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Feb. 18, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
31:51
COL. Douglas Macgregor : Israel, Egypt, and Riyadh
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, February 19th, 2025.
Colonel Douglas McGregor is here with us on Israel, Egypt, Riyadh.
And you won't believe, if you haven't heard it yet, President Trump's latest outbursts about President Zelensky and who really started the war in Ukraine.
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Colonel McGregor, welcome here, my dear friend.
Thank you for your time.
I really want to ask you about the latest involving Israel and Egypt and a little bit about North Korea.
But before we get there, first to Ukraine.
What was your reaction to President Trump's statement yesterday that, and I'm quoting him, Ukraine should never have started the war against Russia?
Well, I agree to that with a tremendous sigh of relief and also a certain amount of admiration for President Trump, because President Trump, when shown the truth, recognized it finally.
And I don't know why it took as long as it did, but I'm glad that it reached him.
He's now telling everyone what we, you, I, and a lot of other people have been saying for three years.
And this is the first dramatic step in the direction of normalizing relations with Russia, for which he deserves enormous Applause and gratitude from us.
Well, fully agreed, of course.
Today, his words got even sharper when he referred to President Zelensky as, quote, a dictator who has canceled elections, who played Biden like a fiddle.
Colonel, it almost sounds like he's watching the show, but your thoughts on that?
Well, I don't think it's very difficult to play Biden like a fiddle, let's be frank.
I think a lot of people fiddled with Biden for four years.
And the people most mightily responsible for the big lies and the terrible, terrible things we've done to the people of Ukraine, as well as to the Russians.
I mean, we're mightily responsible for over a million Ukrainian deaths and almost 100,000 Russian deaths.
And it's a good thing.
It's also a courageous thing that he stood up and said it.
Zelensky is a criminal.
And I think that's begun to sink in.
And, you know, perhaps, you know, Elon Musk and his friends can do to Zelensky and this terrible government in Ukraine what they've done here.
We might as well expose this entire fraud.
I'm reminded of something I reported several times.
It wasn't just I who reported it.
Congressman Thomas Massey in the House.
And Senator Rand Paul in the Senate introduced amendments each time there was an appropriation to Ukraine providing for a team of American inspectors general on the ground.
The Republican Speaker of the House and at the time the Democratic Majority Leader in the Senate would not let either of those proposals come to a vote, Colonel.
Yeah, well, this is the Uniparty.
And once you move past Senator Paul and obviously his father, who's a great man, and Thomas Massey, who's a man of enormous character and backbone and intelligence, there isn't much hope.
People don't like to stand up to falsehoods, especially when it pays handsomely to support falsehoods.
How shrewd was it?
For Foreign Minister Lavrov in his opening statement yesterday in, you'll see in a minute why I'm smiling, in his opening statement yesterday in Riyadh, looking right into Secretary of State Rubio's eyes,
also looking at Steve Witkoff to remind the American delegation that as a result of Joe Biden's sanctions, American businesses lost.
In the past three and a half years, $330 billion in income.
Yep. This is what no one in Washington has wanted to admit.
And I'm a little disappointed because Secretary Rubio has announced that we're not lifting sanctions just yet.
Oh, I can't believe that.
But anyway, I'm sorry for interrupting you.
It just personally aggravates me.
Yeah, I don't know if he consulted with the president.
I think the president has rightly decided this is all nonsense.
The sanctions need to be lifted completely.
He wants to normalize relations with Moscow.
He needs to make that abundantly clear to Secretary Rubio, because this is a very unnecessary and insulting remark, as though, first of all, we've had any effect and we haven't.
If anything, you and I know.
Russia is stronger and more capable today than it was four years ago, and much of that is due to us and our stupidity.
Not that I object to a strong Russia.
You and I never have.
We see that as a positive thing on the world stage.
It's not a negative thing.
Right. But Rubio, I don't think, is completely on board yet.
Now, I don't know about Steve Witkoff.
He strikes me as being someone who's a little more savvy, and he has the president's trust and confidence.
It's been my experience that when you listen to the people in the room speaking, I'm talking about the Americans, the one man who says almost nothing is usually the smartest, and that's Witkoff.
And I think Lavrov was trying to make a point.
And the thing we have to understand now, and I'm sure President Trump grasped much of this, there's no trust between them and us.
That's been completely destroyed.
This insistence on this false narrative about Russia's...
Criminality, Russia's responsibility for what happened, Russia's atrocities, all this nonsense.
