Judging Freedom - Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : US Still Woefully Ignorant of Russia.

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : US Still Woefully Ignorant of Russia.See 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, November 24th, 2025, Thanksgiving week here in the U.S. Professor Jeffrey Sachs will be with us in just a moment. Why is the United States still so woefully ignorant of Russia? But first this. History tells us every market eventually falls. Currencies collapse.

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Welcome back to the United States of America. It's so good to see you with your familiar home environment behind you. Do we know the origins of this 28-point plan? Who wrote it? Who proposed it? That it come from the United States government, where the Russians consulted? Do we know any of that? Well, we certainly know that it was prepared by the U.S., but there have been discussions between Steve Witkoff, the president's envoy on this issue, and his counterpart and counterparts in the Russian government. So we have a pretty good idea of the genesis of this specific 28-point plan. But the basic idea of this plan has been on the table

for a number of years, but it hasn't been agreed by the United States beforehand. In other words, the framework for reaching peace in Ukraine has been clear for a long time. There actually was a peace agreement nearly signed between Russia and Ukraine in April 2022. And the United States rushed in. This is during the Biden administration and told the Ukrainians don't sign, keep fighting. What that agreement in April 2022 said was basically that Ukraine would be neutral and that NATO would not enlarge to Ukraine. And that was the main issue of this war all along. And that in that context, there could be some territorial changes, maybe de facto, in other words, an agreement that fighting would stop, even if one side or the other

didn't accept exactly the territories whose possession would be recognized by the cease of the fighting. In other words, the basic framework for making peace is that Ukraine should be neutral, that it should not be a NATO country. And in that context, after 10 years of war, this has been going on basically since 2014, territories have changed and the fighting would stop, and the change of territory would be recognized in a de facto manner. Now, again, the 28-point plan that we've read about in the press states these points pretty straightforwardly, and therefore, there are a basis for this war to end. All the war mongers in the United States and in Europe are jumping up and down,

saying no, Ukraine should keep fighting, keep losing. people keep suffering territorial losses. And so this warmongering that has been preventing a peace agreement for many years just puts Ukraine in a worse and worse situation. But we haven't had a resolution of the war because we have a lot of warmongers around. Is this dead on arrival because of the dilemma articulated by President Zelensky, where he must choose between his own perception of dignity, and I suppose he's not using this phrase, but I'll say it going down with the ship

and on one hand, or losing his principal benefactor, Donald Trump and the United States on the other. I hope the United States would have the consistency to say that these are the terms that are in America's interest. they are in the interest of Ukraine, they are in the collective security interest of all of the parties, in fact, and that if Zelensky, who is basically a dictator, he rules by martial law, he does not have the backing of the Ukrainian people in any sense who want this war to end.

But if the Ukrainian political leadership says they're going to keep on fighting, I hope at least the United States says you're on your own. That's it. No more weapons, no more funding, no more support, you're on your own. Because if Ukraine rejects a piece that is in their interest at a time when they are losing on the battlefield, what's the United States to do? It should not force them to accept, but it should say you're on your own. And that, if Trump has any consistency, it does not be the case of him, but if he does have any

consistency, that would be the right thing to do, the right thing to do from the point of view of America's interest, actually the right thing to do from the point of view of Ukraine's real interest. The agreement to which you referred also famously disrupted by then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and then President Joe Biden provided for a Ukrainian military of about 50,000 troops. This provides for one of 600,000. Why would the Russians agree to that? Well, I think the main point is if the United States is very clear that it's not going to support a continued war, Russia doesn't really fear Ukraine.

Russia doesn't want the United States on its border. I don't know exactly what line the Russians would or would not agree to, but the basic cause of this war is that back in the 1990s, actually the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union ended and Russia and Ukraine and the other parts of the Soviet Union became independent states. The United States, under Clinton, already decided that the U.S. military alliance would expand eastward to Russia's border. These are decisions that go back 30 years. The Russians said that would be a grave national security threat to us and have said that for,

more than 30 years. The United States ignored that all through this period. Eventually, a war broke out 11 years ago in 2014 over this issue. Until today, the official position of the NATO alliance is that NATO will expand to Ukraine. Trump has said privately, and is in this document that NATO won't expand to Ukraine. That's how the war could end. But the Europeans are still jumping up and down saying NATO will expand when NATO wants to. And hardliners in the United States say the same thing. And so the basic cause of this war, which goes back 30 years, remains on the table till today.

