Judging Freedom - CAN BIDEN_S TEAM FIND COMPROMISE WITH RUSSIA_- LARRY JOHNSON

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, March 29, 2023. It's about 11 o'clock in the morning here on the East Coast of the United States. Larry Johnson joins us today. Larry, always a pleasure. Thank you. You have an interesting piece out which caught my attention and the attention of a lot of our viewers early this morning, arguing that there should be a regular line of communication between the United States and Russia, even though we are supplying so many billions of dollars worth, I think it's up to 58 billion by now, at least that's what the government has revealed, in cash and equipment with which to attack Russia. Why is there no line of communication? Why is there no open talking between Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister

Lavrov or even between their deputies? What's going on is that we have so demonized the Russians, not just Putin. Everything that pertains to Russia is going to eradicate it. We're sort of acting like the Taliban towards what they considered religious idols that needed to be destroyed. During the entire Cold War, we never had a period like what we're doing to Russia now. During the Vietnam War, it was Russia, not China, that was providing the bulk of the weapons to the North Vietnamese. So if there was ever any reason or rationale or motive for us to say, we're not going to talk to the Russians because they're arming the North Vietnamese who are killing our people, that would have been it. But instead,

the diplomats remained in contact, remained talking, and that led to a summit between Brezhnev and Nixon in 1972 and the signing of several arms control agreements, the anti-ballistic missile, SALT-1. And it is, you know, here we jump ahead now, and we're really acting like angry school girls who are trying to ostracize somebody that they've decided that they don't like. And it is dangerous because instead of having some sort of dialogue, it's devolved into where the United States is spending more time insulting and challenging Russia. So that's why this is so dangerous. Your article points out that recent polling, this obviously shouldn't and doesn't reflect American foreign policy, which is the effectiveness of CIA and MI6 propaganda.

Russian, recent American polling shows shows this number staggering, Larry. Only 9% of Americans hold favorable views of Russia. I guess your former colleagues are doing a pretty good job in the propaganda department. Yeah, well, I found out I'm a new presenter, I guess. Yeah, it is remarkable that they comprehend. Well, it just shows the effectiveness of a comprehensive propaganda program. Deep opinions. Yeah, I hear prominent radio personalities referring to Russia as communist.

It's just that's absolutely wrong. They're not a communist country. In fact, the Communist Party is now a minority party within Russia. Russia has gone back to its traditional roots, which was Eastern Orthodox Christian and a conservative Christianity at that, somewhat opposed to the Catholic Church. Recently, President Zelensky, very recently, this just came out a few minutes ago, had an interview with an American correspondent, journalist. I don't recognize the person. You'll see this in a moment. On a train. You'll see the two of them sitting on a train and talking to each other. The interview is in English. She speaks English like we do. President Zelensky, of course, has an accent, but he's understandable. And she asks him about the significance of Bakhmut. Now, you would expect

him to make some sort of an argument from military necessity or Ukrainian patriotism. He says it's for PR. Take a listen. Is this part of why you are fighting so hard in Bakhmut? Because a lot of military analysts will say that strategically, it's not that significant. Because that will be victory for him. And any victory. Yes, he will sell this victory. He will sell this victory to West to his society to China to Iran to all the countries to Brazil to Latin America countries not to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia of course they really understand you know from from details and they feel this dangerous because they're their neighbors so and but he will sell it to his society what that was the first step now wait wait a minute wait a minute i will i will have decision with ukraine then another step

another step another is is this a valid moral military reason to put 16-year-olds on the front line to prevent President Putin from a PR victory? Does this make sense that Zelensky is controlling military strategy based upon his personal analysis of the psychological needs of President Putin? Well, you're correct. It's immoral, it's shallow, it's juvenile, but at least he's reading the tea leaves properly in one regard. The entire Western narrative with respect to Ukraine has started to change. I just saw that Jen Stoltenberg, the head of NATO, was saying that Russia is winning the war of aggression. He has not said that up until weeks ago. Oh, Ukraine is winning.

