Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh : US is Unprepared for Iran War 3.0

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Matt Hoh : US is Unprepared for Iran War 3.0See 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. Pragically, 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? 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, July 21st, 2006. Matt Ho will be with us in just a moment. As the United States prepared, does it have the ammunition to carry out Iran War 3.0? But first, this. Today's headlines aren't just bleak. They're an indictment of a government that has abandoned the Constitution. You are witnessing the direct result of the Federal Reserve's relentless war on the value of your dollar. For centuries, silver have been the ultimate shield against the state's favorite tools. Monetary expansion and runaway inflation. To protect your wealth is to protect your liberty. And you can do that with gold and silver. I own both and continue to buy because J.P. Morgan is now lying gold at over

$6,300 an ounce. And Bank of America is suggesting silver could reach $300. That's great news for precious metal investors, don't wait for Washington to fix a mess they created. Secure your freedom today. Take possession of your precious metals or diversify your IRA by adding gold and silver. Call 800, 5114620 to see if you qualify for up to $20,000 in bonus medals. That's 800,5114620 or go to Learjudgeonap.com. Matt Ho, welcome here, my dear friend. Before we get to the level of preparedness or unpreparedness of the U.S. for Iraq War III, do you have an understanding of why the Western media in the past couple of weeks has been claiming that Ukraine is winning its war against Russia?

Hi, Judge. Welcome back from vacation. I hope we had a good one. I did. Thank you. Yeah. It's nice to see you. Yeah.

And back to, hopefully you're away from this stuff for a while, I hope. Hope you're able to get a break from it. And I think with your question regarding Ukraine and the media, it's because Ukraine is, you know, essentially an American imperial project that for decades now, there has been an effort by the West, by the American Empire, to make good on the victories from the Cold War, to expand eastward, to make NATO. larger. And so there just has been a narrative built, again, for decades about the importance of

defeating Russia. And then, of course, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, you had to have a military victory narrative. So I think these reports, the press statements, the news stories, the editorials are just keeping with that structure. You know, just recycling the same playbook using the same script. We have seen, you know, we've been talking about this war in Ukraine for years, Judge. And every year, it seems to be the same, you know, the same, right? Reports of Ukrainian success, whether it's on the battlefield, whether it's with missiles and drones, whether it's by curtailing Russian oil refinery operations, you know, what have you. I think this is just part of the playbook, that this is what the Western media is doing what it feels it ought to be

doing in helping in this great war against Russia. I suppose that our friends in the CIA are pushing this as well. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, we know that overlap that exists there between the American government and the corporate media, the legacy media, the major media powerhouses. It's been around probably forever. Certainly, we can talk about what our media was like immediately following the founding of this country and what a nightmare that was at times. But certainly the role of the American intelligence agencies, especially the CIA, in dictating what the news is, in providing the news, in ensuring that the American media is following the script that's handed to them is well documented. It's well understood. I mean, I wish we would have

again the hearings that we had in the U.S. Congress at the end of the 1970s that laid out some of this all so well. But you certainly have that. You have modern American reporters, modern American media outlets that work handing glove with the intelligence community. And it's just not the news media judge. We also know it's Hollywood, right? So it's also the Hollywood movies. It's the television shows that the CIA and the Pentagon are heavily involved with. Take, for example, that totally bogus movie Zero Dark 30 about the capture of or the killing of Osama bin Laden and how torture was what was used to find Osama bin Laden, right? That all came directly from Langley to the directors to make sure that the CIA produced

the movie about bin Laden's killing and that it didn't have much accuracy in it at all. But the fact is that Russia, we're back now to Ukraine and Russia, is continuing its essentially unimpeded March westward, is it not? Well, I'm, you know, I'm not a believer that the military solution for this war for other side. Russia is moving forward westward at a much slower rate, though, depending upon what source you're looking at. than previously. Ukraine does not have the military wherewithal to stop the Russian advance. At the same time, too, though, the Russian goals and objectives have never been to military conquer all or a majority of Ukraine, really just the Russian-speaking areas of the east. The Russians talk from time to time, of course, about expanding those objectives, maybe going

as far westward as Odessa or something like that. But I also don't believe that Russians have the military wherewithal to do much more than that. So between their objectives, what they want to accomplish the Russians, their precautions and not wanting to extend themselves or overextend themselves, as well as just what their actual capabilities are. Because drones have really changed warfare, judge. The Ukraine war compared to how it was in 2022, 2023, is an entirely different war. And much of that has to do with drones.

So the idea that the Russians, even if they have the wherewithal again, which I doubt, to say launch a major campaign to go and make it to the river, maybe even cross the river, take Kiev, the way that drones have so changed that war, I doubt they'd be able to do that. So you're essentially stuck in the same war that we've been stuck in for years and will continue to be this slow, excruciating slow at sometimes westward movement by the Russian army that Ukrainians can't stop, but at the same time, too, there's a lot of land, a lot of, of ground for the Russians still to take to achieve some type of World War II style victory. So that's years in the future.

