Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh : Trump and Military Adventurism

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Matt Hoh : Trump and Military AdventurismSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Fragically, 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 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, January 6th, 2020s. Matt Ho will be with us in just a moment on the dangers of military adventurism like what we all just saw in Caracas. But first this. History tells us every market eventually falls. currencies collapse and look at where we are now

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to you, Judge. Good to see you. And I'm going to say, wow, what a, what a great new opening you have for the show. Gave me, I got chills a bit. You can thank, you can thank Chris and Ron Paul for it. I think this idea of the United States as a rogue state, this idea of the United States as a rogue state, certainly whether it's being said out loud or just behind closed doors is something that the world is reckoning with. It has been this way for many decades, but certainly the reality of the United States now as an empire with an emperor who is willing to do what he wants, as he wants, without any pretense. I think that is something that is so spectacular, if you will, about the actions of the last weekend, this kidnapping of

of a foreign head of state is not just the brazenness of the naked aggression behind it, but the lack of apology. There is no discussion from the administration about the evils of socialism. There's no discussion about the need to provide democracy for the Venezuelan people. There's no discussion about the immiseration or privations of the Venezuelan people.

We're not going there to rescue them. We're not going there to civilize them. We're not going there to improve them. which was a hallmark of all previous empires as well as what our own country would say, if you look at what George W. Bush said about going into Iraq or Barack Obama about escalating the war in Afghanistan, even the airstrikes and the regime change operations in Libya or Syria. It was all with this wrapping around it that had these ideals, right, these lofty, or at least excuses or apologies for why it was being done.

Here, it's just simply about the oil. And so while I guess it could be taken as refreshing the honesty, we don't have to try and cut through the nonsense, the lies, the force that this is about the evils of socialism or bringing democracy to a people or any of that nonsense, we just have to deal with the fact that this is the reality of the United States Empire. it will do as it wish when it wants to.

And we've said this many times before, Judge, that, you know, we talk about the United States Empire being in decline. And the idea that when an empire is in decline, it may be at its most dangerous point. And hence the phrase, you know, that I like to attribute to this period of time, you know, a dying mule kicks hardest. And I think we're just beginning to see the kicks that the American Empire under Donald Trump and his successors will administer. as the United States Empire continues to decline.

What were you thinking, and I'm going to guess you were going back to your experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. If I recall correctly, you were in both campaigns, so to speak. But what were you thinking when you heard Trump say we're going to run Venezuela? It's just one of the more bizarre things to come out of the mouth of somebody who says, bizarre things every day. I was wondering where Jerry Bremmer was at the moment. And if he was-

Remind us about Governor General or whatever his title was Bremer, Commissioner, whatever they called him. Right. For people who are not familiar, L. Paul Bremer or Jerry Bremmer, as he went by, was the administrator, the pro-consul, the Governor-General, the Vice Roy, again, whatever you want to call him

for the American administration, in Iraq from 2003 or 2004, this is when a department of defense effectively ran Iraq under what was called the Coalition Provisional Authority, CPA, and Jerry Bremer was the boss. And this idea that we are going to run a run, excuse me, I can't even say Venezuela without saying Iraq first judge, you know, I mean, right? I mean, like, so the parallels here are obvious. what they actually have planned, if they have anything planned at all. I mean, what we're seeing right now, I think we're all working off of speculation.

I mean, the best we can get is comments from Stephen Miller, the Deputy White House Chief of Staff slash Homeland Security Advisor, you know, talking to CNN yesterday saying how what it means that we're going to run Venezuela, it's the paraphrase. It means that we're going to have an armada off the coast and they're going to do what we see. say because we have power. Then he went into some soliloquy about how history has always been written by those with the iron and the steel, willing to shed blood, et cetera, et cetera, you know, this fantasy that these men have, these men and women have, about ruling as if there's some type of long forgotten conquerors or something. I don't know. But, you know, I mean, I don't know, judge, if they actually have any plans for how to administer this. We're uncertain about what's actually happening in Venezuela. The speculation, at least from my observation, is that the Venezuelan

government was co-opted, that the Venezuelan government turned on Maduro in return for giving up Maduro. They kept themselves in power. The United States saw this as essentially a turnkey operation. The quib pro quo was that you give us to oil, you stay in control. And essentially, Is this what we're looking at, is essentially you're going to have this country run by the presence of American ships with cruise missiles, capable of launching drones with hellfire missiles, always the threat of a Delta Force or Navy SEAL execution squad coming ashore to either, you know, again, execute someone or kidnap someone, and is that what it means to run? and whoever doesn't do what the United States want, the Chevron and Exxon Mobil and all the rest don't get what they want, then that person will be replaced by force and someone who's willing to do it will be put in that position.

