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Aug. 25, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:11
Ray McGovern : Will Trump Say No to Netanyahu?
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Monday, August 25 August 2025.
Ray McGovern will be here in just a moment on what can stop Netanyahu and some interesting news from Moscow.
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Ray McGovern, welcome here, my dear friend.
Before we get to Netanyahu and the latest tragedies in Gaza, you picked up some interesting information.
That President Putin about what President Putin himself said to a young scientist in Moscow over the weekend.
Can you tell us what that was?
Yeah, it was very interesting.
missed by some chance by the Western press or by most people.
You have to read this stuff.
And here's a transcript and right on the president's website.
He's out talking to nuclear scientists and they're celebrating the eighty eighth anniversary of their work on atomic weapons.
And he's asked a question.
And the question is, what about US-Russian relations?
It doesn't look good.
And Putin says this off the cuff.
You know, I see a certain light at the end of the tunnel with respect to relations with America.
And I'm not talking about the elite, the elite.
I'm talking about a president Trump in whom we have considerable trust, and we think this has been turned around.
Now, the fact that nobody noticed that really matters.
What matters is what Putin says.
And Lavrov, of course, said pretty much the same thing several times during that interview with NBC that was aired yesterday.
So this is what I put store by.
I think there's great hope.
Putin's no fool.
He's way out on a limb now given all the betrayals by the West on Ukraine.
So he thinks there's a chance for progress.
Call me an optimist, but I see that in the wake of the summit, in the wake of the summit, where the decision was made to give up on this immediate ceasefire, that was Trump's giving in there, and the notion that all these sanctions, the bone crushing sanctions, well, you know, forget about them.
They're not going to be put in.
Even the secondary ones against China.
And last but perhaps most important, I just mentioned China.
Putin this week is going to Beijing for four days of being with Xi Jinping, his main patron, his big brother, if you will, and the Shanghai Cooperation Council and the anniversary of the end of the war in the Pacific in 1945.
You know, Putin is not feeling isolated.
He's feeling supported.
He's got the winning hand.
So there's no reason to doubt his sincerity when he says, you know, I think there's light at the end of the tunnel.
He must know how that has been misused during Vietnam.
So this is all deliberate.
I'm going to play the clip to which you referred in a minute, but I could not agree with you more particularly that what you just talked about is nowhere in the Western press this morning.
What's in the Western press this morning?
Lindsey Graham going crazy about how we're going to crush Russia.
We'll play that for some later.
Oh, no, no.
I'm sorry to subject you to it.
But here is the exact clip about which you spoke, Ray, from Foreign Minister Lavrov.
It was recorded on Friday, but played yesterday with Kristen Welker.
Chris, cut number one.
So bottom line, bottom line, there's no meetings later.
President Putin said clearly that he is ready to meet provided this meeting is really going to have an agenda, presidential agenda.
So that's a big if.
There's no meeting planned, Mr. Foreign Minister.
That's a big if.
You're saying there's no meeting planned right now.
Kristen, I am awfully sorry.
You're not listening.
There is no meeting planned.
And I am not challenging this.
But you cannot, I think, understand what I am saying.
Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda would be ready for a summit.
And this agenda is not ready at all.
President Trump suggested,
When President Trump brought those issues to the meeting in Washington with Zelensky present together with his European sponsors, he clearly indicated it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted,
including no NATO membership, including the discussion of territorial issues and zelensky said no to everything he even said no to as i said to canceling legislation prohibiting the russian language how can we meet with a person who is uh pretending to be a leader see the way i read this is they have great respect even affection for
president trump and it's unlikely that putin and zelensky will ever meet.
How do you read this?
Well, the notion of a meeting between Zelensky and Putin came about when Trump received Whitkoff back from Moscow or even before Whitkoff got back on the 6th of August.
Now the Russian readout of that was there was the possibility of a meeting with Zelenskyy or even a tripartite meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump and Putin was raised but it was not discussed.
And we can't really it was not discussed and we're sort of disgusted that this is bandied about in the Western media as a done deal.
Trump himself has never presented thatd that as an idea that he cleared with either Kiev or Moscow.
So this whole thing has to do with Kiev and saving a measure of respectability for Kiev.
And Lavrov, as you and our viewers have just seen, has demolished Zelensky for rejecting out of hand even something so simple, even something so basic under the UN Charter and other regulations of the laws as allowing Russian-speaking people to use their language in Ukraine.
So the idea here is you place it on Zelensky.
The U.S. and Russians are putting Zelensky on the carpet, and he's acting typically in rejecting everything, and the U.S. and Russia will continue to negotiate over his head and come to some kind of arrangement where Putin also hopes they can put some lipstick on this pig of defeat and allow him not to have to go farther into Ukraine and he really needs to have a zone of
cordon sony Ithier.
Chris, can you post a President Trump's truth social?
What do you think of this, Ray, from the President late last week?
It is very hard, if not impossible to win a war without attacking an invader's country.
It's like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense.
