Judging Freedom - LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : Trump Making Matters Worse

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : Trump Making Matters WorseSee 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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Undeclared wars are commonplace. Tragically, 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 the issue of the American people, initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? What if 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, April 14th, 20206. Colonel Karen Koukowski, my longtime friend joins us now. Colonel always a pleasure.

Thank you very much for joining us. Was the Islamabad meeting or meetings over the weekend involving Vice President Vance and the team from Iran, a serious or a performative negotiation? Oh, I think clearly performative, not serious at all. And I say that because it turns out they reported that the Iranians came with boxes and boxes of technical papers and all kinds of other things that they planned to go through. And I guess the American side came with a lot of people, but the people didn't have any preparation or planning. So that's one thing that it tells me they didn't really intend to do any real work there. And the other thing, of course, that could have told us from day one that it was not serious, is we had Kushner and Witkoff there. And they are already highly discredited real estate agents. So in terms of they have no place in any negotiation.

They should not be. And they've actually lost their cred in terms of communicating honestly back to President Trump. They haven't done that. They have their tools, their puppets. They are poorly qualified for what they've been tasked to do. And apparently haven't learned anything from the years. and a half that they have been serving as basically the president's negotiators. So the fact that he sent them back there after their track record with, of course, the frontman Vance, who also

has no experience in this, that tells me that we weren't serious at all. And I've heard maybe there will be another round of talks on Thursday. I don't know if that's true. But if they send Wickkhov and Kushner there, it's the same old stuff. So it means nothing. It's all chariot. Why would the Iranians even talk to Whitkoff and Kushner? A, their agents of Netanyahu. B, they tricked the Iranians twice, leading them to believe that negotiations were going to go on and then all of a sudden the bombing occurred in June and in February. My understanding is that the Iranians said, don't bring them. And Trump used an exfilev and then decided to send them anyway. Wow. Yeah, that makes sense. I don't know why they would do it.

But I think the, no, it's one thing as we watch how the Iranians have defended their country and how they have made statements. They are always careful to separate the government of the United States that's attacking them and the people of America. They separate that. They're very statesmen like in their pronouncements. They're very orderly. They're respectful of the other heads of state and foreign ministers.

You know, they just, they have manners, and they use those, even though they have been attacked wrongly and they have been harmed greatly by the United States, not just in this 45-day war, but in previous times with sanctions for decades and, you know, attempted coups and coups, you know, all this stuff. So they have behaved very well. And I think that part of the multifaceted strengths of Iran is partly their behavior. if they behave with grace and dignity, I think this is a part of their game plan. And they also do it because it's the right thing to do. But I think they want to appear as sincere, prepared, willing to negotiate. And I don't think they do it out of a position of weakness, even though Trump will say that. I think they do it because it's one of their strengths.

Trump boasted that he doesn't compromise, that he gets 100% of what he wants, these negotiations. Of course, that is ridiculous, and it's a basis for not even having a negotiation. What is accomplished by that? Well, it feeds Trump's ego for sure. And it must be true because, you know, when Vance got off the plane or did an interview, I don't know if he was off the plane in Islamabad or getting ready to leave Islamabad, and he goes, we gave them our demands. They did not they did not concede. You know, basically, that's a negotiation that you give them your demands. As far as I can tell, we haven't fared very well as a military in this past 40 days.

We certainly- Who sought the negotiations, the U.S. or the Iran? Isn't it kind of obvious that Trump needed an out, even if it was for just a couple of weeks? That's right, absolutely. First off, we're running out of some of the key weapon systems and missile systems, and we've got to ship in better radars from other places. We've lost and damaged airplanes. Our people are tired.

Our carriers are breaking and having all kinds of problems. We don't even have a huge amount of carriers on the sea at any time anyway. So we needed the 10-day break for sure. But also, Trump has been hearing from people around the world, allies and near your competitors alike, that this is having impacts that are far beyond just. higher oil prices right now. You know, the impact of closure of the straight and slowdown of export of oil, gas, helium, potash, fertilizer, you name it.

The destruction of the financial and high-tech industries in the Gulf states that they had in those cities to buy and all that, the longer this goes on, the worse it gets, the more money is lost. And actually, Trump's money people went to him, right? I mean, Bessent and Jamie Diamond, what is this, this interchangeable Golden Sacks, U.S. Treasury job rotation project that we have. Well, they both talk to Trump right before this last set of negotiations. They talked to him about what the impact financially, the impact on U.S. treasuries, the impact on people's ability and interest in doing what we want them to do. You know, we're becoming a pariah by the way we behave.

