Here is the full transcript of American economist and public policy analyst Prof. Jeffrey Sachs’ interview on Judging Freedom Podcast with host Judge Napolitano on “Regime Change in Venezuela”, November 4, 2025.
Opening Remarks
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Hi everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, November 4, 2025. Professor Jeffrey Sachs joins us. Professor Sachs, I know it’s practically Wednesday where you are. Thank you very much for your time.
JEFFREY SACHS: Nice to be with you.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: I want to talk to you about, as you call it, and of course we all agree, the four flimsy moral excuses for regime change in Venezuela. But before we get there, a few other questions. First, the news of the day. Was former Vice President Dick Cheney a war criminal?
Dick Cheney’s Legacy and War Crimes
JEFFREY SACHS: I would say yes, because we were led into a war, the Iraq war, on completely phony pretenses. Not mistaken pretenses, but phony pretenses. The neocons led by Vice President Cheney, late Vice President Cheney, wanted a war in Iraq and they sold the war to the American people on false premises.
And of course the war itself was devastating, illegal by international standards. So that’s war crime, to launch a massive war and occupy a foreign country. And it was done on a tissue of lies. So this was a tragic and extraordinarily costly episode for the United States. Trillions of dollars, thousands of lives lost of Americans, many more lives lost of Iraqis, a devastation to the region that still is reeling from the Iraq War and the many other wars that Cheney championed.
So he was not a positive contribution to America’s stability, prosperity or security.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Let’s not forget the Patriot Act which he caused to be written before 9/11 in anticipation of the right event at the right time, which came on their watch. Bush and Cheney on 9/11. Let’s not forget his so-called enhanced interrogation, which of course was the rampant CIA use of torture publicized by the late Senator Dianne Feinstein over the objections of just about everybody involved.
Let’s not forget that he and his buddy Donald Rumsfeld together dominated American defense policy for about 16 years. And where did it bring us basically?
The Neocon Era and American Foreign Policy
JEFFREY SACHS: Since 1992, and I would say until today, because Trump has not made any real changes of foreign policy, the United States went into overdrive on a delusion, an arrogant delusion, that the US runs the world and it entered into many wars on that basis. Massive military spending, massive red ink and trillions and trillions of dollars.
Massive expansion of executive prerogatives of the kinds that you mentioned, surveillance, spying, torture that are completely outside of the values that we supposedly profess and outside of the Constitution.
So in this sense, the neocon era, which MAGA was supposed to bring to a close but has not done, has been a period of growing insecurity of the United States, growing debt, growing economic distress and inequality. It has not brought this period of global US dominance that was claimed all the way back in 1992, with Cheney playing a central role.
It has brought a remarkable weakening of America and increased insecurity, perpetual war, and we’re not done with it yet because, well, Trump came into office claiming that he was going to end all of this. These wars continue, and basically the foreign policies of the neocons, this grandiosity of American power continues until today.
Al-Jolani and Syria
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Why is Al-Jolani, a man who killed Americans, a man who cut people’s heads off and boasted about it, a man who today is slaughtering Alawites and Christians, being welcomed into the Oval Office on Monday?
JEFFREY SACHS: Because the United States spent 14 years to overthrow the Syrian government, a task that President Obama assigned to the CIA in Operation Timber Sycamore, and Jolani is the, quote unquote, success of American policy.
This is how America does things. It has frequently turned to jihadists to be the American fighters in proxy wars. It built Al Qaeda in the 1980s when the US supported the mujahideen in Afghanistan, meaning that that country would have more than four decades of instability and war through US machinations.
So this is not outside of the norm of American foreign policy. It is part and parcel of the CIA-led strategies of regime change, of which Syria was one of what I think is probably about 100 cases since the CIA was established in 1947.
Netanyahu’s Defense of IDF Rape Case
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Yesterday, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Netanyahu defended, this is a new low to the extent that that is even mentally conceivable, Professor Sachs, and you know what’s coming, defended the raping of a helpless, beaten Palestinian prisoner by numerous male members of the IDF, and arrested the chief lawyer for the IDF who was so repulsed by what happened, she released a tape that they made of their own rape.
And Prime Minister Netanyahu, in a new low, to the extent that that’s even possible, has defended the rapists.
