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July 31, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
27:31
INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern : Weekly Wrap 1-August
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Friday, August 1st, 2025.
It's the end of the day, the end of the week, our favorite time.
It's the intelligence community roundtable with my dear friends and colleagues, Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern.
Larry Ray, welcome here.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for the double duty, as always.
Larry, let me start with you first.
In the past hour and a half, President Trump announced the deployment of two nuclear submarines, quote, to an appropriate location, close quote, in response for some what I think was ridiculous and childish social media spat that he had with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.
What is your take on the propriety or impropriety of such an announcement by the president?
He's pushing us closer to nuclear war.
It'd be one thing if it was just this, in isolation, you could say, yeah, you know, Trump just, he didn't get his nap today and, you know, he's a little groggy from, you know, because of that.
But within the last week and a half or two weeks, the United States redeployed to England nuclear bombs that had been withdrawn previously as a sign as a sign to the then Russians that, okay, yeah, we're serious about de-escalating.
So now that we've deployed those, and on the back heels of that, you had this General Donahue, who is the commander of U.S. UCOM, the European Command, talk about invading, capturing Kalinograd very, very quickly.
So in fact, and you yourself, you were on Dmitry Stein's show, I think, yesterday or the day before.
And the generals were expressing genuine concern.
Like, what the hell is this?
Yes.
What is Trump trying to do?
Are they serious?
If, you know, if Ray or I were back at our old jobs and the Russians were doing stuff like this, we'd have to say, you know, Mr. President, you've got to be prepared that the Russians may be preparing to attack.
I'm going to play the clip of General Donahue.
And then, Ray, I'm going to ask you to tell us what is Kaliningrad and what is this guy talking about?
But this is the commander of more troops than any other four-star in the military.
Colonel McGregor has some choice words for this guy and his background.
We don't need to get into that now, but he's addressing a group of European and American military leaders, and he threatens to put American boots on the ground.
My question to you after you see this is, A, what is Kaliningrad and where is it?
And B, Ray, could he possibly have made a statement of this magnitude without the knowledge and consent of Secretary Hegseth and President Trump?
Chris, cut number 10.
If you look at Kalinograd and it's, you know, you can argue back and forth, but it's about 47 miles wide, surrounded by NATO on all sides.
There's absolutely no reason why that A2AD bubble to deter Russia, we cannot take that down from the ground in a timeframe that is unheard of and faster than we've ever been able to do.
We've already planned that.
We've already developed it.
Ground, Ray, already planned, already developed.
So first of all, what is this place and where is it?
It's up there near the Baltic states in Poland.
It's what they call an exclave.
In other words, there's no ground connection with Russia proper, an ex-clave, they call it.
And so it's really hard to defend if anyone tried to take that seriously, what Daniel is saying.
Is it Russia?
Yeah, it's part of Russia proper.
It's a leftover from World War II.
And, you know, there are agreements that allow Russia to supply it.
And it's never been a problem.
And so here's an artificial stoking up of a place where Russia is particularly vulnerable.
And now we have the president saying he's going to send two nuclear equipped or nuclear capable aircraft carriers into the area.
You know, as Larry said, if I were advising President Putin, I would say, look, you have to go to a DEF CON, whatever it is.
You have to increase the level of your alert system because God knows what this guy's going to do.
And that's the nub of it.
Trump is the fly in the ointment.
He's totally unpredictable.
He's under great pressure from the Epstein stuff.
And he's being fought back against by the deep state and the media and Democrats, of course, for this revelations of how they tried to sabotage his election and then his administration the first time around.
So there's a lot of reason why he should be upset, but Derange, no, Derange is something that the Russians don't really like.
I imagine there are Tenter hooks.
I imagine Putin is calling Trump and saying, look, this is serious stuff.
Let's talk.
Larry, the week began with President Trump at his golf club or one of them in Scotland seated next to European or to UK Prime Minister Sir Kir Starmer threatening President Putin.
If the war isn't over, it used to be 50 days.
Now I'm only giving you 10 to 12.
By midweek, he had reduced it to five.
So he's basically saying if the war is not over or a ceasefire isn't entered by tomorrow, Saturday, August 2nd, he, Donald Trump, will force Putin's hand by imposing secondary sanctions on anybody that buys Russian oil.
Can Donald Trump successfully intimidate Vladimir Putin?
