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June 30, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
25:05
Ray McGovern : Will Putin Negotiate With Trump?
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, June 30th, 2025.
Ray McGovern joins us now as he usually does this time and this day every week.
Ray, a pleasure, my dear friend.
I want to talk to you at some length on President Putin's willingness to continue his dialogue with President Trump.
But before we get there, can we get to the bottom of this totally obliterated thing?
Did the U.S. bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran totally obliterate their nuclear capabilities as President Trump as recently as yesterday and Secretary Hegseth as recently as Friday have continued to insist?
Judge, I hate to contradict presidents of the United States, but this is not the first time for me.
The answer is no.
He's ranting and raving, and it was very unwise for him to say totally obliterated.
I noticed the gentleman with the blue suit said, well, you know, I mean, this is not my call.
The F4 head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, well, yeah, that's the intelligence.
You know, the interesting thing now is what the intelligence community will do.
Will they totally fold and say, oh, yeah, it was totally obliterated, but we're not sure about where that 60% uranium is.
How will they handle this?
Because the gauntlet has been thrown down before them.
They have been faithful uniquely since 2007 in saying that Iran is not working on a nuclear weapon.
Enretro, that's different.
So this is a diversion, a nuclear weapon.
And until the Supreme Leader says, all right, the fatwa is reversed.
Now we're going to work on a nuclear weapon.
That's the key thing.
And the enrichment sort of matters, but not that much.
The other thing that the President and Secretary Heg Seth have been saying, and the guy in the blue suit, who's the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not, is that Iran was, quote, weeks away from a deliverable nuclear weapon.
Now, you and I are not scientists, but we both know the difficulties of having nuclear capability, having nuclear enrichment, having a nuclear weapon, and having a nuclear weapon that you can deliver.
Was Iran just weeks away again, as the president and the Secretary of Defense have been claiming for the past week?
No, and the intelligence community, as I said, stayed steadfast on that.
You know, Tulsi Gabbard testified under oath to that back in March, and that was, as I say, since 2007, their judgment.
Now, and you have to say now, what is Iran going to do?
It all depends on whether the Supreme Leader decides to say, okay, we're going to go ahead.
Why does that matter?
Because, you know, it takes a long time to work on a nuclear weapon and the IAEA is no longer going to be in there monitoring all this.
So that matters greatly.
In other words, even Bill Burns, who was not really good for telling the truth, two weeks before he left office, he said, oh, and besides, I want to remind you, Iran's not working on a nuclear weapon.
And we would discover very quickly if they started.
Well, one of the ways to discover is from the satellites, but the other way is, oh, these damn cameras all over the place monitored by the IEA.
That ain't going to obtain anymore.
And so, you know, it's going to be really hard to say, well, no, they'll take another year or a couple of weeks.
But we have no indication, no indication so far that it only takes a couple of weeks.
And for Tulsi Gabbard to suggest, well, yeah, to obfuscate enrichment with building a nuclear weapon, you know, I'm really sad.
She disappoints me day after day.
Has she caved?
Well, you know, really, really, the Donnie Brook is there.
I mean, she's challenged the deep state, for God's sake.
I mean, there are lots of reasons to get her.
I mean, she said James Comey, the former FBI director, should be in jail.
Oh my God.
Well, that's throwing down the gauntlet.
Will she survive that?
I don't know.
So there are lots of reasons to get rid of Tulsi Gabbard, and she should recognize that.
She should go out flaming and say, look, I'm not going to play this game anymore.
It doesn't look like she's going to do that.
So what is the rest of the intelligence community going to do?
DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, has uniquely stood firm on key aspects like Ukraine.
A year after the overturn of the government in Kiev, the head of DIA testified.
He said this, look, the Russians are really concerned that this regime change is just the first stage before regime change is attempted against Russia.
That's what the Russians are afraid of.
Whoa, that's, of course, exactly right.
What happened to him?
Well, he was let stay a few months, but then DIA was cut out, cut out of the Russia gate business.
In other words, and this is important.
Sorry to go on like this, but DIA had the purview over the GRU, the Russian Military Intelligence Department.
Okay.
The GRU was accused of hacking into the DNC emails.
Now, when they did this assessment published in January 2017, they forgot to include DIA.
