[Music] [Music] hi everyone Judge Andrew Npalitano here for a judging freedom welcome to this special Sunday edition sunday June 22nd 2025 of Judging Freedom with Scott Ritter before uh Scott and I begin our conversation as to what the president of the United States ordered in the military carried out last night and this morning in Iran uh a brief statement from me what the president of the United States did was profoundly unconstitutional absolutely unlawful was an impeachable offense and was a war crime under our Constitution only the Congress can declare war not the president and Congress can only declare war on a country that poses an immediate and grave military threat to the United States of America president Trump has started a war with Iran which poses no threat let alone immediate or grave whatsoever to the national security of the United States of America under an unconstitutional statute but still the law the War Powers Resolution the president is required to give notice to Congress and give Congress an opportunity to respond before he attacks a foreign country he can carry out the response but he has to tell Congress and give Congress an opportunity to respond he not only ignored the Constitution he ignored that law as unconstitutional as it is it hasn't been tested by the courts it is still the law the president ignored it killing people and destroying property in another country without a just cause is a war crime it is the moral and legal equivalent of a high crime and misdemeanor it is an impeachable offense and it is time for the American public and the Congress to do something about it now to the military aspects of all of this scott what did the United States military do last night and this morning in Iran well what they did is carry out an an illegal war of aggression um it's a it's a war crime it's not just a war crime judge Jackson uh from the Nerburgg trial period lead prosecutor of the Nazi war criminals um you know asserted that uh a war of aggression is the ultimate war crime because from this war of aggression all other crimes emanate this is what we did i don't know why Americans are proud of this this is an act of perity a surprise attack an undeclared uh act of aggression that had no foundation in justification again to justify something like this uh which is the equivalent of what we would say a preemptive um you know a a preemptive act of self-defense there needs to be an imminent threat an imminent threat that can only be dealt with through this act of aggression um Iran was in the process of negotiations that would uh resolve all of the issues that could be perceived as a threat so there is no imminent threat uh moreover we know that the sites that had been targeted three nuclear sites Isvahan uh Natans and Faux uh were empty that these strikes would have zero impact on uh an Iranian nuclear program that had long since been evacuated from these sites and sent to other locations it's come out that this strike plan um which was done in cooperation with Israel um was something that had been planned u more than a year ago and actually been practiced by the United States and Israel uh so this was a you know a pre-planned strike against three designated sites that had no military value so this is purely an act of theater and any military commander that put American lives at risk to carry out an act of political theater should you know literally uh have their commissions revoked and be um drumed out of the service there was no justification for this but moreover the the the attacks didn't even accomplish what they claimed to have accomplished we had one B2 bomber drop two u GBU57s on the Natan's facility what is that what is the GBU57 is that one of these 32,000 lb monsters correct they're the the the massive ordinance penetrator uh weapon that only the B2 can carry and it's you know upon the shoulders of this weapon that the the United States has based its hopes of interdicting Iran's nuclear program um but Natans had been struck at least twice and probably three times by the Israelis uh prior to this attack um and whatever was in the tons uh that you know centrifuges etc um of of value had long since been evacuated people should understand that Natans is the principal home of centuge cascades of the oldest type the IR1 centuge which is a very inefficient centuge that Iran had long since replaced with these more modern centures that are in fore so to strike Natans doesn't put back the Iranian program at all and anything of value in that program had been evacuated so we put a B2 bomber over a target to drop two very large bombs that accomplished nothing they literally put two additional holes in the ground of a piece of terrain that had no military scientific or meaningful value it was purely a political act the same with Isvahan we fired 30 cruise missiles into the Isvahan nuclear complex it appears that even the US government is admitting that these missiles didn't accomplish uh the level of destruction that they were hoping to that the the Isan facility was deeper underground and and more protected so in normal circumstances and this dates back to my time as a battle damage assessment officer during the uh the first Gulf War this would be immediate reattack um which means that because we initiated this that there was legitimate military purpose to this attack we would have to reattack to achieve those objectives it appears though that Donald Trump says "No we're done we're willing to be done with this." Which means again this wasn't about achieving anything meaningfully militarily um meaningful on the ground this was an act of pure politics uh and then we get to Ferdo the uh the the crown jewel of the three targets uh uh a facility that's you know 90 uh meters or 90 feet underground 100 feet