Editor’s Notes: In this episode of Judging Freedom, Judge Andrew Napolitano welcomes Max Blumenthal, founder of The Grayzone, to analyze a series of major geopolitical shifts and domestic resignations. The conversation centers on the high-profile departure of senior counterterrorism official Joe Kent, exploring the motives behind his resignation and the broader implications for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Blumenthal also addresses the personal and professional attacks aimed at silencing independent journalism, while providing a critical look at the escalating tensions involving Israel, Iran, and Russia. It is a powerful discussion on the intersection of national security, institutional dissent, and the struggle for transparency in a rapidly changing world. (March 19, 2026)
TRANSCRIPT:
“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.”
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: 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 Thursday, March 19, 2026. Max Blumenthal joins us now. Max, a pleasure, my dear friend. As always, we have a lot to discuss. In my view, there were a lot of significant events this week. The most significant domestic event was the resignation of senior counterterrorism official Joe Kent and the reasons articulated by him in his resignation letter. Can you enlighten us on this?
Joe Kent’s Resignation: The Highest-Ranking Official to Quit Over a War Since Vietnam
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Joe Kent? I think it’s the highest ranking US official to have resigned over a war since Vietnam. And this war is shaping up into Trump’s Vietnam, or at least his own personal Vietnam, to paraphrase Donald Trump referring to his exploits with women as a bachelor back in the 1970s and 80s.
And so Joe Kent is seeing what the rest of us are seeing. But he had seen it from the inside as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, operating essentially one echelon below the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, a fellow US veteran who brought him in. It’s well known Joe Kent has done 11 combat tours. He was a special forces operator, Green Beret, worked with the CIA, lost his wife Shannon Kent, who was a CIA operative after the Syria withdrawal, was sabotaged by military leadership.
Why was the US involved in Syria? Why was Syria happening? Well, Joe Kent, in his resignation, dared to point out that Syria was on the US’s regime change target list because Israeli operatives put it there along with Iraq and Iran as part of the Clean Break document that was furnished to Benjamin Netanyahu by his advisors who went on to advise George W. Bush back in 1996.
Joe Kent is stating the obvious truths that we all know about Israeli influence over US government and about the Israeli influence that is just unprecedented over Donald Trump and about the disastrous course of the Iran war, which is destroying the global economy, in which Israel continues to escalate to prevent Donald Trump from finding an off ramp. And there’s almost no way to challenge what Joe Kent said in his resignation letter on the merits. It was such a bold, truthful statement, but also just unbelievably courageous to make these statements about Israel.
And it shows how far gone the US Government is at this point that someone of his stature with his background would do this. And so his opponents now, who are a combination of Trump dead enders and Israel lobbyists and Israelis themselves, are trying to muddy the waters by making this into an antisemitism scandal and painting him, in the words of Amos Hochstein — who is the former Israeli turned Biden advisor who helped steer Biden’s policy in support of Israel’s goal to destroy Lebanon — calling him a neo-Nazi.
He’s being attacked also by liberals, but also by Trump loyalists. And he has just utterly shattered their entire narrative and opened up the debate that we really need to have as a nation right now. Should the United States be waging war for Israel? And is the US Military carrying out a mission on behalf of American national security or on behalf of a psychotic apartheid colony 6,000 miles away? And it’s obviously the latter.
So again, there is no way to attack Joe Kent on the merits. So they’re trying to turn it into an antisemitism scandal. And the funniest part, which we’ll no doubt get to, is they’re trying to drag me and the Gray Zone into this.
The Attack on South Pars Gas Field: Israel, the US, and Escalation
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Well, just a moment before we get to them trying to drag you in. Who attacked the South Pars gas field? The Israelis or the US or both?
MAX BLUMENTHAL: The Israelis can’t do anything without the US. I mean, who supplied the planes, who supplied the bombs, who supplied the fuel, the in-air refueling? But this was an Israeli objective. This is a gas field — first of all, unionized workers — it’s a very important part of Iran’s domestic industry and its economic powerhouse. It supplies gas domestically to the Iranian population.
