Judging Freedom - The Banality of Biden’s Advisers - Ray McGovern

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, March 28, 2023. It's about 1030 in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. Ray McGovern returns to the show. My dear friend, Ray, it's always a pleasure. The audience loves you. You always educate us. Thank you for joining us. You have an unbelievable piece. I don't know if it came out yesterday or this morning. I just saw it this morning. The banality of Biden's exceptional elite advisors in which you opine that Joe Biden's principal foreign policy advisors, the chief among whom is Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State who's worked for Biden for the past 20 years, live in a dream world on the verge of becoming a nightmare.

What a phrase, a dream world on the verge of becoming a nightmare. What a phrase, a dream world on the verge of becoming a nightmare. What does that mean? Well, George, it means that they believe in this idea of American exceptionalism. In other words, they think they can lead. As they all say, we're leading the world. Well, that's hegemony, okay? It comes from the Greek word, hegemon, which means not only to lead, but to dominate. And that's what the U.S. has been doing, at least since the war, since World War II, okay? Now, if they think that, they still think that with Russia and China now joined at the hip in a virtual military alliance, although they disavow the word, right? If they still believe that we're in trouble deep, because push is going to come to shove in Ukraine

and China is going to be right there with Russia, making sure that Russian core interests are respected, just as Russia will make sure that China's core interests vis-a-vis Taiwan are respected. That's a new world, and President Putin advisedly calls it a tectonic shift in the minds of those who preach it? That we are better human beings, that we are a purer country, that we can force our values on others even against their will and at the force of a gun, George W. Bush? What does exceptionalism mean to this crowd? Well, I'd use the adjective entitled. We're more entitled than anyone else to a disproportionate share of the world's wealth. This goes back to right after World War II,

when George Kennan, who used to be an idol of mine until I realized how exceptional or how pristine, pure, and well-heeled he was, here's what we need to do. The U.S. has control over half of the world's natural resources, but we only comprise 6.3% of the world's population. So we have to do everything we can to maintain this disproportionality. It's going to come to the exercise of hard power. We should say it. We should not shrink from that. Okay. Now we could do that after World War II. And we could do that after the Russian, after the Soviet Union fell apart, but we can't do it anymore. And the odd thing, I mean, the dangerous thing is that Biden's not with it, I don't think. The people around him are so misled by this idea that they're entitled. Look, two years ago, they read the Riot Act to the Chinese. They said, look, you know, you're going to do what we said.

We have this rules-based international system. We're going to shove it down your throat. The Chinese, four millennia of history, lots of history with imperialism, like the Germans, actually, but mostly the British. So, you know, they don't get it, and that's what's dangerous, because when push comes to shove, I don't know what they're going to do in terms of advising Biden when Putin makes this, I comes to shove, I don't know what they're going to do in terms of advising Biden when Putin makes this. I have to say, I'm a little surprised that he would advertise that he's bringing nuclear warheads into Belarus. You know, I'm surprised by Putin, like regularly. And I don't like that idea because I don't want to be surprised by looking

out the window and seeing a mushroom cloud. I mean, I hate to sound like Condoleezza Rice for God's sake, but it's much more dangerous now than it was before. Right. Well, let's get back to American exceptionalism, which you condemn,

which I condemn, which those of us who believe that the purpose of the military is to avoid war, not to wage wars of opportunity, condemn. Tony Blinken, who's the Secretary of State of the United States, has been working for his current boss for many years. 20 years ago, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, and the chief of staff of that committee was Tony Blinken. You opine in your piece this morning that then Mr. Blinken, now Secretary Blinken, helped his then boss, I'm quoting, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden,

