Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano - Pepe Escobar : BRICS vs. the West.

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Aug. 27, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano

24:43

Pepe Escobar : BRICS vs. the West.

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	Hi, everyone.
	Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
	Today is Thursday, August 28, 2025, Pepe Escobar joins us now.
	Pepe, it was a pleasure.
	Pepe, where are you?
	Where are you joining us from?
	I'm at home in Paris getting ready to go to Russia and China.
	And what will you be observing?
	I know, because you've told me already, but I want the audience to hear in Russia and China.
	And who will you be observing in Russia and China?
	Wow, that's, I wish we had half an hour, Judge, to go through the details.
	But for you and for our audience, on Sunday and Monday is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization annual summit in Tianjin close to Beijing just to give an idea to all of you Tianjin is this enormous industrial high-tech hub 120 kilometers away from Beijing you take the high-speed rail and you are there in less than half an hour and you know how much it costs eight dollars okay that's
	the introduction so who's going to be in Tianjin at the table of the Shanghai cooperation organization everybody Everybody in Eurasia that matters, including the top four, Putin, C., Modi, and Peshchkin from Iran.
	Wow.
	Of them on the same table, judge.
	How about Modi?
	Modi already confirmed he's going.
	And that's even more, wow, totally groundbreaking.
	It's his first trip to China in seven years.
	And he's going to meet C face to face on a private meeting apart from the SEO summit.
	Wow.
	You know, Donald Trump has ranted and raved against and condemned and blasted BRICS.
	Hasn't he effectively united and strengthened BRICS?
	There's no question about that.
	And the BRICS players are astonished at the turn of events.
	Nobody would expect, actually, Xi Jinping sent a letter to Modi.
	That was the beginning of the detente, let's put it this way.
	Modi responded and then he confirmed, okay, I'm going to the SEO summit and we're going to talk face to face.
	This is beyond immense in terms of SEO unity and BRICS unity.
	We cannot forget that both are members of SEO and of BRICS.
	So we're talking about the major players of the global south or what we can call also the global majority.
	So until a few days ago, the spin, including the spin in China among academics is that there was no trust between India and China.
	So C and Moding are breaking that.
	They are rebuilding the relationship.
	It's quite significant, it's going to take place at a summit where the main preoccupations are security, counterterrorism, and also economic integration.
	the SCO these past few years, they are very much focused on economic integration, even more than a security environment across Eurasia.
	And of course the president of Iran, Pezeskin, will be there because the And the observers, Judge, are fascinating, and the partners.
	Among the observers are Afghanistan and Mongolia.
	Sooner or later, they will become full members.
	And among the partners, most of the Southeast Asians will be there.
	So there are a lot of ASEAN countries who will be at the table as well, paying attention to all the discussions and invited to the discussions.
	Do you expect to be in an audience that will be addressed by President Putin himself?
	That's complicated because he...
	he will concentrate on eurasia wide security, terror, and economic integration matters.
	They will discuss Ukraine on the table, of course.
	We don't know what sort of leaks will be authorized.
	So we have to talk to our friend Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman.
	It depends on what Peskov decides to tell us.
	Right, right, right.
	And if you see Maria, Lavrov's a spokesperson, give her a big hug for me.
	He should be there because I'm not sure if Lavrov will be there, Judge, because this is a meeting of the heads of state.
	So not necessarily they bring their foreign ministers, but it's quite possible.
	Putin did bring his foreign minister to Alaska.
	We know that because he showed up with...
	let's say, 50% of your question by turning the attention to the Vladivostok Economic Forum, which is going to start next Wednesday.
	So from Tianjin, I'll come back to the airport in Beijing, flight to Vladivostok, because we have to be there one day before, because the logistics are very complicated.
	We even have to do PCR tests.
	It's a very complicated matter.
	at the Vladivostok Forum, which is basically concerned about Russian development of the Arctic and the Far East, including vast tracts of Siberia.
	They will discuss business, essentially.
