Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Iran War is the End of US Hegemony

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Iran War is the End of US HegemonySee 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 Monday, March 23rd, 2006. Professor Jeffrey Sachs will be with us in just a moment on this intriguing question. Is Trump's war the end of American hegemony? 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.

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judge sent you and get up to $20,000 in bonus gold or silver. Call 800, 511, 4620 or go to Learjudgenap.com. Professor Sachs, welcome here, my dear friend. I know you're in the other side of the world. Thank you for accommodating our schedule. Here's what President Trump said just a few minutes ago. I'm not sure if it's on Air Force One or on the tarmac right outside Air Force One, but his boasting about negotiations with Iran. Watch this. Mr. President, Iran's foreign ministry says you're not telling the truth when it comes to productive conversations and the war. Well, they're going to have to get themselves better public relations, people. We have had very, very strong. talks, we'll see where they lead. We have

major points of agreement, I would say almost all points of agreement. Perhaps that hasn't been conveyed. The communication, as you know, has been blown to pieces. They're unable to talk to each other. But we've had very strong talks. Mr. Whitkoff and Mr. Kushner had them. They went, I would say perfectly. I would say that if they carry through with that, it'll end that that problem, that conflict, and I think it'll end it very, very substantially.

We have very much in mind our partners in the Middle East. We've had great relationships with a lot of them, as you know. A lot of them were surprisingly hit, and I was surprised to see it, and so was everyone else. But we have, they're very much in mind in the discussions. So the discussions took place yesterday. They went into yesterday evening. They want very much to make a deal. We'd like to make a deal too.

Why should anybody believe that the Iranians have denied it numerous times? And denied it after the president spoke. Yes. And said that there have been no contacts, direct or indirect, and no negotiations. Of course, it's possible. that there have been some contacts. It is impossible that there has been a resolution of major issues, impossible. And if this turns out to be completely false, which is at least one possibility,

I think we have to consider the possibility that the president has really lost touch with reality. something is seriously wrong. We'll find out soon enough. Again, there's a sliver of chance that it's true, but none of it rings true. The Iranians have been saying very clearly in the last few days there are no negotiations. They have stipulated their terms very explicitly

that the U.S. must leave its military bases in the Gulf region, must end its aggression unilaterally, must pay reparations. These aims have been very clearly articulated and officially articulated. after the president's statement, all of it was denied by the Iranians, which would be unusual if indeed there was some kind of progress. So this is an extraordinary. It's a little hard to guess definitively at this moment for us, and I don't want to make a definitive judgment, but if in fact this is as empty as it makes, well be. I think it raises questions about the president's mental soundness. This is not a tactic.

This is delusional and very dangerous. So we will see shortly what this really means, but it could mean something about the president's state of mind. I'm going to deviate from Iran for just a moment because there's some other breaking news, perhaps the most extreme member of Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet, his Treasury Minister Belizil Smotrich, just announced speaking for the Netanyahu government that they wish to annex southern Lebanon and make it part of Israel. Well, this is also in line with the clear statements also by the U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee that Israel can claim.

the territories that it likes. The Israeli government is a fascist regime. It knows only violence. It also very much calls into question Trump's assertions right now, because it also stated in this context that it was continuing its attacks on Iran. So if you add these things up, it seems to me that we both have a continuing war that is leading to World War III and perhaps a president that has lost touch with reality. Back to Iran, Professor Sachs. What has been the geopolitical reaction in national capitals around the world to Benjamin

Netanyahu and Donald Trump's war of choice? It is viewed catastrophically all over the world. There is no question in anybody's mind, anybody, that this is a war of naked aggression by two individuals. I would add parenthetically two mentally unstable individuals. This is not a war where people debate, well, is this Iran doing this? Is this American Israel doing this? It's very clearly understood that this is a war of naked aggression without any justification whatsoever.

Interestingly, it seems to be strongly supported within Israel, which is a country absolutely under a complete wall of propaganda now and censorship. The Israeli public is – it seems – these opinion surveys would say 91 support – 91 percent support for the war are correct, and I suspect it to be. is a war of a kind of fascist territorial expansion and hegemony by Israel that the United States has joined, that has turned disastrous, that the world understands could lead to imminent calamity. I think perhaps, again, I'm not a psychiatrist to understand Trump, but it could be that He has been warned and seen over the last hours that his actions have led the world to

the brink of catastrophe. And so he pulled back. I'm in Asia. The Asian stock markets collapsed today. Of course, energy prices soared today. And maybe Trump saw that coming. And again, while I'm not a psychiatrist, to analyze this Trump. perhaps is unable to fashion any statement in which his actions are called into question.

