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.

You Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, February 28th, 2025. It's the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the month. Time for our favorite segment, which is the Intelligence Community Roundtable with Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Larry and Ray, welcome here. Thank you for the double duty this week, as you guys both do every week. We have to put aside the questions I was going to ask about Keir Starmer and European leverage and Netanyahu mocking people who were killed by exploding beepers. Maybe we'll eventually get to that, but we need to go directly to the explosion, metaphorically speaking, in the Oval Office today. I think the best way to do so is to play what Chris has captured as the most explosive three minutes of it. So this is three minutes long. This is President

Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office taking on President Donald Trump with some interruptions by J.D. Vance, but it's mainly Trump and Zelensky losing patience with each other. It was preceded by a private meeting between them. It was followed by Zelensky's summary departure from the White House at this hour. I don't know if he's leaving the country or if he's going to do his Fox News interview later today and then leave. But here's the most explosive three minutes seen in the Oval Office in the modern era. This is what happened two hours ago. Cut number 20. I've actually watched and seen the stories, and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. Do you disagree that you've had

problems bringing people into your military? And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country? A lot of nice ocean, and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the future. God bless. You don't know that. God bless. God bless. You will not have a war. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel.

I'm not telling you. Because you're in no position to dictate that. Remember that. You're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel. You're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards. I'm not playing cards.

Right now, you're playing cards.'m not playing cards. I'm wearing a serious, Mr. President. I'm wearing a serious. I'm the President in War. You think you're... What do you think about? What is he thinking about? Me? I'm with all respect to your country. I'm wearing a respect. Have you said thank you once this entire meeting?

A lot of times. No, in this entire meeting. Give him the honor. I'm wearing a respect. I'm wearing a respect. I'm wearing a respect. I'm wearing a respect. I'm wearing a respect.

I'm wearing a respect. I'm wearing a respect. I'm wearing a respect. I'm wearing a respect. I'm wearing a respect. I'm wearing a respect. I'm wearing a respect, far more than a lot of people said they should have. Have you said thank you once this entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting, have you said thank you? You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October.

Offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country. Your country is in big trouble. Wait a minute. No, no. You've done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble. Wait a minute. No, no. You've done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble. I know. I know. You're not winning. You're not winning this. You have a damn good chance of coming out okay because of us.

Mr. President, we are staying in our country, staying strong. From the very beginning of the war, we've been alone. And we are thankful. I said thanks in this cabinet. You haven't been alone. You haven't been alone. And we are thankful. I said thanks in this cabinet. We gave you, through this stupid president, $350 billion. We gave you military equipment, and you men are brave, but they had to use our military.

If you didn't have our military equipment, if you didn't have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks. In three days. I heard it from Putin. In three days. Except that there are disagreements, and let's go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it out in the American media when you're wrong.

You're buried there. Your people are dying. You're running low on soldiers. You're running low on soldiers. Listen, you're running low on soldiers. It would be a damn good thing. Then you tell us, I don't want to cease fire. I don't want to cease fire. I want to go, and I wanted this. Look, if you could get a cease fire right now, I tell you, you'd take it so the bullets stop flying and your men stop getting killed. Of course we want to stop the war.

But you're saying you don't want to cease fire. But I said to you don't want to see fire? I want to see fire. With guarantees. Because you'll get a shot. That was with a guy named Biden who was not a smart person. That was with Obama. It was your president. Excuse me. That was with Obama who gave you sheets and I gave you javelins. All right. I think we've seen enough. What do you think? This is going to be great television, I will say that. This is going to be great television, I will say that, from the master of all this. Larry, I'll let you comment first. Where is this going?

What do you think? Was it an act? Was it for real? Did Zelensky blow it? Are they now kissing and making up? How do you see this? No, this was for real. Zelensky didn't learn the first rule of crisis management. When you're in a hole, stop digging. Man, the longer it went, the more furiously he was shoveling his way to

infinity. And remember, this entire week was part of a staged attempt by Europe to rope the United States into securing Ukraine's freedom. It started with Macron on Monday, followed then by Starmer yesterday. And and then in each of those meetings, Trump was man. There was a lot of smoke being blown up in the nether regions on those. There was so much smoke that I thought the D.C. Fire Department was going to get called to the White House. But it was all Trump kept it upbeat, positive. But he didn't give in on the very thing that Macron and Starmer came for. And that was for Zelensky to close the deal. Notice when they're sitting there, they've got a fireplace behind them.

