Judging Freedom - Lt. COL: Tony Shaffer: Zelensky in US w/ Hat In Hand!

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Lt. COL: Tony Shaffer: Zelensky in US w/ Hat In Hand!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. so so Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, September 26th, 2024. Colonel Tony Schaefer joins us now. Colonel, a pleasure, my dear friend. Good morning, Judge. Good to be here. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. As you speak, Colonel, former Ukrainian president still holding on to office after his term expired, Vladimir Zelensky, is here in the U.S. with hat in hand. President Biden to revisit the decision on whether or not the Ukrainians can use American and British weapons to reach the long range weapons to reach deep into Russia?

Well, that and a number of things. I think there's three things he's doing right now. First, the issue was, will money continue to flow to Project Ukraine, as my friends at Duran always call it? And the answer to that is, well, yeah, as long as, I suppose, Joe Biden is in charge, if Kamala Harris moves in January after the election. The second thing, obviously, is political to the point you just said. He's trying to maintain legitimacy as the leader of Ukraine. I think his being here, remember, they did this in a very public way. I mean, they took a C-17 out of rotation. We don't have an unlimited number of those and flew him in on a C-17 i mean most world leaders i think

would be happy flying on a g6 or maybe one of the other uh what's the what's the difference johnny well the c-17 is is a combat uh capable cargo airplane you you saw the picture of him on the flight line being received right i think it was new. And that's a C-17. Those things are very expensive. You know, our friend, Brigadier General Blaine Holt, used to run those things. And that's limited resource. Those things are constantly being used to move military equipment, manpower and things around. So was this done at the expense of the American taxpayer? Oh, yeah. and for show? Yes. Oh, absolutely. It was a big campaign.

Look back what happened. It was a campaign commercial for Kamala Harris. Think about how it all rolled out. He rolled in on the C-17, this military aircraft. He was greeted warmly. They took him to a plant where Josh Shapiro was signing bombs for or signing artillery rounds for him. Judge, did you know that the Democrats are the party of peace? I heard that somewhere and I just want people to remember that. Look at that. There he is with their signing bombs, man. And between them is Bob Casey, Senator Bob Casey. Yeah, I don't know what taxpayer expense. I don't know if he's signing it the way Nikki Haley did

with the words, finish them, but he's certainly writing something that's more than his name there. I think he's putting down the recipe to Gavin Newsom's hair jail, but I don't know if that's for a fact, but it could be.

Anyway, back to the topic but let me finish my answer if you could domain so uh but yeah and the last factor obviously is the policy of how are those weapons going to be used i think the policy was the last but obviously it's important because we're talking about it and the issue becomes what can the ukrainians do to continue to in their their view create conditions for success on the battlefield against russia and because uh of the kursk incursion by the ukrainians the russians continue to make uh progress in donbass they they basically i believe that the ukrainians really shot themselves in the foot And now they're looking at more extreme options to try to do something to regain the initiative.

And all they've got left, as far as I know, is doing things to be more provocative. You'd be more provocative, like hitting that ammunition dump in Russia. And you try to do things to actually go after major political targets. I think they want political targets to be able to hit Moscow and things like that. And I don't believe Biden gave him that. They gave him everything else, but they didn't give him that, I don't believe. All right. We'll get back to President Zelensky in the U.S. in a minute.

Whatever happened in Kursk, it's not on the front pages anymore. Because they're not doing well. Some of our guests are saying that the Ukrainians are totally surrounded. It's just a matter of time. Yes, yes. I agree with that. The Russians have been playing a game of, again, Alexander Merkulis said this. I'm not taking credit for this, that they've been playing a strategy, the Russians, of aggressive attrition.

That is to say, and that's why they were so effective, the Russians, in defeating last year's offensive that was supposed to see the Russians defeated. Well, the Russians just let the Ukrainians throw wave after wave after wave of military force against reinforced lines, and it kind of just went away. And so now the Russians said, oh, we'll just do the same thing. We'll just surround them and let them kind of try to fight their way back, and they're going to lose. And so they're basically defeating, they're dismantling the Ukrainian military piece by piece, bite by bite. They're not going for a big dramatic, let's do a big old tank battle. It's like, no, we're just going to nibble away at them and let it fade. And I think it's an effective strategy. I'm not pro-Putin. I'm just saying that's what they're doing. It's being

effective. What is the status of the relationship between the two militaries now. How precarious is the Ukrainian military? How close to achieving President Putin's goals is the Russian military? Well, I think the Russian military is counting on the momentum of the Ukrainian military to kind of continue to do what it does. It's predictable. And, it's predictable. And because it's predictable, the Russians can plan against it. So,

um, you know, they're going to hit something. They're going to have so many troops and the Russians can, can conveniently move enough defensive resources somewhere. Or right now they're going the offensive and Don boss, and they're using again, incremental.