And so he has fashioned a delusion which would explain his backing off, which he senses needs to be done. Again, we'll know soon enough and then more competent people than I could diagnose what has. has really happened. But given the Israeli intention to fight, given the Israeli continued attacks on Tehran, given Tehran's statements, given the war intentions that Tehran has stated in the last two days, it all seems to add up to a delusional statement by Mr. Trump. Why would the U.S. have failed so much? so miserably to think through the impact of the bombings? Why could they so horribly miscalculate, thinking, oh, we'll kill the Ayatollah, will bomb some buildings in Tehran, and there'll be a

spontaneous uprising, and liberal democracy will flourish? Is this the nonsense that Netanyahu and Mossad fed to Trump? What we're seeing is a, a collaboration. of American governance, not only the assertions of power by the president that he doesn't have, not only the unconstitutional order, but a collapse of thought. This is true not only in the instance of this war, it's true pretty much across the board. There is no thinking going on. Look at how the world was engaged in Trump's upheaval of the trading system in the past year, which produced a catastrophic end to job creation. Did not touch the trade deficit, of course, because it's illogically unconnected,

took $150 billion from the American people and then was deemed to be simply illegal. Well, from the beginning, and we talked about it, none of those actions made any economic sense. They were without substance from a policy point of view. You had people of extraordinary ignorance pushing these policies. You did not have a process. There was no review. There was no public discussion. There was no congressional process and hearings to assess these issues.

These were decisions made by Trump and a few incompetent people around them. So it wasn't only the assertion of non-constitutional or extra-constitutional authority. it was without a process that one would deem to be rational in any sense whatsoever or knowledgeable. If you think about this war, this is a war chosen by Trump, Hegseth, perhaps Whitkoff and Kushner, who knows, this is not from all that we know a war based on deliberation on the intelligence agency reports. Mr. Kent has made that very clear. So what we're seeing here is not only an unconstitutional assertion of power, we're seeing a complete and utter breakdown of competence, of normal process, even of rational review of options, discussions,

and possible consequences. So I believe that this is not only a constitutional crisis, it's a crisis of the most minimal kinds of competence. I happen to be in China now and listen to proceedings about China's state of economic, strategy. It is detailed, it is thorough, it is forward-looking. It is based on two years of systematic deliberation. I was with many of China's leading academics in the past day, top scholars, very brilliant people who have been part of detailed processes of review,

debate and deliberation. Whatever else one wants to say, the United States has no such process at all right now in any sphere of governance. We are not only in one person rule, we are not only in an end of our constitutional order. We are in a state of complete incompetence. And this is why the most basic points of what could happen day to day with the actions that are being ordered are not even being considered systematically. Or if objections are raised by the CIA or others as was reported or by the DNI, they're not taken into account by the small gang that is, I was going to say, running things, but they're not running things. Things are running them. So this is why the most basic points are not even considered.

And perhaps it's even worse than I'm saying. Perhaps the state of delusion of the president is even more extreme than we are considering right now. I don't know. I'm not guaranteeing that. But if it turns out that Trump's statements are false, then I think we have even a another order of magnitude crisis on our hands that needs to be faced squarely. This may help convince you about the soundness or unsoundness of his thinking. Here is CNN questioning him about who's going to be in control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Watch this. Thank you. What about the Strait of Hormuz? Who's going to be in control of that? That would be opened. very soon if this works. How soon? And who's in control of it? Will Iran still be able to control the flow of oil? Be jointly controlled. By whom? Maybe me. Maybe me. You want the United States be a control of the Ayatollah, whoever the Ayatollah is,

whoever the next Ayatollah, look. And there'll also be a form of a very serious form of a regime now in all fairness, everybody's been killed from the regime. They're really starting off. There's automatically a regime change. But we're dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid. The people within know who they are. They're very respected. And maybe one of them will be exactly what we're looking for. Look at Venezuela how well that's working out. Wow. Maybe me and the Ayatollah will run the strait of Hormuz. This is really crazy. Something may literally be dire and off on all of this.

Again, we're used to Trump lying every time he moves his lips. We're used to wild statements and contradictions, but something seems even more diluted and more bizarre today. than in the past because the policies have failed clearly. What we saw over the weekend was not only Iran's credible deterrence to Trump's threat, but missile barrages hitting Israel with no evidence of an Iron Dome, even approaching the missiles as they were coming into several sites in, Israel. So the situation could be very dire on the ground as well as leading to a break in the

president's mind attachment to reality. Again, time will tell. Maybe there's an explanation for all of this, but it's not very easy to see. Certainly, Trump is not going to be running the straight of foremost with the Ayatollah. So these statements are, these statements are utterly absurd, utterly meaningless, beyond Trump's normal confabulations in the middle of a war that threatens the world.

And I just want to ask, where are the senators? Are there grownups in Washington left? Is there a single other than Rand Paul, who I think we all should utterly respect? Are there any senators in the Republican Party that are adults that are watching this and thinking that the state of our republic and the world are on the line? and that this is somehow normal and to be lived with this way? Is there anyone that can possibly imagine at this moment that the right way to approach this issue

is that our negotiators are Mr. Whitkoff and Mr. Kushner at this state of affairs in the world? and that the president who is probably completely confabulating says, oh, there are people we're talking to. They're good people. They're terrific people without naming names because he's probably making it up on the spot. It could be a profound psychological defense reaction. Who knows? But are there any grownups in Washington?

