Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Are We Drifting Toward a Global War?

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Are We Drifting Toward a Global War?See 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? 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 Monday, March 16th, 2006. Professor Jeffrey Sachs will be with us in just a moment on, are we drifting toward a global war? Is Trump's war going to become World War III? 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. It's here. It's happened. Gold and silver have reached all-time highs. Did you call Lear Capital and buy some? It's not too late. Experts are predicting higher prices ahead. Why? Nothing has changed. Geopolitical chaos,

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Professor Sacks, welcome here, my dear friend. and thank you for accommodating us. How easily can Netanyahu's and Trump's war get totally out of control? Well, we are out of control because the Middle East is ablaze. Not only the Gulf is ablaze, that means Iran and the neighboring countries, the countries including Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, But because of Netanyahu and Trump and past American presidents, wars are raging actually from Libya across Africa, including Sudan and Somalia. They're raging in Lebanon.

Of course, genocide continues in Gaza. Slaughter continues in the West Bank. There is war in Syria. There is a continued war in Iraq. and Yemen, and now there's the carpet bombing by the United States of Iran. So we have the Middle East of Laze. In addition, we have the war that Trump was going to end in a phone call and continues to help Stoke, and that is Ukraine. Every word of his, every statement and promise turned out to be false. And we have the wars in the Western Hemisphere in Venezuela, which is still an ongoing war zone,

despite what you hear, and in an imminent attempt by the United States to overthrow the government of Cuba. And Trump met with several right-wing Latin American leaders and talked about new military operations throughout the Western Hemisphere. Our government is out of control. There is no constitutional order, and there is no sense in what is happening. And the wars are going to spread because of an absolutely deranged president and out of control, CIA and military and absolutely. crazy allies of the United States starting with Israel, which is certainly the greatest rogue state on the whole planet.

What happens if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for a substantial period of time? And what would that substantial period of time be? Well, we already see the cascading effects of oil well above all. $100 a barrel and continuing to rise. This will be, as the International Energy Agency has declared, the greatest supply-side disruption of hydrocarbons, oil, and gas in history. From previous such disruptions, such as two that occurred in the 1970s, the consequences for the world economy will be absolutely dire, if not catastrophic, because oil prices will continue to soar. Oil production in the Middle East will cease, both because there's no storage or shipping

capacity and because the fields, both in Iran and in the Gulf, are being destroyed by attack. So we're both attacking the physical infrastructure and fields are being shut in, because there's nothing to do with the possible production. So we're in for an economic crisis of massive proportions. The extent of this crisis will depend on whether the world tells Netanyahu and Trump, stop breaking the entire world. Go home and stop your games. If that happens, this crisis will be.

very serious and costly, but not devastating. If it doesn't happen, then the consequences will be devastating. Who or what could stop the Israelis and the Americans from this catastrophe, the carpet bombing of Tehran and the expansion of the war? Well, first, the Arab countries could, in principle. They house American military bases. They should, if they had the guts, but they don't, but they should tell the Americans leave. Go home, you're not giving us security, you're destroying our security, you're destroying our countries, you're destroying our economy. That's what they should do. That by itself would be enough to stop, because the U.S. ability to project power in the region depends on the militarization by the United States of the region. And that is also the same reason why

these countries won't do what I just said. They're basically vassal states of the United States, which is very sad for them, very sad for us, because we suffer the consequences of the resulting Trump Megalomania and U.S. government megalomania. The other way to do this is for the major powers of the world that are not the United States or its vassal states. And that today is largely defined as the so-called BRICS countries should, in a unified way, stand up clearly and say to the United States and Israel, stop. Enough of this tragic absurdity. It's tragic because it's devastating. It's absurd because a child would not have gotten into this mess that we're in,

but Trump is less than a child in the logic of his thinking. We have trapped the entire world in a disaster to the point where Mr. Trump is appealing to China to come bail us out, appealing to other countries, threatening NATO. If you don't help us, then you're going to be. in dire trouble. The man is a loon. I'm sorry to say it. And he got the whole world into this absolute debacle. And now, as his usual want, is he's demanding everyone else get him out of this debacle. Well, there is a way out of this debacle. And that is for Trump and Netanyahu to go home and just shut up for a while, honest to God. All they're doing is creating murder. All they're

doing is leveling countries and threatening the whole world economy for nothing. Absolutely nothing. So this is how it could stop. It could stop simply because it makes no sense. And it could stop if the Arab countries could somehow overcome their vassalage. And it could stop if it could stop if, If the big countries, which is what I'm hoping for is the most realistic path, stand up as the only adults that we have right now and say that is President Xi and Prime Minister Modi and President Putin and President Lula and President Ramaphosa and other leaders stand up and say, no, you cannot do this on your whims and your fun of bombing as Donald Trump has. has said, and Netanyahu, as he declares it, his dream of 40 years, the man is a madman.

