Judging Freedom - Phil Giraldi : Trump’s Weaponized Monument

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Phil Giraldi : Trump’s Weaponized MonumentSee 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?

Everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for a judging freedom. Today is Wednesday, September 23rd, 2006. Phil Giraldi will be with us in just a moment. Does Trump really want to weaponize the next monument to himself by filling it with ammunition and snipers?

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escapewitha judge.com. That's escape with a judge.com. And remember to use code word judge for your BIP experience. Bill Geraldi, welcome here, my dear friend. Why do you suppose that Trump is so fearful of reporters from CNN, MS, now, and Politico that he had the Secret Service disabled their passes and order them out of the White House? Well, there are probably a couple of good answers to that question. The one that seems to make most sense is the fact that, first of all, he has this kind of dislike of women reporters, which leads him to, you know, call them fat, stupid, et cetera, et cetera. And that's, I think, something that plays into it.

But the real issue is I think they're asking him hard questions about the things that he's doing or not doing. And he doesn't really have answers except to shout at them and tell them to shut up. And eventually now, of course, he's gotten rid of them completely by blocking them from appearing at all as correspondence in the White House. And apparently his, I step to his justice department is saying, oh, this is perfectly reasonable for the president to do this, which means that the whole issue of having a relatively free media that is willing to question politicians about what they're doing and why they're doing it will be something that we will.

not see much more of. Well, he can't claim that Caitlin Collins is fat or ugly or stupid. She's beautiful and she's tenacious and she's very, very smart. Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. And she's

obviously the prime target at the moment because she is asking a lot of hard questions about policy, about the way things are being done by the White House. And he doesn't want to answer it. Right, right. Chris, do we have the clip where he walked into the U.N. and confronted her and said,

what are you doing here? You're not supposed to be. Here's Caitlin Collins, un-rehearsed. The president came in. He briefly came over to speak to the reporters, who I should note are here, because we are credentialed by the United Nations while being blocked by the White House from covering the president. And we asked him this question about that new CNN polling. Mr. President, two-thirds of Americans, two-thirds of Americans don't think the U.S. is winning the war with Iran. When will end? So it's an honor to be here. I'm surprised that CNN is here covering me. The United Nations allowed us in, sir.

You should not be here covering me. You said you weren't going to cover me. You shouldn't be covering me. Two-thirds of Americans don't think that the U.S. is winning the war with Iran. When will it end? We're making a lot of progress. Our country is doing really, really well. Thank you very much.

I guess his Secret Service detail did not tell him to expect to see her. She's almost like this will bring back memories. Dan Rather and Richard Nixon, do you remember those days in the White House press room? Yeah, that's kind of reminiscent of this. And of course, she's led in there to serve as a correspondent for the UN. and he appeared at the UN. So his objection to her being there at all is ridiculous. He's launching Trump TV at the expense of the federal government.

Now, where would he get the authority to launch an American Pravda? That's never happened in American history. No, it has not. And it remains to be seen. how effective this station will be. I gather there were some test runs yesterday, and some of what was seen by whoever managed to see it was not that impressed.

This is going to be Trump television about Trump all the time, every day on every issue with a lie. So that's what we're going to be expecting. Now, I know you're a very smart guy with extraordinary experience and intelligence. You're not a shrink. But how do you account for this self-deification? Even Colonel McGregor, a very, very sober-minded, serious individuals said he's acting like, and he said this after they annihilate comment, which we'll talk about in a minute.

He's acting like he's a god, like he has no ever. external restraints whatsoever. Well, that's, I think, an accurate estimation of where Donald Trump's head is, that he does think that he is a superior creature, indeed may go beyond being a creature to something that's godlike. And I find most appalling his repeated statements. And this is, he came out with this again last week, that he is the greatest American president ever to be the most fantastic leader of this country, which is absolutely ridiculous. He's a joke.

Now, Chris, is that a still or is there a program coming up? Well, that's the logo. you know, you can see a structure of the schematic of the White House there above the sort of angled lettering Trump TV, paid for by the federal government, never authorized by Congress. And boy, you can just guess who's going to control the editorial content of this thing if anybody ever watches. I mean, most people don't even know it exists, much less where or how to find it. Yeah, there certainly will not be any open debate of issues and policies taking place on Trump TV. This is all going to be about Donald Trump. And Trump has already said on several occasions that as far as he's concerned, the whole business

of government is all about him, about me. And it's clearly what he believes. I believe he's borderline, shall we say, beyond eccentric, beyond difficult in terms of how he perceives issues, and it's only going to get worse. Well, here he is yesterday at the UN. Our friend and colleague, Jeff Sachs, who's on right after you, but in a note to me earlier, referred to the statement that we're just about to run as nothing should. short of deranged, Chris 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 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. What do you make of that language on the world's biggest stage? Absolutely astonishing. Unprecedented. It's a violation of the UN charge. He shouldn't even be there and be allowed to say that. He is basically so ignorant that he doesn't reckon with the fact that he already had a deal that he signed off on at Versailles.

