Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter: Russia Beats NATO; Israel Beating Itself

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

Scott Ritter: Russia Beats NATO; Israel Beating ItselfSee 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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Starting point is 00:00:56 Save $80 with code SPACE80 at Talkspace.com. Thanks for watching! Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, March 21st, 2024. Scott Ritter joins us now. Scott, a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us on the East Coast of the United States. The sun has just come up. It's literally the crack of dawn. I'm sure you have some thoughts, I haven't heard them yet, on the Russian elections that were just completed over the weekend. Tell us what you think. Well, I think that, you know, I think Americans need to go and understand that democracy isn't something that's defined by America to be projected on nations around the world. But, you know, notions of democracy are best defined from the people who are participating in the democratic processes themselves.
Starting point is 00:02:26 And Russia just had a democratic election. Now, people say, well, Scott, how could it be a democratic election? There was only one real candidate on the ballot. Putin, the other three were a joke. It was preordained. And the answer is yes, of course. But I just want to remind Americans that there's only two candidates on the ballot when we vote. And we didn't really have much say in getting either one of them on that ballot. That was sort of done by unelected political parties. So be careful when you start talking about limited choices when it comes to election. In 2020, the United States, you know, bragged about the engagement of the American people in the processes. Donald Trump, according to the official statistics, got the second highest number of votes ever in a presidential election, only beaten by Joe Biden, et cetera, et cetera.
Starting point is 00:03:18 66% of Americans participated in that vote. And we're proud of that fact. The Russian election was just held. Vladimir Putin got 88% of the vote. Nope, that's not surprising. But if Russia's as bad as everybody says it is, if Russia's this dictatorship, if the Russian people are really suppressed, they don't have a choice. You know what happens when you don't have a choice, when you're suppressed, when you're beat up? You don't participate in the process because you don't believe in the process. You feel hopeless. You feel like there's no reason for me to go out there and do anything. 77% of the eligible voters in Russia participate in this
Starting point is 00:03:54 record high. That means that the Russian people believe in the system, not just in the man, but in the system. And that's the most important thing about this. Vladimir Putin is 71 years old. He's healthy right now, et cetera, but he's human like we all are. You know, the Russians know their history. They know what happened the last time they allowed a bunch of, you know, 70-year-old men to run their country for a sustained period of time. It was called stagnation, the stagnation of the Brezhnev era, Andropov, Chernyanko, and it led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the decade of 1990s. Right now, Putin has won an election. It's a six-term election. 2030 comes around, he'll be 77 years old. The people that he's worked with for the past quarter of a century to get Russia to where they are, they'll likewise be old. And if he doesn't have a plan for transition, Russia is going to fall into stagnation. That's not going to happen. I had lunch with the Russian ambassador, Anatoly Antonov, last week, and we talked about the election. I've talked to other senior Russians about this. Without being specific, they said that you're going to see
Starting point is 00:05:00 a purge, pretty much, in Russia going forward. And not the violent purge, not the kind where people go in the gulag and end up disappearing. But Vladimir Putin understands the realities that this is really effectively his last term. If it's not his last term, then there's a problem with Russia. And so he is going to get Russia ready for what's next. And that means that the people that have helped him for the last 25 years are going to be asked to retire. New generation is going to come in. This is a bold political move.
