Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern: My Week in Moscow.

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

Ray McGovern: My Week in Moscow.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Thank you for all you did to accommodate us when you were in Moscow. Those shows were highly regarded and viewed by the usual numbers. You just spent about 10 days in Russia, you lectured to youth groups, you hobnobbed with elites. Were you able to grasp any feeling on the part of Russians towards the United States under Donald Trump? Well, yes. And thanks for having me on, Judge. We had quite a number of conversations, mostly with senior people, some very senior people. The attitude is one of confidence, one of puzzlement. Why does Trump say one thing one time and one thing the next?

Why does Trump still support Netanyahu in his genocide? But the reception was very favorable. It helps to be with Oliver Stone, who is a real star among the Soviet citizenry, Russian citizenry, I should say, as well as the officials. So we were given entry to very high officials. We went down to Sochi for three days. Sochi being perhaps the most well-protected part of Russia, even more well-protected by Moscow since it's self-contained. I got the idea down there that if Trump were to be invited, just as a sort of a friendly gesture from Putin to Sochi, Trump would see an incredibly modern city of the kind that's best in China or Japan, one that

was prepared well for the Winter Olympics back in 2014, just as we mounted the coup in Kiev. So it was a really good, a lot of high-level officials down there. I got to shake hands with lots of folks that one up here in the United States would not have a chance to shake with in their entire life. So that was good. I asked about the conditions in the countryside. You ask real people about that, not only interpreters and people who were accompanying us, but, and they said that, yeah, I think sometimes it's

it's an existence, but they don't need a lot of money. They don't need a lot, but they have what they they have. So it looks like the idea that Biden and his retinue had about Russia falling apart was just about 180 degrees away from the situation now. I think it was Biden's mentor, President Obama, who referred to Russia as a gas station with an army or some such denigrating and absurd comment. Your observations about hustle, bustle, economic activity, cultural activity, physical and architectural beauty mesh precisely with mine and with our friend and colleague Larry Johnson's from the week that Larry and I spent there two months ago. What do you sense of the prospects for the opening of commercial and cultural

relations between Russia and the United States? Is there an optimistic attitude about that, that Donald Trump will come through with the grand reset? Well, Trump is really interested in this kind of thing. They know he is. And so you see that this fellow Kirilov was their investment and their economic advisor guru. He's had these conversations with Witkoff.

He's had the conversations with just about everyone representing the United States. This is big. Actually, Kirillov came to the United States, spent a couple of days here, and waxed eloquent about the prospects for economic cooperation. Now, a lot of that is rhetoric. There isn't too much room for a real close economic cooperation. It's a sign of the times. And, you know, when Puchin made that speech at Red Square, you know, it's hard not to describe it as gracious. He talked about the opening of the second front of the West as being, you know, just

a real help to the eventual win, even though Russian forces or Soviet forces had already had decisive battles. And he said he welcomes, he extends an invitation for the West to finally come around and realize that we can do things together. Meanwhile, of course, you have these coalition of the willing types, heads of France, Britain, Germany, and Poland now, a friend of mine calls them the coalition of the brain dead. That's better than willing.

You know, here they are coming up with this really big demand. And what Putin does is carry that. At 2 o'clock in the morning, he tells the media, or how's the media called? Hey, since you're still here, since we don't fly out until this morning, come on to this press conference. And then of course he makes this overture saying, okay, we've never been against talks. Let the Ukrainians meet us in Istanbul on Thursday.

How would that be? Thursday. So the ball is in their court. I haven't kept up on what Zolinski has done in the way of response initially It was cool, but imagine he'll come around actually. Yeah, we'll see if anything happens in Istanbul Just as an aside I was detained twice at the Russian Airport. You of course were traveling with VIPs Were you detained at all beyond the normal? customs stamping of your passport and basic questions

And no judge my concern was getting back in When I when I arrived at JFK I Said yeah, I should have taken this precaution. Remind me please, this lawyer I have helped me a lot in Washington, remind me please what I have to say and what I don't have to say if they start looking at my... And by the time I got my bags, I was through passport control and into the other stuff. And so I called it back and said, no, don't worry about it. Looks like looks like I'm okay. So that was my concern. That's odd, isn't it? I mean, when you think about how times have changed. It is. It is. I was having these Russian hotels, they always VIP floor, they always have a, what the Soviets

used to call it, de journa. Usually it was an old babushka, but she was alert as hell. And if you left your room, she knew exactly who to tell. This time, and earlier when I came with my colleagues to give Ed Snowden an award, the de journa I was concerned about was somebody from the U.S. Embassy who wanted to find out where Ed Snowden was, you know. So things changed. By the way, I had wonderful dinner with Ed, and he's thriving. He has two sons, four and five. He's got a newly-swn wife. His wife, it's a love story. His wife came and joined, his lover came and joined him.