JEFFREY SACHS: He is a genocidaire. In a literal sense, it’s the worst crime we have on the planet, meaning that Netanyahu has led a genocide against the Palestinian people. Torture of Palestinian inmates is part of a genocide. It’s part of the complete dehumanization of the Palestinian people by this Israeli regime.
The fact that when somebody discloses these crimes by the Israeli Defense Forces and then gets arrested for disclosing these war crimes tells us a lot. It’s not the worst of what Israel has done. The worst of what Israel has done is to slaughter tens of thousands of innocent people.
And though in name we have a ceasefire, in fact, a couple hundred plus Palestinians have been killed by Israel, willfully murdered since the ceasefire began.
So yes, it is a low. I wouldn’t say it’s the lowest of the low, because they’re plumbing every depth of what humanity and its evil can do, and they’re doing that right now.
So it’s shocking, though I agree with you. It’s completely shocking that a vulgar, gross, fully internationally illegal and despicable act, when exposed, leads to the arrest of the person that makes that exposure.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Here’s a brief clip ending with Netanyahu’s condemnation of her. The general, the major general who was the chief lawyer for the IDF is a woman. She’s now in jail.
VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: The IDF’s international legitimacy efforts are greatly benefited by the aura, the protection with which the justice system provides it. Yesterday, the reservist charged with abuse appeared in public and accused Tomer Yaron-Shalmi of spoiling their case.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You’ve done a field trial on us in front of the cameras as if you’ve already decided who’s guilty. We will continue to fight for justice for ourselves, for everyone who came out in uniform and defended our home.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: This weekend, Tomer Yaron-Shalmi briefly went missing and police found her abandoned car with a note. Police later found her on a beach, safe but in distress. The incident in Sde Teiman caused immense damage to the image of the State of Israel and the IDF, to our soldiers.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: This is perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced since its establishment.
VIDEO CLIP ENDS:
Netanyahu’s “Public Relations” Framing
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Severe public relations attack that the State of Israel has experienced since its establishment. The guys in the masks are the rapists who filmed themselves doing this. And then their superior got a hold of it. She was so repulsed she revealed it to the press. What kind of government can survive long in a so-called democracy when it defends behavior like this?
JEFFREY SACHS: This is not a democracy. So let’s put that aside. What is incredible is how this horrible person discusses and thinks about this. This is a public relations issue. This is not an issue about putting a broomstick up a prisoner’s rectum, about torture, about the fundamental violation of the most basic standards of human behavior, about mass murder. This is a public relations issue.
What he complained about is what it did to the image of Israel. It is a public relations disaster. I have to say that when President Trump referred to the issue of Israel’s behavior in Gaza when he was in Israel recently, he said, and paraphrasing but he said it looks bad. Looks bad. This killing, killing, killing, looks bad.
Because what these leaders are about is image. They’re not about substance. They’re not about the murders. They’re about how the murders look, how they’re justified. And Netanyahu is so vile that he doesn’t even know or care or try to hide the fact that this is all about PR for him.
And this is the monstrous situation that we’re in, that the issue is not torture. The issue is the PR around torture.
Presidential Murder and the Rule of Law
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: The President continues to direct the Secretary of Defense, who calls himself the Secretary of War, to murder innocent, helpless, nameless, faceless people who are not engaged in any act of violence on the high seas, some off the coast of Venezuela, some off the coast of Mexico. Is there a Nuremberg problem here with pilots under a future administration that might look at this differently, saying, well, I just did my job. They told me to kill people, and I killed them.
JEFFREY SACHS: People should understand that presidents of the United States in our modern history have been assigning murder, calling for the murder of people sitting in the Oval Office. I’m not talking about the wars. I’m talking about directed murder, occasionally of American citizens, more often not. But presidents sitting and causing people to be murdered, particular individuals.
It’s not only Trump, it’s vile what we see. But this has been going on for quite a long time. It’s shocking. It is what has happened to what we once had in the United States, which was, at least we claimed, we believe that we had a democratic system under the rule of law.
We have a murder, incorporated, perpetual war, a military industrial complex, a private army of the United States called the CIA, which engages in operations like regime change that trigger wars that cost hundreds of thousands or sometimes millions of lives. And this emanates from the Oval Office.
