🕵️♂️ What’s really driving U.S. involvement in Yemen?
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, dives deep into the truth behind America’s role in the Yemen conflict — and what the media refuses to question. 🧠
💥 Is this about national security… or global control?
💰 What role do arms deals, oil routes, and alliances with Saudi Arabia really play?
⚠️ And why is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises being ignored?
🎯 Wilkerson offers a brutally honest, insider view into Washington's war machine — unfiltered and urgent.
🔔 Watch now, comment below, and subscribe for bold truth in a world full of spin.
#LawrenceWilkerson #YemenWar #USForeignPolicy #MiddleEastConflicts #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #HumanitarianCrisis #SaudiUSAlliance #Geopolitics #TruthUnfiltered #WashingtonInsiders #DeepState #YemenCrisis #OilPolitics #WarEconomy #DefenseContractors #USInYemen #GlobalConflicts #RealTalk #WarForProfit #ColonelWilkerson
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, dives deep into the truth behind America’s role in the Yemen conflict — and what the media refuses to question. 🧠
💥 Is this about national security… or global control?
💰 What role do arms deals, oil routes, and alliances with Saudi Arabia really play?
⚠️ And why is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises being ignored?
🎯 Wilkerson offers a brutally honest, insider view into Washington's war machine — unfiltered and urgent.
🔔 Watch now, comment below, and subscribe for bold truth in a world full of spin.
#LawrenceWilkerson #YemenWar #USForeignPolicy #MiddleEastConflicts #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #HumanitarianCrisis #SaudiUSAlliance #Geopolitics #TruthUnfiltered #WashingtonInsiders #DeepState #YemenCrisis #OilPolitics #WarEconomy #DefenseContractors #USInYemen #GlobalConflicts #RealTalk #WarForProfit #ColonelWilkerson
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NewsTranscript
00:00Transcription by CastingWords
00:30Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
00:37Today is Thursday, May 1st, 2025.
00:41Our dear friend whom we missed last week, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, joins us now.
00:46Colonel, it's great to see you. Welcome back to this microphone and camera, and thank you very much for joining us.
00:53Thank you for having me, and let me say that next time I'll wear a tie.
00:56Oh, you'd be, you're at home. You'd be 110% yourself.
01:03The subject I want to reach with you is actually one we were mentioning before we started, the U.S. at war with Yemen.
01:12But before we get there, if you don't mind some other questions, Colonel, the United States is a co-belligerent against Russia.
01:22The president has surrounded himself with neocons who don't want the war to end.
01:27He has also surrounded himself with American firsters who want the war to end.
01:33He is negotiating directly with the president of Russia.
01:39Why a mineral deal with security guarantees in Ukraine at a moment like this?
01:49First, let me say that he just got rid of one of the impediments, Waltz.
01:53Second, I think this is another effort, as asymmetric and even idiotic as it may seem, but maybe there's some rhyme to the reason here,
02:08to better bring Zelensky into the crowd and look at least like he is concerned about Ukraine
02:17and wants to have economic relations with Ukraine.
02:20After all, it is still very close to, if not the number one economy in the world.
02:28He's doing everything he can to change that, as is China.
02:31But I think it's fair to say that he's looking for something positive to hand to Zelensky,
02:38and more importantly to Ukraine, because I don't think Zelensky is very long-lived.
02:43Well, Colonel, I mean, Zelensky is probably a puppet of the ultra-nationalists.
02:51He is probably, please correct me if you have a different view,
02:55he is probably not free to concede Crimea and the four obelists.
03:02The Americans don't even know where these minerals are.
03:05Where are we going with this?
03:07I think we know a little bit more than you might be hinting at there,
03:10because we've had people on the ground there since 2002.
03:14Indeed, we've had people there since I was chief of staff to Colin Powell,
03:18and we put them there.
03:20So this has been going on for a long time.
03:23We have more or less mapped Ukraine from north to southeast to west all over the place.
03:28We know what's there.
03:29We know what is valuable that's there.
03:31We know all about the nuclear reactors.
03:33We know a great deal about Ukraine.
03:37Okay.
