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 Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, May 15, 2026. Professor Jeffrey Sachs joins us now. Professor Sachs, thank you very much for your time. I truly appreciate I know you're traveling. I truly appreciate your uh accommodating uh our schedules.
Aside from diverting US domestic attention from his disastrous war in Iran and the consequences, the economic consequences of it here in the US, what was President Trump's purpose in visiting President Xi in China? I don't know exactly the purpose but I would say u the outcome was um that there were two days of civil uh discussion between the two leaders nothing uh consequential was agreed or decided but I personally think the civility was a good thing so I wouldn't dismiss this as empty because there were no headlines line achievements and I think there were not any headline achievements. Uh the United States doesn't have any leverage over China. China wasn't asking for much from this meeting or expecting much. Nothing specific came out of it. But frankly these days when everything can go wrong, nothing went wrong in this meeting either. and the fact that the two sat for two days and talked that there was indeed a lot of pageantry which is what you would expect from China as a great host and a great civilization that was fully on display. uh and the end result as defined by the Chinese side as this showing uh a constructive strategic stability I think is uh perhaps good news for everybody. There was no dire clash. There was no uh attempt by either side to push the other to the cliff. Trump did not achieve anything at all specific specifically I would say there were no grand announcements that we have heard about trade or economy or deals. Uh there was no specific advance on any issue regarding the Iran war. uh there was no specific agreement on anything regarding tensions vis-à-vis Taiwan. Perhaps the most notable statement that I've seen come out of this is the statement by President Trump on the way out that he is still considering the arms sale to Taiwan. The Chinese side objects strenuously to the US arming Taiwan. I personally think it's a very bad idea myself and uh and because of that uh I welcome anything which says that the United States would reconsider what I think is not a sound and safe policy for Taiwan or for China or for the United States. But it shows uh actually President Trump uh not pushing the US side but rather perhaps succeeding to the Chinese side on this very important issue. All in all, no specific accomplishments that I can see, but I am on the whole relieved of two days of civility.
This is very gracious of you given given the level of criticism that you and others on this show and I have um uh hurled at the president over his foreign policy. Very gracious of you, Jeff, and I I agree with you. Of course, I have to ask you, why did President Xi lecture President Trump on Taiwan? At their first meeting before President Trump even had an opportunity to say, "I'm happy to be here." Before he was permitted to utter a public word, President Xi lectured him on Taiwan. I guess that shows you the gravity of the Chinese concern about this.
Well, I have a specific theory about the world, which is that the major powers should uh stay uh clear of each other's red lines. >> I don't want wars between major powers. I don't want showdowns. I don't want the Chinese government or the Russian government building military bases in Canada or Mexico or Venezuela or Cuba or any other place. I don't want them in the neighborhood and they don't want the United States in their neighborhood. This is the whole basis on which I and John Mearsheimer and so many >> I was just going to mention Professor Mearsheimer's name. It's so nice to hear the two of you agree on this. >> Absolutely. That why the whole idea of expanding NATO to Ukraine was absolutely reckless. >> Right. In my view, uh, arming Taiwan is the same issue. One has to understand the issue of Taiwan from the Chinese side. And by the way, the path in my view to peace and to wisdom is to understand any issue from the side of the other side, not just from your own perspective. From the Chinese government's side, Taiwan is part of China. and arming Taiwan by the United States against Beijing's wishes would be akin from the Chinese perspective to China arming Missouri or or arming Kansas against the wishes of Washington. Right? >> From China's point of view, this is just unimaginable. This then would get us into hours and hours of discussion. But I think the Chinese side is absolutely right on this personally. Yeah, >> Taiwan has been a part of the Qing dynasty and it was uh recognized as part of the Republic of China after uh 1912 uh when the Qing dynasty ended and the Republic of China was formed in 1943 at the Cairo conference in the middle of World War II when the United States and China and Britain were allies. They agreed that Taiwan and uh other uh places that had been taken by Japanese imperialism would be returned to China. So to my mind, this is uh what China's saying over the decades. And what President Xi did was I would say in a nonbombastic way, >> yes, >> but a very critical way. We are serious. This is not a debating point. This is our core red line. Do not interfere in our internal affairs.