That's not going to be forgotten quickly.
Not just by the government.
People here in the United States don't understand.
The entire Russian population remains enraged.
And just because we step forward and say, look, this was wrong.
And, you know, from the very beginning, I kept urging publicly because I have no way to address the president directly.
Stand there and tell everybody, this is not my war.
I didn't start it.
I don't want it.
And I'm going to end it and let it go.
He's finally gotten there now.
And he's beginning to say those things.
That's going to help enormously.
But he can't undo the damage quickly.
And we're not going to get a shake and bake plan for immediate cessation of all hostilities.
It's going to take time.
And we have to understand that Russia has won this war.
We have to be very careful about what we demand at all.
In fact, I would argue we shouldn't demand a damn thing.
What we should urge is rapprochement.
Let's come up with a new security architecture.
Let's bury this thing finally and irrevocably and move forward.
And I think that's what President Trump wants to do.
I just hope that the people working for him get it.
Colonel, I fully agree with you, but of course I'm your student.
This is not my field of expertise, and you and a lot of the others have educated me, but what leverage does the American side have when they're in these high-level meetings?
None that they think they've got, but they do have one thing going for them, and that is honesty, integrity.
Step forward and say exactly the things that President Trump has said.
Make it abundantly clear where we want to go in the future.
And listen carefully to what they say.
You know, when McFarlane, I think it was McFarlane that, I may have his name wrong, who was ambassador in Moscow under Obama, when he arrived, President Putin leaned over and said to him privately in the air, you don't listen.
We need to listen.
We need to listen more than we speak right now.
This is not...
Because we're being humiliated.
That has nothing to do with it.
Acknowledging the truth is not a humiliation.
It's a liberation.
And that's the way Trump looks at it.
I'm sure he does.
And he's right.
This is not about winning anything.
If we're going to win something, let's win the fight for a better world where the truth prevails and war is scarce.
Chris, can you put up the full screen you've just crafted?
This is President Trump on Truth Social.
Just about an hour ago.
I'm going to read it aloud for the benefit of those who are just listening to the show.
Donald Trump, think of it.
A modestly successful comedian, Vladimir Zelensky, talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion to go into a war that couldn't be won, that never had to start, but a war that he, without the U.S. and Trump,
will never be able to settle.
The United States has spent $200 billion more than Europe, and Europe's money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back.
Why didn't sleepy Joe Biden demand equalization in that this war is far more important to Europe than it is to us?
We have a big, beautiful ocean as a separation.
On top of this, Zelensky admits...
But half of the money we sent to him is, and here the president has the word in caps and in quotes, missing.
He refuses to have elections, is very low in Ukrainian polls, and the only thing he is good at was playing Biden like a fiddle.
A dictator without elections.
Zelensky better move fast or he's not going to have a country left.
In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end of the war with Russia, something I'll admit only Trump and the Trump administration can do.
Biden never tried.
Europe has failed to bring peace, and Zelensky probably wants to keep the gravy train going.
I love Ukraine, but Zelensky has done a terrible job.
His country is shattered, and millions have unnecessarily died.
And so...
It continues.
Yeah, it's a remarkable and brilliant formulation.
I mean, it's 99% correct.
The only point I would make to him, I know he points to these oceans, and this is more important to Europe than us.
And there's a certain amount of truth to that.
But Russia is also a Pacific power.
Russia is also a power in Central Asia.
And Russia is enormously important to us from the standpoint of its influence.
And its leadership in those areas, and obviously Russia's close relationship with China, which is a de facto alliance, is also important.
If you're interested in peace, and I think President Trump is, and you'll recall many times I've said if he'll just follow his instincts and ignore the stupidity that's issued from people's mouths around him, he will be enormously successful and we will have peace.
Well, now you've seen it.
And thank God for it.
But we need more than just, you know, normalization.
We need a good relationship with Moscow.
And together, we can have enormously positive impact.
And frankly, it can help us with China and Northeast Asia.
And we need help and assistance there as well.
So these negotiations, which will continue behind the scenes, which will continue to exclude Europe, Which poignantly will continue to exclude President Zelensky or anybody from Ukraine.
What are the prospects for a meaningful, global, big settlement?
Well, as this progresses, and I'm assuming that it will, and we exercise some patience and we send a team that's prepared to sit there for six months, not just six weeks.
Work carefully with the Russians to craft this new security arrangement.
Europe will inevitably come along.
