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March 31, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
36:04
Scott Ritter : Can Trump Bully Putin?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, April 1st, 2025.
Scott Ritter joins us in just a moment.
You ready for this?
Can Donald Trump bully Vladimir Putin?
I think we know what the answer's going to be, but we'll get there.
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Scott Reiter, welcome here, my dear friend.
Before we get to the back and forth between President Trump and President Putin, some other things that are bubbling up, I'm impressed negatively, of course, by the bellicosity of people like Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen.
Is Europe preparing for war with Russia, or do they think they're preparing for war with Russia?
No, and anybody who knows, knows that they're not, because they can't.
I mean, words does not translate into reality, and no matter how bellicose the rhetoric is out of Brussels and Paris and London, the reality is that the European armies cannot muster Um, sufficient forces and sustain them logistically to have any meaningful impact.
Um, but what they are doing, and I think this will play into what we'll be talking about later is tying up Donald Trump's hands.
Uh, because by, um, bringing up this language and seeking to detach themselves from the United States, they're calling his bluff.
You know, Donald Trump has been saying, oh, well, you know, NATO is not essential to us.
Uh, we could withdraw from NATO.
We could do this.
But, uh, Europeans are calling this bluff saying, okay, um, let's start talking about a world without America and NATO.
And while the long-term objective of the Trump administration may be to disentangle ourselves from NATO in the short term, um, if we divorce ourselves from NATO, we can't control, you know, the, the direction or, or, you know, the, the, the tenor of what, uh, Europe does in the future.
So they've called Trump's bluff.
This was one of the reasons why he is, um, you know, Very interesting analysis,
Scott. You know, when I was invited to ask a few questions to Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, one of the questions that I did ask him was, what do you think will become of NATO if the U.S. leaves?
And he looks at me and says, I don't think the U.S. will leave.
I know the President is threatening, but I don't think he's going to do it.
Do you share that view?
Long term, I think the United States would like to disentangle, but the Trump administration is of the opinion that before the U.S. even can consider that, Europe has to learn how to stand on their own two feet.
But we want to teach them how to stand.
We want to be the ones.
We want a NATO that while we don't The price we're paying still does our bidding, which may be, of course, a bridge too far and impossible to achieve.
But I think in the short term, Sergey Lavrov is right.
Look, if Trump won it out of NATO, they've given us more than enough justification to pull the plug.
But Europe has successfully called Trump's bluff.
So before he's even chancellor, Frederick Mertz got the Reichstag to change the German constitution, which allows either a greater percentage of GNP to be spent on defense or a higher debt ceiling, whatever the mechanism was, to allow for a substantial increase in defense spending.
Do you have an understanding of why?
His political survival was contingent upon his ability to position Europe as a leader in Europe.
I mean position Germany as a leader in Europe, and he has a good sense of the feel of the political winds.
And he knows that European security independence is essential in terms of being projected by the current leadership if they want to stay leaders.
Understand that there's a tremendous amount of opposition to this.
Within Germany itself, the Alternative for Deutschland, AFD, is fundamentally opposed to this and they came in with the second largest voter turnout.
So he can't take the middle ground because in doing so he plays to AFD's sternness.
So he's taking an opposing point and hope that being backed by Paris, who again, here we have Macron imprisoning Le Pen.
We have Starmer, You know, who has no support.
We have Europe, you know, all of this talk about, you know, a European force going into Ukraine is contingent upon Romania staying in play.
And we have a situation where the Romanian presidential election in May may go to a party that wants to unplug Romania.
So, you know, Germany has to lean forward aggressively as part of an overall European Union strategy, but it's suicidal.
In the end, this will bring about the economic ruin.
of Germany, but since when did politicians care about long-term consequences?
They only care about short-term political gains.
Right. They care about staying in power.
Going to the other side of the earth, Secretary of Defense Hegseth was in Japan.
Now maybe he's trying to get people's minds off the signal embryo, but he seemed to be saber-rattling Saying the United States is prepared to fight China over Taiwan.
