Aaron Maté : Is Kushner Netanyahu’s Agent?

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2:03What 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, March 17, 2020. Thank you very much for your time. To the breaking news of the resignation of the senior counterterrorism official in the Trump administration, I just want to read a portion of his resignation letter.

3:05The echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States and that you should strike now. There was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war, the cost our nation, the lives of thousands and our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again. Whoever thought we would hear something like that in writing from such a senior high ranking official and where is his boss, Tulsi Gabbard, on this? I pass the ball to you, my friend. Well, I'm not surprised to see this coming from Joe Kent. For people who don't know who he is, he is a U.S. Army veteran who lost his wife, the mother of his children in Syria, to an ISIS suicide bomber. And Joe Kent, ever since then, has been very critical of the permanent war state inside

4:06Washington because he partially faults them for his late wife's murder because it was in Syria that Trump ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops in his first term. And what happened? He was Trump's order was ignored by U.S. military commanders and state department officials. In fact, one state department official is senior one for Syria, bragged that essentially the officials under Trump were misleading him and basically lying to him about how many troops were there, in order to keep them inside of Syria. And so, given that Joe Kent has been critical of West Asian military interventions like in Syria, given that he bought into Trump's campaign pledges of no new foreign wars in Trump's criticism of previous interventions like in Iraq and Syria, it's no surprise to me that Joe Kent and good conscience go along with this act of deception. And he said that in a statement that he believed Trump when he campaigned on no new wars and criticized regime change operations abroad.

5:07And so therefore, Trump completely betraying that at the behest of Israel was a betrayal and Joe Kent couldn't go along with it. And now you're going to see the Israel First Crowd in Washington try to throw Joe Kent under the bus. They'll come up with anything they can to discredit him. But this is, I think, a really significant event. I can't think of a resignation at this senior level in U.S. foreign policy in many years. And then, of course, the Biden administration, where nobody anywhere near this level of seniority resigned in protest of Joe Biden's support aside. So Joe Kent doing this truly is historic. This can you put up what you just highlighted. It appears to be from Joe Kent's post and it appears to be a portion of his resignation. I just want to read that again. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing little small. There we go. The ongoing war in Iran. Listen to this. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.

6:10And it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. That crystallizes the argument, you and Max and everybody else on this show have been making well before the war started. You want to hear the president's response? Joe Kent's a nice guy, but he's weak at number 21. Well, I read his statement. I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security. I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat every country realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it. They've been a threat for a long time, but they've really been a threat.

7:12If I didn't terminate Obama's horrible deal that he made, the Iran nuclear deal, you would have had a nuclear war four years ago. You would have had nuclear holocaust and you would have had it again if we didn't bomb the site. So, when somebody is working with us that says they didn't think Iran was a threat, we don't want those people. Because, and there are some people, I guess I would say that, but they're not smart people or they're not savvy people. Iran was a tremendous threat. Well, did you know that he saved us from a nuclear war four years ago? I mean, he calls Joe Kent weak. And first of all, I mean, the idea of someone who's never served, calling someone who's put his life on the line to serve the country, calling him weak. That's ridiculous in itself. But then also, it's also a sign of weakness if you have to lie through your teeth. And now claim that if he had stayed in the Iran nuclear deal, which constricted Iran's

8:12ability to have a nuclear weapon, that there would have, that if he had not pulled out of that deal, there would have been a nuclear war. It's just so absolutely ridiculous. It doesn't even need much comment, along with all the other fake pretext that Trump has put up to justify this war. And Joe Kent pointed out the truth that what he said was specifically, Iran was not an imminent threat. There was no threat from Iran to attack U.S. forces, to attack the U.S., to attack Europe, to build a nuclear weapon, which they consistently said they do not want to have. And amazingly, you could argue that they've kept to that position at the detriment of their own security, because as many of your guests, including John Meersheimer, have long pointed out that Iran wouldn't be in this position if they had developed a nuclear weapon. But it goes against the religious edict of the former Ayatollah, who was recently murdered by Trump. And they've kept to that. And so for Trump, just to now claim that Joe Kent is weak and doesn't understand the threat from Iran, Joe Kent pointed out accurately that the only imperative driving this war was

