Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern : Trump’s War, Putin’s Advantage

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Ray McGovern : Trump’s War, Putin’s AdvantageSee 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 Monday, March 16th, 2026, the day before St. Patrick's Day. Ray McGovern joins us now. Ray, always a pleasure. Thank you, my dear friend. Thanks for accommodating

my schedule. Before we get to the Kremlin's view of what's going on in Iran, you raised some very interesting issues with me earlier today when we communicated privately. What is Ha Aret's

reporting today about Prime Minister Netanyahu. Well, first, Judge, thanks for putting me in a cleanup position there, number four today. There's not much to clean up after Alistair, Larry, and Jeffrey, since Jeffrey hit that home run just now. But I'll just try to get on base. I would never much of a hit. I'll just try to get on base and hope that Treata Parsi can bring me home later. today. Haredes. Whoa, there you go.

99 problems, but the Iran War ain't won. Well, that's a little bit hyperbole there. Iran, of course, is won. But the big thing there, you can see, the Prime Minister is most concerned about losing the coming election

in October. His polls are down. His coalition is losing steam. And worst of all, my God, worst of even though President Trump appealed to President Herzog to pardon this poor fellow, pardon him because, you know, it's getting pretty itsy-kitsy here. He's lied so many times on the road that it looks like he would end up in jail if you don't

pardon him. Well, for once, the Israeli judiciary stood up. It's not going to happen. Not going to happen. And so all I'm saying here is that, in my view, Netanyahu is the wild court. And he has not only the existential problem of Israel, but of one fellow named Benjamin Netanyahu, wife, and children. He's going to end up in jail, okay, if things don't improve. So what will he attempt to do?

My guess is that he'll attempt a false flag attack. And he's all kinds of ways to do that. Mossad is all over this country or this beloved country of ours. And, you know, I warned about this a couple days ago in a tweet that got over 200,000 looks. But then I saw that Larijani from, you know, the National Security Advisor in Iran. What do you say? He said, oh, I've heard that some remaining members of what they call the Epstein network have devised a conspiracy to create an incident like 9-11 and blame me. Iran for it. Ali, Larry Johnny, head of the National Security Council said. He wrote it on X, okay?

Quote, Iran fundamentally opposes such terrorist schemes and has no war with the American people. That's important. Iran does not have a war with the American people. It has a war with the Epstein class, the people who are being supporting Trump in this disease. disaster that's happening before I so well described by your three previous guests this morning. So my point is that this is existential not only for Israel but for Netanyahu. Do I put it past a fellow who does genocide, does force starvation to perpetrate the kind of attack like 9-11 or maybe something a little smaller in these United States of ours? I do not put it past.

As a matter of fact, I think the odds are better than even that he would do so, given the way things are going, he has no other course, and he is the kind of person that would do that, in my view. Trump told NBC on Saturday that the Iranians reached out to him through an intermediary. He declined the name and made an offer for a ceasefire which he said wasn't the offer he was hoping for. The Iranian foreign minister said,

not only did we not reach out to him, we don't want to ceasefire, and we would not negotiate with him. Which of them is being truthful? Well, Arachi, of course, is being truthful. He talked to Margaret Brennan to the degree she let him continue his sentences. They said, look, it's over.

We've been so mousetrope. so deceived. We're not going to have any settlement, much,ness, even any negotiations here with these people. We're going to let this thing go because we're in it for the long term, and we can outlast anything. We've been through this before. We've got to last all this thing. Don't talk about negotiations with us now. Maybe later, but certainly not now. That's about as definitive. and in the background, of course, of this, it's worth repeating. On the 26th of February, this year,

Geneva, that is, Whitkoff and Kushner, and Alarachi, okay, the fellow is talking to Mark Griffin. And they came to an almost full agreement, and we have the testimony of the person who mediated those talks, the foreign minister of Homan. And he was so elated.

What do you do? He got on the next, no, not the next plane. He got his own little personal plane flew to Washington, right? And he told the vice president with his close for God's that the Iranians

have made all kinds of concessions on their enrichment. As a matter of fact, they even allowed the U.S. inspectors to supplement the AI. and then I think he sensed that,

that J.D. Vance was hearing this, but he's not going to tell the person. So what does he do? Margaret Brennan, get her, says CBS. So he goes on CBS and says, he lays it all out. And within the next several hours, what happens? We start the attack or Israeli start the attack, and then we get sucked in as Rubio himself admits. So Israelis told us that we're going to, attack Iran, and we were afraid that the Iranis might reciprocate and attack us.

