Judging Freedom - Max Blumenthal : Trump’s Deranged UN Threats

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

Max Blumenthal : Trump’s Deranged UN ThreatsSee 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 Thursday, September 24th, 2006. Max Blumenthal joins us now. Max, the pleasure. Max, it was a pleasure to be with you in Chicago last Thursday, and I thank you for your kind comments about my work, and thank you for some of your side-splitting one-liners. We have been talking for the past two days about Trump's speech at the United Nations, but it is your analysis towards which I have very much been looking forward. I'm going to guess that you agree with Professor. Professor Sachs, who quoted deranged. It was a perfect speech for the Empire of Lies. I mean, virtually every line contained a lie, even on Trump's boasts about the state of the United States

as Treasury bond yields reach 5.1% today, which is going to lead to a massive retraction in foreign investment in the U.S. Trump boasted that the United States economy has never been hotter. He has helped drive U.S. deficit to $40 trillion and was claiming that the U.S. economy has reduced poverty at record rates. He also boasted that and claimed that there was zero illegal border crossings this year. I mean, zero. One line after another contained a lie. He increased the fabricated death toll of rioters from the January riots in Iran from his past imaginary figure of 40,000 to 71,000, and then said 10,000 protesters had been recently killed in Iran.

There is no recent report of any protesters being killed in Iran. I mean, there haven't been any protests except those in support of the government every night. So one line after another built an imaginary, delusional, fabricated reality that stood at odds with the one that most Americans are living in, all Americans are living in, except Trump's inner circle. and this speech appears to have been written with help from Mike Walts and his delegation at the UN, which consists of Israeli operatives. So it culminated with Donald Trump, and I'm sure you can play video of this, threatening Iran with some form of annihilation, suggesting that Trump was prepared to use a nuclear weapon since the munitions aren't exactly,

available, although Trump denied that and claimed that the U.S. was producing munitions at a record rate, citing absolutely no evidence. This was the most deranged component of Trump's speech to threaten to send Iran to hell, threatening mass civilian destruction, and not just bridges and power plants, but mass civilian destruction if Iran fails to negotiate on U.S. terms. Chris, the clip to which Max is referring, cut number 12. But I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world?

Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never get it. giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again. Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we'll make a deal right after the election. I think the Iranian government and what do you think the Iranian people think when they hear this? Well, it's the same thing they thought when he threatened to destroy. a great civilization at the height of the war that he launched on behalf of Israel on Iran, which was that members of the Iranian opposition that opposed the Islamic Republic condemned Trump

and said, oh, I thought this war was just about decapitating the leadership we wanted to remove. I didn't know it was about destroying Iranian civilization, but he repeats these threats again. The issue now is that they might just be idle threats. He has been threatening Iran week after week. There is a constant military buildup around Iran, but for so many reasons, Trump may not be able to escalate. The question for Trump is, does he care about the Republican Party going into the midterms? Does he care about his own approval rating and his own political standing? Or does he care simply about this war, which was laid before him with a blueprint,

by the Israeli Prime Minister and by Israeli intelligence. And if he attacks before the midterms, it proves that he only cares about Israel because this will be disastrous for the Republican Party going into the midterms if Trump escalates this war. It would be disastrous for the global economy and they will suffer worse losses. And Donald Trump is already,

his approval rating is already at a historic low. So he's promising, a deal after the midterm election, there will be no deal if he attacks, and there will likely be no deal anyway because Iran finally understands how perfidious the United States is, particularly under Trump. And if you listen to Iranian President Massoud Peschkian speech, which was the first speech delivered at the UN by a leader who is currently at war with the U.S., although Trump says it's not a war. but it is. Poschkian signaled confidence and defiance

and declared we will not bow our heads to the United States. Negotiations right now or even after the midterms for Iran would be bowing their heads. Here is President Poschkian. I thought this was terrific, Max. I'm going to guess you agree. Touching the third rail of American politics by announcing on the world's biggest stage

what the rest of us already know, but very few people, but people on this show and your show and your website are willing to say, which is that Israel has atomic weapons. I don't know if this has ever been articulated from the podium at the UN, but here he is, very confident and very courageous in my view. Chris, cut number six. Proved that we have proven that we're not afraid of fighting of war, one, a war that is defensive in nature. and we will stand in defense of our beloved Iran, our homeland, until our last breath. Ladies and gentlemen, the topic of this gathering is mutual trust. That cannot be achieved through words only, but by abstaining from using double standards.

