Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern: Ukraine and the Pope

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Ray McGovern: Ukraine and the PopeSee 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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Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com. Thanks for watching! Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, March 11th, 2024. Ray McGovern joins us now. Ray, always a pleasure. Thank you very much for joining us. I was amazed at the number of viewers who watched and re-watched what we did last Monday, since, of course, I was unavailable to run the show last week since I was in the Vatican. I did see the Pope. The Pope did join our group of 25 legal and philosophy scholars for dinner one night. He didn't say a word. He doesn't look very healthy, but he was physically there. However, and I can't take credit for this because it was taped before I saw him,

he did give an interview, which will run in just a second, in Italian. There are subtitles that I'll read aloud, in which he says that the Ukrainians should wave the white flag of courage and negotiate. Were you surprised to hear the Pope say something like that? And do Ukrainians care what the Pope thinks? Well, I wasn't surprised that he would finally speak out on Ukraine. I was disappointed at his choice of words. Who advises him to say the white flag, for God's sake? It may be nice for the papal limousines, but it isn't good for negotiations.

So he did come out. He said that when you lose the war, you should negotiate. How many more people have to die? That's good, okay? But what the Pope needs to do is be even clearer and condemn things like genocide in Gaza, like unnecessary killing in Ukraine in unmistakable terms, as his predecessors did not do during World War II. We'll run that clip. It's very short. It's only 15 seconds. It's part of a long, long interview in Italian discussing church issues. He answers in Italian, so I will read aloud the subtitles for the benefit of those who are experiencing this stream on audio only. So here's the Holy Father. Now, I can't take credit for this, Ray, because though this interview came out yesterday, it was taped before I saw him.

And if he had asked me what I thought, I would have said something a little stronger, like, would you please condemn the genocide? Would you please condemn the killing? And would you please reinstate the Latin mass? But maybe he knew I was going to say that. And that's why I was told not to go up and say anything to him. Anyway, here is Pope Francis about a week ago, but released yesterday. I think the stronger position to look at the situation

is to think about the people and have the courage to raise the white flag and then negotiate. All right, so the white flag, of course, is obviously a turnoff for the Ukrainian people. As you pointed out, just drop the phrase white flag and said, have the courage to negotiate. And then he could have said,

and if the Americans are involved in the negotiation, the killing could stop tomorrow. But I don't know that he was going to go there. But we know that, don't we, Ray, that the killing would stop tomorrow if Joe Biden said, okay, let's negotiate? In both Ukraine and in Gaza, unfortunately, yes. The President of the United States still has the power to turn the faucet on or off. Well, on or off. what is your opinion about the mastermind of the coup in Ukraine in 2014 and the orchestrator of the war, Victoria Nuland, who is no longer with the State Department? Did she jump or was she pushed? I believe she was pushed. And I have a speculative scenario here. On the 29th of, no, on the 31st of January, I have some notes here, Nuland went to Kiev to rearrange the chairs on the deck of the, I'm sorry, not the Titanic, but on the deck of Kiev.

And she got Zoloshny to go to London, and she got Zelensky reaffirmed, and then she got Ziersky coming in, the army general who immediately sacrificed many troops trying to relieve a djelika okay so what else did she do well in a very strange extremely strange press conference of a kind out in the street it appeared not in the headquarters of zensky, she said this, Mr. Putin is going to get some nice surprises on the battlefield and Ukraine will make some very strong success. Okay, so now that's the 31st of January. On the 19th of February, we have these Luftwaffe, senior Air Force generals of the German Air Force, saying, look, you know, we need to prepare a briefing for Defense Minister Prestorius to make sure that he knows how the how the terrorist missiles would work, whether they could take out the Crimea Bridge, whether they could take out ammo, ammo dumps in Russia. We have to prepare that. Now, what does that have to do with this? Well, if Russia intercepted that,

which I think almost certain, so did the US.S., okay? NSA has that capability. So we're talking about Newland promising this thing on the 31st of January, and then, what, two and a half weeks later, you have the Luftwaffe generals discussing how they would deploy this Taurus missile, which is a greater range than most other missiles, and they even say, you know, this is a political thing. It's not going to change the course of the war. But Pistorius wants this briefing.

Now, why did Pistorius want this briefing? His boss, Scholz, had already said, we're not going to give the Taurus. Precisely. So does the defense minister in Germany have independence from the prime minister, unlike the secretary of defense in the U.S. having independence from the president? Although we know secretaries of defense have defied American presidents. But this is a big deal unless Schultz is just intentionally misleading people. Well, there's a history of Madam Nuland talking to Pentagon people in Washington.

