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Nov. 17, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
31:42
Scott Ritter : Biden Suddenly Relevant as He Begins WWIII.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, November 18, 2024.
Scott Ritter will be here with us in just a moment.
Is Joe Biden risking World War III?
Is he risking annihilation?
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Scott Ritter, welcome here, my dear friend.
What are the risks in this latest announcement out of the federal government?
That the United States will authorize the Ukraine military to use American weaponry to reach up to 190 miles inside of Russia?
Well, we already know what the risks are because this is the second time we've gone through this scenario.
The first time, of course, was in September when Joe Biden was ready to issue such authorization on September 13th.
On September 12th, the Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that if this were done, This would be interpreted by Russia as an act of war and would be responded in kind.
On September 13th, the day Biden was going to sign off on this, he had a White House meeting with Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister.
The Russian Ambassador to the United Nations reiterated that if he signed that document, a declaration of war would have been signed.
And this was backed up by the Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, who spoke to several officials, former government officials, who called him at the behest of the Biden administration to find out were the Russians serious.
Anatoly Antonov said not only were the Russians serious, but that when this went nuclear, notice what I said, when this went nuclear, the United States would be involved.
So he said there will be a nuclear war and America will be part of it.
It won't be limited to Europe.
Biden wisely backed down.
So we know exactly what's going to happen.
The Russians have not changed their posture whatsoever.
Let me make it as clear as possible.
If Ukraine uses an Atakim's missile to strike a target inside Russia, that is in Kursk Oblast, Russia will say that that's an attack by the United States and will treat it accordingly.
It will be a state of war between the United States and Russia.
And from what I understand, I've been in contact with sources in Moscow.
First of all, let me just say that the Russians aren't panicked.
What the Russians are saying is that the decisions have already been made.
Anybody who's looking for a convoy of vehicles running to the Kremlin to decide, the decision has been made.
It is automatic.
The moment the attack comes, is used, Russia will respond, and the response will be catastrophic for Ukraine and devastating.
For NATO and the United States.
When I say catastrophic, Kiev will be destroyed.
It won't be a nuclear weapon, but I've been told what the weapon probably will be.
And it will be a gigantic thermobaric bomb that will level downtown Kiev, killing everybody there.
Russia will take Kiev off the map.
And if I know this, the CIA knows this, Biden knows this, Zelensky knows this.
The thing is, they think Russia's bluffing.
They don't think Russia will do it.
It's not a gamble I'm willing to take because it's not just gambling away the lives, millions of lives in Kiev, but it's gambling away all of humanity.
If the West is wrong and Russia is not bluffing, there will be a war and that war will be nuclear and we will all die.
Is the equipment, these attackums, 100%.
It cannot be operated by anybody but the United States.
It's just the way it is.
The guidance system, the data that goes in, is developed by a special Department of Defense activity in Europe that does targeting for guidance systems like this.
It's done by American-only analysts, geospatial analysts.
It is communicated from this site to a downlink station in Ukraine.
The mission is planned by the United States.
This is classified communications, so it's using National Security Agency cryptology, which means only Americans can touch it.
Ukrainians cannot touch it.
The data is downloaded there, and then to load it up on the attackums, again, it is a link that involves cryptology.
Only Americans can do it.
So the mission is planned by the United States.
The data is loaded into the missile.
Button is fired to fired.
It's being, the Russians will say, fired by the United States against Russia, an act of war.
Active duty military doing this?
The active duty military are the ones doing the targeting, correct.
Who's on the ground in Ukraine?
These could be contractors, but it has to be a United States citizen working for the United States government, either as an active duty military personnel or some sort of Department of Defense contractor who is The Wall Street Journal reports that President Biden signed some sort of authorization permitting American defense contractors physically to be there,
whether it's to repair these things or to facilitate their use.
Would that be needed?
I think, first of all, I think the attack has already been used by the Ukrainians against targets in the Donbass.
So let's be clear.
The attack is not a game changer.
This isn't going to change anything.
The Russians could easily absorb these attacks in Washington.
But Russia is making the point that if these are used against Russia, This isn't Ukraine.
