Judging Freedom - Ukraine War Moving into Russia w/ Ray McGovern fmr CIA

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

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So Ray, what is the, first of all, welcome back to the show. Always a pleasure, my dear friend. What is the latest from President Medvedev and from this threat? We have a full screen we're going to put up, but I want to hear your interpretation of it first. Well, when they say that Medvedev is deputy chair of the National Security Committee there, that's only because Putin is the chair, right? So Medvedev is pretty much the spokesperson, and he's the bad cop, okay? He has been threatening things that Putin would prefer not to threaten at given points of time. So is it real?

Well, yes, it is real. What he says is that if in the unlikely chance that NATO seizes chunks of Russian territory, nuclear war is inevitable. Now, the good news is that it does not look like NATO or the U.S. is about to win the war in any meaningful sense in Ukraine. So almost kind of jocularly, Medvedev says, so you ought to pray that we win, because if we win, you won't have to face the prospect of a nuclear strike. Hello? That's big. This comes from a former president and now the deputy chair of the National Security Council in the Kremlin. I'm going to put a full screen up now. It's in English and I'll read it. There he is, Dmitry Medvedev. Ray, I can't pronounce it with the Russian accent the way you do, but here's what he says. Just imagine that the offensive in tandem with NATO succeeded and ended up with part of our land being taken away.

Then we would have to use nuclear weapons by virtue of the stipulations of the Russian presidential decree. There simply wouldn't be any other solution. Our enemies should pray to our fighters that they do not allow the world to go up in nuclear flames. Dmitry Medvedev, July 30th, 2023, that was yesterday. Why did he say this? And why did he say it so publicly, Ray McGovern? Well, the stakes are very high in Ukraine. We've already run out of ammunition of the conventional type to give to the Ukrainians. We're low on it ourselves by admission of the President of the United States. What's next? What will the people advising Biden do when Russian troops reach the Dnieper River or even farther west? Well, the shelves are bare. The cluster munitions, well, Russia has

many more of them than we do. Well, we have these tactical nukes. Let's try some tactical nukes. Now, that's crazy. But, you know, by definition, or at least by Putin's definition, these guys are crazy. He was asked last fall why it is that they have these policies which, among other things, team up China in Russia's camp. And he said, it's just crazy. There's no logic to it. It's only a function of arrogance and a feeling of impunity. That's a direct quote. Now, what Medvedev has been assigned to do is kind of get rid of this feeling of impunity.

Do you have a real fear that America would introduce tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine because we have run out of the artillery shells and other ammunition that we promised Ukraine? Yes. And what are, just so the lay people can understand, what are tactical nuclear weapons? We're not talking about Hiroshima or Nagasaki. We're talking about something mobile and on the ground, I assume. Yeah. Well, some of these are no higher yield than the bombs we dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you know, 15 kiloton, you know. Hello? A nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. Now, why can McGovern sit back and say, my God, this might happen because these guys are certifiably crazy? You're talking about the American people that would make the government officials that would make these decisions, the characters around Biden. That's exactly right.

And you know some of them as well as I do. Blinken, Nuland, who's number two at state now, Sullivan. Now, why am I especially worried now? Well, home is the hunter, home from the hill. Hunter Biden introduces a whole new aspect to this. You know, these people are now vulnerable. Let's say Trump wins the election. Blinken, Sullivan, both engaged in improper illegal activities before the election in 2020, and Sullivan before the election in 2016, could end up in jail. So could, of course, Hunter Biden. So could Mr. Biden. Now, this is not theoretical. If this plays out the way I think it is, and with the Republicans in charge of the House, they can pursue this. Both Hunter and his dad are guilty of taking bribes, okay? Now, if that comes out and it looks like, my God, you know, we may go to jail and Trump may win. We have to do something really electric to stop this.