The fireplace is not lit. That was done for a reason, I believe. I don't think it was an oversight. I think they don't want to create a warm, comfortable atmosphere. I think Trump recognizes that if this negotiation is going to go anywhere, it can't go with Zelensky because Putin's not going to talk to him. They just created the

reason to get rid of Zelensky today. Ray, your thoughts on what we just observed and on what Larry just said? Well, just a few days ago, Zelensky says, you want me to leave?

Yagatov, Yagatov, I'm ready to leave. Well, whether he was ready to leave the White House or not is another question, but he did get thrown out unceremoniously. You know, it's a mixture of, well, you know, he was rudely treated, but he had it coming to him. Here's a comedian that thought he could be a big shot. He was misled by the Blinkins and Sullivans and Bidens of this world. Which one was the comedian who thought he could be a big shot, Trump or

Zelensky? Zelensky, okay? I don't think Trump ever acknowledged trying to be a comedian. He certainly was no comedian here. Now, he said, look, make a deal or we're out, okay? Well, it's not only that we're out, the United States of America

is out, it's also that Zelensky is out. And introducing the program at the end of the week, at the end of the day, well, it's the end of Zelensky is out. And introducing the program, you say it's the end of the week, the end of the day. Well, it's the end of Zelensky, for God's sake. He's out. And if he doesn't come to terms, if the U.S. doesn't think that he's still a useful tool to make a deal with the Russians, he's out of there. And, you know, it became so acrimonious because

here's Trump saying, look, we gave you all the support we needed, you're needed. And, you know, the Russians suffered for my first term by being accused of all manner of things. And Putin had to deal with that. And he had to put up with that. And he doesn't have to put up with that anymore. So, look, make a deal or we're out of there. And we're already out of there. I think that theater was as much designed to the Stormers and the Nazis in Germany and the Macron's in the world as to anybody else. It's over for Ukraine. And, you know, when you say schadenfreude,

the light at the misfortunes of other, well, that's tempered in my view to the tragedy of this person who was misled into thinking he could be a big shot, whereas really he was just a comedian willing to do the bidding of those whose word should not have been trusted. Larry, I think Ray is quite correct.

He's a tragic figure. Does the United States get rid of him? Was this for the domestic Ukrainian audience, the show he could stand up to Donald Trump? Does he have European financiers like Starmer and Macron and Mertz ready to step in? Where do you think this goes? The Europeans are in shock right now. They are in absolute shock.

I was monitoring Sky News before and they were sort of a little upbeat. Yeah, man, Macron and Trump, they're going to get together. They're going to have this agreement signed, and we'll have the United States locked in on the Romney. Oh, boy. Then this happened, and they're sitting there. Their jaws are hanging open. They're wide-eyed, and they're going, I can't believe what we just saw. And at every, the top and bottom of every hour hour they're playing that full 10 minutes of that the the confrontation they're playing it over and over and over and then they're bringing

in uh ukrainians to comment on it and they're bringing in british you know the military and intelligence pundits and everybody goes man game over game over. Because Europe is not in a position to pay for it, to produce the weapons, to shoulder the burden of this war. Yeah, they talk about it, but talking is one thing and actually doing is another. And what was exposed this week was the weakness of Europe. That's why Macron and Starmer tried their two-team on Macron, and it blew up in their face. Ray, is Zelensky finished?

He's finished unless he dovetails with what Trump and J.D. Vance want. In other words, if he can be male-able enough now to suit their intentions, then he can hang around for a reasonable place of time. But, you know, there has to be elections. And that, of course, is his demise once there are elections. Everybody says there has to be elections. And that, of course, is his demise once there are elections. Everybody says there has to be elections. So it's just a matter of how they tactfully work this out, how the Europeans finally become underanged, if you can, underanged.

They're just crazy. And nobody really understands what's going to happen. Witness the fact that I'm sure Zelensky was told before he ever set foot in Washington, look, this is not going to be good for you. We're going to read the Riot Act to you unless you show flexibility and do what we want you to do. So who counsels on this? Yeah, go anyway.

I think we can change this around. Probably Boris Johnson and the Brits. Yes, Lord. We have a clip. It's a montage that Chris put together at Boris Johnson last week at some conference in Europe. He looks even more of a clown than he normally does. But before we get there, Larry, these meetings of heads of state are normally carefully choreographed. The underlings, Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor, and his opposite number, Secretary of State Rubio and his opposite number, would have worked all this out.

