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March 27, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
24:59
Prof. Gilbert Doctorow : Kremlin’s View of Trump Administration Foibles.
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, March 27th, 2025.
Professor Gilbert Doctorow joins us now.
Professor Doctorow, a pleasure.
As always, thank you very much for joining us.
The United States at the present moment is embroiled in a controversy over this Signal app chat.
That the president's senior national security advisors had and whether or not secret military plans were accidentally or intentionally revealed to a journalist.
It's clear that these were secret plans.
So taking a step back from this, first of all, how is the American attack on Yemen viewed in Europe?
And second, How is this kerfuffle over the sloppiness of Trump's senior national security people viewed, if at all, in Europe?
In Europe, the feeling about Yemen is much in line with the United States' official position.
There's not much difference there.
Causing a great deal of difficulty because of the near closure of the Suez Canal to a lot of shipping.
And after all, 40% of the traffic that goes through the canal and through the Red Sea is actually European shipping.
So the American position to try to restrain the Houthis is viewed favorably.
As regards the The security leak, such as it was, I think, in Europe, there is concern over the professionalism of the American administration in keeping things secret.
It plays into the notion...
Just one moment, I'm very sorry, but I have to...
Sure, sure, sure.
I guess that was a phone ringing or somebody at his front door, but he'll be back with us in just a second.
We're talking to Professor Gilbert Doctorow, who just stepped away from the camera for a moment because of some unexpected visitor.
I trust it was a visitor and not an intruder.
Oh, just for a moment.
It's a delivery moment.
Yeah.
All right.
These things happen.
It's happened to me.
It can happen to you.
Welcome to the modern world of television, where we do it from venues, not always as insulated as we'd like.
Okay. You were explaining to us the European concern about either the American attitude about security or the American attitude about Europe.
I mean, I'm going to ask you about Vice President Vance and what he said.
Well, no particular remark was made on Vance and his disparaging remarks with respect to Europe.
But there was the opportunity, just as the Democrats seized upon this in the United States Congress, there was the opportunity to criticize the appointees.
That Trump had brought in his high positions in his administration for lack of professionalism, for amateurism, and so they seized upon that.
Any angle they can have to take against Trump will be used in that way.
As for the Russians, their interest in this was very precise.
Their first reaction was probably this wasn't inadvertent.
The inclusion of the Atlantic magazine journalist was an act of sabotage by some middle-level functionary in this intelligence services who wanted to embarrass the boss.
That was the first Russian reaction.
After that, they took this broader.
They are very much trustful now with Trump because this was a question that you and And I discussed several weeks ago, do they trust Trump?
Is there some kind of mutual trust, which is essential for any negotiations to proceed successfully?
And I would say from the Russian standpoint, the trust is there.
From the talk that Trump and Putin had, their two and a half hours, it was clear that the Russians were persuaded that they can do business with Trump the same way that Margaret Thatcher was persuaded.
That the U.K. and the U.S. could do business with Gorbachev.
And that is essential.
Now, they're concerned that he is under attack.
And they are uncertain that he can withstand the opposition from Europe and from the United States to proceed to the diplomat.
When you say he is under attack, you mean Trump?
Exactly right.
They are concerned that Trump is under attack.
And this is an American issue to be solved by the Americans alone.
The Russians are bystanders and that's how they see the situation.
There's nothing that they can do.
But they are concerned because they're satisfied that he is going to bring, impose on the Ukrainians essentially what are the Russian demands to end the war.
And in that perspective, anything that holds up Trump Holds up.
They're achieving their goals.
I want to play you a clip from Jeffrey Goldberg, who's the journalist whose telephone number was included on these texts.
We don't have an explanation, a rational explanation as to how that happened yet.
But this is fascinating.
Because he mentions the Chinese, and I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on this, Professor Doctorow.
Chris, cut number six.
The problem is, one of the problems is, is that the phones themselves are targets of foreign intelligence operations, right?
I mean, the Chinese, the Russians, Iranians, others.
Obviously, we'd love to know what's happening inside Pete Hegsett's phone, what's happening inside Marco Rubio's phone.
And, you know, there's all kinds of very sophisticated operations, and we know about some of these, and we don't know about others.
So that's the reason that they're supposed to do things behind a digital wall of protection and not just be...
Out at the supermarket, out at a restaurant, running errands.
So let me, Jeffrey, let me follow up on that then.
Then do you think they were using Signal because they didn't want the communication to be archived?
I mean, you'd have to ask them.
I mean, I think that's one plausible explanation.
You know, when Mike Walsh, whom I've known for years, And whose patriotism really can't be questioned, sometimes his judgment can, was asked about this by my friend and former colleague, Laura Ingram.
He gave a bizarre answer.
He said, apparently his cell phone got too close to somebody else's cell phone, and that person's number was sucked into his.
Now, I don't know if that makes sense.
From a technical perspective, you're a historian.
