Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter : Might Trump Use Nukes on Iran?

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

Scott Ritter : Might Trump Use Nukes on Iran?See 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. Fragically, 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 Tuesday, June 30th, 2006, Scott Ritter joins us now. Scott, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Before we get to Iran and the humiliating American and Israeli defeat and Ukraine and the coming Russian victory, I know you're animated about this and so am I. What is going on in Great Britain with the arrest of an American lawyer for free speech, protected? if he had uttered those words in the U.S. Yeah, Dan Kovillik, he's a very good friend of mine,

and somebody who I hold an extremely high regard. His politics are his politics. I mean, there's nothing illegal about, you know, for instance, saying that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide. I support that conclusion. There are many people who don't, but that's what free speech is all about. You know, he's also somebody who has openly condemned the United States in Great Britain in regards to their, you know, war against Iran.

You know, Great Britain, you know, played a supporting role in this. And, you know, as a result, you know, because of statements he's made and posting he's put out on social media, the British police detained him at the Liverpool airport, John Lennon Airport, charging him with, you know, I guess it's a 2000, terrorism, you know, act that, you know, under Schedule 7, which is a more recent addition to that, that makes, you know, posting things critical of Israel, for instance, on social media illegal. Now, Great Britain is a sovereign state. Let there be no doubt about that. The British have every right to do what they choose to do. But there must be consequences for their actions. Great Britain postures itself as a special. friend of the United States. We have, after all, a special relationship. Not anymore. If the British

can't respect the core American value of free speech, and let's remember that, you know, we draw, and when we draw upon our, you know, the foundations of the thinking behind our, you know, democracy behind the Constitution, we draw upon the Magna Carta. And, you know, that is the British, but the British don't respect this anymore. Great Britain has become something that is the antithesis of American values. And yet we treat them as friends. They detained an American citizen, an American lawyer, a human rights lawyer, a man who is an expert in international law, a man is an expert in constitutional law, and they have detained him and treated him as a terrorist as a criminal. If this had happened in Russia or China, the State Department would be screaming bloody murder and demanding his immediate release. And why we aren't screaming bloody murder right now and demanding Dan Kovic's immediate release and an apology is beyond me.

But it's time that we stop treating the British as our allies. They are not allied to America. They are the enemies of the United States. They stand for everything we don't. They stand for the suppression of free speech. They stand for a police state that stomps down any possibility of vocal opposition. And we should do to the British what we do to others in this case. You know, we have the Magnitsky Act, which we passed, you know, because we accused the Russians of murdering a lawyer.

In prison, it turns out it didn't. It's all a lie. But, you know, we took action. We should have a similar, we should have the COVID Act against the British. Any member of parliament who voted for this legislation should be banned permanently from the United States. Any member of the British government that served in the government that allowed this to take place should be banned. Any police officer involved in the prosecution of Americans should be banned forever. This is how we treat. We should sanction the British economically. We should make the pay a harsh

price for suppressing the values of an American citizen that we should all cherish. Let me get this straight. This lawyer made these comments in the United States, and for that was punished upon his arrival in Great Britain. I mean, would they allow you or me or almost anybody on this show to pass security or customs at a British airport, or would they detain us? It's 100% certain that if I went to Great Britain, I would be detained. I've been warned as such, and therefore, I'm not, but I view Great Britain as a hostile state. Why would I travel to a hostile state? Great Britain is not a destination any American should go to. We should shut down every American airline route to Great Britain.

We should treat them as, you know, the worst threat to America. Because this is it. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're an American citizen and you've posted anything on social media that could, you'll fall afoul of British sensibilities, you will be detained. And it's a very unpleasant experience. It's so unpleasant that George Galloway, who was detained under similar circumstances, was compelled to leave Great Britain altogether. They, in effect, sexually assaulted his wife, a lovely lady. And I mean, the British is a terrorist state.

This is literally the actions of a terrorist state. They are not a democracy. They are the antithesis of democracy because they suppress free speech. Well, moving over to Russia. This morning, the Russian military. this morning Russian time, shot down over 400 drones around the suburbs of Moscow and even affecting the Moscow International Airport into which and out of which you and I have both flown. The Russians have any red lines about beyond which they're not going to let the Ukrainians go.