Does he know what he's talking about?
I would hope that he's familiarized himself with the war plans and he himself indicated that he was cognizant of previous war games where the United States lost every time and nothing has changed that You know, fundamentally, in terms of force structure and capabilities that would suggest the United States will do anything other than lose if we continue, if we push for a conflict with China today.
You know, this is part of this ridiculous piece through strength mantra that the Trump administration has, you know, embraced.
But for that to work, there has to be genuine strength, and the United States doesn't have.
you know, genuine strength of the conventional kind.
And if he's talking about the potential of nuclear conflict with China, you know, then we've entered a whole completely different paradigm that's irresponsible in the extreme.
Over the weekend, the IDF executed one after another after another, I could say that 15 times, 15 UN health workers in Gaza.
And there doesn't seem to be any reaction on the part of the United States.
No condemnation.
In fact, when Tammy Bruce, with whom I used to work at Fox and who now is a State Department spokesperson, was asked about this, all she did was blame Hamas.
Chris, cut number 19. We're good to
go. For too long, Hamas has abused civilian infrastructure, cynically using it to shield themselves.
Hamas's actions have caused humanitarians to be caught in the crossfire.
The use of civilians or civilian objects to shield or impede military operations is itself a violation of international humanitarian law.
And of course, we expect all parties on the ground to comply with international humanitarian law.
But there's specifically a question on any, it's a question about accounting and accountability, given that may have been the use of US weapons.
So it's a question about the State Department rather than Hamas.
Is there any Well, every single thing that is happening in Gaza is happening because of Hamas.
Every single dynamic.
I'll say again, I've said it I think in every briefing, all of this could stop in a moment.
If Hamas returned all the hostages and the hostage bodies they are still holding and put down its weapons, there is one, one entity that could stop it for everyone in a moment, and that is Hamas.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
This is as crazy as her predecessor.
Yeah, the one entity that could stop this is Donald Trump with a phone call to Netanyahu saying, we're not sending you any more weapons with which to kill.
Did she address the slaughter of these 15 UN aid workers?
No, and she doesn't care about them and nor does the Trump administration and frankly speaking Increasingly nor does the rest of the world.
This is the problem I'm you know, I'm looking back and reevaluating Trump's Embrace of the ceasefire because when it originally came out and you know this I I thought that it was indeed a legitimate Attempt to bring peace and stability into a region that's beset by horrifically complicated problems,
right? But it appears increasingly that this was just a psychological warfare game Lulling people who were exhausted by 15 months of incessant violence Lulling them into the belief that there could be peace and then resuming the conflict and blaming Hamas for everything and I think we've seen a global community that's increasingly becoming exhausted by the Palestinian issue.
So much so that they're remaining silent about the murder of 16 aid workers.
The murder of 16 aid workers.
Where is the condemnation that should be happening?
Where are the demonstrations in the streets?
Here in the United States, the Trump administration is making it illegal even to think That, you know, this could be a crime.
I think that the Trump administration is even worse than the Biden administration, because as bad as the Biden administration was on this issue, it at least responded to international condemnation, at least showed that it was listening and that it cared.
I don't think Trump cares at all.
I think this is an administration that is absolutely It's unforgivable in the approach they've taken that disrespects the value of life amongst the people in Palestine, and uncritical of an Israeli regime that is the most craven violator of international law there is.
I mean, for this spokeslady to be talking about international humanitarian law in the context of Israel is disgusting.
Here is the human being that is behind All of this, in my view and I suspect in yours, from the suppression of free speech in the United States to the slaughter of humanitarian United Nations aid workers.
Chris, number 11. These ignorant demonstrators, who are they demonstrating for?
For these murderers, these rapists, these mass killers?
This is a reflection of a deep rot that has pervaded the intellectual hub of free societies.
And this vilification of Israel, the Jewish people, and Western values has been propagated by a systemic alliance between the ultra-progressive left and radical Islam. It must be resolutely fought by civilized societies to safeguard their future.
