Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter : Russian Drones Over Poland; Israeli Missiles Over Qatar.

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Scott Ritter : Russian Drones Over Poland; Israeli Missiles Over Qatar.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's an equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited. plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Tuesday, September 16th, 2025. Scott Ritter will be with us in just a moment on Charlie Ritter, on genocide in Gaza, on General Kellogg in Ukraine. But first this. While the markets are giving us whiplash, have you seen the price of gold? It's soaring. In the past 12 months, gold has risen to more than $3,000 an ounce. I'm so glad I bought my gold that's not too late for you to buy yours. The same experts that predicted gold at $3,200 an ounce, now predict gold at $4,500 or more in the next year. What's driving the price higher? Paper currencies. All around the price.

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Well, I obviously conflated Charlie Kirk and Scott Ritter, and I apologize for it. Before we get to the latest on Gaza and the latest on Ukraine, why do you think Benjamin Netanyahu had to go on international television before this person, Tyler Robinson, was even caught or identified and deny that the Israelis had murdered? Kirk? I can't. It's the kind of behavior that guilty people do or people who are worried. I think Israel's got a PR problem right now in the United States, a huge PR problem. And I think that, you know, this drives a lot of what Israel is doing. Whether or not Israel had anything to do with Charlie Kirk's, we should point out there's no evidence of that whatsoever. I mean, there's circumstantial conspiracy-laden theories out there, but there's no direct evidence that Israel played any role in Charlie Kirk's murder. But the fact of the matter is the Internet is alive with buzz about a Charlie Cook-Israel connection.

Israel right now is facing, you know, from their perspective, a very dangerous sway in public opinion here in the United States against Israel. President Trump has even commented on that. And I think that this was an effort by a desperate prime minister to do damage control. I think it failed. I mean, as you pointed out, it makes him look even more guilty. But I think Israel right now is in dire straits because of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the heavy impact that's had on Israel's reputation. And they're very concerned about American public opinion right now.

And, you know, right now there's a, it's a trend on online that Israel was behind Charlie Kirk's assassination. Before we leave Charlie Kirk, Max Blumenthal has reported about the extraordinary pressure that APAC put on Charlie Kirk by first offering him an enormous amount of money to fund. his outfit, and then when he turned them down, pressuring him, and Max reports that, obviously, before he was killed, Kirk told one of his colleagues that he couldn't stand Netanyahu, and that Netanyahu was behind the pressure being put on him. Kirk, who once supported the United States' support of Israel, no matter what Israel did, apparently in the past two years was making a slow migration to the view of recognizing this as genocide and Netanyahu was not happy with it and Kirk recognized that and didn't want

have anything to do with them. Does any of this surprise you? Again, I'm going to just be straight up honest, Judge. Prior to Charlie Kurt's assassination, he didn't register in my life at all. He is not a player in international geopolitics. He doesn't have any impact on military affairs or any of the work that I was doing. He is an influencer with great importance, and I can understand how Israel concerned about public relations would be worried of an influencer who was once very pro-Israel suddenly moving in the other direction. But I'm new to the Charlie Kirk game. It's not a game I want to be involved in. I've talked about free speech and how his murder is an affront to free speech. I believe Charlie Kirk had every right to say what he was saying, even if people disagreed with

them. But, you know, it doesn't surprise me that APAC, you know, seeks to put pressure on and influence people or try to bribe them. I at one time was offered a $6 million bribe by APAC back in the good old days of Paul Wolfowitz and company. And I turned it down and the rest is. history but um so it you know it's it's what they do for a living and it doesn't surprise me that carly kirk a man who influenced millions of uh americans and had taken a very strong stance pro israel that any gravitation away from that would be something that would get on uh israel's radar what does surprise me is the direct involvement of benjamin netanyahu uh and what that reeks of is desperation that israel is actually an absolute state of panic about what's happening to them globally

they are being isolated. Netanyahu acknowledged it. He said, we're going to have to learn how to be self-sufficient economically. I laughed because Israel will never be self-sufficient. They'll always live off the largesse of the American taxpayer. Can Hamas resist what is now apparently becoming, and if I'm incorrect on what I think is happening there, tell me, a ground invasion of Gaza City?

Hamas will slaughter the Israelis, as they always do, and the Israelis will be compelled to withdraw as they always do. They've slaughtered thousands, tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, as they always do. Israel's not going to win this war. Israel's not going to win this fight. Israel will never control Gaza's city. It will be a death trap for the Israeli army, as every other part of Gaza has become a death trap.

And it's also the burial ground of Palestinian civilians. there's an ongoing genocide as we speak. The United Nations Human Rights Commission has found this to be the case. But no, the idea that Israel is winning, no, that's not the case at all. Israel is able to go in and blow up buildings and temporarily put tanks and men on territory that they might control on the top for a moment. But as we know, Hamas is underneath waiting for the moment to come out from the ground, place their minds on the Israeli tanks and kill the Israeli soldiers inside these tanks.

