Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano - Ray McGovern : Why European Elites Hate Russia.

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Oct. 6, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano

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Ray McGovern : Why European Elites Hate Russia.

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	Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom.
	Today is Monday, October 6th, 2025.
	Ray McGovern will be with us in just a moment.
	Why do the European elites hate the Russians?
	But first this.
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	Brad McGovern, welcome here, my dear friend.
	The Cold War has been over for 35 years.
	Are the Russians still demonized in U.S. intelligence agencies?
	I'm afraid they have been.
	I don't know whether Tulsi Gaffer is going to be able to turn things around.
	But you know, uh, when you say demonized, that's really the word.
	And I would just point to some remarks that uh Ambassador Jack Matlock, a good friend of mine, who was ambassador to the Soviet Union in his last days.
	What he said about the deterioration in relations and why we're at the at the past that we've reached now.
	And he said, look, if it wasn't for the Russia game, if it weren't for brainwashing the American people to think that the Russians gave us Donald Trump, the Russians interfered in our relationship in our elections in 2016.
	They all did all manner of terrible things, and now they've invaded a country in an unprovoked manner.
	Well, they're all lies because the Russians didn't do that.
	It was provoked up and down.
	So, yeah, there's a large tissue of lies that has to be gotten through.
	And I run into this all the time.
	Not only around the neighborhood, but also talking to audiences like I just did at the University of Southern of uh yeah, USC, University of Southern California.
	When you uh joined the CIA and the Cold War was still on, I suppose it was a little bit easier uh to demonize the Russians.
	They were the adversaries, we were trying to steal their secrets, they were trying to steal our secrets, they were a communist repressive slash social society where they we're the good guys, we have to make them like us.
	Yeah, and that's important because you know I thought I was pretty much well up on Russia.
	And uh, you know, I was just getting out of grammar school when Stalin died, but I you know I learned a lot in subsequent years.
	I didn't know that the Russians had offered to join NATO.
	I didn't know that.
	My friend uh Jeff Roberts uncovered that by going into the Soviet archives and picking out the foreign minister papers written by Molotov and Malinkov and how they made these overtures to NATO.
	Now it's really interesting because Malin the Presidium had to really cover its rear end because this is amazing, but they did it now.
	That was in 1954.
	Putin mentions it at Valday.
	Now the next year, what happens?
	The Russians create the Warsaw Pact.
	Whoa, wait a second now.
	I thought the Warsaw Pact was created in reaction.
	I thought the NATO was created in reaction to the Warsaw Pass.
	No, no, it wasn't.
	NATO was created in 1949.
	Right.
	Warsaw Pact 1955.
	Now that really wasn't in my active imagination for many years until I tried to assimilate this stuff.
	This is history.
	It's documented.
	And the whole notion about how the Cold War started, you know, needs a little re-jiggering, even in minds like mine who pretend to know a lot about Russian history.
	Why do European elites?
	Whether it's Emmanuel Macron or Frederick Merz or Keir Stormer or Mrs. Maloney in Italy, why do European elites hate the Russians?
	Money.
	The military industrial complex is just as powerful in Europe as it is here.
	If you don't have a if you don't have an enemy, my God, you know, it almost came to not having an enemy when Putin uh rehabilitated uh the the Russia and sought around 21415.
	My God, how could you build a common European battle tank if there was no threat from Russia?
	Well, that was 2013.
	2014, we had the coup in Kiev, and all of a sudden Russia was Russia had planned this thing, had planned to take over Crimea and all this stuff.
	All this poppycock justifying, well, what happened?
	Mafai.
	Mafia and the French firm were building the common European battle tank.
	And whoa, they're stock went like that.
	And then finally, what was the other firm sued Mafai and said, or the other way around?
	Mafai said, you're trying to build the common European battle tank now.
	No, we have the rights to that.
	They settled it out of court, and both firms are making billions, not millions, billions of bucks on this threat from Russia, which now they justify by the unprovoked nature of the Russian entry into Ukraine.
	Do you think that uh there are no longer rules of war uh that nations follow, as Alistair Crook uh has argued, that in fact uh there's a straight line between uh Netanyahu's slaughter of the Gazans and Donald Trump's blowing speedboats out of the water in the Caribbean?
	Well, Trump, I think, uh was impelled first and foremost by the desire to show how tough he was.
	Uh, in other words, you know what happened in in Beijing, and it looked like the world was turning against the US and the West, so to speak, so he had to show some muscle.
	It came directly after the Beijing thing.
	But this is really, there is no rule anymore.
	Now, when was the last time?
	Well, the last time it really mattered in a nuclear environment was when John Kennedy made that wonderful speech at American University in June 1963.
	I had just joined the CIA, and what he said was look, the main thing we have to avoid, there are two nuclear powers, Russia and us at the time, Soviet Union, is to make sure that we never backed up the other into a choice between abject surrender and using nuclear weapons.
