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Feb. 4, 2026 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
24:53
Gilbert Doctorow : What Putin Is Telling Trump
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Iran Delegation Concerns 00:14:16
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, February 4th, 2026.
Gilbert Doctor will be with us in just a moment on just what is President Putin telling President Trump.
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Gilbert Doctorow, welcome here, my dear friend.
Thank you for accommodating my schedule, as always.
Does the Kremlin expect the United States to attack Iran one day soon?
It is held out as a possibility, but the Kremlin has done as much as possible to prevent that happening.
And we know nothing about it.
We know nothing about it because the Russians and Washington, using backturns, have proved very effective in maintaining top-level communications with no leaks.
We don't really know the status of negotiations in Abu Dhabi.
We don't know what they're talking about.
All we hear is that they had constructive conversations.
The same is true of the situation with respect to Iran.
Nobody talks about Mr. Putin's possible discussions with Donald Trump and Mr. Dmitriev's certain discussions with his counterpart, Mr. Witkoff, when he was in Miami last weekend over precisely the Iran question.
Plus, keep in mind that Mr. Witkoff has both dossiers under his arm.
So it is not the least bit surprising that at meetings that are ostensibly talking about Ukraine, they could very well instead have been talking about Iran.
And I believe they were.
I picked up one thing that comes from being on programs like yours and then being recruited by others who would like to have people whose face is on the screen on prominent programs is that I have particular contacts regularly, almost daily, with Indian major broadcasters.
And one of them, I also have contacts with Iranian television programs and not just press TV, but there are others too.
And I received a note from one of those Iranian programs four or five days ago saying that they'd like a talk with me tomorrow.
And by the way, what comment do I have on the fact that Iran is likely going to ship out its, what is it, 400 kilograms, highly enriched uranium, which Donald Trump supposedly destroyed.
Anyway, that they would be shipping it out to China.
Well, something is going on.
And it was going on between the Russians and the Iranians and the United States.
What did this Indian television station or program or venue say to you?
Well, it's a television station.
Right now, I'm talking about News X Worlds.
And I have in front of me what they sent me 10 minutes ago and what they want to discuss with me five minutes after this program is over.
Russian Foreign Ministry says the following: only Tehran has the right to decide whether to remove uranium from the country.
Well, it's under discussion.
Did you know that?
Russian Foreign Ministry says the issue of removal of uranium from Iran is still on the table.
On the table with whom?
Of course, on the table with Donald Trump.
They don't say that, but that's what we're talking about.
So the question of Russia's, you know, Mr. Putin's doing with Trump today, or trying to do with Trump today, what he did in 2013 with Barack Obama, when he intervened and found a proposal that both Syria and Washington would agree to.
That is, instead of Obama proceeding with massive attacks on Syria over the alleged use of chemical weapons by the regime against protesters, that these chemical weapons would be sent instead to the United States, delivered to American warships where they would be destroyed.
That got Obama off the hook, but it caused a lot of problems for Obama domestically when he was criticized for that.
Of course, if something like that were to leak out with respect to Mr. Trump, there would be still more commotion in the States because he is such a volatile and very closely monitored person by the vast opposition in the States, Democratic Party, and also within his own party.
So nobody's talking about what Donald Trump is most likely discussing with Moscow.
That is an off-ramp to avoid having to bomb the hell out of Tehran and touch off the destruction of Israel and everything else that you've been discussing, rightly so, on your program.
So I'm hearing from you that President Putin has two tracks of communication to President Trump, a public and flattering one, a private and at times harsh but very direct one.
Am I understanding you correct?
Yes, exactly.
And I take this back to September, October of last year, when people like myself were still very unhappy with Putin's behavior, going back to his discussion, his discussion group of Valdai, where he seemed to be flattering Trump beyond any reason, almost as bad as Ruta and Daddy.
And that was quite unnerving.
Why was he doing this?
At the same time, I have reason to believe he was showing his teeth to Trump on the issue that was of great importance to Moscow.
That is Trump's threat not only to impose new drastic sanctions on Russia if they didn't sit down and sign a generalized truce or ceasefire with Kiev at once, but more than that, that he would be delivering the American tomahawks to Kiev.
And I believe that at that time, behind closed doors with no leakage whatever, Putin was telling Trump, you do that, and there won't be a Kiev to save anymore.
We'll destroy it utterly at once.
And that message is not what any of us heard in public space, but I have no doubt.
So what will the off-ramp be?
I mean, you quoted Foreign Minister Lavrov as saying it's a decision for the Iranians.
Everybody understands that there is a bona fide, legitimate, non-lethal, often medically related use for enriched uranium in high-end research facilities and hospitals throughout the world.
