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Sept. 15, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
29:15
Larry Johnson : Claims Ukraine Is Winning are Inconceivable!
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, September 16th, 2024.
Larry Johnson will be here with us in just a moment on what's with these professors, not on this show, claiming that Ukraine is winning the war right after this.
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Larry Johnson, welcome here, my dear friend.
Before we get to Ukraine and some of the arguments that were circulating over the weekend, which you addressed so passionately and articulately on your own website, and before we get to the latest on Israel, what is the latest from your perspective on the recent assassination attempt?
Trump.
Do you know of the weapon?
Do you know of any skill of the potential shooter?
Do we know if this was a, if Trump was in harm's way or if this was just a crackpot in the neighborhood?
No, this was not a crackpot in the neighborhood.
The guy may be described by some as a crackpot, but he is actually, while being an American citizen, he's been a very He's been a very vocal supporter of the whole Ukrainian cause and views Trump as a danger to Ukraine.
So he also reportedly owns several firearms so that he's not someone who is unfamiliar with firearms.
And in this case, you know, the Secret Service did a great job.
They had the perimeter secured to the point that they identified this individual poking a rifle through the chain-link fence.
The rifle in question, an AK-47, it's the Russian version of an M16 as far as being what people call an assault rifle.
It just shoots a larger bullet, and it would be a very deadly weapon.
And he was reportedly at 300 yards.
300 yards with a scope is not an impossible shot.
It just depends on what kind of optic he would have had.
I haven't heard anything about whether it was a, you know, conventional, like a magnified scope or if it was a red dot.
But they got him before he had a chance to shoot at Trump.
So the Secret Service agent engaged him.
The rounds that were heard fired were Secret Service rounds.
It was not this guy actually shooting at Trump.
Yeah, apparently they were close enough that this guy didn't stick around.
He left his backpack, he left the rifle, he left his GoPro, and he ran away.
He did the old Monty Python thing.
Run away!
Run away!
And they caught him.
Apparently someone saw him get into his car.
The drone got some imagery of his vehicle.
And the combination of sheriff's deputies and Florida State Highway Patrol grabbed him.
And he's in custody now, facing federal charges.
And if I know Ron DeSantis, he's going to also face, this individual will face state charges.
Is there any...
Is there any intimation of connection with any American or foreign intelligence service?
Well, yeah, there's a question.
Was there a leak from somewhere within the Trump team about Donald Trump's whereabouts at that particular time?
Because, you know, you play 18 holes, there's no guarantee you're going to be in one particular hole at one particular period unless you have some advanced knowledge.
So I think part of the investigation is going to figure out what did he know and when did he know it and who did he know it from.
Okay.
Switching gears to, and thank you for that, Larry, and please.
Just as you did so marvelously when I was in Italy and we did these segments from my hotel room with the Butler, Pennsylvania attempt to murder the former president.
Please keep us informed.
And if there's any breaking news, let producer Chris know and we'll pop right on air and continue to be our expert, especially on munitions.
Before we get to Ukraine, I want to ask you a couple of questions about Israel.
Ray McGovern and Alistair Crook both are of the view that the missile fired over the weekend by the Houthis reached its target, notwithstanding the silence from Prime Minister Netanyahu about the target.
He wasn't silent about his threat to Iraq.
Do you know anything about this that you can enlighten us?
Well, I've seen the photographs where the Israelis are going to great lengths to try to pretend that it hit someplace else, and it didn't.
The real question comes into where did the Houthis get the missile?
And so people have been saying, well, we're still waiting for Iran to retaliate.
Well, maybe Iran just did retaliate.
They retaliated with the Houthis doing it for them.
The Iranian supplied the missile.
The missile made its way.
Defeated.
Let's make this clear.
Defeated Israeli air defense and U.S. air defense.
Nothing, you know, so we're out there talking about how great our air defense systems is.
Nope.
Was it hypersonic?
I've heard it described as hypersonic, but I see no evidence to support that.
But what we do know is that none of the Israeli air defense systems and the U.S. air defense systems that are employed on naval platforms out there were able to bring it down.
And reportedly, there were, you know, several...
And they missed.
So that leads me to believe that it very well could have been a hypersonic missile.
