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June 10, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
22:06
Pepe Escobar : LIVE FROM MOSCOW: Expect Victory!
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Tuesday, June 10th, 2025.
Pepe Escobar joins us live from Moscow.
Pepe, welcome here, my dear friend.
I know you're there with mutual friends of ours, Larry Johnson and George Galloway and Sergei Lavrov and probably some others, and I want to talk to you about all of that.
Have you had a chance?
To put your finger on the pulse of Russian elites and Russian average folks and been able to come to a conclusion of how elites and average folks, you can divide elites into those around President Putin and those not, feel about the drone attacks last weekend.
Average elites, yes.
Average folks, not so much.
Because just to give an example to you, Judge, I spent the day today at this forum, 2050, where Errol Musk today gave a fascinating TED talk on rockets and time-space travel.
But, of course, before that, I met with a lot of people.
We can say they are part of Russian elites, diplomats, media people, think tanks, people that are related to the security agencies.
And it's a consensus.
We talked about it last week, and now it's even more of a consensus that it's over.
Now it's time to go for the kill.
And obviously, the Kremlin, they are very good at analyzing public perception.
Yesterday, I had a talk with somebody who circulates a lot in Moscow.
Everybody.
People talk about it in the metro, you know, in bars, of course.
That's it.
reach the limit.
And when you see President Putin himself talking openly that Trump And Lavrov yesterday, Lavrov yesterday at the panel where Larry was at the panel, it was one of Lavrov's best speeches in ages.
He was totally relaxed.
And at the same time, he was very, very forceful.
Basically, they are already contemplating, let's say, what could be the last stretch from this summer to, let's say, the beginning of next year, where the situation on the ground and the battlefield can change, can develop a lot.
And I was talking also with some of those Donbass commanders.
They come to Moscow a lot.
I was talking to one of them these past two days, in fact, and he reminded me of...
This is our way to Dnipropetrovsk.
We're going to be there in summer.
And guess what?
That's where they are now.
In the beginning of the Russian summer.
Let me ask you if you were present when Foreign Minister Lavrov said this.
Chris, cut number eight.
the Ukrainian side is doing everything possible but it would be absolutely helpless without the support I was tempted to say Anglo-Saxons but probably without Saxons just without the support of the British although you never know probably by inertia some US special forces would be involved in that but the British actually are behind all those things I'm 100% sure Were
you there when he said that?
And how do you read when he says 100% sure?
He must have intel to back that up.
Yes, he does, Judge.
And it's the first time that Lavrov explicitly in public says something like this, you know, without controversy, straight to the point, in fact, and even pointing to, Laterally, right?
And even allowing himself to play with Anglo-Saxons, but without the Saxons.
That was hilarious.
That's a lot of humor.
Why do the Russians think the British want to do this?
I mean, the British have their own nuclear weapons.
They know the rules of the game.
A nuclear power attacks a triad.
One of the three means of delivering nuclear weapons of another nuclear power.
That opens the attacking power up to a serious response.
I mean, as Scott Ritter said this morning, it certainly wouldn't be moral, but it would be legal if Putin wanted to attack London.
Scott is absolutely correct.
It would be legal.
And as we all know, Putin is extremely legalistic.
So this is how it was interpreted by Putin and by the Security Council.
Legally, they have every right possible to retaliate with the big one.
There's a lot of talk in Moscow and outside of Moscow about the famous big one.
It's not going to happen, but it becomes a meme in the Russian universe as well.
What we had so far, and these attacks in Kharkov, for instance, over the past 24 hours, is just the beginning.
Once again, nobody's in a hurry.
It will be calculated.
They are amassing a tremendous amount of firepower for this to go on for weeks.
In fact, not only days, but weeks.
And what Lavrov was saying yesterday, this was the second And Errol Musk was also on stage when Lavrov said that.
I'm sure Errol Musk was startled.
In fact, he's startled by everything that he sees in Moscow.
Today, I was in front of him when he was delivering this talk about rockets.
And once again, there was always an aside about how smart the Russians are.
How they have the best rockets, how Elon knew that the Russians have the best rockets, you name it.
So this contrasts relatively good spirits during the forum today and the seriousness of the decisions that Putin has already made, in fact, since the attack on the strategic bombers.
When you compound all that with the Brits saying, for instance, we are at war with Russia.
