July 15, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
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| Hi, everyone. | |
| Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. | |
| Today is Tuesday, July 15th, 2025. | |
| Professor Gilbert Doctorow will be with us in just a moment on what are the new pressures on Vladimir Putin. | |
| But first, this. | |
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| Professor Doctorow, welcome here, my dear friend. | |
| Thank you for joining us. | |
| Are European businesses expanding munitions factories, factories that manufacture hard weapons? | |
| Well, they definitely are. | |
| And this was featured in the weekend wrap-up program of Mr. Kisolev, the head of Russian state news, on his Sunday evening program. | |
| He had some very interesting comments on the expansion of various corporations, which have factories in half a dozen countries across Europe, which are expanding their physical plant employment and so forth. | |
| Here in Belgium, we had a former Audi factory, which is being converted to munitions production, because the Audi pulled out and we had a magnificent property in central Brussels, which will now be doing munitions. | |
| This is the easy part of it. | |
| What we look at when you hear about increasing munitions, and this was precisely what the message of the Russians in Mr. Kisriov's program, that, oh yes, they're preparing for a war. | |
| Well, the two things that you need for a war. | |
| One is the hardware. | |
| The second is the software. | |
| You need the people. | |
| And that's where the whole thing will break down in Europe. | |
| But as regards factories, yes, of course they're being added to. | |
| It's very easy to raise money, particularly in Germany, by taking out loans and giving long-term contracts and promises to the arms manufacturers who were shy of taking on commitments when they had no long-term purchase procurement agreements with the German government. | |
| That's all changing as we speak. | |
| And therefore, the private companies that sell arms to the government are ramping up. | |
| It's all true. | |
| What countries are doing this besides Germany? | |
| I have a few more questions about Germany, but I just want to get big picture. | |
| Are munitions companies in Belgium, France, Italy, Great Britain, Spain? | |
| Probably not, but you tell me. | |
| Several in Scandinavia. | |
| I believe Norway is quite active in this, perhaps Sweden. | |
| But as you mentioned, France, Germany, of course, is the lead. | |
| Italy and Great Britain. | |
| These are the main actors or culprits in the preparations for World War III, yes. | |
| Scott Ritter, whom you know and who's a regular on this show, warns of a German Fourth Reich. | |
| You agree with that? | |
| Is German militarism marching forward steadily under Chancellor Mertz? | |
| Well, yes and no. | |
| The end result is not so different from what Scott Rudy is describing, but how we get there is different. | |
| The point is, and I think my colleague Ray McGovern is the first one to say this, that in Germany in particular, conformism and silence in the face of government propaganda is the dominant issue. | |
| This goes back 10 years. | |
| Ray painted a picture yesterday on this show of German reticence, meekness, and silence, which was terrifying. | |
| If we're at a point where the Germans, like in 1932 and 33, are afraid to speak out against their government, and it's a minority government, like in 1932 and 33, where are they going? | |
| This is not new. | |
| Conformism has been a major feature in a number of countries in Europe. | |
| I traveled with business going back in the 1980s. | |
| I traveled to Sweden very often. | |
| And conformism was unbelievable. | |
| Everyone hated the prime minister. | |
| I was in a company that had a lot of engineers, and they knew that his socialist practices were destroying the engineering universities of the country. | |
| It was only when Olaf Palmer was murdered at a lunch table in the company's canteen, I heard from my colleagues, oh, I finally got the bastard. | |
| They never said a word earlier. | |
| So, conformism is not a new issue in Europe. | |
| And in Germany, of course, 10 years ago, in 2015, I attended as a participant the Schlangenbad conference or dialogue, which is an annual event sponsored by the think tank of the socialists, the Social Democrats of Germany. | |
| And I assure you, conformism was the order of the day. | |
| And anybody who had made a peep that was out of line with the company or with the government policy was really made miserable and sent crying. | |
| So it's not new. | |
| But unfortunately, what is new is who's at the top today? | |
| And Meritz is at the top. | |
| And Meritz, as I've said earlier, is the most dangerous German leader since Hitler. | |
| Well, Meritz is an investment banker by trade. | |
| So now you're telling me that the banks will make long-term loans to these munitions factories because the munitions factories have or are about to get and demonstrate the existence of long-term contracts with the government. | |
| Where is the government getting this money from? | |
| From the banks? | |
| Can the German government print cash like the U.S. government does? | |
| Does it sell bonds? | |
| Does it raise taxes? | |
| What does it do? | |
| Well, it can't print cash the way the U.S. government does because it's not sovereign in that domain. | |
| It is subject to the rules of the European Union and the European Central Bank. | |
| But it can take out loans. | |
| It can issue bonds. | |
| And German credit is quite good. | |
| So I don't think the German government has any difficulty in raising this billion, or sorry, trillion euros that Mertz was talking about. | |
| And they will do it, and they will finance increased military production. | |
| However, what this means for a World War III, what it means for confrontation with Russia, is not what it looks like. | |
