Judging Freedom - Ed Rollins - fmr Sr. Adviser to Ronald Reagan - 2_00p est

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, March 21st, 2023. It's about 10 minutes after 2 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. My guest today is one of the most knowledgeable people in the United States of America on Republican politics, who has such a wealth of information about it. Ed Rollins, of course, a former colleague of mine at Fox News, but long before Fox existed, Ed and I were colleagues in political wars going back to Ronald Reagan's race against President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and later some very important for me, for Ed, and for the public races here in the state of New Jersey. My dear friend, what a pleasure to see your face again. Welcome. My pleasure, Judge. How are you?

Thank you. Thank you. So what I want to talk to you about today is the state. I realize we're a little early on this, but the state of what you expect will bring victory to the party for the White House in 2024. Is he their best candidate? I don't underestimate his ability to get the nomination, although I'm supporting DeSantis. But at the same time, winning a nomination is totally different than winning a presidency. In order to win the presidency, a plurality of voters in America today are independents. They're not Republicans, they're not Democrats. So you can get 95% of the Republicans

and not do well with the independents or the Democrats and lose. So my fear is that when you go through the next two years of chaos, Trump could easily win the nomination. I think he'll be contested, and I think he may have more trouble than he thinks for the simple reason it's awful hard. You know, you've been around the courtroom a long time. I've been around a lot of campaigns. When the leader is distracted, and certainly Donald Trump's going to be distracted like he's never been distracted before. You can't have multiple court hearings and lawyers saying you've got to sit down and give me your evidence, your testimony. You've got to basically pay attention to this and be running a viable campaign. So I think there's chaos.

I think where we are as a country is that Democrats would much rather have someone other than Joe Biden to run, even though they're comfortable with him now. They're just not comfortable with him in the future. I think Republicans, a lot of money Republicans particularly, think, OK, we've had our turn with Trump. We're not just satisfied with his policies, but the personality conflicts and all the rest of the chaos that went on in the White House and the chaos that's now going on in his legal life. Let's let's try someone that's more viable. If Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party and Joe Biden is the nominee of the Democratic Party, given all your experience and your extraordinary understanding of these things,

is that good for Joe or bad for Joe? I would think Trump is the weakest candidate to go against Biden. He has beat him once already. He certainly has all the resources of a presidency to add to that mix. And I think to a certain extent, Trump's not going to be a strong Trump talks about a 77 million votes that he got the last time. He'd be hard pressed to get that same vote again. And I think it may be the numbers may be the same because usually about 10 to 15 million

new voters turn out. But he's certainly not going to track the independents. I don't think he's going to bring back suburban women that we lost badly in the last two elections. So my sense is I'm not optimistic about a Trump winning a presidency again. Is this issue of Ukraine a dividing line for Republicans? Now, I know you have watched my podcast. I am decidedly on the same side as Ron DeSantis on this. I believe that we are wasting human life and money by being involved in a fight in which we have no dog in the fight.

Joe Biden is staking his career on this. I think he wants to run for reelection like his hero FDR as a wartime president. But back to the Republican Party, is this a dividing line? Are Republican primary voters going to be with Lindsey Graham on this, or are they going to be with Ron DeSantis and candidly Donald Trump on whether or not we should be physically involved? My sense is this war is going to go on for a long period of time, and the Russians aren't going to back away until they get something forward, and they're not going to get anything in the short run. Equally as important to all the money we've spent on weapons, and my irritation

with NATO is this isn't our doorstep. It's their doorstep And why aren't they the ones out front putting all the money in? Every time they put money or jets or planes in we have to replace it So I think the American public's gonna tire it goes on another year or two and particularly Republicans I think Republicans in the house are going to be more difficult to get money out of than Biden has done in the past with Republicans. I don't necessarily... I think the reality is... Go ahead.

No, please finish. The reality is... The reality is it's a long-term game here. And then they're rebuilding Ukraine. Certainly, they're going to expect us to pick up a big part of that cost. And those costs are going to be enormous. Americans are going to say, thank you very much. We've got lots of things to do here in this country. And we're not exactly sound and furious on our economic matters.

So I think you're going to find a real backing away. And I think that's the strategy of Putin, is just hang in there as long as we can. It's the way they've always fought the wars. We don't care about men getting killed. The difference is we've now been in wars in which we have always put the troops in. We're now putting the weapons in for someone else to fight. Every bit is expensive, not in the sense of manpower, but in the sense of effectiveness. I don't think we've made a darn bit of difference long term other than spending an enormous sum of money.

