Judging Freedom - Prof. John Mearsheimer: Can Trump Control Netanyahu?

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

Prof. John Mearsheimer: Can Trump Control Netanyahu?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, February 4th, 2025. Professor John Mearsheimer is with us in just a moment to talk about events that are happening in real time. That is, can Donald Trump trust Benjamin Netanyahu? But first this. Markets are at an all-time high. Euphoria has set in. The economy seems unstoppable. But the last administration has buried us so deep in debt and deficits, it's going to take a lot of digging to get us out of this hole. Are you prepared? Lear Capital specializes in helping people like me and you grow and protect our wealth with gold. Did you know that during Trump's last presidency, gold rose 54% to a record high. If that happens again,

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Professor Mearsheimer, welcome here, my dear friend. As we speak, quite literally, Prime Minister Netanyahu is arriving at the White House. Does he have his hat in his hand? No, I don't think so. I think that what's going on here is Netanyahu just wants to come over and establish the fact that he and Israel continue to have very close relations with the United States. And they'll talk over all the various issues that are on the table. They'll come to some general agreement or broad agreement on how to deal with these issues.

But I don't think anything really important is going to come out of it. And there are two reasons for that. First of all, the Trump administration just took power 15 days ago. It's so soon after taking power that they're in no position to have formulated clear policies on any particular issue that concerns Israel and move forward with it. Just too early. And with regard to Netanyahu, he's just in a heap of trouble. Israel is in a heap of trouble after Gaza. And I think the Israelis and Netanyahu in particular just want to come over and shake hands with Donald Trump, just send a clear signal to the Israeli public and to the world that the United States still backs Israel. I want to ask you about all the trouble that he's in.

But before we do that, Donald Trump or someone in his administration announced a tranche of a billion dollars in military equipment going to Israel. Now, I don't know how much that is. It seems like an awful lot to me. For what? They've already destroyed Gaza. They've already engaged in genocide for 15 months. Well, I don't think they're sending that weaponry because it's going to be used right away.

I think they're probably just building up the inventory for the next time they go on a rampage. But with regard to paying for that, as best I can tell from reading the newspapers, that's going to be paid for with the annual money that we give to Israel. So we're not giving them extra money. We're giving them weapons that we're paying for, and they're not. It's coming out of the money, the many billions of dollars that we give them every year. So I don't think it's that big a deal, to be honest. What did Netanyahu gain by destroying Gaza? Hamas is still alive and well, is it not? Yes. I mean, they certainly killed a huge number of Palestinians. They're rightly accused of

genocide. There are criminal warrants out from the ICC for both Prime Minister Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Galant. So they've paid a real price for this. And of course, the Palestinians have paid a real price for it. But otherwise, we're sort of back to where we were on October 6th. The Palestinians are going to end up in a giant open-air prison or remain in a giant open-air prison. The Israelis are apparently getting out of gaza uh and furthermore hamas is alive and well and hamas is going to be in charge as was the case on october 6 the day before october 7. uh so it's hard to see how israel's situation has improved in any meaningful way. As you and I both know,

their principal goal was to ethically cleanse Gaza, to get the Palestinians out, but they have categorically failed in that regard. So I think that this was, for Israel, a disaster. And if Trump says, hey, Bibi, do you plan to comply with Section 2 and Section 3 of the ceasefire agreement? Should Trump believe whatever Netanyahu's response is? Well, the thing is, I think that Netanyahu at this point has a vested interest in going along with the ceasefire agreement. I mean, he wants to get all of the hostages out. There's a political imperative inside of Israel to do that. And he has to continue negotiating on what the second phase of the ceasefire is going to look like. And then he has to go through with the second stage to get the hostages out. I don't see him backtracking on

that. And with regard to going back in after he gets the Israeli forces out, the idea of going back into Gaza or even starting the bombing again, what would be the purpose of that? They did this for about 15 months, right? And what good did it do? As we just said, it did hardly any good at all. So bombing Gaza and making the rubble bounce doesn't buy you much. Killing more Palestinians doesn't solve Israel's problem. So I think that it's likely that Netanyahu will, in good part, not completely, but in good part, go along with the ceasefire, and Gaza will remain an open-air prison. Does he run the risk of his government collapsing, of Finance Minister Smotrich and his colleagues leaving the government, if he goes along with the second phase of the ceasefire, which involves the total military withdrawal from Gaza of the IDF? Well, Smotrich has said that he would withdraw if that happens. And if that were to happen, the government would collapse in all likelihood. I actually think there's a good

chance that one of the reasons that Netanyahu came to see Joe, not Joe Biden, to see Donald Trump was so that he could come out of that meeting and say, Trump is deeply committed to the ceasefire and Trump insists that I go along with the second phase. So in a certain way, Netanyahu could put the blame for going on to the second phase of the ceasefire on Trump's shoulders. And I think Trump would be willing to go along with that. So I think that's a serious possibility here. And maybe that ploy can be used to get Smotrich not to resign. Before we jump over to Ukraine, Professor Mearsheimer, here's Senator Graham. I couldn't resist. I think he's at his worst here, but here he is on one of the talk shows on Sunday. Chris, cut number 11. So what this resolution does, it lays out the case against

