Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern: Weekly WrapSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Limited time, new customer offer for the first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on the unlimited plan, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, October 24th, 2025. It's the end of the day here in the U.S. It's the end of the week. It's our favorite time to do this program with the Intelligence Community Roundtable

with my dear friends and collaborators, Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson, Larry, and I were literally collaborators in the past week, having spent our time in Moscow. I am back home in the U.S. Larry is still there. More about that later. Ray, we could have used you not only because of your linguistic skills, but because of your understanding of the problems that we were analyzing. Larry and I were exposed to very, very bright people, nearly all of it on camera, including Maria Zarapova. And that interview has been posted under videos on judging freedom.

And it was an intellectually challenging and stimulating experience. Let me, Judge, before you go on, let me just thank Larry for adopting my black shirt here. I'm glad he's being a little bit more modest in his demeanor and in his clothing. So I just want to give my thanks, Larry. I got to tell you, some of the chatters are saying, is that someone pretending to be Larry Johnson because we don't recognize him without one of those crazy Florida shirts on? Well, when in Moscow, you know, I'm dressed like Stephen Seagall was on Saturday night. I was with Stephen Seagal and General Abdi Aledinov.

Well, you're not quite dressed like Segal. When I saw me, he was wearing a cassock as if he was an Orthodox priest, which we know he is not. Ray, let me start with you. Do Trump and Rubio confuse the meanings of ceasefire and peace? No, I think that Rubio for this week is ruling the roost, not only on things like Ukraine, but on Israel itself talking about the UN Agency for Relief, being part of Hamas. My God. Rubio is the guy that Trump, for whatever he didn't have to choose to be Secretary of State. They're both going off half-capped on this. It's really sort of, sort of unbelievable, the depth to which both have gone, when you talk about, for example, and I hope we do get into Venezuela, you have the president saying, oh, yeah, we're going to kill him. You don't like kill, like they're going to be dead.

You understand? It's going to be dead. And we're not going to pursue any notification, much less approval from Congress. Now, I wish that that was so apparent that it was unprecedented, but 12 years ago, when Senator Jeff Sessions of the Senate Judiciary Committee was asking Keneda, this defense secretary, and he said, look, you know, before you do the next attack, are you going to come to Congress, ask for permission? He said, no, no. The president is going to do what he has to do to protect America. That's what's going to happen. So this is a bipartisan thing.

The White House is going half-cocked partly, mostly, I would say, before, because Congress is too cowardly to assert their prerogative on the Article 1 of our Constitution, which preserves the right to declare war to Congress, not to the executive. Larry, does Marco Rubio want the Ukraine war to end? Is he working toward peace? Or is the neocon in him just want the war to go on and on and on for the same reason that Victoria Newland and Hillary Clinton did? Well, I think a lot of it is actually some, I'll call it, political theater.

So, you know, Friday night when we were at the RT Gala Ball, week ago Friday. I had a chance to speak with someone I've known. He is from Europe. But he was telling me about a friend of his who actually works in the Trump White House, was on the Trump campaign, is close with Susie Wiles. And he says, hey, heads up. He says, Trump and Putin are actually talking a lot more than people understand. He said, like on Putin's birthday, Trump called him and there was a 40-minute conversation. I went and checked out both the White House and the Kremlin website, not a word about that. But apparently they are talking, which is one of the reasons you don't see a lot of consternation on the part of Vladimir Putin with respect to,

you know, what are a lot of symbolic gestures. I mean, like, latest, these oil sanctions, they're silly because they say, oh, we're going to say. Oh, we're going to. sanction Luke Oil and Rosneth that if anybody tries to buy through a U.S. financial institution, that oil, they're going to get sanctioned. Well, guess what? They're not selling through U.S. sanction banks. Yeah. The India's pain with Chinese you are.

So, you know, and these stories out that China and India aren't by all, boy, they're afraid of the sanctions. Nonsense. It's garbage. Let me switch gears a little bit. I was in Moscow for five days. You're there for 15 days. Who, from your perception of all the people you spoke to after I left, who canceled the Budapest meeting, the U.S. or Russia? And do we know why?

