Read the full transcript of a conversation between Judge Andrew Napolitano and journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar on Judging Freedom Podcast titled “What I Am Seeing In Yemen!” premiered March 28, 2025.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
What I Am Seeing In Yemen – Pepe Escobar Reports From Sanaa
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, March 28th, 2025. It is midnight in Sanaa, Yemen, from which our dear friend, the intrepid, the fearless Pepe Escobar comes. Pepe, welcome my dear friend. Thank you for staying up late for us. Thank you for reporting for us. Thank you for all you do. You’ve been in Yemen for a week now. What are you seeing?
PEPE ESCOBAR: Oh God, I cannot give you an answer in one or two minutes. We’ll have to have ten Judging Freedoms in a row to answer with a degree of… It’s an amazing experience. I am an old school foreign correspondent. This year is my 40th year all around the world. In terms of interacting with Yemenis, in terms of understanding how they think, in terms of seeing life, not only here in the capital, now bombed every day by CENTCOM, but in the middle of this week I was in Saada Governorate in northwest Yemen, not very far, a little over 100 kilometers from the Saudi border.
And that’s deep, deep Yemen, and it was absolutely extraordinary. We saw, of course, effects of bombing by the Saudi so-called coalition, a war that started. And it was not a coincidence. It took us there on the middle of this week because on March 25th, which was Wednesday this week, it’s exactly the 10th year of the start of the war of the coalition, the Saudi coalition against Yemen.
So we were there in an extremely important date, and Ansar Allah was born in Saada Governorate. And the leader of Ansar Allah, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, he lives in Saada. He rarely comes to Sanaa, especially now. Now it’s absolutely impossible. And a diplomat told me while we were there, the real seat of power in Yemen is not Sanaa, the capital. It’s here. And that’s where we were this Wednesday until yesterday morning.
The Targets of Yemeni Operations
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Are the Houthis attacking American ships, and have they attacked American ships since the ceasefire?
PEPE ESCOBAR: No, they have not. Only Israeli ships. So the most important thing is that they have to rephrase and re-explain this over and over again. We only start attacking ships now because Israel broke the ceasefire. And the genocide continues. Only today, or in the past 24 hours, they killed over 300 women and children in Palestine.
So this is completely absurd. And when you understand, talking to, we talked to diplomats, we talked to members of the High Political Council. Of the nine members, we managed to talk to four of them, which is enormous. So we talked to people who are very, very close to the leadership of Ansar Allah and to the government here in Sanaa.
And it’s inexorable, the moral clarity, the purity, the religious and the spiritual dimension of what they’re doing is strictly linked to their military decisions. And oh my God, because things haven’t stopped here, Judge, so they keep knocking on my door.
So when you understand how they see the bigger picture, in terms of the axis of resistance, in terms of their role, in terms of peace and brotherhood. And they treat the Palestinians as their brothers. And they have experience in terms of being subjected to a mini-genocide, which is what has been happening here for the past 10 years.
Yemeni Understanding of US Attacks
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Do the Yemeni people understand that they are being attacked by the United States of America?
PEPE ESCOBAR: Completely, Judge. Today I had one of the most extraordinary experiences in my professional life. I had, I would say, some sort of blessing to speak live on the square in the Million March to over one million Yemenis live. And my message was very, very simple. I spoke for one minute and I said, look, the whole world is with you because the whole world understands what you’re doing.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: We’re going to play that clip now. I have seen it. It’s magnificent. It’s historic. But just so the audience understands, Pepe speaks for a sentence or two and then it’s translated and then he speaks for a few more sentences and then it’s translated. My friends, you will be overwhelmed at the size of Pepe’s audience and the reception he gets at the end. So we’ll play it from beginning to end and then you can you can comment on it. Chris.
PEPE ESCOBAR: As-salamu alaykum, Yemen! You are heroes. The empire of lies and cowards is bombing you now. They already lost the war that they started against you. And most importantly, the whole world is with you. So you are already won all over the world. Free Palestine, Yemen forever, resistance forever.
[VIDEO ENDS]
Breaking the Blockade on Yemen
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: That is an amazing, humongous crowd. There’s well over a million people there. Well over a million. How did it come about that you were able to address them like that?
