Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano - Gilbert Doctorow : Is President Trump a Madman?
Aired: 2026-04-08
Duration: 26:47


=== Undeclared Wars and Weakness (15:12) ===

[00:00:02]  Undeclared wars are commonplace.
[00:00:06]  Tragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people.
[00:00:14]  Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government.
[00:00:19]  To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected.
[00:00:27]  What if sometimes, to love your country, you had to alter or abolish the government?
[00:00:32]  What if Jefferson was right?
[00:00:34]  What if that government is best which governs least?
[00:00:38]  What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong?
[00:00:42]  What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave?
[00:00:48]  What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now?
[00:01:02]  Hi, everyone.
[00:01:02]  Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
[00:01:06]  Today is Wednesday, April 8th, 2026.
[00:01:10]  Gilbert Doctorow joins us for his usual Wednesday morning, our time, afternoon, his meeting together.
[00:01:19]  Gilbert, always a pleasure.
[00:01:22]  Who pushed more aggressively for a cessation of violence, the United States or Iran?
[00:01:31]  Well, I think it was clearly the United States.
[00:01:34]  And I say that on the basis Of what I saw in the early hours of the morning here when the news from Washington came out that there was this agreement for a two week pause in hostilities.
[00:01:50]  And I found something which I haven't seen reproduced in Western media.
[00:01:55]  I found this on the news ticker of the Russian website.
[00:02:01]  It was the statement, the full statement of the Iranian leadership announcing the ceasefire.
[00:02:09]  And what they said was that they had won a unique victory over all of the United States forces, that the United States had been defeated, and that they were proceeding to discuss or to implement a ceasefire.
[00:02:27]  So there's no question, but the Iranian side viewed this as an enormous American defeat.
[00:02:35]  And that is preconditioned by their not having been the ones to sue for peace, that it was the United States that did.
[00:02:46]  You know, it's very odd but not surprising for President Trump to claim total victory, as he said last night.
[00:02:54]  He'll probably say it again today when the cameras are rolling.
[00:02:58]  But regime change?
[00:03:00]  No.
[00:03:01]  Destruction or removal of enriched uranium?
[00:03:05]  No.
[00:03:06]  Destruction of Iran ballistic missiles?
[00:03:09]  No.
[00:03:11]  Control of the Strait of Hormuz in Iran's hands?
[00:03:17]  That was in no one's hands before the war.
[00:03:21]  What conceivable basis, in fact, would there be to justify Trump's claim of victory?
[00:03:30]  Well, it's going to be a cover up in every sense.
[00:03:32]  And I think perhaps as regards Western media, Tehran is letting it go.
[00:03:39]  There's the old story of all bridges open to the retreating enemy.
[00:03:43]  And I think that's the situation today.
[00:03:45]  I don't think that they're going to give Trump a hard time in his trying to cover up and explain away what is a defeat.
[00:03:54]  I think they appreciate that there are enough of us in the world at large.
[00:04:02]  Who can think for ourselves and understand a victory and a defeat as being quite different things and the circumstances.
[00:04:08]  When you say, and this is the Financial Times itself, in their earliest report of this, acknowledged that the Iranian 10 points plan for peace would be the basis for negotiations, that tells you the whole story.
[00:04:22]  They didn't bother to repeat all the 10 points, but the very fact that it was their position, which we know was really demanding an American surrender.
[00:04:33]  The third terms are the basis for talks.
[00:04:36]  You don't have to ask anymore.
[00:04:38]  As for Mr. Trump, he will bluster.
[00:04:42]  He will explain that he has destroyed vast amounts of armaments and war making potential of Iran, that he has destroyed some major manufacturing, military manufacturing, they're going to call it, infrastructure, and that Iran cannot pose a threat to its neighbors in the foreseeable future.
[00:05:02]  And that he's finally gotten a complete admission from the Iranians that they will not build a bomb.
[00:05:09]  Now, he added to that today.
[00:05:10]  The latest release from the Financial Times has us informed that, or misinformed by Donald Trump, that he has the agreement of the Iranians to jointly with them recover the enriched uranium that they now have and to remove it from Iran.
[00:05:31]  So maybe that has been agreed.
[00:05:33]  I don't know.
[00:05:34]  Frankly speaking, the whole question of enrichment was a very strange policy position for Iran.
