Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar: LIVE - EXCLUSIVE : First Interview From Yemen!

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Pepe Escobar: LIVE - EXCLUSIVE : First Interview From Yemen!See 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 Monday, March 24th, 2025. Pepe Escobar will be with us in just a moment, live from Yemen. You will be disappointed at what you're going to see, but maybe not surprised. But first this. Markets are on an all-time high, Euphoria has set in. The economy seems unstoppable. But the last administration has buried us so deep in debt and deficits, it's going to take a lot of digging to get us out of this hole. Are you prepared? Leer Capital specializes in helping people like me and you grow and protect our wealth with gold. Did you know that during Trump's last presidency, gold rose 54% to a record high? If that happens again, that puts gold at $4,200 an ounce in his next term. Don't wait.

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Wow. I am in Sana, capital of Yemen and I even got a little bit of Sana for you here. This is part of the old city. And what are you doing there, my friend? It's a it's an outstanding story. In fact, personally, it's been one year that I've been trying to set up my own trip to Yemen. And we are a small group. In fact, part of a conference on Palestine, which started on Saturday morning. It's going to end tomorrow, Tuesday. Today we had discussions with scholars, Yemeni scholars,

who are drawing a sort of roadmap of what could happen next in terms of the whole Palestine tragedy and how can Yemen help? And of course, in the middle of all that is for a pilgrim like me, I always dreamed of coming to Yemen. And obviously this morning I went out walking by myself in the streets of Sana and then I was politely arrested by the security because I could not do this by myself, right? And they freaked out completely. But the feeling of everyday life in the city and this city has outstanding aspects that you think you are in the pre-middle ages or the late 19th century, early 20th century. But there is a feeling of normalcy. And now this is a country at war, of course. Today, this afternoon, late afternoon, we went to the site that was bombed by the Americans yesterday night. We didn't hear the bombing, but we listened to the sirens.

And immediately afterwards, we knew that somewhere was hit. And it was. It was like 2.5 kilometers from the hotel where we were staying, which is very close to the old city, which is the most... We're going to play the video. We've taken the sound off because we can't hear your voice over all the of course. Yes, you can describe to us what we're seeing.

Chris, if you'd play that video. Okay, thank you. So where are you? I am at the site of a residential building. There were only civilians inside. There was hit by American bombs yesterday night around nine o'clock. And today, of course, we lobbied the security services to take us there. And we explained to them that the world needs to see these images.

And if it's not for us, the small group of independents who are here, this will never be on American mainstream media or Western mainstream media. And I talked to the owner of this building. It was a two story building. It was, you know, they were trying to refurbish it somewhat. There were only civilians inside. So far, the numbers that we have 4 to 5 people died and around 1112

were injured and in the street outside. So there's no military value whatsoever and you can see by yourselves. These are some of the hills behind us. This is a residential area. It's I would say a lower middle class of proletariat residential area. What does the United States?

What does the United States gain? by bombing a residential area of the capital of Yemen So no it's even worse because it points to a dysfunctionality and a level of absurdity that is absolutely extraordinary and compounded with the so-called leak that we had a few hours ago.

Everybody here in SANA, diplomats, the security services, the guys who are guarding our perimeter, everybody read it, Where the narrative is that a leaked group chat showing how the Yemen war was planned and we have quotes like Vice President Vance saying, let's make sure our message is tight or the strongest reason to do this is to send a message quote. So this is completely absurd. Can you imagine that these people were discussing launching a war on signal, which is an encrypted. Listen to what listen to what my former Fox colleague who is now the Secretary of Defense said, quote, nobody knows who the Houthis are, close quote. So we must advance the idea that quote,

Biden failed and Iran funded. Do you believe that they're bombing people that the Secretary of Defense says nobody knows who the hell they are and they're gonna blame it on Joe Biden and on Iran? Judge obviously he doesn't know who the Houthis are or Ansarallah is or what Yemen is or anything about the history of Yemen Which is a people of warriors today for, we were visiting the house of Iman Yahya, which is a 3,000-year-old thing rebuilt. Of course, it's called the Stone House. And of course, here's the heir of 3,000 years of history.

And we were visiting that. This is an extremely sophisticated people who fought invaders, who fought until recently the Saudi, backed by America, UAE coalition, which was bombing parts of Yemen all the time, including the capital Sanaa. Two days ago, we saw one of the bombings in 2017, where they bombed a civilian gathering and killed over 1,000 civilians and over 2,000 injured. And we see the tap one, tap two, you know, with our own eyes. It's completely absurd. And there's something that when you analyze the so-called leaked signal communication, by the way, signal is encrypted.

