Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson : Does Witkoff Understand Putin?

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Larry Johnson : Does Witkoff Understand Putin?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

New Year energy is all about resetting routines, feeling healthier, and starting fresh. Why not give your dog the same reset? From daily walks to better habits at home, our dogs are always right there with us. Ollie helps you start the new year with intention, beginning with your dog's bowl. With fresh, protein-packed meals crafted from real human-grade ingredients, your dog can start the year feeling their best, too. Choose from five recipes and get a personalized plan for your dog's needs. Meals arrive perfectly portioned with a scoop and storage container, so serving is fast and mess-free.

And with Ollie's in-app on-demand health screenings, tap real experts whenever you need peace of mind. Visit ollie.com slash crossover and use code crossover for 60% off your first box. Thank you. You know, Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, December 22nd. Oh, where does the time go? 2025. My dear friend, longtime collaborator and fellow traveler, Larry Johnson, is here thinking of what Moscow must be like today. It's cold enough in New York City. And there you are in Florida with a Florida version of, is that a Santa Claus shirt? Yeah. There is. You Santa? All right. God bless you, Larry, and welcome here.

I do want to talk to you about Steve Whitkoff and Vladimir Putin. And I also want to talk to you about the Jeffrey Epstein files. But before we do, the following happened in the past two weeks with respect to China. The national security strategy came out and said China is an economic competitor. It's not an enemy. The United States seized a Chinese. tanker off the coast of Venezuela, and the National Defense Authorization Act, which was passed by Congress and signed by President Trump, gives $11 billion in offensive missiles to Taiwan.

What are they thinking in Beijing about all of this, in your view, Larry Johnson? Well, they recognize that it's one thing for Trump to speak some words that may sound conciliate, but they look at the actions and the actions are entirely hostile and, you know, the Chinese are not fools and therefore they accordingly recognize that the U.S. is in this with the ultimate objective of destroying China after they destroy Russia. So what you're seeing is the Chinese now are starting to unload it and even more rapid rate the U.S. Treasury bills, which creates a real problem. problem for Trump and his secretary of the Treasury, because in the past, the United States could finance its deficit because the Chinese would buy our debt, and they'd buy a lot of

it. That's turned around now. And so it is creating greater threats for the U.S. economy. And I would not be surprised that China is sending some very strong messages in private through Secretary Rubio and into Donald Trump, that they better back off where this could escalate. I mean, could you imagine if the, you know, we're putting offensive weaponry, missiles that can reach Beijing and Taiwan. Suppose the Chinese put missiles in Havana that could reach Washington or New York. Yeah, no, it's the same phenomenon.

And again, it marks the ultimate reversal in U.S. policy for 52, 53 years now. When Richard Nixon went to China in 1972, he agreed. He opened up a new chapter in relations between China, then communist China and the United States, to which we recognize the one China policy, that Taiwan is part of China. Now and forever. We admitted to that. We accepted that. And now the United States over the course of the last 10 years has been reneging on that or trying to. And it's ultimately, it's a fool's errand because we no longer have the military advantage of being able to project military force into that part of the Pacific. week. Because A, our Navy is much weaker, dramatically weaker than it was, say, 20, 25 years ago.

And the Chinese are dramatically stronger than they've ever been in their history. And why would we be sending this stuff to Taiwan other than to please Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, and the military industrial complex? Yeah, well, again, it's all designed. This is not to, I guess they view it as a way to gain leverage over China. You know, we're angry that China's withholding rare earth minerals, but not a lot we can do about it. So taking this kind of step, they may see it as a way to try to show, hey, China, you're not our boss. But what the problem is, China's going to call our bluff. and if the United States decides that it wants to get engaged militarily with the Chinese,

the United States will lose. And it will lose simply because we depend heavily on our aircraft carriers to project force. And those aircraft carriers have no defense against the vast number of hypersonic missiles and drones that China has available to launch attacks on such U.S. ships so china selling u.s treasuries is going to cause the interest rates on u.s treasuries to go up which puts pressure on the government only the federal government borrows money in order to pay interest on borrowed money this is of course absurd but the feds have been doing this for a hundred years yeah if the demand would when china with its size

and it ceases providing a demand for the u.s. treasuries that means that the United States is going to have to make it more attractive for people to want to buy it, which means, you know, you're going to get more interest. If you buy our treasuries, we'll give you more money. But, again, the United States is now at a stage where it's not clear that we can ever repay what we've borrowed. And so now it's a matter of relying upon people to trust us. How are we ever going to repay $38 trillion? Yeah, it keeps ticking up every day, too.

