Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: The Global Cost of MAGA Politics

" 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. Reject it."

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 Tuesday, February 3, 2026. Professor Jeffrey Sachs will be with us in just a moment. How did America first come to mean destroying other countries?

Professor Sachs, welcome here, my dear friend. Thank you for accommodating our schedule. How did America first come to mean destroying other countries?

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

Well, the destruction of other countries is a long-standing American tradition. It’s just that Trump hasn’t changed anything and in recent months he’s become rather unhinged, I would say. So America first didn’t invent anything and it didn’t change anything.

The U.S. has been engaged in wars of choice, especially Israel’s wars of choice and in regime change operations for decades. The CIA has been the most important powerful agent of the U.S. Government. It has been a disaster time and again in my view.

One of the reasons why it gets away with disaster is that it’s basically unaccountable. It just walks away from one disaster after another without anybody scrutinizing the CIA. CIA hasn’t had a proper overview by the public and Congress since 1975, more than 50 years ago in the Church committee.

So what’s happening is just a continuation of our politics. It’s alarming. It’s been a massive failure. It continues to be a massive failure. It’s very heavily driven by the Zionist lobby when it comes to the Middle East. And we’re on the verge of war with Iran because of all of this. And that could be another devastating mistake.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS:

Of course, the goal of Netanyahu, not exactly a secret, going back 30 years. And it’s exactly 30 years to 1996 when Netanyahu and his American and Israeli political advisors brought out a document that should be better understood and known called “Clean Break,” which is a document essentially calling for Israeli hegemony over the Middle East, overthrowing any government that opposes Israel’s control over the Palestinians.

The goal from the start was the mother lode from the start was overthrowing the Iranian government. And of course, the U.S. has been party to one covert operation after another. Assassinations, economic warfare, and last summer in June, the direct bombing of Iran.

Remember how Trump chortled after the bombing that, “Well, this ended Iran’s nuclear program.” Now we hear, “Well, we have to go to war because there’s a nuclear program.” This is typical Trump nonsense in all directions. There’s no consistency at all.

But the one consistent point is that Netanyahu has been urging the United States to go to war with a powerful country with a lot of powerful friends in the most explosive region of the world. And that urging has been going on basically since the mid-1990s. And every year of that period, Netanyahu said Iran’s about to get a nuclear bomb. That’s been the non-stop pattern.

The truth is that for the last dozen years, intensively, Iran has been trying to negotiate with the United States, and indeed it did negotiate with the United States. And it reached an agreement with the entire permanent five countries of the Security Council plus Germany in a program that would absolutely have controlled Iran’s nuclear energy to ensure that it could not be diverted into nuclear weapons.

That was agreed. It was voted unanimously by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 in 2015. And Trump ripped it up when he came into office in the first term because Netanyahu told him to rip it up.

So here we are. Trump says, “You got to negotiate.” They have negotiated. Last year, when they negotiated, he bombed them. So this is a really dark, dangerous, stupid, typically stupid game of the Israelis, and Trump is their agent. There’s no space between what Netanyahu wants and what Trump delivers.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

Well, he should be afraid, of course, but he’s counting on the United States to go all in. So he’s counting on a full-fledged war that would knock out Iran.

This is delusional in my view, but Netanyahu is delusional and he has a delusional partner, Trump. You know, Netanyahu was the one that told us how wonderful each of these wars would be. He came to Congress in the fall of 2002 to say, “Go to war with Iraq. It’ll be the greatest thing you ever did. It’s going to make peace and security throughout the region. It’s going to overthrow the regime in Iran,” he said, “because it’s going to show how wonderful all of this is.”

This is what we’ve had for years and years. And it’s quite clear that the hold of this on U.S. Policy has been stunning. And I think we’re beginning to see the pieces put together with the Epstein file. Because what we’re seeing from the Epstein file is not even so much about the sex and the parties on the island, but about Epstein’s network of influence across the Israeli government, the U.S. Government, the British government, on all sorts of issues, including these security issues.

So there’s something going on that is being exposed because all of us have wondered, how does the Zionist lobby have such a hold on U.S. Politics? And of course, money and campaign finance is part of it, but there has been more to it than that, and I think it’s starting to be uncovered.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO:

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. Not threatened at all, not harmed at all. And especially what the Iranians have been saying. And you and I were in the room when we heard the President of Iran basically beg, “We want peace. We want to negotiate.”

