Judging Freedom - Prof. Gilbert Doctorow: Did the Kremlin Underestimate Trump?

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Prof. Gilbert Doctorow: Did the Kremlin Underestimate Trump?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

you Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, April 9th, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, always a pleasure, my dear friend, and thank you for accommodating this schedule. Does the Kremlin trust Donald Trump? With reservations. It's not a question of his personality,

which is volatile and they've known about for a long, long time. It was his personality that caused the Kremlin to be against his election in 2016. They preferred a known quantity to an unknown, volatile person. And that is his situation which concerns that. And I've seen on Russian television in the last five, six days a change in the way they treat Trump. That is to say less respectful, calling out

the contradictions that undermine his credibility as a negotiating partner. For example, going from three weeks ago to speaking of reducing the pentagon budget by 8% a year. And a couple of days ago, Swatkin to Netanyahu, boasting that it's now going to a trillion dollars, which is 150 billion above the last budget amount.

These contradictions are now coming in for criticism. And the reason, the underlying reason for the criticism is they fear that his weakness after his having unleashed this tsunami of tariffs, that his domestic weakness jeopardizes his ability to bring through a rapprochement with their country. Hmm. Very interesting. You mentioned that the Kremlin was rooting for Mrs. Clinton in 2016 on the theory that she was a known quantity. I understand that. Was the Kremlin rooting for Kamala Harris six months ago? Well, President Putin said clearly that he was rooting for Biden, and then by what one could assume that he passed that along to Kamala Harris. Even more so. The reason for the rooting was discussed on television a night ago.

This was in the great game that is moderated by a couple of people, but the principal moderator is Vyacheslav Nikonov, who was a Duma member and a very senior person, very close to the Kremlin. And Nikonov would say that Trump is, is, was unforeseeable, that he could do as much damage and create as much chaos as he's doing now. They were rooting for Biden, I can say, much like before Harris, because they thought that their election would bring about the self-destruction of the United States. And now to their amazement, Trump seems to be doing a still better job of it.

But I'd like to put this in brackets. The Russians are enjoying the situation, whichever way it goes, because they're ready for it, whichever way it goes, because they're ready for whichever way it goes. And despite their critical remarks about Trump, there is last night's talk show also brought out the remark that the forthcoming meeting, direct or indirect, whichever it actually is, between the United States and Iran at the level of foreign minister on the Ukrainian side, sorry, on the Iranian side,

at the level of Witkoff on the American side that would take place in Oman was brokered by Russia. So Russia is doing its best to prevent the situation in the Middle East from escalating to a rollout of war between the United States, Israel and Iran. How do you, how do you elites view Trump? I mean, he's caused a six trillion dollar loss in shareholder value. He's professed in all this in the past week, he's professed impatience with President Putin even using a barnyard trade route. He's pissed off at him and he keeps threatening to bomb Tehran. How do the elites in Moscow take that? They're not happy with these contradictions take that? They're not happy with these contradictions and with these excesses in his behavior and his bullying. At the same time they don't walk away from him because he's the best hope that they've had

in 50 years or 80 years and coming to something, well let's go back to Nixon, the best hope since Nixon of having a détente between the two countries and so they. And so they were enjoying the oddities about his behavior and the damage that he's doing to American credibility globally. But there are, now here on Russian television, statements about his tariff policy, which are far more calm, restrained, and reasonable than most things you hear on major American

media. They are viewing this as something which was sold under a false name because if it had been sold under its proper name, it would have caused even more damage to the American economy than the tariffs. Namely, the real cause is the imminent financial collapse of the United States if it continued on its merry way of unlimited borrowing by raising the federal budget regularly as Biden did and suffering the continuing $1 trillion plus current account deficits

which are finally financed by borrowing. So from the standpoint of the Russians, even the negative side that the market, oh, the market will go down, oh, there'll be a recession. When the Russians are saying something you don't hear in American commentary, but there's a lot of logic to it, Trump will not be bothered if there is a recession because that will drastically cut the imports. This presumes that the 100 percent tariffs on Chinese goods will be paid, that is, that will not result in a diminution of the demand for Chinese goods. I mean is Joe six-pack with his MAGA hat gonna pay $60 for a

toaster that normally costs $30? Maybe $30 was too little. Look, I look around me at at white coats and particularly at these small household items they're in sale here in Belgium and which are almost all coming from China. And the prices are ridiculous. The, when I paid 15. Are you saying ridiculous, high or low? Low. When I paid $50 for a microwave, that's ridiculous. When I paid $50 for a Canon printer, that's ridiculous. These are half or maybe four times less than the price

could or should be if they were to be at levels competitive with European or other global supply. I would imagine you're in the minority view there. I would imagine. Most consumers are happy to pay $50 for a printer. How many printers do you buy on you? How many microwaves you buy? That will not be reflected in the consumer shopping basket. Here in the, let's say in the States, yes, of course, the avocados are coming from Mexico. Yes, the February strawberries are coming from Mexico. Excuse me, who buys avocados?