Donald Trump has not proven to be a strong and consequent leader. So he wavers whenever he has objections, even within his own government. Marco Rubio is clearly a much greater hardliner on this issue. Trump doesn't like that kind of opposition, and he's easily pushed over. Whether he will be again is, I guess, a basic question that we're. we're facing. So if the United States feels its national security is threatened by a speedboat, 1,500 miles from our shore, it will just blow the speedboat out of the water with no legal justification, no international or domestic authority, and no public evidence revealed.

Why doesn't it understand the threats that Russia feels? when Ukraine is aiming American and British long-range missiles at Moscow? Look, the whole point of being the American Empire is to not be consistent, but to do what America wants. That's the whole principle of the NATO enlargement from the start. The idea is we're the world's sole superpower. We go where we want, we go when we want. We go how we want.

We don't have to explain. We don't have to be consistent. There's no golden rule for the American Empire. We have had the Monroe Doctrine for more than two centuries. Don't come close to us from the outside. No European power should encroach in our hemisphere. But we have always reserved the right to go bother anyone anywhere in the world that we want to. So consistency has never been the point, but that gets us into endless wars.

We're not as all-powerful as these Washington politicians or the CIA or others like to think. We now have been dragged into this awful war by this warmongering approach of the United States that says we do what we want. We don't have to listen to anyone else's interest. And it doesn't work. It doesn't serve the American interest. That's supposedly what Donald Trump said when he said that he's going to follow the U.S. interest. Well, the U.S. interest has nothing to do with NATO expanding to Russia's borders and thereby embroiling the United States in an absolutely disastrous and futile.

war that is of such importance for Russia that it's going to prevail in the end. And that's what the 28-point peace plan says. Let's stop this war. NATO won't enlarge. And that's what has the warmongers jumping up and down. They don't want to acknowledge the basic fact that we are not all powerful and that we can't do to others what we would not have them do to us. This is the essence of this war, and it has been the essence of this war for the 11 years of this war. Here's President Zelensky, I shouldn't even call him president. Here's Vladimir Zelensky, my apologies, yesterday talking about, he's rather somber talking about his current dilemma, Chris number three.

this is one of the most difficult moments in our history the pressure on ukraine is now at its most intense ukraine may now face a very difficult choice either the loss of dignity or the risk of losing a key partner or 28 difficult points or an extremely harsh winter the most difficult and further risk are life without freedom without dignity without justice and believing someone who has already attacked us twice. Sounds like if he could do what he wanted, he would reject the 28 points and keep talking and his countrymen continuing to be slaughtered. Yeah, it's so unimpressive to listen to this blather. He's worried about dignity or losing the

partner, the United States. What about? the estimated 2 million Ukrainians who have died or been gravely wounded in this absolutely disastrous and futile and unnecessary war. I find Zelensky absolutely terrible and have found him such for years. Delusional or for whatever reason, not counting the terrible, unbelievable costs to his own countrymen, not representing them. And till this day, I find the decisions absolutely awful. He is ruling by decree. He is ruling over a ruling over and part of a massive, massive corruption scandal. So there's a There's a lot of money being made on this war by Zelensky and his henchmen.

There's nothing admirable about this agony that he's expressing. If he were a serious and consequent and honest leader, the war would end. Here's somebody else that I'm sure you will profoundly disagree with, as with any rational person, she's really in another world. This is Ursula Levonder Lyon. Oh God. I'm sorry. I don't have to even watch. Europe is so terribly misled. She's a disaster.

But let's see what she says. However you feel about her now, you will feel even more strongly 90 seconds from now. I bet it won't change my view, but let's watch. Chris, number seven. Any credible and sustainable peace plan should first and foremost, stop the killing and end the war while not sowing the seeds for a future conflict. We have agreed on the main elements necessary for a just and lasting peace and Ukraine sovereignty. And let me highlight three of them. First, borders cannot be changed by force.

Second, as a sovereign nation, there cannot be limitations on Ukraine's armed forces that would leave the country vulnerable to future attack and thereby also undermining European security. Third, the centrality of the European Union and securing peace for Ukraine must be fully reflected. Ukraine must have the freedom and sovereign right to choose its own destiny. They have chosen a European destiny.

