- 6/15/2025
In this powerful exposé, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, breaks down how U.S. foreign policy has spiraled into disarray 🌍⚠️. From entanglements in endless wars to shortsighted alliances and unchecked military spending, Wilkerson warns that Washington is navigating global affairs blindly — without strategy or accountability 🧭🛑. As tensions rise with Russia, China, Iran, and beyond, this interview sounds the alarm on the urgent need for course correction before irreversible damage is done.
#LawrenceWilkerson #USForeignPolicy #ForbiddenNews #GlobalInstability #MiddleEastCrisis #USChinaTensions #EndlessWars #GeopoliticalChaos #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #ColinPowell #PolicyFailure #WashingtonCrisis #WorldOnEdge #DiplomacyCrisis #StrategicCollapse #TruthUncensored #IranConflict #RussiaRelations #AmericanDecline #StayInformed
#LawrenceWilkerson #USForeignPolicy #ForbiddenNews #GlobalInstability #MiddleEastCrisis #USChinaTensions #EndlessWars #GeopoliticalChaos #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #ColinPowell #PolicyFailure #WashingtonCrisis #WorldOnEdge #DiplomacyCrisis #StrategicCollapse #TruthUncensored #IranConflict #RussiaRelations #AmericanDecline #StayInformed
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:30Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom at the End of a Long Day, Friday, June 13, 2025.
00:39We have saved it for Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. Colonel Larry, a pleasure, my dear friend.
00:45No matter what we have to talk about, thank you for waiting until the end of the day, and thank you for joining us.
00:51Thank you for accommodating my schedule.
00:53Why do you think Donald Trump kept up the pretense of being a man of peace while planning this dastardly attack for months with Bibi Netanyahu?
01:03I have no idea what his motivation is. I can't get into his head. I'm not sure I'd find anything if I did.
01:13But I will say this. This is not what democracies do. This is what Yamamoto's for Japan.
01:21This is what Saddam Hussein with regard to Kuwait. This is what these kind of people do.
01:26There's something that's supposed to be sacrosanct with regard to the use of force, though we've become awfully competent at it, not necessarily to win, but to do it, that says you just don't do this if you are a liberal democracy.
01:43And let me give you an example. In 1991, when we were poised in the desert, Powell challenged me to write a strategy document. I did. One page. Took it in to him.
01:57He read it. He said, this is really good, L.W. This is really good.
02:01But let me tell you, leaning back in his chair, why I'm not going to even consider implementing it.
02:06This would mean pulling a subterfuge on not only Saddam Hussein and the region, but also the American people.
02:13I will not do that. I know it would probably gain tactical surprise, but I will not do that.
02:20Take your paper.
02:21Colonel, we're not going to bother repeating them, but we've been playing all day Trump's one-liners about he's a man of peace.
02:30Joe Biden is so weak, he would start a war against Iran over and over and over again.
02:37And then the statement that he came out with about 5.30, quarter of six this morning, acknowledging that he knew about this all along,
02:47and that he was just going to get tough with Iran because it wasn't coming to his side in the negotiations.
02:55And if you don't do what we want at the negotiating table, we will kill you.
03:01Professor Sachs said this morning, it's the most fascistic statement made by an American president in the modern era.
03:10Concur 100%.
03:12And if he didn't understand what he was saying, it's even more dangerous.
03:19Man, I wonder if he understands what he's saying.
03:22I'm tired of reading it.
03:24I've read that statement aloud many times.
03:26You've seen it, the statement he issued as the sun was coming up.
03:31But he apparently didn't talk to his secretary of state.
03:36Apparently not.
03:36He was also his national security advisor.
03:40I'm not talking about Steve Witkoff, the real secretary of state.
03:43I'm talking about the one that was confirmed by the Senate.
03:46Chris, that full screen.
03:47Here's what Marco Rubio said last night.
03:49The first two lines are bold-faced lies, Colonel.
03:53Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran.
03:57All right, that's true.
03:58We are not involved in strikes against Iran, and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.
04:06Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense.
04:12I don't have to read the rest.
04:14Why would he lie like that, and why would Donald Trump contradict it?
04:18Because he's, Rubio, fearful of his own assets, which we were significantly after 9-11, in the region.
04:27And he's got a lot of them over there, and they're not very well protected in terms of military action against them.
04:33That's the reason, probably.
04:34And secondarily, he thought, and probably was convinced by the president, I would imagine, that he ought to say that.
