Judging Freedom - Prof. Mohammad Marandi : What Iran Expects From Trump

Episode Date: October 15, 2026

Prof. Mohammad Marandi : What Iran Expects From TrumpSee 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? 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 Thursday October 15th 2026 our dear friend professor Mohamed Morandi joins us now. Professor Miranda always a pleasure no matter what we're talking about, even though what we're about to discuss is hardly pleasurable. Over the evening, there are reports primarily from CNN on the basis of some hints that the President of the United States dropped, that the U.S. plans to use Moab, the mother of all bombs, not not a nuclear weapon, but a horrific device that causes mass damage and destruction on Iran

after the midterms, or maybe before the midterms. Before I play a clip of Trump hinting at this, what can you tell us? Because you were prominent in Iran media in responding to this. Well, Judge, thank you very much for inviting me. It's always a great honor of being with you and your excellent audience. A strike on any of Iran's infrastructure will lead to Iran's retaliation. And Iranians have promised a very severe retaliation. So if the United States actually does the ultimate foolish act by using

a weapon of mass destruction of sorts, even though it's conventional. But I think if I'm not mistaken, they've used it once in Afghanistan, and they obviously did not win the war in Afghanistan. But if Trump uses that, then I think it's very clear, based on open sources and what the Iranians have said, that there will be massive retaliation. And already the chair of the Supreme National Security Council, who is a very, very senior figure, especially today during the war, he has said that U.S. assets across the region

or assets linked to the United States, which basically means almost everything, that they will be targeted and destroyed. And so it goes beyond just oil and gas infrastructure. It means everything that is somehow linked to the United States, whether it's data centers or banks or anything that is of any value. So that would be a major, strike against iran even one single bomb and therefore i think iran will go all out in responding and if that

happens judge i think it's clear as day what will happen there will the the economy and on the other side of the persian gulf the arabian peninsula will crash and oil and gas will no longer be available permanently and that will bring a collapse to the global economy will bring about a great depression very very swiftly. So it's really up to Trump what he's going to do, obviously, but the Iranians are not going to hold back. Well, here's President Trump. You can see exactly what it was. It was very recently on the campaign trail alluding to this. This was two days ago on October 13th. Chris cut number They said, sir, you're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're the hottest country in the world, oh, wait till you see what we do to Iran. We're going to, we're going to do a number.

Well, you see, they're just waiting. They're waiting. Wait, do you see what we do to Iran? Because we've sort of had it. You know, we've had it. But, you know, it doesn't matter. The big thing is they were not going to have a nuclear weapon and they won't. That's buried under thousands of tons of rock. But we're respected again. Every one of those people is paying twice for gasoline than what they were paying six months ago and 30% more for food. And they're clapping as if they were a member of a cult, wait until you see what we do to Iran. I'm thinking if Lincoln or Wilson or FDR or even George W. Bush ever spoke like that, glorying in attacking. the civilians of another country.

This is you. Now, I don't know where you were quoted as saying this, Muhammad. Iran will then immediately hand Trump's faltering economy, the, quote, mother of all depressions. Did you post that or did you say that on media in Iran? No, I tweeted that about, I don't know, an hour or two ago, because it's a fact. I mean, there's no other response that can possibly be visage. The Iranians have made it very clear. And Judge, I mean, when looks at what's going on in Saudi Arabia, it's obvious that there's no defense.

Yemen, its capabilities are, I think we should, I admire them immensely, their courage and in fighting the, all those Saudi well-fed and well-funded Saudi proxies and defeating them. And then the way in which they're handling the Saudi armed forces and striking Saudi infrastructure and retaliation, of course, day and night with such great success. But Iran has infinitely more capabilities when it comes to missiles and drones when it comes to – So if Iran begins to take out, the infrastructure. of Saudi Arabia or the Emirates or Qatar, it'll be over in a day. And I think it's quite clear that what's happening in Saudi Arabia shows that there are no

