Judging Freedom - Biden_s Inner Circle has Their Heads in the Sand

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, April 3rd, 2023. It's about 11.05 in the morning here on the East Coast of the United States. Ray McGovern joins us now, as he does every week. Ray, always a pleasure. Thank you for coming back to the show. So tell me, my dear friend, what is the American response to the meeting between President Xi and President Putin now two weeks ago, and what is the American spin on this? Well, two things, Judge. This is a tectonic shift in the balance of power in the world. It's now, very briefly, two against one, China and Russia in a virtual military alliance.

Number two, the smart guys running our foreign policy don't get it. I mean, they are listening to people like former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul. Now, after all the ceremony, pomp and circumstance, and the very serious promises made between President Xi and President Putin, what does Michael McFaul do? He says, ah, ha, ha, no, Putin has humiliated Xi, and this is not going to go down well in Beijing. Now, this is from a website appropriately called McFaul's World. Well, you ought to join the real world, because I'm afraid that the explanation as to why Secretary Blinken and Jacob Sullivan don't know Shinola is because they listen to benighted people like Michael McFaul. here to try and put a wedge between Putin and Xi to try and further the American involvement

in the war in Ukraine? What is he trying to accomplish? And why are the Americans listening to this guy? Well, about a year ago, they did make one last gasp, last try to drive this wedge between Russia and China. But it was too late. Putin has building up this relationship since 2001, for God's sake. And they are, as I say, they are personal friends as well as joined together at the hip against enemy number one, who happens to be the United States of America. Now, for every Victoria Nuland or Michael McFaul explanation as to why, no, no, no, no, they don't really trust each other. For every remark by President Biden that, you know, I think, I don't think she has any respect for poaching his words. For every monarch like that, well, it betrays a sense of above the fray recognition that we are still exceptional and that we can drive them apart.

Even if they're together, it doesn't matter because we'll find something that we can explain to the American people that they're really not together. Does the American foreign policy establishment understand the socioeconomic significance of the alliances that Xi and Putin are forming with other countries throughout the world. Example, Brazil, an enormous economy, now shedding itself of its addiction to using the American dollar when it's buying things, particularly oil. Do I have all that right? You do have that right. And you mentioned Brazil, Judge.

This is really interesting. When I gave a briefing at the UN Security Council on the 21st of February, only Russia and China were in favor of an independent Security Council investigation of how Nord Stream was blown up. The Brazilian representative was very curiously ambivalent, but he didn't really support it. Now they have. What was the vote three days ago? The vote was three votes for this resolution for an independent investigation. Any votes against? No votes against.

How many abstentions? Twelve. Twelve. Twelve. I mean, it was so embarrassing to vote against an independent investigation that the U.S. persuaded all its friends in. Let's just abstain. So this is a new record. Actually, it ties a new record. Whatever became of the investigation of the guy in the sailboat, the Gilligan's Island guy that your former colleagues in the CIA attempted to point a finger at, saying, well, maybe he in a sailboat blew up Nord Stream. Well, actually, I'm reliably informed that he was given a very heavy weight under his water thing and dropped off the yacht.

I don't know. That was a cockamamie story aimed only at diverting attention from what Sir Hirsch had said, only to give the headliners something to say, well, there's an alternative story. Now, Hirsch may say this, but U.S. officials say it was this yacht. Give me a break. That only lasts for a couple of days, but it doesn't matter. They get the headline. I'm surprised, Ray, and maybe you have a finger on the pulse of this, that there wasn't more reaction in northern Europe, Germany, Holland, the Netherlands, to the revelation that the United States blew up the pipeline. Those people suffered real harm because of this, and they are theoretically American allies.

