Judging Freedom - Gilbert Doctorow : Does the Kremlin Trust Washington?

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Gilbert Doctorow : Does the Kremlin Trust Washington?See 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, February 11th, 2006. Gilbert Doctor will join us in just a moment on does the Kremlin trust Washington? You'll be surprised at what Foreign Minister Lavroff had to say about that.

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Call 800, 511, 4620, or go to Learjudge.jadap.com. Gilbert, Dr. O'Gaddea, my friend, and welcome here. Before we get to the Kremlin's views, public and private, on Washington, what is your take on the United States and Iran negotiations? I mean, Iran has already rejected the sovereignty destroying demands that Secretary Rubio made. So what is there to negotiate? Well, essentially, the question we're dealing with in another form is, will the United States attack Iran? Since, as you just said, the Tehran has rejected at least two of the three conditions that Rubio made in his public statements as being definitive for the nature of the talks. These issues are highly divisive in the expert community, including among some of your most, frequent visitors from with the background of the CIA in the past several days. You have one side saying that there's no way that the United States could think of attacking Iran given the position of the Pentagon, warning how this could get out of hand it was

and lead to a big conflagration, enormous loss of American servicemen's lives as they come under attack from Iran, and the danger to the fleet of the Chinese and Russian vessels in the neighborhood who are there precisely to prevent an attack on Iran. So that's one side of the story. The other side of the story, I agree from your other very

responsible guest, Larry Johnson yesterday, who was saying that his contacts will say there's going to be an attack. I can tell you right now, the Russians of themselves are divided on this. The talk shows last night were 100% behind the notion that the United States will attack Iran.

So that, of course, is not as talk shows. That's not official Moscow. But the issues are, it's impossible to call this one. Are the United States and Iran, as far as you know, still speaking? We know that Prime Minister Netanyahu is in Washington. We know that whatever he's going to tell President Trump, he's already told Whitkoff and Kushner and they've told President Trump, we know that he apparently has changed his mind

or we believe he has and now wants the war to start. It's recently as a month ago on January 14th, that time period, he did not want the bombing to occur. So what's changed? Well, what has changed, among other things, is Donald Trump himself, I think, was pointed out on your show or otherwise is in public discussion that Trump was not allowing Netanyahu to address Congress. That his visit is quite private, that he's not there as he would have been next week for meeting with the donors to Israel.

And that is, that suggests that Trump does not have good news for Netanyahu, good news meaning that he is, that would be going along with Netanyahu's request for, for an attack on Iran. So there is reason for supposing that nothing is going to happen. Is there, is there angst in Europe over the specter of a regional war in the Middle East commenced by Israel and the United States in order to further the greater Israeli domination project? We're putting aside the moral side, moral issues of Israel. expansion and at what price for the Palestinians and all other neighbors. Here in Europe there is of course the alarm sounded by economists and finance people

on what the fallout of such a regional war would mean. An enormous spike in the cost of petroleum and which has a direct impact on the cost of living and the viability of the European economies. So the issue is not an abstract one, and it's not a moral one. It's a very practical one if we do not want such a war. I mean, what will happen to the average European trying to fill the tank of his automobile if the Straits of Hormuz are closed by the Iranians? Nothing good.

Right, and the same thing here. I mean, we've seen predictions as $10 a gallon for gasoline. that would wreck the American economy in a month or so. Yeah, well, here in Europe, the people who got used to $5, $6 a gallon more. And even as fuel prices came down sharply in the States, Europe has not experienced that benefit. So, nonetheless, the cost of everything goes up when fuel is in short supply and the prices are rising fast. And the economy requires the supply, not just an abstract price pull on Gallum, but the field has to be there. And if the Hormuz Strait is closed, then it won't be here.

Yeah. The Epstein files, which are resonating very loudly at No. 10 Downing Street in London, are they resonating in Western Europe? Oh, of course they are. And there are a number of European countries that are alarmed as one or another prominent person is caught in the way. I would just like to bring out one thing that no one is talking very much about. And that is we heard some time ago, we all were hearing that Mr. Epstein had a pedophile circle. We don't hear that anymore. It's going to come up.

