Judging Freedom - INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 8-August

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern - Weekly Wrap 8-AugustSee 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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with our Intelligence Community Roundtable, my dear friends, Ray McGovern, and Larry Johnson, both doing double duty this week. I think we enjoy Fridays more than we do Monday. Thank God it's Friday. But that, of course, is just human nature. Welcome here and welcome to the show. So after a general agreement leaked by both the Kremlin and the White House that President Putin and President Trump would meet together, Larry, the White House decides to add a condition to the meeting, and that is that President Zelensky attend.

Question, is Donald Trump serious about negotiating a peaceful end of the special military operation? in Ukraine. Well, that's one part of the story. The other part of the story is they asked Trump that directly, and then he said no. So you've had everything from official White House sources who were saying, oh, yeah, you've got to meet with Zelensky or it's not going to happen. Then Trump turns around and says, no, no, that's not necessary. But then, you know, Trump, just the day before, the day that they're getting agreement maybe to meet, declares Russia as an enemy, or a national security threat. I have never seen a White House this chaotic and this erratic.

I mean, you know, I'll let Ray speak to his time. You know, he was involved with meetings between President Reagan and or George H.W. Bush and in Gorbachev. Or I guess it was Reagan and Gorbachev. And, you know, there was preparation beforehand. There were the Sherpas, the, you know, the lower-level folks who get together and figure out and actually, you know, how the sausage is going to be made. And here, you're getting, if I'm in the Kremlin, I'm sitting there just, you know, you get a bag of popcorn out and you're just eating it watching the back and forth

because it's like Trump's playing a tennis match against himself. All right. Both sides of the net. Before I jump to Ray, Larry, and I'm anxious to hear what he has to say, specifically his experience with these summits when he was in the CIA, do you think that the Trump White House is just dysfunctional or do you think Trump is not serious about peace? Because if he were serious about peace, why would he sign an executive order, as you just pointed out? In the very week, he's trying to put together this meeting, saying Russia is a material national security threat. And his intelligence community is still showing the Ukrainians how to kill Russians. Well, I'll just quote the deputy foreign minister Ripkoff.

According to him, he says, look, we hear the talk, but we've not seen a single action on the part of the Trump administration to show that they're actually serious like this in terms of, you know, allowing us to reopen consulates, giving back the property, lifting travel restrictions. so you can fly direct from the United States to Moscow and Moscow to the United States. He said, you know, we hear the talk, but we're not seeing any action. So that's, I think it's a combination of dysfunction and that there's really the deep states still calling the shots, not Trump. Ray, tell me about the Russian mentality and the Kremlin mentality. How do they react when they see this dysfunction? when they see adding another condition that the Americans ought to know the Russians would object to, it would be a line they won't cross President Zelensky there. What does the Kremlin think of all this?

Well, Judge, you're misinformed. The Russians pointed out from the outset in their readout that the business of meeting with Zelensky was mentioned, but it was not even discussed, and that the West Pressing is going crazy with this as something that we're finding it hard to understand. That's Usakov, the official readout. Now, you may recall that Trump himself was very, very circumspect. He said, yeah, there'll be a summit with Putin. But we're hoping we have a prospect that maybe then after that when the three of us can meet. Well, it was never even claimed by Trump. So let's be careful about what we accused Trump of.

He never really said that, yeah, I agreed or Whitkoff agreed with Putin that there would be a three-way summit after our tune. Now, what I want to put out here is something really important that you can't understand with all this towing and throwing and all this mercurial behavior by Trump, unless you put the context around it. Now, for the 18th time, I'm going to say, this time it's not McGovern,

this time is Ushakoff, okay? And it's in his first paragraph of the readout of the meeting between Whitkoff and Putin. The fifth one, by the way, that means Putin trust Whitkoff to speak for the president. Now that Whitkoff is ten times brighter than Rubio or Hexeth or, I mean, that's condemning with faint praise. But here's what the official readout, first paragraph, here is Ushakov, who is the readout guy, okay? Quote, these were really good productive sessions. Once again, it was noted that Russia-U.S. relations could be placed on a totally different, mutually beneficial footing in stark contrast to relations in the recent years.

Now, that's the backdrop for all this, okay? Putin wants a decent relationship with Trump. Does he trust Trump? Doesn't matter whether he trusts Trump. He's got to deal with Trump for the next three years. And the reason he was able to sort of bail Trump out. I mean, today's the day, right? Today's the deadline.

