Judging Freedom - Aaron Maté: Russia On the March.

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Aaron Maté: Russia On the March.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, November 7th, 2024. My dear friend Aaron Maté joins us now. Aaron, a pleasure. Thank you very much for your time, as always. I do want to spend some time with you on Ukraine, particularly your recent article in your Substack column, Russia on the March. questions if you don't mind. Do you think that a Trump State Department will be filled with the same pro-Zionist culture and mentality and ideology that the Biden State Department has? Well, it's a matter of speculation, but the early signs are not very encouraging if you're looking to avoid having Israel supporters and regime change fanatics fill the ranks because Trump has appointed, apparently, Brian Hook to head the transition team's State Department staffing operations. And Brian Hook was a key architect of Trump's so-called maximum pressure campaign on Iran, which meant maximum

starvation of Iranian civilians, because that's who these sanctions that the U.S. imposes really targets. So Brian Hook being tapped, apparently, it hasn't been confirmed yet, but apparently being tapped for that role is not encouraging. On the other hand, Trump has alienated so many neocons who abandoned him and who sabotaged him from within after he staffed them in his previous administration, that perhaps there just will be less people for him to trust and to hand over the keys to. One key wildcard for me is Mike Pompeo. Mike Pompeo was a loyal lieutenant of Donald Trump. And Pompeo recently bragged that he was the most loyal member of Trump's

administration. And Pompeo was on the scene at Trump's final rallies. He was speaking for Trump. But does Trump forget that, I mean, putting aside even Trump's time in office, after Trump was out of office and that case was brought against him for taking classified documents, Mike Pompeo went on Fox News and basically scolded Trump and said he had endangered national security. So what is Trump going to do with the neocons who he had in his inner circle, but who have been undermining him?

Where does a guy like Brian Hook come from? Does Donald Trump even know him? Is Donald Trump aware of the type of John Bolton, Victoria Nuland, not Bolton and Nuland personally, but that mentality that he's likely to staff the State Department with? And as for Pompeo, as we speak, I understand, and this is just from sources that have sources in Mar-a-Lago, he is the leading candidate, now that Tom Cotton has taken his name out to become the Secretary of Defense. Boy, if Mike Pompeo becomes the Secretary of Defense, the London bookies

will be taking odds on when World War III will start. That's a very grim prospect. I mean, Mike Pompeo, recall, he undermined parts of Trump's agenda, even in office. Trump made outreach to North Korea. Mike Pompeo, along, he undermined parts of Trump's agenda, even in office. Trump made outreach to North Korea. Mike Pompeo, along with John Bolton, sabotaged that. If you speak to people in MAGA world, they also blame Pompeo for the Ukraine impeachment debacle, where so many hawks who were in Trump's National Security Council, with the help of Mike Pompeo, ended up undermining Trump and sabotaging him

during that whole impeachment fiasco, which we recall was carried out because Trump made the mistake of pausing some weapons for Ukraine, which you're not allowed to do inside Washington, while also asking Ukraine for help investigating the origins of Russiagate, as well as the Biden family's alleged corruption inside Ukraine. So perhaps there are people close to Trump who will remind them of that. But in terms of your question of where Brian Hook would come from, I would look to the major Zionist donors that surround Trump, Miriam Adelson, who simultaneously these people fund the think tanks in Washington that provide the ideological basis for supporting Israel. And they put up people who go through these think tanks. It's sort of a revolving door, the think tank world

and the White House. And so I imagine it's those kinds of structures that are advocating people like Brian Hook. And Trump's surrounded himself with these types. Inside his camp this time, it should be said, there is more of a libertarian strain, I should say, a strain that's more isolationist than last time, or at least is more influential than last time. People like J.D. Vance, who's his vice presidential nominee, he's not a dyed-in-the-wool neocon. People like Tucker Carlson, who's spoken out for Trump.

Back when Tucker had a show on Fox News, he would feature voices like mine, like Anya Parmpil's anti-war voices. So there is more diversions inside Trump's inner circle this time. But whether the isolationist or anti-war voices in his camp and his periphery will be listened to is another question. Before we transition into Ukraine, what is your take on the latest brouhaha involving Prime Minister Netanyahu and this BB gate, these documents, were they forgeries which revealed that Netanyahu sabotaged the ceasefire talks? Were they real documents that revealed real secrets? chief of staff, or not chief of staff, but chief spokesperson for Netanyahu just this afternoon

had his jail term extended. He hasn't been convicted of anything. He's being held just on the basis of the allegations against him. And as if I haven't asked you enough in one question, why is he represented by Netanyahu's lawyer? You can take these any way you want. Well, what did these documents, these alleged documents say when they were leaked to friendly outlets in Europe? They said that documents recovered from Hamas show that Hamas has no interest in a ceasefire deal. So what was the implication of that? It's totally fine for Netanyahu to not negotiate with Hamas, abandon the captives and keep the genocide going. So if I were to bet, I'd say, yes, they were forgeries because they served.