By the way, I understand it wasn't shown on the camera, but a friend of mine who was there in the room told me that the Ukrainian foreign minister, a female, name not known to me right now, put her head in her hands like this at the height of what we just ran. to you is, wouldn't Intel have advised Trump what Zelensky was going to say and do? And wouldn't Intel have advised Zelensky what Trump was going to say and do? Or was this literally a spontaneous explosion, a function of the personalities, strengths, and weaknesses of each of these two men, Larry? Well, I think Trump and Vance went in prepared to push some buttons. And I'm sure they had, you know, the CIA on the intel side, we used to call it LDA, leadership development analysis. They're the ones who would write up the profiles of leaders and all the personnel. And it was worth noting, man, Zelensky had an entourage of about 15 people

in that room. You could count them when they came out. Zelensky came out first, got into the limo, and then the rest trooped out, including Yermak, some others I didn't recognize, but they all got on a bus. But this was scripted from the U.S. side. They literally set it up. I think their betting was he's going to blow up. He's going to set himself on fire. We'll give him a chance, though, to put the fire out. He took the bait.

He decided that he was going to get into a verbal sparring match with Donald Trump. Look, Trump's taken on Vince McMahon, for God's sake. Okay, the World Wrestling Federation. And he's taken on Jeb Bush. He's taken on every major U.S. politician. The thing that was really sort of shocking after this was all over was watching what Lindsey Graham was saying. Lindsey Graham was like all on Donald Trump's side, criticizing Zelensky, who just about

a week ago, man, he was shining Zelensky's shoes. So this was, I think, a watershed moment. The Trump people realized if they're going to get anywhere with negotiations with Russia, the Linsky's got to go. That's one of the Russians' critical demands. They just helped arrange that exit today. Do you think, Ray McGovern, that there were high fives in the Kremlin, that they're watching this over and over again with glee?

Of course. I mean, not only is it what the Russians want, it's what the situation demands. Now, you can be embarrassed for Zelensky's treatment, and it was certainly rude. But think back just three years when Zelensky is lionized before a joint session of the U.S. Congress and given an American flag by who was it? Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi and some other woman there. And, you know, it was just crazy what we did in leading him along. Now, he has had this rude awakening. The only fly in the ointment remaining is whether the Europeans have had a rude awakening. Now, they will let down easier, but there's no way as larry said there's

no way that they can compensate for u.s support either financially or militarily so the die is cast and this was a kind of interesting dino where as truman as trump said my god now this is really good tv well it was and it's it's set the set the stage for what's what's to come and the Russians and we are now talking about more than just Ukraine uh the Europeans are going to have to recognize reality it's really bizarre that educated people in Europe can understand that the game is lost and that there's no there's no profit at all in trying to continue it. I don't know if the two of you have seen this before, but this is pretty good for laughs, even though he's got blood on his hands. This is Boris Johnson attempting to be a cheerleader

before some group in Europe earlier, well, last week. When I say he has blood on his hands, I mean, he was the one dispatched by President Biden to dissuade President Zelensky from signing an agreement, a thick agreement, every page of which had been initialed and freely negotiated for an Istanbul between the Russians and the Ukrainians when Johnson gave him the Biden nonsense. Don't worry, we'll back you up and you'll win. Here's Boris Johnson last week, cut number 14. Everybody knows there's a minerals deal on the table today, right? And I think it has every prospect of being signed. And frankly, I think it should be signed

because it commits the United States in black and white to a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine. So what we need now is everybody to to be serious and to get real and to listen to what Trump is actually saying and doing and proposing. He said he doesn't mind UK troops on the ground in Ukraine. That's great. Well, then we need to make that real..s is committed black and white to a free secure sovereign ukraine you can't have a sovereign country without the ability to decide which which clubs you're going to belong to sovereign country can remain committed to joining nato that's sovereignty sovereign country can remain free to allow whatever troops it wants to come on its soil to support it.

That's sovereignty. Now, Putin could never accept that. The U.S. has already committed to that. I think Putin is ultimately going to fail and Ukraine is going to succeed. Larry, has he been living under a rock for the past three years? The shampoo he's using on his hair must have penetrated and corrupted his brain cells. You know. You've got to work on that there, Boris.