03:37I stand corrected, but address, if you will, Zelensky's status as a puppet of ultra-nationalists
03:46who want to fight this war to the death of the last Ukrainian male.
03:51That's a problem for him.
03:53I don't think he's empathetic with them or even sympathetic with them,
03:56but I think he is afraid of them.
03:58And I think they, of all the elements in Ukraine that might assassinate him at the drop of a pin,
04:04are that element.
04:06So he's got to be concerned about them.
04:08At the same time, as I said, I don't think he is sympathetic with them.
04:13Go back to his early days when I think he was probably closer to the truth about his own personal feelings
04:20when he was talking, this, that, and the other thing,
04:22including when he promised not to go to war with Russia to get elected,
04:27you see a little bit more of the true Zelensky.
04:30He's metamorphosed, if you will, because he's had to in the course of this conflict.
04:35And you're right.
04:35This is the people most apt to take him out.
04:40Is this mineral deal, well, first of all, is it legal?
04:44According to the Russians, it's not because he's not the head of state.
04:47He's just a holdover, and it may very well be rejected once there is a valid head of state.
04:57Is this mineral deal to be secured by the United States?
05:00Because if it is, you know what that means.
05:03Boots on the ground.
05:05Well, I'm assuming that Zelensky is smart enough to pass this through what purports to be his legislature
05:13and to get more buy-in to it, approval of it, if you will, than just him.
05:19If that's not the case, then I take everything I said back.
05:22I don't think it's going to be an effective agreement at all
05:24in terms of ensuring that people think Ukraine has a future,
05:29and particularly a future with the empire.
05:31Is it your understanding, Colonel McGregor says yes, Colonel Schaefer says no,
05:42is it your understanding that there is some sort of a security guarantee with this deal?
05:52No.
05:53I have to join that crowd.
05:55I don't think there's any security guarantee whatsoever, unspoken or spoken.
05:59Then where is this going to go?
06:02Where are the minerals?
06:04Are they in the oblasts that are indubitably Russian?
06:10My understanding at the time that I was cognizant with some of this with regard to Ukraine
06:15is that they are predominantly in the western sections, not the eastern sections.
06:22There are lots of resources in the eastern sections,
06:25but those that we were looking at at the time,
06:28and indeed they might not be the ones we're looking at now,
06:31but at the time, because this changes really fast.
06:34In fact, I keep saying, you know,
06:36what you have today that is a critical mineral tomorrow may be just mud.
06:42Because that's how fast technology is evolving.
06:45So all this investment in these critical minerals is really not all that smart,
06:50unless you have a Ouija glass or something that's telling you,
06:53yeah, those cell phones will be here for 30 years.
06:55So, but there is a substantial amount of resources in that portion of Ukraine,
07:04which you might call the rump portion, but it's really not.
07:07I mean, if you're just looking at divesting yourself of those sections that Russia has made
07:14very clear that it is going to have, you've still got a lot of Ukraine left.
07:19Why would the Americans think that President Putin would go along with this?
07:26Well, I don't think they do, but I think that if you're trading,
07:30horse trading, if you will, with Sergey Lavrov and Vladimir Putin,
07:34you need a little material to put on the table.
07:38And maybe this is something that might ultimately not be a showstopper for Putin
07:43if it comes down to it being the only thing left.
07:46And therefore we gain something.
07:49Here's one of those horse traders, Colonel, General Kellogg,
07:57still pushing the nonsense of NATO subdividing the country.
08:02Yesterday he was on with my former colleague and friend, Martha McCallum at Fox,
08:09saying, oh, Zelensky's agreed to 22 of our points.
08:12Well, I'll let you comment.
08:13Chris?
08:14I came out of London last week where we sat down with the Ukrainian team,
08:17with the Europeans as well, and we had 22 concrete terms that they've agreed to.
08:23What they want to at the very first and what they have is a very comprehensive
08:28and permanent ceasefire that leads to a peace treaty.
08:31When I mean comprehensive sea, air, land, infrastructure for at least 30 days.
08:35Why is 30 days important?
08:37Because it can build to a permanent peace initiative.
08:40And the reason why 30 days is important, it stops the killing.
08:44That's what President Trump wants to do.
08:46Is this not a non-starter with the Russians?
