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July 30, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:09
Pepe Escobar : Trump Foolishly Takes on BRICS.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, July 31st, 2025, my dear friend and longtime collaborator, Pepe Escobar, joins us now from the north of France.
I told everybody you were coming from the south of France.
It's just, it's equally as beautiful.
It is.
Welcome here, Pepe.
You're so good to give us your time.
We never know where we're going to find you, and you always respond.
You're always up to conversations.
Thank you.
Deeply appreciated by me, particularly since I've been away for a week.
It's a shame our paths didn't cross in Europe.
Next time we'll make sure they do.
Absolutely, yes.
And particularly the audience, which misses you.
Before I talk to you about Donald Trump's intemperate and ignorant remarks about BRICS.
I do want to talk to you about a couple of strange phenomena in the news this week.
Threats to President Putin, particularly two, one by President Trump and one by General Donahue.
President Trump, while seated next to Prime Minister Stormer at one of Trump's golf courses in Scotland, basically said, negative things about President Putin.
But if he doesn't stop the war in 10 days, I'm going to impose secondary sanctions on China and India or anybody who buys Russian oil.
The middle of the week is it's not 10 days, it's five days.
They have until Saturday to stop the war.
What kind of diplomacy is this and how does the Kremlin look at a threat like this?
First of all, it's not diplomacy.
Second, the Kremlin now, after over six months of Trump 2.0 in action, the illusions that they harbored, let's say the first 40 days, probably at the beginning of the year, they dissipated completely.
And it's crazy because now we come to the point where Trump and former president Medvedev are trading insults on social media, which is something completely absurd.
This is even during the Cold War, something like that never happened.
So the civility has disappeared completely.
Diplomacy, of course, civility, and we detect major desperation on Trump.
himself and his circle, which brings us to the whole hybrid war at different levels launched against BRICS, against Russia, against China, against India, and against Brazil.
Tomorrow is the famous day where the so-called 50% tariffs imposed on Brazil, they start tomorrow.
Wow.
But does Trump really think that the threat of a secondary tariff on China and India, as ill-advised as that is from an economic perspective, will actually have an effect on the Kremlin's military plans in Ukraine?
Absolutely not, Judge.
What would it take?
Would it take, for instance, a five-minute face-to-face between Trump and Lavrov could be in the sea where Lavrov in five minutes could explain the background to 2014, Maidan, the background to the SMO launched in 2022, and the Russian conditions to have a settlement with Ukraine.
Lavrov could do that in five minutes.
Nobody around Trump .2 is capable of doing it even after a week.
They don't understand the background or they don't want to understand the background.
They're clueless about the reasons for Maidan, for the SMO.
the whole offensive by diplomatic offensive by Russia at the end of 2021 trying to impart to DC let's have a discussion on indivisibility of security post-Soviet space Europe US everything it's impossible and Trump only reacts to sound bites or three minute three minute no three second mantras which is what's impregnated in his head Russia,
China, India, and Brazil, four of the four original BRIC before it became BRIC to South Africa, they are evil because they want to dollarize.
This is the only thing that registers in his mind.
Everything else is subordinated to it.
They are evil because they want to de-dollarize and I have to prevent that by all means necessary.
You're using the word de-dollarize.
Haven't they effectively done that already?
Don't they have an alternate system to SWIFT?
Not only one alternative system, Judge, several systems that are being tested.
It's what last year, during the BRICS summit last year in Kazan, that was the summit this year was in Brazil in Rio only two weeks ago.
They were already testing three or four different models, payment systems, coins, virtual coins, stable coins, you name it.
So, and now, as was announced by the Russian Minister of Finance, during the NDB, the BRICS Bank summit in Rio, parallel to the BRICS summit, he said, from now on, the NDB, which is a sort of, let's say,
the BRICS World Bank, let's put it this way, very, very straightforward, major loans and mega loans across the bricks sphere should bypass swift uh this is probably the only thing that register among the trump 2.0 uh camp and this is what they probably told trump look these people over there this group of countries which according to trump is not even formed yet according to one of his posts they want to de-dollarize but
the de-dollarization process is already starting among BRICS and among BRICS and the partners.