Starting point is 00:05:32 Why does Putin believe that he can get away with this? Wouldn't he, if he's a dictator, wouldn't he feel threatened by trying to do something new? And the answer is no. 77% of the Russians voted in favor of this change, of this man to do what's necessary to get Russia to sustain the course that they're on. Russian democracy in action, and it's working pretty good for Russia. Do you think that part of the American strategy in Ukraine is to force Russia to spend money on the military, to attempt to bleed it dry. Well, this is a retro argument that's made, you know, post-war. First of all, we never thought
Starting point is 00:06:20 the Russians could do what they're doing. We thought by sanctioning Russia that they would collapse. So what's happened now is that we've sanctioned Russia and Russia hasn't collapsed. Russia has built this, you know, assembled this vibrant defense industry that's outproducing all of NATO and producing good weapons. The Russians are now, I love the people who go, NATO's expanding. We brought in Finland. We brought in Sweden. The Russians went, that's all right. We're going to create 14 new divisions, you know, dozens of new brigades and a checkmate. But see, the Russians have a system that can do that now. And so now what we're doing is to justify what we've done. People are saying, well, we have a new strategy and that is we're going to try and repeat what happened in the 1970s and 80s, where we got in an arms race with the Russians
Starting point is 00:07:09 and we bankrupted them. We got them to spin themselves into oblivion, but that's not happening. You know, what's going to happen? You know, who's going to spin themselves into oblivion? United States and NATO, because Russia is so far ahead of us right now. We have to play catch up. So you hear Nate, you, the European countries are talking about going to a war footing to catch up. America is looking at a revitalized Russian strategic nuclear force, and we go, everything they got outclassed is what we have. So we have to get new submarines, new ICBMs, new bombers. And Congress, just so people understand,
Starting point is 00:07:47 the replacement missile for the Minuteman III, the ground-based deterrent system or whatever they call it, the United States Air Force is going to cost a couple hundred billion dollars. That's a lot of money, by the way. But it just got through its first funding review benchmark by law. And by law, if early on in these programs, if you're already like 12% over, Congress
Starting point is 00:08:13 has to call a halt and review it. Otherwise, you're heading down a path where what should have been a $100 million fighter becomes a $12 billion fighter. They were 22% over already. I'm telling the American people right now, this ballistic missile that we want to replace the Minuteman III with is going to cost over a trillion dollars. And here's the thing, it isn't going to work. The bomber that we're going to get to replace the B-2 is going to cost far more than they say it's going to cost. And it isn't going to work the way we want it to. The submarine that's going to replace the Ohio class submarines is going to cost far more than they say it's going to cost
Starting point is 00:08:49 and it isn't going to work. We're bankrupting ourselves. Is the military industrial congressional complex, and remember Ike's original speech said military industrial congressional, and he crossed that out when asked why. He said, well, I'm about to leave office, but I still need a few more votes. Is the Military Industrial Congressional Complex so out of control, so out of control, that no one person has a handle on all of it, and that Congress, it's beyond even Congress's control. What you've just described is an extraordinary, monumental, catastrophic waste. Judge, you know, the Pentagon has run multiple audits and they've admitted themselves that, you know, there's a trillion, that's with a T, dollars, over a trillion dollars worth of stuff. They just don't know what happened to it.
Starting point is 00:09:45 Could you imagine running a business and then having your accountant come in and say, basically, we don't know where anything is. We don't know where the money went. We don't know what we supposedly bought. It's just not there. I mean, A, your accountant would get fired. B, you should be arrested for fraudulent practices. This is the way it is for America, for the defense department,
Starting point is 00:10:07 for the defense industry. It's a giant corruption scheme designed to empower politicians through an artificial jobs program. Again, just remember Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, Tony Blinken, when talking about the Ukraine aid package, you know, I thought it was supposed to be giving money and weapons to the Ukrainians so we could help these freedom-loving people stand up against Russian tyranny. It turns out it's a jobs program. And they said so. We do this and we get money back into the American economy. Defense contractors get contracts. We get, you We get money generated,
Starting point is 00:10:46 jobs, employment, paychecks. And what they're really saying is members of Congress are securing their vote because now their constituents are getting the money. If America's economy requires us to generate conflict around the world to sustain it, who's the greatest threat to international peace and security in the world? No question about it. The United States of America. I just want to bring you back to Russia with another question before we dive a little deeper into Ukraine and then transition over to Gaza. You've been to Russia a number of times. We're going together in June. You have a lot of friends in Russia. I was privileged to interview one of your friends, Alexander, a number of times. Is it fair to say that the sanctions that the United States imposed on
Starting point is 00:11:42 Russia and that the United States coerced Western Europe into imposing on Russia have actually had the opposite effect, that Russia's economy is A, more independent, and B, more prosperous than it was before the sanctions were imposed. Is that a fair conclusion? It's the only conclusion you can reach. The Russians are... Let's be honest here. The control that America has over the international finance system, the dominance of the dollar and the way that Congress has allowed anything that touches the dollar to be turned into the potential of congressional action to control the global economy through sanctions. That's a very strong posture by the United States. And Russia has been severely inconvenienced by the sanctions because the system of global economic transactions that Russia used to seamlessly be a part of has been denied to them.