Well, what was reported is that Lovrof spoke with Rubio. They had a productive conversation, and the decision was made between those two, that there was no need for an immediate meeting between Trump and Putin. So, again, this was presented in the West, is all this major disruption in the process. Russians are taking it in stride. In fact, you know, I've spoken over the last five days, 28 different people, including, you know, the pranksters, Vaubon and Lexus. I had to sit down with them yesterday. These are the guys that called George Bush, didn't they? Yeah, yeah.

And Kamala Harris. Yeah, they're hilarious. And they got some other stuff in the world. It's not going to rat them out here. Well, Larry, you better warn me if they're going to call here. No, no, no. They'll leave you alone. But I did yesterday have a great conversation with an Alexander Galushka.

Goluski has got the number one selling book in Russia on the economy. He was the minister of the Russian Federation for the development of the Far East. So a very important influential guy in the economic affairs. And, you know, Russia's doing fine. The threat of sanctions are really more to placate the likes of Lindsey Graham. Rams and all these warhawks in Washington to make it appear like Trump is doing something tough against Russia. But in effect, it doesn't really have any effect. Here's, before you jump in on this, Ray, and I want your thoughts on it.

Here's President Putin yesterday on the sanctions. Number three. First, first, there is nothing new here. Firstly, there is nothing new here. Yes, they are serious for us. That is clear. And they will have certain consequences. But they will not significantly affect our economic well-being.

In his first term as president, it is well known that President Trump imposed the largest number of sanctions that had ever been imposed against the Russian Federation. Today, they have two aspects, purely. political and purely economic. As for the political aspect, what we are talking about is, of course, an attempt to put pressure on Russia, but no self-respecting country and no self-respecting people ever make decisions under pressure. And your thoughts on that. It's very interesting how calm he was in taking that. I agree with Larry.

you know when you're dealing with a narcissist you remain calm okay his interview there was calmness personified and the first question was this now this will give you an indication of how calm fuchin was question yesterday we heard another statement from the u.s. president about meeting with you now just to clarify it was the u. the U.S. suggested the meeting in Hungary, but also the election meeting, and Putin made that clear. It's unusual.

Usually Putin doesn't disclose all these things. Anyhow, so he asked about this to and fro, and how about the same time the sanctions with sanctions. Today, the EU opposed another round of sanctions, anti-Russian sanctions, this time, placing a ban on toilet bowls, motorized toys, puzzles, and tricycles. Don't we do this yet? What do you think about that?

Wow. Well, that's really going to have an effect on the special military operation, toilet bowls and toys. Here's the answer. Wow. Larry, isn't this? Well, wait, listen to Ray's answer or what answer to that question. The fact that answer, the fact that they canceled imports. on our toilet bowls will cost them dearly.

I think they will need them if they keep the same policies with regard to the Russian Federation. So that was the first question. That sort of set the tone. And now Putin is still talking about just when relations start to improve, we get these new hindered, these new obstacles.

The bad news is Medezyers. Now, Medvedev is a bad cop. He was really a hard line and hard nose. And indeed, earlier today, Putin called the meeting of his National Security Council. This just came over the wire, as we used to say. And what he said was this. Look, we have to do this. One issue to discuss here from various angles and its strengthening counterterrorism measures

in ways to improve them. We have several speakers here, but I would first like to ask Alexander Barthnikov, the head of the relevant agency, the internal KGB agency, to take the floor first. You have the floor, Mr. Barthnikov, and then we have no account there. So what I see here is that Putin is aware that there could be a false flag blamed on the Ukrainians, and that the people in Russia as well as people also say, well, now this, now, Vladimir, Vladimir, which you have no, you have no choice, you've got to level Ukraine. Putin doesn't want to do that. He's not going to be put in a position of having to do that.

And so he's convening all his internal security people, the border forces, the health, all with the internal security people together and say, look, we need to improve. We need to be on high alert for the time when people take advantage of just as they had before. And do with her as incident this time may be more serious than ever before. It could be the Ukrainians. Could be the British.