It's interesting for me and I think it's a point that is essential for my understanding of how we should behave. The Russians said the same thing about NATO enlarging to their border. >> Right? In 2007, President Putin said, "This is our red line if we had shown prudence." Prudence is an ancient uh uh concept of Greek and Latin virtue, which is to think and be careful. And if we had shown prudence, we would say, "Okay, we hear you. Let's not let's let's not step over that tripwire. Let's not get into that minefield." But the United States in 2008 said, "Ah, we don't care what the Russians say." Now, President Xi has said exactly the same thing regarding Taiwan. I want politicians in Washington to listen. This is not a game. This is not a video game. This is not a joke. This is China saying this for us is absolutely core to our security. And if the United States makes such representations to China and to Russia, I want them to be heard. And when China or Russia makes them, I want them to be heard in Washington. We have a lot of irresponsible members of Congress who many don't hold passports. Many don't know what they're talking about. Many perhaps host military companies in their district. Many are just blowhards and ignoramuses. But they don't want to listen because they have no responsibility. I thank President Trump if the report is right for saying he will reconsider this arms sale. It's a bad idea. Yeah, >> it is a tripwire and we should stay clear of it. >> We know of his uh political and financial ties to the um military industrial complex. I hope he's right when he says he'll reconsider it.
In the same um speech in which President Xi again where early two days ago uh before President Trump even got to speak though he was there and he spoke right afterwards. Uh, President Xi, you you mentioned an ancient principle. President Xi mentioned the Thucydides Trap, which is the fear that a rising power, China, would result in war from an already risen power of the United States. And of course, he u uh condemned that uh that very principle. But it's interesting that in the same not the same breath but the same speech he said stay out of Taiwan and don't even consider the Thucydides Trap. I'm smiling because you mentioned John Mearsheimer and you mentioned the idiocy of members of Congress. There's also idiocy on the part of American diplomats like your uh fellow member of the Columbia faculty Victoria Nuland who instigated the coup in 2014 that overthrew President Viktor Yanukovych in uh Ukraine. Why am I mentioning this? Because John is debating her. She she's crazy enough to challenge John Mearsheimer to a debate in Toronto next next Wednesday. I offered to moderate the debate and her side said no. >> Let's just say that she distributed cookies in the Maidan protests as if as if Russian or Chinese officials distributed cookies in the demonstrations in Washington. You know, something unimaginable. and she was caught on a phone line intercepted by the Russians talking about who the next government would be uh late in January, early in February 2014.
All of that said, >> we should behave responsibly so that we don't end up in these wars. That's the main issue. But if we had if we practiced real diplomacy, which you have been urging for as long as I have known you, diplomacy that was not practiced in the Obama, excuse me, in the in the Biden administration, where sec then Secretary Blinken wasn't even permitted to speak to Foreign Minister Lavrov. Diplomacy which is not practiced today when the president sends his son-in-law and his business partner as opposed to serious experienced knowledgeable diplomats to do negotiating if the US practiced real diplomacy. Wouldn't all the meetings between Trump and Xi have been choreographed? Wouldn't the uh wouldn't there have been agreements worked out in advance so that the purpose of their meetings is not to craft an agreement but to ratify one already crafted? Because to me, none of that happened. Trump didn't even know who was greeting him on the tarmac at the bottom of the steps off of Air Force One. >> You're you're absolutely right. This was not a prepared summit in any detail and there were no substantive agreements. It's actually ironic and instructive and a bit sobering that when President Trump uh announced, and the Chinese have not announced anything yet, as far as I know on this, that China would buy 200 Boeing jets. What happened? Uh Boeing stocks fell 4% because the the number was Oh, that's all. What what are we talking about? And a uh you know a posse of billionaire business people accompanied Trump and doesn't seem like much came out of that either. This was not really a prepared meeting from all that we can gather. And we talked about Elon Musk sent out videos of himself sightseeing in Beijing, not not meeting with his opposite numbers in their tech world.
As we've been discussing in recent weeks, our governmental processes are in a state of collapse. Not only our diplomacy but almost everything about the government management is in a state of collapse. That's why we're in a war in Iran. It was not thought through. Uh it was not thought through either strategically or tactically. It is from every single indication a war uh decided by one person by Trump uh without uh any uh idea of what was going to happen the second day and uh we trapped ourselves in something that is very costly, very dangerous and where it's not going to end on terms remotely close to any of the varied explanations or purposes so-called of this war, none of which were valid and none of which are going to be achieved. So we have a breakdown of process. Government is actually a serious institution. It requires serious meetings. It requires uh lots of planning, preparation, negotiation, diplomacy. A government that runs on Truth Social posts, many of which are headscratchingly bizarre, dangerous, weird, uh, distracting, is not government. So, we have a serious long-term problem in the United States right now, very serious, which is that our politicians uh, in the Congress are corrupted by special interests. uh and uh our executive branch doesn't work. We don't plan. We don't have diplomacy. Uh we don't have interagency processes right now. We're at best flying blind if we're flying. Sometimes we're stuck on the tarmac.