Russia's on the ropes. Putin's hanging on by a straw. The end is nigh. And now all of a sudden you've got across the board this complete change in the tone. And Zelensky is reflecting that. He understands very much that unless Ukraine appears to be fighting and defending and making progress against Russia, not just the appearance, they've actually got to do it on the ground,

Western support is going to dry up and dry up quickly. That's where it's headed. Let's get back to Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Lavrov. What will it take for them to talk to each other or for their deputies? Well, their deputies can't talk to each other, Larry. Blinken's deputy wants to invade Crimea. That crazy fellow Princetonian of mine, Victoria Nuland. So she's not going to talk to her opposite number in the Kremlin, but there should be somebody speaking. Does the American ambassador speak to someone in the Kremlin or is there, unlike in the Vietnam War, is there literally no communication and no way to get the communication

going? There is some communication, but we need to understand the dynamics of it. For example, at the military level, I know at least at one point with respect to military operations in Syria, where you had both Russian and U.S. military forces operating in the same area, there was a daily coordination phone call between the general at the Joint Operations Center there. But why does Russia need to talk to the United States now? Russia's got nothing to say to us. Russia's not in a weak position. Russia's not begging for help.

Russia's not saying, stop it stop it stop it make the pain go away that's the united states and the united states has yet to come to that point let's call it humility uh or like you know that we haven't reached the bottom of the barrel where we're now hey we've got to change you know we need an intervention not the kind of intervention where we send military forces the kind of intervention where your friends sit you down and say, hey, you've got a problem. You've got an addiction to invading other countries, and you need to stop it.

So the power dynamic is not there. If the United States approached Moscow and said, look, we'd like to try to negotiate an end to this, and we'll give you the assurances that you were asking for a year ago, then Russia would probably say, okay, well, let's hear what you have to say. But Russia is going to be very skeptical of any promises the West makes, because they've already been bamboozled once with the Minsk One and Minsk Two agreements. The United States and Europe lied. They said, oh, yeah, here's an agreement, sign it. Yeah, we're all in better. And then we use it completely as a ruse to rearm Ukraine

and to fool Russia. And they haven't, the Russians aren't fools. They haven't forgotten that. Right, right, right. You mentioned Secretary General Stoltenberg acknowledging that the Russians are winning the war. Are your former colleagues in the Central Intelligence Agency who are gathering data from the fields on the ground, are they telling that to Joe Biden or I guess to their superiors or are their superiors then watering it down like they had been doing before it gets to Biden? Yeah, they can't hide the reality of what's taking place. You know, we've been promised this Ukrainian offensive over the last three weeks and and people i know that were

close to the sort of the party line were fully expecting it to be unleashed last week and it hasn't happened the reason it hasn't happened is ukrainian is probing attacks every time they send out a force to do what they call reconnaissance in force, they're getting crushed. They're getting blown up because the Russians have the artillery zeroed in on those roads that they're going to travel. So they're destroying the equipment. They're destroying manpower. So with all of that, there's sort of the dawning recognition that there's no way Ukraine can win this. Before, they kept telling themselves that they could, but they realized they can't. Do Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken and Victoria

Newland and Lloyd Austin, and I want to talk about him in a minute, know what General Stoltenberg knows? They should. I mean, the information there is available, but there's also the concept that you're familiar with, I think, from your days as a judge, willful blindness, where somebody willingly just ignores the fact that, you know, they had enough knowledge and information to have known better, but they chose not to know. And that's what the situation is right now with our leadership. That's what makes it so dangerous. I think what awakened them a little bit was the other day when Putin said, okay, you're going to put nuclear weapons in Poland, we're putting nukes in Belarus.

And we're going to use them if necessary. Everyone's going, whoa, wait a second. I wonder if the American public knows that we have nuclear weapons in Turkey, in the Netherlands, in Germany and in Italy. I didn't know about Italy. I just found that found out about that this morning. You can't blame. No, no. And so the State Department and your former colleagues at the CIA will do their best to demonize Putin because of the self-defensive tactic. Let's switch gears. Gary, run that first clip of Senator Roger Wicker interrogating former four star, now secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin. Watch this, Larry. With regard to your optimism about Ukraine having the upper hand, that is what you told me yesterday. It is. Now, what I was about to say, Senator, is that Ukrainians have inflicted significant casualties on the Russians, and they have depleted their inventory of armored vehicles in a way that no one would have ever imagined.

