In this explosive interview, Judge Andrew Napolitano sits down with Alastair Crooke, a former British diplomat and founder of the Conflicts Forum, to analyze the growing political chaos surrounding Donald Trump, both domestically and internationally.
🧠 Topics discussed include:
– Trump's return: Disruption or Restoration?
– How Trump’s foreign policy philosophy diverges from the U.S. establishment
– America's deep internal divide and its global implications
– What European allies and adversaries really think of Trump
– The shifting global order, and where America now stands
This is a powerful and thought-provoking episode on the nature of political upheaval, populism, and the uncertain road ahead for U.S. power in the 21st century.
📢 Don’t miss Crooke’s deep geopolitical insights and Napolitano’s fearless commentary!
🎙️ Hosted by: Judge Andrew Napolitano
🎓 Guest: Alastair Crooke (Diplomat, Analyst, Conflicts Forum Director)
#JudgeNapolitano #AlastairCrooke #Trump2025 #Geopolitics #USPolitics #TrumpChaos #NapolitanoJudgingFreedom #ForeignPolicy #TrumpReturn #GlobalPowerShift
#Trump2025
#AlastairCrooke
#JudgeNapolitano
#TrumpChaos
#Geopolitics
#USForeignPolicy
#TrumpVsEstablishment
#TrumpReturn
#NapolitanoJudgingFreedom
#GlobalDisorder
#AmericanPolitics
#TrumpDebate
#WorldAffairs
#TrumpAndChaos
#CrookeAnalysis
#TrumpElection2024
#PowerStruggles
#InternationalPolitics
#TrumpInterview
#PoliticalCommentary
🧠 Topics discussed include:
– Trump's return: Disruption or Restoration?
– How Trump’s foreign policy philosophy diverges from the U.S. establishment
– America's deep internal divide and its global implications
– What European allies and adversaries really think of Trump
– The shifting global order, and where America now stands
This is a powerful and thought-provoking episode on the nature of political upheaval, populism, and the uncertain road ahead for U.S. power in the 21st century.
📢 Don’t miss Crooke’s deep geopolitical insights and Napolitano’s fearless commentary!
🎙️ Hosted by: Judge Andrew Napolitano
🎓 Guest: Alastair Crooke (Diplomat, Analyst, Conflicts Forum Director)
#JudgeNapolitano #AlastairCrooke #Trump2025 #Geopolitics #USPolitics #TrumpChaos #NapolitanoJudgingFreedom #ForeignPolicy #TrumpReturn #GlobalPowerShift
#Trump2025
#AlastairCrooke
#JudgeNapolitano
#TrumpChaos
#Geopolitics
#USForeignPolicy
#TrumpVsEstablishment
#TrumpReturn
#NapolitanoJudgingFreedom
#GlobalDisorder
#AmericanPolitics
#TrumpDebate
#WorldAffairs
#TrumpAndChaos
#CrookeAnalysis
#TrumpElection2024
#PowerStruggles
#InternationalPolitics
#TrumpInterview
#PoliticalCommentary
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Transcription by CastingWords
00:30Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
00:37Today is Monday, April 14th, 2025.
00:40Alistair Crook will be with us in just a moment on Donald Trump and chaos.
00:46But first this.
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02:16I'll stare good day to you, my friend, and welcome here.
02:19Before we get to your fascinating analysis of Donald Trump and chaos, let's talk a bit about Benjamin Netanyahu and chaos.
02:30How, in your view, how stunned was the Israeli prime minister when he was sitting in the Oval Office next to the American president,
02:41who announced that the United States would soon commence direct negotiations with the government of Iran?
02:50Yes, he was shocked.
02:53He says he knew beforehand, but it seems to me that that's likely not true.
02:57He didn't look as if he knew beforehand.
03:01He was, eyes were darting around.
03:04He was shocked.
03:05Yeah, he was shocked about it, and he shocked back at home,
03:10because according to the Hebrew reports that we've seen,
03:15an agreement had already been reached for an attack on Iran between the U.S. and Israel,
03:22the plans were going forward, and even a date set for this.
