Judging Freedom - Ray McGovern : Will Trump Say No to Netanyahu?

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Ray McGovern : Will Trump Say No to Netanyahu?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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news from Moscow. But first this. My friends, if you care about your liberty and your right to control your own future, you need to hear about this. From October 10th to 12th, Mikkel Thorpe, of the expat money show is bringing together top experts from around the world for the expat money online summit and it's completely free to attend you'll learn how to legally protect your wealth secure second residences and citizenships reduce your tax burden and own property abroad all to safeguard your freedom this year's focus is on latin america where opportunity is booming argentina is shifting to free markets. El Salvador is undergoing a dramatic transformation, and Panama and Paraguay are offering

simple residency programs. A plan B is no longer optional. It's essential. Reserve your free ticket at expatmoneysummit.com. And if you want VIP access with special perks, including lifetime replay access and exclusive VIP panels, use promo code. judge for 20% off your upgrade. That's expatmoneysummit.com promo code. Ray McGovern, welcome here, my dear friend. Before we get to Netanyahu and the latest tragedies in Gaza, you picked up some interesting information that President Putin, about what President Putin himself said to a young scientist in Moscow over the weekend. Can you tell us what that was. Yeah, it was very interesting, missed by some chance by the Western press or by most

people. You have to read this stuff. And here's a transcript right on the president's website. He's out talking to nuclear scientists and they're celebrating the 80th anniversary of their work on atomic weapons. And he's asked a question. And the question is, you know, what about U.S. Russian relations? It doesn't look good. And Putin says this, off the cuff. You know, I see a certain light at the end of the tunnel with respect to relations with America. And I'm not talking about the elite. I'm talking about President Trump, in whom we have considerable trust.

And we think this has been turned around. Now, the fact that nobody noticed that really matter. What matters is what Putin says. And Lavrov, of course, said pretty much the same thing several times during that interview with NBC that was aired yesterday. So this is what I put store by. I think there's great hope, Putin's no fool. He's way out on a limb now, given all the betrayals by the West on the Ukraine. So he thinks there's a chance for progress.

Call me an optimist, but I see that in the wake of the summit, where the decision was made to give up. up on this immediate ceasefire. That was Trump's giving in there. And the notion that all these sanctions, the bone-crushing sanctions, well, you know, forget about them, they're not going to be put in, even the secondary one's against China. And last, but perhaps most important, I just mentioned China, Putin this week is going off to Beijing for four days of being with Xi Jinping, his main patron, his big brother, if you will, and the

Shanghai Cooperation Council and the anniversary of the end of the war in the Pacific in 1945. You know, Putin is not feeling isolated. He's feeling supported. He's got the winning hand. So there's no reason to doubt

his sincerity when he says, you know, I think there's light at the end of the tunnel. He must know how that has been misused during Vietnam. So this is all deliberate. I'm going to play the clip to which you referred in a minute, but I could not agree with you more, particularly that what you just talked about is nowhere in the Western press this morning. What's in the Western press

this morning? Lindsay Graham going crazy about how we're going to crush Russia. We'll play that for some last. Oh, no, no. I'm sorry, I get to subject you to it. But here is the exact clip about which you spoke, Ray, from Foreign Minister Lavrov. It was recorded on Friday, but played yesterday with Kristen Welker. Chris, cut number one. So bottom line, bottom line, there's no meeting plan. President Putin said clearly that he is ready to meet, provided. This meeting is really going to have an agenda, presidential agenda. So that's a big if. There's no meeting planned, Mr. foreign minister. That's a big if. You're saying there's no meeting plans right now. Kristen, Kristen, I'm awfully sorry. You're not listening. There is no meeting planned,

and I'm not challenging this. But you, you cannot, I think, understand what I am saying. Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all. President Trump suggested, after Anchorage, several points which we shear, and on some of them, we agreed to show some flexibility. When President Trump brought those issues to the meeting in Washington, with Zelensky present together with his European sponsors, he clearly indicated, it was very very very, it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be

accepted, including no NATO membership, including the discussion of territorial issues. And Zelensky said no to everything. He even said no to, as I said, to canceling legislation, prohibiting the Russian language. How can we meet with a person who is a person who is a pretending to be a leader. See, the way I read this is they have great respect, even affection for President Trump, and it's unlikely that Putin and Zelensky will ever meet. How do you read this? Well, the notion of a meeting between Zelensky and Putin came about when Trump received

