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Feb. 12, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
25:37
Pepe Escobar : Trump Fumbles as Russia and China Wait.
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, February 20th, excuse me, February 12th, February 12th, 2025.
It's midnight in Moscow, so it might actually be February 13th there.
Pepe Escobar joins us from Moscow.
Pepe, always a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you.
I want to talk to you about the international reaction.
And the geopolitical consequences of President Trump's offer to acquire Gaza.
You referred to the Gaza Riviera Resort and Casino not as a scheme, but as a scam.
What did you mean?
Because this is going to be paid essentially by the petro-monarchies, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE, which will be given, according to Trump's idea, free reign to build everything they want in Gaza,
which is, by the way, completely illegal.
We don't know how this would probably be accomplished.
And in the end, the US takes it all.
Of course, Trump never says that the emphasis is not exactly the Trump resort, casino, Gaza, Riviera, whatever, built by petro-monarchies.
It's the unexplored oil and gas deposits of Gaza.
And this has been completely absent from this whole kabuki so far.
Has any head of state...
Has any bona fide diplomat of a country on the planet endorsed this, besides Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu?
Exactly, Judge, no.
And the closest we had, of course, under extreme pressure, King Abdullah from Jordan, which I have to be very careful.
How to describe him.
Politely, he is not exactly popular in his own kingdom.
He said that he would take 2,000 very ill children from Gaza.
And that's it.
But he condemned the plan.
Sisi condemned it.
The Arab League condemned it.
Everybody in the Arab world condemned it.
The Arab Street condemned it.
The Lands of Islam condemned it.
BRICS countries condemned it.
China condemned it.
Russia condemned it.
The Sultan Erdogan.
And Sultan Erdogan, he said that it's completely absurd because the Palestinians have eternal rights to their own lands.
So, in your mind, do these countries view that Trump...
Feel that Trump would use force to remove them?
Let's see.
The IDF couldn't remove them.
Is Trump going to land a couple of thousand Marines?
And are they going to point weapons at people saying it's time for you to go?
I don't know where, but it's time for you to go?
Is that realistic?
No, it's not.
And the problem is this is like a construction in an enormous fictional scenario.
This is something that might happen, and it's being sold by Trump directly as what will happen.
As he said many times, we will own Gaza.
What rights do the United States have to own Gaza?
So nobody's asking this question in detail, and Trump is not volunteering any detailed answers.
He throws this geopolitical grenade on the global stage, and obviously everybody's scurrying around.
But when we start looking at the practicalities of actually implementing that, it's absolutely impossible.
Or it will, if the beginning of this plan will be implemented, then there will be a revolt all over the Arab world.
Propelled by Arab public opinion and the lands of Islam, of course.
What would happen specifically in Jordan and Egypt if they agreed to accept hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees?
Well, Sisi, at least, he went straight to the point.
His flat, no.
It means that if he would ever agree to it, he would have a civil war in Egypt, obviously.
In fact, Sisi proposed a reconstruction coordinated by Egypt, lasting from three to five years, with input from the UN, non-specified, and the Europeans, maybe European construction companies,
who knows.
And then it will start from south to north, Gaza, and rebuild Gaza in a spectrum of five years, coordinated by Arab countries.
This was decided in a meeting.
It's very important who decided in favor of the Egyptian plan.
This meeting was, if I remember correctly, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar.
And there was a fifth component that I don't remember at the moment.
So this is a collective decision of a significant part of the Arab world.
And it's a plan of reconstruction of Gaza without expelling the Palestinians.
The problem is how would Israel react to that?
When Trump was asked if the Palestinians whom he would expel could return, And enjoy the Trump-built Gaza.
Here's what he said.
Chris, cut number five.
Think of it as a real estate development for the future.
It would be a beautiful piece of land.
Would the Palestinians have the right to return?
No, they wouldn't, because they're going to have much better housing, much better...
In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for them, because if they have to return now, it'll be years before you could ever...
It's not habitable.
It'll be years before it could happen.
I'm talking about starting to build, and I think I could make a deal with Jordan.
I think I could make a deal with Egypt.
You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars a year.
Right, the deal with Jordan, non-starter.
The deal with Egypt non-starter.
The concept of we can cause these people to leave and they wouldn't have the right to return non-starter.
Here he is on Air Force One when told that his own advisors have said it would take 10 to 15 years to accomplish what you want.
Do you envision this project going beyond your presidency?
Here's his answer, cut number one.
Steve Witkoff said that process would take 10 to 15 years.
Does your commitment to rebuilding Gaza extend beyond your time in office?