So Trump says he gets everything he wants. Well, is that what he wants? Somebody needs to sit that boy down and talk to him, you know, and just explain to him, you know, you getting what you want is breaking everything. And it's harming the United States in addition to many other places. And nobody, nobody apparently is able or willing to tell him that. So Trump and the aunt spoke 11 times in 21 days. It's unclear who called whom. and Trump and Netanyahu spoke.

We don't know how many times Netanyahu claims it was one, and it was on the flight on his way home from Vance's plane, when Vance, quote, reported to him, as the Trump administration reports to me every day. I'm sure that didn't surprise you, Colonel Kweckowski. No, but it's funny that he would say that, because he must know that that is a slap in Trump's face. Well, and again, I don't know who's in charge.

You know, I don't know in this marriage between Netanyahu and Trump, I don't know what roles they play. I'm sorry, I don't. It's hard to tell. But that was in a very authoritative statement. I have many administration officials that report to me multiple times a day. This is normal, of course. Don't worry about it. I, you know, I run the United States.

I mean, that's basically what I'm saying. It's pretty crazy. Does somebody need to take the keys away before Grandpa kills somebody? You know, it's funny because, you know, Susie Weil, who is it, Susie Wiles, the chief of staff? Right. She had said something a couple weeks ago about she wished more people would come more prepared to talk to Trump or so. I forget what it was. But it was almost like she was complaining.

She's the gatekeeper. She's the chief of staff. She should be able to, she's the one who gets people on Trump's schedule. if she's concerned that Trump's not getting a clear picture, and that's what it sounded like based on what she said, that he needs better information. Then why doesn't she put people who can provide that better information on his calendar? Well, she doesn't do that because she likes it the way it is. She's a big Zionist. She thinks it's fine.

She doesn't know. She's not qualified. She managed one of Netanyahu's re-election campaigns. That's right. That's right. So she's not unhappy with all of this stuff. She realizes kind of as a political person that Trump is losing some. some of his, well, not gravitas, he didn't have that, but he was, he's losing some of his,

um, uh, cred's and, and goodwill that, that, uh, he needs in order to, to be the king of the world, um, to be the United States president. You know, he should have positive relationships. I mean, the Europeans don't trust him. China doesn't trust him. Russia, of course, can't trust him. And Israel monitors us very closely, which could indicate that even Israel does not trust him. So, you know, Susie Wiles is recognizing that this is maybe handicapping Trump a little bit, or maybe it's going to harm his election or his situation in the fall elections. And so she says, well, we need to get more people in here. Look, take responsibility.

If you're the chief of staff, it's on you. I don't have the least bit of sympathy for him. I do think that many of the people that focus more on domestic politics in the Trump White House are very concerned. I think they're very concerned, and they should be, of course. Trump has broken MAGA. And, you know, these MAGA people, I was one of them. I'm not anymore. I'm a conservative, constitutionalist libertarian.

I'm not a MAGA anymore. But I latched on. I thought there was some hope there. And so many of the people that came out for Trump in all three of his presidential elections were not people that voted as a matter of routine. These are people that felt something, were inspired by something and came out to vote. And they have no qualms sitting home and sitting it out. They are not bound to the Republican or Democratic Party, could care less about them.

So this was not a coalition that you could just treat like dirt, and it would be just as tight and strong as it was before. This is a coalition. If you treat them like dirt, they don't vote for you anymore, ever. They don't pay attention to you. If somebody asks, they don't advocate for you. it's not like a political party where you can have talking points and you can push them down. And if you're a Republican, you have to say this and a Democrat has to say this. The MAGA group does not respond that way.

They don't appreciate it being taken for granted. So those guys aren't going to turn out. And if they do turn out, they may turn out for candidates that, in fact, I would guarantee you, they will turn out for candidates in both parties who oppose Trump's wars and very possibly oppose Trump's missteps regarding, you know, thinking he's Jesus or something like that. That is, I don't know what kind of political idiot allowed that to happen, but they did. And this is bad. Maybe this is a good thing.

Is Trump's war failure collapsed the American Empire? Yeah, well, I'd like that. I think, well, look, I think he's accelerating the collapse. The Empire, the United States Empire, global reach, all this unipolar superpower, big military that can't really do anything, even though it sucks up money. This was already on collapse. We have been collapsing. Our empire has been being weakened and discredited day after day, year after year for a long, long time. But Trump has accelerated it.

