Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern: Will Biden Heed Putin’s Warnings?

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Ray McGovern: Will Biden Heed Putin’s Warnings?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, June 10th, 2024. Ray McGovern joins us now. Ray, a pleasure, my dear friend. We have a lot to talk about. We have European elections for the European Parliament. We have the dissolution of the French National Assembly. We have British elections to the House of Commons. We have probably some similar effect in Germany. We have an effort to collapse the Israeli government. Oh, and we have the Ukrainians using American military equipment to attack Russian early warning systems, and the Americans not taking that seriously. We have a lot to talk about. we got into these issues and forgot to address what we said we would, which was the Ray McGovern expansion of the phrase military-industrial complex, once called military-industrial congressional complex, to the way you have expanded it to this acronym called MICIMATT, M-I-C-I-M-A-T-T.

What is that, Ray? Judge, I picked an acronym that might be remembered easily by being identified with Mickey Mouse, okay? MICIMATT, easy to remember, but not funny like Mickey Mouse. Goes back to Eisenhower, of course, and his warning in his farewell address about the strength, whether it was desired or undesired, we know it was desired now, of the military-industrial complex. He warned, he said, look, I've seen this firsthand. I've been president. This is the danger to our democracy. Watch it. And, very important, he said, the only antidote, the only thing that can prevent this resurgence of power is a well-informed citizenry. Okay, so I was gratified after I did this acronym about eight years ago that none other than Steve Cohen blessed it and his wife, Katrina Van

Leuvel. Other people, Pepe Escobar, promoted it so much that it's now in the dictionary. What it means is the military industrial congressional, okay, no more needs to be said about that, military industrial congressional intelligence, media, academia, think tank complex. Now, I don't have to dissect that whole thing, but let's just say, why does McGovern say media as though it were in all caps? Because media is the linchpin. You can't do the Mickey map without the media. And it's much more powerful, this media, than it ever was under

Eisenhower, however powerful it was then. So what's a recent manifestation of this is what happened on the campuses, okay? That's academia, right? But who persuaded these presidents that were put into rule over these campuses to do what they did in suppressing dissent on Palestine? Well, it was the local authorities. It was the industrialists, the people with the money that fund these universities. It was a classic example of the media as well cooperating at all to suppress legitimate dissent on a matter of genocide. Can you believe it? So I rest my case. The Mickey Matt has grown like Topsy. It's the major threat to our freedoms. And we have to recognize it because as strong as

we are, if we look at each other as a movement, we need to realize that this is a tough nut to crack and we can't desist or flinch for a moment from attacking, especially the media. And that's why programs like this and other alternative media, so-called, are so essential to our freedom right now. Sorry to carry on so long. No, no, no. It's a great answer, Ray. knows that you and Larry Johnson and Alistair Crook and Professor Sachs and Professor Mearsheimer and Colonel McGregor and Scott Ritter and Matt Ho and Karen Kwiatkowski and Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil and Aaron Matej and Colonel Wilkerson cannot get on the mainstream media because the people that own and operate and invest in the mainstream media do not want to hear the version of events

that alternative media of which this is one. And I am certainly and overwhelmingly grateful for the success of this show. We started out with 93 subscribers. We're now up to 380,000. We'll be a half a million, I think, by Christmas. Breaking news, breaking news, Joe, just worse than that. All those people you just mentioned, save one or two, are on the enemies list of a nonprofit funded and supported by our State Department that the Kiev regime has just put out. Enemies list. We are communists. That's what we are. We're as bad as the Chinese. The Chinese are now supporting Putin. Did you know that? Zelensky has lost his marbles. And the question is whether his main patron is able to do more than walk a few steps without help from his wife.

I met Larry Johnson, Colonel McGregor, and Scott Ritter when I was at Fox. So things have obviously changed radically. I'm not at Fox anymore. That's not why they're not on, but they couldn't get on Fox no matter what. And Fox is just one example. But thank you for all you do. And thank you for adding media in there. You could add the banks. You could add the pharmaceuticals. But let's not get carried away.