03:27And then, so you can imagine, this was a shock, yes.
03:31You say that Netanyahu was of the view that an agreement had been reached.
03:36Did this agreement involved Trump, or might it have been Israel Katz and Pete Hegseth?
03:40I can't tell you, but I mean, your friend Ron Dermer was a week in Washington,
03:48so I imagine he'd been around everyone that mattered during that time.
03:56And then Kurila, the head of CENTCOM, spent a couple of days down in the bunker
04:03at the Israeli Ministry of Defense preparing details.
04:08But perhaps that was when there was a date set for an attack on Iran.
04:13Anyway, you know, for the moment, it's on hold.
04:19But I would say to you, you mentioned at the outset, you said, you know, the Trump chaos.
04:25And really, you know, I think the Iran outcome is going to depend heavily on precisely this chaos.
04:34And what do I mean by that?
04:36Why do I am saying the chaos is so important?
04:39Because that, what really spooked Trump during this period,
04:44during the time just after he announced his tariffs,
04:49was the bond market, not the stock market, but the bond market, the debt market,
04:58because that started dropping and yields started rising quite dramatically.
05:07And this was upsetting a very delicate trade in the market called the basis trade,
05:13which is a sort of very complex, very complex, highly leveraged sort of casino bet.
05:21And I think Bessette was so worried by that that he took his airplane and flew down to Mar-a-Lago
05:27and said, listen, you've got to start winding this back and got to say there's going to be a moratorium
05:32because, you know, if this unravels, if this basis trade unravels,
05:38which is about a trillion dollars in the market, I mean, we'll be back in 2008
05:43and you'll have a real crisis on your hand.
05:47Well, that still continues.
05:50And why is it so important was because what happened in that crisis,
05:56what was the crucial thing that is going to affect the Ukraine war
06:00and it's going to affect what happens in Iran,
06:03was that just Trump managed to hold together the team.
06:09He was very worried at points that, you know, that the chaos, the turmoil in the markets,
06:16the sort of anger about what was happening on markets was going to split his team.
06:25The team is already split.
06:26I mean, it's quite clear that some of the coalition, the Republican coalition that was put together,
06:36that has existed so far under Trump, was already fragmenting a little bit.
06:42Parts of the Republicans in the Senates were getting very antsy, if you don't mind the expression,
06:49but very antsy about what was happening to people's share prices and everything,
06:55getting very anxious.
06:57What has this got to do with Iran?
07:00What has it got to do with Ukraine?
07:03Well, a lot.
07:04The most important thing for Trump, the absolute key to his position,
07:11is about doing this reset of the domestic economy, about the economy,
07:17about rebalancing the economy, so that when the economy is rebalanced,
07:26industrial manufacturing will be regained back in the United States.
07:32This is what his supporters want.
07:35They want the jobs back from this.
07:39Right.
07:39That's what was key about it.
07:42So this matters more than anything.
07:44All right.
07:44Before we get into...
07:45Then what happened to what I was just going to finish off, just to say,
07:50what really split it, what we see, the big split taking place,
07:56was caused by Keith Kellogg.
07:58Keith Kellogg came back, presented his plan,
08:03and several of the team supported him.
08:07Just to be clear, was one that would never be accepted by Russia.
08:14It was a very hardline pro-Ukrainian plan that would see areas of responsibility.
08:24It is quite clear to me that this reflects input from Starmer and Macron
08:31and the Europeans, who, as I think everyone on this program knows,
08:36are intent on destroying American normalization with Russia.
08:43They don't want it.
08:44They want to continue the war until 2030.
08:47They want a big war in Europe.
08:50And so what Kellogg was doing was actually saying that beyond the River Dnieper,
08:57there's going to be NATO.
09:00British troops, French troops, whatever other troops volunteer,
09:05they will be behind the Dnieper.
09:07In front of the Dnieper, up to the contact line,
09:10would be the Ukrainian forces, and then there would be the Russian forces.
