Judging Freedom - LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : The Evils of the State.

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : The Evils of the State.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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Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, August 19th, 2020. Colonel Karen Kutkowski will be here with us in just a moment on a celebration of freedom and peace that she and I both attended on Saturday. But first this. My friends, if you care about your liberty and your right to control your own future, you need to hear about this. From October 10th to

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Thank you for your kind comments about the program on Saturday. Thank you for what you said about me. And thank you for the beautiful summary that you wrote about it, reminding everybody of the evils. of the state. I mean, there we were, about 500 people, mainly from the Northeast, talking about peace and freedom at the Ron Paul Institute annual gathering. Professor Sachs was there, Colonel McGregor was there, Max Blumenthal was there, Anya Parenthold was there, you were there, Phil Giraldi was there. You think these gatherings make a difference? I do. I think they do. I think they

because they kind of show our progress to some extent. And, of course, it's always like any conference, you know, networking. But, yeah, I think it makes a difference because if nothing else, we forget how far we've come, I think, and when you get together annually. And I haven't gone to everyone, but I've gone to three, I think, every few years I go to one. And I couldn't believe how jam-packed it was. And the quality of the speakers, it's always good, but it was even better this time. And the people and the message has shifted a little bit into a much more activist role, it seems like.

I mean, I talked to a lot of people just there and not even that many, but the people, everyone that I talked to was, yes, they're learning, but they've also learned so much and they're doing so much. And they're taking it, they're taking the bull by the horns in their own little areas that they have. So it's kind of like the vision that Ron Paul probably, I think he had or maybe he never believed it would be back in the, you know, early 80s. Right. Definitely. We are, it's a huge movement, unstoppable movement. We were pretty happy on Saturday morning that on Friday we learned that President Trump is talking to President Putin as normal human beings talk that. Secretary of State Rubio is authorized to speak to Foreign Minister Lavrov. I think there's a significant difference in their level of understanding there, but at least they're communicating, unlike in the Biden administration,

when after President Biden's meeting with President Putin in Switzerland, he never saw him again and never spoke to him again and prohibited his Secretary of State from speaking with his opposite number. But things are not always as they seem. Now we learn that the president may very well want to involve U.S. troops in some sort of a security guarantee, whatever that means. I'll ask you that in a minute, for whatever remains of Ukraine after a peace treaty is signed. What is a security guarantee? Is it troops on the ground? Is it American pilots in the air? Is it American intel aiming at Russians like they do today? No. The best security guarantee is neutrality. And that's clear throughout history, you know, a strong neutral state that trades with everyone. It's friends with all. This is what Jefferson and Washington envisioned for our own country. It's the way to go. Now, when they talk security guarantees, we were in the nest of the military industrial complex there at that conference this weekend. Right. Oh, God. We were within a mile of virtually all of the major military industrial entities, because that's where they live. That's where they work, and they don't have far to go for Washington. Go ahead, please. Yeah. And so that is what drives our foreign policy, and that is how Trump thinks that he owns these companies. They actually own him, but he thinks he owns, you know, that this is part of the American strength. And so he cannot, I think Trump can't conceive of not selling something or being involved in what he thinks of his business. But of course, we're not talking about business, from about foreign policy. So he wants to sell arms. Trump wants to sell arms. He doesn't really understand, I don't maybe he understands, but I

I think, you know, the more you sell arms, the more you make the world a more dangerous place, right? Because you have those you sell to, those you won't sell to, all kinds of things you're dealing with, you know, you're constantly, the military industrial spiral, you know, the technology spiral, you're in the middle of that. And Trump doesn't, he just says, oh, I'm going to make some money, or the United States will make money, or some of these big companies will make money. And so that's how he views security for Ukraine. He said it himself, we will sell on. arms to NATO, and NATO will protect Ukraine, even though there won't be an Article 5 because Ukraine's not going to be in NATO. And then he talks about other security guarantees that the United States might do, again, implicating that Ukraine itself with no resources will buy massive numbers of weapons that it

