Judging Freedom - Alleged Plot To Kill Zelensky / What Ukraine Air Defense? w/Ray McGoverm fmr CIA

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

Sponsored by: Lear Capital - https://LearJudgeNap.comIt's time to take control of your financial future and consider investing in gold.Consider adding gold to your portfolio with the company I trust – Lear Capital. Over 25 years of experience, thousands of 5-star reviews, and a 24-hour risk-free purchase guarantee. Give Lear a call today at 800- 511-4620 – the information is Free and there is no obligation to purchase. Get your Gold and Silver wealth protection guides, get your questions answered, and there is zero pressure to buy. Or inquire online @ https://LearJudgeNap.comSee 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 Monday, August 7, 2023. Ray McGovern joins us. Our apologies for the gremlins that were involved in delaying this show. I don't know, Ray, do you think maybe it was your ex-buddies at the CIA just don't want you and me talking and all of our wonderful listeners listening? Nothing can be excluded, but I try not to be too worried about those kinds of things, Judge. Okay. Well, I'm glad you're here, we're here, and the listeners are here. What do you make of this announcement President Zelensky's people

made this morning that they uncovered a plot to assassinate him? The plotter was a Ukrainian woman who somehow had access to President Zelensky's whereabouts, and somehow she was flipped, if you will, by the FSB. So one, is this credible? Two, does the hard to figure out whether there's real reality to it, but yeah, it would not surprise me in the least that there were these kinds of plots. I don't think that Zelensky is long for this world. I don't really think that the Russians would do him in. They don't need to. There's lots of people in the West who would like to proceed to a different ruler. President Putin, as you and I know, because we've discussed this, has said many times to world leaders with whom he communicates that he will not, I'll use your phrase, do Zelensky in. Why are you of the belief that he is not long for the world? Well, the counteroffensive has petered out. People in Washington, sooner or later, partly because of the non-results of this soiree in Saudi Arabia over the weekend,

will have to come to their senses and realize that this is not what the New York Times calls a ideological struggle to the end. It's a great power struggle, and it's two against one. Witness the fact that 14 Chinese Russian naval ships came real, real close to Alaska just two days ago. ago okay i want to talk to you about alaska in a minute but before that what happened or didn't happen or who was there at the i'll use the mcgovern-esque phrase soiree in saudi arabia this weekend was president z Zelensky in Saudi Arabia? Yeah, as far as I know. And as we know, it was the Chinese that showed up as a sort of surprise guest. A lot of people making a big thing out of that, suggesting there's a rift between China and Russia. It's just the opposite.

The Chinese talked to the Russians about this, and the Russians, yeah, go, see what they have to say. It was a non-event. And the fact that Jake Sullivan was there is just another indication that they don't get it. They're not going to rally the world around Zelensky. His terms for negotiations are laughable and the whole thing just petered out. So the next question would be, are they going to recognize the realities on the ground in Ukraine and on the sea near Alaska now, and God knows how close those submarines are to the Atlantic coast. Are they going to recognize that reality or are they going to still live in this imaginary world where as the new as the uh washington post assures us this is an ideological struggle to the end ideology ideology doesn't have anything to do it unless you're mean by ideology megalomania and the notion that we still rule the

world did i um understand you to say that the Chinese were or were not present at this gathering in Saudi Arabia? They were there, as far as I know. Isn't China backing Russia, not only publicly and politically, but militarily with equipment and ammunition? Well, they're backing them with political support and these joint maneuvers. They haven't, the Russians haven't needed Chinese ammunition just yet, but they'll get it if they need it. The problem is, Judge, that Russia and China are now joined at the hip. These guys went behind the ears advising Biden, don't get that. They didn't get it back in June of two years ago when they told Biden to tell Putin, we know you got this problem where China is squeezing you and we know you got this problem.

So it's not a problem. It's an asset. And the sooner they get this into their head, the better. And what happened off the coast of Alaska? I've heard a very bitter, almost terrified Senator Dan Sullivan, one of the U.S. senators from Alaska, on the news this morning, complaining that Russian ships and Chinese ships were there en masse. If true, why? That's right. Now, it's a two-front situation, okay? What the people in Washington don't seem to know is that the Chinese feel equally threatened

as the Russians do in Ukraine. China is our enemy number one. It's in our strategic documents. We're going to finish off Russia and then we go to China. Now, we have just agreed to give China more armaments in the billions of dollars, not China, but Taiwan, directly from our stocks. They don't even go through the process of the arms dealers directly from our stocks, just like we've done for Ukraine. We're running out of all those things. Nobody seems to recognize that. But Taiwan is seen by China as a real problem now, as a problem that's getting worse. Now, China's not going to do anything with respect to Taiwan