Putin belittled quite properly, in my view, the American-German relationship by saying it's as if Germany is still occupied, talking about the American military occupation and division of Germany into four parts after World War II. It almost is as if Germany is occupied. If the United States of America can attack Germany, German sovereign territory, with impunity. The question, Judge, is whether the German people have learned anything,

not only in the last 78 years since World War II, but for the last 90 years, count them, 9-0. Since the Reichstag, the parliament building in Berlin was burned down, blame on the communists. The Nazis had a minority then in parliament, 44%, i believe the social democrats caved the christian the christian party centrum caved and you know the rest of that story and it was described as sheepish submissiveness now that's the german character i'm afraid to to to finally acknowledge. The question is whether after World War II, when they had to act like children or adolescents, whether they can now act as adults. There are signs, there are big demonstrations,

not only in France now, but in Germany, because the word is out. And the key question, of course, is whether Olaf Scholz, their chancellor, was briefed by Biden on the 7th of February last year when Biden said, I promise you, there'll be no more Nord Stream. The reporter says, well, was halten Sie davon, Herr Kanzler? What do you think about that? He said, well, we do everything together. We don't do anything important that we don't do together.

So the question in Germany now is, what did you know, Olaf Scholz? Right. When did you know it? Right. Speaking of doing everything together, just a few hours ago, the president of Belarus addressed his parliament and called for a ceasefire. Now, we know of his relationship to President Putin. What do you and what does the intelligence community make of this?

A trial balloon? I don't know what the intelligence community makes of it. I'm afraid to ask. I know what I make of it. What is that? Spoken Russian. Huh? What?

He spoke in Russian, not Belarusian. Russian. There is no, there is no centella evidence that he did this independently. Right. I can't imagine that he would have done this independently. So the analysis I'm hoping for from you is, why would President Putin want him to do this? The Wagner Group reported late last night that Bakhmut has fallen. There are still Ukrainian soldiers there, but they're hopelessly surrounded

and outnumbered, and their supply lines have been severed. This is a major psychological victory for President Putin and defeat for President Zelensky. So another way for me to ask this question is, has Putin achieved what he wanted? Does he have a sufficient amount of Eastern Ukraine that he can claim historically, legally, culturally, always has been and should still be a part of Russia, and he's finished with his work? That all depends, Judge, on whether Putin can persuade the collective West to do the sensible thing and stop the killing. Now, this may sound strange, but Putin, Xi, and Lukashenko want to stop the killing. Lukashenko is the president of Belorussia. That's correct, yeah. And he made this big speech on the very day that Russia issued a major

foreign policy statement. I have it here. I printed out 37 pages. It establishes a new foreign policy that has been reflected in how Russia and China have felt their courage lately and stood up. Now, the question is, I think, you know, well, this is interesting. Lukashenko says that there have been massive casualties on both sides. I'm beginning to believe that. I mean, we have lots of ratios being talked about. The New York Times certainly has it completely wrong in saying seven casualties of Russia to one of Ukraine. It's probably the other way. But they want to stop the killing. If they get

talks going, if they get talks going, I think there's a reasonable possibility that the U.S. will finally say, okay, all right, we'll settle for what we can get. We don't want the Russian forces all the way up to the Dnieper River. Otherwise, I think they will go that far. But now it's sort of like the last gasp. I think Lukashenko is the last person saying, all right, look, here it is. Here's the decision. Should we go to talks or do you want us to go to the Dnieper? And then we'll have talks. There have to be talks eventually.

Question is whether these benighted people in Washington get that through their heads because Ukraine cannot win. Milley said that yesterday, for God's sake, General Milley. Right. But General Milley, well, it's not General Milley's fault, although he does mouth the administration line, except for this statement and a similar one he made a few months ago. General Milley's boss does not have an off ramp. Joe Biden does not have an off ramp. He spent $65 billion with a B, American dollars. He's got a blank check for another $60 billion. What is he going to do? Continue to spend the money or wisely call up Zelensky and say, you just lost back moot. Putin's willing to stop the killing tonight. I want you to go along with it. Do you really think that Joe Biden would do that?

I don't think Biden is in charge, Judge. That's part of the problem. I don't think Blinken. I don't think Sullivan. I don't think Victoria Noland, who's really running the policy from the State Department, are capable of realizing that we can't prevail this time and that we have to tuck in our horns and we have to settle for what we can get. They're quite prepared to have Zelensky expend the rest of his troops and then call for us and say, oh, now you've got to come, NATO's got to come in big time. That's what Nuland wants. I don't know about Blinken and Sullivan. That's what she wants. Now, she wants a, I'm going to use her phrase, liberation or evacuation of Russian troops from Crimea. I mean, that's no more going to happen than that Putin's going to do a dance in Times Square.

