All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 19, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:34
Ian Proud : Those Warmongering Europeans.
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, August 20th 2025.
Our friend Ian Proud will be here in just a moment on those warmongering Europeans.
What are we going to do about them?
But first this.
My friends, if you care about your liberty and your right to control your own future, you need to hear about this.
From October 10th to 12th, Mikkel Thorpe, host of the Expat Money Show, is bringing together top experts from around the world for the Expat Money Online Summit and it's completely free to attend.
You'll learn how to legally protect your wealth, secure second residences and citizenships, reduce your taxes burden and own property abroad, all to safeguard your freedom.
This year's focus is on Latin America, where opportunity is booming.
Argentina is shifting to free markets.
El Salvador is undergoing a dramatic transformation.
And Panama and Paraguay are offering simple residency programs.
A Plan B is no longer optional.
It's essential.
Reserve your free ticket at expatmoneysummit.com.
And if you want VIP access with special perks, including lifetime replay access and exclusive VIP panels use promo code judge for 20% off your upgrade.
That's expatmoneysummit.com promo code judge.
Ian, welcome here.
You heard my introduction to you right before we ran the commercial clip.
Am I right or am I wrong to call them those warmongering Europeans?
I speak of course of the I think you're right, Judge.
I think you're absolutely right, particularly the president of that military titan state, Finland, who referred to the Russians as the Hun in his kind of backroom comments with Trump, apparently, while he reported in the press of that, referencing the fact that actually Finland allied with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union in World War II.
Let's gloss over that fact.
But it does seem to be the case that the Europeans are invested in making the war continue.
And I think if a deal can't be struck soon, the war will continue into 2026 and at the cost of European taxpayers.
are you able to uh let us know what the mood in the uk is today two days after Sir Kirst Darmer's meeting with the president and even of the United States and even what the mood in the EU is.
When I say mood, I'm talking about elites as well as average folks.
Well, if I take the mood back briefly to President Trump's summit with President Putin in Alaska, the mood, certainly on the state-owned BBC News channel, I watched the, you know, I watched, People were in despair that the red carpet was being laid out.
U.S. soldiers were laying the red carpet out for an indicted war colonel.
Fast forward to today, and the mood feels largely the same.
People worry that Trump is trying to get a quick deal and sell out the Ukrainians in the process.
And that's the mood across, I think, frankly, most of the mainstream media channels in certainly the UK, and I sense also across Europe too.
And is there any concern?
that the British taxpayers simply cannot afford to replace the American taxpayers in Ukraine?
That debate is never entertained.
In fact, it's never surfaced.
People never really talk about it.
the cost on top of that.
Where is Parliament on this?
Suppose Sir Keir asks Parliament for £100 billion or some other extraordinary number to purchase military equipment or to replace military equipment that he wants to send to Ukraine.
How would the House of Commons react to that?
Well, I'll tell you something, Judge.
Quite recently, Parliament voted down efforts to slash £5 billion a year from disability benefits.
But that debate about the actual, I think it's £89 billion extra that we'll have to pay by 2035 to meet this 5% NATO commitment.
The debate is just never happening in Parliament.
Parliament has been completely subjugated to the executive and no longer plays a challenge role at all in our liberal democracy.
Sounds like what's happening over here with Congress being subjugated to the will of the president.
We don't need to get into all of his constitutional excesses, but Congress never seems to assume I mean, for example, tariffs.
A tariff is a tax.
You've studied the American Constitution and you know that the first power granted to Congress and Congress alone is the power to tax.
And yet Donald Trump imposes these taxes on his own, not a peep from Congress.
I say not a peep.
Thomas Massey, the modern-day Ron Paul, is about the only one who complains about these constitutional violations.
The BBC, I guess we shouldn't be surprised that it's mouthing.
if not the words, at least the values of the government.
Well, it's just an, as far as I can see it, it's just an arm of the government.
It's funded by a tax, something that's also tax caused that called the TV license fee that people are forced to pay.
So it's therefore a tax.
In my view, it's an arm of the state.