PEPE ESCOBAR: Our small group of foreigners, Judge, we are here. We are around, I think we are 10, 11, maximum 12. We broke the blockade against Yemen and they told us, you broke the blockade. We are the first small group of foreigners who come to Yemen in years.
And it’s very, very interesting because there are a few Westerners like the lovely Irish dynamic duo, former at the European Parliament, Mike and Claire Daly, and a fascinating guy. We became very good friends, Chinese, Professor Ma Xiaolin. And Professor Ma is a Hui, he’s a Chinese Muslim, and he has a fantastic center of Middle East studies in Guangzhou in China and a fascinating Malaysian scholar who gave a presentation that the Yemeni scholars at the presentation, they were like, wow, it was a presentation about the militarization of archaeology in Al-Quds in Jerusalem.
So it was great to have these people here together, all of us, Easterners and Westerners.
From the Yemeni point of view, they were grateful to us. We should, we are, I cannot even express how grateful I am for this invitation. We were formally invited by the Minister of Foreign Relations of Yemen. We visited the foreign minister, a former journalist, a wonderful guy as well. And they gave us full access for everything.
And we went to Sada in the middle of this week. It was a strategic date. They organized an extremely complex security operation to take us there because they were afraid we will end up being bombed, of course. And of course, in the back of our minds, we are telling each other, yes, they’re going to take us to meet the leader of Ansar Allah Abdul Malik Al-Quds.
Of course, professionally, you know that in a worst situation like this, this is totally impossible because he’s the number one target of Trump 2.0 now. But we met the number two target, Yahya Sari, the spokesman for Ansar Allah, who came to our hotel in the beginning of the week. And he spent 45 minutes with us. And a few minutes later, Sana was bombed.
American Bombing and Civilian Casualties
The thing is, the Americans don’t have ground intel.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: What is the reaction to the American bombing of and killing, targeting and killing civilians?
PEPE ESCOBAR: Because they don’t have ground intel, Judge. They say that they bombed a missile complex with bunker busters. And the Yemenis are saying, yeah, but this has basically scratched the surface because it’s deep underground. And the so-called military targets, the Americans have no idea where they are because they are moving all the time. And most of them are underground.
What they are bombing, for instance, here in Sana is residential buildings like the one we visited in the beginning of this week. And this photo that you’re showing, it’s a cancer hospital that was still being built. It was bombed in the beginning of the week in Sana. And we were there two days later. We were the first to actually go to the site, apart from the Yemenis who live over there.
And they had enormous difficulties to find the financing to build this hospital, which would be the only cancer hospital for Northwest and North Yemen. Now they have to start from scratch all over again. Is this a military target? Of course not. It was still bombed by the Americans. The American people need to know what their government is doing. That it’s targeting civilians, that it’s bombing residential neighborhoods, and that it demolished a cancer hospital in a country like Yemen.
Understanding the Houthis
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Pepe, who are the Houthis?
PEPE ESCOBAR: It’s, let’s say, an extended clan, an extended family, an extended clan, which is very influential in the region of Saada. Also became influential in Sana. The father of Ansarallah, a Houthi, is Hussein al-Houthi. Today, for instance, when we were at the square, they played one of his interviews from 2002, a long time ago, when he was, Ansarallah, of course, didn’t exist. And he was explaining the war against the Western capitalist system and the way the Western capitalist system wants to smash progressive Islam and compassionate Islam everywhere.
PEPE ESCOBAR: He said, oh, we have to do something about it. That was the embryo of Ansarallah. And, for instance, a few hours ago, I was talking to one of the guys who studied with Hussein al-Houthi in the same university in Sudan. So Hussein al-Houthi was educated in a Sudanese university. Then he came back here. Another guy from the High Political Council that I talked to a few hours ago, he spent years in Holland and in Canada and then came back here and became a revolutionary.
So that’s it. This is Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the current leader of Ansarallah and America’s number one target in Yemen. Has he ever lifted a finger to harm an American person or American property? Never, never, never. The Houthis, the Yemenis as a whole, they could have enormous reasons to be. Of course, they expressed that in a terse, metaphorical, very sophisticated way, not vengeful at all.
