Jim Fetzer - Col. Macgregor: “Americans Need to Wake Up Right Now, we are close to economic catastrophe”
Aired: 2026-05-08
Duration: 21:34


=== Global Energy Recession Looms (12:42) ===

[00:00:00]  Well, a few minutes ago, Ken Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, came out and said that energy costs will lead to a global recession.
[00:00:09]  He was emphatic about that.
[00:00:11]  Jeff Curie of the Carlyle Group said people don't understand what we're about to face here, that we are in a deficit right now for oil in the United States, and that once the shortages hit, it's game over.
[00:00:24]  He's never seen anything like this.
[00:00:26]  He just spoke about this a few hours ago.
[00:00:28]  Watch.
[00:00:29]  I still say that with you, you know, It's going to be sometime in the month of May that you're going to end up with Europe hitting tank bottoms.
[00:00:38]  And in the U.S., it's somewhere in that July 4th time period.
[00:00:41]  If not sooner, by the way, the inventory's number coming out of the U.S., the ones we got last night, the ones last week, I've never seen anything like that before.
[00:00:50]  The analogy, I think, is like in that movie Jaws, when the mayor declares, The beaches are open.
[00:00:56]  You can see the fins swimming around there.
[00:00:59]  And the fins are these inventory numbers.
[00:01:01]  And I think that it's important to remember that these inventory numbers.
[00:01:07]  Let's define terms a deficit versus a shortage.
[00:01:11]  We have a deficit today, meaning that demand is above supply and we're drawing inventories.
[00:01:17]  It's not a shortage yet.
[00:01:18]  So, to answer your question, you have the shortages in places like, you know, Asia, and it's not that bad yet because you're not completely at tank bottoms.
[00:01:27]  But in places like Europe and the United States, you're in a deficit and you don't hit the shortages until you hit tank bottoms.
[00:01:35]  Tank bottoms in July 4th.
[00:01:38]  Already feeling this, of course, across Asia and Europe.
[00:01:42]  We're joined by Colonel Douglas McGregor now to talk more about this energy shock that we're about to see.
[00:01:48]  Of course, you were talking about Jeff Curie earlier, Colonel.
[00:01:52]  Just your thoughts on what we're about to see from an energy perspective as it relates to what's happening with the war in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:02:01]  My friends in India talked to me this morning and told me that oil is $118 a barrel right now.
[00:02:09]  Wow.
[00:02:10]  If you're talking about jet fuel, Then it's exceeding now $250 a barrel.
[00:02:18]  That's jet fuel.
[00:02:20]  That means that the airlines, in many cases, are going to go under.
[00:02:23]  Now, people will say, well, Spirit was already in trouble.
[00:02:26]  That may be true, but I know that Lufthansa has canceled thousands of flights.
[00:02:31]  We're going to see much more of that.
[00:02:33]  Anything involved in distillates, LPG, LNG, all these things, they're all at premium prices.
[00:02:42]  Everything is going to become more expensive.
[00:02:44]  When it tanks, to the extent that Jeff Curie pointed out, imagine what the cost will be in this country as well as overseas.
[00:02:53]  How do you get it across to President Trump that when fertilizer doesn't move, crops don't grow?
[00:03:00]  When feedstock doesn't arrive, livestock don't eat.
[00:03:04]  When fuel doesn't flow, trucks don't run, and trucks run on diesel, and diesel is in very short supply.
[00:03:11]  Heat doesn't show up, air conditioning doesn't work, and food doesn't end up on the shelf.
[00:03:17]  That's really where we're headed right now, and it's all because of the stupidity in the Persian Gulf.
[00:03:23]  Now, you know, when I listened to Secretary Rubio this morning, said, What we really want is a free access and flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:03:34]  Well, Mr. Secretary, that's exactly what you had before you attacked Iran, right?
[00:03:40]  Good lord, now we're going back to what we already had, and that's now I guess that's now the strategic goal in all of this is go back to where we were before we started to decide to start bombing them, right?
[00:03:50]  I see.
[00:03:51]  My feed is full.
[00:03:53]  My sort of Instagram stories are all people who are like, leave Iran alone.
[00:03:58]  I do not want these prices at the pump.
[00:04:01]  They're not buying it.
[00:04:02]  Even if President Trump is telling these children, we had to do it, had to be done.
[00:04:07]  They were going to nuke us all.
[00:04:08]  Nobody buys it.
[00:04:09]  Can you believe what you're seeing?
[00:04:11]  And you've been through many war propaganda cycles.
[00:04:15]  This seems like the worst.