Right, right. You know, Trump has miscalculated with his tariff strategy of using tariffs as a political weapon as opposed to using it strictly as an economic weapon, and it has backfired. And, you know, we recall him bragging was at the end of February, and I'm quoting him. He said, these countries are lining up to kiss my ass, end quote. Well, that doesn't look like it's a very long line, number one. And number two, the underlying economic numbers for the United States are not as strong as they like to pretend. You know, oh, we've got the greatest economy ever, et cetera.

Inflation is real. And it's been particularly felt in the grocery store, which, how does the United States? States deal with that? Well, we just, we don't count groceries in our inflation index. Jeez. How does the Kremlin view this bizarre combination of Trump's real estate agent negotiators, his golfing buddy in Whitkoff and his son-in-law Kushner, as opposed to, and I'm not going to say Rubio because he's not a serious, serious season to diplomat, but as opposed to serious. seasoned diplomats like the Russians have, everybody from Maria Zarakova, whom you and I have met

and know well, to her boss, whom we've also met, Sergey Lever. These people have forgotten more than Rubio, Whitkoff, Kushner have ever known. So I think what's going on is, at least from the standpoint of the Russians, they see Demetriev and his contacts with Whitkoff and Kushner, a way to have access to Vladimir Putin. But they are not discussing the substance of the Russian position with respect to how to end the war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin removed all doubts last week, last Friday, in his four and a half hour end of the year

asked me anything kind of questions and he specifically addressed the war in Ukraine and what Russia's negotiating positions are and they have not deviated one

iota from what he laid out when he spoke to the Russian foreign ministry on the 14th of June of 2024 and you know it's essentially that hey, NATO's got to get out of Ukraine completely. Ukraine's got to reduce its military significantly, below 100,000.

The territories that have voted to join the Russian Federation. They're all now permanently part of Russia and must be recognized as such. And the rights of the Russian Orthodox Church need to be respected. He hasn't backed off of those one inch. You know, the proposals that the United States supposedly agreed to with the Europeans and Ukrainians early last week in Berlin was that, oh, you know, an 800,000 man army for Ukraine. Not going to happen. Absolutely not going to happen. Russia is not going to agree to that. They're not going to agree to 600,000.

They're not going to agree to 500,000. They're not going to agree to 400,000. The thing they agreed to last in Turkey in March of 2022 was 85,000. And I suspect now they will demand less. They're not going to go up on that. But, you know, there's not going to be a negotiated settlement here. The good news, though, is at least the Russians feel like they have someone they can talk to to communicate directly to Donald Trump via Steve Whitcock.

So that's the positive thing. But when it is Putin also made it clear when it comes to doing actual negotiation on settling an international matter like this, Lovroff is going to handle it. It's not going to be carded off to Dmitriev, who actually holds no portfolio within the U.S. government, I mean, within the Russian government. Right. He doesn't, you know, he's not, he's not an envoy of the foreign ministry. So what do Demetriyev, or what did Demetriyev and Kushner and Whitkoff? I know you weren't there. I wish we were flies on the wall.

What the hell did they talk about over the weekend in Miami? Yeah, I suspect they're talking about what, you know, the possibility of future economic deals. You know, Whitkoff and Kushner and the entire, the Trump family has really been profiting off of this, his second term as president. So I think they're going to look for where. that they can establish some, you know,

boundaries for cooperation in the Arctic. You know, there have been some curious, there have been some moves on the part of the United States that have not been publicized. And, you know, our friend John Curiakou, who used to have a program on RT, Russia today, called whistleblowers, is now back on the air.