Will this threat change the Russian military strategy in Ukraine one iota, Larry?
No, I, you know, I think the Russians are starting to view Trump like an annoying horse fly at a picnic, something you just have to sort of swat away and try to ignore.
The threat of sanctions against Russia have, you know, there's zero, zero effect.
You and I have seen that personally.
Yeah, it's just Trump has no leverage there.
China and India, while there are some reports that the Indian refineries have stopped processing Russian fuel, I guarantee you what's going to go on.
This stuff's going to go into what we would call a black market.
It's not going to be easily recorded or easily identified.
So all of Donald Trump is doing is seeing how much he can alienate even countries in the world, which we previously thought were our friends and our allies.
He is, it's the most erratic, reckless behavior I've seen in any president, including Joe Biden.
And I really think that Trump is suffering from some serious mental decline.
That is, you know, he's able to mask it up to a point.
But I liken it to, you know, I'm sure we've all had an elderly relative who is when they got into like their last years, they would start boarding out, you know, expletives and say things in a very crude and rude way that they never would have when they were in sort of their normal state of mind.
And I think that's what we're seeing with Donald Trump.
Before I jump to Ray on a similar topic, Senator Graham, of all people, threatening President Putin, you got to see this.
Larry, what is your take on General Donahue?
In accordance with military protocol, could he have made a statement of that magnitude without the knowledge and consent of the Secretary of Defense or even the president?
No, no.
He spent too much time at altitude without enough oxygen.
That's the only other explanation I could give.
Here's the other thing, Reg, is that if Hegseth and the president wanted to explain that Donahue didn't really mean what he wanted, they could have.
So the Russians have to accept that as the plan, so to speak, crazy as it is.
I mean, Trump is non-compass mentis with craziness attached, which is doubly dangerous than Joe Biden, for God's sake.
And I never thought I'd hear myself say that.
Chris, gentlemen, watch this.
Did you know that Donald Trump is going to whoop Vladimir Putin's ass?
Not my words.
A quote from the senior senator from South Carolina, Chris Cutton.
Putin, your turn is coming.
You know, Donald Trump is the Scotty shuffler 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 the American economy.
This may be the crudest, but I don't know which is the most reckless: Trump's threat of Putin, General Larry General, Donahue's threat to land troops, or this craziness from Senator Graham.
Yeah, well, this is reminiscent of the character that George C. Scott played in the movie Dr. Strangelove.
Right?
I mean, it's absolutely, I mean, it's absolutely, at least I think George C. Scott won an Oscar for that.
So maybe Lindsay should be up for it.
Look, I read an article earlier this week and it had two fascinating charts.
It showed that in the year 2000, the country that was the majority trading partner with most of the world was the United States.
Today, as of 2024, the country, which is the majority trading partner of the 75% of the world, is China.
Completely role reversal.
Donald Trump is acting like we're back in 2000 when the United States did have some dramatic leverage with other countries.
But what's taking place now, like with these tariffs he put on China, we used to be a major exporter of pork and soybeans to China.
In just the space of three months, cut off, and China's buy-in from Russia and Brazil.
Because you know what?
We don't have a monopoly on pigs.
We may have a monopoly on pig-headed politicians, but not a monopoly on pigs.
You're on a roll, Larry.
God bless you.
Ray, a group of Republican senators have offered, has offered legislation to authorize the Pentagon, subject to the president's discretion, to distribute another 54 billion with a B dollars in military equipment to Ukraine.
I guess the Joe Biden days are back.
Well, 54 billion.
Well, that's about a quarter of what we've already given them.
That's a lot.
Correct.
You know, last time this happened, it was two years ago.
And I watched that Senate, that Senate session, where they were talking about giving, I think was over $150 billion or 50 billion more to Ukraine.
And every one of those senators said, now, look, remember, that money is staying here.
I mean, in our districts, it's going to be spent on our weaponry.
So please, please understand this is not giving money to Iran or to Ukraine.
Now, you know, that was so cynical.
There was only one senator, Chris von Holland from Maryland, that didn't say specifically that.
So the game is up.
The game is very, very transparent.
The military industrial complex is profiteering on all this stuff.
Even the Europeans are now supposed to buy our weapons at our prices and give them to Ukraine.
Give me a break.
I don't know if Congress will approve another 54 billion.
Do you, Larry?
No, no.
I don't see them.
