March 31, 2026 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:14
Gilbert Doctorow : Why Does the Kremlin Hesitate ?
Gilbert Doctorow joins Judge Andrew Napolitano to analyze alleged Ukrainian drone incursions from Estonia and Finland into Russia's Ust-Luga oil facility, citing Finnish Ministry of Defense confirmations. The discussion shifts to President Trump's potential Middle East address, where Doctorow predicts a narrative framing an Iranian withdrawal as victory to circumvent congressional war powers limits and stabilize oil prices before November midterms. This strategy may distract from pressure on Zelensky for a "Yalta II" land concession, potentially leading Trump to distance himself from Israel and fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, while endorsing John Mearsheimer's critique of US complicity in Gaza. Ultimately, the episode suggests current geopolitical maneuvers prioritize domestic electoral survival over consistent foreign policy principles. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Undeclared Wars and Political Theater00:14:24
Undeclared wars are commonplace.
Tragically, 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?
What if 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, April 1st, 2026.
Gilbert Doctorow joins us now.
Gilbert, a pleasure as always.
Before we get to the options available and the choices likely by President Trump in his address to the American people and the world, ultimately tonight, I do want to ask you about some late breaking events in Europe.
Did drones from Estonia Fired from Estonia, crossover airspace in Finland and land inside of Russia.
Did this actually happen?
It's almost certain that it happened.
Certainly, the Ukrainian drones a day ago successfully damaged Russia's oil export installations in the port of Ustluga.
Ustluga is a river, the Ustluga is the mouth of the river.
It's on the Gulf of Finland.
It is rather close to the Estonian border.
And that is one of the two major oil export points that Russia has for most of the traffic that you hear about on the Shadow Fleet.
It was damaged.
And how would the Ukrainian drones have gotten there?
Well, we know that there's been a considerable increase in drone traffic into what's called Leningrad Oblast.
The city of St. Petersburg may have been renamed.
From Leningrad to Petersburg, but the surrounding oblast or regional province, as you want to call it, retains the name of Leningrad, Leningradskaya Oblast.
And this increase in drones is coming from across the Baltic states, and most recently, in the last few days, also coming from across Finland.
Maybe the Estonians are public about this, but they're not explaining exactly what's going on.
They have said that is, the Ministry of Defense has said.
Several times in the last week, that they are not shooting down Ukrainian drones that overfly their territory.
So, this is not a guesswork.
This is not speculation on my part.
It is absolutely in the public domain that there are Ukrainian drones overflying Finland.
And if you just look at the map, you see to go through Finland across Narva.
Narva is another river going into the cuff of Finland.
It's the border between Finland and Russia.
And you just cross over that.
And there you are, very close to Ush Luga.
So there's no question but that the Ukrainian drones did not come from the North Pole, they came across Finland.
Secondly, there have been statements by the Ministry of Defense of Finland in the last week that they have recovered downed Ukrainian drones inside Finland.
Now, why they crashed in Finland, we don't know.
It could be that Russians had downed them.
It could be that they simply did not have the proper satellite intelligence to track properly the surface that they were flying over.
They crashed into chimneys.
That was mentioned by the Finns that they had crashed into high objects.
Well, you do that if you don't have a very good intel input into programming the drones.
So, this is not speculation, it's fact.
The question is what are the Russians going to do about it?
Correct.
You have spoken eloquently and critically of President Putin's reticence to accelerate the military activities and the special military operation in order to bring it to an end to achieve its military goals.
I'm going to guess that this attack from Estonia across Finland into the mouth of this river has increased the pressure on President Putin to do something.
Is he going to attack Estonia?
Well, he can attack either country.
The successful strike on a Russian installation, which is again a major export port, Ust Luga, that raised discussion in the Russian social media.
What should be done?
Should we send up our air defense missiles to bring down these Ukrainian drones?
Over Finnish or over Estonian territory.
That is under discussion.
But of course, there is great pressure on Vladimir Putin to do something about it.
Now, before I look like I'm only pushing in one direction, I freely acknowledge we all are working with crystal balls.
And I never dismiss entirely what President Putin may have in his back pocket.
Right.
And that is something that we can talk about later in this discussion because it bears directly.
On this whole issue of what Mr. Trump will say tonight.
I will get to that because of the intimation that at the same time Trump is going to announce whatever he's going to announce tonight, which is probably a withdrawal, but that's just my guess.
And of course, I want to hear your analysis.
He may also be putting pressure on Zelensky, Vladimir Zelensky.
Put that aside for a minute.
What do you expect President Trump to announce?
Tonight, he just brought 10,000 troops, 4,000 Marines, 6,000 to 8,000.
My numbers may be off a little bit because they don't publish the numbers.
82nd Airborne, and they're there.
Would he just bring them there and go through that expense and disruption only to announce that they're coming home?
