Judging Freedom - AMB. Charles Freeman: Why the US Panic Over China?

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

AMB. Charles Freeman: Why the US Panic Over China?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, May 20th, 2025. Ambassador Charles Freeman will be here with us on why this panic over China and of course the latest developments in the Middle East and in Ukraine but first this. While the markets are giving us whiplash have you seen the price of gold? It's soaring! In the past 12 months gold has risen to more than $3,000 an ounce. I'm so glad I bought my gold it's not too late for you to buy yours. The same experts that predicted gold at $3200 an ounce now predict gold at $4500 or more

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Ambassador Freeman, my dear friend, welcome here. Thank you very much. Before we get to your field of expertise Which is China you have many fields of expertise The Trump Putin telephone call yesterday. Do you think the Americans the American side understands the Russian mentality? Do you think? Rubio Witkoff, the president himself, grasped that the Russians will not stop fighting in order to negotiate, that they believe in negotiating while the war continues?

I think they're finding that out. I'm afraid that we entered this effort to make peace in Ukraine I'm afraid that we entered this effort to make peace in Ukraine with a lot of misunderstandings, self-inflicted because we've had a ferocious information warfare campaign going on. And all sorts of motivations and objectives have been attributed to the Russians, which basically exist only in our imagination. So we're basically negotiating with our image of Russia, rather than with Russia itself, or at least that's how we started.

I think Mr. Witkoff is learning as he talks to Mr. Putin. Yes, President Trump did too yesterday when he talked to President Putin. But basically the Russians have been very consistent for actually decades before they, we called their bluff on their ultimatum. They demanded negotiations, we refused. They then made good on their ultimatum, which was to invade Ukraine. So we need to come to grips with the reality that, first of all, the Russians' objectives have been to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine, which they've now done.

Seizing most of the four oblasts where Russian-speaking majorities have existed, they want to restore Ukraine to the neutrality which it declared when it became independent and on the basis which they recognized Ukraine. And they want a broad discussion with Europeans and Americans about the new order in Europe that would not threaten them and not have Europeans fear that they threaten Europeans. These are the objectives. The Russians are winning this war. Ukraine is not vanquished. But those who are losing very naturally want ceasefires. We've focused on that. The Russians

are not interested in the ceasefire. They want to achieve the objectives they've spelled out repeatedly. And if we're going to get a peace in Europe and in Ukraine, we're going to have to address their agenda. That doesn't mean we accept every point of it, but it means that we have to acknowledge that they have these objectives and they're not going to give them up. You know, President Putin made it very clear that the Americans need to understand and

the Russians want to address the root causes of the war, while President Trump has been saying it's not my war. All right. Here, cut number nine, President Trump, not my war, and then cut number eight, Chris, right following, Russia's ready to work on Ukraine, but you have to understand the root causes. This was not my war. This is not a war that would have happened

if I were president. This is not my war. I'm just here to try and help. We've spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this war. And yet that's not, frankly, we made much more than that just in four days in the Middle East. It's a lot of money, but it's, we do much. This is about thousands of people dying every single week, 5,000, 6,000 people dying every single week. You know, these soldiers, they say goodbye in Ukraine and in Russia, and then their parents

never see them again, except maybe in pictures of horrible scenes, because I've seen some scenes I've never seen anything like it. So we're going to see if we can get it taken care of. Yep. The President of the United States and I agreed that Russia can and is ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum on the possible eventual future peace treaty by addressing a number of provisions including the we need to set forth the principles and the deadlines for achieving a peace deal and this includes the possible the possible cessation of facilities for a

specific period of time if we reach specific agreements. This gives us hope that overall we're headed in the right direction. This was a very constructive conversation. I think that both Russia and Ukraine must do everything to contribute to peace and they must find the compromises that would suit all the parties involved. I would like to say that overall Russia's position is clear. Our key objective is to identify the root causes of this crisis. identify the root causes of this crisis. So I have a couple of points that I'd like you to address. President Trump says five to 6,000 deaths per week, but it's not his war.