	Now, that was the that was the Cold War rules.
	Or those war rules of engagement.
	Now, with respect to Ukraine, We backed the Russians up to where they entered Ukraine, and then we uh through our proxies uh tried to back the the Russians into what they call a strategic defeat.
	And you know, they're not going to be strategically defeated by anybody on their border when they see an existential threat coming.
	That's just the rules of the road.
	What basis is there legal or political, I guess mainly political, to stop a ship on high seas that has no arms uh that is filled with civilians that is carrying food, water, and medication for Gaza.
	Oh, none at all.
	I thought you were going to talk about the French uh intercepting that cargo ship with uh with oil.
	No, there's no basis at all in that.
	And of course, I was on one of those flotillas, 2011, and you know, they just do what they want.
	And uh I don't know how strongly the White House talked to Netzinyao and said, please don't.
	There's a lot of American veterans, a lot of American people there that please don't do that.
	Well, these gutsy people, and I applaud Greta Thunberg, especially for her her persistence.
	Nevertheless, she persisted, one might say.
	Okay, and they have doctors and they have journalists, and that's gonna stop.
	And we'll have to see if Maloney of Italy says, Oh, please keep uh keep away from the trouble and just be there, just be there in case you can pick up the people who are thrown overboard, okay?
	Or whether she'll step up to all the demonstrations now in Italy, and whether the Spaniards, who also have a battleship or have an uh warship in the area, whether they'll do something more than just wring their hands and pick up the people who are still alive in the Mediterranean Sea.
	What basis is there for the uh French to have stopped a civilian Russian tanker in the high seas?
	Uh, President Putin called it piracy.
	I think he's 100% correct.
	Yeah, that's the basis in law, piracy.
	In other words, it's an outright violation of law.
	Now, it's interesting how Putin explained it.
	He says, you know, why do they do these things?
	Well, look at the look at the chaos in places like France now, my guy.
	Here's a guy who conceives himself as a Napoleon that rings some really strong bells in Russian minds, right?
	Napoleon, a little Napoleon, and his country is fallen apart.
	So he's got to divert attention somehow.
	So he he he grabs one of the ships that he said that people say has Russian oil in it.
	My God, well, if further proof were needed, Judge, as you know, the French government fell this morning.
	I think it was the fourth prime minister they had in in less than a year, and he he gave up uh just one day after we had pointed all his guess having it.
	The place is fallen apart, so yeah, it's to distract.
	And Lavrov made the same the same point with respect to tomahawks and other things, largely uh they're to distract attention from the problems that these geniuses in in Berlin and Paris and London, they can't cope with the problems that they face.
	The uh French constitution says that the government shall be run by the prime minister with his cabinet.
	He had just installed the cabinet, and now they're gone and he's gone.
	So you're right.
	This is the fourth one in a year, the fifth one uh in two years, one wonders what's going to become uh of the French uh government.
	Uh Chris has put together an interesting back-to-back uh on the start treaty.
	So we're gonna run this clip.
	I know you want to talk about this.
	This is fascinating.
	First President Putin, uh, then the uh American press secretary, who often doesn't make any sense but does hear Carolyn Levitt, and then the President of the United States, surprisingly agreeing with President Putin, Chris Cut No.
	Nine.
	Yeah, to Bush really.
	After February 5th, 2026, Russia is prepared to continue adhering to the central quantitative limits of the strategic arms reduction treaty for one year.
	Going forward, based on an analysis of the situation, we will make a decision if we continue adhering to these voluntary self-limitations.
	We believe this measure will only be viable if the United States acts in a similar manner.
	The president is aware of this offer extended by President Putin.
	Um, and I'll let him comment on it later.
	I think it sounds pretty good, but he wants to make some comments on that himself, and I will let him do that.
	President Putin offers the claimant from New Blue on one more year for them.
	Hopefully, you go see it, can you sound like sounds like a good good idea to me?
	Fresh uh everyone's memory, please, on what the START treaty was.
	Well, it severely limits uh the number of intercontinental missiles, whether they're ICBMs launched from the land, or whether a submarine uh launched ballistic missiles.
	Now, um they're tightly controlled.
	Uh the the limits are have been in place for two terms of the START treaty now, and it expires on February 5th of this coming year.
	So this was an initiative about two and a half weeks ago, if memory serves.
	Putin uh made this initiative, uh utter silence.
	And when Putin was asked about this at Balday on the first of October, uh the whole tenor was well, why don't the why don't the doesn't the U.S. respond, even if it's gonna say no, would it really respond?
	Now, I'm not surprised that the response seems to be positive.
	Now, caveat uh Trump may say may say tomorrow, uh it's a bad idea.
	I thought it was a good idea yesterday.
	So caveat that, but this is the real hope.
	If the Russians and the and the Russians did mention this or raise it at at uh uh in Alaska.
