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May 8, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
33:23
INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap 9-May
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Friday, May 9th, 2025.
It's the end of the day, the end of the week.
It's our favorite segment, the Intelligence Community Roundtable, with Ray McGovern, who's coming to us from his hotel in Moscow, and Larry Johnson from his usual location.
Gentlemen, welcome here.
We have a great deal to talk about, as usual.
Let's start with Victory Day in Moscow, Ray McGovern, which I'm sure received extraordinary adulation, rightly so, and extraordinary coverage in Moscow, but barely a peep over here.
Tell us what you saw, and we're going to put up a picture of you where you're two people away.
There you are.
And the gentleman over your left shoulder with the sunglasses is Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia and the now deputy chair of Russia's National Security Council, just to show you how VIP-ish you have become, Mr. McGovern.
I don't know how you got those seats, but God bless you.
What did you see?
What was it like?
Well, first of all, I don't think if I were not with Oliver Stone, we would have gotten such good seats, in all honesty.
It was quite impressive.
It was a really good show.
President Putin made a pretty emotional speech.
It was short.
It was not sweet.
But it was reasonable.
In other words, here's the way he started out.
Comrade soldiers and sailors.
Sergeants and sergeant's majors, midshipmen and warrant officers, comrade officers, generals and admirals.
Notice the sequence there.
Notice the priority given to the simple soldiers.
That caught my eye right off the bat and sort of set the tone.
He talked about the defeat of Germany.
It could not have happened without the...
Combined efforts of the Allies.
Wow.
Combined.
Is he talking about the US?
Well, here's what he says.
We will never forget that the opening of the Second Front in Europe, which took place after the decisive battles in the territory of the Soviet Union, that this Second Front hastened victory.
And we highly appreciate the contribution made to a common struggle by the Allied armies, members of the resistance, and the courageous people of China.
Here's Xi Jinping sitting right to his right.
Now, he says that we'll continue to look up to our veterans and we'll take their example and we will give those traditions and this great heritage, and it is a great heritage at the cost of 27 million killed.
We'll give this great heritage the biggest place in our hearts and pass them on to future generations.
Putin is fixed on future generations.
I could say a little bit more about that when he addressed the same youth forum that I did on Wednesday and I did last Tuesday.
It's very interesting how he comes across to the young people and how he cultivates this need to pass along traditions and pass along History, really.
The real history, not the history that's coming out of the White House, I'm afraid to say.
Larry, the real history is that whatever you think of FDR politically, whatever you think of Churchill, they both stated clearly the Russians won World War II.
Churchill used a phrase like, the Russian military ripped the guts out of the Wehrmacht.
The United States does not remember.
Yeah, it's stunning when you compare.
Russia inflicted 80% to 85% of the casualties on the German army.
The United States with the British allies, 15%.
The Russians lost combined between military and civilian casualties.
KIA, killed in action.
During World War II, they lost 20% of their population.
Almost 21%, actually.
That means one in every five Russians died in that war.
Compare that with the United States, where one-tenth of one percent died in the European theater.
189,000.
We lost 110,000 in the Pacific.
And then there was another 134,000 counted as World War II casualties because they died while wearing a uniform, but they got into a fight at a bar.
They were run over by a car.
They got sick.
So the actual combat casualties, the United States suffered virtually nothing.
And it is outrageous and disgusting for Donald Trump to make this This claim that, oh yeah, we won it.
We were at best spectators.
I mean, in terms of the actual battles fought.
And that is not to take away from those who served and those who lost their lives.
But for God's sake, we need to put it in proper perspective.
The only other country that came close to suffering losses like Russia was China.
And so here are China and Russia sitting together.
You know, a lot of people say conventionally that 60 million people died in World War II.
Well, between Russia and China, 47 million Russian and Chinese died.
Wow.
Put that into perspective.
How significant, Ray, to the national psyche is remembrance of sacrifice and collective patriotism?
Central, central.
Central is the right word.
You know, there is fact.
There are no alternative facts, as Trump's first White House spokesman used to talk about alternative facts.
There's no alternative history.
Now, the thing that surprised me, there was no recrimination.
This was a celebration.
Here's Xi Jinping, here's Putin, here's what...
Larry just mentioned about history, and they're not criticizing the Allies.
They say, oh, we're grateful for their help, you know?
They helped open the Second Front, and even though we had the major battles, they helped, and we're very happy about that.
They're trying to pass along not a hateful history.
