Judging Freedom - LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski: Is Trump in Netanyahu’s Pocket?

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski: Is Trump in Netanyahu’s Pocket?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, May 20th, 2025. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski is here with us on, is Donald Trump in the pocket of Benjamin Netanyahu. But first this. While the markets are giving us whiplash, have you seen the price of gold? It's soaring. In the past 12 months, gold has risen to more than $3,000 an ounce.

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But first, some other items that are bubbling around in the news. About three or four weeks ago, two senior CIA officials released the result of an extensive study about whether the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was affiliated with and subject to the commands of the Venezuelan government. And their conclusion was that it was not. Last week, they got fired by Tulsi Gabbard for coming to a conclusion at odds with the administration's narrative. Then over the weekend, two days ago, without citing any evidence, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on national television that Trende Aragua was affiliated with, financed by, and subject to the government of Venezuela.

Sometimes I think I preferred Congresswoman Gabbard to Director of National Intelligence Gabbard, but of what value is Intel if the result can be preordained by the politicians? Yeah, it's of no value. In fact, the only thing of value apparently is the leaks, whatever gets shared with the public so we can at least have some idea of what we're paying for. Yeah, clearly not much has changed since even I was in the Pentagon all those years ago, two

decades ago, when we were pumping out lies, but the real intelligence was pretty good, but it wasn't politically useful, and so they just made up stuff to be politically useful. So, and really, I think it's a rationale for not just cutting the Pentagon budget, but certainly cutting the intelligence budget drastically, because we spend, I mean, I'm not sure what the CIA's black budget is, but there's a lot spent on the CIA. The DOD spends a lot on intelligence. And yet what good is it?

What good is it? Because when it produces information that's factual, but politically inconvenient, it is buried and the people apparently doing it are fired. So in the case of this trend, the Aragwa thing, which will make its way into court, and someone will have to certify to it under oath because it involves the use of this Alien Enemies Act.

And a federal judge in Texas, appointed by President Trump in his first term, analyzed all this and relied on the intelligence report to conclude that Tren de Aragon is not subject to the government of Venezuela. And by the way, Venezuela is not an enemy. It's not at war with the United States. So who would rely on what Tulsi Gabbard did or Marco Rubio said? Nobody. The courts are not going to rely on it if it can change on a political whim like that. Yeah.

Thank goodness that we have the court system even though it seems to take its time to work through and a lot of times the cases and the records of the court, that's the only information that the Americans really can get. And we still have to often get that through FOIA. But what we have information that is correct and constitutional in many ways. So thank goodness for that. But no, it's very disappointing. Gabbard is, I think a lot of us had a lot of high hopes for her. She was a good Congresswoman and an outspoken peace voice, a voice for peace and a voice for a realistic foreign policy. Yeah, we're not getting that from her though. We're not getting that.

Right, right, right. The Trump, Putin phone call, do you think the American mindset, whether it's the American firsters and America firsters in Trump's administration or even the neocons, understand the Russian mindset? A, they're not going to engage in a ceasefire just to negotiate. They'll negotiate while the war is going on. That's their history, and B, their demands to end this war have been clear and consistent since before the war started. They're not going to change now when

they're on the cusp of demolishing the Ukrainian military? Yeah, no, that's true. I think Trump may be figuring that out. He has spoken to him repeatedly, and I think the message that the Russians are giving has been consistent. It's been consistent for over three years. I think it's getting to Trump.

I think he realizes that. Plus, what would be the alternative to not allowing the Russians to resolve the problem as the SMO was designed to do? And that is not quite done yet. What would an alternative be? That the SMO modifies its objectives, or if they don't, then Trump somehow is going to send the army in there? Are we going to engage with Russia directly over an argument

where Russia has been right from day one and we have been wrong from day one. I think Trump understands that. You know, Russia knows, the Kremlin knows, Ukraine was armed not by NATO but by the United States during Trump's first term. McGregor keeps saying, Ritter keeps saying, you've said, we are not a neutral here. We are a co-belligerent. The weapons that they fired that didn't get anywhere near there because the Russians shot them down at Red Square to ruin the May 8th celebration were made in the United States of America. You can't make this up. Yeah. I don't know. I think Trump is coming to the realization that this fight,

that he's almost believing his own rhetoric, that this is Biden's war, not entirely, but this is Biden's war, and he's going to leave it as Biden's war. He's going to end it or withdraw from it and let it go. And I think that suits Trump in his overall range of projects that he has going on. But I don't know if he truly understands. Again, Trump doesn't, you know, what does he know about any particular history or foundation of these conflicts around the world that we, the United States, have fomented and been involved with from day one. What does he really understand about those?

