Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern: Will Kiev Use US Missiles On Moscow?

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Ray McGovern: Will Kiev Use US Missiles On Moscow?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, November 18th, 2024. Ray McGovern will be here with us. How dangerous to Russian freedom and security is Joe Biden's latest move, allowing U.S. missiles to strike deep into Russian territory. But first this. We're taught to work hard for 35 to 40 years, save your money, then live off your savings. Unfortunately, there are too many threats undermining the value of our hard-earned dollars. The Fed's massive money printing machine is shrinking your dollar's value. Just the cost of groceries is absurd. Let me be brutally honest.

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You're right, Judge. It's almost certainly Blinken and Sullivan and some of the hardliners there. Reckless? Well, yeah, very reckless. But I would say feckless as well, because it's not going to change anything. We've known that for some time. Most of the Russian facilities have been long since removed from the area that would be covered by attack missiles. as a sort of not reckless, but desperate move on the part of these satraps of Biden to see if they can provoke Putin into doing something really stupid. Now, my prediction is that Putin's a pretty smart guy.

He's not going to be provoked. He's going to see how these things are used, if they are used, if they're using Kursk or elsewhere. Then he's going to say, well, you know, I'll just up the ante. I'll continue destroying what's left of the energy infrastructure in Ukraine. I may threaten to maybe take out a supply base in Poland or Romania, but I won't do that. Let's wait. This is clearly an effort to upstage Trump to make it more possible for him to deal on Ukraine. So let's keep our powder dry. Let's see what happens. We will not be provoked. That is my prediction. What happens if the Russians attack the equipment and the equipment is being installed, maintained, managed, operated, whatever verb you want to use, by Americans and some of them get killed?

Well, if it's in Ukraine, that's fair game, isn't it? Yes, it is. Yes. They've been attacking that helter-skelter at will. And one has to realize that the air defense capability of Ukraine is nil, ni tchivo, nada, okay? So the Russians still have fair range to do what they want. This is going to make very little difference except to allow Biden and his satraps to say,

whoa, wait a second, we gave the Ukrainians everything they asked us for. Of course, Zelensky has been drumming on this. We not permission. We need permission for this. So we gave them everything they needed. And look what happened. Trump comes in and the Ukrainians lose to the bad, bad Russians. That's the name of the game here. Putin is no dope. He sees it. So do the Trump people, who uncharacteristically are saying,

well, this is really stupid to do this kind of thing, uncharacteristically because they would have felt compelled to be against these evil Russians back in 2016 at this stage. Biden still has $7 billion remaining, Ray, of the $265 billion. These numbers are mind-boggling. Of the $265 billion that the Congress authorized, and according to the Wall Street Journal, I'll assume their sources are being accurate, Biden intends to spend all $7 billion. Now, that's a lot of money, even for the Pentagon,

to spend $3.5 billion a month. Well, Judge, $2 billion of that will go to Zelensky. One billion will go to Zelushny. Another billion will go to the other satraps that are still there in Kiev. They'll put them on their aircraft and get out of Kiev as soon as Trump and Putin come to terms. A seven billion, you know, by the time it gets into weaponry, weaponry that we make here in the United States, it's not going to get there in time, number one. And it's just, you know, more gravy for the military-industrial complex. And, you know, if Biden doesn't understand that, well, maybe he does. And he's just trying to create the illusion that he did everything he possibly could for Ukraine. And look what Trump has done now, made a deal with Russia. Trump is going to make a deal with Russia.

It depends on how much the Russians are willing to be flexible on it. I think they will show more flexibility than they have in the past. But that's what Biden was trying to say. I did everything I could. The bad Russians were stymied by my authorizing of these Atacom and these storm shadow missiles. And look, Trump came in and screwed the whole thing up. You really think he is trying to create a wider conflagration so as to make Trump's entry into the White House complicated and even miserable? Well, yes, and that's where reckless comes in.