	And guess, I would say, the invisible guest of honor this year.
	The U.S., in fact.
	I'm very curious to see which American businessman will actually go to Vladivostok this year to start talking about the possibility of many American corporations coming back to the Russian market.
	And the number one, of course, it's something that I already asked my friends in Moscow.
	And they say, look, it's going to be tight because they won't be able to talk.
	they will they don't want to talk to anybody but I'll try to talk to Rossneft executives because the key project for Exxon was the Sakhalin gas project where they were partners with Gazprom, Rosneft, sorry, an Indian company and a Japanese company.
	Because of sanctions, Exxon left.
	They lost over $4 billion and they want to come back.
	And they have been talking to Rosneft.
	Well, you know, they can talk to Rosneft all they want, but if the U.S. government doesn't let them back, how are they going to go back?
	Exactly.
	But that brings us, Judge, to the pressure that the American energy companies will be applying on Trump to, look, we want to go back to Russia, we want to do business over there.
	And this is your interest, Trump, as well, because these are mega gas projects.
	These are also gas projects in the Arctic, not only in the Sakhalin Islands, in the extreme Far East, let's put it this way.
	But, and of course, something that came out a few days ago, and I'm dying to see if there's any evidence about it.
	The possibility of the Americans buying Russia.
	russian nuclear icebreakers oh my goodness that happens would be a major game changer, but I think this is too far fetched at the moment.
	So you predicted before Anchorage that the true purpose of Anchorage would not be Ukraine, that it wouldn't solve Ukraine at all, that it wouldn't move the needle on Ukraine whatsoever, but there were other purposes, one of which was commercial and the other of which is the Arctic.
	Exactly.
	Now you're telling us that there may actually have been steps taken in that direction because of the private sector in the United States, which will try and put pressure on Trump.
	So let me modify my question.
	Did the peace process in Ukraine gain at all by the meeting in Anchorage?
	No, not at all.
	Not at all, Judge, to be straight to the point.
	And it's crazy because the speed of events, as we all know, is completely breathtaking.
	I just finished another column, which probably is going to be published in Russia tonight, where I also addressed that.
	that at the forum next week in Vladivostok, maybe we're going to have Americans and Russians discussing business, but on the Ukraineinian front, absolutely nothing seriously happened that changed the situation.
	This means the special military operation will continue.
	means that nothing can change the Russian perspective and conceptualization of winning the war in the battlefield, whatever the Trump administration tries, whatever tricks, anything.
	And of course the Russians are pretty Right, right.
	Chris, can you put up President Trump's a truth social that's going offensive.
	How does the Kremlin view this?
	I'm only going to read the first part, not his ripping into President Biden.
	It's very hard from Donald J. Trump.
	It's 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.
	That's what it is in Ukraine and Russia.
	That came out the same week the State Department and the Defense Department revealed the president had authorized the sale of 3,000, not yet constructed, according to Scott Ritter, but he authorized the sale of 3,000 medium range missiles to Ukraine.
	How does the Kremlin view that?
	Once again, judge, there are no illusions in the Kremlin from the beginning and from the start of Trump 2.0.
	Basically what they discussed in January in Moscow is, okay, let's give it a try.
	We're going to We're open to all sorts of contacts, you know, lateral, underground, direct, meetings, et cetera.
	And let's see what they propose.
	They were assuming that what the Americans were proposing before Alaska was serious.
	After Alaska, let's say for 48 hours, they say, okay, it was positive, it was excellent.
	And this was the opinion of the Russian members of the ultra high-powered Russian delegation that actually went to Anchorage.
	But now they are back to, let's say they are back to January again.
	Okay, is this all they have?
	Is this all they're offering?
	It's not enough.
	They still don't understand our red lines.
	So we'll continue to do what we're doing.
	And especially after Alaska, what happened in that absolutely appalling submission of the European Chihuahuas in the Oval Office vis-à-vis Trump, the no illusion mindset in the Kremlin and in the Intel services, the Security Service, now it's total.