But let's also point out that one of the drones that did slip through hit a residence in Moscow and killed a six-month-old girl. And the attack was a deliberate attack. We can talk later about the technicalities of what the Ukrainian drones do when they are being jammed or when they go into defensive mode. But basically they pick the nearest target and they dive into it regardless of what that target is. And so basically this drone was being suppressed. It went into defense mode and dove down into the first building at Saw, which happened to be a residence and they murdered a six-month-old girl. But this is what terrorists do. Are there any red lines?

Well, we're going to find out. Let me think this as clear as possible. Vladimir Putin is a man who understands the totality of the reality of Russia. So for people out there, including myself on occasion, who get impatient because red lines have been crossed. You know, I was in St. Petersburg International Economic Forum when, you know, 130 nations signed $84 billion worth of contractual investment guarantees to Russia. the Russian economy, $84 billion. This is what keeps Russia going. This is what keeps Russia growing.

And Vladimir Putin made it clear. It is opening remarks that he's not going to let this war define Russia, that Russia is bigger than this conflict. Russia has sought to limit this conflict to Ukraine. They sought from the very beginning. That's why it's a special military operation. The West has taken advantage of this over and over and over again, crossing red line after red line after red line. But every time they cross the red line, you have to ask yourself, okay, if Russia retaliates, then what? And if the answer is, then the carefully crafted, you know,

economic revival program that Vladimir Putin's embarked on that looks forward past the conflict, if that gets disrupted, then did Russia win by retaliating or not? Because right now, Russia's winning on the battlefield. There's just, there's no if, ands or buts about it. It's a much more dangerous battlefield, but Russia's winning on this battlefield. They're winning decisively. They're already closing in on Slavians. Kramathorsk has drones operated in it. Krasnirmsk is going to fall any day now. The Ukrainians have run out of troops. You know, it's just refall. So the Ukrainians are going into this next phase, this, you know, long-range sanctions, they call it. But if they're long-range sanctions, if all they succeed in doing

is minimal damage and embarrassment to Russia, because that's what they're seeking to do, humiliate Vladimir Putin into taking a precipitous action that would change the overall calculus, because right now the overall calculus is decisive Russian victory. That's the direction we're heading. What they need is for Russia to stop going down this path. They need Russia to, for instance, strike Europe and potentially expand the conflict, take the pressure off of Ukraine, redefine the various algorithms that go into determining, you know, victory or not. And Vladimir Putin has avoided this. But we're getting to the juncture now.

It's not about the death of a six-month-old girl or the slaughter of 21 sleeping teenagers in Starr, Belskine, May 22nd. We're getting to the point where the Ukrainians and the Europeans are starting to bring to bear weaponry, long range strike weaponry that is going to have an economic impact on Russia. And at that juncture, the calculus of the Russian government will change because right now they've always said that we lose more by expanding the conflict that we gain. Right now, the answer is they're coming up on the reality that if they continue to ride this out, they're going to lose more by doing nothing than they gain. And they're going to strike. When Europe openly

says we're going to collaborate with the Ukrainians to build long-range strike weapons so we can target Moscow. That's a death sentence for the factories that are going to be built. And Russia is rapidly approaching that juncture. The one thing that is holding Russia back right now is a recent assessment that's come out of the Kremlin that Donald Trump is insane, literally insane. They're not talking about a man who has lost his marbles like Joe Biden. Joe Biden was just dementia ridden. Donald Trump is a man who is emotionally unstable,

therefore totally unpredictable, and the Russians do have a concern that if they struck Europe, that Donald Trump could respond, you know, with nuclear weapons. Donald Trump is mentally unbalanced because of the defeat in Iran.

This is a man who went into Iran assured that he was going to win. And he had, you know, his, you know, his, you know, egocentric world, has collapsed around him. And now he's also looking at the imminent, you know,

his imminent political demise come midterms. His whole world is crashing down on him. And he has just gone into, you know, a, you know, just this, this croon of insanity where he lives in an unreal world where, you know, it doesn't matter what you tell him. It's what his brain thinks is real. And, you know, you see that right now.