Which means everything the US, but especially the Israelis, say about how they want to liberate Iranians from the evil mullahs is proven false by this attack. But more importantly, Iran had warned explicitly: “We will retaliate by attacking energy infrastructure around the region and we will reclaim escalation dominance if you continue to attack oil fields in our own infrastructure.” And so that’s what they did.
They attacked an LNG facility in Qatar whose production is now down 20% and will not be able to recover its normal production rate for three to five years.
This is like a hammer blow to Europe and its ability to have an economy. They attacked Aramco facilities in Saudi Arabia, set them ablaze. Saudi Arabia continues to provide space for attacks, not just US attacks on Iran, but Israeli overflight. And so Iran has reclaimed escalation dominance.
Gas and oil prices are going back up. And Donald Trump, in an attempt to calm the markets, lied on Truth Social and claimed that he had nothing to do with this attack on South Pars Field. He’s trying to wipe the scene clean of his fingerprints and he’s told the Israelis that they should not do it again. But if Iran retaliates, he’ll blow everything up. So a completely contorted statement in which Trump is trying to basically calm down oil prices again because he’s blown everything up.
And this is the Israeli strategy. This is why the Israelis killed Ali Larijani, who was essentially running the Iranian government because he was negotiating behind the scenes with the Gulf states to provide Trump with an off ramp. And the Israelis need to keep the US in this war for as long as possible because the Israeli goal is not the same as the US goal. We don’t actually even know what the US goal is. But the Israeli goal is to destroy Iran as a nation. And to do that, they need the US Military to be involved for as long as possible.
And Iran is demonstrating that it can not only hit back, but it can reclaim escalation dominance. And the entire narrative that we’re hearing about the Iranian military from the Israelis — which has infested our own media narrative — that their missile launching capacity has been wiped out, that their drone production is wiped out, is totally false.
Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, or whatever he is, war secretary, claimed that Iran’s air defenses had been flattened. And guess what happened today? For the first time in history, an F-35 was hit with a missile in Iran. The pilot only escaped because he was probably on the border region in western Iran and was able to get back. Otherwise he probably would have been taken captive. So the US doesn’t even have control over Iranian skies. This caused all the other bombers that were on their way to Iran to basically pause and turn around after this pilot got hit.
Glenn Beck’s Attack on Max Blumenthal and the Gray Zone
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Wow. Why are they — go back to Joe Kent. Why is Glenn Beck and company attacking you? Or do you want me to run this clip first and then you can respond to it?
MAX BLUMENTHAL: You got to run the clip.
VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: His current wife, multiple reports identify her as Heather Kaiser and say that she has contributed to something called the Graystone. This is an outlet, a media outlet founded by Max Blumenthal. Who’s Max Blumenthal? What is this outlet? Blumenthal wrote for something called Al Akbar, that is a pro-Hezbollah, pro-Assad outlet. Now, he resigned in 2012 over the Syria coverage, but he’s also a contributor to Russian state media, RT and Al Jazeera, which is Qatari money. The Gray Zone, which he edits, has been criticized as anti-west, anti-Israel, pro-Russia, pro-Iran. Also, he was platformed at an Alexander Dugin linked event. If you’ve listened to this show, I’ve been talking about Alexander Dugin and how dangerous this guy is since before the turn of the century. He is very, very dangerous.
Okay? This event called the Forum of the Future of 2050 was in Moscow in 2025, and that’s where Blumenthal spoke on the same stage with Alexander Dugin. Now, I want you to know, crimes of the wife are not crimes of the husband. There’s no crime with his wife, but it’s a saying. I don’t find any solid reporting that proves that she’s an employee of Blumenthal, in the formal sense, but she did write for the site, so I don’t know any deeper than that. I didn’t know you owned a site called the Greystone.