They say Ukraine's already used it against us.
We don't care.
But if you use it against Russia, that's America attacking Russia.
And that we cannot tolerate.
And that's why they're doing this.
But the attack on this missile has already been used.
There's already Americans on the ground.
I think what Biden has signed off on is to deal with equipment and to deal with F-16s and things of that nature, where right now the maintenance is done.
Outside of Ukraine, this is to get the maintenance in because if you don't get the maintenance on the ground in Ukraine, the logistics and the support, combat service support for the Ukrainian army falls apart because the second something breaks, it has to leave Ukraine.
It has to be repaired and brought back.
That takes forever.
The Biden administration is running out of time.
They have until January 20th to get some sort of result in Ukraine.
And so they're going to jam these guys in there so that the turnaround time for maintaining equipment is much shorter.
From their perspective, Scott, why do you think they did this?
Because they're very worried that a Trump administration will bring an end to this conflict.
They're trying to create conditions that make it impossible.
For Donald Trump to move rapidly to disengage in Ukraine.
The goal here is right now the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk, which is Russian territory.
Remember, the Kursk incursion was planned and directed by the United States.
It literally was an invasion by the United States of Russia using Ukrainian proxy forces and American mercenaries and Russian They went in there and the goal was to seize a lot of territory and then use it to trade off at the negotiating table.
Russia stopped the incursion and now Russia is in the process of evicting the Ukrainians.
If the Ukrainians are out of curse by January 20th They've lost a huge negotiating chip when it comes to a Trump administration.
And so the goal here is to enable Ukraine to use a Takum's missile only in Kursk, only against the Russians that are in the process of evicting Ukrainians in an effort to forestall a Russian victory up until January 20th and thereby complicate any Trump effort to disengage.
This is profoundly immoral.
Profoundly unjust, profoundly unlawful, and intended for political reasons, just to bring Trump a mess, notwithstanding the people that will be killed and the money that will be spent.
Notwithstanding the chance for nuclear war, which is a very real chance.
Why would the Russians use nuclear war as a first strike against the United States?
It's not that they want to, but their doctrine is this.
And this is where the Russians have tried to educate the United States.
Vladimir Putin has said, it's one thing to have Ukrainian drones come into Russia.
It's one thing to have Ukrainian missiles come into Russia.
But when there is a mass attack on Russia, which uses Ukrainian systems and British systems, French systems, and American systems that can only be used if British, French, and Americans are involved.
We have to assume that this is a coordinated effort by Ukraine and NATO to launch a decapitation strike, and we have to act accordingly.
So when we see an attack of this nature coming in, we will respond.
And our doctrine says that when you launch a major conventional military attack against Russia, we will respond with nuclear weapons.
That's it.
So don't do it.
I mean, it's as clear as day.
Don't do it.
There's no reason to do this.
It will trigger a nuclear war.
It will trigger a nuclear war.
Not it might, it could, maybe, I don't know.
It will trigger a nuclear war.
As Putin has said over and over again, the decisions have been made.
We don't have to think about it.
If the trigger is pulled, We automatically pull our trigger.
Here's a statement posted on X by President Trump.
We have never been closer to World War III than we are today under Joe Biden.
A global conflict between nuclear armed powers would mean death and destruction on a scale unmatched in human history.
It would be nuclear Armageddon.
Nothing is more important than avoiding that nightmare.
We will avoid, but we need new leadership every day.
This proxy battle in Ukraine continues.
We risk global war.
We must be absolutely clear that our objective is to have an immediate and total cessation of hostilities.
All shooting has to stop.
This is the central issue.
We need peace without delay.
In addition, there must also be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire globalist neocons establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad.
Donald J. Trump.
Nice statement.
He needs to go a step further.
And I hope one of Trump's people is listening.
You need to get on the air and tell Ukraine that if you manage to survive until January 20th, and you pull the trigger on this authorization you've given, you will never see another American penny.
We will withdraw all aid.
This is Donald J. Trump telling you the truth that on January 20th, all assistance forever ends in Ukraine.
