Transcription
Undeclared wars are commonplace. Tragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected.
What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? What if Jefferson was right? What if that government is best which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now?
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Npalitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, June 29th, 2026. Larry Johnson will be with us in just a moment. Is Donald Trump's memorandum of understanding unraveling?
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Larry Johnson, welcome here, my dear friend. Before we get uh to Trump's memorandum of understanding and the straight of war moves, why do you think President uh Vladimir Putin felt the need very ostentatiously last week to tell Europe that Russia's ready for war with it?
>> Well, because Europe keeps talking about going attacking Russia. And Putin in his speech, it was on June 23rd, to the the graduating classes, think of it as the the West Point, the Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, FBI Academy, and the CIA uh officers all coming together to listen to a speech from the president. And and Putin made it very clear. He drew the parallels with Operation Barbaroso, which was the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Nazis on June 22nd, 1941. And he he basically said that we're in a parallel universe, but uh emphasized that Russia was ready to confront that challenge. So they're Russia I think fully the attitude that's being reflected is one that they fully anticipate that they're going to be going to war with Europe. Not that they're not that Russia's choosing to go to war but that the Europe is bringing the word to Russia. They've been the Europeans particularly the Brits uh they've been launching attacks or helping Ukraine launch attacks inside of uh Russia. The United States as well. Uh that that's one of the things that Donald Trump I think is you know really crossed the line. Uh there were reports uh more than a week ago about a week and a half ago actually of uh that the Brit that the Brits sent a cargo of radioactive material into the port of Odessa. Uh the Russians followed it. They didn't take it out right there. They followed it to Kev and they they they blew up the site at which it was stored and there was report of background radiation went up fairly significantly in the area. The the West is playing with absolute nuclear fire >> figuratively and uh and literally.
Uh our friend and colleague who was on right uh before you uh Alistister Crook is of the belief that after Trump's failure uh in Iran, he may pivot to start getting more uh active and aggressive in some way in Ukraine and Russia. But how can the Russians be expected to view the Americans, whether it's Marco Rubio or these two real estate agents, Witoff and Kushner, as honest brokers when the United States is actively helping Ukraine fight the war?
>> Well, they don't. And you you we've heard from people from Peshkov the spokesman for Trump for Putin, Ushakov, one of Putin's close advisors, and then Lavro, who you and I know, uh been, you know, basically acknowledged that the Anchorage process whatever whatever was agreed on at Anchorage, that's dead. Uh that that's going nowhere. They are walking away from it. And and Russia has dramatically in the last week and a half shifted uh its military strategy. Uh it's destroying every gas station in Ukraine. That's what it's has embarked on in key areas. They're making sure that nobody's car is going to get filled up with gas. Uh they're knocking out the power plants now. And uh this is in tandem with they're they're making steady advances all along the front from the north and sumi through kkefe down to daets and luhansk. Well mostly it's all daets because they they've already controlled luhans and into zaparisia and kerosan there. And all of this coming against this this backdrop of noise out of the west about how Russia's losing, Russia's on the ropes. Russia. Uh the the the propaganda coming out of Keev is becoming more hysterical with each passing day. And and it it implies that you know that if they just get rid of Putin, boy, everything will be okay. And it's got it. Have you guys met Medvidev? You know, I'd like to introduce you. >> He's what Putin is is the brakes on a nuclear bomb essentially. Uh because there are enough growing number of Russians and Russian politicians, Russian leaders that are insisting that Russia needs to just decimate Ukraine without just mercilessly. So this is uh you know if you had to weigh the chance for is is a global war going to going to break out starting in in Europe or in the Persian Gulf. You know, my money's on Europe right now.
H do you think there's tremendous pressure on uh President Putin to bring the war to a military resolution which would mean a devastating blow on Kee?
>> No, I don't think there's so much pressure. Yeah, I mean, yes, there is pressure, but let's not ignore that Putin is himself angry over this. I mean, he's he's not he's not sitting back saying, you know, let's uh let's go out and put daisies in the barrel of the rifles of the Ukrainians, you know, he's he's become more impatient and um he's relying upon the general staff. Uh I think people need to understand this that Putin is not the one calling the military shots. Uh he's not Adolf Hitler in the bunker directing armies where they need to go. Uh he defers to uh General Garasimoff as far as you guys figure out what the what you need to win this war. Tell me what you need to do. There are some that keep talking about they need to take the gloves off. But uh you know I think the Russia's biggest problem is it is lousy, terrible at information operations. It it you know they don't market themselves in terms of what they're doing. They keep a lot of it quiet.
Larry. Now, Larry, now you're talking about another friend of ours, Maria.
