Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern : Can Rubio Be Trusted?

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Ray McGovern : Can Rubio Be Trusted?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, December 1st, 2025. Ray McGovern will be with us in just a moment. Can Marco Rubio be trusted? By whom? But first this. History tells us every market eventually falls.

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Yes, Judge. And actually, Putin said that just three days ago in that extensive interview he gave, which was quite an amazing interview. But among the other things he threw in was that there were two camps here in Washington. One is he didn't say this, but the Rubio camp or the people who are really hawkish and the people are realists that want to deal with us. So he even spelled it out in two very meaningful paragraphs, that is, Putin himself did. His close colleague and spokesperson, Mr. Peskov, made some very interesting comments about the release of the 28-point memorandum, which we now think was apparently released by General Kellogg, for which the general was either fired, removed, or persuaded to retire. I'm not sure how it works. But anyway, here is Dimitri Peskov on those leaks.

Now, this is, this was stated by him yesterday, Sunday. Chris cut number four. Even members of the Republican Party in the U.S. have begun demanding Witkoff dismissal after transcripts of his telephone conversations were leaked online. Why do you think this was done? First of all, there is nothing to be afraid of. The voices now calling for Whitkoff's dismissal are primarily trying to disrupt the

modest progress being made toward resolving the situation through peaceful negotiations. Of course, there will be people who stop at nothing to disrupt this process. But if you look at it, read about it and abstract yourself from whether it is true or not, there is nothing to be afraid of. President Trump has also indirectly spoken out in defense of Whitkoff. This is typical negotiator behavior, so I wouldn't overstate the destructive significance of these leaks. Oh, I was wrong. This is not about the leak of the so-called 28-point working paper. This is about a leak of a

conversation that Whitkoff had either with Peskov or with Putin himself, but with somebody in Russia telling them how to deal with Trump. Peskov seems to say, big deal, these things happened during negotiations? Well, yeah, it was back on the 14th of October, an intercepted conversation was published between Witkoff and Ushakoff, Putin's right-hand person for these negotiations. And then on the 29th, and this was all published in Bloomberg, actually leaked by someone with direct access to intercepting these conversations. between Whitkoff, and in this case, Dimitriov on the 29th, it didn't add enough lot to what we know.

Here is Whitkoff just suggesting to Ushakoff in the first instance. Look, this might be a way, this might be a good tact. You might want to congratulate the president on his achievement in Gaza. Yeah, we will start that way and that will get you off the good. It was not very, very interesting. The second one, I have not been able to get the transcript of. But I think it's more interesting, you know. It indicates that they really want to make sure that everyone knew this was an American initiative.

Yeah. Let me prevail on one of your many fields of expertise. I'm fascinated with your use of the word intercepting. Would CIA have had access to that conversation? Would FSB, the Russian intelligence service, have had. had access to that conversation in real time as it was taking place. Yeah, actually NSA is the agency that does this. They would share it with CIA, but NSA does the, and of course the Russians had it too.

The Russians are not going to publish this kind of thing. And so the Russians look at this. Now, who the hell leaked that to Bloomberg to blacken the conversations we have with Wythoff, who is going to be here tomorrow? So it's very clear what's going on. Rubio, Rubio is ticked off. One might say pissed off in the vernacular. I mean, he says to the president, now President Trump, I'm the Secretary of State.

I probably should go to that NATO ministerial on the 3rd of December. Like, that's what Wednesday? No, you can't go. Can't go. American secretaries of state always done in these things since 1949. Don't go. Why? I'll tell you later.

does, you know, what's the Europeans? And then pathetically, Rubio says to the president, I really like to go to Moscow with Whitkoff. I mean, I am remember I'm a secretary's day? And Trump says, no,

Whitkoff's going. And who else has been in these negotiations? Oh, a fellow named Jared Kushner, who happens to be my son-in-law. Now, why is he there? The Russians had this old, not tradition, but

all, whole practice. They always had a political guy from the party in these conversations so he could monitor to what was going on and tell the big boss what was really going on. That's Jerry Christian's role. If Rubio's

set a place in Florida as he tried to, just over the weekend, I asked Jared to say, hey, hey, dad, Rubio's misbehaving again. So bottom line is Rubio has been pushed off to the side in favor of Whitkoff. You see Peskov singing the praises of Whitkoff.

