Scott Ritter: How’s the War Going, Mr. President? (Transcript)

We don’t know where it is. Iran has probably also sequestered at least one, perhaps more, 164-centrifuge cascades which they can use to turn that 60% into 92–94%. And we know that Iran has claimed that they had everything necessary to build a warhead capable of delivering a nuclear weapon on one of their missiles, minus the fissile core.

If we want to have a nuclear war with Iran, we’re pretty much guaranteeing that outcome, because we killed the one man who said no to a nuclear weapon — Ali Khamenei. He’s the one who issued two fatwas that said Iran will not pursue these under any circumstance. He’s now dead.

A theologian who sits on the three-person council that replaced him is a man who has openly articulated a position in favor of a nuclear weapon. Now, he could have been held back and restrained by the Assembly of Experts, who could have elected a new Supreme Leader who shared the thinking of Ali Khamenei. But they’ve been killed.

So I can pretty much guarantee you that when they reassemble the Assembly of Experts, they will not be inclined to continue a passive stance in regard to nuclear weapons. The leading theologians had advised Khamenei that under existential conditions the fatwas could be reversed — that it wasn’t against Islamic jurisprudence to build a nuclear weapon if that nuclear weapon could be used to deter forces which are seeking to destroy the Islamic Republic. Those forces are at play today, played out by the bombing of the Assembly of Experts.

Running Out of Interceptor Missiles

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: What is the status of American and Israeli — which means they came from America, where we paid for it — interceptor missiles? Are they running low?

SCOTT RITTER: Yes, we know they are running low. And this is why, on day three — actually on day two — Donald Trump is changing the war plan. This is why he had to meet with his war planners, who said, “We’re done. We’ve shot our load. We’re facing imminent disaster. We don’t have any more weapons.” And then he was advised by Pete Hegseth, “Oh no, we have some more. We have global stockpiles.”

So they’re drawing down right now from South Korea and Japan, taking THAAD missiles and Patriot missiles from the war-fighting stocks there. Which means that when you go to the National Security Strategy document promulgated by the Trump administration this past November — which said that our primary mission militarily is to have conventional military overmatch with the Chinese in the first island chain and second island chain against Taiwan — we are now stripping bare that conventional overmatch. We’re weakening ourselves in the Pacific in order to sustain the fight in the Middle East.

But here’s another critical point, because it’s not just Israel and the United States that are running out. For instance, the United Arab Emirates bought $2 billion worth of American-made anti-missile defense systems. They’re running out, and they are sending an emergency call to the United States saying, “We need more.”

Now remember, the United Arab Emirates, together with Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others, have been operating under a security umbrella from the United States, where the United States has promised that Iran will never threaten them so long as the United States is in position — that the United States is their true friend, their true ally. Well, Iran’s blowing the hell out of these people right now, blowing the hell out of American bases. And America has been proven to be a paper tiger. They can’t protect these nations.

But now these nations need more ballistic missile defense. So the United States is stripping bare its Pacific front. And where are they sending these missiles? Not to the Gulf Arab states — to Israel. And this is the ultimate insult, because these Gulf Arab states, who were told that America is their true friend and true ally, are finding out the reality: that the only true friend and ally the United States has is Israel. And the United States will abandon everybody else. And this is going to create political problems for the President down the road.

Trump’s Oval Office Comments on the War

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Just about an hour before we began our conversation here, Scott, the President was asked in the Oval Office, “What’s the worst case scenario?” It took him a while to come up with an answer, but during the course of it, he made some comments in which he revealed his understanding of how the war is going. I’m smiling because you can imagine what he says. But I would like your thoughts on this. Cut number 27.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

DONALD TRUMP: What’s the worst case scenario that you have planned for in Iran? Well, I don’t know if there’s a worst case. We have them very much beaten militarily, from the military standpoint. They’re still lobbing some missiles. At some point they won’t even be able to do that, because we’re hitting all of their carriers, we’re hitting all of their missile stock. They built up all these missiles over the last few years. They had a lot of them, they’ve shot a lot of them, and we’re knocking out a lot. I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person. That could happen. We don’t want that to happen. It would probably be the worst. You go through this and then in five years you realize you put somebody in who is no better.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

Does Trump Have an Accurate Grasp of the War?

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Does he have an accurate or realistic grasp on the state of hostilities over there?

Iran’s Defenses and the Regime Change Fantasy

SCOTT RITTER: No, again, I mean, I say no. I don’t have access to the intelligence. But what I can say is this, that the Iranians have been preparing for this very fight for 20 years.