9:18a push by Israel. It was Israel that fed Trump all the fake intelligence about Iran, supposedly threatening U.S. forces. It also Israel, by the way, that fed the U.S. intelligence that Iran was behind a plot to assassinate him. People like Tucker Carlson and Max Blumethov had been saying this for a long time, and the New York Times recently confirmed it, that the source for the supposed intelligence that Iran was behind a plot to assassinate Trump, it came from where else, but Israel. So it's Trump actually, I think, if you're a U.S. president doing the bidding of a foreign state and lying about it, I think that's the definition of weakness, and Joe Kent didn't want to go along with that. Let's put that note from Trump on the board again. This is what Trump said when he nominated Joe Kent. Presidential nomination confirmed by the Senate is my pleasure to nominate Joe Kent as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. As a soldier, Green Beret and CIA officer, Joe is hunted down terrorists and criminals his entire life. Above all, Joe knows the terrible cost of terrorism, losing his wonderful wife, Shannon, a great

10:22American hero who was killed in the fight against ISIS. Joe continues to honor her legacy by staying in the fight. Joe will help us keep America safe by eradicating all terrorists and from jihadists around the world to the car tells in our backyard congratulations, Joe. A year later, he says, I used a nice guy, didn't know him, but he's weak. I think that, that you're right. I think that's probably the tip of the iceberg. The lobbyist, John Mirsheimer calls him, will begin to dump in this guy. I don't think they can lay a glove on him because of his personal background, his personal losses, years, his career, military and intelligence. I can't think of somebody who sort of embodies the contradictions inside Trump's movement more than Joe Kent. He served the US military unlike all these chicken hawks like Mark Levin who want to send off US soldiers to die for Israel. He sacrificed his wife was killed and his wife was killed because of Neocon policies,

11:24people who sabotaged in order to withdraw US forces from Syria because Neocon's in Washington wanted to keep US forces there to keep Syria weak, unable to access its own oil and wheat because US forces were occupying the parts of Syria that contain Syria's valuable resources that can feed its people. They wanted to deprive Syria of that because they were launching, because they were conducting a regime change war in Syria in order to fracture the acts of resistance against Israel. So Joe Kent, having served, having sacrificed and having clearly opposed regime change wars, he represents the part of Trump's movement that Trump has turned his back on and has instead decided to listen to people like Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin and all these other Neocons who want to sacrifice US forces and many more people throughout West Asia. For the cause of a greater Israel. You know, the letter says everything but naming names. It's obvious who he knows these people were who fed these lies to Trump because it was

12:27probably in the room when the lies were fed. Now one wonders was his boss in that room, was Tulsi Gabbard there? Like this open floodgates of resignations from senior people? Well, listen, the fact that Tulsi Gabbard has been missing an act and ever since Trump launched this war, how long can she keep this up for? How long can she stay out of this spotlight? She campaigned even far more vocally and prominently than Joe Kent did on opposing regime change wars. She went with her voters on Trump's behalf during the campaign and said if you vote for this guy for Trump, we're not going to be in these regime change wars. When Trump killed Justin Solomani in his first term, she was against that and she was very vocal in opposing any kind of regime change war in Iran, same thing with JD Vance. Now JD Vance has, as you've covered, has offered some melee mouth. Excuse me, he says, well, okay, Trump's different than our previous president. Sure, yes, he's launched the war, but he's smart unlike our previous president.

13:30Absolutely. Lord, what does Tulsi Gabbard done? Silence. Now that whatever top deputies has resigned in protest, how long can she keep this up for? Actually, Tulsi Gabbard did break her silence, Aaron. Are you ready for this? She posted today not about Iran, but prayers for Susie Wiles for her breast cancer. A nice sentiment, but hardly that what you would expect from the director of national intelligence at a time like this, especially given that this director of national intelligence has previously affirmed the U.S. intelligence consensus that Iran does not have nuclear weapons and does not want nuclear weapons and would only develop nuclear weapons in response to unrelenting threats from the United States, which of course Trump ignored when he launched the first round of aggression against Iran last June. Wow. Moving to another topic, why is Trump starving the people of Cuba? Is it for Marco Rubio?