	How serious is Foreign Minister Lavrov?
	that President Putin will not meet with Zelensky because he's not the valid legitimate president of Ukraine.
	And before you answer that, watch what President Trump said about this, and you can comment on that as well.
	Chris cut number eleven.
	This past weekend, Sergei Lavrov was saying that Putin will not sign a peace deal with Zelensky because Russia views him as illegitimate.
	I'm just wondering if the Russians had been relaying this to your team, if they view Zelensky as a leader worth signing a peace deal with, if they will do it.
	It doesn't matter what they say.
	Steve can answer, but I can answer too.
	It doesn't matter what they say.
	Everybody's posturing.
	It's all bullshit, okay?
	Everybody's posturing.
	Steve, do you have a different answer?
	I agree with you, sir.
	Of course, he's going to agree with them on international television and at the cabinet.
	meeting to his face.
	But when Trump calls a comment like that made by the most serious and highly respected diplomat on the planet, how does the Kremlin view it?
	They cannot take him seriously, a judge.
	Because he's completely misinformed.
	He seems, he seems, oh, he continues to be completely misinformed.
	He still doesn't know anything about the underlying causes of Maidan and then the SMO three and a half years ago.
	And that brings us to the first big misunderstanding of the whole Alaska thing, which is Whitkov's misunderstanding.
	I called him the real estate bismarck.
	Whitkov, I know you do.
	And the more we hear from him, the more he sounds like a real estate guy and the less he manifests an understanding of Russian history, culture, and the Russian mentality.
	Absolutely, Judge.
	And even worse, he didn't understand what Putin told him in Moscow.
	that he would have to relay to Trump.
	He assumed, which is completely absurd, that the ultimate red line, which is no NATO in Ukraine, Putin would agree to discuss it.
	And that's what he told Trump.
	Trump believed Whitcoff and then Trump found out that that's not the case and never was the case.
	So this goes way beyond the lost in translation moment.
	This encapsulates the...
	And he's misleading the president of the United States on top of it.
	That's completely absurd, the whole thing.
	And of course, this brings us to the current Kabuki judge, which is the peacekeepers kabuki so what do we have now after the visit of the europeans to the white house the europeans are like absolutely mad chihuahuas screaming everywhere that we need a peacekeeping force in ukraine whatever happens even before a ceasefire not after a ceasefire so the previous kabuki was we need a ceasefire not gonna happen trump himself said no ceasefire
	So now the new kabuki is we need a peacekeeping force, which means what?
	A EU-NATO peacekeeping force of Europeans in Ukrainian soil.
	Once again, another absolute red line for Russia.
	Last question about Europe and Ukraine before I ask you some questions about Gaza.
	Does anyone take seriously the prospect of European military boots on the ground in Ukraine under any circumstances?
	No, nobody.
	Nobody who's been following what's been happening for the past, I would say since 2014.
	since the beginning of the SMO, following the progress of Russia, okay, Russian style, slowly but surely on the ground, all along the front lines, all the way, in fact.
	They cannot possibly understand that where do the Americans get this notion that the Russians will accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine?
	It's beyond Kafka, the whole thing.
	So this will be discussed this weekend in Tianjin.
	including the Iranians, including India and Pakistan, because this is something that involves the whole of Eurasia.
	This is the key Eurasia crisis.
	There are others on other Russian fronts fabricated by MI6, fabricated by NATO, but this remains the big, big crisis in the Eurasia space.
	And of course, this will be also discussed by Judge.
	And this is, I have to talk about this.
	Do you know who's going to meet again face to face on Tuesday in Tiananmen Square for the victory parade of the China victory against Nazi fascism and Japanese aggression, Putin and Xi again?
	Wow.
	Wow.
	In a happier world, the President of the United States would be there with them.
	She would be there, exactly.
	The State Department just announced that Trump has authorized the sale of $2 billion worth of F-35 fighter jets to Poland.
	I guess that wouldn't be that significant, except that it's accompanied by a statement saying this improves the security of NATO.