If we take the lower number, that's 60,000, 60,000 Ukrainians dead since he became president, a war that he is funding. President Putin says yes, we'll negotiate toward a memorandum. I think when he says memorandum, he's talking about something like the 126 page memorandum they all initialed in Istanbul back in 2022 before Joe Biden and Boris Yeltsin talked Zelensky out of it. Please take those balls and run with them. Well, I think you're exactly right about what the memorandum is.

Basically, they reached an agreement on a framework for peace. There are still some blanks they had to fill in. This was in March 2022. Over a million people have died since then for no real reason. And I think what Vladimir Putin is talking about is returning to that framework, which involves Ukrainian declaration of neutrality and pledge not to join NATO. pledged not to join NATO. Of course, since then, Mr. Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, perhaps not

constitutionally anymore, but de facto, has departed fundamentally from that, from those principles. And he now says, in response to the demand of the Russians that they keep what they hold in the four oblasts in the east, that he will never yield territory. And he has added other conditions. And of course, he continues to aspire to join NATO

and to encourage Europeans to arm him, which brings me to the other point, that is the point President Trump made, that it's not his war. He is not in a position actually to say that when he is actively arming, aiding Ukraine in this war. On the one hand, he wants to be a mediator between Russia and Ukraine. On the other hand, we are allied with Ukraine and not much

has changed since the Biden administration left office. Not much has changed since the Biden administration left office and because of the Defense Department accounting, we don't know how much money remains in the pipeline. We know it is all subject to the discretion of the President of the United States, and we have a pretty good idea that Congress has no stomach for authorizing more. Earlier I accused Boris Yeltsin of interfering with the agreement. Of course, it was Boris Johnson, who then was the Prime Minister of Great Britain, who was actually Joe Biden's agent, who flew to Kiev and talked to then-validly President Zelensky out of the agreement. Switching gears, Ambassador, two weeks ago two senior, actually about a month ago, two senior CIA officials were given permission to release publicly their findings that the Trende Aragua Venezuelan gang is not affiliated with or subject to control of the Venezuelan government. Then Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired them because this

did not fit the administration's narrative. Then two days ago, citing those sources, Secretary Rubio said, these people are under the control of the Venezuelan government. I don't wanna talk to you about immigration, that's not the purpose of this conversation. I do wanna talk to you about the reliability of US intel and the political influence on it. Given your experience in the State Department

and the Defense Department, do political appointees tell serious analysts what the end result of their analysis should be? This was a disgrace. I'm sorry to say that because I've been an admirer of Ms. Gabbard, but this was a disgraceful action on her part. And it is not unprecedented. We have had the politicization of intelligence for many years. Remember, we went into Iraq under the George W. Bush administration, claiming spuriously that Saddam Hussein

had weapons of mass destruction, that the UN inspection effort had been feckless. And of course this proved to be all complete fabrication. There was actually a group set up in the Defense Department at that time to produce alternative intelligence, meaning intelligence supported the desire of those in the administration who wanted to invade Iraq. We have seen the same thing with the Iran nuclear program. The intelligence agencies everywhere tell us Iran has not made a

decision to build a bomb, but the politicians insist that it has. So I think what we're seeing with Marco Rubio's retort to the intelligence analysts who did their job and were fired for it is not untypical of the problem we have developed in the intelligence area. I couldn't agree with you more. It was very unsettling. I too have admired Telsey Gabbard, and I hate to say this this but I have to. I think my admiration was of the former Telsey Gabbard, the pro-peace libertarian small government person who was representing Hawaii in the Congress but now that she's a member of the Trump administration I guess she feels she has to do certain things in order to keep her job, even if the things she has to do are reprehensible.