There's no end to what we can spend. You and I remember the catastrophe of LBJ and Vietnam. Right. That basically started out the same way. Well, they're not there to fight. They're there as advisors and instructors. So Joe Biden has sent military equipment there that only Americans can operate. So we have advisors and instructors

there. What are they doing? They're picking targets on the sophisticated equipment and they're pulling the triggers. Not actually triggers, they're a bunch of buttons and switches you have to press simultaneously. But the point is American boys are shooting at Russian boys. Congress hasn't authorized it. The public doesn't know about it. Here's, and I don't mean to pick on him, but he's an example of a wing of the Republican Party. Here's Senator Graham shortly after there was a confrontation over the Black Sea between an American spy drone and a Russian fighter pilot who identified the drone. Take a listen. Well, we should hold them accountable and say that if you ever get near another U.S. set flying in

international waters, your airplane would be shot down. What would Ronald Reagan do right now? He would start shooting Russian planes down if they were threatening our assets. I'm not so sure Ronald Reagan would be shooting Russian planes down, but I threatening our assets. I'm not so sure Ronald Reagan would be shooting Russian planes down, but I'll let you answer. You worked for him. He would not be shooting Russian planes down. He certainly would. If the Russians made any kind of move on him, we had one incident early in the first administration where some Libyan jets came out and tried to engage us in international waters, and we shot them down, but they engaged us, and we crossed the line.

And he'd given very strict orders that don't fire first. If they fired us, take them out, and that's what we did. My sense is he wouldn't be shooting down planes. He wouldn't be shooting down balloons. I think the reality here is we've got to have a very consistent policy. If we have an open-ended check, we spend an enormous amount of money on defense. We're never going to get out of our budgetary process until we take a hard look at defense. I remember I've been around Washington for 50 years now, and I remember in the 70s when the defense budget and the social budget

became equal. Now the defense budget is way ahead, And I think to a certain extent, we're talking about new submarines, we're talking about new planes. You'll never appease the generals. And the reality is the generals haven't won a war in a long, long time. So our defense budget, you know this, and people watching us now know this, but I feel compelled to remind everybody, is larger than the next 12 nations' defense budgets combined, which of course includes Russia and China. But a lot of that impetus comes from the military-industrial complex and from Republican members of Congress. I mean, Trump and DeSantis, or whoever's going to run on the Ed Rollins attitude of we're wasting money

on defense is going to have to confront that Lindsey Graham wing of the Republican Party, which has typically voted for more money, more defense, muscular national defense. How do you confront that? Well, first of all, Lindsey Graham will change his position nine more times in the next month. Agreed on that. You know, his battle for King's all came from being a legal officer as opposed to a combat officer. You know, I think it's a serious question. I think we have to basically show strength. But the reality I go back to is there are 30 nations in NATO. Russia is not on our border. Ukraine is not on our border. There's a humanitarian effort that you always

want to go in and see some bullying stopped. But we're the only ones in there. We're the only ones paying the price. And every time another country puts weapons in, we have to go replace those weapons. And I think the American public now sees a lot more priorities and doesn't see an endgame here. I don't see an endgame. I think as long as Putin is there, Putin's going to stay in this war as long as possible. He doesn't care how many men it takes to wipe out. At the end of the day, he's still got all the nukes.

We don't have the nukes. We have nukes. He has nukes. Ukraine has no nukes. We have nukes. He has nukes. Ukraine has no nukes. And sooner or later, he's not going to lose Russia and he's not going to lose the ends of Ukraine that they've captured. So my sense is he's building his allies with China. I mean, I sit here and I watch all these news guys basically talk about, well, what war is China, everyone? Why are we worried about China? As I recall, my history, which I am a historian, they did a pretty effective job on us in Vietnam, pretty effective job on us in Korea, pretty effective job in any other. And the

Chinese army today is far greater military than it was way back when. It's a half a million to a million troops larger than ours. And they spend one quarter on their defense budget of what we do. And, you know, every once in a while, the Defense Department says, oh, we can't find $200 million. We don't know what happened. We spent five years and $500,000 trying to find the $200 million, and we can't find it. We just lost your face, Ed.

Can you hear us? I can hear you. Can you hear me just fine? Okay. We'll keep chatting. Is the likely prosecution of Donald Trump going to help him or hurt him in the Republican primaries? I can't. It looks like we lost Ed Rollins.

Well, I'm going to run the clip of Governor DeSantis while Ed and his folks try and reconnect to us. So this is Governor DeSantis at a press conference yesterday asked about this. Now, he's in a unique position. If Donald Trump is indicted in New York and is physically located in Florida and refuses to come to New York, then Governor DeSantis is going to be involved in the extradition. I hope it doesn't come to that. I thought that Governor DeSantis' issue of poking the ribs of the liberal Democratic prosecutor, but at the same time saying, I don't know anything about paying off a porn star to remain silent. I thought he touched all the right buttons. But while Ed tries to reconnect with us, if he can, and while my producer Gary tries to reconnect with Ed's people,

here's Governor DeSantis yesterday on the issue of Trump and his legal woes. I do know this, the Manhattan district attorney is a Soros funded prosecutor. And so he, like other Soros funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety. He has downgraded over 50 percent of the felonies to misdemeanors. He says he doesn't want to even have jail time for the vast, vast majority of crimes. And what we've seen in Manhattan is we've seen the crime rate go up and we've seen citizens become less safe. And so you're talking about this situation with, and look, I don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. I just, I can't speak to that. But what I can speak to is that if you have a

prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, that's an example of pursuing a political agenda. I'll get back. Okay. I don't know if you had a chance to hear what Governor DeSantis said. It sounded like you wrote it for him, Ed, because he touched all the right buttons. He attacked the prosecutor in New York City, Alvin Bragg, as being a left-wing progressive funded by George Soros, uninterested in serious criminal prosecution. But then he also said, I don't know anything about paying off porn stars for hush money. I just can't talk to that.