defense capabilities that can stop Yemen. And obviously, there are no defense capabilities that can stop Iran. But going back to what Trump said, two things really. One is that in this statement itself, he says, he basically admits that Iran, of course Iran is has never been developing a nuclear weapon. That's always been a lie. But he says that Iran can't make a nuclear weapon because its nuclear facilities are under, I don't know what he said, thousands of tons of rubble or whatever. So if Iran has no nuclear program, then no accusations can again be made to justify any new aggression against the country. So he said it's already been

taken out. But one other thing, Judge, I don't know if Chris has this clip or not, but a couple of days ago, Trump went and gave his speech, and he said that I spoke to the Iranians, and they were saying, we're going to kill everyone. And he said these Iranians are crazy and that the people around behind the person who says will kill everyone. They say praise be to Allah. And this sort of, you know, crazy orientalist stuff that was in Hollywood films in the 1940s and 1930s, the crazed orientalism of the day. But that's exactly what he says about Iran. I mean, he's the one who keeps saying he's going to send us back to the Stone Age,

that he's going to wipe out our civilization. Iran never said that. And then he talks about Los Angeles and San Diego as if Iran is going to destroy it. And then he's ambivalent about whether it's okay to have these cities destroyed. But it's all projection. It's October, which means it's Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and cybersecurity isn't just for big tech companies, with over $3.5 billion lost to scams in the U.S. last year. Protecting yourself matters too.

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slash freedom, code freedom. Iran never threatened to destroy any city. What was the reaction either amongst the Iranian public or the government when the president speculated about Iran, quote, taking out Los Angeles and San Diego? I don't remember. I don't remember. recall any significant response because maybe they did. I can't say. I'd have to check the foreign ministry spokesman's ex-account or the foreign ministry website. But the reality is that no one even listens to Trump anymore. When he talks, it doesn't make the news. Because he's always talking, he's, you know, he's, he says so many insane things, you know, at 4 a.m., 5 a.m. when he wakes up, He starts posting about Iran making threats.

And so after, I don't know, seven, eight months now, people are just indifferent. They just go about doing their work. The only thing that's important that people do monitor is the status of the U.S. military in the region and the movements of that military. And Iran right now is on full alert. The Iranian Armed Forces is are ready for battle. Does Iran expect an attack before Election Day, which is now about 18 or 19 days away? Because Trump has said there won't be one, and he's known for tempting to mislead people.

Oh, yes. Before the 12-day war last year, I think it was through Axios. I'm not sure. But they put out this information that the United States, that Trump wants to pursue the diplomatic course of action and then he attacked and then you know he and the and nettingiau attacked iran and and the negotiations were obviously he had himself admitted that they were fake and then before this war he they had fake negotiations too so iran doesn't believe anything that he says and the evidence of that is not just the fact that the armed forces are in full alert but also apparently on

the islands in iran and also maybe in bandarabai but I'm not sure about that. I should have checked. The schools are online. So kids are not going to school because of our experiences with Trump and his slaughter of children. The schools have been shut down on the islands and perhaps in some places near the shore. And kids there are going, their classes are online. And of course, online classes. Yeah. So what does the teacher anything? What is the effect in Iran of the beating that Ansarala has been administering to Saudi Arabia? Celebratory. I mean, people in Iran have fallen in love with Amsaulah.

Amsaulah was less talked about. I mean, throughout the last few decades, Hezbollah has always been very, very, very, you. popular among many Iranians. I'm not saying it's universal. There's some people who hate the Islamic Republic, who hate the resistance. They're not a large number, percentage-wise. But Ansar al-Lo is never really on the radar all that much. But now what they're doing to Saudi, because Iranians dislike these regimes in the Persian Gulf very much. They don't see them like Iraq or Syria, the people of of Syria or Lebanon or Algeria or Yemen or Egypt. There's a particular dislike for these countries

because they're so, you know, so bound to the United States, so obedient to the United States, and because they support Wahhabism and Salafi, the ideology behind Bukhur Haram and ISIS and Al-Qaeda and all that. So when they see Ansar Allah, you know, destroying the Saudis, people in Iran celebrate. And I would say, Judge, that it has morale in Iran is substantially higher, seeing when people see how effective they've been against the Saudis,

because it shows how, what Iran can do. So it's obvious that, first of all, there's a huge shortage of surface-to-air defense capabilities, otherwise the Saudis wouldn't be so badly beaten. And if there are, if they do exist, they're not effective. So the Iranians know very well that whatever the Americans had is depleted or ineffective. And so next time we have war, the Iranian missiles and drones will be all the more effective. Wow. Is there a feeling amongst the Iranian public that Iran should have a nuclear weapon, that the fatwa should be altered?

