Judging Freedom - Phil Giraldi : A Neocon Turns on Trump

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Phil Giraldi : A Neocon Turns on TrumpSee 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. Tragically, 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? 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 Wednesday, May 13, 2006. The great Phil Giraldi will be with us in just a moment on a neocon. The neocon turns on Trump. But first this. Don't you just cringe when people say, I told you so. Sorry, I told you. Gold and silver would reap the benefits due to excessive money printing, inflation, and global uncertainty.

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Call 800, $511, 4620 or go to Learjudge Nap.com. Phil Giraldi, welcome here, my dear friend. I want to speak with you at some length about this article in the Atlantic by Robert Kagan entitled Checkmate in Iran. Some of these one-liners could have been written by you, even though there are caveats here, and there's an underlying occurrence that I know you're going to reveal. But who is Robert Kagan? Why is it significant that he writes a piece called Checkmate in Iran? Washington can't reverse or control the consequences of losing this war. Well, to ask, you know, or to answer the question, who is Robert Kagan?

He's one of the leading neoconservatives. He was basically very instrumental in the founding of that organization back in the 80s. And it's kind of coming together as a major political force in the 1990s. He was co-author of some of their major documents outlining their views. Essentially, I mean, to sum it up real simply, neo-conservatives are kind of hardline Americans or hardline nationalists, let's put it that way, who believe that things like U.S. policy, the good things about it, are best served by a very powerful and aggressive foreign policy with a powerful and aggressive military to back it up.

So these are essentially hardliners, and he is certainly known as one of them. I've met him in the past, and I knew people that knew him very well. And a lot of people respected his intelligence and where he was going. This article is basically a demolition of our war in Iran, which, of course, as you point out, you or I would probably say some of the things or many of the things that he says in the article. Now, the problem with all this is that I'm a bit suspicious of the timing of this coming out just before Trump's trip to China, which will no doubt be leading to a decision on whether the war against Iran is going to be continued or not. And like some of the people you've had on your program, my suspicion is that it will go in that direction.

And this to me is evidence that there are kind of funny things going on among various constituencies that will lead to what I would consider to be a best. bad result. Kagan might be very sincere in his claim. He's certainly correct in his claim that this war has been a disaster. I think he's perhaps, shall we say, talking around certain other ends when it comes in terms of what the consequences would be and who the players are. Because certainly, for example, he's a, he is a, like, most neocons, very strongly pro-Israel. And the fact is that Israel wants the war to continue, and Israel is willing to do almost anything to do that. And I'd rather suspect that K. Gonzardo coming out with another one that came out in the Washington Post by Max Boot, another leading neo-conservative, saying basically the same thing, makes me suspicious.

So Max, the other Max, the good Max, Blumenthal, says that this article, I'm quoting him, is the imperial elite lamenting a major setback for its vision. And when he told me that, I said, well, now you sound like Phil. That's exactly what you said to me in our emails earlier today. Look, Hagan is not responsible for what his wife does, but the public, the viewers need to know, His wife is a monstrous. His wife is Victoria Newland, who is largely responsible for the coup that overthrew Vicka Yanukovych in Ukraine in 2014. In a manner of speaking, his wife is the source of a lot of these things that are going on right now,

that if one takes him at his word, in terms of this article he's just written, he's had a change of a point of view, one might say. So as they say, I'm just concerned about the timing of this thing, because the bad result would be for, well, let me put it this way. The timing and the situation with Trump in China, where he's probably not comfortable in what he's doing or not sure of where he's going, is kind of interesting.

And I think that the thing is with Donald Trump, this article will no doubt have been read to him or reported to him. And this will send him up the wall. And to the guy like this whose reputation and his name and his prestige and everything is everything, being attacked on this issue will probably impel him to start the war again. Yes. That they were wrong.

