Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh : A Killer Visits the Oval Office.

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Matt Hoh : A Killer Visits the Oval Office.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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Today is Tuesday, November 4th, 2025. Matt Ho joins us now. Matt, Matt, it's a pleasure. before we get to Al Jelani being received and fed it in the Oval Office, I have to ask you about the news of the day. Was Dick Cheney a war criminal? Yes, Judge. He was.

And thank you for having me on. You know, I should be happy today that Dick Cheney is dead. But there has not been any accountability for his crimes and his lies. no justice for my friends who were killed in Iraq or more so for the millions of lives that were ruined, you know, maybe as many as a million dead in Iraq. No justice for them. So I find myself today, Judge, sitting here hoping that maybe in his last moments Dick Cheney was

cold, alone, and scared as he died. And that's my hope. And that's his legacy to me is that that's that I wish upon another human being to lead this world in that state. Well, I mean, he clearly led George W. Bush around by the nose in foreign matters. He clearly talked him into authorizing torture. He clearly led us into two wars under false pretenses. And he quite literally, well, not literally, but figuratively, of course, has the blood of millions of people. on his hands. And if you go back to the George H.W. Bush years, when he and his buddy Rumsfeld, they really ran the Pentagon for 16 years, didn't they? They did. I mean, they were instrumental in

the Nixon and Ford administrations in the 70s. Cheney was an important figure in the Congress throughout the 80s. And then, of course, as you see, the Secretary of Defense for George H.W. Bush, He leaves that and to just expand his role in our empire, he takes over as the head of Halliburton. And this is during the 1990s as the United States is outsourcing its military to private corporations like Halliburton. Halliburton, of course, after Dick Cheney leaves as CEO and becomes the vice president and then with the Iraq war and the Afghan war, Halliburton made $40 billion on those wars. Of which that must have paid their former CEO a nice chunk. Well, you know, there's a story that goes with this that Cheney, when he took over as CEO of Halliburton,

he bought a company called Dressler Industries, paid $5 or $6 billion for it. This is a story that's largely been forgotten, and it's omitted in almost all the obituaries I've read today about Cheney. But as CEO of Halliburton, he purchases his company. And then there's a lot of liability that comes with this company due to asbestos-related issues, et cetera. But essentially, Halliburton loses their shirt on this decision by their new CEO, Dick Cheney. And there is a belief that part of Cheney's ambition in the wars in the Middle East, especially Iraq War, let's not forget that as soon as they come into office, Dick Cheney hosts secret. meetings with energy companies, you know, the reports of maps essentially with parts of Iraq divided up by the various American and European energy companies. But the idea being is that in many

ways the Iraq War had as much commercial or mercantilist or transactional reasons behind it as it did ideological. Cheney had a foot in both camps. Cheney was a founding member of the project for the New American Century, if people recall that. from the 1990s, this was the neo-conservative mission. This was the worldview that populated those who came into office with George W. Bush. And the legacy of that, of course, were the ruinous wars throughout the Middle East, ruinous for friends of mine, families of those who didn't come home or came home not the same. And, of course, as you mentioned, Judge, tens and tens of millions of people throughout the Middle East who were ruined, who were wrecked, whose lives are still upside down simply.

One of the people who tried to kill you and your colleagues and led people in that effort is about to be fetid in the Oval Office. I mean, this is almost inconceivable. It's got to be inconceivable to you and your Marine colleagues. I'll take it a step farther, Judge. This is a briefed Al Jolani. Yeah, I'll take it a step farther, Judge. Jalani or Ahmed al-Sharar, since he's gone back to his original name, who was the al-Qaeda boss in Syria,

had a $10 million American bounty on his head until just the last year. He is being, you know, feed it. He is being celebrated at the White House on November 10. November 10th is a 250th anniversary of the United States Marine Corps. And that's how the president plans to celebrate it by having the boss of al-Qaeda in Syria as a guest of honor in the White House. Is the president of the, the current president of the United States so ignorant of this guy's background of the way the Marines feel,

of the people he probably killed, of the severed heads he's shown in photographs. We can't put these photographs on air, of course. Is Trump ignorant of all that? If he's not ignorant, judge, he just doesn't care. I think that's the reality of it. It just doesn't matter to him. These are all details and peculiarities and anecdotes, maybe, if you will, to a man like Donald Trump. He's, he is very similar to Dick Cheney. You know, I mean, I think what may have upset Cheney so much was how similar Donald Trump was to him. And maybe that's why Cheney's reaction to Trump in his later years. years, the opposition to Donald Trump, which dominates, I've read a number of obituaries today. And, you know, you go and you look at the CNN obituary for Dick Cheney, and this is what's so revolting, is CNN spends almost twice as much time talking about Dick Cheney's opposition to Donald Trump as they do talking about the Iraq war or the torture program or the mass

spying that the George W. Bush administration conducted. It's another thing he championed the Patriot Act. The worst piece of legislation Congress has passed since the Alien and Sedition Act since 1798, which criminalized speech. Listen to this. Listen to what Trump, now we're going back to Al Jolani. I know you gave his true name. I don't remember.