Now, he was taken off air a year and a half ago, as was Scott Ritter, as was Garland Nixon. There was a whole press to shut down R.T. Well, now that's back open. John is doing the broadcast again. John's getting paid again. The United States hasn't announced that in public. But that's what's good.

So that tells me at least the U.S. is making some steps, some gestures towards Russia to say, okay, yeah, we are serious about trying to normalize relations with you. The problem child in all of this remains the Europeans. They've completely lost their minds. They're crazy.

And they're advocating a war, not a conflict, a war with Russia. Right. Well, that, of course, would be insane. And as Vladimir Putin has said, would be over very quickly. Is there a rivalry between Whitkoff and Rubio? Well, the NBC News claims there is.

Rubio says there ain't. I suspect there is. Because normally, a secretary of state should be the one calling the shots about U.S. relations with other countries and should be in the lead of handling those negotiations. But that's not the case. that Wittkoff has been given such a prominent role, despite not having in any clear portfolio within the U.S. government,

particularly within the foreign policy establishment. And what makes this equally so strange is that on paper, Rubio should be calling the shots because he's the National Security Advisor and the Secretary of State and the head of USAID. I mean, on paper, he's got a more powerful position than even Henry Kissinger had back in his day. But he's not the one driving the bus. If you look at his body language and facial expressions, when Whitkoff is seated next to him, you can tell that he resents his presence. Let's face it, Larry, anybody would.

If I were a secretary of state and suddenly from, said, you're going to listen to my son-in-law and Steve Whitkoff, and they're going to go instead of you. If you were, we would react similarly, except neither of us expects to be president and Rubio does. So he's got that elephant in the room. Rubio needs to get out and work on his golf game, okay? Because Whitkoff is a golfing buddy of Trump.

In fact, Whitkoff was on the 6th T at that Mar-a-Lago course, where that Robert Ruta tried to assassinate him. So Trump's got a deep and genuine friendship with Whitkoff. It doesn't have that with Rubio. And remember Little Marco? And I'm sure Donald Trump hasn't forgot the cracks that Marco made about Donald Trump having tiny hands, implying that Donald Trump's physical equipment is how we say,

diminutive. Right, right, right. So they've got that in the past. Right. Let me ask you, before we go to your thoughts on the Epstein documents about this very highly decorated, well-known retired Swiss military guy. Oh, he's Jacques Bold, yeah. Yes, Colonel Jacques Boad, who not only has been sanctioned and silenced by the EU,

they've seized this bank accounts and his assets. Now, I know we've had some disagreements with Dr. Rowe, but Dr. Rowe was telling me that under EU law, he can't even sue for them. I don't know if that is true. But what are your thoughts on the EU silencing some? It would be like the federal government silencing Doug McGregor. Yeah, yeah. No, this is, you know, I share Gilles' outrage over what has happened to

Colonel Bold. You know, I've got, I have a side channel countercurrents that I, you know, I do an interview about once a week with different people. And Bowdo has been one of those that I've interviewed in the past. And such a gentleman, a very knowledgeable and experienced. He, you know, he knows, knows the European situation, NATO situation inside and out. But he's a fair objective observer. So the fact that the EU, is resorting to trying to punish a man like him simply indicates how desperate their situation has become. The European Union is no longer in a position to control or influence anything, and particularly

with respect to the outcome of this war in Ukraine. It's all slipping, it's slipped through their fingers, they're forced into the role of being spectators, and instead of finding a gracious way, way to try to convert into a diplomatic approach with Russia. They're going out trying to gratuitously, ambitiously punish people like Colonel Bold. Over the weekend, the Justice Department made what I would call a very paltry, ineffective, even incompetent effort. I got my hands on one of those documents, and I can, I can tell.

tell you what it says. Or show us what the document you have. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah. So what she did is she, the Attorney General, failed to reveal what was precisely ordered in the case of grand jury transcripts. One is 119 pages.

