Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté: Can Trump’s Ukraine Negotiations Bring Peace?

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Aaron Maté: Can Trump’s Ukraine Negotiations Bring Peace?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Whatever your stage, businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash listen. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, May 1st, 2025. Aaron Mate joins us now. Aaron, a pleasure. Thank you very much for joining us. You have a very interesting piece in your sub stack column about Donald Trump attempting to negotiate peace in Ukraine with Russia through a variety of sources. Trump has been boasting in the past couple of weeks that a deal is near. Is there any basis for this boast? None. None. I mean, I appreciate his optimism and I appreciate that he wants to end the war

unlike his predecessor, Joe Biden, who wanted to continue this for as long as possible at any cost, including raising the threat of World War III as we recently learned from that long New York Times expose about how the US was basically running the war. But Trump is not doing enough to end this war because he's failing to fully recognize that the US is a belligerent.

And this also extends beyond Ukraine. All the issues that Russia tried to address before it invaded are still there on the table, including Trump's move in his first term, killing the INF Treaty and thereby freeing up the US to develop more offensive missiles that threaten Russia. Russia wants to address all of this now, not just its issues inside of Ukraine. And Russia feels, as I understand the Russian position, that it has the advantage because it's winning on the ground in Ukraine. So given that, why would it basically accept what people like Keith Kellogg want to do,

which is freeze the conflicts indefinitely? Russia's saying that unless we get our demands, which is recognition of the four Ukrainian regions that Russia's claims its own, while also addressing the expansion of NATO, not even just to Ukraine, but in other countries as well, along its borders, then if that's not going to be addressed, then there's no point in ending this war. And that's a fundamental contradiction that Trump has yet to address because he seems to think that by speaking nice about Vladimir Putin and ending the US role in Ukraine that that's enough. But from Russia's perspective, I don't think it is.

From the Kremlin's perspective, how do you think they feel about the United States as a go-between, as a mediator when in fact we are, as you just said, a co-belligerent? I mean, the president has recently as I don't know when the Terry Moran interview was, maybe two days ago, boasted that he has supplied more effective missiles to Kiev than Joe Biden ever did. Exactly. And that's the problem with Trump's position. He wants it both ways. He wants to be a peacemaker, but he also wants to maintain his self perception as being tough and hawk and tougher on Russia than Obama was. He loves to brag about how he gave the Ukraine javelin missiles. He loves to brag about the fact that he tried to kill

the Nord Stream 2 pipeline via sanctions. And that's funny if he wants to do that, but if he's going to do that, then he's going to basically play into Russian fears that the US can't be negotiated with because all they want to do is weaken Russia, whether it's under Biden or Trump. So Trump has to pick a choice here. Does he want to actually engage in diplomacy, which means addressing the grievances of your adversary and Russia has a lot of them, or does he want to continue to play the tough guy?

And I think he's trying to find a middle ground and Russia, because it went to war over this, is not going to accept that. And so if this is the continued course, what is going to happen is Trump will not go to Congress to ask for more money. That I am sure of that. That's the one thing I think he can offer Russia here tangibly. And Russia has said, there's no point in talking about a ceasefire if the weapons are going to continue.

But if the intelligence support from the US to Ukraine continues, and if European states can continue arming Ukraine, not to the extent that the US can, but still to some level that is substantial, then this war will go on for a long period of time. So two questions. One is how much longer will the pipeline flow before Trump has to go to Congress and ask for more or just say that's it? And two, is General Kovolian and his crew still in Wiesbaden, Germany, working with Ukrainian Intel on targeting, on finding Russian targets? Intel on targeting or on finding Russian targets? On the first question, how much longer is anyone's guess? A lot of money was appropriated last year, $60 billion.