How important, in your view, was the report released earlier today by the United Nations finding not only genocide, but a genocidal intent on the part of the Israeli regime? This is a horribly important, important, because now any nation, any member state of the United Nations must take action to hold Israel accountable. Now that the United Nations has labeled Israel in this manner, it's a moral obligation on the part of the member states, the United Nations, to act in accordance with the genocide convention. And that means that you begin to do, undertake measures designed to compel Israel to cease its behavior. You know, the sad fact of the matter is this isn't going to happen. The United States will work with Israel to denigrate this report, denigrate the Human Rights Commission. We already see that taking place. But this is a big deal.

Again, Benjamin Netanyahu is waking up to the reality that Israel's finished. They're isolated. the world will not gravitate back toward Israel, and it's now just a matter of time before Israel collapses from within. Economically, that's unsustainable. Israel's unsustainable without the American taxpayer dollars. If you want to come back to Charlie Kirk for a moment, watching some of the videos, one of the key drivers for many of Kirk's followers who supported Kirk's move away from Israel was the issue of America needs to start taking care of America, meaning our money needs to start taking care of America, meaning our money needs to be spent here in America.

And while we, while, you know, the Kirk's followers are saying we shouldn't, you know, attack Israel or, you know, speak out against them, it's time we stop sending money to Israel. And this is the death knell of Israel because the moment America cuts off taxpayer money to Israel, Israel's unsustainable economically. Netanyahu knows this. Is it even sustainable economically with American assistance? It's not the economy of Israel in tatters now for a variety of reasons, people taken out of their jobs and sent into the military destruction caused by the Iranian response to the Israeli attack and other excesses perpetrated on the Israeli people by the Netanyahu regime. sure but i mean that you know israel's attaching itself to an american economy that has no problem going from 37 trillion dollars in debt to 54 trillion dollars in debt um so it's just more debt um you know so it you know it as long as the united states is willing to print money

and send some of that money at prints to israel Israel will be able to hold its head above water but it's going to stink and eventually the american people are going to demand that we we cut the line. Is there any country on the planet besides the United States, Arab or not, that has the ability and the will to stop Israel from perpetrating slaughter, genocide, war crimes in Gaza? No. I mean, there's nations that have the ability, but not the will, and there's nations that have the will, like Yemen, but not the ability.

But the bottom line is, and I'm just going to be very frank here, nobody cares about Palestine. I mean, we got people in the street to do, but no nation state, no Arab state. We saw that in Doha, where the collective gathering of Arab power, together with Iran, met in Doha to talk about what to do about an Israeli attack against an Arab nation. And the answer is nothing, nothing. And they never will do anything because nobody will stand up to Israel. No single Arab nation has what it takes to stand up to Israel.

Lebanon had Hezbollah, but Hezboa now is in a submissive mode, and we see a Lebanese president, Aoun, say, no, no, no, we've got to give peace a chance with Israel. This is a president of a nation that is being occupied by Israel and bombed by Israel on a daily basis, saying, now we've got to see what the true intent of Israel is. Cowards all. Even Qatar, who was attacked, is simply looking for support, as opposed to doing what any honorable nation would be, which is to strike back. But, no, the Arab world is useless.

The Arab leadership is useless. They don't like the Palestinians. They don't support the Palestinian cause. And they've sold themselves out to the United States from, you know, a security standpoint that they're unable to break that umbilical cord. They're unable to walk away. And as a result, we have a bunch of nothing. Russia can't project power into the Middle East in a sustainable, meaningful passion,

neither can China. You know, Iran is the one nation. that could stand up and do something, but, you know, Iran is very vulnerable as well. So, you know, no, nobody will do it. As long as the United States backs Israel, Israel basically has a carbon launch to do anything it wants. If Netanyahu attacks Iran, as you and others on this program have predicted, will Iran not retaliate with the intention of, destroying the Israeli state?

That's a political decision that Iran has to make. You know, because once you cross that line, once you say, okay, we're going to destroy Israel, that means that you're going to be confronting the United States in a meaningful fashion, because the United States will not sit by idly and allow Israel to be destroyed. And the question is, can you ride the United States out? Can you survive that? And I think right now the decision in Iran is, no, we can't. And so I think that whatever Iran's response will be, they'll go for a very strong initial response, again, trying to get Israel to scream to daddy for a ceasefire.