She redacted that. She failed to redact the names of all victims. She redacted the names. redacted the names of people that were not victims, and she refused to explain her redactions, which are ordered by the legislation. You don't say what it is, but you say, here's why we redacted what's on this page. She didn't do any of that. What is your take about her, Dan Von Gino, and Cash Patel, vis-a-vis Epstein? Yeah, well, it's not, I don't think it's fair to blame Bondi for all this because one of the major ones involved with editing, blacking out

sections, there's Dan Bongino. And he was doing it before, even before he was fully into position as deputy director of the FBI. We've had those emails come out validating that. Look, across the board, Bondi, Cash Patel, and Dan Bongino, they are tools. of the government of Israel. They are, I would call, compromised assets for the government of Israel. They're carrying water first and foremost for the government of Israel. In fact, we got Bongino, before he went into office, he's been interviewed by one of these, another internet podcaster, a woman.

And she asked him, hold, you know, Mr. Bongino, what causes closest to your heart? You think he said, America, America the beautiful. No, no, no, he goes, Israel. So this entire facade nonsense that Trump has created about, America first, it's not America first, it's America second or third. Israel gets the primary position, and it's all done in the name of the cause of Zionism. Well, how would there being, the three of them being assets of the Netanyahu government, impact these Epstein files?

Well, because it keeps them from looking at the way that Israeli intelligence used Epstein, as well as the CIA had some hands in with Epstein. Epstein's role reportedly going back to the days of Iran-Contra, where it was involved in securing weapons for the contras, to cover up the intelligence assets, and also to cover up how in certain cases they were collecting information to blackmail, pressure other people. So, you know, Epstein was not just some guy.

Let's recall that we know through open sources that Ehud Barak, the former prime minister of Israel, was a frequent visitor to the Epstein mansions. And remember, even Alan Dershowitz described during one of his visits to the Epstein mansion, Manchin, he got a massage. He didn't like it, but he kept his underwear on. Oh, thanks for that information, Alan. So you think that we will never see what was redacted or what was destroyed or what was removed

in order to protect the unique relationship between Mossad and American intelligence. Exactly right. And, you know, Bungino was, before he joined the government, he actually, he'd been a tough talker about, yeah, we've got to release those Epstein. Oh, yeah. He was beating the drum for this, Larry, more than any other podcaster. It was in the back of my head, but I just didn't want to go there. But every time I turned around, there was Dan beating this.

This is when Trump was running for office. Right. But I think once he was put on the list to be a potential deputy director, and again, the key person in all this is Susie Wiles. Remember, Susie Wiles helped run Bibi Netanyahu's presidential campaign. So she's closely tied into the whole Israeli network on this as well. But I think Bongino got the briefing. You want to stay away from this. This is going to compromise and expose too much about the Zionist activities in the United States.

Zionist attempts to control members of Congress, blackmail of major businesses and politicians in order to make sure they don't do anything to harm the Zionist cause. I wonder if it has anything to do with this. Chris just sent me this. The Wall Street Journal is reporting. The United States is pitching.

You're ready for this? Project Sunrise turned Gaza into a high-tech metropolis. The blueprint was drafted by, Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff and could have the U.S. commit to roughly 20% of the reconstruction costs over the next 10 years.

Yeah, and then they get paid the process. I mean, this is, we correctly critiqued the corruption in the Biden administration and how they used all this insider trading, etc. Well, Trump's worse. And, you know, he's actually gotten pretty shameless about it. And this is just, this is one other example.

This has nothing to do with improving the lives of Palestinians. This has everything to do with enriching Jared Kushner and Trump's daughter, where, you know, they will have a secure future with more billions. Chris, do we have Cash Patel before he was FBI director talking about Israel? Let's watch. You will see what we did with Israel and the prime minister and our special forces in their intel operation. We will be standing side by side with them. We will shut off the machinery that feeds money into Iran.