It starts with the country's reconstruction, its integration into our single market, and our defense industrial base, and ultimately joining our union. We will continue our work together with Ukraine, our member states, the Coalition of the Willing and the United States, to make real progress towards peace. What is important is that we move forward as partners on a single track. She's in another world, Professor Sachs.

Professor Sacks. Well, there's so much wrong with every sentence that she uttered. Borders are inviolable until Europe and the United States decide they're not inviolable. Back in the end of the 1990s, the U.S. and Europe bombed Serbia for 78 days to break that country and two, and the breakaway part, Kosovo, that is a border change of this supposedly inviolable borders of Europe, that country, or that the breakaway part was then recognized as a nation by the European countries, and NATO put its largest military base in southeastern Europe. in that breakaway place. And so these statements are vacuous. Borders can't change except when we

want to change them. Van der Leyen has not engaged in any diplomacy. The European Union has not engaged in any diplomacy with Russia whatsoever. They've had no direct talks. They don't believe in diplomacy. There is a slight nuance that should be noted, though, when she talked about Ukraine gets the right to choose. Nobody, including Russia or the U.S. in this 28-point plan or anybody else has denied Ukraine's right to become part of the European Union. In fact, this is an issue about military alliances. And this is an issue about NATO. That is the U.S.-led alliance in Ukraine. So Vanderlayan didn't quite say that NATO would be part of Ukraine. There's no clarity in her words. It's empty rhetoric.

But, yeah, I mean, in any event, she has engaged in no real diplomacy and has been a terrible leader for Europe. Maybe that's why Secretary of State, or at least nominal Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, says he knows nothing about her proposals, Chris. I'm not a war counterplan. I haven't seen any counterplan. All right, guys, thank you. Thank you. Oh, my God. It's just such incredible amateur hour. Who is the Secretary of State? Is it Marco Rubio? Is it Steve Whitkoff or is it Jared Kushner?

Nothing sticks for 24 hours in this administration. President Trump is, for all of the boasting and all the rest, is a very weak leader. leader. He's a very weak person because his views change by the hour, by the day, depending on who talks to him, who pressures him. We don't hear any explanations from the president. There are no speeches to the American people explaining these momentous events. There's no serious discussion and debate. So the answer is that it varies. by the hour and by the day, who's describing U.S. policy and true social posts are not exactly foreign policy. And this is why the wars continue everywhere, because nothing quite makes sense. It's amateur hour.

Switching gears to Israel before we finish me, before we finish. for the day, Israel attacked Lebanon today and apparently killed some Hezbollah leadership. What will it take to restrain the Israelis? Again, Israel does what it does because of a blank check, financial and military and diplomatic from the United States. States. So it would take the United States saying, no, there's really going to be peace. Just as in Ukraine, there's one core issue, which is Ukraine's neutrality. In the case of Israel, there's one core issue. And that is a state for the Palestinian people. The United States and Israel have rejected that. So war is endless until there's honest. about the core issue. There won't be peace. And the reason there's no honesty is that the United States basically is complicit with Israel in perpetual war aimed at blocking a state of Palestine. It's not complicated because these wars continue for decades, in fact, in the case of

Israel for obvious reasons. And Israel is engaged in war all over the Middle East for one reason and one reason only. And that is that Israel blocks the chance for peace by rejecting a state of Palestine. And we heard that again explicitly in recent days by Netanyahu and by all of his war criminal cronies and nothing from the United States except to support Israel. So as long as this continues, there will be perpetual war. Israel will be killing people in Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, in Iraq, actually in Africa as well, in Sudan or in Libya or in Somalia. the war is all over the region, and it's Israel-caused wars all in the service of one point

to prevent there being a state of Palestine alongside a state of Israel. And the United States supports this, and because of that, the wars continue. So we basically handed out our military apparatus. Well, you know, we spend a trillion dollars a year on this, and it's used for perpetual war. This is what's happened to the American people. We have no say in it. This is not what the American people want. This is not what America First is all about at all.

So that's why also Trump's own basis saying this isn't what we signed up for, not at all. I'm going to stick with Israel, but I first want to a review. the results of a poll that we've been taking today of the people that write into us during the show. So the president said to President, President Trump said to Vladimir Zelensky, you better accept this by Thanksgiving. So the question is, will the so-called 28-point peace plan happen before Thanksgiving? No, 86%. Yes, 4%. Maybe 10%.000. Maybe 10%. Your viewers are very well-informed. Let's put it that way.

