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March 17, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
25:39
Ray McGovern : Does Putin Trust Trump?
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Everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, March 17th, 2025.
In the West, it is St. Patrick's Day.
How appropriate to talk to Ray McGovern on St. Patrick's Day.
He'll be with us in just a minute on Does Donald Trump Trust Vladimir Putin?
Does Vladimir Putin Trust Donald Trump?
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Top of the morning to you, my dear friend.
And the balance of the day to yourself.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
That's the classic response.
I learned those one-liners when I was a law student at the University of Notre Dame, the moniker of which is the Fighting Irish.
But to matters more relevant than contemporary, and before we get to Putin and Trump and Trump and Putin, big picture.
Can Steve Witkoff, the president's emissary to Gaza and Ukraine, and can Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, be honest brokers, honest intermediaries,
when the United States is a co-belligerent?
With the Israelis against the Palestinians and with the Ukrainians against the Russians?
The answer is no.
No. Now, with respect to Witkoff, he speaks for the president.
Putin will take him more seriously.
Even after their most recent...
Meeting where I'm reliably informed that Witkoff was kept waiting for several hours before he was given an audience with Putin.
Even after that, we saw that the Russians were saying, well, there's good grounds for optimism.
And Trump himself described that session as positive.
So what are we going to glean from that?
The matter of trust is, in my view, Irrelevant.
There is no trust.
There can't be any trust.
There's got to be a deal that can be verified, okay?
Well, the meaning trust, that's gone by the board.
There have been too many times where people have been diddled, where people have been deceived, and people have been really angry about that.
Now, the Russians have to realize that This time they need something big, and they need something from Trump himself.
Will they get it?
Doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter.
They don't really cease fire, for God's sake.
They're just going to keep...
Actually, my information is that they really creamed some of the main control centers in Kiev just yesterday, and they're moving on course.
So Putin's in the driver's seat.
Trump will finally get it into his head that, look, that is the case.
We have to do the kind of deal that is eminently verified, and we have to put the Europeans aside and read them the Riot Act.
Send the Secretary of Defense again to tell them, look, you put people into Ukraine, you're crazy, because we're not going to support you, we're not going to defend you, and you're not going to be able to invoke Article 5 of NATO Charter.
The whole thing really is up in flux, but Trump is transactional.
Putin is also.
The rub is that the trust is gone, but there are agreements that are possible so long as they are verifiable and that Putin, for his part, can reassure his admirals and generals that are always looking over his shoulder,
look, this time, If they cheat or if they renege, if there's another deception here, we'll know within two days and we'll react accordingly.
That is possible.
As a matter of fact, I think that's probable, but it's going to take a little bit more time for Trump to realize that he can't send neophytes like Rubio to do a man's job.
Whitcoff may be able to do it.
Trump will have to do it himself.
I understand that he and Putin will be talking on the phone this week.
You know, you led right to what I was going to ask you next, and that is who would, in your understanding of the mentality, who would the Russians rather deal with?
A sophisticated negotiator who has the constant ear of the president like Witkoff?
Or a pseudo-politician, former, maybe still, neocon, with no experience, but who was the lawful Secretary of State of the United States, like Rubio.
Yeah, you know, I don't understand why Rubio did that stuff there, you know?
The 30-day ceasefire.
It makes absolutely no sense.
Did he not go back to the NSC and vet that and say, is this a good idea?
Is it feasible?
I don't know why he did that, but he did it.
So one has to reason that Putin's looking on these characters, not only Rubio, but that fellow General Kellogg.
You know, don't listen to them.
They don't seem to know what they're doing.
Let me talk to Trump this week.
And that's what's going to happen.
And hopefully they'll deal with this Kursk thing, because there are from 7,000 to 10,000 Ukrainian troops.
What happens?
On Friday, Trump says, these people are encircled?
Mr. Putin, could you please treat them kindly?
Next day, Saturday, Zelensky says, they're not encircled.
My troops are not encircled.
That's a lie.
That's a Vladimir Putin lie, says Zelensky.
I don't have any information on what's happened today.
But I don't think the Russians are going to obliterate those people.
It's a real holding card.
They can keep encircling them.
Their access back to Ukraine is broken off, as far as I'm informed.
So they can play with that.
That's a card in Putin's hand.
And how he reacts to Trump's plea, please be nice to these guys.
Well, you know, they're terrorists.
They invaded our country and they killed a lot of women and children.
Right, right.
This incursion into Kursk, which is Russia, this invasion and conquering, albeit temporarily and in a limited way, Russian territory, has been a disaster for Kiev,
has it not?
Well, it has.
And worse still, Judge, everyone knows, including the Russians.
That the US, the UK, some of the other Europeans were fully knowledgeable and encouraged Zelenskyy to do this stupid thing.
They weren't on the planning.
They knew about it months before, and they did it anyway.
You know, it's a fool's errand.
Why would they want to...
Well, I think that the best explanation is they hope to capture that.
Nuclear power plant.
That might be a bargain check.
It was clear they wouldn't get that in the second day.
That was August.
Why did the Russians wait till now?