I don't know if that makes sense from your understanding, but we still don't know why the man whose face and voice we just heard was brought into this conversation.
that President, excuse me, that Vice President Cheney used Jeffrey Goldberg extensively to promote administration propaganda in favor of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Well, all of what you just said would fall in line with the early Russian interpretation that this was an act of sabotage by somebody lower down the administration who wanted to embarrass, as they succeeded in doing, Hegseth and Walsh.
And so to call into question the professionalism of the top people in the Trump administration, it's entirely possible.
The notion of a telephone being sucked into your phone, well, of course that goes on.
But it goes on with your willingness.
I don't know that it can be done against your interests and without your participation.
People normally do exchange telephone numbers.
Yeah, of course.
But Mike Waltz told Laura Ingraham...
That he intended for some other person's number whose name he wouldn't identify.
I don't blame him for not identifying.
And somehow Jeffrey Goldberg's got in there by mistake and nobody bothered to check it.
Remember, this was a texting thread that went on for days.
This is not a 30-second conversation.
There are pages and pages of the conversations.
To which Mr. Goldberg was given access, which he recorded, and which his magazine has now published.
And now the issue of espionage comes up.
This is the same allegation made against Hillary Clinton, the failure to safeguard secret information.
Whether it's been formally classified or not, it's attack plans.
By definition, it's secret.
Yeah, exactly.
The sins of the present administration, including this disparagement of European allies by J.D. Vance, takes us back to Victoria Nuland and her famous remarks about what the EU could do with itself in her talk with the American ambassador in Kiev, Piat, just before the coup d'etat in 2014.
These are sins that have been committed before and will be committed in the future by error, by misfortune in the case of Victoria Nuland that her telephone call was intercepted by the Russians and was then posted on the internet.
I don't see anything fatal to the standing of Trump's appointees.
It is embarrassing.
The Democrats are seizing out.
What they can, since they are otherwise totally confused about Trump's policies.
Have the Europeans seized on Vice President Vance's rather flippant comment about, I hate to be seen as helping the Europeans?
No, I haven't seen any remarks on that.
That would take them off in a slightly different direction.
They saw enough of Vance during his Munich speech condemning them as being undemocratic.
So this was a rather minor, minor critique.
Good point.
This is nothing compared to that.
Does the Kremlin view Donald Trump as a man of peace?
And before you answer that, just think of Yemen and think of Gaza.
No, I don't think they see him as a man of peace.
They see him as a person who can bring peace to their war.
They see him as a person with whom they can do business, as I said a couple of moments ago.
What he is doing in Gaza, of course, is repugnant to the Kremlin.
What their attacks on Lebanon, these actions by Israel, enabled by the United States, of course, are condemned in Moscow.
The notion that Trump is threatening Iran.
With military action, the B-52s are flying in the area to remind them that the United States is always ready from Diego Garcia Island to bomb the hell out of Iran.
This is not viewed with much pleasure from the Kremlin.
However, nobody there believes that there will be an attack on Iran.
That if there is an American attack on Iran, obviously coordinated with the Israelis, that the Russians would get involved militarily in defense of their new friend?
I think it's more likely the Chinese would get involved militarily.
The Chinese have a lot more than a friendship to lose.
They have 30% of their oil supplies are coming now from Iran.
So they would have a vital interest in punishing the United States severely for anything it does against Iran.
Interesting.
Interesting. Back to the EU.
Back to Europe.
What is the EU position on Ukraine?
And is it diametrically opposed to Donald Trump's position on Ukraine?
Is the EU...
Still of the Joe Biden, Victoria, Newland, Tony Blinken view on the origins and morality of the special military operation.
Well, absolutely.
There was an unusually good article in yesterday's Financial Times on the response of the spokesperson for the EU foreign affairs.
and departments of authorities.
And that statement was exactly reiterating the basic points going back to Biden.
The war was unprovoked, the war was an act of aggression, that Europe support Ukraine to the utmost and that...
No relief on sanctions to Russia is thinkable until there is a full withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, etc., etc.
They are taking a very hard line.
It's diametrically opposed.
It is intended to frustrate, to sabotage the peace initiative of Donald Trump and the conditions that were accepted by Trump and by the Ukrainians, of course, on Monday night.
For implementing a 30-day freedom of navigation in the Black Sea.
At the same time, in parallel, we have today in Paris, 30 countries plus, meeting under the direction of Emmanuel Macron, or his so-called coalition of the willing, which is precisely to give force to this statement of support for Ukraine.
When you say force...
Do you mean emotional and political force or military force?
Military force.
Macron today specifically in his address did not exclude the possibility of sending military forces to Ukraine for monitoring, for peacekeeping, for whatever.
He used several terms.
He is doing in parallel to Ursula von der Leyen exactly the kind of sabotage that the EU institutions are doing.
And what I see in this is not just the very great possibility that NATO will be eviscerated in the next few weeks.
By that I mean American withdrawal of support, not American withdrawal.
Formally, that's not possible for Trump to do.
But if he takes the troops out, if he denies them a nuclear umbrella, then NATO is finished.
We have a dangerous situation here.
You have a very aggressive, militarily aggressive incoming chancellor of Germany.
You have von der Leyen, who's a former failed...