Barthnikov, last thing I'll say. Barthnikov was the one that said, you know, the ones that tactics, those tactics that hit the bombers deep in Russia, that was a British operation, okay? The British did that. So if there's another thing that smells like British, you could maybe, you wouldn't want to be,

and Cyprus with the British base right there. It wouldn't run anywhere near a British constellation. Larry, you spoke with Russia's most celebrated general. This is the dinner I was supposed to attend, I was waiting for a three-hour late flight. What is your understanding of the state of affairs militarily on the ground in Ukraine as we speak? Russia's wedding. The offense has accelerated. They are pressing all along a 1,400 kilometer front. Unlike two years ago, when forces were concentrated in one area, Russia now has the manpower reserves, as well as the logistics to support offensive operations, so that they're not constrained to have to stay in just one area. So no, he's, uh, Opti was

he said, look, he was very emphatic about he preferred that there was no war. He doesn't enjoy it at all. I mean, he's very good at it, but he doesn't embrace it and celebrate it.

He's like what I'd call the anti-patent. You remember in the movie Patton? He said, God, I love it. Well, Apti doesn't love it. He loves, say, he said, being with his family, being a peace, but he says, Russia is not going to lay down. We're not going to

roll over. We're going to defend ourselves. And those who dare to fight us, they'll pay the price. Ray, I want to transition over to Israel and Gaza. Was the Witkoff Kushner-Gaza deal just a scam to get the

Israeli hostages home? Well, it appears very much that that's exactly right. And of course, we said so at the time. It doesn't look good for the Palestinians. Let me pick up on one thing having to do with Ukraine and Russia. Riebkov, the deputy foreign minister, made a big thing this week of saying, look, we're still awaiting a U.S. reply on Putin's offer to maintain the quantitative limits of the new start

treaty on offensive missiles. Okay. Now, that's big. It's bigger than all this other stuff if trump turns down that offer for a kind of a moratorium or at least a sticking to the quantitative limits then that that means something because the russians are afraid of the state of mind of trump and they will be on high alert if they don't get some satisfaction on his appreciation of what the strategic realities are with respect to the middle east i think it's the way we called it in the beginning it's really a skill scandal that anyone, anyone in the world would trust Niztinyahu or Trump. How long before Israel invades again, Larry?

Well, they're already connecting operations in the West Bank, even though you've got J.D. Vance to say no, and they're not fully withdrawn. And they keep playing this game, said, oh, they, Hamas is holding back the bodies just to drag this out without recognizing that the bodies that they're looking for are buried under, tons of rubble that the Israelis cause. The Israelis killed their own hostages. That's what happened.

They were not killed by Hamas. Here's Trump talking about the West Bank. It's an odd tape because he claims he doesn't hear and doesn't understand the question. In fairness to him, the questioner is from Paris, and she has a very strong French accent. And at one point he asks the attorney general to answer the question. doesn't even know what the question is about, but eventually he says that Israel's not going to touch the West Bank. We'll get there in a second.

Does it really matter what he says? I mean, Ben Gavir is distributing AK-47s and M-16s to the settlers. They've already stolen half of the land. Does it matter what Trump says, Ray McGovern? No. About the West Bank? It doesn't matter at all. Netanyahu and Ben-Givir are going to do what they want.

They already control the West Bank. They have a Palestinian authority, which really is also under Israel's control. So whether they formally annexed the West Bank, well, they probably won't do it this month, but next month perhaps, when Trump and J.D. Vance go away and forget what they said about not allowing him to do that. Look, Netanyahu runs this thing. Trump does what he's told. It's a sorry state of affairs.

Larry and Ray, here's this Q&A with the French reporter. Even when Trump eventually understands the question, his answer, can only be described as flippant and arrogant. But no surprise. Chris got number five. Could you say that louder, please? Yes. Yesterday, there was a vote at the Gnisset in Israel on annexing the West Bank.

Do you see it as a challenge to your peace efforts? Will you answer that, please? Because I cannot understand the words you say. Where are you from? Where are you from? You're from France, beautiful accent, but we can't understand what you're saying. The West Bank? Don't worry about the West Bank.

Israel's not going to do anything with the West Bank, okay? Don't worry about it. Is that your question? They're not going to do anything with the West Bank. Don't worry about it. Israel's doing very well. They're not going to do anything with it. He doesn't know what he's talking about if he says they're not going to do anything.