14:30The same forces that have encouraged Trump to go to war against Iran are also encouraging him to go to war against the people of the global south that live under governments that don't do our bidding. And so Trump, after his successful kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro, got the new Venezuelan government that he helped install under essentially a hostage situation to cut off oil deliveries to Cuba. He did the same thing to Mexico threatening them. And so yeah, Cuba is suffering as a result, which is the intention. And as we've talked about before, this policy goes back to the early 1960s. When you have State Department memo saying the goal should be cause deprivation, suffering among the Cuban people so that support for the government collapses and the state collapses. And Trump is now saying, yeah, I want to be the guy who takes over Cuba and making people suffer an extreme hardship is the only way for him to achieve that and he's seemingly very proud of it.

15:31The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now, the NBA is heating up, March Manus is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I could follow the teams I care about, get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment. The Iranian Foreign Minister has very pointedly decried Trump's use of so-called negotiations as cover for the actual attacks on Iran that happened twice as we know. I guess it's safe to assume that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his real-stay partner, Steve Whitkov, were prominent in that deception.

16:34Trump has even started saying that he went to war because of what Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkov told him. The cough has been going around saying that Iran bragged to him that we're going to make 11 nuclear bombs, which is just such a complete lie. Iran is repeatedly affirmed that it does not want nuclear weapons. I think, to the extent that the possibility of nuclear weapons was discussed, was basically Iran telling Kushner and Whitkov, we have this material, but we don't want to use it because we want the sanctions that you've been using to destroy our economy lifted. Iran enriched simply to give itself leverage in response to the U.S. increasing sanctions. And also, another reason for Iran enriching is that, look, if the U.S. and Israel were going to continue down the path of rejecting all diplomacy, then it makes perfect sense that Iran would need eventually to make a nuclear weapon. So enriching at a higher level, while still not being at the level for nuclear weapons, was Iran's way of saying, eventually, you're going to give us no choice.

17:37And especially if you attack us with nuclear weapons, which you cannot rule out with Benjamin Netanyahu, given that he has a nuclear weapons arsenal, he's prepared to use it, he threatened to use it. Iran, if it was attacked with nuclear weapons by Israel, would need to develop a nuclear weapon as a way to save itself from any further attacks to give itself some deterrent. So Iran was simply trying to develop some leverage because the U.S. and Israel have refused all other paths for diplomacy. And Wykhov then turns around and says that Iran was bragging about making a nuclear weapon. And Wykhov and Kushner, they've also been lying about claiming that, or I think they've been lying, in saying that Abbas Arachiy, the Iranian Foreign Minister, has been texting them begging for negotiations when it's very clear that it's not the case at all. I mean, I've heard from a few Iranian officials that there's been no contacts between Abbas Arachiy and Wykhov, and that makes sense. If you're Iran, and for now, twice in less than a year, Israel and the U.S. have used

18:43the rules of diplomacy to launch an act of aggression against you, including, in this latest round, when they've mass occurred, hundreds of civilians, including a bunch of schoolgirls, you're not going to have negotiations with these people, unless you can permanently guarantee that it won't happen again. And that requires establishing some deterrents, which Iran is trying to do right now by hitting U.S. military bases in the region. So Wykhov lied about what Iran said before the aggression, and they're still lying now about what Iran has said after the aggression. And the most plausible motive I can see is that Trump, despite claiming everything, would be fine and don't worry about rising energy prices. He needs to try to calm the markets. So maybe putting out there that they're trying to talk to Iran, that might be their strategy to try to drop the price of oil and calm the markets. It's not going to work. Here's Wykhov two days ago. We must also address the threat posed by Iran. Iran must never be permitted to enrich Iranian or develop any new group of Iranians.