lie about our weapons of mass destruction to win congressional approval for the war in Iraq. Wasn't the war in Iraq filled with its lies from George W. Bush to Dick Cheney to Donald Rumsfeld, that speech that Colin Powell gave at the UN to whatever Tony Blinken told Democratic and Republican senators. Wasn't that an example of American exceptionalism? We're so good, we're going to force democracy down your throats by blowing you out of the water. Yeah, it's an example of this sense of entitlement and complete naivete with respect to the limits of our power. Now, I don't have to opine this, Judge. My good friend Scott Ritter, who knew more about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq than any other living soul on this planet, tried desperately to see his senator, Senator Hillary Clinton, and tell her,

hey, look, there are no weapons of mass destruction there, okay? Couldn't get in the door. Tried desperately to get on the list of people testifying before Joe Biden's Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Couldn't get in the door. Who was Katie Barr in the door? That was Blinken, okay? Now, you would think that he would be not entitled anymore, but these guys, they get entitled, and then they're entitled 20 years later to reproduce the lies. All this business about the Ukrainians are going to win, that comes from Ukrainian liaison services

and the Ukrainian opposite number to people like Austin who tell them, oh, yeah, just a couple more tranches of weaponry, we're sure to win. It's balderdash. It's what the British call rubbish. You talk about Austin. You are referring to Secretary of State, excuse me, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. You talk about his opining that Ukraine is going to win. This gets a touch into the weeds about tanks, but here's what Secretary of Defense Austin told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 15 minutes ago, right before we went on air, right?

It's about a minute long. You told me, Secretary Austin, that you believe Ukraine now has the upper hand in the war against Russia. Is that correct? That's correct. This is a highly contested fight, Senator, as you know. And we've seen the tide move back and forth. Most recently, we've seen some pretty significant fighting in the Bakhmut area. But just with regard to your optimism about Ukraine having the upper hand,

that is what you told me yesterday. It is. Now, what I was about to say, Senator, is that Ukrainians have inflicted significant casualties on the Russians, and they have depleted their inventory of armored vehicles in a way that no one would have ever imagined. And so now we see Russia reaching for T-54s and T-55 tanks because of the level of damage that Ukrainians have inflicted on them. And we have, in the meantime... And reaching for those tanks demonstrates what to you, sir? It demonstrates that their capability is waning. And we've continued to witness them be challenged with artillery munitions and other things, and they're reaching out to Iran, they're reaching out to North Korea. Do you believe there's a real chance for significant Ukrainian advancements

between now and the beginning of winter. I believe there's a chance and we're doing everything that we can do to ensure that they have their best opportunity to be successful. Propaganda and balderdash at the highest Now, Austin has deliberately distorted, falsified intelligence before. He was head're our Al-Qaeda guys, the people we train to confront the Syrian army, they're winning. It was Balderdash then, and 51 intelligence analysts at CENTCOM made a formal petition to the IG of the Pentagon saying, Austin and his people at the very top are falsifying our judgments on what's going on in Syria. There was an investigation. Guess what? What did the inspector general find?

Well, he said, oh, well, we looked carefully. Well, what do inspector generals of the Pentagon always find? The generals are not. These were 51 upset people. They were right, of course, but they were overruled at the top because the top knows better. They're entitled and they're really smart. Well, Austin isn't really smart. I have to tell you, the fact that he used to go to mass with Joe Biden's son in Iraq doesn't qualify him to be the defense secretary, for God's sake. He's just repeating what he's hearing. It's sort of a cycle here. They tell this to the press.

The press repeats it. Austin is briefed on what the New York Times says in the morning. I said, well, this must be true. It comes from the best Ukrainian sources. Give me a break. It's not going to happen that way. Now, the other side of things are people like Colonel McGregor, who knows which end is up. You know, forgive me, but Colonel is Colonel and General is a General, but I always believe the Colonels. I have a lot of questions to ask you. I mean, Joe Biden and Tony Blinken were willing to lie us into a war in Iraq. Are they crazy enough to lie us into a war with Russia and China at the same time, a war we couldn't possibly fight, a war which would be logistically impossible for us to win?