Every agreement he made, every, every deal, commitment he made to Russia in Alaska is off. Marco Rubio is now lying. He said, we didn't agree to anything. Well, you're a liar, Marco Rubio. We know you're a liar. The Russians know you're a liar. The Russians know the ignorant American people. They too will figure it out. The Russians know exactly what the United States committed to in Alaska because Russia made concessions based upon the American overtures. And the Americans agreed to this. And there was supposed to be action taken. And now Donald Trump is backed away from everything. And not only that,

he's doubling down. He's talking about, you know, gone are the days where he said, we're not going to send any more money to Ukraine. Now he's talking about, you know, rapidly expanding the amount of money. I sent there. Why? Because this is a man who's losing everywhere across the board. He's losing domestically. He's losing, you know, from a foreign policy standpoint, he's getting his ass handed to him in Iran. And he's literally, he's gone in balance. And so the Russians right now, their biggest concern is, If we strike Europe and they're going to strike Europe, you know, what will Donald Trump do? And because they can't answer that question, they have to be a little bit careful about, you know, under what circumstances they pull the trigger, which means they're probably going to have to wait until a massive red line is crossed, one that is so obvious to the world that, you know, even the insane Donald Trump, you will have to say, gosh, Rush had every right to do this. I was about to ask you next, what do you think the Kremlin's evaluation is of attacking Western Europe Unitions Factories? But before I do, you mention something that's fascinating.

Do the Russians have a psychiatric evaluation of him made by health care professionals that he's insane? I can't answer that question. What I can say is that what has been said is that they view him as mentally unstable, not from a dementia standpoint, but from an emotional instability standpoint. Now, that might be diplomatic speak for this. If the Russians operate like we do, the SVR and the FSB have, you know, entire departments of shrinks whose job it is to provide, you know, personality profiles of global leadership. I'm assuming that Vladimir Putin receives a briefing before he goes off to meet somebody

that is prepared by these people who talk about, you know, what makes these people tick. Vladimir Putin's an old-time human intelligence guy. So, you know, what part of their ego can you stroke to get them to make concessions? If you want to get them irritated, what do you poke? You know, this is called being well-briefed. And I think Vladimir Putin is one of the most well-briefed people in the world. So it wouldn't surprise me. In fact, it would shock me if they didn't have a psychological evaluation unit.

But I can't sit here and tell you that that's where this assessment comes from. Okay. Should the Russians attack French, Swedish, British, German, I'm just ticking off a few that come to mind. Munitions plants, when they know these plants are manufacturing weapons that are being given to the Ukrainians for attack. on Russia. Yes. They should. And the sooner the better. You know, you don't have to wait until you actually receive, you know, serious damage. You don't want a hole in the Kremlin roof. All right.

And that's the direction these idiots are going. They're seeking to drop the Crimea bridge. If you want to see what Russian nuclear weapons can do, drop the Crimea bridge. And if you want to see what Russian nuclear weapons can do to all of Europe, put a hole in the roof of the Kremlin. I mean, this is the direction that these idiots are heading. And they think they can get away with it. They think that, you know, Putin's bluffing. They think they just don't understand, you know, the reality of Russia. The reality of Russia is that Russia has never put a deadline or an artificial timeline on this conflict. People like me have in assessing. I say, oh, I think they'll be ready by the end of summer. They'll be this, that, and the other thing. It's an assessment.

And so far, it's been wrong. But the overall assessment that Russia's winning is a 100% correct assessment is always has been. Russia cannot lose this war. They're incapable of losing this war. Russia has managed this conflict to the point where they get maximum benefit from the resources available without throwing off track their economy. They're in the middle. And again, people need to understand this. Russia is in the middle of making a transformation, you know, a transitioning from a West-centric economy where they encourage

Western companies from investing to a total divorce of the West, a pivoting to the East, and re-engagement with the East. This is a major, massive economic transformation taking place. So the economy is running almost every major decision being made in Russia today. It's the economy, stupid. Americans should understand that. That was James Carvel's advice to Bill Clinton back in 1992. And from the Russian perspective, Vladimir Putin, it's the economy. stupid, stupid being all those people out there who pretend the economy doesn't matter. And the only thing it matters is blowing things up.