There's also some history of her talking directly to German officers. You know, when you have the German Luftwaffe discussing these things, they have to be encouraged by someone. Now, it is speculative, but I suggest that Nuland, in talking about this big surprise on the battlefield that Russia will not like, and Ukraine will make very strong progress, I think she was ahead of the game in Washington, and that when CIA and NSA intercepted this message, they went to the Pentagon and said, you know about this? The Pentagon said, no, we don't know about that. Two weeks later, she's gone.

Now, when she's gone, she gets encomia, of course, but she doesn't have a new job yet. Usually, when they announce somebody leaving, well, she's going to Stanford, she's going to blah, blah. Well, it took another day before she was announced as having been accepted as a practicing diplomacy professor at Columbia. She's still practicing, okay? And she's going to head up some graduate program. So there was a little hiatus there. Maybe that was arranged before. I see her as leaving abruptly. I see her as being eased out by the people on the Pentagon, just won't tolerate this kind of stuff, and run around Austin, Secretary of Defense Austin, who, by the way, was in the hospital many of these weeks and working from home. So in my view,

she was fired for cause. Whether that means anything is another question because Biden got up a day later, two days later, and said, well, we're going to not lose this war. We're going to do what's necessary. So Biden is hidebound to keep doing this thing with or without Nuland, but I think Nuland has lost in this internecine little battle. So a friend at Columbia tells me that she got this job at Columbia University through her friend and former boss, who also teaches there, and who is apparently very unpopular with her own students because the word on the Columbia campus is that this friend and former boss, I'll give you the name in a second if you haven't figured out who she is, just tells war stories and doesn't

really teach them anything. And they're all grad students working on a PhD in international relations. They were hoping for a real professor. The person of whom I speak, of course, is former United States Senator, former First Lady, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. So Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Newland will be teaching together at Columbia University. Take me back to the German generals. Are the Taurus artillery? What is Taurus artillery? No, they're missiles. They're fired from aircraft. Okay.

Are they going to make their way to Ukraine? the elites in the German military or the German defense ministry big-footed the prime minister? Or was this part of the plan all along with him looking like a dove but acting like a hawk? Well, Scholz is a weak-kneed person, but he's on record now and the intercepted conversation is proof positive that you know there are luftwaffe generals preparing briefings for his defense minister but schultz has said time and time again and now that there won't be there won't be taurus missiles given to ukraine and now pistorius himself has come out. Just two days ago, he said, you know, all this business about Macron sending troops to Ukraine, that's crazy. We've got to stop even discussing this kind of thing. This is crazy. So I think Pistorius has

got the message now. I don't think there'll be terrorist missiles sent. One of the things that the Germans were trying to do is keep up with the British. They have their storm shadow. And the French, they have the equivalent missiles. And they're all out of them, okay? And so the need was, so how about new missiles? They're not going to do it now, I don't think. If they do, well, Schultz is more weak-kneed than I thought he was, which is something. I know you and Larry disagree on very, very little, but perhaps on the reasons for her

departure, and we may never know her departure. I wonder if you agree with Larry on this. Larry thinks the war will end by summertime. Now, we are two weeks away from spring, so there's not much time in there. What are your thoughts, Ray, as to when active hostilities in Ukraine will effectively be over, either because a new government has begun negotiations or because there is no military effectively left to resist the Russians or whatever would cause the war to end? Well, Judge, ironically enough, much will depend on a fellow named Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House. There is a pending plan to give $60 billion more of arms aid to Ukraine. Conceivably, that could take them through the summer up to the election, which, of course, is the target here. As long as the U.S. and Ukraine and NATO are not seen to have lost definitively, well, then President Biden has some chance for

re-election. Once that goes down definitively, once the fat lady starts to sing, and I think we're beginning to see that, then they're not going to win the election. And the personal peril that they will experience if that other fellow comes in is rather rather severe that's why I think uh and that's why I think pucci and his generals have to think that Biden's rolling out soldiers okay right he can't lose in Ukraineraine what are his options for god's sake well there have been a couple of articles now one in the new york times yesterday one in the new york post yesterday suggesting a nuclear option here of course it would be the russians to blame but the very airing of these concepts has to worry Putin and his entourage. I mean, that was what I did for a whole career. I tried to put myself in the shoes of Soviet or Russian leaders.

