Transcript of Scott Ritter: Analysis of Israel/Iran War

I was taken by this man, Donald Trump’s, repeated assertions that he was a president of peace, that he wanted to get us out of the endless cycle of war, that he would seek an end to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

It’s turned out that none of this is true. He hasn’t been able to end the conflict between Ukraine and Russia because he doesn’t know anything about Russia, and it doesn’t seem that he wants to know anything about Russia. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Judge, but the State Department today announced they are not continuing the dialogue with Russia to normalize relations. So not only has he not stopped the conflict with Russia, he’s now ending the dialogue that gave us the possibility of peace with Russia.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: This is crazy. He claims he had an amicable birthday greeting conversation with President Putin on Saturday.

The Iranian Deception and Nuclear Threat

SCOTT RITTER: Yeah. Again, the inconsistencies of this man, you know, that’s the topic for psychologists and others to discuss. It’s above my pay grade. Joe Biden would be right on this one. But, you know, the one that’s even more disturbing is this is a man who said he wanted to end the cycle of endless wars in the Middle East, wars that he rightfully said cost us trillions of dollars, cost us thousands of lives, and got us nothing.

This is a man who said he was looking to make peace with Iran, get a better deal through negotiations, and yet here we are with Israel having launched a Pearl Harbor type sneak attack against Iran. I want to remind everybody that Israel has no foundation in international law whatsoever that can be cognizable or articulated responsibly to justify what they’ve done. It’s an absolute violation of international law, and yet here we are condoning it and facilitating it.

And it appears that this president was in on the game, that he used this process of negotiation to lull the Iranians into a false sense of complacency, that they honestly believe that this man wanted a deal and they were ready to give him a deal. Mr. Shamkhani, one of the closest advisors to the Supreme Leader and one of the negotiators in this process, had said days before the surprise attack that Iran was ready to sign a document, an agreement, a treaty, that they would not seek nuclear weapons. They were ready to do this. They were ready to lower limit their enrichment to 3.75%. That’s what’s needed for the existing Bushehr nuclear power reactors that they were ready to allow inspections inclusive of American inspector participation. Unprecedented. Unprecedented.

They were willing to do anything the United States and the international community needed done to show that they weren’t pursuing nuclear weapons. And this president led the Iranians in Shamkhani to believe that that’s the path he was taken. And yet all along he was lulling them into a false sense of safety and security. And he laughed, bragged, was proud of the fact that when Israel attacked, he helped set it up. Shamkhani was killed in this attack along with all the other negotiators. Trump killed the damn Iranian negotiating team. Now who the hell is going to trust Donald Trump anymore? I don’t. And no American should.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: And no speech that he gave, that speech that he gave in Saudi Arabia, which we praised. He condemned neocons, he condemned Western military adventurism in the Middle East and said he was a president of peace. It was a lie, a deception and a plot.

Nuclear Escalation Risks

SCOTT RITTER: 100%. This isn’t just about lulling the Iranian government to a false sense of complacency and security and belief. He did it to the American people. This man is a disgrace, a walking disgrace. He doesn’t deserve the respect of the American people. I’m somebody who said he’s the commander in chief. We have to support this guy, ladies and gentlemen. He’s going to get us involved in a war in Iran that could very well lead to the use of American nuclear weapons against targets that cannot be destroyed with anything other than American nuclear weapons.

I just want to show you how serious this is. I’ve had conversations with very senior Russian officials who are in on the thinking inside Moscow. Russia has made it clear that they will not be the first nation ever to use tactical nuclear weapons. That’s not in their game. They’re not going to do it. But once tactical nuclear weapons are used, especially by the United States, it’s all bets are off. If we drop a nuke on Iran, Russia will drop nukes on Europe. That’s a guaranteed outcome. A guaranteed outcome.

