Transcript of ‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 13 February

Transcript submitted by a reader

Napolitano: 0:32
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Thursday, February 13th, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow is here with us on “Just How Does Moscow View Trump?” And did something happen yesterday that changed all that?

0:50
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2:03
Professor Doctorow, welcome here, my dear friend. If I had asked you two days ago how the Kremlin views President Trump when he was attempting to persuade King Abdullah of Jordan and General President Sisi of Egypt, each to take three quarters of a million Palestinian refugees and claiming that he’s going to buy and own Gaza — how would you have answered that two days ago?

2:37
Not respectful. They deemed his projects to be extreme, to be unsupportable, and to be unrealizable. And they were disappointed that he was botching the good name he achieved by getting the Israelis to sit down and sign a truce with Hamas. He was spoiling us by what he was now undertaking.

Napolitano: 3:05
I’m sure they recognized that he was undermining a truce that his own– and of course, Mr. Witkoff comes in later on in our conversation– his own emissary crafted when he said, “I don’t like the hostages being released in dribs and drabs, two and one and three and four.” Well, that’s the agreement that he, his guy drafted and the US agreed to and Hamas agreed to and the Israelis agreed to and Hamas has been complying with, notwithstanding President Trump’s threat, that if all the hostages are not released by noon on Saturday, a date and time off the top of his head, quote, “all hell will break loose”.

Doctorow: 3:53
Well, yes, none of this would have given much confidence to the Russians if they had a potential talking partner in Washington. All of it undermined whatever was rational and attractive in Trump’s pre-electoral campaign messages. I know that I was on record as saying that the terms of the truce were a brilliant operation, and people have already thrown that back to me.

I don’t– I’d say right now, it is too early to draw any conclusions about any of the initiatives that Trump has made in these first two and a half weeks or whatever of his presidency. What– his modus operandi is exceptional, is eccentric, is very hard to fathom for those of us who like transparency. Nonetheless, he is being assisted by superior intellects and by people with vast experience. And by that, first of all, I mean both Elon Musk and in particular, Steve Witkoff. So I would hold back before drawing any conclusions on what Trump is undertaking.

Napolitano: 5:06
How does Moscow view Trump today after the announcement of the 90-minute more or less conversation with President Putin and the very pleasant, happy, flattering diplomatic way in which the White House revealed the existence of the conversation?

Doctorow:
Well, yes, I take your last point first. The Russians were impressed. And Russians– may be honest about it. This came very late. The breaking news is very late. Most of the news analysis programs had gone to bed already. That’s to say they had taped in the late afternoon before this new– Moscow time– before this news came, out and they did not cover it. One exception was the one I watched last night, which is the Vladimir Solovyov talk program. And he had some of his usual very experienced and competent analysts there to add to what he had to say.

6:06
What did they say about it? They were very impressed by precisely what you have called attention to: the diplomacy, the tact. Mr. Trump is not noted for tact, but this document was tactful. It spoke about “President” Putin. It had none of the derogatory remarks about Putin, Russia, the invasion of Ukraine that we have grown, sadly grown accustomed to in the years of the Biden administration. And this was called out immediately by the Russians as a good start to discussion.

6:40
But there was a lot that was discussed last night. I hope we have time to get into a bit of it. Some of it was quite surprising. That is the preliminaries to this telephone call were probably the visits in his own private plane by Witkoff to Moscow last week. But to my knowledge, the mainstream was talking only about the release of this American school teacher, which was a performance by Trump with the help of Putin of one of his pre-electoral promises to the mother of this drug trafficker. Let’s be clear: he was a drug trafficker. During that time, we weren’t aware, I wasn’t aware, that Witkoff had spent three and a half hours with top Russian leadership.

7:29
And certainly wasn’t spending his time going over the details of how this school teacher would be released or taking [custody] of him and returning him to the States. It was clearly about bigger issues which gave the Russians the understanding that Trump and the people around him agree with him that the meetings that they’re going to have will be about their whole global relationship and particularly about strategic issues which by their nature are to be discussed by the two superpowers absent all of the vassals who would like to have a place at the table.

