Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano - Pepe Escobar : Is the Kremlin Losing Patience?

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Oct. 9, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano

25:28

Pepe Escobar : Is the Kremlin Losing Patience?

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	Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom.
	Today is Thursday, October 9th, 2025.
	Pepe Escobar will be here with us in just a moment.
	He's coming to us from Thailand on is the Kremlin losing patience.
	And why is the Chinese middle class so prosperous?
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	Pepe, what a pleasure, my dear friend.
	Thank you for joining us.
	Where did we find you today?
	Well, I am in Thailand, uh, in between uh trips.
	I'm waiting for a very important visa to a very important destination.
	For the moment, I cannot disclose it.
	All right.
	Well, uh, I I hope that you uh get the visa.
	I hope that we can that we can interview you from that destination.
	But before we uh get to your travels and your observations uh in China, I want to talk to you about the latest in Gaza.
	Why should anybody trust the Israelis to leave Gaza and stop the genocide once uh their hostages have been returned and Hamas has put down their arms?
	That's the key question.
	We cannot trust them.
	Well, at least now we have three important two Arabs and one Turk actors directly involved.
	Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.
	So we can assume that Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, considering that the prime minister of uh Qatar was directly involved, Erdogan himself was directly involved.
	This is before the Netanyahu reduction of the Trump, the so-called Trump peace plan, which is not a peace plan, by the way.
	Basically, the only thing that matters the return of the hostages.
	There's not a single coma about how uh people in Gaza are going to live from now on, where they're going to live since everything is destroyed, and not to mention the reconstruction of Gaza.
	So, if uh the desk cult in West Asia decides to do something against the agreements, we have these three who will be exercising direct surveillance, and of course, the president of the United States with his eyes in the Nobel Prize will be extremely displeased as well.
	Does that guarantee that the desk will respect the agreements?
	No.
	because they never won't cutter and won't cutter and egypt do whatever trump asks them to do judge at the moment we cannot answer this question really it It's impossible.
	We don't know, and we don't know the degree of commitment, especially Egypt, which is also a shape shifting uh enterprise.
	Erdogan business relations with Israel were not touched by the genocide.
	He continued to have the BTC oil pipeline transporting oil from Azerbaijan through the BTC to Israel, which is 40% of Israel's energy needs, so nothing has changed.
	So these are very dubious to say the least characters.
	Perhaps the most um trustworthy in the situation is Qatar, because Qatar had been helping Hamas for a long time and the Hamas political office in uh what happened, and what happens if Netanyahu attacks Qatar again?
	Once again, Judge, this is an excellent question, but we don't know how not only Qatar but the other uh players in uh the leading to the agreements, how they're going to react and the Arab world as a whole.
	Well, at least I would say that the desk girls will be definitively unmasked.
	Oh, they are already definitively a masked.
	There will be an extra unmasking, in fact.
	But we are, I think, evading the key question.
	Why now?
	This is an enormous piece of theater with different layers, in fact.
	It's like uh an Aristophanis Greek uh tragic comic uh endeavor, and more tragic than comic, in fact.
	Netanyahu gets some respite.
	Uh he deviates the attention from the genocide.
	So now, all over the world, people are not talking about the genocide for the past few hours or day or so.
	They are talking about the so-called uh ceasefire peace plan, etc.
	Trump has his sights on the Nobel Peace Prize, which is going to be announced if I'm not mistaken tomorrow.
	So probably he's not gonna get it.
	Maybe he's gonna get it next year.
	And of course, what is the main subject, considering the death cult in West Asia and the support and the symbiosis in the axis of Zionists between uh United States and Israel, a possible attack on Iran?
	This is the main subject, and this is what they're going to concentrate on for from now on.
	Reports have circulated in the West that on October 7th, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu called President Putin and attempted to get him to cancel his plans to deliver um anti-uh missile defenses to Iran.
	I couldn't imagine that Netanyahu could talk true, uh Putin into what he wants.
	Absolutely not, but this is ridiculous.
	Uh, and this is this is spin and bad spin and childish spin.