And so we had to go, I mean, hello, there's no mutual defense treaty with Israel. Israel is not our ally in any juridical sense. Why did Ruby have think, oh, my God, we had to go right into this fray because Israel attacked Iran. My God, there it is, laid out in as clear terms as you can get. Here is one of the statements made to Margaret Brennan yesterday by the Iranian Foreign Minister on these very topics, Ray. Cut number one, Chris. President Trump said this weekend he is not ready to make a deal with Iran because the terms aren't good enough yet. Has Iran asked for a ceasefire? No, we never asked for a ceasefire. And we have never asked even for negotiation.

We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes, and this is what we have done so far, and we continue to do that, until President Trump comes to the point that this is an illegal war with no victory, and, you know, there are, you know, people being killed only because, you know, people being killed only because, President Trump wants to have fun. This is what he has said. Have fun? Yes, this is what he said, that they are sinking, you know, ships and targeting different places because it is fun. Well, lest anybody think that the foreign minister is making that up. Here's Donald Trump talking about it's more fun to sink the ships. Cut number two, Chris.

The Navy is gone. it's all lying at the bottom of the ocean. 46 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? He said, it's more fun to sink him. He said, that's a more fun. Can't imagine a president of the United States mocking something like that and calling it fun. Now, is it conceivable that Margaret Brennan did not know that Trump said that about more fun? And if it's conceivable, and it seemed to be that she didn't know,

what does that say about our major media, even informing each other, for God's sake, as to what Trump says? Trump is the loose handle here. He and Netanyahu, don't they pay any attention to the more egregious things that he, says, it appears not. She has her own little talking points or her own little questions. And in that clip, she didn't interrupt them very much. But Arachi is a consummate diplomat. He knows about these things. And, you know, if you look at it in a personal point of view, he was the guy that made these concessions in Geneva, the mediator, again, the Omani. foreign minister was so elated and there was good positive feedback from both sides initially.

And he came right back, as I say, told J.D. Vance, apparently it didn't make much effect impression on Vance. That's all brought it Margaret Brennan. Now, Margaret Brennan should know all that stuff. She should ask a little more pointed questions. Like, what happened there? You were in Geneva on the 26th, and then they started bombing on the 28th. You came and talked to people on, you talk to me on the 27. What's going on here? She went at that because they're all afraid. They're making megabucks and they don't want to lose their place in line with the mainstream media, so-called. Our dear friend and colleague Larry Johnson reports that one of the reasons that the Israelis and the Americans were so optimistic about toppling the regime merely by assassinating Diatola and other.

other top leaders was that Mossad had co-opted. The commanding general of the Revolutionary Guard was giving Mossad all the information they needed and who was going to be their man to take over the government after the Ayatollah had been killed. He had since been discovered and has been executed. Does that make sense to you? Those reports seem to be valid, although you don't hear anything from whom the Iranian government about this for obvious reasons. I mean, as soon as this guy was discovered,

I imagine he was terminated with extreme prejudice, as the CIA operations people used to call it. Yeah, this was Soleimani's deputy for God say. It's a cold. So this is a big cheese. And, you know, count them as clever if the Brits or the Israelis or the U.S. CIA.

subborn this guy, but apparently he was at all these meetings and they said, oh, I got to go now because, and then 10 minutes later, his interlocutor, whether it's Nasjala or many of these other key leaders in that part of the world, were demolished by missiles of one sort or another. Wow. What do you think, why do you think the Americans and Israelis would put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, of this one guy. I mean, how could they have so grossly miscalculated the resilience of the Iranian people

and the asymmetrical nature of the Iranian offensive military attacks? The judge presidents hear what they want to hear. They get people to bounce off ideas with who, they know we'll agree with them. Talking about this gang of four, right? Trump, Rubio, J.D. Vance, and Hexeth. Those are people that are the gang of four. Now, Hexeth, has he told the president what's really going on?

I think that Headsick has said to Trump, look, I'm afraid it's not going to go real well. So when I ask you about whether I'm on board, would you just say something like, oh, maybe philosophically not on board? But I'm completely on board because, you know, we have to think about two, three years from now. I think that's why Trump felt obligated to say, well, J.D. Vance is philosophically a little different. So in other words, Vance knows better than this. All of them are touting to a... kind of insane emperor, whom they won't tell, has no clothes on. And this comes to a very bad end, as the Chinese used to say, because the strait is still closed. The Iranians say it will remain closed.