04:42Didn't realize the nature of the lie he was telling, because I don't think Marco Rubio is well read in to the real machinations of this administration.
04:53Colonel, I think you're 100% correct.
04:54And if you look at the time, that statement came out about 11 o'clock last night of President Trump's, I know everything.
05:02By the way, he literally did say that to the New York Post in an interview earlier today.
05:08But his I know and knew everything statement came out around 530 this morning, so it's about seven hours later.
05:15One wonders if Trump communicated with Netanyahu and didn't even tell his own Secretary of State.
05:24Could be, or he could be, both are possible.
05:28He could be asserting his ha-ha-ha control over Marco Rubio.
05:32Yeah.
05:33What is the likely involvement of CIA in this, Colonel?
05:37Oh, complicit to the hilt.
05:40Mossad and MI6 also.
05:41This matches Ukraine so closely that they have been doing this for months.
05:47They've been putting these drones in place to attack the air defense systems.
05:52These are drones that popped up at the propitious moment and attacked the air defense system,
05:57which technically really had no defense against that close an assault and that type of an assault.
06:03So they successfully neutered their air defense system by infiltrating these drones well before the actual attack.
06:12Wow.
06:13Kind of like the cell phones.
06:15Yeah.
06:16How badly, from your sources, your non-public sources that you can reveal to us,
06:22not the ID of the source, but the information they gave you, was the damage to Ukraine?
06:31The BBC says unprecedented damage.
06:35Haaretz itself says pretty much the same thing.
06:40To Iran?
06:42To Iran.
06:43To Iran.
06:44I suspect because of the unaware nature, the tactical surprise they achieved,
06:50which was the purpose of the deception on Trump's part and Bibi Netanyahu's part,
06:54they probably achieved a pretty good degree of above-ground destruction,
06:59but I don't think they did too much underground destruction,
07:02and that's where the critical assets are.
07:05Do you think that Israel is or was or remains capable of substantially impairing the nuclear enrichment program of Iran,
07:19since all of it takes place, God knows how many meters or feet underground?
07:23I don't think so, and I think they know that.
07:26I think they're frustrated by that.
07:28So we can look for more of this kind of covert operation that they have carried out in the past,
07:34where they do it clandestinely, and they do it basically by bribing people inside Iran with our tax dollars.
07:41Well, well, were you surprised that Mossad set up some sort of a staging area inside Iran into which they smuggled drones?
07:55I mean, that can't be easy to do.
07:58Nah, Iran's a big place.
08:00It's not like Israel.
08:02You know, Israel's not, well, it's about the size of Greater London.
08:05Iran's a vast country, and there are all manner of places where you can camouflage, cross the border, get away with it.
08:14Lots of things on parts of the border take place every day that are not controllable by the Iranian government,
08:21and they'll admit that if they're frank.
08:22I don't want to ruin your afternoon, and Prime Minister Netanyahu made many statements.
08:28This is the core of it.
08:30It's only about 40 seconds long.
08:33But the essence of it is that this is going to go on and on and on.
08:37And then I'm going to ask you about Iran's offensive weaponry.
08:42Chris, cut number six.
08:46This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove the threat.
08:51For decades, the tyrants of Tehran have brazenly, openly called for Israel's destruction.
08:58They've backed up their genocidal rhetoric with a program to develop nuclear weapons.
09:04Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time.
09:08It could be a year.
09:09It could be within a few months, less than a year.
09:12This is a clear and present danger to Israel's very survival.
09:16Israel will never allow those who call for our annihilation to develop the means to achieve that goal.
09:23Tonight, Israel backs those words with action.
09:29All right.
09:30Some bluster.
09:31I don't know.
09:31How do you read that?
09:32Him using the word genocidal is laughable if it weren't so bad.
09:36He's been saying that, Judge, for 15 years.
09:41He said the same thing about Iraq when we were contemplating going into Iraq in 2003.
09:46If you do that, it'll save the region.
09:48Everything will be okay.
09:49It'll all be copacetic.
09:50Of course, he meant as soon as you do Iran afterwards and as soon as you do Syria afterwards.
09:56Well, they've done that now.
09:57And Iran is the last target, if you will.
10:00And I've no doubt that he's sincere about wave after wave, if necessary.
10:05But I think he's going to find it increasingly difficult as Iran gets back to its feet, gets new leaders into place and such.
10:12And they're probably doing that right now.
10:14Probably won't take more than about 48 hours.
10:17And this salvo that they're firing right now will probably increase in intensity and duration.