And so now we see Russia reaching for T-54s and T-55 tanks because of the level of damage that the Ukrainians have inflicted on them. Reaching for those tanks demonstrates what to you, sir? It demonstrates that their capability is waning. We've continued to witness them be challenged with artillery munitions and other things, and they're reaching out to Iran, to North Korea. Do you believe there's a real chance for significant Ukrainian advancements between now and the beginning of winter? I believe there's a chance and we're doing everything that we can do to ensure that they have their best opportunity to be successful. Now, Larry, before you even reply, the Secretary of Defense was under oath when he answered those questions.

Is there any credibility whatsoever in what he said? My old boss at State Department, who was a retired Marine colonel, he said there's no fixing stupid. And Lloyd Austin is a walking example of that. What he said was so ignorant. It defies the bill. You'd expect somebody in his position to at least be able to

lie in a more artful manner. What he's saying here is that these Russian tanks, yeah, Russia's deploying some T-55 because they're mobile artillery. It's not their frontline troops, tanks. And the Russian factories are churning out vehicles at a rate that the United States cannot match.

So this kind of projection by Austin is just, it's shameful and it's dangerous. Because again, once you start, once you underestimate your enemy, you put yourself in a position where you're going to get your butt kicked in a very severe way. Senator of Secretary Austin on a different subject matter in which Senator Tom Cotton, a neocon, but on the committee, basically says to the Secretary of Defense, you are lying. Watch this. Turn to the issue of the strikes in Syria last week and Senator Wicker's line of questioning about the timing of notification to Congress. You said that you, quote, should have notified Congress earlier. These attacks happened against our troops, killing one contractor early in the morning Eastern time. Do you believe that you should have notified us that morning while we were voting on amendments directly related to this

kind of attack? There is no connection between when we notified you, Senator, and your vote. Chairman and I were testifying that morning as well. So as soon as we came out of testimony, we began work on crafting response options. Secretary Austin, I don't believe you. I believe that your office specifically withheld notification of this deadly strike against Americans because the Rubio Amendment, on which we voted midday, directly touched on exactly this scenario, not repealing these use-of-force resolutions if the president couldn't certify that Iran was no longer attacking us in Iran and Syria.

That's what I believe. Nothing you can say is going to change my belief about that. I've got to say, I think I speak for a lot of my colleagues. I just want to say, Senator, that that is absolutely not true. Maybe you didn't personally do it. Maybe you didn't personally do it. But I believe entirely that people in your office did that. You have a vast legislative operation, as Senator Wicker pointed out. Do you really expect us to believe that they didn't know that we were voting on a Rubio Amendment that directly, directly covered exactly this kind of attack?

I don't believe that. I don't believe it. I believe there's a conscious decision made not to inform Congress because you fear that it might lead to the passage of the Rubio Amendment, which would kill the entire bill. Now, again, before you answer, a friend of the show and your colleague, Ray McGovern, tells us that then General Austin had a reputation for playing fast

with the facts, stated differently for lying. Sure, yeah. Now you can weigh in. I'm not piling on him, but this is very serious. This is serious stuff. People are dying. Notice that what 9-11 happened, George Bush was sitting in a classroom down here in Florida and Sarasota. An aide came in to interrupt him to tell him that. Now, I'm not suggesting that what

happened the other day, the attack on the Ford operating base for you for the united states was an equivalent to 9 11. but uh we i i know firsthand i was involved with a briefing for congress and in the middle of it somebody walked in to inform us that we just received information from cia headquarters about a possible sandinista incursion into nicaragua the point is that when you get information that's relevant to the issues that are being discussed, the information gets passed immediately. You don't wait, as Austin claimed, until, oh, they waited until we got out of the meeting so that then we can address it. That's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. That's silly. And they knew exactly what they were doing. They have people

that follow this. They knew that this entire vote was coming up on the Rubio bill amendment. So Austin, the only thing he's really been good at during his career, two things, being a sycophant and lying. Those are his two major accomplishments. Now you tell us he can't even lie credibly. Well, he's a good liar, but he's a poor performer when it comes to doing it. All right. Switching gears to the other side of the world, 60 Minutes just did a piece on the alleged preparedness of the United States Navy to defend Taiwan.

