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May 7, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:27
Pepe Escobar : Yemen Wins by a Landslide!
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, May 8th, 2025.
Joining us now from Moscow, back to midnight in Moscow, Pepe Escobar.
Pepe, it's a pleasure.
Thank you for accommodating my schedule.
You just flew in from Tehran, and I have questions to ask you about your interview of an Iranian general and questions to ask you about the tempo of things in Moscow.
But before we do...
What did the United States gain by bombing Yemen?
One of the greatest humiliations in the military history of the United States.
I'm really sad to tell you that.
This is the short version.
A war without planning against a known adversary, which was basically trying to protect, in their own words, their brothers and sisters in Palestine.
You don't mess with Yemen.
These people in Washington, come on, get a history book, study for 10 minutes.
You will never win a war against Yemeni warriors, period.
And you have just been humiliated.
When I was there a few weeks ago, one of the members of the High Political Council, he told me, look, we still have our own cards on the table.
We haven't shown everything.
Now, after three destroyed F-18s and nobody knows exactly what happened to USS Truman, we have the circus ringmaster saying they were begging for a ceasefire.
No, no.
You, Mr. President, begged for a ceasefire and tried to get away of a war that you never even thought about.
When Trump boasted in the Oval Office...
That the Houthis capitulated.
You emailed me saying it's quite the opposite.
The Houthis won in a landslide.
What did you mean?
Well, can you imagine?
Numbers themselves.
This often repeated number and estimate that Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world.
It's the richest in history and spirituality.
It's the richest in moral clarity.
And it's one of the more powerful militarily as well.
They had help, of course, from Russia, Iran, and China directly and indirectly.
But their military accomplishments are their own.
And on top of that, they know exactly how to use their military power.
They did not attack anybody.
What they did was to protect Palestinians their own way.
And the whole, the lands of Islam as a whole supported Yemen from the beginning, and most of the global south as well.
And now, they have forced the mightiest armada in the history of the universe to back down.
This is beyond historic.
Larry Johnson, a good friend of ours, who does the research, says the United States spent over a billion dollars.
This is counting the three F-16s, which go from $78 million to $80 million each.
Spent over a billion dollars.
Pete Hegseth was boasting about the success of doing it.
Larry's right.
Hegseth is wrong.
And the president was humiliated.
Absolutely.
And it would have to be this way, Judge.
He was forced to, ah, let's humiliate Yemen.
No, now he's humiliated by Yemen in front of the whole planet.
He didn't have to be this way.
This is bad planning, bad management, and bad decisions.
What did you observe or conclude in your time in Tehran?
About Iran's preparedness, willingness, and ability to resist an onslaught, whether it comes from Israel alone or Israel and the United States.
And the trip hasn't finished yet, George.
All right.
I know you're taking like two days from Tehran up to Moscow so you can be there for the celebrations tomorrow, and it's almost tomorrow there already, and then you're going back to Tehran.
Exactly.
Answering your question, there were different instances.
We had some outstanding conversations with Iranian analysts, with diplomats, with academics.
We had a roundtable, for instance, that started at one of the Tehran's universities that started as U.S.-Iran relations.
And after half an hour, it became a debate about the new great game.
That is being played all over in the geopolitical chessboard.
And, of course, there was that, by now, relatively well-known incident.
We were visiting the IRGC Aerospace Museum.
And then I found my opening.
There was a brigadier general that was explaining military matters to us.
So I said, okay, I have to ask him directly.
And I did.
What's going to happen or what did happen or what's going to happen with Operation True Promise 3?
His answer was extraordinary.
It was very diplomatic.
He said, look, basically he said, I'm not making decisions, but look, he's a brigadier general at the IRGC, so he knows everything about their political and military decisions.
So he answered in detail.
And I'm sure Chris has the video.
We do.
Cut number six.
This is a very serious question.
Please translate it correctly.
True Promise 1 and 2 were seen as a sign of weakness?
No, please.
Operation True Promise 3 was interpreted in Tel Aviv and in Washington as a sign of weakness.
Why it was postponed?
We want to know the real reason, because this information is essential to be disseminated in the West.
Please translate it correctly.
He says that our confrontation with U.S. and Israeli regime, it has not been new and it will never finish in a short destination.
And he says that the tactics that we are going to use in this operation, it is exactly based on our decision.
Nothing from outside, no impression, no interpression can have any impression or effect in this decision.
He says that we are soldiers of the leader of the Islamic Revolution.
We will never hesitate.
We will never postpone.
We will never haste.
He says that at the right time this operation will take place.
Anything outside is just merely a propaganda that it is being made from outside.
He says that so far as it is being shown we have never take any step backward and we will never take step back from our red lines.
The operation is ready to go.
They're just waiting for the right moment.
Is that it?
I'm not in charge of that.
But whenever it is the right time, the armed forces and IRGC will be announced and we will carry it and we will make it take place.