[00:05:41]  Because it was waving a red flag in front of the United States when it had no intention of building a bomb.
[00:05:48]  So I think, in point of fact, if the Iranians conceded that, they would be doing something they should have done 10 years ago.
[00:05:56]  As you might be able to see on the screen, Chris, if you could put that back up, according to the Associated Press, Iran includes the U.S. acceptance of enrichment in the Farsi version of the ceasefire plans.
[00:06:12]  Something that is interestingly missing in the English version.
[00:06:17]  Now, Iran, of course, has signed, I'm repeating well known history here, the non proliferation agreement, which allows them enrichment purposes for domestic use of uranium.
[00:06:36]  This, of course, was rejected by Israel for its own reasons and rejected by the U.S. for its own reasons.
[00:06:41]  Israel has not signed the treaty.
[00:06:43]  The US did.
[00:06:44]  But it's interesting that this is mentioned in the Farsi version and not in the Iranian, in the English version.
[00:06:52]  Before we get to the view of this from the Kremlin, I was watching reporters from Israel this morning, Israeli reporters reporting in English from Israel.
[00:07:05]  None of them was happy.
[00:07:08]  All of them seemed to be feigning a smile.
[00:07:11]  What can Prime Minister Netanyahu possibly be?
[00:07:15]  Thinking now with the U.S. cessation in bombing for two weeks.
[00:07:21]  Well, I think he's anticipating the collapse of his coalition government.
[00:07:26]  If he has a hard time swallowing the terms of the U.S.-Iranian truce to become a peace, then his still more rabid colleagues on the right in his governing coalition must be utterly furious.
[00:07:44]  And I can foresee that they will betray him so that his government will fall.
[00:07:50]  That is probably his single biggest worry right now.
[00:07:54]  is from the standpoint of Iran, the victory goes still further.
[00:07:59]  The point they made in their announcement last night was that the United States is committed to leaving its bases in the Middle East.
[00:08:09]  Now, exactly what that means, of course, is subject to discussion.
[00:08:14]  I think the last interpretation is that the United States will remove its personnel.
[00:08:23]  From these bases.
[00:08:25]  So, from the standpoint of Iran, they have completely vanquished the United States.
[00:08:29]  The United States is leaving the Middle East.
[00:08:31]  Now, where that leaves Mr. Netanyahu, it leaves him with rubble, the rubble that has been created in Tel Aviv and other major towns of Israel.
[00:08:45]  So, I think his tenure in office is even more vulnerable, fragile than Donald Trump's.
[00:08:55]  Wow.
[00:08:56]  I'm going to ask you a two part question if you can separate them.
[00:08:59]  I want to know the Kremlin's view.
[00:09:01]  First, the Kremlin's view of Donald Trump and this war in Iran before last night, last night, U.S. time, and then the Kremlin's view of Trump and the war today, whether they're the same or different.
[00:09:18]  We start with how you would have answered that question if we were meeting at this hour yesterday.
[00:09:25]  Well, I have for some time in the last month or two been raising the issue of two voices in Moscow.
[00:09:34]  The voice of Mr. Putin and some, if not most of his entourage, and the voice of the foreign policy establishment, which takes in Duma members, it takes in experts in think tanks and universities.
[00:09:52]  And they are very divergent.
[00:09:55]  From the official, I think we can take the official view There's what's coming out of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Lavrov's department.
[00:10:02]  And there you can expect, I'm reading into this because there's no statement addressing the question that you've asked, but we can triangulate here and come up to an assumption that they interpret the present weakness of Trump as a negotiating advantage for themselves.
[00:10:24]  Here at the point where the foreign policy establishment and Mr. Putin and his immediate associates will be in complete agreement.
[00:10:32]  That Trump has destroyed relations with allies, that for the United States it's a bad thing, and for that very reason, for Russia, it's a very good thing.
[00:10:41]  That Trump is vulnerable was not to be expected.
[00:10:46]  We're all vulnerable so early to being forced out of office, it was not to be expected, but it prevents the Kremlin with a stronger hand in negotiations when trying to bring Trump back to focus his mind and his entourage's mind.
[00:11:04]  On the peace in Ukraine.
[00:11:06]  So, from that standpoint, I think the official Kremlin position would be favorable.
[00:11:12]  Now, as to the positions of the thinking classes, I think this has shown up the weakness of Russia in international affairs right now.
