🧠 In this thought-provoking discussion, Alastair Crooke joins Judge Andrew Napolitano to break down what a Trump presidency could mean for U.S. involvement in future wars and the global balance of power. 🇺🇸🌍
Key points in this episode:
🔹 Trump’s evolving stance on war and foreign intervention
🔹 Deep State dynamics and how they shape U.S. military policy
🔹 The consequences of Trump's return for NATO, Ukraine, and the Middle East
🔹 Can Trump truly challenge the war machine?
This is a high-level conversation on truth, power, and peace — don’t miss it.
📢 Like, Comment, and Subscribe for sharp political insights every week.
#AlastairCrooke #JudgeNapolitano #TrumpAndWar #Trump2024 #USForeignPolicy #Geopolitics #DeepState #MiddleEast #UkraineWar #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #NonInterventionism #TrumpInterview #TruthAndLiberty #PoliticalAnalysis #GlobalPolitics #NATO #USMilitary #WorldAffairs #TrumpNews #LibertyMatters
Key points in this episode:
🔹 Trump’s evolving stance on war and foreign intervention
🔹 Deep State dynamics and how they shape U.S. military policy
🔹 The consequences of Trump's return for NATO, Ukraine, and the Middle East
🔹 Can Trump truly challenge the war machine?
This is a high-level conversation on truth, power, and peace — don’t miss it.
📢 Like, Comment, and Subscribe for sharp political insights every week.
#AlastairCrooke #JudgeNapolitano #TrumpAndWar #Trump2024 #USForeignPolicy #Geopolitics #DeepState #MiddleEast #UkraineWar #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #NonInterventionism #TrumpInterview #TruthAndLiberty #PoliticalAnalysis #GlobalPolitics #NATO #USMilitary #WorldAffairs #TrumpNews #LibertyMatters
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Transcription by CastingWords
00:30Transcription by CastingWords
01:00Transcription by CastingWords
01:29Transcription by CastingWords
01:59Transcription by CastingWords
02:29Transcription by CastingWords
02:59And that is present in Italy, present in Europe, present in the United States.
03:07I mean by that the sort of Catholicism perhaps as represented by JD Vance, the Vice President.
03:15There is a notable, since, if you like, Trump came into office, there has been a notable shift, a notable change in a sort of more enthusiastic move towards that type of Catholicism.
03:35And, indeed, there is now quite a movement, certainly in Italy, in that direction. Whether it will take place, how it will turn out, I don't know.
03:48One wonders if Francis' successor will be an activist in foreign affairs. Some suggested Francis, who condemned the genocide in Gaza, if he had been healthier and younger, would have, could have, should have gone to Gaza.
04:09Or one wonders if the, his successor will be more of a traditionalist. As you know, because you and I have discussed this off air many times, I'm a traditionalist.
04:22And maybe this is not the time to criticize Francis' papacy, but I just hope that the next pope is Catholic.
04:30I think, I think there is a strong, that's what I was trying to suggest. I think there's a strong push that way. Of course, there will be a countercurrent, but there is a strong push, and it is apparent throughout Europe, and I believe elsewhere, to go back to a more sort of traditional conservative.
04:53And the counter, the countercurrent will come from the College of Cardinals, half of whom it takes two-thirds vote, except in an extraordinary circumstance that doesn't appear likely to occur.
05:08It takes two-thirds of the voting members of the college to elect the new pope. We'll see what happens.
05:16Okay. You have articulated three woes confronting Donald Trump in the spring of 2025, and you articulate them as the deep state, the Israel lobby, and the debt bomb.
05:34Let's start with the debt bomb, because if they don't address this, it's not going to, they're not going to have the cash with which to fight their wars.
05:44What is the debt bomb? Do we have $9 trillion in debt that needs either to be paid or rolled over in the next year?
05:54A little bit more than $9 trillion.
05:58During the, this was really, if you like, Yellen's sort of tripwire that she left for President Trump when she left the office of Treasury Secretary.
06:10She has spent this last period turning over American debt on very, on very short-term paper, I mean, not even a proper bond, not a three or five year, but literally, you know, months long bond.