You know, Putin is on record now saying that if these things are authorized and if, as is the case, these things cannot be fired without sensitive technology authorized, some of it technology that belongs to companies in the United States, this will be a real problem, okay? So what Putin is saying is, look, you'll be at war with us in effect, but, you know, in rhetoric, that's important. So he'll have to react in some way. My prediction is he'll keep a cool head here. He'll say, all right, well, how are they going to use these things? What are they going to hit? Are they going to try using a course when we have everyone surrounded? Well, let's wait and see, keep our powder dry, and hope that within the next two months this feckless exercise,

this dangerous, this really, really dangerous exercise can be allowed to expire. And I think he knows by back-channel methods that Trump is against this kind of thing, and it will probably work out the kind of deal eventually, I'd say months, months, months into his administration, where there'll be a ceasefire, where there'll be a disavowal of any intention to have Ukraine into NATO, and there will be some relief in the sanctions.

Those are the conditions that Putin posed in June. Here's Foreign Minister Lavrov warning about NATO allies in their fixation on trying to deal fatal blows to Russia. Chris, cut number six. Currently, the United States and its NATO allies persist in their fixation on dealing a decisive blow to Russia. They seem prepared to keep opposing our nation, using Ukraine as their last stand, so to speak. Simultaneously, Western nations are precariously teetering

towards a direct military confrontation involving nuclear powers carrying potential catastrophic outcomes. Can Marco Rubio go toe-to-toe with a diplomat as well-grounded and universally respected as that? Well, the obvious answer is no. It really depends on what instructions Rubio has. I think he's more a windsock than anything else now. Witness his change of tune on Ukraine. He'll do what Trump tells him to do. And the problem is, of course, that'll take two months before that kind of thing eventuates. There are other things, Judge, that, you know, this North Korean aspect of it is ridiculous on its face. I mean, the Russians don't need North Korean troops to fight with them in Kursk.

And yet, by all indications, they are there. OK, what are the Russians trying to prove? The Russians are trying to prove is, whoa, look, we've got allies here. We have a mutual defense treaty with North Korea. We have, we Russians have been invaded in Kursk. They have come automatically to our aid. What does that mean? Not only for Europe, but what does that mean for the

Korean Peninsula? What does that mean for the Far East? It means something. Meanwhile, you know, the unitary state where Belarus and Russia sort of joined at the hip, they have no mutual security, mutual defense treaty. But Lavrov mentioned on Halloween, October 31st, that they're working on it and they're almost concluding this mutual defense treaty. So what Putin is trying to do is just, look, you guys, NATO, well, that may be a shadow. We have a real defense commitment by North Korea of all places and Belarus. Last footnote here. There's been some verbiage in the New York Times about, you know,

the North Koreans still have not mastered the technology that they need to reach important sites in the United States with their intercontinental ballistic missiles. False. We know from two years ago, testing of a Topol-M missile given to North Korea by Russia that has all those capabilities. It's mobile. It can't be found easily, and it can reach every spot, including Mar-a-Lago in Florida with all kinds of sensitive decoys and everything else. So that's false.

If people don't realize that that already exists and that the Russians, of all people, gave that to the North Koreans about two or three years ago, well, we're in trouble deep because that is, that's more dangerous than anything a attack can provoke from Russia. Here's a report from Reuters, which just came out a few minutes ago. The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia would respond to what it called a reckless decision by Joe Biden's administration to allow Ukraine to fire American missiles deep into Russia, which it said would draw the United States directly into the conflict. I'm going to quote Dmitry Peskov, the official spokesperson for President Putin, quote, it is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps to continue adding fuel to the fire and continue to provoke tension around this conflict closed, quote, Mr. Peskov. No surprise there, Ray. Yes, Judge. Curiously enough, on Saturday, so the day before this was announced in Washington about Biden approving these longer-range strikes, Russia's mounted, I think it was unprecedented number of missile

strikes on Ukraine using every kind of missile in their arsenal and destroyed a whole lot more of the Ukrainians' infrastructure with respect to energy, okay? Now, it's going to be a cold, cold winter, and I hate the hell to see that this kind of thing is being inflicted on Ukrainian civilians, but that's about the only thing they have left to hit, that is the Russians. That's what they'll continue doing, and with no air defense capability on the part of the Ukrainians, the Russians can do that at will. I think at very most, at very most, there's a remote possibility that the Russians or Putin will feel kind of honor bound to do something more drastic. But I think he would limit that to hitting maybe a base in Poland

