Judging Freedom - Prof. Gilbert Doctorow: What Putin Will Tell Trump

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Prof. Gilbert Doctorow: What Putin Will Tell TrumpSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, January 23rd, 2025. Today is Thursday, sorry, January 23rd, 2025. Today is Thursday, sorry, January 23rd, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now. Professor Doctorow, a pleasure, my dear friend, and thank you for taking the time to join us. Before we get into the latest from the Trump administration vis-a-vis Russia and the Kremlin reaction to it. In their swan songs at the State Department, former Secretary of State Tony Blinken and in a comparable swan song, former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, each made the same claim that Ukraine is strong, stable, and on a path to joining NATO. Is this even remotely accurate?

No, it has nothing to do with reality. It's the reality that you and I and most of the viewers of these programs knows. This is a bubble, a Washington bubble. It's what they say to their immediate subordinates and to congressmen. And it is based on a view of Russia that dates back to the mid-1990s when the country was flat on its back thanks to the brutal transition from a planned economy to a market economy that the U.S. inflicted on them. This view of Russia as being a basket case, that underlies almost everything that Blinken and Sullivan have done during their time in office. And they wouldn't be necessarily beholden to the propagandists in Kiev for support and for material that they could then pass along

to journalists who pass it along to the public at large. And that is precisely propaganda from Kyiv. It is not news, it is not fake news, it is pure propaganda written by a state. I realize that we're only three and a half days into the Trump administration, and he's done a lot since noon on Monday, but do we know, Professor Doctorow, if the United States supply spigot to Kyiv of cash and armaments has been turned off or if it's still on? Well, this has been a rather interesting question the last couple of days. Larry Johnson cited information. I'm not quite clear what the source was, but the essence of it was that the United States,

the government has fired 50 or more Pentagon officials who were involved in the supply of military assistance to Ukraine during these past three years, and that the Deputy Secretary of Defense has resigned. The logic of this was that this is a pivot point, as Larry calls it, and that possibly the Trump administration is going to stop deliveries. A well-known blogger called Simplicius has said that and added to it the idea that the United States government, Pentagon, has stopped opening bids or stopped requesting offers for logistical assistance

for companies that have been doing logistics, arranging onward deliveries of American war material to Kiev, in Poland, Zazhechov, in Varna, in Bulgaria, and a couple of other places. Again, the implication is that the game is over. The United States is quietly stopping supplies. I can't agree with that, and I agree rather with statements that were made on your show yesterday by Scott Ritter. Nothing of the sort is clear. If indeed there were such goings on, and if they indeed, they meant the United States has already taken a decision to cut military supplies to Ukraine,

then Mr. Zelensky would have been screaming at the top of his voice yesterday in Davos. The man is extremely sensitive to such questions, and he wouldn't have been talking about the need for 200,000 Europeans to put boots on the ground in this country. He would have been talking about the American stab in the back. He wasn't, so I don't quite believe this. It sounds as though, inform me or correct me if I'm wrong, pardon me, even if Trump wanted to stop this, it's not like throwing off a light switch. There are so many different levels of suppliers involved from so many different parts of the

world that it would take a while to shut it down completely but your observation about uh President Zelenskyy Davos is quite correct he made a speech some of it was absurd saying Ukraine is an inferior obviously if that's true they're using American money but there wasn't the slightest complaint about the spigot being turned off. That's the best case I can make. Of course, I don't claim that I'm right and others are wrong. No one knows for sure what the Trump administration is doing. I'm not sure the president knows what he's doing, because the words he had on uh platform about uh his ultimatum to go to uh vladimir putin to uh enter into negotiations right now with uh with zelensky with kiev or face uh these very

sharp increasing american sanctions uh this was completely off base. It was completely inconsistent with his role, prospective role as a peacemaker, because he knows or should know that these proposals are non-start with the Russians. Did he even know what he was talking about? Well, we don't know what he knew. Did he sound as though he knew what he was talking about when he threatened President Putin. I mean, what sanctions remain? He's going to put an embargo on uranium that American utilities need to operate power plants? Well, the notion of sanctions was ridiculed on Russian television, with good reason. They had a good laugh at his expense. He made a number of absurd statements yesterday, ignorant statements yesterday, which were almost on the level of Madame Frau Verburg, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, who has been notorious during her time in his office for making... What did he say that was so absurd and laughable?