This is why we must all come in.
And we must pressure other governments to do the same.
You catch those last words, and we must pressure other governments to do the same.
He knows he's the king of the hill.
Well, I'll take a different spin on this.
He knows he's a powerful tool, but the king of the hill is Donald Trump.
As you rightfully pointed out earlier, one phone call brings this to an end.
And while Netanyahu is up there, you know, acting tough, remember, domestically, he's in a horrible position, under tremendous pressure.
The Shin Bet, his internal security forces have turned against him.
He's under investigation for corruption and for violating state secrets and for misleading the Israeli population.
He's highly unpopular.
He's a tool that's being used by the United States to achieve, you know, objectives.
And we see the control mechanisms being put in place today in the United States that violate free speech.
They're using Israel and anti-Semitism as the vector to introduce them.
But as you know, Judge, once a right is conceded, you never get it back.
Once you open up a chink in that armor and let the enemy in, you lose the whole game.
And so this is a very dangerous time in the United States where we're allowing the cause of Israel to be used by American domestic political powers to take control over the totality of the American people, to deny us the one thing that gives all of us the ability to fight back, which is free speech.
So I view Netanyahu more as a compliant tool than the one calling the shots.
He's the puppet, not the puppet master.
But if he is the tool, what is Trump's goal?
Is it just to please his Zionist benefactors in the United States?
Because Trump doesn't have serious concerns about the Gazan people.
We know that.
He couldn't care less about them.
No, I think he's using this issue as a means of putting in place a framework of I mean, I hate to say it, I'd like to believe otherwise, but when I take a look at the laws being talked,
the rhetoric being used, again, as you know full well, Zionism is the cause, but the framing of the argument that allows the Trump administration to target free speech, once they have that framework in place, they can remove the term Zionism and insert anything.
And I think that's the goal.
This is about absolute control of America in a way that differs greatly from the vision of our founding fathers.
Iranian leadership, both the Ayatollah and a leading general, had to say in response to the rantings and ravings we just showed from Tammy Bruce at the State Department.
Chris, cut number 20. The enmity from the U.S. and Israel has always been there.
They threaten to attack us, Which we don't think is very likely.
But if they do commit any mischief, they will surely receive a strong reciprocal blow.
The Americans have at least 10 bases and 50,000 forces near Iran.
This means they are sitting in a glass room.
Someone sitting in a glass room should not throw rocks at others.
Do you know this, General?
Do we have 10 bases in the region?
Do we have 50,000 troops sitting there as sitting ducks, as he claims?
He's right.
I mean, that's been the case all along.
Iran has some very capable ballistic missile forces, but I'll Push back on him.
And if I were talking to him, I'd say the same thing.
Don't confuse a glass Airbnb with a glass house.
Because striking these bases is not striking America.
And yes, you may do harm to these bases and all that.
We will destroy your nation.
And that's not a threat.
That's not me threatening.
It's a statement of fact.
The United States of America will not lose an existential battle against Iran.
We have the ability to destroy Iran.
Iran can hurt us.
But not survive what comes next.
And this is what's frustrating about this whole thing.
The Iranians are on the right side of the history.
They have every justification for the stances they're taking, but the stance they're taking is positioning them, setting them up for a potentially fatal blow to be delivered by the United States.
And again, I'll point out that, you know, I firmly believe that if we do go to war against Iran, we will terminate the Iranian regime.
But the consequences of that action, just like terminating Saddam Hussein, were catastrophic, led to the Arab Spring, led to a destabilization of the region.
And if we take out the Iranian regime, what we'll find out, in hindsight, is the Iranian regime was one of the most effective stabilizing forces in the region, that they helped keep peace.
And by removing them, we'll just create Anarchy and chaos, which will, by the way, result in the demise of Israel.
And you know, from your own extraordinary expertise in this field, the American intelligence community knows, surely the Mossad must know, that the Iranians do not have a nuclear weapon, but Netanyahu and Trump will still rattle that saber.