Russia has never built this conflict around blowing things up. Russia has always used this as a war of attrition to wear down the Ukrainians and eventually wear down the Europeans. But they haven't sought to expand this war. But Europe has taken advantage of, you know, Russia's, you know, hands-off approach, you know. But let's, I just want to remind people, Kirstarmer in September. of 2024, got on an airplane flew to Washington, D.C. with a red briefcase in his hand. He was, I think, was September 13th. He was supposed to meet with, in fact, as he did meet,

with President Biden in the White House where they were going to sign documents that allowed the British to turn over the scalp missile and the storm shadow missile to the Ukrainians for long-range strikes and to Russia's strategic depth. And Biden was going to sign off on attack him's missile capabilities as well. This led to the Russians putting the United States on notice. I mean, I remember because the September 13th was the night that I was at the Russian embassy at a cultural event that Anatolia Antonov had been planning for some time now. We had been working for many years on how to counter Russophobia.

And one of the things was to expose American people to the beauty of Russian culture. So he had worked to get a concert of Rachmaninov's piano on there. And that was the night, but that was the night. He came out there, he was white-faced. And it turns out that right before he came out for this concert, he had to make some phone calls. And those phone calls were to former American government officials who had contacted him on behalf of the Biden administration, because the Biden administration had cut off all connectivity with the Russians and asked, hey, we're hearing that Russia is talking about, you know, striking in retaliation if this document is signed.

And this goes in action. And Anatolia Anatoly Antonov's response was, at least from what I heard, not only will Russia strike, Russia will strike Washington, D.C., and you can read into that any way you want to. And because of that phone call, that message was relayed to the White House, and Joe Biden didn't sign the documents because they understood that the Russians were talking about nuclear war. And yet today, I also reached out at that time to RFK Jr. and he reached out to Donald Trump Jr. I wrote an article. I wrote a paper that they then took, massaged it, but in effect, it's 75% the article I wrote, and they published it in the Hill, which said that the Trump administration, if they get elected, will promise not to pursue policies that leads towards nuclear conflict. This is a well-known article that was published at the time. And yet today, they're backtracking

everything. They have signed documents allowing these long-range strike weapons. And we have forgotten what the consequences will be. The consequences will be nuclear war. People need to understand this. This is not a game. This is not a joke. This is as real as it gets. This is why I wrote a book called Highway to Hell.

Read it while you can, ladies and gentlemen, because you may not get to the last chapter if this insanity goes on. Russia, I believe, has come to the point where the actions of the collective of West are impacting Russian economic stability. And when that happens, Vladimir Putin can no longer take the soft route. He's going to have to take the hard route. And the hard route is going to be the preemptive striking of strategic industrial facilities throughout Europe. And in letting Europe know that if there's a retaliation, the response will be nuclear and will be massively nuclear. The Russians don't do limited nuclear warfare. This is going to be a tarragon of, you know,

let's take out Posenon and pray the Americans don't want to trade Boston. This will be a Russian taking out as DeBioumese, who sits on the National Security Council, has said the totality of European civilization. This is where we're at, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this world. Wow. All right. Let's get to Iran. Israel is beaten. The United States is beaten. Trump is terrified domestically, as you were articulated earlier, both over the political and the economic fallout. Netanyahu is beaten. Netanyahu needs a victory. how dangerous is Trump and how dangerous are Netanyahu. You talked about Trump's instability.

Might he say to Hegg Seth drop a nuclear weapon on Tehran? Is he that crazy? Is he that desperate? He could be that crazy. There's some belief that he already at one time tried to get the Pentagon to draw up a nuclear strike option. He was told by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that's an unconstitutional order. People tend to forget that the military we operate. I say we, because I used to.

to be in the Marines and involved in targeting. But issues of proportionality play in. You can't use a nuclear weapon unless the benefit you're going to accrue exceeds the cost to human life that you're going to, you know, that it's going to result in, especially that human night is civilian. And on nuclear, almost every military officer understands that, you know, are nuclear deterrent, according to our nuclear deterrent, according to our official policy is the primary purpose is deterrence.

And we would only use it preemptively against a nuclear threat, a threat that manifests itself in a way that justifies this response. But to use nuclear weapons preemptively against a non-nuclear thing or against in a scenario where there is no imminent threat to the national security of the United States, because right now they're zero threat to the national security of the United States coming out of Iran. They just embarrass Donald Trump. And if you think embarrassing an American president represents, you know, an inherent, threat to American public. Well, you know, Bill Clinton messing around with Monica Lewinsky was an

embarrassment. The point is, we don't go to nuclear war because an American president is embarrassed. We go to nuclear war because there's an imminent threat to the existential survival of the United States and no such threat exists. So the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would say no to that. The danger isn't what he's going to do in Iran, because we have no options left. We literally all his huffing and puffing and all this stuff, we have no weapons left. We have no capabilities. the Iranians have all the missiles in the world and they would win this. And we know this is why we never escalate further. The danger comes in when he looks elsewhere.