Is that what we're looking at here? Because I don't really see what else is there. It is terms of the resistance coming from the Venezuelans. We've seen mixed signals. You know, a lot today about how these Venezuelan military and the paramilitary forces were out on the street, checkpoints, checking people's phones, going through their papers.

But does that mean they're looking for the people who helped in this raid to kidnap Maduro? Or are they just looking to suppress any opposition that might arise to the new status quo, to the new reality, to the new government in Venezuela, which is not a new government. It's the same exact government, just with a different person in the biggest chair.

So, you know, I think going forward, what can come from this, the unintended consequences, this is a war, whether or not people like to understand it that way. It wasn't a pitched battle with divisions and regiments fighting one another, but this certainly is a war, you know, in the idea of a political outcome achieved by the use of force by one state upon another. Here's how Donald Trump described the amount of force that was there and the success with which they operated, Chris. The United States Armed Forces conducted an extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela. Overwhelming American military power, air, land, and sea was used to launch

a spectacular assault and it was an assault like people have not seen since World War II He looked terrible there but this may have been in the middle of the night I don't know exactly when he said it or it may have been at noon the next day

but his parenthetical and assault the likes of which people haven't seen since World War II hyperbole or is there some merit to that? I'm not really sure what parallel he's trying to bring about judge, other than maybe his mind, the clear victory here, right, that we haven't had a victory, a United States military and political victory in a war, in a conflict with another state since World War II, and maybe that's what Donald Trump is saying, that no one has been successful since Truman

and I'm that guy. I don't know. I do want to bring up one point about the idea of how this is in keeping with his foreign policy, his militarized foreign policy and what we expect going forward. And I just want to paraphrase what Karen Kiewatowski says, and Karen's on, I know a lot of times after me, and so just to credit her with this, that, you know, this administration's foreign policy is effectively profit-seeking cronyism and deceitful wars. And this hits that to a T. You know, and I expect that's essentially what the hallmark of the next three years will be will be to try and replicate this, quote, success, unquote. And, you know, of course, we're easy to talk about all the dangers that are going to come from that.

We'll talk about the dangers in a minute. But here's Trump talking about his own foreign policy at different times. Chris cut number seven. We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition. Our current strategy of nation building and regime change is a proven absolute failure. We will break the cycle of regime change. We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change that Hillary Clinton Pushed in Iraq, in Libya, in Egypt, and in Syria.

Regime change takes chaos. You've seen how that works over the last 20 years. That hasn't been too good. It's not a reckless interventionist globalism. We're getting out of the nation-building business. We're going to stay until such time as the proper transition can take place. It's gone 180 degrees. Well, we're not even at the point where you can say his warnings about nation building haven't come true.

We're only in the first days of this thing, you know, certainly look at the first days of Iraq, look at the first days of Afghanistan, look at, say, the first six months, I recall vividly. It's a story I always share the New York Times in October of 2011 after Gaddafi was killed, you know, front page major story about how Libya is now ripe for Western investment. you know um i mean so in the early days things are often very good you know things seem to be going the way the plan said it was going to go and then to write quote mike tyson you know everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face what's the punch in the case right you know i mean like what what what is going to occur what happens if uh we are wrong and the government in Venezuela didn't turn on Maduro that Rodriguez and company didn't sell him out and that they actually are going to resist. What's going to happen then? How is the United States going to make