The problem is, Judge, They don't have a weapon, but they're one week away from having a weapon and that's unacceptable.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not give you the ability to build up the capability just short of the weapon and then Imply that you have you have the weapon when you sign the NPT is a non-nuclear weapon state you commit to not pursuing Nuclear weapons and today we have a situation where Iran has installed some of the most advanced centrifuges in the world and they have stockpiled 60% enriched uranium hexafluoride Which has no other use other than to be sitting there as a loaded gun against
the head of the West now I know Iran is doing this because they say that this is deterrence, but the fact of the matter is Iran They're deterring nothing.
They're waving a red flag in the face of a mad bull who's going to charge.
You know, Iran, and it's not me saying this, Judge, their own leadership, Larjani came out and said, if you attack us, we will go nuclear.
We've had former foreign ministers, the current generals in the IRGC further quantify saying that Iran has all the components of a nuclear bomb and they can assemble them within a week.
So that's the reality of the situation.
And it's a dangerous situation that, you know, Iran isn't helping at all by taking this hard line stance.
They have every right to take it.
They're justified.
No one's sitting here saying that Iran is wrong, but sometimes you can be right and still die.
And I'm afraid that's what Iran is doing, is setting itself up to where there will be a major military strike that Iran won't survive.
If Israel and the United States attack Iran, will China and Russia just sit back and watch?
Absolutely. Look, if China and Russia were going to do anything, they'd be doing it now.
You'd have Russia knocking the door down at the United Nations, getting resolutions out there, creating hurdles for the United States to cross.
All Russia has done is come out with a statement that said, if the United States attacks, it will lead to regional instability.
Well, that's a statement of the obvious.
But what is Russia doing diplomatically to prevent this?
And the answer is, at least overtly, nothing.
They signed a strategic framework agreement with Iran, which is not a treaty.
It was actually a mechanism that could lead to a resolution of this issue should Iran not double down on Stupid.
And I don't mean to call the Iranians stupid, but I am.
Again, possessing the ability to produce a nuclear weapon within a week, Is not where you want to be at this point in time.
It doesn't, you know, people can say, well, they have every right to do this.
That doesn't matter.
What matters is that they've done it.
And now this poses an existential threat against Israel, who is for better or for worse, probably worse, an ally of the United States.
And we're not going to allow this situation to go forward.
It's a very dangerous situation, but if Russia wanted to stop this or were intent on stopping this, they'd be at the United Nations right now throwing resolutions out there.
And so would the Chinese.
Does Donald Trump have any cards to play with Vladimir Putin?
None whatsoever.
It's a losing game.
Look, he does have one card, and that's the good faith card.
And what that would be is to take the cards and put them down and say, I'm not playing the game here.
I'm not trying to out-Trump you and out-bid you and all this.
I want peace.
And I recognize that you are the victor in a war that is categorized more accurately as an American war against Russia using Ukraine as a proxy.
So I understand that you have beat us.
And what I want to do is mitigate the impact of this defeat by, you know, getting you what you say you need, but maintaining, you know, sufficient infrastructure so that the United States is not a complete loser in this.
The good faith card.
Where we were serious about this.
I thought that was the card that Trump was going to be playing early on, especially when he sent Steve Whitkoff over there and they met with Kirill Dmitriev, they met with Vladimir Putin, and they began this remarkable process of engagement that was unprecedented.
But the most recent rhetoric out of Washington DC shows that Donald Trump's not serious at all about this.
He continues to coddle Zelensky, which you can't do.
He empowers Europe through his, you know, Indecisiveness rather than telling Europe to sit down and shut up.
He continues to engage with them and allow them to bluff him into Not taking the decisive action that he needs to take to bring this conflict to an end and Russia is aware of this the Russians are of course Being very demure in their approach diplomatically, but we look at the reality.