So I think, like I've been saying to you now for a few years, Judge, our conversations about Russia and Ukraine are going to go on for years. I think we can have the same conversation this time next year about what it's But today, is it fair to say that this is not Ukraine against Russia? This is NATO, including the U.S. against Russia. Oh, that's entirely fair. Yeah. Is the United States of America at war with Russia?

I think the Russians think so, and that's what matters, right? I mean, so, you know, this idea of how committed are the Americans to this war, certainly this drone campaign that the Ukrainians have launched over the last several months, you have to give them some credit for being able to resource, and certainly the Europeans have been heavily involved in that. But this campaign would not be possible at all without American support, particularly American intelligence support. So when these drones, these Ukrainian drones are hitting targets, whether they're right on the front lines or whether they're 2,500 kilometers, deep into Russia, the Americans are involved in that in terms of the intelligence and the targeting

and the ability to even operate these Western systems, as well as to many of the drones that are showing up, these drones that use Palantier technology, these Hornet drones, you know, that the Ukrainians are using the great effect. But then again, also to the longer range ones, which are hitting deeper and deeper into Russia and causing problems for the Russians. It's not a problem that's going to force the Russians to give up the war, quit or lose the war, but it causes real problems. But to your point, this is a war. And so, you know, go back and re-dub what I said there, you know, but this is a war of the West versus Russia. And that's certainly how the Russians see it. And I think that's also the way that many, many Europeans see it,

including those in power throughout capitals in Europe, as well as to many, many Americans, including those many in the Democratic Party, that want to come back into power in January of 2009. Sergei Lavrov, who's the Russian foreign minister and is pretty much the dean of foreign ministers in the world, was uncharacteristically harsh in two speeches that he gave over the weekend, saying Russia is prepared for war. The European leadership is crazy. The Americans can't be trusted,

and we don't believe anything came out of Anchorage. Probably the same thing President Putin believes or he wouldn't have said it and said it with a ferocity and bellicosity with which he did. Agreed? Absolutely. And that's all pretty straightforward. stuff. I think any objective observer is going to see that as well, Judge. I mean, certainly we could

caution the Russians about getting the war with NATO that they supposedly launched this Ukrainian war to avoid, right? So if the Ukraine war was about preventing a future war with NATO, then the Russians have to be careful about managing the geopolitics going further, because I think Sergey Lavrov is correct. The Europeans are correct. The Europeans, those in power throughout capitalists of Europe, a Europe that is weakened, a Europe that is having all types of crises, a Europe that has incredibly unpopular political leadership. That political leadership has nothing to its identity, and it certainly doesn't seem to want to solve the problems and the crises that their people are going through.

So they are embracing militarism. They're embracing, one, a military and Keynesianism. They think that spending all this money, spending tens and tens of billions of euros each every year on their militaries and many billions of euros, excuse me, on the Ukraine war is somehow going to lift their economies out of the position that they're in now. But then also to this militarism to provide some type of identity that this militarism will give their population, some type of rally around the flag effect and that these politicians will have some benefit from that and that will save them politically. And we know that's not going to happen because it hasn't happened.

These leaders, well, we just saw Andy Burham now take power in Britain. He's going to be no different than Starmer. But Macron, Mertz, you know, the others are all tremendously unpopular. And they feel the only thing they can do because, God forbid, they actually answer the needs of the. their people is to have this foreign war, to have this foreign tyrant. Are they preparing for war? Is the, are the, is the EU leadership preparing for a war, say, in 2030 against Russia? They talk about it constantly, Judge. They talk about it

constantly. They're, they're building out their militaries or claiming they're going to build out the militaries. We'll see how successful they are with that. They want to rebuild or recreate Europe's own defense industry. Again, as part of a military, as part of some type of Keynesism, but also too to further separate themselves to a degree from the Americans. But I think largely because the EU has this vision of being a world power. That in the new multipolar world, there is a place for the EU to be alongside the Americans and the Chinese and the Russians and the Indians and the Iranians now. and the bricks, countries, and so forth.