They're ruling a deal. And the other thing, of course, is Kellogg has been pushed off to the side in favor of this guy, Dan Driscoll, good friend of J.G. Vance, who read the Ukrainians, the Riot Act, exactly a week ago and said, look, don't you realize you've lost? We've got to make a deal. Be aware. We're going to do it.

the dais cast. What happens tomorrow? It's going to be very interesting. I've laid out my surmises in that consortium news.com piece over the weekend, well, actually on Thanksgiving. So we'll see. We'll wait and see what happens, as Trump likes to say. But the dais cast, Rubio and Kellogg have been marginalized. The Europeans, two, have been marginalized. Then Rubio's not even going to the NATO ministerial for the first time ever. And so, you know, if you look at the tea leaves, I have more hope than I did even just a week ago that something positive might eventuate from when Whitkoff and Jared talk to Putin. It's supposed to be tomorrow afternoon.

Here's a clip. This is yesterday from the Ukrainian National Security Secretary Rustim, R-U-S-T-E-M, Umarov, you pronounce these. Umarov better than anybody on the planet, my friend. So forgive me for, for butchering the pronunciation. But listen to who he refers to as the secretary of state. That was a slip. And so this is comprehensive what we're working on here today.

It's not just about the terms that ends fighting. It's about also the terms that set up Ukraine for long-term prosperity. We continue to be realistic about how difficult this is, but optimistic, particularly given the fact that as we've made progress, I think there is a shared vision here that this is not just about ending the war, which is very important. It is about securing Ukraine's future, a future that we hope will be more prosperous than it's ever been. We are grateful to American people, American leadership, and a great team with State Secretary Steve Whitko, Jared Kushner, for their tremendous work with us. Our objective is prosperous, strong Ukraine. You know, the understanding in the political class is that Rubio and Trump really can't stand each other.

But this is a death by a thousand insults and humiliations. Here you have this guy saying to Rubio's face that the Secretary of State is Steve Whitkoff. Who is the Secretary of State of the United States, Ray McGovern? Judge, I noticed that when I saw it earlier, it's, I mean, we can make fun of it. But in actuality, Umerov is not really that good in English. He doesn't realize that the title is Secretary of State. So, and he forgot to put in a comma. What he meant to say was with Secretary of State, comma.

Comma, Whitcroft, comma, the president's son-in-law, and whoever else he wants to. We have to sort of punt on that one. That was just a tragic mistake by somebody who doesn't know. Do you think that Trump understands that Rubio was a neocon who in that neocon, Victorian Newland, Lindsay Graham, Tom Cotton, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, enough school of thought, want the war to continue? Of course, yeah. Now, Rubio is sort of slipped.

I think he wants to hang on there. I think he wants to be president eventually. So he's always weighing the pluses and the minuses. And of course, he feels very close to what used to be Trump's base. So it's a political thing with Rubio. But he also has this sort of instinctual hatred for communists, like the Cubans and the Venezuelans and the Russians. And so it's hard to know what's driving him here.

but he clearly is the fly in the ointment. And if anything were clearer, I don't know what it could be when Trump says, no, don't go to Moscow. I prefer the Whitcock to the negotiations. And actually, Jarvis is going to be there to let me know what really goes on. And then, of course, Kellogg is in the doghouse with his chair to the wall. And this Dan Driscoll apparently really laid it down with the Ukrainian. And so the Ukrainians have the message, whether Zelensky will be smarter enough to play along here and get the best deal he can, or whether he will continue to let himself be bulldozed by these Europeans that have no leverage, as my British friends put it, as remains to be seen.

Right. But we'll see. We'll see tomorrow what kind of a deal he can get, Ray. I mean, it's going to include the session. of land that he claims he can't give away and no NATO. I mean, that's pretty much it. There were a lot of other things around the edges. But what would happen to him if he signed an agreement? I didn't even know if the Russians would accept his signature saying, okay, Vladimir Putin, you now control all the land that you've acquired militarily. He's dead.

Well, he's dead. until he becomes, he's only dead when he is no longer useful to the U.S. and the U.K., okay? Now, Putin has made it 100% clear that he will not accept the signature by a fellow who pretends to be the president of Ukraine with the election. So that's what just clear. Right. But why would the Russians give up anything? well, that's a really good question. My answer is, number one, I said before, they want to improve relations with the United States. They would much prefer to have kind of an umbrella arrangement,

which were disguised putting lipstick on this pig of defeat for the West, for Ukraine, and for the U.S., and have an agreement that recognizes their core interests. That is their prevailing view, Okay, if they can get something that recognizes the territorial gains, something like that earlier agreement in Istanbul in April of 2022, mind you, if they get something like that, that would be far better than having to go further even, farther even into Western Ukraine or setting up on the Diemper River. They want something that they can say, okay, now we have an internationally claimed agreement. And ideally, they would like to have the Security Council put its endorsement on that.