So this was not leaked at all. This was somebody inside the group that decided to reveal, which makes it even more absurd. Well, somebody inside the group, the Wall Street Journal intimates it was either Mike waltz or Pete Hegseth, but somebody inside the group says that this reporter for the Atlantic was inadvertently Or accidentally invited to join the group. He didn't even realize what was going on until he

Determined who he was listening to until he determined who he was listening to. Judge, this is bullshit. This is total bullshit. He was part of the conversation, obviously. And maybe they did it... There was an express idea of, let's leak this to a guy who is not part of our gang. As you know, the Atlantic is not part of Trump 2.0,

and this editor is an absolute idiot. It was perfect. But coming back conceptually to what happened, this group didn't think that the Houthis were a real threat. And it's not a matter of the Houthis being a threat. The Houthis are extremely capable militarily. If Hegsett doesn't know this, I'm sorry, but he's a joke. They didn't think that the Americans would understand these strikes.

And in fact, nobody in the US understands why the Pentagon is striking against civilian targets in Yemen. And they did it anyway to send a message. And I'm quoting one of them. In fact, it's events. The strongest reason to do, quote, it's to send a message. So you go on signal and you start a war to send a message.

What is this? This is undefinable. What is the attitude of the Houthis about Americans? We were having, in fact, it's still going on, Judge, in a room like, you know, not far from where I'm talking to you now, with a former prime minister who's now, he's even more powerful than the prime minister, he's the head of their political council. And he was explaining in detail

the spiritual, religious and moral necessity for Ansarallah, the Houthis and this government, the government of Sanaa, to help the Palestinian plight and to help their brothers. They define the Palestinians as brothers. And that explains, of course, the attacks on Israeli ships or ships delivering whatever that is to Israel or ships who are helping Israel one way or another. And they say, look, we wish we... and now that we restarted because the ceasefire was broken by Israel, if they stop with the ethnic cleansing project and the starvation of Palestine,

we also stop it. The day before, very, very important, yesterday I was talking to another guy very, very high up in the political council here. I asked him point blank, do you have privileged channels of communication with China and Russia? privileged channels of communication with China and Russia. He gave me a response that was fascinating because it was lost in translation, of course, but the bits and pieces that I could pick up, he was saying basically in metaphors that, of course, we do, but we'll never advertise this to anybody. And the Russians and the Chinese know exactly what the US and Israel are up to in Palestine and against the Axis of Resistance. And of course, there are very close relations between Russia and China with certain vectors

of the Axis of Resistance. And they understand that this is a much bigger war. They understand the full forever wars Ethos when you when you think about us Israel against the axis of resistance and the people here in Yemen They are very sophisticated. I was very very impressed everybody that we talked to and then do they have a Understanding of why the Trump administration is trying to kill them. No, no, because they cannot explain it.

Because there is no rational explanation. And this so called leak today only confirms to them that the whole thing is absolutely irrational to send them just like that to send the message. They're not a threat. But anyway anyway let's do it because we can. A typical imperial attitude right? But you are messing with a nation of warriors. This is very very serious. Yesterday something absolutely extraordinary happened. We were stunned. We were in Divania, a room right behind me, in fact, waiting for the daily speech of the leader of Ansarala, Abdul Malik Alhuti.

And guess who enters our room? Out of the blue, the military spokesman of Ansarala, Yahya Sari, which is a face all over the world recognized as the face of Ansarala and the face of the Hutus. It was immense risk for him to come here and visit a group of foreigners in a hotel. Is that him there with you? No, that's another guy, Judge.

This was the guy that I was referring before. This is the guy from the political council where I asked the Russia-China question. Yahya Sari is the guy that we see every day all over the world. One of my friends here, Professor Ma from Huanzu, he told me that Yahya Sari is immensely popular in China, because the Chinese support the Yemenis. And there are instances of the relationship between China and Yemen,

coming back from Mao times. They took us, for instance, to a novelist, written in Chinese and in Arabic, paying homage to the Chinese workers who died here in Sana in construction works in Maoist times. So this goes back a long time. And part of our conversation a few minutes ago, he was telling us of the relationship that the Yemenis had with the Nasser's army, for instance. And the fact that a lot of top students from Yemen, they studied in Soviet and Chinese universities. So this explains why these people, they can build a hypersonic missile. And if our friend Hegset doesn't know any of this oh my god

the US is in Really really bad shape. I Think the US is in really bad shape. I mean you'll you'll see the transcript of this Or not this these conversations, and it's almost high school like it's high school Exactly. It's high school and I would say that almost high school like. It's high school, exactly. It's high school. And I would say that this high school concerning how unprepared they are to understand Yemen mirrors the high school of certain elements