Whitkoff back from Moscow or even before Whitkoff got back, on the 6th of August. Now, the Russian readout of that was, there was the possibility of a meeting with Zelensky or even a tripartite meeting with Zelensky, Trump, and Putin was raised, but it was not discussed, and we can't really, it was not discussed and we're sort of disgusted

that this is bandied about in the Western media as a done deal. Trump himself has never presented that as an idea that he cleared with either Kiev or Moscow. So this whole thing has to do with Kiev and saving a measure of respectability for Kiev. And Lavrov, as you and our viewers have just seen, has put demolished Zelensky for rejecting out of hand even something so simple, even something so basic under the UN Charter and other regulations of the laws as allowing Russians. speaking people to reuse their language in Ukraine. So the idea here is you place it on Zelensky.

The U.S. and Russians are put the Zelenskyy on the carpet, and he's acting typically in rejecting everything, and the U.S. and Russia will continue to negotiate over his head and has come to some kind of arrangement where Putin also hopes they can put some lipstick on this pig of defeat and allow him not to have to go farther into Ukraine, then he really needs to have a zone of, well, a cordon, son it here. Chris, can you post President Trump's truth social? What do you think of this, Ray, from the president late last week? It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader's country. It's like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense.

but it's not allowed to play offense, there's no chance of winning. It is like that with Ukraine and Russia. Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine fight back, only defend. How did that work out? Regardless, this is a war that would never have happened if I were present. Zero Chance, Interesting Times head, President, D.J.T. Now, shortly after he posted that, the Wall Street Journal approved that, reported that the United States approves European-funded long-range cruise missiles to be used

by Ukraine. What do you make of all this? Well, I'll have to see the proof is in the pudding about those long-range cruise missiles. That's one report in the Wall Street Journal. I don't believe it just yet. Now, with respect to the true social thing, it's typically self-contradictory. You could see what he's trying to do. He's just trying to blame the whole. thing on Biden, you know? You say, look, this is Biden, this is not my war, and that's the key here. He keeps saying, this is not my war, and I really want to stop the killing. Now, actually, just because Trump says he wants to stop the kidding, that's not a bad idea. I think it's a good idea to stop the killing, and that will happen as soon as Zelensky is put in his place or replace

or replace, or as soon as the West Europeans come to terms with the fact that they can't They don't have the money. They don't have the arms. They don't have much to offer Ukraine at all. It's worse. It's worse than telling, as the U.S. did, telling Ukrainians, look, we will support you as long as it takes. Because now is the time. It's as long as it took, okay?

And things are being wound up in a rather peaceful way if nobody throws a wrench in the works, like the British are quite likely to do in terms of. of a false flag attack or something. There are a lot of people out there that want to derail this, including in Washington. So it's not a done deal. But in terms of Russian cooperation here, they wouldn't be saying these things,

but at this for a long time. They would be saying these things. If they didn't have a measure of hope, that Trump might prevail on this one, and that would be a big, big deal. Right, right. I mean, what would happen if Trump just stopped all U.S. arms, whether directly or indirectly, from going to Ukraine.

How much longer would the war go on? Well, Judge, I'm not sure how much arms aid is going through now. My impression is that there was lots of arms aid authorized and paid for by Biden. My guess is that's still coming through. It takes a long time. Now, Trump himself, I watch one of his clips just last. last night. And he said, you know, I'm going to give them two weeks. Yeah, give him two weeks this time. And then we'll all, I know what I'm doing. He says, and I'm going to make a decision. And the decision will be whether, whether we come to some kind of terms or bone crushing sanctions again. That's what we're going to do.