But the Houthis wouldn't have the capability to develop that.
That would have been given to them by someone else.
Because I know for a fact that the United States is still working on trying to develop a functioning prototype.
We haven't yet been able to deploy.
A successful hypersonic missile.
And yet, the Russians have it.
The Chinese have it.
Iran reportedly has it.
So, now the Houthis have it.
Wow.
I guess the Israeli PR on the invincibility of their Iron Dome is a myth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and that was exposed as well.
Now it's, what, three weeks ago?
With the attack at that base outside of Tel Aviv, Gilead, which is the location of Israel's equivalent of the National Security Agency, Unit 8200.
They do all the signal, intercepting conversations, intercepting email, text messages, that kind of thing.
And apparently Hezbollah hit that base.
And inflicted significant casualties there, and Israel imposed a complete blackout on any information coming out.
So, you know, now in the space of three weeks, you get Hezbollah hitting a target, Houthis hitting a target, and yet Israel wants to go fight Hezbollah and Iran?
You know, it just doesn't add up.
They're picking a fight that they really would not be able to win.
Alistair Crook reported this morning, early this morning, that the Israeli cabinet has been meeting all day today as Prime Minister Netanyahu endeavors to persuade the cabinet to allow him to fire Defense Minister Gallant and hire somebody from one of his opposition parties to become the defense minister.
Do you know any more about this?
Just what I checked her routes before coming on air.
And there certainly sounds like they're moving in that direction.
You know, Alistair is a measured, calm guy.
It takes a lot to get him excited.
And even when it's excited, you're not sure he's excited.
But, you know, listening to him today, he was genuinely alarmed that it's moving in this direction, that Israel seems, well, Netanyahu.
Because to launch, to replace Galant, and it's not like Galant's some great sheikhs, but at least Galant has enough sense to recognize we're overstretched, and if we commit ourselves to a military operation in southern Lebanon, we're going to be defeated.
We can't sustain it.
That the others say, no, no, no, you don't know what you're talking about.
And so they're going to fool around and they'll find out that, well, actually he was correct.
And this is the kind of military mistake that could genuinely jeopardize the future of Israel, as was predicted a couple of weeks ago by that retired Israeli general, Barik, I think his name was.
Right, right.
You know, he said, hey, if Israel continues on this path, it may not even exist in a year.
So this lust for war has consumed him.
Transitioning.
I thought of you as soon as I read this, and then, of course, I saw your website.
The Wall Street Journal provided a forum for a professor from Catholic University of America.
I never heard of the professor before arguing that.
And you are not Alistair Crook-like in your response.
You really did a dance on this guy's head.
Who is he and what kind of claims is he making?
He's a Cold War dinosaur.
His name is Kimmish.
He's like one of those beetles that's frozen in amber from the prehistoric age.
Pick it out.
Only he's frozen in the Cold War age.
still thinks of that Russia is the former Soviet Union, that Russia today are a bunch of communists, that Russia today has a barely functioning economy and a military that is corroded and corrupt.
And meanwhile, that the Ukrainians They're walking on water and they're feeding the multitudes.
It's really a pretty bizarre article because he's suggesting that, okay, yeah, Ukraine's struggling on the front lines, but, boy, U.S. policy is just working so well in isolating Russia.
I go, isolating Russia?
You mean?
Russia that's got this new strategic partnership with China and is the leader of the BRICS with Brazil, India, South Africa, and with countries in the global south in particular lining up to join, including our NATO buddy and ally, Turkey, and Thailand, and Vietnam, and Iran, and Saudi Arabia, and the list goes on.
You know, I wrote in an article, Making Jest, and it's something only a certain generation of people remember.
I said, this is like the celebrity list trying to get into Studio 54, which was this disco nightclub in New York City in the 80s that was just a big hotspot where, you know, Mick Jagger and the Beatles and Cher, everybody wanted to go hang out there.
Well, that's what Brooks is becoming.
And so here's this professor arguing that Rush is isolated.
And then they say, oh, and boy, Ukraine's getting ready to make some massive investments in defense industrial plant, and they'll be producing right away.
And it's like, dude, have you been watching the missile strikes?