I just want to remind people in your audience — because I know I’m not supposed to read the comments, but every once in a while I glimpse at it — and I see some people who are repeating some of the Israeli propaganda where the Israelis say that they’ve taken Iran down to their last 12 launchers. Well, count the number of missiles that are fired from Iran and I guarantee you it’s more than 12. So right off the bat, that math doesn’t work.

But when I was in the Gulf during Desert Storm, we were trying to interdict Iraq’s ability to fire missiles into Israel and Saudi Arabia. We had assessed that Iraq had 19 mobile launchers. By the end of the first week and a half, we had destroyed 64. Yes, you heard me, 64. Which means we weren’t destroying mobile launchers, because first of all, the Iraqis continued to fire high volumes of missiles, indicating there was no meaningful intervention.

The fog of war is absolute. You always have military people who believe they’re accomplishing more than they’re actually accomplishing. And for political reasons, they tend to produce reports that are designed to appease their political masters, not to speak reality.

I can pretty much guarantee you that the Iranians have many, many more launchers than 12 and that we haven’t even begun to tickle their stockpiles of missiles. We may have blown up some, whether or not the Iranians offered them up as decoys to absorb American military capability or whatever. But Iran will continue to fire missiles for a lot longer than we can continue to defend ourselves from missiles.

And then the other thing is the ignorance of this president. He tends to believe that we can replace the Iranian government. We can’t. Iran is a functioning constitutional republic. I know the United States isn’t, because we have this narcissistic cult of personality in place. Instead of a president who adheres to the Constitution, we have a Congress that absolutely has punted on its responsibility regarding war powers. And we have a Supreme Court that has been mocked and belittled and ignored by this president. So we don’t function as a nation that adheres to checks and balances as required by Federalist Paper 51.

James Madison wrote that down. The danger of giving the President so much power is that it can become a tyranny. But to offset that, we have checks and balances — but we don’t have checks and balances anymore. Iran does. Iran functions as a constitutional republic and will continue to function. So the notion of us picking a replacement is absurd. Iran will pick the replacement. And Iran’s replacement will be somebody who operates in defense of the Islamic Republic. And this is the defeat. There will not be regime change in Iran. This president is simply smoking dope.

The Ceasefire Outreach

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: When we spoke on Saturday, shortly thereafter, some European media was reporting that the State Department had reached out to its counterparts in the Italian Foreign Ministry and asked the Italian Foreign Minister to ask the Iranian Foreign Minister if they’d consider a ceasefire. And the response was no, and hell no. If this is true, why would the US have asked for a ceasefire 24 hours after it started this?

SCOTT RITTER: Because we realized that the regime change fantasy that we had wasn’t going to work. We realized that by killing Ali Khamenei, all we did is enrage the Iranian people. And we realized that the Iranians had a plan that was better than our plan.

We realized that should this conflict go on, Iran will cripple the global economy by shutting the Strait of Hormuz and attacking the critical energy infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Look at Europe right now. The price of gasoline has doubled in England, the price of liquor, the price of natural gas in Europe is spiking, and it’s going to go even higher. This is the end of the European economy. They can’t afford to go on. We need to avoid this. So we were reaching out.

We also realized that the President had insufficient resources to accomplish this mission and so we were looking for the easy way out. But again, this president is just a known liar. He’s just a natural born liar. He says that they are in contact with the Iranians. They are not in contact with the Iranians. The Iranians did not reach out to the United States.

Ali Larijani, the man who is responsible for taking over the functions of the Supreme Leader — a role that was handed to him before the war began — has said there will be no negotiations. None. This is an existential struggle for survival for Iran. They are playing for keeps here. They’re not playing stupid games. The President only plays stupid games. He doesn’t know anything else.

If we go nuclear, does Iran go nuclear? Does the world end? Anyone who thinks this conflict can be contained in the Middle East is crazy.

Congressman Crow on the Justification for War

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: The Congress is supine. We know that. But every once in a while, one of them says something which is excellent. This is a Democrat. This is Congressman Jason Crow. If the name rings a bell, he’s retired — intelligence or military, I’m not sure which. He’s one of the six who reminded members of the military they have a duty to disobey illegal orders. And the Justice Department sought to indict him. And the grand jury, hearing only the government’s version of events, said no.

