Judging Freedom - Dr. Gilbert Doctorow : The Cold War Is Back — Trump, Putin, Cuba

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

Dr. Gilbert Doctorow : The Cold War Is Back — Trump, Putin, CubaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish

fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Wednesday, January 14th, 2026. Gilbert Doctoro joins us now. Gilbert, a pleasure, my dear friend. After the events, the recent events in Venezuela,

after the well-established CIA attacks on President Putin's home, after President Trump has said to demonstrators in the streets, help us on, on the way, what do you think the Kremlin's view of Donald Trump is today? I think they watch him partly with a sense of alarm, also with a sense of admiration. He is a world's apart from his predecessors.

And that's something I hope we can discuss, because my own take on him has changed dramatically over the last several weeks. that I was opposed to Trump, but I didn't appreciate, and I think none of us really appreciated his capability, both for evil and for good. Well, his capability for evil is well documented, including his infamous statement that he doesn't feel bound by international law implication, doesn't feel bound by the Constitution. How and why is your view of him changed? Well, I see some method to the madness.

Most all of us, and I don't want to put myself apart from the errors in judgment of colleagues and also, of course, in the mainstream. We all have been somewhat misled by Trump as to what his intentions may be, if he has any strategic intentions. There's been an underappreciation of the man's having a mission and having logic. And that is understandable because he has done everything possible to confuse us all and to let us think that he is blundering, that he has no vision, that he does only short-term tactical moves. Well, all that is dead wrong. And I think we have to go back to where it all started. Drill baby drill. I think that is the real hidden clue to understanding Trump's strategy.

And there's a very clear strategy that emerges from particularly from what he's done in the last few weeks. But we go back to the period just before his inauguration. There is continuity. And the continuity is around MAGA based on oil imperialism. The move in Venezuela, which you were asking about, was significant not because it had anything to do with Maduro. Maduro was irrelevancy here for the purposes of Mr. Trump and his team. It is about capturing Venezuelan oil. The moves now, the very open moves, to intervene in the events in Iran, which the United States, through the CIA and its proxies, have clearly precipitated, have clearly financed and guided to overthrow the regime of the Ayatollahs.

That is also not about freeing the Iranian people. He couldn't care of us. It is about oil. If Russia, if the United States succeeds in installing Pahlavis, that is the son of the former Shah, if they succeed in that way, they will then take control again of Iranian oil. It will be granted to American companies to exploit it.

Now, what is that all about? It is about fighting bricks, it is about reestablishing or maintaining America's global dominance, or at least its regional hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, thanks to its control of global oil and gas. There is the secret to Trump that I've satisfied myself, is sufficient to explain what looks like arbitrary on a, and peculiar developments on one front or another front. What is he doing in Greenland?

What is he doing in now when he run? It's all clear. It's part of a single pattern to reestablish American global control of oil. And global oil and gas are the keys to the dollarization, the petro dollars, which give America unlimited control of global finance and its ability to operate. even under enormous debt. Will the Kremlin allow the United States to achieve this dominance over Iran?

I don't think that Moscow or Beijing at their present state are ready to act in a way that will save Iran. Hopefully, Tehran has enough munitions, has enough hypersonic missiles, to destroy Tel Aviv, to destroy the American basis. But I am skeptical of that. I think that will be kite, they will be possible, only if they make a preemptive strike, which means that they would have the guts and nerve to take phenomenal risk.

I do not see that in Mr. Peshchakian, the leader who came in after the murder of a very capable and determined head of, state, or so the head of government. Petashkan was always leading to the West. Even now, in the midst of terrible crisis, he proposed to reopen negotiations with Trump, which were closed yesterday by Trump himself. But why he would look to have any negotiations with Trump, instead of staging a preemptive

strike against Israel, against the American military basis, I don't understand. It doesn't promise well for the, future of Iran. Well, the last time his negotiators were on the way to meet with American negotiators is when the U.S. and Israeli orchestrated their attack in June. I agree with you there. Does the average Iranian, I don't know how you could know this, but you have an ability to glean facts from empirical observations, understand that these

demonstrations are orchestrated and paid for by American, Israeli, and British intelligence. They are not the spontaneous, for the most part, reaction of the average folks against the current economic situation. Moreover, the current economic situation is caused almost exclusively by American sanctions. And not just by sanctions. What precipitated the demonstrations, There were the modest demonstrations of several thousand shopkeepers, chaos owners, that was the first step in what has become a nationwide demonstration against the regime, was a collapse of the Iranian currency, and that was operated by the United States. So there's nothing to guess about.

There's also nothing to guess about how the average Iranian feels about what's happening. We saw that on Monday when millions of people came out all across the country, to support the regime, to support the Aetola. And that is the answer. Right. Some of your colleagues on the show believe that the Western media is giving an inaccurate picture of the demonstrations, and that, in fact, the tide has turned to one significantly in support of the regime. Do you agree?