	Um, judge, I cannot reveal the content of uh our discussions, but before I started my travels in in China in the towards the West, I had an off-the-record lunch meeting in Beijing after uh the victory parade, Tianjin summit, SEO, etc.
	with Zoo Bo.
	Zhou Bo is a former PLA uh colonel.
	He wrote an excellent book, which is a collection of some of his articles for the past few years, which by the way, I was trying to find here in uh the best Japanese uh bookstore in uh in uh Thailand, and I could not.
	And he said, Yes, you cannot find my book, it's very hard to find my book, and it his book is not on Kindle.
	Uh, should the world be afraid of China?
	And during our conversation, what I can reveal is that China is helping Iran actively and not only diplomatically.
	This is as much as I can reveal.
	Okay, much uh much appreciated.
	I have another question to ask you about uh Russia from the Russian side, Judge.
	Yes, I'm sorry.
	I just uh got off air with my twice monthly interview at the of the great game, Dmitry's Symes.
	You know Dmitry, of course I do, yes.
	First question he asks me is Donald Trump serious about giving Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.
	This is a very very serious concern, and then he said, has he made up his mind already?
	But he just won't say, and I said To the first question, I don't know to the second question.
	He said he made up his mind, but he didn't say which way he decided.
	Yes, I mean, what will happen if he authorizes this?
	This will accelerate things radically in the wrong direction, won't it?
	Absolutely, Judge.
	And I'll give you the short answer.
	And this answer was not given by Putin during the Valdae.
	By the way, the Valdae this year was very disappointing.
	Nothing important happening before Putin's intervention.
	And his QA was relatively mild and not as sharp as the previous ones in the Valdeye and in the forums in St. Petersburg.
	We saw we saw a QA where the questioner was one of our on air colleagues, uh, our print, our friend Professor Glenn Diesen.
	I thought he asked a great question, and Putin gave um asked the answer.
	Exactly very articulate, grammatically correct, well thought out, but not groundbreaking.
	Not groundbreaking, exactly.
	And if you would ask, for instance, people at the top of the SVR or the FSB, what if they launch Tomahawks against uh targets inside the Russian Federation?
	Their instant response will be okay.
	We go Oreshnik, and we go to the stores the sources, and the sources we all know are NATO, American and NATO.
	So this obviously Putin as a hyper cool, calm, uh collected, uh, calculating legalistic mind.
	He cannot say that in public, but he at least could be a little more emphatic these past few days, analyzing the possibility on the new Tomahawk uh soap opera.
	Let's put it this way.
	What he said, if I remember well, for the past 48 hours is if this happens, Russian uh US relations will go back to zero.
	Not in these words, of course.
	Wow, but most important, uh judge, in my in my opinion, is what Sergei Ryabkov, number two for uh foreign ministry, one of the best diplomats on the planet.
	This is what he said in the past 24 hours.
	He compared Russia uh US relations to uh collapsing building, and he basically said the building is collapsing, or maybe it's practically collapsed.
	For us, we would like to, of course, uh start uh rebuilding uh the this construction, but apparently there's no interest on the other side.
	Ryabkov is a very subtle guy.
	This is his way of saying, Look, the ball is in your court, and if you throw a tomahawk ball, you know exactly what's gonna happen.
	Are the Kremlin elites growing impatient with the duration of the war in Ukraine?
	Completely, uh, especially uh very powerful oligarchic circles, which uh Putin has to negotiate with financial uh banking, uh ultra-important CEOs of state companies, and obviously many of them uh were okay.
	We know that for the past three, three and a half years.
	This is an almost war, their own definition in informal dinners in Moscow.
	Uh, it should have finished a long time ago.
	Why didn't we go for the head of the snake?
	Which is basically what you hear off the record from people very well positioned in the intent in the whole intel apparatus, and people in the think tanks who are not trying to play ball with Atlanticists, which is the case of the Valdeye Club.
	I have many friends who are members of the Valdae Club, and we discussed the Valdae off the record as well.
	They are too Atlanticist, and they are too accommodating vis-a-vis the West.
	Uh, other, for instance, other centers of learning in Russia, they are much more I wouldn't say aggressive, but sharper, understanding that Russian patience has reached its limit, and there are no limits to the empire, NATO and the Empire NATO compound provocation.