or Romania from which these weapons pour in. I don't think he's going to do that. He's only got two months to wait. I think he will be very careful not to let this mousetrap him, this rhetorical flourish where Biden can blame the final defeat of Ukraine on Trump, not Biden, because Biden gave everything to Ukraine for as long as it took, and then Biden went into the Western sunset. So that's the name of the political game. What Blinken and Sullivan expect to get from this is really, really strange. It's crazy, but a lot of the stuff

these people have been doing is downright crazy. I just can't explain what goes into this. Do they really want to risk a wider war? Well, it looks like is to deter North Korea. I don't know how this deters North Korea. I mean, is Biden trying to start a war with North Korea? No, this is a pretext, Judge. You remember a couple of weeks ago when there was talk about North Korean troops coming in about three or four weeks ago. And then there was this isolated report. Did they ever show up, Ray? Well, you know, I have to assume, as everybody's saying, including the Japanese prime minister

and the Koreans and everyone else, I think there are North Korean troops in Russia and probably in the Kursk Oblast. But number one, they're not needed. And number two, this is just Putin's way of demonstrating, look, we've got allies. We've got very powerful allies. Look at the North Korean army. And if you haven't really analyzed North Korea's ICBM capability right now, you might want to do that, too, because that's on the record.

Who was it? Tony Sullivan. So we're going to look into that. We're going to look into that. That was almost two years ago when they fired these tests, these test missiles that that are identical to very, very sophisticated Russian ICBMs. Transferring over to Israel, it seems as though President-elect Trump's national security team, well, almost as though, I can't imagine this is literally true, was picked by Benjamin Netanyahu. I mean, with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee. These are all committed arch Zionists. That's correct, Judge. I was asked on a program yesterday, were they picked because they're Arch Zionists or because they're real close to the president, the incoming President Trump? And I said, you know, that's really kind of a distinction without a difference.

It's this one and the same. Now, you said except for Tulsi Gabbard. I regret to tell our audience that she's full in with these Zionists. Wow. I thought that maybe she changed her tune in the last year or so, but she's good. I thought she had as well. I'm so disappointed to hear that. No, I've done a little bit of and she's she's been at this for a long time uh she's very much in with the zionists and this is the big black black work on her record as far as i'm concerned so you know it's unanimous on on israel on ukraine and other things like that we have more sensibility particularly on the part of ofabbard. But it's a very bleak situation. And the problem is how Netanyahu will try to exploit this.

He's already doing so. Whether Trump will just let himself be manipulated by Netanyahu, as Biden and all his predecessors were, that remains to be seen. Who will manipulate whom? Will Trump manipulate Netanyahu, or will Netanyahu manipulate Trump? Again, Judge, I think that's a distinction without a difference. They both see eye to eye on Israel predominating that part of the world. It's not going to change anytime soon until, or unless until, Trump realizes this is a fool's errand, that all the Arab countries and also Iran are really, really

going to back whoever is contending with Israel. The Yemenis, the Hujis, for God's sake, have sophisticated missilery that can complete the black blockade of the Red Sea. And so, you know, if Trump is a realist, it's going to be a conflicting strain in his thinking because Bibi Netanyahu is not willing to settle for anything but full victory. And his military itself and our military are going to be telling Trump, look, I hope they'll be telling Trump, God knows who they picked to be in the military. If they have professional soldiers, they'll say, Trump, this is not a good idea. Iran has capabilities we never dreamed of. They're going to enter the fray if Israel attacks Iran. As I've been saying, the fly in the ointment here is Iran's nuclear program. Are they developing a nuclear weapon? Now, ever since 2007, the intelligence community has been saying, no, they stopped working