[00:04:18]  Well, it certainly is at least as bad as I remember in Vietnam.
[00:04:23]  It took us a long time to figure out that, contrary to popular belief, we weren't really stopping communism in Vietnam.
[00:04:31]  That this was actually a civil war that we'd involved ourselves in.
[00:04:36]  You know, here's the most important question Who is governing our country?
[00:04:43]  You've got to answer that question.
[00:04:45]  And for whom are the people in Washington governing the United States?
[00:04:50]  Now, our founders, you know, answered that question pretty clearly, actually, unambiguously.
[00:04:56]  They said the government of the United States derives its legitimate power from the consent of the governed.
[00:05:03]  Not from foreign sources, foreign courts, foreign treasuries, foreign governments, foreign interests.
[00:05:12]  It comes from the American people.
[00:05:14]  And go back to what you said, Clayton.
[00:05:17]  He's never talked to the American people about this war.
[00:05:21]  And when he did, as sort of a sideshow, when he spoke on the State of the Union and he mentioned Iran must never have a nuclear weapon, and like trained SEALs, everybody stood up on both sides of the aisle and clapped.
[00:05:37]  Right.
[00:05:37]  There was no such animal in Iran.
[00:05:40]  Right.
[00:05:41]  Well, that's the question.
[00:05:42]  Who is in charge?
[00:05:44]  Yeah, who is in charge?
[00:05:45]  Here's a question from Southern Griffscom.
[00:05:47]  I'm going to put this up on the screen.
[00:05:48]  It says How will you guys feel if Trump succeeds?
[00:05:50]  He campaigned on no new wars.
[00:05:53]  An Iran with no nuclear power is a better world.
[00:05:56]  Otherwise, China or Russia would have sold them nukes.
[00:05:58]  What are your thoughts on this?
[00:05:59]  I mean, I'll just say I don't know that Iran having its own nuclear power to support its own people is an affront to the world.
[00:06:07]  I think that it would enrich and help the Iranian people.
[00:06:10]  I think I would be fully supportive of them having their own nuclear power to power their buildings and infrastructure.
[00:06:17]  But if Trump succeeds, how will we feel?
[00:06:20]  What does success mean to us?
[00:06:22]  Well, I thought we already did succeed because we blew their nuclear weapons.
[00:06:27]  They're obliterated.
[00:06:27]  Yeah.
[00:06:28]  Go ahead, Philip.
[00:06:29]  Well, that question defeats itself because if he campaigned on no new wars, he didn't step into this already in process.
[00:06:38]  It wasn't like he just walked into a war in progress in Iran, he started it.
[00:06:44]  Already, you can't succeed.
[00:06:46]  You can't succeed and then start no new wars argument.
[00:06:49]  You already lost that argument.
[00:06:51]  Colonel, what do you make of that question?
[00:06:53]  Well, first of all, India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons.
[00:07:00]  We have not gone to war with either state.
[00:07:03]  We have always had concerns about Pakistan because it has been, in many respects, a hotbed of radical Islam.
[00:07:11]  But thus far, the Pakistani military has been very professional.
[00:07:15]  exercised close control over those weapons.
[00:07:20]  We know that North Korea has nuclear weapons.
[00:07:22]  We also know that the North Korean dictator has been told in no uncertain terms by President Xi of China, and for that matter, President Putin, if you initiate a war with someone and use a nuclear weapon as a result, we will not support you.
[00:07:38]  However, if you are attacked, that's a different story.
[00:07:42]  So contrary to everyone's public criticism, And insistence that North Korea could attack us at any time, it's very clear they're not going to attack us because they don't want to be obliterated.
[00:07:54]  And they know that's what would happen.
[00:07:55]  But they've also been told by the two nations that have acted in their behalf not to do it.
[00:08:02]  So I agree with you, Clayton.
[00:08:05]  If Iran develops a nuclear capability, that's Iran's business.
[00:08:11]  Iran has not opened a war against anybody for over 200 years.
[00:08:16]  It has not tried to expand its borders at anybody's expense for over 200 years.
[00:08:22]  I think we're going to live in a world in the future that's going to be different from what we think it ought to be.
[00:08:29]  It's a collection of states that have clear and unambiguous interests.
[00:08:33]  And the big issue for everybody is going to be resource sovereignty.
[00:08:38]  Everybody is now going to be very concerned that they have on hand all of the things that are essential to their survival.
[00:08:45]  And that means energy, energy in all forms and all types.
[00:08:51]  Resource sovereignty.
[00:08:52]  I think you're absolutely right, man.
[00:08:53]  You hit the nail on the head.