They're trying to pass along an accurate history, and when the White House comes out with strange things like...
Alternative history, then the whole world ridicules that appropriately.
Let me cite this one little Q&A.
On Wednesday, when Putin addressed this youth forum, Ms. Nanya was the outlet, he had a long Q&A as usual, about two hours, okay?
And then this woman, Victoria Agapova, she said, "My great grandfather, he was disabled, but he saved a whole platoon of disabled people by Putting up a mock soldier, drawing Nazi fire on it, and saving the rest of his comrades.
And so Putin, this was interesting.
So Putin, I would have expected him to say, oh my, well, thank you.
We didn't say that.
What's your source for that?
You know, once you're an intelligence officer, you want to know the source.
And she said, my great-grandmother.
Well, how'd she know?
Well, that was her husband, and that's my grandmother.
Oh, okay.
And then he went on to say, and this is really interesting.
So it was your mother's grandfather.
Yeah, right.
Okay.
My mother told me stories about the war.
We barely survived the hunger and the blockade of Leningrad.
So here's what she said.
Or what happened to me was my relatives passed this letter from my grandfather during the war.
He wrote it to his son who was at the front.
The letter was an account of how my grandfather's wife died with a bullet in her stomach.
And as she was dying, she says, look, don't cry for me.
Don't worry about me.
What's important is that we win.
And here's what Putin says on that.
This is very important.
It refers to a quality many people have, regardless of nationality, including Russians.
Now, that's not a man beset by nationalism.
That's a man who understands human life, okay?
So he says, look, this is what I want to tell you.
Everybody feels this pain, and this is the payoff here.
At the end of the letter was a nice postscript.
Great grandfather to son.
Smash those bastards!
Sounds like Larry Johnson wrote the postscript.
And here's Poochie's final remark.
I took this letter, and I was an adult, okay?
I had 20 years of intelligence experience, and I didn't expect to learn anything new.
But when I took this letter and began to read it...
I suddenly looked at those past events in a different way.
I suddenly felt the fabric of those events.
I changed.
This must be passed on.
So what they're trying to do is remind people what war is like.
They know that the Americans don't really know what war is like because they have two great oceans between major powers.
But they don't ridicule that.
They say, this is what it was like for us.
We're grateful for your help.
And let's carry on now.
I thought it was a magnificent speech for what it lacked.
And what it lacked was a lot of acidity or a lot of criticism of this terrible stuff going on in the West.
It's not only a magnificent speech.
You've given a magnificent summary.
And I'm sure these are memories you will not soon forget.
Larry, Donald Trump was invited to attend.
He could have attended.
It would have been another Yalta.
He could have stayed for a week and negotiated with Xi and Putin.
Instead, Xi and Putin negotiated the following.
It's rather brief.
I'm going to read it.
It's the Russian Foreign Ministry summary of what Xi and Putin agreed to.
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 chaotic situation.
Almost all foreign trade transactions between Moscow and Beijing are being carried out in national currencies.
P.S. We don't need SWIFT and we don't need the dollar.
President Putin announced plans to significantly increase bilateral trade between Russia and China by 2030.
Well, you know, there's a lot that Trump didn't do that he could have done.
Could have sent J.D. Vance.
He could have sent...
Pete Hanks said.
Could have said some U.S. official U.S. representative to say, hey, we care.
Trump is really, he's a fraud in this regard because he's pretending like he really cares about commemorating the date.
The actual date of the surrender was 8th May as far as the United States and Europe was concerned because the surrender went into effect at 23...
100 hours and one minute in Central European time.
Well, in Russia, that same hour means it's one minute past midnight.
That's why Russia celebrates it on 9 May.
The rest of Europe celebrates it on 8 May.
So what did Donald Trump do on the 8th of May?
Did he hold a ceremony at Arlington Cemetery to commemorate those who died in the Battle of Europe?
Nope.
Did he go and hold a ceremony at the World War II Memorial?
No.
So like I said, he's playing with this.
He's not serious about it.
Because if he was actually serious and cared, he would have done something like that.
Instead, petty and juvenile and deliberately staying away.
From what was a magnificent parade.
I stayed up to watch it, Ray.
But May 8th, 1945, in the United States of America, 80 years ago yesterday, was one of the greatest and most jubilant days in American history.
We all saw those pictures of people going crazy on Times Square.
I was there!
You were there.
God bless you.
I wasn't born yet.
Larry, I don't think you were born yet either.