Both President Trump and President Putin understand that the governments in Europe are about to change.
They're swinging decisively to the right, not to the far right, contrary to what people say, but to the right and to a nationalist right that seeks justice for its own population, security for its own population, borders that are meaningful.
Language, history, identity, culture, all of those things wrapped together, which is exactly what Russia stands for, which is, I think, one of the reasons Biden and the globalist community were so interested in trying to destroy it, because Russia was a metaphor for everything they hate and despise.
An orthodox Christian country with a language, a culture, a heritage, and a sense of national identity that refuses to be extinguished.
There's nothing intolerant about it.
Remember, Russia has at least 20 million Muslims living inside its borders.
And we've tried over many, many years with the CIA, along with MI6, to drive a wedge between them, I'm talking about the Muslim Turks or Turkic peoples, and the Russians.
And it's failed miserably because the Russians have pursued a very intelligent policy of tolerance and understanding.
So this nationalism is not something hateful or frightening or bad.
And I think that's going to overtake Europe.
And as that overtakes Europe, I think President Trump and President Putin will enjoy great stature in Europe together.
They will both be seen as people that have brought something very positive back to Europe that, frankly, has been missing.
And you know that from your trips to Italy and Switzerland.
This is something that could be enormously good for them.
Now, as far as the global picture is concerned, That will take time.
But if we hammer out this new security architecture with the Russians, it makes sense.
And work with them, then I think our position with the Chinese will also improve greatly.
The Chinese, as we've discussed many, many times, they are not about war.
They don't want a war.
They're about business.
And, you know, it's like the old story.
If you leave your wallet on the table, somebody's going to pick it up and take it.
Well, if you expect the Chinese to stand around and not take your IP when you present it to them in your own laboratories and universities, well, you're crazy.
So we have some policing and work here at home to do to safeguard ourselves.
But there's no justification or rationale for war with China.
So all of this works together.
And as I said earlier yesterday, if President Trump presses forward in these directions, I would think he and probably President Putin jointly could receive the Nobel Peace Prize for what they're doing.
Well, that would be remarkable.
Transitioning to the Middle East, where the president appears to be in lockstep with Joe Biden, maybe even outdoing what Joe Biden gave to Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ritter informs us that some of these Moabs, the mother of all bombs, you're more familiar with this than I am, are of such weight and size and magnitude the Israelis don't even have planes from which to drop them, meaning American planes would have to do so.
But before we get to the specifics, are IDF troops in Egypt as we speak, Colonel?
In Egypt?
In what sense?
Physically located there.
Not that I'm aware.
It's not impossible because that's a long border with Egypt.
You know, it reaches all the way down to a lot at the Gulf of Aqaba.
And it's not difficult to cross that border.
I would think if the Israelis sent anyone in there, they would probably be the equivalent of our special ops.
And I know the Israelis are the paranoia flag and Israel is at full mass because Egypt's effectively mobilized for war.
And this is the problem that our president now confronts.
He's dealing with Netanyahu, who has enormous power and influence inside the United States, as we know.
And he has tried to fulfill his promises to Miriam Adelson and others that contributed a lot of money to him.
But he's put himself now at great risk.
And I'm talking about President Trump and us.
Because Netanyahu, ultimately, at the end of the day, is going to do what Netanyahu wants.
And right now, Whatever we think, he thinks that he has an opportunity to reshape the Middle East to Israel's preference.
And that means the war with Iran is by no means off the table.
In fact, many of those bombs that we saw delivered quite recently are no doubt destined for Iran, and the Iranians know it.
They also are quite confident that they have us to support them in whatever they do, certainly with air and naval power.
But they're also aware that Egypt and Jordan are now both on the precipice of boiling over into war with Israel.
What is the Egyptian strategic dilemma right now?
Well, Egypt faces a problem on three fronts that most Americans aren't aware of.
They have a problem on their western flank with Libya.
Libya, as you know, we removed Qaddafi and it went through a terrible civil war.
At the moment, it's roughly divided in the middle.
And General Haftar, who was a former CIA asset that used to live in Annandale, Virginia, is leading the forces in the east of Libya, and it is really Mr. Erdogan, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Turks in the west.
The Egyptians were very afraid of this Muslim Brotherhood and its links to ISIS, which is why they regard Erdogan as someone who is not to be trusted.
And then to the south, They have a problem in Ethiopia and Sudan.
It's a water problem.