There's no chance of winning.
It is like that with Ukraine and Russia.
Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine fight back, only defend.
How did that work out?
Regardless, this is a war that would never have happened if I were president.
Zero chance, interesting times, head.
President DJT.
Now, shortly after he posted that, the Wall Street Journal reported that the United States approves European funded long range cruise missiles to be used by Ukraine.
What do you think of all this?
Well, I'll have to see.
The proof is in the pudding about those long range cruise missiles.
That's one report in the Wall Street Journal.
I don't believe it just yet.
Now with respect to the true social thing, it's typically self contradictory.
Yeah.
But you could see what he's trying to do.
He's just trying to blame the whole thing on Biden.
You know, he says, look, this is Biden.
This is not my war.
And that's the key here.
He keeps saying, this is not my war.
And I really want to stop the killing.
Now, actually.
But actually, just because Trump says he wants to stop the kidding, that's not a bad idea.
I think it's a good idea to stop the kidding, and that will happen as soon as Zelensky is put in his place or replaced or replaced, or as soon as the West Europeans come to terms with the fact that they can't help, they don't have the money, they don't have the arms, they don't have much to offer Ukraine at all.
It's worse.
It's worse than telling, as the US did, telling the Ukrainians, look, we will support you as long as it takes.
Because now is the time.
It's as long as it took, okay?
And things are being wound up in a rather peaceful way if nobody throws a wrench in the works like the British are quite likely to do in terms of a false flag attack or something.
There are a lot of people out there that want to derail this, including in Washington.
So it's not a done deal, but in terms of Russian cooperation here, you know, they wouldn't be saying these things.
You know, I've been at this for a long time.
They would be saying these things if they didn't have a measure of hope that Trump might prevail on this one, and that would be a big, big deal.
Right, right.
I mean, what would happen if Trump.
just stopped all US arms, whether directly or indirectly, from going to Ukraine.
How long would the war go on?
Well, judge, I'm not sure how much arms aid is going through now.
My impression is that there was a lot of arms aid authorized and paid for by Biden.
My guess is that's still coming through.
It takes a long time.
Now Trump himself, I watched one of his clips just last night and he said, you know, I'm going to give him two weeks.
Yeah, I'm going to give him two weeks or something this time and I know what I'm doing, he says, and I'm going to make a decision.
And the decision will be whether we come to some kind of terms or bone crushing sanctions again.
That's what we're going to do.
Well, the other alternative, he says, well, we'll come to terms or we'll walk away.
Now, walk away is what I think is going to happen.
The US administration has already walked away.
The vice president said, look, we're done with Ukraine.
We're done financing Ukraine.
So the Europeans can't do it.
Okay.
We're not going to do it.
It's just a matter of time before People can negotiate this kind of thing.
And what is Russia's incentive here?
Again, they don't want to go any farther into Ukraine.
They want a deal and they want to be recognized for their core interests.
They don't want this to happen again.
And they think, matter of fact, Lavrov in that interview, he referred to our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
Marco said just the last day or two that after the summit, they understand more about the Soviet, Soviet, Russian core interests and the economy.
And the fact that we need some kind of security guarantees.
He said that, and so did Rubio.
So there's become a kind of recognition after one last Hail Mary pass thrown by Trump.
He thought, perhaps, he could cajole Putin into accepting an immediate ceasefire.
But that was not in the cards.
But he threw it anyway, telling Bert Baer, before he went into the meeting in Anchorage, that he would be very disappointed if some kind of ceasefire deal is not reached.
So that was up in the air.
And Putin said, look, I said Nietz before, it's still Nietz.
And so what could the president do?
He comes back and he says, well, Europeans, I maybe I did, I threw the Hail Mary pass.
He said Nietz.
And so I think he's right.
There's no prospect for an immediate ceasefire.
We're going to negotiate the whole enchilada.
We're going to go to a complete settlement.
And that's what we all want, not only the Russians, but we want that too, says the US now.
That's a big deal.
Here's, as promised, Ray, just to give you a little stomachburn, because I love you.
Senator Graham throwing gasoline on the fire.
Chris cut number four.
Putin fears Trump, and he's been a I think he's been tough.
And my advice to President Trump and Marco is if you have to convince Putin that if this war doesn't end justly and honorably with Ukraine making concessions also, we're going to destroy the Russian economy.
We have the ability to do it.
To Europe, why don't you put tariffs on India for buying Russian oil?
To Europe, why don't you threaten China with tariffs for being the largest purchaser of Russian oil?
To Europe, you can do more.
If Europe and the United States banded together and we told Russia that if this war does not come to an end, we're going to destroy your fossil fuel economy, this war would come to an end.
I think we have the ability to crush the Russian economy through putting tariffs on people to buy Russian oil and gas, buying cheap oil to prop up his war machine.
And I intend to push that until I can't push anymore.
This expert on international oil, the senior senator from South Carolina, I picked that up from one of the people in the chat room.