doesn't need. The alternative, of course, is a peaceful state neutrality. They don't want that. And Trump doesn't understand that because he's blinded by his desire to come out on top. Yes. I think he has, you know, we have criticized him for being one of these people that believes the person who was last in his ear. I think the flip side of that is, is he wants the adulation of those to whom he's speaking. Yes. He gave President Zelensky and the Europeans, because President Zelensky repeated this and President Macron of France repeated it. He gave them

every reason to believe that he would put American boots on the ground as part of a security apparatus for whatever remains of Ukraine after the Donbos Oblasts and Crimea are formally seated to Russia. And then the next day, which is today, on Fox and Friends in the morning, he said, absolutely not. You have my assurance. You'll never see American boots on the ground. Yeah. maybe air support. Well, air support means intel on the ground. So if Intel is on the ground and U.S. air support is supporting what?

British, French, and German soldiers. What is the difference between that and NATO formally there? Not at all. There's not any difference to it. And, you know, I was listening to your guest before Alistair, and he was talking to Glenn Dyson a little bit. He talked to you, too, and he's got the, you know, the, Trump doesn't understand these things, you know, and he's moving forward, but this stuff is not going to be acceptable to Russia, number one. And number two, it's also not going to be acceptable if he moves forward to militarizing Ukraine or doing anything like military assistance or boots on the ground.

It's not going to be acceptable to MAGA, which is really mad. at Trump right now for a lot of things. The Epstein files is one, but also the, you know, the wars and the stuff that he says he will do. And the big, the big monstrous bill, whatever that was, a great, beautiful bill, you know, that's spent more money. A lot of MAGA come from a more fiscally conservative perspective. So they're not happy with Trump. And Trump needs to end this war. So he says all these things, but I don't know how it's going to come out. I really don't, Because if I was, I mean, Russia has the upper hand, they can continue to do, there could end up being no Ukraine at all. That is certainly feasible that there would be zero Ukraine. Well, there could be no Ukraine for President Zelensky to go back to. I mean, the Bandaris group, a title for this loosely affiliated, hardcore supernationalist.

aspect of Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian military. Our friend Pepe Escobar calls them Nazis. We're not supposed to use that phrase, but that's what he calls them. These people have said there's no surrender to the Russians whatsoever. So he has a serious problem with that. He has a serious problem with his own longevity as president and on earth if he antagonizes this group. But I don't see how Russia is going to go along. along with this. You know, I interviewed Foreign Minister Lavrov back in March, and it was a

joint interview with Larry Johnson and another fellow and me, and we only got to ask three or four questions, and he gave very long-winded answers. But here's 90 seconds from one of those answers, and the most important part is at the end. You'll hear him say it really doesn't matter under whose banner or under what flag they fly, if Trump puts troops on the ground or authorize it or goes along with it, it will mean that he lacks the fundamental understanding of the cause of this war. And we know that he has that fundamental understanding. And that fundamental problem is the efforts to introduce NATO into Ukraine.

Now, the clip you're going to see doesn't show me doing anything but sitting there like a bump on a log. but I did participate in dialogue with him. Here is this very interesting answer. Chris. Europe and the UK, they certainly want this to continue. The way they received Zelensky in London after the scandal in Washington, and it's an indication that they want to raise the stakes and they are preparing something to pressure Trump administration back into some aggressive action against Russia.

We are philosophical about this. We know what we are doing. But I am mostly amazed with this peacekeepers' obsession. Peacekeepers. Let's stop. Macron says, let's stop in one month. peacekeepers would be deployed, then we'll see what to do next. It is first, it is not what we say is required for the end of this war, which the West waged against us through Ukrainians, with their direct participation of their military. We know this.

If NATO expansion is recognized, at least by Donald Trump, as one of the root causes, then the presence of the troops from NATO countries under any flag in any capacity on Ukrainian soil is the same threat. It's that we will view it as the same threat. Now, the Europeans were happy. President McCrone was happy when he said American troops. Trump modified it to say American pilots. Where are we going with this, Karen? Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I don't know. That's one big problem. I mean, that's a major problem that would stop everything. If we're going to put troops there or allow NATO countries to put troops there, that's not going to work. But the other problem with the trading of territory, that they have to do, you know, the Dombas regions that voted to become part of Russia, they've been written into the Russian Constitution. So that's Russia for all intents and purposes.