	Tomahawk is just the next one.
	There will be others after that.
	Will um, you know, uh Chancellor uh Merz is talking about uh building long-range whistle missiles.
	Well, will the Kremlin wait uh for those missiles to be aimed at Moscow and St. Petersburg or will they destroy the munitions plants?
	When I put that question is excuse me to Dimitri Simes this morning, even though it's his show, not mine.
	I turned his question to a question in, which he loved basically said to me, What do you think?
	And the look on his face was of course.
	We cannot say, of course, Judge, because the ultimate decision is Putin's, and as much as uh we have inklings of uh how Putin uh sees the war long term and how he sees the chess board moving bit by bit, but long term.
	He plays long-term chess 10 moves in advance.
	He does, he also makes mistakes, of course, and he is criticized.
	The major mistake was that uh he could have finished this war at least a year ago, and he did.
	And this comes from inside circles inside or around the top level.
	Yeah, but that but that observation presumes that his goal was just territorial.
	If his goal is goal was to decimate the military, the classic human beings who would populate the military, that goal wasn't reached a year ago, it's closer now.
	Am I right?
	You're absolutely right, Judge.
	Uh, the goal was never territorial, the goal explicitly via Putin and other people in the government, demilitarization of Ukraine and demilitarization of NATO,
	which is in progress, slowly but surely, uh chameleon style, Russia style, and denazification, which is a much more complicated uh process, which would take probably two or three generations, right?
	But the Russians want to start it now.
	Before we uh switch over to China, and you just had a fascinating time in China.
	I asked you earlier what happens if Netanyahu attacks Qatar again.
	Chris took screenshots of the look on your face and on mine when I asked that question, and you said, here are the screenshots.
	Excellent question.
	Well, look at the looks on our faces.
	We just don't we just don't know.
	You just don't know.
	You just don't know.
	No, I mean, the latest news out of Tel Aviv is that Netanyahu has postponed his uh cabinet meeting uh to approve uh the Trump proposal.
	Apparently, he doesn't have the votes.
	We were supposed we were supposed to get an approval today, right?
	Yes, yes.
	So they've delayed that meeting until 8 p.m.
	Uh Tel Aviv time, which is about 40 minutes from now.
	I don't know when and if that approval uh will come.
	Uh beer and their buddies could leave uh the government.
	That then what is Netanyahu do?
	Can you imagine Judge convincing those uh uh mega fanatics, part of the death cult that what they wanted in the first place, which was destroy Gaza, kill everybody inside and annex Gaza.
	This dream is over, at least for now.
	Yes, I don't know that even the persuasive powers of Benjamin Netanyahu the chicanery of Benjamin Netanyahu, even the politics of Benjamin Netanyahu could pull that off.
	No, it's it's it's absolutely impossible.
	And the fact that Atayahu came out and said that this is a national and moral victory for Israel.
	This does not even qualify as a childish joke.
	Yeah.
	First of all, because what they did is beyond immoral.
	They conducted a genocide, thinking that they could kill everybody inside in the next lands that are not theirs.
	And second, this is a defeat.
	They had to accept Trump's plan.
	Or else there was no, there was nowhere else to go.
	For me, Scott River was on Scott Ritter was on with us, Pepe about uh five hours ago.
	He agrees with you 100%.
	He said virtually the same thing.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And of course, they want to deviate uh people's attention from the general side and concentrate on Iran from now on, and that explains the timing.
	Right, right.
	Uh, switching gears to your uh trip.
	How prosperous is the Chinese middle class?
	I was uh my my jaw fell on the floor day after day because I saw the whole of China on the move, even before the famous uh golden week, which finished only uh finishes today, by the way.
	Finish it yesterday.
	I'm sorry, eight days of holidays.
	Uh, everybody in China dreams of it the whole year, and you saw whole families in their jeeps and SUVs discovering the west of China for the first time.
	It's something to behold, and this is something we discussed with Uyghur businessman on the spot.
	Something I discussed when I was still in the Gansu corridor before getting there.
	That's the central part of the Silk Road before you get to Sinjiang.
	These pictures that you're showing, uh I'm really really pleased that you're showing them, Judge.
