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Aug. 11, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
22:24
Larry Johnson : Putin Knows History; Does Trump?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, August 11, 2025.
Larry Johnson will be with us in just a moment on Putin knows his history.
Does Donald Trump?
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Larry Johnson, welcome here, my dear friend.
What bargaining chips does Donald Trump have to negotiate with Vladimir Putin?
You and I have been all through western Russia.
The sanctions haven't laid a glove on them.
Yeah, none.
He has no leverage.
He has the ability to stop the bleeding of the Ukrainians.
by putting an end to military aid.
But, you know, there are no sanctions he can level or levy on Russia that's going to change anything.
There's hardly any trade anymore between Russia and the United States.
So tariffs, you know, those are ineffective.
And his attempts to punish countries that have had close relationships with Russia through BRICS, especially India, Brazil, and China, all Trump has done is energize them to dig in deeper to make BRICS more effective, more powerful, more potent.
You know, what was, if you would have asked me a year ago that looking into 2025, BRICS was going to be under the control of President Lula of Brazil.
And I would have said, you know, it's going to be a year of inactivity and maybe going backwards.
Turned out just the opposite.
Once Trump hit Lula with tariffs, not over economic reasons, but for domestic political reasons in Brazil, it galvanized Lula into saying, hey, we're going to push back.
And so they're making more steps to grow independent.
of the U.S. ability to control via the dollar what goes on in those countries.
So Trump has no leverage here.
It's all in, you know, it's all.
in Putin's favor.
You from your years in the State Department know better than I, better than most people, that when the heads of state get together, there usually is some agreement made ahead of time.
And the getting together is to formalize it and let them take credit for it.
Yeah.
You think that some agreement has been made ahead of time that we don't know about.
I doubt it.
You know, people that climb Mount Everest, they always like to celebrate when they get to the top, take the picture, but they get there because of the Sherpas, the people who actually carry the heavy bags.
They carry the oxygen.
They ferry that up.
They build the bridges.
They build, they put the ropes in place.
They make sure that all the ropes are properly anchored.
That's why in the diplomatic world, they call the people that meet beforehand to work out the agreements, to craft out the language.
They call them the Sherpas.
So there is a, you know, it's a parallel.
And there's no Sherpa work here.
So this is, this is Donald Trump foolishly trying to clown Mike Everest by himself.
doesn't end well.
The Sherpas would normally be, correct me if I'm wrong, if this were a normal administration with normal relations with Russia, a team from the U.S. State Department and a team from the Russian Foreign Ministry going over every little detail, every undotted I, every uncrossed T, so that nobody is surprised and their bosses can take credit for it.
That is not the case here, apparently.
Well, in fact, the state would be in the lead, but you'd probably also have, you know, if you're going to be talking some economic issues, it'd be somebody from Treasury.
Military matters, it'd be somebody, one or two somebodies from the Department of Defense.
So actually people with real expertise that understand the issues.
and that can then craft the appropriate language.
And you'd get that from the Russian side as well.
There have been reports of some meetings, but it's not clear that they've come up with anything.
if it turns out that there's been this secret negotiations underway and that they're going to sign an agreement then I'll be surprised but I do not
Those conditions specifically include the recognition that Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Crimea are part of Russia.
They are constitutionally part of Russia.
And that NATO will never Ukraine will never be a member of NATO and NATO will never put weapons in what remains of Ukraine.
That is really, I think, boiled down to two, what had been five or six of the demands but it's essentially the same thing but it makes me wonder what does trump think he's going to get out of this other than the whole world watching them for a few hours judging from what he said and what has been presented you know part of this is based on si hersch's latest piece where he's talking to someone
in the intelligence community And so I have to assume that if this is coming from what the intelligence community is telling Sy Hirsch, they're telling Donald Trump the same thing.
And that is Trump and his team believe that this is a territorial dispute.
This is an argument between Russia and Ukraine over territory, that Russia just somehow needs the territory.
That's not it at all, not even close.
It has nothing to do with territory.
That is the real estate developer mentality of the president and of Mr. Whitcoff.
Yeah, and he thinks, oh, we can cut a deal where you give up this piece and take that.
That's not it.
This is about NATO expansion to the east.
And while Whitcoff is in Moscow trying to cajole.
Joel Putin into a meeting.
And at the same time as that's happening, Trump is preparing to welcome the presidents of leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to Washington, signing the deal.
And the reports are within that deal kept secret is the intent to invite them to make them members of NATO.