VIDEO CLIP ENDS:
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah, it still sounds elegant. They sell — we sell luxury watches to men who want to look like Pierce Brosnan or something.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: All right, so the woman that he’s referring to, I believe, is Joe Kent’s current wife. Take it from there.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Did you know that clown when you were at Fox News?
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Oh, God, I knew him. I was the fill-in host for his show probably 50 times.
Lies, Smears, and the Attempt to Silence Dissent
MAX BLUMENTHAL: He hasn’t changed. You get accustomed to these screeds where he goes down the rabbit hole and it’s just building. He’s building bridges of lies based off islands of half-truths to deceptions. And in this case, almost everything he says about me is false.
The funniest thing is he says I spoke on stage with Alexander Dugin in Moscow, and I never did. I didn’t even agree to appear at any event in Moscow. I think it’s like the Forum of the Future or something. Elon Musk’s father was there, but I wasn’t there. Anyway, so it’s all kind of made up.
And they’re trying to drag me into it because Heather Kaiser, who went on to marry Joe Kent, contributed and co-authored a piece years ago, I think back in 2023, for the Gray Zone that was about wasteful USAID spending in Ukraine. Honestly, it was kind of like a piece that aligned with the Trump campaign’s messaging back in 2024, which no longer aligns. And that was it. So they’re just trying to find some hook. And then by connecting that to the Gray Zone, we’re somehow connected to Qatar, Russia, Iran, the entire axis of evil, even though the Gray Zone is a completely independent site, independently funded, with no connection to any of those governments.
And this is all they have to attack Joe Kent with. It’s funny and I’m honestly kind of enjoying it. But what they’re trying to do is not just muddy the waters — they’re definitely trying to present a substitute for an argument about why Joe Kent was wrong and why the US should be in this war for Israel, because they have no arguments.
But they’re also attempting to get Joe Kent and Tucker Carlson jailed. And by “they,” I mean the Zionist movement that essentially controls Donald Trump. They’ve been pushing for some kind of Espionage Act investigation of Tucker Carlson since last week. Now they’re floating — Laura Loomer, the spiritually rotted, anti-Palestinian Alice Cooper impersonator who has the ear of Trump — is floating the idea that there’s an FBI investigation of Joe Kent and somehow trying to rope me and my wife, Anya Parampil, into it and calling Anya a radical Muslim, which is hilarious.
They simply want everyone jailed who challenges this war. That’s the message they’re trying to send. And it’s because they’re afraid of what’s going on inside the US Military and inside the administration, where there is a lot of dissent against this failing, disastrous, catastrophic war.
Joe Kent is speaking for many people in the US Military at every level, all the way from the brass on down. And he’s speaking for many people in the administration. And so what they’re trying to do is make an example of him, to intimidate them. And they’re saying, “We’re not just going to go after you, we’re going to go after your wife and all of your wife’s associates. And in this way, we’ll destroy your career. We’ll make sure you’ll never work again. You won’t get a think tank job.”
Ultimately, and mark my words, when this is all over, it’s going to be Donald Trump and those who stand with Donald Trump who go down with the ship — who go down with the USS Gerald Ford, which is now in dock because sailors apparently set fire to the laundry room to get out of their deployment. They’re going to go down with the ship.
J.D. Vance is going to go down with the ship. Tulsi Gabbard is going to go down with the ship. And Joe Kent will be seen by Americans as a patriotic hero who stood up for what was right. And he’ll have a political future in this country, just as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie do.
IDF Threats Against Russian Leaders
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Let me ask you about another odd event. Has the IDF threatened elimination for Russian leaders on the basis of their speech? If they wish the Netanyahu government ill —
The Gray Zone’s Influence and the Shifting Discourse
MAX BLUMENTHAL: It looks like they have. And I’ll get to that in a second. I wanted to kind of make another point that I left out, which is that I had nothing to do with Joe Kent’s resignation. I didn’t even — I mean, I got the news just like everybody else did.
