Judging Freedom - Ukraine War & Taiwan - Biden Team Mixed Messaging w_ Phil Giraldi fmr CIA

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, June 19th, 2023. It's about 3.15 in the afternoon here on the East Coast of the United States. Phil Giraldi will be with us in a moment. What are Joe Biden's two biggest headaches, Russia and China? What is he messing up right after this? When it comes to carrying valuables or even firearms in your vehicle, most people feel they have to choose between safety and convenience. A vehicle break-in occurs every 36 seconds in America. The Headrest Safe gives you the power to store cash, jewelry, medication, and yes, even your concealed carry firearm.

You'll never have to worry about taking your valuables with you again. Keep them safe with the Headrest Safe. Use promo code JUDGENAP and enjoy $50 off for a limited time at theheadrestsafe.com. Phil, always a pleasure. Thank you for joining us. Do you think that the neocons in the State Department and their colleagues in Western Europe, we know that they want to use Ukraine as a battering ram to drive President Putin from office. break off relations with Russia and sever communications as we almost have done right now? Well, that's a central question to what exactly is going on and what the long-term intentions of U.S.-European policymakers are. And this is somewhat of a mystery. The only clearly enunciated intentions we have are coming out of the Pentagon, and that's essentially to weaken Russia

to keep the fighting going. But it's obviously raising other more central issues as to where does all of this end and what are the other objectives that are not being verbalized uh and this is what scares the hell out of me uh we're basically seeing a situation that's volatile and it is being increasingly pushed to the breaking point and we seem to be unaware of the likely consequences. We know they're lying to us. Biden has been saying there are no U.S. boots on the ground, but now, of course, we know there are. And of course, now there is the situation with tactical nukes being pushed to the front from both sides. So, you know, where does this end? How does it end? That's the central

question. You know, you wonder, people making statements and in whose behalf are they making them? General Ben Hodges, recently retired four-star, former commander-in- chief of all American military units in Europe, said he thinks that the Ukrainians, it sounds like Victoria Nuland, Phil, Ukrainians with our help can take back Crimea. I mean, that is just crazy. But making a statement like that makes you wonder, what is the goal of these neocons? Well, we know what the military industrial complex wants. They want to work 24-7 and produce armaments. They want to kill as many people as possible. But what is the realistic goal or off-ramp of these Biden policymakers when they dispatch someone like that or David Petraeus to say the Ukrainians are going to win the offensive contrary to all

objective publicly available and even secret from the Jack to share a documents evidence yeah I mean they know that this is not a winnable prospect uh for Ukrainians. And they also know, or they should know, that to declare that the Crimea is going to be returned to Ukraine somehow is an out-and-out threat of war, a national security imperative for Russia, which has its fleet base there, and which traditionally has been part of Russia. And, you know, so anyway, if they don't know these things, then there's something far worse going on in Washington than even we have surmised over the last few months. And this is scary stuff. And then you throw China into the hopper. And the rhetoric coming out of Washington about China, this is bipartisan, a lot of it. Yes. Before we get to

China, Phil, and I'm glad you brought it up. But here, just to stick with Ukraine and Russia a little bit longer, here's President Putin about, he's happy to talk to the US. They don't want to talk to him. As for the contacts, we don't have any contacts practically, but we didn't reject them. If there's a desire to enter into a dialogue with us, they are welcome. It's not us who stopped this dialogue. They moved this dialogue into the sphere of supplying weapons and armory okay we are going to burn all that they have supplied and then we'll see

what we are going to do next you're killing my soldiers and now you don't even want to talk to me basically what he's saying yeah i mean I've heard from numerous sources that the Russian embassy here, which is still open, is basically like an open air prison in a sense, that it's under constant surveillance by FBI and others. And they've broken off contact with all the normal people that they would have been talking to, like the ambassador. The chief of station was, the New York Times today reported that the chief of station was kicked out of the country about a year and a half ago. And so- What is the chief of station? What does that mean? Chief of CIA of the Russian intelligence station.

And I know the guy and this guy was a character that was very much into the maintaining open dialogue between the two sides. And they threw him out of here and they don't talk to the ambassador. They don't talk to the chief of mission. They don't talk to anyone. Here's President Putin asking, this is really terrifying, Phil, but you can form your own judgment of it. Is the U.S. trying to provoke us? The Kremlin, there are terrorist attacks organized by Kyiv and of course all those drone attacks including the Kremlin.