And so this idea of a war with Russia, many of them see as an opportunity to rebuild. And, of course, that comes with all the graft and corruption we would expect from someone wanting to emulate or build their own military industrial complex. So, you know, matter how you pull this apart, Judge, no matter how you pull apart the European desire for war, with Russia. Let's just put it that way. You know, economically, socially, politically,

geopolitically, it is incredibly problematic to put it politely. And we can all see where this is going towards, where very much I just caution the Russians about for the Russians, be careful you don't get the war with NATO that you are seeking to avoid. Well, very possibly here, the Europeans may very well get the war with Russia that they're asking for or that they want and the disaster. Let me switch gears a little bit. How poorly thought out, how irrational are Trump's latest threats to Iran? You know, this idea that they're going to force the Iranians to bend the knee. Right. Well, why would they even come to the negotiating table while we're bombing them every night? I don't know, Judge. You know, Chris just heard me say this earlier today, you know, but

You can't change stupid. You know, I'm kind of, I'm at a loss. You know, Judge, I'm going to just throw it up there and say, I don't know why. You know, I mean, maybe rationally they're thinking, look, we've got, again, we'll put rationally in quotes here. But maybe they're thinking, look, we've got another 50, 60 million barrels in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve until we start to hit limits where we're not supposed to surpass. That gives us seven or eight weeks before we have to really worry.

about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and really have to worry about oil getting past $4.50 a gallon or whatever their threshold or metric is, if they even have one. They've even thought this far forward. But then so I think maybe the thought is, well, let's hammer them again. Let's hit them again. Maybe we will knock something loose. Maybe it will change something. Maybe we'll knock out the power to all of Tehran and 15 million people or however many people who live there will suffer in the 110 degree heat through August, and that will cause them to riot. And then, of course, then they'll be uprisings and that will deliver our regime change. But in the time that we have here, the eight weeks or so, we have remaining for the Cheegeeach

Petroleum Reserve, let's do it again. I think Donald Trump likes the idea of putting pressure on his opponents. This is part of his art of the deal. You know, I mean, I'm reaching, I'm stretching here to try and find an explanation for this because it's not logical at all. What do you, what do the Americans think they can accomplish in the five weeks that they, in this period that they couldn't accomplish in the five or six weeks of the campaign back in March or April? Oil inventories around the world have been depleted. All those secondary and downstream byproducts of oil and gas, fertilizer, aluminum, you know,

other things, they're all, that's all starting to show. that deficit, that shortage is showing in the supply chains. What about inflation? What about military shortages? Is the United States unprepared for Iran War 3.0? I think they think they could do this in a few weeks, Judge, and that they won't hit critical bottom, you know, run out of weapon systems. I don't know why they think that.

we know from weeks from the Pentagon as well as from what observers, people who do this type of open source intelligence and to do it, who do it quite well, have said for months now that the United States does not have the munitions, whether it be attack missiles or air defense missiles to carry out this type of campaign for anything more than a few months. The United States does not have the refueling aircraft needed to sustain. a campaign that lasts for, you know, multiple months. Those aircraft are going to start breaking. They're going to start running out of them.

The Iranians are going to keep destroying them. So, you know, it really makes no sense when we know that at the end of the campaign in April, at the beginning of April, United States air defense missiles, especially the Patriots and the Thads, were at very low levels. We essentially used half of our Patriot and Thad missiles, which are the missiles we use on the ground to try and shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles, the United States have used up roughly half of those in the five or six weeks of the campaign in March or April. So how, if you use those half of them up in five or six weeks, how long can you go this time around? We're going to stretch,

make, do you're going to not you fire as many. And now we're seeing, and this is what's incredible, judge, is that I'm seeing American officials talk about what's called BDA, battle damage assessment, the American press in these leaks like I've never seen before. Over the last week or so, the commentary through leaks in the American media about the Iranian accuracy, their precision in striking our bases, which we had from other sources before, but now that we're seeing coming out of leaks in the military, I've never seen this type of leak in the number and the quantity, you know, in the breadth of American officials speaking candidly to journalists saying, hey, we can't stop these missiles. They're hitting whatever they want. We're no longer firing two patriots at each incoming ballistic

missile. We have to fire at least three at each coming ballistic missile. I mean, so this really shows the upper hand the Iranians have here. We can get into why they have the upper hand and everything. But the idea that the United States is going to continue this war with the low inventory, as it has for munitions, the fact that it takes way too long to build these things to plus them up to any level where we're going to have sufficient quantities. And then, of course, the reality that the Iranians are hitting what they want to hit and that the Iranians have a missile and drone dominance here. The Iranians can produce somewhere between 100 and 200 ballistic missiles a month, which is more than the Americans can produce in terms of both patriots or THAAD,

I think the Americans can produce about 600 Patriot missiles a year. That's 50 a month. The Iranians can produce at least twice as many ballistic missiles a month. The drones, the Iranians. Let me jump in here. I want to ask you who's responsible for defense at the U.S. air bases. And before you answer that, here's the president just about 35 or 40 minutes ago saying, it's Jordan's fault that two American soldiers.

were killed at a U.S. base in Jordan. He's not that direct, but listen to what he says and watch the look on his face. Chris cut number 10. We are doing very well. We are degrading them at levels that nobody thought was possible. They're being degraded really so seriously.

They did slip something through in Jordan, and if we had other operators, you know, would have not happened, unfortunately. but we, because we have the best equipment in the world. You know, we've stopped almost everything. But when you let other people do your job with the United States, we let other people do the job. And sometimes it doesn't work out so well.