Now, to NATO, if you ever make a statement like the one you made again about encouraging this attack, understand, root, you will...
I will remove you.
And NATO, I will disband you.
I cannot allow you to dictate the outcome of American national security interests and the security of the American people.
It isn't going to happen.
Then he needs to tell the French and the British that if they want to proceed in allowing scalp and storm shadow missiles to be used, they're on their own.
there is no Article 5 protection, that if they attack Russia, There has to be consequences for these foreigners putting American security on the line.
The life of every American citizen right now is at stake because of the absolutely abysmal policy of Biden being encouraged by the French, the British.
NATO and the Ukrainians.
These are not the friends of America.
They are the enemies of America because they're the only ones right now actively conspiring to destroy America.
Donald Trump is not the president right now, but he is going to be president, and he needs to let them know there will be consequences.
For their actions, that they cannot act on Joe Biden's instructions.
They must understand there's a new sheriff in town, and they better be calling up this new sheriff and lining up behind this new sheriff, or else on January 20th, there will be hell to pay.
This is what he needs to do.
Now, people will scream, Logan Act.
It's unprosecutable.
They aren't going to touch this president.
He's not trying to make policy for Biden.
He's telling the world what the policy will be on January 20th.
The Logan Act, arguably violated by Bill Casey after Ronald Reagan was elected first time around when he actually negotiated with the Iranians, prohibits private citizens from conducting America's foreign affairs.
But I agree with you entirely.
This is just telling the American public, and in this case Europe as well, what's coming.
I hate to get into the politics, but I have to.
What you just said and what Trump just said, It's hardly consistent with Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Mike Huckabee, and Mike Waltz and the crew that Trump is going to nominate to run the national security apparatus of the executive branch.
True.
I just want to remind everybody that when Donald Trump made the decision to denuclearize North Korea, And move forward.
He was opposed by Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State.
He was opposed by John Bolton, the National Security Advisor.
He was opposed by the Secretary of Defense.
He was deposed by Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence.
But he did it anyways, because that's how Donald Trump works.
Donald Trump is a top-down leader.
Marco Rubio will be a figurehead.
Marco Rubio will make no policy.
Marco Rubio probably will quit before Two years.
But at the end of two years, he will be gone.
He was brought in to appease the Adelsons.
Miriam Adelson gave $100 million to Donald Trump.
Marco Rubio has been a pet project of her husband before he died.
She tried to make him the vice president.
That didn't work.
She said, my $100 million has a catch.
He has to be in your administration.
And so the Secretary of State position was offered.
Understand?
Ask.
Rex Tillerson, how it's like to be Secretary of State under Donald Trump.
Ask Mike Pompeo.
Ask them how much independent policymaking did they get to make?
The answer is absolutely none, because Donald Trump makes policy.
I don't think Trump is interested in having anybody, looking at the caliber of the people he's appointed, anybody make policy.
I think they were appointed, as you said, to please his various constituent groups.
He's looking for glorified clerks who will do exactly what he tells them to do.
And in major matters, And in minute matters, because, listen, I've known him for 40 years.
That's the way he is.
He doesn't want a Secretary of Defense to say, you want to bomb Tehran.
Have you considered the natural and probable consequences?
He wants a Secretary of Defense that will say, when do you want it done, sir?
Right, but the person that is going to tell him about this is the person that's going to brief him every morning.
Well, I hope she does.
And Tulsi Gabbard, as the Director of National Intelligence, will be briefing Donald Trump about the reality of the world that he lives in.
This is why he appointed her.
Understand that this isn't a Miriam Adelson $100 million appointment.
This is Donald Trump meeting with Tulsi Gabbard.
This is a revolution.
I don't think people understand that there is a revolution, not only in domestic affairs, but international affairs afoot.
If you're not on board the revolution, you'll be cast aside.
That is as easy as day.
Donald Trump said he learned from the last election.
He didn't understand how to govern, and he was surrounded by bad people because he had to pick from the establishment.
He has picked many non-establishment people in critical positions, and everybody else who's there better just stand up and salute smartly.
He's not asking them.
To make policy.