09:15So it was a form of, if you like, separation into segments.
09:21And, of course, this was completely...
09:24This is completely unacceptable to Russia.
09:27He should know that.
09:29Right.
09:30But he acts as, you know, very much as Ukraine's advocate in these things.
09:36And he took with him Rubio, Waltz, and others who said,
09:42yeah, you know, this is right.
09:44And he contested what was going on.
09:48He was contesting what Witkoff was proposing, which was to recognize the four oblasts.
09:54As Putin has always said, that is the minimum to start anything moving towards a ceasefire.
10:01He said that in June of 24, and he said, these, the four oblasts, which are already part of the territory under our constitution,
10:11which have had the, if you like, the referenda, they wanted to join Russia.
10:17This is the minimum.
10:19And here is, if you like, here is Kellogg coming out and driving a horse and cart through the whole of the process
10:29and saying, I don't believe this will be acceptable to the Ukrainians.
10:34Well, of course, it's not acceptable to the Ukrainians and it's not acceptable, you know, what Witkoff was saying is not acceptable to the Europeans.
10:44They don't want it either.
10:46And so it was setting Trump up for a big clash.
10:52And already you can see the result of that is the talks are in trouble.
10:57Because unless Trump says, comes down on one side or another, and he says, I back Witkoff, I don't know what happened in Witkoff's last thing.
11:08Or if he says he backs Kellogg, he has a split, potential split in his group.
11:15And this, it's like contagion, because that is the last thing he needs when what he wants, as I said, is to keep everyone supporting his trade, his tariff policy, his devaluation of the dollar policy.
11:33All of this is absolutely central to what Trump needs, because he wants a normalization.
11:42But he's got to keep his team, which involves a lot of people.
11:47They were already unhappy with Witkoff.
11:50Many of them saying there was a complaint made to Waltz by many, particularly in the Senate, say he leans too far to Russia.
12:00He leans too far.
12:02He's too far gone.
12:03We can't allow this to go on.
12:04We must stop this and we must prevent it.
12:08And this would, this is a real problem for, of course, for Trump.
12:15But imagine, imagine the consequences of that, because he's got to keep his support base there.
12:23They stood with him during the crisis.
12:27They're a little unhappy.
12:29They're very unhappy with Witkoff and what's happening there.
12:32I mean, this faction, not all of the Republicans, but this faction.
12:37And then there are the talks in Iran.
12:40And what is the connection between that is, you know, if you look at keeping the team together, 90% of the team are Israeli firsters.
12:51They're all extreme.
12:53I don't know what was the sort of Faustian bargain, but Trump did a deal with the most nationalists, with the, if you like, the hard Pacific people on Israel.
13:08So if he's going to keep his team together, you know, maybe the only thing is to give up Iran to them, to keep the thing, the team together because of the economic program being his signature program.
13:26And it's not going that easily.
13:28There is chaos and there is a lot of unhappiness.
13:32So Iran is how many, you know, it's quite different.
13:36There is a constituency in the Republicans that wants to see, you know, the Ukraine war end and finish, even if the neocons don't.
13:46But the numbers of people who really ordinary Americans would say, oh, well, you know, we agree Iran mustn't have a nuclear weapon.
13:57Most would do, would go along with that.
14:00So, you know, you can, that'll be a price.
14:03Maybe the price it will be paid.
14:05And certainly, you know, if we find, as I somewhat expect, Witkoff comes back from Tehran and says, oh, the Iranians are putting forward a plan whereby they will reduce the amount of enriched uranium and they will allow inspections and they give undertakings that they won't go towards weaponization.
14:27And many of his own team, Trump's own team will say, well, look, you know, this is just a runaround to the same old bad deal that we had that you got rid of in 2018.
14:41It's the same deal.
14:42What's different?
14:44Nothing's different with that.
14:46We want something more than that.
14:48And either it's got to be a Libya solution where we go in and we blow up the whole of the infrastructure of Iran or we end up having to go to war with Iran.
15:03So it's a very different position.