So he reminded the listeners of the tawdry nature of the allegations against Trump, but at the same time distanced himself from the merits of the prosecution itself, suggesting the prosecutor should have more important things to do. I think that's the absolute correct way to handle it. Can you hang on one second? Yes. All right. These things happen, my dear judging friends. This is not Fox News and it's not CNN. It's almost home-cooked and homemade.

Maybe that will change one day. but right now these things happen. Ed is a dear friend of mine and a gifted understander of what's going on with the Republican Party. He's been active in the highest levels of Republican politics, going back to Richard Nixon, ran both of Ronald Reagan's campaigns, managed the campaign of Tom Kane, governor of New Jersey, who gave me my first appointment to the bench, managed the campaign of Christine Todd Whitman, governor of New Jersey, who gave me my lifetime appointment to the bench. I obviously didn't serve a full term since I'm no longer a judge and I'm still alive. But Ed and I have known each other through Republican politics and his Republican bona fides are really second to none. Ed, I'm glad you're back with us. Is it just

DeSantis against Trump or are there others involved like governor christy of new jersey who seems to feel that he christy is trump uh without the baggage well he has christy baggage uh so i'm not sure how viable he's going to be uh and i think he draws if he gets in he draws more of the anti-trump vote because he was once in the camp. And I think people have perturbed that he sort of left the Trump camp. You know, my sense is there's no obvious candidate. I think the governor of Virginia has decided not to make a race, which he was talking about. I think Pompeo would like to run, but I don't think there's any viability there.

I think Haley is going to depend on how well she does in South Carolina. She'll stay through South Carolina, where she was governor there. And if she doesn't win South Carolina, which has always been a very tough state for challengers. So it could come down to DeSantis and Trump, the couple of fringe candidates, if that occurs, then I think there's a shot that DeSantis has that he might not have otherwise. I want to show you, I want to play for you a tape from Admiral Kirby, who's the spokesperson for President Biden's National Security Council. Now, you and I know him. He used to be at Fox all the time in those days. He was Admiral. Now he's John, but he's still the same human being. So earlier today, President Xi

of China suggested to an international forum standing next to President Putin of Russia that the Ukrainians and the Russians enter into a ceasefire. I can't imagine he would have made that suggestion to President Putin's face without running it past him first. Xi is the, you know, he's an authoritarian and a thug, but he's the ultimate surviving diplomat. One would think Joe Biden would say, yes, let's stop the bloodshed and let's stop the expenditure of money. Oh, no, no.

Here's Admiral Kirby on President Xi's suggestion for a ceasefire. We'd be concerned if coming out of this meeting, there was some sort of call for a ceasefire, because right now, while a ceasefire sounds good, it actually ratifies Russia's gains on the ground. It actually serves Russia's purpose for a ceasefire, to basically call a stop right now, without any acknowledgement that Russia is illegally inside Ukraine. So United States will be against the

ceasefire because this principal issue or because it was proposed by China? I think I've been very clear. It's about the principle of a ceasefire called for right now, which would essentially just ratify Russia's gains. You know, it's interesting because that clip was made before President Xi made his statement publicly. But as I said, it was generally assumed that President Xi was going to say this because he is a diplomat and he wouldn't say it without a trial balloon. Can Ron DeSantis win a majority of the Republican votes with that? That Joe Biden is wrong, the war is wrong, we shouldn't be defending it, Russia is going to win, and it's not in our backyard. I don't think Russia is going to win. What I think Russia is going to do is try and solidify what they've already captured.

They're not going to conquer Ukraine. Ukraine, I don't think, is going to drive the occupied territories back into Russia. I think Ukraine would love to go fight and do some damage to Russia. That isn't going to happen. If they try and do that, then you're going to get into tactical nuclear weapons. I don't care who you are. I'm not a military leader, but that's just what's going to happen. I understand human nature. Putin is not going to be the man who's going to get into tactical nuclear weapons i don't care who you are i'm not a military leader but that's just what's going to happen i understand human nature and putin is not going to be the man who's going to lose russia uh and he now thinks russia includes the provinces they've already taken i think this is a process of one this will be this will be the ground discussions it'll go on for another year with a lot more bloodstread shed and a lot more resources

ukraine doesn't have the resources. I think China will give Russia the resources that they need, and the other allies, Iran and the others, who are dangerous allies to us, will all unify around Russia. Ed Rollins, always a pleasure, my dear friend. I hope you'll come back and chat with us on a regular basis, particularly as these Republican presidential wars get hotter. Happy to do it. Take care. Thank you. Thank you, my dear friend. Colonel Doug McGregor,

3 o'clock Eastern Time, or as we get it, Justin Napolitano for Judging Freedom.