The Mickey Mott is easy to remember. It's out there. And it makes the point. It's very interesting and kind of funny. Apparently in the very rudimentary teleprompter as it existed in 1960, Eisenhower's speech said military industrial congressional complex. Congressional complex and he didn't use the word congressional and his chief of staff said why he said A couple days left in my term and i'm still hoping for one more piece of legislation passed. I didn't want to get under their skin That's exactly right or if he got it. Well, the text is actually x'd out The the word congressional is x'd out. Correct. I have seen that. Correct. Yeah. Correct. Let's start with Israel.

Gantz versus Netanyahu. Is this twiddle-dee and twiddle-dum? Is there some principle here, or is it just personality and power? Judge, it's hard for me to say. All I know is that Netanyahu is coming here in two weeks. Yeah. Or criminal. Chief of genocide. What he looks at and what the Israeli people look at is an undivided support from the U.S. Congress, which is a scandal in my view.

If he's allowed to come, it'll be a feather in his cap that will dwarf any repercussions in my view. Yes. If he's allowed to come, it'll be a feather in his cap that will dwarf any repercussions, in my view, of all this disruption within the Knesset and within the Israeli leadership. The genocide goes on. It's worse ever. They had a refugee camp killing over 240 people to rescue four hostages and 600 people wounded. Is that proportionate?

Is that legal? Is that a war crime? Of course it's a war crime. And they brag about it. And the Israeli people are behind it. So that's the conundrum. Biden is not going to change his ways on this. It's up to us.

I don't think this will be a threat to the Netanyahu government because Gantz is not in the government. This doesn't decrease Netanyahu's coalition numbers in the Knesset. But I also think it'll be twiddle-dee, twiddle-dum. I mean, Gantz has blood on his hands from when he was defense minister and when he was head of the IDF. He may be a softer, nicer, easier person to deal with, but he's got a populace that 80% of which wants this war and 80% of which is opposed to a two-state solution. So I don't think it matters which of them is the prime minister of Israel. Why do you think the Ukrainians are attacking the Russian early warning systems. I mean, this is of no military benefit to reducing the Russian, the advance of the Russian military westward. All this is likely to do, in my view, is to produce a strong, very strong reaction on the part of the Kremlin?

You asked the right question, Judge. Why would they do this? Well, the question is who they is. Putin himself has made explicitly clear that the Ukrainians can't do these kinds of things all by themselves with the kind of missiles that we provide. Now, how about these drones that took out these early warning or didn't take them out, targeted not two but three of these early warning sites? These are strategic early warning sites against the possibility of a strategic attack on Russia, okay? That's a strategic nuclear threat, okay? Now, why would they do that? Well, they couldn't do it in the Kremlin's view without a blessing,

a kind of sotto voce, say, well, we have given it a try because we want to show the Russians, we want to show the Russians that we know how vulnerable they are. They only have 10 such early warning sites. We're going to target three of them, just kind of the three that don't really matter. They're focused on the Mediterranean and India and so forth, just to let them know, look, we're going to take out the rest of them too, okay? That's how I read let them know, look, we're going to take out the rest of them too, okay? That's how I read it. Now, it doesn't matter how McGovern reads it. It matters how the military around Putin read it. I think they read it that way. And that's why you got this extremely strong reaction from Putin saying, look, we're going to retaliate. We have to retaliate. And he mentions nuclear.