The goal of surrounding Russia.
The United States has not backed away from that.
The United States is not interested in peaceful coexistence with Russia.
And anybody that thinks that that's the case has just not been paying attention to the U.S. actions.
I don't judge the words, I judge the actions.
So has Trump totally abandoned MAGA and embraced the neocons?
On this issue, yes.
You know, he's, and the same with Israel, you know, the supporting the genocide in Gaza.
This, you know, it'd be one thing if the day that Whitcoff's in Moscow talking that Trump, you know, Trump issued that executive order declaring Russia an enemy, a national security threat.
Yes.
Now, you know, you can say, well, I didn't really mean it what are you doing now uh the russians are watching all of this and you know i think they now realize that uh that they are considered an enemy but putin is trying to find a way to keep this from becoming a nuclear conflagration the reason trump is now pushing you know remember his deadline was initially 50 days then it went down to 10 days
or 12 days um and then this urgency to get whitcoff over there to beg putin for a meeting well why why did he do that he did that because the military situation on the ground is worsening much, much quicker for Ukraine than anyone anticipated.
And this is sort of, I call it, this is a revision of the Minsk II ploy or the Battle of Dovozovo.
Because back in January, February 2015, the militias in the Donbass with support from the Wagner group that was backed by Russia, they were on the verge of defeating the Ukrainian army.
And Angela Merkel and Francois Haaland, the leader of France, they rushed to Moscow and begged Putin, oh, stop, stop.
We'll sign an agreement.
And this agreement will ensure the peace.
And that was the beginning of Minsk too.
Right.
And then Merkel later admits it was just a ploy.
It was a sham.
We fooled those stupid Russians because we wanted to give Ukraine time to build up.
That's what Trump's trying to pull off now.
He's trying to do nothing against three.
I can't imagine President Putin being duped again.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Correct.
Well, in fact, Putin acknowledged last year.
He said he admitted he'd been fooled.
He'd been naive.
He'd been trusting.
I don't see him making that same mistake again.
I think he's calculating that he can, because you know as well as I do, that the Donald Trump that you talk to one-on-one or in person is a completely different character than the one that plays this character on.
on television and putin knows that because putin's met with him before in a more private setting.
So Putin may be calculating that he might be able to talk some sense into Trump in order to prevent this from going where it's headed, which is going to be World War III.
Who stands the most to lose and who stands the most to gain between Putin and Trump in Alaska?
Putin stands an enormous amount to lose if he in any way makes concessions to Donald Trump and that involve any of the territory.
Number one, he doesn't have the legal authority.
to say, okay, yeah, okay, we'll give you back Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in exchange for a ceasefire as long as Ukraine.
He can't make that kind of deal.
It would be like Donald Trump going to, you know, sitting down with Putin and saying, okay, you know what, we're going to give you Alaska back.
Trump doesn't have that power.
He could say that, but it wouldn't actually make it happen.
He couldn't return Alaska to Russia.
But, you know, I think ultimately, if, as I anticipate, this will play out, this will not be good for Donald Trump.
because it will expose him again as weak and ineffective and not able to deliver on his much value-hood promise that he was going to end the war in 24 hours.
What do you think the Kremlin thinks of Trump's bluster, non-secretary, self-abravado.
I mean, he's almost literally the polar opposite of President Putin when it comes to statements in public.
Well, I don't think the Kremlin gets as focused on the particular personality of the president because they've got, you know, they were dealing with Bill Clinton and then George W. Bush, then Barack Obama, then Trump.
then Biden and now Trump again.
You know, different personalities, but it's always the same result.
I think they realize that every request Russia has ever made to try to get the United States to stop expanding NATO or to let Russia come into NATO and be a part of the club, it's always been rebuffed and they've continued the aggressive action.
So I think there's just a hope, still hope that somehow.
Trump will back off from this.
But realistically, I would hope that people like Lavrov and Rybkoff, actually Sergey Rybkoff in particular, I think they have a much clearer vision that, you know, they'll talk to the United States, but they're not seeing any action to follow up the nice words.
Do you think that the Kremlin was concerned about Trump's comments about nuclear submarines?
No, no, I think they probably laughed at that because they didn't know the submarines were already out there and they probably haven't pinpointed where they are.
So, you know, there are already submarines in position just as Russia has submarines in position off our coast.
I mean, again, Trump says things like this that, you know, for informed people makes him sound pretty stupid.
