Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap 2-May

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap 2-MaySee 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, May 2nd, 2025. It's the end of the day, the end of the week time for our favorite gathering of my friends and colleagues. Of course, join us on Mondays also. Larry Johnson from his usual perch and Ray McGovern in Moscow. Guys, thank you very much for coming on the show. Thank you for the double duty. Thank you for the time that you give. Thank you for all the information that you feed me during the week. So Ray, I'll start with you. I was going to ask you how are things in Moscow

that's kind of an open-ended question. So I'll make it more precise. Donald Trump said recently that the American military won World War II and not the Russians. Larry and I have seen living proof that he doesn't know what he's talking about. What's the reaction to a statement like that in Moscow within days of the 80th anniversary of the Russians' triumphant over the Germans in World War II? Well, Judge, the tendency is to dismiss this as rhetoric, as ignorance, but it hurts, okay?

It really hurts. The Russians come out of a long history of being second class powers, sometimes called glorified gas stations. So I don't like it at all. But you know, history is history and fact is fact. And if Larry Wilkerson and Larry Johnson and Scott Ritter and I, an honest historian, say that Trump is completely wrong on this, 180 degrees wrong, then you know, if we're called, if that happens to coincide with what Putin is saying, well, oh my God, we're not in Putin's pocket, we're just historically correct. So what's up the problem here? Are we going to be called favorites of Russia simply by stating the fact that the Russians

lost, the Russians lost the most people and bore the brunt of World War II? I don't think so. I don't think we should be. But the president is not making it any easier for us. Larry, on this same time, mindful as you and I are of the impression that Russian history made on the two of us when we spent a week in Moscow back in March. Is that a question?

Oh yeah. Yeah, please, please weigh in on what Trump said and on your and our understanding of the Russian role in World War II. Now let's just put it in perspective. Russian role in World War II. Let's just put it in perspective. Total U.S. combat deaths in World War II, in the Pacific and European theater, and Italy and North Africa, 251,000, roughly.

The Russians, in just the Battle of Stalingrad alone lost 1.1 million, an estimated 800,000 killed in action, combat deaths. So as far as deaths who inflicted the most casualties on the German side, the Soviets and primarily the Russians caused 80% of the combat deaths of the Germans. In fact, the reality is the United States, we killed more German civilians with our bombings than we actually did kill German soldiers on the battlefield. So you want to start talking about war crimes. We like to cover that up, clean it up, and pretend, oh, it was this life and death struggle. But we were committing acts of terrorism.

We were killing civilians for political purposes. It wasn't the Russians that carpet bombed Dresden, was it? It was the US and the British. Yeah, Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart, Kloon, Braun, Frankfurt, just go down the list. – You know, is this a negotiating technique of Trump's, or is he just plain jingoistically ignorant? Ray? – I was hoping you weren't going to direct that at me. Well, he's ignorant. Ignorant. Ray. I was hoping you weren't going to direct that at me. Well, he's ignorant.

Either of you jump in. He's he's ignorant, but he's also bombastic. I don't know if he believes that somebody probably told him maybe Mike Woltz on his way out, say, oh, by the way, tell those Russians that we went in the war for them. I mean, I don't know, it really doesn't compute, but as we've said all the while, Trump is nothing but unpredictable and sort of mercurial. And yeah, God knows what Witkoff will say next time he's in Moscow, he might start out by saying,

Trump only said that because the ex told him to say that, he's in Moscow, he might spread out by saying, you know, Trump only said that because the ex told him to say that he doesn't really believe that. Witkoff is the hope. I still hope that things could be set right here. It doesn't look very promising right now, but I think it's going to happen. Do you have a feel, Ray, as to how Russian elites or the Kremlin perceives these negotiations with Trump? I mean, we're going to play a clip in a few minutes of Marco Rubio saying the Far Party

is getting closer. It's hard for me to believe that that's true. I can't imagine that the Ukrainians are, because as far as I know know Zelensky is still alive that Ukrainians are conceding the four oblasts and Crimea Well love rough and Putin himself have been Surprisingly to me positive in projecting success with respect to Ukraine Now when military success or negotiating success? Just overall success in terms of being able to trust, get that trust Trump. After all the betrayals of the last several years are going back to 1990 with James Baker in