underground but that's you know street level measuring what they're not counting are the ridges above uh the facility that make it even three or four times deeper than this uh we struck with six B2 bombers each of which carry two of these uh massive ordinance penetrators and the best that we could accomplish is that we did damage to one entrance and one exit of a facility that has five exits um we didn't do damage to the hall we didn't penetrate um but even more critical is that we know the facility was evacuated there is satellite imagery that shows on June 18th and 19th the Iranians have brought up trucks to remove the high value centrifuges that were stored for though and these centrifuges have been moved to other facilities around Iran that we don't know about together with uh the totality of Iran's enriched uranium you know that 60% uranium that everybody says could be converted into a bomb in three to five days we didn't destroy that that's all moved so these attacks accomplished nothing in terms of retarding or limiting Iran's um nuclear enrichment program these attacks were purely an act of political theater for a president who's desperate to be seen as being a decisive leader but all he showed was American impotence the Secretary of State referred to the planning of the operation as brilliant now the plan must have begun in the Biden administration could something like this have been planned since Donald Trump became president and Pete Hegsth became Secretary of Defense well I mean in theory it could but the fact is this uh this attack has been rehearsed by the United States and Israel u during the Biden administration indeed in the summer of 2023 and I believe again in 2024 there were joint exercises carried out where the United States flew B2 bombers from uh Whitman Air Force Base uh into the theater of operations to carry out uh rehearsals with the Israelis it should be pointed out that according to the Iranian timeline this was a an attack that was not just coordinated with the Israelis but the Israelis participated in this meaning that the Israelis had resources and assets that were uh linked to this uh drones and and fighter aircraft that were operated over parts of uh Iran as um you know in in supporting operations so this wasn't a purely American attack this was done in concert with the Israelis part of a plan that had been conceived during the Biden administration and rehearsed at least twice during the Biden administration was this brilliant as Sah Seth claimed was there any anything brilliant about this well I don't want to um I will never denigrate the the professionalism of the American personnel involved i mean to have a B2 bomber fly uh a mission of this length requires tremendous uh skill uh the the refueling operations are technically uh difficult they accomplish these uh the flight parameters to get into Iran uh without being detected to drop these bombs all points to extreme professionalism but you know that doesn't make this attack brilliant anytime you use American military power there has to be a legitimate reason for the application of force um and here there is no legitimate reason uh there can this cannot be called brilliance is the exact opposite this is a disaster this is a manifestation of all that's wrong with America today where the United States military allowed it to be used for an act of political violence political terrorism a war crime this is a war crime there's no doubting this there's no defending this this is an act of aggression without any legitimacy not only in terms of lacking domestic approval from the Congress but also under international law and people scoff at international law but I do want to remind Judge you can correct me if I'm wrong but um you know that the the United Nations Charter an international treaty was ratified by the United States Senate and therefore under our own constitution becomes the law of the land yes and we are and and who wrote the United Nations Charter we did we did and we signed it israel signed it iran signed it it prohibits this kind of an attack absolutely against a fellow signatory of the charter without going to the UN first trump went to no one trump sat in a windowless room and listened to a halfozen people tell him what they thought he wanted to hear and that's how he made the decision 100% and this is you know again this is a political act this has you you asked me to speak about the military aspects of this but other than the application of force there is no military value to this in fact uh the president has put at risk tens of thousands of Americans for this political act um where are the Americans who are at risk Scott and who are they well there there's tens of thousands of American service members who are deployed throughout the region in Saudi Arabia you know in uh Ger uh in uh United Arab Emirates in Kuwait in Bahrain um these are these are Americans who you know have taken an oath to serve their country have been deployed abroad ostensibly to do that service and now have had their lives put at risk there's Americans in Iraq Americans in Syria that also fall under Americans in Turkey um basically anybody in the region uh life is now at risk through a retaliation uh potential from from Iran a real potential i mean this isn't theoretical the Iranians have already demonstrated when they attacked al-Assad air base after the assassination of Kasumsulammani that they have the real potential of hitting bases decisively in a manner that can u that can result in casualties significant casualties so here the president has put American lives at risk so that he can stand before the American people and speak absurdly uh pontificate about things that didn't happen this was not a decisive action he did not destroy Ferdo this wasn't a