Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern : Can Zelenskyy Goad Putin to Overact?

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

Ray McGovern : Can Zelenskyy Goad Putin to Overact?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Fragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting

for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Monday, June 29, 2026, Ray McGovern will be with us in just a moment on what's the latest going on in the Kremlin. But first this. You know, every year around the 4th of July, we celebrate independence. But here's the uncomfortable truth. A lot of people have never been more dependent. Dependent on the power staying on, dependent on the grocery store staying stock,

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The freedom of knowing your family will be okay, even if things don't go, according to plan. Go to Preparewiththejudge.com and take advantage of the Independence Day sale. That's Preparewithachogh.com. Brad McGovern, welcome here, my dear friend. Before we get to Zelensky and whether his drones are militarily effective or being launched for domestic political purposes, let's talk about the other hotspot, which is Iran. Is the memorandum of understanding unraveling, in your view?

Yeah, it was always a pretty amorphous thing. It was never going to work. Yeah, it's unraveling piece by piece. And, you know, if one expected that to actually be a guide to the negotiations, well, they were misinformed or misunderstood it. It was just to get the street open. So Trump made all those kinds of concessions. Now the straight is still open only to those that the Iranians approve.

So it's a real mess. And I don't know what Trump's going to do or what Netanyahu is going to do. And neither do the Iranians. This is, of course, a mess of Trump and Netanyahu's own creation. We both have discussed that many times, both with Larry and with the two of us. alone. But this failure of the memorandum of understanding is not something that the Israelis perpetrated. The failure is the agreement itself. Well, the agreement was in many parts, but one must recall that the very first paragraph was only two sentences and that it

mentioned one country three times in those two sentences, and that was Lebanon. Now, it's hard for us Westerners to understand a country that moves on principle, but the Iranians care about Lebanon. They care about the people who are occupied by Israel, and they care about Gaza. They care about all these things which their Gulfi partners do not much care about. So we have to get adjusted to that. Lebanon is key. If the Israelis can't be reined in, well, there's going to be more war. It's as simple as that.

Do you still fear a false flag from the Israelis, Ray? Yeah, I think the chances are better than even. They'll try something. That's what they normally do in such circumstances. Unless Trump says, oh, all right, Prime Minister Netanyahu. Okay, sorry, I'll give you whatever you need. No problem. I need the support and I need support of my donors and so forth.

If that happens, and I'm not sure it will this time, then it's a different situation. Professor Sacks was just on with us, and he basically restated what Trump said to Netanyahu, the whole world hates you and the whole world hates Israel. Has Israel boxed itself into that position? where now it has no countries on the planet that support it, if you take to heart what Trump has said to Netanyahu recently. Yeah, Judge, you asked me a month ago about what I really fear, and this is what I really fear.

The Israelis will not stop in Lebanon or anywhere else, Gaza. The Iranians will retaliate, and bring the state of Israel to its knees, at which point, and this is what scares me, at which point we have a Netanyahu is not above doing genocide or forced starvation or many other heinous things, would he shrink away from using one or two or three or four

of his nuclear weapons? That's what keeps me awake. And that's why I think people have to be really, really careful, including the Iranians not to drive Israel deeper into the box that it got itself in by thinking that the U.S. was going to pull its coals out of the fire and defeat Iran. It didn't work out that way, but Netanyahu is still the fly in the ointment and the perpetrator of what I fear could be the first use of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima Nagasaki.

You mentioned a few minutes ago the other Gulf states not concerned about Lebanon. Here's Jake Sullivan of all people, President Biden's National Security Advisor for four years. Actually questioning some of the Biden decisions,

but here he says the Gulf states are questioning their relationship with the United States. I think He's right, but I'd like your thoughts on it. Chris number four. I think that they are now questioning the basic model upon which they've built their security, which has been essentially a deep partnership, security partnership with the United States, including forward-deployed American bases in their countries.

I think now they're asking themselves, what are we getting for that? And do we need basically a more diversified approach that involves a degree of hedging with other powers, maybe including China, and definitely includes quiet diplomacy with Iran, to try to make sure that they're de-escalating with their neighbor across the strait. I mean, that's really profound, given though it's coming from. Our mutual friend Larry Johnson would say, Captain obvious, Captain obvious. What he's saying is the real sea change having to do with the whole Gulf states there. They've shown themselves to have relied on the wrong power.