So this has been going on for quite a while. It’s really important for people to understand this. This is not about partisanship. This is about our system. Our system is lawless. Our system is that a president orders murders. Our system is that the CIA carries out covert wars. That doesn’t mean the wars aren’t known or that you can’t point to the agents of these wars. It means that they deny the truth before our eyes. That’s our system.
And we have to end that and return to the idea of the rule of law. Not just the idea. I mean the practice of the rule of law and the practice of the U.S. Constitution before, and I hope it’s not before, it is irreversible.
The Fall of the Roman Republic
And I would like everybody to remember there was a Roman Republic and it became Roman Empire. And what the difference was was that the military industrial complex of the Roman Republic became the rulers. And when that happened, usually dated to 27 BC, when Augustus became princeps, when the Republic ended and the Roman Empire began, it never reverted to a republic.
So this, I think, is our circumstance in the United States. We’re losing what we think we, many still think we have. And if we have it, it is on a very, very fragile and slender string. Right now we’re just forfeiting our constitutional order and our republic as a government.
We were warned about it 64 years ago by President Dwight Eisenhower, who told us about the undue influence sought or unsought of the military industrial complex. And this has become a situation where presidents order murder from the Oval Office. It’s not the kind of system I think the vast majority of American people want.
Attempts to Silence Dissent
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: And the supporters of this would like to silence us. Here is one of their louder, more bombastic ones speaking about us. Not necessarily you and me personally, but those of us who articulate the views that we do from the venues that we choose to the Republican Jewish Coalition.
VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We cancel stuff all the damn time. Hitler admirers, Stalin admirers, Jew haters, American haters, Churchill haters. You’re damn right we’re going to cancel them and de-platform them. They don’t have a lifetime job like a bureaucrat who we’re going to protect. And if they’re your friend, there’s something wrong with you.
You don’t get to wrap your psychotic, mental, unhinged Nazi Klan jihadist bull around American patriotism. We’re surrounded by cowards who have microphones, who have TV cameras, who have websites, who have columns. Cowards. It’s spelled C-A-R-L-S-O-N. It’s spelled F-U-E-N-T-E-S. It’s spelled O-W-E-N-S. It’s spelled B-A-N-N-O-N. It’s spelled Marjorie Taylor Greene. You can figure that out yourself.
To Tucker Carlson, I say, did you have a head injury? What happened to you? You platform these people, you deceive your audience, you lie to your audience, you become a full blown out of the closet Jew hater.
VIDEO CLIP ENDS:
JEFFREY SACHS: Wow. You know, the American people, by growing large majorities, find this repulsive.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Yes.
The American People’s Opposition to Violence
Disgusting. And we should remember the American people are not calling for this. The opposite. 70% of the American people want a state of Palestine. 70% of the American people want Israel to stop its murderous rampage in Gaza and throughout the Middle East.
So this kind of fulmination that we looked at is not America. It is not what the American people want. Very large and growing majorities find all of this repulsive. And this is, it’s so gross to walk. But these are vicious and desperate people who are defending genocide.
And defending genocide is the most despicable political position imaginable. They are defending the mass murder of people. And when people speak out against that, then they attack them in this fulminant way. But the American people are not cowed by this. They’re certainly not convinced by this.
They see with their own eyes what’s happening. And by a very large majority, the American people are decent people and they don’t want to be complicit in the mass murder of the Palestinian people.
U.S. Regime Change Operations in Venezuela
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Professor Sachs, why is the Trump administration preparing a war of aggression against Venezuela?
JEFFREY SACHS: The United States, with the very heavy influence of Marco Rubio, both when he was senator and now as Secretary of State, has been trying to overthrow the government of Venezuela really in a very active way for 23 years. The first coup attempt came in 2002 in the 2000 and tens.
And by the way, another example of the deep state versus the partisanship. Obama was very much part of it, just like Obama was part of many of the perpetual wars and so forth. This is CIA, other permanent state, basically military industrial complex operations that have been trying to overthrow first Hugo Chavez who was president of Venezuela in the first decade of this century, and then Nicolas Maduro since then.
And they’ve used a lot of tactics, assassination attempts, trying to encourage coups by the Venezuelan military, economic and financial sanctions that have crushed the Venezuelan economy, which was an upper middle income economy and has been crushed by measures that the U.S. has imposed.
