Transcript of ‘Judging Freedom’ edition of 1 October

Transcript submitted by a reader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80RIa_KHCR0

Napolitano: 0:30
Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for “Judging Freedom”. Today is Wednesday, October 1st, 2025. Professor Gilbert Doctorow will be with us in just a moment. Are the Russians losing patience with President Putin? But first this.
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2:18
Professor Doctorow, welcome here, my dear friend. Thank you for accommodating my schedule as you always do. Are you detecting rumblings of criticism of President Putin either for the failure to address NATO crossing of Russian red lines aggressively or the lethargic pace of the war in Ukraine?

Doctorow: 2:46
What I’m about to say comes out of my observation these last few days of Russian state television, which normally is very respectful of Mr. Putin, where someone like Vladimir Solovyov, who has one of the most popular talk shows and commentary shows, said repeatedly, “We do not pretend to offer advice on how to conduct the war to our Supreme Commander.”

3:15
Well, now he is. His panelists are. They don’t mention Mr. Putin as such, but they do speak about, as you just did a moment ago, the consequences of his very restrained and turn- the-other-cheek policies with respect to NATO crossing Russia’s lines. And in particular, they are riled up by Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance and Mr. Kellogg. My point is that this is not happening spontaneously in Russia. The open presentation of, extensive presentation of criticism, damaging criticism of Russia by Trump, by Vance, by Kellogg is aired extensively on programs that are quite loyal to Putin, or have been, like “60 Minutes”, which is hosted by a Duma member, Evgeny Popov, who happens to be a protégé of the head of Russia’s state television news in general, and the “Xxxxxx” program, panelists who are speaking with great irritation about the lack of respect for Russia, the misinformation coming out, particularly, for example, remarks by Trump during his talk to the 800 assembled generals in Virginia, that the nuclear submarine which America dispatched as kind of warning to Russia, was 25 years ahead of anything Russia has in technology. This type of demeaning remark stirred up discussion in Russia, which was going on at a very low level for some time, for months and perhaps more than a year, but was not as intense and as focused as what I’ve heard in the last two days.

Napolitano: 5:24
Well, let me just ask you about the submarine. That statement is inaccurate, isn’t it?

Doctorow:
Well, a lot of things that have been said by the administration are completely inaccurate. For example, Vance’s remarks to a journalist in an interview yesterday, I think it was Fox News, that Russia’s economy is crumbling, that the advances of just a few hundred square kilometers in a month of fierce fighting demonstrate that the war is at a kind of stalemate, that Russia cannot win, and so forth. These statements, which we would typically expect to hear from Kellogg and still do, were now coming from Vance. And I just, I know Vance is a very clever and well-informed man who reads everything.

6:11
So it is not because the information he’s receiving is incorrect. It is a taunt to Putin, just as his boss, Donald Trump, is taunting Putin, and there’s a reason for it. And it’s not the reason that the major media believe, that Trump is pushing Putin to come into the negotiations which Trump wants to mediate, the negotiations with Zelensky. No, no. I see the contrary.

If that were the case, if he were trying to pressure Putin to acceed to the demand of negotiating a peace settlement, then they wouldn’t be insulting the Russians as they are. The insult is to rile them, and it’s having the effect they desire: open discussion of whether the go slow, the war of attrition, is working or is not working. And now we hear people saying, more or less, that it’s not working.

Napolitano: 7:18
Do you believe that Trump, Vance, Kellogg, Gorka and company are trying to get President Putin to accelerate the war so that it will be over, so Trump can in some perverse way take credit for its ending?

Doctorow:
Yes, he’s looking for a peace settlement, but by Russia’s total destruction of Ukraine. That is not what most people think about.

Napolitano:
No, no, that’s not what most people would think as a peace settlement. But let’s get back, let’s go down to basics. Can Trump intimidate Putin? I don’t think so.

Doctorow: 7:55
I agree with you. He cannot intimidate Putin, But he can upset the elites by this embarrassing and accurate description of the way the war is being conducted. And there you have it.

Napolitano:
But don’t the elites understand the war is being conducted with methodical patience? The goal, one of the goals, is to degrade the Ukrainian military for the next generation so that the next generation doesn’t have to deal with this.

