Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : US/Israeli Plot vs Iran!

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : US/Israeli Plot vs Iran!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, June 30th, 2025. As you can see, Professor Jeffrey Sachs joins us now. Professor Sachs, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you. I wanted to give you some length about the collaboration, you can call it a plot if you want, between Israel and the United States against Iran.

But before we do, can we lay to rest what the president has been saying as recently as yesterday, Sunday, on Fox Business, where he boasted once again that his bombs, and he used that phrase, totally obliterated the nuclear capabilities of Iran. Is this true or isn't it true? It's plainly false. It is absolutely false. Iran did not sit around with its enriched uranium waiting for this to happen. It almost surely secreted it out to other sites. There's

no doubt that Iran continues to have the capacity. It hasn't wanted to do it, but it has the capacity to create atomic bombs out of the enriched uranium. It still has centrifuges. Some are saying it sets back that timeline if Iran were to choose it by a few months. I'm not even sure of that, given all of the analysis that we have heard. There is simply no way that a firm conclusion can be reached that this ended Iran's nuclear capacities. It did not. Now, I think it's also important to say that Iran has made perfectly clear for 20 years.

And I had discussions today with a senior Iranian diplomat. They don't want atomic bombs. They don't want the burdens of them. They do not want to make themselves a target of nuclear war in that way. They do not want them. But they do not want to be overthrown by Israel's murderous government. And that is a problem. And last week was an attempt by the Israeli government, which is a rogue state, the most dangerous on the entire planet, to kill the Iranian leadership. Not only the supreme leader, but government officials as well. They succeeded in many murders, but they did not succeed in the regime change operation. Then came this US bombing of these

sites. It did not change anything, in my view, in the nuclear calculation, but it made everything far worse in terms of the potential. When I say it didn't change anything, it didn't change anything in terms of Iran's capacity to produce atomic bombs, or by the way to obtain them from others. All it did was make the situation far more dangerous because now there is no inspection taking place. The Iranians know without question that they were targeted in a very deadly regime change operation. They know that the United States was party to it. They know that European countries are basically vassal states of the United States, so won't say one word on their own. So they know that they

were targeted for assassinations and regime change. That does not make the situation safer today than last week. It makes everything far more reckless and dangerous. So I guess the answer is also no. When President Trump boasts, as he did as recently as last night, that Iran was, quote, weeks away, close quote, Secretary Hag Satha said the same thing from developing a bomb. There is no basis for that. It's just political claptrap.

If Iran wanted to make a mad dash for a bomb, it could have done so in the past. There is, as I think everybody now understands, a religious ruling many years ago that Iran does not want a bomb. There were negotiations for years where Iran said, we give over our nuclear materials, we open ourselves up to inspection. We do not want a bomb. We do not want unilateral disarmament because Israelis will murder us, period. So they don't want to be murdered by Netanyahu and his gangsters. But on the other hand, they don't want a bomb, even though Israel, of course, has many nuclear

weapons. If there's a rogue state in terms of atomic weapons, it's of course Israel. Why is there no national and the US or international conversation about how Israel without signing the nonproliferation treaty, without permitting any inspections and on the basis of stolen information, has a nuclear weapon, but Iran's not permitted to have one. What kind of justice is that? Not only does Israel have nuclear weapons, it's not only and also not part of the non-proliferation treaty, but of course there's no international

verification or inspection of anything that Israel does. There is discussion all over the world, just not in the United States and its vassal states in Europe and in Israel. So this is a game. It's the ultimate double standard. But that's part of the point of empire, by the way. The American policy is not to pretend that there is a consistent line. The Americans and the Israelis in their way want to say there are rules, the rules apply to you, we do anything we want and don't forget it. And that's not hidden, that's part of the whole idea. That is, we will kill you if you don't follow our rules. And we mean it. We don't have to follow them. We don't have to have

international standards. But we have the rules. That's the so-called rules-based order. It means America sets the rules for others, not for itself. So there is discussion all over the world. But in the United States, there is not. And that comes back to our domestic politics. It comes back to the Zionist hold on American politics, which remember is as much or more a Christian evangelical movement as it is a Jewish movement. The Jewish community is more divided on this point than the Christian evangelicals who vastly outnumber the Jews in terms of voting power and in terms of Trump's base. But there's a lot of money that is invested in making sure that the Congress of the United

