Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern: Putin Before the World

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

Ray McGovern: Putin Before the WorldSee 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, February 12th, 2024. Ray McGovern joins us for his usual Monday time slot. Ray, thanks very much, my dear friend. Most welcome. Of course, I have a lot that I want to discuss with you, including the continued fallout in the media on Tucker Carlson's what I thought, I think you agree, was a spectacular interview with President Vladimir Putin. The Congress now get inching closer to sending 61 or 68, depending upon whose figures you accept, billion to Ukraine. But to start with the Middle East, over the weekend, the United States killed a militia leader in Iraq after he had ordered his fighters to stand down and not get involved in any

conflagration with Americans in that country, American troops in that country. How dangerous and crazy is it to do something like that for the United States? Judge, our armed forces simply carry out orders from the political civilian authorities, in this case, Blinken, Sullivan, and Nuland. Whether the president is able to chip in on these decisions or not is really not knowable. So they're going to do what they can to stoke the tensions there and hope that they can provoke Iran into doing something that would justify retaliation against Iran. They want to widen this thing. That's why they're going after the Houthis. That's why they're doing the kinds of things that you just mentioned. So let's be realistic here. They're not restraining the Israelis. The Israelis are continuing to do genocide. And the only thing that could attenuate that would have been the relief agency that brings

food, water, medicine to the Palestinians. UNRWA has now been dissed by none other than Tony Blinken saying, you know, we're going to find some sort of substitute for UNRWA. They're not doing their job because sex, sex, mind you, that's what the Israelis tell me, sex. I don't have proof, but that's what the Israelis say. I find it totally credible. Six out of 26,000 UNRWA workers were cooperating with Hamas. That's about as bad as it gets, Judge. Genocide? I can't believe it. The so-called proof which was revealed to the UK channel and to NBC was a six-page summary.

There was no hard and fast actual evidence. It was the IDF summary of what they claimed they found. This is what Secretary Blinken said was, quote, credible, highly credible, closed quote, information. I don't know. Have they persuaded the UN to stop its funding, or is the United States just stopping its own funding of this UN agency? The United States and its followers, so people call them vassals, but that's 90%

of the funding for UNRWA. So UNRWA is defunct. At the end of this month, if they don't get a new injection of the wherewithal to fund these things. It's very, very serious. I mean, you talk about condoning or accepting genocide, but then actually participating in it to the degree you don't let Palestinians eat. I mean, famine is happening already in Gaza. Alistair Crook told us this morning there are people in the northern part of Gaza who haven't eaten in 10 days. And the huge number, it's over a million people, jammed into the Rafah area, which Israel is now beginning to invade. That's the area to which they told the Palestinians to go. They went there and now they're killing them there.

There's been no food let through for three days. There were some Israeli teenagers who blocked trucks while the IDF stood by, trucks carrying food intended for southern Gaza, and the IDF stood by and let the civilian non-armed uh blockade uh persist uh and joe biden of course keeps asking for two things keeps asking for more aid for israel with which it can kill and slaughter and perpetuate the genocide but at the same time he claims he wants aid uh for g You know, he had a very, very bad week last week, and it centered around his cognition, his mental faculties. John, let me say a word about that, because as soon as I read the Department of Justice official report, I couldn't believe it. That's the end of Joe Biden. I mean, hello,

this is, I tweeted it immediately and got a thousand views immediately. Here's what I said, give Biden a break. He has, quote, diminished faculties in advancing age, end quote, says the U.S. Justice Department. That, end quote, his sympathetic demeanor excuse him for revealing ghostwriter classified information, including human intelligence sources, end quote. Well, so, you know, give him a break. He's old. He has diminished faculties. And he's advancing age. And, you know, he's very sympathetic, though. So we didn't think a judge would, we didn't think a jury would convict him. Hello?

I mean, how damning is that? Then, of course, he gets up and tries to defend himself and talks about mexico instead of syria here's the uh here's the clip i think he confused um mexico and egypt but we'll we'll watch the we'll watch as you know initially the president of mexico cc did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in. I talked to him. I convinced him to open the gate. I talked to Bibi to open the gate on the Israeli side.