Why?
DIA tells the truth.
And it was CIA, James Clapper, the DNI, and NSA that made this profound judgment, which has been proven conclusively to be wrong.
So DIA is a little idiosyncratic.
We'll see whether it survives this go-round because, as I say, the gauntlet has been thrown down.
Here's the president yesterday insisting Iran was just a few weeks away from having a bomb.
He doesn't use the word deliverable, so I'm not sure exactly what he means.
It's a political statement, not a technical.
It's not a Ted Postal-like or Jeffrey Sachs-like statement.
It's a bomb bastard.
But here he is yesterday, Chris, cut number three.
They had three main sites, and we knew they're going to have to either give them up.
And I thought we could do it during negotiation, and we just about had it done.
And then they said, we want enrichment.
Enrichment doesn't mean like air conditioning, and it doesn't mean to jack up your car.
Enrichment is a bad word.
And I said, you got so much of it.
What do you need that for?
And they said, well, we need it.
We need it.
And I wouldn't let that happen.
I think people wouldn't have understood it if I allowed that to happen.
So we had a 60-day talk, and that delayed them a lot.
And then we said, let's go at it.
And it just worked out.
And we wanted to work out also for Iran.
They were beaten up.
And so was Israel and all friends.
They were both very tired.
We call it the 12-day war.
That was an intensive war.
But the thing that I wanted to do, and I've said it on your show, if you look back 30 years ago or 25 years, we've been doing your show a long time and nobody like you.
But you look back at the early interviews, I would say Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
They've wanted this for years and they were weeks away from getting it.
Okay.
There you have it, Judge.
If they cannot have a nuclear weapon, they're weeks away from getting it.
He may honestly believe that, but is there any basis for that belief?
No, there's the conflation between enrichment, which is allowed.
It was even allowed under the JCPOA, okay?
Now, Iran has enriched at a higher percent than it needs for its medical and other facilities.
It's up to what, 60%.
That was a bargaining chip, for God's sake.
That was a danger, right?
Now, the weapon is not to be conflated with the enrichment, because the weapon is able to produce.
I say, you know, the intelligence judgment, I'm just thinking this through here.
That was based on the fact that we had IAE inspectors combing through all their laboratories and all their centrifuge places.
We don't have that anymore.
So, you know, I don't know how long it will take, but we do know that even Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that it will take a reverse by the supreme leader, a reverse of his fatwa, his religious edict to say, look, we Iranians, we Muslims, don't do that.
It will take a reverse of that.
And that will become very clear.
What we don't know right away is what happens inside these places where the IAEA is no longer there with its cameras.
Wow.
Did the IAEA become a Mossad asset?
You know, whether it is if we have terminology.
Is that a term of art, Ray, in the intelligence community?
Maybe I'm using the wrong word.
Well, asset is one, but we learn one category is an agent of influence.
Okay.
That is, you don't pay him, right?
You don't control them, but you have lots of stuff on him.
I don't know what they have on Grossi.
Maybe he just tries to ingratiate himself with the fellas he thinks are going to win all this, but he's been awful.
I mean, not only on these kinds of things, but on chemical.
The person you're referring to is the head of the IAEA.
Right, yeah, and has been for a long time.
And his people on chemical warfare have been even worse than on nuclear warfare sort of things.
In other words, you know, talk to Aaron Matei about how gross he grossly exaggerated some of the findings they had there.
So, yeah, he's poison.
Whether he's an asset of Mossad doesn't matter.
He's an agent of influence, to be sure.
And remember that he made this fudgy judgment on the basis of the board of directors controlled by the West the day before Israel launched its attack on Iran.
I mean, how transparent is that?
What do you think the international implications or consequences are of the United States Trump bombing Iran?
Well, I think that, you know, to the degree people believed anything that Trump said before, that's pretty much washed away by anybody who's been awake for the last couple of weeks.
Now, they're all afraid of Trump.
My God.
So am I. So are the Russians.
And that's why the Russians are drawing a distinction between what's going on in Iran, Israel, what's going on in Ukraine, and what's going on at a higher level in their continuing attempt to develop a good relationship with Trump.
I've said this before.
I'll say it again.