Moscow, they're talking about trust now and Putin has said he thinks Trump is sincere. Now, he also said when he was out in Stalingrad, now Volgograd, just about four days ago, he said, look, you know, the war came to a successful conclusion and now things are going to develop toward the east. We have the Shanghai group, we have the BRICS, we have the ASEAN and other things, and unless we can get it through the heads of people who think they are exceptional and think they can exert hegemony on these matters, we're gonna be able to be alright. And he's right about that. He's talking long term, but they're also projecting some sort of hope with respect to Ukraine. I think it's going to happen. It's not

going to happen as quickly as we all want, but I think Trump wants it to happen. Putin wants it to happen. It's just got to be on Putin's terms, and it's really hard for Trump to figure out one way to disguise it. So it looks like we got something out of it. Here's Marco Rubio last night on Fox, Larry. Cut number three, Chris. Look, you ask how close we are. I think we know where Ukraine is and we know where Russia is right now and where Putin is.

They're still far apart. They're closer, but they're still far apart. And it's going to take a real breakthrough here very soon to make this possible. Or I think the president is going to have to make a decision about how much more time we're going to dedicate to this. Did the U.S.-Ukraine Minerals deal advance the ball or lock the U.S. into some sort of a protective capacity for its own wealth derived from the sale of these minerals in the future, Larry. Yeah, it's just hollow political theater.

That agreement is completely meaningless, useless, worthless. It doesn't even deal with rare earth minerals. It's really like touting some sort of tenure investment plan and you know where Trump has said oh yeah we're gonna get paid back with 350 billion dollars that's coming back to us. That's not. Trump with all of his big talk, flapping his gums, caved to Zelensky. That's what happened. He was so desperate to get a deal, oh I got a deal, that he signed on to something that is completely useless. You know, Judge, the one thing people don't understand about this whole rare earths mineral bit is

we've got plenty of rare earth minerals here in the United States. 45 minutes north of me, the Mosaic Mining Company, all these filings that come out when they dig out the gypsum and pile up, that's got all the rare earth minerals we could use. The problem is the processing. And even if we get rare earth minerals out of Ukraine, they don't have the processing facilities. Those are expensive to build, those take quite a bit of time to build, and they can have a tremendously negative

impact on the environment. The one country in the world that controls the processing of rare earth minerals is China. So this is like I said, this is all smoke and mirrors and political theater, they might as well have had clowns juggling balls. Do you guys share McGregor's concern that this agreement, if it were real, Larry, ties the United States to Ukraine in a way that it might produce a military clash with the Russians? Or I'll dial it back a little bit. I'm trying to summarize what Colonel McGregor said yesterday. or I'll dial it back a little bit. I'm trying to summarize what Colonel McGregor said yesterday. Ties the United States, the Ukraine in a way not pleasing to the Kremlin. Well, no, I disagree with Doug on that because the United States

has been the principal instigator of this war, starting with Donald Trump back in 2017. It was under Donald Trump's first term that the Ukrainian military, in both active duty and reserves, increased in size by a factor almost four times, from 320,000 up to 1.2 million. In addition, while Donald Trump was president, he conducted the first amphibious warfare operations in sea breeze. That was accompanied also by anti-submarine warfare exercises.

And in 2020, his Department of Defense thought it a swell idea to fly B-52 superfortresses along the Crimea coast. So the United States has been instigating and agitating for this war for a long time. And Donald Trump wants to pretend that he's some sort of neutral mediator, nonsense. The United States has already amply provided a causes bell life for Russia.

And it's just thank God for the patience of Vladimir Putin that he hasn't blown us up. So Ray, Vice President Vance has been all over the news media in the past 24 hours claiming that Mike Walz has gotten a promotion. Let's see, he went from having an office right outside the Oval Office to being 350 miles away on the East River waiting for the UN to come back into session. And for him to be concerned. He jumped or was he pushed?

Oh, he was pushed. I mean, the guy, the guy was in nothing. Let's face it. You know, what I'd like to just go back a little bit to what Larry said, yeah, it was Trump that decided to give Ukrainians offensive arms. What Obama said was, look, Ukraine is not a core interest of ours. Ukraine is a core interest of Russia's. And so let's not get involved in stuff where it's not a core interest of Russia's. And so let's not get involved in stuff where it's not a core interest. And the worst thing we could do for the Ukrainians would be to give them

the idea that they could win against a much stronger Russia on their border. So let's not do that. So Obama, for once, was making good sense. I don't know where Biden was Maybe he was out the lunch or something, but he should have learned that lesson and it was indeed It was indeed Trump that started this thing but the big thing to remember is that this was a sensible sort of approach before Trump and Trump needs to eat some crow and I think he's gonna eat some crow, but it would be cooked up very nicely So it looked like a moderate success. Larry, just to goad you a little bit. Oh yeah, there you go.