This is how stupid this man is. This is how stupid his advisors are. There are smart people out there who know Russia, who understand non proliferation, who understand the reality of nuclear weapons. And he’s not talking to any of them. Instead, he has a battalion ops officer named Hegseth talking to him who knows nothing about grand strategy. He has, you know, Marco Rubio, who just apparently, you know, has fantasies about going to war with Russia, with Iran, with everybody, China, advising him, not just as the Secretary of State, but as the National Security advisor, dual hatted in a role that is unconstitutional as it is unfathomable.

Donald Trump is not just a disappointment, judge, he’s a disgrace as an American, as an American leader and as a human being. He’s a straight up liar. A straight up liar who can never again be trusted and never should again be given the benefit of the doubt.

Trump’s Leadership Failures

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Do you think that Netanyahu has boxed him in, or do you think that he was in on all of this from the beginning and that everything that we’re seeing has been planned, with the possible exception of the ferocity of the Iranian response, about which I will ask you more in a little bit, that all of this was planned?

SCOTT RITTER: That I don’t know. I don’t know, because again, the way he did this, I fundamentally think that Donald Trump is a coward and a morally weak man. And what I mean by that is he gets led around and influenced by people. He doesn’t stand for anything. He doesn’t have a core of steel. He’s not, you know, the great leader that every makes him out to be. He’s a fundamentally weak man who may, in his heart of hearts, believe that he wants peace, but is unable to deliver because he can’t stand up to people when they stand up to him.

So there’s a possibility that some of the things he said, he believed at the time he said it. But as we get close, you know, to closing the deal, this is the deal maker, the greatest businessman the world has ever seen. He sucks because he can’t close the deal of peace, and therefore he gets manipulated in the cause of war. And that’s what’s happening here. He is being led down a path to the destruction of the United States of America because he’s not strong enough to stand up and defend the very principles he’d articulated when he ran for president. Principles premised on peace, avoiding conflict, seeking out normalization of relations. These are difficult paths. Real men could do it, real women could do it. He’s not a real man. He’s a coward. He’s an intellectual, moral coward who can’t, you know, finish the job. He can’t close the deal. And this is where we’re at here.

The Saudi Arabia Speech Deception

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Here he is about a minute long in Saudi Arabia reading what somebody else wrote for him, but leading the whole world to believe that this is what he meant.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

DONALD TRUMP: Before our eyes, a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts of tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos. This great transformation has not come from Western intervention, nor the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so called nation builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities.

Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves. In the end, the so called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built. And the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves. They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves.

Peace, prosperity and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: He didn’t mean a word of that.

SCOTT RITTER: He didn’t understand a word of it. Kabul. It’s Kabul, you idiot. Not you judge the president. Interventionalists. He doesn’t even understand. Somebody wrote this. I don’t even think he rehearsed it. I don’t think he went through it with a pen. And it’s okay to have people write stuff for you. All presidents do it. I mean, you’re a busy man. You sit there and give your vision and then you have the wordsmiths come out and put out beautiful words. But this is something that was fed to him through a, you know, teleprompter that he hadn’t reviewed. You know, Kabul, come on. That just means he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.

And everything he said there is a lie. This was a setup. This is part of the setup. This trip was designed to lull people into a false sense of security, of complacency, because he gave that speech. I just want to point out within the 60 day window that he had already created with Netanyahu to prepare for the Pearl Harbor event. Donald Trump is a war criminal par excellence. He helped facilitate a Pearl Harbor type event.

And for any American on December 7th who lowers their head and remembers that horrible day, a day of infamy when we were attacked in a treacherous manner by Imperial Japan. We have just become that which we condemn. We suck. We suck collectively. Because where’s the demonstrations in the street? I mean, I understand we had no king demonstration. What about the people actually stand up for peace? The people who say this will not stand? Where is the anti war movement? They’re non existent, Judge, they’re non existent.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Is Israel’s so called Iron Dome effectively insulating it from the retaliation by Iran?