I would not put it past them. I would not put it past them. For Sullivan, green as he is, or Blinken never having served in uniform, either of them saying, well, Joe Biden, five deferments during Vietnam. The same as Dick Cheney, for God's sake. Now, some guys take deferments because they were smart. I don't know about these guys, but nonetheless, five deferments. So what do they know about war? So what I'm saying is the president can't really be expected to make cogent decisions here in this frame of mind. These others can, and there's a lot at stake. in February 2014. What if Trump came in? And, you know, the looks of things,

unless Bobby Kennedy gets some pizzazz behind him, that may be likely. What are they going to do? Well, the time to move is now. And just a mini-nuke, they'll consult the generals out there at what used to be SAC, the Stratcom, and say, hey, how about those ones that you talked about last year? And they might do it. That's why I think Medvedev is warning, look, don't do it. Our doctrine is very clear. If we're endangered or if there's an existential threat or, and let me just inject this new thing. I looked up in my files, what has Putin said about preventive or preemptive use of nuclear weapons? Well, I'll tell you what he said. And it was only, what, eight months ago, on the 9th of December. He says the United States has this theory of preventive strike.

They are developing a system for disarming strike. Regarding a disarming strike, perhaps we should also think about using their ideas about how to ensure their security. We're just thinking about this. This is the so-called bomb-the-bomb theory. Bomb the what's that? Bomb-the-bomb theory before the other side can use it. The first strike, yeah. Let me get back to tactical nuclear weapons. What are they? I realize that they're nuclear, but what are they

and how catastrophic are they? Well, initially, they may appear just to be, oh, in the range of 15 kilotons. They have some that you can dial down to maybe just five kilotons. Look at the photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, folks. Okay? Just think about that. What I think President Biden should be advised very seriously to do is to watch the film Oppenheimer the next day. Oppenheimer 2, but the next day is an earlier film.

And Ronald Reagan is said to have watched that film in 1983 when it came out. And it's said, and I believe this to be the case. I was briefing at that level then. I believe it to be the case that when he saw what Jason Robards was end up with, you know, he decided to really, really look hard at how he could prevent this kind of thing. Let's Biden look at this and say, do I want to end up like Jason Robarts? Did you ever talk to Ronald Reagan about nuclear weapons? I did not. When he came into office, he decided that he'd like to sleep in.

So I briefed all his major national security advisors, vice president, secretary of state defense, and chairman of joint chiefs of staff, and a whole string of national security assistants, some of whom ended up in jail. So those are the people I briefed in the morning. They all got together and briefed the president at 1130. And the joy was that each one of them knew that they were being briefed earlier, 830, 9, out of the same category of information. And in those days, it was unvarnished. It was as factual as we could make it with no what Truman used to call treatment, okay? We did analysis, but it was objective, believe it or not. And was there ever the discussion of the

terrors and horrors of the use of nuclear weapons? Oh, sure there was, yeah. You know, in 1983, this same year, there was a terrible scare. There was a nuclear exercise arranged by the geniuses in the White House to scare the Russians. And they had the vice president of the United States, H.W. Bush involved in it. Now, friends of mine, Mel Goodman comes to mind, Soviet analyst, wonderful person. He saw that the Russians were taking this seriously, okay? And then we got a report from the British that one of their intelligence officers confirmed that. They thought this was the real thing. So what did Mel Goodman do? He and two others went to Bobby Gates and said, look, we've got to tell the White House to dial us back. Gates says, no problem. They're just, forget about it.

So they circumvented Gates. They went to Bill Casey and said, Mr. Casey, this is real. Please tell the White House to knock it off. Casey told the White House to knock it off. Casey told the White House to knock it off. November 1983. That's as close as we've come. Okay. So this stuff is real. And to the degree you have sober-minded people like Bill Goodman and like Reagan in the final analysis, they called it off. Now, what happens the next time? Is the warning or the threat that we just saw from Dmitry Medvedev real? Yes, it is.

I mean, you have to put it in context. We are told in our media that the Russians have threatened using tactical nuclear weapons. That is wrong. What they have done after, what was her name? The lady British prime minister who was in office for six weeks. She said... Liz Truss. Yeah, Liz Truss. She said, I'd be happy to put my fingers on the nuclear buttons. I don't shy away from that at all, despite the consequences. The Kremlin listened to that.

