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Feb. 28, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
13:07
Aaron Maté : Is the Ukraine War About $$$?
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Yes, it is.
But the question will be, when it runs out, will Trump go before Congress and ask them, as Biden did multiple times, to authorize tens of billions of dollars worth of additional weaponry?
And I don't see Trump doing that.
Anything is possible with him, so I could be wrong.
But given the rhetoric he's already put out there, given the fact that he's insulted Zelensky, called him a dictator, although after Zelensky's handed over Ukraine's mineral rights, now Trump...
Has forgotten that he called Zelensky a dictator.
He said, did I say that when he was asked about it?
This is actually rather humorous.
This is Trump the showman.
Chris, I forget which number it is.
It might be 17, but play it, please.
The relationship between President Zelensky and President Putin is not a good one.
You've noticed, right?
It's not a good one.
It's not a good relationship.
Did I say that?
I can't believe I said that.
Next question.
I mean, it does make you laugh.
That's just his unique entertainment style.
He obviously has to walk back the statement somewhat in order to greet Zelensky in the White House in three hours.
Yeah, he does.
But he's not walking back.
Is he walking back his statement that he would not object to French and British peacekeepers?
Because that would be a non-starter with the Russians.
And he must know that as the President of the United States, unless Intel is grossly misleading him.
They don't even read the newspapers.
Yeah, he claimed the other day that Putin told him that Putin would not object to European peacekeepers, which I just don't think is true.
I think he's making that up.
But look, the important thing is, Zelensky said he wouldn't sign this mineral deal with the U.S. unless he got security guarantees.
That's what he's going for.
And Trump is not giving him security guarantees.
The draft of the mineral agreement that I saw, it basically says that the U.S. will work to help.
Ukraine gets security guarantees, which means absolutely nothing.
That's not the U.S. providing security guarantees.
That's, in fact, the U.S. saying, we're not going to give you security guarantees, but maybe we can help you out, get them from somebody else, which, as Zelensky has already said, is useless.
Security guarantees without the U.S., Zelensky has said, literally, are worthless because only the U.S. has the military force capable of deterring Russia.
Should it ever attack Ukraine ever again?
But Trump isn't interested.
He's criticized Zelensky for not making a deal to end the war.
His top envoy, Steve Wyckoff, made a really interesting comment the other day on CNN, which has proxy war apologists very alarmed.
Wyckoff said that the basis for new talks will be the Istanbul talks that happened in the spring of 2022.
Now, on this show...
You and your guests have talked about Istanbul endlessly.
On CNN, where Wyckoff made those comments, Istanbul has been banned basically from discussion because Istanbul undermines the pro-war narrative.
Istanbul shows that, yes, there were peace talks, that Russia and Ukraine were very, very close, which undermines this narrative that Putin doesn't want diplomacy.
Moreover, Istanbul was blocked by the U.S. and the U.K. via a personal message from Boris Johnson to Zelensky, who told Zelensky, keep fighting Russia and we're not going to give you the security guarantees that you need.
So the fact that Wyckoff could say on CNN that we're going to base these talks on Istanbul, and even mention the fact that Istanbul happened, breaks a very big propaganda barrier, and that has proxy war supporters very alarmed.
And CNN is...
Making inane, even insane statements about the American public being too stupid to understand that we're funding the war.
Something like that.
You commented on that in one of your ex-postings, did you not?
Well, this is punching down, but Brian Stelzer.
It is.
Well, we both know Brian.
Go ahead.
And Brian Seltzer literally said that this has to do with some illiteracy on the part of the voters who don't know that all their tax dollars are going into US weapons manufacturers.
And if only they knew that, then maybe they'd be more outraged that Trump is shutting down.
The Ukraine proxy war.
That's what Brian Stelter said.
Now, it's funny about that.
Beyond the contempt for average voters, which is very common for elite media institutions, it's not true that American voters don't know that their tax dollars are going to weapons manufacturers.
Places like CNN love to flaunt it.
I mean, and people in both parties would always say, you know, this is rebuilding our defense industrial base.
That was constantly the message.
So voters are aware of that.
They're just not on board with media elites who think it's a good thing to spend Tax money, American resources on funding weapons manufacturers to fuel a horrible war.
They have other priorities, like fixing our own country.
And unfortunately, media elites can't understand that.
This is the agreement that Boris Johnson, at the behest of Joe Biden, when Mr. Johnson was the Prime Minister of Great Britain, persuaded Vladimir Zelensky to walk away from.
And this is the agreement, correct me if I'm wrong, I think you just mentioned it a few minutes ago.
That Steve Witkoff, the president's chief emissary in the Middle East and now in Ukraine as well, says is the baseline for our negotiations.
And this is the agreement that has the neocons in the U.S. and the elites in Europe terrified.
Am I right?
Absolutely correct.
Witkoff told CNN's Jake Tapper that they were very, very close to signing a deal in Istanbul in the spring of 2022.
And then he said that we'll use this as a guidepost.
To get a peace deal done between Ukraine and Russia.