How close is Russia to achieving its military objectives in Ukraine?
General Staff is telling Putin two to three months.
So by the end of October, they could conceivably have completely broken the defensive line.
This area that's in western Donbass.
or Western Donetsk, Kramatorsk, Slavyansk, Pokrovsk.
There are three or four.
This is like the last line of defense or defensive emplacements that Ukraine has had in position.
There's really nothing like it in other parts of Ukraine that are on the battlefront.
Once Russia breaches that, and there, you know, the initial thought was that they might take Pokrovsk by the end of September, it looks like they might take Pokrovsk by the end of next week.
So it's accelerated dramatically.
And that is why Trump rushed to have this meeting with Putin.
They're trying to forestall Russia from breaking through and taking control of Ukraine, all of Ukraine east of the Dnieper River.
What happens if Zelensky tries to show up?
Does the US, the US authorities even let him land?
Yeah, then I anticipate that this meeting is going to take place on one of the US military bases in Alaska.
And so not every, those don't have regular commercial air flights.
So any plane that would be carrying Zelensky, number one, how's it going to get there?
Russia's not going to let it fly across Russia.
And you basically got seven time zones to go through to get there from Ukraine.
Or if they fly, if he flies from the United States, from Ukraine into Alaska, well, then.
you got a really long flight, you know, but I don't think I don't think they're going to let me go.
Why do you think that Why do you think the US leaked?
Who knows if they actually did this.
They leaked that Trump had invited Zelensky.
Who knows if Trump actually did, but they did, the White House did leak that.
Why did they do that?
Because Trump doesn't have control over the White House.
So you got people like Kellogg in particular doing, you know, doing their own thing or pushing the pro-Ukrainian line.
Again, this is the kind of chaos that is if you're watching it, particularly if you're the really not sure who's in charge.
And there certainly is no discipline on messaging.
As we speak, I understand General Kellogg is on his way to Kiev.
What promises is he giving Zelensky?
Yeah.
Well, he may be reassuring him.
He's going to say, don't worry.
We got your back.
Thank you.
At that point, I'd be afraid.
Thank you, Boris Johnson.
Here's your favorite senator from South Carolina commenting on this on one of the talk shows yesterday.
Chris, cut number three.
No, I'm very okay with President Trump meeting with President Putin in Alaska.
I think everybody knows that how this war ends can be a good thing or a bad thing.
If it ends in a way, it looks like that Putin's overly rewarded, there goes Taiwan.
You can't end a war without talking.
I do hope that Zelensky can be part of the process.
I'll leave that up to the White House.
But I have every confidence in the world that the president is going to go to meet Putin from a position of strength, that he's going to look out for Europe and Ukrainians needs to end this war honorably.
And it's time to end this war honorably but how we do it will um will be historical what is he talking about the president is going there from a position of strength he doesn't even have the basics right yeah we we can't produce enough artillery shells to supply ukraine um we don't have any more air defense systems to give them The weapons that we're promising that we'll sell to Ukraine via the,
you know, the Europeans will buy it from us and then they'll give it to Ukraine.
Some of those weapon systems won't be produced for seven years.
Wow.
So, you know, Trump's going at a time when the reality is the United States is weaker economically than at any time in his first or second term.
And part of the why Trump has been using the tariffs and sanctions, Ukraine in a way is a bit of a sideshow because what he's really trying to do is disrupt BRICS because the demand for dollars is dropping.
And one of the reasons for that is these BRICS countries, which have significant economies, are shifting their purchases.
They're not using dollars.
Or in some cases, what you find is the Chinese are holding some dollars that they're using to fund projects in Africa, but that's not benefiting the United States.
So from an economic standpoint, BRICS is the real threat to the United States.
And that may be what preoccupies Trump.
But he's not, as he told Zelensky, you don't have any Trump cards.
Well.
Donald Trump doesn't have any cards either to play with Vladimir Putin.
Thank you, Larry.
A pleasure, my dear man.
When we're together with Ray at the end of the week, we still won't know.
know what if any the outcome in alaska is because of the time zone difference they're not going to be making announcements until late in the day our time but uh we may have to come back on air and uh and analyze it if something spectacular uh comes out of it or even if it's just a bluster whatever it is we'll get to it and we'll see you at the end of the week thank you larry all right judge thank you all the best Coming up at 1 o'clock this afternoon,
live from Moscow, Scott Ritter and Russian officials with him from a television studio there.
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