Tom Fletcher, who's the, uh, UN, uh, humanitarian chief, uh, announced last night that 57 guys and babies died of malnutrition last week and that 14,000 children are in danger of starving to death before the end of this week. The next 48 hours. Pardon me?

The next 48 hours. Yes, sorry, you're right. We read the same report. In the next 48 hours, and the report was dated yesterday. Who or what can put a stop to this? Why is no one doing anything about this? Steve Whitgoff, we'll run the clip in a minute, says Donald Trump's a humanitarian. What kind of a humanitarian funds the slaughter of babies and funds the slaughter of their parents and then lets them starve. Well, there has been a reaction finally from the French, British and Canadians.

The Keir Starmer, President Macron and the new Prime Minister of Canada, Carney, have issued a statement saying that if Israel doesn't cease and desist its obstruction of humanitarian assistance, they will take decisive action. What that means, I don't know. The United States, of course, has been in a position from the beginning to halt these incredible abuses of human rights law and the genocide in Gaza.

Everyone, including genocide scholars who has examined this has left no doubt that what is in progress is genocide. And the talk in Israel by members of the Israeli cabinet and Mr. Netanyahu, the prime minister, is entirely evident. It provides ample evidence of genocidal intent. Mr. Netanyahu has just come up with a scam for allowing a little bit of humanitarian assistance in,

as his finance minister, Bezelos Smoker, said. Well, we'll give him a paper plate and a piece of pita bread. And that's it. And this is, you know, like saying to someone at Auschwitz, hey, have a pizza before you go to the gas chamber. It is just disgusting. And it is finally apparently evoked a reaction among these countries of Europe and Canada. And that in a sense is a triumph for Saudi diplomacy because the Saudis have been working with the French to put together a conference to explore ways of achieving self-determination for the Palestinians, sometime early this summer in June, I believe. And they have persuaded Macron to take action. He's now persuaded both Carney and Starmor.

This reflects also the fact that these countries, which have been stalwart followers of the United States, now reserve the right to declare their own policies. But where is the United States in the face of this absolutely revolting spectacle, which we can all see on our phones every day? Here's Steve Witkoff, the president's chief emissary, I guess the de facto secretary of state and sure, Secretary of State Ruyo doesn't want to hear that, but the facts are what they are.

He's on this week with Jonathan Karls. So this is from Sunday. Chris, cut number four. We have to help the Palestinians, he said. Is the president, are you pushing the Israelis to allow that aid to come in and hold back on some of the offensive operations that continue to be ongoing in Gaza? The president, John, is a humanitarian. Everyone is concerned about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza. I don't think there's any daylight between President Trump's position and Prime Minister Netanyahu's position. The issue now is how do we logistically get all of those trucks into Gaza? How do we set up the aid stations? There are many initiatives that we're working on to address this. There are going to be mobile kitchens that are going

to be sent in there. We have trucks with flour waiting at the border. The Israelis have indicated that they're going to begin to allow a lot more of these trucks to get in, but it is complicated. It is logistically complicated, and the conditions on the ground are dangerous. There are still many unexploded shells all over the place. So we have to be mindful of that. But that said, we do not want to see a humanitarian crisis, and we will not allow it to occur

on President Trump's watch. Who would take that seriously, that last statement? Certainly not Prime Minister Netanyahu, because he told his cabinet, look, the Americans are putting pressure on me and I've got to go through the motions. But what I'm really trying to do, we're going to concentrate all the Palestinians

in the extreme south of Gaza. And then basically they're going to have to leave. And we're working with the Americans on finding places to stash them all over the world, 49 different countries apparently. So this is not Mr. Wittkopf's finest hour defending the president on this issue. So that is the background there.

And the second point is, you know, this talk about it's difficult to organize humanitarian relief and so on. There is an organization called ANRA, which managed all this until the Israelis declared it to be anti-Semitic and barred it from doing so. 200 NGOs, non-governmental organizations, and the UN humanitarian people have all condemned the scheme that Mr. Whitcoff talked about, which basically involves entrusting the Israeli military, perhaps in partnership with American security guards, civilian security guards, ex-military, distributing food.