Yeah. I got to say a word about Kagan's wife, Victoria Newland. She's really a lunatic. She challenged John Mearsheimer to a debate, and John accepted the challenge. This I can't wait. to see. So it's Victorian Newland and I don't remember who's with her, against John Mearsheimer and Steve Walt, his longtime collaborator and co-author at Harvard University. So they're really crazy to take the two of them on, but we'll see where it's where it's

then so I want to go through some of the lines in this defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character he's talking about defeat in Iraq temporary defeat in the Pacific islands at the initial part of World War II defeat in Vietnam it can neither be replaced nor ignored you probably agree with that to a certain extent i do uh i think that uh we're talking about two different levels of reality the uh he's kind of saying that uh to go back again and start doing more of the same meaning bombing and and and alleged blockades and doing this and doing that will not recover the situation and i think he's probably very very much correct in that

But what scares me is that what does Israel have in mind playing the role from the back on this in terms of influencing Trump? And what exactly does Donald Trump think about nuclear weapons? Wow. We have this golden glow over Iran, which is arousing, I think, a lot of concern among people like us. Let me take a little bit of an aside. Chris reminded me who Victoria and Newland's debate partner is, former Secretary of State and CIA director, Mike Pompeo. Oh, God.

Newland and Pompeo. John can't wait for this. First is Mearsheimer and Walt. I offered to be the moderator, but the Newland crowd rejected me. Well, if they had accepted you, you should, You should have had to go armed. Go armed. Right, right, right.

You think that an article like this, the Strait of Hormuz will not be open as it once was. The roles of China and Russia as Iran's allies are strengthened. The role of the United States substantially diminished. Attacking Cutters, Ross Lafhan, Industrial City, the world's largest natural gas import, caused Trump to respond by declaring a ceasefire, despite Iran's not having made a single concession that goes on and on and on and on.

You think that statements like this, though accurate representations of what happened, are intended to goad Trump into resuming the bombing. I suspect they could be interpreted that way. That may not be exactly what Kagan thought when he was right. he might have been completely sincere in how he was putting together the realities of what's been going on in Iran. But at the same time, this kind of stuff has an political impact, and it's the kind of stuff that can drive our president, who is, I think most of us would agree at this point insane and very self-protective to go in a bad direction.

We've spoken on what we would like to see, and I'm still on that page, which is that I think Trump, if he's done the right thing, is to come to terms with Iran on the 10 points and principles that they've been raising insofar as possible, and pull the plug on the aggression and go home. But I think the problem is these kinds of articles will actually push him in the opposite direction. And I just kind of have to wonder a little bit, maybe was that intentional? Is that something maybe the bright mind of BB Netanyahu came up with to say, let's make sure this happens. And if it happens, and even if Trump is reluctant, we'll maybe come up with some kind of false flag that'll make it move a little faster. That's what I'm afraid of. You know, you mentioned

Trump is in, you didn't use this word, but I think that's a fair description of what you said. Trump is on a bubble, a self-protective bubble. He said just the other day, he doesn't care about the suffering of the average American. He doesn't care about gas prices. He doesn't care about inflation, which is now the highest that's been since Biden was in office. He only cares about Iran and a nuclear weapon, to which our dear friend Colonel McGregor said, let's see, was the French Revolution fought because the average peasant wanted a representative democracy instead of a king? Or was it fought because the peasants couldn't afford to buy bread? Well, Maria Antoinette said let them eat cake, you know.

Right. But, Doug, the colonel's point is well taken. He cannot afford. to ignore his blue-collar base and what it costs them to fill up their gas tanks. I paid $5 a gallon for Super, but it was the same price as regular. I've never seen that before. I paid $5 a gallon in Northwest New Jersey on Sunday. That's got to hurt his base. I paid $8 this morning in Northern Virginia for Super.

But the thing is, you know, the problem is, the way you and I see something and Colonel McGregor see something is not necessarily the way Donald Trump is going to see it. And that's why I'm concerned that when these criticisms are launched against him, rather than taking the criticism as perhaps you and I would and saying, well, there's, you know, there is some truth there. Let us consider what the reality is. Donald Trump goes the other way. And I would, you know, I was hoping to see some comments coming out around the China visit, which would encourage coming from the Chinese, I would think, and also from his audience in the United States,

encouraging him to do the right thing about Iran, which would be to do the right thing, to come to terms with Iran in terms of their legitimate grievances, and at the same time do what's best for the United States. And yes, even maybe do what's best for Israel, which would be to get their butts out of Lebanon and Syria and get them to start behaving like normal and decent people, which Trump can do by basically cutting off all the support that he's been giving them.

But, you know, that ain't going to happen. No, no. You think that Mrs. Abelson and her buddies will, prevail upon him to resume the bombing. And what is that going to accomplish? We're already dreadfully low on military supplies. We already know you can't bring about a regime change from the air. We already know we don't have a million man army to invade and occupy. Kagan points this out in the article to invade and occupy Iran until the new government is in place. So where the hell does Mrs. Adelson expect him to go?