But before you comment on this, in fairness to Senator Graham, he did not know this when he made that statement because it happened over the weekend.
Moscow destroyed the terrorist missiles that the Germans had delivered to Kiev.
And President Putin said to Berlin, if this keeps up, expect a response, the likes of which you haven't seen since World War two.
So are we really going to crush the Russian economy, Senator Graham?
Well, Graham doesn't know what he's talking about.
It's all rhetoric and it's stupid rhetoric.
I can see Putin and Lavrov.
So there's Graham again thinking he can destroy our economy.
Look, the Russian economy is doing quite well, comparatively speaking.
There's no, no, like the New York Times would have you believe, oh, they're really in great economic trouble and they're losing a million, a million soldiers in Ukraine.
It's all well, there are lots of words I could use, all BS, okay?
And so when they laugh, I'm sure that maybe even, maybe even Trump and JD Vance sitting there, oh, there goes Lindsey again.
That's good.
We'll have a little stirring up, but it doesn't, it doesn't matter.
You know, Graham doesn't matter.
He's been overruled.
and he'll tuck tail sooner or later, probably sooner in my view.
I'm going to play Senator Janine Shaheen, Liberal Democrat from New Hampshire.
She's in Jordan.
And then I'm going to play Rahm Emanuel, well known former chair of the DNC, former mayor of Chicago, former chief of staff to President Obama, both saying the same thing, harshly critical.
of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Chris, cut number two, and then immediately following cut number three.
The Israeli Prime Minister's office on Friday had a very harsh statement about the famine designation.
They called it, quote, a modern blood.
libel spreading like wildfire through prejudice.
That suggests this is about anti Jewish hate rather than starvation.
How do you make sense of the Israeli defense?
I don't think that's a good defense.
The fact is this is not about anti Semitism, which I abhor, but the reality is we have people dying because they are systematically being starved to death.
Because Israel is refusing to allow in the humanitarian aid that people need to keep alive.
Not only that, they're getting ready to do another, or they've already started planning another major incursion into Gaza in ways that are going to kill more people.
So this is not acceptable.
The world needs to speak out.
This is a product of the fact that he was Prime Minister Netanyahu was told in the early days of the war, you better have a day after plan, and now there is no day after plan, and there's chaos there, and there is a issue as access to food, and there is hunger, there is famine.
It's a war zone.
Second is we're coming on the two year anniversary.
There's also coming on in thirty days from now, Rosh Hashanah.
And I think the Israeli government, as they send their delegation to Cairo to negotiate, has to make a decision.
Will these young men, mainly men who were taken hostage, spend their Jewish holiday the second year in a row in a tunnel or in a temple?
Will they be with their captors or will they be with their community?
And it is incumbent upon the government in Israel to choose a temple over a tunnel.
The IDF says it, the Israeli public says it, and the parents of these children say it.
And this is a product, in my view, of a prime minister who refused to make the political strategic decisions in which he has degraded the Hamas, destroyed their capability, but doesn't have a plan for what to do next.
Even if the world is turning a Netanyahu, and it seems to be, will that make a difference?
Words, words, words.
I'm so sick of words from my fair lady, okay?
What Congress could do is something tangible.
Larry has mentioned this on occasion.
What other countries can do is something tangible.
They can cut off trade.
They can ruin Israel's economy.
Don't leave it to the simple hoochies to do that, for God's sake.
We could do things like that.
So words are cheap and words, words, words.
I'm really sick of words.
It's nice.
Nice that things are saying that people are saying nicer things now, but does it matter?
A good portion of the Palestinian people have been genocided and have been starved to death.
We don't need words anymore.
We need action.
Ray, I wish I were eighteen again.
Happy birthday to you, my dear friend.
Oh, well, judge, may I take a point of privilege here and finish with you mentioned William Butler Yeats.
I think maybe, well, he's my favorite poet.
I know that you know him, but in keeping with my glass half full.
full and now after the summit three quarters full attitude toward Ukraine.
Let me quote The Fiddler of Duni, a little poem by Yeats, okay?
When I play my fiddle in Duni, folk dance like a wave of the sea.
My cousin is priest in Kelvarinet, my brother in Bachnabui.
I passed my brother and cousin.
They read from their book of prayer.
I read from my book of songs that I bought at the Sligo Fair.
When we reach the end of time with Peter sitting in state, he'll smile at the three of us, but he'll ask me., forced through the gate, for the good of all the merry, saved by evil chance.
And the merry love the fiddle, and the merry love to dance.
And when the folk there spy me, they'll all come up to me saying, Here's the fiddler of Dudy!
and they'll dance like a wave of the sea.
So let's dance a little, let's relax, let's look at what Putin and Lavrov are saying, not what CNN and NBC are saying.
And I think there's reason for optimism.
I leave you with that and thanks for the birthday, guys.
God love you, my friend.
We'll see you at the end of the week with Larry.
All the best.
Thank you, Ray.
Thank you, Larry.
Thank you, Judge.
And you're welcome.
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