By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
A reconnaissance scout on the battlefield; a spy under cover on enemy territory; a G2 General Staff officer; a national security advisor; a politician running for election; or a journalist would be disbelieved, suspected of duplicity, even shot, if he or she made the same mistake so confidently, so loudly, so often.
Watch as these podcasters on Andrew Napolitano’s Judging Freedom are asked, then answer that the Ukraine is on its last legs, its army on the front and its government in Kiev. They have been repeating their answer each year since the Special Military Operation began in February 2022.
Click to view or listen: https://drive.google.com/
In the new book published this week, the reasons are analysed for this podcast phenomenon – factoids, disinformation, wishful thinking, propaganda. And yet on the podcast metrics the Napolitano podcast appears to draw large audiences who don’t appear to notice. However, as the evidence in the book reveals, they do: they click off and move on to different podcasts, different sources of reporting, analysis and prediction. This also a feature of the new podcast journalism — it’s not limited to Napolitano as the source.
Click on the new book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HPFBZ1V7
Three sources, veteran analysts of the war in Europe and the US, were asked to comment on the compilation of the Nap gang’s last legs:
“Ukraine being on its last legs is just one of the talking points wider Team Napolitano keeps repeating,” the European source replied. “It seems to me a dual-use talking point: mostly it seems to condone and commend President Putin’s policy of keeping his foot on the brake while the likes of [Central Bank governor Elvira] Nabiullina and [Kremlin negotiator Kirill] Dmitriev do their thing in the background. If Ukraine is ‘on its last legs’, then one simply has to wait and not do anything different. Saying so is a water-treading exercise. And it’s rewarded by all expense-paid trips to Moscow and more for people who appear to have washed out of the US income-generating media system.”
US source: “Same reason people keep saying, day after day, that there is going to be a catastrophic financial collapse, US civil war, plague, Russian invasion of Europe, etc. Drama gets clicks and subs. Even better, it doesn’t take much work to produce, so the margins are good. It’s also better than saying what the US is about in general, and up to in particular in the Ukraine. Better to show the Gadsden flag, eagles, Stars and Stripes, ‘Founding Father’ slogans, and a rotation of old men pining for the Russo-American rapprochement that is ‘the Great White Hope’.”
Moscow source: “It’s wishful thinking. Not payment.”
In hardcover, paperback and Kindle editions -- click for sample: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HPFBZ1V7?asin=B0HPFBZ1V7&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1
EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 1
Andrew Napolitano’s podcast which he called Judging Freedom, was first launched in October 2021. This was two months after Fox News announced on August 1, 2021 that it had sacked Napolitano.
Then 71, Napolitano had been employed as a commentator on the Fox network for more than twenty-five years. During that time he had been accused of sexual harassment by a number of men, and that was the eventual cause of his sacking. Looking for a new source of income, Napolitano took to podcasting, publishing on audio-based platforms and, most importantly, on YouTube.
Napolitano had served as a New Jersey state Superior Court judge until 1995 but abandoned that tenured position because, in his own words, “I really was tired of being poor”.
His private legal practice didn’t solve his penury problem; selling courtroom expertise on television proved more lucrative. But when the television rug was pulled, along with an annual salary of a quarter of a million dollars, Napolitano needed a new source of income. He picked YouTube podcasting where the number of viewers translates directly into revenue.
On October 15, 2021, Napolitano released his first two videos:
§ How Bad is the CIA influence in American culture with Jacob Hornberger.
§ How Bad Can Cancel Culture Get with Nick Gillespie.
These drew a very modest audience: the Gillespie episode has received a total of 2,061 views (at the five-year mark) while the Hornberger episode took in only 1,259. One commenter on the Gillespie episode noted that he was glad to be Napolitano’s 86th subscriber. The videos were also released as audio podcasts for download and on Spotify, but there is no transparent way to count the audience in these formats.
