Judging Freedom - Matt Hoh : Window Closing on US Military Power

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Matt Hoh : Window Closing on US Military PowerSee 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? 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, August 11, 2026. Matt Hull will be with us. in just a moment on how and why the window is closing on United States military power. 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, gold and 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, 511, 4620 to see if you qualify for up to $20,000 in bonus medals. That's 800, 511, 4620 or go to Learjudgeonap.com. Matt Howe welcome here, my dear friend. Why does the United States keep losing wars? Well, thanks for having me back on, Judge. And there's a lot of things that go into this. But part of it's we're an empire that's incredibly corrupt. We have a military industrial complex that doesn't manufacture weapons to defend the United States. It manufactures weapons to ensure corporate profits. We have an American exceptionalism that believes in all the myths. But also, too, we have a political class that even though time and again, it's been shown that these disastrous wars have political costs, these men and women are a political class believe that somehow they are better or superior or they've learned lessons and they can do it better this time than last time.

So, I mean, I think you put all that together and you get this continuing inertia for failed American wars that seems unstoppable. It seems unstoppable. The United States has lost respect throughout the world. Is this Donald Trump's fault? No, Judge. I mean, he certainly is kicking the can farther. He's certainly doing his, you know, doing his best to ensure that we've lost that respect.

He's doing his best to ensure that whatever vassal states or allies that would remain to a declining American, would remain committed to a declining American empire or realizing that maybe that's not the best way for them. But, however, the reality of the United States, you know, particularly since the end of the Cold War, as being the hegemon, as being the domineering unipolar power that insists on its way, that disrespects international law, that launches coups and invasions, I mean, this has been something that has been building for decades. And so countries around the world don't trust the United States. They realize it's not only dangerous, but even if you have friendly relations, it is an unreliable partner because it doesn't adhere to international law,

established rules, doesn't participate with good faith in international institutions or agreements. And so, yes, Trump is certainly doing his best to hasten the decline of the American Empire, but this began long before him. I spoke with a retired Russian Major General yesterday, who's now in the Duma, the Russian Parliament. And he told me that the Kremlin has no respect for Trump, doesn't believe anything he says, and is pretty much riding this out for the next two and a half years until they expect the Constitution's enforced, that he will no longer be in the White House. Are you surprised? No, I'm not. Judge, go back two and half years. And Vladimir Putin was asked, you know, would he rather see Joe Biden stay in the White House or Donald Trump come, you know, return? And Vladimir Putin said he'd rather see Joe Biden, even though Biden's very overt hostility to Russia, his commitment to funding the war in Ukraine was evident. And that wasn't going to change. Vladimir Putin would rather have that consistency and that certainty than the uncertainty and the

rationality that comes with Donald Trump. And the Russians in general, following the end of the Cold War, the Americans tried to loot or didn't try. They looted Russia. They emissorated Russia. They tried to make Russia essentially a puppet state. And then, of course, all the expansion of American power, not just NATO, but encircling Russia around all of its borders, has led to this point. So, you know, with regard specifically to this Trump term, absolutely. I understand why the Russians don't trust Donald Trump. He's back and forth all the time, but also too. After the Anchorage Summit a year ago, Donald Trump failed to deliver on what he said he would

deliver on. So why trust the man? Right. I asked Ritter these questions this morning. He says on the people advising Trump that in his mind the jury is still out on General Kane, but there's no question in his mind that Heggseth. should be fired, that he's just a disreputable cheerleader who tells the president whatever he thinks the president wants to hear.

And I think that wasn't, I don't think anyone expected anything more from Pete Hegseth than that, Judge. I think he was picked for that purpose, right? That he was picked to be a cheerleader, that he was picked to be the top loyalist that Trump could find to put in that position. And so I don't think there was any thought that Pete Hegseth would be. the manager of the Department of Defense that he would be the consummate strategist that would win American Wars. No one expected him to perform the job other than be that cheerleader. And he can't

even do that well. He's constantly contradicting himself. He's making himself look foolish. And so I don't see, you know, and then now we add in the factor of who's going to take the blame for the Saram War, who's going to, whose head's going to roll. And the logical choice would be Pete Hegseth. And of course, there's any number of sycophants, as you know, Judge, who would gladly line up to take Hegsest's job so they can find another person who can cheerlead better than Hegseth. You not embarrass them so much. Most of the American troops that have been killed in the Iran War have been killed because they were inadequately protected in their own work and sleep environments. I'm going to play a clip in a minute about the despicable.

even disgusting conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln. But before we get there, does the military protect its own troops? It's supposed to, but, you know, this gets back to your first question. Why do we keep losing wars? Because we have a corrupt, rotted military industrial complex that includes the military itself. So just as we talk a lot about how are the United States running out of weapons to fight this war, how come our ships can't remain at sea for more than a few months of the time? Why can't our airplanes, you know, conduct campaigns from more than a couple months without all breaking down?