Okay, Chris, I thought we were friends. I love you. Cut number six. Why was Mike Wallace let go? So it wasn't let go. He is being made ambassador to the United Nations, which of course is a Senate confirmed position. I think he can make a good argument that it's a

promotion. So I look, I think the media wants to frame this as a firing. Donald Trump has fired a lot of people. He doesn't give them Senate-confirmed appointments afterwards. What he thinks is that Mike Walz is going to better serve the administration, most importantly the American people in that role, and I happen to agree with him. Larry. Nonsense. Look, he went from, here was Mike Waltz who basically would give direction to Marco Rubio along with at State and Ratcliffe at CIA. You know, he was, Waltz was the coordinator

for the president of the entire national security bureaucracy, including Pete Hegseth at DOD. Now, as the UN ambassador, he's gonna be taking his instructions, directions and orders from Marco Rubio, who apparently is being presented as the new Henry Kissinger, because Kissinger was the last one to be both national security advisor and secretary of state, just asked the Vietnamese

how that worked out. No, it wasn't really great. So this is nonsense. I think what happened is they realized that if they fired him, they would have been putting some trouble outside the White House because he didn't have any place to go. He gave up his safe congressional seat. So they're going to give him this, he'll spend the year getting cultivated for a new job with some defense contractor, and then we'll get a golden parachute exit and it'll keep his mouth shut. But this is by no means a great thing and a big promotion.

JD Vance had a big old tube of lipstick to put on that pig. Yeah, I am loathe to quote Jake Sullivan, but he made some very interesting observations about the chaos Trump is causing. Chris, cut number five. The president sets the policy and the policy that he said is basically let's go declare war on all of our friends on our all of our allies in the policy. And the policy that he said is basically, let's go declare war on all of our friends, on all of our allies in the world. Right now, I think Xi Jinping is getting up every day, turning on the news, seeing what Trump is doing, and he's pulling out a big tub of popcorn because he's loving this.

He's seeing Trump do what China would love to do, undermine our alliances, weaken America's standing and credibility in the world, take away America's advantage in science and innovation. And he doesn't have to lift a finger for that. So part of this is about personnel, but a lot of this is about policy. And the policy of the last 100 days, I think has put the United States in quite a deep hole. Was on MSNBC's morning Joe Ray. Looks like we lost Ray there temporarily.

Oh, I didn't see that. All right, here he comes. Maybe he didn't hear that. Larry, I'll let you weigh in on that. Yeah, well, I hate to say that I agree with Solomon. Good God. I'm not trying to ruin your weekend. I hate to say it too,

but when Chris presented me with this clip, I thought we have to run this. Yeah, a broken clock can be right twice a day, I guess. And this is Sullivan's moment as a broken clock. But it is fascinating that Trump has both alienated the European allies, what used to be called European allies, alienated the Japanese and completely disrupted any hopes

of civil conversations with the Chinese, the Vietnamese, across the board. I think it was Colonel McGregor with your last conversation with him and John Mearsheimer's conversation. Mearsheimer is beside himself at this just destructive foreign policy that Trump has implemented. It's policy by chaos. Now, Ray, I know you are multi-multilingual. I don't know if you're fluent in Japanese, but we're going to play. Asodeska.

All right. We have a translation. This is a very interesting comment. It's that's good. All right, we have a translation. This is a very interesting comment. It's under a minute. It's a Japanese member of parliament imploring the Japanese prime minister and foreign minister not to look west, but to look east, not the US because we are not trustworthy, but China is Chris. look East, not the US because we are not trustworthy, but China is. Chris?

What the US is saying is already an impossible task. The theory is already a mess and there is no consistency whatsoever. However, if Japan were to negotiate about what they have been saying, to put it bluntly, it would be like a delinquent kid extorting someone. If Japan listens to the and bends the other way in response to the impossible demands of bargaining and deals, it will set a bad example as a customary and historical precedent. If you get mugged and put money in their hands, the will come back to mug us again. He's not a straight partner, so he won't listen to our straight talk.