And the MOU basically was a document that was acceptable at that time, apparently, to both sides, before Trump and his friends backed out on it. So he had that. And the whole idea that he's going to annihilate a country, which he failed to point out that he called it murderous in a country that's going around and killing people. Well, that's all untrue. You have to go back to the 18th century to find the country of Persia

at all aggressive in any kind of sense. And the Iranians never threatened the United States. They never justified the war that was started by Trump with the prodding coming from Benjamin Netanyahu and from Israel. So he's totally ignorant about the facts. He doesn't seem to care about that. And he's threatening to kill a country with 90 million people, annihilate them, it means get rid of all of them,

and he's going to have to do that with nuclear weapons, which I guess is the subplot here. This is what maybe is in that empty head of his, of ways to get rid of the Iranian problem. Well, what could he possibly mean when he says, now I'm quoting you, quoting him, in your most recent article, Phil. Why have all this lovely military equipment laying around

without anyone using it? What the hell does he mean? Well, it's not actually a direct quote. It's an indirect quote. That was Madeline Albright who came up with that way back with George Bush. And in my article, I said, I rather suspect that Donald Trump will be coming out with something, similar to this, and we'll be very curious for him to explain the need to use the military equipment,

which he's now placing it in Washington, D.C. in his Ark de Triumph. And what are you going to be doing that, Mr. Trump? The Ark the Trump. What are you going to be doing? what what we're looking at a um excuse me a picture of what he says it'll look like this is twice the size of the arctic triumph in paris it's four times the size of the washington square arch at the bottom of fifth avenue uh in new york city it'll totally uh destroy the the vista from the capital uh to the Lincoln Memorial showing Arlington National Cemetery. Go on and on and on about how architecturally unpleasing it is, but I guess it's also going to be dangerous.

What does he want to store in there? Is he going to store drones and ammunition inside a monument? Yeah, he specifically said that he would be storing drones there, so that gives him a bombing capability. inside the capital of the United States, in and around it. And he also will have snipers and sniper bases built into the top of this monster. And there is also going to be room. Again, he said this specifically, to store ammunition and weapons, and to make it effective.

Now, he never quite said what the threat was that required him, to place this thing, which I guess would be under his control over. So we would have all kinds of more excitement in terms of, I guess he'd be looking for, I suggested that if he were going to be trying to shoot me, it would be because he would label me a critic of Israel, which now is a capital offense in the United States, thanks to Donald Trump. and he would probably be doing these things for other reasons too. I mean, he's no doubt going to tap into the defense budget to help pay for this thing,

which would have been a problem maybe coming down the road to fund this. So there are a whole lot of things, but he says the whole idea of using military force like this under his control in the middle of Washington, you know, communists? Are they going to be looking for communists? Cubans maybe. So we have a whole list of people that he might want to shoot. Wow. Here's President Poschkian earlier today responding to President Trump from yesterday.

Chris Cut number five. I had prepared a speech to present to you yesterday, the United States president. described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism. I come from an Iran in which our esteemed supreme leader was assassinated without any legal framework or reason. I come from an Iran where in truth they bombed a school, You see these children? These children perished under bombs with weapons used by the United States and Israel. They were innocent.

Innocent children whom in truth had committed no crimes, no sins. Those who are terrorists and train and protect terrorists describe us as such. We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists. You saw walking out was the last, I don't know his name, but he was the last member of the U.S. delegation. Rubio was gone. Ambassador Waltz was gone. I don't remember who else was part of the delegation, but they were all gone. That fellow that we saw was the last member, and he decided to leave after President Posesky and started to speak.

So I don't know where any of this is going, Phil. What kind of rapport can there be on the diplomatic front between the United States and other countries after Trump's performance yesterday? Well, I think the performance was revolting, and I think it was interpreted that way by everyone. in the room, managed to stay there. And this is what the world media will be reporting to or is already reporting. And the United States is a joke.

It's not a serious country anymore. Trump has claimed yesterday that after his 39-minute speech, the Iranians and someone from the United States, states were having a meeting and they met and spoke to each other for three hours. But this hasn't been confirmed as far as I understand it. And the Iranians have certainly not jumped on the horse here to say that this is up. After being threatened with being completely destroyed and everyone killed in their country, this is hard to figure where the next step is and where.

you would go with that. So I don't know what's going to happen, but I think that I am very afraid that with Israel and the United States conniving on the issue of bringing down Iran, it will be something awful. And awful, of course, would be, as I suggested earlier, nuclear weapons, either by Israel or in the United States, they both probably believe or certainly believe it. They might be right that they can get away with it. And if it's not that, it'll be something like a false flag by Israel, making something look like Iran had carried it out, and probably against Saudi Arabia or some target like that.

And then they will be justified in their own minds, too. escalating the war against Iran in an attempt to finally destroy it. Now, people you've had on your show with a lot more military experience that I have, have pointed out that the United States has lost this war and that a ground invasion to actually overthrow the country is not thinkable because the U.S. doesn't have the resources. And an air attack, a bombing campaign also will not necessarily destroy the country or defeated in any serious way. And Trump, of course, wants to be able to declare that he's a winner that he defeated these people. That ain't going to happen.

So where this will go is, who knows, but I think it could easily be something awful. Here's President Poschkin earlier today, touching the third rail by telling the world Israel has nukes. I wonder if Netanyahu will deny that when he's there tomorrow. Chris, this is going to get under your skin, Phil. Not that he's saying it, but what he's talking about. Chris, cut number six. Proved, we have proven that we're not afraid of fighting of war, 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-house 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. He couldn't have said it any better or clearer, could he? That was beautiful. That is something I would like to see on every US television network.

you know, for people to hear the truth about what has been going on and how it's been going on. That was a brilliant, brilliant statement by him. Thank you very much. Sure, sure. Phil, thank you very much. I have to run. We're dealing with people's various schedules. I think Jeff's coming to us from the United Nations.

But thanks for your comments. Thanks for your great peace on Trump's. weaponizing the monument. If anybody's looking for the piece, it's called Another Week of Dangerous Nonsense from Donald Trump. You can get it at Unz, UNZ, and wherever Phil's pieces are carried. Thank you, Phil. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. All my best to you and Angela. Thank you very much, Judge. And I look forward to being on with you. Sure. All the best. As I mentioned, Professor Sacks at 3.30, so if you're watching us live in four minutes with his views on what Donald Trump said yesterday and what he expects Prime Minister Netanyahu to say tomorrow. Judge Lepaltona for judging freedom.