And the Israelis have been down in Ethiopia working with the government, cultivating support to dam up more of the Nile River with the full recognition that if they dam up any more of it, not much water is going to reach Egypt.
And that's going to put Egyptian agriculture and industry and the economy at very severe risk.
So now they're looking at the Palestinian issue.
They live next door.
They understand what happens if those Palestinians are either killed or driven out of Gaza.
And they're not prepared to accept that.
So they're sitting right now in that Philadelphia corridor right along the border.
They've made a lot of bellicose sounds.
I think an Egyptian general said that he could be in Jerusalem or not Jerusalem, I think Tel Aviv or something in 12 hours.
I think that's a...
That's not impossible, but I wouldn't say so publicly, but it's had an effect.
And the Egyptians are now lobbying us, I think, to do whatever we can to hold back the Egyptians.
Now, there's an Arab League summit in Cairo on the 4th of March.
That summit is going to address the alternative plan to what's happened in Gaza.
In other words, President Trump's plan is out.
It's an impossibility.
They're going to look at something else.
What that will be, I don't know.
That's being decided, I think, in advance this Friday in Riyadh by a smaller group of Arab states.
But the point is that all of the Arab states are now together on this.
And all fear the same thing that I'm concerned about, which is that regardless of what President Trump wants, when President Netanyahu decides it's time to do so, he will resume the bombing campaign in Gaza.
All of his key figures are saying it's time to complete the job, finish the job.
Everybody knows what that means.
President Trump has previously expressed his support for annexation of the West Bank.
That means the West Bank could be turned into the imitation Gaza.
And then there's Iran.
And one wonders what the Iranians will do now that it becomes increasingly clear they're going to be pulverized by sanctions.
And tried to be driven into another agreement they don't really want.
It's a bad situation.
We don't know what could trigger it, but all of this could blow up on our faces.
If Donald Trump is a man of peace, and he certainly is manifesting that with respect to Russia and Ukraine and even in an ancillary way, Europe.
Why is he supplying Israel with more weapons than it could possibly use?
And why did he tell Netanyahu he'll back him up if he goes back into Gaza and starts committing genocide again?
Well, that's a question only President Trump can answer.
And we know that President Trump is surrounded by people that are very much acolytes of Mr. Netanyahu and the Likud party.
And it's not surprising that he takes that position.
But as this begins to worsen, and I think it will, I really think the region is going to blow up.
I've said March.
It could be earlier, but I think March.
If that happens, Iran will come into it.
And inevitably, the Turks, who have been sitting on the sidelines, happy to cooperate with us and the Israelis in order to regain control of Syria.
Note that all of the principal members Of the government in Syria now, we're talking about this Jolani-led organization, they are Turkish citizens.
That's no secret.
The former terrorists or the present terrorists, the HTS people, are Turkish citizens?
Yes, that's being reported widely in the Arab press.
And again, now if you're a Saudi, if you're an Emirati, you have mixed feelings about this.
Remember, the Turks ruled the whole region.
For many, many hundreds of years.
And the experience the Arabs had with the Turks is quite mixed.
I'm simply pointing out the realities.
And at some point, the Turks will not be able to stay out of this regional fight.
So, you know, President Trump has got a very difficult path ahead.
And that's why it's very important for us, to the extent that we can, and I think he understands that, to regain a better relationship and put us on a better track with Russia.
The problem is that Russia will not abandon Iran if Iran comes under attack from Israel.
And you're right.
The bombs that you mentioned are very heavy.
And normally we've delivered those with heavy bombers.
In fact, the original Moab's were literally rolled out of the back of a C-130 off the ramp and dropped on Saddam Hussein's fortifications on the Saudi border.
Wow. So this is not something that you can deliver easily.
Now, what does that mean?
How did they do it?
I don't know.
But it's frightening.
And I wouldn't underestimate the Israelis, their ingenuity or ability to deliver those weapons in some fashion that we haven't even thought of.
Colonel, last subject matter.
Is something going on with respect to the Koreas, North and South, that we should know about?
Yeah. You realize that...
The coup is passed.
The previous president is going to be impeached and imprisoned.
He was a sellout to us.
He was seen as an imperial proxy or a puppet of the United States.
What happens next?
The Koreans now realize more than ever that we are leaving Korea.
Now, why do I say that?
Because President Trump spoke publicly and he said he would be open.
To South Korea having its own nuclear arsenal.
Now, setting aside whether South Korea even wants that and whether or not that's necessary, that's another discussion.