Is all of the enriched uranium going to be shipped to China, or is there going to be some level that the Iranians will be permitted to keep for purely civilian use?
Well, I'm glad you asked that because there's a second issue here, and that is how to maintain the civilian nuclear program in Iran.
And there, RT slipped into one of its articles yesterday, and this came up on the ticker tape, so to speak, on Russian Daily News, that Ross Adam has been put forward by the Kremlin as the organization that would be held responsible in place in Iran for supervising their enrichment program and its use only to civilian and medical applications.
So the Russians are in this off-ramp in two ways.
One is in the assignment or removal of the highly enriched uranium, weapons-grade uranium, which Trump said he destroyed, which obviously he didn't, and removing it, shall we say, to China.
And secondly, that Ross Adam would be the responsible organization to see that ongoing nuclear enrichment for medical purposes remains exactly that.
Well, what is the, or I shouldn't say what is, do you have a feel for the mood of the Russians and the mood of the Ukrainians, the negotiators in Abu Dhabi?
Well, I won't say what my mood is.
I'll say what the head of the Russian delegation, the head of Russian military intelligence, who leads the delegation in Abu Dhabi, he was given the microphone for about one minute.
And this little clip was shown on Dmitry Kisilyov's News of the Week prime news wrap-up show that goes on for two and a half hours.
I mean, one minute of that was the head of the delegation in negotiations in Abu Dhabi, who was asked, well, how things go.
And he said, well, speaking for my delegation, we're in a very good mood.
But looking at the Ukrainian delegation, they look very sad.
Are they confronting the inevitable, which would be acquiescence to Moscow's original demands, the loss of the territory of Russian-speaking persons, basically, basically, not entirely, west of the Dnieper River, excuse me, east of the Dnieper River, and the neutralization, the non-NATO presence of Ukraine?
Are they coming around to that?
And if they are, what about the Banderists?
What about the nationalists?
What about the fanatics that threaten to hang President Zelensky from a tree outside his office, going so far as to point out the tree if he were to agree to that?
Well, if you want to look at the extremists, one of their number is heading the Ukrainian delegation to these talks in Abu Dhabi, in Budanov.
So I don't think he wants to string himself up to a tree.
And I think it is a way of Mr. Zelensky removing himself from the discussions of these poisonous subjects so that he can very quietly say, I leave it to my people and to a referendum to decide this, and now I'll go and take my well-earned rest.
But let me just emphasize that anything that I'm saying now about the content of the negotiations, which is not divulged in any which way by the parties to the talks, it's all based on guesswork and little hints like the one I just mentioned that the Ukrainian delegation is sad.
Well, why would they be sad?
Because they are likely giving up everything.
When President Trump asked President Putin not to attack cities for a five to seven day period because of extreme cold, or at least that was the stated reason he gave, did President Putin comply with that?
Drone Over Western Carrier 00:10:01
And if he did, is that time period now over?
He did comply, and I consider that to be just a little test of goodwill, a test of commitment to a joint conclusion of the war with the Americans, in which Mr. Putin made this concession.
He wasn't going to give more, because if he did, he would have serious problems at home with the patriots, with the widows, with everyone who has seen wealth and blood shed in this horrible war of four years.
So he could not give more.
But it was an indication that he is ready to share the honors of concluding this war with a peace treaty together with Trump.
So that's all it was.
And it's over.
As we know, yesterday, the Ukrainians were complaining that there were 60 missiles and 460 drones sent by Moscow to Kiev and other major cities with the result of so many deaths.
And then of course we had Zelensky bleating all over the place that because the Europeans have not provided him with enough replacement air defense missiles, Patriot missiles, he stands naked against this aggression from Russia.
Right.
Is there any credence being given to or significance being given to the Americans shooting down a drone which they say was acting belligerently or suspiciously, I'm not sure of the word, something in that genre, toward the USS Abraham Lincoln, and that it was a Iranian drone.
Now, look, it could have been a drone.
It could have been a surveillance drone that got off course.
It could have been a surveillance drone that was on course that was perfectly lawful, or it could have been a threat, could have been a false flag, who knows?
How do you read it?
Well, again, I wouldn't read it because I'm not a military expert, but the Russian reporting on this is simply factual.
Such a drone was near the aircraft carrier and was shot down.
They don't take a position on it, and they don't see any particular drama in it.
Of course, for the United States, it has more interest because it demonstrates that they actually can shoot something down.
It was a, though it was not a missile, it was one of the aircraft on that aircraft carrier that shot it down.
They don't talk about distances, but we do understand that the, and this is something that Al Sa Crook has been saying, that the American task force has been moved beyond the thousand kilometer, whatever it is, range of Iranian missiles to avoid utter destruction, should there be some missed signals and confusion over a pending American strike.