And it never departs, it seems to me, from the government narrative on Ukraine that we need to keep fighting to last Ukrainian.
So you have to pay a tax to fund the BBC, whether you watch it or not.
Well, if you own a TV.
Well, I see you pay a license fee when you own a TV.
The license fee goes to the BBC.
If you don't own a TV, obviously you don't have to pay the license.
It's a tax.
It's a tax.
If you want to watch Monty Python, but you hate the BBC, you still have to pay for the BBC.
Is that right?
I'd sooner have John Cleese in charge of government policy on Ukraine than Takir Stama, but that's another discussion altogether, Judge.
Perhaps over a warm pint.
Perhaps over a warm pint.
They still drink beer warm in Great Britain, I gather.
I shouldn't say still.
We still drink it cold in the U.S. Refrigeration came sooner to you.
Yeah, the EU.
EU elites, I mean, what do they want?
Do they want this proxy war to continue?
And before you answer, our dear friend and colleague, Colonel Douglas McGregor reported, and he tells me he has a very reputable source, that the Ukrainian military loss is now 1.7 million dead.
or missing.
That is an unbelievable number.
And the EU elites, the UK elites, still want this war to continue yeah they do seem to and one of the reasons of course are that it delays the kind of much bigger for europe at least challenge of ukraine's membership of the eu that's now been put on ice it's put on ice after um zelensky's attempt to kind of hijack and undermine the anti-corruption bodies in ukraine but of course the longer the war goes on the further into the kind of far horizon ukraine's
nightmare membership of the eu will will be shoved and of course you know europe can't afford to incorporate ukraine as a as a fully fledged member of the eu so war just you know pushes that back onto the you know onto the back burners what's your take on uh what happened in Russia?
Who won?
Who lost?
Was it a draw?
How did President Trump come off?
How did President Putin come off from your perspective?
Now, your perspective is unique because you're a former diplomat.
You were a resident in Moscow.
referred to yourself as a misfit because you worked for people who we would call over here neocons.
But give me your advice.
Well, nobody's been talking to Putin since the start of the war a lot of people haven't been talking to putin since 2014 and i have always said that it was an important step that president trump actually engaged in direct dialogue with the russians vladimir putin will have welcomed that simply because the russians are very focused on the form of diplomacy as well as the substance you know they want to be uh seen to be taken seriously and that was an important step in that process now i got the impression from the
outcomes of that meeting as far as we know them that actually the russians were prepared to make some concessions on security guarantees you know for ukraine something that hitherto would have been really problematic, you know, for them.
But some things were still off the table.
In fact, things that we'd known about all along and things which President Trump had been talking about since he came to office in January, that they were that Ukraine wouldn't join NATO.
President Trump has been clear on that from the start of his administration, you know, and that Russia was not going to be able to get back Crimea.
I mean, when I was in Moscow at the British embassy, we were talking about the impossibility of Ukraine getting back Crimea in 2014.
you know so this is not a this is not a new thing but i think actually that you know the russians were kind of trying to make some concessions by saying well actually we'll be more flexible on security guarantees so long as there's no possibility that Ukraine will join NATO.
And that has been the source from the beginning.
Well, what are security guarantees?
I mean, there was a so-called security guarantee in the Austrian treaty in 1955, and it provides for an official from the Soviet Union to be a resident member of the Austrian National Security Council to secure.
not its safety, but its neutrality.
And that has worked out, as you British folks would say, splendidly.
It's a happy place.
They don't have a big military and they're prosperous and they're neutral and nobody bothers them and they don't bother anybody else.
Do you foresee that in Ukraine?
Well, I don't see a Russian on the Ukrainian Security Council.
But what I think security guarantees means is that actually if, you know, peace breaks out, Russia starts to normalize its relations with Europe, which I earnestly hope that it will if the Europeans will allow that to happen.
Should Russia then decide at a later time, you know, with NATO having been taken off the table for Ukraine to invade Ukraine, the security guarantees mean a direct military intervention in that conflict by European powers with their support by the U.S. Now, that that is my understanding of security guarantees.