But we're going to be going and paying our respects it over. Oh, you know, at least the president's character. What is he talking about as far as you can tell? As far as I was going to say, you know, he may not be consistent in his decision making or what he wants to do, but at least his character. remains the same, right? I'm going to blame somebody else for my problems. I don't know. The best I can guess, Judge, is that within these countries, so you have Central Command, which is the American War Fighting Command for all the Middle East, but then you have all these

sovereign countries that are located within Central Command. And so then the United States has essentially agreements, these joint agreements with these nations to carry out these military operations. And they overlap. So there's essentially task forces between these nations and everything else. The Israelis are actually involved in them more than anyone knew before. But, you know, the idea being that President Trump is saying, because it was in Jordan, the Jordan's are responsible for the air defense in Jordan and that the Jordanians didn't shoot down this one missile when they should have. And the Jordanians have their own air defense systems. They have their own fighter aircraft, but they operate in tandem with the Americans and the Americans are in charge.

So there's no saying that it slipped through it because this was the sector that the Jordanians were responsible for or that the Jordanians were asleep at the switch or however he wants to describe it. You know, the Americans are responsible for the defenses that are bases. They include the local countries out of diplomatic reasons, but also too out of to have a greater economy me a force to also wealth those of those countries. So I don't really know what he's attempting to achieve here by saying such a thing. No one believes it. The only thing it's going to do is anger the Jordanians. I mean, the Jordanians are so servile. I don't think that it really matters, but it serves no purpose. Again, no one believes them. And it only would, would, you know,

cause problems within the relationships between the American military and the Jordanian military. But then again, this is the same president who wants to sanction Canada because of the wildfires. Right, right. It's really, the thinking is absurd. Is the U.S. running out of arms and ammo? We're not talking earlier about the ability of the Iranians to manufacture drones at a faster pace than us. Are we running out? We will.

We will. At some point, so right now they probably have the capacity of the capability of Americans to carry out their operations. for another month at this tempo before getting to a level where they have to really consider curtailing their operations. But even then, they're going to be limited in certain ways. Some areas are going to run out of missiles before other areas. So then you've got to decide, are you going to move those missile systems? This is what happened during the campaign in March and April, where they started running out

of missiles to defend the Gulf Arab states. And the Gulf Arab states said, well, what about all those missiles you have to defend Israel and the American said all those missiles are to defend Israel. And so you're going to have the United States keeping a reserve here to defend Israel that it won't tap into when these missile stocks start to get very low in the Persian Gulf area or in Jordan even. So I think they probably have about a month before it gets to the position where they can't fight. But that means within a week or two, you have to start making decisions as to where are you going to move your stockpiles, who you're going to reinforce, who are you not going to reinforce, how are you

going to ration these things? So I really don't think that they're able to fight this for another week or two without running into those concerns, which is, I think, why we saw reports this weekend that from the Iranians that the Americans are seeking a ceasefire, you know, and even a 10-day ceasefire would allow the Americans to get. get more munitions, get more weapons, get more reinforcements into the area. We're seeing that where another F-16 squadron, another F-35 squadron being sent to the region, you know, this is likely because those airplanes are breaking down and they need more. But the other problem, too, judges, they're going to start running out of attack missiles,

and they're going to start running out of what's called standoff weapons, which are missiles you can fire from hundreds or even thousands of miles away, and this keeps your aircraft safe. When you start to run out of those missiles, you have to start putting manned aircraft over Iranian airspace, and then you have the danger of those aircraft being shot down. So, you know, it's very similar as we're now in the 10th day here.

This is, let's go back to March, around March 10th, and where the Americans were at there, and how much longer could they last? You know, they could last about another month. And so I think that's what we're going to see here. And then you add in the other side, gasoline just hit $4 a gallon again, right? We're starting to see over $90.

It's $5.00. It was four when I left. Two weeks later, it's five. Right, exactly. And everyone notices this, right? I mean, here in North Carolina, I think I paid $3.15 at one point last month. And now I just paid $3.85 the other day. I notice it.

Everyone notices it. Oil's back up over $90 a barrel. I mean, so how long can the Americans do this for? And that's why I think they're just trying this out. Let's see if we can do something to force the Iranians to rethink this. Or maybe we can just, again, knock something loose. Or we can turn off the power and this will make the Iranian people upset. And we'll get the regime change we couldn't get back in March.

You know, I don't know what they're thinking here. Matt, thank you very much. Great conversation, as always. All the best to you. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. All right. Thanks, Judge. Sure, of course.

and coming up today, if you're watching us live in 30 minutes at 3 o'clock, Colonel Karen Koukowski. You ready for this? How the Deep State uses Trump. We'll see you that. Justin Apolitano for judging freedom.