Yeah. I mean, they give every indication of being so dumb. I mean, there's a lot at stake here. Take this as a hypothetical. Who knows who's going to win? Who knows who's going to win the next presidential election? Well, Joe Biden wanted to run for re-election as a wartime president. That seems fairly obvious. And he's willing to pick a fight with the Russians, which would be insane. That means he's willing to put the lives of American boys and Russian boys on the line for his own vanity. That's right. And Putin knows that. And Putin has said many times that U.S. foreign policy is fashioned first and foremost by domestic political developments. Okay. So what's happening here? What's happening here is that Biden is out of it. The people advising Biden, like Austin and Blinken and Jacob Sullivan, they have this ben never been the case before. So, you know,

what's really dangerous here is that they don't realize that. Now, to Russia, Ukraine is an existential threat. Am I surprised that Putin would advertise that he's put nuclear warheads, or is about to, in a storage facility on July 1 in Belarus? Yeah, I'm surprised. And so I don't want to be surprised anymore. Is he prepared to use them? I don't think so. But this is an earnest of how serious he considers the situation. He's got them there. And he's trying to warn the West, look, don't forget, you don't confront a nuclear-armed power with such blithe condescension. We have the power to prevail in Ukraine no matter what you do. And if you do X, Y, and Z, we're going to have our back against the wall.

And then and only then we're going to have our back against the wall. And then, and only then, we're going to use what we have. He said that explicitly. Whether these guys, these benighted, well-heeled guys in Washington get it, that's another question. You know, I had an insight, Judge. Yesterday, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, gave us an excellent example of not seeing the forest for the trees. He saw one tree. He said, oh, the joint statement that Putin and Xi made, that says you should not deploy nuclear warheads in other countries. Well, yeah, it said a hundred other things, much more meaning. That was spoiler plate. But McFaul is telling everyone, and this is the kind of people who are

advising Blinken and Nod and those guys. He's telling everyone, oh, the Chinese are going to be so upset at this. They were hoodwinked. They were trapped. They signed this statement. And then next thing you know, two days later, Putin puts or says he's going to put nuclear warheads in Belarus. That's naive in the extreme. It sees one little tree, which is inconsequential. It's boilerplate propaganda. One little tree for the whole forest.

The whole forest is they're against this now. And they're willing to defend each other, and specifically what they call each other's core interests. We know what they are, Ukraine and Taiwan. The statement we just watched from Secretary of Defense Austin, what do your former colleagues, analysts, or officers, whether they're the gatherers of data for the CIA or the interpreters of data for the CIA, but the ones that are intellectually honest, who know that he is just mouthing the administration line and actually doing a poor job of it, what do they think when they see that? And what can they do to get the right data out there?

Well, it's not really what we all think. It's watching Austin squirm. You see him squirm? He did not seem comfortable with himself. That's why I said he didn't even do a good job. Let's put it this way. Tony Blinken does a better job of mouthing the administration's nonsense than Lloyd Austin does. Talk about damning with faint praise, Judge. Yes. Well, you know, it's really important. It's what Biden, it's what Putin and, you know, the top Russian leadership think.

This guy is not completely with it. Biden is not completely with it. They're getting advised by people like McFaul, who has this crazy notion that we need to confront the Russians. So what is he to think? That's the dangerous part of this. Now, as I say, Austin is not all that bright. To the degree he's bright, he knows that to become four stars, you've got to distort the intelligence. And his boss, his nominal boss, April Haynes, has repeated this stuff. Just two months ago, she said, you know, China, China is playing a really double game here. You know, they're not really supporting Russia. You're trying to have it both ways. Hard words. Well, April, wake up and smell a coffee.