Iran's nuclear ambition. Bibi and the Israelis are going to have to make a decision relatively soon what to do about the Iran nuclear program. This is not an authorization to use force. But I am here to tell you and the audience in the world that I think America should support an effort by Israel if they decide to decimate the Iranian nuclear program, because I think it's a threat to mankind. Israel is strong. Iran is weak. Hezbollah, Hamas have been decimated. They're not finished off, but they've been weakened. And there's an opportunity to hit the Iran nuclear program in a fashion I haven't seen in decades. We all have different opinions, but you tell me if this statement is even remotely accurate. Israel is strong, Iran is weak, Hezbollah and Hamas have been decimated.

Well, whether Hezbollah and Hamas have been decimated, which they haven't, is largely irrelevant regarding the question of whether we can attack Iran. Almost everybody agrees that I know, including many Israelis, that Israel itself cannot attack Iran's nuclear facilities and do away with them. There is some possibility, and it's only a possibility, that we can do it, we meaning the United States. And even if we succeed, almost everybody I know agrees that the Iranians will then develop a new capability somewhere else, which is hard to find and hard to hit, and they will end up with nuclear weapons. So military force does not solve this problem. Now, very importantly, Donald Trump is not interested in using military force against Iran. He doesn't want a war. And I would note to you, today,

today, the day he's meeting Benjamin Netanyahu, he issued, or his administration issued a directive that said, we are restoring the maximum pressure campaign against Iran. And our goal is to drive their oil exports down to zero. So what Trump is doing is he is saying, I'm not using force, I'm going to use economic pressure. And that's starting today, the day that Netanyahu is visiting him in the White House. And he will be able to argue for a number of months onward that we are dealing with the Iran nuclear problem and we are doing it with maximum economic pressure, not military force. Let's not forget that Donald Trump has his own smootrich to condemn with, so to speak, and that's Miriam Adelson. She's not in the government, but she's a very influential person. You know this better than anybody in the country, Professor, in the donor group. No?

No. You don't want to put too much emphasis on her. There are a significant number of individuals and institutions in the Israel lobby who wield enormous power. More than she does. Much more than she does. But the question is, can they get us to attack Iran? That's the question. In other words, you're hypothesizing a situation where the Israelis want us to attack Iran. Trump doesn't want to attack Iran, but the lobby is so powerful that it gets Trump to attack Iran. I don't think that's going to happen. As powerful as the lobby is on that issue, I don't think that they'll get their way. Switching gears, General Kellogg, who's the president's advisor on Ukraine, emissary on Ukraine, whatever you want to call him,

one of these positions like Elon Musk has. It doesn't exist in the government. It's not paying, and it doesn't have Senate confirmation. Nevertheless, says he wants a ceasefire and two general elections in 2025, one for president in Ukraine and one for the parliament. And of course, President Zelensky, who's not really the president, has rejected this. Where are they going with this? Well, with regard to a ceasefire, it's quite clear that the Trump people have wanted a ceasefire for a long time, but they're not going to get a ceasefire because the Russians are smart enough to know that's not in their interest. It's in their interest to continue the war and to go to

the bargaining table to get a meaningful peace agreement. So they're not going to get a ceasefire. I think with regard to Zelensky, there's a lot of evidence that we are interested in pushing Zelensky overboard, that we view him as an obstacle to getting some sort of meaningful agreement with the Russians. And the reason we want an election, so the argument goes is that we know Zelensky will lose someone who, someone will come in to replace him who is more pliable, who we can work with and get to go along with their ideas on how to shut this conflict down. So I think that is what is happening here And Zelensky himself said as recently as Sunday, and this is an incredible statement, I'll characterize it and then we'll play the clip. The United States is supposed to have given $100 billion in cash and they only received $75 billion. He assumes the other $25 has been stolen. This is from the most corrupt government in the Western world.

Who would have stolen it? Cut number 12. When they say that Ukraine during the war received $200 billion to support the army, etc., that's not true. I don't know where all this money is. What was your reaction to the freeze in U.S. foreign aid to organizations that included those in Ukraine? And are you concerned that this might be followed by a potential freeze in military aid? Look, as the president of a warring country, I tell you, we received just over $75 billion.

That is $100 billion of these $177 billion, or $200 billion, some people even say, we have never received. And this is important. Because we are talking about specific things. Because we got it not with money, but with weapons. We got 70 billion something worth of it. Is he accusing Americans of stealing the money? Or he's looking the other way while his compatriots are stealing it? To be honest, who knows? I mean, this just shows you what a mess Ukraine is and has been since the beginning.