unless they feel really threatened. What they're going to do anything with respect to Taiwan unless they feel really threatened. What they're trying to do is send these ships together with, well, there were 14 altogether, Russian and Chinese, in the Aleutian Islands. So they should say, look, you guys, we've got the capability to really inflict some harm for you, you know? And if you don't wise up and come to reasonable terms, well, it's going to come to what the Chinese used to call a no good end. What is the appropriate and reasonable American response to 14, I guess it's about seven and seven or six and eight Chinese and Russian warships off the coast of Alaska? And were they, I'm assuming the answer to this is yes, or we would have heard from Washington, were they in international waters only? Yes, they were in international waters. Well,

the inappropriate response is shock. You know, we do this all the time. I mean, we sail through the Taiwan Straits. We have the ability and duty, mind you, to do this vis-a-vis China, whereas, as one of the national security advisors recently said, we're watching China and Russia with respect to inroads in Latin America. This is our preserve, our hemisphere, in quotes. What about the Eastern Hemisphere? Think out loud for me as if you were President Putin and President Xi together. You don't have to imitate their voices, even though you're very good at it. What is their goal? What message do they want to send to old Joe Biden by having all these ships off the coast of Alaska? They want to say, Joe, two can play this game. It's getting pretty, pretty volatile, okay? Please, you were advised wrongly in June of 2021 that China and Russia

aren't loggerheads. That was true four decades ago, Joe. Now we're together, we're allied. If you do something really strange, resurvey Ukraine, you could expect a lot of trouble in our hemisphere, the Far East. We're going to take a break for a commercial announcement. When we get back, I'm going to ask Ray McGovern, is NATO ready to throw Ukraine under the bus right after this. Hi, everyone. Judge Napolitano here, and the verdict is in. Everywhere I go, people are complaining how expensive things are and how their stomachs turn every time they get their IRA statement. Listen, many experts are predicting a recession. When, how, where, how bad, who knows? But why wait and see? Do what I did and learn how adding gold

to your portfolio can help. Now, you all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital, but I believe in Lear Capital. I trust them and I value their products. Lear Capital is the company that I trust for buying my gold. Lear Capital has the company that I trust for buying my gold. Lear Capital has over 25 years experience and thousands of five-star reviews and a 24-hour risk-free purchase guarantee.

Call my friends at Lear today and start protecting your retirement with gold. Here's the number. You see it on the screen. 800-511-4620. 800-511-4620. Or use the internet as I do, learjudgenap.com and get your free gold investment guide and learn how to take control of your financial future. Now, listen to this. My friends at Lear are offering to Judging Freedom customers only a $15,000 bonus in gold. Call today and see if you qualify for it. 800-511-4620judd'snap.com.

Ray, so we're going to play a clip from President Zelensky. There is an English translation. It's a bizarre translation. It almost sounds like it might be a computer, but you'll be able to understand it. But he uses a very, very bizarre phrase in there that I've never heard him use, given the American understanding of the absence of any air defenses, material, significant air defenses in Ukraine. He uses the phrase sky shield more than once. Take a listen. In this week alone, Russian terrorists have already used 65 different missiles and 178 attack drones against us, including 87 Shahids. We managed to shoot down a significant number of them. We will do our best to make the Ukrainian sky shield only stronger.

Here in our skies, we can prove that terror is losing. All together we can prove it, all partners. The responsible position of each partner in supplying air defense systems and missiles to them is very important. Complete protection against terror is needed here. Ukraine can win this battle, and our sky shield will eventually guarantee security for the whole of Europe. We are equally eager to see F-16 jets in action in Ukrainian skies

as soon as possible. What sky shield? What is he talking about? Maybe they have new umbrellas or so. I don't know, Judge. There is no sky shield. The Patriot missiles, heavily advertised, were zapped by the Russians as soon as they shut off about 30 of them in two minutes. Okay. There is no sky shield. And as you rightly point out, that's the key here. You can't have an offensive without air cover, for God's sake. So I don't know. It's delusional. And that's the right word for a lot of them, including the New York Times. Maybe this gets back to where we started our conversation a few minutes ago, Ray. Maybe he is so desperate for approval from the Ukrainian people that he's willing to lie and deceive them by telling them there is a sky shield, whereas all knowledgeable military and intelligence people, among whom are folks like you, know that such a sky shield doesn't exist. I mean, if he's going to give the false sense of

security, and then Russian bombers can come in there with impunity, what is that going to do to his longevity in office? Well, Judge, let's remember that hundreds, hundreds of Ukrainian service people are being killed every day, okay? So what's Zelensky doing? He's making stuff up still, okay? He's trying to give the illusion that they have some way to counter this stuff. It's just a matter of time before that becomes so delusional that people in the military of Ukraine will displace And does Zelensky run the risk of being thrown under the bus, so to speak, by his NATO masters? Well, let's say U.S.