And this is the question you always have to ask yourself, as everyone knows, who benefits, right? And they benefited Netanyahu's goal of continuing the genocide going, therefore furthering his political career and furthering his goal of destroying Gaza and leaving it in ruins. So yes, I would bet that there were forgeries. And the scandal just to me underscores that Netanyahu was never interested in a genuine ceasefire deal. He wanted to keep this war going. And to further that, he used friendly media outlets in Europe with what I believe to be, as you indicated, fake documents. So when the judge hearing the bail application was shown the documents in the courtroom, the judge said, this jeopardizes Israeli national security. He probably should have finished the sentence by saying,

because it shows that the prime minister has been lying all along. He didn't put it that way, but the implication was clear. Are you surprised that this guy has BB's lawyer representing him? Not at all. Not at all. Because again, given that this benefited Netanyahu, it makes sense that this leak traces right back to Netanyahu himself because it served his agenda. And, you know, as we know from Netanyahu, it makes sense that this leak traces right back to Netanyahu himself because it served his agenda. And as we know from Netanyahu, they're willing to lie through their teeth constantly to serve their goals. I mean, just look back to the atrocity propaganda around October 7th, all the lies about dozens of beheaded babies and mass rape. These people are liars. I mean, Lawrence Wilkerson, a frequent guest of yours, I've heard him say before that he just never trusted anything that Israel ever said during his time in office, you know, serving in the government.

He made it that the Israelis were just known to be pathological liars because you have to be when you're running the world's longest run, one of the world's longest running military occupations, pretending you want peace with Palestinians while stealing more of their land every day. I want to play for you the statement of former Defense Minister Gallant, recently dismissed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, and ask you what you think of the three points he makes in this statement. It's a long statement. Chris has narrowed it down to a little under a minute. Chris, cut number six.

This dismissal comes as a result of a dispute on three issues. The first, my firm stance that everyone who is eligible to be drafted to the military must be drafted to the military. They must serve in the IDF and protect the State of Israel. Second topic, our moral obligation to return our sons and daughters, the hostages. The third topic, the need to implement learning from the mistakes of the war. I support a deep investigation into looking into who is responsible, and I call for a national commission of inquiry.

All right, the first issue, the draft. Didn't the Israeli Supreme Court rule overwhelmingly that there's no exemption in the draft laws for the Orthodox. And as critical as you and I have been of Netanyahu, this is really not his fault. He has no choice. Well, I mean, that's always been the subject of controversy inside Israel, the ultra-Orthodox basically seeking an exemption from serving in the military. And Yoav Galant opposed the law that would grant them that exemption. Netanyahu though, I think his agenda there is he needs the ultra-Orthodox for his

political survival because he's in coalition with some of them, right? So to stay in power, I think that's what agenda he is serving there in supporting the exemption. Yov Galant then goes on to say that I think accurately he was calling for Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire deal that was on the table and Netanyahu wouldn't. And I do think that was a factor probably in his dismissal and in calling for a transparent investigation into October 7th and the fail failings of the Israeli military since. Netanyahu also does not want that because that would expose him as being

negligent and basically having October 7th happen under his watch. One of his many motivations for continuing this genocide is avoiding accountability for that. But it has to be stressed, Yoav Galant, I think by any objective standard, is a war criminal. He's the one who declared that people of Gaza are human animals.

He ordered a complete siege. And he's been complicit in genocide. And that, I think, is whatever his political differences with Netanyahu, they both belong in the same docket at the Hague. That's in the be careful what you ask for category because that, as he said, deep investigation would focus on him as well as on Netanyahu. Yeah, but it was, you know, I think what he might have in mind is, for example, it was Netanyahu's decision to remove troops from the area surrounding Gaza, to put them in the West Bank, to fortify Israel's theft of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, and to protect the illegal settlers that are there. That's one of the ways in which Netanyahu took his eye off the ball in Gaza. And there are serious grounds to believe that more could be uncovered, more failings, more negligence could be uncovered if there was actually a transparent investigation.

Now, one thing I don't think anybody in Israel wants, whether it's Yael Galan or Netanyahu or anybody else, is a transparent investigation into how many people Israel killed of its own people on October 7th. That is an aspect we're allowed to talk about on this show. We talk about this at the Gray Zone. Maxwell Mithal has done so much reporting on this. But that fact, of course, remains censored in the United States, where it's still not acknowledged that Israel killed its own people on October 7th. But it is a historical fact that this happened, is it not? It's absolutely a historical fact.