Well, the other alternative, he says, well, we'll come to terms or we'll walk away. Now, walk away. is what I think is going to happen. The U.S. administration has already walked away. The vice president said, look, we're done with Ukraine. We're done financing Ukraine. Though the Europeans can't do it, okay? We're not going to do it. It's just a matter of time before people can negotiate this kind of thing.

And what is Russia's incentive here again? They don't want to go any farther into Ukraine. They want to deal and they want to be recognized for their core interests. They don't want this happen again, and they think, matter of fact, you know, Lavrov in that interview. He referred to our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Marco said just a last day or two that after the summit, they understand more about the Soviet Russian core interests and the fact that we need some kind of security guarantees. He said that, and so did Rubio.

So there's become a kind of recognition after one last Hail Mary pass thrown by Trump. He thought perhaps he could cajole Putin into accepting an immediate ceasefire. But that was not in the cards. But he threw it anyway telling Bert Baer before he went into the meeting in Anchorage that he'd be very disappointed if some kind of, if some kind of ceasefire deal is not reached. So that was up in the air. And Putin said, look, I said Nyet before. It's still Nyet.

And so what could the president do? He comes back and he said, well, Europeans, I may born, I did, I throw the Hail Mary pass. He said Nyat. And so I think he's right. There's no prospect for an immediate ceasefire. We're going to negotiate the whole enchilada. Okay, we're going to have been to a complete settlement, and that's what we all want, not only the Russians, but we want that, too, says the U.S. now. That's a big deal. Here's, as promised, Ray, just to give you a little heartburn, because I love you.

Senator Graham throwing gasoline on the fire. Chris cut number four. Putin fears Trump, and he's been a, I think he's been tough. And my advice to President Trump and Marco is, is if you've got to convince Putin that if this war doesn't end justly and honorably with Ukraine making concessions also, we're going to destroy the Russian economy. We have the ability to do it. To Europe, why don't you put tariffs on India for buying Russian oil? To Europe, why don't you threaten China with tariffs for being the largest purchaser of Russian oil?

To Europe, you can do more. If Europe and the United States banded together and we told Russia that if this war does not come to an end, we're going to destroy your fossil fuel economy, this war would come to an end. I think we have the ability to crush the Russian economy through putting tariffs on people who buy Russian oil and gas, buying cheap oil to prop up his war machine. And I intend to push that until I can't push anymore. This expert on international oil, the senior senator from South Carolina, I pick that up from one of our, one of the people in the chat room, But before you comment on this, in fairness to Senator Graham, he did not know this when he made that statement because it happened over the weekend.

Moscow destroyed the terrorist missiles that the Germans had delivered to Kiev. And President Putin said to Berlin, if this keeps up, expect a response to the likes of which you haven't seen since World War II. So are we really going to crush the Russian economy, Senator Graham? Well, Graham doesn't know what he's talking about. It's all rhetoric, and it's stupid rhetoric. I can see Putin and Lavrovs. There's Graham again, thinking he can destroy our economy. Look, the Russian economy is doing quite well, comparatively speaking.

There's no, like the New York Times would have you to believe, oh, they're really in great economic trouble, and they're losing a million, a million soldiers. in Ukraine. It's all, well, there are lots of words I could use. It's all BS, okay? And so when they laugh, I'm sure that maybe even, maybe even Trump and JD Vance sitting there goes, Lindsay again, that's good. We'll have a little stirring up, but it doesn't matter. You know, Graham doesn't matter. He's been overruled, and he'll he'll tucktail sooner or later, probably sooner in my view. I'm going to play Senator Janine Shaheen, liberal Democrat from New Hampshire.