10:23Does Iran have missiles that the Israelis and the Americans cannot stop?
10:28It does.
10:30And here's what I think they might do that would be really traumatic.
10:34They'd go after the GCC states, particularly Saudi Arabia's oil facilities and things like that.
10:41They'd close down the strait.
10:43And though that's now just 20% of the world's oil, it's significant enough to we would shoot oil prices up dramatically.
10:51Probably in the neighborhood that we were contemplating before and they actually got to $150, $200 a barrel.
10:57And you also would have insurers that wouldn't insure and shippers that wouldn't ship, just like you had in the Red Sea.
11:03And you would have a stymied oil flow in the Persian Gulf.
11:07And they could do some other things that would be critical, too, that would impair the Saudis for a long time.
11:13Where does Israel get its oil from?
11:15Ah, you don't want to ask me that.
11:20Israel has all manner of sources, and they all depend on the complicity of the United States and Israel in combination to either coerce, pay, or cajole people like Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, and others to let the oil flow.
11:39Could Erdogan starve Israel of oil if he wanted to?
11:44That's the president of Turkey.
11:45He could do a good job of starting, but here's what's happening to a certain extent.
11:51You've got the Iraqi Kurdistan that is selling oil both legally and illegally to Israel at a discounted price under pressure from us.
12:00And you've got other things like that going on with rogue oil, and they get plenty of oil because no one has the guts to stop it or the inclination to because they make so much money off of it.
12:13Look at what they did to the yacht in the ship that had Greta Thunberg aboard.
12:19Why is the Greek Navy?
12:20Why is the Italian Navy?
12:21Why are any of the navies in the Mediterranean, including our own, but I know the answer to that question, why are they not protesting this international waters intercept of a ship?
12:32They're not, and they've got navies.
12:35They've got navies even that can challenge Israel's navy, but they won't do it because they're making too much money, and they're scared of the empire.
12:42CNN reports that Israel is expected to intensify its attacks on Iran in response to tonight's Iranian ballistic missile attack.
12:53It says Israel will target, here you go, Colonel, economic infrastructure and oil and natural gas facilities as well as ports.
13:01Israel has announced that Iran attacked with 600 missiles.
13:05If Israel destroys Iran's oil capability, what does that do?
13:12$10 for a gallon of gas, Donald Trump, in the United States, in Trump's America?
13:18It certainly pushes the price of oil up dramatically, no question about it.
13:23And we're looking at possibility here, too, of China, Russia, and Iran colluding.
13:30Well, not collusion.
13:31It would be an outright understandable act and making it even more difficult for oil to flow,
13:37and even raising the price as high as we contemplated in the simulation we did in Beijing in 2009, $300 a barrel.
13:47Where does China get much of its oil from?
13:50Right now, last year, they got 90.4% from, guess who?
13:55Vladimir Putin.
13:56No, Vladimir Putin.
13:57Oh, okay.
13:58Yeah.
13:58Okay.
13:59Where do you see this going, Colonel?
14:04I think we're in for an interminable conflict, and I'm thinking it might morph into a regional war.
14:12And what will the U.S. do?
14:14We have 90,000 troops there.
14:16Is Hegseth going to send another 100,000?
14:18Do we even have them?
14:19Most of these troops, though, are not combat troops.
14:22Yes.
14:22Ritter said the same thing.
14:25They are very vulnerable.
14:27Very vulnerable.
14:27They do not have air defense.
14:29They don't have any significant security perimeter.
14:32They could make a hasty one, and you'd put cooks and bottle washers out there, essentially.
14:38But it's a naval headquarters in Bahrain, for example.
14:41It's an airfield that is not very well defended at all in Qatar, the largest in the world.
14:47It's airfields in Saudi Arabia, and we all know how good the Saudis are at defending things.
14:52Look at Yemen.
14:53And so it's ripe for disaster, but that's what Netanyahu wants.
14:59He wants them to attack U.S. assets and bring the U.S. in in a significant way.
15:05Would he attack U.S. assets and make it look like it came from Iran?
15:11Would you put that past him?
15:12Not a bit.
15:13I wouldn't put it afoot past him.
15:15Well, I don't think he's going to have to, though.
15:18I think the Iranians are going to be quite angry, justifiably so, and I think they probably are going to widen this conflict.
15:26Will other nations with significant militaries like Egypt or Turkey get involved?
15:35Doubt it very seriously.
15:37It's just not in their significant interest to do so.
