Judging Freedom - LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski: Is Trump Serious?

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

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

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, February 25th, 2025. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski is here with us in a minute on just how serious or how realistic is Donald Trump's foreign policy so far after a month in office. But first this. Markets are at an all-time high. Euphoria has set in. The economy seems unstoppable. But the last administration has buried us so deep in debt and deficits, it's going to take a lot of digging to get us out of this hole. Are you prepared? Lear Capital specializes in helping people like me and you grow and protect our wealth with gold. Did you know that during Trump's last presidency, gold rose 54% to a record high.

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ahead. When you call, ask how you can also get up to fifteen thousand dollars in bonus gold with a qualifying purchase. Call 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620 or go to Learjudgenap.com and tell them the judge sent you. Colonel Kwiatkowski, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. You have written very thoughtfully and deeply, if I might add, about the values underlying Donald Trump's foreign policy thus far, and you characterize it consistent with the champions of realism, Mearsheimer and Sachs, as being realism, a recognition of the legitimate wants, needs,

and sovereignties of other countries. Certainly, this is so with respect to Russia. The president is not a neocon. He doesn't want to use Ukraine as a battering ram to drive Vladimir Putin from office, as an example of that. But is realism devoid of morality? I am thinking, of course, of Gaza. Yeah, that's the real question. You know, because the idea of realism, it really is very small C conservative approach to dealing with other countries and foreign policy relations. And it's a pro, it focuses on not so much peace, although we like to say peace and Donald Trump says peace, but really it focuses on prosperity. And fundamentally, prosperity has to be based on reality and morality, right? I mean, we don't trade with people that we, that do things that are the opposite of our value system.

We prefer not to, right? That even a normal, you know, people in small towns choose the stores to go to. And if they have a bad experience, they don't choose that store. So it's about liberty. Trade is prosperity, trade, all about liberty. In that regard, I think it does touch on morality. And we have a big disconnect because for all of the

realistic movements and gestures and statements and actions that Trump has made in the last month, which is great, it's good stuff. It's full of good ideas. He has not applied that to our blind and ever so biased support of Israel. Unquestioningly, you know, that is untouchable. It is as if truly Israel is the 51st state. Or maybe we're the 51st. Maybe we're the second state of Israel. I'm not sure. It's very unsettling.

I mean, yesterday, he made a big deal out of this, Karen. The effect of it is nil, but he made a big deal out of it. President Biden apparently, I didn't even know this, signed an executive order prohibiting the United States from distributing or authorizing the distribution of weapons to countries that engage in unhumanitarian acts. All right, executive order is superfluous. There are already two federal statutes and two treaties that regulate this, and Biden disregarded all of them. I get it, I get it. You and I and the others on the show have been harshly critical of Joe Biden for that. Why did he have to ostentatiously rescind that when he didn't believe he's bound by federal law? We know that a president is not bound by the executive order of our predecessor, but he is bound by federal law because he took an oath to uphold it.

Yeah, well, you know, it's funny, we don't hear a lot in the media about the congressional, you know, the legal rules that govern our foreign aid and our military aid. And one of them, it's been around for quite a long time. We don't, we're not supposed to have military aid and foreign aid to countries that are taken over by a dictator, for example. But see, we always ignore that if it's our dictator. Right. And then we say it's OK. But we have the language of these rules is very clear. And it's based on it is driven by some sense of morality, but the problem is it comes from Congress, and Congress has no collective morality whatsoever. I mean, the individuals in Congress are very bereft of average morality. It's like they didn't get that in line.

There is no morality, I would argue, and invite you to challenge, push back back or agree, though I suspect you'll agree, there is no morality whatsoever to permitting and paying for Netanyahu to slaughter people in Gaza in an act of genocide. Yeah, none, zero. And it's not just we're paying for it, we're actually helping him do it. We're maintaining, we have Americans in Israel maintaining the two F-35 squadrons that are there, maintaining them. OK, physically in Israel doing that work. Of course, they tie back to to to the United States. And there's a lot of work that gets done in the United States directly for those F-35 squadrons. So that's just one thing. We also provide, as we do for other allies, but pretty much mainly Israel, intelligence and surveillance data and tracking data and deconfliction data, all this kind of stuff that our military does.

We provide all of that to Israel, plus the fact that Israel spies on us for anything we don't give them willingly. So basically they have everything that we have. So the taxpayer is funding the genocide in Gaza, not just funding it. We're actually, Americans are participating in it. They are supporting it with their work. Let me ask you from your years in the Air Force, these MOABs, mother of all bombs, they must have a technical name, but the press and even the military calls them MOABs. They weigh 22,000 pounds each. They must have a technical name, but the press and even the military calls them Moabs. They weigh 22,000 pounds each. Is it true that the Israeli Air Force does not have planes big enough and strong enough to pick these things up and drop them?