They're arming settlers to slaughter people so they can steal people's homes and land. Seven years ago, Judge, Matt Ho and I and five other veterans for peace visited the West Bank. And on one occasion, a little village, we went down to the spring that the settlers had taken control of. The only spring they had in this little village, and we just stood around, stood around the spring. The settlers came, armed. One came driving up with the car, and if he hadn't got stuck in the mud, Matt Ho was right in front of him. Matt would have got run over. First thing they did when they came en masse, get out of their cars, and hit the women, hit the women as hard as they could.

One of our young guys, a Marine special ops guy, tried to save the women, and, you know, He was attacked by this guy and said, Mike, why didn't you just level that guy? He said, Ray, I don't know what they say in the army, but first you see if they're armed, right? He was armed with a pistol. As we got back up the hill to the little village, there was rifle fire. I said to Matt, my God, that sounds like a rifle. He said, yeah, get your head down, stupid. Get your head down.

So that's the way the settlers treat the locals and local visitors. and there were some official troops around from national troops, Israeli troops, but they just let the settlers do what they want to include rifle fire as we climbed up this hill to get back safely into the village. We made it without casualties, but it was close. That's what the settlers talk about, and that's what the settlers do to people who have lived there for centuries. So J.D. Vance can call the Knesset vote stupid,

all he wants, and Donald Trump can snarkily say to a French reporter, don't worry about it, and the U.S. will turn its backs on the theft of land and the killing of indigenous Arab peoples. Larry here, I want to jump to Venezuela before we finish. Here's Trump. I'm not sure if it's today or yesterday, but it's very, very recent saying, but we don't care about Congress, we're just going to kill these people. Chris, cut number nine.

And, Mr. President, if you are declaring war against these cartels and Congress is likely to approve of that process, why not just ask for a declaration of war? Well, I don't think we're going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we're just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay, we're going to kill them. You know, they're going to be like dead. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. a disgraceful level of ignorance, a violation of the Constitution. Look, you can't, as a law enforcement officer, just look at someone and say, I think they got drugs on them and shoot them. And that's what's being done. They haven't proven that these people are carrying drugs. And in most cases, they're fishery. And again, the very first boat, they blew up. No way in hell was it carrying drugs. When you've got four outboard motors, a 60-foot cigarette boat with 11 people on board, A, it doesn't have enough fuel to reach the United States, number one, number two, with 11 people on board, it's not a serious drug trafficking operation, because instead of people, you'd want to

have bundles of drugs. This is one of the most perverse lies I've ever seen, and the notion that, you know, let's not just blame Donald Trump. Trump. Let's go back to Barack Obama and George W. Bush. I mean, they basically made it okay to kill people just because you say, we think they're bad. Right, right. Ray, what do you think is behind this slaughter? And is it going to come to Chicago? Well, Judge, first, I would recommend that people read your excellent article of two days ago in consortium news about the survivors who now have standing to pursue this case against the U.S. government. It is abominable what's happening here, complete disregard for the Constitution,

and where is Congress in all this? They're cowards. They're a bunch of cowards. With respect to where this goes, well, the U.S. as Gerald Ford, the most expensive and fancy aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet is leaving the Mediterranean as we speak on route Venezuela, okay? Now, it's going to be armed with all kinds of, or accompanied by all kinds of other ships and join ships already there. What's going to happen? Well, I would just suggest that there are any ship missiles available in that area, and more would probably come in. If they want to cost us belly, just think of what would happen to Gerald Ford, the U.S. USS Gerald Ford cost $20 billion to build if the 4,000 sailors or airmen on that ship were damaged or killed, you know, we're going to kill them, right? They're going to be dead, right? Well, dead works both ways. And with the Chinese and the Russians looking on at this, and they see an unhinged guy that talks like this, like a punk, as Larry has just said, what are they going to do? Well,

Putin has chosen to not overreact, okay? What will Xi Jinping do? Well, they're supposed to meet in six days. What's he going to say to Trump? What are your intentions now? The USS Gerald Ford is nearing Nicaraba. Are you going to attack Nicaraba? Because if you do, we're going to do X, Y, and Z.