No, no.
But Trump and his people should have commemorated it.
Why didn't they?
Because it would have drawn attention to May 9th in Moscow?
No idea.
Just safer to avoid it because, you know, the alternative facts just have a very short, short life.
And having already said we want it all by ourselves, you know.
Ridiculous enough, I think they decided to cease and desist.
You know, one thing, Judge, the tectonic shift in relations now, there used to be this triangle, right?
US, Russia, and China.
It was manifest at that celebration.
I think Trump could have got himself invited there if he made the right concessions, but he wasn't able to do that or didn't want to do that.
But here you had Russia and China.
I used to watch Sino-Soviet trade.
In 1964, it was $200 million.
This year, it's $250 billion.
You do the math.
That's a good symptom of where this has gone, and it's not going to stop unless Trump and other people sort of wise up and say, "Look, the world has really changed." We are on the short end of this triangular stick, so to speak, and we have to guide ourselves accordingly, not as though we could be hegemons forever.
Two days ago, the Trump administration dispatched General Kellogg to go on to Fox News.
And claim the Russians are not winning the war.
This will aggravate the daylights out of the two of you, but I have to play it.
It's only 38 seconds.
Chris, cut number 16. Better go back and read The Art of the Deal.
You know, when he said to be willing to walk away from a bad situation.
And I think you see us telling both sides that.
But the ones who are going to be hurt by that are not the Ukrainians.
It's going to be the Russians.
Because the Russians are not winning this war.
If they were winning the war, they'd be on the western side of the Dnieper River.
They're not.
If they were winning this war, they'd be in Kiev.
They're not.
They'd be in Odessa, and they're not.
They wouldn't have lost combined forces when you talk about industrial-strength killing.
The losses are over one million killed and wounded on both sides.
And so when people say he's winning the war, if he just comes to an agreement right now, ceasefire in place.
I think then he said, okay, he kind of accomplished everything that he may want to, and just stepped back from that.
Does this general have any idea what he's talking about, Larry Johnson?
Well, I just looked at Roger Stasaris.
They've added the new synonym for idiot, imbecile, ignorant.
Okay?
I mean, this guy's divorced from reality.
And to think that he was a general?
Maybe, well, actually, this explains.
People like Kellogg explains why the United States has not been involved in a military victory against a peer opponent since World War II.
Heavens, we haven't even been able to beat the Taliban.
We weren't able to beat the opposition, the Syrian insurgents.
And in Iraq, I mean, it goes on and on and on.
So what Kellogg is saying right there reflects...
Part of the problem is once you hold a perception and act on that perception, it limits your ability to see any alternatives.
It's like getting tunnel vision.
Here's what troubles me, Larry, is that this guy's whispering into the president's ears.
And the president's people, he couldn't go on Fox News without their consent.
The president's people are dispatching him to say this.
Why?
Are the neocons prevailing?
Ray McGovern?
Yeah, the ones that tell Kellogg what to say and what to do, they're prevailing on Fox News.
Tulsi Gabbard and others with their heads screwed on correctly are also whispering in Trump's ear.
Now they are saying, "Hey, don't buy Kellogg's cornflakes.
They're all soggy and they're all alternative." All alternative facts, okay?
So just realize that.
Now, the interesting thing here is that what Kellogg is saying is what Bill Burns, the head of the CIA, told President Biden to say in July of 2023.
The Russians are not winning.
As a matter of fact, they're losing, and their losses have made manifest.
The ineptitude of the Russian military forces.
Hello?
He said that in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
He had no doubt told Biden, and Biden said it in Helsinki in a major speech.
So, you know, they're not dealing with reality.
Unfortunately, they're going to have to deal with it.
Fortunately, Putin is not rubbing their face in it.
He's going to attrit, attrit, attrit, and he's going to go at his own pace.
And in the analysis, Trump has got to make some sort of moves in Putin's direction, or it's going to be just a pig with no lipstick on.
Larry, switching gears, is there evidence that Donald Trump has finally had enough of Benjamin Netanyahu?
Yeah, actually, I think there is.
One, Alistair Crook's wife, Asleen, is reporting it out of the Hebrew press.
The fact that it's appearing in the Hebrew press is a pretty accurate indicator of what's actually being said in Israel.
On top of that, the Israelis are miffed, really upset that Trump cut this deal with the Houthis and didn't consult them.