[00:11:25]  Weakness because of their positions on the Ukraine war, failure to exploit the opportunity to end the war quickly using its readily available advanced armaments.
[00:11:39]  Um, the, um, I think there's more to this on the level of the foreign policy establishment.
[00:11:50]  This embarrassment of, oh, yes, there is the position taken by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as I mentioned in passing but didn't say what they said, that Russia does not apologize for having used its veto in the Security Council two days ago to veto an initiative, I think, by Bahrain.
[00:12:12]  You condemn Iran.
[00:12:14]  For its attacks on the Gulf states.
[00:12:18]  Sorry?
[00:12:20]  No, for some reason we're hearing Hegseth, Chris.
[00:12:26]  There we go.
[00:12:26]  Go ahead, please.
[00:12:29]  A little bit of a glitch.
[00:12:30]  So, Bahrain offered in the Security Council a condemnation of Iran.
[00:12:39]  I forget who Russia, China, and France.
[00:12:42]  Correct me.
[00:12:44]  I think it was only Russia and China.
[00:12:46]  Okay.
[00:12:47]  I don't know who else abstained.
[00:12:50]  I think Pakistan abstained, which was itself a very important development, considering how close Pakistan has been to Saudi Arabia.
[00:12:59]  In defense matters, that they abstained was a major statement by itself.
[00:13:03]  But the very thing of it, in whose mind this could enter, the notion that Russia should apologize for taking that stand.
[00:13:12]  So, what I'm trying to express is that the position of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, which is certainly expressing the position of its boss of bosses, that is, Vladimir Putin, is very strange, hard to understand.
[00:13:32]  Weak, purely speaking, weak.
[00:13:36]  The What the Iranians have done or claim to have done is indeed astonishing to humiliate the United States and now to try to allow Mr. Trump to extricate himself for this so that he doesn't return to resume bombing and destruction.
[00:13:57]  How did the Russians perceive his wild?
[00:14:04]  In my view, it was a war crime.
[00:14:05]  It's hard to commit a war crime with just words, but when you threaten genocide, Under one of the protocols to Geneva Conventions, as you know better than I, it's a war crime.
[00:14:15]  How did the Russians perceive this wild and crazy, I will demolish a civilization boast and threat that Trump made three days ago, which had everybody in the U.S. quaking in their boots?
[00:14:32]  Understandably, Mr. Putin and the people immediately around him have no comment on this for the very reason I've mentioned above.
[00:14:39]  They want to use the weakness of Trump for their own purposes.
[00:14:43]  But When you look at what I usually look at, Vladimir Solovyov's talk program last night, they were feasting on this.
[00:14:54]  And they were using it to explain how, really, it's just a continuation of American policy going back to the slaughter of the Indians.
[00:15:06]  I don't agree with this continuity, this notion of America being two and a half centuries wicked, which is what they were saying.

=== Impeachable Offenses for Trump (08:12) ===

[00:15:15]  One, at least one panelist was saying.
[00:15:17]  But of course, they are mocking the United States.
[00:15:21]  They're mocking Trump.
[00:15:23]  He has lost all credibility.
[00:15:25]  And whereas Mr. Putin may have his reasons to try to use this weakness of Trump to his advantage, the thinking heads are under no such obligation to let Trump off the hook.
[00:15:42]  And they were feasting on his inane statements.
[00:15:46]  You know, one wonders.
[00:15:50]  Who will be negotiating in behalf of the United States?
[00:15:53]  I suspect it might actually be the vice president because the Iranians have said they absolutely will not deal with Woodcock and Kushner after their two betrayals and the bombing during the midst of negotiation.
[00:16:08]  They simply don't trust a word out of their mouths.
[00:16:10]  I don't know that the vice president is more or less trustworthy.
[00:16:15]  According to an investigative piece in today's New York Times, the vice president. Quietly, but steadfastly opposed the war in the White House.
[00:16:29]  Interestingly, the Times also claims that Marco Rubio opposed the war, and General Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, The Israelis are overselling this war to you, Mr. President.
[00:16:42]  We're not going to be able to accomplish what Netanyahu and David Barnea, the head of Mossad, have told you, Ken.
[00:16:49]  But back to the negotiators.
[00:16:52]  The United States begins at square one with negotiators if it can't use Whitkoff and Kushner.