15:05Let me stop you, Alistair.
15:07There's a lot to.
15:08No, no, no.
15:09It's a brilliant analysis.
15:10There's a lot to unpack here.
15:12I don't think the Trump people realize that the bond market would give them the problems that it did.
15:18The United States government cannot operate without people lending money to it called purchasing bonds.
15:25The bond yield went up to four and a half percent as the current bonds out there.
15:31There are thirty one trillion dollars worth are retired and rolled over.
15:37They come, they draw the higher interest rate.
15:43The government doesn't even have the money to pay the interest on the bonds if they continue to go up.
15:48Trump's people didn't think of that.
15:52As for Iran, I mean, why would Iran ever accept the Libya solution?
15:59They, I would think, would rather go down fighting than allow the Americans and the Israelis to come in and dismantle them and emasculate them and effectively destroy their sovereignty.
16:10Don't you agree?
16:12Yes, it would be the end of Iran in the way that we've seen the end of Syria.
16:17I mean, it would be such a humiliation that I think then it would be a form of Syria situation could take place.
16:26Now, they'll never accept that.
16:28They'd never accept to be so humiliated that they risked the whole republic.
16:36Back to Netanyahu.
16:38What kind of trouble is he in at home?
16:42Oh, getting deeper and deeper just as we speak.
16:48There is a petition going around whereby the Air Force officers and about 250 Mossad, former officials, Mossad, this is not Shin Bet.
16:59This is Mossad now saying the war in Gaza has got to end and the hostages have got to be released.
17:07And we know Netanyahu is obstructing, is becoming, as I've been trying to present it over these, you know, talks at times.
17:16You know, we are really in the most bitter confrontation taking place inside of Israel.
17:25At the moment, Netanyahu is secure, but the bitterness and the sense, I mean, reservists are not turning up to serve in the army.
17:38They are refusing to serve. There's a big shortfall. There's a great deal of, if you like, tensions about his policy of going back into into Gaza again.
17:50And also they are edging closer and closer to some sort of conflict in Syria, where Israel is bombing right up to the airports in the center of Syria in order to make sure that the Turks can't get them because the Turks have announced they are going to take those areas and they're going to establish main air bases in the center of Syria.
18:16And Israel is engaged at the moment in trying to stop them.
18:24Is our Netanyahu's own legal and political woes continuing to get worse?
18:32I read an article that you published indicating that members of the Knesset, the hard right members of the Likud party, are actually going into court where Netanyahu is on trial.
18:45And disturbing the court to the point where they have to be physically escorted from from the courtroom in America.
18:52This would result in incarceration. But maybe it's some standard operating procedure in Israel. I don't know.
18:58Yes, we've seen this. I mean, the police are attacking the demonstrators strongly.
19:05And so some of the demonstrators are going into the court. They've already disrupted the Knesset.
19:12They did, if you recall, just invade some of the some of the forces of Ben-Givir invaded a military installation and took out people that they wanted to take out of it and stop the proceeding.
19:28So the thing this is the point I'm trying to say is this whole thing is just only just holding together and without the support of Trump.
19:38I mean, this thing could come apart altogether.
19:42So Netanyahu needs war to stay in power.
19:49He needs either to continue the war in Gaza, which isn't a real war.
19:53It's just a genocide.
19:55Or he needs to start a war with Iran, with U.S. backing or both.
19:59Yes, the problem for him is the war in Gaza has become so discredited by senior military officers, by security officials, all of them are saying.
20:13And the last figures that came out from in Haaretz, in the English language, Israeli newspaper showed that said that Hamas had 40,000 forces on the ground after all of this, that they had 40.
20:31This is not me saying that, this is the Israeli statement saying that they estimate it is that they still have 40,000 forces, armed forces in Gaza.
20:45So, you know, the thing is, it's not such a winning solution for him.
20:51He wants a big win.
20:53So where can he get a win?
20:54Well, Syria is not so great at the moment.
20:57Lebanon is complicated, very complicated.
