Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar: Biden, BRICS, and Putin.

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Pepe Escobar: Biden, BRICS, and Putin.See 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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Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com. Thanks for watching! Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, November 18th, 2024. Pepe Escobar is here with us. He'll be here in just a moment on Biden, Bricks and Putin. But first this. We're taught to work hard for 35 to 40 years. Save your money, then live off your savings. Unfortunately, there are too many threats undermining the value of our hard-earned dollars. The Fed's massive money printing machine is shrinking your dollar's value. Just the cost of groceries is absurd. Let me be brutally honest. I think the dollar is on its way to being extinct.

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They help me diversify into gold and silver. They can help you too. Call Lear today at 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620, or go to learjudgenap.com. Pepe, a pleasure, my dear friend. Welcome back to the show. Thank you for your time and insight.

Enormous pleasure, thank you. President Biden has authorized Ukraine to use U.S. offensive long-term weaponry to strike inside Russia. Did the Kremlin expect this, and how have they reacted to it? Before I finish, I should have started the question differently. We know what President Putin said many times very clearly before this happened. Yes. What are they saying since it happened? And did they expect it? First of all, Judge, yes, they expected.

Second, obviously, nobody paid attention to what President Putin said in September, in fact, coming out of a forum in St. Petersburg when he was interviewed in the street, in fact. And he gave a three-minute or so very detailed answer that if what was authorized, by the way, small correction, not by the guy who just appeared this Sunday in a staged Amazon rainforest concoction with two teleprompters promising to save the Amazon. And at the same time, it's announced that Ukraine is going to have long range American missile attack MS missiles to strike Ukraine, which is completely crazy. This is a deep state and lowly functionaries, Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan decision. So it was expected by the Kremlin. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman, already said that more or less along these lines, President Putin already told everybody in September what would happen if the nature and the essence of the conflict is changed. So that seems to be the case from now on.

I think this is the comment to which you're referring. Chris, edit it down. Edit it down to 45 seconds. Chris, cut number one. It is not about allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about making a decision about whether NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not. If the decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine. This is their direct participation and this, of course, significantly changes the very

essence, the very nature of the conflict. This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are fighting Russia. And if this is so, bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be created for us. He certainly understands that some of these weapons cannot be used without American intelligence and without American either contractors or troops operating and maintaining them. Are the Americans fair game for retaliation? Of course they are.

Americans inside Ukraine, NATO operators inside Ukraine. Of course, the trickiest part is outside of Ukraine, on NATO bases outside of Ukraine. But these missiles, if launched, they will be launched from Ukraine. So then the response is going to be, wow, just wait. It's another completely foolish provocation. You know, these people in the US and NATO, they remind me of the Hoos Tommy, deaf, dumb, and blind kids, but without the, you know, the flair to play pinball, you know, so they, what they play, they play

escalation, and obviously, they want to get some sort of drastic Russian response within the next two months, which obviously, they are playing on Russia falling into the trap. And of course, for Trump, starting from January, the situation will be absolutely dire and no possibility of any dialogue whatsoever. It's not going to work. What Peskov already said is the Russian point of view is cool, calm, collected, they take their times. Depending on how targets will be struck, where, civilian casualties or not, military installations or also civilian installations, and consider the

unpredictability of Kyiv, anything could happen. Then they will calibrate their response. And by the way, no, Russia will not go nuclear as a response. This is absolutely ridiculous. President Putin has warned that if weapons are fired at Russia by a country that has nuclear weapons, then that country is open to an offensive nuclear attack by Russia. Should Americans take that seriously or not? Well, Judge, nothing. These people who are behind this decision, by the way, certainly not the zombie in the White House, they keep upping the stakes because they say, no, Russia is bluffing, Russia is bluffing, Russia is bluffing.

And one day the bear won't bluff anymore. Once again, the Taoist patience of Vladimir Putin and the Security Council in Moscow is something for the ages, in fact. But this is, once again, red lines, red lines. This is a gigantic red line, because this is direct U.S.-NATO implication attacking targets inside the Russian Federation. It cannot go more red line than that.

And obviously, if the Pentagon generals, in fact, there are some over there with a little bit of a working brain, they will know that depending on the targets that are chosen, the response can be really devastating. Why do you think the Kremlin thinks the U.S. has done this? The administration has less than 60 days in existence. It still has an authorization for $7 billion worth of equipment, some of it cash that it's sitting on that it now says it wants to dispense. Even the Pentagon will have a hard time spending $3.5 billion per month for the next two months. Why do you think the Kremlin thinks