that it should have it for defense purposes, much like North Korea does? Yes, the majority of Iranians, according to polls, poll after poll, ever since the war began, and probably before the 12-day, after the 12-day War, too, but I don't recall. But a strong majority believes that Iran should have nuclear weapons. And we even saw, I think, one of the newspapers in Iran, their headline story was that Iran should, the fatwa should be changed, just, I think, two or three days ago. So, yes, the mood among ordinary Iranians has shifted, even though the official position of the government, the state and the foreign ministry is that Iran will, it continues to enforce the fatwa. on the streets has changed. But of course, there is no indication that Iran's position or Ayatollah Khomeini's position has changed with regards to the fact.

Who's in control of the Strait of Hormuz today? Well, Judge, I think the last couple of weeks have shown that the Iranians are fully in control. During before President Pesigone's trip to the United States and during his trip, the Iranians refrained from striking ships. I don't know if they completely stopped that they didn't do much. And that allowed more ships to get through. The Americans took advantage of that. Roughly 11 million barrels a day went through the straight during those two, two, three weeks,

I think three weeks, maybe two weeks, two weeks, I think. But then after that, as soon as President Pesiguan came back, the Iranian began to strike much harder. And during the last two weeks, the amount of crude oil that gets through the strait has diminished. It's gone down a lot. But also, Judge, I think, again, people have to be reminded

that all the products that come from the Persian Gulf region, whether it's diesel, whether it's gasoline, whether it's helium or sulfur, or fertilizer, or anything else, petrochemicals of all sorts, they're not getting out. The amount of crude oil that has been getting through is not enough, but relatively speaking, more crude oil gets out than other goods, LNG.

So the shortages across the board are growing very fast, and crude oil, those shortages are growing. Even during those two weeks when Trump, when 11 million barrels a day were getting through for a couple of weeks, even during that period, it wasn't compensating for the shortages. The shortages were still increasing but in small numbers. Now the shortage of crude oil is increasing rapidly again. Here's Foreign Minister Arachi.

We don't have the date, but it looks like it's pretty recent, summarizing where Iran stands today, Chris. The reason we say we don't want to ceasefire is not because we are looking for war. It is because this time this war must end in such a way that our enemies never again think of repeating these attacks and this aggression. And I think they have already learned a good lesson by now. They finally realized exactly what kind of nation they are. dealing with, a nation that does not hesitate at all when it comes to defending itself,

and one that is fully prepared to continue the war wherever it may be, and take it wherever it needs to go to ensure its survival. Whatever became of this silly effort to impeach him, because he spoke to a few Americans, myself among them, while he was here in New York. Well, Judge, you know, I actually think this just shows. to those who want to, who are perceptive, Iran is not a dictatorship where, you know, no one can talk.

I mean, even during the height of war and under siege, you have a big debate going on in the country, whether we should even be talking or we should be, our policy should be the full implementation of the MOU, or whether we should take a much more, a tough approach to the United States. It just shows that it is not a society that is closed. We have people who want compromise.

They're not a large percentage. But you have that debate going on in Iran. But the bulk of the debate is between those who say we should save the course and those who say we should take a tougher approach. But that debate exists, just like as I said, even though the fatwa is against nuclear weapons. And we saw the funeral of it. to Khomeini and how tens of millions of people took part in the in the in summer heat in in but but despite that relationship that they had with him they they they don't they don't

they don't want his fat war they want the they want nuclear weapons but one other thing judge that i'd like to point out and that is the MOU you would think that Western media they would be supporting the implementation of the MOU what does the MOU say it says in the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Lebanon and the siege of Yemen, hand over Iran's stolen assets, remove the siege and the sanctions on Iranian oil exports, and things like that. Iran is not demanding that the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of what Trump calls the Gulf of America be called the Gulf of Iran. Their demands are basically stop the killing in this region.