States is 100% subservient and that whoever occupies the White House understands that their job is to do what Israel says. Which country had the better outcome from the 12-day war, Iran or Israel? Both lost. Israel suffered massive losses, many direct hits in Haifa, in Be'er Sheba, in Tel Aviv, the Iron Dome and the other parts of the system, because that's just one component of Israel's air defense system, failed on multiple occasions. Iran has missiles that can penetrate Israel's air defenses, and Israel got hit hard, but it could have and could be in the future hit far harder.

So Israel suffered a lot. Of course, Iran suffered a lot as well. Many, many civilians dead, a failed regime change operation that in fact murdered many Iranian military leaders, that murdered many Iranian scientists. This was not a small event from Iran's side. This was a significant loss as well. It is not surprising. War is a lose-lose proposition, not as these gangsters play it, these big shots in politics who don't suffer the consequences themselves.

They have other people die as a result of their actions, but people died on both sides. The damage was very significant on both sides. The vulnerabilities are very significant on both sides. Israel has no impunity in this and will get hit harder and harder each time this is done. Israel may have told, according to some stories, I have no idea whether it's true, may have assured Trump, don't worry, it's a 24-hour operation. We murder the whole top of the government. We have a new government in place shortly. All will go well.

That obviously did not happen at all, nor did the defenses work the way that the Israeli censors want us to believe. There was direct military censorship from Israel after the second or third day. We did not see all of the damage, but people posted a lot of the damage. And we know that it was extensive, very, very real and very dangerous for Israel. But this is also what, oh sorry, just to say that Israel's been making wars for 30 years and drawing the United States into wars for 30 years that has not improved Israel's security.

This is the irony. Same with the United States. We could be the most secure country in the history of the world, and yet we're closer to nuclear armageddon than ever because of our flagrant, blatant irresponsibility of pushing us closer to the brink because we do not play fairly at all. We cheat on everything every day.

Every day is a lie and every day threatens to push us to the nuclear brink, whether it's with Russia or with many other countries that have nuclear weapons right now. It's the only risk we face, but we're not behaving at, I mean, the president and the deep state in a way which actually protects us. Though we should be the safest people in the whole world, but we're absolutely, as the atomic scientists tell us in their doomsday clock, we're the closest to nuclear war and the closest to self-destruction since the start of the nuclear age. We're just blowing it because we cannot seem to understand basic facts

of how to have stable, honest, truthful, peaceful relations with other countries. What did the United States gain by Trump's dropping of these bunker busters? I think they wanted to try out these bombs. They wanted it to look tough. Trump said it was the greatest bombing in the history of the world, or he compared it to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which itself is an amazing thing for any president to say, especially if one happens to know the history of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because the history is not as every school child has been told for the last 80 years that it saved American lives from invading

Japan at the end of World War II. That's the bunkbe story. The true story is that Japan was begging to surrender. It wanted to keep the emperor, the United States said, we're going to drop the bombs first because Truman wanted to make a big show to Stalin mostly. And it did not save any American lives because in the end, the United States said, yes, the emperor stays anyway. And neither of those bombs needed to be dropped. But I make the point that Trump just he said, no, I shouldn't make that comparison. But then he made the comparison.

That's not an accident. He's bloviating. He wants to say, look at how powerful the United States is. We can do what we want. We can blow you up. So that's what he thinks he gained. But in fact, it doesn't work this way in actuality. The United States can't do what it wants.

A lot of the world understands that very, very well. The more we have this bloviating, the less the United States is able to enter into any kind of serious agreement with any other country on any substantive issue. This is extremely hazardous for the American people to have a political system that is completely untrusted and untrustworthy by others. I'm going to ask you in a minute about the nature and extent of American and Israeli collaboration against Iran. But before I do, I want you to watch a rather extraordinary video watch a rather extraordinary video of David Barnea, you know who he is, the head of Mossad, thanking the CIA and the CIA director for all of itself. I don't know why this fellow allowed himself to be videoed doing this unless he plans on running against Netanyahu for

prime minister, but that's another topic for another time. But watch this and then I'll ask you about the nature of the collaboration. Chris Cutt, number six. I also want to express appreciation and gratitude to our main partner, the CIA, for the joint operations and the missions that were carried out.