But then the real tell, That there is some truth to the split between Netanyahu and Trump was Mike Huckabee's comment where he basically said, we don't have to consult with you, Israel, if we're going to pull out of Yemen.
That's none of your business.
I was like, whoa, there's Mr. Uber Zionist himself telling the Israelis to butt out.
Here's Mr. Uber Zionist himself.
Saying, oh, the United States is going to bring food supplies to Gaza.
It's long, but it's worth watching.
What he says at the end will irritate the daylights out of you and everybody watching.
But what he says in the beginning is 180 degrees from what he said last week.
I guess he got a talking to from the White House.
Cut number 22, Chris.
All of you are aware of the fact that President Trump has made very clear that one of the most urgent things that needs to happen is humanitarian aid.
into Gaza.
The first is that food be distributed efficiently, but also that it's distributed safely inside Gaza to the people who desperately need it.
The other factor, and this is an important one, that all of this be done in a way so that Hamas is not able to get their hands on it, because they'd rather take any supplies that go into Gaza and use it for their own nefarious purposes rather than to see There have been some news reports that are wholly inaccurate that have said that this is an Israeli plan.
I want to say the Israelis are going to be involved in providing necessary military security because it is a war zone.
But they will not be involved in the distribution of the food or even in the bringing of the food into Gaza.
Their role will remain on the perimeter as is necessary to make sure that those who are bringing the food in and who are distributing the food The Israelis are supportive.
Any allegation that the Israelis don't care about humanitarian aid is absolutely false.
They care very much about humanitarian aid getting into Gaza, but they also care very much that Hamas doesn't steal that aid.
That is shared by the president and by all of us at the United States, because we truly want this to be a humanitarian effort.
Well, the second part was the old Larry, the old Mike Huckabee, the one who justified the use of just two weeks ago, justified the use of food, denial of food as an instrument of war.
The first part.
He's just saying what he's been told to say.
But if what he's saying is true, Larry, against the wishes of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the thugs around him, the United States of America is going to bring food to the starving people of Gaza.
Yeah, well, we know over the last year, last two years, almost two years, number one, the Israelis have been murdering aid workers.
You know, people providing food relief.
And they've allowed the settlers to attack aid convoys and destroy the food.
So this is actually a pretty sharp rebuke to people like Smotrich, Mezalil Smotrich and Ben-Gavir.
This is Trump actually standing up to the most extreme elements of the Zionist crowd.
Because, you know, I think his friend Steve Witkoff, although a Zionist, is not of that ilk.
And he's not one to indulge or even accept that kind of behavior.
So this, you know, I hope he pulls this off.
Because, you know, part of it, I think part of the motivation is he's headed to Saudi Arabia and to visit some of the other Gulf Arabs.
And I'm sure that they've sent the message that if you want to come here, be welcomed.
You better get some aid into the Palestinians.
Otherwise, forget about it.
Israeli Army Radio.
This is from Alistair Crook's wife.
Sources close to Trump informed Ron Dermer, we all know who that is, that the U.S. president has decided to cut off contact with Netanyahu because Netanyahu is manipulating the U.S. president.
Those close to Trump informed Dermer that Trump hates nothing more than to appear Like someone is manipulating him.
So, Ray McGovern, Trump's ego versus Netanyahu's deception, which will prevail?
Judge, I don't buy it.
Trump has made deals like this with rhetoric.
At one point, Biden, when he was too...
Too meek and timid to ask Netanyahu to let those damn trucks in.
Oh, we'll build a wharf.
We'll build a wharf.
And it worked for about 20 days and it got nothing in there, okay?
Now, I doubt that this is more than rhetoric.
I don't see it as more than rhetoric.
I hope that I'm wrong.
Now, the Gaza genocide...
Is the moral question of our day.
When I had a chance to speak to that youth forum, the same one that Putin addressed the next day, I was talking about Russian grief and American grief at war, but I also showed a picture of April 25th, 1949, where Russian troops and American troops met at the Elbe River in Germany.
Two weeks before the end of the war.
We all finished on that note.
Then I said, I'm sorry, I have to say something else.
This is really not very well connected, although I hope that when Xi Jinping and President Putin get together and major other forces, other visitors, that they can do something about this.
But the moral question of our day is stopping the genocide that my government is enabling.
And I'm sorry about this, but I have to say this, and I just hope that the leaders that meet today to figure out some way to stop it, because it's the worst thing that's happened since World War II.
We ought to mark that and we ought to stop it.