8:10
So the position of these two powers with respect to Europe and to Ukraine was made clear in the telephone call that we’ll discuss.

Napolitano:
Before we get to where this leaves the rest of the– here appears President Trump’s non-response to a question put to him about will Vladimir Zelensky be at the negotiating table? Chris, cut number six.

Trump: 8:38
What about Ukraine?

Reporter:
Did you commit to go to Ukraine?

Trump:
No, I haven’t. I haven’t committed to go to Ukraine.

Reporter:
Would you go?

Trump:
I would think about going, yeah, I’d think about it. No problem.

Reporter:
Do you view Ukraine as an equal member of this peace process?

Trump:
It’s an interesting question. I think they have to make peace. Their people are being killed and I think they have to make peace. I said that was not a good war to go into and I think they have to make peace. That’s what I think.

Napolitano: 9:10
Can you even imagine President Putin sitting down at the same table with Vladimir Zelensky?

Doctorow:
The underlying argument of the Russians, which was again put up on television last night, but certainly mainstream in the West didn’t report it. So viewers of this program would not be aware of it. It was what Peskov, the press secretary to Putin said, their take on the telephone call, that Putin had reiterated his basic non-negotiable stance, which is that this discussion that they will have, as Putin and Trump, will be about the causes that led Russia to invade. Not about the invasion as such, not about the war as such, but the cause. And the cause is of course, the rollback of NATO that was called for in December, 2021 by Mr. Ryabkof, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, and was set out in the draft documents for revising the security architecture of Europe that the Russians presented then.

Napolitano: 10:30
Chris, I’m going to call for cut number 11. What did the Kremlin think of this?

Hegseth:
A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again. This must not be Minsk 3.0.

That said, the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission and they should not be covered under Article 5. There also must be robust international oversight of the line of contact. To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine.

Napolitano: 11:42
Now, that’s a lot to unpack. I would imagine some of it delighted the Kremlin and some of it did not, but take the ball and run with it as we say, Professor.

Doctorow:
The Russians did what you’re doing now. They linked directly Pete Hegseth’s speech, his debut at the Ukrainian Coordinating Organization that met here yesterday in Brussels, they linked that directly to what Trump has said very briefly in a sketchy manner in his Truth Social platform, describing the talk from his perspective.

Now, the link is direct, because the substance of what had been discussed between Trump and Putin and was not disclosed in either the Russian or the American brief on those talks — the substance was what Hegseth was saying precisely no, no Ukraine in NATO, that the peacekeeping group would include non-Europeans. Why would you say that?

Napolitano: 12:55
You know, what are you talking about? “Non-Americans and non-Europeans”, who on the planet would it be?

Doctorow:
Chinese. The point is that this would not be a body of 200,000 people poised to attack Russia, which is the way the peacekeepers have been presented by people like Macron. “Well, we will be ready to jump on the Russians at any moment.” This isn’t a group watching the peace. It’s a group that intends to violate the peace. That there will be then no installations, no trainers, none of the things that Russia [wouldn’t] allow in the post-peace Ukraine.

Napolitano: 13:35
So is it clear to say the Kremlin was pleased with part of what Secretary Hegseth said, no NATO in Ukraine and no American troops in Ukraine, but either bewildered or opposed to the rest of it, a peacekeeping entity, a military entity on the border of Russia and Ukraine, for what purpose?

Doctorow:
Well, let’s look at the rest of what he said, because the rest is dynamite as well. When he was saying that there should be a division of labor on the security between the United States and Europe, and Europe would look after the Far East, sorry, United States would look after the Far East, and Europe would look after conventional warfare on its own continent. He was more or less saying that the United States is going to draw down its presence in Europe.

14:28
I think the Russians would pay much more attention to that than what you just called up, on who the peacekeepers will be. If the United States pulls down its presence in NATO, NATO essentially collapses. And that is obvious. This was in his speech. I mean, he didn’t say we’re going to pull them down, but it follows from the notion that Europe looks after its own ground defense.