06:26And so this has been accumulating. And now there is a large wadge of debt that needs to be rolled over quite soon.
06:36And of course, it needs to be rolled over into longer term maturities, and also higher interest rates, inevitably, already the interest rates on American debt is now running at over a trillion a year.
06:53And that's likely to go up as interest rates go up. So this is going to be and the danger is that the sort of bulk of this has to be done just before the midterm elections.
07:04So we could expect that the 26 midterm elections in America. So we could expect that the turbulence and the weakness in the bond market will continue.
07:17And why I think it's so existential for him is we've seen that this turbulence continues and is really serious because it could be like 2008, where you have, there's already been rumors, you have one big player, one hedge fund or something that has made a bet on interest rates or taken a position highly leveraged and leveraged the other side with futures.
07:46It isn't paying off and it isn't paying off and they're having to sell a lot of good assets to pay off their leverage on these debts.
07:54And that these things, once people start not to believe in the collateral people or hedge funds or banks are putting down, it spreads very quickly and the thing can actually freeze up and no liquidity can happen.
08:09And then suddenly you get in the situation where for certain types of paper that is just no bid, no one bidding at all.
08:18And you're in a crisis.
08:20I know you've been critical of former Treasury Secretary Yellen, but of course, this is the Congress and each time they raised the debt ceiling and authorized the borrowing and enacted a budget with a trillion dollar shortfall was bipartisan.
08:44So it really, I don't know that anyone calculated as you have that so much of it would come due at one time, but this is really the way the government has been operating.
08:56If interest rates go up north of 5%, the government won't have the money.
09:01It'll be borrowing money in order to pay interest on borrowed money, which of course is a recipe for catastrophe.
09:08Yeah, so this is a really, this is a really major, I mean, you're absolutely right, the system has been corruptly increasing, I mean, expenditure, government expenditure has been out of control for so long.
09:25So it's not just Yellen, it's been a process that has been going on, so you're right, but it does, it is something which I think is why he's trying to hurry along, because he's trying to get all this sorted out well before the midterms.
09:39And he wants some wins, and he wants some wins, and the economic situation is not so easy to produce an immediate win, because it's so structural.
09:50It's a structural one of a devaluation of the dollar, tariffs, and bringing industry back to the United States.
09:58All of that is big structural, it doesn't happen in two weeks, it, you know, sometimes take 10 years to start new industry, manufacturing industry and bring it back.
10:10So I think, you know, this is pushing him very strong to deal with things like Iran and Ukraine, looking for a quick win, and of course, China.
10:23What is the deep state, the second of his woes in your article, what does the deep state want of him?
10:31Do they want the war in Ukraine to continue, and the United States to continue to finance it?
10:38Are they still of the illusion that they can use Ukraine as a battering ram?
10:42This is Victoria Nuland in 2014, they can use Ukraine as a battering ram with which to drive Vladimir Putin from office?
10:51Do they actually believe that?
10:53I don't think they believe it'll drive him out now.
10:57But yes, they want to keep the war going, particularly Europeans, because they are desperate.
11:03The economic situation is dire.
11:07They're really skirting the edge of bankruptcy in some countries.
11:11The UK is one of them.
11:13You remember what happened to Liz Truss, where the bond market rose up against her and she was forced out of office.
11:21They're close to that now, and same in France.
11:25Same, Germany is entering a period of fiscal crisis also.
11:30So they are desperate.
11:32And this, if you like, as this happens, Europe is fracturing, moving apart.
11:39And they're desperate about this, and the only thing that they can feel, that they can bring everyone together, is to shout about war and say, oh, Russia, Russia, this is the cause of all the problems, to deflect the blame from themselves, because there is a rising tide of protests that will eventually drive them out of office.
12:02And they're aware of that, and so this is their answer to it, is to cry war and make people afraid, as a means to try and sort of keep some sort of unity.
12:14Otherwise, the European Union as a project is just not going to continue, because there's nothing else that's holding it together.
12:23There are deep divisions within Europe already, deep divisions within NATO.
12:28They talk about the coalition for this war, and how many people are in it.
12:33Three states, France, Britain, and Denmark at the moment.