The U.S. seized the foreign exchange reserves of Venezuela. President Trump in his first term actually, and it’s almost like a joke, but what I’m about to say, but it really happened, designated someone else as president. The United States said, no, it’s not you, the President, it’s someone else we name at the time was a man named Juan Guaido, who was—
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: He actually invited him to one of his State of the Union addresses and had him stand up and introduced him as the President of Venezuela. It was a joke.
The Reality of U.S. Foreign Policy
JEFFREY SACHS: They just called him president because they think that the world is PR, that the world is the reality that they define. So now Trump is, then Biden has been part of this and Trump is now escalating a bounty on the head of a foreign leader. Now a $50 million bounty as if this is truly the Wild West and then the President killing people, telling us we don’t need to try them, we don’t even need to present evidence, we are just going to kill them.
And that’s on the sea. So he says, well, we’re going to do it on the land. And he’s ordered the CIA, which is the private army, the unaccountable army of the U.S. President, to take action, covert action, inside Venezuela. And he’s amassed a lot of firepower in the Caribbean, outside of Venezuela.
And we’re, well, I can’t say we’re waiting to see what happens. There should be an outcry to stop what is happening, which is already illegal, is already a complete abuse of international law, is already in full violation of the UN Charter. The threat of force against another country in this way, the use of force to kill people in boats who the President of the United States orders to be killed, this is not the kind of country we want.
And the large majority of American people do not want the United States to go to war with Venezuela. So again, we have this reality that we call ourselves a democracy in which the public is not only to be represented, but its voice is to be heard through its representatives in Congress. And its voice is to be heard in the decisions that our government takes.
And yet the government behaves in a long, lawless and gangsterish fashion.
Oil: The Real Motive
Now why is the U.S. doing this? Why has it tried to bring down this government for more than 20 years? Well, there’s a famous three letter word, oil. Venezuela actually has the largest reserves of oil in the world, even topping Saudi Arabia. It’s so called heavy oil. It’s more expensive to process. It is not as profitable as Saudi oil. These numbers also of the size of reserves are not precision science, I want to add.
But Venezuela has huge oil reserves and Trump wants them and the deep state has always wanted them. We very, very, very often go to war in oil and gas rich countries. It’s not an accident. It is not just a random pattern. It’s part of the behavior of the U.S. Empire, which is to try to grab the resources of other countries, to try to control them.
We once overthrew the government of Iran in 1953, a democratically elected government, because it had the audacity to say that the oil in Iran was actually the oil of the Iranian people. This was just too much for the CIA and MI6. So they overthrew Prime Minister Mosaddegh for saying that and installed a police state.
Now the threats against Venezuela, which as I say, have been a regime change operation for more than 20 years. The war in Iraq, the war in Libya, in Syria. Trump boasted that our troops have stayed in Syria because we got the oil. We keep it under control.
So what we’re seeing in Venezuela is a long story and it’s a story that has its echoes around the world. It’s rapacious, it’s illegal, it’s vulgar, it’s dangerous, it’s against what the American people want. And it is our system. Our system is a politics of regime change. If you don’t like the other country, overthrow its government. This is called foreign policy by the U.S. It leads to disasters.
The Flimsy Excuse of Fighting Drugs
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Under the flimsy moral excuse of fighting drugs. I don’t know anybody that believes this.
JEFFREY SACHS: This has nothing to do with fighting drugs. Nothing. They make it up, they smirk, they laugh. The war in Iraq had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. To return to the late Vice President Cheney where we started the discussion, these are made up reasons patently absurd in order to give a flimsy cover to lawlessness. That’s all.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Professor Sachs, thank you very much. I know it’s tomorrow where you are and I deeply appreciate your, as always, eloquent analysis on a vast array of issues. All the best to you, my dear friend. Safe travels. We look forward to seeing you next week.
JEFFREY SACHS: Wonderful. See you next week. Take care. Thank you.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: All the best, Professor. Coming up tomorrow, Wednesday at 8 in the morning, the former British diplomat and from time to time, guest on Judging Freedom, Ian Proud, Professor Glenn at 8 in the morning. Professor Glenn Deason at 11 in the morning. It’s Wednesday at 3 in the afternoon. Phil Giraldi, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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