21:03So really, Iran is the thing that if he can push Trump towards it.
21:08And, you know, what I've been trying to say to you is that I don't, I can't see, given, you know, what Trump said when he exited the JCPOA in 2018,
21:22he said, this agreement is no good because it doesn't deal with Iran's missiles.
21:29It doesn't deal with their weaponization of Hamas and Hezbollah and all of those things.
21:35That's why I'm leaving it.
21:37And that's why I'm putting sanctions on everybody, including the Europeans who dealt with Iran illegally in the JCPOA.
21:46Why the Europeans have now started, if you like, said to the Iranians, the Euro 3, who are part of the JCPOA, have said to them,
21:57by the end of June, we will trigger sanctions snapback on you for failure to stay within the JCPOA limitations.
22:07So I think, you know, there will be, I'm sure, quite strong pushback on Trump if, you know, they come back with a proposal,
22:22which is basically just to revert to the JCPOA.
22:25Because everything they're saying, you know, it's only about the nuclear program.
22:32It's only going to be limiting their ability to move towards a weapon.
22:38Well, all of that was in the first JCPOA, which Trump walked out of because it didn't deal with Iran's conventional defense forces
22:48and didn't deal with its proxy forces around the world.
22:52Right, right.
22:54How were the Trump off-again, on-again, off-again tariffs reviewed by elites in Moscow and elites in Europe?
23:09Do they think he knew what he was doing?
23:11Do they think he got caught with his pants down over the bond market?
23:14Or do they think this is some sort of a technique to negotiate the grand reset?
23:24No, I think they have a very good idea of what's happened.
23:27And I think what you hear is, quite clearly, out of Moscow, they understand that there are now divisions,
23:34quite deep divisions within the sort of the most senior elements of his own team,
23:41between those that support Kellogg's really very sort of, you know, shall I say, blinkered
23:49and pro-Ukrainian proposal, which sees no concessions by Ukraine whatsoever,
23:57and the sort of demand for a sort of immediate ceasefire.
24:02And Whitcoff and others, who obviously is regarded as someone you can talk to and who's intelligent and very sharp.
24:14So where is all this going to lead?
24:17So they're, I think, increasingly cautious about the whole process now.
24:23I think that's where it's going.
24:26They're not only cautious about it, becoming increasingly sceptical.
24:31And that's why I think we're seeing the beginnings of a really major Russian advance in Ukraine taking place.
24:38The forces are amassing in parts right across the front.
24:44And I think Russia is moving to its second option, which is simply to finish off the Ukrainian armed forces in the next period.
24:58One wonders.
25:00We're trying to take Trump with them, but I don't know whether you'll feel he's able to go with them because he needs these people.
25:08This was a deal.
25:09This was the Faustian deal with the most sort of nationalist and Israeli firsters he's got.
25:15But the main deal is to change the economic domestic system.
25:22And now this is disturbing that support.
25:26It's actually more than that.
25:30Keith Kellogg has put an absolute spanner in the works.
25:34I want to play for you a clip.
25:38From the president on Air Force One last night, Sunday night, Palm Sunday evening, as he was flying from his home in Florida back to Washington, D.C.
25:51And I want to ask you about his repeated statements that the war in Ukraine isn't his war.
25:57It's Biden's war.
25:58Chris, cut number one.
25:59Do you have a reaction to Russia's Palm Sunday attack?
26:03I think it was terrible.
26:04And I was told they made a mistake.
26:06But I think it's a horrible thing.
26:08I think the whole war is a horrible thing.
26:10I think the war is for that war to have started is an abuse of power.
26:17You said they made a mistake.
26:17You were told they made a mistake.
26:19You mean it was unintentional?
26:20They made a mistake.
26:20I believe it was.
26:22Look, you're going to ask them.
26:24This is Biden's war.
26:25This is not my war.
26:26I've been here for a very short period of time.
26:28This is a war that was under Biden.
26:32He gave him billions and billions of dollars.
26:35He should have never allowed.