And we’re — the Gray Zone’s being involved in some bonkers conspiracy theory by washed up former Fox boomer slot merchants like Glenn Beck. And it’s ridiculous. But we are influential, and so is Judge Napolitano, and so are so many emerging podcasts and independent outlets. And they are shaping the way that people in power think.
I do want to take some measure of credit for helping to shift the discussion in this country, because this country is changing and people are waking up to what time it is right now. And they’re realizing that the US Military is becoming a tool of a crazy Apartheid colony 6 million miles away and its assets inside the United States who control the president.
And this is why I hosted John Mearsheimer last week about his book The Israel Lobby, on the 20th anniversary of the publication of his famous essay with Stephen Walt in the London Review of Books. It’s being vindicated right now. It’s going mainstream. Even Republicans under age 40 who don’t watch Fox News are seeing this.
I think we’re going to see more disruption at the top, because people — important people, Judge — they’re watching you and you’re shaping the way they think. And it aligns with what they’re seeing, including many of them who are on the inside. So Joe Kent’s not the only one, and they can’t make an example of him. There will be more. Trust me, there will be more.
A Personal Tribute
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Let me just respond to what you said. There are many of us who are fighting this battle, but none more personally courageous than you. You are the gold standard in this battle for exposing what is going on. And it’s a pleasure to work with you. I know we’re going to be taking slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. We’re ready for it.
A Warning to Those on the Inside
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, look at Colonel Wilkerson. This was Colin Powell’s chief of staff, right? What he says about what’s about to happen in the Iran war is absolutely true. And he knows this from experience. I haven’t been inside the room like him. But these are the figures that you’re giving voice to day after day, and people on the inside are learning the lessons from these seasoned figures, and they are being led into disaster.
So if you’re watching this right now and you’re on the inside, or you’re inside the military — Donald Trump is being led by some very dark forces that do not represent American national security interests. And he’s being led into a disaster that will be remembered in the same breath as Vietnam and the Iraq War, possibly worse.
So make the decision that’s right for you and listen to your conscience, like Joe Kent did. Because Joe Kent will be remembered as a patriot and a hero, and everyone who stood with Donald Trump will be recognized as a scofflaw, a villain, and a disgrace. And that’s too bad for someone like Tulsi Gabbard, who built her career on being a dissenter and had one of the most disgraceful testimonies in Congress I’ve ever seen.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Listen, I could play it. We’ve been playing it all day. There’s no sense even watching it again. She’s an utter, utter disgrace. And to those people to whom you are speaking — not only be as courageous as Joe Kent, be as eloquent. If you can be clear in your articulation, just like Joe was.
Now, to this IDF threat against Russia. What is this all about?
Israel’s Threat to Russian Leadership
MAX BLUMENTHAL: There’s this woman, Anna Ukulova — I think she’s of Ukrainian extraction — who is a spokeswoman for the Israeli military. They have a Russian language division, and I think she works there. And she was asked by RBC, which is a Russian broadcaster, about whether Israel had access to Russian CCTV and traffic cameras, because it was revealed in Russia that Russian CCTV cameras were using something called Briefcam, which is an Israeli video analysis software company that has taken credit for Israel’s ability to monitor Saeed Ali Khamenei, the former Ayatollah, in order to assassinate him.
And so the Russian authorities were getting worried — do the Israelis have access to our CCTV? Are they just watching us? And she made some very disturbing comments in response to this. She said — I want to get it right — she said, “Khamenei’s elimination shows our capabilities are serious and that no one who wishes us harm will be left aside.” And then she added, “I hope Moscow does not wish ill to Israel right now.”
Essentially threatening Russian leadership if they continue to ostensibly support Iran. So essentially an Israeli official is threatening the assassination of Russian leadership. That’s how I read it. And Alexander Dugin, a prominent Russian, read it the same way — prompting Ukulova to actually issue a statement saying, “I never said those things. Fake news, please check facts.” But she never explained how it was fake news. I mean, this is reported in RBC.