We have to say it, honestly, because we're really in trouble right now. Here's President Trump yesterday. I was saddened to hear this, but not surprised. This is almost remarkable, suggesting NATO, as you just mentioned this, Professor Sachs, should get involved helping the United States and Israel. Chris, cut number nine. We're always there for NATO. We're helping them with Ukraine. It's got a notion in between us.

It doesn't affect us, but we've helped them. And be interesting to see what country wouldn't help us with a very small endeavor, which is just keeping the straight open. That, by comparison, is a small, it's small because Iran has very little firepower left. It's unbelievable. We do something totally insane. Makes no sense. Why don't they come to help us?

And it requires nothing. So why don't you do it, Mr. Trump? Because you know that what you're saying is not true. You have gotten the world into a total disaster. You. Not NATO, not China, who you called for for aid, you. And it's up to you. Mr. Trump to end the disaster that you and Netanyahu caused.

And it's easy. Go home. Stop this absolute blunder, which is bringing down the whole world. And the world will know who is bringing down the world economy and who is lighting the fuse to World War III. It's you. Don't talk about NATO coming to your aid when you've done something so stupid that it can't even be explained. It's enough. Go home. You killed enough people. You leveled enough of Tehran. You have 15,000 strikes. Go home. You killed their leader. You killed their religious leader.

You killed the leader that said, we don't want nuclear weapons. You killed that one. You killed their top leadership like last summer when they were in the midst of negotiating. Go home. Stop already. Stop trying to draw other people and other countries into this. It's enough. You just mentioned China. The White House has leaked this morning. Trump is scheduled to visit President Xi in three weeks. The White House has leaked this morning. Oh, he may have to stay in Washington to manage the war. Translation, She doesn't want to be seen with him on the international scene in the midst of this. Who would? Who would want to host this man, who out of nothing, created a global disaster

that he has no clue about and has no way out of, except to stop his own blunder, which he is psychologically incapable of doing? So who would want to be seen with this person? it's really a problem. We're normalizing something so awful. Where are the senators? You know, they voted, oh, we don't want the War Powers Act. Well, you know what? It's not your damn choice.

It's the constitutional responsibility of your office. You can't choose. We wipe our hands and we give it to one person to decide about war in our country. You can't do that. The declaration of war is a constitutional responsibility of yours. That's what it means to defend the constitution, not to wipe your hands of it. And that's your opening every show, so beautiful. You talk about undeclared wars and preemptive wars. This is exactly what we have in our country right now, blatantly unconstitutional. Where is our Senate nowhere. Where is our House of Representatives?

Nowhere. Vote them all out of office. Well, the Congress has gone from the, let's go back to December 7, 1941, a valid, lawful, moral constitutional December 8th declaration of war. Congress doesn't declare war anymore. It ratifies wars that presidents have declared. Yeah, not even president. by silence or ratifies it by paying for it? Well, ratifies wars that the CIA and Mossad have declared.

Correct. Correct. Because that is our real government. And then we have this person we call president who is just gleefully posting gifts of video game bombings of Tehran and saying it'll be fun to go in and bomb Karg Island again. And this lasts, this doesn't immediately wake up everybody to the reality of the situation that we're in. Where are these congressmen? It doesn't care what part of you are, senators. It doesn't matter. It's your responsibility.