the U.S. is doing this now? A trap, Judge, essentially. They're setting up a trap not only to Russia, but for the Trump administration. This means that this has to be, this will have to continue to be a forever war. designed along the battlefield, along the front lines for the next few weeks and months is an absolutely devastating defeat for Ukraine and NATO. And this, I would say, this is a stratospheric anathema as far as NATO is concerned. To be defeated, the collective West defeated in the black soil of Novorossiya, as I call it, and this will be the burial rights of the rules-based international order. So this is the real big picture that is always absent of any of this knee-jerk analysis. The Russians are looking at the big picture not only in the next few months, they are looking for the rest of the decade. In fact, they know that this war will metastasize

into a much larger war by the end of this decade. Even if we look at NATO internal documents, there are different dates about it, 2027, 2029, 2030. But this forever war will return. And for the moment, ideally, these people who are exiting the White House and the non-administration of the US, let's put it this way, the Democrats. And of course, there are NATO vessels across Brussels and from Brussels to Warsaw to Kiev. They think that they can force Russia's hand, number one. And if it doesn't work, they will try to extract a ceasefire, which also won't work.

But they are already thinking in terms of the NATO against Russia war for the near future, for the next few years. Yes, go ahead, please. A Trump administration comes into existence and President Trump wants some sort of a negotiation. With whom will the Russians and the Americans negotiate? Clearly not President Zelensky. No, definitely not. This will be a direct negotiation, White House in this case, Trump and Vladimir Putin in person. There's no question about that. Because these are the only actors who can negotiate anything.

In fact, Kiev at the moment, it doesn't even qualify as fiction. It's an illegal government, which is basically destroying the country for their own benefit. Zelensky and the clique around him, they're still making money out of it. They're still bribing the Americans, not only military, but businessmen offering, look, if you continue to support us, you can come here and basically take over Ukraine, which is now being offered by Zelensky himself. The point is what President Trump and his inner circle really want. Do they really want to strike a deal and move to other things because

they know that in terms of cost effectiveness, Project Ukraine is already dead? Or is there something else behind it that we still don't know? I think you've seen this before, but it's worth hearing again and hearing your comments on it. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, sort of instrument for the destruction of everything Russian on historical Russian lands. They did this for more than two decades, or even 30 years, immediately after the disappearance of the Soviet Union. Their goal was to destroy everything Russian, from the language to the government in this territory, which they wanted to take for themselves. And they were counting on it.

But as always happens, if they wake up the Russian bear, then our people have united like never before. These are not empty words. We saw this during the Russian presidential elections. The Nazi regime continues to use Western weapons to attack civilian targets, towns, and cities. I assure you that they will not be able to cross this line unnoticed. They will not be able to cross this line unnoticed. This is the polite version, Judge. Very diplomatic. Lavrov style, right?

The other people in the Security Council, Medvedev, Patrushev, as a direct advisor to Putin, they are much more hardcore than that. Much, much more. Not to mention the people in the intel agencies, from the FSB to the SVR. What do those folks want President Putin to do?

Well, depending, once again, depending on what kind of strikes, the range of the strikes, the targets, if they are only military or also civilians, and we don't know, coming from Kiev, basically exterminate energy supply in Ukraine and go for the head of the snake in Kiev. This is what they really want, but they don't say it in public. This is what we hear in corridors, of course, in Moscow via messengers. Will the Russian military level the Ukrainian capital? Could be. Not the Ukrainian capital, but the centers of power in Kiev. Oh, yes.

Once again, depending on the attacks. Oh, yes. This is absolutely plausible. But if you allow me, George, for one minute, the contrast between this intimation of an all-out war, a declaration of war by functionaries of an exiting US administration against Russia, to what's happening at the G20 this week, right now, as we speak in Rio. At least the G20 is discussing social themes, you know, fighting poverty, fighting hunger, you know, fighting social inequality.

As much as this G20 is a shell of previous G20s, and it has been more or less hijacked by the G7, the merit of Lula is to, okay, let's concentrate on real themes that are very important for the whole of humanity, and let's forget about wars. So this is maybe one meager positive point in the middle of all this horror show, in fact. And last week when I was in Africa, we were discussing African unity in the multipolar world. I spent one week in South Africa discussing this with some of the best minds in South Africa, in Mali and Senegal. So there is hope for the future. But when we, and it's crazy, I just come, I come back from South Africa, land in NATO stand, and the day I land, I see Biden posing as savior of the Amazon and the Biden combo, let's put it this way, announcing, okay, let's provoke the Russians a little bit more. Let's see what they say. It's terrible.

It's absolutely terrible. Where is BRICS heading, considering the fact that Brazil is in both BRICS and in the G20? Where is BRICS heading? Okay, I'll try a short answer, Judge. Next year, BRICS presidency is Brazil's. I'm not sure they will be, to put it very diplomatically, they are not going to be as effective as the Russians were this year. So the Russians this year, they work for this year and the next, knowing that a messy Brazilian presidency, including a very powerful anti-BRICS lobby in Brasilia and among some of the top ministries in Brazil, will not going to work as they should. But, for instance, South Africa.