What we hear is, oh, he was trading in sex with minors. Okay, but these are not 12-year-old kids, huh? The 17 is just on the edge of 18. That is a wholly different type of criminality from selling pedophiles, nor is there any discussion of the murders. I just recall very well, but when there was so much talk about Clinton

going to these parties and others, the parties were of the most nightmarish variety. These were parties on boats where kids were raped and then thrown over to drown. I don't hear about that yet. It's going to come out because these were not just strange talk or gossip of the 1990s and early naughties. It was going on and it's going to come out.

I had not heard until just now of children being raped on boats and then thrown overboard. Is there evidence for that, with which you're familiar? Oh, this is something I'm bringing up from my recollection of 20 years ago. This is not something that has yet been divulged by anyone going through those files. But there is reason to believe that those particular files, including having sex with corpses, which is possibly what Prince Andrew was doing in that photo that you see him, hovering over a body. We're going to move on.

There's a lot of real dirt of unbelievable dirt in the Epstein files, which haven't yet been brought up. Is it your understanding that there was another side to Epstein, that he was a sophisticated investor and geopolitical player? He seems to have known people in almost all major Western governments. Well, money is. attractive to money. And today's Financial Times speaks about his making a $100 million settlement to someone who had brought charges against him. You have to have the $100 million to give up.

So there was enormous money here. And that would necessarily attract people who like to hover around money and power. The Financial Times is also reporting this morning along with other European media outlets. it here in the U.S. yet. In fact, it was you who alerted me to this, for which I am grateful, that President Zelensky is planning an election and a referendum on a peace agreement in Ukraine sometime in the next three months hovering around the middle of May. But how is this feasible? Well, first of all, this coincides with what was been in public record for the last week or so. The Russians were saying the same thing.

The Trump was rushing them. He was giving them great pressure to proceed and get this over with. And the logic is. I mean, he is a political animal. He wants this out of the way six months before the elections, the midterm elections. So the date of May 15th has perfect logic to it. I believe that, but this was what Zeransky heard and then repeated. Now, how could they do it?

The financial diamonds was raising all kinds of difficulties. My goodness, how can you have elections when there's a war going on? The Russians are going to be using drones against the balloting halls. This is nonsense. Why would they do that? Or they have to figure out a way of bringing in all the Ukrainians who have left do they have to? Half the country has left.

I think, and if they left, most of them have left for good. The country was 40 million. It's now probably less than 20 million. So what are you going to do about those people? They're not going to vote. It's an absolute nonsense to make it so difficult that there can be no election. No, they'll have to simplify

and take it as it is. And I think what the Russians will not be happy with the notion that Mr. Zelensky will be re-elected. The Financial Times is holding that out as a possibility even as a likelihood. I don't see it. They're saying that, oh yes, his ratings have fallen to what?

2%. The Financial Times report on this question of elections is utter rubbish. There are just a few facts in it and a lot of imagination. The Financial Times is in some instances very useful and other instances, other instances, they are pure propaganda. This particular front page article is propaganda. Inside, yesterday, there was more propaganda about how the Russians are experiencing at least twice as many casualties as the Ukrainians are and that have suffered, what do they say, five, six hundred thousand deaths. Well, we know that Zelensky said he's had a total

55,000 deaths. That's the most numbers are ludicrous. Of course. on both ends. Yes. That the Russians may have gone from 150,000, which was the last thing that all the military experts were saying, among our colleagues, to 200,000 or even 300,000, is possible. And it is terrible. But if we can imagine at least seven times as many Ukraine's have died,

simply because of the correlation between artillery shells and deaths. And the drone warfare does not eliminate deaths from artillery and missile strikes. Missile strikes on buildings underground and above ground where there are large groups of foreign and Ukrainian officers and soldiers. Wow. Getting back to this story about the proposed election and vote on a peace treaty, plebiscite, whatever you want to call it. But what would they be voting on? The Russians are not going to agree to anything even remotely palatable to the Ukrainians. I don't understand what the actual vote would be on in addition to the election of a parliament or a president. Well, here's another side to the same article in the Financial Times, and why it's totally

propagandistic. They are pretending that they that the peace settlement that Mr. Zelensky will be proposing for the referendum and which would assure his simultaneous victory in a presidential election on the same day would be his terms, which is nonsense. That will not be agreed either with the United States or with Russia. That would just be a stunt, a political stunt in the guise of making peace. Well, if that's what he wants to go to the electorate with, I don't think the Russians would stop bombing. They will stop and desist if it looks like it's going to be a real election on real issues,

which is not what Mr. Zelensky is saying. I want to play for you a comment from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov two days ago in February 9th when he was speaking at a BRICS conference. He's rather critical of the Trump administration for failing to undo the sanctions imposed by the Biden administration. This is a typical Lavrov. It's so well thought and articulated.