Iran’s Devastating Campaign Against Israel

SCOTT RITTER: No, Iran is devastating Israel. This is part of a concerted campaign approach taken by Iran. Look at the port of Haifa, it’s gone. Look at Ben Gurion Airport. Gone. Look at the gas facility in Haifa. Gone. Look at other targets in Israel, Gone. Israel won’t even allow us to see what they’re doing to the airfields and such. There’s a reason why the Israeli Air Force is deploying to British bases on Cyprus. Because they can’t survive on their own airfields here in Israel. And it’s just going to get worse.

This hundreds of billions of dollars of US taxpayer money that were spent building this Iron Dome and then additionally reinforcing it with American only resources. The Thaad missile system, the Aegis system that is located on ships that are deployed in the region, the U.S. satellite network, everything that you know, that we’ve built into our ballistic missile defense organization is not working. Oh yes, they intercept a couple of things here and there. I mean they better, you spent that much money, you better do something. But most of what they’re intercepting is designed to be intercepted.

Meaning that the Iranians are firing missiles that are 20 years old, 30 years old in some cases that have been upgraded with decoy capacity. You fire these things, they deliberately bloom to attract the defense systems. And while all the defense systems swarm around them, the good stuff comes in and hits the target and eventually they’re going to run out of missiles. The rumor is they’re very low on Thaad missiles and we don’t have any left to give them.

Impact on U.S. Pacific Defense Strategy

You know, if you’re the Indo Pacific commander, you’re the commander of the Pacific fleet right now and you’re saying, hey boss, all this aggressive stuff that you have us doing against China, you know, to, you know, could lead to a conflict. You’re literally using up the entire inventory of SM3, SM6 missiles that are supposed to be on the ships that are there. They’ve diverted the Nimitz, which is a South China, South China Sea asset and its battle group there. It’s going to deplete its SM3s and SM6s. What are we going to defend Taiwan with? Nothing. Nothing. We have nothing.

And plus it doesn’t work. And you know, the President just sat there and briefed us about Golden Dome. 175 billion within three years we’re going to have this beautiful golden dome. The technology doesn’t exist. The technology they’re relying upon doesn’t work. And the proof is, look at Israel right now. Whatever they produce in Golden Dome simply won’t work. And it won’t cost 175 billion. It’s going to take decades to put in place. And even when we put in place, the price tags are going to be upwards of 4 to 40 trillion dollars by the time it’s done. And it won’t work.

So again, this president’s an idiot who sits there and buys into whatever nonsense is fed to him. And the Israeli people are paying the price right now. And I don’t know that there’s too much sympathy around there for people now to cry, oh my God, look what they’ve done to us. Hey guys, right across the border is Gaza. That’s what you’ve been doing for the last 18 months, slaughtering innocent people by the thousands.

Comparing Israeli and Iranian Military Conduct

The fact that the Israelis have suffered as much damage as they’ve done, they still have less than 20 dead, speaks volumes of the accuracy of the Iranian missiles and what they’re targeting as opposed to the Israelis who are indiscriminately attacking Iran. They just took out a building last night, 26 children together with their families. Over 60 people killed. You don’t hear anybody condemning that action. I mean, come on. The Israelis are literally the most, you know, they like to brag about being the most moral army in the world. It’s the most immoral army in the world. These are treacherous people who carried out a Pearl harbor event with no justification whatsoever.

The Israelis know the Iranians don’t have a nuclear weapons program. They know it. This is all manufactured data by the Israelis. And you know, the complicity between Israel and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which manifested today in the Iranians saying, we’re done with the IAEA. They didn’t say we’re getting out of the NPT yet, Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. But we’re done with working with the IAEA inspectors because it’s now been proven that they were more than an intelligence collection platform feeding data back to the United States and Israel that was then used in targeting.

IAEA Complicity in Israeli Intelligence Operations

Israel could not have done the precision targeting that they have done here. Most of it ineffective by the way. But to hit specific points on the ground, you can’t do unless you have somebody on the ground determining what that specific point is. And that was the IAEA inspectors who were then also caught red handed doing battle damage assessment. That is looking at the damage that was done feeding it back in. That’s why the Iranians said, get the hell out of here. You got here to do God’s work in terms of furthering the non Proliferation Act. You were here to trigger a conflict. Your boss was working hand in glove with the Israelis. Hand in glove. And the intelligence you collected was fed to Israel by your boss for the express purpose of facilitating this very attack.