[00:08:55]  Forget this unipolar world order, it is really shifting to this multipolar world order where they need to protect themselves.
[00:09:01]  Go ahead, sir.
[00:09:02]  I guess when I think about who could actually do that, Africa has aligned itself greatly with China.
[00:09:07]  They will have more access than they have now, with sort of the crappy relationship they have with the United States and our sort of.
[00:09:16]  And France.
[00:09:17]  Right.
[00:09:18]  Europe is the one place I think that cannot do it, that cannot be resource sovereign.
[00:09:24]  And, you know, they're just going to be dragged through the mud.
[00:09:27]  I don't see how Europe can survive.
[00:09:28]  I don't see how NATO can survive something like this.
[00:09:31]  I do.
[00:09:32]  I don't know.
[00:09:32]  What do you think of that?
[00:09:33]  That was sort of my needle break.
[00:09:35]  China is setting aside the possibility. that the aliens that we talk about periodically operating aircraft that we can't explain may land and ultimately share with us the secret to relating light, gravity, and magnetism, then I guess you're right.
[00:09:54]  Europe is going to have more difficulty than most, but not totally hopeless.
[00:09:59]  Right now, the largest cache of rare earths in Europe thus far has been discovered just a few hundred feet offshore from the Norwegian coast.
[00:10:11]  We know there are tremendous stores of energy, rare earths and other critical minerals in the Arctic.
[00:10:18]  And the other thing is, remember that one of the reasons we ended up in this terrible position now with Russia is that we, as led by globalists, and unfortunately President Trump has not turned this around, although he promised to do so, convinced everybody that you shouldn't buy cheap energy from Russia because Russia's real insidious plan was to conquer you.
[00:10:42]  Well, that was always nonsense.
[00:10:44]  There's no money in territorial imperialism.
[00:10:47]  I thought everybody figured that out.
[00:10:48]  That's a dead end.
[00:10:50]  Governing other people's nations is both wasteful, counterproductive, doesn't work well because people want to govern themselves.
[00:10:59]  So it's much better to do business.
[00:11:02]  Germany has been practically destroyed, deindustrialized because under its own leadership and ours, what have they done?
[00:11:13]  They've cut themselves off from Russia's cheap gas.
[00:11:16]  And we know historically that cheap energy, cheap credit are linked.
[00:11:21]  If you don't have cheap energy, you can't get cheap credit.
[00:11:26]  And that's what we're seeing happen slowly but surely with each passing day.
[00:11:30]  You'll hear people who will finally speak up and say, have you noticed the bond yields are rising?
[00:11:36]  Yeah, they're rising.
[00:11:38]  And we have a $39 trillion sovereign national debt.
[00:11:42]  And how is that amassing with each passing month, with each passing year?
[00:11:47]  It's unsustainable.
[00:11:49]  So you need the cheap energy.
[00:11:51]  If you got cheap energy, you're also combating inflation.
[00:11:55]  We are in a terrible mess right now because we've killed the two cheap energy and cheap credit.
[00:12:02]  No cheap credit means you can't refinance.
[00:12:04]  And right now, all the private equity, big private equity firms, are in trouble.
[00:12:08]  BlackRock and a host of others because they can't refinance.
[00:12:12]  They're trying to borrow money to become liquid because very few of their assets are liquid.
[00:12:19]  They need liquidity, the banks need liquidity.
[00:12:22]  How do you get it?
[00:12:23]  You borrow it, but you can't borrow it higher and higher interest rates.
[00:12:27]  So we're headed for a giant steel reinforced concrete wall.
[00:12:33]  It's coming, and I don't see how we avoid it at this point.
[00:12:37]  And I think that will be the end of President Trump, and I think it'll be the end of his administration.

=== Washington Post Reports Alliance Trouble (07:45) ===

[00:12:42]  It may ultimately be the end of the government that we see right now in Washington, period, because let's face it, President Trump has done something that, as we saw during the State of the Union, Everybody on the Hill supported.
[00:12:56]  Now, not everybody.
[00:12:57]  There were a few lone rational actors.
[00:13:00]  But the point is, Washington is in this with both feet.
[00:13:06]  You know, we got this question here.
[00:13:08]  I can't believe I'm going to ask this question, Colonel.
[00:13:10]  But one of our viewers, thank you for your super chat, says, Would we have been better off with Kamala?
[00:13:17]  Thank you for your thoughts on this.
[00:13:18]  And just want to show you this Times of Israel article published during the campaign.
[00:13:23]  During the campaign.
[00:13:25]  Harris told Jewish voters all options are on the table to stop Iran from going nuclear.