	So this is you know, if we can get started on arms control, just as John Kennedy persuaded Khrushchev, look, we can do it, a limited test ban treaty, and that will loosen these things, and we can get a better rapprochement, even Dayton.
	If we can start that, and the Russians seem ready to do that, Kirillov, uh one of uh Putin's major lieutenants, economic guy, financial guy said, Look, this is this is really good.
	He said, uh look, uh, the probability of the outcome uh of relations here, the probability of the outcome of the introduction of these talks is is quite high.
	So Kirillov said that, not Putin.
	There they go waiting until a couple days to see if Trump changes his mind.
	Right.
	He has all kinds of opposition to this.
	If he can move on this, he could move on other things, so that's a good sign.
	He'll have opposition from everybody around him from Lindsay Graham and Tom Cotton to General Kellogg and Secretary Rubio and Sebastian uh Guerka.
	President Putin's comment was on September 22nd.
	President Trump's response was yesterday, October 5th.
	Uh, here's um Dmitry Peshkov on Saturday, Chris Cut number eight.
	Certainly we welcome such a statement and believe that it already provides grounds for optimism in the sense that the United States supports this initiative of President Putin.
	There you have it.
	I think you were you were right all along that uh there was more to the Anchorage Alaska meeting than met the eye.
	Uh, if there's now a meeting of the minds on something as critical as START.
	Well, um, Judge, it's not rocket science.
	Uh if you look how the Russians have been really careful to separate their attempt to make a better relationship with the United States from whatever else goes on.
	Ukraine, U.S. Israel attacks on Iran.
	After each of these major uh kerfuffles, uh the Russians said publicly, look, this is On a different plane.
	We need first and foremost to do this.
	Now, my notion is that uh the the president's daily briefer for Putin is telling him Trump is not well.
	He's not okay.
	You know what that means?
	Vladimir Vladimirovich, he's not okay.
	So Putin said, what does that mean?
	Well, just be guided by the fact that the guy who has his fingers on the codes there or whatever they are, he's not okay.
	So what I saw Putin doing at Valdae was bending over backwards.
	You could almost say to appease Trump, but but also to ingratiate with himself.
	Oh man, he is he's most comfortable guy ever.
	He's the most comfortable guy to talk to.
	Uh Lukianis is most comfortable.
	You're the only guy in the world that thinks he's the most comfortable guy to talk to.
	And yet uh Putin goes on, he bent over backwards to say, look, we have a pretty decent relationship.
	He didn't apparently know quite yet that Trump was going to say what he said yesterday, but there's, you know, there's real prospects for peace.
	And this Tomahawk thing, which entered into the fray again.
	Bear in mind, Lavroff answered that question two days before Putin was asked it.
	And they both answered the same thing.
	I said, look, you know, number one, it's not going to change anything on the battlefield.
	Number two, this is mostly satisfied Europeans.
	The U.S. really sees a need to make sure the Europeans think that the U.S. takes their views seriously.
	And what else?
	Oh, yeah, well, uh, what we had we had tech attack on missiles.
	And what came out of that?
	Well, Russian air defenses put them down.
	Lastly, and this is key.
	He's asked, as Lavrov was, will this damage relations?
	How about the light at the end of the tunnel?
	Uh Vladimir.
	Will this damage?
	No, there's only one answer to that, of course.
	He said, these things can't be manned, they can't even be delivered without U.S. help.
	That won't work, and it's going to be, yeah, well, of course, of course, it's going to damage things.
	What's the how else is he going to answer this?
	So the reality is it's a red herring.
	It's a red herring, but there ain't no tomahawk could ever be used by Ukraine, even if they go circuitously shoe through the Netherlands or Spain or something like that.
	It won't be able to do that for three years, Judge.
	So this is artificial stuff, and uh it's had its impact.
	The Europeans are really happy.
	In the meantime, in the meantime, your former colleagues, so maybe they weren't there when you were there, but CIA are still with MI6 helping Ukraine aim American and British weapons to kill Russian soldiers, correct?
	That's true, uh, but I get I don't think that would be very short-lived.
	Uh I think that uh I think it will be short-lived.
	I think by and by the situation on the ground is becoming ever more precarious for the Ukrainian forces.
	Many of them are surrounded.
	I think uh Putin himself talked about hundreds of thousands deserting.
	And so they have these cauldrons.
	It's just a matter of uh how fast Putin wants to move ahead.
	And I think he sees this as a bargaining chip.
	If Trump can come around and uh make believe this will be a negotiated end to the war, that would be good for everybody, particularly if the West takes seriously the core interests of Russia, which are not to have NATO in Ukraine.
	Raymond Governor, thank you.
	Great conversation, my dear friend.
	Thank you for uh sharing all of your knowledge and analysis with you.
	We'll look forward to seeing you with uh Larry Johnson on Friday.
	Thank you, Judge.
	Sure, all the best, my dear friend.

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