And if it is, who would do it? Okay. I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure. I mean, I don't know the answer. I don't think they do. And I think it would be us that would do that. But I can't verify that. I haven't researched to see what they're- What would these monsters be used for? McGregor, Ritter, Matto, all say they can only be used to cause mass indiscriminate destruction. Like if you

wanted to level two or three city blocks in New York City, irrespective of the human life you would destroy and the property you would damage. That's the primary use, is to destroy cities, people, installations, that kind of thing. You know, I've always wondered, you know, if they have some dream of the Ben-Gurion Canal, which of course would have traveled right through the corridor that they split Gaza with, although they have withdrawn from that corridor, because when they were talking about building that canal many, many years ago, before we had modern technology and MOABs, they were looking at low-grade nuclear weapons to go ahead and dig it because it's part of it goes through mountains. But this is an alternative canal to the Suez. And the Suez, of course, is dated and it's clogged. And Egypt is the one that benefits financially

from the Suez Canal. So the Ben Gurion Canal is a dream that's been around since the, I think, early 70s and maybe even before then. And they could use them for that. Now, there aren't a lot of people living in that part of, it's outside of Gaza. It's to the east of Gaza, towards the Red Sea. So a lot of it is just land that doesn't have a lot of big cities. And Israel occupies that land. And, you know, it is considered Israel, I guess. Anyway guess anyway that's the only reason I'm trying to be creative here that's the

only thing I can think otherwise you just for people but here's the thing we don't hear what Israeli newspapers are saying we don't get to hear what their politicians are saying but what the papers and the politicians and the people in Israel, the Zionists certainly in Israel, are saying is they want the Gazans exterminated. They want them gone, physically gone. They don't care if they go other places. They don't care, but they prefer them actually to be gone because if they're in other places, they're still there, you know, fomenting a so-called threat to Israel. So if you want a lot of people gone in a small area, you could use the Moabs. If they did that, though, I don't think Trump is, well, I don't know.

If they had to use- Let me ask you this. We all know that Benjamin Netanyahu was looking for an excuse to break the ceasefire and blame it on the Gazans so that he can reintroduce the IDF into Gaza and resume the genocide and please the right-wing elements of his government. If he does that, would you expect the United States to back him or for Trump to dispatch Mr. Whitcoff and say, stop it? My sense of it is Trump would not back him on that. I think a big part of Trump's proposal to rebuild Gaza is it starts with, and Trump even said this, stopping, you know, to stop the destruction. It's already destroyed. So to destroy it more, and particularly in order to kill people, I don't think Trump would buy into that. It is inconsistent with his previous words. I think what he's trying to do with his buying Gaza,

rebuilding Gaza, whatever, including the terrible aspects of that proposal, is in a sense it's working already. The Arab nations, Arab countries, neighbors, and others are looking at a counter. You know, what can we do to make this work? I mean, push comes to shove. Trump's in town. Trump is moving things rapidly. What can be done? And they haven't acted in the past, and they've been part of the problem, you know, not helping the Palestinians. But if he is a man of peace, as he said he was in his inaugural address, as he stated many times since then, why is he an uber Zionist? He doesn't have to run for re-election. He's fabulously rich. He has nothing to lose politically.

If he tells the donor class, go take a hike, you're on your own until Bibi starts listening to me. Yeah. What is it? Can you put your finger on it? I have a sense, and this could be totally wrong, but I have a sense that a lot of what Trump does is over the top Zionist worship, his language, and many of his appointees over the top. Even Kash Patel is on Israeli TV saying, what does he care about Israel and the FBI? We've got many problems here. But no, he's saying Israel's number one, nothing will change our great positive relationship or whatever. But I think a lot of this is turned into after how many years has it

been of Israeli lobby domination of DC.C., of Congress, of the presidencies. It's been, what, 60 years of, you know, ownership, really, of the Zionist lobby owns our politicians. It owns our Middle East. It writes our Middle East policy. And it's very dangerous, of course, to immediately attack that. But I think some of the language that they're using, it almost seems over the top, almost as if it's, don't look at me, I definitely support you. I definitely support you until he comes to the point where he doesn't. Because I don't think Trump has respect for Netanyahu. Netanyahu is, Trump has probably worked with and knows people like Netanyahu in his long life.