19:48This is where I had lived. I gave off the teleprompter, and I said, I wish my 93-year-old Jewish mom from the Bronx was here because Yosee Cohen, the ex head of the Masad, just clapped for me. So just a question, Judge, that was not two days ago. That was about a year ago. Oh, all right. I thought it was recent. Yeah. But the fact that here you have Trump's top envoy for diplomacy with Iran, gushing and getting emotional, that a former head of Masad clapped for him. It tells you everything you need to know about this administration and its commitment to diplomacy. You're going to send a guy to go negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran who gets, like, reclamped when a former Israeli spy chief claps for him. That's your top negotiator. It tells you that Steve Wykhov is not working for the best interests of the U.S. or for global stability. He's working for Israel, right? He's working for Israel first.

20:48If he's going to get, if he can't even control his emotions to hide that he's touched that a former Israeli spy chief is clapping for him and that's personally meaningful for him, it tells you where his loyalty is lie. And that's why we're in the mess that we're in. And this is the guy that Trump put forward to negotiate with Iran. And he says there are also that, you know, not only can Iran not have nuclear weapons, which they've repeatedly said they don't want to have, but also Iran can't enrich. Well, then he's saying that Iran can't have what it's legally entitled to non-proliferation treaty. And he's adopting the Israel line. As he previously said once, that if Iran was enriching at the levels of the JCPOA, which is 3.67 percent, that was fine, which he retracted after a brief freak out from the war lobby and the Israel lobby in Washington. But that's Steve Wykhov. And that's why we're in the war, because we have a top U.S. diplomat who's not even in an official position, along with Jared Kushner, who are completely loyal to Israel and

21:51all of its demands. Didn't you tell me that the Kushner family is so close to Netanyahu, that sounds weird, that Netanyahu used to sleep in Kushner's bed in his family house in New Jersey? Is that true? It's not a percent correct. When Netanyahu would visit the U.S., he would sleep in Kushner's bedroom and Jared would go sleep in the basement. That's how close they are. And that's also who Trump has negotiating supposedly in the interests of the United States. I mean, it seems to me the reason why Trump put Kushner and Wykhov in these positions, again, two people who don't even have official positions, especially a Kushner, who explicitly said he was not going to return to government after Trump's first term, is because he doesn't want to make a deal. He doesn't want to make a deal. Like that's why you're sending two Israel firsters with no government positions to negotiate on your behalf, because you actually have no interest in the deal whatsoever. Here's the Iranian foreign minister saying, forget about it.

22:52We haven't asked for a ceasefire. Why would we trust a ceasefire? 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 there are 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 thinking, you know, ships and targeting different

23:58places because it is fun. He did say that, Trump, he was quoting others, but he said it approvingly, and then he laughed, and he got, I don't know, what kind of an audience he was in front of. He got the audience to laugh at the thought of an Iranian ship filled with cadets, not with weaponry, but with cadets, learning how to man a ship 160 of them dead. I also have to laugh at the spectacle of an Iranian official telling an American broadcaster what the American president said, and why is it that? I mean, you know, it tells you that Iranian officials are more up to date on what the U.S. president is saying than even a prominent U.S. journalist. But yeah, what he's saying there is, it totally tracks, if you're Iran and you've been attacked twice now in less than a year, both during periods when you're supposedly negotiating

25:00with the U.S. You can't tolerate this, and this can't continue, so if Iran's wanted to, they feel like they have to reestablish deterrence so that it doesn't happen again. So I believe him, much more than I believe anybody in the Trump administration is saying that Iran is not asking for a ceasefire. And to the extent there's any possibility of one anytime soon, Israel just made that a lot more difficult today by assassinating Ali Larajani, Iran's top security official, who's previously advocated diplomacy with Iran and come to criticism for, he's previously advocated diplomacy with the U.S. And he's taken heat for that inside the Iranian establishment for having that position. And Israel claims today that its force is assassinating him in an air strike, which I actually believe I don't think Israel would go out and say that if it wasn't true, they usually don't claim to have assassinated people at that high level, unless they are very sure that they did. So if Israel's claims are true, and I think they are, then Israel has just made an offer