brilliant strike uh this was a national embarrassment what do you uh expect the international reaction would be i'll give you a menu and you can go wherever you want russia China India Pakistan well first of all we have to realize that the United States is a rogue nation right now that we are operating outside the framework of international law uh I want to remind people that back in February of February 4th of 2022 Vladimir Putin flew to Beijing to meet with Xi Jinping on the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics and the two of them published a 5,000word joint document in which they said that the rules-based international order that serves as the foundation of how America interacts with the world is a problem and that Russia and China reject this and uh they are going to counter with the lawbased international order that's premised on the charter of the United Nations and this is a major commitment by them and much of the rest of the world uh seeks to adhere to the United Nations charter this framework of international law so all of the nations that you uh you mentioned I believe will be working to ensure that America's gross act of irresponsibility and illegality doesn't destroy this framework of international law and I think you'll be seeing the Russians and the Chinese moving to isolate the United States uh at the Security Council at the United Nations Pakistan doing the same thing this doesn't mean that they can't provide assistance to uh to Iran and they are going to provide assistance to Iran but I believe that all of these nations will be working to prevent um an escalation a dangerous escalation of this conflict i think the goal right now is to isolate the United States and keep the United States from re-engaging militarily while uh allowing Iran to continue its lawful retaliation against Israel remember Israel initiated this by carrying out an unlawful illegal uh surprise attack with no justification israel hasn't even tried to co you know uh to to to you know make cognable an argument under article 51 preeminent self-defense they haven't done that because they can't do that right um because any imminent threat was uh is nullified by the fact that the Iranians were actively in negotiations dealing with the very issue at hand iran however has gone to the United Nations has said that they will they will defend themselves and Iran's you know legitimacy of carrying out these strikes against Israel continue until which time Israel stops striking Iran um it is literally the more Israel bombs Iran the more legitimate Iran's retaliation becomes so I think what we're going to see is the international community working to contain this problem already you see the United States reaching out to China asking for Chinese intervention to keep the Iranians from shutting down the straight of Hormuz uh whether or not China acts on that I don't know but um the point is you see the Iranian foreign minister flying to Russia to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin um I think the Iranians will hold off on any precipitous act until they have touched base with all of their supporters and I do believe that Iran will remain consistent to international law and not seek to act in a manner which while may be justifiable from an emotional standpoint um would not be um allowed under international for instance for Iran to strike Saudi Arabia today um is not something that would be permitted because the American forces deployed in Saudi Arabia did not participate in this attack and Saudi Arabia has condemned this so I don't for the people that think that Iran's going to come out and lash out irresponsibly I don't see that happening i what I believe Iran will do is continue to operate within the framework of international law uh working to isolate the United States and keep the focus on where it belongs which is the criminal actions of Israel what is the uh extent of damage that Iran has caused in Israel which the uh Netanyahu regime is keeping from the West and from all media well the fact is we don't know exactly because of right because of because they're keeping it from us what do you think though just from the nature of your understanding of the uh destructive power uh of the projectiles that have been launched and of the weakening power of their so-called Iron Dome well we also have to emphas emphasize the accuracy of these missiles meaning that when you launch a missile with destructive power there's a difference between landing in a u you know civilian population area and hitting a target of military or economic value and the Iranians are using weapons that have a high degree of accuracy they're targeting military target this isn't me speaking i mean I I know people are out there going "Well Scott you're just a tool of this that and the other thing." This this statement actually comes from a the former head of an Israeli intelligence unit unit 8200 who has said that you know we the Israelis are trying to you know paint the Iranians as animals as beasts um but he said the fact is they're a a very capable modern state who's behaving properly in the targeting of Israel that their targets are exclusively military in nature or related to you know legitimate national security um you know targetable sites this is a a senior Israeli official saying this and that's the reality iran is doing horrific damage to the Israelis these strikes are very accurate uh they're they're they're you know inflicting a tremendous amount of damage on Israel and Israel is a small nation unable to absorb this damage and so if this conflict continues you're going to see Israel face the reality that uh its ability to sustain a functionality as a viable nation state is being eroded by um an Iranian uh you retaliatory capacity that