Oh, I agree completely. nor have they given adequate or any coverage to the murder of police officers and by the armed gangs that have been paid for by somebody, we can guess which three-letter agency paid for them, to cause violence among the demonstrators and to justify Mr. Trump's intentions to intervene. Here's Trump yesterday with this health. us on the way. I don't know what he means by that, but you can speculate and analyze after we hear it.

Chris Cut number five. And by the way, to all Iranian patriots, keep protesting, take over your institutions, if possible, and save the name of the killers and the abusers that are abusing you. You're being very badly abused. If the numbers are right now, here are five different sets of numbers. I hear numbers. Look, one death is too much, but I hear much lower numbers, and then I hear much higher numbers, but I say save their names because they'll pay a very big price. And I've canceled all meetings with the Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protesters stops. And all I say to them is help is on its way. You saw that I put tariffs on anybody doing business

with Iran, just went into effect today. And I say, make Iran. and great again. You know, it was a great country until these monsters came in and took it over. What monsters is he talking about? The CIA in 1953? We know what he's talking about. He must know that his own CIA has orchestrated this. He must know that Mossad agents and CIA assets and MI6 assets are spotted every day in the streets, spreading cash around. Yes, I agree. But you compare this to the regime change operations that took place under Newland, for example,

in the Maidan demonstrations. This was all under the cover of values-based foreign policy, and we're spreading democracy and nation-building. There's no such pretense. There's no such contradiction in any, in what. Trump is saying, all right, he's appealing to saving lives. That's a pretty innocent thing to say. He's not speaking about a glorious democratic future for Iran once the itolas are put out of business.

It's just open, naked aggression and imperialism. And it succeeds on the global scene the same way that Ursula von der Leyen succeeds here in Europe in dominating European politics and the European institutions. It succeeds because, not because Russell van der Leyen is so brave, because 25 out of 27 heads of government in Europe are perfect cowards and conformists. And that is a situation that we face around the world. There are very few leaders who are willing to take risks for the sake of achieving an important change in global politics.

And we have had discussions about how brave or not is Vladimir Putin. I'd like to move and shift this to the Chinese. You've asked me about the Russians and the Chinese. Let's look at the Chinese. They're doing nothing about Mr. Trump's present offensive or planned offensive on Iran. They receive a lot of their oil from Iran. And these tariffs that he's proposing to impose 25% was,

they can put that on top of the tariffs presently applied to China because China is surely the single biggest importer of the Iranian oil. It becomes a farcical. But will Mr. Xi do what he has to do? And will Mr. Putin do as he has to do? In the best of circumstances, what Mr. Trump is doing, his overall view of things, is a power sharing in the world or Yalta 2. And it will happen only if Putin and Xi rise to the challenge,

meaning that Putin finishes up the war with Ukraine in the next few weeks, not the next few years, by doing what has to be done to Kiev. It'll happen only if she sets in place a blockade of Taiwan and takes Taiwan. If they don't do these things, then Mr. Trump will have a global hegemony and not just a hemisphere hegemony. I have not heard you advocate for control of Taiwan by force, but I have heard you advocate that it's time for Putin to crush the Ukrainian military once and for all and rid Ukraine of the Zelensky regime. Is he under pressure to do that? Well, just to step back for a second, I'm not advocating for anything. If I were, it's Mr. She's shoes, that's what I would do.

But I'm not at your shoes, obviously. I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. You have opined that this is a path he should consider. Is he under pressure to end this once and for all, which we know he can do with a couple of Oreshniks? Well, it'll take more than a couple, but he can do it. And he has the wear before. The question is, how is he willing or not willing to take risks?

He is a very cautious man. But caution is not, in all circumstances, the best way to provide security. Sometimes you are forced to take risks. Now, who's against him? It depends on other things that are operating. If, for example, we've talked about Trump's various areas of aggression, we haven't mentioned Cuba. And Cuba certainly is in Marco Rubio's sites. The attack on Venezuela, partly it was interesting to Rubio, because Venezuela was a major provider of oil to Cuba.

Cuba has no possibility of surviving as a regime if it is considered. cut off from oil. Mexico is the other supplier. You can expect Mr. Trump to be moving on Mexico relatively soon, not with respect to drugs coming into the States, but with respect to their trading in oil with Cuba. Now, it is logical that any one of these days, Mr. Rubio will take charge of a mission to overthrow the ruling regime in Cuba. And there will have a real test of Mr. Putin and whether he can rise to the situation and act decisively.