And I don't know. So I don't know how much he's learning, but I think he's accepting a little bit. I think he's accepting. What troubles me is the in one ear and out the other. One day Sebastian Gorka is in his ear, the next day Steve Witkoff is in his ear. One day Marco Rubio is in his ear, the next day JD Vance is in his ear. The next day Steve Witkoff is in his ear. One day Marco Rubio is in his

ear. The next day JD Vance is in his ear. I don't know what Gabbard tells him. I don't know if she's collapsed to the point where she'd do whatever she thinks he wants so that she keeps her job or if she's intellectually honest with him. But here's Zelensky yesterday. I mean, this is really crazy. They won't give up an inch of land. Chris Cutt, number three. Nobody will withdraw our forces from our territories. It is my constitutional duty, the duty of our military, to protect the sovereignty and

territorial integrity of Ukraine. Yes, there are temporarily occupied territories now because of the aggression of such a huge country. It is understood, but we will accept no ultimatums. We will not give away our land, our territories and our people, our homes. territories and our people, our homes. He is saying that to keep the super nationalists around him from killing him or removing him from office? Or do you think he's saying that because somehow he truly believes it? How on earth could they win back the four-0 blasts that they've nearly lost in Crimea. No, there's no way.

And his soldiers, his troops that remain there, the ones that Russia wants them to withdraw, they have two choices. They can be told politically, Swensky can tell them to withdraw and they can pull back or they will be destroyed. It's that simple. And the people on the ground, his troops know this.

His troops know this. So he's out of touch with the reality of his country, but he's not out of touch with the people around him that will kill him. So I think that it has to be the survival thing. And he has an echo chamber in the EU and in NATO. So those folks who hug him and embrace him still, they tell him, oh, hang in there, you can do this, hang in there. So Europe is at fault here in a great deal for supporting his fantasy.

And it is a fantasy, and it's not a fantasy in a good way, it's a nightmare really for what's left of Ukraine. So, I mean, it's not bad for those in the Russian Donbass, they're doing much better. But for the Ukraine proper, it's very future as a state is at risk. And this is pretty much what the Russians have been saying. If you want a state, if you want to maintain yourself as an entity, then you need to realize you need to wake up

and do what it takes to have that state, a neutral state, a non-nuclear state, a non-NATO state, a contained state. Like the very wealthy, happy and prosperous Switzerland or the very wealthy, happy and prosperous. No military Austria. Absolutely. What's wrong with those models? Not at all. And I really think we have got to start. We have got to start. The world has got to start valuing neutrality, valuing peace, because I don't know, I guess you make money in wars and you can cut a lot of deals and it's all good for some people, but peace is the path to prosperity, it's the only path to prosperity. So we need

to start valuing that. And Ukraine as a neutral state could have been and could be, perhaps, such a wonderful place. I mean, it has ties east and west. It has some resources. Obviously, it's going to be smaller than it was before. As a neutral, non-militarized country, friends with everyone, taking the Thomas Jefferson approach. What a wonderful place it could be. What a wonderful place. Unfortunately, he's surrounded by people who will probably eliminate him from the planet or certainly eliminate him from any vestige of government power

if he gets realistic. Here's Trump as recently as yesterday. It's very frustrating to watch this, Colonel. Not my war. It's not my war. I'm just here to help. If you could believe that he said that, even though he's war, it's not my war. I'm just here to help. If you could believe that he said that, even though he's paying for it. Cut number nine. This was not my war.

This is not a war that would have happened if I were president. This is not my war. I'm just here to try and help. We've spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this war. And yet that's not, frankly, we made much more than that just in four days in the Middle East. It's a lot of money, but we do much. This is about thousands of people dying every single week. Five thousand, six thousand people dying every single week. You know, these soldiers, they say goodbye in Ukraine and in Russia, and then their parents

never see them again, except maybe in pictures of horrible scenes, because I've seen some scenes I've never seen anything like it. So we're going to see if we can get it taken care of. Yep. A thousand Ukrainian soldiers die a week, and he's been president for 12 weeks. That's 60,000 deaths under his watch, but he's just there to help. It's not his war. I don't know how much longer he can say that with a straight face. – Not much longer. Not much longer. And, you know, he could have stopped this at any time.

You know, he continued. He could have impounded the funds and stopped sending weapons. He's even increased some certain types of weapons, or at least promised them to Ukraine. And the same goes for Israel's war on Gaza. We are funding that war, that's also his war. He's paying for it with our money. We did not get consulted about that. But yeah, these are American wars. And I like that Trump is engaging with Russia.