doesn't seem to have a bottom moreover you speak of the Iron Dome you know I hear people say "Well uh Israel will become defenseless in several days when they run out of interceptor missiles." Judge Israel's defenseless now they have all the interceptor missiles they need right now on a daily basis and they're backed up by the United States uh they haven't run out of missiles yet they're firing why Why are they defenseless if they have not run out of missiles explain please because the Iron Dome doesn't work it it can't defend against a modern missile threat i mean and I I say this not only to point out the the fact that Iron Dome isn't working but you know those Americans who listen to the president when he briefs on the Golden Dome you know an American ballistic missile defense shield I'm here to tell you right now many of the technologies that would be incorporated in that are incorporated by the United States into Israel's ballistic missile defense shield and they aren't stopping this and the Iranian missiles while they're very good don't compete with Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles in terms of technology lethality this missile defense is a sham it's a joke it's uh it's a scam and and it's played out daily by the Iranians firing missiles specifically designed to defeat the missile shield that Israel and the United States have erected wow i have to stop for just a moment and point out that nearly 49,000 people are watching us live putting that in perspective that's more people than could fit inside of Yankee Stadium here uh in New York City uh thank you very much for we're going to continue but thank you very much for the size of this audience thank you for watching us please subscribe and please uh and please like how wrongheaded how boneheaded from a military perspective was it to do all of this and what do you think it cost they sent some very heavy planes flying westward outside of California as a decoy they had all this military equipment bombing Iran according to you and your sources all they did was make some holes in the desert what did it cost i mean something like this i I can't give you the exact figure judge because I I don't have it at my fingertips and I'm not smart enough to retain that in my brain housing group on a permanent basis um but you know they they they burn gas um there's there's you know every flight hour of a B2 bomber has a price tag attached to it uh this was a very lengthy flight um you know so you know we're talking about something you know we know that they fired 30 cruise missiles the price tag of a cruise missile is different remember because you have to be thinking not just about the cost of the missile that we fired um but the replacement cost and this is like buying gold uh you know you can buy gold a year ago and and pay you know 2,000 something for an ounce but if you buy it today you're paying 3,400 it costs more right and so we're we're throwing around golden coins and we have to reby them to replenish the stocks you know this is a strike that I believe when the total price tag is uh is farmed out will it'll touch upon a hund00 million uh for for just this strike maybe more um you know but again it accomplished nothing uh it it it actually did worse than accomplished nothing it's pushed America in a bind as I mentioned judge militarily speaking failure to achieve the desired destruction at a given site requires a restrike um here's the problem when when the president who has announced that Ferdo was destroyed mass I can't remember the exact words he used he used the word totally obliterated that was totally obliterated now I may be a simple marine and obliterate it has one too many syllables for me to normally process but the the the fact is to me it means that you've sort of taken it out right it doesn't exist anymore and foto ferto is the exact opposite of that it is not obliterated what happens when this reality becomes clear what happens when the Iranians take TV crews in there and show the world that the president's words are empty that peak heads has failed to deliver on his promise that Marco Rubio his brilliant plan is collapsed what does this narcissist egoomaniac do in that does he restrike does he say we're going to bomb again um and knowing that the weapon the best weapon he had six B2 bombers or Yeah with 12 massive ordinance uh penetrators didn't do the job does he use nuclear weapons now um I mean this is literally uh one of We're in a very dangerous situation and now what happens when the reality that this claims he made about destroying the Iranian nuclear program he hasn't destroyed anything it's been evacuated it is in hiding and we don't know where it is and we don't know how to find it what does he do now does he say "I'm going to bomb you into oblivion until you declare the totality of your program and subject it to international inspections." And what weapons does he use we don't have an infinite number of these weapons at what point in time does this become a nuclear problem for the United States we have crossed the Rubicon this is a very dangerous path that we are uh undertaking and we don't have good leaders we don't have good leaders making sound decisions and the proof of that is the decision they make to support this act of insanity last question what do you think Iran will do in the next week or so iran so far has behaved responsibly uh they've acted within the four corners of international law and they haven't done anything precipitously iran has a campaign plan that has been in the works for decades that they're implementing right now to break the back of Israel um so logically speaking you would expect Iran to stay with this plan not to allow themselves to be uh deviated much like we talk about Russia and Ukraine how there