South Africa is one of the BRICS, five original BRICS, right? And during this week, every time we were discussing about BRICS, the South Africans are pretty much involved in all the major initiatives, and they are working a lot. And next year, very interesting, next year, they are the G20 president, South Africa. So South Africa is congregating everyone in Africa, different latitudes that want change, positive change, especially the Sahel area, and they are receiving information, suggestions, testing models, etc. And South Africa is more or less the coordinator of all these auspicious futures for Africa, in terms of African unity, especially.

So there are some little glimmers of hope here and there. And Africa, after one week in Africa, we'll see how powerful that is and how completely disconnected from this forever war ethos in this dwindling US administration. How impressive was President Putin in Sochi, Russia, last week, outlining what he called the moment of truth? In fact, it was at the end of the BRICS, Judge. That was that famous press conference that we were there. We were in the room when he outlined the bonus of truth, in fact. And this was BRICS.

They know the challenges, at the same time they know they could gather the feeling all across the Global South. During the meetings in Kazan, even afterwards, last week, for instance, in South Africa, where we were hearing, let's say, a continuation of the BRICS discussions in South Africa, in Johannesburg, and also in Pretoria, extremely impressive. But this is an extremely long-term project. The unification of the global South and the global majority with BRICS as one of the overarching foundations and organizations, they are betting until the end

of this decade and for the next one, but it has already started. And obviously, this is something that I would venture to say, irrespective of any American administration in power, this is not what the American ruling class wants, because this will imply that the decline of the empire will be put on fast forward. Wow.

It's the last thing they want if um israel attacks iran with the military assistance of the united states what will the kremlin do involved? Well, this, let's say, is the $10 trillion question, right? Because from now on, soon, it's going to be signed in the next few days, maximum a few weeks,

the strategic part, the comprehensive strategic partnership between Iran and Russia. And that will imply that Russia has Iran's back if an attack like that would ever happen. For instance, accidentally, a spokesman for the IRGC in Tehran actually recognized that Iran is already using the S-400 defense. So we knew that, but we never had a direct confirmation from a spokesman at the IRGC itself. So this is already huge.

So in terms of weaponizing what Iran does not have, Russia will be behind it. There's no question about it. And the last, of course, once again, the last thing that other powerful BRICS members, apart from Iran, Russia and China, don't forget, these are three of the four top BRICS. The other one is India. All these top four, they don't want a war. They don't want an Israeli war fought by the Americans, which is exactly what Tel Aviv wants. So they will do anything to prevent this from happening. But if, let's say, even in the near

future, let's say even next year, if that would happen, Iran would have the backing of Russian military and would have the backing of China in many, many other very staff, his principal spokesperson has been indicted and being held with no bail for revealing confidential secrets. It appears more and more that he was adequately warned about October 7th and didn't take the warning seriously. And his corruption trial is now back on track, and he's been ordered to testify against himself. Exactly. This is unheard of in America, but in the Israeli system, the defendant can be compelled to testify, I gather, in early December.

Well, Netanyahu has only a plan A, continue the genocide in Gaza, expel the population, build settlements in Gaza, and now this is being voiced in the open, and of course continue to bomb civilian infrastructure in southern Lebanon and in southern Beirut as well. There's no peep from anyone. All those people who are at G20 in Rio now, as we speak, are they saying anything about the genocide in Gaza and the bombing and bombings of civilian installations in Lebanon? Absolutely nothing. So from his point of view, he can get away with it. And from his point of view also with the Trump administration, he will continue to get away with it. So that's it. That's plan A, Judge. As harsh as it may seem, but that's what it is. And it's his survival. There's no plan B because if there's plan B, he's out of government and he goes to jail. The last world leader who used the word genocide was the Pope over the weekend.

I was surprised to see that. I don't know what kind of a diplomatic effect that has, but I was surprised to see him weigh in, saying October 7th needs an investigation because this has the earmarks of genocide. I'm paraphrasing what he said, I think, fairly. Well, we can say that the Vatican hidden powers, invisible powers, and real powers behind the Pope are extremely uncomfortable with what's happening in Gaza, also in Lebanon, and the fact that Christians are also being targeted by the Tel Aviv killing machine. So they had to do something, even if this is almost like a pro forma, very, very late observation by the Pope.

But they had to do something because they are under pressure, even by Christians inside Italy. observation by the Pope, but they had to do something because they are under pressure, even by Christians inside Italy, not mainstream media, not the Italian establishment, but Christians all across Italy and all across Europe as well. Got it. Pepe Escobar, thank you very much, my dear friend. Always enjoyable to be able to chat with you. I hope you'll come back and visit with us again soon. Anytime. Thank you. Thank you.

Coming up at 10 o'clock this morning, Ray McGovern at 11, Larry Johnson at 4, Scott Ritter at 7. Tonight, here, a debate between Max Blumenthal and some neocon that's going to defend things as they are. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.