Judging Freedom - Pepe Escobar: World Reactions to #Trump Shooting

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

Pepe Escobar: World Reactions to #Trump ShootingSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, July 22nd, 2024, coming to you from Lake Como, Italy. My special guest today is Pepe Escobar who's coming to us from Thailand. He will be here in just a moment to discuss the international reaction to the events of last week in which one presidential candidate quit and the other was almost murdered. But first this. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital, but I'm also a customer, a very satisfied customer. About a year ago, I bought gold and it's now increased in value 23%. So $100 invested in gold a year ago is now worth $123. You have $100 in the bank, it still shows $100, but $100 in the bank is now worth 24% less.

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Tell them the judge sent you. Pepe Escobar, my dear friend, thank you very much for joining us. Boy, did I pick the two wrong weeks, the two worst weeks of the year to take off. The two weeks of the year with the most dramatic historic events. But you have the vision from other parts of the world. So let's start with Beijing and the Far East where you're now. What is the reaction to these two events in which Donald Trump was almost murdered and Joe

Biden dropped out of the race? Yes, Judge. Well, background is essential. I just came back from Hong Kong. So it's tonight in Bangkok, Hong Kong. I came back on the first flight this morning from Hong Kong. So I spent the last four and a half days in Hong Kong and following the plenum in Beijing. So everything in Hong Kong, let's say from Thursday to Friday, was about the plenum and China, let's say, drawing the roadmap, the economic roadmap, all the way to 2029. And then, of course, we had the blue screen of death. And when it happened, we were in Hong Kong, like, on Friday night. And everybody was, of course, in the best restaurants and bars, some of the best restaurants and bars in the world. And everybody was talking about the blue screen of death.

So nobody was talking, at least for a moment, about the plenum and about what happened in Pennsylvania, of course. Before you get to Pennsylvania, give us a thumbnail sketch of the plenum. What is the plenum that you were observing? The plenum is a twice-a-decade meeting of the top rank of the Communist Party of China, where more or less they draw roadmaps for, in fact, five-year plans. They were discussed this week in Beijing from Monday to Thursday. The economic

roadmap for China all the way to 2029, which is something absolutely incomprehensible for the West, where people cannot even plan next week. So essentially it was, in the end,

they released the communique on Thursday. In fact, one day before the blue screen of death, of course, which is a very careful balance between all the incentives for economic development and especially technological development for the next few years. And at the same time, their preoccupation with national security. We'll go back to that in a second. But this basically is to introduce to all of you the two main themes of the politiburo and what she was discussing. And she, very interesting, after they published the communique on Thursday, she herself,

he wrote something explaining more or less what was discussed. So we can read that in his own words, which is fantastic. I have a link to that in a column that came out two hours ago on Sputnik, where I quote extensively from she and I link to Xi's observations. What did he say in a nutshell? In a nutshell, not too much. In fact, practically nothing about foreign policy, George, because this is about China's challenge, internal challenges, real estate market, shadow banking, corruption, of course, and of course, the auspicious challenges which are basically related to technological development.

Very, very important. The way the Chinese Communist Party refers to markets, it's fascinating, especially when you discuss this in Hong Kong with traders, you know, hyper-capitalist traders in Hong Kong, which basically they, even for them, the notion of socialism with Chinese characteristics is development for not, if not the whole of the Chinese population, for the absolute majority. It's a people-centric form of economic development. Where were you when the word came forth that somebody came within a millimeter of assassinating Donald Trump? Well, I was still here, George. I was still in Thailand. But we could more or less grasp the reaction all across Southeast Asia and China and then wider Chinese mainland, which is more or less unanimous. And the perception in the beginning of the week until, let's say, the end of the week, was that Trump, with that, clinched the election. And now things are starting to change a little bit.

For instance, this morning already in Hong Kong, before coming back here, there were people already talking about, oops, with this new development of a sitting president via a post on Twitter X with the dodgy signature, without a letterhead, basically saying that he's not going to seek re-election. People start saying there's something really weird about that and depending on who's going to be the candidate, so it's not that clinch for Trump, at least not yet. So it's crazy how in one week the whole thing changed and the way Asia is reading what's happening in the U.S. is also changing. So people are much more cautious. Very strange that you had a similar reaction that I did. This was not White House letterhead

and this was not the same signature that he uses when he signs legislation, which is a lot more positive and self-confident a signature. This looked like something he signed with a blindfold on. Do you think he was coerced into leaving the race rather than did so voluntarily? Well, Judge, I'm sure you know much better than me. And many of our fellow analysts also have inside information that we in Asia don't. But it looks like this was a last minute, let's say, arrangement by two of Biden's very close advisors, Riccetti and Donilon. They practically, we could say maybe with a certain degree of certainty that they wrote the letter. And the way the signature was extracted is open to discussion.