Doctorow: 8:32
Yes and no. I think they are tired of this and they are watching the Western reaction, which looks like a new escalatory phase. So that instead of ending in this culmination that so many of us have seen, myself included, in a matter of months, they are now seeing the possibility of it going on a year or more.

Napolitano:
Mmm. You know, we haven’t heard from former Russian president, I’m not sure what his title is today, Dmitry Medvedev, who has articulated rather ferocious views in the past. I guess we should expect to hear from him soon.

Doctorow: 9:17
Oh, I think so. But I doubt that he will be leading the charge against Vladimir Putin. I don’t know. But speaking as a former Sovietologist, what I’m seeing on Russian media suggests that a palace coup is being prepared against Vladimir Putin. The alternative–

Napolitano:
That is almost unthinkable for a man who was elected with 82 percent of the vote and who in your experience and mine, at least up till this point, has enjoyed enormous popularity.

Doctorow: 9:56
Agreed. But the popularity polls, which are accurate, I’m sure, which saw him dropping from 80% to 79% approval ratings in the last week or so, they’re only asking, do you believe that Putin is trustworthy, is a good leader, and so forth.

They are not asking, is he conducting the war correctly? And I believe that if that question were put to the political classes, they would say no. I’d say specifically the political classes, because if you look at the working man in Russia, he doesn’t think about it in those terms. He sees that his salary went up by three times in the last year or two. He sees that he gets subsidized mortgages, that he gets a lot of assistance for families with children. And so the war has not had any detrimental effect on his way of living. On the contrary, he’s made it much wealthier.

11:00
But the thinking classes, the political classes, are another story. And I think they’re very disturbed by what they see on television, that the Americans in particular are speaking of them as a paper tiger.

Napolitano:
What do the political classes want the president Putin to do? Destroy [Ukraine] with Oreshniks in a couple of hours?

Doctorow:
I think you just put your finger on it. That’s exactly what they’d like to see him do.

Napolitano:
And he’s reluctant to do that. By the way, does anyone in Russia still call this series of events in Ukraine a special military operation, or does everybody call it all-out war?

Doctorow: 11:47
No, nobody says specifically it’s all-out war. But they have– initially, it was verboten to speak of it as a war at all. Now for some time, more than a year, it is called by some people a war. Officially, it is still a special military operation, and in state television, that’s what it’s called.

Napolitano:
So the special military operation is slowly and methodically achieving its goals. I know that General Kalugov has very little standing over here, in my view, has argued that if he were winning, meaning President Putin, he’d be moving much faster. But he is slowly achieving his goals and the Ukrainian military, is slowly being degraded. Is there any question but that Ukraine is destined to lose this, even in the minds of the most skeptical members of the political class?

Doctorow: 12:49
I think the skeptical members of the political class are worried about what’s going on in Europe right now. That is the remilitarization, the preparation for war with Russia. And the longer this special military operation goes on, the more threatening that is to Russia in a three-year time frame, which is like tomorrow. I gave one explanation as a Sovietologist, so to speak, of what has happened. That is that Mr. Putin was being prepared to be shoved out of office. The other explanation, which I also see as possible, is that Putin himself is preparing the public for changing his strategy from a war of attrition to a decapitation strike.

Napolitano:
How would Putin be removed from office legally? Is there some procedure or would it just be an illegal coup? And if the latter, I would imagine whoever’s plotting it would be arrested for treason.

Doctorow:
If it succeeds–

Napolitano;
Right, right. Right, right. Remember that famous one line, treason never prospers. And what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare to call it treason. Stated differently, when you strike at the king, you must kill him.

Doctorow: 14:24
I don’t think legality is an issue here. If it happens, it will probably be proclaimed as essential and necessary change. Maybe he’ll be given some honorific post the way Medvedev was pushed upstairs. I don’t think that he’s going to face any personal physical risk or whatever. Nonetheless, it was formerly inconceivable, but now I’ve changed my mind. It is not possible that what I see on television is happening without approval from people on high.

Napolitano:
Have you seen this consistently and systematically or just recently?

Doctorow:
Hints of this had been going on for a long time, but it never was so intense and they didn’t– well, there was no need to show the full statement by Vance, which more or less trashed Russia. There was no need to do that. And the fact that it was done was a statement. The fact that it was allowed to happen was a statement.