Anyway, I hope that you will never give in to the American extortionists. I know it's harsh to say, but they are extortionists. Surprised to hear that, Ray? Wow, I am surprised to hear that. Yeah. You know, you don't have to know Japanese to realize what that means. It's the same as what Putin said in Stalingrad, Volgograd. He said, we're looking to BRICS, we're looking to ASEAN, we're looking to all these Shanghai groups and stuff. And so you have the Japanese.

I think the proper say they're looking West and they're going to meet together because they're all getting together now The Japanese have a long way to go before they reject Uncle Sam, but they're on their way and Trump is just making it so easy for them You know, I had this speech that I did here in in Moscow on on Tuesday I later learned that mid-way Zvedev spoke before me in the morning and the following morning Putin spoke. And my topic was Russia, the US, the world, how it's changed.

And it's kind of nice to be this old because you can see first I was here in 72, my God, the Russians and the Chinese were at each other's throats Okay, and the u.s. Exploited that in the 50 years since the u.s. Gave the game away and Forced Russia and China together forced Russia to reject Peter the great for God's sake. It's okay. We're gonna look east We're not gonna break a window Okay, we're gonna look east. We're not gonna break a window Who

He froze all right, uh ray froze we'll uh, we'll get back to him larry tell me if um He's still frozen. Tell me if if this is any way for the secretary of defense to communicate diplomatically with a country the United States is considering attacking. This is what Hegseth posted on X, I'm gonna read it aloud since there's no audio. Message to Iran, we see your lethal in caps support to the Houthis, we know exactly what you are doing. You know very well

that the US military, what the US military is capable of. And you were warned you will pay the consequence in caps at the time and place of our choosing. Now, Chris, the professor who responded, this is a professor that Jeff Sachacks knows professor. I know I know Mohammed yes Yeah, good message to head Seth We see your lethal in caps support for the Zionists the child killers the rapists We know exactly what you are doing You know very well what the resistance is capable of and you were warned you will be remembered as an accomplice to the hashtag

Gaza Holocaust Yeah back to egg set is this any way for the Secretary of Defense to communicate with the leadership of a foreign country? That's called leading with your chin because yeah, you know what our military is capable of We're capable of dumping an f-16 over the side of the ship and having it sink to the bottom of the ocean. We're capable of running an eight-week bombing campaign with a thousand sorties and not stopping the Houthis at all from being able to attack ships in the Red Sea or Israel. Oh, we've sent up predators that get shot down by the Houthis.

So you better watch out. Larry, you reported after your research that we have spent over $500 million, including the jet that went to sunk to the bottom of the sea, $500 million going after the Houthis. Have we laid a glove on them? Well, the 500 million is just the seven predator drones that they've shot down and the two f-16s then they've flown judge a thousand sorties and

Each one of those sorties god knows how many bombs are attached to them and what the price of those bombs were number one So this and then the cost to maintain the ships out there I bet you we're well over a billion dollars so far. And what have we accomplished? And that's where this stupid comment by Hegseth, I mean, it's just juvenile. Because- Ray, in your internet absence,

we ran a clip of Hegseth on his ex account, unprovoked taunting the Iranians and a response by Professor Morandi, who's a friend of Larry's as well as Jeff Sachs. And you just heard Larry saying how absurd it was. Here's, yeah, I'll read it again, Chris. Here's Hegseth. We see your lethal support of the Houthis.

We know exactly what you are doing. You know very well what the US military is capable of. And you are warned you will pay the consequence of the time and place of your choosing. And here's Professor Morandi. Message the Hegseth. We see your lethal support of the Zionists, the child killers, the rapists. We know exactly what you are doing. You know very well what the resistance is capable of, and you were

warned you will be remembered as an accomplice of genocide. In all your years in the government, have you ever seen a cabinet member behave like that, Raymond Govrin? I've seen some pretty strange behavior. No, no defense secretary has behaved like that. behavior? No, no defense secretary has behaved like that. I think Hefset should be on his way out as well. You know, he and Kalog are not being helpful to Trump on Ukraine in particular. And you know, when we look at what Hefset said there, the president himself, like even Trump has admitted, look, we know you Houthis are building your own missiles. We know you Houthis are doing this all by yourselves, okay? So where does Iran come in?