this good? How are Trump and Rubio and Hegset and Waltz, et cetera, going to save face on all this, let alone deliver to all of the oil companies that have been promised as well as all the other ancillary parasitic industries that will join in on this? The spoils of this victory. I think you probably saw this judge that the president informed the oil companies about this upcoming operation, but he didn't inform Congress. I mean, that's what the real constituency is here. And so what happens three months now, six months now, when that's not being delivered, when the spoils the fruits of this victory aren't achieved? What is the United States going to do? You can certainly blockade the country, but the country's been essentially under blockade

paid for years now. You could turn off the minimum of oil that is exporting, and that will hurt. It will cause real pain. But is that going to bring the government down? And so what then is the United States going to do come July or August, you know, or the other options here that say there is an insurgency or resistance? I mean, one of the things about this is that the betrayal happened on so many levels to so many different groups within Venezuela. You know, so the opposition that thought the United States was going to come in and put them in charge, right? So the camps behind Machado and Gonzalez, et cetera, they thought the United States was going to come in, get rid of Maduro and the government and put the opposition in power. They feel betrayed right now.

As well then, too, those within the government, those who backed Maduro who pledged him their lives, who really maybe do believe in the Bolivarian revolution and its principles, they're looking at Rob Regis and Cabello and all those other who are still in power as being traitors, as having command treason. So the dangers of a civil war here, some type of explosion politically violent political explosion in Venezuela is very real. What's the administration going to do then? I think he's going to roll Stephen Miller out to talk to Jake Tapper again and talk all tough and act like he's a big man, you know, because he's got iron and steel and because he gets to claim credit for Delta Force killing 80 Venezuelan military personnel and Cubans, essentially in their sleep, you know, murdered those guys in cold blood essentially. If everyone thinks there was actual real firefights occurring, probably some, but I think most of those who were killed in the Venezuelan security detail were killed in cold blood, were murdered in their sleep. by us dropping bombs on them. You know, I mean, so, you know, what happens when there's actually something really

to contend with here? What happens when your collaborators are taking out of positions of power by a Venezuelan resistance, by a Venezuelan population, whether it be in opposition or those who are loyal to Maduro or some other faction that we're not even identifying at this point? What happens then, Mr. Trump? What happens then, Mr. Miller? What happens then, Mr. Rubio? What are you going to do?

And how are you going to deliver? These are great. Great observations. What happens to the United States negotiating around the world? I mean, who would take the United States seriously? It doesn't comply with its international commitments. The UN Charter, drafted by the United States, ratified by the U.S. Senate, was intended to prevent this very thing from happening, one country in the U.N., attacking another country in the U.N., unjustly, immorally, and illegally. And that's the law of land, Judge, right? Our Constitution says that treaties that we enter into are the law of our land. That's the same as violating an American law.

And the U.N. charter, for those who are out there who pooh-poo this, I saw conservative commentators, MAGA commentators. Again, I'm harping on Stephen Miller again because he just said it again in this, you know, a viral interview he did with Jake Tapper. you know, they call international law a week. They call it fanciful. They call it something done by men and women who've never accomplished anything in their lives, etc., etc.,

belittling it. When the reality was international law, the U.N. Charter, it was created, it was put in place, it was established by the men who won World War II. Correct. You're talking about the generals of the American and Soviet armies that defeated the

Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. they are the reason why we have this UN charter. And so who is Donald Trump or Stephen Miller or Marco Rubio to say that somehow those men weren't tough enough, that they don't understand the realities of the world, that they don't understand iron and steel and so forth? You know, so this is infuriating because we can see where we're going with this, you know, and in terms of this idea that we are building a fortress America, that the Dunrow Doctrine is going to isolate, shouldn't say isolate, it's going to essentially,

wall off the United States from predation outside of this hemisphere, you know, there are some things that are attractive in that philosophy. I think it was the, it was Goldman Sachs this weekend, Judge put out an estimate that if the United States does run Venezuela, and we essentially run Guyana, which is next door to Venezuela, the United States with its own oil reserves, would have essentially one third of the world's oil reserves. And so you can see that in the heads of these men and women who are running our government, this idea, well, we have one third of the world's oil reserves. What do we need to everyone else? And if we can have all the lithium and all the coltan and all the other rare earth minerals and metals that are resident throughout South America, then what do we need to worry about Africa or the Middle East or Asia?