>> Yes. Well, you know, it's not She's the spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, but it's not her job to come up with uh to tell the story of what Russia is actually doing. I mean, I've I've talked to uh a couple of the media types and I said, "For God's sake, put together an interactive map that shows from 2022 to now how you've progressed and you keep moving and you keep and the different territories, you got and they go, "Yeah, yeah, maybe we need to do." It's like there are ways to tell their story and they're they're terrible at it.
Well, and um in the meantime, who's paying American arms manufacturers for American arms being shipped to Ukraine? Are the Europeans uh funding that?
>> Uh well, I don't know. Uh I don't know if the money's actually moved or not. Uh what I do know, what I did learn over the course of the last week is that uh the money that the United States sends to Ukraine uh that a the portion of it siphoned off and it's taken either it's you know it's actually literally carried in bags to Lithuania and Latafia or uh to it was being carried to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and being deposited in banks there. It was then used I know in Dubai it was being used to purchase the developing property. It was like a Ponzi scheme and then once the pro pro they put it in buy the buy the property then flip it and they'd get a profit out of it and then those proceeds were presented as oh this is the legitimate proceeds from a real estate deal sent to Israel and then from Israel some of that money made its way into the into the pockets of members of the US Congress. Wow. Whose names uh you're not at liberty to mention. Wow.
>> All you have to do is say who are the biggest advocates for continued war in Ukraine and there you have your money men.
>> Wow. Well, the uh memorandum of understanding it's falling apart, is it not?
>> Well, the United States has violated it and um the question remains will it will it remain intact? You know, initially uh the they were the the US and Iranian delegations were supposed to reconvene in Switzerland tomorrow. There travel today talk tomorrow and that those talks were supposed to be about nuclear issues. Now, the the after the events of the weekend in which the United here's how the United States violated theou, there is nothing in theou that says that Iran cannot stop a ship from transiting the straight of Hormuz if it's in violation of Iran's Persian Gulf Strait Authority protocols. Those protocols that Iran issued about four weeks ago stipulate that hey any any ship that wants to go through they just register with the IRGC and originally they were going to charge a fee but for right now they said no fee for 60 days that was uh so they got 50 days left effectively and that you do that you go through frying go through the waters that we designate well the United States being cute uh working with the Brits were directing. The first ship that was directed was called the Ever Lovely and on that was on Friday and it tried to sneak along the coast with Oman. It was hit with a drone and so in retaliation in response to that act by Iran, the United States attacked Iran and Iran then responded attacking uh locations in Bahrain. Now the reality was these attacks were not effective. They were not hitting critical structures on either side. It was it was I call it political military political theater like well we're going to hit you and then Iran struck back. Uh so that was Friday. Saturday the there were two ships that attempted to get through and Iran hit them harder. They turned back and then the United States launched a what was called a larger scale attack. Again, it was not hitting critical nodes or or killing a large number of Iranians. And Iran then turned around and blasted the bases, air bases, the Ali Salm uh in uh Kuwait and the Issa air base in Bahrain. Now, there were no US aircraft at those bases. So, again, this is more of a symbolic punching back. So, what did the United States do? It backed down. It did. It didn't. It didn't say you're not going to hit us without us hitting back. No, US backed down. Qatar intervened and said, "Okay, we're going to let's get together Tuesday and we'll talk about the straight of Hermoose." But there's there's nothing to talk about because the Iranian position is very clear. We control the Straight of Hormuz. We've issued the Persian Gulf Strait Authority protocols, the guidelines what ships need to do because essentially what they want to make sure is that there's no ship that's going out that's going to Israel. They've they've imposed an effective maritime blockade at least with respect to the items coming out of the Persian Gulf with respect to Israel. Otherwise, every other ship can go through and that's still the case. They can still go through uh if they follow what Iran's doing. The problem is the Europeans, some of those, you know, like the Greek ship owners that have ships stuck in there, they're not going, they they're refusing to travel through the Iran side because they're afraid that if they do, they'll be sanctioned in Europe for violating. So, it's like that's not that's not Iran's problem. That's a stupid European problem.
>> Right. Right. Here's someone surprisingly who agrees with you. Uh former President Biden's uh national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Watch this. Chris, cut number three.
>> If you just look at how they work, the wording of the agreements they do, they are highly detail oriented, not just because they're lawyerly, but because they want to extract benefits from those details. Just one example from theou, the provision that says the US would wave sanctions refers to oil. And then there's this little clause that says and derivatives. What are derivatives? The prochemical sector that is the second largest sector in Iran. Now, do I think the US really even understood what it was signing with that? Maybe not. But Iran knew it would get billions and billions of dollars just by inserting that word. And that's why you bring a very large delegation because you're looking for every advantage in this highly complex, detailed negotiation. And I think as long as they're bringing that expertise and we're only bringing a couple guys, it will be advantage Iran. Surprise. Iran's experts who accompanied foreign minister knew a hell of a lot more about negotiating and about the uh prochemical industry than the vice president and Trump's two real estate agents did.