On the one hand, the Biden administration is quite categorical in saying that they do not approve of such actions and they never promoted their destruction of Nord Stream 1 and 2. Can you evaluate it and how are you going to deal with it? You know, everything you mentioned, these are their attempts to provoke us to some powerful counteractions. The attempt to hit and cause some damage to the Kremlin and all those assaults on the Belgorod region and villages near the border. All these are attempts to provoke us. So if we destroyed five patriot complexes near Kiev, so what do you think? Can we destroy any building in Kiev? There are no limitations for us, but we don't do it due to a number of considerations. So his argument is the U.S. is trying to provoke us, but we're not going to be provoked.

We could be far more destructive of the American vassal state, Ukraine, than we have been. I think he's right on the mark, Phil. Yeah, I think he is too. And I think he tends to be the only adult in the room. This is scary stuff. I mean, this goes beyond the usual kind of American intervention overseas, where you pick on some third world country, beat the hell out of them and sit back and smile. This is dangerous stuff and nobody seems to get it. We have senators saying things like, well, we are calling for the assassination of Putin. We have other senators saying that he should be removed from power as a condition of negotiations. So this guy is reading the writing on the wall. It's talking about him,

but it's talking about the integrity and the security issues that are fundamental to how Russia sees itself. So, you know, we need a little straight talk. I'm still waiting for somebody to explain in simple English exactly why the United States is there at all now. No one can give that explanation. Certainly the president hasn't. I don't know if he can, but he hasn't so far. He hasn't said what our goal is and he hasn't established an off-ramp he may be forced to as the war continues to take a turn against the Ukrainians. And I guess the Americans, I think I know what you're hinting at, Phil, because I know your brain. There are

nuclear weapons involved. There are now nuclear weapons in Belarus. Here's President Putin on the significance and purpose of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have been created to ensure our security in the widest sense of this word and the existence of the Russian state. But firstly, there's no need for that. And all these discussions and considerations, they reduce the level, the threshold for using such weapons. And secondly, we have more such weapons than the Western countries. And that is why they move us towards beginning these discussions. No way. We have more nuclear weapons than the Western countries.

Is that true? And is he including Israel? Well, it's certainly true in terms of the numbers that have been published by the Defense Department in the U.S. and also by international monitors who follow these kinds of issues. But I don't think anyone really knows with any certitude how many actual deployable nuclear weapons the U.S. has or Russia, but it does seem Russia has more of them. And of course, countries like Israel and Pakistan, also nuclear armed, have secret, basically secret programs that have unknown numbers of nukes and ways to deliver them. So this is a mess. The more you mix this up, the stranger it gets.

And again, I and maybe the American public, I think increasingly the American public, would like to hear why the hell is this going on at all? We're going to take a break. When we come back, Phil, I'm going to ask you, if Taiwan is part of the People's Republic of China, as Tony Blinken seems to say it is, why is Joe Biden willing to engage in a war to preserve its independence? Right after this. You want to feel safe in your vehicle. And for you, that means easy, rapid access to your firearm. But safety also means your items don't fall into the wrong hands. You don't have to choose between safety and convenience the headrest safe keeps your firearm where you can access it and no one else can just order your headrest safe install it

yourself when it arrives and enjoy peace of mind it starts at the headrestsafe.com phil giraldi, is Taiwan a part, a legal part of the People's Republic of China? Yes, it's legally and with the consent of the United States government, part of China, recognized as being part of China. That happened quite some time ago when we normalized our relationship with China. That was one of the conditions. So this debate over Taiwan and how we are going to be defending Taiwan, we'd be defending one province of China against the central government. Tell me how you interpret the following statement from Secretary of State Blinken, which is a small clip from among many statements he made after his 24-hour whirlwind trip to Beijing to try and patch up relations with the Chinese government. Take a listen. We do not support Taiwan independence. We remain opposed to

any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side, we continue to expect the peaceful resolution of cross-strait differences. We remain committed to meeting our responsibilities under the Taiwan Relations Act, including making sure that Taiwan has the ability to defend itself. All right, so the Taiwan Relations Act is a federal statute which recognizes that there is one China. This was not just an agreement entered into. I don't even remember when this happened. Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, I don't remember. But it's a law that Congress enacted. And when he says cross-strait differences, I assume he's talking about the dispute over the Straits of Taiwan, a body of water that separates Taiwan