And unfortunately, we share the same surname, but we hold very different positions. You know, this, Boris is probably, you know, they might want to monitor him medically because he may have a heart attack after he watches this exchange today in the Oval Office. Right. I think the decision has been made. that orders are gone out through the Directorate of Operations, or I guess they now call it Human Clandestine Service, HCS, saying stand down, start pulling back, that the Central Intelligence Agency's program in Ukraine is now at an end, as well as the folks operating under the Special Operations Command through JSOC, that they also are being pulled back. So I think this was sort of the culminating point where the president has now made a decision

because he has now demonstrated to the American people, this guy doesn't know when to shut up and this guy doesn't know when to shut up. And this guy doesn't want peace. And he demonstrated that he was not, you know, just things that Zelensky could have done that would have actually disarmed Trump. You know, for example, if he'd come in and said, Mr. President, before we get started, I just want to thank you. I to thank your administration the CIA the Department of Defense I want to thank the American taxpayer I want to thank every member of Congress that stood with us over these past three years without America you know if he would have said something like that yeah what's Trump gonna do right then Trump would have looked like a real jerk if he would have taken the tact that he did.

But no, that wasn't Zelensky's thing. Yeah, I would add to what Larry just said, that if you want to see chutzpah, okay, this is what one can very easily infer from J.D. Vance's saying, you never said thank you for God's sake. Not even in anyance's saying, you never said thank you for God's sake, not even in any of these discussions, you never said thank you. Well, what Larry's saying is exactly right. So even during the private discussions,

Solonese comes in with this big retinue and chutzpah that won't quit, and he's got no cards. And so I think that may, be not excuse the utter rudeness with which he was treated, but sort of account for it. Now, two other things. When I saw Boris Johnson say those things just a couple of days ago, I said, well, proof positive, McGovern, this mineral thing is a canard. It'll never work. If Johnson says it's going to work, it'll never work, you know. And then Ukraine coming into NATO. Give me a break.

You know, Johnson is, well, I won't even say what he is. The other thing I want to point out is that I don't think it was in the clip we watched, but Zelensky tried to accuse Russia of violating the Minsk Accords. Remember? He said, oh, we are the French and the British and the Germans, you know. And Trump cut him right off. I thought Trump was going to tell them what happened with the Minsk Accords. And we know because the Chancellor of Germany and the Prime Minister of France

both admitted that the Minsk Accords were not implemented simply to give Ukraine enough time to build up its army, which it did for those seven years, so that they could attack and take over the Donbass. So that was interesting, too. It was really, really interesting how they were all very prepared and armed for bear. And the bear in this case was Trump and J.D. Vance, not any Russian bear. I thought Vance came off as a petulant child and Trump triumphed magnificently and Zelensky lost

control. If I were Zelensky, I would have come back a half an hour later and said, let's wipe this out. You and me together cut some kind of a deal. I'm deeply grateful for your support, Mr. President. Something along the lines of what Larry said. Before we go, I want to switch gears because you talked about the definition of chutzpah. Netanyahu claiming the right to portions of Lebanon and portions of Syria, claiming the right to exclude the Lebanese military and the Syrian military from those areas and making a joke about exploding beepers. That's chutzpah.

Chris, cut number one. IDF forces will remain on the summit of Mount Hermon. You should really visit that place. It's a glorious sight. Cold, but a glorious sight. Cold but a glorious sight. And in the adjacent buffer zone, we will remain for the foreseeable future. We will not allow the presence of the HTS organization or a new Syrian army in the area

south of Damascus. Southern Syria will be demilitarized. As for Iran, we crushed a large part of Iran's terror axis through a series of powerful blows which aroused the astonishment and admiration of the entire world. If you're holding beepers, don't worry about it. Don't worry, it's okay.

What'd you think, Larry, if you're holding beepers? He's lying. You know, what he's refusing to acknowledge. And, man, I encourage, I hope Israel occupies more of Lebanon and more of Syria. Because when they're doing that, they're stretching their military resources beyond the point that they can sustain that. They will end up attriting their own capability. So that's why I would encourage them to do it, simply from the standpoint that it's sort of like committing suicide. The reality is the Israeli Defense Forces have hidden their casualties. One spokesman the other day, though, made reference to the fact that there are 5,900-plus families mourning.