And yet we don't see any major figure in the United States actually supporting this. They attack Trump, his opponents, and they too, those who are opposed them, don't want this to be implemented, ironically. You'd think that they would say, okay, let's implement this. But they push to humiliate Trump in order to wreck the end. MOU. And I mean Democrats, elites, and others. Well, thanks to, I mean, Trump may have pursued this policy anyway, but by doing so, they've helped increase the global shortages, push the global economy to the brink, and now push us towards the possibility of an all-out war, which will lead to a great depression. Trump is still trying to persuade the American people.

that the reason gasoline prices, diesel and what we use in our personal vehicles, is so high, is because the Ukrainians have been attacking Russian refineries, and it has nothing to do with the natural and probable consequences of his and Netanyahu's invasion of Iran. Nobody can possibly take that seriously. You're absolutely correct. The shortages are largely because of what's going on in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormoz. Of course, the war in Ukraine or the war in Ukraine has something has a bit to do with it as well. Both wars should come to an end, all the wars should come to an end.

The genocide in Gaza should come to an end, and the war in Ukraine. Ukraine should come to an end. But the problem is that there's no one in the White House who has the ability to bring about an end to these wars. Trump said that he'll end the war in Ukraine during his presidential campaign. He said he'll do it in one day. And now it's almost, you know, it's more than over a year and a half now. And we still have war in Ukraine.

So when you have such a president who's so incapable, then have a president who's so incapable, then how in the world will the Iranians be able to do any deal with this person, especially because how he's lied to the Iranian so many times and how he signed the MOU himself in front of the cameras but failed to implement it. So you have a person, you have a person in the White House who promised to end the war in Ukraine one day, he's failed. Even now, we see that he, you know, that it's unclear if his orders on, with regards to the bombing of, of Russian assets will be implemented. So you have effectively, in my opinion,

this just shows that he's not the guy in charge. He's not the person in charge. Someone else is in charge or some people are in charge. And that, again, reminds me of what your frequent guest, Joe Kent wrote in his resignation letter at the beginning of the war. He said he was a Trump appointee and a senior ranking intelligence officer. He said that Iran does not pose a threat to the United States. He said that Iran is not developing a nuclear weapon.

And then he said that the reason this war has started is because of the Zionist lobby and the Israeli regime. Well, the same is true with Ukraine. It's the neocons. But the neocons and the Zionists are one and the same. Professor Miranda, you're right on the mark on all of this. And I appreciate you quoting Joe Kent. not only to Joe Kent say that Trump's own State Department said it,

Trump's own Secretary of State, Marco Rubio said, the only reason we're fighting this Iran war is because the Israelis are going to start it without us. We all know that Netanyahu forced Trump's hand, whether by a threat to start or a threat to do, God knows what. I want to play a clip. I don't vouch for his credibility, but at this time he's making sense of President Zelensky saying, Come on, we all know why the price of diesel is so high, and it has nothing to do what's happening in Ukraine or Russia.

Chris, cut number five. Everybody understands that the price is on diesel. It doesn't depend on our attacks on diesel in Russia. Everybody understands that it depends on the blocking our moves, straight over of our moves. So, this is understandable. For once he's right. For once, I have to agree with Zelensky. I mean, you're forcing me into a very difficult position.

Look, even a stop clock is right twice a day, if you don't mind me quoting that old truism. Muhammad's always a pleasure chatting with you no matter what we're talking about. Please stay safe. We'll look forward to seeing you next week unless something significant happens and we need to call on you sooner. All my best of you and your family. It's an honor, Judge. God be with you. And also with you. Thank you. Coming up later today, if you're watching us live in 34 minutes at 9 o'clock, Professor Glenn Deeson, at 2 this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, at 3 this afternoon,

Max Blumenthal. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.