I've been pushing really hard, really hard to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza. There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying. And it's got to stop. Who knows what he wants? There are people starving and dying because of the weapons that he's given to Netanyahu. We've been through this so many times. The al-Sisi to whom he refers is obviously the president of Egypt and maybe had that phone call or maybe didn't. But the way the media is portraying this, and I think the way Americans have perceived it, at least from the polls last night and this morning, is overwhelming. The numbers are overwhelming that Joe is out of his league and that his uh his best days uh are behind him

but do you think uh he is going to bring us to an armageddon uh in the middle east we started out by talking about this one militia leader who was murdered even after he told his people to stand down this happened from iraq american troops troops in Iraq, into another area of Iraq. You and I and Larry have discussed the 85 bombings that he's conducted in the area, killing about 25 or 30 civilians, as far as we know, killing nobody who had anything to do with the drone that killed the three Georgia National Guard reservists who were at Tower 22. Where do you think this is going? Well, Judge, I'm going to borrow a phrase from President Obama. when he was in office that the Russians have escalatory dominance in the region where Ukraine happens to be located. Message? For God's sake, know that and don't provoke them by sending lethal arms. That was Obama's policy. That was his attitude.

Now, who has escalatory dominance in the Middle East or Southwest Asia? Not the United States anymore. It's the damn Hoosiers. They're like these barefooted Vietnamese tromping through the jungle or those Afghans with towels on their heads. You know, how can they possibly face down the U.S.? Well, they have escalatory dominance. And the key here, of course, is that Iran knows exactly what this game is. They're not going to rise to the bait here. They're not going to start something so that they get bombed to smithereens like many of our congressional people want to happen. So, you know, here is Biden

trying to cope with this issue. He's blessing genocide. He's preventing relief from genocide. It's coming before the UN in just two weeks. We'll have to see what happens there. But meanwhile, I know you feel as strongly as I do. People are being killed by the thousands every day with the bombing that Biden says, well, you know, I told him to bomb very carefully. I gave him two thousand pound bombs, but I told him to use them really discreetly. Now, what does that mean? That means nothing. What do you think is the level of anger and fury amongst Arabs in the region? I'm not talking about the elites and I'm not talking about President al-Sisi of Egypt or President Erdogan of Turkey or King Abdullah of Jordan or the president of Syria still fighting his own civil war.

I'm talking about Arabs in the streets. Well, that's the problem. That's the problem that al-Sushi has, for example. You know, he's got lots of Palestinians and he's got the Muslim Brotherhood there. The Saudis have thousands and thousands of Palestinians working in those oil fields. Jordan has even more. Lebanon has many. So, you know, what we have here is the street might just think, well, look, the Houthis are giving us a pretty good example here. Let's rise up. And, you know, al-Sisi can repress the hell out of the rest of the Egyptians, but only for so long, in my view. And what do you think will happen? Do you

think a state actor will come in with military resistance to stop the Israelis from their continued slaughter? They've got a million left to slaughter. I hate to put it that way, but those are the numbers in the Rafah area. Yeah. Well, you know, I see Russia and China playing a role here. Russia and Iran have a new treaty, replaces the old 10-year treaty, 20-year treaty, which has strategic ramifications. Probably not exactly a mutual defense treaty, but it's there and it's about to be signed by both presidents, okay? Now, what does that mean? Well, in addition, Iranian, Russian, and Chinese warships are going to be exercising together in that same area just at the end of next month, if memory serves. What about China? China depends on this area for a lot of its oil, okay? It's got to have peace in the Persian Gulf and in the Red Sea.