That's a lot. And that should last Ukraine at least a year. And we're coming up on that now. So who knows? I don't know how long they can stretch that out for. As for Kovoli, yeah, there is still obviously a US force in Germany. And I believe formally, I think some managerial responsibility has been farmed out to the Europeans. But really, we all know who's

running the show. And yes, so yes, it's safe to assume that the US military is still playing an integral role in intelligence support to Ukraine. Here's President Trump two days ago talking about weapons to Ukraine. Chris, cut number one. If there is no peace deal, will the US cut off military aid? I don't want to tell you that. I'm not going to tell you whether or not I would or not. I want to leave that as a big fat secret because I don't want to ruin a negotiation. But I will tell you, I was not happy when I saw Putin

shooting missiles into a few towns and cities. And that was not something that I liked seeing. And I thought it was inappropriate, but I think the whole war is inappropriate. Well, he should talk to Pete Hegseth, who's shooting missiles into towns and cities every day in Yemen. Yeah, war. Over 500, according to Larry Johnson, over $500 million worth of munitions dropped on,

aimed at, exploded in Yemen, Mr. President. Or his good friend Netanyahu, who was doing the same in Gaza while also imposing a starvation siege that Trump has done nothing to address except supporting it. But yeah, look on this point again, he's caught, he wants to end the war, but he's not yet made the political decision as to, you know, how far he's willing to go to address Russian concerns. And look, it's Russia's choice to fight. Russia went to war over this. And so Trump isn't obligated to meet all these Russian demands. I mean, especially, and it's hard given that Russia made the decision to invade for a US president

to reach some kind of sweeping deal with Russia. I understand that. But from Russia's point of view, I don't think they care. They went to war over this. This is about their perceived security concerns and their perception of the well-being of ethnic Russians inside Ukraine who were threatened by the coup forces that the U.S. empowered with the backing of the Maidan coup in 2014. And so if Trump is not going to make a decision, Russia is going to continue pressing ahead. And no matter what Trump says about Putin, you know, he's not happy with this. Vladimir stopped as he implored Putin to do

recently on social media. Russia's not going to care. They're going to go ahead. Let me just stop you for a minute. Fox News is reporting that Mike Waltz has been fired as national security advisor. I don't know if you heard this. It apparently just broke a couple of minutes ago while we were on, uh, on air. Do you know any more about this than, than this simple headline? I heard rumblings of this. I mean, this was going around and Trump initially stood by Mike Waltz, but it was clear that

especially given what happened in the first term when Mike Flynn was also fired pretty quickly that Trump didn't want to look weak again and once again fire a national security advisor so soon into his term. But look, this seemed pretty inevitable after Mike Waltz was responsible for adding Jeffrey Goldberg to that signal chat and that was a massive embarrassment despite the fact that Trump made his did his best to spin this and say that the fake news media was hyping this up. No, that was a disclosure of classified information. That was a major embarrassment.

And so it was only a matter of time that Mike Waltz would be shown his way out the door. I have to say politically, you know, Mike Waltz has long represented the same sort of neocon dogma that people like Donald Trump claimed, and I stress claimed, to oppose, you know, endless wars, all the wars that Trump says he opposes, Mike Walz has supported. So politically, this leads to someone who is less of a career neocon than Mike Walz, and I think this is a development to welcome. Someone I don't, I never heard of by the name of Alex Wong, W-O-N-G, the principal deputy

national security advisor was also fired today. Yeah. He's also, he was also implicated in adding Jeffrey Goldberg to that signal chat. So I'm not surprised that he's been ousted as well. All right. Back, um, uh, back to where we were, uh, talk about the people around Trump and who's a neocon and who's not, Tell me what you think of this. Chris, the Hegseth full screen. This is the Secretary of Defense of the United States on his own ex-account. Message to Iran. We see your lethal support to the Houthis. We know exactly what you

are doing. You know very well what the U.S. military is capable of and you are doing. You know very well what the US military is capable of and you were warned You will pay the consequence in caps at the time and place of our choosing But what is this? Accomplished while Witkoff is trying to negotiate with the foreign minister of Iran and negotiate with Putin and negotiate with Hamas. When Trump appointed John Bolton in his first term as his nationalist creative advisor, he was asked many times afterwards,

why did you appoint John Bolton who opposes everything that you stood for in your campaign and campaign against endless wars? And Trump said, I liked John Bolton there because he made me look, because he's crazy, because John Bolton's crazy. And I wanted our adversaries to think that I had someone crazy around me because I thought that would help my negotiating position.