Now, I said that in every major dinner, minor dinner, and in that major speech.
I just hope it happens, but it's going to take more pressure from the likes of us to say, look, this cannot stand.
We have to stop it.
Before I ask you about the Houthis, Larry, the Jewish News Syndicate, I'm not sure what that is.
Their headline is, is Trump really turning his back on Bibi and Israel?
Don't bet on it.
Well, that's your theory, Ray.
We'll see where it goes.
There obviously is some movement.
If Huckabee made that statement about food getting in.
Larry, why did we stop bombing and killing civilians in Yemen?
Why did the U.S. stop?
Apart from the fact that we were going bankrupt in the process, you know, having lost, let's see, a grand total of 22 drones, three FAA-18 aircraft over the course of, you know, I think we can believe that the Omanis brokered
this agreement between the United States and the Houthis, and this is all tied up as well with Trump's trip to the Middle East.
You know, I think there was some back and forth where Trump was informed, you're not going to be welcomed with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf unless you bring an end to this.
And the first start is stop bombing the Houthis.
And so Trump dresses it up, you know, does the Marilyn Monroe as a pig routine, puts the lipstick on the pig, puts on a blonde wig, trots it out and said, we won!
They capitulated.
The same way that the North Vietnamese capitulated on April 30th, 1975.
When the United States declared victory and left Saigon.
Trump declared victory and left the Red Sea.
Well, it was, you know, the Houthis, they didn't capitulate.
And in fact, they launched missiles again today into Tel Aviv.
So there's something bigger going on here because it's not just isolated with the Houthis.
This has to do with the broader outlines of potential peace with Iran.
And maintaining decent relations with the Gulf Arabs.
Ray, Mrs. Crook, who is fluent in Hebrew and surveils, even though she's Irish, and surveils all the Hebrew press, reports that Trump's people have said to Netanyahu's people, the fighting has to stop in Gaza.
Before the president goes to the Middle East, now he's going to the Middle East pretty soon, I think in about a week and a half.
Do you believe they would make a demand of that nature?
I think it all depends on what Netanyahu would tell the president.
Netanyahu is in such terrible straits domestically that unless he has a change of heart, you know, a bold fuss, he's not going to change his mind on that.
He's going to say, look, just give me a couple more weeks.
Otherwise, he ends up in jail at that bridal suite that he will share with his wife.
It's that personal and it's that simple.
You know, I'm not up on the latest with respect to Yemen, but the original clause was the Yemenis saying, "Look, you're starving our brother Palestinians.
You let the food in or we don't let the ships in." How does that stand now?
Are the Yemenis letting ships into the Red Sea, headed to Israel?
I just don't know the answer to that, but it seems to me key.
Yeah, and Judge, by the way, Trump's trip to the Middle East, he leaves tomorrow, I believe.
Yeah, so he's supposed to be there by Monday.
So I don't know.
He leaves either tomorrow or Sunday.
And he's not going to Israel, right?
No, no.
And in fact, Hank Seth was originally scheduled to go to Israel.
Now he's joining Trump on this trip and is not going to Israel.
So there's actually some symbolic messages being sent to Netanyahu like, you know what?
You're not our BFF anymore.
He's not having a good weekend, but who knows how.
How this will end up.
Ray, you're coming home and you'll be back with us from your usual perch on Monday?
I'll be back, hopefully bright enough to be with you, and I'm counting on it.
I'm looking forward to it.
Matter of fact, let me just say this.
When you all came back from Moscow and talked about how many people approached you at Red Square and elsewhere and said, oh, Larry Johnson!
Well, it happened to me, too.
So now I know it's real.
I mean, I didn't doubt you for a second.
It's happened all over the place.
Sochi, today on Red Square, today in the Metropole Hotel.
It's amazing.
A lot of people are watching you.
Maybe, well, lots of people in Russia.
And I can attest for that.
Personally now, having been approached so many times.
Maybe they're watching in the West Wing and in the State Department and learning lessons they don't want to hear but will take to heart.
Gentlemen, thank you very much.
Always a pleasure.
Safe travels, Ray.
Larry, have a great weekend.
We'll see you both on Monday.
Thanks, George.
Thank you.
And on Monday, of course, at 8 in the morning, Alistair Crook.
At 10 in the morning, a sleepy...
Ray McGovern at 11.30, as usual, back to his regular perch, Larry Johnson, and probably one or two of our other guests on Monday afternoon.
Thank you for watching.
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