That’s taken as a sign of weakness by the people in Washington, not as a measure of responsibility and an opportunity to avoid war. That’s the problem with these people, our people. I mean, they hear the other side wants to negotiate, they say, “Oh, good, let’s kill them.” That’s actually how they think, which is, if they want to negotiate, boy, they must be weak. Don’t they understand that the only reality is power?

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

Look, the American people have paid trillions and trillions of dollars for Bibi Netanyahu’s wars. And the fact that the American political class fights them on behalf of these extremists, and the result of that is massive budget deficits, so that we now live day by day with government that is completely dysfunctional doesn’t work at all.

I just was in an American airport as I was traveling from yesterday till today. I didn’t even realize, I’m sorry to say, that the government was shut down so that it was usual confusion. We don’t have functioning government right now. We have a budget crisis that is out of control.

Trump wants to spend another half a trillion dollars on the military as part of this. And the costs of all of these wars are completely out of sight. And so we end up with completely dysfunctional government going broke. And nothing works in America right now, I’m sorry to say, not very well, except raids by paramilitaries on American streets and infrastructure that doesn’t function and government that shut down half the time.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

So there are rumors this morning in the Western, actually the European alternative media, I’ve gotten this from our friends in Europe that the Russians made their extreme displeasure known in no uncertain terms to American negotiators at Abu Dhabi about the President’s persistent threats on Iran, whether those rumors are true or not. How do you think Russia and China would react to an American attack, whether it’s a full-blown attack or one of these in and out things that Trump seems to favor?

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

Well, let me just step back for one moment. U.S. policy for years has been predicated on the idea that the Arab world would support an all-out attack on Iran. And that basically the division supposed between Iran and the Arab countries could be exploited to Israel’s benefit because the Arab countries would support the overthrow of the Iranian government. This is clearly false.

What’s happening right now, and it’s in line with this story, which I don’t know whether it’s true or not, about Russia making these statements, is that the countries of the region, the region of Iran, the countries of the Middle East are undoubtedly telling Trump, “What are you doing? Do not do this.”

You think that Dubai, a great trading and financial center of the world, wants a war right there? You think Doha wants to be bombed again? You think that Saudi Arabia’s highest aspiration is a full-blown war in the Middle East or that Turkey would support this?

So what is absolutely the case is that Trump is hearing from important countries in the region. Don’t do this. Of course he’s hearing from his campaign paymasters do it. But he’s hearing from the Saudis, he’s hearing from Turkey, from President Erdogan, he’s hearing from throughout the Gulf region. Don’t do this. I’m sure that is causing some pause.

The idea that he would be hearing this from President Putin makes perfect sense. I hope he’s hearing it from President Putin. That wouldn’t be a Russian threat to the United States. It would be the best possible advice that Russia could give to President Trump, which is don’t step on this landmine, don’t cause a new explosion in the world right now.

So this is why we’re hanging in the balance. And there is clearly some last-ditch attempt at diplomacy to head off a war. People know that if the war comes, it’s not going to be a 12-day affair. It’s going to go on and it’s going to be extraordinarily dangerous and it’s going to escalate in a horrifying way. And so this is what people are trying to tell Trump. Whether he understands these things or not, I don’t know.

Now, it’s interesting. Witkoff is in Israel today meeting Mossad and meeting Netanyahu. God knows whether he’s getting instructions or maybe telling them that this isn’t a good idea. Who knows what’s really going on right now? We’re not privy to this.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

Here’s the pitiful sight of a United States senator begging the President of the United States to invade Iran.

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

LINDSEY GRAHAM

If this regime falls, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, they all go. It’d be the biggest change since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But here’s one thing. Donald Trump is Ronald Reagan plus, in my mind, Venezuela assumed Cuba. The one thing you can’t do as president, talk like Reagan and act like Obama. There’s no deal to be done here. These people are not trustworthy.

The protesters in the street are not protesting for a better nuclear deal. They’re protesting for a better life. And if they win the day, we have a chance to have friends with the people of Iran. Ayatollah will never be our friend. He’s a religious Nazi. President Trump, you said help is on the way. That has to be real. It has to be real soon. Do it.