I want them to think that we're crazy enough to take reckless action. So maybe that's the method behind this madness of having his defense secretary openly threaten Iran with war and Trump thinks that that will help his negotiating position as Steve Wyckoff is currently engaged in talks, high level talks, serious talks with Iran. It makes no sense to me. I think it's totally reckless. I think it's very dangerous. Imagine if an Iranian military official in that position said the same thing about the US. I mean, it's very dangerous stuff. But Trump feels as if it is a good way to do business. And let's hope that this is Trump's way of trying to do a deal, that he thinks that by looking tough, it'll be easier for him to make a deal with Iran. That's my hope because short of that, if this actually is a genuine threat and they're considering striking Iran seriously

and they're deploying the defense secretary to make that threat, I mean, that's very, very ominous. Here's another, uh, Heg Seth. Chris, post this one. Well, that's this. This is Professor Muhammad Morandi. Oh, okay, so I see. This is Professor Morandi to Heg Seth. Correct. Thank you, Chris. And thank you, Aaron.

I'll read it. We see your lethal support for the Zionists, the child killers, the rapists. We know exactly what you are doing. You know very well what the resistance is capable of. And you were warned you will be remembered as an accomplice to the hashtag Gaza Holocaust. All right that might explain some of the Hegsath's language which mirrors a little bit of what the professor said. Do you know or know of this professor? Yeah, Professor Morandi, I know him very well. He's mirroring what Hegsath said. I mean he's responding to Hegsath. That's what he's doing there. And you know, look, Professor Morandi, he doesn't speak for the Iranian government, so he's speaking for himself. All this bellicose talk on all sides, I would like to see negotiations. This is a very serious issue. There are serious talks going on.

That's my point. Litkoff, for all of his newness to the government, is a serious negotiator and he's had to sound like a school yard bully. Yeah, sure. Exactly. I mean, it's ridiculous what he's saying. First of all, the premise of his comment that Iran is basically controlling the Houthis, aka Ansar Allah, it's farcical. Ansar Allah is an autonomous movement. They've made a decision to intervene to try to stop the Gaza genocide. You can criticize them for what they're doing in terms of going after ships if you want to, but to say that Iran is responsible, there's no evidence for that whatsoever. Just as there's no evidence that Iran even knew about October 7th. These are all autonomous organizations, movements

in Yemen with a large number of supporters who act on their own. And Max Blumenthal, my colleagues, in interviews with a senior official with Ansarullah who explained that from their point of view, this was an obligation to do something for the people of Gaza while the rest of the world watches silently as the people of Gaza are subjected to a genocide.

So they've intervened in the way that they can, which is disrupting ships near Yemen. The idea that Iran is behind this, there's no evidence for that whatsoever. Let's go back to Trump's negotiating. Does he have any leverage with Putin? to Trump's negotiating. Does he have any leverage with Putin? Well, he could have leverage if he chose once again to adopt the Biden policy of spending tens of billions of dollars on a proxy war.

But look, Trump has changed his mind a lot, but he campaigned against this. He talked about making peace and he clearly does not wanna be a part of this war. So I don't see him going before Congress and asking for another 50, 60 billion dollar military package for Ukraine. I spoke to someone close to the White House who also said there's no way that it's going to happen, who has a pretty good handle on Trump's thinking on this. Now granted, Trump does change his mind a lot and who knows with him, but I'm pretty confident that he won't

go before Congress. So that's his main point of leverage he's threatened new sanctions on Russia he's talked about secondary sanctions which means that going after countries that buy Russian energy but if he does that that's gonna hike energy prices for Americans and Trump already dealing with a you know troubled economy and still grappling with the turmoil of his terror rollout. I just don't think he's in any position to do that. Here he is yesterday in an interview with a Glenn Beck saying Putin is easier to deal with than Zelensky cut number nine.