We look at the statement of Putin We look at the statement of Rebcov and we look at the statement of others or Lavrov The Russians know darn well that the United States is not negotiating in good faith and they are very clear-eyed about this and the clear-eyed about the need to Continue moving forward not to hold out hopes of somehow,
you know an American economic Can Trump intimidate Putin?
He seems to think that he can!
No, I mean, I was going to try and come up with some sort of facetious argument, but the answer is no.
Russia, you know, first of all, Trump wouldn't be the first president that's tried to intimidate Putin.
You know, George W. Bush, when he withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty, was somehow saying, you know, we're going to build these missiles, but you don't need to worry about it.
And Putin went, no, we're not worried about it.
We're telling you what the consequences will be.
That if you do this, we're gonna take actions that overcome whatever you think you're going to build.
Is that intimidating Putin?
No, it's Putin being very pragmatic and coming up with a response.
He did the same thing with Obama.
He made a mistake with Obama.
He actually negotiated in good faith for the New START Treaty under the belief, based upon Rose Goodmiller, I think her name is, the negotiator, her promise that the United States, while they couldn't incorporate anti-ballistic missile issues into the New START Treaty because of the politics of the Senate, that if Russia would just get this thing done, we promised to go to the table and address the anti-ballistic missile issue.
And we lied, straight up lied.
Well, that's a lesson to Vladimir Putin, too.
You can't trust America.
We did the same thing on Minsk.
Biden promised Putin that we would put pressure on the French, the Germans, and the Ukrainians to implement Minsk.
He made that promise in June of 2021.
And while Blinken was supposed to be out doing that, Blinken instead was in Kiev secretly transferring Stinger missiles and Javelin missiles for the war that we were planning.
We had no intention of implementing Minsk.
We were always planning on this proxy conflict.
The Russians Russians know this.
Putin isn't intimidated.
Putin has made responses.
Everything we've done, especially when we violate our word or violate the code, Russia has a response to.
You can't be intimidated when you are pragmatic, when you are informed, and when you have the capacity to respond effectively to anything the other side does.
It should be Trump who's intimidated by Putin.
That would be the smart thing.
Not to be intimidated and surrender, but to be intimidated and say, I need to get out of this card game, you know, because we come back to the card analogy.
You're sitting at the table and you're looking at your chips going, man, if this thing goes on, I'm going to lose everything.
And I've got a wife and kids at home and a mortgage need to be paid.
Why don't I just Hold my hand, take the chips and leave what I got, so at least I don't lose everything.
And that's what he needs to do right now.
Trump is in a position of, we're going to lose everything.
And what we need to do is stop this card game, stop this war, because Russia is going to win everything.
They've got every card.
It's going their way.
And Trump needs to do that, but he's not.
He should be smarter than this, but he's surrounded, I think, by people who give him horrible, horrible advice.
Well, he's surrounded by Zionists and neocons.
Now, I don't know if they're still neocons.
I think in their hearts, they are.
If you read that signal chat, you can tell that they are.
Was there a single voice raised about, why are we killing these people?
No, it was all about process.
was no...
I mean, look, I participated in Operation Desert Storm, which included the strategic air campaign against Iraq, and we blew the crap out of that country, excuse my language.
But I will tell you that every target we struck, there was definitely, because I was a participant, there was a moral argument.
That you had to be able to articulate the importance of this target and you had to understand what the consequences of striking this target were.
And then you need to articulate why this was proportional and why the military necessity outweighed, you know, the potential for innocent civilian life.
And many times when you couldn't make that argument, we didn't strike the target because We were in the business of defeating the Iraqi government, but we weren't in the business of deliberately slaughtering the Iraqi people.
This attack in Yemen, it showed a total callous indifference to the value of Yemeni life.
100% callous indifference.
And it's a shameful moment because normally you'd expect in chats like this for the real side of a person to come out.
And if this is the real side of our leaders, America has much to be shamed about.
Has the United States recognized the Syrian regime, and is it actually recognizing, if so, HTS, which is listed in the State Department as a terrorist organization?
I don't think we're there yet.