The important point here is that President Trump, when I last spoke to him and he asked me, how long have we been in Korea?
I said, sir, almost 70 years.
And he said, my God, that's ridiculous.
He strongly feels that these overseas garrisons That are attached to this thing that we call informally the Empire should be dismantled.
How many American troops are there?
I bet he was startled at that number, too.
Well, there are 23,000 troops and there are another 3,000, I think, Air Force.
But that's not the only picture here.
The larger picture is that if you remove us from the peninsula, I don't think there will be a war and I don't think the South Koreans need a nuclear weapon.
If you're going to do that, You need to do a couple of things.
First of all, you have to talk to President Xi.
Now, why do I say that?
It's not because he loves North Korea.
President Xi would like nothing better than to get rid of North Korea.
Why? He's in the same position that the Russians were in or the Soviets were in back in the early 90s.
I've got East Germany and West Germany.
Which Germany do I really want?
And the Soviets said, well, obviously, we really want West Germany.
It's productive.
We want to trade with it.
We want to do business with it.
This East Germany is a problem.
And so East Germany was dropped.
It literally went out of existence overnight.
I think you're going to see something similar eventually happen on the peninsula with North Korea because it's a burden, not an asset.
The only way North Korea has survived is because of Russia.
And that's because both the Soviets and their successors saw that North Korea was a useful strategic hedge against us Japan.
Now, if you pull the forces out of South Korea, there is no requirement for U.S. forces in Japan, because the U.S. forces there, primarily the Marines at Okinawa, not only, but primarily, are really there to reinforce the army on the peninsula.
And the reason they're there is because Colin Powell couldn't find anything for the Marine Corps to do.
And he finally said, well, look, let's give them the mission of reinforcing the army on the peninsula.
And like many, many others, I don't think, you know, Colin Powell ever thought there would be a war again on the peninsula.
So we put the Marines there.
We gave them literally the mission of reinforcing that.
There's no requirement for them.
And I would say not much requirement in Japan for us at all once we pull out of that Korean peninsula.
And then the whole regional dynamic changes and it goes back.
To where it was in the past, with Japan once again as a major power, who is the normal counterbalance, if you will, to Chinese power and influence.
The Chinese never controlled anything beyond the limits of their coast.
Everything else at sea was controlled by the Japanese.
But North Korea is run by a madman who does have access to nuclear power, am I right?
Well, I don't think he's as mad as people think.
Remember that before he went to Hanoi to meet with President Trump to sign this document that would have denuclearized the Korean Peninsula.
It would be denuclearized by now, I suspect, if President Trump had signed that.
But unfortunately, he had, breathing into his ears, you know, the voices from hell.
On one side was John Bolton.
On the other side was this man, Mike Pompeo.
My God, it's a wonder he can still hear.
Yeah, and they poison any possibility for this agreement to succeed after both Putin and Xi said they'll support it.
And it's very important.
You can't do anything there without their support.
So what I'm trying to say is that North Korea is not going to last very long once we leave South Korea.
And we don't need to worry about a war because President Xi was the one that...
Kim went to sea before he went to Hanoi.
Remember, there was this huge train, armored train that he took from North Korea to Beijing.
Yes. All this attention.
Why was he there?
He was there to see the emperor, the Chinese emperor, who is effectively Xi.
And the Chinese emperor said, go to Hanoi, sign the agreement.
And he bowed and said, yes, your imperial majesty, I will do that.
And he was prepared to sign.
We're not really needed in that part of the world.
And again, I think what President Trump wants to do, he wants to demilitarize our relations with Asia.
He wants to do business with Asia.
He just wants it to be done on a level that makes sense for us.
In other words, something that's equitable and mutually beneficial, not lopsided in any particular direction.
And the way to do that is to get out of South Korea and then ultimately get out of Japan.
And the Japanese, privately, behind the scenes, are chomping at the bit to regain their sovereignty 100%.
Colonel, this has been one of the more fascinating conversations I've been privileged to participate in.
And we're all over the place.
Israel, Egypt, Riyadh, Ukraine, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, Beijing.
Thank you for your vast knowledge, and thank you for your generosity by sharing all of it with us.
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks, George.
Good to see you.
We'll see you again next week.
All the best.
And coming up later today at 2 o'clock this afternoon, Aaron Maté at 3 o'clock, Phil Giraldi at 4 o'clock, Professor Jeffrey Sachs.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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