Starting point is 00:12:40 So they've had to make adjustments and they're still making adjustments. It's difficult to create a new structure of fund transfers, et cetera, but they're doing it. But meanwhile, while they're doing all this, and this is where it gets amazing because they don't have this thing totally figured out yet. That's why you see some disruptions here, some disruptions there as the United States threatens India, Turkey Turkey and other people with sanctions. And they have to pause while Russia seeks the workaround. But in the meantime, the Russian economy was supposed to be collapsing. And not only has the level of reduction been so small, but they've gone past that.
Starting point is 00:13:23 And we're talking about a growing economy right now, growing at rates far greater than the United States and Europe. And the other thing it's done is it's compelled Russia to do two things. One, become self-sufficient, which makes them stronger. And two, to develop new markets. And so now they've gone into China, they've gone into India, and they're building these strong, resilient markets that have depth and potential that far outstrips the potential of the West United States. When Russia was interacting with the West United States, they were at sort of the maximum benefit Russia was going to get. All Russia could hope for in continuous interaction would be to sustain what they had. That's sort of
Starting point is 00:14:07 stagnation. Russia's now going into markets that are new, expansive, and they're kind of, Alexander Zirinov just got back from two major trips. I don't want to, you know, compromise. I'm not, but, you know, he joked, he came back from India. I said, well, how was your India trip? He said, oh man, the American sanctions are, man, it's tough. I only signed 32 contracts. And then he went to China where he basically implemented, you know, a hundred million dollar deals. They have Chinese factories brought to Russia. And here's the critical thing, because people say, well, that's just a one-way street. China's benefiting. Russian factories going to China. And what the Russians are doing, nobody in the West is aware of. We don't track it. We're not aware of it. And therefore,
Starting point is 00:14:53 we have no idea about how strong the Russian economy is, how resilient it is. I hope you get to see it in June. The goal is to bring you to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum so that you can get a firsthand view of the of you know the strength of the russian economy and that way you don't have to listen to me see it you'll see it yourself and you'll be able to challenge the russians the beautiful thing about the russians is they're transparent you know they're like you want to talk about it let's talk about you'll be able to sit down with people ask them the hard questions they will give you the answers and i think you'll see for yourself just how strong the russian economy is i'm i'm looking forward to it segwaying over to uh ukraine and this is consistent with uh what you just said about uh congressional
Starting point is 00:15:38 ignorance of defense overspending uh the president course, has been begging the House of Representatives to vote to authorize $61 billion for Ukraine. We know what that means. That means probably $40 billion of it going directly to the military-industrial complex here in the United States. But last week, the Defense Department, air quotes, found 300 million. Is this an example of the inability of the Defense Department to keep track of what it's doing? Either the White House made this up, or the Defense Department made this up, or somebody found $300 million worth of military hardware that they're going to ship over to Ukraine, claiming it was authorized a while ago, and they just found it. Is this credible? Well, it's creative accounting.
Starting point is 00:16:34 I think what happened is that there was money set aside for this kind of arrangement, which I believe is where we directly send equipment there. So we had money in the bank for that, but we didn't have any equipment that was allocated, legally allocated. The equipment that exists is equipment that's earmarked exclusively for American military contingencies. And so what I think happened is that the Pentagon said, we need some creative accounting. And some young captain went around and said, you know, here, here, hey, I think I can assemble, we can make it a case that this equipment here that I just discovered is now can be recategorized, has always been categorized as being capable of being part of this program that you have the money for. So it's very creative accounting.