Right. To hear this gratuitous raising of CIA saying there's a 50% chance now that the Russians will use nuclear weapons? Well, there's zero chance. I said, it's a zero chance the Russians will feel the need to use nuclear weapons. What chance is there that these neophytes, these sophomores that are advising Biden will say, look, we can't lose the election. We can't lose the war. How about these mini nukes? That's what I'm afraid of. And that's why I'm afraid that Putin will read these signs and say, oh, my God. Oh, my God. We have to be on high alert and we have to show that we're resolute, which, of course, he has done in the State of the Nation speech that he gave just

a week ago. Here's President Biden. This is cut number five, Sonya. Here's President Biden in his State of the Union address. Just listen carefully for the phrase, no American soldiers. President Biden's speech on the U.S. military Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons that needs to defend itself. That is all. That is all Ukraine is asking. They're not asking for American soldiers. In fact, there are no American soldiers in war in Ukraine, and I'm determined to keep it that way. Is that true that there are no American soldiers in the war in Ukraine? I thought the forces in the intelligence community had caused you and Larry and McGregor and Ritter to believe that there are soldiers there that just had a uniform. Of course they're

there. They're not a uniform. There are probably, you you know it's a guess maybe 100 200 advisors uh the ukrainians are not capable of working some of these systems matter of fact the americans can seem to work the air air defense systems very well given the fact that the russians have air superiority now and have knocked out some of the Patriot batteries just over the last couple of days. So they're there, but they're unacknowledged or they're not in uniform. So, Ray, what are his choices if he's facing and needs to avoid pre-November? Because if November doesn't go his way, he's history in January. But what are his choices if he's facing humiliating defeat, troops or nukes? Well, that's just it. I think

this is speculative. But as I read the signs, troops, no. No one wants troops. Even Pistorius said two days ago, no one wants boots on the ground. Stop discussing it, okay? And I don't think Biden would do that. It would be terrible politically, okay? So what are his options? That's all I'm saying. How does Putin look at his options? And why the bizarre appearance of these articles in the New York Times and the New York Post saying, oh, Russia was about to use nuclear weapons, a 50% chance, the CIA says. Now, that was a year ago, okay? Two years ago. Yeah, two years ago, 2022, right. Right.

Why is that piece coming out now? Well, that's it. The whole rationale was if Russia was losing, they would do this. Now, hello, folks. Russia's not losing. They have no incentive to do this. Putin in the Kremlin and saying, why is David Sanger, the infamous David Sanger of weapons of mass destruction fame, why is he writing a major article in the New York Times to say that, you know, the Russians could use nuclear weapons? At least there was a 50-50 chance two years ago.

Well, I'd have to conclude if I were Putin that this is dangerous stuff because if nuclear weapons, just a little mini nuke, right, is used, they will blame it on the Russians. I mean, it's clear that they're blaming it on the Russians, and Putin wants to avoid that. Now, we're in a real pickle here. Biden has run out of options. If he's clear on no boots on the ground, and if the Germans and even the French will relent on that, that's just kind of theater by Macron, then what's the option? The option is to lose the war in a very ostentatious way, perhaps not until November if Mike Johnson caves in and approves the $60 billion more. But, you know, they have to have their options. Now, one thing that I found out reading all the Putin statements that he's on a roll, right?

He has an election coming up in just one week. So he's talking to Air Force women officers, pilots, okay? And one of them asks, Mr. Putin, do you have any problems with stress? How do you handle stress? And Putin says, I handle stress by not letting on that I'm stressed. OK, I exercise. OK. But the big thing is, I don't disclose the fact that I'm stressed. Am I stressed? Yeah, I'm stressed. So what's my point here? Putin comes across as a real cool, calm and collected guy, which basically he is. But he has to be stressed when he sees the New York Times and

the New York Post saying, whoa, the Russians might use nuclear weapons. At least they might two years ago. So I'm saying here that it's a very, very volatile situation. It doesn't matter what I think. It does matter what Putin thinks. And I think that he has to read these recent revelations about Russian ability and intention, 50-50%, mind you, to use nuclear weapons if he's losing. Now, he's not losing, but nobody has acknowledged that. The fat lady began to sing. Maybe other people will come forward now and say, look, it's lost. Don't provide $60 billion more. The commentariat, including a guy like Stephen Walt, who used to be a pretty realistic guy,

has written this thing just over the weekend saying, yeah, we should give, of course we should give this $60 billion to get them through this. I don't know what's going through his mind. With $60 billion more, after it's siphoned off, it's not going to help Zelensky stave off the Russians, not the way the battlefield looks right now. Alistair Crook made the case this morning that Europe is essentially in a state of panic and confusion. Nobody knows whether to believe Macron or believe Scholz or believe Pistorius. The British prime minister is making crazy suggestions about an expeditionary force. The Italians don't want to have anything to do with it.