We need America to wake up and prioritize Israel. We need to bring home Americans and end this war, bring home Israelis, and make sure we stand by our number one allies. in Israel, and people need to wake up. Wow. Which is why the FBI is covering up on what happened to Charlie Kirk. You know,

what do you believe happened to Charlie Kirk that the FBI is covering up? I think Israel was involved in Charlie Kirk's murder. Did that boy Robinson pulled the trigger that killed Charlie? No, no. Absolutely not. There's two,

it's a narrative, a story this has been made up. Let's look at the fact that within the hour that Charlie Kirk was shot when he was taken to the hospital, according to the surgeon who worked on Charlie Kirk, when that surgeon left the operating, the treatment room, tried to go back in. He was stopped by two FBI agents. This was a crime that took place in Utah, and we later learned it was a crime carried out by a resident of Utah. FBI has no jurisdiction whatsoever in that case. Why would the FBI stop a surgeon from re-entering an operating room? He said he didn't want him tamper with a body, tamper with evidence. Again, the FBI has no

jurisdiction over this. Was Kirk dead at the time this physician tried to get back into the operating room? Yeah, he was dead. He was, I mean, Frankly, Judge, he was dead the minute he got shot. There was no way he was going to survive that wound. But, you know, there was a curious presence of FBI. And then Cash Patel flies out there for the press conference. Again, why? Because the FBI has no jurisdiction.

This smacks of, like, what happened to the Seth Rich case. Remember the story we're told is, Seth Rich was just, you know, even though he worked at the DNC, he was just out late. and he got robbed and got killed in the process, got shot, and then later died. Okay, then why was the Washington Field Office of the FBI involved in a domestic murder, robbery murder, in the District of Columbia, and why was the FBI sending messages back and forth to the counterintelligence section of the FBI, which was then headed up by Peter

struck. I mean, the only reason FBI counterintelligence could get involved with something like this is if there was a foreign connection. And so the fact that the FBI is out there running around

in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Charlie Kirk tells you that they believed, or they had caused to believe, there was foreign involvement. Two Netanyahu denials, one immediate and one about two or three days later on, you know, public statements made by him denying that he or his government had anything to do with it.

Well, what we now know is documented. This is not opinion, is that Charlie Kirk had become fed up with the Zionist pressure to uncritically support Israel. Charlie Kirk was very troubled by the fact that the Israelis were attacking and killing Christians, that they were attacking and killing children. And then Bill Ackman of Pershing Square hosted an intervention out on Long Island that had the Josh Hammer, a reporter with Newsweek, and what's the guy's name, Seth Dillon, who runs Babylon B. They all over there and put enormous pressure on Charlie Kirk, threatening his financial future, trying to get him to, you know, to come over fully to,

let's call it the dark side, and Kirk refused. And then within two days, two days after that intervention by this pro-Zionist crowd, Charlie was on the Megan Kelly show talking openly, both of them, about how they were tired of getting pressured and bullied over these kinds of things. and then we find out the night before he's killed, Charlie Kirk was communicating over a text message and saying, they're going to kill me. Now, he didn't say, yeah, Tyler Robinson,

I think the crazed transgender folks are going to kill me. That's not what he was saying. And when Charlie Kirk was under enormous pressure to distance himself from people like Tucker Carlson, who congratulations on Tucker, he's now anti-Semite of the year. I saw that. Yeah, you sent that to me. Either you or McGregor sent it to me. Same as McGregor said it. Insane, insane, insane. Yeah.

I got to go, Larry. Thank you very much. You're so so fearless, so courageous, such a great friend and collaborator. Come on twice a week. We've had a great year here on the show. We broke 100 million views for the second consecutive year. And you're on more than anybody else. I can't think. Thank you enough, my dear friend. Well, I'm so grateful for the opportunity, but more than that, I just appreciate our friendship. Absolutely, absolutely. All the best. Merry Christmas to you and your family, and we'll see you.

I don't want to say this, because I don't want the time to go by quickly. We'll see you two weeks from today. Okay. Thank you, Larry. All the best. And coming up at 2 o'clock this afternoon on all of this, with an emphasis on Europe, Professor Glenn D. And at 4 o'clock with an emphasis on whatever he's hot about, Scott Ritter, Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.