It was interesting. I was watching the Trump delegation getting off the plane in China. And I was wondering if Mrs. Edelson would be there among them. And I didn't see her, but who knows? Yeah, but I think the problem here is that there are different perceptions of where all of this is sitting and different perceptions of where it's going to go. And as they say, to repeat, what scares me is that sure everything you just said about our failure in Iran and our failure in making war against Iran is very true. But that's what scares me with the possibility that someone as loony as Donald Trump will be urged by someone, maybe by Mrs. Adelson, to go nuclear. Right.

Right. Trump was very upset, according to Colonel McGregor, that he was greeted at the airport in Beijing by somebody didn't recognize the vice president of China, who's just a ministerial official. He was expecting President Xi. Now, wouldn't Trump's advance people have told him who was going to greet him? Wouldn't the CIA have said, hey, there's a last-minute switch. President G. is not coming. Some guy we never heard of who's the vice president is coming.

Here's the background on him. And by the way, he speaks perfect English. I mean, don't they have their fingers on these things, Phil? Well, they should. I mean, any kind of major delegation like this going to a foreign country, and while I was overseas, I certainly witnessed this in operation. They send an advance team. And the advanced team works out all these details and finds out all the information.

And they convey it back to the principal, to the person who's coming in like the president or the prime minister or whatever. And I've seen this happen, and it works fine. And the big criticism that's been levied against the Trump administration by many that have had to deal with them is, that they're so disorganized. And they seem to be so incapable of doing basic things that everybody else can figure out. And so I suspect this is just another, they dropped the ball.

Wow. If Kagan called you up and said, hey, Phil, what did you think of my article? What would you tell him? I say, let's go have a cup of coffee and talk about it. I, you know, as I say, I have met him in the long past when many people I knew were veering towards neo-conservatism. And he was very active back then.

And he's an intelligent guy. And it's interesting that the article appeared in the Atlantic. And you know the Atlantic's editor-in-chief is Jeffrey Goldberg, who served as a prison guard with the Israeli army and also was an Israeli citizen for many number of years. And Jeffrey's an interesting guy too, because he let, first of all, if he were really sort of still conscious of his concern about Israel, I assume he is concerned about it,

but he probably wouldn't have let an article like disappear. And it is my understanding that he feels that Net, just like he feels about Donald Trump, whom he does not particularly respect and like, he feels the same way about Vibi Netanyahu. So there's all kinds of, as they say, there's a story here, and there are a lot of other little sub-stories that are playing around as this goes on. And I find it very interesting. Wow. Here's the information about that debate and these two characters that challenged professors, Mearsheimer, and Walt. So that's Victoria Newland and Mike Pompeo on the top. And on the bottom,

of course, is Professor of Walt of Harvard and his longtime colleague and friend, our dear friend, Professor Mearsheimer. The debate is, let me get this right, Chris, the debate is not tonight. The debate is the 20th. Right, right. The debate is 20th. You can get tickets at Ticketmaster. It's a huge, a huge auditorium. Wednesday, May 20th at 7 p.m. at a place called Meridian Hall in Toronto, Canada. Maybe Mrs. Newland will stay in Canada, but I doubt it. Will it be televised? It'll be streamed. No, no. It will not be televised because they're probably paying John a fortune, so they've got to get, you know, some money at the gate. Eventually, we'll get some clips of it.

Phil, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. A great insight on the Kagan article by way. Things are not always as they seem, as Gilbert and Sullivan told us. Sometimes skim milk masquerades as cream, and that may very well be what we have in Robert, Kagan's article. Thanks to your very astute and very courageous analysis, my dear friend. Thank you. Well, I look forward to us making it through the next week with Trump coming back from China and not doing anything horrific. Right. Same here. Thank you, Phil. All the best. Thank you. Bye-bye. Sure. Coming up tomorrow, Thursday, the 14th of May,

at 9 in the morning from Tehran, Professor Muhammad Mirandi, at 10 in the morning from Beijing. I don't know if Trump's going to say hello to him. I doubt it, but he's there. Pepe Escobar, at 11 in the morning from London, Ian Proud. Will there be a British government by the time he's on the show? At 2 in the afternoon from his home, the wonderful Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.