And he is also, because people watch Trump and he's kind of a cartoon character for empire, many of the things. things that he's doing, people are willing to say, you know what, this whole system is not good. We shouldn't be there. But people have been saying that for a long time. We should not be the world's policemen. We should not fight Israel's wars over the last 30 years. We should not be telling other countries how they need to buy weapons from this guy or that guy or, you know, not have a bomb, do have a bomb. You know, it's not our business. Let it go. Defend America. This is what people want. And Trump in his behavior and his kind of, you know, he is theatrical. You know, he is an energy suck, basically. And so you look at that, you watch him. And I think it helps. It helps

us reject empire. Those of us who really don't think about it in terms of empire, we say we reject that. Whatever that is, we don't like it. And so that's a good thing. But the problem is, How many people is he going to kill? How many economies is he going to destroy? Our country, which I don't write about much, but I know you do, Judge, and this is a huge thing you're aware of, but the degree of tyranny and the loss of our civil liberties and our economic liberties and our property rights

and the disrespect for the Bill of Rights in this country, it is insane. And it's a creeping loss of liberty that has been building and building. And when empires fall and crash, this is usually their reaction to tamp down even more. So we have a valence state. We are spied upon. We're regulated in a zillion ways. And I guess I'm a little hyped up about this because we just finished our taxes.

And so we, you know, when you, we use turbotax. I'm sure they're all the same. But when you get done with your taxes, we have a complicated one. So we had like 130 pages of like wordsheets and papers and all this. And I told Hap, I said, he's putting the taxes together. And he's like, this is really hard. I'm saying, Hap, you've done it every year. What could possibly be hard about it? You know, the computer does the work, I said, right? And he goes, no, no, things change every single year. And some of the questions that the tax, that the IRS requests of you, do you have any cryptocurrency?

What business is the government if I have cryptocurrency? You know, what am I going to do? You know, you want? I mean, what do they want? But we accept it. We accept all of it. We drive our cars. Our phones are everywhere. You know, we're being tracked and monitored, surveilled, put in some massive AI accessible database, you know, so that the government can manage us better. Well, when the empire falls, we still are going to have that problem.

We will then be the subjects of a, you know, a tyrannical government, which we kind of have right now. And we can see how it works, how it treats other countries, you know, what it's doing to Iran. That's pretty bad. But that's all going to come home eventually. So when I want the empire to collapse, and it is going to collapse, whether I want it to or not. But I'm also worried about when it does, how are we going to take care of ourselves in this country?

Are we going to preserve our freedom? It's going to be interesting because we have been changed by being subjects of empire. You know, being in we're number one country, we do everything we want. Because actually we have a government that hates us just about as bad as it hates Iranians. Yeah, we have some breaking news. We'll run the tape. This is Israel's ambassador to the United States addressing reporters right after a meeting in Washington involving the U.S., Lebanon and Israel. He's going to say, this I think is absurd, but he's going to say the Lebanese government agrees to disarm Hezbollah.

Good luck. What they're trying to do is ferment a civil war between Lebanon and Lebanon. and has below so that the Israelis can steal more land. But let's watch what he said, watch how he says it and listen to him. Chris. I was honored to sit around negotiating table with his excellency, Michelle Issa, the United States ambassador to Lebanon, and to her excellency, Nada Hamadi,

the Lebanese ambassador to Washington. We discovered today that we're on the same side of the equation. That's the most positive thing we could have come away with. We are both united and liberating Lebanon from an occupation power dominated by Iran called Hezbollah. Lebanon is under their occupation and we are suffering from their constant barrages of missiles and terror attacks trying to cross our border. Who will liberate Lebanon from the occupation by the Israelis? Who will stop the Israelis from trying to steal Lebanon territory, Mr. Ambassador?

No, I think he's on the payroll of the Israelis. I mean, honestly, yeah, this is really a shame. Yeah, the history of Lebanon, you know, it's complicated, and it's a remnant, you know, of European colonialism in many ways. I mean, a lot of the problems that they have are, they go way back. But yeah, Israel wants, like you said, Israel wants a civil war in Lebanon. They want Lebanon focused and internally divided so they can claim it. And I honestly think they're going to go beyond the Latani River.

Latani River is just what's going to look like Gaza. I think they want the rest of Lebanon as well. I mean, it's part of the Greater Israel Project. So it's really sad. to hear people that are smart people and they have positions of power and influence like this ambassador, saying things that are so easily disproven and so obvious to the rest of the world what's going on. Again, as an empire, our credibility is not very good. And when you hear, hear, listen to guys like him talk about what Lebanon and Israel agree on.