There are only a few that are getting paid off by Ukraine.
How much longer can Ukraine last, Larry, whether this 54 billion passes and Trump signs it or not?
Well, actually, I think that's one of the reasons you've seen the change in Trump's tone on this.
That previously he was being assured, oh, yeah, you know, this isn't going to end anytime soon.
But now, in light of the significant military advances that Russia is making in Donetsk, this particular, they just captured, finally captured the city of Chazafyar.
And then there's this other city called Pakrovsk.
The relevance of those is, they're not the same size, but let's think of them as Washington and New York City in terms of a defensive line.
That's a critical place.
And when you capture those, all of a sudden, the Ukrainians are in a desperation mode.
Top that off with the fact that almost every single night over the last two weeks, Russia is hitting Ukraine with more than 500 drones and dozens of Iskander or Kinsal missiles, hypersonic missiles.
Ukraine doesn't have an answer for it.
It used to be, if you go back a year, two years ago, Russia might do this like once every two or three weeks.
Now they're doing it every night.
They've now got the productive production capability.
So Ukraine's ability to survive militarily, I think they genuinely could be, it could be over before the end of the year.
Larry, I'm having a flashback here.
I think it was less than three years ago that the director of national intelligence said to the world that Russia was running out of ammunition and weaponry and didn't have any indigenous capability to replace their great losses on the battlefield.
Do you mean to tell me that Joe Biden was being misinformed?
And do you mean to tell me that Trump is true when he talks about hundreds of thousands, millions of Russian casualties?
I mean, where is Trump getting his information from?
Well, actually, we now know thanks to Cy Hirsch.
So, Scott, Cy wrote an article where he quoted this intelligence official telling him that the Russians had 2 million casualties.
And so, I reached out to Cy said, Cy, you're being fed what my brother Ray McGovern calls male bovine excrement.
And Cy was, oh, no, no, no, no.
These are reliable sources.
I said, I'm not saying he's not a reliable source.
I'm just telling you, he's lying to you.
So, I did produce an article which spelled out exactly how many soldiers the Russians recruited and signed up under contract in 2022, the same for 2023, same for 2024, same for the first six months of 2025, and can show you without a doubt that the Russians have deployed to the field a grand total of 2,500,000 soldiers roughly in this last three and a half years.
If they had 2 million casualties, they wouldn't have the 700,000 soldiers they have in the field now.
It just doesn't, so they're lying.
Even the CIA stenographers, aka journalists, and editors at the Washington Post said a million Russian casualties.
It can't be anywhere near that.
I can't imagine that the Russians have lost 100,000 killed, Larry.
No, they probably had about 120,000 killed.
That's from a group called MediaZona.
What they've done is they've tracked the obituaries that show up in the Russian press.
And if we take, you know, the conventional combat, it usually says there's a one to four ratio, one killed, three to four wounded.
So if you take that, that means Russia could have suffered a total of 600,000 casualties.
I think that's possible.
But the difference is they're signing, they're signing up enough people every month that their military is growing in size in contrast to Ukraine, which is shrinking.
And then Russia's got every advantage with armor, armored vehicles, artillery shells, fixed-wing aircraft, rotary wing aircraft, fab bombs, missiles, drones.
There's not a single area in which Ukraine has a military advantage.
I want you to watch, you may have seen this elsewhere, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Aguilar on Tucker Carlson earlier this week, Chris Cut number 11.
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, Sader City all throughout 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 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.
Govern, is the world starting to coalesce around the idea of what we have been saying for the past three years?
Yeah, there is genocide there.
And yes, the Israelis are using starvation as a weapon.
And yes, that is absolutely unacceptable.
Yes.
But it bothers me, no one, that no one figures out what the hell to do about it.
That's the problem.
The old NOAA principle: no more awards for predicting rain awards only for building arcs.
None of us have figured out a way to build arcs so we can stop this damn thing.
I never thought my country would be aiding, abetting, arming, and supporting genocide and enforced starvation.
My God, can't we get our, can't we get together and figure out some way to stop it?
I'm at a loss for words.
Larry, watch this.
This is somebody that the three of us probably would not quote very much, Senator Dick Durbin.
This is a rather emotional and profound statement he made on the floor of the Senate two days ago.
Chris number 12.
Several weeks ago, several senators joined me in meeting with the ambassador from Israel.