08:49We know it is.
08:50I suspect it is, because what Putin will think it is, with every reason to think so,
08:54is another opportunity, an interlude for Ukraine to gain more arms and more money and get ready to go again.
09:00And that's what he's going to think it is.
09:02Here's exactly, that's exactly what Foreign Minister Lavrov said two days ago.
09:08Cut number six.
09:09If you want a ceasefire just to continue supply arms to Ukraine, so what is your purpose?
09:16You know what Kaya Kalas and what's his name, Mark Rutte, said about the ceasefire?
09:22The NATO Secretary General and the European Union.
09:26They bluntly stated that they can support only the deal, which at the end of the day will make Ukraine stronger,
09:34would make Ukraine a victor.
09:36So if this is the purpose of the ceasefire, I don't think this is what President Trump wants.
09:41This is what Europeans, together with Zelensky, want to make out of President Trump's initiative.
09:48There you have it.
09:49As usual, Lavrov is spot on.
09:52Right, right.
09:54I mean, Lavrov is really the most highly regarded diplomat on the planet.
09:59I think you'll probably agree with me.
10:02Was he the foreign minister when Colin Powell was the Secretary of State?
10:06As I recall, he was their master to Washington and very competent one.
10:11Right.
10:12I know he was their ambassador to UN for a while.
10:15He and Colin talked almost every day.
10:17In fact, they got into a little brouhaha, Joska Fischer in Germany, because Powell was trying to keep the German-American relationship together when Bush had told Schroeder to go F-U-C-K himself.
10:28They talked on the cell phone every day.
10:32And Tenet was angry with Powell for, you know, NSA had intercepts of Powell and Lavrov talking on the cell phone.
10:37And Powell said, you're taping me?
10:40What the hell are you doing, George?
10:42But every day, you know, virtually, that's the way he and Lavrov got along.
10:49Right, right.
10:49Why would Donald Trump dispatch General Kellogg?
10:56Why make a proposal that defies the Russians, that they wouldn't even consider seriously?
11:06I would imagine that the general is either considered to be a non-entity or a joke in the Kremlin.
11:15I think that's probably the case.
11:16I see this as the inexpert way that Trump, I have to assume it's Trump, maybe it's Waltz, but I think it's Trump, is trying to orchestrate a very, very incompetent cabinet in order to use it and even use its incompetence to appear to be or to present a picture of pressure.
11:38Look at what Waltz was saying about, between the first meeting in Muscat and the second meeting in Muscat, what Whitcoff had done with the Iranians.
11:48Waltz was putting out the word that Whitcoff had strayed 10 miles from the roadmap, so to speak, and was telling them things that were untrue, like they could keep their ballistic missiles.
11:58They could do this and do that with their 3.7% uranium and such.
12:03And Whitcoff was telling them what Trump had told him the negotiating position was, and Waltz was trying to throw him off.
12:10Or was Waltz obeying Trump to try and make it look as if there were two schools and if the Iranians didn't cooperate with Whitcoff, he'd turn the other school loose?
12:21I don't know.
12:23It's very incompetent, very amateurish.
12:25Well, it's certainly amateurish compared to the person we just saw, Sergei Lavrov.
12:31I mean, I can't imagine the Russians or the Chinese or even the British or the French speaking with the diametrically opposed tongues like this.
12:41I don't know if there's anything to do with Mike Waltz's firing or if he was fired over the signal chat or what it could be.
12:50And I don't know if he's going to be replaced by a neocon or not.
12:53I guarantee you this, Colonel, he'll be replaced by a Zionist.
12:58We know that, don't we?
13:00Sad, sad, sad to say, but I think you're correct.
13:04Right.
13:05Right.
13:06Colonel, what has been gained by the bombings in Yemen from the perspective of the United States of America?
13:13More massive deterioration of our reputation, especially our reputation for humanitarian and other types of world actions that build our image in that respect.
13:30I was just amazed to see the Russian airplanes flying over Bandar Abbas and putting out or trying to put out the fires, no doubt started by Israel, that were consuming that port facility.
13:45And I thought to myself, back to the BAM earthquake in Iran in 2006 when Colin Powell called George W. Bush and said, we need to, and Bush was way ahead of him.