I don't know exactly why, but they've put supreme value on this.
And they've been saying, look, these other things are subordinate.
Even Peskov, the presidential spokesperson, look, you know, we know about all this stuff, but we have higher priorities here.
And we hope to continue the dialogue.
We still think, says Peskov, that Trump is sincere and we can work with him on Ukraine.
Now, one other word on Ukraine.
Nobody's mentioned this.
I checked this out with Jeff Roberts, who's about the best on these kinds of things.
He's been watching NATO communiques for longer than I have, if you can imagine.
Okay.
And I said, look, Jeff, if you can imagine, go ahead.
I said, look, Jeff, am I missing something?
The last communique said that Ukraine had an irreversible path toward membership in NATO.
And there were maybe 36 mentions of Ukraine.
And this one, there are three mentions of Ukraine.
And not a single iota a mention of its irreversible path to NATO.
Is that significant, Jeff?
He says, you got that right, Ray.
And what else?
What else did I ask him?
I said, oh, yeah.
Jeff, tell me this.
Ever since 1917, the U.S. has had pride of place as the Glavnivrank, okay?
The main enemy of the Soviet Union and Russia.
We lost that preeminent place just last month.
Who is it now that occupies that?
Germany.
A very, very reputable opinion poll.
It's not even close.
The U.S. has lost its Glavli Vrag status to Germany.
I said, Jeff, is that significant?
He says, it sure as hell is.
Now, I'm going to Germany with Elizabeth Murray, and we're going to try to ask the Germans, are you proud now of being a Glavli Vrag?
Or do you think maybe you have some hesitations about this?
And we'll try to explain some other things to the Germans.
We have a golden opportunity because all kinds of people working for us now, setting up very good events in Berlin, in the Frankfurt area, and elsewhere.
We can talk about that later if you wish.
Wow.
It's interesting what you say about Germany.
Here's Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday condemning France and Germany.
Cut number one, Chris.
Recently, Macron and German Chancellor Merz wrote a joint article titled, Europe Must Arm Itself.
Russia is the main threat.
It is waging imperialist wars.
In 2008, it invaded Georgia.
In 2014, Crimea and Donbass, and in 2022, the entire territory of Ukraine.
Putin's goal is to undermine European security.
I think that just these quotes alone are enough for anyone who has at least some understanding of what is happening in Europe and follows current events to realize that these figures have completely lost their sanity and are openly trying to return to those times when France and Germany wanted to conquer all of Europe, especially the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
Especially, you know, the recent statement by Chancellor Murs is particularly unacceptable where he said that Ukraine must be made strong and that Europe should not fall for Russian tricks like calls for negotiations, because otherwise Europe will be repeating the experience of the 1930s when the leading European powers decided to appease the aggressor in the form of Hitler's Germany.
Right now, I think this is a very serious, very serious issue, and without clarifying it with Europe, further dialogue is pointless.
Dialogue is pointless.
How do you read that, Ray McGovern?
Further dialogue with the coalition of the braindead is fruitless.
The braindead, those would be Macron, Mautz, and Stahmer.
Dialogue with the United States, for some reason, is exempt from this opprobrium and will continue.
That's the big deal.
I copied a certain other excerpt from what Lavrov said yesterday about increased expenditures by NATO.
He said, you know, raising the military budgets in Europe will result in the catastrophic collapse of NATO.
And Russia is now going to reduce its military expenditures in 2026 by 6%.
So who is preparing for war?
We or NATO?
End quote.
Question mark.
I mean, hello.
It's so transparent.
I think the Europeans are not completely brain dead.
I think that they'll see the light and there's no possibility in my view or in the view of people who know a lot more about this than I, that the 5% figure will be reached anytime soon.
If it is, then the catastrophic collapse of the Europe we used to know, which took care of all its people, namely the people who are in need of social benefits, that will collapse sooner than we think.
Professor Glenn Deason, whom you know, opines that the 5% figure is illusory, that in fact they're just playing budgetary games.
So they will say, all right, we're going to repave a new highway or we're going to rebuild a bridge outside of London.
I'm just making this up as a hypothetical to demonstrate Professor Deason's point.
We will put those expenditures in the defense budget, even though they're not the acquisition of military gear.
Why?