It's no longer a unipoli world, and Trump doesn't seem to get that. Larry, because I like you so much, I'm going to play a clip of your favorite cable television host interviewing your favorite senator from South Carolina. Chris? I had a chat with you this weekend. I thought you had a pretty darn good idea. And you said you were going to share it with the president. I want to know if you did. And that is this opposition leader in Venezuela that won the Nobel Prize that said it really deserved to go to Donald Trump. Sounds like a pretty good leader to me. for the people of Venezuela and the end of narco-terrorism

and a better relationship with the U.S. Or if they choose maybe the 51st state, I don't know. Sounds good to be. Do you believe those two clowns, Venezuela, should be seized and turned into the 51st state? I wonder which party they'd vote for. Well, again, to portray Venezuela some great narco-terrorist sanctuary,

it's just, it's a lie. It's not true. If that's the criteria in terms of the volume of drugs coming in the United States, it's called Mexico, and then secondary, Colombia, which is next door. But to finger Venezuela is the big, bad abuser here. It's just not true. But look, if we're going to be honest about who's helping facilitate the flow of drugs into the United States, there are U.S. corporations which are facilitating the laundering of the drug proceeds. they know it. And yet we take no action against them because they make important political donations to both the Republican and Democrat parties. Ray, was the CIA ever involved in facilitating

the entry of drugs into the United States? We have a former CIA director, John Deutsch, admitting to that with respect to what happened in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California. It was divulged by a very gutsy reporter who was then shunned and actually, of course, well, he committed suicide. So, yeah, of course it does. Now, with respect to Venezuela, you know, we like to throw our weight around when we're embarrassed elsewhere. It was awfully embarrassing when China gathered most of the rest of the world at that celebration for a victory over Japan. We had to do something, and we decided to do something in our neighborhood where we can. Witness what we did at Palama, way back when.

Now, we had reduced the Panamanians to pretty misery, and we had assets within the military in Panama. So what do we think about Venezuela now? They are miserable people out of them because of the sanctions, and because Maduro's management hasn't been so good. It's a fertile field there to see if they can use these insurrectionists or Maria Carilla Moschado to overturn the government. I don't think they can, and I don't think if they do offshore missile firing and all that, that's going to wing it, okay? And I do think, and mark my words, I do think that Russia and China are not going to stand for this. This is just too blatant, okay? This is against international law.

It's against our Constitution. And I think they're going to take some sort of retaliationary measures. Mark my words. Larry, I was not joking when I asked earlier if Trump's killing is going to come to Chicago. Listen to my former Fox News colleague who now regrettably is the Secretary of Defense. He calls himself the Secretary of War. And you tell me if we're not marching. not in baby steps, but in the long leaps toward a police state.

Chris, cut number six. Sir, a memo circulating on social media details the establishment of a National Guard Response Force that's going to be trained in crowd control and civil unrest and deployed in all 50 states by April of 2026. Can you verify the authenticity of that memo and do you have any more information on the operations? I'm not going to answer particulars on something that may be in the plan. planning process, but we definitely do have multiple layers of National Guard response forces, whether it's in each state, whether it's regionally, whether it's Title 10 active duty, whether

it's Washington, D.C. We've got a lot of different ways that constitutionally and legally we can employ Title 10 and Title 32 forces, and we will do so when necessary. And we will do so when we think it necessary. Larry, I'll give you the last word on this. Yeah, it's a lot. It's It's unfortunate that they're trying to use the military for law enforcement operations. It's dangerous. It sets a precedent, but in this case, to have Pete Hakeseth, who's, you know, with his gross inexperience on this, and they're really not enough gravitas to push back on the president and explain the different downsides to pursuing this kind of policy, the kind of precedence

it sets. Because, you know, they may find it convenient to do it now. But then who know who's the next president, and Trump and them will have created a precedent for doing something that may end up coming back to be targeted against Trump's supporters. Correct. So they're playing with fire. Guys, thank you very much. The time went by like that.

Larry, you have a long way to come home, travel safely and well. I know you're going to be on with us Monday morning, but I don't know where you will be be on with us. I'll coordinate with Chris. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, Ray. Thank you, Larry. Have a great weekend, guys. All the best. Travel safely, Larry. Thanks. Bye-bye. Thank you. That's it for today and for this weekend. Of course, on Monday, we'll have all of your usual as Alster Crook, Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.