They thought the U.S. would be able to protect them. the Iranians threatened, no, you're not going to be immune. We're going to hit you really bad if you attack us. The U.S. and Israel attacked them, and they've suffered the consequence. There are severe damage to all those military bases, especially when in Bahrain, which is pretty much demolished. I was going to say, well, it's been demolished, and it's the head of the fifth U.S. naval fleet. So that's no more available. Here's Jake Shillivan coming in well after the game. Never having thought of this before, the Iranians tricked us by doing what

they threatened to do, namely take after our bases as well as Israel in Lebanon. And my God, we have to look at China now. Well, he should have looked at that when he was working for Biden, in my view. Is the United States military a secretive as the IDF when it comes to censoring damage to itself? I mean, why don't we see pictures of the destroyed naval port and Bahrain on the front of the New York Times of the Washington Post? Well, the same reason you don't see other unsavory things like, oh, what the National Director of Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has said about Fauci lying through his teeth about the origin

of COVID-19. If it's not part of the narrative that they want to promote, it doesn't appear. If it is part of the narrative, as this heinous article in the Washington Post today is about Butcha,

saying that the Russians slaughtered all those people in Butcha, and then there's a little thing saying the Russians deny it. Well, the Russians have asked the UN to come up with the evidence. They've given names. They've given all kinds of stuff.

And the head of the UN has not deigned to answer their questions. And this came up several times at the UN Security Council with the Russian ambassador saying, look, maybe the UN is not even worth its salt if it can't pursue this and investigate it. That's all we want. We want an investigation. In my view, it's very, very clear. It came at the time that Boris Johnson, put the kabash on that Islamic, yeah, the Istanbul Accord,

and they needed something to blacken the Russians. So MI6 came in very secretly and very successfully, given this piece in the Washington Post today, to bend the narrative into the fact that the Russia slur people whenever they get a town in Ukraine. That's not so, but most Americans believe it to be so. How damaging to Russia have been the Ukraine drone attacks of late? Well, you know, within the last eight hours, Judge, a fellow named Vladimir Putin was asked that question by his favorite newspaper person or correspondent, Pavel Zarubin.

Here's the question. What about the damage that the enemy strikes on our energy infrastructure? and industrial facilities. What about them? Putin. They're creating problems. But what's important to remember, and this is a quote, these terrorist attacks have no impact whatsoever on a situation at the front. This is the key point. No matter where these strikes are carried out against our infrastructure, they have absolutely no effect on the situation on the front line along the line of contact. Now, that happens to be true. And for those who are saying, oh, my God, Putin is under great pressure, not only to retaliate against Ukraine, but against

its European neighbors, I think you have cool-hand look here. I think we're lucky to have Putin in power. He's not going to be provoked. One of the spoke, well, Maria Zakhava, with whom you've spoken, Judge, she looked, the whole idea is to escalate, to escalate and get more Ukraine's idea is to get more money, which they will stash into the pockets of these corrupt officials, and they'll claim that they're winning. They're not winning. The situation on the ground is getting very, very powerless for what Ukrainian troops are left. I know you heard me say this before, but within the next few months, for sure, Russia will have advanced through Konstantinovka and the other major cities in its way,

and the Znieper will be quickly open for them. That won't be enough, though. What I hasten to add is they want the U.S. in this mix because negotiations have to have to result in something more than a DMZ or a cardon solitaire. They want a new architecture for security in Europe and Ukraine is the focal point. And they've been lusting after that, December of 2021, just before Putin went into Ukraine. But the U.S. is not an honest broker. the U.S. is actively helping Ukraine with military equipment and with intelligence. Why would the Kremlin believe anything that the two real estate brokers tell them?

Well, I don't know if those two real estate brokers are going to get anywhere near the Kremlin. If they do, I'll be surprised. But, you know, Putin doesn't have to believe this stuff anymore. As a matter of fact, Putin has now said, and his main accolates, have said, look, we trusted Trump, and there is this spirit of anchorage. There were promises made, and we actually made concessions, offered concessions, but the U.S. did not fulfill its part of the deal, which really was to rein in the Ukrainians and the Europeans and say, look, it's over, let's do the best deal we can. They're reneged on that. And so Putin now is saying,

look, there's no need to even put any hope in any renewed negotiations. We're going to win on the battlefield. That will be a victory. Again, that's not enough. That's why they want the U.S. continued to be involved. And we'll see how it all comes out. But next, by this time next year, we'll have a pretty good idea of how the Europeans really look at this, where they don't really have many divisions that could actually fight a lot.

war and the Russians are not going to wait until through a 30 years from now where NATO is rearmed. It's going to come to some sort of head within the next few months. And Putin is misperations. You know, one of the things that he warned, that is the Russian intelligence service warned about, was this notion that Ukrainians had persuaded the Latvians to let them use these a little military basis there in that being to shoot drones

into Russia. And as the SVR said, they persuaded the Latvians that it was completely safe because the Russians could never tell where they came from. So this intelligence reports says, look, be aware

we have the coordinates. We know exactly where these big. We have the coordinates of the decision making centers in Riga. Don't do it. Now, That was a month ago. Have they done it? No, they haven't.