Atomic and nuclear bombs are in the hands of the Israeli regime, but the inspectors are requested to come to Iran. Israel has murdered savagely over 70,000 innocents in Gaza. But Iran, while behind the table of negotiation, was bombed. Israel has the bombs, has weapons of mass destruction. Not a member of the Nonproliferation Treaty. During her shameful life has not allowed a single inspection, but they are rewarded by all the means necessary for them to be able to bomb any capital in the region at will. I will repeat the nuclear weapon is in Israel, but the inspectors in Iran. How was that received when he said?

Do you know? Well, it depends on which audience, but I think many Iranians were not expecting Peseshkiyan to deliver such a defiant and concisely worded speech outlining Iran's, the victorious outcome of Iran, its defiant stance toward the U.S. and Israel, and the double standards that have been imposed on Iran. It was also received, I would say, very well by the U.S. media. Pazeshkiyan's speech received front-page write-ups from the New York Times and the Washington Post, not the Wall Street Journal, but it received half a page in the Wall Street Journal. And it was a, you could call it a victory speech.

Pazech Gion opened the speech by listing many of the atrocities that the U.S. committed on the first day, assassinating Ayatollah Ali Khomeini and at the same time massacring over 135 schoolchildren in Minab, massacring 12-year-old female athletes in Lamurd, actually using an experimental Lockheed Martin precision-guided missile. And then he pivoted and said, but Iran will not bow. Iran is not weak, drawing a contrast between his nation and Venezuela, which was obviously in a completely different historical and military position. And that Iran fought back and successfully held off the U.S. And therefore, Iran has no reason to heed to Trump's bullying and his threats, which increasingly appear idle. Possackian would not have sounded this tone if Iran didn't feel confident that it could hold off the U.S. in yet another round.

We should also remember that just the situation that Iran was in on the level, on the on the international stage was very different after January. There were these regime change riots, which were instrumentalized by Western and Israeli intelligence. Around 3,000 people were killed. The number, as I mentioned before, was fabricated by pro-regime change forces and by Donald Trump. And gone up to 40,000. Trump just put it at 71,000, right after those riots. And a wave of of media propaganda, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi was banned or barred from attending Davos. Now, Pazeshkiy and Aragchi are in New York, and there's a meeting in a few minutes that will be attended by journalists, academics, think tankers. I've heard lots of think

tankers want to get into this meeting. With Pasehkyon, Iran and Aragchi. And so they're basically back on the world stage. The only card the US is able to play against Iran successfully right now is to drive inflation rates to extreme levels inside Iran. And it's doing real harm to the Iranian economy, particularly to small business owners and to what's left of the middle class that has managed to survive all these rounds of sanctions. The U.S. is also imposing an attempted aerial siege on Iran.

And just a few hours ago, an Iranian plane was turned back, returning to, it had left Tehran, and it was turned back over, I believe, Tajikistan because several other countries refused to give it overflight rights because of threats of secondary sanctions from the U.S. However, flights are still going to Iran from Istanbul, from Oman, and from China. China, so the aerial siege is not total, but the U.S. is still trying to strangle Iran. But what we see here with Pazakhian in New York is a confident and victorious Iran. And can the U.S. actually outlast Iran economically? Outlast a country that still has the memory of the Iran-Iraq war when many people in Tehran

were lighting their homes with kerosene lamps for weeks. Are Americans accustomed to this? No, so I think the political pain will damage Donald Trump before it reaches Iran's leadership. Here's the man whose stewardship of the Treasury Department has produced bond yields of 5.1% saying, oh, I'm worried. The Iranian visitors here in New York

might not be able to get home. Watch this. Cut never said. We are squeezing the Iranians like they've never seen. Today, I would say that the external flights from Iran, probably more than 80 or 90% of them got shut down. I'm not sure how the Iranian representatives at the UN are going to get home. Well, they'll find a way home, as you indicated, they could certainly fly to Istanbul directly from JFK. Well, this is economic terrorism.