Judge, you remember when Grossi, who’s the director General, ran to Russia after the Ukrainians attacked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and immediately went to the Security Council and briefed them how dangerous it was to have these drones impacting the Zaporizhzhia plant and how the world must talk about an international force to secure this reactor or else we week we look at a new Chernobyl. Where is he now? When Israel has attacked multiple nuclear facilities inside Iran, some of which have resulted in radioactive leaks. Where is he? He’s silent because he was part of the system that led to this attack.

It just shows the utter hypocrisy of the entire international community when it comes to Israel because Israel can apparently get away with literal murder. They can get away with threatening the world and with, you know, radio, you know, radioactive contamination. And where’s the Security Council? Where’s the United States? Silent or participating in the attack. This is. I’m ashamed to be an American today. Not because I don’t love my country, I do. I’m ashamed to be an American because the government that we have elected to represent us is behaving in such a grossly reprehensible manner. Doesn’t stand for anything that we claim to stand for as a people.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Mavericks upset too. Just a couple of comments. The G7 meeting in Canada voted to ask for a de escalation between the Israelis and the Iranians. President Trump, of course, refused to go along with that. All the other members did. There are now 25,500 people watching us. Scott and I would encourage viewers to share the stream and repost it so more people can hear the brilliance, the intelligence, the personal courage of Scott Ritter. Here’s the. Just to give your voice a little bit of a break, here’s the Iranian foreign Minister yesterday. Chris, cut number two.

Iranian Foreign Minister’s Statement

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We have extensive evidence of how American.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Forces assisted the Zionist regime. But beyond our evidence, what is even more telling are the statements of the US President himself.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: In his tweets yesterday and in his interviews where he openly expressed support, he.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Clearly stated that such an operation would not have been possible without American equipment. And he openly said that further steps are to come.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Therefore, from our perspective, the United States is a partner in these attacks and must take responsibility.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: United States as a partner in these attacks and must take responsibility. Our friend and colleague Ray McGovern is worried about false flag. The Israelis attacking American troops in the region and claiming it was done by the Iranians.

U.S. Complicity and False Flag Concerns

SCOTT RITTER: I’m not worried about that because there’s such a gross level of complicity. A false flag is what you do when America is hesitating. If this president was saying, I don’t know, man, I don’t know if I want to get involved. This president’s jumping in with both feet. You don’t need a false flag. The President’s doing the job. I mean, it’s. I’m not worried about a false flag. I’m worried about this president violating his duty and responsibility to the American people.

People need to understand that if we actually cross the red line and get involved in direct targeting of Iran, a, we’re not going to change the outcome. I mean, the Israelis are already putting every modern American made aircraft there is, you know, into this conflict. You really think, you know, when they have 300 flying, that suddenly a new carrier battle group with 75 aircraft is going to change anything? It’s the same airplane, same bombs. It’s not going to have any impact. They’re not going to radically, you know, get the Iranians who have been preparing for this very scenario now for over 20 years. I mean, the Iranians are ready not just for what Israel is bringing to bear, but what the United States can bring to bear.

But what will happen is that the Iranians. I just again want to remind people that up until today, I believe the only missiles that have been fired at Israel have been done by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command, that the Iranian military has not played a role because they’ve been held in reserve. Now they might start to get involved as they seek to bring the coup de grace to Israel and destroy everything. But these missiles that have been held in reserve are missiles that could very well be used to target American bases. And if Trump crosses the line departure, our bases will be destroyed and any American military personnel there will be subject to, you know, possible death, injury, etc. This is on the President. This is a man who promised he wasn’t going to do that. But the Iranians have the capacity to strike American military facilities in the region and they have the capacity to strike American shipping. The range of the Iranian missiles exceeds the range of the aircraft that would be called upon to strike Iran. This President is setting us up for failure.