13:57He essentially said, they're already going, Colin.
14:00I've already ordered their dispatch, and I'm telling you about it right now.
14:04Firefighters, search dog teams, whole fire departments actually from all over the United States, went to BAM where 30,000 Iranians plus died in this earthquake.
14:15That's the image the United States gives off.
14:18Even if you're our enemy, we're going to help you in trouble.
14:21Well, imagine how I feel watching these Russian planes flying over Bandar Abbas, putting water and chemicals on this fire that Israel started.
14:29They're the image of humanitarian assistance now.
14:34They're the image of international law.
14:38They're the image of helping even your enemies now.
14:42Colonel, you are the first person that I've heard say that Israel more likely than not started.
14:49But you're talking about the explosion of a chemical plant at a port in Iran, injured about 500 people and killed about 70 and destroyed millions in fuel.
15:01Yep.
15:02There's no doubt in my military mind Israel did that.
15:06No doubt.
15:07Will there be a military response, Colonel Wilkerson?
15:11We'll see.
15:12I think they're saving that.
15:14I think they're saving that for the moment of decision as to whether or not we do it to them.
15:21And then we are going to pay dearly.
15:25And Israel is going to be destroyed.
15:28Larry Johnson, our colleague, has done the research and calculated that we have spent over $500 million on drones and missiles attacking them.
15:41Did I miss something or did the Congress of the United States declare war on Yemen, of all places?
15:48I don't think they did.
15:49An Operation Prosperity Guardian is anything but.
15:53It ought to be called Operation Killing Innocent Civilians because that's what we're doing.
15:58And we're doing it religiously and consistently.
16:02And yet Pete Hegseth signals, you know, that everything is copacetic and by God, Iran, you see what we can do.
16:10You know what we can do and we're coming after you next.
16:13This just happened.
16:15Well, if I were Iran, I'd say, oh, yeah, I do see what you can do.
16:19You can kill innocent men and women in Yemen.
16:22You haven't conquered anything in Yemen.
16:24And, oh, by the way, the IDF hasn't conquered Hamas yet either.
16:29Interesting thing there.
16:32Before we get to the IDF and Hamas, here's the back and forth between Professor Mirandi at the University of Tehran and the very childish, I'm sorry to say, Secretary of Defense of the United States, Chris, the full screens.
16:47Hegseth to Iran, we see your lethal, in caps, support to the Houthis.
16:56We know exactly what you are doing.
16:59You know very well what the U.S. military is capable of.
17:02And you were warned you will pay the consequence, in caps, at the time and place of our choosing, to which the professor says, we see your lethal, in caps, support for the Zionists.
17:17The child killers, the rapists.
17:18We know exactly what you are doing.
17:21You know very well what the resistance is capable of.
17:24And you were warned.
17:26You will be remembered as an accomplice to the hashtag Gaza Holocaust.
17:31What do you think of the Secretary of Defense posting something like that on his X account?
17:40I can't imagine any of his predecessors having done that, but you know them better than I do.
17:45I can't either.
17:47I will say this.
17:49Hegseth in that and some other things he's done is living up to what I sadly thought his image would lead him to.
17:59I think he's showing that right now.
18:02He's showing his amateur hour status.
18:04He's showing his lack of credentials for the position he's in.
18:07And he's showing his inability to couch his language in the kind of language a cabinet officer of the empire should use.
18:18He just, he simply doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing or how he's supposed to be doing it.
18:23And that's, that's really dangerous.
18:25And it characterizes more than just Hegseth.
18:29Rubio has the same problem.
18:30He's a little more sedate about it, but he has the same problem.
18:34He has a tendency to make statements that secretaries of state should never make.
18:38Reminds me of Hillary Clinton when she came, when she said he came, we came, he's, we came, we saw, and he died with regard to Gaddafi, which was a rehearsed statement.
18:50I'm sure that woman had rehearsed that statement.
18:53She was going to close her remarks with that statement.
18:57Those were horrible remarks for a second.
19:00With respect to Hegseth, your colleague, Colonel McGregor, says, you know, you appoint a clown, you get a circus.
19:09But this is very dangerous circus.