And I put forward what I think about the aerial siege and what percent is trying to do to Iran. But from a moral point of view, it is terrorism. And it's from a government that is already assassinated. many Iranian leaders. And it speaks to the absurdity of having the United Nations in New York and looking at this entire theater and seeing how dominated it is by the United States. Iran is one of the few countries in the entire world, which was willing to call out the farce of the IAEA, exempting Israel from the inspections of its nuclear weapons program, while imposing inspections on Iran, which has no nuclear weapons program to date,

on the farce of the Israeli occupation being able to continue to devastate Palestine, while leader after leader turns away. It was one of the only countries to speak out about Palestine. Palestine. And so Iran is basically standing against an entire world order represented by the UN and New York. If it were truly a United Nations, it would be relocated to a non-aligned country like South Africa. And the fact that the U.S., which has imposed sanctions already on Iran, preventing its diplomats from being able to even go outside of a small 10-block radius near the building built by the Rockefellers where the UN headquarters is located.

Now that they're going to try to prevent them from getting out shows that the United Nations as an institution is a farce and must be relocated and de-Americanized in order to truly represent an international order or international law. Well, boy, I couldn't agree with you more on that, Max. the chances of that happening in the near future are. But you put your finger away. Well, I mean, who funds it? Who funds it?

It's the United States. Right. The Gates Foundation, a bunch of billionaires. Right, right. I want to play a clip. Chris, I don't know what the number is. It's one of the ones Max just sent of Delci Rodriguez, the colonial puppet nominally run. the government of Venezuela.

And I'd like your thoughts on this. Chris. ...of irreconcilable conflicts. I wish to say the following, loud and clear, at this General Assembly. In Venezuela, there will be elections. And in that vein, we have begun a political dialogue

with sectors of the opposition, which will lead to a process where everyone will compete on an equal footing. The Venezuelan people with its age-old wisdom will determine when the correct time for these elections is and Venezuelan's institutions will be prepared to guarantee this inclusive and transparent process.

As long as Marco Rubio approves of everything that's happening and that other guy, the thug whose name I forget but you've talked about him and written about him a number of times. Oh, I don't hear you, Max. Chris, I can't hear Max. Max, can't hear you. I was able to hear you before we ran the Delci Rodriguez clip. Strange.

All right, well, I switched. You're back. You're back. I switched microphones, so hopefully you can hear me now. Sure. This was an extremely significant speech by Delci Rodriguez, and I think many people who've been watching Venezuela for a long time, I think they'll pick up on it if they watch the speech.

She mentioned that only the national interest or the national politics of Venezuela matters, that no one person can lead Venezuela or be considered a guide to Venezuela, and that Venezuela had been too dominated by a party and the color of that party's flag. And that she made no mention whatsoever of the man who is sitting blocks away with his wife, in a maximum security prison, Nicholas Maduro, who was abducted by the United States. So by the one man she was referring to, Hugo Chavez, who ushered in the Bolivarian Revolution and took a country which had only cared for its elite and had left the majority of Venezuelans who were poor in the incomplete oblivion and brought them out into the daylight

and reoriented Venezuela's vast resource wealth to social programs, literacy programs, reduced extreme poverty by 50%, but also made Venezuela a player on the world stage. Hugo Chavez famously denounced George W. Bush, comparing him to Satan, demanded that international law be enforced against the illegal invasion of Iraq. And even seven years ago, Delci Rodriguez stood at the UN General Assembly podium and stood up for international law. In this case, she is abandoning international law with a gun to her head pointed by Donald Trump and the Don. And she is essentially helping, she's essentially giving a green light for the Don Roe doctrine and declaring the end of the not just the, the, well, she's declaring an end to Chavismo is what she's doing, an end to the Bolivarian