And we asked him why Israel was not providing humanitarian aid in Gaza.
He said that's not true.
We were providing it, but Hamas was stealing it from us and using it to buy weapons and to make them stronger.
And then he went on to say, when we asked him about the children starving, the images we had all seen on television, he said, that is not true.
That is a United Nations narrative.
And then we asked him basically: if there is such a difference of opinion between what is happening in Gaza, why don't you allow international journalists to come into this area and report to the world what they actually see?
And he said it was too dangerous for journalists to even witness it.
Mr. President, I want to tell you that was an incredible statement.
And I believe totally wrong.
At the outset, Cindy McCain and others have told us there is no diversion by Hamas of the humanitarian aid.
It just isn't coming into Gaza.
And went on to say that these children, of course, we see them on television.
You can't avoid it.
That's the reality of the situation.
And furthermore, when it came down to it, that we had to stand up and acknowledge the obvious that Israel is part of this.
The children of Gaza are starving and dying.
The question is: what will the United States do about it?
I thank the Senator from Vermont for offering these resolutions this evening.
It's painful for many of us who've devoted our congressional careers to supporting Israel and standing by them through difficult times.
It is impossible to really explain or defend what is going on today.
Gaza is starving and dying because of the policies of Bibi Netanyahu.
Larry, that he had referred to this ambassador, obviously was lying, the way Bernie Sanders referred to Netanyahu as, quote, a disgusting liar.
Of course, the two of them are very late to this game, as Ray just pointed out.
Larry, your thoughts on all this.
Well, first, I do.
I share Ray's both anguish, anger, and frustration over this whole thing.
I think the good news that we're starting to see this week in particular, and starting last week, the worm is starting to turn.
APAC is losing some of its clout and influence.
And we've seen it in a variety of ways.
One, more of the European states are now standing up saying, okay, we're going to recognize Palestine come September when the UN General Assembly has its annual meeting.
So, you know, with England, with France, with Canada now saying it.
And what does Trump do?
Trump starts threatening those countries with tariffs in order to protect Israel.
But also important is these shows, shows like yours, but Tucker Carlson has really been hitting it out of the park this week because he had John Mearsheimer on a Wednesday for an hour.
And John just raked Israel up one side and down the other.
I mean, he told the story of the Zionist conquest, if you will, and how wrong it is.
Then Tucker Farrell followed that up with Colonel Aguilar.
And Colonel Aguilar, tell you what, I used to not have too high an opinion of West Point, but man, after listening to him and his recitation of the Geneva Convention and his description of what commanders need to be doing with respect to the troops to keep them from murdering children, and then his own encounter with this small boy who was subsequently murdered by the Israelis, those messages are having power.
And then Tucker's doing it again today with Candace Owens.
They're hitting this subject and Candace is hitting it as well.
The reason I point those two out, they have a strong resonance in Trump's MAGA base.
So Trump is starting to lose that base.
I know he's lost several that I know.
He's lost a lot of the base over the Epstein saga, but he's losing the base of those who are repulsed by the slaughter of innocents.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, I would just add, you know, that Trump is in a very dangerous state of mind here.
He's got Epstein.
I believe he's being blackmailed by Netanyahu on Epstein.
I believe, like Max Blumenthal, that Epstein was working with Mossad and they have stuff on Trump.
And to think, to think that Trump would be doing genocide largely because he wants to escape blame for this kind of thing is just atrocity squared, in my view.
So let me just add that I think that rather than Ukraine, it's the Middle East that really is the boiling pot here.
Netanyahu is going to probably resort to something that he'll want U.S. support for.
It will be an attack on Iran.
And, you know, Iran's not going to take it easily.
Iran's going to destroy large parts of Israel.
And then Netanyahu is going to be faced with the choice of using his nuclear weapons or forgetting about it.
And, you know, a fellow who can approve genocide and all this other stuff, forced starvation, you can't convince me that he will not use nuclear weapons in extremis.
That's the real live warrior.
And Trump, my God, I don't know what he did last time.
He let himself be mousetrapped.
Would he do that again?
Well, we'll have to see.
But Iran, Middle East, that's the key in my view.
We'll end with that, as terrifying as it is.
Brother Ritter is coming up in a couple of minutes.
Gentlemen, thank you very much.
We'll look forward to seeing you at your usual times on Monday morning.
Have a great weekend.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
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