Let's put it diplomatically. I know you're in Southeast Asia. You're not in Moscow, but you understand the Russian mind better than almost anybody I know. What do you think the reaction in the Kremlin was to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and to the withdrawal by Joe Biden? Well, the attempted assassination, I would say Lavrov more or less spelled it out, that this was bound to happen. Medvedev, in his Medvedev unplugged manner, he said,

bye-bye, like you deserved it. Considering everything, considering especially all the dead Russians and Ukrainians, a result of this obsession of the proxy war in Ukraine between Washington and Moscow. But for the moment, the reactions have been very circumspect, especially because the developments are, you know, lightning fast. It's completely crazy, in fact, the velocity of the whole thing. And now we still don't know what the damn ticket is going to be for the next elections. That observation by Putin a few months ago that was easier to deal with Biden than with Trump, this is part of the past. Because the Kremlin still doesn't know who they might

have to deal with in the case of a damn victory, right? And the Chinese, obviously, absolutely not a word about it. The Chinese diplomacy considers this, let's say, interference in foreign affairs, just as much as they don't like American interference in their own foreign affairs. And to top it off, coming back to the beginning of our conversation, they spent the whole week concentrating on the plenum, concentrated on the reactions to the planet inside China, and also in Hong Kong, because Hong Kong is very, very peculiar.

Hong Kong is a sort of this enormous casino capitalism mecca, but at the same time is a very important interface with the mainland and in terms of foreign investors. For instance, I had a very interesting conversation with American investors in Hong Kong via a British trader. And he was telling me, look, my clients, my American clients, they don't feel very inclined to invest in China nowadays or in the next few weeks or months. Of course, because they still don't understand what happened to Hong Kong this past four years. Let's put it this way.

Since the 2019 failed color revolution. Hong Kong is at the same time a very important national security door for foreign investments from all over the planet, U.S. included, that is going to be invested in the Greater Bay Area, in the whole of southern China, in fact. So there's no point for the Chinese to antagonize what's happening inside Washington or even interfering what's happening in Washington with their own opinions. The last subject matter, was there conversation at the plenum about BRICS and about the Chi Chi cooperation organization? Excellent question, Judge. No. You know why? Okay, and reorganizing the economy for more productive areas, integrating digital economy with the real economy as well,

and fighting, among other things, there are enormous patches of informal, let's put it this way, or black economy in China and beijing wants to control that as well and this includes hong kong because a lot of illicit gains in china everywhere let's say in the middle of sichuan province for instance these guys arrived in hong kong with sansonites full of yuan and and immediately they changed into Hong Kong dollars. So they had the whole global market open to them.

It's not going to happen anymore. So these were the preoccupations. So I was struck because when I read the communique, nothing about BRICS, nothing about SCO, because this is Chinese foreign policy. It's not part of the discussions of the planet. Were you surprised there was nothing about BRICS or SCO? I was, Judge. To tell you the truth, I was.

But at the same time, if you look at the focus of this plenum, which is, for instance, before the plenum, if you were reading a Wall Street Journal, American Media, Financial Times, the Brits, etc., you'd say, ah, the Chinese economy is in dire straits. They're not going to grow 5% a year. It's ridiculous. They grew practically 5% a year in the first semester. Everybody was doing this blah, blah, blah, because in the second quarter, they grew apparently 4.9, 4.8 something, almost 4.9. Which, if you compare to the first quarter, overall 5%. And the communique was very explicit.

Our unwavering, their own worlds, target is to grow by 5% for the next five years, not only this year. This gives all of you the idea of how focused they are. And this is the number one focus. Foreign policy, of course, is adjacent to all that. But the most important thing is to face the economic challenges. They are already factoring the Trump factor, judges. It's very, very important. And this is something that you can talk freely in Hong Kong with people in the financial markets. And they know that there's going to be a tsunami of sanctions next year if Trump is reluctant. So they're also factoring that as well. This is what they term enormous challenges coming. But the Chinese are very, very good at doing five-year plans when people cannot plan even

what's going to happen tonight. Five-year plans, no matter who the American president is. Pepe Escobar, thank you, my dear friend. A pleasure. I thought I was on vacation, but you know what it's like in this business. We may have to call on you again before the week is out. All the best, my dear man. All the best. Thank you, Judge. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you for watching. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.

Back in the saddle, back in New Jersey on Monday, unless something else happens. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!