I'm committed to buying and owning Gaza.
As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it.
Other people may do it through our auspices.
But we're committed to owning it, taking it.
And making sure that Hamas doesn't move back, there's nothing to move back into.
The place is a demolition site.
He's committed to buying it.
Buying it and owning it.
And owning it.
From whom or from what would he buy it?
Exactly. And terminology, Judge, is very, very important.
He's using the same terminology that Israeli not-so-secret plans.
The first one, in fact, is from October 13, a few days after October 7, 2023.
Demolition. And it's the same language of a plan, a four-stage plan that was circulating in Netanyahu's cabinet in May last year, where the key terminology was demolition.
And after the demolition, they would expel the Palestinians, raise it to the ground, and obviously to the benefit of Israeli settlers.
What Trump is saying that...
He's not saying who would inhabit this built by Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, New Gaza.
Obviously not the Palestinians.
And he said that many, many times over.
They will be going to a new wonderful location where they can live in a sort of Trump-style condo land.
So who will live in this New Gaza?
He's not saying it.
Yeah. How does China and how does the Kremlin view statements from President Trump that are obviously nonsensical, not run past his national security team,
impractical or even impossible?
China, Russia, in fact, they usually discuss this.
It's part of the special relationship as well.
They have a unified position on Palestine.
Sovereign Palestinian state, right of return for Palestinians, and no matter whatsoever of trying to ethnic cleanse Palestinians from Gaza and from the West Bank as well.
But this is the language of diplomatic rationality, which is practiced by Beijing and Moscow.
What we have from the US now is a completely deranged reality show, which has some contact reality here and there, but overall is a construct.
So what Trump came up with, okay, this is being defended.
By Trump 2.0 functionaries as, ah, he's thinking outside the box.
But you cannot think outside the box when you turn a genocide and an ethnic cleansing operation into a real state opportunity.
Has the foreign policy of the United States of America with respect to Israel and Gaza changed on January 20th?
Not necessary.
It's even more brutal, in fact.
What was...
Until a few weeks ago, the US and the collective West, what I call NATO stand, they were weaponizing, supporting, but they were keeping a certain distance to the ongoing genocide.
Now... We have the transformation, the metastasization of the genocide into something completely different, in a follow-the-money vein, without any regards to geography, history,
and culture, which is something that...
And then we can make the direct comparison of this Forever Wars chapter in West Asia to Russia-Ukraine.
Before the fateful telephone call today between Putin and Trump, Ryabkov, number two of the Russian Foreign Ministry, he said a few days ago, and this was absolutely essential, I use it in my latest column,
this quote.
He said that we are ready to discuss everything with the United States, but in a spirit of dialogue and respecting history and geography.
So history and geography applies from Gaza to Ukraine and Russia as well.
But this is the rational approach.
Yes, Judge, please go ahead.
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What does the Kremlin think the Trump administration thinks of Russia, Russian culture, and the Kremlin itself?
Well, Trump, in fact, he said that he loves the Russian people.
So we assume that he has at least a superficial knowledge of Russian culture.
And, of course, he came to Russia a few times.
There's a photo of him with Ivana in St. Petersburg circulating on the net.
I think it was in 1987 when they visited Russia.
He is not adversarial to Russia.
Members of Trump 2.0, they are saying it out loud, in fact, that Russia is a competitor.
They do not describe Russia as a threat, as the previous administration did.
And they see points of...
Contact that can be discussed.
Ryabkov, once again, he said earlier this week.
This was before the phone call.
Very important.
Russia-US relations are on the verge of rupture.
This coming from top-level diplomat is extremely serious.
And this is something that we have been hearing from Ryabkov.
I heard this over a year ago, personally.
From Lavrov, when we talked to us roughly a year ago, he said more or less the same thing, and he was appalled because there were always very good channels.
Why do the Russians believe that there is a rupture or a coming rupture in the relationship with the United States?
Is it because Tony Blinken and Joe Biden wouldn't speak to their counterparts for three years?
It goes way beyond that, Judge.
Because of the demonization campaign against Russia in terms of culture, in terms of civilization, in terms of civilization state, and even the Russian people.
This under Trump is going to be slightly different.
In these past 24 hours, there were some, I would say, auspicious signs that...
There might be a relatively adult dialogue and, of course, involving direct Putin and Trump phone calls and probably a meeting.
There could be a meeting next month, March, for instance.
But the great problem is after all these years of Russophobia and demonization of Russia, and this didn't start after the S.M.O., this comes...
From 2014, from Maidan, and even before.