[00:13:30]  He was very vocal about basically going to war with Iran, even if she was elected.
[00:13:34]  So, I mean, and now she's the frontrunner.
[00:13:37]  If you look at the latest polling numbers for the 2028 election, she is now the frontrunner for the Democratic side.
[00:13:43]  I mean, it's like, I don't know, man.
[00:13:45]  What do you make of this?
[00:13:47]  Would we have been better off with her?
[00:13:49]  If that's remotely true, I suggest that we immediately make Natalie our candidate and run her balls.
[00:13:56]  Yes.
[00:13:56]  Save us from Kamala.
[00:13:59]  All right.
[00:14:00]  We can say with absolute certainty that no, we would not have been better off, and I'll tell you why.
[00:14:05]  When Kamala Harris, on numerous occasions, demonstrated that she could not string coherent sentences together, that she was essentially an empty suit that cackled whenever provoked, the Zionist billionaires that ultimately put Trump into office turned away from the Democrats.
[00:14:23]  Remember when they had Biden there, they got what they wanted.
[00:14:27]  If Biden had run again, of course, he couldn't do that because he was a non compass menace.
[00:14:32]  But if he had, I'm sure they would have supported Biden instead of Trump.
[00:14:36]  But once it became clear that Kamala was the one, everyone ran for the exit doors right away because they knew they were dealing with someone who was dangerously stupid and ignorant.
[00:14:49]  So that meant you've got to support Trump, but you had to extract promises from President Trump.
[00:14:55]  And one of the key promises was very simply Israel gets whatever Israel wants.
[00:15:02]  Yeah, it doesn't matter who's in charge, it seems.
[00:15:06]  You could have Ron Paul.
[00:15:07]  That'd be the only chance, maybe a Thomas Massey.
[00:15:11]  Colonel, I wanted to ask you I mentioned before the break this Washington Post report this morning.
[00:15:14]  I'm sure you saw it.
[00:15:18]  Brandon Weickert had reported this, I think, on Tucker Carlson's show.
[00:15:21]  I think he was maybe the first to report this.
[00:15:24]  We also had sources that covered this as well.
[00:15:27]  We covered the injury aspect of this story, which was the devastating attacks on American infrastructure in the Middle East.
[00:15:35]  A lot of the military bases there largely destroyed, a lot of infrastructure destroyed.
[00:15:40]  This was, of course, kept from the American people.
[00:15:43]  And then now the Washington Post comes out with this report, and it's suddenly like a front page story, like exclusive.
[00:15:49]  The Washington Post is now telling us what Brandon Weickert reported, what we reported here on all the injury and death numbers.
[00:15:56]  But now the Washington Post is reporting it.
[00:15:58]  So we got that stamp of approval, Colonel.
[00:16:00]  What do you make on, first of all, on the story and then on the actual Middle East infrastructure, the U.S. military bases and how devastated they may or may not be?
[00:16:09]  Well, I was castigated for telling everyone within the first few days that 27 of our bases had been struck and largely destroyed.
[00:16:17]  Yeah, they were saying you were lying.
[00:16:18]  You were a liar.
[00:16:20]  Yeah, right, exactly.
[00:16:22]  So I can tell you now, having seen the satellite pictures, I mean, we've got a lot of commercial satellite photography, so you can't hide this sort of thing for very long.
[00:16:33]  And I think that's probably why the CIA decided to tell the Washington Post, go ahead and release this, because otherwise the Washington Post would repeat whatever lies they told them to tell.
[00:16:44]  And it's pretty obvious that these bases are finished.
[00:16:49]  And if we were ever to get back into the Gulf region, which I highly doubt at this point, uh, we would not want to have to rebuild all these bases.
[00:16:57]  It would cost us billions of dollars.
[00:16:59]  We can't afford it and right now, who in their right mind among the Gulf states is going to try and fund it?
[00:17:05]  I mean, right now, the last man standing it's not really the last man standing, but the last one continuing to pitch for the uh U.s Israeli alliance is the Uae, and the Uae is in a lot of trouble, and that's one of the reasons.
[00:17:22]  Over the last 24, 36 hours, you've seen strikes go in To target places in the UAE.
[00:17:29]  The UAE is seen as a not so terribly secret Trojan horse for Israel, and the Iranians are sick of it.
[00:17:36]  So I think two things we need to take away from this.
[00:17:39]  First of all, yes, the bases are destroyed, they're done, they're finished.
[00:17:44]  Number two, these Emirates are probably not going to make it through this war either.