Mr. President, the people of Iran are begging you to be on their side. You have done it so good. You are Reagan plus. This is the defining moment in your presidency. Stand by the people. I tell you, Ayatollah falls, the region changes bigger than the fall of the Berlin Wall. No more international terrorists. This regime has American blood on its hands since 1979. You got the Houthis, you got Hezbollah killing Americans.

Bring this regime down because the people want it down. You don’t have to invade the country, but help on the way means military strikes against the infrastructure that is killing the Iranian people. Does he get this stuff?

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

No. I know where he gets it, because he’s been a broken record. Biggest disaster in United States politics. He’s a fool. He’s an idiot, and he’s been wrong on everything. But let me mention one point which we’ve discussed. He talks about the crackdowns on protests. The man’s such an ignoramus, this senator, that he doesn’t even listen or care to hear that it was the United States that brought those people out onto the streets by crushing the Iranian economy.

And that’s not Mr. Sachs saying so, that’s Treasury Secretary Bessent saying so. And this is very important for people to understand. The United States and Israel are playing a game. The game is crush the Iranian economy, bring people out onto the streets and then say, “You see how terrible the Iranian government is. People are out on the streets protesting.” It’s a simple minded, absolutely vicious game.

And let me just read again what Bessent said, because people should listen to the actual words that these gangsters in our government use. Bessent said on January 20, 2026 on Fox News, same show that we just saw Mr. Graham: “President Trump ordered Treasury and our Office of Foreign Asset Control to put maximum pressure on Iran. And it’s worked because in December their economy collapsed. We saw a major bank go under. The central bank has started to print money. There is a dollar shortage. They are not able to get imports. And this is why the people took to the streets. So this is economic statecraft, no shots fired. And things are moving in a very positive way here.” That’s Bessent talking surprisingly too much, but explaining that America brought people to the streets by crushing the Iranian economy. I don’t know if Lindsey Graham understands anything. I don’t know if he’s been wrong on everything. He is an absolute disastrous warmonger that has gotten the United States into one mess after another.

But the point is, the United States is engaged in a war against Iran. It is an economic war. It’s a shooting war. It’s a bombing war. It’s not in America’s interest at all. It’s a game played for Bibi Netanyahu. And it’s absolutely against everything about America first and America’s interests.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER

MIKE POMPEO

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

This is the central question. Let’s review the Epstein files again about all his political manipulations, about the relations with the top people in the US Government, in the treasury, in Israel, in the UK because we are locked into such a disaster right now.

And there’s Pompeo talking on Israeli television about, “Don’t worry, we’re all in there together. We’re going to do this all together. No, we didn’t miss a chance for regime change.” And he’s probably right that all of this war continues. It’s just radically against the interests of you and me and the American people. And it’s completely the opposite of America first or MAGA. Completely the opposite. It’s the worst of the swamp. It is the US being run for purposes that have nothing to do with America’s interests.

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PROFESSOR JEFFREY SACHS

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

Max Blumenthal

Well, that's Netanyahu's agenda. And it's not Trump. It's any US president. It's why he went before Congress and essentially accused Barack Obama of enabling a holocaust of Jews, I think back in 2011, and held up maps, satellite maps, not of Iran, but of Poland, showing and asserting that FDR refused to bomb the railways to Auschwitz and then essentially insinuating that Obama was refusing to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, making him another Nazi enabler. I mean, it was a massive insult to American leadership. But that's Netanyahu's agenda.

It always has been his agenda. And before Iran was considered a threat to Israel, he was pushing the US to attack Iraq. Netanyahu said in his own books, in his early books that Saddam Hussein was essentially a Soviet asset and that if the US wanted to win the cold war that they had to attack Iraq and then once he gets that out of the way he moves on to Iran.

So everything that's happening right now with respect to Iran, the only reason that the US is sit seated in these tense negotiations in Oman with the Iranian government, the only reason that there's this carrier strike group that's been in or close to the Persian Gulf and one may be in the Indian Ocean, the only reason why there's all this tension is because Israel is driving Trump's agenda. And I think the Epstein file that was released from a confidential human source of the FBI, I think I know who that source might be alleging that Trump has been co-opted by Israel is fundamentally correct.