I'd like you to listen to it. And then I want to have a discussion with you about whether the Kremlin still trusts the White House. Chris number two. President Putin has repeatedly said, no, we are not refusing to use the dollar. Under Biden, the U.S. has done everything to turn the dollar into a weapon against those who are out of favor. And I would like to point out and emphasize that the U.S. administration, notwithstanding the various public statements we have heard regarding the urgent necessity of bringing a conclusion to the war in Ukraine,

that was originally unleashed during the Biden administration, We need to come to an agreement, remove it from the agenda, and then clear, bright prospects for mutually beneficial Russian-American investment and other cooperation will open up. But all the laws that Biden passed to punish Russia after the start of the special military operation are not being challenged by the Trump administration. For example, in April, the state of emergency law was extended, the core of which is the punishment of Russia, the imposition of sanctions against Russia, including the freezing of our gold and foreign currency reserves, this is explicitly stated as being due to Russia's hostile behavior in foreign policy.

And as examples, interference in United States elections is cited the very thing President Trump categorically opposes on a daily basis and rejects all of it. And violations of international law, human rights. There's no end to the list. This is all pure Bidenism, which Trump and his team reject outright, but nevertheless, they calmly extended it. The law of the sanctions against Russia continue to be in effect. It's all pure Bidenism which Trump publicly rejects but privately has extended. A fair characterization of what President Putin and his inner circle think of Trump and his inner circle.

Yes or no. But there are numbers of ways to interpret this. The Russians know how to play a good cop, bat cop. They know how to speak contradictory statements, partly for the purposes of letting out steam for years until it became untenable during the start of the special military operation. Gasprone was paying the salaries of, I believe, Dost, these seditious, echo, echo, the echo of Moscow,

television and stations, which were deeply seditious. What was the logic for it to let off steam, to show that there is freedom of speech and so on? So it is with these contradictions between, let me be very specific, because you asked me as if he was speaking in line with Putin, He isn't. His direct criticism of the United States, which is even more harsh in some other recent interviews, will he make mention of the, well, here we are, we're getting along fine, and you have imposed these dreadful sanctions on Ross Nefton and Lecoil. That is pure Trump. That is nothing

to Biden. So he has made very critical statements about which bear on the ability of the United States to enter into and keep agreements, all of which puts in question what? Mr. Putin's policies. Right. Mr. Putin's policies are directly the opposite of that. They are putting a lot of trust in the relationship with Donald Trump, because only through the help of the United States can the opposition in Europe be manageable. and repressed so that a genuine reorganization of European security becomes possible.

That is the vision of Putin. He's made his bets on doing a deal with Trump. And here you have his foreign minister saying the opposite. So something is going on here. I've personally given another interpretation that some of the bitterness in recent statements by Lavrov comes out of his powerlessness, his sense of humiliation, that he is excluded from the peace talks,

and that everything of importance has been delegated by Putin to Kiril Dmitriev, and to Ushakov, a former Russian subordinate of, to the minister. Lavrov. His capacity as ambassador to the United States. So this is a humiliation at the end of his career, and I think, And I think this could explain the odd position he has attacking his own president's foreign policy. Wow. Fascinating stuff, Gilbert. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Thank you for letting me take you across the board in our conversations earlier today. We appreciate your time and look forward to seeing you again next week.

Oh, thanks so much. you. Coming up later today, at 10 this morning, Matt Ho, at 1 this afternoon, Professor Glenn Deeson, at 2 this afternoon, Scott Ritter, at 3 this afternoon, the great Phil Giraldi, at 3.45 this afternoon, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Judge Lumpal-Paltonal for Judging Freedom.