| As I've said before, at a certain tipping point, if Europeans should present a million-man army ready to invade Russia, and it should have all those wonderful tanks and other military equipment that the Germans are ramping up to have ready for 2029, the Russians will be using tactical nuclear weapons. | |
| No question about it. | |
| So I don't think that Europe can ensure its security by following Mr. Merz's lead into preparation for a war. | |
| Well, then, other than the commercial activity, which might please Chancellor Mertz's former business partners, what is to be gained by this? | |
| German's domination of Europe. | |
| Germany's domination. | |
| This was Well, the French are giving him a little run for the money. | |
| It was Bastille Day yesterday, and Mr. Macron came out and said that he is raising the French appropriations for the defense budget, speeding up the date for doubling the 2017 military budget to 64 billion euros, which is considerable, but it's still about 30% less than the German military budget. | |
| The military leadership of Europe was never in German, I mean, in post-World War II, was never in German hands. | |
| The French were left to do all the talking about diplomacy and military matters. | |
| They were the nuclear power in Europe, together with Britain outside of Europe. | |
| Now, the Germans have just taken that claim of being the new military leaders. | |
| That's a big change within Europe. | |
| I find it hard to imagine that the other countries, Holland, for example, will go along with this. | |
| That's why they fought World War II. | |
| The Swedes, this to me sounds ridiculous, but I'm waiting to ask you about it since I read it. | |
| The Swedes announced a proposal, the Swedes, to raise their maximum draft age from 47, I can't believe you can get drafted at 47, to 70. | |
| Are they serious about drafting men and women at 70? | |
| Well, I guess they are. | |
| That's what they're declaring. | |
| And why not? | |
| They do have women now serving in the military. | |
| This is all, in practical terms, it's nonsense. | |
| This will not save Sweden from being overrun. | |
| This will not save any European country from being destroyed by the Russians. | |
| It's only a means of those who are presently in power of holding on to their power by claiming that there is a dire threat that the country faces, and we shouldn't change horses midstream, that old logic. | |
| It's a grab for power, nothing more. | |
| Is all of this in Europe generally and in Germany specifically putting pressure on President Putin to engage in a preemptive attack, not against people, not against the military, but against the munitions plants? | |
| There is such a logic within Russia. | |
| Of course, the political analyst Kavagamov, going back two years now, was calling for Russia to demonstrate that red lines mean something and that Europe has to be awakened from its bubble psychology, | |
| from its irreality, to understand that Russia is a very serious country and cannot be dealt with the way they have in the last 10 years or so. | |
| But the pressure on Mr. Putin, I think, is a little bit different from what you're describing. | |
| The pressure on Mr. Putin was just applied by Mr. Trump yesterday. | |
| And I'd like to spend a little bit of time on that because I think it's Very, very significant. | |
| Well, it was my next question to you. | |
| This circuitous route, CIA somehow getting this gear, maybe they already have it, selling it to Europe, selling it to Kyiv. | |
| Is this nonsense? | |
| Is this window dressing? | |
| Or does the Kremlin perceive this as serious and troublesome? | |
| Well, I subscribe to what Colonel McGregor was saying on your program yesterday. | |
| I think all of this preparations of so far unnamed military hardware, along with the Patriot air defense system, will ship it all. | |
| This is utterly useless. | |
| It will not change the course of the war in any which way. | |
| The fact of the matter is they can ship all the tanks they want, all the Bradleys they want, and they are just ignoring the facts on the ground. | |
| They're ignoring why the Russians are now using aerial bombardment as their principal means of furthering their cause in the war, rather than ground forces, which are continuing, of course, but the real effort is to blast Ukraine flat. | |
| Why are they doing that? | |
| Because the new age of drone warfare has meant that you don't have tank battles. | |
| You don't even use the tanks out in the field. | |
| You hide them in the forest because otherwise a drone will finish them off. | |
| Same with the Bradleys. | |
| They're completely vulnerable to attack drones. | |
| Therefore, they can ship from the States, from Europe, all the tanks they want, all the hardware they want to Ukraine, and they'll just be hidden in the forest somewhere. | |
| It will not change the stand of the Ukrainian forces versus the Russian forces. | |
| Now, what Mr. Trump did was important in a different domain. | |
| The raising the or restarting shipments of arms to Ukraine, that's all good to shut up his critics, like Lindsey Graham and the others, the other crazies in Congress. | |
| They have to hear that, yes, we're continuing, we're using the Biden, the Biden-approved budget and allocation of weaponry to aid Ukraine. | |
| They're hearing that. | |
| He will not change the war in any which way. | |
| They are hearing that we are going to impose new sanctions, new tariffs, secondary tariffs. | |
| They heard that yesterday from Mr. Trump, Mr. Lindsey Graham, and his other 81 senators who more or less have been promoting such sanctions in a bill that's now in Congress. | |
| They can be happy that President Trump has agreed to that principle. | |
| They can be very unhappy with the timing, the 50 days. | |
| And there I see the real message to Mr. Putin. | |
| And it's the same message that the same Donald Trump gave to B.B. Netanyahu when in the early days of the Gaza campaign, he told Netanyahu, just get it over with. | |