And he also says, well, first, we'll do asymmetrical things. And they said, no, no, no, it'll be symmetrical. Now, witness the fact that part of the Russian fleet is on its way to the Caribbean. Now, is that asymmetrical? No, I would say that's very symmetrical to what happened 62 years ago during the Leuven Missile Crisis. What are the Russians trying to say? They're trying to say, look, you worry about warning time. We've got about five minutes with our hypersonic missiles. We can target Washington, Norfolk, Savannah. We can get Omaha, if you like, with these ships that we have coming to the

Caribbean. Admiral Gershkov, the most sophisticated warship the Russians ever made, is on its way there with Tsirkon missiles. We're not sure, of course, but they're capable of having them. It wouldn't be worth sending there without this kind of nuclear capability, just as the missiles that Khrushchev sent to Cuba back in 62 made no sense at all without their nuclear tips. And they were nuclear tipped. So what do we have here? We have a face-off, okay? And Putin, in a very uncharacteristic way, is pushing the envelope and say, look, we said asymmetrical. Well, that could be Syria. It could be the Houthis, for God's sake. But there's also this symmetrical,

and they changed the adjective, okay? And the symmetrical, of course, is in spades, the Cuban experience of just 62 years ago. God help us if the people in the White House take this or flick it off as not really important, just bluffing. It's not just bluffing because the Russians are concerned that their early warning capability to warn against the U.S. nuclear strike has been diminished or could be diminished if these things keep happening. And these things can keep happening if the U.S. doesn't tell Zelensky, look, the jig is up. Forget about it. We're not going to bait the Russian bear any longer. We're going to take a break.

When we come back, we'll play to raise raise blood pressure jake sullivan on just how flippant uh and irresponsible the american response is to all of this but first this you all know that i am a paid spokesperson for lear capital but i'm also a customer a very satisfied customer about a year ago, I bought gold and it's now increased in value 23%. So $100 invested in gold a year ago is now worth $123. You have $100 in the bank. It still shows $100, but $100 in the bank is now worth 24% less. Inflation has reduced all of your savings, all of your buying power and mine by 24%. And gold is largely immune from that. If you want to learn how gold will soon hit $3,200 an ounce, call Lear Capital. 800-511-4620 or go to learjudsnap.com. Get your free gold report. Same experts who predicted the 23% rise that I've enjoyed have predicted this $3,200 an ounce gold.

Learn about how to transfer this to an IRA. Protect your savings. 800-511-4620, learjudsnap.com. Tell them the judge sent you. Here's a clip from Jacob Sullivan yesterday. It's a beautiful backdrop. He's in a Paris building with the Eiffel Tower behind him answering a question about why President Biden authorized the use of American military equipment to attack inside Russia. Cut number four. From the president's perspective, this was common sense. What was happening up around Kharkiv, which was new just in the last couple of months, was a Russian offensive where they were moving from one side of the border directly to the other side of the border. And it simply didn't make sense not to allow the Ukrainians to fire across that border to hit Russian guns

and emplacements that were firing at the Ukrainians. So the president authorized that. The Ukrainians have carried out that authorization on the battlefield. And one thing I will point out is that the momentum of that operation in Kharkiv has stalled out. Now, Kharkiv is still under threat, but the Russians have not been able to make material progress on the ground in recent days in that area. And the United States will continue to support Ukraine in holding the line and pushing back against the aggressing Russian Now, Ritter describes this equipment as requiring interaction of American personnel. And I don't know if they're in the U.S. since so much of this is digital or if they're actually in

Ukraine. We know there are American personnel in Ukraine. With that as a little bit of background, does Sullivan make any sense to you? And does he not take seriously these consequences? Will he not take seriously Russian nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba? Well, near Cuba. This time they can't be interdicted by a blockade or anything like that, which is a big difference. So with respect to Sullivan, you know, he's informing the president, but in my view, Sullivan and Blinken are making the decisions, okay? Now, there's precedent for that. There's precedent for that that goes back to when President Biden made an undertaking to President Putin not to put what they call offensive strike

missiles in Ukraine. He did that because Putin insisted on talking to him on the 30th of December 2021. It's in the readout, okay? Mr. Biden said the U.S. has no intention of putting offensive strike missiles in Ukraine. Double cross. Guess what happened? Just six weeks later, Lavrov raised that with Blinken, and Blinken, no, no, no, no. We have the right to put offensive missiles in Ukraine, and we have the right to make Ukraine a member of NATO. Don't pay any attention to that. We're going to do what we want to do. There was no promise. And, you know, maybe we'll talk about limiting the number of offensive strike missiles in Ukraine, but they're going to go in there, okay? So what am I saying here? I'm saying that Sullivan and Blinken make the decisions. They made them as early as December, January,