Is it the poor people who can barely make ends meet? Or is it your upper middle class and the food fashionists. This is, who is the criticism coming from? It's coming from wealthy people. The media are not poor folks. And they are making the hullabaloo about all this. But when I ask where is the, who's gonna be paying for all this?

Poor people or rich people? I put my money on the rich people bank. If you buy a French bottle of cognac for 80 euros and it goes up to 160, what difference does it make? Because if you're buying that bottle... I don't drink cognac, but if I were into it, I wouldn't pay double the price. It would sit on a dock at Port Noork where there still are 100,000 bottles of Stolzniy vodka waiting to be distributed. But that goes back to the Joe Biden era. How do you know that the Russians played this careful and delicate role of putting the Americans and the Iranians together. And I wonder how Bibi Netanyahu reacted to that.

I know you read The Economist as I do. The Economist was a great piece out last night. I don't know how they know this unless somebody was in the room reporting that Netanyahu's trip to the United States on Monday was a dismal failure from his perspective. He thought he was going to talk Trump into saying something antagonistic about President Erdogan of Turkey and Trump said, oh no, he's my friend. He thought he could talk Trump into preparing for war against Iran and Trump says, oh no, we're going to negotiate. And Bibi said, negotiate with whom? And Trump said, directly with them. Well, what you're calling up is precisely what I heard on the BBC of all people yesterday morning. So the economist maybe a little bit exceptional BBC is the British government speaking

and they said exactly what you said that they were shocked on the face of Netanyahu and that his visit was a loss. So, this is a side of Trump which libertarians and small government people and pro-peace people cheer on, that he could say to somebody like Netanyahu, whose slaughter in Gaza he's financing. No, no, no, hold off baby. We're gonna try and talk first, that old Winston Churchill line of, Jar Jar is better than Wawa, meaning it's better to talk than to fight.

And you don't fight until after you've exhausted all the talking. This is the anti Joe Biden Biden and the anti-Tony Blinken style of diplomacy. Does the Kremlin respect its US counterparts? I mean, can you put Marco Rubio and Sergey Lavrov in the same category as diplomats? No, you can't, but Rubio is, first of all,

he's not really controlling the foreign policy. That's coming out of Donald Trump directly with Witkoff. He has a more decorative function than an actual controlling function. So his, and the Russians appreciate that fully. They want to deal with Wilcof. Not because Rubio has no experience, but simply they want to deal with the person who has the ear of the president and that person is Wilcof. Right. What do you expect will happen on May 9th? As the Kremlin announced if Trump is going to come or I haven't announced

it or we would know it. I know President Xi is going to be there. This is the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in Russia. It's effectively the end of World War II. It's a grand event as I understand it. I mean, I'm very low on the total pool. I've been invited to it. I know the president of the United States has been invited. I would imagine the Kremlin would love to have him there. Well, it depends on whether there's some success in reaching a final agreement between the United States

and Russia over the end game of the war. Not about the ceasefire, ceasefire is almost irrelevant. It's the end game. I think they're close to that. And then indeed they might invite him. But I think that for timing's purposes, it probably is better if this take place in June

when he will not be under the shadow of Xi. And something was said in passing by Trump during his meeting with Wang Yi the other day, this last week, the Chinese foreign minister. And he said that Mr. Xi would be the highest guest at the May 9th. Just a moment, Modi is also coming. That was not an offhand remark.

That was a signal. I think that Russians are telling the Indians, hey, look, the Chinese are doing a lot more for us than you are. And so Mr. Xi will be the most important guest at the 1989 celebrations. Under those circumstances, I think Trump could reasonably decide it's not the moment to be there. But you have either told me or agreed with the concept that Trump and Putin are looking for another Yalta. They're all looking for a grand reset. What better time? China, India, Russia, the United

States, all you need is Brazil and you have your yalta. Yes, but I think it has to be eased into because right now frictions in China are so high that it would be, I don't want fireworks that the 9th of May celebration, or at least I don't want them at that 9th of May celebration. Or at least they don't want them to be taking place before midnight. There's another opportunity. And that is the June 18th to 21st when there will be the International Economic Forum

in St. Petersburg. The Russians are already expecting very large business delegation. I think they would be very happy to prepare for a very large US government delegation. Indeed, that would not be a yalta of the four powers sitting together, but it could prepare for that yalta technique. I would just add, parenthetically, that I hope to see that, I expect to see that firsthand because I've signed up to be president of the forum.