Has someone not been talking to you about what's going on?
Because there's not a safe place in Ukraine where you could set up any kind of facility, much less a lemonade stand, that if the Russians wanted to take it out, they could.
Former President Zelensky in an interview with Fareed Zakaria of CNN over the weekend showing how delusional he is.
Cut number one.
He afraids only one thing.
No leaders, no countries, no nothing.
He afraids of his society.
Russian people.
And if Russian people are in danger, if they don't have comfortable life.
If they live without energy, like our people, they will understand the price of the war and they will be not happy with it and they will begin to influence on him, on Putin.
That's why I said, make Ukraine strong and you will see that he will sit and negotiate.
This is an argument for long-range missiles, which I don't think he's going to get, at least not before November 5th.
Well, not only that, did you hear what he said?
He said, yeah, the Russian people are without power, like we are.
They'll be really upset.
I'm thinking, well, now there's some projection.
What he's doing is he's projecting onto Russia what is the reality at home in Ukraine.
Because later in that interview, he admits to Farid Zakaria that Russia has destroyed 80% of the power grid of Ukraine.
So they're going to be without power.
They're without it now, but it's going to become very severe once you get into the winter.
Look, if you live in a condo and you're at the 20th floor, can you imagine having to walk up and down the stairs every day just to get to your floor?
Plus, you need to carry a couple of buckets of water with you because...
And, by the way, there's no heat either.
Well, the statistics right now, and they're basing this partly upon the number of active cell phones that are in Ukraine, the population of Ukraine since from January 2022 to now is cut in half.
They went from 42 million, it's actually more than half, down to under 20 million people.
That's because the Ukrainians have been bugging out.
As winter comes on, more Ukrainians are going to be fleeing.
And yet, here's Zelensky, you know, that is reminiscent of that Grateful Dead song, he's driving that train high on cocaine, but his name ain't Casey Jones.
Wow.
As if to make...
Here is the man who single-handedly persuaded then-President Zelensky to trash the detailed peace agreement in the spring of 2022.
Hang on to your chair, Larry.
Cut number seven.
As for the role the Ukrainians could themselves play, In stability and security in the Euro-Atlantic area, it's obvious.
Thanks to the heroism of the Ukrainian armed forces, they've been fighting for more than two years, almost three years.
They are the most accomplished armed forces in the whole continent.
And it's easy to see how they could play a very, very important role in peace and stability on the European continent.
One of the arguments I think we should make to our American friends is if they want to take back some U.S. troops from the European theater and save a few billion, a lot of billion, Mike, then I'm sure the Ukrainians, having defeated the Russians, and there's nobody more effective at defeating the Russians than the Ukrainians, I'm sure the Ukrainians would be only too happy to backfill in Europe.
Anyway, those are some of the things, some of the ways in which I think Ukraine can be a force for stability.
And before he said that, he said he expects Ukraine to be a member of the EU and NATO.
Yeah.
But first of all, I'm going to insist that he has to get a name change.
I don't want anybody...
At least you know how to brush your hair.
Yeah, I was going to say, at least I got a better barber than he does, or at least I know how to use some hairspray and a brush.
But, you know, this is not like arguing about flavors of ice cream.
Some people like vanilla, some like chocolate, some like both, but you can argue about which is better.
But it's subjective.
It's a matter of taste.
The declaring that Ukraine is beating Russia is madness.
It's lunacy.
Because it's not grounded in any kind of reality.
Whether you want to describe it in terms of loss of personnel, the number of killed and wounded that is taking place.
I mean, Zelensky, even in his interview with Farid Zakaria, admitted.
That for every one artillery shell Ukraine is firing, Russia's firing 12 back at them.
Just, again, a math problem.
If I'm firing 12 at you and you're firing one at me, I've got an advantage.
How is that winning?
When they are unable to field F-16s in the air because they don't have pilots.
How is that winning?
When they're begging, desperately begging the West for missiles, missiles, long-range missiles, please!
If you're winning, why do you need those?
Because you're winning!
But you're not winning, which is one of the reasons they're begging for it, is not so much to use the missiles, but to get the United States and the United Kingdom embroiled in the war, because they know, Zelensky knows, that without Western intervention, they have no hopes of victory.