It's been acknowledged in Israel, but it still hasn't gotten the scrutiny that it deserves. And if we had a real press in the US, it would constantly, every time the death toll from October 7th is invoked to justify the massive death toll in Gaza, the minimum would entail acknowledging that Israel killed some of its own people and thereby contributed to that death toll on October 7th. But because that undermines the narrative that sustains the genocide, we're not allowed to discuss it here in the U.S. Transitioning to Ukraine, do you think that the West has recognized that the war is nearly over and Ukraine is on its last leg and it's time to end this?

It is. I mean, just look at the leaks that are coming out now from the White House where they're throwing Zelensky under the bus. The White House recently disclosing that Zelensky had secretly asked for Tomahawk missiles to be placed inside Ukraine. And the White House thought that that was absurd and went around to leaking Zelensky's request, which Zelensky was very upset by. And what is the U.S. offering Ukraine? Well, the Biden administration is going to get out as much military aid to Ukraine as it can before it has to leave office, before Trump comes in. But that amount of aid is not going to rescue Ukraine.

All the U.S. is really telling Ukraine is conscript younger people. Lower your draft age to 18 because that's your only shot because Ukraine's running out of manpower, which is easily predictable. I mean, watching this show, listening to The Gray Zone, everything we've been saying for the last two years is now playing out where Ukraine's running out of people. And so what is the U.S. offering it? It's embarrassing Zelensky and telling Zelensky your only shot is to send more younger people off to die. Senator Marco Rubio, a quintessential neocon, is apparently campaigning in his own unique way to be named Secretary of State.

Here's what he said yesterday concerning Ukraine. Cut number nine. Who wants war? What he's talking about is he wants the war to end. Now, as a businessman, he's not going to tell you about his negotiating tactic to bring it to a close. But I don't understand why we would not want a war like that to end. They don't admit it publicly. But if you ask the Biden administration, they will tell you we are funding a stalemate. OK, I think the Ukrainians have been incredibly brave and strong and standing up to Russia. But at the end of the day, what we are funding here is a stalemate war and needs to be brought to a conclusion because that country is going to be set back 100 years. Now, that doesn't mean that we celebrate what Vladimir Putin did or are excited about it.

But I think there has to also be some common sense here. And that is that right now what we are funding is a stalemate that's costing lives. And, you know, putting Ukraine, it's going to take 100 years to rebuild that poor country with everything they are facing. This is not John Bolton or Lindsey Graham, but how do you read that, Aaron? Well, there's some recognition of reality there in that Ukraine cannot win. And if only this recognition had set in more than two years ago, rather than pushing Ukraine into this inevitable failure that Marco Rubio is now accurately describing. The question is on what terms? And will the Trump administration, especially after years of Trump being accused of being a Russian agent and being undermined by the national security state bureaucracy every time he tried to do something conciliatory toward Russia, are they going to use their political capital on reaching a peace settlement with Russia that recognizes some Russian security concerns and also addresses the fact that Russia wants a rollback of NATO infrastructure, wants the U.S. to take apart the so-called missile defense sites in Poland and Romania that actually threaten Russia's security. I don't think we'll be seeing Trump sign on to that. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just doubt it. I don't know how Rubio or anybody could negotiate any kind of peace with Russia until President Putin's troops take the real estate that he believes he's entitled to.

Well, that's been the policy that essentially the U.S. has been pushing to date because they refuse to accept any accommodation with Russia back when they had the chance. Before the war, when Russia submitted a detailed draft treaty. Biden administration basically wouldn't discuss anything significant, especially NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. And also the Minsk Accords, which had Ukraine accepted them, had the U.S. put pressure on Ukraine to accept them, could have avoided all of this. So will Trump use political capital to reach a peace deal with Russia that addresses Russian concerns, addresses the status of the Russian language, Russian culture inside Ukraine, gets Ukraine to repeal laws that criminalize Russian culture?

Will the Trump administration actually expend political capital on that? I doubt it. So if I'm making a prediction, what I think we're looking at is basically the Trump administration pushing for a very long freeze that sort of puts all this on pause, but doesn't resolve the underlying issues. And how Russia will respond to that, I don't know, because Russia doesn't want to fight this war again. Russia wants to put a permanent end to it. And so, so far, the U.S. policy has incentivized Russia to keep taking more territory. So it's on Trump now to come up with something that breaks from this, but I just think it's very unlikely. The Washington Post reports, and they can stop right there and change that to the CIA wants us to believe, that Muscovites, people in Moscow, are rejoicing as they perceive Trump to be more isolationist and likely to weaken NATO and to stop sending arms to Ukraine.