Very, very. any responsibility for us. Very few. I think the Republicans are terrified of him. What is terrifying? He's, if it's as it seems, that we're in his state of delusion,

isn't that more terrifying than letting this run its course? Of course it is. What are people so afraid of to find out what is true? and what is not true and what is really happening and who is making, who is making decisions and why it is that the deputy of the Director of National Intelligence directly contradicted the president and that the only responses that the FBI starts to investigate him, rather

than asking serious questions before we are all done in by delusion. So please, somebody must be an adult in Washington somewhere in the Republican Party. Honestly. Let me ask you a question involving your economic expertise. What's the fate of the Petra dollar after this? I should start by saying that to my mind, the Petra dollar, that means the invoicing of oil in dollars. or renminbi or another currency is actually not the main point, although it's a very frequent

meme these days on the internet that the American strength comes from the fact oil is denominated in U.S. dollars. This is not exactly true. It's even not remotely true. The United States, economy depends on its productivity, its workers, its technology, its physical production base. And whether oil is denominated in euros or Redmond B or dollars, honestly, is of secondary significance. There's a bit of significance to it, but it is not the major point. The major point of this war is that we have a profound supply crisis of oil and gas that is escalating because it's not only the blockage of ships through the strait of Hormuz that is impeding

oil and gas reaching world markets, but the physical destruction of the oil and gas fields and of the pipelines and of the refineries. I spoke with one political leader just a few hours ago in Beijing, a very experienced international leader who said to me, Jeffrey, I dealt with the physical infrastructure of oil and gas in my country. You should know how hard it is to build these refineries, and these physical facilities and how long and arduous will be the repairs from them. This is what threatens to push the world economy into a profound crisis.

This is why the stock markets collapsed in Asia today. This is why I believe Trump confabulated in his mind a solution to a crisis that he he had gotten the whole world into when he had to come up with something that somehow solved his ego after having made a catastrophic error. Again, a little bit amateur psychology, time will tell. But the fact of the matter is it's not exactly the denomination of a physical flow into this currency or that currency. There are secondary effects. I don't want to deny it. But the principal strength of an economy comes from what we produce, with what technologies, with what skilled labor. And those are long-term investment.

Those result from long-term investments. And this is where everything about Trump is a disaster for the American people, because we're not making any long-term investments in our country. everything is the most short-term gimmicks, whether it is stealing $150 billion from our pockets for his illegal tariffs, or this war that somebody has rightly called not a war of choice, but a war of whim that is taking place. None of this has to do with economic well-being, which is why he was ostensibly supported by his voters. to help improve their living standards, nothing is going to help that. And that would depend on us not having broken roads and airports that don't function anymore and government that shut down half the time and a breakdown of our physical infrastructure

all over the country. That's his job, not starting wars of whim that can bring down the whole world economy. Well, thank you for that explanation. I'm going to read you a few more one-liners, which I think you'll say reinforce your view about the rapidity with which he lies. The reporter asks, we don't have this on tape, but I have the transcript. If the war is ending as you claim, do you still need $200 billion? Oh, it's always nice to have. reporter. Who is Steve Whitkoff speaking with in Iran? Trump, a top person, reporter. Who is it? Trump, I can't. I don't want them to be killed. Yeah, I think we're in a very, very serious a crisis of mental instability. It's not even lies. Again, I apologize to everyone viewing, I'm guessing, but I'm watching closely. None of this. adds up, none of it makes sense. If it seems to be as it is that this is confabulation,

please somebody in Washington, take note. This is not a game that we're playing. We're not playing a game of charades. I'm speaking to leaders all over the world in these days. This is a disaster. And grown-ups, find yourselves in Washington. Ask some questions. Find out what's going on. Do your job. And Congress, just a little bit of advice to you, to our speaker and to our Senate Majority Leader, read the Constitution. Remember your oath. You are responsible for this war. You cannot wash your hands of it. Congress has the sole power to declare war. And we cannot live in the delusion of this. man. We have to live as grown-ups looking rationally and honestly at the situation. And something is seriously awry right now, very seriously awry. Thank you, Professor Sachs. Thank you for your gifted analysis and for your passion, as always. I know it's already tomorrow where you are, so it's very late. Thank you for staying up for us. Thank you for all of this. Safe travels. We'll look

forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Coming up at 3 o'clock this afternoon on all of this, we'll probably know a little bit more about what President Trump has been boasting about, and maybe we'll know more about those 5,000 Marines that are supposedly on their way to the area, Kyle Anselaun. Judge the Palatano for judging freedom.