But ultimately, I think Iran will stop short of seeking the full destruction of Israel because Iran doesn't have the assurances it needs from Russia or China or anybody else that if the United States turns on Iran, Iran will be backed up. And Iran doesn't want to find itself, you know, all alone, you know, facing the wrath of America. So I think Iran's response will be very harsh. It will be designed to create real damage and pain for Israel, but it won't be a nation-killing response because the consequences of that is having to confront the United States in an existential manner. Is the United States government even morally distinguishable? from the Netanyahu regime. Not when it comes to God, no, we are one and the same.

We are, I mean, in many ways, it's even worse because Israel, even though I don't support this, Israel can make an argument, you know, linked to October 7th, an extremist argument that many in the United States would support under similar conditions. I mean, after all, we did invade and occupy Iraq because of 9-11, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, because we made an argument about the global war on terrorism, the need to fight them over there rather than fight them here. Some convoluted nonsense of that nature.

Israel at least has the ability to try and construct some sort of creative excuse for what they do. America has no excuse whatsoever. None. And it's not just that we're supporting Israel. We're the one conceiving ideas such as ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the forcible removal, eviction of Palestinian people. and it's not done by bringing police in and, you know, like sheriff's knocking on your door and saying you've got to leave. Somebody blowing up their homes by murdering people.

They're killing scores of women and children every day. They're literally scraping the bodies of children off of the rubble, literally scraping the bodies of children off the road. And the world is not doing a damn thing. And it's America that's allowing this happen. We sent our Secretary of State to Israel to kowt to cave in, to wear the trappings of Zionism, to pray at the wailing wall, all the while Israel is committing genocide and now engaged in this military effort against Gaza. You know, America is even worse in this regard because we don't have an excuse. What will it take to change Trump's mind? I think there's no way you're going to

change Trump's mind because we're talking a multi-year process. Trump is a single-term president at this juncture and you know he's buried in his ways um you know unless israel could be confronted with an existential crisis where trump has take a decision um about you know the the resources that the united states is willing to commit to to israel you know we'll ride this genocide out again we don't have any qualms about killing palestinians we don't have any qualms about Israel bombing Yemen. We don't have any qualms about Israel bombing Damascus. We don't have any qualms about Israel bombing anybody. And so we'll let this go on because we'll never pay a price. I mean, who's going to us accountable? The only people that can hold Trump accountable

are the American voter, and they've already had their shot. He's never going to go up to the American public engagement with the midterm elections right now, but I don't think we can turn the corner on public opinion. I mean, if we could, then Brian Mass would be out of office. He's that ridiculous Florida representative who wore the uniform of the IDF to Congress to symbolize his support for Israel. He wore the uniform of a genocidal state in Congress to show his support for that state's genocide. He's also the guy that tried to get in a language of a law he's putting forward, you know, an outright violation of the First Amendment to have the Secretary of State revoked the passports of Americans who spoke out against Israel. I mean, my God, this is where we got.

So there's a long way to go before we get to Trump. We have to start evicting members of Congress from the House of Representatives. We have to start evicting senators like Ted Cruz from the Senate. And then we have to stop putting people like Donald Trump in the White House. I'm of the view that that process will begin at the midterms in 2026, but that is 14 months from now. We'll see what happens. I want your thoughts on the latest, well, before we get the General Kellogg's nonsense, what is your understanding with the kerfuffle over the drones in Poland,

where they, Ukrainian drones made to look like Russians, where they Russian drones redirected electronically, where they harmless drones? What is your understanding of something that's now known, longer in the news, but was a disputed issue right before the Kirk murder. You know, when this first started, I was going off of what the available information. What we knew is that it was drones that were physically similar to Shahid 136 or geranium twos, and that the Belarusian Ministry of Defense said that they had flown over Belarusian airspace

headed towards Poland, and they believe that the reason for this was that they were redirected by electronic warfare. It turns out that not a single one of these drones was an attack drone. None of them had, they weren't the Shahid 136 of geranium twos. They were a different kind of drone made out of styrofoam that the Russians used. The Russians will flood the airspace of Ukraine with these decoy drones that are designed to activate radars for subsequent destruction or to absorb, you know, make the Ukrainians fire anti-aircraft resources at these drones. And they're literally, they're not meant to come home. They go in there and they get destroyed or they just fall to the ground. The Ukrainians have recovered several of these

and they've put them back into service. And the Ukrainians release these drones into Poland in a premeditated, pre-coordinated action with the Polish government designed to trigger exactly what happened. Poland calling for an Article 4 meeting of NATO. We have now NATO, you know, surging poured into Poland. Poland surging troops to the border, not because they're going to go to war with Russia, but this is Ukraine's plan of getting Poland mobilized, getting NATO mobilized.

And now what's happened is the real purpose of this was to create an excuse for Ukraine now to come into Poland and begin training NATO air defense on how to engage Russian drones. Because the next step would be then to get NATO to extend its air defense umbrella

into Western Ukraine to shoot down these Russian drones. This is all the Ukrainian plan. This is 100% a setup by Ukraine and Poland. And you know who knows it? Donald Trump, because he's not falling for any of this. And you know who else knows it? NATO.