If you have the patience to watch this, it's about 27 minutes, I think you'll agree with me. Brought to you and produced by the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. That's exactly what it looks and sounds like. But we have a couple of clips from us from it. So forgive me, I don't know the name of the reporter. Attractive young lady is interviewing Admiral Sam Paparo. Admiral Paparo is a four star who is the commander of the Pacific Fleet, which is huge to have that many ships and that many personnel under you. But she begins by asking him whether or not they're talking to the Chinese. Gary.

If the U.S. and Chinese militaries can't communicate over a Chinese spy balloon, then what's going to happen when there's a real crisis in the South China Sea or with Taiwan? We'll hope that they'll answer the phone. Else, we'll do our very best assessment based on the things that they say in open source and based on their behavior to divine their their intentions and will act accordingly. Doesn't that make the situation even more dangerous if U.S. and Chinese militaries are not talking? Yes. Doesn't China have the greatest navy in the world?

They have the largest in terms of actual troops. Some of their actual competence at sea is in question. But, you know, they've never really sought to be a global naval power. You don't see them fielding aircraft for your battle groups around the world. That has been, you know, the United States has owned that field up to this point. You know, do you heard what he said? We hope, you know, I'm sorry, hope. Hope does that you got a Christmas with,

you know, hope to get the pony and a tree. And that's not gonna necessarily happen. The fact is that the Chinese have just held back their communications with the united states in the wake of the u.s reaction to that uh so-called spy bulletin and if you notice uh biden has been replete repeatedly placing calls to xi jinping and he's not picking up uh so the and it's more important to have military-to-military exchange. But if you're seeing that the Chinese, you've not heard a single word from the Chinese saying, the United States is an enemy and we need to destroy them.

The United States has been saying that about China. So if you're a Chinese military officer, you right away start viewing the United States as the potential aggressor here. And we have no self-awareness about what we're saying. And now the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Congressman Kevin McCarthy, not to be outdone by his predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, is going to make a trip to Taiwan and very ostentatiously embrace and shake hands with the president of Taiwan. What kind of a signal does that send to Beijing, to Chinese intel, your field, and to the Chinese military? Well, the United States' commitment to the one China policy is dead.

And that's the message that's being sent. Because under the old one China policy, the United States essentially recognized Taiwan, at least in terms of our dealings with the Chinese mainland, that Taiwan was a province, or if you will, a state. Like we have Hawaii as part of the United States. Taiwan is like Hawaii in that regard. And now what we're doing is we're saying, no, no, no, no. Hawaii is not a state. It can be an independent country. It can break away from the United States. Well, we wouldn't tolerate that in the United States. And surprise, surprise, the Chinese don't tolerate that with respect to Taiwan. And the other thing to understand is there is not a unified base in Taiwan where they're all saying, yeah, let's separate from mainland China. Just the opposite.

There actually is some political division on that question. So by Kevin McCarthy wading into this at this time, just one poke in the eye for the Chinese and shows them that we can't be trusted, that we're not acting in good faith. Here's Admiral Papparo in the same interview basically arguing that if necessary, the American Navy can neutralize the Chinese Navy. Is it your hope that the power of the U.S. Navy, the forced posture of the U.S. Navy,

will deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan? It's not my hope, it's my duty, in conjunction with allies and partners, to deliver intolerable costs to anybody that would upend the order in violation of the nation's security or in violation of the nation's interests. The saying, which is si pacem para velo, which is if you want peace, prepare for war. Well, I think he's right about if you want, and I'll let you weigh in, of course, if you want peace, prepare for war. But did you catch what he said? To upend the international order of nations. He's making the argument that you just astutely pointed out in the mind of this admiral,