And Putin has made a point of saying, if they do that, that would be a problem. They haven't done that since we've warned them. So there's a degree of judiciousness that Putin shows. And after all, he's winning. So why would he want to take a risk however slight that a NATO country once bombed or missiles or whatever would invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty

and put Trump in a real bind. I don't think that's going to happen. Putin can prevent it from it happening. And I think we should be able to see that a wider war, it may come, but chances are against it, mostly because Putin knows what war is like, and Putin is judicious and his people are won with him. Now, one caveat here, the elections for the Duma are coming up.

I think in September, yeah. Now, that will show how much sentiment there is among policymakers and representatives in the Duma for a stronger approach. Let's see if Putin's party wins hands down as it always does, or whether it doesn't and what that would show us. I think he's got the thing pretty much in control, and no one should finish a little discourse like this without saying that Putin has a big brother.

His name is Xi Jinping. He's not going to let Russia go down. He's certainly not going to let even Iran go down. And so here's the U.S. waging two thoughtless wars, one by proxy and one by led by a proxy. And they're just sitting back and say, okay, this is going to come to a no good end for the Americans.

Let's watch and see. And meanwhile, let us not be provoked. Meanwhile, has there been any satisfactory response, otherwise known as vengeance, for the drone attack that killed 125 college students, mainly female. Yeah, actually, I think there was like 23, 25 budding teachers in that teachers college.

That was in Lugansk. There was retaliation. Two days later, the Russians mounted their biggest strike with drones and ballistic missiles and everything else. And let's face it, The Russians have the upper hand on these drones. Now, Putin says in this most recent thing eight hours ago, that we're working on our air defenses.

They're going to be able to do much better against these drones. He doesn't say this, but Ukraine has no air defenses. So they can fire a bunch of drones. Some of they're going to get through. They're not going to change the outcome of the war. they're just going to get the Russians more ticked off at what's going on. But Putin can handle that. As he showed, you know, he had a bunch of NCOs there on Russia Day.

And they were complaining openly as the camera rolled. These drones are really impeding our advances. And they have Starlink. And we don't have Starlink. And Putin turns to Bel Osov, his defense minister, says, well, what about that? And well, don't tell anybody, but we have our own Starlink coming online in another month or two. Please be patient. It just requires a whole bunch of satellites.

We've got them up now. We're testing them. And look, just kind of be patient. The idea here is that if Putin were ultra-sensitive or defensive about all this, he wouldn't let this thing be live tape by NCOs who finally poured out their guts and said, look, this is happening. That's happening. We can't cope with the Starlink guided drones. What are you going to do for us, Vlad? And Vlad turns to Bel-Usov, and he says, well, now you, your whole career has been in the defense industrial sector. You can fix us, can't you? And he says, yes, we can. It's just going to take a little bit more time. Meanwhile, we'll build up our air defense systems, which again, Putin said just eight hours ago, we can increase that. And if fewer drones, we'll get to. through. The ones that do, well, our industrial facilities can weather the storm. We've got much more and much more depth in our country to handle these things. So again, bottom line, Pucci is not going to be provoked. And there's no sign that I see that anybody important is taking issue with that. The idea of a

palace coup, well, by definition, you and I are not going to see many signs of that, but usually I see just a little sniff for sniff, but I don't think that's coming either. What's behind the persistent impression given by the media in the West that Russia is suddenly losing? You know, is this your ex-buddies at Langley? Well, that's part of it. It's the press. It's what Maria Zacharva said. I quoted her a minute ago. look, the whole idea is to portray a situation where we and the people in the West are winning and to provoke us into overreacting. And meanwhile, they get lots of money from these Europeans,

and those will go right into the pockets of those in charge. And so that's what this whole game is about. So we have Maria, that was just three days ago. And we have Putin saying, look, we're going to build up our air defenses. Yeah, it's doing some damage, but it's negligible, and it will not affect the outcome of the war. And I believe that to be the case. Okay. Thank you, my dear friend.

Much appreciated. Thanks for switching your time today. I'm caught up with the Supreme Court rulings coming down in the mornings. And we'll look forward to seeing you with Larry at the end of the week. Yeah, on Friday. Now, there's a big wedding up there in Madison Square Garden, so I hope we finish up early enough so we can catch that. Larry and I have tickets. Did you get a ticket, Judge? I did not. I don't know what their politics says, but no, I didn't get a ticket. I'll have to ask

Chris if he has one. Are they getting married on Friday in Madison Square Garden with 25,000 guests? Yes, they are, and it's really hard to get a ticket. You have to be on a special list. Larry and I heard both. I didn't make it, but I'll be happy to hear your reports of what you observed. Have a good week. I make a joke. I know. Thank you, Ray.

All the best. He's speaking, of course, of Taylor Swift and her football player, fiancé, whose name is now escaping me. Tomorrow, Tuesday, Ambassador Freeman at 8 in the morning, Professor Mearsheimer at 9, at 1.15, Scott Ritter. At 2 o'clock, Matt Ho, at 3 o'clock, Colonel Karen Koukowski, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.