You know, the answer is because you've had generations of just absolutely craven generals who have looked the other way because they know their best bet is getting a job with Lockheed or Raytheon after they leave. Or they also are so political they know their best bet for promotion is not angering their bosses and doing as their political bosses want them to. And that's how you then have the situation that you're talking about. judge, where you have American troops on bases getting killed and wounded by missiles and drones from Iran that was entirely predictable. We've known for how many decades, this is how Iran would fight us. The war games have all put forth us, and they didn't provide the adequate force protection on those bases to protect these troops from those very things that we knew Iran would attack us with. I mean, go back six years to the Iranian response to the assassination on General

Solomani. What did they do? They shot ballistic missiles at El-Ele-Lat-Las-A. They shot ballistic missiles at Al-Assad Air Base in Iraq. I mean, so in those six-year period, even if up to then say you weren't aware of what they would do, which is nonsense, but just give them the benefit of the doubt, six years later, what have they done to protect the troops since that attack on Al-Assad base? Right, right. This clip is a producer from a media company that I think is making a documentary about the deplorable conditions in this case of the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is an aircraft carrier. He may be

expanding it to the lack of protection of American troops. I don't know. It sounds like he's concentrating on the Navy and on this ship. Well, this will turn your stomach a little bit, although it's an ex-marine. I'm going to guess nothing will turn your stomach. But Chris, cut number 15. You guys, there's a mental health crisis happening aboard the USS Lincoln in the Middle East that no one is talking about, and mainly because the Navy is pretty much quashing it. You will read online about food shortages, supply shortages, poor morale among crew members. That's because they've been at sea continuously for 250 days. They've been deployed a total of 271 days, 250 without a port of call.

That's unheard of. Normally they would go to port every three to six weeks. They have not been to port in 38 weeks. Keep in mind there are 52 weeks in a year. And yes, the showers are moldy. They're eating basically like a gruel kind of slop at this point. There's no deodorant. There is no toothpaste. My nephew has a friend on board there. And I was basically hearing updates last week when I was in the States in real time. They're not talking about the mental health crisis. Six people have tried to jump off that ship. The most recent was last Monday. You know, when you have not touched land in 38 weeks in over 200 days, things start to happen to you mentally. Combine that with exhaustion and deadly mistakes start to happen. So, you know, this is how the Department of War, this is how Donald Trump treats our service men and women, whose lives are already being put in harm's way for a bullshit war of aggression that was supposed to be over in a matter of weeks. We are further putting their lives at risk out of sheer ineptitude and neglect. It defies logic, it defies reason,

And it defies basic humanity. Is any of this surprise you, Matt? It doesn't surprise me, again, because of the superficiality of the American military, the paucity of the leadership. I mean, the men and women who are in command right now, the generals and the admirals, these are the men and women who made their marks,

who rose through their career, who got their experience in the, you know, failed, counterproductive, illegal, immoral, Iraq and Afghan wars. Why do we think we should have better leadership than we do? I mean, so, you know, with regards to the suicides, just to make sure people understand how many suicides that is, you know, one, there are six attempts, I guess, on a ship of 5,000.

That's more than one attempt per every 1,000 per people. In the U.S., the rate of suicide is 0.14 for 1,000 people. So you're looking at suicide attempts that are eight, nine, ten times above the norm. Does it surprise you that six young people tried to jump off a ship in the middle of the ocean? You certainly, you would expect an elevated rate because they have elevated rates of suicide in the military for we could do a whole program on that judge, right? You know, but that gets into also why does America keep losing wars? But in this particular case, all the things that were. were laid out in a video there.

So you'd expect that during this extended deployment where rations are bad, where the food is bad, where they can't get toothpaste and deodorant, you know, things like that, things are just difficult. They haven't been home. They've missed childbirths. They've missed their kids' graduations. They've missed, you know, God knows what the divorce rate is. I got to tell you, the divorce rate is, I can't imagine what the divorce rate is on a chip.

But so you would expect to see, you know, an elevated rate of suicide. But at this level, right, when again, you're eight, nine times what the normative average, you know, the normative rate of suicide is. Yeah, this is, this is this is incredible. Is this an extreme example? Is this an outlier or is this typical? No, I, the numbers that this young producer just gave us, no deodorant, no toothpaste, 250 days at sea, six attempted suicides. No, it should not be normal. There's no way that the Navy should not be able to sustain its forces while flow.

The Navy is meant for warfare. That's what it's meant for. And this excuse of, well, well, the Iranians closed off to Persian Gulf. They destroyed Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain. None of the third-party contractors were used to provide the supplies and want to work with us because they're afraid they're going to get blown up. That's all nonsense. It's all nonsense, Judge. The Navy's meant for war.