which means in the mind of his bosses in the Pentagon, Taiwan is a separate nation. Yeah, we've had this thing called the international-based rules of order. So the international order are the rules that we've created, the United States have created, for the benefit of the United States. And that is coming to an end now. The union between China and Russia has completely upended that old order. And the fact that now you have other currencies, particularly the Chinese yuan, being used for purchases of oil that in the past were reserved only for the use of the U.S. dollar.

And think about this. How would we be reacting if around Hawaii? We'd be outraged. Yet, we think we can go do that to Taiwan. And how dare the Chinese be angry about that? Because we have the right to go anywhere and do anything, anytime we want. Well, that kind of rules-based order is done. And we haven't come to grips with that yet. I guess you don't get that fourth star on your shoulder or maybe any of the stars on your shoulder unless you're very astute at mouthing what your civilian superiors want. Here's one last clip of Admiral Paparo about the U.S. Navy's readiness for whatever. So are Chinese warships now operating closer to

Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi's visit? Yes. And if China invades Taiwan, what will the U.S. Navy do? It's a decision of the President of the United States and a decision of the Congress. It's our duty to be ready for that. But the bulk of the United States Navy will be deployed rapidly to the Western Pacific to come to the aid of Taiwan if the order comes to aid Taiwan in thwarting that invasion. Is the U.S. Navy ready? We're ready, yes. I'll never admit to being ready enough. Why did he add that last part? He commands every piece of hardware from Long Beach, California to the South China Sea.

Let me see if I have this correct. We cannot supply enough artillery shells to Ukraine because we can't produce and run out of cruise missiles to supply them. with hypersonic missiles, which have the capacity to destroy our craft carriers and have reached an agreement with Russia where Russia is going to help supply some of that advanced weaponry to China. That's why Xi went to Russia not to give the Russians weapons, it's the opposite. The Russians are giving the Chinese weapons that the Chinese need to fend off the American threat.

Because that's exactly how the Chinese view this now. This is a threat from America, and America has no business putting its ships outside of Chinese waters. Larry, one last subject matter before we finish. In my view, all of this, we're going to beat back Putin. We're going to supply Ukraine. We're going to control Zelensky. We own the Pacific. The Chinese can't even encircle Taiwan. Taiwan's a separate nation. We're going to defend it. They're our buddies. All of this is the manifestation of the ugly horrors of American exceptionalism. That's the culture that defines the State Department and the Defense Department.

Do you agree? Yeah, no, I very much agree. We have gotten accustomed to killing people overseas. That's what we've been doing really since 1989 you know we've invaded panama we've invaded iraq twice we've invaded afghanistan uh we've you know we have failed to take steps to try to find peaceful solutions and and international cooperative solutions remember in the early days, right after 9-11, the government of Syria was trying to cooperate with us

because they felt as much a threat from the radical Islamists as we did. And yet we rebuffed them. Russia, remember, warned us about the Sarnia brothers who came to Boston, set up the, you know, exploded the bombs on the Boston Marathon and killed spectators and others. And we ignored that.

So it's, the world in some aspects has been reaching out to us to say, look, we'll work with you, we'll cooperate. And it's the United States and its arrogance. And that what we're witnessing right now with the Biden administration is this deadly combination of arrogance and incompetence, where you think you're the best at everything. And the

fact is you couldn't organize a three car funeral. And that's if you lined up the first two. It's been time arguing about not only where to place the third car, but what color should it be? Should it be gas or electric powered? Or maybe it should be hydrogen powered? You know, it's ridiculous. Larry Johnson, thank you very much for weighing in on all this. All the best, my friend. We'll see you again soon. Thanks, Judge. If you like what you just saw, and I know you do, my dear friends. Like and subscribe. More as we get it. Colonel McGregor this afternoon at 245 Eastern. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.