Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Is Trump Delivering Peace Anywhere?

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Is Trump Delivering Peace Anywhere?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 Thursday, May 29th, 2025. Professor Jeffrey Sachs joins us now from New York. Professor Sachs, always a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for being here. The aid fiasco in Gaza, which a retired general of the IDF called controlled starvation has been going on for two days now. We'll play you a clip in a few minutes of an American doctor from California who witnessed

the starvation, his testimony before the UN Security Council is gut-wrenching, but before we get to him, I gather that the Israelis have duped the Americans into thinking that the Israelis are actually facilitating aid when they are so over regulating it as to produce little or nothing of value? There's no question that Israel is starving the people of Gaza and they're not hiding that fact in their internal discourse in Israel. They're talking about mass murder openly. They're talking, of course, about ethnic cleansing openly. They're talking about ridding Gaza of Palestinians. They're talking about permanent ownership by Israel. This is a rogue state

completely outside of morality and outside of international law. And we're witnessing something horrific and despicable. And there can't be any confusion in the US government because there can't be any confusion at all. What's happening is clear, straightforward, in the open and in Israel celebrated by this absolutely, I don't know the word, but completely murderous government. So what can the UN do? Probably nothing. What will Trump do? Probably nothing. The Israelis want to give the impression that they're allowing aid in, but from inside observations, we know that they're not. Look, the United States should absolutely stop being complicit in genocide. That's the basic point.

A genocide is underway. That's the basic point. A genocide is underway. The intention of the genocide is made clear every day by Israel's own leaders. That's not a calumny against the government. That is just reporting what Ben Gavir and Smotrich and Netanyahu declare openly inside Israel. the Israeli population overwhelmingly knows and supports this policy of murder and ethnic expulsion. And this is a terrible, terrible fact. It's a grim truth. Where are the Israelis with their former attitude about humanitarian feelings towards people? Where are the liberal Jewish Israelis? Israel has gone so far to the right in public opinion. The fear, the propaganda, the celebration of slaughter is something absolutely shocking. And it's not my saying it.

People can get online and look at Haaretz newspaper in Israel, which reports all of this with horror from the newspaper but reports it on a daily basis. What's happening is murder by the government and with a significant support in the population. This is a state out of control right now. And it is armed and financed by the U.S. government, which is absolutely amazing. And that means that the U.S. government is out of control. And of course, we know how this Christian and Jewish Zionist lobby works when people protest against what Israel is doing. We hear the screams of anti-Semitism. Nothing could be further than the truth. It is the deepest of Jewish values to abhor what this extremist government in Israel is doing. This is the most basic point. It has the opposite of anti-Semitism. What Israel

is doing is a shame in the world community. It's a disgrace. I don't want to increase your heartburn, Professor Sachs, but I do want you to watch this California surgeon who twice volunteered California surgeon who twice volunteered to go and did go to Gaza and who testified before the Security Council yesterday about what he saw. This is Dr. Feroz Sidwa. Chris cut number 17. My name is Dr. Feroz Sidwa. I am an American trauma and critical care surgeon based in Stockton, California. I come before you today to speak about the Gaza Strip, where I have volunteered twice

since October 7th. The Constitution of the World Health Organization states that the health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent on the fullest cooperation of individuals and states. I have taken this to heart and it is the reason I volunteer in conflict zones from Haiti to Ukraine to Gaza. I did not see or treat a single combatant during my five weeks in Gaza. My patients were six-year-olds with shrapnels in their heart and bullets in their brains and pregnant women whose pelvises had been obliterated

and their fetuses cut into while still in the womb. The medical system has not failed. It has been systematically dismantled through a sustained military campaign that has willfully violated international humanitarian law. Civilians are now dying not just from the constant airstrikes, but from acute malnutrition, sepsis, exposure and despair. This is a man-made catastrophe.