12:37I mean, is that a coalition that's going to take on Russia?
12:41It's going to support Ukraine?
12:43I mean, it's fantastical, but this is the message.
12:49So the deep state, but we're talking about really it's as much the European deep state in coordination with the American one.
12:57Both of them have a shared objective in undermining Trump's projects.
13:03That is the main aim, is to undermine any normalization with Russia.
13:09And that is an American deep state interest as much as it's a European deep state interest.
13:15Perhaps even more.
13:17Given your extraordinary understanding of the intelligence communities in the West, MI6 and CIA,
13:27do you think that Trump, via John Ratcliffe, the director of CIA, and Tulsi Gabbard, his boss, the director of national intelligence,
13:38can control the American intelligence community?
13:42Or will it drive him crazy as it did, not literally crazy, but, you know, make his life miserable as it did in his first term?
13:52Well, yes, I think they can do, and there are many ways of doing it.
13:58And I just hinted at one of the things that's going on is that, you know, that there is a lot of selling of U.S. treasuries.
14:06And although people point the finger, it's not China that actually is selling treasuries at the moment.
14:12It's coming out of Europe, probably out of London.
14:15I don't know where, you can't tell, but it is certainly coming out of Europe because you see the very obvious signs of it,
14:23because, you know, tariffs are being imposed in Europe, and you'd expect the euro to devalue by the equivalent of 10% of the tariffs,
14:32instead of which it's risen by 9%.
14:35It means that someone in Europe is selling a lot of treasuries and reinvesting the money in euros that have driven it up so much.
14:43So you can see that, I mean, I don't know who's behind it.
14:47I don't know their motives precisely, but it is quite likely this is part of an effort to derail the Trump project as a whole.
14:57Jointly coordinated between, if you like, that part of the deep state, particularly in London and in Washington, too.
15:10And so they don't like that.
15:12And the other part, which is not quite the same, but those that are fiercely protective of Israel,
15:23if you like, those that are either supportive of Israel or Zionism,
15:32the, if you like, the institutional Jewish leadership, which lends, gives complete support, both in Europe and in America, to Israel,
15:42are intent, too, on preserving Israel.
15:49And Israel is in terrible straits at the moment.
15:52There's infighting across, between the security services within the political level.
16:00You have two prime ministers recently, two recent prime ministers, Ehud Barak and Omad,
16:07who both said, we are at the brink.
16:10Israel is literally at the brink.
16:1360% of Israelis say they expect civil war, the Mary Paul says.
16:20But Omad and Ehud Barak are saying, you know, the thing, it's going to break.
16:27It's going to break.
16:30Netanyahu may go or whatever, but Israel is stretched to the limits.
16:37And it will end up in internal violence.
16:41Can Donald Trump say no to the Israel lobby?
16:46Has he already said no to Prime Minister Netanyahu on bombing Iran?
16:56First of all, that's what the Israelis say, that there was a plan and it was postponed, not that he said no plan.
17:07But where it stands at the moment is very uncertain.
17:13From my soundings since about Saturday, it seems that Iran has, despite the sort of language of, you know,
17:26we're quite confident it's been good, the meeting, Iran has serious doubts about U.S. motives.
17:36And they said that, Arachi said that directly to Putin when he went to Moscow,
17:40carrying a message from the supreme leader to President Putin.
17:46And he said, in our indirect talks with the U.S., we receive contradictory and conflicting messages from the American side.
17:55Whatever their intentions, objectives may be, that's their concern.
18:01But we, at the moment, what is formally communicated at the negotiating table is what matters at the moment.
18:09But none of that was cleared up on this last Saturday, for yesterday.
18:15It wasn't cleared up.
18:16So the Iranians don't know.
18:19And they don't know what Trump means, because it goes, it's much deeper than just, you know, the about term that we had from Whitcoff.
18:29I think others have commented on it, but when he turned away from saying capping, if you like, enrichment, to saying that the enrichment must be completely eliminated, must be removed.
18:46And so the Iranians are not only puzzled, but they don't know what is Trump's vision for the Middle East.
18:58He talks about having a grand vision for the Middle East.