	It's always about that.
	So, you know, all this, in fact, this elaborate construction spun by Trump himself, especially that he wants an exit or a way out from Ukraine, and then Europeans are going to take care of everything, their own war.
	No, it's going to be the U.S. leading from behind, which is the standard modus operandi, and giving NATO everything they have and they don't have, they got and they haven't got, of course, paid in euros by the European chihuahuas.
	So the Russians look at that and said, okay, there are...
	forever war against us continues so we continue our own brand of war to demilitarize and denazify ukraine so essentially after all the alaska and washington kabuki nothing changed in practice Last topic, my dear friend.
	Why is there such minimal criticism from places like Tucker Carlson and Clayton Morris and here and similar alternative media venues, such minimal criticism of Trump for the normalization of genocide?
	I mean, yesterday, He told the press he didn't even, I don't know how he could not know this.
	He didn't even know the Israelis had bombed the Nasser hospital, killed patients, doctors, and journalists.
	And journalists, exactly.
	How misinformed can you be as President of the United States?
	Or is he just lying?
	Or is it...
	Seriously?
	I really don't know.
	I think he's probably lying.
	I can't believe that Rubio and Hegseth and his chief of staff didn't run right into him and say, Netanyahu just murdered five journalists.
	We better be prepared to respond.
	I can't believe they didn't do that.
	If they didn't, they're not doing their jobs.
	They're not.
	And especially because this is even more serious because it's two war crimes in one, Judge.
	Bombing a hospital, bombing house workers, and after that, killing journalists.
	So why is Trump not severely criticized for normalizing genocide, for being indifferent to it, for pretending he doesn't know what's happening?
	Exactly.
	We still don't have a smoking gun, but there are many possibilities, of course.
	The Epstein case, the grip of the Zionist axis has on him, Compromat from Russia.
	sorts of nobody knows for sure but the fact is he has normalized the genocide and the starvation campaign in Gaza.
	And by doing that, he makes the collective West complicit with it.
	After all, in his own words, I can do anything I want.
	I am the president of the United States.
	So he's Jupiter up there.
	And all of us are just...
	about the murder of the journalist.
	Watch this.
	It's only about half a minute long.
	Chris, cut number 10.
	If we could get your reaction, sir, the Israelis bombed a hospital in Gaza that killed 20 people including five journalists.
	When did this happen?
	This happened overnight.
	Today.
	I didn't know.
	Any reaction to this?
	I don't want to see it.
	At the same time, we have to end that whole nightmare.
	I'm the one that got the hostages out.
	I got them out.
	All of them.
	You see how he instantly changes the subject, Judge?
	Yes.
	He doesn't answer the question.
	He talks about the hostages.
	Yes.
	The indifference to human suffering and slaughter boggles my mind and I think most people watching the show and many people around the world and the relative silence of criticism.
	The Republicans don't criticize, Thomas Massey does, the Democrats don't criticize, Bernie Sanders does, but it's minimal, minimal criticism.
	Well, let's say that the headline for history, I'm imagining digital historians in the early 21st century looking back at what Eric Hobbes-Bunn would have defined as the young 21st century.
	And they say, wow, the West, they buried their own six feet under establishment forever.
	They suicided themselves.
	Their credibility and their moral clarity is gone.
	It's over.
	And they did it to themselves, led by the president of the United States.
	This is what's going to happen.
	It's a devastating.
	devastating and insightful comment pepe thank you very much uh we have a holiday coming here in the us labor day so we'll all be off for for a few days, but I'm glad I could spend some time with you.
	Thank you, my dear friend.
	Can we reach you in Vladivostok in China in the next week?
	Yes.
	Let's try to talk from Vladivostok.
	I'll organize with Chris.
	My schedule is crazy, but if we do it at night in Russia, late night in Russia, it should be possible.
	You got it.
	Thank you, my friend.
	God bless you.
	Safe travels.
	All the best.
	God bless you.
	Thank you.
	Cheers.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.

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