If the UK was at war with Russia, really, the whole of the UK would have been converted into an underwater parking lot.
Mr. Belgorod would be responsible for that.
So they don't even know what they're talking about.
It's pathetic.
Why do you think...
I mean, they're incapable of defending themselves.
The Ereshniks would reduce them to the Stone Age.
Exactly.
It's a Sherlock Holmes puzzle, George, really.
Even Lavrov, who knows the Brits very well and who knows British diplomacy very, very well.
Nobody has an answer to that.
Of course, if we go back to the atavistic hatred of the ruling classes in Britain vis-a-vis Russia, this is a process that even precedes the great game in the late 19th century.
That's one part of the explanation.
The other part is simply ignorance, which they think that they can mastermind something like this.
They were probably the number one organizers of this attack, with, as Lavrov said, maybe U.S. security agencies on the side, but the Brits were the main organizers of the whole operation.
If they can't sing, they can pull that off and there will be no drastic consequences.
What kind of world do these people live in?
What do your elite Russian friends think?
I feel about President Trump's denial of foreknowledge about this to President Putin, repeated as recently as just a few hours ago under oath in congressional testimony by Defense Secretary Hegseth.
We can get to the Defense Secretary in a minute, but does the Kremlin or do the Russian elites believe the Trump denials?
It's a very good question because there's an enormous interrogation mark about all that.
Like, you know, I took one of my best interlocutors and also source to have dinner with Larry, you know, two hours ago.
The best Italian restaurant in Moscow.
The best Italian restaurant in Moscow.
I'm sure Larry learned a lot from him.
And he told me afterwards that he learned a lot from Larry as well.
So the dialogue was, I would say, in terms of an educated dialogue of extremely well-prepared professionals, Russian and Americans on both sides, this was really top of the line.
And both were saying that it used to be like this.
And for a long time, it's not.
And this is something that we have heard over and over again.
I'm sure maybe, Judge, you heard from Lavrov himself when you came to Moscow a few months ago.
Lavrov was telling us, over a year ago, he was already saying, I don't understand why we cannot have an adult dialogue, at the time it was the Biden administration, with American diplomats and with European diplomats.
And he really misses it.
Lavrov is a pro of the business.
He's a consummate diplomat.
And he's used to sitting down with enemies, however you want to describe them, but have adult conversations.
And this has stopped completely.
Well, let me get back to Trump.
Do you think that Lavrov and company believe Trump's denials?
I mean, to believe Trump's denials means that the deep state did this on their own and they kept it from him and Trump has an ineffective grip on them.
Both options are absolutely horrible, Judge.
And they are gaining both options.
No question about that.
Especially SVR, Foreign Intelligence, and FSB.
Votnikov, the head of FSB, is an extremely wily guy.
And he's very influential with Putin as well.
They have secret conversation, let's put it this way.
They are gaming both possibilities.
And both look horrible for Trump.
Especially because Trump cannot admit one way or another.
But there is serious suspicion among well-informed circles here that this might have been rogue CIA.
And then, Mr. President, there's going to be an operation in Ukraine, but you didn't need to know all the details, just the essentials, so you can have plausible deniability later.
I would say this is the number one scenario circulating in Moscow.
So if that statement was made to him, it would have come from Tulsi Gabbard or John Ratcliffe, which means that they knew what it was.
Exactly, Judge.
I was going to ask you this question.
You already answered, in fact.
Wow.
There are only two characters that could be able to do that, right?
Well, here's a third who might have been able to do it, and he, of course, claims he knew nothing about it.
This is Secretary of Defense Hegseth under oath just a few hours ago.
Chris, as usual, the first part of cut number 11. Are we seeing the ushering in of a new era of warfare?
The use of drones from afar.
After all, these drones were smuggled into Russia, hidden for a great span of time, and then activated from 2,500 miles away.
Are we prepared, both defensively and offensively?
A daring and very effective operation that we were not aware of in advance and reflects significant advancements in drone warfare, which we are tracking in real time inside Ukraine.
Which we did not know about in advance.
I mean, he's the third member of that group, maybe Rubio.
So we have Gabbard, Ratcliffe.
I haven't heard from Gabbard or Ratcliffe.
You're suggesting they might have known.
Hegseth denying it under oath.
What do you think?
Judge, Hegseth under oath says that he didn't have prior knowledge about the operation, but he was following the operation in real time.