And also to the head of the CIA, who supported the Mossad in making the right decisions, which ultimately made this operation possible. We will continue to keep a very close watch on all the projects in Iran, which we know in the most thorough way, and we will be there just as we have been until now. But we must not forget that there are still 50 hostages in the Gaza Strip, 30 deceased, 20 living hostages, whom it is our moral and ethical duty

to bring back to our border. I want to thank you all again and to tell you that you are part of history, an unforgettable and inseparable part of what the Mossad has done and continues to do. Continue working shoulder to shoulder with our partners in the IDF and the Shin Bet, and in this way we will keep bringing great achievements to the people of Israel. So thank you all very much. Well done.

Truly well done. What do you make of that? First of all, 25 hostages and they're killing 50 to 100 innocent Palestinians every day. They're killing 50 to 100 innocent Palestinians every day by luring them to food sites and then shooting them deliberately. And we know this from testimony of IDF soldiers in recent days carried in stories in Israeli media. They're mass murdering the Palestinians before our eyes. And this man talks about the moral and ethical responsibility.

This man is a mass murderer. That's Mossad's job. Now Mossad and the CIA have a very strong relationship. They are closely allied in many operations around the world, especially in the Middle East, but in other regions as well. And that is a very key part of American foreign policy and a very key part of the US-Israel relationship. The Mossad-CIA connection goes back at least more than 60 years, we know. It's very strong, and I always emphasize it is the CIA where you find our foreign policy, not the White

House especially. The CIA is the deep state. It keeps the long-term strategy, whether it's to try to weaken or overthrow governments in Russia or Iran or other places. It was the lead agency in other places. It was the lead agency in a long war against the Syrian government that took hundreds of thousands of lives and culminated in a jihadist regime coming to power, which suddenly we declared to be our wonderful friend and ally, because in fact we run jihadists, the CIA does, and so does Mossad, contrary to what casual thought would suggest. So I'm not surprised by it other than how clearly stated stated all of this is, that is just a long, professional, deadly, horrible relationship. Horrible because it has made a 4,000 kilometer swath of violence across North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, and West Asia, running from Libya to Iran.

This is murder incorporated. And murder, whether it's of the leaders for overthrows of government or mass murders of Palestinians, does not solve anything other than making mayhem and murder. anything other than making mayhem and murder. If Netanyahu knows that Trump is either lying or has been grossly misled when he said, it's totally obliterated, what do you expect he'll ask Trump to do next?

Well, there will be more war if Netanyahu has his choice. And what was apparent from even the involvement that the United States had is that Trump's own base is against this, as are most of the American people. Frankly, I think most Americans are sick of Israel's wars and Israel's murders and Israel's boasting about assassinations. They're sick of it. Not everyone, but most. And that is true in Trump's base as well. So Netanyahu will continue to do what he's done for 30 years. He will continue to provoke. He will continue to make whatever claims and incentives he can to draw the United

States into more war. And Trump got a tiny taste of what the real politics are, Trump could not motivate even his own strong supporters into supporting what the U.S. was doing. And that's why he had to go overboard to say what a wonderful, glorious, definitive success it is, because his base was against the whole thing. If he said, yeah, and it didn't work on top of that, it makes the whole thing absolutely absurd. What are the, is it realistic to fear that Trump will use nuclear weapons next time around? I don't think so.

I really doubt that. I think that as I really doubt that. I think that, as I say, the United States has no security risk in the world other than a nuclear war. And I think that this is really understood by a lot of people who still make wars, who still say, oh, we're threatened by this, we're threatened by that, we're threatened by global terrorism.