Here is Congressman Crow with what I think is an excellent analysis of what the Trump administration says are its goals and its reasons for this war.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

CONGRESSMAN JASON CROW: Well, the real justification for this — please stand up — because one moment it’s regime change. Another moment it’s some undefined, unverifiable, imminent threat. Another moment it’s somebody else is going to start this war, so we need to start it before they do. It is changing by the hour and by the person depending upon who you talk to. And it’s madness. It’s madness.

We now have multiple countries being hit. This is spreading throughout the region. Gas prices are up. The stock market is plunging. American service members are being killed. We have 50,000 servicemen and women from the United States in this region who are sitting in bunkers being bombarded with drones and missiles.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

SCOTT RITTER: We don’t know.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: I don’t know, sitting here today, whether or not we have the munitions and the capability to protect them in the weeks and months ahead. It is madness. Which is exactly why Donald Trump is unfit to be in this position, to do this right. He is trying to project power. He’s making decisions without consulting people, making decisions without a plan. Americans, our troops deserve far better than this.

The Federalist Paper which you cited — Madison argues that if the President could both choose war and wage war, he wouldn’t be a president, he’d be a prince. And we’re not electing a prince. Madison also argued that Congress must initiate war, not ratify a war the President has initiated. These are not semantic differences. These separations of power were written to preserve human freedom, so that too much power is not accumulated in one branch. In this case, the presidency.

Madison, Factionalism, and the Collapse of the Republic

SCOTT RITTER: Right. I think Madison also wrote Federalist 10, which talks about factionalism and the danger of factionalism. And of course, that’s what we have right now in the United States. We don’t have political parties anymore. We have factions. And as a result, it’s impossible now to get bipartisan agreement on anything. You’re either MAGA or you’re not — factionalism — and that’s the death of the Republic as well.

Madison was a very wise man. I wish more people would familiarize themselves with Madison’s writing and the writing of all the people who wrote not only the Federalist Papers, but the Anti-Federalist Papers, because the Anti-Federalist Papers gave us the Bill of Rights. But most Americans are unfamiliar with that, because most Americans are unfamiliar with the Constitution. And therefore most Americans remain silent in the face of the absolute collapse of what America is supposed to be.

The Decision for War Was Made Before the Diplomacy

This president has lied to us from the very beginning. We’re going to attack, and therefore we knew that if Israel attacked, Iran would respond by attacking us. So we had to preempt the Iranian response to the Israeli attack. But he lied, because the decision for this war was made when Benjamin Netanyahu came to the United States.

You might recall that we were talking about a potential divide between Israel and the United States. And I said, there is no divide. The United States and Israel have one mind. The President agreed to execute this attack against Iran and the date was set, because I talked about the flow of logistics — it creates its own momentum that cannot be ignored. So they pointed on the map and they said, “This is the day we’re going to bomb.”

And then the President, right after Netanyahu left, immediately initiated diplomatic outreach. And the purpose of Witkoff and Kushner was to create a diplomatic front that could buy time until the day of the bombing began. And once again, we’ve committed an act of perfidy, hiding behind a white flag of diplomacy in order to shield a surprise attack. A stab in the back.

The Lie of the Iranian Nuclear Threat

This is a regime change operation promulgated on lies — the lies of an Iranian nuclear threat. We know Tulsi Gabbard said there is no Iranian nuclear threat. One of the reasons why she articulated that was because she knew the stance taken by Ali Khamenei and his two fatwas.

But we also know that the Iranians signed a deal — were ready to sign a deal — that gave up any potential of them possessing a nuclear weapon. That 450 kg of 60% enriched uranium was put on the table, promising to be diluted down under the supervision of not just the IAEA inspectors, but American inspectors. The Iranians agreed to allow American inspectors back in, something that they have never allowed. So the Iranians bent over backwards to do everything necessary to ensure that they would verifiably not be able to pursue a nuclear weapons program in perpetuity. There were no sunset clauses. There was nothing. That was the end of it.

So if this was about Iran’s nuclear weapons — or potential for nuclear weapons — we clearly had a solution. No, this was about regime change. That’s all it was about. And we have failed.

Ali Khamenei as Martyr

We failed from the first six missiles that hit Tehran. We murdered Ali Khamenei and his 14-month-old granddaughter. We sealed our own fate because we guaranteed that the people of Iran would rise up. Look at the streets of Iran now, filled with mourners — millions of mourners mourning the loss of a man who they view as a martyr.