19:10This is the defense department.
19:12And now, have you seen the new budget?
19:15The Republicans want to add another $150 billion, which takes it over a trillion.
19:19Colonel, do we need to spend a trillion dollars when the Chinese, the Russians, the British, the French, the Germans, the Iranians combined don't spend a trillion?
19:28It's worse, Judge.
19:30We just parse the entire budget.
19:33And if you take the percentage of interest payments on our debt, a trillion dollars plus a year now, that are attributable to national security expenditures,
19:43and you take the entire national security apparatus and plug all that in, it's $2 trillion, $2 trillion.
19:53Colonel, how did an $80 million fighter jet fall off of, you can't say this with a straight face, fall off of an American aircraft carrier in the Middle East?
20:07If you take history as a guide and look at all the times that similar things have happened, particularly when you're maneuvering in combat, it's not all that odd.
20:18The captain had a chance to evaluate, I'm sure, that was maybe four or five seconds.
20:24The CIC, the Combat Information Center, was telling him, you've got an inbound, we don't know what it is or whatever.
20:29And he knew that if he didn't take evasive action, it might hit, and he didn't know what it was going to be when it hit.
20:38And so he took that evasive action, and on a carrier, that's really a hard turn, because it'll turn on a dime, even though it's huge.
20:46And that forced the tractor and the plane to fall over.
20:50Now, those kinds of things happen in wartime all the time.
20:53Aren't they secured on the deck?
20:55Not necessarily.
20:57If they were moving it at the time, and he hauled over real hard to starboard or to the other way, you don't have time to announce on the PA that you're doing that.
21:11You're trying to do that, but it's not timely.
21:13And that takes effect, and the people who are moving the airplane or manning the tractor or whatever, they don't have a chance to anchor it and stop.
21:22So over it goes.
21:23I can't tell you how many times you can lose the personnel that way.
21:28Absolutely, and we did.
21:29In Vietnam, off Vietnam, in operations, we lost people overboard.
21:34And in World War II, we lost a number of people overboard.
21:37People forget.
21:38Judge, we had some, counting the baby carriers, we had almost 100 carriers in World War II.
21:43And we had 30 or 40 really big carriers.
21:46So when you're in combat, you accept a certain amount of that.
21:52Now, here's the issue for me.
21:55This shouldn't be combat.
21:56This is not what we should be doing.
21:58It's utterly stupid from a naval commander's point of view, and believe me, I've been there and listened to them rail about it, and I understand why they do, to confine a carrier to waters like the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf.
22:10It's almost an invitation to take that carrier out.
22:15Why is that carrier, which I think is named the Harry S. Truman, correct me if I'm wrong, why is it there?
22:24Is that the point from which the jets that are killing civilians in Yemen take off?
22:32Yes, that's the big issue.
22:34That's the big issue.
22:35Now, you could say they could go south of Hodeidah, the port of Hodeidah, and do the same thing.
22:41But they're looking at the possibility of other things happening if they overfly that territory.
22:47In this situation, they are presenting the image of protecting the Red Sea as a transit point.
22:56That's the image they want to put off.
22:58But they're not doing it.
22:59I asked the other day because an individual said on a podcast, an individual said, well, you know, there haven't been any commercial hits in the Red Sea for four months.
23:11He was implying that this task force was achieving its mission.
23:16And I said, well, you know, I want to check.
23:19So I went and checked a little preliminary check, and I saw that there haven't been any commercial ships going through there because people wanted sure.
23:26Lloyd's, for example, wanted sure.
23:29And shippers have other routes.
23:31It's a little bit more costly.
23:33But with these terrorists perturbating everything in the world right now anyway, it's not all that much more costly.
23:39There are other ways to go.
23:40So that's no reason to say that we've been successful, that there are no commercial ships there.
23:46There are no commercial ships there because we haven't been successful.
23:51This is just breaking.
23:52I don't know if you know this person, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander General Sir Richard Sheriff, S-H-I-R-R-E-F-F.
24:03I'm going to guess he's British because of the Sir Richard.
24:06Yeah.
24:06He's just made a quite damning statement.
24:10America can't be trusted.