Remember the war on global terror and how Americans were terrorized by all of this, which was never a threat in the way that it was described. I don't believe that we're anywhere close to having a nuclear war over this. But if you push other nuclear powers like Russia or North Korea nuclear powers like Russia or North Korea or Pakistan, you could certainly provoke a nuclear war that is absolutely – or China, obviously, I should mention over Taiwan, another phony issue that would never be the issue it is were it not for the provocative American positions on this, because if it weren't for America arming Taiwan, Taiwanese politicians would never do the provocative things that they are actually doing, many of them, which bring us closer to a direct confrontation between the US and China. In other words,

I don't believe that this is leading to America's first use of the nuclear weapon, but I do believe it is leading us to the real possibility of a nuclear war that completely becomes a global annihilation. That I think is the real point I'm trying to make, which is that our foreign policy is so erratic, so irresponsible, so devoid of true international principles, so filled with a lot of BS that that's what makes it very dangerous for us. Wood Netanyahu, is he crazy enough to use nuclear weapons against Iran? certain circumstances, yes. If the state of Israel was threatened by a massive attack by Iran that followed an attack by Israel, then yes, that's absolutely possible. And that's one of the things that could trigger a global nuclear war. And Netanyahu absolutely would. That's why Israel has them. And Israel thinks it can provoke any side. It has pretended that it's Iron Dome and other air defense

systems give an absolute protection to Israel, now we see that this is completely false. And so if Israel provokes another attack and there's a massive attack from Iran that is threatening the heart of Israel, and one can imagine many ways that that could happen, then I have no doubt that Israel would contemplate the use of one or more of its nuclear weapons. So any state threatened with survival that has nuclear weapons would do so. And this is definitely true of Israel given this mentality that is there, which is stoking up dangers because it refuses to have any kind of real diplomacy with the Arab world over the core issue that has been the core issue for 100 years, and that is the right of Palestinians

that also live in the same area as Israel and that Israel is occupying. And because of that, the violence continues to soar. Israel provokes it is not in a strong position the way that it thinks it is, and last week exposed its vulnerabilities. It counts on the United States to rescue it. But we can see that the United States may say, no, don't do that. The Israel provokes believing that the US will follow. The US doesn't follow.

Mass response from the Iranian side, and then Israel feels that its survival is a threat and it uses a nuclear weapon, after which there could be many scenarios of Pakistan defending Iran or North Korea or many other things that one could imagine that could then lead on to a nuclear war that would rapidly get out of hand and destroy the world. That's why every single thing that we're doing in all of this is so unbelievably dangerous and reckless, it's hard to put into words without profanity, sorry to say. And while the president uses profanity, we're not going to use profanity the same way. And the fact of the matter is we need diplomacy. We need diplomacy

to end the war in Ukraine. We need diplomacy to end a potential conflict over Taiwan. And we need diplomacy to create a state of Palestine alongside a state of Israel and to end Israel's wars of regime change, because these are the conflicts that could destroy the world. Not in one step, but in one step with escalation, with retaliation, with the pressing one side to use a nuclear weapon leading to a nuclear exchange leading to a rapid escalation that ends the world. And there is a book that I may have mentioned in our past discussions, but I recommend it to anybody that wants a chilling and accurate account of how the world could come to an

end in two hours and ten minutes, it's called the nuclear war a scenario by the investigative journalist Annie Jacobson. It's a superb, accurate, technical, chilling account of what I'm describing, which could happen in any of these war zones, which is why we need diplomacy, not games, not regime change operations, not Lindsey Graham, our most dangerous and reckless senator who posts, game on as Israel strikes and the United States strikes Iran. Game on. This is not a game. Professor Sachs, thank you very much. Thank you for your analysis. As painful as a lot of this is, truly, truly and profoundly appreciated. I know it's the middle of the night where you are. Thank you for staying up for us. All the best, friend.

We'll see you next week. Thank you, bye-bye. Bye-bye. Coming up tomorrow, Tuesday, July 1st, at two in the afternoon, Colonel Douglas McGregor, at three in the afternoon, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, at 430 in the afternoon, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, at 4.30 in the afternoon from wherever he is, Pepe Escobar, judge in the Palo Tano for Judging Freedom. You