Defense Minister of Germany now as the head of the European Commission.
You have Macron sounding more like Napoleon than de Gaulle.
And what do they want to do?
Start World War III?
I mean, do they really think the Kremlin will sit back while they send anything, troops or a single round of artillery shell, to Kyiv?
They're living in their own bubble.
They haven't seen reality.
Now, reality will strike.
When Donald Trump withdraws support.
But not even then can we be certain that reality is correct.
And now I go back to the suggestion that was made by the Russian political scientist Karaganov, who said, this is two years ago essentially, that Russia should bring Europe to its senses by using a military strike against one of NATO countries.
I think we're coming to that point.
If Russia were to evaporate the Ramsdorf base by a Haleshnik strike, I think they might You know, when I was privileged to interview Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov two weeks ago in his residence in Moscow, after the interview was over, we engaged in some small talk.
I'm not speaking out of school here.
I asked him what he thought would become of NATO if the United States withdrew.
And he looked at me and said, it won't happen.
Now, maybe he means legally it won't happen.
Because of the way the conversation was structured, I couldn't follow up and ask him what he meant.
But what will become of NATO?
If Trump, in a fit of pique, says all the troops are coming home?
Well, NATO's structure will stand there, but they'll be absolutely empty.
If the Europeans were to proceed with a kind of aggressive, warlike language that we hear coming from Macron today and from Van der Leyen and her little entourage on every other day, then they are asking for...
An open war with Russia, for which Europe will be totally naked.
Right, right.
A few weeks ago, you and I talked about your analysis of Trump in a hurry, Putin patient.
Do you still see it that way?
Well, absolutely, and there's good reason for his hurry.
That is for the hurry of Trump.
He is doing several policy initiatives at the same time.
The question of Iran comes foremost to mind.
It's a two-month timeline, he gave that.
The Ukraine war, he more or less had in mind a two-month timeline.
And he is using this honeymoon period at the start of his administration.
He has spread massive confusion in the minds of most everybody.
As to what his intention is now.
It's not a mistake.
It's not because he's confused.
He wants everyone else to be confused when he proceeds with his own priorities.
His number one priority is absolutely clear.
It is to resolve the Ukraine war so that he can move on to his next priorities.
He wants to strike quickly before his opponents can mobilize.
As you see by how they seized upon this Leak of very sensitive information.
The opponents of Trump are themselves in a state of confusion and at a loss of how to get a grips with the daily new initiatives of this president.
You know, they barely can concede upon one and look for a point of leverage when he's already put out another one.
This whole tariff war case, he's got everybody tripping on their shoelaces.
And that is not because he's stupid.
It is intentional to keep his opponents off balance.
Well, if you're an American who owns a Mercedes, it just went up in value significantly because of the extraordinary cost to replace it.
Wow. I want to show you a photograph because Mike Walsh says he doesn't know.
Jeffrey Goldberg.
Do you have that photograph?
There he is.
They're standing next to each other.
All right, you could end up standing next to anybody in a large gathering, but this is a gathering that was secured.
And there is Jeffrey right behind Walsh.
I can't get my hands around it.
If somebody attempted to sabotage this or Walsh attempted to use...
Goldberg as a PR stunt.
Anyway, the truth has to come out.
The American public's entitled to know.
The FBI's not going to get to the bottom.
This is not going to investigate Hegseth for espionage the way the Republicans wanted Hillary Clinton investigated for espionage.
This is almost the same thing, except Mrs. Clinton did it hundreds and hundreds of times.
If we can take a step back to what you just said in passing about the value of Mercedes going up.
Again, it's so easy to attack Trump's Tariff policies as being economically nonsense.
But this reminds me very much of how Putin's policies of standing up to the United States during the 2018 election campaign, and the Liberals, the capital L, accused him of talking nonsense when Russia only had a 4% capture of global GDP, how he could stand up to the United States when it's massively greater.
This is the same type of argumentation.
Why are we going to raise the prices of cars in America?
Because that's the only way you can restore a manufacturing base.
Without a manufacturing base, you can't have a military industry.
So we're talking essentially about America's capability to maintain a defense industry.
And so it's not nonsense.
It's just on the economic side, it's nonsense.
On the U.S. defense side, it's not nonsense at all.
Professor Doctor, it's a pleasure, my dear friend.
Thank you very much.
And thank you for letting me go, you know, across the board from Gaza to Ukraine to American economics to this crazy woman, Ursula von der Leyen.
I don't know where that's going to end up, but thank you for monitoring it for us.
Well, thanks for having me.
Sure. Now go take care of whoever was ringing a doorbell.
No worries.
That's a delivery downstairs.
We'll do that.
Oh, okay.
All the best, my friend.
Have a good day.
Thank you.
You too.
Thank you.
Coming up at 11 o'clock this morning, Colonel Douglas McGregor at 2 this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson at 3.30 this afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer at 5 o'clock in the afternoon tomorrow, Friday, from midnight in Yemen.
From the areas bombed by the Americans in Yemen.
Who else?
Pepe Escobar.
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