26:36If he had any brain, which he didn't have and doesn't have, and now it's being proven,
26:42he wouldn't have allowed that war to start.
26:43I would have absolutely not.
26:45That war would never have taken place.
26:48But remember this.
26:49This is Biden's war.
26:50I'm just trying to get it stopped so that we can save a lot of lives.
26:54They happen to be Ukrainian and Russian lives.
26:58But all I want to do is get it stopped.
27:01The legislation providing for U.S. military aid to Ukraine says at the discretion of the
27:09president, Donald Trump could stop this with a phone call.
27:13He could stop it this morning.
27:14Why do you suppose he hasn't?
27:18Because of the divisions.
27:19Because there is a strong component and one that seems to be gathering strength, which
27:26is saying that Trump and Whitcoff are leaning too much, are taking sort of Putin-speaking
27:33points and using them.
27:35I mean, it's all, you know, it's nonsense.
27:38These have been, the Russian position has been outlined so clearly all of this time.
27:46There's no doubt about it.
27:47This is not something that came up.
27:49It's been there well before Trump took office.
27:53But, you know, he has his friend who's doing the work.
27:58I mean, a lot of work trying to build trust with the Russians.
28:04But there's now a gathering sort of force against that.
28:08And that's why he's trying to distance himself from this and say, it's not my war, it's Biden's
28:15war, which is something Bannon told him to do from the beginning.
28:18Steve Bannon said, you know, this will end up, you'll end up owning it if you go down the
28:24route of supplying it.
28:26And that's what Putin has asked for.
28:28Specifically, he said, look, if you want to get the thing moving, stop the intelligence sharing,
28:36stop giving weapons to Ukraine.
28:40Then we can talk about some sort of acceptable administration, UN administration of Ukraine
28:48that would allow elections to take place and a new government to form.
28:53But so far, he doesn't move on those things.
28:58And so nor does therefore Russia.
29:01And the thing becomes, falls into stasis.
29:05Entropy.
29:06Here's what Ukrainian President Zelensky said last night on 60 Minutes about this.
29:16This is Scott Pelley, the 60-minute anchor, doing the translating.
29:24Chris, cut number eight.
29:26I believe, sadly, Russian narratives are prevailing in the U.S.
29:32How is it possible to witness our losses and our suffering, to understand what the Russians
29:40are doing, and to still believe that they are not the aggressors, that they did not start
29:46this war?
29:47This speaks to the enormous influence of Russia's information policy on America, on U.S.
29:54politics, and U.S. politicians.
29:58Not sure where he thinks he's going to ingratiate himself with the President of the United States
30:03with that.
30:05Well, you, I mean, the sights, the gun sights were quite clearly pointed at Whitkoff.
30:13There's no doubt about that.
30:14That's the person he claims is too close, who's taking Russian-speaking points and delivering
30:23them back to Washington.
30:25And he's interfering indirectly into the policymaking of Trump by this.
30:32I imagine, you know, Trump is not a fool.
30:35He's smart.
30:36I guess he sees this exactly what he's doing and how, I mean, the Europeans, you know, who've
30:44been desperate to try and sort of get some sort of token NATO force inside Ukraine have
30:55persuaded Keith Kellogg to go along with this idea and to have them sort of sitting there
31:01as a sort of reassurance force for the future.
31:06It's a tripwire force is what they want because they want the war to go on.
31:11Right.
31:12Alistair, thank you very much.
31:14Boy, we're all over the place today.
31:15And I appreciate the breadth of your knowledge and your patience in allowing me to take you
31:22from Iran to Ukraine, to Israel, to American monetary policy.
31:29Thank you, my friend.
31:29All the best to you.
31:31And to you.
31:34And coming up later today at 10 o'clock in the morning, Eastern Ray McGovern at 1130,
31:40Larry Johnson at one o'clock, our friend Kivork Almasian, who used to be in Syria, but is
31:47now in elsewhere in the Middle East, will be giving us the latest on Syria.
31:52And at three o'clock, Scott Ritter, Charles Napolitano for Judging Freedom.