They're married and they're living quietly, but they're having a really good existence. He'd like to come back, of course, in hopes for a pardon, but it was a wonderful dinner and a real good chance to renew acquaintances. Oh, good. He's a great human being and a bona fide American hero, I think, at some point of historic proportions.

Do the Russian people, by and large, still support the special military operation, can you tell? Or are they losing patience with its duration? Well, just another word about Ed. He does wanna come back. Trying to put the things in motion so that he'd be ported. But he's very active in staying up with things.

And he gave us a briefing on AI that even I could understand, complicated as it was. And with Oliver there, there was a comradeship. Of course, Oliver made a movie, Snowden, so they knew him well. So it was just a very warm thing. And now in answer to this question with respect to

what was it, Judge, I get the little... I was asking you if you were able to gauge the attitude of the Russian people about the special military operation in Ukraine. Do they still support it or are they running out of patience? They want it to be over, but they wanted to be over not at the cost of the blood already spilled by the Russians or the Ukrainians, they just wanted to be over so there's no more war. Now they're not willing to settle for anything less than maximum terms because Russia has won the war. I mean, it doesn't make any sense.

The good thing here, as I pointed out in my big speech, was that both Putin and other Russian leaders seem convinced that this is the real deal, that Trump is sincere, their word, and in Putin's word, Pomoimu in my opinion, we can trust him. Oh, trust, my God, trust. Did we trust them in 2008 when they said, no, don't go into Ukraine or these- Does Putin still enjoy vast popularity and credibility? As far as I can see, yes,

but my experience was anecdotal this time. The polls still show that the people support Putin and his policies. There are indications, including in Putin's speeches themselves, where he says, now some people want us to go faster against the Ukrainian army, but we're going to just do this in a very measured, traditional way. You stood two people away from one of those people who want him to go faster in Red Square. When in the VIP section there you were with Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia, and now I believe the chair or the deputy chair of Russia's National Security Council. Yeah, that was interesting. He's saying to you, hey, Ray,

I want to grow faster. I want this over with, Ray. Well, he does, of course. You know, he's got a personal beef with Obama and Biden and other presidents. Back in Seoul, Korea, there was a summit, I think it was 2011, and he was overheard on an ABC mic, is easier saying to Obama look We're really worried about this so-called ABM system that you guys are putting in East Eastern Europe for God's sake Can you can you talk to us about that? Can you can we can we talk about it and Obama says? Oh, well, yes, sure. Well, give me some space here. I'm running for reelection. After the election, we'll deal.

Well, he was reelected after the election. Forget about real deal. It was more poison. So, you know, here's Medvedev telling Obama at the end, he said, okay, well, I'll tell Vladimir this. That's really good news. And, you know, so he goes back and tells Putin, and Putin is, all right, okay, I'm from Missouri.

Yeah, I doubt that, but we'll see what happens. Obama gets elected, and another betrayal in the eyes of the Russians. Right, right, Alistair Crook was talking this morning about the hatred for Russians going back, going way back, but he was talking about the modern iteration of the hatred for Russians from Scoop Jackson, Senator Henry Jackson, and those folks back in the 50s and 60s and how that is sort of boomeranged against them with something like BRICS.

So Alistair says there's a new common mission, Russian, Chinese, Iranian, which has made them even closer to each other than they were in BRICS. Do you have any understanding or did you get any feel for that? Was the president of Iran there on Red Square on Victory Day? No, I don't think so.

But he was highly represented. I would say that you have to add North Korea to that mix. And you've got a very powerful, with BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Unit and ASEAN, you have a switch of Russian attention and stakes toward the East. And so if you look at this in the perspective of Russian history, this is monumental. After all, it was Peter the Great, 1700, that decided, look, the West is where we're supposed to go. We're Europeans. We're going to beat, we'll get a prado beat.

Let me smash a window to the West, okay? Let's shave off your beards. And all this kind of stuff. The West was the way to orient themselves. And then what happened immediately, the Swedes and the Lithuanians and the Hanseatic League and the Poles all tried to take a slice of Russia. And it took till the 16th century before the Russians consolidated power. So they still wanna be part of Europe. And Putin was careful to say that once again in that wonderful and incredible 2 a.m. press conference where he says, look, the Europeans are going to come around. We just want to make sure

that we're open to developing better relations with them too. But Alstair is right. It's not a multipolar world yet. Right. It's the West European coalition of the willing or the brain dead, as my friend said, and the U.S. against Russia and the rest of the world, which is really something how this tectonic shift has happened mostly because the brain trust around Biden, I make a joke, the geniuses around Biden thought that they could drive a wedge between Russia and China than they did, of course, just the opposite. It's still against one now. That's big. You mentioned Putin rejecting a 30-day ceasefire. Chris, let's run one and two. Here's President Putin on May 10th, which is Saturday, and then here's President Zelensky on May 10th as well.

