For 24 years, Judge Andrew Napolitano worked at Fox News. He appeared more than 14,000 times on the network – more than any other on air celebrity at Fox.
He now appears five times a week on NewsMax, but arguably has his greatest impact on his daily internet show – Judging Freedom.
It’s on that show where he constantly blasts away at the military-industrial complex that is eating away our democracy from the inside out.
It’s on that show where the Judge hosts discussions with a regular stable of guests – including Lawrence Wilkerson, John Mearsheimer, Max Blumenthal, Douglas MacGregor and Aaron Mate.
The show has attracted an enormous international audience.
“I don’t know how to compare it to Fox’s audience, but its international reach is extraordinary,” told the Capitol Hill Citizen last month. “I was recently in Moscow and was stopped by more people there than when I’m walking in New York City. The show has become very popular internationally, primarily because we articulate a vision and a view of things and explain a history of things far different from what the mainstream media does.”
“These views – that Israel is committing genocide, that it’s using starvation as a tool for genocide, that the war in Ukraine is none of America’s business and the historical basis to understand it – these issues would never be articulated in the mainstream media,” Judge Napolitano says.
“With my regular guests on the show – I’ve been able to articulate this alternative view, which paints the picture of American depravity, and the viewers have flocked to it.”
Judge Napolitano is part of a a libertarian anti-neocon center – people like George Galloway in the UK, the comedian Dave Smith – that whole group of commentators who were taken in by Trump’s no more foreign wars rhetoric.
“I have known Trump personally since 1986. We interacted many times at Fox,” Napolitano said. “He interviewed me twice for the Supreme Court of the United States. So that will show you the level of interaction that we have had. I did not make Fox management happy when I criticized some of the things he did during his first term, and when I said that there was an articulable legal basis for both of his impeachments.”
“I have never voted for him. I haven’t voted for a Republican since I voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984 because I don’t trust big government. I’m a Ron Paul type of guy. I would never condone the expenditure of a trillion dollars for the Defense Department to maintain 750 foreign military installations in 80 countries. No human being can name those countries. No human being could articulate the names or the basis for all of those military expenditures.”
“So I have been harshly critical of Trump. I have criticized him at Newsmax for his executive orders, which have attempted to trash the Constitution by doing things that are nowhere authorized for the President.”
“And I have been harshly critical of him on Judging Freedom for funding the genocide in Gaza and for continuing the Biden policy in Ukraine, which he harshly criticized when he was a candidate.”
“I don’t know what he personally thinks of me anymore. We haven’t communicated in a while, but I have not hesitated to be harshly critical of him, from his bizarre interpretation of the 14th Amendment to his dispatching of masked men to arrest people in the streets and incarcerate them without due process and deport them without hearings, to bombing Iran, to funding these wars – all of this behavior is not only contrary to what he promised, but is profoundly unconstitutional, and in my view is a step – many steps – toward authoritarianism.”
Didn’t the MAGAverse take Trump at his word when he said during the campaign that he would end the Ukraine war with in 24 hours?
“I did not take him at his word, because I know him,” Napolitano told the Citizen. “There is a gap in his brain between reality and fantasy. This idea he could end a war in 24 hours was a joke, but millions of Americans bought it. He doubled down on Biden’s war – now it’s Donald Trump’s war. The flow of arms has continued at the same pace. And the flow of intel has continued. The CIA built twenty stations in Ukraine. If he pulled the CIA out of there, the Ukrainians would be helpless.”
“I never bought any of Trump’s America first stuff, which a lot of Republicans did and which a lot of the MAGA crowd did. They are now deeply and profoundly disappointed. This has little to do with Jeffrey Epstein. It has to do with Trump having turned 180 degrees on no more foreign wars.”
“Bombing Iran – a foreign war. Fighting in Ukraine – a foreign war. Funding Israeli slaughter in Gaza – a foreign war. This is hardly a man of peace. Benjamin Netanyahu nominates Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize – it’s like a Seinfeld skit. You couldn’t make up anything more absurd.”
On the race for mayor of New York, the Judge throws a curve ball.
“Zohran Mamdani is a progressive,” Napolitano says. “I’m a libertarian. He wants to do things that I find anathema. But if I voted in New York, I might vote for him just because he said that the NYPD would arrest Netanyahu if he sets foot at JFK – and he would dispatch Netanyahu to the International Criminal Court in Brussels. That alone is enough to hold my nose and vote for the most left wing person ever to be a major candidate for mayor.”
[For the complete q/a format Interview with Andrew Napolitano, get the 40-page print newspaper at capitolhillcitizen.com]