Now, why would Vladimir Putin agree to that as a condition of.
I don't want to sound ridiculous, but Trump said American air support.
American air support means American intel on the ground telling them what to do when they're in the air.
Why would the Russians agree to that?
I mean, that already happens.
But I mean, that there were boots in the air already through the patrols over Estonia and the Baltic states already.
So what security guarantees mean is that there will be no military personnel inside of Ukraine on the on the on the on the territory of Ukraine or in the air above Ukraine while peace was in place.
And I think that would meet Russian requirements.
But in the event that Russia decided to go to war at a later date for no reason than that there would be a direct military response.
I think that it's not about fudging it in the short term, saying, well, we'll have peace, but we'll station NATO troops in Ukraine.
Clearly, the Russians will never accept that.
Isn't the Ukraine military, whether Colonel McGregor's numbers are precisely correct or approximately correct, isn't the Ukraine military on its last legs?
No, it isn't.
It's got one million people.
They beat up young men in the streets and force them into buses and drive them to the training centers and then to the front line.
I don't believe the hype that the Ukrainian military is falling apart.
One of the reasons they've been able to hold on to, you know, or slow the Russian advance for so long is because they have so many men, many of them forced into action on the front line.
Of course, drone technology has helped as well.
But that is not a sophisticated military taking a kid out of a bar and putting him on the front lines.
That's not a sophisticated military.
That's just fodder for the Russian cannons.
Yeah, of course it is.
And hence the 1.7 million people who've been killed or injured since the war started.
I mean, you know, nobody seems to care about that.
And that if the war goes on into next year, that several hundred thousand more young kids beaten up from bars and shoved into minibuses will be killed too.
But I mean, the Europeans are determined, Zelensky doesn't want to leave office.
What's in it for him to end the war?
Nothing.
So I worry that they will invest in keeping the war going on.
Does Sir Kir Starmer, does President Macron, does Ursula von der Leyen want to end the war?
I don't believe that they do.
Because I think ending the war on the basis of the contours that President Trump has outlined, that Ukraine will be neutral, it won't join NATATO, won't militarily be able to get by Crimea, will have to accept the line of control and possible concessions on territory in the Donbass.
The Europeans are never going to sign up to that.
So they're going to keep plugging away, they're going to keep smiling, meeting Trump, telling him what a great president he is, being nice to President Trump.
But in the background, just saying, well, let's not cut a deal, folks, because this guy's deranged and, you know, our money's on, you know, little Vlad Zelensky.
Was Sir Kier portrayed in the British press along with Macron and von der Leyen and this character?
from Finland as being humiliated by President Trump.
I mean, at one point, he put them out of the Oval Office and they just stood around and stared at each other for 45 minutes while he supposedly spoke with Vladimir Putin on the phone.
We don't even know if the phone call took place.
And then they came back in and instead of sitting around a table where they were all positioned equally, they sat in front of Trump's desk like school children being called to the principal's office.
I mean, does that resonate with the British press?
Does that get under the skin of Sir Keir, or is that not the subject of mockery the way it is on this side of the Atlantic?
Well, a phone call did take place because Yuri Yushikov actually confirmed it on the Kremlin website.
But if I told you, Judge, that ahead of the White House meeting, the BBC, the state-run BBC, or Britain Today perhaps it should be called, was talking about Keir Starmer's star quality and how he would make the difference at the Whitehall meeting with Trump.
no uh it didn't talk about him being treated like a schoolboy at prep school in front of the head teacher.
Wow.
If the, if the war ends.
by some means, what will the Europeans do?
Let me make it easier for you and more likely.
If the United States stops providing aid to Ukraine, military aid to Ukraine, what will the European countries do?
Well, in the short term, they'll keep paying for arms until their electorates can rise up against them and force them out of office and choose governments that want to actually live in peace with Russia.
I don't see the war would stop immediately.
And unfortunately, President Trump hasn't been He's flip-flopped on that.