revolution. And her country is just going to become another South American resource colony for the United States after signing a deal, which gives over one fifth of Venezuela's oil reserves to the United States selling Venezuelan oil below cost, below cost to the United States. She then, yesterday, she posed for a picture, a smiling picture with Donald Trump, the man who authorized an invasion of her country, who abducted Nicholas Maduro and his wife. And I understand that Delci Rodriguez has a gun to her head in so many ways. I broke the story that there was a secret, unsealed indictment that the U.S. was dangling over her head

if she refused to do whatever it wanted. But to pose with Donald Trump for a photo and in creating this iconic image, it signals that there is a terrifying 21st century ahead because this photo signifies enthusiastic consent by the leader of a country that was invaded from the party of the country that was targeted, who was the vice president of the president who was abducted. And from now on, Donald Trump or any future U.S. or Israeli, or any stronger country that embraces the Western imperial ethos of Mike makes right, can look at that photo of Delci Rodriguez and say, well, if I invade this weaker country, maybe we'll get a Delci Rodriguez. And that was Donald Trump's mentality after January 3rd when he took Maduro when he decided to attack Iran.

He actually got a photograph. He actually... ...and this is what's so dangerous about this moment and what Delci Rodriguez is doing on the world stage. Max, when this photograph is displayed in newspapers and on websites in Venezuela, how do the average folks feel about it? They must despise Trump.

Well, the Venezuelan society is very polarized. And time will tell. I think there are many people, including younger people with less political education in Venezuela, including many who went to Miami, thinking they would have a better life there, that Donald Trump, if he took over the country, would bring in economic prosperity and would allow them to live good lives. And that's not going to happen. It's simply not going to happen. Venezuela is being exploited by a corruption network,

a nepotism network, and it will not experience any better outcome than any other resource colony in Latin America. Delci Rodriguez herself and her party will survive, however. That is one of their accomplishments, although it survives as a hollow shell of its former self with absolutely no meaning. And her other agenda, the other item at the top of her agenda, is to secure control of the Essequibo region from the neighboring country of Guyana, which comprises a large part of Guyana's land. Venezuela's been in this harsh dispute with Guyana, and that is extremely oil-rich land that Exxon is exploiting. And so she's pushing that and abandoning Venezuela as a non-aligned country that works with other countries that have been abused by the empire to establish a new multilateral, a multipolar world order. That also includes Cuba, where infants are.

dying in record numbers because of the energy crisis imposed by Donald Trump's siege. And the first thing to happen was after January 3rd, Venezuela said, we're going to stop sending oil to Cuba. Delci Rodriguez confirmed that this will remain the case when she declared that national politics is all that matters to Venezuela, that the region doesn't matter. And I think it was sort of farcical for her to quote Simone Bolivar, the, anti-colonial hero of South America who saw not just a Venezuelan country confined by its own borders and its own national interests, but a grand Colombia of confederation of nations that were strong and worked together as one in order to offset the power of empire, whether

with Spain in his time or the United States today. Delci Rodriguez, in my very you abused the legacy of Simone Bolivar for the narrow vision, which is essentially being advanced by the U.S. and Israel behind it. Finally, there's Tony Blair, of all dangerous crackpots. This little talk that he gave occurred at, I think, at Trump Tower a few hours ago. Chris, the clip of former British Prime Minister Blair. Finally, there is talk of Free Palestine. But for Palestinians living in Gaza,

they don't need a slogan, they need a solution. To be free, Gaza must live in peace with its neighbors and with itself. And this cannot happen if it's governed by those who use Gaza as a base for war against the neighbor. It has no chance of defeating. I guess he's a well-paid spokesperson for the Zionists who've engaged him. Yeah, or the corporations that have donated to the Tony Blair Center for Peace

or whatever his influence peddling scam is called because they're going to get contracts according to the new master plan, which was advanced at Trump Tower, at the meeting of the Board of Peace yesterday. Let's remember the Board of Peace. has not been approved by the U.S. Senate, which is supposed to approve treaty-making organizations. It has not been approved according to any international legal treaty. It has simply been imposed on Gaza through an executive order by Donald Trump, who is himself a vehicle for influence of Israel and the Likud Party via donors like Miriam Atelson.