Since 100% we will make our red lines, we will never take a step back.
Thank you.
That's awesome.
That's fine.
It's a great interview.
And before I ask you to extrapolate, I'm smiling because the last time I saw somebody yelling at an interpreter to interpret properly was me in a courtroom where the interpreters have a tendency to summarize rather than to translate literally.
And you wanted, as I did at the time, a literal translation.
All right.
Who was he and what was that all about?
Well, he is in charge of this very sophisticated aerospace museum outside of Iran by the IRGC.
Over there, we saw all the different models of Chahid drones, for instance.
We saw different...
Ballistic missiles, including the latest FATA missile, which was unveiled less than two years ago.
So it is very, very impressive.
But, of course, we wanted to get down to business.
And that's why the first minute that we had relatively free, I said, no, I have to ask him now because we won't have any chance.
Before that, Judge, I had already asked my host, can you get us a meeting with a...
Top, high-ranking RARGC general.
They said, look, we are trying, but it's very, very...
You just stumbled upon him in the museum.
No, we didn't.
He made a presentation to us before, Judge, at a sort of briefing room talking about the history of basically their ballistic missile program, which you and our audience, you...
Very well know that the Americans tried to introduce this into the nuclear negotiations ever since John Kerry and Zarif were trying to set up the first JCPOA in Vienna 10 years ago.
So that was very helpful.
But I was sensing that it would be very hard for us to talk directly to an IRGC general.
I'm sorry.
So I took my chance.
What was...
Promise 3, about which you and he were speaking.
What was or is that?
A response to the latest Israeli attack on Iran.
Remember that True Promise 1 and 2 stunned not only Israel, but the Pentagon and the U.S. military establishment.
And they decided to hold on True Promise 3. And he explained that this is not his translator.
By the way, he was a bit terrified.
Later on, on X, a Farsi-speaking girl, very, very smart, she sent her own translator to the...
These images were shot by an Iraqi-American blogger, a very, very, very cool guy.
And then she sent him...
Her own translation of what the Brigadier General said, it's much more nuanced and diplomatic, in fact.
He's still saying the same thing.
It's ready to go.
We decide when, but it will go.
Wow.
Let me change the subject slightly.
Here's the breaking news now.
U.S. President Donald Trump has grown tired of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stalling in the negotiations with Hamas.
The Trump administration cut out the Israeli government from the talks and spoke directly with Hamas.
Now they are also trying to cut out the middleman and speak directly to the Israeli public.
What does this tell you, my dear friend?
Judge, the president wants some sort of deal, any deal, anywhere.
That's why he was so ebullient, selling a sort of non-deal with Ansarallah in Yemen.
Of course, he cannot do the same thing vis-à-vis the war.
Provoked and weaponized by the U.S. in Ukrainian soil against Russia.
It's crazy because he's a new president trying to be the mediator of a war that his own superpower started.
In itself, this is Kafka, total Kafka territory.
And of course, with Hamas and with Israel, even under immense pressure by the Zionist lobby, Trump wants some sort of deal that he can sell to American public opinion and to global public opinion, not necessarily to the benefit of the Palestinians, because now the new Israeli government policy is mass starvation.
It's not straight-up genocide as it was so far.
And this, he has to know, even being Trump, doesn't pay attention to anybody except himself, So there is the absolute necessity of some sort of deal involving Hamas, of course, and breaking, let's say, the carefully calibrated dementia of the government in Tel Aviv.
Will the government in Tel Aviv announce that it's going to invade and occupy Gaza.
John Mearsheimer says that's an impossibility, but a lot of people will die on both sides as they try it.
Absolutely.
John is absolutely correct.
And the Iranians have a very similar analysis as well.
This is an extremely complicated discussion in Iran, Judge, in Tehran with very well-informed people.
To what extent?
Actual, practical Iranian help goes to prevent, let's say, and I'm going to be very blunt here, a final solution against Gaza and the Palestinians.
Wow.
There's an enormous open debate in Tehran about it.
We discussed this at the university, including PhD students, ultra-sharp questions.
But there is no consensus.
And the Iranians know that there's a limit, that they can help up to a certain limit.
And it's up to Palestinian resistance in itself, of course.
And the whole broader team of the axis of resistance, we spent practically the whole week talking about axis of resistance every day.
And Iran now, they have, I wouldn't say a more existential problem, but they do have an existential problem of the possibility of a joint US-Israel attack against Iran within the next few months.
So they are fully concentrated on it.
I want to switch gears because I know you're in Moscow and I know tomorrow's a day of great celebration.
Here is a brief summary of a joint press conference between President Vladimir Putin and...
Chinese President Xi.
I think they had this press conference while you were traveling.
President Putin summarized their relations together as following: "Relations between Russia and China have reached their highest level in history.