>> Well, look at also look at clause five, you know, the fifth paragraph of that agreement which concerns uh the uh straight of Hormuz. It says that Iran is the one responsible for figuring out how to get ships safely through the straight of Hormuz and through the out out of the Persian Gulf. It doesn't say Iran in consultation with Oman and the other Gulf allies. It doesn't say Iran and the United States. It says Iran >> alone. And that's what Iran can say, hey, we're acting according to theou. There's nobody else mentioned in here. We're given the right to figure out how to do this safely. We're suspend we have suspended tolls for 60 days. And in there, it says 60 days only. After 60 days, they're going to they're going to uh exact tolls out of ships that want to transfer transit the Persian Gulf. I mean, you look on on every single issue in this, whether it's the first paragraph that the United States blatantly violated by attacking Iran, by using threats, which were prohibited in in that version down to the fifth paragraph where Iran's got the Iran was given the right to figure out how to get ships through the Persian Gulf. Nobody else.
There's uh another player here and you have written about this in a fascinating series of analyses at sonar 21 your website and that's the insurance industry. I mean can any tanker can any owner of any tanker send one of these behemoths through there without insurance?
>> Well only if they want to shoulder the risk and and that's the problem. Uh the ship owners are saying, you know, if we're going to take the risk of going through, we want to make sure that we're not going to get fined for violating European sanctions. We want to make sure that we're not going to hit a sea mine that'll blow up our ship. If a dam ship's damaged, you know, who's going to pay for that? So, they're largely stuck. The the number of ships going through uh the uh the straight is quite low. Uh there's a there's a great website and I have no affiliation with it, but it's called mariner.com and it it's a global map of all shipping activity in the world. You can drill down, look at the straight of Hormuz, and it's like right now it looks like there's one ship called the Vaughn that's headed out and it's it's going for it's going to Faraja, United Arab Emirates, which is on on the Sea of Oman, but it's sailing through the Iranian channel, which is over near the Camsh Island. Uh you don't see any of the ships like the other day the United States tried to accompany one of these ships and help me out with the physics here judge. A ship's going about 12 miles per hour maximum and it's being accompanied by an F-16 >> that's going 300 miles per hour. How do you accompany a ship like that, you know? So anyway, it got in it. It tried to get around the uh through through the waters near Oman, near this place called Cassab, and the Iranians hit it and it turned around in reverse course. However, all the open- source intelligence people are saying, "Oh, this ship blasted through the Iranian defense. It got through." Turned out it didn't. Okay. And you could check it on the map. You could see where the ship itself was. So it was called the the the the Velos Turquoise I believe was the name of that ship. Um so the point uh point of this is Iran's got control over the straight of Hermoose. The what the United States is actually doing right now there because there are lots of reports that we're building up forces in in the region. No, we're not. The all the air traffic that the people are seeing it is air traffic starting to take US assets out of the Persian Gulf. The United States uh the the uh Pentagon Pete Heads signed off on an order I believe 5 days ago that directing the withdrawal of US forces from the region.
>> Wow. I mean, does the Pentagon understand that a massive US presence in the Middle East is no longer indicated? Does it make any sense?
>> Well, it's not there anyway. So, for example, at Aldid Air Force Base in Qatar, uh we used which is the largest US military base in that entire region. It has it's been it has been the launch pad for like when I when I went to Iraq uh back in 2006 uh at the at the direction of Jesuid and picked up the plane there and then flew up into Iraq. So there's this uh it's called the combined air operation center chaok in the military speak with the acronym and that combined air operation center controlled all the air traffic all the air what was moving through the air all the way up into the black sea you know down to down south going going uh east to Pakistan Afghanistan and then over to the Mediterranean uh that combined air operations center had representatives from multiple nations uh and they they they were connected to the radar, this billiond dollar radar that used to be at uh at alouded uh and we could tell immediately if there were launches of missiles from Iran. Well, that radar is destroyed. The radars are destroyed and the kayak has now been relocated to I believe South Carolina Shaw Air Force Base.
>> Wow. How do you see this ending? I mean, was was this memorandum of understanding a legitimate launch point toward uh serious negotiations or just a pause in the fighting? It sounds like it's not a pause in the fighting if the fighters are starting to come home.