Napolitano’s audience has increased significantly since then. His most successful video was published on January 23, 2025, “🔴 💣
[SPECIAL] TRUMP BOMBS IRAN! w/ Scott Ritter and Judge Napolitano”. This has had 802,388 views, far exceeding his second most popular video, “COL. Douglas Macgregor: The Pentagon and Decapitation Strikes” (597,943 views). In fact, all of Napolitano’s most successful videos expressly report on combat. The remainder of his top ten are these:
§ Col. Douglas Macgregor: How Close Is WWIII? (561,810 views)
§ Scott Ritter: IRAN HITS ISRAEL. (552,907)
§ Col. Douglas Macgregor: Why Trump Is Now Desperate (542,210 views)
§ Col. Douglas Macgregor: Will Israel Go Nuclear? (541,417 views)
§ Russia Strikes Kyiv, Odesa & Kharkiv – Col. Doug Macgregor (541,358 views)
§ Scott Ritter: How’s the War Going, Mr. President? (515,441)19
§ Col. Douglas Macgregor: Israel Is Desperate (511,701 views)
§ Prof. John Mearsheimer: What If the US Does Attack Iran? (481,074 views)
Tracking the trajectory of Napolitano’s podcasts, it is obvious why he abandoned broader cultural and political issues in favour of warfighting. In March 2022, Napolitano had published “Russia Ukraine War – Col. Doug Macgregor: What Can Happen Now?” and attracted 45,691 viewers. Before that, his most popular video had been “Peter Schiff reveals the truth about inflation – Judge Napolitano/ Judging Freedom”, which attracted 9,640. By way of comparing the click values of the podcast topics Napolitano was airing, here is a sample of his 2022 videos which had drawn less than 1,000 viewers each:
n Betsy McCaughey on Insider Trading, & the dangers of looking the other way regarding Petty Crime (354 views)
§ DC Millionaires & Billionaires Don’t Care About Our Rights & Freedoms / John Whitehead (883 views)
§ Democrats – Who Are They? & Do They Want Trump to Run?… with Ellis Henican (311 views)
§ The Right to Bear Arms, From A-Z with Stephen Halbrook (441 views)
A series of episodes between April 8 and 27, 2022, sharply highlights the difference in viewers that warfighting topics achieved for Napolitano, including his first 100,000-plus podcast:
§ Hunter Biden Laptop Leaks & Trump’s Legal Woes (1,313 views)
§ Col. Douglas Macgregor – Russia Ukraine War Day 48 (76,439 views)
§ Biden Doesn’t Understand Guns or the 2nd Amendment (1,204 views)
§ Ukraine/Russia update – a conversation with Scott Ritter (157,085 views)
§ Jan 6 Protestors Imprisoned in an American Gulag (2,418 views)
§ Inflation, War & Taxes w/ Ron Paul (9,296 views)
§ Can We See a Libertarian Moment Now? (1,231 views)
§ Scott Ritter – Putin Ukraine Biden Update (97,322 views)
§ Musk Disney and Religious Freedom (1,089 views)
The precipitous decline from 97,322 views for his episode on April 26, 2022, to 1,089 views for his episode the next day evidently taught Napolitano to avoid religious freedom and stick to war-fighting.
YouTube is not transparent on exact earnings per viewer as these vary, depending on the demographics of the audience and the subject matter of the podcast. Nonetheless, for long-form podcasts with a focus on political topics and an audience based in affluent countries, a rate per mille of $3.50-$7.50 is the expected range. In July 2026 Napolitano’s channel managed to achieve 12,123,624 views (although a number of these were for short clips which generate significantly lower revenue). These numbers should have produced revenue between
$25,000 and $75,000. The Social Blade analysis puts Napolitano’s current income from his podcasts at between $31,000 and $491,000. That’s worse, but perhaps better than his takings from mainstream media broadcasting at Fox. If Napolitano had remained on his state court bench and earned promotion, this year he would be earning between $218,000 and $234,000 per annum.
Naturally, Napolitano defends his podcast revenue stream with doggedness. He has not seriously addressed any social or political issue apart from war in many months, but since he doesn’t control the vicissitudes of the battlefield, he can’t control the stream of viewers.
The 12-day war between Israel, the US, and Iran in June 2025 gave Napolitano a huge audience and revenue boost: in May 2025, the month before the war, he was drawing a total of 8,561,493 viewers; in June 2025, when the conflict broke out, he had 13,505,612 viewers; when it ended in July 2025, his viewership slumped to 7,439,117. Percentagewise, not even arms manufacturers saw such a huge jump in revenue from the conflict. Napolitano’s June 2025 war surge was 57%. By contrast, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has reported a revenue surge of 6% in 2024, more in 2025. US arms manufacturers reported revenue gains from 2.2% (Northrop Grumman) to 6% (Lockheed Martin) and 10% (RTX).
Similarly, when the US and Israel resumed their attack on Iran in February and March 2026, Napolitano had his best month ever: 16,763,928. But viewers want new conflicts, new wars, dramatic casualty incidents. They grow bored with simmering conflicts, attritional fighting. In April 2026 Napolitano achieved 14,852,956 viewers; in May 2026 he drew 10,209,797; in June 2026 his audience climbed to 12,123,624; in July 2026 it fell back to 11,713,872.
Audience views are not Napolitano’s only source of income from his podcast. Viewers can also choose to become paid subscribers to his YouTube channel for $4.99 per month. This provides them with a set of small, performative perks – loyalty badges of a judge’s gavel which can be displayed in comments and live chats, as well as special emojis (a judge, gavel, dove, and pentagram coloured with the Stars and Stripes) to show off. These perks are used as a signal to other viewers watching the podcast that the commenter is a paid subscriber. They are entry tickets Napolitano is selling for admission to an inside-knowledge elite or an exclusive fan club.