15:40And there'll be pressure on President Erdogan from the, I'll use the old phrase, Arab street.
15:47We've seen the average Turk.
15:51Judge it.
15:52If these thousands and thousands of women, children, babies dying in Gaza aren't motivation for Erdogan, I don't know what ever would be.
16:01Making too much money.
16:03Well.
16:04I will give Netanyahu credit.
16:10When he was finance minister, he set up a lot of this, where people are actually making money off of Israel, and Israel off of them, too.
16:19And they don't want to end that.
16:21So, Chris just sent me, flight maps reported on X, formerly Twitter.
16:28Benjamin Netanyahu's presidential plane, with the name of Wing of Zion, took off from Tel Aviv at 11.22 this morning, local time.
16:41It landed an hour and a half later in Athens, Greece.
16:46Is that credible, Colonel?
16:47Is he fleeing the country?
16:51I think he's probably just making a planned trip.
16:54I don't know.
16:56I don't know.
16:56I can't crawl into the head of the air controllers or whatever, but that is interesting that he's going to Athens, because that would be, unless it's just an intermediate stop, I have no idea why he's going to Athens.
17:09Unless maybe the Greek government demarched him, and he's going up there to read him the riot act.
17:13I mean, is he fearful of his own life, fleeing the country whose military he wants to lead?
17:21Well, he would not be fleeing it because of fears of Iranians.
17:26He'd be leaving it because of fears of his own people.
17:29Can you say that again, please, Colonel?
17:31Chris, Chris, can you cut this clip?
17:34He would not be leaving and flying out of Israel because of his fear of the Iranians, but fear of his own people.
17:42How precarious is Bibi Netanyahu as the head of the government?
17:46Well, I've said that he's been in trouble for weeks now, and I think the trouble is only deepening and becoming more profound.
17:55And if these missiles keep impacting in any significant way, they're going to deepen even more.
18:01Wow.
18:02Israelis do not understand.
18:05They do not understand.
18:07The great majority of them don't understand that they are the reason bombs are falling.
18:14Now, as long as they fall on innocent Palestinians, that's fine with them, 82% of them anyway.
18:19But when they start falling on them, it's an entirely different matter.
18:23Look how fast they unass those homes up there north of the line of contact in Lebanon.
18:31But they will leave forthwith.
18:36Colonel Wilkerson, what advice would you give to President Trump if he called you up and asked for it?
18:41Cease and desist and tell Bibi the same thing, or you will clamp down on him like he's never been clamped down on before.
18:48We're at a point now.
18:50They got the point.
18:51200 planes flew in.
18:52You achieved tactical surprise.
18:54You did damage.
18:55You assassinated.
18:56I want to say murdered a lot of the key people in the run, both in the nuclear program and in their military leadership.
19:02Be satisfied.
19:04Shut your mouth.
19:05Stop.
19:05And I'll go back to the table if they will come.
19:10What are the chances of Trump doing that, given the Zionist pressure on him?
19:14Zero.
19:15Zero.
19:16He's reveling right now in his, you know, he put down his secretary of state.
19:22He advanced himself as a wartime leader par excellence, even though all he does is use proxies.
19:28And he's established diplomatic leverage, however useless it might be.
19:34Andy's spending $50 million tomorrow.
19:37On a parade.
19:38On his birthday on a parade.
19:40Yeah.
19:41I wonder if it'll rain.
19:43I wish it would snow.
19:46Colonel, thank you very much.
19:50I think you know that I conflated your name with another great colonel, Doug McGregor, and I called you or him Colonel Larry McGregor.
19:59Obviously, it's been a long day.
20:01I have nothing but the highest respect.
20:03And as you know, since I kissed your head, even affection for you.
20:06If I kissed McGregor, he'd push me away.
20:08If I kissed you and you hugged me.
20:10Well, I have no problem being conflated or confused with Doug McGregor.
20:18Thank you, Colonel.
20:19Thanks for your time.
20:20It's the end of a long day and a long week.
20:22The week did not end up as it began.
20:24But here we are doing our best to analyze and describe it.
20:29Deeply and profoundly grateful for your assistance.
20:31We'll look forward to seeing it at your usual time next week.
20:35Take care.
20:35Thank you, Colonel.
20:37And next week, of course, on Monday morning, Alistair Crook at 8 o'clock, Ray McGovern at 10, Larry Johnson at 1130, and probably more of our regulars as the day and as the events progress.
20:53Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
Recommended
33:38
|
Up next