24:13European allies must team up with Canada and form a new NATO.
24:18NATO, after everything that Trump, Hegseth, and Vance have said, America is just not in the room.
24:27That's a pretty accurate statement in my view, and I do know of him because he's been involved in a couple of things that I've been involved in.
24:35Pretty solid guy, actually.
24:38That's a pretty powerful statement to be making in the light of what his prime minister has been saying.
24:43Right.
24:44But maybe his prime minister may have said, go ahead.
24:48Yeah.
24:48I notice it says former.
24:50Now, he may still be an active duty general, in which case I can't imagine he said this without the consent of his superiors.
24:57I think he's retired.
24:58Yeah.
24:59Okay.
25:00Okay.
25:03Can Trump negotiate peace in Ukraine?
25:06Or does he have no cards to play, and Putin's not going to back down on anything, and Zelensky's never going to agree to give away the 4-0 blast in Crimea?
25:15Let's just get down to brass tacks.
25:17If Trump is serious, yes.
25:18But how can he be serious?
25:20He's lying all over the place.
25:21I had nothing to do with this war.
25:22This is Joe Biden's war.
25:23Oh, you were president for four years during a major buildup for what Putin launched the special military operation to stop.
25:32You were president.
25:33Do you forget that, Mr. Trump?
25:35And now he said he wants to stop it.
25:38Well, okay, stop it.
25:39It's really easy to stop it when you come down to the brass tacks.
25:44You stop all money.
25:46You stop all weapons.
25:47You bring the hammer down on your European allies to get them to do as much as they can to stop.
25:53And if they don't stop, you punish them for it.
25:56And then you go to Putin, and you tell him what you've done, and you say, let's get this thing over with, and let's start working on a new security architecture.
26:03Period.
26:04Hallelujah, Colonel.
26:06I don't know that this administration is going to do that.
26:09I don't know if it's the president's personality, intellect, or just the people around him.
26:17I just don't see that happening.
26:18I mean, what you said is so sensible.
26:21Well, everybody that comes on this show agrees with what you just said.
26:24You articulated it in such a forceful and compelling way.
26:28Do you think Donald Trump will get there?
26:30I don't.
26:31I really don't.
26:32And I'm very sad to say that.
26:34I don't.
26:35I think Whitcoff could get him there.
26:37I think he's a solid character.
26:39The more I see of him on three different venues, the more I see and hear about him, the more I think he's a solid character.
26:45But I don't think his president is.
26:49Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, thank you, my dear friend.
26:52It's always a pleasure to chat with you, whether I rile you up or whether you're calm and collected.
26:57Now, let me give you another thing that's got me really irritated.
27:02Oh, let's hear it.
27:03Does it have to do with fishing and streams?
27:05No, it should irritate you too, Judge.
27:08This is constitution-based, this anti-Christian task force that he's set up.
27:14I've got people calling me from all across the country who are genuine Christians.
27:19That is to say they believe in Jesus Christ and the Sermon on the Mount and helping your friends and your enemies and so forth.
27:26So these people are witch hunters.
27:29They are violating the constitution, in my view.
27:32I agree with you.
27:35Arresting a judge because she told a defendant which door to go out of her courtroom, threatening to suspend habeas corpus.
27:44These are very, very, very dangerous times.
27:47Probably the most dangerous thing this president is doing right now.
27:51Before we came on air, just about 15 minutes or so before we came on air, a federal judge in Brownsville, Texas, ruled that Venezuela is not an enemy of the United States.
28:07We are not at war with Venezuela, and therefore the use of the Alien Enemy Act by the President of the United States is unconstitutional, and he enjoined the President from using it.
28:21This judge was appointed to the bench by Donald Trump.
28:25Donald Trump.
28:26Well, if this operation against Yemen, Judge, is any guide, watch out.
28:32We'll start a war with Venezuela.
28:35Unbelievable.
28:36Colonel, thank you, sir.
28:37God love you.
28:38All the best.
28:38Welcome back to the fold.
28:41Take care.
28:42Great.
28:44A great man.
28:45I love him when he's cantankerous and when he's serious.
28:48Coming up at 3 o'clock today, another great man, Professor John Mearsheimer, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.