Israel’s Defense Capabilities

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Can Israel defend itself effectively and Thoroughly on its own.

SCOTT RITTER: No, it’s over. Israel’s done, finished. They can’t even defend themselves effectively and thoroughly with all the assistance the United States is providing. And there’s nothing more we can provide on the ground. The Iranians have broken the code. You simply saturate this air defense system, cause it to open itself up, then you hit the various nodes, command and control nodes, the missile nodes, and you exhaust the interceptor missiles. Right now there’s a reason why Iranian missiles are striking the ground in Israel. It’s because Israel can’t defend itself.

And remember, this isn’t Israel by itself. This is Israel with the full capacity of the United States military and its allies, NATO allies, brought to bear on this. There isn’t anything more we can do to defend Israel. There isn’t anything more we can do to defend Israel doing the maximum we can and it’s not working. And it’s not just Israel running out of missiles, we’re running out of missiles.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Our American B2 bombers and is an American aircraft carrier on their way there.

Military Capabilities and Nuclear Concerns

SCOTT RITTER: Well, the B2 bombers have been deployed to Diego Garcia. So they’re within striking distance. They’re just, you know, two aerial refueling sessions away from being able to attack targets in Iran. And they will probably be able to successfully attack these targets. You know, there’s everybody saying that if they use the 30,000 pound, you know, great bunker busting bomb, that this will solve the problem of Firdos. Well, that bunker busting bomb best case penetrates 50, 60 meters underground. The Firdos bunker is at least 80, 90 meters underground. So we’re not even going to put a dent in it.

Plus I just want to remind people that we have used this huge massive bunker busting bomb against underground targets in Yemen. We used that twice last year. B2 bombers dropping these two bombs on targets. They didn’t work, didn’t penetrate, didn’t do anything. So this will just bounce off. So we’re not going to accomplish the mission, but we are going to do is get ourselves committed to resolving a problem that we now no longer have a conventional solution to. And therefore what’s next? And what’s next is a B61 12 nuclear bunker busting bomb that you know, we’ll end up having to drop. And now we have broken that nuclear taboo and that will just unleash hell on the rest of the world.

This president needs to stand down. He really needs the Pentagon to tell him exactly what the truth is. But instead we have a Secretary of Defense, Hegseth, who allowed you know the US Military to be humiliated on the parade ground in Washington, D.C. that he should have stopped that, but he didn’t. Instead, we just embarrassed ourselves around the world, and now he’s getting us set up for disaster in the Middle East.

Hegseth needs to be honest to the President. We can’t do this. Mr. President. We don’t have the capacity to do this. If you want us to engage in this, it’s going to result in using nuclear weapons. That isn’t going to solve anything. It’s just going to make the matter worse globally. Please, Mr. President, stand down. Tell your secretary of state, National Security Advisor to stop shilling for Israel and start representing the best interest of the United States of America.

Hegseth could do this. Tulsi Gabbard could do this. She should be briefing. Mr. President. There is no threat there worthy of the use of nuclear weapons. Mr. President, if this continues, Israel is going to be strategically defeated, and we will be defeated along with them. Mr. President, we need to end this war now. And the way we do it is recognize that Iran has earned the right to make certain demands. Not to have a nuclear weapon. No. But to make demands about Israel. To make demands that Israel should never again be allowed to with the International Atomic Energy Agency, until which time they have become signatories to nuclear preparation treaty, put their nuclear weapons program on the table. This is the direction we need to be going. This gets solved when Israel stops committing genocide in Gaza. I mean, the bottom line is by compelling Iran to enter into this conflict, decisive Iran does get to dictate certain things getting out of this conflict.

Record Audience and Upcoming Programming

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Scott, we have 33,000 people watching us right now. Of course, that grows astronomically once this is posted, but this is the largest segment, the largest live audience that judging Freedom has ever had in its three and a half years of existence. Before we go, tell us about your program to bring about a normalization of relations between Russian people and American people in Kingston, New York on Wednesday.