[00:16:59]  Well, if indeed JD Vance takes this assignment and if he has some success in covering Trump's tracks, then this will be the first good step in his campaign for the presidency two years from now.
[00:17:16]  It also would be very helpful to him as they step up if Trump is forced out either before or immediately after the November elections.
[00:17:25]  I find it very hard to believe that he's going to stay in office.
[00:17:29]  What he said is so self incriminating, and he has given the Democrats so much material to destroy him.
[00:17:41]  I was listening with some interest.
[00:17:44]  Everything that you've just mentioned, I heard on Russian News last night.
[00:17:48]  Not on this Solidarity Off program, no, but on the News program.
[00:17:51]  And they were showing extensively news clips that are relevant to what we're talking about, including.
[00:18:00]  Well, not just the naysayers inside the top of the administration before he went and made these outrageous statements, but including also a brief interview, I think it was on CNN, with my college classmate of Harvard '67, who is the senator, the Democratic senator from the state of Connecticut.
[00:18:28]  Richard Blumenthal?
[00:18:30]  Yeah, Richard Blumenthal.
[00:18:31]  Richard, I could have complimented you and said Chris Murphy was your classmate, he's half of Bloom's.
[00:18:41]  Well, that would be nice, but the reality is a bit different.
[00:18:46]  I have been at odds with him, not just I, but others with Blumenthal, because he has been one of the real Russia haters for much of his career.
[00:18:55]  He has this bizarre relationship, I don't mean physical, I mean political, with Lindsey Graham on this issue.
[00:19:04]  Exactly.
[00:19:04]  They were co sponsors of the last drastic sanctions on Russia.
[00:19:10]  So he has been a very.
[00:19:12]  A leading personality, just like Schumer is, on foreign policy for the Democrats in an anti Russian bias.
[00:19:20]  And here he was.
[00:19:21]  They put the question to him directly because he was being critical of these outrageous statements by Trump.
[00:19:28]  Senator Blumenthal, would you consider what Trump is proposing to do to be a war crime?
[00:19:35]  He didn't hesitate for a second.
[00:19:36]  He said, yes, it's a war crime.
[00:19:38]  So then you have inside the Senate people with 30, 40 years' experience in the Senate who are.
[00:19:45]  Speaking of Trump in those terms, I don't see how he can survive politically.
[00:19:50]  Here is the aforementioned Senator Chris Murphy, the junior senator from Connecticut.
[00:19:59]  Chris, cut number 15.
[00:20:02]  Who knows what's going on?
[00:20:03]  Donald Trump lies every single day.
[00:20:06]  Clearly, he's not telling the truth.
[00:20:08]  But if you accept even part of the Iranian statement, Donald Trump has agreed to give Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:20:18]  That is extraordinary.
[00:20:20]  It is just stunning that that's where we have gotten to.
[00:20:22]  That Donald Trump took a military action that has apparently, at least for the time being, given Iran control over a critical waterway that they did not have control over before the war began.
[00:20:35]  So it just doesn't sound like there's actually an agreement because what Trump is saying is totally different than what the Iranians are saying.
[00:20:41]  But if Iran has the strait permanently now, what an error, what a miscalculation this entire endeavor was.
[00:20:52]  Senator Edward Markey, the senior senator from Massachusetts, who does directly address impeachment.
[00:20:59]  I mean, he's speaking off the top of his head, but it's almost as if you scripted it for him.
[00:21:03]  Cut number 14, Chris.
[00:21:04]  Donald Trump has surrendered, not the Iranians.
[00:21:08]  And what he has been doing over the last several days is an impeachable offense.
[00:21:17]  He has threatened a genocide against the nation.
[00:21:20]  He has threatened to.
[00:21:22]  And a civilization.
[00:21:23]  He has threatened to use nuclear weapons against a country that does not have nuclear weapons.
[00:21:30]  All of these are impeachable offenses.
[00:21:34]  Uh, and he must be brought to justice.
[00:21:37]  Uh, the House and Senate should be brought back into session.
[00:21:41]  Uh, there should be articles of impeachment brought against him by the Democrats in the House of Representatives.
[00:21:48]  We need to make Donald Trump accountable for what he has just done in the name of the American People.
[00:21:56]  And I think this is going to be a defining moment for the Congress, for the American people.
[00:22:05]  We cannot allow Donald Trump in control of nuclear weapons to be invoking this madman theory of the destruction of a civilization in the name of the American people without him being brought to accountability.