I mean, everybody's known that Ukraine was a remarkably corrupt government, but we played that aspect of its political system down and instead portrayed it as this great liberal democracy that was fighting against the forces of evil. But now it's happening, now that we're recognizing where this war is headed and that Zelensky's an obstacle, all of this is beginning to come out. But it's not surprising. I have to go back to Gaza because Prime Minister Netanyahu apparently hasn't arrived yet, or he's in the building and he hasn't come out yet. It's not clear to me which is the case. However, President Trump did say before Netanyahu arrived

that he wants to find a new homeland for the Palestinians rather than reconstruct Gaza because they cannot go back due to the devastation brought by Israel's war. That would be music to Netanyahu's ears, I would think. Yeah, but the problem is they have gone back. They've gone back, and they have no intention of leaving. The Israelis pounded them for about 15 months. They executed a genocide, all aimed at driving the Palestinians out of Gaza, and they failed. Moreover, the countries surrounding Gaza, where the Palestinians are supposed to go, and here we're talking about Jordan and Egypt, have made it unequivocally clear that they won't accept those people. Furthermore, this is a crime against humanity, and it violates international law, and Trump would be foolish in the extreme to pursue this policy,

especially since it's not going to work anyway. Well, where's he going to get them to go? No matter what they bribe General al-Sisi with or King Abdullah with, Egypt and Jordan can't take three quarters of a million Palestinians. The governments would be toppled. the Palestinians are not leaving. They've just proven that over the past 15 months, they're not leaving. So it's not only that there's no government that's likely to take them, they don't want to leave. And I would like to know, how does President Trump intend to get the Palestinians to leave? He never answers that question. He thinks they're going to leave voluntarily. I would not bet a lot of money on that. Yeah, yeah. The website of the State Department apparently posted the fact that under the United States law, we have a one China policy. Nothing new, except that did not appear in the last four years under Joe Biden's or Tony

Blinken's State Department. Are you surprised? Are you pleased? Are you displeased? I'm not sure what you're saying now. What did the Trump administration do? On the State Department website made it very clear that there was a one China policy, that Taiwan is part of China. This, of course, was the opposite of what

Joe Biden preached when he said we would defend Taiwan. No, I don't think that's true. I think that Joe Biden also supported a one China policy. And nevertheless, we have long argued that we would defend Taiwan if the circumstances were right. I think that nothing really changed under Biden and nothing is changing under Trump. I think the policy has been pretty consistent. Well, what does one China policy mean if we're going to take up arms against the mainland when they want to assert their lawful jurisdiction over Taiwan? Well, when we worked out the arrangements with Taiwan and China, when we got the Chinese to switch sides and be our allies during the Cold War, the issue of Taiwan was a really tricky issue for us because we had supported Taiwan and we argued that Taiwan was really China. And we didn't want to completely abandon Taiwan. So we worked out

this arrangement where we said that, you know, under certain circumstances, we would reserve the right to defend Taiwan if necessary. And you're pointing out that it sounds contradictory because we're saying there's a one China policy. And I think you're correct that it does sound somewhat contradictory. Does Taiwan matter anymore to us? We certainly think that it does. There's no question about that. The United States is committed to defending Taiwan. You want to remember that Joe Biden said four separate times that the United States would defend Taiwan if China attacked. And maybe the Trump administration will abandon that commitment, but I would actually be very surprised because I think if anything, Trump would like to focus

on containing China and he would like to get out of the Middle East and out of Ukraine as much as possible. So I don't see him deviating much from Biden's policy. Are we in a position to fight a war against mainland China over Taiwan? We're not in a very good position, that's for sure. And that's in large part due to the fact that we have not spent that much time thinking about containing China. And we've instead focused on the Middle East and focused on Ukraine. And, you know, I think if a war were to break out, it would not result in a quick and decisive American victory by any means. I think we would be in deep trouble very quickly. But the good news is that the Chinese would be in deep trouble as well. I see no reason that the Chinese will invade Taiwan anytime soon. So I think that the situation with regard to Taiwan, and I underline the word thing,

I think the situation with regard to Taiwan at this point is quite stable. So I don't think we're going to find out just how well prepared the United States is to fight a war over Taiwan. And I want to be clear, I think that's all for the good. Okay. Chris, it reminds me, this will not go well for President Trump, who was a stickler for being on time. Prime Minister Netanyahu is not there yet at the White House. And President Trump was aware of the fact that Netanyahu was not there,

is still interacting with the press in the Oval Office. Professor Mearsheimer, it's a pleasure, my dear friend. I know you have a major speech in, of all places, Skokie, Illinois. I wish you well, and we'll look forward to seeing you next week. Thank you very much, Judge. Thank you. All the best. Coming up tomorrow, Wednesday, at eight o'clock in the morning, Professor Gilbert Doctorow, at one in the afternoon, Matt Ho, at two in the afternoon, Max Blumenthal, at three in the afternoon, along with his dog, Rupert, Phil Giraldi, and at four in the afternoon, the always worth waiting for Scott Ritter. Justin Apolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.