That means instead of the 800 KIA that Israel has officially admitted to, it's really closer to 6,000. And I know that Alistair Crook has a confirmation of that as well. So Israel is not the size of an army that can sustain those kinds of losses. And what they encountered there in Lebanon, they really, they did not penetrate far into Lebanon. Remember last week, both Pepe Escobar went down to that border with a couple of other friends of mine, and they surveyed. So this is another example of Netanyahu flapping his gums. But when it comes to Israel being able to sustain this kind of action, they're going to push themselves past the limits of their capabilities.

Ray, Alistair Crook, Scott Ritter, and Colonel McGregor all say the Egyptian military is getting ready to attack. Assuming Larry is correct about the vast losses of the IDF, could they even sustain such an attack? The Egyptian military is many times the size of the IDF. Could they even sustain such an attack? The Egyptian military is many times the size of the IDF. You know, Judge, I know that my colleagues have said that. I don't know the evidence that justifies their saying that. I'm from Missouri. You'd have to show me the evidence. What I do know is whether Trump's chutzpah can cancel out Netanyahu's chutzpah.

I'm not sure it can. I disagree with many of my colleagues on that one. Netanyahu is going to do what he wants, and it may not have the wherewithal to prevail. That's why he's counting on Trump and the United States to come to his aid. He may be wrong on that, but once he tries, it's going to be very difficult for Trump to say no. What will Netanyahu do, Larry, if the Egyptians attack to force them out of the Philadelphia corridor, which is part of Egypt, not part of Israel. Well, they're going to try to do a repeat of 1967

and then into 1973. But the question remains that has the Israeli military reconstituted itself? And are they in a stronger position now than they were six months ago? I think the answer to that is no. If they really were that strong, I would expect them to have foolishly gone off to try to attack Iran, for example. We'll have a clearer picture after next Tuesday, March 4th, because Egypt is assembling the variety of the states in the Middle East to have this conference about what are we going to do for the people of Gaza to rebuild Gaza money coming up with that plan?

I mean, I agree with Ray Netanyahu is he's a complete loose cannon and he's going to do things without necessarily thinking them through. But if he chooses to attack Iran, he's going to run into a buzzsaw that very well could bring about the destruction of Israel, at least its military capability. Let's just go back before we end to where we started. Ray, do you think that what we observed in the Oval Office, and Chris put together what we believe is the three most incendiary minutes, it went on for 10 minutes. Yeah.

Ray, do you think it was for real or it was an act? It was for real or it was an act? It was for real. And part of it, as I suggested before, was the hubris, the chutzpah demonstrated by Zelensky and Esrecheny coming in and making believe they still had some cards. Trump reminded them several times, you ain't got no cards, okay? And, you know, it was just sort of so ablately clear that the Trump and Vance administrations said, there's enough with this fellow. We're not going to let him pull our strings anymore. He's out of here and he's out of his office as long as he continues to demonstrate he won't cooperate with us i agree fully with uh with what you just said and larry i think that was the most important thing yeah that was the most important thing that i think we were all okay some other transmission

coming in here that was the most important thing that Trump said, and he must have been sick and tired of what he went through this week, because Starmer has no cards. Macron has no cards. And now he's in front of Zelensky, who really has no cards. I'll give you the last word, Larry. Well, look in the case of both Macron and Starmer. They were supplicants. They came to ask Donald Trump for something. Trump wasn't going to them asking for anything. Trump was in a position where he could grant what they were asking for, but he didn't.

And the same position for Zelensky. Zelensky, though, was in contrast to Macron and Starmer, who were deferential, who were praiseworthy. What they did was they demonstrated, sorry about that, my phone keeps going off. What they demonstrated was he was completely clueless. He was insisting that he was going to dictate the terms, And Trump wasn't having any of them. Gentlemen, a pleasure. No matter what we're talking about, this was dramatic and dynamic. And I'm glad we were able to discuss it.

This may be the largest audience that the three of us have had on the Intelligence Community Roundtable. We can thank President Trump, Vice President Vance, and especially President Zelensky for that. But mainly, I thank the two of you for the double duty you always do. We will see you both on Monday morning at your usual times. All the best, my friends. Have a nice weekend. Thank you, Judge.

You're welcome. Sure. And coming up on Monday, of course, at 8 o'clock in the morning on all of this and whatever else follows it in the next two days, Alistair Crook at 10 o'clock, our dear friend Ray, at 1130, our dear friend Larry, and probably one or two of our regulars on Monday afternoon. Thank you for watching. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.