If I compare that with uh China, Chinese government and governance is extremely uh sophisticated. Uh this may surprise people but if you talk about one-person rule that's actually the United States uh right now if you talk about uh a complex process that's China just announced its 15th plan its 15th economic plan I know many of the people that were involved in expert reviews and committees and deliberations and negotiations some of China's top scholars and top experts. It was an extraordinarily detailed and deliberative process. We have nothing like this in the United States. China basically has put its head down and for more than 40 years stayed out of war and built a world-class economy and built by far the largest manufacturing sector in the world. And for all the people shouting, "Oh, they stole this, they did this, unfair." No. What China did was invest heavily year after year, invest systematically, plan ahead, make significant programs for long-term technological advancement. And it is paying off. It's paying off with the largest manufacturing sector, the most cost-effective manufacturing sector, the leader in electric vehicles, the leader across many, many key technologies because they've been working hard at it and staying clear of war. And if the United States would stay clear of war, the trillions of dollars that we're wasting now in blowing up things and that are not helping the American people or the American economy, >> right, >> would be invested in long-term global competitiveness, peace and well-being of the American people and the American workforce. So, we should be doing serious long-term nonwar planning and investment for civilian purposes. And it's for that fundamental reason why this summit basically went China's way because China's now by the correct measurement that is at what's called purchasing power adjusted prices an economy that's about 30% larger than America's now and at the cutting edge of countless industrial activities. They've they've done it through investment and a long-term peaceful approach.
>> Very very uh apt and appropriate summary. Professor Sachs, uh I want to switch uh to Israel. Uh and I'd like you to watch this diatribe uh from Mike Huckabee, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, or so he sounds. >> US ambassador to Israel. >> Right. right uh on Tucker Carlson. Chris cut number six. >> What he says is dangerous in the same way that when people throughout history have been demagogues and they have incited entire populations of people to hate others and they base it on hating people without justification, without cause and based on outright lies. This is a dangerous thing. And when you marginalize, let's say Jewish people or marginalize uh whether they're white people, whatever, you marginalize, and you dehumanize them, you make it easy to justify not just hatred, but violence and murder toward them. Where do we get a society where people think it would be okay to kill a Charlie Kirk or a Donald Trump? When you dehumanize them to the point you say, "Their views are so dangerous, we can't tolerate them. We must get rid of them. That's why I say it's not enough to just ignore Tucker Carlson. We need to confront him and we need to correct him and we need to let people know that many of the things that he's saying are demonstrably untrue. Agree. The demon. The Palestinian people. I can't believe he said that. that didn't realize what he was saying. >> I you just cannot make this stuff up. If there is dehumanization, literally calling people animals, it is how the Israeli government and a lot of the population, I'm sorry to say, views the Palestinians whom they have just murdered in the tens of thousands and kill every day, men, women, children, and grab their land and torch their houses and refer to them as despicable subhuman beings. What is What is this guy? Where does this delusion come from? >> The vulgar the vulgarity of it. >> Yeah. >> Frankly, you can't make this stuff up. No, I kiddingly referred to him as the US as the Israeli ambassador to the US because that's what he sounds like as opposed to the US uh ambassador to Israel. Why the diatribe against Tucker Carlson? Because Tucker Carlson's interview of Huckabee exposed him for what for for his monomaniacal prejudices against the Palestinian people. >> That is exactly right. and not just against the Palestinian people, against the Arab world. Because what Huckabee said, and it was shocking how naive uh and how uh vulgar what he said was, that Israel, sure, it can go on to conquer uh Lebanon and Syria and part of Egypt because Huckabee knows that the promised land goes from the river of Egypt to uh the Euphrates as it says in the book of Genesis and Huckabee being a so-called Christian Zionist fundamentalist who reads words literally from ancient texts and then says sure go make war as you like take property as you like should not be holding any position of responsibility in our government, much less being ambassador to Israel. It is a disgrace that this man kept his job. And when he turns and accuses Tucker Carlson of precisely what Huckabee and his Israeli co-criminals are doing, and I say criminals because they are committing massive war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is shocking how blind this man is. He's supposedly a man of the scripture and he should remember what Jesus said is why do you see the moat in the other person's eye when you have a plank in your own eye? Well, Mr. Huckabee, you have a plank in your own eye. In both of them, you're not even seeing in front of you what Israel is doing to slaughter the people of the region.
Beautifully put, uh, Professor Sachs, I know you have a busy day coming as do we here. Thank you very much for your time. Uh, deeply appreciated your, uh, analysis of China's extraordinary. We'll get it out so that everybody can hear it. Safe travel. >> Thanks so much. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye. >> Of course. Uh, coming up later today, as usual, at the end of the day and the end of the week at four o'clock this afternoon, the intelligence community roundt on all of these topics. China, Iran, Cuba, Israel, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Heat.