	These are on my telegram channel, some bits and pieces of uh of my travels.
	So you have ancient Buddhist cities of the sixth or seventh century, you have this absolutely spectacular alpine lake at almost 4,000 meters high.
	You have the Buddhist paintings in the Mogao caves on the basic leak caves that you're showing now.
	You have fantastic pasta, Lamyan from Langan from Lanzon with special spices, and this beautiful bronze horse that you uh you just showed.
	This is considered the absolute masterpiece of bronze craftsmanship in China.
	It's in the uh the museum in Gansu, it's the famous flying horse of Gansu, and it's literally a flying horse in bronze.
	Uh can you put up the silk roads again?
	Uh, yes, that that's the flying horse of the case.
	So tell me about the significance of these modern-day silk roads, the most western part of which is in Rome.
	So, uh, this is a map, Judge, of the ancient Silk Roads and the maritime silk road as well, going uh all the way to the uh now the Suez Canal.
	So they made a sort of mix of the ancient Silk Roads and the New Silk Roads in this map.
	It's in one it's in one of the museums.
	If I'm not mistaken, this one is in the Sian uh history museum in Shanchi.
	They are all these museums, not only they are it's amazing to get in.
	If you uh if you go there in the morning, there are gigantic queues because it's free.
	You just need to show your Chinese ID card, and you get into the museum free.
	So obviously, everybody goes all the time, and the collections are absolutely mind-boggling, especially in terms of Silk Roads artifacts from I would say at least the third century all the way to the 16th, 17th century.
	Uh, this is our uh director of photography, Stan.
	He was shooting me on one of the lost cities in the middle of the desert.
	In fact, we flew a drone, and then the police came because we didn't have authorization to fly a drone, and that was a major problem.
	You didn't end up in jail, or I would have heard about it, I'm sure.
	No, no, we did not.
	They were very very polite, but they said, Look, if you do this next time, you're gonna be in trouble.
	We And we said, look, we didn't know that we needed an authorization because we are in a canyon in the middle of nowhere.
	It doesn't matter.
	There are uh there are there are cameras all over the place.
	What is this magnificent lake?
	This is the white sand lake in the Pamir lands.
	This is uh when you leave Uigur lands and you take the Karakoram to get to the China-Pakistan border.
	This is one of the lakes, it's uh at around 3,000 meters high.
	It's considered one of the most beautiful lakes all across Eurasia, and the other one is Lake Karaku, which is closer to the China Pakistan border.
	This is uh the Chinese doing their camel caravan outside of Dunghuang, part of the Silk Road as well.
	You see zillions of families queuing.
	Uh, you won't believe how you do it.
	Uh uh, Judge.
	I got uh QR code on Alipay to get a camel ride, and when I got my camel, I was surrounded by 25 million tourists.
	That's how it works.
	Last question before I let you go, and I think I know the answer.
	How independent of the West is the Chinese economic prosperity.
	Totally independent.
	Yeah, I I would say, Judge, of uh being on the road for almost a month from the east to the west, because I started in Sian, which is one of the major uh cities in eastern China, and I ended in Kashgar, which is the fabled oasis, the beginning of the China Pakistan economic corridor, which is an essential part of the new Silk Road.
	I would say that the headline is how socialism with Chinese characteristics manage to develop a whole region the size of Western Europe in only two decades, and now prosperity is available to virtually everyone.
	Wow.
	Fascinating, my friend.
	What a life you lead, and how generous you are to share all of it uh with us.
	My pleasure.
	Come on.
	Well, uh, when you get to this uh secret place, please let us know and we'll interview you from there.
	Godspeed.
	Exactly.
	If I get there, Judge, you're gonna be the first interview, is gonna be for you.
	There's no question.
	Thank you.
	Thank you, my man.
	Everybody loves hearing from you, and not the least important.
	Thank you so much.
	Thanks, everybody.
	Safe travels.
	Thank you.
	Bye-bye.
	Cheers.
	Bye bye.
	Great human being, so so charming, intelligent and lovable.
	Uh, coming up this afternoon, more charm, intelligence, and love at two o'clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson at three o'clock, Professor John Meersheimer at 4:30.
	Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Nope, town for judging freedom,

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