Well, one thing that he mentioned in passing that Spain is a member of BRICS. He mentioned that Russia had helped the United States, from the perspective of Russians, this was laughable, that Russia had assisted the United States to win the war. From the Russian perspective, three quarters, and not just the Russian perspective, all experts know that three quarters of the Wehrmacht was engaged on the Eastern Front. So to speak about one helping the other, he's got it backwards. Then he spoke about 60 million lives lost in Russia. That's bad enough. 26 million is bad enough.

But he pulled this number out of the sky. He should just be quiet because he doesn't know what he's talking about. And he makes a fool of himself. Now, I don't want to leave the impression that Russians, Russian elites, because this is what we usually talk about, that they have seen no merit in Mr. Trump or entering his negotiations with him. They do. But they are fully aware of his weaknesses, of his vanity, and it is disregard for facts. And they show that up. I'd just like to use this moment for a little side remark, because you know that I make heavy use of various, of several key talk shows and analysis shows that are on Russian state television.

And people write to me, well, where did you get this from? They asked me for a link and I sent them the link. Then they complained, it's just in Russian. Well, I can tell you with great pleasure that today, this is the second time I see it. And I posted the link up on my, my sub stack platform. The one of the premier Russian programs, 60 minutes, which is hosted by a russian do member evgeny popov and his wife that is now available in a voiceover a voiceover that's

put up on youtube maybe an hour or two after the after the russian original goes on russian state television so i would urge people to look at that so they don't just have to listen to Gil Doctorow's rendition of what Russian news is saying, but coming back to what they're saying, they're saying that Mr. Trump is doing them a great service by using a sledgehammer on the EU, because they know that he dislikes intensely supranational organizations and he wants to deal with sovereign states, primarily with Germany and Europe. And for the Russians, that's a great service to them, because they also would like this solid block of 25 of the 27 EU member states that is anti-Russian.

They'd like that broken up. They also see in Mr. Trump something else, a very big perspective for negotiations. Not Ukraine. Ukraine they'll solve on their own, thank you very much. Probably in the next few weeks, frankly. But they want to speak to Mr. Trump about Yalta too. They would like to divide the world with the United States or let the United States offload those parts of the world which

it can't maintain because it doesn't have the wherewithal. Very interesting, even fascinating that you would call this Yalta II or is that a Vladimir Putin phrase? No, no, it's not his phrase, it's what some commentators get on Russian television experts are saying. And what they have in mind is that he cannot give his arms or keep America's arms around the whole world. America's global hegemony is no longer feasible. And the people around Trump have persuaded him of that. And that is what the whole logic is of his going, looking to take greater control of the Western Hemisphere in the tradition of the Monroe Doctrine. That's what the Greenland escapade is all about. That is what his bid to take over Canada and his pressure on Mexico and his seizing of the Panama Canal is to ensure that America has tight control

over its hemisphere. And then it would negotiate with the other global powers of which there are two plus or minus India, the other two powers being Russia and China. And so that a global settlement will be sought by Trump over the coming months with these two countries recognizing their spheres of influence. Of course, he does have that hot spot headache slaughter going on in Gaza. And the Iranians have entered into, maybe you can enlighten us on this, some sort of a defense agreement with the Russians. Well, I'd like to enter into that because it bears again on a comment on a discussion you had on your show yesterday.

A very important discussion is Trump and his administration came on a peace and settlement with Iran? Some people, Scott Ritter believes, I believe. Or is it what Lindsey Graham would like, an all-out war? Let's finish it up with using Israel as our assistant in this venture. The peace agreement, the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement that was signed last Friday in Moscow by the two presidents of Iran and Russia, that was a very peculiar document. It strikes me as very odd that no commentators have detected that or brought it to attention. The Russians wouldn't do it, I understand. They spoke about it. There

was one hint that there's something odd about it that was covered on Sunday night by the head of Russian news, Mr. Kislyov. Dmitry Kisislyov said in the very opening of his program he put up on the screen article three of this cooperation agreement which is unlike any other i've seen it says that the two contracting parties uh will not join any aggressor attacking the other country. If that's friendship, what do enemies do? The second point is that neither of these contracting parties will give assistance to destabilizing forces, to subversive forces active in the other country. Again, that is not what we usually think of.

