Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh : Can Trump Tame the Deep State?

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Matt Hoh : Can Trump Tame the Deep State?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.ca slash Wondery. That's audible.ca slash wondering. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, November 25th, 2025. Matt Ho joins us now. A pleasure, Matt, as always, my dear friend. I do want to talk to you about Trump and the deep state. Does he rule them or do they rule him? But before we get there, do the Israelis seem to feel that they are free to violate the ceasefire order and kill people in Gaza, kill people in Lebanon? And now this latest stunt of preventing an American surgeon from entering Gaza to perform life-saving surgery on children? Thanks for having me on, Judge.

Certainly they do. and they have the backing of the Israeli public in cheering on, not even providing support or legitimizing, but cheering on their atrocities. You know, there's a new public opinion pull from an Israeli media platform that shows that 84% of Israelis view the IDF's conduct as either excellent or very good on a moral scale. So 84% view of Israelis say that the IDF has conducted itself in either excellent or very good ways when it comes to morality.

You know, clear majorities support Israel using human shields. Clear majorities support Israel raping prisoners. You know, when the question is asked the Israeli public about these prisoners who have been, these Palestinian prisoners who have been raped by Israeli prison guards, a handful of those prison guards are going through some type of legal proceedings, you know, a clear majority of Israelis support the prison guards who rape the Palestinian prisoners. So it's a question of the reality is, Judge, it's not even the question. The reality is, is that the IDF is confident in what it's doing, that it is operating not just

with impunity, but with a mandate from the Israeli people. And that's why in the last month, month and a half of this so-called ceasefire, they've been willing to kill 350 Palestinians, wound about a thousand more, kill scores and scores of children in Gaza. And they know that there won't be any repercussions from their own public or from their own government. Rather, they know that they'll get applause, support, and, you know, again, that type of confirmation of the legitimacy. see of what they're doing. Doesn't the Whitkoff, Trump, Jared Kushner, peace plan,

ceasefire plan, non-seas fire, but doesn't the plan itself call for an American mechanism to enforce it? And aren't the Americans aware of the fact that the Israelis are still killing Palestinian children and two days ago murdered some people in Lebanon?

Right. Americans are well aware of it. They're sitting there with the Israelis as they're going, as these events are unfolding. You know, the Americans have given the Israelis everything in this genocide. I mean, this extends back more than two years now. And so now that we're finally seeing American military officers side by side with Israeli military officers on the border of Gaza, overseeing the events of the last month and a half, at least it's finally true. laid bare in terms of the optics. Before, of course, it was the votes at the United Nations. It

was the reports coming out of both the State Department of the White House that the United States knew, understood senior American officials, the Secretary of State, the Vice President, the President of the United States knew that what Israel was doing was war crimes. You know, we saw it through the thousand planes and 150 cargo ships that supplied Israel or the last. two years. I mean, that comes out, Judge, to about every 15 or 16 hours for the last two years in one month, an American cargo ship or cargo plane has arrived in Israel to provide the weapons, the munitions, the material needed to carry out this genocide. So now that we are at this point now, where there are actually American military officers in this civil military coordination

center, as they call it, alongside Israelis, seeing full well, what's what's occurring and giving it their blessing, this just allows what we all knew it was going on to be fully exposed. Is the United States military and U.S. intelligence services helping to target people for the IDF to murder? Oh, no, no doubt about that, Judge. I mean, reports over the last couple years have been that there's been an unprecedented, that unprecedented level of cooperation between the American intelligence services and the Israelis.

The Brits should be included in this as well. The Brits have provided a great deal of intelligence support to Israelis, especially when you look at, say, the intelligence and surveillance, reconnaissance flights of their manned and unmanned aircraft that come out of Cyprus. So the, excuse me, the role of the Americans in this has been clear. It's been commented upon. Joe Biden himself referenced this. You know, he himself said, the president of myself said that, himself said that U.S. intelligence support to Israel has been crucial for the Israelis.