America will be a nuclear umbrella, and that’s it. That provides deterrence and doesn’t require people on the ground. So here, there were a lot of things in that speech that have to be unpacked.

Napolitano: 15:02
Correct, correct. Here’s more from the speech that I’m sure will please the Kremlin. Chris, cut number 10.

Hegseth:
We will only end this devastating war and establish a durable peace by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield. We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.

Napolitano:
[He] could have said impossible, but then in diplomatic speak, “unrealistic objective” I’m sure pleased Foreign Minister Lavrov and his team, don’t you think?

Doctorow: 15:50
Well, I think so. I thought it also indicates that finally the White House has taken a hint from what’s been said on this program. And they have opened up the “Financial Times”. They’ve opened up the “New York Times” and are actually following fact-based reporting, and not the rubbish they’ve been receiving from the CIA. When Hegseth speaks about a realistic assessment, it’s not what anyone is receiving from US intelligence in the Biden administration. That is a dramatic change.

Napolitano: 16:21
Maybe just to give you some laughs, here’s a montage of what the Biden administration said during their years in power about the failure or success of President Putin in Ukraine.

—————-
Biden:
Putin’s war of conquest is failing.

Biden:
The answer is Putin’s already lost the war.

Blinken:
Putin has already lost.

Biden:
Russia’s military has lost half its territory once occupied.

Radakin:
Putin has already lost.

???:
Putin has already lost this war.

???:
that is, Russia has already lost this war.

Milley:
in short Russia has lost.

Biden:
It’s worth fighting for, for as long as it takes, and that’s how long we’re going to be with you, Mr. President, for as long as it takes.

Milley:
They’ve lost strategically, operationally, and tactically.

Biden:
The American people can be and should be incredibly proud of the part they played in supporting Ukraine’s success. We’ll continue to supply Ukraine with critical weapons and equipment as long as we can.
—————-

Napolitano: 17:33
I guess you could say we’re 180 degrees from that.

Doctorow:
Oh, you’ve got the basis for a very fine documentary.

Napolitano:
Sorry, Joe Biden and Tony Blinken.

Doctorow:
Well, it’s a comedy of errors. But unfortunately, there are close to a million dead Ukrainians who can’t enjoy the laugh.

Napolitano:
Right.

Doctorow: 17:56
So it’s dead serious. And these people who brought this on, all the people who appeared in this montage, they all should appear before a tribunal in Moscow, when this thing is over, because they have destroyed the Ukrainian nation. And they have almost led us to World War III. So I think we can be very happy that a constellation of people with, I say, superior experience, superior intelligence, and the ability to have the president’s ear have done what they have done in the last day, because it gives us hope that we are finally seeing the light at the end of this long tunnel of the Biden years.

Napolitano: 18:38
Perhaps this question is coming too soon after the announcement by President Trump of the nature and scope of his telephone conversation with President Putin, but has there been, and if so, what has it been, reaction amongst European elites in Paris, in Brussels, in Berlin, in Rome, in London?

Doctorow:
Well, the reaction has to be consternation, but let’s say that this didn’t just come out of the clear blue sky, and if– we can say that Mr. Trump has in his method of madness the softening up of his opponents as his basic strategy for negotiations. And he has practiced it with a superior hand in the last two weeks. He has already had the Europeans on the ropes, so to speak, in a boxing match, by the whole question of a trade war over tariffs and by his alarming, surprising, shocking message of intent to seize Greenland, whatever the colonial overlord Denmark thinks of that.

19:50
So they have been trembling in their boots here in Europe, except for what we call the far right, which is of course a derogatory term to describe patriots of Europe who have some common sense, whose heads are screwed on right, and they would like to live in peace and not face a nuclear war. By that I mean the very people who gathered in Spain last weekend, whether it’s from France, Marine Le Pen, Italy, Salvini, from Hungary, Orban, the gentleman who is in charge of the far right in the Netherlands.