I leave it open. Who knows? I've already noted in a recent essay that when I went over my papers, my so-called war diaries in preparation for volume two that I'll issue that will be published in six weeks or so, I looked around what was going on in November of 2020. And in November 24, Mr. Putin was very decisive in responding to Biden's decision, after all, to approve the use of attackums by Kiev. And the day after Biden said, go ahead, they attacked with six attackams, a Russian arms depot in Bransk obelous, that is inside the Russian Federation. The day after that, Mr. Putin issued his new revised Russian nuclear doctrine, and two days after that, he used the first Arasnik attack on Nebrippitovsk-Nipro, as the Ukrainians call it. Well, that was pretty fast and very effective. My point is that he is capable of acting decisively.

Will he do so? What can he do if Rubio tries to dislodge? the regime in Cuba? Nothing. I think it's a foregone conclusion that if America proceeds aggressively against Cuba, it could

overthrow it absent any assistance from Russia and China. And I think that if those two countries have done nothing about Venezuela, there's not safe guess, they'll do nothing about Cuba.

The only place where they might do something is where you asked me at the start of this discussion, will they do something about Iran? Because Iran is, as I said, a major supplier to China. And if Trump takes over Iran, that will be doing potentially very great economic damage to China. Well, we'll see. But the pressure on Putin would be very high when and if Cuba falls. The difference between Cuba and and Venezuela is that Cuba is probably well prepared to fight to the death. And Mr. Trump is not prepared to fight to the death on the ground in Cuba. So that Cuba may get away with it.

But it won't be thankful. By fight to the death, you mean infantry on the ground. You don't mean the surgical strike like we saw in Caracas. The surgical strike, I think it will be virtually impossible. These people are so adept at fighting America on the ground for the whole time, Fidel Casano to now, that I think it's inconceivable that there would be the kind of crack in their defenses, crack in the unity of people allowing the Americans to go in on a surgical strike. Does your new admiration for Trump on the geopolitical

scene give you insight to what he means by help is on the way when he addresses demonstrators. Now, when he made that statement yesterday, the demonstrations, I don't even know if he knew this, the demonstrators were pro-government demonstrators. However, he wasn't talking to or about them. What does he mean, help is on the way? A surgical strike to kill the Ayatola? Not necessarily. I think he has intention of destroying the energy infrastructure, of weakening the regime in this way, which could be decisive. It could push, tilt the government. And more importantly, if he does sufficient damage to infrastructure, he might make it impossible for Iran to respond with counter strikes. This is why I say if Iran is unwilling to take the risk of dealing a preemptive strike against Israel and American bases, then they might as will just sign up as slaves to Washington right now.

Here's the Iranian foreign minister about CIA and Mossad agents in the streets. Chris, cut number eight. Israeli media outlets are full of reports claiming they are busy planning operations inside Iran. Mr. Pompeo, an influential figure who served as director of the CIA during Trump's previous time, posted a tweet saying, I congratulate the Iranians in the streets and most sad agents walking alongside them, which constitutes a clear admission. We, the Iranian government, demand justice for everyone who was killed, and we will pursue this both internationally and domestically.

Our security forces are fully in control of the situation. We hope other countries do not make miscalculations. From our perspective, what happened over the past three days, from January 8th to 10th is an extension of the 12-day war. It was planned outside the country in order to bring chaos to Iran. Doesn't he have a fairly accurate handle on what's going on? I don't think he has a backbone. That is not the proper response to what's going on.

There shouldn't be talk. Talk is cheap. There should be action by Iran. It should be preparing and notifying everyone that it's on high alert and ready to fire in an instant. But talking about he's appealing to international law. It's nonsense. We've already gone through this. This is this sad path that Vladimir Putin has been traveling. Thus that Putin has behind him the world's most advanced armaments, which gives America pause, including the largest collection of nuclear weapons in the world. Iran doesn't have any of that. And the fact that Iran never built nuclear weapons, whereas North Korea did, tells you enough about the caution and the statesmanship and the diplomatic approach that Mr. Trump is going

to ride roughshod over. So I think the situation is volatile in the Middle East. You ask what is coming to the help mean? As I said, it could be massive strikes on infrastructure blacking out large parts of Iran and preparing the way for these subversive agents and possibly for mercenaries or normal troops to come in and solve the problem on the ground of removing the aayotos. as possible, what Mr. Trump has shown. We knew this when he stood up and waved his arm, his fist in the air after the assassination

attempt, is the man is extremely brave and extremely gutsy. And he is a gutsy person in a world community of cowards. And so he and we, we underestimated Mr. Trump's ability to stand up and force his will on the world. And I say that is something we can no longer afford to do. I hope the Kremlin and Beijing understand this, Gilbert. Thank you very much for your time and your unique and well-documented analysis. Always a pleasure, my dear friend.

Thank you so much. Oh, sure. We look forward to seeing you next week. Coming up later today, attend this morning. Keep your fingers crossed that the Internet works. from Tehran, Iran, my good friend, Professor Muhammad Morandi, at two this afternoon, Max Blumenthal, at three this afternoon, Phil Giraldi. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.