Despite everything, we propose the key of authorities resume the negotiations they interrupted at the end of 2022, to resume direct negotiations, and I emphasise, without any preconditions. I will be in Turkey this Thursday, May 15th, and I expect Putin to come to Turkey as well, personally. And I hope that this time Putin won't be looking for excuses as to why he can't make it. We are ready to talk to end this war. I think it's probably absurd to expect that they would sit down in the same room, just as absurd that a 30-day ceasefire would be the precondition for serious negotiations as our friend, Foreign Minister Lev Rof, has articulated. Why would we give them 30 days just to regroup and rearm? That would be absurd. Your thoughts?

The 30-day proposal is dead in the water. The tension now is on whether the Ukrainians send a delegation to Istanbul Thursday or soon thereafter. I don't know if they will, but if they do and Zelensky is part of it, well, I don't think the Russians are going to deal with them. Zelensky is prohibited by parliament, by the Rada in Kiev from negotiating with the Russians as long as Putin is in power. Is Putin going to step down temporarily so the Russians can talk to the Ukrainians? Okay, these may be niceties. And if the US and maybe these brain-dead Europeans can lean on Zelensky to the point, and say, look, rescind that law, go, see what you can do with the Russians, because otherwise you're

dead in the water. We're not going to give you any more arms aid. We're not gonna get any more money and good luck with those europeans What is your um view on the uh Shattering the press here in the west saying the west because I know you just got home Uh about this, this dispute between Trump and Netanyahu. It seems like Trump is personally snubbing Netanyahu by visiting the Middle East and not going to Israel, and he's starting that tomorrow. Do you get the feeling that Donald J. Trump, the man and the President of the United States,

is sick and tired of Benjamin Netanyahu? I do. And there's lots of evidence to that. The proof is in the pudding. Are you going to believe Haaretz or are you going to listen to more sober-minded people who are from Missouri, so to speak? You need to show them. You know, I anticipated you might ask me about this, and so I thought about 2001, when Netanyahu was captured unknowingly on film in a household of adulators, and he was beside himself. He said, turn that thing off, turn that camera off, and what he said was, look, the main thing we need to do is hit the Arabs really hard, a total assault. A woman interrupts, wait a minute, at what point will the whole world say, what are you,

occupiers? Nishanyahu, the world will say nothing. The world will say we're defending ourselves. I'm not afraid of the world. Especially now, and this is the point, Judge, especially now with America. I know what America is. America is a thing that can be easily moved,

moved in the right direction. They, Americans, will not bother us. Let's suppose they say something to us, to us, as really they say it. So what? 80% of the American people support us. It's absurd that we have such great support there. Well, that's my point here. It's not 80% anymore. It's nearly 50%. I don't even know if it's 8%. I don't even know if it's 8%. Yeah. So this is the proof in the pudding here.

If Netanyahu was crazy enough to start a war with the expectation that he can mousetrap us into supporting him, I think he's wrong. He may do it anyway, because the alternative would be to go with a kind of release of the prisoners and a real piece ceasefire and End up in jail because then he would lose the support of his right-wing partners in this coalition so jail the bridal suite with his wife or

Take a chance. Maybe we can mousetrap the the Americans in again look 80% will be even if it's 40%, I think he would do that wager. The question is what happens when he hits Iran and we don't respond? Trump will be under a lot of pressure to change this policy and be even tougher on negotiations with Iran, which are going rather decently, I would say at this point. Ray McGovern, thank you, my dear friend. Welcome home. I'm glad you had safe travels.

I'm glad all is well at home. I'm glad you were able to join us today and look forward to seeing you with the youngster Johnson at the end of the week on the Intelligence Community Roundtable. Thank you. There was one other thing I wanted to say about Ed Snowden. I owed him a pizza. The last time I saw him, oh, it must have been 2017 or so, he came to my hotel in Moscow, and he brought a pizza. And that's how we had lunch.

And so this time, I was to be able to reward him with what the British call a proper dinner at the expense of the Oliver Stone and company. So it was a nice thing to be able to pay back. When I was in Moscow, I didn't see any pizza joints. What is the pizza like in Russia? It's not very good. It's much better in Newark or the Bronx or even here in Raleigh. But the idea was that, you know, here Ed scooped up the pizza and treated me to lunch and here I had a chance to repay him in a pretty, pretty imperial way by my standards. That's wonderful. He's a great human being. I would love to be able to interview him.

I am one of his biggest fans. At one point, as you know, I had talked President Trump in his first term into pardoning Snowden, pardoning Snowden and Assange at the time. This was two or three days before it was leaving office. And then our good friends Bill Barr, the then attorney general, and Mike Pompeo talked President Trump out of it. Well, maybe I can talk him into it again. Please give it a try.

Yes. Thank you, Ray. We'll see you Friday. All the best. Thanks. And coming up later today, the aforementioned Larry Johnson at 1130 this morning at three this afternoon, Scott Ritter and and at 4.30 this afternoon from Brazil, Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. You