And I don't think he has a favorable opinion of him. I think he sees him for what he is. And he's a bully and he's in a weak spot. And Trump is not known for hanging around with losers. Let me play a clip from Steve Witkoff, his Middle East and apparently Ukraine emissary, over on Sunday saying Hamas has to leave Gaza. This to me sounds fantastic and unrealistic. We started out talking about realism, but before I comment on it,

and I don't want to put words in your mouth, cut number six, Chris. The May 27th protocol agreement signed last May 27th sets forth that the phase two negotiation is much about two things. a permanent ceasefire, a cessation of all violence. And in addition to that, the fact that Hamas cannot be allowed to come back into the government. And I think the way you square that circle is that Hamas has to go. They've got to leave. And we're going to the negotiation will be around that. I would say physically, that's correct. Where would they go? Has any country offered to take them in? Well, I think the devil is in the details, and we've had a lot of discussions around it. I'm not at liberty to have that specific discussion today, but we've got some ideas. More Ben Gavir and Smotrich than Karen Kwiatkowski coming out of his mouth.

Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, I saw that. And it is extremely unrealistic. And also, given the, I don't want to call it a spectacle, but given the imagery of the recent funeral in southern Lebanon of, I forget the guy's name, but- Nasrallah. There were a quarter of a million people there. That's right. And the Israelis buzzed them with F-16s and F-35s twice during this thing, as low as they could go, as loud as they could go.

During a funeral. Yeah. Yeah. And that is uncalled for. I mean, it's just typical. But the people are connected to their political leadership, whether it's Hezbollah, whether it's Hamas. And Hamas, I mean, the way that Hamas has, in the face of the destruction of Gaza, to show up in an organized manner to return the hostages that they did to adhere to, strangely enough, to adhere to the ceasefire agreement that Witkoff himself negotiated that the Israelis never adhered to. They broke it every single day, just like they do in southern Lebanon. And yet Hamas maintained discipline, complied with the ceasefire, behaved professionally. There is no other political

leadership in Gaza that has any legitimacy. So what are you really saying? What is Witkoff really saying? You know, he's saying it's as if you had, I don't know, a party like the Republicans and Independents and Democrats who support MAGA in this country. And you said MAGA has to go. MAGA is unacceptable. Well, what is MAGA? Well, you'd have to kill a lot of people to eliminate MAGA. And you would have to, I think this idea that, well, Hamas has to go is really just veiled language that reflects the hard right Zionists in Israel, which is, and their desire is eliminate the population entirely, men, women, and children. And they have said this.

They've said this multiple times. So, yeah, I don't, Wyckoff may be walking a fine line. Maybe he is negotiating something. But to say that publicly, he looked like he believed what he was saying for the most part. That is unrealistic. So my hope is that Trump has success with the places around the world in his foreign policy when he applies realism based on honest fact, based on national interest alone, U.S. interest, and respect for the interest of others, but not us advocating for the interest of others, but advocating for

America. This is why he was elected. It's consistent with much of what he has said, and it's simply not being applied to Israel, not yet. I'm going to take you to Europe before we finish, Karen. Can NATO survive without the United States? No, not even in a few years it cannot survive. I mean, I could see that if Trump pulled support from NATO, which I don't see him 100% doing that. But if he did that, you would have maybe an EU military force of some sort. And it would be a shadow of NATO.

It would be just as ineffective and just as poorly led as the EU is now. I don't see huge signs that the EU is improving itself. So yeah, it's a fading force one way or the other. Even if we cut, even if the United States cuts a great deal of support, even 20, 30, 50% of our support for NATO, and we don't support NATO's adventurism in everywhere that it adventures, which we have a lot, NATO has a long history of that. We stopped supporting that. We cut them 50% in line with other cuts that the military is doing. There would be no NATO. And there shouldn't be. There shouldn't be. Because it's very costly for the people of Europe. And it provides very little value back to the people of Europe, which they are now realizing. And I think that's

a good thing. Colonel Kowalkowski, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you. Thank you for your thought on this. I love when we can get a little deep and you're the perfect person with which to do it. Thank you for continuing to post your great writings on judgenap.com. Everybody should know, if you like Colonel Kowalkowski as much as I do, you can always get her writings, which are easily once a week and sometimes more frequently at judsnap.com. Thank you, Karen. All the best. Thank you, Judge. Appreciate it. Sure. A busy day for you tomorrow. Colonel, excuse me, Professor Doctorow at 8 in the morning, Colonel McGregor at 1130, Professor Glenn Deason at 1, Phil Giraldi at 2, Congressman Thomas Massey, maybe the only person

in the House of Representatives that believes the Constitution means what it says, and my longtime friend will be here at three and midnight in Moscow at four o'clock, Pepe Escobar. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.