JUDGE ANDREW NAPOLITANO

Max Blumenthal

Well, it's not just Netanyahu. This is the entire Israeli military intelligence apparatus. If Netanyahu's opponents, who are equally bloodthirsty, if not more bloodthirsty, were in power, they would be pushing the United States to attack Iran on their behalf. It's just that Netanyahu is a more talented manipulator, which helps explain why he's been in power for so long and is someone who comes from the United States. He he who is someone who essentially comes from the Epstein class which gives him this very close proximity to Trump and his own people. That's why we are where we are.

But Israel's military intelligence apparatus believes that it will benefit from the US getting involved with Iran in a regional war and that it needs the US to be intimately and grotesqually involved in warfare in the region in order to prevent the US from, for example, pivoting to Asia and moving away from providing Israel with its main source of deterrence. Israel.

Nothing would benefit Israel more than the US losing 500 or so soldiers in a massive conflict with Iran aimed at regime change because it would mean that the US and especially Trump would have to continue continually up the ante against Iran's military just as it did when it was bogged down in the quagmire of Iraq. That was another conflict that benefited Israel. The difference is that Israel was able to conceal its fingerprints on the US drive to war and the US campaign in Iraq, whereas this time it's very clear to a segment of the American public that we're doing this essentially on behalf of.

But the ante the demands that Trump is making are so absurd. It's hard to believe that these negotiations are real. I mean, it's one thing to say, okay, reduce the nuclear enrichment so it can't become a weapon. It's another thing to say, reduce the nuclear enrichment so you can't use it for medical and hospital purposes. That's absurd. Get rid of your offensive weaponry. What are you crazy? Israel wants to destroy you. That's absurd. Stop funding your allies in the area. Is Israel going to stop with the people it funds? That's absurd. Are these real negotiations or or not?

Well, it looks like based on the leaks that I'm seeing, which can be questioned, that the US is seeking a declaration of surrender from Iran because once Iran gives up its long range ballistic missiles and once Iran retreats from being a breakout nuclear power, from being sort of a latent nuclear power that could that could break out into weaponized capacity, Then Iran loses its deterrence and it starts to look like the deal that the Syrian government signed uh with Russian mediation with the US under Obama to give up chemical weapons that may or may not have existed but but which comprised deterrence. Gaddafi did the same thing under the mediation of Tony Blair and the Brits. And one of Kaddafi's final phone calls was with Tony Blair where Blair essentially hung up the phone on him and left him to be slaughtered by al-Qaeda assets that the British and French were arming.

So the lesson is very clear. If you give up your deterrence, you are signing your own death warrant because the US cannot adhere to a deal, especially when Israel is involved. And even if the US were to adhere to the terms of this deal, which would mean a non-aggression pact between the US and Iran, Israel would take advantage of it immediately and then lead the US back into a conflict. Iran's ballistic missiles exist at the heart. They have demonstrated during the 12-day war that Iran could deter an Israeli unprovoked attack. They put Israel on the back foot. They forced Israel to sue for peace. And the ballistic missile program continues to advance. We've seen new hypersonic missiles being introduced into Iran's arsenal since the 12-day war. Iran is also developing intercontinental ballistic missiles and this gives it weight at the negotiating table that would be suicidal for it to negotiate away.

But this is what Trump has demanded and I don't know if he's demanding it now. There are separate reports that all the Trump administration is seeking is for Iran to basically evacuate its uranium stockpiles to a third country and essentially give up its nuclear program which I think you know in this current environment would also be suicidal. But the reason I mean another point I want to make is the reason that these negotiations are taking place at all in Oman is because Iran has not met the US with its tail between its legs. It has actually threatened an allout regional war. If the US attacks, if the US attempts a decapitation strike against its leader, the only language that Trump or Israel understands is the language of strength and force.

And Donald Trump now understands that if he attacks Iran, it's not going to be another Venezuela situation where he can just eliminate the top leader as if he's picking up someone in an Uber ride. It's going to be bloody and Trump is not willing to pay a cost in terms of material and men and get bogged down. So that's why these negotiations are taking place, I expect them to fail and if they don't fail and there is a deal between the US and Iran, the US will not be able to adhere to its terms and we will see more attempts to destabilize Iran from within as well as to destroy its economy through sanctions. Is it probable that the negotiations are just a delaying technique for more US nav navy assets to arrive?