But let's use what Trump said about this character Sunday. When was it? Yes, Sunday on Air Force One. Number six, Chris. Are you meeting with the Syrian president at the White House? Did you invite him? The Syrian president? The Syrian president. He may be coming. I don't know. I mean, he's working very hard. We took sanctions off of Syria to give them a chance in survival.

And I hear he's doing a very good job. He's doing a very good job. He's slaughtering people. He's murdering al-a-whites, females, Catholics, Christians. What is he talking about doing a good job? Well, he's serving his master's, Agilani or Asherah, is serving his masters in the Gulf. And if that makes the Qatari's happy,

then that's going to make Donald Trump happy. I mean, we have this insidious web, this nexus, these relationships between these despots throughout the world. And if they can find someone like an Aguil, or Shirar to do their business for them, to do their bidding, as they have in Syria, then, of course, anything he do is, anything, anything he accomplishes is going to be trumpeted as a success or a triumph or that he's turning things around. You're absolutely right, Judge, in the last 10 months or so or 11 months since Jalal,

Shara, in his al-Qaeda outfit, which, of course, they renamed themselves, we branded themselves, in 2015 or 2016, and that allowed the Western press to no longer say they were al-Qaeda. But, you know, any success that they have that is useful for, whether it's the Qataris or then by extension for the Americans, let's not forget that it was well known from almost right away, this, you know, beginning of the Syrian Civil War, that the United States was backing directly and indirectly these jihadist groups in Syria. Of course, we recall in summer of 2012, the Defense Intelligence Agency classified report is leaked that says exactly that. The people we are backing in Syria are the jihadists, and we won't be able to control them. You have Jake Sullivan

in an email that was released by WikiLeaks. Right. And we are on the same side as al-Qaeda in Syria. I mean, this is not John Kerry, Barack Obama has acknowledged it. I mean, this is nothing that can be considered covert or clandestine. This was open. And here we are all these years later with al-Qaeda in charge of Damascus and their boss in Syria coming to the White House to be a guest of honor. These young uniform guys that you see in the White House that Trump often salutes, they appear to have dress uniforms on. Are they Marines? Yeah, those are Marines. They're from the Marine Corps barracks at 8th and I, short distance from the White House. And they'll know who this guy is that they're saluting and what he did to your colleagues, perhaps a generation older than they are. Right.

Yeah, a bit older than those Marines. Those Marines can still do 20 pull-ups. I'm pretty far. Yeah, but they'll know the history of this. They'll know who this creep is that they're. saluting. I don't know, Judge. I wish I, I wish I could say, yes, they would. But so much of this gets buried, so much of this gets obscured. It's certainly if you look at how NBC news or Fox News or whoever will be reporting this, they will not be going into this conversation. They will not be

going into these details. They will not be providing the context or the history of what has occurred in Syria or the broader Middle East or an American foreign policy for these decades. It's similar to what we're just talking about with Dick Cheney, about the obituaries, how you can't even find justice for Dick Cheney's crimes in the words of the American press. The Wall Street Journal described Cheney's lies about the Iraq war as relentless advocacy. CNN called it faulty assumptions. The best the Washington Post could do was say that his claims about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaeda were exaggerated or misrepresented. right you know i mean so you know you can't even find justice for a war criminal in the american press one who was incredibly a popular unpopular throughout the u.s so how do you expect then these young

marines who are standing posted the white house to have any chance to fully understand and appreciate the policies and the personas of those that they are protected from your sources is still in the military and your own personal observations. Do you think Trump is getting ready to attack or invade Venezuela? Judge, it certainly seems that way. You know, you've had the movement of that aircraft carrier battle group just as importantly, or maybe even more importantly, we've seen indications that some very serious, significant electronic warfare or signals intelligence aircraft have been moved to the region,

such as the, what is the R.C. 135 rivet joint. The Air Force only has 10 or 12 of these things total that are available for operations. And so when they move that type of high-end signals, intelligence, aircraft, you know they're going to be serious about something. The same time, too, we see a broadening of the actions against the supposed cartels. And for all we know, these are just poor fishermen who are getting bombed in the water. That's probably more likely the case, right? But we've seen the expansion to Columbia, the expansion into the Pacific Ocean, and we've seen it up to the coast of Mexico. And now, of course, we have the reports coming out of the media in the last day or two, these leaked reports that the administration

is preparing for military actions in Mexico. And I think you could have both things to be true. So if you see the policy as being driven towards regime change, and you look at a figure like Marco Rubio, as the one who would be leading that effort, who would be whispering into the president's ear about regime change. You also have to understand that a guy like Stephen Miller, the Homeland Security Advisor, has the other ear. And so you can have both things being true. You can have both a desire for regime change and a desire to enact out this tough guy, wannabe machismo type of violence that does tie into the American or this administration's domestic operations. So I think.

guy like Stephen Miller or others in the administration, they look at the destruction, the killing of the extraditional murder of people and boats in the Caribbean or the Pacific as being integral to the efforts to round up and detain and hundreds of thousands of people. That's their own people. How do your marine colleagues, I don't know who's flying the jets, I don't know if they're Navy Jets, Air Force, Jass, Marine pilots, whatever, but how do they feel? about killing nameless, defenseless, violent, less, innocent fishermen on speedboats in the high seas? The few, you know, because I'm getting old judge, you know, I'm in my 50s, so like most of my friends are no longer there.