And this is where the danger of Ukraine comes in. Because it appears now that Donald Trump, because of the embarrassment of Iran, is doubling down on stupid when it comes to Ukraine. And he's going to provoke a fight between NATO and Russia. We have a NATO summit coming up in Ankara, Turkey, in next month, early next month, where NATO is going to be pushing for, you know, a massive commitment to the conflict in Ukraine, that will definitely push Russia into open warfare with NATO. And then the question is, what will Donald Trump do regarding Article 5? Will he come to the defense?

And, you know, when the Russians strike European strategic targets in a non-nuclear fashion, what happens if Europe mobilizes its nuclear resources and Russia preempts those with their own nuclear weapons? What will Donald Trump do? Will he, you know, yield, as Sergei Karaganova has suggested, not willing to trade Boston? No, we're dealing with an emotionally irrational man, an insane man, a literally insane man, who may very well decide that he's going to take everything down. You know, and here's where that movie, the Christopher Walken movie, I can't remember the title of it,

where, you know, the father of the guy who played in platoon, the West Wing guy, he played a president in Christopher Walker could touch him. see the future and he saw where this man decided to blow up the world. That's the president we have right now, a man who is watching his entire empire crumble around him, watching the legacy, everything he stood for. And I guess he's going to decide that if the Trump family legacy isn't going to survive, then the world shouldn't survive. That's where we're at right now. This is the level of insanity that exists in Washington, D.C. How comparably desperate and unrestrained by protocol is primarily Minister Netanyahu.

His only He needs a war or a victory to stay in office and he needs to stay in office to stay out of jail. No, he's different. You know, the prime minister cannot make a unilateral decision.

That's truth. He needs a war cabinet and the war cabinet has to vote on it. And if the war cabinet doesn't vote on it, it doesn't happen. And right now, you're watching Israel implode. Any decision by Nanyag to irresponsibly escalate will cause, I think, a coup in Israel. That's where we're at. I need to remind people who are going, what are you talking about? Ritter, a coup. In September of 2003, before the October 7th attack by Hamas, the president of Israel was publicly warning about the danger of a civil war in Israel. We are on the verge of a civil war, not civil unrest,

a civil war. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's only gotten worse. Israel is a fundamentally divided society that's looking at their existential survival here. Benjamin Yen, whose policies have put Israel in a place where the economy is just a basket case. There's no hope for renewed international investment. The concept of the Abrams Accord and the India, Middle East, European Economic Quarter, these are all things in the past. Israel is a much maligned state, a pariah state that's being increasingly isolated, and the Israelis are looking at the death of Israel. And there are people now that, you know, if Netanyahu continues to push this, we'll seek his removal, people in the military, and this could lead to a civil war. So I think that's the

direction we're going with Israel. Nanyahu has no ability whatsoever to pick up the phone in order of nuclear strike against Iran. He will need a decision, a unanimous decision by his war counsel, and he's not going to get that. Last question. You mentioned this earlier. you were the target of Ukrainian drones recently. How difficult is it, A, to escape a drone and B, to shoot it down? Can you take a handgun and shoot down a drone, or does it take some substantial weapon to down it? If you're a good enough shot, you hit it. But the point is, you know, if you hit a drone too close to you, you're going to get trapped.

You know, the drone either is carrying a modified RPG round, but if it has T&T, the drone battery itself, you know, will create shrapnel. So you're going to get hit. You need to strike this drone, you know, over 100 meters away to avoid, you know, receiving some sort of shrapnel effect. Can a drone be shot down? Yes, they can, and the Russians are working on, you know, improved ammunition. They've also, you know, the gun truck in front of me that was engaging, had three machine guns and, you know, just looking to, you know, spray in an area and hopefully hit the drone. So the drones can be shot down. You know, the drones don't succeed against gun convoys.