19:02And it's not clear what it is.
19:05He talks about it as sort of creating peace.
19:08He wants to be a peacemaker.
19:10But we don't know what it is, because, you know, we see it in parts.
19:15When we look at the Gaza part, when we look at Yemen, when we look at Syria, you know, what you see is a sort of reorganization of power and demography.
19:28To certain power brokers, sort of a resetting of power, a deal, but not peace.
19:37And where does Iran fit into that if the ideal is to get a sort of neutered Iran, a neutered, if you like, region that is subservient to the tutelage of Israel?
19:54We don't know if that is his thing.
19:57Maybe he doesn't want to go that far.
19:59Maybe he doesn't.
20:00But what I would say to you, basically, I think, and this is, I mean, I think probably reflected by the Iranians when you speak to them,
20:10the Israeli, you know, to a warmed up Obama, JCPOA is not going to be a big win for Trump.
20:21It is going to be seen across much of Washington as a loss, as a failure.
20:27And so where does that go to take things?
20:31So it's complicated the sort of sense.
20:34The Iranians look at that New York Times article.
20:37They don't believe the first part of it about they think this is just a peg, the part about how Trump stopped the talk.
20:46They don't know who leaked what.
20:48They think the main part of the New York Times article, the reason for it, was to be able to put forward the narrative that Iran has no air defenses.
21:00It has.
21:01It's weak.
21:02It's not capable of defending itself.
21:05It is vulnerable, staggeringly vulnerable.
21:09Well, we know that that is not true.
21:12According to the record, they have better air defenses than the United States has.
21:17I want to play President Trump on this very topic, Alistair, on Good Friday.
21:25So just three days ago.
21:27Chris, cut number three.
21:28On Iran, would you be open to letting Iran keep some kind of civil nuclear program?
21:33Or would the entire program need to be dismantled?
21:35I'm for stopping Iran very simply from having a nuclear weapon.
21:40They can't have a nuclear weapon.
21:41I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.
21:45But with Iran, with Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon.
21:50And if they have a nuclear weapon, you'll all be very unhappy.
21:55You'll all be very unhappy.
21:57Have you spoken with Xi?
21:58Your life will be a great day.
22:00Do comments like that move the ball, so to speak?
22:07Do they help negotiating?
22:10Or are they just intended to gin up his base here?
22:14I think it is for the domestic American audience, particularly the Hawks, who are part of his team.
22:25That is the key thing.
22:26We know the team is divided.
22:29We know that Whitcoff is rather isolated here on this issue as he is on Ukraine.
22:35And so I think it's mostly for, because, you know, what he's saying, and they can't have a nuclear program, if you go back, why it's so neuralgic for the Iranians, is because I remember at the time that just before the deal was being agreed in 2015, I went and talked to the Iranian nationals, some of the colleagues, National Security Council.
23:04And I said to them, you know, the biggest problem in this whole of getting to a deal was the fact that the RAND organization, which was regarded as being the, you know, the authority on nuclear war and matters nuclear at that time.
23:23And there was one man, I forget his name now, but he was sort of dominant in this.
23:28And he held in Washington, the view that any enrichment automatically meant the path to a weapon.
23:37It was impossible to say, here is a stop, here is a limit, here is a cap.
23:43Because once you start down the road to enrichment, he said, the automatic process takes you through to a weapon.
23:53And there's no way you can really stop that in a physical sense.
23:59And so that was dominant at the time.
24:01And then when we hear Whitcoff going back and saying that same language, that enrichment must be eliminated.
24:10And also when we hear talk about the missiles, because this is the second half of it is they mustn't have a delivery system for a weapon.
24:19They cannot have the weapon and they cannot have the path to a weapon, which is enrichment, and then the weapon system.
24:27And what Iran says quite straightforwardly on this, and they say, look, you know, we've had two of these meetings where we just have set out the headings of some headings of discussion.
24:43We have no idea what and if America is going to introduce, you know, another demand, that they've got to know our missile system and have to have monitoring in case we should move towards having a missile system that's capable of delivering a weapon.
25:03So that's why I say that their view is that they have serious doubts and they don't know which way it will go.