So the hand-in-hand nature of the American-Israeli relationship, the iron-clad relationship as both Democrats and Republicans like to describe the U.S. Israeli relationship has only strengthened over the last two years in terms of the real effects of government-to-government relationships. Of course, we've seen the effect on public opinion. We've seen some political effects. We've seen, of course, the counter effects of that, the ratcheting up of APEC and other Israeli lobby efforts here in the United States. But in terms of the actual real iron steel-led realities of warfare. We've only seen a strengthening

of the American-Israeli relationships the last couple of years, including intelligence. Whatever happened to Tulsi Gabbard? I thought she was going to dial this stuff back. Judge, you know, I worked with Tulsi a number of times on any war things when she was a member of the house. I've got this great photo standing in front of the Capitol building

with her and Walter Jones and myself and a handful of other. other anti-war folks, and Joe, you know, the late great Mr. Jones and Tulsi Gabbard are introducing a resolution that would make the commissioning of war without the sanction or the approval of the authorization of the Congress to be an impeachable offense. And that was summer of 2018, summer of 2019 that Tulsi Gabbard was doing this. I mean, so what we have with Tulsi Gabbard is that she is just a political creature. She is just as superficial and as venal as most of the others in Washington, D.C. She just played it better. She just was able to get on camera, do social media. She ran a heck of

a presidential campaign that horrified the neoconservatives. A lot of people give her credit for forcing Kamala Harris out of the 2020 race. But in the end of it, she's no different than And I think this is just one more, one more affront, one more disappointment, one more, why do we even trust ourselves when we think these people might be somewhat decent. But the reality is that we can't let that jeopardy, that we can't let that determine our involvement in this. Just because we are going to be burned, just because we're going to be disappointed, just because we're going to be taken advantage of by people like Tulsi Gabbard, doesn't mean that we withdraw. means we have to fight harder. All right. So this may lead us into Ukraine, which, of course, I want to talk to you about.

But is Trump free to defy the deep state? Does he lead the deep state or does the deep state lead him? Yeah, Judge, it's a question we could go round and roundabout. I mean, I think the idea is we can't look at it two-dimensionally. We can't look at it as like a paper exercise or an academic exercise, but go back to Trump's own words about it. That it's a swamp, right? So it's an ecosystem. So that there's all type of a parasitical behavior, there's all type of symbiotic behavior,

there's all type of mutually beneficial behavior or predatory behavior, and that it's a constant battle. And that's just the reality of the nation state, of the national security establishment, right? of the institutions as well as those who have been involved as institutions and see themselves and their identities as inseparable from the institutions. So in terms of Donald Trump and his battling with the deep state, it is a back and forth. It is a back and forth. I think it's the same way with Israel as well.

You know, to get to the roots of it goes back decades. You know, and it's all in your perspective, you know, not to not to go away from. American deep state, but to bring it back to Israel for one second, there was a poll about a month ago in Israel that found that majority of Israelis, I think it was 70 percent, feel that Israel is led by the United States, that Israel is on America's leash. And many of us here in the United States would say the opposite, right? We'd see the influence of the Israeli lobbies. We'd see the way Netanyahu, the indicted war criminal comes and both parties in Congress rushed to kiss his ring.

And we would say, well, Israel's leading the United States. So I think a lot of times it's a matter of perspective, but in terms of this battle between Trump and the deep state, I think the way that Trump is an imperial president in a way different than his predecessors, that Trump has no respect or interest or loyalty to any of the institutions or the infrastructure on top of which he sits, that which he commands, that makes him entirely different than a Biden or a Bush or Obama. And that's what makes a deep state so unsettled by him. His vision of where he wants the United States to go as an empire is different than the long held vision of the deep state, of the institutions and those individuals whose identities are part and parcel of those institutions as well. So, I mean, just because Donald Trump is in this battle with the deep state, with these institutions, whatever you want to describe as, doesn't mean that his vision is any better than

