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May 5, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:59
[LIVE IN MOSCOW] Ray McGovern : What Putin Wants.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, May 5th, 2025.
Ray McGovern will be here with us in just a moment, live from Moscow, on what the Russian people think.
Of America today.
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Ray McGovern, welcome here, my dear friend.
Thank you very much for joining us.
You recently addressed in Russia, you recently addressed a youth group, the same group that had been addressed by President Vladimir Putin and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
There you are.
In this magnificent facility, it's a still of you addressing them.
What did you tell them?
I compared my visit, Judge, to the one I made in 1972 at the end of the negotiations on strategic arms limitations.
There, the basic treaty on anti-ballistic missiles, the prohibition or the limitation of them was signed.
And I was able to explain to those young folks that in those days the Russians were very interested in signing these kinds of agreements with us for two reasons.
They didn't want to spend a lot of money and they thought that China was going to improve relations with the U.S. faster than the Soviets could.
So there was additional incentive.
What I want to point out now is that that incentive has dissipated.
Over the last 50 years or more, the Chinese and the Russians have become together so close that they're really two against one, and that's the new situation that the US faces.
Now, with respect to Ukraine, I pointed out that a surprise to most people is that the Chinese went against their bedrock They took support for Westphalia, you know, no intervention in other people's affairs, no violation of borders, and supported.
First they acquiesced, but they supported Putin in the special military operation.
With respect to that, I simply said that it looks like there's great confusion in Washington, but as long as Whitcoff and Trump are calling the shots...
Other people will kind of fade away, I think, and it may be weeks yet months before some kind of an agreement is reached, but I still have not given hope that despite all the hurdles that have been raised in the western side, not only in Washington, but of course in Europe, that some kind of deal is possible.
Both rulers want some kind of deal.
It's going to happen, in my view.
Is there a sense of impatience with the special military operation, or is there a sense to the extent that you can put your thumb on the Russian pulse to the extent that there is a collective pulse?
Do the Russian people have the same patience as President Putin does?
Well, it's changed, Judge.
There were a bunch of Russians, not terribly important slice of the population.
But we're impatient and sort of tired of the slow pace.
That's pretty much dissipated.
The Russians are clearly winning.
That's documented every day as they attrit, attrit, attrit, new verb toward the West in Ukraine.
So people are fairly resigned to the fact that Putin holds the high cards, that whatever happens is going to reflect the fact.
That the Russian army has pretty much won the war and that they could wait for that.
They are in no hurry and I think they're a little bit mystified at the fact that Mr. Trump seems to be in a much bigger hurry than Putin.
Is there any feeling about General Kellogg?
Whose views are old-line, old-school neocon and whom the government is still putting out there as recently as late last week on Fox News?
Well, you know, Judge, I think that I've mentioned before, I think that's pretty much the maximalist approach.
This is what we could demand.
I don't think Kellogg really has the ear of either Whitcoff or Trump.
So I think that will be negotiated.
These are demands that cannot be honored by the Russian side.
And once again, the Russians seem to appreciate that Trump appreciates that they have the high cards, and both countries want this thing to stop.
Here's Dmitry Peskov, who's the official spokesperson for the Kremlin.
The comments are in Russian, but there's an English translation.
And this is just yesterday, May 4th.
Chris, cut number 12. The peace process continues.
President Putin's main goal is to achieve the aims he declared when starting the special military operation.
We should secure our national interests.
Is it preferable to achieve these goals peacefully?
Yes.
And initially, the president tried to achieve these goals peacefully.
Now the president remains open to political and diplomatic methods of resolving this conflict.
But the situation is as it is.
We hear no reaction from Kiev.
The process continues.
Let me remind you that President Putin said during his news conference in the Kremlin that he supported this initiative to establish a ceasefire.
But before it is established, several questions should be answered, and several issues settled.
They were all listed by President Putin.
We know what those issues are, Crimea and the four oblasts, and no NATO.
General Kellogg acts as if those issues don't exist.
I don't know what Steve Witkoff says to President Putin.
If Witkoff acts as if those issues don't exist, then he's wasting his time.
No, we know what Witkoff thinks of those issues.
He told Tucker Carlson, in the dismay of the Washington Post, that he thought those referenda, the one in Crimea and the other four, We're legitimate.
They showed a distinct preference on the part of the majority, the vast majority in some cases, of the people to rejoin Russia.
So, Witkoff is singing a very different song.
Kellogg, I don't think, is really being more than just a kind of a guy, a straight man to do the maximalist proposal, but I don't take him seriously.
I don't think anyone else does, except the ones that want to criticize.
The approach as being kind of crazy, not able to understand.
It's a negotiation.