I think almost everybody on the planet sees right through that. Were two pilots actually rescued? You know I was going to ask you this. In Iran, and if so, who are they? Where are they? Why don't we know about them? Or was this some sort of a stunt to cover up the failure to steal the enriched uranium? Yeah.

We know it's been a while since we've heard about those guys in that big famous rescue and the broken foot climbed 4,000 meters, whatever, up the mountain. got picked up. We haven't heard that much. We haven't seen them. We haven't heard their names. We don't know what bases they're from. We don't know what hospitals they're in. Somebody said they went to Germany. We're not sure. But I did a search last night just to see what the latest news was. And the latest news that Google, now I don't trust Google, but Google said the latest news was from a week ago. And it was all the same news. It was right after the operation, which was a failed. I don't know if there was a rescue even at all at this point, but certainly we sent a bunch of

equipment and troops in to try to get some uranium out of Issephan. We did not succeed at that. Coincident to that, there was or was not a rescue of pilots. So there was no news. And then I found something that a reporter just recently, like yesterday or maybe Sunday, asked President Trump and the White House, he was out there and they were yelling questions. And they said, hey, how are the pilots doing? How are those pilots doing that we rescued a week and a half? And he goes, oh, pilots are doing very well. They're doing very well.

I mean, it was so like cursory and performative, you know, just, I don't think he knows. I think he forgot about him. And anyway, it's very strange because that's a way you look like you're a winner. You go to the hospital as a president and you guys got his leg up on a cast and you shake his hand and give him a medal, you know, whatever does they do. It's an opportunity to connect with the troops. It's an opportunity to make it look like, hey, it's okay. Even though it was a failed, you know, we shot an airplane down, but we went and got our guy, right? And Trump was very adamant.

We never leave him in behind. He wouldn't know. He would not know quite literally, but whatever. He said that. And he could make some political hay by doing that, but they're not doing it. And not only is he not doing it. Head set is totally not doing it. And the Air Force and Chiefs have, the Air Force is invisible.

I don't even know who it is now. He's not doing it. I'm just curious. Because you remember, I know you remember, and everybody that watches your show remembers Pat Dillman's story, right? And this was some years ago. But so Pat Bowman, great hero, they used him, Bush used him as a great example of American patriotism and honor. And then he got killed and we blamed it on this big, massive, oh my God, there was a story that went with that about the massive firefight and the brave sacrifice and all these things. And then were a lot of

details that sounded quite realistic. And then it turned out, months later, it turned out, oh my God, you know, this was all made up by the advertising. department in the Pentagon. And it wasn't really true at all. We killed our guys. We killed the Afghan working for us and we killed Pat Tillman. And friendly fire, confusion. Who knows what. Or you can go down the conspiracy rabbit hole and say, well, we killed him because he was getting ready to say that he didn't believe in that war anymore. I don't know what it was. But bottom line is the Pentagon created didn't just lie, didn't just do a lie of omission. They did a very creative lie to sell a story about telling. What was another West Virginia girl, an enlisted, army enlisted person from

West Virginia who they made a story about her. And she came out months later and said, none of that happened. I don't know why they're saying that this is what happened. It didn't happen. But it was a story to sell a political program to sell. But in this case, we don't even have a name or anything. What we know is colonel. We don't even know if he's a full bird colonel, Lieutenant Colonel, he, she, we know nothing. That's right. We know nothing. And I think that a big part of that, including how Trump answered that particular question

that was thrown out to him just a couple days ago, I think they are burying that one down. I don't think they're going to bother to create any more stories because there's too much data out there. It'll be hard to sell a lie. So they're just trying to bury it. And I hope I'm wrong. I would love to see these guys march out of the hospital

and get a medal or whatever it is they do. you know, I would like to see them. I don't want people to die, but maybe nobody died. Maybe the whole thing's made up. I don't know. The credibility of our government is low. It's low. And it's getting me.

Your credibility with this audience is through the roof. Very, very, very high. Thank you, Colonel Kortkowski. All the best, my dear friend. Well, thank you for having us. It's never a dull moment with you, Karen. Thank you. Oh, my goodness.

We'll see again next week. Okay. Coming up tomorrow, Wednesday at 8 in the morning, Gilbert Docterow, at 9 in the morning from Tehran. He was in Islamabad, now back in Tehran, Professor Muhammad Miranda. At one in the afternoon, I don't know where he is, but we'll find him, Pepe Escobar, 2 o'clock, Professor Glendiz, and at 3 o'clock, the great Phil Giraldi. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.