What happens if Israel and the United States attack Iran? What does Russia do under this agreement? Nothing. It doesn't join them. That's literally what you draw from this. But the whole document was delayed, was supposed to be signed, all commentators were saying it would be signed

when the Iranian president made his first trip to Russia. He came to the BRICS meeting in Kazan in October. And it was expected that they would sign it then, it wasn't. And they said there were technical things that had to be ironed out indeed there were and still are technical glitches in this document which will be ironed out over time now that it's been signed the main reason was russian uncertainty over iran's loyalty long, loyalty in its ongoing confrontation with the United States and the U.S. led West. The new president of Iran, in his opening statements, made it clear that he was

looking for an outreach to Washington to resolve their differences. That was destroyed in a matter of a week or two when Israel murdered the head of Hamas who was attending the inauguration of the Iranian president. After that, the Tehran pulled back, no longer interested in talking to the states and was, or would seem to be, they were running after the Russians to conclude that agreement. But I believe there's been some back channel from the Trump group after his election to Tehran an outreach saying let's talk because the terms in this agreement are not only bizarre in Article 3 but they contain in them several articles further down which look like they were written by Freedom House. It says that these contracting parties will do if they can to resist, to oppose international terrorism, extremism, international criminality, people trafficking or human trafficking, narcotics

trafficking, valuables trafficking, all kinds of, that's a whole shopping list of all what the baddies will do. Oh, yes, they will oppose taking hostages. They will oppose spread of nuclear arms. Well, there you have it. The Russians and the Iranians are on the same page as Washington saying no expansion of a list of nuclear countries, including Iran, of course. So this is a bid to Washington. Tell me if you think that this Russian, the risk of raising your blood pressure, because this is a real harangue, tell me if you think that this advice from Senator Lindsey Graham will resonate with President Trump and what the Kremlin thinks when they hear a harangue like this. Cut number four.

This war will never end with Hamas in charge of Gaza, politically or militarily. Their days are numbered. And the next question for the world is what do we do about the Iran nuclear program? That's where we're going to move to next. There's diplomacy. There's a one in three chance you'll degrade the Iranian nuclear program through diplomacy. There's a 90% chance you'll degrade it through military action by Israel, supported by the United States. So the next topic I will be engaging in with President Trump

is to take this moment in time to decimate the Iran nuclear program because they're so exposed. What does that mean? Help Israel deliver a knockout blow. What does that mean? You're going to urge him to have Israel bomb Iran's facilities that are underground and would require U.S. military support to actually be effective? I'm going to urge the decimation of the Iranian nuclear program. I don't think

diplomacy works. This is a religious Nazi regime. They want to destroy the Jewish state. They want to purify Islam and drive us out of the Mideast. It would be like negotiating with Hitler. I am hoping there will be an effort by Israel to decimate the Iran nuclear program supported by the United States. And if we don't do that, it will be a historical mistake. What are your thoughts after listening to that? Well, as I mentioned before, if the viewers can come out 60 Minutes and hear a voiceover, they will find when they go to that program that Russian television spends a lot of airtime with rather lengthy video clips, like the one you just put on screen, from Western media. And in that context, Lindsey Graham is well known to Russian audiences.

I just read Satan over his name. Hopefully he doesn't have open access to President Trump here or World War III will be around the corner. Was there any reaction from the Kremlin, as opposed to Russian elites on the great game and 60 Minutes, etc., from the Kremlin to Trump's threat to President Putin? No, none whatsoever. I don't think they want to get into a war of words with Trump. I think they want to go easy on him and wait until the opportune moment to schedule this summit. defeat the Ukrainian forces when its front line crumbles. And that can happen in the next few weeks.

You don't have to wait so long. After that, they could arrange a meeting with Trump, because the problem with Ukraine will be behind them. Professor Doctorow, thank you, my dear friend. Always a pleasure. You are our eyes and ears on the Kremlin, and it is so deeply appreciated. We'll see you again next week. Right.

Goodbye. Bye-bye. Coming up remaining today at 12 noon, Senator Rand Paul at one o'clock, Kivork Almasian at two o'clock, Colonel Larry Wilkerson at three o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer at four o'clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.

And the worth waiting for at 4.30, Colonel Douglas McGregor. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.