Large Chinese manufacturers of microelectronics, automobiles, and household appliances will increase their presence in the Russian market." Russia and China have built a reliable system of mutual trade protected from the current global situation.
All foreign trade transactions between Moscow and Beijing are carried out in national currencies.
President Putin announced plans to significantly increase bilateral trade between Russia and China by 2030.
Here's the last one.
Russia and China suffered the greatest losses in World War II and are now closer to each other than they have ever been.
Are you surprised at any of this?
Of course not, Judge.
This is what happened today, exactly.
When they started talking, I was on my way from the airport to my place in Moscow.
So that's the kind of entrance or arrival, right?
I had to be here this day, today and tomorrow, because this is way beyond historic for two reasons, and they are interconnected.
Number one is the victory against Nazism and fascism 80 years ago, where the Soviet Union were the number one active.
Whatever the West did.
Can I just stop you for a minute and tell you the names of two people who agree with everything you just said?
One is Winston Churchill, and the other is Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Thank you, Judge.
Thank you, Judge.
We don't need anything else, right?
I accept that President Trump wants to reinvent history, and it has antagonized the Russians, needlessly, but it has.
Exactly.
On the same level of the leadership in the European Union and European Commission.
For them, what happened in 1945 never existed, in fact.
So this is where we are in terms of the moral devastation of the fragmented West.
So this is reason number one for May 9. Just to give you an idea, Jess, now it's 10 minutes to midnight in Moscow.
Everybody is asleep.
There is radio silence everywhere.
Tomorrow, even mobile internet will be cut off because there is a strong possibility of a drone attack during the parade.
They are taking no chances here.
I was told this morning that this is the reddest red line in Russia in decades.
So it's very, very, very, very serious.
So this is reason number one.
Reason number two is what happened this morning at the Kremlin.
When Xi Jinping came to visit Putin, this was the first of their meetings.
They have another one.
There was a gala dinner tonight that was, of course, more relaxed.
But tomorrow and the day after, they're going to have another long meeting.
This one today was picking up...
From their meeting two years ago, I'm sure our audience remembers very well, when Xi, at the end, when Putin was taking Xi out of the crime, Xi Jinping said, we are facing changes that we have not seen in a hundred years, and we are at the forefront.
We are driving them.
And Putin said, you're absolutely right.
So they're picking up.
This is where they are at the moment.
These are the two big powers driving the changes.
You know, I've been saying this for weeks.
It would have been wonderful if President Trump had flown to Moscow, showed up at the victory parade, congratulated the Russians, and then stayed for a week and negotiated with Xi and Modi and Putin for the grand...
Political, geopolitical, and economic reset between the great powers.
But it doesn't appear as though that's going to happen.
Unless he's secretly flying to Moscow now, it doesn't appear that that's going to happen.
You're absolutely right, Judge.
This would have been the new Yalta.
And many of us independents in the U.S. and across the Global South, we were expecting, okay, this has to happen.
It's the only chance to have a reset of international relations and the grand chessboard and going towards a more rational territory.
Unfortunately, President Trump didn't pick up.
It was up to him to pick up the opportunity.
Chris, go ahead.
Please continue, Pepe.
My apologies.
The fact that they met today, picking up on...
The changes that never happened in these past 100 years.
They are forging this new system of international relations.
They are at the driver's seat.
It's not by accident that we have 20-something leaders from all across the Global South here.
Very important.
Including Captain Ibrahim Traoré from Burkina Faso, who is the...
Great African leader nowadays, including President Lula from Brazil.
I'm very happy that Lula is here, because there is a chemistry between, a personal chemistry, Putin respects Lula a lot.
So the Global South is here, and they're listening to the two superpowers in the driver's seat.
Chris, can you put up the full screen from Dmitry Medvedev?
Russia on Trump's World War II claim from former President and Deputy National Security Chair Medvedyev.
Our people sacrificed 27 million lives of their sons and daughters in the name of destroying accursed fascism.
Therefore, Victory Day, that's tomorrow, is ours, and it is May 9. So it was, so it is, so it will always be.
Well, I hope you have a great time celebrating.
If you come across Ray McGovern, who's there with you, give him a hug.
I'm trying to find where he's staying, Judge.
Maybe you'll know.
Chris may know, and he can give you that information after we get off air.
But give him a hug and a kiss, and I want a selfie of the two of you here together, and we'll post it.
We'll do it.
Thank you.
Safe travels.
God bless you.
Wherever you're going to be in a week, we'll see you next week.
Yes, and from Iran is very complicated.
I tried earlier this week and it didn't work.
All right.
We'll see you next week.
Thank you, my friend.
Coming up tomorrow at 4 o 'clock in the afternoon, Ray McGovern from Moscow, Larry Johnson from the States, the Intelligence Community Roundtable.
And if we can find him after the Intelligence Community Roundtable, Max Blumenthal.
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