And he's told the Israelis and the others, look, this is important. The Houthis have every right to do what they're doing. We're not going to condemn them. But you got to make sure that you don't ruin things forever. Now, you have Iran, China, Russia, and the whole bricks of which now Iran is a part against the U.S. When I talk about escalatory dominance, that's what I mean. Now, can we prevent? Can we prevent more slaughter in Gaza? No, we can't. They can't either. We can't because our president is so hidebound and is the United States taking this black eye, and the worse, of course, it comes to Israel. The only fly in the ointment here, and I hate to remind people about this, Israel has nuclear weapons. a red line over which the Israelis cannot pass before the United States does something to stop them, whether it's a phone call or whatever Biden's people would do? Is there a red line or is there no red line? Is Netanyahu free to accept billions from the United States, thumb his nose at the president of the United States, slaughter as many people as he wants, expand the borders of the country at will, throw people out

from their homelands where they've lived for centuries with no resistance from the West. It's the latter. Netanyahu has said, 22 years ago, he said, the United States supports us. We know exactly how to incline them in the right direction. 82% of the Americans support us. It's bizarre, he said. The word he used was absurd, but that's what it is. Now, how does that work out in practicality? Well, you know those 30 pieces of silver? You know, from the Bible, Judas was associated with that.

He hanged himself, but these congresspeople in the Senate and the House are very happy to have 30 pieces of silver and still more as long as they can get re-elected, appropriate more money for the arms merchants, and then continue to be re-elected. I don't, 30 shekels or 30 pieces of silver, you know, when you look around, you see, well, who sold out for 30 pieces of silver? Well, you just have all kinds of people, including the guy that had that very artful ad at the Super Bowl last night. I think his name is Kennedy or something like that. Sold out for 30 pieces of silver.

Yeah, I didn't see the ad. Chris was telling me about it, and he's apologized for it this morning because it didn't come from him. It came from his PAC, but without getting into that, he has clearly did the 180-degree flip on Israel supporting the genocide. Over the weekend, former President Trump made a very, very unusual statement. I don't know if he meant what he said, but what he said was he would encourage the Russians to attack our NATO allies if those allies had not paid their NATO dues. Don't take my word for it. We're going to run the clip. And then I'm anxious to hear your thoughts. NATO was busted until I came along. I said, everybody's going to pay. They said, well, if we don't pay, are you still going to protect us? I said, absolutely not. They couldn't believe the answer. And everybody, you never saw more money pour in to Secretary General Stoltenberg.

I don't know if he is anymore, but he was my biggest fan. He said, all these presidents came in, they'd make a speech, they'd leave, and that was it. And they all owed money, and they wouldn't pay it. I came in, I made a speech, and they said, you've got to pay up. They asked me that question. One of the presidents of a big country stood up, said, well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us? I said, you didn't pay your delinquent. He said, yes, let's say that happened. No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay.

You got to pay your bills. I suppose you could say the them refers to the rest of NATO, but it sounded like the them was referring to Russia. What do you think? I don't want to get into the politics or into his psychology. That'd take a long time to analyze that as it would Biden's, but what do you think? He's playing to his audience, Judge. His audience finds that very, very resonant. Whether he means what he says or not doesn't matter. I noticed the New York Times is full of this stuff this morning.

That way they don't have to address Gaza so much. But, you know, Russia is not going to attack Poland or the Baltic states. I mean, Putin himself told Tucker just a couple days ago. Well, Tucker said, would you have a war with Poland? And Putin said, well, not unless Poland attacked us. We're not going to. Why would we? I mean, that's the question.

Why would the current Russia, not the old Soviet Union, okay, why would they want to attack Poland? Why would they want to attack? I mean, I've been there. Why would they want to attack Poland? Why would they want to attack? I mean, I've been there. Why would they want to do that? Joe Biden himself said in one of those whips that he gave to the White House press corps, trying to encourage Republicans to vote in favor of 68 billion to Ukraine. If Putin takes Ukraine, another absurdity, that's the last thing he wants to do is to govern a country that's ungovernable, facing guerrilla warfare. If Putin takes Ukraine and then moves into Poland, you'll see what nobody

wants and none of us can afford American boys fighting Russian boys. This is an absurd scare tactic based upon an antiquated way of thinking. I don't know what Trump's thoughts are. The crowd obviously liked it. He's a master at telling the crowd what they want to hear. But it seemed outlandish to me that a person running for president, who happens to have been a former president, say, I would encourage Russia to attack you. Here's what the White House said. Encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged.