My God, if the Russians don't stop in Ukraine, sanction, sanctions, section, section, secretary, I said, well, today, what's happened? Well, not much. The Indians have been sanctioned up the kazoo, but not much else. So, Wickoff was sent to Moscow. Look, my president has painted himself into a corner. We need a summit.

Can you give us a summit? I mean, that's all we asked for. That will divert attention from everything else. And we wouldn't have to do all these sanctions and all these secondaries. So would you two, please, it took them three hours to persuade Putin. And Putin said, oh, all right. The rest is in the woodwork. There's going to be a summit, probably next week.

And what happens then is the next step. It all depends on whether Trump is feeling that he can countermand Lindsey Graham and the rest of them and do something sensible on Ukraine, which I believe Trump very much wants to do. In other words, he does want peace in Ukraine. Every time he speaks about this, he says, this is Biden's war. And actually Putin, this people said, It's Vaina Baidina, okay, Vainan Emir, War and Peace. Well, it is the war, Bidena of Biden.

And then, of course, Trump always said, and I want the blood to stop. You know, this is a little cynical, given what he's doing in Gaza. Right. But I want this stuff. So Trump is out of there. Trump doesn't have any more arms. Neither do the Europeans. The Russians are inexorably on the march.

Putin doesn't need it. any of this, but he wants to see what he can get for Trump in the form of a negotiated win-win thing that is really a pig of defeat for NATO in the U.S. and Ukraine with lipstick on it painted or allowed to be painted on by Putin. All right, Larry, two points, one of which you and I have already made, but I want you to expand on it. what is to be gained by Trump signing an executive order declaring Russia a material danger to the national security of the United States? Second point, when in reality, the United States is a material danger to Russia, exhibit one, General Donahue.

Yeah. Well, and the fact that Trump allowed the redeployment for the first time since 2008 of the B61-12, nuclear gravity bombs. Now, they're not really a first strike capability, but again, it sends a signal. The reason to declare Russia a national security threat, again, this is just, it's a ploy. Trump, what Trump is really trying to do,

and his advisors, they're going after bricks, and they need to have a national security threat in order to justify levying tariffs on India. But again, these people are stupid. They are absolutely stupid. Look at the level of trade between India and the United States. U.S. trade with India accounts for 2% of India's GDP. That's nothing.

And on top of it, the other estimates that had already been calculated in terms of the effect on the annual gross domestic product for India. less than 0.19%. So it's nothing. And yet what Trump accomplished in this, and maybe I say it's tongue in cheek, it was really his secret plan to get the Nobel Peace Prize because in doing this,

he angered the Indians so much that they're now meeting with the Chinese and the Chinese and Indians are working together to figure out how to stop the United States. So he has effectively stopped the conflict between India and China, ergo qualifying for the Nobel East Front. We're nominated by Benjamin Netanyahu. Yeah. Now, on top of it, as soon as they announced those terrorists, India canceled a purchase of F-35 jets.

They canceled some other patrol planes that had been on the list. Their defense minister canceled his visit to Washington, D.C., and India, joining with Brazil and China, Russia, and South Africa are now going to have an emergency meeting on BRICS to figure out how do we work closer together? And the problem with this for the United States, I don't mean to get off on the economic tangent, but there are so many dollars out there in the market, but the demand for them is shrinking because the BRICS countries, instead of trading, you know, say, hey, I'll sell you oil or I'll sell you some shoes or some clothes, and then I'll pay for you in dollars.

They're paying for it in their own currencies, which means the demand for dollars is going down while the supply is going up, which means the price of that dollar is going to keep coming down. And that then is, while it helps U.S. exports, we don't have a lot of stuff that we're exporting per se. And so it really creates a real bind because then we're having to pay more dollars

to buy back the debt. that we have overseas. So all of this is intertwined. I think the Ukraine thing is actually a bit of a side shop. Ray, you mentioned a few minutes ago, and I was going to raise this anyway, the shortage of stockpiling of American military equipment. Colonel McGregor has said it's dangerously low, and he points to some study that was made shortly after we wasted $500 million trying to stop the Yehoutis. Do you know how low, how dangerous it is? Is there a way to quantify this?