The Swiss are relaxed but never fully relaxed, sort of on guard. Do you agree that Europe's in a state of panic over the American vassal state of Ukraine trying to drive Vladimir Putin from office? Well, it is. You have political hacks running Europe. You have a big election coming up this summer for the EU parliament. You have Macron posturing, okay? There's nobody going to send French troops into Ukraine. So what is he doing? He's saying, well, I was prepared to do what's necessary to save Ukraine. Who chickened out? Pistorius and Scholz and the Americans themselves. They're not willing to really do what I was willing to do.

And so Macron says, well, you know, if they'd listened to me, maybe we would have staved off defeat. Now, it's all posturing. It's all theater. And Macron is very good at theater, of course, but he's been beaten back by people like Scholz himself and by Pistorius saying, look, troops on the ground, forget about it.

And Pistorius said, don't even discuss it anymore. It's crazy. And it is. So what's the option? Again, the option is abject defeat, a humiliating defeat, a humiliating retreat or use of nuclear weapons. at all costs in his June 10 American University speech, 1963. At all costs, we have to avoid pushing a nuclear-powered state into a choice between humiliating retreat and using nuclear weapons for a nuclear war.

And, you know, that's what's at stake here. So how's it going to come out? We'll have to watch in the coming days. But I don't see Victoria Nuland's removal as good as it is as having solved much of the problem, because Biden apparently is still calling your shots, and he's got Blinken and Sullivan, neophytes, and Austin just saluting smartly. One hopeful sign, the head of the army, what's his name? General Randy... George. George, right. He came out last week and he said, look, don't underestimate the Russians, okay? They've built up their economy.

They've recovered from the sanctions. The worst mistake you can do is underestimate the Russians. Now, he said that this week. The head of the CIA said on July 7th last year, the Russians have lost, and the inability of the Russian army to progress or do anything good has been laid bare to the whole world to see. So there seems to be a little bit of difference in looking at things between what the CIA and the intelligence people serving up to the president, what he wants to hear, and the U.S. Army,

who would be tasked with doing the impossible job in Ukraine if push came to shove. I just want to ask you a technical question. I don't want to get into Israel. We'll save that for later in the week when you're on with Larry. However, last week, Benny Gantz, former Commander, Commanding General of the IDF, former Israeli Prime Minister for a little while, leader of the opposition party, member of Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet, bitter personal adversary of Prime Minister Netanyahu, was invited to the White House supposedly to send a message to Bibi. The White House had talked to Benny Gantz, and the White House claims they were stunned when

Benny Gantz said, the only difference between Bibi and me is personality. We have the same goals and we'd wage the war the same way. I think they should have known that ahead of time, but that's not my question. My question is, there was a time in that meeting when Benny Gantz and Joe Biden were alone talking. Question, technical question, you know where I'm going. Did Mossad and did NSA monitor that conversation? I would have to assume the answer to that is yes. Even though the two of them were in presumably some secure place, they're in the White House. Well, the White House is wired just like every other place. You're really at the mercy of those who wire these things.

With respect to Benny Glantz, I think that was all theater. I mean, here's the U.S. trying to show that, you know, since Netanyahu is so, so hidebound, we're going to talk to somebody who might be able to change his mind, or we're going to open avenues to his possible successor. All theater. Biden didn't meet with him, but the vice president did, and so did Blinken. All theater to show that the U.S. is trying to do everything it can to stop the war when the president of the United

States could get on the phone right now in five seconds and say, look, Netanyahu, knock it off. No more arms. No more political support. No more portable ports in Gaza. Stop it now or else. And it would end. Right, right. All right, I misspoke. Gantz and Biden never spoke directly. Gantz spoke with Blinken and spoke with Vice President Harris. But my question is the same. Did Mossad and NSA surveil the conversation?

And the answer, in your opinion, is they probably did. Ray, thank you very much for your time. I enjoyed my time in Rome, but I'm happy and happier to be back here with you and our regulars. I look forward to seeing you with Larry at the Intelligence Roundtable on Friday afternoon. Thank you, George. All the best, my friend. You too. And the aforestated Larry is Larry Johnson coming up at 11 o'clock this morning and at 2 this afternoon, Kyle Anzalone and all of your

Judging Freedom regulars, Colonel McGregor, Scott Ritter, Max Blumenthal, Professor Sachs, Professor Mearsheimer, Aaron Matei, Karen Kwiatkowski, Matt Ho, all of them coming up throughout this week.

Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.