That is your oath. Look at your oath. Your oath is to defend the Constitution. Read it for a change. Congress and only the Congress has the power to declare. war. Why? So that exactly what's happening right now doesn't happen. Right. Here's Trump at his worst on all of this cut number, if you can imagine that, cut number three. Together with our Israeli partners, we're crushing the enemy and an overwhelming display of

technical skill in military force. Iran's drone and missile capability is being utterly demolished. the Navy is gone. It's all lying at the bottom of the ocean. Forty-six ships. Can you believe it? In fact, I got a little upset with our people. I said, what quality of ship? Excellent, sir. Top of the line. I said, why did we just capture the ship? We're going to use it. Why did we sink them? They said, it's more fun to sink him. They like sinking them better. They say it's safer to sink him. I guess it's probably true. You know, why doesn't he mention the carpet bombing of Tehran, the massive loss of life, Israel's displacement of a million people in another invasion of Beirut and doing in Beirut what they did in Gaza with the generals of Israel bragging how they're going to make Beirut the next Gaza.

and the political leaders saying all of this, and the murder of 160 schoolgirls, and then Trump lying about it brazenly, and then sinking a ship off the coast of Sri Lanka and against every regulation and norm of combat, leaving the sailors to die. And it was a ship that was not an armed ship engaged in armed, armed combat was a training ship of Iran that had been invited by India.

And we just think it's fun to leave the sailors to die. Come on, America. Is this our country? Is this really what we're about? Didn't we make a constitution so that this wouldn't happen? Regrettably, this is what we have become. How do you think, I mean, Trump is desperately. looking for a way out of this. How do you think the U.S. and Israel so grossly miscalculated

the resilience of the Iranian people and the strength, the sort of asymmetrical nature of their military? Look, one clue is to look at Netanyahu, who championed this war and also said that this was his dream for 40 years. This man has been wrong about everything. So if you want to try to take a judgment beforehand, you might analyze who is giving you the recommendation. Netanyahu's doctrine has been to overthrow governments throughout the Middle East. And he's told us repeatedly. All you have to do is just get rid of X, Y, or Z, and all's going to be wonderful. Remember what he told Congress. Just get rid of Saddam Hussein. It's going to inspire the region, and it's going to inspire Iran, and it's going to be so wonderful. So Netanyahu owes us,

I'd say about $7 to $10 trillion, and the bill is rising quickly. What a waste of money. for us to be at war together with this horrible extremism and militarism of this despicable person who has led us into repeated wars and did it again. So, yes, they're all diluted because all of these wars have failed. Our bombing of Libya, what did it do? It produced 16 years, 15 years. of chaos since then. The destruction of Sudan, another big project of the CIA and Mossad.

What did that one do? Well, it's produced two civil wars. And how about that great overthrow of Syria that the CIA engaged in starting in 2011? Well, that killed hundreds of thousands of people, cost hundreds of billions of dollars of destruction across the region. or tens or hundreds of billions, who knows what the cost is, in what was supposed to be, oh, this one will be easy. Judge, they're always getting this wrong.

That's their job. They're selling us a lot of BS from morning till night. Oh, it's so simple. Oh, I'm going to make a phone call and the war will end. Oh, we're going to decapitate the leader and I'm going to choose the next leader. Oh, we bring down Saddam Hussein and we have a democracy. in Iraq. When have we ever been told the truth about any of this? Not once. When have they ever been right? Not once. And you'd think after we witnessed a genocide straight out that we might ask

another question to partner with our wonderful genocidal partner, Israel. It's not hard to see these mistakes. It's just that this is an out of control war machine that we have. Is there? And there's no desire for constraint because our Congress is so corrupted, so pitiful, that they don't even raise a question. Come on. So yes, it was not hard to see that this was wrong. This isn't some deep miscalculation. This is a first rate. obvious stupidity of people that know nothing and learn nothing. What do you think the view of this is from the Kremlin, Jeff? Well, I know what the view is because we hear it from the Kremlin.

They see no use in talking to the United States at all. It doesn't matter. They say anything. They don't keep their word. They're completely irresponsible. President behaves like a child. They see it. The negotiations are over.

They're not going to ask Mr. Whitkoff to come again. It's done. So much for the phone call and ending the war in 24 hours. They understand this. Everyone understands this. You go around the world, but the problem is, everyone understands it, but the problem is the problem is the following, judge. In about 80 countries, the U.S. military and CIA sit there. And those places are afraid, afraid of us.

We're not defending them. We're occupying them. And so they don't speak out. And we're hearing voices one after another of some grave leaders speaking out, like the Spanish prime minister, who's been very clear. And I can tell you, because I'm speaking with many leaders, the sentiment is widespread. What the hell is happening in your country? What is going on? That's what they're wondering about.

And they hear this crazy call. Come help us after you've done this incredible blunder. So this is what's happening around the world. Here's the come help us plea made as recently as two hours ago on Fox. Chris? So yes, the president is speaking with our allies in Europe and also many of our partners in the Gulf and Arab world. to encourage them to step up to do more, to open the straight of her moves. And our NATO allies especially need to step up.