There's some statute that Biden signed that has arms on the pipeline that somehow Trump can't stop. Even I, as a person who's supposed to understand these statutes, don't get it. But do you think that Russians are rejoicing? Or if not, why would the CIA want us to think that Russians are rejoicing over the election of Donald Trump? Well, there's been this narrative since 2016 that Russia was not only responsible for Trump's victory, but that Russia and Trump engaged in a sprawling conspiracy to bring that victory to fruition. That is so discredited. Could people in Moscow possibly believe it? No, it's a complete scam. So that's what I think this is furthering here, is this, you know, people have been indoctrinated in the U.S. to believe that Russia and Trump are in cahoots. And so therefore it's consistent for Russians to be rejoicing at Trump's victory. People in Russia probably remember that Trump as a president, despite his warm words about Vladimir Putin, was a hawk. He tried to kill the Nord Stream 2

pipeline. He pulled out of the INF Treaty. He sent weapons to Ukraine that Obama would not even send. He ramped up war exercises on Russia's border. He tried to overthrow one of Russia's closest allies, Venezuela. So the Kremlin, I don't think, is rejoicing at Trump's victory. They're probably hoping, though, that since he did win, that maybe he will actually match his rhetoric of talking about getting along with Russia and having a good relationship with Vladimir Putin, that he'll match his rhetoric to policy. I mean, that's probably the hope. But in terms of Russians rejoicing, I just strongly doubt that based on Trump's actual record when he was in office. Do you think that Ukraine can survive much longer?

I think they can keep fighting. I mean, look, it doesn't matter what I think. The Pentagon recently disclosed to the New York Times that Ukraine has enough troops to keep fighting for another six months to one year. It's not a very... It's not a lot of time. Their problem is not arms, Aaron. Their problem is, as I

understand it, from you and Max and Ritter and McGregor and the others, is manpower. That's what they lack. Exactly. And that's why the U.S. is pressuring Ukraine to lower the conscription age to 18 from 25 so that more young people are sacrificed. But even with that estimate of six months to a year, well, we also heard that the Afghan military was prepared to take over security control from the U.S. after the U.S. withdrew. And look how fast that collapsed. That just took hours, basically. So even the Pentagon might be being way too optimistic here.

I never heard of this fellow, Robert Wilkie, former Undersecretary of Defense. Do you know him or know of him? It doesn't ring a bell. All right. He told my friends at Newsmax this fellow, Robert Wilkie, former Undersecretary of Defense. Do you know him or know of him? Doesn't ring a bell. All right. He told my friends at Newsmax this morning, I'm not speaking for Donald Trump, but I think the first call will be to Mr. Putin and it will be stop or I give the Ukrainians everything that they need. This is crazy. What they need is human beings. Where are they going to come from? Yeah. I mean, look, and Trump has floated that before. He said that, you know, the policy will be to base that. I mean, some of his advisors have to.

There was a policy that they drew up where basically Ukraine keeps getting flooded with weapons. But NATO membership is frozen for a while. And if Russia doesn't make a peace deal, then the war goes on. But again, you're just incentivizing Russia to take more territory. Antony Blinken said it a long time ago, back in 2015, when the policy was different, that if you are playing to, if you're playing the military game in Ukraine, you're playing to Russia's advantage because whatever we do, Russia can outmatch it by several times. So if that's the continued policy, then Russia will just keep taking more territory.

I want to go back to where we started before we conclude. Is it more likely than not, in your view, that the neocon mentality will pervade in the new State Department, no matter who the Secretary of State is? Well, given who Trump takes money from to fund his campaign, people like Mary Madelson, my prediction is yes. I'd love to be proven wrong. To the credit of the MAGA camp, there is more divergence inside the establishment on these foreign policy issues than there is on the Democratic side. On the Democratic side, every Democrat, not a single exception, lined up to fund the Ukraine proxy war. In the Republican Party, there was a split. There was a mock camp

that was ultimately voting against the funding for Ukraine. So that suggests that there is a, you know, there could be a factional fight here. But there's not going to be any change on Israel. Not, not with Trump owing Mrs. Adelson a hundred million dollars. A hundred percent. So with Israel, it's much different.

There is total convergence there when it comes to supporting Israel. And yes, Trump, you know, talked about peace in the middle East and he even went to Dearborn, Michigan and took advantage of the major gift that Kamala Harris gave him by – and she refused to deviate from Joe Biden in supporting the genocide. So Trump exploited that and went to Dearborn, Michigan and claimed he wanted peace and put out flyers about how the Kamala Harris campaign was – that the Biden campaign and the Kamala Harris campaign were responsible for the carnage in Gaza and talked about ending the war. But in terms of, is there any sign that Trump will do anything differently than Joe Biden other than be even

more extreme? No, no, I'm not confident in that respect. Aaron, thank you very much, my dear friend, much appreciated. Thanks for changing your schedule to accommodate ours. All the best, my friend. I hope you'll come back next week. Absolutely. Thank you, Judge. Of course. Coming up at 5 o'clock this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. We'll see you next time. Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates,

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