There are 10 BRICS members and 10 BRICS partners.
And increasingly, their trade is in their own currencies, national currency.
This is already de-dollarization in practice.
And he is an impetus for this.
Yes.
But he doesn't understand how it works, judge.
That's the thing.
And it takes, for instance, somebody like Sergei Ryabkov, the number two of the foreign ministry in Moscow, to say openly, and he said that the last time only a few days ago, We are not working towards de-dollarization.
Our priority is trade among us in our national currencies.
This is what he's been saying, Lavrov has been saying, the Russian finance minister have been saying since last year, even before the summit in Kazan last year.
All right, I wasn't going to play this for you because I saw how it upset you once before, but I have to play it now.
This is Lindsey Graham.
Again, threatening.
It's the same threat as you saw, but I got to get your reaction.
Threatening President Trump.
Chris got number one.
Putin, your turn is coming.
You know, Donald Trump is a Scottish Effler of American politics and foreign diplomacy, and he's about to put a whooping on your ass.
What's going to happen here is that Trump is going to impose tariffs on people that buy Russian oil.
China, India, and Brazil, those three countries buy about 80% of cheap Russian oil.
That's what keeps Putin's war machine going.
So President Trump's going to put 100% tariff on all those countries, punishing them for helping Putin.
Putin can live through sanctions.
He could give a damn about Russian soldiers.
But China, India, and Brazil, they're about to face a choice between the American economy or helping Putin.
And I think they're going to come pick, pick the American economy.
I spoke when I said threatening President Trump.
He's obviously threatening President Putin.
But what is he talking about that India and China would reject Russia when they are core members of BRICS?
He too doesn't know what he's talking about.
Ah, but that's of course.
Judge, by the way, why not bring Kevin Spacey in House of Cards?
He was a South Carolina politician, by the way, and a much better actor for that matter and much more believable than this thing over there, which has no clue, obviously, on how BRICS work.
And the fact that India, China, Russia, and Brazil, because of threats from the President of the United States, would instantly dissolve and act like Ursula von der Leyen when she met Trump.
Ursula von der Leyen said, can we have a tariff less than 50%?
And Trump said, no.
End of story.
The BRICS are not like that.
It's something that has been evolving since the late 2000s, throughout the 2010s, and now they have critical momentum and they have support all over the global south.
Is it not true that the gross domestic product of BRICS is greater than the GDP of the US?
It's not even close.
It's much greater than the GDP of the G7, Judge.
This is enormous.
Yes, this is enormous.
This is really the most crucial economic powers in geopolitical powers of the global south.
The only one that may not be included is Turkey.
But Turkey, of course, as we all know, with Sultan Erdogan, always hedging its bets.
And we have the 10 BRICS members and the 10 BRICS partners all together it's over 60 percent of global GDP it's it represents the global south in fact I have to play another threat for you this one equally as serious but a military threat by an American general I don't know if you've seen this General Christopher Donahue yes commands more American soldiers than anyone else all the troops in Europe and Africa.
And here's what he told a group of military folks in Germany last week.
Crest cut number 16.
If you look at Kaliningrad, There's absolutely no reason why that A280 bubble to deter Russia, we cannot take that down from the ground in a time frame that is unheard of and faster than we've ever been able to do.
We've already planned that.
you've already developed it.
This general is
all sorts of red alerts around this statement they are threatening live to take over Kaliningrad Can you imagine how this plays at the Russian Security Council in Moscow?
Obviously, the Russians are already prepared for it.
And Patrushev, a very important member of the Security Council, already alluded to it.
Narishkin, the head of SVR, Russian Foreign Intelligence, already alluded to it in the past few days.
So they know exactly these plans.
And of course, they have all sorts of Russian contingency plans to defend Kaliningrad, including, including Orychniks to the usual suspect.
I put this question to Professor Mearsheimer.
I said this would be like a Russian general saying we're prepared to take over the Aleutian Islands off of Alaska.
And he said, no, Judge, what General Donahue said is worse than you said.
It's worse than Nicole.
Because the Aleutian Islands are not in a war zone and Kaliningrad is close to a war zone and could easily be part of or trigger an attack on Kaliningrad World War III.