Starting point is 00:17:22 If the United States Congress was doing its job, it would haul in everybody in the Pentagon responsible for this and ask hard questions. And when you, and ask for the documentation to back it up. And when they lie, charge them with perjury, ruin their careers, put them in jail. But Congress is complicit in this too. So it's basically the American people that are being misled by our government. I just want to make that statement again. The American people are being constantly lied to and misled by their government about issues that involve your taxpayer money and your national security. On Wednesday, RT Today reported that the recently retired four-star General Raymond Andrzejczyk,
Starting point is 00:18:01 chief at the time he retired, chief of staff of the Polish army, said Ukraine's losses are in the millions of human beings. Kiev does not have the resources or manpower to continue the fight, and they know it. I haven't heard anybody else in the West, aside from you and McGregor and the people on this show, say anything like that. I'm sure his former bosses in the Polish government did not want to hear it, but he's retired. He's free to speak his mind. And that's what he said. It didn't make headlines over here because it goes against the government's narrative. Yeah. But I mean, it's just basic math. I mean, if you're, you know, I don't think people are any more having problems accepting the fact that Ukraine suffered a half a million dead,
Starting point is 00:18:53 at least. There's hundreds of thousands unaccounted for that could take that level up to three quarters of a million dead. And if we're talking three quarters of a million dead, now we have to talk about wounded. It's at least two to one, probably three to one ratio. So, you know, you're now, you know, 1.5, you're two, you're getting close to over 3 million Ukrainian casualties, 3 million. And that number could be, again, suppressed by the Ukrainians. We don't know the full truth, the numbers of abandoned bodies, et cetera. But then there's also the issue of, you know, when we talk about human losses, the depopulation of Ukraine that's taking place right now, not only in terms of the population shift that happens when Russia takes over territories and assumes those populations, but the refugees. Ukraine is rapidly becoming a depopulated state, which means that if there's any Ukraine when this is done, they may be in one of these fatal demographic algorithms where they're incapable of reversing the trend. And we're looking at the end of the Ukrainian nation,
Starting point is 00:19:59 the end of the Ukrainian people as they disperse around the world. This is the tragic reality of this. All these people said, we have to help the Ukrainians. We have to help the Ukrainians. All you've succeeded in doing is destroying Ukraine and destroying the Ukrainian people. How much longer can the military conflagration go on? The Russians have made it clear that they're not going to do anything that's, you know, cost ineffective.
Starting point is 00:20:30 They have a system in place that allows them to grind away and make these advances and put the pressure on it. They're not going to suddenly say, we need to bring this to an end now. Let's rush everybody in and win the war in one fell swoop. Because the risk is with modern swoop, because the risk is with modern weaponry, you're just going to lose a lot of Russians. So they're going to grind away, grind away until the Ukrainians collapse. The question is, can the Ukrainians keep feeding in meat to drag this thing through the summer? A Russian general I talked to believes that the
Starting point is 00:21:02 answer is no. They think a major collapse is going to occur in the May timeframe and that this thing could potentially all be over by September. But now what happens, we haven't talked about this, what happens if France starts deploying troops into Ukraine to free up Ukrainian troops to go to the front line? That now complicates the conflict as well. Takes it down a path that could lead to nuclear war. And I want everybody in your audience to understand that. And if France does follow through in deploying these troops,
Starting point is 00:21:29 we are on a path of nuclear war that could happen within days, if not weeks. Why do you think President Macron has made these statements? Is it for, I mean, he's talking about sending 20,000 troops there. He even gave the number. Is this for domestic political purposes? Because I can't imagine the French public wants to be involved in a war. They could wake up one morning and find Paris leveled. Well, they wouldn't wake up. It's just Paris leveled. I think he's doing it because, I mean, first of all, America abandoned him. We encourage Europe to lean forward aggressively on the issue of Ukraine and supporting Ukraine under the premise that we would be there, that we would be backing you up.