on a nuclear weapon at the end of 2003 and have not resumed that work. Now, there's a lot of rhetoric in Iran itself. Well, maybe we should maybe we should start doing that. If Netanyahu wants to do this, he could easily go do more charts and say, look, two weeks. Even Tony Blinken says just two weeks before they get a nuclear weapon, we're going to zap them now. That would be suicide because Iran has the capability to destroy Israel, a capability they have not enjoyed in the past. I gather that Dmitry Peskov is speaking as we are, because here's his latest statement. This decision is

reckless, dangerous, aimed at a qualitative change, a qualitative increase in the level of involvement of the United States in this conflict. If Dmitry Peskov says it, correct me if I'm wrong, Ray, that means that Vladimir Putin has authorized it. Well, yeah, that's right. But Putin said the same thing on the 12th of September. Right. This is Putin through Peskov after the announcement was made yesterday. Right. But before the announcement, namely on the 12th of September,

Putin said exactly the same thing. This changes the whole business here. If these longer-range missiles are authorized, there will be a whole change, and we will have to weigh the consequences. Those were pretty much his words. Now, that came on the 12th of September. On the 13th of September, Biden had the good sense to deny the use of storm shadow missiles by Britain when Keith Stormer came into the White House and talked to him. And that didn't stick because now

they're trying to give Zelensky everything he demands. And Zelensky has been very, very positive, very aggressive and demanding precisely these things. to go out of the presidency with any charges of him having denied Ukraine as much as they need, as much as it takes, for as long as it takes. And that's why these Blinken and Sullivan's played on that. And rest assured that this is a qualitative change. But my point is that Putin already said that. How Putin will react, I don't think he's going to be provoked. I think he will see it for what it is. Besides that, there are a limited number of attack homes in HIMARS, and they have limited range. So most of the Soviet, most of the Russian facilities have long since been moved out of range.

And the range of these attack homes is just 190 miles. Look at the map. They're nowhere near Moscow or any major facilities. A Russian lawmaker named Maria Butina, B-U-T-I-N-A, said the following to Reuters. Biden's administration is trying to escalate the situation to the maximum while they still have power and are still in office. I have great hope that Trump will overcome this decision if this has been made because they are seriously risking the start of World War III, which is not in anybody's interest. I have met Maria Kuchina. She was the one, you may recall, Judge, that was wrapped up on flimsy pretenses as being

a Russian agent because she was pushing NRA-type things. It was just really concocted. She was kept in prison. I went to her arraignment. It was just really concocted. She was kept in prison. I went to her arraignment. It was shameful. And then she was let out and went back to Russia and became a member of their Duma. So she speaks with some knowledge of what the U.S. will and what it wants to do. And I think she's right on base here and saying that, you know, this is something that they're trying to blame eventually the Trump administration because the dais cast,

Russia is winning despite all the assurances from CIA Director Bill Burns and National Defense, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines a year and a half ago. No, no, Putin has not lost Avril, Bill. Putin has pretty much won. Now, will he accelerate his advance to the Dnieper River? Why? It's just working just fine. And very few Russian troops are being killed. He's going to just go keep going, you know, what do they call it? You just chip by chip by chip. And meanwhile, since Ukraine has no air defense, these missiles will keep raining down because far from running out of missile rate, as Ravel Haynes claimed a year and a half ago, Russia has all the missiles that they can do strikes such as they did Saturday night, every other week if they wish to, and it's going to be a very cold winter in Kiev,

from which I take no pleasure, but that is the retaliation that I expect from Hootie. Thank you very much, Ray McGovern. Always a pleasure, my dear friend. We'll look forward to seeing you at the end of the week with Larry Johnson. Thanks, Judge. Of course. The aforesaid Larry Johnson coming up at 11 o'clock this morning, Scott Ritter at four this afternoon, and tonight at seven, I'm moderating a debate between Max Blumenthal and Darren Beattie. Are the Trump appointees or nominees neocons in disguise? Are the neocons not in disguise?

Max says they're neocons and they'll bring us down. Darren says they're not. And they're the changes that Trump promised they will be debating here and elsewhere at seven o'clock tonight. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.