We have everything we need right here. And from here on this fortress, we can then dominate the rest of the world. That's what they're thinking here. This idea that somehow America is retreating or that this new national security strategy that Trump administration unveiled back in November or December, whenever that was, somehow signifies isolationism. No, it's this idea of repurposing or repositioning the American Empire so that it can dominate against peers and against organizations.

like Bricks that have arisen over the last couple years, or the last, you know, not a couple years, but a couple decades. So, I mean, there is a method to their madness, but they're so vanglorious, they're so arrogant, they're so a historical, and they possess such a degree of, you know, what was called the chicken hawk ism. I don't know if that's a real ism or not, but we'll make it for this. That's not, I mean, men like George W. Bush. Cheney, John Bolton. These are essentially the same characters as these men, Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, Anthony, all these others who feel it's appropriate to shed someone else's blood to cause some family someplace, whether they're American or foreign, to sacrifice in order for their gain. So what we're looking at here, you know, is essentially an empire again that has shed any pretense of having a feeling as if it needs to.

make an excuse, offer up an apology, provide some type of moral narrative or structure to define or validate what they're doing. They just believe in themselves. And I'll say the same thing to everyone that Larry Wilkerson said to me years ago when we were talking about these types of things. And Larry said, read Senator William Fulbright's, the arrogance of power. And it's essentially the same thing, Judge. What you have here is you have power mistaking itself for virtue and that's what you see when you see people like rubio heggseth miller trump etc talking tell me if you think there was any Mossad connection to the invasion on the saturday and before you answer here's well his title is the american ambassador to israel he speaks like he's the israeli ambassador

to the united states my former fox colleague the reverend ambassador Mr. Mike Huckabee, Chris number eight. Well, my first reaction, Rob, was to say, praise the Lord and thank you, President Trump. A lot of people may not make the connection as to why this matters to us in the Middle East. What they don't know is that Hezbollah is very active in Venezuela.

The ties are deep, and Hezbollah operates in 12 different countries throughout South America. It is not just a threat in the Western Hemisphere. It is a threat to the Middle East. So for the president to go after Venezuela, not only deals with narco-terrorism and the many deaths of Americans who are killed by the poison of drugs, it is going to make life for those of us living in the Middle East much better, much safer, to take Maduro out to recognize that Hezbollah is active here, targeting not just Jewish people in all over South America, but using those tentacles to ultimately reach into the United States. This is good news for America, good news for the world.

Had you ever heard that Hezbollah was targeting Jewish people in Latin America or the United States? In the early 80s, Judge, so you're going back more than 40 years now. There were two attacks, I believe, on a synagogue and a community center. It may have been the Israeli consulate. I've top of my head, I'm not remembering exactly. But in the early 80s, so again, more than 40 years. years ago, you had these two attacks on Israeli slash Jewish targets in Argentina that were connected Hezbollah. That's it. That's essentially where any act, you know, ends or any connection

ends in terms of actual action on the ground. There has been this motif, this theme, this fever dream that Hezbollah is all throughout the world, but is, you know, operating not just in southern Lebanon, but in Africa and Asia, but most especially you hear it as having these sleeper cells all throughout the Western Hemisphere, just waiting for Hezbollah's real boss, the Ayatollah in Tehran to snap his fingers and they're going to hop into action and burn down synagogues and blow up shopping malls and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it's all complete nonsense. It's all garbage. It's all just, again, it's a fever dream. It's a fantasy. I don't know if people like Huckabee or stupid enough to actually believe such things

or just cynical enough to keep this lie going. There are Middle Eastern, specifically Lebanese businessmen, all throughout the Western Hemisphere, doing business, conducting trade, carrying out commerce, doing what sane, decent, normal people do, unlike these monsters who are in power like Mike Huckabee. But Huckabee is seeing this as an opportunity of course to connect anything he can to Israel.