What do you mean you can't replenish your ships while they're underway, during warfare. What do you, what, what, what's, and now we get back to your first question. Why do we keep losing war? Because we have a military. It's not meant to win and fight wars. It's meant to provide weapons contracts. It's meant to provide, uh, campaign, you know, a wealthy weapons, you know,

profiteers who then donate to political campaigns. I mean, the idea behind all this keeps getting back to that first question you asked. And this is one of the horrible, uh, consequences of it is you have, uh, these, these stress. these challenges, these mental health crises on these ships. And if it's happening on the Lincoln, I guarantee you it's happening as well on the destroyers. It's happening on the assault ships where the Marines are. I mean, there's no reason why it's not. There's no reason why I would only be happening on the Lincoln. And as well, too, just one point I want to bring up as, you know, gets back again to your first question. We have 11 aircraft carriers. We're only able to have

two on station in the Persian Gulf at any one time. I mean, this has been going on for more than six months now why is that because these ships which cost more than 13 billion dollars each new um and when you include the air wing you're talking about 20 billion dollars or even more than that what is the air wing mean the planes the air wing so that the roughly 75 planes that are aboard that ship they cost total 10 12 billion dollars you know we put that all together and the ship itself has 3,000 sailors that sailors that man it and then you're going to have the air wing with all those planes that have another 2,000 or so Marines and sailors. So this thing is massive, absolutely massive.

And they don't work. They can't sustain operations. They have to constantly go back to their ports for maintenance. Again, as I said, we have 11, but we can only have two. One of them have to be on station for almost a year now. Why is this happening? And now back to your question, why do we keep losing wars? Because we can't even have a Navy afloat when the ships cost billions of dollars.

that can operate without having to go back then to the yards, back into maintenance for months or years at a time after every time that they're out. And then it's other things as well. They can't even get toilets that work and showers that work, let alone the catapults to actually work in other things, the elevators that bring the planes up and down as well as the munitions, they have problems with those. It's all kinds of issues.

And now we get to the, you know, kicker and all this. They can't get close to the Iranian coast. Right. In order for you've got to stay a thousand kilometers away. So in order for the F-18s, which are the workhorse fighter attack planes on those ships, in order for them to carry out a mission, an aerial refueling tanker, a KC-135, most likely, which are 50, 60 years old, has to fly from Bangorian airport from Israel all the way across Saudi Arabia, cut over Oman, and then meet this F-18 over the Middle Arabian Sea to refueling.

it in order for it to carry out its attack, and then it has to meet that F-18 again when it comes back to refuel it because being a thousand kilometers away from the Iranian coast judge, those F-18s, when they come off the carriers and they have their payloads on them, they can only go about 500 kilometers. So, I mean, again, why are we losing these wars? Look at the forces we have. Look how superficial they are. Look at the paucity in this.

Look at the craveness of the generals and the admirals who are sitting back and thinking, I don't want to say anything because that's going to jeopardize my chance of getting a job at Boeing. Wow. Tell me if this makes sense. I think you'll agree with everybody who's been on the show so far today, Ambassador Freeman, Professor Mirosheimer, Aaron Mottet, and Scott Ritter, that there's not a single word of truth in this. Cut number one. Well, it's open now.

We're taking a lot of shit. It's open now. Look, the only one. that has control of the Strait of Homoos right now is the United States Navy. We have a blockade that's been infallible. It's a steel wall. And we let people in that we want to let in. And those people come in and they've been coming in and they're going out.

So it's actually open now. We do not let them go into Iran to not admit it into the straight to go to Iran. How can he say that? You know, Judge, he asked me that question about the Russians and do they trust Donald Trump for they want to work with. You shouldn't even ask me. You should have played that clip, right? That would have answered the question better than anything I could have put together, you know? His statements are really absurd.

The Navy's a thousand kilometers away, and he's calling an infallible steel wall. They're not interfering with anything. Right. And now we get to the question of, does he really believe this? Is this simply what he's being told? I mean, because we've had that problem. them throughout many. This is the Hexssef problem? Is Hexsaf telling him this nonsense or is he making it up in his own mind? That's exactly right. But this also predates him as well. We didn't have a senile president with Joe Biden,

so it doesn't really matter what he was told. But you go back to the first Trump administration where you had Jim Jeffries, who was a senior civilian representative for Syria after Trump was out of office, he boasted that he lied to Donald Trump about how many troops were in Syria. They kept troops there and told Donald Trump they pulled him out. Lloyd Austin, who became Biden's Secretary of Defense, when he was head of Central Command, he had more than 50 intelligence analysts revolt against him, go to the Inspector General and say, you know, what we're saying about Syria and Iraq and the Islamic State, General Austin is changing that to make it sound better for President Obama. And of course, in my personal experience, I had to go to the President's Intelligence

Advisory Board and testify as to why the things I was saying about Afghanistan were contradicted by the things that the President of the United States was receiving on his desk when everyone knew what I was saying was the accurate information. So you've had this problem for, you know, generations, essentially, of what information is the president getting and is he being steered in a certain way by his subordinates or by the, you know, quote, deep state, unquote. So, but then now with this guy, though, you add in this other aspect where he is mad, judge. And I don't mean that to be pejorative. I don't mean that to be, you know, exaggerated. He is mad. He is a mad president. He would fit very well into Edward Gibbons to the decline in fall, the client of the Roman Empire, right?