26:02amp to this war, if one was even possible, a lot more unlikely, and it's clear why Trump went to war. And as was behalf, Israel told him that after he did so, the government of Rambo collapse, the people will come out in the streets and praise Trump as a hero. That hasn't happened because Iranians actually have self-respect, and they wanted to defend their sovereignty. And so given that this is not going the way Trump would like to believe it would go, Israel wanted to keep this war going. We'll do anything it can to sabotage any possible opening for peace. So that's why I think it targeted Ali Larajani today. Oh, but this is not a war. It's a special military operation. What's this? Number 23, Chris. Now if they were foreign policy priority for you, then China, and I'm Cuba, the Cuban government. Iran is just a military operation to me. Iran is something that was essentially largely over in two or three days. Does the man have any idea what he's talking about?

27:04No, I mean, this is so embarrassing and so ridiculous. He said this was, obviously, previously, a few days ago, I said this was an excursion and he said it was for regime change, not for regime change. As you've talked about, he's bragged about blowing up an Iranian naval ship that was unarmed. He's all over the place. His administration is all over the place. Marco Rubio, Mike Johnson, what are they saying initially that we had to go to war because Israel was about to go to war, and then Marco Rubio denied saying that I've never seen such incoherence and transparent falsehoods. At least the Bush administration, when they went to war against Iraq, they stayed on message. It was also all lies, but they had them. It was WMDs and said I'm working with Al Qaeda, and they stuck to that. This administration is just all over the place because they took their cues, not even relief, I think, from any coordinated interagency process, but from Israel. And so when you do that, you're going to put yourself in positions like this and Trump

28:09with a loud mouth will occasionally learn out the truth. So a few times the truth has gotten through. He said that actually we went to war because Iran has never been weaker. They weren't a threat. The U.S. perceived them to be weak, so therefore this was a good opportunity for regime change. One more clip for you, the Iranian foreign minister pretty determined a cut number 17. When we say we do not want to cease fire, it is not because we are seeking war. It is because this time, this entire conflict must be brought to a definitive conclusion in such a way that our enemies will never even contemplate the possibility of repeating these attacks and this aggression. And I firmly believe that even up to this very moment, they have already begun to absorb a very profound and lasting lesson. Profound and lasting lesson. Yeah, I think what there is deterrence, that if you continue to sabotage diplomacy, pretend to engage in diplomacy and launch these criminal acts of aggression as the U.S. and Israel

29:10have done to Iran, which started off in this round with the murder of more than 150 children. There needs to be a lesson taught so that this can happen again. And that is now Iran's goal. And they are doing this with their only forms of leverage, which is to choke off the street of Hormuz, to deny access to countries that are part of the coalition that are attacking Iran and force economic pain on them, as, by the way, the U.S. has been doing to Iran for decades. It's so funny for all the complaints from Trump and he's mad at his allies for not helping him out to reopen the street of Hormuz. So the U.S. has the right to openly sabotage cripple Iran's economy as you play the clips many times, you know, Scott Besson on down, bragging about how they've caused misery for ordinary Iranians. So the U.S. has allowed to cripple Iran's economy. And Iran in response to an active military aggression tries to cut off the global economy when it comes to the energy supplies that go through its own shoreline.

30:11This is a criminal act by Iran and it can't be tolerated. And no wonder Trump isn't getting buy-in from even his allies on this to come bail him out because he spent so much time alienating and mocking them. And he launched a war not with their help, not with their consultation, but simply by listing the Benjamin Netanyahu. So he's in trouble now and no wonder Iran doesn't want to have to deal with him anymore. Aaron Matay, thank you, my dear friend, a great conversation. As always, much appreciated. We'll look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you, Judge. Good to see you. Sure. Good to see you. Coming up, if you're watching us live in 27 minutes at 2 o'clock, Matt Ho, and at 3 o'clock Colonel Karen Kutkowski, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.