When we speak of the Shia faith, I know Donald Trump doesn’t know anything about Shia Islam and doesn’t know anything about the Twelver faction of Shias. He doesn’t know who Ali is, he doesn’t know who Hasan is. He doesn’t know who Hussein is. He doesn’t know what the Battle of Karbala is. But Ali Khamenei now is revered as a martyr, as a saint, alongside Ali, Hasan, and Hussein. And these deeply religious people who populate the Islamic Republic of Iran will now die for this cause.

Impact on US-Russia Relations

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: The whole world — certainly the whole diplomatic world, certainly Beijing and Moscow — know that the Americans are not worthy of belief and that these negotiations with Iran were intended, as you say, just to string them along until the Israelis and the Americans believed that they were in a position to begin their offensive attacks. How will this affect the United States and Russia and the negotiations with Russia and Ukraine?

The Collapse of Trust and the Cult of Personality

SCOTT RITTER: You have to be guarded in what I say here. But I’ve had conversations with people in Russia who are in a position to know things, and the feeling right now is that Donald Trump is insane. And that he just can’t be trusted at all. The Kirill Dmitriev and Steve Witkoff broship, friendship, whatever you want to call it, is not just stymied, but dead. Because Witkoff can’t be trusted. He’s been exposed as a liar. The Russians are aghast at what has happened here because it basically means the United States cannot be trusted.

All the worst fears have been confirmed. For instance, the Russians have been trying to explain away the fact that Donald Trump was on a phone call with Vladimir Putin while the Ukrainians sent 91 CIA-directed drones to assassinate their president. They’ve been trying to pretend that Trump had nothing to do with that, that this was a mistake, etc. Well, it wasn’t a mistake. They now know that Donald Trump is fully capable of perfidy, of hiding behind the shield of diplomacy while he tries to kill you — and he tried to kill the Russian President. This is a reality that’s being reluctantly embraced. You see Sergey Lavrov start to talk about this, the notion of the “spirit of Alaska.”

Look, I’m supposed to go to Russia later this month and I’ve been trying to organize panels to discuss things of this nature. I was told by Russians that they’re hesitant because of the anti-Trump stance that I’ve taken. I’m sorry, I’m not anti-Trump. I’m just pro-Constitution. The fact that Trump is so against the Constitution places it that way. But they’re very nervous about working with me because they felt that I would somehow undermine the “spirit of Alaska.” I don’t think the spirit of Alaska exists anymore. I think the Russians have woken up.

And it’s not just Russia. Donald Trump is supposed to be with Xi Jinping in April. How can the Chinese even begin to trust this man? How can anybody trust this man? How can anybody trust the United States? We have lost all credibility. We have zero credibility. We can’t be trusted in anything. And this is what Donald Trump has done.

A Cult of Personality

Don’t call it Trump Derangement Syndrome. I see people out there saying this. That’s absurd. Be honest, be objective. This is an insane man who has created a cult of personality. Look at the banner that was dropped at the Department of Justice. And then compare that with Harry Potter in the Deathly Hallows, where the Minister of Magic drops his own banner as he took over dictatorially. I hate to bring up movies and I hate to bring up Harry Potter, but it’s the one that resonates because I just watched it with my family. But this is a cult of personality. This isn’t what the United States is about. We’re supposed to be the furthest thing removed from this. But this is what we have become — a cult of personality where what Donald Trump thinks is paramount. It’s more important than anything else.

We’re being told by people that this man plays 4D chess. This man couldn’t even play 1D checkers. And we’re now supposed to give him the ability to maneuver things around and spook the world out and all this stuff. This man is truly the most ignorant man that’s ever occupied the White House. He knows nothing about the world we live in. He knows nothing about military affairs. He knows nothing about the economy. He is a morally weak, morally compromised person, an intellectually weak person who is susceptible to the last whisper in his ear.

And that’s what makes him very dangerous, because he has surrounded himself with sycophants and people who are more loyal to the state of Israel than they are to the American Constitution. And these are the people whispering in his ear, and as a result, we have found ourselves in a death trap in Iran.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Scott Ritter, thank you very much, my man. Passionate, brave, intellectually honest, profoundly insightful as always. All the best to you. I’ll see you soon. Thank you so much.

SCOTT RITTER: Thank you.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Of course. Coming up — wow, how do you top that? But coming up at 2:00 o’clock today, Matthew Ho. At 3:00 o’clock, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski. Just Napolitano for Judging Freedom.

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