So the fact that the Iranians would be searching for where exactly the carrier and its escorts are is understandable.
The Russians have not read anything to this.
This reminds me of the American Revolution where the British had their rifles that fired 200 yards and the Americans had Kentucky long guns that fired 400 yards.
You know, after a number of those clashes, one side's going to prevail over the other.
Switching gears, do the ICE killings in Minneapolis resonate in the Kremlin?
Of course they do.
The Kremlin as such would be very discreet about this.
For all the reasons I mentioned, Mr. Putin doesn't want to do anything which would appear to be undermining Trump or criticizing Trump.
He wants to maintain this fiction of amity for the sake of reaching a higher goal, which is a new level of kind of coexistence or détente.
But in the chatting classes, these talk shows, of course, they follow very closely and not just the talk shows.
The in-depth reporting show 60 Minutes, which runs for four hours a day in morning and early evening segments, they of course have given a lot of attention to all of the news.
By the way, nevertheless, I should say that in the news of the week on Sunday, Kisayov had about at the start of the program, had at least 20, 25 minutes of clips from Western reporting, from CNN, from NBC, from other major American and European broadcasters on what they're saying about Minneapolis, which of course, so the Russians didn't have to come out and say what they think.
They let the Americans and the Europeans say what they think.
Well, I was going to ask you if the Epstein files have resonated in the Kremlin, and then I saw this, Maria Zakharova, the official spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry.
Chris?
Abstain materials which were published during these days give us a proof of how the Western elite treats children, including their own children.
Basically, they do not care any longer on what their fate will be.
You see how they treat them.
Imagine those who for decades subjected kids to violence, and they did it en masse, involving more victims, underage children, and adults.
It's a profound statement and entirely accurate.
Yes, but then again, not very different from what you see in mainstream United States and European coverage of this.
She is focused on the children because Russians are very, very children-focused.
When they report about civilians being killed in an attack, no, there were three children as if the children's lives are inherently more valuable than anybody else who was killed.
So it's not surprising to me that she would focus on the children.
It's just not surprising to me also that Western mainstream United States is focusing on women and young women.
Right.
And how the elites, the elite men, think of and behave towards younger women.
Well, this is all going to explode again when Bill and Hillary Clinton testify.
The dispute now as to whether their testimony, I don't know what Hillary knows about Epstein, but her husband was certainly there.
Here's the Polish prime minister saying that Epstein was connected to Russian intelligence.
Chris.
And more and more analytical commentary appearing in all the press outlets and across global media platforms.
All of this concerns the growing suspicion that this truly unprecedented pedophilia scandal was in fact deliberately co-organized by the Russian special services.
Actually, there are well over a thousand individual documents that directly concern the life and career of Vladimir Putin.
9,000 concern Moscow.
I'm talking about the Russian political environment.
The FBI claims it had information that Mr. Epstein managed part of Vladimir Putin's assets.
It is known that Epstein archived all his messages, emails, and documents.
He archived videos and photos.
He recorded and filmed influential and powerful leaders across the Western world, including various presidents, several prime ministers, and the CEOs of the world's largest companies.
That this was a carefully prepared intelligence operation by the Russian KGB agency.
This classic so-called honey trap, which is essentially just sweet bait, This was a trap specifically designed for the elites of the Western world, and most notably targeting the United States.
I've not heard this before.
There's three and a half million pages of documents.
I don't know of any one person that's gone through all of them.
I don't know if he's correct about the number of mentions of Vladimir Putin, but it seems to me almost inconceivable that this was a KGB plot.
Well, this is what Tusk would say.
He is very anti-Russian.
I think you would better just shut up because if they look, they'll probably find Polish girls and Polish kidovniki, as it is in Polish managers.
That means the ones who are managing the hookers all over the place.
They were Polish girls.
They were Romanian girls.
They were all the usual suspects that were recruited by Epstein.
So it'd be better if Tusk just kept his silence, unless I find some pictures of him there.
Yeah, I mean, this is almost Russia Gate all over again, trying to argue that Russian intelligence is attempting to bring down American politicians by using females, underage females, to attempt them.
Colonel Bill Astori At 1 PM 00:00:33
All right, enough with all this.
Gilbert, a great conversation.
Thank you for letting me go all over the place.
I'm sorry we ended with this tawdry stuff, but it's front pages today and we have to address it.
Thank you for accommodating my schedule.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week, my dear friend.
Very good.
Look forward to it as well.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All the best.
Coming up later today this morning at 10 o'clock, Colonel Bill Astori at 1 this afternoon.
Professor Glenn Deason at 2 this afternoon.
Colonel Douglas McGregor at 3 this afternoon.
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