It is entirely preventable. Participating in it or not, allowing it to happen is a choice. This is a deliberate denial of conditions necessary for life, food, shelter, water and medicine. Preventing genocide means refusing to normalize these atrocities. It means refusing to dehumanize the Palestinians to refuse to see them as calories counted or numbers of trucks moved. We see now that this way of thinking has brought about a human seems to me profoundly, put aside the emotion for a minute, it seems to me profoundly credible and vitally important that the President of the he said it with the precision and dignity and professionalism. He described a genocide that is underway. It is a genocide committed by the state of Israel with the complicity of Germany, which should know better,

the United States, which should know better, and other supporters in Europe. This is what we call Western values, mass murder of Palestinian people. And it is under this phony guise of Hamas, Hamas, Hamas, which is nothing but an empty but effective slogan to say, exterminate the people of Gaza or expel them and destroy where they live. And what Dr. Sidwa explained, people

should understand, every clinic, every hospital, every school, every university, all the residences are being obliterated systematically by the government of Israel. And they explain why, and they've said it from the first day to make Gaza completely unlivable, unlivable. That is genocide. That is what they are doing.

Yesterday, while Trump's negotiators were meeting with the Iranians in Rome, the president told reporters that he actually called Prime Minister Netanyahu and told him not to attack Iran. Apparently, U.S. intelligence revealed to the president that Netanyahu was contemplating an attack. What kind of a monster would attack Iran while his benefactor, the United States, is negotiating a treaty at Netanyahu's behest? These people are sick. Well, he is a person with an international arrest warrant for crimes against humanity

and war crimes. So, yes, this man is under indictment by the International Criminal Court. Of course, most of our Congress, which gets paid by the Zionist lobby. And again, I wanna emphasize most of these so-called Zionists in the United States are Christian evangelicals. This is by far the dominant voter base. It's the biggest voter base of President Trump. This is the crew, just to interrupt you for a minute, this is the crew that controls and runs

the House of Representatives. Every congressman is shadowed by this lobby. And incidentally, I hope that the American citizens understand that the person in charge of all of these affairs at the White House and the National Security Council is Israeli born, former employee, maybe current, of the Ministry of Defense of Israel. And they're the ones running the White House.

And you ask, how did she get her job? Interestingly, she was put there by Senator Ted Cruz. Now, why did Senator Ted Cruz put her there? He put her there, he hired her, he promoted her career because he's backed by the Christian evangelical lobby who gives him big bucks, millions and millions of dollars that he can then also spread around to other members of Congress.

This is a racket and it's a racket that put these extremists in power inside the White House. I don't know what President Trump knows of this or doesn't know of this, but our foreign policy has been run by these gangsters because honestly, this is the right way to describe it when they're committing mass murder of tens of thousands of people, obliterating a place of living of more than 2 million people and declaring it openly. Let's transition, Professor Sachs, if I could.

Since you and I spoke last, there was an attempted assassination of President Vladimir Putin by the use of Ukrainian-launched drones. They were aware that he was in a helicopter. They were aware of the whereabouts of the helicopter. Is it more likely than not that the Ukrainians had benefit of CIA, MI6 and Mossad intelligence in order to do that? And if the answer to that is yes, this is an extremely serious event, which is getting zero coverage in the West. I don't know the answer obviously. No one's telling me. But there are a number of security services that operate in a lawless way. So

who actually is or isn't responsible and what exactly happened I can't say. But I can say responsible and what exactly happened, I can't say, but I can say that MI6, which is the British intelligence, is unremittingly warmongering and egging for escalation. The German intelligence services similarly are reckless in their warmongering right now. What is very distressing by the way is that the new German chancellor Mertz, who has come into office rather than coming into office and trying to make contact, and of course he could make contact with the president Putin to see how a new German government

could help to find a path to peace came in zero diplomacy but started talking about missile strikes deep inside of Russia with many people very plausibly interpreting this as strikes on Moscow with the German Taurus missiles. This is escalation that is so shocking in its recklessness, and this is what's happening day by day right now. I think President Trump is trying to stop this, but he himself is surrounded by neocons. Definitely half his team doesn't really aim for peace. Some in the White House do, but many absolutely do not. the government, the government, the government, the government, the

government, the government, the Russia. What a good picture that is, huh? Where have we come 80 years after the end of World War II? And a German Chancellor doesn't have the sense to have a sentence about peace. It's all about military escalation, building missiles for long-range strikes inside Russia and building them in Ukraine. This is the path that we're on. It's a disgrace. And President Trump should stand up and be clear that he is absolutely against this recklessness in Europe and against this recklessness wherever it's coming from

because it could get us all killed. A few months ago, you were of the view that Donald Trump truly wanted peace in the Middle East and in Ukraine. Do you still embrace that view, Professor Sachs, after what has happened in the first five months of his administration, the steady drumbeat of financial assistance to the Israelis and to the Ukrainians? There are three places of conflict, Ukraine, Iran and the U.S. and Israel-Palestine.