Oh, that's terrific. Does the Kremlin believe that the US is preparing for war with Iran? So in other words, stated differently, when Trump says we will bomb Tehran worse than they can imagine, I'm paraphrasing. How does the Kremlin react to that? They take it very seriously.

And this is precisely because, as we've discussed in the past, Russia is not ready to intervene in the war directly. They are too busy with their cleanup operations in Ukraine. But for that reason, they placed all emphasis on prevention rather than reaction. And this brokerage of the meeting that will take place in Oman this coming weekend is an example of that. The Chinese, of course, are really hopping mad at the States, and they are certainly ready to not just to help prevent, but to react to anything that the United States should do by way of attacking Iran.

And that is 100%. What about the Kremlin's reaction to Hegset's saber rattling in Japan, basically saying to the Chinese, don't even think about Taiwan. Taiwan, I mean, it is almost inconceivable. It is inconceivable that the United States could repel a Chinese military effort to take over Taiwan. It would result in the destruction of Taiwan, I would think. But what do the Russians think when Hegseth makes those, what I would say, are thoughtless and needlessly provocative, even absurd statements? I agree entirely with your characterization of the statement.

At the same time, we're all operating under a set of limitations because of the way the United States and the other major players are conducting themselves today. That's to say, there's a lot going on, Judge, that we are not pretty to, and we have no right to be pretty to, and that contradicts what we read in the papers over here from our colleagues every day. There is something going on, as we just learned with respect to the

revival of talks between Iran and the United States. There are things going on behind our backs. And as I said, we have no right to that information, but it puts us in an embarrassing situation since we are making our judgments with only partial information. What is the Kremlin's position on Trump's avaricious attitude toward Greenland? Oh, they're amused. This is a subject of discussion on the talk shows, showing how Trump is keen on destroying capitalism and in reverting to kind of predator practices of the United States that arose early in its history. They're not shocked.

They are mildly surprised that this is going on. Of course, they condemn it, but it is, and they take, they find amusement in looking at this kind of behavior from the perspective of Marxist ideology, Marxist critiques. Remember the people who are now the presenters and hosts on the Russian state

television are of a certain age and went to school, they all had to go through these courses of Marxism-Levittism. So now with a certain sense of humor, they see what justification there was in that Marxism-Levittism for the present conduct of the United States of America. Unbelievable. I should say unbelievable. It's a remarkable bit of bitter irony. How much longer does the Kremlin expect the special military operation to continue? And is Putin under any public pressure? There is public pressure in Russia, you've told us that. Is President Putin under any public pressure to get this over with? Surely he is. Of course, this would not be in the newspapers, or very rarely would be in some social media, critical of the way things are being conducted.

been conducted, you hear reference to this in Putin's speeches when he speaks what he doesn't mention occasionally, that there is a restlessness and who tries to explain himself why he's proceeding prudently and not waging an all out offensive in any one place. As you, this is proper because after all, as I've said several times,

and which runs against the general understanding of the way the war is running, that the imminent collapse of the Ukrainian army is an incorrect evaluation. When you listen day by day to what the Russian reporters are saying from the front, there is a very active Ukrainian electronic warfare, drone warfare, which inhibits big movements by the Russian army. And they are moving forward incrementally. They're taking chunks of Kursk back.

They're only less than 50 square kilometers of course. At the same time, they're now fighting offensives, attacks in the neighboring oblast where the Ukrainians have brought in fresh troops and have been rampaging at border towns. So the war is not over, the war is proceeding, even if the Russians are making very serious advances. We've heard about several places, Chasov Yar was one of them. This is a town which is partially taken by the Russians.

This is a major juncture of transportation, but hasn't been taken yet completely. And so it is a volunteer one of these nexus towns that are key to supplying the Ukrainian front, they are still under attack and not taken. So we have to, we can't get ahead of ourselves. That Mr. Zelensky is, his generals are fighting back. They are't just keep raising their hands and running away. This of course has to shape our understanding of where things are going,

but it would change dramatically if Trump simply stopped supplying anything to Ukraine. That would shorten the period to the end of this war dramatically. Is that a card that Donald Trump has to play in his negotiations with President Putin, whether it's over grand reset or peace in Ukraine? Well, I think so. I think that both sides are aware of that. That if they reach an agreement on how they should look at the end of the day when the papers are to be signed by someone rather on behalf of the Ukraine, then they can agree on when Trump will stop war for the raid.

Professor Gilbert Doctorow, pleasure, my dear friend. We've been all over the place, but I deeply appreciate you letting me do that and pick your brain on all these topics. And keep sending me your writings. They're very instructive to me as to what your thinking is and what information you're getting to us. I look forward to seeing you next week, my friend. Excellent. Of course. Coming up later today at 1 30 this afternoon, Pepe Escobar at three o'clock, Phil Giraldi at four o'clock. The always worth waiting for Max Blumenthal. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Music