Starting point is 00:22:19 And they leaned forward aggressively and America now is pulled back. We're caught up in the silly season of presidential politics. That $60-plus billion is tied up in domestic political disputes in Congress. And the French, Macron is embarrassed. But he's not just embarrassed. This European enterprise that he and the other European political elite have bought into, the European Union, the concept of a strong, independent, viable Europe on the international stage is in the process of collapsing around him like a house of cards. And if he, having leaned
Starting point is 00:22:51 forward, says, well, America's not there, we now have to pull back. What he's saying is Europe is irrelevant, France is irrelevant. So he's been put in one of these very difficult situations where you're darned if you do, darned if you don't, and he's opted to do. And so he's talking about sending troops in. I will tell you right now, there will never be 20,000 French troops in Ukraine because he can't deploy 20,000 French troops to Ukraine. The best he can hope for in the near term is to accelerate the deployment of 2,000 troops that he was earmarked to have in Romania next year, get them in, and then you might be able to back them up with another 10,000 troops. But at that point in time, the logistical sustainability of this collapses.
Starting point is 00:23:30 France is not built to do large-scale expeditionary force projection in a high-intensity environment. So they'll go in, and here's the problem. See, if he could send in 60,000 troops, 120,000 troops, that might be a different equation, but he's going to send in 2000, maybe beef it up a little bit more and they're all going to die. Because the Russians aren't, it's like, you know, that old saying in the Middle East, if you let the camel's nose into the tent,
Starting point is 00:23:58 the whole camel's coming into the tent. And so from the Russian perspective, if you let 2000 French troops into Ukraine, next thing you know, you're going to have a 60,000 NATO contingent parked in Western Ukraine saying it's a de facto NATO representation. And now you have a different thing. Russia isn't going to let this happen. They're going to pound that nose as soon as it comes in. The French are going to be bloodied. Now, France, Macron, having committed to this, he's going to double down.
Starting point is 00:24:24 He's going to send in air power. Russia's going to hit that, hit NATO bases, nuclear war. Russia's not bluffing. Vladimir Putin said the other day, Judge, he said nuclear weapons are meant to be used. Well, here's what President Putin said right after President Macron. Cut number five, Chris. We are ready to use weapons, including any weapons, including those you mentioned,
Starting point is 00:24:48 if we are talking about the existence of the Russian state, about damaging our sovereignty and independence. As to the states that say they have no red lines regarding Russia, they should realize that Russia won't have any red lines regarding these states either. Well, anybody that listens to him knows that he's a man who says what he means. He's not bluffing. That means what he says. Yeah. He's not bluffing. And this is what, again, for your American audience out there, I just hope you understand that Joe Biden's silence on this issue means that Emmanuel Macron has taken control of our future, and that the French, by engaging in this irresponsible action in Ukraine, are putting all of our lives at risk. Because Vladimir Putin just told you that
Starting point is 00:25:40 if the French do this, if NATO does this, he will use nuclear weapons. He's not bluffing. And the Russians don't do small nuclear wars. They do nuclear war. So if the decision is to use nuclear weapons, that means he's ready to use nuclear weapons against everybody. I personally believe that he will take Europe off the map and then turn to America and say, do you really want to commit suicide over Europe right now? Because it's no
Starting point is 00:26:08 longer theoretical. It doesn't exist anymore. We killed them. And we still have the weapons to kill you. Hasn't Russia effectively defeated NATO already, just in Ukraine? Yes. I mean, look, this Ukrainian gambit will go down in history as the end of NATO. NATO is finished. You know, it's going to take a while for the body to die and to be dismantled and et cetera, or destroyed by nuclear weapons. But NATO is finished. It no longer exists as a credible military organization. Wow. All right. Segwaying over to Gaza, did the speech by Senator Schumer change anything? It just complicated the politics of it. Nothing's going to change until Joe Biden cuts off military aid to Israel, till Joe Biden cuts off economic aid to Israel, till Joe Biden tells Bibi Netanyahu that the next time they commit an act of genocide, the United States isn't going to run interference for them in the Security Council, that we will clear the way for effective international court of justice prosecution of you and everybody else in your cabinet.