Now, that was not some punk Iranian. This is the new supreme leader. This straight is going to remain clothes and talk about putting Marines in that area to keep it open or ships or asking the Chinese of all people, come put your battleships here. I mean, the Iranians have dominance over those cliffs and they stretch for, you know, thousand kilometers, 100, whatever it is, they have built-in fortified anti-ship sites that can wreak havoc as some of them already have. So, you know, he's in a bad place, Trump. And what he's got to do is pretend that he's still in control, but he isn't.

And what's my main fear? My main fear is that, well, it's not only my main fear. There was a general, a general who is on that major talk show in Moscow on last night. Forget his name for a second, but he's one of the people that Larry Johnson, interviewed when Larry was there. He was a very perspicacious interlocutor and panel member. And he said, when pushed to say this, he said, well, I don't think the U.S. is going to use nuclear weapons. But I think Nathan Yahoo just might do that. My God.

So what's this possible solution here? Well, there are still ties. Trump does still call Putin up and say, would you give me a hand here? And he contends, that Putin wants to be helpful, Putin can be helpful. So can the Chinese. Now, is Xi Jinping going to let Trump come to Beijing under these circumstances? I doubt it. I mean, I just can't.

So these guys can exert their influence through their ambassadors, through their UN people, and with Putin and Trump through a direct line. I think that's the way this thing can evolve. And I think the Russians, given the stakes for them, will play an honest broker role and make it as easy as Trump can, as it can be for Trump, which is going to be really hard to do, to back off here and pretend that he had some sort of resolution and that he achieved some sort of success, you know, sort of documented more than just by claims. four times now that the Iranian armed forces have been obliterated, destroyed, or whatever adjective he uses. Yeah. The White House leaked this morning that the president may need to be in Washington in order to manage the war and therefore probably cannot go to Beijing.

I think the truthful analysis is President Xi doesn't want to be seen with the war. in this environment? I would guess that's the case. Yeah, I just couldn't understand where they didn't cancel that invitation right off the bat. Chinese have been very, very circumspect, as is their want.

But they're not going to send any armed ships there to open up the Strait of Hormuz. That is closed, and that's the big reality here. The world is suffering. All kinds of pressures are coming onto Trump and Netanyahu to stop this thing. Can it be stopped?

Only if real, strong-willed mediators are enlisted, and the Omani foreign minister no longer qualifies, but Putin does. And so does she. There's some hope there. I just hope they make it very clear to Trump. It's got to settle before too many weeks are over. What is the price of gas in North Carolina? I mean, I paid $4 a gallon yesterday in northwest New Jersey for something, same amount of gas that cost me $3.25 a week ago. The reason I'm smirking, Judge, is that we have an electric car.

Oh. I don't give a rat's patootie, how much you guys. Sorry about that. All right. Well, the next time you're driving around with your electric car, let me know what the gas stations are offering gasoline for. We were supposed to have power outage here in Raleigh this morning. And I was thinking, well, what happens to my electric car if there's a power? Luckily, I fully charged it two days ago. Yeah. Well, thank you, Ray. It's a pleasure, my dear man. As always, thank you for that latest stuff from Haaretz on Prime Minister, Netanyahu, of which I had been unaware. Just to get back to that, I guess the courts have ruled

in accordance with Israeli law that a pardon cannot be issued unless there's been a conviction. You can't preempt, as you can in America, you can't preempt the prosecution. Yeah, I'm not sure of the ins and outs, but it was news to me that it is definitive. and that cats, no, not cats, but the president, but bound by the court's decision, my God, I guess we have to accentuate the positive. The Israelis still place some value in their own laws. And, you know, that came as a real revelation to me, and it must have been a gut punch, a punch in the belly to,

to Netanyahu, because as I followed this thing, he lied several times, and he has no incentive at all to lose the election in October, and it looks very much like he's going to. October, oh, what happened in October a couple of years ago? You know, they're going to blame him for everything. He's going to be out of there, and he's probably going to have to take a plane to the Bahamas or someplace like that, to escape jail, maybe his children and wife already in a condominium there. Yeah. Thank you, Ray.

All the best, my friend. We'll see you Friday with Larry Johnson for the Intelligence Community Roundtable. Thank you, Judge. Thank you. Have a good week. Coming up this afternoon at 1.30, one of the country's foremost authorities on Iran from the Quincy Institute, Trita Parsi. I'm very much looking forward to.

interviewing him, and we'll see you then. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.