It's a deal-making thing, and they're going to use what they have, and Witkoff is one of the pawns, it seems to me.
Chris, do we have Foreign Minister Lavrov?
On the futility of a ceasefire?
What do you think of this, Ray?
If you want a ceasefire just to continue to supply arms to Ukraine, so what is your purpose?
You know what Kaya Kalas and what's his name, Mark Rutte, said about the ceasefire?
The NATO Secretary General and the European Union.
They bluntly stated that they can support only the deal, which at the end of the day will make Ukraine stronger, would make Ukraine a victor.
So if this is the purpose of the ceasefire, I don't think this is what President Trump wants.
This is what Europeans, together with Zelensky, want to make out of President Trump's initiative.
you Thank you.
There's a perfectly rational approach as to why ceasefire first negotiation afterwards is not going to work.
Well, Judge, that's been clear for 11 months now.
It was the middle of June last year when Putin made those conditions very clear.
So she kept asking about these things.
He turned them adroitly down.
And pointed out the reality.
You know, we're not going to accept the ceasefire just so that Ukraine can replenish its arms together with what it gets from the U.S. still and what it gets from Germany and England and France.
So, yeah, that was very clear.
Now, Lavrov has been sort of very straight here and has emphasized what they consider to be the many betrayals on Ukraine and NATO.
Going back to 2008, when our ambassador there, Bill Burns, was told, "Look, NET means NET.
No Ukraine in NATO.
If you put Ukraine in NATO, even try to, we're going to have to decide whether we have to invade or not.
We don't want to have to decide that, so please, knock it off." That was 2008.
Then, of course, you had the Maiden uprising.
Where Putin was promised that everything is going to be fine.
Yanukovych is all right.
We're just rescheduling elections.
And that was betrayed.
Then you had Minsk.
Minsk Accords were violated by Germans and the French and they've admitted it.
And most recently you had the Istanbul.
You know, the business about unprovoked.
I think most Americans have enough evidence now to realize that that was a lie.
It was provoked.
Now, how about full-scale?
That's the other adjective.
Full-scale, with 90,000 troops, Putin thought that he would take over Ukraine and maybe Poland and the Baltic states.
Give me a break!
What he was trying to do was scare the hell out of Zelensky, and he succeeded.
Zelensky picked his best friend to lead the delegation the very next day after the first...
Special military operation attack on Ukraine.
And they negotiated a deal in Belarus and then later in Istanbul.
It was on a piece of paper initial.
So those are the betrayals that Lavrov is talking about.
Putin, on the other hand, is talking about growing trust.
The fact that he thinks that President Trump is sincere and that there is a possibility that trust could make a deal.
Like, you know, like in 1972, when we first learned to doveray, no proveray, trust, but verify.
There are all kinds of verification means that can be inserted in this calculus.
So I see that the two big stars here, the two big powers, are going to be able to work out some kind of deal.
Ukrainians won't like it.
Europeans won't like it.
But maybe, maybe the killing will stop.
As we are taping this, it's Monday, May 5th.
On Thursday, May 8th, is what in Russia, what the 4th of July is here.
Monumental joy and commemorations of liberation because it marks the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
I guess this is a silly question.
Am I correct in assuming that no Western leaders or Americans American officials, you'll be there.
No Western officials or American government officials will be there.
Just Oliver Stone and I. And we don't qualify as government officials.
I don't know if they'll even let their ambassador go to the proceedings.
You know, the English are even worse.
They have Winston Churchill, whom I'm not very fond of quoting.
But what did he say?
He said, The Red Army tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht in Stalingrad.
Tore the guts, and that's what happened.
Now, we have history, and then we have alternative facts.
If I recite history as Winston Churchill, for God's sake, did, and Putin says the same thing, does that put me in Putin's pocket?
Looks like we might have lost you for a second there, Ray.
All right, Ray, you might have to log off and log back on because we lost communication with you.
You were articulating what I didn't know, and I share your view of Churchill, which is a very negative one.
But you were in the process of articulating that Churchill quite correctly analogized the behavior of the Russian militaries having, quote, torn the guts out of the Wehrmacht, that's the German military, in World War II.
I do want to ask you about President Trump's unique and historically inaccurate interpretation and understanding of which military.
He won the war, but we need you to come back.
It looks like you might be back with us.
There he is.
Okay.
I was summarizing in your absence because of the breakdown of the high tech.
I was summarizing what you were saying about Winston Churchill.
What did Trump say about who defeated Germany in World War II?
We did.
Of course we did.
We were responsible for defeating Germany in World War I and World War II, and we should have probably a special, yeah, a special national holiday to commemorate those things.
I mean, you know, Trump is coming across as an ignoramus to most of the people in the world who realize that it's not just that Mr. Putin says that Russia bore the brunt of the world.