December 2021, January 2022. And it's in Sullivan's briefing of the press right after it. He was asked, what undertakings were made here? And Sullivan says, well, I'm sure you're going to draw your own conclusions from the readout, but, quote, there were certainly no declarations or intentions from declarations as to intentions from this conversation period, end quote. So he's deliberately contradicting the president just earlier that day. So what does this mean? This means Sullivan wasn't there. Biden was in Delaware. He was alone. There was no blink to know Sullivan to hold his hand. And when Putin said, look, it would really help if you would just forswear the notion that you're going to put offensive strike missiles like Khorshov did in Cuba in Ukraine. And Biden apparently said, oh, it makes sense to me.

OK, all right. And that's in the readout. So what I'm saying here is you've got a non-compassmentist president being ruled by people with very nice polished and high heel shoes, okay, but don't know a thing about the world and think they can work their will against Russia. And they're in for a comeuppance because with the way things are heading here, even the alliance is falling apart. You have lame ducks are going to appear later in Italy, just less than a week from now at the G7. You've got the NATO summit coming in Washington. I think things have been falling apart very quickly and the peace summit so-called in Switzerland on the 15th and 16th is going to be a charade. I understand this is apocryphal now.

I understand that Jerry Seinfeld is going to show up there because they need another comedian, and Kamala Harris isn't up to it. Here's someone who does understand what's going on at the St. Petersburg Economic Conference late last week. Cut number three. The use of nuclear weapons is possible in the event of an exceptional threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country in exceptional cases. I don't think this is such a case right now. There is no necessity for that. A statesman who understands what he's talking about before you even respond.

More nonsense from Jake Sullivan. Cut number five. Have you seen evidence that Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are sharing nuclear technology at this point. We are concerned about cooperation among the countries you just mentioned. And we are concerned about the advancing nuclear arsenals of countries like China and Russia, as well as North Korea. This is something that we are focused on. We are looking hard at and we will consult with our allies and partners on the best way forward to ensure a safe, reliable, and credible nuclear deterrent by the United States. What's your take on this? Well, this is really interesting, Judge, because Sullivan was asked a very particular question, a very specific question on this issue way back just 10 months

ago, okay? Ted Postal had posted under the ISS think tank Aegis an article that said, look, the Russian early warning system is not working correctly, And we need to take that into account because they can't see. They can't see without several minutes delay whether incoming is coming toward Moscow. Okay. Now, that was put out by this very prestigious think tank. Okay. Now, what happened? Well, Sullivan was asked at a perfect, what about that? And what he said was, oh, wait a second. This doesn't really amount to anything. We have it under advisement.

Our intelligence people are looking at it. What was the issue? This is the issue. Get this. The Russians, Putin, had given North Korea a very, very sophisticated missile. Not their most sophisticated, but next to the most sophisticated. It's called a Topol-M in Russia. It has the capability of hitting every inch of the United States and, worse still, has all kinds of decoys

and other ways to avoid detection and response, and is mobile. What does mobile mean? That means it's solid fuel, okay? That means that you can't find it. You put it in a forest somewhere, and you whoops it out, and you shoot it. Now, why would Putin give North Korea that sophisticated kind of weapon? Well, I'm surprised that he did, but he did, and you can't just deny it.