| Do what you have to do and finish it up. | |
| The 50 days that Mr. Trump gave to Vladimir Putin are the same thing. | |
| Vladimir, finish it up. | |
| And if Mr. Putin pays close attention to the intent here, and if he listens to the patriotic Russians who are saying, Mr. President, finish it up, then in 50 days, it will be ended. | |
| Is there, again, you've anticipated my next question, is there pressure from within the Kremlin or the people around President Putin to finish it up ostentatiously and effectively? | |
| Ostentatiously is a risky thing because that is inflammatory. | |
| I don't think that he wants, that Putin or his circle want to do anything that will so embarrass Trump that he has to respond irresponsibly. | |
| But where is the pressure coming from? | |
| The whole country. | |
| I think every Russian family now in their dutches, if they're talking politics at all, which is not very likely, but if they should be, of course they want the war to end as soon as possible. | |
| And now that it's no longer primarily a battle on the ground, but is very heavily an air battle, the glider bombs, the swarming drones, | |
| the hypersonic missiles, now that it's reached that level, it is technically possible for Russia to demolish the Vekhovna Rada, the presidential administration, one or two Adyshniks, and they're gone. | |
| And Ukraine will crumble. | |
| I think there are a lot of people around Russia who would like to see that happen. | |
| Is one of them Vladimir Putin? | |
| Not yet. | |
| Mr. Putin is a very cautious man. | |
| He's a lawyer by profession, and that has many pluses and it has a few negatives. | |
| Whether he can be persuaded to do what I just said, not because I'm saying it, but because I'm sure he's hearing it from a lot of people, he has context to grassroots. | |
| That is one of the unique features of Russian democracy, how well Mr. Putin is plugged into what people are saying. | |
| I hope he listens to them. | |
| Do Moscow and Beijing, as far as you can ascertain, fear Trump's threat of secondary tariffs? | |
| I don't think for a minute. | |
| As regards India, of course, it's going to be tricky. | |
| But as regards China, Xi and his foreign minister made it clear when Akayakalis visited, I think, a week ago, in preparation for the EU-China summit two weeks from now, he made it clear that under no circumstances can China allow Russia to suffer a humiliating defeat because they know they will be next. | |
| He said this openly. | |
| So the notion that they would bend the knee, kiss the ring of Mr. Trump is utterly excluded. | |
| Besides, they already demonstrated who has the upper hand in the tariff war with the United States. | |
| Agreed, agreed on everything you just said, but this undercuts the argument that Putin would take seriously Trump's 50-day warning. | |
| I mean, who the hell knows where Trump got 50 days from? | |
| Did Putin say, I need another 50 days in the phone call, or did Trump just pull that number out of a hat? | |
| No, I think he looked at the Russian war plans. | |
| We are now in a big summer offensive. | |
| And in 50 days, the summer is over. | |
| That's the logic of it. | |
| Now, Mr. Trump's deadlines tend to get pushed back in an opportunistic way. | |
| So I don't think it's just 50 days. | |
| It'll be as long as needed for Putin to finish the war. | |
| But the big pressure on Putin is to finish the war. | |
| And if he, you know. | |
| No, go ahead, please. | |
| If the threat is not so much these sanctions, which really nobody can take seriously, certainly with respect to India and with China, it is just Mr. Senator Graham who could consider this as something that you can operate, that you can work. | |
| It can't. | |
| But we do know that Mr. Putin wants to have normalizational relations. | |
| Mr. Trump wants to have normalization of relations. | |
| And so there is the real pressure point. | |
| This was not said by Trump because he would face a storm of criticism on Congress if he ever said that openly. | |
| But the reality is he does want these relations because of the need to cooperate with Russia on various international issues, Iran being just one of many. | |
| And so Putin will try to accede to this time schedule simply for the sake of moving on to a detailed with the United States. | |
| Scott Ritter, whom you know and who appears here regularly, opined by comparing the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian military to a patient in hospice waiting to die. | |
| Do you think the Kremlin, perhaps and not that terminology, shares that view? | |
| I doubt it. | |
| I mean, they're the ones who are fighting, not Scott Ritter or me or you, and they know very well the determination of the Ukrainians. | |
| They are the same political, religious culture as the Russians are. | |
| They are very patriotic. | |
| They are prepared for self-sacrifice for the fatherland, which sounds fine, but try to find a country in Europe where that would obtain today. | |
| It won't. | |
| The Russians and Ukrainians are that type of people. | |
| And under these circumstances, the Russians have to respect the Ukrainian army, even if they don't respect the Ukrainian government. | |
| Professor Doctorow, a pleasure, my dear friend. | |
| I will be traveling and coming close to where you are, but not exactly where you are. | |
| We would have arranged to have a meal together, but we'll be back at the end of the month and we'll look forward to seeing you then. | |
| Thank you very much. | |
| I look forward to that as well. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Coming up later today, in fact, if you're watching us live in just a half an hour, at 11 o'clock this morning, Aaron Mate at 1 this afternoon. | |
| Professor Glenn Deason at 3 this afternoon. | |
| Professor John Mearsheimer at 4 this afternoon. |
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