And it was only then, four days later, if memory serves, that Putin for the first time says, look, please remember, we have nuclear weapons, too. Now, they have periodically reminded us about that. But what's different about Medvedev, he comes right out and says, look, he might have said, as the veteran intelligence professionals for sanity in Washington have been reminding everyone. Right, right, right. You can't have it both ways. I want to switch gears a little bit. I want to play a report from my friend Richard Engel at NBC News about the latest Ukrainian attacks inside Russia, inside Moscow, in Moscow's financial district. Watch this, Ray.

Russian land! The drones exploded in the heart of Moscow's financial district on Sunday morning around 4 a.m. Russian officials say at least three drones were involved and blamed Ukraine. Russians can no longer turn a blind eye to this war now that it's coming home. Although Ukraine didn't take responsibility, President Zelensky gave what seemed to be the most direct admission of cross-border attacks into Russia yet and suggested a new chapter is beginning. Ukraine is getting stronger. Gradually, the war is returning to Russian territory, its symbolic centers and military bases.

And this is an inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair process, he said. Is the war returning to Russia, or is this just a pinprick? Zelensky is trying very much to get NATO involved in a war with Russia. Putin is too smart for that. These are pinpricks. They're embarrassing, but they can be tolerated. For the bigger game, which is going on within Ukraine, the counteroffensive so-called has petered out. And what's next is anybody's guess. But in another couple of weeks, the territory will be clear all the way to the west, to the Dnieper River and beyond if Putin makes that calculation. My guess, it's only a guess, they'll continue to attrit, as we say, attrit, attrition, right, attrit, attrit, attrit, right into next year. But I may be wrong on that. And he's under a lot of pressure. I mean,

this Prokosian thing, I'm beginning to think, well, there are a bunch of Russians that are really influential and really would like him to get this damn thing over with. Now, I think he can resist that. But what's McGovern's guess? Maybe educated, but not really dependable. You sent me a rather cryptic, typical Ray McGovern email early this morning about your wag the dog fear. Tell us about that fear, Ray McGovern. Well, this comes out of a film with Robert De Niro and who else? Anyhow, it had to do with a fictional country, Albania, getting a nuclear weapon and trying to infiltrate it into the United States. When did that story arise? When the president, fictional president of the United States, was caught in situ delicto, very comparable with an underage woman, okay,

two weeks before the election. It's a carbon copy of what Bill Clinton did in bombing a so-called chemical factory in Sudan and doing other diversionary bombing so they could escape a lot of attention for what he and Monica Lewinsky did. So wag the dog has come to mean do a diversion. It can be a nuclear diversion in the worst case. And, you know, again, these guys, these guys, these well-heeled fellows, Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland, they have a lot at stake here. If they don't turn this thing around, Biden's either going to peter out or he's going to lose. And then what happens to them personally? So there's a personal stake in lose. And then what happens to them personally? So there's a personal stake in here. That's what really worries me because these guys are not all that compass mentis, none of them.

How much longer is this going to go on, Ray? It all depends on Poutine. You know, if he decides, well, you know, enough is enough. I can go to the Dnieper. I think he will. I think that he'll do that before the muddy season comes in, I think. And then he'll say, okay, look, you're ready to talk now because I don't want the rest of Ukraine. You can have it. The Poles can have it, for God's sake. I don't want it, but I do want a cordon sanitaire, some sort of a DMZ where your artillery is at a range of the eastern bank of the Dnieper.

I think that's what he'll propose. I don't know if Biden will be smart enough or his advisors will be smart enough to cut a deal because otherwise Zelensky is just going to push farther and farther and try to get us involved, all of us involved, in a war with Russia. So far, so good in terms of Biden resisting that and seeing it for what it is. Ray McGovern, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. Most welcome, Judge. Of course, we'll see you again soon. So at 12 noon today, Eastern, you'll be able to see my interview with former New Jersey Governor and Republican presidential

candidate Chris Christie. You'll hear his opinions on Julian Assange and the injustices being visited on him, and you'll hear Governor Christie's defense of the Second Amendment. Here's a little tease. Yesterday, Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House, who may very well be the Speaker of the House when and if you're in the White House, said he's in favor of moving forward on an impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden. Do you agree with that? Of course, we get it. Of course. Larry Johnson, this afternoon, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!