So for people who have spent years pretending as if Istanbul never happened because it undermines their pro-war narrative and because they want to fuel a proxy with Russia, this is very alarming.
And so accordingly, they're very upset.
And just to illustrate how scared they are, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday by two Wall Street Journal corps about the alarm inside Ukraine at Wyckoff's comments.
Now that the Wall Street Journal can no longer ignore that the Istanbul talks happened, which has basically just been the standard media practice, at best, Istanbul gets mentioned in passing, but no one ever notes that they were very, very close to signing.
Not everything was worked out, but there was a deal very, very close to being reached.
And of course, no one ever mentions that Ukrainian officials have said, On several occasions that it was Boris Johnson and the U.S. that blocked the deal because they wouldn't offer Ukraine security guarantees to underpin the deal and they encouraged Zelensky to keep fighting Russia instead.
But just to illustrate, now that they can't, just how desperate they are about the talk of reviving Istanbul and how alarmed they are, now that they can't pretend Istanbul didn't happen, now they're engaging in outright revisionism.
So this Wall Street Journal article in talking about why the Istanbul talks failed, the Wall Street Journal claims that Zelensky ordered, An end to the talks because of the discovery of alleged Russian atrocities in Bucha back in the spring of 2022, back in April 2022.
Putting aside what actually happened in Bucha, whether or not it was a false flag, which some people speculate, I don't know.
But what's funny about this claim that Zelensky shut down the talks over Bucha, it's patently false.
In fact, Zelensky said the exact opposite.
He went to Bucha and he literally said, the fact that people are killed here is a reason why we have to get...
Peace done.
Because if we don't make a peace deal with Russia now, more atrocities will happen.
Well, that is a brand new Zelensky.
Well, it was a very brief Zelensky.
It was a very, very brief Zelensky because this was, again, recall, this was before Boris Johnson told him that the U.S. and U.K. wanted him to keep fighting.
So this was in that brief window of time when he was still leaving it open for a...
For the possibility of a peace deal with Russia.
The week before, you know what he said the week before?
He said there are some people that want us to keep fighting because it's in their interest to basically lead to the demise of Ukraine, his words, the demise of Ukraine, if it would mean exhausting Russia.
So at that time, Zelensky accurately recognized the goal of his sponsors, and he also said this is why we have to make peace now to avoid more atrocities.
So the Wall Street Journal takes Zelensky saying, Buccia is a reason for us to continue and finalize peace talks.
And now they're completely twisting history and saying that he cited it as a reason to stop peace talks.
And that's how desperate they are to prevent more peace talks from occurring now.
In the some people never change category, this is aggravating but also ridiculous.
Here's Boris Johnson just last week.
Everybody knows there's a minerals deal on the table today.
Right? And I think it has every prospect of being signed.
And frankly, I think it should be signed.
Because it commits the United States in black and white to a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine.
So what we need now is everybody to be serious and to get real.
And to listen to what Trump is actually saying and doing and proposing.
He said he doesn't mind UK troops on the ground in Ukraine.
That's great.
Well, then we need to make that real.
The US is committed.
Black and white, to a free, secure, sovereign Ukraine.
You can't have a sovereign country without the ability to decide which clubs you're going to belong to.
A sovereign country can remain committed to joining NATO.
That's sovereignty.
A sovereign country can remain free to allow whatever troops it wants to come on its soil to support it.
That's sovereignty.
Now, Putin could never accept that.
The US has already committed to that.
I think Putin is ultimately going to fail and Ukraine is going to succeed.
Well, he's a madman.
He's got blood on his hands, Aaron.
He's desperate because he helped prevent a peace deal that could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
And he's also a Trump sycophant.
He loves Trump and he's trying to suck up to him.
But he's unfortunately trying to ascribe to Trump positions that Trump doesn't have.
And again, even if Trump is okay with British troops inside, And actually, Trump even poked fun at Keir Starmer yesterday at the White House when he said to Keir Starmer,
he said, do you think that British troops could take Russia on your own?
And he was trying to basically tell Keir Starmer and remind everyone that the UK has no leverage here at all.
And that's why Keir Starmer was so deferential to Trump.
Keir Starmer even thanked Trump, he said, for making peace possible.
Which, by the way, is a tacit admission that previously Biden, who Keir Starmer was following, was making peace impossible.
But they have to suck up to Trump because what they want to do now, now their goal is basically to get Trump to sign on to being what's called a backstop for British and French and other European forces inside Ukraine.
So their plan is, okay, we'll send troops.
We need the U.S. to back us up.
So the U.S. won't be on the ground inside Ukraine, but their weapons systems will.
Their intelligence support will be there.
And U.S. troops will basically be parked next door in case there's a confrontation with Russia.
Forget about it.
I don't see Trump agreeing to that.
Yeah. Aaron, thank you very much.
Thanks for your time this morning.
Thanks for your insight.
If you run into Max over the weekend, give him a big hug for me.
And we'll see you next week.
All the best.
All the best, Judge.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Coming up later today at 4 o'clock this afternoon, the end of the day, the end of the week, the Intelligence Community Roundtable with Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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