But I mean, if it happened, I don't think he is likely to happen because US defense contractors are benefiting so much from what's happening right now.
The Europeans will carry on paying until they run out of money and political support.
The British have a very small army.
Can you see any of them?
We'll go back to that phrase, boots on the ground in Ukraine.
No, I can't.
When they spoke about reassurance force back in March after the Lancaster House summit with Zelensky, then they rode back on that.
At that time, it was only 20,000 troops.
It dropped down to 10,000 troops and they said well actually we can't really send any troops so i mean i don't really see that changing our army is 73 000 you know people it's shrunk by 2 000 personnel over the past what's the size of the british army 73 000 people wow that really is small um for the us marine is bigger i believe yes us marine the us marine corps about 200 000 um how about the french can you foresee them
being crazy enough to put boots on the ground in ukraine if trump stops the american aid you know at some point the american aid will stop because there's no appetite in the Congress to authorize more money, Lindsey Graham notwithstanding.
And the Joe Biden funds, we don't know where the number is, but they can't last forever.
No, I don't actually see any scenario in which declared, as opposed to undeclared, French or British troops are actually in Ukraine.
Because I think actually Trump, for his many faults and foibles, he does appear to be trying to force some sort of deal through.
Possibly it's because he wants a Nobel Peace Prize, whatever.
i mean i think uh you know if he's trying to bring peace to ukraine then i think that's a good thing uh but i think you know the pressure's on to do it and and actually it's not going to happen overnight the europeans are going to keep fighting this i suspect for the next kind of few months uh why i didn't see any european troops on the ground because you know russia has 600 000 troops in ukraine we're offering at most 10 000 troops i mean what are they going to do Right.
What does Ursula von der Leyen want besides to be commander-in-chief of a European military?
Well, she's grown the powers of the European state, the European institutions that are not elected.
So she's just centralizing power.
She's making herself this kind of supranational president of Europe, if you like, with her henchwoman, Kaya Kallas, the warmonger in chief.
you know, building her powers too.
So I mean, her objectives appear to me about self-aggrandisement and the accretion of power.
I have a dear friend who's a professor of political philosophy at the University of Milan who was in grad school with Callus.
She tells me she was at the bottom of the class.
No surprise.
Switching over to the Middle East, why did Sir Keir announce support for a Palestinian state?
Why didn't he do something more substantive, like arrest Netanyahu if he comes to Great Britain?
Well, because the pressure's been going in within the UK for a long time about this dreadful support or tacit support at least that we've provided to Israel and its kind of terrible actions in Gaza and other places.
And, you know, Font policy always comes down to domestic politics, the domestic political pressures built on Starmer, including within his own political party and the opposition Conservative Party and protests on the streets and all those sorts of things to such an extent that he can no longer ignore the political will of, you know, the communities of the UK.
Now, we have Muslim communities in the UK, we have Jewish communities in the UK.
This isn't really about picking sides with either of those.
This is about stopping this absolutely atrocious policy driven by, you know, Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.
And we just need to kind of say that and actually step away from the US position with which I personally are not aligned at all and have no authority on it.
But I mean, How much longer will Sir Keir be in office in your view?
Well, unfortunately, bad prime ministers have this habit of staying around for a long time.
Theresa May was a dead donkey, kind of a prime minister too, but she clung on until 2019.
for three years.
So we don't assume that he's going to be gone.
He's got a big majority in Parliament.
Labour can still muster a majority for votes in the Commons.
I see him seeing, you know, at least the next two or three years through, if not the whole term.
I don't see anything that's going to force that change.
Got it.
Got it.
Ian, thank you very much.
Thanks for joining us.
Thanks for continuing to send those great pieces to me to read, which you publish on Substack.
Every single one of them is insightful, informative, and gives me more ideas about questions to ask you.
We hope you'll come back and join us again soon.
Thanks, Judge.
Good to see you again.
Bye for now.
See you.
All the best.
Bye.
Thank you, my friend.
And coming up at 2 o'clock, we're not sure where he is.
We think he might still be in Paris.
▲
Export Selection