what they want. It's just that he wants something different than the status quo that they wish to maintain. So John Ratcliffe, who's the director of the CIA, did not participate in drafting those, that 28-point agreement because of the neocon perception that it gave away too much to the Russians. Correct. And, you know, John Ratcliffe has been the FOIA, that has been used against Tulsi Gabbard. So even though Tulsi Gabbard has folded, you know, clearly in getting back to Tulsi on a number of things, including, you know, support for the war in Venezuela or the maybe the possibly

forthcoming war in Venezuela, I should say, you've seen John Ratcliffe positioned as the intelligence boss in the United States, that when you see these various meetings, when you hear reports coming, you know, about who attended these meetings. It's often John Ratcliffe, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and not Tulsi Gabbard, his technical boss as Director of National Intelligence, who has been in these meetings. And so Gabbard, even though she has bent over to appease President Trump,

but also the neocons who are still in so much control, John Ratcliffe has been the one sideline. And so obviously Ratcliffe is there to keep the deep state, if we want to keep using that term, to keep their interests at the top, at the forefront, right? To ensure that the status quo of the American Empire, the national security establishment, again, whatever you want to call this thing, is what is being presented to the president. And the president's decisions are then based upon what Ratcliffe is provided. or channeling, you know, as a vehicle for the deep state, national security establishment, you know, et cetera. Watch this clip from General Kellogg and tell me if you're surprised at a name that he mentions

in here. He's talking about the 28-point plan and its need to be modified somewhat and to whom he talked or reported. Cut number eight. We have to put in supporting documents, probably an annex. There would be security guarantees. And I talked to Jared Kushner just recently, and I think we'll get those on the plan. But it's like a framework.

There are 28 positions on there that if you read them, you know, it really does count what words are said in this. Because words do matter. You know, when you look at what Santiano said in the past, those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. We don't want history repeat itself. We don't want the Budapest memorandum to come back. We don't want the Minsk's one or two to come back. It's the United States that's going to guarantee part of this. The way that Fox hosts is the president's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump.

What does Jared Kushner have to do with peace in Ukraine? Is this land developer now an international diplomat? Well, he certainly is someone that Donald Trump trusts. We saw that in the first administration, the first Trump administration. We've seen that this past year as he's relied upon his son-in-law and his business associate, Steve Wickhoff, to do the primary work in terms of negotiating with the United States as adversaries, right? So when you look at who's leading the efforts to negotiate with Russia to negotiate with Iran to negotiate, to force the Israelis to accept some type. of, quote, ceasefire, unquote, it's Kushner and Witkoff. And it's because of the president's trust in them, but also because these are the two who are best situated to help the president

line his pocket as well. I mean, the giveaway in this 28-point plan is the fact when you get to the reconstruction aspect of the plan and the taking of a hundred billion in Russian assets and the Europeans contributing in $100 billion as well, that of that $200,000,000,000, billion dollar investment fund. It's not a reconstruction funds, investment fund that would be applied to rebuilding, ostensibly rebuilding Ukraine, that the United States would receive 50% of the profits. So right off the front of this judge, right off the just the base clear details of it, we see a desire to get something. We see the desire to make money off of this, right? You know, when they instituted the Marshall Plan following World War II,

or even the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, which I personally saw what a racket that was and how many people in the U.S. got wealthy and rich from that corruption, that theft. But at least it wasn't laid out in the documents ahead of time that this would be some type of racket. Here we see they're not afraid to lay it out, clear as day, in black ink, right?