And the constitution of Ukraine, and they've suspended elections. So they have the same parliament and Zelensky all well past their elective terms. But that constitution has also been changed in such a way to preclude any trading of territory. So I see excuses being made for why this is not going to be, you know, no agreement will be made. And of course, Trump is a strange guy. Like you said, the last person he talks to, that's his best buddy. That's what he's going to go with. But I couldn't help but thinking in the briefing that he gave to the press after, you know, after he had spoken with all the NATO people, and they were all there, you know, the various countries. And he went through each one and allowed them to say something.

And he was very, very profusely kind and, you know, very positive about each of these guys. And anybody who studied those characters that sat around that table from NATO, I don't care if it's McCrone or Georgia Maloney, who ran on a position. She got elected in Italy because they were going to stop doing Ukraine. This is like two years ago. But now she's a big, you know, love it, love it, let's keep on fighting. And, you know, Rudy and von der Leyen, who Trump has already had his way with her. So, you know, he's, I almost got the sense that Trump was trolling all of these guys, you know, by being so profusely flattering to them.

Because once you start to get to know these guys and watch them and understand a little bit about what they've done and where they come from and what their capabilities are as leaders of their countries, you kind of laugh. So Trump may not understand what he's doing, but he does know people, and he does play people games. He can be, you know, he can be your best buddy and he can be your worst enemy in terms of how he speaks about people. And I just got the sense maybe he's saying what he needs to say to get those guys to lay off a little bit, because they have no cards either.

Just like Zelensky has no cards, the European nations already have been well proven to have no cards. I mean, the trade agreement that von der Leyen agreed to, you know, the rest of Europe is so mad about the tariffs and they got nothing. So Trump is running this show. Well, the only cards they have are the $350 million stolen from Russian deposits and banks. It's a stolen. It's frozen. It's still there, but the Russians can't get that money back. I don't think that's going to move Putin, but it'll be a nice sweetener if there is some sort of a grand reset.

Foreign Minister Lavrov gave an interview with either last night or this morning, in which he expressed the views that President Trump and his team are seriously interested in peace. The same cannot be said for the Europeans. Yes. Chris, number 27. Definitely, yes. It was abundantly clear that the esteemed head of the United States and his dedicated team, first and fourth, foremost, genuinely wanted to achieve a comprehensive and lasting result that would be long-term, inherently stable and truly reliable, quite unlike the European counterparts, who at that particular time kept persistently insisting everywhere that only an immediate ceasefire was absolutely needed, and after that they would continue to relentlessly supply weapons to Ukraine.

And secondly, it is important to note that both President Trump and his entire team possessed a very clear and comprehensive understanding that this particular conflict, in its very essence, truly has its underlying causes and deep-rooted origins. Furthermore, they recognize that the discourse and the talk emanating from some European presidents and prime ministers, specifically regarding how Russia purportedly launched an unprovoked and entirely unjustified attack on Ukraine is, quite frankly, nothing more than childish babel. There is absolutely no other accurate or appropriate way to articulate or describe it. There is absolutely no other way to articulate or to describe it, sort of throwing cold water on whatever message Trump and Macron and Stormer and Vonderland and Mertz wanted to get out from yesterday.

I don't know what they agreed to on yesterday because it doesn't sound the same today as it did yesterday. Yeah, the ceasefire demands, it's pleading. I mean, they were pleading about it. They know they're not going to get it, I think. I mean, why would, well, also to, you know, the West doesn't have a clear picture of who's winning this war, but most of us, people that watch your show know. And when you're winning, you have all the, you have the upper hand militarily, you have the upper hand for a long war, a short war. You dominate on every spectrum. And that's what the Russians are doing in Ukraine.

So there is no rational, you know, the next, if you want to end the war, there is a way to end the war. We let Russia end the war, which they're going to do one way or the other, no matter how many weapons we send over there. We've done that for three years. We've set weapons and it hasn't done a darn thing. So the choice is, does Russia get an unconditional surrender of what's left of Ukraine and imprison the neo-nationalists? I mean, to solve the problem that they intended to solve from the beginning, they can do that. They have the capability to do that. They may do that.