>> But Trump has an econ a serious economic problem still not being acknowledged. You know, the markets are very deceptive in this regard. Um the it's f folks are fixated on the oil and the the oil we're still at very very large reduced amounts of oil. The the paper market, you know, with futures markets, oh the the oil is priced at $70, $65 is is someone I know who's an actual operator out there in the field. He said, "Take find anybody with that can go with 7, you know, has the money to pay $75 a barrel. Go to find any ship that's got a full tank of full a tanker load of oil that's getting ready to dock and see if you could go buy the oil off off that ship for $75 a barrel. Ain't happening. You're going to pay $140 a barrel." So, that that's the partial reality. But particularly with helium uh sulfur and ura, the helium prices have have basically doubled in price, which is why you saw Tim Cook of Apple come out last week or the end of uh the week before to announce that Apple's raising its prices. So the cheapest iPhone is going to go up $50. Uh the the high-end iPhone's going to go up $200. Why? Because the computer chips that are made using helium, the the helium price has gone up and so the the making computer chips has gone up. And so that inflationary effect, it's not just going to hit Tim Cook. Any system that uses computer chips is going to cost more money, substantially more money. Ditto, the same thing with sulfur. Sulfur has has doubled in price and that that's used in a lot of prochemical processes as well as the the metal industry. Again, we haven't seen it's not readily apparent, but those prices are going up. And then Trump's got the issue with the strategic petroleum reserve is running empty and it's going to at this pace it's probably going to be at the critical level where they can't withdraw anymore within about three to four weeks. That's where it's headed. So uh then that creates issues for what are called the the middle distillates. So when oil is refined there's about a take a whole barrel take about 30% of that barrel. That's where the oil that creates diesel or jet fuel comes from. And the refineries that are processing diesel or jet fuel, they have to choose one or the other. They don't they don't just throw it in there and then, you know, like a beer tap open, you know, get light beer on one side and you get the Guinness on the other. No, you have to you have to figure out what do we need to make today? Do we need to supply the diesel? Need to supply the air uh the jet uh aviation fuel. And again, if the United States was going to step up and continue these intense air operations uh in in the Persian Gulf, that will further drain that. So, uh it looks like Trump is they're trying to find a way to ease out the Persian Gulf. But from a de facto standpoint, most of the bases that the US once occupied are not occupied anymore because they were too damn dangerous.
Wow. Does the White House understand what you just explained?
>> I hope so. You know, it's not it's not like I've got some top secret information here. This I mean, this is just publicly available information. All you have to do is pay attention to it. Um there is you know the the whole oil industry is caught up between you know if you try to look at it as conventional supply and demand and then try to connect it to what the price of a barrel of oil is uh you're going to you're going to get it wrong because there's this entire market of what are called derivatives. So if we remember 2008 and the housing crisis or the the derivatives crisis that small almost collapsed the financial market, >> right? >> That's the same kind of thing that's going on right now.
>> This is what Jake Sullivan talked about in that clip we just ran.
>> Yeah. So that's that's what's going on. And only the difference is uh I I talked with Alex White of Reporterify yesterday. Uh he says that that market is as large as one quadrillion. Okay. Not trillion, quadrillion. It is an enormous amount of money that's out there.
>> What the hell is a quad? What's a quadrillion? A trillion. Trillion.
>> A trillion. Trillion. Yeah.
>> Oh jeez.
>> Yeah.
>> I don't even know what that number looks like.
>> Yeah. It's it's in it's really incomprehensible. But so so there's um there are some major financial forces behind all of this. But but you know you get past all the financial manipulation, you come back and say how much does it take to make an iPhone? Well, it's going to cost you more because the chips or cost, you know, there are fewer chips being made because there's 44% of the global supply of helium is not there anymore. And so the the competition for that helium has doubled and almost going to triple the price. And so fewer chips, fewer chips, fewer computers. Gee, and what do we need right now with the uh this artificial intelligence revolution? Well, you need more computers. So even th those those businesses those uh ventures themselves are facing a sudden you know a really unexpected dramatic increase in in price. So the costs are going up and we saw you know the reports that inflation in the United States has gone up. The Fed's target was 2% inflation's up over 4%.
>> Wow Larry, thank you very much my dear friend. A great great uh analysis. We'll look forward to seeing you at the end. There's a quadrillion at the bottom.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Wow.
>> Lot lot of money.
>> Yes. Yes. We look forward to seeing you at the end of the week. Thank you, my friend. All the best.
>> All right, buddy. Bye-bye.
>> Okay. Bye-bye. Coming up uh later today at 2 o'clock this afternoon, Professor Jeffrey Saxs at 3 this afternoon, our old friend Ray McGovern. Judge Npalit Tenno for Judging Freedom. Heat. Heat.