Napolitano: 2:28
Professor Doctorow, good day to you, my friend, and thank you for joining us. Thank you for accommodating my schedule. According to the readout of the Russian Foreign Ministry, or put out by the Russian Foreign Ministry, of the telephone call between President Putin and President Trump, President Trump told President Putin, the United States had no knowledge of the drone attack.
So let’s analyze the significance of whether this is credible, it clearly isn’t. How the Russians react when the President of the United States says something like this, and does Donald Trump have control over his own intel apparatus? What is your initial response to such a statement made by Trump to Putin?
Doctorow: 3:18
Well, I’d like to call attention to the time it took him to say that.
Napolitano:
Yes.
Doctorow:
Not to read it over the phone, but why it took him two days to come forward and make a statement. And this was a question that was put to me by an Indian television station yesterday. And I tossed back, why did it take Putin so long to say anything about it also? I think both sides were checking to see who was involved in this attack. And I doubt that Trump would have dared to call Putin until he was personally satisfied that there was no way of pinning this on the United States during his time in office, which is critical.
4:04
That the United States was involved previously is a hundred percent certain, that this goes back 18 months when Joe Biden was still in the saddle, so to speak. Or anyway, his facilitators, his so-called subordinates, Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken, were surely in cahoots with the Brits and with Kiev about staging this attack. But they weren’t in office when it took place. And I think Trump wanted to be certain that no one had subverted his intentions. There had been no rogue attack, no rogue participation in the people under him in this previously planned attack. Because it would be deadly to take this up with Putin if Putin had the goods on him and would point a finger.
4:56
Well, he was satisfied obviously that the United States was not involved in the implementation of a program which it had helped to hatch 18 months ago. As for Mr. Putin, clearly he also was in no rush to talk about this until he understood who were the likely responsible people for it happening. But Trump did call, and I think that is very important to weigh in on the discussions that the airwaves are filled with on various programs, including your own. Is there rogue activity in the United States? Is the government really following Mr. Trump’s dictates? Is there still a deep state? My personal position is there isn’t a deep state. Not that as it was before.
Napolitano:
Say again, because I didn’t hear you. Is or is not?
Doctorow:
Is not. There isn’t a deep state after Mr. Trump threw 40,000 people out on the street. Closing of USAID, I think, was a stake through the heart of the Dracula. And the State Department’s being purged now, about which the “New York Times” and the “Financial Times” are busy bleating to their audience.
Napolitano: 6:16
Well, does the Kremlin believe that American intel and security services operate outside of legal controls? Do they believe that Trump truly didn’t know what the CIA, under Biden, had concocted, and that the CIA had washed its hands of it under Gabbard and Ratcliffe?
Doctorow:
Well, I think they assumed that he knew that such a plan existed, which would be a safe guess. Although not necessarily the case. If it was no longer operative, if the people who had been in charge of it were out now out on the street, then why bother to inform him about something that no longer was operative? So it is conceivable that he didn’t know. As to the Kremlin, I think they’re concerned precisely to identify were his people still involved in this affair.
7:12
Nonetheless, the time– this occurred on his watch, and the issues that are far-reaching that almost nobody’s addressing remain. The issue I want to highlight is what this says about the prospects for any renewal of any arms limitations.
Napolitano:
Yes, that’s a profound statement. And I would argue, Professor, that it is bigger than that. I mean, this may disrupt not only arms negotiation, but the reset, the commercial reset that Trump said he wanted to do. Before we go a little further, here’s President Putin yesterday in his most definitive response. Chris, cut number one.
Putin: [English voice over]
It was a deliberate strike. And it only confirms our suspicions that the illegitimate regime in Kiev that came to power through a coup is now being reborn as a terrorist organization, and its sponsors become supporters of terrorism. At the same time, they’re asking for a ceasefire. They’re asking for top-level meetings.
But how can we organize such meetings when something like this is happening? What is there to talk about? How can we negotiate with those who are resorting to terrorism? And why should we reward them with a cessation in hostilities, allowing them to receive additional weapons to continue their mobilization and to prepare for more terrorist attacks like those in the Bryansk and Kursk regions?
Napolitano: 8:58
How do you read that?
Doctorow:
Well, you just… the last two words are the key to understanding what he was saying. If you didn’t hear those, you would think he was talking about the attack on the air base. This has been big discussion in the media, on YouTube in the last couple of days about was the attack on those air bases a terror attack or was it a legitimate military attack? I’m in the group that says it was a legitimate military attack. And Mr. Putin deliberately did not speak about that when he went to the nation. He spoke only about the attacks in Kursk and Bryansk which are terrorist attacks.
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-dhs-thomas-fugate-cp3-terrorism-prevention
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