Absolutely.
This could be a casus belli from a Russian point of view for, I would say, employ the renewed...
This is Dmitry Slim's great game show today, 6.30 p.m. in moscow 11 30 aam here uh in new york and two of the questioners one was a russian general whose name i don't remember and one was the uh leader of the majority party on the floor of the russian uh duma and they were basically trying to say is trump serious is trump serious should we believe him i
don't know how to answer that i honestly don't know if trump is serious if trump is truly ignorant or if this is some sort of a game or an act or a ploy well uh okay i'm gonna going to venture into unknown territory here.
I wonder if Trump really understands the status of Kaliningrad and the fact that Kaliningrad is part of the Russian Federation.
I dare say he has no clue.
I think he has.
If we go back to Lindsey Graham for a minute, Senator Graham, for all of his loopiness, he plays golf with the president a couple days a week.
They sit alone in a golf cart and Graham gets to say whatever he wants to Trump and he's putting these crazy ideas in Trump's head.
Exactly.
And what Trump registers is these three-word mantras.
For instance, BRICS are attacking the US dollar.
It's the only thing that registers.
Or Putin doesn't want peace.
India is buying too much Russian oil.
These kinds of stuff are registered.
Or Brazil is prosecuting the former president Bolsonaro illegally.
All these things register in Trump's mind.
And that explains, among other things, this absolutely crazy 50% tariff, which should start tomorrow against Brazil.
But when you look at the list of exemptions, Judge, I was looking at it and it's completely crazy.
There's a list of hundreds of products that are exempted.
And that includes lots of important Brazilian exports to US like petroleum, airplanes, cars, air conditioners, furniture, steel, iron, precious metals.
and this is particularly interesting probably because of a lawsuit by the new jersey based importer johanna Foods, everybody knows it's the US, Brazil's third largest agricultural export orange juice is exempt from Trump's list.
So how stupid is that?
What the hell is he putting tariffs on?
Okay, as far as we can tell, the number one and two products are going to be Brazilian coffee and Brazilian beef.
But the Brazilians are not very worried about it because the whole planet wants to buy Brazilian coffee and Brazilian beef.
So they will find alternative markets to the American market.
So the actual 50% Trump tariff is actually 32.6%, which is still very, very high, but it's not all this.
And the craziest thing is that Trump justifies that by the Bolsonaro angle, which is a direct American interference into a domestic political problem in Brazil.
Yes.
It's completely crazy.
Three judges, three different judges have authorized that prosecution.
I don't know what the evidence is, but it must be substantial.
But whatever it is even if it's meager it's none of america's business of course not and the the evidence is very very serious judge written audio uh it's very very serious and bolsonaro is uh on the verge of being condemned, let's say, in the space of the next one to two months.
And that's how serious it gets.
And of course, his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who is in recess from Congress, he was lobbying in the U.S. around Trump 2.0 to impose these tariffs.
So he can be considered from a Brazilian point of view and natural to Brazil.
Did President Trump personally resolve the Thai-Cambodia border dispute as he has claimed.
As he advertised, I call Thailand, I call Cambodia.
There will be peace, but only after that we can talk about tariffs.
Okay, the real story, Judge, you know, in less than a minute, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim.
an absolutely outstanding statesman he was at the bricks forum in rio three weeks ago he brought both parties, Thailand and Cambodia, to Malaysia, Putrajaya, which is the administrative capital near Kuala Lumpur.
And in one hour, he broke a ceasefire.
And you know what happened in Shanghai yesterday, Judge?
China brought Thailand and Cambodia to Shanghai and Thailand and Cambodia reaffirmed, yes, we're going to fulfill the ceasefire that was brokered by Malaysia.
So this is ASEAN and China solving a Southeast Asian problem, not blah, blah, blah, I picked up the phone and I have a new piece to strengthen or whatever, you know.
Let me switch gears before we sign off.
Do you sense a growing realization throughout the world that Israel is engaged in genocide in Gaza and is using starvation as a weapon?
Absolutely.
The genocide has metastasized into a starvation.
extremely vicious starvation campaign.
Not even here in NATO stand, the space here, this can be contested anymore, except, of course, for the usual suspects of absolutely ghastly political elites and of course the unelected bureaucratic elite in Brussels.