To please Donald Trump or to dupe Donald Trump.
Well, you know, there was a deal made with the NATO summit.
Trump wanted to win.
He got 5% in 10 years.
Where's Trump going to be in 10 years?
I don't know.
So big deal.
He made a success.
In return for which, he prevailed on the Europeans to stop this stupid stuff about Ukraine.
Okay.
It's not going to get a NATO, and we're not going to put that in the final communique anymore.
So it was sort of a deal, the kind of deal that Trump likes, illusory, but looks really good on the 5%.
The real deal was: look, we're out of here with respect to Ukraine.
We're not even going to say the things we used to say about Ukraine's path to NATO membership.
Do you agree with Alastair that the West has been engaged in the long war to weaken BRICS, to subvert Iran, to isolate China, to neuter BRICS?
Where's that war going these days?
Well, that's what is eventuating here.
I'm sort of a current intelligence analyst, so I look at the immediate outcome here.
I didn't expect the U.S. to be mousetrapped into joining Israel.
I didn't expect Trump to make a fool of himself by claiming a total obliteration.
So all these things evolved in such a way that, yeah, Iran being a key member of BRICS now is going to have an effect on this whole thing.
And if Putin had any doubts about turning east, well, there are few doubts now, except, as I say, this is really idiosyncratic, despite all this.
He puts a primary emphasis on continuing to dialogue with Trump.
Why?
Because he trusts Trump?
No, because Trump is his ticket out of Ukraine.
You know, I found out one other thing from a fellow named Simplicius who just published this.
And what he said was this.
What he said was, look, we know why Zelensky is not pulling civilians out of places like Sumy.
Okay?
He told his Russian you, it's on tape.
He said, look, if there are a lot of civilians in Sumi, then there's a lot less chance for Puchin to rocket attack Sumi.
So let's keep them in there.
And I don't want to evacuate them because, you know, they're our safety.
Well, what does that say?
That says there's a lot of truth to the fact that the Russians really look at the Ukrainians, especially those around Sumy, who are Russian stock mostly, as Slavs that they don't want to kill.
Okay.
So they're not bombing civilian structures like Israel does or like U.S. sometimes does.
And, you know, as here's Zelensky admitting, look, the best way we can save Sumy, at least for a while, is leave the civilians in there for God's sake.
And then the Russians will be more careful about devastating the place.
That speaks volumes from Zelensky's own mouth.
I wanted to mention that because I steal things from everybody, including Simplicius.
You're a good man, Ray.
When are you going to Berlin and who are you speaking to?
Right after the 4th.
And what's scheduled for being in Berlin toward the end of that week.
Meanwhile, we'll be in and around Frankfurt and Koblenz and other places.
And it's nicely filling in our events.
We were a little late planning because the funding didn't come through until just last week, but we're off and running now.
I'll mention one thing.
In Berlin, this just happened yesterday.
There's a very, very prestigious group of scientists that look at preventing unexpected or unintentional nuclear war, okay?
And they're really concerned about AI.
Make it automatic and we all perish is what they're saying.
They did a big list on almosts, like almost here, almost.
Now, I was on active duty with the CIA for three of those almost catastrophes.
And I said, look, I can talk about those from personal experience.
One was the one in November of 1983, Abel Archer.
Another was another one right before that.
The context was important because all this came after Reagan said Evil Empire and KAL 007 was shot down, killing almost 300 passengers on the Labor Day weekend of 1983.
I was there.
I was briefing Reagan's principal national security advisors, and I know what happened, and I know what my friends did, my honest friends, in persuading Bill Casey, mind you, to go down to the White House and say, look, knock off these high-level participation at Abel Archer, because the Russians are afraid it's the real thing.
They've got their tactical nukes on the tarmac.
For God's sake, tone it down.
And the NSC did tone it down.
So those are little vignettes that I can import from my personal experience at this one venue that came up out of the blue just two days ago.
Well, we'll see you again before that trip, and we'll see you from Germany.
We'll see you at the end of the week with Larry Johnson.
Thank you, Ray.
All the best, my friend.
Thank you, Judge.
And the aforementioned Larry Johnson will be here at 11.30.
At 3 o'clock this afternoon, Scott Ritter.
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