There is, but Colonel McGregor would be your expert on that, not me. I'd like to get it back to the Russian-Washington calculus here. Go ahead. It doesn't matter what national security statements say, okay? These things are boil it plate. The fact that the Daily Telegraph in London is playing this big old Trump, Trump is really still saying that Russia is the major, it matters what they do, okay? And I just remind you that the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Duma said just three days ago, look, be calm, be patient and composed, resist emotional responses.

In contrast, let's dismiss the loud statements, the deadlines and solving things and sanctions. Let's see what Whitkoff has to say. Well, Whitkoff has said his say, and the Russians have generously said, okay, this guy's in a bind. Trump has painted himself into a quarter. He's going to, tomorrow's the deadline or Friday, isn't it, today? Okay. So what we get at all he wants is a summit.

We'll give him a summit. We're not going to talk to Zelisky, for God's sake. And if he claims that that was part of the bargain, well, we're going to say that right up front and Wushokhov did. The main thing is that Putin wants to develop an agreeable, a decent relationship with the U.S. I've said that several times.

Whether Trump wants to or not, I think he does, but the proof is in the pudding. That will come out when the two of the meet hopefully this week because a lot is hanging on this. And Putin is serious

whether Trump can make his will done here by his satraps like Rubio and Kellogg and those people that remains to be seen and Putin doesn't know the answer to that either All right, before we jump to Netanyahu and Gaza

does Putin meet with Trump, Ray McGovern if Zelensky's there? I think the answer's no. Well, it's obvious it's no. The Russians already said it's no. They said it in their first readout, okay? what they said again

is that the issue of meeting with Zelensky was mentioned but was not discussed and we can't really understand why the Western press is going crazy with this and then Putin himself said it's going to be a long time before I'll meet with Zelensky

and he said that yesterday morning so it's a canard to be diverted by this claim this not real claim but the hope that Trump expressed it Well, maybe Zelensky could meet too. Don't be deceived by that. Put your focus on what happens when Putin and Trump finally get together.

Putin has a stronger hand. Trump needs a way out. He painted himself into this corner. I think that progress can be made, but you have to factor in the Lindsay Graham's and all the deadheads like Rubio into the equation. God knows, and not even Putin knows what matters. Larry, how dangerous is it for Netanyahu?

to invade and occupy Gaza? This is like Bill Murray's movie, Groundhog Day, where you wake up every morning and it's always Groundhog's Day and you go through it and relive what you did, you know, did the previous day, only maybe with a different twist. Israel's been there, done that.

They got the T-shirt and they found out that it was too costly to stay. And now if Netanyahu does it, he's doing it at a time when the Israeli political fabric is as fragile as it has ever been. He's doing it over the objections of the military commander, the senior military commander. And he is a pointee. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I give the general credit that he's at least, you know, trying to give some honest analysis.

Because he's noting, one of the problems Israel still is faced with, the majority of its army are reservists. These reservists are very poorly trained, almost to the point of being marginally competent, and to then increase the strain, because to occupy Gaza means you're going to have to have more troop presence than they do currently, and it's going to mean there are going to be more opportunities

for Hamas to carry out guerrilla attacks on them, and the Israeli casualties are going to soar. All of this at the time when Israel is trying to maintain a presence in the West Bank, in southern Lebanon, and in Syria. So the army is stretched very, very thin, and this is an expanded mission, not a reduced mission, and this is a labor-intensive mission. So, hey, you know, just watching that,

and you know, who commits suicide for his country. Does Hamas have the ability seriously to challenge the IDF, Larry? Yeah. No, they do. I mean, look, they've been fighting, we're going on 20, 22 months now. So the Israelis with every military advantage, a modern army could have, having tanks, armored personnel carriers, they've got heavy machine guns, they've got overhead aircraft support,

both fixed wing, rotary wing. They've got missiles. They got bombs. They have a vast array of intelligence collection. With all of that, they haven't been able to defeat a group of fighters who are armed with basically sidearms and rifles with some RPGs and a few mortars. And Hamas has fought Israel to a standstill after 22 months. So, yeah, if Israel decides to go in this way, I think it's going to be more.