Extremely well-informed. But here's the articulation of monstrous opinions by a British journalist who supports everything Prime Minister Netanyahu does. I don't know if you know her. I never heard of her. Her name is Melanie Phillips. But this is over the top. Chris Cut number eight.

The world has been made to believe. that peace and justice in the Middle East hinge on the Palestinians getting a state of their own. Justice for the Palestinians has been deemed to be the issue that drives all before it by apparently denying that happy outcome. The state of Israel has come to be perceived as the enemy of humanity itself. This is the big lie that we are all up against. But the Jewish world has never identified this big lie as such, and has never fought it.

It has never told the world the truth. There is no such thing as Palestine. There is no such thing as the Palestinian people. The Jewish world has never told the rest of the world that the indigenous people of the land of so-called Palestine are the Jews, that the Jews are the only people who have any entitlement to any of this land, an entitlement based in law, in history and morality, and they are the only people who have an

entitlement to all of it. The Jewish world has never said that. Completely vulgar, absolutely disgusting, and the presumption that she's speaking about the so-called Jewish world is absurd. She is speaking about the Zionist ideology of Netanyan. who Smokritch and Ben-Gavir, who indeed are violent and murderous. That's why Israel is in the dock for genocide, why tens, maybe hundreds of thousands when the count is over, are dead in Gaza at Israel's hands because, yes, they completely deny the existence of other human beings in their midst. But this woman is a vulgarity, and she is completely mistaken to claim that she's somehow speaking for, quote, Jewish people or the Jewish world.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Many, many Jewish people, myself included, find what she said there, completely repulsive and false. That's all. Of course, there are Palestinians, and they are suffering a genocide right now at Israel's hands. That is an ideology that is not about Judaism. It is an ideology of an extreme Zionism, which is a kind of nationalism that denies the humanity of a whole group of people. and aims to kill them or exterminate them or ethnically cleanse them. And that's why she's correct that the vast majority of humanity and the vast majority of the American people are absolutely aghast

at what the state of Israel is doing right now, aghast at it. It's not about Judaism at all. Alster Crook told us this morning that he expects that Netanyahu will convene his own investigation of what happened on October 7th so that he can control the investigators and control the outcome, that it will not be an independent, nonpartisan, intellectually honest investigation. It'll be a whitewash. Well, look, nothing is honest by our governments. Nothing is honest about the United States are reviewing its own behavior. Nothing is honest about what the Israeli government is going to do. These are war machines. Honesty and truth that don't enter into war machines.

We are in the United States run by the military, industrial, digital complex. They make a lot of money on these wars. They want the wars to continue. The president is either too ignorant or too weak, too inconsistent to stand up to this war machine, too dependent on it, to blackmail by it. Nobody knows exactly why with each individual they succumb to this. But the United States is in the hands of a war machine. Israel is a war and murder machine.

It's mainly murdering, of course, the Palestinian people. So waiting for Israel to investigate October 7, we can already understand there will be no publicly honest evaluation at all. But what will not be expunged is the fact of a genocide, the fact that Gaza was destroyed and tens or hundreds of thousands of people killed. and died in the process. Again, I give a vague number because it's going to require serious epidemiology, which will be done to understand who died of what causes lack of food, lack of emergency health care being buried under the rubble and not having the bodies yet counted. But the deaths are just absolutely shocking. And one of the the most terrific crimes of modern times.

Professor Sachs, no matter what we talk about, it is always enlightening to hear your analysis, your intellectual honesty, and your personal courage. A happy Thanksgiving. To you, too. Thank you to you and your family, and we'll look forward to seeing you again soon from New York next week. Excellent. Thank you so much.

Thank you. All the best. Tomorrow, a full day for you. By the way, we have a really full day. for you coming up on Wednesday since we have the Thanksgiving holiday coming. I'll tell you about Wednesday tomorrow. But tomorrow, Ambassador Chaz Freeman at 8 in the morning, Pepe Escobar at 11 in the morning,

Aaron Mate at 1, Matt Ho at 2, and on why Netanyahu keeps denying that he was involved in the murder of Charlie Kirk and so few people believe the denials with Colonel Kutkowski tomorrow, Karen Kutkowski, at 3. Judge Napolitano for judging for you. Thank you. Thank you.