We already know that.
Oh, that's right, in another state He said he followed it in real time.
How could he have followed it in real time if he didn't know about it?
Exactly.
Wow.
I'm not sure this adds up.
And I'm sure our friends here at Zavar and FSB, which have analyzed this to death, hope it doesn't add up.
Wow.
We're going to replay the entire clip.
Are we seeing the ushering in of a new era of warfare, the use of drones from afar?
After all, these drones were smuggled into Russia, hidden for a great span of time, and then activated from 2,500 miles away.
Are we prepared, both defensively and offensively?
It was a daring and very effective operation that we were not aware of in advance and reflects significant advancements in drone warfare, which we are tracking in real time inside Ukraine and taking that feedback to help us better understand how we can better produce Tracking drone warfare in Ukraine.
In real time, yes.
In real time.
Is it likely they tracked this in real time, in which case they had to have known it was coming?
Was somebody waking up and saying, hey, Pete, go to your computer screen because the Ukrainians are attacking Russian aircraft?
Especially on a Sunday.
It was a Sunday morning in Russia where nothing happens usually.
Russia disappears for the weekend.
Usually Sundays in Russia are dead.
Nothing happens.
And I'm sure the Americans know that as well.
So nobody was particularly attuned to, oh, something's going to happen this Sunday morning.
Who really runs American foreign policy?
From a foreigner point of view, it's not the President of the United States.
I dare say.
Alistair says it's the loudest voices in Congress, plus the deep state, plus Israel.
Absolutely correct.
Absolutely correct, yes.
And when I lived in Washington, this was my assessment as well.
What I learned by living in Washington.
You learn that the President of the United States does not run U.S. foreign policy.
Absolutely.
How dangerous is this for Donald Trump and for the American people?
Donald Trump is trying to bring about a rapprochement between the United States and Russia, a reset on matters cultural, political, economic, and military.
And he's got rogue CIA agents participating in attacks on Russian nuclear gear.
I mean, how dangerous can this get?
And a very interesting judge.
My friend drove me back to my place after dinner with Larry, and he was terrified by it, by the tenor of our conversation for this past ten minutes.
He said, so this is true then.
So this is how it works.
And Larry had explained to him before, and then I continued talking to him and said, yeah, this is how it works.
And Americans are terrified about it.
Can you imagine Russians, which are now being targets of such operations?
And this may not be the first, or the last one, sorry.
How aggressive and how quickly do you expect the Russian response to be?
Or let me restate that.
They've characterized the special military operation as an anti-terrorist one.
Not yet.
Sorry.
Not yet officially.
Okay.
So my question is, is President Zelensky and are his senior generals a fair game?
They will be the moment that Putin legally, and he has to go through the Duma before.
He goes through the Duma, the Duma approves, and then we switch from SMO to CTO.
Counter-terrorist operation.
Then, of course, the whole SBU-GUR combo is fair game.
And we are approaching the moment.
And will that happen?
It will happen.
The conversations that I had this week, yes.
It may take, for instance, very, very interesting.
Next week, Judge, the plenary session of the St. Petersburg Which is going to be next Friday.
Putin will be there.
So all of us will be there, obviously, because he might talk about the possible transformation of SMO into CTO.
So I can imagine that during the whole week in St. Petersburg, people will be completely obsessed by what's going to happen at the plenary session next Friday.
Wow.
Pepe, I can't wait to talk to you again after you have a chat.
Yes, I'll be there, Josh.
All of us will be there.
Thank you very much for your time.
I know it's the middle of the night where you were, and I know you cut short a fabulous dinner with Larry.
I hope they're still at the restaurant and you can go back there.
No, Larry was taping something in the street.
All right.
Pepe, fascinating stuff.
Thank you so much.
All the best.
Thank you so much.
Always a pleasure.
We'll see you next week also from Russia.
See you next week from St. Petersburg.
From St. Petersburg.
You got it.
Thank you.
Cheers.
Wow.
What a wonderful individual for whose presence on this show.
I'm deeply gratified.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, at 8 in the morning, Professor Gilbert Doctorow.
At 11 in the morning, Colonel Doctorow.
At three in the afternoon, Dan McAdams from the Ron Paul Institute on, do we still have a constitution?
And at four in the afternoon, Ian Proud on what I was just discussing with Pepe, why Britain wants war.
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