I think Tulsi Gabbard is out there, you know, ringing the bell against Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic extremism.
I don't necessarily buy into Everything that's attached to that, but I think when you have the Director of National Intelligence coming down hard on Islam and Islamic extremism that you don't turn around and recognize the most extreme form of Islam as is manifested in Syria today.
But we're between a rock and a hard place.
We created this demon.
And we created this demon for the purpose of overthrowing Bashar al-Assad.
But let this be a lesson to everybody who's talking about going into Iran and bringing down the regime.
The day after, if you don't have a plan for the day after, the week after, the month after, a year after, and you know where you want to go and know what the potential pitfalls will be and you're ready to overcome them.
All that happens is chaos and anarchy, and you make the situation even worse than it was.
There's no way today anybody can articulate that the situation in Syria, as it currently exists, brings more stability to the region than when Bashar al-Assad was the president of Syria.
Here's this goofy State Department spokesperson I don't remember if she's reading from her laptop as she was in the other clips or if she's speaking from her heart in her head.
But anyway, here she is on Syria three days ago.
Chris number 17. You're aware of the announcement on Saturday of the interim authorities of a by the interim authorities of a transitional cabinet in Syria.
We recognize the struggles of the Syrian people who have suffered decades under despotic rule and oppression of the Assad regime, and we hope this announcement represents a positive step for an inclusive and representative Syria.
However, Syria's interim authorities should fully renounce and suppress terrorism, exclude foreign terrorist fighters from any official roles, prevent Iran and its proxies from exploiting exploiting Syrian territory, take meaningful steps to verifiably destroy Assad's chemical weapons, assist in the recovery of U.S.
and other citizens who have been disappeared in Syria, and ensure the security and freedoms of Syria's religious and ethnic minorities.
The United States will continue to assess the interim authorities' behavior and determine our next step based on those actions.
You mentioned about sanctions.
adjustment to u.s policy towards syria's interim authorities will be contingent on all of those steps being taken that i mentioned to you are the chances of the syrian government taking those steps meaningfully
This is the equivalent of her getting up there and going, that we will normalize relations with Russia if Vladimir Putin denounces the Russian language, denounces the Russian Orthodox Church, denounces Russia's victory during the Second World War, and agrees that May 9th, instead of being Victory Day, will be America's Supremacy Day over Russia.
Now, if you're willing to do all of that, we'll be able to work with you going forward.
That's about as realistic as what she said here.
It's ignorance personified.
What it means is that the United States, that we have no control over the situation because all of the things that she stipulated there are reflection of the fact that what's happening in Syria today is 100% chaos and anarchy and that we have no say over what's happening.
So she's trying to superimpose conditions, which if met, you know, would imply that America is in control, but none of those are going to be met because I just want to remind your audience.
This is Al Qaeda, okay?
These are the people, the ideology, the organization that attacked us on 9-11.
And she's actually talking about a potential where we can reform Al Qaeda.
The only reformation of Al Qaeda Comes with a 7.62 bullet through the head.
There's no reforming Al-Qaeda.
They're evil.
This is why we go after them.
They murdered thousands of Americans, and it's a horrific ideology that should be eradicated.
They are a rabid dog that needs to be shot.
That's not what she's saying, though.
She's implying that somehow we can do business with Al-Qaeda.
Well, I'm from New York.
No, you can't.
And nor shall you ever.
Not as long as I have a breath.
I will never agree to making peace with Al-Qaeda.
Al-Qaeda will only be resolved when every one of them is dead or renounce their religion, their extreme religious beliefs, and they have been shown to be reformed.
Other than that, the only way to deal with them is to close with and destroy through firepower maneuver.
Scott Ritter, thank you, my dear friend.
Thanks for letting me go.
across the board on all this.
Your analysis is always so deeply appreciated.
All the best to you.
Thank you.
Of course.
Wow, a great conversation.
Very, very thoughtful and very deep and much appreciated.
Coming up at three o'clock, hopefully another great conversation.
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