Is the announcement tonight a deception?
What are his options tonight, and what do you expect him to say?
Well, we've seen a lot of political theater in this first year that's gone by, of his being in the presidency again.
And this could be more political theater.
Having all of these troops and the specialized forces in the area, which supports the statement that he will surely make tonight and ad infinitum after today, that he had overwhelming force brought to bear on the Iranians.
That they made concessions to him, and therefore we can leave.
It is part of a big lie, but as the Germans understood in World War II, the bigger the lie, the more likely it will succeed.
So, what do you think he'll do?
He won't state exactly what the Iranians have agreed to because we know there's no agreement.
He'll just, as some of your snarkier colleagues have said, He'll just declare victory and go home.
Essentially, I would agree with them, whether they're snarky or not.
The likelihood is that's his pattern.
But we are not just guessing here.
And even the Russians, as witnessed in last night's talk show, even they read the American federal laws, and even they talked about the 60 day limit.
That binds Trump to go to Congress and request war powers, which he, of course, will not do because he will be defeated.
And it's one thing that's worse than being defeated in the Persian Gulf, it's being defeated in the U.S. Congress.
So he won't take this to the Congress, and it means he has less than 30 days to wind things up.
So that is what's behind this two or three week story, which the markets are accepting as if it's something.
That's given like the tablets of the Ten Commandments to Moses.
No, it's simply in accordance with the U.S. law.
So he has to make a decision to escalate or to back away.
And to back away, he has to cover his tracks by presenting this as a victory because he has smashed Iran to pieces and he leaves it to the Europeans to pick those pieces up.
He has a perfect excuse for.
For dropping this on the Europeans.
You didn't help us in our hour of need.
And we leave it to you to defend yourselves and your interests without us.
So that will be his presentation of victory.
We don't care about the Straits of Hormuz.
It's your problem.
We don't get our oil from there.
And by the way, these people, again, the markets aren't talking about what is in Trump's power.
The biggest influence.
On his political fortunes is the price of petroleum at the pump in the States.
Right, because that has a direct correlation on the midterm elections in November.
That's under his control.
Right.
All he has to do is put in place by a presidential order restriction on export of petroleum and oil.
That would be harmful to the profiteering of American oil companies.
But it's entirely possible.
And then the biggest issue.
facing him in elections is taken off the table.
Last night, I mentioned this to you before we started, so this is now public.
So, without revealing my source, I'll raise it again.
I learned from one of our regular on air colleagues that the British cabinet had voted to send 5,000 troops to Iran, and that didn't appear in the press anywhere.
Well, it has this morning.
The BBC, quote, more UK troops to be sent to Middle East, defense secretary announces.
The Sun.
War boost in a headline with big capital letters.
Britain to send troops and air defense systems to Gulf to counter Iranian attacks.
Defense Secretary confirms.
The Independent.
These must be British newspapers, Gilbert, with which you have more familiarity than I. Extra UK troops heading to Middle East to help defend against Iranian attacks.
The Portsmouth News.
Iran.
Britain's best deployed as extra troops sent to help Middle East nations against aggressive attacks.
So I can only conclude, and I want your thoughts, that Prime Minister Stormer's done a 180 on this.
Well, as I've seen in the past, I'm sure you have too, there are always late crumbers to a party.
And usually they get left with the crumbs on the table.
I think that is what Stormer is doing.
However, let's qualify this.
This doesn't come out of the blue.
He said a day ago, That Britain would defend its interests in the Middle East and it would defend, well, lots of interests, security interests.
This is not engaging in the war on Iran.
This is strictly defensive.
And it is, if you have Zelensky parading around the Middle East, making contracts to provide anti drone equipment, why don't the British step in and provide, remind their friends?
Among the sheikhs and emirs, that Britain has always had a role in the Middle East.
Here is Prime Minister Stormer yesterday on March 31st.
Chris, cut number 25.
This is not our war.
We will not be drawn into the conflict.
That is not in our national interest.
And the most effective way we can support the cost of living in Britain is to push for de escalation in the Middle East.
Well, something has influenced his thinking whether he wants to call these 5,000 special forces defensive only or whether this is in conjunction with.
US Special Forces, who knows?
Trump, Donors, and the Israeli Lobby00:07:41
Does this in any way alter your view of what you expect President Trump to say tonight?
No, on the contrary, he may well mention this.
After all, he was saying that the Europeans should move in and look after their own interests.
And that is exactly what Starmer was doing in this case.
The United States pulls out.
This is not going to be in support of an American ground defensive against Iran.
On the contrary, It supports America's departure from the Middle East, including possibly the closing of all the bases.
Wow.
How does any of this connect with American pressure on Zelensky to concede certain land to the Kremlin so as to dial back the special military operation?
I'm saying dial back.