Let's see if we can take this village for a while. They were, they were going through villages really quick. Now the defensive line seems to have reestablished itself. But again, it's gradual. They're not going for the touchdown. They're going for the five-yard increases every play. And they're doing it effectively.

And I think the chances right now are better that Ukraine as a nation might fall through the stresses placed upon it by everything going on. You know, you just mentioned that Zelensky is, you know, kind of a dictator now. He's not really elected because his term has expired. You've got issues with their leadership. Ukraine has fired some of their leadership just recently and gone through a kind of a reset of that. And then ultimately the money. Will the money continue? If the money dries up, it's all done. And I think Trump understands that. So not to get President Trump in trouble here, and I'm not speaking for him, but I think one of the things he recognizes is that if you really

want to get this thing to a negotiating table, you basically stop pouring gasoline on the fire. And that gasoline right now is funding from both the EU and the United States. And if that dries up, it's all over for her. And I think that's one of the things Zelensky was here to make sure of, is that money continues. I'd like your take on what happened in the past two weeks, Tony. About two weeks ago, yeah, two weeks ago to the day, Secretary Blinken and his British counterpart, Foreign Minister David Lammy, were in Kiev. They were with President Zelensky. They were speaking in English on international television, and they were dropping every hint conceivable that within the next 24 to 48 hours, Keir Starmer, the prime minister of Great Britain and President Biden would authorize the use Keir and Tony Blinken flew to Washington. Then a very, very perturbed and angry Joe Biden in the presence of Prime Minister Starmer said, we're not doing this.

What happened? Well, I think someone got to Biden in a good way. I mean, look. Do you think it was Lloyd Austin? Doin do you think the pentagon said oh right we're not ready for this i i uh i said this last night on the network judge i was on newsmax on on rick levinthal show it's like yeah we're not ready if if you really somehow if if we the u.s really somehow want to get into a war with Russia, we're not ready. Now, one thing I forgot to mention is Zelensky's peace plan that he came back to brief. The peace plan is get NATO drug into the war and make us, the U.S., fight it.

That's Zelensky's peace plan. And it's like, yeah, that's not peace. And again, I want to say good things about Lloyd Austin. When I'm critical of him, I'm very critical, as you all know. No, I think the Pentagon has been the one bastion saying, man, oh, man, you know, this is not the time. We don't have the resources, the manpower or the ability to focus on China on the middle east and and then potentially getting drug directly into a hot conflict in ukraine so i think the pentagon made it very clear general writer pat writers made it i think clear that the pentagon's not digging this and the pentagon i

think voted finally saying you you know mr president if you if you get us into this we don't think first off that that Putin's bluffing. And I've said I don't think Putin's bluffing. This is a red line that Putin will not permit. And the other thing, did you notice that NATO and the British keep saying, oh, there's no red lines, there's no big deal. And it's like, man, they're trying to get us, as far as I'm concerned, they're trying to get us into a shooting war. And it goes back to the Zelensky peace plan that the peace is only going to be secured after a global conflagration that requires us to be involved. So I think Biden was briefed, I think Biden recognized, and even in his diminished state, that going past red lines, which Putin has said do exist, and that would be something that would get us into a war. So I think

that that's why Thalmer and NATO has kind of backed off on that over the past few days. They've been quiet on the issue, at least. Here's Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov on this very topic, just five days ago, cut number 12, Chris. Thankfully, there are a few reasonable people in Washington who realize this. NATO is waging war against Russia, but this is a hybrid war, a proxy war that the Ukrainians fight for them. When it comes to long-range missile systems, it is clear to everyone that Ukrainians will not be able to use them. Only specialists from the country that has made the weapons will be able to navigate them, to provide satellite data,

and assign flight missions. Now, that's profound, the second part of what he said. So if Prime Minister Starmer and President Biden had said, yes, the equipment that Zelensky wants to use would actually be used by Americans, you would literally have, tell me if I'm wrong, Americans downloading data from American satellites, using that data to pull the triggers, so to speak, on these weapons. It would be American weapons fired by American human beings reaching deep into Moscow. Is there any wonder that Putin says this is the equivalent of the

U.S. and Britain waging war on Moscow and will deal with it on Russia and will deal with it accordingly. Well, I don't think there's any doubt. I think anybody who actually has been paying attention, let me rephrase this correctly, anybody who's actually been paying attention to global media outside of the mainstream media recognizes that that the war is not being conducted in the way that they are being told through the the mainstream media the russians are are winning ukraine will not win no anybody who's rational recognizes ukraine will not win and uh the only thing they have left is is is. I said this within the first six months of the war, starting judge, that the Ukrainians, just by numbers, the numbers available to them, even then, they would never prevail. Russia always had the numbers of manpower, tanks, artillery, everything.