targets in Hamas, the casualty rate is going to go up significantly on the part of Israel. Ray, who's responsible for the starvation? Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Now, I think we need to get back to reality here. Netanyahu couldn't do any of these things without the full force, the full-flict support of Biden and Trump. Now, people ask me, how can Trump, how can any U.S. president condone for starvation, genocide. And I tell them, well, you know, there's this relationship, this noxious relationship with Israel, but I think there's something more. And now I have

some sort of corroboration on that. My experts that tell me about Israel tell me, yeah, there's a better than even chance that Netanyahu has blackmail on Trump stemming from Epstein, Okay. Now, I think I may have mentioned this before, but an Israeli Mossad person now retired, Ben Manashi gave an interview to Afshin Ratanzi on going underground about a week ago now. And he, you see, appealed for the president, please just release those files from Epstein, it won't be good for you, but you might save 100,000. Palestinians, but he's almost in tears. This guy has a conscience. He also has a good record of reporting, witnessed the fact that he really helped my mentor, Robert Perry, when Robert Perry is working on and writing about the October surprise way back when. So Ben Manashi is appealing to Rathansi and saying to the whole world, look, look, Mr. Trump, if you just get rid of this thing. Let this Epstein files out. You'll have a better way of just coping with the world,

but then you'll stop the war because that's what Netanyahu has on you. And so I think that's a big element here. And I've said before, that's what? That's heinousness squared. heinous genocides forced starvation squared with abusing underage women. My God, what have we become? Does Ben Minaj indicate the nature and the extent of the blackmail? Not what Netanyahu says, but what it is in the files about Trump. No, he doesn't go into detail, but watch the video. You can see it for yourself.

The guy is tormented, and he said, look, this is going to be really bad for you, Mr. Trump. but please come clean and then you can stop the stamp thing because they won't have this hanging over you they won't have you over a barrel anymore my god larry do we know if this uh ex-massad or ex-military intelligence whatever he is uh ben mosh okay do we know if he's credible well uh you know he's had he did come out of the intelligence service and um you know some people find him credible and then you get the naysay-s who are within the establishment say no. But we don't, hey, we don't have to take his word for it.

We learned this week through a document, released under FOIA, that Jeffrey Epstein was an FBI informant. So the FBI had signed him up as a confidential human source. And that's why when he was prosecuted for the sexual abuse of all these young girls in West Palm back in, what was it, 2006, 2008. That's why he got off of the handslap. He was an FBI asset. And you know what?

Knowing that now, you have to assume that maybe the FBI had him killed because when he was arrested, I could see Epstein saying, you guys better get me out of here. I'm spilling everything because that means the FBI was fully knowledgeable of his activities, at least from, I think he was signed up in 2005. So from 2005 to 2019, you know, that's a 14 years worth of activity that maybe even the FBI facilitated some of the abuse that Ray was describing. So, you know, and that may even be a bigger reason why Trump is trying to keep the files and pretend that there's nothing there. It keeps insisting that it's, you know, and I'm quoting him, bullshit. no well you know now there are too many witnesses there are too many women who now women who

were girls who were abused who have provided depositions and testimony there's too much evidence from other eyewitnesses so he needs to come clean right does trump give a damn about the starving so Palestinians the answer's got to be no he doesn't well as i say it doesn't really matter if he does he feels hemmed in by what they have on him he feels hemmed in by the israel lobby and he doesn't seem to realize that whereas 20 years ago nathan yahoo could brag about 80 from 80 percent of support from the americans no matter what we do that's absurd end quote right now i doubt it's whether whether it's 50 percent support from the american people my only regret is that this is growing too slowly that we have thousands of Palestinians being killed or starved to death every week.

We've got to stop it now, and we've got to stop it in a way we can in this platform. Maybe we can't consensitize Americans to the fact that, you know, okay, they can't just say, oh, my God, isn't that awful? They've got to get off their patooties and do something about it in whatever way is possible for them. We'll end it there. gentlemen. Thank you. I know this stuff is not always pleasant to discuss, but you articulated so clearly. Thank you very much for your time. We'll look forward to seeing you both on Monday morning as usual. I'll be there. Welcome, Judge. Thank you. Thank you. Have great

weekends. Happy weekend. Thank you. And coming up next at 445 Eastern, I'm not sure where he is. I think he might still be in the south of France, Pepe Escobar. Now, take a look at this. This is next August 16th at the Hilton, Washington, Dulles Airport, a special live judging freedom with Colonel Douglas McGregor, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Max Blumenthal, and Anya Parenthold, and yours truly. If you want to meet us, we'll all be there. If you want to be in the audience, you can see how to get tickets. But judging freedom live on stage at the Ron Paul Institute annual gathering at the Dulles Airport Hilton right outside of Washington, D.C., a week from tomorrow. Thank you for watching, Justice Napolitano for Judging Freedom.

Thank you. Thank you.