US-Russia Dialogue Initiative

SCOTT RITTER: You know, this kind of summit was envisioned during the Biden administration when the Biden administration wasn’t talking with the Russian government. And this failure to engage in, you know, dialogue that could lead to normalization and peace was something the government wasn’t able to deliver on. In fact, when I tried to do it, I just want to remind people I was supposed to go to Russia in the summer of 2024 to have this very sort of summit to create opportunities in 16 different Russian cities, to bring a Russian audience and an American audience together. We had it all planned out. And then the US Government pulled my passport. Then they sent the FBI on me, accusing me of being a Russian agent by trying to promote this kind of dialogue for peace. It’s gone nowhere. They seize my computers. I have new computers. They haven’t given my passport back, but I can work here in the United States. And then Trump said he wants to encourage this kind of dialogue.

So here we are on Wednesday. We’re going to have basically the rebirth of the space bridge program. Forty years ago, Phil Donahue and Vladimir Posner began a process of creating dialogue between Russians and Americans that helped bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War. And that’s our goal and objective now. I’m not worried, but I’m here to say that when the US Government now has stopped engaging in this dialogue, that means that what we’re doing is no longer seen as, you know, operating in a supporting role of a larger, broader diplomatic initiative. We are now the only game in town. What we’re doing on Wednesday is the only dialogue that’s taking place between Americans and Russians because the Trump administration just shut down their official channels.

I don’t know what this is going to mean in terms of, you know, how the US Government views this. Am I going to be visited by 40 more FBI agents? I don’t know. I do know that YouTube has taken exception to this. I made a video, put it out on a new YouTube channel, and they pulled it, saying that apparently advocating for, you know, dialogue, normalcy, peace with the United States and Russia is a violation of their terms of service. This is the direction. We don’t live in a nation governed by free speech, and we don’t live in a nation where peace in the pursuit of peace is the norm. It’s now become the exception.

But we’re going to go forward, and we’re going to basically put forward a, you know, a template on how to do this. Maybe we’re going to have to retrain the Trump administration into understanding how you go about doing meaningful dialogue, you know, but the purpose now is to actually condition the American people to be receptive of this kind of action. So we’re doing it on Wednesday. It’ll stream live, hopefully, and hopefully it’ll happen. Maybe we’ll have 40 additional guests who wear camouflage uniforms and carry guns and hold badges that say FBI, and they’ll try and shut it down. I don’t know. But we’re going to do it anyways, because this is what has to be done if we’re going to live in a nation that decides peace is better than war.

And, you know, the American people need to commit to this. They need to commit to the fact that we have to have this kind of constructive dialogue. And then we set an example. We live by example. We show the government what needs to be done. And remember, the government works for us. We, the people of the United States of America, the government works for us. And so let’s show the government what needs to be done. And I’m going to do that on Wednesday.

Closing Remarks

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: God bless you, Scott. Thank you for your time today. Coming up after you is a person you know and admire, Professor Said Mohammed Morandi from Tehran. I don’t know what things are like where he is, but we’ll find out in about 20 minutes. Thank you very much for your time and for your passion, my dear friend. Godspeed on Wednesday and we’ll talk to you again soon.

SCOTT RITTER: Thank you very much.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Thank you. And as mentioned at 2 o’clock this afternoon, live from Tehran, Professor Mohammed Morandi, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.

Related Posts

• Transcript: Vice President JD Vance Remarks At TPUSA’s AmericaFest 2025
• AmericaFest 2025: Tucker Carlson on America First Movement (Transcript)
• Prof. John Mearsheimer: Unintended Consequences of a Meaningless War (Transcript)
• “It’s Really Not About Drugs” – Max Blumenthal on Mario Nawfal Podcast (Transcript)
• Erika Kirk’s Interview on Honestly with Bari Weiss (Transcript)