Why? Because take a look at their response. The British, two fighters. Germany, two fighters. France, three fighters. What does the fighter mean? A jet? The fighter aircraft, yeah.

I mean, it's not like they normally look at, when we were going after Venezuela, and speedboats, we put 10 F-35s into Puerto Rico. All right? Here they are going after the Russian army and their drones, 850 of them launched a day. And Germany sent two fighter jets. England sent two fighter jets and France sent three. This is an absolute joke.

It's not serious. It's just political gamesmanship. But the outcome could be serious because now Ukraine has a achieved what it wanted, getting NATO to start training on how to engage Russian drones and with that skill set to be positioned to extend that into Western Ukraine should the time come where NATO feels obligated to either protect the peacekeepers on the ground or preserve what's left of Ukraine. Wow. I want your opinion of General Kellogg's latest. This is from a few days

ago, Chris, cut number nine. If he was winning, he'd be in Kiev. If he's winning, he'd be west of the Nipa River. If he's winning, he'd be on Odessa. If he's winning, he would have changed the government. Russia is, in fact, losing this war. Now, they may make

movements and say, well, they're advancing in the Donbass region and the desk, but if you consider advancing moving by meters, not miles, well, then, okay, that's successful. But if the cost they're having, it's enormous. And I don't think people, truly appreciate it's a number but the numbers they have lost when you're

talking dead and wounded well over a million they left Afghanistan after losing 18,000 we left Vietnam after losing 65,000 they have lost over a million debt or wounded these numbers are World War II level numbers when you have when you think about it they're they're stunning in the loss and this is in and their first-line units that they came and tried to take key with a little before four years ago, those first line units are gone. So they've gone through a second or third or fourth iteration of wartime commanders. They're pulling tanks out of mothballs out of museums put on the battle line. They can't operate in large movements because the Ukrainians would kill them.

Where to start with this? First of all, he's as ignorant as the day as long. And the question is whether this is deliberate, meaning that he knows he's lying and then shame on him as a former general. And, you know, he should be shunned and even criminalized because you're as a government official and he is a government official you don't have um a writ to uh to lie or he's just stupid and um is believing with the ukrainian spoon freedom which is what i believe is the case everything he said is a flat out lie um nothing he said is true this is a war of attrition and it's the ukrainians who have lost 1.7 million dead or missing we're not even getting into the wounded because that takes the

number up over 3 million. The Russians have lost, you know, around 150,000 dead. That's a lot. And when you add in the wounded, you're probably getting up into the area of 700, 800,000 total casualties. That's a lot. But it's not what Kellogg is saying. And the vast majority of those casualties are casualties that are returned to either combat or released to service and civilian life, meaning that they're functional. They're not, you know, people that are taken off the roles altogether. Russia is winning this war. There's not a phase of this conflict that Russia is losing. And Keith Kellogg should know this, but he's too stupid to live.

I mean, that's a horrible thing to say. You know what I mean. This is a man who shouldn't be in the position is. Why Donald Trump allows this man to continue to embarrass and humiliate America in the way he does is beyond me. Because if you eliminate Keith Kellogg and you replace him with somebody who knows the truth, I'm just telling you right now, Judge, I've been to run. Russia. I've met the frontline commanders, and they're still there. I've met the battalion commanders. They're still there. The brigade commanders, they're still there. The troops,

they're still there. Are they taking tanks out of mothballs and out of museums? This is absurd. Well, they, there was, you know, when you're looking at artillery and bringing in, the Russians did go in and pull old T-55s and, you know, T-64s. And they brought them in to use them, when they mobilized the 300,000 before their defense industry kicked in, they used them as artillery. But today, the Russians, and Mark Rute, they just says it straight up. The Russians are producing thousands of tanks, brand new tanks. The formations that are coming in are equipped with all the new equipment. This is, I mean, again, Keith Kellogg literally doesn't know what he's talking about, literally, or he's straight up lying to his audience.

A problem is he gets to whisper into Donald Trump's ears, along with Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio and Pete Hagseth. It's a big problem. I mean, that's why one of the things we're trying to do here is create what I call civilian engagement teams of subject matter experts like Ray McGovern and others who will be available to supplement the information that President Trump's getting from these Russophobic idiots like Kellogg and you know, Rubio and others. You know, because if the president doesn't get the truth, then how can

he be expected to make good policy? Scott Ritter, thank you very much. Thanks for letting me go across the board on all this stuff. Much appreciated. I will look forward to seeing you again next time, my dear friend. Thank you.

Okay. Coming up, But three o'clock today on all of this, Colonel Karen Koukowski, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.