What you have to say is that things are really so complicated, so labile, as the Germans say, that the Russians are actually arming the North Koreans in a way that surprised the hell out of me and many others. And will the North Koreans act responsibly? Well, we can hope, but I'm surprised that they have this capability. Bottom line here, 10 months ago, right, Sullivan has never gotten back to us on what that means. It's real. What it means is that U.S. policy has provoked the Russians

and specifically Putin to such extent that they're arming not only North Korea as well as arming themselves into the Mediterranean. This time, I hope there will be no quarantine, which, of course, is a blockade, which, of course, is illegal. You said Mediterranean. I meant the Caribbean. Caribbean, yeah. Do you think, before we go, the State Department, the White House, the Defense Department take this seriously? You know, Judge, I think they have kind of a

decided mindset on this, that the Russians can't be serious. I mean, as the president said in one of his recent interviews with CNN, he said, Look, we're the United States of America. I mean, the most powerful country in the history of the world. In the history of the world. in the history of the world. Now, that's no longer the case, but Biden still thinks so. He clearly does. And Sullivan and Blinken play on that misperception.

Why? They have a personal stake in all this. The election will be lost if Ukraine is lost. And if the new fellow who comes in, as I've said before, is as vindictive as we believe he may be, these guys will end up in jail because the courts and other testimony, emails, everything has the goods on these guys. So there's a personal premium from these courtiers of Biden, not to impress upon him the real truth and the danger of this thing, but to say, well, yeah, we can handle this.

Don't worry about what the Russians are doing. Oh, these ships going to Cuba. Well, we'll see. My fear, and it just occurred to me. What Kennedy did, of course, was blockade some of those ships. And thankfully, the really long range missiles that could hit all of the United States were in those ships that were just then blockaded. Now, would Lincoln and Sullivan say to the president, look, you know, we know what John Kennedy did. We ought to blockade those people. Well, I dare say that's not beyond them. I hope to God that they don't think of that. And don't listen to this, Tony and Jacob. Don't even forget I said that, okay? I don't want to put ideas into your head. Tony and Jacob, get a transcript of the conversation between Khrushchev and RFK

that resulted in the removal of the missiles from Turkey. That's what solved this problem. Well, it was a big help. And it was RFK that worked that out with Dobrynin in Washington. Of course, Khrushchev bought it because his military was breathing down his neck and said, what are you going to get out of this? You can't just tuck tail. So yeah, that was part of the deal. But JFK insisted that, no, no, we won't announce that. What we say is we agree not to invade Cuba. You agree to remove your missiles. And that was the ostensible agreement supplemented,

as you say, by the commitment to withdraw those missiles we didn't need anymore in Turkey. Now, in those days, gentlemen's agreements meant something, okay? Khrushchev trusted Kennedy. Did he deliver on that quietly? Three or four months later, he did deliver. Did that help Khrushchev with his military? Of course it did. So we were spared in those days.

We had some reasonable people, some people who had some perspective of what it would mean if we incinerated the world. So let's just hope and pray that somehow these new leaders, so to speak, get religion or at least get some insight into the terrible consequences of their feeling of impunity, their feeling of exceptionalism, which allows them to do all manner of things, to include facing the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the whole world down.

It ain't going to work anymore. The sooner they realize that, the better. Thank you, Ray McGovern. Great, great analysis, my dear friend. Thank you for Mickey Mott. Seems like a couple of hours ago, but great analysis and a huge and much appreciated

audience, my dear friend. All the best. You're most welcome. Well, we'll see you Friday for the roundtable with Larry with a quieter background this time. Hopefully. Thank you. Coming up, the afforestated quieter background this time. Hopefully. Yes.

Thank you. Coming up, the aforestated Larry, Larry Johnson at 11 o'clock Eastern this morning, at 2 o'clock Eastern this afternoon, Colonel Douglas McGregor at 3 o'clock Eastern this afternoon, Anya Parampil at 4 o'clock Eastern this afternoon. Anya Parampil at four o'clock Eastern this afternoon. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.