This is good, you know, Biden did nothing of the sort. And I like that Trump is engaging with Russia. This is good, you know, Biden did nothing of the sort. And I like that Trump is traveling around and talking to a lot of people and cutting deals, but he's got to take responsibility. And he's really truly should recognize his own power as president to stop funding these wars. You know, if it's Biden's war, why are you paying for it? And you are, and he is paying for it.

Here he is, yesterday again, and once your reporter says to him that you asked President Putin to meet with you, listen to the first two words that he responds with, and then of course he elaborates. I don't mean to pick on him at all, but these responses of his are priceless. Cut number 11. Did you ask President Putin to meet with you? About what? About Ukraine. Of course I did. I talked to him about it. I said, when are we going to end this, Vladimir?

I've known him for a long time now. I said, when are we going to end this bloodshed, this bloodbath? It's a bloodbath. And I do believe he wants to end it. You know, when I made the call, I told the people last night, I spoke to the heads of the different countries, Germany and Finland. We had Italy, as you know, and the UK was on the line today, and a couple of others. And then they were in turn calling everyone.

Ursula was there from the European Union. She was terrific. And we spoke for a long time about it and they got a problem. It's a big, big problem. It's a terrible war. It's very hard to extradite themselves away from what's taking place over there. The amount of anger, the amount of hate, and the amount of death. It's very hard, very tough situation. But I said to him, we've got to get going. And I did say also, if I thought that you couldn't do it, I'd step away because what

are you going to do? It's as if he's some sort of a neutral bystander and not the financier, the supplier, the producer of the war. Yeah, and it's worse than that really because we are pressuring NATO, have been for decades, I mean the whole idea of NATO is that that is a forward American operating space. We want them to use our equipment if we can, we demand that they have any equipment they make is interoperable with ours. We sell them, I mean, billions and billions of dollars of arms. So we want NATO to, as a market, to grow,

to purchase more, to do more, to need more. That's what we, that's our market planning, see, for Europe. And we want them to buy more gas. We are connected with the European economy, and that wartime economy is the one that can't extricate itself from Ukraine. Doesn't want to, because there was a lot of money being made with that. There was a lot of hopes for a future larger NATO. I mean, obviously this is the crux of the problem.

They wanted to expand NATO to surround Russia with it. Bad idea, but people make money when they do that. And Trump likes to make money. He thinks the country is like, you know, he sees the country much as a large business that's looking to expand markets. And so he can talk about the bloodshed. Well that's the result. That's what you get, okay, when you militarize unnecessarily and look for wars where no wars

need to happen. That's what you get, okay, you get bloodshed. So Trump acts like it's a surprise. He's surprised. Well, you know, it's really said we want to stop that Really because you need to understand why it's happening and he can do something about it as a powerful president He's willing to to act but is he willing to think and understand? Well, is he willing to? Think and understand in Gaza Karen the UN

understand in Gaza, Karen, the UN High Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs of British fellow named Tom Fletcher last night said that 57 Gazan babies died of malnutrition last week. I inadvertently said 5,000. I was wrong and I stand corrected. 57 Gazan babies died of malnutrition last week and 14,000 are Starving and will die in the next 48 hours and Steve Witkoff says the president is a humanitarian Why doesn't somebody do something about this is Trump and babies pocket or is BB in his? Good question, I think I think Trump Good question. I think Trump, whether he's in Bibi's personal pocket or not, I think Trump certainly has been taken in by years, not weeks or months, but years of Israeli propaganda about what goes on in Israel. So has the U.S. Congress. I mean, this is the spewing of false information by APAC, by APAC-supported media,

certainly to some extent by Israeli media, although the president would be very wise to actually read Israeli media because they actually talk about these things and to some extent debate them. Yeah, he is poorly, poorly informed. And so you, if you're going to be a humanitarian, that's a real thing. That's life and death. That's starvation versus non-starvation. And he has, he's not educated in the reality. So how can he possibly be a humanitarian? And also

this, this business about, I'm the most powerful president in the world which all the presidents of America say this Why how do how would we know that because really he is still BB Netanyahu's right-hand man in the slaughter? Because we're arming them we are not ceasing to arm them we are saying oh We're gonna bring food But it's all gonna be delivered according and in coordination with the Israeli desires. And the Israeli desires, Netanyahu's and many, most of the government, most of the population, their desires are that more babies will starve to death in 48 hours. 57 is not enough.

It should be 5700. 57,000 would not bother them. This is an extermination. So Trump and the word humanitarian do not belong together and he's already passed the opportunity to do something about it. When Steve Woodcock first began negotiating with the Iranians, he came away and said,

we're very close to a deal. We're going to allow a nuclear enrichment below a certain level so that it's only useful for civilian purposes, primarily energy and hospital uses. And then the neocons got to Trump and he said no enrichment at all, which he knows is a non-starter. Here he is with Jonathan Karl on this week on ABC News on Sunday, two days ago.