Well, this is a mechanism to control people. They come, you would ID them if you don't think they're the right kind of people, you arrest them or kill them. It is a mech, it is the weaponization of humanitarian assistance, and it is absolutely unacceptable to the world, even if it may be acceptable to some in the United States

and to just about everybody in Israel. Ambassador, switching gears before we go, in about an hour, we will be speaking with Patrick Lancaster, the American independent journalist who goes to all the hotspots around the world heretofore in Ukraine and in Russia, but today he's coming from India. What role, as you understand it, if any, did China play or how, if at all, does China gain from the India-Pakistan conflagration? Well, China backs Pakistan for a very simple strategic reason. As long as Pakistan exists as an independent country, India does not exercise hegemony in South Asia. And of course, part of China, Tibet, is in South Asia. So China has an intense strategic interest in the region. South Asia, so China has an intense strategic interest in the region. In the recent war between India and Pakistan, the Chinese role was simply to have provided Pakistan with aircraft

called the J-10C and anti-aircraft air-to-air missiles, which I think are called PL-15, which proved to be very effective in downing an alleged five Indian Rafale jets and, I guess, three Rafales and two Russian-built fighter jets. So the Chinese are exultant about the efficacy of their weaponry. This is the first time it's been tested in combat and the Pakistanis were reassured by that. But the Chinese have consistently urged in this war, they've not taken sides politically, they have urged the two sides

to engage in dialogue and to negotiate a resolution of the problem. They are, however, responding to India's aggressive abrogation of a treaty about the sharing of the waters of the Indus by accelerating their construction of dams that would benefit Pakistan and allow it to continue to receive water, which India obviously seeks to deny. Is there a right and wrong in this India Pakistan conflagration, I call it conflagration because it stopped the Pakistani or the Indian ambassador to Israel's become sort of a spokesperson for the Indian government says we don't know or expect the ceasefire to last very long. Is there a right or wrong here? Is this just two neighbors hating each other? They've been fighting like this since 1948. The issue is Kashmir, which is majority Muslim. In 1947, when the two countries separated from each other, under the normal rules, Kashmir would have gone to Pakistan.

However, it went to India because the ruler of Kashmir was Hindu, not like his subjects who were Muslim. They've been fighting about this ever since. It's on the UN docket as an issue to be discussed every year since 1947. There's been no resolution. Recently, the Indian government deprived Kashmir of its autonomy within the Indian Union and imposed direct rule on Kashmir. And the result is an acceleration and intensification of a longstanding insurgency by the Muslim population against the Indian army, which garrisons and occupies

much of Kashmir. Kashmir is actually divided between the part that is part of Pakistan and the part that is part of India. There's no resolution of this apparently possible and it sits there as a poison pill in the relationship between Islamabad and New Delhi and constantly causes issues. In this case there was an insurgent attack which murdered I I think, 26 people in Kashmir. The Indians attributed this entirely to Pakistan. I don't know whether that's true or not, but it's plausible.

And anyway, they took advantage of the crisis that occurred to punish Pakistan in multiple ways and to do so in the end with the use of force which Pakistan has responded. Ambassador, thank you very much. Thanks for allowing me to pick your brain on a variety of topics. Thanks for accommodating my schedule today. Much appreciated. Have a nice holiday weekend coming up and we look forward to seeing you next week, Ambassador. Thank you. coming up and we'll look forward to seeing you next week, Ambassador. Thank you. Thank you. And coming up later today, the aforementioned Patrick Lancaster, who is in India at 10 o'clock here. At 11 o'clock, my old pal since I was an

undergraduate in college, the one, the only, the great Ralph Nader. At 2 o'clock, Colonel Douglas McGregor. At three o'clock, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. You