[00:17:49]  And that is dependent upon whether or not we decide to renew the war against Iran, which I think we will sooner rather than later.
[00:17:57]  I don't see how they survive.
[00:17:58]  They're artificial constructs, perhaps even more artificial than the rest in the Arabian Peninsula.
[00:18:04]  They can't export the oil.
[00:18:06]  They can't generate the income that they have historically.
[00:18:10]  You know, there are 67 million, or there were 67 million people living from the Iraqi border east down to the border with Oman.
[00:18:18]  That's a lot of people.
[00:18:19]  They can't stay there anymore because they're going to lose their desalination plants.
[00:18:24]  They're going to lose oil infrastructure because the Iranians have made it clear that if we attack them again, they are going to do that.
[00:18:32]  Because I'm sure we will hit their desalination plants as well.
[00:18:36]  I don't think there's much question about that.
[00:18:38]  Yeah.
[00:18:39]  Well, Colonel, I guess we'll let you go here.
[00:18:42]  I know Larry Johnson, friend of the show, Larry Johnson, saying May 7th is a date that he's been hearing for a possible restarting of this war.
[00:18:49]  You said about 48 hours for some sort of a new strike.
[00:18:53]  Is that what we can expect?
[00:18:56]  Some sort of a massive.
[00:18:58]  Well, Larry has excellent sources.
[00:19:02]  I cannot say with absolute certainty it starts tomorrow.
[00:19:06]  All I'm saying is that we're on the precipice.
[00:19:09]  And you've got a lot of people out there, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines.
[00:19:13]  You can only cut squares in the ocean for so long.
[00:19:16]  You can only burn fuel for so long.
[00:19:18]  You can only sit on strip alert for so long.
[00:19:22]  And you've got an estimated 15,000 light infantrymen, Marine and Army.
[00:19:27]  And, you know, I wouldn't want to be in that part of the world this time of year.
[00:19:30]  I don't know if you've been over there, but it's like 140 degrees in the shade.
[00:19:33]  It's crazy.
[00:19:34]  Yeah.
[00:19:35]  Right.
[00:19:35]  So you have to do something or not.
[00:19:38]  But do something to get them killed.
[00:19:41]  Like, I think I'd rather, you know, sit there and skip stones.
[00:19:46]  Yeah, get a sunburn than do something.
[00:19:48]  Right.
[00:19:48]  And the larger question, Natalie, to go to your point is if we leave, if we say that's enough on humanitarian grounds, this must end.
[00:19:59]  And we just get out, what happens?
[00:20:03]  Well, Israel's going to be very unhappy.
[00:20:05]  They're going to have a lot of trouble surviving, let's be frank.
[00:20:08]  You can't tell all your neighbors you're subhuman and then expect them to embrace you.
[00:20:13]  So I think Israel's in a lot of trouble, but we're not.
[00:20:17]  We'll survive this.
[00:20:19]  We can get back to something important.
[00:20:21]  And let's focus.
[00:20:22]  On our country.
[00:20:24]  We don't need to invade Cuba, for God's sakes.

=== Focus On Our Country (01:06) ===

[00:20:27]  That's next.
[00:20:28]  Yeah.
[00:20:28]  Don't want to do that either.
[00:20:30]  Not available for that.
[00:20:31]  Well, I hope people are.
[00:20:32]  I hope Americans need to wake up.
[00:20:36]  They need to wake up to what you're saying.
[00:20:38]  We are heading into a dark time right now, unless we reverse course immediately.
[00:20:43]  Colonel, thank you so much for your insights and analysis, as always.
[00:20:47]  And for the record, I'm not running for any office.
[00:20:50]  I go to bed at 9 30.
[00:20:52]  I cannot be up.
[00:20:53]  I was.
[00:20:54]  I cannot be up for debate.
[00:20:56]  I was already looking on Ticketmaster or whoever.
[00:20:58]  I was going to order tickets to that debate because I want to go to that debate.
[00:21:01]  Okay.
[00:21:02]  But I guess it's never going to happen.
[00:21:03]  Me against who?
[00:21:05]  Oh, my God.
[00:21:05]  Kamala.
[00:21:07]  Whatever you do, don't drink heavily.
[00:21:09]  Okay.
[00:21:10]  I don't.
[00:21:11]  Just got that going for you.
[00:21:12]  Kamala has to bring a big bottle of wine.
[00:21:15]  Colonel, great to see you as always.
[00:21:16]  Thank you so much, sir.
[00:21:18]  Thanks, Doug.
[00:21:18]  All right.
[00:21:19]  Thank you so much for watching Redacted.
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