Look, President Trump has been very frank with our friends in NATO for a very long time. He got them to increase their defense spending up to 5 percent, and now he's calling on them to do the right thing. Because, again, the United States of America is leading the way, not just to support and protect our American assets and bases in the Middle East, but also to defend Europe in the Middle East and the rest of the world from the rogue Iranian regime from obtaining a nuclear bomb. Boy, if the American public accepts this, we are stupider than I thought. Every single sentence makes absolute no sense.

Is that a Saturday Night Live skit you just showed? No, it is not, and it's not AI, Jeff. It is the president's chief spokesperson, two hours of, ago on Fox and Friends. It's a joke. No? No. It was a joke.

No? It was not a joke. Okay. You parse every single sentence. Every single sentence is crazy. First, I would like everyone to understand if they have not, and I'm sure that most do. We had an agreement with Iran that would absolutely fully have presented. prevented nuclear weapons because the Iranians didn't want them.

And their supreme leader said that they were against the religion. Okay. And we had an agreement. And the agreement included strict monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency, sometimes several visits per day. And the monitoring went on for 26, 2016, 2017, and Iran was in complete compliance. And then this person we call our president ripped up the agreement.

Why did he rip it up? Because his friend Netanyahu told him to rip up the agreement. So these fools ripped up the agreement that was doing just what the president claims he wants to do. Then despite everything, despite assassinations, by Israel and the United States of Iranian leaders, despite attacks on Iran, despite bombing on Iran. Iran did not go to make a nuclear bomb because the Supreme Leader said, no, it is against Islam. So what do we do, these geniuses, Trump and Netanyahu? They kill the Supreme Leader.

Bravo, very clever. Come on, honestly, do we have to go to the end of the world this way with this stupidity and with this dishonesty? And why should NATO come to the defense of such idiocy when the way to open the straits is for Israel and the United States to stop their barbarism? Very simple. not hard at all and for the Gulf countries to recognize and I met with the leaders

of these countries in November and I can tell you already back in November it was alarming to me they are owned and operated by the United States because of all the military bases there so they can't even think straight but now maybe they can see this is not their security

to have the fifth fleet there, to have bases all over the Gulf. No, that's for our games, not for their security. Maybe they can see that now, because the other way to open the straits is for the countries in the Gulf and Iran to understand very well, which they do, by the way, they're not each other's enemy. The enemy is Israel and the United States. Israel because it wants to control the Middle East and the United States because in its delusions it wants to control the world. And so it is not that the Saudis and the Iranians are enemies. They are not. It is Israel and the United States that provoked this, I mean, not only provoked it, that made this war, which has led to this disaster, totally predictably. So really, the Gulf and Iran should get together and say, we've all been had.

This is absurd. Why are we fighting each other? We're all under attack because Israel and the United States wants to dominate us. That's what this is about. And by the way, people should understand it's not a coincidence that we attacked Venezuela, bombed Nigeria, sanctioned Russia, and invaded and attacked Iran. They're all oil-producing countries. The United States, in its delusional attempt to run the world, is trying to corner all the oil supplies. And that's what's happening right now. And then since it's so delusional, it leads to disaster.

And then Mr. Trump calls on all his good friends. You have to come save us because we're your best ally in protection. No, you're not protecting anybody. You're not protecting NATO. In fact, you're threatening to invade NATO in Greenland. Let's get real. You're not protecting European economy. You're destroying it step by step.

That's true of everything that led to the Ukraine war with the U.S. pushing for NATO enlargement. helping the coup in 2014 and busting up the pipelines between Russia and Europe, you're destroying the European economy and you're doing it again. And what about all these Gulf countries? You think this is great for business in Dubai? I don't think so. This is a disaster.

And is the United States your friend? No. So everybody needs to take a deep breath and remember Henry Kissinger's most famous adage. which is that to be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, and to be a friend is fatal. That's what they're learning right now. Thank you, Professor Sachs. Very forceful, gifted, courageous analysis. Deeply, deeply appreciated.

I know you're on the other side of the world, and it's a different time of day. Thank you very much for your time. Always great to be with you. See you next week. Thank you. All the best. Coming up at 11 this morning, if you're watching us live in 30 minutes on all of this, Ray McGovern, and this afternoon at 1.30, treat a Parsi from the Quincyance to a true expert on his native country, Iran.

Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.