He's asking them to implement policy.
Unfortunately, though, I don't think there'll be any change in policy with respect to Israel and Gaza.
And I think the slaughter will continue.
Some of these people who are disruptors, as he wants them to be, or clerks, as he hopes they will be, are absolutely committed Zionists.
100%.
Including D.N.I.
Gabbard.
Correct.
But here's the one reality, Judge, that you can sit there and say, I'm in favor of Israel all you want.
I support Israel.
Israel's dead, fatally wounded.
I can go to the hospital if somebody got in a car accident and say how great they are and what they do, but they're dead.
They're on life support.
It's done.
Israel has committed fatal injury to itself.
It will not recover.
So all these Zionists are going to sit there and scream, support Israel, support Israel, support Israel, but they can't undo the damage that's been done.
Israel has fatally harmed itself.
And so it's a self-solving problem.
And I think Donald Trump is smart enough to understand that reality, that he knows that he's surrounded himself with these people that have a vision about what they think is going to happen.
But that isn't what's going to happen.
Something very different is going to happen.
Is Trump going to control Netanyahu or is Netanyahu going to control Trump?
Netanyahu's on his way out.
Netanyahu has no leverage in Donald Trump.
I think Donald Trump will call him in and whisper in his ear and say, shut up.
You're on the way out.
I easily could pick up a phone call right now called Benny Dance.
And have him installed as the Prime Minister of Israel.
You play my game now.
My name is not Joe Biden.
My name is Donald Trump.
And if you want to get out of this mess, you better start saying yes.
But see, he thinks he can control everything.
He can control everything in Israel.
He can't control Saudi Arabia.
He thinks, you know, he understands that in order for Israel to survive, their economy has to recover.
For their economy to recover, he needs to, you know, breathe life into the Abrams Accords.
Which normalizes relationships.
Saudi Arabia said, we aren't playing that game until there is a Palestinian state whose capital is in Jerusalem and the rest of the world is behind Saudi Arabia.
And Donald Trump's not going to get them to move off of that position.
And so this is a completely different reality.
It doesn't matter what the Zionists think they want.
The world has changed.
It's a completely different world today than it was when Donald Trump was president before.
Iran has led an axis of resistance that has defeated Israel, defeated them in Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi in Yemen, and Iran itself holds missiles over the head of Israel.
Trump can't make this go away.
He's going to have to get Israel to agree to peace.
In the meantime, the Attorney General of Israel has told Netanyahu he has to sack Ben Gavir, that he's absolutely unqualified to lead the national police.
The Attorney General of Israel has told Netanyahu they're going to begin another October 7th inquiry.
The IDF wants a break in its fighting because of so many casualties.
And a judge has ordered Netanyahu into the courtroom to testify against himself in his own bribery trial, which is about to resume.
So you're quite correct.
There's one more case, Judge.
Seymour Hersh just wrote a fantastic article in his Substack.
Netanyahu is under investigation.
It's such a sensitive case that the judge has sealed the file.
Netanyahu gave a briefing to the Israeli people where he tried to blame Hamas.
For the failure to release the hostages.
He said it was Hamas's fault.
Hamas never wanted.
And he made reference to a document that the Israeli Defense Force captured in Gaza.
This is the most secret document in all of the Israeli archives today because it talks about the intent of Hamas, what they wanted to do, what their plans are.
And early on in the document, there's a page that talks speculatively how Senwar could flee Gaza with the hostages and go to Iran.
And he quoted this.
A, that document is so sensitive, it's not supposed to be acknowledged.
He not only quoted from it, he went in and illegally accessed it.
So he's already in a lot of trouble for that.
He's not the President of the United States.
He doesn't control these things.
The Israeli intelligence does.
And he has broken the law.
Two, he lied.
The next two pages.
Say that Senwar said, no, I'm not doing that.
I'm staying here.
I'm actively looking for a hostage deal.
We want a ceasefire.
We need a ceasefire.
The blame is on Israel.
He lied to the Israeli public about Hamas's refusal to engage when it is his himself.
He's being investigated for that.