The ones I do know, it's a combination of, it's not my job. I'm not in that role right now. I worry about that if I were doing it, but I'm here in this position and I'm removed from it. So it's not something that is honorable. It's not something that I like to speak of. But certainly the ones that I know who are still involved in this, they're just happy that they are not directly involved in these actions. But we have seen some pushback coming from the military. I mean, we're not exactly clear on it.

This is not a certain. But we do know that the commander of Southern Command, which is the military command responsible for the southern part of the Western Hemisphere, Admiral Holsey, he left. He resigned. He was forced out, whatever the story is, the idea or the belief is that he left because he was not supportive of these extrajudicial murders. The same thing to a lieutenant general, a three-star general on the joint staff and the Pentagon was recently pushed out. Again, the rumor is that there is conflict over these types of legal, unconstitutional actions by the U.S. government. And then in the more ranking file, you do see an increase. And again, this is coupled to what's occurring on the ground here in the U.S. So organizations that defend service members' rights like the GI Rights hotline, they are seeing an increase. increase in calls, well, since Donald Trump came into office, but in particular over these last months, as the National Guard or even U.S. Marines are deployed onto the streets of American

cities, you have more and more American service members who are saying, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I signed up for. This is not what I believed in. This is an American to do this. So you're seeing pockets of it, but unfortunately, Judge, like so many instances of illegal wars, counterproductive wars, and moral wars, et cetera, that we have, you know, a list as long as my arm. Most of the men and women involved just keep their head down, stay it's above their pay grade. You say they're just following orders, et cetera. Tell me if you see any bitter irony in this, Chris, cut number one. They're on Nigeria.

Just want to ask you, do you envisage U.S. boots on the ground? It could be. I mean, a lot of things are envisage a lot of things. They're killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria. And they have other countries, very bad also. You know that, that part of the world, very bad. They're killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We're not going to allow that to happen.

Wait a minute. he's about to embrace a guy on Monday on the 250th anniversary of the Marine Corps who's killing Christians. Right. And I would imagine that of the several score of men who've been murdered by American health fire missiles fired by drones whose identities we don't even know, let alone have any evidence that they were doing wrong, let alone executed for a crime that doesn't carry the death penalty in the United States, all these things. How many of those judges do you think were wearing crucifixes at the time they were murdered? Right. Well, they're all Latin American. Right. They're all good Catholics, probably. Oh, well. And Matt, I love talking to you. Even when it's as gloomy as this is, I'm trying to think of something a little bit more uplifting, but it seems to be getting worse and worse.

I mean, is any of this a Nuremberg issue? I was just following orders. I mean, the world could be very different three or four years from now, internationally and in the U.S. Well, I, these people that Tony if Pete Hagseth tells them to do may have some answering to do. I hope that's the case. I hope that's the case. But our history tells us that's not going to be the case. Yes.

So as we're just talking about thick chain or anyone from that criminal regime under George W. Bush, Barack Obama comes in the office and he says he just wants to look forward. And then Barack Obama's administration commits war crimes and mass unconstitutional acts against the American people and so forth. And there's no holding Obama accountable. I mean, right now you have this aspect of will here, won't he with Donald Trump about to attack, will here, won't he attack Venezuela. The Senate to their credit, Tim Kane and Rand Paul and others, have tried to introduce war powers resolutions regarding Venezuela. Those are ultimately meaningless, I believe, but at least they're making that effort, or at least they're doing that show.

The reality is that the Trump administration is using the same defense as to why the War Powers Act doesn't apply to Venezuela as the Obama administration used as to why the War Powers Act didn't apply to Libya. So all these things that we are enduring right now, all of the crimes, the overreach, the misdeeds, how you want to characterize what the Trump administration does, this is all possible because of what previous Democratic and Republican. administrations, enabled, built, allowed. All these ice agents didn't come out of some hole in the ground that Donald Trump summoned them out of like he was a wizard from the Lord of the Rings or something like that. These were all men and women who were on duty under Joe Biden. And if Trump's murders on the high seas are not checked and checked aggressively, his successors will claim that as a precedent for them to do the same. That's the way it works. That's exactly where it works. Because right now we have that precedent with Barack Obama going even farther than Donald Trump has. Because as far as we know, Donald Trump has not murdered an American citizen yet. But we know that Barack Obama murdered two American citizens with drones.

Right. Al-Alocki and his son. Matt, thank you very much. Thanks for the courage and the passion with which you address, as well as your personal experience with which you address these things. Thanks for your smile, even though we're talking about some of the worst stuff on the planet. All the best. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. All right. Thank you, Judge. You're welcome. Coming up at 3 o'clock on more of this, and I know he's not very happy because I've been communicating with him, but he'll unload as only he can.

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.