from China, from mainland China. What are those cross-Strait differences of which the Secretary of State speaks? Well, the United States has always asserted that it has complete freedom of the seas to move naval vessels wherever there are international bodies of water, and that would include the Taiwan Straits. Now, the issue is, as far as I understand it, that if China were to completely absorb Taiwan into its government structure, in its national structure, they could declare the Taiwan Straits are part of their coastal waters. And therefore, the United States would not be able to cross them. I think this is what the issue is, but it may be more, shall we say, obscure than that. So if Taiwan, if the mainland China decides to use military force to compel Taiwan to recognize its own status as a part of mainland China,

should we expect the United States to get involved in that conflagration? I unfortunately would expect us to do it, even though it defies all logic and all reason. Again, this is an issue like Ukraine. I mean, there is no plausible reason or no reason compelling enough to confront China over an issue like this, where we have already conceded that Taiwan is part of China, as was done with Hong Kong some years ago with the British, as you might recall. That eventually transitioned into Hong Kong becoming pretty much fully integrated with mainland China, with all of China, the rest of China. And presumably this is something that may happen down the road with Taiwan.

I'm not sure the Taiwanese even want us to go to war on their behalf, particularly if they're watching what's going on in Ukraine. Here's Scott Pelley of CBS News asking the president, this is a few months ago, directly about whether or not the U.S. would get involved with military action. The president gives a one-word answer. Gary, do we have this? So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, U.S. forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Yes. Well, that's terrifying, Phil, but it's about as crystal clear as he's ever been. He's talking about troops on the ground. He's not talking about sending howitzers and missiles.

Yeah, yeah. Well, one can maybe presume that he's delusional at the moment, making that kind of response. It doesn't make any sense to me, because basically, if you're looking for national security issues that are vital to defend by going to war, this ain't one of them. And I don't know what to say. I mean, this man has completely lost it on foreign policy, as far as I'm concerned. And where is he going to find it again? Obviously, Blinken is not going to help him very much. Maybe he'll talk to Victoria Nuland. Oh, good God. There must be a Victoria Nuland of the Far East.

I hope not, but there probably is. You mentioned delusional. Does the CIA ever opine on the mental status of the President of the United States, whoever it might be? Well, not as far as I know, but I wasn't far enough up the ladder there for them to include me in that kind of conversation. The director and the deputy directors might well have had those discussions, but I was not privy to them. Do you think it is apparent to the American? And well, let me ask you this. Does the American intelligence community spy on the president? When Joe and Jill are talking about where are his slippers when he gets up in the morning or when he goes to bed at night, does the American intelligence community hear that? I would have to suspect they might. That's as far as I can go. Okay. I don't expect you to go any further. And with all of our

former intelligence community folks that come on here, long-time colleagues of yours, I haven't asked them that question. I'm dying to ask that to McGovern, who will probably have a very colorful answer. If they do, then they must have an opinion on the president's mental status, and they must have passed that opinion on to whoever on their team or above them or below them on the totem pole briefs the president on national security issues. No? Well, no, that's a different issue. I believe, well, I've known some people like Ray who were actual presidential briefers, and they certainly formed a judgment on the intelligence or the interest of the people that they were briefing. And going back as far as Bill Clinton, who actually would not even talk to his counterpart at the CIA.

We also had people like George Bush, who had his listening to some people that were providing him with insights. But the fact is, I'm sure they produce judgments to CIA people when they get into the White House and talk to the president. And I'm sure they pass this on. When you say George Bush had his own team, to which George Bush are you referring, the father or the son? The son. The son had the neocons in every conceivable position in his administration, many of them in the Pentagon, but also in the White House. Probably all loyal to, acolytes of, and reporting to Dick Cheney. Some of them were, that's certain, but they

had their own structures too. They certainly had friends in a lot of the think tanks in Washington and also in the media. Phil Giraldi, CIA spying on the president. Somehow I'm not surprised. I'm not saying you said it happened, but you gave me a little bit of an opening. Always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me on again. Wow. If you like that, like, subscribe, tell your friends.

More as we get it. Scott Ritter, Colonel McGregor, Larry Johnson, coming up before the week is out. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. You want to feel safe in your vehicle. With access to your firearm, that's both secure and convenient. The Headrest Safe keeps your firearm where you can access it and no one else can. It starts at theheadrestsafe.com. Thank you.