Starting point is 00:27:26 Until that happens, Netanyahu feels that he's empowered. You know, I think it was, it embarrassed Netanyahu, it embarrassed because it was an educational process. You know, a lot of people, including myself, have been operating under the notion that Israel has bought the American Congress, that Israel has bought the American presidency. I think we're seeing a more nuanced take, and this is a little bit more even controversial, that there's an American Jewish Zionist entity that uses Israel as leverage to control the American body politic.
Starting point is 00:28:07 Agreed. The real problem isn't Israel. The real problem is here at home. And this is about a domestic infighting that's taking place amongst that group. And Chuck Schumer, for better or for worse, whether you like him or not, I mean, I know him from my years at Fox. We sat next to each other on a plane once and bonded a bit. He's in the middle of all this. He's the highest ranking Jewish American elected
Starting point is 00:28:34 official. He's a Democrat. He controls the Senate. He wants Joe Biden to be reelected. And I think he's probably repulsed by what he sees in Gaza. Of course, he could do something about it, and he really hasn't. The president said he liked the speech. Admiral Kirby was asked yesterday, what did the president like about the speech? Here's the question, and here's Admiral Kirby's response. Beyond about beyond what he said in the Oval Office did the president find good about Senator Schumer's speech? The president spoke about the passion with which Leader Schumer made that speech. And the president said that he knows that those remarks, they resonate with many Americans out there. Since then, Prime Minister Netanyahu was asked to address the senate senator schumer said no
Starting point is 00:29:28 then he asked to address the republicans only senator mcconnell said yes that happened yesterday by zoom last night speaker uh johnson leaked didn't say leaked that he's considering inviting Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress. Professor Sachs says that Netanyahu and his government are a gang of criminals. Do you agree? And if you do, is the American government as criminal because it's funding the IDF slaughter and criminality? Well, in short, yes. Professor Sachs is 100% correct. Israel is a criminal enterprise right now. They're organized as such. The IDF just admitted that they executed 140 Gazans, 50 just the other day in Al-Shifa Hospital, executed. That's a violation of law. They executed prisoners without due process. And we are complicit. We give them the weapons. We give
Starting point is 00:30:33 them the diplomatic covering. We are complicit in the crimes that Israel is committing. And I just want to remind people, there was a time when we criticized Benjamin Netanyahu for coming over and interfering in American political processes in a presidential election year. That's what he's doing, America. When they invite him in to speak like this, this is interference in the American political process. If you're a Republican, you should condemn this because it's we the people that get to make the choice. And we don't allow other leaders to come in and start playing partisan politics to create divisions in a thing. I know you can be against Biden and all that stuff, but you have to be pro-Constitution. You have to be pro-American democratic processes, and this is the most undemocratic thing I can imagine, to allow Benjamin Netanyahu to come in and address Congress during a presidential election about an issue that
Starting point is 00:31:30 is fundamentally only about, that only the United States gets to weigh in on. If Benjamin Netanyahu isn't happy with this policy, then have his ambassador meet with Tony Blinken. But you don't get to come over here and do this. And when we allow that to do that, we diminish ourselves because we say that we aren't capable of solving this problem ourselves. And we need to bring in the tool, Benjamin Netanyahu, to come in and leverage that in favor. And again, it just shows, it reinforces what Unite talked about. It's not about Israel controlling the United States. It's about American political interests in the United States using Israel as a tool to achieve political purposes. Here's what Chris is going to put up a full screen of what Netanyahu told the Knesset.