It's everybody who has studied any history at all.
Did we help?
Of course we helped.
We sent almost 200,000 two-and-a-half-ton trucks that were capable of pulling artillery, capable of pulling troops, going through rivers, going through snow.
These people were helping.
We were helping the Russians through the Caucasus or into the Caucasus from Iran.
So, yeah, we helped.
But, my God, to say, as others have said, that the Russians helped us win the war, that's pretty stupid.
That's ahistorical.
And, you know, it's just wrong.
So Trump is making a little bit fun of himself if he tries to make people believe that.
Yeah.
Last weekend, the United States destroyed a detention center in Yemen and, of course, killed all 83 detainees there.
No apology, no admission, no recognition.
But to what end, other than to please Netanyahu, are we killing civilians and innocents in Yemen?
Well, you know, the Yemenis don't look like us.
And I think that was a camp for displaced Africans.
They really don't look like us.
Part of this is pure and simple racism.
Now, with respect to Netanyahu, I'm seeing some daylight between Trump and Netanyahu.
I'm glad that Mike Walsh got the heave-ho.
I think he was pretty much urging Netanyahu's policy on Trump, and I think Trump got a little tired of it.
The vice president, others seem to be of more sober mind.
So the good news, and I hope I'm right, is that the fourth session of U.S.-Iranian talks We'll bring the kind of fruit that will make it even less likely that the US will let Netanyahu mousetrap the US into a war with Iran.
I think that's increasingly unlikely, and that's good news.
I think you're being charitable with the vice president.
I think he's actually lying.
This is not a promotion for Mike Waltz.
They had to kick Mike Waltz out.
He was negotiating with Netanyahu behind the president's back and goading him on and trying to...
I just met his.
We lost you again, Ray.
We lost you again, Ray.
Are you back on?
Yeah, we got you back.
Go ahead.
You were talking about the vice president's comments about Mike Waltz's departure.
Actually, that was not what I was referring to.
I think they were silly.
What I was referring to is the sensible things that the Vice President has said with respect to Ukraine, with respect to Iran as well.
You know, it's damning with faint praise, but they're a hell of a lot more sensible.
And what Mike Walsh was spouting after talking to Ron Dermer.
Right.
If you read the transcript of the Signal chat, there were at least two.
One of them was transcribed because of Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic.
The vice president was a voice of reason.
Even Pete Hegseth, who loves war, was suggesting restraint.
Netanyahu just announced that the IDF will be occupying Gaza.
No surprise, but what is Trump going to do about it?
Well, you know, there's some activity out in the Gulf states.
They have a longstanding, I think it's about a year old proposal, where they will intervene and pretty much play a major role in rehabilitating Gaza.
Hamas would step back a little.
So I think that's the focus of what's going to happen in the next couple of weeks.
Netanyahu, his army is not all that strong.
His capabilities are not all that strong.
So I'm hoping, and this is just a hope, not a forlorn one, that the administration will restrain Netanyahu now and say, okay.
Netanyahu, we'll give you enough so you can stay in power and so you don't lose your right-wing people and have to go to jail.
We'll give you that much, but we're not going to give you a damn thing more.
And besides, we're going to do something else with the Gaza Strip, and people in the Gulf states are going to help with this.
At least they're willing to talk about it.
So this thing is in flux.
God knows where it's going to end up.
But as I say, the good news to me is that I don't think Netanyahu is even going to try.
To mousetrap us into war against Iran because I think the signals are very clear now, especially with Waltz leaving and Ron Dermer kind of crying into his handkerchief.
Right, right.
Good response.
Your lips to Trump's ears.
What will the celebration consist of on Thursday?
Is it a huge parade in Red Square?
I believe it will be, Judge.
I don't really know much about it.
I have learned that I am invited, and that was a big deal.
It's not easy to get tickets to this thing.
So I'll be there and report from the scene, but I imagine it will be very much like the ones that were held during the major celebrations in the past.
I've heard nothing about curtailing them out of fear of Ukrainian drones.
I think that Moscow is pretty well protected now, but I hope I don't eat my words.
I'll be standing next to Oliver Stone, and he's a pretty big guy.
I'll duck behind him if something untoward happens.
Wow.
Thank you very much, Ray.
All the best.
Safe travels, and we'll look forward to chatting with you.
Maybe you'll have some nice videos for us with Larry Johnson on Friday.
I'll try to, Judge.
Well, stay well.
Thank you.
Thank you, my dear friend.
And coming up later today, at one o 'clock, Medea Benjamin.
What is the government trying to do to code pink?
At two o 'clock, Larry Johnson.
And at four o 'clock, the always worth waiting for, Scott Ritter.
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