Well, that's the old handle, it's Iran supported. Well, if the Houthis are building their own missiles, do they ask the Iranians, we're gonna shoot two missiles off the Marthal, okay? I don't think so. So Iranian support is there, but not in a, in an operational way. And the president himself has recognized that. So here's head set going off on the same kind of limb that, uh, that, that waltz and those go, go off on. And it's not helpful.

Larry, who takes General Kellogg seriously? He was on Fox the other day boasting that Zelensky has agreed to 22 of his negotiating points. I can't imagine that among those 22 are the four Oblasts in Crimea and no NATO. Yeah. Well, Fox takes him seriously. Jack Keane takes him seriously. You know, the Zionists take him seriously, but he doesn't count for the seriousness with the people that need, that he needs to persuade. And that's the Russians.

And Kellogg's not listening to what the Russians have said. They keep pretending like, yeah, we're waiting for that Russian proposal. Vladimir Putin laid it out June 14th, 2024, is very clear. And it's been reiterated time and time again by Sergey Lavrov, by Sergey Rybkov, the Deputy Foreign Minister, by Peshkov, the spokesman for the Kremlin, by Maria Zakharova, the press spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, down to Medvedev, down the list. Russians have been real clear about this. They're not opaque. No, they're not speaking in some sort of strange dialect.

They have been very upfront about these are now our demands. And so the next step in this process is Russia's demands are going to expand, which will likely include taking the other four oblasts that are east of the Dnieper River, Sumy, Kharkiv, Potava, and Dnieper-Protrovsk, as well as taking Odessa. And then at that point, you're creating, oh, let's negotiate. Yeah, well, you know, your chance for keeping that territory came and went, guys. went guys Chris do we have Lavrov on ceasefire okay play that if if you want the ceasefire just to continue supply arms to Ukraine so what is your purpose

you know what what kayak callous and what's his name mark route the said about the the secretary general and the European Union they they bluntly stated that they can support only the deal which at the end of the day will make Ukraine stronger would make Ukraine a victor so if this is the purpose of the ceasefire I don't think this is what President Trump wants this is what Europeans together with Zelensky want to make out of President Trump's initiative. A clear and articulate version of what he said to you and me when we were interviewing him, Larry. Yep, yep. So where is Kellogg going to go by going on national television and boasting that

one side has agreed to a 30 day ceasefire when he knows it's a non-starter, right? Well Judge, I mentioned that the leadership of the national security apparatus is divided. Now let's assume that Kellogg says this with the president's blessing. Well is there a method to the madness here? Well, the only thing I can think is this is the maximalist approach, right? He sends Wittkopf there to do the next 10 hours with Vladimir Putin and say, okay, that was the maximalist thing. Let's see what we can do. Let's see if we can work with a Ziesa.

I want to make that an international city. You want us to stop? We're just about ready to go all the way to the Dnieper. If you want us to stop, this is what you have to do. So the only thing I can make out of this is that Kevlar thinks he has the endorsement of the president to make this maximum claim that he knows is going to be rejected by the Russians. And then Witkoff will go in, clean out the garbage underneath and say, okay, now this is really what we need. Can you give us something so that we can be let down a little easier? We know you've won. Let's stop the fighting and let's both claim credit for space saving lives.

Wow. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Always a pleasure. Larry, anything else you want to add before we call it a day and a week? Well, I wish Steve Witkoff was going to Moscow and sitting down and talking to Putin today, but I guess that got called off. So we'll see where, you know, if Witkoff has been taken out of the game or if they're going to try to go more in the Witkoff direction. Actually, Witkoff's in the back of my room here with Oliver Stone and me. We're putting things together. It's gonna be all right, folks.

That's why I can speak with such authority. I am glad he's listening to you, Ray. God love you. Safe travels, Ray. We'll talk to you soon. Larry, thank you very much. All the best, gentlemen. Thank you.

All right, take care. Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful. All the best gentlemen. Thank you. All right. Take care. Thank you. A wonderful opportunity to pick their brains and to interact freely with them. On Monday, Alistair Crook at eight o'clock in the morning, Ray McGovern at 10 in the morning, Larry Johnson at two in the afternoon because of a commitment that I have. Have a nice weekend, everybody. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Music