Starting point is 00:32:16 We must all unite against U.S. attempts to prevent an Israeli invasion of Rafah. Now, Scott, the Israeli invasion of Rafah will probably be the worst thing that they have done. They chased a million human beings out of northern Gaza down to southern Gaza where Rafah is saying, get out of the way, get out of the way, we're bombing, we're bombing, we're bombing. Rafah had a population of a quarter of a million. There's now a million and a quarter there, five times that number. And now they're going to invade and slaughter. And what is the West going to do about it? Nothing. Come on, Judge, we allow Israel to drop food shipments in and have the Gazans run to the food shipment and then bomb them. And we didn't do anything. We allow the Israelis to have Palestinian civilians walk across the street with a mother
Starting point is 00:33:11 holding the hand of her son, waving a white flag, and we allow them to shoot the mother and kill her and we do nothing. We allow Israeli snipers to shoot into a hospital and hit a surgeon carrying out life-saving operations on civilians, and we do nothing. We've allowed the slaughter of over 30,000 civilians. We've done nothing. 18,000 children, we've done nothing. What are we going to do about Rafah? Nothing, because if we were going to do anything, we'd have already done it. But we don't care about the Palestinian people. We talk about them. We pretend to care about them. But if we cared about them, everything you just said, we know what's going to happen. We know what the consequences
Starting point is 00:33:49 are. Now's the time for decisive action, not the kind of wishy-washy political games. We're in a political season right now where Israel, the concept of Israel is being used as a weapon in American politics. Nobody wants to do the right thing because the right thing would expose yourself politically at home. You can't be anti-Israel. You can't be against Israel. But right now is the time to be anti-Israel and to be against Israel because Israel no longer stands, no longer shares values with us. Or if they do, that condemns us because that means that our values are values that endorse genocidal behavior, that endorse the slaughter of innocent civilians, that endorse the Rafah
Starting point is 00:34:32 invasion. If we don't want the Rafah invasion to happen, we can stop it right now with a phone call, but we're not doing that. Here's a line from someone you and I know personally. Hamas is to blame for the Gaza war. Any country would act like Israel is. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I mean, this is repellent. No country has ever acted like Israel has since Nazi Germany. Look, the concept of tactics used by Hamas, we can get down there, we can parse it out. Hamas is not above criticism, but we need to get to a fundamental understanding here.
Starting point is 00:35:15 The Gazan people are an occupied people. And under international law, an occupied people have an inherent right of resistance. And the occupiers have no inherent right of resistance and the occupiers have no inherent right of self-defense. This is straight up, you know, red letter law, black letter law. Correct. And so RFK Jr. is just 100% wrong on this one. 100% wrong.
Starting point is 00:35:40 Yes, I'm not saying that Hamas can't be criticized. We all could be criticized. But what I'm saying is, if your fundamental proposition is that Hamas has no inherent right of resistance, then you're wrong. You're wrong and you've sold out to Israeli interests and you're no longer representing the values of the United States people. Or maybe you are. Maybe RFK Jr. has got this right, Judge. Maybe he knows the American people better than we do. And maybe he thinks that the American people have sold out to everything, all principles and values that the Constitution will not sustain or endorse. Maybe the American people have gravitated so far away from that's where we should be that RFK Jr. is the guy who's got it right, because it's no longer about doing what American values are, because we have no values. We've sold out. You mentioned these executions. The other day while on air, I got a text from a former student from when I was a professor at Brooklyn Law School, who's now a lawyer in New Jersey. He's an Egyptian-American, telling me that his 35-year-old cousin,
Starting point is 00:36:48 the head of pediatrics at the Gaza City Hospital, was slaughtered by rapid fire by IDF that burst into the room where he was tending to two babies, not tending to Hamas, purported Hamas killers, but tending to two babies in a hospital. 35-year-old pediatrician, father of five. This is what those people have to live with. And now, are you ready for this? Here's the Israeli economic interest in cleansing Gaza. Here's former
Starting point is 00:37:30 President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, talking to a professor of Middle East studies at Harvard about what is to become of Gaza when the war is over. This will repulse you, but I don't think it'll surprise you. Once Gazans leave Gaza, Netanyahu's never going to let them back in. Maybe, but I'm not sure there's much left of Gaza at this point. And so my sense is, I would say, how do we deal with the terror threat that is there so that it cannot be a threat to Israel or to Egypt, right? I think that both sides are spending a fortune on military. I think neither side really wants to have, you know, a terrorist organization enclave