When it comes to Ukraine, I am still of the view that President Trump is trying to find a way out of this. But honestly, he has to be so much clearer, better briefed, and putting firmly the position of peace, not wavering every other day, which is what he's been doing. If he wants this to happen, he has to understand he is working against the swamp. He's working against the deep state. He's working against the security, the intelligence agencies across

Europe. But he has the authority to stop this. He actually does. Because if the U.S. is clear, if the president faces down the warmongers in the Senate like Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal, disgraceful their approach, Trump has the constitutional authority to keep us out of this war. So that's one place. And I think he's trying, but he's surrounded by the neocons and he's got to understand what's happening. He's hearing half the story. He's being manipulated. And his job is to get this clear. When it comes to Iran, so far, he is resisting the Zionist lobby.

He's resisting Netanyahu. There have been several rounds of negotiations with Iran. And I give Trump a lot of credit for this because the first time around around in the first term, he ditched the treaty that could have stopped the Iranian nuclear program. He ditched it under the Zionist lobby pressure. This time, he's resisting that. When it comes to what's happening in Israel and Palestine, this is a failure so far.

He's got to stand up and tell Netanyahu that the Israeli government, a rogue, reckless, murderous, genocidal regime has to stop because the whole world is against what Israel is doing. It must stop the mass murder. That's the job of the president of the United States. What happens when he tells Bibi to stop, not to bomb, not to attack,

and Netanyahu does it anyway? He can't do it for long because we provide the munitions, we provide the armaments, we provide the financing. The United States is the backer of this war. The United States is completely complicit in what is happening in Gaza, no matter how many tears Tony Blinken shed, no matter how much hand-wringing we've heard from the U.S., no matter how many times we've heard that somebody's unhappy with Netanyahu, the United States is completely complicit in what's happening day by day. If the president of the United States says stop, no more military support,

no more financial support, this must stop. It will stop. Maybe not in the first day, maybe not in the first week, but give given a few weeks, Israel cannot do this without the United States. Is Donald Trump genocide Donald? Is the war in Ukraine now Trump's war, Professor Sachs? Not yet. He still has the chance to extricate himself from this. He has already made several statements which are the key to ending this war, that he understands that NATO will not enlarge.

He understands that Crimea, where the Russian naval fleet has been since 1783, and which the US tried to kick out the Russian naval fleet in the coup in 2014. He understands that staying with Russia. Those are the bases for peace, but he's got to be resolute. His own team contradicts him hour by hour. Kellogg, for example, President Trump says one thing, Kellogg immediately

says the opposite. You can't go on like that. That's not how to make peace. President Trump has to follow through on what he wants to do. Does he want peace in Gaza? Well, that's tougher because for more than 30 years, really almost for 80 years since Israel itself was, its creation was backed by Truman, the United States has almost never contradicted Israel because of the power of the Christian evangelical and the Jewish Zionist lobby in the United States. Even when Israel is so vulgarly against the Jewish values, that doesn't change. That, Trump needs to understand, that Netanyahu has been 30 years of disaster for the United States. 30 years of unremitting disaster for the United States. Not to mention for the Palestinian people, not to mention for the Lebanese, not to mention

for the Syrians, not to mention for the Iraqis, not to mention for the Libyans, but for the United States, Netanyahu has been an unremitting disaster. Professor Sachs, thank you very much. I know you've had a long day, and you began at 10,000 miles from here. I'm glad you're home and glad you're well. And thank you very much for joining us. I hope we can see you again next week.

Looking forward to it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. A long and fruitful day. Thank you for watching. Tomorrow, Friday, the end of the week, the end of the day, the end of the month. At four o'clock, the Intelligence Community Roundtable with Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Justin Napolitano for Judging Freedom. MUSIC