Tony Blair himself is essentially the same. And so what was he what he was calling for was actually a violation, an explicit violation of the ceasefire agreement that Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner oversaw between Hamas and Israel in October of 2025. Whitkoff and Kushner were sitting in the front row, as they called for violating the ceasefire they signed. perfect portrait of the perfidious behavior that characterizes the Board of Peace. They then talk extensively throughout this meeting of what they call the NCG. That's the National Committee for Administration of Gaza. It was created by the Board of Peace to create a civil administration or a technocratic government to govern Gaza. Hamas approved of it.

Israel refuses to allow the NCG to enter Gaza. And the Board of Peace has done nothing to pressure. Israel to allow it in. So it's just an idea that they keep talking about. The Board of Peace has not done a single thing to initiate reconstruction or humanitarian aid in Gaza. Over a thousand people in Gaza have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire and Israel is moving towards taking 70% of Gaza's land. Israeli troops are operating deep inside Gaza and they keep moving the so-called yellow line. Okay, according to phase one of the ceasefire deal signed in October 2025, which was the basis for the establishment of the so-called Board of Peace, Israel has to withdraw back to its frontiers and remove its troops from Gaza.

There is no call for Hamas to disarm, and now the Board of Peace has flipped it on its head. Had, Hamas has to disarm for anything to happen, for any reconstruction, humanitarian aid, or for this technocratic government to even be allowed to begin operating inside Gaza. The Board of Peace at this meeting pledged $2.8 billion, which is a different figure from the $7 billion that they claim to have raised in the beginning. An analysis of that money shows that out of every $100, they claim, claimed to have raised, only $1.75 has gone to Gaza. Like a tiny fraction of it has gone into Gaza.

Where does the rest of it go? Exactly. Where did the rest of the money go and where will it go? If anything is going to happen in Gaza, according to this Board of Peace, which has been installed and impaneled by Donald Trump, all of that money is going to go to contractors like Larry Ellison, who's or aurepillar. has been listed as one of the companies that will provide data centers according to the Gaza master plan, along with Palantir, Amazon, and all these other billionaires who want to cash in who are also paying into Tony Blair's influence peddling scam in London.

And one thing that Tony Blair cannot allow to have happen is for peace to break out because that would also compromise his family's bottom line. May, the British media reported that Tony Blair's son, Nikki, has launched two weapons startups, one of which was part of an arms consortium that received a whopping $2 billion pound contract from the British Ministry of Defense. So these are war profiteers posing as peacemongers, imposing permanent occupation and dispossession. on Gaza until they can cash in further. And I expect very little to happen in the way,

in terms of improving lives of people in Gaza under this cast of warmongers, criminals, and scammers. Wow. We're showing people walking out of Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech. This is apparently happening live or with a very slight delay. Well, I guess everyone's got to leave walk out of this to watch it, but if you want to make sure to bring a barf bag. Well, we'll be anxious to hear your analysis of what Netanyahu says.

I'm sure he's not going to address what Iranian President Poschkin challenged him to address, which is his illegal possession. of nuclear weapons. Well, Max, I have a few quick, can I make a few quick comments? Sure. Just two quick comments. Netanyahu's UN ambassador, Danny Donone, called for the mayor of New York to be arrested, Zoran Mamdani.

That was right around the time that Donald Trump was meeting with Mamdani. Any U.S. president that cared about American sovereignty would never allow foreign representatives operating on American soil to call for you. US elected officials to be arrested. And if Donald Trump actually believed in America first, he would have immediately summoned Danone and the entire Israeli delegation and thrown them out of the country. But he doesn't.

He doesn't. And that's the farce we're seeing. And Netanyahu's entire speech at the UN will be a re-election speech because he's on the ropes right now. Right. Max, thank you. Great analysis all across the board. board my dear friend I have to run off to the other meeting and we'll miss you

there and look forward to chatting with you next week thank you a lot judge sure coming up tomorrow Friday at 8 in the morning from St. Petersburg Russia Gilbert Doctoro at 2 in the afternoon from somewhere in Thailand Pepe Escobar at 4 in the afternoon the intelligence community roundtable with Larry Johnson and Colonel Karen Koukowski, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.