Chris, cut number five. Can you give us a sense of what is the outline of the deal that President Trump wants to get with Iran? He wants to solve this conflict diplomatically and with dialogue. But on the other hand, we have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability

We've delivered a proposal to the Iranians that we think addresses some of this without disrespecting them and so that's important we are we we want to we want to get to a solution here and and We want to get to a solution here, and we think that we will be able to, but everything begins from our standpoint, John, with a deal that does not include enrichment. We cannot have that, because enrichment enables weaponization, and we will not allow a bomb to get here. But short of that, there are all kinds of ways for us to achieve our goals in this negotiation.

We think that we will be meeting sometime this week in Europe and we hope that it will lead to some real positivity. And that's where we are, sir. Yeah, that's good. Well, they, you know, I don't think Witkow is naive, but they know that that is a non-starter zero enrichment. It's like Zelensky saying, we want Crimea back. These things are just not negotiable.

They'll be resolved with the force of arms, but not with negotiation Sorry, you know that we when Trump just got back from Saudi Arabia and they were talking about helping Saudi Arabia Generate up parts a nuclear energy industry of some sort. I think you know, there were some talk about Saudi Arabia having the possibility of You know working with uranium. So and of course we know possibility of You know working with uranium so and of course we know Israel is has 400 nukes plus or minus maybe more they've got submarines. They've got the whole thing And their their whole security concept is we will have nukes, but no one around us will have anything to defend themselves

I mean, I think the icon of this was how they on the day after the fall of Assad they used Three days to completely destroy the entire military infrastructure and weapon stash that Syria had. They completely wiped it out. This is how they view national security and that's warped. Okay, that's extremely warped. It's just it's not workable, it's not right, it's not sustainable, it's not just, and it's not gonna happen. Back to the slaughter in Gaza, the United Kingdom, for what it's worth, I don't know how much they trade

with Israel announced the suspension of trade. Here's foreign secretary, I'm not sure if he's foreign Secretary or Defense Secretary, David LeMay on the floor of the House of Commons earlier today. As the Prime Minister and fellow leaders said yesterday, we cannot stand by in the face of this new deterioration. It is incompatible with the principles that underpin our bilateral relationship, rejected by members across this House, and frankly it is an affront to the values of the British people.

Therefore today I am announcing that we have suspended negotiations with this Israeli Government on a new free trade agreement. We will be reviewing cooperation with them under the 2030 bilateral road map. The Netanyahu government's actions have made this necessary. I say now to the people of Israel, we want, I want, a strong friendship with you based on shared values, with flourishing ties between our people and societies. We are unwavering in our commitment to your security

and to your future, to countering the very real threat from Iran, the scourge of terrorism and the evils of anti-Semitism. But the conduct of the war in Gaza is damaging our relationship with your government. And as the Prime Minister has said, if Israel pursues this military offensive as it has threatened, failing to ensure the unhindered provision of aid we will take further action in response listen i'm not a fan of the british government at all but i couldn't imagine marco ruby or pete hegseth saying that could you no no and i think that i couldn't even

imagine anybody in the floor of congress maybe maybe Thomas Massey, arguing for it. Yeah, no, it's to their credit that he is standing up and doing that, but it's not to his credit that it took, you know, 600 days of genocide and a war that's unbalanced, aggressive, aimed at a full retaliation to the whole population, men, women and children. This has been going on for over 550 days, nearly 600 now, for him to come up now for, I'm glad that they did. I'm glad that- It is too little too late.

But- You know, I saw a meme the other day and it said, it was the Brits and Europeans saying to Israel, you know, really you're embarrassing us. If you wouldn't embarrass us with your genocide, we would continue to support you. But it's not that they're morally opposed to it, but they don't want to be politically embarrassed

because the country, their people, the British people, Europeans, people around the world are enraged by what they're seeing and these politicians are so slow to react to the morality of the majority in this case, which is very, very strange, but they don't want that. Colonel Kwiatkowski, a pleasure my dear friend, no matter what we're talking about. Thanks for letting me pick that very fertile brain of yours. We'll look forward to seeing you next week.

Thanks a lot, Judge. Okay, all the best to you. Tomorrow, Wednesday, a very busy and happy day for you. At eight o'clock in the morning, Professor Gilbert Doctorow. At 11 in the morning, Aaron Monte. At one o'clock in the afternoon, I don't know where he is, but wherever he is, it'll be midnight. Pepe Escobar. At two o'clock, returning here after an absence of a couple of months. My dear friend Matthew Ho at three o'clock, Phil Giraldi, and at four o'clock, the always worth waiting for Scott Ritter. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Music