Napolitano: 15:31
Where is the senior military leadership on this? Do they understand the slow methodical pace, which is costly to them? Or are they saying, “Hey, boss, let’s get this over within a week. This has been going on long enough.” Do they talk to him that directly?

Doctorow:
I can’t say. Let me just go back a bit. A year or so ago when someone like John Helmer was saying that the military was conspiring, the people on the general staff were conspiring against Vladimir Putin because they don’t like the way the war is going. And I dismissed that out of hand. As far as the military goes, I would dismiss it out of hand today.

But as regards the civilian elites, I think it’s entirely possible that something like that is occurring in the minds of people around Vladimir Putin.

Napolitano: 16:26
Does the Kremlin control Russian television to the point where this stuff wouldn’t be hinted at without the Kremlin’s consent?

Doctorow:
That’s my point exactly. Kremlin being Mr. Putin’s office, or the Kremlin in a wider sense of the ruling elite, I think that in general, Russian television is under very tight control.

There are a few trusted people. This is Kiselyov, the general manager of all Russian news broadcasting. He does not act with whispers coming from above. So that they would show these things. It didn’t have to. There was no obligation to give so much coverage to these very damaging and insulting remarks coming from the States.

Napolitano: 17:29
How about my friend, Dimitri Simes? I appear on that program quite a bit and I am often questioned by his other guests whom he represents as being senior members of the Duma and in one case a very senior general. Where is he on this?

Doctorow:
Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t listened to the Dmitry Simes for some time. It’s not easy, frankly speaking. It’s very difficult for me here in Brussels to catch this program, “The Great Game”. A year ago it was quite easy; right now it isn’t. So I don’t know–

Napolitano:
Why is that? Are there sanctions making it difficult for you to watch certain Russian television programs?

Doctorow: 18:17
Oh, definitely. The normal Russian broadcasting is not accessible here in Western Europe. There are exceptions made, and some programs get around it by playing tricks on YouTube. That is, the program is being carried by some unknown person who has his own channel. But generally speaking, their coverage, Russian news, Russian programs are difficult to access.

But I don’t think– take a step back and look at somebody else in the constellation at the top, which leaves me wondering what is going on. Sergey Lavrov, whom you respect greatly and who has an enormous group of admirers, but not only in Russia, but outside Russia. Sergei Lavrov said, in answer to a question a day ago, if the Americans supply the– what is it that we’re going to supply now? The–

Napolitano:
Tomahawks?

Doctorow: 19:21
Yes, the Tomahawks. That won’t change the situation on the battlefield. I couldn’t believe my ears. I could not believe that he was saying something so utterly foolish. Something is going on there as well around Lavrov.

Napolitano:
All right. So where do you see all of this going? Should we wake up some morning and find out that the government buildings in Kiev are gone or that Vladimir Putin is taking a vacation?

Doctorow:
I don’t know. It can go either way. The tea leaves suggest either eventuality as possible. We’ll have to see how this progresses. But there are a lot of people in Russia who have been calling for some time.

Mr. Karaganov, who a year and a half ago was– this is the political scientist who has a very large reputation in Russia and abroad– was saying that Russia should strike using tactical nuclear weapons somewhere in Western Europe to demonstrate that it is a serious power. These people certainly would be behind the kind of palace coup that I’m suggesting. But there’s no way to know at this point; we have to wait a little bit.

Napolitano: 20:38
Fascinating conversation, Professor Doctorow. Something happens in one direction or another, I trust you’ll reach us and we’ll discuss it as close to real-time as possible. … Your observations to me are rather startling, and I’ve heard them nowhere else.

Doctorow:
I hope to investigate this more seriously and with better access to all sorts of information three weeks from now, on the 20th of this month. I’ll be going to Petersburg for three weeks. And this kind of question I tend to pursue.

Napolitano: 21:20
Thank you, Professor Doctorow. All the best, my friend. We’ll see you again next week or sooner if the situation warrants.

Doctorow:
OK.

Napolitano:
Of course. Coming up today, a full day for you. At one o’clock this afternoon, Professor Glenn Diesen. At two o’clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson; at three o’clock, Phil Giraldi. At four o’clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Professor Sachs will analyze Prime Minister Netanyahu’s– in Jerusalem and on his plane– repudiation of the agreement he claimed he joined in with President Trump in the Oval Office.

22:01
Judge Napolitano for “Judging Freedom”.