So the other choice is, can we stop the killing, which is what Trump is saying? And so if these are your two choices, I think Trump's on the right track, at least is what he's saying. And so I prefer to think he was trolling those European leaders because it's what it looked like to me and that he is going to go ahead and do what needs to be done, which is to negotiate. negotiate a lasting peace. And that's going to be on Russia's terms. Because you know what? When you win a war, you get to negotiate the terms of the peace. I don't know if people remember, you know, at the end of World War II what we did to Germany and Japan. But guess what? The winners negotiated the terms of the peace. That's how it works. It's not always not perfect. But why would we expect anything different today? You know, human beings haven't changed. Here is Chancellor Mertz making a pitch for a ceasefire yesterday in the presence of President Trump and the others. Number 20, Chris. The next steps ahead are the more complicated ones now.

The path is open. You opened it last Friday. But now the way is open for complicated negotiations. And to be honest, we all would like to see a ceasefire. the latest from the next meeting on I can't imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire so let's work on that and let's try to put pressure on Russia

because the credibility of these efforts we are undertaking today are depending on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations from next step on so I would like to emphasize this aspect and would like to see a ceasefire from the next meeting, which should be a trilateral meeting wherever it takes place. Well, we're going to let the president go over and talk to the president,

and we'll see how that works out, and if we can do that, I will say, and again, I say it in the six wars that I've settled, I haven't had a ceasefire. We just got into negotiations, and one of the wars was, as you know, and the Congo was 30 years, 31 years long. Another one that we settled last week with two great countries was 35 years going on, and we had no ceasefire. So if we can do the ceasefire, great.

And if we don't do a ceasefire, because many other points were given to us, many, many points. So listen, I don't know where it's going to go. Trump is hung up on these exaggerated versions of his own. and Mertz is insisting I can't imagine Vladimir Zelensky was right in front of him and President Putin was 10,000 miles away. I can't imagine them getting together while they're still trying to kill each other or while their troops are still trying to kill each other. Yep. And I mean, they talk about a meeting between Zelensky and Putin. I guess has that been scheduled yet that we know or? No. Trump said Trump said also in this Fox and Friends interview this morning, the one of where he said, you have my word, there'll be no boots on the ground.

Okay. He expected an answer from Putin on a Putin Zelensky meeting in a couple of weeks. Now, foreign minister Lavrov has said many times, including to me personally, and President Putin has said many times, including publicly, they're not going to meet with him because he's not the legitimate president. That's right. They're probably not going to meet with them because they think it would be better to win on the battlefield. Yeah, I mean, this is a problem when you start a war.

And this is a lesson for the United States, too. And not that we just, not that we didn't have a big part in starting this war, but when you pick a fight and you don't have a plan, you don't know your enemy that you just decided to go up against and you really don't have good reasons for doing it, guess what? You're going to lose. And Ukraine is lost. The West is lost. NATO has lost.

And I don't know if they're, if they've learned from this or not. But it's an important lesson. And the thing that has really been revealed in the last few years is the lack of capability of NATO military capability and also the weakness in the so-called the well-vaunted American military capability. We've been shown to be mediocre in our ability to fight and win wars. That's pretty much been going on for the last 45 years. We've been shown to me mediocre.

We haven't won any wars. We had to leave the Red Sea because the hooties were, it was unaffordable for us to stay there. Right. Karen, before I let you go, is that a rooster I hear in the background? It could well be. It could well be. All right. He's ready for dinner or for something. Anyway, Colonel Kwokowski, thank you. Thank you very much. Always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for that hug and kiss. Absolutely.

Happy surprise to me on Saturday. And we'll look forward to seeing you again next week. All the best. Absolutely. Thanks, Judge. You're welcome. Tomorrow, a busy day for you. At 8 in the morning, Professor Gilbert Doctoro at 11 in the morning, Max Blumenthal, at 1 in the afternoon, Ian Proud, at 2 in the afternoon from wherever he is on the planet, Pepe Escobar, at 3 in the afternoon, also present with us at the Ron Paul gathering on Saturday.

Phil Giraldi. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.