NATO is not worth anything. It's the U.S. that's driving this. You know, it's really, it's problematical here. Biden is himself delusional uh he tells us that russia has already lost the war so what's he gonna do it all depends on how his political people advise him what to do before the election coming up in a year and some months okay it? It's really, really very, very volatile because I don't know if Putin's going to give him that time. I see Putin this time succumbing to some pressures from the likes of Prigozhin. Look, you got them on the run. Go all the way to the Dnieper and say, okay,

will you negotiate now? We need a cordon sanitaire along the Dnieper. That's the best you're going to get. Is it going to do that or is it going to keep attritting? Attrition is the word, right? You attrit, you attrit, you attrit. I think it's in Putin's nature to attrit, attrit, attrit. But I don't know if he'll do that this time. I think he'll have free reign to go to the Dnieper and may become even more popular in Russia if he does so. All right. Translate the phrase that you use. We need a what along the Dnieper River? A cordon sanitaire. It's a sanitary cordon, so to speak. A DMZ, as we would say in Vietnam, it's got to be wide enough to prevent Western artillery from reaching what is now part of Russia, according to the Russian constitution.

Give me your thoughts on Ukraine using drones as pinpricks. I mean, the last series of drones attacked a bank in the financial sector of Moscow. It was the 20th floor of the bank, and it was at four o'clock in the morning on a Sunday morning. What does that accomplish? Are these Hail Mary passes, or is there some military or domestic political significance to the use of drones in this manner? Judge, pinprick is the right word for this. It's a mark of desperation on Zelensky's port. He's got to show that he can do something. And whether that drone was targeted against that fourth floor of the financial district, I don't know. It may be that it was targeted against that fourth floor of the financial district and i don't know it may be that it was just uh manipulated by uh electronic uh countermeasures and or maybe even shut down and and landed there so these are pinpricks they mean nothing except uh except the people in in

in russia yeah it increases the pressure on putin a degree, to move a little bit more faster and a little bit more strongly. Does Ukraine have a statistically significant domestic defense industry? Or is Ukraine reliant entirely or nearly entirely on the West, which means mainly the U.S.? The latter, entirely on the U.S. And as you know, they're using cluster munitions now because they ran out of the normal ammunition for 155 millimeter howitzers and other weaponry. I mean, hello? Here's the president

saying to Secretary of Defense Austin, okay, let's give them what we got. And Austin says, well, they're out of it, and we're real low, and we're giving stuff to Taiwan as well. We don't have the capability to tool up for maybe two or three years. It's really horrendous. A lack of planning here, it's a shock, it's a slander. It's a scandal, I mean. How have the sanctions that Joe Biden imposed on all things, Putin, all things, oligarch, all things that the feds could get their hands on Russian, failed? The short answer, Judge, is that Secretary Yellen

and all the economic advisors of Biden are just as stupid as his political advisors. The Russian economy is booming. Their inflow, the budget is growing. The oil sanctions, so to speak, as everyone who knows anything about this thing, backfired, okay? All it's done is remove the oil

from being sold to the West, move to the East, and the oil sales are actually increasing. So the budget, in other words, contrasted with our budget and our deficit, Russians have big budget and virtually no deficit. Can you get that? No deficit. It's amazing. How do you see this playing out? It's now the second week in August. The war has been going on for 18 months. The spring offensive failed. The summer offensive failed. Zelensky is lying to his own people. The American stockpiles of artillery ammunition are dangerously low. We can't give what we don't have. How much longer can this go on, Ray McGovern? Well, the Ukrainians still have some reserves.

Putin himself has said that. Don't be too hopeful. They still have a lot of men that can get killed by us. My prediction is simply that this will go on for several weeks okay there will be more and more ukrainians hundreds of them hundreds of them killed every day and then biden will have to decide well what's best for my re-election prospects uh how can i how can i get zelensky the hell out of there? How can I make this appear to be a US or a Western win? And that's where Poland comes in. My God, if Poland goes into Western Ukraine,

I don't know what's going to happen, but it's likely that they will. And then there can be a claim that, well, the Western really won. We held the Russians off. We still have this part of Ukraine. God help us if they decide to do that. Is Poland still trigger happy? Does Poland still have 90,000 troops at the border and they can't wait to jump over it? Well, yeah. And the question is... And before you answer, aren't there 40,000 American troops with those Poles at the Polish-Ukraine border?

Isn't the 101st Airborne there? Yeah, and the 82nd is in Romania. So I don't expect the 82nd or the 101st to go into Ukraine. But, you know, the logistical support, if the Poles want to do that, is there. The question is, will this be war with NATO? Will this trigger the Article 5, which sort of commits each country to turn the others in if they get involved in a war? So they're playing with fire here. The election is the loose cannon here, is the element that will determine everything.

Putin himself has in the past said, U.S. military and foreign policy is determined first and foremost by domestic political considerations. That is very volatile. That is something that he and his generals have to put in the calculus and be ready at a hair-triggers notice. Well, domestically, things don't look too rosy for Joe Biden right now. Ray McGovern, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Sorry for those gremlins that delayed our show, but you have produced a massive audience because McGovern is worth waiting for. Wow. Thank you.

Thank you, Ray. More as we get it. Larry Johnson in the next half hour right here on Judging Freedom. I'm out.