what he is saying is consistent with reality. And I think even the American military and many Americans are shocked, absolutely shocked, that Iran has done so well. So it is astonishing. And, you know, the people who study these kinds of things will say, well,

you know, 47 years of sanctions and all these things that were done forged in the fire a nation's capability to defend itself and to assert itself in a way that we didn't see coming. So these things are documentable. They are confirmable. When Arachi speaks, of course, he's very serious. And he's not using flowery language. Then you have Trump.

I can't, I mean, I can't stop laughing at Trump because he seems to have no self-refer awareness whatsoever. You know, when he says that, well, a steel wall, our Navy blockade is a steel wall, it's a pretty darn big one because we're like sitting 600 nautical miles offshore. We can't come any closer. That's a big steel wall. I don't think there's enough steel in America to make a wall that big. But anyway, he talks about ships going in and out and that it's basically open. Well, you know, that's easy to confirm. I mean, Larry Johnson repeatedly shares the two websites. that you can look at that track boats, ships, traffic around the world and certainly track it going in and out of the Strait of Hormuz. So you can see in real time and you can see historical

and you can watch. So why lie about something that is so easy to verify? Arachi doesn't lie on principle. He's not lying on principle and they did win that war. And so what he's saying is very positive for the Iranians. It's not so pleasant for the Americans, what he's saying. It is not fun to listen to the foreign minister describe how they have won, how they have prevailed, their resiliency, their courage, their toughness, okay? That's not easy for us to hear, but it's verifiable. Trump, on the other end, seems to be living in a world that is whatever reality

that he woke up that morning with, you know, is true. and nothing can, he can't be fact-checked, which is insane because, well, it's not insane. It's alarming, really, that our president is so out of touch with reality. And then you have to ask, well, why does he lie so obviously? Why does he speak, why does Trump speak the way that he does so casually, you know, is it because he has no grasp of what has actually happened, I don't know, over the last five months, over the last 40 years? Does he not understand how we got here?

He acts kind of, you know, like he had nothing to do with it. He's just giving you a report. Yeah, this straight is open. What? You're in, anyway. I know that neither of us is a mental health care professional, but you really wonder if he believes the nonsense that he spouts because it's detached from reality.

I know. It seems very detached from measurable and observable reality. reality. And it's not like, honestly, when he did the thing in Venezuela, it took, it was a short thing. Luckily for him, you know, and there wasn't a lot of time to gather data. We knew what he was doing ahead of time. And then once he threw Maduro in prison and his wife in prison and made friends with the vice president and took over the oil, then we just like, okay, that's done. And then that was easy. And people didn't really examine it and study it. But five months of of losing war with Iran, five months of losing our aircraft, of wasting 50 to 90 percent

of various weapons systems and defense systems that we have, we have had time to gather data as a people as the world. The world is looking at it, the American people are looking at it. And we're paying attention to the data. We're seeing, we're discovering that, hey, you know, there's a free website that tracks all the ships in real time going in and out of any port you want to, check on. And so we've learned, and as we become more knowledgeable, I think it's really striking that Trump has not. So what, the average American has left Trump behind in global awareness?

This is scary. Yes. Yes, it is scary. But how do we know we've lost the war? Well, we know we've lost the war when we cannot prevail our will. We cannot force our will or we can't make the other party do anything. You know, it's really quite simple, and it's, you know, you know, when you're working with a horse, right, horses are very big. But through your techniques and your control of the situation, you can get that horse to do almost anything very safely, right? Even though it's very big.

But if you're not doing that, a thousand pound animal is going to do whatever it wants. It's going to chase you around. It could kill you. And that's when you get out of the corral. That's when you leave because you don't want to get killed. So Trump is, he's unable to get that 1,000 pound animal to do any of his, to do his will. He's unable to communicate with it. He's unable to scare it.

He's unable to beat it to death. Can't do any of that. The horse itself, that thousand pounds is going to take him out. It's already, and I don't know if Trump has decided to leave the corral yet, or is just sitting on the fence, we're not sure, but he needs to. And that's a sign that he's lost. When you can't exercise your will as a person in a situation or as a nation in a situation such that we've got ourselves into, if you can't exercise your will, even though you change your will, periodically, I say, well, I want to try this. I want to try that. But everything you do is for not. Then you've lost.

And, you know, you can lose diplomatically as well if you're not convincing, if you're not able to negotiate well. Trump seems to think he can negotiate well, but that's not true either. He has failed in diplomacy just as much as he's failed militarily. So now we're stuck with, okay, now what do we do? Our military is weak. I say weak. It's certainly not in a state of readiness of any sort to defend our country or to pursue maybe other things that Trump, as the executive, might want to do with it. So that's worse than a loss. That's actually a waste. You know, you can have an honorable defeat and you accept it and move on and you take the consequences. We don't even have that. We have destroyed our military capability, I think. Trillions of dollars are not going to fix it.

American people don't believe in it. The rest of the world is not scared of us anymore. And that was one of our big things we like to say. We're the sole superpower and everybody does what we want. Well, apparently not. Apparently we don't. Right. Right. Colonel, thank you very much. A great conversation. A great piece, by the way, that I commend to everyone. Three things we can do now as the U.S. Empire ends. You can get it at Judge Knapp.com, low rockwell.com. Thank you, Karen. All the best. Thank you very much. See you next time, Judge. You got it. Look forward to it. Tomorrow Wednesday at 8 in the morning, Gilbert Dr. O. At 2 in the afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson at three in the afternoon, the great Phil Giraldi. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.