I hope Moscow is paying attention here. The Israelis — this is a mad dog off the chain, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they threaten Chinese leadership next. Their only objective is to destroy Iran, and they are now threatening Russian leadership.
I would not be shocked if they soon threaten to deploy a nuclear weapon inside Iran. They fail to suppress Iranian ballistic missile launches and drones, which they are failing to do. And Iran continues to demonstrate that it can hit Tel Aviv. It’s worn down their interceptors.
What did Israel do in 1973? Golda Meir said — she told the BBC — “I would use a nuclear weapon if we felt like our backs were against the wall.” They may have actually taken US diplomats to an airfield in southern Israel and showed them a plane strapped with nuclear weapons heading to Egypt, if Kissinger and Nixon did not authorize rearmament of Israel. I mean, that’s a story that’s frequently told.
So this is an extremely dangerous moment in which the most dangerous country in the world is escalating to a point of no return. And that’s why we decided to publish this piece at the Gray Zone by Wyatt Reed. Everyone can check it out here.
Israel Targets RT Correspondent Steve Sweeney
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Here’s another example of that escalation. Israel targeting RT — Russia Today — correspondent Steve Sweeney in Lebanon. Further rocket attacks were—
MAX BLUMENTHAL: —reported against Nahariya and Admitt.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Right. The latest report is he’s in hospital, he’s well, he’s injured, but they’re not life-threatening injuries. The same for his cameraman. So you’ve got two war crimes there at least — targeting a civilian area and targeting journalists.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah. Steve Sweeney is a friend of mine. He’s one of the hardest working, bravest war correspondents out there. A veteran war correspondent, reporter, and also someone who’s very close to the anti-war movement. And he has explicitly stated that they were trying to silence him — “they” being the Israelis.
It looks like he was directly targeted with a GBU made in the United States. This is Israel — the same country that is responsible for the majority of journalists killed in the world last year. The overwhelming majority. A country that has killed hundreds of journalists in the past three years. And they have targeted Steve Sweeney for his reporting.
He’s on the front lines in southern Lebanon, while most Western outlets are afraid to send reporters there. And what is he showing? The mass ethnic cleansing of the southern Lebanese population. Israel has told them all to leave everywhere north of the Litani River and to never come back. This is a titanic war crime that Steve Sweeney is documenting, and they attempted to kill him for it.
Thank God he’s alive. Shrapnel has been extracted from his arm and I’m told he’s back out in the field. I would think that British media would want to cover this story to demonstrate how Israel targets journalists, because we haven’t had such a vivid illustration before. But instead they’re whitewashing it, they’re downplaying it.
The BBC has an article headlined, “Missile lands near reporter.” Who fired the missile? I don’t know. It could have been anybody. Maybe it was a Lebanese missile. It just landed next to him. Maybe it got lost on the way to a Birthright Israel trip. The missile landed meters away from Steve Sweeney.
I think this is footage that should be leading prime time news. It’s something that audiences would want to see. It’s sort of shocking footage. And it’s pretty much nowhere.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Wow.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: The Daily Mail has a piece about it — that’s like the best I’ve seen.
Closing Remarks
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Yeah, we’ll do our best to get it out there. Max, you are the bravest and the clearest.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, I’m not as brave as Steve. I’m not out there like that.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Right, right. I know Steve as well, and he is a very, very courageous and dogged reporter. Thank you, Max. Thanks for all of your great reporting. Thanks for accommodating my schedule. Thanks for all the topics we covered today. Be well, my dear friend. We’ll see you next week.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Thanks a lot.
JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Thank you. Wow, what a day. What a series of events. Tomorrow, Friday, the end of the day, the end of the week — 4 o’clock in the afternoon — Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, the Intelligence Community Roundtable. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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