I think he treated you poorly in the oval myself. He's he's kind of a punk. But is he the problem? You said it. Yeah. Is he the problem? Is Putin the problem? Or is Europe the problem? So, look, Russia's a very big military force. And Ukraine isn't. Without Ukraine, and I'm the one that supplied the javelins to them. So, you know, I did a lot for them because the tanks got stuck in the mud

and then they got javelin threat. And it's, and remember this, I say it here, I say it every time, this is Biden's war, not my war. I'm just trying to end it. And I'm actually ending it, yes, for money, but I'm not ending it for that number one. I'm ending it because they're losing 5,000 people a week. Things were said, like when Zelensky was in the Oval Office, I was talking about getting

it done, and he starts screaming, but we need security, meaning security after the fact. I said, security? I don't even know if we can get this deal done. He's asking for more, just more and more and more. And he doesn't have the cards, as you know, because you see what's happening over there. He doesn't have the cards. So hopefully he's gonna get it done, because I don't believe that Vladimir Putin would be doing this for anybody else but me.

And I would say thus far, he's been easier to deal with than Zelensky. To deal with than than Zelensky. An interesting, it seems to me strange but an interesting observation. Zelensky is a puppet of the United States. Russia isn't equal to the United States. Zelensky is also a puppet of the supranationalists around him. He may truly be a puppet. He's not even the legitimate head of state. Zelensky to me is a hostage. He's a hostage to the ultra-nationalists, the extremists who have repeatedly threatened his life if he makes a peace deal that addresses Russian

concerns and this goes back a long time. He's also a hostage to the US and particularly the previous administrations who did nothing to back him up when the ultra-nationalists, including neo-Nazis, were threatening his life. And he's especially a hostage to the Biden administration because he made the huge mistake of listening to them. They duped Zelensky. They promised Zelensky that if he walked away from that peace deal with Russia that his own team brokered in April 2022, three years ago as we're speaking, they promised him that

we'll give you security guarantees. That recently came out from a Ukrainian negotiator, Alexander Chaly. He said that in talking to the US and UK, they said, we're not gonna reach a peace deal that involves Russia. So if you want security guarantees with us, you have to not make a deal with Russia. So they listened, they walked away from Istanbul,

then they came back to Joe Biden and Boris Johnson and said, how about those security guarantees? And Joe Biden said basically, nah, forget that. We'll give you weapons and that's your security guarantee. Well, meaning that we said basically, no, forget that. We'll like we'll give you weapons and that's your security guarantee. Well, meaning that we're gonna yeah we're gonna dupe you into walking away from a peace deal and then if you want anything from us it's just weapons so that we can continue to use you to bleed Russia and now Zelensky having been duped by that he needs something to

show for it now from Trump. Trump's not gonna give it to him. Well are there security guarantees in the minerals deal? How can the United States have access to Ukrainian minerals without United States protection of the real estate? There's no security guarantees whatsoever in the minerals deal. All there is is Zelensky being so desperate that he's willing to do anything that could possibly, he's hoping, he's throwing like a hell Mary here, he's hoping that by signing this deal finally with Trump that this will draw the US closer in and will compel the US to protect Ukraine in ways that Ukraine wants, but the deal doesn't contain any of that

because Trump's not going to do that. This is just a desperate move by Zelensky to finally cave to Trump. What are Senators Lindsey Graham, John Gouffball, Kennedy and Richard Blumenthal up too. Well, they want those secondary sanctions imposed to target Russia and anybody who does business with Russia. That's what they feel is the way to get leverage over Russia. John Kennedy just said that we're not going to have peace unless we make clear to Russia that we can turn the Russian economy into fish food. that was his term. And they're pushing that.

This is a graduate of Oxford University who puts on this act to appeal to his audience in Louisiana, but what is accomplished by making a threat like that? This is as absurd as Lindsey Graham saying, we're gonna bomb the Iranian oil refineries. Exactly, yeah. Look, it's tough talk. It's hard for these people to imagine engaging in diplomacy with an adversary,

especially Russia, given the animus that still lingers from the Cold War. A lot of these people come from that period. They're steeped in this idea that you just can't negotiate with Russia. You can't make peace with what they still consider to be the Soviet Union. Even the Soviet Union has been long gone for three decades. And so that's where they're coming from. Just the concept of diplomacy just doesn't register with them.

Aaron, thank you very much. Thanks for your time. Thanks for accommodating my schedule, dear friend. Look forward to seeing you again soon. Likewise, thank you, Judge. Okay. And coming up later today at 1130 this morning, Colonel Douglas MacGregor at 2 o'clock this afternoon,

Colonel Larry Wilkerson at 3 o'clock this afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. freedom.