When you have a lot of, when you have the gun trucks protecting, you know, they will, they tend to be able to shoot these things down. The drones succeed against individual vehicles out on the highway. You know, and they hit them. They hit cars. They hit trucks. Most of the time, the passengers will see this and they will evacuate. They'll run. I know when our convoy came under attack, the civilian traffic in the convoy basically

hariboned out into the surrounding fields. And the cars just parked the cars and everybody jumped out of the cars and ran into the ditches and smoke cigarettes waiting to see what happened. Because the drone is going to be going after vehicles. And so most of the time when they hit these vehicles, they're empty. But, you know, if the drone's coming at you, straight at you, you're screwed. Excuse my language, but the closing speed is such you're not going to be able to make the adjustment unless you shoot it down. And that's why they put a gun truck in front of every common way with Ford facing machine guns. unless you shoot it down, it's going to hit you.

If it hits you in the front, you're going to die. So scanning in front of you is a fetal action. You need to be scanning to your left and your right and looking up. If the drone comes in out of the tree line, you know, at sort of eye level, you're screwed because you're not going to see it until it's too late and then it's going to hit you and you're going to die. The Hornet drone, however, it doesn't do that. It comes in a little bit higher.

So if you're scanning, that's why we got a little nervous when some falcons flew by because, you know, they had their wings out and were like, oh, shoot. Nope, it's just a Falcon. Don't worry about it. But look, this is a new reality. It's, this is why they canceled the trip because the highway that connects Militopo to Keroson, it was just the highway of death, literally. Cars were getting hit left and right.

No matter how much I wanted to go and how much articulated, how it was important it was for me to go there and see this, their job was my security. And they said, nah, we're done. And they made the right choice. But, you know, the thing is, you know, the other thing the Russians are doing that people don't quite understand, to launch these drones, you have to launch them from a drone command and control center. And these things don't move daily. When you set up a drone command center, you're basically digging into a forest area with cover.

and then you're laying wire to antennas that are removed. So even if they detect the signal, they're going to blow up an antenna, then you just run new wire somewhere else and put an antenna up. But you guys stay in one place. And you'll stay there for 10 to 14 days while you're doing your operations. The Russians are very good. Once the Ukrainians start flooding the zone with drones, they come in and they bring in a special unit that does Overwatch.

And basically they're doing a pattern of life. And they're just waiting for the Ukrainians to make a mistake. And you will make a mistake, whether it's drinking water from a water bottle. And instead of burying it in the ground, you know, throwing it to the side and it rolls out under the bush. And the guy's looking over says, plastic bottle. Focus in, shadow. There it is. Hit it with three to five FAB, 500 kilogram bombs and kills everybody in there.

The Russians are slaughtering Ukrainian drone operators. That's the whole thing. And so even though Ukraine's doing this right now, the battle's actually tipping in favor. of the Russians. They're killing so many Ukrainian drone operators right now that the Ukrainians are exhausting their manpower. The Russians are also developing better ways to shoot down drones. I was at a Russian drone center where they're developing the interceptor drones and those are going into mass production now. They've tested them. They go out there and they have that. So, you know, the war is always about it's going back and forth. And, you know, the month of June, the Ukrainians, of course,

as Zelensky promised, you know, went into full press mode on drones. That's about to change. The Russians, for instance, even though they had 500 drones going Moscow, the Russians are hitting the drone assembly and production points, and they're going to neutralize this. But what we have is the next wave of support coming into Ukraine. It's all about technology. The Ukrainians get the best technology in the world,

and so they will once again in a cyclical fashion get the edge, and then the Russians will have to adapt. and it's going to be back and forth. But while this is going back and forth on the battlefield, the Russians keep advancing. That's the important thing to note that all of this is a distraction. All this drone stuff, as dramatic as it is, it's just a distraction from the reality on the front line. The Russians are wiping the board with the Ukrainian army. Scott Ritter, thank you.

What a tour to force on all of these topics from Great Britain and Civil Liberties to drones, drone operators in Ukraine. Thank you, my dear man. And I'll be off for a couple of weeks. I look forward to seeing you in the middle of the month. God bless you. Okay, safe travels. Thank you, Scott. All the best.

If you're watching us live in seven minutes at 2 o'clock, Matthew Ho, at 3 o'clock, Colonel Karen Koukowski, Justin O'Pal Tano for a judging freedom.