But this is so sensitive that the judge had to seal the file.
So he's in really hot water right now.
We also forgot his chief spokesperson has been indicted.
It may be for the same document.
I'm not sure.
For releasing a document to a German media company called...
Yeah, the investigation, again, because of the sensitivity, but the idea is that he used the Prime Minister's name and office to gain access to a document that he had no right to gain access to and to be able to This document is so sensitive, you're not even allowed to take notes when you read it.
He apparently copied it.
It is not a good thing.
If you remember when Sandy Berger went to the National Archives to clean up some things about the Clinton administration, he tried to pull out documents and stuff them in his underwear and got caught.
This is worse than that.
This is a huge scandal.
Chris is accessing Trump's video statement along the lines of the one that I just read aloud.
Let's watch it, Chris.
We have never been closer to World War III than we are today under Joe Biden.
A global conflict between nuclear armed powers would mean death and destruction on a scale unmatched in human history.
It would be nuclear Armageddon.
Nothing is more important than avoiding that nightmare.
We will avoid it, but we need new leadership.
Every day this proxy battle in Ukraine continues.
We risk global war.
We must be absolutely clear that our objective is to immediately have a total secession of hostilities.
All shooting has to stop.
This is the central issue.
We need peace.
Without delay.
In addition, there must also be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire globalist neocon establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad, while they turn us into a third world country and a third world dictatorship right here at home.
The State Department, the defense bureaucracy, the intelligence services, and all of the rest need to be completely overhauled and reconstituted to fire the deep staters and put America first.
We have to put America first.
Finally, we have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO's purpose and NATO's mission.
A foreign policy establishment keeps trying to pull the world into conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia based on the lie that Russia represents our greatest threat.
But the greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia.
It's probably, more than anything else, ourselves and some of the horrible USA-hating people that represent us.
It's the abolition of our national borders.
It's the failure to police our own cities.
It's the destruction of the rule of law from within.
It's the collapse of the nuclear family and fertility rates like nobody can believe is happening.
It's the Marxists who would have us become a godless nation worshiping at the altar of race and gender and environment.
And it's the globalist class that has made us totally dependent on China and other foreign countries that basically hate us.
Wow.
What can you say?
I never thought I'd hear an American president, of course, he's the president-elect, speak so clearly and unambiguously about the problems that confront us, Scott.
I wish he felt the same way about Israel as he does about the other neocon wars.
No, it's impossible right now.
Unfortunately, the United States is systemically controlled by pro-Israeli resources, and it's impossible to get into the national level today if you don't totally support Israel, Zionism, etc.
But as I said, I used to lose sleep over this.
I don't now, because while the tragedy of Gaza will continue, the children will continue to die, the people will continue to be butchered by the Israelis, the clock will run out.
Israel will not be able to sustain this, not because the United States is going to stop them, not because the world is going to stop them, because Israel is self-destructing.
Again, for all the people out there thinking I'm smoking dope or snorting something, it's not just me that says this.
Retired Israeli Prime Ministers are saying this.
Retired Israeli generals are saying this.
Active duty generals are saying this off the record.
Israeli diplomats are saying this off the record.
Israel is fatally wounded and it's a self-inflicted wound.
And there's no recovering from this.
So, you know, I'm not worried about Trump's pro-Israeli stance because it doesn't matter how much you support Israel, you're going to be burying Israel in the next decade.
Scott Ritter, thank you very much, my dear friend.
Very dramatic afternoon and a gift to have you on to cover all these materials as they're happening in real time.
All the best, my friend.
We'll see you again soon.
Thanks for having me.
Coming up later today at 7 o 'clock tonight, Eastern Time, I will be moderating a debate between Darren Beattie and Max Blumenthal.
On this very topic, is Donald Trump going to change things or will it be more of the same?
And tomorrow at 9 in the morning, Professor Gilbert Doctorow.
At 1.30 in the afternoon, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.
At 2 in the afternoon, from Jerusalem, Matt Ho.
And at 3 in the afternoon, Karen Kwiatkowski.
We have a great week for you.
Thank you for watching.
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