I mean, she's just living in another world if she thinks that NATO can cause that to happen. Yeah, she says at least we have to demilitarize it. Russia's only all year round ice-free naval base, Sevastopol, is right there in Crimea, established about the time of Catherine the Great, which was the time of our revolution. It's been there, it's not going to go away. She's not going to demilitarize it. So Biden's got to wake up, you know, or somebody's got to wake him up and say, look, Joe, you know, these guys are getting you in deeper, deeper trouble. Do you really want World War III?

You say you don't, then you got to stop. Let me ask you about this arrest of Evan Gershkovich, the head of the Wall Street Journal, Moscow Bureau. Now, he wasn't in Moscow. He was in Eastern Russia. The Russians said we caught him red-handed. He had military documents in his hands. Well, he's an investigative reporter. They don't have a Pentagon Papers case to protect investigative reporters who get their hands on military secrets. But my question to you is bigger picture. Have we entered a posture in our diplomacy where it's going to be kidnapping and arrest versus kidnapping and arrest as a diplomatic tool? Well, I don't think we're there yet. I haven't seen the proof that the Russians are using to call this fellow guilty. But I am told, or we learn, that a lot of Russian

spies have been kicked out of the collective West country, so to speak. And it is tit for tat. And, you know, I would not rule out the fact that old Gershkowitz was getting stuff that he shouldn't have been getting from somebody who sort of set him up. So I don't know, and I'm trying to be very careful on this, but I don't see a widespread tit fortat just yet. It may come soon. The United States arrested a Brazilian soccer star, Brazilian soccer star, whom the State Department claims his real name is Sergei Cherkasov. That's not Brazilian. And Mr. Cherkasov, they claim, was working for the FSB. That's the Russian security apparatus. I shouldn't laugh because he got a Russian posing as a Brazilian. That was two weeks ago.

Maybe they went after this Wall Street Journal fellow. Turns out this Wall Street Journal fellow and I have a lot of mutual friends. They tell me he's a tough, aggressive investigative reporter, but no more a spy, one of them said to me, than you are a ballerina judge. So an apt analogy. But my point is, Brittany Griner for Victor Boot, and now this Sergei Fellow for the Wall Street Journal guy. I mean, what is really accomplished by this stuff? Surely old Joe or Tony Blinken or the head of the CIA, William Burns or Victoria Nuland, are not going to change American foreign policy because a Wall Street Journal reporter has been kidnapped by Russian security forces.

Are they? No, they're not. This is, as I say, tit for tat, but it has consequential effects. Now, think back to the fall of 2016. There arose this fable about Russian hacking. What happened? Obama kicked 25 Russian diplomats out of the United States, confiscated diplomatic property, and that began Russiagate, okay? So these things can balloon into something very consequential, which Russiagate was, and I'll just add that the reason that 70% of the American people hate Russia is because they think Russia was responsible for Donald Trump and might do it again, for God's sake. They weren't. And they're not going to do it again. Last question. Over the weekend, a public Putin ally, one of those nationalists who's actually on the right of Putin, was blown up in a cafe in St. Petersburg, Russia.

30 other people were injured. The Russian security forces, the same crew that arrested Mr. Gershkovich, arrested a young Ukrainian woman who apparently handed this guy a statue of himself. And as soon as he put the statue down, it exploded and killed him. Is this the Ukrainian intel M.O.? I've done a lot of, not a lot of, but time permitting, I've looked up a little bit about this particular guy who has blown up. His past is not all that clean. God knows who had incentive to do this.

I'm interested in seeing that the Russians are not yet, as far as I'm aware. Blame me, Ukraine, for this one. Got it. Ray McGovern, always a pleasure. My dear friend, having you once a week is very popular with our viewers and very gratifying for your humble host. Thank you. We should see each other a blessed Easter to you, my friend. Thank you. You too.

Thank you. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.