Starting point is 00:38:13 right between them. And Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable to, if people would focus on kind of building up, it's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there. But I think from Israel's perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up. It's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel's perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up. Last week in Northern New Jersey, there were two Israeli real estate companies offering for sale land in Israel, land in the West Bank, land in Gaza. And the Attorney General of New Jersey reminded them that it's against the law in this state to sell or to attempt to sell or offer for sale real estate with restrictive covenants on it,
Starting point is 00:38:51 that is real estate that you don't own or real estate that can only be bought by one ethnic or religious group and not by anybody else. Your thoughts? Well, first of all, Jared Trump is the living manifestation of the evils of nepotism. He has no qualifications for anything, and yet he's one of the senior advisors. He was one of the senior advisors to President Trump when he was in the White House, and he's one of those senior advisors to former President Trump today. If you're not disgusted by what he says, then you're not an American, you're something else. And if you don't understand that the motivations for his statements come from his multi-billion dollar relationship with Saudi Arabia, then you don't understand. He's a corrupt individual, he's corrupt morally,
Starting point is 00:39:40 he's corrupt intellectually, and he's corrupt ethically. And this statement condemns him. He should never again be allowed anywhere near the halls of power. And every time he goes someplace, people should stand up and shout him down. Because he has demonstrated that he is literally the face of evil, the face of evil. He's the civilized face of evil. I mean, I could go on about that, but I'm just saying that this is not a good man. And if you're one of the Trump supporters out there, understand that these are the people he surrounds himself with. Jared Kushner oftentimes was the last person to whisper advice into
Starting point is 00:40:24 President Trump's ears. And if you want person to whisper advice into President Trump's ears. And if you want that guy whispering advice to President Trump, then you don't believe in anything good because everything that man just said there is evil. Alistair Crook seems to feel that a resistance might be gathering to the Israeli slaughter in Gaza. And by resistance, he means state actors in the Middle East responding to the pressure put upon them, even though they're autocratic, from the masses of Arabs repulsed by what they see every day on the Internet. Do you see this happening or state it differently? Is any state actor going to resist this next round of slaughter? I think, first of all, I agree with Alistair Crook when he says that resistance is building,
Starting point is 00:41:21 but I don't think the resistance has coalesced to the point that you're going to get meaningful intervention to prevent the Rafah slaughter. I think Israel, if they make the decision to go into Rafah, and it appears that Bibi is headed in that direction, will execute this plan. And it will be murder like we haven't seen in a long time. And that will trigger a response. But I don't believe at this point in time, we're going to see meaningful military intervention. The response will be triggered, will again be a continuation of the diplomatic isolation of Israel. And we're going to get into the long-term economic destruction of Israel, because I think the decision makers out there, remember,
Starting point is 00:42:05 most of the people right now that are going against Israel weren't there for the Palestinian people ever. The Palestinian people on October 6th didn't have any friends. And many of the people that call themselves the friends of Palestine today aren't friends of Palestine. They're just against Israel. And so they're willing to allow the Palestinian people to be sacrificed to create the conditions under which they can bring Israel into check and maybe even destroy Israel economically. Because the greatest threat to Israel is long-term lack of economic, sustained economic viability. You will see the Jewish population of Israel flee. Hundreds of thousands are already leaving. And when it
Starting point is 00:42:45 starts turning into millions in a nation that has, you know, 8 million or so people, 9 million, the depopulation will be the end of Israel. And that's the strategy I think that people are looking at, long-term economic diplomatic isolation of Israel leading to the depopulation and the diminishment of Israel. But I don't see anybody willing to step up and put it all on the line for the Palestinian people, except Hamas. Right, right, right. There's so much more we could do, but I've consumed so much of your time. Thank you. Thank you, Scott. Thank you so much, my dear friend. Thank you for your thoughts, and thank you for your analysis, and thank you for your passion.
Starting point is 00:43:32 And by the way, I heard you gave a dynamite speech the other night in North Carolina. I won't say who, but one of our dear friends said to me, Judge, it was like I was at a PhD seminar. He knows so much. And I'm not talking about Ray McGovern introducing you. I'm talking about what you said. We'll discuss it next time and maybe we'll even get a clip of it. Thank you very much, Scott. All the best, my dear friend. Thanks, Judge. Thanks. Coming up tomorrow, Professor Mearsheimer, Colonel Wilkerson and the Intelligence Community Roundtable with the boys. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.

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