She's in Jordan. And then I'm going to play Rahm Emanuel, well-known, former chair of the DNC, former mayor of Chicago, former chief of staff to President Obama, both saying the same thing, harshly critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Chris, cut number two, and then immediately following cut number three. The Israeli Prime Minister's office on Friday had a very harsh statement about the famine designation. They called it, quote, a modern blood libel spreading like wildfire through prejudice. That suggests this is about anti-Jewish hate rather than starvation. How do you make sense of the Israeli defense?

I don't think that's a good defense. The fact is this is not about anti-Semitism, which I uphold. But the reality is we have people dying because they are systematically being starved to death because Israel is refusing to allow in the humanitarian aid that people need to keep alive. Not only that, they're getting ready to do another, or they've already started planning another major incursion into Gaza in ways that are going to kill more people. So this is not acceptable. The world needs to speak out. This is a product of the fact that he was, Prime Minister Nanyahu was told in the early days of the war, you better have a day after plan, and now there is no day after plan, and there's chaos there.

And there is an issue as access to food, and there is hunger. There is famine. It's a war zone. Second is, we're coming on the two-year anniversary. There's also coming on, in 30 days from now, Russia Shah. And I think the Israeli government, as they send their delegation to Cairo to negotiate, has to make a decision. Will these young men, mainly men, who are taken hostage, spend the Jewish holiday the second year in a row in a tunnel or in a temple? Will they be with their captors or be with their community?

And it is incumbent upon the government in Israel to choose a temple over a tunnel. The IDF says it, the Israeli public says it, and the parents of these children say it. And this is a product, in my view, of a prime minister who refused to make the public. political strategic decisions in which he has degraded the Hamas, destroyed their capability, but doesn't have a plan for what to do next. Even if the world is turning a Netanyahu, and it seems to be, is that going to make a difference? Words, words, words, I'm so sick of words, from my fair lady, okay? What Congress could do is something tangible. Larry has mentioned this on occasion. What

other countries can do with something tangible. They can cut off trade, they can ruin Israel's economy. Don't leave it to the simple hoochies to do that, for God's sake. We could do things like that. So words are cheap, and words, words, words, I'm really sick of words. It's nice that things are saying, that people are saying nicer things now, but it doesn't matter. A good portion of the Palestinian people have been genocided and have been starved to death.

We don't need words anymore. We need action. Ray, I wish I were 18 again. Happy birthday to you, my dear friend. Oh, well, Judge, may I take a point of privilege here and finish with, you mentioned William Butler Yates. I think maybe, well, he's my favorite poet. I know that you know him. But in keeping with my glass half full, and now after the summit, three quarters,

full attitude toward Ukraine. Let me quote the fiddler of Duny, a little poem by Yates, okay. Go ahead. When I play my fiddle and doony, poke, dance like a wave of the sea. My cousin is priest in Calvarnet, my brother in Bachnawai. I passed my brother and cousin. They read from their book of prayer. I read from my book of songs that I bought at the Sligo Fair. We reached the end of time with Peter, sitting and state, he'll smile at the three of us. It'll ask me, forced through the gate. For the good of ours, the merry, saved by Jeeville chance, and the merry love the fiddle, and the merry love to dance. And when the folk there spy me, they'll all come up to me saying,

here's the filler of Dooney, and they'll dance like a wave of the sea. So, let's, let's, let's dance a little, let's relax. Let's look at what Putin and Lavrov is saying, not what CNN and NBC are saying. And I think there's reason for optimism. I leave you with that. And thanks for the happy birthday. God love you, my friend. We'll see you at the end of the week with Larry. All the best. Thank you, Ray. Thank you, Larry. Thank you. Judge. And you're welcome. And the aforementioned Larry, of course, is Larry Johnson at 1130 this morning. And at three this afternoon on all. of this, still fresh from his two weeks in Moscow, Scott Ritter, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.