Because it's not about territory.
It's almost easy to say, look, Ukraine invaded us.
Now we're going to clean them out.
We're going to take our own damn time because it's about killing Ukrainian troops.
And that's what we're doing.
Hand over fist, and that's what they did do to these crackerjack Ukrainian troops, which were drawn off the line in Donetsk to fight this fool's errand in Kursk.
So it's going to be interesting.
This week, things happen so fast.
How Putin reacts to Trump's plea.
Please be nice to these guys and Putin's reaction.
Yeah, please.
Could you have him surrender, please?
It will be nice to them if they stop shooting at us.
Right, right, right.
Alistair Crook told us this morning that Marco Rubio, Mike Walsh, and Vladimir Zelensky actually signed the so-called ceasefire agreement and are almost presenting it as a take it or leave it to President Putin.
Rubio cannot be that naive as to think that signing it would make it more attractive.
I would think signing it would make it less attractive.
Judge, it's my view that it was a big mistake to let Rubio or any other American negotiate with the Ukrainians.
This is Ukrainians against Russia.
I don't know what got into their head that did start this thing out.
Clearly, Rubio is from hunger when it comes to appreciating what a ceasefire is, but it sounded good to him, right?
And the Ukrainians said, oh, this is what we need.
And so he went with.
Now, signing it, it was so vague.
I mean, there were no particulars in it.
I could see where Rubio said, oh, yeah, I'll sign it to see how it goes over.
Now, the big thing is it did go over okay with Putin.
In other words, he said, this is rubbish.
No, he said, whoa.
Of course, of course, we want to negotiate, but these are the conditions.
And meanwhile, his spokesman, Peskov, said, there's grounds for optimism.
This is going to come out all right.
That's after Whitcock talked to Putin.
So there are grounds for optimism.
It's going to take a long time, and Putin's going to have to get used to the fact that there are all kinds of people speaking for this already unpredictable president that we have.
All right.
So what will happen?
President Trump said last night he's speaking to President Putin tomorrow, Tuesday.
What will happen when they speak?
I assume they'll see each other, so it's a video call, and I assume others will be in each of their rooms.
There'll be a lot of people with President Trump and a lot of people with President Putin.
Will intel be with Trump?
And if so, who?
I imagine that Salty Gabbard might be there, and that, of course, would be a good thing.
The important thing to emphasize here is that Blinken and Sullivan won't be there.
Thank God.
He'll have people that, by choice, are extremely loyal to him.
And so it's really what Trump says that goes here.
I think, and I think the evidence is persuasive, He wants to do a deal here.
I think Putin does as well, but it'll have to be on Putin's terms.
Trump has no cards to play or maybe a pair of deuces to four aces in Putin's hands.
So I think he's going to be transactional enough, if you will, to recognize that.
And I think this is going to come out all right.
Even though the Europeans are trying to put the kibosh on it by saying that, whoa, we're going to have peacekeepers.
This is crazy.
What I think Trump should do is send Pete Hexet, the defense secretary, back to Brussels and say, hey, didn't you hear me the first time?
Didn't you hear me?
You send troops into Ukraine.
You're on your own.
Don't expect us to come, Billy, when you get in real trouble.
I don't even think.
We're not sending more troops in.
But look, we know what the conditions are that President Putin's going to insist on.
Secretary Lavrov articulated them to Larry Johnson and me.
A week ago today.
He had previously stated them many times.
There's nothing novel or personal to us when he articulated them.
President Putin has articulated them many times as recently as last week in response to the Rubio take it or leave it.
There have to be elections because the Russians consider Zelensky to be illegitimate.
I think that's a little problematic.
The Ukrainians really are the determining factor of who their leader is and they interpret Ukrainian law.
However, the Ukrainians say he's illegitimate.
NATO is totally, permanently, forever off the table.
The four oblasts are part of Russia and the remainder of Ukraine is neutral.
I can't see.
Zelensky agreeing to that if he expects to wake up the next morning.
Can you?
No, he's got real problems with the proto-Nazis that are very emotional still in here.
And bear in mind that the twin objective of the Russians, denazification, as well as demilitarization.
So, yeah, it really depends on what Putin thinks.
You know, think Putin is not going to be diddled again.
There have been a whole series of betrayals in the Russian mind.
And when Lavrov recited a whole list of them to you and Larry Johnson, that was just an incomplete list.
There are several other grievances that the Russians legitimately have, including being diddled by the likes of Angela Merkel and Hollande from Paris.
On the Minsk agreements.
John Mearsheimer often says, look, the Minsk agreements were Putin's best guess.
And now he best bet.
And now he admits, you know, I was naive.
I was wrong in thinking that these Westerners would honor their commitments.
That's big.
That could happen again.
Let's go over to Israel, because I want to ask you a question about a young woman that was killed there a few years ago.
Eventually, I want to get to that question.
I know the issue is close to your very big and warm heart.
Israeli society is deeply divided today between the right-wing religious fanatics who want Israel just for I don't know how these two views can be reconciled.
Do you?
That doesn't piece the hell out of me, as we Irish would say.