One of those press gaggles, the vice president of the United States standing right in front of Jared Kushner, they were talking about Gaza, referred to Kushner as the investor. Right. Well, what the hell does that mean? He's going to develop the land that the Israelis with the United States backing stole from the Palestinians. They're going to give it to Jared Kushner and he'll develop it and sell it to rich Europeans, rich Israelis, and rich Americans. that that sounds about right judge that sounds about right and the same goes for ukraine i mean you've already seen the dominance of the american energy industry energy uh industry you know and people say there have been no winners in the war on ukraine i mean it's you can make the point no the american and

the catari's as well the american and the catari energy industries won or they at least won their part. They filled the vacuum left by the departure of the Russians from Europe and the energy sector. I mean, so you've seen that space already provide plenty of wealth to American corporations. And so the idea with Ukraine is what else do we need to do? You have a country that has been devastated by war. You can imagine just, you know, we see reports day after day about Russian missiles and drones striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Well, just to rebuild that, And we've seen indications that, you know, the idea of replacing the remaining Russian energy that's flowing into parts of Eastern Europe with American liquid national gas, you know, as well as providing that to Ukraine, you know, and then the overall rebuilding, reconstitution. But, you know, it's a racket as old as time. I wish I had a Smedley Butler quote handily handy to read off to a judge.

But it's the same racket that Smedley Butler determined and it's as old. his time. Right, right. Smetley Butler, the most highly decorated member of the U.S. military in history, a four-star Marine, who basically said war as a racket and the health of the state. Let me, before we go, switch over to Venezuela. Is American Intel killing people there already? I don't know if you call it intelligence, Judge. I mean, in a sense that the United States. The CIA on the ground fomenting unrest and willing to use violence to produce the unrest. You know, this may be the most overt, culvert operation. They've very declared it.

They've very say, right? I mean, so if Maduro has a heart attack or chokes on a chicken bone or something like that in the next week or two, we know what the reality of that is. You know, the way that it's been advertised, so anything that occurs on the ground there, Venezuela will have, those fingerprints all over it, whether it's, whether it's street demonstrations that become riots, whether it's bombings, whether it's assassinations, whatever it is, this is going to have the fingerprints of the American CIA all over it. And so I, you know, Trump said yesterday that he was willing to talk to Maduro. If anyone thinks that's an indication that the United States is not going to carry out warfare against Venezuela anytime soon, ask the Iran.

You know, it wasn't even, what, six months ago that as we were negotiating with the Iranians, we, you know, assisted Israel in carrying out a massive surprise strike. Right. Right. I mean, so the word of this government is no good. They've gotten away with saying things before and it doesn't affect them. The media is not going to challenge them or hold them to any account. You know, the fact that we have public opinion that shows less than one, three Americans,

would support a regime change operation in Venezuela, less than one of three Americans support the extrajudicial killing of people on the high seas. When you explain to Americans what's going on here that we don't even know who these people are, less than one and three Americans say that's the right thing to do or that they approve of it. This administration doesn't care. They're going to do as they see fit. And if that means whether launching airstrikes off of the Ford to bomb whatever they want in Venezuela and military installations, oil infrastructure, bridges, civilians, they'll go ahead and

do it. If it means assassinating Maduro, then they'll try and do that. They want their pound of flesh and the excitement for this, the passion for it, the fever for it. We're seeing more and more comments in the American media, you know, the latest one being the now I'm Blank and Hunter name, the U.S. representative Salazar saying how there's more than a trillion dollars for the U.S. oil industry in Venezuela and how if we invade, paraphrase, or if we were to carry out this regime change, American corporations have a field day in Venezuela. This is the fourth or fifth most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives is saying these types of things. And we're seeing more and more comments about. So the fever, the desire, the lust for war is even though

the American people may not have it, Washington, D.C. will certainly have it. Well, Matt Ho, thank you, my dear friend. Thanks for your time. A happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. Thanks, Judge. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Oh, thank you very much. Tomorrow, we have a very very busy day for it. Well, let me tell you about today. At three o'clock today, Karen Koukowski, tomorrow, Professor Gilbert Doctoros, Scott Ritter, Max Blumenthal, Professor Glenn Deeson, Colonel Douglas McGregor, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Phil Giraldi, Professor John Mearsheimer, starting at 8, finishing at 4 the day before Thanksgiving here on Judging Freedom.

Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.