In addition, paid subscribers get early access to some of Napolitano’s newest videos and entry to members-only polls; the first is hardly a perk at all because much of the content is broadcast live. Counting the identity-marking Napolitano loyalty badges, a review of past live chats and comments shows that his channel does earn money from a paid subscription list, but this is heavily outnumbered by regular users who pay nothing.
Subscription isn’t the only way in which Napolitano goes after audience money. He has been operating a website at judgenap.com since October 2004. From the very beginning, he has sold his book “Constitutional Chaos” through the website; marketing the book appears to have been the original purpose of the site. Since Napolitano started podcasting, the site has expanded to include paywalled articles for subscribers.
The lowest tier that provides full website access is the Liberty+ plan, which costs $1.76 per week for an annual subscription. For this price, users are promised: Full Website Access; Judge’s Opinion Column; Members Only Newsletter; Exclusive Video Content; Exclusive Store Merchandise. They miss out on ‘Ask the Judge’ – that is described as “priority access to contact Judge Napolitano with questions and comments”. It is available to Freedom-tier subscribers at a premium of $2.76 per week.
Behind the paywall, subscribers can access news on a number of topics. Reflecting the podcast’s abandonment of topics which aren’t warfighting, the news category called ‘National’ has been lagging: the most recent of its articles was published on last November 12, 2025; the category of ‘Law & Crime’ has not been updated with new material since December 10, 2025. As for the “Business” category, Napolitano has ignored it since December 10, 2025; so too ‘Politics’ which Napolitano hasn’t returned to since December 9, 2025.
The only categories Napolitano continues to maintain and keep current are ‘Op-Ed’, ‘Judge’s Opinions’, and ‘World’. That last one is camouflage for articles largely headlined for warfighting such as the most recent pieces at the time of writing: ‘North Korea Conducts Third Missile Test This Month’; ‘USS George Washington Arrives in the Middle East’; ‘US Envoy Warns Israeli Strikes in Syria Could Provoke Turkish Response’; ‘Trump Threatens Total Economic War Against Iran’.
The money value of subscribing for these articles would be questionable if Napolitano’s subscribers were alert to ask. For example, ‘North Korea Conducts Third Missile Test This Month’, written by Kyle Anzalone, was available for free at the website, antiwar.com. ‘US Envoy Warns Israeli Strikes in Syria Could Provoke Turkish Response’ and ‘USS George Washington Arrives in the Middle East’ have also been free to read elsewhere. Even the Judge’s Opinions, which appear to be offering the most valuable of Napolitano’s insights that subscriber money can buy, are rare. Incidentally, they aren’t always the judge’s property to restrict for sale. A recent post on July 30, 2026, example, was also published as an open-access piece by the Tribune Chronicle of Warren, Ohio. Before that, Napolitano had published an op-ed in the same small-circulation newspaper on June 25, 2026.
Subscriptions aren’t the only cashgetter on Napolitano’s website. He also includes advertisements for a precious metals dealer, as well as for a catalogue of Napolitano name-brand merchandise. At a hefty markup, the Nap podshop sells viewers T-shirts at $41, $36 notebooks, $37 mugs, $36 beer koozies, and a bumper sticker for $22. In the market for interior decoration of this kind, Napolitano is aiming at consumers affluent enough not to price-compare. By contrast, the Financial Times of London is selling its readers a notebook for £11.66 ($16), less than half the Napolitano brand price. The FT shop also expects its clientele to be sober when reading – it doesn’t offer a branded beer koozie.
There is another name for this marketing method of Napolitano’s. It’s the carney pitch outside the circus tent – exorbitantly marked-up price tags on cheap products to keep as a souvenir of a night’s entertainment, then replace when the next circus rolls into town. This is not the traditional marketing model of media attempting to draw readers and keep them subscribing from month to month, year to year.
On the evidence of the comments added to Napolitano’s podcasts, his viewers don’t last from month to month. As long, that is, as the carney and the circus are in town, but not so long as the snake oil the carney is pitching fails to cure its consumers.
Close analysis of a sample of over four thousand comments recorded in more than sixty of Napolitano’s podcasts reveals a surprising pattern. More than three-quarters of the commenters made their mark only once, then disappeared from the podcast record. Just 17.1% of the commenters registered their comment on two or more of the podcasts; 5.5% commented on three or more. Only 0.15% of the commenters – that turns out to be just four users in total – commented on ten or more videos. Nobody commented on more than fifteen in the sample.
In an average week Napolitano has been producing more than thirty podcasts. This analysis of the commenters reveals that even the most assiduous or loyal of them stop after two weeks. And even they, the most frequent commenters, turn out on the record not to be paid-up subscribers.
This means that Napolitano’s big podcast numbers are neither a dedicated nor even a growing audience base. The changeability and substitution of the audience behind the podcast metrics, and the fickleness of the individuals, show that this is a display which Napolitano must constantly refresh and turn into money for himself as swiftly as possible, by hook or by crook.
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