25:11They know they know that one part of the team in Washington, Trump's team, you know, wants a neutered Iran.
25:21I mean, what does this mean?
25:24As I say, you know, he wants, he says he wants to have a new vision for the Middle East, industrially quiet.
25:35And it's obviously about the Abrahamic courts and the idea of having everybody normalize with Israel.
25:46Well, what stands out, of course, is Iran.
25:48And Iran is a big power, 5,000-year-old civilization, you know, against Gulf states that are, you know, 50 years old and don't have that same debt.
26:00Do you find it peculiar, Alistair, that every time President Trump or Secretary Rubio or Secretary Hegseth say the same thing,
26:12Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, it cannot have a nuclear weapon, no one in the audience says, well, why is it that Israel can?
26:21No one ever says that.
26:26No one will have the courage to get up and say that.
26:29No, they won't say that.
26:30And so, you know, and what I see, I mean, I'm putting it all together.
26:36I do think that there is something in Trump, he does have some sort of idea that he wants to make a revolution, to have a new world order.
26:49But, you know, what's happened is the strategic underpinnings to that are not there.
26:54When you look at, you know, what they produced in Paris, the team in which Kellogg was there and Whitcock and Rubio, and they put on a proposal which was ridiculous.
27:07I mean, you know, I mean, it was just Kellogg's proposal of April last year, and which is quite clearly not acceptable either to Russia or to Ukraine, but certainly not to Russia.
27:22I mean, what is the point of that?
27:24And then Rubio says, well, you know, you've got a few days left, not months, but a few days.
27:29If you don't accept that, we'll walk away.
27:32Well, maybe that's what Trump wants.
27:34He wants to say, he prefers to disown it and get out and leave it behind.
27:40But then where is this win coming from that he needs a win?
27:44It's not looking so good on the economic front and the tariff front at the moment, but on Ukraine, I mean, the proposal from Kellogg is really just not very bright at all.
28:01He doesn't seem to be very sort of alert to what people are saying.
28:07And then on Iran, as I say, the question is, you know, if the best he can do is to go back and say, oh, look what I've done.
28:19We're going on our way to agreeing a warmed up Obama JCPOA.
28:24There will be a big, you know, thumbs down all around Washington and not just, you know, not just a few.
28:34It will be the institutional leadership of the of the Jewish community.
28:38But it will also be many Republicans who are not who will say, no, we can't.
28:44We believe it's gone very adverse to allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
28:51But he's boxed in because the only way of stopping a nuclear weapon is doing something that it is not imaginable.
29:01Just to put it very plain, it is not imaginable that we will see Iran, if you like, deconstruct, blow up, dismantle, destroy its centrifuges, which is spent 20 years building.
29:16It's not likely they'll ever allow anyone to inspect their missiles.
29:20It's not possible that they will allow someone, if you like, to really stop that process.
29:29If you say, can we go back to something like the JCPOA?
29:33They would say, yes, but we want a better one.
29:36We want sanctions really removed.
29:39Right.
29:39If it's going to happen, I think the, you know, I think that Trump has, you know, there's not Trump particularly, but there's not a strategic thinking about where this is going to put the United States in this coming period, where it's going to corner the United States increasingly on undeliverable outcome,
30:07which is going to get, you know, which is going to get, you know, a raspberry across Washington and in Israel particularly, or else they'll have to resort to some sort of war.
30:19And the question there is, I imagine that Gabbard and others know pretty well that, you know, that New York Times hype about Iran having no air defenses is not true.
30:33But do they understand just how sophisticated those defenses are, how potent the missile systems Iran has?
30:42I hope so, because otherwise they might make some very strategic errors in judgment.
30:49Alistair Crook, thank you, my dear friend.
30:51Fascinating conversation, as always.
30:54All the best to you.
30:56We'll look forward to seeing you again next week.
30:59Thank you very much, Judge.
31:01Of course.
31:02Coming up later today at 10 o'clock this morning, Ray McGovern at 1130 this morning, Larry Johnson at 3 this afternoon, Scott Ritter, and at 4 this afternoon from Rome, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.
31:15Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.