These several people meeting there and all in agreement that Mr. Trump is the future and that von der Leyen is the past, and that they and their countries will hitch their wagons to the future. This is the vision of Europe that will have very positive outcomes and gives us reason th– Do you, Professor Doctorow, expect German voters in the next few days to embrace that view that Trump is the future? Stated differently, is the far-right candidate going to become the chancellor of Germany?

21:07
A few weeks ago I would have said it’s most improbable. After what Trump did yesterday, I’d say the odds are pretty good that she will. We’re speaking about Alice Weidel, who’s the chancellor candidate for the Alternative for Germany party, which was being boosted by Elon Musk. She has appeared recently. Just today, there were YouTube videos of her speaking in Hungary, where she was received by Orban, and was setting out her program.

And all of the accusations that this woman is a neo-Nazi, that’s danger to democracy in Germany, it was all swept away. She came across as very level-headed, as very pragmatic, and as understanding how to address the German voters. And nothing could been a bigger gift to her than what Donald Trump and his team did yesterday, because they undermined entirely the electoral platform of the leading candidate in Germany, the CDU Christian Democrat candidate Friedrich Merz.

Napolitano: 22:12
Forgive my ignorance. When is the election, professor? It’s very soon.

Doctorow:
23rd of February.

Napolitano:
Got it. Got it. Last question. Is General Kellogg out and Steve Witkoff in, as President Trump’s emissary for all matters Russia and Ukraine? The Russians picked that out at once. The listing of those who will be in the working group, we can call them the Sherpas, because they will be the people who are preparing for the summit.

22:42
And in that group, Kellogg has dropped out, and Witkoff has been parachuted in. Witkoff has shown that he is a very capable diplomat. And this has to be said, the people who have spoken about the oligarchs that Trump surrounds himself with, these plutocrats, as if money is the only factor they have going for them, they’re intentionally defaming people who succeed, and people who have experience that is rare. Mr. Witkoff was a businessman, but an international level businessman.

23:15
And I know what this means, from my own experience, simply as a corporate face in the country where I was posted to be this country manager in Russia. Your job is a civil version of diplomacy. And he mastered that. Witkoff is a very big asset to Trump, perhaps more so than Musk, because he doesn’t have these rather eccentric features to his personality, which can put ordinary people off.

Napolitano:
More so than the Secretary of State Rubio?

Doctorow: 23:47
I think so. As I said, Rubio was never a diplomat. De facto, Witkoff with all of his international experience doing business in the Middle East has been a diplomat. And he demonstrated that quality by what he did in Tel Aviv and he will likely– and he did it when he was in Moscow last week. He was negotiating for three and a half hours with the leadership and he made possible that phone call yesterday.

So he is a big asset. And I also would like to link things up. His responsibility also covers relations with Iran. And you will note that one of the five subjects, something like five, that were listed as having been discussed between Putin and Trump yesterday was the Iranian nuclear program. So it all comes together.

Napolitano: 24:39
So the headline of today’s “Washington Post” is that Prime Minister Netanyahu is planning to attack the Iran nuclear capability. To me, it would be inconceivable that he would do that without an agreement from the United States. And to me, it would seem inconceivable that the United States at this time would agree to that. Do you agree?

Doctorow: 25:01
It’s only conformed to what has been said on your program by others, but the “Washington Post” is a voice of the CIA.

Napolitano:
Correct. Correct. Nicely put. Professor, great conversation, my dear friend. Thank you for being our eyes and ears over there. You’re always welcome here, particularly if there’s some breaking news that you can help us analyze. Things keep happening so fast these days, but thank you for your time, Professor. Most fulfilling.

Doctorow: 25:29
Well, a pleasure to talk about good news.

Napolitano:
Thank you. Thank you.

Coming up later today at 12 noon, Max Blumenthal; at 2 o’clock this afternoon, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson; at 3 o’clock this afternoon, Professor John Mearsheimer.

I’m Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.