Public opinion in France, in Spain, in Italy, even in the UK, they already know what's going on.
You just need to follow social media.
It's very, very simple.
And you see the starvation campaign in absolutely horrible the way it's being documented in detail by the few, I would say, extremely brave photographers that are still able to work in Gaza.
So, but what next?
next what is that what next yeah here is a clip from a retired american uh lieutenant colonel who was being interviewed by my uh former colleague and friend tucker carlson uh after his visit to gaza this is very it's only about 45 seconds i don't know if you've seen this is a very very compelling lieutenant colonel tony aguilar You've spent your life in combat zones.
That's why I think your testimony is so compelling.
Because you have a frame of reference.
You've seen a lot of destruction and a lot of killing in your life for 25 years.
How would you compare what you saw in Gaza to what you've seen in say Afghanistan or Iraq?
Nothing compares.
Nothing I have seen in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Baghdad, in Mosul, Sadr City, all through Afghanistan, Syria, the southern Philippines, some places where there's dense populations.
I have never witnessed anything as brutal, destructive, violent.
And I would say that that steps far over our international laws of how we persecute wars and how we engage in warfare.
We've long departed from that standard.
And America, America is a part of it.
That's the key, and America is a part of it.
America and the collective West, Judge.
We should never forget the European Union and the decisive mechanisms of the European Union in Brussels, plus the support of the capitals, Rome, Paris.
They are all guilty as well.
What has become of the Axis of Resistance?
Wow, this is a long answer.
It's complicated.
Okay, let's try a one-minute answer.
Hezbollah is reorganizing slowly but surely.
They are working on re-establishing the supply line, which sooner or later they will.
It's going to take a while, but they will.
Iran is ready.
The echoes of all our friends in Iran is if there is another Israeli-U.S.
attack, they will regret it bitterly.
First class support, diplomatic, indirect, and in some cases direct.
military-wise from Russia and China to Iran.
Iraq, the militias, Hasht al-Shabib, the PMUs, the People Mobilization Units in Iraq, they also reorganizing themselves and when Hezbollah is more or less reestablished they can re-coordinate with Hezbollah as well and Yemen of course they are the heroes of the global south Yemen all across the global south they are hailed as the real freedom fighters and
the absolute topmost example of moral clarity defending a brother people in Gaza from genocide and they are relentless.
What about the Turks?
Double game, triple game.
We don't know how to define it anymore because in terms of hedging his bets and Erdogan is looking at Syria and it's not exactly what he thought in the beginning.
By the way, we all know that the original Turkish plan was to take Aleppo, never to take the western part of Syria all the way to Damascus.
They cannot manage it.
They don't know what to do with it.
They don't know how to deal with this Salafi jihad around the former headshopper reconverted into president.
The problem is Arab monarchies and lowly Arab governments like Egypt and Jordan, they support the former headshopper and they support this dismembering of Syria and this destruction of Syria from the inside.
Not the Arab street, but these Arab elites.
This is horrible.
Absolutely.
This is one of the most horrible things of the 21st century, no question, the destruction of Syria.
McGregor may be right.
He says that's the place where World War III will begin?
It's a, I agree with the colonel in several aspects.
It could be.
It could be.
And if we look at the historical arc where Syria is involved in many absolutely crucial developments in world history, it could be.
And now we are seeing the destruction of Syria from the inside and the attempted destruction of Lebanon by the US.
The US wants to dismember Lebanon, destroy Hezbollah, and turn Lebanon into three or four stateless, in fact of course this is the sionist plan the us is just following the sionist plan it's it's absolutely horrible pepe no matter what we talk about your uh intellect your courage your sense of humor always makes it a delight you're so good you win the record far and away from joining us in the most exotic places on the planet
thank you though jeff sax is a close second jeff is everywhere literally yes thank you pepe all the best we look forward to seeing you next all the best thank you so much enormous pleasure and honor thank you Great man.
Boy, talk about a sense of humor.
I could talk to him all afternoon.
Coming up tomorrow at Friday, August 1st, 4 in the afternoon, the Intelligence Community Roundtable.
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