And I don't know if you're familiar with this judge. There is actually a thing out there called the Isaac Accords, similar to the Abraham Accords, where it is Latin American nations signing on to have this relationship with Israel, essentially making sure the United States knows that they are in line with their policies and we'll vote against them at the UN. But it is just a way to try and connect everything back. to the genocidal government in Tel Aviv in order to try and maintain support from that,

as well as, too, you're talking about two powers that are domineering, that believe in their own Is or was Mossad on the ground in Caracas? Oh, I have no idea, Judge. I don't know what their presence is like in the Western Hemisphere. I would suspect that the American presence is substantial. Venezuela has been a top-tier. a priority for the American intelligence community through five presidential administrations now, you know, starting with the Clinton administration. And certainly then with the importance

of the oil industry and the connections of the CIA into the fossil fuel industry, it's long reach back, you know, into South America going back decades. I mean, the number of interventions, coups, disruptions, occupations, invasions by the United States, throughout Latin America, you know, numbers into dozens upon dozens. Many countries have been invaded or couped or occupied or intervened in multiple times. So I don't know if the United States would need that type of support from the Mossad to carry out something like this. I think they probably have the CIA, which is a catastrophe around most of the world, as Timothy

Weiner called their legacy of ashes, but they do have a substantial presence in the Western hemisphere and if the inducements were correct they probably would be able to carry off something like this on their own i got to play a clip that you'll appreciate a hearing uh this is a young woman that i worked with at fox she's still there and she sort of breaks from the fox orthodoxy she's a comedian her name is cat tymph but uh well you'll you'll appreciate this and you'll appreciate her getting right back at the anchor who's not happy with what she's saying. Chris, cut number one. You have to see how some people might be feeling a little bit of whiplash here, given that Trump spent 10 years railing against U.S.-led regime-change war. His own director of intelligence

as recently as two months ago was railing against regime change war, and then he does one. Is this a regime change? The regime is still there, as far as I know, the vice president. Let me get this straight. We go to a country. We capture their leader. We bomb it. And then we say, we run this country now. And that's not war. But when they send cocaine over here that people are willingly snorting, that is war. For me personally, I'm not so confident that this is the one that this is not the regime change that's finally going to work the way we say it's going to work. I would not willingly go die for it. I would not willingly send my son to go die for it. So I would think would be hypocritical of me to call for other people to have to send their... I see your point. I'm happy to hear her say that and happy to see that my former employer is giving her the opportunity to do so. Yeah, God bless her, Judge.

I hope she continues to be allowed back on, you know. Well, I'm living proof that that doesn't always work out that way. But, Matt, thank you very much. I just wanted to play that sort of happy clip at the end. They didn't want to play the first. Chris talked me into it and now I love it. Yeah, no, it's fantastic.

And I think I think it's great because we're all sitting here thinking, are we on crazy pills? You know, am I? You know, I turn on CNN or I look at what the Wall Street Journal is saying and the way they talk about this or God help me, you know. And I don't encourage anyone else to do this. But if you feel like harming yourself, go and look up the statement from the Democratic House and Senate leadership on this, right?

You know, just the vagueness, the cowardness, the cravenness, and the desire to keep themselves within the bounds of respectable imperial discourse, right? So this regime change, this war, it's all the conversation in D.C. is about semantics or about the fact that the Congress wasn't talked to or consulted about this. It's not about the gross illegality. No one talks about the U.N. No one brings up the context of regime change. No one brings up the history of American intervention in Latin America. No one says, is this a good idea? What if A, B, or C happens? You know, if you look at what Schumer says, Jeffries, but even Sanders or AOC, they all dance around this. And so we're sitting here thinking, my God, like I said, am I taking crazy pills? What the hell is wrong with us? And so I'm glad to see, you know, there are people like that who are speaking that way on the mainstream. corporate media. Again, I don't know how long she'll be on for. I'm reminded of one of the last

times, the last time I was ever on Fox and Friends, I rolled my eyes at Brian Keelmead and the camera caught it and I was never asked back on again. So, geez. Their loss. Matt, thank you very much for your time. As always, great analysis, great sense of humor, my dear friend. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. All right. Thanks, Judge. Happy New Year. And same to you. and the aforementioned Colonel Karen Koukowski right here at 3 o'clock this afternoon. Justice of Paul Tano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.