I don't know what will cause a cessation in.
A total cessation in violence, but that would obviously be a major step.
Does this, what you think Trump will say tonight, change the Zelensky paradigm?
Well, what we've discussed until now, I have based myself on facts.
What I'm about to say is speculation.
And I'll freely acknowledge that, but I think it's informed speculation.
I think that Mr. Trump has to cover himself.
He has to distract the press and the public from what is, to any neutral, I think, neutral analyst, a whopping defeat in Iran.
And he can do that by going back to his first set of priorities when he just entered the White House.
I look back, I'm now doing editing of what will be my volume three.
Of war diaries for 2025.
And I looked at the start of the year, the first few weeks of Trump's new presidency, and I find that on your show, Alastair Crook had come out in that time period saying that because of the pressure from his donors and because of the position of the Israeli lobby in control of Congress, that Trump's foreign policy in the second term would be dominated.
By a war in the Middle East, a war against Iran.
At the same time, I was saying very differently on your program that I expected his Israel-Poetique approach and his overarching interest in establishing the Yalta II, which would necessitate liberating Russia from its trap in the Ukraine war and restoring relations with Russia, that that would be dominant in his foreign policy.
And up until February, I was mostly right.
Although there was that little blip in June of 25 when Trump bombed, dropped bombs on the Iranian nuclear installations.
But from February 28th, it looked like Alistair was completely correct.
I welcome this difference, and I appreciate your tolerance for having guests who say very different things in their analysis and forecasts, because we come to this task with different backgrounds.
Alistair diplomatically involved in the Middle East, I involved in Russia.
But now I think I may have recovered my position because I believe that Trump is going to use the defeat in the Middle East, covering it up by a victory in the Ukraine Russia war.
And to do that by applying massive pressure to Zelensky to get it over with so that he can move on to his Yalta II with Russia.
What will the Israelis do?
I mean, this would be an enormous letdown to Netanyahu and his American colleagues and donors if the president says, We're coming home.
It's going to take us two weeks, but we're coming home.
Donald Trump has come very close to losing entirely the value of his second term.
So I think that he may have sobered up a little bit with respect to what debt COs.
To his donors and to the Israeli lobby.
If he loses total control of Congress and is then genuinely a lame duck and is facing the whole of his remaining period fighting impeachment procedures, then what debt does he have to his donors?
None.
So I wouldn't exclude the possibility of Mr. Trump, the opportunist, and he's always been an opportunist, dumping Israel.
Certainly, I would not be surprised if we find him.
Firing Pete Hegseth within the next month or two because he is singly the person most responsible for getting Donald Trump into this mess.
Well, it's funny you should say that.
There's a lot of sub Rosa chatter about that.
It would enable Trump to blame the very, very poor, by any standards, poor planning of the war on his rather loudmouthed Pistol Pete quick draw.
Secretary of Defense, who calls himself the Secretary of War.
I want to play a clip from Professor Mearsheimer, which you and I have discussed calling for war crimes and the execution of war criminals.
We didn't even make any attempt to argue that the Iranians had done something militarily to precipitate.
Our attack on Iran.
There's no provocation here.
We just decided we were going to go out and we were going to whack the Iranians both last June and again this time.
Furthermore, both the Israelis and the Americans are running around the world assassinating leaders.
This was not something that the United States engaged in in large part or certainly in an overt way in the past.
And here we are.
And furthermore, there's the Gaza genocide.
Right, the Israelis.
Here's an apartheid state executing a genocide in Gaza, and we're complicit in that genocide.
If there were Nuremberg trials, right, where the Israelis and the Americans were brought before the court, President Trump, along with President Netanyahu and many of their advisors, would be hanged.
What do you think?
I salute Professor Mishraim for a very brave statement.
The man has shown courage several times in his career, extraordinary courage.
When he published this book on the Israeli lobby, I think, jointly with Ivory Professor Walt in 2007 or 2008, that was an act of tremendous courage, which nearly cost him his professional career.
Courageous Stands Against Power00:01:06
And what he said yesterday on your show was of the same standard.
So I think it is wonderful that you've had the interview, and it's wonderful.
That he used it to make this courageous statement.
All right, have to run.
Professor Dr. Rowe, thank you very much.
Always a pleasure.
I love our conversations and I owe you many, many dinners if I make it to Brussels because of all the time you spend with us.
And we, of course, will be watching the president tonight and look forward to your analysis of it when we see you again next week.
All the best, Gilbert.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Sure.
Coming up today, if you're watching us live in 36 minutes, Professor Mohamed Mirandi, live from Tehran at 9 o'clock, at 10 o'clock, Aaron Mate at 1 this afternoon, Pepe Escobar at 1 45 this afternoon, Colonel Karen Kwatkowski at 3 o'clock this afternoon, the great Phil Giraldi.