I mean, stories about him. So, yes. Yeah, this is why this is so dangerous. So it's no surprised that the window was closing on United States military power. Oh, absolutely, Judge. That's very much the case. And Chris was just showing us the status of munitions and how depleted both our air defense munitions and our ground attack munitions are. It's not just a case or concern for this war. It's for all the wars.

This, what you're seeing right here, this is upon which the strategy to fight both Russia and China happen. built around. So this failure, this lost war, doesn't just embarrass the United States and bring failure to it into present. This precludes any future wars. I mean, this belies the whole idea of the United States strategy for how it's going to fight China or how to fight Russia. You know, people ask, how come we only have so many of these jasms and tomahawks and prison missiles and there's all kinds of reasons for it. But one of those because they felt they didn't need that many because they were so assured that these weapons were going to work just as the brochure said and that they were going to be

precise and they would be devastating and that in the case of Iran within a couple weeks all the air defenses and Iran will be destroyed. That's the same plan for China. That's the same plan for Russia. And then from there, the campaign develops. So they can't even get past the first week or two in any future war with China or Russia without having the same problem and against Russia and China, you know, objectively much larger, larger forces and more capable forces, we can imagine it not being a question of just while we have to, we have to ask for a ceasefire, but of Russia and China then exploiting that defeat of, you know, the initial American campaign and then, of course, winning the war that way.

All right. You're just so the president of the United States making no sense. Tell me what you think of this, the Iranian foreign minister with a translator, number 14. And well, our brave armed forces, who truly sacrificed everything they had, managed to render the world's largest and most formidable army completely helpless and ultimately defeated it. And please understand, this is not just some empty slogan at all. It is a profound reality that the entire world is now openly admitting to and acknowledging with great respect. That in the recent war, it was the Islamic Republic of Iran that proved itself to the world. And it clearly showed us that it is truly a remarkably tough, resilient, and completely invincible power.

I have heard this many times from foreign ministers of other countries, from officials of other countries, that you Iranians have created a wonder, the exact same phrase. You have astonished the whole world. Any question but that the United States and Israel have lost this war? No, there's no question. And to take it a step farther from what Foreign Minister Arachi was saying there, it's not just the exposure of the superficiality of American military power, but once again, the exposure of the failure of American leadership. Because when you look at the Iranians and you say, how come they're a world power now? And certainly their military capabilities, their ability to fight the Americans and the Israelis and the Arab states, both symmetrically and asymmetrically, absolutely is all that there.

But you also see the Iranians able to formulate other strategies, economic strategies, political strategies that then come together that bring them this victory in this war. With the Americans, they can't do anything. What we can do? We're going to pass another sanctions act against Iran. We've been doing that for 47 years. We're going to do. We're going to launch another week or two of attacks against Iran before we finally actually

really run out of weapons. Great. What's that going to accomplish? And that's it. That's the only thing the American strategists are political. and military leaders can come up with. And so it's just not this defeat of the United States and the exposure of the superficiality of the American military,

but it's that defeat that also exposes just how weak overall the U.S. Empire actually is. And the only thing that sustains it is its inertia, is its momentum from previous decades. So essentially the United States is burning what it has left of its momentum as an empire. And of course, over the next couple decades, we'll see that continue to diminish. But like I always say, Judge, it's going to be very dangerous because, you know, there's a saying a dying mule kicks hardest. And I think that's what we're going to see from the U.S.

And I don't know if you saw the reports. I think it was from NBC News, but the Pentagon is looking to expand its use of nuclear weapons now in warfare. So rather than someone saying, looking at this and saying, we got beat by the Iranians, we don't have the military industrial capacity to wage war. Our ships and planes can't work from. more than a few weeks or months that time before they break down. How about we rethink our militarism? How about we rethink our belligerency? No, in the minds of Washington, D.C., the best thing to do is, okay, let's think about using nuclear weapons now because we can't win any other way.

Wow. Matt, a great conversation. Thank you very much. Your depth of knowledge and ability to articulate it is terrific. Thank you, my dear friend. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. Thanks, Judge. Thank you. On the same topics, if you're watching us live in 32 minutes at 3 o'clock, Colonel Karen Koukowski, Judge Napolitano for judging Freedom.