That's going to take a lot of time. But Putin's in no rush. These are his equities. He's winning each time, each week that goes by, he's winning more. And most important, Trump has acknowledged that, you know, we analysts, we used to have to read everything, even memoirs and stuff. But now we have to watch everything, right? Yeah. Watch Trump and its planes. He's flying off to vacation, right, in Florida, okay? And they say, well, what do you think? He says, well, you know, the Russians are really in command. It all depends on the Russians.

Well, the Russians are winning. You know, it depends. They're going to probably get those lands anyway by military success. So do you want 50,000, 60,000 more people to die? I mean, well, so that's what Trump is saying. Now, interestingly enough, there were little, what are the captions or little things right down the bottom with translation. And when Trump said, it's really up to the Russians, it goes, it's really up to elipses.

So somebody, somebody in YouTube, or somebody said, oh, my God, we can't possibly say it's up to the Russians, what it is. And I listened five times, and that's what Trump said. Here's one of the quintessential neocons in the House of Representatives. This will make your blood boil, although it won't surprise you. Representative Mike Turner yesterday on Face the Nation. One thing that I think everybody understands is that you can't have, you can't be America first and pro-Russia. because, you know, Russia has, is a self-declared adversary of the United States.

It's fielding, you know, new advanced nuclear weapons that are specifically targeting the United States. It's constantly attacking the United States with offensive cyber. It continuously identifies both NATO and the West, the United States, as its adversary. So in this, and, of course, when it identifies Ukraine as its adversary, it does so in identifying the West and the United States. United States as its adversary. You have to understand that the balance of this peace arrangement has to be one where you have to look at Russia as a skeptical adversary. Where does he get this stuff from? I mean, this is neocon garbage. This is, but this is what they believe. Well, Nina, not, you know, Michael Turner is a menace. Well, he said there was false.

he's representing the neocon view. When he talks about Russia is a self-declared enemy of the United States, well, it's the other way around. When he says, anyway, the Russians do not say there were the enemy. They say we can be partners, and we were partners in the biggest war of the last century. People forget that, okay? Now, who's made Russia the main enemy? Turner, Michael, not Nina, they're making this out of whole cloth because they don't want to deal.

Now, the interesting thing is that when you say main enemy, the Russian is Glavny Vrach, okay? When I came into the CIA in 63, the Russians were the Glavny Vrag and vice versa. Guess who is the Russians Glavny Vrach now? Germany. the first time and since the end of the war the Glavny Vrague has lost that top place the U.S. has

to Germany as being Russia's main enemy. Where does that come from? That comes from polling and Russia it comes from very reputable sources they consider Germany the number one threat once again. That is important, okay? The Russians do not consider us any longer

the Glaveni Vrague because they think they may be wrong but they think they can deal with Trump. And all the indications that I see over the last few days is that when Whitkoff and Jared arrive in Moscow, there is going to be some heavy dealing, but something in the way of progress is going to occur, not a final settlement that anyone can sign. But what progress can there be, unless Whitkoff is going to tell President Putin, Zolluzni he's coming in from London. He's going to be nominated by the legislature as the president and he'll

sign an armistice. Well, Judge, typically people try to move ahead five steps. This is a step-by-step process. Right. We'll reintroduce the notion that, look, we can deal with each other if we have the proper people dealing. Now, I imagine that foreign ministers here, Sergei Lavrov will be there, but the chair opposite will be empty. That's bizarre, but it's very meaningful. So what I see coming out of this is some sort of agreement, which will allow Trump to say, oh, we're making real progress. We're going to have some sort of understandings, no, Ukraine, in NATO, by Christmas time.

And, oh, that'll be great for everybody. And by the way, you know, I still want that Nobel Peace Prize and nominations close on the 31st of January. Just so you're aware. Now, do I consider that the main impetus? No. The main impetus is that Russia has won definitively on the ground. Do I consider it a factor? Trump is a narcissist.

He's made real clear that he wants the Nobel Peace Prize. If Maria Carina Moschalo could win the Bill Peace Prize with the pressure for. from the United States. So can Trump, I think it's a real factor, a secondary one to be sure, but why the rush right now? Why the rush? I think that's part of it.

Yeah, excellent observations, my dear friend. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Thanks for the depth of your expertise on all of these matters. We'll look forward to seeing at the end of the week with Larry Johnson for the Intelligence Community Roundtable. Thank you, Ray.

Most welcome, Judge. All the best. Thank you, and Larry Johnson will be here with us at 11.30 this morning and at four of this afternoon, Scott Ritter. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.