And it danger endangers American national security, global security and our economy at home. White House spokesman Andrew Bates. I don't know who Andrew Bates is, but that's the statement from the White House. So Trump will be responsible when Russia attacks Poland and the Baltic states. We'll blame it on Trump. Again, the premise is so ridiculous that except for its ability to dominate the front page of the Times today,

it has no real utility for any thinking person. Now, Putin said himself, look, it's the ruling elite that likes to foster these thoughts on people they think that they can blacken us the way they blackened

the old Soviet Union look I try to persuade Bill Clinton we're bourgeois coming from a communist we're bourgeois now we have an open we have an open economic we're like you now for We have an open economic.

We're like you now, for God's sake. Let us into NATO. I'll just have to finish up by saying the original concept for NATO was to keep the Russians out of Europe, keep the U.S. into Europe, and keep the Germans down. Now, we've succeeded beyond the imagination. The Germans are really down because of what we've done to them, blowing up their pipeline and all that stuff. The Russians are out, but the happiest has clams with turning to the east. And the Russians, the Americans, oh, well, NATO has just kind of fallen apart, and we ought to recognize that. And this Ukrainian thing, if it continues to go on, there are already fissures becoming wider and wider in NATO.

It'll be the end of NATO, and I can trust the opinions of people like Colonel McGregor and Colonel Wilkerson, other colonels who know more about this than I do on that one. Here's Putin himself on Poland. Can you imagine a scenario where you sent Russian troops to Poland? Only in one case, if Poland attacks Russia. Why? Because we have no interest in Poland, Latvia or anywhere else. Why would we do that? We simply don't have any interest. It's just threat mongering.

He's right. It's just threat mongering. And it's a tactic that American presidents have used. Judge, you're in Putin's pocket, I can tell. Right, right. Speaking of being in Putin's pocket, are you surprised that the way the mainstream media has treated the

interview that Tucker Carlson gave, they've ignored it or they've called him a useful idiot or the only thing they've highlighted is Putin's comments about the Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich. But on the big picture, Putin the man, Putin the understander of history and reality, and Tucker, the courageous person that he is, not a peep. Judge, in my view, this is a liminal event it's a threshold okay will

the mainstream media be able to suppress uh the words two hours long or even just clips of it by the head of russia uh it is very encouraging that 200 million people have seen at least parts of the interview on Tucker's YouTube thing. But, you know, are they the choir? Will they tell their friends? Will they dare to appear to be in Putin's pocket, you know? That's the question. Now, it's just a little less liminal event than when Julian Assange appeared on the scene and found a way to create a fifth estate. OK, the fifth estate in the ether, bringing documentary evidence down into your computer right here. OK, now they got him.

OK, he's been he's been prisoned for a long time. What will they do to Carson? Well, they don't have to put him in prison. That might be just a hair too embarrassing. What they may do is make sure that he's not able to operate anymore. What's going on here? I guess. No, that's Gershkowitz.

Oh, that's Gershkowitz. Okay. That's not Carlson in jail. That's Gershkowitz. Not yet. In a holding cell in a Russian courtroom. Yeah. The powers that be, what Putin calls the ruling elite, and let's face it, we do have a ruling elite, okay?

It's not just propaganda. Will they succeed in suppressing the words of the Russian president? Well, not for us people who will have access and will take the trouble to hear or read or see what Putin said. But how about our neighbors? Unless we go out and propagate this stuff ourselves and look what you're being deprived of seeing. This is a war going on. Russia is involved. For God's sake, why don't you just listen to what the president of Russia says and not let yourself be censored from seeing it?

Got it. Ray, thank you very much, my dear friend. I look forward to seeing you with Larry at the end of the week. Most welcome. Okay. All the best. Coming up at 11 o'clock this morning, the aforementioned Larry Johnson. And at 1.30 this afternoon, my Libertarian Republican Congress friend, Andy Biggs of Arizona, on Ukraine, on Israel, on Tucker Carlson,

and on Vladimir Putin. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.