It's two against one now, and that means something. And again, I'll say, as I said before, if in the unlikely event Putin faces some sort of defeat in Ukraine and existential interest for him, you could expect some trouble, at least some saber rattling in the South China Sea and perhaps in the Taiwan Strait as well. It's a two-foot war now, if these naive people push it that way. And Putin has to look on this as an election year. In a political sense, these political hacks would consider it an existential threat to them too. Because as I say, nobody's sure who's going to win the next presidential election. Let's say Trump or somebody else comes in. These guys could be prosecuted for lying through their teeth about Russiagate and about lots of other things. Prosecuted. And I use that term advisedly. The evidence is there. Wow. And the same nonsense for which they could be that we, the United States government, has pushed Russia and China closer and closer together? You know, Judge, marriage of convenience,

I guess that's what Britain had with Poland way back in 19, what was it, 1939. Yeah, I was born the week before the war started, okay? Marriage of convenience? These marriages, whether they're of convenience or of necessity, are real marriages. And I've never seen Russia and China so close. These three days last week of Putin and Xi being together. I mean, they're doing everything they possibly can to say, look, you benighted people in Washington, don't think we're playing at both ends against the bill here. Xi is with us, and you should recognize the consequences.

Unfortunately, your question is the apt one. I don't know if they recognize that or not. Well, can the United States possibly fight a war against Russia? Can the United States allow itself militarily to be drawn into the war in Ukraine as these neocons want, and at the same time drawn into a war to defend Taiwan. Can any rational being expect that our military could fight two wars at the same time, 10,000 miles apart? No. And the only way to explain this is how President Putin explained it back at the end of October last year at Valdai, the discussion club. He was asked a question. How do you explain the fact that the Americans are taking on China as well as us in Ukraine? And he said, you know, that's a good question. There's no logic to it. I think they're just crazy, Putin's words. They're out of mind, walking out of their minds, okay?

And then he added, he says, you know, the only way you can explain this is by overweening arrogance and a feeling of impunity. Exceptionalism. Exceptionalism. Exceptionalism, yes. On steroids, yeah. Right. It's that same mindset which has bedeviled American foreign policy since the end of World War II. You know, Judge, there was a gleam of hope when Mr. Putin bailed Obama out on those

chemical weapons in Syria, such as they were. Obama didn't want to go to war, okay, to his credit. He didn't want to start another war. Putin told him, look, we can get the Syrians to destroy those chemical weapons that are left under UN supervision on a ship, like the ships you have specifically outfitted to destroy chemical weapons. What do you think? And Obama said, really? Kerry never told me about that. And that's true. He was alone with Obama and Putin were alone.

And yeah, watch tomorrow on TV. The Syrian foreign minister is going to announce it. And he did. Obama breathed a sigh of relief on the 12th of September, 2013, when all this was going down. Putin wrote an article in the New York Times, an op-ed, and he said, and I quote, I feel really encouraged by increasing trust, got that word, trust between not only our two countries, but between President Obama and myself personally. The only thing I object to, says Putin in the last paragraph, is what Obama said

last week, namely that the U.S. is exceptional. I don't agree with that. I think there are small countries, big countries, countries closer to democracy, equal. Now, whoa! So that's September 12th, 2013. Six months later, this exceptional country causes a coup on Russia's doorstep in Kiev, the most blatant coup in history, and everything goes kaput down from there. So these exceptional people, these neocons so-called, we're not going to abide increasing respect or increasing trust, my God. And it's very dangerous now because there's not only no trust, there's no contact between the two. Even during the Cuban Missile Crisis, there were discussions, there was a teletype that I knew about, Jack Matlock was working it on the Embassy Moscow end. They could talk and they could resolve

their differences. Now, not so much. I hope there's some way they can talk, but by all evidence, you know, every time Blinken sees Foreign Minister Lavrov, he runs into the women's room, for God's sake. He doesn't want to even have Lavrov follow him into the men's room. I mean, it's really bad. And it's adolescent, and it could get us in trouble deep, as they used to say in the comic books. Ray McGovern, thank you so much. Telling it like it is. If you haven't seen Ray's piece, Google it. The banality of Biden's exceptional elite advisors.

Get it on antiwar.com or lewrockwell.com. It will keep you awake tonight. Ray, thanks very much for joining us. You're most welcome, Judge. If you enjoy our work, like and subscribe. More as we get it. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.