[00:22:22]  The impeachment process must begin.
[00:22:26]  When you say you think that Donald Trump will not last much longer in office, I don't want to get too deep into constitutional law, which is, of course, my field and not yours.
[00:22:37]  Nevertheless, what do you think will happen?
[00:22:42]  Do you think his illness will provoke a resignation, which would be out of character for him to admit he has any flaws?
[00:22:49]  Or do you think that after the midterms and the Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress, impeachment will succeed?
[00:22:56]  Or do you think he'll resign like Richard Nixon in lieu of impeachment?
[00:23:02]  Well, I expect him to sit on through the elections in November and then to face impeachment and then to resign.
[00:23:10]  So, uh, this is a sequence I see.
[00:23:13]  Uh, again, the party could pull itself together and say, at least give Vance a chance to pick up the pieces and salvage, which you've just destroyed.
[00:23:22]  So that, that is the way, that's my best guess, but it's a guess, of course.

=== Will He Resign or Fight (02:42) ===

[00:23:28]  Wow.
[00:23:29]  I want to introduce one thing.
[00:23:32]  Uh, people who read my, My books and my articles, they say, oh, yes.
[00:23:37]  And Dr. O uses taxi drivers as a source of political information.
[00:23:43]  I will tell you right now that when I took, I came from the railway station, Central Railway Station here in Brussels, back to my home earlier, a couple of hours ago.
[00:23:54]  And by strange coincidence, since he overheard my discussion with my wife, which touched on Iran, he said, oh, by the way, I'm Iranian.
[00:24:03]  And he He's 40 years in Belgium, so he was naturalized, but he follows very closely.
[00:24:09]  He could be watching your program all the time because he follows very closely these political developments.
[00:24:15]  And he said, I was against the Ayatollahs.
[00:24:18]  It's terrible.
[00:24:21]  And yet, when Trump made these threats, I became patriotic.
[00:24:25]  Wow, that is very, very telling.
[00:24:27]  I realize it's anecdotal and it's one person, but it's very, very telling.
[00:24:32]  Look at the tens of thousands of people.
[00:24:37]  That surrounded bridges in Tehran and power plants in an effort to remind American pilots that the civilian population was standing in the way of their aggression.
[00:24:55]  One last thing before I have to run.
[00:24:58]  The BBC reports that Israel strikes southern Lebanon after the U.S. Iran ceasefire.
[00:25:06]  So Netanyahu does not consider this a ceasefire.
[00:25:09]  Binding on him.
[00:25:10]  But if it's binding on the U.S., and Iran is free to attack Israel, and the U.S. is not going to attack Iran, this makes things really dark and dangerous for Netanyahu, as you mentioned early on in our conversation.
[00:25:27]  Absolutely.
[00:25:29]  I think that today, tomorrow, there is going to be a very heated discussion between Washington and Jerusalem over this issue.
[00:25:38]  The Iranians are insisting that all Not just Iran cannot be attacked, but Hezbollah cannot be attacked and Hamas cannot be attacked.
[00:25:47]  So Israel is in the middle of it, is entirely within the power of Donald Trump to put his thumb down on Netanyahu and said, you won't get any more arms.
[00:25:57]  So we'll see what happens in the next couple of days.
[00:25:59]  But this piece will not go through unless it is a long piece addressing the underlying issues, just as Russia says with respect to its war on Ukraine.
[00:26:09]  Right.

=== Stopping Attacks on Allies (00:37) ===

[00:26:10]  Gilbert Doctorow, thank you very much.
[00:26:12]  All of our conversations are terrific.
[00:26:14]  Today's was especially timely and poignant.
[00:26:17]  All my best to you.
[00:26:18]  We'll look forward to seeing you next week, my friend.
[00:26:21]  Oh, thank you.
[00:26:22]  Of course.
[00:26:23]  And coming up later today at one o'clock this afternoon, I don't know where he is, but we'll find him Pepe Escobar.
[00:26:30]  At two o'clock, Professor Glenn Deason.
[00:26:32]  At three o'clock, the great Phil Giraldi.
[00:26:34]  And sometime during the day, we don't have a time yet, but we'll announce that as soon as we do, Larry Johnson.
[00:26:41]  You really think this is a ceasefire?
[00:26:44]  Larry doesn't think so.
[00:26:45]  Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.