I don't think it can be.
I was really interested to see how Alistair broke down the division here.
It's the eschatological, religious extremist view that would just as soon have a war, the end of the lots of people.
And more practical people who think, well, maybe we ought to just trim our sails here.
It's big enough what we've got, what we've occupied in 67. Let's live with that and make sure we don't make any more enemies.
Now, I guess it's coming to a head on Wednesday when the Shin Bet fellow, the head of the...
The FBI equivalent in Israel is either fired or he's not fired.
And there's a whole big judicial argument about that, as Oscar Crook pointed out earlier today.
Before we came on air, I teased you because I'm wearing a green necktie and I don't see any visible green on you, and you showed me your bracelet.
My bracelet, which I can't find now.
I've been wearing a little...
What is the significance to that bracelet that transcends March 17th?
Yeah. Well, Judge, and you can relate to this because you're almost as old as I am, not quite.
In Catholic theology, there's something called a sacrament and a sacramental.
A sacramental is simply an external object.
That gives grace, okay?
And this bracelet that Craig Murray, Rachel's dad, gave me 21 years ago, it simply says Rachel Corey, her date of birth, and then March 16, 2003, three days before the invasion of Iraq by US and UK forces.
He said, look, you can have this, and I've been wearing it ever since.
Why? To remind me.
You know, as a sacramentalist, it gives me the grace of courage.
So when I'm in the Senate and I'm seeing that my former colleagues are all applauding the appointment and nomination and confirmation of a person responsible for the first torture site in Thailand, Gina Haspel,
I look at this thing.
Well, if Rachel Curry could stand up before an Israeli bulldozer to protect The house where she was staying, where Palestinian families live from being demolished, I can stand up easy enough and just say, look, you guys know what you're doing.
You know she's a torturer.
Well, then something happens to her, that's okay, you know?
So there she is.
That's what she faced.
Now, she had three companions from the international group that she was with.
They watched all this.
They watched the bulldozer get the okay from higher authority.
They watched it go over her, and they watched him back over her, okay, to break her back, and she was dead on arrival at the hospital.
Now, there she is, Rachel.
Her dad and mom marked her anniversary of her death yesterday with suitable and very somber, but Not extreme language.
I think we need to know that people like that are fair game, whether they be US citizens or not.
Fair game like those sailors on the USS Liberty back in June 1967.
34 of them killed, 174 wounded by the Israelis deliberately.
No apology.
So my point is simply...
The Israelis learned in 1967 and then again, right before the invasion of Iraq, that they could get away with murder, literally, and Americans, even if they're murdering Americans, well, the administration will not give a rat's patootie about what happens.
They'll even make apologies and cover things up.
That happened to me, actually.
I was on a flotilla.
Ah, there's a crake.
Craig and Cindy Corey holding up, I guess, where Rachel had been living in Rafa.
So Rachel was 23 years old.
That's 22 years since then.
I've been wearing this bracelet.
Oh, there it is.
It's under my shirt.
I found it!
Let's see, Ray.
I've got to say that it's truly green.
There it is.
So I'm wearing some sort of green today, but it's a somber green.
And, you know, I was starting to say, when I was on the U.S. boat to Gaza, a U.S. chartered boat, the year after the Mami Mamara was riddled by bullets by the Israeli Navy and an American citizen killed,
we were told, look.
The NSC has decided that you're not going to have any protection from the U.S. government, so forget about that if you're going to go on this.
And I said, wow, that's strange.
Now, Craig Murray, my friend in Britain, said, you know, McGovern says that the NSC has made it clear they're not going to do anything and that they'll just as soon see corpses come home in coffins from this U.S. boat to Gaza.
Alice Walker was with us.
So what happened was this.
Craig checked with his own sources in the State Department, found that exactly the same thing.
And he wrote a piece.
He said, you know, McGovern is pretty reliable, but I thought, wow, he exaggerated.
No, no, I got the same information.
They're just as soon to see this happen because this would be good for their relationship with, guess what, the Israel lobby, which just recently Put the kibosh on the appointment of a very, very strong candidate to be deputy to Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.
Their influence is all over the place.
They don't mind people getting killed, even if they're Americans, because they'll be covered up.
And they don't mind throwing their weight around to prevent people from occupying positions that don't even require Senate confirmation.
That's the strength of these guys.
Now, what's going to happen in the next week?
A lot will depend on whether Trump is transactional and can be transactional against people who are eschatological.
That's going to be a big one.
The first thing you need to understand.
Eschatological meaning pertaining to the end of days.
End times, yeah.
Graham McGovern, thank you.
Thank you, my dear friend.
Thank you for your big heart.
Thank you for your personal courage.
Thank you for the insight and unique, if I may, Irish touch you bring to this show, whether it's St. Paddy's Day or any other day.
We'll see you on Friday with the pseudo-Irishman Larry Johnson.
Happy St. Patrick's Day to all.
Back at you.
Thank you, Ray.
And coming up shortly, the pseudo-Irishman at 11.30.
Larry Johnson at 2 o'clock.
Scott Ritter at 3 o'clock.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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