are acts that the Ukrainians carry out acts that are designed to get Russia to overreact um I believe you know there's a temptation now for the Iranians to overreact but and I can't say that they're not going to do that but the fact that their foreign minister is flying to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin is indicative of the reality that they are looking to craft an international coalition to isolate the United States and that their their best vehicle for this is international law so I I see Iran not striking out against American bases now of course we're going to end this program and we'll see that the Iranians have hit the American bases and everybody will say that Scott Ritter is an idiot this is the danger of doing you know doing a prognosis live on TV with incomplete information but my gut feeling is that Iran knows that they're playing a winning hand against Israel and that ultimately they will want to continue to play that hand and they will work with their allies to uh take care of the American problem to get America away from this and I'll say something that uh gives me some hope i believe Iran understands the consequences of their actions uh that if they if they do something that the United States is capable of hitting them very hard so they want to prevent that but Iran also understands that Israel's nuclear program is a long-term threat one of the things that came out of this action is that Dmitri Midv the the former Russian president former Russian prime minister current deputy of the National Security Council in Russia has talked about for the first time publicly uh Israel's nuclear program and the incompatibility of that program with international norms and standards by attacking Iran's nuclear sites the way the United States did there will be there should be a massive backlash in terms of the damage the United States has done to the nuclear non-prololiferation regime i believe the International Atomic Energy Agency will have no choice but to issue statements condemning the American action and what we could see if especially if Israel's back is broken is that one of the results of this tragic set of events is that when the dust settles Israel will be compelled to turn its program over to international inspections because Israel will have been identified as being incompatible with the very international law that Russia China and others have said is the foundation of how they want to go forward in a global geopolitical sense did you uh detect in former Russian President Medbedv's tone and do you conclude from that and the arrival of the Iranian foreign minister in Moscow uh a feeling that Moscow is going to provide some kind of military aid to Iran the Iranians have been very careful here if you remember Vladimir Putin has spoken about this um just a few days ago where he spoke about the um the the the the security framework agreement that had been signed between the two nations he said there's no um you know military treaty obligations here and that was because of Iran right the reason why they did that let me just make it clear had Iran signed a military agreement with the Russians this war would be over because as Vladimir Putin said yesterday Israel he said uh a significant percentage of the population speak Russian he said Israel in many extents is an extension of Russia so imagine now that you're the Russian president you have a military agreement with Iran israel has attacked Iran and now Iran is retaliating as it's allowed to do but doing significant harm to a nation that Russian identifies as an extension of Russia there would be immediate Russian diplomatic intervention and the Iranians would never be able to complete their mission so this is why the Iranians didn't get involved in an entangling alliance because some people say well that would strengthen Iran's hands from the Iranian perspective it actually weakens their hand they are free now they have freedom of action to continue this operation without any uh treaty linked obligation to you know uh respect Russian diplomacy and Russian diplomatic interventions etc uh a a security alliance with Russia would have been very limiting to Iran right now Iran is actually a stronger nation because they don't have such an alliance wow uh Scott I want you to know that there are 62,000 people watching us right now this is far and away the largest live audience that Judging Freedom has ever had i realize it's a Sunday at lunchtime here in the east coast of the United States but to all of you watching now thank you very much you've just seen a terrific military uh geopolitical analysis of the mess uh that the United States has commenced uh in Iran write and call your member of Congress tell Congress to reassert itself under the Constitution only Congress can declare war only Congress can initiate and authorize this kind of an attack the president can't do it on its own whether you're represented by a liberal Democrat a conservative Republican a progressive a libertarian whatever they may be remind them of Congress's role under the Constitution scotty thank you very much we look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow afternoon deeply appreciate it i hope you can go back and enjoy Sunday afternoon with your family thank you Scott thank you very much thanks for having me of course and again my dear friends thank you so much for uh watching please like and please subscribe and like like and subscribe i'm not sure in what order you uh do that coming up tomorrow Monday on all of this at 8 in the morning Alistair Crook at 10 in the morning Ray McGovern at 11:30 in the morning Larry Johnson and in the afternoon watch for the times scott Ritter and Pepe Escobar Pepe from Moscow judge Npalitano for judging freedom [Music] [Music]