they are negotiating with Ukraine and Russia as we speak. The same thing. Where are you there? It looks like there's about a dozen microphones in front of you. No, because this was the first day of the conference and each of us, we had like three minutes for a short speech. And they took this photo while I was finishing my speech. And yes, everybody was there, Judge. CCTV, you know, RT, press TV from Iran, et cetera. Yes, this is one of the pictures of the old city,

which is, look, I've been to all the souks in the Middle East over the last 40 years. It's the most beautiful, ancient city and souk in the whole Arab world. It's something absolutely extraordinary. And that's why this morning I wanted to go there by myself and I'll keep going in the morning or late at night by myself just to walk the streets, feel the atmosphere and you can talk to many of the merchants. So many of them speak at least the basics of Vengers. It's fascinating. These are a group of Yemeni boys in the hood dressed Yemeni style with their dagger in the right place, right?

Who are these fellas? Basically, some of them are dancers, some of them are dancers, some of them are artists, and we're going to see a lot of them on Friday, this Friday, this coming Friday, because there's going to be another one of those one million marches where they gather together to express

their support for Palestine. What is the gathering? It looks like there's a thousand people behind you, Pepe. to express their support for Palestine. And this is one of the- What is the gathering? It looks like there's a thousand people behind you, Pepe. More, even more, George. This was on the first day of the conference where our small group was sitting here in front. And these are militants, diplomats,

intelligence officers, university students, you name it. And this was the first day of the conference where they gave the floor essentially to our small group of foreigners. We are like maybe 11 or 12, including Professor Ma from China. From China if you were to ask those people if they believe that Donald Trump is a man of peace How would they react? Obviously are considering the actions of the United States vis-a-vis Yemen so far obviously not But they don't make comparisons. It's a very different reasoning. They are extremely gracious, polite, understanding. They love to listen to points of view from other parts of the world.

For instance, we have a Bolivian friend here, very close to Evo Morales. They are absolutely fascinated by everything that comes from Latin America. We have Professor Amma, who's a Muslim, a Hui, a Muslim from China, who speaks fluent Arabic on top of it. Obviously, he's treated like a superstar here. So they know how to gather people

from different parts of the world who understand not only how they are implicated in the Palestinian struggle, but their own struggle because they had they were being bombed literally until yesterday by the Saudis and by the so-called coalition, the so-called ceasefire. The Saudis had to sign the ceasefire because they were being destroyed by the Yemenis. So in terms of their military power, it reflects directly their spiritual strengths, their moral character, their moral clarity, which is something that we understand when we talk to them.

It's very, very impressive. These people are models of rectitude and they want to be on the side of the good, on the side of the communal good, which is something that in the West, as we all know, which is the reign of post-modernist narratives, disappeared completely. So when you come here, you are literally in another planet.

And it's very fulfilling for all of us. We are learning so much. And our agenda during the day is absolutely crazy. We go all over the place. And I'm trying, I'm lobbying in very, very hard to go to Hodeida, but they tell me that is extremely dangerous at the moment because Hodeida is being bombed by the Americans practically every day. They are cowards, they only bomb at night, but even to go there during the day, we still trying to convince the security people, look, let's go, we stay one hour, two hours, we talk to some

people, we see the port and we come back during the day before sunset. So I hope that's going to happen. Do they share your view and mine and those of the people watching now, that the United States is bombing them as a favor to the Israelis? favor to the Israelis? Yeah, essentially, yes. The attitude of the new presidency in the United States is viewed here essentially as a favor to

Israel and that redoubles their drive to defend Israel as best as they can. For instance, can you imagine anybody on the planet who has the balls to declare a blockade of Ben Gurion Airport in Israel? They do it. And they launched their hypersonic missile on top of it. And do they succeed? Yes. The problem is, Judge, obviously military information here, especially for us foreigners,

is very, very difficult to obtain. For instance, I was trying to, I asked specifically about their the mechanism, their decision mechanism in terms of coordinating their political bureau with the top of the Yemeni armed forces. They decide when they're going to strike, who they're going to strike with what kind of missiles, weaponry, etcetera. I didn't get a straight answer. I'm going to keep trying during this week. but uh if you if you

want to come back on with us later in the week, if you have breaking news, if you have a revelation, if you have a story you want to tell us, just reach Chris and we'll put you on again, my dear friend. Friday, Judge, after that famous one million march. You got it. We'll work it out. Thank you very much for your time. Please be safe and stay well, my dear friend. The internet was not very good. So the internet is fine. A little bit of the morning, Professor Jeffrey Sachs at 2 in the afternoon, Max Blumenthal at 3 in the afternoon, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, Judge Napolitano for

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