But when we were discussing, for instance, about the war that started 10 years ago, the so-called Saudi-led coalition with the Emiratis, etc. Who was leading from behind? The Americans during the Obama administration. The bombs were Americans. The bombs that were sent against this cancer hospital, we found an unexploded bomb at the site, which obviously the Yemenis are going to collect. They’re going to do some reverse engineering about it. And we found fragments of the American bombs with the manufacturer and the contract number.
Yemeni Attitude Toward Americans
So, there will be repercussions, you know. They will extensively analyze how they are being bombed and with what, over here. But, they are not vengeful against the United States, much less against Americans, per se. The fact that there were two Americans in our group, you know, they were greeted as heroes as well. They were extremely welcome. And, Jackson Henkel, he’s a friend of mine as well. Very young guy. What he’s learning at his age, he’s only 25, is absolutely incredible. You know, for us old school foreign correspondents, it would take years to be in a situation like this. And, the Americans here were treated, you know, royally, as princes.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Where are you off to next?
PEPE ESCOBAR: I’m back to, do you know that there was an earthquake in my home in Southeast Asia?
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Yes.
PEPE ESCOBAR: And, people are telling me that I’m lucky because I escaped the earthquake. No, that’s not true. The earthquake was in Myanmar, our neighbors to the north. But, it was felt all over Bangkok, for instance, you know. And, it was very, very serious. Even our three-story building in Bangkok shook as well.
Yes, this is when we were visiting the Zakat Authority, which basically coordinates social services here. So, the poor are very well taken care of. There is a national database. You can get a digital card. Then, we can go to places where you can get food, you can get clothes for the family, etc. So, it’s amazing. The government works. Even in a situation of war, which has been, practically for the past 10 years, you know, with a few interruptions.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Have the Houthis ever shot down an American jet?
PEPE ESCOBAR: An American jet? No, they shot a lot of MK-9 Reapers, Judge. I lost count. I think it’s 15 or 16, at least.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Well, they have the technology.
PEPE ESCOBAR: They have very good missiles, which they developed. And, another thing that was explained to me in detail. This goes back to Maoist times. China was helping Yemen already in the 60s and then in the early 70s as well. The best students, engineering students here, and physics specialists, do you know where they studied? In the USSR and in China.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Wow.
PEPE ESCOBAR: So, it keeps going on. They have a scientific class here, which is very developed. So, when you have the President of the United States saying that the Houthis and the Yemenis are barbarians, he has to go back to school. Literally.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Well, the Director of Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified under oath yesterday that the Houthis shot down an American jet. Do you know if that is true?
PEPE ESCOBAR: No, we don’t have any confirmation here. Well, here is when we start discussing military matters. Of course. First of all, we are foreigners. We are the first foreigners to be here in ages. Even if they trust us, there is a limit. They don’t want us to start leaking privileged military information.
What I heard a few hours ago was something extraordinary. One of these guys, who is the provincial governor, was telling me that there will be a few surprises ahead. And this is more or less what the Yemeni military channel on X published hours ago. If I’m not mistaken, this morning, local time here. That they have a few surprises in store. So, they are totally confident.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: I may have misspoken or I may have misunderstood Director Gabbard. It may have been an American drone that was shot down.
PEPE ESCOBAR: MK-9 Reapers. A lot of them, Judge. If I’m not mistaken, 15 or 16 already. And counting.
Conclusion and Future Plans
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Wow. Where are you off to next, my man? I know it’s the middle of the night there. I’ll let you go. But where are you off to next? Where will you be coming to us from next week?
PEPE ESCOBAR: Next week, I’ll be back home in Thailand for a while. I’m organizing a trip to China. But the logistics are complicated. But this will be two weeks from now, at least. I’ll be in Thailand for the next two weeks. We’ll be talking from Thailand. By the way, hit by an earthquake. I could never imagine.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Pepe, you’re a great man. Your courage is beyond compare. Thank you very much for what you’re doing there and for your reporting to us. God love you, my friend. Travel well and be safe.
PEPE ESCOBAR: Thank you, Judge. You’re the best. Thank you so much.
JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Of course. Wow, what a week. Coming up Monday morning, our regulars at 8 in the morning, Alistair Crook at 10 in the morning, Ray McGovern at 11:30 in the morning, and probably one or two of your favorites in the afternoon. Have a great weekend, everyone. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