And we can say that it has been going on for the past 30 years or so, since the fall of the Soviet Union.
How are you going to have a dialogue as the Minister of Foreign Relations here?
It's always very specific.
Mutual respect and real dialogue.
So coming from the still exceptionalist power.
So from Trump, this would...
Demand a lot.
Only a matter of a few days or weeks.
And what does he have to offer to Russia in terms of his much hyped, I'm going to end this war?
Well, if you listen to two of his closest aides, Sebastian Gorka and General Kellogg, they offer threats.
And General Kellogg, by the way, Judge, is viewed here diplomatically as a Cold War relic and undiplomatically, like the dinner I was last night talking geoeconomics, as an imbecile.
And in the corridors of the Kremlin and the corridors of the agencies here, yes, he's regarded as an idiot.
How can you have a negotiator trying to, you know, Organize the lineaments of a dialogue to end a war, and you start insulting one of the parties, which is the case of Kellogg.
So obviously he's unprepared for this task.
So this will have to be conducted personally by President Trump himself, assuming he has anything to offer Russia, and he doesn't.
The Secretary of Defense, either on his own or with instructions from the White House, I made a public statement.
We'll run this in just a second.
Yesterday, which should be pleasing, pleasing to the ears of the Kremlin.
You tell me what you think.
Chris, cut number 16. A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again.
This must not be Minsk 3.0.
That said, the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.
Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.
If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission.
And they should not be covered under Article 5. There also must be robust international oversight of the line of contact.
To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine.
If that is credible, Ukraine will never be in NATO, pleasing to the Kremlin.
US troops will not be deployed to Ukraine, pleasing to the Kremlin.
But European troops will be deployed to Ukraine, not pleasing to the Kremlin.
You can take it from there.
You're the expert.
In many aspects, let's say one minute of Hexet saying what he said is groundbreaking.
It's the first time that we hear, can you imagine, this guy leads the Pentagon and he's saying there's not going to be a Minsk tree.
Can you imagine listening to something like this until a few days ago?
Absolutely out of the question.
So this is enormous.
What he said about the peacekeeping forces, the Russians already sent their messages through their subterranean diplomatic channels, let's put it this way.
It depends on how they're going to be composed and where they're going to be placed.
And the Russians would accept that UN peacekeeping force, but not an European peacekeeping force.
Because the European peacekeeping force means...
Ukrainian supporter peacekeeping force.
What do you think he's talking about when he says non-European troops?
Where would they come?
Not U.S. and not Europe.
Where the hell would they come from?
Judge, maybe this would be code for a U.N. peacekeeping force.
But we are extrapolating.
He didn't say it.
But it opens the possibility that they would be UN peacekeeping troops.
And in this case, they would be acceptable for both sides, including Russia, right?
But the key, I would say that the absolute key argument is no Minsk tree.
This means a real end of the war.
Because here in Moscow, at...
At the level of the agencies, at the level of foreign policy experts and the Security Council, they know that NATO will try to go after Russia after a few years.
There are different dates according to internal NATO documents.
It could be 2028, 2029, 2030.
But it's practically certain that they will try to go back against Russia later if this is on pause, if the war is on pause.
Does the Kremlin trust or respect Hegseth?
He is, after all, a super Zionist who, if he had his way, would lead the troops personally invading Gaza.
Exactly. Let's say it's too early to tell.
I'm sure if they pay attention to the clip that you just played, there are elements of rationality in what he said that will be extremely welcomed by the Kremlin.
But it comes back to the same point, Judge.
The big, big discussion that Putin really wants, and then he tried to have this discussion in December 2021, is indivisibility of security for the NATO space and post-Soviet space and,
let's say, this part of Eurasia, Western Eurasia.
We are not sure if Trump will be able to sit down on the same table with Putin and start discussing that.
Because this means a new organization of spheres of influence and respecting Russia's sphere of influence, which is all across Eurasia.
We still don't know if Trump 2.0 is going to respect Russian spheres of influence.
And China's fears of influence.
Which brings us to the good old, is there going to be a new Yalta?
For the moment, the perspective is less than zero.
Pepe, a pleasure to chat with you.
An absolute pleasure.
I know it literally is midnight, maybe 12.30 in the morning where you are now.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Everybody in bed.
Except us.
Everybody in Moscow, go to sleep.
Much appreciated.
Thank you, my man.
All the best.
Thank you so much.
Sure. Coming up tomorrow at 8 in the morning, Professor Gilbert Doctorow.
At noon, Max Blumenthal.
At 2 in the afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson.
And at 3 in the afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer.
Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.
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