And even with Western intervention, the reality is they have no hopes of victory.
How unstable is their military now?
Yeah, it's getting weaker every week.
You know, we've been talking now 2,000 casualties a day, 2,300 casualties recorded just yesterday, I believe.
and that's been going on now for about two months.
So that's...
That's like double what we experienced in Vietnam over 15 years.
And that's just in 60 days.
So they're running into the fundamental problem.
They can't recruit enough.
And the ones that they do recruit aren't getting sufficient training.
So it's just a downward spiral.
You could break out of it if you had a big, fresh, a large chunk, you know, say 100,000 new guys that you could go and train for six months and then insert them in the fight.
Under those circumstances, yeah, the situation might change, assuming that you had adequate supplies for them.
But Ukraine is running in a situation where it can't produce its own supplies.
It's relied upon the West for supplies.
And it is the West that's coming up short saying, no, we don't.
You know, we've checked our cupboard and our cupboard is bare.
We're going to have to withhold some of this because if we give it to you, we don't have anything left.
And then the lack of trained manpower.
So, I mean, it's all coming together.
And if you're having to make the decisions as the general of the forces of Ukraine, you don't have any good options.
Ray McGovern has suggested...
caused the decision to allow long-range missiles at least to be deferred or not to be made.
And Blinken, you know, has been silent for the past three or four days after intimating in Kiev as recently as last Wednesday that he thought the answer would be yes.
Ray has speculated that the DOD basically said to the White House, you guys have any idea what you're going to bring on us if we start giving them this kind of equipment?
Yeah, I mean, it was remarkable.
This all transpired over three days.
So let's say on Wednesday, you've got leaks coming out of London and Washington that are saying, oh, yeah, Ukraine's going to get the green light to use the missiles to strike deeper inside Russia.
You had Congressman Mike McCall of Texas.
Yeah, yeah, Blinken's got the word.
They're going to go do it.
Keir Starmer's folks were leaking it out of London.
Then the next day, Vladimir Putin comes out and says, any of those missiles strike inside of Russia, we're going to hold NATO, United States, Britain accountable.
It's going to be an act of war.
And if you strike us, we'll strike you.
That's essentially what he said.
And he was tight-jawed when he said it.
He wasn't laughing, no twinkle in his eye.
He was steely-eyed and firm jaw.
And they knew the body language was he was dead serious.
Here he is.
Within 24 hours, man, it looked like the U.S. gymnastics team, all the backflips that were being performed.
Here he is, cut number five.
It is not about allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not.
It is about making a decision about whether NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not.
If the decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine.
This is their direct participation and this, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.
This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are fighting Russia.
And if this is so, All the calmness of Alastair Crook.
Yeah.
You know, he wasn't being bombastic.
He wasn't being emotional.
He'd been very rational.
And the message penetrated somewhere in D.C. Right.
Because within 24 hours, there was a different song being sung.
And as far as the green light, green light went from green to yellow to red.
Stop.
And it has stopped for now.
Now, there are some...
And here's the Brits insisting that you've got five former defense ministers encouraging Starmer to go ahead and give the Ukrainians green lights, regardless of what the United States says.
Now, if the Brits do that, I can't rule out stupid on the side of the Brits.
They're incredibly gifted at doing the wrong thing.
They do have a long history of that.
If they do that...
And I'm not sure the United States would be there to back it up.
Wow.
Because, you know, there would be pressure to do so.
But I said this thing could get out of control quickly.
But the marker, you know, Putin made sure that they put that marker down in a way, and it was reiterated by Lavrov, the foreign minister.
So there should be no doubt in the West.
Already, you're hearing out of Germany, out of Poland, even, you know, Radislas Sikorsky, the foreign minister, even he's like, oh, no, no, we're not going to fight Russia.
And that means they're not going to do things that would provoke a fight.
Thank you, Larry.
Thank you so much for your analysis, as always, and thank you for accommodating my schedule because we have you with the youngster.
McGovern on Thursday this week because of a commitment I have on Friday.
Much appreciated.
You're very welcome.
We'll see you on Thursday.
Okay.
All the best.
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