It was always there. This was always a mirage and now those who are i i don't know what how to describe the mentality of jake jake sullivan and all these other knuckleheads for those of us who saw it it's it's never changed and we were always a bad guys because oh you're just not pro-ukrainian it's like no we actually live in a place called you know reality and uh now they're left with desperate measures that that will potentially cross real red lines and putin has said this and others have said it there that that they would consider like you said nato being at war with russia the united states by extension that should

ukraine do certain actions to include them by the Russians the use of nuclear war? So I said last night, again, I was very clear on this on the network that, no, I think Putin is completely serious about these red lines. And if we cross them, then we will we will very likely be in World War Three. And again, the Pentagon has said this. Here's President Biden at the United Nations days ago. It's almost absurd because he repeats that mantra that Putin has failed. Cut number 14. So my direction, America stepped into the breach for writing massive security and economic and humanitarian assistance. Our NATO allies and partners in 50-plus nations stood up as well. But most importantly, the Ukrainian people stood up. I asked the people of this chamber to stand up for them.

The good news is Putin's war has failed at his core aim. He set out to destroy Ukraine, but Ukraine is still free. He set out to weaken NATO, but NATO is bigger, stronger, more united than ever before. Isn't that hogwash? NATO's not ready for war,

and the Russians have demilitarized the EU and NATO.o i mean we've sent all of our weapons to the ukrainians i mean you know we're talking about germany at one point in time has something like 20 patriot batteries are down to six so it's kind of like yeah it's just not true and uh it's interesting when you lose the washington post judge uh the washington post described uh the summary of his speech that he is he biden has left the world in purgatory so that's interesting when the left finally says yeah this is this isn't this isn't true there's there's this has created conditions for conflict globally in some cases there is conflict now so what he said is not true

the russians are doing very well and they can call up more resources anytime they need them. So I didn't think that the left believed in purgatory and meant to run this. I thought about that too. I thought about that when I read that too. Okay. That's an interesting choice. Yeah, I know. I thought that too. It's like, oh. Chris, let's run number one. Here's President Zelensky. This might be in the plane, is it? Cut number one. Russia is once again trying to destroy our energy system.

And this fall, they are being even more cynical. They are preparing to target our nuclear power plants, three of them. We have this information. Okay, that was obviously at the United Nations Security Council, not on the plane, on that cargo plane on the way over. Today, I believe he's actually in D in dc and he's probably going to get uh the cold shoulder uh from a lot of people in congress who've had enough of this i don't know

where where are lindsey graham and the neocons on all of this or are they just focused on israel at the moment they're out trying to recruit pilots at the at bars in pensacola i think looking for f-16 pilots, just saying. And Lindsey probably feels pretty good at those bars, too, just saying. I don't know if that's true or not. But anyway, I digress. Back to the topic, Judge. Look, they're trying their best right now to keep a veneer on this that looks reasonable without giving any political capital to it. That means both sides, both political sides. And right now that like you saw in that speech this this fiction of the russians targeting nuclear plants comes up they the ukrainians have repeatedly

gone in and tried to compromise the physical plant the one that the cursed the cursed operation let me be very clear on this because everybody doesn't want to talk about it, and I think it's important to talk about. The target, the ultimate military target of Kursk was two strategic targets. One was the Kursk nuclear plant. They wanted to seize that and hold that. That is, the Ukrainians wanted to seize that and hold that for ransom or something for leverage. And the second thing, which they don't want to talk about is nuclear weapon storage dumps near kursk they wanted to seize russian nuclear weapons and they believed by some i don't know i don't know what the the um the the algebra of their thinking is but they believe by grabbing russian nuclear weapons that would be a good idea

not understanding that i think the russians would dump a nuke on it just to make sure they didn't have it. Just saying. I mean, I think you want to see what will we do, Judge, if the Russians dump a nuke on their own territory? Nothing. Not a thing. So I'm just saying, you know, bad. You came close to seeing, I think, the first first use of a nuclear weapon since World War II in a combat situation because that's what the Russians would have done. They would have dumped the nuke on that dump and taken out the Ukrainians. But I'm just saying that they're trying to be that level of provocative. And so the Ukrainians are seeking that nuclear provocation.

And he just said it. He just said it. It's not the Russians. It's them. They're doing that. But anyway, he's saying these things for purposes of continuing to create fear and angst on the global stage so people will support him. That's what it is. It's like a 15-year-old saying saying you know um the kids down the block are

going to beat me up and you need to you need to help me with money so you uh have been telling us for a long time that president putin is very patient is there a limit to that patience well always i think um notably he's i think been the adult in the room i'm just going to get me in trouble saying that but it is true and i think they have played the long game i think they've recognized this the weakness of the western position on a number of things i think that right now because they've been very deliberate if you recall they they did the incursion. And I keep hearing this fiction. I was listening to NPR yesterday.

Do you ever listen to NPR? I was listening to NPR yesterday, and I was rolling my eyes so much I almost rolled off the road because they were, like, lying all the time. And one of the lies that they were telling us. You're tax dollars at work, Tony. I know. Federal government radio station. It's like, it's like, what? Anyway, one of the fictions they were putting out is that

Putin failed to take Kiev. It's like, no, that was a feint. He did that to put pressure on him and pull back. That wasn't like him being defeated. Just little things like that. It's like, okay. So, my point being is that there's a lot of fiction still out there that drives Western

belief in media, like NPR. If you listen to NPR, God bless you, because you aren't getting the truth. You're getting a specific, very well-defined, refined narrative that has very little link to reality. In this case, like I said, I was rolling my eyes listening to some of this stuff. And it's like, no, the Russians have been very deliberate. They've been very patient. They've established for themselves some public, some private objectives. The public ones, it's like they're just going to continue to wear down the Ukrainians until they're able to secure those regions, you know, that they've decided they're going to have.

And there was a time, that time may have passed, that they were open to talking peace. But the provocation regarding Kursk and this idea of using long-range weapons into pre-2014 boundaries are things which I think have set them back about their interest in talking peace. They may well decide they're going to move forward and just take half of Ukraine and leave the rest of Rump State, because I don't think they want the whole thing. But I think that's what they're contemplating right now. Here's what I was looking for earlier, which you mentioned at the outset of the show, President Zelensky on the cargo plane, the American cargo plane flying across the Atlantic. We are starting a visit to the United States. We are now flying to Pennsylvania, a special visit, then New York, Washington.

It is this fall that we'll decide what will happen next in this war. Together with our partners, we can strengthen our positions as necessary for our victory, our common victory, for a truly just peace. Ukraine will present the victory plan in the United States, and the President of the United States will be the first to see it in full. Of course, I will present the victory plan to all leaders of our partners' countries who, like President biden are leaders of the world and can become leaders of peace by helping us with the victory plan whatever his plan is it is not possible well i told you it's it's drag nato and us into the war it says like hey you come on in the war and you fight it for us that's the victory plan it's like okay that's not really victory

now keep it just take a step back, though. Look at what you just saw. You saw them in that C-17 that's big old cavernous. Those things are the best. I'm not saying this because I worked for Boeing at one point, because I did. But the C-17s, Boeing C-17, they are the best cargo aircraft on the planet. They're amazing. Again, just ask Blaine Holt next time you see

him on air. But my point being, Judge, is that they took one of these things out of the inventory and gave it to him to fly. Now, you can see there he's flying and he's got the little VIP seats. Look, those things are uncomfortable. They're noisy. And so this was done to have us watching it they did this to have us watch it right now that's you're seeing this he's on a c-17 flying in from combat he's not he's a bureaucrat who essentially is in office past his legal time who is now trying to perpetuate perpetrate perpetuate perpetuate project ukraine because a lot of people are making money off Ukraine. And that's the only reason right now you're seeing these dramatic effects. I mean, come on, you don't need to have him on a combat aircraft. And they did. This was all meant to have this effect that we're

at war, he's at war, and he's coming here because he's desperate and needs more military support that's what that's why you see that video so old joe has to keep up this facade at least until november 5th absolutely absolutely no doubt tony thank you very much my dear friend always a pleasure uh good luck in your your campaign for uh and uh we'll see you again soon that's right well well it's just right there my little commission vote for yes commissioner where where is that where are you running edenton north carolina chawan county so uh in the second district i was just out meeting folks yesterday so in the trump campaign in the trump campaign and i are going to do joint canvassing of my district on the uhth of November. No,

5th of October. 5th of November. Too late. 5th of October. So best of luck. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. Before election day, if you can. I'll come back anytime you want me. Thanks for having me. All the best. Thank you. Sure. Coming up later today, we have a busy day for you at 12 noon. Scott Ritter at one in the afternoon. Aaron Maté, at 2 o'clock Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, at 3 o'clock Professor John Mearsheimer, at 4 o'clock Max Blumenthal, at 5 o'clock from midnight in Moscow, Pepe Escobar. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.